Author's Note: I know I've been away too long but here we go. I own nothing.

8. Awakening

The ride to the vet's office was a silent affair. Derek was in the passenger seat holding Stiles, Deaton was squished into the middle of the car between Derek and the Sheriff, who was driving. They arrived quickly and were met by the rest of the pack within minutes as they ran up to the building. Boyd and Scott were flanking a worryingly compliant Peter, who looked simply curious. They all piled into the vet's clinic. Derek laid Stiles down on the metal table and stepped back a few inches. His eyes were still glowing red with concern. Deaton had barely stepped up to the table when Stiles sat bolt upright her eyes snapping open to reveal bright purple iris's glowing where there should be whiskey golden brown. Everyone froze, unsure what to do.

Stiles tilted her head, eyes narrowing slightly at what appeared to be a blank spot on the wall between Lydia and Peter. Then she reached forwards and wrapped a hand around thin air. The purple glow spread from her eyes down the veins under her skin to her hand and swirled out through her fingers wrapping itself around a black thread that was becoming clearer and clearer to the others in the room. Lydia flinched and her eyes went glassy again, like they had been when Jackson found her in the woods. Peter's eyes were glowing a bright blue as his fangs began to sprout. Derek growled but Peter wasn't moving, there was a low whimper coming from him like he was trying to protest or move but couldn't.

Tension hung in the air for a moment before Stiles brought her hand down sharply snapping the string that connected Lydia and Peter. Peter winced sharply his eyes flashing back to their regular brown. Lydia started like someone woken from a deep sleep. She blinked a few times then stared at Stiles in awe. Stiles was still staring at the dissolving thread in her hands her eyes still that eerie purple. Derek wanted her bright shining brown eyes back, this was starting to scare him which was saying quite a bit considering the circumstances. But still the pack remained still, soft whines coming from most of them. Erica had tears in her eyes. Only the Sheriff moved. He stepped forwards slowly.

"Stiles?" Her eyes snapped up to his, still glowing. There were tears in his eyes.

"Stiles, come back to me, please." The glow dimmed slowly until Stiles blinked and her eyes cleared back to their normal whiskey depths. There were tears in her eyes too as she looked down at her hands. Her father stepped forwards and reached out to her. She launched herself into her fathers arms, sobbing into his shoulder. A few minutes passed before every wolf in the room heard her whisper.

"I saw mom." Johns arms tightened around his daughter at that revelation, the pack whimpered, Erica inching closer to the pair. Stiles seemed to notice and pulled the other girl into the hug. Isaac wasn't far behind, Scott joined too latching onto the other side of the pair of Stilinskis. Boyd was pulled in by Erica and Derek made to leave but an arm shot out from the mass of bodies and grabbed his hand. He glanced down at it and recognized it immediately. It belonged to his old friend, his childhood playmate. It belonged to Stiles. He let himself be pulled into the hug. They stayed that way for a few minutes until someone else in the room moved. Peter was trying to slink out of the room while they were distracted.

Derek lunged and snagged Peter around the throat eyes burning red, fangs out on full display a roar building in his chest. Peter smiled sheepishly.

"So good to see you nephew." He choked out before Derek tightened his grip slightly. John Stilinski's hand dropped to his sidearm on instinct but Stiles stepped between him and Derek, with her back to him.

"Derek put him down." Derek dropped his uncle with a small confused noise. Peter coughed loudly gasping for air before pulling himself up to a sitting position and smiling at Stiles.

"Aw, never knew you cared." She rolled her eyes at him.

"Believe me I would let him rip your throat out again if we didn't need you." Confused sounds came from every wolf around the room as Peter's smile grew wider.

"You always were the clever one, even when you were tiny. Always outsmarting Derek and Cora. Even Laura had trouble keeping up with you some days." Derek growled loudly but Stiles stepped forwards slightly looking down at the wolf on the floor.

"And you've almost always been an asshole Peter. But you know what's coming, don't you?" The whole room seemed to tense as Peter stared at Stiles like she'd just let Derek rip his throat out. Then he nodded.

"I know what's already here. The Alpha Pack." Stiles nodded stepping back to her dad turning and seeming to finally connect the dots that he had just witnessed all of that. She went pale.

"Oh shit." Her dad shook his head pulling her back into a hug.

"We will be talking about this later, but you're ok and that's what matters." She nodded and hugged him back.

It took several hours to bring the sheriff up to speed on everything that had been really happening in Beacon Hills over the past six months. By the time they were finished he was sitting in one of the chairs Deaton and Scott had pulled out of the back room. He remembered Derek now, the fresh faced boy four years older than Stiles who would on occasion accompany his sister Laura to their house so he and Claudia could go out for the night. He remembered how jealous Derek had been when Stiles made friends with Scott. He'd refused to hang out with the two of them, like the petulant child he had been. Then Claudia had gotten sick, and bit by bit memories of the Hale's faded until he knew them on sight but not well enough to approach them. Stiles had been the same, no longer remembering her friends from the Hale family. He remembered Derek, barely a teenager when his house burned to the ground, remembered the tears spilling down his face when Laura showed up at the Station to pick him up. Stiles had been at the station that night. She had tried to help Derek that night but he had been too badly traumatized, even she had been unable to reach him.

He also couldn't help but notice that throughout their entire story Derek had not left Stiles' side. He was always within reach of her. Erica and Boyd had curled up at her feet at some point. They were like a pair of nervous puppies, and after finding out what Gerard Argent had done to them and to Stiles, John completely understood. Isaac stuck much closer to Scott than to the others. Peter was sitting on the other side of Derek. He didn't look uncomfortable even as John contemplated if he should be arresting the man or not. He'd done quite a bit that he could be arrested for but would the station even be able to hold him? Probably not physically but maybe getting his throat slit by his own nephew was enough of a punishment. Plus he was legally missing presumed dead after the body of his nurse, whom he'd killed, had been found in the preserve, about a mile off where Peter had left Stiles locked in the trunk of his nurse's car the night of the winter formal. John sighed.

"Ok, so everyone here is a werewolf, except for Stiles and Lydia. But Lydia got bit by Peter while he was an Alpha werewolf, but didn't turn. And Stiles is…?" He paused and Deaton stepped in.

"The technical term is fae born. Even though she's several times removed from the original fae in her family." The entire pack jumped, they had all forgotten Deaton was even there. John nodded.

"Ok…" Stiles stood up and stepped around the wolves at her feet.

"Are you ok dad?" He nodded.

"Yeah, Stiles, I'm alright. I just wish you'd told me sooner. Maybe I could help. At the very least I'm enrolling you in self defense classes." Scott breathed a sigh of relief.

"I kinda thought you were gonna make her stop helping us." John Stilinski raised an eyebrow at Scott.

"Have you met my daughter? Once she sets her mind to something there's no stopping her." Stiles smiled and hugged her father again.