Haley followed Stiles out of the room, leaving Abby and Derek in the living room.

"Sorry, that's the teacher part coming out," Derek excused his partner's behavior. "This might take a while. Please." He offered her a place on the couch while he took the chair.

"He's good with kids," Abby observed.

From the other room, Derek could hear Stiles' voice but it was too low to make out words.

"He's a teacher," Derek reminded her. "At least at the side. But his students are usually older. His main job is his art and the commission work."

Before this could turn into an awkward silence, Derek had no clue what he should say, small talk was more Stiles' thing, they were saved by Ginger.

"Wow." Abby almost jumped out of her seat when Ginger climbed the back of the couch and basically jumped into her lap. After a moment of shock Abby laughed and let the cat sniff her hand.

"Most of the time he's friendly," Derek assured her. "And he gives fair warnings."

"Assuring?" Abby threw him a glance but then Ginger decided that she was acceptable as somebody to pet him and made himself comfortable in her lap. He didn't have to ask twice, Abby was already scratching his chin.

"You're stuck now, hope you know that," Derek teased her, remembering the times he had been stuck like that. Technically, one could just throw off the cat but nobody would ever do that.

"Looks like they won't be back any time soon anyway." Abby shrugged. She could have been stuck with worse things than petting a cat, Derek had to admit.

"Stiles has been working with Jack a bit already," Derek changed the topic.

"With the dog whistle," he explained when Abby didn't seem to follow his jump in topic. Stiles must be rubbing off on him. "It's far from perfect but Jack knows that the whistle is important and that there are treats involved if he gets it right."

"That's good," Abby said. "To be honest, I was a bit worried that Stiles would just jump in with no idea what he was doing. And that he would get frustrated and call it off if things don't work out the way he wants them to."

"I had to drag him off his laptop," Derek told her. "Otherwise he would have researched everything there is to know about those whistles. And I mean everything. From where and when they have been invented to how people on the other side of the globe have used them a hundred years ago, things like that." He shook his head. "But don't worry, the first thing he looked up, was how to use them and how to get the dog to do what you want with them."

"That's good." She paused. "If they ever get to that today." She gave the door a pointed look to which Derek gave her an amused snort.

"Even if not, we can do this another time," he said. "Stiles is thinking long term, just so you know. If you want to run, do it now."

"Since she has met Jack ..." Abby started but didn't seem to know how to put her thoughts in words. "Haley's more alive lately."

Derek got what she meant. He didn't really know the details but from what Abby had told them, he understood that Haley had not only stopped talking. Abby hadn't said it but he would bet money that she didn't have many friends if any. And apparently, she hadn't shown interest in anything until she had met Jack.

Plus, he had seen her eating the other day. She hadn't eaten that much but Abby had looked so grateful that she had eaten at all. Haley was thinner than she should be, Derek had noticed.

"You know," Abby continued. "You met Karen, my co-worker, right?" Of course, he had. He had been the one talking with her about the apartment they were looking for. He had instantly disliked her.

"She got wind of this thing with Haley walking Jack."

"Let me guess, she has her own opinion on this?"

"She thinks that you have ulterior motives," Abby told him. "The other day she wouldn't stop talking about the danger I'm putting Haley in."

That made Derek think. He hadn't really seen it from that side.

"What do you think?" He dared to ask. She was sitting her alone with him, a man she barely knew.

For a moment she kept her eyes on Ginger, fingers still buried in his fur, but then she looked up.

"I'm not sure if you're just nice or if you're aiming for something here," she said more honestly than he would have expected. "But Haley wants this and if there is a chance that this works out, I'll take it."

"We're not a threat." Derek felt the need to say. Stiles was usually not seen as a threat even if he was the more dangerous one of them. Derek on the other side knew what he looked like with his scruff and the leather jacket and his thick eyebrows. Stiles never got bored of telling him that those eyebrows gave him a brooding look. He did look like the kind of man parents warned their children about.

"I wouldn't be here if I thought so." She gave him a smile. And then she continued to tell him everything her co-worker had said about them. It was quite amusing.

"You two having fun?" Suddenly Stiles spoke up behind them while Haley was already rushing to Abby's side to show her the pictures. Derek recognized the one she had brought with her, the paper was crumbled in the middle, but the other one was new.

"That's me with the bun?" Abby asked and this time Derek got a good look at the picture. Haley had added her phone and her mother's hair and Derek's eyebrows did look as if somebody had fattened them up as well, with a thick black marker. Derek threw Stiles a glare who just ignored it.

"And what do you have here?" Abby put the first picture aside to have a look at the other one. Haley must have prepared her answer on her phone because she just shoved it in Abby's face.

"I showed her a little trick to get the proportions right," Stiles explained and came around the couch. "It's a bit more tricky with me sitting and with Jack of course but I think she got the hang of it." He ruffled her hair which made her giggle.

The second picture was basically the old one again but Derek could still see the faint lines and circles which helped to get the proportions right. Derek had seen Stiles sketching that way many times and it was still amazing how a few lines turned into a face or a whole body that looked right and not as if the arms were too long or the eyes were too low in the face. It was like magic.

Derek rather stuck to his camera, he knew how to work with that.

"Is this for Stiles as well?" Abby asked but it turned out that the second one was for Abby, Stiles would keep the original.

"Okay." Stiles clapped his hands. "There was something about teaching Jack new tricks if I recall correctly."

Instantly the drawings were forgotten and Haley was standing to attention in front of Stiles. He had at least trained her well so far.

Abby was still stuck with Ginger, the cat didn't look as if he wanted to move ever again, and Derek didn't really want to get caught in this either, so they stayed back while Stiles and Haley moved over where they had more room.

"Okay," Stiles said. "First you have to get a feeling for the whistle." He got a piece of paper out of his pocket. "These are the basic commands, we can build up from there."

The basic commands were apparently come, stay and stay close which all had a different tune to it. Come was one sharp blow with the whistle and they started with that.

Haley tried a few times to get the hang of it but even if Derek couldn't hear it, it looked as if she got the sharp whistles right. Jack, who was the only one able to hear it, came over to find out what this was all about. For which he got his first treat.

Stiles had used the combination of Jack's name with the whistle a few times so the dog at least had an idea what this was about.

Stiles did this a few times now, the verbal command followed by the whistle, before he handed the whistle back to Haley.

Then he sent Jack to his blanket.

"Try calling him," Stiles encouraged Haley.

Jack gave them a questioning look but then he hesitantly, still eyeing Stiles, not sure if he was doing something wrong by leaving his place, Jack came over to Haley who had a treat waiting for him.

"Good boy," Stiles told him while Haley covered the petting part of the praise.

They did it a few more times but it looked like Jack had gotten the idea. At some point, Ginger had fled into the bedroom, looked as if Jack wasn't the only one able to hear the whistle and it must come as a relief for the cat when Stiles decided that they were ready to take this outside.

The next hour Derek spent with Abby on a bench while they watched Haley and Stiles with Jack. By now Stiles was sending Jack off quite a distance but the dog always came back to Haley to get his treat when she blew the whistle.

"Stiles said that I have to train with him as well," Derek said after a while. "And Josh too. So that Jack gets used to the whistle." At least the whistle was not audible to human ears, he would feel stupid if he was blowing a whistle all over the park. He might look stupid with an apparently silent one as well but seeing how much fun Haley had, he didn't really mind that much.

Watching them got kind of boring after a while, they were doing the same thing over and over again, so naturally, he and Abby started to talk. Derek had never been that much of a talker but with Abby, it was kind of easy. At first, they were talking about the place Abby was trying to find for them. Which brought them to Josh who would move in with them. Derek didn't tell her that he broke with part of his family and that Josh had been kind of the result of that clash but he did tell her about him finishing school here in New York and that he wanted to study journalism. While he was already working on his first book.

"Josh is hogging my place," Derek said with an exaggerated sigh. "His stuff is everywhere, he needs a room for himself. Or maybe a small apartment on a different floor." That option had come up as well but two apartments weren't easy to find either and they had to keep an eye on the financial part.

"Working on it," Abby promised but Derek knew that what they were looking for was hard to find.

She did bring up his photos at one point. Derek wasn't surprised, everybody asked sooner or later, but Abby didn't seem disgusted.

"You're taking this easier than most," Derek said. "Most see it as pornographic and nothing else."

"C'mon," she said with something like outrage in her voice. "Some of your photos I would hang in my bedroom. They're beautiful."

"I know the artist." Derek leaned over to her as if he was telling her a secret. "I can get you a good deal."

"Thanks, but they are way too expensive for me."

Derek didn't think of his photos as that expensive even without the deal but they had a price. The gallery had set kind of a high bar for the ones from the exhibition and Derek had kept that up with the follow-up series, at least for the originals. With the rest, he kept to what Stiles had told him but they were affordable, especially the digital version.

"The offer stands," he said and then they were talking about his art. It was quite an unusual topic he had chosen, of course it raised questions. Derek had known that before he had even put the first BDSM picture out there. By now he was quite used to this kind of questions and he maneuvered them without revealing too much about himself and Stiles but he left enough hints for people to get the picture. Derek still didn't like it, it always felt forced and stilted, but Kira and Lydia had both trained with him so he wouldn't stammer into the mike, Lydia's words not his.

"Can I ask you something personal?" Abby asked once he had finished his explanation. He could guess where this was heading but he nodded anyway.

"You're wearing ..." She gestured around her own throat to indicate that she meant the collar he was wearing.

His fingers found their way on their own to the slim leather band around his neck.

"Is that ...?" she started. "I mean, you and Stiles ..."