Push

Summary: He tests the people in his life to see if they will come back to him.

Peter was back in Derek's life, but they didn't live under the same roof like old times. It was an unspoken agreement between them, a form of acknowledgement of what happened to their family. What they had lost was always going to be there.

Derek didn't ask the questions that he should have, like where the man was staying, or what he was doing to occupy his time. All Derek knew was that even pretending to be in charge of him was asking for trouble. Peter had been able to handle his transformations well before Derek found an anchor.

Once the Kanima had changed and everyone went home, nothing else seemed to come up as a problem. They knew that there was an Alpha pack in Beacon Hills that was going to strike at any moment, and Derek focused on making himself stronger to prepare for a battle that he knew he wasn't ready for.

He worked hard, thinking that it could happen any second, but a week turned into a couple of months, and the preparation hadn't gotten any slower. There was a Super Alpha, something that he hadn't met before. He assumed that the nameless and faceless enemy had an unlimited level of skill. The only thing that was left to do was push harder.

Agility, endurance, and strength. He couldn't afford to run around looking for the Alphas. He didn't have a pack anymore to risk searching for the Alphas. The all abandoned him for the summer, an inevitability.

Nothing had shocked him anymore, only a question. Would this have happened had he died and Laura lived?

When he was growing up, they were raised to keep a low-profile, so if they were blessed with the gift, they weren't allowed to try out for sports. They trained after school, instead.

Derek rolled his eyes whenever anybody mentioned Lacrosse these days. Jackson, Scott, and Isaac were at a Lacrosse camp on the East Coast.

He tried to convince them not to go. Jackson, especially, was new to all of this. Three young werewolves in some place on the other side of the country. It was almost as if they were begging for either a group of hunters or another random pack of werewolves to find them and become territorial.

The code was only for Beacon Hills and the Argents. It wasn't a worldwide agreement, but it made the town safe enough for them to go to school, even go to a college in California if they wanted to.

They all had their anchors, but it was still too soon. They didn't listen, they never did.

You may be an Alpha, but you're not mine.

They were risking their own lives and the lives of innocent people to impress college scouts.

Derek was too busy running away from the world to go to school after the fire. Too busy looking behind him, making sure that he was still alive to look ahead.

It was starting to feel like he was more of an Omega these days rather than the Alpha of his own pack. He couldn't stop his pack from either leaving or going on a plane to Lacrosse camp.

He told Erica and Boyd that they were going to be killed. He told Jackson that he was too new. He told Scott and Isaac that it was too soon. They all left.

They were all loose cannons. If they didn't get killed, they would kill someone else.

He was so numb that he didn't even argue with Stiles when he left a week later. Stiles hadn't been turned- for all purposes, Stiles was the one person in the group that Derek was technically responsible for.

Derek hated that he didn't have the right to tell Stiles not to leave, that it was a stupid idea to even think about colleges on the other side of the country.

He should have told Stiles to go on a plane instead of getting in his Jeep and going on a road trip. Derek should have either hopped in Stiles' car and gone with him or stopped him from going.

Going on a three month road trip by himself was suicide, but the Sheriff had to stay in Beacon Hills.

Derek took one look at the back of the Jeep and felt the presence of the mountain ash lined around the trunk. He didn't have the right to demand what was in there.

Keeping a track of Stiles was getting tiring. Derek activated the GPS on his phone and checked the coordinates when it looked like he standing still for too long, but there were never any problems. He would be in a motel somewhere.

Stiles was covering his tracks for some reason. Isaac called a couple of days ago, saying that Stiles had checked in from Connecticut, but according to the GPS coordinates, Stiles was closer to the Grand Canyon than anything else.

Derek wanted to follow him, because he had a hunch that Stiles decided to go and do something stupid like look for Erica and Boyd, but he didn't. He had to stay here, had to train. He changed his fighting tactics, tried to become faster.

He liked push-ups the best. He liked the idea of dropping down to the floor and being able to get back up and doing it again and again. Without needing anybody else, because it didn't feel like they ever needed him first. Otherwise they wouldn't keep leaving.

Derek wanted Erica and Boyd to come back on their own after a day or two, not to disappear for months without saying a word. He promised them that coming with him meant that they would never be alone. He told Boyd that he would have a family, told Erica that she would be healthy and beautiful. He told her that if she joined him, she would always feel wanted and part of something.

He trained to stop himself from thinking so much, but sometimes he allowed his mind to wander, on the rare occasion where he felt like it would be safe.

He asked his father once why all of his siblings were born the natural way, why everyone in the pack was related by ancestry and the bite.

Dad said that it was an old tradition in the family, naturally born werewolves. Some had the gift and others had a normal, average life. Being born with it made the transformations easier and made the bonds between pack members stronger.

Derek agreed at one point that he would pass along the tradition- an idea that burned up in the fire like the house. The structure of the teachings still held, but everything else was gone.

Derek's pack wasn't naturally born, so sometimes he liked to think that they were all replaceable to him. That since they all left, he could just go into town and convince more and more people to join him. That the loneliness he was feeling was just a power drain from his pack being away and all he needed was a boost. But he was still keeping tabs on Stiles, and he hadn't been changed.

He pushed himself up again with a force and started clapping to make it harder for himself. Front, behind his back, and front again before falling back down on his hands.

Derek had a family once.

He used to run to his uncle as a child when he saw him. Shouted, "Uncle Peter!" And his uncle would bend down with a smile on his face.

He would pick him up, greet him by saying, "Hey, kiddo", and tell him how big he was getting. How it was a good sign, and that he was going to change the world one day.

He never felt like a predator when he was surrounded by his family. The war was more of an endless stupid feud between two squabbling families back then because the numbers were equal on both sides.

It was more of a stalemate for a long time. It was safer back then to be afraid of something, to show fear. He was around family.

Whenever his uncle was around, he didn't know what to call him. Derek wasn't a kid anymore, and the Uncle Peter that picked him up and threw him in the air wouldn't have killed Laura.

Derek had to tell himself that Peter killed her in a moment of insanity. He needed to believe it as much as he needed to believe that the fire wasn't his fault.

It needed to be true. Peter was family, and even though it was okay to be afraid of something back then, they were never afraid of each other.

He thought that Kate was different. She said that she didn't care about what was going on in between their families and that what they had with each other could beat the odds.

She told him that she had never felt like this before, and she said it so often that he believed her. Every time that he started to doubt it, she repeated it and made sure that he said it back too.

They were different, they were in love, they were going to get away from Beacon Hills after graduation and be with each other.

He never wanted to leave home until she came along, and after she left, he stayed behind.

He stood up and grabbed an empty threshold of one of the doors and started to pull himself up.

Kate twisted his view of normal, his belief in people and humanity. She destroyed this house, took his family away from him, twisted Uncle Peter into killing Laura.

Nothing looked quite the same anymore. The colors of the world felt like they were two shades darker- not enough to impact much, but just enough to look gloomy, regardless of the amount of sunshine.

Things seemed so much brighter when he was smelling her skin. His mind was everywhere these days when back then, it was all a bright haze. He didn't need to think about what they were doing, she did the thinking for him, and he trusted her to do it.

He let himself sink back down, hanging in place with his hands gripping the threshold, and he swore that he saw a blur of ice blue somewhere in the front.

He dropped down to his feet and wiped his forehead and arms with a towel before pulling a wife-beater on and going outside.

Years of controlling and masking everything that he was doing, everything that he was feeling, all went to waste when he saw the Jeep parked with Stiles sitting on the rooftop, drinking a cup of coffee and looking out into the forest.

Derek smiled.

"I heard you were in Connecticut", he said.

He stopped smiling when Stiles turned back to look at him.

Derek thought that Stiles was an immature kid with a permanent goofy look on his face when he first met him. That he couldn't take the world seriously and that he was going to be the first one in the group to die because of it.

When Stiles looked back, he looked like something was haunting him. As if the real world had hardened him somehow, that he had run out of jokes to tell.

Stiles hesitated to say something back, which was the first indication that something had gone wrong.

See, once someone gets Stiles talking, it's hard to shut the banter box filled with jokes and sarcasm.

He finished the rest of his coffee and set the empty thermos on the roof before jumping down.

"I'm glad someone listened to me last year when I mentioned the cell GPS's." He finally said.

So he wasn't here to see him. Stiles was here to confront him.

"I wanted to make sure that you weren't doing anything stupid", Derek told him.

"I know. You think I didn't notice on Day One that you were tracking me? I let you do it."

Derek didn't know what to say about that. "I thought you were coming back in a month for school."

"Well, I'm here now."

"What's going on?"

"I'm glad that you were tracking me", Stiles went on. "The guys let me lie to them day after day, but you- you knew the truth."

"Stiles", Derek cut him off. "What happened to you?"

"I found Gerard", he said. "So much for not doing something stupid, right?"

The rest of them might have been able to handle themselves against the dangers out there because they were all together.

Stiles had travelled alone. "There's a pack of Alphas on the loose. You could have gotten yourself killed. Not to mention what Gerard could have done to you."

"Gerard has already done enough. He did enough to me after the Lacrosse game and he did enough to you."

Did he kill Gerard?

Derek thought it was weird that he was on the phone with Scott when he was trying to break Jackson out. He usually did the planning with Stiles- Derek just assumed that he was okay. That the bruises were a result of crashing the newly repaired Jeep.

He tried to control his temper when he spoke. "What did Gerard do?" He said through clenched teeth

"It doesn't matter. I have to tell you something. I found something out."

"It matters to me", Derek told him. "It's safer in the house."

Stiles opened the driver's side door and sat in his seat, leaving the door open. "Actually, it's safer in my car, but it's not safe for you to be in here. Sorry about that."

"Stiles..." he trailed off.

"Gerard kidnapped me after the Lacrosse game, okay? He took me to the basement, I found Erica and Boyd tied there with an electrical current. I tried to set them free and I might have been a little too sarcastic to Gerard and he...let's just say he shut me up for a little while."

"I'm going to kill him."

"No. You're not. He's not coming back to Beacon Hills. I made sure of that. He has cancer- he doesn't have much time left anyway. I'm okay. Allison's Dad let us all go."

"You're okay?"

"I'm fine", Stiles reassured him.

"What did you find out?"

Stiles took a deep breath and rubbed his hands together. "I've never asked you about it because I don't want to bring up old wounds. But, I have to."

"Ask me what?"

"What do you think happened in the fire, Derek? Six years ago."

He remembered her voice. Oh sweetie, that's just a lot of guilt to keep buried.

"I don't know what you're talking about", Derek said, clearing his throat. "Simple story. It was just a fire."

Stiles nodded his head. "Sure. Right, a fire." He looked out into the woods for a second before speaking again. He still kept his eyes forward, not looking at Derek.

"You know, Scott getting the bite happened because of me. I was listening to my Dad's police scanner when I heard what happened on that...particular night. I drove to Scott's place once Dad left and forced him to sneak out the window to check it out with me. Dad caught us, Scott hid, and I went home. Scott stayed behind to keep the cover story that he was safe at home."

It being Laura's dead body, cut in half. The traditional declaration of war.

Derek didn't want to talk about Laura, didn't want to talk about the fire. It was too hard.

He felt himself sweating, and not just because he had been working out before.

"So?"

"In case you haven't noticed, snooping around is kind of what I do. I remembered reading your case file when I met you. The police didn't identify who it was until Kate Argent died."

"So you went to Gerard to chat about it?" Derek asked, angrily. "That was a stupid move, Stiles, and you know it."

Stiles shook his head. "No, that's not why I went to find him. I went there to punish him for what he did to us. For kidnapping Erica and Boyd and torturing them. For making Jackson kill without even realizing what he was doing. For threatening Scott's Mom." Stiles took a deep breath. "I went to punish him for what he did to me."

"But you didn't?"

Stiles hopped out of the car and opened the trunk. "Step back", he instructed, opening up some bags and showing him.

There were shotguns, wolfsbane, and stun guns.

"This is what they use to kill shifters", Derek told him.

"I wanted him to feel what he did to you guys", he said.

Derek pointed at the silver knuckles. "What did I tell you about silver? It wasn't the silver in the bullet that nearly killed me. It was the mountain ash."

Stiles forced him away from the trunk, pocketed something quickly, and shut it. "Silver's a classic, and besides, I had mountain ash mixed in with the metal."

"You made it?"

"Figured out how when I was reading up on werewolves. Assumed it would come handy one day", Stiles explained.

"So what happened when you found him?" Derek asked

"Knocked him out, brought him to a motel room. Told the girl at the front desk that he was my grandpa and he had too much scotch on our fishing trip. When he came to, he asked if you sent me to do your dirty work. Said that you were easy to manipulate."

Derek winced. "Kate, she..."

"I know", Stiles said.

Stiles knew the truth. And because of it, he probably thought that Derek was weak. It's weird, he didn't think that he would have minded too much if someone else had known, like Jackson or Isaac. Just not Stiles.

"I killed my family", he said softly. The words were always in his head, but he had never said them out loud before. They sounded so foreign. "I killed them."

"You didn't." Stiles told him. "You were tricked. They dosed you. It wasn't your fault."

"No, they didn't", Derek frowned. "I just...wasn't strong enough to see the signs. I can tell when people are lying, I just couldn't back then."

"Old Man Gerard isn't as strong as we all think he is. He cracked pretty easily. Liked to brag about it. It was in Kate's perfume. High concentration of wolfsbane and pheromones. He still had it around, told me where it was. I got Lydia to run some tests and confirm it for me. There must have been something that Kate told you that she made you believe."

We're in love. All we have to do is leave this place after graduation and we can be together.

It was too easy to accept Stiles' story, that he was just drugged and that he wasn't responsible for everything. All of the guilt would go away if this was the truth.

"I think he lied to you, Stiles. I know that it's hard to believe, but it was my fault."

Stiles reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. "Well, it's not that." He proceeded to pull out his cell phone and a handful of receipts until he finally pulled out a small bottle. "Here it is", he said, holding everything in his hands awkwardly and trying to balance it all until the bottle slipped out of his hands. "Oops!"

The bottle crashed on impact with the ground and the liquid dampened the soil.

"Well, that was it", Stiles said. "I swear it was."

Derek leaned down and rubbed the soil on his fingers, smelling it. It smelled like her.

Before he realized what he was doing, he snapped back up, shoved Stiles against the back of his car, causing the thermos on the roof to fall down, and kissed him roughly, biting his lip and shoving his tongue inside.

Derek's mind was completely blank except from the one purpose of claiming him, which was a relief from having constantly firing thoughts for six years. His fingers ran through Stiles' hair, which had grown longer over the past couple of months.

Stiles pulled apart seconds later, making Derek increasingly more aware of what he did.

"The fire wasn't your fault, Derek." He said, catching his breath. "What happened to your family, what happened to Laura and Peter. It isn't your fault. Do you hear me?"

The voice echoed in the same way that Kate's did when she said that they loved each other.

"It wasn't your fault, Derek. I need you to say it", Stiles told him.

"It wasn't", he stopped in the middle to take a breath. "It wasn't my fault.".

Stiles rested his forehead on his and closed his eyes. "Everything that's happened and has been happening- it's not your fault. You were a victim."

"It wasn't my fault", Derek repeated, feeling more at ease with himself and his surroundings. Feeling more normal than he had in a long time.

The effects of the perfume wore off and Derek loosened the hold he had on Stiles, but Stiles grabbed his neck and pulled him closer in an embrace. "It wasn't your fault. Everything is going to be okay. I'm right here."

"Nobody's ever come back before."

"I'm not going anywhere."

Derek never believed it when people said that to him these days. When Boyd just wanted to be part of a family, when Erica just wanted to belong, they said the same thing.

It wasn't the perfume that made him believe Stiles' words. It was the tone of voice, the way that he said it, the steady heartbeat in his pulse.

Stiles wasn't lying, wasn't placating him, wasn't trying to make him feel better. He meant every word that he said.

Him saying it made Derek want to believe it. He didn't say anything back, just nodded and sat there, letting a tear and his body fall. Stiles was there to bring him back up.