4.

Warnings: None in this chapter

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf!

Well hello again! Here's chapter number four, I cannot believe that we are already over half way done with this story. It's been a blast and gotten a better reaction than I ever expected. So thank you for everyone who's been with this story all along and to those who are still just finding it. Ya'll are freakin awesome!


It's been three days since that awful evening. Three days of wallowing and avoiding the pack which was actually easier than I thought it'd be. So far only Lydia had dropped by, after I stopped worshipping the ground she walked on we actually started to become friends. She stopped by, asked how I was and updated me on how everyone else was doing.

Boyd was back at the Hale house already, he still ached but was to stubborn to admit it of course and was already back helping Erica and Jackson track down the trench coat man.

Isaac was another story all together. The powder that the man had thrown at us was a mixture of Ipomoea Alba and Solanum Dulcamara also known as moonflowers and bittersweet nightshade. They had been dried and combined in a way that the poison was fast acting when inhaled. The moonflowers were a known werewolf paralytic but I had gotten very lucky. There was a very fine line between nightshade being paralytic to it being fatal for humans. Had I inhaled just a teaspoon more I wouldn't have made it through that night alive.

The moonflower though had a secondary effect on Isaac, it slowed his natural ability to heal. Until the poison worked it's way out of his system he wasn't able to heal any better than a normal human and with injuries that bad it was a very dangerous situation to be in.

Deaton closed his office for the next few days because Isaac required round the clock attention if he was going to make it. And Scott? Well Scott never left his side and the rest of the pack was starting to wonder why. According to Lydia, Allison was beginning to get frustrated with him. At first she had been all for him staying by his friend's side but now it was starting to seem weird to her. I just decided not to comment on that particular mess.

Lydia also talked about Derek...

Apparently he had been a worse pain in the butt than normal, snapping at everyone and glowering so badly that he made a group of kids burst in to tears just from walking by them the other day. He was hardly sleeping, spending all of his time searching for the trench coat man and any clues as to his whereabouts. Everyone was beginning to get very worried for him but nobody dared to confront him about his odd behavior either.

After Lydia left I finally gathered myself together enough to leave the house. Part of me wanted to immediately go after Derek. I wanted to yell at him for being such a jerk, apologize for storming out and then help him find justice for Isaac and stop this man from hurting anyone else. After all, I knew Derek couldn't be convinced to do anything else until this man was gone for good.

I wanted to do all that but I didn't. Instead I stopped by the local diner and got my dad and myself dinner. A salad and diet soda for him and a burger with fries and a Coke for myself. I took the food down to the sheriff's office, which was almost empty because of the late hour and due to the fact that most officers that were still on duty were patrolling the streets for a serial killer.

When I walked in I waved at the officer at the front desk, everyone there knew me so I just walked back to my dad's office. He was sitting at his desk, pouring over papers and looking up when I came in.

"Stiles? What's going on? Are you okay? Why are you here?" He asked worriedly.

"Relax dad I'm fine. I just brought dinner." I held up the take away bag "I figured you were tired of bad coffee and stale donuts."

"Thanks son." He sighed, taking his bag and opening it, giving a little heart broken groan when he saw the salad.

"Hey, it's still better than crummy donuts." I said and he grumbled something that sounded enough like an agreement for me to smile. I sat across from him at his desk and started to eat my own meal. "So, how's the investigation going?" I asked, wondering if maybe the police could have figured something out that Derek didn't know yet.

"Not great." He sighed, sticking a piece of lettuce half heartedly with his fork. "Three victims, three different ages, economic classes, even the genders don't match. The only thing that adds up is that they were all poisoned and even that, no two of them were killed by the same poison. I have no idea what to make of it and now I have the fucking FBI breathing down my neck. Serial killers are a big deal and apparently the mayor doesn't think we have the smarts to handle it on our own."

"Well I'm sure you guys have a suspect or something." I said, trying not to sound to probing.

"We don't have much..." My dad said before stuffing a large bite of salad in his mouth to keep himself quiet, that really piqued my interest.

"But you do have something?"

"Stiles just drop it." He said after swallowing.

"What? Come on, I'm your son. What is it you suddenly can't tell me?"

"I'm not supposed to be telling you any of this." He said more sternly

"I'll find out eventually dad."

The Sheriff groaned, rubbing his eyes exhaustedly "Fine but keep this to yourself. I don't want you telling Scott and you and him getting into even more trouble." He said and waited until I nodded in agreement to continue "We're looking in to Derek Hale." He said and I choked on a French Fry.

"What? Why?" I managed to say while I gasped for air.

"Well he's not exactly the most upstanding citizen Stiles." My dad frowned.

"Yeah but you can't just put someone on a serial killer suspect list because they've been suspected for other crimes before." I said

"Of course not. But the hospital that housed the third victim had a break in a few nights ago. A guard got a glimpse of a man who matches Derek Hale's description and we have video of his car in the parking lot."

"Just his car…?" I asked questioningly, knowing that my jeep was also in that parking lot that evening. "Yeah, it looks like someone messed with the hospital's security tapes. We had to use video from the gas station across the street and that only had a limited view of the hospital parking lot but it was enough."

"But I mean the car could have been there for any reason…" I tried and my father just raised an eyebrow at me.

"Oh? Like what?"

"I uh…well maybe…" I trailed off, for once not knowing what to say

"We've been keeping an eye on him for the last week too."

"You have?" If my voice got higher in pitch my dad didn't mention it.

"Yes, it's been hard, he's very good at avoiding being followed. I think he knows we've been watching him too, most of the time it's like he doesn't care though. But we've caught him going to pet stores and asking about snakes and he even went to the zoo in the next town over and asked about their poisonous animals."

"He did?" I asked incredulously, honestly wondering how Derek expected to survive without my researching skills.

"Yeah, things aren't looking good for him. And the fact that he keeps on shaking his tail shows us that he has other things to hide. Things that are probably worse and more incriminating than asking around town about poisonous creatures." He said and I sighed, knowing that Derek probably only shook his tail when he visited Isaac at Deaton's or needed Scott for anything, he wouldn't want to incriminate either of them if he knew he was being followed.

"Dad. He didn't do it." I shook my head, taking a deep breath, I couldn't believe that I was about to do this. I had worked so hard for so long to keep this secret from my dad, to let him continue on living a normal life and now that was all crashing down. If I could I'd keep on lying to him, maybe that makes me a terrible son but I honestly thought it was for the best. But now…I can't let him think that Derek is some sort of serial killer. Not to mention that a constant police tail puts not only Derek but the whole pack in danger.

"What do you mean?" My father stopped his eating and shuffling through papers to look at me.

"He didn't do it," I repeated more surely.

"And you know this how?"

"Because…Because I was with him that night. My jeep was in the parking lot too. We were all there, me, Derek, Scott, Isaac Lahey, Lydia, Jackson, everyone. I know you're probably about ready to explode dad but please just let me explain." I set the rest of my burger down.

And over the next few hours I explained everything, starting out with the night in the woods when Scott got bitten all the way up to what happened with the Trench Coat man. My father went through several stages, at first he was angry, wondering why I was coming up with such ridiculous stories. As things progressed and it became obvious how determined I was to make him understand he became concerned. I could tell he was wondering if I was delusional, if I was on drugs, he was trying to come up with an explanation, any explanation for this bizarre behavior. Then there was skepticism, he asked me questions, not about my mental health anymore but about the werewolves, trying to convince himself how ludicrous this was. He asked how werewolves could possibly have existed for so long without everyone knowing. Hello, we do sort of know, there has been hundreds of years worth of legends and whole movie franchises made about them. Human's are just cynical to believe in something so extraordinary. Okay then, he said, how do they change, what processes could the human body go through to even make that possible? Now, I honestly didn't know how to answer that one, finally deciding on pointing out that women create and incubate new life. If that's possible than growing fangs and flashing eyes were definitely possible and no matter how much he wanted to the Sheriff couldn't argue with that. But that did lead me to showing him Derek's arrest photos and other pictures I had taken of the pack over the past few months. I showed him how the werewolves eyes reflected while mine, Allison's and Lydia's did not. Finally, after what seemed like forever my father came to acceptance, only after we made a call to Scott's mother though. Melissa spent a bit talking to him and assuring him that yes she believed that this was true and had seen irrefutable proof of this as well. After my father finally accepted werewolves and the supernatural as truth it looked like he had aged five years.

"So yeah, I know Derek didn't do it. He's helping stop the person who did. And trust me, he won't stop until this is over. He's a good Alpha, a great Alpha and this man attacked his pack. He's going down dad and Derek Hale is the reason this town will be safe again." I finished and looked away from my dad. Now that he knew the truth, both of us would have to come to terms with the fact that I had been lying to him for a long time now. But that part of this conversation would have to come later.

"You seem to have a lot of faith in him." My dad commented.

"Yeah I do. It took a while though. A first he was this horrible tempered, cranky, jerk who avoided happiness like it was the plague. Now, he still has a nasty temper and he's still cranky and if anything he's a bigger jerk now that he became an Alpha but…he's someone I know I can rely on. And despite the fact that a mustard seed has a bigger emotional capacity than him, he…he does care. He doesn't show it and most of the time his over protectiveness and god complex overshadow it but he really truly does care for his pack." I sighed softly.

"And you're a part of his pack?"

"Yeah. I am." I said and realized that I didn't even need to consider my answer to that question. I was Pack, that was that.

"Alright…okay…It seems I have some work to do. I have to figure out how to get the force off of Derek's tail and how the hell to explain these serial killings without mentioning the words werewolf or manticore…" The Sheriff said, getting up and going to the other side of the room, filling up his coffee pot again, it was going to be a long night for him. "Why don't you go back home. We can talk more later." He said and I knew I was being dismissed and for once I didn't mind.

"Be careful." I told him and threw out my thrash on the way out of the Sheriff's station. I climbed in to my jeep and made it all the way out of the parking lot and about a block down the road before I noticed the figure sitting in my backseat. I screamed, a very manly scream that most certainly didn't sound like a five year old girl's, and ended up swerving the car, almost hitting a tree on the side of the road but getting back control of my car at the last minute. I pulled off to the side of the road and put my car in park before tuning around angrily "What the hell dude!" I snapped "Are you trying to get us killed!"

"Did you mean it?" Derek asked, looking me straight in the eye. I noticed how exhausted he looked, Lydia was right, he really hadn't been sleeping.

"Yes I meant it! You scared the crap out me, we are lucky it's so late otherwise I could have easily hit another car!" I exclaimed, waving my hands around. In one quick movement Derek grabbed both of my wrists in one of his hands and pinned them down against the side of my seat.

"Not that…when you said I was good Alpha."

"You are such a creeper!" I said annoyed. "Can I not have a single private conversation anymore? No, because I have to hang around a bunch of nosy super hearing werewolves, that's why!"

"Did you mean it?" He repeated, a slight growl in his voice this time.

"Yeah, okay. I meant it." I sighed. "But don't let it go to your head." I said, feeling my face get hot from embarrassment. And it didn't help that Derek was quiet for a long moment after that.

"Thank you. For getting the police off of my back." He said softly.

"Bless my heart. Did the Derek Hale just thank me for something?" I gasped in mock shock but the effort only earned me a glare. I shook my head and smiled amused. "It's fine sourwolf, I was just protecting the Pack." I said, not quite sure why I didn't want him to know that I was mostly thinking of him when I made the confession to my dad.

"Your heart's racing." Derek suddenly said, his voice uncharacteristically quiet.

"I know." I responded but didn't give any other explanation. He wasn't the only one that could be cryptic. Even so, I was suddenly hyper aware of how close we were and how his hand still held my wrists, his fingers were calloused but his grip while firm wasn't painful at all.

"Erica and Lydia finally ganged up on me. They sent me here to apologize to you. They wanted me to say that I was just worried and overreacting because of it. "

"Hm. What else did they tell you to say?" I asked

"That we need your help to figure this out and we are sort of floundering without you."

"Well you can tell Lydia and Erica that I accept the apology."

Derek visibly relaxed and slowly let go of my wrists, his fingers skimming over mine. "Oh, and they also wanted me to ask you for my jacket back." He said and I laughed, smacking his arm before driving back to the Hale house, promising to return the jacket tomorrow…or eventually…


And there ya go! Another chapter down! Please don't forget to REVIEW!