Chapter Text
X. (Epilogue)
Four and a half years later …
+ L +
Lydia’s knife drops easily through Boyd’s birthday cake, and she looks up to the end of the dining room table to smile at her alpha. “Feels like a good one,” she tells him, and the ghost of a smile passes over Derek’s face.
“Twenty-fucking-eight, babe,” Erica tells Boyd. “How does it feel to be old as shit?”
Boyd raises his eyebrows when Erica bops his nose with her finger. “You’ll be my age in a month,” he reminds her. He smiles at Lydia when she passes him the first slice of cake, effortlessly batting away Erica’s hand when she tries to swipe some of his icing.
“If anyone’s old as shit, it’s Derek,” Isaac pipes up.
“Thirty-two isn’t old as shit,” Derek counters.
“Thirty-three in December,” Lydia sing-songs.
“Isn’t it weird to think,” Cora says, “if we had grown up in the same town, we could have gone to school together and all been in the same grade?”
Lydia gives the next plate to Isaac, who passes it down the table. Cora’s question is fair, but over the years, Lydia has trained herself to stop considering hypotheticals when it comes to her own past and present. By some miracle, she has found herself in a time and place where she wakes up in the morning and can be reasonably sure that she will encounter happiness at least once during the day the lies in wait for her. It is an assurance she does not take for granted – that no one in this pack takes for granted, she knows.
“Do you think we would have been friends?” Erica wonders.
“I’d hope so,” Isaac says with a frown.
Derek pushes himself back from the table. “Anyone want coffee?” he asks and ambles to the kitchen without waiting for an answer.
Finished serving cake, Lydia takes her seat again with her own generous slice. She is about to tuck in when her phone vibrates in the pocket of her skirt, and she pulls it out to see a text from Jordan. Just got off shift. See you later.
Lydia smiles, tucks her phone away, and looks around at her pack.
So much has changed for them, in the last four and a half years. It is hard to tell if there was a specific turning point – maybe it was three years ago, when Boyd proposed to Erica and they got married a month later. Maybe it was two and a half, when Erica and Cora opened a butcher’s shop down the block from Whittemore Bakery. Maybe it was two, when Lydia relinquished her daily bakery responsibilities to Isaac, finally got her G.E.D., and breezed through online undergraduate school in fifteen short months. Or maybe it was closer to five years ago, when the Nemeton was healed and Beacon Hills became a real sanctuary for the supernatural. Since that nightmarish summer, the Beacon Hills population has doubled in size. Houses once fallen to disrepair have been restored and filled with new families and newcomers; people finally feel safe enough to put down roots. This pack has put down roots, and they have begun to grow something meant to last.
At the dining room table, conversation flows easily. Erica and Boyd keep stealing glances, and Lydia would needle them about it if she did not already have the feeling that whatever secret they are excited about will come out soon.
Sure enough, as soon as Derek has returned with a stack of mugs and a fresh pot of coffee, Boyd clears his throat. “Thank you, all, for the birthday party,” he starts off.
“Half of us live here,” Cora interjects.
“Not the point,” Boyd shoots back smoothly. “Anyway. There’s something that Erica and I want to say.”
He offers his hand to his wife, who takes it with a squeeze. “We’re having a baby,” Erica says, beaming.
Lydia’s Congratulations is cut off by an ear-splitting crash as Derek drops of all his mugs at once. The coffee, thankfully, is already sitting on the table. “That’s why you smell different,” Derek blurts, eyes wide.
The table breaks into laughter as Derek swoops down to squeeze Boyd and Erica into a bruising hug. “A baby,” Derek repeats in awe, eyes crinkling as he smiles uncontrollably and squeezes his betas’ necks. Tears spring in Lydia’s eyes as she cracks up. It is a relief to see Derek happy; it seems like weeks since she has last seen him crack even the smallest of smiles.
When the moment of delirious happiness settles, Derek apologetically grabs a broom to clean up the mess of shattered ceramic. Isaac offers to move into Cora’s bedroom to give the baby a designated room – as if he did not already spend more time in her room than his – and Cora and Erica begin to animatedly discuss interior design and renovation plans. Lydia gets up to give Boyd a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You’re going to be a dad,” she says, and his dark eyes twinkle up at her.
“I’m ready,” he replies, and Lydia believes him with her entire heart.
Later, when Isaac and Cora are doing the dishes and Erica disappears to take a shower, Lydia finds Boyd and Derek sitting on the back porch. This late in May, Cora’s garden is full to bursting with colorful flowers, and the air is rich with their scent even to Lydia’s essentially human nose. Boyd and Derek are sharing the loveseat, so Lydia settles into the wicker rocking chair, curling her legs up underneath her.
“Do you know when she’s due?” Derek is asking.
“Should be some time in November,” Boyd replies. “We’ll get a more exact idea once she’s in third trimester.”
“Hopefully it’s near Thanksgiving,” Lydia says. “I want to be here when the baby is born.”
Boyd grins. “That’d be perfect. Also – Jordan told me you finalized what track you’re doing?”
Lydia nods. “Biostatistics MA/PhD. It’s a three year program.” She glances at Derek, who stares at his hands with his brow pinched. “Berkeley isn’t that far,” she says, trying to reassure herself as much as Derek.
Her alpha exhales through his nose. “I know,” he says, looking up at her. There is a determined steadiness in his hazel eyes. “We’ll be okay.”
Lydia’s graduate program is not the first time a pack member has left Beacon Hills for an extended period of time, but it is the first time in nearly twelve years that Lydia has left town. Jordan, Isaac, and even Danny all offered to go with Lydia, but they all have commitments and responsibilities here that are too important for Lydia to justify uprooting them to the Bay Area, even for a temporary stay. Besides, a part of her wants to do this on her own. As much as she chose biostatistics to bring back something useful to the research she and Danny are doing, she chose an on-campus, multiyear program to prove something for herself. And she will not be completely alone – there are plenty of friend-of-a-friend connections for her in Berkeley and other nearby cities. Lydia is ready for the challenge.
She turns to Boyd. “Have you discussed names yet?”
Boyd chuckles. “Erica made us coin flip. I get the first name, she chooses the middle name.”
Derek snorts, and Lydia says, “That’s definitely not how she wanted that to go.”
Silence falls, and they all turn to watch the preserve. The woods used to be a vaguely threatening presence, but as Lydia watches and listens now, all she picks up on are signs of life.
Her phone buzzes. It is another text from Jordan – this time, a photo of his coffee table, on which there is a bottle of wine, lit candles, and the latest drugstore murder mystery novel they have been reading together.
“I should head out,” Lydia says. She gets up and hugs her pack members. “Happy birthday, Boyd. I’ll see you in the morning, Derek.”
Derek squeezes her arm in farewell as Boyd says, “Thanks. Travel safely.”
Walking out to the Camaro, Lydia tips her head back to look at the stars and breathe in deeply. Today was a good day, she thinks. A smile curls her lips, and she hums a nonsense melody the entire drive to Jordan’s.
+ D +
“Add the dry ingredients next,” Derek says. Isaac goes to dump the entire bowl at once into the stand mixer, and Derek lunges forward. “No –”
Too late. Flour spits back out of the mixer, coating the fronts of the two men and causing Isaac to sneeze. Derek glares up at Isaac. He will never understand why cake is so difficult for someone who can manage breads, doughnuts, and even pastries with ease.
When he is done sneezing, Isaac smiles sheepishly. “Sorry.”
Derek rolls his eyes, backing down. “Next time, add it in slowly. So you don’t end up … like that.”
“I’ll clean up later.”
“Yes, you will.”
Derek washes his hands and does his best to get the flour off of his face. He knows he is lucky to have Isaac in the bakery; the beta takes care of the tasks that Derek does not like, particularly anything that has to deal with customers, and in spite of Isaac’s refusal to understand the finer points of cakes, they do work well together. Isaac is comfortable with working in silence, and after almost five years of experience, they have learned to anticipate each other’s needs.
Isaac’s patience and attention to detail has also allowed the bakery to expand into pastries, which Derek had never really got a good handle on. Their business has grown so much in the last couple years that Lydia – still managing the bakery’s finances – is now working to convince Derek to install a second double-oven and hire a baking apprentice.
She is right, Derek knows. But he wants to hold on to this thing of just him and Isaac for a little while longer.
“I don’t want this to mix for too long, right?” Isaac asks.
“Yeah. Stop when the dry ingredients are just incorporated, or else you’ll knock out too much air.”
Isaac shuts off the stand mixer, and the kitchen suddenly becomes half as loud. Derek is able to hear the bell above the front door tinkle when someone enters, and then an achingly familiar voice calls, “Honey, I’m home!”
Isaac breaks into a smile, and Derek sprints out of the kitchen.
He does not think before vaulting over the counter and wrapping himself around Stiles, whose clear laughter rings directly in Derek’s ear. “Hi, boo,” Stiles says, his fingers digging into Derek’s back, and the knot that has been building in Derek’s chest for nearly a month – holy shit – finally loosens.
“Two calls in four weeks is not enough,” Derek scolds, pressing his nose to Stiles’s neck and breathing deeply.
Stiles scratches Derek’s scalp. Unfair, that Stiles has learned Derek’s weaknesses. “It was only three and a half,” he corrects lightly, and Derek squeezes him until he yelps.
Only then does Derek let Stiles step back. There is now flour all over Stiles’s front, too, but he does not seem to care. “Besides,” Stiles says, “If I called too much, I would have ruined the surprise.”
He jerks his head behind him, and Derek finally notices the two people standing just inside the bakery’s threshold. Derek recognizes them from photos and video calls over the years. “Scott and Allison,” he says, and the couple beams in unison.
“Stiles never calls enough when he’s working,” Allison says by way of introduction, holding out a hand for Derek to shake.
“Hey,” Stiles protests.
Scott is less reserved, hugging Derek like they have known each other their entire lives. Like Stiles, he does not seem to care that he gets flour on his clothes. “So good to finally meet you, man,” Scott says warmly.
When Derek glances at Stiles, Stiles is smiling fondly at the three of them. “Coffee?” Derek asks.
“Yes, please,” Allison says.
Stiles does this, every now and then, detouring in the middle of a trip to bring people important to him back to Beacon Hills. The first time it happened was three years ago, when Stiles showed up with two black eyes, an arm in a sling, and a sandy-haired man who scrutinized Derek with a familiar calculating look. “So you’re the person who finally convinced my son that taking a break is good for him,” he said, and Derek found his cheeks heating.
“It wasn’t just me,” he replied, but he never did convince John Stilinski of that.
Derek and the rest of their pack also met Melissa McCall, Heather from preschool, Ken and Noshiko Yukimura, Chris Argent, and Kira Yukimura this way. They have fun with it, especially because each visitor is a new opportunity to dig up stories from different phases of Stiles’s life, but Derek is mostly relieved that each visit means Stiles returns to them happy and mostly whole.
It was not always easy, to let Stiles go. For the first six months after deciding to stay in Beacon Hills, Stiles did not talk of leaving or continuing the work he had been doing before he came into their lives. Derek naively let himself believe that the silence meant Stiles was done, so he was blindsided when Stiles announced over pack dinner – a celebration of Stiles’s twenty-fifth birthday, in fact – that there was a case in Wyoming that he wanted to check out. “No,” Derek immediately said, which led to their first major argument since they stopped hating each other.
Stiles let it go on for a week before he simply up and left in the middle of the night.
When he returned two weeks later, Derek was still too furious to speak. “I told you I would come back,” Stiles insisted, sitting outside of Derek’s bedroom door until Lydia convinced him to go to his place.
When Derek finally found his words again and headed to 181 Birch Street, Stiles was already ready and waiting for him on the front step. “I know you hate it, but I also know that you know,” Stiles said, “that I can’t stay put. I can help people, Derek. I need to travel.”
“You left in the middle of an argument,” Derek gritted out.
“Which was a dick move. I know. I’m sorry. But I promise I will always come back. Okay? I promise.”
It was the genuine concern in Stiles’s eyes that made Derek back down. “Okay,” Derek agreed, nodding slowly. “We can work through this.”
And they have. Now, Derek only becomes reserved and worried during Stiles’s longer trips, like this one.
When Derek returns with three mugs of coffee and a water for himself, Stiles is sitting opposite of Allison and Scott at one of the four-tops, his cheeks flushed a mortified, bright red. “I hate you both so much,” he grouses. He makes grabby hands at Derek and immediately snuggles up to Derek. “They’re being mean,” he pouts, and Derek snorts.
Underneath the playful tone, however, Derek can tell that Stiles is tired. He wonders for how many hours straight Stiles drove to get here. His original destination had been Maine, and Derek is pretty sure Allison and Scott are still living in Boston. “How was your case?” Derek asks.
“Typical Code-less hunter who thought it would be entertaining to steal and auction off the pelt of a selkie child,” Stiles says. “Took a while to track down and recover the pelt, but after that, the parents were more than happy to take care of the hunter.”
He stifles a yawn, and Derek decides Stiles could use a break. He turns to the two across from him and asks, “How long are you in town for?”
“About a week,” Allison says with a shrug.
“Stiles is letting us crash at his place,” Scott adds.
Derek finds that they are easy to talk to and, once Stiles passes out on Derek’s shoulder, more than willing to share endless stories from growing up with Stiles. The anecdotes range from silly to sweet to embarrassing, and before Derek knows it, hours have flown by and Isaac is beginning to close up the bakery.
Derek shakes Stiles awake. “Drink your coffee,” he says as Stiles blinks sluggishly. “Lydia and Boyd are cooking tonight. You don’t want to miss it.”
Much later, after dinner and after showing Allison and Scott to 181 Birch Street, Derek practically has to carry a boneless Stiles up the stairs to the apartment. “Can’t believe you didn’t tell me right away that Erica was pregnant,” Stiles groans, betrayed.
“It’s not my news to share.”
“Can’t believe they told everyone without me.”
“They wanted to wait for you,” Derek points out. “But Erica was going to start showing, and we didn’t know when you’d be back.”
“Ugh. You’re annoying when you’re right.”
Derek snorts. “Come on. Shower time. You stink.”
“You stink.”
They are in the shower, Derek’s fingers massaging shampoo into Stiles’s scalp, when Stiles’s eyes suddenly sharpen. “Hey,” he says.
Derek raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
Stiles drags his finger in a small circle through Derek’s chest hair, causing it to stand on end. “I missed you,” he says quietly.
Derek ducks his head to kiss a fresh cut on Stiles’s shoulder. “Missed you, too,” he murmurs against wet skin. He then adds, “Isaac is opening the bakery tomorrow.”
A wide grin splits Stiles’s face. “We get to sleep in?” he asks. Derek nips his collarbone and chuckles when Stiles inhales sharply. “Or we could do that,” Stiles breathes out.
“Tomorrow,” Derek says firmly. “You need to sleep.”
After they dry off and change into sleepwear, Stiles hits the mattress and immediately begins to snore. Derek takes his time settling in, burying his face into Stiles’s armpit. He likes it when they go to bed right after showering; it is much easier to smell the loam beneath the coffee and gunmetal clinging to Stiles’s skin. “I love you,” Derek murmurs, and he falls asleep to the reassuring pulse of Stiles’s heartbeat.
+ S +
Stiles is mid-conversation with Boyd and Jordan when a bottle of sunscreen lotion smacks him in the chest. “Ow!” Stiles protests, rubbing a spot above his right pec. That might actually leave a bruise.
“You forgot, didn’t you?” Lydia says accusingly. “Your nose is already burning.”
Which, yeah, he did forget. He begrudgingly picks up the bottle that Lydia launched at him and begins oiling up. Boyd and Jordan are laughing at him, and he glares. “Like you two would argue with Lydia,” he snaps without real heat, and Jordan raises his hands in surrender.
The sun is unforgiving on this cloudless afternoon in May, but Stiles is happy to soak up its warmth. They are in the park with what seems like half of the Beacon Hills population, which actually is not too surprising. It is the third annual Park Festival, an event meant to jointly celebrate the anniversary of both the park’s opening and the Zhang-Aguilar extended family claiming Beacon Hills as part of their faerie protectorate, and no one wants to miss out on a festival thrown by faeries. Formally, the park is named after some prior mayor of Beacon Hills, but everyone just refers to it as New Park or Danny’s Park, since Danny used his horticulture talents – you can make a witch a magus, apparently, but you cannot take away his horticulture – to bring the park to life.
“How was your chat?” Stiles asks, handing the sunscreen back to Lydia when he is done. Lydia arrived later than the rest of them because she had a scheduled phone call with one of her future mentors at UC Berkeley.
“Good,” she replies. “I’m looking forward to working in her lab. I’m also starving.” She grabs Stiles’s wrist and tugs. “Come get food with me.”
Stiles follows her to the line of tables set up with food and drinks from local businesses and vendors. “You have to help me,” Lydia says in an undertone as she beelines for Cora and Erica’s table.
“What’s up?”
“We can’t let Erica choose Boyd as her baby’s middle name.”
Stiles laughs. “Something Boyd Boyd? She must be joking.”
“That’s what I thought, but she’s been bringing it up for a week, now. I think Isaac is encouraging her.”
“You want us to deal with it right now?” Stiles asks as they get closer.
“No. But probably tonight.”
Lydia smiles at Cora and Erica when they pull up. Behind free samples of beef tartar and spicy sausage, the two women have set up a modified version of their in-store sandwich bar. “How’s it going here?” Lydia asks.
“People love us,” Erica boasts.
“Give us two of the best you got,” Stiles says.
Cora begins assembling two pulled pork sandwiches with the works. “Scott and Allison just came by,” she informs Stiles.
Stiles grins and looks around until he spots his childhood friends at a table with samples of faerie wine. Allison will get absolutely smashed on that stuff. “I hope you charged them double,” Stiles jokes.
Cora smiles toothily at him. “Theirs were on the house. You’re getting charged double to make up for it.”
“You’re paying,” Lydia immediately says, voice muffled by the sample she has in her mouth.
Stiles pretends to pout, but he does pay the double amount. He also leaves a 100 percent tip, because he loves Cora and Erica and he can do shit like that.
He and Lydia manage to find an unoccupied bench, where they sit down to eat their lunch. “I hope you love Berkeley,” he tells her. “I really liked it.”
Lydia raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t you graduate in three years?”
“Only because I wanted to move on to the next thing,” Stiles explains. “Not because I didn’t like Berkeley.”
Lydia studies him. “You really didn’t know how to slow down, did you?” she says.
Her observations are always incisive. “Even now, I don’t think I really do,” Stiles admits. “I have to stop and ask myself what you or Derek would say. Sometimes –” he hesitates. “Sometimes, I think if I hadn’t come here and met you, I’d already be dead.”
Lydia frowns. “Stiles.”
“The rate I used to be going at?” Stiles pushes on. “I think I would’ve died by twenty-six. Maybe twenty-seven.”
“I don’t think it’s helpful to think like that.”
There is a serious note to her voice that makes Stiles pause. “Maybe not.”
Lydia sets her lunch down. “I used to wonder what would have happened if Jackson were never bitten. Then maybe I never would have discovered that I was a banshee. Maybe I would still care about my mother. Maybe Jackson and I would have gotten married and had kids.”
Stiles can count on one hand the number of times he has heard Lydia talk about Jackson Whittemore.
“Or maybe we would have broken up, and I would have gone to MIT and then Stanford, and I never would have even heard of Beacon Hills,” Lydia continues. “Or I would sometimes wonder, what if Derek hadn’t stumbled into my life? Would I have made it here? Would he?”
“Lydia,” Stiles murmurs, afraid to interrupt Lydia when she is on a roll.
“Or what if Melia hadn’t been strong enough to keep the Nemeton from consuming Danny? What if Julia did manage to assassinate you? Then where would we be. What if Cora died? What if the Nemeton didn’t even exist, so there was nothing for Beacon Hills to build itself around – would I be dead? Would we all be dead?”
There is a hunted look in Lydia’s eyes when she refocuses on Stiles. “Living in the conditional,” she concludes, “in the what ifs, the should haves, the woulds, the coulds – it’s not living, Stiles.”
A soft breeze lifts the loose strands of hair that have fallen out of Lydia’s braid, floating strawberry-blond ribbons across her face. She studies Stiles intently, her expression asking him if he understands what she is trying to say, and he does. Stiles is not quite sure if he can live it, yet, but he understands it.
“I get it,” Stiles concedes.
She reaches out to stroke his cheek, a wry smile curling her lips. “You’re here,” she tells him. “You have us. And that is all you ever have to think about.”
Tears prick behind Stiles’s eyes, and he is quick to pull Lydia into a hug, hiding his emotion by pressing his face to the top of her hair. He breathes in the scent of her shampoo for one, two seconds and then lets go, recomposed. “Good sandwich, right?” he says, picking up his plate again, and Lydia mercifully lets slide everything he is refusing to say in this moment.
As the afternoon stretches on, their pack and the people they love begin to find them. First are Scott and Allison, Allison already giddily buzzed from the faerie wine samples. When Allison plops down next to Lydia, she hands Stiles an unopened bottle – one of four sticking out of her tote bag – and conspiratorially whispers, “For you,” before breaking down in giggles. She and Lydia begin to gossip about God knows what, because the two of them have got on like a house on fire since Stiles introduced them over pack dinner.
Scott crashes next to Stiles, ruffling Stiles’s hair. “This place is incredible, Stiles,” he says earnestly, and Stiles cracks a smile.
“Yeah, it is,” Stiles agrees. “Maybe you and Ally should move out here. You could establish your own veterinary practice.”
Scott laughs as if Stiles were joking, but there is a small part of Stiles that latches onto the idea as a real possibility.
Jordan, Boyd, and Erica show up an hour later, Erica sitting on top of Boyd’s broad shoulders and brandishing two lacrosse sticks. “Scott! Catch!” she shouts, because among her eclectic obsessions – real estate, birdwatching, hair treatments, crocheting, astronomy, and synchronized swimming, to name just the things that Stiles knows about – lacrosse is one of them, and learning that Scott was captain of Laverton High School’s varsity team had sent her over the moon.
She throws one of the sticks like a javelin at Scott, who stands and just saves Stiles from being nailed in the face. “Erica!” Stiles yelps, and she does not look the slightest bit sorry when she flashes a smile at him. She jumps off of Boyd’s shoulders, and she and Scott start playing catch in the grass behind them.
Shortly after the food and drink stands pack up, Isaac rolls up with a pastry box of the few things that did not sell at Whittemore Bakery’s stand. Stiles splits one of Derek’s old-fashioned doughnuts with Jordan and Allison and ends up with a raspberry jam stain on his pants when Boyd fumbles a handoff from Lydia. Boyd is apologetic, but Lydia just frowns at Stiles and wordlessly hands him her sunscreen again.
They decide to pop open the faerie wine when the sun starts to drop towards the horizon. The mosquitoes are just beginning to come out, but right as Lydia is about to pull out her bug spray, Danny stops by to say hello. “Hey, Danny,” Stiles says jokingly, “is there anything you can do about the bugs?”
There is, apparently, and Danny gets a rousing cheer when his blessing makes the mosquitoes lose interest in their group. “It’s temporary,” he warns before he returns to strolling down the stone walkway with a stranger whom Stiles has spotted hanging around the Mahealani’s apothecary more and more frequently.
“Does Danny have a boyfriend?” Stiles asks Lydia.
Lydia snorts. “Danny would also like to know the answer to that question,” she says, and Stiles laughs.
Slowly, and then all at once, the sky turns from blue to a deep orange. Stiles finds himself tracing with his eyes the shapes of the distant clouds that cut purple and blue lines against a fiery canvas. There are pinks in there, too, and softer golds, as well as a hint of green in the distant treetops that is so dark it seems like black. Stiles loves Beacon Hills sunsets, in their glorious mess of nebulous shapes and vibrant colors, but more often than not he forgets to watch for them, so distracted and consumed by other things. His sunburnt skin is already pulling tight against his cheekbones, but tilting his head back to absorb the last of the rays still feels like a luxury, and Stiles so rarely lets himself indulge.
The orange has turned to a deep purple bruise when Stiles hears Lydia say, with fond exasperation, “There you are.” He turns in the direction where her voice is pointing and sees Derek and Cora walking towards them in the rapidly approaching dusk, their arms thrown around each other.
“Fucking finally,” Erica groans. “I’m ravenous. I could eat an entire deer right now.”
The group begins to mobilize, gathering scattered belongings and stretching out stiff limbs. Erica and Boyd lead the way out of the park, where they will all pile into the Camaro, the Jeep, or Allison’s Hummer, and reconvene at 13 Cuttlebuck Lane for dinner.
Stiles waits a moment, though. The further the sun slips, the easier it is to see the moon. It is a waxing gibbous, tonight – a term he learned from Erica. The higher in the sky he casts his gaze, the more stars he can also see, winking into existence. Conditional, he thinks. There is some connection, between what Lydia had said earlier and not knowing by just looking at a star whether or not it is dead. The present cannot be determined by the future of an unseeable past, perhaps.
Or something like that. For now, Stiles is just watching a night sky, feeling the wind dance over his skin and hearing the frogs start to sing from a nearby waterway.
“Stiles?”
Stiles drops back to earth. Lydia and Derek are waiting for him a few paces down the path, turned toward each other but looking at him. Derek smiles and holds out his hand, his vulnerable palm and splayed fingers open to Stiles, and Stiles –
– he takes that hand, fitting his fingers into the space created between.