Derek and Stiles returned home prepared to go back out immediately. You couldn't ignore an invitation from Marin Morrell, no matter how you might want to. Stiles got out of the car and made towards the front door with such vigor as to make his backside sway back and forth. Derek eyed this appreciatively.
"Would you hurry?" They were still pretending to live in their own house and so had to move swiftly up the stairs and across the secret bridge into Laura's home in order to change.
Connor, to everyone's relief, was down for his nap, nested with his head on Laura's cat and his feet tucked under Isaac's jean-covered leg. Isaac was looking strained, obviously under orders not to move for fear of waking the child. Connor was wearing an excessively elaborate outfit of cream and navy plaid. Laura had changed into an outfit of pale blue and champagne to complement it and was sitting nearby, a fond eye on her drone and son. She appeared to be reading a leather embossed novel, but Stiles couldn't quite believe it. To his knowledge, she never read anything, except perhaps the gossip columns. He was not surprised when, upon seeing them, the vampire put down her book and sprang to meet them.
Together they looked at the drone, feline, and plaid pile of child.
"Isn't it just a picture?" drawled Laura.
"Everything is okay?" Stiles spoke in hushed tones.
The vampire tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear in an oddly soft gesture. "Excessively. My little darling behaved himself after you left, and as you can see, we had no further problems."
Stiles nodded. "Derek and I have been summoned to visit Newark. Will you all be okay for the rest of the night?"
"I believe we may, just possibly, survive."
Before Stiles could head upstairs to change, someone rang the doorbell. Derek raced to answer the door hoping to keep Connor from waking.
It was Argent on the stoop. "Oh, good. I was hoping to catch you here."
"Chris."
"Chrissy, darling!" said Laura.
Argent didn't even twitch an eyelid at the moniker.
"You have a visitor," said the Beta.
Stiles was confident enough in his assessment of Argent's character to spot a certain tension. Such forced calm indicated a need for caution.
His husband knew this too. Or perhaps he smelled something. He loosened his stance, prepared to fight. "BUR or pack business?"
"Pack."
"Really? It is important? We're required to go to Newark."
Stiles interrupted. "Actually, only I need to. You were simply curious."
Derek frowned. His husband knew perfectly well that the real reason he wished to go was for security. He hated sending Stiles into a hive alone. Stiles patted the pocket of his jacket. As of yet, there was no new baseball bat in his life, but he still carried a gun and the sundowner bullets were good enough when pointed at a vampire queen.
"I'm afraid this is important," said a new voice from behind Argent, in the street.
Argent's lip curled slightly. "I thought I told you to wait."
"I'm an Alpha. You can't order me around like you do everyone else."
Stiles thought that was a tad unfair. Argent was many things, but he was not at all tyrannical. That was more Derek's style at times. It might be better to say that Argent arranged everyone and everything around him.
A woman moved out of the gloom of the front yard and into the light cast by the bright chandelier of Laura's hallway. Argent shifted to one side to allow their unexpected visitor to take center stage.
Cora Hale looked about the same as she had almost three years earlier, when Stiles had seen her last. Immortality had given her skin a certain pallor, but her face was still grim and line around the eyes and mouth.
"Evening, Gramps," she said to Derek, and then, "Grams," to Stiles. Stiles rolled his eyes, both at the term and the fact that she looked the same age as both he and Derek.
"What can I help you with?" asked Derek tersely.
"We have a problem."
"Oh, do we?"
"Yes. Can I come in?"
Derek shifted, making an open-hand gesture back at Laura, it being the vampire's house. Vampires were odd about inviting people in.
Laura peeked over Stiles's shoulder, standing on tiptoe. "I don't believe we've been introduced."
Stiles pivoted slightly, decided Derek probably wasn't going to do it, and made introductions. "Cora Hale, may I introduce the potentate, Laura Hale? Laura, this is Cora Hale, Alpha of the Beacon Hills Pack and your great-great-great-great niece."
The two immortals evaluated each other. Laura's eyes gleamed and Cora sniffed at the air.
Finally Laura said, "Perhaps you had best come in."
The moment was broken by a small voice behind them. "Mama?"
"I see somebody is awake. Hello, my darling." Laura turned away from her new acquaintance to look fondly down the corridor.
Connor's head poked out from the sitting room. Isaac stood behind him, looking apologetic. "I'm sorry. He hard your voices."
"Not to worry. I know how he gets."
Connor seemed to take that as an invitation and padded down the hallway. "Daddy! Dad!"
Cora, momentarily forgotten, was intrigued. "This must be my new great-great-great-great-half brother?"
Stiles forehead creased. "Sort of? It may be better to say your his great-great-great aunt." He looked at his husband. "Immortality makes for strange genealogy."
Cora looked like she was going to question further, but Connor, seeing a stranger, charged towards her.
"Oh, no. Wait!" yelled Isaac.
Too late, Stiles dove to pick up his son.
Connor dodged through the legs of the adults and latched on to Cora's leg. In the space of a heartbeat, the boy changed into a small wolf cub, outfit ripped to tatters in the process. The cub, far faster than a toddler, went barreling off down the street, tail waiving madly.
"What?" Cora blanched. Her unnatural pallor was gone and the lines in her face were more pronounced – mortality had returned.
Without even a pause, Derek stripped out of his suit.
"Well, welcome to New York, indeed," exclaimed Laura, rolling her eyes at her brother.
"Really, Derek? In full view?" was Stiles's response, but Derek was already changing midstride from human to wolf. It was done with a good deal of finesse, even if it was done rather there for all the world to see.
"Does it hurt him?" Cora asked as Stiles excited the vampire's house to watch the massive wolf chase the tiny cub.
"We're not sure. We just learned about it tonight. He doesn't seem to be bothered though."
"How long will this last?" Cora made a gesture up and down her own body, indicating her altered state.
"We have theories, but we can't be sure without testing it. My touching him will stop it, though."
Cora held a naked arm out at Stiles hopefully.
"Oh, no, not you. The effervescent touch has no effect on you anymore. You're mortal. No, I have to touch my son. Then immortality sort of, well, reverberates back to you, I guess. I'll know when I have time to study him."
Argent stood off to one side, a tiny smile on his face, watching the chaos in the street.
"Wait, look!"
Stiles didn't hear Argent raise his voice hardly ever. He whirled around to look.
Connor had reached the end of the street, where an orange lamp casts a weak glow on the corner. There he had abruptly turned back into a naked toddler.
"Well that's one mystery solved. Apparently distance will work," muttered Stiles.
Derek, still in wolf form, trotted over to pick up his human son.
"No, Derek, wait!" shouted Stiles.
The moment he touched him, Connor once more turned into a wolf cub, this time stealing his father's form, and Derek was left to stand in the middle of the street, naked. Connor tore off back toward the house. Derek made to follow, this time in mortal form.
Stiles was seized with intellectual curiosity. "No, Derek. Wait. Stay there."
Derek might have disregarded his husband, particularly if he realized he was naked in the middle of the neighborhood, but he had learned Stiles's tones. This one meant he was on to something interesting. Best to just do ask he asked. So Derek stood, watching with interest, as his son dashed back the way they had come and then past the house in the opposite direction.
Just as before, at a distance from his victim, he turned back into a child. This time Stiles went to retrieve him. What must the surrounding households think of us? Screaming child, wolf cub, werewolves. Really, he probably wouldn't put up with it if he hadn't married into the madness.
Derek, with a start, turned back into a wolf before the neighbors realized he was nude on the street.
Cora began to laugh. Laura joined her. They looked for all the world like merely sisters, rather than distant relations.
Derek, once more a wolf, went through the door after his sister and granddaughter. Stiles and his troublesome offspring followed, but not before he heard a neighbor's door click shut.
"Great," Stiles said with a sigh as he reached Laura's sitting room. "I think we've become those neighbors."