Title: The Final Pack

Author: Sparkle Itamashii / Kedreeva

Notes: Humankind is fighting its way back from near extinction against the superatural beings that fed upon the remaining humans in the aftermath of the 2012 apocalypse. On the front lines, Stiles' best friend gets bitten by a werewolf and Stiles must strike a bargain with wolves in order to save him.

Chapter Four

"Hello, Derek," Stiles greeted dully, turning away from the open space on the bed beside the wolf. He let his back hit the wall in the corner of the small room, sliding down it until he had a shoulder to each wall. He didn't bother to stretch out his legs, tucking the journal into the warm cavity created between his chest and thighs. With a sigh, he folded his arms over his knees and put his head down on them.

"They let you keep my journal," Derek stated softly.

"Yeah," Stiles mumbled, not looking up. He hated that tone, the way Derek wouldn't accuse him of anything, leaving it to Stiles' own guilt to gnaw on his conscience. He wasn't up to it today. It was just too much.

"Because you told them," Derek continued. It was almost a plea, and Stiles wished he could shut it out. He wished covering his ears did anything to help. "Why are you telling them, Stiles? You said you wouldn't. You promised."

"I know," croaked Stiles, throat tightening on the words. He didn't need this right now, not after trawling through memories, opening old scars. "I know, okay? Please just... don't. Not today."

He thought that might be the end of it, by the way silence wreathed around him like a haze. Closing his eyes, he tried to force himself to relax, to just breath in the comforting scent of the old leather journal in his lap. To let go of everything he had dredged up today for the scheming woman, of every betrayal of his oath to never tell a human about his pack. It hurt, old wounds picked open anew, and he just wanted to sleep. He just wanted to close his eyes and set his mind on autopilot to nowhere and forget.

"Haven't they taken enough?" Derek asked quietly. It seemed so loud in the tiny room, even when he didn't raise his voice. It didn't echo like Stiles' voice, and that was the only way Stiles could tell the difference some days.

Stiles groaned and unfolded his arms, covered his ears with his forearms. "Derek, please..."

"Do you have to give them our past, too?" Derek insisted.

"I'm not," Stiles argued, voice climbing in distress. He hated this Derek. He hated the soft, injured tone, the accusations laced into words that sounded tired and pitiful. Derek never sounded like that before. "I'm not going to talk to her anymore. I'm done."

"She doesn't think so," Derek told him, and it seemed so reasonable the Stiles believed him. He didn't want to, but he did, and it left something cold and heavy in his gut to think that he would talk to the woman upstairs again. "She let you keep the journal. She's going to bring you back up there. Are you going to tell her the rest? Give up everything else?"

"No," Stiles swore, barely a breath, like maybe it wouldn't be a lie if he just said it quietly enough. If he threw his heart into believing it. "You're safe, Derek. They can't get you anymore. So, please..."

"Stiles," Derek called softly, and Stiles curled up tighter on himself. He didn't have to look up to see the frown, the regret in Derek's pale eyes.

"Please, just leave me alone, Derek," Stiles pleaded, voice cracking. "I can't do this right now. Not today." He hated repeating himself, knew it made him sound crazy, but sometimes it was the only way.

The silence that followed was heavy and absolute this time and Stiles let himself count to ten before lifting his head. Derek was gone, no sign left that he had ever been in the room. Stiles' shoulders sagged, though he wasn't sure if it was from relief or disappointment. Sometimes he hoped that there would be a sign, that there would be so much as a wrinkle in his bed sheets, a boot scuff on the dimpled floor. Anything.

He knew it was impossible.

Derek couldn't leave traces of himself in places he'd never really been.

Stiles swallowed against the lump in his throat, palming away the wetness at the edge of his eyes, and rested his forehead back upon his forearms.

Morrell let the door click shut behind her, eyes sweeping up from the floor to the woman leaning against the doorframe across the room. Short, blonde hair, amber-brown eyes, and a smile like a shark closing on a blood trail. When she tipped her head in question, Morrell shook her head in response, surrendering, frustrated, and the woman twitched her a brief smile. "It's okay," the woman said, straightening and crossing to meet Morrell halfway.

"How long have you been standing here?" Morrell asked.

"Not long. Just long enough to see you crash and burn," she teased, holding out a hand and twitching her fingers in a gimme motion. "How was it going before that?"

"Honestly?" Morrell asked, passing over the documents in her hands, sliding the recorder off the top of them. "The guy's a mess, Jane. He's holding it together, but I can't tell you how. He trails off randomly, staring into space. He veers off topic mid-sentence to start talking to himself. I've lost track of how many times I've had to steer him back to the story. Then there's moments where he's just... crystal-clear lucid. I'm beginning to think those are the worst, when you know he remembers everything."

Jane shook her head, sighing as she began to thumb through the documents. Of course she already knew what all of them were; she'd been responsible for obtaining most of them for Morrell to use. She was looking for what Morrell scribbled while Stiles spoke, notes about his movements, notes reminding her what to look into next, what to ask him when she saw him again.

"I'm not surprised, if what we've heard is anywhere close to the truth," Jane said, slipping a yellowed piece of paper from the middle of the stack. The blue lines had faded nearly to white, but Morrell's handwriting was crisp and stark, fresh from the last session.

"Are you having any better luck?" Morrell asked, not quite daring to hope.

Jane ran a hand through her short cropped hair and gave a little head shake. "Not particularly. The girl's not talking at all yet, and their council is still deciding if they're going to let us see their records or not."

"And if they don't?" Though she didn't want to ask, Miranda knew that it was a real possibility that they would only have the two prisoners. It didn't look to be particularly promising from what they had seen so far, although she was managing a lot better than it seemed Jane was. "We need them, and these people aren't going to just let us walk out of here with them. If no one wants to cooperate with us..."

"You're right, of course," Jane conceded quickly, before Morrell could finish the thought aloud. She shuffled the folder to one arm and reached inside her vest, withdrawing a tattered, old envelope from the breast pocket. With a smile, she passed it to Miranda. "Try that," she suggested. "See if it changes his mind."

"What is it?" Morrell asked, weighing it in her hand without opening it. The envelope was not sealed, but if Jane had wanted her to open it she would have said so. As it was, she could see a square, dark patch in the center of it.

"A photo," Jane told her. She flashed a smug smile to her friend. "The girl may not have been talking, but she didn't mind me taking a Polaroid."

Miranda looked up in surprise. Yes, Stiles had told her he was done, but to jump straight from trying to explain herself to... this? "That's kind of going for the throat, don't you think?" she asked, worried. Jane hadn't been sitting with Stiles for as long as Morrell had and she still didn't feel like she could judge how he would take the presentation of such a gift.

"Perhaps," Jane agreed. "But these two are the only ones with answers. Even if we get into the records, we know they're missing a lot. We know these two didn't talk, and if we're going to get them out of here safely, that's got to change. So show him the picture, and ask for his help."

"And if it breaks him?" Morrell asked quietly. She didn't think she could stand to hurt Stiles any more than he had been.

Jane sighed, gave a little shake of her head. "Sounds to me like he's already broken. I don't think a picture's going to make it any worse for him. But it might give him a reason to talk. It might give him a reason to start mending."

"Or it might give him a reason to want out," Morrell pointed out with a twinge of apprehension. She had heard what Stiles was capable of, knew that if he decided there was a reason for him to be out of his bonds, he would be out of them. Then they would have a real problem on their hands.

"Or that," Jane accepted with a shrug. She held up the files. "I'll take these back and see what I can get my paws on without permission."

Miranda rolled her eyes as Jane whirled around, heading for the exit. "Try not to get us kicked out?" she called hopefully after her.

Stiles sat atop the small, rickety bed, pressed into the corner, feeling both walls at once. There was not enough bedding to bunch up around himself, not enough that he could pretend the pack curled their warm, furry bodies all around him, but the walls sometimes came close, if he leaned against both of them at once. So he sat, the journal in his lap, a soft blue glow falling from the transparent rune perched in his palm. The darkness was otherwise absolute in his tiny, windowless room.

He wasn't allowed to have candles, not anymore, and they wouldn't direct power to this section just for him.

Sometimes he enjoyed the dark. It was free, kept him from feeling confined. If he couldn't see the four small walls, the cramped twin bed, the small bathroom attached to the room along the back corner, then he could imagine he was somewhere else. He could imagine he was in an old, abandoned house, waiting for the pack to return. He could imagine he was in a field under a blanket of clouds so thick he couldn't see the stars.

He could imagine he was anywhere but here, and sometimes that was the only reason he was still here.

The page under his free hand was a mess of scribbles, a lot of wasted space, which was so unusual for Derek. Half the script was not Derek's tiny, clean print; it was Stiles' own chicken scratch, written at an odd angle, and he remembered the night well. He remembered laying coiled around Derek where he sat on the floor of that little abandoned house, a day out from El Dorado. He remembered batting at Derek's pen like a bored cat, wanting to go to sleep, unable to do so alone anymore.

He remembered the exasperated sigh, and the way Derek's entire attention shifted to him at once, and the blush that heated his skin because he hadn't really wanted to make Derek stop.

Stiles traced a finger over the neat writing, the little swivels left every time he made a swipe at the pen and succeeded in bumping it. A smile twitched at the edge of his lips, unfamiliar, soft. The first words under Derek's print belonged to Stiles, had been written sideways from the floor, because Stiles hadn't wanted the betas to hear him.

Come to bed!

He remembered the little huff of patient laughter, the way Derek slid the pen from his longer fingers and wrote beside it in an attempt to conserve space.

Soon. You can go without me, you know.

Can't sleep

Why are you writing?

There were double lines under the question mark and Stiles could picture the little brow raise Derek gave him as he passed the pen back. Stiles had propped himself onto one elbow, practically crawling into Derek's lap to continue writing.

Betas. If they hear me asking for cuddles, they'll want to join in and how will I get anything done?

He had passed the pen back with his best impression of a solemn, straight face, knowing that Derek knew better. But Derek was indulgent of him, and so he just rolled his eyes with a breathy little laugh and scribbled down what he knew Stiles wanted him to say.

Do? It's the middle of the night, what have you got to do?

You!

Or at least, it would have said 'you' had Derek not upended the journal before Stiles could even finish writing, rolling himself so that Stiles was laying half pinned below him on the floor. He'd set his chin on his palm on Stiles' sternum as Stiles folded his arms behind his head and met his gaze, enjoying the feel of Derek's free hand edging up under his shirt, skimming softly over his ribs.

"You are so far beyond help," Derek had told him fondly. It was a favorite phrase of his, any time Stiles remotely asked for help of any kind.

"Is that a yes?" Stiles inquired, tongue in cheek, a grin on his lips as he raised both eyebrows in proposition.

He remembered that night, how soft it had been, how well he had slept with Derek curled into his side, snoring quietly. They had gone to sleep alone in the abandoned house's master bedroom, but Stiles remembered waking up to a face full of furry Isaac and Erica after they invaded anyway. He missed that, missed waking up with no room around him, with heartbeats under his hands.

Everything here was cold and static and dead.

He extinguished the rune, closing his hand over it as he folded the journal shut. Total darkness claimed the room in an instant, and he closed his eyes, letting the silence settle around him like a blanket. He hugged the journal to his chest, pressed back against the hard walls of the makeshift cell.

At least in the darkness, he could imagine he was not alone.

She sat in the empty interrogation room, legs crossed, one long finger tapping at the cool surface of the table. In her other hand she held the envelope that Jane had given her, thumb smoothing absently along the bottom edge as she thought. The folder containing all of his documents sat idle upon the table, atop a second, darker folder with yet more papers, these ones from Jane. She had woken Miranda early by tossing them very unceremoniously upon her chest with a shout and a smile. Sleep was still clinging to the insides of Miranda's eyelids as she waited.

It was worth it, though, once she learned what was inside the folder.

Across the room, there was a triple knock and then the door was swinging open. She straightened, uncrossing her legs and shifting so that she could fully face the table, be ready to move at a moment's notice. She tucked the envelope with the photo into her jacket, out of sight in case she didn't have to use it yet. In case he would talk to her without it.

When Stiles saw her he froze, the guard behind him bumping into him hard enough to cause him to stumble forward slightly. She expected the way his eyes narrowed, the deep breath he took, steeling himself for whatever course of action he'd already decided. Behind him, the guard made no move to prod him further into the room, either through experience or courtesy. Morrell wasn't sure which.

"Good morning, Stiles," she greeted, as calm as she could, not sure what sort of mood he would be in after the discoveries of the day prior. Thankfully she'd brought a peace offering, on the advice of one of the camp's residents. She waved a hand at the small wooden bowl on the table between them. It was full of strawberries. "I brought you breakfast."

Stiles scowled. "I'm not hungry." He flinched as he said it.

"You are," Morrell said softly. "And I was told you're very fond of strawberries."

He refused to look at her, his scowl deepening.

She sighed. "I know you don't trust me, and that's my own fault," she told him, speaking slowly, making sure he heard each word. He seemed lucid, if angry. "I should have told you I'm not from your camp, but I was given the impression that it would be difficult to get you to talk no matter where I was from. I thought that if you believed I-"

"You were misinformed," Stiles blurted out before she could finish, his gaze snapping up to look at her. She could see the surprise that brightened his golden-brown eyes. Obviously he'd meant to keep his jaw wired shut when it came to her, which would have been unsurprising considering the amount of silence he had endured for the past couple of years.

"Clearly," she agreed solemnly. "However, my offer is still valid. It is still on the table to you. I can still get you out." They wanted to get him more than just out, but she didn't want to give him false hope yet.

"I don't want out," he replied, but his voice caught on the words. She saw when his gaze slid sideways, the small hunch of his shoulders as he looked at something that wasn't there. She wished she could hear whatever it was.

A sad smile twitched the corner of her lip. "Everyone wants out, one way or another," she told him, drawing his attention back to her. He may not have wanted to walk free, but he didn't want to be here and they both knew it.

His gaze dropped, jaw clenching.

She sighed. "Look, Stiles," she murmured. "I know you're angry with me. I know that these people hurt you, took everything from you. I may not be able to tell you much about myself or where I've come from, but I can tell you that I want to give some of it back to you."

"You can't," he snarled back. His head wove back and forth slightly as his eyes squinted shut, his shoulders hunching against some loud noise only he could hear. "Don't lie to me, I don't need more lies. Harris was full of empty promises."

"Okay," she conceded before he could get so riled up he lost focus. She needed him here, needed him present in body and in mind. "He was, I agree. Stiles," she said, drawing his attention as it began to wander again. She was amazed at how bright his golden-brown eyes were when they met hers. She could see the wild in him, like a cornered animal. "I'm not going to hurt you. Come sit down."

Though he swallowed, he edged into the room, slid into the seat across from her. The guard that had accompanied him trailed patiently behind him, and Morrell was surprised that he had let them go through their back-and-forth without saying a word. Once Stiles was seated, the guard latched the cuffs to the loop bolted to the floor, and then left them to their own devices. Morrell watched Stiles through it all, saw the slouch of his body once he was trapped in place, the fight leaving him now that he was anchored. Whatever she had to say or do, in an instant he had resigned himself to the pattern of interrogation he'd been subjected to for the past two years. She hated it.

Reaching into her jacket, she pulled out the envelope Jane had given to her. She had hoped, however fleetingly, that she could get him to talk without it, but that seemed unlikely now. Laying it on the table between them, she met his wary gaze. When she nodded to the envelope, he looked away from her with a sort of stubborn resolve, hands firmly in his lap. She managed not to roll her eyes.

"Looking at it won't sign any contracts," she told him. "This is important."

His nose wrinkled like he thought she had no idea what the word important meant, but his eyes fell down to the envelope, taking in the tattered corners, the smudges of grime on the surface. This was a well-used envelope, one seam ready to fall apart at a moments notice. Morrell supposed that there were not many real envelopes left in the world; it may have been a long time since Stiles had seen one.

"What is it?" Stiles asked finally. It wasn't quite a surrender, laced with suspicion.

She leaned a little closer, turning it over with one hand. The flap had no spring or resistance left to it, so when she flopped it open, it stayed there. The back of the photograph was visible, peeking out from the V of the inner fold. When he made no move to extract it, she slid it out with one finger, and then gently flipped it over for him to see.

His eyes snapped to hers, wide and disbelieving. "What is this?" he demanded, sharp and desperate.

"One of your... your pack mates?" Morrell asked, not quite sure what term they would have used to refer to one another. "Lydia Whittemore."

Stiles' eyes dropped back to the photograph, his hands still firmly in his lap, like if he touched it, she might disappear from it, or that it might be taken away from him. Morrell's heart gave a little twist when she noticed he was trembling. "Where- Where did you get this?" The words were barely a breath.

"It was taken a few days ago," she told him, slow and gentle. What she had to tell him was delicate information, the sort that could cause him any number of reactions, but he deserved to know the full scale of affect his choice would have. "From what I understand, she's being held in a similar fashion to you."

She let him process that for a moment, let him trace the lines of his pack mate's face, let him register that a few days ago meant she was still alive. When he reached up to splay a hand over the photograph, she laid one smooth hand over his. When he looked up, eyes full of questions and hope, she offered him a tentative, fleeting smile.

"Your release includes hers. When we're done, you'll both be free to go."

Stiles could feel himself trembling as he tried to hold the picture steady in his hands. His vision blurred with tears but he couldn't unclench his fingers enough to let go, to wipe at them. In his chest, his heart felt like something had sunk in claws and twisted, howling at him that Lydia was alive, that some member of his pack had survived with him.

The only thought louder was that if she was alive, she was being kept alone, just like him. She was confined, just like him, without the comfort of another beating heart. Months and months, over two years alone with her thoughts, away from everything they had shared. He knew what that was like, what it did to a person, and he could barely breathe when he thought of Lydia having to go through it, too. Not after what she went through, not after what she lost.

Now, the woman in front of him was telling him that it was on his shoulders, that her fate, her freedom, was his decision.

All he had to do was give her everything he had left.

Through sheer force of will, he managed not to crumple the photo in a fit of anger. His eyes closed. "Fine," he spat.

The recorder clicked and whirred to life between them.

With Peter missing and Derek still healing, the entire pack stayed at home for most of the following day. Stiles spent much of it helping to cut and salt strips of meat from the deer the pack had brought down the day before, and helping to hang the curing meat in the cellar of the house. Boyd grudgingly explained to him how they had screwed hooks into the rafters above so they wouldn't have to worry about it touching anything while it cured. Stiles told him it was clever, and Boyd didn't scowl quite as much at him afterward.

"We're leaving before this lot finishes," Boyd confided to him as they threaded the last batch in the late afternoon. "I'm not sure what Derek thinks we're going to do with it. Can't pack it like this."

Stiles hesitated, glancing over, fingers sticky with meat slime slowing in their work. "You can't, ah... you guys don't have a cart or something?"

Boyd's brows furrowed as he looked over to Stiles. "What's a bunch of wolves going to do with a cart?" he asked, like it was a stupid question.

"Cure meat, for one," Stiles answered, poking out his tongue. It had gotten almost easy to converse with the werewolf, and it should have made Stiles uneasy. He just felt relieved; maybe Scott would be okay after all. "We had one, for a while, my dad and me. Um, after everything went to shit, it was us and a handful of officers from his precinct, and one of them used to be a hunter. His house was trash, but we followed him to a farm where he used to get his deer processed. We put together a sheltered cart, for food and stuff, and after a bit, we figured out we could, you know, hang meat to dry, too."

Snorting, Boyd turned his attention back to his strips. "Fancy," he commented, but he didn't do very well keeping the admiration from his tone. "Maybe you can show us before you leave."

The pit of Stiles' stomach gave a little, confusing turn at that. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I mean, of course it might not do you guys any good, if you're trying to move fast."

Boyd hummed his agreement and they finished stringing the last of the meat. They hung it at the border of the cellar, where the cement floor met a dirt addition and the walls turned to cobblestone. There was just enough room for all of the strips they'd made.

"You don't think anything will get in here, do you?" Stiles asked, fingers nimbly tying the string of the last strip to the last peg. He indicated with a tip of his head to the gaping hole in the addition, where the tree that had collapsed the portion of the house above them had broken through into the basement.

Shrugging, Boyd wiped his hands on one of the rags they'd brought down with them. "It's not safe," he replied. "Peter told us to stay away from it."

A frown creased Stiles' face, but before he could investigate the cobblestone-walled addition, Boyd had grabbed his arm and was propelling him toward the stairs. "But I just-"

"No," Boyd told him, but there was the faintest undercurrent of amusement. Stiles let himself be steered.

When they got upstairs, there was a commotion that had nothing to do with their prior task. Derek was snarling around the house, Erica on his heel talking quietly to him. Both of them had gone to patrol the area, to try to find Peter before he got into trouble. It looked like they had failed; there was blood on their hands, on their shoes, in Derek's hair. Boyd and Stiles exchanged a look, their own hands and clothes bloody from handling the venison.

Somehow Stiles doubted it was deer blood smeared crimson on their skin.

"What happened?" Stiles asked before he could stop himself.

Derek stiffened, whipping around on Stiles like was going to attack. Though he held his ground, Stiles' eyes widened when he met Derek's gaze. It was as if the blood had somehow tainted his eyes as well, the irises practically glowing with red. His face was changed, crinkled and furry and fanged, and Stiles felt himself pale as he recoiled slightly. Derek's brow furrowed further at the motion, and the red cleared from his eyes in an instant.

For a long moment, no one moved. Stiles could feel Boyd at his side but it was distant, an echo of real life compared to the intensity of the blue-eyed stare fixed upon him. The sound of Derek's breath, harsh in his throat, filled the room, everyone else's stuck in their lungs, caught in their throats as they waited for what would happen.

"Derek...?" Stiles said softly, one hand raised slightly to calm the beast before him. Derek's eyes may not have been bloodied with rage, but they were still wild.

"Get out," Derek choked out, harsh and rough. It was obvious, how much effort he was making to calm down, to stay human.

"What?" Stiles demanded, gaze shifting sideways to land on Scott, who looked just as bewildered as Stiles felt. "And go where? What happened?"

"Get out," Derek demanded again, taking a step toward Stiles, threatening with his entire body.

Stiles scowled, anger flaring. Emergency or not, he didn't deserve a threat for his concern. "You're covered in blood, and I'm not going anywhere until you tell us what's going on!" he snapped, holding his ground. He'd fought supers before, even hand to hand, even when he'd been younger and had known far less about defending himself. Derek may have been an alpha werewolf, but Stiles was a trained, post-apocalypse warrior and he was not backing down from a couple words and some threatening body language.

Unfortunately, Derek wasn't vacant threats and charm, and the next moment found Stiles shoved roughly against the wall with superhuman strength, the werewolf's forearm smashed tight to his throat. Lips pulled back, long canines bared, Derek snarled at him, shoving again for good measure.

"You're going to get out of my house, go back to your base, and help your people salvage the remains of the scouting group we just found smeared across a quarter mile of forest," Derek growled, low in his chest, the words rumbling across Stiles' skin.

Stiles' eyes dropped, skipping over the fangs along Derek's lips, and he swallowed thickly. "Remains?" he asked, voice cracking into a strange whisper.

"As in dead," Derek said flatly, forearm loosening as his hands found Stiles' shirt instead. He may have wanted to sound angry, but he just sounded so tired. "As in Peter got to them, and what's left is barely worth burying."

Slowly, in as non-threatening a way as Stiles knew how, he brought his hands up, laid them over Derek's where they were curled in the material of his shirt. "You're kicking us out because Peter killed someone?" He frowned, though, because scout parties were always three. "Because he killed three people?"

The fire returned to Derek's curled lips. "I'm kicking you out because they're going to come looking for us now, and we don't have time to baby a turnwolf," he snapped, pulling Stiles bodily away from the wall and sending him stumbling in the general direction of the door. "We're leaving."

"What!" Stiles cried at the same time as Scott. They exchanged a glance, Stiles shaking his head in denial. "You can't! You promised you would-"

"I didn't promise you anything, human," Derek interrupted harshly, advancing on Stiles once more, backing him up toward the exit. Isaac dodged out of the way, trailed to a stop beside Scott. The two shared a confused, worried look that Stiles noted even in the heat of the moment.

"You kick us out now, and Scott's as good as dead," Stiles shouted, pushing back at Derek rather than backing down when Derek got too close. The wolf caught his wrists, squeezing painfully, but Stiles didn't give him the satisfaction of crying out. "And I'll be right after him," he bit out instead, bringing up a knee to try to work some distance between himself and Derek, shoving at the wolf's belly.

"Not my problem," Derek told him nastily, shifting so Stiles' leg fell back to the floor with a thump, and shoving the boy away from him by the wrists. Stiles' back thudded hard against the front door. "Get out before-"

"Before what!" Stiles cut him off with a high shout. "Before you kill us? You may as well! You may as well just kill us, Derek! What the hell happened to doing the right thing?!"

Derek hackled, but before he could take any further violent action, Isaac was at his side, gently shouldering him away as Scott ducked in and grabbed Stiles by the back of the neck.

"Go," Isaac said softly to Scott. Stiles tore his gaze from Derek just long enough to see the regret in the young wolf's eyes. "Just go."

"Yeah," Scott agreed, and he sounded miserable but he was ushering Stiles to one side, drawing open the creaky front door and ushering his best friend through it. He turned back to Isaac for just a moment, lips pursed and brows furrowed, ignoring Derek completely. "Sorry. We're sorry."

"Us too," Isaac told him, nodding.

Stiles planted his feet before Scott could get him any further, before they managed to make it off the porch. He put his hands on Scott's shoulders and Scott let him pause, let him lock eyes with Derek. Stiles shook his head and Scott heard the minute tremble in his voice when he spoke.

"We trusted you," Stiles told Derek, quiet but firm. "We still need your help."

"I'm sorry, Stiles," Derek stressed, just going slack in Isaac's hold at the broken tone. "I have to put my pack first."

Stiles swallowed, amber-brown gaze raking over the fully-human alpha, and then he nodded, just once. "Fine." His fingers slipped from Scott's shoulders and he turned away from the pack, chest tight. "Let's just go," he said, like a surrender.

The sound of their feet upon the stairs was hollow and cold, but it was nothing compared to the soft, final click of the door behind them.