Author's Note: Weeeell I started something new again. We'll just have to wait and see where this goes.

First section of chapter rewritten 31/8/17

Chapter One:

The first thing Stiles registered was pain.

His entire body ached, a fiery itch that felt like he was bursting at the seams, and the stabbing pain in his skull quite possibly represented the worst migraine he'd ever had in his entire life.

All in all, that was hardly an unexpected outcome of getting tossed about by a supernatural entity and maybe blacking out for a while. Bodily pain was kind of the norm these days.

Stiles really didn't want to open his eyes, but his senses were struggling past the pain and demanding his consciousness get with the program, and the general lack of sound in his immediate vicinity when the last thing he remembered was being in the middle of a fight, well, it sent a little thrill of panic racing through him. Letting a bit of light further aggravate his migraine was a small price to pay in order to gather his bearings.

Carefully cracking open one eye, Stiles squinted up at what turned out to be a ceiling. (Hadn't he been outside? How long did he pass out for?) He instinctively flinched away from the light (why was the light on? What time was it?) and, setting his jaw against the flaring – but slowly easing – pain in his limbs, forced himself to roll over onto his side, shielding his gaze from direct light and allowing his to peer about himself.

If his eyes weren't playing tricks on him, then it seemed as though he was in his dad's study. But that made zero sense. If he'd not only been unconscious long enough to be dragged home but someone had also taken the effort to bring him all the way to his house, why dump him on the floor in the study and not, say, either on the couch in the living room (right inside the front door, convenient) or on his bed in his room.

Unless his chauffer had just felt like being a particularly bizarre brand of unhelpful? Except he'd been injured – even if Stiles' body hurt in ways he wouldn't necessarily have expected from the beating he remembered taking, he still knew he'd been hurt somehow – and even if sometimes there were some confusing levels of friendly douche-baggery amongst the pack they never messed around when someone (especially the delicate human) was hurt. There had been more than enough death and near-death experiences for them to know exactly where to draw the line.

As Stiles pondered all of this, and the pain in his head filtered down to a more manageable level, he noticed that the room wasn't as quiet as he'd originally assumed. Beside the sound of his slightly panicked heartbeat there was a low, vaguely electronic murmuring. Distinguishing actual words or meaning from it felt too much of a chore amongst his confusion, but given where he was he could guess a likely source: his dad's police scanner.

And didn't that just bring back memories? It had been a long time since he'd snuck about listening to the scanner while his dad was at work, staving off boredom and trying to pick out anything interesting from the police chatter. These days he hardly needed to help finding trouble; it always, invariably, found them first.

That errant thought made Stiles frown. He didn't listen to the scanner anymore, and his dad never left it on when he was out – be that out of the room or out of the house entirely. Why was it on?

Although they were all little things, that was officially too many mysteries to justify Stiles just laying passively on the carpet. The pain in his extremities had numbed to something of a tingle, more uncomfortable than sore, like he was stretched a little too thin, trying to contain too much within himself. (Was that some sort of magic backlash? He'd worry about it later.) His head, while still sore, had dropped out of migraine territory and was lingering somewhere closer to 'annoying headache'. With crippling pain no longer an excuse, Stiles pushed himself slowly up off the floor.

From a higher vantage point, and with a somewhat clearer mind, Stiles examined the study with a critical eye. It was a lot… tidier than Stiles was accustomed to; emptier even. No sprawling folders of unexplainable incidents or files that needed tweaking to present human motivations and actions. No notes tacked to the walls. The yarn his dad had stolen from Stiles' own Mystery Board Preparedness KitTM was nowhere to be seen.

An uneasy weight settled heavy in Stiles' stomach, a chill dancing up his spine. Unexplained irregularities were always a valid reason to panic.

His gaze slid over his dad's calendar – still there, notated in red – and then shot back, apprehension turning to dread.

January 2011.

Stiles' brain short-circuited. The first word he voiced since waking up was an emphatic "Nope." He started laughing, and no one was around to point out that it was maybe a little bit hysterical. His hands raised to his head to tug jerkily at his hair, only to come up short because where was all his hair?

The laughter choked to a sudden halt, caught in his throat as he pressed his palms despairingly against the short unmistakable feel of his old buzz cut. His feet began moving before he'd even made a conscious decision on what to do; he stumbled a little, that strange and uncomfortable sense of wrongness in his body translating to motion as well, but managed to stay upright until he was standing in front of the bathroom mirror.

There was no denying that the face staring back at him was technically his own, but it was also definitely not the face he'd seen in the mirror that morning. The skin was too smooth, lacking the myriad tiny scars that Stiles knew littered his own body, most barely visible unless you knew where to look but that told a story of all the fights he'd thrown his stupid fragile human body into. The permanent dark circles beneath his eyes that had developed sometime around the Nogitsune and never gone away weren't there.

That person in the mirror with the short hair and the healthy complexion? Stiles could barely remember what it was like to be that person. And now he was, what, having a nightmare? Tripping out like nobody's business? (He staunchly ignored the part of his mind that almost tauntingly started humming the Doctor Who theme tune.)

"Oh god," he whispered, pressing a trembling hand to the cool glass. "Somebody please tell me this is some fucked up dream." He stared almost pleadingly at his hand, familiar but unfamiliar, but no amount of frenzied counting could convince him that he truly was dreaming. When you mess with the supernatural why would anything ever get the simplest answer?

Occam's razor, one of Stiles' favourite methods of rationalising supernatural occurrences, whispered unwanted and unhelpful conclusions. The room, the calendar, the face in the mirror: there were only so many things they could mean when thrown together like that. But Stiles could not deal with that right now. He needed to get away from his unsettling reflection and find something more tangible, more, well, more.

Stiles kept his gaze pointedly turned away from any even mildly reflective surfaces as he made his way back to the study. He needed to centre himself, to come to grips with whatever the hell was going on, and the best way, sometimes the only way, to do that was with information. Of course, information didn't necessitate truth; it could be manipulated or simply inaccurate, but any information was better than standing in an unfamiliar-familiar house in an unfamiliar-familiar body in a shirt he was 99% sure he didn't own anymore while he worked himself into a panic attack.

He took three slow, deep breaths, brushing the panic aside, squashing it beneath desperate determination. When he thought he could safely function without significant risk of breaking out in hysterical laughter or tears, he sat himself down by the scanner and started paying proper attention.

It didn't take long for something to stand out.

Dispatch was directing some officers to check out reports of a dead body being found in the woods.

Death wasn't exactly a rarity in Beacon Hills, especially not once all the supernatural shit really got stuck in, but it was also a reasonably small place, and bodies being dumped in the woods were hardly commonplace. Stiles didn't have to know the exact date to know what they were talking about.

This was the night everything had changed.

Truth or fiction?

The creature they'd been trying to chase out of town (because they'd been under no illusions about their ability to kill it) had been undeniably powerful, but what powers it possessed were still a mystery to all of them. Had it trapped Stiles in his own mind? Was this going to be some nightmarish Groundhog Day scenario? Would it be better if this was all in his head, or would it be worse?

Stiles didn't have any answers. All he knew was that he couldn't just sit there and pretend none of it was happening. He had to go and see it for himself.

While he scoured the house looking for his keys, the voice of timeline stability reared its ugly head and softly reminded him that, if he wanted to make sure, regardless of the truth of the situation, that nothing went sideways, he should make a detour and pick up Scott. The very thought of seeing Scott just then – the fragile human Scott of pre-2011, and not Scott the True Alpha – sent an anxious shiver through him. Seeing someone else would make this realer, somehow, and that was technically what he was after, but not… Not someone he was so emotionally connected to. Even though the Sheriff was going to be at the scene, Stiles didn't have to go down and see him; he just needed to get close.

If he went to Scott's place now, raw and wild and panicky and so obviously out of place, he'd probably break down, and then Scott wouldn't let him leave, and he'd never get to the woods. He needed to go to the woods. For the sake of his sanity. To understand. For clarity.

If he didn't wake up or break free before the sun rose, he'd be seeing Scott tomorrow anyway. The rapid beating of his heart as he slipped out of the house and out to his jeep confirmed that tomorrow was still too soon, but he could only work with what he had.

Scott was staying home.

Stiles was doing this alone.

The drive did nothing to calm his nerves, fingers tapping anxiously against the steering wheel the whole way. Finding a discreet place to park was second nature by now with how often he'd had to sneak out while avoiding police patrols for one thing or another. He might not be able to outsmart a werewolf, but he'd worked damn hard to improve his ability to avoid detection by other regular humans.

Once upon a time Stiles might've enjoyed the atmosphere of a forest at night, but he'd spent enough time running for his life that now it only seemed to impress that something else had gone wrong. It was quiet, and the darkness felt almost heavy, but it was easy enough to pick his way reasonably quietly through the trees towards where the headlights of a car illuminated that fateful patch of land.

He only took a quick glance – crosschecking the scene with his vague recollections of that evening all those many long months ago – before sinking into the dirt and leaves at the base of a tree, hidden from prying eyes. If he stayed quiet he could slink away again without anyone any the wiser to his presence, but he didn't exactly trust himself to accomplish that. Every exhale was a little shakier than he'd like, each breath rattling in his lungs and catching in his throat on the way out.

It had only been a momentarily glimpse but… his dad was down there. Physically younger, sure, but also not yet weighed down with stress from untold numbers of supernatural incidents and deaths he could never explain to the justice system; free from the way that knowledge and responsibility had aged him.

Stiles dug blunt nails into his scalp, forcing himself to focus on smoothing his breathing and not on the emotional whiplash of seeing another unfamiliar-familiar face. Whatever was happening, if the goal was to shake him up, it had well and truly been accomplished.

Time passed by without Stiles being acutely aware of it. All he knew was that there were still several officers milling about when he finally picked himself up off the ground. He brushed the loose plant matter from his jeans, ignored the dirt clinging to his ankles, and pushed away from the tree, meandering slowly but surely back in the direction of his jeep.

Every now and again Stiles paused, straining his ears to listen to his surroundings. He was on high alert, because he was always on high alert when out and about in the dark these days, but he was also distraught – he wasn't processing the sensory data like he usually did, and most of his thoughts were stuck on that image of his dad and not on pondering the significance of the date.

He was caught entirely off guard when a loud howl echoed through the woods from somewhere to his left. He swore harshly under his breath, clarity breaking through his confused despair.

"Run," Stiles muttered to himself, urging his body to move. He wasn't far from his jeep; if he could put on a good sprint, run as hard as his rabbiting hard would let him, then he might make it before the wolf bore down on him. There was no way Peter could open a car door while he was getting his crazy wolf rage on. But Stiles' body was frozen in terror, because he knew exactly the sorts of things Peter Hale was capable of, and it sounded way safer to maybe just try and play dead and hope he'd leave well enough alone.

His racing heartbeat would be a burning beacon; he was a sitting duck, trapped by his own mind. Tense with anticipatory dread, Stiles clenched his eyes shut. All he could do was hope to be left alone, but Peter had never been particularly good at granting his wishes.

There was a rustle of paws on the forest floor, a growling breath, and then pain. His knees giving out on him, Stiles collapsed, pressing his hands hopelessly to the warm blood leaking from his side as his vision greyed around the edges, partly from pain and partly from panic.

Here or there, then or now, there was just no winning today.

oOoOo

Stiles almost didn't go to school that morning.

He'd spent all night in the woods, regardless of the fact that crazy psycho-wolf Peter Hale might still have been running about, panicked out of his mind because he'd fucked up big time. Because maybe, just maybe, this was all real and happening, and Stiles had just changed everything. He hadn't brought Scott with him, ergo, Scott hadn't been bitten. Stiles had.

Stiles, the perpetual human, with no good traits apart from his obsessive researching and his ability to sass Derek Hale and not get his throat ripped out. Stiles, who had tossed about the thought of asking for the bite once or twice before really thinking about it, and what it had done to his friends, and decided that all that enhanced shit wasn't worth the mental trauma.

But he'd dragged himself back home in the early hours of the morning, driving his jeep as quietly as possible (which was hard) and eventually parking it down the street. His dad would already know he'd snuck out, but he didn't need to hear what time he made it home.

Stiles had a shower, washing away all the grime from a night spent in the woods and all the blood. He wrapped his torso, not bothering to be too thorough about it, since either it would be healed by the end of the day, or he'd be dead. (Oh god, was he going to die? Peter had seemed to think he'd take quite nicely to the bite, when he'd offered it to him, but was pre-resurrection Peter the best person to trust on their judgment calls?)

His head spun at the thought. Stiles had been in plenty of life or death situations, but never had he been so completely useless. There was literally nothing that could be done. His body would either accept it or reject it. He would live or die painfully. 50/50. The flip of a coin. All he could do was wait, and that was terrifying. Not quite as terrifying as being trapped in his own mind, nothing would be able to top that; it was a different sort of terror. A helplessness.

Stiles took more Adderall than he was supposed to before heading off to school. It didn't help. He wasn't sure it was ever going to help again. Stiles also knew he was going to have to confront his dad at some point, and he was going to get a serious tongue-lashing. He'd been lying to his dad's face for so long now… He wasn't sure what he was going to do.

He just had to… act normal. But what was normal? Stiles couldn't remember.

oOoOo

Stiles stared at his locker and groaned low in his throat. He'd managed to slip inside without drawing too much attention, and he'd avoided talking to anyone thus far, but he couldn't remember his damned combination.

Everything was just a bit too loud; sounds too sharp, colours a tad too vibrant. It made it hard to concentrate. And two days ago he'd had far more pressing things to worry about than last year's locker combination.

Stiles identified Scott's approach ten seconds before his best friend called out a greeting and clapped him on the back. It was strange, because he'd never been able to tell Scott's footsteps from anyone else's before; the only difference he'd ever been able to hear was between sneakers and heels. How did he know that particular gait belonged to Scott when it was the first time he'd heard it?

It suddenly hit him just how hard the whole thing must have been for Scott, who had absolutely no idea what was going on at the time. If his friend hadn't been so damned obstinate about the whole thing he might have been proud just then.

"What's up man? You're just staring at your locker, and it's starting to freak me out."

Stiles held back a flinch, because Scott was too close, and his voice was too loud. He sighed, made an aborted motion to run his hand through his hair, and shook his head.

"Forgot my combination," he admitted, trying hard to limit the amount of melancholy in his voice to 'first day back' levels, and keep it away from 'the world is ending'. Because Stiles had honed his melodrama over the years, but even so, his current 'end of the world' melancholy was serious stuff, because everyone he knew nearly died on an almost weekly basis.

Scott gave him a slightly worried look, and Stiles belatedly realised that his current 'first day back' melancholy was probably tantamount to his old 'end of the world' moping. He tried for a smile, but it didn't reach his eyes.

Scott reached across him and opened Stiles' locker for him.

"You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah." Stiles nodded emphatically, even though he didn't believe that at all. "I just didn't get much sleep last night. You know."

Scott frowned his adorable confused frown, and Stiles had to bite his lip to stop from just spilling everything right there and then. Scott would never believe him. He hadn't even believed Stiles when Scott was the one affected, even if Stiles had been joking in the beginning. Scott was too idealistically realistic (most of the time) to believe anything like this.

And it struck Stiles now, in retrospect, that talking about werewolf stuff all the time in crowded school corridors probably hadn't been the smartest move. How many people had overheard them?

"I'm serious," Stiles tacked on, forcing some energy into it. "I'll be fine in a few hours." It was a lie. Stiles was vehemently certain that'd he'd never be okay again. But maybe, in a few hours, he'd have managed to get himself together enough to pretend. He'd looked alpha Scott in the eye and lied to him before. How hard could it be to lie to a human?

Oh god. Nothing's going to be the same ever again.

oOoOo

Stiles had thought he was prepared for pretty much anything, but then Allison Argent walked into his first period class.

(Turns out he was prepared for absolutely nothing.)

His heart ached at the sight of her. Smiling and free from the knowledge of werewolves and hunting. Unburdened by the strains of dating a werewolf, of family loyalty, of life. Living and breathing and sitting in the row behind him.

Stiles, the Nogitsune, had killed her. Killed her right in front of Scott and Isaac, in front of everyone who loved her. There were days when he woke up and wondered why her father hadn't just killed him. Those mornings usually coincided with nights filled with nightmares wherein the Nogitsune was a figment of his imagination, created to try and separate him from the horrid things he was doing.

After the Nogitsune had been inside him, Stiles realised that he was capable of doing horrible things. And just because it was the Nogitsune which killed Allison, it didn't mean Stiles couldn't someday wind up doing the same thing.

So seeing Allison made him want to tear his heart out and leave it on the floor, because he didn't deserve to feel.

But it was nothing compared to his first glimpse of Erica Reyes.

Stiles knew that back then, the person he had been wouldn't have given Erica a second glance in the hallways. No one did. She didn't have any friends, not really. And Stiles knew what that was like, to an extent, because he could pretend to be pals with the guys on the lacrosse team, like Danny (but definitely not guys like Greenburg or Jackson), but Scott was his only real, good friend.

Stiles remembered Erica as a werewolf. Fierce, sensual, abrasive. Damaged. But what he remembered most was Erica, dead. It was something he tried to forget, but knew he would never be able to. Stiles had mourned her for a long time – he still was, in all honesty – because she was his Catwoman, and he hadn't spent nearly as much time with her as he ought to have, and her death had filled him with regrets about things done and not done that he was never going to have a chance to rectify.

Except, there she was. Epileptic, pre-werewolf Erica. A childhood friend he'd ignored all through high school.

Seeing Erica was like a punch to the gut. A werewolf punch. Probably hard enough to rupture organs. It staggered him.

It threw him so badly that Stiles ditched Scott and his hopeless gossip about Allison (oh the things he could have told him, not that he and Allison had ever really talked much on a personal level), and took his lunch over to the corner of the cafeteria where Erica was sitting all alone. Her skin was paler than he remembered.

"Hey, Erica." Stiles hoped like hell she didn't catch the waver in his voice. He was trying to supress it, but it was difficult, with so many emotions clouding his mind as he looked at her. "Do you mind if I sit?"

"Stiles…" Erica looked up at him with wide, suspicious eyes. Stiles flinched. He'd done that to her. They'd been really tight when they were younger, and now look at them.

"It's okay if you don't want me to, I can go," he began rambling, a little frantic. He didn't know what she was thinking and he must seem really off today and all the freaking heartbeat sounds weren't helping at all, and how did Scott even deal with all of this? "I just…" Stiles shrugged helplessly. "I wanted to see how my Catwoman was holding up. And maybe apologise."

Erica considered him for a long moment, brown eyes scrutinising every inch of his face. Stiles tried not to think about how he hadn't been able to save her, because he didn't think looking at her as though she were a ghost was going to score him any points.

Eventually she nodded, and Stiles sat down, suddenly aware of the attention they'd drawn from those people seated near them.

"You haven't called me Catwoman since we were twelve," Erica said, in a manner that reminded Stiles a little of the werewolf Erica, when she wasn't afraid to say whatever was on her mind. Stiles supposed she'd always been like that, except no one had been around to notice. He'd missed it. More than he realised.

"Yeah." Stiles rubbed his hand over his head, lamenting that fact. "I haven't been much of a friend since then."

Erica was still watching him carefully, so he tried to be as open as possible.

"What brought this on then?" Erica asked, gesturing between them, hesitant, as though she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer.

"I guess you could call it a New Year's resolution, or turning over a new leaf?" Stiles couldn't tell her why he was really doing this. They sounded like good reasons, didn't they? "I came to the conclusion, recently, that I've been kind of a dick to you these past few years. And that that's really not on. Because you, Erica, you're pretty amazing, and I'm not sure if you realise that. And everyone who teases you or ignores you, they're all missing out. Because you rock. And I've kind of missed my Catwoman."

Stiles tapped his fingers along the edge of the table, counting them over and over again as both reassurance and a way to fill the new silence. When he looked back up, Erica wasn't looking at him. She was staring across the cafeteria. He followed her gaze, and zeroed in on Scott. Poor, confused Scott.

Erica turned back to him, a different look in her eyes now. "I believe you," she said. Belatedly, Stiles realised she had probably thought it was some sort of prank.

"Thank you." Stiles offered up a smile, one that he hoped looked more sincere than the one he'd given Scott that morning. "Listen, I have lacrosse after school and stuff, so I'm busy, but we should hang out some time. Watch Batman. I don't know. You choose."

Erica smiled softly, and it lit up her face. A burning hatred welled up in Stiles' gut, furious at everyone who teased her and beat her back into her shell. He knew that technically he and Scott also fell under that umbrella, for ignoring her, but that stopped now.

Step one of a plan Stiles was making up as he went was now complete. They may not be his pack yet, but Stiles wasn't going to let them be alone anymore. Not this time.

oOoOo

Stiles didn't go to lacrosse practice after school. He knew Scott had been training really hard over the break, and his friend was convinced he was somehow going to make it to first line this season, but he didn't have the time for it right now. He remembered Scott's first practice after being bitten. Stiles didn't need a repeat.

Coach would yell at him for it later, despite having pretty much never made it off the bench before, but he'd deal with that when the time came. Right now, he needed to talk to Derek.

Despite everything that had happened throughout the day, it was hard for Stiles to remember that this Derek he was heading out to find wasn't his Derek. This Derek was mourning the loss of his sister, and was without a pack. His Derek was part of a pack. A dysfunctional, unconventional pack, for sure, but a pack nonetheless.

Stiles parked his jeep in the same place as the previous night, and stepped out into the preserve. His hand came up to rest against his side as he stood under the trees. The bite mark didn't hurt anymore. If he looked, he'd probably find it gone, or at least nearly healed.

It was strange, being on the receiving end. How many times had Stiles seen his friends injured, only to miraculously heal? How many times had he envied that, when he got thrown around trying to help? If the Nogitsune hadn't completely blown the lid on the supernatural, Stiles wouldn't have put it past his dad to assume he'd somehow joined a gang, with the way he kept collecting injuries.

Stiles breathed in deeply through his nose, taking in the enhanced scents of the woods. It was a confusing mix, and he couldn't identify most of it, but mostly it just smelled like nature. A homely, comforting scent.

"Now then," Stiles breathed out. "How do I find me a Sourwolf?"