The first time Sheriff Stilinski says thanks, Derek shrugs, like it was nothing. The scent was young, and strong, and in any case, an omega off his face, and roaming the streets was more his problem than anyone else's.
The second time, Stilinski says, "No, I'm serious," and Derek doesn't know what to say.
The third time, he corners him. The Sheriff corners Derek. He invites him into his office, and shuts the door behind them, turning the flimsy lock, the deadbolt tumbling over into place. It's nothing to Derek. The windows are large, and glass, and even a man of ordinary strength could break through them with minimal effort.
But he doesn't like being locked up.
He can feel the itch of panic at the back of his throat, can taste a sharper note salivate on his tongue, can smell his own fear.
"Sit. Please," Stilinski says. He gestures to the chair in front of his desk, as he swings with officious grace into the one behind it.
"I'd rather stand."
And he does, his arms crossed, a slight, protective hunch bending his shoulders, and as much suspicion and disdain in his eyes as he can muster.
Stilinski sees this, but instead of plunging the room into notes of sharp, pungent terror, he presses his lips together, and sighs.
"You're not in any trouble," he says, his words accompanied by low, mellow notes of comfort offered. Derek doesn't believe him, but humans are notoriously bad at obfuscating their scents, so on the promise of that alone, he obliges the sheriff.
The wooden chair creaks as he settles into it, pushing his back against the wooden spindles, planting his feet. Establishing a basis for momentum if he needs to run.
Across from him, Stilinski steeples his hands.
"I just wanted to talk to you – seriously – for a minute."
"Okay."
"You were a big help out there tonight, you know? Lead us right to where we needed to go. If it weren't for you, things might not have turned out so well."
"Well, they did."
"They did," he nods. "And it wasn't just wolf stuff. You found the tracks, you identified the suspect, you figured out his plan. You were good with the kid."
His brow furrows, and he examines the grain of his desk, plotting out the course of conversation in its warped lines.
"Have you ever considered joining the force?"
There's a moment before the words catch in his brain, but when they do, Derek laughs.
He smiles, and even though the corners of his mouth twist down with bitterness, Sheriff Stilinski can see a child in the moment. This isn't a deputy, much as he's been treating him like one. This isn't Parrish, or Graeme. This is a boy. This is his son. Or someone's son.
And he shifts. His shoulders settle, and he rests his elbows on the paper riddled surface in front of him. Derek Hale needs guidance, not direction.
"No offence, Sheriff Stilinski, but I really don't think I'm deputy material."
"Why do you say that?"
Derek stills. His smile folds back away, underneath slack disbelief.
"You're serious."
"I am," Stilinski affirms. "What makes you think you'd be a bad cop?"
The young man in front of him flounders for a second, his defences crumbling before honest speculation. Strong arms unfold to hang at his sides, fingers picking at a small piece of splintering wood on the seat, his broad shoulders drooping into softer lines, like the plane of migrating birds constantly seeking home.
"I don't know," he starts. "Maybe because I've spent more time here in handcuffs, than I have without them?"
"No charges, though."
"Yeah, but it's not like they didn't try."
"Who's 'they'?"
"You."
Derek's clear on that. As long as he can identify an enemy, it seems he's got something left to prove.
"Nothing ever stuck."
"What a shame," Derek smiles, but it's grim, and Stilinski sees his own defeat signed on the thin line of his lips. "Now, if that's everything you need from me for now, I'm going home."
"I pulled your school records from the year you graduated," he offers as Derek leaves.
Those slight words penetrate like slivers of glass, piercing the broad, durable shield of the boy's back, turning him back to the Sheriff, driving him to stand before him again like a kid in detention.
"Why would you do that? Those records are private," he storms. "Those records are mine."
Stilinski is unmoved, no solid oak, but a reed in a windstorm – blown, and blustered, but too understanding to be uprooted.
"Standard background check procedure," he notes, shuffling through the papers of a file marked with Derek's name. "And I gotta say, I was pleasantly surprised. Straight A's. You know, that first year, even without the whole wolfpack-camino-kanima thing, Stiles still got a C in P.E.. 'Inability to focus, and lack of coordination' was the exact note from his teacher, I think."
Dereks grinds his teeth. With so much to object to, he's silenced, not knowing where to start, or how to end it.
"Give those to me," he says, the words slipping out like distant thunder. "Now."
"Yeah, sure," Stilinski replies, closing the file and handing it over.
Sure he's being played, but without knowing how, Derek flips it open again, thumbing through the pages. Report cards, detention records, and some of his better classwork swim in and out of focus, as he tries to see what Stilinski was looking for.
"Oh, check out your essay on 'As You Like It'," the sheriff says, gesturing at a loose packet of paper. "Top marks, and if I remember right, your teacher wrote 'remarkable' in red ink, like six separate times. Ten pages."
As though conjured, the red lettering leaps to his attention, and he runs his fingers over the word, feeling the indentation of excitement and pride beneath the faded ink.
"It was five pages more than she wanted," he confesses. "I lost marks for that. Jenny Crossman beat me."
"Jenny Crossman finished med school, last year."
Derek snaps his gaze to the Sheriff's.
"So?" he demands.
Stilinski shrugs.
"Some might call that an impressive achievement," he says, pausing to let Derek catch up. "But I wouldn't call it remarkable."
Derek exhales from what seems like the tips of his toes, his head dropping, his fingers sliding across the pages, summoning judgemental whispers from the grooves of text the way a needle summons music from vinyl.
"I wouldn't say I was, either," he says.
"No?" Stilinski asks. "I mean, it took me fifteen years in Beacon Hills, and my son's best friend getting bitten before I cottoned on to the idea there might be something extraordinary going on, so maybe I'm not the best judge, but I gotta say, son – when I look at you, I see someone quite remarkable."
Derek looks at him like he knows he's lying, so Stilinski continues, justifying his claim.
"I see someone who's strong, and compassionate, and loyal to his friends. Someone smart, who does his best to reach out to others, even when they don't deserve it; who wears his legacy like chain mail, carrying the weight of family who died a long time ago -"
"They were murdered."
"They were," Stilinski acknowledges, offering some absolution in his stark honesty. "But you weren't."
"It was my fault."
"Derek," he says. "Derek, look at me."
It's not a gold, or red, or blue gaze looking back at him, and he realises that Derek Hale's wide, earnest eyes are naturally green. Like grass, like shafts of sunlight filtered through a summer canopy of leaves. Like something wholly natural, neither good nor evil. Just true. So he offers him more of the same.
"You were sixteen years old," he says. "What do you think a sixteen year old can do about anything?"
"Scott -"
"Would be dead, if it weren't for you. Stiles would be dead. Lydia, Jackson, Isaac – hell, just about half this town owes you their life in one way or another."
"Alison died. Her mother -"
"From what I heard, you saved Scott's life that night. You almost lost your own," he stops, not sure how much to reveal. Not sure how much more exposure Derek can take before a slight burn erupts in a complete conflagration. "What that family did to yours...to you -"
"They're hunters," Derek shakes his head. "It's what they do. After everything...I don't blame them. And Argent, he – he lost his wife, and his daughter. His father. I've almost killed him myself, more than once. Any debts are more than repaid."
"That's not how this works," Stilinski says. "Vengeance isn't closure. You know this. You said it yourself – 'We've learned a better way.'"
A deep breath, and Derek gathers as much of himself as he can in his arms, his shoulders flexing to bear the weight once more.
"I'm sorry, Sheriff," he says, polite but distant, handing his transcripts back. "I'm not the boy in this folder. I'm not the man you think I am. There's nothing of me that would make this work."
"Protect and serve," the Sheriff says.
"What?"
"That's the motto of nearly every police force in this country, if not officially, then spiritually," he says. "And isn't that what your family's done for centuries? Isn't that what you've done? What you've been doing for years?"
Derek has no answer for this, and the sheriff presses on.
"My son – God love him – has a bad habit of interfering in things that don't involve him. He calls it investigating, but it's closer to snooping, or invasion of privacy, or -"
"Breaking and entering."
"Or that, but I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that, for now," he shrugs. "Anyway, he's got it in his head that Beacon Hills was designed as a safe haven, and your family was here – was always here – to protect it. To protect its inhabitants. Now, for someone so dead set on defending a family that, as far as I can see, has done more to torment you than support you, you're awfully quick to discard the most admirable parts of that history, and claim responsibility for the ugly bits."
"I'm not -"
"And that's noble – I sort of admire that in a dumb, thoughtless way. But it is a dumb, thoughtless way of looking at the whole thing." He strides back to his chair, dropping the bare accounting of Derek's childhood on his desk. "Now, the way I see it? You can spend the rest of your life running, hiding, slowing leeching off the million dollar investments you've made in your family's name, and bowing to the wishes and commands of dead, and bitter people, or you can do something remarkable. Let the past stay in the past. Forgive. Forget. Grow up."
And remarkably, from the slight rise of his brows, and the shift of his gaze, Stilinski gets the impression that might be something Derek actually wants.
"You're not a sixteen year old kid, anymore, Derek," he says. "Don't act like one."