~~~~~

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.

"No, be quiet, something's not right."

"Yeah, I'm having a meltdown and my boyfriend is being a sour wolf." Stiles pouted.

"I'm sorry, Sti, but I'm being serious." Derek began walking around to the back of the house, Stiles was quick to follow after him. When they got there they both realised what was wrong immediately, "Someone's broken in."

"Shit. Can you still hear them?"

"No, they must've already left." Derek walked up onto the back porch and pushed open the door. It swung on one broken hinge before snapping off entirely and hitting the floor, the last shards of glass from the window scampered down the hallway only to be caught in a small pool of blood. Stiles walked in after Derek to take a look around.

"Can you smell anything?" He asked Derek.

"Yeah, Scott was definitely here. This is his blood." Derek muttered the last part as he picked up the broken glass with the tips of his claws. "There's someone else, their scent isn't human and they aren't Kira." He breathed in deeply again, "Maybe two or three of them."

Stiles gritted his teeth together as he ran a finger along the claw marks on the wall, "He struggled," Stiles bent down and spread his fingers over the marks on the floor, "A lot." He ran a hand over the door frame, expecting there to be marks there, but there weren't any. At least, none that were Scott's. Had Scott stopped willingly or had he been forced to stop?

"It's only his blood, I can't see or smell any more that isn't his. I don't think he fought back."

Stiles frowned, "Scott might not like to fight back or kill anyone but if it's a life or death situation he would've at least tried to get in a few scratches, right?"

"I would have thought so. He's fought me for worse reasons."

The two checked upstairs but nothing was out of place there, "This isn't a robbery gone wrong." Stiles stated, "This was a mostly successful kidnapping."

"Mostly?"

"Well, they left a lot of evidence. They might try to come back and clean it up later or..." Stiles ran downstairs, swinging round the bottom of the bannisters, and back outside, "They might be amateurs." He gestured to the surrounding forest, a pleased smirk on his face.

"They left a trail."

Stiles nodded as he echoed Derek's words. Then said, "We should follow it."

"We don't have a plan or backup, what if something goes wrong?"

"What if they kill him?" Stiles saw the flash in Derek's eyes that had nothing to do with his wolf shift or concern for Scott. "Okay, fine, I know you don't care."

"It's not that I don't care..."

"It would just make things easier? Derek, if he dies then, well, I don't know how I would react but I know it wouldn't be good. Now, come on, I'm sure getting him back won't be too hard."

Derek begrudgingly agreed and followed after Stiles as he walked through the clear path left by the kidnappers.

*****

"There they are," Stiles whispered, stopping abruptly only to stumble a little when Derek walked into him. Derek caught him around his waist and kissed his cheek as an apology.

They had stopped by a lake, three people were sitting next to it, backs to Derek and Stiles. The one in the middle had chains wrapping around his middle and presumably his wrists and ankles, although Stiles couldn't see them from where he was standing. It was definitely Scott. But why wasn't he breaking free? He seemed to be conscious.

The one sat to the left of Scott had long, vibrant blue hair and matching... cat ears? Stiles blinked several times but they stayed there. They must be some sort of werefeline but it was odd that they didn't hide it; that they stayed in their half-shift. Except there was no need to as they were far away from civilization and there were no clear paths – bar the one they'd created on their way through here – so Stiles doubted that anyone would be coming around here for a walk.

The one to Scott's right had paper-white hair and small deer antlers. Stiles had heard of other types of werecreatures, met a few too, but seeing them like this was something else entirely. He wished he had a chance to ask them questions, see how else they differed from the Weres he had already met, but he didn't. He had to focus.

"What now?"

"I'm not sure." Stiles rubbed at his eyes, "We talk to them."

"That won't work," Derek said.

"Do you have anything better?"

"We fight them."

"We will if it comes down to that, obviously. Now come on before they catch us hiding."

Derek opened his mouth to argue back, tell Stiles how idiotic that idea was, but was interrupted by a gravelly, masculine voice, "Too late for that. Come out."

Stiles and Derek did as told and stepped out from their place behind the trees. The two Weres hoisted Scott up and turned around. They were both surprisingly good looking despite the fact that their clothes were dirty. The werefeline had dark freckles that contrasted his fair skin pleasingly. His eyes were bottle-green and accented by makeup, and when he smiled at them he flashed small but sharp, glistening teeth that stood out from his black-painted lips.

The weredeer had black eyes that blended with her pupils, tanned skin and a birthmark over her right eye. She had a small smattering of lighter freckles on her nose and round glasses that seemed just a little bit too big for her.

They both had intriguing features of their Were side.

"Stiles, what are you doing here?" Scott sputtered.

"Saving your dumb ass, apparently." Stiles huffed a laugh and turned his attention back to the other two. "Why are you kidnapping him?"

"Kidnapping? We're not kidnapping anyone." The deer-girl said.

"It sure looks like you are," Stiles motioned towards the chains that were, indeed, wrapped around Scott's wrists and ankles, though rather loosely.

The girl went to speak again but was interrupted, "No, he's right, Dala. We are technically kidnapping him."

Dala stared at her companion for a long moment then said, "Oh. Huh, I guess so." and smiled sweetly.

"So, I will ask again, why are you kidnapping Scott?" Stiles demanded.

"Zalac, should we tell them or would Boss be angry?" Her eyes widened a little, not in fear, Stiles noted, but in genuine curiosity.

Zalac sighed and rolled his eyes, "It doesn't really matter."

"Oh, great! Can I tell them then?" She chirped, her free hand (the one not holding Scott's chains) flailing around. Before Zalac could answer she started talking, "Our boss is a collector. Well, he will be, he hasn't actually managed to start his collection yet. But we're helping him!"

Stiles turned to Derek who had an equally disgusted look on his face. "How long has he been trying?"

"Four years." Dala grinned, not at all put off by their apparent constant failure.

"If that's all, we'll be going now." Zalac gripped Scott's elbow and yanked.

Scott groaned, "But I've already told you: I'm not an alpha anymore. Why can't you believe that?" Despite this, he made no attempt to pull away.

"Because you must've done something pretty shit," Dala gasped but Zalac ignored her, "to have managed to lose your true alpha status." Zalac snapped at him, dragging at his elbow again. "Now, we've already had a break and The Boss will soon be wondering where we are, so let's hurry."

Derek glanced at Stiles and then back at the other two who had begun to bicker over whether or not to listen to Scott, before he spoke up over them both, "He fucked up a while back." Dala pursed her lips at Derek's language.

"Yeah, he did. I was actually here to talk to him about it so can I have him back?" Stiles spoke directly to Dala. She tilted her head a little.

"Can't you hear his heartbeat?" Derek asked. It was a good question, one that Stiles had just been wondering but he hadn't thought it was the time to ask. Zalac had heard them earlier when they were well out of earshot of anyone with decent human hearing, so why not now?

"I mean, yeah, I guess I can," Zalac muttered, looking away. "Sometimes I forget about that." Dala giggled and Derek rolled his eyes. Scott and Derek told them the same story: Scott had messed up and done some shitty, potentially unforgivable things, so he had lost his true alpha status. "Oh, you are speaking the truth. Damn it! Boss is gonna be so pissed at us." He kicked at the ground, flicked his long hair over his shoulder and glowered at Scott.

Dala nodded, "He'll get over it. He always does. We can just find him another one!" Another true alpha? That would be lucky. Stiles held back a chuckle and took Scott away from them with no problem. Dala waved her goodbye after apologising a few times, and Zalac just nodded. They left Stiles and Derek to help Scott out of his chains.