~.~
"Oh Time! The beautifier of the dead, adorer of the ruin, comforter and only healer when the heart hath bled... Time, the avenger!" - Lord Byron
~.~
The Alpha pack had been dealt with, the burning stench of flesh still lingered in the woodsy air long after the pyre had died out hours ago and though the scent that lingered meant victory it also meant exponential loss as well. Although Peter was not the last Hale, he was the last Hale-other than Derek himself, to have Lycanthropy.
Officially Derek was the last Hale wolf, the rest of the Hales', scattered mostly throughout the United States (with the exception of cousin Frida and her three children, Hans, Marlena and Laurie) were all human carrying a gene that may now no longer bear any fruit. Within the Hale family only Peter and Derek's father had Lycanthropy and only Peter's children and Derek's father's children had Lycanthropy. Derek's grandparents had been human, his grandfather carrying the gene passed on from his mother. Derek's other aunts and uncles had been human. Their children had been born likewise, human. Their children would be human and so forth. Derek himself, who did not want children, realized that if he ever changed his mind for the sake of rebuilding his pack biologically, he might not have children with Lycanthropy.
The Hale wolves who lived in Beacon Hills together were the only wolves born to the family in a few centuries and where this weight bared upon his shoulders now, as the last, back when he was a boy before Kate and the fire, he bared the weight with pride. Peter, Derek's father, Derek himself, Laura and Peter's children (four small girls and one teenage boy named Josh) were the only wolves in the family. They were special.
And now they were terribly brought to the brink of extinction. When his family had burned in the house, Derek's thoughts had only lightly touched upon the subject of extinction. But he'd still had Laura and Peter-comatose and useless but still alive. There had been a semblance of hope that either Derek or Laura might one day start their own families and that a were would come from it. Then Laura died and it was all up to Derek.
In the back of his mind he knew he didn't want children for the simple fact that he thought he didn't deserve them. He wondered about Peter, before he learned of the betrayal. Wondered how he could possibly use Peter to father other were children (as soon as those thoughts entered his mind they were quickly banished. Of course artificial insemination was possible the thought of using comatose Peter as breeding stock left him feeling monstrous.)
Then he'd killed Peter and again he was left with the heavy decision. Should he give it a shot and try to continue the line? He had the money for surrogates. He knew he could, feasibly try for a were child. But he'd always been the weakest wolf in the pack and assumed that any children he'd ever had would be human. This was how Kate had gotten him so easily. He was desperate for love and for a powerful mate to make him feel stronger that he'd missed any obvious signs that she'd been using him.
He shuts his eyes and inhales tasting the burnt of human flesh in each heady intake of air and exhalation. "What do you intend to do?"
Issac, who stood ramrod straight at his side narrowed his corn blue eyes and stared towards the trees, seeing in the distance Scott and Allison staring back at them. He was weighing his decision. He could leave Derek's pack for Scott's. There was safety there, no matter how unsteady Scott was as Alpha. But Derek, who would rather die than admit it, would rather Issac leave for that safety alone. Derek was incapable of taking care of the bitten were. Erica and Boyd a prime example of his foibles with power. They were dead because of his inability to rule over them as he should have, with equal amounts of kindness, understanding, patience and strict rules.
Like the decision Derek made long ago, not to father any children, he decided that now he was unable to properly take care of Issac who deserved so much better.
"Go." He said. "Get the hell out of here."
And now he's alone. Really alone after Issac relaxes and with a small, very small smile says goodbye and runs into the woods towards safety. Peter's body, Derek can sense, is beginning to rot. It's scent is like sour fruit beneath the tough skin and as he gazes into the handsome still face he can almost see the hollow inside. The soul was gone and Derek prayed that past sins had been forgiven and that finally his uncle could attain a semblance of peace.
The man who had woken from the coma, who had died and returned had been a fragment of something hiding beneath his uncles' skin. Uncle Peter, the one Derek had known in his youth, had been kind and playful-a favorite of his. The Peter that had returned was jagged, a mockery of his uncle and wrought only to bring Derek the sincerest amount of executable torture. He'd killed the kind man his uncle had been all because of a woman. He'd killed his sister because of killing the man his uncle had been because of a woman.
He'd killed off the wolves in his family. Perhaps, some day, one of the other Hales in his family who carried the gene, would birth a wolf. He doubted this. His father and uncle had been, what his grandfather had called, happy accidents. The Hales' had originally been intermarried within their packs, cousins with cousins and such for the purpose of birthing wolves. Many years ago it had been decided, as the hunters grew in numbers, that the Hales' would marry outside of the pack, to extinguish the possibility of birthing wolves for safety...
The soil beneath his fingers is cool, he can feel the slick of worms the further he goes, the further he digs wriggling against his fingers. He rips away the roots, pushes black dirt away with his hands, is on his knees and smells the new untouched earth in the air, the scent eclipses the burnt death and sour rot of the dead. He digs until he's six feet deep in a large hole and the sun peaks up over the horizon entering a new day. His parents and cousins, who died in the house along with his younger human cousins didn't have the luxury of a funeral. All had been burnt to ashes in the fire.
He climbs easily from the hole, covered head to toe in cold soil. He stands straight as an arrow, lifts his head so that the rays peaking through the tall tree tops warm his cool face. His mouth opens and the sound that comes from his human lips is decidedly not human. It's a howl that will reach the town like a whisper and the wolves there will all hear it. They wont come. He knows that with a certainty. He's alright with this, he grieves better when he is alone.
He closes the eyes now that they're able to be closed and lowers the body carefully into the ground. His heart is hallow, his throat is raspy from his howl and dry like the Sahara. Peter looks pale white against the black of soil and would pass for a man sound asleep until you look harder at him and realized he wasn't breathing. Derek climbs out of the grave again after crossing his uncles arms, and decides to scatter the seeds in his pocket into the opened grave. He isn't sure why he carried the seeds in his pocket, isn't sure why he had the need to purchase them the week before. Caught in a fit of memories maybe, remembering the red spider lily's in the garden before it was all burned away.
He pushes at the large mounds of soil, buries his uncle six feet in the ground with the seeds that would grow and eventually strive on the very body lying there decaying, acting as a fertilizer. The flowers would grow and mark the grave beautifully, he thinks. It's a lonely thought. Peter is dead the only other wolf in his family. Derek is alone, without pack or friends without prospects with the burnt out remains of his family's house. A decaying mausoleum to the wolves and humans closest to him who he betrayed, all for momentary satisfaction.
The trek to the house is silent. Even the insects and the animals in the woods have seemed to have scattered off. He is now the only living thing in the area and it hurts to know this as a literal fact. Derek wonders if this is how he will spend his days, living alone in the burnt remains of his house, the woods empty of any other living creature. Venturing into town only for the bare essentials and nothing more. Passing his former packmate Issac and his new Alpha like perfect strangers. Paranoid that the Argent's would finish what Kate had started so long ago and burn the house around him one night when he's decided to give up. Stiles would see him and nod maybe offer him a smile, a sad sort of thing that meant anything but the pity Derek would scowl at.
Would he die alone here?
The house comes into view, dilapidated and falling apart, smelling of mold, burnt wood and human ashes. The house had once been beautiful, standing tall and pristine in the very center of the woods. Far enough from the town so that the wolves can have their privacy but close enough so that they wouldn't appear that strangely to the humans. Peter said that, once he'd overheard a woman saying to her husband that the Hale's were all apart of some scary religious cult, and that was why they lived in the woods. Derek had never laughed so hard in his entire life.
He'd been ten years old.
Derek walks up the porch steps and in through the opened front door, eyes meeting the stairs head on, he climbs them and makes his way into the only room with a floor still sturdy enough to accommodate a box spring and mattress (he'd thought of purchasing a bed and found himself imagining the fall through the wood into the first floor one night as he slept, and so he decided against it.) He pulls off his shirt and jeans, shoes and socks already toed off as he'd entered the room, and sits in his underwear on the starch white linen of his bed. He lays back, crosses his arms behind his head and stares up at the ceiling, half charred black and gray, and wonders if he should just level the damn thing. The house is a reminder of his past, and he knows he can't carry on and live when he's stuck here. If he levels the house and rebuilds a newer on somewhere else on the Hale property
-he'd still be alone in a brand new house in the woods. Would that be any different from how he's living now?
~.~
Two weeks and a lot of phone calls later and Derek is now living in a trailer on the property. The house has been bulldozed and leveled, where it stood is now a large dark and empty plot fenced in so that nothing can enter. He doesn't know what to feel about that, can't decide whether he's relieved or not, but he knows it's the right thing to do. He can't live in the present and be stuck in the past. Derek can't bring them back, can't apologize for what he's done or for the role he'd had to play in the fire. All he can do is live even if he's alone.
~.~
The months pass into a blur. Construction just south of the plot where the original house had been is nearly complete. Derek Hale, for the first time since the fire has a mind filled with the thoughts of an everyday man attempting to put together a new home. He's starting from scratch for the first time in his life, and he feels free.
December. Winter is bitter and cold and dry and Derek Hale sits in the foyer near the fireplace of his brand new home. It had cost a bit more than he would have liked just to furnish though the house, which itself had been expensive. The house was what his sister would have called a dream, a Jacobean imitation with greyweather stone with a tall black thatched roof that lowered at an alarming angle. It was drab outside and gray and beautiful. It needed a garden in the back where in the kitchen there seemed to hold a multitude of small windows that overlooked the backyard-this had been the suggestion of the architect.
Mr. Mosley was young with an enriched and romantic perspective and decided that Derek, who had no idea of what he wanted other than Jacobean and classic, was not to be let out of his sight. Derek had appreciated all of the suggestions. The man, who would have matched Laura in age had she lived, thrived on making an impression. And he'd certainly done it once the house had been completed. He'd stood in the kitchen, staring through the multitude of windows, staring out into the newly planted green grass and said; I say, for here, you start yourself a garden after winter of course.
"You have a helluva house out here." Mr. Mosley said during their last meeting, dark eyes trailed on the dark slate roof, to the red brick chimneys and finally to the glimmering windows. He seemed so very proud. "All alone out here, though, in the middle of the woods."
Derek liked the house in the woods, appreciated the silence. He could finally think, but now the thoughts were filled with what he would do in the future and not of what he'd done in the past. Sometimes the image of Kate would appear in his mind, never at the forefront but there all the same and Derek would have to remind himself that she was dead.
He stares, wearily into the fire for a moment. There are no sounds of screams, there is no scent of burning flesh or wood. The house doesn't topple and fall in on itself here. What he is staring at is merely fire in the fireplace of a new house that looks old in the middle of the woods in a snow-less winter. There is the ghost of a smile on his lips because he doesn't hear the screams, he stares down at the book in his hands, a thick volume titled Cabal that had once belonged to his cousin Josh and had remarkably survived the fire.
And all is silent in the woods.
~.~
Muse: I don't even know. I guess I just wanted to be really depressing. This was written quickly and messily while I was waiting in a pub for friends and originally was set to have Derek sitting in a pub, similarly waiting for old friends he'd known before the fire, and thinking about life after the alpha pack had been dealt with, after Peter had died again and after loosing Issac. Jackson was to appear but while I was writing it down originally I decided against even using his name at all. Then I rewrote it into this (because I had so much time the idiots I was were waiting for were that late) and this was the depressing outcome. Its awful but its done.