Scott and Stiles exchange glances.
"I don't think that's a good idea," Scott says carefully.
"He's hard enough to handle when you're—" Stiles makes a long upward gesture. "Full-power."
"He killed my sister," Derek says.
"Exactly," Scott says. "You're not thinking straight, you're gonna be reckless. It's too dangerous."
"You're not my alpha," Derek says coldly. "I don't need your permission."
"That's true," Scott says. "But you do need us to tell you where he is."
"And that's never gonna happen," Stiles says.
"Sorry," Scott says.
Derek presses his lips thin, nostrils flaring.
"C'mon, Der," Stiles says, reaching back to squeeze Derek's shoulder consolingly. "We just don't want you getting hurt."
Something in Derek snaps.
"I'm. Older. Than. You," he grits out, shrugging Stiles' hand off. "I don't need you, or anyone else, looking out for me. I can handle myself."
"I'm sure Laura was strong too," Scott says gently.
"Laura trusted him," Derek says, ignoring the stab of casual past tense. "I don't."
"So what, you're invincible?" Stiles asks. "Trust me, if he's laying low, you do not want—"
"You have no idea what I want," Derek says tightly.
"Right," Stiles says, his features rearranging into nonchalance just a second too late. "I don't know you. I've got nothing to do with you. You don't trust anyone, you don't need anyone, we're insulting you by even giving a—You know what? I miss older you. But I guess just when he gets his head out of his ass and lets someone help him once in a while he devolves back into you, huh? Like a fuckin' Pokemon. Mystery solved."
"I'm sorry if me trying to have some tiny bit of control over my own life bothers you," Derek enunciates.
Stiles makes a noise, turns back to the road.
"Derek, c'mon," he says at the next red light, dislocating Malia slightly from his lap as he turns around to face him. "That's not—We just wanna help."
"Then stop treating me like a child," Derek says. "I'm an omega now. I need to prove I'm not weak."
"You don't need to prove that to us, dude," Scott says encouragingly.
"There are other packs in the world besides yours, Scott," Derek says. "And they're not as nice."
"Yeah, we know," Stiles says.
"You've been up against another pack?" Derek asks.
"Actually," Stiles says, an uncomfortable look growing on his face, "You were. When you were an alpha."
Derek stares at him.
"I was an alpha," he asks.
"Yeah," Stiles says, looking like he spilled some terrible secret.
"When, I mean—" Derek struggles. "Who did I kill?"
"Peter," Scott says.
"I don't understand," Derek says, pacing a square on the floor of the McCalls' living room. "If I killed Peter, how is he—How are you—"
"I was never your beta," Scott clarifies.
"And it's complicated," Stiles says. He's on the couch, eating cold lo mein he found in the back of the fridge with his fingers, Malia curled around him like an oddly-shaped cat.
"Complicated how?" Derek can't stop the frantic buzz of sudden hope. "He was dead, and now—How does it work? Is he—Have I tried—"
"We don't know how exactly," Stiles says. "But you don't wanna do what he did."
He doesn't know. He lost his mother, he doesn't know what it's like to lose everyone. And then to hear that there's a way—
"He bit Lydia," Stiles says, like he knows what Derek is thinking. "It could've killed her."
"Why would that—"
"And then, after, you know—"
"After I killed him," Derek says. It's not like he regrets it. And it's not like it lasted.
"Right," Stiles says. "After that, he started, I don't know, showing up in her dreams. Like haunting her."
"Why?"
Stiles shrugs. "And then he started, like, possessing her. Making her do things for him."
Well, that sure sounds like him.
"He waited for a full moon," Scott says. "It was Lydia's birthday, he had her put something in the punch."
Stiles makes a face. "Everyone was, like, tripping out."
"And then he had her drug you with the same stuff and drag you to the H—to the house."
"Older me?" Derek's seen that picture. He's seen Lydia. "How?"
Stiles shrugs again. "She wasn't herself."
"She said she doesn't really remember much after that," Scott says. "Just Peter coming out from under the floor."
"And using you to heal himself," Stiles says.
Derek thinks he's heard something like this once. The healing part, not the—resurrection. "Is that why I'm not an alpha anymore?"
No, it can't be, he realizes almost immediately, because Stiles said there was another pack.
"Nah, that happened later," Stiles says.
"And then he was just—back?" Derek asks. "Exactly the same?"
"Seems like it," Stiles says.
But the hope is already fading. Whatever Peter did, he set it in motion before he ever died. Even if there was a way, even if it wasn't—It still wouldn't work.
They're just gone.
Derek stops pacing, takes the end of the couch, head in his hands.
Stiles puts the lo mein on the floor, wipes his fingers on a bunch of tissues, and maneuvers him-and-Malia closer. She opens her eyes, stares balefully at Derek.
"Hey," Stiles says, and rests his hand on Derek's hunched back.
Malia unwraps herself from Stiles, stretches, and makes for the refrigerator.
When he gets home, Kate's wearing a tight white tank top and jeans, her own clothes, but she smells like him. Derek's wolf curls warm around itself.
She been waiting for him, but she stops, inches away. "Did you bring me a present?"
He shifts awkwardly on his feet. "They won't tell me where he is," he says.
Kate frowns.
"But we'll find him," Derek says, more confident than he feels. "Or—I can tell them what he did, they can—"
"No!"
Derek looks at her.
"No," Kate says, quieter.
"They can protect you," Derek says.
"I have you to protect me," Kate says, and kisses him. It's a heady kiss, deep, perfect. He's a little lightheaded when she pulls back, smiles at him. "What do I need them for?"
"I'm an omega," Derek says, tries to sound—calm, mature, unemotional. "Scott's an alpha, and Stiles—"
"He's human," Kate says.
"So?" Derek works to tamp down the weird rush of defensiveness. "He's still—They're a strong pack."
"They're a bunch of teenagers," Kate says.
"They're smart," Derek says. "And loyal."
Kate sighs. "If you don't wanna help me..."
"No!" Derek draws her in again, rubs her back, reaching under her tank top to work the tense muscles there. She shivers, wraps her arms around him. "No, I do," Derek promises. "It's my fault Peter ever did this to you, I'm not gonna—"
"Is that all I am to you?" Kate asks. "Just a guilt trip?"
Derek pulls back, looks at her.
"Of course not," he says. "I wanna help you, I wanna—But I don't know what to do."
Kate reaches up, threads her fingers through his hair, pulls just a little.
Derek nearly purrs.
"We'll think of something," Kate says.
Stiles and Scott have school. It seems impossible, that something as ordinary as school still exists, after everything. But there it is, Beacon Hills High, looking just the same as ever. From right here Derek can almost believe that he's still a teenager, still has a pack, a family. He's just going to school, going to play some basketball, go home and be the beta everyone is too busy living their complicated lives to even pay attention to. He used to resent that, how no one took him seriously, included him in the big discussions, what does little beta Derek have to say about any of it? Not an alpha, not even in training, not anything. Just surrounded by his pack, just—And Dad would still be alive, he decides. Still ruffling his hair and making dumb dad jokes and laughing with Mom about things that went way over Derek's head. All of them breathing, and living, and just being—
"Shouldn't you be in class?"
Derek almost smiles. He almost smiles seeing Mr. Harris.
He's going crazy.
"I'm not registered yet," he says.
"It's January," Harris says.
"Late transfer," Derek lies.
Harris sighs. "And then they expect teachers to miraculously—" He stops. "Did I teach a relative of yours?"
"No," Derek says.
"An older brother," Harris says.
"I'm—" Derek swallows. "I just have one sister. And she's younger than me."
Harris takes off his glasses, rubs the bridge of his nose.
"This town doesn't make any sense," he says, and goes back inside.
Malia has school too. She's in all of Stiles' classes, which should be impossible, considering—
"Yeah," she tells Derek at lunch. "Yeah, I lived in the woods as a coyote for years. So what?"
"But you still know geometry?"
She frowns at him. "I'm not an idiot."
"I didn't say—" Derek gives up.
"She's very intelligent," Stiles says, taking her hand.
"Don't patronize me," Malia snaps, and steals his chips.
"Hey," Stiles says. "We talked about this."
"You can have half," Malia says, tearing the bag open and depositing a chip on her plate, a chip on his...
There's one chip left after she's done dividing.
"Here," she says, and gives it to him.
Derek looks at Stiles.
"Progress," he says, shrugging, and pops it in his mouth.