Epilogue
January 2011

Chris and Peter sat watching their pack celebrating the New Year as they were thinking back over the changes of the last five years. Their pups were all dancing their hearts out in the middle of the backyard of the new(ish) Hale house, with the music up loud. As soon as the arrests were completed and the area was safe again Peter had the old house demolished and he commissioned a Kitsune friend of his to design a new pack house for the large pack he and Chris were planning to build with the kids.

Chris smiled when he thought back to his father and sister. Gerard and Kate and their murderous band of thugs had been found guilty of 15 fires across the USA. They had been attacking packs with prominent alphas trying to destabilize the Alpha Council. They were both sentenced to life without parole, Gerard was sent to ADX Florence Supermax in Colorado where he died only six months ago from cancer. Kate was sent to Central California Woman's Facility in Madera County, California. If they ever get released from prison there are formal extradition applications from Canada, France, Germany, and Poland for another eight pack annihilations.

There was a ripple effect when the bribes were uncovered and there were many members of numerous police departments and federal agencies who had been taking bribes from the Argent's to keep the investigators away from the truth. Noah had been gutted to find out that two of his deputies were in that number. Deputy Dennis Haigh had been found to be taking bribes from not just the Argents but from the local drug dealers to keep them from being discovered. The other Deputy had resigned not long after the fire, former Deputy Matt Thompson claimed had only taken the bribe in a weak moment when his wife's medical bills were getting on top of them. The two officers in Seattle that contributed to Cameron's little brother's suicide, after they blatantly denied his case of statutory rape, all went to prison for involuntary manslaughter. It sent a clear message to hunters around the world.

After the Argent actions had come out in the supernatural community, especially the level of corruption across the Hunter's Council and the various law enforcement agencies in Gerard's efforts to destabilize the Alpha Council, the various supernatural councils got together and they eventually came to the conclusion that the secrecy between their groups was not doing them any favors. They created The Council which had representatives from all of the main types of supernatural entities as well as magic users and hunters. They cleaned up the system and made clear processes for reporting issues and created a team for investigating the issues and deciding what could be dealt with internally and what would be passed on to Charlies team. The council met a few times a year mostly via video conference to discuss major issues affecting groups around the world.

Chris and Peter were both invited to serve on The Council and they were joined by Stiles when he turned 18 as one of the last surviving sparks of the Gajos family. His aunt Regina also served on the council and she took him on as an apprentice to get the rest of his training completed. She was impressed at how strong he was and how far through his studies he had gone with just using his mother's journals for guidance. They were joined by Connor from Falls Church as one of the alphas as he was well respected and known to be in law enforcement.

One of the last acts of the old Hunter's Council, once the corrupt members were removed, was to impose sanctions on the Owens family for breaking the treaty and refusing aid to the Kendrick Pack after they were attacked. Chris made sure they were made aware of the fallout from their actions and the packs that were taken out by their inaction and refusal to help or notify the hunter's council. They were magically bound to notify all packs they had an alliance with of their actions toward the Kenrick pack and any new allies had to be notified of how they refused aid to the pack before anything could legally be signed. Their matriarch was forced to stand down for her actions and she was replaced with her daughter who promised she would enforce the code.

The pack in Texas who had the wolfsbane supply business was sanctioned and had to get all sales approved by a member of The Council for a period of no less than ten years. Their computers and stock levels were all magically monitored to make sure no sales occurred outside of the process put in place. The alpha who had allowed the sales of restricted wolfsbane to the hunters around the country was one of the first to be jailed in the supermax prison for five years and they were forced to pass the alpha spark on to a member of their pack that passed the stringent background checks and questioning by the FBI task force.

Stiles with help from his aunt developed a ward so the Nemeton could be protected from Darachs, especially those wanting to use the power for themselves rather than in the protection of their territory. It would be powered directly from the power of the Nemeton rather than the spark so it would last long after the spark had died. They were able to do this for all the Nemeta around the world. When Regina was introduced to the Nemeton she recoiled at the darkness she could feel within it and she led Stiles through giving it a thorough cleansing.

They were able to capture the firefly that flew out as the tree grew back to immense proportions and it was imprisoned properly by a Kitsune sect in Japan once Regina dropped it off.

Chris looked down at his hands and he felt the titanium ring, heavy on his finger. He and Peter married not long after Gerard and Kate were jailed with Chris proudly taking the Hale name and letting the Argent name fade into obscurity, to that end Allison had been given adoption papers by Peter on her 17th birthday and she officially became a Hale.

Peter grinned as he interlinked his fingers with Chris' and they looked around the room at the various couples in the group, their daughter Allison was happy with Lydia. They were both attending MIT and would be home permanently in a few years, Allison was doing a dual degree program, both an MBA and a Computer Science masters, she was planning to take over the investment portfolio of Argent Enterprises when she returned. Lydia was working on dual PhDs in Math and Engineering and she was pushing to finish with Allison so they could return to Beacon Hills together.

When Jackson and Lydia broke up they had been worried about Jackson going off the rails but Stiles helped him admit to himself that he was more attracted to his best friend than he wanted to admit and since then he and Danny had been going strong. Danny was with the girls at MIT doing a computer Science Ph.D. while Jackson was studying at Harvard across town. He spent his summers interning for Peter and Ralph at their law firm in Beacon Hills.

Stiles and Derek had been pretty much glued to each other's sides since the fight in the tunnels but they waited until their senior year before they started officially dating. Derek was determined to follow the old courting protocols for their first year of dating which concluded with them moving in together when they moved to DC for college. They were both attending GWU with the intention of eventually joining Charlie's ever-expanding task force teams in the FBI once they had their master's degrees. Stiles was doing dual master's degrees in Criminal Justice and Law while Derek was doing a dual master's in Criminal Justice and Psychology.

Erica sat down beside her alphas and she asked, "What's up Big Bads?"

Chris snuggled into Peter's side as Peter grinned and he said, "Just mulling over the changes since Chris came back into my life. How's the workshop going?"

Erica grinned, "It's great, we took on a new mechanic last month. Tucker Cornish, he went to school with Isaac's brother Camden. We are slowly becoming the most popular mechanics workshop in Beacon Hills."

Peter snarked, "Putting it beside your cafe was a smart move. It gives Boyd's clients somewhere to wait and you get a lot of the early morning industrial coffee crowd coming through."

Erica smiled, "Deputies too. We see Isaac and Cora when they are doing their morning patrols. Noah too sometimes, although I know he goes to the coffee shop across town most of the time as they won't report what he orders to Stiles. We are talking to Danny and Allison about building us an app so people can preorder their coffee so it's ready when they arrive."

Peter was proud of his niece, she had gone local for college not wanting to leave the area. She and Isaac ended up joining the Sheriff's department together and they were often assigned cases that had a supernatural angle.

Charlie, Bryant, Townsend, and a few of the other FBI agents who assisted in the tunnels had joined them, as per usual, for the yearly New Years' party with the pack. The parties were getting bigger every year, with new additions from neighboring packs they had built alliances with, as well as others in law enforcement who either were supernatural, or human, but aware, like Bryant.

The FBI team was often joined by Connor and Jaden from Falls Church who had grown close to the pack after the arrests of Gerard and Kate were made public. Connor was quick to reach out to Chris once he discovered that Chris had been turned and was now leading the Hale Pack of Beacon Hills with his mate Peter. Charlie often invited them to catch their flight to Sacramento whenever there was a large pack celebration.

Charlie's team was still going strong, it was expanding and working in conjunction with The Council to keep the supernatural hidden but to ensure those who could be held accountable would be. They worked with the warden at the supermax prison in Colorado to ward one of the buildings so it could safely hold supernatural creatures who were convicted of serious crimes without having to use places like Eichen House. They were currently investigating Eichen House and others like it in the hope they could shut down the creature experiments being done by shady government agents like the CIA.

The team's reputation was growing and they were starting to be assigned more of the paramilitary and domestic terrorism cases as the teams had a knack for solving them with low casualties. Only Charlie's section chief, the local Deputy Director, and the Director of the FBI were aware of the exact nature of those in the teams.

Chris leaned over and he said to Charlie, "I hear congratulations are in order. Someone mentioned you were prompted to Deputy Director last week."

Charlie agreed, "Bryant and Townsend were both promoted as well and given their own teams. Bryant is going to be working out of DC and Townsend from Sacramento. He is hoping to snag Stiles and Derek when they graduate."

Chris grinned, "That's great, I know Stiles is keen to get stuck into investigations with his penchant for solving puzzles. Are you still getting thrown at the non-supernatural cases?"

Charlie nodded, "Yeah, we have worked to hide the supernatural as domestic terrorism so we now have a good reputation for closing the cases and doing it with limited casualties which is great. The team who used to take those cases often had a high rate of injury and a high turnover of agents wanting to leave due to a lack of safety."

Bryant agreed, "We have taken on a few of them and hope to bring them into the whole supernatural aspect once they have proven themselves on the human cases."

Peter snarked, "That shouldn't take you long to nut them out, Bryant. We know you have a nose for sniffing out the ones who would take it the wrong way or would want to out the secret."

Townsend grumped, "He has great instincts considering he's one of the only humans on the team."

Bryant chuckled, "Finely honed instincts thank you very much." He looked at Peter and he asked, "So what's next for the pack, are you looking at expanding now that things are a bit more settled and the kids are nearly ready to come home again?"

Peter and Chris both shrugged, Peter said, "We always expected them to bring partners home but instead they mostly partnered up with each other. It's unusual but we may look at bringing in more wolves at some point. I know Cora has a friend in town she wants to bring into the pack. She's a kitsune but her parents are avoiding us which is setting off alarm bells."

Chris added, "We got Noah to do a background check but it looked completely normal so we are not sure what their deal is."

Charlie offered, "I can take Townsend and we can visit them before we leave town and just ask?"

Townsend nodded his agreement, "Between us, we should be able to figure out what's going on, and if one of them is also a kitsune they may be less guarded around Charlie."

Charlie looked up and he saw Stiles and Derek dancing to their own beat in the middle of the dance floor, they were completely lost in each other and it was beautiful to watch. He asked quietly, "So when are they going to bond?"

Peter shrugged, "I think when it happens they will tell us after the fact. Even with all the PDA they are known to indulge in, they are a very private couple."

Bryant chuckled, "They have stayed under the radar at GWU and even during their summer internships. Most of their classmates think they are roommates rather than a couple. It's fun to watch them completely snow their classmates."

Peter admitted, "They know being anything other than straight is dangerous in a law enforcement role. I think they will come out, so to speak, once they are safe in one of Charlie's teams."

Jaden joined them puffing as he heard the end of the conversation and he agreed, "It would be dangerous, but honestly, I have seen those two sparring and I wouldn't screw with either of them. They have been well trained and when they are fighting as a team they don't even need words they read each other so well."

"Which none of their classmates have seen," Bryant admitted, "They haven't once sparred against or with each other in the FBI internship. It's only with the pack that they let that side out."

Jaden wistfully replied, "I wish I could be a fly on the wall when their classmates find out. The looks of shock will be awesome."

Charlie suggested, "When they are in the FBI Academy I think they will let the cat out of the bag at the end of their training, I can invite yourself and Connor along to observe the trainees. I am sure we can find an excuse."

Jaden and Connor both grinned and they said in unison, "Deal!"

Connor added, "You might want to invite Regina as well. She would love to watch her nephew in action with her nephew in law."

Charlie shuddered at the thought of the revenge she would instigate if she was left out, "Definitely. She is well known for holding long grudges and as you know from Stiles, the Gajos family are well known for creative methods of revenge."

Townsend asked, "Anything interesting happen in Beacon Hills lately? It's seemed quiet, dare I say it."

Peter shook his head. In the few years after Chris and himself took over as alphas of the region they faced a few threats, Deucalion brought Kali and Ennis in an attempt to take the territory from them as they felt Chris was an unworthy alpha as a former hunter, but they were shut down by the pack and the alpha council and the hunter council as things were at the time, both agreed to final termination of the three borderline feral alphas before their rampage was noticed by the mundanes. After that, there was a bit of trouble with chimeras, hybrid creatures created by phase-shifting doctors based under Eichen House, but with help from Regina, they were able to shut them down before any real damage was done. The few chimeras that survived were adopted into various packs around the Pacific Northwest.

Peter shook his head, "Knock on wood," He reached out and touched the railing in front of him, "It's been quiet since we eliminated the dread doctors. It seems cleansing the Nemeton was worth all the blood, sweat, and tears involved. The pack is slowly coming home from college, Stiles and Derek have a year and a half to go and the group in Boston shouldn't be far behind. Maybe a year behind them."

Chris mused, "It will be good to have the pack together again. I hate to think about how different things would be if I hadn't decided to search out Peter and come home."

Peter pulled him in for a kiss before he said, "Home, where you belong."