They should have seen the signs, the little moments that were building up to this moment. Maybe they did, but didn't want to think about what they meant. How everything has been leading them to now and to here.

AN: This part wraps up the main thread for the fic/verse. It will be marked as complete, but there may be later additions to it, if inspiration strikes and I have time.

"Oh."

That's all that Derek manages to say then. He can't breathe in, he can't speak because if he did he'd have to take a breath and that would mean taking in Stiles' scent. And that's something he is pretty sure he wouldn't be able to handle right then.

"Derek," Stiles whispers, and it's so quiet even Derek has trouble catching it.

He's frozen in place, unable to move, eyes wide open as he stares at Stiles and tries to process everything.

The dream was the first time, though for a long time Stiles chalked it up as another one of his nightmares. Even when they went for Derek in Mexico, he didn't think of it, didn't connect the dots, didn't realize. It wasn't until later, when Derek was the one who told Stiles about it, about the dream they shared without knowing that they did.

"My subconscious reached for you," Derek explained.

"Why me?" Stiles asked cautiously, afraid of what the answer would be, knowing what he wished for but unwilling to say it out loud.

"You'd been there," Derek replied. "I think… I think it was because I knew you'd get it, that you'd be able to help me find out if I was dreaming or awake."

"The finger counting," Stiles nodded. "That's how you knew."

It wasn't the reason he wanted to hear. But when Stiles looked at Derek, he also knew that what Derek said out loud wasn't the whole reason for why his mind, when in danger, reached for Stiles.

When they found Derek, Stiles was the only one who knew immediately. It wasn't only because he remembered Derek from before the fire. It wasn't because Stiles had looked at the old school photos and files when they had researched the Hales' past. He knew, because the moment Derek was out of the tomb, the moment Stiles laid eyes on what was only a slumped body between Braeden and Scott, he felt like he could breathe again.

"Is that him?" Malia asked.

Stiles felt everyone's eyes on him, waiting for confirmation, and for a split second, he wondered if everyone else knew about what Derek meant to him.

That Derek, the one from before the fire, from before Kate, didn't know Stiles, but when their eyes met, Stiles couldn't stop the shiver running down his spine. That was the first time that he thought of Derek as his. He couldn't put into words what Derek was to him, couldn't explain it yet, but that moment, looking at each other, Stiles knew that the recognition was about more than just their faces.

"How do you deal with it?" Derek asked, his voice small and broken.

"Deal with what?" Stiles asked back.

"Being human," Derek continued quietly. "Being breakable but not being afraid."

Stiles stopped the pacing around the room that he had been occupying himself with from the moment everyone had left the room.

"Is that why you were always so eager to throw yourself head first into battles?" Stiles asked after a pause. "Because you knew you'd heal?"

"I don't know how to…"

"... take care of yourself? How to put your life before someone else's? Because you always thought you were less vulnerable than others? Including the other wolves?"

Stiles knew then that his voice was rising too high, that his anger that had been suppressed for a long time was coming to the surface.

"You're an idiot, Derek Hale," he said after a moment of calming himself down.

"Stiles, I… I don't know how to not be a werewolf," Derek said with a resigned tone. "I don't know who I am without all that."

Stiles paused then, looked at Derek cautiously, then walked to the couch and sat down next to Derek.

"You're still you," he said firmly. "Der, look at me," he ordered and waited until their eyes met. "You're the same stubborn, protective, caring Derek Hale. You're still smart, still loyal, still willing to risk everything to protect the people you love."

"But what if I can't?"

"Then you try," Stiles said with a small smile tugging on his lips. "You fight, you investigate, you help. You figure out things that others can't."

"That's what you're good at," Derek whispered. "That's what you have always done for us."

"I could do with some help sometimes, you know?" Stiles said and grinned. "You're not the worst option for an assistant to the brains of this whole thing."

Partner, Derek wanted to say then but bit the word back. Instead he nodded and stayed silent, wishing he could still hear the reassuring and calming beat of Stiles' heart.

"You're not planning on coming back," she said to him as a statement, not a question.

"Not alive," Derek replied, trying to not let the shiver of his voice show too much.

He was human, then, and had no plans to stop fighting for as long as he possibly could. Scott was in danger, and Derek knew that the pack, the territory would need the Alpha, more than it ever needed him. He figured out fast that Peter was behind the plan and that Derek losing his wolf powers was a tool to make it easier to get to Scott.

Braeden was… at that point, Derek didn't know what exactly she was. He knew he wanted her to find Kate so he could find out and maybe reverse the effects of whatever Kate had done to him. He knew that she was a nice enough distraction, especially since his usual ones weren't available. He went to the Stilinskis' house often enough to realize that someone else claimed it as their territory. So, in Derek's eyes, he had every reason to fight until the end and no reason to cling to life.

But in the end he came back. They saved each other, they made it out. Most of them, at least. Scott became his Alpha, and Derek settled in nicely to pack life, content with being the link to the Hales and their history in Beacon Hills once Peter was finally removed as a threat.

When that happened, Malia left in search of her mother. Breaden left as well, since there were better sources of money and unfinished business calling her name. Derek didn't waste long on wondering why exactly he didn't care.

Stiles started coming over more often, under the guise of research, of getting Derek's help with piecing the Hale history and the history of Beacon Hills together. Scott, as the Alpha, took over everything that was left of the shattered pieces of balance, and he found that Stiles was well on his way to becoming his Emissary - the Nogitsune had targeted Stiles for that very reason, as some sort of a test. The loft, the whole building became the pack's base, more so when Isaac finally came back and Derek helped him settle in a part of it. Kira moved in a while later, when her parents decided to move back to New York after all. Eventually each of the pack members had a place for themselves, whether it was a separate studio like Isaac's or a bedroom and a study like Lydia.

Now, though, Derek is in the main loft, the one that has finally been fixed up and has not been destroyed by an attack in months. It's peaceful, and yet when Derek takes a breath, he feels like his blood is vibrating in his veins.

"Stiles," he breathes out, and his fingers twitch against the skin they're resting on.

"Say something," Stiles mumbles into Derek's neck, his fingers shaking against the skin on Derek's back. "Anything, please."

"Fuck, Stiles, I…" Derek whispers, and he moves just enough to see Stiles' face.

He doesn't move his hand from the mark on Stiles' hip, but lifts the other and moves Stiles' chin up just enough so their eyes can meet.

"Are you sure?" Derek asks then, though he can feel the answer.

His blood is singing, burning under his skin; he can feel it pulsing across the swirls of his tattoo under Stiles' fingers as they start to trace the black ink by memory. He can feel the way Stiles' skin is warmer, almost burning where the image of Derek's triskele is etched into his hip.

"Have been, for a while," Stiles replies then, and a smile starts tugging on the corner of his lips. "I didn't think the ink would react though, not like this," he nods almost imperceptibly towards Derek's hand.

"I never would have…"

"Asked, I know," Stiles interrupts when Derek's voice shakes. "I figured you wouldn't. I wanted this for myself, regardless of us. It was when the magic showed itself that I … it made me realize why."

"Stiles," Derek breathes the name out, his voice rough and almost pleading, though he doesn't know what he's asking for.

It's Stiles who provides the answer moments later, when he takes a breath and with a muttered "oh fuck it" leans forward and brushes his lips against Derek's.