Talia watched from the doorway of the room that the twins shared with Rue as Derek tucked the curly haired girl into bed. She was half way to sleep anyways, but she always insisted that it was Derek who tucked her in. The kids were all being put to bed.

"Derek, who is Stiles?" Rue had asked sleepily as she felt Derek tuck the sheets around her little body. Derek froze slightly, thinking how he would answer that question. Derek rubbed the back of his neck subconsciously, before puffing out a laugh. "Stiles is a Stiles. There is nobody like him. He is in a class all his own." Rue gives him an adorable sleepy smile.

"So he's special?" Derek gives her a warm smile as he thinks of Stiles's brilliant smile lighting up the room. "Yeah. He's special." Derek whispers to Rue as she falls asleep. Talia smiles at the conversation between the two. Her baby boy wasn't just smitten, he was completely in love with this boy she kept hearing about.

And it wasn't just from Derek or Cora. The Sheriff's son was well known through the town. Stiles was infamous you could say. He wasn't a delinquent, but the old biddies of the town fawned over the boy. The word was he was very intelligent with a mischievous streak a mile wide. But most forgave his antics for the way he was naturally lively, never failing to bring a smile to some people's faces.

"Derek, we need to talk. Pack meeting in the living room." Talia said turning and walking to and down the stairs. Derek pulled a questioning face at his mother's disappearing back. Pack meeting? Those never happened often, only when something was going on in the territory. Something serious.

Derek followed her, softly closing the door behind him. Going into the living room, his family was gathered, sans the twins, Rue, and Blake. The rule was when you entered high school, then you were allowed in on the pack meetings. This was Cora's first one as she was a freshman this year. She got held back a grade because of control issues.

Derek settled on the leather sofa between a bored Laura and excited Cora. Talia sat next to David as usual, taking a settling breath before starting. "I have some news. I caught a new smell in the preserve today when I was out for a run. A smell that was definitely not human." David and Kaylee gave startled looks at their alpha, Peter and Helen's faces grim. Laura sat up to attention and Cora settled down. Derek kept looking at his mother for more information.

"I don't know if its necessarily bad or good, but I want no assumptions. While I couldn't tell what it was, it definitely smelled like predator. I want everyone on the lookout, tell me if you see or find anything suspicious. I will not lose family or pack again do to us being ill-prepared or caught unawares." Derek let out a sub-vocal whine at the last sentence of his mother's order.

Talia gave her son a concerned and pitied look. He had been through enough as is. They all had.

Just a few years ago, a crazy Argent hunter, Kate, ignoring the peace treaty between the Hales and Argents, had used Derek and tricked him into telling her about the pack. Derek was only 15, and in freshman year of high school. He hadn't meant any harm and he had honestly liked her. That was before she set the old Hale house on fire trapping them in with a line of mountain ash while sat there and watched them burn in glee. They had thought all was lost, but suddenly the line had just vanished.

Talia had wasted no time in busting through the front door and tackling Kate to the ground, everyone escaping the burning house behind her. Peter and David dealt with the other hunters there with Kate, while Kaylee and Helen got the pups out of he house. The police showed up, as well as the firemen to put out the still burning house. Kate and her goons were arrested. Kate was put in a jailing mental ward after spouting out the 'nonsense' of the Hales being werewolves.

Derek and Laura had been out of the house, but when Derek got word of what had happened, he was devastated. He closed off from the rest of the pack, refusing to even join in the full moon runs. He had even stopped interacting with Rue. He always smelled heavily of guilt and pain.

And then something else went down again two years later, during Derek's junior year. A rogue alpha had been trapezing through the woods. Talia couldn't ever track him, the alpha being too careful over hiding his tracks and scents. It was maddening, but then it became worse. Scott McCall, a new freshman at Beacon Hills High, was riding his bike home past the reserve when he had been mauled and bitten. It was a mess.

Especially since he was dating Allison Argent, daughter of the Beacon Hills hunter that had returned to the town a couple of weeks back. Scott was a bit disbelieving until he first shifted. Then he was eager to learn, especially since he had come very close to eating Allison, who was then informed of the situation after Derek saved her from a feral Scott and Talia had contacted Chris.

Furious about what happened, Chris had almost made the two cut it off, but relented when Talia explained that it would detrimental to Scott's health and it Allison was already becoming his anchor. If that was taken away, Scott may not have enough strength to fight off the rogue alpha's will and he would become berserk. Chris was a bit more accepting of the fact when Scott came to him and told him if that he ever tried to even hurt Allison, to kill him on the spot. He didn't want to become a monster.

After learning that Derek would be hanging around him at school for precautions, Scott was provided an excuse for his best friend Stiles. But that didn't help the tension between Stiles and Derek. Derek and Stiles bickered at every turn, with Derek threatening Stiles and shoving him against walls, and Stiles snarking off and driving Derek nuts with how he smelled all the time.

The rogue struck again, scaring the living daylights out of Lydia Martin, Jackson Whittemore, and Allison as he attacked the video store. Scott had clung to Allison, refusing to let her out of his sight. Lydia and Jackson had denied seeing anything but a bid dog attacking them, though they were obviously shaken by the encounter.

In the end, after weeks tracking the alpha's scent around the preserve, and several close calls later, they had a solid plan to take the alpha out. Laura, Derek, Cora, Peter, Scott, Allison, and Chris cornered the alpha by an abandoned warehouse. The alpha being mentally deranged by his ego and power trip, tried to attack Cora, whom he saw as the weakest.

Derek had seen red, and attacked the alpha, ending the battle with ripping out the alpha's throat. The power was transferred to Derek, and red bled through his ice blue wolf eyes. Derek was now the alpha.

There was chaos, and Derek once again shut himself off from his family and was an asshole at school. His family was worried about how him becoming an alpha was going to affect his relationship with his mother. Derek feeling the urge to create his own pack turned Erica Reyes an epileptic the same grade he was, Vernon Boyd a loner also a junior, and Isaac Lahey a boy being abused by his father. They became their own clique within the school, mostly leaving Scott in his loved daze of Allison and Stiles alone.

Though Stiles didn't seem to care much for Derek, even he could see that Derek was being a moody asshole and was bringing other people to orbit around his moody being. Stiles was fed up with Derek and his pack being bossy assholes, so he knock some sense into Derek. Never had he been given such a thorough verbal smack down, except by his mother, but it did the trick and it got Derek's head out of his ass. Let it not be said Stiles was not sassy, as much as he preferred to deny it.

Then the Kanima shit storm. It seemed that the rogue alpha had left them a little gift to remember him by. He had ended up biting the number one, grade A asshole known to Beacon Hills. Jackson Whittemore had been turned into a Kanima. Let's just say solving that problem invovled bringing Lydia into the fold and her reviving Jackson in a fairytale fashion.

Derek sighed, coming out of his past memories, and looked to his mother giving her a nod to show he was alright. "What do you need us to do for the time being?" Derek asked his mother to change the topic away from the uncomfortable subject.

Talia gave her son a small smile before going back to being a serious alpha, "For now, don't go anywhere alone. Report any unusual happenings, and keep your eyes, ears, and nose open."

Derek grunted his assent, getting up off the couch and nodded to the rest of his family, "I will tell my pack tomorrow. No sense in doing anything tonight when most of them aren't going to answer their phones. Good night." Derek turned his back on the chorus of responses and headed back to his room on the third floor of the house.

His room was the only one on the top floor, as it was basically a loft, half of the room being windows and skylights. It was always relaxing to him to watch the stars and moon at night. No one came to his room, but Rue every once in a while, as they knew he like his privacy. Even Laura knew and respected that, not having been in his room since before Kate.

It was his sanctuary.

Flopping down on his bed, Derek sighed. It had been pretty peaceful, nothing supernatural happening or otherwise. Now somebody had freaking jinxed it.

He blamed Scott.