"A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow."
― William Shakespeare

The sound of crumpling paper was heard as Meg rolled out a map of Beacon Hills on to the large table in their apartment. Derek stood on her left with Isaac on her right. They were all staring intensely at the map as she began to mark all the coordinates with a black marker onto the smooth paper of the map.

"So here are the locations Boyd was at in that week, we can ignore these three because it's either near the school or at his house, but this one."

"It's in the middle of the nowhere." Derek murmured staring down at the 'X' she pointed at was right in the middle of the Beacon Hills forest. He mulled at the thought of how difficult it was going to be to find them.

"Not that far from the Argents." Isaac pointed out. Meg tensed at the remembrance of their torture that reminded her of her own.

"So they were let go and they headed for the forest." The blonde pondered gesturing from location to location. His long slender fingers spread out on the surface of the map.

"That's where the trail ends, it doesn't help much, and they could be anywhere now." Meg informed quite forlorn, Derek looked to her.

"At least we have a trail to follow. We have to search the area for any clues." He spoke trying to reassure her while trying to seem indifferent at the same time. Isaac nodded in agreement.

"That's a large area to search in. Things would move faster if we had help." Meg suggested rubbing the back of her neck to ease her rising tension. She glanced at Derek for a response, his intense stare was focused on the map.

"What about Scott and Stiles?"

"No" Derek and her both ruled at the same time. Isaac was bewildered.

"No?"

"I don't want them involved in this. This is my problem and besides Scott is distracted enough has it is." The alpha stated, crossing his arms over his chest while directing his stare onto Isaac. Meg's head bobbed up and down in eager consent.

"And Stiles needs to be protected from Grumpy Growl's wrath." She pointed out. Isaac smirked at this and Derek glanced down at her and nodded with grim approval.

"That too."

"Well I guess that leaves him." The tall blonde murmured regretfully. Meg's smile fell at the thought of Derek's uncle.

"I guess so." The alpha muttered equally dissatisfied before reluctantly reaching for his phone that was on the table beside the map.

"We should have done this earlier. Things would be a lot easier then." Isaac noted his gaze fixated on the sky that was slowly beginning to darken from the departing sun. Meg glanced at him for a moment before continuing to try and uses her sense to detect any presence of her friends.

"Well good thing we are werewolves then, nighttime is our peak hour is it not?" she mulled, the blonde looked to her.

"True, but we are still amateurs, I bet Derek and Peter is having a better time."

"Considering they both tried to kill each other before, I don't think so." She stated before walking a head of Isaac. He stared after her in slight wonder, a question rose to the tip of his tongue that he was dying to ask.

"You seem to know a lot about Derek's history." He mused following after her while his eyes searched the earth of the forest. The dried leaved and twigs crunched under the soles of his boots. Meg tensed at his question, excuses and explanations immediately formulating in her mind.

Keep it cool.

"Well you know Scott and Stiles wanted to fill me in and whatever questions I did have I asked Derek." She said casually while keeping her back to him. She didn't want her guilty expression giving anything away. She hated having to keep things from Isaac.

"And he answered?" He was perplexed. Derek was always the mysterious type when it came to his past. He didn't think even Meg was able to coax it out of him, but then again, he wasn't that surprised considering her open free nature anyone would love to tell her their life story.

"Well not in immense detail but yeah. Nothing about his family though obviously, I just stuck to the werewolf stuff."

"Right." Isaac wasn't entirely convinced. Meg was being vague and she was never vague.

"Do you think they were taken?" She suddenly asked mainly because she wanted to divert the topic away from her and Derek but also because the feeling of dread would not leave the back of her mind.

"I don't know Meg, I just think it's unlike them to not call or leave a text you know, and it's all very suspicious." He said with a heavy exhale. She began to nibble her lower lip in a nervous act.

"Did you want to leave with them?" Isaac asked hesitantly mainly because of the answer she might give. Meg stopped and turned to face him, her hands buried into the pockets of her leather jacket and she contemplated his question.

"I did consider it yes but, I owed Derek my life, I couldn't just abandon him." She answered truthfully. He smiled quite pleased by the answer. She looked to him from under her dark lashes.

"Isaac, why did you say yes?"

He grinned, his head tilting to the side "You are only asking now?"

He was amused, she shrugged with a sheepish look on her face.

"Well I wanted to before but it never felt like the right time." There was a silence among them as Isaac thought about what sort of answer to give her. The truth or the truth just a little held back?

"I didn't want to feel weak anymore." He murmured. She stood and listened in patient solicitude.

"When your mom left, your dad became this loving devoting every minute to you type right?" He looked to Meg for a nodded of affirmation "Well my dad he…he wasn't."

Her heart clenched at the sight of his woebegone expression. She felt awkward like she didn't know what she could say that could reassure him since she had never experienced such a situation before. At the thought of someone abusing a sweet heart lovable guy like Isaac, made the world seem suddenly darker. Isaac was avoiding eye contact and in that instant she knew she had to show him that she would be there, no matter what.

Isaac's depressing stir of thoughts came to a complete stop when a warm touch enveloped his hand. His head shot up startled to find Meg staring up at him with a soft smile curving her lips, her grip on his hand tightened.

"Well you have us now and you don't have to be strong alone we can be stronger together." She may not have seen it on his face but the tenderness that she stirred in his heart was unfathomable. Isaac stared down at her while trying to ignore the heavy pounding of his own heart, her amber eyes glittered fondly.

"Why didn't you leave?" He asked his voice almost a whisper, her grin widened.

"And leave you alone with Derek? Nah you would miss me too much." She huffed smugly and punched him playfully in the chest. He smiled at her words before swiftly pulling her under his arm before ruffling her head of hair.

"That's reason enough I suppose." He said while Meg struggled to get out of his strong grip, she missed the affectionate way he was smiling down at her.

"I am glad you didn't Meg." He muttered, she wiggled in his hold and finally found a way to raise her head to look up at him from under her mass of tousled hair, she beamed up at him.

"I am glad you didn't either." She said before hugging his side. Isaac returned it awkwardly since it was his first time being embraced by a girl other than his mom. It felt nice, he was almost reluctant to let go.

"Now let's go find our friends!" Meg exclaimed with much enthusiasm and left his side to prance a head. Isaac chuckled and followed after her with a soft smile playing on his thin lips.

Derek glanced up at the dark sky with a very apparent frown on his face. They had lost sunlight and still found no trace of Erica and Boyd and things were not going well.

"So your new Beta, she is pretty useful." Peter commented. He tensed at his words and stiffly turned to face his uncle.

"Yeah so?" He snapped glaring him down. His uncle brought his hands up in a surrendering act to show he meant no offence, but Derek knew better than that.

"Nothing, I am just making an observation." The Alpha assumed that was the end of that inquisition and faced the forest head of him once more before resuming his walk, but Peter was far from done.

"For example, I've noticed that you are pretty sweet on her." Derek scowled and the other Hale smiled wickedly. He was pleased by his nephew's expected reaction.

"Which I get I mean she is such a cute little thing, so eager to help, so friendly."

Derek turned to face his uncle who was only a step away. They began to glare each other down as the young Hale's thought raced at Peter's dangerous conclusion, he knew.

"If I found out just by looking at the two of you how long do you think it would take for them to find out?"

"There is nothing between us." He objected his uncle chuckled mockingly.

"Keep telling yourself that." He breathed narrowing his electric blue eyes at his nephew. Derek's fingers closed to a fist within the recesses of his jacket pocket, trying to restrain his rising anger.

"Are you really giving me this speech right now? She is part of my pack the same as Isaac, it would be the same result if Isaac was in trouble too, we stick together we look after each other or have you forgotten that?"

"No I get it you care about them but this is bigger than them, they are going to start using your weaknesses against you, you need to start to treating them more like—"

"Like what? A prop in the plan? Like you did with Laura like you did with that nurse?" Derek cut in stern and cruelly. His words sliced through Peter's cool exterior.

"At least it got the job done." He growled, Derek stepped forward ready for a fight.

"No it didn't because in the end I am the alpha and you had to pine through a teenager to come back." Derek snapped his last words before he stared his uncle down with one last glower. Peter's lips pressed down into a tight thin line before they curved into a malicious smile. His shoulders eased as the evil twinkle returned to his eyes, before he brushed past Derek and walked a head. The alpha narrowed his gaze on his uncle's back, the queasy feeling returned and he was even more wary of the look Pete gave him. Like he knew his relationship with Meg was going to blow up on his face and what Peter gave was a warning.

The sudden buzz of his phone cut through his thoughts. He calmly fished through his pocket for the phone before looking down at the caller ID. It was Isaac, he pressed down the button to accept the call.

"Derek we have a bit of a situation."

"Why, what happened?" He reacted to Isaac's breathless voice.

"Meg's hurt."