All In – Chapter Three

The first thing he saw was the familiar white ceiling of Beacon Hills Hospital. The smell of hospital grade disinfectant was strong, and there was a steady beeping in the background. By the feel of it he had one of those devices to monitor his pulse attached to his finger, and Stiles found himself automatically looking towards his finger to check.

Which was when he got his first shock. That was not the adult arm that he was used to seeing, nor the long gangly one of his mid to late adolescence. That was a child’s arm, and one that he had not expected to see attached to him ever again.

Stiles looked up from his smaller than anticipated arm to take in the rest of the hospital room. It was one of the rare doubles, a room for two rather than the usual four beds. The other bed was occupied too, a dark haired figure was lying on top of the blanket with his or her back to him. Not an adult, unless the adult was very short. And whoever it was had ears that stuck out rather a lot.

Even as Stiles watched, the figure stirred, sitting up.

“Stiles?”

It was Derek. Not nearly as young as Stiles was – going by his arm anyway – but definitely much younger than he had been the last time Stiles saw him.

“Derek?” Stiles said, and man that was weird, hearing his youthful voice coming out of his mouth again.

Derek got up off the bed and came over to where Stiles was lying. “Thank god you’ve woken up,” he said, and wow, Derek’s voice was way different too. And he was so cute with his big ears and his big teeth. Oh my god, Derek Hale wasn’t the big bad wolf, he was a bunny rabbit.

“How-” Stiles tried to sit up, but gave that up as a bad idea when every muscle in his body protested. He frowned. “Derek, I can’t help but notice that we are far too young to have gone back five years.”

”No,” Derek said rolling his eyes. “Really? What amazing powers of observation you have, Stiles! If only we all had such amazing skills.”

“Don’t be snarky, give it to me straight,” Stiles said, fighting a grin. “Just how far did we come back? And why am I in hospital?”

“Fourteen years,” Derek said succinctly. “We arrived back the same day we left, only fourteen years earlier.”

“And I’m in hospital because?”

“Do you remember that time when a car went out of control outside the movie theatre, in the carpark?” Derek asked.

“Ye-es,” Stiles said slowly. “Vaguely. I might have been hit, but I was pulled out of the way by some guy who was there with his younger sister.”

“Well, this time he was disoriented because he’d just been hurtled through time, and he didn’t get you out of the way quite fast enough,” Derek said, his ears going pink. “You hit your head, and since then they’ve been monitoring you.”

“Oh my god, dude, that was you?” Stiles said, gaping at his saviour. “No one ever told me, just said ‘some guy’. Hang on, this means all my statistics on which of us has saved the other more often and more effectively is completely derailed. Derailed, Derek! No longer accurate! Also, your ears are adorable.”

Derek lifted his hands to cover his ears and scowled.

“Aw, you’re embarrassed. I take it back, it’s not your ears that are adorable, you are adorable!”

Derek flushed even more, before rallying. “I’m adorable? I’m twelve, Stiles. Whereas you… have you worked out how old you are?”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Fourteen years makes me-” he broke off. “I’m seven? I’ve not long turned seven? But that means-”

“Stiles?”

Stiles’ head swivelled towards the door almost of its own volition. He’d almost forgotten that voice, forgotten how warm and safe and loved it made him feel. “Mom?”

“I’m sorry, honey,” Claudia said, “I was going to be here when you woke up, but I promised your father I would eat at least twice a day. How are you feeling, do you feel hurt anywhere?”

“Mom?” Stiles said, all of a sudden feeling like he wanted to cry.

“Oh, honey,” she said, and then she somehow managed to climb up beside him on the narrow hospital bed, gathering him into her arms. “I’m so sorry I left you alone. I never wanted to, you know that right? This time it will be better, I promise you.”

Stiles was unable to hold back his tears any longer, and he spent some time crying on his mother. Part of him was horrified at behaving like such a baby, but the bigger part, the part that had longed to feel his mother’s arms around him just one more time told that other part to shut up and deal.

When he had cried himself out, he lay there against his mother enjoying the stroking of her fingers through his hair, wondering just what had happened to change the plan so drastically.

Then a thought occurred to him, and he levered himself up and around to look wide eyed at Derek. “Derek! If my mom is- here, then that means that your family-”

“Yeah,” said Derek with a small smile. “All of them.”

“Well, where are they then?” Stiles asked looking around in case he’d missed other people in his room the first time he’d looked. Nope, no-one. He looked back at Derek. “Why aren’t you with them?”

“You’ve been out for two days, sweetheart,” Claudia said, still caressing her son’s hair. “Derek has told us the bare bones of what you both did, and why. Even without his explanation, it’s very clear that he has become something I never thought I’d see again, and you, my small ball of terror, have had your maturity and your naming, and I wasn’t there to see it.”

“Mr Trirrel said we could only go back five years, and that I would need my power fully awakened,” Stiles explained hurriedly.

“Who is Mr Trirrel?” Claudia asked, looking from Stiles to Derek and back again.

Derek was sitting on the uncomfortable plastic chair, and avoided Stiles’ eyes.

“Derek, just what have you and haven’t you told them?” Stiles inquired. “Surely Mr Trirrel is a rather large part?”

“I said that the world was dying, and we came back to stop it,” Derek said, risking a glance at Stiles and then staring at the blanket again. “And that you had come into your inheritance, and that apparently I had become something else too. Actually, that last one was pretty self evident.”

“Yeah?” Stiles asked, reaching out and grabbing hold of Derek’s hand.

Derek grimaced. “You know how Mr Trirrel said ‘All will submit’? Well, he was right. Do you have any idea how weird it was when my own mother submitted to me?”

“Ah,” Stiles said. Yeah, that would be weird. “We haven’t exactly planned for this eventuality Derek.”

“There’s something else,” Derek said reluctantly. “You remember them telling us that we were now eternally bound?”

“Ye-es?” Stiles said cautiously.

“What did you think it meant?”

“I haven’t had time to give it a lot of thought. That our fates were now inextricably wound together, I suppose,” Stiles replied. “That we would always have each other? Quite frankly after that first bit my mind was a bit occupied by internal spazzing.”

“Well, one of the things it means, right here and right now, is that we are now bound,” Derek said stoically. “As in, if we get too far away from each other we feel excruciating agony, and there might be involuntary teleportation.”

“Well, shit,” Stiles said feelingly. And then after a moment his eyes widened. “Holy shit! If we can teleport involuntarily, then it makes sense that we can train ourselves to do it voluntarily too!”

“Stiles!” Claudia remonstrated. “Please don’t use language like that! And I don’t care if you are mentally twenty one years old, there are only a few people who know about that and I will not have everyone thinking that your father and I are bad parents just because you’ve developed a potty mouth!”

“Yeah, okay, mom,” Stiles said a bit sheepishly. He’d never sworn in front of his mother before, and to be honest it did feel weird. Kinda sacrilegious. “I’ll try. You might have to remind me.”

“Of course,” she said. “Now, in all of this you still haven’t said who this Mr Trirrel is.”

“Oh yeah,” Stiles said. “Well, he was this dude that me and Derek came across. He’d been kept captive, and we freed him, and he was the one who told us how to make the petition.”

Claudia’s whole body seemed to lose some tension that Stiles hadn’t even been aware it was holding. “You petitioned the Great Ones? Oh, thank heavens.”

“You really told them as little as possible, didn’t you?” Stiles said to Derek, affection outweighing his irritation.

“I’m no good at explaining things,” Derek said with a shrug. “You know that. I told them they’d have to wait until you woke up for the full story.”

“Fair enough,” Stiles said. “I am the brains in this dynamic duo, after all.”

“You’ll be brained if you don’t watch it,” Derek replied, the corner of his mouth twitching.

“Please, not against the steering wheel this time,” Stiles pretended to beg. “Use the wall instead, it hurts less.”

“No promises,” Derek said in his blandest voice, before he caught Stiles’ eyes and chuckled.

“What did you think we’d done?” Stiles asked his mother, who was watching them indulgently.

“There are a number of ways I’ve heard of that people have used to try and influence the past,” Claudia explained. “As far as I’m aware, all of them have ended badly, except for the petition.”

“Is the petition used often?” Stiles asked curiously.

“Only once before in my existence,” Claudia said. “To be more precise, it has only succeeded once before. But who knows how many attempts have been made? That is not for us to know. We were not told why time had been re-ordered, only that it had.”

“But you remember other failed attempts at time travel?” Derek said, leaning forward in his chair almost unconsciously.

“Yes,” Claudia said sadly. She didn’t seem inclined to say any more, which was fair enough.

“Hang on, you never answered my question,” Stiles said suddenly. “Well, you sort of did. If you and I can’t get too far apart, then I get why you’re here and not there, but why isn’t someone with you?”

Derek sighed. “Technically there is,” he said reluctantly. “Mom and Dad have work, and Laura is looking after the younger ones. Since I can’t be at home, Mom assigned me a watcher too, despite saying that she trusts Mrs Stilinski to look after me. Not that I need a watcher. My body might only be twelve but my mind is still twenty six.”

“Who did she punish with that job?” Stiles asked, running through a mental list of all the Hales he knew. “Not-”

“Ah, nephew, your one true love has awoken!” came a familiar voice from the door. “Dare I ask if it required a fairy-tale like devotion?”

Peter fucking Hale. Younger, prettier, saner, but just as annoying.

One look at Derek’s face was enough to fill in the rest. Oh my god, Derek’s serial-murderer glare on his twelve year old face was priceless.

By the look on Claudia and Peter’s faces, they thought so too.

v^v^v^v

By the time Stiles was released from hospital he had come to a greater understanding of the issues Derek had gone through with resurrected!Peter. Because this Peter – a Peter that hadn’t gone insane and lost his pack – was funny and strong and intelligent. He was fairly kind to his younger relatives, and only very occasionally did the sadistic cruel streak that Stiles had come to know so well peek out.

For Stiles it was actually rather easy to differentiate the two Peters. Derek was having a great deal more trouble, not helped by Peter’s habit of gently poking fun at Derek as often as possible.

“Look, dude,” Stiles said to Peter while Derek was down the hall answering the call of nature. “You need to leave it for awhile.”

“You want me to leave? Stiles, I’m hurt!” Peter said with an insincere smile.

“Don’t be a dick,” Stiles said bluntly, ignoring his mother’s sigh from across the room where she was filling out his early discharge forms. “If you love Derek, which I’m pretty sure you do, the best thing to do is let him work through his issues at his own pace. He’s like a hedgehog, all prickly outside and soft vulnerable inside. You keep poking him, and he’ll only curl up tighter and tighter until he might never properly un-curl again.”

“Does my nephew know that you’ve assigned him the traits of a small rodent-like creature that is highly susceptible to disease?” Peter asked, his smile turning into a smirk.

“Not very much that comes out of Stiles’ mouth surprises me anymore,” Derek said as he came back into the room.

“That’s not a dare, is it, Derek?” Stiles asked, enjoying the brief panic that crossed Derek’s face.

“No!” Derek said quickly. “Stiles, please just… no.”

“Okay,” Stiles relented. For now. “But only cause you asked so nicely.”

“Right, that’s it!” Claudia said, signing the last form with a flourish. “I’m going to hand this in, the three of you can make sure Stiles is ready to head out. And boys, I don’t want to hear any fighting, or I may just keep the peach cobbler that I’ll be making tonight to myself. Since John won’t be back from his conference till tomorrow.”

Stiles’ stomach gave a lurch at the mention of his father. It had been both good and bad that his dad wasn’t there immediately after he’d woken up.

On the one hand, he was overjoyed that he had his dad back. On the other, there were all the feelings of loss and guilt that he’d never worked through. As it was, he was vacillating between being deliriously happy to have both parents back again, and crippling guilt that he’d profited from the destruction of his entire planet.

Cause if there was one thing that Stiles knew for sure? This time around he was going to do everything humanly possible – and several things humanly impossible – to make sure they both survived.

Which really made him feel for Derek. After all, if Stiles was feeling this much conflict then what was Derek going through? Derek, who as far as Stiles was aware still took personal responsibility for the deaths of almost his entire family.

Well, they could talk about it when they got home.

v^v^v^v

Claudia Stilinski and Talia Hale had pretty much decided together that as soon as John Stilinski was back home then they would all have a nice sit down and then Stiles and Derek would tell them everything.

By ‘all’ they meant both sets of parents and Peter, who was by now extremely curious as to the reason for Derek’s manner towards him.

On the whole Stiles didn’t disagree with this plan. The one problem he had was Deaton’s continuing existence. Every hour that passed when he wasn’t taken care of was another hour for something to cock things up and interfere, or for Deaton to get wind of what was happening and go to ground.

He didn’t need to be psychic to know that Derek felt exactly the same way. They didn’t even need to talk about it. Scary shit.

And right there was one bonus of this bond thingy, because Stiles was pretty sure that if it hadn’t been physically impossible, Derek would have gone off and taken care of it before Stiles had even woken up. Quite frankly, Stiles was looking forward to watching the evil bastard die all over again.

So Stiles and Derek waited until the household was asleep that night and snuck out the window to take care of things.

If anything, killing Deaton was even easier this time around. They knew where he lived, after all – an isolated house not far from the Vet Clinic – and even though the man had a bunch of protective wards, they were specifically set to protect him from werewolves.

Clearly in the intervening years Deaton had become a lot more knowledgeable. Paranoid too. So Derek slashed his throat while he was sleeping, and they crept back out the same way they’d come in.

And okay, maybe it was rather obvious, since it’s not like there was any way that such a death could be construed as anything but an attack. Given that he had been in his bed in his locked house and then wasn’t eaten.

Stiles considered whether they needed to burn the body the same way they had done last time, but decided against it. The only way to do it without leaving more evidence was to set the whole house on fire, which, considering Derek’s issues, not really an option even if Stiles had been willing to risk such a thing in the middle of summer, on the edge of a forest. Yeah, no.

Besides, one of the things that Stiles had learned from Mr Trirrel was that his mother’s death had been the cause of the instability that allowed people to be resurrected in the first place. With no instability, no resurrection. This should be fine.

From Deaton’s house they made their way to the Vet Clinic.

“Hey, Derek, you said your mother submitted to you,” Stiles began, speaking quietly since Derek would be able to hear him anyway.

Derek groaned. “It was the most awkward moment of my entire life,” he said. “When you were knocked over and hit your head I wanted to follow you to the hospital. Mom and Cora were both there, and it made sense to me that Mom could just drop me off there and take Cora home.”

“Were you not aware that you were only twelve at this point?” Stiles asked curiously.

“It didn’t occur to me,” Derek admitted. “So, we got back to the car, and I was horrified to realise that Mom had no intention of dropping me off at a hospital to wait around for a kid that she’d never heard of before.”

“Right,” Stiles said encouragingly.

“She started driving in the other direction,” Derek said, hunching his shoulders slightly. “And I… growled. She stopped the car to look at me, and I-”

“You…”

“I flashed my eyes at her,” Derek said, sounding resigned. “It wasn’t even on purpose! I mean, I wasn’t thinking about what Mr Trirrel had said, I was just angry that she wasn’t listening.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said with a sigh. “I can see that becoming our catch phrase over the next few years. Getting taken seriously is gonna be a real hassle. So what happened next?”

“She bared her neck and dropped her eyes,” Derek said. “I think she was as shocked as I was.”

“What did she say?” Stiles asked, fascinated. He’d always been curious as to how a well established stable pack would interact, had often wished that he’d had the opportunity when the Hales were still alive.

“I don’t know,” Derek admitted. “That was when the pain started. It got worse and worse, and then all of a sudden I was sitting in the hospital carpark and the pain was gone. I could smell which way you’d been taken, so I just followed after you. I used the payphone in the lobby to call home and tell them where I was, and Mom sent Peter.”

“Dude, that is whack,” Stiles said, glad it wasn’t him in that position. “What are you going to do?”

“What can I do?” Derek asked helplessly. “I don’t want to be in charge of our pack, but if the Alpha defers to me…”

“Maybe you could instruct her to carry on leading the pack as she sees fit,” Stiles suggested. “It will mean you’re on the outside a bit though. Sorry, I know how much you’ve missed them.”

Derek shrugged. “It’s been so long since I had to answer to anyone else other than you, I probably wouldn’t fit in with them anyway.”

“We answer to each other,” Stiles said firmly. He made a face. “God, this seven year old body is weird. We’ve been out for an hour now, and I haven’t thought about having sex with you even once. Well, just that once just now, but that was more along the lines of ‘Why does this walk in the dark feel different than usual?’ than because sex was on the brain.”

“Fuck,” Derek said feelingly.

Stiles looked at him inquiringly.

“Puberty,” Derek said as if that explained everything. And it did, it really did.

“Fuck,” Stiles said, and sighed.

v^v^v^v

One advantage to being back in time was the level of technology they had to deal with. There was no CCTV yet so any monitoring systems would be purely magical, and they would no longer be active with Deaton’s death.

Carefully making sure not to leave any fingerprints, Derek moved the metal filing cabinet again. Once more they made their way down the steps into the basement.

Unlike last time, all the cages were full of live creatures. Since neither Stiles nor Derek knew what to do with most of them, they headed straight to the end of the row where Mr Trirrel sat in his cage, silent and watchful.

It was strange to see it looking a lot less wizened than they were used to. In fact, if it hadn’t been the way he felt to Stiles’ fairly new magical senses he might have walked right past it. The strength the little creature exuded was staggering. Which made sense really, since the other Mr Trirrel had been sucked almost dry over another thirteen years of imprisonment.

Derek reached out to rip the metal door off, but Stiles stopped him.

“We have come to release you,” Stiles said hurriedly, not wanting to be attacked as soon as the door was opened. “Derek and I met you in the future, and you told us how to petition the Great Ones, and now we’ve come back in time and we’re going to let you go.”

Mr Trirrel didn’t answer, but Stiles had spent enough time around it to know that he’d got its attention.

“May I get rid of this door thing now?” Derek asked with sarcastic politeness

“Yes, yes,” Stiles said, giving him the hand wave of permission.

“Thank you so much,” Derek said, and then there was the screech of metal and the door popped free.

Derek didn’t have the full strength of his adult body yet. At this point in his physical development it was highly unlikely that he would have been strong enough to bend bars like the ones in that Hunters longhouse, but luckily these were obviously made of inferior metal, their effectiveness more about what had been bonded to the bars than the metal itself.

It didn’t take long to give Mr Trirrel the gist of things and to receive his agreement to do whatever needed to be done with the rest of the caged creatures.

Derek didn’t need to force open any more cages, as the keys were actually on the wall by the door. Stiles felt a bit sheepish when Mr Trirrel pointed them out, but shrugged it off with a grin.

“Now, we really have to get back,” Derek said, looking anxiously at his watch. “As it is we’ve probably already been missed, and I for one don’t want to have to deal with the results of a search party.”

“This one will speak with you at a later time, child of justice, Lord Of All That Walks,” Mr Trirrel said solemnly.

“Oh my god, is it tattooed on my forehead or something?” Stiles muttered as they let themselves back out of the Clinic.

Derek shrugged. “Do you want a piggy back ride to your house? That way I can run.”

“Yes!” Stiles agreed enthusiastically. God, this was fun.

As Derek had predicted, Claudia and Peter were awake when they got back. Peter smirked at them, but all of Stiles’ attention was on his mother.

“I’m sure that there’s a wonderful explanation for us to wake up to two empty beds,” Claudia said so nicely that chills ran up and down Stiles’ spine.

“There was something that we needed to take care of,” Stiles said when it was clear that Derek was waiting for him to speak up. Which was probably fair, if it had been Talia standing there in a nightgown and a frown then Stiles would leave it to Derek to deal with.

Hell yeah, of course he would. Stiles had met Talia Hale that afternoon, and that was one formidable woman. He had no doubt that she had a strong enough personality to keep any number of werewolves in line. God, if only he could have seen her dealing with Jackson. That would have been satisfying on so many levels. And she would have been brilliant with Erica as well.

Although, given Derek’s wolfy dominance thing, he’d be able to just flash his eyes at her and get her to drop the questions. Maybe Stiles should have a word with Derek, advise him not to use that power unless it was urgent. There was no point in creating more strain in the relationship, not when Derek had just gotten his family back.

“Stiles! Are you even paying attention?”

Whoops.

“Sorry, mom, I guess I’m tired-er than I thought,” Stiles said, and he didn’t need to fake his yawn, fatigue all of a sudden catching up with him.

“We will be talking about this in the morning, young man,” but while his mother’s voice was still stern, it had lost the edge of anger and worry, so that was good.

Stiles and Derek were hustled back up to his bedroom, where Derek had a sleeping bag laid out on the floor beside Stiles’ bed.

Stiles waited until Claudia had kissed them both goodnight – or good morning, whatever – and gone back to the room she shared with John before shuffling over to one side of his bed.

“Come on up,” he said to Derek. “It will be a bit of a squish, but there’s enough room if you want to.”

Two minutes later they were trying to get comfortable. In the end, Derek lay on his back and Stiles curled up mostly on top of Derek.

“Being this small again really blows chunks, dude,” Stiles said sleepily. Derek made a knobbly and strangely shifting mattress, but this was still the most comfortable and relaxed Stiles had been since waking up in his seven year old body.

“Hmmm,” Derek rumbled. “But it’s worth all of the rest of it to have them back, right?”

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed with a smile. “Worth everything.”

v^v^v^v

Stiles had expected the long explanation of how he and Derek had come back in time to be difficult, but as to be expected, explaining the why ended up being much harder. And longer, so much longer.

Luckily the first part of things didn’t even involve them. Stiles and Derek sat together on an oversized chair watching while Claudia, Talia, Peter, and Derek’s father David had the unenviable task of explaining werewolves and whatnot to Stiles’ dad. Claudia was clearly worried about revealing that she was actually an ancient being of power that used to hang around as a tree, but she put on a brave face.

Stiles had the advantage of already knowing how his dad had taken the news of the supernatural world. The whole ancient tree thing was a bit of a wild card, but Stiles had faith in his father, and his father’s love.

John’s eyebrows rose steadily from the start to the finish of the explanation he received. Then he sat in silence for a few moments before speaking. “I always knew that there was something different,” he said with a sigh, before levelling a gentle smile at his wife. “But I love you and trust you, and quite frankly this is less worrying than what I had been thinking.”

Claudia threw herself at John and kissed him, hard and deep, barely missing the table holding the water jug and glasses – thoughtfully requested by Stiles in anticipation of a lot of talking.

Maybe when Stiles really was seven he would have found it gross, but here and now with the memory of the long years of his father’s grief, this was like the best present ever.

“Hang on,” Claudia said, once she’d expressed her relief to her own satisfaction and everyone else’s amusement. “What was it that you had been thinking?”

“Well, the most concerning was when I wondered if you were on the run from a mafia family or something,” John said with a shrug. “Is it really all that important? It didn’t matter to me then and it doesn’t matter to me now. I love you, whoever or whatever you turn out to be.”

That earned him another thorough kissing.

“So, if that’s the teaser, then what’s the main event?” John said after his wife was finished with him. “Since Stiles and Derek are both here, I’m presuming that it involves both of them?”

Talia sighed. “What they have to tell us will sound even more fantastical and unbelievable,” she said, settling on her chair. “Three days ago I became aware that the son I had had breakfast with that morning was not the same as the one driving home with me after the car accident. It was still Derek, was still my son, but no longer the son I knew.”

“The same was true of Stiles,” Claudia said gently. “He is still our son, but he radiates the power of a much older person. I could tell as soon as I saw him that he had achieved the growth I had not expected to see until he was at least three times as old as he is now.”

Here it was, the moment Stiles had been dreading the moment when his father once again looked on him with suspicion. Stiles felt himself shrinking into the couch until Derek pulled him close into his side. The familiar comfort was enough to get Stiles to raise his eyes again, only to see his father staring bemusedly at Derek.

“Stiles and I came back in time fourteen years,” Derek said, directing his cute glare at John. “As far as we’re concerned, this time last week Stiles was twenty one and I was twenty six. At the time that we made our petition we were under the impression that five years was the outside limit of the time that could be re-wound, so finding ourselves here and now is almost as much of a shock to us as it is to you. But regardless, Stiles is still your son, even if he is mentally older than he was last time you saw him.”

“My apologies,” John said to Derek, before turning his eyes onto Stiles. “I didn’t mean to- This is just a lot to take in.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said, his voice only wobbling slightly. “I had it gradually over four or five years, and it still seems a bit unreal. Especially right now.”

“Come here,” John said, and then Stiles was enfolded in his father’s embrace again. God, he hadn’t appreciated this nearly enough the last time he was this size.

When John released him, he clearly expected Stiles to remain sitting with him and his wife, but there was no way that Stiles was going to leave a depressed Derek – who was dreading having to reveal the truth about the fire to his parents – sitting on the chair there all by himself.

Twice already this morning Stiles had seen Talia attempt to offer some comfort to Derek, but the biggest difficulty there was Derek’s giant sized guilt complex. There was no way that he would allow himself to receive comfort from his family when he still held himself directly responsible for them burning alive.

So Stiles went and sat beside Derek, leaning into his warmth and wondering where to start.

In the end, Stiles felt it easier to direct his words at Peter. Peter who was familiar and yet not, Peter who even in his insanity had showed such terrifying intelligence. Peter who was not either the mother or father of Laura, whose dead body was the object of Stiles’ youthful ghoulish curiosity.

Stiles decided that it made sense to tell the story in as much chronological order as possible. So he started by talking about how the guardian spirit that was supposed to keep watch had been captured, and the subsequent cutting down of the tree at the Nemeton.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Claudia said brokenly. “How old where you when this happened?”

“It would have happened in about six months, so I wasn’t eight yet,” Stiles said, pretending not to feel gutted all over again. He sighed, and looked at the ceiling. “With the guardian gone, the tree cut down, and me still too young to assist, my mother got very sick and soon died. The doctors diagnosed her with frontotemporal dementia, and my father and I had no reason to disbelieve that diagnosis.”

There was silence. Talia, David, and Peter, looked very sympathetic, and John was clutching Claudia to him tightly.

Claudia looked devastated. “I left you alone when you were only seven?” she said. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”

“For me it was a long time ago,” Stiles said, trying to ease her distress. “Thirteen and a half years. I missed you every day, but I had some counselling and finally accepted that sometimes bad stuff happens.”

Which was a bit of a lie. Stiles had always blamed himself, but seeing a counsellor had taught him that he needed to hide that better.

Derek was frowning, and Stiles hoped he wasn’t going to bring up the conversation he’d had with Mr Trirrel. Stiles was fully aware that his feelings of guilt were irrational. That didn’t stop him from feeling them, but telling his mum and dad about it right now would only hurt them.

Stiles went on to explain the werewolf/hunter treaty summit, and the events that led to its eventual implosion.

Then came the next difficult part. Stiles clutched Derek’s hand and refused to let him pull it back while he talked about Kate Argent coming to town, about how she had targeted Derek who was only fifteen.

“Hang on, how old did you say this Argent woman was?” John asked sharply.

“Twenty four,” Stiles said grimly.

“What kind of Alpha am I that I didn’t see this happening?” Talia said, sounding rather distraught. “I’m so sorry that I failed you. I can’t believe- I promise I’ll do better, Derek, I promise.”

David and Peter had fallen in behind their Alpha in a flanking stance, reacting to her distress. Stiles was impressed, and spent a moment mourning what could have been.

“It’s not your fault,” Derek said directly to his mother, startled into speech.

“A grown huntress stalks my underage son for months and it’s not my fault?” Talia replied, her eyes flashing red. “It is my fault! My fault, and the fault of every other adult member of the pack. We’re supposed to protect you from threats like this! We let you down, Derek, let you down when you needed us, me most of all. It’s clear as day that she hurt you badly. We should have, I should have, seen what was happening and stopped it.”

“What did she do?” Peter asked, with more gentleness than Stiles had believed him capable of.

Derek was silent, and so Stiles answered for him.

“She seduced him into telling her some of your defences, and then she used that information to set the Hale house on fire with as many people inside as possible.”

Five sharply indrawn breaths.

“She used mountain ash to ensure that no one escaped.”

Peter’s claws emerged, and his eyes flashed as he growled. Talia laid a shaking hand atop one of his to calm him down. David had gone pale, and he leaned into Talia’s other side.

“Derek and Laura weren’t home, and we discovered many years later that Cora wasn’t inside either. Peter tried to get inside to save people, but he was trapped between two barriers. It’s only my personal speculation, but I think that the hunters had some doctored accelerant that they poured over him and set alight.”

This time it was Talia growling. Stiles didn’t feel inclined to ask her to stop, but waited until she had more control of herself anyway.

“Peter was so badly burned they thought he would die. His werewolf healing wasn’t working, and he was in a coma. He was admitted into the hospital, and remained there for the next six years, healing slowly. It’s only my theory, but I think that was when he went insane.”

“Oh god,” Peter said.

Stiles looked at him.

“I know who I am, okay?” Peter said, still sounding sick. “I know my strengths, my weaknesses. If I was insane, and my sister was dead, then there was nothing and no one capable of stopping me without killing me. Please tell me that someone killed me before I could do too much damage.”

“Laura and I considered giving you the release of death,” Derek said, and this was the first that Stiles had heard of it. “In the end we couldn’t. Not with everyone else already dead. If there was even the slimmest hope that you might recover…”

“I understand,” Peter said with a sigh. His penetrating gaze locked onto Stiles.” But your advice to me yesterday makes more sense now.”

Stiles shrugged and got back to telling the story, about Laura becoming the Alpha, and she and Derek heading off to New York, leaving Peter in the hospital.

There was a bit of a time skip after that. Stiles briefly mentioned John’s ascension to Sheriff, and spoke a bit about the friendship he’d formed with Scott. How as two relative outsiders they were drawn together, how Scott’s cheerful optimism steadied some of Stiles’ wild recklessness.

If any of the listeners thought it was strange to spend so much time talking about his best friend, they didn’t say anything.

“Then, unbeknownst to anyone but the nurse who attended to him, Peter Hale came out of his coma,” Stiles said, looking steadily into Peter’s eyes. “I’m not sure of all of the details, Peter was pretty close-mouthed about it even much later, and to be honest I never made much effort to find out.”

“No one did,” Derek added quietly.

“He still had horrific burns covering the majority of his body,” Stiles said with a sigh. “He was already insane, I think. I don’t know if it was the pain, or the isolation, or even if the Hunters did something else. He charmed his nurse, and she not only didn’t report him, she helped him.”

David poked Peter in the ribs, and Talia rolled her eyes.

Talking about how Peter had lured Laura to her death was hard. Actually, explaining everything from there was hard.

When Stiles told them about Scott being bitten, Peter let out a sigh. “One cannot be sure why a crazy person does anything,” he said when everyone looked at him. “But I would hazard a guess that I recognised you for what you were, Stiles, or at the very least your potential, and hoped that by taking Scott into my pack I would get you too.

Stiles let out an involuntary bark of laughter. “Oh, that’s rich. Man, I wish there was some way to rub that in his face. He pretty much treated me like a disposable sidekick from then on, you know? He was stronger and faster, and therefore better. I thought it was a phase, and then when he got over it he’d go back to being my goofy friend, only with some nifty extras.”

“Were you never offered the bite?” Talia asked gently.

“Oh, I was offered it all right,” Stiles said. “And I can’t say I wasn’t tempted. But by then I knew there was a possibility that I would die rather than turn, and there was no way I was going to leave my dad alone.”

“Thanks, kid,” John said. “Which brings up a point, where was I during all of this?”

“Um-” Stiles said, caught unprepared and hoping for a distraction.

John just looked at him. Parental face number six – I am waiting for your explanation and I won’t be distracted, nice try, Stiles, now spill.

“I did it to keep you safe,” Stiles said, speaking rapidly. “I might have maybe done my best to keep everything supernatural from you for as long as possible in the hope that by staying away from the crazy you would live longer. But I’ve realised I was wrong, and I promise that I won’t do it again, okay?”

“We can talk it over later,” John said, and Stiles knew better than to heave a sigh of relief.

But he’d already had this conversation once, it could only be easier to have it with a father who was only hearing second hand about the bad stuff rather than having to witness bits and pieces without the full information.

By the time Stiles had related Peter Hale’s death, everyone was looking a bit shell-shocked.

To Stiles’ pleasure, the majority of John’s ire was focused in the exact same direction as his. “Do you mean to tell me that these ‘Hunters’ think that they can go around hunting people, and that the law doesn’t apply to them?” he said, furious. “It’s like the Ku Klux Klan all over again.”

“They think they’re performing a service,” Talia shrugged. “At least, the good ones do. There have always been Hunters in one form or another. Theoretically there’s a code which forbids the hunting of innocents, but no one polices them and there doesn’t seem to be any punishment for those who act outside the code. Retaliation only makes it worse.”

Stiles couldn’t help beaming at his father. “We can talk about all of that later, for now I’m at the part where Derek has just become the Alpha, and Scott has thrown a wobbly because he wanted to be human again.”

“That old myth!” Talia exclaimed. “Where on earth did he get that idea?”

“I needed his help,” Derek said sheepishly. “He was more concerned with getting into Allison Argent’s pants, so I wanted to motivate him. I wouldn’t have said it if I’d known what a pain he would be about it. And to be fair, I presented it as a myth. It’s not my fault he decided that since he wanted it to be true then it must be.”

“Didn’t anyone correct him?” Talia said, after a censorious look at her son. “I thought you said he was working at the Vet Clinic, surely Deaton said something?”

“Nope,” Stiles said, popping the ‘p’. “Nothing that stopped Scott believing it, at any rate. Anyway, the next thing that happened was Lydia waking up.”

When he got to the bit where Peter was resurrected, Claudia started shaking her head. “There’s more to that story than you know, Stiles. I’m not sure what it is, but what you’ve described is impossible. Don’t worry about it for now, I’ll think on it for a while.”

Stiles shrugged, and carried on. He tried to gloss over Derek’s problems as an Alpha, but Derek wouldn’t let him.

“It was a mess,” Derek admitted readily, eyes on the floor. “I wasn’t ready to be an Alpha, and I kept expecting newly bitten teenagers to understand what being a wolf, being a Beta was about.”

“Well, you appeared to be significantly better at it than I was,” Peter remarked consolingly.

“Than he was,” Stiles corrected. “You and the Peter Hale that I knew before coming back in time may have shared a face and a lot of memories, but for the rest… his actions are nothing to do with you.”

“You’re very kind,” Peter murmured.

“Not really,” Stiles said. “I’m tactless, and blunt, and I tend to think the worst of people. So when I say that I blame all of your post-fire actions on the Hunters that caused your insanity, then I mean it. And believe me, I’ve thought about it.”

“I’m not sure I agree,” Peter said with a shrug, “but I’ll take it.”

“Do you blame Derek for the fire?” Stiles asked point blank. “Any of you? Anyone here? Show of hands please. If you think the fire was Derek’s fault, put your hand up.”

No one moved. Derek had closed his eyes tight, his whole body curled in on itself.

“Derek, I want you to look around,” Stiles said.

Derek just shook his head. “Stiles- no, I can’t.”

“You need to look, Derek,” Stiles commanded, his voice steely. “I need you to see that no one blames you. I know that it won’t change how you feel, but it’s an important first step. These are the people with the most reason to hate you, if it was your fault. Look at them.”

Derek reluctantly looked up and around, and his face crumpled as he took in the expressions of those around him, as he looked his mother in the eye for the first time since Stiles had told everyone about the fire.

Stiles’ heart ached, and he gripped Derek’s hand tightly. “You don’t have to stay away, Derek. They love you, they want you, and they don’t blame you at all.”

“Can we carry on please?” Derek said a little desperately. “We were at the kanima, weren’t we?”

“Kanima?” Peter said, straightening up again.

More explanations. Stiles supposed it was lucky that he was used to talking so much, otherwise he might be hoarse by now.

Surprisingly everyone managed to keep their comments to themselves, even when Stiles reluctantly told them of how he was abducted by Gerard Argent and worked over in the basement.

John Stilinski looked like he was one step away from getting his gun and going after Gerard Argent right then and there, but his wife’s hand in his managed to calm him down, although he glowered again when Stiles mentioned his lie about the opposing team.

By this time, Stiles was skipping over anything that he didn’t think was relevant to where they were now. Talia looked like she was crushing David’s hand when Stiles brought Cora into things, and when Stiles told them about Derek giving up his Alpha spark to save her life, everyone in the room heard the crack of bones breaking.

“Sorry, love,” Talia said apologetically to her husband.

“That’s okay,” he replied with the ghost of a grin. “Hazards of being mated to an Alpha. If I was stronger it would probably be your hand healing right now.”

“Carry on, Stiles,” Talia instructed. “I can’t believe that Deucalion could turn into such a monster. He has always been so level-headed. And what the hell is Deaton up to? He’s given you almost no help at all, what kind of behaviour is that for an Emissary? I’m not sure I should appoint him after all!”

Stiles and Derek exchanged glances.

There was a complicated eyebrow discussion, before Stiles said cautiously, “I’m not sure he’s in a fit state to be anyone’s Emissary right at the moment. But we’ll get to that later.”

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with what the two of you were up to last night, would it?” Claudia asked knowingly.

“If it is, you’ll find out later,” Stiles said cheekily. “Now, where was I…”

“Derek isn’t an Alpha anymore,” Talia said, looking proudly over at her son.

Derek looked both delighted and terrified in equal measure, so Stiles took a drink of water before continuing.

There wasn’t all that much left to tell really. Hearing how Scott became a True Alpha, and the defeat of the Darach made Talia, Peter, and Claudia all frown, but Stiles refused to let anyone interrupt him.

He talked about going away to University, his worries for his father and the pack, and about what he’d found when he came back for that first Christmas.

“That does it,” Peter said, leaping to his feet with his eyes flashing. “I don’t know how he’s managed to fool us into thinking he’s a Druid, but something is seriously wrong with Deaton, and we need to find out what it is.”

“Sit down,” Derek said. “We’re not finished yet.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, boy!” Peter said angrily as he loomed over them both, using his height as an intimidation tactic.

Derek just flashed his eyes. “Sit. Down.”

Peter sat down, right there on the floor, looking rather astonished.

Stiles felt the inappropriate laughter well up, and did his best to stifle it. Unsuccessfully, it turned out, and he turned his face into Derek’s arm to hide his snorting laughter.

“Do I even want to know?” Derek said with a sigh.

Stiles sputtered, but couldn’t get out a proper sentence. “Sit! Stay!” he said, before howling with glee. Eventually he calmed down enough to speak again. “Oh my god, Derek, that is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen! Imagine doing that to Jackson! Or, hey, Deucalion and Kali! Can you see the looks on their faces?”

Derek tried to hide his smile, but Stiles was used to interpreting even the smallest of expressions. What Derek’s face looked like might be different, but the way he used it was not.

“I needed that,” Stiles admitted. He smiled at Peter who was looking a bit offended. “I understand your feelings about Deaton. I shared them, and I was so worried about what he and Scott and Chris had done that I convinced my dad to pack up, and we moved to Canada.”

Well, going by the faces around him, that had been a surprise.

“What?” Stiles asked. “I had been doing my best for Scott ever since he’d been bitten, but he was constantly blowing me off, leaving me hanging, disregarding my contributions, negating my importance because I was only a normal human. What he did with Gerard and the Furies was the final straw.”

“We’re not arguing with your decision to break with Scott,” Talia said gently. “I’m amazed that you stuck it out for as long as you did.”

“I’m stupidly loyal, I suppose,” Stiles said with a touch of the bitterness he still felt about how he’d let Scott use him colouring his voice. “I should have done something sooner, made a stand or something. The only reason that Scott was an Alpha in the first place was because I was constantly taking his side.”

Claudia was nodding sympathetically, while Talia, David, and Peter all looked intrigued.

“You didn’t know,” Derek said calmly.

“That shouldn’t matter!” Stiles said. “There were so many times when I agreed with you but went with Scott. If I’d followed my own inclination, maybe none of the rest of it would have happened! But instead I supported Scott, who used and abused my trust again and again. You were the one who deserved my trust, Derek. You were the one always saving my life when Scott left me hanging in the wind to stare longingly into Allison’s window.”

“Your loyalty is what first drew me to you,” Derek admitted. “I knew I could trust it, even if I pretended not to trust you. You gave me your trust too, often, and you don’t give your trust out willy-nilly. The issue here was the level of trust you gave Scott, someone you had known most of your life. He needed your help, and you gave it to him unstintingly. His betrayal of that trust is not your fault.”

“Feels like it is,” Stiles muttered.

“You learned from it though, didn’t you?” Derek asked, eyebrows up expectantly. “I don’t think you will ever trust that blindly again.”

“No,” Stiles admitted. “Not even you. And you have earned my trust a thousand times more than Scott ever did.”

“I don’t trust blindly either,” Derek said with a shrug.

“So, you tell me that just because Scott took advantage of my trust and did bad things, that the fact that I trusted him doesn’t make what he did my fault,” Stiles said slowly.

“That’s right,” Derek agreed.

“Let’s change some words around in that sentence then, shall we?” Stiles said, holding Derek’s gaze. “Just because Kate took advantage of your trust and did bad things, the fact that you trusted her doesn’t make what she did your fault.”

Derek looked like he’d been slapped.

“I don’t expect you to answer, but I do want you to think about that,” Stiles said quietly. “If you are to blame, then so am I.” He turned back towards their waiting family. “Right. Canada.”

“You grew up so well, my Star,” Claudia said proudly.

Stiles felt his face grow hot. “We hadn’t been in Canada for very long when the first case of zombie-ism made headlines around the world,” he said, focussing back on Peter.

From there the rest of the story didn’t take very long. Stiles glossed over what had happened to John, just saying that he’d been infected and chose to end things rather than become a danger.

Before any questions could be asked, Stiles moved right on to the collapse of the zombies about a month later, and the strange weather following.

The return to Beacon Hills and finding that Hunters had built on Hale land was enough to re-direct everyone’s attention away from John’s death. When Stiles mentioned finding Scott’s dead body, both Peter and Claudia gave signs of comprehension.

Stiles rather relished telling them about killing Deaton. “The one thing I’m still confused about was the silver dribbled all over the floor,” he said when the congratulations stopped. “What on earth was that about?”

“That wasn’t silver,” Derek said. “I thought you knew.”

“Well then, what was it?” Stiles asked.

“Mercury,” Derek said. “Quicksilver. Most magic slides off it, so if we’d wanted to hit him with a spell we would have needed to be inside the circle.”

“But why-” Stiles stopped himself, rolling his eyes. “No, never mind, I get it. He was worried that I’d turned into the same sort of mage that he was. That was probably why he didn’t try to incinerate me with a fireball or something as soon as I walked in. I had wondered about that, why he didn’t fire first. It’s what I would have done.”

“Don’t forget that he seemed quite keen to do a standard villainous monologue,” Derek reminded him.

“That’s true,” Stiles agreed. “Hey, I wonder if pop-culture has influenced the way evil villains behave? Did they always monologue, or are they as brainwashed as the majority of the masses and do it because it’s expected of them? In fact, I wonder how many evil villains take up villainy solely so that they can have that monologue moment?”

“You’re suggesting that an evil villain is just an attention seeker on steroids?” Peter asked with dark amusement.

“If the shoe fits,” Stiles said with a shrug.

“Regardless of the size and shape of shoes, we’re straying from the point,” Claudia interjected. “So, Deaton is dead. Well done! Continue, please.”

“Derek moved the metal cabinet, and we went through the door behind it,” Stiles said, watching the Hales for a reaction.

Sure enough, all three of them sat up straighter or leaned forward with increased interest.

“I’ve always wanted to know what was behind there,” Peter said, throwing a glance at his older sister. “Someone wouldn’t let me break in and find out. ‘There has to be trust, Peter!’” he said in a rather good impression of Talia. “’He is allowed his secrets from us, just as we have secrets from him!’”

Talia growled, but it was a playful noise, and Peter growled back.

“Probably not a great idea to have gone down there while Deaton was still alive anyway,” Stiles said, over the competing growls in the brother/sister standoff. “It’s actually lucky for us that we killed him before going investigating. If he’d not been in and we’d gone down there without killing him, we would have ended up as trapped as the dude we found there.”

“I take it this is where Mr Trirrel comes in?” Claudia asked encouragingly.

“Yep,” Stiles replied. “Mr Trirrel isn’t its real name, of course. I mainly called it that ’cause we didn’t have any other name for it, since it didn’t want to share. It looked like a cross between a tree and a squirrel, and it was about two feet high, and looked old and shrivelled.”

“The Guardian?” Claudia asked, horrified. “Mr Trirrel was the Guardian? Deaton held it captive all that time?”

“Yes,” Stiles said simply. “He’d been siphoning off its power and using it as his own for the previous twenty years or so, and it was its power that made him believable as a Druid.”

Claudia huddled into John’s embrace, and shuddered all over.

Stiles explained how they’d released Mr Trirrel, and what they’d subsequently learnt.

“What does Lord Of All That Walks mean?” Talia asked intently.

“We’re actually still learning what it means,” Stiles responded. “Mom will probably be able to help us with that, but for right now it’s less important than what we found in amongst Deaton’s papers.”

Cue discussion about Scott and his final swansong cock up, truly his biggest yet.

“Not only that, but what did he think he was doing, leaving his Beta alone to become feral?” Talia was fuming. “How could he have done it?”

Stiles stared. “Are you more pissed off about him leaving Isaac behind than you are about him killing the planet?” he asked incredulously.

“Killing the planet was an accident,” Talia said, still frowning. “It was a stupid accident, granted, but I’m sure that the end result wasn’t his intention. What he did to Isaac, though, that was deliberate. He had a duty to his Beta, and he ignored that in order to do what he wanted to. That tells me everything I need to know about his character.”

“Scott liked the perks of being a werewolf, but took none of the responsibilities,” Stiles said with a sigh. “I recognised that long before I eventually cut ties with him.”

“How will you handle him now?” Derek asked neutrally.

“I won’t,” Stiles shrugged. “There isn’t going to be a friendship this time around. There never would have been, regardless of how I felt about him. He’s seven years old, Derek, and I’m twenty one. How could any kind of friendship work?”

Derek’s body lost some of the tension it had been holding, and Stiles had to suppress a sigh. The way he’d continually sided with Scott over the years had affected Derek worse than he’d thought. It was something they’d need to work on.

Well, they had time. So much time.

“I want to hear about your maturity,” Claudia said, interrupting his train of thought. “Your naming as well.”

“Weellll,” Stiles said slowly before pausing to consider how best not to alienate his new in-laws. “The thing is that Mr Trirrel made a big deal about names being important,” he said reluctantly. “And the truth is that there are three people in this room who I have never even met before. Except for Peter, of course. In a way. Not a way that would be conducive to me sharing stuff that might leave me vulnerable though.”

Claudia rolled her eyes. “You have Derek here, Stiles. He can command them not to reveal what you tell them, and they won’t.”

“He can?” Stiles said, looking at Derek who seemed as surprised as he was. “They won’t?”

“I can see that there is a lot you both still need to know,” Claudia said with a determined glint in her eye. “Well, I suppose I have plenty of time to teach you both now.”

“I thought we needed to figure out what to do with Deaton,” John asked. He eyed Stiles and Derek. “Or has that already been taken care of? I remember something being said about you both sneaking out last night.”

“We couldn’t risk him getting spooked,” Stiles said unrepentantly. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves. So, on my birthday I went through my maturity, and as my nature was revealed I was gifted with my true-name, which is Sprawiedliwość na wszystkie.”

“I don’t know about anyone else,” Peter said into the silence. “But I have no idea what you said or what that means.”

“I think it was in Polish, as the name my mother gave me is Polish,” Stiles said with a grin. “The translation is basically ‘Justice for All’.”

“Perfect,” breathed Claudia as she looked at Stiles proudly. “Now that you’ve said it, I can see it. Do you know how long it’s been since a true Justice walked the land? I never dreamed of such a thing for you.”

“What were you expecting?” Stiles asked curiously.

“There’s no guarantee that a child of earth will be gifted with anything, beyond a certain affinity with growing things,” Claudia said, her eyes still shining with joy. “For you to have been named a Justice, you must have truly impressed the Watchers.”

“Stiles has always been impressive,” Derek said when Stiles felt unable to respond.

“Mr Trirrel made it sound as if my being gifted was assured,” Stiles said, feeling a little bit uncertain. He wasn’t that special, surely?

“Mr Trirrel is one of the Watchers,” Claudia said with twinkle in her eye. “He would have had a fair idea.”

Stiles gaped at her.

“Close your mouth, love, you look like a fish,” his mother said. “Now, what happened after that?”

Stiles related Mr Trirrel’s last blessing, and then it was time to talk about the petition they had made.

“Eternal servitude?” It was Talia who spoke, but Talia, David and John all looked horrified. Peter looked speculative, and Claudia was nodding her head.

“We were asking a pretty big favour,” Stiles said with a shrug. “We always knew there would be a price. We’d already given our lives just to be able to make the petition, so what else was left?”

“But…”

“It probably hasn’t fully sunk in yet,” Stiles admitted, leaning on Derek. “But then I’m not sure that this isn’t some elaborate dream, and I’ll wake up and we’ll still be stuck alone after the zombie apocalypse. Also, even though I know I’ll lose everyone again, I’ll always have Derek and he’ll always have me. It could be worse.”

“I must say that the two of you did rather go to extremes to be able to elope,” Claudia said reprovingly, although her eyes were laughing.

“It wasn’t-”

“We didn’t-”

Stiles and Derek went to speak at the same time, before Stiles saw how amused Claudia was and rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, very funny.”

“So, what did happen to Deaton?” John asked in the warm silence that followed Stiles last words.

“We paid him a visit,” Stiles said evasively. “Then we went and freed Mr Trirrel again.”

John frowned.

“I know that what we did wasn’t lawful,” Stiles told his father earnestly, willing him to understand. “The truth is that there was nothing the law could do. But he had imprisoned and was torturing at least one sentient creature, maybe more. It might not have been lawful, but it was justice.”

“I know,” John admitted. “I’ve given my life’s service to the law, and I’m aware that doesn’t necessarily mean justice. I don’t disagree with you on a personal level, but it might take a while to reconcile things with my professional side.”

“Just think of him as outside your jurisdiction,” Stiles suggested. “I can’t promise I won’t do it again, but I can promise that I will only take a life in order to save others.”

“It will take some getting used to,” John repeated with a smile. “But I’m pretty sure I’m up to it.”

“Wonderful!” Claudia said enthusiastically. “Now, I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m starving. Who’s up for lunch?”

v^v^v^v

After lunch there was a bit of discussion as to how things would proceed. Derek followed Claudia’s instructions on how to ensure that Stiles true-name would never be repeated by the werewolves.

“I’m not sure you had anything to be worried about,” David said with a wry grin. “I have no idea how to pronounce that mish-mash of syllables that came out of your mouth. However, if there’s one thing a wolf-pack can understand is the importance of secrecy and safety, so I’m happy to do whatever you need me to do so that you’re comfortable with our knowledge.”

Once that was done, Stiles mentioned something that he’d been thinking about all day. “I think it would be best for me to be home-schooled from now on,” he said seriously. “Derek too, probably. The truth is that we both know everything that would be taught in school, and if I have to sit through classes again I will go nuts. And that would be a bad thing for everyone.”

Derek was nodding, and so was everyone else. Stiles had expected that to be a lot harder.

“While I’m home I can work part time,” he said, forging ahead while everyone seemed in an agreeable mood. “We can set up a business and I’ll do most of my work online. Just by virtue of being from fourteen years in the future, I have a lot of skills and knowledge that will work to our advantage.”

John was frowning, so Stiles turned his best beseeching eyes on his mother. That ploy didn’t always work, but she must have agreed with him this time, cause she gave him the little nod that meant that she’d work on it.

“Don’t think I didn’t see that little exchange,” John said dryly. “If you think you were being subtle you have another thing coming. I’m not fond of the idea of you working so young, Stiles, but we can discuss it as a family later. What I really want to think about is how we’re going to handle things when these ‘Hunters’ come to town.”

“I agree,” Talia nodded. “There isn’t any great urgency to that though, so I suggest that we turn it over in our heads for a couple of days, and meet again to discuss what we’ve come up with.”

Everyone nodded. Stiles thought back nostalgically to how he was used to meetings with werewolves going. All in all there had been much less growling than he’d expected, and no threats of death by claws or teeth? Which begs the thought, where on earth did Derek pick up such bad habits?

“I’d like to test out the range that Stiles and Derek can be away from each other,” Peter said from where he was leaning against the wall, coffee mug in hand. “If we want to fly under the radar as much as possible, it would be better if they didn’t have to be attached at the hip. On the other hand, involuntary teleportation is not particularly conducive to remaining incognito either.”

There was more nodding from the parents. Stiles had to quell his reflexive response, which was to grab hold of Derek and never let him go. He didn’t want to be separated from his bond-mate.

Derek sighed. “We should probably do it,” he said reluctantly to Stiles. “It’s better to find out in a controlled environment than to have something happen accidentally.”

“I know that, Derek,” Stiles said petulantly. “I just don’t feel comfortable letting you out of my sight. And to be perfectly honest, I’m not looking forward to that excruciating pain that you mentioned yesterday, either.”

“You might not feel it,” Derek suggested half-heartedly.

“Or, I might feel it twice as much as you, and I just didn’t notice because the other day when it happened I was unconscious,” Stiles returned.

“You might find that it’s a bit different with Stiles awake,” Claudia interjected. “Also, if Derek isn’t being taken away against his will, that should have some bearing on things as well.”

“Peter, are you okay to do this testing with Derek?” Talia asked. “David and I really need to get back to work, and then tonight we can have a family meeting where we can let the rest of the pack know what’s going on.”

“Can I come?” Stiles asked excitedly. Finally, his chance to see a stable pack in action! Well, not action, but interacting, anyway.

“You might need to,” Talia said dryly, before turning her smile on Claudia and John. “You two are both welcome as well, of course.”

“We would be honoured,” Claudia said with an inclination of her head.

Fifteen minutes later, it was just Stiles and his mother in the house. John had reluctantly headed to the station for a couple of hours to get his paperwork sorted out, and Peter and Derek were driving away for the proximity test.

“You missed out part of your story, you know,” Claudia said lightly as she sat down with Stiles to wait.

“I did?” Stiles said, wondering which part she was referring to. How would she know, anyway?

“When did you and Derek fall in love?” Claudia prompted.

“Derek and I aren’t in love,” Stiles said, his stomach doing a nose dive as he realised he was going to have to verbalise something he’d been hoping to avoid thinking about.

“Pull the other one, it’s got bells on,” Claudia said with a snort. “I’m your mother, remember? Are you going to sit there and tell me you’re not in love with Derek Hale?”

“No, of course not,” Stiles said with a sigh, glad that Derek was out of earshot. “Of course I’m in love with him, I’ve been teetering on the edge of it since I was sixteen, and finding out he was still alive, spending all that time with him… well, it was a bit of a foregone conclusion really. He’s not in love with me though.”

Claudia gave him a look.

“Oh, he probably loves me in his way,” Stiles tried to explain. “We had to be everything for each other after Dad died. We trust each other, hell, we’re bound together. But he didn’t fall in love with me. We just sort of… ended up together.”

“Oh, Stiles,” Claudia said, running her fingers through his hair again. “So observant and yet so very blind. Of course he’s in love with you. Even if I discounted the evidence of my own eyes, there are the Great Ones to consider.”

“They bound us together because we professed our loyalty to each other,” Stiles said, wondering where she was going with this.

“The Great Ones don’t just bind souls together willy-nilly,” she said exasperatedly. “You got married on a cosmic scale, Stiles. You are bound together for eternity, and you don’t seem to mind at all.”

“Of course not,” Stiles said, staring at her. “I love him, there is no one else I’d rather be eternally bound to.”

“Yes, the point I’m trying to make is that Derek doesn’t seem to mind either,” Claudia pointed out.

Stiles fiddled with a pen, wondering if she could be right. Could Derek really be as in love with him as he was with Derek? It seemed unlikely, after all Derek was so far out of Stiles’ league it just wasn’t funny. It had taken the zombie apocalypse to make him see Stiles as an acceptable bed partner.

A memory flashed through his brain, of Derek explaining that Stiles had been underage and therefore off limits.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t just the zombie apocalypse. But there was a big difference between wanting to play hide the sausage and deep abiding love. Just because Derek had wanted one, didn’t mean that he necessarily wanted the other.

Except that it had been Derek who crossed half of the United States of America chasing the bond he’d already had with Stiles. Maybe Derek thought Stiles already knew?

Shit. He had no way of knowing for sure unless he asked, and now they were in these immature bodies he couldn’t even use sex as a relaxant first.

“I’m going to have to talk to him,” Stiles said bleakly out loud to his mother. “If he is in love with me, then he probably thinks I already know. In which case the only reason for me to not say anything is if I don’t feel the same way.”

“Just be honest, sweetheart,” Claudia said, patting him on the shoulder. “I’ll distract Peter.”

“You mean I have to do it now?” Stiles asked, feeling panicked.

“If you leave it then you’ll start over-thinking things again,” Claudia replied. “Just bite the bullet Stiles.” She winked at him. “I bet he grew up nice, didn’t he?”

“Oh god yes,” Stiles said emphatically. “You can’t believe how annoyed I am that I’ll have to wait nearly eleven years to get a piece of that action again. I mean, right now I don’t care all that much, but I’m pretty sure that won’t be the case in five years’ time.”

“You have eternity,” Claudia said dryly. “I think you can wait a decade. Some of us went for eons without sex, you know.”

“Are you sure about that?” Stiles asked, eyebrows raised. “I know all about how plants procreate, you know. Are you telling me that your tree never flowered?”

“That is a terrible euphemism, and I never want to hear it ever again,” Derek said from behind them, making Stiles jump.

Claudia didn’t even twitch, and Stiles sent her a censorious look before wondering how long Derek had been standing there.

“I’ll just leave the two of you alone,” Claudia said in the most unsubtle way possible. “I’ll go wait on the porch for Peter.”

“What was that about?” Derek asked when she’d closed the door behind her.

“She brought up something that we need to talk about,” Stiles said heavily. “She asked when we’d fallen in love.”

Because he was watching it, he caught the minute flinch Derek gave.

Stiles raised his head, squared his shoulders, and continued. “I told her that I was in love with you, but that I didn’t think you were in love with me.”

Derek’s mouth dropped open, his eyes went wide and defenceless.

“She told me I was being ridiculous. And since we’re going to be together forever, it’s probably best that we know where we stand.”

“Of course I’m in love with you,” Derek said a grin growing on his face. “Oh god, I feel like some kind of pervert. You only look seven years old!”

“Yeah I know,” Stiles agreed, his heart feeling full to bursting. “I was just lamenting to mom that it would be over a decade before I could climb you again.”

“You were talking about sex with your mother?” Derek asked, looking taken aback.

Stiles shrugged.

“Well, at least you’ll be seeing action in your teens,” Derek said with a sigh. “I’ll be twenty three before I get laid again.”

“Oh,” Stiles said awkwardly. “You don’t have to wait, you know.”

“Yes I do,” Derek corrected him. “We’re bound together, remember? And why would I want to have sex with anyone else when I’m in love with you anyway?”

“I don’t know?” Stiles said helplessly. “I just didn’t want to trap you.”

“You didn’t trap me, Stiles,” Derek said fondly. “You were the one who set me free. Now come on, we’ve got years to talk about this. Peter will be back any moment now, and I don’t know about you but I’d prefer not to have an audience for this.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said with a smile. “Okay. So how far did you get? How did the pain compare to last time?”

As they sat back on the couch, talking over the experiment that had been running, Stiles felt a warm glow of contentment envelop him.

Right now he had almost everything he’d ever wanted and in the future there would also be scorchingly hot sex, making life complete. Stiles was going to fight for that future, a future where he’d have his parents and Derek with everything in him.

Everyone else had better look out.

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