Stiles didn't know for how long he'd been giving Emily the breath of life, with glances at where Peter was still lying unconscious on the ground in between, but he kept going. At least she had a heart-beat.

"C'mon, you can do this on your own," Stiles muttered between breaths.

As if she'd heard him, Emily sucked in a shallow breath which ended in weak coughing.

"There you go." Stiles rolled her to the side, he didn't want her to choke, but he kept a hand on her ribcage to monitor her breathing. Once he was sure that she was breathing on her own, he dared to leave her side for a second to check on Peter.

He was breathing, shallowly but steadily. Kind of. There were pauses longer than Stiles liked but he was telling himself that if Peter had survived this far, he would make it. It wasn't visible yet but Stiles was sure that his body was already healing.

"What the hell happened to you?" Stiles wondered. He wasn't an expert but this didn't look like Peter had just been too close to the flames. This looked as if somebody had poured napalm over him.

In the fading light Stiles couldn't make out details for which he was grateful but what he could see plus the smell of burned flesh was enough to make him gag.

There was nothing he could do for Peter so Stiles focused on Emily for now. She was unconscious but she was breathing.

She had a few burns but under the grime her face was pale. Stiles was not a doctor but he figured that that wasn't a good sign. How long had she been unconscious anyway?

"Emily?" He tried to rouse her. He brushed the hair out of her face to which her eyelids started to flutter. "Hey, sweety. Open your eyes."

She blinked her eyes open but it was unfocused at best and her eyelids started to drop just a second later.

"None of that." Stiles cupped her face to force her to look at him. "You can't sleep just yet. You hear me?"

Her eyes settled on him.

"There you go." He tried for a smile. "Just stay awake, help is coming." At least he hoped that help was coming. Why wasn't Derek back yet?

With the immediate danger gone, Stiles fell to his ass next to Emily. He just needed to sit for a moment.

His brain hadn't caught up with his own injuries just yet but when he looked at his raw and blistered hands he winced in pain. His face felt weird as well, too tight and as if his skin might rip if he dared to move the slightest muscle.

There was a rattling in his lungs and when he tried to breathe past it, he started to cough. It became a coughing fit rather quickly and then Stiles was clawing at the grass in his panic when he couldn't catch a breath. Dark spots were dancing in his vision and he couldn't breathe. It was not like drowning but it still felt like dying.

"Stiles."

A cold hand cupped his face. Through watering eyes, Stiles couldn't see him but he threw himself at Derek who started to rub a wet hand up and down his back.

"Did you find John?" Stiles asked when he was able to bring out words again. There was still a tickling in the back of his throat and he didn't dare to inhale too deeply to not cause a new coughing fit.

"I found him," Derek answered and didn't point out that it was his easiest trick. "He called an ambulance. He's coming here with Talia."

"You didn't bring them?" Stiles peeled himself away from Derek enough to peer out over the lake.

"That would be a bad idea," Derek said.

"Yeah." Stiles made and buried his face in Derek's chest again. The wet fabric of his shirt felt nice against his burned skin. "Thank you for not drowning Peter. Really appreciate that."

"I didn't want to drown him," Derek said in a low voice. "But …"

"I know." Blindly Stiles patted his shoulder. "I wouldn't have blamed you. But I'm happy you didn't."

It had been a close call, for a second Stiles had been sure that Derek would drag Peter under. Especially after Derek had literally gone through fire, he'd been a walking steam cloud in the house. The urge must have been strong.

"How are you?" Stiles asked. "Did you get hurt in the fire?"

"I'm fine," Derek assured him. "We should go back, you're hurt."

"You need to recover as well." Stiles read him like an open book. Derek wasn't injured like the rest of them but the fire had harmed him. He did need to go under just as much as Stiles did.

Stiles would love to just let Derek carry him out into the lake, he was exhausted and slowly his body started to remind him of all the places he'd gotten burned or scratched. There was a major headache building up at the base of his skull, he most likely had a concussion, and he just wanted to forget about all this but Peter hadn't gained consciousness yet and Emily was not all there either.

"I can't leave them." Stiles turned to check on Emily. "I'll come under once John is here."

Stiles fully expected Derek to walk out into the lake now but to his surprise, Derek stayed. While Stiles turned to Emily, Derek watched over Peter.

"Stiles?" Emily asked, her voice choked with tears. "Where's Mommy?"

Weakly she was reaching for him.

"Hey, it's okay." Stiles scooted closer. "You're at the lake. Derek saved us." Glancing over to where Peter was lying he made sure to block her line of sight. There were things she didn't need to see. Hell, Stiles didn't need to see this. He felt like throwing up just looking at the charred mess that was the left side of Peter's face.

"They're coming," Derek said and sure enough, a second later Stiles heard the sirens.

"Fucking finally."

Talia was the first to come running up to them followed by John.

"Emily? Peter?" Talia was by their side in a heart-beat and Stiles hurried to get out of the way.

"Stiles, you okay?" John was more worried about him but Stiles waved him off. He was fine. Or rather he would be fine as soon as he went under. But first, they had to take care of Peter and Emily.

Stiles let John guide him to sit somewhere at the side to not be in the way.

"She wasn't breathing." The gravity of that fact only slowly sank in. "Had to give her mouth to mouth."

"The paramedics are right behind us, they will take care of her. You did good," John assured him. "What the hell happened at the house? When we arrived we found your car stuck in the door and Talia told me that you ran back in to get Peter and Emily but neither of you came back out. We thought you were all dead."

"I can hardly die." Stiles managed a lopsided grin but his lips cracked with the strain and he tasted blood.

"You were never stuck in a burning house before." John grabbed him by the shoulder as if he had to make sure that Stiles was really there. "Talia said that they sealed the house with mountain ash and mistletoe and that there was wolfsbane in the fire, the werewolves couldn't go back in. I didn't know what it would do to you."

"I'm here." Stiles leaned into him. "Derek got us out."

Once Emily was on a stretcher and on her way to the ambulance, one of the paramedics came over to check on Stiles as well but John shooed him away. The man was not happy with that, he was talking about smoke poisoning and infection and John had to promise to bring Stiles to the hospital himself to get him to leave them alone.

Parrish was there as well and for some reason, he was trying to arrest Derek. The sight was so surreal that for a long moment Stiles was convinced that he was hallucinating, maybe that guy had been right with the smoke poisoning. But no matter how often he blinked to clear his vision, there was Parrish who was trying to convince Derek to uncross his arms so that he could put him in cuffs. Derek just glared at him from under thick eyebrows and kept his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"Crap." John had followed his line of sight. "You okay for the moment?"

"I'll be fine once I can go under and I kind of need Derek for that." Stiles waved him off to save Derek from Parrish.

Stiles didn't know what Derek had done this time and they were too far away to catch what they were saying, not that Stiles was particularly good at focusing right now, but John and Parrish were building up to a heated argument while Derek just stood there.

"He was at the house," Parrish yelled loud enough for Stiles to hear. "He has some explaining to do."

The last thing Stiles wanted was for Parrish to take Derek in. Not that he could keep him for long but Stiles didn't want to wait that long. He wanted to go under.

To distract himself, he looked over to where the paramedics were still working on Peter. Emily was already on her way to the hospital but Peter's case seemed to be more difficult. From this angle, Stiles couldn't see anything but his eyes were still watering so his vision was blurry at best anyway. He'd seen Peter earlier, he didn't want to see more of that. He would wait until he was all healed up. Distantly he wondered how Talia intended to explain Peter's quick recovery but that was not his problem.

"Stiles?"

Without him noticing Parrish had come over to him.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Parrish crouched down next to him.

"Weren't you just arresting Derek?" Stiles wondered. Had he missed something?

"That's his name? Derek?" Parrish picked up on that. Of course, he did. Stiles sighed but didn't care about his slip.

"Your uncle is dealing with him," Parrish added when Stiles failed to answer. "Who is he? What was he doing at the house earlier?"

"At the house?" Stiles was not following. Nobody had seen Derek at the house. What the fuck was he talking about? But then it dawned on him that the deputy must be talking about the time Derek had gone to find John. It made sense. And even if not, Stiles' head was hurting too much to worry about little details like that.

Lost in thoughts he forgot about Parrish for a moment but the deputy was still at his side, waiting for answers.

"How did you even get out here?" Parrish asked. "The Hale house is on the other side of the town."

Stiles barked out a laugh at the wording which propelled him right into the next coughing fit.

"You should get checked out." Parrish awkwardly patted his back in an attempt to help with the coughing. Stiles would have told him how much that was not helping but he was too busy coughing his lungs out.

"John is taking me in a bit." Stiles tried to get him off his back. Literally. "Can we do this tomorrow?" Stiles didn't even have to play it up, he felt like shit and he knew that he looked the part.

Parrish didn't like it, he had questions and he knew that Stiles could give him some answers, but in the end, he backed off.

"Parrish, go back to the Hale house, see what you can do there." John sent him off and reluctantly Parrish followed the paramedics who were wheeling Peter to the second ambulance.

"He's going to be back," Stiles said darkly. "What's his deal with Derek anyway?"

"Derek is a suspect." John shrugged but before he could say more, Talia came over to them.

"I'm going with Peter."

"How bad is it?" Stiles asked. As far as he could tell, Peter was still unconscious. Shouldn't he be awake by now?

"He's alive." She ran a hand through her hair but dropped when her fingers got caught in grimy knots. Her body had healed but her clothes were burned and she was coated in smut and ash. "But there was wolfsbane mixed in whatever they used. It burned into his body, poisoning him." She covered her mouth with her hand, blinking against the tears.

"He's not going to die, is he?" Stiles stumbled to his feet, ready to come with her, but white pain exploded behind his eyes with the sudden movement. It felt like his head was cracking open which might even be the case. He had hit his head on the windshield pretty hard earlier.

Derek caught him before he face-planted. He was not going anywhere today. Derek probably had to carry him into the lake.

"I don't know," Talia answered, her voice cracking.