It was strange.
The last time she was walking around the forest the way she was now, she was helping Scott look for his inahler. How the times had changed so drastically.
She'd crossed off every patch of land that she had searched, she'd wasted an hour. She supposed it wasn't truly a waste, but she didn't have many left to investigate. All she could think about was how with each bit of ground she was getting closer, and yet, with still no sign of it she probably wasn't going to find them.
What if she didn't find them?
If she didn't find them then there was no more being sat in the back of a car as they rushed a quick family meal. There was no more walking to the school or the police station so that she could get a lift. There was no more sharing videos of Stiles, as they both got so excited to watch him grow up. No more family trips to the grave, or sat on the sofa together watching the tv. There'd be nothing.
It would be just her and Stiles. Stiles was sixteen it couldn't be just them. Her wage wasn't good enough to cover them both. She had no idea what she was going to do. She needed her dad, she would be the first to say it and she'd say it until her own dying breath. She needed her dad because she wasn't allowed to need her mom anymore and she desperately, desperately needed her mother.
Hearing voices, she stepped over a few branches and climbed over fallen trees. The leave clinging to her shoes and trousers, and every step was beginning to grow painful. She wasn't a hiker or a trekker.
Grabbing onto a tree, she looked into a small opening to see Scott, Allison and Isaac.
"Do you know where they are? Have you found them?" Julie immediately called out, and she headed over to them.
"We think we know where the Nemeton is. What- what are you doing here?" Scott asked, and Julie held out her map to them.
"I figured out where the Nemeton should be... although I got a pretty big area to explore. I've already marked a lot off, but we've not got much time and we've got a lot of ground to cover. Unless you can tell me the very exact location-"
"We can tell you the very exact location," Scott said and Julie nodded.
"Oh thank god."
"I still haven't gotten anything from Stiles, you?" Isaac asked, and Julie looked to him her body frozen.
"What do you mean by that?"
"He was meant to meet us-"
"He's knows what he's doing. He'll know how to find them," Julie said, although it didn't bring comfort to her.
"I don't get it..." Scott said, he knew he should be able to find them just fine. He didn't doubt his friends intelligence, but still. They had a plan.
"All right. Well, we can't wait for him. Come on."
Julie took in a deep breath, the knowledge that they had such limited time in order to find their family. All of their parents being at risk, it wasn't something that she could feel settled with. It was in her heart. That weight that's all psychological yet it hurts just as bad as if there was something real.
"Cutting it a little close, aren't we, Scott?" Deucalion's voice rang out.
Julie glanced back to see him stood waiting for Scott. "We got a little delayed, where are the others?"
"Occupying themselves with other pursuits..."
Scott sighed at the news, "so, it's just you and me against her?"
"I think you'll be surprised what a good team we make."
"Okay..." Scott turned to look at Julie, Isaac and Allison, "get Stiles, and get to the root cellar, okay? We'll keep Jennifer away long enough for you to get them out of there."
"How are you gonna do that?" Isaac asked.
"I have a plan."
"That plan better involve you staying alive, Scott, otherwise I'm burning every werewolf in this town to the ground."
"I'll do my best," Scott said.
Hearing the sound of her phone going, Julie grabbed onto the device pressing it to her ear.
"Juliette? It's Cora," Julie smiled slightly. Cora was just fine. That was a relief in its own right, "I'm with Lydia at Derek's. The twins just fought Jennifer... but they're alive. I don't know who to take them to, can you come help-"
"Cora, I really need to find my dad, and Melissa and-"
"Give me the map," Isaac cut in, and Julie looked at him confused, "Stiles is looking for your dad, we're looking. We've seen the Nemeton, we've been there before. We know how to get there-"
"You what?"
"Yes, we do- so give us the map. We'll find them. You go help them-"
Julie thought on it as the map was taken from her hands. She was supposed to give up finding her father in order to save two twins who'd killed someone she knew. Who'd killed a perfectly kind sixteen year old boy.
"You're a doctor aren't you? Go be a doctor."
______
"Ah- I can't believe I'm doing this. I cannot believe that I am doing this," she muttered, over and over again as she drove to the loft. She was speeding, although she felt as if she knew the patterns of who was patrolling where so that hopefully she wouldn't get pulled over. Everyone was too busy looking for the sheriff to care about traffic control.
Dialling Joe, she waited for it to ring and was relieved when he answered, "Juliette?"
"Hey, Joe, I need you to tell me everything you know about werewolf anatomy. Quickly."
"What? Why? I thought you were looking for your dad?"
"So did I, but Joe this isn't quickly-"
"Right okay, do you know what the wounds are?"
"From what I've gathered we're looking at lacerations... maybe abrasions I don't know. I'm not at the scene yet. Jennifer was the one to do it so I'm thinking of mistletoe. Probably a lot of crushed bones and all of that, but you guys can heal that on your own, right?"
"Yeah, that'll be fine. It'll be exhaustion. It'll be the body not being able to heal itself, so check for mistletoe, check for poisoning. I'm not going to lie to you Jules, I don't know much. No one really teaches you anything in relation to werewolf medicine."
"Surely you've got text books and all of that-"
"Nope. Not in hundreds of years."
"Why are you all so outdated?" She shouted, although she regretted it as she heard his hiss of pain.
"You don't need to shout, I'm right next to the phone dumbass!"
"Oh, shut up. Is there anyone else I can call?"
"Try the vet. Deaton, he's a druid so if there's anything at all he will be able to help."
"Right, okay. God it's still so ironic."
_______
Running up the stairs to the loft, Julie didn't even think about the potential dangers or traps that she could have been running into as she entered the building.
She was greeted with both Lydia and Cora crouching down beside both Aiden and Ethan, both of them doing anything they could think of in order to help.
"What have we got?" She asked, throwing her coat on the floor and pulling on a pair of gloves. Cora looked at the gloves funny.
"Did you come from the hospital?"
"Nope. They're mechanical gloves, but they're werewolves. I doubt they're dying of sepsis. What happened? I need all the information you have?"
Lydia immediately began talking, explaining every detail that would be relevant whilst Julie was doing a quick check on them both to try and paint a picture.
"Julie he's not breathing," Cora interrupted.
Julie's head lifted up from Ethan to look over at Aiden, who as Cora had said, wasn't breathing. "Oh... does CPR even work on werewolves?" She asked, jumping over to them, "we need to get them to Deaton. I'm completely out of my depth here."
"We can take Derek's truck-"
"Derek has a truck?" Julie asked, looking up at Cora as she began the cpr.
"Yeah... and the rest."
"I always wondered what he spent his money on... right okay... can you hear anything? I've not got my stethoscope-"
"He's breathing."
Pulling away, she pressed her fingers against his neck, "there's a pulse...okay, we need to move them now to someone who can actually heal them."
______
Cora was the one to carry Aiden in, whilst both Lydia and Julie carried Ethan in with much difficulty. As they got in, Cora laid Aiden down on a table as per Deaton's instruction.
"Cora, grab that table," Deaton ordered, before helping the two humans get the other werewolf onto the table, "grab his hand. Here you go, take his hand."
Julie stood back, observing until she could be helpful. She knew how annoying it was for people to get in your way when there was such a time sensitive incident in front of you.
"Can you save them?" Julie asked, "Joe said that you can't save werewolves medically- that there's no research or anything-"
Cora batted her hand against Julie telling her to shut up. Although, she was just as worried as the other. Julie didn't understand why she was worried, these were two horrible cretins of children. But she supposed they were just that, just children.
"Only if they start healing on their own..."
______
Flicking through the magazine, Julie kept glancing between the models in her book and the two men in front of her. She didn't want to leave them yet, she had one job. Keep them alive. She had to do that when she'd stopped looking for her own father. Why the hell did she even do that?
Tapping her fingers on the metal counter, she wondered how they were all doing. With the weather that she'd seen outside, she imagined that whatever hole they'd been trapped in was going to cave in on them. Blunt force injuries, crushed organs, internal bleeding, fractured bones, shattered bones, brain matter on the floor, muscle necrosis, organ failure.
Whoever got to them would have to be prepared for anything. None of them were even medically trained. The only thing Stiles knew about CPR was that the beat of Stay Alive was perfectly matched to it. She should have gone with them, she knew she should have gone with them.
"I knew..."
Hearing the voice, she glanced up to see Aiden's eyes half open, staring at Lydia.
"What?"
"I knew you liked me," Aiden said, with a small smile.
Julie looked back at her magazine, flicking the page to see a bride in a delicate white wedding dress. Sighing, she placed the magazine down. Why was everyone so happy in relationships all of a sudden?
Hearing her phone ring, she jumped having not expected it and scrambled to get the device. Quickly answering it, she held it to her ear waiting, "Jules?"
"Stiles? Where are you? Are you okay? Do you know if they found dad? Is there brain matter?"
"What?" Stiles asked, and she could hear his confusion. She admitted, the last statement was unneeded but she had to know. She needed to know everything.
"Yeah, we're okay. We're all okay. I found them."
She breathed out in relief, a small smile forming on her face as she did so, "oh that's great. That's wonderful.... the twins are okay. They're stable."
"You saved the twins?"
"I tried to... although granted, one of them was very close to being declared dead. In fact, he did die. He died, and well... i guess I did save him."
"Why the hell would you do that?"
Julie remained staring at them, watching their chests rise as they breathed, "that's an excellent question. Have you heard from Scott? He went with Deucalion."
"Derek went to find them." Lydia interrupted.
Julie's face dropped as she leaned further into her phone, "Stiles you better know where they are, I have just heard from some top-secret intelligence that a certain ex-alpha werewolf who belongs to big werewolf family is with them."
"Why not just say Derek? And yes, Scott just got us out. We're all good. We're heading to the hospital so that Dad, Melissa and Mr. Argent can get checked out."
"Okay good, do any of them have any sign of injuries? Can they tell you what happened in the past couple of days."
"They're fine... although, we've got some explaining to do... to dad."
______
"So Derek's a werewolf?" Noah asked.
He was sat on the sofa both of his arms outstretched. Stiles sat to the left of him, his head on his chest, and Julie was sat on the right of him her head sat on her father's chest as well. The three just patiently waiting for the fear to subside. They knew it wouldn't, they had some time before they were okay again but right now they were content.
"Yeah," Stiles droned.
"Juliette, sweetie."
"Yeah?"
"You were dating a werewolf... and an ex-convinct that made a mockery of my police station?"
Shifting to get more comfortable, Julie lifted her head so she could smile at her father, "but I'm a doctor, aren't you proud of me?" She countered, and he looked at the teasingly innocent face she was pulling. He felt as if he was looking at her mother, but he could see Claudia in Stiles as well. Regretfully he looked at his children and saw Claudia every day. In their eyes, in their hair colour, in the shapes of their noses. In their behaviour and their jokes.
"I could never not be proud of you," he assured, "of both of you. I love you both so much."
"We love you too, Dad," Stiles countered. All of them finding some peace in the moment.
"But still, Derek Hale Jules? Come on."
"Yeah..." Julie said, her heart aching just a little bit more, "he was a really beautiful story, dad. Mom would have loved it."
"She would have."
"I still hate him," Stiles muttered.
Noah began to laugh, before he kissed both his kids foreheads one at a time. Both Julie and Stiles looked at each other confused not understanding why their father was laughing and clutching onto them so tightly.
"I think he's broken," Stiles muttered.
"The Neurology check came back clean," she said, not understanding.
"Oh shut up," Noah interrupted, "I'm just happy to be alive with my two beautiful children."