Reading Time: 84 Minutes

Title: The Exit
Series: The Light and the Illusion
Series Order: 3
Author: Lalaith Quetzalli
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Genre: Angst, Action Adventure, Established Relationship, Family, Slash
Relationship(s): Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Background Relationships
Content Rating: R
Warnings: Violence-Graphic. Death-Minor Character, Death-Nameless Characters, Dark Themes, Murder, Discussion-Child Abuse
Author Note: This story has a number of cameos from Criminal Minds, and one from Charmed (next generation); though you don’t need to have watched either show to understand the story. It also goes into the events of the Teen Wolf movie.
Beta: CorgiQueen14
Word Count: 20,853
Summary: It’s not been easy, living such a life, all the secrets, all the lies. But Stiles did it because he had to, for himself, for his family, his pack. He’s learned, he’s traveled, he’s fought, done everything he’s had to. Now comes the time for the hardest part, and perhaps (hopefully) the most rewarding. It’s all come down to this…
Artist: CorgiQueen14
Artist Appreciation: Thank you so much my dear! I’m absolutely in love with all your art!

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Chapter I. Agent

As soon as the third round of debriefings is over Stiles is in Hotch’s office. He says nothing at first, simply placing a single document in front of his boss: a resignation letter.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” Despite the question, Hotch doesn’t truly look surprised, not entirely.

“I never planned on staying in the FBI forever, you know that.” Stiles reminds him.

“I knew but…” Hotch takes a deep breath. “Why now?”

Because it’s one thing to have always known that the day would come, but he’s not entirely sure why this day, of all days.

“Because I… we’ve done what we set out to do.” Stiles admits with a small shrug. “Monroe and her army are gone. Hunters are either dead, imprisoned or making sure to follow their codes more closely than ever. I… my pack is safe, finally and… I want to be with them.”

Hotch cocks his head to the side, he knows he’s missing something, even if he has no idea what it is exactly… and then Stiles drops the bomb.

“I have a son,” he reveals. “A fifteen year old who I barely see a few times a year. A son whom I didn’t know about until he was five. Until I was too late to save his mother and…”

“Cora Hale,” Hotch breathes out in realization.

Stiles nods. His boss is one of very few people in the world to know that Cora Hale did not die in the Hale fire. Stiles has always trusted the man more than most non-pack-members. But still, he’s only ever trusted his pack with the life and identity of his son.

“I was too late to save her life,” Stiles says quietly. “I promised myself her son, our son, would not become another victim of psychotic hunters.”

“And now he won’t be,” Hotch understands what he’s saying. “He won’t be because you’ve made the world a safer place for him. For him and every other supernatural…”

“We all have,” Stiles shrugs. “And while I have no doubt that there must still be work to be done. Truth is there always will be, and while a part of me would love to help…”

“You want to be with your family,” Hotch finishes for him.

“I want to be with my pack,” Stiles corrects, just a bit, because family just isn’t a big enough word, and also, his pack is more than just blood.

And Hotch understands, of course he does. How many times did he consider leaving the BAU for good, especially after Haley died? Jack had needed him so much… but so had his team, and Hotch didn’t know how to not be an agent. It’s why he kept returning, after Haley, and even after the threats against Jack. At least the way the SCU worked allowed him more time to spend with his son. And now Jack is all grown up and an agent himself. So yes, Hotch totally understands Stiles’s desire to leave. Even if he never fully went through with it himself. Maybe that just hadn’t been the right path for him, not like Stiles honestly believes it is for him. And Hotch knows and believes in him enough not to question the younger man’s choices.

“We’ll be sad to lose you,” he admits as he places a hand over the resignation letter. “But I wish you all the best, Stiles. To you and all of your fa… pack. Now and always.”

“Thanks boss-man.” Stiles man.

They’re about to shake hands, a goodbye before Stiles leaves, when Hotch’s door slams open abruptly, it’s Skye standing at the door.

“Boss man, we’ve got trouble!” She cries out before Hotch gets the chance to chastise her about ignoring the closed door.

As dramatic as Skye can sometimes be, Hotch and Stiles both know it’s not that this time.

“What happened?” Hotch asks as he rounds the desk.

She leads both men out of the office, past the bullpen and to the hallway that leads to the bathrooms, evidence lockup and finally the cells, even as she starts explaining:

“Dubois is dead.” Skye announces straight out.

“What?” Hotch, much as he can control himself, is clearly rattled by that.

“Dubois?” Stiles cuts in. “Who’s Dubois?”

“Michel Dubois,” Skye clarifies, clearly making an effort to pronounce the name correctly. “First-born son of Maël Dubois.”

“Wait,” Stiles’s mind is working a mile a minute. “Maël Dubois, isn’t that the name of…”

“…of the insane cult leader who tried to burn down the French parliament and is known to have planned an attack with the intent to assassinate their President, yes.” Skye finishes for him. “There are files and recordings of his long, very convoluted rants. Officially he’s considered as some sort of cult-leader, charismatic but clearly insane, who claims to follow some wiccan-new-age ideology. The world as a whole is sick and in need of balance if it is to survive, humanity is the virus in need of being cured, etc… Unofficially…”

“He’s a druid who’s gone dark-side,” Stiles finishes for her.

“Probably,” she shrugs.

Probably, because it’s actually more complicated than that. Druids like to have fancy words for everything (starting with their own name). They even have a name for those of their own who’ve turned to dark practices (darach). However, Stiles is convinced that while some, like Marin Morell, might not technically qualify as darachs, they’re not exactly light either. She might not have blood on her hands in the most literal sense, but she aided the alpha pack, made it possible for them to kill innocents, several packs. Stiles doesn’t even have to make it personal, it wasn’t just his pack that was hurt by both her actions and in-actions.

This Maël Dubois, and quite possibly more than a few members of his family (since both power and ideologies seem to run in family lines for druids, just like they do for the hunters), might not technically be a darach, but the fact that he planned and tried to kill mundane humans under a flimsy excuse that it’d somehow make things better (Stiles isn’t even going to go into how good or bad the French politicians might be, fact remains that killing them wouldn’t make things better, not really, might even make them worse, for both the locals, and the shadow-world as a whole).

“How did he die?” Hotch asks as they finally reach the cells.

His hand is on the door and he’s about to open it when Stiles’s spark screams at him. His reaction is immediate and instinctive as he grabs both Skye and Hotch and pulls them into the ley-lines.

It’s… traveling through the ley-lines isn’t exactly an easy thing to do. While there are technically ley lines pretty much everywhere on the planet, only those close to crossings carry any significant amount of power. Those closest to nemeta are the most powerful. The closest nemeton to Quantico is actually in Fell’s Church, West Virginia. Stiles has talked to Elena Salvatore, the lady who guards it, mostly so she wouldn’t worry about him (a magic-user with Stiles’s power and reputation? It’s better if he shows himself to be respectful to the locals). In any case, while the nemeton isn’t exactly what one would call close, they’re incredibly lucky that that particular nemeton, rather than being a tree (as is the case with the one in Beacon Hills), is a body of water, a spring, in fact. That has led the ley-lines in the territory to work differently, following the rivers and streams, of which there are many in both Virginias. Quantico being so close to the Potomac, and with fairly sizable bodies of water north and south… It’s probably the only reason Stiles manages to use the ley-lines to transport not just himself but his two teammates.

The three of them stumble out of the ley-lines just a few yards from the side of the SCU building, the back of which is missing a chunk, and smoking. Making it graphically obvious just why Stiles chose to do what he did, before anyone can ask any questions.

“Boss-man!” several voices cry out at the same time.

“You’re alive,” Ashley’s the first to reach them for obvious reasons. “Thank the gods.”

It takes several seconds, but Hotch is old and experienced enough to get control of himself fairly quickly. He says nothing though, as Stiles is panting beside him and Skye actually goes and throws up in the nearby bushes. Ley-line traveling feels awful, especially to people who have no magic to buffer them. Truth is, between that, and how costly it is on the reserves, it’s not really worth-it, for the most part. Not unless it’s a matter of life-or-death, like it was now.

“What happened?” Hotch demands as soon as he’s recovered enough, straightening to his full height and ignoring his disheveled appearance.

“Dubois blew up, somehow,” Ashley looks like she wants to scratch at the back of her head, and only doesn’t because she’s too self-conscious to. “We have no idea how.”

“Magic,” Stiles deadpans as he forces himself to straighten up as well.

“Magic,” both of his superiors repeat.

“Yeah,” Stiles nods, rubbing a hand down his face as he exhales. “Magic.”

Magic that is dark as fuck too. And the mere thought of anyone, druid, darach or anything else, being willing to use such magic… It doesn’t just boggle the mind, it goes against every instinct Stiles has as a magic-user himself, so he cannot grasp someone else doing it.

Why is this happening? It was supposed to be an easy day! He was going to present his resignation, help the team wrap up their last cases (both the one they were on before abruptly ending up on the East Coast, and the sudden op in LA), before heading to his apartment where he’d be able to call his pack to let them know the news and get started on his packing. With some luck he might have even made it to Beacon Hills in time to watch his kid warm the bench during the next lacrosse match! This… he has no idea what happened just yet, but he just knows his departure won’t be happening as easily, or as soon, as he might have planned.

xXx

There’s nothing left of Michel Dubois, which isn’t surprising. Thankfully, he’s the only fatality. The rest of the team having either been at the front of the building, or out, at the time of the explosion. Ashley and Kira had gotten a few cuts and scrapes protecting others when shit went flying, and Grant ended with a laceration on his arm while trying to move fallen debris when he thought Skye might be trapped underneath it.

After debriefing and reports, the team ends up in a safe-house for the night. Their bosses seemingly not having made up their mind yet whether the danger is past or not.

“Are we truly at risk?” Ashley wants to know. “I mean, how can we even know if that bastard was working alone or if he was part of a whole cult that might be coming after all of us next… Which wouldn’t be the first time, but how can we know…?”

“It’s not easy,” Stiles admits. “I mean, we’re pretty sure he was a druid, and while druids are, for all intents and purposes, all part of a single organization, the majority of them tend to work on their own for the most part. In terms of magical potential they aren’t particularly powerful, but at the same time, they’re the most common benign magic-users, so they tend to serve as emissaries to packs around the world. They claim to be committed to keeping the balance…”

“Why do you say it like that?” Jack asks, curious.

“Like what?” Stiles asks, though he has an idea what he means.

“Like you’re using quotation marks when you say the word balance,” Jack explains. “Also, the way you say claim, making it clear that you don’t actually believe it.”

Stiles coughs a bit at the same time he smiles. He didn’t expect Jack to be able to read so much into what he wasn’t saying, but at the same time he’s proud of the younger agent for it.

“That’s because I don’t,” he admits. “While I’ve gotten to know a fair number of druids, and not all are bad. The first two I met didn’t exactly endear me to their kind. Marin Morell was the school counselor at my high-school, French teacher as well. Outside of the school she served as emissary for the alpha pack, and while we could never prove her culpability in any of their crimes… you cannot serve as a pack’s emissary and not be aware when they are psychotic murderers. Alan Deaton on the other hand… my issues with him are a bit more personal, I’ll admit.”

Like him choosing to pretend ignorance while two teenage kids stumble around blind, almost getting themselves killed every other week. Or to claim to have been the Hale’s emissary, while never moving a finger to help a single Hale. Or aiding a new, bitten-wolf in a plan that led to the worst kind of betrayal against Derek Hale, the local, rightful alpha! And that’s without even going into the crimes he might or might not be guilty of regarding Stiles himself! (from setting him up for failure with that whole ‘be the spark’ speech, while not actually giving him enough mountain ash to circle the whole building, refusing to teach him anything, and then that ice bath… lets just say hindsight is 20/20 and Stiles is extremely suspicious of the fact that the fucking fox chose him of all people to be its host, but more than that, that it didn’t occur to Deaton to protect him, or all of them, from possible possession, it was a basic security measure for all rituals that dealt with altered states of consciousness).

“What are we missing?” Stiles murmurs, almost more to himself than to his team.

“What do you mean?” Jack asks, curious.

“Think about it,” Stiles starts enlisting things: “So many packs that have been killed over the last decade, found by hunters, even those that tried to hide. Betrayed by their emissaries. Most of them druids, like the Dubois. One of whom became the worst terrorist France has seen in years, and the other was Monroe’s right-hand… What if it’s all connected?”

“Well, we already knew that, didn’t we?” Grant asks. “I mean, not officially, of course, but we’ve been assuming all along that the hunters subverted the emissaries somehow. Perhaps by torturing some or all of them, or threatening them? It’s not like they haven’t done worse…”

“Yeah, but what if we were wrong?” Stiles asks. “What if all this time it hasn’t been the hunters forcing and manipulating the emissaries, but the other way around?”

“But that… that would mean…” Kira’s horrified by the mere idea.

“How would that even be possible?” Ashley cannot grasp it. “Emissaries are such an important part of packs. For things to be as you say, that’d mean a concerted effort to destroy the packs, that… that’s beyond one bad apple, it’s…”

Yeah, he has no words for it either. And it’s not like they have proof, or any idea how to get something that’d qualify as such and…

The ringing of a phone is so sudden and so unexpected that practically everyone jumps. It takes several seconds, but all eyes eventually turn to Kira, who only then realizes that it’s her phone that’s ringing.

“Oh!” She flushes as she picks it up, briefly glancing at the screen before speaking: “Moshi, moshi?”

Of everyone in the team, only Stiles understands a fair amount of what’s being said. But for the rest, her changing expression, the way her face goes from embarrassed, to tense, to confused, to deadly pale… it’s enough to let them know something’s very wrong, even before Stiles lets out a string of curses colorful enough and in a mix of enough languages to surprise everyone.

“What?!”

“What’s going on?”

“Kira…”

“What the hell?!”

“Stiles!”

Neither of them say a thing to their team for several seconds as they just stare at each other. The call has ended but Kira’s still holding the mobile in her hand, the horror as clear in her eyes as it is through the pack-bond.

“Guys!” Skye yells, and when that fails she lets out a whistle shrill enough for the supernaturals to slap their hands over their ears in an attempt to protect them.

At least that works in getting the kitsune and mage to turn their attention to them, as well as give them an answer:

“The nogitsune’s free…”

xXx

Stiles is shivering as he steps, or rather stumbles, out of the portal. If there’s one thing more insane than traveling through ley-lines, it is portaling between nemeta. In magical terms, it’s basically like diving into the mantle of the Earth, hoping for his magic to be strong enough to keep him from burning, holding his breath for an unknown amount of time before surfacing in some other corner of the planet. This is one style of travel that very few know exist, and of those, even less can do, and it’s usually restricted to the direst of circumstances.

Stiles knows it’s insane, burning a favor, one of the biggest favors in his arsenal, one owed to him by someone like Lady Salvatore… but like he told his team, he needed to get to France faster than a plane, any plane, could take him.

The one thing he didn’t expect to complicate his trip (though it most certainly did) was the way the Beacon Hills Nemeton started calling to him, even before he dove into the currents. It took some effort, both on his part and the lady’s, not to end up in totally the wrong place. He doesn’t even know why that happened at all, though he’s quite sure she does. Judging by the odd expression in her lapis lazuli blue eyes for a fraction of a second before he vanished into the currents.

In any case, Stiles doesn’t really have the time to worry about that. Other things take priority. Like what the hell is going on, exactly. What enemy is coming after them. Because it cannot be the nogitsune. Or at least, not the one that attacked him fifteen years ago. It’s not possible. It’s just not. Stiles knows, he knows that the nogitsune was taken to France. Isaac took it with him when he and Chris Argent left town back then. After negotiating with a coven in Lyons-la-Foret, in the Normandy region of France. Arrangements were made to bury the nogitsune in their nemeton’s roots (a strong, healthy nemeton), deep enough in the National Forest of Lyons, and closely protected by the coven, they were reasonably certain the fox wouldn’t be getting out of there. Ever.

So how is it then that Hiroki Zhang claims it just escaped? And not only that, but according to him the fox was being kept in a jar, in his brother’s restaurant, guarded by his niece and her mate! That’s not possible. It’s just not! Scott couldn’t possibly be that… that careless, that stupid!

Stiles surprised his whole team when he rushed to the parking lot almost before even he was entirely conscious of what he was doing, much less the rest of them. Most of them at least managed to catch up with him as he was getting into his blue Jeep Compass (his own, rather than the bureau car he usually drove), though no one actually tried to stop him.

“Where are you going!” Jack asked, worried.

It wasn’t that he thought Stiles was abandoning them. They (the whole team, really) knew each other well enough for there to be no worry of such misunderstandings. But at the same time, the team was well aware of what a nogitsune was. There was that case in Sado Island, in Japan. That… it had been a really bad case. A lot of people had ended up dead, including the nogitsune’s host, a young woman obsessed with getting revenge over many people, from neglectful relatives, to school-bullies, to abusive exes and mean co-workers. Stiles tried to think of a way to save her, but he was too late. Also, while he never admitted it, he has a feeling that even if they’d found her first, there was nothing they could have done. There was never any chance for Tanaka, not when she herself chose to summon that void-fox, despite being human; she let him in, worked with him to both plan and execute the murders. Truly, in the end the best they could do was end the threat.

That was also the day that some heavy truths came out: Like the fact that Stiles wasn’t just rare, he was unique, the only nogitsune-host to have not just freed himself, but survived at all. Which clearly explained why the mere thought of the void-fox being back was so terrifying, not just for Stiles, but for his whole team (and his pack back home).

“Fell’s Church,” Stiles’s answer clearly surprised everyone, so he elaborated. “There’s a lady there who owes me a favor. I need to get to Normandy faster than any plane can take me.” Something else occurred to him and he looked past Jack, to Kira. “Call the pack? Find out what, if anything, they know about what’s going on please? Also, if this is actually happening, and for any reason they do not yet know, they’ll appreciate the heads up.”

He’d have liked to be the one to call Derek, and his dad, of course he would have. But he needed to focus on driving, and he really hoped that Lady Salvatore would be able to see him despite the lack of an appointment, or even a call warning of his visit. If Zhang was right… they didn’t have time to lose.

“Why do you come looking for an answer you’ve already got?”

And well that… that says a lot, doesn’t it? A lot, but not everything.

“Because while one answer might be good, it won’t be enough to solve this.” Stiles replies, voice as even as he can make it, as he ruthlessly pushes down the part of him that’s shaking with a mix of anger and fear at the thought of that nogitsune being free. “I need more.”

“Well said,” the woman, Alexandrie Blanc, nods as she spins around, leading Stiles away from the small chamber he came out of and onto a stone path.

Alexandrie Blanc is the Guardian of the Normandian nemeton, as well as being the head of the coven of Lyons-la-Foret. With skin the color of the palest rose, sky-blue eyes and hair of a brown so dark it’s almost black, she favors blue tunic-like dresses that brush the ground behind her, her feet always bare (so she can remain in contact with the land); crystals always hang from her ears in a variety of heavy earrings (crystals being her favorite tool to do magic with). Nothing is known of her parents or any family besides her daughter. Some stories claim that Alexandrie Blanc isn’t actually her name, but what she chose to name herself when she embraced her destiny as both witch and Guardian.

“Follow me Lord Hale,” the lady adds for good measure.

Stiles had never met Lady Blanc before this very day, and her choice of address is… strange in many ways. Stiles would have understood her calling him Maese, as many in the old continent do; Master too would have been expected. It’s not her choice to address him as Hale rather than Stilinski that has him confused, that much doesn’t actually surprise him (whether she’s acknowledging him as part of the Hale Pack, or as the Alpha Mate, it’s the same in the end), the title of Lord though, that’s what he doesn’t understand.

All in all, Stiles has no idea yet what might be coming, exactly.t He might claim to want answers, but truth is that he doesn’t think he even knows all the questions. He does know one thing though: his life will probably never be the same after this trip.

Chapter II. Emissary

Stiles is more than a little surprised when, rather than leading him out of the cave where the nemeton seems to be located (or perhaps the cave itself is the nemeton?), Lady Blanc leads him deeper into the cave system, eventually reaching a huge chamber.

“Oh…” The mage is completely speechless.

The place warrants his awe. It’s such a perfect mix of entirely different things: the first to draw his attention are the pools of crystalline water scattered throughout the enormous chamber. He can tell at a glance that they’re at different temperatures, from the coolest near the east side of the chamber, to the hottest, on the west end. He can also see, in between those hottest pools, what looks like a bonfire, or well, it’d be if there were any wood in it. It’s as if the flame emerged from the earth and it just exists there. And that’s not all. On the far west side of the chamber, after the pools of water, there’s sand, a lot of sand; makes that end look almost like a beach of some sort. Meanwhile on the north side there’s a tree (big enough that the term huge seems to just not do justice to the actual size of the chamber), as well as lots of bushes and wildflowers. While in the south there’s a garden of an entirely different kind, made of quartz crystals in seemingly every color of the rainbow.

Something else that Stiles cannot help but notice is that while the caverns that lead to that particular chamber had been enclosed enough to make the use of a torch necessary for them to navigate them, the space they’re in now is perfectly illuminated thanks to the various skylight-like holes on the ceiling, which allow light to slip through. Light that goes through the vapor created by the hot pools, as well as hitting the crystals in such a way… It’s a mix of elements and colors that should be entirely impossible, yet there it is. Stiles has but one word to describe it:

“Magical…” he breathes out.

“I’ve always thought so, yes.” Alexandrie agrees.

“What is this place?” Stiles asks softly, part of him feeling like speaking any louder will somehow break the perfect serenity of the place.

“This is the nemeton I am Guardian of.” Alexandrie announces, then revises. “Well, the nemeton is the whole cave system. But this… this is the heart of it.”

Like the cellar underneath the nemeton back home… and Stiles has no idea how he even knows that!

“Guardian…?” Stiles chooses to focus on the newest piece of information. “What’s that?”

“Guardian…”

“Keeper…”

“Warden…”

“Warlock…”

“Sorceress…”

“Paladin…”

“We’ve been called many things, by many people throughout the ages.”

Stiles blinks several times in quick succession because… the chamber was empty of people bar himself and Lady Blanc just a moment ago, he’s sure of that, yet now… now there are so many! Each so very different, and not just in the obvious ways: like the woman of clear Asian descent in what looks like an odd mix of old Chinese robes and armor, sitting on a rocky outcrop; or the Middle-Eastern man in pitch-black robes with tattoos on his face leaning against a wall on the sandy area of the chamber; the Latin-American man who’s wearing nothing more than a loincloth and a long, very intricately made cloak, with a strange head-dress covered in feathers and with a shape of what looks almost like a serpent, sitting on the edge of one of the pools, bare feet in the water.

There are only two people he recognizes: In a long but simple white dress, with equally white shoes, sitting on the garden side of the chamber, though close enough to one of the pools to be touching the water with her porcelain fingertips is Elena Salvatore. Also on that side of the chamber, though instead leaning against the trunk of the tree, wearing a midnight-blue haori over dark pants and a simple dove-gray shirt is none other than Hiroki Zhang.

Something else that Stiles cannot help but notice is that aside from himself, Lady Blanc, the other two he’s met before, and a clearly European man in a modern suit, many of the other people present look more than a little bit… translucent. It’s only really obvious when they move in such a way that the light actually goes through them, or in the way that some of them, despite clearly being there, don’t seem to actually be touching anything (like how the man in the pre-hispanic clothing has his feet in the water yet is making no ripples, or the lack of footprints where the Middle-Eastern man stands on the sand).

It’s intriguing, and eerie in a way. And Stiles really wants to know what the hell is going on!

“To answer your earlier question.” It’s Alexandrie who speaks up. “We are the Guardians.”

She waves her hands widely, to encompass everyone present. Stiles cannot help but feel she’s even including him but… how?

“Past and present,” she continues. “We’re those who’ve been chosen by the nemeta. To not just guard the groves themselves, and their power, but their territory.”

Stiles takes a deep breath as his brain works to process the new information.

“Do you know how many nemeta there are in the world?” The European man asks. “Countless. Even us, being who and what we are, have no idea how many there are.

“Things like pollution, and war, may damage some of them irreparably.” The Chinese woman states.

“But when one is lost, another will always… spring anew.” Zhang finishes.

It’s so much information, so intriguing, so amazing, Stiles has so many questions! But Zhang’s presence there is a cold reminder that he has a mission. He traveled to France for a reason, and he cannot get distracted!

“We Guardians are called into service always when the need is greatest.” A young polinesian-looking woman states. “Some of us might be born with this fate, but many are chosen because they carry a potential, and are willing to answer the call when it comes.”

“Usually there’s only one or two of us at a time.” The Prehispanic man (Stiles thinks he looks like the king of some ancient civilization or something) points out. “Because despite how humans might be most of the time, it’s not often that things happen that actually threaten the existence of the world.”

Stiles supposes that is good to know. And really, considering all the historical-looking figures, from entirely different places and time-periods, it’s easy to imagine something like that. What worries him are those that are clearly not ghosts but still very much alive, as those are obviously the ones who’ve been called more recently (recently enough to not have died yet). The Europeans like Alexandrie and the man, he can imagine their calling being a result of something happening during the Cold War, or even before that, WWII. Zhang… well Stiles cannot know but he remembers how bad things got during the mess with that other nogitsune. He wonders if that’s when he became a guardian. So many people dead (murdered) over such a short period of time and some under the most strange circumstances… they got dangerously close to having the shadow-world outed more than once. And Stiles just knows if that ever happens when a supernatural being is on a killing-rampage of some kind the results will definitely be world-endingly bad! The one that worries him most is Elena Salvatore though, because she’s not that much older than him, and for something that bad to have happened that close to where he’s been living for the past decade and a half, and he and his team to not know about it… He’s not sure if he ought to be awed, or terrified. Perhaps both.

In that moment Stiles doesn’t need to ask what he’s doing there, exactly, the answer is obvious enough.

“You think I’m a Guardian,” he blurts out.

“We know you’re a Guardian,” Alexandrie corrects. “Whether you see it as you being born for it. Or the fact that you’ve been answering the call of your own nemeton time and again since it first called to you… you are what you are.”

And that’s that.

xXx

Kira is more than a little stressed-out. Which is to be expected with their current situation. The thrice-forsaken void-fox is out. She doesn’t actually know who let the demon out of its prison, the reports seem to be a bit confusing, and lacking in any specific details. Because saying that it was a man in a dark trench-coat who went looking for the jar the nogitsune was kept in, all the way to the Zhang restaurant in Niigata, Japan is in no way specific enough. Also, she cannot believe that Scott and the rest were stupid enough to be so careless with the fucking monster!

Well no, that’s not entirely true either. Having seen, even experienced in a sense, how careless Scott McCall can be with things (and people) of great value, he can totally believe that he’d be that foolish. But everyone else? Considering everything that happened, all that was lost, shouldn’t everyone have been more interested in ensuring that monster never got free again?!

But it is free again, and according to the pack, that’s quite possibly the least of their problems: the fires. Someone keeps lighting chemical fires in the Beacon Hills preserve. For what reason? No one knows! People are having nightmares, and doing stupid rituals, having no idea of what the consequences might be, and now there’s a… there’s something wearing the face of Allison Argent… or well, the face she’d have had if she’d lived to reach her thirties. And how can anyone see that older version of a girl who died at seventeen and not realize that there’s something wrong with the whole situation?! Kira knows that Scott is stupidly in love with her, he’s always been (even while he was dating Kira!), and she can understand Chris Argent wanting to believe that his only daughter somehow came back… but what about everyone else?!

In any case, there’s a reason why it’s not just Kira making her way to Beacon Hills, but her entire team. And not just them, she even managed to make arrangements to ensure that any and all pack-members not already in Beacon Hills would find their way there before the end of the night. Because she just knows that whatever else might happen, they will probably all be needed before it’s all said and done.

There’s one thing she doesn’t understand yet though, one question that she truly believes requires an answer, the sooner the better: what the hell are Lydia, Malia, and anyone else from their pack that might be involved thinking?!

xXx

To say things are going badly would, to be entirely honest, be putting it kindly. Things passed wrong, and fell straight into FUBAR territory the moment Allison Argent materialized on the nemeton. If it is Allison Argent… Lydia honestly doesn’t know which answer would be worse:

Either the woman truly is Allison Argent. Her once best-friend. Who doesn’t remember any of them. Who was so easily willing to believe them all to be her enemies, who hunted down the Hales, her pack, including a fifteen year old, without hesitation or mercy. Who came so close to killing Derek… Who almost killed Scott and yet he’s still so willing to let it go, like it doesn’t matter! Well, on that last one she’s not surprised, Scott has always been quite stupid where Allison’s concerned…

Or there’s the other possibility, of it not being Allison. Of that… that thing calling herself by that name not being her once best-friend at all. But what is she then? A homunculus? A golem? What kind of monster…? Well, the banshee supposes that with that fucking void-fox involved she ought to be expecting pretty much anything!

So, which is better, which is worse? Thinking that her once best-friend, who died over a decade ago, has been trapped in limbo all this time, unable to cross-over, to find true rest, to be at peace… or that it is not her and they were all manipulated by that fucking demon into creating their own worst enemy: a huntress with the power and skills to kill them all, and a face that they might hesitate to go against? It’d be so easy to believe the first, so easy… except for all the things that just do not fit. Like: if Allison has truly been trapped in limbo, in a place where time did not exist (because she doesn’t seem to have any memories of Bardo, the last one before waking in the hospital being of the battle against the oni, the battle in which she died), then why is she so much older? That wasn’t part of the spell. The key ingredients all involved the moment of her death, no aging involved. So why didn’t they get a seventeen-year-old girl? It makes no sense.

Lydia’s pride isn’t so great as to believe she cannot be tricked, even though she cannot help but curse herself. Perhaps if she hadn’t let her gifts atrophy quite so much she would have been better able to see through the deception… because yeah, she’s admitted at least that much to herself. She was deceived. Tricked into doing what the fox wanted and… that’s it, isn’t it? That’s the answer!

xXx

He needs to protect his son.

To say that things have gone wrong would be putting it kindly. Derek has no idea what certain individuals were thinking and he doesn’t want to know. He’d rather focus on making things right if at all possible, or at the very least protecting his son, rather than finding someone to blame for the absolute insanity that has been the last couple of days…

Has it really been such a short time?

It’s… he can barely believe it. One day he’s feeling at the top of the world. Knowing that his mate is finally coming home, for good. It… hasn’t been bad, exactly. They’ve always made time for each other, whether in Beacon Hills, Quantico, or wherever they might be able to. But it just wasn’t the same. And now… with Monroe and her army dead or in prison, all hunters either gone or being watched closely enough that there’s no doubt they’ll be following the code to the letter (instead of whatever depraved personal interpretation they come up with), now they can move on from that. Move into the next chapter of their lives.

His mate is coming home! So why the hell did everything have to go so wrong precisely now?!

The fires were bad enough. The not-knowing, what, or who or why, the lack of knowledge was probably worse than the fires themselves. It’s… as bad as it was, trees being burned like that, chemical fires, which kept reminding him of the one that killed his family; the fires tended to end almost as fast as they began, and they never took out more than a few trees at a time. The only truly worrying thing was the fact that they kept happening. It’s… if it had been an arsonist intending to burn down the preserve, they wouldn’t ensure the fires ended so fast, but if it had just been about burning a few trees, they wouldn’t have kept at it for two weeks; which meant that something else had to be going on. Even if they had no idea what.

Suggesting that Stiles be called was equal parts Derek wanting to see his mate again (he hadn’t known yet that his beloved planned on quitting soon), and truly believing that Stiles would be able to solve the mystery, because that’s his thing! He solves mysteries. When the nogitsune ended up being involved Derek couldn’t help but feel grateful they hadn’t called him in the end. That confrontation was bad enough the first time. As much as a part of him might want the help, the greater part of him wanted to keep his mate as far away from the fucking fox as possible.

He’d have liked to do the same with regards to his son too. His son… Eli might not have been born as such, but the boy’s been his for a decade now. Truth is that even if he weren’t the last piece of his beloved little sister, if he weren’t Stiles’s own, Derek would still love him with his whole heart, simply because he’s Eli. His boy.

His son whom he needs to keep safe from the nogitsune. Somehow.

Allison Argent. Now there’s one name… Derek won’t say he never thought he’d be hearing it again. Though that had been rare enough, since the end of the Argent trial and Christopher Argent leaving Beacon Hills after the break-up with Melissa McCall. He still doesn’t know what to think about the huntress being back. Well, actually he does. He’s furious, beyond furious. She hunted his son, tried to kill him! It’s not that Derek isn’t angry for the attack against himself, of course he is, but it’s not like it’s the first time, and people always seem to find ways to justify attacks against his person. But whatever misguided hate the huntress might have towards him, Eli is just a child! He’s an innocent! He did not deserve to be hunted down like that, like… like, like an animal!

It reminds him of why he hates hunters so much. Why, even though he was respectful enough to not say a word about it, especially after Allison’s death in the fight against the oni, he never liked her, never forgave her for her actions against him and his pack (he’ll never understand how Isaac did, how he went as far as dating her…). And to think that Scott’s yet again so obsessed with her… well that’s not surprising, really. That boy has always been one to think with his ‘other head’, caring about nothing, not even his own pack, when Allison is involved. Then again… they aren’t his pack, are they?

No, they’re not Scott McCall’s pack, they’re his, they’re Hale Pack. Perhaps it’s high time Derek starts acting like it. Starting with protecting his pack from their enemies. ALL of them.

xXx

The only witnesses of the emergence of a new guardian to the nemeton are the spirits, gathered around the stump of a once imposing tree. Twelve individuals, from teenagers to seniors, stand in a loose circle close to the edges of the glade. One of the youngest steps out of the shadows and into a patch of moonlight, which reveals a teen-aged looking girl, with alabaster skin, pale blue eyes and thick blonde tresses falling down her back, she’s wearing a simple flowery dress and espadrille sandals.

“Welcome guardian,” she murmurs with a bow of her head, her voice perfectly serious, yet there’s a smile on her perfectly painted lips.

Stiles raises his head slowly, whiskey brown eyes turning a vivid violet, the color of magic, and then silver, the color of guardians. The words that come from his lips are perfectly natural, and entirely heart-felt:

“It’s good to be home.”

Chapter III. Mage

Stiles knows something’s wrong the moment he sets foot on the nemeton. Before that even, he can feel it in his bones. The wrongness, the darkness slowly but surely creeping over the territory. Cloying and nauseating and… confusing in a sense. Because at first sight (both physical and magical) there’s nothing wrong at all. Everything seems just fine, but Stiles knows it’s not. It’s like… like a fruit that looks just fine while laying on a table, yet when you smell it, you know it’s not, because on the inside it’s already rotten…

“What the hell’s going on in this place?” Stiles demands as he crouches on the edge of the stump.

The answers the spirits give him… it’s not what he wanted to hear. He’s not entirely surprised though, he knew things would be bad from the moment Zhang phoned Kira. And on that front… his team’s coming, his whole team. It’s not what Stiles expected, yet at the same time he’s infinitely grateful for it. There might not be anything they can do about the fucking fox, but he’ll probably need them for what comes after.

“I’ll need you all to spread out, make sure that the territory’s safe,” Stiles states. “As bad as a trap like this one can be. It’s not just about all pack-members being at a single place, but hopefully also all the enemies. That could prove beneficial if we manage to reverse the ambush.” He pauses, focusing on a voice only he can hear. “No, it won’t be easy. But it’s what needs to be done. For Beacon Hills, and for the Hale Pack.”

Stiles throws his head back and howls, then he jumps off the stump, and straight into the ley-lines.

xXx

It’s like a bomb went off.

Everyone’s ears are ringing (not just the supernaturals’) and more than one person wonders if it was just the explosion or… did they hear a howl, or something like that, at some point?! Was that Derek? Or Jordan? The nogitsune? Or someone else entirely?!

Even after the explosion has passed no one seems to quite know what to say or do. They all just stand there, watching, as if trying to convince themselves that they’re not seeing what they think they are: Jordan Parrish, wearing barely scraps of what used to be his deputy uniform, soot marks on him, laying on the surface of a stump, alone… alone when just seconds before, until right before the explosion, he wasn’t. He was accompanied by both Derek Hale… and the nogitsune.

“No…” Lydia gasps as she stumbles forward. “Nonononononono…”

“Lydia…?” Jackson calls.

But she’s not listening, she just keeps repeating no, over and over again.

“Lydia!” Jackson eventually yells loud enough to be heard not just by her, but by everyone.

All eyes turn to him, but the once-kanima has eyes for no one but his red-haired best-friend.

“Jackson…?” she mumbles.

There are tears in the corners of her jade green eyes, she looks oddly fragile, like a single word could shatter her… Jackson just hopes it won’t be these ones:

“Lyds, you did not scream,” he points out quietly.

Not quiet enough not to be heard by all the shifters around, but he doesn’t really care about them right now. His focus is Lydia.

“Yes, I did.” Lydia contradicts. “I… I took back my power and I screamed…”

“But not Derek’s name.” Jackson points out.

That makes her react. And not just her, everyone turns instantly in the direction of the stump. At the same time as it vanishes, along with everything else connected to the dark dimension the nogitsune transported them to. There’s nothing left of it, humans and supernaturals left standing around the lacrosse field, wondering what’s supposed to happen now.

“I didn’t scream for him…” Lydia murmurs. “I didn’t scream for Derek…”

Her first repetition of the words has her sounding nervous, hesitant. The second though, is strong, confident. She did not scream for Derek. Which means that he’s not dead. He’s not!

And then she hears it again, they all do: howling, only not quite. It’s not the howl a wolf can make, nor a werewolf. It’s… it’s the closest simile a human throat can create…

All eyes turn to the opposite end of the lacrosse field, which one moment stands empty, and then it isn’t anymore. As there stands a man, in dark-jeans, thick-soled tanned-leather boots, an off-white t-shirt and a black-leather jacket that looks a bit off for his body-built. He has a tall, deceptively thin yet muscular body, tanned skin, a mop of messy brown hair on his head, a hint of facial hair (not quite a full-beard) and deep whiskey brown eyes that look to almost be changing color…

“Stiles…?”

“Stiles!”

“Stilinski!”

“Son!”

Voices call, one over the other, as the newcomer’s recognized.

“What…? No, that’s not possible.” For some reason Scott seems to be the most shocked at the new arrival. “Why would Stiles even be here?”

And then one more identification comes:

“Papa!!!”

Stiles, for that is certainly who just appeared at the other end of the lacrosse field, glances around, taking in each person and their position without saying a word. Then he starts walking. It’s… odd, to those who might not have seen him in over a decade, as his isn’t the walk of the clumsy, distracted, careless teenager he once was; his every motion is sleek, economic, purposeful, he doesn’t waste a single movement of his body. Also, the shifters, with their primal instincts, cannot help but sense they’re in the presence of an apex predator.

Even Scott, who’s never been very good at the things that make him a wolf (unless it’s convenient, for sports, or popularity, or to get his current infatuation interested in him) cannot help but feel intimidated. Which is probably why he continues to deny that it is Stiles. There’s just… there’s no way Stiles could ever be like that! His old friend isn’t like that. He’s fragile and weak and… human!

He’s so lost in his own thoughts, convincing himself that the newcomer cannot possibly be Stiles, that Scott fails to realize where he’s heading, until the man’s practically in front of him. But no, not him, the man hasn’t even turned to Scott, he’s staring straight at Allison.

“Drop it,” he orders, voice strong and commanding.

“What…?” she begins, voice a bit too high to sound natural.

“What are you doing!” Scott snarls, making to shove Stiles back. “Leave Allison alone!”

Stiles does step back, though it’s hard to tell whether it’s Scott’s fault, or his own choice.

“Allison…?” Stiles repeats, head tilted to a side, as if he cannot understand it.

He stares at the huntress, an unsettling stare, enough to make her shift, seemingly uncomfortable. Scott reacts, pulling at her a bit and placing himself firmly between the two. There’s a glint in the huntress’s eyes as Scott does this, and Stiles catches it, along with the minute burnt-orange to them. His own whiskey eyes widen briefly before his whole face shifts into an inscrutable mask. He knows now what’s going on.

It didn’t occur to the magic-user, when he first stepped out of the ley-lines and straight onto the lacrosse field, as if he’d just given a single step (a step out of thin air…) that what he was seeing, might not be what everyone else could see.

He can tell the exact moment the truth hits other members of the pack. Two individuals inhale sharply, staring at him, and then at the supposed Allison Argent, one with heart-breaking disbelief, the other with the beginnings of a furious snarl.

Stiles goes to take a step forward, only to find himself shoved back forcefully by Scott. This time it’s more obvious, as is the fact that the ‘True Alpha’ can barely make the ‘human’ move.

“Stay back!” Scott snarls. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are but…”

Stiles does consider trying to explain things to Scott. Very briefly, but he does think about it. He soon realizes it’s pointless, Scott will never accept the truth, and Stiles is already quite low on patience. His mating bond with Derek has been feeling off for hours, since the previous night, actually. But at this moment it’s like it’s muted, somehow. He knows it’s the fault of the fucking fox, and Stiles has no time to try and get Scott of all people see reason! (he knows how pointless such an attempt would be).

“I have no time for this,” he informs Scott.

In all the years he’s been a wolf, Scott has never really cared for learning how to properly be one. He’s taken advantage of the speed, and the agility and strength, of the healing factor which has made his once crippling asthma a non-issue, has used his enhanced senses as convenient (though never truly learning all he can do with them). He most definitely never learned to handle the instincts that come with being a werewolf. If asked he’d claim that he cared for being human, rather than a wolf. Not realizing that control has never been about suppression, but about acceptance, about balance.

The point is that when Stiles turns on Scott, not only he doesn’t see it coming, the wolf has no way to defend himself. All that’s needed is Stiles slamming his hand into Scott’s solar plexus (with just a bit of magic backing him up) for the wolf to go flying. He manages to mostly land in a crouch, several feet to a side, coughing and panting as the air’s knocked out of him.

“Allison!” he yells as he realizes what’s just happened.

However, when he goes to rush forward, intent on protecting the huntress, he finds himself unable to give a single step: there’s a ring of mountain ash around him (thrown by Stiles at the same time he threw Scott himself).

Mason reacts automatically, turning to go to his alpha, only to find none other than Sheriff Stilinski standing in his way!

“I’m gonna have to ask you to stay where you are, Hewitt.” His boss tells him, and Mason doesn’t miss the fact that, while his voice is kind enough, his hand is on his gun.

His request isn’t a request at all. It’s an order. And as Mason soon realizes it’s not just about him. Deaton too made an attempt to go to Scott, only to find himself blocked, by Peter Hale, though much more… directly, as Peter’s holding the vet by the neck, claws dangerously positioned to the sides of his throat. Making the unstated threat very clear.

“I don’t understand, why?” Mason murmurs, at a loss.

Because why are his boss and Peter Hale turning on them? Why now?!

“Because I trust my son,” the sheriff says simply. “Whatever it is he’s doing, he must have a damn good reason for it. He clearly doesn’t want Scott to interfere, and we won’t have you, or Deaton, getting in the way.”

Mason blinks because, the newcomer is the sheriff’s son! Stiles! But… but if it’s him why is he attacking? Does he not know what’s going on? Is… did the nogitsune do something to him?! Mason’s heard that he was possessed by the void-fox before, years ago, before Mason himself ever joined the McCall pack. Only… that cannot be it, can it? Because the fox is dead now. Jordan killed it, with Derek’s help. Derek… Wait, Eli, Derek’s son Eli called Stiles papa!

Mason’s still trying to understand what’s going on, when several things happen very fast:

“I said, drop it,” Stiles orders, and despite the fact that he doesn’t yell, doesn’t so much as raise his voice, there’s an undercurrent of power to it that seems to heighten his threat-level in the eyes of all the supernaturals present.

“I don’t know…” Allison begins.

While it’s not hard to guess what she’s trying to say, to claim, Stiles doesn’t really give her the chance to finish the lie. When he acts, it’s not immediately obvious. There is no flash of light, no great clap of thunder. Still the effect is quite clear. One moment the mage is standing there, staring at the huntress, the next there’s no huntress anymore, instead there’s a man, of Asian features, with tanned skin, long black hair in a top-knot and wearing a very elaborate multi-layered kimono in black and gold. The most striking though are his entirely black eyes (iris and sclera both), which look like terrifying, endless voids…

“No!!!” Scott roars. “What did you do?! ALLISON!!!!!!!”

He starts pounding on the barrier keeping him trapped with near manic desperation. Screaming Allison’s name repeatedly at the top of his lungs. At least until a dart hits him from behind, and he drops like a sack of potatoes.

This development takes them all by surprise, especially when several people turn to search for the one to shoot the dart, finding a brunette man in dark slacks and a button up with the sleeves rolled up, on one knee on the stands, close to one of the entrances to the stadium, with a rifle braced against the railing. Beside him is a young woman, with short dark hair and hazel eyes in a dark jumpsuit and a short jacket.

Chris Argent makes to move himself when seeing his daughter disappear, only to find the edge of a sword against his neck a second later. Following it he’s more than a little surprised to find it being held by none other than Kira Yukimura.

He’s not the only one surprised by the presence of the thunder kitsune. And, as he soon realizes, several more newcomers. None of them entirely human. It makes Chris Argent wonder what the hell is going on. And where exactly is his daughter?!

“Stiles…” The man (creature?) with flashing orange eyes, standing in the very spot where the huntress used to stand, stares at the mage with obvious fascination. “You came. How… wonderful.”

Stiles snorts. He can tell that as much as the nogitsune clearly likes him being there, he also doesn’t.

“You might be able to trick them,” the mage says calmly. “But you cannot trick me.”

“No, I’ve never been able to do that, have I?” the nogitsune admits. “From the very start of our… relationship. You’ve always been too smart for your own good.”

“And you’ve always been too evil for this world,” Stiles retorts.

“Oh but have I?” the nogitsune challenges. “This world is a cesspit! Fertile ground for all sorts of monsters and their depravities. You know this as well as I do… little mage…” His grin turns bigger, maniacal. “Oh, how bright is your magic! And to think you owe it all to me!”

“I owe you nothing!” Stiles snaps, losing his cool for just a moment. “If it were for you I’d be dead fifteen years ago!”

“That’s true, but I have to admit, you surviving makes things all the more… interesting,” the nogitsune sounds so eager, sickeningly so. “And you’ve only become stronger since then! Think, think of all the fun we can have!”

“No fun,” Stiles snaps. “All you’re gonna do is leave this world. Once and for all.”

“Oh… am I?” The fox challenges.

What follows is a battle that not everyone can fully comprehend. Most cannot even see what’s really happening at all. Melinda is perhaps the only one who, by virtue of her own magical heritage, can see and sense everything as it happens. Jack picks up on most things, as do the shifters and the kitsune, but the humans are left just watching the effects of a battle taking place on an entirely different level.

Like when the nogitsune goes flying back several feet, as far as the stands, actually, managing to land on them in a crouch before manifesting a katana made of the darkest shadows and throwing himself back at Stiles while screaming something in Japanese.

Stiles for his part makes a move that allows him to drag his hands against the inside of his opposite arm, coming away holding a long dagger on each one (pulled out from a couple of the invisible tattoos he has on him). He manages to cross them over his head just in time to block the nogitsune’s katana. The blow is hard enough that the impact echoes across the field and actual sparks seem to fly around them for a moment.

The nogitsune lets out a furious snarl, the katana vanishing into smoke as he makes a stabbing motion towards Stiles’s unprotected mid-section, a kunai appearing in his hand seconds before impact. The last thing anyone would ever expect happens. As right as several members of the Hale pack scream a warning, either in fury or despair, Stiles just… vanishes. Reappearing a second later as the nogitsune stumbles forward several steps in his overreach, a kick to his back as the human reappears behind him rather than in front, sending him sprawling.

“You forget one thing, fox,” Stiles states in an absolutely cold voice. “You’re in my territory now. And here, you follow my rules.”

Which means no illusions, no twisted dimensions, no hiding in the shadows.

The nogitsune lets out a ferocious, challenging roar, loud enough to leave the ears of all with enhanced senses ringing. And yet, even with all of that, everyone can tell that the fox isn’t just furious, he’s also afraid. Stiles has effectively cut him at the knees already, and they’ve only just started fighting! Why didn’t they call Stiles in before?

They have a few more exchanges with blades, and even with bare fists and feet once or twice, before the nogitsune puts distance between the two once again.

“Oh Stiles,” the nogitsune almost purrs. “I knew you were the smart one.”

“Smart enough not to fall for your tricks,” the mage quips.

“True,” the fox agrees. “You knew from the start I wasn’t Allison…”

“Of course,” Stiles shrugs then, for the benefit of those around him, he elaborates. “Allison died. If it were that easy to bring people back from the dead don’t you think it’d have happened before?” That he wouldn’t have done it before?

“Peter was dead!” Scott snaps somewhere in the background, having apparently woken up faster than expected. “And he came back!”

“Peter was never dead,” Lydia scoffs. “He was only mostly dead. His soul might have split from his body, but it never crossed over, it was tethered to me. At least until the ritual.”

“A ritual that was more about saving both of our minds than anything else.” Peter puts in his two cents. “Being allowed back was a, shall we say, prodigious side-effect.”

“Prodigious?” Chris Argent scoffs, “According to whom?”

The fact that the whole of the Hale Pack answers to that in the affirmative, loud enough to drown Argent’s own complaints brings a smile to Peter’s face. It also makes at least two people begin to suspect that more is going on than they initially realized.

“So Allison never came back?” Chris asks quietly.

He just needs to be sure. For his own peace of mind if nothing else.

“No,” Stiles states, somewhat bluntly.

It’s not in him to be kind to Argents, but he can practically feel a hint of disapproval from his dad, a request for compassion. So Stiles decides to be gentler.

“I’m not saying it never happens, people coming back.” He adds (he’s heard rumors about Lady Salvatore). “But magic requires equivalent exchange. One thing for another, equal value.”

“A life for a life.” Kira summarizes.

“But no one died when we did the ritual!” Malia pipes in.

“That’s right!” Scott yells. “You’re full of shit! Whoever you are! Because you cannot possibly be Stiles! My best friend, my brother, would never do something like this! Give Allison back!!!”

Stiles can only roll his eyes.

“Best friend?” Jackson has no compunctions as he speaks up. “Brother? When was the last time you even talked to Stiles, McCall?”

“Since when do you call him Stiles?” Scott blurts out.

That almost makes several people face-palm, almost.

“He’s pack,” Jackson says simply.

And that, that confirms that something more is going on than some are aware of just yet.

The battle continues even as those around keep arguing.

“Release me!” Scott demands repeatedly. “You must release me!”

Most ignore him completely. Jackson and Lydia, the other ones who respond at all, do little more than scoff at him.

“You must do as I say!” Scott snaps, sounding more like a petulant child than a leader.

“Oh yeah?” Jackson challenges. “And why’s that?”

“I’m not talking to you,” Scott hisses at him. “I’m talking to Lydia, and to Malia, and to the others. You must obey me! I’m your alpha!”

At that Lydia actually laughs. A cold, fake laugh most haven’t heard since her days of pretending to be a vapid queen-bee in high-school.

“Some alpha,” Jackson mutters under his breath.

“I don’t understand,” Deaton murmurs, more to himself than to the pack. “They were willing enough to follow him before…”

“Were they?” Kira asks him quietly. “Or were they just being manipulated by the nogitsune, like pretty much everyone else?”

Kira doesn’t understand how the man can claim to be all-wise, a druid, care for the balance and… whatever else he claims to care about. And yet he didn’t see anything wrong about Scott and the others following messages found in dreams, which they didn’t know where or who they came from; doing a strange ritual that, yet again, none knew the origins of, and which involved life and death, over the stump of a badly damaged nemeton! It’s like… every single one of those things are bright red flags, and yet he and the so-called true alpha saw no problem with them?! Just what the hell is wrong with these people?!

The battle ends as abruptly as it began: the nogitsune rushes Stiles yet again, a new katana, darker and deadlier-looking than any before; Stiles stands before him, hands empty, seemingly defenseless. Yet right as the blade should have pierced right through the human, instead it seems to hit some sort of barrier, shattering into pieces so small it’s like it disappears entirely. At the same time that happens Stiles extends both hands, one touching the nogitsune’s head, the other his chest… and then it’s the nogitsune that shatters. All that’s left is some very dark smoke that disperses very fast, as well as a sword and a fistful of dirt that drops to the ground at Stiles’s fist.

And just like that, it’s over.

Chris Argent drops to the grassy ground, like a marionette with its strings cut. It’s so sudden Peter barely manages to pull his claws back before the hunter tears his own throat open on them. But it’s that the moment he sees all that’s left (the blade that killed her… dirt of the place she died on…) that’s when he truly understands the depth of the illusion, the extent of the lie. He was tricked, they all were. They helped that monster almost kill them all, and it was all for nothing!

Stiles stares at what remains of the nogitsune for a while. For a few seconds, on the pile of dirt, as if resting against the sword, lays a glowing fly, before it too vanishes into dark smoke. It hits him then, the memory of that vision he was privy to, back in San Francisco, one set of flashes clearly concerned the mess with Monroe in LA, and the other half…

A forest on fire. The preserve.

A black wolf. Derek.

Blackened trees and ash. The rowan trees that were burned in the preserve.

Another (woman) holding a bow. The fake-Allison.

Creatures encased in old armor holding swords. The oni.

An arrow. The fake-Allison again.

Screams… blood… howling… Those are obvious enough. They were from the start.

Darkness, and a tiny glowing light somehow even more oppressive than the darkness itself. The nogitsune and its dark power.

Shadow and fire, so much fire and… red eyes. Derek.

Stiles’s eyes go very wide as he seems to realize something, he throws his head back, eyes to the sky, opens his mouth and… he howls.

The sound is loud, not quite wolf-like, yet not entirely human either.

As they hear the sound several of those present realize that that’s the sound they heard earlier, while they were still in the nogitsune’s dark dimension.

The attention shifts as Stiles howls a second time, only then he isn’t alone: Eli, Peter, Malia, Jackson, and Ethan (who, unknown to most, even Jackson himself, arrived with Kira and the SCU team) echo his howl but a fraction of a second behind.

The third time they all howl at the same time. And it’s not just them. Lydia, Kira, Noah and Jordan do their best to imitate them. Creating a strange yet beseeching harmony.

And then…

“Wait…”

“Is that…”

“Derek…?”

“Derek!”

“DEREK!!!”

“DADDY!!!”

Derek’s alive.

Chapter IV. Guardian

One moment there’s darkness, and fire and… the nogitsune is a threat, a threat to everyone, to his territory, his pack, to his mate, their son… It needs to be taken care of, once and for all. They cannot risk the demon coming back a third time! The plan they have is good. Hellfire should be enough to take care of it, once and for all. Derek helps brace Jordan and hold the nogitsune in place. He pushes Scott aside because the boy’s really not helping. Wanting so much to show himself as the hero… he’s just getting in the way, they cannot risk the fox getting away.

Which is exactly what happens. There’s some kind of magical explosion that Derek can neither predict nor prepare for. He isn’t sure if it’s caused by Jordan’s hellfire (did he lose control? Get too hot? Was it something the nogitsune did?). But he goes flying, too hard and fast to be able to stop or catch himself in any way. Derek feels himself slamming against something (a tree? The ground?) pain making his mind white out before the world goes black.

He hears howling.

The first one, a single non-wolf howl, is enough to pull him out of the nothingness and to a point where he can consider himself half-awake at least. Then there’s a second howl, several howls close together, actually. It’s what makes him fully aware. He finds himself laying somewhere grassy, though he has no idea what the place is, exactly, and the smells don’t really help. He can smell the grass, the earth, chemicals, can smell the preserve but not close enough to believe that’s where he is and… ozone, the scent of magic. Also, cinnamon, peppermint, petrichor… the scent of his mate!

The third howl, it’s not the howl of any one man, or wolf, it’s the howl of a pack. Loud, and echoing and powerful. Derek can feel it all the way to his bones. It’s… not re-energizing exactly, yet at the same time, it’s like Derek’s suddenly wide-awake, moving almost before he’s fully aware of it. He’s on his feet and running before he’s fully aware of it. A part of his mind realizes that he’s in the lacrosse field of all places, while the greater part of him is far more focused on the boy that’s abruptly in his arms…

“Daddy!!!”

Eli! It’s his Eli, his son, he’s alive. They both are!

His mate joins them moments later, and in that moment Derek truly believes the world couldn’t possibly be any more perfect…

While a very heartfelt reunion is taking place nearby, first with father and son, and ever so slowly others approaching them as well, Liam rubs at his left ear as he winces a few times. It’s still ringing. A glance at Scott tells him his alpha’s out again and the younger wolf cannot understand how that’s even possible. Even if he got tranqued by that man in the suit, again, how did those howls not wake him up?

“How the hell is he still out after that howl?” He asks, rubbing at his ear a bit more. “Just what was in those darts?”

“It’s not the darts,” his girlfriend points out quietly. “It’s…”

Liam realizes what it is she doesn’t dare say soon enough.

“They’re not pack,” he exhales.

It’s… he’s always known that Scott and Derek just don’t get along. That was clear to him from the start. And yet, it’s never been any more clear than now. And Liam knows he’s gotta make a choice: the alpha who turned him, who saved his life, who talked big but did very little to train him, to lead him, who tried so hard to teach him to be a good man, yet never really taught him anything about being a wolf or… or not, maybe it’s not about choosing between Scott and Derek, or even Scott and Stiles (which, deep down Liam knows already whom he’d choose, even if he might not be quite ready to admit it just yet). He… he loves Hikari, dearly, her dad has already given his permission so… maybe it’s time he moves on with his life. With the nogitsune truly gone this time, he doesn’t have any duty left to anyone but himself, and the woman he loves…

He says nothing as he watches the others, the pack, gather around Derek, touching… scenting each other. Liam realizes something then: the McCall pack was never like that. Even before he moved to Japan, before Scott transferred colleges and just never came back. He used to touch and such Hayden a lot, sure, but they were a couple, so that’s normal. And Mason… he’s his best-friend! That’s normal too, right? But aside from that and maybe sparring once in a while (usually more at Malia’s insistence than Scott’s), he didn’t touch anyone else in the pack that much. Certainly nothing like what he’s seeing in the Hale pack. They’re all running hands over arms, backs, flanks, brushing sides, legs and/or arms together. Some touches look casual enough to be unintentional, but a lot definitely don’t: like Derek holding Peter by the back of the neck when they engage in a half-hug. Or Malia pressing her front to Stiles’s back and rubbing her cheek on his shoulder as best she can. Or Derek and Stiles pressing their faces against the other’s neck when they embrace.

Stiles is the one who notices him standing there. He smiles at Liam but doesn’t invite him to join in their pack moment. And Liam can tell then that he knows, they both do…

“Good luck pup…” Stiles whispers, quietly, yet the wolf can still hear the words, as if they’d been whispered straight into his ear.

The mage says nothing as Liam approaches his girlfriend and the two leave the lacrosse field quietly. They probably won’t be seeing them again before the pair return to Japan, but that’s fine. No one says they cannot visit. Stiles certainly hopes they’ll be getting an invitation to the wedding!

In any case, that’s two people taken care of. Stiles plans on letting Melissa and Argent deal with Scott (when he finally wakes up from the sedative Jack hit him with; which, the second dart was probably stronger than the first). A part of him wonders, seeing how close together the two are, if Melissa has already forgotten why she broke things off with the hunter years ago, or if maybe she no longer cares… he can still remember his dad complaining time and again during their regular calls, about how Melissa kept going back on forth on the matter, hating him and then not, wanting to leave him yet not wanting to be alone… If he remembers correctly it went on until she somehow got into her head to try and kiss his dad, and then she found out that his dad wasn’t as alone as she’d believed!

Stiles absently wonders if that was better or worse than how he found out: by walking into the kitchen during one of his visits and finding his dad and Peter standing way too close together while getting breakfast ready. He supposes it was still better than finding them making out (which, he’s heard Eli did walk-in on them once!).

The matter of their former chemistry teacher, Adrian Harris, and his abrupt disappearance in the aftermath of the final fight against the nogitsune is brought up only once:

“Don’t tell me he escaped!” Jackson complains, loudly. “We’re not going to have to fight him and whatever next crazy plan he comes up with…”

“Harris wasn’t real,” Kira cuts him off before he can get himself truly worked up.

In the back they can hear Stiles muttering about Blake, and her sacrifices, and how they’d all have known if a different warrior had been chosen and sacrificed, and how much less dangerous she’d have been if she hadn’t gotten as far as she did in the five-fold knot…

“What?!” That throws the part-kanima for a loop. “But… but we saw him!”

That makes Lydia curse, loudly and creatively, in a mix of English and Latin.

“It wasn’t just the fox, Lyds.” Stiles points out. “After all, someone had to free it in the first place.”

“Yeah, but pants and a dark hooded coat?” She mutters. “Not exactly the most specific description. Could have been anyone under it!”

Could have, but it wasn’t, and Stiles knows that.

It’d be more precise to say that he has more than enough reasons to heavily suspect… he supposes his assumptions will be proven right, or wrong, soon enough.

The night isn’t over just yet.

xXx

When midnight approaches and anyone has yet to fall asleep, Eli included, Stiles knows things are afoot. While he expected Derek to insist on going with him on his upcoming mission (and probably some of his team) he didn’t expect for their whole pack to do so. Still, when the call comes, Stiles answers it, and the pack follows.

“What’s going on now?” Malia wants to know.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Jackson asks. “We’re on our way to destroy the true villain of this story.”

He says it almost like it’s a game, or a volume in a comic-book story, which Stiles appreciates.

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Malia demands, she’s never liked not understanding things.

“Just think about it, Malia,” Peter points out calmly. “If Harris was just an illusion, like the dead Miss Argent, her equally dead mother, the dark dimension, the death of my nephew, and so many other things, someone still had to release the fucking fox from its prison.”

“Oh… and we’re going after the one who did it.” Malia realizes, then thinks of something else. “How do you know who did it?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” Stiles begins.

The identical looks he gets from father and daughter tell him he won’t be able to avoid this.

“When Hiroki Zhang called Kira to warn us about the nogitsune escaping, I decided to go to France,” the mage explains. “To meet with the high-witch in Normandia, the head of the coven that protects the local nemeton.”

“Another nemeton?” Jackson asks.

“But why that one?” Eli wants to know.

“That’s where the nogitsune was supposed to be taken, isn’t it?” Peter’s the one who realizes it.

“Yes, because, and exactly,” Stiles answers the questions. “I suspected already that the nogitsune had never been taken to France, despite that having been the plan at the time. A suspicion Lady Blanc confirmed the moment I arrived.”

“There’s more to it, isn’t it?” His dad guesses.

“Yeah,” Stiles exhales, running a hand through his hair before getting into the explanation. “You all know that the SCU has been going after those in the shadow-world who were the greatest threats. For supernaturals and humans both.”

“Most of whom were hunters,” Ethan mutters angrily.

“Indeed,” Stiles doesn’t even bother trying to deny it. “For the most part we didn’t actually have to go against clans as a whole. Truth is, few are as… depraved, or at least as open and reckless in their crimes as the Argents and the Jägers. Even the Dumonts, it seemed they only really became that bad in the last couple of generations, influenced by Gerard Argent.”

“Fucking bastard made a habit of ruining everything he touched,” Peter snarled.

“In any case, most hunters dealt with their own issues themselves, and as long as we don’t get another Kate or Gerard Argent, our bosses have decided to allow it.” Ashley offers. “I know it’s not a perfect solution, but…”

“But if it works no one will complain.” Derek finishes for her and nods.

“In any case,” Stiles takes over again. “Aside from the Clans, Monroe was the only real threat. She was even worse than the clans, actually, because we had a lot more trouble finding her guys. As we’d eventually discover, they had the help of magic-users. Specifically, druids.”

There’s a horrified gasp in the back and they all turn to look at Lydia.

“They… they…” she goes from horrified to furious in a second. “Fucking traitors!”

Stiles chuckles without humor, having known she’d get it. Lydia is smart like that. And of course, if druids were helping Monroe, and druids were known to be emissaries… it’s all connected.

“We don’t have all the information,” Stiles explains for those whose minds cannot do the logic jumps his and Lydia do. “Some of it might have even been lost forever. But this is what we know: There’s a druidic order, or suborder, however you wish to call it, that’s known as the Cautha. They called themselves the sunrise priests, and claimed to be working towards a perfect balance in the world.” He ignores the comments from some in the back about what exactly might qualify as ‘perfect balance’, he’s had that debate before, a thousand times. “Now, the thing is, as I’m sure many will realize. What is balance? Is it a balance of good and evil? If so, how do you achieve that? Do you go around the world, ensuring that for every evil action that takes place, there’s a good one to balance it? But what about the possibility of there actually being a place with more good than evil? Will you then do something evil to balance it out? Find someone else to do it? Or wait for the next potential evil thing and ensure it happens, so all can be in balance?”

Like a fire destroying an entire pack, or other ‘accidents’ happening elsewhere…

Peter is abruptly furious, both he and Malia are. It’s clear that if it weren’t for Derek ordering them to calm down they’d already be howling, and hunting. But Stiles isn’t done just yet…

“But that’s absolutely ridiculous,” Noah surprises everyone when he interjects. “I mean, how are they even judging what’s good and what’s evil? I realize that there being a thriving pack could be considered good. But even then, people still died, crimes still happened. Those things were evil. Were they judging birth rates vs death ones? Or just… if I help an old lady cross the street, they’ll come run someone else over?! If someone accidentally falls down a staircase and breaks their neck are they gonna follow every single clumsy person around town and rescue the next person to trip? What if they wouldn’t have died? Then it wouldn’t be equal! It’s… it’s…”

“Absolutely ridiculous,” Peter finishes for him, having fully calmed throughout his lover’s rant.

It’s true. It’s not just ridiculous, it’s so far beyond that that there are no words to describe it. It doesn’t make what happened to the Hales any less tragic, or infuriating, but it definitely shows that this so-called Cautha have no logic.

“From the moment I realized that there were druids working with the hunters,” Stiles goes on. “I had my suspicions regarding what happened to the Hales.”

He’s talking about the Silveira pack, of course, but doesn’t want Eli to focus on that and be sad for his mom all over again.

“It never sat right with me,” Stiles continues. “There were just too many things that made no sense. But the main one was concerning the mountain ash. It was used to keep the Hales inside the house. But see, for someone like Kate Argent, who didn’t have a drop of magic in her, to be able to lay a barrier such as that, she’d have needed a hell of a lot of ash. To mark the perimeter, and in a line thick enough.” she couldn’t have done things like Stiles did, throwing but a fistful and having it work perfectly. “Also, she would have been unable to retrieve the ash afterwards. And like we all know, she didn’t just do this to the Hales.”

At least seven packs that they know of, and even if the earliest cases didn’t involve mountain ash, that’s still a hell of a lot of it.

“I don’t know if you’re aware,” Stiles states, more thinking-out-loud than really talking to others by that point. “But getting mountain ash isn’t just a matter of finding a rowan tree, setting it on fire, and that’s it, you have the ash. It’s actually… there’s preparation, and rites and magic involved in it all. It takes work, and effort, and time. And not just anyone can do it. More often than not it’s druids who handle the harvesting of the rowan trees, as they’re all about ritual-magic, and it allows them to ensure that the trees harvested don’t die, that they recover in due time.”

Because if they burn the trees too much or too often, they’ll eventually run out of them.

It’s probably indicative of the fact that he’s already reached the conclusion Stiles is leading them to, that Peter doesn’t howl the moment the truth hits everyone else: a druid had to have harvested the ash that was used to trap the Hales. And well, it’s not like there are that many druids in the area, are there?

“Wait,” Jackson calls unexpectedly. “What are we missing?” At several people’s surprised looks he clarifies. “Really, if Stiles knew all of this years ago, there must be a reason why he didn’t kill the bastard back then. So what are we missing?”

Stiles smiles, sometimes he still forgets that while Jackson might not be a genius on par with Lydia and himself, he’s not stupid either.

“Until recently I thought that the hunters had been… subverting the emissaries,” Stiles explains. “Through either torture, blackmail, threats, or something else.”

“Until recently, which means you’ve learned differently since.” Lydia’s eyes narrow.

“It started with something Michel Dubois, the druid working with Monroe, said.” Stiles explains. “He was the son of Lord Dubois,” several hisses tell him that at least Peter and his dad know that name. “who, to make a long story short, for those who might not be aware already, has been found guilty of a long list of crimes, including terrorism, murder and attempted murder, on that last one, most notably of the current president of France.”

Eyes go wide at that tidbit.

“The man was also the leader of the Cautha,” Stiles continues. “Their order believed in balance… well, their interpretation of it at least. And like some of the most extreme so-called environmentalists, they claimed humanity to be the problem. Our free-will leading to chaos, chaos being imbalance and well, the rest is obvious enough.”

“So what, they intended to kill all of humanity?” Ethan scoffs.

“Not all, just enough.” Stiles’s grim voice tells them how serious the whole matter is. “All who might have been able to fight back. All who might have presented a threat to them, and their vision.”

Like world-leaders, powerful supernaturals, perhaps even hunters!

“Once all who might oppose them were gone, they’d basically be able to have control over everything.” Noah blurts, blue eyes wide as the true breadth, complexity and genius of the plan becomes evident to them all. “Either directly or by appointing their own puppets to the positions of power. They’d basically be ruling the world, whether those left realized it or not.”

“You were in the way,” Peter states.

Stiles actually stumbles at that. He… wasn’t expecting Peter to reach that particular conclusion, or at least, not so quickly.

“We all were,” he tries to divert attention, waving a hand in the direction of his team, and his pack.

And that much is true. They were all a threat to the Cautha.

“Yeah, but no one else quite as much as you,” Peter presses. “As good as we all are, there wouldn’t be a Hale Pack without you sweetheart. And I’ve a feeling it’s the same regarding your team.”

That’s… actually true. Even if Stiles never stopped to think about it. About why exactly it wasn’t until he came into the picture that the SCU was formed. It’s not like there weren’t already agents who were either supernatural, or at least aware enough to have been sent to a special unit, to deal with cases that were clearly not entirely human. And yet even with that, the SCU, with their mandate, and their power and their allowances, did not exist until after that disaster of an op in North Carolina, until Hotch met Stiles and set it all into motion…

“That’s why they brought the fucking fox back.” Lydia breathes out in realization. “It wasn’t about us, not even about Scott, or Allison, or even the Hales. It was about you.”

“I’m the only one who’s ever survived being possessed by a nogitsune,” Stiles admits quietly. “And at the same time, aside from that time with Theo and Scott’s own idiocy, the fox is the one that’s come the closest to actually, well, breaking me.”

Aside from Theo’s awful plans involving the chimeras and well, Donovan’s been dead since back then, and nowadays so is Theo (though that’s an entirely different story).

“And who could possibly bring the fucking fox back, but the very individual who supposedly dealt with it in the first place, the only one who knew that it wasn’t sent to France all those years ago?” Lydia finishes the conclusion.

Who else but Alan Deaton?

xXx

Alan Deaton and Marin Morell, only remaining members of the Order of Cautha, walk around the stump of the Beacon Hills nemeton, setting up offerings and laying a circle. Time is running out, they know, they must act now. At one point Deaton trips over one of the peeking roots of the once great tree, cursing a storm as he accidentally drops the powdered quartz he was using to make the circle, breaking both the shape and his chant, which means he’ll have to start over with that particular step in the ritual.

“It’s your own fault,” Morell snaps at him bluntly. “If you’d killed the brat when you could, none of this would be happening now! You had so many opportunities to get rid of him, more than a few when you could have easily put the blame on others, even the Hales! But you were too greedy, wanting to steal the boy’s magic. What magic?! He barely has any power at all!”

“Barely has any power at all?” Deaton cuts her off. “Did you not see him today Marin? He took down a thousand year old nogitsune like it was nothing. He owned that fight! A kind of fight that’d have killed so many others.”

“That should have killed him,” Morell retorts. “And it would have, if you hadn’t messed up the plan years ago. If you had just let the fox take over the brat as he was supposed to… But no, you just had to mess up that plan. And now here we are…”

She ends up her part of the ritual standing before the south side of the nemeton, close enough her legs are pressed against the stump. What happens next… she doesn’t see it coming.

“No,” Deaton denies. “Here I am.”

Morell has but a moment to wonder what’s going on, and when (or why) exactly Deaton ended up behind her, when she finds herself with her throat being slashed open. She doesn’t see it coming until it’s too late. And then there’s nothing she can do about it. Nothing but die.

Morell’s spirit abandons her body and she’s left standing against the nemeton, looking down at her body laying on it, her blood slowly covering the stump. She stumbles back in horror, trying to get away from the horrifying sight at the same time she tries to understand what’s going on. Then she sees Deaton, her sworn-brother, cutting open the palms of both hands with the same blade he used to kill her (no, to sacrifice her!) before placing the bloody blade on the stump, chanting something else as he raises bloody hands to the air.

“Alan?” She yells at her brother. “Alan?! You fucking traitor!!!”

“He cannot hear you,” a soft, gentle voice murmurs from her left.

Morell spins in the direction of the voice, finding there a teenager, no more than seventeen, perhaps eighteen years old, with long, wavy blonde hair and pale blue eyes, pale skin, she’s wearing a flowery dress that almost reaches her knees. Yet what calls Morell’s attention the most are the blood matting her hair, the bruising around her neck, and the cut across her throat…

“Threefold death…” she breathes out. “You’re one of the sacrifices…”

“My name is Heather,” the girl states pointedly.

It’s only then that Morell realizes it’s not just the two of them. There are more individuals all around. All those who’ve been sacrificed to the nemeton in one way or another. Though Morell can only truly make out the spirits from the darach’s sacrifices, almost sixteen years ago. She wonders if it’s a matter of time, or the circumstances in which they died. She supposes it matters very little in the end.

“What now?” she asks the girl, Heather.

“Now we wait,” Heather tells her as she turns to the East, as if looking at something Morell herself cannot see. “The guardian is coming.”

The guardian?! Who… and then it hits her. Morell starts laughing in near-manic-glee. She might be dead, but her traitor of a brother is in deep shit and hasn’t even realized it yet! She’s so gonna enjoy seeing all his plans crumble to ash, and the best part is that it’s gonna end up being his own fault. He really should have listened to her and killed the brat when he could!

xXx

Deaton finally reaches the end of his ritual right as the night gets to its darkest point. It’s the night of the full moon, yet it’s as if not just the moon but even the stars have vanished somehow. Even right above the nemeton, where there’s no tree to cover anything, no light reaches the ground. The druid’s face is turned to the sky, eyes closed, hands held aloft, palms up, with blood welling on them and falling from between his fingers to drip to the ground, right at the nemeton’s roots.

A second passes, then two, three and… nothing.

Deaton starts shaking slightly, possibly at the effort of holding his arms up, or the blood he’s lost and keeps losing, or…

“It’s not gonna work, you know?”

The druid doesn’t shriek or back-down; he doesn’t move, his only reaction to suddenly finding none other than Stiles Stilinski standing on top of the nemeton stump is the considerable widening of his eyes and the sharp inhale. He doesn’t say a word either, just stares…

“I mean all of this,” Stiles continues in an almost conversational tone as he walks to the edge of the stump, waving a hand around him. “This attempt to take control of the nemeton. Wanna know why?” He drops to a crouch, face coming level with Deaton’s own. “Because the nemeton is mine!”

His eyes flash magic-purple very briefly before turning to guardian-silver.

A gasp escapes Deaton as he finally seems to comprehend how fucked up he is. But by then it’s too late. He doesn’t fully realize what’s happening at first. He’s tired, and feeling weak, and it feels like a miracle that he hasn’t dropped already… until he realizes it’s not that at all. The whole opposite in fact. As with every drop of his blood that falls to the ground, every drop of blood that the nemeton soaks up, the nexus also draws on his energy, and when the well of his magical energy runs dry, it starts drawing on his life-force.

When it’s all said and done Stiles says not a word. He just stands and turns away from where the nemeton is pulling Deaton’s fast-desecating body into the ground, giving a couple steps until he’s once again standing on the middle of the stump.

“The time has come, for the darkness to leave this sacred space,” Stiles recites solemnly as he cuts open one of his palms with an athame. “The hour has arrived, for the light to shine again,” he cuts open the other palm. “The moment has come, for the past to be cleansed, for justice to be made, for this place to be blessed again!”

It’s… most would not be able to appropriately describe what happens then, but it’s like suddenly the stars can once again be seen in the sky, the full moon is shining bright, and not just that, but it’s right above the nemeton, a supermoon, shining in an almost magical way. And then… it’s like there’s a sharp gust of wind, leaves and dust moving for a moment and when it vanishes… many will swear they can breathe better than they did before. As if some great weight has been taken away, some great evil been vanquished, once and for all.

From the corner of his eye Stiles can see Heather standing near the edge of the glade; Emily, Kyle, Tara, Harris, Mr. Westover, and the other sacrifices also in the shadows. She smiles at him, so big and bright, like she did the night of her seventeenth birthday, so long ago. Then she waves at him, mouthing the word ‘Goodbye’, and a moment later she’s gone. As are the rest of the spirits.

It’s good, that even if it’s been longer than it should have, they’re now, finally, at peace.

Morell too vanishes in a similar manner. In fact, she began vanishing the moment Deaton died. Released the moment he was gone. Though Stiles didn’t really pay much attention to her.

With that part concluded Stiles directs some magic to his hands, allowing the wounds to close. He’s bled enough, time to move on to the next part:

“Hale Pack,” he calls, voice strong yet not loud, there’s no need.

As one: Derek, Eli, Malia, Peter, Noah, Jordan, Lydia, Jackson, Ethan and Kira step onto the glade from all around it. After a fraction of a second of hesitation Ashley, Jack and Mel step forth as well.

There’s no need to talk about what’s gonna happen next. They already know, having talked about it on the way to the nemeton. Even the inclusion of Ashley, Jack and Mel into the pack; while strictly speaking none of them really need a pack, they like the idea of being part of one, of having that sort of connection to everyone else.

Liam’s leaving for Japan with Hikari, while Mason and Corey don’t really need a pack. Derek and Stiles aren’t against offering them a chance to join the Hale Pack one day, if they want. But that will come later, on a trial basis at first, as they get to know each other once again; find out if they can truly trust each other as who they are now and not who they were over a decade ago. Tonight… tonight is for those who’re already pack.

“Alpha Hale,” Stiles calls, voice drenched in magic and forcing himself not to smile at his mate, no matter how much he wants to (this is a time to be serious!) “Swear do you, by the Moon, to lead your pack, to guide your betas, protect them, from now until the day comes for your spark to pass on to your rightful heir?”

“By the Moon, I so swear.” Derek states, voice calm and strong.

“Swear do you, by the Earth, to guard this land, your territory, to protect the innocent and fight the evil, to the best of your abilities?” Comes the next question.

“By the Earth, I so swear.” Again the same kind of response.

“Swear do you, by the Moon and the Earth, to always remain true, to the light, to the good, to the safety of the Shadow-World?” It’s like some kind of power makes Stiles’s voice echo throughout the glade.

“By the Moon and the Earth, I so swear.” Derek declares solemnly.

“Hale Pack,” The mage switches tracks then. “Swear do you, by the Old Gods, to follow your Alpha, in peace and in war, to listen to them, to support them, to walk the path they lead you on?”

It’s almost funny, in a sense, because if he weren’t a guardian, he still would have been part of the ceremony, answering to the oaths as the Alpha Mate of the Hale Pack. But right now, his status as a guardian matters more…

“By the Old Gods, we so swear.” The response comes from all around, not just from the shifters and other supernaturals in their pack, but also from the humans.

It’s what makes their pack so odd, so special, so extraordinary. How different they all are, and how seamlessly they work together: wolves, coyotes, kitsune, jaguar, banshee, hellhound, witch, spark, humans… all together in harmony.

“Swear do you, by the New Gods, to guard this land, this territory that has been claimed in the Hale name, to protect the innocent, fight the evil, as best you each can?”

“By the New Gods, we so swear.”

“Swear do you, by the Old Gods and the New, to always remain true, to the light, to the good, to the safety of the Shadow World?”

“By the Old Gods and the New, we so swear.”

“By the Moon, by the Earth, by the Old Gods and the New, these are our oaths.” Stiles calls, turning his face to the sky, he never shouts yet his voice seems to grow louder nonetheless. “The oaths of the Hale Pack. So mote it be!”

“So mote it be!” Derek repeats, voice strong enough to echo through the night.

“So mote it be!” Everyone else echoes in a similar manner.

And so it is done.

Chapter V. Alpha-Mate

It feels like the light at the end of the tunnel. That after so long, after so many efforts, so much fighting, after all the risks they’ve each taken, all the times they’ve nearly died… now it’s finally over. Or well, not over, the end of one chapter, the beginning of another and all that… But they’ve now moved on to something entirely different, something hopefully more peaceful, better. That’s good.

A week after the fight against the nogitsune (and everything that came after), Stiles has fully settled home. Derek still seems to be getting used to him being there every morning, and every night.

“Don’t think I don’t want you here, it’s not that,” the wolf hurries to reassure his mate after yet another morning being surprised by Stiles’s presence on his bed.

“I know it’s not,” Stiles nods, running a hand up and down his beloved’s flank soothingly. “Though I’d still like to know what it is, then.”

“I…” Derek swallows. “After we first mated, there was a time I’d wake up and always reach out for you. Before I opened my eyes, before I was even fully awake, you were never there. I think… I think I dreamed a lot about you, I often do, even now. But waking up to find the other side of the bed cold, empty, it crushed me, every time. Even when I went to bed each night alone it’s like… like a part of me somehow still expected that wouldn’t be the case come morning.”

“Oh Derek…” Stiles presses himself more fully to his mate, face buried in his neck.

“It’s completely ridiculous!” Derek insists. “I knew, consciously, that it wouldn’t happen. How could you be there when you… when you didn’t even know…”

“Hey! Hey, hey, hey,” Stiles pulls at Derek, guiding the wolf’s own nose to the human’s mating bite, knowing it’ll help him calm down. “Easy. It wasn’t ridiculous. It’s just… the part of you that’s all wolf knew you had a mate, might even have realized that your mate… that I, wanted you too, so much.” He exhales. “But I’m not here to criticize you, or call you out, or anything like that. Things happened the way they were supposed to. We’re here now, together, and that’s how we’ll stay.”

They end up staying in bed a bit longer. Before eventually making it out in nothing more than t-shirts and boxers, joining their son in the kitchen for breakfast.

Surprisingly enough, at least for Stiles, if there’s one person who doesn’t seem to have needed any time, or anything at all, to get used to Stiles being home, being fully part of their lives, it’s Eli.

“I always knew you were coming home,” the kid explains when asked about it. “I might not have known when exactly, but I knew.”

Tears come to Stiles’s eyes at his son’s easy acceptance of things, at his love. He loves his kid so, so much! He’s truly the greatest gift Cora could have ever given him…

“So…” Eli speaks up as they’re finishing breakfast. “What now pops?”

The little shit! And yeah, Stiles still loves him dearly, but he can be a little shit, much like Stiles was at that age, which he knows has made his own dad, and Derek, laugh at him more than once. Something about grandchildren being a parent’s revenge, he thinks? Stiles isn’t even sure how that’s supposed to work, and it’s not like he cares either. In the end, they all love Eli, and that’s what matters.

Stiles knows his dad has always gotten a kick out of being a grandpa, even before he could actually say out-loud that Eli was his grandson. Though, if Jordan’s to be believed, pretty much everyone at the station began seeing the kid as the sheriff’s grandson long before they knew he was, in fact, that. Probably due to seeing how much the two clearly love each other.

In any case, what now indeed…

“Well, technically the SCU doesn’t exist any longer,” Stiles announces.

And hadn’t that been a surprise! Though apparently the higher-ups have been working towards it for a while now. Something about budgets, and ensuring they have personnel where they definitely need them, and not just where they might…

“According to Hotch, with Monroe and all her minions either dead or set to remain behind bars until they wish they’d died with her, the Cautha handled as well, and the remaining Hunter Clans all very carefully keeping to both the spirit and the letter of the law, the team as such is not truly needed anymore,” Stiles elaborates. “That’s not to say the need might not come up later, which is why they aren’t actually letting us go.”

Yeah, not even him. Stiles hadn’t been entirely happy with that one. With learning that his resignation was denied. At least not until he learned the details: All members of the team have been reassigned to locations of their choice. Between them, and most of the ‘local agents’ they’ve teamed up with over the last decade who, for one reason or another, learned the truth about the existence of the shadow-world, the FBI has at least one, usually two, agents in-the-know in every office in the country, and even most of their off-shores offices. Which means that if something ever happens, they have people on the ground who can identify the issue, who’ll have contacts with others who might be able to assist. They’ll also have the means to call in others, including the original team, if necessary.

“Jack and Mel will be working with the teams stationed at the San Francisco Office,” Stiles explains. “It’s the closest office with most people in-the-know, since the man in charge there, Deputy Director Morris has known about magic in general, and the Charmed Ones in particular for apparently longer than Melinda’s been alive!” He chuckles at the memory of those two finding out who their new boss is, and his connections. “Ashley was promoted to Unit Chief and is now in charge of the Sacramento office. Kira and I are officially assigned there too, though we’ll be working from an office the Sheriff gave up for us to use at the station. Only going to Sacramento if it’s decided our help is really needed in person for whatever the reason. Which, Ashley’s already promised to only call us if like, the world’s on fire or something.”

Which regretfully isn’t as unlikely as they’d like. But hopefully it won’t happen any time soon. They deserve to enjoy their peace at least for a while before the next disaster falls upon them, don’t they?

Skye and Grant (and their daughter) are staying in Quantico, though they probably don’t care as much for them, since they aren’t pack.

“What about your boss?” Derek asks, curious.

“Hotch is now officially Section Chief Aaron Hotchner, which he absolutely hates!” Stiles actually laughs at that. “He’s already threatened to retire at least half a dozen times, but I don’t think he’ll do it. At least not any time soon.”

“Your boss is angry because he got promoted?” Eli clearly doesn’t get it.

“Hotch never wanted to leave the field.” Stiles explains. “He enjoyed being an active agent. It’s the reason why he kept doing it all these years. Why he was still Unit Chief even more than fifteen years after first reaching that rank. Though according to the higher-ups, it was an embarrassment to them all that a man of his reputation and credentials was still at that level. Apparently it made younger agents believe that there weren’t enough opportunities of advancement in the FBI. So this time he wasn’t really given the chance to say no.” He turns more serious. “I think it’s a good thing. While Hotch might not like it, he’s not exactly a young man anymore, and Jack would be devastated if something happened to him.”

They all would, really. The man’s like everyone’s second-father or uncle, or something. Always there when they need someone, and even when they might claim not to.

“So you’re home for good now?” Eli concludes.

“I’m home for good now,” Stiles confirms.

“That’s awesome!” the kid states, delighted.

Eli’s smile is so bright, what can the rest of them do but smile right along with him?

xXx

Lydia moves back to Beacon Hills less than two weeks after the battle. It surprises absolutely no one to learn that she ‘persuaded’ her bosses at the think-thank she worked in to keep her as a consultant and let her work from home (whether she told them or not that home wouldn’t be San Francisco anymore, but rather a town almost three hours away, is anyone’s guess).

“And what are you gonna do if at some point they decide they’d rather fire you?” Malia wants to know, out of curiosity more than anything else.

“Then I’ll threaten them with a suit for wrongful termination, Kira would take them to the cleaners.” Lydia announces. “Or Harvey! I’m sure I could convince him to fly to San Fran for this…”

Stiles doesn’t want to know how Lydia knows Harvey Specter, the corporate attorney said to be the best closer in New York, he really doesn’t (he does! He really, really, does! And by the glint on Lydia’s green eyes, she can tell, she’s also probably not going to tell him… not unless she can get some secret out of him at the same time… Stiles wonders if it’d be worth it…).

“Anyway, after suing them for all the money possible, I would go and show them what they’ve lost.” She grins, a grin that’s 60% mischief, 30% pride, 10% absolutely evil. “I’ve been working on one of the Millennium Problems for the past decade. I know I’m close to solving it. I just need a little time, and maybe some inspiration…”

Of course, becoming known as the woman who solved one of the legendary millennium problems, after being fired from the think-tank would definitely make her old employers go nuts… Stiles wonders if they know what she’s been working on in her free time.

“So anyway,” Lydia continues. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got everything under control.”

Malia nods, satisfied. And Stiles? He never doubted it, not for a single second. It’s just the kind of woman Lydia is, not giving a single step without having everything carefully planned out (the recent mess can be explained by the nogitsune having manipulated her. It clearly didn’t have access to her full genius, something they should all be infinitely grateful for). Stiles doesn’t want to know how bad things would have been, if the stupid fox had actually taken the time to properly get his hooks into his best friend. Then again, if he’d tried that, Lydia would have definitely noticed, and fought back. It was only the fact that the control was so superficial, focusing more on getting her to ‘go with the flow’ than on doing anything herself, that kept her from noticing what was truly going on until the end.

Scott is long gone. He left the morning after the fight, actually. Didn’t stop to say goodbye, not even to ask about anyone, not Allison, not even Deaton. Which apparently surprised most. Not Stiles, though.

“I’ve always suspected that, contrary to Kira’s belief, what Scott felt for Allison was never truly love.” Stiles explains to the pack when they finally get to talking about things. “It was infatuation, skirting, and at times even crossing the border into obsession. I know because had he truly loved her as much as he claimed sometimes, had she truly been his mate as he once passionately declared, her death would have completely shattered him. He certainly would have never been able to move on. Would have never dated other girls, like Kira, and Malia, and whoever else he might have gotten involved with in Davis and later on in LA.”

“He’d also have gone feral a long time ago,” Peter states. “What with her being his anchor and all.”

“But he’s just fine,” Mason, still in the pack on a trial-basis, states. “And she’s his anchor.”

“Fine is relative,” Peter scoffs. “But he’s not feral so…” He shakes his head, that’s not the point. “You can have dead people as your anchor. But only when… it’s a matter of what you’re truly making an anchor. The person, or your ideal of them.”

Like how Isaac’s anchor was his dead father. Only, not the man he’d been at the time of his death, the violent drunk who beat Isaac and claimed it was child-rearing! No, his anchor was the man his father had been when Isaac himself was little, before Camden ever joined the military, before his mom died… It’s easy to have a memory, an ideal as an anchor, they need never change…

Thankfully no questions are asked about territory. They were at one point. Mason and Corey believed that Beacon Hills was McCall territory. Because that’s what Deaton taught them. Because that’s what he wanted to believe. He should have known, due to the fact that the nemeton refused to connect with him, that that wasn’t true.

Truth is Beacon Hills has always been Hale territory. It hopefully always will be. Derek’s an alpha once again, he became one during the fight against the nogitsune, the nemeton returning the Hale spark to him once Derek had proven his willingness to fight and bleed for his pack and for the territory. It’s… Stiles has suspected all along that something like that could and would happen eventually. That the nemeton was keeping the Hale spark in reserve and would give it back once Derek showed himself worthy of it.

“What I don’t understand is why he didn’t ask any questions,” Mason presses. “Not about Allison, not even about Deaton. You’d think that since they arrived together…”

Stiles knows the answer to that one, he’s also considering if it’s worth it revealing that. Would it change anything? Is it worth anything, in the long run?

Truth is Scott has trouble with commitment, he’s always had it. Friendship? Stiles was always there for him, whenever Scott needed him, and even when he didn’t; but half the time Stiles needed him, Scott just couldn’t be bothered. Granted maybe sometimes there was a good reason for that, but not always. School? Scott would have failed no less than three subjects, every year, if it weren’t for Stiles. There’s a reason why he ended up in charge of an animal shelter, and not working at a veterinary, as he claimed he always would. He never finished his degree. Love? Well, there’s a reason why after more than a decade he’s still single, why no girlfriend has ever lasted more than a year or two at most (most not even that). Scott has never been good at committing himself, not to anything, or anyone.

Deaton’s probably the closest Scott has ever come to committing to anyone, and a part of Stiles cannot help but wonder if that was of his own will, or if Deaton might have done something to him. After all, it was Deaton who made Scott into an alpha, using the ‘True Alpha’ myth to avoid explaining what truly happened. Who says he didn’t do something else at the same time? Or even before that? Something to ensure that Scott would always go to him, trust him, first and foremost. It never sat well with Stiles, the way Scott was always ‘Deaton said this’, ‘Deaton suggested that’, he listened to a man who was supposedly retired, more than he did anyone else, Stiles, Derek, and even his own parents, included. And, he supposes, with Deaton dead, all his magics are now broken. Stiles wonders if that means Scott isn’t even an alpha anymore… he supposes they might find out one day, or not. In any case, it’s not really their business anymore, is it? At least they now know it’s possible for a wolf to remain sane, to not go feral, as long as their anchor remains stable, unchangeable, and what can be more so than the dream of a perfect love that never was and never would have been?

“Does it matter?” Derek speaks up then.

Mason seems to decide that it doesn’t, because he doesn’t insist.

On another topic, they learn Mason is a druid. Not a particularly powerful one, but then again, few druids are.

“He used to tell me that I was very strong on the theory, but weak in the practice.” Mason offers one day when they’re talking about him and Corey and the past decade.

“Most druids are, unless they’ve been blessed in some way,” Stiles points out evenly. “Or gone dark.”

“You mean, like the darach?” Corey wants to know.

“Yes, but not just that,” Stiles nods. “See, magic is more… flexible than some would like to claim. Much like life, things are never just black and white.”

“In other words, not all druids are good, and… well, I’m not sure if the opposite would apply to a darach.” Peter admits.

“Not really,” Stiles chuckles at Peter’s attempt. “But that’s because being a darach is about more than just having been a druid and then using dark magic. All magic users, of any kind, can go dark. Most don’t actually have a specific word to call those who do. Druids do, but that’s mostly their attempt to separate themselves from that, to draw a line between good and evil. Which, as has been established, isn’t actually possible.” He exhales, he’s getting away from the point. “Deaton, technically speaking, wasn’t a darach. His aura wasn’t shrouded in darkness. But that’s not because he was good. But rather, because he ensured that any evil he engineered, was done by others, by individuals who truly believed their actions were their own choices. And thus, they carried the darkness of the actions themselves.”

Like the old witch (the Hale’s previous emissary) who chose to have the nemeton cut down after being led to believe that it was sick, poisoned, and they risked poisoning everything else if not dealt with. The woman believed so much in that, that when the time came to pay for it, she lost her life.

Or the young, brand new alpha who was convinced that she and her brother would never be safe in the territory. That the only way to survive was to flee, as quickly and as far as they could make it. That she couldn’t trust anyone, not even the pack’s own allies. Who was persuaded to leave behind an ailing pack-member, convinced he was too far gone, there was nothing she could do for him, nothing the pack could do for him… Laura believed those lies. They were what pushed her into taking Derek and fleeing, without Peter, without ever learning about Cora’s survival. Her unwitting betrayal snapping the pack-bond to Peter and eventually leading to him not just going insane in many ways, but turning on her the moment she set foot back in the territory…

In the end Stiles does believe Mason was lucky. It was his apparent weakness, and probably the answers he gave to certain key-questions, that made it so Deaton never tried to induct him into the Cautha Order. That would have been a mess. Not because Stiles would have let the fact that it was Mason stop him (pack comes first, always, and Mason wasn’t pack then, would have never been, if he were the kind of man who could join the Cautha) but because his dad would have been sad, and disappointed. Two emotions Stiles would rather not be the cause of his dad feeling, again.

xXx

A month after the battle against the nogitsune, and the securing of the territory at the nemeton, the full Hale Pack celebrates their first full moon together. With Ashley, Jack and Mel arriving from Sacramento and San Francisco earlier that day and prepared to spend the weekend, or at the very least the night, with the rest of the pack.

They have a cookout in the backyard of the Hale House in the early evening. Noah and Derek manning the grills. It’s mostly venison, hunted by the wolves in the pack (Eli was very proud of having helped his dad, uncle and aunt in hunting down a huge buck). The sides are potluck style. Potatoes, salads, vegetables for grilling, fruits, pies, cookies and other things, brought by the various pack-members. Melinda in particular brings a delicious triple-chocolate cake, baked by her with some help from her mother: Piper Halliwell, a well-known chef and restaurant owner herself.

A fair amount of time after the meal (once it’s been mostly digested, so no one will feel ill) the pack, or at least those who can and want to, go for a run in the preserve. They keep at it well into the night, as the full moon hits its zenith and a bit longer after that. Not all stay all the time. Those who don’t feel the pull of the moon as much, or at all, choose to return to the Hale House and go to bed. The huge basement having been made into a pack-room, with mattresses, pillows, sheets and everything else they could possibly need, earlier in the month, in preparation for that night, and for every full-moon in the future. Then there are those couples who might choose to take some time for themselves, the moon making them as horny as anything else. Sooner or later they all end up in the pack-room, resting together, as the pack they finally are, the pack they were always meant to be.

In some ways, it almost feels like they’ve finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel. It might be a bit of a melodramatic way to see it, Stiles knows, but who cares? He’s happy now. As hard and insane as the last ten years (or the last fifteen!) might have been, it’s all been worth it to be where they are now. Him and Derek, the two of them and Eli, their family, their friends, their pack. It’s all as it’s supposed to be.

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