Reading Time: 89 Minutes

Title: The First Change
Series: True Guardian
Series Order: 2
Author: Lalaith Quetzalli
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Genre: Angst, Action Adventure, Crime Drama, Dimension Travel, Family, Pre-Relationship, Time Travel
Relationship(s): Peter Hale/Sheriff Stilinski, Pre-Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Past Peter Hale/Sheriff Stilinski/Claudia Stilinski
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: *No Mandatory Warnings Apply, Minor Character Death, Murder, Discussion – Rape (Canonical, Kate Argent), Discussion – Torture, Racism, Violence – Canon Level
Author Note: Here starts the actual time-travel/dimensional-travel accidental fix-it. This story can, for the most part, be understood even without the first. Once again, there are cameos and name-drops from several fandoms, mainly Criminal Minds. Though it’s not actually a crossover, and you don’t need to know any of those fandoms to understand the fic.
Beta:
Alpha:
Word Count: 22,150
Summary: Scott McCall has always focused on himself: his choices, his life. When he sets out to change the past he doesn’t consider everyone else around him. It’s a good thing Stiles Stilinski and Peter Hale are the kind of people to think on their feet and take advantage of every opportunity granted to them.
Artist: Twigen

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Chapter 1

Hop watches as Scott McCall makes a choice and changes his life, along with everyone else’s. As the sheriff gets both of them onto Stiles’ blue jeep. At the last moment choosing to drive the teenagers home himself, thus throwing the keys to his cruiser to a deputy before getting into the jeep as well. A half-feral Peter Hale is left standing on the edge of the treeline, hidden in the shadows, watching the departing vehicle in silence.

(Without Scott to stumble onto the road in the middle of the night, Victoria Argent never comes close to running him over; and thus Allison Argent never insists on them going back, on searching for the one they almost hurt, which means she never comes in contact with the nemeton. Neither does Scott McCall for that matter.)

In the morning, after enduring yet another speech from his dad about responsibility, and dangers, and how stupid it was for him and Scott to go out in the middle of the night to look for a dead body… (The sheriff knows that the only reason Stiles even knew enough to make such stupid choices was the police scanner he has on his jeep; and yet he won’t take it away. He won’t because he understands Stiles needs that scanner, that sometimes it’s all that keeps him from going into a panic attack at the possibility of something happening to his dad and not knowing about it…). Once his dad’s finally let him go, after reminding the teenager he’s grounded for a week, and that the sheriff better not find him where he ought to not be, again, Stiles finally gets on his jeep and drives off.

He’s more than a little surprised when he makes it to the McCall place, only to hear from Mama McCall that Scott has already left, on his bike. He turned down a ride from his mom, and didn’t even wait for Stiles, why? Stiles doesn’t understand. Then again, he doesn’t understand why Scott outed himself to his dad the night before, either. Stiles had covered for him already! Had managed to convince his dad that Scott wasn’t there. If Scott had just waited a few minutes Stiles would have turned around and gone to pick him up, his dad would have been none-the-wiser! And yet Scott chose to run out of the underbrush and give himself away, why? It makes no sense to Stiles.

As if the start of his day weren’t bad enough already, he finds the road he usually takes to school from the McCall home blocked. There are several big vans blocking the way and when he asks the closest guy what’s going on he snaps at Stiles to ‘keep moving’ and apparently whatever the hell they’re doing will take a while yet. The issue is that the McCall place is located in one of the somewhat private neighborhoods of Beacon Hills, and there are only two ways to access it: the one leading to the main road, which leads directly downtown (and which is now blocked), and one leading to the ‘Old Road’ (it’s what everyone calls it) which borders the preserve, at one point going right into it.

Stiles actually arrived at the McCall place through the Old Road. Since the Stilinski home is a few minutes away, on a street that borders the preserve itself. Matter of fact, Stiles’ house, along with pretty much all others on their side of the street backend into the preserve, and there’s an access to it at the end of the street, right past an old park that has been pretty much abandoned since shortly after the Hale Fire (Stiles thinks he can remember there having been a storm that damaged the slide and swings and all the other kid-games, and they were never repaired. He supposes it’s just another of the many, many things that were lost, or damaged or ruined following the loss of the Hale Family, those guys really seemed to be involved in a hell of a lot of things in town and the loss of them meant also the loss of a great many things they gave their support to).

Stiles has never minded driving by the preserve, or even through it; he enjoys it sometimes, even. However, he knows that with everything going on his dad won’t like him doing it. And yet, it’s getting late and it’s not like he can choose to just not go to school! So after taking a couple of quick photos with his cellphone of the vans blocking the access to the main road and the guys walking around them (so he has proof, when his dad finds out he went on the Old Road and demands to know ‘why after everything that was said that morning!’) Stiles makes a U turn and heads towards the Old Road.

He’s a block or two away from the corner that has the next access onto Main Street, when suddenly a humanoid figure is crossing the road at inhuman speeds. Stiles’ very human reflexes and speed has him swerve to avoid a figure that’s no longer there. His jeep ends up trapped then, with the front left wheel in a ditch off the edge of the road and the back right wheel off the ground; just a few inches, yet still enough to make it next to impossible for him to drive out of that ditch.

“Fuck!” Stiles snaps, angrily.

He’s contemplating whether he ought to get his things and see if he can make it to school if he runs; or if he should just give up on that and call for a tow-truck, or maybe his dad…?

The metallic pings when something, or rather, several somethings, impact on the back and the side of his jeep cuts off his line of thought. It still takes several seconds, and a few more impacts, one of which shatters one of his tail-lights, for Stiles to fully process what’s happening…

“Are those… Those are shots!” He cries out in disbelief, even as he does his best to duck while inside his jeep. “People are shooting at me! Why?! What the fuck?!”

Things just seem to escalate from there. There are more pings, more shots, the rear window of the jeep cracks, but doesn’t fully shatter; he’s pretty sure that the only reason his passenger-side window doesn’t break is because he rolled it down earlier, and the passenger side of his front windshield ends up with a hole at about the same time what looks like an honest-to-god arrow appears in a tree just past the ditch and in the preserve proper.

People are shooting actual-fucking-arrows at him?!

Stiles gets the confirmation to that a few seconds later. He’s just managed to half open his door and is contemplating whether he ought to run toward the closest houses, which means going back, in the direction of the potential shooters, or front, towards the cover of the trees, and away from the town itself. Which is safer? Which is more dangerous? He’s still trying to make up his mind when the rear windshield of his jeep fully breaks and a fraction of a second later there’s an arrow in his shoulder!

An arrow!

In his freaking shoulder!

The first two or three seconds Stiles doesn’t really feel any pain. He’s just left watching the bolt piercing his right shoulder and wondering what the hell just happened (since when do people shoot arrows at other people?!). And then the pain hits him.

Stiles screams, or he thinks he does (when it’s all said and done he just isn’t sure).

Things get… strange, then.

For a moment Stiles thinks he can hear shouting, though he cannot make out who, or what.

He thinks he sees a figure by the treeline, one that doesn’t look quite human (though he supposes that can be the injury, and the shock, talking).

He closes his eyes for a moment (it was barely more than a blink!) and when he opens them next his jeep’s door is fully open and there’s a man crouched in front of him. He looks… odd, in a way that Stiles cannot fully pinpoint. And then what comes out of the man’s mouth only makes the whole situation even more bizarre…

“Mieszko…?”

xXx

Noah has barely made it to his office when his second in command, Tara Graeme, bursts in, looking more frazzled than Noah’s seen her in all the years she’s worked for him (ever since she decided that as much as she liked being a teacher, it wasn’t the right fit for her and chose to pursue a career in law enforcement instead).

“Tara…?” he begins, wondering what can possibly be wrong.

“Sheriff…?” Tara hesitates, just long enough for him to know something most definitely wrong. “The hospital called. It’s… it’s Stiles, sir.”

Noah freezes in shock.

“Come on, sir,” Tara touches his arm gently with one hand, while with the other she collects the keys to his cruiser from where he just left them on his desk. “I’ll drive you.”

It’s a good idea, there’s no way Noah could possibly drive himself, sick with worry as he is. Chances are he’ll end up in the hospital himself, were he to try.

When they make it to the hospital, Noah learns that his son is in emergency surgery. He arrived at the hospital with an aluminum arrow piercing his right shoulder. According to the doctor the arrow was still in place when he arrived, which was a very good thing, as the injury could have been made much worse had his son, or someone else tried to pull it out (there’s a reason they needed surgery to remove it). Also, it had been immobilized with a jersey, apparently one belonging to Stiles himself, which meant that whoever found him and got him to the hospital knew what they were doing.

It is ‘whoever’ because no one knew who it was that got Stiles to the ER. When questioned the nurses and receptionist at the front desk could only tell that it had been a man, tall (six feet tall, or a little less), wearing worn-out jeans, an oversized washed-out hoodie with the hood up and, surprisingly, no shoes. According to witness statements the man burst into the ER with the teenager in his arms, unconscious. Said something about having found the teen on the Old Road, and a bunch of crazy people in black vans shooting at anything that moved (which apparently had included Stiles!). A couple of the nurses had tried to attend to him but he refused attention and eventually just left. Even though one of the nurses was pretty sure the man had been bleeding from at least one wound of his own…

The following days are an absolute nightmare. Noah visits every day, spending as much time as he possibly can keeping his son company, even though he probably doesn’t know (how could he know when he’s not awake?). It’s so jarring, to see his son so quiet, so still, Stiles is neither of those things! It also doesn’t help that spending so much time in the hospital reminds him painfully of his wife, of the long weeks she spent there; the weeks he spent losing her bit by bit, unable to do a thing about it!

Things are… they aren’t good. Stiles died, twice, after arriving at the hospital. The first time was while in surgery to take out the arrow, they nicked an artery while taking the bolt out and it bled a lot before they could get it under control. His heart stopped. Though according to the doctors they managed to bring him back right away, and then they found and dealt with the bleeding, so it wasn’t so bad.

The real problem was the second time. So apparently there was aconite on the arrow tip (because psychotic bastards shooting arrows at innocent passersby wasn’t bad enough, they had to be poisoned arrows!), the doctors hadn’t known. They didn’t understand why Stiles’ recovery wasn’t progressing as expected. Some had assumed they must have missed some internal damage, that he might still be bleeding internally or something; even though multiple CT scans and ultrasounds showed nothing. And then… Well, Noah has no idea whose idea it was to test the arrow, but it was then that they found traces of aconite still on the tip. It almost ended up being too late.

Stiles’ heart stopped again, and this time it took them much longer to get him back. Long enough that for a moment there Noah honestly thought his son wasn’t coming back (and what would he have done then?! What did he have without his son?!). Then, as if fearing his son might never wake up hadn’t been bad enough, there was knowing that because of how long his heart didn’t beat, there was the chance of brain damage and… Noah just can’t imagine his son with brain damage. It’s… Stiles’ most remarkable feature has always been his mind. He’s so, so clever, the way that even with his ADHD making his thoughts go every which way he still manages to absorb knowledge like no one else Noah has ever met. He’s so smart, so much he’s on the honor roll, has been every single time since they got the ADHD under control (the meds alone have never been enough, but they’ve learned a few tricks to help manage things). Noah has no doubt that his son could skip a grade (or several) if he only wanted, but that’s just it, he’s never been interested.

And it’s not even just how smart he is. His son is clever, witty, and a smartass, sarcastic like all hell and with a quick retort for pretty much anything; he also has a remarkable ability for finding loopholes and can bend and twist the rules and the truth in ways that are just short of breaking them entirely. The thought of Stiles losing any part of his brain that makes him who he is… It’s unthinkable.

Thankfully around the time that Noah feels like he’s about to go insane with worry, his son wakes up.

Things aren’t perfect. Even with Stiles having woken, he’s weak, in pain (sometimes even with the pain medication) and keeps falling asleep (which the doctors say is a good thing, as long as it’s sleeping, resting, and not being straight out unconscious or in a coma anymore. Also, Noah managed to talk to him at least long enough to confirm that it is his son, and to feel tentatively hopeful that if there is any damage to his brain, it’s not truly serious.

Stiles manages to convince him to go home, take a shower, eat, sleep in his own bed for a night. And the doctor confirming that his son is doing well eventually has Noah agreeing.

In the morning he has to go into the office, but makes arrangements to spend his lunch-hour at the hospital. Hopefully Stiles will be awake and he can talk to his son some more. Also, Tara’s going with him because she needs to take his son’s statement about whatever he might remember from the day he was shot.

They found the jeep half in a ditch on the Old Road. At least half the windows were broken, and it was clear someone had gone through his son’s stuff (which infuriated the sheriff even more). Aside from that, the scene was clean, too clean. Making it obvious that whoever had made those shots (bullets and arrows both, judging by the marks on the jeep), they’d taken the effort of erasing all traces of themselves. The holes on Stiles’ vehicle were enough to show the attack happened, but not enough to point at who might have done it. Noah wants nothing more than to go after the bastards and wring their necks, but he’s aware he can’t do that. If he wants for the law to work as it should, he can’t be involved in the investigation at all. So he keeps his distance, working on other cases, waiting for Tara to give him updates whenever there are any.

They’re just entering the hospital’s parking lot when they see people running out the doors looking more than a little frazzled. It looks like some sort of emergency. Both the sheriff and deputy get out of the cruiser, wanting to find out what’s going on.

“Is everything okay?” Noah asks as he lightly touches the arm of a passing woman.

“What’s wrong?” Tara questions a nurse who’s doing his best to help a couple of people as they leave the building (which seems wrong, considering they’re clearly hurt).

“No!” the woman shrieks at Noah, clearly too affected to even try and explain anything.

“It’s… it’s insane,” the nurse tells Tara. “Several people came in, clearly armed, and…”

Whatever else he might have been about to say is drowned by the sound of gunshots coming from somewhere inside the hospital.

“What the…?” Tara begins, completely thrown by that.

“Stiles!” Noah snaps, mind going to his son immediately as he pulls out his service gun and rushes into the hospital without even waiting for Tara.

Tara hesitates only briefly when hearing something heavy fall somewhere behind her. It’s… she’s never actually been present for any suicides, or any accidents when people fell off buildings or anything like that, but in that moment she cannot help but feel certain that that’s what just happened. Still, her boss just went into a building with armed people, not even knowing what the situation is, he needs backup; which means she cannot turn back and find out what just happened in the parking lot.

What they find upon reaching Stiles’ room is in no way what either of them could have ever expected: there are two women and one man on the ground. The first woman is clearly Jenna Aldrige, the nurse on shift and she’s unconscious, blood on her temple and matting her dirty blonde hair; the second woman is wearing dark jeans, denim jacket and leather boots, along with what was clearly a green shirt, except it’s now been turned darker with all the blood on it, from a wound to her neck that seems to have been made by an animal; the man is dressed similarly to the second woman, he’s on the floor, moaning in pain and it’s clear that at least his arm and shoulder are broken. Stiles is standing near a corner of the room, hands holding his IV stand horizontally, leaving little doubt as to what he just used it for. And, as if all that weren’t enough, then there’s the man in washed-out jeans, a wife-beater and oversized hoodie, with no shoes, burn scars on one side of his face, standing in the middle of the room, with blood still dripping from one of his hands…

Just what the hell happened?!

Chapter 2

Stiles dies.

Thrice.

He knows, because every time it happens he finds himself back in exactly the same place. It’s almost like some kind of white room. Except for how there are no actual walls, or ceiling, and Stiles cannot help the feeling that the whiteness is more due to a lack of any color whatsoever, rather than it being a color in and of itself.

The first time is shortly after he loses consciousness, in his jeep, with a fucking arrow piercing his shoulder! He doesn’t actually know how it is that he knows exactly, he just does. He opens his eyes and finds himself in that space, that sort-of limbo, where the only thing besides himself appears to be a tree, or rather, the stump of what once must have been a quite magnificent oak tree. It looks old, and dark, and yet it’s not dry. It doesn’t… Well, it doesn’t look dead, which is a surprise in and of itself.

For a moment Stiles doesn’t do much, he just lays there, in the exact same position he woke up in. He closes his eyes briefly, and for a moment he thinks he can almost hear a voice, a male voice calling to him. It begins as an entreaty yet it soon turns into a demand. A demand that he wake up, that he live, and the person is calling him Mieszko…

Stiles remembers then, the moment right before he lost consciousness, back in his jeep. The man who’d looked almost like an inhuman creature just a moment earlier. He called him Mieszko and that… that pulled at Stiles’ heartstrings.

No one ever calls him Mieszko. Or at least no one aside from some members of his mothers’ family, and he hasn’t seen any of them since shortly after the funeral… Stiles cannot actually remember why that is, why they stopped visiting exactly, or even what the fight was about.

And then he does. It’s… it’s almost like a switch has been flipped, or no, not quite that sudden. More like a curtain being pulled aside, or a disguise being washed away. And it’s not just about that fight, or his mother’s family, from one moment to the next Stiles can remember… everything. All the things he’s ever known, all that he didn’t even know he ever forgot…

Time doesn’t seem to have much meaning there in limbo, Stiles doesn’t think. He thinks he loses track of things for a moment (or for quite a while probably), until he finds himself back on top of that stump, of the nemeton…

It’s on that second time that he realizes what’s going on. Or at least some of it. That he ends up in limbo when he dies. And because limbo is… well, limbo, time is relative. It feels like much longer whenever he ends up there (also, he’s not aware of the passage of time when he isn’t there and still not awake so… he supposes it’s all relative, in the end).

He spends most of the ‘time’ during that second, and then a third, visit(s) processing everything he’s remembered. It’s not enough, of course, but he’s not sure any amount of time will ever be enough for him to finish processing not just all the recovered memories, but the fact that he was made to forget in the first place. And everything that’s happened since…

He used to be so close to the Hales, they all were. And how could they not have been. His dad was Peter’s mate! And his mom… he knows Uncle P loved her almost as much as he loved his dad. And like his mom would tell him whenever Stiles feared that something would go wrong, because she wasn’t Uncle P’s mate (Laura told him once that wolves only ever love their mates, and that led younger Stiles to believe that meant Uncle P might not truly love his mom); but like his mom said, she might not have been fated to be loved by Peter, but he chose to love her anyway. That was special too. He made the choice to care for her.

Also, thinking back on it, he remembers Uncle P telling him once that he actually began falling in love with Claudia first. Before he ever met Noah, before realizing the two of them were mates.

Peter Hale met Claudia Stilinski in the public library. He’d gone there looking for information to help him (or rather, his boss) win a case, something that could only be found in some obscure law text or something. Claudia worked there and she just loved reading anything and everything she could get her hands on. She helped Peter find the information he needed. He won her case. Afterwards, whenever he needed some information, he went to her for help. A friendship formed from that. And it could have been more, Peter had been quite willing to see where things might go (while mates might exist, not everyone was known to find them, or even have them at all; there was nothing wrong with wolves and other supernaturals falling in love with someone just like humans did, it was in fact the most natural thing in the world). So Peter had asked Claudia out, and it was then she revealed she was married (being Polish, she wore her wedding band on her right hand, instead of the left, which is why Peter did not realize). They remained friends though. Then one day Claudia was almost mugged, Peter saved her and decided to stick around until he knew her to be safe. Noah arrived to pick her up, and it was then that the two men met. The rest, as some might say, was history.

Stiles remembers growing up seeing the Hales almost like family. Not fully because… well, most of the Hales didn’t seem to care much for him, actually. Uncle P loved him of course, and the Rogerses were great (though well, they weren’t actually Hales, even if they were pack, so…). Laura and Derek never seemed to be around (then again, they were in high-school, and popular, so…), and Stiles wasn’t allowed around the Hales in his own age group, presumably because it would have been too dangerous as they hadn’t yet learned to control their shift… Stiles doesn’t know if that was true, or if it was just that Talia didn’t really like him.

He doesn’t know for sure. There was just something about the way Alpha Hale would look at him sometimes… Like, like she was expecting to see more, like he had disappointed her in some way he couldn’t comprehend. The one time he brought the matter up to his parents (and he’s counting Uncle P in that!) his mom said something about how Mrs. Hale just didn’t know what to think about him, because he was like nothing she’d ever known before; which in turn seemed to make his dad snort while Uncle P rolled his eyes and said something under his breath Stiles couldn’t catch it, but it caused his mom to smack him in the arm.

They loved each other so much… How then had everything ended the way it did?

Stiles remembers things becoming tense. He… he doesn’t fully remember why. Uncle P was away often, out of town, presumably due to his job… Thinking back on it, Stiles suspects that the ‘job’ might have been less about the DA Office and more regarding the Shadow World. And then… Paige died. She was his cousin, like, really distant, on the Gajos side; and Stiles think she might have been dating one of the teen-aged Hales (maybe Derek?). She died, some sort of accident in the preserve, presumably, and then…

Stiles has no idea, because it was around then that his mom went from ‘flaking out’ every so often (and forgetting Stiles a couple of times) to truly becoming sick…

The doctors called it Fronto-Temporal Dementia, but with so many memories back… Stiles is convinced it wasn’t that. He’s researched FTD to death, and his mom was displaying almost none of the symptoms for that. She was often forgetful, yes, and she had trouble with thinking things through a few times but well, she’d pretty much always been forgetful, and tired easily, and it’s not like she was the only person in the family with impulse control issues (Stiles was worse! Still is! And he seems to remember Uncle P was too!).

It all makes Stiles wonder if what killed his mom might have been supernatural in the end. Is that why he was made to forget? Why both he and his dad were? But no, he doesn’t think it was that, not really. It wasn’t the death of his mom, but perhaps the way his dad reacted to it, when he went off the deep end. If Alpha Hale thought his dad might end up putting the pack at risk…

Something that nags at him is the fact that, while they might have forgotten all about the supernatural, it was also around the same time that his dad suddenly gave up drinking almost entirely, that he was once more there for his son. Was that her doing too? Stiles isn’t sure whether to be upset or grateful. Can he be both at the same time?

Then again, he supposes that his feelings over something that happened so long ago are rather pointless, not just for the time that’s passed since but… Well, the Hale Fire. It feels almost crass to want to be annoyed at people long since dead, and in such a tragic way… (Stiles knows that fire cannot have been an accident. He’s always suspected it, deep down, but with what he has remembered now…).

There’s a part of him that wonders if this is the answer to the… disconnect, the emptiness he’s felt for so long. He didn’t just lose his mom, he also lost his pack. And now… Now he can almost feel it, at the core of him, the slow, hesitant unfurling of a bond…

xXx

The first thing that comes to mind, when Stiles wakes up, is that he’s in pain. A hell of a lot of pain, actually. It’s enough to put him back under almost immediately.

The second time he wakes up he’s not quite in so much pain, but he’s actually quite loopy. Apparently a side effect of the pain medication being used.

It takes some experimenting but eventually the doctors seem to find the right dose to keep him mostly comfortable (there’s still some low level pain, but nothing he cannot handle) and not mentally impaired or at risk of becoming addicted to pain meds.

Even then it takes several more naps, interspersed by lapses of time spent awake, before Stiles is mostly coherent. At least enough to answer the doctors’ questions and undergo a number of tests; after which it’s declared that, if there’s any brain damage, it’s minimal (and he didn’t even know he’d been at risk of brain damage! Just how long was he dead?!).

Eventually Stiles manages to convince his dad to go shower, eat, sleep in his own bed for a change. It’s not like him spending another night on that surely-incredibly-uncomfortable recliner in a corner of his room will change anything. Stiles is awake now, and staying that way (well, he’s still going to sleep, when he has to, but they get the point!).

He waits until his dad’s left, and the nurse does her round, turning off the light as she leaves, wishing him a good night; and then a bit longer to make sure no one’s coming back, and then Stiles takes a deep breath and focuses. It takes a few tries but eventually he manages to find it, the thin, almost fragile connection at the core of him, the pack bond… He puts his metaphorical finger on it, seeing what all he can read from it. It’s a bit more than he expected, actually.

Stiles cannot help himself, he smiles. He doesn’t even bother opening his eyes as he calls out:

“I know you’re there, Uncle P.”

For a few moments there’s no response. Nothing but the distant murmur of the hospital’s personnel working down the hallway and then… A window slides open and in a fluid motion a figure slips into the room without making a sound. As the figure straightens up Stiles briefly has a flash of memory, of that moment back in his jeep, after he was shot. The inhuman looking figure he saw for a moment, which then seemed to shift and turn into a man, one that knew him, that called him by a name that so few have ever used for him… It was his Uncle P! He was the one who found him there, who got him out of the jeep and all the way to the hospital (who stopped at some point in the way, in the middle of the preserve, to give him CPR, when his heart stopped before they made it to the ER…). He was also the figure that ran across the Old Road, which caused Stiles to end up in a ditch… And hunters were after him!

“Are you alright?” Stiles asks the older man straight out.

“You know me,” Peter murmurs, cocking his head to the side. “How?”

“I… don’t actually know,” Stiles admits. “I know I didn’t remember before being shot, before blacking out in my jeep.” He swallows, looking straight at the wolf. “Thanks, by the way. I’m pretty sure I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”

“You’d have never been shot at by hunters if it weren’t for me,” Peter mutters, quietly enough Stiles isn’t sure he was supposed to hear.

“Don’t blame yourself for other people’s idiocy,” Stiles chastises. “Besides, something tells me that if there are hunters stirring trouble in town, I’d have ended up involved sooner or later.”

“Certainly,” Peter agrees. “Especially if you make a habit of wandering the preserve in the middle of the night!”

“You were there!” Stiles exclaims brightly, then his eyes narrow. “Why were you there?”

Peter doesn’t answer, though his eyes flash bright red for just a moment.

“Uncle P, where’s your pack?” Still no answer. “I remember that Laura and Derek survived the fire. But they… they left, right after the funerals. You… you were in the hospital…” He trails off, horror in his expression. “You don’t have a pack, do you? But Uncle P, that’s dangerous!”

Of course the teenager doesn’t need to tell that to the actual werewolf, Peter knows that already.

“How bad is it?” Stiles demands.

“Not as bad today as it was a week ago. I’m not half-feral anymore,” Peter admits. “I… something changed, when I was bringing you to the hospital, after you were shot. I had to stop halfway through, when your heart stopped and… I had to put you down so I could do CPR, make sure you wouldn’t die on me. Your dad would have never forgiven me…”

Some things start making sense to Stiles about then.

“Was it the nemeton?” Stiles wants to know.

“What do you know about the nemeton?” Peter demands, eyes flashing for a moment.

That is a very good question. Stiles is pretty sure he didn’t even know what a nemeton was, not only before the accident, but even before Alpha Hale suppressed his memories. Still…

“Don’t you flash your eyes at me, Uncle P!” Stiles snaps at him.

Peter actually looks chagrined, though he doesn’t apologize (not like Stiles expected him to).

“I think I’m connected to the nemeton, somehow,” Stiles admits. “It was after you got me through the preserve, when my heart stopped the first time, that I started getting my memories back. And not only that but… I’m pretty sure I know quite a few things right now that I didn’t back then.”

“Like what?” Peter asks, suspicious.

“Like I said, I think I’m connected to the nemeton, somehow,” Stiles explains. “I know it’s important. To the Hale Pack, and to the territory and… to the world? I think? There’s something about power and balance and… I don’t understand all of it just yet. It’s like some things were dumped into my brain, knowledge, but I don’t have any context for it. Also… well, I did almost die, three times, so it’s hard to tell how much of what I ‘know’ is real, and how much might be just… things my mind made up when I was dying or something.”

“I’ll get you some books,” Peter announces. “You can use them to cross-reference what you know. Check what’s true and what isn’t. And if the books aren’t enough, I’ll start looking in on my contacts, see how many are still around after six years.”

“What about your pack?” Stiles wants to know.

“Don’t worry about my pack… I told you things have been different since that day. The nemeton… it’s as good a reason for it as anything else, I suppose. I’m not feeling as desperate a need for pack as I did that morning…”

Some things start connecting in Stiles’ mind as he draws conclusions…

“You were there that night, when Scott and I were in the preserve,” Stiles murmurs. “You were looking for someone to bite, weren’t you?”

Stiles doesn’t actually know how that works, building a pack. He wants to say that it shouldn’t be about just ‘hunting’ someone and giving them the bite, because that sounds all kinds of wrong, but then again, he doesn’t know. How bad did Uncle P feel the need for pack before the nemeton did… whatever it was it did to help him? Uncle P mentioned being half-feral, though he looks… mostly alright, to Stiles’ eyes, at that moment. Did the nemeton help him with that too, or was one connected to the other?

“Yes,” Peter doesn’t bother trying to deny it. “Even as out of my mind as I was after… everything, I knew from the moment I first saw you that you were important, special. I knew I needed you in my pack. I also knew I couldn’t bite you. So… biting your friend seemed like the best course of action. His turning would bring you right into it as well, and I’d get the both of you…”

“Yeah, no,” Stiles shakes his head immediately. “That’d have been a terrible idea, for so many reasons. First of all, if you had bit my best-friend, without his consent, that wouldn’t have made us your pack. Nope. Trust me, Uncle P, Scott would have fought you every second, and I’d have helped him. Without my repressed memories you would have been nothing but the monster that attacked my friend. That wouldn’t have gone well… probably not for any of us.”

Peter winces. He really doesn’t want to think about how things would have gone in that scenario. Half-feral as he was, he probably wouldn’t have realized the true danger Mieszko posed; or even if he did, he would have refused to give up. That indeed, wouldn’t have gone well for him. At the same time, if he hadn’t recovered his sanity, hadn’t realized why Mieszko seemed so familiar, so important… Peter doesn’t like thinking about the possibility of ever hurting Mieszko, hurting his own mate’s son. Peter doesn’t think he could have handled doing something like that, feral or not.

“Also,” Stiles continues. “Scottie’s probably the worst choice you could ever make, for a beta. He’s just… he’d not make a good wolf.”

“Why not?” Peter’s intrigued at what Mieszko considers a good or a bad prospective wolf.

“Scottie has a very… narrow view of the world, to call it something.” Stiles seems to have a hard time finding the right words to express himself. “That might not be the best way to put it but… See, he only cares about things as they affect him; and at times not even then. He’s the kind who will purposefully ignore things he doesn’t like, pretend they didn’t happen, don’t exist or whatever; as if denying them enough will just make them go away.”

Like how he willfully ignored what some people would say about his dad, about his mom kicking the man out and the ‘real reason’ why he left town. Scott choosing to hold onto his version of the story, that the man abandoned them, even when there’s no proof of it (and doesn’t quite fit with what some neighbors who overheard the McCalls arguing late at night, had to say). He does the same with his asthma, which is the real issue. As Scott will often try to go places and do things he shouldn’t because of his asthma (like trying out for lacrosse), then he’ll have an attack! And more often than not, he won’t even have an inhaler on him (part of his insistence on denying he’s sick)!

Stiles knows Scott often ended in the hospital due to severe asthma attacks before the two of them met. Before Melissa McCall sat Stiles down and explained what asthma is, and the kind of danger her son is often in. This led to Stiles going into a research spiral regarding asthma and the best ways to prevent attacks, everything from recommendations of ways to move, breathe, small exercises to get better condition, to even which foods helped and which should be avoided. Also, he made a habit of keeping an inhaler on himself at all times, and spares in his locker at school and the jeep, just in case.

“As if that weren’t bad enough, Scott would never in a million years accept your authority,” Stiles adds for good measure. “If it were a female Alpha, maybe. He does respect his mom and mostly sees her as a figure of authority. But he will never accept a man having any sort of real power over him, and certainly not one giving him orders of any sort. Not after Rafe.”

“Daddy issues?” Peter surmises.

“Like you wouldn’t believe!” Stiles exclaims.

“And this is your best friend?” Peter doesn’t understand.

“One thing you need to understand Uncle P, is that I’ve never been exactly… normal. I’ve always been the kid who fixates on the strangest things. And also, who shifts interests at the drop of a hat. One day I’ll be interested in dinosaurs, looking up everything from their better known names, images, to pictures of their skeletons and what their diets consisted of, and what killed them too! Then a couple of weeks later it’ll be astronauts, everything from the first mission to the moon, to this or that astronaut who was on a mission that most people have never even heard of! Then the next week, it’ll be bugs! And on and on we go! That kind of thing might be cute in little kids. Especially with things like bugs and the like, when the girls will find it gross and the other boys will laugh at them. But that aside? It can be incredibly lonely…”

It’s the kind of thing he doesn’t usually admit to, and it shows in the way his voice catches. And beyond that, Peter can smell the way Stiles’ emotions shift, turn darker…

“I never had a lot of friends. Even before… before mom’s death and… everything else. I was always more comfortable with you, and mom and dad. I liked going to the high school and watching Derek play basketball, though it’s not like he actually knew I was there! Then mom got sick and I started skipping school to spend time with her at the hospital, and no one stopped me. Because everyone saw that mom didn’t have long and they probably thought, what harm could it do?”

Except it did do harm, there’s a reason why he ended up repeating the grade. Then again, he was given every chance of catching up with his peers and he refused at every turn.

“After mom was gone…” Stiles exhales noisily. “Dad was working all the time and I… I was always anxious if I didn’t know where he was, would get panic attacks if I couldn’t hear his voice. Which is how I ended up spending so much time at the station…”

Yet more time spent around adults, instead of kids his own age.

“One time I had a really bad panic attack, and I ended up at the hospital,” Stiles continues. “I don’t… I don’t remember if a part of me just forgot mom wasn’t there or… I just wasn’t thinking. I don’t remember who found me, exactly, but they took me to Melissa, asked her to watch over me until they could call my dad and he picked me up. I think she’d just finished her shift or something. Scott was there too, he had to go in for… some reason, I think he’d had an asthma attack. We became friends that day. When the new school year began I realized he was in my same grade and… well, it was someone I knew. He immediately claimed me as a friend and… I liked that. I liked having a friend.”

He never paid attention to the fact that he never made any other friends. Stiles had always had such a hard time making friends his own age, he didn’t think anything when the only one he had was Scott. And truth is, he doesn’t actually regret befriending Scott. The boy might not be perfect, but who is? Yeah, Scott might take advantage sometimes of Stiles’ caring nature, but is it really a bad thing, when Stiles likes taking care of people, likes looking after Scott? It’s not like… Neither Melissa nor Scott ever asked him to do all the things he does to take care of Scott. Yes, Melissa sat him down to explain what asthma was, and what to watch out for, but she didn’t actually ask Stiles to do all the research he chose to do afterwards, and she certainly did not tell him to buy spare inhalers and carry them everywhere. Those were Stiles’ choices. And he doesn’t regret them.

All the same, that doesn’t mean he’s blind to Scott’s faults. Or to the fact that he’d be a really bad fit for Uncle P’s pack. While the bite would probably help him a lot with his asthma, and the boy would quite probably enjoy all the physical improvements; Stiles knows he wouldn’t do much to actually be part of the pack. And that’d be problematic. Also, incredibly dangerous considering there’s hunters (clearly evil, non-Code-abiding hunters) in town!

“I cannot keep being his friend,” Stiles announces, unexpectedly.

“Mieszko…” Peter murmurs quietly.

“It’s for the best, Uncle P,” Stiles states, evenly. “Hunters already shot at us. It could become too dangerous for him to be around me. And he’s only human.”

Peter doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like Mieszko, the kid whom he loves as if he were Peter’s own, to have to give up on anything. Especially on his one friend… At the same time, he knows Stiles is right, it could prove dangerous, not just to Scott McCall, but also to Stiles. And that Peter cannot allow.

“I’m sorry, Mieszko,” is all the wolf dares to say in the end.

“It’s not your fault, Uncle P,” Stiles assures him. “Besides, it’s not like I’m alone, am I? I still have dad, and I still have you, right?”

“Right,” Peter agrees immediately.

“We’re pack,” Stiles announces.

Peter inhales sharply, and Stiles can imagine why. He’s sure they both felt it, the moment the thin, fragile bond Stiles was able to sense earlier fully solidified into an actual pack-bond, thick and durable and stronger than anything.

“Pack,” Peter agrees.

xXx

Peter stays around for most of the night. Draining Stiles’ pain when his pain meds run out and it takes a bit longer than ideal for a nurse to drop by and change the bag. But more importantly they keep touching, giving and taking comfort, being pack.

Peter doesn’t get on the bed with Stiles, even when he offers, because after all the years he spent on his own hospital bed. Trapped by burns that just wouldn’t heal (that weren’t allowed to heal…). Peter cannot stand even the thought of willingly getting into another hospital bed. Not when, nowadays, when he’s faking still being catatonic he can mostly do it sitting in a recliner. And soon he won’t have to do even that.

The original plan was to keep on the act until he could get his revenge on those who murdered his pack. Really, being catatonic would be the perfect alibi, no one would suspect him of being behind the whole thing! But now… now his plans have changed. Well, he doesn’t have a new plan just yet, he only knows the old one won’t work. It’s no longer just about revenge. That might have been his sole purpose when he thought he’d lost it all. That what pack hadn’t died had abandoned him. But now he has Mieszko back and maybe, maybe one day he’ll have Noah too. Which means he needs a better plan than just killing them all and to hell with the consequences!

Peter slips out of the room when the nurse on shift arrives to check on Stiles. Breakfast is brought for the teenager, still something soft, but at least he’s eating. When the doctor drops by, Stiles spends some time trying to convince him that he’s well enough to get out of bed, walk around, and even take a shower by himself. The doctor does have Stiles stand and walk around the room. That almost undoes all the advancements as Stiles proves to be as clumsy as ever and almost faceplants. But Dr. Morris, while never having met Stiles before, has heard enough about him from others working in the hospital, so he doesn’t see his clumsiness as a possible consequence of his recent injury.

It’s almost lunch-time when Stiles finally gets the green-light to take a shower, he even manages to convince the nurse to stay just outside the bathroom, instead of inside, so he can have some privacy. Since he’s still connected to an IV, Stiles pushes the IV stand into the bathroom with him, grateful that it has wheels.

He takes longer showering than he intended. But the warm water just feels so good! Still, he doesn’t stay under it as long as he probably would have, were he at his own house, not wanting to use too much water. Also, he’s tired. He can barely believe that something as simple as showering has managed to exhaust him so much but, well, there it is!

It’s because of that exhaustion that Stiles fails to realize something’s off when he first steps back into his hospital room. Doesn’t notice anything until he sees Jenna, the nurse, sprawled out unconscious on the floor, blood mating her temple and showing a clear blow to the head. For a moment Stiles just stares at her, heart-rate sky-rocketing and his whole body tensing up as he realizes something is very, very wrong. And then there’s the sound of a gun cocking.

Stiles doesn’t know if he’s extremely lucky or if his would-be-murderer just is that bad a shot, but the only bullet the man (hunter, the guy’s gotta be a hunter) gets the chance to shoot comes nowhere near Stiles. Then there’s the sound of glass breaking and Stiles is calling out for his Uncle P at the same time said werewolf bursts into the room, immediately leaping towards the hunter. Tackling him down before he can so much as try to line another shot.

The first hunter is barely down when two more run into the room, one wielding a clearly modified taser, which Peter barely manages to avoid as he takes hold of one of the hunters and throws him to the broken window (and from there straight out onto the parking lot). The second (the one with the taser) goes down seconds later, to alpha claws tearing out her throat.

It’s about then that Stiles realizes the first attacker is neither dead nor unconscious, he has only been faking being incapacitated, probably waiting for the right moment to attack Peter. The teenager doesn’t even stop to think about it, taking hold of the IV stand, and using it as if it were a staff, or a bat, and swinging it straight at the hunter’s torso. The man goes down with a strangled yell, at least his arm and shoulder broken in several parts (possibly a collarbone as well).

It’s precisely at that very moment that Stiles’ dad shows up, closely followed by Tara Graeme.

Chapter 3

There comes a moment when, after Noah keeps refusing to listen to his son try and explain what’s really going on; explain about werewolves and hunters and the Shadow World, there comes a moment when Stiles decides that enough is enough!

Tara hesitates, just for a moment. Not expecting it at all when her boss’ son basically throws himself at the sheriff, grabbing his head with both hands, palms pressed to his temple and then… and then Stiles’ amber eyes seem to glow! It doesn’t last long, just a second or two, but it clearly has an effect.

Noah sways sharply, before dropping to the floor, half on his knees, half sitting on the floor. Peter makes a move to catch him when he starts going down, then hesitates when remembering Noah’s initial reaction to him, the way his hand tightened on the gun. He might not have pointed it at Peter, but the wolf suspects that was only because he didn’t get the chance to, before Stiles started trying to explain everything to him.

Several seconds pass and at first it doesn’t seem like anything has changed and then… And then Noah turns to look at Peter, tears on his lashes as he gasps out two words:

“Peter…? Love?”

Stiles’ rather forceful breaking of the block on Noah’s memories leaves the sheriff with a hell of a headache, but he doesn’t mind much. Even before Peter goes ahead and drains the pain the man is utterly convinced that it’s worth it.

“I cannot believe your sister would do that to us…” He murmurs at some point. “I… I know I was an absolute mess but… But I needed you there with me, with us, not…”

Not to lose him completely. To forget him.

Even if Noah realizes that Talia must have done something at the same time she took his memories of Peter and the supernatural, something to… to help with the grief, to help give him some perspective, so he could actually be a father again and not just a waste of space. He still doesn’t think he can ever fully forgive her for what she took away… Noah cannot help but think that if he’d remembered things, he might have been able to do something to help, after the fire. Peter certainly wouldn’t have spent six years suffering alone in that hospital…

As for Tara, she is and isn’t surprised about things at the same time. Regarding her boss and Peter Hale being romantically entangled… pretty much all of Beacon Hills knew back then. It was impossible not to when loud accusations were made at one point that one, or both of the Stilinskis were cheating on the other with Talia Hale’s younger brother. And then it came out that there was no cheating because it was both Noah and Claudia dating Peter, at the same time, with complete knowledge, agreement (and enthusiastic involvement, according to Claudia) of all parties involved!

And regarding the supernatural… Anyone who’s lived in Beacon Hills long enough (especially the families who’ve been around for more than a few generations) knows that the Hales are… something. That they’re different. Those who are utterly mundane, not only because they’re human, but also because they haven’t the slightest interest in anything even remotely outside of the norm, might be happy to believe that the Hales’ oddity comes simply from being such an odd, rich family. From being so closely involved with the running of the town (without actually being Mayor, or anything like that). The rest of the people though can tell that there’s something ‘more than human’ about the Hales. Most don’t really care what it is. As long as people aren’t being affected or anything, what’s the problem?

Though clearly, considering the fire, not everyone shares that mindset.

In any case, the Graemes have lived in Beacon Hills for a long time. Quite a few generations, really. Perhaps not as long as some of the other families, like the Hales, and the Martins, and even the Stilinskis, but still long enough to be aware that the Hales are… different. Tara doesn’t care. Or rather, she doesn’t care that they’re not human. What she does care about, is the fact that there are other people using the fact that the Hales are different, to justify their own atrocities!

Also, they tried to kill Stiles! The boy is as good as her kid brother! Tara won’t be forgiving that any time soon, if ever. And she knows she’s far from the only one.

xXx

Piotr Gajos is Stiles’ idea. Everyone knows that his mom was Polish, even that she still has family back in Europe. A few people might even remember some of his cousins visiting years ago (the last time being shortly after his mom’s death). So it’s not entirely impossible that his mom might have had a cousin called Piotr, who happened to choose to visit…

It’s been six years since the Hale Fire and the awful truth is that most people are far more likely to remember Peter as he looked like after the fire, whether that is with his head covered in bloody bandages or the terrible scarring the fire left on a good deal of his body, including over half of his face. So it’s unlikely most people will recognize Peter by sight alone.

Noah does believe the whole thing is more than a little ridiculous. And yet… Well, the Hale house was burned down by a psychopathic huntress and several accomplices; and then there’s the fact that Peter’s burns were prevented from healing for six years… It’s in fact Noah who insists that Peter not return to the hospital. The sheriff would rather fake an investigation into his disappearance from the long-term-care ward of Beacon Memorial than risk something happening to Peter.

So the fake identity is created and Peter moves into the Stilinski place for the time being. Also, because Noah honestly believes it’d be more dangerous to try and be secretive about things, Peter makes a point of being seen around town. He’s the one to bring Stiles to his appointments with the doctor after he’s discharged (since his dad is often working); and he even drops by the station several times, mostly under the guise of dropping lunch or dinner for Noah. Each time making a point of introducing himself and chatting a bit with anyone who might be willing. Letting them know how good it’s been to see Noah and Stiles again, how much he’s missed them. How Europe might be beautiful but he’s been thinking of ‘sticking around’ Beacon Hills… The best part is that Peter makes a point of telling the truth, about everything but his own name. He even reveals that he’s a lawyer, though he hasn’t really exercised his profession in several years for ‘personal reasons’.

It all works beautifully. Everyone likes him. Soon quite a few people start making comments about how good it is for him to have visited, how the Stilinskis seem to have been happier since he’s around…

At the same time, Noah reopens the Hale Fire case. It’s something a part of him has wanted to do practically since the case was first declared closed, when the fire investigator declared it an accident, nothing more than an electrical malfunction which sadly led to tragedy. Noah never bought that. Even without his memories of having known the Hales, Noah just couldn’t imagine someone with their reputation either cutting corners during the remodeling of the house (which happened not quite a year before the fire), which was what the investigator argued must have happened. Also, the fact that the man declared his investigation finished, not even three days after the fire… That was beyond suspicious for the, then, deputy sheriff.

With Peter and Stiles working together, it takes no time at all to find everyone involved in the Hale Fire in any way, shape or form. The issue then becomes convincing Peter that the men should be arrested and sent to prison instead of Peter just killing them…

“These are human criminals, and they should be subjected to human justice,” Noah tries to explain his rationale for asking Peter to give up his revenge.

“I’m not human,” Peter retorts. “My pack wasn’t human. I was the one hurt, they’re the ones dead. Shouldn’t these bastards pay for it?”

“They should,” Noah agrees.

“Come on Uncle P, as much as you’d probably enjoy their terrified looks when you killed them, it’d be nothing more than momentary satisfaction.” Stiles states, more bluntly than Noah would prefer. “In the end they’d be dead, and your pack too, and what’s the point?”

“Well, what’s the point of them going to jail then?” Peter demands.

“First of all, the punishment lasts much, much longer than just killing them,” Stiles deadpans. “It’s also more of a punishment because… Okay, maybe some like Reddick and Unger won’t much care, they’re bastards, the both of them. But Holt? He might be a junkie, yes, but he has family still here in town, and has friends. Some who’ve stood by him even with his continuous failures to stay clean. How long do you think it’ll take for all of them to drop him like a hot potato when it comes out that he was involved in the fire? Myers has an ex-wife and two children. I bet you she’ll ensure he never sees either of them ever again once he’s arrested and the reason for it comes out. And yeah, high-school-bus driver might not be that glamorous a job, but he’s still gonna lose it, and any possibility of future employment. That is, you know, if he doesn’t end up behind bars for the rest of his life.”

Of all involved, Myers is the one facing… lesser charges, so-to-speak, as he wasn’t involved with the fire itself, and only with the cover-up. He’s the only one who stands a chance (small as it might be) to not end imprisoned for the rest of his life. And even if that were to be the case, like Stiles points out, it’s not like his life as a free-man would be a walk in the park (all things told, it might even end up being worse than life in prison, considering how people might react to his interference with victims of such an atrocious crime getting the justice they deserved).

“Something I’d like to point out,” Noah states. “Is the importance of showing to everyone, hunters, shifters, and everyone else supernatural and not, that the law matters. That it is to be followed, no matter if you have claws, guns, or something else entirely.”

“What have human laws ever done for us?” Peter scoffs.

“Probably not much, but I do believe that’s as much on you as on the law,” Noah’s reply surprises both his son and mate, it also makes the latter bristle. “You supernaturals are obsessed with your secrecy, and I understand why, don’t take me wrong. People can be stupid, especially in big groups, when they tend to follow the one with the loudest voice, instead of the brightest brain… But I do still believe you’re doing yourselves a disservice, letting your need for secrecy keep you from getting help, from seeking justice through the right channels.”

A subvocal growl escapes from the back of Peter’s throat. He’s beyond furious, but at least enough in control not to attack his mate.

“My dad’s right, you know?” Stiles pipes in. “I mean, the fire. Yes, it was a crime against a pack of wolves. But it’s still very much a crime, one human law recognizes, and punishes. So you cannot go and say that you were attacked by hunters, that they attacked you for being werewolves… Who cares?! What they did was still wrong. Also, it’s not like these bastards are gonna try and defend their actions by claiming that you’re monsters, or beasts or whatever! They’re as interested in maintaining the secrecy as you are.”

Peter’s eyes narrow.

“Long have the hunters taken advantage of the fact that you, all of you, won’t go to the authorities for help,” Stiles pushes on. “But they aren’t any more likely to let the cat out of the bag than you are! It’s time you start using the system against them. Let this serve as a lesson to all hunters, that when human laws are broken, they will be made to pay for it, by that very same human law…”

“And it’s not only about making these people pay for their crimes,” Noah adds for good measure. “But also ensure they aren’t repeated. While most of those involved in the fire, at least the ones you’ve managed to uncover so far, were only responsible for the Hale Fire, I know that’s no longer the only fire you two are investigating.”

It’s a bit of a recent development. Noah suspected from the start that neither of the three arsonists he was going after were the true mastermind behind the Hale Fire. They just didn’t seem the type. It took some time, and several intense interrogations, and eventually a very discreet scare from Peter (which consisted of him flashing his eyes and showing fang at Ungers when he was being transferred from his cell to the interrogation room, careful enough to make sure no one except perhaps Tara noticed it. Ungers almost pissed himself in fright, and immediately started babbling about monsters and hunters, and the blonde bombshell who told him the Hales had to die…).

One of them breaking meant that eventually so did the other two. Also, Harris. Adrian Harris, the Chemistry teacher for Beacon Hills High, while Noah might not have enough proof against him to actually prosecute him, he managed to pressure the man enough for him to help them ID the ‘blonde bombshell’ the other three mentioned. And thus they discovered Katie Vermeil.

As they learned upon Stiles digging deep enough, Katie Vermeil does not exist (and Noah is going to have a chat with the people at the high-school, about doing proper background checks before hiring someone!). Still, Stiles is nothing if not persistent, he poured over everything that there was on Katie Vermeil (limited as it was), and eventually he came upon another name: Katja Silverstein. After that one came Keti Argyris, and then Catelyn Silver. Then, after two nights of research, he finally came upon the real name: Katherine Argent.

Peter almost went feral at that. It’s not like they didn’t know that hunters were involved. Between the mountain ash, the wolfsbane Peter remembered smelling the day of the fire and what was done to him over the past six years there was little doubt of hunters being involved. It never occurred to him that it might be an Argent.

“Why is this such a big deal?” Noah asks.

“The Argents are, while perhaps not the original hunters, they’re certainly the most famous ones,” Peter points out grimly. “They have a certain… fame, and a reputation.”

He doesn’t think it’ll be easy, going after one of them. Then again, he knew from the start that going against hunters would make matters extremely complicated.

“Only when it comes to werewolves,” Stiles’ comment surprises both men. “I’ve been in touch with Bonnie,” at the men’s continued look of incomprehension he clarifies. “Bonnie McCullough is a cousin, from the Gajos side of the family. Really distant, but anyway. She lives on the East Coast. Apparently her family came to America by way of Scotland three or four generations ago…” He shakes his head. “The point is, she’s a witch, and she got me in touch with Meredith Sulez, a huntress.”

“I’ve never heard that name,” Peter cuts him off. “And I made it my job to know all the names of the hunter families.”

“You don’t know it because the Sulezes don’t hunt werewolves, they hunt vampires,” Stiles announces.

“Vampires are real?” Noah blurts out, shocked.

“Oh daddio, everything you’ve ever heard a myth of is probably real, in some way or another.” Stiles shrugs. “Max says her dad likes to say that ‘all the legends are true’…” He shakes his head. “Anyway, the point is regarding the hunters. The Argents are the most famous werewolf hunters, but according to Meredith, that’s mostly a fame they built themselves. According to her, the Hunter Community in general, and by this I mean in the wider Shadow World, sees them as little more than upstarts, trying to claim a position that doesn’t belong to them.”

Peter actually laughs then. At the thought of the Argents seeking to build such a reputation for themselves, when others on their same ‘line of work’ will forever see them as unimportant. Still, that doesn’t lessen the risk the Argents pose to him, to them all…

“And what’s to stop all these hunters from coming after us once we put Katherine Argent behind bars?” Peter wants to know.

“Meredith says that if there’s proof of her crimes, like the kind of proof that’s needed to send her to jail in the first place, the Hunters’ Council will disavow her, and anyone who might try to aid her.” Stiles answers honestly.

“You know that won’t stop some from trying anyway,” Peter mutters. “You don’t know Gerard, Kate’s father, like I do. The man is a bastard. The last time he was in California he pretended to be interested in making a peace treaty with the packs. I warned Talia that it was too dangerous and I didn’t think Gerard was truthful. She gave the meeting a miss, but still allowed it to take place… It was an absolute bloodbath. Also, it caused a mess that ended with a number of deaths in and out of the territory.” He shakes his head. “That man won’t take his daughter being sent to jail quietly. Especially not for doing what he sees as the right thing, killing all wolves. And whatever humans die in the crossfire he’ll chalk as collateral damage and not lose a night of sleep over it.”

Something in that statement calls Noah’s attention; Peter notices when there’s a shift in his mate’s emotions. When he goes from curious to sharp attention, and low-key furious.

“Noah…?” Peter begins, making the single word a query.

“What are the chances of the Argents already being in town?” Noah asks, then elaborates. “More precisely, what are the chances that it was Argent hunters that were pursuing you that day, not two weeks ago and ended up putting an arrow in my son?”

Stiles freezes. Somehow that possibility hadn’t occurred to him. Like, they knew hunters were in town, but somehow it never occurred to them to think that they might be connected to the fire…

All along they’ve been operating under the assumption that the hunters in town at this time, had arrived due to the revenge spiral on the dead deer, along with Laura’s death (and that’s one thing Peter really doesn’t like thinking about. On the one hand he cannot help but feel grieved, while he wouldn’t say he loved Laura, especially not since she abandoned him, she was still his niece, and he honestly did not know her when he killed her. To him she’d been nothing but an unknown wolf, an invader, a danger… On the other hand, there’s a part of him that feels he did justice for himself, killing the alpha that abandoned him to the torture of not just broken bonds, and his burnt body, but left him in a position where others could and did take advantage and tortured him for years!). It never occurred to any of them that there might be more to the hunters’ presence in Beacon Hills. Then again, it might be a coincidence? (Stiles would say the universe isn’t that lazy…).

In any case, their lack of knowledge regarding what hunters were in town exactly is understandable. They’ve been pretty busy, after all, between Stiles’ stay in the hospital, and after getting out, their investigation into the fire. It’s not like they’ve had a lot of free time, exactly…

Once they confirm that it’s the Argents in town it takes both Stilinskis to keep Peter from going completely feral and hunting them down.

“Now more than ever it’s important that we stick to the plan,” Noah insists. “We’re making justice, I promise you Peter. When we’re done Katherine Argent will be spending the rest of her natural life behind bars.”

“And if she doesn’t, I’ll kill her,” Peter declares. “I will not let her take another pack from me.”

xXx

Derek Hale’s arrival to town makes some things easier, and others harder. As it turns out, he’s actually been in town for almost two weeks by the time they come across him. He apparently arrived the same day Stiles got shot. With Peter spending all the time either keeping the charade in his own room, or guarding his mate’s son, even Peter hadn’t noticed his scent on the edges of the preserve and, as it turned out, in the ruins of the Hale House (where Derek was apparently sleeping…).

They learn of his presence in town when Derek is accosted by several hunters while at the gas station. Tara happens to come across the scene and insists on taking Derek to the station so he can report the harassment and vandalizing of his car. He doesn’t see the point. Then again, that’s just the excuse. The moment the sheriff sees Derek he announces the young man will be going with him to his place (which was exactly what Tara knew he was gonna do).

To say Derek is extremely shocked when seeing his uncle alive, awake, and healed in the living room of the Stilinski house would be a hell of an understatement. The man’s life has been… pretty much hell, the past month or so. He knew his sister was dead the moment it happened, he felt the bond snap. This is what prompted him to get to Beacon Hills as fast as possible. Why? Not even he knows, it’s not like it was going to make any difference in the end, Laura was already dead!

Noah does learn that there’s a very good reason why they haven’t been able to find the other half of the dead Jane Doe (the one his son went searching for the night before he was shot by hunters); apparently Derek found her first. He found her and proceeded to bury her, following traditional wolf rites, in the Hales’ private property.

The hardest thing, after Derek is convinced to move into the Stilinski house (Noah refused to allow him to go back to the burnt shell of his old family home), comes when Peter confronts his nephew with his and Laura’s abandonment, before confessing that he was the one to kill Laura (even if he had been more than a little feral at the time).

Derek… breaks, following that revelation. Though to everyone except Peter’s shock, he doesn’t actually try to kill Peter. No, while he does throw himself against the older wolf, it’s soon made obvious that he’s not really trying to kill him, no, he’s trying to get Peter to kill him! And then Derek confesses to having dated ‘Katie Vermeil’ in the months prior to the fire…

At least the Stilinskis don’t have to try and keep Peter from going feral and hunting down Kate (and probably every other Argent afterwards). No, instead Peter is focused on talking his nephew down from the ledge, on making him understand that it’s not and never has been his fault… Peter also persuades Derek to go to therapy with someone who’s in-the-know regarding the Shadow World. Noah’s hoping to eventually be able to convince him to make a statement, even if the younger wolf cannot bring himself to admit to the statutory rape, her questioning him, and the fact that she used the information against his family would certainly help in proving both malicious intent and premeditation. Allowing them to avoid her possible defense trying to claim either temporary insanity or that it was somehow a ‘crime of opportunity’.

It won’t be easy, Derek has a long way ahead of him before he can be truly said to be alright. But it’s not like he’s alone. He has his pack. He’ll never be alone again.

Chapter 4

Despite how much Stiles initially might have worried about Scott, about what he might have to do to create a split in their friendship, and ensure Scott stays away despite how stubborn he can be sometimes; truth is Scott only shows up twice.

The first time was early on during Stiles’ and Peter’s investigation into those responsible for the Hale Fire. Even though he’d been discharged, Stiles’ arm was still in a sling and he had a list of things he should be careful about, and another about things he should definitely not do. He was also not attending school for the time being.

At his doctors’ recommendation the sheriff signed him out of school for at least a couple of months (with the possibility for it to continue if his injury didn’t heal enough by then). He was expected to do all his work and send it in online. He also had PT scheduled, and several doctor appointments to keep a close eye on the injury. According to the doctor it was a miracle that the arrow hit him in such a way that no bones broke, and while in the process of taking it out an artery was nicked and a ligament partially torn, the damage is still much less than it could have been. It’s up to Stiles to ensure it doesn’t worsen before it even has a chance to heal.

He’d been so busy, first with all the recovered memories, then convincing the doctors to discharge him, and after that the investigation, that Stiles didn’t really stop to think about the fact that he hadn’t seen Scott, hadn’t so much as gotten a call or even text from him at all since the night they went looking for what he’s since learned was Laura Hale’s body. And then Scott was there, at his door…

“My name is Piotr Gajos,” Peter was introducing himself as Stiles approached. “You must be a friend of Mieszko’s?”

“Mesh… What?!” Scott began, butchering Stiles’ name entirely before giving up on it.

“I know most people call him Stiles nowadays, but well, I’m traditional, you know?” Peter said with a small smile. “Claudia gave him a good, strong name, why should I not use it?”

Scott just blinked several times. Then, completely unexpectedly, he spun around and left. He didn’t even wait for Stiles to make it to the door.

And so Stiles was left watching the back of his best-friend as he walked away without having even said a word to Stiles himself. Just what the hell is going on?!

“What did you do to him, Uncle P?” Stiles blurted out.

“Nothing!” Peter cried out, slightly offended. “I barely had a chance to introduce myself!” His voice softened. “That was your friend, right? He didn’t even introduce himself!”

“I don’t understand,” Stiles admitted, hating the fact that he very much didn’t.

The next time Scott shows up is shortly after Derek’s finally been convinced to make an official statement about the Hale Fire and especially about Katie Vermeil. This is important since Harris’ ID of the woman wasn’t enough to have her charged in the matter of the fire, as it was argued that asking ludicrous questions about fire did not mean that she intended to set one, or to hurt anyone. With Derek’s statement about not just her ‘relationship’ with him, but also her messages to him in the days following the fire, when she not only mocked him for ‘falling for a pretty face’, but straight out confessed to being behind the murder of his whole family…

It wasn’t even hard to chalk up her use of words like ‘monster’, ‘beasts’ and ‘animals’ as it being part of how the psychotic woman justified her crimes to herself. (And no, that could not be used to claim insanity either, since her description of all that went into planning the fire proved that she not only was very sane, but also quite clever).

So when Scott drops by for the second time Peter and Derek are out of the house. Having gone to a spot deep enough in the preserve the hunters are unlikely to find them. They need the chance to unwind a bit and release some stress with everything going on. Stiles is in the kitchen, cooking (there’s a part of him that cannot help but think that one of the best parts of having a pack is getting the chance to dust off the Gajos family recipe book and try out some things he hasn’t been able to cook in years, since the recipes are meant for more than just two people, and the McCalls were never very interested) when he hears what sounds like someone trying and failing to just open the front-door and then… knocking.

Stiles is so thrown by things he doesn’t even realize he still has the slotted spoon he used to get the pierogis out of the salted water when he goes to see who’s at the door.

“Scott…?!” Stiles blurts out, surprised.

“Stiles man, since when do you lock your door?” Scott demands.

“Since I got shot and the guys who did it haven’t been caught yet,” Stiles answers calmly. “Dad’s handling things and I’m sure he’ll catch the hunters…” Stiles stutters a bit at his verbal misstep but does his best to cover it up. “O-or whatever crazy people who shot at me soon. But in the meantime he insisted that I lock all doors and windows, just to be on the safe side.”

“Why would you be in danger?” Scott scoffs. “That’s ridiculous. You’re not in danger, Stiles.”

“Hello, Scott, they already shot at me once!” Stiles snaps in disbelief.

“I’m sure it wasn’t at you, you just got in the way or something,” Scott excuses.

“Got in the way?!” Stiles hisses, barely managing to control his growing anger. “Of what, exactly? Hunting is forbidden in the preserve! At all! And since when is it normal for people to hunt using poisoned arrows?!”

“Poisoned arrows?” Scott repeats, rolling his eyes. “There were no poisoned arrows. Now you’re just making shit up. Why would anyone be attacking anyone with poisoned arrows? This is the real world Stiles, not a videogame. And you know, making up that some guys in black vans or whatever tried to murder you in the preserve isn’t going to make Lydia suddenly fall in love with you. That’s not how the world works!”

“What does Lydia have to do with anything?!” Stiles practically snarls, furious, wondering what the hell is wrong with Scott.

“Anyway, that’s not the point,” Scott dismisses the whole thing like it doesn’t even matter, like Stiles didn’t literally almost die (did die! Three times!) not three weeks ago! “Who opened the door last time I came?”

“Uncle P?” What does Peter have to do with anything? “His name’s Piotr Gajos, he’s my uncle.”

“You don’t have an uncle,” Scott states, dismissively.

“I think I’d know better than you since, you know, it’s my family,” Stiles says in a drawl. “He’s a somewhat distant cousin, like twice or thrice removed, I don’t remember. On mom’s side.”

“You need to stop lying, Stiles,” Scott insists. “That man, whoever he is, he isn’t your uncle. You don’t have an uncle. Your mom was an only child, as is your dad.”

“Well yeah, but I mean, mom had lots of cousins. Some live here in the US, like Bonnie, Diana, Wyatt and his siblings and all the others in that part of the family; while others still live back in Europe, like Johanna, Alexandrie… well, she’s actually an aunt, but whatever…”

“If you have all that family why are they never around?”

“Why…? I mean, they have their own lives? It’s not like traveling places is cheap, dude!” Also, knowing what he does now about the supernatural, Stiles has no doubt that a lot, if not all of his family might often be busy in other ways than just family and professional lives. “Also, we kind of had a big fight shortly after mom died. Because several of my aunts and uncles wanted me to go with them, but I refused to leave my dad.”

He hadn’t understood back then, without his memories of the supernatural, their insistence that he go with them, their claims that he’d be safe, as if he wouldn’t be with his dad… Now he does understand, and yet he doesn’t regret his choice to stay. He never will.

“If they haven’t been around since your mom died they shouldn’t count,” Scott states, like his saying makes it law or something.

Stiles briefly considers asking if that means Rafe doesn’t count as family either, but in the end decides that, angry as he is, he doesn’t really want to bring up Rafael McCall of all people.

“Scott, this is my family, I’m the only one who gets to decide who counts as part of it, don’t you think?” It’s supposed to be a rhetorical question, and yet…

“But I’m part of it too! I’m your brother!”

“Are you?” Stiles snaps before he can think better of it. “Then where have you been, brother? Where have you been the past two, almost three weeks that I’ve been here, since I was discharged? And before that, where were you when I spent a week in the hospital? I died, did you know that Scott? My heart stopped three times!”

“You didn’t…”

“It happened to me! I think I’d know better than you!” For a moment Scott seems to honestly be speechless. “Gods I knew you were stubborn, yet I never thought…”

He never thought Scott was this kind of stubborn. Stiles knew Scott was the kind to try and deny his problems, who thought that if he denies the things he doesn’t like long enough they’ll somehow disappear and yet… And yet this is something else entirely. He’s denying things even as Stiles stands there and tells him they’re true. Why is he so against it all? What is it about the attack on Stiles that Scott refuses to accept? And why? Why is he so invested in it not being true?

(There are, of course, things Stiles does not know. He does not know that the timeline he’s living in is not the first one, but rather one created from someone’s changed decision. From Scott’s choice to go back in time and make it so he never became a werewolf… It’s not something Hop thinks their guardian needs to know, he’s done his best as it is, so…).

Something else Stiles cannot help but think of is what he himself told Scott. It’s something that’s been in the back of his head for a while but he’d refused to focus on it much. It’s not… he wasn’t in denial, exactly. He just… he hadn’t needed to deal with it just yet. But now… now he truly thinks he must.

Scott called himself Stiles’ brother, but what kind of brother does not visit when the other is in the hospital? When said brother almost died?! Unless he didn’t know… and well, that’s almost worse, isn’t it? Because how can he claim to be Stiles’ brother and not have known how badly off Stiles was? He was pretty much in a coma for days! And didn’t Scott at least notice that Stiles wasn’t at school?!

Stiles has always known that Scott can be… that he’s not the best of friends, exactly. He’s immature, selfish, possessive, self-centered and stubborn to a fault. In order for things to be right they must be done his way, otherwise they’re wrong… But well… on the immaturity, they’re teenagers, who isn’t immature at their age? The selfishness and possessiveness in Stiles’ experience show mostly in that… well, Scott has never been good at sharing what he considers his, that includes his friends (or rather, friend), but Stiles never had much trouble with that, honestly. It’s not like he ever cared about having lots of friends anyway! Being self-centered… again, teenager!

He usually didn’t mind the stubbornness much, either. It was probably Scott’s most dangerous trait, as it pushed him to want and try and do so much, despite the asthma. But Stiles always told himself that Scott just wanted a chance at what everyone else had and did, and didn’t he deserve it? And when the biggest risk was Scott not having his inhaler at hand when he inevitably had another attack, Stiles could handle it, but where does it end?

Also, Stiles now cannot help but wonder if he might have done the wrong thing, trying so hard to help Scott, to keep him from the consequences of his recklessness. Because, well, even before the crazy argument Stiles had already decided he couldn’t be around Scott anymore, it’d be too dangerous for him. And who then is going to ensure Scott has an inhaler when he needs one now? Who’s going to call for an ambulance if… when one of his attacks gets really bad? Who’s going to be there when he needs help?

The questions are almost enough to make Stiles hesitate and back down from his decision, and yet… he cannot do it. Being worried about what might happen to Scott without him, doesn’t lessen the danger he’d be in with Stiles around. Not with what’s coming, what’s already begun…

“I think you need to go, Scott,” Stiles states with finality.

“What…?” It’s clear the other boy wasn’t expecting that.

“Now,” Stiles adds for good measure.

“I…” Scott’s expression goes from doubtful to mulish in an instant. “Right, call me when you’re ready to stop lying.”

Stiles exhales but says nothing. There’s no point.

He still says nothing when Peter comes out of nowhere, closing the front door (which Stiles was still standing by, not having moved an inch) while Derek gently guides the teenager to the living room, where he’s soon placed in the middle of the widest sofa, with a wolf on each side, being cuddled half to death. Stiles doesn’t complain. He quite likes it, actually. Reminds him of what he has now and why it’s much more important than whatever he might be losing (whatever he might have only thought he had).

xXx

Everyone knows the moment Kate Argent arrives in town. Though it’s clear she has no idea the epic mess she’s walking into.

Her first mistake is to arrive under the name of Katie Vermeil. That serves to prove to Noah that he and Tara have truly managed to keep things secret, as it’s clear the woman doesn’t know she’s under investigation just yet.

Her second mistake is going into the preserve armed; and when deputies stop her she tries to excuse it as going hunting… While only Noah and Tara might be involved in the reopened investigation of the Hale Fire, everyone in the station is well aware of what happened to Stiles, as well as how close he came to truly dying (dying and staying dead), so they really don’t take kindly to armed people in the preserve anymore. Especially because they’ve made sure everyone remembers that hunting anywhere in Beacon County and the surrounding forest is strictly forbidden.

Noah has made it a formal order that whenever someone is detained for hunting, all their weapons must be confiscated and tested for poisons. Since everyone knows that the arrow that hurt Stiles had aconite on its tip, no one’s ever questioned the order. When the deputies detaining ‘Katie Vermeil’ discover that not only she carries enough weapons in her trunk to fill an armory, but that more than half of them are altered with some poison or another, that’s more than enough to formally arrest her.

This also serves to give cause to Noah (finally!) to get a warrant to follow the trace of the weapons all the way to Argent Arms. And, knowing what he does, he’s able to find the ‘secret caches’ the hunters keep behind the more legal weapons. What they discover there is not only altered ammo, but also weapons (mostly guns) modified to leave no trace. Since the investigation is being done through official channels, it takes no time before the FBI gets involved. Turns out that in the past decade or so, shell casings with no markings have been found in a number of crime scenes, as well as things like bullets with no striae and other such things that point to the use of weapons that were clearly carefully modified to leave no trace. With the frankly staggering number of crimes, as well as the fact that they were committed in almost every state, it’s really no surprise the FBI would get involved.

Kate Argent’s third mistake happens when she decides to try her luck on Sheriff Stilinski. As bad as her carrying all the weapons she did might have been, they don’t have any proof of her actually committing a crime (yet), so they cannot keep her in a cell for long. Once she’s out she goes straight to Noah, where she starts to flirt, at first playing shy and hesitant, then turning coy and dominant the moment Noah gives her the smallest of openings, just to see what she’ll do. The outrageous and rather pointed questions she starts making the moment she thinks she has him, make her intentions pretty clear. Which is when Noah decides to reveal his own.

Which is how Kate Argent finds out that not only the sheriff knows her real name, but she’s under investigation in relation to the Hale Fire. And that a warrant has just been executed that forced her brother to turn in all the stuff of hers she kept in his house. Stuff that includes her journals, which detail all her crimes. She knows exactly what that means for her, and decides she’s not going to allow it.

Which is what leads to Kate Argent’s fourth and final mistake: when she decides that the way to get at the sheriff is through his son. And she tries to kill him!

Tara is the first one to the scene (aside from the sheriff, who’s already there as it’s his day off). Having taken off from the scene of what she’s now pretty sure is a fake break-in the moment she received in her phone the notification from the panic-button installed at the Stilinski place in case of an emergency. She’s abruptly certain that it can be no coincidence that pretty much every deputy on duty has found themselves called in to some crime or disturbance or another. Whatever’s going down at the Stilinskis’, it’s clear the hunters wanted to make sure there would be no help forthcoming.

And yet, what Tara finds when she finally makes it to the Stilinski home is not at all what she would have ever expected. It’s clear that whatever emergency there might have been, it’s all over now.

Kate Argent is dead. She’s lying in the middle of the living room; and the first thing Tara notices is that the death wasn’t caused by either claws or fangs (which she’d have expected, considering the Hales), but instead a bullet to the head.

“Kate Argent is dead,” Noah announces, somewhat unnecessarily, before pulling the bullets out of his revolver and offering them, followed by his weapon, to Tara. “You will find the bullet in her head will match these.” It’s his personal gun, rather than his service one. “I killed her.”

Tara just needs to look at her boss for a few seconds to know that cannot be true. Not entirely. But he’s still her boss, a very good boss; and more than that, he’s her friend.

“If that’s what you’re going with you might want to either switch your current t-shirt for one that buttons up on the neck so you can hide the bandage on the side of your neck, or pull on a jacket before everyone else gets here, boss,” Tara points out.

Noah starts at that while Peter snorts, clearly not at all surprised by Tara’s perspicacity.

In the end, Derek gets Noah his jacket and he’s just finished pulling it on when the noise of almost half a dozen police cruisers peeling down the street reaches them. It’s all insane from then on.

The official version of events (as written on all the statements) is that Kate Argent reached the Stilinski house from the preserve. She shot Derek Hale, who’d been doing some work in the backyard, before entering the house through the kitchen. She apparently intended to take the sheriff’s son as a hostage, probably planning on using him to try and get the sheriff to drop the case against her; as ridiculous as that is, considering the FBI are already involved! Stiles apparently pointed that very thing out, which led to Kate slamming the butt of her gun against his head, knocking the teenager out, before announcing that she’d kill them all, have them be a lesson to whoever might ever think of trying to go against her.

In the meantime Peter, who’d apparently been taking a walk in the preserve (the Stilinski house has a small gate that leads there, since the backyard abuts the preserve), got back in time to see his nephew injured on the back-porch. It was discovered that the wound wasn’t serious at all, little more than a graze, it was the fall that had affected Derek most, knocking him out briefly.

Kate decided at some point that the best way to kill them all was to burn the house down. So she headed to the kitchen to handle things. She was taken completely by surprise when the sheriff walked down the stairs, clearly not having known that it was his day off. Stiles got involved at some point, yelling a warning at his dad, barely managing to duck before Kate shot in his direction. Then the sheriff shot her before she could try again.

The End.

The real version of events is… a little different. The basics are all the same. Derek did get shot (with a sniper rifle, actually, which is how Derek did not know it was happening before she took the shot). Peter helped him get the bullet out and healed him with wolfsbane ash Stiles had prepared beforehand, having done his research and being aware of each Argent’s preferred wolfsbane variety.

Kate clearly had intended to go after the Stilinskis, or at least Stiles, and not the Hales, because the weapons she was carrying while inside the house, none held wolfsbane. Aside from the handgun she only used to knock out Stiles she was carrying a shotgun, with which she actually shot Noah! Stiles, who’d managed to wake up without her notice, and dragged himself to the safe hidden in a corner of the room, pulled out his dad’s personal revolver and pointed it straight at Kate as he ordered her to put the gun down. She laughed at him, stating that he wouldn’t pull the trigger, that he didn’t have what it took to be a killer. Stiles didn’t say a word, just shot her.

“You know that’s not true, right?” Tara asks Stiles very softly. “You’re not a killer, Stiles.”

“He knows,” Noah states.

“Even if I were, I don’t regret it.” Stiles states, evenly. “If I could have, I’d have killed her before she ever shot my dad.”

Even if that meant him technically attacking first… Though he supposes it wouldn’t even have been that, since she’d already shot Derek at that point. Still, even if it had meant him being the one to attack first, rather than just self-defense, he’d still have done it. Because after everything Kate had done in the past… she wasn’t going to stop unless she was dead.

And Stiles doesn’t regret being the one to put her down.

The rest of the story is quite simple. Peter offered Noah the bite and he accepted. After that, and knowing that with the shots fired and everything else it was but a matter of time before several (or, as it ended up being, all) of his deputies arrived, Noah changed his shirt for one that wasn’t drenched in blood. He didn’t think about the small adhesive bandage his son used to cover-up the turning bite until Tara mentioned it.

If anyone else at the station suspects that Kate might have been shot by anyone other than the sheriff, as stated in the reports, they keep those suspicions to themselves. They’re all loyal.

xXx

The truth about Peter comes out in the aftermath of the attack on the Stilinskis.

The FBI goes through the events that led to Katherine Argent’s death with a fine toothed comb. They can clearly see that there’s something that doesn’t fit. But no one in the new Hale Pack considers giving so much as a hint of the whole truth until the nemeton whispers to Stiles during one of his walks that Jack Hotchner, the five year old son of Agent Aaron Hotchner, the SAC of the FBI team that is handling the Argent case has magic. Also, apparently the entire team bar the youngest member: Dr. Spencer Reid, are part of the supernatural world in some way. (Dr. Reid isn’t supernatural himself, but well aware, and is apparently very interested in researching anything and everything he can regarding the supernatural… much like Stiles, in a way).

Agent Hotchner in particular, his father was a retired hunter from a minor family who followed the Dubois (the second biggest hunting family on the East Coast); he retired relatively young, after a serious injury during a hunt (one with good cause) left him with a permanent limp. The woman he married happened to be a distant relative of the Kemps (another hunter family, and one that did not hunt werewolves but demons; they hail from the UK), though she didn’t actually know anything about the supernatural.

Hotch is well aware of the Shadow World as his father always intended to have his son follow his footsteps. Not as a hunter, but as a lawyer who worked almost exclusively for hunter families. Hotch refused, having known early on how few times the hunts had true cause; instead, he became a prosecutor. Hunters went after him a number of times, which is how certain individuals in the government, who were already aware of the supernatural, found out about him and eventually recruited him into the FBI. Hotch technically did not recruit his team, but once he came to be in charge of it he was the one who made it so they’d be the ones called if the higher ups so much as suspected a case might involve something supernatural (it was better than having to read people in every time, and they ran less risk of the wrong kind of people, people like the Dubois, and the Argents, ending up involved).

So the new Hale Pack comes clean to them. Starting with the truth about Piotr Gajos/Peter Hale, and ending with who truly pulled the trigger and killed Kate Argent. At least one of the agents looks taken aback by that particular revelation, while their techie, Miss Garcia, is clearly horrified. They all look at the teenager with a bit more respect; almost as if his actions make them start seeing him more as an adult than a child.

It’s Agent Hotchner’s idea to keep the fact that Kate Argent is dead a secret, at least initially. Only the Pack and the BAU Team know the truth. An announcement at the station is made, explaining that Kate Argent was announced dead as a security measure, and she’ll be transported to the FBI offices in San Francisco through back-roads three days later to avoid any possible interference from her family or any possible allies she might still have. The deputies will not be asked to assist with transport, just with keeping the civilians away from the Old Road and the old highway it leads to, for their own protection.

It’s all a trap. They all know the Argents have a mole in the station. How far back it goes, they cannot know. It’s quite likely the only reason Kate did not know about Noah reopening the investigation into the Hale Fire was because Noah was paranoid enough to keep that between him and Tara (and with good reason, as it turned out!). She still managed to learn where he lived, how to reach his house from the preserve, and was around his place enough to cut the phone lines and block cellphones with usual patrols either not noticing her, or simply ignoring her.

The only reason Tara realized something was going on at all, is because apparently a loss of signal was enough to activate the ‘panic button’. Had it happened accidentally, or due to some damage to the power-lines or the telephone lines or whatever, the Stilinskis would have been able to cancel the alert on their phones before Tara ever received the emergency message.

So, the same day the announcement is made to the station, Agent Prentiss, the magic-user of the FBI team and Stiles, working together create a net on both sides of the Old Road, deep in the preserve. With that net in place, they know the exact moment when hunters start setting up shop, preparing to move against what they believe will be an FBI convoy.

This allows the FBI and the Hale Pack, with help from nearby packs and allies of the BAU to spring the trap on the hunters. Of course, because Gerard Argent does not know the meaning of surrender, even when he realizes it’s all a trap he refuses to give in and instead opens fire on the agents and packs going after him and the other hunters. It all turns into an insane shootout. Bad enough that even some back in Beacon Hills (mostly the people with homes that abut the preserve) hear at least some of it. It ends up being a very good thing that the sheriff gave his deputies the order to keep civilians out of the preserve until it was all over.

Only a handful or so of the hunters survive that day. None of them Argents (as they eventually find out, it wasn’t just Gerard there, also his daughter-in-law Victoria, and a few more distant members of the family. They even manage to identify some hunters from the Calavera, Dubois and Fowler families. Something the FBI is hoping to be able to use to open investigations into those families next.

On the other side, a handful of shifters get some serious injuries, though nothing that won’t heal with some wolfsbane ash, food and a lot of rest. Agent Morgan is the one worst-off injured in an explosion caused by a grenade, which he couldn’t fully evade as he was busy saving Prentiss from it. But since he’s not being poisoned and his pack is right there with him, he should recover in due time.

Three of the humans who volunteered to help them (two with the FBI, and Tara) end up injured too. Two aren’t especially serious and get taken to the best hospital in San Francisco more as a precaution (to fix the broken bone one of them got and to ensure that if the bullet that went through the other’s flank had wolfsbane, he won’t have a bad reaction to it). Tara’s case is more serious; she got in the way when Victoria Argent tried to run over the sheriff while at the same time escaping in a van; she managed to get her boss out of the way, but the van hit her straight on, she went flying several feet and then landed on her back. Her spine is fractured. She’s given two options: they can immobilize her and get her to the same hospital in San Fran as the other two, hoping the break isn’t too bad and can still be healed properly. There is no guarantee, and even if it does heal, there could be long-term repercussions (such as limited mobility and chronic pain). Or, Peter offers her the Bite. It seems fair, since the woman got hurt helping the Hale Pack; also, it’s clear Noah likes her, she’s good, and would be a boon to the Hale Pack.

Tara takes the second option.

The official story that is released to the media and the public is that Gerard Argent and a group of armed individuals attacked the convoy transporting Kate Argent. Most of the attackers perished in the ensuing shootout, so did Kate Argent. There’s also mention made about the volunteer deputy and agents injured, without releasing names and asking that their privacy be respected as they recover.

(Officially Tara is said to have taken a bullet to her hip, had surgery and then went on to some PT; time which she ends up spending with the Hales, learning to be a wolf. She and Noah are playfully competitive about who’s better at using their new abilities on the job).

Chris Argent is the last Argent to be arrested and sent to prison. And it comes as no surprise when, before the end of the month his daughter has filed for emancipation, a change in name and requested permission to leave town. Since she’s in no way connected to the FBI investigation (and, as they learn after some light and careful prodding, she doesn’t even know about the existence of the supernatural at all), Hotch makes arrangements to fast-track both her emancipation and name change. Allison almost cries when getting the news, and when Hotch warns her to stay away from trouble all she has to say is that she wants nothing to do with the Argents ever again.

(Miss Garcia does keep a virtual eye on her for some time. But from what she learns, Allison Adel eventually settles down in a small city near the East Coast. After getting her GED she attends college where she becomes an elementary school teacher. She eventually meets a man, an EMT, marries him and they have a single child. She never gets involved in anything related to hunting, guns or anything at all. Not even archery, which used to be a favorite of hers).

Chapter 5

Stiles is more than a little shocked when he finally gets back to school, once his doctors all give the okay, and after not seeing Scott around he finds out he’s in the psych ward, at BH Memorial, where he’s undergoing tests as doctors try to find out the cause for his psychotic breakdown. Which, what the hell?! Apparently Scott was pretty angry after his confrontation with Stiles, kept ranting about all sorts of things, which worried and annoyed Melissa by turns. Also, he’d been having trouble at school, in between his insistence on playing lacrosse despite Coach taking him off the team (even if he was only ever on the bench), his declining grades and growing detentions for harassing and fighting.

Stiles actually has a hard time wrapping his head around things, as that doesn’t sound like Scott at all!

“Mama McCall…” Stiles gasps, not knowing what to say to all that. “I… I’m so, so sorry…”

“No, baby, no,” Melissa shakes her head vehemently as she grabs Stiles and hugs him tight. “This… what’s happened is not your fault, honey. Do you hear me? I…” She hiccups slightly. “I have no idea what happened. Where did I go so wrong…?”

“It’s not your fault either, Mama McCall!” Stiles hurries to reassure her. “I… I don’t know what Scott was thinking…”

“Of course you didn’t, you were hurt!” Melissa exclaims, pulling away to look him up and down carefully. “And I’m so glad to see you alright again. And that that… that awful woman couldn’t hurt you! I will never understand how there can be so truly terrible people in this world! And to think Scott fancied himself in love with that Argent girl!”

Stiles freezes.

After that Stiles stays a bit longer still with Melissa. Offering what comfort he can and reassuring her that he’s alright. He says nothing about the case, or the Argents, and aside from an off-handed mention about Deaton’s visit, also to ask after Scott, just the day before, they don’t talk about the situation with the boy that’s the whole reason the two of them ever met.

“Do you think the Argents did something?” Stiles asks his pack as soon as he’s back with them. “Or… or said something to him? Mama McCall says Scottie was really fixated on Allison Argent, and that he cursed the Hales, said they were monsters and the world would be better without them… without you all. That was when Mama McCall had him committed.” He swallows. “He’s apparently still undergoing tests as the doctors try to understand what happened to him. I…” He swallows again, his voice wavering with the feelings he cannot quite control. “I don’t understand…”

Derek steps forward, grabbing Stiles and holding him tight.

It’s amazing how much the younger Hale has changed. From someone Stiles referred to as sourwolf when they first met, to a gentle, empathetic young man who cares so much for his pack he’ll do anything and everything he can to keep them from hurting.

Also, Noah doesn’t think he’s making up the hint of… something, whenever Derek and Stiles hug each other for whatever the reason, whenever they even stand close together. But well, his son might be young, but he’s not a child, not really. And he’s pretty sure Derek won’t do anything untoward before Stiles is eighteen in any case, if he’s even ready for something by then! And Stiles isn’t blind, or cruel, he won’t press or do anything that’ll hurt Derek. So Noah is willing to let them go at their own pace. That is, of course, if anything ever happens at all… (Who is he trying to lie to? He knows it’ll happen, those two look at each other exactly the same way his Claudia and Peter looked at him and at each other the days before everything began for the three of them!).

“I’m afraid this is not something we can pin on the Argents, kid,” Noah murmurs gently. “I looked into things. All those detentions Scott kept getting at school? They were either for harassing Miss Argent, or for getting into fights with Mr. Whittemore and several other students when they got in his way. Apparently Miss Martin pepper sprayed him once.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand…” Stiles admits.

“You mentioned Alan Deaton visiting Mrs. McCall?” Peter asks, and there’s an edge to his voice that calls the attention of every other pack member instantly.

“Peter…?” Noah murmurs inquiringly.

“Yes,” Stiles nods. “Scottie worked for Dr. D several times a week, as his assistant.”

“I don’t know if you were ever made aware of this Derek,” Peter says. “But Alan Deaton was the pack’s emissary.”

“I wasn’t aware, no,” Derek shakes his head.

“I thought…” Noah begins to blurt out, then trails off, revises: “You wanted Claudia to be emissary, you were the one to propose her for the position.”

“Mom was going to be the Hale Emissary?” Stiles exclaims, not having known that.

“Yes,” Peter nods. “This was before you were ever born.” He considers something. “Actually, she was pregnant with you at the time, I believe. She… something happened that made her drop out right when she and Deaton were the only candidates left. And with her no longer in the running, he got the position. But he was never interested in being a part of the pack, fully. So he never came for any of our celebrations, and most of the betas didn’t even know who he was. Laura might have, but I cannot be sure, of course.”

“Claudia had an allergic reaction to something,” Noah clarifies. “I don’t remember the specifics. It caused a miscarriage scare and…” He turns to look at his son. “Thankfully we didn’t lose you. But still, the scare was bad enough, and after losing Miriam…”

Stiles swallows. He knows that his mom lost a baby, back when they were still living in Poland; but neither of his parents ever really talk about it. Even so many years later the grief is still too much. She might not have been the only baby his parents ever lost (Stiles himself was the only one they ever had, but far from the only time they tried), but apparently she was the most advanced pregnancy, aside from the one that gave them Stiles.

“So, what you’re saying is that Dr. D was your, what…? Messenger?” Stiles tries to move on.

“An emissary is so much more than a mere messenger,” Peter states.

“Laura once said something about an emissary being like, some kind of advisor,” Derek offers softly. “She said that they weren’t part of the pack hierarchy, and that only the alpha really needed to know who they were at all.”

“So you didn’t need to know,” Stiles finishes for him.

“So I didn’t need to know,” Derek confirms.

“That’s how Talia did it, but that’s not how it has to be, it’s not how it is at all in most packs,” Peter points out. “See, an emissary is meant to be a messenger, yes. Also a healer, a scholar, a mediator, an advisor. They’re meant to give aid to a pack in every possible way. It’s the one position in the pack that can only be filled by a human, though it can also be filled by another supernatural being, like kitsune, part-fae or magic users.”

“So basically anything but a wolf,” Stiles deadpans.

“Anything but a shifter,” Peter corrects. “While not all shifters might need an alpha, all benefit from having a connection to one. But being connected to an alpha means being submissive to them. An emissary, in order to truly and fully be able to do their duty, needs to be able to properly advise their alpha, to counsel them, and even to speak against them if needed. Someone who’s submissive to the alpha will never be able to do that. It’s also quite convenient for an emissary to be anything else but a shifter, as it means that they can help deal with things like wolfsbane or mistletoe, or any other sort of thing that might poison one of us.”

That makes perfect sense, actually.

“In most packs I’ve known, the emissary is closely connected to the pack,” Peter continues. “Often they end up marrying one of the betas; that is, of course, if they weren’t born to the pack already. It used to be the same for us Hales, until the last two. Irena Novak, she was a witch and our father’s emissary before being Talia’s. She was married to one of father’s cousins. She used to be pretty close to the pack. Until her husband and son both died during a trip to a neighboring town. Irena always suspected that there had been foul-play but Father refused to even consider it. Claimed that the pack in charge there were allies and that if there had been any sort of trouble they would have known…” He scoffs. “Irena bowed to his authority, but I don’t think she ever truly forgave him for doing nothing. She distanced herself from the pack, and by the time Talia took charge she barely spent any time around the pack. And then, well, Deaton wasn’t interested in being part of the pack properly, claiming it didn’t work with him being a druid and the balance, and what not. Talia chose to respect that.”

“Didn’t go very well for her, did it?” Noah scoffs.

“No, it didn’t,” Peter agrees. “Especially if you consider that while Irena was still the emissary at the time the nemeton was cut down, I’m pretty sure Deaton had to be involved in that.”

“What makes you think that?” Noah asks. “If he didn’t have the post yet…”

“Because Alan Deaton is extremely weak,” Peter explains. “He has the training of a druid, and even for that, he’s on the lower end on their scale, from what I’ve been told, by people who’d know. His sisters are far stronger than him. His youngest sister in particular is the Müller Pack Emissary and they treat her like an absolute treasure. For good reason, if all I’ve heard is true. Rumor has it that if she weren’t so tightly bonded to the pack, married to the youngest son of the Alpha, even, she’d have been a strong contender for the position of High Druidess of North America.”

Which is serious praise.

“Anyway,” Peter gets back to the point he’s trying to make. “He’s weak. However, the one thing he’s known for, is for being one of the foremost experts in nemeta. He’s studied pretty much everything there is to know about them. I suspected from the start that he did that in the hopes of enticing a Pack such as ours into taking him as an emissary, despite his low level of actual power. Talia agreed with me.” He shakes his head. “Regretfully, she always shared Father’s… confidence on shifter superiority.”

“She saw humans as less?” Stiles is horrified.

“Yes and no,” Peter states. “She didn’t see humans as lesser, in the sense that wolves and other shifters should rule over them. Not like our grandfather, and to a certain point even our father did. But she did see them as being… fragile, weak. She believed that we were superior, and as such were supposed to, I don’t know, take care of them? She believed that was the reason why the Hales had made such deals with the town in the past, ceding Hale property in order to build the hospital, library and other buildings meant for public use. It’s why she worked so hard to create all those scholarships and programs meant to help people.”

Including the very one that paid his own hospital bills after Laura abandoned him and his personal funds were sealed.

Noah’s expression twists, just a bit. It was only thanks to one such program that he was even able to afford the dedicated care his wife was given during the months she spent in the hospital; and all the appointments his son had to go to with different doctors as they tried to find the right treatment for his ADHD. And even then his bills were enough to push him to work too much for too long. Still, he doesn’t like the idea that such programs were only created because someone was deluded enough to believe that humans need supernatural beings to take care of them, like they’re unruly children, unable to look after themselves, or something.

“The point is,” Peter states. “Talia never minded Deaton being so weak. She thought his knowledge about nemeta would make him valuable as an Emissary even if he didn’t have that much power. It’s why I’m pretty sure he had to be involved in them making the choice to cut down the nemeton in the first place. Something had been off about the tree for years, since I was little, in fact, and yet the mere thought of cutting it down never came up until then? It’s very suspicious.” He shakes his head. “In fact, now that I think back on it, I have to wonder about that ‘allergic reaction’ of Claudia’s.”

“You think…” Noah is breathless just thinking about it. “You think that bastard did something to my wife, while she was pregnant with my son, to get her out of the running for being emissary?”

“It’s a possibility,” Peter admits. “Though I have no way to prove it.”

“Does it matter at this point?” Stiles’ question surprises everyone. “I mean, I’m not trying to minimize things. But speculating about this stuff won’t solve anything. It… it won’t bring mom back. What we should be focused on is how much of a danger Deaton might pose to us.”

He’s right, is the thing, and the others know it.

“If Deaton has managed to lay any sort of binds, or even just the groundwork for one, on the nemeton,” Peter states, turning his focus to what Stiles states. “That should concern us.”

“If he has, it’s not enough to give him much of anything,” Stiles shakes his head. “I’d know.”

True, considering his own bond to the nemeton.

“It might still be a good idea to do a few things,” Stiles suggests. “Purification, ritual cleansing, maybe even a reclaiming of the nemeton now that there’s a proper Hale Pack again…”

While the three adult men don’t know what all that means, exactly, they all immediately agree and preparations begin for the needed rituals.

xXx

The preparations for the rituals take longer than expected. But that works out just fine, as it gives Peter time to properly train and bond with Noah and Tara as his new betas as well as his mate/second and left-hand.

Derek is just happy to be part of such a pack again. He starts doing therapy with an in-the-know therapist and eventually finds himself in the right place to actually think about his future. Back in NY he’d gotten his GED and taken a couple of classes at a community college before starting to work at an auto-shop. Once back in Beacon Hills, once the problems with the Argents were finished, he thought he might one day reopen “Rogers Autoshop” which had once belonged to two of the non-Hale members of the Hale Pack. Both who were among those who perished in the Hale Fire, yet weren’t listed among the victims, as no one had known they were there (the fire ran so hot that it was impossible for anyone to properly tell how many victims there were, beyond the ones who were expected to have been in the house at the time).

It’s not… if asked, Derek would say that he likes working on cars. He likes finding what’s wrong and fixing it. But more than that, he likes being able to find those wrongs, knowing from the start what to look for and how to identify what the problem might be; and especially, how to fix it. He likes having that ability, to fix things, to control them… Once he’s at a place, after some therapy, where he can see a future for him beyond just following an alpha’s orders, beyond hiding from hunters and being afraid that someone might take what and who he loves again… He remembers there was a time, when he was little, when he liked writing. He used to dream of one day writing stories that showed supernaturals as more than just horror-movie monsters or over-romanticized assholes. He doesn’t think he could do that now. The Fire changed him, in more ways than one. But the one good thing it gave him was the desire to help people. And he thinks he could make a living out of it. Perhaps as an EMT, or a deputy. He remembers the way Noah, back then Deputy Stilinski, helped him that day, after the fire… Derek thinks he could do that, he thinks he could like it, helping people.

Melissa phones Stiles just once. To let him know that Scott has been taken to a facility in Fresno.

“He’s…” Melissa can be heard sobbing through the phone. “Something is really, really wrong with my baby. And I have no idea what.”

It’s clear the whole situation pains her deeply. Stiles and the others can only wonder at what might have come up during Scott’s tests, what he might have done and said during the involuntary psychiatric hold at BH Memorial for the decision to be made to take him to a facility that apparently specializes in the mental health of young people.

“I’m really sorry Mama McCall,” Stiles murmurs, seemingly not knowing what else to say.

“Told you already none of this is your fault, hon,” Melissa reassures him. “You were a godsend, Stiles. Everything you did these last few years, all the ways you helped Scott. Not just making sure that he didn’t eat the wrong things, but just there being someone with him in case of an emergency… And don’t think I don’t know about your extra inhalers. I’d offer to pay for them but…”

“There’s no need, Mama McCall!” Stiles hurries to reassure her.

“Your dad told me that, already.” Melissa agrees.

“You talked to dad?” that surprises Stiles.

“Yeah, he called me,” Melissa nods. “I suspect, the gossip mill here in Beacon Hills being what it is, he must have heard something and decided to call me to check in…”

“Something about Scott or…” Stiles trails off as it hits him. “You’re leaving.”

It’s not a question.

“My boss here knows some people in Fresno and they arranged a transfer, so I won’t be losing any days or benefits.” Melissa admits quietly. “Even… even if we’re lucky enough to deal with a best-case scenario and Scott is discharged from the facility to follow an outpatient program in just a few weeks. The doctor who came to interview him says that just too much has happened here. Beacon Hills just has too much baggage. We’re hoping that a fresh start in a new town, after he’s discharged, will make things all the better for him.”

“I’m gonna miss you Mama McCall,” Stiles whispers.

He doesn’t ask if he can talk to Scott, or even just send him a letter to say goodbye. Somehow both of them seem to know it wouldn’t be a good idea (even if for different reasons).

It’s a couple of days later that Peter finally manages to acquire the final extremely-rare-ingredient for the rituals Stiles has planned.

The following night is the Full Moon…

xXx

Hop watches as the Hale Pack kneels around their restored physical manifestation. It’s clear none of them were expecting it, for the second ritual to effectively regrow the nemeton. Truth be told, even Hop wasn’t expecting that. Then again, it isn’t that surprising, in hindsight. While this isn’t something that happened in the original timeline, in that one, by the time the same rituals (or similar enough to make little difference) were done, everything was different. The land had changed, the pack had changed, Hop’s guardian had certainly changed as well. So it perhaps shouldn’t be surprising for some things to be somewhat different…

Still, if there’s one thing Hop’s chosen guardian has always been, it is adaptable. So he just accepts the new development and goes with it. As he directs the Hale Pack to form a circle around the nemeton as he continues with the next ritual. The one where they, as a pack, will get to claim their place (and Hop in turn, will get to claim his guardian, once and for all).

They’re halfway through the ritual when something starts pulling at Hop’s awareness.

At first Hop doesn’t know what’s going on. The Hale Pack are the only ones around the nemeton, and they aren’t the origin of what Hop’s sensing. And then the nemeton follows the thread to a backroom in a veterinary clinic in the edge of Beacon Hill’s downtown, where a druid is pouring the last of the power he once siphoned from the tragic loss of the original Hale Pack into a ritual that will allow him to… go back in time?!

But no, not exactly. Time is relative for nemeta. It’s what allowed Hop to do what they did. To open the door and allow Scott McCall through as they made the change that created a whole new timeline. Yet Hop never did close that door. And now, now Alan Deaton has found a way to make his way back through it. At first Hop thinks his intent is simply to return to the original timeline. That he might believe he stands a better chance for success there. And while Hop supposes some of the man’s doings did render better results there, in the long term his schemes still failed (though only after so many more unnecessary deaths).

It takes a few moments (a few very precious moments) for Hop to realize that’s not Alan Deaton’s goal. No, he is there to get Scott McCall to change history… again.

 

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