Dr. Deaton remembered the last time he'd seen Finley Hale.
She was a short, frail figure with wild hair and freckled, pale cheeks. Her hands had been dripping with blood and the gashes on her shoulders and chest had soaked through Derek's large shirt she always wore. Her eyes, once small and bright, were large and mossy. Her face resembled that of trauma-like fear. And that's exactly what was wrong with her.
Because to this day he remembers what she had said to him as he wrapped her wounds in a healing gel and gauze. Because of those words, he remembers her all too well.
"I hope she suffers."
He stops applying the gel to the wound on her collarbone, looks at her with confused eyes. He stands up straight, looks down at her from his height. "What did you say, Sweets?"
Her lips twitched at the name. It'd been forever since she'd heard that name from his lips. He was the only one allowed to call her that. He was her savior when she went through her physical trials. And he'd never had a smart mouth with her. He was always…gentle, and good-natured. But only with her.
The small smile left her mouth as quickly as it came. She looked up at him through dirty, red hair with eyes wide and dark. Her lips moved and the words that left her were as shocking to her as it was to him.
"Kate," she whispers. "I hope she suffers. When it's time for her to die, I hope she burns, just like she made my family burn."
The next day, she'd left Beacon Hills, pronounced dead at the scene of the arson. Just like her family, she had become a pile of ashes in the rummage of her once "home."
To see her again, sitting in his office, on the examining table was barely a surprise. He had sensed her. The familiar burning in his chest he'd experienced two days ago was a little reminder that no, she wasn't a pile of ashes. But it was a warning, because this "pile of ashes" was in his wake.
She was strapped to the bone with weapons, leather holsters for her daggers, protection runes scarred into her skin, and the pearls he'd shown her to carve out of stone for explosive results. Of the magickal kind, anyway. It was something he was never really proud of teaching her, until she learned when to use them and what for. There'd been several incidents where Peter had to drag a werewolf into his veterinary office with a hole blown in his side due to several ill-mannered pranks. Hmm, now whose fault was that, he'd thought bitterly each time.
"Deaton," she acknowledged. He gave her a nod in return as he set down his suitcase and coat. She looked well and alive, he noticed. Her skin wasn't as pale as the day he'd last seen her. She was back to her healthy glow (or, at least as healthy as porcelain white skin can look), and toned with soft girlish muscles in her arms, stomach, and legs. She'd been training.
Her naval-length hair had been pulled into a large carousel brain on to top of her head, baby wisps of hair falling around her freckled face, letting him know she'd gotten sun in Australia. Her eyes were still dark and mossy, though, and very big. Her eyes had changed, almost doe-like, yet beautiful of the dark sort. The brown industrial leather vest was zipped up halfway to reveal the name of a band on her shirt. Something in French, he realized. And her legs were clad in black skinnies and combat boots.
She's changed all together, he thought.
"It's been awhile, Doc," she whispers to him. But the space is empty so it sounds as if she were talking at a normal volume.
"Yes," he replied as he began to open up his cabinet for the day's files. Everything had been rearranged. "I see you've kept yourself busy with my files again. Clearly, your OCD hasn't left you."
Her mouth twitches in a smile as she hops down from the examination table. "Yup," she offers.
"Why do you insist on rearranging my things?"
"Because you never were an organized man, Uncle Dea." He smiles and turns around from the cabinet to wrap her in a hug well needed. She inhales his scent and sighs at the smell of his old magick stuck to his clothes. She hums to the sound of his heartbeat and lets the warmth of their embrace take her into a magickal oblivion. "You've been practicing…"
The black man chuckles in response. "Yes, well, your father is a pain in the ass when I'm trying to quit."
"He can't help it," she mutters. "Trouble was born in his blood. He's like an addiction for trouble."
"Always is, never not."
Clary is in his apartment, cooking lunch for him, because unfortunately, Isaac is not the greatest of cooks. To put it in simpler terms…He burns water.
She's rummaging through his cabinets, finding spices and seasonings and different kinds of vegetables. It's the first time she's actually put the effort into being healthy. She's a total pig when it comes to food. She'd rather consume fifty pounds worth of Twinkies than have a gap between her thighs. But ever since the Anemia-Lukemia Scare, she's been putting a large effort with a Health Kick.
And the thing about Clary is that she's the Pack Mom. It comes with the price of loving an Alpha, especially the "Derek Kind," as she referred to them one day in conversation with a moody Allison. And when the Pack Mom is on a diet, so is everyone else.
"So," Isaac starts as he towel dries his hair from his noon-time shower. He's had a habit of being extremely clean lately, though no one knows why. "Do you know anything about Finley?"
She looks up at him, pausing with the pasta sauce, before looking back down and stirring it up again.
"No," she replied. "I didn't really know she existed until the night you caught her outside the house. As far as I knew, she was dead."
Isaac looked confused. "Is that what Derek told you?"
She nodded. "Yeah; but I figure he had his reasons for falsifying her death. I mean, from what you look like, she looks like someone the Argents would have gone after. Especially Kate."
Isaac grimaced at the memory from two nights ago. He'd been patrolling the Hale Manor with Jackson when the smell of something lilac and bright hit their noses. Without even touching them, she'd broken one of Isaac's ribs and Jackson's shoulder blades. All she did was move her hand.
Clary was right, she does seem like the kind of person Derek would want to keep safe if he knew her as well as he thought he did.
"She called him, Dad." Clary looked up with wide eyes just as the door to Isaac's apartment slammed open. Finley stepped in.
She slapped her combat boots around the apartment before throwing herself on the couch.
"Sorry about the door," she mutters, "but I don't have a key."
Clary watches her with wide eyes and pure excitement. She straightens her spine and comes across determined to Isaac as she speaks loudly enough for Finley to hear.
"Who are you, exactly, to Derek?"