It was strange how comfortable it was the next morning. At one point during the night, he'd woken up with a panic attack. He wasn't sure what had triggered it, if anything, but it wasn't long before Derek was by his side. He wasn't sure what he expected, to be honest. But for Derek to be absolutely perfect was definitely not it. The first time his father witnessed him having a panic attack, he'd practically had one himself. All flailing limbs and high voice asking what can he do, what should he do, oh god please Stiles just breathe and calm down. That had been a disaster. One thing you definitely don't do when someone is having a panic attack is panic because they're having a panic attack. But Derek had just been calm, asking calm questions, not moving too quickly, giving him some water, and then just holding him and talking to him until the shakes receded. Then in the morning, he'd gotten up right as Stiles was waking, leaving the room before Stiles even fully opened his eyes.

Downstairs, Derek was making food, toast and scrambled eggs with cheese. He even had orange juice on the table.

Isaac and Peter were chatting in the living room and both said hi as he walked in.

"I'll take you home after breakfast," Derek said.

"I can drive home, it's okay," Stiles said. Sleep was still heavy on him and his voice was thick with it. He sat at the table and yawned.

"Scott has my car. You live pretty close to Scott. I'll take you home," Derek said.

"Oh. Okay. Makes sense."

Derek set a plate in front of him with a glass of juice, then sat across the table from him.

"Nothing for you? Did you make this just for me?" Stiles asked, the surprise of it waking him up.

Derek shook his head. "I'm not big into breakfast. I'll eat later."

"Oh. Well, thanks. Thoughtful." Stiles furrowed his brows, confused, but his stomach rumbled at the smell so he dug in.

"I'm sure you have questions and I'm betting they're easier to answer when you have your mouth full."

Stiles glared at Derek but couldn't speak since he'd just shoved a forkful of eggs into his mouth. Derek grinned.

"We kept calling you the Enigma last night. I'm sure you're wondering what that is and why it's important." Derek took a deep breath before continuing. "When Peter asked you if you wanted the bite, you said no. At that moment, you became the Enigma.

"I'm pretty pissed off at Peter for that, to be honest. Of course you said no. Of course you'd say no now. You're Stiles. You wouldn't say yes to that. He shouldn't have asked you."

"Why?" he asked around a mouthful.

Derek glared but continued. "You know about werewolves. You know how dangerous they are. You know their strengths and their weaknesses. And because of Scott, you run with werewolves. You're not scared of them, most of the time. You help us, you defend us, you protect us. You are part of the pack.

"But you said no. That one word was enough to make you an Enigma. You're..." Derek seemed to struggle to find the words. "You're loyal. Fiercely loyal. It's a trait that is well respected in the wolf and Hunter communities alike. There are very, very few humans who are not Hunters who know about werewolves, who are not terrified of them, who also do not want to be a werewolf. It's rare, it's very rare.

"Wolves don't usually ask before they bite. After finding out that you're an Enigma, they'll want you in their pack, even if it means causing unrest with our entire pack. Hunters, too, are going to want you. They're going to want to convince you about how horrible wolves can be, the horrible things they've done, why they should all be exterminated, like vermin." Derek took a breath to avoid growling. "You're wanted now. A target."

"Me? Just because I said no?"

Derek nodded. "That's why he shouldn't have done that, put you in that position, allowed you to say no. You're only human, you can't protect yourself against Hunters and wolf packs."

"Allowed me to say no? You think he should have bit me anyway?"

"He shouldn't have asked you, is my point."

"So if Erica or Isaac or Boyd had said no, they'd be an Enigma now, too?"

"Not necessarily. There's a good chance I would have frightened them off, freaked them out just enough that they never spoke of it again, or worse, found an Argent or another Hunter and joined their team."

"But because I already knew about werewolves and everything, because I was already involved and committed..."

Derek nodded. "That's why you're the mediator, neutral. That's also why Lydia can't be. She was bitten but she's immune. She didn't make a conscious choice about it."

Stiles put his fork down, finished. "That kind of sucks. I mean, not about Lydia, because jeez if she had to be a mediator..." Stiles shuddered. Lydia had a quick tongue and a sharp mind. Stiles also wouldn't want her to be a target. "But... how long? How long will I be a target for? Until they leave? Or... is this like..."

"A lifelong thing? Yeah." Derek didn't look angry or annoyed. He actually looked a little sad.

"So I'm cursed. Great."

"If it makes you feel any better, it strengthens the pack," Peter said, coming into the room. He picked up Stiles's plate and brought it to the sink with a smile and a wave for Stiles to remain sitting.

"That's not the point," Derek said through gritted teeth.

"If I were cursed, I'd want to know it was for a good cause," Isaac said. He sat down across from Stiles with a shrug.

"Exactly," Peter said.

Derek took a deep, steadying breath. "Are you ready?" he asked Stiles.

Stiles nodded. He could ask more questions in the car. It seemed like Peter's presence alone was enough to piss Derek off and if he was going to have a discussion with him that didn't involve him hitting his head into a steering wheel, getting slammed against a wall, or getting nails dug into his shoulders, then it was probably a good idea to get Derek away from all instigators.

After a brief argument, or rather lots of arguing and huffing from Stiles but only stony silence from Derek, Stiles handed over the keys and got in the passenger seat.

"You scratch this or crash this, I'm dead. That's all there is to it, it will be the last straw, my father will kill me."

"When's he coming home?"

Stiles sighed. "A few days. Conference doesn't end until Friday."

Derek nodded. "I'll stay with you until then."

"What? Why?"

Derek glanced at him. "Because. You're. A target." Derek rolled his eyes. "I can get Isaac or Scott to keep a look out for a little while but I'd rather do it myself."

Stiles thought for a moment. "Wait. You said I'm going to be a target for the rest of my life, basically. Are you always going to have someone keeping track of me?"

Derek glared at the road and pursed his lips.

"Not actually a rhetorical question." Stiles stared at him. "Actually looking for an answer here."

"I think you already know the answer."

Stiles sat back in his seat. "So. When I'm doing homework, someone will be watching me. When I'm sleeping, someone will be watching me. When I go off to college, someone will be watching me."

Derek looked over at Stiles sharply. "Where are you going off to college?"

Stiles threw up his hands. "I don't know! Somewhere not here!"

"We'll have to discuss that with the pack."

"Excuse me?"

Derek shrugged. "Or you can go alone and possibly get killed, entirely your decision."

"Well this is just great. College, the time of opportunities, your time to do stupid shit and go crazy and experiment, for everyone except Stiles. Stiles gets to be an Enigma. Stiles gets to be a Target. Stiles gets to be attacked and threatened and beaten up by ninety year old assholes for the rest of his life. Yay for Stiles."

The last day of the conference in Sacramento, his dad called to let him know he'd be landing at two thirty in the afternoon. Stiles got to the terminal at two and found himself chewing on a pencil from the dash for the next thirty minutes in the passenger seat.

His father seemed to appear suddenly and settle in to the driver's seat. Stiles opened his mouth at least three times on the ride back home but his father kept making noises and gestures that clearly said, 'shut up.'

Inside the house, his father undoubtedly saw the jeep keys and a hundred dollar bill on the counter but didn't comment on them. Stiles tried not to crowd him but he did continue to make himself available for the tongue lashing he knew was coming.

Finally around six o'clock, his father turned to him just as Stiles was following him on his heels into the kitchen.

"Stiles. Go to your room."

Stiles breathed deep. "Aren't you going to yell at me first?"

He regarded Stiles for a moment. "I'm sending you to your room."

"But -"

"Stiles. I would really, really, really like to not repeat myself."

Stiles hadn't heard that tone in a really long time but he still remembered that it meant his dad meant business. Without another word, he retreated to his room.

It was three days before they said another word to each other. The first day, Saturday, he had to listen to Scott complain for at least an hour about how much it sucked that Allison wasn't talking to him and now, one of his first full days off from work since summer started, Stiles had to go and get himself grounded. And how Derek was now doing this touchy feely talk-about-your-feelings thing with everyone and he keeps trying to get Scott to talk, and about how his relationship with his mom was a little strained since she found out about the werewolf thing.

Then his dad had come into the room, quiet and quick in that parent way that made Stiles's heart stop, took the phone, and then left just as quickly.

Stiles was actually a bit relieved, despite the look on his father's face when he'd come into the room, because he really didn't want to listen to how horrible Scott's life was when Stiles was grounded indefinitely. At least Scott still had use of his phone. At least he'd had a girlfriend for a little while. At least Stiles had saved his life a few days ago. At least his mother was talking to him.

His father unplugged the internet as well and Stiles was stuck inside his head, where nothing was pretty and his anxiety level had room to grow. After the first night, he stopped taking Adderall altogether. Letting his ADD go rampant wasn't the best idea, considering he was confined to his room unable to call anyone or go online, but he also suffered insomnia when his ADD ran rampant. After the panic attack the first night, he believed it was better to be hyperactive and bouncy with nothing to do rather than suffer another panic attack of that magnitude. Derek had appointed Isaac lookout for the night, who hadn't had a single clue as to what to do. The poor guy had seemed near tears with worry for him, which only served to magnify the panic attack, though Isaac couldn't have had any idea that would happen. Stiles ended up on the comforting end of that situation.

Derek showed up the next night and seemed to decide to keep all the night shifts himself from then on, not that it mattered considering Stiles had decided to give up on sleep. Sunday night, or rather early Monday morning, around three, Derek had huffed and asked him why he wasn't asleep. By this point, Stiles was snappy with exhaustion and before he'd finished two sentences, Derek ended up holding up his hands in surrender.

He was giving his father space. After the first night, he'd decided that he would let his father make the first move. He knew his father needed to calm down and everything. But with each passing hour, he felt like his sanity was slipping away. By Monday morning, he'd cleaned his room twice (the second time because he'd decided to pull out all his cds and movies to make sure every disc was in the right case and then reorganize them all, which only got a quarter done because he decided to put The Matrix on in the computer but then he realized the disc was scratched so he went searching for the disc cleaner, found a yo-yo in his closet that was tangled, started to unwind it, and basically ended up with a huge mess) and then moved on to the rest of the house once his father left for work in the morning.

At five, he ran back to his room. He was grounded, after all, even if his father had never actually said the words. That used to be something he loved about his relationship with his father, that very few words were ever needed between them. Now, though, all he wanted was for his father to talk to him. Anything would be better than what he was imagining.

Every night since his father had gotten back, his father had made dinner and left it on a tray outside Stiles's door. Monday night was no different, but this time there were a couple of oreos as well. His father's way of saying thanks for cleaning the house.

"Can you do my house next?" Derek asked from the chair.

Stiles snorted. "Your house would take weeks."

"Not the way you're going."

Stiles blinked, then shrugged. "The joys of ADD."

"Don't you take something for that?"

"Usually."

"Usually?"

"Yes, usually, as in generally, as in it is commonplace and routine for me to take medication to control my inability to focus, however, I stopped taking it a few days ago."

Derek frowned. "Why?"

"Because I did. End of story," Stiles snapped.

Derek held up his hands again. "Maybe you should just talk to him."

"Don't," Stiles said. "Don't go there with me. I know you've been doing the Dr. Phil thing with everyone else but don't try it with me."

"It might do you good."

Stiles slashed the air with his hand. "No."

Derek bit his lip. "Fine." After a few minutes, Derek sucked in some air, as if he just had an epiphany.

"What?"

"You're not sleeping. Not taking your meds."

Stiles stared at him a moment. Derek had actually connected two and two. "You're smarter than you look."

Derek glared at him. Then the softness returned to his eyes, the same softness Stiles had seen the night he slept in Derek's bed. "Is it always at night?"

"Is what always at night?"

"The panic attacks."

Stiles flopped down on the bed, lacing his fingers together behind his head. He contemplated putting pictures on his ceiling. The white dots were boring to look at. "Yeah, mostly."

After a moment, Derek spoke, hesitantly. "You have to sleep at some point."

"Yeah."

Then Stiles jumped up and began rummaging around in his closet. He found some magazines and started cutting out pictures, mostly of Iron Man, Captain America, and Spiderman, but he threw in some Black Widow, too. He proceeded to make it into a big project, cutting out pictures and putting them on the ceiling. Derek thankfully stopped talking and seemed content just watching him. A couple of times, Stiles glanced at him, completely in awe of the way some people can just sit and not do or say anything and be completely content with that. Stiles would be crawling out of his skin within ten minutes.

He spent the next few hours focusing on this project in an effort to not focus on his father, his mother, his broken home. He felt like, if he stopped, he would drown in the tidal wave of self-pity and guilt that was always lurking at the edges. Usually, he could keep them at bay, but in times like these, when he was sleep-deprived and in the middle of a fight with his father, they were more difficult to keep away.

And he definitely did not want to have a breakdown in front of Derek.