Fic: Here at the End of All Things [2/3]
Fic: Here at the End of All Things
Rating/warnings: Teen and up. This is slavefic, with references to torture and terrorism, plus minor character death.
Pairings: Derek/Stiles, with background Scott/Allison and Danny/Jackson
Previous: Part one
Notes: You should probably see notes on the previous chapter. Plus: this chapter has some references to Kate having tortured Derek when he was younger, among other fairly unpleasant things. Nothing is particularly graphic, but yeah.
Stiles got home to find Boyd sitting with his father. His father, who immediately wrapped him in a crushing hug, obviously trying not to cry. Stiles hugged back just as fiercely, so exhausted and just feeling dirty and gross. He hadn't showered, he was starving, and he was so, so worried. The FBI had Derek in custody, and how the hell was the pack going to cope without him? The government would never let him go willingly. The pack was going to have to find him, break him out, and hope they weren't too late. Fuck, if they collared him...
Stiles could still remember Derek with a collar, so much younger: his face contorted with pain when he couldn't change on the full moon, his hand scrabbling at his neck like he was being choked. His fingers wrapped around the moonstone and metal, pulling and tearing for all he was worth, but still not strong enough to break it. How Derek had collapsed back against the wall in defeat, hands clenched into useless fists. He'd refused to look up and meet Stiles's eyes, humiliated that Stiles had seen him even try when it was so impossible.
That had been so long ago, now. Stiles shuddered at the memory, not sure that Derek would survive it this time if they collared him. Scratch that -- sure Derek wouldn't want to survive it this time. He'd rather die than live as a slave to the Argents.
"Stiles," Boyd said softly. "Go clean up, okay? We have to talk."
Stiles nodded. Boyd was Derek's second in command in the freedom movement, always calm and steady, and fiercely loyal to Derek and the pack. He had to have a plan by now, had to know something. He would never, ever let them take Derek away.
He shaved, glad for a change that he wasn't one of those guys who could sprout a beard overnight. Then he showered, and for all he wanted to take his time, the thought of Derek in custody was too much. He scrubbed hard, his skin going red and raw, filth washing down the drain, and then scrambled into a clean set of clothes and back downstairs. Boyd had made himself at home in the kitchen, cooking dinner -- a weird habit Stiles kind of suspected he'd picked up from Derek -- and Stiles sat.
"What happened?" Stiles demanded. "I only saw Derek for a split second, but --"
"One of Isaac's went rogue," Boyd said bluntly. Stiles winced. Where Boyd was Derek's second in command in the movement, Isaac was his second in the Network; the one who helped him run their less-than-legal operations. The raids, the bombings. Stiles almost never saw him, and was just as glad, because the guy kind of freaked him out. "He was scrambling to do damage control but we didn't have enough warning. There was enough evidence to link Derek, but they couldn't find him. So they nabbed you."
"Me," Stiles echoed.
"Yeah," Boyd said. "Because it's kind of... common knowledge, about you and Derek."
"There's nothing to be common --"
"Stiles," Boyd sighed. "You know there is. I don't know what you two are. Derek's not good with feelings, maybe he's never told you that he -- but you know. And anyway, the FBI knows. Or at least, they know that he comes here to see you. And that it isn't just business."
Stiles swallowed.
"It worked," Boyd said. "They made it very clear they wanted a trade. I tried to talk him out of it -- even Isaac offered to turn himself in instead."
"Shit," Stiles breathed. Derek was their leader, yes. But the fairly well kept secret was that Isaac was higher on the most wanted list, because he was the one who carried out the bombings, the one the FBI could prove was behind it all.
"Derek wouldn't let him," Boyd said.
Of course not. Derek protected his pack however he could; he'd never, ever let the FBI get their hands on Isaac.
"We think he has some kind of plan, but he didn't share it," Boyd continued. "But if we have to go after him, we will."
"Yes," Stiles said. "Just tell me what you need me to --"
"No. You're out," Boyd said. "That's directly from Derek."
"But --"
"Stiles," his father said softly. "You know he's right. If they're using you to blackmail him, it's too dangerous for you both."
Stiles leaned back in his chair, dropping his fork on the table. "I can help, though. I can --"
"No," Boyd said. "And there's more. We're... we're sending you somewhere safe. That's my call. Derek's not here, I'm in charge, and it's what needs to be done. Simple as that."
"What do you mean, sending me?" Stiles frowned, and looked over at his father.
"Think... witness relocation," Boyd said. "I've been pulling strings. We'll get an identity set up for you, a job, and an apartment. You'll be out of the way, and safe." He paused. "And I'm not telling Derek where you are. Because you are the only one they can blackmail him with. The rest of us, he'd -- he'd mourn. But you... As long as you two have contact, you're his Achilles heel. It's safer for you both."
"But what about, about everyone here? My friends? My whole life?" Stiles sputtered. "And my dad, what about him?"
His dad looked away, and Boyd looked down. "Your dad can go with you, if he wants."
"And if he doesn't want?"
"Then... same as everyone else here, Stiles. He doesn't get to know where you are, or to contact you. No one does. I know it's shitty, but... but it's the way it has to be."
"Of course I'm going with him," his dad said, before he could argue.
Boyd nodded. "Good. We'll set it up so your records all say you've taken an early retirement, you'll receive a stipend. Start packing, both of you. You've got 24 hours to say your goodbyes."
Stiles opened his mouth to argue, to refuse, to say something.
But Boyd was right. They were probably forcing an Argent collar onto Derek right now, and god only knew what they'd do to him then. And they'd only gotten to him because of Stiles. The pack was going to find him, they had to, but who was to say the FBI or the Argents wouldn't try again? Derek couldn't afford to have such an obvious weakness. And Stiles would never, ever put Derek in danger willingly.
He met Boyd's gaze, and he nodded.
*
Scott and Allison both lived with Scott's mom -- Scott had been missing for six years after the Argents took him away, back when he was sixteen, and his mom was still grateful to have him back. Allison had come along with him, since joining the pack had meant turning her back on her family forever. His mom had been more than happy to take her in, too. Not just because Scott loved her, but because if it wasn't for her, Scott would probably still be a slave somewhere.
At least this time, Stiles got to say goodbye, he told himself. He was disappearing, he wouldn't see them again for god only knew how long, but he wasn't being kidnapped and spirited off into the night like Scott had.
"You be good," he said, as Scott wrapped him in a crushing hug. "Take care of Allison and your mom, okay?"
"Of course. And you take care of your dad. And... and you know, if you ever need us, if you ever get into anything you can't handle... you know we'll come for you. Screw witness protection. You're one of us."
Stiles barely managed a nod. But he already knew he wouldn't call. If disappearing was what would keep Derek safe, then he was going to disappear. No matter how much it hurt.
*
They moved them to Chicago, of all places. A human member of the old lycan underground helped them move in and get set up, handed them all of their new identity information: drivers licenses, social security cards, birth certificates, tax forms going back almost a decade. All under assumed names -- apparently Stiles Stilinski was vanishing from the face of the planet, leaving someone named Gene Smith behind in his wake.
"This is all... impressively thorough," he mused, sticking all the documents into a drawer.
Their contact shrugged. "That's what we used to do, you know? Before Derek... before things changed."
"Yeah," Stiles agreed vaguely. That was how Danny's family had gotten involved, years and years ago -- when they were still kids, before he'd even considered that Scott could be lycan, before his mother's death, ages before Derek had come into his life. The Mahealanis and other families like them helped teenagers escape the Argents when they could. It was a hard thing to do -- most lycans changed for the first time in their mid-teens, and almost none of them knew what was happening beforehand. If they figured it out, and if they managed to contact the underground, families like the Mahealanis would get them set up with new identities, would teach them how to cover their tracks and keep what they were a secret. But few lycans were so lucky, and once the Argents got a lycan collared, there was nothing the underground could do. There was no hope at all. Or rather, there hadn't been until Derek had managed to strike back.
But now Derek was gone.
*
Life in Chicago was... different. Not terrible, but the city was cold. And crowded. He liked his job -- he worked in the reference section of a university library -- and the apartment was fine. But it was hard, leaving behind everything he'd ever known, all of his friends, everything he'd ever cared about. He tried to see it as a fresh start, but how was it supposed to feel fresh when he was just scanning the headlines every day and setting up google search alerts, looking for anything about the lycan movement? For that matter, how was it supposed to be a fresh start when the only thing he ever thought about was Derek, and when someone was going to contact him to say that they'd rescued him?
But days crawled by, and then weeks, and no one got in touch. Which meant he had nothing but mainstream news and internet rumors to go on, and they only covered things like the bombings, and the commentary was painful. Like, yes, okay, Stiles admitted it was horrific. Isaac's people only struck Argent facilities, and only when they were at their lowest occupancy, but there were always casualties.
Of course, no one in the media ever pointed out that Isaac and his group went out of their way to keep the casualty count as low as possible. Or that the Argents used those facilities to turn alphas into vegetables, channeling their minds and their willpower into the control collars -- and that most alphas never recovered. And they definitely never mentioned that lycan prisoners were routinely tortured and broken in those facilities.
When three were taken out in a single month, Stiles knew it had to be part of the search for Derek. Which meant the Network hadn't found him yet, and they thought he'd been handed over to the Argents.
The thought of Derek in one of those facilities made Stiles sick to his stomach.
The thought that Derek was there because of him, had turned himself in because of him, gave him the first panic attack he'd had in years.
But all he could do was try to breathe, make sure he kept his window unlocked like Derek had asked him to, and wait and hope to get a message soon. But months crawled by, spring descended on the city, and no message came.
*
At least the media covered the march. Stiles felt a pang when he saw the plans in the news, since he'd have been the one organizing it, not too many months ago. But it was still pretty awesome just to see on the news. The dark Daehler filters made it hard to see, but still showed enough: a thousand lycans in DC, the largest public gathering of lycans ever. He picked out Boyd, Scott, and Erica easily at the front, striding confidently, ignoring everyone who lined the streets -- the protesters, the people shouting threats. The Argents, restrained by a line of secret service agents.
"Derek should be with them," Stiles said, eyes glued to the news coverage.
"I'm sure he's... well, he's a fugitive," his father said. "It's not like he can just show up for something like this."
Stiles nodded, trying to convince himself his father was right. If the pack had broken Derek out of government custody, then yeah, that made sense. But if that had happened, why hadn't anyone contacted him to say so? Even if they weren't going to let him go home, get back to his real life, someone should have told him something. Danny could send an encrypted, anonymous, untraceable email in his sleep. There was no reason for them not to let him know.
Unless they hadn't found Derek. Which meant that either the government still had him, or the Argents did. Or he was dead.
It didn't help any that the media noticed he was missing, too. He was the one who'd brought the pack together to strike back at the Argents. He'd set up the alpha rest home in Beacon Hills and planted the pack there to protect the alphas. That had attracted plenty of attention, and the army had surrounded them all for weeks, poised to strike at any moment.
Maybe they would have, if not for the videos. The videos that had turned the movement into a sympathetic cause and had simultaneously made Derek famous and made him miserable.
It was all security camera footage, brightened and restored to make it clear despite the Daehler filters. Lydia, of all people, had gotten access to all of the Argents' old security footage -- even Allison would never have been able to do that. Her family would never trust her again after she'd run off with Scott, no matter how much they wanted her back in the fold. But Lydia was the lycans' secret weapon. Her mother was a senator, a huge supporter of the Argent organization, and had all kinds of political connections. Back when Lydia and Danny had been trying desperately to smuggle Jackson out of town before anyone found out he was lycan, she'd decided that the underground needed an insider and had set about insinuating herself into the anti-lycan activist groups. She'd played the role of a brainless socialite and had dated insiders, and eventually she'd gotten involved herself. She knew all the important people, and she figured out everything.
The Argents knew their supporters had a leak somewhere. But who'd ever suspect an airhead like Lydia Martin, who was only there because her mother might make a presidential bid someday?
However she'd done it, Lydia had managed to find plenty of damning footage of the way lycans were really treated by the Argent operation -- and no one could ignore it or pretend it wasn't really the Argents at fault, because it was all footage of Kate. Specifically, of Kate torturing teenage Derek, tormenting him for fun. And it didn't matter that he was lycan: when people saw it, what they saw was a powerless child, a teenager who should have been trying out for a sports team or eating pizza with friends, instead being systematically broken. The whole nation had been horrified, but parents, especially -- and most especially parents whose children had turned out to be lycan and had vanished into the Argent system.
Everyone had always trusted that the Argent way was the best way, the only way, to deal with the lycan problem; that they kept lycans under control, and it was more merciful than killing them outright. It was the lie that had gotten the Argent Act passed three generations ago, when the world at large first found out about lycans. But with footage of teenagers being tortured proving what really happened, that trust was shattered, and everyone felt betrayed.
It had been enough to get the military to stand down around Beacon Hills, and for the world to agree that the lycans had reasons for their rebellion. The government had even gone so far as to agree to let the escaped lycans remain free, when all previous policy had been to kill them on sight or to return them to the Argents. It wasn't exactly a pardon, but it was enough to turn Beacon Hills into the lycan enclave it became. And it definitely wasn't a coincidence that in the years since that footage had gone public, the number of lycans the Argents brought into the system had dropped sharply. Whether it was parents finding ways to hide their children, or the Argents looking the other way with the hopes of avoiding more public outcry and scrutiny, it had been a real victory for the lycans.
There had been plenty of other footage, too: other torturers, other lycans. But none of it had the same impact. For one thing, Kate was part of the core Argent family, not just one of their flunky employees; and Derek was the only lycan they'd been able to identify who'd survived. So when the tapes leaked, not only had Beacon Hills gotten its stay of execution, Derek was the one the media gravitated towards. The fact that he'd grown up to look like a movie star hadn't hurt, and that other lycans followed him with blind loyalty cemented it. Never mind that Derek hated the tapes. They were like an exposed nerve for him, bringing up memories he never wanted to think about again, showing his weaknesses and vulnerabilities to the whole world. They made him an object of pity, and he hated anything that made him seem weak.
Stiles had only ever made it through a few minutes of footage, staring in horror as teenaged Derek begged for mercy Kate would never give him. It was more than enough, and Derek asked him not to watch the rest, so he didn't. And they never talked about it.
But now, with major lycan activism in DC, Derek was nowhere to be found. And how could Stiles not think about it, where he was and what might be happening to him, when it was all the news wanted to talk about?
He couldn't help himself. Lying in the dark, he remembered Derek shielding him with his body as they'd been shot at; Derek mumbling about his pack to Mrs. McCall while she treated him at the hospital, when he'd been barely conscious and not healing. Derek's roar the moment he was freed and the tense nod when he'd let them put the collar back on; his fierce eyes as he'd testified about saving Stiles's life, about the psychopaths who'd tried to murder them both, who had murdered Stiles's mother.
But most of all, Stiles remembered Derek sitting outside his window, watching the sky.
Chicago was a big city. Dangerous, compared to Beacon Hills. But even so, Stiles checked his window every night, making sure it wasn't latched. It was stupid, pointless. Even if Derek was out there somewhere -- which seemed less and less likely -- Derek didn't know where he was. That was the whole point of moving and taking an assumed name. But it was the last thing Derek had ever asked him to do. So even though Stiles didn't wait up hoping to see him, he also didn't lock the window.
*
Six months passed. Then a year.
Derek was probably dead. That was what Stiles told himself. No one had the heart to tell him, or maybe it wasn't confirmed. Or, even more likely, the whole pack blamed him and just didn't want to talk to him. God knew he blamed himself, carried around the heavy feeling all the time. Derek had looked like shit in the few minutes Stiles had seen him -- and Stiles was probably the last person from the movement who'd ever seen him.
Boyd stepped up as the movement's leader easily, and the pack followed him. That was good, that there was no fighting. Scott and Allison finally got married -- well, they had a ceremony, anyway, since the law only barely allowed escaped lycans their lives and definitely hadn't given any okay for interspecies marriage -- but either way, it made the news. Stiles's heart broke that he wasn't there.
A few weeks later, Erica got busted doing something unspecified, and Stiles winced at the coverage of her being arrested; days after that, the facility where she was held went up in flames, and from then on, she was right there with Isaac on the most wanted list.
There was never any sign of Derek, and Stiles tried to resign himself to never knowing what had happened to him.
*
The news broke almost two years after Stiles moved: the Argents had created what they called the Mark Two collar, ten times stronger than the older model. It didn't just force the lycan to obey, it stripped the lycan of any free will at all. They were like robots, or -- or animals. Mindlessly obedient, and nothing else.
They showed it off in action on the news, on some poor, collared teenager. Stiles's heart broke at the blank look in the kid's eyes, the way he jumped, stood on one foot. All kinds of silly, stupid stuff.
The vote to amend the Argent Act and legalize the collars was a damn close one, with the lycan activists making a hell of a lot of noise, drumming up more sympathy than they'd ever garnered before. But it passed. By one vote, it passed.
Boyd gave a statement, a moving, beautiful speech about lycan rights. That night, Isaac released a video, threatening retribution. Stiles knew there really was no split among the lycans at all, that Isaac's threats were the flip side of the coin that also held Boyd's peaceful protests. It was exactly the same good cop/bad cop roles they'd played under Derek, still expertly done, even now that Derek was gone for good.
*
Sometimes, living in a city made Stiles feel so choked and alone, even though there were thousands of other people packed into close quarters. He didn't know any of them, they weren't the friends -- the pack -- he'd devoted his life to. His father tried to encourage him to go out more, to meet people, but the truth was he'd rather just stay in. But he didn't want his father to worry about him, so he decided urban gardening would make a great hobby. He started planting potted vegetables on their fire escape, safety regulations be damned, and he felt a little bit better when he was surrounded by greenery. Even if it was just a few tiny splashes of color.
*
Isaac's lycans got more aggressive after the new collars, just like he'd threatened. But now they were fighting against other lycans, collared and ordered to protect the facilities, even if it killed them. Every battle had casualties, and they weren't all wins.
Stiles didn't have access to a list of names of who'd been captured or killed, but it was national news when the Argents got Isaac. He survived -- barely -- but was captured, and collared. The Argents leaked photos of Isaac with one of the Mark Twos, dead-eyed and standing up straight, with none of his habitual slouch. Stiles shuddered when he saw it -- as far as anyone could tell, Mark Two collars stripped lycans of their entire mind. Maybe it was mercy that Isaac probably didn't even know his own name or have any idea what was happening. But that was the only kind of mercy the Argents would have. And there was no way, none, that the Argents hadn't tried to get information out of him first. Isaac would have known just about everything about the Network, but he wouldn't have given it up easily.
Whatever had happened, it only took three weeks before there was more news, and this time it wasn't clear who leaked it. Whether it was the Argents or the lycans themselves, it spelled out that Isaac was dead, an arrow to his eye. That was all anyone could find out, but Stiles knew the Network well enough to know it had to be Allison's doing. Maybe an accident, a rescue gone wrong, or maybe it was a mercy killing.
From what Stiles could tell, Erica took over for Isaac after that, which broke his heart a little. His father hugged him when they saw the news, and they mourned together silently. For Isaac, who'd never had any real peace and was now definitely gone; for Erica, who Stiles still loved a little and who'd never come back now; and for Derek.
Derek, who'd died to rescue him.
*
Three years out and finally used to answering to Gene, Stiles let his hand hesitate on the lock on his window one night. He snapped it shut.
Then, five minutes later, he got up and opened it again.
*
It was somewhere around then that one of the sympathetic senators introduced a bill that would require much closer scrutiny of lycan owners, to protect lycans from mistreatment. Boyd organized another march, for free lycans and their allies this time. Stiles bought the plane ticket before even stopping to think, but he got a text message from a number he'd never seen before: don't even think about it.
So that was a waste of money. He wanted to go anyway, but he thought about Derek trading himself in and shuddered. He wouldn't risk getting anyone else hurt or in trouble.
But he couldn't help himself entirely; he saved the phone number and poked around a little. It was a Beacon Hills number, of course. He didn't know whose, Danny had probably made sure of that, but it meant that they were still keeping an eye on him. They still didn't want him to come home.
Stiles felt a rush of homesickness, and grief, and shut his computer, dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and tried not to cry. He failed, and instead he curled up in bed, telling himself over and over again that grief was not a weakness.
*
The bill passed. Barely. The day it went into law, Boyd's people sprang into action. It was nice, watching them use legal means for a change, as violations were called in all over the country. The best part... well, there were a lot of best parts. Lycans couldn't be starved; physical punishment was restricted; sexual abuse was outlawed. Of course, lycans with Mark Two collars weren't capable of complaining, and most of the rest weren't exactly able to get to the police, either. But that was where Boyd's people came in. The movement had people ready to go, quickly lodging complaints on abused lycans' behalves, and for the first time, the news was more good than bad.
It was summer. Stiles grabbed a can of beer and sat out on the fire escape in the midst of his vegetables, drinking slowly and enjoying the breeze. Being surrounded by so many buildings still felt foreign. From his perch, he could make out people in other apartments, having dinner or watching TV or whatever else. He sighed and shut his eyes.
"You'd like the news this week, Derek," he mumbled aloud. "I wish you were here to see it."
*
The internet lit up with the headlines before the mainstream media cared at all: Danny Mahealani, long rumored to be one of the few humans allowed into the Beacon Hills Pack inner circle, was in FBI custody. He was accused of helping Erica carry out acts of terrorism, and he was probably going down, very, very publicly.
Stiles stared at the news, at the footage of Danny's perp walk, hands cuffed behind his back and his expression defiant, though his gaze kept cutting to somewhere off camera, checking something. Jackson wasn't in the footage anywhere, but Stiles knew the two of them too well. If Danny was watching anyone off camera, it had to be Jackson.
He tried to take stock of what this would mean. Danny was one of the few people in the pack who knew absolutely everything about both the official movement and the Network. He knew the ciphers they used to communicate, had encrypted all of their most closely guarded secrets. Danny not only knew how to reach every single underground cell, he was also the only person who had contact with Lydia. Stiles didn't know how they managed it, if they had failsafes in place, if she'd have some other way to leak information to the Network -- or, fuck, if the FBI managed to decrypt any of Danny's files, they might find out her identity.
It was absolutely fucking maddening that he couldn't call anyone and find out what was going on. He still had that number from when he'd wanted to go to the march, but he didn't dare try it. He wouldn't risk compromising the identity they'd given him, wouldn't risk doing anything that might get his friends in trouble, but he itched to know. To be with them like he used to, to be able to help any way he could. Hell, he even wished he was there to comfort Jackson, who he imagined lurking just outside of whatever prison they had Danny at, scenting the air and howling any time Danny smelled like fear.
But no news broke about Lydia or the anti-lycan leak, thank god, and with so much media attention on Danny, nothing too bad could happen to him. Not even the Argents could arrange an accident under that much scrutiny.
The only real silver lining was that, unlike most of the rest of the Beacon Hills activists, Danny was human -- and that meant he was a citizen. He had rights and he'd get a trial. Which he did: it took six months to get started, and it dragged on for another eight. Stiles lived and died with the news, trying not to imagine himself in Danny's place. It could have been him, so easily, if they hadn't thrown him out of Beacon Hills.
Maybe they should have sent Danny packing, too, when they had the chance.
But then again, Danny wasn't the one who'd gotten Derek killed.
*
Danny ended up with a hung jury and a mistrial. He walked free, but didn't head back to Beacon Hills. He and his family relocated to a small town somewhere in upstate New York. Jackson went with them. Stiles smiled a little at that.
*
Gerard Argent keeled over dead five years into Stiles's exile. Chris and Victoria took over from him, and their first order of business was deactivating the Mark Twos. It was a gesture of goodwill, they said.
Stiles didn't trust it. It was too weird. And there were rumors, too. Gerard was an old man; allegedly, he'd died in his sleep, of natural causes. But half the internet was convinced he'd been mauled by a lycan. That couldn't be true, though, because if it was, there was no way his successors would have done anything for goodwill with the lycan movement. So Stiles dismissed it out of hand.
Except that one of the internet crazies also happened to own a store in the Argents' hometown, and posted a screenshot from the security footage that showed a blurry figure in a leather jacket. That was all it was: a blur, facing away from the camera, so there wasn't even a telling lens flare to prove or disprove that it was a lycan. But the crazy was convinced it was Derek Hale.
Stiles spent more hours than he'd care to admit staring at the screencap. It was someone about the right height and build. But hundreds of thousands of people had dark hair and leather jackets. It was just impossible to tell, and Derek was dead. After five years missing, Derek had to be dead.
But still, Stiles checked his window at night, making sure it wasn't locked. Just in case.
*
When news commentators started claiming that the nation had turned in support of lycan freedom, that the Argents would be open to negotiating it, Stiles was skeptical. But it was a presidential election year, and it was going to be a campaign issue. For the first time, a candidate actually said he favored lycan freedom. Of course, his opponent lashed out, claiming that was the same as supporting the lunatic fringe, the lycan terrorists.
The wind went out of the opponent's sails when Erica released a video stating that the day her lycan brethren and sistren were free, she would willingly hand herself over for justice.
Stiles donated to the freedom candidate's campaign. It was the most active he'd been in the movement in years.
*
The election went well, but lycan rights weren't as important to anyone as arguing over taxes. Boyd preached patience, and Erica's group eased up, attacks growing more and more rare.
Scott and Allison had a baby, which Stiles only knew from following the lycan gossip online. It was way too early to even guess if she would take after Scott, but she would definitely carry the genes. The pictures of Scott with a tiny little thing in his arms made Stiles melt, and he'd have given anything to be there to hold her once or twice.
*
Progressives made a remarkable sweep of the midterm elections, so it wasn't a shock when the Freedom Bill was introduced, but it was still almost unbelievable. Especially because it was from some freshman senator who wasn't even one of the ones Boyd had been courting. When asked about it, he just said it was the right thing to do.
Of course, it wasn't that easy. Everyone was terrified of what freed lycans would do to their former owners; owners wanted compensation if they were going to give up their property; there was the question of rights and whether freedom meant they'd extend to lycans now.
The bill was defeated in its first vote. Stiles's heart sank, even though Boyd gave a beautiful speech about how the fact that it had come up to a vote in the first place was a sign of amazing progress.
"I dunno," Stiles said to no one on the fire escape, opening a beer. "Maybe we are closer than ever. It all just feels so far away now."
*
The library where Stiles worked was part of a university, so having professors in and out was an absolutely normal happening. It was easy to pick them out from even the older grad students, something about the way they carried themselves, but Stiles rarely bothered to take notice of them. Until one walked up to his desk and cleared his throat, and there was -- there was just something about him, somewhere in his eyebrows, that reminded Stiles of Derek. Just a tiny bit, but it hit Stiles in the gut, made his heartbeat speed up a little, in a way he hadn't felt in a long, long time.
"Um," Stiles said. "Can I help you?"
"Maybe? It's my first semester teaching here. I need to put some books on reserve for my class..."
"Oh, uh." He pointed over at the main circulation desk. "They'll have forms for you over there at circ. I'm reference. Different department."
"Oh. Thanks." The professor paused. "So... are you a grad student? Or...?"
"Or," Stiles said, then, remembering the cover story he'd been handed years ago, he joked, "Started a master's years ago, ended up working here, and kind of stuck around way after I ditched the program. Sooner or later someone will figure that out and fire me. But until then..."
The professor chuckled. "Well. I won't tell your secret."
It wasn't until twenty minutes later that Stiles realized they'd been flirting a little. Not because he didn't know how to flirt, but because it had been such a long goddamn time since he'd bothered.
He mentioned it to his father that night, and his father smiled. "Good. Next time you see him, you should ask him out."
"Ask him -- Dad, I don't even know his name, or -- anyway, it was nothing."
"No, it wasn't." The humor dropped out of his father's tone, and it went soft and sad, which made Stiles want to die a little bit. "Son, it's been... it's been years since we moved here. I worry about you. I know you're lonely --"
"Of course I am, all of my friends are half a country away and in constant danger and they won't even talk to me --"
"And you've barely made any here, where you live now," his father interrupted. "It's been years. And this is our life. I know it's not... it's not exciting, like it used to be, and I know it's not what you pictured, but... I know the pack wants you to be happy, to have friends, and -- more."
"More," Stiles repeated skeptically.
"I'm just saying, there's nothing wrong with flirting with a cute professor. Just... just think about it."
"Yeah," Stiles said. And he knew his father was right, that after eight years it really was time to move on. Past time. But somehow Chicago still didn't feel like home, and even though Stiles resolved to try, if only so his father wouldn't talk to him in that worried tone anymore, he knew deep down inside that it never would.
*
Professor Eyebrows' name turned out to be Ben Alvarez. He dropped by the reference desk a few times -- enough for Stiles to work out that it wasn't a coincidence, and that even if his own flirting had been accidental, Ben's definitely wasn't. That was enough to make Stiles curious, so he checked around to find out what Ben taught and discovered it was all sociology with a historical bent. Which included one class about the family as a social unit and how it had developed historically, and he'd actually written the textbook for it. Stiles noticed that because the book had a short section on lycan packs in relation to family dynamics, which of course he had to read as soon as he found out about it. It was interesting stuff, though a lot of it was just inferred, since the world hadn't known about lycans for very long before the Argent Act had passed and the Argents had started wiping packs out.
"It's... well, kind of a passion of mine," Ben explained, when Stiles asked him about it, the next time Ben found an excuse to stop at the reference desk. "I mean, the family thing -- I want kids someday, you know, and that'll definitely be considered 'alternative,' which is ridiculous, but I started thinking about what family really means..."
"And the lycan pack thing?"
Ben shrugged. "That's a whole other passion. The lycanthropy thing... there's been so little research done, no real interviews conducted, and I just don't believe everything the Argents claim. But finding independent sources of information on lycans is so difficult --"
"Do you want to get dinner sometime?" Stiles blurted.
Ben blinked at him. "Yeah. I'd like that."
*
The thing was, as much as Stiles liked Ben -- and he really did -- he realized after a few months that he just couldn't do it. Maybe his father was right, and this was his life now; but at the same time, he always felt like he was lying when he told Ben anything at all about himself. Especially when Ben mentioned his interest in lycans, because there were so many things Stiles Stilinski knew, could have told him, but that Gene Smith absolutely couldn't.
Besides, it was too weird to bring Ben home to the apartment he shared with his father. He was old enough that there was no way it was endearing that they had to worry about not waking up his dad when they screwed around together, even though Ben thought it was sweet that he and his dad were close enough to still live together. But it was equally weird to go to Ben's place, where they had privacy, but... but Stiles just didn't like being away from home overnight. He didn't have a lot of rituals anymore, but checking the window every night and every morning was ingrained so deeply that habit didn't come close to describing it.
It wasn't like he thought anything would come of it. Derek was dead. But still, it felt like paying his respects.
*
The Freedom Bill came up again two years later, right at the beginning of the president's second term, and maybe the stars aligned or something. It just squeaked by in the house, and then in the senate, and then the president actually signed it.
The bill wasn't perfect. It didn't grant full rights to lycans, or any kind of reparations. But the Argents didn't fight it, and even though some lycan slave-owners challenged it, within a year the challenges were struck down by the court, and it finally went into effect.
There were actual parties in most cities that night, lycans and their supporters celebrating. Ben actually texted Stiles for the first time in ages, inviting him to one, but Stiles had to tell him no thanks. For practical reasons, since any lycans would be able to smell the mark that designated him as a pack member and he really couldn't explain that to Ben, but also because the whole thing was so big, overwhelming, enormous, but it also made him feel more alone than he had in years.
He grabbed a beer and climbed out onto the fire escape, while his dad stayed glued to the news inside. He could still hear it, though, and shut his eyes tight when he heard Scott's voice, of all people's, talking about how excited and proud he was, how he couldn't wait to meet his newly-freed lycan brothers and sisters and welcome them into the pack.
Stiles should have been there with them, partying and celebrating about winning at last. But instead here he was, alone, and all he could think about was the other person who should have been enjoying the night. He stared up at the sky, raised his beer in a half-salute, and said aloud, "You'd be so proud of your pack right now, Derek. So proud."
*
Erica turned herself in as she'd promised, years ago. And Boyd went on a speaking tour. It was just a cover, Stiles realized. Boyd was actually meeting with some of Erica's cells, and with dozens of lycans who'd been recently freed, who had no idea where to go or what to do.
When Boyd came to Chicago, Stiles went to see him speak. He looked older, wiser, and kinder than the last time Stiles had seen him -- and he picked out Stiles in the crowd easily, his gaze fixing on him. Stiles was actually taken aback a little bit by how intense it was, until he remembered: Derek was the one who had marked him, decades ago, and it still carried Derek's scent. Of course Boyd would notice that immediately;
For a moment, the same intense guilt Stiles had felt in those first few years flared up -- it must have been horrible for Boyd, more painful than Stiles could even imagine, for him to suddenly smell Derek in a crowd and have to realize that no, it was only Stiles. The human Derek had cared about enough to trade his life for.
One of the lycans who watched Boyd's back pulled Stiles aside after the speech and invited him back to their hotel for a meal. Boyd's crew was young, no one Stiles knew, but they all stared at him with a weird amount of awe.
"We're starting a program," Boyd told him. "Opening some halfway houses for lycans who need somewhere to stay, and we need people to work with them, to help them... adjust. Get used to being around humans. It won't be easy; a lot of them are aggressive and angry and, well..."
"Yeah," Stiles said. "But you know I want to help, right?"
"I was counting on it."
They ate in quiet for awhile. Then, finally, Stiles asked, "Did we ever find out what happened to...?"
"Are you sure you want to know?"
Stiles nodded, heart thudding in his chest.
"He got loose, himself. Or they let him go," Boyd said. "Six months after you relocated."
"You mean he -- he was alive?" Stiles stared. If Derek hadn't been killed, then what the hell had happened to him? Why hadn't anyone let him know?
"He was alive," Boyd repeated, and Stiles didn't like the emphasis he put on was. "But he agreed with me that you were... he didn't want you in danger, either. He thought if we never contacted you, that you'd give up, move on. I told him you wouldn't, but he held me to it. And anyway, once he got in touch with us, let us know he was alive, he never really came back to the pack. He said he was too divisive, that we'd never be taken seriously or treated fairly if he was the public face. So he left it to me and Isaac."
One of the younger wolves gasped, as if Stiles was some outsider who hadn't been involved with the pack back then. Who hadn't been involved since before Boyd or Isaac.
"He sort of... struck out on his own," Boyd said. "He didn't even come back to see Laura. We never knew when he'd send word, or what he was doing. Sometimes he'd work with Isaac's crew, until... he was the one who told us to go through with it. With Isaac."
Stiles looked down.
"We didn't always know where he was, or what he was doing. On his own, he moved silently, he could even slip away from us. The FBI couldn't even hope to keep up with him. But he never stopped working."
"Gerard Argent?" Stiles guessed.
Boyd nodded.
"But -- but they deactivated the collars right after that," Stiles remembered. "If Derek was the one who killed him..."
"We have no idea," Boyd said. "Allison even tried to contact her parents, find out why that decision was made, but they wouldn't give her anything."
"And nothing from..." He glanced at the youngsters in the room. Lydia's identity was a well-guarded secret, even among the pack, unless something had changed. "From the leak?"
"Not even the leak found out."
"Damn," Stiles murmured. Because there was no way the Argents would have deactivated the Mark Twos out of the goodness of their hearts. Stiles didn't think there was any goodness in their hearts, honestly.
Boyd continued his narrative: "We know Derek was also behind the first incarnation of the Bill. He did so much behind the scenes, never even consulting me. But..."
He trailed off, and Stiles knew it was bad. "What happened?"
Boyd shook his head. "We don't know. After the Bill was defeated, he... he went with Erica on one of her raids, and he didn't come back. No one has seen him since, no one. And you know if the Argents had him, they'd have trumpeted the news, cut him in half in public. The FBI... we haven't had any indication. I've been trying to find anything I can, but there's nothing, Stiles. We think he's dead. We have no confirmation of that, but... he would have sent word."
Stiles snorted. "That's what I always thought, too. But instead he was running around for, what, ten years? Ten years, and no one called to say, ‘Hey, Stiles, Derek's alive.'"
Boyd didn't meet his eyes. "It was what he wanted. It kept you safe."
"Yeah." Stiles stood up. "You know, I'm not hungry after all. Just... just send me the details of that program, okay, whatever you need. I'm gonna go."
Boyd nodded. "I'll be in touch."
The younger lycans didn't even hide their stares as Stiles let himself out. He didn't stop to tell his dad how it went, didn't bother to eat anything or grab a drink. Just walked straight out to the fire escape and sank down in his usual place.
"Ten years?" he said to his vegetables. "Ten years, and not even a postcard."
It shouldn't have mattered, since it didn't change anything. So he'd thought Derek had been dead for thirteen years; really, it was just for those last three. What did it change?
"Grief is not a weakness," he said to his stupid vegetables as he wrapped his arms around his knees and tried not to cry.
*
The halfway program was good. The pack had purchased a whole building and named it Beacon Tower, a tribute to the pack's hometown even though it wasn't nearly tall enough to be a real tower, but it still made something in Stiles's chest ache every time he walked in. Stiles didn't really do all that much, but it was something. Mostly he just sat around in the lobby. Sat around, read books or chatted, and was the only human who wasn't terrified.
The lycans tended to stare at him more than talk to him, especially at first. He did three shifts of just sitting there before one of them finally approached, and then it was only to ask, "How did you... you know... get marked as pack?"
Stiles ran his hand over the mark on his shoulder. These lycans were all so recently freed that none of them knew Derek. Which was probably for the best -- he was the only human Derek had ever marked, so if they'd been able to recognize his scent, his identity would have been blown entirely. Not that he thought the lycans would out him or anything, but still. The fewer people who knew, the better, even now that it all seemed moot.
Since they were all learning to tell when someone lied, he stuck to a simple version of the truth: "I grew up in Beacon Hills. I was there when a lot of the early movement stuff was happening, and I wanted to help out. But I'm not allowed to talk about anything more specific, you know, because of all the people who were involved back then..."
Looking awed, another lycan asked, "If you can say... is that because you knew, like, Lahey and Reyes?"
Stiles managed not to chuckle and had to bite down his first response -- yes, he'd known Erica. Biblically. Instead, he said, "Yeah, a little bit. I knew most of the early pack members."
Another lycan said to the second, "Boyd was the one who got him to even come here, you know."
"Then did you know... you know. Derek? Hale?"
Stiles rubbed his shoulder again. "Yeah. Yeah, I knew Derek, a really long time ago. But I can't talk about that. I just -- can't."
None of them asked him anything else about that, but a younger lycan woman with a pink scar around her neck -- a scar that Stiles had learned the Mark Twos had left when they were deactivated -- did ask one other question: "Is that why you're not afraid of us? Because you knew all of them?"
Stiles nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, it's funny, because I know objectively that any of you could probably rip my throat out if you wanted to, but after awhile, you just stop being intimidated by all that. So. I'm setting up a computer literacy class for anyone who's interested. Let me know if I can sign any of you up."
*
The lycan woman's name was Lucinda. She took Stiles's class, talked with him for hours afterwards, and finally asked if he wanted to do something outside of the halfway program -- if he wasn't afraid of being seen with her in public. She was a pretty enough girl, but the scar on her neck was hard to cover, and it made it obvious she was lycan.
But Stiles liked her. She was nice, and bold, and reminded him a little bit of Erica, really. And what was anyone going to do, call him a lycanlover? Insults never bothered him, and now that he was pushing into middle age, he couldn't bother being intimidated by the kinds of idiots who used them.
So they went out a few times. It was fun, but a little bit weird. She was bold about asking questions, determined not to shy away from everyone who stared at her, but she was also skittish and young. She was only 25, and in some ways, even younger than that -- she didn't remember anything about the four years she'd spent under the Mark Two collar. It was like those years hadn't happened.
"I don't want to remember," she told Stiles one night, curled up against him.
He stroked her cheek, brushed her hair off of her neck, and kissed her scar.
It ended after a month. She met another survivor, with a neck scar to match hers. He was closer to her age, understood everything she'd been through, and wouldn't break if she got a little too rough with him. She looked really afraid when she told Stiles, but he just hugged her and wished her the best.
*
Scott and Allison came to visit Beacon Tower a few months later, with their two kids. Stiles got all choked up, seeing them so happy. The boy had Allison's dark hair and Scott's stupid grin; the girl had Scott's eyes and Allison's cheekbones.
"Let's go for a walk," Allison said, taking Stiles's shoulder. She and Scott flanked him, leaving the kids at the building. They'd be safe, Stiles realized. Boyd may have been the movement's leader, but Scott was at least as well known among the lycans, and the fact that Allison had left her own family to join the movement still astounded people. Their wedding had been a huge deal, and these kids -- the lycans all looked at these kids as hope embodied by curly hair and big eyes. These kids would never, ever have to be afraid when they were surrounded by lycans.
Scott did that thing where he cocked his head, listening and scenting, before he nodded at Allison. Who said, "We've gotten some really fucked up information from you-know-who. It looks like there are still some collar facilities functioning."
"What?" Stiles gasped. All of the Argent facilities should have been deactivated. The Bill had required it.
"The government is helping cover it up," Allison said, her voice low and dangerous. "We've only got the location of one for sure, but we suspect there are more somewhere. Scott and I are taking a team."
"We just wanted to see you, first," Scott said. "Just in case... just in case."
Stiles swallowed. "Why would the government help hide a collar facility?"
They didn't have an answer for that.
*
They didn't send word when they did it. Stiles watched the news, but he knew there wouldn't be any, because if the facility was that secret, then the government would never let word get out if it was raided or destroyed.
But word did leak about one thing: admitted lycan terrorist Erica Reyes had escaped from custody.
"Well," Stiles told his potted plants, "at least that's one fewer friend to mourn. Stay safe, Erica."
"I always do, Batman."
He stared as she dropped down from the fire escape above his. "I thought I was downgraded to Robin," he said, gaping, but he in no way resisted when she pulled him into a fierce, fast hug.
"I can't stay. I'm a person of interest, you know. I shouldn't even have come, but... I just needed to see a friendly face before I disappear forever."
"You have somewhere safe to go?"
She nodded. "They've got it all set up for me. It's somewhere tropical, where the government doesn't extradite."
"Nice," he said.
She kissed him. "Be good, Batman."
"You, too."
She danced back up onto the railing, obviously preparing to drop down to the alley floor below, but paused. "Do you still leave your windows unlocked at night?"
"Yeah," Stiles said.
She smirked. "Good." Then she was gone.
*
He tried not to get his hopes up. If they'd been holding Erica in the collar facility, and the pack hadn't known about it, then maybe...
Not that he spent way longer than necessary watering his plants every night, staring up at the sky and hoping. Though for the first time, when he looked up and really thought about it, he realized he couldn't even see the moon.
"If he is alive, he's probably got more important things to do," he said conversationally, like his veggies were going to answer him. "I mean, it's not like there were ten years he let me think he was dead or anything. It's not like he never came by, just to say, ‘Hey, I'm alive, so you don't have to live with the crushing guilt anymore. You don't have to think you killed me.'"
He realized it was the first time he'd thought that, too. Not that he'd killed Derek: he had lived with that guilt for ages. But that Derek and Boyd and the others had let him think that. Maybe Derek had wanted him to move on, but how could he ever have moved on when he blamed himself?
He slammed the window shut and threw the lock.
The immediately unlocked it again, and muttered, "If you're alive, you'd better come explain yourself, Hale."
*
Four months went by. He brought his plants inside for the winter, since he didn't want them to die of frost. He checked the lock every night, but he didn't open the window.
*
It was cold in his room. Stiles frowned, pulling his blankets up to his ears, but why the hell was it so cold? His window was shut, and the building's heat was on. It only had one setting, which he fondly referred to as Mordor, so it shouldn't have been cold.
He sat up groggily and looked towards the window.
Where he saw Derek, looking like hell, slumped unconscious on the floor.
Part three.
Rating/warnings: Teen and up. This is slavefic, with references to torture and terrorism, plus minor character death.
Pairings: Derek/Stiles, with background Scott/Allison and Danny/Jackson
Previous: Part one
Notes: You should probably see notes on the previous chapter. Plus: this chapter has some references to Kate having tortured Derek when he was younger, among other fairly unpleasant things. Nothing is particularly graphic, but yeah.
Stiles got home to find Boyd sitting with his father. His father, who immediately wrapped him in a crushing hug, obviously trying not to cry. Stiles hugged back just as fiercely, so exhausted and just feeling dirty and gross. He hadn't showered, he was starving, and he was so, so worried. The FBI had Derek in custody, and how the hell was the pack going to cope without him? The government would never let him go willingly. The pack was going to have to find him, break him out, and hope they weren't too late. Fuck, if they collared him...
Stiles could still remember Derek with a collar, so much younger: his face contorted with pain when he couldn't change on the full moon, his hand scrabbling at his neck like he was being choked. His fingers wrapped around the moonstone and metal, pulling and tearing for all he was worth, but still not strong enough to break it. How Derek had collapsed back against the wall in defeat, hands clenched into useless fists. He'd refused to look up and meet Stiles's eyes, humiliated that Stiles had seen him even try when it was so impossible.
That had been so long ago, now. Stiles shuddered at the memory, not sure that Derek would survive it this time if they collared him. Scratch that -- sure Derek wouldn't want to survive it this time. He'd rather die than live as a slave to the Argents.
"Stiles," Boyd said softly. "Go clean up, okay? We have to talk."
Stiles nodded. Boyd was Derek's second in command in the freedom movement, always calm and steady, and fiercely loyal to Derek and the pack. He had to have a plan by now, had to know something. He would never, ever let them take Derek away.
He shaved, glad for a change that he wasn't one of those guys who could sprout a beard overnight. Then he showered, and for all he wanted to take his time, the thought of Derek in custody was too much. He scrubbed hard, his skin going red and raw, filth washing down the drain, and then scrambled into a clean set of clothes and back downstairs. Boyd had made himself at home in the kitchen, cooking dinner -- a weird habit Stiles kind of suspected he'd picked up from Derek -- and Stiles sat.
"What happened?" Stiles demanded. "I only saw Derek for a split second, but --"
"One of Isaac's went rogue," Boyd said bluntly. Stiles winced. Where Boyd was Derek's second in command in the movement, Isaac was his second in the Network; the one who helped him run their less-than-legal operations. The raids, the bombings. Stiles almost never saw him, and was just as glad, because the guy kind of freaked him out. "He was scrambling to do damage control but we didn't have enough warning. There was enough evidence to link Derek, but they couldn't find him. So they nabbed you."
"Me," Stiles echoed.
"Yeah," Boyd said. "Because it's kind of... common knowledge, about you and Derek."
"There's nothing to be common --"
"Stiles," Boyd sighed. "You know there is. I don't know what you two are. Derek's not good with feelings, maybe he's never told you that he -- but you know. And anyway, the FBI knows. Or at least, they know that he comes here to see you. And that it isn't just business."
Stiles swallowed.
"It worked," Boyd said. "They made it very clear they wanted a trade. I tried to talk him out of it -- even Isaac offered to turn himself in instead."
"Shit," Stiles breathed. Derek was their leader, yes. But the fairly well kept secret was that Isaac was higher on the most wanted list, because he was the one who carried out the bombings, the one the FBI could prove was behind it all.
"Derek wouldn't let him," Boyd said.
Of course not. Derek protected his pack however he could; he'd never, ever let the FBI get their hands on Isaac.
"We think he has some kind of plan, but he didn't share it," Boyd continued. "But if we have to go after him, we will."
"Yes," Stiles said. "Just tell me what you need me to --"
"No. You're out," Boyd said. "That's directly from Derek."
"But --"
"Stiles," his father said softly. "You know he's right. If they're using you to blackmail him, it's too dangerous for you both."
Stiles leaned back in his chair, dropping his fork on the table. "I can help, though. I can --"
"No," Boyd said. "And there's more. We're... we're sending you somewhere safe. That's my call. Derek's not here, I'm in charge, and it's what needs to be done. Simple as that."
"What do you mean, sending me?" Stiles frowned, and looked over at his father.
"Think... witness relocation," Boyd said. "I've been pulling strings. We'll get an identity set up for you, a job, and an apartment. You'll be out of the way, and safe." He paused. "And I'm not telling Derek where you are. Because you are the only one they can blackmail him with. The rest of us, he'd -- he'd mourn. But you... As long as you two have contact, you're his Achilles heel. It's safer for you both."
"But what about, about everyone here? My friends? My whole life?" Stiles sputtered. "And my dad, what about him?"
His dad looked away, and Boyd looked down. "Your dad can go with you, if he wants."
"And if he doesn't want?"
"Then... same as everyone else here, Stiles. He doesn't get to know where you are, or to contact you. No one does. I know it's shitty, but... but it's the way it has to be."
"Of course I'm going with him," his dad said, before he could argue.
Boyd nodded. "Good. We'll set it up so your records all say you've taken an early retirement, you'll receive a stipend. Start packing, both of you. You've got 24 hours to say your goodbyes."
Stiles opened his mouth to argue, to refuse, to say something.
But Boyd was right. They were probably forcing an Argent collar onto Derek right now, and god only knew what they'd do to him then. And they'd only gotten to him because of Stiles. The pack was going to find him, they had to, but who was to say the FBI or the Argents wouldn't try again? Derek couldn't afford to have such an obvious weakness. And Stiles would never, ever put Derek in danger willingly.
He met Boyd's gaze, and he nodded.
*
Scott and Allison both lived with Scott's mom -- Scott had been missing for six years after the Argents took him away, back when he was sixteen, and his mom was still grateful to have him back. Allison had come along with him, since joining the pack had meant turning her back on her family forever. His mom had been more than happy to take her in, too. Not just because Scott loved her, but because if it wasn't for her, Scott would probably still be a slave somewhere.
At least this time, Stiles got to say goodbye, he told himself. He was disappearing, he wouldn't see them again for god only knew how long, but he wasn't being kidnapped and spirited off into the night like Scott had.
"You be good," he said, as Scott wrapped him in a crushing hug. "Take care of Allison and your mom, okay?"
"Of course. And you take care of your dad. And... and you know, if you ever need us, if you ever get into anything you can't handle... you know we'll come for you. Screw witness protection. You're one of us."
Stiles barely managed a nod. But he already knew he wouldn't call. If disappearing was what would keep Derek safe, then he was going to disappear. No matter how much it hurt.
*
They moved them to Chicago, of all places. A human member of the old lycan underground helped them move in and get set up, handed them all of their new identity information: drivers licenses, social security cards, birth certificates, tax forms going back almost a decade. All under assumed names -- apparently Stiles Stilinski was vanishing from the face of the planet, leaving someone named Gene Smith behind in his wake.
"This is all... impressively thorough," he mused, sticking all the documents into a drawer.
Their contact shrugged. "That's what we used to do, you know? Before Derek... before things changed."
"Yeah," Stiles agreed vaguely. That was how Danny's family had gotten involved, years and years ago -- when they were still kids, before he'd even considered that Scott could be lycan, before his mother's death, ages before Derek had come into his life. The Mahealanis and other families like them helped teenagers escape the Argents when they could. It was a hard thing to do -- most lycans changed for the first time in their mid-teens, and almost none of them knew what was happening beforehand. If they figured it out, and if they managed to contact the underground, families like the Mahealanis would get them set up with new identities, would teach them how to cover their tracks and keep what they were a secret. But few lycans were so lucky, and once the Argents got a lycan collared, there was nothing the underground could do. There was no hope at all. Or rather, there hadn't been until Derek had managed to strike back.
But now Derek was gone.
*
Life in Chicago was... different. Not terrible, but the city was cold. And crowded. He liked his job -- he worked in the reference section of a university library -- and the apartment was fine. But it was hard, leaving behind everything he'd ever known, all of his friends, everything he'd ever cared about. He tried to see it as a fresh start, but how was it supposed to feel fresh when he was just scanning the headlines every day and setting up google search alerts, looking for anything about the lycan movement? For that matter, how was it supposed to be a fresh start when the only thing he ever thought about was Derek, and when someone was going to contact him to say that they'd rescued him?
But days crawled by, and then weeks, and no one got in touch. Which meant he had nothing but mainstream news and internet rumors to go on, and they only covered things like the bombings, and the commentary was painful. Like, yes, okay, Stiles admitted it was horrific. Isaac's people only struck Argent facilities, and only when they were at their lowest occupancy, but there were always casualties.
Of course, no one in the media ever pointed out that Isaac and his group went out of their way to keep the casualty count as low as possible. Or that the Argents used those facilities to turn alphas into vegetables, channeling their minds and their willpower into the control collars -- and that most alphas never recovered. And they definitely never mentioned that lycan prisoners were routinely tortured and broken in those facilities.
When three were taken out in a single month, Stiles knew it had to be part of the search for Derek. Which meant the Network hadn't found him yet, and they thought he'd been handed over to the Argents.
The thought of Derek in one of those facilities made Stiles sick to his stomach.
The thought that Derek was there because of him, had turned himself in because of him, gave him the first panic attack he'd had in years.
But all he could do was try to breathe, make sure he kept his window unlocked like Derek had asked him to, and wait and hope to get a message soon. But months crawled by, spring descended on the city, and no message came.
*
At least the media covered the march. Stiles felt a pang when he saw the plans in the news, since he'd have been the one organizing it, not too many months ago. But it was still pretty awesome just to see on the news. The dark Daehler filters made it hard to see, but still showed enough: a thousand lycans in DC, the largest public gathering of lycans ever. He picked out Boyd, Scott, and Erica easily at the front, striding confidently, ignoring everyone who lined the streets -- the protesters, the people shouting threats. The Argents, restrained by a line of secret service agents.
"Derek should be with them," Stiles said, eyes glued to the news coverage.
"I'm sure he's... well, he's a fugitive," his father said. "It's not like he can just show up for something like this."
Stiles nodded, trying to convince himself his father was right. If the pack had broken Derek out of government custody, then yeah, that made sense. But if that had happened, why hadn't anyone contacted him to say so? Even if they weren't going to let him go home, get back to his real life, someone should have told him something. Danny could send an encrypted, anonymous, untraceable email in his sleep. There was no reason for them not to let him know.
Unless they hadn't found Derek. Which meant that either the government still had him, or the Argents did. Or he was dead.
It didn't help any that the media noticed he was missing, too. He was the one who'd brought the pack together to strike back at the Argents. He'd set up the alpha rest home in Beacon Hills and planted the pack there to protect the alphas. That had attracted plenty of attention, and the army had surrounded them all for weeks, poised to strike at any moment.
Maybe they would have, if not for the videos. The videos that had turned the movement into a sympathetic cause and had simultaneously made Derek famous and made him miserable.
It was all security camera footage, brightened and restored to make it clear despite the Daehler filters. Lydia, of all people, had gotten access to all of the Argents' old security footage -- even Allison would never have been able to do that. Her family would never trust her again after she'd run off with Scott, no matter how much they wanted her back in the fold. But Lydia was the lycans' secret weapon. Her mother was a senator, a huge supporter of the Argent organization, and had all kinds of political connections. Back when Lydia and Danny had been trying desperately to smuggle Jackson out of town before anyone found out he was lycan, she'd decided that the underground needed an insider and had set about insinuating herself into the anti-lycan activist groups. She'd played the role of a brainless socialite and had dated insiders, and eventually she'd gotten involved herself. She knew all the important people, and she figured out everything.
The Argents knew their supporters had a leak somewhere. But who'd ever suspect an airhead like Lydia Martin, who was only there because her mother might make a presidential bid someday?
However she'd done it, Lydia had managed to find plenty of damning footage of the way lycans were really treated by the Argent operation -- and no one could ignore it or pretend it wasn't really the Argents at fault, because it was all footage of Kate. Specifically, of Kate torturing teenage Derek, tormenting him for fun. And it didn't matter that he was lycan: when people saw it, what they saw was a powerless child, a teenager who should have been trying out for a sports team or eating pizza with friends, instead being systematically broken. The whole nation had been horrified, but parents, especially -- and most especially parents whose children had turned out to be lycan and had vanished into the Argent system.
Everyone had always trusted that the Argent way was the best way, the only way, to deal with the lycan problem; that they kept lycans under control, and it was more merciful than killing them outright. It was the lie that had gotten the Argent Act passed three generations ago, when the world at large first found out about lycans. But with footage of teenagers being tortured proving what really happened, that trust was shattered, and everyone felt betrayed.
It had been enough to get the military to stand down around Beacon Hills, and for the world to agree that the lycans had reasons for their rebellion. The government had even gone so far as to agree to let the escaped lycans remain free, when all previous policy had been to kill them on sight or to return them to the Argents. It wasn't exactly a pardon, but it was enough to turn Beacon Hills into the lycan enclave it became. And it definitely wasn't a coincidence that in the years since that footage had gone public, the number of lycans the Argents brought into the system had dropped sharply. Whether it was parents finding ways to hide their children, or the Argents looking the other way with the hopes of avoiding more public outcry and scrutiny, it had been a real victory for the lycans.
There had been plenty of other footage, too: other torturers, other lycans. But none of it had the same impact. For one thing, Kate was part of the core Argent family, not just one of their flunky employees; and Derek was the only lycan they'd been able to identify who'd survived. So when the tapes leaked, not only had Beacon Hills gotten its stay of execution, Derek was the one the media gravitated towards. The fact that he'd grown up to look like a movie star hadn't hurt, and that other lycans followed him with blind loyalty cemented it. Never mind that Derek hated the tapes. They were like an exposed nerve for him, bringing up memories he never wanted to think about again, showing his weaknesses and vulnerabilities to the whole world. They made him an object of pity, and he hated anything that made him seem weak.
Stiles had only ever made it through a few minutes of footage, staring in horror as teenaged Derek begged for mercy Kate would never give him. It was more than enough, and Derek asked him not to watch the rest, so he didn't. And they never talked about it.
But now, with major lycan activism in DC, Derek was nowhere to be found. And how could Stiles not think about it, where he was and what might be happening to him, when it was all the news wanted to talk about?
He couldn't help himself. Lying in the dark, he remembered Derek shielding him with his body as they'd been shot at; Derek mumbling about his pack to Mrs. McCall while she treated him at the hospital, when he'd been barely conscious and not healing. Derek's roar the moment he was freed and the tense nod when he'd let them put the collar back on; his fierce eyes as he'd testified about saving Stiles's life, about the psychopaths who'd tried to murder them both, who had murdered Stiles's mother.
But most of all, Stiles remembered Derek sitting outside his window, watching the sky.
Chicago was a big city. Dangerous, compared to Beacon Hills. But even so, Stiles checked his window every night, making sure it wasn't latched. It was stupid, pointless. Even if Derek was out there somewhere -- which seemed less and less likely -- Derek didn't know where he was. That was the whole point of moving and taking an assumed name. But it was the last thing Derek had ever asked him to do. So even though Stiles didn't wait up hoping to see him, he also didn't lock the window.
*
Six months passed. Then a year.
Derek was probably dead. That was what Stiles told himself. No one had the heart to tell him, or maybe it wasn't confirmed. Or, even more likely, the whole pack blamed him and just didn't want to talk to him. God knew he blamed himself, carried around the heavy feeling all the time. Derek had looked like shit in the few minutes Stiles had seen him -- and Stiles was probably the last person from the movement who'd ever seen him.
Boyd stepped up as the movement's leader easily, and the pack followed him. That was good, that there was no fighting. Scott and Allison finally got married -- well, they had a ceremony, anyway, since the law only barely allowed escaped lycans their lives and definitely hadn't given any okay for interspecies marriage -- but either way, it made the news. Stiles's heart broke that he wasn't there.
A few weeks later, Erica got busted doing something unspecified, and Stiles winced at the coverage of her being arrested; days after that, the facility where she was held went up in flames, and from then on, she was right there with Isaac on the most wanted list.
There was never any sign of Derek, and Stiles tried to resign himself to never knowing what had happened to him.
*
The news broke almost two years after Stiles moved: the Argents had created what they called the Mark Two collar, ten times stronger than the older model. It didn't just force the lycan to obey, it stripped the lycan of any free will at all. They were like robots, or -- or animals. Mindlessly obedient, and nothing else.
They showed it off in action on the news, on some poor, collared teenager. Stiles's heart broke at the blank look in the kid's eyes, the way he jumped, stood on one foot. All kinds of silly, stupid stuff.
The vote to amend the Argent Act and legalize the collars was a damn close one, with the lycan activists making a hell of a lot of noise, drumming up more sympathy than they'd ever garnered before. But it passed. By one vote, it passed.
Boyd gave a statement, a moving, beautiful speech about lycan rights. That night, Isaac released a video, threatening retribution. Stiles knew there really was no split among the lycans at all, that Isaac's threats were the flip side of the coin that also held Boyd's peaceful protests. It was exactly the same good cop/bad cop roles they'd played under Derek, still expertly done, even now that Derek was gone for good.
*
Sometimes, living in a city made Stiles feel so choked and alone, even though there were thousands of other people packed into close quarters. He didn't know any of them, they weren't the friends -- the pack -- he'd devoted his life to. His father tried to encourage him to go out more, to meet people, but the truth was he'd rather just stay in. But he didn't want his father to worry about him, so he decided urban gardening would make a great hobby. He started planting potted vegetables on their fire escape, safety regulations be damned, and he felt a little bit better when he was surrounded by greenery. Even if it was just a few tiny splashes of color.
*
Isaac's lycans got more aggressive after the new collars, just like he'd threatened. But now they were fighting against other lycans, collared and ordered to protect the facilities, even if it killed them. Every battle had casualties, and they weren't all wins.
Stiles didn't have access to a list of names of who'd been captured or killed, but it was national news when the Argents got Isaac. He survived -- barely -- but was captured, and collared. The Argents leaked photos of Isaac with one of the Mark Twos, dead-eyed and standing up straight, with none of his habitual slouch. Stiles shuddered when he saw it -- as far as anyone could tell, Mark Two collars stripped lycans of their entire mind. Maybe it was mercy that Isaac probably didn't even know his own name or have any idea what was happening. But that was the only kind of mercy the Argents would have. And there was no way, none, that the Argents hadn't tried to get information out of him first. Isaac would have known just about everything about the Network, but he wouldn't have given it up easily.
Whatever had happened, it only took three weeks before there was more news, and this time it wasn't clear who leaked it. Whether it was the Argents or the lycans themselves, it spelled out that Isaac was dead, an arrow to his eye. That was all anyone could find out, but Stiles knew the Network well enough to know it had to be Allison's doing. Maybe an accident, a rescue gone wrong, or maybe it was a mercy killing.
From what Stiles could tell, Erica took over for Isaac after that, which broke his heart a little. His father hugged him when they saw the news, and they mourned together silently. For Isaac, who'd never had any real peace and was now definitely gone; for Erica, who Stiles still loved a little and who'd never come back now; and for Derek.
Derek, who'd died to rescue him.
*
Three years out and finally used to answering to Gene, Stiles let his hand hesitate on the lock on his window one night. He snapped it shut.
Then, five minutes later, he got up and opened it again.
*
It was somewhere around then that one of the sympathetic senators introduced a bill that would require much closer scrutiny of lycan owners, to protect lycans from mistreatment. Boyd organized another march, for free lycans and their allies this time. Stiles bought the plane ticket before even stopping to think, but he got a text message from a number he'd never seen before: don't even think about it.
So that was a waste of money. He wanted to go anyway, but he thought about Derek trading himself in and shuddered. He wouldn't risk getting anyone else hurt or in trouble.
But he couldn't help himself entirely; he saved the phone number and poked around a little. It was a Beacon Hills number, of course. He didn't know whose, Danny had probably made sure of that, but it meant that they were still keeping an eye on him. They still didn't want him to come home.
Stiles felt a rush of homesickness, and grief, and shut his computer, dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and tried not to cry. He failed, and instead he curled up in bed, telling himself over and over again that grief was not a weakness.
*
The bill passed. Barely. The day it went into law, Boyd's people sprang into action. It was nice, watching them use legal means for a change, as violations were called in all over the country. The best part... well, there were a lot of best parts. Lycans couldn't be starved; physical punishment was restricted; sexual abuse was outlawed. Of course, lycans with Mark Two collars weren't capable of complaining, and most of the rest weren't exactly able to get to the police, either. But that was where Boyd's people came in. The movement had people ready to go, quickly lodging complaints on abused lycans' behalves, and for the first time, the news was more good than bad.
It was summer. Stiles grabbed a can of beer and sat out on the fire escape in the midst of his vegetables, drinking slowly and enjoying the breeze. Being surrounded by so many buildings still felt foreign. From his perch, he could make out people in other apartments, having dinner or watching TV or whatever else. He sighed and shut his eyes.
"You'd like the news this week, Derek," he mumbled aloud. "I wish you were here to see it."
*
The internet lit up with the headlines before the mainstream media cared at all: Danny Mahealani, long rumored to be one of the few humans allowed into the Beacon Hills Pack inner circle, was in FBI custody. He was accused of helping Erica carry out acts of terrorism, and he was probably going down, very, very publicly.
Stiles stared at the news, at the footage of Danny's perp walk, hands cuffed behind his back and his expression defiant, though his gaze kept cutting to somewhere off camera, checking something. Jackson wasn't in the footage anywhere, but Stiles knew the two of them too well. If Danny was watching anyone off camera, it had to be Jackson.
He tried to take stock of what this would mean. Danny was one of the few people in the pack who knew absolutely everything about both the official movement and the Network. He knew the ciphers they used to communicate, had encrypted all of their most closely guarded secrets. Danny not only knew how to reach every single underground cell, he was also the only person who had contact with Lydia. Stiles didn't know how they managed it, if they had failsafes in place, if she'd have some other way to leak information to the Network -- or, fuck, if the FBI managed to decrypt any of Danny's files, they might find out her identity.
It was absolutely fucking maddening that he couldn't call anyone and find out what was going on. He still had that number from when he'd wanted to go to the march, but he didn't dare try it. He wouldn't risk compromising the identity they'd given him, wouldn't risk doing anything that might get his friends in trouble, but he itched to know. To be with them like he used to, to be able to help any way he could. Hell, he even wished he was there to comfort Jackson, who he imagined lurking just outside of whatever prison they had Danny at, scenting the air and howling any time Danny smelled like fear.
But no news broke about Lydia or the anti-lycan leak, thank god, and with so much media attention on Danny, nothing too bad could happen to him. Not even the Argents could arrange an accident under that much scrutiny.
The only real silver lining was that, unlike most of the rest of the Beacon Hills activists, Danny was human -- and that meant he was a citizen. He had rights and he'd get a trial. Which he did: it took six months to get started, and it dragged on for another eight. Stiles lived and died with the news, trying not to imagine himself in Danny's place. It could have been him, so easily, if they hadn't thrown him out of Beacon Hills.
Maybe they should have sent Danny packing, too, when they had the chance.
But then again, Danny wasn't the one who'd gotten Derek killed.
*
Danny ended up with a hung jury and a mistrial. He walked free, but didn't head back to Beacon Hills. He and his family relocated to a small town somewhere in upstate New York. Jackson went with them. Stiles smiled a little at that.
*
Gerard Argent keeled over dead five years into Stiles's exile. Chris and Victoria took over from him, and their first order of business was deactivating the Mark Twos. It was a gesture of goodwill, they said.
Stiles didn't trust it. It was too weird. And there were rumors, too. Gerard was an old man; allegedly, he'd died in his sleep, of natural causes. But half the internet was convinced he'd been mauled by a lycan. That couldn't be true, though, because if it was, there was no way his successors would have done anything for goodwill with the lycan movement. So Stiles dismissed it out of hand.
Except that one of the internet crazies also happened to own a store in the Argents' hometown, and posted a screenshot from the security footage that showed a blurry figure in a leather jacket. That was all it was: a blur, facing away from the camera, so there wasn't even a telling lens flare to prove or disprove that it was a lycan. But the crazy was convinced it was Derek Hale.
Stiles spent more hours than he'd care to admit staring at the screencap. It was someone about the right height and build. But hundreds of thousands of people had dark hair and leather jackets. It was just impossible to tell, and Derek was dead. After five years missing, Derek had to be dead.
But still, Stiles checked his window at night, making sure it wasn't locked. Just in case.
*
When news commentators started claiming that the nation had turned in support of lycan freedom, that the Argents would be open to negotiating it, Stiles was skeptical. But it was a presidential election year, and it was going to be a campaign issue. For the first time, a candidate actually said he favored lycan freedom. Of course, his opponent lashed out, claiming that was the same as supporting the lunatic fringe, the lycan terrorists.
The wind went out of the opponent's sails when Erica released a video stating that the day her lycan brethren and sistren were free, she would willingly hand herself over for justice.
Stiles donated to the freedom candidate's campaign. It was the most active he'd been in the movement in years.
*
The election went well, but lycan rights weren't as important to anyone as arguing over taxes. Boyd preached patience, and Erica's group eased up, attacks growing more and more rare.
Scott and Allison had a baby, which Stiles only knew from following the lycan gossip online. It was way too early to even guess if she would take after Scott, but she would definitely carry the genes. The pictures of Scott with a tiny little thing in his arms made Stiles melt, and he'd have given anything to be there to hold her once or twice.
*
Progressives made a remarkable sweep of the midterm elections, so it wasn't a shock when the Freedom Bill was introduced, but it was still almost unbelievable. Especially because it was from some freshman senator who wasn't even one of the ones Boyd had been courting. When asked about it, he just said it was the right thing to do.
Of course, it wasn't that easy. Everyone was terrified of what freed lycans would do to their former owners; owners wanted compensation if they were going to give up their property; there was the question of rights and whether freedom meant they'd extend to lycans now.
The bill was defeated in its first vote. Stiles's heart sank, even though Boyd gave a beautiful speech about how the fact that it had come up to a vote in the first place was a sign of amazing progress.
"I dunno," Stiles said to no one on the fire escape, opening a beer. "Maybe we are closer than ever. It all just feels so far away now."
*
The library where Stiles worked was part of a university, so having professors in and out was an absolutely normal happening. It was easy to pick them out from even the older grad students, something about the way they carried themselves, but Stiles rarely bothered to take notice of them. Until one walked up to his desk and cleared his throat, and there was -- there was just something about him, somewhere in his eyebrows, that reminded Stiles of Derek. Just a tiny bit, but it hit Stiles in the gut, made his heartbeat speed up a little, in a way he hadn't felt in a long, long time.
"Um," Stiles said. "Can I help you?"
"Maybe? It's my first semester teaching here. I need to put some books on reserve for my class..."
"Oh, uh." He pointed over at the main circulation desk. "They'll have forms for you over there at circ. I'm reference. Different department."
"Oh. Thanks." The professor paused. "So... are you a grad student? Or...?"
"Or," Stiles said, then, remembering the cover story he'd been handed years ago, he joked, "Started a master's years ago, ended up working here, and kind of stuck around way after I ditched the program. Sooner or later someone will figure that out and fire me. But until then..."
The professor chuckled. "Well. I won't tell your secret."
It wasn't until twenty minutes later that Stiles realized they'd been flirting a little. Not because he didn't know how to flirt, but because it had been such a long goddamn time since he'd bothered.
He mentioned it to his father that night, and his father smiled. "Good. Next time you see him, you should ask him out."
"Ask him -- Dad, I don't even know his name, or -- anyway, it was nothing."
"No, it wasn't." The humor dropped out of his father's tone, and it went soft and sad, which made Stiles want to die a little bit. "Son, it's been... it's been years since we moved here. I worry about you. I know you're lonely --"
"Of course I am, all of my friends are half a country away and in constant danger and they won't even talk to me --"
"And you've barely made any here, where you live now," his father interrupted. "It's been years. And this is our life. I know it's not... it's not exciting, like it used to be, and I know it's not what you pictured, but... I know the pack wants you to be happy, to have friends, and -- more."
"More," Stiles repeated skeptically.
"I'm just saying, there's nothing wrong with flirting with a cute professor. Just... just think about it."
"Yeah," Stiles said. And he knew his father was right, that after eight years it really was time to move on. Past time. But somehow Chicago still didn't feel like home, and even though Stiles resolved to try, if only so his father wouldn't talk to him in that worried tone anymore, he knew deep down inside that it never would.
*
Professor Eyebrows' name turned out to be Ben Alvarez. He dropped by the reference desk a few times -- enough for Stiles to work out that it wasn't a coincidence, and that even if his own flirting had been accidental, Ben's definitely wasn't. That was enough to make Stiles curious, so he checked around to find out what Ben taught and discovered it was all sociology with a historical bent. Which included one class about the family as a social unit and how it had developed historically, and he'd actually written the textbook for it. Stiles noticed that because the book had a short section on lycan packs in relation to family dynamics, which of course he had to read as soon as he found out about it. It was interesting stuff, though a lot of it was just inferred, since the world hadn't known about lycans for very long before the Argent Act had passed and the Argents had started wiping packs out.
"It's... well, kind of a passion of mine," Ben explained, when Stiles asked him about it, the next time Ben found an excuse to stop at the reference desk. "I mean, the family thing -- I want kids someday, you know, and that'll definitely be considered 'alternative,' which is ridiculous, but I started thinking about what family really means..."
"And the lycan pack thing?"
Ben shrugged. "That's a whole other passion. The lycanthropy thing... there's been so little research done, no real interviews conducted, and I just don't believe everything the Argents claim. But finding independent sources of information on lycans is so difficult --"
"Do you want to get dinner sometime?" Stiles blurted.
Ben blinked at him. "Yeah. I'd like that."
*
The thing was, as much as Stiles liked Ben -- and he really did -- he realized after a few months that he just couldn't do it. Maybe his father was right, and this was his life now; but at the same time, he always felt like he was lying when he told Ben anything at all about himself. Especially when Ben mentioned his interest in lycans, because there were so many things Stiles Stilinski knew, could have told him, but that Gene Smith absolutely couldn't.
Besides, it was too weird to bring Ben home to the apartment he shared with his father. He was old enough that there was no way it was endearing that they had to worry about not waking up his dad when they screwed around together, even though Ben thought it was sweet that he and his dad were close enough to still live together. But it was equally weird to go to Ben's place, where they had privacy, but... but Stiles just didn't like being away from home overnight. He didn't have a lot of rituals anymore, but checking the window every night and every morning was ingrained so deeply that habit didn't come close to describing it.
It wasn't like he thought anything would come of it. Derek was dead. But still, it felt like paying his respects.
*
The Freedom Bill came up again two years later, right at the beginning of the president's second term, and maybe the stars aligned or something. It just squeaked by in the house, and then in the senate, and then the president actually signed it.
The bill wasn't perfect. It didn't grant full rights to lycans, or any kind of reparations. But the Argents didn't fight it, and even though some lycan slave-owners challenged it, within a year the challenges were struck down by the court, and it finally went into effect.
There were actual parties in most cities that night, lycans and their supporters celebrating. Ben actually texted Stiles for the first time in ages, inviting him to one, but Stiles had to tell him no thanks. For practical reasons, since any lycans would be able to smell the mark that designated him as a pack member and he really couldn't explain that to Ben, but also because the whole thing was so big, overwhelming, enormous, but it also made him feel more alone than he had in years.
He grabbed a beer and climbed out onto the fire escape, while his dad stayed glued to the news inside. He could still hear it, though, and shut his eyes tight when he heard Scott's voice, of all people's, talking about how excited and proud he was, how he couldn't wait to meet his newly-freed lycan brothers and sisters and welcome them into the pack.
Stiles should have been there with them, partying and celebrating about winning at last. But instead here he was, alone, and all he could think about was the other person who should have been enjoying the night. He stared up at the sky, raised his beer in a half-salute, and said aloud, "You'd be so proud of your pack right now, Derek. So proud."
*
Erica turned herself in as she'd promised, years ago. And Boyd went on a speaking tour. It was just a cover, Stiles realized. Boyd was actually meeting with some of Erica's cells, and with dozens of lycans who'd been recently freed, who had no idea where to go or what to do.
When Boyd came to Chicago, Stiles went to see him speak. He looked older, wiser, and kinder than the last time Stiles had seen him -- and he picked out Stiles in the crowd easily, his gaze fixing on him. Stiles was actually taken aback a little bit by how intense it was, until he remembered: Derek was the one who had marked him, decades ago, and it still carried Derek's scent. Of course Boyd would notice that immediately;
For a moment, the same intense guilt Stiles had felt in those first few years flared up -- it must have been horrible for Boyd, more painful than Stiles could even imagine, for him to suddenly smell Derek in a crowd and have to realize that no, it was only Stiles. The human Derek had cared about enough to trade his life for.
One of the lycans who watched Boyd's back pulled Stiles aside after the speech and invited him back to their hotel for a meal. Boyd's crew was young, no one Stiles knew, but they all stared at him with a weird amount of awe.
"We're starting a program," Boyd told him. "Opening some halfway houses for lycans who need somewhere to stay, and we need people to work with them, to help them... adjust. Get used to being around humans. It won't be easy; a lot of them are aggressive and angry and, well..."
"Yeah," Stiles said. "But you know I want to help, right?"
"I was counting on it."
They ate in quiet for awhile. Then, finally, Stiles asked, "Did we ever find out what happened to...?"
"Are you sure you want to know?"
Stiles nodded, heart thudding in his chest.
"He got loose, himself. Or they let him go," Boyd said. "Six months after you relocated."
"You mean he -- he was alive?" Stiles stared. If Derek hadn't been killed, then what the hell had happened to him? Why hadn't anyone let him know?
"He was alive," Boyd repeated, and Stiles didn't like the emphasis he put on was. "But he agreed with me that you were... he didn't want you in danger, either. He thought if we never contacted you, that you'd give up, move on. I told him you wouldn't, but he held me to it. And anyway, once he got in touch with us, let us know he was alive, he never really came back to the pack. He said he was too divisive, that we'd never be taken seriously or treated fairly if he was the public face. So he left it to me and Isaac."
One of the younger wolves gasped, as if Stiles was some outsider who hadn't been involved with the pack back then. Who hadn't been involved since before Boyd or Isaac.
"He sort of... struck out on his own," Boyd said. "He didn't even come back to see Laura. We never knew when he'd send word, or what he was doing. Sometimes he'd work with Isaac's crew, until... he was the one who told us to go through with it. With Isaac."
Stiles looked down.
"We didn't always know where he was, or what he was doing. On his own, he moved silently, he could even slip away from us. The FBI couldn't even hope to keep up with him. But he never stopped working."
"Gerard Argent?" Stiles guessed.
Boyd nodded.
"But -- but they deactivated the collars right after that," Stiles remembered. "If Derek was the one who killed him..."
"We have no idea," Boyd said. "Allison even tried to contact her parents, find out why that decision was made, but they wouldn't give her anything."
"And nothing from..." He glanced at the youngsters in the room. Lydia's identity was a well-guarded secret, even among the pack, unless something had changed. "From the leak?"
"Not even the leak found out."
"Damn," Stiles murmured. Because there was no way the Argents would have deactivated the Mark Twos out of the goodness of their hearts. Stiles didn't think there was any goodness in their hearts, honestly.
Boyd continued his narrative: "We know Derek was also behind the first incarnation of the Bill. He did so much behind the scenes, never even consulting me. But..."
He trailed off, and Stiles knew it was bad. "What happened?"
Boyd shook his head. "We don't know. After the Bill was defeated, he... he went with Erica on one of her raids, and he didn't come back. No one has seen him since, no one. And you know if the Argents had him, they'd have trumpeted the news, cut him in half in public. The FBI... we haven't had any indication. I've been trying to find anything I can, but there's nothing, Stiles. We think he's dead. We have no confirmation of that, but... he would have sent word."
Stiles snorted. "That's what I always thought, too. But instead he was running around for, what, ten years? Ten years, and no one called to say, ‘Hey, Stiles, Derek's alive.'"
Boyd didn't meet his eyes. "It was what he wanted. It kept you safe."
"Yeah." Stiles stood up. "You know, I'm not hungry after all. Just... just send me the details of that program, okay, whatever you need. I'm gonna go."
Boyd nodded. "I'll be in touch."
The younger lycans didn't even hide their stares as Stiles let himself out. He didn't stop to tell his dad how it went, didn't bother to eat anything or grab a drink. Just walked straight out to the fire escape and sank down in his usual place.
"Ten years?" he said to his vegetables. "Ten years, and not even a postcard."
It shouldn't have mattered, since it didn't change anything. So he'd thought Derek had been dead for thirteen years; really, it was just for those last three. What did it change?
"Grief is not a weakness," he said to his stupid vegetables as he wrapped his arms around his knees and tried not to cry.
*
The halfway program was good. The pack had purchased a whole building and named it Beacon Tower, a tribute to the pack's hometown even though it wasn't nearly tall enough to be a real tower, but it still made something in Stiles's chest ache every time he walked in. Stiles didn't really do all that much, but it was something. Mostly he just sat around in the lobby. Sat around, read books or chatted, and was the only human who wasn't terrified.
The lycans tended to stare at him more than talk to him, especially at first. He did three shifts of just sitting there before one of them finally approached, and then it was only to ask, "How did you... you know... get marked as pack?"
Stiles ran his hand over the mark on his shoulder. These lycans were all so recently freed that none of them knew Derek. Which was probably for the best -- he was the only human Derek had ever marked, so if they'd been able to recognize his scent, his identity would have been blown entirely. Not that he thought the lycans would out him or anything, but still. The fewer people who knew, the better, even now that it all seemed moot.
Since they were all learning to tell when someone lied, he stuck to a simple version of the truth: "I grew up in Beacon Hills. I was there when a lot of the early movement stuff was happening, and I wanted to help out. But I'm not allowed to talk about anything more specific, you know, because of all the people who were involved back then..."
Looking awed, another lycan asked, "If you can say... is that because you knew, like, Lahey and Reyes?"
Stiles managed not to chuckle and had to bite down his first response -- yes, he'd known Erica. Biblically. Instead, he said, "Yeah, a little bit. I knew most of the early pack members."
Another lycan said to the second, "Boyd was the one who got him to even come here, you know."
"Then did you know... you know. Derek? Hale?"
Stiles rubbed his shoulder again. "Yeah. Yeah, I knew Derek, a really long time ago. But I can't talk about that. I just -- can't."
None of them asked him anything else about that, but a younger lycan woman with a pink scar around her neck -- a scar that Stiles had learned the Mark Twos had left when they were deactivated -- did ask one other question: "Is that why you're not afraid of us? Because you knew all of them?"
Stiles nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, it's funny, because I know objectively that any of you could probably rip my throat out if you wanted to, but after awhile, you just stop being intimidated by all that. So. I'm setting up a computer literacy class for anyone who's interested. Let me know if I can sign any of you up."
*
The lycan woman's name was Lucinda. She took Stiles's class, talked with him for hours afterwards, and finally asked if he wanted to do something outside of the halfway program -- if he wasn't afraid of being seen with her in public. She was a pretty enough girl, but the scar on her neck was hard to cover, and it made it obvious she was lycan.
But Stiles liked her. She was nice, and bold, and reminded him a little bit of Erica, really. And what was anyone going to do, call him a lycanlover? Insults never bothered him, and now that he was pushing into middle age, he couldn't bother being intimidated by the kinds of idiots who used them.
So they went out a few times. It was fun, but a little bit weird. She was bold about asking questions, determined not to shy away from everyone who stared at her, but she was also skittish and young. She was only 25, and in some ways, even younger than that -- she didn't remember anything about the four years she'd spent under the Mark Two collar. It was like those years hadn't happened.
"I don't want to remember," she told Stiles one night, curled up against him.
He stroked her cheek, brushed her hair off of her neck, and kissed her scar.
It ended after a month. She met another survivor, with a neck scar to match hers. He was closer to her age, understood everything she'd been through, and wouldn't break if she got a little too rough with him. She looked really afraid when she told Stiles, but he just hugged her and wished her the best.
*
Scott and Allison came to visit Beacon Tower a few months later, with their two kids. Stiles got all choked up, seeing them so happy. The boy had Allison's dark hair and Scott's stupid grin; the girl had Scott's eyes and Allison's cheekbones.
"Let's go for a walk," Allison said, taking Stiles's shoulder. She and Scott flanked him, leaving the kids at the building. They'd be safe, Stiles realized. Boyd may have been the movement's leader, but Scott was at least as well known among the lycans, and the fact that Allison had left her own family to join the movement still astounded people. Their wedding had been a huge deal, and these kids -- the lycans all looked at these kids as hope embodied by curly hair and big eyes. These kids would never, ever have to be afraid when they were surrounded by lycans.
Scott did that thing where he cocked his head, listening and scenting, before he nodded at Allison. Who said, "We've gotten some really fucked up information from you-know-who. It looks like there are still some collar facilities functioning."
"What?" Stiles gasped. All of the Argent facilities should have been deactivated. The Bill had required it.
"The government is helping cover it up," Allison said, her voice low and dangerous. "We've only got the location of one for sure, but we suspect there are more somewhere. Scott and I are taking a team."
"We just wanted to see you, first," Scott said. "Just in case... just in case."
Stiles swallowed. "Why would the government help hide a collar facility?"
They didn't have an answer for that.
*
They didn't send word when they did it. Stiles watched the news, but he knew there wouldn't be any, because if the facility was that secret, then the government would never let word get out if it was raided or destroyed.
But word did leak about one thing: admitted lycan terrorist Erica Reyes had escaped from custody.
"Well," Stiles told his potted plants, "at least that's one fewer friend to mourn. Stay safe, Erica."
"I always do, Batman."
He stared as she dropped down from the fire escape above his. "I thought I was downgraded to Robin," he said, gaping, but he in no way resisted when she pulled him into a fierce, fast hug.
"I can't stay. I'm a person of interest, you know. I shouldn't even have come, but... I just needed to see a friendly face before I disappear forever."
"You have somewhere safe to go?"
She nodded. "They've got it all set up for me. It's somewhere tropical, where the government doesn't extradite."
"Nice," he said.
She kissed him. "Be good, Batman."
"You, too."
She danced back up onto the railing, obviously preparing to drop down to the alley floor below, but paused. "Do you still leave your windows unlocked at night?"
"Yeah," Stiles said.
She smirked. "Good." Then she was gone.
*
He tried not to get his hopes up. If they'd been holding Erica in the collar facility, and the pack hadn't known about it, then maybe...
Not that he spent way longer than necessary watering his plants every night, staring up at the sky and hoping. Though for the first time, when he looked up and really thought about it, he realized he couldn't even see the moon.
"If he is alive, he's probably got more important things to do," he said conversationally, like his veggies were going to answer him. "I mean, it's not like there were ten years he let me think he was dead or anything. It's not like he never came by, just to say, ‘Hey, I'm alive, so you don't have to live with the crushing guilt anymore. You don't have to think you killed me.'"
He realized it was the first time he'd thought that, too. Not that he'd killed Derek: he had lived with that guilt for ages. But that Derek and Boyd and the others had let him think that. Maybe Derek had wanted him to move on, but how could he ever have moved on when he blamed himself?
He slammed the window shut and threw the lock.
The immediately unlocked it again, and muttered, "If you're alive, you'd better come explain yourself, Hale."
*
Four months went by. He brought his plants inside for the winter, since he didn't want them to die of frost. He checked the lock every night, but he didn't open the window.
*
It was cold in his room. Stiles frowned, pulling his blankets up to his ears, but why the hell was it so cold? His window was shut, and the building's heat was on. It only had one setting, which he fondly referred to as Mordor, so it shouldn't have been cold.
He sat up groggily and looked towards the window.
Where he saw Derek, looking like hell, slumped unconscious on the floor.
Part three.