When Our Eyes Are Red [s.m][2]

epilogue

SIX MONTHS LATER

"You heard anything from Derek?" Stiles asked his best friend as they sat on top of the trusty but battered jeep, staring out across over Beacon Hills from the mountain lookout. Scott leaned back, looking up at the moon above them.

"He caught up with Cora but after that there's not been much communication since," Scott answered, a small smile on his face. "Not that I'd expect there to be, she's the only family he really has left though. There's only those two Hales left, so I understand why he's been out there longer."

There was a moment of silence before Stiles changed the topic.

"All right, so I found some cool two bedrooms in the Mission District, but they're pretty expensive. A couple in Haight and Ashbury. Also expensive," Stiles explained to Scott as he continued to circle in red the different apartments he had found for them to share when they moved off to college.

"What about Berkeley? Don't a lot of students live around there?" Scott asked, his mind not fully on what Stiles was saying as he wasn't 100% into the conversation, more so thinking about everything that had happened since he was turned on a full moon similar to the one they were watching now.

"Yeah, yeah, we could try Nob Hill. But, the Jeep would probably burn through a lot of clutches," Stiles mused, patting the rusting metal of the battered but trusty jeep.

"You're bringing the Jeep?" Scott snorted, letting out a small laugh at the lump of dying metal he was currently rested on top of.

"You know the plan, okay. No one gets left behind. That's the plan." Stiles continued to remind the boy of the plan. "Lydia's not gonna have a problem getting into Stanford. Kira's thinking USF. Malia's, uh, gonna, you know, she'll figure something out, okay. The plan's perfect!"

"Or we could also wait until we actually get into college and then figure out where to live?" Scott suggested but it fell on Stiles' deaf ears. He had made this plan over the past six months and he certainly wasn't going to wait around to allow Beacon Hills to ruin it like it had for the past two years.

"I have a vision, dude. Okay? And it is a beautiful vision. Don't ruin the vision. Okay, we can check out the East Bay. Haven't looked at Oakland yet, you know." Stiles paused as he saw the way Scott was staring up at the moon. "You're all right? You're starting to feel it?"

"No. Just thinking."

"About what?"

"Senior year."

"Senior year, come on, that's, that's... That's nothing. That's going to be easy!" Stiles reasoned with the boy.

"It's more like something Deaton told me once. You ever hear of regression to the mean?" Scott asked, thinking back to when Deaton had explained the term to the alpha.

"No, I don't think so."

"It was his way of saying that life can't ever be all bad or all good. You know, eventually things have to come back to the middle. So, think about the last few months. Things have been good, right? But not amazing," he mused.

"Yeah, but no one's tried to kill us in six months either." Stiles pointed out, knowing that it was kind of sad that that was something the teens actually now had to consider.

"Right. We've been pretty much in the middle for a while. Which means, at some point, the scale has to tip one way or the other. Things are gonna get really good again... Or really bad," Scott pessimistically replied as he thought over the six months since the church.

There was a silence between the boys as thunder crackled through the air causing them to share a glance.

"Think it's been long enough?"