Hi again, guys. Thanks for the response to the first chapter, and I'm sorry for the delay before this one. Life got in the way or whatever. Anyway. Again, I don't normally write future fics or anything with children, so this was both exciting and terrifying. I hope you guys keep enjoying the story, and feel free to let me know what you think. Here you go, the first proper chapter...

X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X

/

Scattered across the country are the remains of the McCall pack. After graduation and the defeat of the Benefactor (which happened in the space of a week and left a trail of dead bodies halfway across the county) they went their separate ways, overseas and across the country and to the furthest reaches of the earth. Some of them haven't seen each other in close to ten years; some haven't even spoken to their alpha in years.

But there's one thing that time and distance will never change: when Scott calls, they come running.

/

"Lyds? You ready?" Stiles calls, frowning at himself in the mirror. He holds up a black tie, then a yellow one, and then tosses them both on the floor. "Lydia?"

Hearing no response, he abandons his search for the perfect tie and ventures down the hall, peering into the rooms he passes and internally sighing when they're all empty. His wife is nowhere to be seen, even though he heard her come home half an hour ago. Finally he finds her, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the kitchen floor with a child sitting in her lap. They both look up when he enters.

"Don't come in here, Daddy," the little girl says at once, tossing her strawberry blonde curls over her shoulder and pointing at the floor.

Stiles glances down at the floor near his feet. There's an array of colored sticks and balls – Lydia's old molecular chemistry set. Some of them seem to be arranged in a particular way, and it's to this that his daughter is now pointing. "Why not, Allie?" he asks, wondering what antics his eldest daughter has been up to now – and why his wife is indulging in them.

"Because there's water on the floor," she announces proudly, and Stiles groans. The array of balls and sticks on the ground is in fact the chemical formula for water; he may have almost failed high school chemistry but he's seen his kids playing with the set enough times to be able to recognize some of the basics.

"All right, you two," Stiles says, sweeping up the chemistry set and stuffing it back into the box, "you have to get ready now. We have to be at the airport in less than half an hour."

Still grinning, Allie scrambles to her feet and scampers off.

"Tell your sister to pack a dress this time!" Lydia calls after her, watching as the girl disappears down the hall. As soon as she's out of sight, Stiles holds out a hand to help Lydia to her feet. "Remember that time we went out for dinner and Berry tried to wear sandshoes with her dress?"

Stiles laughs at the memory as he and Lydia start making their way down the hall. "Sometimes I wonder if she's even related to you," he says, with a pointed look at the three-inch heels she's wearing – with her jeans.

As they pass the girls' room, they catch sight of Berry, her nose in a book and her dark hair falling into her eyes. She brushes it away impatiently and mutters, "Just a minute," when her sister tries to pry the book from her hands.

"Then again," Stiles says with a low chuckle, "she's definitely got traces of you in her too."

Lydia slaps him lightly on the arm and leads the way into their room. She kicks off her heels and stretches out her legs, wincing slightly.

"If the heels are bothering you that much," Stiles says tentatively, knowing what the reaction will be, "why do you wear them?"

Lydia looks at him incredulously. "Seven years of marriage and you still question why I wear heels?" she says, and then she shakes her head in mock disappointment. "Sometimes I wonder why I even agreed to marry you."

"Because nobody can ever say no to this face," Stiles says, accompanying his words with a deliberately crooked smile. His smile slips as his phone goes off, and he checks it to see a message from Scott asking what time their flight is. He sets his cell back on the bed without replying to it.

"Scott again?" Lydia asks, taking a couple of dresses out of the closet and carefully folding them.

"Yeah." He doesn't elaborate, and she doesn't ask again. Stiles pulls a bag out from under the bed and haphazardly throws some clothes into it. When he's finished he straightens up, stretching out his arms in front of him. "If I have to respond to another email about a forgotten password or hacked account, I'm going to -" He makes a strangling motion with his hands, and then sighs and turns back to packing.

"You're the one who wanted to be a tech support officer," she reminds him patiently, color-coding her blouses as she packs them neatly into her suitcase.

"Yeah, that's when I was convinced that girls thought nerds were cool," Stiles complains, attempting to zip up his overstuffed bag.

"Some of them do," Lydia says, nudging him out of the way and pulling his clothes out of the bag and shooing her husband away when he tries to help her re-fold everything. "And it worked on one girl, at least."

"Oh really?" Stiles' mouth tilts up and he raises his eyebrows.

"Yeah," Lydia says breezily, shutting the bag with effortless ease and handing it to Stiles. "Of course, that girl wasn't me, I just settled -"

Stiles cuts off her teasing with a kiss, and she doesn't object in the slightest. At least not until there's a rustle of skirts in the doorway and a simultaneous "Eww" from both of their children. They break off abruptly and Lydia pushes her hair away from her face, ducking her head and trying to hide her blush.

"You guys got ready quickly," Stiles says, slinging his bag over his shoulder and reaching for Lydia's neatly-packed suitcase.

"We have to be at the airport in less than half an hour," Allie says, mimicking her father. He gives her an exaggeratedly pained expression and she giggles.

"Come on, you two," Lydia says, holding out her hands. Allie takes her left hand and Berry takes her right hand and they all but drag her out the door. She shoots a look over her shoulder at Stiles, who gives her a smile that's more sad than glad.

It'll be okay, he mouths, and she grits her teeth and lets herself believe, for just a second, that he might actually be right.

/

It reads like a nightmare version of the 12 Days of Christmas. Five suicidal teens, four with anger management issues, three caught cheating on a test, two with divorcing parents, and one in an existential crisis. Kira's been working at Beacon Hills High for just over two years, and somehow it never seems to get any easier. Every day kids march in and out of her office, some of their own accord and some on a teacher's orders, and tell her all about their struggles and expect her to have some kind of magic fix. Even the ones who don't tell her anything seem to expect her to be intuitive enough to give them the answers to questions they don't ask. She does her best, but sometimes it doesn't feel like enough.

She's barely been home five minutes when Scott trudges through the door, Liam in tow, both with blood smeared down their arms and grim expressions on their faces. "Oh my god." Kira jumps to her feet, hurrying over to them. "Are you -"

"It's okay," Scott says, waving her away. "Training exercise gone wrong."

"Scott -" Liam starts, closing the door with almost exaggerated care behind him. "I really -"

"Don't worry about it." Scott's voice is tight, strained, and Kira knows it must have been a long day at the beta training facility he runs in the woods just outside Beacon Hills.

Liam looks like he wants to argue, but instead he shrugs, hitches his backpack farther up his shoulder, and mumbles something about going to have a shower. As soon as he's upstairs, Scott lets out a long sigh, slumping into the nearby sofa. Kira sits beside him, resting a hand tentatively on his shoulder. He smiles at her, and through the weariness she can see genuine gratitude. She hasn't seen him much, not since the alpha of the Prendergast pack died and all of the betas ended up in Scott's training school.

"Can I get you anything?" she asks, rubbing his shoulder in what she hopes is a comforting way.

He shakes his head, closing his eyes and leaning back against the fox-patterned cushions (Stiles had bought them a few years ago as a joke present for Kira, but she embraced both him and her inner kitsune and they've had pride of place on the sofa since then). "I just want this week to be over with," he mutters, and then he seems to realize what he'd said. His eyes fly open and Kira can see the horror in them.

"You didn't mean it," she says quickly, knowing how stressful this whole thing has been for him. He relaxes slightly, but he's still on edge. "Come on," she says, taking his hand and pulling him to his feet, "you can help me cook dinner."

Scott snorts with laughter, but allows himself to be led into the kitchen. "You really know how to cheer me up," he says with good-natured sarcasm, and she just smiles.

He doesn't understand the coyness in her smile until they step into the kitchen. Kira closes her eyes and there's a faint sizzling noise, and then three candles on the kitchen table spring to life, flames flickering casually as if they hadn't just been magically ignited by a thunder kitsune. The table is set for two, complete with wine glasses and napkins that are folded into delicate swans.

"I set it up after you left this morning," Kira says, glancing back and seeing Scott's amazed smile. "I was going to surprise you with dinner and everything, but you got home earlier than I thought you would and then I -"

"Kira," he says, and she stops babbling at once and looks expectantly at him. For a second she's worried he's going to tell her he already has plans, or he's too tired, or she shouldn't have bothered. But then he gives her one of his patented Scott McCall smiles and her heart completely melts. "I love you," he murmurs, pulling her into a kiss, and a warm glow spreads across her skin.

The kiss seems to last forever but it ends too quickly, and as he pulls away Kira wonders if she'll ever really feel close enough to him, if there'll ever be a time she won't be longing just to hold his hand or brush his hair back from his face or even lie beside him.

"So," he says, clapping his hands and looking around the kitchen, "where do we start?"

/

The flight gets in at seven that night, and it takes another hour to get to the lake house. By the time they tumble through the door, Allie and Berry are practically dead on their feet and their parents aren't much better. But Allie seems to get a second wind as soon as she's unpacked, and Berry watches quietly as her sister darts around the house, peeking in all the rooms and opening all the cupboards until Lydia scoops her up and carries her back to her room.

"Bed time," Lydia says firmly, depositing her daughter on the pre-made bed. She can't remember the last time anyone slept in it, or the last time any of the Martin-Stilinski clan was even in Beacon Hills.

"I'm not sleepy," Allie protests, but her drooping eyelids do nothing to help her case.

"Well, I am," Berry announces, climbing into the bed too and curling up under the covers.

"Both of you need to get some rest," Lydia says, tucking them in and kissing them both on the forehead. "Tomorrow's going to be a long day."

She turns out the light and moves toward the door, but as she reaches it a voice from behind her stops her in her tracks.

"He's going to be okay, Mom," Allie says with quiet confidence.

Lydia pauses, looking back at the shadowy form of her daughters. A tired smile drifts across her lips. "What are you, psychic?" she teases gently.

She can hear the smile in Allie's voice as she replies, "Maybe I am."

"Good night, girls."

When Lydia emerges from the room, closing the door carefully behind her, she sees her husband searching through a nearby cupboard for some spare blankets for their room. Lydia joins him in the search, and it's quiet for a few minutes.

"You heard that, I suppose," she says quietly as they start taking the blankets into their room.

Stiles hesitates, and then says, "Yes." Silence slips between them for a moment and then he adds, "She's right, you know. He could be okay."

"He's not," Lydia says, and the words sound like a betrayal.

They reach the room and dump the blankets on the bed, and then Stiles looks at his wife. "Are you saying that as a banshee or just being pessimistic?" he asks, the faintest trace of laughter lacing his words.

Lydia picks up one of the blankets, tangling her fingers in the tassels at the end, remembering a thousand times they'd slept in this house. When Malia and Liam were learning to control their shifts. When she and the others were studying for the SATs and needed to escape. When they came here after graduation. "Maybe they're the same thing," she says, and she lets the blanket fall to the floor with a gentle rustle of fabric.

/

"You're sure he lives out here?" Malia asks for the third time, holding out her hand to stop a rebounding branch hitting her in the face.

"I'm sure," Isaac responds tersely as he clambers over a boulder. He holds his hand out to Malia to offer his help, but she springs lightly on top of the boulder and then takes the lead. He rolls his eyes at her as they keep going. He understands her frustration – they've been walking almost an hour, and the forest around them seems to have stayed the same. But he could track this place by scent even if he couldn't remember the landmarks.

They walk for a few more minutes, and then up ahead the trees thin and a small log cabin comes into view. Malia comes to a stop so quickly Isaac bumps into her.

"That's it?" she asks, disappointment written across her face.

"What did you expect, a castle?" Isaac pushes past her and carries on toward the cabin, and after a short pause Malia follows suit.

"It doesn't look like anyone's home," she says when they reach the front door.

"It never looks like anyone's home," Isaac replies. He taps three times on the door and then steps back to wait. When nothing happens he calls, "Derek? It's me, Isaac. Are you in there?"

When there's still no response, he sighs and reaches for the door handle. A split second before he grabs it, the door opens. Derek is standing before them, wearing an old pair of sweatpants and nothing else. He seems like he's about to complain about them being here, but then he sees their serious expressions and ushers them in without a word.

A few minutes later they're gathered in what passes for a living room. Derek's fully clothed now, and he offers them both tea. They both decline, and he looks faintly relieved.

"So what brings you to my office?" he asks, leaning back in his chair and surveying his two younger packmates.

Isaac scuffs his foot along the wooden floor, and even Malia has the good grace to look uncomfortable. But it doesn't last for long, and some of her old directness seeps through. "It's time," she says abruptly, and Derek narrows his eyes.

He glances at Isaac, who nods miserably.

"He's dying," Malia says, blunt as always. The words weigh heavy in the air, hanging between them like a veil. "Ryan Stilinski-McCall is dying."

/

X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X

The next chapter should be up... well, sometime. Don't forget to review, and I'll see you next time.