"What'd I do?" Derek can't stop trembling. "What'd I do to them?"

Maybe he'd completely lost his mind. Maybe he'd killed them all himself.

No, no, no no no...

"Derek," Stiles says, so softly, and tries to take his hand. Derek pulls away, repulsed.

How can Stiles stand to touch him?

How can anyone?

"It wasn't your fault," Scott repeats, like he's trying to convince himself. His eyes are wide and sorry.

"Stop lying," Derek says. Stiles turns, stares at Scott.

"You're lying?"

"I don't—" Scott stops, frustrated. "I know you didn't mean to—"

"Shut up," Stiles snaps. "You're just making it worse." He turns back to Derek, says, "He's wrong, okay, it wasn't on you—"

"You killed Boyd with your own claws," Peter says calmly. "He'd tried to run with his love, Erica. They escaped and ran through the woods looking for a new pack to take them in. To... protect them. But you found them again."

"That's not what happened," Stiles says, but that's not completely true, either. "He's just twisting everything. The alpha pack used you, and you tried to—C'mon, Derek, you can't trust him."

"And who can Derek trust?" Peter challenges. "You? The boy who framed him for murder? Twice, wasn't it?"

"That's—" Stiles says, but his eyes are heavy with guilt.

"We didn't know him yet," Scott says. "We didn't know who was doing it."

"But you knew it wasn't him," Peter says. "If not the first time, then certainly the second. And you named him anyway. To impress your Argent girlfriend."

They're not all bad, Stiles had said in the Jeep. We just lost the best of them, though.

Her name was Allison.

She was Kate's niece.

All at once, the pain comes back.

"We screwed up, okay?" Stiles says. "We've all screwed up. But we never meant to hurt you. I never—"

"But you did hurt him," Peter says. "And you let Scott hurt him."

They're not denying any of it.

Pain lights Derek up, fades his senses to shadows of themselves. His eyes burn.

"We didn't just hurt him!" Scott snaps. "There were reasons! We weren't just—"

"Reasons to force Derek to give Gerard Argent the Bite?" Peter asks. "Kate's father, the mastermind behind the fire that decimated our family? Derek begged you to stop. He was terrified. And you just held him down."

There are tears in Stiles' eyes, but Derek can't look at him anymore. His half-healed ribs press down on his lungs, make breathing impossible.

"It was a trick," Scott says uncertainly. "It made Gerard sick. It was supposed to kill him. Deaton—"

"But it didn't kill him," Peter says. "And neither did you. Though you've had ample opportunities."

This can't be happening again, not again...

Derek's head spins.

"But Derek didn't know it was a trick, did he?" Peter's still talking. He's never going to stop, not until Scott's pack stops trying to lie. And then Derek will have nothing, all over again.

"He genuinely thought he was going to die," Peter says. "That an Argent was going to kill him. Because you never bothered to let him in on your master plan. And why would you? You can barely stand him."

"That's not—" Scott says, but he stops. Even he can hear the lie now.

A sob lodges in Derek's throat, stays there. He presses his lips thin, clenches his jaw tight, tries not to breathe at all.

"He broke my arm," Scott says in a rush. "He never explained anything. He expected me to just trust him, listen to him, be his brother—" And there it is, for the third time in less than a month: The ugly truth. Derek's mouth is bloody with bitten-down protest. "I never wanted the Bite, and he expected me to be grateful—"

"Shut up, Scott," Stiles says. His eyes are wide with panic. "That's just what he wants you to say. You're giving him exactly what he wants. Just shut up!"

But Scott isn't listening.

"He turned kids," Scott says. He isn't even looking at Derek anymore. "Lonely kids, desperate kids. Isaac was being abused, Boyd was alone, Erica was sick. They would have grabbed anything anyone offered them with both hands if it could fix that, and he made it sound exciting. He made it sound like they'd be invincible. He didn't tell them they would die, and watch their friends die, and be hunted—Erica thought she was gonna be his girlfriend. She was fifteen. She just wanted to drive, and stop having seizures, and not be bullied by the whole school for something she couldn't control. She thought she'd finally be powerful. Superhuman. And she didn't get to live to her next birthday."

"But there was one beta left, after everything," Peter says. "One standing survivor. Isaac Lahey. And where is he now?"

Scott goes quiet.

"Derek was reckless," Peter says. "Of course, he made mistakes."

No one bothers to deny that.

"And yes, his pack fell," Peter says. "But you were there beside him for all of it. You did everything you could to stand in his way. Because you never wanted Derek to be an alpha. Not yours, and and not anyone else's."

Derek stares at Scott, horrified, but Scott only sees Peter. Derek isn't even part of the discussion anymore. Maybe he never was.

"You always wanted to be the alpha, Scott," Peter says. "You only 'helped' Derek on the promise that you would be the one to kill me, and take it all. And when he didn't give you what you wanted... you did everything you could to tear his pack apart. You told his betas all the ways he'd failed them. All the ways you would have warned them. Because he was selfish, you said. He was using them in a bid for power. But you were different. Scott McCall, the hero, the messiah... the True Alpha. Isn't that what you call yourself these days?"

Scott isn't even trying to argue anymore. His eyes are angry, jaw tight and defiant, but he knows it's true.

Derek's an idiot.

"And you succeeded," and oh, Peter is still talking. Maybe this will just go on forever. Maybe Derek really did die after all, and this is Hell. "Derek's last surviving beta became yours. And then what did you do with him? With poor, abused Isaac Lahey? Would you like to explain it to him?"

He waits.

"You threw him against a wall," Peter says, after a too-long silence makes it all too clear. "And then you did it again. Poor Isaac just took it. You'd made it clear you were still his best option. Until you sent him away, brokenhearted, with Kate Argent's brother."

"Is that true?" Derek says. He can't stop his voice shaking. "Did you let a hunter take my beta away? An Argent?"

Scott doesn't deny it.

Derek doesn't know how he does it with every part of him trembling, but he gets up, gets as far away from Scott as he can inside the claustrophobic little room. Still, he has to ask.

"Where are they?"

How can it keep getting worse? How can Derek be so fucking stupid? He'd taken for granted that he could trust Scott.

Because Stiles trusts Scott.

How can he?

"You gave Derek's last beta to the family of hunters that burned ours alive," Peter says, and he's enjoying this, even solemn-faced, wide eyed, Derek can tell. He'll drag out this I told you so until Derek's numb from the beating. He'll make Derek beg to have him. Especially after yesterday, Derek hitting him and hitting him, so sure he had a better answer than joining Peter's pack.

He thought he had a new pack.

He thought he had a new family.

He's so fucking stupid.

"So you tell me, Scott," Peter says. "Why would my nephew trust you?"

Scott doesn't even open his mouth.

"And you, Stiles," Peter says when Stiles does open his mouth. Derek closes his eyes, tries to trap the fire behind them. Tries to control that tiny part of him, get that one thing right, at least. "You never lifted a finger to stop it. You never liked Isaac either. And you hated Derek."

It's the last punch in the gut that leaves Derek breathless. Stiles' heartbeat is going crazy. But all he says is, "Shut up. I love him."

And it's not a lie.

Derek almost manages to take a breath—

"And that's interesting, too," Peter says, and Derek's heart sinks. "You kissed Cora... Then on to Malia... And now Derek. Doesn't it seem odd that the best friend of Scott McCall, who has been working to destroy the last of the Hale pack since you first met him, is so… Hale-sexual?"

Stiles stops talking to Peter at all. He steps closer to Derek, tentative, like Derek's a deer he's trying not to spook, and his voice breaks when he says, "I really do love you, Derek." He takes a deep, shuddering breath. "You fucking know I'm not lying."

"But you really do love Malia too, don't you," Peter says mockingly, and Derek hates him, but nowhere near the way he hates himself. "And over time, you could have come to really love Cora."

"Not like this," Stiles says.

But his eyes flick over to Malia, apologetic, and Derek has heard enough. Seen enough.

He finds Peter's side.

"Derek, don't," Stiles begs. "Just—stop listening to him, c'mon, you know he isn't—"

But Peter isn't lying.

Derek may hate every word out of his mouth, but at least it's the truth.

"Stop." Stiles turns to Peter. Tears slip silently down his face, constant as breathing, almost too quick to see. "Please just leave him alone. Why do you even want him? What are you planning?"

Why do you even want him?

How does it keep hurting just as bad, every time?

"Isn't that what you want, Stiles?" Peter asks, and Derek hates how he has an answer for everything. How Stiles doesn't have a hope of explaining it all away, how it's so obvious. Derek hates himself for not figuring it out, again. For being so sure he was right, this time, finally. "The last of Derek's real pack gone, so you can replace it? You broke my nephew so slowly, so carefully, and then you rebuilt him again. Just the way you wanted him."

"You killed Laura," Stiles snarls, swiping at his eyes.

"Temporarily," Peter says.

"Temporarily?" Stiles says. "You're insane."

"I died too, you know," Peter says. "I let myself be killed. To test a theory. And now I know I was right."

"What are you talking about?" Scott asks.

Peter ignores him.

"They can all come back, Derek," he says softly. "We can bring them all back."