chapter 3 Nichols Canyon Road

It had taken a major chunk of what money Derek had inherited from his family, along with selling a small section of prized Hale land to the Beacon Hills Wildlife Preserve Trust – they'd wanted that land for a decade and he'd made them pay through the nose for it – to buy the seven bedroom mansion in Nichols Canyon, but Derek had considered it worthwhile. While many people had thought he and Laura should have been rich from life insurance, werewolves didn't expect to die in accidents or in any fashion that would let heirs collect, so there hadn't been anything except a policy on the house. That money, when it finally was disbursed, had gone to Peter's long term care. Selling that small piece of Hale land had been the only way to fund the pack's move south. Thinking about it as he headed there, he still considered it the right choice.

The Nichols Canyon house had been a good buy, though. He'd sell it once everyone finished college and they could move back to Beacon Hills. By then, he figured to make a profit, since they'd all matured beyond tossing each other through walls before moving in. The rich neighborhood meant no one raised eyebrows over security fences or the way the pack kept to themselves, another plus.

Lydia dealt with being social whenever it became necessary. Derek wasn't positive, but he thought she might have fostered the idea she was a starlet and everyone else was her entourage among the neighbors. The credit card sprees on Rodeo Drive and her convertible probably reinforced that image. He had no idea what anyone made of the bounty hunting gear he sometimes still wore when he came back from a job.

Better than anyone starting to think they had a pack of werewolves living in the center of LA.

Two, in fact, but Hester's pack of undercover feds – all bitten wolves – had their own ways of keeping a low profile. It turned out badges could be useful even for the supernatural.

Lydia had been the one to find the house in the first place when it became abundantly clear neither werewolves nor magic users did well in dorms.

Anonymity and exclusivity were the first levels of protection for the pack house, but not the last. Derek had given his and Stiles and Danny and Lydia's paranoia free reign with his credit cards and it had resulted in a security system that outmatched most mansions in Beverly Hills or anywhere else on the planet. No more relying on werewolf senses only.. Working as a bounty hunter and occasionally helping Hester's Fed pack out when they ran into something supernatural had provided another layer of security in the form of being tapped into law enforcement networks. Scott and Stiles' devotion to first person zombie video games – along with Stiles' disgust with all the bad choices programmed into said games – had resulted in major, though hidden modifications to the house too, along with preparations for a siege or bugging out.

Derek felt confident the pack were all there at the house and fine. He couldn't pretend to himself he wasn't worried about them, however.

Full moons, Derek took them all into the desert or the mountains, federal lands, and they cut loose, howling, running, mock fighting and seriously hunting. One of the humans always went with them, to watch the cars or the camp or deal with anything the wolves couldn't while shifted. It kept them healthy and tight, just the way living in the same house did, cementing the pack's ties to each other.

Derek wouldn't regret the money even if he never sold the house either. While living in the urban sprawl meant he couldn't wolf out or wander four-footed often, it provided a level of safety from hunters that isolation hadn't offered his family. In addition, the house wasn't owned under the Hale name, so hunters weren't going to trace it to him and come looking for the pack.

Having a place to run wouldn't have saved his family when Kate trapped and burned them; there had been no warning. It might have saved Erica, though, if he'd had somewhere safe to hide the pack when the Alphas moved in. Backs to the wall, they'd had to fight. These days, he knew he'd take everyone and run rather than risk their lives over a territory. Escape routes were well and good, but they didn't get used if you were convinced you had to hold out because you had nowhere to go. Back then he'd been young, in over his head and too proud to admit how scared he was all the time.

When they went back to Beacon Hills, if he didn't keep the Nichols Canyon house, he'd use some of the proceeds to establish a safehouse somewhere. Somewhere a pack could blend into a populace. Hunters looked for wolves in rural areas; better to get lost in a crowd.

He didn't liked the crowds he'd seen as he made his way through LA. People were still trying to help each other out, but fear was creeping in at the edges. He'd come in through the north, bypassing the usual routes since they were heavily clogged with dead cars, and ended up picking his way slowly through the side streets because the freeways were a thousand times worse than the pile up on Interstate 15.

Then again, Derek didn't like crowds, period. Crowds became mobs with one finger point and accusation. Then out came pitchforks and torches, or at the least fists, boots, rocks and clubs. Just because he could survive a riot better than a human didn't mean he wanted to test his endurance.

Hunters might be a moot point soon, Derek reflected. Like everyone else, they'd be preoccupied with simply surviving, though probably better equipped to do so than most others. They shouldn't have time, resources or any incentive to come after a strong pack. He curled his lip. Hunters and humans weren't the only dangers. With the lights out, everything that lived in the dark would have free reign. Hunters would be the first thing most of _them_ went after.

Derek could muster little sympathy at the thought.

He took the bike through Cahuenga Pass down to Mount Olympus and into the canyon, leaning into the winding curves so he didn't need to slow down much. The back road and cross-country trip back had taught him all the motorcycle's idiosyncrasies. He liked it and thought vaguely if the world went back to normal, he'd get himself one.

Derek didn't think the world would be going back to normal any time soon, though. The lack of electricity, transportation and tech had everyone inconvenienced and irritated, but it hadn't been long enough for the weight of disaster to really make itself known. It was a slow motion catastrophe; the dominoes hadn't finished falling.

Heavy chain and a padlock had replaced the electronic lock on the gate to the private driveway. By the time Derek has stopped in front it, engine idling, one foot balancing the bikes weight on the brick paving stones – contemplating whether to break the lock or vault the gate while leaving the Norton outside – Isaac appeared at a run. He produced a shiny key and opened the gate.

"You got something running!"

Derek rolled the bike inside and motioned Isaac to climb on once the gate was chained closed once more. Isaac wrapped his arms around Derek in a tight hug and chattered into his ear as they made their way up the driveway.

"So, Scott wanted to go looking for you, but Lydia told him not to be stupid, you would come back to us and we have everything here to get along until things get right again," Isaac explained. "We figured you were okay. No one's eyes went red, anyway."

Derek didn't point out that none of them would become alpha if another werewolf killed him. Fight other werewolves wasn't something he worried about much any longer. Derek had been fighting for his life against omegas, betas and even alphas for the last four years. He was vicious when pressed these days. What Peter had done to Laura had taught him you couldn't trust another werewolf any more than another human, not even pack, not even family. Put together with the burn scars Kate had left behind on his psyche, Peter's betrayal nearly wrecked him, left him dour and suspicious and cold to the bone. Isaac and Stiles had been the ones who convinced him he didn't have to be. He extended a measure of trust to his pack now, but not to many others, even if he knew them, like Hester's pack or the McAllisters up in eastern Oregon. Any rogue beta or omega that came after him found out at least one reason there wasn't an Alpha pack any longer.

He parked the motorcycle between Boyd's brown pick-up and Lydia's cherry red convertible. Both vehicles had a light coat of dust and tree leaves caught at the base of the windshields, indicating that hadn't been moved in some time. The absence of any other familiar vehicles didn't surprise Derek. They had likely been away from the house when the electronics on everything failed. He knew everyone would have made their way back on foot.

The feel of them, worried but calm and now relieved, sifted through the pack bond. His shoulders loosened. He could tell no one was hurt.

The distant rumble of a generator, muffled behind walls and earth, meant someone had cranked it into life. The house would have running water; one thing Derek had insisted on was a well. He disliked even the idea of being subject to city water. Too dependent. Too easy to poison the water supply coming into the house with wolfsbane, if hunters ever found them, too easy to shut it off or for it to fail as it no doubt had now. A well, a generator and solar panels had meant not being vulnerable.

Since they were using the generator and potentially precious fuel, Derek presumed the solar panels had failed. He wasn't surprised; his life had taught him most things failed eventually. He wondered if he wasn't so much calm and in control as he was just desensitized to catastrophe. Stiles would say he was rocking the whole PTSD thing, dissociated from his emotions, but Derek didn't think so. Stiles wasn't always right... He felt emotions, he was aware of his damn feelings, he just didn't see any point of putting them on display. He shook his head, once, trying to shake away the thoughts about Stiles.

He knocked the kickstand down with his boot and killed the bike's motor. Phantom vibration tingled through his body after hours astride it.

Isaac drifted his hand over Derek's shoulder as he climbed off. "It's good you're back." He squeezed once before letting go.

Derek followed him inside, through the foyer and into the back and the big, all-purpose room with the wall of French doors facing out to the pool and the trees and shrubs that provided another layer of privacy. The rest of the pack, except for Stiles, were sprawled around the room, trying to look less tense than they were.

"Good, you're here finally," Lydia said. She didn't look up from the notebook she was writing and sketching in with a mechanical pencil. She'd drawn her hair back in a simple but still stylish ponytail. The strawberry blonde of her high school years had darkened into a deeper red, but she still kept it long and model smooth and shiny.

"Sorry I dawdled," Derek replied.

Boyd nodded to him and went on eating his way through a plate full of cut vegetables. Between Boyd's pragmatism and good sense and Lydia's brains, the pack had been in good hands.

Danny – their Danny, not the child Derek helped bury, his blisters healing before he drove away from the grave he helped dig, and he wished his thoughts would mend as easily – had taken over the largest coffee table and had a disemboweled laptop spread across it. He'd pulled the hard drives, set them aside and was examining the motherboard or whatever they were calling it for laptops these days. Derek used them, he didn't repair them. Chips, he thought, they used chips that had to be protected from electrical overloads. He remembered enough to know magnets created currents and to keep them away from delicate computer media, no more. Danny carefully set aside the piece of equipment in his hand before making a note on a piece of scratch paper and moving on. Watching him almost made Derek ache. The depth of his relief at having Danny there surprised him less than it might have once, though.

"Hey, Miguel," he said with a nod to Derek, the way he always did, a brotherly tease reminding both of them of their first meeting in Stiles' bedroom, when Derek had been a fugitive and Stiles had introduced him as his cousin.

"Danny."

Stiles was right. Derek was crap at showing emotion or saying anything, but the bonds that ran between the werewolves at least were filled with his relief and determination to keep them all whole and safe. All, the werewolves and the humans; Derek didn't distinguish between then any longer, didn't try to pretend differently. Maybe his voice gave away a little more than usual, because Danny looked up, brows arching over his dark eyes and flashed a smile at Derek that Derek returned with a slow nod, because he was still shit at being demonstrative and the whole pack, human and wolf, knew better than to push his boundaries, because it only made him worse.

He loved his pack. He trusted them. But not with all of him. There would always be a piece of Derek waiting for the next betrayal and a knife in the back. That's what life had taught him to expect.

His gaze drifted to one of the reasons he would never quite believe in his pack's devotion, no matter how many time Stiles urged him to let go of the past.

Scott McCall. Beta, but not a beta Derek made, and according to the Alpha pack, before their defeat, a destined alpha.

Scott and Allison were curled together on the love seat. No surprise. On one hand, Derek admired that they were still as devoted as they'd been as high school sweethearts. On the other, Scott's single-minded focus on Allison made him a poor leader. He'd always put Allison's welfare over his. Derek had no problem with that, but a good alpha – which _he_ hadn't been at first, he acknowledged if only to himself – looked out for all of the pack. Then there was Scott's determined idealism. Scott wanted to believe the best, wanted to give everyone a chance and then a second chance, and for every time it paid off, there were two where it cost someone their life or one of the pack pain and fear.

Scott might make a good alpha in ten years or so, though, Derek acknowledged, after all, Derek was learning too.

He doubted he and Scott would ever be buddies, though. Pack, yes, with all the loyalties that came with the bond, but not quite friends.

Derek thought that was okay, though. When he needed a friend, he turned to Stiles and had since almost the beginning, when they were still calling each other enemies.

Allison gave him a half smile. Scott opened his mouth, shut it, then blurted, "How'd you get the motorcycle to work? Nothing's running here. The electricity is out and the cars all quit and even when Lydia hooked up the generator, the laptops and TV won't boot. What's going on?"

Why Scott thought Derek had all the answers baffled him.

"Honey," Allison said while placing her hand on Scott's arm.

He looked abashed. "Sorry?"

"The motorcycle works because it's an older model. I got it from a woman in exchange for digging a grave," Derek said, even knowing Scott would demand to know what that meant and what Derek had done.

Allison and Stiles made up for Scott, Derek had long since decided. It didn't hurt to have a voice of dissent in the pack, either, but it was the three humans Derek valued most. Stiles and Allison were every bit as ruthless as the rest of his werewolves and able to do things the wolves couldn't. Allison kept them dialed into the hunter networks and Stiles had magic at his finger-tips, strong enough to lay out an alpha with word and rune traced in the air. Lydia was, of course, a social genius as well as intellectual. The three of them were more dangerous than any weapon ever manufactured.

He found himself half looking for Stiles, expecting to hear his excited voice, even though he knew Stiles couldn't have made it back from Baja Sur. Out of all the pack, Derek had been the one to protest hardest over Stiles decision to take the study trip to Mexico. Stiles had practically cooed at him, asking if the alpha was worried in mocking voice. Derek hadn't been able to admit it, but he was. The others hadn't realized that Stiles absence would tease at them like the hollow of a pulled tooth, an empty space they kept noticing without his presence. They naturally wanted everyone together. Derek just pretended he didn't, even as he relaxed when they were. He wanted all of his three humans here, where the pack could keep them safe, but especially Stiles. Derek missed the little shit. His absence felt like a hole in his chest now. It wasn't just the pack who needed Stiles. Derek did too.

"So, what's the plan?" Lydia asked. Her lips curved into a smug smile. Derek had no doubt she already had a plan and if his existed and didn't coincide with hers, she'd tear it apart with a few razor sharp remarks. He wouldn't enjoy it, but it was part of why he kept her around. Like Stiles, she called him on anything and everything stupid he did.

He walked over to the oatmeal-colored couch and dropped onto the cushioned expanse, then stretched his legs out. "Sleep," he decided. "Food." He tipped his head back and let the couch support it. Credit where credit was due, Lydia's decorating choices didn't just look good.

A couple of hours sleep would be enough to keep him going for days. Perks of being the alpha. He let his eyes close almost involuntarily. The couch was more comfortable than anything else Derek had ever owned. He re-evaluated the order of his plan. The couch smelled good; he didn't. "Shower first."

"Oh, and then, then we'll talk about – ?" Lydia demanded.

"Never mind that," Scott interrupted, "why were you digging a grave?" Derek heard him leave the loveseat and imagined the glare being turned his way. He swallowed a growl, hoping if he did, Scott wouldn't escalate this into another dominance contest. "Hey!"

Derek didn't bother lifting his head or opening his eyes. "Maybe I killed someone." He really wasn't good at not pissing Scott off.

"What!?" Scott sounded scandalized and that turned to anger. "What's wrong with you – You can't just go killing people – We should be out there helping them."

"Stop being stupid," Lydia said. "No one gives you a motorcycle for digging the grave of someone you killed." She paused before adding thoughtfully. "Maybe for killing someone... "

"No," Derek stated. He sighed and added for Scott's sake, "I didn't kill anyone."

"Scott," Allison said. "We don't know what Derek saw, but judging by what's been happening here... We should be happy he made it back." Derek opened his eyes, pleased she'd defended him, normally that would be Stiles' self-appointed job, and saw Danny nodding. "Lydia's still right. We need to stick close until we know what's going to happen."

Coming from Allison, that calmed Scott more than any explanation from Derek ever would. He sighed again, opened his eyes, and levered himself to his feet. He wasn't exhausted the way a human was, but he was weary. He didn't ask what she was talking about, assuming the humans were doing what humans did when the rule of law broke down. It was selfish, but _he didn't care_ : his people were okay.

"But Derek just said – "

"Scott. Derek just got here," Danny said. "Dial it back. We're all safe. That's what's important."

Everyone was safe for now except for Stiles in Baja. That was a festering sliver under Derek's skin.

"Fine, fine, whatever," Scott muttered to Allison. "It's just, we've been waiting for Derek and I want to know what we're going to do now we're all finally here."

Derek didn't realize he'd begun growling until Lydia snapped, "Stop it. – Scott, we aren't all here. Stiles, remember?"

Scott winced even before Allison punched him. Derek upped his estimate of Scott's alphahood to fifteen years. "Hey, you know, Stiles can look out for himself." His face darkened with embarrassment and what Derek hoped was shame. Scott never worried about Stiles. The member of the pack with a track record of sticking his nose into trouble, all with the best intentions – well, not bad intentions – and Scott never gave him a second thought.

Derek looked at Scott with arched brows. "I'm getting a shower, six hours sleep and something to eat. Then I'm going to get Stiles."

It was an old resentment, one Stiles never seemed to feel toward his friend, but Derek did. Scott had taken Stiles for granted and endangered his friend's life, leaving Derek to look out for him, more than once. It pissed him off then, when he didn't even like Stiles. It still did.

"I didn't think you'd worry about Stiles," Scott said baldly.

His claws punched through the upholstery. How could Scott not know Derek would go after him? Even if Derek didn't care about Stiles, and he fucking admitted he did, Stiles was _pack_.

"Stop embarrassing yourself and us," Lydia sniped at Scott. "Everyone here knows Derek worries about Stiles all the time." Her attention reverted to Derek. "And us. So, plan?"

She conveyed her usual condescending air, implying she knew exactly what they should all be doing, including Derek, but a hint of worry threaded through her voice. He noticed she didn't object to his plan, only wanted more from him. That meant that Lydia was scared, something she would never let show if she could help it. Derek got that, it was the basis of why they got along, in fact. Never show weakness.

"You and Boyd are in charge. Stay here until we get back, then we'll relocate to Beacon Hills if things aren't any better."

She nodded in satisfaction. "What about Hester's pack?"

"They're Hester's responsibility." Hester's pack were all adults and had been when the rogue alpha bit them. Hester struck him as eminently capable of handling any disaster scenario. She might be tiny and ancient, but she'd adapted to becoming a wolf and then an alpha after tangling with the rogue better than any other bitten wolf Derek had ever met. She'd take care of her own pack. "Don't invite them here unless something goes really wrong."

Lydia laughed at that and Derek arched his eyebrows at her, prompting a near giggle. "Really wrong," he repeated.

If Stiles had been there, Derek knew he'd have repeated his patented, _'Oh, my, God,'_ as dramatically as possible, then listed everything already wrong and all the possible causes.

"I should go," Scott said. "He's my best friend."

"No."

"But – " Of course Scott protested, but at least this time Derek knew it was out of care for his friend and not just to annoy Derek. It softened him toward Scott, the way Scott's good intentions always did. Not enough to change Derek's mind about who was going and who was staying, but enough to admit his own bad temper hadn't really been warranted. He needed to go after Stiles. He was the pack alpha after all, he told himself it was instinct to go after a missing packmate.

"I'm going. You're staying here with Allison." He knew that argument would crumple Scott's automatic protest of anything Derek decided.

Another stretch made the bones in his neck and back pop audibly. Scott winced and Derek hid a smile. It had sounded a little like it did when his bones shifted and he cracked his neck before taking his half-transformed shape, the nightmare wolfman version. Which usually preceded Derek throwing Scott around until the beta remembered who was alpha.

"I'll bring you some sandwiches," Isaac offered. "And there's some fresh fruit that won't last much longer. We're eating all that stuff first."

Derek nodded and headed for his bedroom and its luxurious in-suite bathroom. Clean clothes and clean sheets were in his future if for just one night. He clasped Isaac's shoulder briefly as he passed him, then Boyd's as he walked behind Boyd's chair. Boyd grunted around his food; he'd grown as taciturn as Derek after Erica was killed. Next, Derek touched his fingers to Allison's where they rested on Scott's arm and then pressed his hand to the top of Scott's head firmly in a mixture of comfort and authority.

Danny was already bent back over his laptop and gave Derek an absent wave of a hand, saying, "See you in the morning."

He glanced back at Lydia from the doorway. "You can tell me what you've figured out once I've slept."

"I can give you a short version right now."

Derek debated it and leaned against the doorway with a 'go ahead' gesture. Lydia tapped her pencil on her notebook and nodded, more to herself than to him, then said, "Theory A: High altitude electromagnetic pulse, likely from an nuclear device detonated over North America, in which case I would think that some low frequency radio transmissions from countries not effected in the either the Southern Hemisphere or Eurasia would now be making it through to hardened or protected receivers here."

"Or?"

"Coronal Mass Ejection. A 'super' solar storm, something bigger than anything ever recorded." Lydia made a disgusted face. "Which isn't even a blip compared to geologic or stellar time frames. Before electricity and satellites, how would we have noticed a solar storm? I think – Well, NOAA scales have noted aurora visible at latitudes as low as Florida in the case of G5 geomagnetic storms. The displays the last two nights have been brighter and more prolonged than anything I've ever read of, but they would fit with Theory B."

Derek pushed away from the doorway. In neither case was there anything he could do about what had happened beyond taking care of his people. "Is there a Theory C?"

Lydia gave him her Mean Girl smile. Derek braced himself.

"Fucking supernatural shit, of course."

Of course. He wanted his shower. Theory C would inevitably find its way to them if it proved out. If it did, they'd definitely need Stiles' brand of magic mojo.

~*~

The Norton ended up with its tank filled with gasoline scavenged from Lydia's convertible. Isaac took care of it while Derek was still sleeping, mentioning it casually when Derek walked into the kitchen following the scent of food and pack, still disconcerted by his dreams of Stiles' lean body under him. He didn't let himself think about Stiles that way usually, though it had grown more difficult lately, but it shocked him how much he wanted that dream.

Derek forced himself to focus on logistics instead.

They actually had cans of stabilized fuel, additives, oils and other fluids in the garage. Boyd had insisted on all their vehicles being equipped with siphons that worked with a squeeze bulb instead of needing someone to suck gas. Boyd hated the taste and smell of gasoline and diesel. No one knew why or had the gall to ask; if Boyd wanted you to know something he said it. Otherwise, he said nothing and that hadn't changed since high school. Derek found Boyd soothing. He watched with strange, touched feeling as Boyd added one of those siphons to the backpack standing open on the kitchen counter. He could see everyone had added something to it. Sunshine filled the room, promising another beautiful day, at least until around noon when the heat reached unpleasant levels that would linger well past dusk. The rest of his pack moved sleepily around it, padding on silent bare feet, brushing up against each other and Derek repeatedly, acting like a family should. He had to blink hard when he realized that. His pack was finally what he'd been longing for since the fire.

Derek almost choked on his coffee. Instead, he muttered a soft thanks to Boyd.

"Stiles said you never can be sure gas stations down there will have gas and that was before this shit storm hit," Boyd explained. He showed Derek the rest of what he'd gathered from the house's supplies. Nalgene bottles for water, two extra epipens, one loaded with the ashes of a variety of the common wolfsbanes hunters used, one with the exotics like Nordic Blue Monkshood: that had been Melissa McCall's idea and all of them carried one each now. Isaac had probably been the one to decide Derek should carry spares.

Boyd held up an item sealed in a clear plastic baggy. "This is the same kind of water filter Stiles took with him."

Derek didn't say he didn't need it. Stiles might. He just went on eating the massive breakfast Isaac had whipped up. The six burner professional quality stove was gas and still worked and Isaac was the best cook out of all of them. He had already put together a cooler filled with plastic tubs of sandwich fixings for Derek to take with him along with high calorie military rations. Isaac never made sandwiches to go – said they got soggy – instead he sent everything to put together a great sandwich. Take and make instead of take and bake.

Isaac loved Papa Murphy's pizza take and bake.

A rolled up sleeping bag sat next to the backpack, ready to be tied down at the bottom.

"Should we be thinking sustainability at this point?" Lydia asked. Danny picked an apple out of the half empty pottery bowl on the counter and crunched into it, nodding his secondment of her question.

Derek swallowed his scrambled eggs before replying. "You know more than I do."

"I was just thinking it would be easier to go out and pick up things like seeds and gardening tools now," she said. "If we're staying here."

"Even if we're not, seed packets are pretty light. We could carry them with us if we left," Danny volunteered. He tossed Boyd an apple, round and green, Derek's favorite, and Boyd tucked it into the pack.

"Or just get them when we get to Beacon Hills," Scott said.

"Yes, but Scott, what if we don't make it there for some reason?" Allison pointed out.

"Better to be completely prepared, as Stiles is always telling us," Lydia declared. "We'll lay in a supply. We need to find out what's going on in the rest of the city anyway. – Danny, did you get that laptop working?"

"Not that one, but we've got a couple that were insulated down in the basement, the way Stiles insisted. They're working, but there's no Internet, no servers, no ISPs up to hook up to," Danny answered. "There might be military or even harden private networks, but they're not open to anyone outside their systems." He made a face. "Everything else is fried. Grids still down. No one's coordinated enough to start any repairs. Some radio is back up though." The shadows under his eyes testified to how late in the night he'd worked to find out even that much. "It doesn't sound good. Mostly FEMA recordings, nothing useful."

"Santa Ana's are blowing again," Isaac muttered. He served plates of eggs and sausage to Allison and Scott.

"Pay attention to the wind," Derek said. "It's still wildfire season."

"There was a fire up in the San Bernardino Mountains before the Crash," Boyd said. "No one's been fighting it since."

"If a fire comes through here," Derek ordered, "run. Don't try to fight it, don't endanger yourself trying to take too much with you. You can scavenge, as long as you're all alive."

"We'll be here when you get back," Scott said. "If we're not, we're headed home. We won't take any dumb chances."

Derek huffed out a skeptical breath, but nodded. "I should go." Part of him felt guilty over leaving them again so soon. Was going after a single pack member – because it was Stiles, he'd always go after Stiles if he could – too much, too like the narrow-focus he criticized in Scott?

None of his pack had seemed surprised or disagreed with his plan, not even Lydia.

Scott surprised him into freezing by wrapping Derek in a tight hug. "Get Stiles and take care of yourself."

Derek awkwardly patted Scott's back before stepping away from the hug. He was a little more prepared as the rest of his pack also hugged him one by one.

Lydia hugged him last and patted at Derek's chest once she let go. "We need you both."

Isaac ran ahead of him to unlock the gate again as Derek rolled the bike down the bricked drive. Just as Derek steered through, Isaac crowded close and shoved bag of Reese's Pieces into Derek's jacket pocket and a pair of black aviator glasses into Derek's free hand.

"Stiles' favorite," Isaac explained. "Be careful, Derek. I don't want a new alpha."

Derek arched his eyebrows. "Don't make me have to bite a bunch of new betas." No one could replace his betas. He might not have known jack when he started his pack, but he'd never regretted anyone he bit voluntarily. The only others had been Jackson, who had blackmailed him, another reason the Bite had gone sideways with the boy, Victoria Argent in wolfsbane dazed attempt at self-defense, and Gerard –

He didn't like to remember Gerard and the way Scott, under Deaton's tutelage, had used him. Or the pain and hell that came afterward as result of that genius plan, either. They'd survived and he'd even accepted Scott back into the pack. Things were good now.

He should have known it wouldn't last. Derek scowled at the thought. Stiles would kick him for thinking like that, calling it regressing, and insist instead that, yes, they, including Derek, _did_ deserve good things, even if disaster was always around the corner.

"You'd miss us," Isaac crowed, dragging him back from the dark turn his thoughts threatened to take.

"I just don't want to train any more new wolves."

Isaac just grinned. Derek tried to growl, but the sound that came out was one he remembered his father making, a chest deep rumble filled with affection. He muttered his dad's old mantra under his breath, "Be good," and revved the bike, but knew Isaac heard him anyway before he drove away. He was already calculating how much time he could save getting to Stiles if he skipped stopping to sleep anywhere as he turned south toward the border.