Chapter 33:

Mr Lahey's trial was scheduled for the week after exams finished.

Stiles wasn't sure if that was coincidental or if it had been specifically timed so that whatever school time Isaac might need to miss in order to testify would be unimportant. Theoretically that was great, but in reality it was still doubling down on stress.

Stiles barely knew how to relieve his own stress, let alone how to help other people manage theirs. His strengths lay in outsmarting the enemy, not positive mental health practices. He couldn't do anything to help with this outside of the things he had been doing from the beginning.

Sometimes Stiles did wish that more problems could be solved via the legally questionable means through which supernatural threats always seemed to be handled in Beacon Hills.

oOoOo

Erica stared at Roscoe with tired eyes.

"What did you do this time Stilinski?"

Stiles paused in his pat-down search for his keys.

"Why does something have to be wrong?"

"Because you've ditched your carpool pal and you've got that look on your face."

"Excuse you, I didn't ditch Isaac. He's a functional human being who can do things without me." He made a triumphant exclamation as he found his keys in a random pocket of his bag. He really should try and keep it in the same place each time. "And what do you mean, 'that look'?"

"The look, Stiles. That 'I have something to confess and I feel guilty about it' look."

"That's… oddly specific."

"Oh, is it? Maybe you should stop creating situations where you need to wear that expression then."

"I don't have a face like that!" Stiles complained. Indignant, he ushered Erica into the jeep and slammed the door. He tossed his bag into the back and slumped down into the driver's seat.

"Do we have a destination today or is this another car park conversation?"

Stiles flushed just a little. As much as he'd been bemoaning the way his jeep had become some sort of confessional space, here he was playing into it as well. He was a filthy enabler.

"It's private isn't it?" Breathing through his defensiveness, Stiles shifted in his seat. "But I do have something to tell you."

Erica closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Did you put yourself in danger again without telling anyone or asking for backup?"

"No."

Stiles swallowed down the rest of the things he wanted to say to that accusation. He wasn't here to debate Chris Argent's trustworthiness and whether or not it was stupid for Stiles to put himself in situations where it would be easy to get shot or stabbed.

"Then what?"

"Isaac knows about the supernatural."

There was a momentary silence.

Then:

"Oh. Huh. That's not that bad." Erica frowned at him. "Why were you making that face then?"

Stiles smothered the momentary urge to strangle her with the passenger-side seatbelt. "There is no face!"

"You keep telling yourself that kid." Erica ditched the teasing tones quickly after that, twisting in place to face him better. "Seriously though. Stiles, I'm not angry. You guys are pretty much intending to have Lahey stay with you permanently, yeah?"

"If things go the way we want them to."

"Exactly. So I kinda figured you'd be letting him in on it sooner or later. You told your dad after all."

"Because he's my dad," Stiles protested, "and the Sheriff. Sort of an important person to have looped-in."

"Sure. But I haven't told my parents, and I sure as hell don't plan to unless things get wildly out of hand. That's not the point though. The important thing is to be comfortable with your own situation. Now," Erica raised a hand to pre-emptively ward off any outbursts. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I've had a front row seat to the way you handle keeping this particular secret. You wouldn't survive cohabitating with Lahey if you kept it all bottled up inside."

A part of Stiles wanted to complain that he'd done perfectly fine keeping all this shit from his dad even when things were falling to pieces around them (and also Stiles wasn't actually a were himself), but the truth of it was that sure, he'd been keeping that secret, and keeping it well – because the first conclusions a parent was likely to jump to when their kid started acting strangely were drugs and gang activity, not werewolves – but his relationships had suffered dearly for it.

Erica was right in that much. It hadn't been a comfortable way of living. At all.

"I…"

Stiles wanted to assure Erica that he hadn't told Isaac any specifics about her own situation, but honestly Stiles himself still wasn't sure how much Isaac actually knew. He hadn't gathered up the courage to pry into how much of his journal Isaac had really read. He wasn't sure he was prepared to find out.

"I'm not gonna ask for the details. I trust you."

Why? Surely this is too big a thing for mere trust?

Maybe she could read some of his doubt from his posture.

"Stiles, you're risking your life every time you share this information with someone new. I know you use yourself as an example. It's effective proof, absolutely, but it's dangerous. I don't think I trust you not to put yourself in physical danger, but information is dangerous too. You of all people know that. I also know that you would rather make yourself a target rather than put anyone else in danger."

"All you're saying is that you don't trust me."

"I wasn't finished," Erica admonished. "I don't necessarily trust you to have your own best interests in mind when you do things, but I've learnt well over the last few months that you're invested in helping and protecting other people. Maybe too invested, sometimes, but that's an issue for another day."

Rude. She'd be protective too if she'd seen the things Stiles had seen.

(Over-protective was a step up from paranoid. He'd take it.)

"I didn't ask first."

Erica shook her head slowly, an unreadable look on her face.

"You can't always put life on pause to run around asking permission for this that and the next thing. I'm not going to hound you like Derek does about all the people you're introducing to the other side. Instead I'm choosing to have faith in the people you decide to share things with. Isaac especially, I think is pretty low-risk. You're doing a lot for him, and he seems to like you well enough. He wouldn't jeopardise that by selling your secrets to the highest bidder."

Stiles couldn't explain why if asked, but he suddenly felt like crying.

Shit.

Could he have had relationships like this with everyone if their steps hadn't been haunted by violence and death? Bonds built in calm times instead of war-bonds built through trauma and stress, frayed at the edges and never quite connecting properly when it mattered the most?

(Stiles didn't mean to belittle the relationships he'd had before. They were still decent bonds and they helped each other out when they could, but… Fact of the matter was, for the sake of self-preservation everyone had needed to put themselves first. Sometimes, that had meant drawing battle lines. Sometimes, that had meant they clashed. Relationships fell apart and were rebuilt differently. Death loomed over them all, again and again, and none of them had been prepared to face it.)

Shit.

Stiles stared out the window, trying to blink back the burn of tears. How pathetic would it be to break down in his parked car in the school parking lot?

A hand jostled his shoulder.

"I don't know what I said, but you should cry when you want to cry. It's cathartic."

It really was.

(Stiles would be embarrassed about it later.

It was May! Why was he breaking down now and not four months ago when everything was still strange and uncertain?

There was no rhyme or reason in emotional processing.

It was one thing to know it in the abstract, another to accept it as a factor in your own life.

Maybe it was for the best though. With so many of his immediate plans coming to a close, it might be a good time to try a fresh start for real. Walking forward into the future rather than running from the past.)

oOoOo

"So yeah, you don't have to worry about secret-keeping around Isaac here anymore. Just, regular on-campus levels of hush-hush, okay?"

The entire explanation was really only for the benefit of Allison and Scott; Erica already knew and Isaac was the subject of the conversation in the first place so obviously he knew. Stiles would clue Danny in if and when it seemed necessary – they hadn't had any need to share info recently and, since it would mean things were peaceful, Stiles hoped it stayed that way for the foreseeable future.

"It still seems dumb to talk about it at school at all, but whatever, maybe that's just me."

"I'm not encouraging them. I'm just saying that if they slip up in front of you that it's okay. Also, that's why we don't use any buzzword terminology. You can talk around it and wind up with non-conspicuous conversations with plausible deniability."

Isaac waved a dismissive hand. "Fine fine, whatever. It's not my neck on the line. Do whatever you want."

("Believe me," Stiles confided in Isaac later, when they were home. "The talks we have in public at the moment are practically the poster child for secrecy compared to how things used to be."

"Too many supernatural entities in one building?"

"More like an utter lack of regard for the idea that anyone could hear what we talked about. God, the looks people gave us…"

"Well. Learning from the mistakes of the past and all that.")

oOoOo

Stiles peered over the top of the textbook he was supposed to be studying. Erica was curled up on the far end of the couch, a highlighter lid held between her teeth as she glared down at her notes. Isaac was sitting on the floor slouched over the coffee table, flicking idly through Stiles' own chemistry notes without seemingly taking in a single word.

Exams were practically upon them, but none of them were in a studious mood.

(Scott must have been able to read their non-committal intentions from the get-go, as he had point-blank refused to participate in Stiles' open suggestion of a study group. Probably for the best for his sake.)

It seemed like a good a time as any to start piecing one of his plans together.

His textbook made a dull yet weirdly satisfying thud when he closed it and sat it on the arm of his chair. Those things were always way too big for their own good.

"Hey, do you guys have any summer plans?"

Isaac tilted his head in Stiles' direction, sending him the dead-eyed stare of a man incapable of imagining a future beyond the imminent torment of exams.

That was fine. They lived under the same roof, Stiles could talk to him again some other time when he was less fixated on school if need be.

Erica blinked herself out of her stupor, capped her highlighter and glanced over at him.

"Just regular summer stuff I guess? Become absolutely sloth-like in celebration of not having to go to class for a while. That sort of thing. Nothing that could really be called 'plans' though. Why?"

Stiles clapped his hands together, smiling.

"Because, I'm planning a road trip and I wanted to know if you guys were interested in coming along."

"Where to?" Erica asked.

"South America. The specifics aren't important right now, I'll handle all the planning."

Isaac squinted at him suspiciously.

"Do I even want to know why?"

"You do! You do want to know why, but it's a secret. A surprise even! Admittedly the surprise isn't for you two so I could tell you if I wanted to, but I think it's less fun if three quarters of the party know what we're going for instead of three quarters of the party being held in suspense."

"That means someone else is coming," Erica surmised.

"Correct. Derek's coming. Derek Hale," Stiles added, for Isaac's benefit.

Erica frowned faintly.

"He said yes?"

"Don't be ridiculous, I haven't asked him yet. But I guarantee he'll be coming. I'll use everything in my arsenal to convince him."

The look on Erica's face was a clear indication of how little faith she had in him to convince Derek to do anything at all.

Truly, Stiles was offended. After all, who had bullied Derek into getting proper accommodation? Stiles, that's who.

"This sound like a you activity," Isaac interjected. The emphasis he put on 'you' made it clear that he hadn't missed the significance of Stiles' invitees. "Why are you including me?"

It was sad that Isaac still generally expected exclusion rather than inclusion, but in this case at least Stiles could follow his reasoning.

"Because you know. And you live here. And I thought that leaving town for a while might be a nice chance of pace for you. Of course it's fine if you'd rather stay here. No one's going to force it one way or the other."

He diplomatically decided not to add that Isaac might like the chance to get out of town for a while after the sentencing.

Spreading her hands as if weighing the options, Erica put on a thoughtful expression. "Pros: free vacation. Not having to be alone with the scary Sheriff. Cons: having to spend an indeterminate amount of time trapped in an enclosed space with Stiles." She nodded to herself. "Yes, I can see why that might be a difficult choice to make."

"Screw you Reyes, I am a delight to be around."

"Yeah," Isaac agreed, a smirk curling his lips. "As long as you can make a quick exit whenever you want."

"Blasphemy! I'm being bullied in my own home. I'm ashamed of all of us."

"Oh, so you can feel shame?"

"That's a surprise."

Erica snickered at Isaac's follow-up and held a fist out for him to bump. He stared Stiles down as he reciprocated the motion.

Traitors, the both of them.

(He was so glad they were getting along.)

"You two are getting wildly off track. I'm going to pretend I didn't hear any of that and move along. Isaac, you don't have to decide right now. And you're allowed to change your mind at any point prior to when we actually leave. It's just an option."

"Do I not also get a choice in this?"

Erica was obviously just complaining for the sake of complaining.

"Are you saying you don't want to come?"

"I didn't say that." She sighed and pressed the back of her hand to her forehead for dramatic effect. "Besides, my mother'll be insufferable either way. I might as well get a break in there. Then she'll be pestering me about the trip and all these 'new friends you've made sweetheart I'm so proud of you!' Gag."

"And if you stay home she'll worry you're suddenly friendless and alone?"

"Something like that. Can't leave anything alone, that woman. Always needs to make sure you know she has an opinion about everything and anything. Good or bad. Wanted or not."

Losing interest with the turn in conversation, Isaac turned back to his notes. That was fine. Stiles had said everything he wanted to say for the time being.

…It was sort of petty to allow the study session to devolve into badmouthing Erica's parents, but she was sort of on a roll now and Stiles… hadn't really been getting any studying done anyway. It wouldn't hurt to let her air her grievances for a while.

oOoOo

"We're going on a road trip," Stiles declared.

Derek glanced up from his book after a long silence, eyebrow cocked in question.

"Congratulations?"

"No, no, no." Stiles leaned closer over the arm of the couch. "Don't talk like this doesn't concern you. Be more enthusiastic."

"It doesn't concern me." Derek emphasised the point by looking back down at the page. "Unless you're asking me to keep an eye out for trouble while you're gone? Although I'd hope you weren't seriously expecting me to be excited about something like that."

Stiles sighed, gusty and overdramatic. Shuffling onto his knees, he rested his hands on the armrest and leaned even further into Derek's space.

"'We' is a first person plural pronoun. It's inclusive. Try to read the room a little, come on. I know you can."

"'We' is inclusive of the speaker and at least one other involved party. There is no law that states the person being spoken to must be included in it."

Stiles grinned despite himself. This was such a stupid English nerd argument. Why was Derek even indulging him? Guy had gone soft, that's what this was.

"Fine, I'll bite. What do you think I'm trying to say?"

Derek reluctantly bookmarked his page, realising that he wasn't getting out of this conversation without putting up a fight.

"You and Erica, or your new houseguest—"

"Isaac."

"—or any of your other friends, or any combination of them, are going on some sort of mysterious road trip. Whether or not they want to go is probably a different issue."

Stiles pouted.

"Rude. I am delightful company, anyone would be stoked to go travelling with me." He rocked back out of Derek's space since he was no longer even pretending to concentrate on his book. "Anyway, you're half right. Me, Erica and Isaac are indeed all going. But – and this is the important part, so pay attention – so are you."

Derek stared at him blankly.

"I see," he said evenly. "Then I was right. Because I don't want to go."

"Come on, you don't even know where we're going!"

"Would you tell me if I asked?"

"…No. It's a surprise."

"If this is your idea of a convincing argument then you've got a lot to learn."

"But it's a really really good surprise. I can't explain why because then it wouldn't be a surprise anymore, but I swear you won't regret it."

Sitting up Derek reached out and half-heartedly smacked Stiles in the head with the book he'd been reading.

"Fine then. Sell it to me. You'd better be on the ball today, because right now I'm super not interested."

Stiles hurriedly resettled himself on the couch, not even bothering to complain about the book thing. Derek's participation in this trip was of the utmost importance – it would be a wasted trip if he didn't come! – so Stiles would have to do everything in his power to get him on board.

oOoOo

Finals were hellish for Stiles in a far different way than they were for other people.

Even though it had been many long months since he took these the first time around, there was this bewildering sense of déjà vu mixed with an almost paradoxical level of lack of recognition when he stared down the various exams.

Maybe that was a testimony to the way Stiles' subconscious behaved. He couldn't pin down any particular patterns, but there were clearly some subjects which he noted down and others that he either repressed or erased from memory as soon as the exams were over.

It wouldn't affect his grades; to the chagrin of many teachers who disliked him, Stiles was still a good student – score-wise – when he wanted to be. It was simply disorienting.

oOoOo

Isaac had been quiet since the sentencing.

In all fairness, Isaac had been quieter than usual since the beginning of the court proceedings, but this silence was heavier.

Stiles couldn't imagine what it felt like to be on opposite sides of the courtroom to a family member. On the off-chance it ever happened to the Stilinski Household, Stiles was fairly sure that he'd be the one getting charged, so the feeling was difficult to conjure up.

Isaac had only actually stepped foot in the courtroom twice. Once to testify, and then again to hear the outcome. Both times Stiles had stayed outside in the jeep, because Isaac hadn't asked him to come in.

(Respecting Isaac's decisions and his autonomy were two of the more important ways Stiles and his dad were trying to make Isaac feel safe and accepted.)

No part of Stiles had been expecting celebration after the trial, but the silence was grating. There was a difference between letting someone grieve – and Stiles was sure this was an occasion that had inspired grief – and letting them get lost in their own head.

Stiles found Isaac sitting on the back steps, staring out into the backyard; or, more likely, into the middle distance.

The results had been decent from a law-enforcement point of view, Stiles supposed, but for Isaac any result at all would inspire mixed feelings. The trial coming to a close wasn't enough to just immediately get over it.

Taking measured steps, making sure his footsteps were audible – not that he was sure Isaac was listening anyway – Stiles sat himself down next to Isaac.

There were plenty of things Stiles could say to Isaac, but it was difficult to discern what the right things might be. Still, there was nothing to do but start talking.

"Anybody home in there?" Stiles cringed even as the words left his mouth, but it wasn't like he could rewind and start over.

Isaac didn't react immediately. Stiles crossed his fingers that maybe he hadn't processed Stiles' word vomit in a meaningful fashion. After a moment or two Isaac shuddered minutely, a slight jerk of the torso not entirely dissimilar to the way Stiles' body would spasm when he woke suddenly from dreams of falling.

It was difficult to parse the expression on Isaac's face when he eventually turned towards Stiles. It was like… he wasn't surprised to see Stiles there, but at the same time he hadn't been expecting him. Or maybe, he'd anticipated Stiles coming to find him, but he'd lost his sense of time somewhere along the way so it seemed too soon? Stiles knew from experience that it was easier than one might think to genuinely lose time if you got too caught up in your own thoughts. That was partly why he was out here in the first place.

"You doing okay?"

Isaac blinked owlishly at him.

Yeah, dumb question.

"It's not your fault, you know? His fate is in his own hands."

Kind, good-with-words Stiles had left the building, so he was just going to steamroll through with blunt Stiles.

"…That's… true."

It really was. Basically the only concrete part of his sentencing was that he had been stripped of his parental rights – he no longer had any legal authority over Isaac in any way shape or form. The total length of his imprisonment would be decided based on his levels of cooperation with and improvement through mandatory grief counselling and anger management programmes. If he wanted to change, and proved himself capable of turning over a new leaf? Shorter prison sentence.

Privately, Stiles wasn't holding out much hope for him, but he knew Isaac probably was; not because he wanted his father back, but because he wanted him to move on.

"Will he be safe there?" Isaac asked suddenly, gaze sharp.

Where? Stiles wanted to ask. In prison? How was he supposed to know that?

But then it clicked in his mind.

Of course Isaac was still worried about that. Stiles' reassurances had not, apparently, been very reassuring.

He paused to take stock of the situation. Isaac wouldn't believe anything he said if he answered too immediately.

In a twist Stiles hadn't seen coming – although in retrospect maybe he should've been expecting it – Matt Daehler had strong-armed his way into the trial (did he have the same mysterious sources as Erica?) in order to vent his own grievances and air out some more of old man Lahey's dirty laundry. Hopefully he felt vindicated by the sentencing. At the very least this would hopefully be a successful case of 'out of sight, out of mind'.

Combining that with Stiles' own easy to follow personal agenda to not bite Jackson Whittemore, he felt pretty secure in concluding that Death via Kanima was now a totally voided possible future, regardless of how long Lahey's incarceration actually lasted or when he might wind up back in town.

(Keeping Beacon Hills itself entirely kanima free was a slightly more difficult proposition. Stiles couldn't single-handedly keep an eye out for rogue werewolves in the area and expect to catch every single one of them. No one should have any reason to specifically target Jackson though, so at least in the event of an invasion Jackson was only as much at risk of attack as any other person in town.

A problem for another day.)

Stiles breathed in deep and let out a slow exhale.

"He'll be fine."

Unless he got shivved in prison or something like that. But Stiles wasn't a fortune teller, okay? Whatever happened from here on out was a mystery in the way that life was always supposed to be a mystery. The point was, Jackson wouldn't be killing anyone, and even if he did he couldn't break into a prison in another town to hunt down old man Lahey.

"Okay."

It probably wasn't a good idea to push any harder for the time being. Stiles had gotten Isaac to speak to him, so letting him return to his thoughts for a while wasn't the worst idea in the world. He wouldn't leave though. Maybe his presence would keep Isaac more firmly anchored in the present. Keep him from drifting.

As much as he had come to hate the phrase, in the end, it was all about balance.

A/N:

Next two chapters are summer break content, then into the endgame. I'm not anticipating hitting 200k with this fic, so keep that in mind.