After practice, Scott and Stiles made their way back into the woods to look for Scott's inhaler and have Stiles see the dead body.

"Dude how'd you do that back there?" Scott asked Stiles, "You haven't been practicing have you?"

"I don't know man, it was like – like everything was incredibly focused for me. Like it was all on slow mo or something." It was as close to an actual explanation as Stiles could come up with at that moment and even it wasn't enough.

"Focused? How much Adderall did you take?"

"None!" Stiles exclaimed flailing his hands in indignation, "Even if I did, I've been taking that stuff for years, don't you think I would have been Captain already if it was the Adderall?"

Stiles tried to ignore the fact that his first instinct was also to blame all this weird stuff on the drug as well. But unless the anti-ADHD medication suddenly gave him an athletic boost, he doubted it was the culprit.

"And that's not the only weird thing that's happened to me." Stiles continued, "I can hear stuff I shouldn't be able to hear, smell things."

"Smell things? Like what?"

Stiles sniffed the air and said, "Like the cherry bubblegum that's at the bottom of your shoe."

Scott frowned but moved to check his right shoe.

"No, your left shoe."

Scott looked at Stiles and when he saw that he was perfectly serious, checked his left shoe. Sure enough, there was pink gum stuck at the bottom of his left shoe. He looked back at Stiles confused and unable to believe that he was right.

"What if it's the bite? Like an infection." Asked Scott trying to scrape off the gum using a branch, "Like your body's flooding with adrenaline before it goes into shock or something."

Scott's choice of words pulled a mischievous smile on Stiles' face and he decided to mess with him for a little bit.

"You know what? I actually think I've heard of this." Stiles said, "It's a specific kind of infection."

Scott stopped walking, worried about his friend's health, "Are you serious?"

"Yeah, yeah I think it's called Lycanthropy." Stiles was sure that Scott would figure it out at that point, but he should've known better. Scott doesn't even watch sci-fi or supernatural movies.

"What's that? Is that bad?" The look on Scott's face and his obvious worry almost made Stiles laugh right there but he reigned it in, knowing that the best was yet to come.

"Oh yeah, it's the worse. But only once a month."

"Once a month?"

"Mhmm on the night of a full moon."

At Scott's inquisitive look, Stiles howled then laughed after Scott hit him on the chest.

"You're the one who heard a wolf howling."

"Something could be seriously wrong with you." Scott said

"I know! I'm a werewolf!" Stiles was enjoying this way too much, it was just too easy to mess with Scott sometimes.

"Obviously I'm joking." He said noticing the look of genuine worry on Scott's face.

Scott stopped walking and looked around. He was a bit annoyed by Stiles at the moment. There could be something really wrong with him and here he was making jokes. If Stiles wasn't going to take this seriously then he would, so he decided he was going to ask his mom about Stiles' symptoms when he got home. Maybe she could tell him he was worrying over nothing.

"I could've sworn this was it." He said pointing at where he saw the body the previous night, "I saw the body. The deer came running, and I dropped my inhaler."

He knelt on the ground to look for his inhaler when Stiles guessed that the killer moved the body. If he did, Scott was just hoping that the inhaler was left behind because he couldn't afford another one. Even though he was getting better at controlling his asthma, the inhaler was still a backup that he kept with him in case he needed it.

Where would he get eighty bucks to buy a new inhaler without letting his mom know he lost his inhaler?

He was pulled to his feet by Stiles who was looking at a man wearing a leather jacket standing a few feet in front of them and glaring.

"What are you doing here?" The stranger asked, "Huh? This is private property."

"Ahh, sorry man we didn't know." Stiles said

"We were just looking for something but –" Scott trailed off, obviously intimidated by the guy in front of him, "Forget it."

Both boys couldn't take their eyes off the man. Scott because he was intimidated by the stranger, and Stiles because he knew exactly who the guy was. He remembered his dad's investigation about the Hale house fire and he was curious to know what made Derek Hale come back to Beacon Hills after all these years.

Derek narrowed his eyes at both of them and threw something at Scott. As if on instinct, Stiles reached out and caught it first before it could hit his best friend in the face. He opened his hands and was shocked to see that it was Scott's inhaler.

"Here you go," He said giving it to Scott and both boys watched Derek Hale walk away.

When they were sure Derek was out of earshot, Scott told Stiles that they should get going.

"Dude that was Derek Hale." Stiles said stopping him, "You remember right? He's only like a few years older than us."

"Remember what?"

"Are you kidding me?" Stiles had no idea how Scott could have forgotten. The Hale house fire was the talk of the town for months and it was all Stiles could talk about at the time.

"His family," He explained, "They all burned to death in a fire like ten years ago."

"Wonder what he's doing back."

Stiles was curious too. He could still remember the Hales, he wasn't close with any of them because they tended to only talk with each other, but he could remember Derek's mother Talia. When he was a kid and he'd help his mom go grocery shopping, sometimes they would run into Talia Hale and she always had a lollipop or some other treat for him. He could also vaguely remember the angry, bossy brunette Cora Hale who yelled at him after he accidentally knocked over her sand castle in the park.

OoOoO

The first thing Stiles did upon getting home was to log on to his computer and fire up Google. It may not have been obvious to Scott but Stiles was also worried about the symptoms he's been experiencing since the animal in the woods bit him. He knew though that he couldn't go to the hospital. Melissa would be there and she would not only lecture him but also tell his father who would find out about his son's late night activities. So he settled for the next best thing and decided to ask good ol' Mr. Google.

He typed in as much of his symptoms as he could without sounding too farfetched. Most of what came up were useless to him. It was all about the different animals with heightened senses and how they use it to either catch their prey or escape from a predator. One article related heightened senses to epilepsy, obviously he wasn't epileptic so that's out.

He kept strolling down with a bored look on his face, he was starting to think he wasn't going to find anything online. Then he saw this article that made his heart momentarily stop. He knew it wasn't possible but before he knew it, he had already clicked on the link.

Werewolves are humans with the ability to turn into part animal at will… enhanced senses and fast reflexes that they use to stalk and capture their prey... Their powers and bloodlust are at its peak during a full moon making them extremely dangerous to those around it… These creatures can be turned by either a bite or a scratch from another werewolf and only a silver bullet can kill them.

Panting, he shut down the laptop before he could even finish reading the article. He refused to believe that it was real. Werewolves aren't real. Whatever bit him was a bear or a science experiment gone wrong, not some mythical creature that has the ability to turn him into one of them. It wasn't possible.

"Snap out of it Stiles." He told himself as he paced his room, "You're starting to lose it. Werewolves aren't even real so quit thinking about it. You're fine. You're perfectly –" fine.

He frowned. He got bit and almost mauled by a big animal in the woods the night before and he was perfectly fine. How was he alright? How did he even manage to get away? He remembered reading something about werewolves having faster healing ability two months ago. He knew it wasn't possible, but maybe he should just…

He sat on his bed and slowly reached down to remove the bandage on his leg. When he took it off, he would see an ugly wound that would be his only reminder of that night. Possibly a week from now, he'd get a scar on that spot and he could put all this werewolf nonsense behind him.

The bandage was removed and Stiles' already pounding heart suddenly stopped.

His leg was free of any mark, bite, scratch, or scar that should've been there. It was almost like he was never bitten at all.

AN: So what do you guys think? Will Stiles believe in werewolves now?