Stiles was trying to direct Derek through the chaotic rush hour Las Vegas traffic towards Davis Peterson's house, when Derek suddenly signaled and pulled over on the side of the road.

"What, are you mad at me again or something? Google maps can only do so much Derek. You've got to change the lanes yourself and I can't help but comment here and there," Stiles said.

"No, your directions are fine. A little bitchy, but I can live with that. I turned Erica, after all. I'm just not sure we're doing the right thing. I mean, going to this guy's house? Won't that immediately put him on the offensive? What if we go to his office instead," Derek suggested.

"And what, tell his secretary our appointment is in regards to the werewolf assassin conspiracy theory we're not entirely sure we're not just making up?"

"We say we know Malia. Maybe he'll want to use her to get to the Desert Wolf."

"Well, actually that's not bad," Stiles said. "It would probably get us through the door. But we can't actually produce Malia, so it would just piss him off in the end."

"And maybe the guy's got some scruples. I mean, otherwise why wouldn't he have tried that before? Hopefully the CIA has more resources than Peter, and I refuse to believe it's just a coincidence that Malia ended up placed with a family in Beacon Hills," Derek said.

"Please God tell me the CIA has more resources than Peter," Stiles muttered. He slapped the dashboard thoughtfully for a few moments and then turned to Derek. "Well, I gotta admit, a lot of my strategy depended on you threatening to rip out throats, which will be less effective if there's an office full of CIA agents and security nearby."

"Were you thinking of sharing that strategy with me or what?"

"I thought you could just stand there and look threatening while I talked," Stiles said.

"You do realize that I'm the adult here, right? Maybe I should do the talking."

"I thought you said I looked all manly now. Besides, what the hell is scarier than a teenage boy in control of a 200 pound werewolf?"

"I don't weigh 200 pounds!"

Stiles ignored him, and then shrugged. "Well, should we do it or not?"

Derek looked towards the busy road, and Stiles tried to imagine his thought process. As ever, the things that went through his furry head were a total mystery to Stiles. Who knew if the man even wanted to go back to Beacon Hills and his old life? Finally, Derek said, "I say we do your plan, whatever it is."

"Cool."

"You know a lot of law enforcement types live in gated communities. What if we can't even get it?" Derek asked.

"Have you always been this much of a nervous Nelly? Actually, maybe negative Nancy is better. And you've definitely always been negative, so that answers that question."

"When enough bad things happen to you, you start to expect them," Derek said. Stiles tried to imagine losing the amount of people that Derek had lost, and he couldn't do it. He wondered if he should make some kind of awkward attempts sympathy, but Derek cleared his throat and pulled into traffic, and then Stiles too preoccupied with acting like Derek's personal GPS to say anything.

"Look at that. No gate," Stiles said.

"We getting close?"

"One street over. Just take the next left," he said.

Derek pulled up in front of the street and Stiles looked at the house. It was a new build, and the neighbourhood was full of houses that looked exactly like it, all with pathetically small trees and browning yards.

Stiles looked at the house for a moment, and then got out of the car decisively. He walked up to the door, and then waited until Derek was standing beside him to knock. A few moments later a teenaged-girl opened the door.

"Hi. We're here to see Davis Peterson. Is he home?" Stiles asked.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"You better call him," Stiles said.

She shrugged and flounced off, looking more carefree than anyone had a right to. Stiles couldn't remember carefree. He could barely remember boredom. Who would have thought that he'd miss boredom?

"Kids," he muttered.

Derek raised an eyebrow, but didn't state the obvious—that though Stiles might be technically an adult, at eighteen, that girl was probably less than a year younger than him. Of course, if anyone understood the concept of being old before one's time, it was Derek.

"I don't know what you told my daughter, but I'm not in the market for whatever you're selling," said a middle-aged man who was walking down the stairs.

Stiles examined the man. Although he was preppy enough to look like an older, less handsome version of Jackson, there was something dangerous about him. Stiles kind of wanted to turn around and leave. This CIA agent who was probably more effective than the one in Stiles' imagination forced him to re-think his strategy.

"Derek, wolf out. Not full wolf. Just enough," Stiles said.

Davis held up his hand. "That won't be necessary. I didn't realize—Cindy, we're out of milk. Run and get some, will you?" he called to his daughter.

She came down the stairs, grinning. "Can I take the car?"

He tossed the keys to her and she ran to do her errand, apparently happy to get a chance to drive on her own. Stiles envied her, in a way. She had a normal life, free of all that horrors that made up his daily existence. But he couldn't deny that the things he did were important, and that made his life a whole lot more meaningful than hers probably was.

They moved to the living room. Stiles and Davis sat facing each other, and Derek stood behind Stiles, looking intimidating.

Davis gestured towards them both. "What is this? Who are you? Is he your bodyguard or something?"

"I'm not anyone important," Stiles said. "Actually, Derek is the important one, here. He's one of the last of the Hales. On this occasion, I'm going to be speaking for him."

"Oh?" Davis asked, looking amused. "Why is that?"

"Because the subject we're going to be discussing makes him pretty mad, and, you know the old saying. You wouldn't like him when he's angry," Stiles said.

Stiles resisted the urge to look at Derek. Stiles was trying to look confident, and turning back to make sure Derek wasn't going to cuff him on the back of the head wouldn't help him any with that. He wondered if Derek was going to slam his head into something later, though. Derek had better control that most werewolves, according to Peter, especially considering how much tragedy he'd endured, and it felt wrong to pretend otherwise.

Davis' smile faded away. "Wait, did you say Hale?"

"Yes. We've got a couple of questions for you, the first being, why was the Desert Wolf trying to ingratiate herself into the Hale pack? What was she after?"

"It was simple surveillance. Like any dangerous group, supernaturals have to be monitored," Davis said.

"Why CIA? Isn't this more like a Homeland Security problem? And why is there a CIA officer operating out of Vegas? Don't most of you work in Washington or overseas?"

"Homeland Security didn't exist before 9-11, back when the Desert Wolf was investigating the Hales. We were an experiment—too covert to concern ourselves with whether or not a supernatural is really a citizen and if policing supernatural citizens really falls under the CIA mandate. Besides, if you're from Beacon Hills you should know that when certain packs take over an area, they can be more destructive than terrorists."

"Werewolves pay their taxes just like everyone else," Stiles said. "We heard that the Desert Wolf was trying to get close with the Hale pack to assassinate Talia Hale."

"Assassinate her? Are you kidding? The Hale pack was strong, stable, and actually protected Beacon Hills, which has always been some kind of magnet for the weird and crazy things of this world. Yeah, we had an asset in the mix, but not to kill anyone," Davis said.

Stiles considered. He wasn't sure where to go with this anymore, because he believed Davis. Finally, he said, "What can you tell me about the Desert Wolf?"

"I'm not going to tell you anything. It's kind of nice to see you all grown up, Derek, but you don't scare me. It's hard to be frightened of someone who used to whine to his mommy about peanut butter sandwiches and bedtime stories in my surveillance tapes. I think it's time you boys leave," he said.

"Derek and Braeden found her, and she threatened to kill them to protect her cover. Now, I don't know much about this woman, but I don't think anything she's got going on is worth killing Derek over. So you're going to help me find her and convince her not to kill him, or you're going to give me some information on her so I can find her and take care of it myself. And if you have any pictures of Derek as a child, you should probably give me those, too," Stiles said.

"She actually threatened to kill you?" Davis asked, looking at Derek.

"She did," Derek said.

"Well, I'd like to think that's an idle threat, but it's hard to know. These days Braeden knows her better than I do. I passed the hunt off to her when it seemed like it was going to go on forever."

"Why were you looking for her? Why was she in prison in the first place?" Stiles asked.

"She was in prison for questionable things that went on during the Hale case; her romantic involvement with Peter Hale was the least of the distasteful things she did. And as for why we're looking for her, she has sensitive material that we don't want to get to the media."

"Evidence that the supernatural exists?" Stiles guessed.

"Not only that the supernatural exists, but that the government has known about it for years, and has devoted millions of dollars to investigating supernatural groups and individuals."

"You think people would really believe that?" Stiles asked.

"No, not really. I mean, it would definitely embarrass a lot of people if the tapes got out. Heads would roll. Figuratively, I mean. Lots of important people would lose their jobs, even if the public didn't buy her story."

"So why hasn't she come forward?" Derek asked.

"She left a message when she broke out of the prison," Davis said. "She promised that if she could live her life without having to be in prison or being under CIA control, she'd keep her mouth shut."

"So why not take her at her word? Why send Braeden after her?" Derek asked.

Davis raised his eyebrows. "She's not to be trusted. Besides, the CIA doesn't take kindly to people who threaten to expose our secrets. That's the direction I got from my superiors, anyway. If it had been up to me, I might have taken a different approach."

"So why are you telling us then?" Stiles asked.

"You obviously know most of this already…or enough to make guesses that are probably more dangerous than the truth. I must have told Braeden more than I thought over the years. Anyway, I don't think there's any danger of either of you giving away government secrets."

"So, DW is a covert agent. She doesn't want to be found. You want to find her. What are you going to do to her when you find her?" Stiles asked.

"Prison. Solitary. She won't be able to have any reporter visitors."

"She won't be able to get out again and take revenge on Derek or Braeden?"

Davis cocked his head. "Would you rather I said she'd be eliminated, kid? We'll keep her secure this time. Besides, I'm not sure she's really all that dangerous to your friend. She was probably playing up on your assumption that she was dangerous or an assassin. She might try to kill you, but she probably wouldn't be able to do much against a werewolf, unless she's been training hard-core in krav maga or something all these years."

"I don't want to agree to help you find this woman if finding her ends up putting us in danger," Stiles said.

"What makes you think you can find her, especially now that you seem to have misplaced Braeden?"

"Braeden looked for her for years and couldn't find her. Derek joined the search and they found her in a couple of months. I think that speaks for itself," Stiles said.

Davis said that he'd talk to his boss about everything and get back to them. They shared contact information, and then Stiles and Derek walked out of the house and then went and sat in the car.

"You were integral to finding DW, weren't you?" Stiles asked.

"I find your acronym annoying."

"I find your face annoying."

Derek sighed, took a moment, and then continued. "Peter's information made a difference, but now she knows that we know what he knew. She will have changed her habits. We can't use that information against her again."

"Well then, we'll have to use you as bait," Stiles said.

"What?"

"She threatened to kill you. So we use you as bait. If she comes to kill you, better she do it with a CIA or FBI field office protecting you than back in Beacon Hills. If she doesn't come to kill you, he was right and she doesn't want to, it was just a threat, and we wash our hands of the whole thing after a suitable interval," Stiles said.

"That could work. But how are you going to convince this guy that that's the best course of action for us to take?"

"Now that, I don't know," Stiles said.