Author's note: Yo hi there, guys. I love you all for reviewing, you are magnificent. Ummm what else? Oh yeah, funny story - I was driving on the highway today between a black Camaro and a Jeep and I was freaking out and pretending it was Derek and Stiles because c'mon who wouldn't? But then I drove up alongside the Camaro and it was an old guy and I was sad. But yeah haha just thought I'd share, that's what prompted me to finish this chapter. Hope you all like it!

Chapter 35

Derek was practically pacing along the wall of the Argents' house when Scott rejoined the group.

"Well?" he demanded upon seeing the younger werewolf, impatience lacing every syllable.

"Allison is going to let us in through the basement," Scott answered simply. He and Stiles shared a secretive glace in regard to their companion's waspish attitude. Derek was never affable, but even he wasn't usually this short-tempered. Something important was becoming immensely clear to them: Derek cared about Amy a lot. They'd suspected it, mostly from the way Amy spoke of him, but now they were actually seeing it. And it gave them mixed feelings; "caring" Derek not the endearing Prince Charming from fairytales – he was feral and impulsive and made the two teens fear that he might do something rash.

Stiles looked vastly uncomfortable when Allison finally opened the basement door. "This is a bad idea…" he mumbled almost inaudibly as they tiptoed into the pitch-black basement.

"What other choice do we have," Scott hissed back.

Almost as soon as they were all inside the house and the door was shut behind them, Scott and Derek dropped to the floor for no apparent reason. Allison opened her mouth to shriek in shock in horror, but was silenced by a man's large hand before any sound travelled up her throat. Stiles felt someone pin his arms behind his back and he put up a minimal struggle. Causing a commotion would only draw attention from the police (more importantly, his father) and that was certainly the last thing he wanted. There had to be another way out of this.

After the short scuffle had calmed down and one of the assailants turned the lights on, it became apparent that Derek and Scott had been knocked out by some sort of tranquilizers; small, arrow-like syringes were protruding from both their bodies. One man restrained Stiles, while the other held a squirming Allison. I was glaringly obvious that Stiles was being completely complacent, and his brown-haired companion looked at him in fright – outwardly, it seemed as if he was betraying them.

His attacker loosened his grip and Stiles spun around to face him. He was a burly middle-aged man wearing a plaid shirt. "Look, let's just talk about this," Stiles attempted in a hushed tone.

The man quirked a scruffy eyebrow, allowing him to continue.

Stiles licked his lips nervously. "You know," he started, "we're not really on opposite sides – we just want our friend back. She's a human, like us."

"She's not a human, she's a Bell," the man holding Allison spat.

"No, she had some sort of weird disease thingy when she was young. Jesus, don't you think you'd know by now if she were a werewolf? I mean c'mon," he laughed anxiously. This banter was getting him nowhere. "If you'll just give her to us, we'll be on our way and you can do whatever you like to Scooby and Scrappy over there," he said more seriously, gesturing to Derek and Scott. "We humans gotta stick together, am I right? Plus, Derek's already a wanted man, so if the cops find out – i.e. my dad – you can just pin this whole thing on him and we won't say a word so long as you give us Amy."

The two henchmen mulled over this proposition; Scott and Derek for Amy seemed almost too good to be true, so they were naturally suspicious. "You can't!" Allison protested. "Stiles, what are you doing?" she pleaded, "These are our friends – this is Scott!"

"Allison, we shouldn't get mixed up in all this," he reasoned, "There's no need; we're both normal, and this has just royally fucked up our lives – I can't do it anymore! I'm offering a way out for the three of us… And I never even liked Derek, anyway."

The men, encouraged by Allison's outburst, looked at one another in silent agreement; they would take the deal. "What about Scott," she continued vehemently, "He's your best friend!"

Stiles turned his head to Scott's unconscious form and solemnly replied, "Scott has changed – he's not how he used to be. This – this whole thing has changed him."

Allison blinked slowly, trying desperately to understand the situation. Stiles had always been fiercely loyal to Scott, almost to a fault; what was really going on here?

"Enough talk," one of the men ordered quietly, walking towards the storage closet/panic room. "We'll give you your friend in return for your cooperation."

The other man retained his grip on Allison, who had tears welling in her chocolate eyes. "Why?" she questioned sadly. She was no longer fighting and had instead resigned herself to using her capturer's rigid arms as a source of support.

Stiles' gaze darted around the room uneasily as he tried to formulate a plausible answer. "It's Amy," he finally stated bluntly; If only I could make her understand… he thought.

Confusion washed over the brunette's pretty features. "Do you – do you…?" she stammered.

Before she could get her question out, the man had typed the password into the keypad and begun opening the door. The two captives stood stock-still and seconds seemed to pass like hours as the thick steel cabinet slowly swung open. Neither knew what to expect.

When Amy was finally revealed, her eyes were wide and she had mascara streaming down her face. If Allison had looked disheveled earlier, she would have been a pageant queen compared to the state Amy was in. Temporarily forgetting the necessity for silence, Stiles rushed to her whimpering form and began removing her restraints, starting with the one over her mouth. He put a finger to his lips to remind her to be quiet before making short work of the ties around her wrists. Allison suddenly jerked out of the other man's grasp and went to aid Stiles in releasing Amy, undoing the rope around her ankles. When she was finally free, she stood shakily and started towards Derek's limp form. Stiles held her back.

"No, you can't," he whispered apologetically against the back of her head.

"W-what?" her voice cracked.

"We made a trade. You for them," he stated.

Amy looked to Allison for confirmation; she merely nodded desolately. Unbeknownst to his two friends, Stiles noticed Derek's leg twitch out of the corner of his eye. It was a good thing the hunters had their backs to the two werewolves.

"Now go," one of the men snapped.

They needed to buy more time. "Look, we really appreciate this," Stiles stuttered lamely. Amy's brow furrowed in bewilderment before she had the chance to express her outrage regarding the "trade"; Allison shared her sentiments.

"No," she said loudly, "No, I won't leave him." Her tone was firm and left no room for argument. Even Stiles and Allison would not be able to convince her, although Allison didn't have any desire to.

"Shhh, Amy, the cops are upstairs," Stiles hissed, still preventing her from going to Derek's side.

"I don't care, let them come," she said, "Let them see what these people have done to us."

Allison was silent, but shifted her weight from one foot to another in discomfort.

"You're forgetting that Derek is a fugitive," Stiles pointed out.

"Indeed, now leave," one of the men said, shoving them towards the door. "They'll be down here to look around any minute… Unless you'd like to explain what you're doing here."

The three teens hesitantly shuffled towards the basement door. Stiles, while guiding Amy, nudged Derek hard with his foot in what had been meant to look like an accident.

His plan had worked; causing turmoil amongst his friends had given Derek and Scott enough time to recover from the tranquilizer and the not-so-inadvertent kick had successfully roused Derek from his unconsciousness. Now this was why they should have listened to him in the first place, he mused, satisfied with his own cleverness.

Just as the three as headed out the door, the two werewolves sprung to life. Derek took one of the hunters and Scott took the other. The older wolf squeezed the pressure point on the back of his opponent's neck, rendering him harmless as he fell to the ground. Scott watched this proceeding with interest and did the same to his own adversary. Before even acknowledging Amy's presence, Derek sent the hunters' inanimate bodies a bloodthirsty glare and looked as if he might to more than just knock them out.

It was then that Stiles commented, "Derek, your eyes."

The man (wolf?) in question snapped back into his human form and looked at Stiles in incomprehension. "What?"

"They were red," he answered.

Scott, now also back to his normal self, added, "Like Peter's…"

"My dad," Amy gasped.

Realization slowly washed over all of them. Derek was the alpha, which meant…

"My dad is dead," Amy stated vacantly.

Stiles gave her a sympathetic look. His mouth hung open awkwardly - there was clearly something he wanted to say, but it no longer seemed appropriate. "Look, guys, not to sound cold, but we really can't stay…" he started hesitantly. He and Scott couldn't help but cast an uncertain glace to Allison, who had remained conspicuously silent throughout the ordeal. It was impossible to gauge how she felt about the situation, but it went unsaid that it was most likely her own father who had slain the alpha.

As soon was the words crossed Stiles' lips, Derek was by Amy's side and whisking her away from the Argents'. "Where is your car," he demanded of the short-haired teen, his voice gravelly. Without the Change brought on by obvious reasons, Derek's eyes were mockingly familiar; however, they held within them a tumult of emotions. He hadn't asked for this – he hadn't wanted this – but he'd anticipated it.

Stiles swallowed an uncomfortable lump in his throat and said, "This way," as he led them towards his Jeep.

Scott got shotgun, leaving Allison and Derek in the back with Amy between them. Neither girl had said a word on the walk over. It was ironic, Stiles couldn't help but think, that the three of them had been forced together in the back of his car. It was an unlikely trio. But they had all lost someone – Amy her father, Kate her aunt, and Derek his uncle. And now Derek felt as if he'd lost himself, as if he'd been betrayed by his own nature.

"Where are we going?" Stiles asked the somber group as he threw the gearshift into reverse.

"Anywhere but here," Amy murmured. Her voice sounded foreign to her own ears. What did this mean? Was he truly dead? Derek becoming an alpha so suddenly didn't have to mean that her father had been killed. But what other explanation could there be?

"Drop us off at my house and then the rest of you can go home. Act normal. Pretend nothing ever happened – no one can know that you know about all this," Derek commanded. His tone held an authority that wasn't completely unfamiliar, but it was more resonating under the circumstances.

"You can stay with me, Al," Scott said gently.

She nodded slowly, obviously still in shock. "My father is a murderer," she said finally.

Amy finally focused her eyes and peered at her best friend. Stiles' backseat wasn't particularly large and their shoulders were touching. "So is mine," she insisted. "Was…" she corrected dully. She didn't know how they could ever get past this – how they could ever still be friends. Their family members had murdered one another. The Bells and Argents would be perpetually conflicting, just like they had all told them. It seemed inevitable.

Of course, Amy didn't blame Allison for what her father had done; and likewise, Allison didn't blame Amy. But how could they not be reminded of the sins of their parents every time they looked at one another?

Allison met Amy's gaze and instantly understood the situation. She shared Amy's sentiments – things would never be the same between them. Nothing would ever be normal in their lives, especially not in Amy's. She no longer had a family. She had her brother and mother, but they were incomplete.

She didn't even know if she had Derek anymore – he seemed much more cagey than usual, to the point where she was growing worried. Had becoming an alpha really upset him so much? She couldn't imagine why. He hadn't spoken to her directly since they'd been at the Argents', and he'd barely touched her when he was guiding her away from the house. He was definitely being plagued by something other than the fact that he was now an alpha, but Amy couldn't think of anything else that could be bothering him. If anyone should be upset, it was her and she felt irrationally furious that anyone else would even to begin to presume that they had the right to be troubled by anything. No one could understand what she was going through, not even Allison – an aunt wasn't equal to a father, as far as she was concerned.

But then she realized rather guiltily that Derek had lost not only his father, but his entire family. He was actually the only one who could understand her feelings.

She was ripped from these thoughts when Stiles stopped abruptly in front of the Hale residence. He was eager to get rid of them, she could tell. He pitied her, but he wasn't emotionally equipped to deal with these sorts of things and wanted to remove himself from the equation as quickly as possible. She couldn't really fault him, she probably would have felt the same way. People in shock can be unpredictable.

Author's note: THOUGHTS? I wanna hear from you guys. I was unsure about this chapter, but I think there needs to be some conflict within the core group. Lemme know! Did you guys hate it? Also I realize that my Derek is kind of different than the show's Derek...

So yeah just drop a line. Reviewing is super easy now with the changes they've made to the site, so YOU ALL HAVE NO EXCUSES! Haha just kidding (but not really). Let me know what you thought of this chapter and this week's episode. Thoughts on the show's Derek? My Derek? Allison and Amy? Amy's father? Reviewww, my loves. :-)

ALSO EDIT: Just had a thought - what if the person in the car at the end of the last episode what the chemistry teacher? He quoted Einstein in class and then there was an Einstein quote on the car's bumper... coincidence much? What do you guys think?