be your own anchor.

[So, someone made an 8 tracks playlist of songs that reminded them of Fitz and Harry's relationship, and it's slowly killing me with feels...]

Jocelyn sent one last smile his way before she went back to grocery shopping. She honestly would have much rather continued talking to him, but she had a couple of things that she was hoping to get done today, and she also had refrained from embarrassing herself in front of him, so maybe it was best that she went back to what she'd come to the grocery store to do before she did. It didn't take her all that long to get everything that she need, and once she'd paid, she headed on out to her car. She couldn't help thinking about Derek as she pulled out of the parking lot. She was honestly really hoping that she ran into him again. And soon.

---

Stiles glanced over to her for a moment and mustered up the smallest of smiles. He didn't say anything else after that though. Instead, is gaze shifted to the window at the passing landscape. He was quiet on the entire ride over to Emily's house, lost in his own thoughts. He still didn't know if this was a dream or if it was all a part of reality. He was really hoping it wasn't a dream. Not only because he could wake up screaming any second now, but also because for the first time in a very long time he was slightly at ease. He was still freaking out, but not nearly as much. The thought of how he honestly felt like he was straight up losing his mind was kind of pushed to the back of his head for a bit.

Derek finally pulled out of the parking lot, finding it hard to focus on anything but the fact that he was pretty sure that he'd seen Paige. When he got back to the loft, he practically darted to the lift. Once inside, he walked over to the makeshift kitchen, ignoring the looks that Peter was sending him. "What's wrong with you?" His uncle asked, the frown evident in his voice. "It's nothing," he said. He was lying, and he knew that there wasn't a point. Peter would be able to tell. As much as his uncle bothered him, he was letting him stay there for awhile. Or rather, Peter had shoved his way into the loft and refused to sleep anywhere else. "Don't do the whole silence thing. It's nothing that you need to worry about."

---

Emily flicked on the radio as she pulled out of the parking spot, keeping the volume low in case Stiles wanted to talk on the way home. As she drove, she quickly began to realize that he wasn't planning on talking. She sat back in her seat, trying her hardest to not show that she was growing impatient. She wanted to talk to him. She wanted him to tell her what was wrong so they could figure out a way to help him. She kept quiet, though. She didn't want to annoy him or anything. So instead she just remained silent, finally pulling up to the sidewalk in front of her house. She wasn't sure if his dad would stop in for lunch at his place, so she figured hers was their best bet. "You want to head in?" She asked, keeping her voice low.

Jocelyn went about her day as she originally planned. She stopped back at her apartment to put away her groceries before heading back out to continue running the rest of her errands. All the while though, there was really only one thing on her mind: Derek. She didn't know why that was case. It was kind of weird really, seeing as they had only just met and only really spoken for a couple of minutes, and it wasn't like he was the first person she'd spoken to since moving to Beacon Hills. She'd moved there a couple of weeks ago and had spoken to several different people, so that couldn't be it. Whatever the case was, she didn't know, but she just found herself thinking about him and hoping that she would run into him again. And much sooner than later hopefully.

---

Stiles had a feeling that Emily was hoping that he would talk to her. He just wasn't really in the talking mood though. There was just so much crap going on now, and he had so much on his mind, and normally he would probably ramble on about all of it to her, but not this time around. He knew that she wanted to help, but he had a feeling that there really wasn't much that she could do. He felt like he was losing it. And the most frustrating thing was not being able to read. He couldn't do any research to figure out what was wrong with him. So, he was pretty much in the dark about all of this. Sure, Scott and Allison were going through similar things, hallucinating and stuff like that, but at least they could get through a day knowing that they were awake. "Sure." He said, climbing out of the car. He waited for her before following her up to her house.

[Did you wanna skip with Derek and Jocelyn? I'm not sure where, but I figured that we could if you wanted to. ]

"Derek, I'm going to worry about it. We're family." Derek let out a low, dry bark of a laugh when his uncle said that. He shook his head. He didn't want to tell him, but he also felt as though he wouldn't be able to keep it a secret much longer. He had to tell someone. "I'm pretty sure that I saw Paige today," he said, glancing over to his uncle. Peter stared at him, his brow furrowed with a crease between his eyes. "Derek, that's impossible. She died." Derek just shook his head, his eyes bright with hope. "You don't understand. I think something happened. She looks just like her, sounds like her, has her same motions. Sure, she doesn't remember who she is, but that's probably because -" At this Peter interrupted, staring at his nephew as though he'd lost it. "She doesn't remember because she isn't Paige, Derek. Paige is dead. You know that."

---

Emily decided on the drive to her house that she wasn't going to bring up anything that he didn't want to talk about. Even if it felt like it was going to kill her, she wasn't going to say anything. She just wanted him to relax. She didn't want him to think about his dreams... Or the fact that he couldn't read... She shook her head, climbing out of her car after she shut it off. She walked up the sidewalk, using her key to unlock the door once she was on the porch. She stepped inside, glancing over to Stiles briefly. "You want to watch a movie or something? I could order pizza if you're hungry. Or we have food here. That'd probably be faster. Mom got a lot of groceries the other day so we should be pretty good on those. Unless you're not hungry, which in that case we..." She trailed off, suddenly realizing that she was rambling. She looked away from him, sighing softly. She didn't know what to do.

[I was just going to suggest that myself. ]

A couple of days had passed since Jocelyn's literal run-in with Derek at the grocery store. She hadn't run into him again as of late, though there was a part of her that was really hoping that she would. The town was fairly small, so she was surprised that she hadn't run into him yet. For the first time in well, quite some time, she woke up fairly early. Deciding to make use of the extra time that she now possessed, she decided to go for a run. She really needed to get back into doing that; with the move and everything, she hadn't got back into her usual routine just yet. So, once she'd gotten dressed she headed out, figuring she'd go along one of the trails in the woods.

---

Stiles was honestly kind of glad that she hadn't exactly brought anything up since they'd left the school. In reality, he knew that he should probably talk about everything that had been going on with him with her, he doubted that she knew the full extent to which he felt he was losing it, and he doubted Scott had said much earlier either. "Pizza's fine." He said. Two simple words. Nothing like his usual rambling and constant conversing. He honestly didn't really feel like himself. He'd never been so worried or stressed out before in his life. He didn't even comment on Emily's rambling, something he normally would have teased her about.

[Great minds, and all that. ]

Derek hadn't bothered going out much after that day. Sure, he still had to figure out if she was, in fact, Paige, but he hadn't wanted to deal with people. He got like that sometimes, wanting to revert to how he'd been before Scott and Stiles had showed up out of the blue. He sighed, throwing on his shoes and jacket. He needed to get outside, maybe get a run in. Or just get away from Peter. Or both. No matter the reasoning, though, he headed to the woods, figuring that maybe he could even change. It helped him, going out in the middle of nowhere and just letting himself change for a bit. It got out the animalistic urge that rose in him when his pulse spiked. So he started to job down a path, knowing that he had to get himself deep into the woods before he did anything.

---

Emily stared at Stiles for a couple of seconds, not caring that it was blatantly obvious as to what she was doing. She suddenly felt that his smiling earlier had meant nothing. Just him wanting to pretend that he was fine. She sighed, a frown crossing her features before she gave a short nod of her head. "Pizza. Fine. Alright," she mumbled, walking towards the kitchen. "Grab a movie or something," she called, not bothering to ask him what he wanted. She knew what they usually got. She dialed the number she knew by heart, ordering a medium pepperoni pizza, an order of garlic sticks, and a liter of soda. She hung up the phone, letting her head rest against the cabinet. She didn't know what to do.

Jocelyn really didn't give much thought to where she was going once she'd reached the trail. Once she put her headphones in, she was one of those people who kind of just zoned out and ignored the rest of the world for a little while. So, once she'd reached the edge of the trail, she slipped her headphones in and put it on shuffle, an Arctic Monkeys song blasting in her ears as she started off at a slow jog. She liked to pace herself. The only time she really went all out was when she was stressed out or upset about something and just needed to blow off some steam. Today wasn't one of those days.

---

Stiles nodded wordlessly in response to her words and headed into the living room to pick out a movie. Lately, he felt like he was on autopilot half the time. He just didn't know what to feel anymore. He didn't know if he was actually really experiencing any of the things that he was experiencing or if it was just another one of his dreams or hallucinations. His dreams always ended up being some sort of a dream within a dream within a dream or something crazy like that. He really just didn't know what to do anymore. He was sure that he was losing his mind. And he didn't know what he could do to stop it from happening.

Derek let himself set a faster pace as he ran down the path. He liked running - he had his whole life. He liked the way it felt, the strain against his muscles as he pushed himself to keep going. He usually zoned out, but after a couple of minutes running he slowed down, sniffing the air. It took him a couple of seconds when he realized what he was smelling, or rather, who. "Paige," he breathed out, a small smile easing onto his lips. He shook his head, forcing himself to relax as he change direction, easily finding a path that was closer to her scent. He set himself at a normal pace, pretending to be more focused on running than anything else.

---

Emily straightened up, running a hand through her hair. She didn't know what to do. She felt like he was a complete stranger to her at times, especially when he was giving short answers. Her Stiles would have laughed at her and teased her for rambling. Not that he was hers. He was Lydia's, if anything else. The way he felt about her... She felt her gut wrench at the thought. She sighed softly, trying her hardest to not look as though she was upset before she headed into the living room. She leaned against the wall, remaining quiet as she watched him. It was like he wasn't even paying attention to what he was doing, like he was on autopilot.

Jocelyn continued at the same exact pace she'd started out at. As always, she kind of just zoned out and focused on the music blasting through her headphones and the path in front of her. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary. It was just what she always did. Of course, maybe she should have paid a little bit more attention to her surroundings, seeing as she hadn't run on this trail before today, but she wasn't expecting any problems. It was easy enough to follow the trail, so she doubted that she would get lost or anything like that.

---

Stiles was sort of lost in his own thoughts as he looked through the collection of movies in Emily's living room. To be completely honest, he wasn't even actually paying attention to any of the movie titles as he looked. He wasn't really paying attention to much of anything at all actually, and so he hadn't heard Emily walk into the room at all. Of course, she hadn't said anything at all, but usually he would have looked over when he heard her footsteps or something along those lines and said something to her. Whether it be a sarcastic comment or just a regular comment in general. His attention returned back to the movie titles a few moments later though. He blinked a couple of times as he looked at them, watching as the words became jumbled together or the letters appeared to fall off of the DVD cases completely.

Derek continued to run, plotting out the path in his mind. The path that he was on then should meet up with the one that she was running on, if he could go by her scent and how strong it was getting. He ignored the fact that it might have been a bit creepy. He was doing this for Paige's sake. Who cared if Peter thought he was insane for believing that it was really her? If it was her, then he couldn't let her pass him by. That just wasn't right. Especially if she didn't remember who she was. He watched as the connection of the two paths came closer, noticing her just up ahead. It took everything in him to not run right up to her. He had to play this correctly. He couldn't freak her out. So he continued to run, letting his legs carry him closer to her.

---

Emily bit her lip nervously. Either he was ignoring her, or he was so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't actually heard her. She frowned, letting her emotions show on her face for a moment before making it blank. He didn't need to worry about her or how she felt about everything - he was more important. So instead she walked over to him, keeping quiet. When she was right behind him she reached out, touching his shoulder lightly. "You find anything?" She asked, letting her hand drop a couple seconds later. She didn't see him blink as he stared at the DVDs, instead staring at the movies herself. She didn't want to do anything that might upset him.

Jocelyn was anything but observant when she was running. She never paid too much attention to her surroundings, which probably wasn't the best thing, and she was always focused mainly on the path ahead of her, her pace and the music she was listening to at the time. It was just how things had always been with her. Of course, she wasn't always the best with keeping an eye on her surroundings in general, she could be a bit of a space-case at times, but that was besides the point. So, of course she didn't notice Derek until she practically ran past him. She paused and pulled out one of her ear buds. "Hey." She said, a slight smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

---

Stiles frowned as he stared at the jumbled and swirling letters, blinking a few more times in the hopes that he would actually be able to read them. However, he had no such luck. He tried focusing, keeping his eyes trained on the letters, but nothing seemed to work. So focused, and frustrated by this fact, he didn't hear Emily approach him until her hand rested on his shoulder, startling him and causing him to jump slightly. And his focus was broken. "What? Oh, uh no...not yet." He said, his gaze shifting away from the DVDs and over to her. He was doing his best not to show his obvious frustration or the fact that something was even wrong in the first place. He didn't want her to worry.

Derek tried to keep his eyes off of her. He knew it was useless, though. She just looked like Paige through and through. The way she wore her hair, and her smile - it was like he was seeing her all over again. So instead he kept his eyes to the ground as he jogged, pretending that he wasn't paying attention to anything. He looked up when he heard her speak, a smile easing onto his features. "Hey," he said, glancing over to her, matching her pace easily. He knew that he wouldn't be able to change any time soon, but he figured that if worse came to worse he could just change in the loft. Peter would be there, but he could just ignore him if it came to that. "Do you always run out here?" He asked her, suddenly realizing that she probably shouldn't go running in the woods. Everything bad almost always seemed to happen in the woods.

---

Emily watched Stiles closely, noticing the way that he frowned. She watched as he looked over to her, her small smile falling from her lips when she saw the expression on his face. He might have been good at pretending that he was alright when it came to other people, but she knew him better. She knew that he wasn't alright. She sighed softly, her gaze never leaving him. "You want me to pick? You always take forever to decide," she said, knowing that her light tone was weak at best. She didn't want to say anything, but Scott had said that Stiles was having trouble reading. She wasn't sure if that was the case now, but she didn't want to take any chances and flat out ask him. "I ordered the food, by the way."

Jocelyn honestly hadn't expected to run into him today. After getting her hopes up the last couple of days, she had sort of just figured that it would happen when it happened. And, apparently it did, and a lot sooner than she had expected. She really needed to learn to expect the unexpected. She gave her shoulders a slight shrug in response to his words. "Well, technically I've never ran out here until now, but I overheard someone talking about there being trails in the woods a couple of days ago, and figured I'd give it a try." She said. She had no idea of the possible danger she could be putting herself in out here. Why would she even assume something like that? Sure, there was the possibility of getting lost, and sure, there were probably some animals out here, deer, maybe some coyotes the further into the woods she went, but the chance of her actually seeing any of them was very slim.

---

Stiles didn't even bother trying to force a smile onto his face and simply nodded. "Uh, yeah. That's fine." he stepped away from the collection of DVDs, not wanting to look at them anymore. He didn't want to see the jumbled words and letters again. It was just a constant reminded of what was wrong with him. "Alright, great. I'm starving." He said as he took a seat on the couch. That was honestly a lie. He was actually kind of sick to his stomach right now. He'd been alright, as alright as he could be anyway, until he'd looked at the DVDs. Now he'd lost any sort of appetite that he had, but he didn't want Emily to know that. He didn't want her to worry.

Derek looked over, offering her a small smile. It was easy keeping up with her. For him, this was barely even jogging. He cocked a brow, resisting the urge to frown. Most people were wary of the woods now, which meant that some idiot was actually fine with running in the woods. Whoever it was hadn't even bothered to add that people were getting killed up there. "You came here alone?" He asked, frowning slightly. "Haven't you heard what's happened up here?" He asked her, glancing forward briefly before looking back to her. He didn't like the idea of her running out here by herself. He honestly had no idea what all was out here. There were still things going on, and what they'd done with the nematon was just going to drag even more things here. It wasn't safe for her to be by herself out here.

---

Emily waited until he stepped away from her before she frowned. She felt helpless. Stiles wasn't himself, and she didn't know what to do. Usually he was constantly talking or laughing or grinning or annoying her or just doing something. But now he was just there. "You sound like it," she mumbled under her breath, growing frustrated with the fact that she couldn't do something to help him. She grabbed a random movie - The Wedding Singer - and opened it up, practically shoving it into the DVD player. She took a seat on the couch, keeping her gaze on the TV. She knew that anger was essentially a secondary emotion, and she was angry because she was worried about him. But she couldn't help it. She was just scared for him.

Jocelyn didn't even take notice to the little amount of effort he was using in keeping up with her. It wasn't really something that she was paying attention to. Of course, maybe it was because she was still taken by how attractive he was, but she would never actually admit to that. Nope, definitely not. Her eyebrows furrowed slightly at his words. "Yeah, should I not have come alone?" She asked slowly, obviously confused by his words. "And no one's really mentioned anything to me...not that I remember anyway. What's happened here?" She had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. It was obviously something big if he'd assumed that she'd heard about it.

---

Stiles didn't even take notice to her mumbled words. Normally he would have and he would have said something to her, maybe come up with some sort of a witty remark, but not today. He just didn't have the energy to really act like himself anymore. He stared blankly at the TV screen, trying to make it appear as though he was watching the movie that she'd popped in. He was hoping that he was being convincing enough, but in reality, he had so much more to worry about than convincing Emily that he was okay and that he was actually watching the movie. His mind was definitely elsewhere.

Derek let out a sigh, looking over to her as they ran. He shook his head slightly, affecting his breathing just enough so it sounded like it was actually starting to require some effort to keep running. "No, you shouldn't have. A lot of stuff has happened in the past couple of months," he said with a frown. He looked ahead, trying to think of what all he should tell her. Oh yeah, people were ritually sacrificed here. Werewolves are usually running around. There's probably some stuff that I don't even know about running around and still killing things. "A couple of people were killed out here a couple months ago, and there's been some other stuff that's happened."

---

Emily gave up trying to watch one of her favorite movies. It just wasn't doing anything for her. She looked over to Stiles, watching him with a worried expression on his face. He wasn't paying attention to the movie, that much was obvious. He looked like he was lost in his mind, off somewhere else. "Stiles?" She murmured, scooting closer to him. She was worried, and she couldn't keep quiet anymore. "Please," she began, trying her hardest to keep her voice from cracking or showing weakness. "Please just talk to me."

Jocelyn's mind was reeling as she waited for him to answer her. Something bad had obviously happened in these woods. How bad, she honestly had no idea, but obviously it was something pretty bad if he'd asked her if she'd heard about it. She watched him closely, waiting for his response. Her eyes widened when he spoke. "People were killed out here?" She repeated slowly. How could she not have heard about that? It wasn't like it had been a couple of years ago. He'd said it had been a couple of months ago! "Define other stuff..."

---

Stiles didn't even notice that Emily had stopped watching the movie. He really had been lost in his own thoughts. He felt like he'd been doing that a lot lately. Zoning out and just thinking about everything that had been going on. His mind had been constantly reeling for quite some time now. Sometimes, when he zoned out, the hallucinations happened. Not always though. He didn't hear Emily the first time she spoke. It wasn't until she asked him to talk to her that he had. He turned to look at her, frowning slightly. "About what, Em?" He breathed.

Derek gave a short nod of his head, glancing over to her for a moment. She must not have done any research on the town before moving. Although, the sacrifices had caused there to be a little bit of national attention on the small town for like, a couple of weeks. Nothing major, though. "Well, yeah," he said, looking forward. He cringed, not wanting to elaborate, but he knew that he really had no choice. "Well, there was this serial killer that got a couple of people for this ritualistic sacrifices. It was pretty - how did you not about this when you moved?"

---

Emily watched him closely, frowning when he didn't hear her the first time. This wasn't like him. Usually he was noticing everything. And the quiet, oh the quiet. That was one of the things that was most unlike him. She bit her lip, sighing softly when he turned to her. "You're a million miles away and you know it, Stiles. You're not acting like yourself and you're just..." She trailed off, her brow furrowing. "Do you think you're dreaming?" She asked him, her voice quiet. The fact that he couldn't always tell between dream and reality unnerved her. It wasn't right.

Jocelyn was honestly kind of shocked. How had she not heard about any of this? It was one thing for a couple of animal attacks to happen, that could happen anywhere, but a serial killer performing ritualistic sacrifices? That was something that she should have surely heard about, right? "Your guess is as good as mine." She said quietly. She'd done a little bit of research on Beacon Hills, although that had been a few months ago, maybe a bit longer, before she'd even known for a fact that she'd planned on moving there. It was when she was just starting to think about getting a change of scenery.

---

Stiles looked at her, frowning slightly at her words. "How can I act like myself, Emily? Scott's having trouble turning. Allison's having hallucinations about her dead aunt, and I'm just---I'm straight up losing my mind. I never know if I'm dreaming or not. Just a few minutes ago I couldn't read any of the titles on any of those DVDs. The only time a person has trouble reading is when they're dreaming." He was freaking out. He hadn't wanted to worry her, but he knew now that he couldn't quite hide how he was feeling from her.

Derek shook his head slowly, surprised that she hadn't heard anything about it. "That's weird," he said, frowning. Was there a reason that she hadn't heard about what had happened? He couldn't think like that. He just had to figure out if she was really Paige or not. "But uh, yeah. You really shouldn't be out in the woods alone. Especially at night," he said, adding that last bit to put himself at ease. "Most people don't really come out here anymore at all, really. They're too worried that something might happen," he paused, glancing over to her with a small frown. "Not that I blame them," he said. He thought about it. Maybe this was his in, to spend more time with her. To go running with her. He wouldn't mind that. Not in the least bit.

---

Emily frowned as he spoke. She was at a loss as to what to do. He was obviously freaking out. She scooted even closer on the couch, reaching over and grabbing his hand gently. She gave it what she hoped was a comforting squeeze, watching him closely. "Stiles, look at me," she murmured. "You're not losing your mind. You're one of the most sane people that I know. We just need to get through this. Now how do you usually tell if you're dreaming?" She asked, her entire focus on him. She wasn't going to let him drive himself insane. She refused to do that. He was one of the best people that she knew, and she wasn't going to let anything happen to him.