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Episode 2x01 - "Thief"

As everyone struggles to catch their breath after the nearly catastrophic events of the night before, Peter finds himself in dire straits, bombarded by flashbacks and leaving him little choice but to reflect on his life as Derek's protector while Isaac and Lydia face uncertain futures.

Chapter Text

Everything around Peter Hale appeared to be moving in slow motion. Including himself. And everywhere he looked, the less sense the scene before him made. 

He stared up at the burnt out husk of his sister’s formerly glorious home. A home he had helped her build. Two stories. Columns. All whites and creams and all the shades of gray. Even a wraparound porch. And that last one had been her only real requirement. She wanted to be able to stand there and see the majestic forest that surrounded that home from every angle available. 

Now, it was all gone.

The smoke that enveloped him, and every goddamn firefighter in Beacon Hills, made his eyes water. Or maybe he was crying. It didn’t matter and he couldn’t tell anyway. 

“Tal!” he called, advancing toward the house finally. “Talia!” 

The ashes of the place were still smoldering, but he didn’t mind. He had to find them. All of them. He had to know they were safe, that they had made it out of the wreckage. That they were waiting on him in a nearby ambulance, wrapped up in those blankets that always reminded him of aluminum foil. 

They would hug and she would tell him everything was okay. She would insist that they had their work cut out for them with this one, but they would be together and it would be all right. 

“Sir, Peter Hale is here!” 

He didn’t recognize the voice. Again, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t about to stop. He didn’t have it in him. The way his legs were moving as if they were made of lead or he was wading through quicksand told him if he didn’t keep going, he’d never make it. 

And he had to make it. 

“Talia!” 

No answer. No sighs of relief. Nothing. 

His eyes darted around some more, the usual speed of the world returning rather violently. All the sounds overwhelming him at once as he stretched out with his supernatural senses to try and find his sister. 

Then he searched for a familiar face. Even just one. Nothing. Nobody. But that didn’t make any sense, damnit. The entire pack had been in that house. All of them. And he, Peter Hale, the Beta to his sister’s Alpha, was going to get there later than all the rest because he had just finished his last final for his first semester in college. Talia was supposed to be waiting up for him. They were going to celebrate. And then tomorrow was the big meeting. 

They were making it official. Derek’s older sister had passed on being the next Alpha when Talia stepped down. She and his niece had talked until they were both blue in the face, each giving their best arguments, and in the end, Talia had folded. She only wanted the best for her children, never forcing them into roles like their parents before her. 

They were going to surprise Derek. Let him know that it was his if he wanted it. And Peter would be his Beta, if his nephew would have him. 

Now… nothing. It was all gone. 

“Talia!” he screamed again, refusing to give in to the idea that he was truly alone. He would find them. There were no body bags, so there must be hope. “Someone go inside and get them! Please! They’re all inside.”

And then, Peter was on his stomach, clawing at the ground, struggling to break free from the immovable force that kept him planted. 

“Son, it’s okay,” another voice called back. “We got you. I got you.”

He was being held in place. Three large men were holding him back, keeping him safe. The smoke was too much and the fire wasn’t entirely extinguished, but it was over. It was all over. 

After another minute, when all the fight was gone from his body, they lifted Peter up and sat him on the edge of the nearest fire truck. 

“Peter, my name is Captain… I mean, Sheriff Stilinski. But you can call me Noah.”

Peter stared ahead, not saying a word. He was focused solely on breathing now as his mind wrapped itself around the idea that they were gone. And he was alone. 

“I am so sorry, son,” Noah continued. 

The man hung his head and Peter furrowed his brows. He had said those words recently to someone else. Peter could feel it. And he wasn’t sure how he knew it to be the truth, but it was. It just was. 

Peter remembered how he had voted for this man. His first election. At the time, even though it was only for their small town, it felt like a momentous occasion to him. He was doing his civic duty. And he had done his research. Noah Stilinski was a good man. He would fight for what was right. 

But this man, the one before him, was rundown, as if life had simply become too much since Peter had last laid eyes on him. Something he also intimately understood now. 

He wished he didn’t. 

He wished neither of them did. 

“What happened?”

Peter’s voice was hoarse from the screaming, and likely a little from the smoke too, but he had questions and needed so many answers. 

“We don’t know,” Noah admitted. “Someone called in the fire. No idea who it was. Someone camping close by, if I had to guess. But when we got here, it was already so bad.”

“Talia?”

Noah shook his head, and while Peter knew what it meant, he needed the sheriff to speak the words. Make it real. 

“Gone,” he finally replied. “Smoke inhalation. We found them in their beds.”

“Them?”

He nodded. “Talia, Laura, and Cora.” He swallowed hard. “And a few others.”

Yeah, a few. The rest of the pack. And now Peter had inherited the power of Alpha, though he had never, ever wanted it. Second-in-command was where he did his best work. 

“I’m so sorry, Peter,” Noah repeated. “Someone, uh, needs to go pick up Derek, though. I can have some of my deputies get him off the bus and take him to the police station. You can meet him there or…”

“Derek?” Noah nodded slowly. “Derek wasn’t at home?”

“No. He had an away game,” he confirmed. “He wasn’t going to get in until late. They’re heading back now. We already called Coach, but he said he would let us tell him. He… he has no idea.”

“Derek is alive?”

He nodded again, just as slowly, as confusion crossed his features. He seemed concerned at how easily Peter had accepted that he was alone, but not that there was someone left. And Peter didn’t blame him. But with the way his life had gone, it made sense. Peter always lost everything. 

“I have to tell him?”

“I’ll go with you, kid,” Noah promised. “I got you.”

And Peter believed him. 

They stood up together, the newly downtrodden sheriff and the grief-stricken wolf, and headed toward the police cruiser that would take Peter to Derek and the most difficult conversation he would ever have. 

Suddenly, Peter sucked in a lungful of air as his eyes darted around again. He wasn’t back there anymore. It had been a nightmare. One he relived frequently. But it didn’t seem his current predicament was much better. 

He was in a dank basement he had never seen before in his life. Most of the space was bathed in darkness and even his usual abilities were muted. He couldn’t see into the shadows. Instead, he could barely make out a workbench and a lamp. And even that was blurry. 

Peter looked upward, noticing he was suspended by his arms with a rope that was positively soaked in wolfsbane. The smell alone burned his eyes. But then it dripped in his face, getting in his mouth, which caused his whole body to seize for the longest, most excruciating moment while he struggled to catch his breath again. 

And fuck did it sting everywhere. 

“Nice to have you back with us, Peter.” He tried to clear his mind, place that voice, but he came up empty. “Guess it’s time we got started.”

Chapter Text

Derek stared Deaton down as he worked on Isaac’s bullet-ridden body. He was laid out on the exam table a few feet away. Maybe inches, really. And Derek Hale couldn’t move. He was frozen, his mind racing to catch up to the scene in front of him.

And then Isaac snapped at Stiles.

He had regained some of his supernatural strength through Melissa’s quick thinking, according to what Scott had told him the moment he’d walked through the front door after the frantic call that had led Derek here. And it was that exact thing that forced him forward.

He used one arm to hold Isaac down while pushing Stiles against the nearest wall with his other arm across his chest.

“Stop, Derek!” Stiles complained. “He’s my friend.”

“You’re too goddamn close, Stiles,” Derek explained. “Back up. Now!”

Derek knew that Stiles had likely been through some shit in the last few hours, but he wasn’t going to be able to focus on helping Deaton, when and if he needed it, if he was worried about the pack human getting bitten. And even though Stiles, and his usual stubborn self, likely had a well-reasoned argument all locked and loaded, he simply pursed his lips and did as he was told, likely for the first time in his whole life, his back hitting the wall.

The look on his face said he was ready to claw Derek’s eyeballs right out, but all Derek could do was fight the urge to laugh. Now was not the time. No matter how hilariously adorable it was that Stiles Stilinski was trying to appear threatening to a werewolf.

“What the fuck happened?” Derek asked, turning back to Scott, who was on the other side of the table. “And why didn’t you bring him here first?”

“We were headed… out,” Scott began. “Obviously, we were ambushed or something. The minute we hit the front porch. Isaac was the first one outside and…”

He motioned toward the mostly listless Isaac between them, and Derek struggled to shake the memories of his own time on this table after his run-in with likely the same type of bullets. He understood the random bouts of energy followed by extreme fatigue as the wolfsbane coursed through your veins.

“We couldn’t move him at first. He was bleeding way too much,” Scott continued. “And then we figured out they were silver when he didn’t heal right away. Then the black veins, you know? I tried Peter. And then you. But when you guys didn’t answer, I called my mom and she brought Stiles’ dad. I’m… I’m sorry, Derek.”

“It’s fine. I get it.”

And he did. Derek wasn’t lying. Even though he was basically an orphan, they each had one parent they could call, and Melissa had medical training. Not werewolf medical training, but it made sense they would think of her.

“I know you told us not to be out,” Scott said, hanging his head. “But…”

“But we were going to a party in the middle of town,” Stiles interrupted obstinately, his arms crossed over his chest in defiance. “We were going to be around a ton of fucking people. And we deserve to be normal-ass teenagers sometimes, Derek.”

“Funnily enough, I don’t share your opinion, Stiles,” Derek contradicted. “Because Scott is not a normal-ass teenager. And you all fucking almost died, so maybe there’s something to my rules, huh?”

Stiles rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. “No one was shooting at me. I’m not a werewolf.”

“Not the point.”

“You’re right. The point is that this is clearly the Argents,” Stiles insisted. “So, go over there and end this, Derek.”

“It’s not the Argents,” Derek argued. “They have a code. They don’t go after younger wolves at all, and definitely not ones that have never lifted a finger against anyone.”

“Whatever,” Stiles muttered. “Someone shot him.”

“Yes, they did,” Deaton confirmed. “A lot. And I need quiet, please.”

Derek pulled his eyes from Stiles after another long second, turning his attention to Deaton again. “What else do you need?”

“Space,” Deaton said. “And time.”

Derek nodded once, unfolded his own arms, which he hadn’t realized he’d crossed to match Stiles, and motioned for them to follow him back to the lobby. But they both stayed planted. And with Stiles, at least, Derek knew he could move him if he wanted to do it, but he also understood their reluctance to let Isaac out of their sight.

Derek didn’t want to do it either.

After another minute, Scott met him and Stiles near the door. “Is this going to work?”

Derek looked to Deaton again, who offered him a cursory glance. No more than two seconds. But it spoke volumes. And what it said was that even though Isaac came into this building with all kinds of fight, he was more black coagulated blood than boy right now, and it would be a miracle if he made it.

A miracle Deaton seemed at least semi-confident he could pull off.

Derek had come in with one bullet, though. One singular bullet. And he had barely made it out alive. Granted, he didn’t have Melissa to patch him up, doing what she could while they transported him here either, so maybe that would be the thing that made the difference.

He wanted it to make a difference.

Stiles needed it to make a difference.

Stiles’ expression, as he tried again to force him back over the threshold and toward his father, nearly shredded Derek’s insides to ribbons. Because that was saying plenty as well. He was afraid. He was fucking terrified he was about to lose someone else he loved. God, Derek knew that feeling and it was the worst. But watching it on someone else, especially Stiles—funny, lighthearted, sarcastic Stiles—was harder than Derek thought possible.

In the next instant, Derek decided he had to put everything to rest between him and Peter. Nothing else mattered. None of that shit had been true. He could see it now. Stiles was right. They couldn’t be apart right now. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he saw he had probably played right into the rogue hunters’ hands with the way he’d acted. Peter Hale had not killed his fucking sister and his nieces. Just the thought was insane.

And no matter what had gone on with him and Kate, the fact that Derek had believed it at all was ludicrous. And possibly unforgivable.

He pulled out his phone, dead set on finding his uncle to apologize right the fuck now, but when he called it went straight to voicemail. And this wasn’t exactly the type of thing he could send through text.

Derek headed back to the lobby alone to pace in peace when Melissa stood up to greet him, as if he might have news on the boy they had brought here.

Oh.

Fuck.

Shit.

Two more humans knew that werewolves existed. And they were taking it surprisingly well. Or as well as to be expected. Neither of them was screaming, for one. They just appeared concerned for Isaac. It was sweet.

“It’s, umm… we don’t know anything yet,” Derek admitted. “But it’s pretty bad. Those bullets were, uh, silver. And they’re probably coated in wolfsbane, if I had to guess.”

Melissa nodded and sat back down as Noah did the same, putting his head in his hands. He groaned quietly, more to her than anyone else. “How am I supposed to keep these kids safe?”

She rubbed his back. “We’ll figure it out, okay?”

Derek stepped back toward the desk, catching Stiles as he joined them. “How much do they know?” he whispered.

Stiles watched them for a second, sighing heavily. “Everything.” His shoulders slumped next. “Sorry, Sourwolf.”

“No, it’s okay,” he repeated. “I get it.” He reached across the space between them, putting a hand on his shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “They need to know.”

Then he gave him another pat as Stiles walked over to the pair and sat down next to his dad, Derek following shortly after to sit across from them. He knew it was better to wait for the freak-out and questions to come on their own instead of forcing the conversation. Because the freak-out was coming. No one learned about all that and remained calm.

But several minutes later, they were still silent. Well, mostly. Melissa began to cry and Noah pulled her into a hug.

She wanted to help. Derek could tell. But she couldn’t right now. She was out of her element. She was a nurse, sure, and a damn good one, but she wasn’t an emissary or even all that well-versed in the supernatural. Not yet, anyway. But if Derek knew her like he thought he did, it would only be a matter of time. Because Scott was involved. Melissa would pick Stiles’ brain about all his accumulated knowledge, uncovering a hefty helping of her own, until she rivaled Deaton.

And that wasn’t a bad thing.

Peter and Stiles were right. They needed all the help they could get. And trusting people wasn’t the worst idea as long as they were the right people. And when you found those people, it turned out, you couldn’t let them go.

A gentle ‘tink, tink, tink’ filled the air as they waited, the sound of Deaton removing shrapnel from Isaac. That and Stiles’ erratic breathing.

Derek wanted to tell him to focus for a second, calm himself down, but he wasn’t dumb enough to get into that argument anymore. It never led to anything but frustration for both of them.

Then Stiles’ phone rang, reminding them all that a whole world existed outside of this space.

Derek turned to him, hoping it was Peter. It would hurt his feelings, but Peter was likely angry at him. Derek had shown him he didn’t trust him when shit hit the fan. And in the worst way.

“Whoa, slow down. What, Jackson? I can’t… I can’t hear you, man. Where are you?”

Okay, not at all who Derek thought might interrupt their hellscape of a night, but one more weird thing didn’t even really register anymore. Then again, normal hadn’t really factored into their lives for a few months.

Then Stiles was running toward the front door, Derek catching his hand as he barreled past him. Stiles stopped, looking down at where they were connected.

“It’s Lydia, Derek,” he explained, tears filling his eyes quickly, threatening to spill over. “She’s at the hospital. They found her bleeding out in the parking lot of her fucking gym. I…” He gulped loudly. “I have to go.”

Derek dropped his hand, and then Scott appeared next to them, torn between staying for Isaac and going with Stiles. But Derek knew where he was needed, giving him a nod of approval. And Melissa stood up as well. She could offer her help there. Human help. Noah finally stood up also, giving her a sweet kiss.

Then he whispered for her to be safe and she cupped his cheek before racing out after Stiles and Scott, leaving Derek and Noah alone. Noah was staying. He was staying right next to Derek, just as he had the night he had delivered terrible, life-altering news.

And it hurt just the same too, Derek realized. Though the sting was more of a dull ache now since he could still hear the uneven beat of Isaac’s heart on the other side of the wall. 

Chapter Text

With no other thought in his brain besides getting to Lydia as soon as possible, Stiles rushed through the sliding glass doors of Beacon Hills General Hospital, absolutely no regard to his or anyone else’s safety. But as soon as they were inside, Melissa surged forward, grabbing a chart from the circulation desk and flipping open the plastic cover before pointing down one of the main hallways.

Stiles had always felt her ability to pick up the right chart with barely a glance was a superpower, and in this moment, he had never felt more sure of it.

As they passed each bed in the emergency room in the next second, Stiles pulled back the curtains. He knew they would need to get her stable, if that was even possible, before transporting her to another part of the hospital, so the emergency room was the most logical beginning point for his frenzied and desperate search.

But if she already had a chart, that meant they’d been here for a while. One bad sign after another, as far as he was concerned.

Sure, there were patient confidentiality issues to worry about with the way he was whipping open each curtain, revealing either an empty bed or the wrong patient, but his mind couldn’t focus on that. And Melissa wasn’t stopping him. No, the only thing he seemed to be able to imagine was Lydia laying in one of these beds, slipping away from him.

And just like that, he couldn’t fucking breathe again.

First, Isaac. Now this. It was too much. And it was this fucking hospital again. Apparently, this place just wasn’t going to stop until it took everything from him.

Melissa’s shoulder brushed Stiles’ as she rushed ahead of them, beating him to the last bed on the right, its curtain hanging open slightly due to the sheer volume of people coming and going. He heard her demand information from the attending physician on duty, using her mom voice. The very voice Stiles had witnessed many times used on Scott. Even a few times on him. Okay, more than a few times.

But it was a voice that left very little question that Melissa McCall had come for answers and she was going to get them.

The doctor rattled off different stats, but Stiles didn’t understand one of them. He might as well have been speaking another language with how difficult it was for Stiles to comprehend a fucking word of it. All he could concentrate on was the fact that for the first time in his life his overactive, slightly hypochondriac, and most definitely worst-case scenario brain hadn’t come close to the horrific reality of a situation.

Lydia was laying there covered in her own blood.

Her white shirt was stained crimson. Her light gray shoes flecked with blood. Her face, white as the sheets beneath her, had some of her unruly, slightly curly red hair matted to it.

Stiles bent forward, bracing himself on his knees as he struggled to remain upright. He was hyperventilating. The blackness around the edges of his vision closing in rapidly. This was it. His life was over.

“Jackson!” Scott nearly screeched, causing Stiles’ head to snap back up. “Oh my God, what’s going on? What happened?”

Stiles searched for the familiar face, finding Jackson in the crowd easily. Thankfully, most streaming toward Lydia weren’t paying them any attention, and while he understood how he could have missed their friend with all that was going on around them, he still felt awful.

This was Jackson’s actual girlfriend. They were in love. A crush, even decades long, did not trump that. God, Stiles Stilinski could be a selfish fucking prick sometimes.

“I don’t know a lot,” Jackson admitted, hanging his head.

He hiccuped once, gulping for air, like he’d been crying for the better part of an hour. Stiles knew that kind of crying too. It wracked your whole body. It shook you to your core. It made you think you’d never, ever breathe right again.

“They said they found her in the parking lot beside her car.” That much they already knew. “Someone called it in. They don’t know who it was, but the person said it was an animal. That it just came out of the trees and bit her.” Jackson turned to Stiles. “That’s not right, though, is it?” He lowered his voice to a whisper, forcing him to lean in closer to hear it all. “It’s gotta be the rogue werewolf you guys were talking about, right, Stiles?”

Stiles wanted desperately to offer something that would reassure Jackson, make him think it might all be okay, because he needed that too, but he didn’t have it in him to lie either.

“I… I don’t know, man,” Stiles offered up lamely. “I’m so sorry. I wish I knew what was going on. We, uh, were with Isaac when you called me. He got shot.”

“Did you say shot?” Jackson hissed. “Isn’t he…”

“Silver bullets,” Stiles interjected.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“It seems coordinated,” Stiles responded, almost absentmindedly. He had a puzzle. He wanted to solve it. It offered a nice distraction, if nothing else. “But why us?”

They hadn’t done anything, at least not that Stiles could see, that would draw this sort of ire from someone. But it’s not like bad guys were super rational-thinking dudes or something. They tended to allow their unjust and unfounded biases to dictate their violent actions.

“Did you call Allison?” Jackson asked, turning his attention back to Scott. “Maybe she knows what’s happening. It could be her family. Maybe she knows something.”

Stiles hid his amusement well at that comment. Or he hoped he did. But it was hard as hell when someone was so readily willing to agree with him, coming to the same conclusions easily. Just because Derek was blinded by his supposed pact with them and Scott because of Allison didn’t make it a less valid claim.

But as Scott went to call Allison after one curt nod, she found them. And it was clear she’d already been crying too. Tear tracks cut lines through her otherwise flawless makeup. Scott held open his arms for her and she fell into them without hesitation, her shoulders shaking as she buried her face in his chest.

It wasn’t them.

Or Allison, Chris, and Victoria Argent were unaware of any big plans, at the very least. And, now that his mind was more or less ordered again, he could see how ridiculous it was to assume her parents would ever let a bunch of innocent kids get hurt, especially when their daughter was so closely tied in with the bunch in question.

After a long second, each of them silently scrambling to come to terms with the possibilities of how this night might end, a nurse came and ushered them toward the nearest waiting room.

Stiles knew they shouldn’t be this close to the action. He had been here enough over the years to understand the rules. But he wanted very much to protest them in this instance. Then again, this wasn’t Deaton’s vet clinic and this nurse wasn’t Derek Hale. Stiles couldn’t strong-arm his way past protocols with a coherent argument. He had to follow the rules.

They all did.

Jackson appeared ready to throw a fit of his own about being removed from Lydia, but Stiles placed an arm around his shoulders and steered him in the direction the nurse was walking, the ICU waiting room.

The Intensive Care Unit. And in Beacon Hills, on occasion, the palliative care unit. Stiles had lived in this fucking room once upon a time. And he had no desire to go into it again. Normally, he avoided this place like the goddamn plague, but he didn’t have a choice. He had to be there for his friends.

He took a deep breath and walked in, letting the door close behind them, blocking out most of the noise in the rest of the hospital. Then he swallowed hard, forcing him to look to his left, where his little cot used to rest. The one they had brought in especially for him since he refused to ever leave his mother’s side.

Even when she had forgotten him.

It was gone, of course, and the rest of the room was empty except for them. Blissfully empty. This was not a good sign, to be in here, but it was better than the alternative. The morgue was one floor directly below them and Stiles wanted to visit that place again even less than this one.

Jackson began to pace first. Then Allison. Finally, Scott. Stiles, however, couldn’t bring himself to stand once he sat down. Everything hurt. His legs didn’t work. Nothing worked. Not even his heart.

This was not how this night was supposed to go, damnit, he thought. Jackson and Lydia were supposed to meet Scott, Stiles, Isaac, and Allison at a party being thrown by a fellow senior. It was supposed to be an evening filled with dancing and drinking and Stiles was sure a bunch of other shit they weren’t supposed to be doing.

But the point had been that it was going to be normal for five fucking seconds.

And now they were all sitting in the ICU waiting room, praying that Lydia made it through while Isaac fought for his life under Deaton’s care and Derek’s watchful eye across town.

Both had nearly been taken by something otherworldly, it seemed. So not normal.

After what felt like a trillion years, or twenty minutes—Stiles couldn’t be sure—Melissa reappeared, looking considerably more stressed and haggard than when they’d walked through the front doors. And he knew that she’d only just gotten off work when he’d called his dad earlier.

She had likely been up for over 24 hours at this point.

But Stiles pushed all that out of his head. He just focused on dissecting her facial expressions, trying to determine the news she was going to deliver before she said the words. That way he could prepare himself. Prepare his heart.

“She’s resting,” Melissa assured them.

Every single person in the room let out an audible sigh of relief, Jackson’s the biggest of all, which was accompanied by a single, very manly, tear. He didn’t bother to wipe it away, though, and no one said a word. They all felt that relief deep in their bones.

She was still here.

She was still with them.

Melissa leaned forward, lowering her voice as Jackson had done earlier, and spoke directly to Stiles. The rest were now all celebrating too loudly to hear as she whispered near his ear.

“She’s got a very large bite on her neck. It’s bad.” Stiles’ eyebrows furrowed. “And as I was walking out, she woke up and grabbed my hand. She said a name. And I figured you might need that information more than I needed to recheck her leads for the millionth time.”

Stiles waited with bated breath. He was totally unsure of how to handle this, though. No matter what name she said, he knew he wasn’t going to be ready for this.

“She said Peter.”

Peter called. Peter called and lied to the police. He had bitten her. The fucking bastard had bitten her in his partially wolfed out haze, likely very upset and overwhelmed by his nephew questioning his loyalty.

Not that any of that excused his actions. And it made Stiles wonder what else might be a fucking lie.

“Is she going to make it?” Jackson interrupted.

Melissa moved back to her seat again, sighing heavily. “She’s in the ICU, and she’s resting, but I don’t know, Jackson. It’s still very touch and go. Did you call her parents?”

Jackson nodded and Stiles’ mouth gaped for a fraction of a second. He knew what she was doing right now. She was preparing him. He’d seen her do it before. To him. And it turned out it was just as excruciating to witness as be on the receiving end of it.

He imagined it was no fucking picnic for her either, though. Lydia was someone she had watched grow up. But right now, she was Nurse Melissa, not Mama McCall. She was preparing a patient’s family for a horrible, but somewhat likely, outcome. And Stiles’ stomach did a flip.

The celebration died down quickly as Melissa stood and walked back toward where Stiles knew one of his best friends was now fast asleep.

And Stiles stood too, sneaking out with everyone distracted by their own grief. He had a fucking phone call to make. 

Chapter Text

Peter had been waiting for what felt like an eternity. And yes, he knew he was being dramatic, but he didn’t care right now. This was the single most important meeting of his life. For one, it would determine exactly what his life would look like for the foreseeable future.

He kept rubbing his sweaty palms against the one pair of pressed khaki pants he owned as the nervousness settled into the pit of his stomach, churning it quite unhelpfully, if he did say so himself. But the nauseous feeling was gone as quick as it had come since everything, including the anxiety wafting off him, came in waves.

One second, he was fine. The next, he was ready to throw up all over the ancient carpet in the office they had escorted him to the moment he’d stepped foot inside their local Department of Human Services regional headquarters.

After another second, a woman entered. She carried herself like someone with the weight of the world on her shoulders, but not in a way that might bury lesser mortals. No, she reveled in it. Peter could tell. And he admired her for it instantly. But the stern, and otherwise emotionless, look on her face terrified him.

“Hello, Mr. Hale,” she began, sitting behind her desk. “Thank you for coming in today.”

“Yeah,” he offered back lamely.

He had no idea what to say. Peter had no practice with this sort of thing. And he hadn’t even thought to pray that he might never experience it either. Now, that felt foolish. Safety had always felt like a foregone conclusion since they were fucking werewolves.

Oh, how wrong he had been.

She considered him for a second and then pulled out a large stack of papers before plopping them on the desk between them. “Well, let’s go through this and you can be on your way. If you’ll just sign here, you can get out of here, okay?”

She pointed a manicured finger at a spot on the front page, holding out a pen with her other hand. He perked an eyebrow at her. “What’s this?”

“It just says that you release all legal claims you have regarding the guardianship of your nephew,” she replied nonchalantly.

Then she fucking shrugged. Like she hadn’t just totally and completely destroyed him.

“Why in the hell would I do that?” he asked through gritted teeth, barely containing his anger.

“You’re 22.”

“And?”

He sighed heavily in the next instant, scooting back in his chair and away from the desk, wanting to get as far as he could from that paperwork. “You think putting him in foster care is a good idea?”

“It wouldn’t be for that much longer, Mr. Hale.”

She was right, of course. But it would be long enough for something terrible to happen, Peter was convinced. Derek would be an unfettered Beta. Vulnerable. Defenseless. Unguarded. Hell, any wolf without their pack was at risk, but a lone Hale pack member out in the world was basically just asking for shit to hit the fan.

No. Not going to happen. Peter had lost enough for a few lifetimes.

“I’m not signing that,” he insisted.

“We’re out of options, Mr. Hale.” Her tone now held a hint of heaviness it hadn’t earlier. “Your sister granted guardianship of her children to her parents should anything happen to her. Not you.”

Peter stood so fast his chair slammed against the floor, vibrating slightly on impact. “They were in that fucking house with her. And I was second in line. I was always the back-up plan.”

“You’re in school,” she continued.

“I dropped out last week,” Peter conceded. “You know, when our entire family died.” He let out a huff, knowing none of this was her fault. He just had nowhere else to direct his vitriol about the situation. “You’re really going to take the only family I have left from me too?” She didn’t respond, so he decided to get everything off his chest. “She set us up, you know, financially. If that’s what you’re worried about. It’s not a lot. It’s not like I’m winning the lottery or anything. I… I just want my nephew.”

“You’re very nearly the same age,” she argued. “What could you possibly offer him in terms of wisdom?”

As much as he hated to admit it, that one had him faltering. Stumbling. Stuttering. He had no real answer for it. And it’s not like he could tell her that he was the Alpha, and with it came certain inalienable truths and responsibilities. Humans couldn’t know werewolves existed. But he couldn’t lose Derek either. There was just too much that could and likely would happen if he let Derek out of his sight for that long. He couldn’t risk it.

He couldn’t risk Derek.

“He’s my family, ma’am,” Peter said, his shoulders slumping slightly. “He’s all I have left.” He could sense the hammer about to be brought down, but he had to try. He had to get it all out. “I’ll figure it out. I promise you. You can have someone come and check on us every week. Every damn day, if you need to. You can even have the school call you the first time he’s tardy, but…” He gulped loudly, struggling to dislodge the lump forming rapidly in his throat. “But please don’t take him away from me. I can do this.”

She stared right at him before a small smile began to spread slowly. And then pulled out another stack of papers, replacing the first, which she put right in the trashcan near her feet.

“What’s this?”

“Congratulations, Mr. Hale. It’s a bouncing teenage boy,” she teased. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Not at all, he thought. But he wasn’t about to voice that.

“Thank you, ma’am. For this chance.”

“I will be checking on you, Mr. Hale.”

“Understood.”

The delirium as he signed the second set of papers in several places made him dizzy. He couldn’t believe it had worked, that he’d convinced her—or really anyone—that he was an acceptable replacement for a parental figure in Derek’s life. But that didn’t matter right now. Someone trusted him. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough.

Now he just prayed that he was enough.

And then he gasped loudly, sucking in a lungful of air as the ropes holding him to the beam above his head twisted painfully, forcing jolts of excruciating, searing agony through his already tortured body.

He was back in that basement. He was still strung up. He was still being maimed and beaten regularly, blood pouring from slowly healing wounds all over his torso. But the panting wasn’t from the physical torment. Nope. No way. That was from the emotional bullshit his mind seemed content to subject him to at regular, maddening intervals while being stuck in here.

But all he could think about, the only face that popped into his head before the pain dragged him under again, was Derek. And praying that they hadn’t found him too. That he wasn’t a room away going through the exact same fucking thing. 

Chapter Text

Tink. Tink. Tink.

The gentle sound of metal hitting metal was all Derek and Noah had needed in the way of company for over an hour now. And neither of them had said a word since the others had left. But that was okay. They were both used to the quiet, had grown accustomed to it.

To them, it was nice. Lately, anyway. In the beginning, not so much. In the beginning, quiet meant being alone. In the beginning, quiet meant debilitating, life-altering grief. Now, quiet meant something different. Something good.

Tink. Tink.

Deaton was nearly finished. Derek could hear it in the way he breathed. Slow. Steady. And it wasn’t forced either. To the untrained ear, it was hard to discern the difference since he was a doctor. On occasion, Deaton breathed that way purely for the benefit of the patient, to calm his shaking hands. But this wasn’t that. Isaac would be fine. Derek could sense it.

He would live.

Derek’s phone rang, disrupting their peace, and he jumped slightly at the noise. “Stiles?” Noah sat up straighter out of the corner of his eye. “What’s going on? Is Lydia okay?”

The other boy sighed heavily into the receiver and Derek slammed his eyes shut. Not again. Not another one.

“She’s alive, but… but she was bitten,” Stiles finally admitted. “Fucking bitten.”

He was mad. Seething, even. Derek’s eyes opened back up slowly and his brows furrowed in confusion. She was alive. That was good. No, great. Amazing.

“Okay,” he replied slowly.

“By a werewolf, Derek.”

Oh. Fuck. “The rogue?”

“Nope.” Stiles gave a laugh. A spiteful, derisive sort. The kind Derek never wanted to hear coming from Stiles again. It felt wrong. “Guess again.”

“Is she okay, Stiles?”

“No, Derek,” Stiles insisted. “No, she was bitten by your psycho uncle.”

Derek balked. “Peter?”

“That’s what she said.”

“Lydia told you it was Peter?”

Weirdly, the fact that Lydia had enough strength to point fingers at anyone, even his uncle, gave him hope. It bolstered him.

“She told Melissa,” Stiles clarified. “But same fucking thing.” Agreed. “And I swear to God, Derek. I’m going to kill him.” Yep, fair enough. “I don’t care if she pulls through now. I’m going to kill him myself.” Okay, uh, no. Too dangerous. “That’s not true,” he corrected. “I care. Of course I care. She better fucking make it. I just meant even if she does, he’s still dead.”

“Stiles, I…”

He had no idea how he was going to finish that sentence, so he let it filter off until there was nothing.

“What?”

It was Derek’s turn to sigh. “She was bitten, Stiles,” he repeated.

“Yeah. That’s what I said. They stopped the bleeding,” Stiles offered. “Melissa said it was still touch and go, obviously, but she’s in the ICU. They got it all under control. Jackson’s with her now.”

“She was bitten, Stiles,” Derek said, starting again. “Even if they stopped the bleeding.”

He had no desire to speak those words out loud. They were too hard. For a multitude of reasons. The first being that losing another person was no easier now than it had been before Stiles called. So he waited. He waited for Stiles to come to the correct conclusion.

“She might not make it.”

“Not everyone is capable of accepting the bite,” Derek explained softly. “And you don’t find that out until it’s too late. That’s the risk people take, though.”

“She didn’t ask for this, Derek.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Stiles promised.

“I’ll help,” Derek growled.

“Listen, uh, Sourwolf. I’m… I’m sorry. About earlier.”

His voice was so low. Nearly a whisper. But Derek had heard everything. “Sorry?”

“I should have listened to all the evidence about Peter instead of just assuming he couldn’t have done anything wrong,” he elaborated. “I shouldn’t have just blown it off and told you to trust him blindly. I…”

“It’s fine, Stiles. I get it.” And he did. “Don’t worry about it, okay? Just go be with your friends.”

“Okay.” He sighed into the receiver again. “Bye.”

As the line went dead, he stared down at the blank screen before looking up to meet Noah’s eyes. He had no words for him still, and he suddenly felt bad. He’d been able to talk to his son just fine. But it was clear he didn’t need to either. Noah just nodded. He understood without the recap.

The bell above the door jingled, jerking them rather violently out of their silent conversation. And then Kate was there.

Derek smiled up at her. Or maybe it was more of a grimace. He had no idea. It didn’t matter, though. Kate was beside him, lowering herself into the chair next to him and rubbing his back. Sure, it didn’t feel quite as good as before, but it was familiar. And he was short of that lately, so he’d take it.

“He’s fine.” Derek motioned with his head toward the room where Deaton was still working on Isaac. “Lydia too.”

“Lydia?” Kate asked. “Lydia Martin?”

He nodded. “Yeah, uh, she was bitten. By Peter.”

“Peter?”

Derek hung his head. He couldn’t say it again. He couldn’t confirm her worst fears. It was too hard. It stung way too fucking much.

“Well, do you, umm, want me to go over to the hospital and check on everyone there?”

“Do you mind?”

“Of course not.”

“I don’t like them by themselves,” Derek confessed. “Melissa is there, but she’s probably busy. And exhausted.”

“I don’t mind,” she reiterated.

As Kate rushed back out with hardly a backward glance the bell sounded through the lobby again, and both Derek and Noah leaned back in their chairs, reassuming the same positions they’d been in before the world had gone all topsy-turvy again. And they waited.

Tink.

Tink.

Deaton sighed, dropping the instruments he’d been holding to remove all the itty-bitty bullet fragments. And then Derek and Noah did the same. It was over. Or, rather, this part of the nightmare was over. Isaac was alive. And his heart grew stronger with each beat, no longer weighed down by the poison others called wolfsbane.

One part of the nightmare was over. A million more to go. 

Chapter Text

Stiles had been fussing with Lydia’s blanket, trying to get it to lay just right, for the better part of ten minutes. And, yeah, he knew it was pathetic, but he couldn’t stop himself either. It made him feel better. It was keeping him from totally and completely losing his fucking mind. Well, the whole blanket thing and the rhythmic beep of her heart monitor. There was just something about that thing that had always been comforting to Stiles.

Likely more trauma surrounding his mother. Not important right now. All he knew was he didn’t want to think. Nope. No sir. Thinking was bad. Thinking made Stiles all weepy. Thinking reminded him that they could still find themselves without Lydia in the morning if shit went sideways. So, he fussed with the blanket to keep himself from thinking. He didn’t want to think, damnit.

Not about the fact that Kate had shown up here earlier. Not about the way she had learned that her niece was more well-versed in all things paranormal than she had initially let on. Not about the way Stiles had forced them all out the door to concoct a plan to keep it from Gerard so Allison didn’t get shipped away because no way Scott wouldn't unravel if Allison suddenly disappeared.

And not about the fact that they still had no idea who had shot at them.

Another two minutes and Stiles finally managed to sit the hell down. He put his hands in his lap and relaxed further into his chair, watching Lydia’s chest rise and fall for a solid minute before turning to Jackson. No, he wasn’t hurt, but Stiles knew by now he could never be too careful in this hospital. Or this town. Weird shit happened constantly in Beacon Hills.

His eyes started to close next, his blinks getting longer and longer, about the time Lydia opened hers. And he gave her a lazy smile.

“Hey, you,” she whispered.

“Hey, Lyd,” he returned. “How are you feeling?”

He sat up, careful not to jostle her bed too much. Jackson needed the rest and he didn’t want to risk waking him up. Hell, Stiles probably needed it too, but he’d always had terrible sleep habits. There was no point in denying it or fighting them now when he could just put them to good use instead.

“Oh, you know, just peachy,” Lydia joked.

She sighed deeply, her breath hitching in her chest for only a second, but Stiles caught it. She was in pain, no matter how much she tried to pretend otherwise. And he would never, ever forgive Peter for making her feel that way. His Lydia was excellent at brushing most things under the rug, but she’d learn soon enough that wasn’t possible this time around.

Suddenly, it seemed to dawn on her where she was and why she was here. Her heart monitor reflected it shortly after too, like her memory was assaulting her with the moment Peter had bitten her. So, without thinking, Stiles reached forward and grabbed her hand, like it was instinctual, and gave it a kiss.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re fine.” Oh, well, no. She wasn’t fine. Not yet. But he still needed her to calm down before Melissa came bursting in here. “We, uh, don’t know where Peter is right now, but I already talked to Derek. He promised to hunt him down and make him pay.”

“Stiles, I…”

She bit her lip, as if she was nervous to keep speaking, afraid of his reaction to what would be the next words out of her mouth. And that confused him. Nothing this wonderful, amazing, incredible girl could say would upset him.

“What?”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she rushed to say in one breath.

“If what’s a good idea?”

“You didn’t see him,” she insisted. “He was so upset, Stiles.”

He scoffed, shaking his head but never letting go of her hand. “Lydia, he bit you. Do you understand what that means?” She shrugged. “I’m not trying to scare you, but you could still die.” He paused, allowing the severity of his words to sink in fully. People always had a tendency not to take him seriously due to his default setting of heavy sarcasm. “Your body could, like, reject the bite. He’s not going to get away with this.”

“Reject it? Like an organ?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” he acknowledged. “But it’s not like we get another shot at this. You don’t go back on the transplant list. You just… die.”

“Oh.” She ducked her head. “Gross.”

“Agreed,” he said, letting out his own dramatic, and definitely overexaggerated, sigh. “And to think… you used to be so hot.”

She laughed and then began to cough, clutching her side before swatting his hand playfully. Actually, swatting felt a bit generous. Lydia didn’t have the energy for swatting. A gentle tap, maybe.

“Uh, speaking of that, can I take a shower?”

“You want to take a shower? Right now?”

It was early. Like wee hours of the morning early. Way too early to be doing anything besides sleeping and getting better. But he could see on her face his girl wasn’t going to let this go.

“I feel disgusting, Stiles,” she argued, poking her bottom lip out in an adorable pout. “Pretty please?”

He rolled his eyes, seeing right through her antics, hating how well they worked on him. “Fine. Let me go and see if Melissa says it’s okay.”

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he muttered, standing up.

She smiled. He gave her a wink. Damn, it was embarrassing how much he was wrapped around her finger. But also, he didn’t want any of it to change. Especially since she blew him a kiss as he walked toward the desk in the middle of the four ICU rooms on this floor.

Melissa stood so fast when she saw him appear behind the curtain that her chair nearly fell over behind her. But Stiles made sure to hold his hands up in a way that signaled there was no fire. Everything was fine. Well, as fine as it could be given they either had mere hours left with Lydia or she was about to become a werewolf.

“She’s awake,” he confessed, still whispering.

He couldn’t seem to help the way his voice automatically lowered in this place. He wanted to blame the late hour, but he knew it was the somber setting and all the memories that came with it for him. It would forever be impossible to raise his voice here.

“She wants to know if it’s okay for her to take a shower.”

“Oh, yeah. Of course. Yes. That’s fine. I’ll come help.”

But, as was their luck, the minute she rounded her desk, an alarm from another room began to blare.

“Go,” Stiles implored her. “I got it.”

He watched as she rushed toward the noise, knowing he had absolutely no intention of actually helping Lydia. He would just have to keep her occupied until Melissa was free, but she didn’t need to know that. Melissa would get distracted, rush through something, and then feel terrible if it went poorly.

She was already exhausted. Adding anything extra felt exceptionally cruel.

“She said it was fine,” Stiles replied to Lydia the moment he reappeared. “But she’s helping someone else right now.”

“Can’t you just help me?”

He shook his head. “And get murdered by Jackson when he wakes up and I’m standing next to you, all nakey, in the bathroom? Yeah… no thanks.”

“Nakey?” she giggled, covering her mouth with her hand as she laughed.

“I appreciate all the faith you have in me, Lyd, really, but I’m not a saint. I promise you I will see you naked, so why don’t we just wait for Melissa, okay?”

She wiggled her eyebrows. “I can keep a secret if you can.”

“You’re going to get me killed,” Stiles groaned.

“Nah, not tonight. You’re safe.”

“Ha. Ha.”

“Besides, maybe I’ll be dead before morning and Jackson won’t even care that you saw my vajayjay.”

“You laughed at nakey, but you call it your vajayjay. What the hell?”

He smiled wide as she started to giggle harder, her shoulder shaking with her barely contained enjoyment of the conversation. And then, without thinking hard about any of it, Stiles stood up and went to the other side of the bed—careful again not to jostle a very sleepy Jackson—and began to turn off alarms. It would be necessary to unhook her from everything that alerted them to there being a problem, but if Melissa felt it was safe, Stiles felt comfortable.

And he really would do his best not to look. But he was also not a saint, which he had made clear, so he also knew whatever future images might arise from this activity, they would likely be seared into his fucking brain whether he wanted them there or not.

Stiles held out his hand once he was finished and tried not to wince when she did as she stood. He knew she was in so much pain, but she was also incredibly stubborn. And if she wanted to shower, she’d do it with or without his help. At least with, he had a better chance of making sure she didn’t hurt herself further.

“Thank you, Stiles,” she whispered near the bathroom door as soon as they were inside. “You’re the best.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. “I just hope your shower is worth it.”

She giggled again and shook her head as she easily stepped out of her loose hospital gown, and Stiles did as he promised and didn’t look. Or rather, he didn’t concentrate on what he was seeing, focusing instead on all the reasons he had known how to help her turn off all those machines. Because that was safe for him. Well, it was safe-ish. It kept him from doing anything to make his crush on Lydia any worse, but it did deal with his mom, so this wasn’t exactly a good idea either.

As soon as the shower curtain was closed, and she was satisfied with the temperature of the water, Stiles went back to the room and set up camp in the seat across from Jackson once more. He had already decided to simply wait for Lydia to be done, focusing on the sound of the water hitting the tiled floor underneath her feet and zoning the hell out.

Because the alternative was letting his mind wander to the parts that he usually covered up with sarcasm and humor. The parts that involved his mother.

But despite his best efforts, he jolted awake, not having realized he’d fallen asleep, however many minutes later anyway. He had fallen asleep. Fuck. Not good. He rushed to the shower, thinking maybe it hadn’t been that long since the water was still running and she hadn’t asked to get out yet, but he had to make sure. He had to know everything was okay and he had just closed his eyes for a few seconds.

“Lydia?” he called from the other side of the shower curtain. “Lyd? You good?”

No answer. He furrowed his brows. Damnit. His heart rate accelerated, worried about what might be there to greet him when he pulled the curtain back, and he was legitimately concerned he might not survive this time around.

“Lydia?”

He waited a full ten seconds. Still no answer. Great. So, he gripped the plastic curtain and began to peel it back slowly, trying to mentally prepare himself for the worst.

But it was empty. Lydia wasn’t there. The space between his eyes formed a very distinct v as his mind came to terms with what he was seeing. And then it went into overdrive.

She was gone. Shit. He raced back to the desk where Melissa was nearly dozing off again, except this time he didn’t approach her slowly. He didn’t put her mind at ease. He didn’t do anything except blurt out the truth.

“I need help,” he admitted, tears forming rapidly in his eyes. “She’s gone.”

Chapter Text

Derek hadn't stopped pacing in front of the mirror in the impossibly small vet clinic bathroom since Deaton had managed to convince him Isaac was going to recover. And every few seconds, he would stop and stare at himself, forcing an eye color change.

Blue. His eyes were always blue. Somewhere out there Peter was still alive. And if he was still alive, Derek had a duty to make sure he paid for his most recent indiscretion, and possibly for more. Like the death of their family. Though, even now, Derek felt that might be too far. Peter may have bitten Lydia, but killing their whole family was psychotic, and while his uncle was a lot of things, that wasn't one of them.

But he had promised Stiles, so at the very least, he had to provide some answers. And finding Peter was the first step. Too bad Derek had no fucking clue where to start.

Suddenly, Derek's phone began to vibrate in his pocket. And he could hear the radio on Sheriff Stilinski's shoulder crackle to life. He prayed they were unrelated, but when he saw Stiles' name on the caller ID and heard Lydia's echo in the other room, he knew it wasn't good news.

Derek hung his head, letting out a heavy sigh as he answered. "Stiles?"

"She's gone."

He had known it was possible, but he'd never actually witnessed anyone's body reject the bite. In fact, now that it was impacting them all so intimately, the new and totally unwelcome feeling made him a bit dizzy. He gripped the porcelain sink in front of him to remain upright.

"I'm so sorry, Stiles," he issued.

"No, Derek. Like she left," Stiles corrected. "Out the window."

Derek's eyebrows furrowed at the new information. "Wait, what?"

"She wanted to take a shower. I helped her get in and went to sit back down, but when I checked on her a few minutes later, she was gone. The window was open. And she's not in the hospital anywhere. We checked."

Stiles rambled, most of it barely discernible. If Derek hadn't been around him for the last few months pretty damn consistently, he doubted very much he would have caught it. But as luck would have it, he heard every damn word.

"She just left?"

"Derek, is she..."

"I have no idea," he interrupted. "But if she is, she's probably freaking out."

"Can you find her?"

"I can try."

Several voices interjected themselves into the steady throng of noises reaching a fever pitch in Stiles' background, and Derek found himself rather irritated. He wanted more. He wanted to help. And he really needed to find Lydia as soon as possible. Absolutely no good came from a teenage werewolf roaming around Beacon Hills with rogue hunters and other wolves whose motivations were still unknown.

"My dad with you?" Stiles asked.

"Yeah."

"Good. Bring him."

"Bring him where?"

"Someone says they saw her near the entrance to the Preserve."

"On our way."

Derek hung up, like he had a habit of doing, without issuing a proper goodbye. Stiles didn't mind, though. He'd said as much once. He'd even laughed about it, actually, calling it yet another endearing quality of Derek, his Sourwolf. And while he knew now was not the time, Derek couldn't help that it made him smile when that inconsequential little memory popped into his head.

As he reappeared in the lobby, Noah simply nodded and pointed toward the car as Derek held up a finger and started toward Deaton in the other room. He needed to check in with the man, let him know where they were headed, and make sure Isaac was really okay before he could deal with his next emergency properly.

But as he walked in, Deaton simply held out a dried flower or herb or something. Derek gave him a funny look before he could stop himself.

"It should help you find her faster, if she's... you know, one of you now."

"Do I..."

Derek had no idea what to do with the bundle of glorified weeds. "Just stick them in your pocket," Deaton said, answering Derek's half-completed question.

Derek nodded. "And Isaac?"

"Oh, he's fine," Deaton said with a dismissive wave. "He'll be up in a few hours. He'll be bummed he missed all the fun, probably."

"Probably," Derek said with a smirk.

"Find her, Derek," Deaton instructed. "They need her."

He knew that. He understood the severity of the situation they found themselves in. But to hear Deaton say it in that serious tone made Derek nervous. Well, more nervous. Because he felt like he was missing something crucial. Not that it mattered in this moment. They had to find her first and make sure she was safe. Then they could worry about the ramifications of everything else later.

Derek nodded to his emissary before finally turning on his heel and heading back to the lobby. And he noticed that Noah was still waiting for him. He'd kept his promise. He'd told both Peter and Derek he'd look out for them, and it felt as if he was the one person in his town that kept their word.

Even with the smallest actions, like this one.

They didn't say anything as they walked out into the crisp night air. Or as Noah started his police cruiser and peeled out of the parking lot, sirens blazing. And not even when they sped down the mostly deserted highway that led to the Preserve.

Nope, it took a full ten minutes before the sheriff spoke at all.

"One of you?"

"Oh, uh, yeah. Since Peter bit her, if she survives the bite, she'll be a werewolf too."

"Gotcha."

Noah nodded along as Derek explained, his eyes never leaving the road. And he noticed that he never tensed up either, or even looked remotely scared about anything he'd said. And it had been like that all night. No freakout. Nothing. Which was, in itself, really fucking strange.

"What?" Noah asked. "Do I have something on my face?"

Derek snorted his laughter softly. "Uh, no. It's just... you're handling this really well."

"My son is Stiles Stilinski," Noah offered with a shrug. "I'm good with odd shit, I guess."

Derek smiled. "That's what he says too."

"Is... is he one of you too?"

"Stiles? No. He's just best friends with Scott. Haven't been able to shake him."

"Good luck with that, son," Noah responded.

"Nah, I gave up," Derek admitted. "He's been pretty helpful."

"Very resourceful. You should've seen him once I got promoted. Half of my arrests are thanks to him."

Derek chucked a little louder. That totally tracked with what he knew of Stiles. "Very resourceful," he repeated.

"The ADHD certainly helps," Noah added. "Give him enough time and he can solve any problem you throw at him."

"I've noticed."

"Just gotta make sure he eats and stuff, you know? He forgets."

Derek smirked. He'd noticed that as well. "I will," he promised.

They lapsed into another comfortable silence, the siren the only other thing accompanying them as they flew past neighborhoods that were beginning to get further and further apart. But it wasn't long before Noah Stilinski had more questions. Completely reasonable questions, given the subject matter.

"How, uh, long have you known?"

Derek's forehead creased, not understanding at first. Then it dawned on him what exactly the sheriff was asking.

"Like who bit me?"

"Yeah."

"No one. I was born this way," Derek confessed. "Peter too. My sisters. My mom. Basically our whole pack."

"Hmm."

Noah chewed the inside of his cheek as he mulled that over, intriguing Derek. "What?"

"Nothing, I just... I was thinking about my wife, Claudia." Odd direction to take this conversation, Derek thought, but okay. "She and your mom were pretty good friends after Stiles was born. I wonder if Claudia knew and just didn't tell me."

"I doubt it," Derek conceded sadly. "My mom had very few rules, but telling humans for any reason was pretty much the top of that list."

"Ah, well, I'm glad you trust me enough." Noah gave a small smile and then turned his head slightly. "Or, I guess, I'm glad that Stiles blabbed."

Derek gave his own gentle smile. "Me too. Makes everything a little easier." He paused, but only for a second. "And having more people on our side that know the truth isn't a bad thing. I mean, don't get me wrong, I loved my mom, but I'm starting to realize she wasn't right about everything."

"Yeah, how dare parents be people who aren't perfect, huh?" Noah quipped good-naturedly.

"Exactly. So rude."

"Gettin' old's fun, isn't it?"

"Not at all," Derek said, his voice wistful. "Definitely not finding out your uncle probably murdered your whole family and bit an innocent girl for the fuck of it."

"We'll figure it out."

"Thanks."

And, for once, Derek Hale chose to believe someone.

Noah had followed through on every single thing he'd ever told Derek, so he imagined this wouldn't be any different. And with Stiles involved, there was a good chance it wouldn't take all that long either.

Trust was a funny and foreign thing for him. And he didn't hate it. Not if he was giving it freely to the sheriff.

A few seconds later, and half a mile on a bumpy road, Noah threw the car into park and they both jumped from the cruiser as fast as possible. There were already quite a few people milling around, most police officers Derek didn't immediately recognize. But then Stiles came up to him, handed him a flashlight, and Derek's anxiety regarding introducing new people to this scenario waned considerably.

More help was a good thing, he reminded himself.

But what was not a good thing was the serious look on Stiles' face at the moment. It made him wholly uncomfortable. He wanted Happy Stiles back. Silly Stiles. Making Super Inappropriate Jokes Stiles. Not this Stiles. This one was unnerving to Derek, and even Kate joining them a few seconds later did little to put him at ease.

Weird.

They needed to find Lydia right the hell now. Even if the only reason was to restore Stiles to his factory settings in order to help Derek feel more relaxed in his general vicinity.

"Where's Jackson?" Derek asked, leaning over to Scott, who was now on his right. "Is he not coming?"

Scott shook his head. "He wanted to stay there in case she came back."

Derek nodded and no one else said a word as they fanned out and began to canvas the forest, and Derek's mind went into overdrive without his permission. He didn't like being here. Nothing good ever happened in this fucking forest. It only housed his worst memories and was the backdrop for all his nightmares. But this was important. Lydia was lost. Lydia was also likely a brand new werewolf capable of wreaking even more havoc on their town than they'd already experienced, even just tonight.

And Derek couldn't handle one more goddamn thing.

At some point, Kate ended up in front of him, pointing her flashlight down at her feet so she didn't trip, and most everyone else was several hundred yards behind them. But as soon as Derek caught sight of Lydia's bare feet he rushed ahead, putting himself between the pair.

"Katie, back up," he whispered.

"Why?"

She couldn't see what he could right now. Her eyes weren't capable of adjusting to this level of darkness, and he couldn't have been happier about that fact.

"Go get Noah," he said, not quite answering her question. "Just Noah."

Kate nodded and then rushed back to the rest of the crowd, leaving Derek alone with Scott and Stiles.

"Stiles, can I have your jacket?"

He held out his hand and Stiles shook off his jacket, giving it over without comment. And then Derek approached Lydia slowly. She was totally zoned out and covered in blood. Derek wasn't even sure that Lydia was aware that she was no longer in her hospital room, and he loathed the idea of alerting her to that fact rather violently. Especially since Derek needed to step over a dead deer in order to get to her. A dead deer whose life she likely had a hand in ending.

Maybe she'd stay zoned out until they got back, though.

"Did she do that?" Scott asked softly.

"Do what?" Stiles hissed.

He looked around wildly, trying to figure out what it was they were discussing, but Derek didn't want to fill him in. He wasn't sure what he'd say anyway. They were all fucked. That's what he knew.

"I'm not sure," Derek responded, ignoring Stiles. "Lydia? Can you hear me?"

She didn't move. Only continued to stare straight ahead. And then uttered one simple word. A name.

"Stiles?"

His head popped in her direction at once. "Lydia?" he returned. "Lydia, I'm here."

She whimpered quietly and then stepped forward, right into his waiting jacket and then into his open arms. She wrapped the thing tighter around her slender frame before laying her head on Stiles' shoulder as they walked across the uneven ground toward his father.

"Have you ever seen a werewolf transform not on the full moon?" Scott asked.

"Yeah. Once."

"I'm guessing it's not a good thing."

"Not really, no."

"At least she survived the bite," Scott reminded him.

But Derek just sighed heavily, clapping a hand down on Scott's shoulder as Stiles and Lydia breezed past. "Yeah. That's good. That's really good."

Chapter Text

Peter sat outside Derek’s room, a hand on the crappy hollow-core door, willing his nephew to acknowledge his existence.

“Talk to me, Derek,” he begged. “Please.”

“You don’t know what the fuck is going on any more than I do,” Derek complained. Loudly. In fact, he was basically yelling again. But yelling was better than the silence, Peter had decided. “And worrying someone is after us all the time is stupid. I just wanna take my mind off… everything for a little bit.”

There it was again. His inability to say the actual words, to say that his mother and his sisters and his grandparents and all the rest of their pack was dead, told Peter that Derek was not in the right headspace to be out and about right now.

“It’s not worth it,” Peter finally returned. “What if something happens?”

“Then let Kate come over here,” Derek argued, his tone bordering on a childish, petulant whine.

“You know why I can’t do that.”

They’d already had this particular argument a few times over the last couple of days, and it seemed Peter hadn’t really hammered home the point yet. They didn’t know who they could trust, so letting people waltz in their house whenever they pleased wasn’t a good idea.

Even if it was Derek’s girlfriend.

“I fucking hate you right now.”

“Yeah, well, join the party,” Peter mumbled, likely too low to be heard. Then he cleared his throat. “Let everything quiet down and then we’ll reassess, okay?”

All that came from the other side of the door now was grumbles. Grumbles that Peter couldn’t quite make out and didn’t bother to try. It didn’t matter. He’d said his piece. He’d put his foot down. He’d done the grown-up thing, damnit. And now he felt like shit. Mission accomplished or whatever.

Peter Hale was officially the parent he had never wanted to be. Awesome. Even if he’d ended up in a long-term, committed relationship with kids of his own one day Peter had always assumed he’d be the fun one. The good guy. But that was so far from his current situation and he despised it.

His whole world was upside down.

And he wouldn’t say it out loud to anyone, but the real problem with letting Derek out for something other than school or allowing anyone into their new home was the unrelenting fear that the fire wasn’t an accident. That someone was out to get them, prepared to finish the job the second either of them let their guard down.

Or left the safety of the front porch.

Unfortunately, Derek was still a normal teenager who wanted his freedom, and in this instance, he also desperately wanted to forget. More than that, he deserved to forget. He deserved as many carefree nights out with friends as it took to soothe his battered soul. He deserved to not be so goddamn miserable every second of every day.

But that wasn’t their reality.

As Peter trudged back to his own bedroom to lay down, he couldn’t help but feel inadequate and convinced he was about to fuck up his nephew far worse than any trauma they might’ve endured already.

And as his head hit the pillow, he began to pant for air again, placing himself right back in that fucking nasty-ass basement wondering what the actual hell was going on.

“Morning, Sunshine.”

A light chuckle followed and Peter could tell it was the same man from earlier. Or before. He had no idea how much time had passed.

“What do you want, asshole?” Peter wheezed out.

“Just you. Like this. As you deserve.”

The tenor and the cadence of the voice was familiar, but he still couldn’t place it.

“Either let me go or kill me already,” Peter demanded.

“Why on Earth would you want to leave when we’re having so much fun?”

He slumped against the ropes, finding it impossible to hold himself up any longer. “Who… who are you?”

“Why, Peter Hale, you really don’t recognize me?”

As soon as he said his full name like that, Peter knew who was in the shadows. He knew who had doused the rope in wolfsbane. He knew who was responsible for his agony.

“Gerard?” he gasped. “What are you doing?”

“Now, now, Mr. Hale, is that any way to speak to your elders?”

Peter scoffed. “When they’re torturing me, it sure as shit is, dickhead.”

“Hmm. Fair point,” Gerard conceded. “Well, I’m not letting you go. And it’s not time to kill you just yet, so what should we do in the meantime?”

“Why?”

That seemed the most pressing issue, besides the whole escaping thing. Peter needed to know why this was all happening in the first place.

“How about I tell you a story,” Gerard said, sidestepping the question, though not entirely. “Would you like that?”

“How about you let me go,” Peter countered.

“A story about the time I killed your whole pack, not realizing you weren’t there,” he continued, this time ignoring Peter’s suggestion. “And then framed you for it.”

“Framed me?”

“It was a little too easy, if you ask me. The police force in this town is a bit lacking,” Gerard said, walking into the light. “It almost made it no fun with how quickly they were swayed by circumstantial and manufactured evidence. But my little dove always was the best soldier.”

He motioned back toward the dark recesses of the basement, like there was someone else there. But it was the use of that goddamn nickname that really set Peter on edge and caused his heart to beat faster still.

Dove. That’s what Gerard had always called Kate. On her tombstone, there was a dove. Peter found himself wondering if Gerard had removed it from the empty grave once she’d miraculously returned from the not-so-dead.

When he came close enough, bending down to consider Peter, he took a snap at the older man, though it was half-hearted, at best. He was too weak for anything else, but he wanted it noted that he’d tried. He wasn’t going down without a fucking fight, that was for sure.

“Don’t even think about it,” Gerard hissed. “Even if you somehow manage to get out of those ropes, this whole place is surrounded by mountain ash. You’re trapped.”

Then Gerard slapped him hard across the cheek and walked off, back up the creaking stairs just out of sight.

“Where are you going?” Peter hollered.

“Torture really takes it out of you,” Gerard explained, his voice closer and more unsettling than Peter had anticipated. “But don’t worry. My little dove is here to watch over you.”

Kate. Kate was in the basement with them. Fuck. Peter was an idiot. He’d never really believed her whole scared little girl act, the damsel in distress on crack thing she’d always had locked up tight, but he never would’ve believed her capable of this. Of course, that all ended when she emerged from the shadows next, the most demented and deranged look on her face. As if she was taking great pleasure in his pain.

She circled him once before stopping. “Where to start, where to start,” she said, tapping her chin in an overdramatic fashion. “Not the eyes. Too pretty,” she clarified. “Right, Peter? The girls always did go crazy for those baby blues, didn’t they?”

She giggled and all but skipped happily to the workbench a short space away. The one that held the lamp, the only source of light in the whole fucking place, and a rather alarming amount of blood. His blood, if he had to guess.

As she stalked back to him, something held behind her back and an evil glint in her eye, Peter swallowed hard. There would be no reprieve from the suffering this time. He planned to stay conscious as long as possible. Especially if the alternative was reliving, in excruciatingly vivid detail, the last five years of his life with Derek. Because those tumultuous, nightmarish, bleak days would end him long before his body gave out from their torture. 

Chapter Text

Episode 2x02 - "A Safe Place To Land"

Derek continues to search for Peter, determined to make him pay, as the group struggles to hang onto some of the youth that's slipping away by indulging in their usual holiday traditions and the gossip surrounding Noah and Melissa's first official date. 

Chapter Text

Stiles stared ahead at the television screen, Lydia’s head on his chest, not taking in a single word or image in front of him. And it had been like this for hours. Eh, more like days, actually. Stiles had been at Lydia’s house, fussing over her with little to no sleep, for literal days. Ever since she got released from the hospital, to be exact.

At this rate, it wasn’t likely to change anytime soon, either.

His sanity was already hanging on by a thread. If he wasn’t able to roll over and see that she was still there, he would probably lose his mind and end up tapping on her window in the middle of the night anyway. This was the best solution. At least until someone could guarantee her safety.

Until then, if he managed to pass out, he would wake up in a cold sweat, his heart pounding away, scared to death that he was back there. Back in that godforsaken hospital room. Back to that moment he’d realized she was gone and he was terrified he’d never find her again. Back in those woods where she had been standing stock-still, shivering and alone.

And Stiles Stilinski knew what it was to be alone with that sort of fear, and he wouldn’t wish it on anybody. Definitely not one of his best friends.

At least here, he could know she was okay.

Thankfully, if anyone had any particularly strong feelings about his sudden obsession with Lydia’s location or his new and improved serious attitude, devoid of most of the snark, they hadn’t uttered a word. And this allowed Stiles to play nurse and protector without any intervention. A situation he was glad to find himself in.

Even Jackson hadn’t commented on it.

Okay, well, he’d said something, but it wasn’t bad. Quite the opposite. He’d explained that while he was well aware of Stiles’ not-so-secret crush on his girlfriend, which stemmed from their adorable kindergarten puppy love, he also knew that Stiles would never act on it while she was with Jackson. An absolutely true statement. And he’d even gone on to compliment Stiles, calling it an admirable trait, glad that Lydia had friends like him.

Stiles had almost teared up, but he knew better. It was still Jackson they were talking about here. He might not exactly be the poster child for the patriarchy or anything, but he didn’t talk about his feelings. Stiles imagined what he’d already received was as good as he was going to get and anything above that would make Jackson uncomfortable.

But while he was grateful for all the grace and understanding being given freely at the moment, his friends still expected him to provide some answers. Mainly because poor Deaton was hitting a dead end everywhere he turned. Though Stiles wasn’t sure why they thought he’d have answers Deaton couldn’t find. He was the emissary, after all.

Stiles shook his head slightly, attempting to get back to pretending to pay attention to whatever trash TV show Lydia had picked out for the evening. Jackson had the night off, so there was no backup. It was just him. And he couldn’t risk being distracted.

He wanted everything back to normal, though, damnit. Or as normal as things were capable of being in Beacon Hills, at the very least. Stiles Stilinski was fucking exhausted.

“I’m tired,” Lydia said, echoing his silent sentiment.

She even capped it off with a yawn that Stiles wasn’t convinced was entirely real. “Okay, Lyd,” he returned.

She rolled over on her side next, pulling his arm over her and scooting back to cuddle against his chest. In turn, he gave her a gentle smile and a soft kiss on her temple as she closed her eyes, and before long her breathing evened out. But he didn’t follow suit, deciding instead to prop his head up on his hand as he played with her hair.

Unfortunately, as it had a tendency to go, Stiles woke startled and alarmed, obviously not aware of just how exhausted he happened to be. He patted the spot next to him when he didn’t see the curve of her under the blankets next to him. It was empty. She was gone.

He looked around her room with bleary eyes, but it was empty too. He peered into the hallway from his spot on the bed, noticing no other lights were on anywhere. She was gone gone.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he whispered to himself, hopping out of bed.

Then he heard it.

A notification on his phone.

He knew that goddamn notification. It was for a very specific app. It wasn’t terribly loud or anything, which is probably why he’d slept through it when it had first gone off. It was one that let him access any of the cameras in and around Lydia’s house. The same one that let him know if a door or window had been opened after a certain time at night. The home security system app that he had hacked into without telling a single, solitary soul because he imagined all that grace and understanding would promptly evaporate if someone found out.

But he didn’t bother with regret or shame at the moment. Instead, he dove forward and felt around her comforter in the darkened room until he found it. He fumbled it a few times before picking it up fully with slightly shaking hands to unlock it and figure out what the holy hell was going on now.

Then it rang in his hands and he nearly threw it across the room in surprise, managing to answer it and put it to his ear instead.

“Hello?” he hissed.

“Stiles?”

He sighed deeply in relief, running a hand through his hair. It was Lydia. Thank fucking God. “Lydia, where the hell are you?”

“Uh, the pool.”

“The pool? Really?” he whispered harshly. “You thought the middle of the night was a good time for a dip, did ya?” He groaned audibly in frustration. “I’ll be right there.”

“Not my pool,” she corrected, sensing his line of thinking. “The city pool. In, uh, the middle of town.”

“What the…”

“I called your dad too,” she interrupted. “He’s on his way.”

“My dad?” Stiles nearly shrieked, struggling to keep his voice down now. “Why’d you call him?”

“There’s a… a body here.”

“A bo—body?” he stammered. “As in a dead body?”

“Yeah.”

“I still don’t understand why you called him,” Stiles retorted.

“It’s a dead body, Stiles,” she repeated. “And I called you second.”

“I’ll be right there,” he muttered.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “And bring a jacket. I’m fucking freezing.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. Well, the typical, bossy Lydia was still in there. He grumbled a quick goodbye before he hung up and began to rush around her room, pulling out the first sweater-shaped thing he could find in her closet. Then he made sure to tiptoe down the stairs and through the foyer, not wanting to alert Mrs. Martin to the fact that her daughter was not only no longer in her bed, having experienced the same weird phenomenon from a few weeks ago that no one could properly explain just yet, but that she had also found another dead body. 

Chapter Text

Derek sat on the couch, laptop propped open in his lap, and he wanted very much to throw the damned thing out the nearest window with how fucking useless it had been lately, though it was really his fault. He was the one in charge of the device. It wasn’t like it could do anything if Derek wasn’t sure what to make it do.

But he wasn’t built for research. Derek had always been the muscle. And he hadn’t realized until he’d struggled to come up with any fucking answers at all how much he relied on Stiles, and others around them, to make this whole operation run smoothly.

He desperately wished, in this moment, he hadn’t taken it all for granted and had actually learned something.

Too late now.

Derek looked up from the blank screen and stared into his kitchen where Kate was rummaging through the fridge, smiling at the sight. Without Peter here, the house was goddamn lonely. Especially when Isaac went to school. Yes, he had to go too, but work was no longer a good enough distraction. And while Derek hated that he was obviously a little more codependent than he’d realized, it was nice to have anyone else here. And it was nice that he didn’t need to ask when it came to Kate. She was just there, always offering her help and her time.

His phone began to ring and he felt around on the couch for it, his heart beating faster when he noticed Stiles’ name there.

“What’s wrong?” he blurted out.

“Why would something be wrong? Maybe I’m just calling to say hi,” Stiles argued.

Derek waited. There was no point in telling Stiles he had never once called Derek just to say hi. He only ever called anymore if someone was dead or seriously injured. Besides, Stiles covered up a myriad of emotions with sarcasm and Derek wasn’t going to poke that bear either. It was a security blanket for Stiles. And Derek knew the importance of those tiny, fleeting moments of being comfortable in your own skin.

Because Derek understood what it would mean if he thought too long or hard about anything he’d been through over the years. Stiles would crumble and never get up again. Because Derek would crumble if he thought too long or hard about anything either.

Derek Hale knew that pain.

“Lydia found a dead body,” he finally admitted with a heavy sigh.

“A what?”

“My dad is on the way,” Stiles continued. “He said he’d handle it by himself.” Derek ran a hand over his face as Stiles sighed again. “I don’t… I don’t know what to do, Derek. I don’t know how to help her.”

“You are helping her, Stiles,” Derek insisted emphatically.

“But we don’t know what’s wrong with her,” Stiles contended. “And I don’t think suddenly appearing next to a dead body is an improvement from the deer.”

“No, it’s not,” Derek agreed. “But we’ll figure it out. We know she’s not a werewolf, so that’s something.”

“Has Deaton said anything? Have you found anything?”

It wasn’t an accusation when Stiles asked it, but Derek bristled all the same. Stiles was simply curious. He wanted answers for his friend. He wanted to know that she was going to be okay, and Derek desperately wanted to provide that for him.

But he couldn’t because no one had found a damned thing. Even Deaton had hit dead end after dead end recently.

“Not yet.”

Derek looked up and shook his head at Kate, who had joined him in the living room with a rather confused expression on her face. She was only getting one side of the conversation and Derek had offered very little to go on. But he wasn’t going to stop talking to Stiles to explain right now. He could fill her in later when he got off the phone.

“I don’t get it,” Stiles groaned. “There’s just no leads at all?”

Derek leaned back against the couch cushions from where he’d been sitting on the edge and ran a hand through his hair. Okay, that was an accusation. And Derek didn’t like the way it made him feel that Stiles was the one dishing it out.

“I’m sorry, Stiles. I still have to go to work and try to find Peter and keep everyone in line, even though I’m not the Alpha. But I swear I’m trying, okay? It’s just going to take some time.”

There was no point in getting defensive, but Derek couldn’t stop himself. And he knew that they were all a little lost right now, everything was upside down, and no one knew what to do next. They only had each other, so pushing anyone away wasn’t an option.

“I am trying,” Derek offered, quieter this time. “I promise.”

Kate walked back into the kitchen at Derek’s passive-aggressive confession, likely realizing she wasn’t going to get her answers right now.

Stiles sighed in return and Derek realized he was really starting to hate that goddamn sound. He didn’t like the idea that anything was making the pack human feel that way, all dejected and exhausted.

“I know, Sourwolf. I’ll… I’ll help too. I’ll research. I know I’ve been wrapped up in the Lydia thing for a hot minute, but she’s fine. Mostly. I mean, it’s getting weirder, but she’s okay. I’ll back off a little and get back to looking into shit for you guys.”

Derek shook his head even though he knew Stiles couldn’t see him. “I understand, Stiles. And I’m fine too. Just tired. But I knew what I was getting into as the protector of Beacon Hills.”

“You signed up for a real crappy job, dude,” Stiles teased.

Derek chuckled lightly. “Yeah, yeah. I know.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“Thanks, man. Listen…”

“Hey, Der, do you want pepperoni on your pizza if I ordered some?” Kate interrupted. “They have a buy one, get one free coupon. But only one topping.”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Derek answered distractedly.

“Is Kate over there again?”

Oh. Oh, God. Derek hated that snark, laced with venom, way worse than that sigh when it was coming from Stiles. And he had no idea how to explain his own reaction to it. Derek wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

“Yeah.”

“Got it. Well, uh, have fun with all your research. Looks like you two have it under control.”

“Stiles, I…”

Three short beeps told Derek that Stiles had hung up without a goodbye, causing him to hold the phone away from his face and stare down at the newly blackened screen.

“I’m going to get plain cheese, I think,” Kate said.

She stepped back into the living room again, coupon in hand, totally unaware of the brewing turmoil two feet from her.

“Why are you here, Kate? Don’t you need to go home?”

“Wh—what?” she stammered.

“I just don’t understand why you’re here all the damn time. We’re not dating. You don’t live here.”

Her lip began to quiver slightly. “I… I thought I was helping.”

Derek shook his head. “No, Stiles is helping. Scott is helping. Even Jackson is fucking helping, Kate. I’m good. I can handle this. We can handle this.”

None of this anger and frustration was about her presence in his home, not really, but he needed to get it out all the same. He was too pent-up and on the verge of a true explosion if he wasn’t careful. And it was kind of nice to say some of this shit, even if it would lead to hurt feelings and no real resolution.

Kate scoffed. “They’re all teenagers, Derek.”

“And?” he said, raising his voice. “Why are you acting like you’re so much older than them? We were all in high school at the same time at one point, remember?”

“Yeah, but…”

“I have no idea what’s going on between you and Stiles, and why he gets so mad when you come around, but he was finally going to help me again and he heard your voice and hung up on me.”

“He’s a brat, Derek,” Kate said, rolling her eyes. “And he’s not the only one who can Google something. I can take his place. I don’t mind.”

Derek bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing in her face. The very idea that anyone would be capable of replacing Stiles was suddenly the most ridiculous and hysterical thing anyone had ever said. Stiles had proven himself over and over again as an invaluable member of their pack, especially when he wasn’t beside himself with worry and misplaced guilt over Lydia’s current issue.

Even as a human, Derek knew what he brought to the table, regardless of how little sense it made.

“Right, well, I don’t really…”

Kate’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “Let’s just drop it, okay? You still have to eat, so let’s order pizza and I’ll sleep at my place tonight.”

Derek gave her a curt nod as she made her way back into the kitchen, pulling the receiver from the corded phone off the wall to place their order. He wasn’t sure where he stood with her, but after their second break-up, his head, and more importantly his dick, just weren’t into whatever had once been between them.

Another thing Derek Hale had lost, it turned out. But unlike his feelings toward losing his pack human, he could see it didn’t make him nearly as upset.

Something to delve into another day, he decided. There was a new dead body to deal with tonight. 

Chapter Text

Derek sat waiting on the living room couch of the Stilinski home, rather impatiently, he might add, for a wild Stiles to appear. He kept twirling his phone absentmindedly for something to do, but he was ready to go. He had finally been invited to the annual ‘Break into Beacon Hills High and Exchange Presents’ soirée, and he wouldn’t deny he was a little excited to attend. Granted, he hadn’t actually known about it until a few months ago when he’d been thrust directly into Stiles and Scott’s path when the latter had been bitten by a werewolf of unknown origins, but he was excited nonetheless. And he wouldn’t deny that he felt pretty damn cool to be included. 

Honestly, Derek found the whole thing adorable. 

There was a routine too. They broke into the library, exchanged presents in a game of Dirty Santa, drank enough hot chocolate to throw up, according to Stiles, complete with mini marshmallows, and played some Truth or Dare until the wee hours of the morning. 

And the mini marshmallows thing Derek only knew about because Stiles had demanded them. And, of course, that meant Derek had been forced to go another town over to get them since every place here was sold out. And yes, it had to be mini marshmallows. Derek had asked. Multiple times. Stiles would not be swayed, damnit. 

Noah walked into the room suddenly and motioned for him to follow. “Can you come in here for a second?”

Derek nodded, even though Noah couldn’t see as his back was already turned, and jumped right up. When they were both in the kitchen, Noah crossed his arms menacingly, lowering his voice even further. 

“I turned off the alarm, but can you please make sure they don’t burn the place down? I know they got some fondue thing for this year and it makes me nervous. I know it’s small, but it’s technically an open flame. Something I rarely allow Stiles around.”

“What?” 

“The library,” Noah elaborated. “Can you just keep an eye on them? I know you’re not that much older, and you’re not their babysitter, but it would make me feel better.”

“I, uh… sure?” 

Noah laughed, shaking his head as he let one of his arms fall. “Do you really think that I didn’t know that my son and his idiot friends sneak into the library of their school every winter break and exchange presents?” 

Derek shook his own head, realizing very quickly how foolish it was to believe that exact thing, despite the fact that Stiles had insisted it was the truth. No way his dad hadn’t always known. The man had raised Stiles. Hell, if he hadn’t been paying pretty close attention all his life, Stiles would probably be in jail or dead at this point. 

“Yeah, I got it,” Derek agreed with a light chuckle. 

“Good. We’re going out.”

Derek’s eyebrows perked in surprise when he noticed Melissa McCall standing a few feet away in the formal dining room no one ever used. “You’re both going out. Like… together?”

God, this was not Derek’s business. But clearly Stiles had rubbed off on him or something. 

“Yes, on a date,” Noah answered decisively. “Hence why I’m asking you to keep an eye on them. I’d like very much not to be interrupted.” 

“Ah.” 

“A date?” Stiles screeched from somewhere upstairs, causing Derek to roll his eyes. “You guys have a date? Like a date date? Where?"

Derek said his name like a warning next. Which it usually was. 

“Stiles. Time to go.”

“No,” Stiles whined. “I wanna hear more about this date.” 

“Stiles, seriously,” Derek tried again, ushering him back toward the front of the house just as he rounded the corner into the kitchen with them. “We gotta get to the bowling alley before all the good lanes are taken. You don’t want to have to listen to Lydia complain about the one with the broken screen, right?”

“The bowling alley?” Derek gave him a pointed look. “Right, yeah, but…”

“Nope. Going. Now. See you later, Sheriff.”

“You boys have fun,” Noah called after them. 

As Derek removed Stiles from the house bodily, shutting the door behind them both, he began to visibly pout. 

“Dude. Not cool. Just because you’re bigger than me with all your werewolf muscles doesn’t mean you can manhandle me, okay?”

“You like it,” Derek teased with a wink. 

Stiles growled as Derek hopped down the steps and made his way to Roscoe, which he knew to be loaded down with presents for the whole Scooby Gang, even though the rules were to only bring one. Well, okay, he tried to growl. But it was way too cute to be sinister. Like a little kitten trying to be a lion. 

Not that he’d ever tell Stiles that. 

“Calm down, all right? The whole point of this ridiculous tradition is to try and hang onto what little bit of childhood any of us has left, right?” Derek asked him over the hood of the Jeep. “I know what it does to a person to grow up too fast. I don’t want that for you.”

Now it was time for Stiles to roll his eyes as he automatically climbed into the passenger seat of his own car. Something that wouldn’t have happened at all in the beginning, but had become more and more commonplace lately. 

“Sourwolf, listen,” he began as Derek got in as well, “my mom died when I was young too, remember? Younger than you when yours did. It’s too late for me. Probably too late for any of us, at this point, but you’re right. I want hot chocolate and presents and to act like a dumb kid whose whole world isn’t on fire for one fucking night. Did you get the mini marshmallows?” 

Derek laughed quietly. It never ceased to make him smile that Stiles could say all that in a single breath. “Did you just say I was right?” he countered, putting on his seatbelt. 

“Oh, shut up,” Stiles grumbled, making Derek laugh louder as he pulled away from the curb.

Of course, it faded quickly when an errant thought struck Derek like lightning. They had both lost their mothers. They both knew the intense pain that came from that very specific trauma. And since Derek had tried wracking his brain for weeks now trying to figure out whatever this odd connection was that they shared, he wanted to believe this was it. That he’d solved it. 

And also, he wished that wasn’t the case for either of them. 

But he forced the very same thought from his mind in the next second, relaxing his body muscle by muscle as he drove through the streets of their town at a leisurely pace, enjoying the silence that so rarely accompanied Stiles. And he was bolstered by the thought that for the first time in what felt like forever, his entire pack, sans Peter, obviously, would be in one place. He could account for all of them. He would know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they were all safe. Something pretty damn rare these days. 

As soon as they pulled into the spot in the otherwise empty parking lot next to Scott and Allison, Stiles took off, leaving Derek to fend for himself as he made his way to the back of the Jeep to get all the supplies. 

“Don’t worry, Stiles,” Derek muttered under his breath. “I got it. I’ll just take everything in by myself. No problem.”

Someone chuckled behind him and he turned in time to see Isaac standing there with an amused look on his face. And Derek couldn’t help the blush that spread at the idea of getting caught complaining about Stiles. 

“Here,” Isaac offered, holding out his arms. 

And then Jackson and Lydia pulled up next, copying Isaac and helping Derek without complaint and chatting happily all the way inside. 

By the time they joined the other three, they’d managed to make room for the festivities. All the usual tables lined up in the middle of the library that people often used to read and study were pushed to the sides. Three had been separated out, though. One for presents. One for food. One just for hot chocolate, according to Stiles. 

The rest were far away from the huge, fake Christmas tree whose lights had mysteriously found themselves back on despite the fact that Derek knew the librarians had turned them off and unplugged them before leaving for their two-week vacation. 

Derek smiled. Stiles returned it. And it was strange. For once, Derek knew everything was fine. Just as it should be. Everyone was here, enjoying themselves like normal teenagers. Even Derek, who honestly couldn’t remember most days what that had ever been like, was comfortable in his ugly Christmas sweater. The very one Stiles had picked out and demanded he wear. 

It dawned on Derek that Stiles was doing a lot of demanding lately. And it should probably bother him a little. But it didn’t at all. Stiles offered Derek peace in a way nothing else had lately. And no, he didn’t care to peel back the layers of their interactions either. It worked. Derek was less grumpy. Stiles was happier. Everyone else fell in line. 

But there was still something missing. Peter. 

And before he had time to go down that fucking rabbit hole, the door behind Derek opened and Stiles’ smile turned to more of a grimace and then an outright frown, meaning that Derek knew who had shown up. 

Kate. 

Kate, who had basically taken on the role of pack mom without being asked. Kate, who seemed to love and want to protect them all as fiercely as he did. Kate, who hadn’t actually done anything wrong, as far as he knew. But just as much as he didn’t want to uncover the source of that peace Stiles brought him, he didn’t want to deal with whatever was going on between Stiles and Kate either. Derek just chose to ignore it. Especially since Stiles was content to do the same. 

Kate came over without prompting and Derek tore his eyes from Stiles’ as she tucked herself under his arm and then made her way to the nearest table, helping Allison and Lydia finish setting up. 

But it wasn’t long before Derek was watching Stiles again, and he noticed all the minute shifts. Like the way Stiles’ eyes narrowed for a second and then he turned back to Scott so he could do what he did best when Kate was around. Pretend she was goddamn invisible. 

After all the food was laid out, and Stiles’ hot chocolate station was to his liking, they began their game of Dirty Santa. And they fought over each and every present that was unwrapped like it was a rare collectible and definitely not a throwaway item from the cheapest sections at Target. It was sweet. Almost… innocent. Exactly what they needed. 

After a few rounds, though, Lydia stopped laughing at another of Stiles’ jokes rather abruptly. In turn, Stiles’ eyebrows furrowed and everyone turned to her. Then her eyes glazed over, as if she was in a trance, and a faraway look took over her face. She stood just as quickly, her movements taking on an almost robotic quality, and she was stiff and rigid as she made her way to the door. 

“Lyd?” Stiles called out. “Where are you going?” 

He popped a mini marshmallow in his mouth as she pushed the door open, and that was when it seemed to hit Stiles. She wasn’t with them anymore. Not really. She didn’t even acknowledge that he’d spoken. And if there was anything everyone in this town knew, it was that Lydia and Stiles had a connection so peculiar it rivaled even his own with the pack human. 

If she wasn’t responding to him, something was up. 

Stiles reached to stand in front of her, hands on her arms, stopping her movement forward, though her legs continued to walk in place. He let go with one to wave it her face, but she wasn’t seeing anything. 

Derek caught up to them quickly, covering the space between them all with a few long strides. 

“Stiles, let her go.”

Stiles looked first, hurt. Then, confused. And finally, mad. “Wh…”

Derek needed to express to Stiles that they very well might be able to get some of those answers they’d been seeking. Ones that had threatened to rid them of the last remaining shreds of their sanity recently. But he didn’t have time. And he had no idea what would shake Lydia from this trance. He couldn’t chance saying more than he’d already said. 

“Let her go,” Derek repeated. 

“Let her go?”

Derek nodded. And Stiles did something that Derek would have found impossible when he first met him. He listened. He listened without any other prompting. He just dropped his hands and watched as Lydia turned and continued down the sidewalk. Then he turned back to Derek with questions swimming in his eyes. 

“Derek, I…,” he whispered.

But Derek just put a finger to his lips and motioned for Stiles to follow Lydia with him, putting a hand on his shoulder and giving it a squeeze. One of the many mysteries that had plagued their town was finally going to come to a fucking end. 

Derek Hale could feel it. 

Chapter Text

Peter hung by his wrists on wolfsbane-soaked ropes, swaying slightly, as he had for however many hours and days since he’d been brought here by Gerard. And he’d gathered very little information since then, which only made him feel worse. Worse about himself. Worse about the situation. Just… worse. 

And he had nothing but time to think about exactly how bad it made him feel too. 

He remembered he had bitten Lydia. She had tried to help him in his grief-stricken state. She had attempted to reason with him, offer him a way out of the hell he had brought down upon himself by keeping Derek in the dark about many uncomfortable truths for too long. And he had bitten her. Frankly, it was inexcusable. Unforgivable. Punishable by death, probably. Torture felt a touch too far, but he had committed a crime in both the human and paranormal worlds, so this could very well be exactly how it went when you got caught and Peter had just never been privy to that information. 

Or maybe Gerard and Kate were batshit crazy. Either way, Peter knew it didn’t matter. He was going to die in this basement. 

Every once in a while, he could hear people above him in the rest of the house or cabin or whatever the fuck they were in. Sometimes it was just a few people. Other times, it sounded like a goddamn hunter convention over his head. And he couldn’t make out the individual voices. Both Gerard and Kate were incredibly careful each time they left, shutting the door behind themselves. So that meant he couldn’t even tell what they were saying when he was alone. And his werewolf abilities were basically gone. He couldn’t use any of them with the amount of wolfsbane coursing through his veins. 

Again, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t making it out of here alive. 

He had been sliced and diced for what felt like an eternity. And his wounds had stopped healing fully. Not that either of those two lunatics left them alone long enough to find out if they ever would. But that was just Peter guessing at this point. The sting that always accompanied their blows told him that each part of his torture was laced with wolfsbane for maximum punishment. Healing wasn’t really going to work with all that poison in his body. 

Which was fine. He deserved it. 

The door creaked from the top of the stairs and someone began their slow trek down. He didn’t bother to look up, though. Or open his eyes. They were both swollen shut anyway. It wouldn’t have worked. 

A stool scraping toward him caught his attention against his better judgment, and he could feel someone’s breath fan across his cheek in the next instant as they seemed to consider him. 

“I think it’s time for that story I promised you, Peter,” Gerard whispered ominously, followed by a dark chuckle that made his skin crawl. 

But, honestly, it didn’t matter what the demented old man said next. Lately, Peter found he would be just fine if they killed him already. He was tired. And he wanted his big sister. No matter how pathetic that made him.

Chapter Text

Lydia was crying again. And she’d been crying since the moment she’d snapped herself out of whatever stupor she’d fallen into in the middle of their annual gift exchange. But the crying was totally valid. She had led them, once again , directly to a dead body that was currently cooling a few yards in front of Stiles. Honestly, at this rate, she was going to go into full-blown Victorian-style hysterics at any minute. But Stiles had no idea how to help her besides hold her. And he was already doing that. 

It just didn’t feel like enough. Nothing did anymore. 

She wanted answers. And more than that, she needed them. Fuck. They all did. And this situation hadn’t provided that. Just another dead body. More problems for them to clean up. Okay, more problems for Derek and Scott to clean up because no way in hell Stiles was touching a dead body, and they were the two who had volunteered to check it out with their werewolf Spidey senses and do an impromptu autopsy without actually touching anything. 

Actually, that wasn’t entirely true, now that Stiles thought about it a second. They had some answers. 

First, Lydia Martin was not a werewolf. They had discovered at least that much when Stiles had locked her up during the last full moon and nothing had happened. Well, nothing werewolf-y had happened. Other things had happened. Namely that she had yelled and cussed and pouted to try and get him to let her out, but nothing bad had happened. And that was important. Granted, they were no closer to discovering what she was, but they had managed to cross off one possibility on what felt like a never-ending list. 

It wasn’t fair, though. None of this was, damnit. 

“It’s not Peter,” Derek declared after another silent moment, only interrupted by Lydia’s sniffles. “But a werewolf killed him.”

“And he’s a werewolf too,” Scott tacked on. 

“The rogue?” Jackson asked. 

Derek shook his head sadly. Ugh. More questions. 

“A pack fight?” Isaac offered. 

Derek sighed, shaking his head again, hands on his hips now. “Other packs can’t come this close. We can’t have two Alphas in the same area for too long. They’ll kill each other. We all have our own territories for a reason. The nearest one to here is, like, 85 miles away or something.”

“Why does this keep happening to me?” Lydia interjected next, her voice muffled by Stiles’ shirt. “I just wanna be normal again.”

Stiles snorted derisively. “Girl, we’re about four werewolves past normal.”

She wiped her eyes on her sleeve, turning to peer up at him, never fully leaving the warmth of his arms. “Yeah, but I’m not a werewolf. And it’s bullshit that no one knows what’s going on with me.”

She hiccupped between every other word, only breaking his heart further. Stiles wanted desperately to give her what she deserved. But as he’d suspected in the beginning, he had uncovered absolutely nothing new. And most of that had to do with the fact that they had no direction to point him, causing him to come up empty at every turn. 

Just like Deaton had. 

Just like Derek had. 

Everyone else remained quiet as they continued to peer down at the motionless body in front of them, lost in their own thoughts. After another second, Derek and Scott forced their claws out and began to dig a hole, and when they were finished, they unceremoniously dumped the body inside without a word. 

Once he dusted himself off, Derek stood and pulled his phone from his pocket, placing it on speakerphone as it started to ring. He’d made a habit of this lately, likely tired of having to repeat himself after every conversation. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey, Sheriff,” Derek said with a heavy sigh, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry to bother you.”

“Derek? Is everything okay? Is Stiles…”

“Stiles is fine,” Derek interrupted, a small smile breaking out on his face. 

And on Stiles’ face too. Leave it to his dad to unintentionally inject some humor into the completely dire situation by first making sure that the town is still standing before checking in on his son that he probably believes caused whatever they’re currently experiencing. 

“But, uh, no, everything’s not okay. We handled it, though.”

“Handled it? Handled what, Derek?” 

“Lydia found another dead body,“ Derek admitted. “A werewolf. It’s not Peter and he didn’t do it.”

“Jesus,” Noah muttered. “But that’s good, Derek. Really good about the Peter thing.”

Whatever soft background noise had been playing when his dad had first picked up suddenly stopped, letting Stiles know that his attention was fully on them now. 

“I know we’re interrupting your date. I’m sorry,” Derek insisted again. 

“Date?” Scott whispered harshly in Stiles’ ear as he leaned over. “What date?” 

Stiles smirked. Well, that answered that question. He had been wondering if Scott was aware of the budding relationship between their parents, but per his usual, Scott was clueless if it didn’t involve Allison. And no, it probably shouldn’t give Stiles immense joy to ruin Scott’s night further with this information later, but it did. It totally did. 

“Derek, listen, it’s fine,” Noah clarified. “I know I said earlier that I didn’t want to be interrupted, but Mel and I made it through dinner and almost a whole movie. That’s progress.” He chuckled low and then let out a dejected sigh of his own. “If your lives are being interrupted, we want to be interrupted too. We’re incredibly thankful you’ve trusted us with this and we’re in the loop now.”

“Thanks, Sheriff.”

“Mel?” Scott whisper-shouted again. “As in my mom?”

Stiles shushed him as he refocused on Derek’s phone and his dad’s voice again. “How many times do I have to tell you, Hale? Call me Noah.”

“I… can’t do that, sir.”

Noah laughed heartily as a beep sounded, letting them all know he had an incoming call. “Right, well, have a good night. I’ll talk to you soon. Deaton’s calling.”

“Let us know if you need us, son.”

“I will,” Derek returned distractedly before switching over. “Hey, Deaton. What’s up?”

“I need you to get over to the clinic. Bring everyone. Especially Lydia. I figured it out.”

Derek looked up, the confusion they all likely felt etched on his face as well. “Lydia?” 

“Yeah, I know what she is.”

Derek nodded, though Deaton couldn’t see him. “We’re on our way.”

“She’s a banshee, Derek,” Deaton blurted out, slightly breathless. “Lydia’s a banshee.”

“Okay,” Derek said slowly. 

“And if we play our cards right, we might be able to start finding people before they’re dead for a change.”

“Be there in a second,” Derek announced, hanging up and then turning to Stiles. “What do you know about banshees?”

“Not much,” he admitted. “They’re really powerful, though.”

Derek pocketed his phone again, nodding as he looked back at the freshly packed pile of dirt, checking his work probably to verify nothing was out of place that could point back to any of them. 

“Damn right she is,” Jackson retorted. “This is Lydia we’re talking about.”

She giggled quietly in return, still wiping her eyes before moving from Stiles to Jackson as they all began to walk out of the forest together. And it wasn’t ten more minutes and the library was cleaned out too, everything and everyone packed away in their respective cars in order to head to the clinic as a unit. 

Even Kate, unfortunately. 

Stiles and Derek were the last two left to leave, though, so they could lock up, and when he moved to head toward the Jeep, Derek grabbed his arm. He grabbed his arm just like he had the night they’d learned Lydia was in the hospital and might not make it. And exactly as he had that night, Stiles peered down to where they were connected. 

“We’ll finish this another time,” Derek promised. 

“It’s okay,” Stiles asserted. “This is more important.”

“Human things are important too, Stiles,” Derek said gently. 

“They are,” Stiles agreed, “but this is our life now, Derek. I get that. I do. And Lydia needs some answers way more than I need hot chocolate.”

Derek dropped his hand and the coldness that enveloped Stiles’ skin next very nearly made him shiver. But he managed to keep it at bay. He didn’t want Derek to know just how badly he craved his touch. Or how dazed and disoriented it made him when it did happen. 

“Besides,” Stiles continued, “it looks like I’m the only human left anyway. We don’t need to go to all that trouble for one person.”

“Nah, you still got Jackson,” Derek said with a laugh.

“You’re a butthole,” Stiles said with a half-hearted sneer. 

“You love it.”

He’d said that once already tonight. And just like the first time, he gave Stiles a wink too, making his insides catch fire. 

Damn this man and his ability to confuse, infuriate, and excite Stiles with one look. No, correction. Damn this werewolf . Yeah, damn this werewolf for his propensity to confuse, infuriate, and excite Stiles with one look, all while simultaneously helping to expand his little found family more than he ever thought possible. 

Damn him, indeed.

Chapter Text

Episode 2x03 - "If The World Was Ending"

Peter begins to doubt himself, and the part he played in the Hale Fire, as Lydia attempts to ignore her new powers.