Isaac did not hesitate to pull the scantily clothed, young woman into a ferocious hug – one that he knew would bruise later. In the heels she wore, her feet didn't even leave the ground and as her arms eased their way around the neck of the young werewolf, she loosened the grip on the bat, which succumbed to gravity with a clang.

He heard the relief, smelt the victory in the air and allowed his shoulders to drop – ever so slightly, when Lydia, in a whirlwind of strawberry-blonde locks, brushed past him and joined the hug barring any hesitation.

Isaac was crying and Allison, lowering her bow, put her hand to his shoulder in a silent gesture of comfort – Derek dared to bet that Stiles' embrace, right now, was the best thing that Lahey had ever felt.

The blood-splattered arms of the young woman moved, including the other female in the group-hug, pulling the three of them closer together, swaying gently from side to side (like a mother lulling her child to sleep – an instinctual move).

Scott's breathing shivered for a moment, but he didn't dare close in on them – neither did Derek.

"Can you step down from Alpha?"

His head whipped so abruptly to the spot his leader was still rooted to, his eyes glistening and his chest heaving in a valiant effort to keep in whatever it was that wanted to burst out, that he was relatively certain he'd torn something that would have to heal. Derek's mouth opened – closed – opened again.

He exhaled harshly, focused, blinking then as he turned to step towards the younger man. "Never heard of it." He answered as softly as the question had been asked – so Isaac wouldn't hear it over the sound of the person he was currently almost ensconced in (Derek was not jealous). "Doesn't mean it can't be done though; considering that's what Seconds are for."

Scott's eyes met his then, bright red and still wet. "It's a good thing you're experienced in this kind of thing, isn't it, Alpha?" The red bled away to a mellow golden. "Because, honestly, if I ever have to ask the question 'What is a Stiles?' ever again, I swear to all that is holy…"

Isaac had pulled Allison into the group hug; Stiles lips parted into a large smile, spiting her relieved tears.

Barely had they made it to the loft that Lydia and Isaac had pulled Stiles towards the large bed that was Derek's, didn't even bother asking, before they put her under the blanket and huddled close to her again.

Derek didn't bother with trying to tell his people that the upstairs was fully furnished with mattresses and rooms for each and every one of them. They hadn't let Stiles out of their middle from the moment they'd stepped out of The Flittering Fellow once she'd been borrowed a shirt, track-shoes and a pair of decent trousers – to any and all onlookers they'd probably looked like a congregation of Yakuza; Stiles their ragged-looking Boss amidst them.

So even in his new-old position as Alpha, he didn't think of getting them to move elsewhere, out of his bed; he didn't mind that his pack puppy-piled on and under his covers, moving as physically close as possible to the warm body of Stiles Stilinski, cocooning her in warmth and safety.

If this were any, random, teenager's life – maybe even a crappy show on television – he'd have expected rainbows and butterflies from the next day on; like that: snap your fingers, make the sun rise and then hop over green, flowery meadows with hearts on your cheeks and glitter in your hair.

That would have been his ideal.

Now he would not describe himself as unrealistic, which was why he knew that it wouldn't go down precisely like this. There were consequences, repercussions; he'd just hoped that she'd be spared the worst of them.

But it became very clear to him that, for one, Stiles Stilinski didn't dare sleep.

Safe for the first night, on which she'd been too emotionally and physically drained than to do anything else but flop down and enjoy the puppy-pile that accumulated around her.

She was, he was happy to see, the same, limb-flailing, opinionated, loud-mouthed, sarcastic, witty and strategic person she'd been before he'd left – that yes, and Lord Above he was indescribably glad to find her thusly. (He did not know whose throat he'd have ripped out if she'd been changed more drastically than she had by that place.)

Cora had confided in him that more often than not she herself was woken by Stiles screaming her throat raw until she woke, the sound-proofed walls swallowing most of the tumult – she didn't say what her nightmares were about, didn't talk about them at all. Stiles, while outwardly functioning at a level of unexpected perfection, simply wallowed away in sleeplessness.

"That", he commented, placing a cup of hot chocolate in her fingers as he joined her on the meagre balcony, "has to be so many levels of unhealthy."

The spark sighed, clutching at the too hot ceramic in her palms, didn't dare to let up and Derek prepared himself for a long night of heavy silence. They'd had many of them lately given the fact that he knew something was up, but wouldn't push, whereas she would stubbornly sit in some dark corner of the loft, ignoring the fact that she didn't dare to close her eyes for longer than two hours a night.

"He made us dream."

Her raw voice surprised him – he wished it didn't show – into turning his head towards her, inspecting the bony fingers. She'd quickly let up on the illusion on her body and he was almost ashamed to say that, yes, his marks were still visible, but drowning in the plethora of markings on her brittle skin.

She didn't look up at him, and he didn't push.

"Night after night I swear we walked through collective dream-scapes, jungles of darkness, pits of snakes and scorpions, we drowned in oil, we burned on fire and it all…", her breath hitched, her heart ran away from her, "it all felt so real."

Her dry throat constricted to swallow around something. "And he'd be there, every night, offering us a hand, offering to help us, if we just… took his hand."

The salty taste on his palate gave away her clandestine tears, hidden behind her arm. "And everyone that did…", an octave higher, hiccups; Derek bit his lower lip, his wolf growled at the obvious violation of his person. "…they weren't the same afterwards." She sniffled, unashamed by now, uncaring. "They were… empty, didn't talk, didn't see."

He was surprised when she threw her head back, staring into his eyes, baring her vulnerability – brandishing it like a sword – to his red eyes. "Derek, I swear, they weren't people anymore. And I couldn't… couldn't bring myself to… but I didn't want to dream either… and if I stayed awake, he never knew…"

As he pulled her into a hug, she didn't fight it, didn't fight the tears either – and Derek naively hoped, again, that this would be the worst of it.

When Sherriff John Stilinski opened the door to his office thirty-three days after his daughter had gone missing, he was not expecting the leather-clad arms of one Derek Hale encasing a shaking figure on his couch, carefully rocking them side-to-side.

"So tell me two things you can smell?" the younger man coaxed, his eyes sliding over to where the Sherriff had just entered and if his years spent interrogating the delinquents of Beacon Hills wouldn't have taught him to read the human body like a book he'd have missed the cautiousness in them, the plea for temporary silence.

So he kept quiet and waited. "Leather." The answering voice was shaky within the cradle of his arms and John knew -he knew that voice; it was such a familiar treble that he didn't even bother to try hiding the shakiness of his knees, favouring a chair to ruining his old joints by hitting the linoleum floor.

"And what is one thing you can taste?" he heard the younger man say, their eyes meeting over the still quivering shoulders of the woman pressed into him.

John didn't need to see the face, although he couldn't help but want to, to know who it was – to know that all injustices this man could ever have committed had just erased themselves from his own mind. He was also very positive that his knees buckled.

"S-Salt." -came the shaking, but ultimately stubborn, voice from the circle of his arms, still moving, still calming her down. John sat, eyes still glued to the miracle in front of him.

He knew the statistics and, with supernatural creatures storming Beacon Hills – and County – like it was the last rage, they hadn't changed for the better and he'd prepared, unwillingly, for the fact that his daughter would be gone.

"You ready now?" Derek's voice tore him out of his disbelief, stroking over the back of the hunched person. "It's alright to take your time…"

The Sherriff swallowed, eyes glued to the mop of hair, longer than when he'd last seen her, but undoubtedly hers – so much like her mother's. In the privacy of his mind there was a lot of begging going on, mostly for things he'd never repeat in public but would also not deny if being called out on.

"He's seen me… hasn't he?"

The tug at his lips was involuntary, but relieved, hearing the dour tone of his daughter – her voice the same it had always been: bent but never broken.

"I think your father saw you in many positions, this is probably not the most embarrassing one."

And he was relieved to see that Derek Hale managed to coax his Stiles out of the quivering mass of panic attack that had previously resided – very chastely – in his lap, gangly feet to one side, most of the upper-body hidden in the lapels of his jacket; out of which she now emerged.

"Hi Dad."

There were tears. (And a lot of very angry, and also very honest, threats towards whoever had done this to her – to them; to him)

That Stiles stayed where the pack could see her and where she could see the pack on a regular – day to day – basis, was not surprising; what had originally been was her father's quick agreement to this, but Derek was not one to look a gifted horse into its' mouth (especially not when it was about Stiles).

Therefor the last two weeks of summer holidays were spent by thoroughly cleaning up the loft and making it as liveable as possible for the pack that, surprisingly-not-surprisingly, too prepared to stay for as long and as often as possible.

Over the day he'd be busy strolling through thrift-stores and yard-sales, collecting old but still functional furniture, transporting it to the factory and then playing the utterly manly game of 'I can carry it farther than you' with Scott and Isaac. In the evening, if none of the parents came over to see their kids and bringing a ton of food with them, either Stiles or Derek would whip up something edible and they'd spend the night philosophizing about anything and everything.

And every night, without fault, would they pile up around Stiles, making certain that she was comfortable in the middle of her bed – the only place she could sleep, apparently – and cocooning her left and right.

It had started with it 'only' being Lydia and Isaac; both still a little too shaken by Stiles' disappearance than to take her presence for granted, and had quickly expanded to Scott and Allison and had even gone as far as to include Kira, who, while taken and very serious with Cora, had been adopted by the pack – and therefor Stiles – without the slightest hiccup.

"You realize that they treat her like the pack mother." Cora appraised him one evening.

He'd done his last rounds through the loft, made sure everything was closed and safe, and, as usual, ended up in front of the open door to Stiles' room – taking in the pack on her bed.

"They treat her as pack." He corrected quietly but stubbornly (Lord forgive if his sister ever found out…). "She has troubles at night if she falls asleep alone; so they give their best to remedy that."

His sister quirked her brow in a questing motion, coming to stand next to him, arms crossed in front of her. "I always wonder about that." She admitted. "I mean she's human… it's not like it's a scent thing…"

Derek shook his head involuntarily but instinctually lecturing her: "She's a spark. Being without pack is almost as bad, if not worse, for her as it is for any pack-member – very often the stability of the pack is everything that anchors the spark." He turned to her. "Remember? Dad was the Hale Spark – he shared Mom's acute feeling for anything happening in and to the pack."

Cora didn't respond, but he knew that she did remember – the relationship of their parents had, after all, been the stuff of legends and fables; a princess and her prince, a queen and her king. No matter where Talia was, their father knew what was happening, what she was feeling – it surpassed mateship, it was something inexplicable; especially since it had never before happened.

Their mother had broken quite a few rules by taking the emissary of another pack as her husband and mate – but that had not necessarily meant that it was a bad thing, doomed to fail. In all actuality, the political move itself had cleared at least three generations of pack-feud off the table in one fell swoop; and while, so she'd told her children, she hadn't originally thought about love as a factor in this orchestration, it had found a way to them.

"You are awfully… insightful… about her needs…" His sister finally whispered, her eyes meaningful and mischievous when he found them – there was a meaning to her words that she didn't dare put out there in front of her Alpha, but he caught it all the same.

And while, yes, that was one reason there was also the fact that: "You forget that I was raised to be Laura's Second," he deflected. "-and as such educated to be her advisor – versed in all things diplomatic; a glorified library-see-ambassador."

She did not take his bait, and he probably wouldn't have either in her place, but for now that was all he could say – for now that was what he had to tell himself.

(Stiles was not there yet, despite – or because of – everything that had happened, and he'd waited for years by now; he could wait a little more.)

When Cora started to join the puppy-pile after that, Derek did not comment.

High school started and Derek prepared for the eventuality of his pack spending less time at the loft and more time at their respective homes, expecting them to take school more seriously than the feelings of a pack-needy Alpha.

Also, Kira and Cora would be staying around indefinitely so not all of his pack would be leaving – which didn't mollify his Alpha-beast in the least. Like a shepherd it wanted to round them up, each and every single one and keep them together, keep them as safe as he could; even though he rationally knew that each and every single one of his pack-members were as safe as they could make them (Jesus H. Christ on a crutch Isaac lived with Argents – there wasn't anything safer…).

Thusly it came as a surprise when Allison and Isaac showed up the first night of school and stayed the night.

He considered it an anomaly and pegged it on Isaac with whom Derek found another, profounder, understanding on many levels – especially considering that the young man treated the bite as the gift that it was.

But the second night Scott and Stiles came over, and the third night Lydia came over with Allison, and he soon realized that every night somebody of the pack would show up without fault, making themselves known by doing their homework and maybe warming up Hot Pockets.

"Aren't they... missing out on school?" he asked Kira one evening, watching over the small pile that was Cora, Stiles and Lydia huddled as close as possible on the couch eyes glued to the television that Stiles had made him get. Kira smiled, shyly, as she tilted her head at him, waiting for the popcorn to heat.

It had been Kira's family to gobble Cora up and patch her up; and it had been the young girl herself to take over caring for his sister in a way that Hales usually did not allow to be cared for – he could see, though, how the young kitsune had managed to worm her way through the defences of his sibling. So she'd come to America with the two Hales, adamant about staying at Cora's side – come hell or high water; and her parents had grudgingly conceded.

"They're actually doing pretty well." She informed him, giving the pot on the stove a little electrical shock – Derek flinched at the unanimous ripping-popping sound of the kernels in the pot, so much louder and instantaneous than the usual pop-pop-popping he'd come to associate with the corn.

"But if you're so worried you can talk to Stiles…"

And – yeah – it figured that this had been the Spark's doing all along. She shrugged when he asked about it, producing a few sheets for him to inspect… timetables.

"You know that I know that pack is not as much a commodity as it is a necessity for wolves." She started, giving him a no-nonsense-glare, her arms busying themselves with the dirty dishes, the bruises on her body slowly disappearing, the skin healing, starting to regain its' glow. "And the parents all gave their okay – most of them are in the know either way, and while Lydia's mother isn't… well, she also doesn't really care where her daughter goes so long as the grades are right."

He wanted to ask why – but he knew why and he didn't like looking stupid, so he settled instead for giving her a hard stare, silent. However, never let it be said that Stiles Stilinski either gave up easily or even would be cowered by the heavy silence of a six foot something Alpha werewolf. There'd been times – before – when he would outright goad her into standing up to him, relishing in the crackle of power around them, relishing in the fact that someone did not fear him enough to stand up to him.

Maybe it was done unconsciously, but he realized when she stepped closer to him and away from the sink, eyes determined and arms crossed despite the suds, that he'd fallen back into that habit.

"Look I know you're as stubborn as they come, but even you can't deny that you're feeling better when they're here."

Well… he could but-

"And if you don't then at least let them have it, because as far as I can tell Scott is more concentrated, Kira drops her self-esteem-issues, Cora forgets the genetic-Hale-anger –", he growled a little at this, admittedly, but the Spark shot him a decimating look and continued, counting her fingers, "Lydia feels better knowing that her people are alive, Isaac finally gets to witness a healthy family which does wonders for him and the more time Allison spends with us the less she gets the feeling like having to shoot us every time someone ends up dead in this town." The young woman challenged. "It's a win-win-situation, dude!"

He groaned. "Don't call me dude." -the retort was by now instinctual, an ingrained habit, born out of regular interaction with the young Stilinski and her inability to communicate without swear-words or overdone informality.

She did, however, never fail to make her point.

"And what's it to you?" he asked, realizing belatedly that she hadn't included herself into her tirade.

The young woman shrugged, turning to evade his eyes and instead submerging her hands back into the drawn water. "Excuse me, but have you seen my timetables?" she snarked, hiding – as usually – behind her sarcasm. "They are veritable masterpieces that I take much pride in creating."

Derek closed in, his beast catching both the change in scent and uptake in heartbeat as he cornered her against the aisle his hands coming to rest by her sides, successfully caging her in – a sheet could barely fit between his front and her back; but she didn't run.

"That's not an answer, Stiles." He crooned, leaning closer, unable to deny himself the pleasure of provoking the abrupt intake of air as he brushed his nose behind her ear and almost drowning in her spiking perfume.

Lord, but he wanted…

She swallowed, but didn't answer even as he crowded closer, pelvis pushing her against the wooden panels, intimately feeling the heat she radiated, basking in the thrum of her power underneath her skin.

"I could of course tell you that you feel the pack just as acutely as any other member." His voice was reduced to gravel, fighting for the last shreds of his sanity, holding on to his humanity, "I could tell you that you like it here."

"And what if I do?" she asked, breathless, body quivering in an effort to not push back into him, the dishes in her hands abandoned in favour of clawing at the surface in front of her. And her scent was enough to tell him everything, was enough to drive him crazy.

He eased up unexpectedly (unwillingly), stepped back just enough to not be glued to her any longer, but not enough to escape her immediate comfort zone and carefully raised a hand to brush a strand of hair behind her ear. "That would be enough for me."

For now…

Deaton called it a 'regression to the mean' – that things were neither always good nor always bad, but always a bit of both in order to go back to The Whole being balanced; an ebb and flow so to speak.

So Derek was waiting for it; because the last weeks had been good – incredibly so.

Stiles had kept up with her ingenious pack-timetables while, at the same time, making certain that they didn't fall behind on school-work. These days he looked back a lot to Cora's comment about the pack-mother and he realized that the pack might treat her as such because she acted accordingly.

She seconded or disagreed with his opinions first, vocally and more often than not rationally; on all-pack-nights it was usually either her or him who cooked for the lot; she was the one who chauffeured the pack-members if he wasn't available; was the go-to-person at school whereas he was the go-to-person outside of school and, altogether, filled a place in the pack hierarchy that Derek hadn't even noticed to be void until she'd stepped in.

But he appreciated it, liked and looked forward to it even – to the familiar scent of her permeating his loft while she was sprawled on the couch, spreading sheets and papers around her and all-over it in an effort to cater to her easily-diverted mind as she learned, to their late-night talks with hot chocolate when her receding but still present sleep-trauma reared its' f-ugly head again, to her body pressed to his side whenever they were watching a movie.

He felt bad thinking it even in the privacy of his mind but, when the call came about the anxiety attack, Derek had been expecting it.

"We can't move her." Isaac informed him panicked. "I swear, Derek, it's like she's glued to the ground and her heart is going wacky and-"

"Stop." -he could hear the Beta talking himself into a Panic Attack and by the sounds of it, right now he couldn't have two of his pack thusly out of commission; bad enough that it had hit Stiles, again. "Your break's over?"

"Yeah, the corridors are empty." Isaac amended. "There's something…wrong about this Derek."

The Alpha swallowed, forcing his body to stay seated where he was – he would do them no favour driving to the High School like a maniac, breaking at least three laws getting there and barging in; no matter how much he desired to (no matter how much his beast howled for it).

"Can you put your phone to her ear?" He had to try talking to her, had to hope that it would be enough – it had been, after all, during the attack at the precinct, had been enough to pull her out of her nightmares; it might just be enough now.

(Her father had given him a long speech about his time in the army and their coping mechanisms for PTSD and if Derek's ability to interpret subtext hadn't waned then it just… might.)

There was rustling at the other end of the line before his ears picked up on the erratic breathing – Stiles' he presumed.

"Stiles." He addressed her in a calm fashion that, technically, the rapid beating of his heart should not have allowed; he was worried for god's sakes – this was his anchor goddamnit; this was his everything. She didn't answer but there was a hitch in her breathing that Derek forced himself to interpret optimistically.

"Stiles listen to me. I am here, you are fine, the pack is here, they are all around you."

As if on cue one of Isaac's whimpers broke through from the background, as if his Beta were reinforcing the words.

"I know you can feel that." He continued – this was so much harder when he couldn't tell her immediate reaction! Her breath wasn't much to go on and over the line he couldn't make out her heartbeat; and being in the unknown like this was driving him all sorts of crazy.

"Focus on that feeling, Stiles. You're a spark, you know it anchors you – let it."

He'd alpha-ed her. She didn't know whether to cringe or to smirk at that; that son of a wolf had good-to-honest resorted to alpha-ing her – the smile won out. His voice was like gravel as he continued to croon into her ear.

It wasn't like she wanted to be here, but there was something about that… graffiti. That crude, unartistic scrawl on one of the bare bricks lining the hallways that had bound her to her spot before she'd realized it. Initially it had been her realization which had sent her into the panic-attack.

The inability to move while being fully conscious was – she'd say unnerving but it was decidedly more than that. It was literally nerve-wracking, panic-inducing and absolutely horrifying.

She couldn't react to Isaac's whines, to Scott's questioning snuffles or even to Kira's soothing hands combing through her hair – it wasn't just physical paralysis that worried her; because while she could see the pack around her, she couldn't feel it. And despite the fact that she desperately wanted to, she couldn't concentrate on it.

Come on, Stiles, get out of your head a little -it wasn't Derek's voice per se, because he was still crooning into her ear, but he'd used those precise words the last time she'd barely managed to control her racing heart into stopping a cardiac arrest. He'd counted her down through her senses but she couldn't remember in what order he'd listed them and her current levels of anxiety wouldn't allow her to go through something half-assed and-

Stop! -again, his voice, or rather a memory of it and, as if he'd commanded her, Stiles clamped her mouth and eyes shut, cutting off her air-intake.

There was a commotion around her when the pack realized that she wasn't breathing anymore and she herself could feel the oncoming dizziness as a looming threat, but, just before it took her over, she exhaled harshly, sucking in the air through her nose; calming herself.

She fixated the tag again, leering at her from the opposite of the corridor.

Brich Auf

The intangible coils that had wrapped around her, tying her to a place and herding her into instable cognisance snapped away as if cut, the backlash resounding loudly in her ears but inaudible to anyone else's – Stiles tumbled to the ground, and out of consciousness.

Brich Auf: German, 'break up' as in commanding something to break

REVIEWS lovely people? =)