Okay, so sleep might have been a good idea. I should do more of that. I like sleep, actually I love sleep. It's just that sleep and I aren't on the best of terms these days, like that one friend that you neglect too long and they get grumpy and reluctant when you ask if they want to hang out, because they feel like your back up plan?

Yeah, that's sleep and me these days. And it's not just because it's summer and way hotter than it has any right to, even during the night, it's also that, well with all that's going on right now, there just isn't that much time for sleep. And apparently werewolves are fine with just a few hours of lazy lying around in the afternoon sun after a long night of running for your life and trying to survive. But I'm not. I'm so very, very tired.

Stiles is leaning across the counter, cheek pressed against the cold glass. The Coffee Shop is almost empty, just a few regulars left and three younger teens laughing at a table by the door; even abnormally-large-bladder guy has gone home.

Stiles is 97 percent sure he never managed to drift off (okay maybe for like a minute), but regardless he's suddenly very awake when a low "pssst" sound behind him makes him stumble as he tries to push himself off the counter and spin around in the same motion.

And okay, perhaps he's a bit worked up these days, but it's not his fault. Because there's werewolves and hunters and mean managers breathing down his neck 24/7, and Stiles is just waiting for the moment to come where all of the above gets sick of him and realize that he's more bother than he's worth.

Luckily the one who made the "pssst" sound only falls into one of those categories, and even that is not by choice.

"Calm down, dude." Scott says and looks a bit taken aback by Stiles' sudden flailing. "When was the last time you slept man? You look wrecked!"

Stiles wipes a hand down his face, blinking excessively. "Pff, sleep, sleep is for normal teens with out best friends who turns into werewolves and have girlfriends who's family wants to exterminate said best friend." Stiles counters and suddenly feel both awake and slightly edgy. "I had like an hour before school, two days ago, I'm all rested."

"Dude, just quit this stupid job." Scott says and wraps a hand around Stiles' neck. It's a new thing he's started doing, and Stiles secretly thinks it's a wolf thing. "It's not like you're using the money for anything anyway."

Stiles dodges the not-question by ducking out of Scott's grip and turning back towards the counter just as the three teens leave as the last customers. "So what's new?"

Scott is smart enough to notice and accept the dismissal of the subject, and instead helps Stiles close up the coffee shop. "Well, Allison called. She's found out where they're holding Lydia."

Stiles head jerks towards Scott. "She's alive?"

"Yeah, Allison overheard her psycho granddad and her mom talk about it." Scott confirms. "She called me."

Stiles' mind is spinning slightly, adapting to this new information that, quite frankly, he never expected to get. Ever since that night, the night he debuted as Lydia's pincushion, he's been expecting the call to come in on his dad's police radio. `Naked body of girl found in the forest.´

His dad had the state troopers come down and help find Lydia, but with no luck, obviously. Because Stiles knows that Lydia didn't get lost in the woods again, didn't run away and have another mental break down, but he's not about to tell his dad that.

Even if he really wants to. Because his dad has spent more than one night, sitting up looking through maps of the area, while drinking more than his share of Jack D. Because it's his job to keep the people in the town safe, and even if there was nothing he could have done to save Lydia, he doesn't know that and he'll never stop blaming himself, because he's just that kind of man. The kind of man who gives a shit. So, yeah. Stiles just want to fill him in on the whole thing, so his dad won't blame himself.

But he can't. He can't tell his dad that Lydia got dragged away by hunters, hunters who just happen to be respectable members of the community, who's rich and influential and could get his father fired if they wanted to.

And yes, he would have though they would have killed her by now, because he watched her fight against a dozen hunters and four werewolves, deflect bullets and arrows like they were daises and even had first-hand experience with her claws, and honestly he hadn't expected the Argents to have anywhere secure enough to hold her for this long.

And why would they even keep her? It's been almost a month.

"Scott?" Stiles locks the door and starts walking towards the back room. "How exactly did Allison overhear this?"

"Umm, I'm not sure?" Scott somehow manages to turn it to a question, and Stiles is not sure what to answer, because he's on thin ice with this and the last thing he wants is to offend Scott.

"I don't know, it just… Does it seem at all weird to you? Like, why would they let Allison overhear something like that? They know Lydia was her friend, and she said it herself, that she felt her granddad was on to her."

"Are you saying they'd let it slip as a trap for her?"

"Or a trap for you." Stiles says quietly as they walk through the darkness of the back room. Stiles opens his locker and starts to change out of his uniform.

"But Allison and her dad are the only ones who knows about me. And Allison said they hadn't said anything to her granddad, you know, because of the whole slay-them-all-approach." Scott argues, and Stiles agrees completely. It's just that there's something very wrong in all of this and he's pretty sure that if he could just sleep, could just get rested for once he'd be able to suss out what the problem is.

"Yeah, you're right." He says instead, deciding to keep his mouth shut, because he's sure Allison wouldn't make a mistake about something like this, would never endanger Scott or the Pack, and she's smart, smart enough to lie to keep a secret and know when people are lying to her in return.

"You think they've been, you know, trying to get Lydia to rat out the pack?" Stiles ask, because apparently he likes to torture himself tonight. "You think they hurt her to get her to talk?"

Scott stops and looks at Stiles with enough shock and fear on his face, that Stiles is pretty sure Scott never even considered that. "I…" Scott says, but nothing more than that.

"Yeah, that not very helpful to think about right now." Stiles says and shuts his locker. "Did Allison say where they were keeping her?"

"Yeah, she did. I called Jackson and Danny, they said they'd meet us there." Scott says and blinks against the low evening sun when they walk out on the parking lot.

"What about Derek?"

"He's not picking up, and you know he won't. Not in the next few days."

Stiles had almost forgotten, it's the anniversary of the night that Derek's family burned to death inside their house, and suddenly Stiles feels really creeped out about the fact that Derek is still living there, on the grave site of his family.

"So what's the plan?" Stiles jumps into the jeep and starts her up.

"Plan?"

"Yeah, plan. Intentions. Tactics." Stiles isn't sure what he was expecting, really. The blank look of a goldfish on Scott's face should have been what he was expecting, and he can't help but smile. Because, yeah. The Pack really needs him.

Derek smells the blood before he hears the faint drag of feet up the stairs. He smells the blood because it's Stiles, because Stiles is as familiar to him as any of the wolf boys, even if his scent doesn't reach out to Derek the way the Werewolves' does. He's still Pack and he's been through plenty of pack bonding and Derek is used to Stiles' smell.

Or more than used to it, really. It's comforting, even if Derek would never admit to it.

What isn't comforting is the strong smell of Stiles' blood that tears him from his attempt at meditating to keep the pain in his chest from triggering the wolf. Even before he rips the door open and sees Stiles there, swaying from blood loss and pain; even before he darts forward to catch Stiles before the teen collapses; even before he knows what's happened his pulse is rising, anger mixing with adrenalin and fear.

"Stiles?" He manages to keep his voice steady and strong, because that's what he does. "Stiles!"

A quick glance tells him that there's a cross bow arrow buried deep in Stiles' shoulder and wounds in his thigh that could be bullet wounds, possibly knife wounds - it's hard to tell with out a closer look.

He shifts his grip to get a better hold on the teen, ending up sweeping him off the ground and carrying him inside and upstairs to his own room.

"Stiles, talk to me!" He demands, placing Stiles on the bed and slapping him conscious, because he needs to know. He needs to know if they're fighting or running. He needs to know if Scott is okay, if the pack is okay, because Derek is responsible for all of them and right now Stiles is the only source of information he has. "Tell me what happened."

"Scott and…" Stiles coughs, but continues with out Derek having to tell him to. "Jackson and Danny. They ran, led them away. I hid." Stiles makes a grimace of pain and shame. "I just hid."

"You're wounded." Derek says, and it's a reminder to Stiles that he couldn't have done anything to help the werewolves in this state, but it's also a reminder to himself, that Stiles is bleeding out right in front of him. He gets up and digs around for a towel that can qualify as clean-ish, returning to the bed and starting to strip the blood caked clothes off Stiles shaking body.

"Lie still." He demands, steady hands doing quick work of Stiles belt, dragging the baggy jeans down past the wounds with rough determination that makes Stiles winch, but to his praise the teen manages to force the scream down and keep mostly quiet.

The wounds are bullet holes, two of them close together, meant to take him down and pacify, but the bullets have gone clean through and Derek dries the pale skin of Stiles' thigh mostly clean of blood, glad to see that the flow of blood isn't very heavy.

"Stay with me Stiles. Tell me who they were." Derek presses on, because Stiles is dozing off and Derek needs to know who he's about to go chase down and maim and kill painfully. "The Argents?"

"Didn't know their voices, must have been though." Stiles' voice is surprisingly steady, but he has to stop and take deep breaths before he continues, hands reaching out and finding purchase on Derek's arm. "Don't think they were…" Deep breath. "Shooting to kill."

Derek nods and lowers his eyes back to Stiles' injuries. He's not sure what to do with the arrow. If Stiles had been a werewolf he would have pulled it out so it could heal up, but right now it's holding the wound closed, stopping the bleeding like a plug, so he leaves it in, instead returning his attention to the bullet holes.

"Stiles?" He doesn't actually need to ask, he knows the answer, but if he's honest with himself, if it comes down to Stiles bleeding out in front of his eyes, he wouldn't even give the human a choice. As it is, there are still other options than biting him, even if that option has a 30% chance of ending with the same result. "I need you to keep awake for just a little while longer."

Stiles' head lulls to the side against the head board, clouded brown eyes looking up at Derek with nothing but trust and exhaustion.

"I need to find out what happened to the others. I have to go out there, but I can't leave…" He gestures towards Stiles thigh and the slowly oozing wounds there.

"Just drool where ever you want." Stiles says with a weak smile. "You already stripped all my clothes off. Again."

Derek almost smiles. Except smiling isn't a thing he does, and now is not the time to start. Instead he nods and dries the wounds off again. The smell of Stiles' blood is overwhelming as he lowers his head and covers the wounds with his mouth, careful to keep his fangs to himself.

It takes time, he knows this, but every second he spends with his lips against Stiles' skin increases the risk of infecting him, and could be a second closer to someone else in his pack getting caught or killed. So he stops sooner than he would like to, leaving behind a light pink mixture of saliva and blood, pushing Stiles' leg up, so he can reach the exit wounds at the soft inside of his thigh.

Stiles can't help but flinch and let out a badly contained sob when Derek's mouth makes contact with the open wound there. "I am really, really never getting used to this." He mumbles and grits his teeth against the pain when Derek pulls off again.

"You're still missing a lot of blood and you're body temperature is much too low." Derek reaches over Stiles and grabs the blanket piled there and pulls it to cover Stiles, before casting a last glance at the slightly closed-up wounds. When his eyes returns to Stiles' face he notice that the teen has dozed off. He listens to his breathing and heartbeat for a minute, before he grabs his phone and leaves the house, following the strong scent of Stiles' blood through the forest.

Unfortunately the trace of Stiles' blood ends on the driver's side seat of his Jeep, parked between the trees just off the road leading to Derek's house.

He considers calling one of the boys, but knows well enough that a damn phone can easily give away a hiding wolf. So instead he resorts to something he know is potentially equally dangerous and stupid when there's hunters involved: He changes to full wolf, sit back on his haunches and howls.

It's deep and thunderous in his own ears, and even though it's not the first time he does it he hasn't gotten used to how different it sounds, how the Alpha shape just makes it that much more feral.

The reply from Isaac is almost instant, a low howl loaded with concern and question, and Derek digs out his phone and calls Isaac who picks up on the first ring.
"Get here." Derek growls and Isaac doesn't question, because Isaac is scarily good at taking orders. Instead the teen just grunts in confirmation and hangs up. Derek is glad he has Isaac for this, glad he's not on his own.

There's no reply from any of the other wolves, and instead Derek sets of in a sprint towards town, keeping to the woods along the road, paws digging in to soft dirt as the night around him darkens.

Four minutes later there's a weak howl, barely more than a whimper, from somewhere between himself and town. It's Danny and he's close, getting closer. The wolf meets the teen half way to town and even before they can see each other Derek can smell blood, not all of it Danny's.

Derek changes to human while running, stopping in front of Danny and grabbing hold of his shoulders to steady him.

He's burning to growl and demand answers, but he knows Danny is smart enough to know what's expected of him; he needs a second to catch his breath and focus through the pain, so instead Derek waits, using the time to asses Danny's injuries.

"I think Jackson and Scott are okay, we ran in each our direction." Danny almost tumbles over, but Derek keeps him upright. " And I was the one who was worst off. Except for Stiles. Is he…?"

Clearly Danny can smell Stiles blood all over Derek, but he can't read the state of the teen on Derek's face. Derek, however, is pretty sure even someone as unobservant as Scott would be able to see it on his face if Stiles had died.

"He's weak, stable." He grits out and nods to get Danny to continue, because most of his pack have gotten themselves into more than normal danger, and he needs to know what the reason is.

"We were there to sniff out Lydia. Allison had an address, a storage house where they were keeping her. We didn't bring Isaac, because he didn't know Lydia, and we weren't going to do anything, anyway. Stiles... Stiles said it was too dangerous."

"And somehow you still managed to get noticed and shot at?" He growls and Danny isn't backing away, but that's only because Derek is all that's keeping the teen from slipping to the ground in exhaustion.

Danny swallows, brown eyes not shifting away form Derek's once. "It was a trap. They were waiting for us there."

Derek's just about to ask how Allison had gotten hold of the address to begin with when a second howl pierce the night a few miles further into the woods, strong and vital.

It's Jackson and he's moving fast. Derek can only assume he's mostly uninjured and Danny seems to make the same conclusion, sort of sagging in on himself, leaning against Derek's chest with his forehead, when he realizes that his friend is safe. Jackson changes direction when he catches their scent, the smell of blood strong enough to draw him in, even if he hadn't been looking for it.

"They took Scott." Jackson says as he tumbles out from between the trees . "I saw him go down, I think they hit him with Wolf's Bane." At that moment Derek feels the same odd mixture of ice and fire run through his veins that he's come to know so well. It slows down the world and Derek can suddenly feel the night around him give way and make room, allowing him to breath in and think. When he exhales a second later the bubble bursts but it's okay, because he's calm and collected his eyes flash red without effort as the Alpha takes over his head. He moves one hand from Danny's shoulder to cup his cheek and tilt his head up. "Are you with us Danny?"

Danny nods. "I'm not fit for a counter attack yet." He admits, but Jackson just growls and moves in behind Danny, putting arms around him and pulling him back so they end up on the ground, Danny in Jackson's lap. "I'll get him ready." Jackson says to Derek and the Alpha nods and takes a step back, giving the teens as much privacy as he can manage.

He hears Danny whimper as Jackson pulls out one of the cross bow arrows in his thigh and Danny's hand finds Jackson's, fingers knitting roughly together to fight off the pain. When Jackson pulls out the arrow in his shoulder Danny is silent and Derek watches as Jackson lowers his mouth to the wound, and the cleaning is more of a kiss to the sore flesh than any thing else.

It takes a couple of more minutes for Danny to get back to something close to fighting shape, and Derek is getting edgy, thinking about their chances of saving Scott before the hunters bring their trophy back to Granddad Argent, and Stiles, who's condition is critical at best. But just then, as Jackson and Danny gets to their feet, his phone starts to buzz and he drags it out again to see it's Isaac calling.

"Yes?"

"I should have called first, but I had to make a quick decision." Isaac says and Derek can actually hear it in his voice before he says the words. "I caught Scott's scent about ten minutes ago, and I had to check up on it. I ran right into the hunters holding him, literally stumbled in to their car as they were dragging him into it, so I took them out. They were completely unprepared."

Derek closes his eyes and swallows. He opens his eyes to see Danny and Jackson standing right in front of him, eyes asking if they heard correct.

"I've got him here, but I'm not sure for how long. He's been poisoned." Isaac continues.

Derek's not sure if he's deserved this. When ever something bad happens he can't help but just shrug and think, `Well, it was bound to happen, luck like mine.´ But stuff like this, his pack making it through on shear damn luck, it's not something he expects, or even really believe has actually happened.

And he doesn't believe it this time either, not until he pulls up in his Camaro next to where Isaac is waiting with the nearly lifeless body of Scott. Jackson and Isaac help each other get Scott in on the back seat where Danny starts treating the Wolf's Bane poisoning right away, while Derek drives literally as fast as the car can go, back to the black ruins of his old house, back to an equally nearly lifeless Stiles.

They lie Scott down in the bed next to Stiles, one teen paler than the other, and for a few minutes the rest of them just stand there looking at them.

Jackson is the first to leave and retreat to the living room, but Derek knows that it's not because he doesn't care. Jackson knows first hand how painful the detox of an aconite poisoning is, having been through one to get turned. The poisoning had been bad, left him hallucinating and weak, but he had gotten better. It wasn't until the bite didn't stick, until Derek got tired of having to bite him over and over with the same result, that Derek had put him through the detox process. Jackson had never before been so scared of actually dying.

Watching Scott now, toss helplessly on the bed, sweat beading all over his body as he screams in pain, Jackson can't take it, and Derek understands, they all do.

Isaac is the next to leave. He heads for Derek's sparse store of food, and Derek can hear him actually starting to cook. When Danny is sure there is nothing more he can do for either Scott or Stiles he leaves as well, going for the couch and passing out when his head hits the soft armrest.

Derek moves to sit down on the bed on Stiles' side. The arrow in his shoulder has been removed, Danny closed it up, and Derek can't help but wish he could have done it. It feels like something he should be doing, after all Alpha enzymes are far better at healing up wounds. But he can't keep risking turning Stiles as long as Stiles doesn't want it.

Derek reaches down, letting the pad of his thumb stroke the wound. It's still there, not closing up, but not bleeding either. He tries not to think about it, tries not to think how, as if his life is just supposed to run in loops, he was so very close to having another family burn and die in front of him tonight.

Tonight of all nights.

But even though somehow it all worked out and they're all still alive, Derek knows that their days of peace, of truce with the Argents, has passed. His Pack had been lured into a trap and someone had tried to take away his family again. Derek is already preparing for a real war, planning how to get all of them through this alive, planning how exactly he's going to make the people responsible pay for this in the most painful ways imaginable.

Derek looks down on his thumb still circling the wound in Stiles' shoulder. He doesn't even think about it when his hand moves up and runs over Stiles' short hair, again and again, so very gently, just to make sure the teen is still there, still alive and breathing.

A/N

I've been getting some really amazing reviews and I just wanted to thank you all. Honestly, I write for myself. I write because I want to read the story, but there is nothing that beats the fact that someone else likes what you create, so thank you so much.

I was getting a few comments on Lydia and as you can see I haven't forgotten her. But I am trying to keep this as close to the show as possible, so I'm a little unwilling to do much plot-wise until after next episode. Also, I might return to correct a few things at that point if I can manage to fit mine to follow the plot of the show better.