FIC: "There is no calm (without the storm)" || Sterek AU || PG
Author: write_light
Title: "There is no calm (without the storm)"
Rating: PG
Pairing/s: Stiles/Derek
Character/s: Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall, Lydia Martin, Sheriff Stilinski, a put-upon rare books librarian
Summary: Sterek AU; Derek is gone and Stiles needs him back. For entirely non-romantic reasons, because, come on, the two of them? Together?
Warnings: UST, confusing feelings, impending doom
Submission Type: Fic
Word Count: 2950
Prompt: #126 - Calm before the storm
Author's Notes: A sidebar to a larger Reversebang fic I'm working on. Stiles and Derek really need to hash things out, especially after Stiles finds pictures of them. From the 1800s.
"Calm before the storm… what a load of-"
"Dude!" Scott cut him off before he said his next word, but both of them were already getting the evil eye from the substitute English teacher.
"It's a cliché!" Stiles continued.
"Very good, uh-" said the teacher then stopped to scan the roster, squinting at the name for a good ten seconds.
"Stilinski," Stiles offered.
"Yes, and you correctly noted one of the worst parts of this or any story - the clichéd phrases."
"Plus it's wrong," Stiles continued, emboldened by praise. "Sometimes you need a little storm in your life just to keep you on your toes, keep you centered. No storm, no calm."
"So you're saying you prefer trouble?"
"Yeah. No," he corrected quickly. "Just… a little back and forth, is nice, is all."
"Is this about Derek?" Scott whispered from behind him.
"Shut up," Stiles said just loud enough for Scott to hear.
"Wonderful essay topic, Mr. Stilinski. Let's say a short one, about 300 words, on the value of chaos and turmoil, by tomorrow."
The class turned, as a whole it seemed, to look at Stiles with open hatred.
"There's your turmoil," Scott whispered.
***
"Did he have to leave? Just like that?" Stiles complained.
"He said goodbye. We had dinner at his place," Scott explained yet again as he attempted to keep his mind on the essay he was writing.
"And then nothing. Not a call, not a letter-"
"No one writes letters," Scott mumbled, hoping he wouldn't have this same conversation a fourth time.
"Maybe he's running across the arctic tundra," Stiles said, his eyes now distant, focused on the wolf's black form as it crossed the wide, snowy plains. "Or down a river canyon in Durango, stopping for a drink…"
Scott groaned and fell back his bed dramatically. "What is wrong with you - are you actually in love with him or something?"
Stiles' face burned hot and he stopped talking about Derek immediately. If Scott hadn't been so worried about the essay he might have put a few things together - his question, Stiles' rare silence and the sudden change of topic.
"What about that project in History class?" Stiles asked, "The Civil War one?"
"Ugh, don't remind me," Scott groaned, rubbing his hands over his face.
Stiles felt the heat of panic leaving him as Scott accepted the transition to the discussion of their history project and the certain doom that it implied. Just want him to come back is all. Not in love with him. Not with a guy - a big bearded werewolf guy at that. Nutty. You're nutty, Scott.
Stiles was picturing Derek transforming from wolf into human, kneeling naked by a shallow river in Mexico, the orange evening sun glowing on his sweat-soaked body. He'd never even seen Derek transform, and everyone else had - with all the naked Derek that implied and that Scott refused to talk about.
But it didn't stop his imagination. Nothing could.
_____
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead and beyond them a faraway conversation prodded at Stiles' dozing mind. The books before him had blurred long ago, and in his daydream he was complaining to Scott about the unfairness of teachers, and their uncanny ability to ruin both the approaching hope of summer and the current rush of spring fever with giant last-minute research projects. Scott was smiling. It annoyed Stiles. Scott was holding Kira's hand, and that annoyed Stiles too.
"I like you, Kira, really, but Scott was my friend first," he mumbled into the side of his hand, which was propping him up at a steep angle.
There was a laugh at that statement, and in his mind it was Kira laughing, but her voice had deepened. Stiles opened his eyes wide and saw a group of sophomore guys at the far desk trying hard not to laugh. They heard that, he thought.
He gathered his books and moved sleepily toward the door. The librarian was watching the news discreetly on her laptop, oblivious to everything around her. Stiles glanced briefly at the screen and saw flashing police lights, a taped off area, and the scrolling words "mass suicide". He paused, saw the news was from the other side of the country, and kept walking. He stopped short of the door and turned back. The librarian was biting the nail of her little finger as she watched the video.
"Excuse me," Stiles said, and she jerked back, the pad sliding to floor with a clatter. "I’m sorry-"
"What can I do for you?" she asked, flushed. From below the desk, they could both hear the reporter breathlessly describing the scene.
"The bodies were discovered in this home on Beacon Hill Road, all arranged in one room-"
"Do you have anything on the role of sheriff forces in the Civil War? Any primary sources? And was that - did they say Beacon Hills?"
"It was in Virginia, not here," she said quickly. "This is a high school library," she added in a tone both patronizing and apologetic. "If you want primary sources, try the county library."
"Can you tell me if-"
"We don't have access to their catalog."
"We are part of the county," Stiles said bluntly.
The librarian shrugged her shoulders.
"Thanks, very helpful," Stiles said, but she was already diving under the desk to retrieve the laptop.
______
Stiles watched the news at home that night. Seventeen dead in one house, a large old-looking home west of Leesburg, Virginia. Nothing odd, except for the mass suicide. And that they were all one family.
The calendar above his desk was glaring at him, hard enough to take his attention from the news. When he looked up at it, he was reminded of the unstoppable approach of final exams and the holidays that lay between now and then, each one ruined by his AP History project, the red circle that burned like a ring of fire awaiting him on April 12th, the day after Spring Break.
"You coming shopping with me?" his father asked over lunch.
"Gotta go to the County Library for my History project."
"Okay, well, you'll be gone all day, right? That's what you said, isn't it?"
"What are you doing with your day off? Just grocery shopping?" Stiles wondered.
"Yeah, well, I'll do that and then put my feet up and watch the game. Too bad you have spend Saturday cooped up, but off you go."
Stiles had the distinct impression he was being rushed out of the house. He'd had the same feeling at dinner the night before when he first mentioned the need to spend more time researching.
As soon as his jeep was out of sight, the sheriff dialed Melissa McCall's number.
_____
The County Library was dimly lit, not because of any noble effort to conserve energy or save money, but because it still had its original fixtures, hung far overhead in a vast open room lined with dark shelves, warmer than the day outside and book-stale.
"Special Collections is this way," said the man at the reference desk, motioning Stiles to follow him. "The Civil War is a specialty of ours. We get a lot of you AP kids here every spring. Let me guess - day after spring break is when you present? Do you have your library card?"
"Um, no, I have… no."
"Give me your driver's license and I'll get the paperwork started," he sighed. "Just don't tell anyone I let you in without a card."
Stiles smiled weakly.
"Wait till I get back and I'll open up the document collection," he said unhelpfully before vanishing out the door, leaving it to slowly seal Stiles in. He could feel his ears pop as the room's environmental controls adjusted and utter silence enveloped him.
Two minutes passed, then five, and Stiles began to open drawers randomly. He figured out the filing system quickly and found the Civil War cabinet of maps, carefully preserved yet looking fragile enough to shatter if he touched them. The collection of northern anti-slavery pamphlets was impressive, and lists of the dead and their memorabilia took up half the drawers. One yellowed envelope contained a photo album of pictures remarkably preserved, and he turned each heavy black page with care.
Simply and severely dressed people stared back at the camera from every page, and in the shadowy room, Stiles leaned closer in.
The soldiers on the next page had beards and they reminded Stiles very much of Derek. Strong, stern faces, incapable of fun unless goaded into it. Stiles bit his lip at the twinge he felt, the wish that Derek were around more often. He tried not to think about Derek, lifted the next page gently and turned it over. One picture was askew, catching his eye immediately, and Derek was forgotten in an instant.
***
Stiles sat hunched over the old photo album, oil from his fingers soaking the fibers as he gripped tighter and tighter, moisture from his breath beginning its destruction of the picture he was exhaling on.
The soldier in the small photograph was young, with wide dark eyes, short dark hair and a steely gaze; he looked tired. His uniform was ill-fitting but he held the bayonet against his left shoulder with perfect ease. If only...
"This isn't-. It's not real. Not a chance. Something with genetics. I'll ask Lydia; she knows genetics."
He kept talking as he dialed Lydia and lifted the photo out of the four paper corners that held it in the album. There was nothing on the back, no name, no inscription of any kind.
"What is it, Stiles?"
"Lydia, can genes recombine to produce an exact copy of someone years later?"
Lydia sighed. "I'm at the spa, with my mom. Is this vital?"
"Yeah, Lyd, it - it kinda is," he said and she heard his voice shake.
"Theoretically, but the chances of exact duplication are, well, impossible. So no. What is this about?"
"I have to show you. What spa are you at?"
"Stiles, show me tonight," she said and discarded the phone as she slipped deeper into the mud.
"Yeah, okay," he replied to the blank phone. "Yeah. Okay." Stiles looked around the room, shaking and sweaty over something that had to be impossible.
The picture turned over and over as his fingers worked of their own accord. It was always him, his own face, every time the photo came around. It was staring at him with a look he recognized as his own. He even knew which muscles made that expression, could tell what mood he was in, it was so familiar.
The rest of the book held pictures of some small towns on the Kansas frontier but nothing was dated or explained, none of it. He flipped through the last ten pages in his search for where these pictures came from. He found the envelope again but it had only an acquisition number and date. The drawer was labeled only "Civil War."
He heard the outer door pop open behind him and slipped the picture quickly into the pocket of his hoodie where it made very obvious sharp-cornered points. The reference librarian was too irritated that he'd started touching things to notice this sleight of hand, and Stiles could only apologized profusely as the librarian gently slid the photo album back into its envelope.
"When- where did those pictures come from?" Stiles asked finally.
The librarian stopped his tidying and looked at Stiles, then at the acquisition log.
"Unknown, it says. They were donated as part of an estate collection, but the exact provenance… we don't have. It was donated specifically to this library, the year after we opened, so… 1893? We catalog what we can. Budget cuts haven't been kind. We'll get it all online some day."
Stiles was backing away, apologizing. again. He was pale and nervous now.
"Your library card!" the librarian said, slipping it from his shirt pocket.
"Thanks," Stiles added weakly, slipping out of the Rare Books room.
_____
"You actually got one of those old-timey pics?" Scott asked, one eyebrow raised at Stiles.
"No, it's-"
"Why didn't you invite me along? I always wanted one!" he said with exuberant envy.
"Scott, I-"
"With my six-guns and a big black hat!" he went on enthusiastically, posing as if he were shooting the bad guy in a Western town at high noon.
"SCOTT."
"What?"
"This is a real picture. And really old. And really from the Civil War."
"Yeah, right. Give it back," he said, yanking it from Stiles' hand.
"Easy! I stole it from the Rare Books room."
"You - stole it?" he asked, his disappointment attempting to mask sincere approval.
"It's ME!" Stiles yelled.
"No, you were not alive then. I'm pretty sure," he joked.
"Scott,…" he wanted to argue but his voice trailed off.
"It's gotta be fake - someone photoshopped you into someone else's picture."
"In the rare books collection, donated in 1893?"
Scott wasn't able to explain but had no other answers.
"Ask Lydia," they said together.
***
Lydia stared at the picture for a long time.
"I'm not seeing anything on this that says it's from 1893 or 1983 or any other year. But the image looks like a silver print on the original paper. The era fits. Go back and keep looking," she said, handing it back to him.
"It doesn’t bother you that I'm in a picture from the 1800s?" Stiles asked, incredulous.
"It doesn't bother me because I'm not convinced that time travel is possible."
"Why is time travel the first option that comes into your head?" Stiles asked, giving Lydia a look.
"Because I excluded reincarnation."
"After what you know about spirits?" Scott interjected, but she ignored him after a brief sigh.
"Couldn't it just be- I don't know, a relative?" Stiles persisted.
"When did the Stilinskis come to this country?" Lydia asked.
"Turn of the last century," Stiles answered quickly.
"So. Time travel it is," she concluded.
Stiles rubbed his forehead. "I'm going back," he said.
"That's not a good idea, Stiles," Scott said, worried. "The butterfly effect alone could-"
"To the library, Scott. Back to the library, not back in time."
***
The pop in his ears was just as strong but the whole room felt warmer this time; too warm. The reference librarian was determined not to leave Stiles alone with the collection so he hovered, trying to look busy at a nearby computer screen as Stiles pored over several collections from the same year as the photo album. His hands were sweating profusely into the thin blue gloves he'd been told to wear.
The photo he'd taken the day before was hidden in his shirt pocket - no way to return it to the album now. He flipped absently through several other books of photographs, expecting to find more pictures of himself, some past self maybe, an ancestor, a clone, a time traveller, the inexplicable past-Stiles. That just can't be a good thing.
He took up another slim envelope and opened it with excruciating slowness, just as the librarian had shown him. An uninteresting series of land deals, census records, and several extremely fragile newspaper articles, most from 1869, with a few from earlier years was all it contained.
One article had been hastily torn out, not cut cleanly from the page. It was wrapped around something larger. The man whose face was sketched in the article was identified as Captain Daniel Black of the Tennessee 5th Battalion, missing two weeks and presumed dead in the Rangers' massacre. Stiles unfolded the aged newsprint carefully and his eyes widened at the photograph hidden inside - the strong jaw made his heart jump. The mouth was sufficient to make clear who the photo depicted, despite the dark Civil War uniform.
Stiles stopped, unwilling to entertain any more of this, half convinced he was hallucinating. He made sure the librarian was occupied and then opened the paper wider with both hands to see the eyes. With that, Derek returned to him - the oddest reunion.
Stiles trembled, his hands shaking as the room spun slowly, even as he braced both feet on the ground. He held Derek in his hands, Derek in uniform with that same stern, unmistakable gaze despite a century and a half. It was as penetrating as ever and Stiles couldn't pull away.
"I will be back in one minute. Do NOT touch anything that isn't already in your hands," said the librarian.
Stiles saw him only as a distant, babbling figure over his pounding heartbeat. He mumbled something and knew it wasn't right because the blurry figure tilted its head and paused for a moment before leaving. Stiles pulled Derek close to his chest, bits of the newspaper falling to the floor in the process. He tried to put the photo in the pocket next to his own but it wouldn't fit, so he shoved it up under his t-shirt in desperation.
The next moments were a blur of cleaning and slipping folders back into envelopes before the librarian returned. At the last second, he tucked his shirt in to keep Derek from slipping away.
"Anything else I can get for you?" the librarian asked, emphasizing the I.
"Gotta go. My dad, he's, uh, he's dating someone new and he's awful at it and I have got to help him. He just called," Stiles babbled out in one long stream and pushed past the librarian, feeling Derek clinging to his chest. "Thanks though."
Stiles muttered "You hold on, buddy, hold on" as he fast-walked his way to the exit as un-obviously as he could, Derek slipping down his chest inch by inch.
Title: "There is no calm (without the storm)"
Rating: PG
Pairing/s: Stiles/Derek
Character/s: Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall, Lydia Martin, Sheriff Stilinski, a put-upon rare books librarian
Summary: Sterek AU; Derek is gone and Stiles needs him back. For entirely non-romantic reasons, because, come on, the two of them? Together?
Warnings: UST, confusing feelings, impending doom
Submission Type: Fic
Word Count: 2950
Prompt: #126 - Calm before the storm
Author's Notes: A sidebar to a larger Reversebang fic I'm working on. Stiles and Derek really need to hash things out, especially after Stiles finds pictures of them. From the 1800s.
"Calm before the storm… what a load of-"
"Dude!" Scott cut him off before he said his next word, but both of them were already getting the evil eye from the substitute English teacher.
"It's a cliché!" Stiles continued.
"Very good, uh-" said the teacher then stopped to scan the roster, squinting at the name for a good ten seconds.
"Stilinski," Stiles offered.
"Yes, and you correctly noted one of the worst parts of this or any story - the clichéd phrases."
"Plus it's wrong," Stiles continued, emboldened by praise. "Sometimes you need a little storm in your life just to keep you on your toes, keep you centered. No storm, no calm."
"So you're saying you prefer trouble?"
"Yeah. No," he corrected quickly. "Just… a little back and forth, is nice, is all."
"Is this about Derek?" Scott whispered from behind him.
"Shut up," Stiles said just loud enough for Scott to hear.
"Wonderful essay topic, Mr. Stilinski. Let's say a short one, about 300 words, on the value of chaos and turmoil, by tomorrow."
The class turned, as a whole it seemed, to look at Stiles with open hatred.
"There's your turmoil," Scott whispered.
***
"Did he have to leave? Just like that?" Stiles complained.
"He said goodbye. We had dinner at his place," Scott explained yet again as he attempted to keep his mind on the essay he was writing.
"And then nothing. Not a call, not a letter-"
"No one writes letters," Scott mumbled, hoping he wouldn't have this same conversation a fourth time.
"Maybe he's running across the arctic tundra," Stiles said, his eyes now distant, focused on the wolf's black form as it crossed the wide, snowy plains. "Or down a river canyon in Durango, stopping for a drink…"
Scott groaned and fell back his bed dramatically. "What is wrong with you - are you actually in love with him or something?"
Stiles' face burned hot and he stopped talking about Derek immediately. If Scott hadn't been so worried about the essay he might have put a few things together - his question, Stiles' rare silence and the sudden change of topic.
"What about that project in History class?" Stiles asked, "The Civil War one?"
"Ugh, don't remind me," Scott groaned, rubbing his hands over his face.
Stiles felt the heat of panic leaving him as Scott accepted the transition to the discussion of their history project and the certain doom that it implied. Just want him to come back is all. Not in love with him. Not with a guy - a big bearded werewolf guy at that. Nutty. You're nutty, Scott.
Stiles was picturing Derek transforming from wolf into human, kneeling naked by a shallow river in Mexico, the orange evening sun glowing on his sweat-soaked body. He'd never even seen Derek transform, and everyone else had - with all the naked Derek that implied and that Scott refused to talk about.
But it didn't stop his imagination. Nothing could.
_____
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead and beyond them a faraway conversation prodded at Stiles' dozing mind. The books before him had blurred long ago, and in his daydream he was complaining to Scott about the unfairness of teachers, and their uncanny ability to ruin both the approaching hope of summer and the current rush of spring fever with giant last-minute research projects. Scott was smiling. It annoyed Stiles. Scott was holding Kira's hand, and that annoyed Stiles too.
"I like you, Kira, really, but Scott was my friend first," he mumbled into the side of his hand, which was propping him up at a steep angle.
There was a laugh at that statement, and in his mind it was Kira laughing, but her voice had deepened. Stiles opened his eyes wide and saw a group of sophomore guys at the far desk trying hard not to laugh. They heard that, he thought.
He gathered his books and moved sleepily toward the door. The librarian was watching the news discreetly on her laptop, oblivious to everything around her. Stiles glanced briefly at the screen and saw flashing police lights, a taped off area, and the scrolling words "mass suicide". He paused, saw the news was from the other side of the country, and kept walking. He stopped short of the door and turned back. The librarian was biting the nail of her little finger as she watched the video.
"Excuse me," Stiles said, and she jerked back, the pad sliding to floor with a clatter. "I’m sorry-"
"What can I do for you?" she asked, flushed. From below the desk, they could both hear the reporter breathlessly describing the scene.
"The bodies were discovered in this home on Beacon Hill Road, all arranged in one room-"
"Do you have anything on the role of sheriff forces in the Civil War? Any primary sources? And was that - did they say Beacon Hills?"
"It was in Virginia, not here," she said quickly. "This is a high school library," she added in a tone both patronizing and apologetic. "If you want primary sources, try the county library."
"Can you tell me if-"
"We don't have access to their catalog."
"We are part of the county," Stiles said bluntly.
The librarian shrugged her shoulders.
"Thanks, very helpful," Stiles said, but she was already diving under the desk to retrieve the laptop.
______
Stiles watched the news at home that night. Seventeen dead in one house, a large old-looking home west of Leesburg, Virginia. Nothing odd, except for the mass suicide. And that they were all one family.
The calendar above his desk was glaring at him, hard enough to take his attention from the news. When he looked up at it, he was reminded of the unstoppable approach of final exams and the holidays that lay between now and then, each one ruined by his AP History project, the red circle that burned like a ring of fire awaiting him on April 12th, the day after Spring Break.
"You coming shopping with me?" his father asked over lunch.
"Gotta go to the County Library for my History project."
"Okay, well, you'll be gone all day, right? That's what you said, isn't it?"
"What are you doing with your day off? Just grocery shopping?" Stiles wondered.
"Yeah, well, I'll do that and then put my feet up and watch the game. Too bad you have spend Saturday cooped up, but off you go."
Stiles had the distinct impression he was being rushed out of the house. He'd had the same feeling at dinner the night before when he first mentioned the need to spend more time researching.
As soon as his jeep was out of sight, the sheriff dialed Melissa McCall's number.
_____
The County Library was dimly lit, not because of any noble effort to conserve energy or save money, but because it still had its original fixtures, hung far overhead in a vast open room lined with dark shelves, warmer than the day outside and book-stale.
"Special Collections is this way," said the man at the reference desk, motioning Stiles to follow him. "The Civil War is a specialty of ours. We get a lot of you AP kids here every spring. Let me guess - day after spring break is when you present? Do you have your library card?"
"Um, no, I have… no."
"Give me your driver's license and I'll get the paperwork started," he sighed. "Just don't tell anyone I let you in without a card."
Stiles smiled weakly.
"Wait till I get back and I'll open up the document collection," he said unhelpfully before vanishing out the door, leaving it to slowly seal Stiles in. He could feel his ears pop as the room's environmental controls adjusted and utter silence enveloped him.
Two minutes passed, then five, and Stiles began to open drawers randomly. He figured out the filing system quickly and found the Civil War cabinet of maps, carefully preserved yet looking fragile enough to shatter if he touched them. The collection of northern anti-slavery pamphlets was impressive, and lists of the dead and their memorabilia took up half the drawers. One yellowed envelope contained a photo album of pictures remarkably preserved, and he turned each heavy black page with care.
Simply and severely dressed people stared back at the camera from every page, and in the shadowy room, Stiles leaned closer in.
The soldiers on the next page had beards and they reminded Stiles very much of Derek. Strong, stern faces, incapable of fun unless goaded into it. Stiles bit his lip at the twinge he felt, the wish that Derek were around more often. He tried not to think about Derek, lifted the next page gently and turned it over. One picture was askew, catching his eye immediately, and Derek was forgotten in an instant.
***
Stiles sat hunched over the old photo album, oil from his fingers soaking the fibers as he gripped tighter and tighter, moisture from his breath beginning its destruction of the picture he was exhaling on.
The soldier in the small photograph was young, with wide dark eyes, short dark hair and a steely gaze; he looked tired. His uniform was ill-fitting but he held the bayonet against his left shoulder with perfect ease. If only...
"This isn't-. It's not real. Not a chance. Something with genetics. I'll ask Lydia; she knows genetics."
He kept talking as he dialed Lydia and lifted the photo out of the four paper corners that held it in the album. There was nothing on the back, no name, no inscription of any kind.
"What is it, Stiles?"
"Lydia, can genes recombine to produce an exact copy of someone years later?"
Lydia sighed. "I'm at the spa, with my mom. Is this vital?"
"Yeah, Lyd, it - it kinda is," he said and she heard his voice shake.
"Theoretically, but the chances of exact duplication are, well, impossible. So no. What is this about?"
"I have to show you. What spa are you at?"
"Stiles, show me tonight," she said and discarded the phone as she slipped deeper into the mud.
"Yeah, okay," he replied to the blank phone. "Yeah. Okay." Stiles looked around the room, shaking and sweaty over something that had to be impossible.
The picture turned over and over as his fingers worked of their own accord. It was always him, his own face, every time the photo came around. It was staring at him with a look he recognized as his own. He even knew which muscles made that expression, could tell what mood he was in, it was so familiar.
The rest of the book held pictures of some small towns on the Kansas frontier but nothing was dated or explained, none of it. He flipped through the last ten pages in his search for where these pictures came from. He found the envelope again but it had only an acquisition number and date. The drawer was labeled only "Civil War."
He heard the outer door pop open behind him and slipped the picture quickly into the pocket of his hoodie where it made very obvious sharp-cornered points. The reference librarian was too irritated that he'd started touching things to notice this sleight of hand, and Stiles could only apologized profusely as the librarian gently slid the photo album back into its envelope.
"When- where did those pictures come from?" Stiles asked finally.
The librarian stopped his tidying and looked at Stiles, then at the acquisition log.
"Unknown, it says. They were donated as part of an estate collection, but the exact provenance… we don't have. It was donated specifically to this library, the year after we opened, so… 1893? We catalog what we can. Budget cuts haven't been kind. We'll get it all online some day."
Stiles was backing away, apologizing. again. He was pale and nervous now.
"Your library card!" the librarian said, slipping it from his shirt pocket.
"Thanks," Stiles added weakly, slipping out of the Rare Books room.
_____
"You actually got one of those old-timey pics?" Scott asked, one eyebrow raised at Stiles.
"No, it's-"
"Why didn't you invite me along? I always wanted one!" he said with exuberant envy.
"Scott, I-"
"With my six-guns and a big black hat!" he went on enthusiastically, posing as if he were shooting the bad guy in a Western town at high noon.
"SCOTT."
"What?"
"This is a real picture. And really old. And really from the Civil War."
"Yeah, right. Give it back," he said, yanking it from Stiles' hand.
"Easy! I stole it from the Rare Books room."
"You - stole it?" he asked, his disappointment attempting to mask sincere approval.
"It's ME!" Stiles yelled.
"No, you were not alive then. I'm pretty sure," he joked.
"Scott,…" he wanted to argue but his voice trailed off.
"It's gotta be fake - someone photoshopped you into someone else's picture."
"In the rare books collection, donated in 1893?"
Scott wasn't able to explain but had no other answers.
"Ask Lydia," they said together.
***
Lydia stared at the picture for a long time.
"I'm not seeing anything on this that says it's from 1893 or 1983 or any other year. But the image looks like a silver print on the original paper. The era fits. Go back and keep looking," she said, handing it back to him.
"It doesn’t bother you that I'm in a picture from the 1800s?" Stiles asked, incredulous.
"It doesn't bother me because I'm not convinced that time travel is possible."
"Why is time travel the first option that comes into your head?" Stiles asked, giving Lydia a look.
"Because I excluded reincarnation."
"After what you know about spirits?" Scott interjected, but she ignored him after a brief sigh.
"Couldn't it just be- I don't know, a relative?" Stiles persisted.
"When did the Stilinskis come to this country?" Lydia asked.
"Turn of the last century," Stiles answered quickly.
"So. Time travel it is," she concluded.
Stiles rubbed his forehead. "I'm going back," he said.
"That's not a good idea, Stiles," Scott said, worried. "The butterfly effect alone could-"
"To the library, Scott. Back to the library, not back in time."
***
The pop in his ears was just as strong but the whole room felt warmer this time; too warm. The reference librarian was determined not to leave Stiles alone with the collection so he hovered, trying to look busy at a nearby computer screen as Stiles pored over several collections from the same year as the photo album. His hands were sweating profusely into the thin blue gloves he'd been told to wear.
The photo he'd taken the day before was hidden in his shirt pocket - no way to return it to the album now. He flipped absently through several other books of photographs, expecting to find more pictures of himself, some past self maybe, an ancestor, a clone, a time traveller, the inexplicable past-Stiles. That just can't be a good thing.
He took up another slim envelope and opened it with excruciating slowness, just as the librarian had shown him. An uninteresting series of land deals, census records, and several extremely fragile newspaper articles, most from 1869, with a few from earlier years was all it contained.
One article had been hastily torn out, not cut cleanly from the page. It was wrapped around something larger. The man whose face was sketched in the article was identified as Captain Daniel Black of the Tennessee 5th Battalion, missing two weeks and presumed dead in the Rangers' massacre. Stiles unfolded the aged newsprint carefully and his eyes widened at the photograph hidden inside - the strong jaw made his heart jump. The mouth was sufficient to make clear who the photo depicted, despite the dark Civil War uniform.
Stiles stopped, unwilling to entertain any more of this, half convinced he was hallucinating. He made sure the librarian was occupied and then opened the paper wider with both hands to see the eyes. With that, Derek returned to him - the oddest reunion.
Stiles trembled, his hands shaking as the room spun slowly, even as he braced both feet on the ground. He held Derek in his hands, Derek in uniform with that same stern, unmistakable gaze despite a century and a half. It was as penetrating as ever and Stiles couldn't pull away.
"I will be back in one minute. Do NOT touch anything that isn't already in your hands," said the librarian.
Stiles saw him only as a distant, babbling figure over his pounding heartbeat. He mumbled something and knew it wasn't right because the blurry figure tilted its head and paused for a moment before leaving. Stiles pulled Derek close to his chest, bits of the newspaper falling to the floor in the process. He tried to put the photo in the pocket next to his own but it wouldn't fit, so he shoved it up under his t-shirt in desperation.
The next moments were a blur of cleaning and slipping folders back into envelopes before the librarian returned. At the last second, he tucked his shirt in to keep Derek from slipping away.
"Anything else I can get for you?" the librarian asked, emphasizing the I.
"Gotta go. My dad, he's, uh, he's dating someone new and he's awful at it and I have got to help him. He just called," Stiles babbled out in one long stream and pushed past the librarian, feeling Derek clinging to his chest. "Thanks though."
Stiles muttered "You hold on, buddy, hold on" as he fast-walked his way to the exit as un-obviously as he could, Derek slipping down his chest inch by inch.