"You don't feel anything, do you?" Scott said as they shared a packet of peanut butter cups.

Stiles shook his head. It had been a whole day since he had been to the white place and spoken to the wolf. However, he didn't seem to be getting anywhere.

"They're my friends," he replied, "and they've all been really nice about this mess, I mean Allison and Isaac actually invited me..." he shut himself down as he realised Scott really didn't need those details, "sorry. But, nope, nothing. The closest I get to anything is you and, yeah, so not going there."

"Well we could if ..."

He looked at Scott's very unsure expression and half wished it might work; but that way lay madness.

"Thanks, man, but totally can't get into that headspace even if we are sharing a bed for the foreseeable future. Sorry," he added, because he really didn't want to wreck Scott's life as well.

Scott just elbowed him in the side in a sign of bro solidarity.

"Deaton was so sure," Scott said after a few moments silence.

Stiles just nodded; it had sounded like a done deal. He wasn't even worrying about male or female anymore, something that had bothered him until he realised that it wasn't really and he was over thinking the whole thing, but there was just nothing. He felt pack instincts, which was new and a little bizarre, but not anything deeper.

"What if this isn't the whole pack?" he asked, because he'd exhausted all the other possibilities.

"The only other werewolf in town is Peter," Scott pointed out.

"Brain bleach!" Stiles cried and made a horrified face. "I so did not want that mental image. Besides, he's so creepy and plain crazy he is never going to be pack. What if the rest of the pack isn't in town? I was seeing the wolf far away, what if that means they're not here?"

"Jackson?" Scott asked, but sounded dubious.

"Hell no," Stiles replied; "nothing could ever make me want to sleep with Jackson."

That really only left two possibilities.

"Derek and Cora," Scott said, following his reasoning, "but Cora is Derek's family and Derek and I were never pack, not really."

"But at the end you were," Stiles said as it started to make sense. "You were fighting together and not just out of necessity; you both cared. The whole giving up his alpha status for Cora; what if it changed Derek enough that you're finally not frenemies anymore? What if everything that happened made him pack and maybe, through him, Cora? It would be just like you to adopt someone without either of you realising it."

Scott's expression was unsure, but he definitely wasn't denying it.

"We could call Derek and ask," Scott suggested, which if that didn't say huge amounts Stiles didn't know what did.

It was only a few months ago that Scott had eyed Derek like an enemy. Stiles pulled out his phone and hit the right contact.

"Hello," came from the other end of the call.

"Hey, Derek, it's Stiles," he replied.

"Yes, I know, your name flashes up when you call."

Still typical Derek then.

"Okay, so this is going to sound like a weird question, but where are you?"

"The loft," Derek said.

"The loft where," Stiles said and wondered if Derek was now addicted to open warehouse type spaces.

"Last time I checked I've only ever had one," Derek replied.

"Wait, what, you're back in town?" he checked, possibly looking at Scott a little wild eyed.

"Yes," Derek replied. "I need to see Scott, I think something might be going on."

"Going on how?" he asked. "And for the record, Scott's right here listening in on the conversation."

"Hey Derek," Scott said.

"I'm not sure," Derek said without acknowledging the hello, "but I'm pretty sure I was drawn back."

Stiles almost dropped the phone.

"By what?" he asked, trying to sound perfectly innocent.

"Dreams."

Stiles handed the phone to Scott and did his best to just breathe.

"We'll be right over," Scott said and hung up.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god, it's Derek," Stiles said, because the whole idea sent his thoughts zooming off in all directions.

"We don't know that," Scott pointed out.

"Yeah, of course we don't," he replied in a very sarcastic tone. "I've been seeing a black wolf with blue eyes," he paused, he hadn't realised that part before, it had to have been sitting in his subconscious, "and Derek gets summoned back here by dreams. It couldn't be him, whatever was I thinking?"

"You never mentioned the blue eyes," Scott said.

"I didn't remember until just now," he defended himself. "My brain hasn't been firing on all cylinders for days, hell, what am I saying, it never fires on all cylinders, and I only saw him in the distance. It only just registered. Oh god, what are we going to tell him? I don't see, 'hi, Derek, fancy fucking me now?' going down very well."

"We tell him about the white wolf," Scott said in what Stiles suspected was supposed to be a reassuring tone. "It's a werewolf thing, he might already know about it."

Frankly, Stiles wasn't sure if that terrified him more or less.

"Come on," he said, standing and pulling his keys from his pocket, "before I panic and run off to become a monk or something."

Scott didn't argue, just followed him as he walked towards the door.