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Scott never used to pay attention to the change of seasons, not even after the Nemeton started getting active the first time. It took a few close encounters of the nearly fatal kind and Deaton threatening to poison him with wolfsbane if he didn’t sit down and pay attention to finally get the memo that equinoxes — especially the spring equinox — sucked big time if he didn’t take the right kind of precautions. After that, it was mostly a matter of passing that same lesson on to his pack and getting them on board with the idea that no matter what day of the week or time of day it hit, they needed to be near the Nemeton, either to stop the freaky shit before it could start, or to stop anyone else from getting close enough to start the freaky shit.
And it turned out that “anyone” was Peter Hale, that first year he and his pack went on spring patrol.
He hadn’t taken any particular pleasure in killing Peter for once and for all, though he was glad he’d thought to ask Deaton about what to do to make sure Peter couldn’t come back. Lydia wasn’t exactly thrilled with the countermeasures, but since it meant she wouldn’t have to raise him from the dead ever again, she dealt with it by making Scott pay in small ways and large.
He accepts her treatment of him without comment, knowing that a lot of the mess the town is in could have been avoided if he hadn’t been such a dickhead all those years ago. And really, he thinks, as he’s patrolling near the Nemeton, dickhead doesn’t even cover what he did to Stiles. He still isn’t sure what came over him that day, but it suddenly occurs to him that he attacked Stiles on March 20, and that it was probably the first day of spring. If it was, in fact, the first day of spring, it might explain why he was so damn aggressive that day, though it doesn’t excuse him. Nothing will do that.
Scott stops running and blinks in the gloaming. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, it will be seven years since he bit Stiles, though if he’s going by the equinox, today is the anniversary. Either way, he lost his best friend that day, and maybe, once they’re past the exact time of the equinox, he can go back to his place and mourn. Maybe write that letter he’s been putting off since he started attending AA. He knows Sheriff Stilinski is in touch with Stiles and sees him once a year at least, so perhaps Allison would be willing to pass it on so that he can send it to Stiles.
It’s time — it’s long past time according to his sponsor — that he make this particular amends, and he’s under no illusions about Stiles’s likely reaction. Considering the fact that Stiles went off Scott’s radar within 24 hours of the bite taking hold and that Scott hasn’t felt anything from him since, he’s pretty sure Stiles still doesn’t want anything to do with him. So instead of sending a request through Allison that the Sheriff forward the letter to Stiles, maybe the better approach is to pass the letter on so the Sheriff can read it first and then let Stiles know what Scott is trying to do.
Scott takes a deep breath and then another one. It’s a good decision — probably the best one he’s made in years — and he’s sure his sponsor will be on board with it.
He’s about to start running again when he feels it — an upsurge in power that he hasn’t felt since the last time he turned someone. And it’s not just any upsurge. He’d recognize that chaotic mess of energy anywhere, because Stiles is anything but subtle. Scott wants to howl in triumph at the thought of Stiles coming back to him, but he also wants to cry out his grief. If Stiles let his protection drop after all this time, it means something, and Scott doubt it means anything good.
Noshiko comes through the brush and asks, “What just happened?”
She’s his sponsor and has him too well trained to offer anything but the truth. “Stiles. He isn’t shielding from me anymore. Shit.”
“You don’t think he’s offering forgiveness?”
“No. The Sheriff would have passed word if it was that. Something else is going on.” Scott bites his lip. “Going by the seasons, it’s the seventh equinox since I bit him. And it might even be right around the same time of day.”
“Call Deaton,” she says. “He knows the lore better than I do.”
“How’s that possible? You’re like —”
“Finish that sentence, and I’ll rip your throat out,” she says in a polite tone of voice.
“Wow. It’s almost like you’re channeling Derek Hale, only not, because I don’t think he ever learned how to be polite.”
“Deaton. Call him. Now,” she barks out before taking off into the brush.
Ordinarily, Scott would follow her, but he’s pretty sure she’s just pissed off at him, so he pulls out his phone. Talking to Deaton is never comfortable, though it got better after the spell, after Deaton understood that Scott wanted to start rebuilding trust. However, with Stiles tugging at his awareness, Scott reminds himself that one wrong move on his part will make that hard-won trust evaporate.
“Scott.” Deaton gives nothing away, but he has to know what’s going on. After all, he’s the one who keyed the spell to the one Stiles used to hide from Scott.
“You know.”
“I know a lot of things. What particular thing do you believe I know?”
“That Stiles — that he — his spell is gone. I can feel him again.”
“And what do you intend to do about that?” It doesn’t escape Scott’s notice that Deaton still hasn’t confirmed that he knew about Stiles before the call. Also, Deaton’s question feels like a test. A really huge test.
Scott wants to say that he’s not going to do anything about it. He wants to remind Deaton that Scott already took one decision away from Stiles and won’t take another one away. He wants to get off the phone and call to reassure the Sheriff that he will not, in any way, take advantage of this opening. He wants Noshiko to look at him with the bare minimum of approval because he’s told her he can ignore the tug he feels from Stiles. In short, he wants to say anything but what he actually does say.
“I want him back with me, and I’m really close to making that happen,” he says, knowing full well that he just failed Deaton’s test. “If you know where he is and how to reach him, warn him. Because I’m about fifty yards from the Nemeton, and it’s our anniversary, and I’m not sure how long I can hold off before I call him to me.”
“I appreciate the honesty,” Deaton says, just before he hangs up.
Scott pops his claws and bends over so he can dig them into his thighs. With Stiles back in his pack, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that they could get ahead of the Nemeton. He’s pretty sure, too, that with Stiles at his back, he could regain full control over his pack, because Stiles is good like that. Even when he was human, he could keep the pack calm. He’s also good at coming up with strategy, something Scott lacks. It would also be nice to have a researcher who did what was asked of him and didn’t withhold information. These days, Lydia only responds if she sees a direct benefit to herself, and there’s never a guarantee that she’ll tell Scott everything. From a standpoint of resources, there’s no bad in pulling Stiles to him, which is the main reason he’s trying to gouge his legs into shreds.
And the pain isn’t working, because he’s about to raise a howl that Stiles will feel in his bones, one that will bring him running from wherever he is, just to make his alpha happy.
He stands up to take a breath, and nothing happens, because he remembers, suddenly, the way Stiles looked at him that night. Scott had ignored it at the time, but he still remembers the accusation of betrayal. No words were necessary, because Stiles’s eyes conveyed that message loud and clear.
Scott can’t ignore the memory, much though he’d like to, because while his head is saying yes, go for it, his heart is saying no. This time, no. He’s known for years that assaulting Stiles was bad, but this is the first time he’s internalized just how bad it — no. How vicious and brutal he was, and he’s ready to choke on his own guilt.
“Oh god,” he says, dropping to his knees to vomit. Nothing comes up, though, so he suffers through a few more dry heaves before his gut settles again.
“Scott?”
It’s Hayley. She takes a few steps forward and stops, because they’ve all learned that on the first day of spring, it doesn’t pay to ignore things that are unusual. Scott kneeling on the forest floor and heaving definitely qualifies as unusual.
“Scott, what’s going on with the pack? What are we feeling?”
She’s his second, but if he were to bring Stiles back, Stiles would be his second, and Hayley would be relegated to third, which she would hate. It’s enough of a reminder of how unstable his pack really is that he’s able to get out of his head and, for the moment, break away from the rapid downward spiral he’s in.
“Stiles. You’re feeling Stiles.”
“No.” Her response is quiet and emphatic. “Stiles is dead. You told us.”
“No, I didn’t. I never said that. He’s not dead. He was just hidden from us.” As much as Scott hates himself for having bitten Stiles the way he did, he hates Stiles a little bit more for rejecting him so completely the next day. Yes, it was bad, but they could have worked it out. He’s sure of it.
And then he remembers the stench of urine that night, remembers how he threw away those jeans, because he couldn’t quite erase Stiles from them, and he tries to vomit again.
He can feel Hayley’s tension, how unhappy she is with him for breaking that particular fantasy and how worried she is about him. He wants to reassure her that it means nothing, but he can’t. Not if he wants to be honest, and he does.
“So he’s in, and I’m out?”
There’s a reason Hayley is his second, and it’s entirely down to just how fast she is at making the right connections when she’s under stress. But where she lets panic get to her too quickly, Stiles can hold off his breakdown until later. And Scott really has to stop thinking like that and trying to compare the two, because he’s not going to call to Stiles. Not after Stiles rejected —. No. Not after Scott assaulted him.
Scott thinks it should be easier for him to remember exactly who’s at fault here, but it’s hard with Stiles’s energy stretching the pack’s bonds. It’s probably worse with them all so close to the Nemeton, especially since the equinox is coming up.
Hayley is stiffening up even more, and Scott tells her, “Not if I can help it. But it’s hard. He’d be good for the pack.”
He doesn’t like the bitter twist of her voice when she says, “Then why don’t you —”
And this is the moment of truth that Noshiko has been pushing him toward all along. Even though some people know what happened that night, most of his pack doesn’t, and there’s no other way to describe his failure of truth than cowardice.
“I won’t bring him in, because I asked him to take the bite, and when he said no, I told him he would, and then I bit him. He was gone by the next day.”
Hayley’s disgust comes through loud and clear, but it isn’t enough to overcome her relief that she isn’t going to lose rank. He thinks he sees something else in her expression, but he doesn’t have enough mental energy to spare to try and figure it out. Instead, it’s taking everything he has not to make the smart decision for his pack.
She takes a deep breath and asks, “What do you need?”
“Distract me,” he says.
“How?”
Scott realizes what he just saw in her and decides to kill two birds with one stone — her ambition and his idiocy. “Fight me.”
She blinks. “I can’t. You’re —”
“Weak right now. That’s what you think, isn’t it?” He stands up and thinks about how to goad her into action. “I’m weak because I’m fighting the urge to call Stiles to me. I bet you’re also thinking maybe now is a good time to go for the pack leadership.”
Hayley flinches, and it’s as good as a signed and notarized confession.
“It’s a good night to try for it,” he tells her.
“I can’t. You’re too strong.” She’s wavering, though. He can see it in the way she’s settling herself toward a fighting stance.
“I’m also distracted, so it’s perfect timing to try.”
Hayley is still undecided, and Scott knows it’s only because she’s afraid to fully commit to trying to kill him to become the alpha. She likes solid odds in her favor when she’s about to go out on a limb, and that’s why Scott has never worried about her trying to take over.
“Come on, Hayley. You’ve got nothing to lose. I won’t hold it against you no matter what. Best part? I’ll know Stiles is safe if you kill me.” He won’t be, Scott thinks. For all that she’s reluctant to go after Scott at the moment, Hayley would feel no compunction about dragging Stiles into the fold if she could.
A few seconds later, it’s clear that Scott has drastically underestimated Hayley’s interest in becoming the new alpha, because she launches her attack without telegraphing a damn thing, either by stance or through the bond. Scott is bleeding before he fully realizes that maybe he should have taken her more seriously, and he’s responding to the threat without conscious thought or any kind of effort to keep the damage to a minimum.
Hayley is almost ten feet past him when she holds her hand up to her neck to staunch the blood flow. She turns to look at him in shock. “You said you wouldn’t hold it against me.”
“Never said I’d make it easy,” he responds. “You ready?”
She wants to leave, to give up, but Scott isn’t about to let her. This is a lesson she needs to learn, and he thinks it might actually do her some good to realize that yes, he’s strong enough to do what needs to be done, even if they don’t always see eye to eye on what really does need to be done.
She lets her hand drop, and even though she’s still bleeding, it’s sluggish and will stop soon enough. Scott could have gone a hell of a lot deeper when he sliced her, and he’s glad his instincts kept the cut fairly shallow. He doesn’t want to lose her if he can avoid it. Not now, anyway, because the fight and adrenaline are helping him to focus on the here and now instead of on Stiles.
Hayley shifts completely to her beta form and lets out a roar of challenge and defiance. Scott grins before doing the same, though his roar probably has a little too much “come and die” instead of “come and suffer.” Whatever. With luck, it will help them stabilize all the sooner after the fight, because even though Hayley is good, she isn’t good enough, and not even a lucky hit will be enough to help her.
Noshiko is the first to respond to the howls, and she stands at the edge of the clearing. As usual, Scott can’t get any kind of read on what she’s thinking, but he hopes she approves. Even if she doesn’t, she isn’t pack, so her opinion won’t change things.
Aiden, on the other hand, is pack, and he’s the second one to respond. But he’s scowling at Hayley, which surprises Scott. He figured Aiden would back her move whenever she made it, if only so the pack could get out from under the geas Deaton imposed on Scott and start recruiting again.
“He’ll kill you,” Aiden says. He’s kept his human face, but his eyes are glowing blue.
“He said he wouldn’t.”
“You can’t trust him. You don’t know everything.”
Scott circles around to Hayley’s left side, where her defense is strongest, and he says, “I told her what I did to Stiles. She knows.”
“It’s a bad time to do this, Scott.” And it’s rich, it really is rich to hear that from Aiden, who’s nothing if not a poster child for poor impulse control.
“It’s the best time,” he says. “Stiles is somewhere nearby. I need the distraction before I do something even worse than before.”
“Crap.” Aiden looks like he doesn’t know whether to stay or to hunt down Stiles, but whatever his decision would have been, it’s aborted by the appearance of another member of the pack.
Liam, Aiden’s twin in poor impulse control, shows up in full beta form, and he looks like he’s ready to rip Hayley apart.
“Stand down, Liam,” Scott says. “It’s not what it looks like.”
Hayley ignores the tension in favor of keeping her eye on Scott. Her neck isn’t bleeding anymore, so she can risk another attack, which she does. This time, Scott is ready for her, and when she passes close enough, he reaches out to dig into her belly deep enough that he can throw her overhand into a tree. She hits a limb about ten feet up, and everyone winces when they hear her spine crack. When she drops to the ground, barely conscious, Scott goes over to her to see how much damage there is.
“Shit.”
She coughs up blood and says, “You told me you wouldn’t hold it against me.”
“I don’t,” he says. He puts his left hand on her belly and starts leaching the pain. He also tries to kickstart her healing, but his own energy is too unpredictable at the moment. “It’s just — it’s Stiles. I’m not used to the extra energy, and it’s all over the place.”
“Kind of like Stiles,” Aiden says.
“Pretty much. Liam, come over here,” Scott says.
Liam is back to human again and asks, “Why?”
“I need you to help Hayley get back to her car, and then I need you to take her to Deaton.”
“She tried to kill you,” he says. “Let her die.”
Scott sighs and wonders yet again what the hell he was thinking when he gave Liam the bite. “I told you — it’s not what it looked like. I needed a distraction, and Hayley needed to get it out of her system. I don’t want her to die.”
“Why not? She’s always spouting off behind your back.”
“Liam!” Scott wonders how long Aiden’s been trying to keep a muzzle on Liam, and then he has to fight off the thought that if Stiles were back, Scott wouldn’t have to worry about shifting alliances within the pack, because Stiles would keep the pack alliances in balance.
The rest of the pack arrives, then, and he can see that support is pretty evenly divided between him and Hayley, based on the individual reactions to what they see. It means things are worse than he thought but not as bad as they could be. It also means it was a good call to force the issue tonight.
“Campbell, I want you and Liam to get Hayley to Deaton’s office to get her patched up.”
“Really?” Donna doesn’t look convinced.
Scott sighs. “Look — it’s not — Stiles is back. I needed a distraction, but I never wanted to hurt Hayley this bad. She needs help, okay?”
Donna looks at him for a long moment, and then she looks at Aiden, who nods. “Fine. Come on, Liam.”
Liam looks like he wants to argue some more, but with the whole pack on board with the idea of getting Hayley to Deaton’s office, he can’t go against the tide.
It isn’t long before Noshiko and Aiden are the only ones left. Noshiko breaks the silence to ask, “Did you call Deaton?”
“Yeah. I didn’t get a chance to ask him what it means.” Now that he’s thinking about it, Scott’s getting pissed off. Deaton should know better than to blow him off like that.
“Why not?” she asks. She sounds pissed, too.
“Because he asked me what I intended to do about it.” Much as he’d love to focus on thinking about how much of an asshole Deaton is, the man still got Scott to confess to his weakness, and Noshiko needs to know that. “I told him I wanted Stiles back, and that I wasn’t sure how long I could hold off calling for him.”
“All that training, and Deaton couldn’t figure that one out on his own?” Aiden shakes his head in disgust. “What good is he?”
“Never mind that,” she says. “How close are you to losing control?”
“Not as close as before, but he isn’t safe,” Scott says. Another wave of guilt rolls through him when he remembers just how callous he was after biting Stiles. It’s one more step away from making a disastrous move, and Scott does what he can to keep that guilt fresh and regain what control he can.
“Why now? It’s been what — seven, eight years? Why would he give up his protection now? It doesn’t make sense.”
Scott focuses on Aiden’s confusion. It isn’t as helpful as fighting for his life, but it’s better than nothing, and it’s a good question.
“It’s been seven years,” he says. “I bit him on the first day of spring in 2013, and the vernal equinox is tonight, in —” he pulls out his phone to look. “In three minutes. Maybe it has something to do with that.”
“Do you think he’s going to attack? Maybe see if it’s true that killing the alpha who made you is enough to turn you human again?”
“I don’t think so,” Scott says. He takes several long, slow breaths to calm his instinct to call out to Stiles, and he tries to remember the exact taste and scent of Stiles’s terror the night he bit him.
Some bile rises in his throat, and he’s even less inclined to howl for Stiles. All he needs to do is keep that in the front of his mind, and he thinks it will be okay until Deaton can do something.
“You should call Deaton back,” Noshiko says. “Warn him about Hayley and then try again to find out why Stiles would drop his protection.”
“We’re sure it’s deliberate? That he meant to drop his protection?” Aiden asks. “Because maybe we’re reading this all wrong.”
“It’s been solid since he left, and there’s never been any sign of weakness. It was up earlier, and then it was down, no warning,” Scott says.
Aiden nods, and he’s about to add something else when Scott drops to his knees and lets out a sound that’s half howl and half scream. The pain is agonizing, far worse than when Stiles blocked their connection seven years ago, and Scott feels like his heart is being shredded and burned at the same time. He can’t breathe, he can’t block the pain, and he sure as hell can’t hide from the abrupt sundering of a pack bond. Then the pain stops as suddenly as it started, and even though it feels like it lasted for several hours, Scott thinks the total time elapsed couldn’t have been more than a few seconds.
Aiden’s fangs have dropped, and he’s crouched over Scott. The protective stance is a little surprising, but Scott accepts it gratefully, because whatever happened to Stiles, it was powerful and deliberate, and given the time of year there’s every chance that that the one who did it is on its way to the Nemeton.
Before he can go too much further down the path of worry and paranoia, Scott’s phone rings, and he doesn’t even say hello when he sees who’s calling.
“Something’s coming, Deaton. Something big.”
“How are you feeling?” Deaton asks, calm as ever and completely ignoring the warning. Scott wants to shake the man until his teeth fall out, but then he realizes what the question means.
“You knew? You knew this was going to happen?”
“Stiles wants to come home. This was the only way he could do so safely.”
“What — what did he do?” He knows. Of course he knows. He also needs to hear it from someone else.
“He’s accepted a new alpha. They’ll both be in town in a few days to speak with you. Sheriff Stilinski asked me to tell you that he will lift the ban so that you can meet with them at the police station.”
Scott grits his teeth. Even though he accepted the ban when it happened, he’s never been happy about it. Still, it’s the first time the Sheriff will allow him within the city limits since Scott graduated high school, so he will swallow his resentment and accept what he can get.
“What about Chris Argent?”
And this is the second bitter pill he had to swallow — Chris Argent’s assertion of power over Scott’s territory. It’s not quite as bad as the Sheriff banning him, but that’s mostly because he never thought of Argent as his father.
“He’s the one who facilitated this. He said that you’re welcome to use the guest room in his house.”
Scott takes a deep breath and then a second one. He’s not much calmer, but he’s also not ready to punch a hole through Deaton, so there’s that.
“Fine. When will Stiles be here?”
“Monday morning. I’ll see you then.” Deaton sounds like he’s done with the conversation, but Scott yells, “Wait!” before he can hang up.
“I don’t believe we have anything else to discuss, Scott.”
“It’s Hayley. The others are bringing her in for treatment.”
“Oh?” And damn, for a neutral third party, Deaton can back a hell of a lot of judgment into a single word.
“I needed to take my mind off Stiles before I did something stupid again,” he says. “I just didn’t realize how much of a boost I was getting from him.”
Deaton sighs and says, “I’ll keep an eye out for Hayley and the rest,” before he hangs up.
Scott stares at the ground for a moment before asking, “You heard?”
“Sucks to be you,” Aiden says before melting back into the woods.
“Maybe now would be a good time to put together that letter you’ve been avoiding,” Noshiko says.
Right.
The letter.