Stiles sat outside his dad’s office waiting for him to finish his phone call. With his super hearing, he could hear that his dad was talking to Rollins the M.E. who said he would be finished with the autopsy on the discovered half of Laura’s body that afternoon. While his dad spoke with Rollins some more, Stiles whispered and hoped the other werewolf in the station was listening.

“Derek, Derek can you hear me?”

Barely a second passed before he heard a reply.

“I hear you. And I also heard the M.E.”

“I have the research I showed you yesterday.” Stiles said, “I’m about to give it to my dad. It might help your case. This means you can be released this evening.”

“Not in time for the game. Do you have a plan?”

“Yeah, actua – ” He paused when one of his dad’s deputies walked by. “I broke my foot at practice earlier. Coach is benching me for tonight.”

“How did you get break your foot playing against regular humans? You’re a werewolf!”

Stiles rolled his eyes. Even when he couldn’t see him he could practically feel Derek’s judgy eyebrows judging him. As if the Great Werewolf Derek Hale never got injured before. The sound of his dad’s office door opening kept Stiles from replying to the sourwolf in the cell.

He jumped to his feet and ran inside his dad’s office barely noticing Rollins as he walked by him.

“Okay dad I know you told me not to get involved but I’ve been compiling this since the body was found last week and you need to see it.” He took the thick folder out of his bag and placed it on his dad’s desk.

As Stiles took out his folder, Noah subtly closed the open one on his desk and slid it into his drawer away from Stiles' prying eyes. With former Sheriff Dooley's case safely tucked away, Noah carefully looked at the folder Stiles presented. Normally he would have dismissed his son already, but despite Stiles’ stilesness, he could already tell he had the makings of a good detective. And he would never admit this to his son lest it make him more unbearable, but Stiles’ help was really valuable whenever he decided a case was exciting enough for him. Truth be told, Noah was already saving money for Stiles to study criminology at whichever university he chose. He just knew his son would excel at it and maybe eventually become an FBI Agent.

“I know it sounds unbelievable dad, but I truly believe this may have been just an animal attack.” Stiles explained, “Scott swore he heard a wolf howling that night we went to look for it."

"Wait." Noah interrupted, "The night you and Scott went looking for the body?"

"Yes."

"The night you told me you were alone and Scott was at home?"

"Ye - wait no."

"So you lied to me?"

Oh crap.

"That’s – it’s not…” He stuttered, “Dad is that really what's important right now? Dead girl in the woods, remember?"

Taking that change of topic as an admission of guilt was enough for Noah for now. Besides, Stiles was right, there were more important things to worry about. Stiles’ grounding could wait. Noah sighed and gestured for his son to continue his theory.

"So, I did some digging," Stiles said, "And I found that sometimes, big animals could be so enthusiastic about a kill that they literally rip their prey in half.”

Noah paused in his perusal of the report, “Did you say wolf? But wolves haven’t been in California for years.”

“Sixty years actually.” He said, “But I also learned that wolves are migratory creatures. We could be looking at a wolf that just happened to be passing by. Like a murderous, four-legged drifter.”

As his dad continued to read the files, Stiles kept his fingers crossed. His dad had to believe that this was just an animal attack. He just had to.

A few minutes passed before Noah closed the folder and looked at his son.

“Do you really believe this was just an animal attack?”

Stiles put on his most trustworthy and convincing face before answering, “Yeah dad. Trust me I wanted this to be some big murder or – . I mean it’s not like I wanted the girl to be – ” He paused and switched gears at his dad’s raised eyebrow. “The point is, all evidence points to animal attack. Possibly even a wolf according to Scott.”

He was subjected to his dad’s detective look. The one that seemed to look deep into his soul and ferret out anything he might be hiding. His dad’s been using that look on him ever since the day he was born (allegedly) and that was the only reason Stiles was able to stand there and not flinch, kind of.

Noah sighed and took off his glasses, everything Stiles told him made sense. If he wanted to, he could give an official statement that the case was just an animal attack and no one would find it odd. It could even get the people of Beacon Hills to put pressure on Mayor Ratliff enough to close down the preserve no matter what she said about tourism.

And yet, he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. He couldn’t call it an animal attack because some elements of the case were too human, too methodical to be caused by an animal. It just didn’t make any sense no matter how he looked at it. He was missing something, a crucial piece of the puzzle that will let him see the whole picture.

“First off, Stiles, you know I can’t tell you anything about an open case no matter how extensive and helpful your research was.” He said, “Having said that, until the M.E. can officially pronounce the cause of death as an animal attack, I have to treat this as a homicide.”

Feeling his leg start to ache, Stiles sat on the lone, brown couch in his dad’s office. “And when the M.E. does that what happens next?”

“Well, first off we release Derek Hale. Then, we release the body to the closest kin so they can bury her.”

Stiles almost did a jig right there. He knew what was likely to happen but to hear his dad say it made it feel more official. Plus, Derek could hear it as well and he just knew no matter how grumpy the other werewolf was, he would be happy about this.

“But none of that will be my focus tonight.” Noah said interrupting Stiles’ internal celebration. “Because tonight, my priority is seeing my son dominate the lacrosse field.”

His father’s proud, excited smile caused a massive ball of guilt to lodge itself in his throat and start to choke him. He was about to take that smile away from his dad and replace it with disappointment.

“Yeah dad, about that.” Stiles said slowly, “Something happened and turns out I won’t be playing tonight.”

A beat and then.

“Oh hell what did you do?”

Stiles’ jaw dropped, “Wh – Why do you automatically assume it was something I did?”

“One, you look as guilty as you did when I walked into your room and you immediately shut your computer in the middle of your ‘research’.”

Stiles blushed recalling that incident. It was the main motivator behind his decision to finally fix the lock on his door.

“Two,” Noah continued counting his fingers, “You’re too calm and if it wasn’t your fault, you would be ranting right about now. And lastly, you’re my son, I know you better than anyone. So, what did you do?”

He took a minute deciding whether to be insulted at the insinuation that it was automatically his fault or impressed at how well his dad knew him. Then he told his dad what happened and prepared himself to keep his dad from dragging him to the emergency room.

OoOoO

The Argent house was silent as a grave when Scott got there. He probably should have told Allison he was coming over before he came here but when he came home after practice to his mother asking him about practice and Stiles, pressure started to build up in chest and he knew it had nothing to do with his asthma. He gave his mother a quick recap of what happened at practice before practically running out of the house when her back was turned.

The dead girl haunted him as he furiously rode his bike. Her green eyes followed him every time he closed his eyes. The horrible stench of her decomposing body was there with each breath he took threatening his stomach to turn inside out.

Everything about that discovery was awful and it took everything Scott had in him to not throw up again. The only thing that made him remotely better was knowing that his terrible discovery led to the arrest of the man that put her there, but after his conversation with Stiles, even that silver lining has turned a dull grey. How could Stiles think that man was innocent? How could he even think of calling a murderer his friend?

How could things between him and his best friend have gotten so bad that Stiles thought that murderer was a better friend than Scott?

His mind racing with less than pleasant thoughts, Scott turned his bike and headed for the Argent house. He needed to talk to Allison because somehow talking to her grounded him. She made him feel less like the asthmatic, wheezing loser he used to be and more like the lacrosse super star he wanted to be.

He sat on the Argents’ front porch and shot Allison a text telling her where he was. Her reply was quick saying she and her parents went to the store but they were a few blocks from their house. Just reading her text was already doing wonders at anchoring the crazy mess that was his mind.
While Scott waited for them, he tried to prepare himself to meet Allison’s parents. Allison’s told him a little bit about her parents, she said they were intense but that they were better once they were more comfortable around you. Scott also remembered that Allison’s father sold firearms for a living.

His collar suddenly felt tight imagining Allison’s father asking him about his intentions while holding two machine guns in his hands with a chain of bullets wrapped around his body, a bandana on his forehead and a cigarette between his lips.

Desperate to banish those thoughts he started walking around their front yard. The yard was pretty well-maintained, though he didn’t expect anything less considering how big the Argents’ house was. There was a greenhouse at the side of the house and Scott walked toward it, he couldn’t help it, he was antsy and anxious about potentially meeting Allison’s parents, he needed something to do.

The greenhouse, to Scott’s surprise was locked up pretty good. It wasn’t just a simple padlock, no, it had its own security system and there were no doorknobs on the door. Didn’t matter, it’s not like Scott wanted to snoop, he just needed to do something to keep his mind off of Allison’s father interrogating him. He peered in through the glass windows and was instantly bombarded with the color blue.

Scott was not expecting it. He thought seeing a greenhouse meant leafy vegetables and kitchen plants, but this greenhouse was all blue and purple flowers. Maybe these were Mrs. Argent’s prize-winning flowers? Was Beacon joining in on those neighborhood garden competition things?

He looked at the purple flower closest to the window, they looked familiar to him but he couldn’t remember what it was or where he’s seen it before. Curious, he studied the flower’s color, the shape of the petals, he looked closer and then – He remembered!

It was the same flower that Derek Hale planted on that girl’s grave!

Still reeling from this weird connection, Scott didn’t even notice he was slowly walking away from the greenhouse and closer to the road until he heard a car’s horn and tires screeching.

Scott didn’t even scream when the car hit him, but as he fell to the ground he swore he could hear Coach’s voice saying suicide run over and over again.

==================================================
AN: Let's do a headcount, shall we?
Jackson has a dislocated shoulder, Stiles has a "sprained ankle", and Scott just got hit by a car.

I bet Coach is really looking forward to the game hahaha