Cross Your Mind , Stiles Stilinski ¹ ✓

[ 43 ] orphaned

ORPHANED

AN: I've messed around with the timeline of the show a bit due to a time jump.

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Dear our sweet daughter Aspen,

Our relationship has strained over the past couple months, all three of us noticed, yet none of us tried to do anything about it. We love you, we do, but we weren't happy.

Losing Ace truly just destroyed us. Coping with the loss of such a loving son hits parents hard. Ace was everything two parents could want in a child. He was talented, well-mannered, loving and kind.

We couldn't live without him. We tried, for six years.  All of the false hope those letters brought us were destroying us on the inside.

So for what we've done we are sorry, sorry that we have left you with no family left. But let's face it, we hadn't been a family in quite some time.

But to spare you with one final parting gift, we leave you with this.

We haven't completely orphaned you.

- Maggie and James Carter.

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2 weeks later

It's been fourteen days since Maggie and James Carter took their lives, leaving their daughter with no family left.

It's been fourteen days since Aspen spoke.

Just as she was starting to make progress, finding her way back to herself, the light in her eyes slowly returning, it all fell apart the moment Noah Stilinski informed her she was now an orphan.

Stiles' father handed her the note that was recovered by their bodies. Deputies were sent to their household after James failed to show up to his shifts at the hospital for three days straight, and as a routine practice, they went to check his house to see if he was home, or if he had packed up and moved. It wasn't normal for a doctor to skip three days of work without saying a single word to anyone.

And that was when a deputy found James and Maggie's lifeless bodies on their living room floor, two shotguns beside them, along with the suicide note.

And that was the second Aspen's voice was ripped away from her.

She thought watching the boy she loved love someone else was the worst pain she could ever endure. She was wrong in epic proportions. Nothing in this world hurt more than finding out her parents chose to die, they chose to leave her in this world with no family beside her, they chose to die without saying goodbye.

Had they been murdered, she could've wallowed in self pity and seek vengeance. Had they been murdered, she could whine and cry over the fact she never got to say goodbye to her mother and father before they were ruthlessly taken away from her. Had they been murdered, at least she'd know they didn't have a choice in the matter.

But no, Maggie and James took their own lives. Apparently even their daughter wasn't enough of a reason for them to stay.

For the past two weeks, Aspen's been mute, wallowing in self pity in the McCall house's spare bedroom.

Because she was a minor, by the law, she couldn't stay in that house alone. Melissa and Scott had taken her in, and as much as she wanted to thank them with all the words in the english dictionary, she couldn't speak.