Derek ran, he ran and he got tired and he kept on running. He started to think his heart was pumping battery acid through his veins, but he still needed to go faster. He dodged around people on the boardwalk as he ran through the shopping strip. He jumped hedges, and he looked for shortcuts back to the house. Stiles's trail would start there.

It didn't take nearly as long to get back to the beach house as it had taken to get to the bus station, but he never wanted to be anywhere so badly before in his life. Allison was sitting on the swinging bench on the porch and saw him coming. She stood up and waved to him as he came running up.

"Where..." he gasped out, "where is he?"

Allison's smile was radiant when he asked and in that moment, Derek knew why Scott loved her; he knew why he gambled his life on her despite her family. He wanted to smile, but he didn't have it in him. He needed to conserve his energy. Derek imagined he was probably frowning, Stiles was right, they probably weren't all scowls.

"I'd tell you to smile because someone might be falling in love with you right now, but I think he likes your face in general." Allison's voice was musical and full of laughter as she said it. Derek smiled at her. The girl's eyes widened and she clapped her hands.

"You know where he is?"

"I know what direction he went," she told him seriously, then she smiled the way that Stiles smiled, full of mischief and mirth. "But forget what I said, he's definitely going to want that smile after all. You should use those more often." With that she pointed down the beach vaguely east.

Derek nodded his thanks to her, and took off around the house; the sky was starting to incrementally darken. The sun hadn't set. He still had time. He jumped down the side of the hill because there wasn't time to go to the back of the porch and down the ramp through the garden. He hit the beach at a run and kept going. He sniffed at the air, and found what he was looking for, traces of Stiles as well as the other members of the pack. They were east.

Derek ran. His legs were starting to burn, and he wished he had never left. He jumped over a couple he had only noticed at the last moment, spraying them with sand from his shoes. They squawked out in disapproval, but he didn't have time. He sniffed at the air again. He knew who he was going to run into before the person became visible.

Jackson stood on the beach looking out over the sea; he had a wistful look on his face, watching the sun sinking. The young blonde turned and looked at Derek, must have heard his heartbeat long before Derek had been visible.

"Where is he?"

Jackson looked at him, and maybe for the first time in a long time Derek didn't see any fear in his face. Jackson regarded him with an even gaze, searched him for something. Derek imagined after having had his arm nearly torn off, a panting Derek wasn't much of an intimidating presence.

"We're a family," Jackson told him, "maybe that's not how it started but that's how it is now."

"I know. I'm sorry," Derek said as he nodded solemnly.

"I didn't know what that really meant before we came here."

Derek didn't say anything. He looked at the sky and then at Jackson imploringly. Jackson watched him, sniffed the air and tilted his head as though he was trying to figure something out. Derek wasn't sure what it was. He tried to look at Jackson and communicate to him how much he needed to find Stiles, how desperately he needed to make things right.

Eventually Jackson nodded, turned back toward the sun making its descent and used his thumb to gesture further east. In the distance, in the direction Jackson had gestured towards there was a trail of smoke as though a bonfire was burning somewhere down the beach.

Having caught his breath and a second wind, Derek sprinted off towards the smoke. He smelled the sweet perfume Lydia favored after running for only a few minutes; it had a slightly smoky edge to it because of the flames. She turned to regard him as he came into the warmth.

He met her eyes. This was the first time they had been alone since the warehouse. He respected her more than he ever had as she drew her natural charisma around her and looked directly into his eyes, something she had never really done until the previous night. She was regal and the fire reflected off her hair. Derek could see why Stiles had loved her, why he still might love her, and swallowed down the jealousy the thought stirred. She was like a goddess outlined in flame poised to pronounce judgment.

"Where-"

"No!" Lydia interrupted him, his mouth snapped close with an audible click. Some part of him did not like the challenge in her voice, but he had accepted her as a sort of equal, had accepted her original claim on Stiles. She watched him closely. Even without heightened eyesight or olfactory senses she seemed to be taking in far more than Jackson had.

"We had a deal," Lydia said, "I was under the impression you understood what that meant."

"I didn't really know, not until today." They kept their gazes locked on each other. Derek knew the sun was creeping further down towards the sea far in the distance. Lydia was dismantling and rebuilding him in her mind, trying to see which parts fit and which parts didn't.

"He's at a cove not much further east," she said as she stepped close into Derek's personal space.

He didn't back away, but looked down at her, towered over her. Slowly, not removing her eyes from his she tilted her head back and to the side. It was a gesture showing that she understood what she had seen in him, that it had passed whatever criteria she was judging him by, and that she accepted his leadership. He nodded respectfully to her.

Then he ran, he was almost out of time, he knew who he was going to run into next and knew that it was going to be the most difficult thing to treat the situation with the respect it deserved. Something about Scott just always pissed him off.

When he came around a bend in the beach and saw the cove, he also saw Scott standing with a lacrosse stick in his hands. Derek stopped running a short distance away and walked the rest of it. He took deep calming breaths as he did. Scott's eyes were already the same color as the burning horizon that signaled Derek was close to running out of time. His hands on the stick were claws, his fangs extended and looking for any reason to be provoked into getting around Derek's throat.

Neither of them said anything at first; they just stared at each other. Eventually Scott's eyes turned back to normal, his claws faded away and his fangs retracted. Derek had never seen such a serious look on Scott's face.

"Two strikes," Scott declared.

Derek waited for the threat.

"Strike one: You hurt him, tore him open and spilled his blood."

Derek nodded, but kept quiet.

"Strike two: You took his heart out of his chest, you dropped it on the ground and you stepped on it."

Derek watched him; there was nothing Scott could say that Derek hadn't already lashed himself emotionally over. Scott wasn't telling Derek anything he didn't already know.

"I swear on everything I've ever loved, on my mom, on Allison, on my friendship with Stiles…" Scott took a deep breath as he paused. Derek watched golden fire erupt in those eyes again, saw the deadly promise there. Respected it, respected that Scott had found it in himself, that he had risen above the selfish person he was when they had arrived.

"If you hit strike three," Scott continued, "I'm going to get the Sheriff, I'm going to tell him you hurt Stiles. I'm going to get bullets from Allison's family. I'm going to load his shotgun for him with them, and I'm going to help him hunt you down like a fucking dog and you're going to hope that we never find you, but I promise you Derek, I promise you that we will and you'll wish we didn't. Don't doubt that."

As threats went that was pretty good. Derek nodded. Scott stood there for another few moments, eyes still full of that amber energy that said his wolf was near the surface. He watched the young beta exult in the furious power inside of him and respected that Scott finally realized what it was truly meant for, what he could do with it.

When Scott stepped out of the way Derek hurried into the cove. The sun had almost reached the water. On the far side, only a few tide pools between them Stiles stood waiting.