Chapter Text
The following Monday, July 11, Stiles met his friends in the changing room at the factory as usual, only this time they were there planning a miniature revolution of their own. However, the first thing Scott and Isaac noted was that Stiles was glowing.
"Wow Stiles, I didn't know you had it in you," said Isaac.
"Excuse me," said Stiles, feigning total ignorance of what Isaac was saying.
"You're in love, and everyone knows it," went Scott, "It's Derek, isn't it?"
He and Isaac giggled mercilessly. Stiles blushed, but he didn't deny anything.
Before they exited the changing room in their coveralls however, Scott briefly pulled Stiles aside and asked him, "Are you sure we should really be doing this?"
"Scott," Stiles replied quietly but firmly, " This job as it is now isn't good for somebody in your medical condition. It could get worse if things don't change. Just imagine how long it'll take before your asthma becomes so severe you won't need to fake an attack. What we're going to do this afternoon is fight to make sure that doesn't happen."
Stiles looked his old buddy in the eye, and there was unspoken understanding. Scott knew that he had no argument against Stiles' wisdom. They took their places in the main part of the factory as the work day began. Lunchtime was as equally talkative as usual, only this time it wasn't only Scott and Isaac that were gushing over Stiles' new romance with Derek. Now, Jackson and Liam were also joining in. As the soon-to-be-Union instigator ducked his head over his tunafish in embarrassment, Scott tapped him on the shoulder.
"Listen buddy," he said, "we all love you and want you to be happy. Derek is a fantastic person just like you, and each of you deserves what you have found in each other."
"Thank you so much you guys," said Stiles, "I hope you'll always be my friends."
"And, we hope you'll be ours," said Liam.
It was nearly 1 PM, T -2 hours before their extradition plans began to take effect. The 5 musketeers resumed their workstations and waited until the 3 PM chime.
=========================
The chime sounded.
At exactly the same time, Scott began convulsing and wheezing.. He ripped his helmet off and fell on the floor, coughing loudly and struggling for breath. Stiles had the impression he really was having an asthmatic attack.
Just as Scott hit the floor, Stiles could hear Ken yelling out that Erica was suffering a seizure. Stiles removed his own helmet and ran over to Chris Argent who wasn't far away, insisting that both Scott and Erica be permitted to leave for the day. Chris shook his head and said by no means was either of them permitted to leave.
"Did you hear that, people?" Stiles yelled, "Scott McCall and Erica Reyes are grievously ill, and our foreman isn't budging to help either of them! They bust their asses the same as the rest of us, and they're physically debilitated! Whattaya say to that?"
En masse, beginning with Brett and Boyd, every laborer deactivated his or her equipment and removed their helmet. Every one of them was glaring at Chris who was too dumbstruck by this sudden demonstration of workers' solidarity to move or speak.
Stiles pushed a 2-story ladder up against the observation window of Gerard Argent's office and began to climb up so swiftly that watching workers thought he was a feline. The old man had just come to the window and begun to open it as his most jealously coveted worker materialized in it. "Explain what you're doing here, Stillinski. Explain why I shouldn't have your own father toss you into a cell at his station."
"Because your workers have demands which will be met, or else you'll have no workers at all," said Stiles. He reached into a pocket of his coveralls and withdrew from it a folded document typed out by himself and Derek the day before. The list of demands on it included a 25% wage increase for every employed laborer, medical benefits, paid sick leave and 2-week vacation time. It also insisted upon the Argent family having the equipment serviced so that incidents like the one which killed the Hales in 1973 would not repeat themselves.
Gerard froze up in the window. "James and Talia Hale. I didn't realize I was ever going to have to hear those names again. I thought that particular incident of happenstance had been totally forgotten about."
"It wasn't happenstance, sir, they died because of you," said Stiles evenly, "They died using the same equipment out here now, and now it looks as though 2 more of your workers might die if they aren't given the help they need, Scott McCall and Erica Reyes."
Gerard sneered at Stiles and, without the remotest betrayal of humanity or concern, crumpled the document with the list of demands and dropped it down the ladder onto the factory floor. His gesture was all the evidence Stiles needed that their employer wasn't going to flex at all. Like a Gladiator, Stiles did an about face on the ladder and slid right down its rails to the floor of the factory. His 4 friends were there to catch him when he landed.
"ONWARD AND UPWARD, EVERYONE!" he shouted, "THE STRIKE BEGINS NOW!"
Without a glance up at the window and their employer, every factory worker at the Argent steel mill threw off their helmets and left through the automatic doors, laughing and cheering. They didn't even bother changing out of their uniforms. Before it was 3:30 PM, the only people remaining were Gerard and his 2 children.
=========================
They all went to the empty lot behind the Morningdale public library. Derek had planned to meet them there and and discuss a next move. For the moment and possibly indefinitely, their plan was to arrive at 9 AM every succeeding workday morning with picket signs and insist on Gerard accepting the terms of the document Stiles and Derek had composed together. The 5 musketeers had come to the realization that Gerard would eventually have to do something if he wanted anyone to work for him again, or else he should close the factory and look for some other way of controlling everything in this little town.
Gerard had ideas of his own.
"Chris, I want you to do something for me," he said to his son later that night, "Stillinsk thinks we can't keep the business in business without him and those other traitors. I've got the perfect pressure point for him though." He looked his son in the eye and went on, " I want you to kill the sheriff."
"What?" Chris Argent jumped out of the chair he was in in total shock, "kill Noah Stillinski? What's the matter with you?"
"Do you want that little varmint to get away with attempting to unionize my workers?" Gerard sneered at his son.
Mentally disarmed, Chris could think of nothing else to say and slumped back in the chair.
"I want you to do it tonight if possible," Gerard said.
Somebody was lurking out of sight in the Argent family foyer.
====================
Within an hour of Gerard telling his son to murder Stiles' father, father and son were eating dinner with Derek in the Stillinski house. They weren't sure how to divulge to the sheriff what had transpired that afternoon. For a moment, Stiles thought he might even try to get away with never telling his father that he had just organized the Argent payroll and led them out on strike.
Suddenly, there was an urgent knock on the door. Noah went to answer it, and in stormed Allison Argent, Chris' daughter. She was the only member of their family not employed in the steel business; she had somehow managed to become an apprentice librarian.
"Allison, what are you doing here?" asked Stiles, "Shouldn't you be with your dad eating dinner?"
"My dad's on his way here now," said Allison with mild hysteria in her voice, "He's on his way to take out your father, Stiles!"
"WHAT?" Everyone shouted at once.
"I overheard my grandpa ordering Dad to kill the sheriff. He thinks you will encourage the workers to go back."
"What is she talking about, Stiles?" asked Noah in alarm, "Did you organize the workers and make them walk out?"
"Don't blame Stiles, Sheriff," insisted Allison, "I wholeheartedly agree with what he and the factory staff have done. They deserve better than they've been getting from Gerard, and your son is to be commended for trying to make it happen."
"But, what can we do?" asked Derek, "If your father is on his way to try to kill Noah - "
"I'm not, Derek," said a voice over Allison's shoulder in the doorway. She whipped around.
"Dad?" Allison said breathlessly.
"I'm not going to carry out my father's wish," said Chris Argent resolutely. He took out his 357 magnum revolver which Gerard had loaded for him and emptied out all the ammunition, including a bullet that happened to be in the chamber. From the pocket on the opposite side of his torso, he drew a switchblade and dropped it next to the pistol and ammo. He looked Stiles in the eye and said, "I'm with you, Stiles Stillinsk. If anyone's going down over the way my father treats the members of his payroll, it will be him - or me."
Stiles moved forward into the foyer of his father's house to shake hands with his foreman.
The sheriff did as his son had done, shaking Chris' hand with vigor. " I suppose this magnificent daughter of yours isn't the only one that reads books," he said, "And when we were students, I thought you never even bothered to open one."
"In some ways, Noah, I was a lot like Derek over here," Chris responded, "always quiet about my potential and not wanting to attract attention. Too bad Victoria wasn't so measured."
"Mom only married you because of Gerard," Allison supplied, "I don't think she ever loved either of us."
"I do love you though, Allison," said Chris, "the way Noah loves Stiles and the way Derek's parents loved him."
The Stillinskis invited Chris and Allison to join them at the dinner table. Although they didn't eat much food, they did accept.
=========================
The following morning, not only did the whole Argent workforce arrive at the entrance to the factory with their picket signs held aloft, but so did every other worker throughout the town of Morningdale employed by Gerard Argent. It would seem that the way Stiles had been motivated by Derek to organize his own colleagues had spread overnight like wildfire to every nook and cranny in the town. They all insisted that Gerard start treating every person under his watch the same way he had treated his own 2 children, or else the town would bury itself. By close of business that day, the old man had agreed to acquiesce.
Stiles was a hero that night. The whole payroll returned en masse with Derek, Chris, Allison and Noah to the pub where they had originally organized the strike, the Telegraph Row Inn. Instead of a concealed corner, they sat in the middle of the pub.
Chris reached over and tapped Stiles on the shoulder. "What are you planning to do now, Stiles?" He asked.
"He's going to do what he's always wanted," said Scott, "He's going to resign his job at the factory and enroll at Carnegie Mellon."
"That's right," Jackson supplied, "Stiles doesn't need to plug into the same dead-end routine as the rest of us, does he Sheriff?"
Sheriff Stillinski was momentarily caught off guard. "Pardon me Jacks?"
However, everyone sat in silence for a moment and permitted the words which had just been said to hang over the captive dinner party.
Noah faced his son. "You know Stiles, your friends are right. You are now at liberty to go to college and study to become a novelist. Do you stoll wish to do it?"
"Absolutely Dad," the stunned Stiles croaked.
"Then, do it," everyone put in.
"You can stay with me at my place if you want."
"Ooh - I want," said Stiles, "The answer is yes."
Everybody cheered.
Upon completion of his degree at Carnegie Mellon University, Derek asked Stiles to marry him. They were married that July (1987) and returned to the town of Morningdale permanently. This time, July 4th truly was a day of independence.