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Stiles sat in the ICU staring at his shoes.
They were his favorite, a pair of red Converse. They had nothing special but he always thought that they made him run faster, and it wasn’t only a child fantasy, he actually had won the race at school wearing them.
But they were now raggedy and the red was vanishing beneath the mud stains. His mom would have never allowed him to wear dirty shoes in the hospital but his dad didn’t even notice, he was so tired that he just dropped him off asking nurse Melissa to keep an eye on him because he had to get back at the station.
And this place smelled like someone peed in a corner, just like that time they got on that smelly bus to go downtown because the car had broken down, so Stiles figured out that no one was going to notice if he wore them.
From his plastic chair he looked up at the peaks on the monitor that the doctor told him showed how and when his mom’s heart beat.
If the line went up his mom was ok.
He found himself mesmerized by that tiny fragile line, holding his breath every time the line went down, afraid it would never get back up.
And time passed by, beat after beat.
He knew his mom could’t get better so he didn’t want to waste time away from her, but dad told him to listen to nurse Melissa so when she came in and told him to get something to eat at the vending machines he did.
He hated the waiting room.
It was always full of people that kept walking around waiting for bad news.
He bought chips to eat but he wasn’t hungry so he just held the bag in his hands while he sat waiting for nurse Melissa to tell him he could get back to his mom.
On the table near him there were some magazines that were at least one year old as their date told him, but he wouldn’t have read them anyway because he’d read them so many times he knew every single world written in there.
He looked around and all the other people had their eyes on the ground so he decided to do the same staring at the white linoleum while the tv entertained itself.
He imagined his mom’s line, he could see it, up and down, up and down…
“Are you okay?”
Stiles jerked at the sudden noise and breathed.
He hand’t realized he was holding his breath.
He stared at the person that just sat in the chair near his. He was a taller boy, probably about 12 years old, black hair and green eyes.
“I’m Derek, what’s your name?”
“I’m Stiles” the 8 years old answered casting his hazel eyes back at the ground realizing that maybe he stared at the boy for too long.
“You seem sad Stiles, something happened?” Derek said trying to catch Stiles’s attention.
“Do you think I will remember her? I don’t want to forget her.” Stiles said watching the older boy with eyes full of tears that were ready to fall.
“She’s going away and there’s nothing I can do…” Those tears were now running down his cheeks.
“Hey” Derek said placing a comforting hand on the child’s shoulder “I’m going to tell you something that I learnt few months ago”.
Stiles was now watching Derek curious about what he was going to say.
“You know, we grow, we live and we make plans for the future; but not many knows that plans are just a way for us to feel in control, we can’t actually decide what we are going to do in a month, a week or even tomorrow because only Time knows if we are still going to be here or not.”
“Then what’s the point?” Stiles asked.
“Well the point is that when you live you get to know people and connect with them and, if you’re lucky enough, you get to love them. And believe me when I tell you that even if sometimes you wish you didn’t know anybody so that when they die it can’t hurt you, it’s actually better having lived with them and suffer than have never known them.”
“So you’re saying that love is watching someone die” Stiles said.
At that moment nurse Melissa came in and everyone in the room lift their heads but Stiles knew it was finally time for him to go back to his mom. He stood up, sadly waved his little hand at Derek and headed down the corridor.
Even if he knew everything was just going to get worse he felt at peace, even if only for a brief moment, because he was going to watch over his mom so that she could know how much he loved her.
***
Derek looked up at the LCD monitor.
His uncle’s heartbeat was steady, as it has been for a while now. But he was still in a coma.
Watching the time he realized it was time for him to eat something.
He stood up, said “I’ll be right back” to uncle Peter’s steady form and headed off to the waiting room.
He hated the waiting room because it always reeked of sadness and anxiety, and today wasn’t an exception.
He started to head for the vending machine when a strong scent of pain and panic reached his nostrils.
He didn’t know why it caught his attention, given that it seemed that everybody had the same scent in there, until his eyes saw a little kid seating in a chair holding a bag of chips that he seemed to have no intention of eating.
But his werewolf senses told him there was something off.
He focused and heard that his heartbeat was accelerated and the kid wasn’t breathing. So he paced till he was near the kid.
“Are you okay?” Derek said.
Apparently it did the trick: the kid was surprised and started to breathe again.
He also started to stare at him, Derek took that as a good sign and sat in the chair near the kid’s.
“I’m Derek, what’s your name?”
“I’m Stiles” the kid answered, shyly casting his eyes at the ground.
He saddened him that the kid was so sad, he was definitely too young for this kind of feeling.
“You seem sad Stiles, something happened?” Derek said trying to catch Stiles’s attention.
After a brief moment of uncertainty and silence Stiles looked at him with watery eyes and said
“Do you think I will remember her? I don’t want to forget her.”
Derek didn’t know what he was talking about but he understood it, he felt it too.
“She’s going away and there’s nothing I can do…” Tears were now running down Stiles cheeks.
Derek was at loss of word for a moment. He didn’t know what to say to Stiles to make him feel better. Until he remembered a conversation he had with his mom when his friend died in a hunter attack.
“Hey” Derek said placing a comforting hand on the child’s shoulder “I’m going to tell you something that I learnt few months ago”.
Stiles was now watching Derek expectantly.
“You know, we grow, we live and we make plans for the future; but not many knows that plans are just a way for us to feel in control, we can’t actually decide what we are going to do in a month, a week or even tomorrow because only Time knows if we are still going to be here or not.”
“Then what’s the point?” Stiles asked.
At that Derek repeated the world his mom said to him when he asked the same thing.
“Well the point is that when you live you get to know people and connect with them and, if you’re lucky enough, you get to love them. And believe me when I tell you that even if sometimes you wish you didn’t know anybody so that when they die it can’t hurt you, it’s actually better having lived with them and suffer than have never known them.”
“So you’re saying that love is watching someone die” Stiles said.
Derek was stunned for a moment. He never thought about it that way.
At that moment a nurse came in and everyone in the room lifted their heads.
Stiles stood up, waved at Derek and headed down the corridor.
Derek knew it was time for him to head back to his uncle. He mentally thanked his mom for still being able to help him.
He was going to watch over Peter till he would get better.