Chapter Text
"...Oh, and Derek's annoyed with Eli. Again," John laughed. "Evidently, Eli took the jeep for a joy ride or something. Like you weren't out and running around in the jeep before you had your license."
Stiles listened to his dad laugh. It was a good sound. Then his brain caught up.
"Eli?"
"Yeah! Who thought the kid had it in him," John said, still amused.
"Kid?"
"Yeah, Eli's still a teenager, but Derek keeps him under control," John replied. "I did tell him he's doing a better job with Eli than I did with you. Working a regular job lets him be home more than I was." A sigh. "I wasn't much of a parent at that point in your life and I know it. Sorry."
"Derek has a kid?" Stiles was flabbergasted.
"I know you haven't been back to Beacon Hills for a long time, but I do know I've told you about Eli," John sounded puzzled.
"I..." Stiles heard the conviction in his father's voice. "Yeah. Okay. Just a brain fart."
"Eli's a good kid," John said. "Derek got lucky there."
"Hey!" Stiles protested.
"You turned out good, Stiles. But I think we both know we both got lucky there," John said gently.
"Yeah. I do know that," Stiles admitted.
"Any chance you can come here this summer?" John asked. It was mid-March and a summer visit in Beacon Hills sounded nice. "Not that I mind when you fly me around the world to wherever you are at the moment. But a quiet visit at home would be nice."
"I'm gonna see what I can do," Stiles said as his brain whirled around a kid named Eli that he had never heard of before. "We've just had a break in this one case we've been working on and I'll see if I can get away." He wasn't prepared to give his dad an answer just as yet, he needed more information.
"That's great to hear!" John was enthusiastic. "Say the word and I'll make sure your room is clean and there are fresh sheets on the bed."
"As soon as I know anything, I'll let you know," Stiles replied.
"Good to hear from you," John said. "Call any time."
"You know I will," Stiles laughed. One time he had called Beacon Hills when it was two in the morning California time, forgetting about time zones. It had been after a hard case and he had just needed to hear his dad's voice. John had understood and had stayed awake long enough to reassure Stiles that everything was okay.
"Talk to you soon," John said.
"Bye!" Stiles said. He stared for a long minute at the phone.
Who the fuck was Eli? Stiles knew perfectly well that he would remember any talk about Derek, much less one about Derek having a kid.
Stiles rubbed his forehead. He had stayed away from Beacon Hills for multiple reasons. The first of which was Derek Hale.
Stiles had never really gotten over his crush on Derek but was aware enough to know that forcing any kind of a relationship on Derek while Stiles was still a teen-ager would be abusive. Stiles had left for college and the FBI without looking back, knowing he and Derek both needed time and space to figure themselves out. Stiles just never went back. He was also a teeny bit salty that Derek had never reached out to him.
Tired from a long day of writing reports, Stiles closed down his computer and headed to bed. The apartment in LA was a long-term lease to the FBI and agents rotated in and out of it as needed. Stiles would find out tomorrow what his next assignment would be.
That night, Stiles dreamed of Derek, Beacon Hills, and... Eli. The dreams were semi-realistic in a way that told him that his magic was involved. He woke, still groggy, 'remembering' conversations with his dad about Eli.
Something big was at play here. He lay staring at the ceiling, replaying conversations with his dad over several months that had references to Eli in them. But he also remembered that yesterday's conversation was the first time that he had heard about Eli.
Knowing there was no more sleep in his immediate future, Stiles got up and went into the office.
"You look like shit, Stilinski," Alonzo Matias said.
"Feel that way, too," Stiles admitted. "Who's in?"
Matias looked up sharply. "What's up?"
"I... I don't know but I'm remembering things that didn't happen," Stiles admitted.
"That's not good!"
"Don't I know it!" Stiles nodded, waving his hands.
"Okay, Meng isn't far away, and Eric is supposedly on a day off but said he'd rather be called in than have breakfast with his step-family," Alonzo listed. "And they'd come for you, anyway."
Stiles felt a small blush but nodded. "Call them in. Order something to eat, breakfast sandwiches rather than just danish. I need some protein." A wry grin. "The usual assortment of drinks."
"Got it!" Alonzo replied. He started that as Stiles went into the supervisor's office.
"Are you done with the Johannson case reports?" Senior Supervising Agent Micheal 'Mike' O'Hanrahan asked. He looked up. "You look like shit."
Stiles laughed. "That's what Matias just said."
"So?"
Stiles nodded. "Yes, the reports are done. But... I'm remembering things that didn't happen."
O'Hanrahan sat back in his chair, eyeing Stiles up and down. Stiles knew his boss had a touch of mage-sight, which allowed him to 'see' magic. Rumor had it that O'Hanrahan had been in this job for a long time. A very long time. Maybe he was human, maybe he wasn't. But he was a good boss, which is all Stiles cared about.
"You don't look any different," O'Hanrahan decided.
"Just... I asked Al to get the team together," Stiles said. "This feels important."
"Okay," O'Hanrahan nodded. "Let me know what you need."
"Just like that?" Stiles was surprised.
"Grateful you haven't gone haring off on your own," he replied. "I've learned to trust your gut about things like this." He squinted at Stiles for a moment. "It'll get worse before it gets better, I think."
Stiles sighed. "Okay. I think. Umm... Al's getting breakfast. I assume he'll have something for you in there."
"Good man!" O'Hanrahan beamed.
The food was delivered from the deli around the corner and both Meng and Eric showed up just after that.
"Thank you for getting me out of that breakfast," Eric said sincerely as he took a coffee and a sandwich. Al had already delivered tea and a sandwich to O'Hanrahan.
"You can say 'no' to them, you know," Stiles said as he drank some of his own tea. "Restraining orders are a thing."
"Well, most of them aren't that bad but Ramona was also invited," Eric replied.
Stiles held up a hand. "Enough said."
Eric and his step-sister had a more-than-contentious relationship and their step-parents would not stop trying to get them to reconcile. Family get-togethers that 'accidentally' included both of them were too frequent.
"Draw a hard line, man," Al said. "You're a grown-ass FBI agent that the government lets carry a gun, for god's sake. Put them on a time-out. No contact for like a month and when they do it again, the next time is longer. Then it's their fault and not yours."
Eric nodded thoughtfully. "I'll... I'll think about that."
"Okay, now that we've solved Eric's family drama, what's up?" Meng asked. Meng Zhao was all of five-foot one and was their tech specialist. She was also working on her sniper qualifications, knowing her slight build was not always an asset when dealing with suspects. But her techo-wizardry really was magically enhanced, which made her ideal for the team.
"Yeah, while I'm grateful, I did need to do laundry," Eric Marino asked.
"You always need to do laundry," Al teased.
Eric was a large, dark-haired man who was also a bear-shifter. His magical form enhanced his human form and he was large and strong, even for a supernatural.
Alonzo Matias was medium build, sandy haired every-man. Al's singular magical ability was that he could blend into any situation and could cast the equivalent of what Stiles had dubbed a Notice-Me-Not charm. If Al stayed still, he would not be noticed without very close inspection. It gave the team a serious advantage when it came to doing surveillance.
They were all part of a Supernatural division of the FBI that Stiles had been dropped into when he had inadvertently identified a 'wolf at an otherwise-human crime scene. Anyone in the 'know' was seconded to the division but when his supervisors realized that Stiles could manipulate mountain ash, he had been 'encouraged' to transfer. Stiles was too curious about what might be going on in a Supernatural Unit to say no.
Stiles had been surprised, pleased, and scared to be put in charge of a small team.
----
"Listen," Stiles said as the four not-quite-strangers sat around a table at a diner. "O'Hanrahan said I'm 'in charge'" -- Stiles even did the air quote thing -- "but I'm more of a team guy. We need to work together and I know I don't know a lot of things. And I'll be the first to admit I'll be doing something stupid pretty soon. But if you-all can live with that, we can give it a try."
"What kind of stupid?" Al asked.
"Dude!" Stiles waved a hand. "If I knew that, it wouldn't be stupid!"
They had, gratefully, laughed.
"I will do what I can to bring you home, safely," Stiles promised.
"I guess that's the best we can ask for," Meng replied.
The others nodded.
----
They had done well in the past two years. Stiles didn't think he had done anything spectacularly stupid during that time, at least nothing his team had overtly called him out for, and they worked well together.
"So, what's going on?" Al asked for all of them.
"I'm remembering things that didn't happen," Stiles said flatly.
Meng hissed. "That's not good."
"Tell us more," Eric said.
Stiles recounted the confusing conversation with his dad from yesterday about Eli.
"Overnight, I had... dreams, I guess, about having multiple conversations over the past year, the actual timeline is hazy, about Eli," Stiles said. "I can mostly keep them separate but they want to merge in my head."
"You think something is making you remember the conversations?" Meng asked with a frown.
"Yes," Stiles nodded.
"Derek? As in Derek Hale Derek?" Al asked softly.
Stiles gave an inward groan. There had been one really hard, cold, drunken night that Stiles had babbled to Al about his crush on Derek.
"Yes," Stiles replied.
"You gotta tell them," Al said firmly.
"Yeah," Stiles sighed. "Okay. Long story made, hopefully, short. I grew up in Beacon Hills, California. I took my best friend to see half a body in the woods, he got bit by an Alpha, and turned into a 'wolf. My first brush with the supernatural." He drank the last of the now-room-temp tea. "The Alpha was Peter Hale, who we then killed and Derek Hale become the Alpha. My not-so-bright friend had heard that if you killed the Alpha that turned you, you would become human again but Derek did the killing and ended up the Alpha instead. Later, Derek gave up the Alpha Spark to cure his sister of a disease that is still suspicious in my head. About the same time, my friend became a 'True Alpha' and is supposedly the Alpha for Beacon Hills. We dealt with Gerard Argent--" a groan from Eric on that "--a kanima, an Alpha Pack, Dread Doctors, a Nogitsune, Ghost Riders, and Tamara Monroe."
Silence. Stiles took a breath.
"Somewhere in all of this, in no particular order, Peter Hale was resurrected, I married and divorced my Banshee friend, I was possessed by a Nogitsune, captured by the Ghost Riders, we survived an encounter with a Darch, Peter married Chris Argent, and I think my dad is sleeping with my Lacross coach."
More silence.
"Tell them about Derek," All encouraged.
"My then sixteen-year-old self crushed hard on Derek Hale," Stiles admitted. "By the time most of this happened, I knew enough about his story to not push any kind of relationship with him. I was eighteen when I left home and I haven't been back to Beacon Hills in ten years."
"Mates," Eric said decisively.
Stiles shrugged. "I think so?" It was as much of a question as anything. "But, well, Derek was sexually abused as a teen, his family was burned to death in front of him, became a shitty Alpha because there was no one to teach him better, sexually abused again by a Darach, had to kill his own uncle -- by fire -- to become that shitty Alpha, and was hunted briefly by the FBI as a suspected serial killer." A small huff. "I wasn't going to make his life any worse."
"Stiles!" Meng exclaimed. "All that was you?"
Stiles nodded. "Yeah, when they threw me at the Supernatural Unit, Director Kaplan made me do a full debrief of what I had been through and what I knew. It's been sanitized but most of it's been turned into cautionary tales inside the Bureau." He gave a small laugh. "I'm surprised you-all didn't figure it out before now."
"It's packaged as coming from multiple sources," Meng replied. "Some if it is so improbable that the idea that it could come from one person is unthinkable."
"So. Back to you and Derek," Eric said.
"Yeah, yeah," Stiles grinned. "I do think we're Mates but, well, he's never reached out to me since I left Beacon Hills. He sees my dad all the time, so he knows what I'm doing and could ask for my contact information. He hasn't. So I've respected his choice."
"You've had all the therapy," Al laughed.
"Oh, man, I have!" Stiles replied.
"But now we need to go to Beacon Hills," Meng said softly.
"From the conversation with my dad, Eli is just under driving age," Stiles said. "So I'm guessing fourteen or fifteen. Which would mean either Derek got a girl pregnant shortly before returning to Beacon Hills from New York City or, well--" Stiles did jazz hands "--magic!"
"How likely was Derek to be with a girl when he was in New York?" Al asked.
"Highly unlikely," Stiles replied. "He was living with his sister, who was his Alpha at that point, and she had him on an extremely short leash. They were in New York CIty and hiding from essentially everyone after the fire that killed the rest of the family. From what I learned, Derek barely had acquaintances when they were in the city. It was also just after he learned that his high school English teacher seduced him as an underage teen, then used the information that she learned from him to kill his family. That makes me think Derek was highly unlikely to sleep with anyone, much less anyone he didn't know extremely well."
"So you're going with magic?" Al said thoughtfully.
"Best I got at the moment," Stiles said.
"When do we leave?" Eric asked.