Sorry it has taken me so long to update. I will try to get another one up sooner than a month! I'm having a hard time adjusting to adult life and not being in college anymore. Thanks for all the follows, reviews, and favorites. It's nice to know the story is liked.
To say Beth was surprised by Derek's quick reflexes was an understatement. While her life had been flashing before he eyes, he had been reacting as if angry, attacking dogs were his specialty.
In her mind, Beth had seen the torn up faces of Snowball's kids, how heart broken they would be if something happened to Snowball because she couldn't keep him under control on a simple walk. And then she had seen the utter disaster that would become her relationship with the Henderson parents, them telling her she could never see their kids again or set foot in their house. The thought of it, and the scenes playing through her head, made her want to cry.
But Derek had been there like a knight in shinning armor. Forget the cliché, she decided, he was exactly that: a knight. Sure, he had probably only done it for the Laura woman who had come out of no where, but he also saved Beth from a world of emotional damage.
Then again, as Beth finally looked up from Derek, who had Snowball in almost a headlock making some sort of male dominating group at Snowball, Beth realized the approaching woman, Laura, hadn't even stopped her stride. She didn't look afraid at all. It struck Beth as severely odd. Any normal person who saw an angry 80-pound dog coming towards them usually had the good sense to look away and sometimes even flee (even if fleeing was a bad idea). But Laura was still smiling and walking towards Derek.
She shifted her gaze back to Derek and realized the growls Derek had been making towards Snowball had ceased and Snowball was now lying in the grass. He was submitting to Derek. Derek had not only caught the large dog mid-attack, he had also soothed him into lying down and becoming calm again.
The two were a very odd couple, Beth decided.
"Shit!" She finally decided to say, having come out of her internal monologue and the panic that had begun to swell in her chest. "Fuck!" She exclaimed as she finally took long strides towards the dog and immediately snapped the leash back into place.
"I can seriously not tell you how sorry I am," she began, even though she wasn't sure who she was talking to, Derek or Laura. "I swear he never acts like this. I mean, if he did, he wouldn't be living in a house with two small children…" she trailed off and bent next to the dog, giving him a quick pat on the side and trying to ignore how close she now was to Derek.
Derek had begun stroking the dog's head affectionately again and Beth shook her head at him as they made eye contact.
"Don't worry about it," Beth looked up at the voice. She had almost completely forgotten about Laura all because of a little eye contact with Derek. "Dogs hate me. I'm really not sure why but it seems like it happens every time I'm around a dog." She laughed heartily and Beth couldn't help but give her a confused look. "It's a good thing I have Der around to protect me," Laura laughed.
Beth shook her head again and turned back to the dog. She found herself thinking now about how completely dumb this Laura women was. What kind of person laughed at the thought of being torn to shreds by such a large dog? Or any dog for that matter?
"Don't kid yourself, Laura," Derek finally spoke up but he didn't turn to look at the other woman. "I was protecting the dog."
Laura laughed heartily again and Beth decided it was definitely time to get the dog away from the crazy couple.
"I'm sorry, again," she said, as she finally stood up. Not only did she not what the dog to be around these people but the idea of seeing Derek with another woman or even a girlfriend, made her stomach tie itself into knots.
She really didn't want to think about why she was having such a reaction to Derek with another woman.
When she stood at her full height, she gave Snowball's leash a slight tug. The dog reacted almost immediately, pulling away from Derek who was still stroking him.
"I better get him home," she whispered.
And as she walked away, she still couldn't shake the knots in her stomach or the thoughts of what kind of relationship Derek had with Crazy Laura.
Beth kicked at her tire furiously. She had already pounded her fists into the hood of her Alero twice. And besides an achy hand, the action had done nothing to sooth her frustration. So now, she was kicking her tire; full-on, putting her weight into, kicks.
It was Sunday. Usually Sundays were good days. Beth would sleep in and then make the two-hour drive home to have Sunday dinner with her family. But this Sunday, she had been on call, which meant driving home was out of the question. She hadn't actually thought she would be needed. She had planned on fixing her own Sunday dinner and studying all day.
But at about 3pm, as her mini meatloaf was cooking in the over, she had gotten the call from the hospital that there was a massive trauma and she was needed to help out in the ER. It wouldn't have been so bad, but the massive trauma had consisted of a pile up on one of the major highways. Some driver had hit a broken down semi, and then flipped, and then the next car had hit the flipped car and the list went on. An hour after arriving at the hospital, Beth couldn't even count how many they had already lost. Burns, broken bones, lacerations, glass sticking out of people's bodies, it was awful and never ending.
For the first time in a long time, Beth had been happy not to be a doctor. She couldn't even imagine giving such terrible news to the families in the waiting room. And the worst had been the eight-year-old girl who had been it through the accident with barely a scratch, but at lost both of her parents.
Beth had been the one to call Social Services.
And so, when the carnage was over and taken care of and countless were dead, she had hoped in her car and headed to only place she wanted to be. She had gone to the lab.
She supposed it was her quirk, but when things got really bad, she went to the lap and spent her time looking into a microscope until she calmed down and things were put back into perspective. She would do anything from work on her assignments and experiments, to just looking at diseased tissue. It didn't matter as long as she was engulfed in science, something she knew.
She had spent hours in the lap, skipping dinner and completely forgetting about the meatloaf she had made for herself.
When she had finally decided to leave and get some sleep, it was raining. The good weather she had experienced with Snowball a few days ago was gone.
It was a downpour and naturally she didn't have a jacket. The meager 2 blocks she had traveled towards home was nothing when her radiator had finally decided to officially die. The water coming from the sky wasn't even enough to cool her car down.
So she was kicking the tire and cursing the awful day she had had. She cursed Sundays in that moment because all the bad she had experienced on this one Sunday seemed to overshadow all of the good Sundays.
When her body was sore from all of the kicking and punching, she slid down the side of her car and planted her ass on the cold, wet pavement. She tried in vain to pull the hood of her North Face toward her face more and then she cried, outright sobs that shook her body and forced her to pull her legs up to her chest. In rare moments like these, she never wanted to become a doctor and never wanted to set foot in the ER again.
She allowed herself to sit there and sob, but only for about five minutes, or so she told herself. She probably could have sobbed for a good five more minutes but the blinding headlights that pulled up behind her broken down car stirred her into action. She immediately stood to her feet, not bothering to brush the tears off her cheeks. They would look like raindrops anyway and that was the least of her problems. She was pulled to the side of the road, sobbing, in a rather large town where anything could happen. Her time in the hospital had proved that, too.
She reached inside her large pocket where she had stored her keys and the black key ring full of pepper spray. She grasped it tightly in her hand but kept in her pocket. She didn't want to reveal her only source of defense in case something really was going to happen to her. She tried to square her shoulders and stand level but the rain made it hard to see and the wet pavement made it hard to stand.
She panicked as the seconds seemed to draw into minutes and no one approached her. She didn't know if she should take it as a bad thing or a good thing. All she could see were blinding headlights, even putting her hand up to shield her eyes did her no good. Whoever it was was either trying to scare her or being a complete ass, she decided as she tried to calm her breathing and think rationally.
After a few calm breathes she realized what an idiot she was being. She was standing next to her own car, which she could get into for protection.
And her cell phone was in her pocket right next to the pepper spray she was holding onto so tightly. With that finally rising to the forefront of her mind, Beth sprang into action, quickly pressing the unlock button on her keys and clumsily sliding into her car. She locked the car door as fast as she could behind her and the immediately pulled out her phone, ready to speed dial 911.
But at that step she hesitated. What if really was a friendly person and she would calling EMS for absolutely no reason? What if said person just wanted to help the poor girl stuck in the pouring rain with a broken down car?
The what-ifs sped through her mind as she hesitated with her them over the 'Call' button.
The sharp wrap on her window, though, had her thumb pressing down on its own accord and not even a second later the tone could be heard. She looked up sharply to her left, taking comfort in the fact that EMS would soon be on the other line. It was probably the hardest she had ever felt her heart beat and the fastest she'd ever breathed.
As she squinted out her now fog and rained covered window, she let out another string of curses and slammed her already hurting hand down on the steering wheel, open palmed. Standing on the other side of her door was none other than Derek freaking Hale. He was wearing a leather jacket that barely shielded him from the rain and the collar was pulled up as far as it would go around his neck. But she would recognize his beautiful face anywhere.
And right now he was staring at her confusedly through the window, as if to say "What the hell are you doing?" And she asked herself the same question as the sheer feeling of panic left her and was replaced by the overwhelming feeling of stupidity, and then guilt.
Her first assumptions had been correct. The person behind her, she hoped at least, was just trying to help her out. So, instead of cracking her window down with the handle, she slowly opened her car door, allowing him time to get away from the moving part.
"What the hell are you doing?" He voiced was his expression was already asking her and she shivered as she closed her car door again.
"M-m-my—" she stopped herself there and tried to take a calming, warming breath. "My radiator quit on me." She was finally able to answer. She tried to shrink further into her jacket in not only embarrassment but utter exhaustion and cold.
"It's just" she cut herself off again and finally allowed her gaze to meet Derek's. Almost instantly she felt a calm wave roll through her muscles and tense nerves, relaxing her body until the shivers completely started to take over. It was odd because his eyes held nothing but their usual coldness. But his presence was instantly calming and she didn't know why.
"It's been a really rough day," she continued. She tried to hold back the chattering of her teeth as she craned her neck up to stare at Derek. "My radiator quit and then my car started overheating and I just had to…" she took a few second to find the right words. "Hit something." She decided.
He gave her another look, the one that said he was debating on carting her in to the hospital where he worked.
He seemed to be thinking about something as he studied her wet form. Her hood had long since fallen down and she knew she looked a fright. Derek though, Derek looked perfect. The way the rain water rolled down from his hair and across his sharp cheekbones to pool for a few seconds on his top lip, had her mesmerized.
And they stood like that for a few minutes, studying each other in the rain like they had just discovered a new species and were trying to learn everything they could about it before it got scared and ran away…
And then a violent shiver took over and Beth was forced to pull her arms over her chest and cross them for some sort of heat. The movement seemed to pull him out of his thoughts and he reached out to her. He grasped her arm lightly and began pulling her towards him until they were closer and she could feel his body heat.
"Come on," he said, "let's get you in the car. I'll crank up the heat and take you back to my place. It's just a few blocks from here and you can change into something warm while you call a tow truck."
She only nodded numbly. The idea of warmth and dry clothes was too appealing. The thought of how little she actually knew the guy only flashed through her mind for a second. And she always had her pepper spray on her and 911 on speed dial.
