Summary: Derek's childhood friend returns to Beacon Hills reminding him of happier days and showing him what he's been missing in his search of revenge. But in the face of the alpha pack, history threatens to repeat itself and cause Derek to once again lose everything.
A/N: This is my first stab at fanfiction writing. I would appreciate any feedback/reviews you guys have be it good or constructive suggestions for improvement. Thank you!
Chapter 1 – The Woods Are Lovely Dark and Deep
Between the scream and screeching tires she thought she'd go deaf.
In the absolute silence that followed the eruption of sound, Holly Williams, believed for a moment she had. But she could hear her breathing, rapid and uneven. Like she just finished a thousand meter race. An acrid taste in her mouth accompanied the heartbeat. It took Holly another moment to realize she's bitten down on her tongue, hard enough to coat her mouth with her own blood.
She looked out the windshield expecting to find it splintered, but the view to the forest from where her car skidded to a sideways stop remained clear. She'd hit something. She knew she did. No… she hit someone. It had arms and legs.
Unfastening her belt, Holly focused her gaze out the side window on the streets and saw someone lying there, lit by the light of the moon. The someone, who didn't move.
"Oh God, please don't be dead. Don't be dead. Don't be dead."
She repeated the words like a mantra as she climbed out of her car and ran back to where the person lay. She could tell he was a man when she got closer. He still didn't move. Don't be dead? How could he not be dead?
"Oh… shit. Please…"
She dropped to her knees next to him, but nearly leapt back to her car when he let out a low groan.
"Oh thank you God, you're alive."
He groaned again in answer and rolled onto his back.
"Don't move, okay? Don't move. You could have internal damage. You probably have internal damage. I'm so sorry, I didn't see you."
She was babbling. She knew it, but it didn't matter. He was alive. She needed to talk to him. Keep him engaged. Holly fished out her smart phone and was in the process of dialing 911 when the nearly human road kill, pushed up onto all fours.
"What are you doing? Don't move. Stop moving!"
"Have… to go…" he panted out slowly as if every word caused him pain.
"The only thing you have to do is lie down. You could have a concussion… broken bones… stop it."
As gently as she could, Holly pushed the man back to the ground flat on his back. She should have completed the call, but with the moon fully on his skin she found herself staring at him. He looked familiar.
"Do you know your name?"
"Of course I know my name," he still sounded weak but his voice assumed an annoyed tone. "It's—"
"—Derek?"
The confused almost furious look he gave her turned on a dime to anxiety the same time a canopy of wolf howls intruded into the silence of the night.
"We have to go."
"I have to call an ambulance. You're not supposed to move. Derek, would you please stop moving."
He heard her. He had to have heard her unless the trip up and over her car damaged his hearing. But it didn't stop him from getting to his feet. Once there he wobbled, stumbled, and would have hit the ground again, if Holly hadn't moved to catch him.
"Derek, stop."
"We have to go," he repeated the words more forcefully.
In her head, Holly cursed up a storm. Blood clung to the left side of his face and her fingers touched something wet and sticky on his side. And there were wolves in the woods. Probably, they smelled the blood. Probably, they wouldn't attack. But why risk it. Besides, Derek was up and making it undeniably clear he had no intention of staying on the ground. If she tried to force him back down, she might hurt him more.
"All right," she conceded. "But I'm taking you to the hospital.
They moved slowly with Holly supporting his weight as best she could. Her height helped since she was only two, maybe there inches shorter than Derek at the most. But he was a solid guy made mostly of muscles. And muscles were heavy. They stumbled twice, and she nearly dropped him once before they finally reached her car.
Holly propped him against the car and opened the passenger door. Once he'd collapsed into the seat she ran around the front and climbed behind the wheel again.
"Go," he panted weakly.
"In a minute."
As she spoke she leaned over him but instead of grabbing hold of the belt she found her wrist incased in a surprisingly strong grip.
"Derek…"
"…Go! Now!"
The panic in his voice more than the words pushed her into action. Holly turned the engine over, shifted her car into first gear, and took off. She waited to get the car up to speed before she glanced in the rear view mirror. Part of her almost expecting to find the devil behind them, but only the dark, now empty road remained. Her passenger had closed his eyes, but he was still alive, still breathing.
"Derek?" she glanced at him for a moment, quickly refocusing her eyes on the road. "Please wake up."
"I am awake," his words came out in a barely muttered whisper. "I'm fine."
"You're anything but fine. I just hit you with my car going fifty miles an hour. You should be dead."
"I'm not."
"Thank you captain obvious."
"I'll be fine."
"Glad you think so. But I prefer a doctor's verification."
"No hospitals."
"Unfortunately that's where this town tends to keep their doctors."
"No hospitals," he barked with conviction.
She couldn't see his face, not well. The car windows were at the wrong angle to let enough moonlight into the interior, and the dashboard lights did little to illuminate the passenger side. Still she felt the weight of his gaze on her.
"You can stare at me all you want. You wouldn't let me call an ambulance… fine but I'm taking you to the hospital."
"I said no."
The leather moaned as Derek shifted his weight in the seat. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist for a second time, pulling her hand from the gearshift.
"Derek…"
"…No."
"…I'm taking you…"
"…You take me to the hospital and I'm dead."
"Wait? What?"
"Please…"
"All right."
"Promise me."
When she remained silent he tightened his grip, relenting only slightly when Holly sucked in air through her teeth from the pain.
"Promise me," he repeated, softer this time.
"All right," Holly conceded, slightly surprised when he didn't protest her pulling her wrist away from him. The hand that held onto her dropped limply to his lap. "I promise. No hospitals."
She glanced at her passenger as they breeched the city. Streetlights welcomed drivers back into civilization, casting shadows and turning windows into temporary reflective surfaces. Derek turned his face away from her, but she caught glimpses of his reflection in the passenger window. Eyes closed, breathing rapid and shallow.
Everything in her screamed to get the man to Beacon Hill's emergency room. He was in no condition to make decisions about his health, but she'd promised him she wouldn't. Once upon a time, promises between her and Derek had been honor codes. A verbally spoken blood bond.
With another sigh, Holly pulled into the parking lot of a grocery store.
"Derek?"
When he didn't stir, she removed her seatbelt and leaned over the center console to examine him closer. He continued to breath quickly through parted lips, though it reminded Holly more of a dog panting in the summer heat than actual breathing.
"Derek?" she called his name louder as her eyes studying his face for any change. Any shift in his pattern of breathing. Any indication that he heard her or was awake.
Unresponsive she searched his front pockets for a wallet, found none, and tried as best she could to search the back pockets.
"What am I supposed to do with you?"
Another sigh left her lips as she drummed her fingers against the steering wheel and mentally went through her options. She couldn't take him to his house.
That had been one of the first places she visited upon returning to Beacon Hill. She'd heard Derek was in town, exonerated from suspicions of murdering his sister and about five other people. On the drive to his place she pictured she'd find it in various stages of reconstruction. The last of the Hale linage, returning the family home to its former glory. Her heart sank when she pulled up to see the same burnt out shell from six years ago.
She couldn't take him to the hospital, though that would be the right thing to do. The decent thing… promise be damned. He didn't have a wallet, at least none she could find, but he did have a phone shoved into his front pocket. She could check it. See what number he called the most. See if there was some contact that could tell her where he lived. Her eyes lingered on the pocket in questions but ultimately looked away. She never invaded his privacy before, she wasn't about to start now.
Pressing her lips together, Holly slipped her car back into gear and merged into the traffic on the streets. There was really only one place she could think to take him.
"You weigh a ton," Holly scolded an unconscious Derek as she sat on the floor to catch her breath.
Their destination had been her family home, technically her home since she was all the only Williams left, in the affluent neighborhood of Beacon Hill. Once upon a time her father, in his words, reigned as mayor of Beacon Hill. However, prior to his election into public office he'd already made a fortune for the family. She grew up in the lap of all the privilege money could buy… and a necropolis wouldn't contain all the bones of their family secrets.
The Williams' estate had never been one filled of childhood laughter or love. It had been one of the things that kept her going back to the Hale household when she was a child and a teen. Derek's friendship and resulting protection had been a happy side effect.
Upon their arrival she parked in the garage, pulled a sleeping bag from the basement, opened it up, rolled Derek inside, zipped it up, and literally dragged him from the garage to the first floor guest bedroom. He stirred a few times, regaining some semblance of consciousness long enough to vocalize pain but never really came to.
Holly stood, rubbed her hands together and gripped the ends of the sleeping bag. After minutes of struggling, and being positive she pulled some obscure muscles in her back, she finally tugged a sleeping bag full of Derek up the side of the bed. She positioned him in the center and unzipped the bag spreading it open on either side.
Under the lights of the room he looked worse than he had in the car. The absence of light hid how pale he'd become, but it was the rips in his shirt that caused a frown to settle over Holly's expression.
"I'll be right back," she told him softly. "Don't move."
She moved through the house, quickly collecting items she would need. Two plastic containers filled with warm water, several wash clothes, antiseptic, bandages, scissors and tape. She took a seat on one side of Derek when she returned. The items spread on the other. She cleaned his face and head first, soaking one of the wash clothes and carefully dabbing at the blood.
Somewhere between dragging him from the garage, and rolling him onto the bed his breathing evened out from shallow, quick pants, to a deep, even pattern indicative of sleep.
With the blood cleared away, she couldn't find a wound that caused the leakage in the first place. The same couldn't be said after cutting away his shirt. Slash marks of varying depths cut across his torso, side, and back like some sort of savage roadmap. There were a lot of injuries a car could cause… claw marks were not on that list.
"What the hell happened to you?"
Holly tried to keep her concentration on cleaning and disinfecting the wounds, and less on the impressive muscle structure underneath and around them. She'd seen Derek without his shirt on before. Being on the swim team together, she had seen him in nothing but a pair of swim trunks. Six years ago, a teenage Derek possessed a great body. Now, Holly was fairly certain a hunt for fat anywhere on him would end in defeat.
Cleaned and bandaged, she removed his shoes, socks and considered removing his pants for a half second until she remembered underwear had always been an optional garment for Derek. Holly knelt on the bed next to Derek, studied him, frowned, and placed her hand on the center of his chest. His heart was racing again faster than it had been before. His color hadn't improved and his skin felt clammy.
"Oh no. No, no, Derek no."
Holly watched in horror as each white bandage slowly turned a sickening shade of red so dark it was nearly black.
Holly assumed the situation couldn't get any worse.
The convulsions proved her wrong.