Reading Time: 75 Minutes
Title: The Original Version
Series: True Guardian
Series Order: 1
Author: Lalaith Quetzalli
Fandom: Teen Wolf,
Genre: Angst, Action Adventure, Drama, Family, Future Fic / Post-Canon, Slash, Time Travel
Relationship(s): Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Canon Relationships
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Major Character Death, Minor Character Death, Murder, Discussion – Rape (Canonical, Kate Argent), Discussion – Torture, Hate Crimes, Racism, Violence – Canon Level
Author Note: This story serves as the starting point of a sort-of time-travel fix-it. This is the original timeline, so things happen here that are sad, even tragic, just as they were in canon. In other words, this piece takes the movie, as is, please keep that in mind and all it implies.
Word Count: 18,556
Summary: The Hale Pack have been the guardians of the Beacon Hills’ nemeton for centuries. Until broken vows, tragic death and abandonment make it necessary for a new guardian to be chosen. Yet it won’t be that easy for him to claim his place. And a few side-routes might have to be taken before getting there.
Artist: Twigen
Chapter 1
Nemeta have existed since the dawn of time. Some believe that they were created by one of the Elder Races, long before the existence of mankind. Meant to cycle the energies of the planet, purify them, keep the magics running and the world alive. Others…
There are some who believe that the nemeta have existed since the very moment the Earth came into being. Existing at the points where the various energies that birthed the world settled, and it’s those very energies that allow them to cycle magics, to purify the powers of the world.
Whichever theory might prove true (or at the very least, closest to the truth), it is well-known that nemeta are needed for the world to remain in balance, for it to continue existing. In ancient times it was simple enough, the Elder Races knew enough to not just respect the nemeta, but to ensure their preservation, some even revered them as sacred spaces only a scant chosen were allowed into.
All that changed with the advent of mankind. Humans were unable to sense, to understand the world around them the way the Elder Races did. They did not have the awareness, understanding, the connection to the world, that the Elders did. This made many among the Elders see humans as… less.
The Elders believed humans to be essentially blind, deaf and dumb due to their lack of awareness of the world around them. Humanity did not take kindly to the judgment, especially since humans did not choose for their senses to be as they were… It was that judgment which began a rift, one that’d eventually alter the fates of everything and everyone.
A day came when the Elders, tired of a world that was ever changing, a world that was no longer like the one they’d once called home, that didn’t belong to them anymore, chose to leave it all behind. Choosing to live instead in other dimensions, ones more suited for each of their races, the Elders left the Earth behind. Or at least those pure-blooded did. Unsurprisingly, throughout the history of the world and their peoples there had been more than a few instances of humans and those from the Elder Races intermingling. Such unions weren’t always fruitful, but sometimes, they were…
When the last of the Elder Races, the Fae, left Earth, the Seelie Queen gave her descendants a task: to guard the magics of the world. This translated basically to guarding the nemeta, after all, they were the ones that ensured the magics flowed as they ought to, that the energies were purified, and that the world as a whole remained at balance. (No one wanted to know what would happen if the world were ever to become unbalanced; it probably wouldn’t keep existing for much longer afterwards).
The task was given the importance it deserved, as guardians were chosen for each of the nemeta. Not all of them were descended from the Seelie (which were the various lines of magic-users), but they were all from lines with a blood connection to the Elder Races; it was necessary in order for them to even be able to connect to the various nemeta. Oaths were made, pacts sealed to ensure that they would never falter in their duties (and if it happened, that a new guardian could be found as soon as possible). And time went on.
It’s been long debated whether nemeta are sentient, or sapient. Whether it’s one or the other. Truth is, it’s both, nemeta are capable of both feeling and thought. However, these do not happen in ways that humans, not even those who still carry the traces of elder blood, could possibly comprehend. Nemeta do not process feelings as things that affect them, but as they might affect the world and its people (Their Peoples…); their thoughts also do not follow the same lines and limitations of humans. Things like right or wrong, good or evil, are inconsequential. What matters is the continued existence of the world… Or at least, that’s how it used to be…
There are some nemeta, like Tetzcohco, who’s had a single guardian its entire existence, a half-blood who sacrificed his mortal life, thus becoming the closest thing to a deity in ancient times, pouring his life-force into the lake to ensure its protection to the end of time.
Then there are those, like Nile, Kīlauea and several others, who’ve had so many different guardians, that a particular connection has never formed with any of them.
Hop is a bit in the middle. One of many nemeta to exist, taking the form of a tree, a huge, gorgeous oak tree in the middle of a forest, in what humans call the Western Coast in North America (Northern California, to be precise). Hop has had many guardians in their existence, and yet for most of that time, those guardians have belonged to a single line. A family of shifters, wolves. They have gone by many names throughout the ages, but the latest, is the Hale name.
The Hale (and any other names they might have bore before) Pack have been the guardians of the nemeton in their territory since they’ve been in it. Legend has it that it was in exchange of their oath to serve as the ley node’s guardian that the pack was allowed to settle there, after the loss of their previous home to another tribe. It’s upon the creation of that pact, that covenant, that the leader of that small pack gains an alpha spark, and all members of the pack gain the ability to fully shift into wolves, which is something only those descended from the very first shifters, the loup-garou pack in Eastern Europe, were known to be capable of.
To ensure that the Pack prospers, and that the Alpha is fully able to be such to their pack, while still fulfilling their oath, every generation one wolf is ‘given’ to the nemeton to serve as a mediator. The Pack refers to them as a ‘sacrifice’ (after one of their emissaries first called them that), Hop prefers to call them ‘Atco’ (Friend).
Hop loves their friends. Each Atco brings many special things to them. They allow Hop to see, to hear, to experience the world in a way that Hop themself, as a tree, never could. Through them Hop comes to enjoy a great many things, and in a way, they even come to love their guardians, the pack…
And then something unexpected happens…
Hop’s latest Atco, Maji, dies. She’s young, and pretty, and courageous, and so in love with a young Spaniard… The whole thing is a tragedy, beginning to end. A boy’s life ended by his own brother’s hand, who sees his brother’s attachment to Maji as a betrayal of their family. Maji’s grief is too much for her to take, and it brings about the end of her own life in a tragic accident. The pack suspect the hunters living in San Francisco to be responsible but they cannot prove it. The alpha opts for isolation in an attempt to keep the rest of the pack safe.
And amidst it all, Hop has lost their Atco, and no new one comes…
With the loss of the Atco, come some changes in the territory. Hop is still there, in the middle of the preserve. The Pack are still their guardians, wardens of the territory. But it’s like, with the loss of their mediator, they’re forgetting. Forgetting about the importance of the nemeton, of keeping Hop safe, of securing the balance…
Hop, like all other nemeta, is old. So very, very old. The true number of nemeta in the world is unknown, though their reach is certainly considerable. They don’t all have territories of the same size, it depends on the kind of nemeta they are, and what’s in their reach. Some nemeta that are bodies of water, like Nile and Danube take up considerable territories, especially because their true lengths, from their true birth to their final rest, tend to be longer than most humans will ever know. Others, like Tetzcohco (a lake), while by no means small, aren’t quite as spread, and thus their territory is more limited. Then there are those like Kīlauea who, while the nemeton has chosen to take the name from the biggest volcano, the ley node itself includes all of the volcanoes in that area, and the islands that have been born from them.
Hop for their own part, while humans might only be able to see the tree as it stands above the ground (which, to be fair, isn’t a small tree by any means), its roots, which extend for miles in pretty much every direction, are too a part of them. And thus, every inch of land that those roots manage to reach is part of their territory as well.
It’s thanks to those roots that Hop is able to gain some knowledge of events after the loss of their last Atco. First there’s the war. It’s supposed to be happening off-shore, and yet some of it, some of the violence and the cruelty, finds its way to Hop’s territory anyway. And then… there’s chaos and misery and vengeance and death…
Hop doesn’t know the wolf that approaches them with a chaos aspect trapped in a glass jar. They do know that as small and helpless as the creature might look, nothing more than a firefly trapped in a jar, it’s still a demon, and a very dangerous one. So when the jar is pressed into the loose earth in between the roots, accessing the spot from the cellar underneath the center of the nemeton itself, Hop does their best to hold the jar tight, keep it close, keep it secure. They’ve gotta do their part to protect their territory, Their People…
For nemeta like Hop, time is relative. It’s not that it ever stops existing, but it doesn’t have as strong a hold on it, being a ley node of primordial energies, nemeta aren’t really constrained by most mortal boundaries. Things like life and death, time and space. It’s why the actual destruction of one of these ley nodes it’s believed would bring about the end of the world. Nemeta are pretty much the anchors of existence. Without them, life, the world, it cannot exist. It’s something no one bar the guardians have ever learned, and they prefer it that way.
So, time is relative for nemeta. Hop used to have an easier time keeping up with things, being aware of time, thanks to their Atco. With them gone…
It’s not easy. There are some things Hop is always aware of. Whenever a new alpha rises in the Hale Pack, whenever a potential Atco is born… and when they’re lost (whether to death, or simply traveling beyond the limits of their territory).
Without an Atco Hop often loses track of time. Becomes less aware of the events taking place in the territory, the dangers…
And then the nemeton is cut down!
Hop has no idea what’s going on! It… it makes no sense!
No sense at all!
Why are they being cut down?!
They exist to protect! Why are they being hurt?!
The Hales are their guardians! Why are they allowing this to happen?! Why are they condoning it?!
Ley nodes do not cease to exist, no matter what. Nemeta cannot just die. Were one to be truly destroyed, it would mean the end of the world… The Hales seem to have forgotten this. They seem to have forgotten a great many things…
A tree doesn’t die just because it’s been cut down. It won’t die as long as its roots continue to exist. The same is true for nemeta, and of course for Hop.
One thing has been made clear though: the Hale Pack are no longer suitable guardians. A new one is needed, but how can a nemeton find a new guardian? In the end all it can do is wait, and hope a guardian will find its way to them…
Still, the cutting down of their tree has made it clear that there is great danger in the territory. More danger than Hop might have expected. They try to be more vigilant, but it’s not easy. The loss of their Atco is compounded by the loss of proper guardians, and hard as they might try, Hop is slowly but surely destabilizing. Its territory is as great as before, and it’s still fulfilling its purpose, but not as easily anymore.
Truth is, the form of the huge oak tree fulfilled a purpose. It allowed Hop to purify the energies through earth, water and air; the loss of so much of the nemeton, of what of the tree existed above the surface, means it has less access to one of the elements, and thus the process is no longer balanced.
And of course, there’s still the demon Hop is holding in its roots, it cannot be allowed free. Which limits the nemeton’s ability even further.
One day something completely unexpected happens, as the trapdoor leading to the cellar is slammed open and two young wolves half-stumble down the rickety stairs to hide in the shadows.
Hop’s attention is pulled sharply the moment the wolves enter the cellar. Because those are not any wolves. They’re Atco! (Or at least, they should have been…).
The nemeton possesses sufficient power to slam the trapdoor closed and then shift some roots and branches just enough to ensure that those pursuing the two young wolves won’t be able to find it; and even if they do, it will be hard enough for them to find a way to open it, that they’ll likely believe there’s no way the wolves managed it, and they’ll leave.
The plan works. Even then, the two young wolves choose to stay in that cellar for two days. Not wanting to risk coming across the hunters if they come up too soon. Hop keeps them safe, not only ensuring the trapdoor cannot be opened, but shifting roots just enough for the older of the two wolves to notice the crate with dried food and bottled water left there by his pack for emergencies such as theirs. The food is perhaps a bit past its ideal date, but none of it is spoiled and the water is clean and fresh enough none of them go either hungry or thirsty over those two days.
Hop learns a few things during that time: the current Alpha of the Hale Pack is called Talia Hale. The elder of the two young wolves hiding in the cellar is her younger brother: Peter; the younger is the alpha’s middle child, her only son: Derek. They both carry an invisible mark that shows they were meant to be their generation’s Atco. And Hop… they can’t not care!
There is blood. So much blood. So, so much blood!
Dampening the earth, penetrating all the way to the nemeton’s roots. Wolves and humans die, oaths are broken, alliances shatter and the shadows creep ever closer upon them all.
Nemeta cannot feel, not really. That is a fact. And yet, there’s something about witnessing young Derek Hale, the wolf who ought to have been Hop’s Atco, sob and cry as he holds the cooling body of his human girlfriend… of a young girl whose life the young wolf was forced to end at her own pleading, because she just was in so much pain! There was potential there, in the girl. Not enough power for her to have been a guardian, no, but still, a tiny little spark of power, she could have been something great, something beautiful, should have. And now that potential is lost, along with the innocence of the wolf who loved her…
And Hop can do nothing except drink from her blood, take in the energy of her sacrifice. A sacrifice of innocence, of life, of love…
Nemeta are neither good nor evil. Not really. They do not take sides. What understandings they have of such things come from what they can perceive through their guardians (and in Hop’s case, their Atco). But left on their own, nemeta are purely neutral, just like the Earth itself, that’s how it’s supposed to be.
There’s blood again… pain… anger…
Only this one hasn’t died yet. And Hop… the nemeton hates death. Sacrifice (willing sacrifice) is something that can be good, can be beautiful, when done the right way. But this is neither. This is murder, it is pain, and horror, and betrayal… But the woman isn’t dead yet, and Hop decides to give her just a prod, a tiny bit of their energy, just enough to ensure they’ll survive.
(The nemeton cannot know the repercussions this choice will have).
FIRE.
There’s fire. And horror, and glee, and screaming, and crying and…
The roaring of the fire, the crackling as it consumes wood, the screaming and howling of those trapped inside, the gleeful cackling of the psychopath who caused it all…
And deep in the forest Hop is screaming with a voice no one can hear…
No one bar a young child who doesn’t understand what he’s hearing, all he knows is horror, and panic and desperation and no cause for any of it!
Eventually the fire is put out, but by then it’s too late. The Hale Pack is gone. The guardians are gone. They’re all…
Or no, not all of them. There’s one left, alive and still in the territory. Peter Hale, Hop’s would-be Atco is still there. So badly burned it’s a miracle he yet lives at all.
And he will live, Hop will make sure of that.
At the same time Hop continues to call out. Call for a guardian… They need one desperately.
And still the only one to listen is a boy who cannot begin to comprehend what it is he’s perceiving…
xXx
Hop has no way of knowing how long it’s been when Peter Hale’s eyes open again. It hasn’t been easy for the nemeton, keeping the wolf alive. They know more has happened, has been done to its charge, than just the fire that originally hurt him, and yet Hop has no way of knowing what it is. All it has been able to do is ensure Peter would continue living, that he’ll stand a chance of one day truly healing… And then that day comes.
When an unknown alpha wolf enters the territory it’s the perfect opportunity for Peter to get the power he needs to begin to truly recover. Peter does not realize who the alpha is, neither does Hop. Laura Hale has been away from Beacon Hills for too long, neither wolf nor nemeton recognize her as one of theirs, and that damns her.
Hop does recognize Derek Hale from the moment he enters the territory. He might have been gone as long as Laura had been, but he still carries in his core a trace of Hop’s own energy, the mark that he was meant to be Atco. Hop cannot not know him.
Hop knows their new guardian at first touch. He’s young, so very young, a boy, with too-long limbs he doesn’t seem to be able to fully control, a mind that runs every which way at the same time… He’s so inquisitive! Wanting to know everything, to learn everything. So willing to fight, to protect, willing to do anything and everything for those he considers his. He’s truly a perfect guardian.
Only, he doesn’t know it. He doesn’t know, because no one has ever told him. His mind is… hurt, in some ways. He’s been forced to adapt, growing up constantly perceiving Hop’s calls, cries for help, not understanding what it all was. Hop never wanted to hurt him! Never wanted to hurt their guardian… And yet, it’s been so long, and they’re so weak, barely strong enough to hold onto the demon’s prison. They have no way of communicating with the young guardian, explaining to him what he truly is, what they’re both meant to be.
So much happens. Some good things, but also a great many terrible ones.
There is grief and joy, and pain and loss and hope and courage and despair and rejoicing…
There is so much blood, so much death, Hop is tired of tasting the blood of innocents. Of having lives, so many lives, ended violently, suddenly, and in their name.
And then the guardian dies. Just for a moment. But that day marks the end and the beginning of so much, in more ways than most could possibly comprehend.
Hop senses it when three teenagers abruptly show up in limbo. In that place outside of time and space, beyond time and death. Shadows are settling upon them even as the three gather their wits and the nemeton can almost feel regret at the taint that they shall be carrying forever more. That shall stunt their growth and will make reaching their destiny, fulfilling whatever they’re meant for, harder than it ought to have been.
At the same time, having them there, especially his would-be guardian, allows Hop to finally see the boy, see into him, truly. Understand what makes the boy so perfect, it also brings about regret, for a potential that will very likely be lost…
xXx
Mieczysław Jan Stilinski was born just past midnight on September 8th, 1994. His parents were Noah John Stilinski, American of Eastern European descent, a deputy sheriff and former military man; and his wife: Claudia Sabina Stilinski nee Gajos, Polish woman, the youngest child and only daughter of the Gajos Family, one of the branches of the original magical line: the Wójcik, who some still remembered as being descended from the Seelie Queen’s half-blood child…
While not unheard of, for the Wójcik line to produce a son (the families living in the Ipswich area were all carried on by sons) for the most part, the Wójcik bloodline was still considered a matriarchal line. The most surprising part was how powerful the child proved to be, pretty much from the moment of his birth (some would even claim that it was obvious before that even, since he was still in his mother’s womb). The boy’s grandmother: Lady Marika Katz, née Magiosik visited the baby after the official announcement of his birth was made and declared there was a storm brewing under his skin…
“What is that supposed to mean?” Noah demanded, not liking the sound of things.
In his experience storms were rarely used to describe good things. More often than not they were used as metaphors for trouble…
Also, Noah was a tad overprotective where his family was concerned, both his wife and son. Which shouldn’t have been surprising, considering the hard road they’d gone through to get there. After so many tries and more than one miscarriage; the most traumatic being one that took place during the second trimester. Noah had been off in Iraq in one of his deployments and when news came in that his squad had been attacked and couldn’t be reached (whispers that at least some of them were dead)… it proved too much for Claudia and she lost the baby. A girl, as she found out after being taken in a hurry to the military hospital (she and Noah lived in army housing in Poznań, Poland, at the time).
Noah survived the attack, though half of his squad did not. He made it back to Claudia eventually, but by then it was already too late (it was too late before Claudia ever made it to the hospital). He was discharged, and while he offered to find a house and have them build a civilian life right there in Poznań, eventually both decided they’d rather start over fresh elsewhere. And thus the couple made a new life in Beacon Hills, California, in the US (Noah’s hometown); where their dreams would eventually come true, and they would welcome a baby boy into their lives…
“Your son need not fear any storm, Noah,” Marika told him. “For he is the storm. It’s in his flesh and his blood. And his bones? Those are of the earth, they will keep him grounded, will keep him safe.”
Noah still wasn’t sure he quite liked the allusion, but he supposed that the assurance that his son would be safe would have to be enough.
People called him Mischief; mostly because at some point the little kid tried and failed to pronounce his own name correctly, the closest he could get to it was ‘Mischief’, so his mom started calling him that. It turned out to be incredibly appropriate. It probably didn’t help that he always had his ‘Uncle P’ around encouraging him and teaching him new ‘tricks’ every so often.
Uncle P, better known to most as Peter Hale, a lawyer, working for ADA Whittemore; he was pretty much the reason Mischief was aware of the existence of the Shadow World as a whole and werewolves in particular since he was very young. Even before he learned about magic!
Mischief knew his parents were close to Uncle P, though he was never quite sure how, exactly. Some days he could swear his mom and dad look at Uncle P with the same googly eyes that they looked at each other with (he was half sure he saw Uncle P kissing his dad once!); and yet other days the three of them would argue and fight seemingly at the drop of a hat. And usually when they fought Uncle P would walk away, and stay away for anywhere from a few days to a couple of months. Before coming back and then the cycle would start all over again. Mischief worried sometimes, that Uncle P might leave one day and not come back. He admitted to it one day.
“Oh sweetheart, I could never do that,” Peter assured him, holding the boy tight (Uncle P had always been more tactile than either of his parents, and Mischief loved it). “Do you know why?”
“No…” Mischief admitted.
“Because I love you, as if you were my own,” Peter confessed. “No matter how much your mom and dad and I might fight, I promise you will always be my cub, alright?”
“Alright,” Mischief believed him.
Claudia Stilinski died in the fall of 2004, not quite a month after her son’s tenth birthday. It took everyone by surprise, and not at the same time.
The doctors called the sickness that killed her ‘Fronto-Temporal Dementia’, and while not all the symptoms quite fit, it seemed as good an explanation as any. At least after they’d talked with both Alan Deaton and an old witch in Sacramento and confirmed that there was no curse and no magical illness, nothing that could be cured with magic (or the bite). Which meant that there was nothing that could be done for her, except make her as comfortable as possible in the end.
For as long as Mischief could remember, his mom had been a little bit sick. She got tired quickly, bruised easily and some days she was just… distracted. Also, her magic didn’t always work right, and even when it did, it was liable to fail at any moment. Mischief knew it hadn’t always been like that. He’d heard stories about how his mom used to be, they called her ‘The Enchantress’ and she was said to have been a very powerful magic-user (like most of her bloodline). Mischief never got to see her like that, his mom had been sick for as long as he could remember. Which of course led him to believe that somehow, it was him, (possibly his birth) which caused her sickness.
It didn’t make a lot of sense, certainly, but then again, grief is like that. And in a boy’s desperate need to find someone he can blame, someone who can be held responsible for the loss of his beloved mother, he didn’t realize the tragedy of it all until it was much too late and his mind had already latched onto it.
It didn’t help when, following his beloved wife’s death, Noah effectively went off the deep end. He worked a lot, drank often. It was… Noah wasn’t a bad person, but he just loved Claudia so dearly and Mischief was, in so many ways, very much like his mom. He might have Noah’s build (including the too-long, gangly limbs that would take him a while to fully grow into), but everything else he got from Claudia: from his amber eyes and chestnut brown hair, to his pale skin scattered with moles. And his smile… it was his beloved wife’s, and Noah just couldn’t… he couldn’t look at his son and not see her, and that broke him every single time.
Noah didn’t want to be thinking of his wife whenever he saw his son, knew it wasn’t fair. But at the same time… It was rotten all around. His son needed him and Noah just cannot deal!
And then their memories of the supernatural were taken.
Alpha Talia Hale made the choice, counseled by her Emissary: Alan Deaton. It was their belief that Noah’s recent habit of drinking too much made him a risk to the Shadow World. For who knew what he might end up saying when drunk? They couldn’t risk it. And in the end, the man was only human, not connected to the Shadow World, beyond his now-deceased wife. Even the child, his son, didn’t seem to be magical at all (they would know if he were, wouldn’t they?).
So the memories were taken. Some things got worse, others got better.
Uncle P was never around anymore. Then again, he’d barely been around recently anyway. There were arguments regarding that, even between Peter and Mischief. The boy had heard his mom calling to Peter, wanting him there, and he rarely was. Uncle P tried to explain to him that he’d been sent out of town to investigate something for the pack, but all Mischief could see was Uncle P choosing someone other than his mom, other than his family…
So, Uncle P was never around anymore, but it wasn’t like either Noah or Mischief remembered that he used to be there anyway. And he wasn’t Mischief anymore; he couldn’t be, because his mom called him Mischief and she was gone. So he chose to be known as Stiles, instead.
His dad stopped drinking, so that at least was a good thing; a small favor from Talia (she might have decided it’d be better if the Stilinskis forgot about the supernatural, and if her pack had no more contact with them, but she did still care for them, to a point, and she wanted them to have a chance to move on, start over). Stiles didn’t really remember how bad things got for a while there, not consciously, and yet nothing could possibly take away the nightmares he had sometimes. His conscious mind might no longer remember, but his subconscious very much did and it still feared… Feared losing his dad like he already lost his mom and (was there someone else he lost?); he often panicked when he didn’t know where his dad was, couldn’t hear him. His dreams were filled with images of his dad drinking, with the fear that he might one day blame Stiles for what they’d both lost…
Peter never did forgive his sister for taking his family away from him…
xXx
There are those who believe that some things are just… meant to be. Fated. That some things, some events, are fixed points in time. Will always happen, no matter what one does to try and stop it. Those who are meant to live, will survive against all odds; those meant to die will do so, no matter how hard others try to prevent it. Individuals meant to meet, to connect, will do so even if they have to cross half the world to do so. And if someone is meant to be something, to do something, their destiny will find them, sooner or later, no matter how fast, how hard, or how far they run from it…
Stiles Stilinski (once known as Mischief), has been fated to be the Beacon Hill’s nemeton’s guardian pretty much from the moment he was born. He might not have always known it, might not have even been aware of the supernatural for quite a while. But that doesn’t change what (and who) he was always meant to be.
The first time he gets a hint (a taste) of it, is when he’s sixteen (almost seventeen) and after agreeing to an ill-advised surrogate sacrifice ritual he finds himself effectively in limbo.
After it’s all said and done Stiles doesn’t remember much of what went down during the hours (sixteen fucking hours! He was dead for almost an entire day, how in the name of all that’s holy was that even possible?!) he spent in that state, outside of his body, outside of time and space. Once he’s awoken he remembers having been in contact with the nemeton before, on the night he and his best friend, Scott, went out looking for a dead body (or half, as the case might be); the very same night Scott found himself turned by the feral alpha that was Peter Hale back then. The (re)discovery of this will allow him to make a plan for all of them to find a way to the ley node.
What he doesn’t remember is how comfortable he felt when he placed his hand on the tree stump while in limbo, the sense of familiarity, of connection, of almost… peace. He won’t remember either the power that filled him, the moment he understood that he was connected to the nemeton, was always meant to be…
The nogitsune ruins things in more ways than most people could ever possibly comprehend. It’s not just the deaths it causes, but that by using others, especially Stiles, to do them, that creates a taint on the Spark’s core. It also traumatizes him enough to make him draw back, further away from Hop, from their fate, than he’s ever been.
Hop never planned on letting the demon free, of course not, they’d have never done that. But as it turned out, the ‘prison’ the demon was placed in wasn’t perfect (and how could it have ever been? It was a jar!), and as much as the deaths, especially the unwilling sacrifices caused by the darach, fed the nemeton (much as Hop might have neither liked, nor wanted it), the grief and the pain both of the victims and their friends and families, along with the constant chaos and mayhem, kept feeding the void kitsune, enough that it eventually managed to break free.
And of course it chose Stiles as its vessel. The creature might not have known what Stiles’ fate was meant to be, but it knew power. It understood, in a way no one in the teenager’s pack did (except, perhaps, the Hales) that the boy, seemingly human, untrained and fragile as he was, was the strongest of them all.
Stiles survives (Hop never doubted he would) but is forever changed by the experience, damaged in a way most cannot comprehend, and he himself might never admit to.
Time passes; days, weeks, months, and eventually the guardian leaves, because why would he stay when he doesn’t even know he’s the guardian? And Hop lets him go, because what else can they possibly do?!
He comes back though, and when he does, everything changes.
Chapter 2
The first time Stiles returns to Beacon Hills (after he graduates high-school and travels all the way to DC to study at George Washington University) is when the mess with Tamora Monroe truly explodes.
Well no, actually the very first time Stiles returns is near the end of the summer of 2013. He hasn’t even started at GWU just yet! However, he left Beacon Hills pretty much the moment the ink on his high-school diploma was dry, and for a very good reason. Turns out that despite how antagonistic Stiles tended to be with the man, Rafael McCall put in a good word with the FBI about him, and Stiles was invited to that summer’s internship. It was meant for those who hoped to join the FBI, so they could see what it was like (and for the agency to take a look at those interested, see who would make the cut, and who wouldn’t).
Stiles realized early on in the internship that pretty much everyone else was either a GWU student, former military, already involved in law enforcement (like a cop or deputy either in Quantico or its surroundings) or a mix of those. He was the only one to get into the internship, who had nothing more than a high-school diploma to his name by that point. And while some of the instructors clearly did not like it, upon finding out how different his situation was from everyone else, Stiles had managed to prove himself to most of them even under that limited time (and prove why exactly he was recommended both for the internship, and the FBI program in GWU). He ended up doing so well that he even earned one of less than a handful of invitations to participate in an FBI Op, just before the end of the summer.
Which is about when everything goes to hell. Because with Derek Hale and Kate Argent involved (and really, when is that bitch going to finally die?!) how could it be anything else?
It takes a near-inhuman effort, but in the end Stiles manages to save Derek Hale, without ruining the FBI Op entirely (He does save Derek! Yes, the sourwolf then has to save him, but that doesn’t erase the fact that Stiles saved him first!). On the negative side: Kate Argent ends up getting away… again!
He knows there will probably (surely!) be consequences, but still, Stiles makes the choice to flee with Derek, when the wolf tells him exactly what’s going on (all the things his so-called friends and pack, including a girl who’s supposed to be his girlfriend… haven’t told him). They manage to make it back to Beacon Hills in time to get Scott, Malia, Peter and Lydia out of a tight-spot, and watch Deucalion die (Yes! Finally! Stiles knows Scott would hate him if he knew, but Stiles feels nothing but… well not exactly joy, but at least a certain satisfaction, peace, when seeing Deucalion die. It doesn’t matter how much Scott might preach about everyone deserving another chance, and to be better and whatnot, Deucalion was a monster who killed way too many people, wolves and humans, starting with his own pack. He deserved way worse than he got for his crimes, but at least he’s gone now, and Stiles no longer has to fear that one day he might get it into his head to try and kill everyone again!).
Things get… more than a little insane. Between the Anuk-Ite (and what the hell was that thing and why did no one tell him anything about it beforehand?!), and Gerard, and Monroe…
At least Gerard and Kate have the decency of taking each other out. It’s… ever since Stiles learned that Gerard still lived (he wasn’t even sick anymore! How is it fair, for good, kind, gentle people like his mom, like Derek’s family, to die, while psychopathic monsters like Gerard-fucking-Argent get to live?!)… Stiles hasn’t had a moment of peace since he learned the truth. Especially since he learned that Scott not only knew the bastard was alive, but was the reason he was no longer having issues with bite rejection.
Scott! His Scott! The guy who’s supposed to be his best-friend, brother-from-another-mother. The guy who insists everyone deserves another chance, who forgave Theo despite… despite everything. He hasn’t looked at Stiles the same since the mess with the Nogitsune. Despite claiming that he doesn’t blame Stiles for what the fox did… Stiles knows that a part of Scott does blame him. And yet, even with all of that, he’d choose to help Gerard! Why?!?!?!
In any case, as if finding out about all of that hasn’t put him in enough of a tailspin, then there’s Lydia deciding that now is the best time to break up with him! Stiles isn’t even surprised anymore. He wishes he were, he really does, but he isn’t. Truth is he’s been expecting for Lydia to dump him practically since the moment she agreed to that very first date. Never even expected her to actually do it, to actually go with him, to be his girlfriend. Considering that the last time she gave him any hope (when she kissed him out of a panic attack way back when!), she then turned around and began sleeping with Aiden (after the mess with the Alpha Pack, fully knowing what kind of person he was and had been)!
Falling into bed with Derek Hale of all people isn’t in his plans. Though that is not to say he doesn’t thoroughly enjoy it. He enjoys waking up to find himself alone in the motel room they ended up in after driving throughout the day (in order to get as far away from Beacon Hills as they possibly could, as soon as they were sure Monroe was gone and not coming back… at least for now), less so. And yet, he cannot say he’s that surprised either, considering it’s Derek.
So in the end Stiles just tries not to take it personally and returns to DC. Where he has to go and explain his actions to a bunch of Agents (and trying to explain anything without saying a word about the supernatural is fun… not!). But at least he manages to not only not get blacklisted, but he even gets to stay in the program so, go him!
xXx
The next time Stiles goes back to Beacon Hills is two years later. The problem is, once again, Monroe. At least this time his pack does let him know what’s going on (can he still call them his pack when they don’t feel like it, when he hasn’t seen any of them, has hardly even talked to them in the two years he’s been in DC?). When Stiles makes it to Beacon Hills this time around, he’s ready.
He sticks with the pack just long enough to hear what the plan is. It turns out to be as bad as he was expecting. The pack is just basically running around, hiding and doing nothing of importance. Whenever he has the chance Scott will yell at the hunters, like he thinks he can shame them into changing their ways (utterly ridiculous)! Whenever things get especially dicey he’ll let Malia, Peter or someone else fight back; then, after the fact, he’ll chastise them for excessive use of force, and how their pack doesn’t kill. It’s utter bullshit.
Still, it all makes it easier for Stiles to put his own plan into effect with minimum changes. It ends up being pretty straightforward (more so than he expected, actually). All Stiles has to do is get himself ‘caught’ by one of Monroe’s minions. He allows them to take him to one of their bases, where he plays the part of the frightened human kid while they threaten him a lot, beat him up some and wait for orders. The charade only lasts until Monroe gets there, it’s clear Argent must have mentioned him to her, because she knows he’s up to something. Doesn’t matter, she might not realize it, but the moment she arrived, she’d lost.
Stiles has become well-known, both at GWU and Quantico over the last couple of years. Despite the mess at the end of his first internship, he’s been invited back every summer. This one in particular he and the other interns were allowed a look into several ongoing cases; in part so they could see how things are handled at the FBI, and perhaps even to see if any of them might be able to see something that others haven’t. As it happens, Stiles did.
He recognized one of the cases, it involved several murders that were being tentatively cataloged as ‘ritualistic’, but Stiles could tell almost right away that the murders were being done by hunters. Also, he was pretty sure they weren’t any from ‘official families’. ‘Real’ Hunter Families, like the Argents, Dubois, Lanes, Calaveras and those that follow them in turn all tend to be extremely methodical. They also tend to be very careful not to leave anything that can be traced to them (the specific hunters, or to the supernatural as a whole). It was clear at a glance that the person, or people behind the murders (at least the ones the FBI knew about and had managed to connect) had neither the training, nor the care to conceal things. Who knows? They might not have even realized that some things are meant to be secret for a reason!
Stiles spent most of that summer’s internship thinking things over, unable to make his mind whether he should say something about the case or not to the instructors. Then, on the second to last day he got a call from Lydia letting him know that Monroe was on the move again and Scott needed everyone in Beacon Hills by the next week (and really, Scott needed ‘everyone’ and couldn’t be bothered to get in touch directly?!). It was the call which had him making up his mind. As the group was dismissed that evening he stayed back, requesting to talk in private with the instructor from that summer: Agent Ashley Seaver.
He revealed everything he could, without giving away the supernatural. Explaining about the crimes that had taken place back in Beacon Hills during his high-school years. Some of it was known, but as he discovered that day, a lot of it wasn’t. The FBI knew that Kate Argent was responsible for the Hale Fire, but not about all the others, for example. And they did not know everything Gerard had done, both with and without Kate. It was easy enough to change ‘hunters’ for ‘cultists’ (it fit them to a T!), and even though a part of him almost snorted, he ended up referring to the packs as ‘take back the night’ groups (something his dad had done, more than once, in his own official reports). Explaining why Monroe decided to turn against the other teenagers and become the new leader of the ‘cult’ when the Argents died wasn’t exactly easy to explain; but then again, it’s not like anyone was asking him to try and explain the motivations of an insane woman anyway…
(Stiles was pretty sure that a mix of residual terror, for how close she came to losing her life during the Beast-disaster; resentment towards Scott, that he hadn’t gotten there earlier, that he hadn’t saved… so many others; and to a lesser degree even with the sheriff, and all the others who knew the truth about the supernatural and did not ‘protect everyone better’ were the causes of it all. Or at least, the causes of the mental and emotional breakdown that led to her thinking that the hunters, and the ones like Gerard, had the right of it, and all supernaturals should be killed).
Stiles wasn’t sure how he did it, but he managed to convince Agent Seaver, and she in turn called a team in. They tried to keep Stiles out of it, but he knew that they would only have one chance, and if Monroe heard so much as a whisper that the FBI was coming, she’d disappear again. Stiles refused to spend two more years looking over his shoulder, waiting for where she might strike next.
And so Stiles went back to Beacon Hills, he made sure the pack wouldn’t end up in the way when things went down, then he allowed himself to be caught by Monroe’s goons, and once he was sure she was in the building he set off the beacon hidden in his clothes (they didn’t even search him!) and signaled the FBI teams waiting to come in and take everyone.
The Op goes off with barely a hitch. By the time Monroe realizes it’s the FBI and not a bunch of underprepared teenagers and young adults bursting into the building, it’s too late (for her). When she finally sees that there’s no escape she goes after him (he’s in a locked room, all alone, where they left him when the minions went out to see what was going on). Stiles doesn’t know if she planned to use him as a living shield, or just wanted to take him down with her (as some bizarre sort of last hurrah?). She doesn’t know who she’s going against.
Before Monroe knows quite what’s going on she’s down on one knee, disarmed. And not only that, her gun is in Stiles’ hands (it’s not his preferred kind of handgun, but he’s made a point of learning how to use pretty much any kind, just in case).
“Don’t move,” Stiles states, dead serious.
“Wha…?” It’s clear Monroe is quite at a loss.
“You’re under arrest,” he states.
He’s about to begin with the usual spiel regarding her rights (mostly for something to do as they wait for the actual agents on duty to arrive and arrest her properly) when she starts ranting.
“You’re human!” she snaps. “Just one of their pets! Unimportant!”
“If you thought that, why did you even bother taking me?” he asks in a drawl.
Or giving her goons the order to take him. Which he’s certain she did. Otherwise… well, they’d have either ignored him or killed him, depending on whether they could tell he was with the pack.
“As for the human bit, you’re human too,” he reminds her.
“I’m nothing like you,” she spits, disgusted.
“And thank all the gods that may or may not exist for that!” he retorts.
“You don’t dare shoot…” Now she seems to be trying to taunt him. “You don’t have the balls…”
Stiles is pondering whether he should be his usual smartass self when replying, or if just ignoring her might gain a better response from her, when he hears voices just outside the room:
“Federal Agents!” he knows one of them has to be his instructor. “We’re coming in!”
Everything happens very fast right then. Monroe jumps to her feet, going straight for him, in her hands is a knife (which he assumes must have been strapped to her ankle, or hidden in her boot, he smacks himself mentally for not considering the possibility). Considering who it is, Stiles has no doubt the knife will be poisoned. He knows it’s unlikely that the agents entering the room at that very moment will take the shot, they won’t want to risk hitting him instead. And if he isn’t fast enough… Stiles decides he cannot take the chance. He shoots.
The rest of the day he spends in an FBI safe-house that’s been set-up in Beacon Valley (far enough from Beacon Hills for Monroe to not notice them. But close enough to not be late for the Op), first handling the debriefing, and then answering questions from the agents in charge: in regards to his actions in the Op, to document his injuries and those responsible for them, a list of all those he saw in case anyone escaped, and then on what led to him shooting Tamora Monroe.
In the end the agents in charge both seem to agree with his reasoning and he’s released. He’s about to leave the safe-house where the debriefing took place when one of the agents stops him.
“You did good, kid,” he tells Stiles, patting him on the shoulder briefly before offering him a business card. “Give me a call when you graduate.”
For a moment Stiles just watches the man as he leaves the safe-house, climbing into an SUV with a few others, the whole group leaving almost immediately. It’s until they’re gone that he looks down at the card. Unsurprisingly, it has the FBI logo on one side; the first thing Stiles notices is that on the other side it says: ‘Behavioral Analysis Unit’. Stiles practically stops breathing. And then he sees that under it is a name and rank, followed by a telephone number.
“SSA David Rossi…” Stiles breathes out (he knows that name!) “Holy shit…”
His instructor pretty much laughs at him when she finds him several minutes later, still standing on the porch, looking at the business card. It’s then that he learns that Agent Seaver not only worked with the Domestic Trafficking Task Force, before being an Instructor, but also with the BAU before that, for a couple of years.
“It was my very first job, as an FBI Agent,” she tells him; before pointing out, seriously: “It’s not for everyone. Though for what it’s worth, I think you would do well in a team like theirs.”
That is huge praise, Stiles thinks. And he’s very grateful for it.
xXx
By the time he finally makes it back to Beacon Hills it’s already the next day and things are a bit messy. Either someone in the pack has better contacts than he expected, someone’s been speaking out of turn… or someone in Scott’s pack has been hacking into places where they shouldn’t, because everyone already knows that the FBI went after Monroe and her hunters (at least those that were in town), and it’s well-known that the FBI is after most of them.
The funny thing, at least for Stiles, is hearing Scott talk about things as if he’d known all along, as if he’d been part of the Op that took down Monroe even (though, surprisingly, he doesn’t seem to know that Monroe’s actually dead… Stiles supposes the FBI might be keeping that quiet, intending to use her name to draw more of the ‘cult members’ out)! It’s clear Scott has no idea of Stiles’ involvement, and that’s more than fine with him (for a moment Stiles has to wonder if he even remembers his ‘best friend’ is an FBI intern). Also, there’s the fact that no one in the pack ever thinks about asking him where he was most of the day prior, or even where he spent the night, as if they didn’t notice his absence at all (and for all he knows, they might not have). He wonders if it’s normal that that realization doesn’t make him feel anything at all. He’s not angry, or sad, not even disappointed. The pack just… it doesn’t matter to him anymore.
In the end not even his dad seems to so much as suspect Stiles’ involvement. Though at least he does remember what Stiles is studying and where he intends to work, as he comments on how disappointed Stiles must be that the BAU was so close and he didn’t get the chance to meet them, so Stiles decides to distract him from recent events by pointing out that he did at least meet a former BAU Agent, and tells him all about his instructor: Agent Seaver.
To Stiles’ honest shock, Derek is waiting for him when he finally makes it to his bed. After a hearty lunch (he barely ate anything the day before) and a long hot shower he’d planned to spend the rest of the day sleeping, he could be active the following day. He has a week off before he must be back in DC for the beginning of the next semester. He did not expect Derek…
“You smell like pain,” Derek states, eyes narrowing as he looks straight at him.
Stiles almost tries to cover himself up, in the end he doesn’t see a point. There’s a towel around his narrow hips, and another one hanging around his neck (from where he was using it to towel-dry his hair, until Derek’s presence on his bed distracted him). With most of his upper body uncovered, it’s impossible to hide the bruises that have already begun to show up on his torso and arms, so he doesn’t even try.
“You were there…” Derek breathes out, suddenly.
From one moment to the next he’s on his feet, his hand suspended in the air, less than half an inch from Stiles’ flank, where one of the worst bruises is. He has a cracked rib, he’s been warned. It miraculously did not break, and he’s always been a quick healer (almost inhumanly fast), so as long as he’s careful for the next few weeks, it’ll be alright…
“It’s alright, I’m alright,” he does his best to reassure Derek.
He just nods, at the silent question in the wolf’s eyes. In an instant a warm hand is on his skin, and a heartbeat later his pain levels go down drastically. He exhales.
“Thank you…” he whispers quietly.
He was given some painkillers, but really didn’t want to take them; while he might no longer be on Adderall, having long since forced himself to deal with his ADHD in other ways (some teas, moving meditation, a lot of running, among other things), which actually seem to work better than the meds alone ever did; he still has never reacted well to the ‘good’ pain-drugs. It’s hard to tell if it’s some kind of consequence after taking Adderall for so long (and abusing it for a while there while in high-school… there’s a reason he decided to stop taking it) or just a quirk of him, perhaps even his magic (wonky and untrustworthy as it is, a lot of the time, with anything that doesn’t involve mountain ash). Still, wolfy pain-drain is awesome!
Derek helps him get into bed before curling around him, almost cuddling him. Stiles has no idea what’s going on, exactly, though he cannot say he minds. He actually likes it, a lot.
“You were there, weren’t you?” Derek asks after a long silence.
Right, Stiles had almost forgotten. He has no idea how Derek even reached that conclusion so fast. Especially when no one else seemed to even consider the possibility.
“She’s dead,” he blurts out suddenly.
And yeah, okay, he still doesn’t know if the FBI is keeping Monroe’s death under wraps as part of some plan to get everyone else that followed her, or if it’s just that whoever let the cat out of the bag for the pack did not find out that part, but still. He cannot not tell Derek, he more than anyone else deserves to know that the bitch is dead, that he doesn’t have to be afraid anymore. He can finally settle down, start planning a future, without wondering if Monroe and her psychopaths will come back and destroy everything, just like Kate Argent did time and again. Also, Stiles supposes that saying that certainly serves to give away that yes, he most definitely was there when things went down. So, deciding that ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’, he tells Derek everything that went down.
“Thank you,” the wolf whispers in the end, very, very softly.
Stiles isn’t sure when they fall asleep exactly but when he wakes up again it’s late in the afternoon and he can feel Derek holding him tight. What’s more, he can feel the wolf’s erection pressed against his ass. Stiles doesn’t even think about it as he pushes back, arching his body into Derek. A warm hand wrapping around him pulls a strangled moan from him. And then it’s all bodies and touches and kisses and passion and sex.
Stiles ends up spending his week off (whenever he’s not visiting his dad at the office, or sharing one meal or another with him either at the diner or at home) with Derek. It’s not just sex, though there certainly is a lot of that, and it’s not limited to his bedroom, and the loft (though they do not have sex anywhere in the Stilinski house outside of Stiles’ room, and once, in the bathroom). They even end up having sex in the middle of the preserve once!
It’s just… Stiles cannot seem to help himself. And for that matter, neither can Derek. It’s all so good… by Wednesday Stiles knows he doesn’t want the week to end. Or no, he does want it to end, he wants to go back to DC, to continue his schooling, to eventually graduate and join the FBI, and do good… but he doesn’t want what he has with Derek to end.
“Come with me,” he asks the wolf after sex on Friday night.
“What…?” Derek’s clearly thrown by that, though Stiles doesn’t understand that.
“To DC,” Stiles clarifies. “Come with me.”
“I won’t do that,” Derek shakes his head.
For a moment Stiles expects him to go into some martyr-speech. Something about how he cannot be happy, doesn’t deserve to. Or how Stiles deserves better, or anything, but Derek doesn’t say any of that. In fact, he doesn’t say anything beyond a straight out refusal to go with Stiles. What’s more, while they both somehow manage to fall asleep together (and Stiles knows he slept, he knows!), by the time the human wakes up again, Derek’s gone and the other side of the bed is cold.
Also, no matter how hard he might try, Stiles is unable to find him, until the day comes when he must go back to DC. Then Derek is there, standing at the edges. Stiles cannot bring himself to speak to him. He was ready to talk things out, to convince Derek that he deserves everything, that they could make things work, that they could build a life together in DC. Or even work on a relationship long-distance if the issue is that Derek doesn’t want to leave Beacon Hills now that things are finally at peace. He’d prepared arguments for nearly any excuse Derek could have thought of to use not to give them a try. He wasn’t prepared for Derek to just… just say no, and then walk away. Like it doesn’t matter. Like Stiles’ own wishes and dreams don’t matter. He refused to even give Stiles a chance to argue in favor of them and that… that’s more than Stiles can take. And so he says nothing. Just leaves. After all, the way he sees it, that’s what Derek wants, isn’t it? So Stiles might as well get on with it.
xXx
When Stiles is halfway through his Masters of Professional Studies in the Field of Homeland Security (after having achieved a Bachelor in the same area), he manages to connect a number of cold cases one of his professors liked to use as examples during class, with hunters. He tries to explain things to the man, using the same terms he did with Agent Seaver but it fails. When the man straight out tells him he’s wrong (because he’s been trying to solve those cases for more than five years, and there’s no way a student can possibly be better than him!) Stiles actually stops to think about it.
He knows he has two options: let it go, or go over the professor and bring the cases to the attention of someone else. It’s the middle of the semester and Stiles has no way of getting in touch with his summer instructor. He tries to bring the matter up with another of his professors, but either she thinks the same as his first one, or the other man has been saying some things about Stiles, because she won’t even listen to his explanation. Still, Stiles can’t do nothing, it’s just not who he is. Also, he’s at least not as reckless as he used to be as a teenager, and knows better than to try and take matters in his own hands. So in the end he does the only thing he can think of, he pulls out Agent Rossi’s card and phones him.
And that’s when things get more than a little insane.
Turns out, Agent Rossi works on what used to be the premiere BAU team in the country. Technically they still are, though in recent years they’ve been slowly but surely pulling away from the public eye as they start taking some very specific kinds of cases (the kind that are better being kept in the shadows…)
“Holy shit…” Stiles breathes out when he arrives at the office where he’s been ordered to go.
He knows the moment he steps into the room that at least half of the people in it are supernatural. As limited as his magic might be, he can still sense them, and he knows they can sense him. Agent Rossi (Alpha David Rossi of the BAU Pack, as it turns out! And Stiles imagines that he was either wearing some kind of concealment before, or maybe it was just that Stiles was so focused on Monroe, on taking her and her minions down once and for all, that he wasn’t paying attention properly) handles the introduction, using not only names, but supernatural epithets, making it clear that he’s known Stiles was magical since that case in California.
“It was clear to me that you knew the truth about them,” Rossi points out. “You were so careful about the words you used, but at the same time, it was obvious you were forcing yourself to use them, that they weren’t your preferred words for them, or the ones you used more often.” He shakes his head. “We did not know if that was your own choice, or if it might have been an Alpha Order of some kind, and we didn’t want to risk stepping on any toes.”
“The FBI working these kinds of cases was still pretty new back then,” Agent Hotch, the actual Team Lead (The son of two different hunting families, though from the start he refused to be a hunter; only getting involved with the supernatural when the rest of his team started working on the cases), speaks up. “Even now, we’ve only just started truly gaining the trust of the supernatural community.”
“Which, no surprise considering what hunters have done before,” Agent Jareau comments, clearly annoyed by the whole thing.
“And speaking of hunters,” Rossi smoothly pulls the conversation back to the matter at hand. “Why don’t you tell us what you’ve found this time, kid?”
And so Stiles does.
The case (against the Duboises this time, not the Argents), ends up taking several months. After a couple of hunters slip into the university to try and assassinate Stiles, a decision is made to pull him out of school. Hotch makes arrangements with his professors so he’ll be allowed to continue online (Stiles refuses to give up on his studies). Most of them agree immediately and the ones who question either Stiles’ capabilities, or the need for it are eventually ignored and other professors step in to handle those classes. By that point it’s a sort-of open secret that Stiles is working on a high-profile case with a BAU Team, giving him what he needs not only helps ensure the safety of those at the university, it also raises the school’s profile (that one of their students would be so good as to be pulled into an actual case, and with the best team at the BAU, when he hasn’t even finished his Masters yet…).
Stiles never does go back to the school after that. Hotch and Rossi insisting that he continue doing his studies from a distance as he becomes an official part of the team. He never does have a graduation ceremony either. There are talks at some point, Agent Jareau tells him they can arrange for him to walk the stage with the class that is close to graduating. It’d be easy enough to add his name. And then he could have his father and friends there. Stiles is still considering it, not even sure if his dad would be able to take enough time off to go see him graduate, and who else would he even invite?! It becomes a moot point when a case explodes on them the following week and it ends up keeping them busy for over a month. By the time they’ve finished and all those responsible are behind bars (or dead), the graduation ceremony’s long since passed.
The team does still insist that Stiles take some time off. In the end he agrees and goes back to Beacon Hills for the third time since his high-school graduation. It turns out, there are quite a few surprises awaiting him there:
Scott and Deaton are gone. No one quite knows why, exactly. The best they can deduce is that Dr. Deaton must have decided that Los Angeles had more to offer, and Scott apparently chose to go with him. All Scott really told his mom was that ‘there was nothing for him in Beacon Hills’ and left. Stiles feels like ranting because, really, what the hell?! What’s Mama McCall supposed to be? Chopped liver?! And he knows it might seem a bit hypocritical, considering he hasn’t lived in Beacon Hills since graduating high-school, but even when he left, he did it because it was for the best, for him, for his future. He still loves his dad, and while he might not visit very often, he does text with his dad at least to say good morning and good night every day, calls him once a week, and makes an effort to video-call him at least once a month unless they’re in the middle of a case (and only if it’s the kind where they’re against the clock, trying to stop an UnSub before another body drops).
Malia and Scott aren’t together anymore. Their break-up was apparently quite… explosive, and the talk of the town for at least a month. Apparently Scott didn’t talk things out with Malia when he decided to move to LA, what’s more he expected her to just drop everything and follow him, no questions asked and no consideration to the life she’s managed to build for herself in Beacon Hills. It’s been hard, especially since her dad’s (Henry, not Peter) death at the hand of several of Monroe’s goons. It was only thanks to Stiles’ dad, who had no problem with her sleeping in Stiles’ old room whenever she needed (as Stiles, even while living away, was still her anchor) and seemed to even enjoy spending time with her, that Malia didn’t end up shifting fully into a coyote and not coming back this time. Even if she might not love Stiles as a potential mate anymore, she cares about him, and about his dad. She needs them. So there was no way she was leaving Beacon Hills.
Chris Argent is apparently gone too. Though that one at least Stiles doesn’t really care about. As long as the guy doesn’t do something that puts him in his crosshairs (or rather, the FBI’s) Stiles is willing enough to live and let live. He’ll never like the guy, will never stop seeing him as a sanctimonious hypocritical bastard with no spine, considering he never stopped his sister and he went as far as aiding and abetting his father despite knowing the kind of monster he was. But yeah, live and let live.
The biggest shock, perhaps unsurprisingly, comes from none other than Derek Hale. First there’s the fact that the wolf is once again living in Beacon Hills. And not in that old loft apartment of his (which, in Stiles’ own humble opinion must have as many bad memories as it does good ones; perhaps even more of the former) but in an actual house. A pretty nice, two floor, recently restored house that while not downtown, is still in a pretty good neighborhood. It abuts the preserve (which surprises Stiles not at all) and is also connected to what’s clearly become the Hale Family Business, an auto-shop called simply ‘Hale Auto’. Then, as if all that weren’t shocking enough, the cherry on the crazy sundae is finding out that Derek has a son!
Eli Hale is such a cute boy Stiles cannot help but love him from the moment he lays eyes on the kid. He looks so much like his father, with the same basic build and messy brown hair. The kid’s eyes are a bit of a lighter green than Derek’s own, but still, there’s no doubt that he’s Derek’s kid. And still, Stiles can almost feel something pulling at the core of him whenever he sees the kid. Stiles might even call it something like a packbond, except that’s not possible, is it?
And yet, the more Stiles learns of Eli, the more interesting things seem to get.
“You know, if it weren’t utterly impossible, I’d swear he’s a Stilinski,” his dad says during dinner on his first night. “I swear to God that the first time I saw the kid I couldn’t help but think he looked so much like you at that age. Peter even agrees!”
“It’s the moles,” Stiles says automatically.
“And the skin tone,” his dad adds for good measure.
And yeah, Stiles has noticed that one of the few things the kid doesn’t seem to have inherited from his dad, is his skin tone (and the moles, of course).
Things get especially interesting when Stiles tries to find out more about Eli and his dad’s responses start getting a bit… odd. So apparently Derek just didn’t leave Beacon Hills, after Monroe and her goons were finally dealt with. It took a while for the house to be fully remodeled, and the auto-shop, but whenever he’s asked about it, his dad talks like Eli has been there all along. Which… doesn’t make a lot of sense. Stiles would assume that the kid’s mom died, or gave him up, or something, sometime after Stiles left Beacon Hills the last time, and yet some of the things his dad says, it’s like he’s convinced Eli was already there by then. Which, there’s just no way… There’s no way Derek had a son, the last time Stiles was around, and Stiles didn’t know it!
It becomes clear when he finally meets Eli, two days later.
Stiles has thought long and hard about how things ended with Derek, the last time he was in Beacon Hills. His mind has repeated Derek’s response to Stiles’ proposal that the wolf join him in DC ad nauseum. It will never stop hurting, not really. There’s a part of him, one that fell in love with a sourwolf at just sixteen years old, who gave his heart away and never got it back… And he doesn’t want it back! It’s something he’s come to know and accept about himself. He’s not fickle with his feelings, he’s the kind of person that, when he loves someone, it’s forever.
He never stopped loving Lydia, not really. But he did come to accept that their relationship just… it wasn’t good. And it’s not just about all the ways he idealized Lydia, all the reasons (excuses) he made up in his mind for all her flaws and worst traits but just… They just weren’t right for each other. Stiles cannot even say that things went wrong at some point; rather, they never went anywhere, not really. There’s a part of him that still loves Lydia, and probably always will. Or rather, he’ll always love the dream he had of her, and while he might regret they couldn’t make it work, he won’t regret that he gave it a try at all.
Likewise, he’ll never regret Derek, or his love for the wolf. He’ll forever regret that Derek chose not to give them a chance, but he’ll respect it. Because in the end he loves Derek enough to let him go, if that’s what the wolf wants…
And so, when Stiles goes to see Derek, it’s with that thought in mind. He still loves Derek, he always will, and he won’t do a thing about it. The two of them chat, talking about what’s become of their lives since they last saw each other, never even alluding to the giant elephant in the room. They joke about the Auto Shop, and whether Derek truly knows how to fix cars, whether he might actually be able to fix Stiles’ jeep…
“So, the thing finally died then?” Derek asks with a smirk.
“Shut up!” Stiles snaps, throwing a napkin at the wolf, who catches it and uses it to wipe his mouth, still smiling.
Much as Stiles might hate it, yes, the Jeep died on him, and he wasn’t able to fix it. He knows the vehicle needs a complete overhaul, and there’s no one in DC he trusts to handle it; though that might be because when he got in touch with a mechanic, a friend of some in the team, to get an idea how much it’d cost to fix his beloved Roscoe, the man laughed at Stiles and told him the Jeep belonged in a scrapyard and Stiles should just buy a new vehicle. It’s not like Stiles didn’t know fixing Roscoe would be expensive, but he hated so much the way the man just dismissed Stiles feelings for Roscoe, like the whole thing didn’t matter.
Derek knows better. He knows that Roscoe is important, and why. So when he agrees to take a look… that’s enough for Stiles to start making plans to have the Jeep brought to Beacon Hills. Even if Derek insists that he’s not committing to fixing it, Stiles knows he will, at some point.
And then Eli Hale makes an appearance. From the start it’s clear that the boy must be eight or nine years old. And in Stiles’ mind, that alone is enough of a confirmation that there’s something going on. Because throughout their whole lunch and conversation, Derek’s never said anything about how Eli came to be with him, and it wasn’t like he was trying to hide it, but whenever Stiles tried to steer the conversation in that direction, the wolf acted as if the boy has always been there (all while still talking about the insane shit both he and Stiles got into, the months the wolf spent hunting down Kate Argent, and then being hunted down by the FBI, and the mess with Monroe… and never mentioning where exactly his son was supposed to have been through all of that!).
It’s all made clear the moment Stiles lays eyes on him.
The first thing that goes through his mind, is that the boy truly looks like a younger version of him. Or no, rather, he looks like a mix of a young him, and a young Derek…
This has the nemeton written all over it!
Which is why, right after promising the kid he’ll be back the next day and they can spend some time together, and making up an excuse about needing to make a call (and thanks be to all the gods that he’s learned how to lie to werewolves!) Stiles goes running into the preserve, and straight to the blackened stump that is the nemeton.
He doesn’t even know how to communicate with the thing! But it’s clear that the nemeton knows Stiles is there, it also knows what he wants to ask.
It’s… Stiles wouldn’t call it a conversation, not really. Though Stiles still manages to get answers to at least some of the questions he cannot bring himself to voice. He learns that Eli truly is his son, their son. The boy is a gift, from the nemeton, and at the same time, a responsibility. To Stiles, to Derek, and to the boy himself.
The nemeton needs a guardian, Stiles knows that (though he has no idea how he does, at all!). Yet as he stands there some things suddenly become clear. It’s not just that the nemeton needs a guardian, but that Stiles is supposed to be that guardian. The nemeton chose him, years ago. And then the nogitsune ruined it all…
Stiles is damaged… or rather, his magic is. Apparently, he should have been the most powerful magic user of the generation. And he had the potential for it, until the nogitsune possessed him. That’s why Stiles’ magic has seemingly always been so weak. He’s been told by more than one person that when they see him they get this sense that he should be so much more powerful than he actually is. It’s something that Stiles himself has always known… or rather, a part of him has wanted to believe it, while the rest of him would retort that he’s just deluding himself into thinking he’s ever been more than he is (the voice always sound so very much like Scott too, whenever he’d claim to love Stiles, only to then say something demeaning about him, claiming that he only said it because he loved Stiles…).
It’s… strange, learning that he was right. That he was always supposed to be so much more than he is. And yet, what does it change now? Nothing at all.
Eli… he’s supposed to be a new chance for the nemeton. Half Derek (one of the last descendants of those who swore oaths to guard the nemeton and the territory oh-so-long ago), Half Stiles (the boy who should have been guardian, who was never given the chance). And that day, before the nemeton, Stiles makes an oath of his own. He failed the nemeton once, by no fault of his own (unless one counts the failure to follow his instincts where Deaton was concerned. Stiles should have never agreed to that stupid surrogate-sacrifice ritual. That’s where everything began to go wrong, at least for Stiles himself). So Stiles swears to do all that is in his hands to protect Eli, and to ensure the nemeton will finally have the guardian it deserves.
Just before Stiles leaves Beacon Hills again, Derek approaches him with a set of papers. He’s learned his lesson, after the loss of both iterations of the Hale Pack. If something ever happens to him, he wants to make sure his son will be well looked after, that he’ll be protected. But more than that, Derek wants to make sure that Eli will be loved…
Derek has written a will, and it names both Eli and Stiles as the heirs. Also, if Derek were to die while Eli is still a minor, Stiles is the first choice of guardian for him.
“Why me and not…?” Stiles trails off.
“Cora… she’s my sister, but she’s not pack,” Derek admits, rather grimly. “Also, it’d be hard to name her as anything when she’s still legally dead.”
Apparently at some point there were plans to have her reclaim her identity as Cora Hale. But then shit happened, and Cora eventually decided she’d rather go back to South America, and stay there, so the plans were never put through. Legally, Cora Hale remains one of the victims of the Hale Fire.
Peter is in a bit of the same situation, and also…
“I love my uncle, I do, but he’s just not father material, and I don’t think he wants to be,” Derek says in a soft, sad tone.
Stiles doesn’t disagree; while Peter has put forth an effort to get to know Malia, and he’s done his best to help keep her safe, he’s never tried very hard to actually be her father. A part of Stiles cannot help but wonder if Peter’s always been like that, or if his fatherly feelings/instincts were one of the many things burned out of him during the Hale Fire… He’s not sure he wants to know the answer to that.
“You’d trust me with your son?” Stiles asks very, very softly.
Their son… but that’s something Stiles isn’t ready to reveal, he might never be.
“I trust you with everything, Stiles,” Derek murmurs in return.
Anything but your own heart, Stiles thinks, but doesn’t dare say. He promised himself he wouldn’t bring it up, and he won’t (and yet his heart still hurts…).
In the end he agrees. Because what else can he possibly do? Truth is that, even without papers and wills involved, if anything ever happens to Derek he’ll want to take care of Eli. Still, Stiles would rather nothing ever happen to Derek, and he’s willing to do anything to keep the man safe, anything.
In the end, he’s not given the chance.
Chapter 3
It all ends in fire… again.
Derek Hale, last Hale Alpha and the last of Hop’s would-have-been Atco, burns to death on the dark stump of the Beacon Hills’ nemeton. And all Hop can do is scream and cry alongside the wolf’s pack (including his teen-aged son…).
Stiles’ ears are still ringing (metaphorically) when he finally makes it to Beacon Hills, three days later. He curses every member of the pack to hell and back; before delivering a hell of a punch (hard enough, and placed in just the right spot, and with just enough magic behind it for Scott McCall to end up with two black eyes, even with his alpha healing) when the so-called ‘true alpha’ tries to take away one Eli Hale, claiming that it was what Derek wanted…
“Why the hell would he have wanted that?!” Stiles demands, he’s furious, and yet he manages to keep his voice perfectly even, barely raising it at all (which is enough to make almost everyone who hears him take a step back, knowing it for the really bad sign it is; all but Scott, who’s completely oblivious and keeps going, like he cannot imagine being anything but right).
“He told me,” Scott retorts. “I’m his alpha!”
“You’re a shit alpha,” Stiles retorts, coldly. “And besides, what use is an alpha who doesn’t even live in the same town as his betas?”
“That’s why I’m taking him with me!” Scott insists.
For a moment Stiles considers asking if he’s planning on taking all his other betas too, or if they just don’t matter. Then again, he already has an answer to that question, doesn’t he? After all, Scott first left years earlier, and he didn’t take anyone other than Deaton (or perhaps it’d be more precise to say that Deaton took him…).
In the end Stiles decides to end the argument with an entirely different statement (though one that ends up being just as effective, perhaps even more so…):
“Well, you’re not taking my son anywhere!”
xXx
Thankfully, Derek’s will means Stiles doesn’t actually have to explain the whole ‘Eli being his son’ thing, as most just take it as sentiment. And in the end, the will is enough that if Scott were to try and take the boy anywhere, Stiles could get him arrested for attempted kidnapping (and only attempt, because there’s no way in heaven or hell Eli would have gone, or that Stiles’ dad or any of his deputies would have allowed it, anyway, but still). It’s clear that Scott is not satisfied, he hates not getting what he wants (he always has, the immature man-child that he is!), but at least he eventually does give up on it and leaves.
It takes a few more days for the final member of the Hale Family, one Cora Hale, to arrive in Beacon Hills. It took a while for Stiles to be able to get a message to her; as she’s been living in the middle of the jungle, in South America with the Silveira Pack (a pack that long ago chose to separate as much as possible from human society, in an attempt to keep themselves safer from the hunters).
The group (no, the pack), formed by Peter, Cora and Eli Hale, and Stiles and Noah Stilinski enter the clearing where the cut down nemeton rests, slowly but surely. Eli held tightly between his new adoptive father (Stiles pulled strings and cashed in a few favors to get the paperwork through as fast as possible, just to be on the safe side) and grandfather.
“I just… I cannot believe he’s gone…” Cora admits, quietly. “I mean, I know we weren’t exactly pack, not since I left all those years ago, and especially when I… when I refused to come back when he asked me to, after Eli. But…”
But even if she couldn’t feel him, if she wasn’t truly connected to him, it always gave her a sense of peace, of joy, knowing that he was still there, alive. That she still had family (even if they weren’t pack). It’s not that Cora doesn’t care for Peter, she does, she just… she doesn’t understand him. And she doesn’t really know Eli at all. So Derek was, in many ways, the last of it all, the final connection to her past, to the family, the joy she once knew… And now it’s gone. He’s gone. Her brother’s dead. Dead, just like everyone else.
Cora breaks into quiet sobs.
Eli says nothing. He’s already crying. He’s been pretty much crying on and off since he got over the shock of seeing his dad burning and managed to fully process the fact that… his dad is gone. Truly gone and not coming back.
Eventually Stiles has to let go of the boy. There’s more than one reason they’re all there, in that clearing, that night. And mourning for their lost loved one is just one of them.
“It’s okay Eli, I promise you, everything will be okay…” Noah murmurs quietly to his brand new grandson (much as he’s felt like the boy was exactly that for many years, and has treated him as such, it hadn’t actually been true, until now), holding the boy tight against his body.
“It’s not though,” Eli murmurs, voice low and damp. “Dad’s gone. He… he’s gone and never coming back!” He hiccups. “Why is it that others get to come back and he doesn’t?”
“I… I don’t know kiddo,” Noah admits.
He doesn’t understand it either. Doesn’t seem fair. And yeah, he knows life isn’t fair and all that, and yet… and yet.
“Don’t look at me!” Peter calls out defensively. “I was never fully dead.”
And yeah, he planned it that way, sort of. Does it count when it was a plan made by an insane version of him? He knew who Lydia was, or at least, the lineage she belonged to, and the potential that lied there. The results were pretty good; in fact, they were better than he could have ever expected. He could have never predicted everything that would happen, how closely the girl would come to going fully crazy; or all the ways his own state of mind would be affected, but still. And it’s precisely because of all that, all the unknowns, that Peter’s not sure he’d have ever done such a thing if sane.
Regardless, the point remains that thanks to Lydia Martin he was never fully dead.
“And what about that hunter-bitch?” Eli demands, coldly.
“Language,” Noah murmurs quietly, though he isn’t really trying.
He fully understands why Eli’s angry, after all.
“Allison isn’t back,” Stiles’ declaration takes them all by surprise.
“What?!”
Yeah so, true resurrection? As in, truly and wholly bringing someone back from the dead, is next to impossible. You need to have the original body (preferably healed of the damage that killed it), or a substitute with enough of a connection to the one you’re trying to resurrect, to make sure it’ll work. Also, soul magic, real soul magic? It can only be done by the strongest of magic users, and even they can only entreat a soul to come back, they cannot force it.
What’s more, usually such spells must be done before a full moon cycle has passed since the death. As the more time that passes, the harder it is to make it work correctly. And it’s only sort-of guaranteed to work (as in, it will work, unless the dead individual truly does not wish to return) when there are soulmates involved; usually as that gives the dead one a reason to come back, and their soul has a tether to the living already.
The idea that Scott, Lydia, Jackson and Malia could bring back Allison Argent, more than a decade after her death is beyond ridiculous.
“What is she, then?” Cora asks, curious despite herself.
“Homunculus,” Stiles answers half-absently as he finishes the set-up for the first of several rituals he’ll be doing tonight. “What Scott and the others did created a body, nothing more. Steel for the bones, earth for the flesh, the traces of blood both took care of, well, the body’s blood, and it also gave the spell a template, a ‘look’ so-to-speak. Haven’t you wondered why it looked like Allison, or well, an older version of her, but it didn’t look quite right? Well, since they didn’t use the spell in its entirety but a bastardized version the nogitsune created, probably so Lydia or someone else wouldn’t realize what it was they were actually doing, the body wasn’t a perfect replica. Also, it was influenced by the ones who did the spell, people who have grown older since Allison died; who, at least on a subconscious level, expected her to be equal to them…”
“So the body came out looking as if she were the same age as the rest of them,” Peter murmurs slowly as he begins to understand everything Stiles is saying, and not saying. “But it didn’t look fully right, why? Because it wasn’t real aging?”
“Pretty much,” Stiles shrugs. “Now, nobody move for a minute please.”
The pack complies and Stiles does a couple of quick purification rituals, both to clean the place from every trace of the nogitsune, and to ensure there’s nothing else that might affect the rest of the rituals that they plan to do.
Not for the first time in the last day, he marvels at the changes. His magic (his whole body, practically) is almost singing in a way it hasn’t in almost longer than he can remember. With the nogitsune gone, truly gone this time, the stain on his core, on his magic, has finally been allowed to heal. And the one on the nemeton as well. And it shows in the way magic answers to Stiles, in a way it hasn’t since… well, since he went into an ice-bath hoping to save his father…
Stiles cannot help but love and hate the whole thing at the same time. It’s… he loves the feel of his magic, of course he does. He didn’t realize how much magic was a part of him, had always been, until he lost it. Hadn’t realized how great a difference it would be, having it back, until it happened. And yet, knowing that he only has it because of what’s happened, because Derek is gone… Stiles almost cannot stand it.
In the end the only reason he doesn’t close off to it all, is Eli. Because if Stiles can do… well, everything they’re there to do tonight, actually. If he can make things right for the nemeton once and for all, can take that burden off Eli’s shoulders, it just might be worth it. Stiles might not have been able to save Derek, but he’ll make sure his son… their son, will be free, will get to have the life neither of his fathers ever got…
“Why does she remember things?” Noah asks, once they’re all given the all-clear.
“Does she?” Stiles inquires, unsure.
“She knew of the supernatural in general and the Hales in particular,” Peter points out. “Enough to come after my nephew, and Eli.”
“She knew she was a huntress,” Noah adds, for good measure. “And from what I’ve heard, her skills were as good as… before.”
“The basic knowledge of the supernatural, and even the Hales would be easy enough to either fake or transplant, especially with a creature like the nogitsune involved,” Stiles theorizes. “Even the skills could come from there… or even from the blood.” He thinks about something. “You said that she eventually remembered Scott. Did she remember anyone else? Her dad? Lydia? Isaac…?”
“She did seem to remember Christopher,” Peter points out. “Probably Lydia as well…”
“Isaac never came up, I don’t think,” Noah offers.
“His name was never mentioned, no,” Peter confirms.
“Is that important?” Cora inquires, confused.
“You’d think so, considering Allison was dating him at the time of her death,” Stiles points out.
Then again, her last words were for Scott, not for Isaac. Stiles has heard all about what happened that night, and even when she mentioned anyone else in her final moments, her thoughts went to her father, not her boyfriend… Stiles doesn’t know if he’s surprised at all, or not.
Stiles bids everyone form a loose circle around the nemeton while he jumps on top of it. There he conducts one more ritual, this time to cleanse and heal the ley-lines from all the darkness and damage caused by the various dark magics used on them throughout the years, and to ensure that the energy will flow correctly from now on.
Once those rituals are over, he drops to sit cross-legged on top of the stump, giving it some time for the ritual to reach all the way to the end of the nemeton’s roots. Going back to the conversation in the mean-time.
“So, homunculus,” Stiles continues. “A fake body, not a real one. The memories and skills were gained either from the same bastardized spell that created the body, or perhaps even from blood of one or more of those involved in the spell.”
Not like it’d have been hard for more people’s blood to end up in the spell, rather than just Allison’s, considering where they got the dirt from, and that the spell was done in a nemeton known to have been ‘watered’ with the blood of way too many people, most of them innocents.
“The important part in all this, is that a homunculus does not have a soul,” Stiles explains. “Not even a mind of their own. What happened last week was caused by the nogitsune. And afterwards…” He ponders on things for the moment. “I suppose it depends. Option 1) If the homunculus managed to break free from the nogitsune’s control and truly sided with Scott and his pack, perhaps due to the influence of the real Allison’s blood, or someone else’s; then I suppose there’s no reason to worry, and things will sort themselves out in due time. Option 2) If the whole ‘Allison breaking free from the nogitsune’ was staged, then she’s very much a danger to Scott. With or without the fucking fox around. Though either way, homunculi aren’t meant to exist for long. Unless they’re tethered to some very powerful anchor they’ll vanish in seven days. And then there will be nothing but the dirt, steel and blood that it was created from.” He exhales. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, basically.”
“What if it is tethered?” Peter wants to know.
“That’s what we’re here for,” Stiles explains as he gets on his feet slowly, taking deep breaths to center himself, his magic. “Well, among other reasons. The purification and cleansing rituals we just did will ensure not only that the nemeton and the ley-lines are as clean of darkness as we can make them, but they will also ensure that any bindings, spells or other works anyone might have placed on them will be undone.” He exhales slowly, purposefully. “That means no more people that should be dead and survived thanks to the sacrifice of innocents, no more dangerous creatures being imprisoned and hidden until it’s too late…”
And no more cryptic sanctimonious bastards of magic users craving and siphoning power that was never meant for them…
The final ritual is a mix of three different ones; created by Stiles explicitly for their current situation. It begins with Peter, Cora and Eli, as the last of the Hales, repenting for failing as guardians of the territory, and more importantly, of the nemeton. It doesn’t matter if it’s only been until recently that they’ve even learned what their duties to either were supposed to be. They must still repent, if they’re to move on. On that front, Derek’s death, the fact that he sacrificed his life, willingly, on the nemeton, in protection of the territory (and of his pack), helps some. On a metaphysical scale it is seen almost as penance on his part (since he was the last Hale Alpha).
The second part of the ritual has the new Hale Pack claiming the territory, followed immediately by Stiles’ own claiming of the nemeton as its guardian. Securing both the nemeton and the territory once and for all.
The part that worried them most going in was how they were going to make things work when, much as they might call themselves a pack, they don’t actually have an alpha. But Stiles has learned a few things, in the years since leaving Beacon Hills (since finding himself teachers that weren’t self-righteous, annoying bastards incapable of giving straight answers even with lives on the line!). He knows that while alphas are good, while they help make packs stronger, safer, what truly matters is the pack itself. It’s possible for betas to band together and create a pack of their own, to keep each other safe, be one another’s anchor.
In the end an anchor is what a wolf truly needs so as not to lose control. For most it’s the pack as a whole, for others it’s a memory, a feeling, an idea. In very rare cases, the anchor may be a person. Outside of True Mates this isn’t recommended. People can change, and often do; it’s not fair to expect a single person to carry the burden of another’s wellbeing, not even when it is someone they love. Though sometimes it just cannot be helped.
In any case, the point is that there can be a Hale Pack, even without a Hale Alpha. And there is, they are exactly that.
The ritual comes to an end as Stiles slashes both of his palms open with the claws of a past Hale Alpha, letting blood well in them before he turns in a circle, letting drops of blood fall all around him. Once he’s finished three turns (for the three phases of the moon besides the new-moon); he lets himself fall to his knees, twisting his wrists around and slamming his hands, palm down, on the surface of the nemeton, as he lands.
There’s a bright flash of light that only Stiles truly sees, and a moment later he finds himself once again in what looks like a white room with no end, nothing in it but the nemeton (and himself). Stiles is once again in limbo…
“Welcome, Guardian…” Hop calls to him.
xXx
It takes a while, but things do end up alright, eventually. They’re not perfect (how can they possibly be when Derek’s dead? Dead and not coming back, not this time). But at least the territory has been cleansed; the nemeton is no longer calling to dangers and monsters. There’s peace. It cost them way too much, but it was achieved.
Stiles knows there are those who wish he’d do something to change things, to bring Derek back. He was asked straight out by both Eli and Peter (on different occasions) why he didn’t do it. Especially because Peter’s pretty confident that Stiles has both the power and the connection to his nephew, needed to bring him back, truly.
(The fake Allison is gone, she vanished the very same night the pack did their ritual to claim the nemeton. It’s quite possible that Scott would have returned to Beacon Hills demanding she be returned to him, except that never happened, for he died that same night along with Deaton. No one knows what happened exactly, Deaton’s clinic seemed to catch fire somehow, an accident of some kind. Scott apparently was with him when it happened, neither of them managed to make it out…)
Stiles hates having to tell his pack, but especially his son, that he can’t bring Derek. Yes, he fulfills all the requirements: from the power, the knowledge, all the way to the connection to Derek as both his anchor and his mate… And yet that still isn’t enough, not in this case. Not when Derek willingly sacrificed himself.
“He made a choice, and I cannot undo that,” Stiles admits eventually.
“What about time-travel?” Eli pipes in. “I mean, you’re super powerful, aren’t you? Couldn’t you travel back in time and save him?”
“Okay,” Stiles surprises everyone, just for a moment, when he nods; til he adds: “Where to, exactly?”
That question throws them all, until Stiles elaborates:
“Lets see, I could jump back to the moment when Parrish burns,” Stiles suggests. “But then, what if by doing that, by taking Derek out of the equation, that allows the nogitsune to escape? What are the chances you’ll be able to catch him again? What if it kills someone else, or even all of you, everyone in town, before it’s caught?”
There’s also the fact that if the nogitsune had escaped that night, then the stain would have remained, in the nemeton, and in Stiles, and thus he wouldn’t be capable of the kind of magic needed to time-travel, thus creating an insane paradox.
In any case, it’s a moot point, because they all know Derek would never want that, want them to choose him over others, especially not pack; and he’d never forgive them for making such a choice. So no, things will never be perfect, but they’re as alright as they can be.
Still, because he wants everyone to truly understand, Stiles goes through all the possible scenarios with them: what if he went back to earlier that day? To just before the game? Before the nogitsune captured them all? To the night the fake-Allison attacked? To right before the spell to create the homunculus was done? Or even to the night of the attack on Liam and his girlfriend? (Even without counting the terrible paradox, none of the options work).
And then he goes even further back: to the day Scott gave Liam the responsibility of guarding the nogitsune in its prison, the day Isaac and Chris left for Paris and did not take the nogitsune with them, the day they defeated the fox the first time, the night Allison died, the day the pack found out about the nogitsune, the night Stiles gave into the possession…
And of course, the further back they go, the more variables there are, the greater the risks.
“It wouldn’t be right,” Stiles states eventually. “I know… I know how much you want your dad back, kiddo. I want him back just as much, but it just wouldn’t be right to put others at risk, to undo things; to affect so many innocents in ways even all of us put together could never know… What if saving Derek means losing someone else? What if saving him means losing you?” Stiles’ voice breaks. “Your dad would never forgive me if that were to happen. I would never forgive myself!”
So the idea is shelved in the end. And the pack is forced to accept what they’ve lost. To grieve and find a way to move on, eventually.
Stiles has made arrangements with the FBI and he’ll be staying in Beacon Hills unless it’s a matter of life or death and they truly need him (he threatened to quit altogether if they did not accept his terms, and the FBI decided in the end that he’s too useful to be let go entirely. His team supported his choice all the way). So Stiles is staying in Beacon Hills with his son, making sure Eli has a better life than either of his fathers got to.
xXx
Hop contemplates his guardian. His existence in general, and what his actions, his own choices mean. Truth is, Peter and Eli Hale are not the only ones to wonder why Stiles did not try to get his Alpha, his mate, back… Of course the nemeton knows that a mere resurrection spell would have never worked, but it’s not like that was the only option. What Hop did not expect was their guardian’s response to the suggestion of time-travel.
It’s true, is the thing. Going back in time, saving Derek Hale, would have changed things, far beyond the continuation of one life. So many who lived might have died; and yet just as many who died might have lived… all depending on what was changed exactly.
And yet his guardian won’t do it, won’t risk it. Won’t betray the territory, and all in it, like that. In the end, Stiles is too good for that.
But Stiles is not the only one who’s ever thought of time-travel. Hop knows there are others who’ve thought, who have wished they could change things. They’re not good people, selfless people, not like Hop’s guardian. And yet Hop cannot help but think that, given the opportunity, his guardian would ensure things turned out so much better.
And so it happens that one nemeton decides to meddle, and it changes everything…
xXx
For nemeta time is relative. They’re not constrained by it.
So it’s relatively easy for Hop to just… shift their perspective. And just like that, they’re once again watching three teenagers burst out of icy waters and straight into the endless limbo. This time though, Hop turns their attention to Scott McCall, to the boy who, despite gaining so much from becoming a wolf (and taking great advantage of everything the change has given him) always cursed at it all, continuously expressing a desire to have remained human. Hop gives him a nudge, just a tiny one, suggesting that he could get his wish…
Scott McCall watches a slightly younger version of himself look for his inhaler in the preserve, in the middle of the night, come across the upper half of Laura Hale’s body while close, so very close to the nemeton, before stumbling down a hill and eventually being found and bitten by a half-feral Peter Hale. The same scene repeats over and over again, until…
“Is this a dream… or a memory…?” Scott asks seemingly no one in particular. “Is it real?”
Hop gives the boy one tiny nudge more, and then it happens. Older-Scott vanishes, as the younger one gives up the search for his inhaler, running in the opposite direction from the body, the hill and the nemeton, all the while calling for Stiles and his father:
“Stiles! Sheriff! I’m here!”
For a moment it’s as if limbo itself vibrates. Small vibrations at first, and then harder, sharper, until with a mighty crack that only cosmic beings will even notice… the timeline splits.
