"What do you mean 'have you seen my sister'?" Stiles exclaimed loudly - maybe a little bit too loud since they were still standing in front of the shop. Stiles pulls Derek's sleeve and they walk towards Stiles' Jeep, which is still parked in the parking lot across the shop and still has his groceries in it.
"You were the one that went to New York with her, how am I supposed to know where she is?" Stiles asks, while pushing Derek in the passenger's seat of his car and then walking around the Jeep and sitting down himself, he doesn't start the car yet.
"Yeah well... She went back just about a week ago." Stiles doesn't know how to feel. He barely had contact with her after she left but after a while they didn't have any contact at all anymore.
"Why was she going back?" Stiles asks, before he starts the car he spares a glance at Derek, but he's out of it.
"I don't know, she thought that something was wrong with all these animal killings getting closer to Beacon Hills." Stiles huffs and turns the corner to his street. His dad's car isn't in front of the house -surprise.
"Will you help me get these groceries out?" He asks while getting out of the car and grabbing the first bag out of the trunk. Derek also grabs a bag so Stiles considers that as an agreement to help him get the groceries inside.
After finally all the groceries are either in the refrigerator or in one of the cabinets Stiles sits down in one of the chairs at the kitchen table and turns around to look at Derek - who is still standing in the kitchen.
"Will you tell me the whole story now?" Hopefully Derek will tell him everything he needed to know because he's seriously worried about Laura. What if something seriously bad has happened? Derek nods in reply and takes a seat next to him.
"When we arrived in New York everything was all right -except for the nightmares and the grieving- but when the first full moon came around things changed, Laura changed. Everything went smoothly but still when she transformed back the next day she wouldn't talk to me - you should know, we had still contact then," and okay that made Stiles feel guilty. "First I thought that maybe it was just because the transformation made her grieving emotions stronger, but it went on for over an week. After that she went back to normal again, except for the nights of the full moon. The last full moon was last week and everything went great and she was just normal again but then two days later she was gone." Derek lets out a sight but continues.
"Maybe she was staying with friends - because she made some in the time that we were staying in New York, she even managed to get a job - but the ones that I knew she was friends with hadn't heard from her. Then I thought that maybe she just needed some time away, when four days passed by since her disappearance I figured something was up. I tried to follow her scent, it was very faint since in the days that I had waited for her it had rained. But I still managed to find out that it was leading south, and the only place that made sense for her to come to, was Beacon Hills. So that's why I'm here." Stiles lets out a sigh.
"Derek that's quite a story. But what was your plan on finding her if she would have been in Beacon Hills here somewhere?"
"I was kind of hoping that she would be with you, and when I didn't find you at your house I decided to go into the city to maybe pick up on a more clearer scent..."
Stiles hmm-s. "But she isn't with me so what's the next step to find her?" Stiles turns around in his chair to avoid the conversation becoming awkward. He is really getting worried about Laura, but making it obvious will only make it worse for both of them.
"I was really hoping that she'd be with you, since the other place that would make sense for her to be would be our old house." And yup, spinning around in his chair is nothing compared to the turning of the conversation, it has become uneasy anyway.
"Shit" Stiles mumbles and Derek hums in agreement.
"Okay uhm.. Let me think about this " Stiles says to no one in particular. "What if I'll go to your house, look for Laura. This way you won't have to go." Derek sends a doubting glare towards Stiles but he simply ignores it.
"Okay so I'll go there now and uhm I'll be back as soon as possible. " While he grabs his phone and car keys he turns around to say,
"You can stay here if you want," and then walks out the door.
The driveway to the Hale house is barely noticeable - because of no one having to go there now that it's barely even an house. Bushes are overgrown and surrounded the road with wilderness. Luckily Stiles knows where to go, otherwise he would have certainly gotten lost. When he finally arrives at the house it is - again - a shock to him how this could have ever happened - the Hale house used to be really beautiful - but then again... werewolf hunters... and it made a little bit of sense again. Still, this should never have happened and only just seeing the house makes Stiles feel uncomfortable and furious. He looks past the doorway into the house and sees that it's not save to enter because it would probably collapse on him if he would go inside. He walks around the house but doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary - except for the burned down house but yeah...
"Laura?" He yells, hopefully she would be here somewhere, otherwise Stiles didn't know where else she could be.
"Laura!" He yells again. He's standing with his back towards the woods and hears the sound of leaves crumbling. He turns around - fast - but doesn't see anything. That's how he spends like an hour at the house, he walks on the border between the woods and the house, calling out Laura's name, hoping for a reply of any sort. But there's nothing there, she isn't there. He has to get himself together before he walks back towards his Jeep and returns home.
"She must be around here somewhere!" Derek exclaims, it is clear that he is on the edge of giving up. The same is going on with Stiles, but then he gets a marvellous idea.
"Maybe my dad will know something, he's the Sheriff maybe he would have heard something." Derek doesn't look convinced.
"Seriously Derek, if anyone would know what's been going on in Beacon Hills, it's him."
"Okay" Derek still doesn't sound convinced about his idea, but honestly Stiles doesn't care.
"I'll go to his office to ask him, since he's a tragedy with picking up his phone while working. If he knows anything I'll call you, okay?" Derek nods - and seriously Stiles is getting sick of his non-verbal way of communicating, but he does have a very valid excuse for it.
"Where are you going?" He asks Derek, as Derek gets up and walks towards the door.
"I'm going into the woods, maybe I'll be able to pick up a scent there." The woods in Beacon Hills are basically around the Hale house, so Stiles is really not suspecting that reply.
"Are you sure?" He asks, and Derek nods - again with the non-verbal way of communicating - before he walks out the door. Stiles is overwhelmed with worry. Worry for Derek - because he is going into the woods alone and even though he's a werewolf, the hunters also burned down a house full of them without problem. Worry for Laura - because he has no idea what happened to her and where she is. Even worry about his dad, since he hasn't seen him for a while and the Sheriff is working way too hard.
On arriving at the woods around the Hale house - he had to leave his car at home since for some sort of reason it wouldn't start when he wanted to go here - and now Stiles has no idea where to find Derek. He knows he should have just called, but he doesn't feel good about Derek being all on his own, especially around his old and burned down house.
"Derek?" he calls out into the nothingness, it's getting dark so Stiles hopes to get this over with rather soon then later. He hears the snapping of a twig behind him and turns around. As he walks further into the forest he hears Derek replying to him.
"Stiles? I thought you would call?" Derek sounds surprised and walks into the light so Stiles can see him better.
"Yeah that was the plan, but I decided to go looking for you instead."
"Why?" Derek asks as he continues to walk further into the woods.
"Well, I- I just worry about you, you know? Nothing is going really well for you at the moment..." He is sure that taking the conversation this way is not a great idea, so he stops talking for a change.
"Did your dad know anything about Laura?" Derek asks. Stiles looks down.
"Nah, he did know about the animal killings coming closer to Beacon Hills, but he hasn't heard anything about Laura Hale being seen anywhere. And I'm pretty sure that in a small town like this when she would be spotted everybody would know in five minutes about her return."
Derek growled. "Sorry," Stiles says while putting his palms up in the air. "Anyways, he did invite you to stay at our place though, so you won't have to stay in the woods or anything."
Derek gives him a sarcastic glance "I wasn't planning on sleeping in the woods Stiles. I would have at least broken into someone's house to sleep there."
And hey... Derek is joking around. Stiles smiles and tugs on Derek's sleeve, "where are we going anyways?"
"I picked up a faint smell of Laura going this way, it's an old trail but it's better than nothing." Stiles nods and waits for Derek to pick up the pace again, then he simply follows besides him.
"Derek?" Stiles asks, Derek replies with a hum as for Stiles to continue talking.
"Please find her. We must find her..." Stiles doesn't feel good about saying it, but he just wants his best friend back.
"We'll find her, let's just keep going." Stiles nods to himself and continues to follow Derek through the woods. He's shivering - because damn it's cold - and Derek must have heard his teeth clapper because he pulls of his - leather -jacket and gives it to Stiles. Stiles mutters a thank you before quickly putting it on because Derek is already walking away and he doesn't want to lose him.
It is dark now and the moon is just disappearing behind a thick curtain of clouds, the full moon will be in about a week Stiles states to himself.
"Derek, I can't see anything anymore, we should just stop and continue when it's light again." Stiles almost falls down because of - something - lying on the ground with the only purpose that make Stiles' live even more miserable.
"We can't... by then the trail would be gone." Stiles decides to swallow down his pride and simply just follow Derek blindly. It's cold and it starts to drizzle after a while, which just made Derek walk faster and Stiles almost fall down more often - luckily not on his face so he's able to get up quickly so he will not lose Derek. Just after another 'almost' fall, Stiles runs towards Derek again, only to run into his back. "Seriously Derek I can't see anything, why are yo -" and Stiles is unable to finish his sentence as he falls face first - it was predictable that it would happen sooner than later - into the ground. He is just about to get up when something catches his eye and he stumbles backwards as fast as possible while letting out a yelp. It isn't something, it is someone. "Derek!" Stiles yells while trying to get up but failing and only stumbling back more and more until his back is against a tree.
"Derek!" Stiles is crying, he can't believe it... how? Derek is just standing numbly in front of the dead body, and it's freaking Stiles out, hell the dead body is freaking Stiles out! Derek continues to stand still and Stiles is afraid to move, he isn't -however - afraid to talk.
"Derek...Derek is it-" he clears his throat and that only makes him realize that he has no idea where in the woods they are.
"Derek is it Laura?" He supposes that he already knows -since he fell on the body -but still he wants to know for sure.
"Yeah... it's Laura" and Derek's voice is just so full of hurt, pain, grieve and more sad emotions that it makes Stiles get up and stand next to him, to put a hand on his shoulder.
"Derek... I'm so sorry." They stay like that for awhile until Stiles can't feel his toes anymore and starts to shiver again. He has to call this in with his dad, so that in the morning runners won't be running into a dead body. He grabs his phone and calls his dad's cell phone, hoping that for once he will pick up on the first ring. Which - luckily - he does.
"Stiles? Where are you? Why aren't you home?" Stiles is really confused, he has no idea how late it is.
"Dad... we found Laura." He decides to get to the point as soon as possible.
"What? Where did you find here then? Where are you guys now?" Stiles looks at Derek's back and just when he is about to ask if he knows where they are, Derek already answers.
"Just east of the town, the woods next to the highway, about two miles into the woods." Derek says, and so Stiles replies that into his phone to his dad.
"Dammit Stiles, what are you doing in the woods so late?" And yeah, of course being in the woods around this hour isn't safe, and Laura's body didn't just come out of nowhere - and that thought makes Stiles scared. "Dad, please, just come quickly."
"Okay son I'll be there in ten." And his dad hangs up.
Just as he hears a car pulling up into the woods he turns towards Derek again.
"Derek?" Derek turns around with full on anger on his face and his face is also half wolf -which Stiles didn't expect to see after he has just seen the dead body of his best friend - this day was just full of horrible things. Derek runs away, shifting fully and all Stiles is able left to do is yell his name to his back before he's gone. Stiles only has a second to process what just happened before someone walks up behind him - his dad, he can recognize his uniform from out of the corner of his eye.
"Stiles? What are you doing here?" All Stiles can do is simply point at the place where Laura's body is situated. As he can see his dad's thoughts go from worried and confused to total comprehension - and just a little bit of panic- Stiles collapses into crying. His dad half hugs him as Stiles hears him calling in the found dead body. As he hears the sound of an other car arriving he is only aware of a blanket being rapped around him, and later on, him being pushed into a car. That's when he dozes off because of all the weight of all the happenings today.
Hi guys! Thank you so much for the follows+favorites+reviews! It means the world to me! Good news, while I was away -without internet or any other distractions - I was able to finish this story! It still needs to be checked and stuff, but yeah. The posting of a new chapter will be more regularly from now on and the last chapter will probably be posted around the end of August.
Thank you again! 3
[also catching up with all the teen wolf episode that I'd missed was really suspensefull and I'm not sure about what's exactly going on anymore 0.o ]
BTW, if you notice any mistakes in spelling/grammar or anything else, please let me know!