See Chapter 1 for all warnings… Plus this is the last chapter…


Forfeit

29 - Epilogue

Eight Years Later…

"Daddy," is whispered in my ear and I grunt as I open my eyes, bright blue eyes stare into mine and I smile at one of my sons.

"Hey Josh," I slur, "What's got you up…" I glance at the clock, "At five in the morning?"

"Daddy, Kevin was snoring and I can't sleep," Josh says like it explains everything and it kinda does, his twin brother snores loud enough I can hear it, we're getting it checked out in case there's something wrong with his breathing but Dr Deaton says he'll grow out of it by the time he hits puberty.

All my kids are werewolves so they have regular checkups, and then they have special ones with the vet. I know that Peter has somehow cheated with his body and learnt how to release multiple eggs, we have fraternal twin boys and then a set of fraternal quads, also boys. The twins are nearly five, the quads are two. We also agreed that after the near disaster of that last birth that Peter was going to take a break and we'd discuss if we wanted any more kids after that.

Except that Peter blindsided me one afternoon, when dad took the kids with the Pack to the zoo, and I walked out to see my mate washing my jeep, he was wearing red shorts, he was sweaty, covered in bubbles and I tried to resist him, but the shorts ripped in my hands, just like he'd planned after sewing them that way, and he was prepped and ready to go.

He swears he only released one egg, but there are two extra hearts beating inside of him, which means we have identical twins on the way. Deaton's done a test and they're girls.

Peter's breezing through this pregnancy so we're hopeful that when the time comes, and Deaton cuts my mate's stomach open, everything will go smoothly.

Reaching out to Josh, I help him climb into our bed and I roll him over so he can snuggle between us. He giggles and whispers, "I can hear them daddy, I can hear the babies in papa's tummy."

"Good," I wrap him in my arms and watch as Peter snuffles in his sleep and then surges to wrap us both up in his arms, "Your baby sisters are going to turn up in five months," Peter's starting to show now and soon he'll be confined to our land until the birth to avoid awkward comments.

"Awesome," my son has picked up on my favourite word, "Are they going to be like Uncle Scott and Aunt Allison's baby?"

"To start with," I tell him, "They'll grow quickly and be like your four brothers before you know it."

"'Kay," and Josh snuggles down to fall asleep in my arms.

I'm totally turning into one of the parents that wants to bubble wrap their kids and I doze as I hold my son to me, god how did dad ever let me out of the house, especially as I was even more accident prone then. I couldn't bare anything happening to any of my children.

Thank god they're werewolves and heal so quickly if little mishaps do happen to them.

Peter stirring awake has me waking up and then Derek is knocking on our door, he walks in, scowling, and sits on our bed. Werewolves don't have the best grip on the concept of privacy.

"What?" I grumble at him keeping my voice down so as not to wake Josh. All those years ago Derek said I was second and he wasn't kidding, he had to wait for me to get a bit older and then I got landed with the job while I was juggling with my last year of college, Peter and then a pregnant Peter. God never get in his way when he has a food craving.

Though the ongoing joke of being a virgin got blasted out of the water by a pregnant hormonal Peter, I still can't believe we kept it up that long, and we conned Scott into believing that there was an actual stock, and the guy has worked in a vets and delivered baby animals all the time.

Peter's awake now and he looks down at Josh and lifts an eyebrow at me, "Kevin was snoring again," I tell him and he nods and nuzzles his son.

Derek clears his throat so we look at him, "I need to know if you can hear that."

Exchanging a glance with Peter I ask, "Hear what?"

"That," isn't a very helpful answer.

"What does it sound like?" Peter asks slowly well used to Derek.

"Like a heartbeat, it's not one of ours, I recognise all of them, it's new, it turned up two days ago and it's driving me crazy," so that's why he's been extra cranky.

Yawning I sit up and Josh is so limp he doesn't notice me moving, "Okay I'll get up and we'll go out and take readings from your Alpha ears, we'll triangulate and come up with a plan," I scrub at my face. "Peter will you be okay?"

"Fine," he rumbles and tucks the covers around him and Josh, "Bring me back a few cherries, maybe some mayo," he does get weird food cravings. "And don't do anything stupid."

Blowing him a kiss I go and get dressed in our bathroom, with the non slip shower tray and the hand grips all over. Seriously Peter in bubbles is a major thing for me.

Derek and I slip out of the house and we take my jeep. I pick seven points around Beacon Hills and Derek points in the direction where he can hear the heartbeat. We stop to grab Peter's items and go home.

Nearly everyone is up, and that includes the kids, Kevin and Josh can mostly feed themselves but the other four need lots of help, I'm thankful for my extended family and it's fun to see Isaac and his sweet little Omega wife Meg fussing over them. I'm glad Derek agreed to let her into our Pack, the poor thing comes from an abusive background too, they seem content to be the Uncle and Aunt to all our kids and don't seem to want any of their own.

Kissing my kids I leave them to breakfast with their papa and walk out of the kitchen with a tasty breakfast snack nearly running into dad in the process, "Hey dad," I hug him out of impulse. He took the news of werewolves fairly badly, but in his defence Scott had just wolfed out on him and attacked a giant snake that was killing and eating people. There was fallout but he's adjusted really well and he loves his grandkids, he also says he loves handing them back at the end of the day so he can put his feet up and watch the game with some of the guys in the house.

He's still the Sheriff though and there are instincts he has in spades, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I motion with my head and he helps me triangulate where the heartbeat is coming from in our Pack office, the triangulation is centred on the newly revamped shopping area, it appears to be a coffee shop.

"Huh, Deputy Smith drinks there, it's new, just opened up last month, he's says their pastries are amazing," Dad fills me in. "Need a hand?"

"Nope," I shake my head, "Peter wants to get a few wallpaper samples for the new nursery, we'll drift past and see what we can see, if we have to B&E," dad winces at my words, "We'll send the others in, I'm not risking Peter and the babies."

Making a plan is one thing, organising the babysitters and defenders in case of attack is another, luckily Jackson is back from his book tour, he's a children's author and he practices on our kids, the big softy loves looking after them and makes eyes at Lydia who's attempting to rewrite the mathematically world single handed, I still believe she can do it to, she's already won the math prize she spoke about that night in high school at the formal.

We'd all made noises at the time the house was in the planning stages about moving out when we had kids and building our own places around the main house, that never happened, instead we've expanded the house and all live together, it makes things fraught sometimes but it's good.

Heading out of the house Derek insists on taking the Camaro, and we pop downtown to go wallpaper shopping. Holding Peter's hand I let him make all the decisions and he soon has some samples and then we have to accessories with curtains and carpets. Loaded down the samples we drift past the coffee shop, he's planning on a full out battle with Lydia and Allison later as they play in the new nursery.

Derek stops in his tracks and nods at me, the heartbeat is inside the coffee shop. We decide to go in and try a coffee, well Peter can have decaff, he gripes but gives in and we queue up.

Our stealthy plan is going swimmingly until Derek gets to the counter and a very plain brunette with green eyes looks up at him a tired smile on her lips and a name tag reading 'Trainee' she asks him, "Welcome to the Patelli's Coffee Shop. What can I get you?"

A strange strangled sound is coming from Derek and the woman blinks at him, as do Peter and I, Peter nudges him, "Nephew, the nice lady asked you a question," Derek makes the strangled noise again and then Peter's sniffing him and stiffening, "Um, actually," Peter rattles off our coffee order gives her our names and has to drag Derek away.

Derek makes another strangled noise and Peter pats him, "Yes, I know, she's your mate Derek," my head whips back around to stare at her, this should be interesting.

We take our coffees to a table and Derek stares at her with his creepy intense serial killer stare, I may take a photo or two because I can, and I add it to the page no one's ever telling Derek about, we still have the pink car, the cat incident and the pitch and putt, as well as all the new ones that have cropped up over the years.

Whacking Derek's arm Peter scolds him for staring, "Nephew the hunting of a human mate is a delicate process," I pull a face at him, "You have to be patient, you have to stack the odds in your favour, don't worry I'll help you."

And I can't resist facepalming, the thought of Peter playing matchmaker fills me with dread, except Derek's nodding absently, "Sure, so what do I do?"

"Talk to her," I interrupt, "Use charm on her, you look alike a walking wet dream, you know women fall over themselves to give you their number," he grimaces, he hates it when they do that, "Use that as your opening gambit, then wow her with your personality…" I trail off and Peter facepalms. "So Peter…" I throw it back to my mate and husband, Derek is an acquired taste and he always does really bad first impressions, for example he's staring at her again, well glowering darkly but it's his happy glare if you know him well enough.

"We'll start small, get her used to you," Peter's pulled his cell phone out and is making notes, "Hmm, Jon would be a good starting point, you sitting and having coffee with the town Sheriff makes you appear safe, then we'll bring the kids showing that people trust you with their precious offspring, then we'll rotate the others in and out. And you can't talk to her for at least the first three months."

"Three months?" I frown at Peter, "They need to interact Peter, the mating instinct will drive her towards him faster that way."

"Exactly," my mate smirks, "She'll see him lots of times, it will build up and Derek gets time so he can work up to talking to her rather than making strange noises, by the time they start talking they'll be ready to move to dating."

"And if it takes longer?" I ask and Derek actually whines like a dog at that.

"Then we start pulling her into social things with the rest of us and edge Derek closer and closer to her, and we should have a through background check completed in a week so we can tailor the plan to that," Peter points out and I notice none of us are objecting to the background check, I've since learnt about Kate, so yeah, background check is so happening.

"Awesome," I nod and the plan is in motion.

"Wait," Derek frowns at us, "Hunting a human mate?" He looks at Peter, "But you and Stiles simply drifted closer." We laugh at that and he adds, "Didn't you?"

"Nope," I helpfully supply, "He totally stacked the odds in his favour, we still play the same game now, only the forfeit tends to be sexier," I growl playfully and mock leer at Peter.

"Forfeit?" He's confused and Peter sighs and tells him about not being able to get close to me, and the night I somehow put myself in a Hunter's trap, giving him his first opportunity to get close to me, and giving himself the excuse to rescue me over and over until the mating instinct could kick in.

"Don't forget I made you pay forfeits too," I point out, "My jeep was so clean she was perfect."

We spend hours telling him how we really got together, and at the counter the woman keeps glancing at Derek, I guess we're in the first stages of Peter's plan, I should have more faith in my mate's matchmaking skills, after all he did catch me.


A/N: Sorry for any and all mistakes, I've tried to catch those I could, but I'm only human.

Thank you to everyone that's read this (increasing my hit stats), given a comment or a review or a kudos (on AO3), I hope you've enjoyed the story, it was a blast to write. Thanks GP13.

PS There will be no sequel (before you ask for one en-mass, other than some of the other forfeits they may have paid through out their lives together I honestly can't think of the right story arc for a sequel, and as amusing as it would be to traumatise Derek by having him walk in at the wrong times, without the right story line it wouldn't work).