Title: Be Still My Heart (I'm Only A Moment Away)

By: Ceris Malfoy

Summary: She breaks all bounds that exist between strangers and leans her cheek against his burnt one, breathing steadily, heartbeat as rapid-fire as always. "If you were mine, I'd stay until the very bitter end."

Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)

Pairing: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski

Warnings: Feels, Underage, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gender change (fem!Stiles), Show-level violence

Disclaimer: Not mine.

"Be still my heart, I'm only a moment away,
In the next room or at the break of day.
And I would walk, once again to see your face again,
And I'd hear every word you'd have to say."

~"Relax My Beloved" - Alex Clare

1.

Peter wakes from his coma sometime in the third year after the fire. His body won't respond; he is locked up, silent and unmoving, in a perfect cage. He is trapped by his own flesh and he can't even scream. He can't move, can't speak, can't do anything except lie there and linger in the pain of his body trying to heal itself cell by cell. The agony is unbearable.

Worse than the pain is the memories: he relives the fire every second of every day, watches his sister and her mate and their pups burn, crying out to him, begging for mercy, for help. He screams with them in the cacophonous silence of his own mind, and begs his niece to kill him, for his nephew to end his suffering. But they're not there, not anywhere within Beacon Hills, and the two faint, ephemeral bonds that were all he had left of his family, his pack, are gone.

They've left him, abandoned him, Laura and Derek both, and he hates.

2.

There is a new scent lingering in his room today, something sweet and floral. Amaryllis, he thinks, with the slightest touch of moonlight. It is a young scent, and undeniably feminine. He still can't move, can't direct his gaze beyond the ceiling that he is constantly facing, but he can hear. Sometimes too well. Most days he actively blocks out the sounds around him, not in the mood to listen to everyone else's grief when his own threatens to drive him mad.

But today he is curious, and so he focuses as best as he is able. There is a heartbeat, slightly too fast to be normal, in the far corner of his room, where the window is, if he remembers the layout well enough. He listens to the girl's rapid heartbeat, and waits. It is all he's good for now, and though he does not know this girl, he has an idea about why she's sitting in a catatonic patient's room. She won't be the first to wander in and unload in one babbling rush of information he'd rather not have. He thinks he resents this girl a little, because he doesn't want to hear her tale of woe, doesn't want to listen to how bad she thinks her life is.

But the girl never says anything. She just keeps sitting there, rapid-fire heartbeat never settling. Eventually another heartbeat lingers in the door along with the scent of an unwashed male who gives off the feelings of grief and anger and resignation so deeply that Peter feels he might drown in them. The male never says a word, just lingers for a moment in the doorway, and eventually the girl comes out of her corner and leaves.

Peter doesn't know why, but he doesn't want her to go. He feels, strangely, worried for her.

3.

Months pass, and the girl is a regular, strangely comfortable feature in his life. He still can't talk, can't move, can't do anything but think and pass the time eavesdropping on everyone around him. Surprisingly enough, he learns more about the comings and goings of Beacon Hills in this hospital than he ever did on the outside of it.

He learns about the girl he's started thinking of as his. Her last name is Stilinski, like her mother who is wasting away three rooms down, and her first name is unpronounceable to anyone who's never spoken anything other than English. She calls herself 'Stiles' to avoid the awkward stammering of her first name, but secretly resents having to use it (her scent gives her away) and he resolves quietly to never think of her as 'Stiles'. She has ADHD, and can't shut up to save her life (but she can, he knows she can, because she's never once said a word to him or around him). The nurses titter and coo about his girl behind her back, which is how he also learns that her father is a deputy who is not dealing well with his grief (he's an alcoholic and barely functional), and that she is a twelve-year-old who is actively stepping into adulthood entirely too early.

He enthusiastically eavesdrops on his girl when she's with her mother, listening as she describes her life and recounting her day. It sounds unbearably lonely, and he's more than a bit bewildered that this girl hasn't done something drastic and stupid like most teenagers he knew would have done. But she shoulders her grief and her pain and her anger, sucks it up and deals with it, because somehow this twelve-year-old girl knows better than most adults Peter has met that life isn't fair and nothing is going to solve itself. He thinks he might love her a little for this.

He listens to her heartbeat as she makes her way out of her mother's room and into his own day in and day out. He listens as she curls into the corner that she's claimed as her own, sometimes opening the window, sometimes not. He listens as she pulls out her school books or her laptop and passes the time silently.

The nurses come and go, but no one makes the girl who is clearly not related to him leave. No one that is, except for the girl's father, who never addresses his daughter with words, just lingers in Peter's doorway as if he's intruding (he is). Peter worries for her when she leaves with her father, because there is something not right about that man and the way he never says a word. But every day like clockwork she is in her mother's room, talking about her day before making her way to him, and he learns to swallow his worry and doubt and fear because obviously nothing is going to happen.

4.

Two years go by, and always, always, Peter ends every day with a silent slip of a girl in the corner of his room. He's been getting better, and now there's a nurse who dresses him and puts him in a chair so that he can stare at the wall instead of his ceiling. It's not exactly the greatest of changes, but now he can at least catch glimpses of his girl as she moves in and out of his room. Depending on the angle the chair is placed, he can sometimes watch her instead of the wall. She is rather pretty, in that still-developing way most pre-teens share. She's all long limbs and awkward angles, but her face is sweet enough, he supposes. Her best feature is her eyes. The shade is just slightly off from being actively beta-gold, the exact shade being more like amber, or sunlight viewed through a tumbler of whiskey.

She watches him sometimes, amber-whiskey eyes intense and searching, a touch furious and slightly sad, but mostly curious. Sometimes she opens her mouth as if she wants to say something to him, but she never does. Just sits in her corner and watches him before turning back to her homework or whatever she's brought with her to pass the time. He passes his days listening to her rapid-fire heartbeat and smelling her slowly changing scent – less floral, more woodsy, always with a telling touch of moonlight.

5.

And then comes the day her mother dies. She is fifteen now, and she is crying when she comes into his room and breaks routine by kneeling in front of him. Her scent has finally settled – she smells like the woods after a long rainstorm, the moon riding high. It suits her. The drowning scent of grief, on the other hand, does not.

She looks at him, amber-whiskey eyes intense, lit from within in a way that has nothing to do with the tears streaming down her face. The sound of her father howling in grief echoes down the hall, and at the sound she sighs. "I'm not going to be allowed back in to visit you," she says. It is the first time she's ever spoken to him, and the sound of her voice is soothing in ways he doesn't want to think about. "They only let me in here in the first place because they pitied me, and I wasn't doing you any harm. But my mother's dead now, and I'm not family, and they're not going to let me see you anymore." She looks him in the eyes, face serious.

"I just want to say this," she continues, "because I've researched catatonia, and your subtype is 'a motionless, apathetic state in which one is oblivious or does not react to external stimuli.' But you can still hear, and that's all I need you to do." Gently, slowly, she reaches out and grasps one of his hands which are folded limply in his lap.

"I hate them, you know," she says, voice quiet as she finally looks away. "What's left of your family. I don't know their reasons, and I'm sure they have them, but I do know that I've been in your room lingering every day for the past three years, and they've not only never visited even once, they've also never sent cards or flowers or anything to show they were even thinking of you." There is real anger lingering in her voice and in the tight, rushed way her words escape her mouth. There is also the minute stresses of shame for the anger she feels. And he wishes he could speak right now, because he would tell her he hated Laura and Derek sometimes too, though he knew why they ran, and understood why they couldn't take him with them. He understood, even if he resented them for it. But his girl didn't know about werewolves or hunters, didn't understand that he was a liability in every sense of the word right now.

"I've hacked into the medical records," she says, and now she's looking at him again, and anger is not the correct word for what she's feeling, he sees. Rage might come closer. "And they're not even paying for your treatment – the state is. I've also hacked into their records, and I can't even tell you how furious I am that they have a life and you're stuck here, constantly surrounded by the tragedy that befell your family." She laughs, bitterly. "I'm not surprised you went completely catatonic upon awakening from your coma. It must be better than dealing with a world that's so fucking wrong. I just… I can't understand how someone could do that. I've watched my mother linger years on end, watched her waste away in pain and fear as something ate at her from the inside, and I couldn't imagine doing otherwise. They should be here, they're your family. Instead, you were stuck with me."

She looks down at where she's holding onto one of his hands, frowning thoughtfully. She obviously has something else to say, but there's a nurse heading this way, and his girl knows it. She doesn't look up, not even when the nurse clears her throat in an obvious attempt at gaining attention. His girl just holds his hand, and sits in silence for a long moment, before sighing and looking at him again. She leans in close, close enough that her words – whisper silent – could only be heard by him. "I've got to go now, and I'm not going to be allowed back, but I just wanted to let you know that if you were my family, I wouldn't run away." She breaks all bounds that exist between strangers and leans her cheek against his burnt one, breathing steadily, heartbeat as rapid-fire as always. He wants to cry because it's as close to the act of scenting as a human could get, and it both hurts and feels so damned good. He's missed being scented, missed being able to scent back, and that makes him want to cry even more, because he can't.

"If you were mine, I'd stay until the very bitter end," she murmurs quietly, never once giving off that betraying stutter that comes from lying, before pulling back and leaving.

And for the first time in the nine years since the fire that stole everything from him, he feels the tell-tale tingle of a pack-bond settling firmly into place. His girl. His pack. His.

6.

His body continues healing, and this time he is actively encouraging it. He needs to get better, needs to be whole – or as whole as he is likely to get. He knows there is something wrong with him, now that he has nothing at all to distract him. It is like something inside him has been burned away, leaving that part of him empty and hollow. But he is determined to be as whole as he can be. His girl deserves nothing less.

7.

His new nurse is insane.

He has healed enough that the full-moon calls, and he rises, helpless but to obey. He is a werewolf, one who has always prided himself on his impeccable control (the only one of his family allowed to play a full-contact sport as a child), but he is too weak, too broken to do anything but shift. He is wild and dangerous like this, and what does his nurse do?

Freak out? No.

Attempt to kill him? No.

Think she's hallucinating and back out? No.

Instead she opens the window to his room and lets. Him. Out. He is lucky he is so close to the woods, and that the only living things he comes across are rabbits and deer.

And she continues to let him out every full-moon afterwards. And when he returns, tired and worn out, she questions him. And he, as tired and worn out and so bitterly angry on these nights as he is, he answers.

He tells her about werewolves and hunters. He tells her about their traditions and their laws. He tell her about the fire and the stench of Argent. He tells her of the remains of his former pack, living, and how they had abandoned him here.

He does not tell her about his girl, recognizing even in the depths of his hatred and rising primal instincts that his nurse is somehow dangerous to him and his girl. He is a werewolf, even if he is weak now, but his girl is human and so very fragile. He will protect her to the best of his ability, even if all he can do is keep silent.

8.

And then one night it's not a deer he runs into. It's Laura, it's Alpha, and all he can think is 'not my Alpha' and 'not my pack'. Because the thing is, as much as he rationally understands why her and Derek have cut and run, the vast majority of him is beyond furious. He can't help but remember the words his girl said, some months ago, about how the two of them were off living life. He's been stuck in that pathetic hospital for 10 years, and they left him there to heal, cell by agonizing cell, stuck in his own head with the images of his family, his pack, burning to death and screaming for help that would never come.

His only distraction was his girl, who had over the course of just over three years slowly but surely wormed her way into his burnt-out shell of a heart and made a home for herself there. She is pack.

Laura, on the other hand…

Laura is not pack. And this is Hale territory, and though she is technically a Hale, she gave up all rights to this land, to his pack, when she cut and ran and abandoned him to a coma or death. And on a full-moon, the rational part of him that understands why she left isn't even in the same ballpark as the primal part of himself who sees nothing but an intruder.

Laura is an alpha though, not a strong one, but one nonetheless. She puts up one hell of a fight, almost succeeds in ripping out his throat. But in the end, she hesitates. She looks at him, really looks at him, and recognizes him. "Uncle Peter?" she asks, disbelief coloring her voice.

It is the last thing she'll ever say. Because while she hesitates, he does not.

9.

He is alpha now, and he knows just what to do with that: he will build his pack, and he will settle his family's ghosts with the blood of Argent. He tips his head back and howls.

10.

It is the scent of his girl – the scent of the woods after a good rainstorm with the ever-present hint of moonlight – that draws him back to Laura's body. She's there, sixteen now, nearly seventeen, and is truly growing into her own. There is a boy with her, asthmatic by the sound of it, running through the woods. There is fear/worry/frustration coming off the boy, while his girl gives off only the feeling of excitement. The boy is berating her for not thinking things through, and his girl, his pack is laughing.

They are here for the body.

He contemplates biting her, but he knows he doesn't need to. She is, after all, already pack, already his. Besides, he is a new alpha, and the instinctive urge to build his pack is all-consuming, and if he bit her now, he would only unnecessarily hurt her. He doesn't want to hurt her. She's done nothing to warrant being hurt.

The boy, on the other hand….

He's obviously a close friend, possibly a brother-figure. Trusted by his girl, if he's the one she drags off to a potentially dangerous adventure. This boy is part of his girl's pack, which makes him Peter's as well. Peter smiles as much as he's able to in this form, and waits for a good time to strike.

11.

Derek is back. Derek, who reeks of guilt and anger and fear.

Derek is visiting him for the first time in ten years, and the first words out of the boy's mouth are: "Out of all the people rummaging through the woods, why the hell did the rogue alpha have to bite that dumbass?"

Peter wants to laugh, because while the boy probably isn't the brightest bulb in the box, he is necessary. His girl is attached to him, considers him hers, and she won't ever abandon what's hers. Peter will build her a strong pack, a good pack, one that would keep her like she will keep them, the way a good pack should. Peter also wants to rip his nephew's throat out, because Derek's an omega now, even if he doesn't seem to realize it, intruding on his territory, insulting his beta, and he doesn't want to stand for it.

But there's the lingering edge of a plan battering around in his mind, one that will remove the continued threat of Argent from the edges of his territory, one that will see justice done and his new pack safe.

Unfortunately he'll need Derek for that, which means he'll need to play possum for a while longer than he had originally planned, but that's okay. There's no rush. He needs to do everything just right, or it will all fall apart.

12.

Derek won't stop bitching about the McCall boy. How Peter's beta won't listen to him, won't stay down when beaten down, won't follow orders. Nothing is said of Peter's girl until nearly two days before the full moon.

"She's a goddamn menace, and she's going to get herself killed if she keeps interfering like this." Derek is sitting on Peter's bed, staring at the wall, face doing little to restrain how irritated he is. Peter feels like laughing, but doesn't. "Who does she think she is? She's human. How is she supposed to teach a freshly bitten werewolf enough control in one night so that he can play a contact sport two days before the full-moon in a town crawling with Argents?"

And Peter really feels like laughing now, because his girl instinctively understands more about being a werewolf – despite her species – than his own nephew does. Which is rather sad when one stops to think about it, because Derek was born to this. If any human is capable of teaching his beta control, then she is.

And these visits aren't so bad, if only because he's gaining an insider's perspective of events he can only view from the outside, and he thinks he might be able to let Derek leave Beacon Hills in one piece when he's ready to reveal himself. He won't ever take his nephew back into his pack, but Derek is enough of a looker that even as an omega, he should be able to worm his way into someone else's pack. (Although, Peter thinks Derek will need to update his personality a bit to be successful at that. But, not his problem, not anymore.)

But Derek keeps talking, keeps complaining, and eventually he says something that Peter can't ignore or forgive.

"She smells nice though, like the woods after a good rain, like moonlight and life. She'd make a good wolf, if she ever learned to submit."

And all Peter wants to do is lunge forward and rip out Derek's throat. With his teeth.

13.

He watches, and fumes. Silently, of course, because what good is his plan if he's discovered so early?

He watches as Derek integrates himself slowly into McCall's life, and there-by into his girl's life, because the two really are a packaged deal. He watches as Derek threatens and glares and throws his girl around like she's the omega, the interloper. He watches, and remembers every threat, every bruise. He intends to pay them back. With interest.

He watches, feeling more pleased with his girl's inner strength and stubborn determination than he really should. He likes watching her deliberately rile his nephew up, snapping and snarking and generally being a pain in the ass. She lacks teeth and claws and raw strength, but she has her words, and uses them well, digging at obvious sore points. And even when she's being thrown against a wall and threatened, she may widen her eyes and play terrified victim, placating Derek, but Peter can see the way her eyes never leave Derek's, subtly challenging; he can see the way her spine stiffens and her fingers curl as if she had claws; he can see the way she bares her teeth as she jabbers away.

She is magnificent.

14.

He looks at his girl, seeing her properly for the first time in almost a year. The sight of her drives the breath from his lungs. She does not look a child any longer – she looks wild and dangerous and confident and completely, utterly free. The way a wolf should look. Her scent's deepened, strengthened. She is almost a woman now, almost of mating age. She is looking back at him, silent. He can hear Derek over her phone, yelling at her to get out, that she's in danger. Foolish boy; he'd never hurt her.

"You must be Stiles," he says, watching as her face contorts slightly. She's used to the nickname now, but still hates it.

"Genim, actually," she says quietly in response. Her amber-whiskey eyes stare intently at him. There is no fear in her, not for him. Derek is still yelling at her, and she doesn't even look at the phone as she turns it off. Her attention is focused solely on him, as it should be.

"Genim," he says, testing the syllables of her name. He likes the way it sounds. His girl. His Genim.

"You're the alpha that bit Scott," she says quietly.

"Yes," he admits.

She frowns at him, not in anger or disapproval. She simply doesn't understand. "Why?"

He shrugs. "He was already pack, I just made it formal."

She cocks her head, silent. "You bit him because he's my brother in all but blood, didn't you?"

He smiles at her. Derek was right about one thing: she will make an excellent wolf. Whereas others would be fumbling their way around questions like "how was he already pack?" or a more general "what the hell?," his girl jumped straight to the right conclusion and simply sought confirmation. She was very intelligent, his Genim.

"Yes," he says, pleased with her.

She nods, eyes never leaving his. "You heard me, didn't you, that last day." It is not a question.

"I did," he confirms anyway. He's walking towards her now, because he needs to touch her, needs her to bear his scent, needs to confirm her place in his pack.

"Are you mine?" she asks him quietly, seeking, perhaps, some kind of reassurance. There's a deeper question being asked though, one far less innocent than her words when she had been fifteen were.

He wants, suddenly, desperately, to kiss her. He wants to bite her, claim her, mark her his, over and over and over again until the whole world knew she belonged to him. "Yes," he answers her, because he is hers, even if he's still not as whole as he'd like to be. Strangely enough, he doesn't think it bothers her.

She hums in satisfaction, whiskey-amber eyes glowing with the force of her approval. She's the one that crosses the distance between them, so brave and sure of her welcome and continued safety. And she should be. He's here because of her, is as whole as he is because of her. He will give her the world, if she wants it. He could never hurt her.

"Yes," he breathes out again as he finally, finally reaches out and touches her. He is as gentle with her as she was with him what feels like ages ago. He cups her jaw gently, runs his thumb down the slight curve of her cheek, watches her eyes widen slightly as he leans forward, and nuzzles the patch of skin behind her ear, breathing deeply. Her scent surrounds him, and something inside of his relaxes when he feels her return the gesture, the glide of her smooth skin against his burn-scars both torture and too good to be real. He pulls back and watches a blush bloom bright across her face. She opens her mouth, about to say something, when Derek comes barreling into the room, slamming into Peter with all the rage and fury a twenty-year-old born werewolf could muster.

It is sufficient enough to separate Peter from his girl, and he snarls at Derek. Derek snarls back, snaps out a quick "Stiles, get out of here!" and leaps on Peter, claws reaching for Peter's throat.

Peter is alpha though, and more than fast and strong enough to deal with this omega. He catches Derek's wrists, snaps both of them like twigs even as he's twisting and throwing Derek through the glass of the nurse's reception desk. He looks back at his girl, smiles at her.

"Later then?" she asks, brow lifting. She doesn't spare a glance at the shattered glass, or the man writhing on the floor as his bones snap back into place and heal. She simply doesn't care. And he doesn't know exactly what he's doing, not anymore, but knows that it's far too late to stop this, whatever this is. The only one left with a choice here is Genim, because he will never deny her anything, even if what she wants is to be free. But she doesn't want to be free. She wants to be his, and this, more than anything else, is what drives him to get up in the morning. He would give her the world, will give her anything she ever wanted, will even give up his revenge if she but asked, and somehow she knows this. But she won't ask that of him, would never ask that of him, because she understands. She understands that there must be closure, there must be blood. She understands that he is undeniably broken.

But he's hers, and she won't ever leave him.

"Later," he agrees. He watches as she leaves, before turning back to his groaning nephew. He had a rather significant list of grievances he needed to beat into Derek before he dumped the omega somewhere outside his territory.

15.

The next time he sees his girl, she is coaxing his errant beta into the booth across from him, whispering platitudes. He makes no sudden movements, understanding that the boy is both terrified and angry, unable and, perhaps, unwilling as of yet to comprehend that all of this was inevitable the moment he caught his Genim's scent on him.

He waits until she's seated, next to him, avoiding boxing the spooked beta in, before slowly reaching out and touching his girl, sliding his hand gently around her neck and squeezing gently. He watches as her eyes slip close, a throaty hum of approval escaping her at the reassuring pressure of his grip, before turning his gaze onto the boy.

The boy is watching them with wide eyes, mouth hanging open slightly. But there is a glimmer of something, dawning realization perhaps, in his eyes. "Sis?" he asks, quietly.

His girl smiles, eyes still closed. "It's alright, Scott," she murmurs. "Everything is going to be just fine."

And there is still much to do, much he needs to teach his new beta, blood that needs to be spilled, but he knows she is right. Everything is going to be just fine. Neither of them will settle for anything else.

16.

"Mine?" he asks, nuzzling her wrist, teeth lengthening in anticipation.

Her eyes are bright as she whispers, "Yours."

He bites.

I've only recently been introduced to this fandom, and boy. I love the show, which is funny, 'cause I usually hate werewolf drama stuff. But this show has hit all my feels in all the right places. Expect more Teen Wolf fics from me in the near-by future.