Derek sits next to the motel room window, peering through the break between the curtains at the dark parking lot. He hears the change in Stiles' breathing that says he's waking up, but doesn't bother to turn around to check on him. It's the middle of the night. Maybe he'll fall asleep on his own.

He doesn't. Instead he comes and sits across the table from Derek and says quietly, "Hey." It's just like every other time Stiles has found him keeping watch in the middle of the night, except this time they're in unfamiliar territory and it makes Derek's skin itch.

Derek nods, but doesn't reply out loud. Lydia's sleeping in the bed furthest from the window. She's been talking in her sleep all night, little mumbles and half-words about nothing that makes sense to him. He thinks she must need the sleep, because he's fairly certain she kept watch on Stiles the night before, while Derek had passed out on her kitchen floor for a few hours of rest. He'd like to do the same now, but someone has to keep watch.

"Dude, if you had a problem sharing the bed, I would have camped it out on the floor," Stiles says, picking at the edge of the table with his fingernail.

"That's not it," Derek says, so quickly he surprises himself. He doesn't elaborate, though. Stiles doesn't need to know that Derek would like nothing better than to crawl into bed with him, just curl up with Stiles, and go to sleep.

Stiles makes an understanding noise in his throat and asks, "Keeping watch, then, huh?"

Derek nods, like he always does. He's surprised when Stiles puts his chin in one palm and stares out the window as well. He looks sad. And why shouldn't he? Derek got everyone he loved, except for his father, killed. That thought heavy on his mind, Derek says what he's been meaning to all day, "I'm sorry."

Stiles blinks like he's half asleep again and asks, "For what?" His tone gives Derek the impression that Stiles thinks there are several things Derek could be apologizing for and he's genuinely curious which one Derek has chosen.

"For everything," Derek admits, letting his forehead fall against the cool window glass. There's nothing happening outside. Even though they're in a motel three towns away from Beacon Hills and Deaton gave them protective herbs and spells, Derek can't shake the feeling that as soon as he stops watching, something's going to happen.

Stiles sighs and gives Derek a tired, half-smile. "I know." He lets his hand fall forward on the table like he's expecting Derek to take it. He surprises himself by doing it. He slips his hand over Stiles' and grips his warm, sweaty palm.

Derek hears the way Stiles' heartbeat slows and feels the response of his own, catching up to beat in sync with his beta's. There's another thing to be sorry for: turning Stiles. He'd only ever wanted the bite if he was in mortal danger. I was Derek's fault he'd even been in that position in the first place. "If there had been any other way..." Derek says, squeezing Stiles' fingers.

Stiles nods and says, "I always knew it would happen eventually. Of course, I thought Scott and Erica and everyone would be here when it did. I should've known. You don't run with monsters without becoming one of them." He draws his hand away and Derek tries not to chase after him, letting him go like it's not difficult in the least. "What I don't get, though," Stiles says, crossing his arms over his chest, "Is why you gave that douchenozzle the bite. These new hunters blow into town and all of a sudden you turn one of them?"

Derek tried to choose his words carefully. He couldn't afford to have Stiles misunderstand him and get pissed off. Stiles was all he had left. Well, and Lydia, but he knew her association with them was temporary. When all this was over, she'd sweet talk her way back into med school and have no more use for him. "We had a deal. Kelly would get the power he needed to go after the demon that killed his father and we'd get a permanent alliance with his family."

Stiles' jaw drops and he asks, "Is stupidity a werewolf thing?" Lydia stirs across the room, so Stiles lowers his voice. "Am I going to get stupid? Like, start watching reality TV and make mistakes on my 1040-EZ? Jesus, Derek! You didn't even consider that the bite might kill him, did you?"

"No," Derek admits. He shouldn't be letting his beta admonish him like this, especially a new one. But honestly, Derek feels like he deserves it. He's killed a man. He's killed a man and brought death down on his pack in return. "I thought..." Derek sighs. "He was young and healthy. It shouldn't have killed him. I thought I was protecting us."

Stiles closes his mouth at Derek's confession and frowns, but his eyebrows do that sympathetic tilt-thing and he feels like sympathy instead of frustration. He sighs and then points at Derek and says, "So, listen. I'm your pack now and I get that you're the leader or whatever and that's great. It's awesome. The way you pulled me back from ... today. Good stuff."

Even though Stiles pauses, Derek can tell that he has more to say. "But?"

"But when it comes to the big decisions, would you at least let me help? Like talk to me about it before you go off making rash decisions that could get people I care about hurt. By which I mean me," Stiles adds with a wry smile. "I care about myself, like, a lot, so..."

Derek thinks about what Stiles is asking for a moment. He probably doesn't know how involved Boyd and Erica had been in his decision making process the last few years. Even Isaac had weighed in on occasion. Jackson was always too bullheaded to be asked his opinion and then have it dismissed when a better solution came up and Scott didn't like leaving Derek the final word either. It was right for a pack to be involved, to counsel their leader. When Derek's grandmother had been Alpha, she always asked everyone what they would do in her shoes, even the children. Somehow, he's forgotten that.

Before Derek can answer, the lamp across the room flicks on and Lydia sits up in bed. "Me too," she says, sliding out of bed to stand up and walk toward them. She's wearing a t-short and underwear, but nothing else and Derek's body notices the curve of one breast under the cotton of her shirt and a sharp flare of desire runs through him before he can stamp down the reaction. Lydia crosses her arms over her chest and says, "I may not be a werewolf, but I'm in this now. I need to be involved in the decision-making. I'm not going to stand by and let you two decide to make me bait or something."

"We'd never," Stiles insists, before he makes a weird face and sniffs the air. Stiles looks over at Derek with his eyebrows raised for half a second before diverting his attention back to Lydia. "You're the brains of the operation," he insists and Derek wonders what could have made Stiles pause like that. "If anything, I'm the bait. Derek's the muscle."

Lydia looks back and forth between Derek and Stiles with a frown on her lips, but she doesn't argue. Instead, she sits on the edge of the bed nearest to them, crosses one thigh over the other, and says, "Alright, so let's come up with a plan."

Derek's already spoken to Deaton about this, so he says, "Stay here under the protective spells for a few days so they lose our trail. Then take care of them, starting at the top."

"Wait," Stiles says, throwing an arm out to point at Derek. "You're going to kill an old lady because she's grieving her son?"

"She had her men kill the pack," Derek says in reply. "They almost killed you and they're not going to just let us go, so..."

Derek notices Lydia sitting with her palm open in her lap, looking at it like it has offended her. Derek moves a little into her line of sight and asks, "What do you think, Lydia?"

"I think it's a good thing I haven't taken the hippocratic oath yet," she says, still staring at her hand before she blinks a few times and looks up. "We need to make sure she takes the blame. For Jackson and Scott and Allison, for shooting up the mall back there, for everything. She can't do that if she's dead, as much as I would like to tear her to shreds with my bare hands. I ... I want her dead and I don't even know her name."

"Harriet," Derek supplies, Lydia's absent, then bloodthirsty demenor making an uneasy pit form in his stomach. "Harriet McCaffery."

Lydia nods and Derek can practically see her storing the name away for later. Then she says, "Stiles. What would your Dad need to make all this legal shit go away? So we can be cleared and go home?"

"Our statements," Stiles says. "Physical evidence tying her people to the murders." His breath hitches so slightly that Derek's sure Lydia couldn't notice, but Derek does. He has to remember that they're all grieving, that it wasn't just Derek who lost his pack. "Witnesses. If I could get a laptop, I could reroute a video call to my dad, really get the scoop on how the investigation is going, without them being able to find us. Well, unless they call the FBI or something, and no one was killed on federal land or took a minor across state lines, so it's really not their jurisdiction, unless a group of hunters count as the mob, which they might if they try racketeering now that there's no pack in Beacon Hills to stop them–"

"Stiles!" Lydia cries with a frustrated huff. "We have the room phone. We have Deaton's burner cell number. We'll get him to talk to your dad."

"Oh," Stiles says with a nod, meeting Derek's eyes for a second and looking embarrassed that he'd run on like that. Derek knew he only ever stopped using sentences when he was really excited or really nervous, and with the full moon coming up in a few days, Derek needs to get to the bottom of whatever's making him feel like this. He hopes it's something simple, but Derek knows it's probably the situation they're in and Stiles will be battling his feelings about that at the same time he's battling the pull of the moon for the first time.

Derek says, "We'll call Deaton in the morning for an update. In the mean time, you two should get some more rest."

Lydia shrugs and then takes a sharp breath before saying, "I have to visit the little girls' room first."

Derek watches her flounce off, which seems like it would take far too much energy for this time of night. She's taking it. Her smell reeks of worry and exhaustion. He wonders how much of what he knows about Lydia is an act.

When the bathroom door closes, Stiles says with a resigned tone, "Please don't."

Is Derek supposed to know what he's taking about, or is this one of Stiles' leaps in logic that he expects everyone to follow along with him? "Don't what?"

Stiles doesn't meet Derek's eyes as he murmurs, "I know I don't have a shot with her and I never did, but if I have to sit here and watch you two start something and not be able to leave because you're my alpha now, I think I'm gonna lose my fucking mind!"

"Me and Lydia?" Derek asks, seriously surprised that Stiles would jump to that conclusion. Though, now that he thinks about it, Derek supposes Stiles isn't so far off in thinking that Lydia is his type. She's beautiful and intelligent and ruthless, but also broken in a way that Derek needs because there's no way he will inflict himself on someone who's whole. Mostly Derek is impressed that Stiles had been able to pick up on a momentary attraction in Derek's scent. Maybe Stiles is just reading things all wrong, his new senses confusing him. It had been known to happen before. "Why would you think that?"

"Because," Stiles scoffs, picking at the table again, working his fingernail under the wood-pattern veneer. "You were all couple-y earlier at the car lot and you're attracted to each other. Why not? I mean it's been, what? Four years since you've had a girlfriend? Five?"

"Five," Derek agrees, thinking about Aida with that familiar grief he knows so well. "And we both remember how that turned out. I wouldn't, Stiles."

Of course, Stiles has to keep pushing the subject, like pressing on a wound to gauge by the pain just how well it's healing. "But she's so pretty and you're so you and I know what I smelled, buddy!"

Derek hears the way Stiles' heart speeds up, pushing him to the brink of panic and probably shifting and this is going to be a thing now, isn't it? With a sigh, Derek gets out of his chair and crouches down in front of Stiles, taking his hands away from the table and holding them tightly. "Look at me," Derek commands, letting out some of his power so that Stiles will feel it and see it. Stiles stills in Derek's hold. Derek takes a breath and thinks about what Laura said to him all those years ago. "It's just you and me now, okay? I'll do whatever's best for both of us, alright? If that means not starting something with Lydia, then I won't. Not that I'd even considered it. You don't intend on dating every girl you find attractive, do you?"

"No," Stiles replies, almost petulantly, like he hates that Derek made a good point. "You'd really do that for me?"

What wouldn't I do for you?, Derek thinks, but he says out loud, "Yeah, of course." He watches the way Stiles' face softens and fights back the urge to trace his features with eager fingertips. Just because he's Stiles' alpha now, doesn't mean the intimate gesture would be welcomed. Not yet, if ever.

Stiles takes a long breath, to calm himself Derek supposes, and then stops toward the end of his inhale. He lets out a whoosh of air and then sniffs again. "What does that mean?" he asks.

Face feeling a little warm as he answers, Derek lies, "Nothing. I'm just worried about you. The full moon is coming up and we're stuck in such tight quar-"

"No," Stiles interrupts. "No, that's not..." He frees his hands from Derek's and puts them on either side of Derek's face so he can't look away without pulling stupidly hard. Stiles meets his eyes and his brows raise steadily upward before he whispers, "Derek?"

The moment feels tense with possibility. Stiles is sensing more from Derek than he ever could before and maybe Derek should be trying harder to mask his feelings, but he is just so tired. Stiles is there and he's pack now and even if he doesn't want Derek back, he's going to find out eventually. Might as well be now.

Except Stiles isn't backing away, he's moving closer, his eyes on Derek's lips. Derek takes a surprised breath and then the bathroom door opens, Lydia traipsing back into the room. Derek tries not to be offended when Stiles shoves him away and stands up, mumbling, "My turn."

Derek sits flat on his ass on the grungy motel carpet, Stiles locks himself in the bathroom, and Lydia raises an eyebrow. "What ... the hell ... was that?"

Derek isn't quite sure what to say, so it takes him a moment of carefully not looking at how Lydia really should be wearing more clothes, because Derek can't afford to have Stiles smelling things that don't mean anything, to come up with, "Pack stuff."

"Oh, uh-huh," she replies, getting back into bed and switching off the light beside her bed. In the darkness, she breathes steadily and Derek focuses on listening to Stiles in the bathroom.

It sounds like he's lightly thudding something against the mirror, and if Derek had to guess, he would say it's Stiles' forehead that's taking the brunt of the meltdown. Derek wants to go tap on the door, to let himself in there and pull Stiles away from the glass and hold him again until he calms down, but he doesn't. He does pull himself onto the other bed and lay down, though, because suddenly the lack of sleep catches up with him.

Across the room, Lydia says quietly, "Derek?"

"Yeah?"

"If you hurt him, I'll cut you in half myself."

Derek smiles and it feels nice on his lips. Not as nice as a kiss from Stiles would have, but nice all the same. "Got it."