Do Something

"You want me to what ?" Erica was already up and across the room by the time she had finished speaking.

Tyler lowered his head. It wasn't like he imagined a perfect stranger was going to jump at the suggestion of breaking every bone in her body.

"I can't transform. I can't even make my claws come out. What makes you think that my healing will even still work?"

"Honestly," Tyler stood and stepped toward her, "I don't know. I don't know if you'll heal. I don't know if doing this will make a damn difference when they let you out. I told you, we're different. But you wanted to know how to stop it and this is the only plan we have. And trying something, doing something, even if it's crazy and might not even work, is a hell of a lot better than doing nothing."

Erica paced against the wall for a long while before finally crossing her arms.

"How does this work?

"The sire bond between me and Klaus was there because, on some level, I was grateful, for him releasing me from the pain of having to turn on the full moon. So, I just kept turning until it didn't hurt."

"That's different, this -"

"It is and it isn't. I went from being controlled by the moon to controlled by Klaus. You're controlled by the moon. You told me pain keeps you human. But it can also trigger your change. You need to learn how to control the change, and stay human. Pain will do that."

"I can't break every bone in my body," Erica rubbed her arms. "I don't heal like you. You said it yourself, you're stronger than me."

"We'll start slow, small. One at a time. See if it's working. I'll be right here. If you don't start healing, I can give you my blood and it will heal you."

Erica took up pacing again until she was growling and sighing all at once.

"Okay, okay, here goes."

Erica straightened, shaking out her arms at her side and breathing deep. With a last look to Tyler, the werewolf took one arm in her hand and held it in front of her. She stared at it for a long moment, before sinking to the floor next to the hybrid.

"I can't do it." She shook her head. "You're going to have to. I just can't."

Tyler nodded, lifting himself off the floor and crossing the room. There was some debris from the holes he had tried to punch through the walls. With a sigh, he picked up a piece of the metal and returned to the werewolf, kneeling in front of here.

"Bite down," he handed over the fragment. "Do not scream."

Erica only nodded, placing the hunk of stone in her mouth and closing her eyes. Her entire body tensed as she felt the hybrid's hands on her and she turned her head away, pressing her cheek against the cold wall.

"One, two -"

Erica's world exploded into fireworks of white heat and dizzying colors. Somewhere in the distance she felt her teeth chipping at the metal gag - and her mind flashed back to that seizure in the classroom and the kid sticking a ruler between her teeth - but it was a shadow of discomfort compared to the agony tidal waving from her limb.

"Breathe."

Erica didn't know why, but she obeyed. Her eyes opened and she was staring straight into a pair of brown irises that looked at her in a way that she wasn't sure she had ever seen before. Maybe Stiles, after he'd helped get her to Derek and stopped the Kanima venom-induced seizure. Maybe Scott, when he told them to be careful with Jackson. Maybe even Derek, after he broke her arm and bled out the venom. Maybe. But something about this felt different.

She was so distracted at the thought that she had forgotten about the pain. Didn't notice when it faded. When she healed.

"It - it worked!"

Erica blinked and then glanced down at her forearm, twisted it and flexing her fingers.

"I healed ?" She swallowed, and then snapped her head back up to meet that gaze again. "It worked. I healed. I can do this." She was nodding and bracing herself again and smiling all at once. "I can do this."

"I can't do this," Stiles huffed, glaring at the unlit candle across the table.

"And that's precisely why you can't," Deaton folded his arms across his chest.

"What?" Stiles whipped his head toward the vet.

"You think you can't, so you can't."

"We don't have time for the Little Engine that Could to get another pep talk from Papa Smurf," Damon grunted.

"Ok, now you're just getting desperate to beat me at the nickname game," Stiles grinned.

"Leave us," Deaton waved a hand.

"I'm not leaving until that candle is lit and a locator spell is done and we're on our way to save my girlfriend."

"If you truly want any of that to happen, you'll leave, now ."

"I think you forget who you're talkin' to," Damon leaned in toward the older man.

"And you have no idea who you're talking to," Deaton straightened, stare meeting the vampire's without flinching.

"I'm gonna go get a glass of dear old daddy sheriff's bottom shelf bourbon. Fix him, or that's not all I'm gonna be drinking."

Deaton's stance nor glare failed to falter as the vampire slipped out of the living room and into the kitchen.

"You know he can still hear us, right?" Stiles rolled his eyes. "And whatever you're gonna say to me, you've said it before. We've been at this for weeks. Weeks of history lessons and unlit candles and new threats from a vampire, who, by the way, I'm pretty sure is gonna follow through on some of those threats pretty soon. Let's just call it, okay, doc? We tried -"

"Did you, Stiles? Did you try?"

Stiles' brow bent forward, eyes slitting as his head tilted and twitched in two sharp motions.

"Are you kidding? I've been here with you, mister cryptic veterinarian - who obviously is more than a veterinarian but will never tell me what - guy and with a vampire, who has painted pretty pictures of how he is going to kill me in more colorful ways than I ever thought possible, every day. I've read every book you've given me. Learned about my apparent new family history. Went through that witch, Bonnie's, grimoire, twice. I don't know about you, but to me, that counts as trying."

"But you don't believe."

"Man, what does that even mean? You said that to me a month ago, and then pulled a Deaton and never explained yourself."

"You remember the mountain ash."

"The magic ash that I apparently made more magicky, yeah, we've covered how that was not normal and somehow proved my witchiness to you."

"I told you that it worked through the power of belief. You had to believe it was going to work."

"Look, doc, if you're about to start singing to the tune of a Disney song about how I need to just believe in my magic -"

"Not in your magic, Stiles," Deaton frowned, fixing the boy with a look of not frustration, but of something fatherly, "in you."

"Great," Stiles craned his neck. "That's even more Disney."

"I'm serious, Stiles. This is serious. If you want to save your friends, if you want to save Erica and Boyd, then you've got to believe."

"Me save Erica and Boyd? Didn't you hear? That didn't work out so great last time. I ended up trapped in Argent's basement and they got front row seats to my humiliation and beat down."

"That's what this all comes down to, doesn't it?" Deaton craned his neck. "That night. What happened to you. What Gerard did to you."

"That -"

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me!"

Stiles whirled around as the vampire appeared back in the room.

" That's what's causing your magical constipation? 'Cause you got beat up by Grandpa Hunter."

"He didn't -"

"He didn't what? He didn't just beat you? Of course not. He humiliated you. Said so yourself. Showed you how useless, how powerless, you are. But what did you do after he kicked the crap outta you? You're still lying on the ground in that basement. Except he isn't the one keeping you down, you are. You keep whining about him, but he's not here. You are. You think you're not strong enough. Too human. Too weak. Too afraid. So you lay there, in the dark, on the floor. Letting your friends push you around and tell you it's too dangerous for you to get involved. Hell, I've told Jeremy that a hundred times, and a hundred times he still shows up with some stupid crossbow. We got the whole boring Beacon Hills history from your friends and it sounds like you used to be exactly the same. You want to show your friends, show yourself, that you're strong? Then do something. I think you've been hiding in that basement long enough, Stiles. Time to get up ."