"Hello Stiles. What brings you here?"

Chris Argent was the first to notice Stiles as he let himself into BUR's head office. The building was kind of grimy and bureaucratic for Stiles's taste. Argent and Derek shared a large front office, crammed with two desks, a changing closet, and a closet full of clothing for visiting werewolves. Since the Bureau was always untangling some significant supernatural crisis or another and didn't seem to employ a decent cleaning staff, it was also crammed with paperwork, dirty coffee mugs, and a dish that looked suspiciously like it had once held raw meat.

"I thought I left you at home."

Stiles rolled his eyes and ignored Derek. "I've just come by the most interesting information."

That distracted his husband for a moment. "Well?"

"I sent Erica to California to find out from Cora what really happened with the fire."

"Erica? I'd wondered why she took time off," sighed Argent, not looking up from his papers.

"She found out that it wasn't simply that the ordered chemicals from New York. There was someone from New York involved. Erica thinks they orchestrated it all."

Derek stilled. "What? Did she get a name? A description?"

Stiles shook his head. "Only that he was supernatural."

Behind them, Argent's paper rustling stopped. He looked at them, his face sharpened further by inquisitiveness. Chris Argent's position at BUR was not held because he was Beta to Derek, but because of his innate investigative abilities.

Derek's temper flared. "I knew the vampires had to be involved somehow! The vampires are always involved! I swear to God if Laura knew anything about—"

Stiles cut him off. "How do you know it was vampires? It could have been a ghost or even a werewolf?"

Argent came over to participate in the conversation. "This is serious news."

Derek started thinking. "Well, if it was a ghost, they would be long gone by now, so we're out of luck there. And if a werewolf, they would have been an omega. Most of them were killed off by Blake. I still suggest we start with the vampires."

"I already figured that out myself, actually," Stiles replied.

"I'll go to the hives," suggested Argent, already shrugging into a jacket.

Derek looked like he wanted to protest.

Stiles put a hand on his arm. "No, that's a good idea. He can keep his temper in check."

Argent hid a smile while Derek glared.

"Fine," grumbled Derek. "I'll go talk to the local roves. There's always a chance it's one of them. Where are you going? I still don't like you being alone. Why isn't Finstock following you around, at least?"

Stiles rolled his eyes. "I've asked him to keep a watch over Connor, actually. We seem to be taking off so much, I thought it was a good idea to have someone not affected by the sun with him."

Derek looked thoughtful for a moment. "That's actually not a bad idea."

"I know. That's why I thought of it. As to where I'm going, I think I'm going to have to talk to Laura and then probably Peter. Maybe even at the same time. I wonder how long it'll take the President to find out he accidentally turned his Shadow Council into a family reunion."

When Stiles arrived home – well, his New York home, anyway – it was to find Isaac, one of Laura's drones, out in the back with Connor, pushing him on a swing Stiles was sure they hadn't owned the day before. He leaned against the wall, watching wistfully.

Since returning from Europe, he hadn't actually spent much time with his son. Between all the death threats and the constant work, he was pretty sure just about everyone else in his house – and some outside of it - knew his son better than he did. The boy was smiling and laughing, begging Isaac to push him higher.

He was so engrossed he didn't notice Laura standing beside him.

"He's a cute kid, isn't he?"

Stiles jumped slightly, but when he realized who it was, just nodded.

"He looks a lot like Derek did at his age."

"At least he doesn't look like me. I was a spaz as a child."

Laura chuckled low in her throat. "I bet you were adorable. Wish I had known you then. I could have, I suppose, but your dad was just a regular cop then, right? We wouldn't have had reason to meet yet. Too bad."

Stiles shrugged. "What is he going to be, though? Is he going to be preternatural like me? Is that why he hasn't shown signs of anything yet? Preternaturals don't show any sign of their ability till they're seven. Is it the same for him?"

Laura returned his shrug. "There's some records on it, but they're so old that it's hard to tell. We'll just have to wait and see. What he does have is three kickass parents who aren't going to let anything happen."

"What if something happens to both of us? The two of us have had some close calls over the past few years. What happens then?"

Laura looked at him with an expression Stiles couldn't quite place. "Do you really think Derek would ever let anything happen to this child? Family is the most important thing in the world to him. Connor is as much his as he's either of ours."

Stiles gave her a look, but didn't say anything.

She continued. "You're still having trust issues. I don't blame you. I would too. I know nothing I say can magically make those go away. But I do think they'll get better. You'll both get through this and you'll be stronger because of it. Derek loves you and he loves Connor and he would never do anything to hurt either of you. It'll get better. I promise."

"I hope you're right," was all Stiles could answer.

"Of course I am."

They heard a doorbell sound from deep within the house.

"Oh crap. I forgot. I invited Peter here. We all need to talk."

Laura grimaced. "Well, stop moping and go say hi to Connor. I'll go let in my dearest uncle." She paused in the doorway. "But maybe keep the kid away. We want him to grow up actually liking werewolves." Her laugh echoed down the hallway.

When Stiles finally arrived, Laura and Peter were already glaring at each other over a pot of coffee.

"Well, it didn't take long for you both to start fighting."

"I don't particularly like being summoned without notice, especially by the two of you. And my niece won't even serve me anything stronger than coffee."

Laura rolled her eyes. "You know how he is, Stiles. I'm not wasting any of the good stuff on him. Plus, I don't know why he's here anyway."

Stiles sometimes wondered if the reason the President hadn't guessed that they were all family – or maybe just didn't care – was that Peter didn't actually seem to get along with any of his family members. Derek could barely stay in the same room with him for 5 minutes before they both changed into wolves and went at it. When Peter and Laura shared a room, unless there was urgent business to discuss, it often devolved into either a shouting match or silence and angry glares. Stiles hadn't actually asked Derek why he and Peter didn't get along and even Laura wouldn't explain what her problem with her uncle was.

Stiles poured himself a cup of coffee, figuring he would need it and then firmed up his resolve. "Can you both be completely serious for a moment?"

Both supernaturals turned to him, their expressions tightening.

"You both know I've been researching the assassination threat. It's led me to look into the Beacon Hills fire from twenty five years ago. I think there may be a connection of sorts."

Both looked intrigued. Stiles suddenly remembered Derek's words from months before, when they'd been in California. The dewan probably would have helped. If he had been on this side of country, he might have done it all himself. Stiles hadn't known Peter was Derek's uncle at the time, but it made sense now. This wasn't just Derek's mother and brother who died. It was Laura's mother and brother too. And Peter's sister and nephew.

Stiles continued. "I've heard from someone I sent to California. It seems there was someone here in New York who helped concoct the whole plot. A supernatural agent. You wouldn't know anything of this, would you?"

Both of them spoke at once.

"You don't think I—?"

"Are you accusing me-?"

"No, I don't. I know they were your family too and even if it wasn't your pack, it was still your family. Derek thinks it must be a vampire. I think it might be a ghost, which leaves the trail cold, of course."

Laura tapped her fingers lightly on the armrest of the couch. "I think your last option may be best."

"Werewolves?" Stiles looked at her.

"A werewolf, yes."

Not even Peter protested the idea.

Stiles looked thoughtful a moment. "An omega, I suppose, which leaves me in the same situation as the ghost. Most were killed by Blake."

Laura shook her head, looking unusually pensive. "No, I don't think so. If I had known there was a supernatural agent here at the time, I might have guessed this much sooner. Peter?"

For once, Peter seemed to agree with Laura.

Peter looked at Stiles. "I hate to agree, but it's possible. Stiles, you don't know what the local pack was like at that time. But we remember. The last Alpha wasn't right in the head."

"But even back then, the local pack was . . ." Stiles sat back, sentence unfinished.

"Newark."

Stiles mentally catalogued the Newark Pack members. Aside from his husband and Scott, all of them were holdovers from the previous Alpha. "Jackson," he said finally. "I'd bet it was Jackson. He didn't like the idea of me investigating the past. Interrupted me the other day. I'll need to check the military records, of course, to find out if he was even in the country at the time."

Peter looked conflicted.

Laura merely nodded, her face hard. "Oh, I meant to tell you. I found out something about that scientist who worked for the Order you were investigating."

"How did you know about her?"

"Please," Laura gave him a look, once again adopting a frivolous attitude, although Stiles was sure it was mostly a façade right this moment. "Anyway, the chemical mixture she preferred for supernatural fires could only be started using specialized matches. They were carved with some intricate marking, similar to the ones on your bat."

Stiles narrowed his eyes. "She had help?"

Laura nodded. "I believe so. Those matches, at least near here, really could only have been created by Alan Deaton."

Stiles barely glanced at the girl behind the counter as he made his way through the hidden door and downstairs to Lydia's lab.

Lydia looked, if possible, even more gaunt and unwell than when Stiles had last seen her.

"Lyds! Are you alright? Surely this new project can't be so vital that you need to get sick to finish it?"

The inventor smiled wanly but barely glanced up from her work, concentrating on some engine schematic on her computer screen.

Stiles thought perhaps his friend's intense focus on work was a necessary distraction from Deaton's terminal condition. The machine looked further along than when Stiles had last seen it.

"How do you plan to get it out of here?"

"Oh, it's only loosely assembled. I'll take it out in pieces. I've got a warehouse for the final construction."

The redhead stood, stretched, and turned to face Stiles full-on for the first time. She scrubbed her grease-covered hands with a rag and then came to stand in front of Stiles.

Stiles wondered if there wasn't something else wrong. "Has Liam been asking about his real mother again?"

Lydia had decided against telling such a young child how Allison died, considering how violent it was, not to mention that she was his biological mother.

Lydia's chin firmed. "I am his real mother."

Stiles understood her defensiveness. "It must be hard, though, not telling him about Allison."

Lydia sighed. "Oh, Liam knows."

"Oh, really? How did he . . .?"

"I'd rather not talk about it." Her sharp tone indicated the end of the subject, so Stiles moved on.

"I actually wanted to ask you something else. I recently learned that Deaton used to make specially carved matches."

Lydia gave him an odd look.

"I think it was to create different kinds of magical fires."

Lydia suddenly nodded in understanding. "Oh, of course. When?"

"Twenty five years ago or so."

"Well, I was too young to remember much of that. We can try to talk to him or look through the records."

"Young?" Stiles asked. "I didn't realize you grew up with Deaton. I thought he became your mentor once you went off to school."

Lydia shook her head sadly. "No, he raised me. I lost my parents young. Although we're not actually related, I don't think, I've always considered him family."

Stiles suddenly felt even worse. Lydia wasn't just losing a friend. She was losing family.

"Deaton? Alan?" Lydia called out, ignoring Stiles's sympathetic expression.

A ghostly body shimmered out of a wall nearby. The specter was looking worse than last time, his form barely recognizable as human, misty with lack of cohesion. "Do I hear my name? Do I hear bells? Silver bells?"

"He has gone to poltergeist?" Stiles asked softly.

"Almost entirely. He has some lucid moments, so not completely lost to me. Go ahead and try." Lydia's voice was drawn with unhappiness.

"Excuse me, Formerly Deaton, do you remember an order for specialty matches? 25 years ago?" Stiles relayed some of the other details, but the ghost ignored him.

Lydia's face fell. "Let me go check his old records. I may have kept them when we moved."

While Lydia looked through a filing cabinet stuffed with papers, the ghost drifted back down to Stiles, as if drawn against his will. He was definitely beginning to lost control over noncorporeal cohesion.

"Preternatural!" he hissed. "Preternatural! What are you—Oh, oh, yes. You are the one who will stop it. Stop it all. You are."

Then he became distracted by something unseen. He swirled about, drifting away from Stiles, still muttering to himself. Stiles shook his head.

"Wrong track. Wrong track!" Deaton garbled out.

Lydia returned, walking right through Deaton she was so lost in thought. "Oh, sorry Alan. I'm sorry Stiles, but I can't find those records. Give me some time and I'll see what I can find later tonight. Is that okay?"

"Of course. Thanks for trying."

"And if you'll excuse me, I need to return to work."

Stiles nodded and left back through the shop.

When Stiles returned home, he'd barely opened the door before he was swept up in Derek's arm and shoved up against the wall, Derek's body flush against his own and Derek sniffing and nipping along his neck.

"Do you need to do this right here? I'm pretty sure at least some of the clavigers are around, if not part of the pack."

Derek ignored him to kiss him properly. Finally Stiles pushed on Derek, when he needed to take a breath.

"Are you okay?"

Derek looked slightly embarrassed. "I was worried. You were gone longer than I expected."

"I take it you didn't realize I'd leave Laura's."

Derek shook his head. "No. And then I ran into Peter of all people. He smelled like you." This was growled out in a very wolfish manner for a man whose contact with Stiles rendered him not a werewolf at that precise moment.

Stiles rolled his eyes and kissed Derek lightly on the cheek.

"I was at Lydia's. I think I might have found out some more. Laura and Peter think the New York agent might have been a Newark Pack member."

"What?"

Stiles patted Derek's arm. "Stay calm. Think logically. But wouldn't someone like Jackson take—"

Derek shook his head. "No, not Jackson. He would never—"

"But Peter said the previous Alpha was not right in the head. Could that have had something to do with it? If he ordered Jackson to—"

Derek's voice was sharp. "No. But the Alpha himself? That is an idea. The man was mad. It can happen that way, especially to Alphas when we get too old. There's a reason, you know, that werewolves fight amongst ourselves. We shouldn't be allowed to live forever—we go a little funny. Or that's what the howlers sing of. Vampires do, too, if you ask me. I'd say you only need to look at Laura to see that, but she's always been that way . . ."

Stiles elbowed him to get back on topic.

"It can take on many forms. Sometimes it's quite harmless little esoteric things and sometimes not. His was not. He was brutal – a sadist. I think he might have been long before becoming a werewolf, but giving him both the urge and the power to carry it out was too much. He was much older than me. I'm not sure who thought it was a good idea to change him."

"The pack kept it a secret?"

Derek shrugged. "It's what you do."

Stiles looked down for a moment. "I am glad you killed him."

Derek nodded, letting go of his husband's hand, then standing and turning away, lost to his memories. "As am I. I've killed a lot of people – and a lot more are dead because of me – for the military, for the FBI, for my pack, and for challenge. Very rarely am I proud of it. He was a sadistic son of a bitch, though. I'm lucky I was just strong enough to kill him and he was just mad enough to make bad choices when we fought. He allowed himself to enjoy it too much."

Derek's head suddenly cocked—supernatural hearing making out some new sound that Stiles couldn't hear.

"Someone is outside."

Stiles turned towards the door.

The ghost was confused. He spent a good deal of his time confused. He was also alone. Everyone had gone, to the very last, so that he floated in his madness, losing his afterlife into silence. Threads of his true self were drifting away. And there was no friendly face to sit with him while he died a second time.

He remembered that there was something unfinished. Was it his life?

He remembered there was something he still needed to do. Was it die?

He remembered that there was something wrong. He had tried to fix it, hadn't he? What should he care for the living?

Wrong, it was all wrong. He was wrong. And soon he wouldn't be. That was wrong too.