Stiles didn't want to let Derek go alone to the hospital but they got that he needed some space. Stiles still felt rattled, they didn't want to imagine how Derek felt.
Derek had woken up in the middle of the night, knowing that Laura was dead. He hadn't wasted time explaining what his suddenly red eyes meant but Stiles wasn't stupid.
The alpha's dead, long live the alpha, they understood how it worked. The pack needed an alpha, especially at times like the death of an alpha. It had happened not long ago when Laura inherited the status from their mother. It was a macabre thought but Laura knew exactly when her mother had died in the flames. Same with Derek. He'd woken up with his new alpha status and he had known that Laura was dead. He hadn't known that Kira had shocked her back to life. Derek had rushed back to his apartment, certain that he would find the only family he'd left dead on the floor. Or maybe the whole complex on fire, who knew. For sure not Stiles but they got what was going on in Derek's head.
They understood that he needed to get back to Laura, just to make sure that she was alive.
Which left Stiles with the betas.
"What a mess." Erica leaned back in her chair but then she narrowed her eyes on Stiles. "Okay, spill. Who is that bitch that just barges in in the middle of the night with a shotgun?"
When Laura had made her offer, she'd told them about hunters and that they had killed almost the whole Hale pack but she hadn't gone into detail.
Boyd and Erica had concluded that Kate was one of those hunters but there hadn't been much time or privacy earlier to get into that.
Now they had nothing but time.
Stiles recapped the whole ugly thing. They didn't leave out the fact that Kate had seduced Derek to gain intel on the pack but they left it at that and didn't tell them how guilt-ridden Derek had been, still was, and what that had done to him mentally. Judging by the expression on Boyd and Erica's faces, they didn't have to go into detail here.
"Oh, Derek." Erica breathed out and Stiles just knew that there were more hugs and most likely wolf cuddles in Derek's near future. Not that they had anything against that, they would be right there with the wolves.
"And that bitch is still out there," Boyd growled with a flash of gold in his eyes. "You think she still has it out for him?"
"Before last night I would have said that she has most likely moved on to another target, she did wipe out almost the whole pack, mission accomplished but now …" Stiles spread their hands in a helpless gesture.
"If she finds out that they are rebuilding the pack …," Erica added.
"She might come after us as well," Boyd finished the sentence for her.
Stiles would have liked to say that Kate didn't know about the new additions to the pack or where they were living but they didn't know. Yesterday they would have said that they were all perfectly safe in the anonymity of the big city but a lot had happened since yesterday.
Erica set up a new pot of coffee and nursing that they went over the whole thing again. What was Kate capable of? What would she do next?
And Laura. Shouldn't she be better by now?
"I was fine the next day," Boyd remembered to which Erica looked guilty. Without even looking at her, Body took her hand. "Not your fault."
Stiles took Erica's other hand to show her that they were good. "I'm telling Derek that it wasn't his fault since I found out about Kate and he's getting there, don't get me wrong, but it takes time."
"That's a whole different scale." Erica made a face but didn't try to get her hands back. "I don't even want to think about how he must have felt."
"My point exactly," Stiles said. "So stop beating yourself up over almost mauling your boyfriend to death."
Erica slapped their hand but couldn't help a smile.
"But seriously, shouldn't Laura be as good as new by now?" Boyd brought them back on track. "She hasn't even gained consciousness yet."
"Kate used wolfsbane and mistletoe in the buckshot," Stiles said. "That's why it takes longer for her to recover." Stiles hadn't been there but they had read about Peter. The papers had a whole series of articles about him. It wasn't mentioned in those articles but Stiles knew that Kate had used the same poisons back then. Laura wasn't burned to crisps so her chances were way better. At least Derek had said so. They hoped that he was right.
They were interrupted by Isaac, telling them that Coach was taken care of. And if he could come over?
A few days ago, they wouldn't have thought twice about that question. Aside from being their friend, Isaac had gone through something traumatic as well of course, he could come over.
Now things were different. For a long moment, nobody said anything, they were just all looking uncomfortably at each other.
"Tell him to come over." Stiles decided after a second.
"You think that's a good idea?" Erica's thumbs hovered over the screen without typing. "We can't just tell him, can we?"
"No!" Stiles said harsher than needed. "We can't tell him. Not without clearing it with Derek first. Besides, now is the worst time to let more people in."
The betas nodded in understanding but they didn't like it.
"What are we going to do?" Boyd asked.
"Playing normal." Stiles fixed them both with a stern look. "Kate is after the Hales because she's a psychotic bitch. Kira gave Laura CPR to keep her alive. Not a word about werewolves, the supernatural, or packs. We can't tell him."
Erica sent out the message with a grim nod while Boyd asked: "How long do you think we can hold up the charade?"
"As long as we have to," Stiles said firmly. "You saw what Kate is capable of. There are more like her out there. To them, only a dead werewolf is a good werewolf."
But Boyd was right, they wouldn't be able to keep this from Isaac. Not in the long run. In the end, it would come down to cutting Isaac out of their lives or fully including him but Stiles didn't want to think about that now.
"See it at our first lesson in staying low-key." Stiles tried to brighten the mood. "Oh, and Erica? You better look sick."
Isaac stood at the door a few minutes later. He got greeted with a tight hug from Erica, Boyd patted him on the shoulder, and Stiles walked him deeper into the apartment with an arm around his middle. This was blatant werewolf behavior but they had been close before, Stiles hoped it didn't come across as too odd.
Thinking about it, Derek had treated the whole office like pack long before anybody knew about werewolves.
"How's Coach doing?" Erica asked.
"Sleeping it off now but I bet that he's back in the office in a few hours." Isaac took the offered seat on the couch with a sigh. It had been a long morning for him as well.
"That man doesn't have a life." Stiles slumped down next to him.
"I thought he was dead," Isaac said quietly. "When I found him, he wasn't moving. I thought he was dead."
"Isaac." Erica slung her arm around his shoulders.
"He was tied up for hours," Isaac continued. Stiles doubted that he even noticed that he was leaning into Erica. "He could have died there in the middle of the night in an empty office complex and nobody would have noticed." He shuddered. "When I think about what she did at Derek's place … Coach's lucky to be alive."
Coach wasn't a werewolf so he was relatively safe but that hadn't prevented him from getting hit over the head.
Stiles listened to Isaac, telling them about how he'd called an ambulance and the police.
"At first they thought I did it," Isaac said, not quite believing what had happened. "It was chaos. Suddenly there were so many people all over the place. They didn't even let me grab my stuff before they kicked me off the scene."
"You're telling me," Stiles muttered. It had been the same at Derek's place.
The first minutes were awkward, not only because Isaac wasn't pack but because they all had gone through something traumatic just hours ago. However, it didn't take long for them to get comfortable again.
Around noon Stiles excused themself, they wanted to check on Derek. He'd sent two messages over the last hours but so far nothing new about Laura. Kira was still with him, at least he wasn't alone but Stiles just wanted to be with him. Besides, they knew that Derek needed his pack around, and right now Laura didn't count and Kira wasn't pack.
Without a word, Boyd handed them a large Tupperware container, filled to the brim with sandwiches.
"Thanks, man." Stiles took the container with a smile. "You know, this is the beginning of the end. Laura is already bitching that most of her Tupperware is at my place and now you join in as well. We're just going to hand this stuff around until nobody knows which container belongs to whom any longer."
"We share our lives now and you're drawing the line at Tupperware?" Boyd raised an unimpressed eyebrow at them.
Stiles didn't know what to say to that so they just took the container and fled out of the apartment.
An officer was sitting in front of Laura's room so at least the police took this seriously. Stiles just hoped that he had a good look at every nurse or doctor going in as well. Stiles did not put it beyond Kate to pull an Elle Driver and try to sneak in with a wolfsbane syringe.
Low-key whistling Twisted Nerve, Stiles approached the officer who gave them an unimpressed look.
"Name?"
"Stilinski." Stiles handed over their driver's license.
"Ah, the partner." Now the man looked them up and down with a knowing smile.
"Do you have a problem with that?" Stiles snatched back their ID, they were not in the mood for this bullshit.
"Just making sure." The officer made a point of looking at his clipboard. "You're not quite what I was expecting."
Whatever that meant.
"Can I go in now?" Stiles didn't wait for an answer and pushed the door open. "What's his problem?" They asked Derek before they had even closed the door behind themself.
"You're not feminine enough to fit his prejudice against you," Derek answered without missing a beat.
Stiles heard the man behind them making an offended noise but they cut him off by closing the door before he could say something.
With two wide strides, Stiles closed the distance to Derek and then they were hugging him from behind. They put their chin on his shoulder, hands meeting over his chest, and for a long moment, they just breathed in the scent of Derek. Alpha or boyfriend, Stiles didn't know what dominated right now, they just wanted to be close to him. Derek put his hand on theirs and let his head fall back until it rested against Stiles' neck.
Kira watched them from across the bed but for a moment Stiles and Derek were caught in their own world.
"How is she?" Stiles broke the silence but didn't let go of Derek.
"Still the same," Derek said while he tightened his grip on Stiles' hands on his chest. "The doctor says it's normal but it's not. Not for us."
Under their hands, Stiles felt the hitches in Derek's breathing.
"She's not Peter," Stiles reminded him. "She didn't burn and the doctors cleaned her wounds. Just give her some time."
Stiles held on to him for a moment longer but then they straightened up.
"Boyd made sandwiches." They looked around to find out where they had left the container. "He's joining the Tupperware game. Told him that he's doomed now but he just shrugged and pointed out that we're pack, who cares which container belongs to whom? Can you believe that?"
"You don't even own any Tupperware," Derek pointed out. "Everything you have is Laura's. She wants it back." Derek tried to joke but the words got stuck in his throat.
"I'm not giving it back until she tells me that herself."
A/N NaNoWriMo starts on Monday. There won't be an update next weekend and I'll keep it at a big maybe for the rest of the month.
However, I intend to come out of NaNo with "Let it Flow" finished, maybe "Hitting Rock Bottom" as well. And I want to start a new story: "Am I the real me? Or is that you?"
If you can guess what that story is, you'll get a cookie.