Both parents assaulted Stiles with questions the second he started the Jeep. Sheriff Stilinski and Melissa took turns firing question after question at Stiles as he attempted to back the Jeep up out of the driveway. They had both gone from being stunned into silence and disbelief to full blown investigative reporting for TMZ in a matter of minutes. Despite what Melissa McCall thought of his multitasking abilities, it really was hard to talk about your best friend becoming a werewolf and drive at the same time.

"Does anyone else know about this...this stuff in town?"

"He didn't bite you, did he?"

"Do they really go crazy on a full moon?"

"His pants were ripped before the semi-formal! Please tell me he doesn't grow a tail, too?"

Stiles sighed, managing to back the Jeep out of the dark driveway and putting it in drive. "Yes, no, yes, and no! Growing a tail? That's just weird. What are you thinking?" He glanced in the rearview mirror at Melissa McCall who had an offended look on her face at his rebuttal.

"It's a valid question! I don't know what...they look like," Melissa responded indignantly, squeezed into the so-called back seat of the Jeep.

Stiles rolled his eyes. "You can't even say it?"

"Say what?"

"Werewolf," Stiles answered definitely. If she wanted the truth, she was going to have to accept it.

Melissa didn't say anything, but looked out the window. The word frightened her more than she cared to admit right now. If she said it, it was real; things like that actually exist. She almost went to dinner with one of them. Her son was one of them.

But Stiles continued, knowing that it could get him in trouble; he didn't care anymore tonight. "I don't get it! You demand that I tell you what's going on but you still act like he just fell into a bad crowd or something, and...and you're just going to swoop in there tonight and take him back home? What are you gonna do? Ground him for being a werewolf?" He got no response from Scott's mom. Stiles could see her still staring out the window, real anxiety apparent now on her face as she bit her lower lip, thinking about what he said. He looked to his father, noting the investigative countenance he had and continued driving through Beacon Hills.

Stiles' outburst reached right into the core of Melissa's worrisome feelings. The real danger Scott was now in was hitting her hard for the first time that night. Over the years she'd been able to help Scott weather painful situations of growing up: his parent's divorce, teasing and bullies, moving to and from his dad's and the breakup with Allison. But this? Helping him deal with being a... 'What am I going to do?' she thought to herself. 'What am I going to do when I see him? If I see him? What if he's not even there? What if he doesn't come home? What if he won't come home now?' Melissa couldn't stop questioning herself; she was terrified of what the answers might be. The only certainty the night had revealed so far was that the divide between herself and her son was far wider than she ever imagined.

The car ride fell silent, as they began to leave the confines of the town center and head towards the outskirts of the Beacon Hills Preserve. Stiles hated uncomfortable silences, so before a minute had passed, he'd given in to temptation and turned on the radio.

"-lost in a crowd, and I'm hungry like the wooooooooooolf," Duran Duran blared through the radio.

"Really?" Stiles cried exasperatedly. It was now official - the universe was out to get him tonight. He shut the radio off. The uncomfortable silence remained.

Melissa spoke up in the back seat. "Reel Big Fish covered it better anyway," she sighed. Stiles had forgot Scott's mom was a ska fan. When he'd found that out a few years ago, Melissa McCall rose up a few more notches on the 'Cool Mom' list.

Melissa was staring at her hands in her lap. She finally decided to bring it up, what she saw that night. "His eyes," she started. "His eyes were the first thing I noticed. There was a howling noise outside and his eyes were...yellow, gold maybe? He tried to hide it, but I saw." She took in a slow breath before continuing, while both men didn't dare interrupt her. "He could smell a package of peanut butter cookies I had just bought, unopened in the pantry. In his room, there were claw marks all over the window sill."

"See any blood on the floor?" Stiles asked.

Melissa looked confused. "What? No, I don't think...why would there be blood on the floor?"

Stiles stared at ahead at the road, solemnly. "I had to handcuff him to the radiator last full moon. He broke the handcuffs. He must've cleaned it up already."

At the thought of his only son being in such relative danger, Sheriff Stilinski interjected, "You really had to do that, Stiles?"

"Well I never got around to planting that Whomping Willow for his backyard..."

"Jesus..." the sheriff sighed. He glanced back at Melissa before directing his original question to Stiles. "So, there are other people in this town that know about this werewolf stuff?"

Stiles sighed and said, begrudgingly, "Yes, other people know. Not a lot, but they're out there." He looked to his dad. "We need to keep it that way, ok? I'm serious, you can't go charging in there trying to get involved in this whole mess."

"I'm already involved now, Stiles!" the Sheriff exclaimed. "I'm sitting in your car on our way to confront some secret werewolf pack that a kid I've known for ten years is a part of and that you've been helping! This whole mess puts me in a real bad situation. How am I supposed to do my job and keep this a secret?"

The Jeep came to an abrupt halt, just as they approached the entrance to the preserve. "You're in a bad situation?" Stiles was fuming now. "Do you have to watch as your best friend goes berserk every full moon? Do you get to listen to him scream in freaking agony when you chain him up for his own good? Or - or see the girl you've had a crush on for eight years get ripped open by some animal that's also after your best friend? How about knowing that if it wasn't for your stupid idea, Scott never would have been in the woods that night in the first place?" Stiles struck the steering wheel. "Sorry, but I think I win this one, Dad!"

The sheriff appeared like he had more to say on the subject but thought better of it. He would need to bide his time to have that conversation with Stiles later.

Stiles went to throw the Jeep back into drive when he felt a hand on his right shoulder. "It's ok, Stiles," Melissa said gently. "It's not your fault. You know that, right?" A little tension left his shoulders with her words and he relaxed back into the driver's seat.

"We're only about ten minutes away," Stiles muttered. "You prepared?"

"Oh sure. I'm definitely prepared to confront my only son about his secret werewolf life," Melissa deadpanned.

'FINALLY!' Stiles smiled into the rearview. "See? That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Melissa rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders. After a moment, she thought of something, something so obvious she should have asked earlier. "Stiles, have you two thought of looking for some type of cure or something?"

'Duh! Of course we have!' Stiles had wanted to shout, but instead took a different route. "Yeah," Stiles conceded, tiptoeing around a bigger issue. "We tried a few things, did some research, but nothing's really panned out." Stiles paused, debating on whether to divulge this next bit of information. "Derek had told Scott that you had to kill the one that bit you, but he ended up killing the Alpha instead."

Melissa froze. "What?" she asked quietly.

But Stiles continued, trying to explain. "He said it was only a rumor he'd heard, he wasn't sure it would work..."

"Derek Hale told Scott there was a cure and then he took it away?" Melissa said the words slowly. "He lied to Scott?"

"Well, we don't know for sure but -" Stiles began before he was cut off by Mrs. McCall.

"But nothing. I was pretty pissed off earlier, but now? Now, I am mad. Drive." Fuming in the little back seat, Melissa grabbed Scott's phone again. Scrolling through the conversations, she found the one she wanted and furiously began typing a reply.

"ENOUGH!"

The command reverberated through the skeleton of the Hale house and forced the two young betas to stop in mid-fight, the ninth one that night. Derek watched as Scott let go of Jackson's head and waited for Jackson to release Scott's waist, which he did after an additional growl out of Derek. They both stood up, checking on their own healing wounds and eyeing each other warily. Derek quickly surveyed his home. It was a good thing the Hale house was going to be razed in a few weeks. After the damage being done tonight, there wouldn't be much left if pack meetings continued to go this way. The two betas were at each others throats for the slightest infraction, with Jackson trying to overcompensate for a lack of experience and control and Scott working out his "mommy issue", as Jackson so eloquently put it.

Derek impatiently eyed the both of them before he spoke. "This is never going to work if the two of you don't try to get along." Derek had been trying to discuss the pack mentality with Scott and Jackson and they were not exactly grasping the lessons as easily as Derek expected they would. He found from past experience that bitten betas were just different. They don't tap into those intrinsic instincts that other werewolves were just born with; it took time to learn how to listen to them. With Jackson's introduction to the pack, Scott seemed to be doing remarkably well for a bitten wolf, even though Derek did not tell him so. It was obvious to him since the last full moon that Scott was concentrating more on carving out a higher role for himself in the pack, whether Scott realized it or not. Since the only other beta Scott had ever been around was Derek, there had been no question as to the chain of command in the small pack of two.

Derek got no reaction from his betas as they stood in front of him, not meeting his gaze. "Let's try this again. And if I see claw or fang out of either of you, I'll remove them myself." Both betas shifted back, not keen on their alpha's form of punishment.

"Good. Now I'll make this simple. Werewolves survive best in packs. Lone wolves...not so much. Lone wolves are either hunted, killed, or eventually absorbed into another pack. By staying together, we can better protect ourselves - from the Hunters and other wolves. If we can better protect ourselves, our day to day lives can remain uninterrupted. Now, isn't that what you both want?"

They both nodded, but Scott tried to interject, "But why do you want an even bigger pack? You can't just go around biting people without giving a shit, just so you can get stronger!" It was obvious Scott still held a residual grudge over the circumstances of his own bite three months prior. Jackson sniggered, his distaste for Scott's unwillingness apparent to all of them. Derek watched as Scott's eyes flashed in anger but he remained motionless, trying to focus on following orders. Derek approached Jackson instead, seeing his smirk melt away off his face the closer he got.

Derek smiled. He did it so infrequently that it wasn't usually a happy occasion when he did. "You think its funny?" He backed Jackson up to the wall against the staircase. "You, Jackson, got a choice. Scott didn't. You can sit there and think that he's wasting what he was given all you want. But if you demonstrate it in anyway in front of me or him, you are gone. Done. A lone wolf in the middle of nowhere. I may as well tie you up and leave you on the Argents' doorstep. If you can't support your pack, you're not in a pack. Do you understand?" Jackson's nodded, not meeting his gaze.

"Good. And no, Scott, I'm not going to go around biting people without giving a shit," he said definitively. "But if an opportunity presents itself, I'm not passing it up. There's also the possibility there may be werewolves that want to join this pack." He watched as that information sunk into both betas. "And they're not going to want to do that if you two can't get your shit together." Scott and Jackson nodded in sullen agreement and Derek continued. "Building a pack is not about biting as many people as you can get your teeth on. Its about solidarity, power and safety in numbers. The dangers that we are going to face out there are inevitable, especially since the Argent family knows about Scott and that I'm the new alpha. I don't know if they know about you yet, Jackson, but they will. And when they do, you'll need a pack to trust. So start acting like you trust each other, in front of me, in school, and on that damn lacrosse field."

"Fine," Scott said gloomily.

Derek looked to Jackson for any dissent, but found none. The second beta only nodded his head in reluctant agreement.

"Good, now -" Derek began before he was cut off by his phone beeping. His train of though cut off, his unlocked his phone and saw he had a new text message. Scott and Jackson watched as the trademark angry scowl overtook his features while he read whatever had just come through. Derek's eyes rose from his phone to find Scott.

"Scott." The request sounded more like a growl than an actual name.

"What?" Scott snapped.

"Where's your cell phone?" Derek enunciated each word carefully.

Scott hurriedly felt his pockets and checked his jacket. "Uh, its, um...oh! Its at home. I left it there. Well, my mom got mad and took it." A worried look came over him. "Wait, why?"

Derek stepped forward, holding out the phone screen for both of them to read.

I don't know who you think you are, but I'm coming for Scott. If you hurt him, I will hunt you down. I'll have your head stuffed and mounted over my fireplace. Whatever horrible thing you can think of, I WILL DO IT if you've done anything to him!

Scott's jaw dropped as he read and re-read the message. "We don't have a fireplace," he said slowly. "And she hates hunting." Then, as the reality of what the message actually meant, Scott looked at Jackson and Derek, horrified. "She found out! She's gonna freakin' kill me! Oh my god, she's gonna kill me!"

"How could she have found out? Who would've told her? Stiles? Allison's dad?" Jackson asked. Barely a week goes by of being a werewolf and his secret was about to blown by Scott McCall's mom.

"I - I don't know!" Scott cried out. "Stiles would never -" Scott was cut off as the three of them saw headlights coming through the windows.

"That's Stiles' jeep," Jackson said, as he raced to a nearby window for a better view.

"See, its just Stiles, no big deal, right?" Scott was getting nervous. They heard two car doors slam.

"And his dad and your mom. Shit, you're in trouble now, McCall, she looks pissed," Jackson confirmed, backing away from the window. "Derek, what do we do?"

Derek seethed at the prospect of the unwelcome guests. He wasn't prepared to start teaching Werewolf 101 to the town sheriff and Scott's mom tonight. Quickly, he gave out an order. "Hide. The house is too dangerous to stay in for long. Hide until they give up."

"But -" Scott started, but stopped when he realized he was starting to shift. Derek could hear his heart rate going up. The idea of revealing everything to his mother in a matter of seconds did nothing to keep Scott calm.

"Hide. Now!" Derek commanded and the three wolves scattered in the house.

Sorry for the delay and leaving you with another cliffhanger. I swear, the end is nigh and will be posted soon. Any updates and discussions for my fics can be found in my author chat in the Teen Wolf fanfiction forum, so feel free to stop by there.

And I can't take credit for the Harry Potter reference. That goes to the good people at the TW twitter recaps at AfterElton dot com.