Stiles jolted awake, heart thumping wildly, sweat dampening his forehead, and half shifted. Still half trapped in the vicious nightmare, the young werewolf jumped off the bed, his claws tearing through the army green comforter in his haste to do... something. Something important.

Golden eyes roamed the darkened hallway, the faint glow casting eerie shadows as Stiles navigated the familiar hallway.

The faint scent of pine lingered in the air, a remnant of his father's cologne that offered a fleeting sense of comfort amidst the chaos of his emotions. As he found himself outside his father's bedroom, the muffled sound of his father's light snores and the rhythmic beat of his heart provided a grounding presence in the midst of Stiles' turmoil. The longer he stood there and assured himself that his father was safe, the calmer Stiles got until the gold bled from his eyes and his claws retracted.

Overwhelmed, he retreated until he felt the wall pressed at his back. The cool touch of the wall against his back offered a stark contrast to the heat of his racing thoughts, grounding him in the physical world as he struggled to make sense of the nightmare that still clung to his mind.

The nightmare, a haze of fire, smoke, and blood, lingered like a bitter taste in his mouth, the remnants of terror clawing at his consciousness. It was awful and even now as the details escaped him, the terror remained. He didn't know what the dream meant. He's never had any fire-related fears or trauma, nothing that could cause such a reaction out of him. And even though his dad was the sheriff, he's never really had any death threats that would lead Stiles to believe he was in danger.

No. The only thing that changed, the only thing that could be a danger to his father... was him.

The thought broke his heart. The last thing he wanted was to hurt his dad but events of the past few weeks, especially the game just hours earlier, proved how dangerous he was. He needed to get this under control otherwise... otherwise he would leave. It would break his dad's heart but at least he would be safe from Stiles.

Bzzz Bzzz

A slight buzzing from his bedroom interrupted his spiral.

Initially, he ignored it, but as the buzz kept going, he figured whoever it was had to be important if they were this persistent. After checking on his dad one more time, Stiles walked back to his room to answer the still buzzing phone.

"Hell-"

"Finally. Get up and meet me at the school sign." A gruff voice spoke abruptly.

Stiles frowned. He checked the caller ID but it was an unknown number.

"What? Who is this?" He asked.

"Who do you think?"

Gruff, grumpy man with a deep voice calling at an inconvenient time. Well, there was only one person who it could be.

"Derek? Dude it's like half past one in the morning. Why are you calling me and how did you even get my number?"

"School sign. Fifteen minutes."

The dial tone came through his phone as Derek ended the call on his end.

Stiles frowned. If this was any other time, he would most likely ignore the old sour wolf and go back to sleep. But after that horrid nightmare and his still lingering fear that he was the danger to his dad, Stiles was more than happy to run through the cold California air just to clear his head.

OoOoO

The California air felt like sharp needles coming at him as he raced through the darkened streets of Beacon Hills. His second pair of cross country shoes complained as he put them through yet another vigorous run. With the moon high up at his back, Stiles allowed himself to think only of the hope that Derek's call stirred inside. Thoughts of the nightmare and the danger he posed to his own father were pushed to the side witch each step he took. The ferocity with which he stomped out those worries caused his muscles to ache but he didn't care.

Arriving at the school sign, Stiles found the one and only sourwolf leaned against the school sign, his expression unreadable in the dim light. He paused long enough to catch his breath, waiting for Derek to say something.

"Thirteen minutes. Not bad." Was all he said and Stiles wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

"What's going on?" Stiles questioned, his voice a mix of curiosity and concern.

Without a word, Derek pushed off the sign and to the side. Off to the side of the famous BHHS Sign was a round embossed symbol. Every student in school have come up with more and more absurd explanations for the symbol. From the logo of the original architect to proof that the school was operated by some kind of secret cult.

Stiles watched Derek extend the claws on his right hand and align it to the grooves on the symbol. To his astonishment, the claws fit perfectly and when Derek twisted his hand, there was an audible click. Suddenly, the concrete school sign moved and revealed a hidden staircase going down.

Without looking back, Derek started climbing down the staircase. Stiles stared after him, frankly still too stunned to even worry about what could be down there.

"Get down here Stiles before I close the vault and leave you out there." Derek called from beneath the sign and Stiles quickly followed him down.

A deep, resonant thud had Stiles looking back in time to see the vault door closing behind him leaving the room in perpetual darkness. Almost at the same time, lights turned on inside Derek's vault and Stiles shut his eyes to adjust to the sudden flash.

Half a second later, Stiles opened his eyes to what was undoubtedly, the coolest thing he'd seen up to that point. His legs propelled him forward as his eyes took in his surroundings. The shelves of books the stretched floor to ceiling, the giant table in the middle of the room, and the secrecy behind this whole place left him gawking and seeing Derek in a new light because...

"You have a batcave?" Awe was an understatement, all that was missing was a mannequin dressed in the batsuit behind a glass case.

Derek's brows furrowed in annoyance at the comparison, his grouchy demeanor evident in the way he crossed his arms and shot Stiles a stern look. "It's not a batcave, Stiles. This is my family's vault where we've kept everything about our history."

Stiles tore his gaze away from the shelf to his right that was stacked with actual jars of leaves and twigs and herbs. "Right, sorry, I mean, it's just really cool, Derek."

He saw a really old book on a nearby shelf, the kind of book he saw in video games and he reached out to touch it.

"Don't touch that!" Derek shouted and Stiles pulled his hand back. But his eyes still shone with excitement.

"Why not?" He asked excitedly, "Is it gonna burn me if I touch it? Or curse me? Oh wait, is it another entrance to a secret passageway?"

It was a sign that Derek had gotten used to Stiles, stilesness, that his only response to that was to roll his eyes.

"No, you idiot! It's an old book, it's fragile."

"Cool." Stiles gushed.

"Are you done gawking? Because I did call you here for a reason."

Setting his awe aside for now, Stiles walked over to Derek. He did make a note of asking the older man about this vault later on.

"Right," Stiles said, "so, why did you call me out here? Is it about the Alpha?"

Derek showed him a long object wrapped in a black fabric. Confused but more than a little curious, Stiles reached out and uncovered the item. To his surprise, it was a branch.

"A branch? You brought me to your batcave for a branch?"

"Touch it."

Weirded out but still trusting Derek, Stiles did as he was told and touched the branch.

The moment he did, Stiles regretted it.

Fury coursed through him, worse than anything he'd ever felt before. His breathing picked up and his heart hammered away at his ribs, his head started conjuring up images of blood and gore and an untameable rage that could destroy everything around him. He could feel it building inside, like the fires of Pompeii that caused the extinction of Pompeii.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over and Stiles was on the floor looking up at Derek. The mysterious branch, once more covered with the fabric as Derek placed it on the table behind him.

"What the hell was that?!" He demanded. "What the hell did you do to me?!"

His heart was still pounding. The rage that suddenly filled him was all-consuming. It wasn't natural!

Derek crouched before him holding out a water bottle. Stiles flinched away from him.

"It's just water, to calm you down."

"Yeah? Like that was just a branch?! The hell was that?!"

Seeing that Stiles was unlikely to calm down until he got an explanation, and honestly not blaming him for it, Derek relented.

"It's called an Impression." He said, "When a werewolf feels an emotion so strongly, it can leave an Impression on nearby objects. Depending on how strong the emotion is, the Impression can linger for weeks and other werewolves can sense it. I found that branch at the edge of the woods by the lacrosse field. I think the Alpha was standing there and was overcome with so much anger he left an Impression on this branch."

Still breathing deeply but with a much calmer mind, Stiles looked at his mentor, "And what, you think that was the anger I felt on the field?"

"I do." Derek confessed, "Do you remember what I told you about your connection with the Alpha?"

Stiles nodded.

"That's the Pack link. The invisible connection that binds members of the same Pack to each other."

"Wait, are you saying, we can read each other's minds?" Stiles asked.

Derek scoffed, "Don't be ridiculous. There's no such thing as telepathy. The Pack link is more about emotion. A way for the Pack to know when one of their own is feeling intense feelings of anger or fear. It's a way to alert the Pack that someone is in danger. Normally, that's all it can do, it certainly can't be used to influence the Pack's emotions the way that the Alpha affected you."

"Why is this different then?"

"It's different because we aren't a real Pack." Derek answered, "In a normal Pack, the stability provided by each member is enough to ground everyone and keep them from getting overwhelmed by their emotions. But in our case, even though the three of us are technically of the Hale Pack, neither of us have accepted the Alpha. So his emotions aren't grounded by anyone and they become too powerful and you feel it though the link. I don't even think the Alpha knows he has this effect on you."

Stiles frowned, "So, all that time I lost control was because the Alpha was furious at something?"

"Not entirely. His emotions do affect your own but they can't make you feel something you didn't already feel." Derek explained.

"You're not making any sense." Stiles huffed, standing up. This was a lot of information and he couldn't process it while sitting down.

Derek looked around, thinking of a way to accurately explain how the Pack link worked and how it was influencing Stiles but not controlling him. His gaze found the shelf of books and he got an idea. He motioned for Stiles to follow him and the boy did so.

"Hold out your hands and keep them up for as long as you can." He said.

The young werewolf held out his hands and Derek unceremoniously placed a thick book on top of his hands. Stiles adjusted his grip to hold the books but kept his arms out as Derek spoke.

"This is the constant anger thrumming under your veins. Ever present since you received the Bite."

Another book was stacked on his arms.

"This is the irritation you felt because you couldn't play in the game. How does your arm feel?"

"Little sore but I can handle it." Stiles replied.

Derek placed another book on top of the two on Stiles' hands.

"This is the anger you felt when you saw that Captain of yours make his girlfriend cry."

The stack was getting heavier now and he wanted to rest his arms but Stiles persisted. He didn't know what this demonstration was for but he could do this.

"Feel that strain?" Derel asked, "Your arms getting tired, the books getting heavier?"

Without warning, Derek added another, much thicker book on top of the pile. Stiles swayed under the added weight, scrambling to keep everything in place and not set his arms down. But the longer he stood there and endured all this, the worse he felt and soon, he felt his arms lose the battle and he set the books down on a table.

"Why'd you drop the books?" Derek asked.

"It was too heavy, man." Stiles answered, rubbing his sore arms.

"Do you think you would have held out longer if there was only one book?"

"Definitely."

Derel nodded, "That last book was the Alpha's anger. Alone, it wouldn't have been enough to break your focus and you still would have been able to carry it. But with everything else you were already carrying, it made it more difficult to hold everything together."

Stiles nodded, he understood now. The Alpha couldn't control his actions but considering how much more prone to anger he is now, the added anger from the Alpha was enough to push him over the edge and force him to shift. It's why Derek told him to quit the team. As a werewolf, he always had an anger in him and if he added more to that anger, he could lose control.

"What now?" Stiles asked.

"Now that I know it's not completely your fault, I can give you a couple of things to help you with your shifts."

He walked to the back of the Vault to another door with a giant wheel. Derek turned the wheel and Stiles, followed, curious as the door gave way and revealed a darkened room. When Derek turned on the lights inside, Stiles immediately recognized the proud BHHS banner hanging on the opposite wall. He looked around and saw steel shelves stacked with bond papers and notebooks and envelopes.

"Are we at the school?"

Maybe he shouldn't have been shocked, but to be quite honest the vault felt like a world away from the school that he forgot he was right underneath it.

"This is secret passage that leads directly from the school basement to the vault." Derek explained, "If you're in school and you feel yourself about to shift, get down here and into the vault quickly. The vault was designed specifically so that this door closes as soon as you're inside so you don't have to worry about closing it when you're already losing control."

He walked over to the side of the door where another embossed symbol was covered by a layer of dust and cobwebs.

"The vault was originally made so that only a Hale can open it. But as time went on and more people outside the family became part of the Pack, another way to open it was established. Come here."

Stiles followed him and he wiped the dust off the symbol.

"You look into the symbol and show it your eyes. Crystals inside the wall will catch the light of your eyes and if it's the right color, the door will open for you."

"The right color? You mean Alphas can't get down here?" Stiles asked.

Derek turned away at Stiles' question and too late the younger werewolf remembered that for some reason, Derek's eyes were neither gold nor red.

"Let's get back inside, there's something else I need to show you before the night is out."

Obediently, Stiles followed, obviously the eye color was a sensitive thing. Maybe it was a genetic thing or something? Or maybe the color of an Omega's eyes. Red is Alpha, gold is Beta, so Omega had to be blue, right?

OoOoO

Inside the vault, once the doors had closed once more, Stiles found Derek standing before a table. A small, hand carved, wooden figure on top of it. Something that looked like the tattoo on Derek's back.

"This talisman has been in our family for generations." He said, "We used it to help young betas control their shifts."

Stiles ran his fingers over the talisman, wondering if Derek himself had used this when he was younger.

"You focus on the curves, the grooves, the spirals. You embed each of them into your mind and recite our mantra."

"What's the mantra?"

"Alpha, Beta, Omega." Derek recited, a solemn note in his voice. "Each one represents one spiral on the triskele. It's a reminder that you can just as easily rise to one or fall to another."

"Thank you, Derek. I mean I'll keep it safe, I won't lose it. I pro..."

"You're not keeping it, Stiles." Derek said.

"What? But I thought you said I needed it."

"You do." Derek agreed, "But one of your classmates is a Hunter. You can't be seen with the symbol of my family or you'll pretty much announce to the world that you're a werewolf. I showed you the talisman so you'll know objects like these can be useful if you know how to use them."

Derek gave Stiles a square block of wood and a chisel.

"You're going to make your own. Something personal, with a shape that can bring you back to the present even if you're not looking at it."

"Now?"

Derek shrugged, "No time like the present. And the sooner you get something done, the easier your shifts will be. It doesn't have to be pretty, just functional and meaningful."

He felt the weight of the block in his hand, the object seemingly heavier now that Stiles knew it would carry the weight of his transformation.

"Alright."

For the next three or so hours, Stiles labored away and carved something to help his shifts. It was honestly the first thing that came to mind when Derek described what the talisman would do for him. A shape to bring him back to the present and remember his promise not to hurt anyone.

Once he was done, Stiles blew away the last of the sawdust and revealed a slightly wonky six-point star.

=========================================================================

AN: Sorry this took a while, had some issues with a classmate but it's fine now. I've been looking forward to this chapter forever! As you can see, I will be bringing forward some things that didn't come out til the later seasons. Honestly, this is to help with the worldbuilding, plus in the world of Shifted, with Derek being more of a mentor, it wouldn't be too far from the realm of possibility for him to tell these to Stiles this early on.

I had considered having Derek do a blood bond with Stiles here so he will be able to open the vault door but I changed my mind and went with the eyes and the crystal instead.