Monster. (Sterek)

Part 27: The Chains Of Our Past.

~~~~~

The Pack wasn't so excited to hear that Stiles wanted to talk to Scott. There was a lot of shouting and questioning. The scent of outrage filled the loft and the loud noise grated on Derek's ears. He called over them all, silencing them before saying, "Let Stiles explain."

"I need to talk to him, I need to give him a chance." Stiles shuffled his feet, looking to Derek for confirmation before he went on, "I know he doesn't deserve that, and I know that I'm not the only one he hurt, but I can't just give up on him. You guys never gave up on me so why should I give up on him?"

"Stiles, there's a big difference between you and Scott." Lydia sighed, "Look, I understand where you're coming from but are you sure this is a good idea?"

Stiles rubbed at the back of his neck, "How often do we give up on the people we care about, especially in this Pack? Look around you," he gestured around the living room of the loft. "Not all of you have done bad things but you have all gotten yourselves into situations where The Pack could've given up. We never did, and that's partly due to Scott. I am not trying to justify him or what he did in any way. I just think that I won't be able to rest knowing that I never gave him another chance; that I just gave up on him." Derek moved to grip one of Stiles' shaky hands, pulling him to his side and looking around the room.

Isaac sat up a little, "If he comes back here then I don't know if I want to see him, I'll think about it, but if you want to go and talk to him then you should."

"Are you sure?" Stiles had told Derek before that he expected Isaac to react poorly or be mad and that that was not what he wanted. He knew that Stiles would back down if Isaac asked him to.

"Yes, I am. I know that losing someone, in any way, when you have unresolved issues with them is hard." They all knew what he was referencing. He very rarely spoke about his past at all, let alone like this, "I think if you want to try to fix things then go ahead, just so long as you don't expect me to talk to him and he doesn't get a free pass back into The Pack. He has to at least try; talk to all of us or something."

"Thank you, Isaac." Stiles smiled and Isaac gave him a small nod.

"This is a stupid idea, Stilinski," Jackson said as he stood up.

"Well, thank you for your input, Jackson."

Jackson beamed at Stiles, "Any time. Now I have to go, but you have fun talking to someone that's surprisingly managed to be below your intelligence level." He and Ethan left after Ethan gave Stiles a sympathetic smile.

"And here I was thinking we were becoming friends."

*****

With a lot of long conversations and agreements, deals and understandings, The Pack slowly came round to the idea. Not everyone did, but enough. Some of them understood Stiles but still weren't happy with the idea, but it was agreed that Scott could at least be offered the chance to come back to town and talk to them all. So long as he didn't expect to be forgiven.

Kira was shocked to see Derek at her door asking for Scott's whereabouts but was happy to give them up.

It only took them a few hours to get there but, once they had arrived, they had to wait for Scott to get back from work. As they waited, doubts began to creep into Stiles' mind, slowly working their way around all his justifications for coming here and tightening their grip until they exploded from his mouth in a flurry, "Was this a bad idea, what if he gets mad, what if I make things worse, what if everything goes wrong, what if he truly hates me, what if he laughs at me for thinking he'd even want to see me, what if he's happy here, what if--" He broke off in desperate need of air but before he got a chance to continue Derek pressed a hand to his mouth and shushed him. "Um, rude." It came out jumbled against Derek's fingers, Derek grimaced and pulled his hand away again.