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Stiles wakes slowly. Everything seems fuzzy. His mind isn't working well and his memories are dim and confusing. He tries to move a hand and there's a bright moment of pain across his torso that leaves him panting. He tries to open his eyes, but they're heavy and he gives up.
He sinks back into the darkness of sleep.
From his seat next to the bed, Peter watches him struggle with momentary consciousness, and is glad when he slips away again. Gently he pushes down the hospital blanket and places a hand on Stiles' stomach.
Beneath the thin gown, the skin isn't taut anymore. Isn't distended.
Bowing his head, tears slipping down his cheeks, Peter mourns even as he takes Stiles' pain into himself.
After all, he's the one who should suffer.
*****
Again, Stiles wakes slowly, but this time he's not as fuzzy minded and he forces his eyes open. The room is dimly lit, but he recognizes the back room at the clinic. The room he's recovered in three times.
Panic hits him and he scrabbles for the blanket, shoving it down, clutching at his stomach, starting to hyperventilate. Hands grab his, force him down as he tries to sit up. He can hear himself shouting in denial over and over, yelling into Peter's horrifyingly blank face, until a needle slips into his arm and he's gone again.
With shaky hands, Peter releases his mate and collapses back into the chair he's been sitting in for nearly twenty four hours. He looks up into the sympathetic face of Deaton as he checks Stiles' pulse, then at Melissa who is smoothing the blankets back down.
Silent tears fall from her eyes.
There's a noise in the doorway and smelling Pack, Peter glances over to find Derek standing there, Lily on his hip like's she three again and not a grown-up eight. Cora has the other two at home, but Peter's not surprised to find his most stubborn child here. When Derek sets her down, she flings herself into his arms, sobbing.
*****
The third time Stiles wakes, his mind is clear, his memories returned. Tears clog his throat but refuse to fall from his eyes. There's a weight across his feet and he looks down to see his eldest daughter curled at the end of the bed asleep. He looks over and finds Peter, awake, exhausted, sitting next to him, a hand clasped around one of his own.
"I said no."
It's a croaking sound, his throat tight and dry, but driven by anger and frustration and a deep loss that is already eating away at him he will get this out.
"I won't argue with you about this," Peter replies firmly, though his heart is breaking again, as if it was still intact after it shattered when he made the decision.
"My body. My choice. But then when have you ever let me make my own choices?" Voice rising, Stiles yanks his hand free and tries to sit up again. His stomach muscles refuse to work and he makes a frustrated sound, shooting a hatefilled look at his mate.
"You wouldn't have made it anywhere near term." Struggling to keep the anger out of his own voice, Peter grinds his teeth, takes a deep breath. "The cub wouldn't have survived."
"You don't know that. You can't know that. Another month, that's all I needed! You son of a bitch!"
In the face of his mate's anger, Peter erupts onto his feet, hands itching to drag Stiles up and shake sense into him. "It was killing you. You wouldn't have lasted another week, let alone a month. I wasn't going to lose you both."
His yelling awakens Lily who starts crying in confusion at the anger and tension in the small room. The sound brings Derek to sweep her out of there, and when the door closes behind his nephew, Peter gives in and grabs Stiles' shoulders, yanking him up to his knees. Wolf howling in fury at the mistreatment of its mate, Peter ignores it and shakes him hard.
Agony flaring across his stomach, stitches pulling, head pounding, Stiles whimpers. His body unable to support him he falls into his mate. Unwanted tears spill over his pale cheeks and he pounds feeble fists on Peter's back. "I hate you, hate you, hate you."
Peter's heart thumps painfully at each trueful declaration, but he remains firm. "It was never your decision," he says coldly, because any softening would be a weakness that would find him on his knees begging for forgiveness. What he did was for the good of the Pack. The loss off their Emissary would have caused irreparable harm.
The loss of his mate would have destroyed Peter.
"I'm the Alpha."
As the cold tone rolls over him, Stiles shudders. It's as if the last nine years are gone, wiped out by one horrible act. Somehow he finds the strength to push away--or maybe Peter simply lets him--and he falls back to the bed, curling onto his side, facing away. Arms wrapping around his empty womb, he finally cries, deep, painful sobs accompanied by hot, stinging tears.
Wanting desperately to join his mate in his grief, Peter can't. That will destroy him, too.
He has to be strong for the Pack, for their living cubs, for his grieving mate.
Stiles may well hate him for the rest of his life, but it will be a long life.
He will do anything to ensure that.
A quiet voice comes from the doorway and he half turns to see John standing there, one hand gripping the jamb as his eyes rest on his sobbing son. Slowly he drags his gaze back to Peter.
"Lily's very upset. Derek and I couldn't calm her."
Nodding, Peter starts for the doors. There's nothing more he can do here, but he can feel his daughter's upset through the pack bond. As he passes him, he feels John's eyes on him, and wonders if he needs to fear for his life from the Sheriff.
He's not entirely sure he cares.
Feeling the bed depress, Stiles lets his dad pull him half into his lap, rocking him like a child, crooning to him in broken Polish. Slowly he calms, the tears halting, the heaving sobs fading to hiccups. His dad's hand keeps circling his trembling back and his cheek remains pressed to the top of his head, and, for a moment Stiles feels like a child.
Comforted, protected.
But, he's not a child.
"Dad," he chokes out, burying his face in the crook of the older man's shoulder, breathing in his familiar scent of Drakkar Noir, gun oil, and Irish Spring soap. "He...he took my baby. It was my choice and he took it from me, just like all the others. I...I..." Another sob breaks from him and he clings to his father's strong shoulders.
"Oh, Giosue. It'll be okay. I promise."
"I thought he loved me."
"He did this out of love," John says firmly. "You refuse to face it, son, but the baby would have died, taking you with it."
"Medical technology..." Stiles starts to protest.
"You were barely five and a half months pregnant. The fetus wasn't viable."
"You don't know that. I could have made it another month."
"No, you couldn't have. Something was wrong. It was draining your life, Stiles. You're the only one who refused to acknowledge that it was killing you. Peter couldn't allow that. If it had been me, I would have made the same choice."
Stiles pulls back, moves away, turning his back on his dad, upset that one more person isn't on his side.
"Son, there are no sides here. You know I know what you're going through. Your mom and I lost three babies in the first trimester before she managed to make it to eight months with you. We still nearly lost you that first week. You weren't strong like Lily was. Each lost child was heartbreaking. If we'd lost you..." John's voice breaks and Stiles hesitantly glances over his shoulder.
There are tears in his dad's eyes.
"It's different, dad. Those babies couldn't survive. Mine could have. Just a few more weeks. It would have had a chance."
"And if it had survived, you'd have died, leaving behind three confused, grieving children and a broken, feral mate."
Stiles opens his mouth to protest and John slashes his hand out, suddenly angry enough to make Stiles flinch back. "No, you know Peter would have broken completely. Two days ago, in the face of your stubborn refusal to accept what needed to be done, he gave me wolfsbane bullets to put him down, Stiles. How could you even think to make your children face that? Not only your death, but their other father's as well? How could you think to make me face the loss of my only child?"
"I..." Hadn't wanted to think about that. Hadn't been able to face that. Slowly, wincing at the pain in his stomach, he turns onto his back, and fresh tears flood his eyes. "I just wanted...I wanted this baby. I wanted...Our first son." He flails out a hand and John catches it between both of his, leaning down and kissing his trembling cheek.
"I know," John murmurs. "It just wasn't meant to be, Giosue. Sometimes it just isn't meant to be."
"I didn't mean to discount your and mom's losses," he wails turning his face into his dad's hip. "I didn't mean...Oh, God, I told Peter I hate him. I don't. I don't."
Leaning against the wall outside the recovery room, Peter feels his heart break all over again. How much more can it take? He's torn between the desire to run and rend, to punish the world for their loss, and the need to comfort his mate.
His choice is made by the one whose choices he took.
"Peter," Stiles sobs softly. "Please come back. I need you."
He's in the room in an instant, barely noticing when John moves out of the way. As Stiles opens his arms, Peter joins him on the bed, curling around him, protecting him.
Loving him.
"I wasn't thinking. I didn't realize. You lost the baby, too," Stiles whispers brokenly, clutching the older man's shoulders.
"I'll mourn it forever, Stiles," Peter whispers back, "But I couldn't have survived losing you."
Stiles still doesn't completely understand, accept or forgive. Life is never that easy. But he can feel the bond between them glowing warm and loving and knows they'll get past this. Exhausted though he is, he reaches out and feels their three children burning brightly, and, then, the tiny, cold ember of their lost cub. Wrapping himself around them, around Peter, he lets himself mourn.
And, therefore, start to heal.
End