Hey everyone, thanks to tuning in again! :) And, as always, thank you so much for the support (comments, favourites, ect) on the last chapter. This one's not super exciting, but it is setting up a few things.

Also, random crossover cameo is random. And not owned by me. Please see author's notes at the end of the chapter about said crossover character.

Chapter 25

Sheriff Stilinski flashed his badge and the young man in the NDMS jacket let him pass without comment. Inside, the huge building was a silent hive of activity dressed in yellow smocks, lab coats and decked out with white plastic. Additional lighting had been brought in to illuminate the tables that ran almost its entire length and the light above the industrial freezer on the far side indicated it was on.

The old warehouse had once belonged to a family-owned wholesale grocery chain, but had sat empty for over ten years. Now it was the temporary morgue and base of operations to the National Disaster Medical System's subsidiary, DMORT.

Identifying the majority of the earthquake's victims had been relatively straight-forward as many had had identification on them, but for the ones that weren't so simple, forensic pathologists had been working for weeks to confirm their identities and establish cause of death. They were nearly done, which is why the call asking him to come take a look at something had been a surprise.

"Sheriff Stilinski?"

The sheriff turned to find a woman in a lab coat, holding a plastic dixie cup that smelt of coffee, addressing him. She looked slightly older than him with blond, shoulder-length hair that was tied back out of her face, except for a few stubborn strands that had obviously slipped out.

"Yes, I'm Sheriff Stilinski," he replied. "Doctor Brennan?"

She blinked and then smiled warmly at him as she held out a hand. "Wow, that was fast," she said. "Agent McCall hasn't arrived yet."

He shook her hand and shrugged. "I was on my way home for the day. It was easy enough to just turn the car around and head here instead."

She winced. "Sorry for ruining your evening then."

He sighed. "Well, it's not exactly ruined yet..."

"An optimist in law enforcement? However have you managed to survive?" She beckoned him to follow as she headed down the row of tables.

"I have a son. I figure if I can manage to stay optimistic that one day he will grow up to be a mature, sensible adult, I can stay optimistic about the rest of my life."

She laughed. "Sounds like a teenager."

He nodded. "Stiles is sixteen."

"Aaah. Thankfully, my daughter's well past the worst of that stage. Although I do remember her nearly blowing an entire year's worth of university tuition to follow her basketball-playing boyfriend to Italy. At least, I think it was Italy."

He chuckled and then grew serious as Doctor Brennan stopped at a workstation: a foldable plastic table covered with a thin metal tray and a smaller table next to it on wheels containing medical equipment and a long-necked lamp. Beneath a sheet of white cloth, the sheriff could clearly make out the outline of a body.

"This is one of the bodies recovered from the trees behind the ruins of a housing complex on the south end," she said as she carefully pulled the sheet off the body.

"The Lincoln Road complex," the sheriff said, dread forming in his stomach. The body on the table was that of a young man – early to mid twenties – with short dark hair and a peaceful look on his face. There was some bruising on his left shoulder, a slight scrape on his left cheek and a stitched-up incision from the autopsy. He had a feeling he already knew what she was going to tell him.

"I've done a number of these disasters – or Majors as the NDMS likes to call them - and spent hours upon hours digging through body parts in order to ID victims. When I arrive on scene, I expect to see broken, mutilated bodies in all sorts of states." She then motioned to the body of the young man on the table. "This, is unusual."

Sheriff Stilinski nodded gravely and she took that as her cue to continue.

"So, I took some samples and sent them out to be tested. The young man had his wallet and driver's license with him, so figuring out his identity was a piece of cake. I moved on." She bent over and picked up a file folder that had been sitting on the second shelf of her small portable table. "The bloodwork came back this morning along with the other tests, so I took a peek. Everything came back negative: there was nothing in his blood that shouldn't have been there. He's also not showing any obvious signs of heart-attack or stroke. Then I opened him up..."

The sheriff sighed. "And you found no signs of ill-health or anything that could indicate why he suddenly dropped dead."

"It happens," she said, watching him carefully. "Sometimes the body just... gives up... young people too. There's no medical explanation as to why it happens, but there have been numerous documented cases."

He ran a hand through his hair. "But not at the rate it's been happening here," he concluded.

She nodded solemnly. "I rushed the bloodwork through the FBI lab in San Francisco and the lab tech mentioned he'd had similar cases from Beacon Hills already."

"So you've got no explanation either?" he asked, willing her to give him an answer he could work with.

She didn't, just shook her head. "Nope, sorry, I've never seen anything like it. Of course, I don't exactly work on normal cases either. In fact, the only reason this body came to me at all was because the morgue assistant had confused me with someone else."

He braced himself as he asked: "Are you recommending we contact the Centre for Disease Control?"

She bit her lip. "I'd say send them the reports at the very least. It'll ruin someone's weekend having to come down and investigate, but better than having to deal with a mass contagion breakout without any warning. Just because the tests aren't showing anything, doesn't mean there isn't something there."

He winced, hating the thought of doing that to someone – especially when he knew they weren't going to find anything. "Send me your report and I'll add it to the file," he said. Then he paused. "Or e-mail it, since I think most of your team is leaving tomorrow."

She nodded tiredly. "My plane leaves for Montreal in the morning. I'll type up what I can this evening and try to have it to you before I leave. I'm assuming I can leave it with your front office at the station?"

He nodded. "Yes, that'll be fine. Thank you."

There was a pause and when the sheriff looked up, it was to see the doctor eyeing him thoughtfully. He raised an eyebrow in question. "You know," she finally said. "Agent McCall sent me the full file after I'd talked to the FBI lab. There was a note about one possible survivor of whatever this was."

Sheriff Stilinski froze for a moment, before taking a deep breath and forcing his muscles to relax. "My son," he whispered, unable to keep the horror that still lived behind his eyelids at night completely out of his voice.

She nodded. "He was near death for no apparent reason: healthy one moment, low on blood-sugar and collapsing the next. But, thankfully, he managed to pull through and survive. He had nothing to add to the investigation?"

The sheriff took a deep breath. "Nothing helpful."

"Hmm... And unhelpful?"

He looked her in the eye. "That depends. Do you believe in ghosts, Doctor Brennan?"

That startled a laugh out of her. "I don't think I'd be able to do this job if I believed in ghosts." Then she caught sight of something behind him and he half-turned to follow McCall's progress as he made his way towards them through the maze of tables.

"So, we've got another one," he said in lieu of a greeting.

Derek smelt her approaching from a distance, but ignored it, refusing to look up from where he was packing insulation into the walls even when he heard footfalls crunching on gravel. He selfishly took every moment he could to prepare himself for this confrontation. Not that he thought all the moments in the world would've helped him be ready. But it was a nice illusion.

"So, you don't call, you don't write – except to send a shitty card for Christmas that arrives two days late. Didn't even call to tell me that you hadn't been squashed by a stray brick after that earthquake and now I come to find that you're rebuilding the house?"

"It collapsed," he said, still not looking up.

"You're missing the point, Derek."

Now he finally looked up at Cora, who was looming over him with her arms crossed and a distinctly unamused look on her face. "Apparently your definition of 'cleaning up the property to sell' and mine don't exactly match," she continued, her eyes flashing yellow momentarily in annoyance.

"Things happened, plans... got altered," he responded and then shrugged. He himself wasn't entirely sure what they'd been altered to, so it was pointless to try and explain it to anyone else.

"Yeah, I got that when I saw you with the building supplies and smelt all the people in the area and not all of them are werewolves. Also, why is there such a strong lizard smell? Scott didn't turn someone into another kanima, did he?"

"A kanima doesn't actually smell like a lizard." Cora glared at him. "Mywanwy's a wyvern."

At that she blinked. "Who's a what?"

"A wyvern's sort of like the distant cousin of a dragon. Smaller, less intelligent, less magical cousin."

Cora's face went blank. "And why, exactly, was there a dragon cousin here?"

Derek looked away. "It's a long story."

"Good. I'm starving; you can buy me dinner and tell me all about it."

When they'd arrived back from Merlin's cottage, Storm had immediately flown into her tree (there was no point in pretending it wasn't hers) and fallen asleep. Stiles chuckled at the tired-out hawk. Not that he didn't sympathize: his own arms felt like they were going to fall off and he knew from experience it would only be worse in the morning. As he climbed the stairs up to his room he unwrapped the cloth bundle Merlin had given him hours ago. The long leather gloves that nearly went up to his elbow still filled him with excitement.

It had taken them a few tries, but the first time Storm had managed to land on his arm without him overbalancing had been amazing. As he'd guessed he would be, Merlin was a patient teacher – though he claimed he wasn't really an expert as most of his knowledge on hawking had come to him by osmosis and watching other people do it. Stiles, on the other hand, was kicking himself that it hadn't occurred to him to google the topic yet. Not that he was ever going to go out hunting with Storm, but having her perched on his forearm like that had been really, really cool.

Even if he did get smacked in the face with her wings a few times.

He carefully stowed the gloves into his closet beside what he called his 'Werewolf Supplies' and then glanced over to his bedside clock. He had a little over an hour before the others were due to arrive, which meant more than enough time for a hot shower.

When he was done, he went down to the kitchen to find Allison already there wrapping potatoes in tin foil. He grinned at her and then started pulling vegetables out of the fridge. His dad was trusting them with the barbeque this evening, which was a first of epic proportions.

Scott and Isaac showed up half an hour later (probably thrown out of their house by Mrs. McCall, who was hosting the parents this evening) with a bag full of hotdogs. Scott and Stiles shared a grin and ran off to fire up the barbeque. Neither one of them said it out loud, but they were both thinking how much it felt like they were twelve all over again and finally allowed to stay up a little later - like grownups - on non-school nights.

Derek was the last to arrive.

When the doorbell rang it was only Stiles, Danny and Ethan in the kitchen, the others all outside and enjoying the unseasonably warm weather. Ethan looked to the front door and cocked his head.

"It's Derek," he said before frowning and sniffing the air. "And... oh."

"And oh?" said Stiles as he quickly washed his hands and dried them before heading over to open the door. "That 'oh' had better not be Peter."

"Uh, no, it's not Peter."

"Hey Derek, you're late," said Stiles as he opened the door to Derek's usual cheerful, smiling face. He got a glower in response and a container of store-bought cookies shoved into his arms. They were double chocolate-chip, so Stiles forgave him the rudeness. Then he looked behind Derek and caught sight of the unexpected visitor. "Oh, and Cora." He blinked and then smiled at her. "Hey Cora. When did you come back to Beacon Hills?"

"Stiles," she greeted him with a nod.

"She got here last night," Derek answered for her.

Neither one of them looked particularly happy. In fact, Stiles realized as he looked between them, Derek hadn't looked this blatantly unhappy since losing his alpha status. He opened the door wide enough for them to enter. "Uh, well, come on in. Hotdogs should be done any minute. Just, be warned, Storm's somehow still asleep right now, but I'm not actually sure how she's going to handle intrusions into her territory. We're sort of hoping we can bribe her with food – or that she possibly won't care because you're all, like, land-dwellers or something. I mean, she's never minded anyone in the yard before – I mean, except for the neighbour's cat - but there's never been that many people-"

"Who the hell is Storm?" Cora asked with a confused frown.

"Stiles' bird," said Derek.

"You have a bird?" Cora blinked in disbelief. "Seriously? As what, a full moon snack?"

Stiles rolled his eyes as he led them through the now-empty kitchen. The moment they exited the back door into the yard, Cora forgot all about Storm. Her eyes changed to beta yellow and she growled, her face morphing at the sight of the twins.

Only Danny and Lydia's hands on their respective boyfriends' arms kept the twins from responding to her challenge.

"Cora!" Scott called from behind the barbeque. He'd snatched up the barbeque tongues from Stiles as soon as he'd dug them out and hadn't let anyone else near them since. "Hi! I didn't know you were back in town."

Cora glanced at him, but her eyes snapped back to the twins almost immediately. "I got here last night. Was wondering what was taking Derek so long with the house."

Stiles winced. Ah right, he realized, Derek was supposed to have come to Beacon Hills to sell the property, not rebuild it. And since Hale Communication was practically legendary with its lack of, well, anything resembling communication, he probably hadn't told Cora about the change in plan. Last night must not have been fun for Derek in the slightest.

If Scott realized the implications of what she'd just said, he didn't show it. Instead, his eyes lit up. "Wow, yeah, it's looking really good, isn't it? You should've seen it just after the earthquake: it was a mess. I-"

"What are they doing here?" Cora growled out.

Beside her, Derek sighed. "They're a part of Scott's pack," he said. She turned to glare at him. He glared right back. "It's Scott's pack."

Kak-kak-kak

Stiles smirked as Cora and Derek both started. He looked up into the tree and waved. "Hey Storm, you're awake now, I see. 'Course, I don't really know how you managed to sleep through all the noise in the first place, but your timing couldn't be more perfect."

Storm blinked down at him in greeting (at least, Stiles thought it was a greeting) before turning her sharp gaze to Cora. The wolfed-out werewolf was staring back at the hawk in amazement.

"That's not a bird," she said finally. "That's a hawk."

Stiles shrugged. "Bird of prey's still a bird. Just a way cooler bird."

Isaac snorted.

"Hotdogs are ready, guys," Scott suddenly announced.

"Thank god, I'm starving," said Danny before dragging Ethan over to the barbeque.

"What about the potatoes?" Stiles called, not entirely sure he trusted Scott to have paid attention to anything but the hotdogs.

Allison grinned and gave him a thumb's up.

Cora spent the evening sitting as far from Ethan and Aiden as she possibly could, sending them the occasional glare, but other than a slight mishap with a hotdog that fell through the grill, bloodshed was averted. They didn't even need to use the fire extinguisher Stiles' dad had insisted they had on hand.

Sanuye parked her pickup along the side of the road and double-checked the address she'd written down before turning off her GPS and getting out of the car. It was a fairly ordinary-looking suburban neighbourhood, not fancy but certainly not shabby. Despite the earthquake damage that still scarred many of the houses, it looked well-lived and cared for. There had been bright red tricycle sitting next to a bright green BMX bike on one of the lawns she'd passed by, right next to a house with plastic over empty window panes and a roof that was only half there.

As she walked up the front steps, she felt her eyes pulled upwards, above the door. She didn't recognize the talisman that hung there, but understood its meaning. It was a protection charm, probably Merlin's handiwork. She rang the doorbell and noticed another pull of power, this one different, less... magical. She felt Stiles in it.

A few moments passed and then a dark-haired woman answered the door, her face lighting up in a bright smile. "Hi, you must be Sanuye?" she said reaching her hand out. "I'm Melissa McCall."

Sanuye smiled back and shook the woman's hand. "Yes, I'm Sanuye. It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Mrs. McCall. Thank you for inviting me."

"Please, call me Melissa," the other woman said as she led her into the house. "Stiles and Scott have attached at the hip pretty much since they were toddlers; he's practically a second son to me at this point. And, trust me, the pleasure is all mine. I'm sure it'll come as a complete shock to hear that Stiles has talked a lot about you and it's made us all incredibly curious."

She paused in front of the living room and looked back at her with an impish grin. "Besides, you managed to convince a Stilinski to eat and sleep when they're stubbornly refusing to. That almost qualifies as a miracle."

"Hey, I heard that!"

Sanuye exchanged a smirk with Melissa.

"Hello, Sanuye!" Merlin called to her as he watched Stiles' father fiddle with something by the television.

"Hello, Merlin," she replied with a raised eyebrow. "I didn't know you were still around."

"Er, yes, sorry. I've been rather busy..."

"Merlin, did you dump a student on her and then never went back?" a smooth voice with a hint of exasperation asked. Sanuye looked to the man sitting on the opposite end of the couch from Merlin. And stared.

He was the strangest being she'd ever seen. There was a feeling of... not death, but un-life surrounding him. Deep within him, she could see a spark of power: closer to Merlin's than Stiles' and not as sharp.

"You are not alive," she finally said, certain her confusion could be heard in her voice. "But there is-"

"I am a golem," the man said, waving off her confusion.

"His name's Adrian," Merlin added helpfully.

"I see."

"That pretty much sums up all of our reactions," said a man with short brown hair and a pleasant smile. Sanuye recognized him from the time she'd helped Stiles hunt the alpha werewolf in the forest. He stepped forward and held out a hand. "I don't think we were actually introduced before. I'm Chris Argent."

She shook his hand. "I remember. Your daughter is an impressive marksman."

He grinned proudly. "Thank you. She definitely has a gift for the bow."

"Aha!" came the sudden exclamation from the television.

"Figured it out?" Melissa asked with amusement.

"Yes." Stiles father beamed proudly as the brightly-coloured opening credits to Mario Kart began to play along with accompanying music.

"That only took you fifteen minutes," said Adrian from the couch. "That's almost impressive."

"And it'll continue to be impressive so long as the boys don't find out," Melissa added with a wink to Sanuye.

Sanuye smiled back in amusement. "Video games?"

Stiles father shrugged. "We couldn't think of anything that sounded more like mindless entertainment. And after the last couple of months we've had, mindless entertainment sounded like the best kind of therapy. Besides, I'm letting them use the barbeque, so it's only fair we get the playstation."

She looked to Melissa, who chuckled. "I had originally had something a lot more sophisticated in mind; something along the lines of a wine and cheese. Somehow it's ended up as more of a frat party complete with beer and pizza."

Just then the doorbell rang.

"Speaking of pizza," said Chris Argent and then he and the sheriff left to get the door.

"Oh, and just so you're aware, Sanuye," Merlin piped up. "There's apparently some sort of pact you're expected to join that involves not telling Stiles how much pizza his dad consumes."

Sanuye raised her eyebrows. Next to her Melissa giggled before leaning in to whisper conspiratorially. "I made him promise to make up for it by eating plenty of the kale salad I made."

"You know, I don't understand this modern obsession with odd and exotic vegetables," Merlin began thoughtfully. "Back in my day-"

"Oh God, don't start reminiscing again: it'll never end," Adrian interrupted with an exasperated roll of his eyes.

"Back in my day, we had to make do with the very basic of vegetables. Only what we could grow ourselves, didn't even have so much as an ordinary potato-"

"Of course not, they came from the New World in the sixteenth century."

"-and if you wanted meat, you had to look the poor animal in the eye as you offed it. Unless you were a knight, then it was apparently called hunting and it was a sport and-"

"Do we have anything stronger than beer?"

"Can you even get drunk?" Melissa asked, ignoring Merlin, who was still waxing on about the days he remembered in some indeterminate past.

"If I am very determined."

Chris and the sheriff walked back into the living room and began to arrange pizzas on the coffee table. Adrian, meanwhile went into the kitchen to bring out more beer – he handed one to Sanuye before setting the rest on the table. True to her word, Melissa had a big bowl of kale salad to add to the spread.

Sanuye smiled and took a drink of her beer.

"So, Sanuye," the sheriff said as he handed her a plate (it was ceramic, so apparently Melissa had insisted on some measure of non-frathouse civilization). "Stiles said a couple weeks ago that you took him to a birth?"

"Yes, one of the village women went into labour just after he'd arrived."

"Really?" Melissa turned to her with interest.

She'd forgotten that Stiles had said his best friend's mother was a nurse. It was a pleasant surprise to have something in common with someone in the group, other than knowing Stiles. It was a less pleasant surprise to later on discover that Adrian was secretly a Mario Kart guru. But, then again, at least she wasn't the only one surprised.

Author's Notes:

DMORT = Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team

NDMS = National Disaster Medical System

Doctor Brennan – To those fans of the TV show Bones, who are currently scratching their heads wondering what I was smoking when I wrote that scene: yes, this is indeed Doctor Temperance Brennan, however she's Kathy's Reichs Temperance Brennan. As in, from the books. The two characters actually have very little in common other than their names and both being forensic anthropologists.

As a side-note, I hadn't intended to use this character (you may have noticed I quite enjoy creating my own when I need them), but the initial description of the warehouse as well as the very knowledge of the NDMS and DMORT came entirely from my reading of Fatal Voyage by Kathy Reichs... and the next thing I knew the sheriff was talking to Doctor Brennan herself.