They've been home for about a half an hour when Erica arrives, two tiny little girls on either hip and a heavy-duty diaper-bag slung over her shoulder. The boys are explosively excited to see their cousins, more so than Stiles has ever seen them – especially Sebastian – and they all go careening off into the living room in a tangle of limbs and laughter before he even has a chance to say hello.

Erica laughs at his wide-eyed expression, pats his cheek teasingly, then lets herself into the kitchen where she starts unloading her bag onto the island.

"Um, aren't they being a little rough for her?" he asks carefully, his heart pounding just a little bit as he watches the youngest of the bunch disappear beneath the puppy pile.

"Gracie's tougher than she looks," Erica says, watching through the open doorway with a fond smile. "She takes after her father."

Stiles nods dumbly, because he's pretty sure he can hear snarly grumbles coming from the tussling toddlers, but sure enough little Gracie comes climbing to the top of the pile, a toothy grin on her face. Even though her sister Charlotte is four years older, they look remarkably alike – dark-honey skin tones, riotously curly hair, dark eyes – and Stiles wonders if all werewolves are stupidly pretty.

He immediately flushes dark red, horrified by his train of thought, because it's not Erica or her kids or the boys he's thinking about just then.

Said she-wolf arches an eyebrow and looks at him like she wants to eat him alive, pink-painted lips curving into a sly smile, but he's saved by a yip and a loud growl which draws her attention like a mom-magnet.

"Play nice you guys!" she hollers, opening up her laptop. "Or I'll tell your dad!"

Stiles isn't sure which kids or which dad she mans, but she gets a chorus of 'Yes, Aunt Erica's' back from the boys and utter silence from her own children.

Still, she smiles and shake her head, doesn't turn on him when he offers her ice tea. She's got her own mug packed into her bag, along with a sippy-cup and a plastic Princess Peach glass, and she laughs when he asks her about it.

"It's a crapshoot if Derek will have clean dishes on a good day," she says, as he fixes them both a cold drink. "I love the guy, but housekeeping is not his forte."

"I hadn't noticed," Stiles says loyally, and Erica snorts.

"That's because you're here," she replies, typing away at her keyboard lightning fast. "He cleaned up before you came and now you're helping out, yes?"

"I..."

"I'm glad you're here Stiles," she says suddenly, looking up from her screen to meet his gaze. "It's not easy raising two kids with a husband; I can't imagine what it must be like raising three without."

"I'm not his husband," Stiles mutters petulantly, and does not, does not wonder if that means Derek swings his way.

Erica grins at him, her eyes flashing gold.

"No, but you're helping," she argues gently, and then she's reaching out and laying a hand on his wrist. "I appreciate that. Boyd and me, we've been... worried, for a while now."

Stiles frowns, that worried, suspicious feeling sitting heavy in the pit of his stomach.

"Leaving his pack, that wasn't an easy decision," Erica says quietly. "That would be hard on any werewolf, let alone a guy as young as Derek. He never left home, not like Laura and Cora did, not after... well. And then the boys came along, and they were all doing so good for a while..."

She gets a faraway look in her eyes, a melancholy tilt to her mouth, and Stiles tries not to ask, he does.

"What happened?"

Erica blinks, shakes herself like she realizes she's said too much.

"That's not my story to tell," she says, though to be fair she looks unhappy about it. "I wish he'd tell you. I wish he'd open up some more – he only told us all of it after Boyd got him drunk and pried it out of him with silence. But... it would be good for him, I think."

"I only want to help," Stiles says quietly. "He's... he's a good guy. And you can tell he tries. Just... I worry about them sometimes."

He jerks his chin toward the living room where the little knot of werewolves has broken up a bit, the boys sharing their cars and action figures quite nicely with Charlotte while Gracie plays with a set of blocks close by.

"Sometimes they..."

"What?" Erica asks, and Stiles chews his lips.

"Sometimes they act like they've been abused," he says, quick, because it feels wrong to say it out loud. "Not that I think Derek... but he told me their mom is in jail and I..."

"Their mother abandoned them at the hospital," Erica says quietly. "She's never really met them. She's never held them or spoken to them or touched them, and I thank god for that."

"Then..."

"They've been through a lot Stiles," she says with a heavy sigh, covering her face with her hands and rubbing hard at her eyes. "Them and Derek too. Not... not abuse, but... trauma."

Suddenly she jumps to her feet and nearly pounces on him, backing him up against the counter and jabbing her finger into his chest hard, her eyes gleaming with tears and gold both.

"Listen, the only reason I'm telling you this is so you can help them better!" she growls softly, controlled enough that the kids won't be able to hear even though her teeth are showing sharp and white beneath her lip. "Understand? You use this to hurt them, you mess up and hurt Derek talking about it and I'll eat you for lunch, got me?"

"I got it," Stiles says, and maybe it's stupid, but he isn't scared, not even with Erica flashing her fangs and doing her best to loom over him in her three-inch heels.

She's scared, and she's being protective.

She cares.

"You want a hug?"

Erica blinks, makes a choking little sob of a sound, but then she's hugging him long and hard, enough that his ribs ache, her face tucked into the curve of his throat.

"You're not so bad for a scrawny dork," she says with a teasing smile when she lets him go, punching him lightly in the chest.

"You're not so bad either Catwoman," he offers. "But hey, weren't you a human too?"

"I didn't think you remembered me," she says, sitting back down on her stool.

"Only after I got out the yearbook," Stiles admits. "You were a few years ahead of me."

"You were still in my math class," she tuts, sticking her tongue out at him. "Advanced Calculus, ugh, nerd."

Stiles laughs, takes their glasses to the sink for a rinse.

"I preferred 'geek' back then," he says. "Now too. So, um, is it rude to ask, or..."

"Not really," she replies with a shrug, already back at her keyboard. "The Alpha that bit Scott attracted more than a little attention. You pretty much kept him off the grid, but a counsel came in to deal with the rogue. When something like that happens an Alpha usually gets designated to stay in the area for a while, keep an eye on things. We got two – the twins, Ethan and Aidan..."

"Wait, those guys?" Stiles marvels, thinking back to the two muscle-bound block-heads who'd shown up their, what... junior year? "They were werewolves?"

"Scott didn't tell you?" Erica asks, clearly surprised. "They set up shop for a while, started building a pack; me, Isaac, Boyd... they invited him to join."

"Scott was being a little bit of a jerk back then," Stiles says with a frown. "Plus, with Allison..."

"Oh yeah, her," Erica sniffs.

Stiles raises an eyebrow but she brushes him, changes the subject.

"We were all pretty young," she continues. "Immature, I guess. Our Alphas, they weren't really our Alphas, you know? They weren't super excited about having betas to look after, and didn't have, like, any experience. They picked us because we were close to their age, because each of us had something we wanted to get away from... do you remember that time in the gym, on field day?"

"Yeah," he murmurs, remembering the way had and Scott had scaled the rock wall to bring Erica back down, Erica, who had frozen up and promptly gone into a seizure once she was back on the ground.

"We weren't really looking for pack," she explains, her past heavy in her eyes. "Needless to say, it didn't work out. The twins took off, and we all stuck around Beacon Hills, but Isaac's happiest by himself and Scott never wanted to be a werewolf in the first place, so he doesn't exactly hang out with us."

"And you married Boyd," he says, but he can't pull up the face in his memory. He thinks maybe he remembers the name – it had rung a faint bell that day he'd met Derek and Erica in the coffee shop – but not enough of one.

"Yup," Erica grins. "We remembered the Hales from way back before they moved to Oregon, so we called up Talia for some tips on how to live on our own. She didn't have much for us, understandably, suggested we find ourselves an Alpha, but we did alright, plus we got in contact with Derek. They invite us up to run with them on full moons and we'd go sometimes, so we were pretty good friends by the time..."

Stiles nods, lets her trail off.

"Anyway. When Derek moved back we pitched in, helped him find a job, fix up the house, get settled. I used to watch the boys while he was at work but now that I've got my blog it's a little harder to juggle it all. Plus, I think it's good for them to have someone here, at home. You've made it more of a home for them Stiles, already."

"Yeah," Stiles murmurs, glancing into the living room to check on the pups who are still (shockingly) playing on the floor where they'd flopped, but it's a question more than anything, one he isn't ready to have answered. "So show me this blog you're doing!"

They spend the next three hours playing around with formats, looking at coding and speculating about the potential for a video-diary style addition on Stiles' part. They only get away with it because around three-thirty Stiles puts on a copy of Blue's Clues and all five little werewolves collapse together on the couch, touching and scenting left and right. They fall asleep before the tape is even half over with, and Stiles takes the opportunity to have a little adult conversation that he feels is sorely lacking in his life.

Erica is pretty cool anyway. He hadn't had much interaction with her at school, but she seems totally different now, confident and happy, not so anxious. Stiles figures that not having to anticipate seizure at any moment might do that to a person, but she's also into comic books and some pretty killer music, so it all works out. She shows him a picture of Boyd on her phone, which jogs his memory a little of the huge, silent dude who'd played as a senior on the lacrosse team his and Scott's freshman year. They chatter back and forth, catch up and little, and he actually learns a lot just sitting there at the table.

Gracie, Erica's youngest, is a born-were, but her sister Charlotte is a human. Erica and Boyd have plans to present her to Talia Hale for the bite on her twelfth birthday if she decides that's what she wants, and they've already started planning the party they'll toss her if it goes the way they think it will. Erica is fiercely proud because she's just as tough as any werewolf cub, but Gracie is a Daddy's Girl through and through. Together they like to have midnight picnics on the full moon, and run in the preserve if they're not up in Oregon with the Hales, but Derek and the boys don't often come.

There's a story there, one tightly woven in with the knowledge that Stiles so desperately wants but knows better than to ask for, and it hurts something in his chest because he can easily imagine all the good he could do if he only knew how. Helping Erica type up an introduction and short biography to her blog, he chews at it like a... well, like a dog with a bone. She doesn't write a word about the boys he notices, nothing specific anyway, but he supposes that's probably pretty standard. Five-year-old boys, werewolves, triplets - that's about as identifiable as they get, but he still has to ask.

"Derek's ok with this right?"

"I talked to him," she says, her lips going thin. "I won't be using any names, and the only people that would be able to recognize them are his family. They aren't exactly on friendly terms right now, but they love him and he... he's ok with it."

She huffs.

Actually, I think he was a little grateful."

"How so?"

Erica cocks an eyebrow at him, like he should know Derek well enough by now that he doesn't have to ask.

"He's not ready to talk to his mother," she says. "And I don't blame him. But he's terrified that he did the wrong thing by moving down here, by taking the boys away from their pack. He feels guilty, and scared, and probably doesn't want to admit that he made a mistake if the day ever comes that this all goes belly-up."

"But?"

"But, he still loves his family. All of them, even Talia. Even when they're fighting. He misses them, and it's hurting him, even if he won't admit it. But he's trying to protect himself, and the boys, by getting a little distance."

"He wants to keep the bond alive, but isn't ready to do it himself?"

"Exactly," Erica says, and she must be proud of him because she pecks him a kiss on the cheek. "This way, you can kind of... do it for him."

"I don't want to get in the middle of anything," he warns, hands up as if to fend the idea off.

"You won't be," she promises. "And Derek isn't the one in the wrong here. I don't know how all of this will play out, I don't know if they'll ever go back, but if they don't we'll be here for them. Me and Boyd, and kind of Isaac, and..."

She trails off, her cheeks going a little pink, and Stiles sighs, wraps an arm around her shoulders.

"Yeah," he grumbles, even though she's left him with more questions than answers. "Me too."