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The house is unusually quiet when Derek wakes up, and it takes him a minute to remember that Donna, Max, and Jorge all left to head back to college yesterday. He listens a little longer and realizes Cora and Isaac have already taken the other kids to the elementary, middle, and high school; he's really not looking forward for when he and Jackson have to switch out on the carpooling. Taking ten kids to school all week is an exercise in patience.
He lays in bed for just a moment longer, relishing in the silence and the warmth of his sheets and the pattern of sunlight slanting through his blinds. It's peaceful, restful in a way he never believed he'd get to have, not after everything that happened in Beacon Hills.
When he closes his eyes, he thinks he can see his mother's smile, the pride in her eyes.
Of course, the peace only lasts for all of two minutes when he hears the fussing in the nursery.
Derek sighs and swings out of bed, shoving his feet into the wolf slippers the kids got him three Christmases ago. They're battered and faded at this point, but he loves them.
By the time he gets to the nursery, both Jenna and Amos are awake and whining. Derek picks them both up and rocks them, wincing a little when Amos grabs at his arm and sinks tiny claws into his bicep.
They have room for six babies in the nursery, but right now Jenna and Amos are the only two they have. All the other kids are at least old enough to be in school. Of course, that could all change with a phone call. Not that Derek minds; not that he's ever once minded since he built this place and got it off the ground.
He puts the babies in their swings and gets them going, singing nonsense songs while he waltzes around the kitchen getting their bottles ready. The babies continue fussing until Derek stops the swings and feeds them, one bottle in each hand.
"I'm glad there's only two of you right now," he tells them. "Makes this bit a little easier. It was not fun with four of you wanting attention first thing in the morning."
He misses the kids who have left--who have been adopted or who have found family to take them in--but he wouldn't trade this for the world.
The sound of a vehicle making its way up their gravel drive gives Derek pause. It's not the sound of Cora's or Isaac's cars, and it's certainly not the sound of the social worker's SUV. The roar of the engine and the squeak of the brakes tug at Derek's memory, finding bits of him long buried and bringing them back out to light.
He recognizes that vehicle.
Derek makes sure the babies are strapped into their swings and walks out onto the wide front porch.
Sure enough, a familiar blue Jeep sits in his driveway, with an equally--and more painfully--familiar man tumbling out of the driver's side, gaping up at the house.
Derek waits until the Jeep's door has slammed shut before he calls out, "This is private property."
It's worth it for the way Stiles startles and curses, swinging around from where he's gawking at the house to glare at Derek.
Derek can't help it. He grins.
Stiles stalks toward him, feet crunching on the leaves that have just started to fall to the ground. "That wasn't funny."
Derek leans against a post on the porch and watches him. "It was a little funny."
Stiles makes a face, but surprisingly doesn't comment.
He looks good. Taller and broader than Derek remembers, but that just might be from years of forcing himself to see Stiles as the scrawny, gangly teenager with a buzzcut, even after he stopped being scrawny and gangly and grew his hair out.
He's still beautiful and Derek's still in love with him.
Stiles stops at the foot of the stairs and looks from side to side. "How many rooms do you have in this thing? Twenty? Thirty?"
"Twenty-five." Derek gestures back to the house, where he can hear Jenna and Amos starting to fuss. "Come on in. I imagine the babies are getting tired of their swings."
"Babies?" Stiles repeats. "You have babies?"
Derek leads him through the bright foyer back to the kitchen and gets the babies out of their swings, cuddling one in each arm. "Just two right now. We had four last week, but the social worker found Thomas's aunt and Diego was adopted by a pack down south."
Stiles looks gobsmacked, staring at Derek with his mouth hanging open. He swallows and then opens his mouth again, like he's going to say something, before closing it and walking around the kitchen, dragging his hands through his hair.
"What is it?" Derek asks.
Stiles flails. "You're holding babies. You have a house. You..." He cuts himself off with a huff and looks around. "It looks good," he finally says. "You look good. You look...happy. I don't think I've ever seen you happy."
"I wasn't," Derek admits. "Not then. I was too angry and guilty and paranoid to be happy." He clears his throat. "Are you?"
Stiles blinks at him. "Am I what? Happy?"
Derek nods. It's been long enough that he can't tell from scent alone, not exactly. It's been more than five years since he's so much as spoken to any of them from Beacon Hills, let alone seen them.
Stiles's face falls for a split second before he shores it up with a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "I'm fine."
Jenna makes a face and blows a spit bubble, as if to say she knows it's bullshit. Derek can't help but agree with her. "Fine doesn't mean happy."
Stiles laughs, but it sounds harsh and a little bitter. "I'm still standing. Given all the shit that's happened, I count that as a win."
Derek raises his eyebrows and gestures with his chin at the two babies he's holding. "Language."
Stiles boggles at him, and then bursts into laughter--real laughter, this time. "Oh my God." He sinks into a chair at the kitchen table, wiping his eyes. "Oh my God, I can't believe I just got mommed by Derek Hale."
Derek puts Amos back in his swing for the time being, and walks over to Stiles with Jenna. "Want to hold her?"
"What?" Stiles's eyes widen to the size of coconuts. "No, seriously, what?"
Derek holds Jenna out to him, and she giggles and makes grabby hands for Stiles. Jenna loves everyone, as long as that person deigns to hold her. "Do. You. Want. To. Hold. Her?"
Stiles splutters, but doesn't actually form a "yes" or a "no" in answer to the question. Derek sighs and sets her gently into his arms. Jenna immediately grabs a fistful of Stiles's shirt and shoves it into her mouth, gumming happily on it.
Stiles continues to stare at her, like he's not sure what's happening, and Derek takes the moment of silence to grab them both some water. He joins Stiles back at the table, where he's still staring at Jenna with a look of wonder in his eyes.
It twists Derek's heart, to see Stiles here with one of his kids, to smell him in the same place as the rest of the pack. It's new, but it seems to fit, like adding a new spice to a dish.
He pushes the water glass over toward Stiles. "So what brings you up here, anyway?"
Stiles clears his throat. "We'd heard rumors of a safe house for supernatural orphans. Scott was excited, I was skeptical, so I volunteered to come up and check it out. See what I could learn, maybe make an alliance or a partnership or something. We didn't know it was you. Or at least, I didn't until I saw the name." He finally looks up from Jenna to meet Derek's eyes. "The Boyd-Reyes Home for Gifted Youngsters."
Derek shrugs, has to turn away from Stiles for a moment. He chose the name in memory, and most days it makes him smile more than it makes him sad, but with Stiles here, the sad parts are coming up again.
"They'd love it," Stiles says quietly. "I'm not sure which they'd love more, the X-men reference or having a haven named after them, but they'd definitely love it."
Derek clears his throat. "The X-men reference, definitely."
They sit in silence, Stiles bouncing his leg and Jenna gurgling happily with the movement. A glance back shows Derek that Amos is sound asleep in his swing.
"How long have you been here?" Stiles asks. "We only heard of you about five months ago, but you've definitely been running this place longer than that."
Derek nods. "We built it four years ago. We've had a steady stream of kids ever since. Our oldest ones just went to college yesterday."
"We?" Stiles grins. "Who's we?"
The grin tells Derek that Stiles is three seconds from asking him if he has a girlfriend or a boyfriend, so Derek stops that in his tracks by saying, "My pack."
Stiles blinks. "Wait, what?"
"Cora, Isaac, Jackson. Plus the kids." Derek reaches over and lets Jenna chew on his finger. "Pack."
Stiles narrows his eyes, not quite a frown but looking like he's about to put something together. "A pack with no alpha?"
Derek's heart trips a little. He doesn't know. For some reason, he'd thought Stiles would just...know.
"We have an alpha," he says quietly, and lets his eyes flash red.
Stiles's jaw drops. "Holy shit."
Derek doesn't bother to remind him about his language.
Stiles shifts Jenna so he's holding her with one arm and runs the other hand through his hair. "Holy shit," he says again. "What happened? Did another pack attack you guys? How--"
Shock and concern wafts off of him, and more than anything, Derek wants to pull him close to reassure him. He closes his hand into a fist instead. "No. Nothing like that, I promise. Things have been pretty quiet here. It just...happened."
Stiles continues gaping at him, mouth open so far that Jenna reaches up and tries to shove her hand in it. Stiles pulls her hand away, never taking his eyes off Derek. "It just happened."
Derek has to look away from him, because only pack knows this story, and right now, Stiles...isn't. "About six months ago. Becca--she's four--she was sick, she was so sick." He wipes a hand over his face, trying not to think about how delicate she was, how he can still hear the rattling of her breath sometimes in his nightmares. "I was up with her all night for two days, taking her pain, trying to help her heal."
Warm fingers curl over his fist, and he glances over to see Stiles leaning forward, one hand on Derek and the other still holding Jenna close. "Is she...did she..."
"She made it," Derek says. "We both fell asleep sometime around dawn on the third day. When I finally woke up after noon, Becca was on the couch watching Bubble Guppies with the rest of the kids and my eyes were red."
Stiles continues staring at him, no longer blatantly gaping but still clearly dumbfounded by Derek's story. That's okay; Derek still doesn't believe it himself, has spent more than a few mornings in the bathroom staring at Alpha-red eyes in the mirror just to remind himself that it's real.
Stiles finally sits back and says, with feeling, "Holy shit."
Derek leans over and picks Jenna up, heading over to her swing to put her in it. "If her first word is shit, I'm blaming you."
"Dude, what else can I say?!" Stiles jumps to his feet and follows Derek. "You know as well as I do that the whole True Alpha thing is supposed to only happen, like, once every hundred years and you're telling me that I know not just one, but two. Like...I can't even wrap my mind around it. That's amazing."
Derek ducks his head to hide the heat on his cheeks, although he's sure his beard does a better job of it. "That's not...I'm not a True Alpha. It's nothing like that."
"Dude," Stiles says, and Derek can hear the judgment and reprimand packed into a single word. "You became an Alpha on your own, because you brought this pack together and you're taking care of these kids who have no one and you're giving them a home and a pack and maybe you didn't break a mountain ash circle or some shit but who cares, this is a hundred percent True Alpha stuff!"
"Don't..." Derek cuts himself off and shakes his head. "Don't tell anyone, please."
"Okay, first off, I won't just because you said please and I'm pretty sure I have literally never heard that word from you in my entire life." Stiles's face softens; there's no other word for it. "And second, I wouldn't. That's your story, your secret. It's not my place to tell."
His heartbeat is steady throughout the entire thing, and Derek relaxes incrementally. No one outside the pack knows he's an Alpha again, and he wants to keep it that way as long as he can.
"How does it feel?" Stiles asks.
Derek's not sure he can explain it. "Different. Not...not like it did before. There's more power, but..."
But it doesn't feel like a mantle too big, doesn't rush through his veins like a drug, making him heady and cocky with it. It's calmer, more settled, though Derek's not sure if it's because he's matured or because the Alpha power came to him differently this time.
Stiles nods, like Derek's short, broken explanation makes perfect sense. "That's pretty awesome, dude."
Derek sighs and shakes his head, but he can't stop the small smile from spreading across his face. "It's good to see you again," he says, and surprises himself with how much he means it. He's missed Stiles, but it's not until now, facing him, that Derek realizes just how much.
Stiles's cheeks turn pink, and he grins. "You, too. I...I'm glad you got out when you did. It was..." The smile fades and his eyes dart away, but not before Derek sees the ghosts in them. "It was bad. We made it, but...it was bad," he repeats, like there aren't words to do it justice beyond that.
Derek doesn't quite know what he's doing until he steps into Stiles's space, wraps his arms around him and pulls him close. They're not usually the hugging type, but from the way Stiles shudders and sinks into him, pressing his face into Derek's shoulder, tells Derek this is exactly what he needs.
They stay there for a long minute, Derek running his hands up and down Stiles's back, feeling the tension gradually seep out of his muscles. He wonders how long it's been there.
"How long were you planning on staying?" Derek asks.
Stiles shrugs against him. "Dunno. Until I got what I came for, I guess."
Derek swallows, hopes Stiles can't hear the way his heart is beating faster. "And have you?"
"I don't know. I mean, I should probably meet the rest of the pack," Stiles says, and Derek can hear the smile. "To be thorough."
The bubble in his chest feels suspiciously like hope. "Yeah. Being thorough is good. You know what else might help? If you stayed for a week. Really saw how the pack functions here."
Stiles pulls back, amber eyes shining. "You think so?"
Derek nods somberly. "I think we might even have an extra bedroom."
Stiles laughs, and Derek loves the way it rumbles against his chest. "Yeah. I think that sounds pretty good."
"So you'll stay?" Derek says, and some part of him knows he's not just asking for the week.
From the way Stiles looks at him, Derek thinks he knows. "Yeah. I'll stay."