Chapter 13: Family

Sun shining on his face woke Stiles up. Realizing he was in his bed he couldn't help the smile that came onto his face but then he heard a knock on his door, "Come on kid, you gotta get up! You're going to be late for school!" Hearing his dad's voice, Stiles jumped up in bed.

Not bothering to change out of his pajamas Stiles ran down the stairs, following the heavy footsteps into the kitchen where his dad had begun to make coffee. "Dad?" Stiles let his voice crack, not afraid to show tears. He missed his dad too much to hold back. "Dad is it really you? How can it be? You're dead." He took a cautious step forward.

The sheriff turned around, a confused and slightly concerned look on his face. "What are you talking about Stiles? Is this some ploy to keep you from having to go to school? Because you're going."

Without another thought Stiles ran across the room and wrapped his arms around his dad. "This is a dream, isn't it?" He mumbled into his dad's shoulder but got no response. "You know I love you, right dad?" He didn't want to let go.

His dad rubbed his back a little. "I know, I love you too kid." He nudged Stiles a little to make the kid let go and gave a half smile. "You better get going, your family is waiting for you."

The front door was wide open, a light shining in, and Stiles looked down to see he was wearing the clothes he had on before entering the clearing. He started to head towards the door but stopped to turn back to his dad, catching his dad's words. "Wait, don't you mean my friends are waiting for me? You and mom are both dead now. I'm the last Stilinski."

The older man smiled before taking a sip of his coffee. "That doesn't mean you don't have a family. They've always been your family Stiles; you just didn't realize it until you thought you didn't have one. Family doesn't have to be blood, it can be pack."

Smiling, Stiles walked out the door.

An annoying beeping was waking Stiles. It all seemed so familiar. But then the memory of the clearing came running through his mind and he sat up, or tried to sit up before hands were holding him down. "Where is he? We need to…" Stiles started to ramble without fully opening his eyes.

"Hey, Stiles, calm down." Two of the warm hands must have belonged to Scott. "It's okay, your plan worked. You were right. It was all pretty genius really." Scott smiled as Stiles sank back into the pillows and really opened his eyes for the first time. "The stuff you injected into your blood reacted just like you said it would with the stuff he's been ingesting."

There were herbs James had been taking for years so that his blood would be poisonous to all supernatural beings. But there was one downside. When the herbs were mixed with a certain solution they could be toxic when they were otherwise harmless to humans. So, Stiles injected himself, knowing he would have to spill his blood one way or another. And his blood, his perfectly human blood, became toxic to the doctor.

"Where is he now?" Stiles asked, knowing the blood wouldn't have killed the man, he didn't want that anyways. But he feared the pack had killed the man, torn him to shreds, for what he had done.

Malia spoke up. "Derek is watching him just like you asked. I was about to leave to help out." She took her hands off of Stiles. "I don't understand why we aren't killing him."

A small smile came over Stiles' face. "I have to prove something to him." He looked down at his leg, wrapped heavily in gauze. "When can I leave here?" He looked around the hospital room only to see Melissa entering the room with a slightly pissed off look on her face.

"Never if you so blatantly ignore my orders again." Melissa put a hand on her hip. "Of all the stupid and idiotic things you boys have done this most definitely tops the cake. I can't believe you Stiles! You weren't even supposed to be out of the hospital and you went off to fight some super hunter? Are you trying to give me an aneurism?" She grabbed the chart at the end of the bed.

Letting out a breath Stiles shook his head. "I'm sorry Melissa."

"No, you're not. But you will be." She looked down at the chart and then back up at the boy who looked so drained. "However, your punishment can come later. Now you need rest."

Shaking his head Stiles tried to sit up. "No, I need to go see him. I need to deal with this and then I can rest." He saw that Melissa was going to disagree so he kept talking. "Melissa please, I have to do this. He is the reason for all of this. I have to show him that he was wrong. I have to…Melissa I need to. If not then my dad…" Stiles stopped himself before he made himself cry. "Just please get me out of here so we don't have to go behind your back again and sneak out." At least he was honest.

Pulling up to the old Hale house where they were keeping the new prisoner. Scott helped Stiles out of the car, wishing Stiles had agreed to take the wheelchair. "Are you sure about this? We could have waited until you were a little more healed to do this." Scott felt like he had to be even more protective after picking Liam over Stiles, even if Stiles had been the one to tell him to do so. He just felt like he had to make up for something.

Because they were best friends, and pack, Stiles could tell what Scott was feeling and what he was trying to do. "I'm fine Scott." It wasn't a convincing statement as he winced as he said it. "Okay, I'm not but I will be after I do this, I promise. Then you can baby me all you want. And I know this might not make you feel better, but I've dealt with much worse."

The two walked through the woods by the house making it to the underground basement where Derek and Liam were standing guard. "Stiles!" Liam stood up from where he was leaning against the wall. He wanted to hug his friend but restrained himself. "It's good to see you not in a life-threatening situation." He smiled and gave Stiles' shoulder a pat. "Thanks for saving me by the way."

Stiles smiled at the younger boy. "Ditto." Stiles ignored the confused look he got from the kid and limped over to Derek. "How badly did you hurt him?"

The older werewolf scoffed. "I restrained myself like I promised. He was falling weak pretty quickly anyways. More of your blood got on him than we planned. Malia was the one who we had to hold back." There was more to the story and Stiles just kept staring at him. "Okay, I punched him once maybe twice but he wasn't passing out quick enough for my liking so I helped the process along. No one has touched him since we tied him up though, I promise. We even gave him food and water."

Stiles smiled and put a hand on Derek's shoulder. "Good boy." He ignored the scowl he got. "Do you have the…"

Before he could finish his sentence Derek held up a little jar filled with a slightly purple liquid. "Deaton dropped it off early this morning." He put the jar in Stiles' hand. "I don't know why we don't just kill the man. How do we even know if this will work?"

"Remember that talk about trust we had a year or two ago?" Stiles raised an eyebrow. "You're just going to have to trust me. I…" He took a breath. "I was trained to make this stuff and to make sure it works, bring the supernatural and science together." Stiles put the jar into his pocket. "Just take me to him please. I want to get this over with."

They lead Stiles into the caged area where the man was being held, chained to a wall. As soon as the man looked up to see Stiles he smiled. "And look at who came to see me, my dear protégé." He pulled himself up, trying to look as if he hadn't been defeated. "So what's the plan? Are you going to torture me like I tortured you? What? Was letting your dogs kill me not good enough, not painful enough for me? Maybe I taught you better than I thought." He kept on a smug smile, keeping the pain from Stiles' betrayal hidden. He hated that he had failed with this one.

Stiles sat on the ground in front of the man who had changed him, but maybe not as much as everyone had worried. "You taught me a lot, I can't argue that. But you didn't accomplish your goal." He waited for the smile on his prisoner to falter just a little. "I'm not going to torture you or kill you, James. It's like I told you at the very beginning, we've found another way. It's what Scott has been preaching for a long time. What was it you told Scott when he was worrying about becoming like the alpha, Derek?"

His arms crossed and a deadly scowl set on his face aimed towards James, Derek spoke up with a calm and strong voice. "We're predators, we don't have to be killers."

Stiles nodded. "And they aren't killers. I'm not a killer. But you are. And that makes you the monster in the room." Stiles pulled out the small jar from his pocket. "You were right about one thing though, mixing the supernatural world with science can be an interesting thing. I never thought I'd like chemistry, I had a bad teacher in high school, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it now. You see this?" He held the jar up to the light. "This is a special mix of my own invention. A small deluded portion of it is Kanima venom. It's enough to leave you partially paralyzed to that you can never hunt again, but not enough to keep you from leaving a fulfilling and happy normal human life among citizens. I made sure it's effects would be permanent."

"That's not enough to keep me from hunting. Even paralyzed, I can do the job. Or at the very least I can just train more hunters. Maybe they won't be as great as you could but they will still be amazing." The man struggled against his restraints. He couldn't image a life outside of hunting monsters.

Tipping the jar side to side, Stiles nodded. He had thought of this too. He really did know his captor. "I know that. Didn't you notice the purple tent?" Stiles held the jar a little closer. "What do you know that could make that color James?" He watched as the realization came over James' face. "That's right, that tricky little tree root you told me all about. It will mess with your memory. You won't remember how to be a hunter." Stiles held an empty hand up and Derek put an empty syringe in his palm. "I'm going to inject you. You won't die and it won't hurt. You're going to black out and Derek will drive you a few towns over and you will wake up in a hospital and won't remember anything I don't want you to remember. You can go back to your family. You can live a happy life."

"I'd rather you kill me." The man laughed and sank back against the wall. "You're going to take away who I am."

Stiles shook his head and looked down at his hands as his filled the syringe. "No James, I'm giving you back who you once were. You're mentor took away a large part of you to make you into this. You were just an innocent kid whose dad died, lost in mourning and he took advantage of that. You lost yourself because of your training and because of him. I'm going to give you a second chance. And I promise you'll like this version of you a lot better." Stiles held the needle up to the man's arm. "I'm sorry, you didn't deserve a life like this."

"You could have been great." The man tried to pull his arm away any further but couldn't.

Scott stepped forward. "He already is."

With that Stiles pressed the needle into a vein and waited for it to take effect, making the man who had caused so much pain to slump to the floor completely blacked out. "Take him away, make sure you put that note with his name on it in his pocket but nothing else. He should be out it for another two days." Stiles gave the empty syringe to Liam to throw away as Derek went to deal with James and Scott began to pick Stiles up off the floor. "I'm tired."

Scott couldn't help but laugh. "I'm sure you are buddy."

After several hours of much needed sleep Stiles woke up with a startle from a nightmare and before he could even begin to calm himself down there were two hands on his shoulders. "Hey, it's okay, you're okay. Everything is over." Lydia was the one talking to him and holding him but beyond her Stiles could see the whole pack looking at him with worried eyes and he couldn't help but smile.

"I know." Stiles laid back down into the soft pillows. "Thanks guys, for everything." Stiles knew that there was going to be a long road to recovery before him, after all he was broken. But he had his pack, his family, looking after him and that was enough for him.

/So, I think that's the end. I might do an epilogue later on if people want it. But I hope you guys liked this. Sorry I got a little vague with the herbs and stuff but I realized that the specifics I had would have killed Stiles if he injected it into his blood so I just made it vague last minutes so I could put this up because I've made you wait for too long. So yeah, thank you so much for reading you guys!