He was born with strength, speed, stamina, agility, all the things he could use to strengthen his pack, to rise in ranks and support the alpha, but nothing ever prepared him for digging a grave for his sister. In the movies it's different; the character grabs a shovel and digs, easily, and they are just humans-sure, actors and whatever, but they were all falsely portrayed. Derek is strong, too, but even now, in the chilly night air, he sweats and cries. The shovel isn't enough to dig, he has to use a metal prod to create a big enough shape, to loosen the Earth because it hasn't rained in a while and the soil here is hard and roots are thick and stubborn. It takes hours, so many in fact that the forest starts to turn grey with the morning. Animals begin stirring in the forest surrounding the Hale house and Derek can hear the beginning of day on the horizon. It's too much. Laura's cold, lifeless body is hard when he grabs it and lowers it into the hole. It's not a grave, it's too savage, too messy, but it's all he can do for her now…
Actually burying her takes no time at all. He shovels in the dirt, stomps it in to pack-he can hear bones crunching the first couple of feet and he ignores it the rest of the way up-so that the soil doesn't shift or give easily. When everything is said and done he feels hollow, as if this entire ordeal was anti-climactic. He thought he'd feel the finality of it, the stark realization that this was real, but instead he feels empty, like he's finished watching some horror scene that he wasn't able to get away from. He knows she's there, under the Earth, torn in half like a piece of meat, but he still can't accept it.
Laying out the wolfsbane is difficult because he has to wear gloves and every few feet of rope he stops to wipe his face. It must be raining, he thinks, as he finishes burying the plant around the roots and stands aside to scrutinize his work.
Does he say something? Should he say goodbye or I'm sorry or anything? In the end Derek says nothing and turns away. He can smell Laura here, smell the wolf she is-was-and knows he'll face this. Tomorrow.
When tomorrow comes he finds that he hasn't slept at all, one day bleeding into another like ink spilled over a sorrowful letter. Words are turned into an inky sea and he feels the despair set in because Laura is gone. The howl that tears through him breaks his heart because the sound vibrates and cracks like thunder and still does nothing to relieve the pain. Hurling himself into every surface of the house does nothing; the cutting of broken glass against his palms when he falls to the floor and the jagged splinters from every piece of house do nothing to scratch the surface of how deeply he feels this ache. This chill, this utter fear of being alone.
Everything is gone, now. Everything.
He falls asleep after he loses his voice, but by the time he wakes up again his voice is fine and the burn of his throat is completely healed. It reminds him of how strong his body is and he hates himself for it.
Everything reminds him of Laura. Stupid, little things like a smell or the way he goes into a room and he sees her but doesn't and it's just memories dancing on the edge of his perfect vision. Only it's not perfect anymore because he sees red sometimes and others he sees only the blurs of the world around him, his throat seizing as a sob wrecks his composure and he crumbles. This wasn't supposed to happen-none of it was supposed to happen! The fire, the running, the way they lived but weren't really living, then Laura… he doesn't know how life could ever go on because it's been the two of them for so long and now it's just him.
No one even notices when he stalks through the town for information, for gas, for a bite to eat that he doesn't taste, as if she's not dead. As if she's still there and all he has to do is show up just at the right moment. Only the following morning he is arrested and it's because of two idiots that his sister is dug up, defiled-again-and he has no feeling left in his legs.
He's released from custody because hairs on Laura's body turn out to be wolf fur. It's odd, he thinks as he walks away, that no one asked him why he buried her in the first place. Why had he buried her in the first place? His mind wanders and so does he, back to the Hale house, where he takes up lodge and begins putting pieces together.
He won't let go of Laura, not now, not tomorrow, maybe not for a long time, but he can still get revenge. He suspects the alpha did this-the new alpha, because why else would Laura be murdered by a wolf beast unless it was to take her alpha status? He'll let go, sure, when the alpha is good and dead at his feet.