"That's quite an offer." John leaned back in his chair, chopsticks loosely in his hand. Since it was about dinner time and Stile knew that John was more than likely to forget about food, he'd brought some Chinese.

"Yeah." Stiles made around a mouthful of fried rice. "Didn't expect it at all."

"Are you considering it?" John asked. "I mean, you would have to spend eternity with him."

Stiles had thought about it. The last few hours he'd done nothing but thinking about it.

"Yes," Stiles answered. "I know that it has the potential to turn into the most epic War of Roses since Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner but I'm willing to risk it. I can't just let him vegetate in a coma from which he might never wake up again. I can't." Stiles huffed and stuffed more rice into his mouth. "But …" He emphasized the word with his chopsticks. "That's not my decision to make. I was never given a choice, I can not do the same to Peter."

"That's quite a predicament you got yourself into."

"You telling me." Stiles stabbed the contents of his container with the chopsticks. "My best shot is to ask Talia. She knows him better than me, she's his alpha and his sister. If anyone, she's the one to make a decision like this in Peter's name." He'd said the same thing to Derek earlier but Stiles needed to repeat it a few times to convince himself that he should talk to Talia.

"Did you know that she got me a new phone and a car?" Stiles changed the topic. "And a care package."

"She came to me and asked if you have a replacement yet," John said. "As for the care package, the whole town is going nuts with trying to help out. Donations are running at the schools and whole services are dedicated to the Hale family. The church has collected a ton of clothes and other stuff. Did you read the papers? Talia gave a statement, thanking the whole town. She said that it was way too much and that she would give some of it to other people in need."

"Yeah, to me," Stiles muttered.

"Among others."

To change the topic Stiles asked about the hunter they had in custody. Who turned out to be a pain in the ass. He wasn't talking and without a confession they had problems, placing him at the scene. The whole department was working overtime.

"They offered him a deal," John said. "We're talking about attempted murder in fourteen cases here not counting the other charges. He's still thinking about it." John made a face.

"Can't Chris give an official statement?" Stiles asked. What the hunter had told them the other day had helped a lot but it was nothing official so they couldn't use it in court.

"He would rather not." John shook his head. "Ratting out another hunter might put him and his family in danger."

"Don't they have a code?" Stiles asked. "If Kate violates the code shouldn't she be cast out or something?"

"To a lot of hunters only a dead werewolf is a good werewolf, you know that," John reminded him. "They would consider you not human either and hunt you down if they knew about you."

"I know." Angrily Stiles stuffed more rice into his mouth. It had been before he'd met John but there had been hunters who had looked past the local werewolf pack and had come for Derek instead. And with that for Stiles as well. Not that it had ended well for the hunters. Their attempts to harm Derek had been more amusing than anything else but when they'd come for Stiles … let's say they found a wet grave rather quickly.

"Okay, I'll leave you to do your sheriff thing and I'm going to see if Talia has a minute." Stiles put his half-eaten food aside, he'd lost his appetite. But putting off Talia for longer would only make things worse. For him and Peter. They said that one didn't feel anything in a coma but Stiles had read about people who had been aware of everything going on around them. Was Peter feeling the pain right now? Was he screaming in his head in agony while Stiles was sitting here, eating fried rice?

"Do you want me to come with you?" John asked, probably seeing all the tells of how much Stiles did not want to talk to Talia.

"Doubt she's going to bite my head off." Stiles tried to joke but suddenly he just felt nauseous. "She bought me a new car."

His fear of the alpha was not rational, he knew that, but fear never was. But this was for Peter.

Stiles left the station and then he was sitting in his car for long minutes before he'd gathered the courage to write a message to Talia. Mainly he was thanking her for all the gifts. And if they could meet somewhere?

Stiles sent the message out and with that, it was out of his hands. When she didn't answer after a minute Stiles figured that she wouldn't answer anytime soon, she was probably having dinner with her family. He put the car in gear and headed back to the lake.

He was halfway there when his phone chimed with a new message.

Talia wanted to head out to the hospital in a bit, if that worked for him?

Neutral ground, Stiles had to give her kudos for that. He answered that he would be there and turned the car around. He would be early but he had nothing better to do at the moment.

At the hospital, he ran into Scott. Literally. Scott had been looking over his shoulder, waving at somebody, and didn't pay attention to where he was going. Stiles on the other hand had kept his head down, his mind elsewhere. They collided with an uff.

"Stiles?"

"Hey, man." Stiles rubbed the back of his head. He hadn't even thought about Scott all day. After he'd bailed out on him last night, he'd totally forgotten about the teenager.

"Is that your friend?" The woman Scott had been waving to came over to them. "Stiles, right? Scott told me about you."

"I hope he didn't." Stiles joked, wondering why he was running into random people today. First Pamela and now Scott and his mother. "Did Scott bring you dinner again? I'm just coming from the station, my uncle would forget to eat if I didn't remind him." He was rambling now but he didn't know what else to do.

"Same here," Mrs. McCall admitted and put an arm around her son's shoulders. "But I have this lifesaver here."

"The lifesaver is Stiles." Scott didn't try to wiggle out of his mother's hold and just beamed at Stiles with her arm still around his shoulders. "He's the one who ran into a burning house to safe people."

"Can we not do that?" Stiles squirmed while he had a glance around if anybody was paying attention to them. They had kept his name out of the papers and he liked it that way. It was bad enough that the whole pack thought of him as some kind of hero. Which was half the town. The other half didn't need to know. Besides, drawing too much attention had never been good for him. Peter had never gotten around to finish the ID thing he'd promised him. Speaking of Peter …

"I couldn't save all of them." Stiles let out a breath. Since he'd gotten to know the Hales, he'd started to tolerate them, some he even liked, but the one he actually cared about was the one he hadn't been able to save.

"Nobody died." Mrs. McCall let go of her son and gently placed a hand on Stiles' shoulder. "You went back for the little girl and you got her out. I was working in the ER that night, I was there when they came in. I treated the burns and monitored their breathing. There was a pregnant woman among them, naturally, we were worried about her and the baby. But guess what? They all went home later that night. Because of you." She squeezed the ball of his shoulder. "Without you, they would have died in that fire. All of them."

"Tell that Peter," Stiles muttered under his breath.

"He's still the same?" Scott asked, making Stiles wonder how much his mother had told him. But with him coming here regularly to bring his mom dinner, he might have heard a thing or two.

"I was about to visit him," Stiles said which ended with Scott coming with him. Scott tried to go back to their lighthearted conspiracy theories from last night but Stiles' heart wasn't in it.

"We have to have a real sleepover sometime." Scott changed the topic. "And no sneaking out in the middle of the night. I thought you got abducted again when I woke up and you were gone. And what is with the wet towels in the bathroom? What the fuck did you do? Hope you didn't wet your bed."

Stiles needed a moment to piece together what Scott was talking about. Derek had come for him in the middle of the night and as usual, he'd left behind a wet trail. Stiles had mopped up the worst and had left the wet towels in a corner of the bathroom.

"Just water, I swear. I'm just too clumsy to get a drink of water." Stiles even raised his hand for that oath which got him a laugh from Scott.

Talia was not there yet so Stiles just had a quick look at Peter, nothing had changed there, sadly, and then the only thing he could do was to wait. Stiles hated waiting.

However, Scott was a welcomed distraction and he didn't seem to be in a hurry to get home so they settled in the waiting room where Scott told him what was going on at school. The Hale kids hadn't been back to school yet either which didn't help with the rumors. The fire was still the talk of the school. Because of that it almost went unnoticed that one of the substitute teachers hadn't been in since the weekend either.

Stiles could tell him something about that but he didn't. This was still an ongoing investigation and he didn't want to sabotage it by telling details he shouldn't have in the first place. So before they ventured too deeply into that, Stiles stirred them over to other topics. Turned out that that Scott had treated himself to some new games recently and with that Stiles had an invitation to waste the weekend with video games. He was tempted to go. But that depended on Talia and Peter. Right on cue, Talia came around the corner.

"Sorry for keeping you waiting," Talia interrupted them which was Scott's cue to say goodbye and leave. Stiles almost called him back to stay with him but as much as he would have liked to not face Talia alone, there were things Scott didn't need to know. Why again had he declined John's offer to come with him? Stiles was cursing at himself in his head while he forced a smile on his face.

Getting how uncomfortable she was making him, Talia took a seat not right next to him.

"I got your gifts," Stiles said just to say something. "The car is a bit much but there's no taking it back, it's mine now."

"It's yours," Talia assured him. "I … we owe you so much more."

"I'm fine, thanks." Stiles shifted in his seat.

"You wanted to talk to me?" Talia prompted when Stiles just fiddled with the seam of his jeans without looking at her.

"It's about Peter," he started. "He's not getting better. You said that it could take years for him to recover. If he recovers."

"We have to wait." Talia slumped in on herself. Stiles wondered when she last had a good night's sleep. "He's a fighter."

That was true but Stiles doubted that it was enough.

"There might be another way," he said which got him her full attention. "Derek. He pointed out that you still owe him a member of your pack."

"He wants Peter?" Her eyes flickered over to Peter's room as if she feared that Derek had snatched him in the meantime.

"He's offering to take him," Stiles corrected. "He's sure that Peter will recover with him."

"But he would belong to Derek."

"So do I, it's not that bad." Stiles counted on his scent or whatever she was picking up from him to tell her that he meant it. He liked his life with Derek. "The only thing I don't like about the idea is that we can't ask Peter. Nobody asked me and I can't just alter his life forever like that." He let out a sigh.

Talia leaned back in her seat, absently nibbling on her thumb. Worried sister more than alpha, Stiles guessed.

She hadn't outright said no so Stiles gave her time to think about it. This was probably the hardest decision she would ever have to make. Either way, Peter would have to live with the consequences for the rest of his life.

"There might be a way to ask him," she said after a long moment. "But you won't like it."

"If you say things like that, I'm sure I won't like it."

She was right, he did not like it.

"You're not going to stick your claws in my neck!"