Author's Note: Here's the next chapter. I hope you like it. Please enjoy.

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Chapter 20

Derek POV

I watch Stiles collapse to the ground. Without even thinking I run towards the Alpha, the rest of the fighting continuing on, no one noticing the human lying on the ground barely holding onto his breath. Scott turns after hearing my scream, and runs directly towards his friend, worry clear on his face.

I know that I need to go and make sure that Stiles is safe, but I need to take out the one that hurt him. I'm attacking the Alpha before he has time to turn around, the rage boiling through my veins. He can't live. I won't allow him. He hurt Stiles. He hurt the one that I love. Wait? What? Love? What the hell? Ok, need to go back to that later; right now I need to focus on killing the Alpha.

The Alpha turns and looks at me with a cocky smirk. He moves to slice my chest; I can see that his claws are still covered in Stiles' blood. That pushes my anger back to the front of my mind. I quickly kick him in the stomach, forcing him to hunch in on himself. Taking advantage of the weakened stance, I slice through his throat with my claws. His body falls to the floor, a furious growl slips through my lips. I stand there and watch him take his last breathe, my wolf satisfied at the bloodshed.

The rest of his pack keeps fighting, but they've lost the power that came from their Alpha. They will easily be taken out now, but right now I don't care about that.

I rush over to Stiles' body. Scott is there trying to staunch the flow of Stiles' blood. "Derek! We need to get him to the hospital. He's going to die if we can't get the bleeding to stop and we can't do that here."

"Pick him up, we'll take him in my car." I turn looking for Isaac. "Isaac! Stiles needs a hospital, take care of the rest of the pack and meet us there." Isaac nods and returns to his fight. "Chris! Can you clean up this mess?"

"We'll do that, just get him out of here."

Scott and I run to the car. I pull out my keys and hand it to him. "Put him in the back seat with me. I'll sit in the back seat with him and try to pull some of the pain out of him. Maybe that will help." He nods and I get myself situated with him in the backseat. "Call his dad, tell him what happened."

"Are you sure?"

"He needs to know." Scott nods again and calls the Sheriff to let him know what happened. I look down at Stiles' body and feel scared at the sight of him so still, that's not the Stiles that I know. He's supposed to be twitching, constantly moving, and constantly talking. "Hey, Stiles. I need you to fight. You're not allowed to die on me." I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself. "Why did you show up? I told you it was going to be dangerous. I told you that you would get hurt. Why don't you ever listen to me?"

I could feel myself slowly slipping, the sound of Stiles' heartbeat the only thing keeping me from losing it completely. He needs to survive. I don't want to have to know what it's going to be like without him there. He's one of the most important people to the pack, to me.

We pull up to the hospital and I carry Stiles in, lucky to see that Mrs. McCall is working the night shift. She sees me and immediately runs to me.

"What happened?" She says taking Stiles from me and placing him on a gurney.

"Animal attack," I say knowing that she will understand that it is actually more than just that. She nods at that and turns her attention back to Stiles, helping the doctor that has shown up to help. They start to roll him into another room and I work to follow him, but she stops me.

"Derek, you can't go back there. You need to stay out here. I will come out and tell you what is going on as soon as I can, but for now you need to wait here."

Part of me wants to ignore her and run past, but the logical part sits and nods in agreement. I move to sit down in the waiting room when Scott shows up, I guess it took awhile to find parking or something.

"Where is he? What's going on?"

"I don't know. Your mom said that she'll tell us when she knows something." He nods and moves to sit beside me.

With the time to wait, I look back at to what I was thinking when I saw Stiles fall to the floor. Did I really say that I loved Stiles? Why would I think that? I mean I know that I care about Stiles, but do I love him? This is so confusing. I mean, when did I start feeling this way? If that is how I feel. I know that Stiles is attractive. I mean, it's not like I'm not into guys. I find both genders attractive. Stiles is very attractive, he has lean muscles, not enough to make him appear buff but enough to harden him. His moles are entrancing; I mean sometimes I find myself tracing patterns found in them without realizing what I'm doing. His eyes are such a warm amber color, sometimes you can read into them and understand what is going on in his mind. Ah, crap. Maybe I find him more than just a bit attractive.

Stiles is more than just beautiful, and did I really just use that word? He's tough. He knows that he is outmatched in all ways against werewolves, but he will stand strongly with us to face whoever challenges us. He's also smart. He's the one that I go through when I need help. He's the one that helps me strategize. He's also funny. He uses sarcasm like an art form. He knows just how to use it to be either a shield or relaxant. He is just a great person. He holds the pack together.

How did I not see this before? How could I not see that I had feelings for Stiles? How could someone not fall for him? Why did I have to only realize this when he is lying somewhere behind those doors with his life in someone else's hands? I should be there with him.

I stand to move towards the doors, but Scott is there right away blocking me. "Where do you think you're going?"

"I can't just sit here with Stiles somewhere past those doors fighting for his life. I need to do something."

"Like what? You can't do anything besides give him the bite and we both know that he doesn't want that."

He was right but I can't just sit here and do nothing. "What am I supposed to do then? Just sit here and think about how any moment your mom can walk through those doors and tell me that we've lost him. I need to see him. I need to tell him–" I had to cut myself off there. I was about to blurt out something that I just figured out myself. I can't do that. Plus I don't even know if Stiles feels that way towards me. He's too important to the pack to risk pushing away by scaring him with my newly discovered feelings.

"Tell him what?"

"It's nothing, forget about it." I turn around and head back to the chairs.

"No, I will not forget about it. 30 seconds ago you were about to break down the doors to tell Stiles something and now you're playing it off as nothing. What is it?"

"Forget about it." I say and turn away from him. I don't need to explain anything to him. I am his Alpha, I don't have to do anything I don't want to do.

I hear Scott make a soft "oh" sound behind me. I turn to look at him and a small smile plays at his lips. "What?"

"You like him." He says it with such a confidence it has me wondering if he knew something before I did.

"Why would you say that?"

"Because that's the only thing that would have you behaving this way. You're losing it right now and it's more than an Alpha worried about a pack member. You like him."

"Yea, I do."

"Why didn't you say anything earlier? This could've saved all of us a lot of drama."

"I kind of just figured out that I liked him. I wasn't aware that I felt this way. How was I supposed to say something earlier. And what do you mean it could've saved everyone a lot of drama. What drama?"

"Firstly, I had my guesses that you liked him but since you were being your usual broody self I thought they might be wrong, but I'm glad I'm right. Secondly, Stiles likes you."

"What?" He has to be wrong. Why would Stiles like me? He has to be wrong.

"Stiles likes you and I'm not wrong. I'm his best friend. I'm the first person he told when he started to like you. But he didn't think you would ever feel anything for him so he tried to distance himself from the pack." I thought back over to those few weeks where Stiles stayed away. I thought he was angry at me, I never would've thought that that was the reason he was away. "He eventually realized that he couldn't do that so he tried to be your friend, even though you guys were already friends."

"I can't believe that I didn't see any of this. I should've seen this. Now it's too late. Stiles is back there fighting for his life right now and there is nothing I can do."

"Stiles is tough. He's going to pull out of this and you and him will have your lovey dovey reunion and I will be dry heaving in the background. But for now we wait."

He moved to sit down again and I joined him. Stiles had to pull out of this. I may have just realized that I loved him. He is not going to die before I can say those words to him and kiss him passionately. He has to live. I can't lose him. I don't want to lose him. I love him.

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Author's Note: I hope you liked this chapter. Please review to let me know what you thought. Probably only a couple chapters left. I mean they aren't technically together yet.