Just wanted to say thank you to anybody who favourited, reviewed or followed this story. Sorry for the wait to get it all posted, and I hope you enjoy the ending! ~ Eclipse

CHAPTER 45 - LAST WARNING

They don't really make it out of the woods that night. The whole place is soaking wet, but it feels fresh and new. Purified, as Jethro had commented happily, closing his eyes and promptly falling asleep much to Lexi's envy. That guy could fall asleep anywhere.

Isaac somehow cajoled one of the hunters out of matches and food, and now was sitting with Allison in front of a campfire. Scott and Lexi were currently debating over whether or not it would hurt to toast marshmallows on their claws.

Sam attempted to be at least some sort of responsible adult and found a first aid kit, but Scott, learning from watching his mom so many times and Allison, who actually knew first aid, were the ones who saw to Stiles and Lydia who were the only two without supernatural healing powers. Allison would have seen to her own cuts but she'd been healed of everything with Nate's alpha spark, so she spent the majority of the night trying to thank the other girl, who eventually used Lexi as some sort of human barrier to hide from the huntress.

There were some bruises and scars that would not fade with healing, Scott knows. He can see it in the tired eyes around him, in the scar across Stiles' jaw and neck, in the jumpy manner of Lydia now, and the sadness behind Nate and Lexi's smiles.

But he knows that things will get better.

So for now, he's prepared to see things through to the end.

It's not like in the movies. Between the end and the conclusions, there is the awkward in between stage. In real life you can't cut scene and then start afresh days later when all the characters look healthier, happier and already past the events that happened.

It's probably why the pack spend the first night, the same night as the battle, just camped out in the woods. They head back to Stiles' jeep and for the most part just find somewhere to curl up around the crudely constructed campfire. At intermittent intervals a few of them would vanish to deal with the various dead bodies of the angel or demon hosts, but for the most part they talked about everything except demons, deaths and destruction.

Nate keeps as close to Lexi as possible, unwilling to let her sister out of her sight. Jethro doesn't stray too far either, although whether that's because he enjoys the companionship or is sprawled out unconscious from energy manipulation remains to be seen.

The hunters stay with them at a distance, along with their angel, but Nate hears two of them - Dean and that angel of his - vanish at some point during the night. She's not complaining through when they come back with breakfast and coffee.

After that Scott and Isaac head off on Scott's bike, while the hunters give lifts to Lydia and Allison. Nate, Jethro and Lexi get a lift in Stiles' jeep back to the loft, where everyone is going to meet up once they'd slept and done other various body functions.

The loft is empty when they get back to it, and not that Nate had expected anything else, but it is a bit disconcerting to not have a pack member sprawled on the sofa or be staring at the evidence board.

But it is comfortable and familiar and just maybe, it feels a little bit like home.

She feels a pang of homesickness suddenly hit her, staring around at the empty room.

Nate just wants to go home.

The problem is - she doesn't know where home is anymore.

Her eyes burn golden and her pack is dead. That sounds just about right, and for the first time in months she feels right. She's a survivor, her and Lexi and Jethro. And now she has no responsibility beyond that which she chooses.

Giving up her alpha powers in hindsight was the easiest thing she's ever done, and she doesn't regret it. It makes her feel good - she saved a life, and she wants to do that again. She wants to study, go to school, go to university, be a doctor or nurse, help people.

And this… they can do this, she thinks. This pack, this town.

There's nothing for her back in England.

This is her pack now.

And just like that she feels better, feels relaxed and finds herself smiling. They may have to relocate when the mysterious 'Derek Hale' gets back in town; they may not, especially considering Stiles' fondness for their 'pack den' as he calls it.

"You okay?" Jethro asks, coming out of the kitchen, his mouth stuffed with food. He freezes, and then chews a bit more, swallowing with a gulp, "Nate?"

She looks around to him, her best friend, her idiotic stupid brave best friend who turned out to be a coatl. "Yes," she nods, "Yes, I think we will be."

"You're taking time off work, right?"

"Stiles, there are repairs going on everywhere because of that earthquake. That's the second bad quake we've had in less than six months. And Scott's dad's been poking his nose around the school, I need to be out there, doing my job."

Stiles glances at the floor, chewing on is lip, "I just… I don't want you overworking yourself. I… I was scared that…" that I was going to lose you, Stiles couldn't say, couldn't add on the end…

A pair of arms wrap around him, "Oh son," the Sheriff sighs, pulling Stiles to him, "I'm not going anywhere."

"Does this mean you forgive me for drugging you?" the teenagers asks hesitantly into his dad's shirt, breathing in the aftershave and relaxing slightly. It's over, he thinks, they're all okay. They're all alive.

His dad laughs, shoulders shaking, "I forgive you," he says, "Just don't get any ideas for the future." The two Stilinski's break apart and Stiles busies himself with grabbing his phone and keys so his dad won't see the tears sliding down his face from pure relief. "Oh, and you are not keeping the dog."

Stiles pauses, keys half-way stuffed in his pocket. He turns around to see his dad cradling his mug of coffee and starting a staring contest with the blue-eyed collie dog that sits, head mournfully on the floor.

"But dad…"

"No," the Sheriff puts his foot down, quite literally stamping at the ground. To be honest, Stiles is just relieved that his dad is back to normal. He shuffles guiltily on his way out to meet up with the pack after finding clothes that didn't smell of smoke or blood, and stepping into the shower for some time.

"Can I keep Lydia?" he tries instead. Delta pricks up her ears and her tail wags from side to side slowly. Stiles wonders if Prada could use a playmate.

The Sheriff sighs, "Stiles…" he looks like he's about to begin some long winded explanation, "Lydia?" he asks instead, eyes squinting, "Why would you want to keep Lydia?"

"Well, we're kind of dating." Stiles waves his hands about, "I can go get her and re-introduce her to you… have you ever officially met…"

"Son, no." The Sheriff sighs, "You don't need to introduce Lydia to me. Not unless you want me to introduce you to Melissa?"

"And, that's my cue to leave…" Stiles grabs the dog, tugging her backwards. She follows him obediently and Stiles trips his way out of the door. "See you later!"

Chris Argent wakes with a groan, rubbing at his head. Allison wants to smile brightly at him, but she can't quite manage that. Instead she sits back, "Hi Dad. How are you feeling?"

Her father freezes instantly, and she watches as awareness floods into his gaze, then horror, then sorrow. He turns to look at her, and she doesn't flinch.

She's an Argent. She holds up her chin and meets his gaze until he drops his own, looking away guiltily. "Allison…" he begins.

"It's okay," she says, "Everything's going to be okay now." Her eyes flit to the hallway, and she meets Isaac's gaze. The wolf nods, heading for the door, leaving her to let her dad sweep her up into a hug.

"I'm sorry," he says, even though he doesn't need to, "Allison, I'm sorry…"

"I love you too," she whispers to him, and then says it, even though she doesn't need to, "I'm not going to leave you."

"Why are you looking so cheerful?" Stiles narrows his gaze suspiciously at Isaac. The guy keeps shooting Allison puppy-eyes, and when he's not doing that, he's grinning like he has something planned. "It's really off-putting," Stiles adds, enjoying the way Isaac gets this disgruntled look on his face.

He doesn't answer, instead frowning, "What happened to my scarf?" he gestures at Stiles' cheek, "If you lost it…"

There is a flail in which Stiles paws at his cheek, trying to remember what happened to it. It probably burnt, he thought, except the magical holy fire didn't really burn anything, which meant he could probably rescue it from the forest and get it back to Isaac without the werewolf being any wiser, "At home," he lied, grinning, then the grin fell from his face, "Oh god, how am I going to explain this to people? I'm going to have to say I fell down the stairs, or crashed my jeep… or, hey, I know! I was in the car with tall, scary hunter when he crashed the car!"

"Nobody's going to ask questions," Isaac frowns at him, "Nobody is going to care!"

"Dude, it looks like someone tried to open my face up with a razor and like I got knifed in my shoulder by a mugger. What are the guys on the team gonna' think? They'll think I'm doing drugs!"

Isaac shrugs. "It's not like you walk around the locker room flaunting your stuff or anything. You usually, like, hide in your locker when you change."

Affronted, Stiles protests. "I do not hide in my locker!"

"You do. You're like a contortionist. You practically curl up inside the locker so no one can see you with your shirt off."

"Hi!" Scott bounces up, and he's looking just as happy as Isaac.

Stiles casts a suspicious glance between them, "I know Dean got laid," he shares with them, observing their faces with glee, "But you two as well?"

"No!" Scott shakes his head, frowning, but worryingly Isaac shoots Allison a dreamy look. Stiles doesn't even want to go there. "But guess what?" Scott's like a happy puppy.

"What?"

"Mom let me move back in! And Isaac," he adds as an afterthought.

Stiles allows himself a breath of relief. Maybe it really isn't too much to hope that things are going to get back to normal.

Well - as normal as Beacon Hills is ever going to get.

Everyone arrives at the loft in dribs and drabs. The hunters turn up too, hands stuffed awkwardly in pockets.

"You kids are doing a good job with this town," Sam says to Scott.

"Was that a compliment?" Scott grins, "I thought we were meddling kids…"

"Meddling werewolves," Sam corrects, "We underestimated you. You're doing a good job here."

Scott shrugs, "We were out of our depth," he says, "Thanks for the help. Seriously. We're sorry we kind of messed stuff up."

"Are you leaving?" Lydia asks.

Sam nods, "Once Dean gets his car fixed up," he responds, "We'll be on our way. We have stuff to do. Demons to track down. We're going to have a go at hunting down the ones that got away."

Lydia nods, turning away and moving towards where Nate and Allison are talking. Dean grumbles at Sam, "We could be out of town by this morning if you hadn't wrecked my car."

"The car wasn't my fault," Sam sighs, "The demon…"

"Oh yeah," Dean gripes, "Blame it on the demon. I'm driving my baby back to the bunker and I'm never letting you behind the wheel again."

"Dean actually thinks you're a really careful driver," Cas appears from nowhere. Even without wings, he still manages to do that. Sam jumps, startled.

"He does?" Sam gapes, wondering when the hell Dean would admit something like that.

Dean splutters. "Careful driving is not necessarily a good thing! And he hit a dog! I take it back!" He pauses, with a frown on his face, "When the hell did I say that anyway?"

"You like to talk after sex." Castiel answers studiously.

Sam's almost chokes on the Pepsi Allison had given him, which in Dean's opinion is totally deserved. Who drinks Pepsi anyway?

Castiel just looks stoic and is his usual calm self, ignoring Sam's disbelieving stare between the two of them. "Was that a joke?" the younger Winchester asks, spotting Dean's satisfied smirk. "Guys, that was a joke, right? Right?"

Dean's laugh follows him as he strides off to talk to one of the teenagers lounging about nearby.

Now Sam thinks about it, both Dean and Castiel had been suspiciously absent after the battle.

Crap.

The old man might be dead, but Sam still owes Bobby fifty bucks.

"So Adam is gone?" Dean asks, once Sam has stopped choking on his drink.

His younger brother nods, "At least for now. He's stuck in the veil, just like all the other ghosts out there."

"Just another reason to fix Heaven up," Dean says grimly, "But at least we can finally bin this," he waves the EMF metre around.

As if in response the machine whines. Dean and Sam just sigh, and look around.

Stiles' dog barks and the machine blips.

"Are you going to tell him," Sam asks with a puzzled expression on his face, "Or shall I?"

"I've got this," Dean strolls over to where Stiles sits perched on the edge of the table, piling all their torn down evidence and crime scene photos into a folder with Lexi and Scott.

"Stiles?" Dean asks, and the kid looks up. "We… we're kind of sorry to tell you this uh… Stiles… but your dog is dead."

"She's not my dog," Stiles mumbles, and then pauses, and double-takes. "Wait, what?"

"Dead?" Scott repeats.

"Are you…" Stiles leans over to where his dog sits, running one hand over Delta's head and a warm tongue comes out and licks his hands. "Are you certain?"

"Dead certain," Dean grins, not even wincing when Sam elbows him for the pun.

Sam crouches down and he flicks something white at the dog. Her whole form flickers and for a moment Stiles' hand rests on nothing.

"What the hell?" he jerks back and Delta stares beseechingly at him with her pale blue eyes. "My dog's a ghost." She woofs quietly at him and then trots over to Sam. He strokes her and her tail wags. "My dog's a ghost," Stiles repeats, dazed. "Oh my god."

"I'm pretty sure God had nothing to do with the death of your dog," Castiel sounds offended.

The dog whines and stands, trotting over to stick her nose at Cas' trench coat.

The angel looks surprised, but pats the dog.

"Great," Stiles sighs, "So not only do I have to get rid of the dog, but I have to get rid of a ghost dog. Who we gonna call?"

"I don't think the Ghostbusters would be any help," Cas frowns, "Although you could try the animal compound." The angel looks up, and Dean gets a bad feeling as Cas turns his blue eyes towards the brothers. "Or we could keep her?" he turns it into a question, just as the dog - Delta - seemingly able to understand him, rolls over for Sam to pet her stomach.

"No," Dean shakes his head firmly.

"Come on Dean!" Sam jumps on the angels bandwagon, "She'd make a good guard dog."

"I said no! No dogs on my car!"

"But Dean," Castiel states, "Just think of all the advantages a supernatural dog would give you."

"Well for one," Dean is arguing, "It's a ghost. What's to say one day it doesn't finally snap and go rabid vengeful ghost hound on us?"

"Animals are simpler than humans," Sam is emphatic, "Haven't you heard the stories of dog ghosts that guide people through labyrinths?"

"Yeah, and I've also heard tales of horses that lead travellers straight into swamps."

"Those are will o' the wisp, Dean!" the younger brother sounds exasperated. "But my point is animals are simpler than humans. They don't get stuck up on the details they just are."

"Plus," Stiles grins winningly, as if he hopes he can get rid of the accursed dog onto them, "She's dead. So you don't need to feed her, she doesn't poop, need walks…"

"Stiles," Scott looks scandalised, "Did you seriously not notice she wasn't eating anything?"

Stiles looks guiltily, "Well there is a reason my dad won't let me have pets," he scratches the back of his head sheepishly, "Since the boa I had as a kid died, and I'm pretty sure I never actually got around to stocking up on dog food and…"

"And this is why Allison looked after Prada," Scott sighs.

"So…" Dean looks at Cas' hopeful expression and just sighs.

"It's either this or a guinea pig," Sam says, "And she's easier."

Dean doesn't even want to know where the guinea pig idea came from.

Before the brothers set off, Dean pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and moves forwards. Scott is expecting a phone number or something, not for Dean to slide it across the table to where Jethro has discovered a homework essay due in for when school restarts on Monday and is frantically trying to plan it out.

Jethro looks up, and picks up the piece of paper. He squints at it for a moment before a wide grin breaks out on his face. "Is this…?" Scott frowns in confusion and leans over to see what is written there.

He snorts with laughter at what he sees there, "Uh… Stiles…"

His best friend glances up, spots Jethro's gleeful face and pauses, expecting trouble. "What?" he says, hesitantly.

"I know your real name!" Jethro blurts out, before turning to Dean, "Oh my god, dude, thanks! Just uh…" he frowns at the paper, squinting slightly to see what is written there. "How do you pronounce it?" Dean has already turned away when he whines, "This isn't a name! This is what happens when someone sneezes letters onto paper! How do you even say it? Msc-Shchnn-" He gives up and tosses the paper down. Lydia picks it up. "You guys suck." he complains, "You so tricked me."

"Is anyone going to tell him that is actually your real name?" Lydia whispers in Stiles' ear, folding the piece of paper up and giving it to Stiles.

"We were planning on letting him suffer," he whispers back with a grin. "Hey, wait, guys! I need to know…" Stiles skips forwards to Sam and Dean. "Are vampires a thing?"

A few minutes later he walks confidently back to Scott and Lydia. "Apparently vampires are real," Stiles grins, "Who knew? Derek is going to be pissed."

"They're mostly extinct." Sam says from behind him, "Making a comeback through."

"Mostly extinct…" Stiles jabs a finger in the air, "Is not yet extinct. Which means they exist!" he seemed happy about that.

There's a strange sense of non-urgency in the air that makes Scott almost uncomfortable. For the first time in months they have no demons to chase, no murders to investigate.

"This is kind of nice," Allison comments. "Why can't everything just be like this all the time?"

"Because then it would be boring," Isaac elbows her, as he finally finishes programming their numbers into Dean's phone and passes it back. "Keep in touch." he says, and the pair turn, Castiel already at the door way with the ghost dog Stiles had attempted to adopt.

"Drop in some time!" Stiles yells to the hunters.

"Oh we will!" Sam promises, "We'll spread the word to other hunters too. Beacon Hills is off limits. Pack guarded. We'll tell them."

"Thank you!" Lydia actually waves at them, and then looks around, composing herself.

"Don't get yourself kidnapped!" Sam shouts to her.

"Please," she laughs, "I've got these idiots to look after me," she grabs Stiles' hand, hanging onto his arm as he leans into her warmth.

Scott follows them to the where their car is parked outside.

"Seriously," Sam says, "If you need anything, just give us a call. We're kind of busy, but we'll try to help."

"We know," Scott says, "Thank you for not shooting us."

"You're teenagers," Dean looks aghast, "We don't shoot teenagers."

Scott doesn't know how seriously to take the hunter, and he thinks that at least Derek isn't here (and Peter scarpered). "Have a safe journey," he says, stepping backwards into a warm body. He glances over his shoulder to see Nate there, watching the hunters go.

"They're not bad," she hums, "For hunters."

Scott watches them bickering as the angel just climbs into the backseat quietly. The doors slam and the engine revs. "No, they're not. Just good people that a lot of bad stuff has happened to." He glances at Nate and then up towards the stairs where there is a loud crash and an exclamation of 'Jethro!'. "We all are," he adds, "Although we should probably go and check nothing is broken."

"With Stiles and Jethro up there?" Nate grins, "Good luck."

Scott laughs, "Let's go home."

And his new beta just grins, eyes sparkling gold in the sun. "I like the sound of that. Home. Yes, let's go home."

And they turn up towards the stairs where their pack's laughter drifts down towards them.