A/N: Written for teaotter for the crossovering exchange on DW. This story is set post-series for the Tomorrow People and sometime mid-season 4 for Teen Wolf as if the two timelines match up. As always, comments, questions, concrit, and squee are all equally welcomed. Thanks to htbthomas for the beta.

Twice Across the Same River

by LadySilver

The teleport ended and Stephen stumbled away from Irene, destabilized from the effort of transporting a mundane passenger over such a great distance. He threw a hand up and found a wall to lean against while he caught his balance, only belatedly feeling the patina of grime unique to alleys everywhere. "Yuck," he said, despite making no effort to pull away.

"It's better than appearing in the middle of a crowded street," Irene supplied. She didn't need to read his mind to know what he was thinking—not that she could anymore-; the paranoia earned from years of hiding from an organization out to destroy her hadn't faded, and probably wouldn't, even if both she and they had been effectively neutralized. "The fewer people who know about us, the safer we all are. Alleys may not be the cleanest places in the world, but at least the only accidental witnesses we have to worry about are rats, and when was the last time anyone listened to the testimony of a bunch of rats? Never, that's when."

Stephen nodded, a smile pulling at his mouth at Irene's analysis. His side hurt like he'd been running hard and a wave of dizziness swept over his eyes, yet the fact that they weren't fleeing for their lives made the exertion of teleporting so much easier to bear. Still: "We're gonna have to rest here," Stephen gasped out. Another long jaunt was out of the question until he'd had a chance to recuperate. Teleporting wasn't supposed to be this hard, he thought. Traveling this way usually took almost no effort since he'd gotten the hang of the mechanics. Though, he'd never tried to cross the country before. Cara had warned him that the trip would be a lot more difficult than he thought, and would probably end up taking as long as if they had just driven. Cheaper, though. Especially since he didn't have a car.

"Which leads to the question: Where is here?" Irene pulled out her cell phone and began poking at the screen. She studied the map that appeared, then glanced up as if to verify what she saw on the screen with the satellites she couldn't see orbiting high overhead in the still daylit sky. "Beacon Hills, California," she concluded. She scrolled around the map more, assessing the relative locations of the towns and frowned at what she learned. "Well, it's hardly the most direct route you could have taken from New York. Remind me to give you a refresher in geometry."

"I'm doing the best I can," Stephen countered. "Besides, it's hard to teleport without a clear destination. I'm kinda surprised we haven't ended up smashing into a mountain or standing in the middle of the desert or something."

"Yeah, you have managed to always land us near food and shelter. I guess meeting basic needs outweighs travel efficiency in the subconscious mind." She looked thoughtful, made a note in the relevant app on her phone, then re-pocketed the device.

"This town felt like a good place to stop for the night," Stephen agreed, choosing to ignore Irene's action. In fact, the subject of basic needs had made his stomach rumble. At the same time a new wave of dizziness reminded him that he'd really been pushing his powers further than he ever had. "Tell me again why I agreed to take you home?"

Irene shrugged the question off. "It's not like I could fly."

"Because...we don't have that power?" Stephen asked, knowing as he heard the words coming out of his mouth that he was asking a stupid question.

Irene confirmed his suspicion with a raised eyebrow at him. "Because I don't have any ID. The downside to going off the grid is that it's not all that easy to come back onto it." She pushed her glasses back into place with an air of finality. Though younger than Stephen, if only by a few months, she often spoke as if she had decades additional experience. Right now, he was happy to let her be the older and wiser one.

With a tug on the sleeve of Stephen's hoodie, she began walking them out of the alley and into the bustle of downtown Beacon Hills—which, Stephen realized at a glance, barely had enough going for it to qualify as a downtown: A handful of stores, a movie theater with an old fashioned marquee advertising a movie that had already been out for weeks, a few restaurants. And the edge of the strip easily visible in both directions from where he stood. A few people milled under the canopy of the movie theater, probably waiting for their show to start. A few more sat at the tables in front of a coffee shop and two restaurants with patios. A few cars were parked along the bucolic street, while pedestrians wandered amongst them, making more effort to avoid runaway skateboarders and rollerbladers on the sidewalk than the drivers on the street. While he'd seen streets like this on TV shows, he had no idea that they existed in reality.

Even as his expectations of finding worthwhile civilization were plummeting, Irene's face lit up. "How cute!" she exclaimed, taking the final step onto the sidewalk and into full view of anyone who so much as glanced their direction. "It looks just like the town where I grew up. Oh my god! I can't believe they have a Flavio's. That was my favorite restaurant when I was a kid. I can't wait to taste their pizza again." She swung her backpack, stuffed full of clothes and electronics, into place and started toward the pizzeria in question.

Cringing, but not at all up for an argument, Stephen fell into step behind her. The sooner they got some food, the sooner they'd be able to find a place to crash for the night. Most likely, they'd end up in an abandoned building, but maybe they could find a vacant motel room nearby. Though not ideal, it wouldn't be the first time one of the Tomorrow People, himself included, helped themselves to a room no one else was using.

"Zombies!" he heard someone proclaim in a voice that easily carried over the dim hubbub of street noises. "It's gotta be zombies."

The fervor of the declaration broke through the thoughts stuffing Stephen's mind. The speaker was one of a pair of boys walking a few feet ahead, probably headed for the theater. The loose plaid shirt he wore flapped with each broad gesticulation as he sought to convince his friend.

The friend shook his head with the exasperation of someone who was dealing with an old argument. He ran a hand through his hair, revealing a tattoo of two thick, black lines that encircled his muscled arm. "It can't be zombies, Stiles..." Please not zombies. Not even pretend zombies. Real werewolves are bad enough. Don't we have enough supernatural in our lives? Why do we need to see it in the movies? The thought buried whatever the guy had actually said, and Stephen found himself picking up his pace, drawn in despite himself. While overhearing wild, even crazy, thoughts was an unfortunate downside of being able to read minds, something about this one had the ring of a simple truth being simply recognized and he wanted to know more.

"Come on, Stephen," Irene said. She again grabbed his sleeve and pulled him with her to cross the street. "I'm starving and we still need to find a place to sleep. I don't know about you, but I'd like to do that while it's still light out."

"Yeah, OK." Stephen threw a last glance at the two boys as they continued on their way and did his best to forget about the odd thoughts he'd picked up, in lieu of the more pressing matters they both agreed on.

The pizza, when it finally arrived, was wrong in every way from the type of crust to the flavor of the sauce. Despite his hunger, Stephen could only nibble at his slice. Irene, on the other hand, bit into her first slice with gusto. "Ohhh, I've missed this," she moaned around a mouthful of cheese and sauce.

"You've lived in New York City for how long and California pizza is what you miss?" Stephen asked. It was hard to even think of the concoction laying before him as pizza. Even the smell made him wrinkle his nose.

"I've lived a lot of places and nothing ever tastes as good as the food you ate growing up."

"You haven't had my mother's cooking, have you?" Stephen quipped. His mother was actually a pretty decent cook—when she found time to do it—which wasn't often. Though, he'd never been forced to leave his family behind like Irene had. Maybe he'd have an even higher estimation of his mother's cooking if he only had memories of it.

The two had taken a seat at one of the outdoor tables. Out in the warm evening weather, where they could eat their food and watch the people from a safe distance, it soon became clear that the downtown had more activity than first glance had suggested. Not only were people lining up at the theater, but a fair number walked up and down the street window shopping, socializing, and eating ice-cream, tacos, and hot dogs. Try though he did to keep from staring at any one person, Stephen felt his eyes continually drift back to the tattooed teen and his friend who had drifted to stand outside a small sporting goods store down the block. From this distance, he couldn't read their minds, which only left him all the more curious about what they were thinking.

"I wonder what my parents and sisters are going to say when they see me," Irene mused. "They don't even know why I left, and here I am showing up again after years of no contact. Forget what they're going to say! What am I going to tell them?" The half-eaten slice of pizza now dangled, forgotten, from her hands. Grease dripped in slow drops from the edge to spatter on the table.

"You could tell them the truth," Stephen suggested, only half listening to her question. Of the members of his family, only his brother Luca had needed to be told about the Tomorrow People. Since finding out, their once close relationship was strained to near-breaking. So, maybe his advice wasn't worthwhile and Irene was better off telling her family that she'd cracked under the pressure of trying to get her PhD before being old enough to vote. At least they were likely to believe that.

What he did know is that the plaid-dressed teen—Stiles was it?—was jabbing his finger at something in the sporting goods store window as if he'd never cared more about winning any argument in his life.

Stephen was trying to figure out an excuse to go over and talk to them when a car parked on the street exploded.

The shockwave blasted out and pounded into anything in its path. Behind the two teens, the plate glass window of the sporting goods store shattered. Stephen was halfway to his feet when the first flames sprung from the car and the audience's collective hush turned to screams. Reacting on instinct, he teleported from the table, appeared between the teens, threw his arms around them, and disappeared microseconds before the flying shards of glass cut into them.

They came crashing to a landing in the alley, limbs entangled. Stephen collapsed onto the asphalt like a man who'd been sucker punched then smashed over the head with a folding chair. A knee hit his ribs, an elbow jabbed into his thigh. He groaned loudly, but couldn't bring himself to so much as lift a hand to fend off the accidental blows.

From the street a staccato burst of gunfire brought forth a round of screams. As suddenly as it started, the gunfire stopped, leaving a long, empty silence.

Stephen's two passengers scrambled to their feet, adding more kicks and jabs as they pulled apart.

"Scott?" he heard, the name drawn out into a slow question that was laden with all the others that a reasonable person might ask.

"Keep an eye on him," Scott replied. His steps barely sounded as he moved to the alley entrance. "I'll go find out what happened."

In the shade of the buildings that flanked the alley, the asphalt was almost pleasantly warm. For a moment, Stephen thought about relaxing into it and falling asleep right there. However, the rank smell of hot garbage and cooking urine destroyed even the illusion of comfort he might have found. The smells came at him from all sides and it didn't matter which way he turned his head. Stephen's eyelids fluttered open to find the plaid-dressed guy standing over him, arms crossed, and his lips thinned in a humorless smile. "Don't you dare move."

"Hey," Stephen protested. "I just saved your life." His voice sounded funny to his ears and he wondered if the explosion had damaged his hearing. But, no, the wailing sirens of ambulances and police cars coming down the street sounded perfectly clear.

"Yeah, we're gonna talk about that, too," the guy replied. Without taking his eyes off Stephen or raising his voice, he continued, "Scott, what's going on out there?"