It was almost noon when they finally got the message that they could unblock the road. The worst seemed to be over but Sheriff Thompson still wanted them at the scene.

The victims had long been taken to the hospital but there were still damaged cars and the road was littered with bits and pieces. There was enough left to get the picture. And the smell. Whatever had been leaking out still lingered in the air. Mark made a face, to his nose it must be even worse.

They had freed up one lane so the cars were slowly rolling past them when Mark and John joined their colleagues at the scene.

"There's the sheriff." Mark pointed to where Sheriff Thompson was talking to two firefighters and what looked like the driver of a tow truck. When Thompson noticed the new arrivals, he waved them over.

"Stilinski, make sure that the tow truck gets through, we need to get the cars off the road. Hale, you're in charge of the traffic, I don't want another accident."

"Yes, sir," Mark and John said in unison.

"If you need me, I'm at the hospital." With that Thompson gave them a tired nod and then he was gone.

"Wanna switch? I'm sick of directing traffic." Mark looked at John hopefully.

"You wish."

Mark kicked a shard of glass out of the way but he did accept his fate without further ado.

John waved him off and jogged over to where the tow truck driver was trying to get a wrecked car onto the bed of his truck.

The man had been around for a while, this was his third load, and he was more than willing to give John some intel on what had happened here.

"Bet that idiot fell asleep behind the wheel," the man said followed by a string of curses because the car wreck didn't behave as he wanted it to. "Crashed into two other cars, shoved one into the upcoming traffic. Others crashed into them and caused this clusterfuck. Sliced open the truck's tank. No clue what the the fuck he carried but they say we're lucky that we're not sitting on the bloody moon right now." He grunted when he used his whole body to move the wreck. "Don't just stand there, boy. I need a hand here."

Together and with a lot of cussing on the driver's part they got the wreck on the bed of the truck.

"It's a miracle nobody died." The truck driver shook his head as if he still couldn't quite believe it. "One they had to fly out but the rest is in the hospitals around here. Heard four or five are critical and a ton of minor injuries."

John listened to him rambling on about the helicopter and all the ambulances and how in the middle of the whole mess the firefighters had been taking care of the spilled chemicals.

"You missed the show of your life." The man gave him a toothy grin.

"I think I'm fine."

It took another two hours for them to clear the road and by then John was dead on his feet.

"Ready to leave?" John walked over to where Mark was leaning against the cruiser.

"More than ready." Mark stretched but he looked fresher than he had any right to be. Damn werewolves. "Lunch? My treat?"

"I'm not going to say no to that." John hadn't eaten all day. Just thinking about food tied his stomach into painful knots. He wasn't even sure if he had anything for dinner yesterday. Everything before Stiles had come over was kind of fuzzy.

Mark drove them over to a fast food joint they had been to a few times and by now John knew that it belonged to the Hale pack. Which business in town didn't?

Word had gotten around so when the waitress came over to take their order, she asked about the accident. She and Mark updated each other and John wondered if she knew some details because of her job, there were other first responders having their lunch here, or because of some pack grapevine kind of thing but he was too tired to care. John's mind was numb and he just wanted to eat in peace without thinking too much. He needed a drink but coffee had to do for now. At least that gave him some much-needed caffeine.

"We should swing by the hospital when we're done here," Mark said between two big bites from his burger. John was about to make a joke about wolfing down his food when Mark continued: "I don't even know if there was somebody from my …" He cut himself off with a glance around. "From my family."

"You mean involved in the accident?" John's brain needed a moment to follow the change of topic. John didn't have family in town and the only one he considered a friend was sitting across from him. He hadn't even thought about the possibility that he might know one of the victims.

Mark however had family and pack all over town. It was quite possible that he knew one of them.

Mark drove them over. He was itching to switch on the lights, John could tell.

"Did you notice something at the scene?" John asked. The chemical smell still lingered in the back of his throat, he doubted that Mark had been able to smell anything aside from that but he might have noticed something else. A familiar car or something in a car but by the time they had arrived most of the cars had already been taken away.

Mark shook his head but the way his jaw was working and how tight he was holding onto the steering wheel he was worried about what they would find at the hospital.

Not much they could do until they got there, though. John had radioed in that they were on the way to the hospital and he'd asked for an update but they would have to talk to Thompson for that.

The ER was full. The people in critical condition had been high priority but there were at least a dozen with minor injuries still waiting in the ER. John couldn't tell if everybody here was because of the crash but it was likely.

Next to him, Mark scanned the waiting area for familiar faces.

"Walter!" Mark yelled and hurried over to a man sitting with his head leaning against the wall. He had blood on his face but as far as John could tell he wasn't actively bleeding from his head wound.

"Walter, hey." Mark crouched down in front of him to look him in the eye.

Unsure what to do, John stayed back, this felt private. He'd looked into the Hale family and if he was not mistaken, this was the Walter who was married to one of the alpha's sisters. He had two kids. John looked around but it seemed as if Walter was alone. Which didn't have to mean anything.

The man seemed to be out of it but when Mark gently touched his shoulder, he linked his eyes open.

"Mark?" The word came out slurred and he had problems focusing on the deputy in front of him but he did sit up straighter.

"Yeah, it's me." Mark looked him over. "There has been an accident, you're in the ER. Are you in pain?"

Mark slid his hand from the man's shoulder down his arm until he reached his wrist. He took Walter's hand between both of his and at first John thought that it was just a comforting gesture. Then he noticed the black lines creeping up Mark's arm and disappearing under the cuff of his sleeve.

John sucked in a breath in surprise. The questions were on the tip of his tongue but he bit them back and turned away to pretend that he hadn't noticed.

He wasn't supposed to know about werewolves. Mark and Agnes were the only ones who knew that he knew and he wanted to keep it that way. He could ask Mark about this later.

Whatever Mark was doing, Walter let out a sigh and visibly relaxed under Mark's touch.

"Were you alone in the car?" Mark asked without breaking the contact. "Martha and the kids were not with you, right?"

Walter tried to shake his head but thought better of it.

"I was alone," he said and he did sound clearer than only a moment ago. "On my way to work."

"Good, that's good." Mark nodded. "Do you want me to call her?"

Mark didn't even wait for his answer and got his phone out. It was a struggle to operate it with only one hand but he refused to let go of Walter's hand. The black lines weren't as prominent as before but they were still visible.

John almost felt like an intruder which was ridiculous in a busy ER but to give Mark some privacy for the call he excused himself and went in search of Sheriff Thompson.

He found him with a nurse. It was the same nurse as the other day, she'd asked him to call her Melissa.

"Deputy," Melissa greeted him when he approached them. John gave her a nod but was looking at Thompson for a cue if he was interrupting something here. But the Sheriff waved him over.

"Everything fine on the interstate?" Thompson asked but was satisfied when John told him that traffic was rolling again. He left John with the task to take the statements of the people in the condition to talk to him. They would have to do the official thing later at the station but they wanted to do this while the memory was still fresh. And they needed at least an ID of all the people involved in the crash.

Thompson left him to it and went to return to the station. He had a list of the victims who were not able to contact anybody themselves, at last of the ones they knew the names of, somebody had to make the calls now. At least he didn't have to tell anybody that a loved one had died.

The Sheriff looked even more tired and wrung out than John felt but he didn't even want to think about how his morning had been. The worst John had dealt with were angry people yelling at him, Thompson had been on the crash side right from the beginning.

"He's going to work himself to death," Melissa said when she watched him leave.

"Usually it's quieter in Beacon Hills," John said lamely, he was too tired for a witty comment. "Any news on the ones in critical condition?"

"Two are in surgery," she answered. "But the doctors are optimistic. The others are taken care of as well but I don't know the details. I'm just one ER nurse, deputy."

"John, please," he reminded her which got him a warm smile. "I'm just curious. I wasn't even at the scene, I just want to get a feeling for what I'm dealing with here."

They chatted for a moment, she told him about the chaos when suddenly over a dozen people had been rushed in. Most had been lucky with minor injuries but it had been a task to sort that out and the waiting room was still full with people waiting to be seen.

"I only had people yelling at me for blocking the road." John chuckled when she mentioned that somebody with a broken arm had demanded to see a doctor immediately while they had been busy with a man bleeding out on the stretcher.

"Speaking of yelling …" Melissa made a face when loud voices carried over to them from the waiting area.

"I should get to it as well." John tapped his notepad with his pen.

When John returned to the waiting area, he found Mark still at Walter's side.

"His wife is coming over," Mark said. Faint black lines were still crawling up his wrist and it didn't look as if he intended to let go of the other man's hand anytime soon. "Is it okay if stay I with him until she arrives?"

"Sure," John agreed easily even if that left him with the task of interviewing people.

John worked his way through the people in the waiting area. Most were even glad for the distraction and John heard more than one detailed description of what had happened.

John was just asking an old man his name when out of the corner of his eye he noticed two familiar figures entering the building.

"What do they want now?" John groaned.