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"How do you not have any baggage?" Stiles asked the man beside him.
"I have plenty of baggage," Derek deadpanned as he looked at the gate numbers, looking for 38C.
Stiles rolled his eyes and said, "You know what I mean."
"I have clothes at the loft," Derek said.
"Oh," Stiles said. "Are you sure? Because we sort of didn't think you were coming back, so I think they got donated to the animal shelter."
Derek, who'd turned when Stiles first started talking and tensed up, relaxed and even gave him a ghost of a smile. "Dog jokes," he said, "so original."
Stiles laughed at him and said, "I wouldn't want to disappoint you."
"Too late," Derek said in his deadpan delivery and pointed out the gate they wanted.
Stiles shifted direction towards the counter, the flight was already boarding, but Derek had sprung for first-class for both of them, saying he was already going to be miserable with the altitude and people, he refused to be more uncomfortable.
Stiles had been responsible for arranging a ride from the airport, and he'd almost failed. His dad hadn't answered, Scott hadn't answered, Lydia hadn't answered... he'd even tried Malia, who also hadn't answered.
He'd gotten more and more worried as he went down the list of contacts in Beacon Hills. No Jordan, no Liam, even no Mason. He had started to panic a bit at that point, since he couldn't imagine a world where no one was answering or responding to him, and he finally clicked on the last name he could think of.
Theo Raeken.
Who hadn't even had the good manners to stay in the supernatural hell they'd sent him to.
Theo answered and gave Stiles a breakdown of what he knew from the edges of the pack.
Stiles stared at the planes outside the windows, the slight distortions from the heat making them waver and lending it all a slight hint of unreality.
"Stiles?" Theo said on the phone, his voice tiny and odd-sounding.
"I'm getting on a plane," Stiles said, "in just a few minutes. I've got a flight change in San Francisco and then I'll be home, can you meet me at the airport at six this evening?" He wasn't sure why he didn't mention Derek. No. That was a lie, he did. He didn't trust Theo, didn't trust this wasn't another betrayal somehow, and Theo couldn't plan for a Derek he didn't know about.
"Stiles I—”
"Yes or no Theo?" Stiles said.
"Yeah," Theo said, "but Scott's going to kill me."
"I think both of us know that I'm the one you need to really worry about," Stiles said.
Theo half laughed and hung up, just as Derek headed back to him.
"Is everything okay?" Derek asked quietly.
"No one's answering," Stiles said, "except Theo."
"The one you said was basically a science project gone wrong?" Derek said and Stiles nodded. "Well that's not disturbing," Derek said. "Argent hasn't answered me either."
"If Gerard's in Beacon Hills, I don't trust Chris to not be working with him again," Stiles said.
"Did the agent whats-his-name that McCall referred you to, know anything?" Derek said.
"Nothing new, just that something weird was going on in Beacon Hills and the field office from LA had sent agents out."
"What are we getting into?" Derek muttered.
"No clue and I'm so pissed no one called me," Stiles said.
"They knew how big a deal this program was to you. How many strings McCall had to pull to get you involved," Derek said.
"My dad's there," Stiles said heatedly. "This is the same bullshit, Scott making decisions for everyone else and choosing who needs to know and who doesn't."
"He's the alpha," Derek said like it was simple.
"Yeah, that doesn't work for me," Stiles said. "I'm not built that way, and Scott knows it."
Derek gave him a long look and nodded once, and Stiles wondered what it was like to have that calm acceptance. Maybe it was a little like how Stiles viewed his dad, though he'd fought half of the decisions the man had ever made for him, so that probably wasn't right either. It was one of the weaknesses of the wolves, Stiles thought, the blindness towards their alphas, and it was worse among the born wolves.
"I'm sure he—” Derek started to say, then something in Stiles' face made him stop and turn with a slight nod and finished with, "maybe we should get to the gate."
They checked in and got settled into their seats.
"Will you buy me booze?" Stiles asked Derek who gave him a long incredulous look.
"We have no idea what we're walking into and you want to be drunk when we arrive?" he said.
Stiles sighed, "No, I have a pretty good idea what we're walking into which is WHY I want to be drunk. It doesn't matter anyway, I have an excellent fake."
"What did Theo say?" Derek asked, ignoring the last part.
"Well, apparently there's some kind of fear demon, plus Gerard and some protege of his stirring up literal mobs," Stiles said. "So you know, great work on Chris's part letting him go, again."
Derek rolled his head in a half nod. there'd been multiple conversations between them over Chris’s undependable nature as an ally.
"What are you going to tell them when we get there?" Derek asked.
"Well, obviously there was a huge shootout, and I had to save you from the dozens of agents trying to kill you," Stiles said.
"Obviously," Derek said. "Except you did it by tripping over your feet and knocking them all over."
"Rude," Stiles said. "I don't mock you for your weird lack of eyebrows do I?"
"My lack of eyebrows has never saved your life, it's true," Derek replied.
"Or maybe I broke you out of the prison at Quantico and we went on the run. Drove cross country and stopped for a last goodbye in Beacon Hills by chance before we cross over into Mexico to disappear forever."
"Of course, you don't know I'm planning to hit you over the head and leave you behind so I don't have to put up with your endless talking for the rest of my life."
"I will have you know I am a gift, Hale," Stiles said.
"Weren't you just telling me that Peter voluntarily immolated himself to escape you a few weeks ago?" Derek said.
Stiles jaw dropped open, oh, it was on! "Low, Hale," he said leaning closer. "Really low especially for a guy whose psychotic ex-girlfriend managed to get him to number 6 on the FBI's most-wanted list."
"It'd have worked if it wasn't for the witness and the body cams," Derek said with a sigh.
"She's definitely a special kind of crazy," Stiles replied.
"Thank you again," Derek replied, turning the conversation serious for a moment. "I know you said it was nothing, but—” he let it fall.
"I mean, I would do it for anyone," Stiles said, "but I'd have faked the evidence to get you free."
"How did you talk them into letting me free to travel so quickly?" Derek asked.
"That was McCall actually," Stiles said. "He's the one they really listened to. I just—” he hesitated.
"Called a senior agent and browbeat him into calling his boss’s boss and getting a team to review evidence by claiming there was a traitor in their midst," Derek said.
"Well, yes," Stiles replied. "And once you were able to tell them where to find the agents they could recover the body cam footage."
"Thankfully my eyes weren't visible to them."
"Kate was," Stiles replied.
"What did they decide about her?"
"No clue, I was just an intern. I was surprised they let me be your point of contact."
"I know you," Derek said. "You'd have talked them into it either way."
"I told them we had a special bond," Stiles said. "That after the misunderstanding with my dad you'd become part of the family."
Derek snorted.
"That part's true," Stiles said. "My dad loves you. Especially when you're this you, not the teenage you. He made dad nervous for some reason."
"What reason was that?"
"Well, I think my dad might have had some idea that there was—” Stiles hesitated.
"That Rafe McCall told him that teenage me was your secret boyfriend?" Derek replied.
"Oh my god, you knew about that?" Stiles said, mortified.
"Your dad told me," Derek said with a smile.
"Oh my god," Stiles groaned, sinking lower into the seat.
Derek patted him on the shoulder with a self-satisfied smirk on his face and Stiles was quiet until they were in the air.
It didn't even matter that Stiles had a fake ID since Derek cut him off after his second Jack and Coke.
"But Der!" Stiles said.
"You need to be sober Stiles," Derek said. "We don't know what we're getting into."
"But what if I die?" Stiles said. "I don't want to die so—”
Derek had turned and grabbed Stiles wrist, pulling him in close with an intense look on his face. "You will not die," he said in a tone that made Stiles sit up straighter. "You won't do that to your dad. Or to me. I couldn't—” he hesitated, "we couldn't handle that."
"I'll do my best," Stiles said, humbled a little that he meant that much to the werewolf.
"You'll do it," Derek said, looking back at his Skymall.
"Yes sir," Stiles said and slurped and bit obnoxiously at his straw.
Derek sighed before he reached over and took the straw away from him, kicking off a new round of complaints from Stiles.
******
Theo had dropped them off at his house, his Jeep in the driveway, but no sign his dad had been there recently, and his heart tightened, beside him he knew Derek had noticed. He unlocked the door and they dropped their bags inside, then he turned to Derek. "Do you sense anything?" Stiles asked, looking at the werewolf, glad it was Derek with him.
"Give me a minute," Derek said, and Stiles knew Derek was showing him extraordinary trust as his eyes burned blue and he shifted into his beta form and tilted his head towards the sky. Stiles knew the traffic he could barely hear from streets away would be overwhelming to the wolf with his senses fully engaged, and he'd be able to pick out conversations up to a mile away.
The hearing of a shifted werewolf fully engaged was nothing short of astonishing, and his other senses were just as strong. Stiles knew Derek had better control of those senses than any other wolf except possibly Peter. But the drawback is that very sensitivity could be weaponized against them.
"I found Chris," Derek said very softly. "Wait. I think Scott's with him. We need to get down to the old warehouse district." He shifted back to human, and Stiles pulled out his keys and dove for the Jeep door.
Derek was seated by the time Stiles got the engine going, and soon he was speeding his way down the surprisingly empty streets.
"Does something seem off to you?" Stiles asked as he drove.
"There's not much traffic," Derek said, "for this early in the evening."
Things had progressed to a full shoot-out before they arrived, and Stiles was relieved that it went as easily as it had, other than Deucalion, which wasn't much of a loss as far as he was concerned. Scott may have forgiven what happened but Stiles had not.
They regrouped at the animal clinic, and Stiles started talking, still deeply annoyed about everyone keeping things a secret from him again, but still processing it. "It was, literally, day one at my internship, and up comes a slide about this guy," he gestured at Derek, "that they've been chasing in the woods in North Carolina." This part was actually true, surprisingly, the agent in charge had thought discussing the media account of an investigation versus what was really going on was an interesting overview of agent life.
"I thought you were in South America," he heard Malia ask as he remembered the shock and horror of seeing Derek on that screen.
"I was," Derek replied. "The bodies of the werewolves I told you about? They blamed me." And they had, though the FBI was still trying to figure out if it was purposefully bad intel from Interpol or the local cops.
"So I learn that the FBI has cornered this feral mass-murdering unsub—" Stiles continued, taking the story back up.
Derek, fully engaged in the implausible tale added, "I found a group of hunters gathering in a meeting place. I was trying to get information." Not true, actually. Stiles knew he'd been tracking Kate westward after she killed three FBI agents and attacked him.
So Stiles decided to level up the improbability of the story, waiting for everyone to catch onto the joke. to dispel some of the tension in the room, "Well, the FBI found out about it too and they were planning a SWAT assault to take him down. Dead or alive. And, as we all know, though, with Derek, it's preferably dead."
"Preferably," Derek said with wry humor that lifted Stiles' mood. Someone was in on his joke, but it was strange for it to be Derek this time, and not Scott. Not Lydia. Not even Malia.
"So I convinced them to take me on the Field-Op," Stiles said, and surely now, surely someone would finally catch on—
"You convinced the FBI to bring an intern onto an extremely dangerous field operation?" Lydia said, and Stiles leaned into it, yeah, she was starting to get there-
"I'm surprised he didn't convince them he could lead it," Derek said, and Stiles glanced back, at first wanting to laugh, but there was an unfamiliar glint in Derek's eyes. A look that said this was a moment's truth amongst the lies.
"I tried," Stiles added, still touched by Derek's faith in him, "Didn't work. Anyway, long story short, I basically, you know, had to save his life." Caught up in the moment, he fell into one of the stories he'd made up on the plane.
"That's not how it happened," Derek said, recognizing where this was going.
"Yeah. I may have left out a detail, but that's the gist of what happened. It was the essential essence of it," Stiles said, gearing up to tell his story of implausible heroism.
"You couldn't walk," Derek interjected, and oh, it was on.
"I was limping," Stiles said, adding a note of protest to his voice.
"You couldn't walk and I know that because I was carrying you," Derek said, and Stiles had a flash of that image in his head, Derek bridal carrying him away from a shootout, he mentally shook himself, and caught Derek giving him a look, yeah, Big Bad had definitely caught on that hit a button on Stiles’ elevator of kink, so awkward, but he was used to it after spending years around werewolves who could all sense things like that if they paid attention.
"They shot my toe," Stiles said, reaching for something random and knowing he'd given it away for sure. He'd been walking fine the whole time after all. But no one said anything, and so he ramped it up, "You want to see it? My toe was caught in the crossfire. It was obliterated." Looking around he felt something curdle inside, no one was paying much attention to the story either way, there was no active disbelief, just a sort of lack of caring.
"Okay, forget your toe," Lydia said, and yeah, it hurt that she couldn't tell that he was making it all up, but it hurt most that she didn't seem to care. He knew it was just because he was already angry about her keeping secrets, but this was a feeling of deeper hurt.
"Obliterated," he muttered, and was pretty sure he wasn't talking about his toe anymore.
"Hmm," Lydia said, clearly moving onto other thoughts already, and his feelings crystallized at that moment, and the anger faded away. Unfortunately, the love and affection did too. It was like in a moment he was just emptied of all the emotion that had been building all day.
As the conversation turned, Derek gave him a long look and he could see the concern in it and he felt a surge of affection for the occasionally cranky older werewolf, an appreciation he'd had for years blooming into something—
He hesitated for a moment, shying away from naming exactly what it was that he'd felt between himself and Derek.
As they went to leave the clinic, Scott pulled him close and said, "So how's your toe now?"
"It's just fine, Scott," Stiles said, "all healed."
"That's good," Scott said, "Glad it's better."
"Yeah," Stiles said. "All better. Definitely." Stiles wasn't even surprised that Scott didn't notice this lie after all the others he'd missed over the years.
*****
The clean-up after the final battle was horrible. Rafe McCall had agreed to make sure that he confirmed Kate's death, so the final string in Derek's FBI problems was dealt with. The weird fear demon thing was destroyed, they thought, though no one seemed to know enough about such creatures to know if it was a temporary destruction or a permanent one.
His dad was, miraculously, safe. Glad to see Stiles and clearly pleased to see Derek as well, and seemingly unsurprised they'd arrived together. Stiles wondered if his dad still held onto some misunderstanding about Stiles and the younger version of Derek.
Scott was busy sorting out things with the pack, and learning how to do the memory drain more effectively from Derek and Peter. It was dangerous to use their claws on humans, but it was far far more dangerous to leave knowledge of the supernatural out in the open as they'd all finally learned. Stiles decided that his own minor magical abilities would be put to work learning how to do the memory tampering less invasively. A surprisingly large cross-section of the town now sported four tidy cuts on the back of their necks as a result.
He'd been avoiding Lydia, which was easy since she'd spent most of her time focused on the returning Jackson. But inevitably they ran into each other, and when he saw her he felt curiously empty. It was like all his feelings for her had just vanished. He didn't hate her, he wasn't even mad at her for what she'd done.
It wasn't fair, he knew, to blame her for what the pack as a whole had done. What he knew, deep down, Scott had done. But he didn't trust her the same way anymore either, and he surely didn't love her. Not if she would keep secrets like that from him. Not if she thought he'd choose an internship over his father's safety.
It was a sort of final straw. A final breaking of bonds that had endured so much. One last betrayal that had just exhausted his ability to overlook it.
So he'd avoided both of them to avoid dealing with the issue.
A week later the emergencies were finally mostly dealt with, and he couldn't avoid talking to her anymore by saying he had to be somewhere.
She showed up, and like she'd gotten in the habit of, she just walked through the door. She was still Lydia, still beautiful, still vibrant in a way that pulled the eye. But he saw the moment that she knew, some shift in the way he stood, or maybe just something in his eyes, but she saw something and she knew.
"It's over, isn't it?" she said in that disarmingly blunt way she had. "After everything?"
"My dad was here, Lydia," he said, looking at her, and feeling just sad, and empty. "I could forgive anything else."
He saw the hurt he couldn't feel anymore, and saw her nod. "Would it make a difference if I said I was sorry?" she asked.
He'd thought about this very thing for days.
"It makes a difference in how we go forward," he said. "But not about my feelings. Some genies can't go back in the bottle."
She nodded, truly understanding, he knew since it was something she'd said about Scott and Allison after he'd finally admitted the truth to the huntress about the events that led to her mom's death.
"Are you going back to DC?" she asked, letting the other things go unsaid.
"Next month," he said. "My chance with the internship is toast, but I'm still in the program at GW."
"Good," she said, then added hesitantly, "Are you okay with having visitors?"
"We're still Pack," he said. "But it won't be the same. Not after this. I'm not even sure what to tell Scott. He didn't understand why I pulled back after Theo, I'm sure he won't understand this either."
"Scott is—" she let the statement fall into silence.
"Yeah," he said, "but I'm not like that. I need to make my own choices. Not have him making decisions for me."
She nodded again before she turned and left, letting the door close quietly behind her with only a small click.
He wasn't sure what the future held. His dad was staying in Beacon Hills, and he himself was still tied there too, both because of his dad and because of that nightmare tree in the Preserve. He knew he couldn't cut ties completely, but he needed this time away. To heal from the latest round of betrayal.
He'd be back, he'd always come back, but it wouldn't be the same. The pack was just another obligation now, no love, no friendship in it, and he wondered if he could ever get those feelings back.
He needed access to bigger magical libraries, bigger magical communities that might have answers to how to shut down the nemeton completely. He owed Beacon Hills that one last thing.
The rest of his future was somewhere else though, he knew now, and all he could do was keep moving towards it day by day.