A/N: this is eventually a Sterek fic but it focuses just as heavily on the strength of Stiles' non-romantic relationships because those are very important to me. the story is told through Derek's, Lydia's, and Scott's POVs, rotating between the three of them.

Derek rolled over in bed, groaning into his pillow at the unfortunate realization that he was not asleep anymore. Before he thought about it, he was groping around on his bedside table with one hand. But when his eyes adjusted to the painful glare enough to make anything out, his phone showed no texts or missed calls.

He frowned at the display. It was 2am; of course there was nothing. Barring emergencies, no one in the pack would dare call him in the middle of the night. Why had he been expecting that?

He tossed the phone back on the beside table where it belonged at this time of night and turned his back to it, ignoring the nagging feeling that there was something he should be doing right then. The town had been mostly quiet lately, and there wasn't much solid evidence on the latest mishap that could be followed up on as of yet. There was certainly nothing that would need his attention past midnight.

Yawning, he tried to reassure himself with an internal promise to run the territory line in the morning, just as a precaution. It still took him a long time to get back to sleep.

Lydia opened her locker to pull out the only binder she would need for the day; bless advanced courses for leaving her with one lone class for the semester amid a sea of special projects. Distantly, she heard her name called. Snapping her locker closed, she turned around with a comment about her oh so busy day already on her lips to find—

"What?" Malia asked, frowning. "Do I have something in my teeth?"

"No," Lydia said quickly, hugging her binder to her chest. "I was just expecting…"

Allison, she thought. She had just forgotten for a second that the other girl's locker was on the far side of the school this semester instead of right beside hers like it used to be. Last year they had shared most of their classes and always walked together. She was still accustomed to that little ritual of theirs, that was all.

"Expecting who?" Malia seemed jumpy. Her eyes roved the crowded hallway and her thumb tapped out a rhythm against her bare thigh.

Lydia put a smile on her face and said, "No one. Come on, I can help you go over your notes before class starts."

Malia started to explain the trouble she was having in the latest chapter, but Lydia didn't catch more than the first few words. There was a noise, low but building, that seemed to echo in the back of her head, blotting out her high school environs. Some kind of whistling? No, too low for that, with a rhythmic sort of pulse to it.

"Lydia."

They'd already reached the calculus classroom without her noticing. She turned in her seat, ready to pretend she had been listening to Malia's problems attentively like she'd intended, but she caught sight of someone over her friend's shoulder: a doctor. A grown woman wearing hospital scrubs and a white coat, sitting at a desk and staring blankly ahead of her. The noise swelled louder and louder, clanking and groaning and pounding through Lydia's skull until it felt like it was rattling her bones.

The woman turned to look at her, slowly and without any recognition in her slack face.

In the next blink, she was gone, the seat empty and the noise completely absent.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Malia asked.

"Fine," Lydia said faintly. "Just...didn't sleep well last night."

Or barely at all. She'd woken up a half dozen times, sure that she was supposed to be going somewhere. The last time she had made it all the way to her front door before determining that the tug in her stomach wasn't actually a banshee vibe pulling her toward a corpse. It was more like the anxious, irrational conviction that she'd missed a deadline even though the essay was already handed in. Like she was missing something important.

"Me neither," Malia said, knee bouncing. She had the edge of her desk in a white-knuckled grip, claws digging into the fake wood. She let go with a start when Lydia said her name in warning, claws pulling back in like she hadn't even noticed they'd been out. She didn't sound entirely convinced when she said, "Maybe it's the full moon coming up."

Lydia pulled out her notes rather than admit to how unlikely she thought that was. Or to the stray thought that, as much as she missed having her best friend by her side every minute of the school day, she had a feeling that Allison's wasn't the face she'd been looking for earlier.

Scott wasn't at his best today. He'd slept like shit, which didn't usually affect him that much but this time he was jumpy and scatterbrained and all-around unfocused. He'd already been called out by two teachers for not paying attention in class and his notes were full of half-hearted chicken scratch instead of his usual carefully organized lists and diagrams.

Erica, Isaac, and Hayden had all commented on his preoccupation. Jackson had punched his shoulder and said he'd better be more focused on the field later or he'd get his ass kicked, co-captain solidarity be damned. Scott had punched him back and reminded him that Liam would cream them both anyway, mostly to cover up that he'd forgotten they even had lacrosse practice that day.

At least there was nothing pressing for him to ignore during lunch, just a tray of cruddy cafeteria chicken nuggets and a pudding cup. Only he didn't even like pudding. Why had he picked that up? He didn't have too much time to question the odd impulse before Boyd snatched the cup off his tray with a pleased noise.

Scott's eyes skipped across the room restlessly as he ate, searching for nothing in particular. They fell on an underclassman wearing a Star Wars t-shirt and he smiled. He had his phone in his hand, opening up his most recent thread in his texting history, before he remembered that Liam hadn't even seen Star Wars. Neither had he, come to think of it. There was no reason for him to be so tickled by a cartoon Yoda logo. He put his phone away without sending anything.

"What's wrong with you, McCall?" Erica asked again, crunching into an apple. "You're acting super weird."

Scott gave himself a shake and said, "Nothing's wrong. Or nothing more than usual anyway."

"Is this about that kid from yesterday?" Isaac asked.

Allison, sitting close beside him, frowned around her bite of sandwich. "The one with the empty house?"

"You mean the house that got even emptier while I was in it, and the kid who disappeared out of a fully staffed sheriff's department?" Scott said wryly. "Yeah, there's definitely something wrong with that."

"Kira said she thought Lydia had an idea," Boyd said around the pudding spoon in his mouth. "Something about the cowboy dude from that kid's memories."

Allison snorted at that description and Boyd threw a soggy french fry at her that he swiped from Erica's tray. Erica made a noise of protest and stole a chicken nugget from him in retaliation. Isaac happily munched on his bag of chips, holding it protectively against his chest so no one else could get to it.

Scott ignored the minor food fight. "I'll talk to her after school," he said. "For now, everyone just chill out and take a breather. We've got the full moon tonight and Liam and Hayden still need some help."

"Don't worry about the puppies," Erica said with a fond roll of her eyes. "With all of us plus Derek and Malia? We'll have plenty of muscle to keep them under control and not running naked through the streets."

Scott wanted to protest that that was one time and totally not Liam's fault, but he ended up just snorting instead. He found his phone in his hand again, half a text about Liam's streaking habits already typed out, but he couldn't think of who he'd been planning to send it to.

When he looked up, Allison was watching him, bottom lip caught between her teeth. She raised an eyebrow in silent question, which was at least more tactful than the rest of his friends had been over the course of this day. He didn't have an explanation for her though. He just shrugged, and she nodded back at him before turning to hook her chin over Isaac's shoulder so he would feed her his chips.

With a hard shake of his head, Scott switched over to another text thread and asked Derek if he could check out that abandoned house, see if there was anything Scott, Mason, and Liam had overlooked. He had the most sensitive nose of all of them, after all, and Scott really felt like they were missing something. He just couldn't put his finger on what.