Chapter Text
Not everything is perfect.
Stiles has trauma from his time with Gerard, and because he also has visions, the flashbacks are even more harrowing. It's difficult to differentiate between the two, and then there are the dreams. Sometimes they are memories that turn worse than reality. Sometimes they are just monstrous. And then sometimes they are visions he's supposed to pay attention to.
He writes every dream down, as he always has, but now he has to do so with flashbacks as well. He has to ask himself questions he's never had to before: what is real? What is memory? What is a vision? Is this something that's happened to me in the past, or something we have to worry about in the future?
Peter begs him to see someone, a trusted psychologist the pack has used for years, someone Derek has been talking to. But Stiles balks, knowing that would mean divulging his secret once again, and he just can't do that.
Peter tries very hard to be Stiles's rock, his anchor, but he's only one man and he's not a professional. Stiles can see the frustration and helplessness in Peter's eyes, but he can't seem to find a way to deal with the PTSD without trusting someone new. He shuts down, tries to keep the worst of it away from Peter, but all Peter sees is Stiles pulling away from him.
Stiles researches on his own, of course. He uses techniques and strategies he finds in online medical journals. But there's a missing component — objectivity.
Joyce comes into their lives at exactly the right time. No one goes out to find her; she comes to them. To Stiles. She's another seer, and a licensed therapist. She says she's been dreaming of Stiles for months, saw his pain and suffering.
It took her awhile to find him, she says. Her visions aren't quite as clear as Stiles's, and she doesn't have psychometry at all. She has low-level empathy though, just like Claudia, which once he finds out about it, puts Stiles at ease. Because of the familiarity, he knows.
Not so for Peter, who feels like it's an invasion of privacy, at first. That is until Stiles points out it's just another sense, like werewolves use their sense of smell to figure out chemosignals.
Joyce stays with the Hale pack for eight months. Long enough to see Peter settle into being the alpha — and a good one, at that. Long enough to see Derek blossom. Long enough to see Laura decide she doesn't want to be alpha for years, not until she's finished with college and has a career going.
Long enough to see Stiles well on his way to recovery. It'll still be a long road, Joyce warns, but he's taken the right steps forward.
In a way, the Hale pack has to heal, too. Losing Talia was a blow, no matter the circumstances. They accept Peter but it takes some time before they stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. It helps that Peter's a good alpha, always ready to listen to any grievance, always as fair as he can be with them.
And even though Stiles is wary of new people, especially after his ordeal with Gerard Argent, the pack takes to him as well. It starts with his obvious love of Peter, which they respect and honor, but it doesn't stop there. He becomes good friends with Laura and Derek, a confidant, and that trust spills through the bonds until Stiles isn't just their mysterious savior and the alpha's mate, but a real member of the pack.
A year after Peter becomes alpha, Stiles wakes up one morning with a clear vision of where Gerard is hiding. He tells Peter, not knowing if his mate will want to leave the pack to go after him yet.
But Peter's just as eager to make sure the old hunter is put down. They tell Laura where they're going but no one else. It's a long drive, and Peter and Stiles don't talk much on the way there. They find Gerard exactly where Stiles knew he was, and they take care of him much more quickly than he deserves. When it's over, when they look down on his dead body, they both know they can breathe again.
Now that Gerard isn't hanging over their heads, they can plan their future. On the long drive back home, they talk about what that future should look like. Somewhere in Kansas they get engaged, and by the time they reach Utah, they are discussing how many kids they should have.
They almost decide to stop in Nevada for a quick wedding — Stiles loves the little chapels in Las Vegas — but Peter knows his pack will rebel if they don't let them plan and host a huge spectacle.
Back home, they settle in together again. Gerard Argent is just a footnote now. The pack knows something has changed but not what.
Everyone can tell their alpha and his mate are much happier, and that's all that matters.