Archive of Our Own ^beta

"-were so valuable in Holland that their bulbs were worth more than gold. The craze was called tulip mania, or tulipomania, and caused the crash of the Dutch economy. Tulips can continue to grow as much as an inch per day after being cut."

"How do you do that?" Erica asked, blinking at Stiles as the wormhole winked out behind them.

"Do what?" he asked.

"Keep talking when we're going through the Stargate."

"I thought you were going to ask him how he could still be so boring," Doctor Lahey quipped, coming down the stairs from the Stargate platform behind them and Stiles threw him a disgruntled look.

"I mean," Erica continued. "I have to shut my eyes and my mouth and well, everything. I know it's safe but-" Erica was cut off when Stiles was picked up beside her.

"Hey big guy, did you miss me?" Stiles huffed, amused as Derek squeezed him and growled into the skin of his throat.

"See, that's what I mean," Lahey said. "Stilinski has an alien boyfriend, he lives in another galaxy and yet he is still so, so boring-ow!" Lahey was only lucky that it was Erica that had punched him in the arm and not Derek. It still pleased Stiles greatly to watch Lahey shake out his arm, not looking like he was feeling particularly lucky, or his hand for that matter.

"I could still trade you," Erica said.

"What, for him?" Lahey scoffed, incredulous.

"I could do worse," Erica said, which was high praise coming from her.

"Thanks for the flattery," Stiles said to her dryly and then looked down at Derek. "Uh, you gonna put me down anytime soon?"

"Only when I have to," Derek grunted, shamelessly rubbing his stubbled cheek against Stiles anywhere he could reach and Stiles... did not really mind so much. There were worse things than having, as Lahey said, an alien boyfriend who needed PDAs to feel secure. Derek claimed it was all instinctual, purely Atterian territorial stuff but Stiles was starting to suspect it was just Derek.

"Were you good for Doctor Deaton?" Stiles asked, resigned to being carried back to his lab, dangling from Derek's arms like a sock monkey. Everyone had gotten used to this kind of behavior from them because they merely got skirted around and received a couple of unsurprised hellos from passing science and military staff. Stiles even got bailed up to sign something for Doctor Pritchard and Pritchard merely shoved a pen in Stiles' hand and didn't even look up from the tablet in the crook of her other arm while she waited.

"Yes," Derek answered Stiles' original question.

"Did he do anything you didn't like or were uncomfortable with?" Stiles pressed. Derek's forthrightness was one of his most endearing qualities, but Stiles also knew that he could swallow stuff down, like pain and discomfort. Stiles had learned that direct questions were the best way to draw Derek out. He didn't do well with ambiguity.

"No," Derek huffed.

"Did he give you a lollipop after?" Stiles asked and Derek ducked his face, but also nodded. "Cherry?"

"Sour Apple."

"Sour- that rat! He told me he was out of the Sour Apple," Stiles complained.

"He said he was keeping them for me because he knew they were my favorite," Derek admitted and there was a tiny note of pleased pride in his voice that Stiles liked the sound of.

Derek put Stiles down when they reached their rooms, but only long enough for them to get through the automatic doors and then he started patting Stiles over restlessly. "Watcha doing?" Stiles asked, adhering to the pat-down with only a wry smile.

"Checking you."

"I'm not hurt, I swear. The most dangerous thing thrown at me on M5L-226 was a flirty smile."

"What's flirty?" Derek asked, not pausing in his physical checking. He tapped Stiles' arms, first one and then the other and Stiles lifted and swung them around to prove he had full range of motion.

"Y'know, salacious? Amorous? Coquettish?" Sometimes it was hard to remember that despite appearances, he and Derek weren't actually speaking the same language. Little differences reminded him. He knew the cultural anthropologists all got science boners whenever someone wanted to talk about the gate translation program and how it worked but he was just thankful the Ancients that had had the forethought to babel fish the crap out of their technology.

It saved a lot of time and headaches.

Derek just gave him an exasperated look because obviously the extra words weren't helping.

"Right, your people have that way of, uh, demonstrating their intentions so I guess you guys are more straightforward."

"Someone had intentions towards you?" Derek asked, expression going stormy.

"Not me particularly," Stiles said quickly. "The villagers were just very friendly and... fleshly?"

"I don't like..." Derek paused, huffed and then said through tight lips, "You going off world without me."

"Aw, look at you all verbalizing your feelings. Are the sessions with Doctor Morrell helping?" Stiles asked, squeezing Derek's shoulder.

"It's weird," Derek said. Lydia had been adamant that Derek see someone about his trauma and his time as a runner, the torture he would have been through at the hands of the Wraith and while Stiles didn't necessarily disagree, he did know that Derek found the whole process baffling.

There were benefits, one of which being that Derek was starting to open up more. That and he'd been keeping a diary which Stiles found too adorable for words, even though it was an exercise in self control every day for Stiles not to sneak a peek. Derek didn't seem to be possessive about anything other than Stiles and so left it out all the time like a big ol' Pandora's box.

"Just give it a chance," Stiles said encouragingly. "Unless she pulls out puppets. Then all bets are off." At Derek's look, Stiles splayed his hands and said, "What? Puppets are creepy. The button eyes unnerve the hell out of me."

"You're weird," Derek said and from anyone else it would be an insult, but Derek was curling an arm around Stiles' shoulders and drawing him in and it was so obviously said with affection that Stiles couldn't mind. They kissed, first gentle and friendly but then working up to hot and wet and it was just starting to go really interesting places when Stiles' door dinged, announcing someone on the other side wanting his attention.

"No-o," he groaned, dropping his head onto Derek's shoulder.

"It's your assistant," Derek said, nostrils flaring. He immediately stepped away from Stiles and crossed to the other side of the room, busying himself with browsing through the stack of books messily piled next to Stiles' desk to give Stiles and Amber some space. Stiles had poached Amber from Doctor Harris and it had made the ongoing vindictive thing between he and Harris worse.

His department, by which he meant himself, had been pretty swamped since he'd saved the day against the Raelesh and suddenly everyone was super keen to bring him clippings from every single plant and tree they encountered when off world. Stiles was ecstatic because up until then it'd been a struggle to get anyone to take him seriously but since they didn't have anyone spare, Lydia had decided to strip the biology department of a body, calling them unjustifiably bloated.

Harris hadn't endeared himself further to anyone by sneering that Stiles didn't need someone with a degree, any old refugee they'd taken in could help him even if they were an unwashed, uneducated mass of untrustworthy degenerates. Stiles had been offended on behalf of Derek and the Athosians had been offended on behalf of themselves because Harris had chosen to yell this at Stiles in the mess during lunch time after he got the news of Amber's transfer and no one missed it.

Stiles waved a hand over his door panel and it slid open, revealing Amber who had her glasses holding her hair back as usual and a tablet in her hand. "Doctor Stilinski-"

"Stiles," he tried to correct her for about the eightieth time and she pulled a face like she'd tasted something bad.

"Doctor Martin sent a memo about the Department Head meeting that's in-" Amber glanced at her watch and then looked back at him, "Ten minutes ago."

"No way, I've got," Stiles glanced at his own watch. "Two hours."

Amber huffed in obvious exasperation, reached out and snagged Stiles' hand and tugged it toward herself, ignoring Derek's displeased rumble behind them. She gripped his wrist and deftly pushed buttons on his watch. "There was an adjustment to Atlantean local time eight days ago. There was a memo about it."

"Why do they keep changing it?" Stiles complained, taking his hand back when Amber was finished and grimacing at the new time she'd input.

"Why do you ignore your emails?"

"Not all of them, just the boring ones," Stiles said and threw Derek an apologetic look over his shoulder. "I'll be back as soon as I can, promise."

Derek made another displeased grumble, but waved Stiles off.

"Oh, thank god, I'm not the last one here," Stiles said, hanging inside the door of conference room three. Everyone already sitting at the table looked at him impassively and no one commented on his lateness which made Stiles concerned.

"Have a seat, Stiles," Lydia said. Her mouth was tight, back ramrod straight and Stiles got the feeling he'd interrupted an argument with his arrival. He slunk around the table and into the chair next to Allison, who also looked far too grim for his liking.

"Like I was saying-" Harris started back in immediately and Lydia held up a hand to him.

"I think we should catch Stiles up first before we continue," Lydia said.

"He should get here on time. Why should we allow for tardiness?"

"I hadn't fixed my watch to the latest adjusted time-"

"Do we really need to indulge this person?" Harris asked through clenched teeth and Stiles raised his eyebrows at him. "Just because he lucked into being useful-"

"I think we're getting off topic," Lydia interrupted. Stiles was vaguely disappointed because it sounded like Harris was working himself up to a really good, really embarrassing tirade and he always enjoyed those, especially when he was the target.

"Shouldn't we wait for Malia?" Stiles asked, deciding to help Lydia out for once instead of being a nuisance to her. There was the kind of quiet around the room after his question that was usually accompanied by cricket noises in cartoons and Stiles frowned. "Or... did I miss her storming out already? Just what the hell did you say this time?" Stiles asked, turning back to Harris, exasperated.

"She wasn't invited," Harris said, expression now smug where it had been hotly annoyed before.

"It's the HOD meeting. She's always here," Stiles said.

"She might be the problem."

"Doctor Harris!" Allison snapped, appearing to lose her patience.

"What's going on?" Stiles asked slowly, a cold ball of dread uncurling low in his stomach. He'd been having an awesome day what with no one shooting at him when they were offworld and then coming home to a cuddly boyfriend greeting. Stiles got the sense that it was all about to go drastically pear shaped. "Malia's leader of the Athosians, why isn't she here?"

"There was an unauthorized report included in our latest status update packet to Earth," Lydia started to explain.

"Long overdue I'd say," Harris mumbled under his breath and Lydia threw him a narrow-eyed look.

"I would choose my words very carefully if I were you, considering we haven't ruled you out as being the responsible party."

Harris looked incensed at the accusation, but also prudently refrained from further comment. Stiles didn't blame him. He'd been on the receiving end of that look and that tone from Lydia before and it meant she wasn't kidding around. There was a reason she'd been able to maintain authority on Atlantis through trial and tribulation and probably a fair chunk of the military thinking that the mission was jeopardized by being in civilian hands.

No one could argue Lydia down when her spine of steel was showing.

"We were not aware of the contents of this report until we received a data burst in return. It seems the Pentagon has become concerned with the number of refugees we're hosting."

"What, are they worried about allocation of resources or something? Do they not know that the Athosians are cultivating crops on the mainland? Pretty soon they're going to be feeding us, not the other way around," Stiles scoffed.

"It would be all well and good if they were just farming on the mainland, but we now have some of the them in the infirmary, on offworld teams, in our labs," Harris didn't seem able to keep his silence any longer.

"We're short-staffed, or at least, some departments are," Stiles said, not being able to help himself with picking up the fight.

"It's not just that," Allison said quietly and Stiles' head whipped around to look at her. "My team has been ambushed by the Wraith five out of our last nine missions, and two of those were on un-populated planets. There was no reason the Wraith should have been there. Major Reyes' team has experienced worryingly frequent Wraith encounters also."

"What are you saying?" Stiles asked, disbelieving. He looked around the room at the other people gathered, at Doctors Deaton and Morrell, Doctor Finstock from the Anthro department and Doctor Novak from engineering. They all look deeply uncomfortable and more concerning, resigned.

"There's every indication that we've been compromised," Lydia said, folding her hands together on the table in front of her, face grim. "The safety of this base and its personnel have to be the priority."

"What are you saying?" Stiles repeated.

"My suggestion is to confine all non-base personnel until we can conduct interviews," Major Teldy, head of security, said.

"Are you kidding? You're kidding, right? You want to, what? Stick all the Athosians in the Wraith cells?" Stiles asked, incredulous.

"Not just the Athosians," Harris said, his smug level ramping up a notch.

"Wait, Derek? You're talking about Derek. The guy who the Wraith used as their own personal pinata and then real-life training module. Half-starved, half-feral when he arrived Derek?"

"That's his story," Harris said, making air quotes around the word story.

"Un-fucking-believable," Stiles barked, throwing his hands up and then turning on Lydia. "You're not seriously-"

"All non-base personnel," Teldy repeated. To her credit, she didn't sound exactly happy about the entire situation which meant that Stiles stopped entertaining thoughts of sticking the flowers that stunk like a mix of rotten cheese and foot odor into her bedroom air vents.

"You can't stick them in the cells. We'll lose whatever trust we have with them," Finstock interjected and Stiles was thankful there was at least one sane person in the room.

"Alright, how about moving them to the mainland?" Allison proposed. "Most of the Athosians have moved over there anyway."

Lydia looked to be thinking it over, before she nodded. "I think that's a fair compromise. Doctor Finstock is right, we would be jeopardizing our relationship with them if we started treating them like prisoners."

"That's not a fair compromise," Stiles argued. "You think the Athosians would be any happier being carted off to a piece of land completely surrounded by water without Stargate access? That's just offering them a nicer prison."

"What do you suggest?" Lydia asked patiently.

"I suggest we don't accuse the people that lost their entire planet and have been beleaguered by the Wraith their whole lives of being in league with them."

"Doctor Stilinski-" Lydia started to interrupt but Stiles pressed on.

"I suggest we get our heads out of our butts and realize that it might be one of our own. We have no way of knowing and shipping any aliens," Stiles continued, his turn to use air quotes, "-off to the mainland without so much as a by your leave and calling it job done is dangerously narrow-sighted."

"You really think it could be one of our own people?" Allison asked.

"I think that if we had a dollar for every time Stargate command was infiltrated by a spy, we'd have, y'know, a lot of dollars. Hell, for all we know, we've brought a Goa'uld with us from home."

"That's preposterous," Harris snorted.

"Oh really? What about you? You're pretty hoity-toity for a human. Isn't that the trademark of a Goa'uld?"

"Are you really going to sit there and let him accuse me-?" Harris started at Lydia, incensed and she sighed and held up a placatory hand.

"Doctor Stilinski, unless you have some kind of proof that there is someone else we should be focusing our investigation on, I think we need to take the reasonable course of action instead. We will conduct interviews as quickly as possible and return everyone as soon as we can."

"What about Lieutenant Daehler?" Stiles asked.

"Oh, I see, this is suddenly the Salem witch trials. Stilinski is just going to name everyone he doesn't like and you're all going to believe him because you're a bunch of-"

"Doctor Harris, I don't think you want to finish that sentence," Allison interrupted coldly.

"This is obviously a waste of my time," Harris declared huffily, stood and swept out of the room.

"Total Goa'uld," Stiles snarked and Lydia shot him a baleful look.

"This isn't pleasant for anyone, Stiles," she said, a little more gently after a beat.

"You can talk to me when you're in a relationship with someone about to get exiled," Stiles grumbled and could only stare at her when Major Teldy said quietly, "I am."

"Wha-?" Stiles could only get out, dumbfounded.

"I'm sure you'll appreciate, given that, how seriously I'm taking this situation. At least you don't have to be the bad guy in all this," Teldy said stonily.

Stiles wanted nothing more than to get back to his room and see Derek, but he paused when he heard Allison call his name.

"I'm going with Derek, to the mainland," Stiles said, turning around before Allison could start in on him. "And before you give me some guilt-trip about abandoning my post, there's been some weird blight thing on the almost-potato tubers the Athosians have been trying to grow and I was meaning to go over and check it out. Two birds, one stone, y'know."

"You might have to put that off," Allison said. Stiles hadn't really noticed in the meeting room, but under the brighter lights of the hallway, Allison looked tired. In a few short weeks she's had to assume command of the entire base after Colonel Browning was killed offworld, received a promotion from Major to Lieutenant Colonel to go with the unexpected bump in responsibility and now had to deal with a possible spy that might undermine her chances of proving that she could handle her new post and the SGC didn't need to send a replacement which was something none of them wanted.

"Either he stays, or I go," Stiles said firmly but Allison shook her head.

"No, Derek's a little unique and the SGC want to conduct an interview with him... on base."

"What... you mean Earth?" Stiles spluttered.

"The only Athosians that go offworld regularly are doing so to trade after we've already sent one of our teams first. Derek is the only member of a first contact team."

"Are you trying to tell me in a roundabout way that Derek is your main suspect?"

"Nobody thinks it's him, nobody here anyway, except for Harris maybe. Treat it like a formality."

"I don't know how much of a formality it'll be when they reach the dissection part of the proceedings," Stiles said grimly.

"They're not going to dissect him."

"You're telling me that the SGC will let go of an alien life form they've never encountered the like of before once they have their dirty mitts on him?"

"There was a very grudgingly accepted stipulation to us agreeing to send him. You can go with him."

"Oh," Stiles said, surprised. "Seriously?"

"You've got a lot of leave you haven't taken, and it's nearly Thanksgiving. You can go see your dad."

"I have a stipulation of my own," Stiles said and Allison's lips curved up like she'd been expecting it.

"Uhuh?"

"I want him to come home with me. We'll do whatever interviews and tests they want, but then we get some proper leave, together."

"Lydia figured you might want that so she got General Thomas to agree to it and she made him put it in writing."

"Wow, cool."

"You're lucky," Allison said with a wry smile. "I think you're going to miss a very tense few weeks here."

"Do you think Scott-"

"I'm going to need him," Allison interrupted and then her face tightened. "I mean he's good at... keeping the peace."

"That's true," Stiles said and patted her shoulder. "Sure you guys will be able to cope without me?"

"I think we'll manage," Allison said, smiling properly for the first time. "I'm sorry about all this."

"Not your fault," Stiles said. "Although I think questioning the Athosians is going to be a big waste of time."

"I don't honestly know what to hope for," Allison said. "Either it's one of the Athosians which means the powers that be will probably want us to boot all of them out and not accept any other refugees or it's one of our own people which..." Allison made a helpless gesture with her hands.

"Or it's all a giant coincidence," Stiles proposed without much gusto.

"How likely is that given our luck?"

Stiles made a contemplative noise, shot Allison a little salute and then scarpered, hoping that he wouldn't be waylaid by anyone else before he reached Derek. News had a way of traveling through Atlantis that was almost supernaturally fast and the last thing he wanted to happen was for Derek to find out about any of what was happening before he'd had a chance to talk to him himself.

The Atlantis grapevine seemed to have been efficient as always because Stiles found Malia already hovering outside his room when he got back. Derek had the door open, leaning against the edge and with his head bowed as Malia said something to him punctuated with lots of angry hand-waving.

Derek and Malia had been close as soon as they'd met and Stiles would have been jealous, except that Derek had shaken his head when Stiles had brought it up in a kind of roundabout way and had said simply, "Of the two of us, she's attracted to you." They spent a very memorable next two days of rare downtime in bed with Stiles making sure that Derek knew that he was the only alien for Stiles.

"Stiles, what the hell is going on?" Malia demanded as soon as he was in earshot and he winced. Malia was young and strong and took control of her people when the Wraith had been hounding them to within an inch of their lives and then had attempted to take that last inch. Her people had been decimated and homeless and were only now just starting to get back on their feet which made this whole situation all the more awful. Everyone seemed to forget that the Athosian people were mostly responsible for them all staying fed in that first hard year on Atlantis when they'd been cut-off from Earth.

"There might be a security... problem," Stiles said. No one had told him he couldn't tell Malia what was going on and he took it for the tacit permission that it probably wasn't to spill the beans.

She deserved to know.

Her expression sobered immediately. "What's happened?"

"There's some concern about how often gate teams are coming across Wraith, even on uninhabited planets. They want to take some precautions, talk to people."

"People? You mean my people? You think it was one of us?" Malia asked, disbelieving. Her eyes narrowed. "My people have been slaughtered by the Wraith for generations. I know your people are new to this, that could be the only possible reason you would think one of mine would work with the Wraith."

"It's not just the Athosians that'll be interviewed. It's, uh, anyone we've taken in," Stiles said and he could feel Derek's gaze sharpen on the side of his face. He didn't want to look, to see what expression Derek was wearing because he knew it wouldn't be good.

"You're talking about me," Derek said flatly.

"There's a couple of people we took off-"

"Stiles," Derek growled and he sighed.

"The Athosians and the other refugees will be moved to the mainland for their interviews. We have to go to Earth."

"We?" Derek asked, looking surprised.

"You and me. You're not going anywhere without me, buddy," Stiles said, clapping Derek on the shoulder. "You're stuck with me, remember?"

"We're going to your homeworld?" Derek asked.

"You're going to meet my dad."

"What?" Derek looked completely startled.

"Wait, you're leaving while this is all happening?" Malia interrupted.

"You'll be fine," Stiles said, raising a hand to pat Malia reassuringly on the shoulder but when she just looked at it with a raised eyebrow, he dropped his hand to his side instead.

"You say that now, but no one will be in our corner like you would," Malia said, eyes serious.

"Finstock will be. He loves you guys."

"You make fun of him all the time and tell me no one takes him seriously," Malia said with a frown line denting between her eyebrows.

"Yeah, when he's dressed in chicken feathers and a leather thong it's a little hard to not laugh, but seriously, when Finstock is in full anthro-mode he's hard to ignore or dismiss. Plus, Deaton will pull for you guys and Allison, sorry, Lieutenant Colonel Argent also doesn't believe it was any of you and considering she's the biggest of the wigs at the moment, you won't have anything to worry about."

"I don't like it," Malia said, crossing her arms. "Maybe we should leave."

"No one wants you to leave," Stiles said quickly.

"You just want us around to be convenient goats," Malia said and Stiles blinked at her before it hit him what she meant.

"Scape goats? You think your people are being kept around to be scapegoats?"

"I don't know, you tell me," Malia said with narrowed eyes. "Either it's a coincidence or one of your people is selling you out to the Wraith and you're going to waste time going after my people."

"Talk to Allison. All they're asking for is a little co-operation," Stiles said and Malia sighed, rolled her eyes which Stiles was pretty sure was a gesture she picked up from him and then made a begrudging noise of assent.

"I hope your soldiers know how to tend fields because the moment I think any of my people are being targeted or treated unfairly, we will be leaving," Malia warned and Stiles nodded.

"Understood. Just give the security guys a chance to rule you out."

Derek had been quiet ever since Stiles had told him they were making the trip to Earth. It was the kind of quiet he couldn't figure out. It wasn't angry because he'd seen Derek angry, but Stiles didn't know what else it would be. Derek was reserved at the best of times, but this was something different.

Stiles held off until they were in the gateroom and about to step through to Earth before he exploded. "Okay, what's wrong?"

Derek startled a little and looked at him. "What?"

"Enough! You've said nothing but what, okay and fine to me ever since I told you we were going to Earth. Last night you didn't even..." Stiles looked about them furtively but no one was paying attention to them, most of the gateroom security personnel talked amongst themselves and the gate technicians were watching the gate as they dialed it. "You didn't want to cuddle like normal," Stiles finished through clenched teeth, feeling foolish even as he said it.

"I have to prepare," Derek said like it was the most normal thing in the world and Stiles just gaped at him.

"Prepare for what?"

"Meeting your lifemaker."

"My what?"

"Your... you called him dad?" Derek said, looking a little uncertain. "Am I misunderstanding the word?"

"He... Lifegiver? I guess that's apt, in a weird way," Stiles acknowledged. "Why do you need to prepare though?"

"I have to prove myself worthy," Derek said and Stiles didn't know what it said about their lives now and how much time they spent together, but he could hear the unspoken duh in Derek's tone.

"...worthy?" Stiles asked in a small voice after a beat and a hard swallow.

"Yes," Derek confirmed simply and his gaze went back to the gate.

"What does that entail, exactly?" Stiles asked slowly.

Derek gave him an unreadable side-eye. "I can't tell you that."

"Um, Der, you really do need to tell me," Stiles pressed. "My dad has a heart condition and I get the feeling that might be an issue."

"Your Lifegiver is unwell?" Derek asked, suddenly looking concerned.

"Well, not really. He just has to eat healthy and get more exercise than just walking from his desk to the burger place on the corner-" Stiles could see from Derek's expression that he'd lost him somewhere and waved his hands. "Not important. Look, he's going to love you because you love me. He's always just wanted me to be happy and I don't think it ever worried him what form that took. You don't have to do anything."

"Yes I do," Derek said simply, dismissive.

"If this involves any kind of-"

"Uh, Doctor Stilinski, Derek?" one of the security guys cleared his throat behind them. Stiles turned on him and said, "What?"

The guy silently pointed past Stiles' shoulder and he turned back and saw the wormhole was engaged.

"Please, take your time. It's not like this isn't costing us an arm and a leg in energy or anything," Lydia said sarcastically from the gallery level of operations.

"Sorry, right," Stiles said and followed on Derek's heels who had already started toward the glowing wormhole, confident and sure like always.

From one breath to the next, they'd crossed from one galaxy into another. It wasn't like Stiles spent all his time on Atlantis, he was used to moving from one environment to another, but there was something about stepping out into Cheyenne Mountain, the absence of any smell other than metal and antiseptic clean, that pulled him up short. It looked to have had the same effect on Derek because he stood stock-still on the ramp leading up to the gate and only started moving again when Stiles jostled into him and nudged him with a shoulder.

General Thomas was standing at the bottom of the ramp, flanked by the ever-present gate room marines and he nodded and said, "Doctor Stilinski, good to see you again."

Stiles shuffled forward, Derek now dragging behind in his wake and offered a smile. "Just wish it was under better circumstances. You know, like, voluntarily," Stiles said, not really able to help himself.

Thomas' expression dimmed a little, but then he seemed to rally and offered, "Quite."

"This is Derek," Stiles introduced, gripping Derek by the elbow and tugging him forward.

Thomas won back a few points by immediately nodding a greeting and holding out his hand with a, "I've heard good things."

Derek took the offered hand and shook. Handshaking had not exactly been something the Atterians did naturally and it still looked weird when Derek had to but he'd been practicing since Stiles had explained the concept. "Sir," Derek said.

Thomas nodded in approval. "Let's get you situated. We have rooms set up-"

"Room," Stiles interjected automatically and Thomas faltered for a moment. Thankfully, his expression was more surprised than anything negative.

"By rooms, I of course meant that you'll be staying in the Dignitary suite which comprises of a bedroom and a sitting room," Thomas said and Stiles resisted the urge to say, good save because apart from his initial little dig, he was trying very hard to be polite. Allison had given him a pep talk before he'd left, mostly comprised of not letting his mouth run away from him and had cemented herself in his mind as the Hermione of their expedition by asserting that there were worse things than dissection, that they might not be allowed back.

"I need you guys here, so watch the smartass commentary," Allison had warned, jabbing Stiles in the sternum with a pointy finger.

"Private Davidson will show you to your room," Thomas offered, waving a hand to indicate the one marine not holding a P-90 in his hands who stepped forward.

"We need to be out of here in two days to make it to my dad's-"

"Everything's been arranged," Thomas said. "There's a packet in your room with documentation for Derek."

Stiles subsided, mollified. He'd still been half-expecting to be jumped as soon as they were through the gate, Derek maybe carted off to Area-51, never to be heard from again. He knew until they were out in clean, fresh air, in a car headed towards his childhood home that he probably wouldn't be able to shake that worry. Hell, he probably wouldn't be able to relax until they were safely on the Daedelus on their way back to the Pegasus Galaxy.

They followed Davidson out through the heavy gate room blast doors and into a sterile-looking hallway. Atlantis was so full of color that it was hard to reconcile the grey, utilitarian drabness of the SGC. Derek was quiet but there was a deep line between his brows and he kept a part of him always touching a part of Stiles.

Stiles wasn't sure which of them that was supposed to reassure but he was grateful for the contact all the same.

"What?" Derek barked after a few more turns and an elevator ride down two floors. It was a quick, sharp retort and it made both Stiles and Davidson jump. Stiles looked at Derek, confused, to see him glaring at Davidson.

"Sorry, sir, I-" Davidson burbled, a bright pink blush staining his cheeks. "It's just... we hear stuff and I don't mean to stare but... it's rude, I'm really sorry and-"

Stiles took pity on the guy who was rambling in this half-frightened, half-awed way. "What's up?"

"I mean, it's crazy but we... the rumor is... I mean it's crazy," Davidson burbled, looking more like a kid playing dress-up and less like a soldier the more he spoke. "I mean, seriously, I know we deal with aliens every day but you gotta draw a line somewhere, at what you'll believe. Like, c'mon, werewolves?"

"Werewolves?" Derek repeated, his glare which had been reaching melt-your-face-off levels fading.

"Yeah, I know, right?" Davidson scoffed and then seemed to remember himself and straightened up. "Uh, sorry."

"No, it's fine," Derek said, looking more relaxed than he had since he'd heard about the Earth trip and Stiles should have taken that for the warning sign it was. "Although..." he threw a smirk in Stiles' direction, then let his eyes bleed red, dropped fangs and roared.

In the tight space of the complex's hallway the sound echoed so loud that Stiles felt like his bones were vibrating. Davidson, to his credit, stood his ground, but his eyes went as round as dinner plates and the blush fled from his cheeks, his face going pale and shocky instead.

Perhaps Stiles should have gotten Allison to give Derek a talking to about first impressions.

The Dignitary suite was about as nice as a set of joined rooms in a military complex could be. It wasn't exactly five-star but there were some touches of luxury that meant the SGC had at least tried.

"Allison is going to kill us," Stiles ranted, pacing the room and pulling his hands through his hair.

"I thought it was funny," Derek grumbled from his spot slumped onto the dark brown pleather couch that was set in front of a fairly plain coffee table. There'd been a bowl of mixed nuts on the table and Derek had basically poured the whole lot into his mouth as soon as he'd sat down. Stiles hoped they'd been decorative instead of real, it would serve Derek right.

"Don't be cute," Stiles snapped. "I can't believe you're making me be the adult in this relationship."

"Pah," Derek said which, what even was that?

"Are you going through some kind of rebellious phase or something? Oh god, I never asked, but how old are you? Are you like a teenager or something? Is this what Atterian teenagers look like?" Stiles demanded, flailing his hands in Derek's direction.

"Stiles, calm down," Derek said gently, perhaps realizing that Stiles was no longer telling him off for form's sake but that he was actually getting close to real panic. "I'm older than you."

"By how much?" Stiles asked, momentarily derailed from the hysterical train.

"You need to tell me what's worrying you because it's starting to come out even though you're trying to repress it."

"Repress it? Are you seriously trying to Morrell me right now?" Derek just looked at him patiently, eyes concerned and understanding and Stiles let out the breath. "Okay, alright, I'm kind of, just a little bit, worried that the SGC might decide to... keep you."

"As in?"

"As in a little room somewhere, never to be seen or heard from again, except when they want to poke you with needles and harvest your organs."

"You think your people would do that?" Derek asked.

"Not... really? Maybe? I don't know. You always said an Atterian would give their life for any other Atterian, but my people don't work like that, or some don't. Some do. It's mostly why we have to keep the Stargate and Atlantis and everything a secret. That and I'm sure about ninety-eight percent of humans are completely happy to be ignorant of the fact that our planet has nearly been taken over and/or destroyed a bunch of times. Like, a bunch."

"Your people are happy being trapped on a single planet?"

"They don't really see it that way because they don't know there's an alternative. Oh hey, this is reassuring though," Stiles said when he spotted a large yellow envelope on a little corner desk in the room. He picked it up, ripped it open and upended the contents onto the coffee table. A driver's license, social security card and a number of other papers spilled onto the surface. Stiles plucked the license up and squinted at it, then huffed a laugh. "Oh my god, how is your driver's license photo hot? Everyone's supposed to look goofy. This a security feed grab and you still look awesome. Derek Hale? Huh. Not bad as fake names go and at least you got to keep your right first name."

Derek reached out a hand for the license and Stiles handed it over. "Reassuring?"

"If they were planning on tossing us into a deep, dark hole somewhere, they probably wouldn't have bothered with this stuff."

"Will you stop worrying?" Derek asked, standing up to clasp Stiles' shoulders and tug him in after tossing the license aside.

There was a gentle rap on the door a few moments later and they pulled apart, Stiles with a disappointed groan. "Ugh, worst timing ever," Stiles grumbled as he crossed to the door and opened it, then blinked in surprise. Davidson was standing on the other side, a couple of other young marines all jostling excitedly behind him.

"Um, sorry to disturb you but-"

"You want to see Derek do the thing again?" Stiles asked, rolling his eyes.

Seriously, how on earth was he stuck being the adult?

Stiles still couldn't quite believe it when after two days, as promised, they were released from Cheyenne Mountain and driven by Davidson to the airport. Stiles was pretty much still waiting for them to be black-bagged somewhere along the line so the SGC or the IOA or whoever would have plausible deniability, but before he knew it, they were being dropped off outside of Stiles' childhood home by a taxi and standing with their bags puddled around their feet.

"Antarctica," Derek said and Stiles nodded. The SGC had made Derek sign a whole bunch of non-disclosure related very official looking and threatening documents before they were released and had made sure he'd known Stiles' cover story. Stiles has asked for his cover story to have him on the International Space Station, but he ended up stuck in Antartica like everyone else because the military was incapable of being cool.

Being on the Space Station would have made it easier for his dad to believe that he couldn't be contacted at all while in Pegasus except for pre-recorded video files.

"I don't feel comfortable lying to your Lifegiver," Derek said.

"Believe me, it's one of those better not knowing situations. After you meet him you'll know that it's bad enough he thinks I'm where I am, let alone in space. With space vampires in it."

"And I'm your military boyfriend," Derek added dryly.

"Not as cool as being able to tell everyone I have an alien boyfriend, but close."

"Your life is very strange."

"Says the guy who was... um, y'know," Stiles said, feeling like it was probably too soon to make light of Derek's very recent tortured existence. It would probably always be too soon.

"You think he'll like me?" Derek asked, suddenly sounding achingly vulnerable and Stiles reached out and hugged him because he could.

"You going to stand out there for another six months?" a voice called from the porch and Stiles looked up and grinned, seeing his dad standing on the porch with a hand on his hip and biting down on a grin of his own.

"Sorry, just giving Derek a pep talk. You're a pretty daunting parent to bring someone home to," Stiles said, towing Derek towards his house after Derek had stooped to pick up all their bags and smacked Stiles' hands away when he'd tried to take half.

"Uhuh," his dad grunted, but then Stiles was being grabbed and reeled in and hugged so hard he swore his ribs creaked. "Good to see you kiddo," his dad said, sounding suspiciously choked up.

Stiles totally rubbed his face on his dad's shoulder in affection and not because he'd also had a bit of an eye-leak problem. "Dad, this is Derek," Stiles introduced when he stepped back.

"Good to meet you. I hear you've been looking after my son," the Sheriff said.

"Yes, sir," Derek agreed immediately.

"Good to know. I keep waiting for someone in Antarctica to call me to tell me that he went outside and forgot to put on a jacket or something."

"Har, har," Stiles said and herded both his dad and Derek inside the house again.

"I got steaks for lunch, hope that's okay. Stiles didn't tell me if you were a vegetarian or anything," the Sheriff said with a slight grimace and Stiles let out a guffaw.

"Derek's a total carnivore," Stiles dismissed and the Sheriff looked relieved. "There better be salad and at least one vegetable," Stiles added and the Sheriff's expression switched to resigned.

"It's started already," he grumbled.

"I don't think my judgmental face is quite as effective long-distance so I have to get all of my nagging done in a short amount of time."

"Except that you have spies, don't even ask me how. My deputies are supposed to report to me and yet somehow I get the feeling that you've gotten to them. The donut box is always suspiciously empty by the time it makes it to my office and yet there's a banana sitting on my blotter every morning."

"I may have led Deputy Dempsey and Calloway to believe that I could see them from where I was, and that I had lasers."

"Stiles," his dad huffed, aggrieved.

"You need the potassium more than the sprinkles."

"We're barbecuing on the back porch. You guys drop your stuff upstairs and then come out," the Sheriff said, obviously deciding this particular fight was not one he was going to win. When Stiles opened his mouth, the Sheriff put a hand up and said, "There's asparagus spears, okay?"

"If you wrap them in bacon it doesn't count," Stiles yelled at his dad's retreating back and the Sheriff flapped a hand at him as he went.

Derek was quiet during lunch, but it wasn't the same quiet from before they came to Earth, like he was braced for something. Instead he ate and seemed to just enjoy listening to Stiles and his dad reminisce and argue in turns about everything under the sun. Stiles and his dad tried asking Derek direct questions to include him a few times but Derek had managed to retreat into his more laconic mode, giving polite but brief answers.

"You guys good to go and get the groceries for Thanksgiving lunch later?" the Sheriff asked when they were clearing plates away. "I've got to go in to the station now and I'm not sure if I'll get back in time tonight."

"Sure," Stiles agreed easily with a shrug. He hadn't had to do anything as mundane as grocery shopping in a long time and it would be a treat to see how Derek reacted to the aisles and aisles of food, booze and candy. He thought either Derek would be thrilled or judgmental and figured either would be equally entertaining.

"I want a real turkey. If you bring back something made of tofu you won't have to take a plane back to Antarctica. I'll just throw you."

"You get a pass for turkey day," Stiles said and before his father could look too thrilled, he added, "Not an all access pass. You get one plateful of food and one slice of pie."

"But I always swing by Martha's and the soup kitchen on Eighth Street in the morning. Knocking back anything they offer me would just be rude."

"If you waste your food allowance before you even get home, that's your prerogative. Don't complain when you're eating a piece of broccoli while we chow down on the lovely meal I've made us."

"I think you forget sometimes that I'm the boss if you, not the other way around," the Sheriff said archly and Stiles snorted.

"Look at your life, look at your choices," Stiles said dismissively.

Derek wasn't as impressed with the supermarket as Stiles was hoping. He'd just raised a brow and said, "I think you keep forgetting that I was only living in a cave for a very short, pursued part of my life," and then had brushed Stiles aside so he could drive the shopping cart.

Stiles left Derek sniffing different types of bell peppers and frowning in the vegetable section and wandered towards the confectionery aisle. He needed to replenish his stockpile of peanut butter cups for the trip home and he was hoping the place still had some leftover bargain Halloween candy. He was holding a giant bag of mixed gummy skeletons when someone said, "Holy crap, Stilinski?" from behind him and then a warm weight landed on his back.

The weight was gone only a moment later, leaving Stiles to stumble forward a little. He turned and saw Derek had someone pinned to the linoleum floor. It took him a moment to recognize it was Danny Māhealani, Stiles' high school boyfriend underneath Derek.

"Get off him!" Stiles exclaimed, horrified. The supermarket was oddly quiet for the day before Thanksgiving, but there were still a few people staring in mute fascination at them all.

"He attacked you," Derek growled.

"Derek, I know him, alright? Get off him before you hurt him!"

"Too late for that," Danny wheezed.

"Derek, now!" Stiles snapped and Derek came up and off all at once, spine straight and bristling like a startled cat, which would have been funny under any other circumstances. Stiles darted forward, giving Derek a curt glare and held a hand out to Danny. "I'm so sorry, are you okay?"

Danny rolled onto his back and groaned, ignoring Stiles' offered hand in favor of eyeing Derek. "Since when do you have a bouncer, Stiles?"

"He's a little over-protective and... foreign," Stiles offered lamely, along with his hand again and this time Danny took it, still cringing a little like he expected Derek to tackle him again at any moment.

"Ow," Danny said pointedly when he was back on his feet.

"Derek, this is Danny. He's an old friend of mine," Stiles introduced, thinking it was probably better to leave out the part about them dating. It had been hardly a thing anyway, just three weeks that had been disastrously awesome or awesomely disastrous depending on how you looked at it. Stiles could pretty much sum up his love life as a series of similar short, ill-advised encounters until he'd met Derek. "Danny, this is Derek, my, uh-"

"Military boyfriend," Derek said with a completely straight face.

"Um... right," Danny said, looking dubious.

"Go pick out a turkey," Stiles said, pointing towards the freezer case and Derek looked torn because Stiles had been extolling the virtues of being the one to pick the turkey for their household all the way on the car ride over. He finally went, full of reluctance and kicked puppy eyes and Stiles felt horribly guilty.

"So, what's new with you? How's your sister? Does your mom still own the salon-"

"No way are you brushing this off, Stilinski," Danny said, shaking his head and looking equal parts amused and intrigued. "You're still doing the plant thing, right?"

"Uh, yes? I'm still a botanist so the plant thing is pretty necessary."

"I'm supposed to be the one with the cool job but apparently I needed to pay more attention to stems and stamens in school," Danny mused, watching Derek who was bent over at the waist, his entire torso practically inside the open freezer as he dug through turkeys. "What are you actually doing now?"

"I'm in Antarctica," Stiles said. He'd been waiting to say that for a long time to someone from his past. Danny was never one of those people that dismissed him, but it was still nice to say, to be impressive in the only way he could since he couldn't tell someone about the cool job he actually had and-

"No you're not."

Stiles blinked. "Yes I am?" The statement came out sounding more like a question than he would've liked. Of all the scenarios he'd run through in his head, someone flat out disbelieving him was not one of them.

"If you don't want to tell me, that's fine," Danny said and then leaned over to whisper conspiratorially, "I mean, is it drugs? Is that why you have such a hot bodyguard?"

"Oh my god, it's not drugs," Stiles spluttered. "Why don't you think I'm in Antarctica?"

"There's no plants," Danny said with a shrug, like it was more feasible that Stiles was some kind of botanical drug overlord.

"Not right now, but there were," Stiles snapped, unable to resist going into lecture mode in the face of such wrongness. "I mean, Late Permian Antarctica was part of Gondwana, a super continent, and as an ice age receded pteridosperms, woody, seed plants with ferny foliage, moved in, and a group called the glossopterids-"

"What the hell do you do there?"

"I study fossils," Stiles said primly. "Some of the pteridosperms had a common ancestry with flowering plants."

"Oh, well, that sounds... cool," Danny said in a way that Stiles knew meant that he thought the complete opposite.

Stiles let out a strangled, "Nice to see you again," and then stalked outside before he could really blow his top, and his cover and tell Danny that he was living in another galaxy with awesome military buds and that his boyfriend was an alien.

Derek emerged a few minutes later, pushing one cart ahead of him and tugging another one behind, both overloaded with more food than Stiles thought three people could eat in a year, let alone one lunch.

The Sheriff was standing on the porch in full uniform with his arms crossed, looking stern when they got back home.

"Oh craaaap," Stiles groaned, sliding out of the jeep reluctantly. "Who told you?" he demanded, stomping up the porch stairs. Beacon Hills wasn't exactly a small town but sometimes it felt like it, especially if you were the Sheriff's kid.

"There was about a dozen people who couldn't wait to tell me that my son's friend had assaulted Danny Māhealani in the Grab N' Go," the Sheriff said in his this better be good tone of voice.

"Was Danny one of those people?" Stiles asked, moving out of Derek's way who had every single shopping bag in his arms and was bustling busily by him.

The Sheriff blew out an exasperated breath. "Well, no," he admitted.

Stiles clapped his hands together. "Good, then no problem."

"It is a problem," the Sheriff argued.

"No, it's not. It's just gossip unless Danny says something."

"That's not the way the law works and you know it."

"It was just a misunderstanding and Danny was fine," Stiles pressed. There was clanging, bashing noises coming from inside and Stiles and his father frowned at each other and followed the clamor to find Derek in the kitchen, pulling out a giant pot and already with a number of other utensils and pans out.

"Uh, Der, watcha doing?" Stiles asked slowly.

"I am providing for my partner," Derek said, not even looking up from what he was doing.

"I have to go back to work. You two are in for the night, got it?"

"You can't ground me, I'm twenty-seven. You can't ground Derek, he's not even yours."

"Watch me," his dad said dangerously and left, shaking his head as he went.

"Okay, seriously, what are you doing?" Stiles asked.

"There was a nice woman at the market that told me that to get the best results, I had to brine the turkey the night before."

"You do? I'm making the lunch. I always do thanksgiving," Stiles said.

Derek levered upright from being buried headfirst in a cupboard and gave Stiles an impatient look. "I thought we already discussed this."

"What?"

"I'm proving myself worthy, as a life mate," Derek said, flailing his hands around in an exasperated way.

"You're... wait. This? This is what you meant?" Stiles asked.

"What else did you think I meant?"

"I thought proving yourself would involve bringing down some giant animal and presenting it to my dad with you covered in blood and possibly shirtless," Stiles admitted and Derek gave him an exasperated look.

"Stiles, how many times do I have to remind you I was in the military, Atteria had libraries and hospitals and schools before the Wraith leveled everything."

"I just kind of forget that because you can..." Stiles hooked his fingers into claws and bared his teeth.

"The two are not mutually exclusive," Derek said huffily and Stiles crossed over to him, wrapped his arms around Derek's waist and tucked his head under Derek's chin. It was a bit awkward because they were basically the same height, Stiles had to bend at the knee and sideways a little, but he'd learned fairly early on that he could soothe Derek's ruffled feathers by little-spooning him, no matter where they were. Scott and Liam were usually pretty vocal about objecting to it when they were on missions.

"Ugh," Derek let out, but he'd also gone boneless as soon as Stiles had cuddled him and there was the tiniest contented grumble under his noise of objection. "It's unfair when you do that."

"Well, I need something considering you can win every argument with me by being accidentally funny or ridiculously sweet or brain-meltingly hot and you're usually all three at the same time. I don't have much in my arsenal to compete."

"You're kidding, right?" Derek cajoled, using both his hands to tilt Stiles' face up to his. "You have eyes like a Grussul."

"What's that?" Stiles asked, not sure if he was being complimented.

Derek gave him a thoughtful look and then said, "Kind of big and slow. Good eating."

"Hey!" Stiles complained, play-punching Derek in the stomach. Derek just laughed at him which always made Stiles forget everything else because it was so rare. "You saying I'm good eating?"

"Let's check," Derek said and he was gnawing on Stiles' shoulder while Stiles protested and tried to squirm away when the phone rang.

His dad still had a land line with a cordless handset that was getting perpetually lost in the couch cushions. Stiles dived onto the couch and dug around, following the shrill ringing while Derek retreated back to the kitchen. Stiles finally unearthed the phone and answered with a breathless, "'llo?"

It was his dad and Stiles figured he was just ringing to make sure they were adhering to his unwarranted and totally unfair house arrest, but he surprised Stiles by asking for Derek.

Derek looked equally puzzled when Stiles went into the kitchen to hand the phone off and then pull himself up onto the counter next to the sink, drumming his feet idly against the cupboard door underneath until Derek pinned both his legs still with one hand. Derek listened with an intent expression for a few minutes before he got a chance to say, "Yes sir....no, that won't be necessary." There was another few minutes of silence, the Sheriff's voice tinny and indistinct on the other end and then, "Yes, sir, I would... no, that's.... always, yes."

Derek hung up without handing the phone back to Stiles and then turned back to what he'd been doing. Stiles glared at his back, then pointedly cleared his throat and then resorted to throwing Lucky Charms from a box he found in the cupboard by his head at Derek until Derek finally looked at him.

"What?"

"Don't give me what. You know what," Stiles complained.

"I'm not in any trouble," Derek said and when Stiles made yes, and gestures with his hands, Derek raised his eyebrows and said, "You're not either."

"I know we're not in trouble, Derek. Geez. We're not high school seniors that played a prank. What did my dad want to talk to you about?"

"Oh, just that he knows you're not in Antarctica doing what you say you are and he thinks I'm your security detail," Derek said blandly, like it was the most uninteresting thing in the world. "He asked if I wanted to sleep in the spare room."

Stiles just fish-mouthed at him for a moment, before he flailed his hands and nearly fell off the kitchen counter. Derek reached over casually and caught Stiles by the hips, shoving him back into his seat. "What does he think I do?"

"All he knows is it's something important and that you're not allowed to talk about it. He's just worried."

"What about the part where he thinks you're my security detail?"

"He just said I should have told him as he was the local law enforcement and asked if I was carrying."

"Carrying?" Stiles asked and it took an embarrassingly long time for it to register to Stiles what that meant. "What did you tell him?"

"I said I was," Derek said.

"He meant a gun, Derek," Stiles said and Derek frowned.

"Oh, I thought he just meant a weapon of any kind," Derek admitted and Stiles gaped at him.

"What weapon are you carrying?" he demanded and Derek sighed, put-upon, and then pulled out eight different knives. Stiles was watching him and he still didn't know where all of them came from considering Derek was only wearing a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. "Please tell me you didn't have any of those on the plane," Stiles groaned with a hand smacked over his eyes.

"Just this one," Derek said, picking up a blade that was thin, an odd-looking almost dull silver in color and like nothing Stiles had ever seen before. "The rest of these came from here," he added, waving a dismissive hand at the kitchen.

"I'm confiscating all of these," Stiles said pointedly, jumping down from the kitchen counter and then having to stomp around for a few seconds because his right foot was asleep so he probably didn't look as stern as he meant to. Derek looked so distraught at the idea of being completely disarmed that Stiles groaned again and then handed him the obviously alien knife. "You can keep this one, the one that doesn't seem to set off metal detectors," he allowed.

"If you'd just let me bring my dagger," Derek grumbled, tucking the knife away and Stiles would have thrown up his hands in frustration if he wasn't holding a steak knife in each.

"It's bad enough I have to put up with that thing in Atlantis, in our room, in our bed," Stiles said. "It's not going to infect my childhood home with its creepiness."

Stiles finished putting the knives back and turned to Derek to ask, "Um, what did you say about the spare room?"

"That it wasn't necessary," Derek said simply and Stiles nodded.

"Good."

On Atlantis, it was very rare that Stiles had a day where he could sleep past about six in the morning, Atlantis Adjusted Time, so he took advantage of the opportunity to be lazy. He was glad that he'd gotten tall enough to make a case for a double bed and toss the single when he was sixteen so he and Derek mostly fit in his old bed. It helped that Derek was a cuddle-monster, but Stiles still woke up alone at around ten.

He pulled a pair of flannel pajama pants over his boxers and clattered down into the kitchen after detouring via the bathroom. He stopped dead in the kitchen doorway, marveling at the amount of food that had appeared.

"Oh my god, what did you do?" Stiles demanded. The kitchen table was completely covered with different plates and bowls and every available space on the kitchen counters and it looked like Derek was still pulling things out of the oven.

"You don't think it's enough?" Derek asked, face scrunching up adorably as he surveyed his work.

"It's like that movie My Stepmother Is An Alien where Kim Basinger makes way too much food for breakfast because she's an alien and right afterwards she drinks battery acid, because she's an alien."

"I don't drink battery acid," Derek said.

"Not the point! This is way too much. We have to get rid of some of this."

"But I wanted to prove myself to your lifegiver," Derek said, mouth set in a stubborn little line.

"Yeah, you're going to prove that you're not from around here, if you know what I mean," Stiles said, shuffling Derek out of the way so he could get at the cupboard that would still hopefully hold the stacked horde of his mother's Tupperware. He was pleased to find it as full and chaotic as ever and started pulling out some of the larger tubs. "Dad said something about stopping at the soup kitchen this morning. If you want to impress him, then we can just happen to get there about the time he will and I can also stop him pre-loading on illicit turkey. Two birds, heh, one stone."

Stiles had very determinedly not thought about the return trip to Atlantis and how it wasn't as easy as stepping through the Stargate but a very boring eighteen days in a flying tin can.

"Don't let Colonel Leighton hear you call it that," Private Finnian said, dealing another hand of poker. They were using Peanut M&Ms as poker chips and Stiles was down to three red ones because he had a terrible poker face and also kept eating his money.

Thanksgiving and the rest of their stay with his dad had gone well, if uneventfully. It was a little fraught for Stiles since he knew now that his dad knew that he'd been lying about his job, but other than the phone call to Derek, the Sheriff hadn't brought it up again, had just squeezed Stiles extra hard when they were leaving and instructed Derek to keep doing whatever he was doing that allowed Stiles to return with all his limbs attached.

"Full house, read it and weep!" Finnian crowed, smacking his hand down and Stiles sighed and watched his last three M&Ms be swept up by Finnian. The guy had approached them on the first day after having heard from Davidson about Derek's very special growly face trick and Stiles had prompted Derek to humor him because it didn't hurt to have the marines that were cycling in on good terms with them considering Stiles had no idea how the spy hunt was going back on Atlantis and what they were about to walk in to.

They probably needed all the friends they could get.

It would just be his luck for Harrison to have managed to convince everyone that the spy was Stiles in his absence.

At least Derek was officially cleared of suspicion. Stiles had figured that they wouldn't have been allowed to head to his dad's place if it had still been a question anyway, but General Thomas had given them the official good news when they'd gotten back to Cheyenne Mountain.

"Do you have any candy?" Stiles asked, nudging his forehead into Derek's shoulder who was sitting at the table with him and Finnian but was engrossed in a thick paperback. Stiles had no idea what it was about or why it was so fascinating, but Derek seemed to be really pleased to have the time to just read instead of climbing the walls like Stiles had been expecting. Of the two of them, Stiles was the more impatient about being cooped up which surprised him but he figured that if your entire society was made up of super hero wolf men then some of those were bound to be nerds.

Stiles patted his nerd fondly when Derek grunted and dug a crumpled package of Twix out of his back pocket to hand over.

Stiles wasn't exactly expecting a welcome home party when they were beamed down to the gate room in Atlantis. He'd kind of been hoping for it, but hadn't been expecting it. What he didn't anticipate was for no one to be there, other than a couple of marines who were just there to collect either supplies or the new personnel, darting forward to collect either people or crates depending on their assignment. Stiles waved a jovial goodbye to Finnian and a couple of the other new guys that he'd been friendly with on the trip and wasn't offended when they didn't wave back, instead playing serious soldier to the hilt in front of their peers.

"I guess no one missed us," Stiles said.

"Or they're offworld or busy or..." Derek ended his sentence on a shrug, but despite his words, Stiles could tell that he wasn't as unaffected by the absence of a greeting as he was trying to appear. There was a worried crinkle between his brows.

Lydia finally appeared when Stiles had truly given up on the welcome committee and had started gathering up his bags, the one with the presents in it last with a resentful tug onto his shoulder. She looked grim and tired. Even her hair, normally shiny and perfect, seemed to be exhausted.

"Hey, hi," Stiles said brightly, because maybe Derek was right and maybe Scott, Liam and the others were offworld, but when she got closer, Lydia was chewing on her bottom lip the way she always did when she had to deliver bad news. Derek must have picked up on Stiles' sudden concern because he moved up behind Stiles until he was in contact with him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Stiles, can you come with me please," she said, inclining her head toward the hallway that led to the first row of transporters. Stiles might still get lost on occasion but he knew the layout of Atlantis well enough to know that wasn't the quickest way to the infirmary.

"Did someone... has someone...?" Stiles couldn't force the word died past his suddenly dry lips and throat and Lydia's mouth was a sad little line.

"We're going to the stasis chamber room," she said, holding a hand out for him and Stiles took it numbly.

"What's going on?" he asked in a small voice.

"It's better if you see first," Lydia persisted and he wanted to scream at her, shake her until whatever had happened fell out of her but he didn't do those things. Instead he picked up one of his feet and then the other, made them follow where she tugged, feeling Derek a reassuring bulk at his back with a hand still on his shoulder, squeezing in time with Stiles' suddenly thumping heart.

He'd been to the stasis chamber room just the once, previously. It wasn't really somewhere you went on a day to day basis but it was a place you checked out for the cool factor. Stiles had been a huge fan of the Alien franchise and always fascinated by the idea of stasis, of being frozen completely and it had seemed for the longest time that that would be the only way to achieve long distance space travel, before Stargates, before stable wormholes through space were an everyday reality of their lives.

Lydia lead Stiles inside and he could see one of the upright chambers at the end was occupied. The figure inside was a little murky at a distance, made almost indistinct but Stiles would know that particular figure anywhere, even through a dense fog.

"Scott," he breathed, putting a hand up to the chamber. "Oh god, what happened?"

Doctor Deaton had arrived right after them and he spoke now. "There was a device buried near the Stargate on P4M-779. It's a planet we'd been to before but it had descended into civil war since we'd first visited. The leaders of the Markuti people who were one of the factions that we had a trade agreement with called for assistance in negotiating a truce. We don't know if their opposition was targeting our people for helping the Markuti or had just booby-trapped the gate in hopes of killing fleeing refugees."

Lydia looked down, then up again, her face solemn. "It was my decision to forgo the MALP scan because we'd been to the planet before. This was my fault."

"What's wrong with him?" Stiles pressed.

"It was a chemical weapon that goes completely inert after a few minutes of exposure to the air, but McCall and Dunbar were close enough to be affected. McCall was closer and got a full dose. He and Dunbar came back through groggy, with blurred vision and chest pain." Doctor Deaton gave Stiles a steady, sympathetic look. "Scott has maybe an hour outside of stasis before complete organ failure. The compound slows vital organ function until they stop. We're trying epinephrine as a competitive inhibitor with Dunbar but we're at a point where we may have to think about putting him into stasis as well."

"There's no antidote?" Derek asked, eyes also fixed on Scott.

"The Markuti don't know of one. They were very apologetic but mostly unhelpful," Deaton answered.

"What about their opposition?" Stiles asked.

"The Balak have retreated and the Markuti claim not to be able to contact them."

"Do you think if we went through and punched the Markuti in the face long enough they'd figure out a way?" Stiles snarled, fists clenched.

"Stiles," Lydia said with a shake of her head.

"There's nothing you can do?" Derek asked and Deaton's attention went from Stiles to him and he frowned.

"The Atlantean medical technology certainly gives us a boost but there are still some things we just can't fix. We wanted to put Dunbar into stasis as well before his organ damage progressed as far as Scott's because there's always hope that we'll stumble on something in the Ancient databases or the Balak and the Markuti will be able to negotiate a peaceful resolution and therefore give us access to the Balak-"

"There's nothing you can do now?" Derek pressed, and now everyone was looking at him.

"No," Deaton admitted after a long pause.

"There's something I might be able to, then," Derek said and Stiles was sure he'd be able to feel Stiles' stare on the side of his face but he was very pointedly not looking back.

"Medically?" Deaton asked, perplexed.

"Not exactly," Derek hedged and Deaton looked from him to Scott and back again before he said, "I'm going to need to know what you're talking about, exactly."

"Can we go to your infirmary?" Derek asked and Deaton nodded and gestured towards the door. Stiles went to automatically follow but Derek put a hand to his chest. "Stay here."

"But-"

"Stiles," Derek said and even though it didn't explain anything, Stiles still subsided because he'd never heard Derek say his name like that before.

Stiles had stayed in the stasis room for a while but eventually he'd followed Lydia's direction when she'd left. He knew she'd headed for the infirmary and he knew for some reason Derek didn't want him there but he couldn't help his curiosity and Derek should have known that about him by now.

"-extremely fascinating," Stiles heard Deaton saying when he entered the infirmary and he followed the Doctor's voice until he found him towards the back where they kept most of the more fragile equipment. Lydia was standing in front of him with a contemplative frown on her face.

"And you think this could work?"

"It seems that infection transforms every living cell in the body that has a nucleus, rather than just infecting and destroying tissue like a normal virus. At least, that's as much as I can gather in such a short time. To be honest, I could possibly study his physiology for years and still not understand exactly how it works."

There was no sign of Derek so Stiles stepped forward and cleared his throat, making his presence known. "Uh, what's happening?"

"It's amazing," Deaton enthused, looking more animated than Stiles had ever seen the usually stoic-faced physician. "Derek can somehow infect someone else with his DNA, thereby transforming them. Upon entering a cell, his viral DNA can immediately integrate itself into a person's chromosomes."

"Wait," Stiles said, rubbing his forehead. "He can what?"

"He can transmit a kind of viral load of his DNA through a, well not to be gauche but I can't think of a better delivery system in the short term, a bite."

"He's going to bite Scott and somehow that's going to make Scott suddenly like Derek?" Stiles asked, puzzling out the gist of what Deaton was saying even though it was unbelievable. There'd been comparisons made between the Atterians and werewolves but it had been a joke. If what Deaton was saying was true, it was possible that maybe the werewolf legends of Earth had their foundations in fact rather than fiction.

"There's a good chance, yes," Deaton said.

"A chance?"

"There's risk, of course. Derek said that so far as he knew there was a good chance of transformation but that when this was performed on his own world, there were some occasions where the result was less positive."

"Less positive as in a bad hangover or less positive as in dead?" Stiles pressed.

"The latter, unfortunately," Deaton said.

"Which is why," Lydia interjected. "We will be giving both Scott and Liam the choice. They can either remain in stasis and wait for a more conventional cure or take the risk."

"I believe they deserve to know what their options are. McCall especially. Even if we were able to find the antidote and halt the progression of the poison, he would have to live with the damage already done. He would no longer be able to be in the military or frankly have many days without pain and treatment. We've found nothing in the Ancient databases that would lead us to believe that they developed anything that could help. You have to remember, they spent most of their time and intellectual energy trying to shed their physical bodies, not sustain them," Deaton said.

"Gee, a life frozen waiting for some miracle cure that might never happen or super powers, I wonder what they'll pick," Stiles said dryly.

"It's up to them. They deserve to be given an option," Lydia said gently, putting a hand on Stiles' shoulder.

"Where's Derek?"

"He went back to your room. We'll let you know when we're ready to take McCall out of stasis."

"Okay," Stiles said and retreated, desperate to see Derek and know what he was thinking.

He found Derek sitting on the end of their bed, elbows on his knees and fingers rubbing his temple, looking like he was bracing himself for something horrible, which he might have been. Stiles knew Derek would have heard him from the end of the hall, but he still felt compelled to clear his throat to announce his presence, not sure if a touch would be welcome right then.

"I don't want you to be there," Derek said, not looking up.

"What? Why not?" Stiles asked, thrown.

"It's not... it's shameful," Derek said.

"I don't understand," Stiles said, deciding to forgo his recalcitrance because he needed to ground himself and the best way he knew how was to be in close proximity to Derek. He wasn't sure exactly when the center of his world had swung so wildly in Derek's direction but he didn't feel much like fighting it right then.

"There was a time my people believed as the Wraith did, that humans were less than us, beneath notice. Don't get me wrong, we didn't hurt them or anything but Atterians for the most part were purists. They didn't believe in breeding outside our own kind. If you found someone that you wanted to be with that wasn't Atterian then you were forced to perform this ritual, regardless of the risk."

"Wow, that's, yeah," Stiles huffed.

"I'm not sure when it changed, but it did and this ritual became taboo. I'm very glad because my father wasn't Atterian and I would hate to have thought that my mother would have had to make the choice between giving him the bite and not being with him at all."

"Wait, does that mean you're half human?" Stiles asked, surprised.

"Yes, obviously," Derek said, sitting up and waving a dismissive hand down himself.

"What do you mean obviously? You're like a super-powered wolf man. Are you telling me that for the average Atterrian, you're only at half-strength?"

Derek offers him a wry grin. "I was bullied at school."

"Shut up, no way," Stiles splutters, his whole world view rocked.

"You're lucky. Full-blood Atterians have an interesting quirk when it comes to their..." Derek waved vaguely at his groin and Stiles' eyes went round with curiosity.

"Do I want to know? No, I don't want to know. Wait, do I want to know, or will it break my brain?"

Derek huffed a dry laugh and then looked at Stiles, his eyebrows knitted together. "I just... I'd rather you not see it. Is that okay?"

"Of course it is," Stiles agreed immediately and Derek relaxed all at once. He reached out and Stiles scooched sideways until he was enveloped in Derek's arms, warm and completely enclosed.

Stiles figured the best way to distract himself from what was happening with Scott was to get back to work, and judging by how frazzled Amber looked when he arrived in his lab, it looked like she would wholeheartedly agree.

"We have a backlog," she announced as Stiles waved to Mirren who was struggling with one of the wandering palms they'd found on PA4-656. Mirren waggled her elbow back in greeting because her hands were busy trying to arrest the clipping from trying to throw itself off the side of the table it was on.

"I can see that," Stiles said, eyeing the large pile of sample baggies clumped on his workspace and the dozen or so pots clustered around his chair.

"Plus we have the Paleobotanist," Amber said, flicking a finger across her tablet, "Doctor Fremen who... should be down here by now." Amber looked up at Stiles with a frown creasing her brow and he sighed and turned back towards the door.

"Probably lost. Happened to me a bunch of times when I first got here," Stiles said as he took the opportunity to retreat from Amber's glaring.

Stiles tried the couple of places he kept accidentally ending up whenever he was trying to find his lab and found Fremen and a couple of embarrassed-looking marines with him, Finnian among them at the third place he tried.

"This city is huge," Finnian offered with a wry grin.

"Protip, I know they're fun but don't use the teleporters until you know where you're going," Stiles said and the marines grumbled, but followed meekly enough as Stiles lead them back first to the gym which was as good a place as any to drop them, before he herded Fremen to the botany lab and got him settled.

Stiles lost about six hours or so pawing through the treasures teams had brought back for him in his absence, haranguing the IT guys about Fremen's access not being set up yet on the Atlantean servers and finding the couple of fossils he'd brought back as souvenirs to keep Fremen occupied when they told him it would be another twenty-four hours until he was able to log into their databases. Stiles didn't notice Allison was in the lab with him until she stopped him taking a sip of a bright blue root bobbing about in a mug of milky liquid instead of the cup of coffee he had right next to it.

"Oh, hey," he said, scrubbing a hand over his face. "How long have you been standing there?"

"A few minutes," Allison said, expression amused. "Long enough to find out you're one of those people that talks to plants."

"To be fair, Willis talks back, don'tcha buddy?" Stiles said, using the end of his pen to poke at the small bonsai on the shelf nearest his head that waggled back at him and shrilled out, "Bad touch!"

"So, how are... things?" Finding out Scott was on death's door as soon as he'd arrived back had made everything else fall out of Stiles' brain, including the fact that they were probably still in the middle of a security crisis. He immediately felt bad that he didn't even know if the Athosians had regained their city privileges or were still stuck cooling their heels on the mainland.

"Pretty sucky," Allison said, hooking a stool closer to her with a foot and then dropping onto it. "We still don't know how we've been compromised and we're still getting ambushed. I've had to suspend gate travel for non-SGC personnel."

"Seriously? It could still be one of ours," Stiles said.

"The SGC doesn't agree. Our screening process for staff is far too rigorous," Allison said, sounding like she was quoting someone else and the way her face scrunched up in frustration made Stiles think that she'd probably been on the losing end of an argument about that very thing.

"I'm telling you, it's going to be Harris."

"Stiles, please don't go around telling people that. I can't really deal with the paperwork if he makes another official complaint about you."

"Another?"

"Stiles, there's been three," Allison said, exasperated.

"What do you have against Harris?" Amber asked, coming over. She'd been working under him so Stiles felt a little guilty about bashing the guy around her.

"There's just something about him," Stiles said and shrugged. "Can't put my finger on it."

"He can be a little full of himself, but he gave me a congratulatory gift when he found out I was being put on a gate team."

"You were?"

"With the Athosians and the other locals grounded, they need to replace them with somebody for the support teams."

"I didn't know that was something you were even interested in," Stiles said, feeling like maybe he should have. He just... wasn't exactly used to having staff and needing to care about stuff like that.

"I didn't travel all this way to manage your diary," Amber said dryly.

"Okay, fair. What did he give you, anyway?"

Amber dug under her shirt and pulled out a chain with a silver charm on it that looked like a leaf. "It's thoughtful, y'know, since I'm in the Botany department now."

"Yeah, thoughtful," Stiles said slowly. "Can I borrow that?" he added, making grabby hands at the necklace.

"Stiles," Allison groaned.

"You want to borrow my necklace?" Amber asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Just for... science."

"Stiles," Allison groaned again, this time smacking a palm to her face.

"Are you just going to bother me until you get your way?"

"Pretty much, yes," Stiles said, nodding vigorously and with a put-upon noise, Amber unclipped her necklace and handed it over, pooling it carefully in Stiles' outstretched palm.

"You really shouldn't encourage him," Allison said to Amber.

"You don't have to be stuck in a small room with him for hours at a time. I pick my battles."

"What are you going to do with that anyway?" Allison asked, attention switching back to Stiles.

"Do you have anyone you can trust in the engineering and/or IT department? Someone really neutral?"

Allison still looked dubious, but also took a moment to think about it. "Probably Manahein," Allison suggested finally.

Stiles screwed up his face. "He's a structural engineer. I know this because he complained to me for about three weeks non-stop how he was the only structural engineer small enough to fit in the ventilation system to clean out all the Cold Thorn spores that got sucked into the ducts through absolutely no fault of my own while I was saving the city and many lives."

"Weren't you unconscious while Derek saved the city?"

"It was my idea, Mirren!" Stiles shrilled at the other smirking botanist.

"He's got a double doctorate in engineering and computer science," Allison interjected.

"He hates me," Stiles whined.

"He hates Harris just as much," Mirren offered and Stiles looked from her and back to Allison again.

"I think that's about as close to neutral as you're going to get in this city," Amber snorted.

"You're all hilarious... hey!" Stiles protested when Allison plucked the necklace out of his hand with her stealthy soldier speed.

"I know what you're thinking and... it's worth checking," Allison allowed grudgingly. "But it's better if I ask Manahein to do this quietly."

Stiles was still in the lab later, Mirren and Amber having taken Fremen for dinner, so he was alone when Derek appeared, looking tired.

"Hey, hi, how'd it go? Can I see Scott? Is Liam like a miniature Schnauzer now because that would be the funniest-" Stiles' stream of questions got interrupted by Derek simply putting a hand over his face. "Sorry," he offered, muffled.

"They're both fine," Derek said, sliding his hand down until his fingers were curled loosely around Stiles' throat, scratching at Stiles' nape.

"Can I see-?"

"I'm going to take them to the mainland for a couple of days," Derek interrupted.

"Okay. I'll pack a bag."

"I'm taking them to the mainland, just us."

"Oh," Stiles said, wincing. "Um, sure."

"It's just for the first few days. They're..." Derek trailed off, making a kind of helpless gesture with his hands.

"Are they dangerous?"

"No, nothing like that. It's just pretty common with a new bite and usually it takes a few days to get over the... behavior issues."

"Behavior issues?" Stiles repeated, desperately intrigued. "What kind of behavior issues?"

Derek let out a long-suffering sigh and finally said, "They're being dicks, alright?"

"What?" Stiles choked out on a laugh.

"Like I said, it's pretty common. I just figured if they were on the mainland for a few days they could get used to their new strength and speed and we could... minimize the damage."

"What did they do?"

"Let's just say that removing them from the city was a very strongly worded suggestion from Doctor Martin and I didn't disagree."

"Oh man, awesome. You sure I can't come? It sounds like I'm going to miss an epic camping trip."

"They already owe more than their fair share of apologies."

"C'mon," Stiles wheedled. "I'm not easily offended." Derek made a disbelieving noise and Stiles threw up his hands. "Okay, fine, that's a total lie but-"

"It's just a few days and we'll be only twenty minutes away by jumper."

"Booo, no fair," Stiles pouted and Derek shook his head but also planted a firm kiss on Stiles and then rubbed his stubbly cheek across Stiles' throat.

Stiles would never get tired of that.

"Do me a favor?" Derek asked and Stiles nodded, even though agreeing to something without knowing what it was could be a little dangerous where Derek was concerned. "Don't go offworld or do anything dangerous while I'm gone?"

"I, um, sure?" Stiles agreed hesitantly, because he figured the necklace thing was before Derek had gone and also, how dangerous could it be?

Derek raised an eyebrow. "I want to come back and find you completely intact, just the way I left you."

"You make it sound like I get into trouble on purpose," Stiles scoffed.

"Intact Stiles. That's what I want."

"That's what you shall get."

Derek sighed. "I guess I can ask Allison to watch you."

"I don't need a babysitter," Stiles spluttered.

"Okay, fine."

"Promise me, no babysitter."

"Fine," Derek grunted, sounding like an aggrieved teenager.

"I managed to not die pretty well before you got here, pal," Stiles pointed out. "Went a whole twenty-seven years without a mark."

"What about that scar on your butt cheek?" Derek asked, eyes amused.

"Oh har, you know what I meant."

"Your dad told me how you got that, you know," Derek said and Stiles dropped his head onto his lab table.

"I do not want to ever know how you and my dad ended up discussing my butt."

"I wanted to know if the tendency to get yourself in trouble was historical or a relatively new thing, since... well, me."

"Derek," Stiles said, picking his head back up and swiveling around in his lab chair again so his legs bracketed Derek's hips. "You're not bad for my life, okay? You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. Apart from, y'know, being in a whole other galaxy."

"He assured me that you'd always been like this, anyway," Derek said with a warm smile and Stiles chuckled and reached up to lace his fingers behind Derek's neck so he could tug him forward into a kiss again.

"See? Even my dad's on board this ship."

"I have no idea what that means," Derek said dryly, but also with the pragmatism that told Stiles that he didn't expect an explanation either.

"No offworld, no danger," Derek repeated, giving Stiles a stern expression.

"Yes, sir," Stiles said, cutting Derek a very solemn salute and secure in the knowledge that he wasn't technically lying.

"I just thought I would swing by and see if you'd discovered anything," Stiles said the next day when Manahein looked ready to shut his door in Stiles' face.

"You're not Lieutenant Colonel Argent, and Lieutenant Colonel Argent is the one that brought me the device so I should be making my initial report to her."

"Ha!"

"What?"

"You said device."

Manahein blanched for a second. "No I didn't."

"You just did, right then. If it were nothing you would have called it a necklace but you said device, which tells me it's a device and not a necklace."

"I really hate you."

"Is it going to be so bad to tell me what's going on before Allison? You can tell me, then you can radio her and she will come here and I won't leave which means I won't tell anyone before she knows too, I swear."

"Are you this infuriating on purpose?"

"C'mon," Stiles wheedled. "I know you want to tell me, I can see it on your face."

"If you were able to read my expression that accurately, you wouldn't be standing that close to me," Manahain said with narrowed eyes and Stiles swallowed and took a step backwards. Manahein finally sighed, defeat clearly in the sound. "Alright, fine, but my findings are very preliminary and we don't know what it means."

"It means Harris is a big ol' bucket of evil and I knew it."

"I'm going to regret this."

"You're saving the expedition."

Manaheim paused and raised an eyebrow. "You think so?"

"Absolutely."

"Well, okay, look at this." Manaheim picked up the leaf pendant from the table and waved at a computer screen showing an internal scan of the pendant. "It's a transmitter. It's broadcasting a continuous signal. I wouldn't have even noticed it if I wasn't looking for it."

"Wait, you mean it's broadcasting now?" Stiles demanded and picked up the nearest heavy object, a weird cat-like statue, and brandished it, meaning to smash the pendant as soon as Manahein put it down.

"The pendant isn't powerful enough to send a signal very far, certainly not through subspace. I'd say there's probably relay devices on certain planets that pick up the transmission and then alert the nearest hive ship. We'll probably find those devices on the planets we were ambushed."

"How many of these things are in the city, have been going offworld?"

"I did a refined scan for the signal and there are twenty-eight devices. They might not all look like this. I can rig one of the hand-held tablets to be able to track the signal so we can locate them all."

"Son of a bitch," Stiles growled. "Why would Harris do this for the Wraith?"

There was a kind of harmonic blat sound and then Manahein was slumping to the floor and Stiles spun around to see Harris standing behind him, hand held out and some kind of gold bracelet weapon in his palm. "Because I'm a Goa'uld," he said conversationally, not looking phased in the least.

"I knew it," Stiles crowed, but the feeling of triumph dissipated quickly as he realized he was in a room alone with a Goa'uld and the Goa'uld was standing between him and the only exit. Manahein's lab, unlike Stiles', didn't have any handy windows to jump out of so Stiles was basically trapped with a super-powered parasite that he'd been antagonizing for months who now had a very good reason to kill him.

"I mean, uh, wow, me too! What are the chances? Total snake bros!" Stiles tried, holding out his hand in a fist bump that Harris merely sneered at.

"If you hadn't been so determined to ruin everything, I might have found you entertaining enough to keep alive as a pet. Now though," he said, turning his hand so he could press something on his palm that made the gem in the middle of the gold bracelet he was wearing turn from a non-threatening blue into a very threatening red. "I'm going to enjoy-"

Harris didn't get to finish his sentence as something hit him from behind and drove him into the room and right into Stiles. He automatically tried to grab the weapon from Harris' hand but it was attached to him with intricate loops of delicate-looking but definitely not fragile chain. Derek, fully wolfed out and snarling, must have seen the issue because his large maw came down and suddenly Stiles was holding the weapon.

And Harris' hand that was no longer attached to the rest of him.

"Ah! Gwargh!" Stiles bleated, tossing the hand as far away from him as he could. He was still mostly pinned under Harris who was now letting out an inhuman screeching noise and he could dimly hear Allison's voice, yelling something like get out of the way, Derek, get off him! as she tried to shove into the room and didn't seem able to get past Derek's furry bulk.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity and was probably only a few seconds, Stiles was able to scrabble sideways enough that he could push himself the rest of the way free by planting his right foot on Harris' hip and shoving. Harris made another strangled noise of complaint but considering he'd just had his hand bitten off by a giant wolf-man, a kick to the side was probably the least of his problems.

Stiles was able to pull himself over to Manahein while the others apparently took care of Harris behind him and let out a long exhale of relief when he found a pulse. "Stunned, not dead," he said when Allison's face appeared in his field of vision.

"Are you okay?" she pressed and Stiles was confused until he looked down at himself and could see that his jacket was covered in blood.

"Pretty sure this is all Harris from the, y'know," Stiles said, waggling his own hand and feeling vaguely sick. There was the squeaking of more shoes from the vicinity of the doorway and more excited voices. Stiles could hear Deaton among the crowd barking things like stem the bleeding and extraction.

"Stiles? Stiles!" Derek's voice broke through everyone else's and Allison was being gently but firmly nudged aside so Derek could get at Stiles and pat him down, check him for himself. Allison duck-waddled sideways to Manahein.

"What are you doing here? Not that I'm complaining, but you were on the mainland."

"You wouldn't let me get anyone else to look after you, so I had to come back and do it myself."

"What about Scott and Liam?"

"You didn't say I couldn't have someone babysit them so Malia's exhausting them. There's a surprising amount of holes that need to be dug on the mainland."

"I bet they're loving that."

"I thought I gave you very explicit instructions not to get in trouble while I was gone."

"I didn't mean to."

"You never do."

"Fair."

"What was that thing?" Derek asked, tossing a look over his shoulder at where Harris was being bundled up before being whisked away.

"I guess you could call them our Milky Way version of the Wraith. Except, the Goa'uld are little snakey monsters with delusions of grandeur who take over human hosts to do evil."

"And here I thought our galaxy had the best nightmare monsters."

"Don't get me started on the replicators, or the Trust."

"The what?"

"Derek, you guys have it easy."

"That should be all of them," Stiles announced, dropping the last item to ping as a transmitter into a box that had been jauntily inscribed with a frowning skull and crossbones motif. The last item had been Erica's Bowie knife and Stiles hadn't been thrilled being stuck with the duty of telling her that she was carrying around a giant Wraith homing device on her belt.

She hadn't said anything but she'd stalked away from Stiles almost incandescent with unspent rage and he pitied anyone who had a sparring session scheduled with her.

He really hoped it was Doctor Lahey.

Allison pulled the box towards herself. "Do we even know when Harris made contact with the Wraith to set this all up?"

"Not sure. There's a couple of offworld missions where his team lost track of him for a couple of hours, but no one really thought anything of a scientist disappearing as long as they came back. I think Sargent Hilson was probably just embarrassed that he couldn't keep track of him, probably why he asked for Harris to be rotated off his team, but by then it would have all been in motion."

"I'm going to be having a chat with Hilson," Allison said grimly and Stiles pulled a face, but it was understandable.

"Do we know how long Harris was snaked for?"

"About six months before the expedition. Creeps me out that he was in Cheyenne Mountain, just biding his time."

"I thought there was a screening process," Stiles said, making air quotes.

"Everyone's scrambling to come up with an explanation for how he was on base for so long. It's a good time not to be in Cheyenne Mountain."

"Does this mean I'll have to be nice to Harris now that he's been de-snaked?"

"Possibly not. By all reports, his personality hasn't changed much, I heard one of the nurses say that the Goa'uld was actually nicer, apart from the whole trying to feed us to the Wraith thing. He's being shipped back Earth side anyway for debriefing."

"You mean I'm going to have a Harris-less existence from now on?" Stiles asked, fairly vibrating with glee.

"I'm sure you'll find someone else to annoy."

"Well-"

"Who isn't me," Allison said, giving Stiles her sharp smile, the one that was a reminder that she had access to weapons and wasn't afraid to use them. "How about you go crash for a few hours. I'll get one of the security teams to do a final sweep just in case."

"I do miss my bed. I haven't seen it in a while. I've started to forget what it looks like and I'm worried it might start seeing other people."

"I heard that's already happened," Allison said, not looking back up at Stiles, instead ignoring him in favor of pawing curiously through the box of transmitters.

"Um, what?"

"No. No, no, no, no, no," Stiles groaned when he finally made it to his room.

Derek looked up from where he was lying across Stiles' bed, sandwiched between Scott and Liam. He had pillow creases on his face and usually Stiles would find that hard to resist, except when Derek was in bed with two other people.

"It's not what it looks like," Derek said.

"You mean you haven't invited the new wolf boys into our bed for bonding snuggles without telling me?"

"Okay, it's exactly what it looks like. I just meant it's not, y'know, sexual."

"Oh, ew, gross, I know that," Stiles groaned, flopping into his desk chair.

"Uh, good?"

"Why do you guys always want to steal my bed?"

"It smells gooooood," Liam said, voice muffled because his face was mostly buried in Derek's arm pit.

"Yeah, I never realized how nice you actually smell," Scott said brightly from the other side, smiling and wiggling around like a contented puppy. "It's homey and comfortable and a little like cookies-"

"Stop, please, before you scar me for life."

"There's room," Derek offered.

"For what? For me to get in with you guys? I don't think so."

"Stiles."

"No."

"Like you said, it helps with bonding."

"I'm not Atterian. I don't like sharing."

"You share with me," Derek said.

"Please tell me you understand the difference."

"We could leave?" Scott offered, but he made absolutely no move to. If anything he scrunched down deeper into the pile of blankets.

"Or I will," Stiles said and turned. There were two very distinct thumps from behind him and noises of complaint and when he looked back, Derek was alone in the bed and Liam and Scott were picking themselves up from the floor. "Okay, at least you know where your priorities lie, where your bread is buttered, where you muffin is-"

"Please stop," Derek said dryly, but he was also holding out a hand and had the blankets flicked back invitingly.

"Please don't start anything till we're out of range, smell and hearing," Liam implored, shuffling dejectedly towards the door.

"What is their range?" Stiles asked, interested, busy heeling out of his shoes.

"The city apparently," Scott said with a disgusted twist to his mouth. "I can hear everything, and I mean everything."

"You'll learn to tune out the background noise," Derek said.

"When?"

"Eventually."

"Not helpful."

"Want to go back to the mainland?" Liam asked Scott as they disappeared out Stiles' door. Stiles couldn't exactly hear the response word for word, but it sounded negative and also involved the word hole.

It also made Derek smile.

"Hmm, I like this," Stiles said, reaching out to touch the upturned corners of Derek's mouth. He then kissed them for good measure as he was tugged under the blankets and arranged to Derek's liking.

"They'll need my help to adjust. They're doing pretty well but there'll be times where the change will be... difficult."

"I guess I can share you sometimes," Stiles allowed magnanimously. "Just didn't want to right this second."

"That's alright with me," Derek said with a larger grin that he dragged all the way down Stiles' body, making Stiles' toes curl in the best way.