Disclaimer: Teen Wolf and associated characters do not belong to me.

A/N: Whoo. Okay, after many rewrites, edits, cuts, red squiggly marks, and just plain throwing the whole thing out to start over...I think we finally have an ending to this AU! It was supposed to be posted on Saturday, but I had internet issues, gah!

Next Moves

Whatever brittle strength had held the charred dining room wall together all those years was no match for the velocity which hurled Derek straight through it. He slammed into the side of the staircase (which seemed to be the only structure in the Hale household that could withstand damn near anything) and hit the floor, shoulder first.

Human. Human. Stay human!

Pushing down the slight ripple coursing beneath his skin, he set his palms to the floorboards.

They quivered beneath him as a figure landed at his side.

Strong fingers sank into his neck a second before his spine cracked off wood paneling. A cold palm fitted tight beneath his chin and he was slid up and up until his toes lost the ground. He clutched at the arm suspending him, even though he knew he would never pry a finger loose with the alpha's rage fueling his strength as it was.

"What happened?" Peter snarled. His usual smoothness was overridden by a darker, clipped tone.

"I..." Derek arched his neck, straining against the iron grip, "saw some -"

Suspicion tipped the alpha's head and he drew his nephew from the splintered boards. "And? What did you see?"

No answer. Only the slightest tug at the corner of a bloodied mouth.

Which just really wasn't sufficient.

The hold on him tightened just enough to send him across the foyer. Derek slid into the battered and blasted cabinet near the front door. Anger sizzled down his spine and scarlet swept across his vision...

No, no, no, he couldn't shift! Peter couldn't know just how much control he'd lost over his beta and, as a wolf, Derek's brilliant blue irises would betray the lie. He sucked air through his aching teeth and held it until color seeped back ino the world.

Keep it together.

Hazel eyes lifted as Peter shook out his injured shoulder and crossed towards him. The stench of scorched flesh and gunpowder still clung to his stretched and battered shirt. The black holes were already filling in with fresh skin, but still, the sight and stink of the injury was enough to turn his stomach.

"We were granted the unique opportunity to strike back at them. To make them suffer as they made us, Derek. And I have nothing to show for it?" Peter's foot struck the beta's chest, pushing him into the rusted knobs on the lower drawers. "Because you were chasing shadows?"

Derek fought the urge to wince, keeping his face empty and compliant. He hoped to keep his freed mind hidden as long as possible. He could play the alpha's fool for now while his uncle was furious and subject to the instinctual rage of his darker nature. He had no commands for his betas to fulfill and no thought of testing the strength of his bonds over them.

"I...I thought..." he muttered weakly.

"You thought nothing," Peter snapped, increasing the pressure. "And I've half a mind to ensure you don't forget your place again, you -" His good arm drew back. Black talons erupted from his fingertips. Derek's own claws emerged, automatically, in the face of a threat.

"No!"

Dust kicked into the air as Scott slid between them, knocking Peter free of his nephew. Derek looked up in bewilderment, wondering just how the second beta had materialized from the dining room without either of them noticing. He stood, fully human, staring down the madness that had consumed Peter Hale. His hands were lifted, for the second time that night, against the alpha and in defense of his prey.

"We get it," Scott said. "We screwed up. Big time. Okay. Just...just don't..." He waved, helplessly, behind himself and Derek was startled to realize the motion was a silent plea made on his behalf.

His heart sank, torn between wanting to curse the kid out for interfering and wanting to join him in the stand against their incensed leader. So he did neither and settled for waiting to see how this little act of dissention would play itself out.

"I mean, you still need him...don't you?"

Peter eyed him as he slowly allowed his arm to descend. The slight twitch that had been pulling at his upper lip subsided. Cold logic overwhelmed rage enough to reinstate his ever placid smile.

"I do," he said. His voice returned to its lighter inflection while his eyes still gleamed sinister. "I need you both."

Scott nodded, a slight smile of relief touching his mouth. As if he'd just successfully talked the alpha down from a ledge. Derek cursed in silence, keeping his eyes fixed on the boy's matted and filthy hair. He wanted to drag him back, to tell him to run, or at least brace against what was coming next.

"After all," the alpha smirked. He reached up and cupped his palm around Scott's neck in almost a paternal gesture. Scott's spine stiffened at the contact. His face filled with unease far too late. "We shouldn't be fighting, not when we could be welcoming you into the family."

Derek turned away as the alpha's knuckles tightened and Scott's knees buckled.

And he closed his eyes when the screaming started.

He had lied.

Chris Argent leaned against the rear of a police cruiser. He stared down the street, studying the black wedge of mountains which created a stenciled line across the sky. The only heat in that gray morning was radiating up his arm and kept in perfect tempo with his heart beat.

He had lied to his face.

Worse was the fact that Chris had allowed it to happen. He had turned a blind eye and let one of them slither back into his life. He had caught the tremor in the boy's hand when he'd lifted a glass at dinner and had shrugged it off as meet-the-parents jitters. He had seen the fluid grace Scott possessed only on the lacrosse field where aggression and adrenaline ran rampant and excused as a teenager's drive to win. He had confirmed the kid had a connection to Derek Hale and chosen not to press the matter.

Why?

His eyes slid back towards the house, where Victoria was standing on their ruined threshold with one of the deputies. Allison hovered just behind her with her hands wrapped loosely about her chest. Her dark eyes were staring at some invisible point out in the lawn. The image matched with the distraught young victim of a home invasion. Chris just wished that he didn't know that her worried and distant look had absolutely nothing to do with safety of her family.

But for him.

He saved me.

That had been the first thing she had said to him when Victoria had managed to coax him back into consciousness. Surrounded by the devastation their enemies had caused to her house, her reaction had been to defend Scott.

Just like that, a battle line was drawn. Right down the center of his home.

His gut twisted at the thought.

"Chris?"

Yellow eyes gleamed through the windshield of his SUV. Mocking him.

"Chris?"

His name had an edge to it now. He knew full well that Kate wasn't calling it out of concern. She wasn't making her way across the yard to check on how he was feeling. No. They were Argents. Monster hunters. Things like sibling compassion was not a luxury extended to them.

"You know, there is only one role for the shell-shocked-husband-slash-father-in-the-wake-of-a-crisis for our little play back there." Kate jerked her head towards the house. She spun on her toes and leaned against the cruiser herself. "And it's not to be out pouting by the car."

He sent her a glare through the corner of his eye.

"I dunno, maybe if I got my ass handed to me in my own house..." She lifted her shoulders with a sorry, you dropped the ball grimace. "Yeah, maybe I'd be out here, too."

Chris sighed. "I needed a break from thinking of identifying marks for imaginary criminals." He wiped at his mouth and looked towards the cops milling around. "Needed a chance to think."

"About Scott?"

Light eyes met a darker shade of blue. Kate lifted an expectant brow. He gave no affirmation, but that was okay, because Kate wasn't asking for one.

"So, we're going to take him for what they did for Marcus?"

"Derek took responsibility for Marcus."

She smirked, "By what Vic saw tonight, you can't tell me Scott didn't have a hand in it."

He narrowed his eyes at the horizon, hitching his make-shift sling a little closer to his abdomen. "No, I can't."

"What do you want us to do?"

He saved me.

Allison's soft words were overpowered by Scott's raised voice. Shouting at him only a few nights ago.

Every choice I made, everything I did, every single thing was to make sure she was safe!

Liar.

"Chris?"

He shifted his weight, pushing from the car. Swallowing the bitter taste which snuck over his tongue, he said, "Tell everyone to lay low for now. Let me get my family taken care of and put this mess behind us. After that..." He turned to his sister with a slow grin. "Hale's declared war. Let's make sure he gets what he wants."

He had just started towards the house when Kate spoke again. Though he couldn't see her, he could hear that coy and sickening smile in her voice.

"And Scott?"

Chris dropped his gaze and allowed a fleeting image of the boy to cross before him. He thought of the kid who had swept away his daughter's heart. That little walking mess of raging hormones that he would have never approved on by mere principle. The werewolf who was stupid enough to try and uphold his lies against the leader of the Argents. Chris's face hardened.

"Leave McCall to me."

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

The sound of broken shoes on gravel wound between his ears. His arms hung loose at his side as he walked along the road's shoulder. It was still gray in the forest. Still fairly quiet as well, though he couldn't be sure if that was because it was too early or if it was his presence that had silenced the morning birds.

He didn't dwell on the subject long. He just kept walking with his chin tipped down and his torso exposed to the chill air.

The remains of his dress shirt had finally been torn away. He didn't exactly remember when, but it had been gone when he had woken on the floor of the Hale house. His joints had been stiff and aching and a lingering burn tingled the ends of his fingers and toes.

Fragments of thoughts and memories had flickered behind his eyes as he lay there. Pain, for the most part, had followed the moment he had felt Peter's grip tighten around his neck. Pain which had shot down the length of his spine while a bright arc of agony had tried to split his skull in two.

He remembered the heat condensing like a wicked sunburn in the space between his shoulder blades. Then the itching, blistering, and splitting sensation across his skin had sent him from his hands and knees to flat on his stomach.

As he walked, he reached back, still expecting his fingers to meet a ravaged hole just as vile and gruesome as Peter's mutilated shoulder. But there was nothing. Only smooth skin stretched over taut muscle. It wasn't even hot to touch.

What the hell had Peter done?

He had been startled to find Derek was sitting beside him. Propped up against the wall, he had just been waiting for the second beta to jerk back into reality. He looked awful. Not quite as bad as when his blood was being curdled by wolfsbane, but on his way there.

"Sorry, kid," he had muttered when Scott met his eyes. The teenage asked where Peter had gone and received a vague nod towards the front door. "We're on our own for now. To heal up."

Pushing himself up, Scott swept his tongue over dry lips only to recoil at the taste he found. His gaze dropped to his hands and he sat there for a long moment. "The guy? The guy in black?"

Nothing touched the older werewolf's eyes as he replied. "Deserved it."

Shock had snapped the teen's head up.

"Honestly, Scott," Derek shrugged. "For your first kill? You could have done a lot worse than taking down a Hunter." He pushed from the wall to prop his elbows on his knees. "Are we done with that? Because we've got bigger problems to deal with now."

"Are you kidding? I just -"

"Have an army of Hunters spread around town just waiting to spring on you. Have a deranged alpha who proved that he has no problem bulldozing your free will in order to take his revenge on those Hunters. And the only person who can possibly help you is an untrained two-month-old who rather make out with his girlfriend than even attempt to gain some control of himself!"

Scott had blinked and Derek tipped his head.

"That last one might have been for me," he conceded. "Still, now is not the best time to be whining over the death of a man who would have been too happy to put a bullet through your skull."

Damn, when he put it like that. "So...so what do we do?"

His ear twitched, pulling him back into the forest. A car was headed his way, coming from behind. He sighed and looked into the trees, debating whether or not it worth trying to duck out of sight or to let whoever it was pass by like it was perfectly normal for a barefoot and shirtless kid to be wandering the side of the road in a destroyed pair of tuxedo pants. He hadn't quite made it to a decision when he recognized the high-pitched trilling of the approaching engine. Some check-engine light problem that his mother hadn't yet taken to be fixed.

He turned and waited for his own car to catch up with him.

When it did round the corner behind him, he wasn't expecting the front end to dip down as the brakes locked. The poor old thing came skidding to a halt with a blast of gravel and an ensuring dust cloud rolling over him.

Peering through the haze, he found Stiles was behind the wheel, fighting to free himself from the seat belt. He kicked the driver's side door open, tripped, and disappeared for a half a beat before springing back to his feet and circling around to the fender.

"Man, where the hell have you been? Do you have any idea what I've had to go thr -"

He froze, staring at Scott. Scott stared back through a film of grit and blood and exhaustion.

"Holy shhh...Scott...buddy..."

What do we do?

"We play along," Derek had said, looking to the side wearily. "Buy ourselves some time and avoid the Hunters long enough to make something useful out of you..." His words faded. The harsh lines of his face ebbed away as he was pulled into some thought that Scott would never be privy to.

He had waited as long as he could, until he couldn't take the dark silence brewing between them anymore. "And then what?"

Derek stirred. His haggard eyes widened as if he just noticed that he was no longer speaking. "Then, the plan's still the same. Then, we kill the alpha.

Scott's heart had sank. Of course, it always came back to that, didn't it?

It would always come back to blood.

"Scott!"

He felt the sting of rocks biting at his knees and shins and found himself listing dangerously off to the side. The only reason he hadn't pitched into the dirt was that Stiles had somehow managed to snag his arm as he had gone down. He looked up at his friend and marveled at the worry which couldn't be hid from his perfectly normal human face.

He stared into his eyes. Eyes that would never shift from their lighter shade of brown. Eyes which would never gleam red from someone else's mental assault. Eyes that would never ignite at the prospect of stilling a beating heart or fall victim to the seductive thrum of a racing pulse.

Much like the one he could hear coming from his friend's chest.

A choked sound snuck from the back of his throat and Scott slammed in forehead into the other's shoulder. Stiles hit the ground, unable to withstand the force of the onslaught, and sat rigidly as Scott half knelt/half sat at his side and began to quake. His hands, which had lifted in surprise, fell at the soft sob that sucked into the werewolf.

Relaxing, he managed to wrap an arm about his friend's back. He drew him closer, thumping him twice, hard, in a pathetic, male attempt at comfort "Okay, buddy, that's it. We're good...all of us, right here, we're okay...just take it easy."

Scott didn't reply. He just hunched in closer to himself and kept his face hidden in Stiles' shirt.

Unsure what to do with himself or the tearless wreck leaning into him, Stiles checked to see the road was still empty. Yeah, they were good for the moment. Nothing here but us trees and plants and a dynamic werewolf duo...Well, werewolf and his trusty sidekick, that is.

It was as he returned his attention to his friend that Stiles spotted it.

Nestled in the space between Scott's shoulder blades was a large mark. Three black spirals, connecting to one another in the center, were seared straight into his skin. He swore beneath his breath.

It was just like Derek's.

"Scott, what-what happened, man?"

The question stilled those incessant tremors running through his friend. Scott slumped a little in defeat before finally pushing himself away. Setting himself into a sitting position, he looked up from beneath his bangs as he had done a thousand times during their friendship. Only this time, the dark eyes which met Stiles' were foreign and haunted and sent every fine hair on the human's neck to stand on end.

"Stiles," Scott said quietly. "I did something..."

Teen Wolf

A/N: I'm usually the die-hard advocate of happy endings, but seeing as this it kind of a cliff hanger ending for an alternate season two, I wanted to end with that line. Much fear and insti-sweat is happening right now, cuz I never do this to my stories!

Thank you everyone for your hits, faves, alerts, reviews, and holy cow, for your patience in waiting for this. I hope it satisfied!

And one more eternally grateful thank-you to the amazing fountainxxpenny, without whom, this lame-o author would still be sitting back at Chapter 6 staring at a blank notebook, I guarantee!

Here's to Season 2!

Oh, and...your thoughts, please?