They were the last two to arrive downstairs for dinner. Conversation was already ongoing. Lydia was in deep discussion with one of the clavigers, a young man, barely eighteen, Stiles thought. They appeared to be discussing the manor's electricity and formulating plans to fix it after the meal. Stiles was relieved.
Beacon Hills's Beta, Gamma, and four other pack members all looked uninterested in everything around them, but spoke comfortably enough with Erica and Boyd.
Cora paused in her conversation with Allison to glare at her distant grandfather and his husband for their tardiness. The conversation remained rather awkward after Derek and Stiles sat down.
Finally, in desperation, Stiles asked, rather casually, he thought, as to how the pack was enjoying its vacation from the werewolf curse.
Derek rolled his eyes. He didn't think even Stiles would confront the pack so directly, en masse and over dinner. He thought he would at least approach members individually. But then, subtlety had never been his style.
Stiles looked sharply at the Beacon Hills Pack sitting around the table. Six large, guilty-looking men looked anywhere but at Stiles.
Finally, the Gamma said awkwardly, "It has been an interesting few months. Of course, Matt and myself have been supernatural long enough to be able to go out during the day without any difficulties, but the others have enjoyed the vacation."
"I've only been a werewolf for a few decades, but I hadn't realized how much I missed the sun," commented one of the younger pack members.
"Now it's beginning to get a little annoying, though," added another.
The youngest pack member grinned. "Yea, imagine, at first we missed the light. Now we miss the curse. Once you get used to being a wolf part of the time, it's hard to go back to human."
The Beta gave them all a warning look.
"Being mortal is so inconvenient," complained a third, ignoring the Beta.
"These days, even the tiniest cuts take forever to heal. And I'm so weak! I used to be able to lift the back of a car. Now, I could barely carry in all the luggage."
"I forgot how to shave," continued the first wolf with a laugh.
"Boys," barked Cora, "that's enough."
They all nodded and shut up. They were two or three times her age. They had probably seen her grow up. They still followed all her instructions.
The table feel silent.
"So, are you all aging?" asked Stiles.
No one answered Stiles, but the pack's collective worried expression spoke volumes. They were back to being entirely human, or as human as creatures who had partially died could get. Mortal was perhaps the better word for it. It meant they could finish dying now, just like any other daylight non-supe. Of course, Derek was in the same situation.
Stiles paused a moment. "I'm impressed you're not panicking. But I am curious – why not ask for medical assistance when you were in New York? Or maybe in LA once you got back to California? Somewhere with more facilities? Or even to ask BUR to look into it? You did come through New York with the rest of the werewolf packs."
The pack looked to Derek to rescue them from his husband. Derek's expression said it all: they were at Stiles's mercy and he was enjoying witnessing the carnage. Still, he need not have asked. Stiles was perfectly aware of the fact that most supernatural creatures mistrusted modern doctors and this pack would hardly seek out New York's BUR offices with Derek in charge. Of course they would want to get out of New York as quickly as possible, retreat to the safety of their home, hiding with their tails between their legs – proverbially, of course, as this was no longer literally possible. No tails to be seen.
"So how did it happen? Did you eat something odd in the Middle East? Where were, you exactly, anyway?"
Awkward silence persisted. Derek continued to eat, ignoring his pack. Erica, Boyd, and Allison were watching with interested expressions. Lydia looked as if she was trying to look uninterested, but her eyes darted between Stiles and the Beacon Hills Pack members.
Stiles continued, undeterred. "Are you all ill? Derek thinks you have a plague. Will you be infecting him in addition to yourselves?" Stiles turned to look pointedly at Derek, sitting next to him. "I am not entirely sure how I would feel about that."
"Thank you for your concern," Derek grunted. It was an amused grunt. Stiles could tell.
"I heard of this phenomenon," piped up Lydia, turning her attention towards the conversation. "I was out of the area, getting ready to move my uncle's body into the area so his ghost could be there, actually, when it happened, so I couldn't witness it firsthand. I'm sure there's a scientific explanation, though."
"Scientists!" muttered Matt. Two of his fellow pack members nodded in agreement.
This seemed to be the end of the conversation and eventually everyone drifted on to other topics.
After dinner, Stiles sat next to Cora in the living room while Lydia and some of the pack went to work on the electricity.
"You are fully human, yet you seem to act as Alpha. How is that?" he asked, settling himself on a couch.
"They lack leadership and I'm the only one left."
"Do you enjoy leading?" Stiles was genuinely curious.
"It'd work better if I were actually a werewolf."
Stiles was surprised. "Would you be willing to try? It's a risk."
"Yea, but your husband doesn't really care for my wishes." Left unsaid was the fact that Derek's was the only opinion that mattered. Only an Alpha capable of the half form – the Anbuis Form, as Stiles had recently learned it was called – could create more werewolves. Stiles had never witnessed a metamorphosis, but he had read the research on it. Something about holding onto life needing both forms at once.
"He thinks you would die in the attempt. And it would be at his hand. Well, at his teeth."
Cora nodded. Suddenly she looked far older than in her mid-30's.
"And I'm the last of his mortal line," said Cora.
"Oh," Stiles nodded. "And he would have to give you the full bite. It's a heavy burden you ask, to end his last mortal holding. Is that why he left the pack?"
"You think I drove him out by asking? You don't know the truth?"
"Obviously not."
"It's not my place to telling you. You married the asshole, you should be asking him." Sometimes Cora spoke as if Derek was a particularly unliked older brother or uncle, rather than distant grandfather.
"You think I haven't tried?"
Cora shook her head. "Why did you marry him? Because he's rich? Because he's in charge of BUR where you live and they watch your kind? What do you gain from it? What did you do it for?"
It was clear Cora thought Stiles had married Derek for personal gain.
"You know," replied Stiles, "I ask myself that question daily."
"It isn't natural."
"Of course it's not. How could it be, when neither of us are?" Stiles could usually control annoyance or anger when people implied that he only married Derek for his money, but Cora was really starting to irritate him.
"I can't figure you out, curse-breaker."
"It is really simple. I'm just like you, except I hold onto life a little differently."
Cora leaned forward. "I was raised by the pack. I was always going to become Alpha and lead them, whether he changed me or not. You merely married into it."
"And in that you have the advantage over me. But then again, I'm mostly retraining my pack to accept my ways."
A half-smile appeared on Cora's face. "I bet Jackson loves you."
Stiles laughed.
Just when Stiles felt like he might be gaining ground with Cora, an enormous crash reverberated against the wall.
Cora and Stiles rushed into the next room only to find Derek and Matt fighting. The Beacon Hills Gamma just shook his head. "They need to get it out of their system."
Cora was glaring at both men as they rolled around, at this point trying more to strangle each other than actually fight.
"Don't they realize that they're humans and can seriously get injured like this? They don't have supernatural healing right now." Stiles said. When everyone ignored him, he rolled his eyes. He contemplated getting his new baseball bat from upstairs.
Eventually they fell apart, both leaning against opposite walls of the room. Stiles kneeled down next to Derek to examine his injuries.
He looked between Derek and the Beta. "Settle the issue, then?"
Matt gave him a deadpan expression that managed to indicate a certain profound level of deep disgust in Stiles's very existence, let alone his question.
Matt made to rise and Derek instantly got to his feet. He would have to, Stiles supposed, to maintain dominance. Or something stupid like that. Werewolves.
"Nothing has been settled," Matt said, returning hastily to his slumped position on the floor. He appeared worse off than Derek. One of his arms looked broke and there was a gash on his cheek. "You abandoned us." Matt sounded like a petulant child.
"You all know exactly why I left," Derek growled.
"Uh," said Stiles timidly, "I do not."
Everyone ignored him.
"You couldn't control the pack," Matt accused.
Everyone in the room gasped. Stiles did not comprehend the gravity of the insult, but understood everyone else was upset.
"You betrayed me." Derek did not yell, but the words carried and, even though he could not change to wolf form, there was wolf anger in them.
"And you pay us back in kind? The emptiness you left, was that fair?"
"There is nothing fair about pack protocol. You and I both know that; there is simply protocol. And there was none to cover what you did. It was entirely unprecedented. So I was cursed with making it up myself. Abandonment seemed a better solution then killing you all." Derek spoke almost quietly, but everyone in the room could hear his words.
Stiles looked at the Gamma, who had tears in his eyes.
"Besides," Derek's voice softened, "Francis was a perfectly good Alpha alternative. He led you well. He married Cora. You were tame enough for decades under his dominance."
Cora finally spoke. Her voice was oddly soft. "Francis was my mate and I loved him. He was brilliant and a good soldier, but he wasn't a true Alpha."
"Are you saying he wasn't dominant enough? I didn't hear anything about lack of discipline. Whenever I looked into the pack, you all seemed fine." Derek's voice was soft.
"So you did check up on us?" Cora looked hurt rather than relieved.
"Of course I did. You were once my pack."
Matt looked up from where he still lay on the floor. "You left us weak, Derek, and you knew it. Francis had no Anubis Form and the pack couldn't procreate. Clavigers abandoned us and local omegas rebelled and we didn't have an Alpha fighting for the integrity of the pack."
Stiles glanced at his husband. His face was carved in stone.
"You betrayed me," he repeated, as though that settled the matter. Which, in Derek's world, it probably did. He valued few things more than loyalty.
Stiles decided to reassert his presence. "What is the point of this? Nothing can be done about it now, since none of you can change into any form at all. No new wolves can be made, no new Alpha found, no challenge battles fought. Why argue about what was?"
Derek looked at him and almost smiled. "Now you understand why I married him."
Cora said snidely, "A desperate, if ineffectual, attempt at control?"
"Oooh, she has claws. Are you positive you never bit her to change? She has the temper of a werewolf." Stiles could be just as snide.
The Gamma stepped forward, looking at Stiles. "I'm sorry for all of this today. Not having an Alpha for a few moons has made us nervous."
"Oh, and here I thought your behavior sprang from the whole not being able to change shape thing," he replied.
The Gamma grinned. "Well, that too."
"I don't suppose you are going to tell us what trouble you go into overseas?" Stiles tried to look as though he wasn't very interested, taking Derek's arm casually.
Silence.
"Well, I think we've had about as much excitement as I can stand for the evening. Since you have been human for a few months, I take it your keeping to non-supe hours?"
Cora nodded.
"In that case, Derek and I are going to bed."
"We are?" Derek looked confused.
"Good night," said Stiles firmly to the pack and clavigers. He practically dragged Derek from the room.
"What are you on about?" Derek demanded as soon as they were upstairs and out of everyone's earshot.
Stiles plastered himself up against Derek and kissed him fiercly.
"Ouch," Derek said when they pulled apart, although he had participated with gusto. "Busted lip."
"You are impossible," Stiles swatted him lightly on the arm. "You could have been killed in a fight, do you realize?"
Derek waived a dismissive hand. "For a Beta, Matt is not a good fighter, even in wolf form. He was hardly going to be any better as a human."
"He is still a trained soldier." He was not going to let this go.
"Have you forgotten that so am I? Hell, I'm a federal agent!"
"You are out of practice. Newark Pack Alpha hasn't enlisted in years."
"Are you saying I'm getting old? I'll show you old." Derek swept Stiles up and carried him into their room.
"Stop trying to distract me," said Stiles several moments later. During which time Derek had managed to divest him of a good percentage of his clothes.
"Me, distract you? You're the one you drug me up here when things were getting interesting."
"They are not going to tell us what is going on now matter how hard we push," said Stiles, unbuttoning Derek's shirt and hissing in concern at the array of harsh red marks destined to become rather livid bruises. "We're going to have to figure this out ourselves."
Derek paused in kissing a path down Stiles's collarbone to look at him suspiciously. "You have a plan."
"Yes, I do, and the first part of it involves you telling me exactly what happened twenty years ago to make you leave. No." He stopped Derek's wandering hand. "Stop that. And the second part involves you going to sleep. You are going to hurt in places your little supernatural body forgot it could hurt in."
Derek flopped back on the pillow. There was no reasoning with Stiles when he got like this. "And the third part of the plan?" Stiles liked to think in threes. Something to do with his dad, Derek thought.
"That is for me to know and you not to know."
Derek sighed. "I hate it when you do that."
Stiles grinned and laid back against the pillows. Derek turned on his side, wincing at the pain in his chest.
"At least help distract me from the pain for a minute, first."
Stiles rolled his eyes, but more out of habit than any real desire to. He was already turning to his husband, slotting his leg in between Derek's.
Afterward Derek lay staring up at the ceiling and told Stiles why he had left the Beacon Hills Pack. He told him all of it, from what it was like being in charge of the pack to the death of his mother and older brother, planned by the then Beacon Hills Beta, his lover, without his knowledge.
Derek did not look at Stiles once while he talked. Instead his eyes remained fixed on the stained and smudged molding of the ceiling above them.
"They were all in on it. Every last one of them – pack and clavigers. And not a one of them told me. Not because they were all that loyal to her – not to Kate. But she had them twisted around her finger. Had them so convinced that my mother and brother were a threat to the pack that they had to be taken out. She actually convinced them that I wanted it done, but couldn't stomach condoning it myself. So they lied to me and they killed my mother and my brother, all because I never made Kate my Alpha mate. All because I left her as my Beta and she thought it was my mother's fault."
Derek looked distressed and angry. Stiles ran his hand through Derek's hair softly.
"And you ended up having to kill her over it. Then what, you simply took off for New York, leaving them without leadership?"
Derek finally turned and looked at Stiles, propping himself on his elbow. Seeing no judgment or accusation in Stiles's eyes, he relaxed. "There is no pack protocol to cover this. A large-scale betrayal of an Alpha – to kill their family with no challenge, no reason, and by fire, not a challenge, but fire – led by my own Beta." His eyes were agonized. "Kate! They all deserved to die right then. I could have done it and no one would have objected. The dewan probably would have helped. If he had been on this side of country, he might have done it all himself."
He looked to Stiles and his eyes were sad.
Stiles continued to stroke Derek's head. "Why New York, though? Why all the way there?"
Derek had settled down and was starting to drift off to sleep. Stiles nudged him, trying to get an answer before he feel asleep.
Derek murmured, "New York. For family," and fell silent.
Stiles remained awake much longer trying to figure out Derek's answer.