Remember, I Love You (Steter)

Chapter 11

Peter is gone.

Panic immediately grips him, and he doubles forward, putting his head between his knees as he struggles to breath. He tries to force himself to calm down, to count to ten, to regulate his breathing, but nothing works and every time he breathes in it feels ragged and shallow. Finally, he digs his nails into the palms of his hands, hoping that pain will break through the panic. It works just enough for him to gasp in air and release it slowly.

Stiles brain always works on overdrive, but when he's completely out of his depth and has zero control, it's even worse. He knows without question, without having to see proof, that Peter is no longer in the phantom train station. He knows that he did not get vaporized on this side of the portal. But he has no idea if Peter survived on the other side. And if he survived, would he forget Stiles like everyone else probably has?

Stiles had no time to even process what was happening before Peter made the decision to leave. And part of him wants to laugh at the irony that he had been the one searching for an escape for so long while Peter refused to help. But he knows that Peter wouldn’t have left him here if there was any other way. He has to keep believing that or he will go insane.

With Peter gone, he has two choices, he can either stay on this bench, embrace the never ending nothingness of the Wild Hunt, or he can do what he does best and go back to solving this from the inside.

If Peter made it, and he's on the other side working to get Stiles out, then Stiles will do whatever he can to escape from within.

Stiles pushes open the door to the communications room for the first time since he abandoned his initial plan to use the equipment to find a way out. He pauses on the threshold, memories of that first fight with Peter flooding back. Automatically, his hand goes to his pants to feel for his wallet and keys, and that's when he realizes that his keys are gone.

Stiles falls to his knees.

His dumb, useless keys were his link to the outside, the thing that he could physically hold to remind himself that he had a life outside of the phantom train station.

Peter knew! Peter knew that the keys were a link for Stiles. Peter must have thought that he could use them to link Stiles memory between the Wild Hunt and the real world.

"That bastard." Stiles whispers to himself, a stupid smile on his face as it occurs to him that Peter grabbed the keys during their last kiss. God he loved that man.

Stiles picks himself up off the ground and wipes his dusty hands off on his jeans. He's had enough emotional roller coasters in the last few minutes to last him a lifetime.

"Okay. We can do this." Stiles says to himself.

He scans the room, trying to remember everything he tried in the past, where he left off on his mental checklist, before deciding to just go for the main radio controls. He lays down under the console and yanks off the flimsy cover to expose the wires. He assesses the components for a few minutes, tracking the bundles of wires to their end points, before pulling a selection down.

A few years ago when he was bored, Stiles took apart an old police scanner that his dad brought home when new models were installed in the Sheriffs cars. Stiles studied each piece and wire with far more attention than he had ever given his school work. When he finally put it back together, not only did it work better than before, but he was also able to install it into his Jeep, where it sat the night Stiles was taken from his car by the Hunt.

The radio in the communications room doesn't have the same setup, but it's close enough that Stiles feels fairly confident as he reattaches the wires. When he's done with the reconfiguration, he scrambles to his feet and grabs the microphone, and suddenly feels a lot less sure of himself. It's one thing to be pretty sure that the radio will still work after messing with the wires, it's another to think that it might now be able to broadcast from wherever the train station actually is and into the real world.

Stiles closes his eyes and wishes that Peter was still there rooting for him, encouraging him to figure this out so they can have a future. His mind immediately jumps back to their first conversation about Stiles joining the FBI, when Peter brought up Emissaries and magic. At the time, the idea of picking any future other than the FBI seemed unthinkable. But now, after all this time with Peter, the idea of picking any future that would separate them is unthinkable. In his head, the only future he wants, is one that has Peter Hale in it.

Stiles takes a deep breath, and hopes this works.

"This is Stiles Stilinski. If anyone is out there, please respond. Over."

The line clicks and hisses and Stiles freezes, waiting to see if he's drawn the attention of a Ghost Rider.

The nature of the static changes. Before it was more like feedback from his system, and now it sounds more like a bad connection.

"Hello? Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?"

"St–Stiles?"

"Stiles, are you there?"

Stiles nearly drops the mic as relief rushes through him. He wants to cry. He wants to jump around and celebrate. He's afraid if he lets go of the radio the connection will break, so he just grips it tighter.

"Scott? Lydia? Is that you?"

"Oh my god, Stiles. We can hear you!" Lydia’s voice comes through, muffled but clear enough.

"Oh my god, you know me? You remember me?"

"Stiles? Is this you? Is this actually you?" Lydia asks.

"Yeah, it’s me."

"Are you okay?" Scott asks, and god, Stiles has missed him.

"Where are you? We're coming to get you." Lydia says before Stiles can even answer.

"No, no, no. You can't. You won’t be able to find me." Stiles quickly says. He can feel the connection on the radio starting to fray.

"What are you talking about?" Scott asks. "Just tell us where you are, and we'll come......"

"Find Peter." Stiles interrupts.

"Peter?" Lydia repeats, confused. "Peter Hale?"

"Oh god, you remember, okay good. That's good." Relief rushes through Stiles.

"We already found Peter." Scott says. "He's in bad shape, but he had your keys. Why did he have your keys?"

"We're in your jeep, Stiles." Lydia adds.

The air leaves Stiles lungs. Peter's in bad shape, but he made it, just like he said he would.

"Stiles?"

"Just talk to Peter, okay? He was here, he knows......" Stiles starts to say, but he can feel the connection fading.

Stiles sinks to the floor and has no idea if Lydia and Scott even heard his last message.

All that is going through his mind is that Peter's in bad shape. How bad? Is he not healing? God stiles can't think straight. He needs to be with Peter.