"Aww that's sweet, you actually think you're a part of this Pack, don't you?" she asked, laughing as her lips stretched into a horrible sort of smile, "Sweetie, you're not, you're like a pet or something, a little trophy human."

Stiles snarled into the rear view mirror as the memory surged through his mind, but he didn't let himself lose too much control. He didn't want to hurt his baby by extending any claws or doing any sort of damage. Breathing in deep he parked the jeep in the middle of town as close as he could get to the little florist. It was a Saturday, so it was pretty busy, but he was keeping his fingers crossed that he wouldn't run into anybody he knew, or at least anybody he didn't want to run into.

He sucked on his lower lip as he jumped out of the Jeep and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck like had become a habit. He may have been a whole lot less hyperactive, but he had developed new little ticks that he didn't without even thinking about. He'd developed even more recently, but that came from trying to quit smoking. He'd only started out of stress and since others in the Pack had smoked as well, had never actually stopped. They'd all made a New Year's resolution to quit though, all together. He was starting to think these two weeks were going to revert him back to as bad as he had been though.

It didn't even matter that Maggie would kick his ass.

The woman in the florist didn't recognise him, but she smiled at him like he was her best friend and he could smell that it was a genuine sort of kindness, so for some reason that made him relax a little. He smiled back and chatted to her as she arranged two bouquets of flowers especially for him. All of the ones for his mother's grave were yellow, the colour of the sunshine, his mother's favourite, but he just told the woman to put together something nice for Mrs McCall since he didn't know what she liked exactly.

It was expensive, but that didn't bother him so much anymore. They had Pack money, a lot of it. At first he'd complained that he shouldn't have the right to spend it, but Maggie had slapped him upside the head for thinking that. He was Pack, what was theirs was his and vice versa. Within reason of course. And it wasn't like Stiles didn't contribute to the Pack money, but being a teacher didn't really pay amazingly.

It did mean he got kick ass holiday time though.

Stiles loved the summer, especially summer with the Pack, but he would have loved it regardless of where he was because it was his mother's favourite time of year. He paid for the flowers and thanked the woman, trying not to laugh at the fact he'd only just realised her name was Flora – fucking ironic much? – and then headed back out into the sunshine.

It never failed to amuse him that being a werewolf had solved his little problem of sunburn, because his skin healed almost instantly, so although he never tanned, he also didn't need to wear any suncream. It was heaven. He ran his fingers lovingly over the hood of his jeep and put the flowers in the passenger seat, walking back around to the other side when a hand grabbed the back of his shirt collar.

His first instinct was to panic, thinking maybe it was Scott or Derek, but after taking a deep breath he realised from the scent that it wasn't anybody he knew. Unfortunately, he only realised that after he'd been tossed into a nearby alley. He rolled back onto his feet, scowling because he'd mucked up his shirt a little and he was going to have to change it before he went over to the McCalls'. He bared his fangs at the guy in front of him, who was so obviously a werewolf judging by the fact his mouth was full of fangs and his scent was pretty damn obvious.

Stiles only just noted that the guy also smelt of Derek and Scott, of people he used to know before the guy jumped at him. It was almost too easy to spin out of the way, grabbing the guy by the throat as he span past and slamming him into the alley wall. The air rushed out of the guy's lungs and Stiles couldn't help but laugh, he'd never felt anything but powerless when in Beacon Hills, it was a weird and not unwelcome feeling.

"Now that wasn't very nice was it?" he asked, cocking his head to the side slightly, knowing his words were a little jumbled since he was speaking through his fangs, but the words were clear enough. "There was me minding my own business and now here's you being a really unsociable little pup."

It felt weird being aggressive so far from his Pack and so close to another wolf's territory that he was practically in it. His wolf was whining a low warning, getting antsy with all the nerves collecting in the pit of Stiles' stomach.

"You're on our territory, I'm allowed to warn you off," the werewolf replied, the words wheezed out a little because of the grip that Stiles had on his throat.

Stiles snorted. "Yeah, because you're doing such a good job of that," he replied, "And if you weren't such an asshat you'd know that this right here, in town, this is mutual ground, it's nobody's territory. If I stepped in the woods, you'd be free to eat my face or whatever, but right now, you don't have that right."

And with that he tossed the guy away like a rag doll, pleased for the torturous training that Lucy had put the entire Pack through. They were only a small Pack, they had to be able to defend themselves. Of course at the time it had been more like, "What the hell, why are you making us run!" rather than, "Thanks Luce, this will come in handy!" Stiles would just drop her a text later or something, although actually, maybe not since she'd only freak out and probably make Rory drive them straight here.

He got back into his jeep and pulled his phone out of his pocket, checking his messages. He had several texts of encouragement and support from some of the other Pack members, but the one he was really looking for was from Maggie. He'd texted her to tell her about his Dad's new relationship status.

Omg seriously! Do you know her? What's she like? Are you going to meet her?

And in the space of five minutes after that text had been sent and he'd looked at it, she'd already sent a follow up text simply saying: STILES!

Maggie could be impatient at times.

Yh I knw her, she's Scott's Mum. Gonna b awkwrd cuz I hav 2 go 2 dinner there now. I'm taking flowrs.

He'd only just put the key into the ignition by the time he got a text back.

Jesus how many times do I have to tell you? Use grammar! And fuck, seriously? Are you going to be alright going to dinner? Don't even think about skipping, your Dad will be heartbroken, but don't freak out or anything.

He winced at the text and before he even managed to get out a reply, another came through. He'd sort of been expecting it would though, because Maggie always did that.

And remember to breathe. . .

He smirked and typed out a simple text saying he promised to do that and that it would be fine before pulling out of the parking space and heading in the familiar direction of Scott's house. He'd only made him and his Dad a sandwich earlier and what with a wolf's metabolism and everything he was starving again, but he would still be a little bit early if he went over straight away, so he made a pit-stop and grabbed a bottle of wine and a coffee to go.

He drank the coffee way too fast and considered for a split second breaking into the wine due to his minor panic attack that he was having the closer he got to Scott's house. Even though he seriously doubted it was Scott's house anymore. In the end he grabbed his phone and scrolled through his contacts without even looking, knowing that it was his Pack phone – yes, yes he did have a Pack phone as well as a normal phone – and hit call randomly. It didn't even matter who it was and not only because they were all together anyway.

"Hey dude, what's up?"

Stiles exhaled loudly at the sound of Lee's voice, only feeling a little bit guilty because he knew that Lee would have been driving his motorcycle and so would have had to pull over to answer his phone. He then launched into full on freak out mode, talking at a thousand miles an hour for a good ten minutes before he finally drew breath. On the other end of the line, Lee chuckled low in his throat and told Stiles to breathe, which seemed to be the general opinion on what he should be doing.

After that they just talked about nothing in particular, about the drive Lee was still taking about random memories or members of the Pack. It was calming, more so than it probably should have been, but Stiles didn't even think twice about it anymore.

"Thanks," he muttered after he said that he had to go because he was close to being late for the dinner, "Sorry for freaking out on you a bit there."

"No problem," Lee replied sincerely, "Call me when the dinner's over yeah, let me know how it goes. Call me during if you need to."

Stiles smiled, "Will do. Stay safe."

"You too."

They always seemed to be saying that to each other. Stay safe. He couldn't remember when they'd started to do that as a usual method of bidding goodbye. It felt like something completely logical though with all this space in between him and his Pack. Taking a deep breath he started up the jeep again, sort of wishing he was in his new car so that he could make some sort of impression before he decided that that was a stupid thing to think.

He thought it was ironic that Highway to Hell was playing when he started driving again.