Summary: Wolf's Run was many things to the Hale Pack, but above all it was the place where they all felt safe.

Disclaimer: I do not own TW or the characters, just my AU/AR. (and MY OCs). Also FYI, this is un-betaed, so all the mistakes are mine

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Life and Times of a She-Wolf

The Wolves of Beacon Hills

The Safest Place on Earth


Derek Hale didn't really remember whose idea it was to write it all down and sketch out the blueprints to the place they had been talking about since the fire. Maybe it was Cora, she had taken that basic architecture class in high school…or maybe it was him trying to put it all down on paper to see if their designs for a new pack-home had any flaws in security…but it was probably Laura that suggested it. She would have wanted to make the reality that they were going back one day easier for her sibling-betas to bear and putting it all down on paper and taking about how they wanted their new home to look was the best way to get Derek and Cora used to the idea.

Laura had always made it clear that their stint in New York City was temporary, that once he and Cora had emotionally recovered and graduated college, they would go back to their ancestral home and rebuild the once mighty Hale Pack. She had a duty as Alpha of the Land, and Protector of The Nematon, to return. She never wanted to leave their home behind, and only did it because she was a great alpha and sister. Laura returned to Beacon Hills every few months to check on the land and their uncle, and when she came back it was always with more ideas about their future home.

It became a family tradition. Instead of spending the full moon running around the Preserve like they had when they were kids, they would spend it locked in their apartment drawing up plans for their future home. The wall around the entire Hale property was Laura's first idea.

"The problem with the old property is that the ancestors thought a wall around would make us look isolated. But I'm more concerned with controlling who is coming on the property and leaving. If danger is approaching then we will see it coming first."

From there the ideas would keep flowing; security cameras, a network of escape tunnels, an underground bunker, mountain ash imbedded into the brick wall they would build, one large den for the Hale family and smaller homes that would be built to accommodate the growing pack…

Most of them were Laura's idea, some were Cora's…Derek didn't have many to contribute. Initially he didn't feel like he had the right, but after some intensive therapy and grief counseling, he came to realize that what Kate did wasn't his fault by then the plans were basically complete and his only contribution was the escape tunnel in the basement theater room. Laura thought it unnecessary as there were others planned for the Den, but Derek insisted. He had lost one pack because they were trapped in the basement, he would not lose another to a basement.

The name was Laura's stupid idea. She came up with it a few months before she died. It was one of the last decisions about their new home the three siblings made together. Derek and Cora found it ridiculous, but when their big sister had her heart set on something it was going to happen.

"Wolf's Run! That's what we'll call it!" she had giggled in a manic way that only his big sister could manage without looking like a lunatic.

He and Cora threw pillows at Laura as she explained how perfect the name was for the property; how it felt right, it was perfect for the family. Laura had cackled as she wrote the name in the middle of the sketch (in the empty space that represented the training field). Cora tried to knock the pen out of her hands but was unsuccessful. There it was in red pen and his big sisters loopy handwriting, the name of their future home.

After Laura's body was found in the woods of Beacon Hills, and he was cleared as a suspect in her murder he called Cora, telling her the news. Days after he killed their uncle and avenged his sister he picked Cora up at the train station and they put Laura's body to rest in the family mausoleum. They ended up burying Peter in the ruins of their old home; unable to bury someone that killed their own blood next to the one he murdered.

They grieved for both Laura and Peter that weekend. The two of them crying and howling in agony on their family property. He and Core were the last of the Hales and that fact along with the loss of Laura and Peter brought them immense grief. He wasn't worried about the Argents, or about his uncle's beta…he was too busy lost in his emotions.

On Monday morning they pulled themselves together and he drove Cora to the nearest airport. They had lives to get to; he had alpha powers, powers that belonged to his sister and his mother before him, to adjust to. And Cora had a semester in college to finish before she transferred to Hale College and she had to pack up all their things from the New York apartment.

Before she boarded the plane, Cora pulled the rolled up blueprints from her backpack and handed them to him. "It's time to rebuild big brother." She said kissing his cheek and walking away.

She was right. It was way past time. Their lands had been left vulnerable because Derek and Cora couldn't stand living in the place where their family died and Laura had been trying to be the best alpha she could be to them. Evil had taken root in their uncle and he knew it was only a matter of time before others came to take advantage of the vulnerability.

So in the months that followed he and Cora rebuilt. With help from his mom's old friend Alan and Alan's sister Marin, they were able to put mountain ash in the walls surrounding the property and alter the minds of the construction workers so they didn't remember the secret rooms in the house or the underground tunnels. With the help of Cora, Scott and Stiles he started recruiting pack members to join; lost broken souls like he and his sister were, people that needed a family.

When construction had finished at the end of that summer, Derek went to have the sign for the estate made. Cora came with him. She threw a fit when she saw he was going to have it named Laura's Run after their fallen sister and made him change the name back.

"That wasn't the plan Derek; we stick with the plan, with what she wanted…what would Laura say if she knew you changed the name?"

"Something along the lines of 'don't be such a turd baby brother…'. But I want to honor her memory. She sacrificed so much for us that whole damned estate was her idea Core."

"Yeah, it was. But we honor her by being the best we can be, so when she looks down on us, her and mom can gloat to dad on the fantastic job they each did in raising us…Mommy and Laurie loved to gloat…"

Derek smiled. Wolf's Run it was. He would make his big sister, his parents and his ancestors proud, he would build his pack and keep them and the community safe like all the alphas in his family had done since the beginning.

The pack loved the name and on move in day Cora told the story of the night Laura came up with the name while they were all unpacking. His pack laughed at the story and consoled him and Cora when the memory of their sister made them cry. That night when his sister and betas were settling down in their rooms (or in Stilinski's case sneaking into Cora's room when he thought Derek wasn't looking) he went to the control room and locked the gates, sighing in relief when screen said 'Alarms Engaged. Gates Secured.'

His new family was safe. Their new home was the safest place for them to be.


Run.

Keep Running.

Don't slow down.

Survive.

She pulled along her little brother as she tried her hardest to keep up with Raul and Diego. It felt like they had been running for days. Weeks? Months? Years? She always had trouble with time, and it had gotten more difficult to count the days since Mommy died and she received the family Gift.

Juliet knew they would be safe one day, but that did not stop her from being terrified of the bad people chasing them. The fact that one day soon they would be safe, loved and protected at Wolf's Run did nothing to ease her fear of the hunters but it did help her find the strength to keep running and help her baby brother keep up.

Wolf's Run is the safest place of earth, filled to the brim with powerful people, who were family even though they all weren't blood related and people who would love her and protect her from harm with their lives.

It was going to be okay… One day she, her brother and their friends would be safe.

Her blood ran cold as she heard the approach of the hunters' boots and smelt the wolfsbane and gunpowder. They were closing in.

"Julie, Connor, Come on!" Raul ordered pushing Diego along before slowing down for them.

"Go hide!" She yelled, resigned as she saw the men come toward them.

Where is the lady who saves us? Rosie, where are you?

She was beginning to think her visions were wrong when the hunters fired at Connor. Raul picked her brother up and he and Diego began to run away from the bullets when a she-wolf in full shift came running and howled for help.

"Run Puppies!" Rosie yelled.

Juliet ran, following Raul, Diego and Connor, and couldn't help but sigh in relief once they all hid in a small cavern.

They heard the howls of a pack and the retreat of the hunters once they were in the cavern. Connor may be bleeding, they may be frightened, and they were all tired and hungry but Juliet reassured her brother, Raul and Diego that everything would be fine.

They would be safe soon.

They would be home.


Lydia Martin was not afraid of anything. She lived with her pack, and their home was quite secure. She had no reason to be afraid. Sure, she had seen things in life but, she was safe and every time she had been in a dangerous situation that she could not help herself, her friends, mate, mother, or step sister were there to protect her.

Unfortunately, the men in her family were not so lucky to have had people there to save them from the trauma life threw at them. Peter, her step father, had been trapped in a fire and lost his mind, having to live with the fact he had killed people (his niece included), bit Scott and tormented Lydia; Her little brothers had lost their birth parents to hunters and had been on the run from hunters themselves for god knows how long before being adopted by Mom and Peter. Everyone in the pack had a past full of sad, hurtful things, she was among the lucky few that had lived life with little trauma until encountering the supernatural. But perhaps the most heartbreaking past (in her opinion) was that of her mate and his brother.

Aiden and Ethan Jones were abandoned at a Los Angeles fire station when they were newborns. They were given surnames by social services and taken in by a local family, that happened to be apart of the Jackson Pack of wolves.

The Jackson Pack was more a street gang than a family, and the members of the pack treated the weak twin boys like omegas; never forgetting to remind the boys that they were useless pups that even their parents didn't want. It's not clear how bad the abuse was, Danny, Lydia and countless pack members had tried to get the twins to speak of it but they refused. Lydia did know enough to know that no one had shown these boys kindness when they were growing up, until Rosalyn Perez came to live with the pack.

The time after Rose ran away from the Jackson Alpha and his cousin, was the only time with the Jackson Pack the twins would talk about. They had seen kindness, they had known affection, and had decided that they deserved more than being treated like omegas in their own pack. They refused to take the abuse and began to run away. Social services always brought them back, and they were beat horribly for trying to leave but the twins had said that that bit of freedom was well worth the beatings.

It was these acts of defiance that drew the Alpha Pack to the twins. Deucalion, Ennis and Kali met the boys during one of their escapes and befriended them. Soon Duke was offering the twins a chance to join the Alpha Pack, have a family. The boys were desperate to get out from under the Jackson Alpha's thumb, so stealing his life and becoming alphas was not a problem for them…but the second part, the killing of the entire Jackson Pack, of all the men women and children in it gave them pause. But the Alpha Pack had been able to convince then to do it. Lydia isn't clear on the how, but she knows enough about adolescent psychology and about new alpha power to know that it wouldn't take much affection from the Alpha Pack to get the twins thinking murder was their only option and that once two teenaged boys had killed the alpha, the new power would thrive upon their old traumas by the pack and demand vengeance.

They were then declared wards of Deucalion, and lived for years with a different kind of abuse. Forced to be killers of whoever displeased the Alpha Pack and beaten for any disobedience. And they took it because for every kill they had to carry out, for every beating they took they received affection from their three pack mates. That affection meant the world to the loved-starved Jones twins.

But then they came to Beacon Hills, met their mates and lost their alpha-powers. Now they were adjusting to life in a real pack was like. A pack filled with true affection and love, a pack where the alpha didn't beat you daily and you didn't have to fight or kill for your meals. Ethan and Aiden had trouble adjusting to this new life but were willing to try for Danny and Lydia.

Aiden wakes up screaming most nights reliving either his childhood or that night he and Ethan slaughtered the Jackson Pack. He'd cry for his brother, and when they lived with Ethan and Danny, Ethan would come running into their room.

"We're safe now Aiden. No one is ever going to hurt us again." Ethan would whisper as he and Aiden rocked back and forth and cried.

Those nights Lydia would crawl in bed with Danny and they'd both stare helplessly at the door, neither sure on how to help their mate. Danny once made a joke that the two of them slept together more than they slept with their mates. They both knew that the only person that understood their mate was his brother, and on some level they were okay with it. Co-dependency wasn't healthy, but if it kept the man they loved sane, they would live with it.

When Derek built more houses on Wolf's Run, so each mated pair (or triad) could have their own home, the twins, Danny and Lydia had protested. No one knew how to deal with the twins' very deep psychological pain and the thought of separating them was unthinkable. But Derek made the case that they needed their own space, they needed to get used to it…Lydia and Danny wouldn't be going to the same grad schools the four of them would have to split up one day.

They tried it for a week and failed miserably. It wasn't just the twins that had grown dependent on the four of them living together Lydia and Danny had as well. Most nights the four of them would end up curled up together in Ethan and Danny's room. Derek gave up and remodeled one of the houses so it had two master suites and a guest room, and the four Joneses moved in together.

The funny thing was that after they moved back in together, Ethan and Aiden spent more nights in their own beds with their mates, and had fewer nightmares. They felt safer, knowing that the pack was so accepting of what they needed, and didn't treat them as omegas because of their 'weakness' (Aiden's term). Their alphas had gone out of their way to accommodate them. They finally began to understand that they had a true home at Wolf's Run.

No harm would come to the Jones boys ever again. Even if their home wasn't ridiculously secure, danger would have to get through their over-protective alphas, packmates and Lydias before it could breathe the same air as Aiden and Ethan.

No one was laying a violent finger on those boys ever again. She simply wouldn't allow it.

"Don't be scared, you live in the safest place on earth." She'd whisper each night before falling asleep. It relaxed Aiden and soothed whatever fear she had as well.


Andromeda Hale didn't fully understand what danger meant until that summer.

She had lived her whole life in Beacon Hills, surrounded by people who cared for her dearly or respected her parents' position as Alphas and her role as their heir. Danger was not something she truly understood.

She understood it mentally… the idea of danger…of packmates and self in peril. But the understanding came from stories of her parents and ancestors; she had never been in danger herself. She had never truly experienced fear. She had been afraid before, had a bad nightmare once or twice, got scared by Uncle Stiles' sick obsession with making Halloween extra creepy, but that fear was nothing compared to what happened that summer.

Mom and Dad needed to go see the Diaz Pack in Mexico, and instead of leaving her and Aubrey behind, they went with them. It was the summer before her eighth birthday, and they hadn't had an outing just the four of them since DJ was born. Mom decided that DJ needed to learn that there were people who would care for him besides her so he was left at home. Andi and Aubrey had been so excited to go to Mexico with their parents. They visited the Diaz compound first, and then Mom took them to a resort to spend time together, while Dad did alpha stuff and spent time with his Dad's family.

They were supposed to meet again when the alpha stuff was over, Dad was supposed to join them on the beach after a few days. Andi knew something was wrong when he didn't call to tell them goodnight. And when Juliet called Mom instead and Mom started talking in hushed growls to Aunt Cora and Aunt Laura she knew something bad had happened.

Her Daddy was missing. There had been an attack at the Diaz compound.

Over the next month she had experienced fear. Her Dad was missing; then once they found him he had been de-aged to look as old as Diego and he didn't recognize Mom or Andi, Aubrey and DJ; then a were-jaguar woman and her berserkers attacked again and Andi came close to watching her parents, aunts and many Diazes die.

She experienced danger and fear in that month and she hated it.

Once Dad was back to normal, and the were-jaguar was defeated they went home, and as soon as the car drove through the gates of her home Andi began to cry. She never wanted to be that scared again, if Dad hadn't been able to shift into a Hale Wolf like her aunts, they all would have died. So far away from home and pack, so far away from the safety of home, she would have been orphaned just because her parents decided to take a vacation, separate and let their guards down away from home.

She was glad they were alive, but she was so angry at them.

So angry that, she had shifted into wolf form and jumped out of the moving car window, running towards the woods.

She heard Mom yelling after her, and Aunt Laura saying to give her some time. Aunt Laura understood her best. Being the heir was never easy, but Andi had been okay with all the attention and coddling as long as her pack was safe. Now that she had experienced how not-safe life could be she didn't know how to cope. What was the point of being a part of a powerful pack if they were only ever safe in their tiny town and kept their guard up? Was that anyway to live life?

She made it to the ruins of the old Hale House, the place where Dad grew up and was reminded that even staying in town and keeping your guard up didn't guarantee safety. A fire had nearly wiped out the pack when her grandmother was the Alpha, and she was a strong, careful alpha. A second fire had nearly killed her parents before she was born and Mom and Dad were the best alphas ever.

She had come too close to watching a berserker rip off Mom's head just days ago. Dad had barely been able to save her in time, because the were-jaguar woman had knocked him out, and he had been close to death in his young body. Andi could only watch helplessly as her aunts and the Diaz pack fought for their lives and her Mom was all alone. She would have jumped in and helped but she was too busy hiding Aubrey and DJ from harm. If the berserkers saw them she and her siblings would be dead for sure and no one would be able to save them.

"You did the right thing Andi. I'm proud of you."Said her Dad's voice in her mind. She turned around and looked at the new wolf approaching her. It was weird seeing her father in this wolf form, she had been so used to his monster-wolf form. But now he was a true Hale Wolf, something males in her family typically were not powerful enough to achieve.

"Go away. I'm mad."She said, making a run for it in the opposite direction.

Her father chased her down easily enough, only confirming that he and mom always let Andi and her siblings win when they played chase. "No, you are afraid. You're allowed to be afraid, Angel. It was a scary situation." He said head butting her.

"Our kind are never safe are we?" She sighed.

"The world is full of danger for people like us. Why do you think we build and fortify our dens like we do? So our loved ones have at least one safe place to go in the entire world."

"the Diaz den wasn't safe."

"Some Dens are safer than others. The Diaz Pack hasn't updated their security since my father was a child."

"You and Mom update the system each month…"

"Exactly. Angel, I'm not saying that you will never again know fear or experience danger. I can't guarantee that. I can tell you that this pack has worked very hard to make sure Wolf's Run is the safest place on earth for a member of The Hale Pack."

Andi nodded. She knew he was right.

"Now would you mind coming with me back to the Den? Your mother was very shaken up by the situation and is demanding the entire pack sleep in the theater room together tonight. I think it's a good idea, I'm feeling uneasy myself. I need to know you are all okay."

Andi began running towards the house. "I'm going to beat you Daddy!"

"Will you?" He said as he began to pass her.

"No fair! You're a grown up! You're supposed to let me win!" She yelled as they arrived at the den and she shifted back.

Her father smiled when he shifted to human, and grabbed for the clothing her mother had left on the porch. "You always complain that we let you win."

Andi huffed and got dressed. They made their way inside together and saw they whole pack was cuddled together on the couches and fighting over which movie to watch before dinner.

"Elsa!" her cousin Ava said. As Dad settled in next to her Mom and DJ, and Andi settled in between Diana and Aubrey

"No! Not another princess movie, anything but a princess movie..." Raul whined.

"Grow up, you start college soon." Diego told him, "You know the rules, nothing higher than PG while the younger kids are awake."

"There's tons of PG movies that are not Frozen." Juliet said, "If I hear 'Let It Go' one more time today…"

Diana snorted, elbowing Andi in the side. Andi watched as her cousin pressed play on a tiny remote and the house filled with the song Juliet was just talking about.

All the adults (and Juliet) started begging for the music to end, while Micah, Missy and Diana started laughing hysterically until Uncle Stiles picked the remote from his daughters hand and turned off the music.

"I have taken this from you how many times in the last few weeks?"

"Thirty." Diana answered, wiping the tears that laughter caused from her eyes.

"and how did you manage to steal it back?"

"No comment." Diana said with an 'innocent smile'.

Snorts and laughter filled the room at the pained look on her Uncle's face. Apparently Diana was some sort of horribly perfect mix of her parents that made one nearly unstoppable prankster that never left any physical proof behind that she had done something wrong. Andi was praying she grew out of it before she was Diana's alpha.

After her Uncle and cousin ended their staring contest, a movie was finally chosen and everyone settled in for cuddles. Andi crawled under a blanket and pulled her little sister close. She loved pack time like this, everyone in one place, cuddled up and content. It made her feel secure.

It made her feel that maybe her home, Wolf's Run, really was the safest place on earth.


Prompt(s): none

I am still accepting prompts for the "Life and Times of A She-Wolf" universe.