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Part 6

Everything that happens next is fast and confusing. Stiles can’t help but be drawn back into the adrenaline rush of preparing for this ancient ritual that they don’t really understand. It’s just like old times. Lydia is sitting alone in his room, trying to come up with more information or more directions. Scott is on the phone with Deaton talking about the nemeton and sacrifices and if Deaton thinks it’s really possible that the nemeton is sending Stiles this message. From the hopeful tone of Scott’s voice, Stiles decides that Deaton thinks it is possible. 

Allison is on the porch with her father and Stiles’s. Stiles can’t hear what they’re talking about but even if he could, he wouldn’t be able to focus on another conversation while he’s trying to talk to Cora and the quiet voice of Peter coming through Cora’s phone. 

Cora has decided she’s going to be the Hale member. Peter did not fight this decision because he’s not convinced that this isn’t a trap. Still, he agrees to go and wait by the cars with Chris and Noah. He also agrees to keep all of this from Eli which hasn’t been difficult given that Eli’s been in the woods with Malia. Stiles can only assume that has to do with some kind of transforming into a wolf business. He’s never really understood the traits of the Hale wolves. 

“Do you think we need to have ice baths? Wolfsbane? Robes?” Peter, though he’s been on his best behavior, is, of course, making fun of them. 

“Right now all that we know is that the 5 of us need to be at the nemeton,” Stiles says. 

“On the next full moon,” Cora adds. 

“That’s two weeks away. For once, we’re not running out of time.”

Xxx

That night passed quickly. Lydia commanded the attention of the room as the sun set. She was talking about the similarities between this nemeton ritual and the one that brought Allison back. Apparently, they brought with them items relating to her death. A sword, some dirt – you know, Stiles thought, normal things. 

“I could have Jordan light up and then scrape off any ashes on his skin afterwards?” Scott suggested. He was met with nods as well as a barely choked off laugh from Cora.

“Besides Jordan, the nemeton is the only other connection to Derek’s death so I get this feeling,” Lydia said, gesturing her hands towards her heart, “that we need to bring things that will connect Derek to his life.”

Stiles tuned out of the conversation at that point, thinking about his own connections to Derek. What did he have to offer? He thought about how Derek had kept and worked on his Jeep for so many years. How he’d let, though “let” was not the word Derek would’ve used according to Stiles’s father, Eli drive it. It was the best connection Stiles still had to Derek. 

After a few hours, everyone had settled on what they were going to bring and when they were going to meet. Scott would bring Allison back home with him for the time before the full moon. Lydia would leave, too. Cora and Stiles decided to stay and catch up. 

They decided to meet back at Stiles’s Dad’s for breakfast so make sure no one was missing anything. Scott, Allison, and Chris left for Melissa’s. Cora went to Derek’s. Noah offered the very comfortable couch to Lydia who was too exhausted to decline. Stiles was alone again in his room with the kind of quiet that he’d grown unaccustomed to in Portland.

Xxx

Stiles awoke to a scream. It was the blood curdling kind of scream from Lydia that he hadn’t heard since the first few weeks after they’d moved. He struggled into a pair of sweatpants that he’d left on the floor by his bed before he went to sleep, then rushed down the stairs. 

Lydia had stopped screaming but she was curled into a ball on the middle of the floor in the Sheriff’s living room. Stiles’s father was already beside her, trying to wake her up. Weirder still, she was surrounded by black ink. At some point in the night, or early this morning, she drew black over full pages and spread them on the floor around herself in a full circle. 

Stiles walked around the circle of her drawings while he heard his father calling Melissa McCall who promised her and Scott would be there in a few minutes. The drawings were too neat. The more Stiles looked at them, the more he knew that they weren’t just blacked out pages. On the corner, there were white pages and pages only half blackened in lengthy curved shapes. He closed his eyes for a moment to get the pages out of his mind before going into the kitchen, grabbing a step ladder, and returning to view the pages from a higher angle. 

At this angle, he could see that they formed a giant black circle around Lydia, still curled up in the fetal position but now with her head in Noah’s hands and he tried to get her to wake up. 

“Stiles, would you get down here and help me wake her up?” 

As soon as Stiles got off of the step ladder, crossed the pages to Lydia, and took hold of her hand, her eyes shot open. 

“It’s the new moon, Stiles. It’s not the full moon. It’s the new moon,” Lydia said. Stiles heard the door open. Lydia continued to repeat “the new moon” while she sat up and got a sense of her surroundings. 

“Stiles.” It was Scott, Stiles thought, he must’ve come through the door first. “Stiles,” Scott repeated, “the new moon is tonight.”

Part 7

Stiles, Lydia, Scott, Allison, and Cora Hale stood in a large, loose circle around the nemeton. In the darkness of the new moon, Stiles’s eyes gave nothing away. This was mainly because they were wide open, struggling to adjust at all to the pitch black darkness of the woods with no moon.

In his hands, Stiles held his original copy of the keys to his Jeep – Eli’s set of keys, his fathers’, and the Jeep itself were safely out of the woods. Cora held her necklace which one of Talia Hale’s claws dangling from a golden setting. Scott had an old tupperware container which contained the ashes he scraped off Jordan after a transformation. Allison’s fingers were wrapped around a few fresh blooms of the Nordic Blue Monkshood buried above Laura Hale that had incidentally brought all of them together, though these petals weren’t from that specific plant and rather from the plant about the now Hale Library. If Derek were to later tell him that the plant above the library was indeed from the same plant which had once marked Laura’s grave, Stiles wouldn’t have been surprised. 

Lydia was the only one of them who held nothing. In many ways, her connection to Derek was the weakest. Her connection to the nemeton was stronger and that’s what brought her with them, less than an hour before midnight, underneath the new moon. 

Keeping their formation, each member of the circle stepped forwards. When they finally got close enough to touch the nemeton, they each placed their items on its top. Cora used Talia’s claw to slice across her hand enough to leave a small pool of blood on the nemeton’s surface. Lydia placed her palm down on the nemeton instead and looked up at the moon. “What’s taken is returned,” she whispered. The rest of the circle repeated after her. She lifted her hand and took a few steps back, looking now at the nemeton. Again, she repeated the words. Again, they chorused after her. 

After the third repetition, tendrils of silver light began creeping outwards from the center of the tree. The tendrils curled around the ankles of the pack and flowed out past them, into the woods. Some tendrils began to climb up trees. Slowly, the clearing began to grow brighter and brighter. While his eyes readjusted, Stiles looked to Lydia and swallowed down a noise that threatened to come up from his throat. 

A few of the tendrils had wrapped their way up Lydia’s body. One seemed to creep right into her mouth. Suddenly, her eyes shifted to the same glowing silver of the tendrils and she spoke. “Derek Hale,” said a voice through Lydia’s mouth that was not her own. “You sacrificed virgin blood to us in our time of death. This new life we took and we have prospered.” The light in the clearing was becoming too bright. Stiles tried to see the others but could only see the faintest shape of Scott’s hand covering his eyes. Stiles lifted his own hands up to shield his eyes. “Derek Hale,” Not Lydia said once more, “what’s taken is returned.”

Behind the pink glow of his eyelids, it became dark again all at once. Stiles lowered his hand. 

Xxx

“If any one of you discusses, considers, or even thinks about following an eerie dream, performing a crazy banshee ancient druid ritual, or anything of the supernatural sort without consulting every single member of this pack first, I will personally drown you in a bathtub full of ice and you can live out your days in a perpetual blank space. Do you understand?!” The voice was loud, commanding, and most importantly, it was the voice of Derek Hale. He was facing Scott, his back completely turned to Stiles. 

“If you would just stay safe and out of harm’s way, I wouldn’t have to,” Stiles said, his voice shaking and much as his knees were before he had grown unsteady on them and fallen forward. Now, kneeling on the other side of the nemeton, Stiles watched Derek Hale, completely nude with salt-and-pepper hair and bright red eyes, turn around to face him. In normal circumstances, Stiles would’ve fought to keep his eyes up and on Derek’s. Today, he couldn’t have looked away from Derek’s eyes if he’d tried. 

“You came?” Gone was Derek’s booming voice from before and replaced with a much softer tone.

“I had an eerie dream of fire and hope,” Stiles whispered. 

Derek was moving. He was so much faster than Stiles remembered. He had barely blinked before Derek was in front of him, grabbing him under his arms and lifting him to stand. Stiles' knees were still not ready to carry his weight but Derek knew. Derek always knew. He kept one arm wrapped underneath Stiles’ arm and around his back, holding him steady. As Stiles looked up, Derek’s red eyes faded back to normal. Normal, Stiles thought, what a stupid way to describe the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen.

“You never came back,” Derek whispered, keeping his other hand awkwardly by his side. 

“I like to think I came back when it mattered the most,” Stiles retorted, trying to lighten the heavy air between them. 

“Are you going to stay?” 

“Are you going to stop sacrificing yourself when you have so many people to live for?”

“Who else will do the self-sacrificing if I stop?” They were joking back and forth now, albeit in hushed tones. The awkwardness was turning into tension, like it used to when Derek would press him up against the nearest wall.

“I think it’s high time for that responsibility to fall on Peter,” Stiles said, sounding as serious as he possibly could. 

Between them, there was a single beat of silence. Then Derek started laughing. Derek Hale’s laugh was so happy and contagious that soon their forgotten family and friends began to laugh behind them, though they didn’t notice. “Can I?” Derek asked, trailing off into an unspoken question. 

“I just brought you back from the dead, I think I deserve one–” and Stiles was cut off by Derek’s lips on his own. His eyes dropped shut as Derek’s unoccupied hand settled on the side of his neck, his thumb resting underneath Stiles’ jaw. Stiles’ own awkward arms reached up and settled on Derek’s shoulder and collarbone. If time was passing while they kissed, neither of them noticed. They didn’t know if the rest of the pack had scattered or remained to comment on what Stiles thought must be surprising at least to Allison. 

They kissed until, “Dad!” broke through the perceived silence. Stiles dropped his head to lay on Derek’s shoulder and give him an unobstructed field of vision over him as Eli ran from the woods, into the clearing, and straight up to the two of them. The arm that held Stiles up remained but the one holding his neck was stretched out just in time to accommodate the sudden teenager who joined their embrace. “How?” Stiles heard Eli whisper. 

“Eli, I’d like to properly introduce you to Stiles Stilinski,” Derek said. “Impossible things happen around Stiles Stilinski.”

“I’ve had my share of impossible things. I’d be content to just have this forever,” Stiles whispered, not completely realizing he’d spoken out loud.

“Then let’s have this,” Derek said in return. “The three of us. Let’s have this forever.”

Scott’s house wasn’t as full as it had been the last time Stiles had visited. When Melissa let him inside, there was no one downstairs. Inside of Scott’s childhood bedroom, only Lydia, Allison, and Scott remained.

“So, Jackson didn’t feel like sticking around any longer?” It was Lydia who recognized Stiles’s voice first and turned to answer him where he stood in the doorway.

“It was something to do with work. I’m honestly not very sure what he does for a living so I didn’t ask.”

“I’m glad you came back. We’re leaving tomorrow and I was worried I wouldn’t get to see you before then,” Scott said, standing from where he sat on the corner of the bed. Stiles could tell he meant what he was saying but he was like a puppy. He was too concerned with what was right in front of him to be interested in anything else that was going on.

“Listen guys, there’s more going on than what you think. Peter and I,” and he was cut off.

“What, you’re hanging out with Peter now? You hate Peter,” Lydia said, rising to her feet as well.

“Would you just listen to me? I know everyone has their own things going on but this isn’t over.” Stiles was getting frustrated. His old friends had a habit of thinking they always knew better than him. Maybe it was because of his humanity. Maybe it was because of how obvious his PTSD became in the years before he left Beacon Hills for good. They were treating him like he wasn’t the only one of them still risking his life regularly running into burning fires.

“Of course, Stiles,” Allison said, “Talk.”

So Stiles talked. He told them about his dreams, his conversation with Cora, the library that he found with Peter, and the books. He told them again about Derek’s traumatic past and his own experiences with the nemeton when he was possessed.

“Those tendrils of light.. We saw those when we brought Allison back. It wasn’t the nemeton that sent me the instructions on how to do it though, it was the nogitsune,” Lydia said.

“I don’t think the nogitsune has anything to do with this. He was in the nemeton long enough to have figured out how to trap Allison in it but he died. I can’t feel him. When I reach out to the nemeton, I know he’s gone. Derek, I can feel.” Stiles was trying to put the pieces together but he still couldn’t answer the biggest question. “I keep seeing this phrase, ‘What’s taken is returned.’ It was in my dream last night and it was in one of my books this morning. I brought it with me.” Stiles shrugged off his jacket in the warm bedroom and took the book out of one of the large pockets. He gave it to Allison. “You were inside. Maybe you know what it means.”

Allison took the book from Stiles’s hands and looked through it. He had folded down the corner of the page he found that morning.

“It doesn’t mean anything to me, Stiles. I don’t remember being inside. I closed my eyes when the Ony stabbed me and opened them here.”

Lydia reached out towards Allison, beckoning for the book. Allison gave it to her. Stiles felt like time slowed as Lydia touched the book and something happened to her. The look on her face became worried as she wrapped her hand around the spine of the book and once she firmly gripped it, she slid down to her knees and looked straight at Stiles. She screamed. Suddenly, Allison, Scott, and Stiles were on the ground around her, calling her name. Stiles was in front of her, holding both of his hands to her cheeks. He pressed his forehead against hers like he’d done every time she had needed him in Portland. After a few moments, her scream stopped, but she was still fixed by something.

“She needs to draw,” Stiles said, looking down to the hand which wasn’t grabbing the book as it moved in some kind of pattern. “Paper, Scott, paper!” Scott scrambled to the desk and found a used notebook from highschool. He really needs to clean out this room, Stiles thought as Scott opened the notebook to a blank page and put it under Lydia’s hand. He must have grabbed a pen from the same desk because Stiles saw him grab Lydia’s hand and firmly place a pen in it, wrapping her fingers around it.

Lydia dropped the book and stilled. Stiles and Allison moved away from her, giving her just enough space to move. She hunched over the notebook on the floor and began to write. Stiles could make out the words easily. He’d just said them. What’s taken is returned. The nemeton requires a sacrifice. We give unto thee to receive tenfold. What’s taken is returned. What’s given is rewarded. She wrote them all over the page, flipped it, and continued on a new page. She went back over some of the letters. Others, she spaced out too far to be a coincidence. It went on for what felt like an hour as Stiles, Scott, and Allison stood together, in the doorway, and watched.

Xx

Lydia gasped when she finally stopped writing and looked up at Stiles and their friends. She looked back down at the notebook and dropped the pen. Stiles was the first to move, kneeling down in front of her. “Are you okay?”

“I think so. Something happened when I touched that book. I think it remembers all of us.”

“The books?” Scott asked.

“No, the nemeton. I saw you go under the ice water. I saw Derek and Paige on the nemeton. I saw five people in hoods standing around the nemeton. I think they were us.”

“But there are only four of us,” Scott added, again, helpfully.

“The fifth person,” Stiles started, “it has to be a Hale, I think. Lydia is connected to the nemeton by her abilities. We are connected to it by our sacrifice. Someone has to be connected to Derek.”

Allison, while listening to the rest of them talk, had taken the notebook and begun to rip out the pages. She was placing them around on the floor. Stiles noticed and stepped back to give her more room. She laid all twenty pages out on the floor, 4 pages tall and 5 pages wide, in just the order that Lydia had drawn them. The white spaces between words showed a picture. “What is it?” Lydia asked, noticing Allison had finished laying out the pages.

“It’s the nemeton,” she said. And it was. The white spaces between words painted a very simple outline of the nemeton from above. The bolded letters that Lydia had drawn were only outside of the image. Stiles looked closer at the letters, looking for a pattern.

Sacrifice, unto, tenfold, tenfold, nemeton, unto, tenfold, and so on. The bolded letters left a message.

FULL MOON. HALE. SACRIFICE. REWARD. RETURN.

The message repeated around the shape of the nemeton.

“It looks like you won’t be leaving so soon, Scott,” Lydia said.

Xx

Stiles, Scott, Allison, and Lydia sat on the floor of his own childhood bedroom, looking up at his map. He’d added Lydia’s message and the words from the book. So far, they knew that they would have to go to the nemeton on the full moon, potentially wear cloaks, choose a Hale to go with them, and possibly spill someone’s blood.

“I don’t understand. Why would Derek be trapped in the nemeton?” Scott asked.

“It has to be something to do with Paige. Both Stiles and I have seen her now,” Lydia said.

“Paige’s death activated the nemeton. At least, her virgin blood touching it did. It brought it back to life, like life support, until the three of us sacrificed ourselves to it,” Stiles added.

It was Allison who spoke next. “The nemeton requires a sacrifice. We give unto thee to receive tenfold. What’s taken is returned. If the nemeton requires a sacrifice, then it was Paige. She was what was taken. Shouldn’t she be the one returned?”

“A life is what was taken. A life is what’s returned.” This new voice came from outside of Stiles’s now opened window, but no face accompanied it. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see who had spoken. Stiles recognized the woman’s voice. More importantly, the only people that ever came in through his bedroom window always seemed to be Hales.

“Cora,” Stiles whispered, “you got here fast.”

It was dark when Stiles made it to a patch of land that he thought looked like it might be Hale land. At some point, Derek must’ve taken the rest of the house down but he wasn’t letting it grow over either. All that was left was a large clearing in the trees and a garden. He thought about Derek tending to a garden of poison, leaning over it to pick out weeds, carefully tending to the 20 or so plants growing in a circular patch.

How was he supposed to find a secret underground library when all he saw was a garden and a few weeds that must’ve popped up since Derek had been gone?

“You’re going to need this.” Stiles turned around to see Peter Hale leaning against a tree with a shovel in each hand.

“So you decided to help out after all?”

“Only because I think you might just be determined enough to go through with this.”

Stiles walked over and grabbed a shovel. “I don’t know where to start. Do we dig up every single one?”

“Look at them more closely, Stiles. They’re not all the same kind of wolfsbane.” Peter said, his eyes glowing.

“I don’t have your eyesight. Besides the yellow plant at the far end, they all look the same to me.”

The pair walked closer to Derek’s wolfsbane garden. Up close, Stiles could see the flowers looked different on some plants while others seemed to have been clipped cleanly with shears.

“He was dosing himself,” Peter whispered.

“Dosing himself with wolfsbane?”

“In theory, one could dose themselves with a small amount of poison in order to minimize the effects of it over time. This is, of course, incredibly dangerous, but it’s also the best explanation for a vast garden containing many varieties of it. Stiles,” Peter hesitated, “Wolfsbane has a lot of mysterious magical properties.”

“When we found Laura, it was the wolfsbane that kept her in her wolf form, right?” He asked.

“Exactly. If Derek had this many varieties of it in his system when he was burned on the nemeton, well I don’t know what that would do. Sometimes, it is used to hold a wolf in their current form, in a sort of stasis. Maybe you’re not wrong. Maybe a part of Derek is being held back.”

“I’m not wrong.”

Peter turned around and pointed to a variety of wolfsbane on the outermost part of the garden. This variety seemed to be a bright purple in the moonlight and the flowers cut back more than the others. “Nordic Blue Monkshood.”

“Kate laced her bullets with that.”

“She also burned this house down. That’s the one we need to dig up.”

So Stiles and Peter got to work. Stiles carefully dug out the plant so that he could replace it when they left. Peter dug out a deep hole until he hit something. Together, they dug the shape of a metal square, about 2 feet below the ground, until the entire door was visible and the dirt around it was packed in tightly enough that they could open it. “You first,” Peter said, leaning on his shovel and looking down.

Stiles laid his shovel down and crouched to open the door. He thought he might need to ask for Peter’s help until the door quickly swung open. Stiles could only see the top of a ladder leading down into the dark. With no phone to light the way, he took a deep breath and climbed straight into the dark.

Xx

When Stiles reached the bottom of the ladder, he reached around for a wall or something to hold onto. To his left, he felt a rail. Slowly, he took a step forward and stumbled. His foot seemed to go right down through the air. He tried again, slowly, and found a step beneath him. At the tip of his foot, he could feel where that step ended, too. He was on some kind of staircase. Suddenly, it shook with a crash.

“It’s just me,” came Peter’s voice behind him. He had decided to forego the ladder and just jumped straight down. “It’s a spiral staircase. Hold onto the railing and stick to the wider steps beside it. I’m going to find the light. Moonlight alone is not enough light even for me.” There was another crash from Peter jumping off the side and hitting a floor below them.

Stiles followed Peter’s instructions and went down the staircase. When he reached the bottom, he only made it two steps before colliding with the wall. As soon as he hit it, light flooded the rest of the room. There were a few bulbs hanging loosely from the ceiling. Peter was across the room, at the other wall, his hand still lingering on a panel of switches. Stiles studied the room between them. The staircase was immediately in front of him, an intricate, metal fixture. To his left there were 5 tall shelves with thick end pieces that concealed the books on the shelves from his view at this angle. As he approached them, he saw rows and rows of books, old and new, that seemed to be organized by subject rather than any kind of alphabetical order. The shelf farthest left contained only information with titles relating to werewolf history. The next shelf had “Beacon Hills” written on almost every item, not just books but maps and picture frames and a trunk near the bottom.

“I don’t see anything about the nemeton specifically, but there are books on Druids over here,” Peter said from another row. Stiles left his shelves and found Peter on the far right, against the wall. There were a few books with “Druid” in the title at the bottom of the shelf. Peter was crouched down in front of it, holding one of the books.

“I’ll take them all,” Stiles said. There were only four books counting the one in Peter’s hand. He could return them some other time.

Together, Peter and Stiles turned off the light, climbed to the small door, and covered the library with dirt. Stiles dug out a small circle over the library door and replanted the wolfsbane plant. You could still see their disturbance in the garden when they left. Peter had a car along the side of the road just a short walk away and drove Stiles back to Derek’s house, where his car was. They didn’t speak to each other again after they left the library. Peter didn’t seem like he wanted to chat and Stiles was trying his best not to fall asleep on the drive over.

Xx

When Stiles made it back to his old bedroom, his dad was already fast asleep. A clock in the kitchen read a quarter after midnight when stiles passed it for the stairs.

After a quick shower and a change into plaid pants, he sat cross legged on his bed with the four books in front of him. He read through them until his eyes wouldn’t focus anymore.

Xx

Stiles was freezing cold. He could feel the hair on his skin raised in the cold. It wasn’t a breeze, just a solid feeling covering him. He opened his eyes, with effort, and found himself laying on top of a large piece of wood. He was on the nemeton. He couldn’t make himself sit up so he rolled to his side. A young Derek was leaning against the stump, crying and covered in blood. Suddenly, Derek looked up at him, eyes glowing blue. When Stiles broke eye contact, he could see a girl. He remembered hearing about Paige. He looked away from her body and caught his own arms in the corner of his vision. He, too, was covered in blood. He looked closer and started to count his fingers. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… 6.

When he looked back to find Derek, it was no longer the teenage version of him but Derek as he remembered him. He had more gray in his hair but otherwise he looked exactly like he had 15 years ago.

“You have to come get me, Stiles,” Derek whispered. Hearing his voice, Stiles jumped, he sat straight up.

He felt the warm air before his eyes opened. He was sitting up in a tub of water and half-melted ice. Everything around him was white except for the nemeton, 20 feet directly in front of him. Derek wasn’t there anymore. There was no more blood. On top of the nemeton grew sprouts of wolfsbane. All different varieties and different colors that Stiles could clearly see in the light. The image jarred and suddenly young Derek and Paige were sitting at the roots again.

Stiles stumbled out of the tub of water, the warm air soothing his numb limbs. He tried to get his balance and make his way towards the teenagers in front of him. Suddenly, Paige moved her head to look at Stiles. Her eyes glowed silvery blue. Tendrils of the same silver blue light spread out from the nemeton, curling around Stiles’s ankles. “What’s taken is returned,” Paige whispered.

“What was taken?” Stiles shouted across the 15 foot distance remaining between them.

“What’s taken is returned,” she repeated again, faster. She repeated it again and again until the silver blue light was everywhere, surrounding him.

Then everything erupted into flames.

Stiles woke up screaming.

Xx

“Stiles!” When Stiles opened his eyes, he was on the floor instead of his bed. His father was running towards him, shouting his name. He rolled over with a ground to lay on his back. “What happened?” Noah grabbed his arms to help lift him up.

“Nightmare,” Stiles said. “Derek, the nemeton, blood, fire – the usual.”

“Stiles, you have to let this go,” the Sheriff said, looking away from his son and over to the growing wall of post-its, pictures, and yarn.

“I’m too close,” Stiles said. He shook his dad off and went back to the bed. He flipped through the books in front of him. “What’s taken is returned,” he whispered to himself.

“I have to go to work. Please, don’t do this to yourself, Stiles. You couldn’t have saved him.”

Xx

“What’s taken is returned!” Stiles shouted to the empty house. In one of the books he found the phrase. He didn’t understand exactly what the context was but he knew those words. He couldn’t stop repeating them. He found the phrase in a section about ancient druids and nemeton rituals. The book seemed more to gather history than to explain the rituals.

What’s taken is returned. The nemeton requires a sacrifice. We give unto thee to receive tenfold. What’s taken is returned. What’s given is rewarded.

It was just after noon when Stiles pulled up to a small gas station a few blocks from the address his dad texted him for Derek’s house. He needed gas, a sandwich, and a plan. Would Peter have any idea how to contact Cora? It’s not like they were close. Had Derek ever gotten back into a semi-consistent contact with her? After a few minutes, his tank was full and he’d grabbed a cold sandwich from the store.

The new Hale house was very similar to his fathers’. A simple, two story home likely built in the early 90’s. He noticed multiple locks on the door when he knocked.

“No one’s home,” he heard Peter call, though the locks clicked open one-by-one just a moment later. “Ah, my favorite.” Stiles stared at him. In the back of his mind, he wondered what had changed him so deeply that he didn’t have a sarcastic remark even for Peter Hale.

“We have to find Cora.” Stiles walked past Peter until he found a small living room and sat down. “When’s the last time you heard from her?” Looking around the room, he noticed Eli was sitting on the couch scrolling through his phone. His attention was pulled up, curious about the new guest in their home.

“I know that Derek had gotten back into contact with her but I’m not the biggest family man these days. He did say she had given him a phone, in case of emergencies only, but I don’t know where he would’ve kept it.”

“What do you want to know about Cora?” Eli’s full attention had shifted to Stiles and Peter now.

“I need to talk to her. It’s important,” Stiles said. He didn’t want to give up too much information to Eli. Getting his own hopes up was one thing but he wouldn’t let Eli think there was a chance until he was sure. Eli seemed to be thinking, deciding whether to trust Stiles with some information he knew, and Stiles took the time to really look at him. He saw so much of himself in Derek’s son. There was an expression on his face that he couldn’t hide – one that Stiles knew well. That was the face of someone who liked getting himself into trouble. “You’re the kid with my Jeep right?” Eli met his eyes then.

“I’m just taking care of it. I get it if you want it back.”

“That Jeep is the last thing my mother left me. She meant everything to me. I know a little about what you’re going through and when I was lost most, when I couldn’t find a reason to keep going, fixing her was something I could focus on. In a way, she gave me a purpose every time that I wasn’t sure if I could live without my mom. As long as you keep her running, she can be your purpose too.” After he spoke, Stiles broke Eli’s eye contact. He could feel tears in his eyes and see them reflected in the kid’s. It was silent for a moment.

Eli spoke more enthusiastically this time. “Dad and I had a plan if anything ever happened to us. We were supposed to meet up in the garage and then we’d leave town and go to Cora’s. He kept a duffle bag there – he called it our ‘go bag.’” He got up and took a few steps towards Stiles. “I can show you where it is. I should’ve called her anyway.”

Stiles considered Eli’s offer. He didn’t want to get the kid involved in whatever he was doing but it didn’t seem like there was another option. Peter wasn’t fighting to take him there instead. Peter, well Peter seemed to have completely disappeared from the room. Stiles spun around but there was no sign of him. He sighed. “Okay, my car’s out front.”

“Are you kidding? We’re taking the Jeep.”

Xx

It was so unusual for Stiles to sit in the passenger side of the Jeep. He had forgotten how rough it was on even the smoothest of roads and being in the passenger seat, not being able to feel the engine from the pedal, emphasized every bump. Still, he enjoyed the breeze on their short ride over to the garage. When they parked, he studied the kid again. ‘He’s so much like me,’ he thought. ‘I bet he gave Derek Hell.’

“What?” Eli asked, when Stiles didn’t make any move to get out of the car.

“What happened to your mother? You don’t have to answer –”

“She was killed.” Stiles nodded, not wanting to push him, but he kept going. “I was a baby so I don’t remember any of it. Apparently, Dad had gone to live with Cora and her pack. He met my mom in Cora’s pack – said she reminded him of an old friend. I got a lot of her features, that’s why I only really have Dad’s hair. One morning, him and Cora had taken me so that my mom could catch up on some sleep. A few rogue hunters attacked. When Dad and Cora got back, the pack had killed the hunters, but not before one of them killed her. That’s the way he told the story to me, at least. I never really knew her.”

All Stiles could think was how hard that must’ve been on Derek. All of his life, he had been through so many shitty things. If there was a god, they really had it out for Derek Hale. “He was lucky to have you,” Stiles said.

“I don’t know. Sometimes I pushed him too far, I think.”

“When my mom died, I pushed my dad. I snuck out every night. Once, I overheard him talking about a body in the woods and I made Scott come out, in the middle of the night, and try to find it with me. That’s how Scott got turned. Anyway, I gave him so much shit. Still, he always said I reminded him of my mom. He said it hurt less to lose her because he got to have me. I know Derek would’ve thought the same.”

It was silent again, until Stiles opened his door. He heard Eli’s door open too and followed him into the garage. “He talked about you,” Eli said.

“I talked about him, too. I should’ve talked to him, instead.”

Xx

Eli left Stiles standing in the middle of the garage. He’d gone into an office where he said Derek hid important things. He came back with a duffle bag that was almost half his size. “This is the bag. I’ve never looked inside of it – always thought it was probably boring stuff like my birth certificate.”

Stiles laughed. It was a small, short laugh, but still something he didn’t do a lot these days. With a smile still on his face, he kneeled down as Eli dropped the bag. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Eli was smiling too.

The bag did have a lot of boring stuff. Eli was right about the birth certificate – it was in a big file folder which had the deed to the land of the Hale House, a few old car titles, and more papers. There were also a few pairs of pants and approximately 20 black shirts. There was a smaller black bag at the bottom which Stiles pulled out and unzipped. Inside were 3 burner phones, all turned off. He switched each of them on and looked through the contacts. One had names he knew – Malia, Peter, his Dad, and Scott. One had Deaton and a bunch of names he didn’t know. Family friends, maybe. Maybe other packs Derek had come across. The last one that he turned on had only a single number in it. There wasn’t a name on this contact but he knew it had to be Cora. He pocketed this one, turned the rest back off, zipped the bag, and put Derek’s ‘go bag’ back together. “Got it,” he said.

Eli took the bag back to where he’d gotten it from before returning. On the way out, Stiles noticed that Eli was putting a code into the office door. He hadn’t been paying enough attention before. “You keep it locked?”

“Yeah, no particular reason. Dad’s big on security. The code’s 7687-9653 if you need to get back in. The numbers spell ‘sour wolf.’ Some kind of joke he always set his passwords to.” Eli passed Stiles on the way to the Jeep because Stiles had stopped walking. He’d made the wrong choice when he left. Lydia had been everything he told himself he wanted ever since he could remember and she’d become smarter, stronger, and even more beautiful with every passing day back then. And yet, it was so obvious now that he’d made the wrong choice. “You coming?”

“I need to take a walk.” Stiles said, making his voice loud enough for the feet between them now. “Thanks for your help, Eli. Cora should hear what happened from me so I’ll call her. I’ll drop the phone off to you later in case you want to talk to her, too.”

He could feel Eli’s eyes on him as he walked away. Still, he needed to be alone and he didn’t want Eli to hear what he had to say to Cora.

Xx

Cora picked up before the first ring finished.

“Derek? What happened?” She said, immediately.

“Hey Cora, it’s Stiles,” He said so softly he worried she didn’t hear him. She didn’t respond. “I’m sorry, Cora.”

“What happened to him?” She whispered back

“He sacrificed himself to save everyone else. He did save everyone else.”

“Of course he did.”

“Cora, I know this isn’t the right time to be asking you for a favor, but I was hoping you might be able to help me. Deaton said Talia kept information on your family, Beacon Hills, and the nemeton. If any of it survived the fire, I need to know where it is now.”

“You don’t think he’s dead, do you?”

“I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up,” Stiles said, avoiding answering the question. The answer was simple though – no, he didn’t think Derek was dead. Not for good, anyway.

“We re-built the library. Before Derek came to live with me, we re-built it underneath our house. The door is under the wolfsbane. Everything that was left and everything that we’ve found since – it’s all there… Don’t tell Eli about this. It wouldn’t be fair to him,” She finished. Of course they’d built a secret bunker underneath the Hale house. Of course they would.

“I told him I’d give him this phone after we spoke. No matter what I find, he’s going to need you. Scott is a good leader when he needs to be, but he doesn’t believe in the pack like Derek did.”

“Give me a week,” Cora said and hung up.

“I need you to tell me what happened – exactly what happened,” Stiles said calmly. When he’d made his way back from the forest, there were fewer cars in front of his dad’s house. Inside, only Noah, Chris Argent, Melissa McCall, and Peter Hale remained. His dad told him that Lydia, Jackson, Allison, Mason, Liam, and his girlfriend had gone to Melissa’s house. They were enjoying their time with Allison and telling her about their lives since she had last seen them almost two decades previously. He assumed Malia and Parrish went with them, but he didn’t ask.

Scott had gone into the woods after Stiles and, when he knew he was safe, had left him and gone back with the others as well. Stiles didn’t know how many of them he would see so soon again but they were alive. In theory, he could see all of them again.

“It has been a long few days, son.”

Stiles looked up at his dad. Noah Stilinski looked completely worn out, like he hadn’t slept in days. All of them looked like that really. It reminded Stiles of the time before he’d finally left Beacon Hills – when everyone seemed to be constantly in danger.

“I need to know what happened.” So they told him. Chris began the story, talking about his and Scott’s shared dreams. Noah explained the fires and Melissa told him of seeing Scott show up with an unconscious Allison at the hospital. Peter was quiet. Chris offered an explanation of how they’d apparently brought Allison back but it seemed over-simplified. You couldn’t just put dirt and a weapon on the nemeton and receive a person in return. It seemed the adult he most needed to hear from, the vet, had gone. He asked where and they all agreed he was likely on his way back to L.A. So Stiles would be doing this alone.

After a little while longer, Stiles excused himself. He’d grabbed the duffle bag from his car when he came back from the woods and it now sat beside his feet. He picked it up and rounded the stairs to his old bedroom.

Xx

Stiles had a shirt halfway over his head when he heard a knock at his window. He thought about Derek, climbing into his window uninvited when they were younger. When he went to open it, he was not surprised to find a different Hale outside – Peter.

“What is it, Peter?”

“You saw something. I could see it on your face.”

“Something isn’t as it seems. I had dreams before I came here, too. But they weren’t about Allison – they were about Derek. I saw fire. I saw the eyes of an alpha. I saw the nemeton. I felt so much pain. When I left earlier, I went to the nemeton and I felt something. It was quick, like it wasn’t there at all. I have to follow it,” Stiles recounted. He didn’t know why he was telling Peter this. Peter wasn’t an ally. But maybe he was. Had he not seen enough of his family burned alive? Had he not felt the pain of it himself? Maybe Peter was taking this the hardest of them all.

Peter had climbed inside the room while Stiles talked. He was leaning against a wall in Stiles’ room now, looking back out of the window he’d come in through. “I don’t know a lot about the nemeton, Stiles. But I do know a little about coming back from death. If you have the will and the luck, it’s possible. We’ve all seen that now. But the nemeton is a complex spirit. It could be tricking you, leading you on, or telling you a truth in order to distract you. Whatever you’re going to do, I have a feeling it’s going to be very dangerous. You’re going to need them.”

“First I need to be sure.” Stiles opened the top drawer of his bedside table and pulled out an item that he had left there for years. His dad hadn’t gotten rid of it. A shoebox full of colorful yarn.

“You may not have enough time to be sure.” With that last whispered thought, he felt silence settle over the room. Peter was gone.

Xx

“Stiles?” Noah asked from the doorway to Stiles’ room. Stiles was laying half on the bed with his lanky legs almost fully hanging over the edge. When he jumped, he came tumbling right off of it and onto the floor. Noah gave him a small smile. “I’m going to work. I love you, son. I don’t say it enough.”

“I love you too, dad.”

He rolled over onto his stomach flattening against the ground as he heard his dad shut the door and go down the stairs. He turned his head to the side and looked at the wall over his bed. In the middle, he’d made a rough drawing of the nemeton on a post-it note with the word ‘Source?’ scribbled on top. Another post-in note had the locations of the fires with ‘Mountain Ash’ which he didn’t think had much to do with it but it might be useful to collect any leftover ash when he needed something to do. The nogitsune had his own post-in note, connected with a blue yarn to the left, below the list of fires. A photo of Allison from an old yearbook, now laying open on the floor with a pair of scissors on top, was connected to both the nemeton and the nogitsune via a thread of red yarn. On the right, a ‘Derek’ post-it was connected to the nemeton in the same red. Photos of his friends and their creepy chemistry teacher had also been taken from that yearbook and connected via blue threads (for the nogitsune), red threads (for the nemeton), yellow (for dreams), and a special purple thread just for Hale’s (which connected to more post-it notes with names than it did yearbook pictures). Stiles stayed up for hours working on putting his thoughts onto his walls but they told him nothing. He needed to know more.

Specifically, he needed to know more about the nemeton. He needed to find Deaton.

Xx

Stiles was parked outside of the Sheriff’s office with a half-used notebook from highschool. When he entered, people shouted at him, happy to see him. Parrish sent him a wave. Mason walked up beside him, asking if he’d put out any really wild fires. “I told your dad that we should’ve called you about the arson,” he said, defensively.

Stiles excused himself with a hint of a smile and ducked into Noah’s office. “Dad, could you call Deacon for me? I need to speak with him.” Noah looked up. There was a worried expression on his face but he picked up the phone next to him and dialed from a small address book beside it. He spoke for a few minutes before hanging up.

“Deaton’s still at the McCall’s. He’s leaving tonight but if you leave now, you’ll have plenty of time to speak with him.” Stiles nodded and turned to leave. “Stiles, whatever it is you’re looking for, I hope you find it. We all miss him.” Another nod and he was gone, walking back the same way he came.

Xx

Inside the McCall’s house, it was like a highschool reunion. Everyone had indeed gone over there and they hadn’t left yet. There was a veil of sadness hanging over the room but still everyone was telling stories, laughing, and leaning on each other. They were mourning – but Stiles couldn’t. He wasn’t going to give up just yet. If Scott could follow a dream almost two decades later, Stiles could follow one after just a few days.

“Deaton, could I speak with you?” He asked. Only then did everyone seem to notice he had come in. Part of Stiles felt bad for not going to catch up with his friends, but a bigger part of him felt something he hadn’t felt in so long – left out. He looked around the room of his supernaturally strong and powerful friends, and he felt the magnitude of his own humanity. Maybe so many years apart had widened the gap between them larger than he was able to cross.

He heard Scott say his name, ask him to join them, but he only shook his head and looked back at Deaton. “Outside, please?”

Deaton followed him back through the door and they sat on the steps together.

“I know that you’re going through a lot right now, Stiles. I’m not sure I’m the best person to help you.”

“You said once that I had a spark,” Stiles said carefully.

“I said that because you’re human– so completely and entirely human. You can use our magic because of that humanity and the others can’t. When I said that to you, it was to help you understand how important you are to the pack even without the abilities some of the others have. Why are you asking about this?”

“What if it’s more than that? What if there’s something else? The nemeton is calling out to me, Deaton, I know it is. I just don’t know why.”

“It’s a complicated source of magic. The dreams it sends you could mean anything or they could mean nothing. It wasn’t the nemeton that sent Scott and Chris dreams of Allison, it was the nogitsune.”

“What if it wasn’t? The nogitsune never sent us dreams on a broadcast signal before – not all of us at least. Maybe he kept Allison alive, between life and death, through his ancient power, but it was the nemeton who brought her back.”

“What is it that you want to know, Stiles?” Deaton had the fatherly and concerned look he often wore when he consulted with Scott’s pack. They weren’t teenagers anymore but still, the look hadn’t changed.

“What if the nemeton is calling out to me to save Derek?”

“I don’t know if it can. There are stories of ancient nemeton magic – that which goes beyond being a beacon or a subject for rituals. They could store souls, imprison demons, even make their own decisions. The information on them has been lost to time, at least it has in California.”

“Hang on, you said they could store souls? I need to know more, Deaton.” Stiles was desperate. He needed to know more. He needed to know if it was possible.

“There’s a book. Talia had a book. But, Stiles, Derek is the only one who’d know where that book is if it wasn’t lost to the fire.”

There was fire, so much fire. It was hot and blinding, blurring everything else from his view. Suddenly, out of the dark he saw glowing red eyes. He felt pain. Then everything went dark. Gradually, a faint blue light spread from the waning moon above until he could see his surroundings. He was in the forest and he was alone. He turned around once, twice, looking for the source of the fire but he only found himself standing in the one place he never thought he would again. In front of him was the nemeton.

xx

With a start, Stiles Stilinski jolted awake in his small twin bed, almost falling out of it. He reached for his phone for a few moments until he remembered how he had broken it. While on shift they’d gotten a call about a fire, which turned out to be a small kitchen fire with little harm done, and in the haste to load up the truck he’d left his phone on the ground where he had been sitting – only a few feet in front of one of the truck’s wheels. It wasn’t until they got back that he realized what happened to his phone and he planned to fix it but days just kept passing.

He couldn’t sleep, his mind was racing. He got up and left his bedroom. His small apartment was an open room with a kitchen and a balcony and only two doors for his bedroom and his bathroom. The oven clock read 6:05. He went back into the room to change into a pair of jeans and a ratty, too big T-shirt – probably one of Scott’s he’d been accidentally carrying with him for the past 15 years. Once dressed, he could run down to a corner store just a few miles away, one he knew had a pay phone.

xx

It was still dark when Stiles reached the pay phone and fumbled around his center console for enough quarters to make a call. Sheriff Noah Stilinski picked up on the second ring. “Stiles?”

Stiles paused for a moment. The area code. Of course his dad would know it had to be him.

“What happened in Beacon Hills?” Stiles asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I had a dream. All I could see were red eyes. I think something happened to Scott and I think it happened there.”

“Oh, Stiles. Scott’s fine. It was Derek. There was a fire.”

Stiles hung up the phone. He couldn’t breathe. He’d seen a fire. He’d seen the eyes of a wolf, of an alpha. Not Scott’s eyes, but Derek’s. Stiles had been running from what happened to him in Beacon Hills, from what happened to him after, from the heartbreak of Lydia leaving him without a word.

He’d tried to find her for weeks. Whenever he wasn’t working or sleeping, he was searching their favorite cafes, diners, shops, even the park they’d gone to when they first moved to Portland. Instead, he found Jackson. At the diner he’d told Lydia that he would spend the rest of his life with her, Jackson was sitting in the front booth looking directly at him. “Stop looking for her, Stiles. She’s not coming back,” Jackson had said. There wasn’t a drop of sympathy in his voice.

“Why?” Stiles had asked. He was too out of it to play the game with Jackson. He didn’t want to trade insults over a cup of burnt coffee. He just wanted to know why she’d left.

“She had a premonition. Being with you wasn’t what she was supposed to be doing. She knew for weeks but she knew you wouldn’t accept that. She needs you to let her go.”

And he had. It had been 6 years since Lydia had left. It had been longer since he’d been back to Beacon Hills. 5 years still since he’d even seen Scott. He’d seen his dad a few times, when Noah came to visit him in Portland. His therapist said he had PTSD, though she couldn’t say from what – because Stiles didn’t tell her. He didn’t tell her about the friends he had seen die, the people whose deaths he’d been responsible for. He didn’t tell her about what happened in Beacon Hills. Still, he was doing better. He’d learned how to deal with his panic attacks, how to sleep without seeing faces of the people they’d lost, and he’d cut off as much contact with that life as possible after Lydia had left. Occasionally he’d get a text from Malia, an update from his dad on Derek’s son stealing his Jeep again, or a picture of a dog at Scott’s shelter usually accompanied by a message about how Stiles needed a companion and this dog would be the perfect choice.

xx

The sun was finally coming up when Stiles left his apartment again, this time with a duffle bag. He had to stop by the station first, let the chief know he needed a few days off for a family emergency. He said it was his dad, something was wrong with his dad. If his chief didn’t believe him, he didn’t say. He nodded, turned to make it down on the calendar, and gave Stiles 12 days to come back.

The drive ahead of him was going to take hours and his thoughts were still racing. What had happened to Derek? Had Kate come back for him? Had another Argent? Why had his eyes been red? What did the nemeton have to do with any of this?

xx

Outside of Noah Stilinski’s house, there were so many cars. More than he had seen in a long time. The sun was starting to fall from the later afternoon sky. The usually comforting smell of damp woods was missing. A faint smell of smoke remained. He left his duffle bag in the car, a black compact car that got him around well enough, and headed inside.

The house immediately went quiet when Stiles opened the door. He saw his dad talking to a kid – Derek’s son. He saw Scott’s Mom and Allison’s Dad and even Deacon, who he hadn’t seen in at least a decade. Peter was there, in a corner, and Malia glared at him from a few feet away. Liam, Mason, Parrish, and a girl he didn’t know were scattered around the room, too. Lydia and Jackson stood together and Stiles fought the urge to turn and walk straight back to his car. “Stiles?” He turned his attention to Scott. Scott who was standing with someone he didn’t recognize. Did he? She looked so much like someone they’d lost.

“Allison?” He whispered.

“Hey Stiles. It’s me.” Stiles let out a sob. “It’s really me,” she said, taking a step towards him. Scott moved with her and he let out another noise. Suddenly Allison was in his arms. Allison who had been dead. Allison whose death he had been responsible for. Who he had let die.

“How?” He could feel Scott’s arms go around them both. He felt Malia’s next and then Lydia’s hand on his shoulder. This was real. Allison had come back from the dead and in return, they’d lost someone else. It wasn’t fair.

“Derek,” he whispered. He could feel them tense as they let him go, retreating to where they’d been before.

The boy, Eli, he'd remembered his Dad calling him, made eye contact with him then. “My Dad held him back. He saved us. He sent that monster straight to Hell.”

“Parrish sent him to Hell, Derek held him in place,” Malia whispered.

“You were at the nemeton,” Stiles said, trying to put together how his dream had played into this. “No one called. No one came to get me. Derek is gone and I didn’t even know something was happening.”

“I tried to call you but it didn’t go through,” Lydia whispered. Shit, his phone had been broken for 5 days. Had it really all happened so suddenly?

“You couldn’t have been here, kid,” his Dad said, firmly. “That thing, I’m not sure we could’ve stopped it if it had gotten to you this time. He wasn’t playing by the rules anymore. He would never have let you go.”

“Who?” Stiles asked but he did so quietly. In his mind, the nemeton flashed again, this time it was bright – white. There was a chess board on top. “The nogitsune.”

“Yes.” Stiles couldn’t tell whether it was his dad, Scott, or Chris Argent who had responded. Maybe it had been all of them. Maybe none. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t get air. He was going to die and it was going to be because of the nogitsune, again. “He’s dead, Stiles. Gone. Burned by a hellhound. He can’t hurt you or any of us again.” That was Scott’s voice, it was definitely Scott’s.

“But he got Derek,” Stiles said, looking at Scott.

“Derek held him in place on the nemeton while Parrish lit him up. Someone had to hold him there. No one could’ve survived that kind of fire. He made a sacrifice to save all of us.” Stiles couldn’t listen to Scott anymore. He still couldn’t breath but he didn’t feel so much like he was dying. Somewhere, deep inside of him, he felt a pull. He needed to follow it. Out the door, into the woods, and he was running.

xx

Stiles ran until his legs wouldn’t cooperate any more. He collapsed in a clearing of trees. When he looked up, he knew what had been pulling him. It was right in front of him. The nemeton. And it was glowing. Silvery blue strands of light flowed out from the center. He blinked. In that second, the light was gone, and he was just a man on his knees in front of a tree stump with the sun setting and the air turning cold.