safe house

"I'm going to kill him." Braeden stomped down the stairs and burst into the living room. Derek had already been sitting on the couch, head hanging low and death threats running rampant already running through his head. He was already seeing red, even before she came down the stairs. The clock on the back wall read 10:51, almost a half hour after Ben's curfew.

Braeden was standing in front of her all twitchy, going from having her hands on her hips to crossing her arms. She was in her pajamas (complete with makeup of, bunny slippers, hair wrapped) and was the angriest she's ever been since Ben was born.

"Good thing there's guns everywhere," Derek huffed.

"Good thing there's three pissy werewolves in this house on the night before a full moon," Braeden paced about the couch.

"Hey, we don't know about Jeremy yet. So I'd say two and a half." Derek reminded her of their youngest son, Jeremy, who at the age of 7 has surprisingly shown less signs of becoming a werewolf than his older brother and sister (but Deaton says to still watch out because he just might be a late bloomer due to being born later than them and unplanned). She gave him a look.

"Whatever, Derek, I don't care there should be three and a half." Braeden slapped his shoulder.

"Brae, I want to kill him too." Derek said, checking his phone again. No messages from Ben. No missed calls or anything. One message from Stiles, telling him that legally since Beacon Hills curfew for 17 year olds is 11:30, no he cannot track down his son and no crime has been reported in the last 2 hours. One message from Scott telling him that Grace was home at 10 and so were their mutual friends, so Ben couldn't possibly be with them. But that still didn't really help because Ben and Grace they didn't have that many mutual friends.

"What could he be doing if he's not in danger, besides disrespecting us?" Braeden pulled out her phone, frustrated at the blank screen. "Who could he be with? What the fuck else could he be doing with whoever the hell he could possibly be with? This is too much, I'm going to kill him."

"He's a good kid."Derek tried to assure himself, staring at the screen. "He's not gonna do anything that stupid or reckless or dumb. He's fine. He knows to call. He's a kid."

"But Derek, that's just it. He's not just any old kid, he's my kid. So where is he? " Braeden said, with her voice unexpectedly cracking.

Derek looked up at her, noticing the sharp change in her voice. He looked at her more closely now. Her face, while still angry, had an element of sadness. She smelled anxious and angry, but she also smelled a little bit desperate. Instead of having her arms crossed, her arms were wrapped around herself in a hug.

He could kill Ben for this.

"No. Don't you look at me like that." Braeden placed the steel back in her voice, taking steps towards the kitchen. She jerked open the freezer and looked for her emergency ice cream.

Braeden sighed, pushing past Jeremy's favorite dinosaur nuggets and Alice's mini frozen pizzas and some leftover frozen hamburgers Derek was supposed to grill from the barbecue they had last weekend. And there it was. Her emergency ice cream. The one with chocolate covered pretzels. The one she always ate when she was either pregnant (all three times) or just sad.

She had no idea how many different types of emotions a mom can go through in one night, especially moms of 17 year-old boys. It was like almost yesterday that she could remember finding out she was pregnant. And the days when Derek would cradle Ben like he was the most precious thing on planet Earth or when Derek would swing him around or when Derek would put Ben to sleep and end up falling asleep with him. When he was two and his eyes glowed for the first time and that night, Derek cried. And she would come home to them, her boys, and feel joy. And then joy quickly multiplied from just little Ben into Alice Talia Hale, 4 years later, and then later Jeremy Nathan Hale, 10 years after Ben. It's been a long time.

Now she had to wait for Ben to come back to them, and one day Ali, and then (oh god) her baby Jeremy and she hated it.

But God, Ben had just been growing up way too fast for her. She never really pinpointed when it began to accelerate. Was it when he stopped calling her Momma? How about when he hit puberty and grew six inches one winter? When Derek, Liam, Malia, and Scott started to be teach him how to control his shifts during the full moon. When he entered high school. When he started to grow facial hair. When she and Stiles took him to the police academy's shooting range. When Derek taught him to drive and he got his license. When he went on his first college tour, UCLA, last weekend.

Those moments would never compare to the first time he nuzzled his tiny perfect curly head onto her shoulder. When he wasn't out at night way past curfew doing things that she didn't know about because he has the freedom to do so and he was almost an adult anyway and she wasn't Momma anymore anyway.

And who was she to be doing this type of stuff anyway? Who said she could be a mom? Who said she could raise a kid? Because if Ben was going to be a delinquent then-

"Brae, he's not just your kid. He's mine too." Out of nowhere, Derek's voice intervened her thoughts.

"Well, right now, he's just acting like an asshole." she avoided his eyes and scooped ice cream into her mouth.

"Brae," Derek's voice took on a serious tone. Braeden finally turned to look at him. "I know you're doing that thing you do, you've been doing it for 17 years. You're blaming yourself. Thinking you're not a good mother, not cutting yourself some slack. But you didn't raise him alone. You're not raising any of our kids alone."

"I know." she murmured.

He appeared behind her, wrapping his arms around her.

"And we did a good job. You and me? We're good parents."

"I know."

"Yeah, Ben's gonna have hell to pay. And, you're right, he's an asshole right now. But he's a good kid all of the time. And he'll always be our good asshole kid."

"Derek, I know." she whispered. "I just...I'm worried about him. I want him home."

"Honey, he's okay. I would know if he wasn't fine. Scott says he's fine. Stiles says he is fine. He's a good kid. We raised a good kid. just in so much trouble. Don't worry, I hate seeing you like this, please."

She leaned against his strong arm and he kissed her shoulder, gently rocking her back and forth. She felt safe in Derek's arms. She felt safe in this house (if you could believe it, being 10 minutes away on the outskirts of Beacon Hills and with Stiles Stilinski as sheriff) with him and almost all of her children. It's been such a long time since she's felt insecure like that.

She looked at the clock. 27 minutes past 11.

"Mom, Ben's home!" Alice screamed, ready to relish in her older brother getting yelled at.

"Alice, I smell him, thank you." Derek yelled back to her as Braeden told her to go back into bed before she wakes up Jeremy.

Braeden took a spoon of ice cream and fed him. Derek chuckled and grabbed the spoon from her hand, responding to the sound of the key turning and the door opening and the sound of his son mutter "shit" under his breath.

"Baby, that was nice and all. But I'm still gonna kill him," Braeden promised as she shuffled past him to be the first thing Ben sees upon entering the house. Derek chuckled.

" BENJAMIN MICHAEL HALE, STAY RIGHT THERE. DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?"