Stiles pulled out the car key from the ignition and pulled up the handbrake, but sat in his Jeep for a little while longer. He stared ahead at the bare wall of his garage, but his mind was really elsewhere.

As his ears marveled in the sudden silence after the engine had gone quiet, he pondered what he was going to do after he walked through the back door. His dad would either be disappointed that Stiles ditched him, terribly depressed or just plain annoyed. In any case, there were no positive emotions on his father's end, and Stiles' entire body was being burdened with guilt. He hadn't really thought about his father too much. He was busy risking his life and crushing over a supernatural being.

Eventually, he forced himself to drag his feet out of the car and through the door, right after he locked the car. He heard the television in the sitting room.

He left his keys on the counter and glided through the door, wincing when he saw his father sleeping on the couch. He probably hadn't gotten a good night's sleep last night, with worrying about Stiles and all of that.

He picked up the remote and shut off the TV. At the sudden quietness, Stiles' father jerked away as if the machine had been abruptly turned on instead.

"Stiles," he simply stated.

"Dad, hi."

"Am I asleep?"

"No," Stiles offered. He would have been amused if he hadn't asked himself that question innumerable times in his life. He also would have thrown a whole fit about apologizing for ditching his father last night, but it didn't seem like the Sheriff had it in him. Hell, it didn't even look like he had it in him to walk up the stairs. "Dad, you look terrible, go get some sleep."

"Yeah, that's a good idea," he mumbled, and looked around as he smacked his lips. "What time is it?"

"I don't know, I think something like one o'clock." Mr. Stilinski nodded. He hadn't wasted too much of his Saturday falling asleep in front of badly designed game shows, and that was worthy of approval, considering how much he wanted to pass out.

"Dad?" Stiles called softly when his father didn't seem to be capable of making any kind of contact with the world outside his head. His dad hummed a reply.

"Your bed is upstairs. Go sleep. If you want, I can wake you up after a couple of hours."

"Okay, yeah."

And, like that, his father was half-walking, half-crawling up the stairs. Stiles had two hours, and maybe a little bit more before he had to get his dad to wake up and apologize to him, as well as coming up with a decent excuse as to why it was so important to be at Scott's house instead of his own, with his father on his birthday night. Not that he would demand one, or even ask for one, but Stiles felt like he owed it to him.

He turned around and headed back for the kitchen, to grab his keys and head out. He needed to get as many heart-twisting conversations out of the way as possible, in the shortest amount of time. So, Scott would be the next person to whom he would have to explain himself. If Allison hadn't already bombarded him with strange-sounding, incoherent strips of information.

While he walked towards the kitchen door, he saw that the sliding doors to the dining room were open, and that the table was still set from last night.

Stiles had called Scott from his home telephone before he left, and he learned that Scott was having lunch with Allison. He asked if they were having a date, and if it would be weird for Stiles to butt in. Scott was reluctant to invite him, but he did it anyway. Stiles felt like there were different reasons for which Scott didn't feel like talking to him.

He parked his Jeep at the diner, and looked at dashboard.

"Got to get gas," he told himself, and got out, as if nothing serious was happening. He thought about the night Derek had rushed him to the hospital and then brought him here, but he also told himself that it was neither the time nor the place to be thinking about Derek. He knew he was acting like a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl, but he didn't want to seem too clingy and give any excuses for Derek to turn everything around, and tell him that they were both better off apart; especially when he was sure that that wolf was practically looking for a reason.

Stiles walked through the diner door, and the bell jingled. He enjoyed the sound: it was familiar. Before Stiles was tall enough to reach over the counter and make sense of a cookbook, his father brought him here all the time. Especially right around the time of his mother's passing, when neither one of them really felt like cooking, or even eating. On the bad days, they got half a plate of fries and shared it. It was more to humor themselves than to satisfy their hunger.

"Hey, guys," Stiles greeted as he spotted his friends. The two of them had taken a booth for four, and Scott was sitting with his back to Stiles. He turned around to look as soon as he heard the voice.

"Hi, Stiles," Allison replied. Scott mumbled a 'hi', and went back to his food. Allison moved over in her booth to make room for Stiles. They both knew it wouldn't be good if Stiles sat next to Scott, not when his scowling ratings were off the charts. So, Stiles sat next to Allison, who wasn't very comfortable herself, considering their conversation earlier that day, but she kept quiet anyway. He liked that about her. She knew how to separate her emotions from her actions. Sometimes Stiles wished Scott shared that trait, but then he thought that the Scott he knew and loved wore his heart on his sleeve and was likely to listen to it over his brain any day.

"So, everything looks good. Have you guys been here long?" Stiles asked. He was desperate to get the conversation going.

"Stiles?" Allison pressed.

"Hmm?"

"Get to business."

Stiles looked at Allison, and felt a strange inclination to do exactly as she asked. Or commanded.

"Okay, uh… Scott?"

"Yeah?" Scott replied. He looked up from his plate for a second, with a gaze that screamed 'I want quiet!'

"I…" Stiles began, and gestured with his hands, but left it at that. He had no idea what he was trying to say, or how to phrase it, so he decided just to blurt out whatever was on his mind, sans the werewolf-containing details.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm sorry, Scott. I know you had a lot planned for last night, and I know that I bailed like a dick, so I'm sorry. And I honestly do mean that."

Scott examined him with his eyes. He didn't look like he had been prepared for a serious conversation, like he was desperately clinging to a last hope that he could have his lunch in peace.

"Stiles, I really don't want to talk about this because I'm just going to sound selfish, arguing with you about doing what you wanted on your birthday, and then I'm just going to feel like shit and—"

"Like you don't already feel like shit."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Scott asked snidely.

"I know your feel-like-crap face. I don't want you to not tell me about this, and a week from now you go and throw a huge angry tantrum at me. If you have something to tell me, you should say it now, and let me tell you that you have every right to be selfish because I know that you had a lot planned and I screwed it all up."

"Well, maybe we should wait until you schedule clears up. Maybe you have somewhere else better to be in five seconds and you forgot to let me know."

"Okay, when I said to tell me what you have to say, I meant tell me outright. Don't drag it out in bitchy comments."

Scott rolled his eyes.

"I just want to know what it was Stiles! What the hell was so important that you had to ignore your best friend and everything he had planned for your eighteenth freaking birthday, without even sending a goddamn text or picking up the phone?" Scott demanded passionately, but somewhat discreetly. Of course, that nosy waitress with the red hair was already looking at their booth. Allison was trying to make herself as small as possible.

Stiles looked at Scott with hurt in his eyes. He was letting his friend down, and there was nothing to do about it. He knew he could trust Scott with a secret like werewolves, but the thing was that it wasn't his secret to give. Derek had trusted him enough to let him go off alone and try to make amends with everyone, and he couldn't betray that trust. He felt a giant fist crush his lungs as he told himself that he would have to keep from Scott the one thing for which he had asked.

"Scott, I'm so sorry, but I can't tell you that."

"What?"

"I can't tell you what happened last night. It's not up to me, it's not for me to say."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Scott exclaimed, not bothering to keep his voice down. "It's not for you to give me a damn excuse?"

Stiles looked down. "Yes," he said, without looking at Scott's eyes.

"You know what I was doing, Stiles? I was over at my place, with everyone, waiting for you to get there so we could start the surprise party. Me and Allison, and Jackson with Lydia. Hell, I even got Danny to show up, and he brought this kid along, this Jake guy. Jake said that you and him had talked a couple of times on Facebook, and he really liked you, and Danny knew about it, so I invited Jake, too!

"And I knew you didn't want to go out and do anything too much, so I sat down and found a shitload of things for us to do so we wouldn't be bored! My mom wanted to call your dad and find out where the hell you were because you were to preoccupied to answer, but I wouldn't let her because I'm not your fucking pet Stiles, and I wasn't going to be chasing you all over town! After everybody took off, I just sat in my room and did nothing for half an hour, literally like a mental patient! And that's how I spent my best friend's birthday night!"

Somewhere along the way, Stiles had lost his voice.

"Scott…"

"What, Stiles?"

Stiles looked up into Allison's eyes. They were heavy with guilt, because she knew where Stiles was last night, and she knew what happened to him, and if Scott only knew he would be hugging Stiles so tightly. But neither her nor Stiles had any right to go around telling their friends about werewolves. So she played with the button on her blouse and kept quiet.

"You can't imagine how terrible I feel. I had no idea you did all of that for me."

"Yeah, well, now you do."

It was silent for a little while, and Stiles tried to come up with an apology. A good one, too. One that would at least cure Scott's anger without letting too much go. Stiles was dying to tell the truth, but he told himself he would just have to give him the next best thing. No lies, but no details either.

"Look, I'm not going to try and get you to believe that last night wasn't my fault, because I'm not exactly giving you any proof of that. But I'm going to tell you that if it were up to me, I would never have done that to you. I missed my dinner with my dad too, you know. I went home and found him half-asleep on the couch because he'd stayed up all night worrying about me.

"Scott, you know me. You know how much you guys mean to me, and my dad too. You know that if I had a say in what happened yesterday I wouldn't have left you hanging and hurt you all like that, because you're like a brother to me, and you know that too. I'm sure you're not really inclined to believe me, but this is all I have Scott. I'm telling you the truth."

"Scott?" Allison finally piped up. Scott's gaze darted to her. He had almost forgotten she was there. Throughout the course of Stiles' speech his face had gone from angry to twisted to hurt to just plain confused. She decided now was the time for her to stick her neck out.

"Does it really matter what he was doing last night? He said it wasn't his fault, and he feels terrible."

"Wait, do you know more than I do about last night?"

"No, how would I?" she lied. Scott deliberated heavily. All of his efforts to make his best friend's eighteenth birthday a memorable one had gone to waste, and he had been completely ignored and taken for granted. Stiles was giving him no reason as to why everything had happened the way it did, and was asking him to simply trust Stiles that it was out of his control.

Scott furrowed his eyebrows and looked at his burger, then at Allison's club sandwich. Under different circumstances, Stiles would have guessed that he was just considering which of the two he preferred. Unfortunately, he knew that Scott was simply searching for somewhere else to look, besides at Stiles.

"Scott?"

"Fine."

Stiles looked at Allison, confused.

"What?" he asked.

"I said, fine. I accept you apology, but I don't like it and I'm not happy about it, or what happened last night. But I accept it anyway, because I trust you. And because you're going to make it up to me tomorrow."

Stiles knew he was on thin ice, but he couldn't help but feel relieved.

"Do you mean that in the biblical sense?" he asked. Scott shot him a look harsh enough to make him put up his hands defensively and apologize a hundred times more in a single second.

After that, Stiles decided to stick with them. It was awkward at first, when Scott was trying his hardest to remain mad at Stiles, but he couldn't help it. Stiles knew how he worked, how to make him laugh and how to make him forget about everything else. He ordered a burger, too, and he even joked with Allison. He was not certain at all about what she was feeling.

Definitely confused, and somewhat angry. Stiles hoped that anger wasn't directed towards him. But, she was happy too, and after enough time had passed, it was comfortable and easy and just plain fun to be around his friends again. He knew he would have to come up with something good for Saturday night, but that could wait because he still had his father to get to and he knew that if getting Scott to get over everything that had happened, it was going to be a thousand times harder do that with his father.