He and Laura sit in the kitchen for an hour and half, lost deep in a conversation about their earlier talk with Allison and their plans for the press release. Stiles' father has already gotten all the necessary paperwork signed off on by the Mayor, who makes things easy by signing paperwork without reading it first, and everyone important is onboard. Both John Stilinski and Talia Hale will be present at the televised Town Hall meeting as the Sheriff of Beacon Hills and the Alpha of the Hale pack, but they will both be serving primarily as figureheads, lending silent support. It's the new generation, he and Laura and Allison that will be doing all the hard work, and that seems right since it's their world they're fighting to fix, their future, but Stiles anticipates that they'll have some push-back when it comes to their age.
"It'll be fine," he says, sketching notes on a spare piece of paper, a mess of them spread out on the massive dining table in front of him. "That's like, the easiest point to argue."
Laura hums, tucks her hair behind her ear as she leans back easily in her chair, but Stiles doesn't have to be a werewolf to tell that she's tense.
"We'll each have a part," he explains, more to sort everything out perfectly in his own head than to lay it out for her one more time. "A side to represent. I'll be there to represent Beacon Hills, the humans, I guess. Allison will be there to lend hunter support, and to redefine what she and her family are all about in this bright new world we live in."
Laura doesn't flinch, but she tenses up hard, and Stiles touches her wrist because it feels like the right thing to do in the moment. She seems to settle a little, the strange, crackling energy in the air between them stilling. She meets his gaze, surprise simmering just below the surface, but then she shrugs and seems to brush it off.
"I'll be ok," she vows, seriously, bravely. "I won't… I can't let them think that I'm afraid of them. Of her. If they think we're still afraid of them they'll think we don't trust them, and that will just…"
"It's ok if you don't," Stiles says quietly as she trails off. "No one would blame you."
He doesn't know all of it, but he knows that despite the bad blood and the rumors, the 'official' story about the war between the Argents and the Hales, it had been more of a massacre than anything. Allison had sent him an electronic record almost a week ago when he'd first approached her about all this, said she'd trusted him to know what to do with the truth, and on that little drive he'd found a horrifying account of what had really happened, how Kate Argent, her aunt, had gone completely nuts and broke the family code, leading a rogue cadre of hunters into the Preserve and attacking the Hale pack despite the fact that they had led a quiet, peaceful existence outside of the city proper.
There's more to it of course. More, because werewolves had only just been revealed to the world and everything had been a mess, with everyone's understanding of myth and magic getting turned on its head. Fearmongering and lies and real, actual attacks, bad people and bad werewolves fulfilling stereotypes, Beacon Hills had been on the verge of lynch-mobbings at the time.
Stiles remembers a little of that, mostly the look that had lingered on his father's face for months after he came home from work. He remembers the night he's been woken up by the screaming of sirens, the flash of police cars and the low honk of fire engines racing past their house toward the woods.
His father had come home smelling of smoke the next morning.
Now he sees a family a lot like his, scarred from old wounds that still run deep, and no, he doesn't blame Laura at all.
"I trust you Stiles," she says, and he has to swallow hard because she's looking him right in the eyes, her fingers laced tight with his. "The longer you're here, the more you talk, the more I can see a future for me. For us."
"We'll build one," he hears himself say, and that strange double-timbre, that echo seems to wash over his words again, his tongue tingling. "You and I and Peter."
A smile cracks over Laura's face and the moment is broken, the solemn, heavy weight of his words lifted.
"Peter huh?" she asks, a smug little curve to the edge of her mouth. "And where exactly does my uncle fit into all this hmm?"
"Shut up," Stiles mutters, cheeks burning as he starts gathering up his papers.
"Seriously though," Laura says, solemn once more as she helps him sort the disaster. "I always saw Peter there beside me."
"How so?" he asks, before he can think the better of it.
"He's younger than my mom," she says, tapping the table thoughtfully. "Than Uncle Vin. He's… sort of my mom's beta, but he's always been… kind of separate. Not an omega, but… close. I always knew I'd be Alpha someday, that the pack would shift and change and grow when I took over for my mom, and of course every pack has certain roles that need to be filled."
Here she pauses, looks at him full on again, and the red tinge is back in her eyes.
"You've accepted position as my emissary, my right hand," she says, and Stiles' heart starts beating harder. "With you here, I think my Uncle will accept a position as my left."
"He doesn't even like me," Stiles mutters under his breath, turning away to stuff his things back into his bookbag. He doesn't know why it hurts so much to say it out loud.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Laura says, walking into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water. "The people my uncle doesn't like tend to... go away."
"Yeah, that's not ominous at all," Stiles huffs. "Like I needed one more thing to worry about."
Following after her into the kitchen, he opens the oven and pokes the roast with a meat fork, pleased with the give and the way the juices immediately start to flow. Grabbing some hotpads, he pulls the dish out and sets it on top of the stove, turning off the heat and accepting the giant (literally, huge) serving platter Laura hands him.
"It should be fine," he says again, for what feels like the millionth time as he lifts the roast from the baking dish onto the plate, wobbling it because the thing still weighs about sixteen pounds. "We give all the political reasons why we're reintegrating – aka, why the treaty and the segregation is stupid and straight out of the dark ages – then we give the cliff notes on how the thing works legally, give people their opportunity to bitch and moan at the votes next year."
Laura nods, hands him a carving knife that looks like a small sword – to better go with the shield of a serving platter.
"The police department gives their blessing," he continues, "Allison as the Argents' ruling matriarch gives theirs. We breeze through all that nonsense, which, really, shouldn't even need to be said, then we can get to the real brownie points."
"Isaac," Laura says solemnly.
"Isaac what?"
Stiles looks up, surprised, only to find Isaac standing in the kitchen half-hidden behind Derek, who's wearing a black leather jacket inside and looking rather darkly protective, tiny Cora sitting on his hip. The little girl wriggles to be let down, then runs across to Stiles' side, bouncing up on her toes and signing rapidly.
Yummy!
Stiles grins at her, rubs his hand over the top of her head, then nearly has a heart-attack because that probably means something different…
But Cora just smiles, hugs his leg and rubs her cheek against his thigh, then runs back to Derek and grabs his hand, tugging him into the dining room and pointing imperiously at the chair decked out with a thick, fluffy booster-cushion.
"You cool buddy?" Stiles asks brightly as he turns back to the abused teenager standing awkwardly on the other side of the island, because he's an idiot and doesn't know what else to say.
Isaac looks down, picks at a cuticle before shrugging.
"Derek's ok. I remember him from… before."
Oh yeah.
Before, when the Hale kids had gone to public school with everybody else passing as human and getting along just fine, not hurting anyone.
Stiles thinks he remembers Isaac running around after a ten-year-old Derek Hale when they were in like, kindergarten.
He had always been too cool for everyone else.
"Yeah, they're all ok," Stiles agrees, as Laura shoots him a look and quietly excuses herself to go set the table with a mile-high stack of plates. "So um, listen dude, I know this is probably like, the worst possible time to ask you to do this, but…"
"I will."
Stiles stops, looks up from where he's pouring au jus into a pan for gravy and promptly burns himself.
"Ow, crap, wait, what?"
"I'll do it," Isaac says, lifting his head and straightening his shoulders as best he can. Kid looks pretty pathetic, what with the black eye and how skinny he is, but that will work in their favor. "You want me to testify, right?"
"Um, kind of?" Stiles mumbles, and it comes out more like a question as he runs his hand under cold water. "Not like, in court or anything. And not really against your dad."
"He can't take me back."
This time Stiles really does stop, leaves everything and actually looks at Isaac.
"Your dad," he says slowly, "You and Scott. I know you were trying to help. But I got taken away once, when I was little, and it didn't… my dad got me back. All the police, all the social workers, the foster families… they couldn't do anything, not really. The Hales, they can…"
"They aren't going to fight your dad Isaac," Stiles says quietly when the other teenager trails off, voice choking up and tears rising. "They won't have to. That's… kind of the point."
"No, I know," he says, sniffing hard, scrubbing at his eyes. "But he's scared of them. Werewolves. He's scared of anybody who's not afraid of him. I feel like I'm safe for the first time in my whole life and I can't…"
The next thing Stiles knows, Laura is there and she's got Isaac wrapped up in the most through hug he thinks he's ever seen, the two of them pressed together from nose to toes. Laura's holding Isaac's face in the crook of her neck, letting him sob, and she looks like she's never letting go, staring Stiles right in the eye the whole time, and he feels like he can't breathe, like a thread is being unraveled from his chest in order to pull him forward and tie them all together.
He doesn't take a breath until Isaac does, heaving a sigh that causes Laura to look away and let him loose again, still keeping her hands on his shoulders as if she can't bear to let him get far.
"I'm ok," he sniffles, and Laura smiles sadly, ruffles his curls.
"Yes you are," she agrees, touching his cheek, his throat. "Come on. Let's get you something to eat before the masses catch a whiff."
A rusty laugh bubbles up out of Isaac then, and he looks so startled by the sound Stiles has to wonder how long it's been since he made it. Together they carry the roast, gravy, potatoes and carrots to the long, wooden table and Laura sits at the end, Stiles positioned on her right and Isaac, her brother and sister on the left. Stiles stands on instinct and lifts the serving fork, filling his Alpha's plate with meat as something that feels like ritual takes up residence in the back of his head. Laura nods and he serves himself, then offers her the fork and watches her serve the other three, watches her dole out healthy portions to what will soon be her pack.
Their pack, he realizes, as he looks up and once again finds them being watched.
Talia Hale stands in the doorway to the dining room, several other members of her family crowded in behind her sniffing the air, but not daring to brush past. She's looking at her daughter like she's never seen her before, looking at him, and there's a great pride and fear in her gaze that sits heavily on his shoulders.
Stepping into the room, she comes to stand at Laura's side and nods at her daughter, formal and regal.
It's not a coronation, not a passing of the torch, but there's an intense a meaningful respect in the action that all the other werewolves watch with awe, and Laura grips his hand beneath the table so hard his fingers ache.
XXX
Dinner is a curious lesson in both manners and ferocity that Stiles watches with utter fascination. The werewolves tear into the meal with a relish that suggests none of them have eaten in days, and yet the hierarchy within the pack remains first and foremost. David sits at Talia's right side, in a place once filled by the vet, Deaton, and serves her, then himself. Once their plates are filled Talia herself serves Calvin, who winks at Stiles while she does. He then hands the plate to Nick, who serves himself and passes the dish onward, to the aunts, uncles, and cousins who have all come piling in to crowd around the table that fits more than Stiles had expected it to.
There's enough to go around, but only just. Stiles is going to have to redefine his understanding of what 'a lot' is. It's not the entire pack, thank god, because that would be humiliating, to only provide for half of his new family, but then again, there's somehow a distinctive line between Talia and the established Hale pack, and this newer, smaller faction he and Laura seem to be pulling on, those whom they had fed first.
He watches Derek cut up Cora's food for her the way another, older woman does for the twins who had giggled at Stiles his first morning in the kitchen. Sees Laura watch over the whole of the group the way her mother does. Even sees himself reacting to it all in a way he never would have thought he might, learning the names of those he doesn't know as each of them thanks him, then Laura for the meal.
It doesn't irritate him the way it should. She hadn't helped pay for it, hadn't helped cook it, but he is her emissary and in choosing him, Laura had chosen someone good for the pack as a whole. That certainty settles over him like a cozy afghan, warm and fitting and right, normal somehow.
He's always been a quick learner.
He follows Laura when she gets up. Isaac and Derek almost do the same, but she touches them each on the shoulder and they sit back down, pick up their forks again. She leaves her plate behind so he does the same, though it chafes because he's used to doing the cooking and the washing up at home. Here, clearly, this is a task for the lesser-ranking wolves, and he has no real desire to misstep where he's been doing so well.
Laura leads him out onto the porch where the early-evening sun is just starting to sink behind the trees. Sitting down on the steps beside her, he breathes in the smell of woods and loam and honeysuckle, watches the sky as it stripes brilliant pink and orange. Crickets start to come out, and birds sing quietly, and it's a moment of peace in the little valley that seems to mean more than it should.
"Isaac said he'll come," Stiles says, breaking the silence even though he knows Laura had heard them talking earlier in the kitchen. "I think it will be good for him."
"As long as his father isn't there," Laura growls, the tips of her fangs sliding out over her lip.
"He won't be. My dad's controlling who gets access to the Town Hall, and he's vetted the camera crews he's letting in too."
"Good."
"I think it'll work," he muses. "People know what his dad is like; they'll be glad someone is… taking care of him."
Beside him Laura frowns, wraps her arms around her knees.
"You are, you know," he says, because he thinks someone needs to say it to her. "You've given him enough food and a comfortable place to stay, sure, but you've given him safety too. I think he's probably more relaxed right now than he's been in years. You gave him a friend back…"
"Derek needs a friend," she replies, looking out across the trees. "He growls about it, but I think he's happy to have Isaac on his tail. He never really… grew up, after. He's still so young. And then there's Paige…"
Stiles glances at her but she seems lost, so he doesn't push it, though his curiosity bites at him.
"There'll be more," he says softly, because it's something he's already thought about but maybe Laura hasn't. "There'll be people who are pissed and not ok with this, but there are gonna be others. Others who want…"
"Who want the bite."
"Yes," he sighs.
His shoulder throbs and he very, very specifically doesn't think about it.
"That's not a bad thing Stiles."
'Maybe not for you,' he thinks, but he doesn't say that out loud.
"Tell me?"
Laura looks away, blinks hard a few times before clearing her throat and speaking just a little too loudly, like she's trying to take control of her voice.
"We were crippled after the war," she says, "Not just some of us but the pack as a whole. For as many scars and injuries as you can see there are probably four or five more that you can't. Like with Nicky…"
She shakes her head.
"That's not the point. The point is that as a pack we look weak. Because of our scars, but because of other things too. The fact that we let Beacon Hills push us back into the woods, keep us out of the town and away from people while the rest of the world still spins, while other packs came out in full view and got on like they always had been. The fact that our numbers are depleted, by death and by injury and by desertion…"
Suddenly she turns to him, eyes wet and furious.
"Do you know why Luca's here?" she demands, reaching out and grabbing his forearm, fingers tipped with claws. "Why they sent him? They want to absorb our pack Stiles! They want to take us over, to integrate us until there is no Hale pack left!"
"Who?" he asks, confused and nervous as a very real fear begins to pound sharply through his veins.
Laura drops his arm, laughs a laugh that's more like a cackle.
"Everyone," she declares, flinging out an arm to encompass the entire world. "All the other packs. The Castellanos to the south, the Bouchers to the north, the Patralias."
Jumping to her feet, she starts to pace at the bottom of the steps, sharp and abrupt, back and forth across the path. Stiles stays where he is, feeling a bit like a rabbit that knows to stay bedded down, but hoping that he's projecting a calm that will reach her.
Coming to a harsh stop in front of him, she reaches out and takes his face between her hands, leans down and presses their foreheads together as she breathes him in.
"We are beset on all sides by those that would ruin us, my Emissary," she says quietly, and the words should be hokey and ridiculous but Stiles thinks he can feel them echo at his very core. "If we are to survive, we must rebuild. We will need new pack mates, young and strong and as loyal as the wolves that once ran these hills."
"Then I will find them for you, my Alpha," he hears himself say, and that surging, tingling warmth overtakes him once more, pushes out from his center to the end of every nerve as he speaks words he's sure have been spoken before. "We will rebuild. No wolf shall threaten us or ours, foreign or pack. We will thrive, and we will stay the Hales."
"Yes," Laura nods, and for the briefest moment her eyes blaze full ruby-red. "And we will need my uncle to do it."
