"Get off me!"

Derek stumbles forward, barely rights himself before seeing one guy's hands come out like he's trying to catch him. He trips back, nearly hits the guy who'd had him by one arm, who reaches out to lay a hand on his shoulder.

"I said get off!"

The group backs up as one, still gathered around Derek in an uneven circle.

"What do you want?" Derek asks. "If—if this is some kind of treaty thing, my alpha—" He takes in the sudden dropped gazes of most of the circle. "What?"

"Derek," the guy with the hands says. He's still got his hands out, kind of reaching, kind of catching, kind of dropping to his sides. His voice is calm, but his eyes are too bright to sell it, and his heartbeat is out of control. "Are you—Do you know who we are?"

Derek swallows, thinks. If this is a treaty thing, another pack thing, why would they care about him? He's not even the alpha-in-training, he's nothing. Mom doesn't even bother explaining most werewolf politics to him. He knows most of it from Laura, Peter, from passing alphas who used to think it was cute to tell the youngest beta their complicated histories and have it repeated back to them around still-awkward fangs. Now that's Cora, and not recently, either—She says she's too big to play kid games.

"No," Derek decides. "Should I?"

The group exchanges glances again. Derek wishes they'd stop.

"Derek—" the hands guy starts again.

"Tell me who you are," Derek says. He's been working on not sounding like the little kid everyone still seems to think he is. Everyone except—

"My name's Stiles," hands guy says, and finally notices his outstretched hands. "Stilinski," he adds, before Derek can point out that that doesn't sound like a name at all. "This is, uh, Malia, Lydia, Kira—" He indicates the three supermodels around him. "The guy who got you out of there is Scott, the girl's Braeden. I don't really know what her deal is yet, but you can trust the rest of us." He considers. "Maybe not Malia. She's working on it. But, you know, the rest of us."

"Yeah?" Derek says skeptically. "Why would I do that?"

"Wow, you really haven't changed a bit," Stiles says, which doesn't make a lot of sense. "Look, this is gonna sound kind of hard to believe, but—you know us. I mean, older you knows us. Or knew us, I guess."

That doesn't make any sense at all.

"Oh, for god's sake," the redhead Stiles called Lydia says, stepping forward. "You've been de-aged. You're supposed to be—" She stops. "How old is he supposed to be, Stiles?"

"I don't know, mid-twenties?" Stiles guesses. "He was in high school when we were like ten. You do the math."

"I thought you knew me," Derek says.

"Yeah, knew you," Stiles says. "The sarcasm, the general Shut up, Stiles atmosphere that just radiates off you naturally, the glowy blue eyes—"

Derek tenses. So that's what this is about.

"Whatever you think I did—"

"Whoa, no, wait." Stiles holds up his hands again, this time in a Stop position. "You don't have to explain that. Like I said, we know you."

Derek stares at Stiles. His heartbeat doesn't falter.

"You all know what happened?" Derek asks. He sounds so much like a kid he wants to cringe. It's the way his voice goes up on the ends of questions, he thinks. Maybe he just needs to stop doing that.

"More or less just me, actually," Stiles says. "Peter filled me in."

Derek studies his face. "You know Peter?" Ugh. "I mean. You know Peter," he repeats doubtfully. Better.

"Unfortunately, yes," Stiles says, before realizing how rude that sounds. "Uh, sorry."

"It's okay," Derek says. If Stiles heard what happened from Peter, and he doesn't trust him—Derek relaxes minutely. "So if I'm twenty-something, how do you know me? I don't hang around with ten year olds."

"About that," Stiles says, and his voice gets quiet again, soft, like he's about to say something horrible and he's sorry for it. "Maybe you should sit down."

"Just tell me," Derek says.

"There was this fire," Stiles says. "When you were—actually, when you were just a little older than you are now. What's the last thing you remember?"

"This conversation," Derek says. Stiles' lips crack into a momentary grin before his whole face goes funeral-solemn again.

"Before that," Stiles says.

"Getting dragged out here by them," Derek says, pointing to the guy and girl behind him. They've moved a little, making space for him on the edge of the circle rather than closing him in. It's a definite improvement.

"Scott and Braeden," Stiles says helpfully. "Scott's a werewolf too, by the way—"

"Obviously," Derek says, and god, that makes him sound like a kid too. "No kidding," he says. "An alpha."

Scott's the youngest alpha Derek has ever seen, but his insides still curdle, suddenly, realizing how he'd snapped at him. He could be in so much trouble right now.

"And Malia's a werecoyote, Lydia's a banshee, Kira's a kitsune—"

"I can see her aura," Derek says, in case Stiles thinks he's some kind of idiot. "What are you?"

"Me? I'm nothing. Token human," Stiles says.

"No you're not," Derek says. Stiles isn't any supernatural creature Derek can identify, but there's no way he's just ordinary. There's something about him.

Stiles shrugs. "Natural charisma? And oh, yeah, I was possessed by a nogitsune recently. But I'm back in the saddle and good as ever, Original Recipe Stiles. Tried and true."

Derek raises an eyebrow.

"Right," Stiles says, scratching at his eye. "The point is—"

"We should get going," Scott interrupts.

"Save the long conversations for a place that doesn't have a kidnappy habit, got it," Stiles agrees.

"Where are we," Derek says, and traps a small triumphant grin between his teeth.

"A long, long way from home, Toto," Stiles says.

"Dog jokes, really," Derek says, unimpressed.

"Literally haven't changed a bit," Stiles repeats.

The rescue car is a crappy old blue Jeep Stiles looks at like he built it with his bare hands. Maybe he did. Even underneath all those layers it's obvious his shoulders are bigger than Derek's, and Derek's been working out nonstop since—Just nonstop. It makes Derek try to picture what he's supposed to look like, wonder if any of it ever really made a difference. Just wait, it'll turn out Stiles only recognized him so quickly because he's still got the same stupid teeth and ears and weak little—Ugh. Derek makes a face, reaches for the radio.

Stiles' hand actually catches his like he's gonna bat it away, but he reconsiders.

"What," Derek says.

"What? Nothing," Stiles says, and pulls his hand back. "Just—Don't break it."

Derek doesn't recognize a single song the whole way home.

Beacon Hills looks wrong, it's obvious. There are way more boarded-up storefronts and dark alleys than there should be, way less traffic on the roads. Derek shivers. It's weird seeing home turned into this, like the opening of a zombie movie.

"What happened?" he asks, completely forgetting about his new ban of question marks.

Stiles looks at him, eyes guarded. "What do you mean?"

"It's not supposed to look like this," Derek says. There's a new, sick feeling in his chest. "Did we lose territory?"

Stiles pulls over.

"Really?" Malia groans. "We're so close."

"Just gimme a minute, okay?" Stiles' hands close over her wrist. "Don't eat any babies, you've got this."

So he's her anchor. That's... whatever.

"There was a fire," Stiles says carefully, when Malia's gone into the 7-11, after shooting one long last look at Derek like she's already decided he's more trouble than he's worth. "It changed a lot of things."

Derek frowns. "But it's been years, right? Why haven't they fixed it?"

"We lost people," Stiles says, and Derek wants to laugh, suddenly, because he feels like this really is a zombie movie, his character coming home to the little ragtag group of survivors, getting briefed by the leader on the carnage.

"My people?" Derek asks, after a horrible thought cuts off the instinct completely. "My alpha wouldn't—Did we get displaced or something?" It seems impossible, even now. Mom would never—

Stiles blinks sharply. "It was hunters," he says. "The fire, I mean. Have you ever heard of the Argents?"

"Of course," Derek says, and goggles at him. "Wait, on purpose?"

Stiles' mouth twists into something like an sharp smirk. "Yeah, you could say that," he says. Then he shakes his head, clarifies, "They're not all bad. We just lost the best of them, though."

Panic seizes Derek's lungs, squeezes hard. "Kate?"

The look on Stiles' face is hard to read, but laced with unmistakable pity. He shakes his head.

"Her name was Allison," Stiles says, and Derek makes an effort to keep breathing. "Kate was her aunt."

"'Was,'" Derek says, alarmed again.

"Oh, Kate's fine," Stiles says. There's something wrong with his voice, something new and dark and angry. "How she's so fine, that's what I'd like to know." He shakes his head again, rubs his eyes. "Cora's okay," he says. "Peter's fine. Creepy, but—that doesn't seem new."

"And Laura," Derek says, then, "Right?"

"I'm sorry," Stiles says. His heartbeat is clear, steady, but he looks miserable.

"What," Derek says, struggling not to freak out. "She's—hurt?"

Shit, Stiles is tearing up.

"No," Derek says, pulling back. His seat belt is cutting into his chest, making breathing impossible. He gets it off with fingers that keep trying to turn into claws. He only barely stops them. "No, she—What happened? And don't just say 'a fire!'"

"No, she wasn't home then," Stiles says. "You were both at school. Laura actually—I'm sorry."

"Stop saying that!" Derek snaps. "Just tell me what happened!"

"Peter," Stiles says. "He was—hurt, after the fire, he thought being an alpha would help him heal faster."

"Laura's not an alpha," Derek says sharply.

Stiles swipes at his eyes. "She was."

"But you can't be an alpha unless—" Derek's head spins.

"I'm," Stiles says, and shuts his mouth tight.

"No," Derek says. This is crazy. All of this is crazy. "You're lying to me, you're—"

"I wish I was," Stiles says hoarsely. "I swear to god, Derek."

"So," Derek says, and chokes on a lump in his throat. "So she's—And my mom—"

"But you're okay," Stiles says. "You'll be okay. You have—Scott's pack, my pack, that's your pack."

"No it isn't," Derek says.

"Well, you're—pack adjacent," Stiles says. "It doesn't matter. You have us."

Derek stares at him. "You really don't know anything about me at all," he says.

"I'm not saying it won't be hard, but—"

"Hard?" Derek wants to punch him. "My whole pack—" His voice shakes, and he doesn't even care. "My real pack, my family—"

"I know," Stiles says, sounding awful with it. "I know, I didn't mean—" He swipes at his eyes again. "Derek, I'm so—"

"Shut up!" Derek roars.

Malia tears into the car, grabs Derek's shoulder, and roars back. Hers is better. Derek hasn't had a lot of practice.

He lowers his head, stares down at his hands until his vision blurs.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Stiles is saying, putting his hands all over Malia, calming her down.

Derek wants to throw up.

"Hey," Stiles says, low, his fingers stroking all down Malia's back while she buries her face in his neck. "I know you don't wanna hear this right now, but I'm not talking about replacing anything, I know no one can do that. My—" He swallows hard. "My mom passed away when I was ten. It's been seven years and I still—" He scratches the shadow under his eye with his free hand. "Y'know, I still wake up sometimes trying to find her. Like she's just in the kitchen when I'm in the hall, like we just keep missing each other."

"What do you do?" Derek asks. His voice is faraway, alien, but he needs to know.

"Sometimes I just pretend it's true," Stiles says. "Sometimes I start researching something, try to distract myself. There's no one good answer." His jaw works silently for a few seconds. "But Scott, I don't know what I'd do without Scott. It's not about filling a void," he says. "It's about not locking the whole world out because you're so scared of losing someone like that again that you don't ever want to take the risk."

"Why would hunters hurt us?" Derek bursts out, after a while. "There's a code, we have a treaty, we didn't do any—"

His stomach drops.

"Was it me?" Derek asks. "Was it because of me?"

"What?" Stiles says. "Of course not, why would you—"

But it's not exactly the truth.

"What happened with—with Paige," Derek says. "I have blue eyes, everyone knows that means—"

"No," Stiles says, certain this time. "No, none of that is your fault. None of this."

"I killed her," Derek says. His throat keeps trying to close up, his eyes are burning. "I watched her die, I—"

"Peter tricked you," Stiles says. "All that bullshit with the alpha pack, that was a setup. All you did was what she asked you to do. What she begged you to do."

"I was an idiot," Derek snaps. "Maybe I trusted a creep, but it's still my fault—"

"No, it isn't," Stiles says firmly.

"That's what happened, though," Derek says. Somehow, he already knows he's right. "I killed someone, and hunters came after us."

"Correlation isn't causation," Stiles says. "I was a exhausting, hyperactive brat and then my mom died, that doesn't mean—"

"That's not the same—"

"Scott had asthma and his piece of crap father left, but his piece of crap father would've left anyway, because he's a piece of crap."

"That's not—"

"Lydia's crazy smart and her parents divorced—"

"I killed someone!"

"Yeah," Stiles says. "You did. But someone else killed your family. And you couldn't have stopped her."

"What am I supposed to do?" Derek says shakily. "What do I even do? Your Derek, what does he—"

"Right now things are a little..." Stiles makes a complicated gesture with his free hand. "I'm guessing you want to be your actual age again, so I was thinking Deaton—"

"Deaton," Derek says. "The emissary?"

"Y—yeah," Stiles says. "You know him?"

"Know of him," Derek says. "My al—My mother never really introduced us or anything, but I know she trust—trusted him." His voice breaks. "Was she wrong?"

"I don't know," Stiles says honestly. "He's kind of... hard to read. But he's helped us a lot, and if anyone knows anything about de-aging, it's probably him."

"Okay," Derek says.

"Okay," Stiles says. "I'll just text Scott, tell him to meet us at the clinic."

"The clinic?"

"Oh, yeah," Stiles says, pocketing his phone and gently nudging a drowsy Malia off his shoulder and into the back seat. "Turns out being an emissary doesn't mean you get to quit your day job."