Chapter Text
Scott ran through the Preserve.
Sunlight danced with the leaves on the branches above him, shining green and gold. Beneath his feet, they threw undulating shadows across the forest floor. As fast as he was running, his eyes could still pick out the starlings amid the branches and the eyes of small furry animals watching from the underbrush forming the audience. Rising birdsong and the wind rushing through the leaves combined to form an impromptu orchestra. Scott’s own heart set the beat.
Swarms of crane flies darted among the trunks before coming to rest on shy mushrooms, the beat of their wings having stirred up the scent of pine sap and wildflowers.
No trace of the world from beyond the woods seemed to reach him, blocked entirely by these exuberant ministrations of late spring — or maybe it was early summer. Nothing menacing appeared in his way; no scent of blood or signs of clawed violence obstructed his path. As he sprinted through the undergrowth, he left only a trail of broken ferns behind him. His journey had no destination, and he was content to soak up the peace of the woods as if it were water and he was parched earth.
At least until his phone rang.
Scott opened his eyes to the familiar darkness of his bedroom. He had become as accustomed to this room as he had been accustomed to his bedroom back in Beacon Hills, partly because he had converted the second floor of the building that housed his animal rescue with his own hands. He had needed to be able to live close to his business, and homes in this particular neighborhood — or any neighborhood — of Los Angeles were not cheap. Both Derek and Chris had offered to help him out but, while he would never say he resented the pack, he had wanted the next step of his life to be something he achieved by himself alone and for himself alone. Life in the City of Angels would never be as peaceful as the dream out from which he had just woke, but this room, at least, was safe. He had made it so.
He picked up Allison’s heartbeat from where she slept undisturbed on the bed next to him. He briefly studied her face, even as he reached out to snag his phone off its bedside charger without looking at it. He had long ago started to set his ring tone to a pitch only a werewolf or similar creature could hear. At some point after high school, he had discovered he wasn’t able to go to sleep unless he was sure that his pack could reach him, yet he hadn’t wanted to wake up anyone who might be staying the night with him.
Of course, in the year since Allison’s resurrection, it had only been her in his bed. The way she had fit herself back into her life seemed too easy. It was as if she had never left, and it made him feel guilty from time to time. His L.A. friends had been shocked, of course, at the sudden change in his behavior. They had had trouble imagining him choosing to settle down, let alone coming back from a visit to his hometown with a new love and a foster son.
Carefully, he got out of bed and went out onto the balcony overlooking the street before answering the phone; Allison needed her sleep. She had a big day tomorrow, but instead of going back to her apartment or using her own bedroom down the hall, she had decided to spend the night with him. Scott had no doubt that she would ace the first final exam of her freshman year in college, but she had been so anxious and insecure about it that he had almost been overcome with nostalgia.
Tearing his attention away from Allison, he glared at the phone. Even if he did have the stamina of an alpha, it was still only a little before four in the morning. As a consequence, his greeting was going to be a bit surly.
“Hey, Scott.”
“Stiles!” His irritation vanished as if it had never been; Scott couldn’t help but smile even as he struggled to keep his voice down. Stiles’s career kept him so busy, far busier than Scott was, that Scott treasured every phone call. It had been months since the last one; Stiles had warned him he was going to be on a special assignment from the Bureau, and he would be off the grid.
“Sorry for calling so late.”
“You know I don’t care when I hear from you, dude, just so long as I do.”
On the other end of the line, Stiles drew in a sharp breath.
Scott’s brows came together; something in Stiles’ reaction made him suddenly anxious. “Are you finished with your mission? Are you coming back home?”
“No.” Stiles dropped his voice to a hair below a whisper. It didn’t matter since Scott was easily able to hear him. “I don’t think I’ll be coming back.”
Scott cocked his head to the side in confusion. He couldn’t figure out what his best friend meant by that, even as a knot formed in his stomach. “What’s … what’s going on?”
“I don’t have much time. You’re my best friend, Scott; you always have been.”
When he realized that the tone in Stiles’s voice wasn’t panic but stoic resolve, Scott’s heart clenched in fear. “Tell me where you are.”
“No, I’m not going to.” Stiles spoke so firmly that Scott had to bite his tongue. “You’re too far away, and that’s not why I called anyway. I just needed to—”
“You’ve got a phone, call the Bureau. Call them right now. They can—”
“They can’t help.”
“Then you run. I know you can—”
“Stop.”
“You gotta—”
“Stop. You have to listen. I don’t have much time.”
“Stiles.” Scott felt his fingers spasm. He was tempted to crush the phone, so he wouldn’t be able to hear any more. “Where are you?”
“Tell my dad. Tell everyone. Tell them good-bye.”
“No.” Scott repeated the word as if he said it enough it would change anything. “No. No. No.”
“It’s not your fault. I love you.”
His treacherous mouth, his stupid treacherous mouth, said the words before he could stop. “I love you.” To his own ears, those words sounded like he was giving permission, and Scott wasn’t giving permission. Whatever this was, whatever was happening, Stiles couldn’t leave him. “Don’t give up.”
“Bye, Scotty.”
The call ended.
It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but Scott immediately tried to call him back only to get Stiles’s stupid voice mail message. He tried again. And again. His finger suddenly felt thick and clumsy. Every single time, he was met with the same silly taunt that Stiles had first used in high school. Stiles had re-recorded the same message every single time he bought a new phone.
A few blocks away, a police car turned on its siren. For a human it would have been so faint as to be easy to miss, but to Scott it sounded like it was screaming directly into his skull. He put away the phone.
When the sound subsided, he shook his head. It was all going to be okay; Stiles was prone to exaggerating. In a few weeks, Stiles would show up, laughing at himself, and telling the whole story with hand gestures and maybe a few visual aids. He’d apologize for completely misjudging the situation, and then reveal that this close call had made him decide to give up the FBI and go work for his dad back home.
Except it wasn’t true, and Scott knew it. Scott had heard the resignation in his best friend’s voice as clearly as he had heard that siren.
He slapped a hand over his mouth, hard, to keep something from escaping. He wasn’t quite sure if it would have been a scream or a roar. He wondered how he had ever fooled a single villain all these years; he was such a terrible liar, even when he was lying to himself.
Closing his eyes, he opened the door from the balcony. “Allison.”
She stirred slightly. A strand of hair fell across her face.
“Allison, wake up. I need you.”
Immediately, her eyes flew open; she was immediately awake and ready for action. He had hoped that as they passed time away from Beacon Hills, her trauma-honed training would fade away, and she would be able to wake up like most people, groggy and disoriented until she had her first cup of coffee. It hadn’t happened yet.
“What’s wrong?” She sat up in the bed.
He sat down next to her. “I just got a phone call from Stiles.”
“Is he okay?”
“I don’t think so.” He recounted the phone call in a few quick statements. Summarizing crises had been a skill he had picked up long ago, and, to his regret, he had never lost it.
Allison remained quiet throughout his entire explanation. Her only movement had been to smooth her bedclothes out as he stood above her. When he finished, she threw off the covers to get out bed. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go help him.”
Allison picked up her robe from where it lay over the chair next to the bed and pulled it on over her shoulders. “Of course, but do you have any idea how to start?”
“I …” He sighed. “I don’t have a clue.”
In high school, the enemies had all come to him. He had never had to go look for them; he had never wanted to go look for them. When it had come to stopping Monroe or any of the other threats after graduation, someone like Allison’s father had been able to give him insight where best place to start would be. When it came to rescuing animals in dangerous situations, an emergency first responder would usually be the person to contact him.
“First of all, you have to figure out where he is. Then you have to figure out what he was doing. If you didn't leave anything out, the only thing you know right now is that he thinks he’s in serious trouble.”
He thinks he’s going to die. The words echoed in Scott’s head, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak them out loud. Instead, he stared at her.
She stared right back. “If you can’t answer those simple questions, you’re not going to be able to do anything useful for him.”
Frustration boiled out of him. “It sounds like you think I shouldn’t!”
“I would never say that.” She stood a little taller. “But it’s the middle of the night, Stiles is your oldest friend, and I know that it’s very tempting to do anything right away rather than sit here and think about what might be happening to him. You need to take a breath and calm down.”
Scott clenched his fists, but she wasn’t wrong.
“Being patient is going to be very hard, but we’ve both seen what happens when someone chooses to do something just to do something.” Allison reached out and took his hands in hers. “There's going to be a part of you that wants to run out that door right now.”
“I …” He didn’t know what to say, because she was right. She wasn’t criticizing him, but it still stung.
“Last year, you let me stab you with a poisoned blade in order to convince me of your sincerity. Remember that? I certainly do. Sometimes, I still think about what would have happened if it hadn’t worked, if the nogitsune still had its hooks deep enough into me that I had decided to stand there and watch you die. Stiles is my friend, too. I may not be as close as you are, but I want to save him if he’s really in that much trouble. I simply don’t want to do it at the cost of losing you. So we need to be smart about this.”
“You won’t lose me.” But I can’t lose him.
“I wish I could say I trust you, but you have a bad habit of putting everyone’s well-being ahead of your own. After everything we’ve been through, that doesn’t work for me anymore.”
“I can’t just wait around until someone tells us what’s happening.”
“And I don’t want you to. What I want is for us to proceed in a deliberate way that recognizes our limitations. If we want to do this right, we have to.”
“Okay. I promise you I’ll be careful.” He wasn’t completely sure if that was a lie or not. “What do you think I should do first?”
“Isn’t it obvious? We’re going to call Lydia.”
Allison seemed so confident, but he suddenly imagined how Lydia might take the news. She had left Stiles to save him, and it might not have worked. “Do you think that’s really a good idea?”
“Yes.” She insisted. “But I think I should do it alone.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked that question. You understand why I want to call her, right?”
He nodded, reluctantly. It made sense, and he really should have done it first rather than waking Allison up, but he realized — since he was trying to recognize his limitations that way Allison wanted him to — that he had tried to avoid it. He had pushed the thought of the banshee away immediately, because as useful as Lydia’s premonitions could be to finding Stiles, she could also confirm what he feared most.
“They may no longer be together anymore, but she still loves him. She would have heard something about this if there was anything to hear.”
“Okay.”
Lydia was in Seattle, a thousand miles away, but he suddenly realized that he had been afraid of her. Part of him assumed that he would hear the banshee no matter where she screamed for someone they both loved.
“Go wake up Eli.” Allison ordered, suddenly. “Help him pack something.”
“I can wait here with you. I’m not …” He swallowed. “I can handle anything she says.”
Allison pulled him toward the door and guided him out. “The truth is I’m not sure if I can. It’ll be easier for all three of us if it’s just her and me. And no matter what she says, Eli needs to be prepared. Go. “
Scott fought off the urge to be stubborn about it. As much as he had the right to demand to be part of their conversation or even had the right to insist that he be the one to make the call, how would such intransigence help anyone?
Eli’s bedroom was only a few dozen feet down the hall but it seemed like miles. When Scott had converted the second floor, he had intended it to be a guest bedroom. Eli had made it his own, though it had taken the boy several months to settle in. First, Eli had tried to recreate his bedroom from Beacon Hills. That had not worked out at all, so Scott had helped him put all that furniture in storage. Then they had gone on a shopping spree. The new furniture hadn’t worked either. Finally, Eli had compromised with himself, mixing furnishings from his home in Beacon Hills with the new things Scott and he had purchased together.
Through it all, Scott had been patient with all of Eli’s hesitation, his distress, and his indecision. As Eli’s guardian, Scott had simply authorized all the expenditures from the trust without any discussion. Scott had learned the hard way how to recognize the ways grief expressed itself. Healing couldn’t be rushed, and money was just money. Though, after Eli had seemed more settled, Scott had encouraged him to start talking with Marin Morrell via encrypted video sessions.
Scott knocked softly on the door. There was no immediate answer, and Scott couldn’t be sure if Eli had been woken up. Scott had sound-proofed the room. He knocked again, and in a few moments a terribly sleepy-looking Eli opened the door. “What?”
Even with the bottomless anxiety this morning had brought him, Scott seized a moment to be happy. At least someone could have a normal reaction to being disturbed at four in the morning. He counted it a victory. “May I come in?”
“Uh. Sure.”
“There’s a situation.”
And just like that, the innocent befuddlement slipped away from Eli’s face.
“You remember Stiles?”
“I couldn’t possibly forget him. The only person Dad talked about more than Stiles was you and his family.” Eli tried to make a joke out of it, but it didn’t work. It might have been a year but both Scott and Eli couldn’t mention Derek safely. “Did something happen?”
“Maybe. I think he’s in trouble. In big trouble.”
“So, we’re going to go get him?”
“I’m going to try my best.” Scott bit his lip. “We might have to move fast, so I need you to pack a bag.”
“We’re leaving now?”
“I don’t know yet. How many finals do you have left?”
“Two. One tomorrow — well, today now — and one on Wednesday.”
Scott suddenly remembered once again that Allison had finals this week as well. “Okay, um, okay, well, I’ll try my best not to make you miss them.”
Eli scoffed. “Oh, that’s fine. I wasn’t looking forward to them anyway.”
“But … but …” Scott licked his lips. “This is your life, you know? These things are important.”
“Not more important than Pack, and Stiles is Pack, isn’t he?”
“Of course.” Scott and Morrell had both talked with Eli about his father’s decision. Scott had always made tried to it clear to Eli that Derek was willing to do anything for the people he cared about, anything for his pack.
As much as the memory had pained him, there might not have been another way for Derek. Just like that there might not be anything to do for Stiles. Scott didn’t think he could endure another loss like that.
“Then we need to do anything to help him!”
“And we will, but … just pack a bag. Put it in the hallway when you’re done, then go back to bed. You’ll go to school and take your test, but if something happens, I’ll come get you.”
Eli sniffed at him, unsubtly, but he was tired. Scott could imagine what his chemo signals would be saying. “Okay, Scott. I’ll do it.”
Scott gave him his thanks and then went back toward his bedroom. Eli was a good kid, and he deserved to have a good and stable life. Like it or not, that was Scott’s responsibility as much as saving Stiles was.
Allison was standing by the bed, her phone in her hand, looking out the window at the city asleep.
“What …” Scott took a deep breath, trying to steel himself against whatever was coming. “What did she say?”
“She hasn’t screamed.” Allison turned around. “Which is good. It means he has time. Which means we have time.”