Chapter 16

Derek monitored twitter throughout the rest of Stiles' session, and while the music sounded good, his focus couldn't be fully earned. There was a moment when Stiles and Harris started to get a little tense, but when Derek took a step forward they both made noticeable attempts to calm down. Once things were running smoothly again, Derek stepped into the hallway to make a call.

He'd never had to dial this number before, but his mother had made sure he had it long before the Stiles job. It happened that Hale Securities liked to know the personal contact numbers of their biggest rivals, that's all.

"Argent speaking. Who's this?" a gruff voice asked, suspicion lacing the edges.

"Chris. It's Derek Hale." He paused to let that sink in. "We need to talk."

"Argent Inc. has already given a public statement about your incident, Mr. Hale. We are not assisting Kate in any manner, nor do we condone her actions," Chris responded monotonously.

"I am aware of your public stance. I called because I'd like your help," Derek explained, but it felt like he was speaking to a recording with how much the other man took notice of the words.

"We have already made attempts to contact her and call her off, but we have been unsuccessful. Our condolences go out to all injured parties and-"

"Argent, stop," Derek snapped and was relieved to be met with silence. "This isn't about your company's involvement or lack thereof. I said I need your help."

More silence followed, and for a moment Derek wondered if the Argent C.E.O. had hung up on him. A quick check of his phone proved the call was still connected, but it took another moment for Chris to finally speak and prove it.

When he started again, his words were tired, almost resigned. "What kind of help were you looking for, exactly?"

Perfect.

Thanks to the fans on Twitter, Derek knew where Kate was down to the exact hotel. Assuming she hadn't ducked out a window and taken off across rooftops, she was still there. If she'd left, someone would have tweeted about it. It seemed as if a whole crew of fans turned spies were watching the entrance from different angles, and mostly Derek hoped they were being discreet. If Kate caught wind of them, not only would she bail but Derek didn't want to think of what she'd do to the fans.

They paused by the car to make separate phone calls away from the heavy atmosphere of the studio lobby.

As Stiles called his dad to let him know how the session went and to assure him that nothing bad had happened, Derek called the police. They tried to tell Derek to stay away, that it would be safer if he was nowhere near the arrest, but Derek could be pretty convincing… and that was convincing by way of threats, really. Mostly he just threatened to show up and ruin everything by trying to go in solo and either spooking her or getting himself shot or something.

After such a humble and innocent request from Derek, the police chief graciously offered to let Derek be part of the raid. Life was grand when things went smoothly.

Derek hung up his call just in time to hear the end of Stiles', and he kind of wished he hadn't.

"No, Dad, I'm serious. I'm totally fine. In fact I'm better than fine. Things went so well at the studio you could say it was… orgasmic. … What? What?! No! No way. Not at all what I meant, Dad. Ew. Gutter. Oh my God, I can't even believe you right now. … Oh. Oh hang on, Derek is waving me over to the car. Gotta go, Daddio. Talk to you later. Bye!" Stiles ended the call and looked up at Derek, who was most certainly not calling Stiles over to the car.

They exchanged a charged look – Derek's hard and disapproving, Stiles' apologetic but trying for innocent.

"Did you just tell your father we had sex at the studio?" Derek asked.

"No." Stiles wrinkled his nose and looked affronted, but dropped it moments later under Derek's stare. "What? I really didn't. Just cause he now thinks that we did-"

"Thinks? He knows, Stiles."

"Yeah but he doesn't know that," Stiles said as they officially got in the car.

Derek had only known about his soul mate connection with Stiles for a few days, but already he was having moments of wonder that the universe would pair him with someone like this spastic idiot. He loved that Stiles was clever and sassy and all that, but he was a terrible liar, really. John Stilinski was going to give him disapproving looks until the day he died at this rate. Derek could already hear the lectures on public indecency and putting his son's public image at risk and other long, embarrassing, detailed scoldings to come.

Hang on. Back up three sentences. Did he just think what he thought he did? That reminded him. He'd left a voicemail on Stiles' phone the day of the fire, and Stiles had never brought it up. But Derek still wanted to talk to Stiles about something important. Now would be a bad time to bring it up though. They could talk after they took down Kate Argent.

Derek glanced over at his soul mate and found the singer messing with the air vents until one of them got stuck, and then he was frantically trying to fix it, and Derek wanted to be annoyed but mostly he found it endearing.

Chris Argent was that rugged sort of handsome a lot of men failed to achieve at his age. A father and involved with a severely stressful job and even more stressful family, it continued to shock Derek just how good looking the man was. Another man would be too wrinkled, too gray, too tired to look as good as Chris Argent, but as in everything he did, Chris was an overachiever, and he had to be handsome as well as damn good at his job. Even now, as he stood in front of the bland green door of the motel room, glaring slightly at Derek, Derek had the unintentional urge to take a photo of him and get it framed.

Dear god, Stiles was rubbing off on his brain.

Knocking on the door was the simplest way to get someone to come open it, but Chris had already done that and Kate had yet to appear. With a shallow breath, Chris focused on the door and then on the handle. Calmly, as though it was entirely normal to do so, he tapped the nose of his gun to the metal. A spark of electricity connected the metal to metal and then disappeared, and Derek was sure only Chris' leather gloves had kept him safe.

"Kate," Chris called calmly, but with that hint of annoyance only an older brother could accomplish. "Open the door, Kate. I know you're in there. I just want to talk."

Derek was pressed close to the wall, about ten feet away from the door. There was no window here, and even if there was, it would be into the room next to Kate's. Glancing back at the officer behind him, Derek caught sight of Stiles in the distance. He was thirty feet further down the hall, barely out of the staircase and surrounded by police. Derek had tried to keep him in the car, but he'd known it was a lost cause before he'd even opened his mouth to suggest it.

The younger man nodded, his expression serious, but he looked a little ridiculous with the wooden bat he'd brought along, especially when surrounded by uniformed men with guns. The sun, which blanketed the outdoor hallway, barely reached the stairwell and made the officers and Stiles within the shadow look like they weren't even on the scene at all. In a way that view kept Derek calmer.

Something clicked behind the door and drew Derek's attention back, and then a second click released the door lock. Whatever had electrified the handle must have been the first noise as she turned it off, because the handle was turning now.

There was just a two inch crack, not enough for Derek to see her, but also not enough for her to see the other men in the hall either. The angle was wrong.

"Talk, Chris? Really? You bring guns to all your meetings?" Kate's voice was aloof, calm.

"Ones with killers, yeah, pretty much," Chris answered back in the same strange tone. It was like they'd had conversations like this before, like Kate had misbehaved at school and Chris was just here to give her a lecture she'd already heard. "You gonna open the door? Or are we talking through the peeling paint?"

"Don't take it personally if I admit I don't trust anyone right now – not even you, big bro," Kate said, and Derek could just imagine the way she'd purse her lips and bat her eyes, innocent and coy.

"Fair enough, I suppose." Chris slipped his hands into his pocket, his gun blatantly visible in its holster on his side. With a sigh, he said, "Why'd you do it, Kate? He's just a stupid kid."

"It had nothing to do with Stiles," Kate snapped back. "You think I'm some simple psychotic? I picked a random person to go after?"

"I honestly don't know what to think, Kate. You dropped off comms and disappeared out of nowhere. No warning, no explanation. And the next time I see you, you're wanted for attempted murder and arson." His voice was hard now, no more of the playful sibling showing through, and even Derek got nervous.

The plan was to use Chris to get Kate to confess candidly. He knew her. He knew how to push her buttons. Chris was usually so calm. The planned seemed perfect. But Chris seemed to be the one getting riled. Derek tensed where he stood but didn't dare try to get Chris' attention. He had to trust that Chris knew what he was doing.

"You know what they did to me," Kate snapped back and the door opened another inch. Kate's fingers came into Derek's view as she gripped the door with one hand. "Peter Hale slandered me! He ruined my whole career, my life!"

"And yet the only time you didn't do anything to Stiles was when Peter was in charge," Chris argued back. Damn it. No. Kate had to be the one to say she'd done something, not Chris.

For a tense second, Kate didn't respond. Then the door opened half way and Derek started to see her hair. His heart raced. If she caught sight of them, it was over. But then she shifted her weight and he could see only her hand on the door again.

"I don't expect you to understand me or what I went through because of that family. Everything I've done has had a purpose, and all of it has worked," Kate said, a sneer in her voice that reminded Derek of his uncle. Chris started to speak, but Kate held her hand up to silence him. "Save it, bro. We have nothing to talk about. You can't stop what's about to happen. Not you, and not your buddies hiding down the hall. So just leave, and come back when you have a better lie about giving a shit."

"Kate," Chris tried, but she shook her head and stepped up to the threshold, giving Derek a clear view of her.

With a small tilt of her head, she locked eyes with Derek and a smirk pulled up on her lips. She'd known the whole time that it was trap. Somehow she'd known. But if she'd known they had a trap, then that meant…

"It's her trap," he said in a breath. Her smirk got worse, and Derek flipped to look at Stiles in the stairwell. His chest felt tight, and Stiles was just standing there, unaware of the danger and trying to understand the fear on Derek's face. "Stiles-"

A lot happened then. Kate ran at her brother, shoving them both down the hall and away from the cops. Chris drew his gun and tried to aim it, but Kate shoved his hands away and the bullet hit the overhead light instead, shattering it. Derek ducked in reflex and the cop beside him spun to the door of the room next to Kate's.

"Something's-," he said just as something loud started going off in the room, and Derek didn't have time to get up off the floor before the explosion hit.

He hit the railing first. Then the officer smacked into it and was sent flying over and down two floors to the ground. Groaning, Derek tried to hide his face from the flames now taking over the interior of the other motel room. His arm ached but he was pretty sure it wasn't broken.

"Derek!" Stiles' voice carried over.

All of her plans had worked, she'd said, but the bomb had been disabled. Not this one. This one went off without a hitch. But her first bomb had been under the stage, not beside it.

"Stay back!" Derek shouted back and looked to make sure Stiles didn't come closer. Two officers were holding him in the stairwell. Thank goodness.

Kate's laugh caught his attention then and all eyes went to where she was, half pinned to the wall by her brother. "Someone do me a favor," she said. "Make sure Peter knows it's all his fault."

A second, small explosion rocked the ground from the hall below, and Derek related it to a roller coaster because he lost his stomach on the third floor and started to fall. He could imagine it all – the crash into the second floor, then the next floor would give way and go to the ground too, but Derek would be thrown out into the parking lot, his head cracking on the ground and his body dragging across the harsh asphalt. He'd be lucky to survive at all, and if he did he'd be scarred for life, possibly worse than Melissa. He wasn't looking forward to it.

The ground fell away from his feet and his body started to follow it, and he couldn't even shout in his shock. Then something warm snapped around either side of his forearm, holding on tight. He slid another inch through the grip, but the hands on him held firm and stopped his descent while the floor crashed down and down and thundered to the bottom level of the building, concrete dust billowing up.

With a gasp, Derek looked up to the third level, which was now a foot above his eye level. Stiles' face was screwed up with strain. He was pulled so heavily onto the remaining floor of the third level that he'd had the air knocked out of him, and his exposed arms were scraped up from elbow to armpit after being dragged down by Derek's body, but his grip didn't falter as he squeezed painfully tight around Derek's forearm.

"Stiles," Derek said, voice breathy as he recovered from the near drop to his death. He tried to raise his arm to grab the floor and pull himself up, to get the weight off Stiles, but the bruising from hitting the railing complained and he couldn't get a grip.

The scrapes on Stiles' arms started to bleed around the rubble that had been dragged into them and the singer hissed and squeezed his eyes shut. "Stop- Stop, Derek. Stop moving. I'm gonna drop you."

An officer dropped down by Stiles and reached around his torn up arm to grab onto Derek's other arm. "On three, Mr. Stilinski," she said. "One. Two." They both pulled up but Stiles' position didn't help the movement and a third officer came in to help Derek the rest of the way up.

"Kate!" Chris shouted just as Derek got a knee up on the unbroken floor. Derek turned and saw Kate pull a gun, and a shot went off. Her gun started shaking and then she dropped it. It hit the ground and fell into the newly furnished hole just before Kate's knees hit the concrete and she dropped to her side.

Falling clumsily onto his butt, Derek's heart hammered painfully in his chest. Chris was standing behind where Kate had been, his gun still aiming at his sister, his face a mixture of determination and regret. He took a heaving breath and holstered his gun as officers rushed over to slap handcuffs on Kate.

The woman who had helped Stiles lift Derek was on her radio, and soon paramedics would be on site to help Derek and Stiles and anyone else hurt. Someone was rushing down the stairs to check on the officer that had gone over the rails. Others were going to check the rubble for other victims. It all happened so quickly, so efficiently, and Derek's brain was moving a little too slowly to keep up.

Someone was panting beside him, and when he managed to look away from Kate's groaning form on the other side of the rubble, he found Stiles hunched over, his arms trying to cradle each other. His eyes were closed once more and he wheezed every few breaths, and Derek couldn't tell if the shaking was from pain or the panic glaring blatantly from Stiles' face.

"Stiles," he said and shifted to scoot closer. Stiles made no sign that he'd heard, and Derek reached out with his good arm to touch Stiles' cheek. The singer flinched back, but his eyes opened and he looked up at Derek with a fear Derek had never seen on anyone before.

Stiles' eyes flickered over Kate, who was being slowly lifted and moved to the stairs. The gunshot had caught her side, but she would survive. As she was shuffled passed them, Stiles flinched again and his breathing got worse, and Derek didn't know how to stop the panic.

He watched Stiles' arms shake and bleed and he glared at the pieces of cement stuck in the wounds. Slowly he reached his right arm out for Stiles' right arm and set their wrist together. Nothing lit up, nothing sparked, but it sent a jolt through Stiles that caught his attention again.

"It's okay," Derek said. "We're okay. We got her. It's over." Stiles' whole body was still shaking as Derek leaned in and leaned their foreheads together. "Focus on me, Stiles. Breathe. It's over."

Three deep breaths later, Stiles' shivers started to slow and he tilted his head up to put their lips almost close enough to kiss. He took shaking air into his lungs and let it back out slowly. Then he pressed his lips to Derek's in a quick kiss before dropping his head to his boyfriend's shoulder.

"It's over," he murmured and huffed out a laugh. "God, our relationship is going to be so boring after this. You- You almost died."

Derek brought his right arm up to wrap around Stiles' shoulders and smiled into the younger man's hair. "Stiles, I don't think our relationship is ever going to be boring."

The sounds that came from Stiles' chest were part hysterical laughter and part relief. He continued to breathe heavily and laugh into Derek's shoulder until the paramedics arrived to clean and wrap his arms. Kate was long gone by then, and despite the pile of concrete spilling into the parking lot, everything seemed surprisingly calm.

A week later, the internet was still buzzing with the news and updates. Stiles and Derek were both wrapped up for injuries sustained that day, and a bunch of fans had sent get well soon gifts to the hospital and the studio. Despite not really knowing who Derek was, some fans sent him flowers and cards too. Melissa was out of the hospital, but now everyone knew it was her who had been injured, and many gifts at the studio were for her as well.

Kate's lawyer had known not to go to court, and she'd been privately charged. Six counts of attempted first degree murder topped the list that included counts of vandalism, reckless endangerment, arson, and trespassing, amongst other things. Her arrest made every major paper and got people discussing the Argent family at length.

Chris Argent's notable role in stopping her was a highlight for the company, and many news discussions ended up discussing his courage and sacrifice over Kate's transgressions. They also always managed to pull Allison into the talk somehow, mostly how you'd never expect someone like Kate to be related to someone as positive and sweet as the MTV Music Award winning artist Allison Argent. A few remembered to acknowledge her part in identifying Kate as the suspect and how her testimony helped put Kate away, but most news stations focused on her fame and personality.

The Argent reputation was still full of holes now, but popular media didn't take much notice. Derek made a personal call to the Argent company, and when Chris answered Derek found out the head of the Argent company had already received calls from two other Hale Securities representatives. Talia Hale had thanked him and promised to recommend him to any clients that they were too busy to help. This was infinitely more pleasant than the call from Peter Hale, who gave a sassy suspicious apology that sounded more like he was teasing Chris for having a psychopath in his family than that he was actually sorry for anything.

The call ended on a pleasant note, but Chris requested they try to keep their future relationship professional. No more personal issues, if at all possible.

Stiles didn't need his arms to record music, so he was back in the studio, and his fans flooded twitter with praises on him for working while injured. Derek's involvement with Stiles outside of a work relationship was speculation by the best of fans and dismissed by the least observant. They had yet to be seen together outside of work relations, and none of the cops around after the bombs were telling any reporters what they knew.

At the end of two weeks, Derek found himself sitting in the back of the recording studio's control room and watching Stiles record a new song that didn't make Derek want to jump him in the next available lounge. It was a relaxing afternoon, actually. Derek wasn't allowed to work yet since half his body was badly bruised, but that didn't stop him from hanging out with Stiles.

"I never get tired of hearing him," a calm, older voice said with reverence. Looking up from the book he had open in his lap, Derek found John Stilinski standing just inside the door. "He's something else."

"Yes," Derek answered dumbly, unaware of what else the man could be fishing for.

"I won't ask you to get up, considering the bruising, but I wanted to talk." He waved through the glass at his son, who grinned and waved back. John paused his talk as he took a seat and the producer and Stiles discussed what section to redo.

When Stiles was singing again, Derek spoke quietly. "Is everything alright, sir?"

John waved a dismissive hand. "Yeah. Yeah. No, everything's fine," he said, his voice equally quiet. "I just need to talk to Stiles when he's done. I guess it is kind of important, and I'm worried he might be upset with me, but… well that's kind of why I wanted to talk to you about it first."

"Sir?" Derek closed his book and set it to the side. Was this the talk where Mr. Stilinski told Derek that he didn't approve of Derek and Stiles having sex in public buildings and maybe they should take a break from seeing each other, or at least slow down their relationship to supervised visits and making sure Stiles was home by ten and they couldn't do anything even slightly dangerous?

"Gosh, please stop calling me Sir. John is fine," John said with a quiet sigh.

"John," Derek amended. Being on first name basis could be a good sign. "What's wrong?"

For a moment, John just watched Stiles sing, passionate and intense, and then he sighed again and rubbed a hand down over his face. "Our family is changing," he said. "Stiles has his soul mate. I mean-" He laughed, but it was tinted with uncertainty. "I mean until a few weeks ago, none of us thought it was possible. I'm so unbelievably happy for him. Any father would be. But…"

The drop in conversation carried for over a minute, and Derek began to worry once more. "But?" he prodded.

"Well, do you think… You're with Stiles all the time. Do you think he'd mind if his family got a little… bigger?" John turned away from the glass to look solely at Derek and gauge his reaction. Derek was pretty sure he gave nothing away with his expression.

"Sir, I really don't think he'd mind," he answered honestly, starting to see where this conversation was heading. Or at least he hoped it was heading in that direction. "Did you already do it?"

"I'm sorry?" John asked, forehead pulled tight with worry.

"Melissa. You already ask her to marry you?" Derek clarified. He glanced up at the glass and then looked back at John. "Stiles really wouldn't mind."

"You're sure?" John asked, frowning.

"I'm sure." Derek shifted to lean forward and balance his arms on his knees. "So did you?"

With a shake of his head, John let out a relieved sound. "No. Not yet. But I mean to."

The microphone screeched and both of them winced and looked at the glass in time to see Stiles gripping the mic in both hands and staring right at them as he shouted "Oh My God! What Are You Waiting For?!"

Preview Chapter 17

With Kate behind bars, it's time to look to the future, and that means helping John plan the best proposal possible. And the senior Stilinski isn't the only one with big plans in mind. Jordan's definitely in the mood for wedding bells, and Derek can't stop thinking about how he and Stiles still aren't public… but that won't be true for long.