Derek was a long way from high school. Well, not literally, because literally he was actually in his old high school right now, but he was a good few years from his last physics class. And he both wished he could remember more but also that he remembered less because right now his brain was just circling and circling around some kind of bizarre final exam question; "object A weighs 110 pounds, object B weighs 190 pounds and is completely paralyzed, how long can object A hold up object B in eight feet of water before object C, a giant lizard creature armed with a paralytic goo, succeeds in killing everyone?"

"Stop thinking so much Derek, your heavy thoughts are weighing us down," panted Stiles as she paddled madly trying to keep his head above water and, with less success, her own head up too.

"Save your breath, Stiles, please." Derek was just straight up begging her, he had started begging her almost immediately, to leave him, to save herself; he only stopped because she had some strange compulsion to argue back with him about how she wouldn't and he couldn't bear to tire her out more with arguing. Instead he tried being quiet, but she was right, it had led to some heavy thoughts. Their situation wasn't very conducive to anything else though.

They lapsed into silence again. The silence was more troubling for Stiles, on top of all the other things she was freaking out about: the giant lizard, how tired her arms were getting, the cramp in her right calf, how sad her dad would be; on top of all that every time she was quiet and tried to concentrate on something else she felt like she was tripping out. If she tried to concentrate on Erica, the blonde body crumpled at the bottom of a far wall, she would swear that she could hear Erica's heartbeat –slow and steady and almost infinitesimally getting stronger.

If she concentrated on the pool, on the cold water sloshing around and up her nose then the smell of chlorine made her head swim and her eyes burn. It was a thousand times worse than she had ever noticed chlorine smelling before.

And then there was Derek, she was pretty sure that some of the water dripping down his face was warmer and saltier than any pool water; she dunked his face accidentally on purpose every now and then just to save his pride. His heart was thundering under her hand, he was so agitated and trying so hard to heal the paralysis. She shifted her hand so that her palm was flat over his chest and she could imagine the different chambers and valves fluttering and pumping. AP bio had never seemed so superfluous before, she got this; she could see it through her fingertips like she had never seen anything before.

Was this clarity a gift of some sort for killing herself so nobly? So stupidly? Do all Darwin winners get an actual prize right before their death? She worked on what sort of stupid comment she could make about her imminent Darwin prize and then wondered if Derek knew what they were.

Her attention skittered away again as the lizard beast paused in its circling, one foot lifted and looking suddenly unsure. Stiles and Derek froze too, which well, Derek was already paralyzed so he was already pretty frozen but he stopped whatever bummer thoughts he was entertaining and started straining every sense to see what had freaked out the lizard. Stiles paused in her treading/flailing and opened her mouth which was a bad combination. She bobbed back up coughing and looked at the lizard, her vision tunneled in on the lizard, on the lizard's eye, on the reflection of the lizard's eye, on a tiny little Scott reflected in the lizard's eye and getting bigger and bigger. And then she couldn't see anymore because she was sliding under the water, and Derek was calling her, until he couldn't anymore because she was pulling him down with her.

Stiles' next thought was 'recovery position, my old friend.' Scott was crouched over her and Derek was lying on his back next to her; glass was falling from the skylights over the pool and raining down into the water below. 'That's going to be a bitch for someone to clean,' she thought. 'I wonder who the hell designed it like that?', although to be fair her mind replied, 'who really plans for a giant lizard attack?'

Some of that was probably out loud she mused because Scott was suddenly in her face with wide stricken eyes but she felt like the water was closing over her head again and she slid down into the quiet depths.

"Stiles," Scott was moaning, more than half wolfed out.

Derek gave himself a moment to listen to her slow and steady heartbeat before he mustered whatever alpha authority he had over Scott. "Scott, someone's going to come with that noise. Can you get us out of here?"

Scott nodded but didn't move.

"Scott, can you carry Stiles to her Jeep?" Little words, Derek reminded himself.

"The Jeep was impounded," Scott reminded him, even as he was scooping Stiles up and holding her close so that her breath ghosted across his neck where he could feel it. "Should, should I put her in the Camaro?"

"Yeah, yeah that's good. The keys are in my pocket," replied Derek and then put up with the indignity of Scott reaching in his front pocket and digging around for them.

Scott was back in less than a minute and he threw Derek over his shoulder before running him to his car and dropping him in the driver's seat next to where Stiles was sprawled. Another minute and he was laying Erica out in the back and then pausing next to Derek's door.

"Is the feeling coming back? Stiles said she was paralyzed for half an hour so I figured with your werewolf healing you should be better soon right?"

It didn't seem like the time or the place to discuss the finer points of cutaneous versus subcutaneous poisoning methods, and anyway he was feeling more in his arms and legs so he just grunted at Scott.

Scott gave Stiles, paler and quieter than ever Stiles, another pathetic look and whimpered, "I'm supposed to pick my mom up in five minutes. I, I'm literally driving to the hospital now, should I take her? She's human and she's so pale." He actually reached across Derek's face so he could touch a cool wet cheek.

Derek managed to turn his head to Stiles, "her heartbeat is steady. I'll take her home and get her dried off and in bed. I'll stay with her until her dad comes home at least and make sure she's okay."

"Will you call me?" Scott asked with big sad eyes. Derek rolled his own and said yes. Scott started to walk away and then turned back, "oh hey, I hope Erica is okay too."

Derek growled and Scott managed to chuckle a little as he ran to his mom's car, now with two minutes to go pick her up.

Derek sat there in his car with his wet clothes slowly drying on him until he could grip the key enough to turn it. He drove slowly and safely to Stiles' street and then turned around to check on Erica. She was still out so he carefully got out of the car feeling stronger with each step and pulled Stiles out and into his arms.

Her skin was like ice against him so once they got inside (the sheriff was out of course) he carried her upstairs to the bathroom. Shower or bath he asked himself on the walk and decided on shower, not too keen on anything it was remotely possible to drown in for a while.

Cool and clinical that was his mantra as he stood under the warm water with a mostly naked Stiles in his arms, turning to rinse all of the chlorine off of her and take the chill out of her skin. When she was pink again he turned off the tap and toweled her dry, using the towel to preserve her modesty as he stripped off the rest of her wet clothes and then carried her to her bedroom.

It was a relief to get her all tucked in before the sheriff came home, it was a relief but also sad thought Derek as he picked up her laundry basket and stopped in the bathroom to gather her wet clothes and then hide them all in the washing machine. He was just figuring out how to switch it on when he heard Erica quietly calling his name.

She met him on the back steps casually checking her messages and not looking like she wanted to hug Derek, not at all. Derek put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed, like she was a good lieutenant bravely injured in the line of fire and it was okay for her to go home now. He was both pleased and horrified by how effectively the message went through and how she relaxed beneath his hand.

"Stiles is still unconscious," he told her, "so I'm going to hang around until her dad comes home. Are you okay to get home?"

Erica slipped her phone into her pocket and nodded. "Tell her I hope she feels better. I guess I missed a lot but it sounds like she did good keeping you alive."

Part of Derek wanted to reply that Stiles had been incredible but a very short time ago Erica had been a very insecure girl and the bite didn't actually cure things like that so he just nodded. Erica got up and was all the way to the fence before she looked back and smirked, "maybe you can even tell her I'm sorry for breaking her Jeep, and her head on her Jeep, …or not." Then she flicked her hair back and leaped over the fence.

Derek growled on Stiles' behalf, or maybe his own. Whatever, he decided and went back to her bedside. A little self-conscious sniffing led him to the lump on the side of her head; the whine that followed finding it was even more embarrassing. He was a full grown alpha and she was a skinny little teenager, why did she keep leaping into danger for him?

He brushed her bangs back and remembered the time he had smashed her head against her Jeep steering wheel. Seriously, every member of his pack –and Scott, had hurt her or come really close to hurting her and she was still here, still trying to guard them all. What the heck drove her he wondered?

The night wore on and Derek found himself brushing those bangs back more and more as they stuck to Stiles' now sweaty forehead. Her slow and steady breathing got slower and less steady too as a wheezing sound started up, and still the sheriff wasn't home.

When she started raving about how the sheets were too scratchy and how the noises in the mostly silent (except for her really) house were too loud he picked up the phone next to her bed and dialed 911 with her fingers. He held the phone next to her mouth and let the dispatcher listen to her rave for a while, when he heard the call go out for her address in the background he let the phone drop to the floor and crawled out to the roof.

He should have been long gone by the time the sheriff burst in and the ambulance came screaming up the street but he couldn't help but watch through the window until everything was done and the door to her room was thoroughly banged by the gurney that they had dragged through it. 'Creeperwolf,' he chided himself and then went to call Scott with the bad news.