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Stiles was born with a heart defect. As a very small child, he was limited to mostly indoor physical activity. He couldn’t keep up with the other kids, so his Mom would send him with books to read during outside time in pre-school and kindergarten. His classmate Scott liked to read with him, too. Scott has trouble breathing and he thinks Stiles does too, and that’s ok: Stiles has learned that if he says his heart doesn’t work, people don’t let him do anything at all. One of the things that Stiles can do is play a thinking game he made up, a game using what Dad calls their "Stilinski smarts". He'll watch his classmates and teachers carefully, looking forward to making up stories he'll share with his parents over supper. His Mom likes the ridiculous ones the best, delight shining in Baltic amber eyes as Stiles blends fact and fairy tales until laughter fills their home. His Dad is a Deputy and prefers a more rational approach, giving Stiles simple versions of observation games Deputies are taught as a way to keep things a bit more grounded. Stiles loves these exercises, leading the proud Deputy to teach him a bit of the military strategy tactics gleaned from those handful of years in the Army. His Dad says he’s doing better than some of the grown-ups and that it’s clear he’s got the “Stilinski Smarts”. Stiles reads while he eats so he can hand his books to Scott and then go outside to train his "Stilinski smarts”. Stiles would watch his schoolmates play, remembering what he's been taught and occasionally glance over at Scott, frowning a bit at his wheezing classmate. He knew they wouldn’t be able to run or play like their peers: Stiles had thought he'd be a cop just like Dad, but... Well, if he worked on his education and his “smarts” he could still do something important when he grew up. If he works hard enough maybe he can put people like Scott’s dad in jail. Stiles knows what happened at Scott’s house and it makes him angry. Scott isn’t his best friend or anything, but wrong is wrong and bad people should get punished.
Time goes by and Stiles gets a bit older. Some things never change, though, and it’s obvious that Stiles still watches. Stiles remembers. More importantly, Stiles notices. He notices more than his Mom and Dad want him to about certain things, and sometimes he wishes he didn’t.
Mom was getting worse, his own chest hurt more often and Dad was sad all the time. One day, Stiles was waiting outside of his Mom’s room at the hospital and saw them wheel Scott (the nurse’s kid from his class) to the elevator. He looked tired and scared with an oxygen mask on his face. Stiles frowned, Nice Nurse Melissa was….well, nice, unlike Mean Melissa at Admissions, and her son Scott was a great friend…or would be when Mom gets better and Scott’s asthma calms down. Scott and his Mom disappear around a corner and then Dad is calling, “Son? Your Mom and I are done with the Doctor, you can come in now.” Stiles hopped up and joined his parents. Almost immediately, a man came in and took blood from Mom, then took blood from Stiles. He piped up, “Mom and I have the same blood, AB!” For some reason, Dad and Mom both started crying when he said that. The man gave Stiles one of those lollipops with a weird string handle, patted his head and said something about Anti-Jims as he left. Stiles wondered if Anti-Jims were the reason his heart hurt and Mom’s brain was so tired. He said so out loud, then Dad pulled him into an awkward but fierce 3-way hug. Mom kisses his forehead. “Our Stiles, love. You always said he’s got your mind and my heart.” The hug grows even more fierce as all the Stilinskis in Beacon Hills cry together.
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Mom was getting worse. It had been almost two years since her first stay in the Hospital, the last six months of which she’d spent in BHMH. Dad and Stiles couldn’t take care of her at home anymore, she kept wandering off or attacking them for no reason. After they put her into the hospital full-time, she started saying that Stiles was trying to kill her, that he wanted to rip out her heart. Worse were the days the nurses would have to restrain her because she’d ripped off her IVs and clawed deep, jagged, bloody gouges into her own chest. One evening, they found Stiles cowering in the shower, his small hands covered in her blood. Through blue lips and gasping for breath, he told Nice Nurse Melissa how he’d tried to stop Claudia but wasn’t strong enough. She hugged him gently, washed his hands and whispered Mom-sounding things to him as he drew deep breaths through the oxygen mask and eventually drifted off to sleep. When Stiles woke up he found the Peanut Butter Cups and note that Scott had gently placed into his jacket pocket. Maybe they’ll finally get to hang out more soon, Stiles thinks as he pops the first cup into his mouth. He saves the second one for later.
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Stiles was getting worse. His chest hurt more often now, for longer periods, and he had an oxygen tank at home. He slept a lot more, too. It was just more time for nightmares and terrifying visions of all types. He hated it. He forces himself to stay awake for long periods of time. He doesn’t get to spend time with Scott, he doesn’t go to school regularly. He doesn't gather observations to share. He doesn't always know if he's awake or asleep. He hears his Dad on the phone talking about donors and test results. Dad sounds scared.
Without Her, their lives tilt to revolve around the hospital.
Stiles is in Mom’s room reading out loud to her when she suddenly gasps and looks over at him. Stiles jumps up, startled. This is the first time in weeks Mom is actually *looking* at him like she sees him.
“Mom?”
She smiles, weak but radiant. “Stiles…”
His name is the last thing he ever hears her say.
He vaguely remembers pushing the emergency button when she stopped breathing. After he was hustled out of her room, Stiles sat in the waiting area. His book bag was still in Mom’s room, he was worried and bored and tired and didn’t know what to do. He asked Melissa for some juice, but she looked guilty and said he couldn’t have any right now. Sighing, he put his head between his hands and waited for Dad to arrive. He hears a whisper, “Our Stiles…my heart.” He squeezes his eyes shut.
It was all a blur after that. Dad ran in, hugged him and then followed Melissa into Mom’s room. He notices that Dad has blood on his hands. Whatever happened, Dad looks sad but not afraid. Stiles rubs at his eyes, his chest aching and his entire self just exhausted from it all. Dad picks him up and gets into the elevator with a couple of doctors. The doctors help Stiles into a room on the kid’s floor and have Dad change him into a gown. He doesn’t fight or argue. He’s numb and tired and now Dad looks like he’s about to cry. Another doctor comes in and tells Stiles that they have a new heart for him. Stiles tells his Dad and doctor both, “Will you tell Mom? She’ll be so happy…” trailing off as the doctor looks sharply at Dad and the chart and at Stiles, who then falls completely silent when he is pulled quickly into Dad’s chest. The safe feeling of being surrounded by his Dad’s arms is the last thing he remembers as he falls asleep and is what he wakes to hours later. Stiles is out of it for a week after the surgery and promptly has a panic attack as soon as he can think clearly: he is terrified that he won’t be able to love or feel the same way about everyone as he did with his own heart. His Dad sits with him until he calms down, promising him that he’ll be able to love just as much as before, that he still has his heart – his Mother’s heart – as well as his Stilinski Smarts, and no-one can ever change or take those away from him. Dad stumbles over any mention of Mom for some time after everything and eventually they’ll both stop mentioning anything to do with Her to avoid the heartache is causes them both. Stiles still thinks about Her all the time and he knows Dad does, too.
Stiles realizes
later that the heart is Hers.
Was Hers.
Will always be Hers.
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He recovers in record time. He’s energetic again, even more than before. He goes back to school and goes back to spending most of his time with Nice Nurse Melissa’s son Scott. They grow up in the usual fashion and start high school. He goes out for lacrosse with Scott on a whim, at the time thinking it’ll be good for both of them to get a bit of exercise but he ends up liking it more than he’d care to admit. Stiles has good checkups from his cardiologist and keeps his transplant a secret from everyone. He swore Melissa to secrecy shortly after the operation and she agreed to never tell Scott. She understands Stiles more than most. At school he avoids the Trainers and nurse, he doesn’t take his shirt off where anyone can see, he never talks about his Mom. In all of Beacon Hills, only a handful of people know about his heart and it’s going to stay that way.
Then as luck would have it, Scott is Bitten and everything goes to hell in a handbasket. When Stiles finds out that werewolves can hear heartbeats, he screams silently and tamps down the panic in his chest that’s rising along with those curly fries he had for dinner. Is there a difference in his? Can they tell? It seems like they’re always listening and he doesn’t know how to make them stop. He feels fiercely possessive of those beats. Her beats. He clenches his fists angrily until he feels his temples and wrists throbbing. Suddenly, without warning, all the fight pours out of him. The pulse at his temple feels like a gentle kiss; the pressure on his wrists a reassuring squeeze from Her. It doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t matter, and since none of them say anything, he guesses his secret is safe. She is safe.
Sometimes when he can’t sleep he’ll try to be still and quiet enough to hear it beat. Tries to pretend he’s a child again, crawling up into his parent’s bed and pushing his ear to Her ribs so he can listen to the oceanic pulse of Her blood filling Her heart.
He can’t be still.
He isn’t a child anymore.
His mother is dead and Their heart aches.