Author Note: This chapter is going to be pretty long but I didn't think it was worth splitting into two parts so…
Warning: Mention of suicide.
Chapter Eleven – Visionary
Jules was sprawled on Erin's familiar couch, the Saturday after the events at the loft. It was a calm day.
Calm both after and before the storm.
The thought was bitter but true. When she had arrived home after the loft with her hands shoved into her pockets Lydia had gone in with her to solidify their story. The two had pulled it off by the skin of their teeth and Jules was in the clear. After her session, Stiles was picking her up and she was going back to the loft. It was the last place she wanted to go but Stiles wanted to talk to Cora and Peter. Jules was reluctant but Derek was in the wind. She could see why. But he had wanted company and Lydia and Allison and Scott were all doing something else. Her eyes fell on Erin; they'd already been talking about nothing for nearly three quarters of an hour.
Come on. Spit out whatever it is we're building to. Or actually…
"My mother thinks I'm a slut. Thoughts?" She blurted out, cutting of Erin in mid of her motivational sentence about acceptance or something.
"Elaborate." She said carefully.
Seems unorthodox, you know I'm traumatized by almost everything that has ever happened to me right?
"I got home from that track meet and she asked me why I went and what I did in the hotel and then I heard her screaming at my father asking why it took me so long to come home." Jules said it like it was rehearsed. It sort of was, she had gone over the short but gut-wrenching conversation more times than she could remember since it had happened. She'd even called Gail. Gail had done the big sisterly thing and agreed with everything Jules had to say and then told Jules their mother could go to do something psychically impossible. It was comforting to hear someone else agree with her.
"It's common for people to blame the victim. Even family. How did that make you feel?" Erin asked in a soft voice.
"Just dandy." Jules deadpanned and stared at the ceiling. "But I know she'll get over it. Unfortunately I cannot take responsibility for my own kidnapped and subsequent forced prostitution. If I could there would be no trial to testify at." Her voice was strained and bitter by the end, her hand clenched and unclenched as she tried to keep herself together.
"How are you feeling about the incoming trial? About your testimony?" Erin asked her.
Jules's breath caught in her throat. "What do you mean?"
"Testifying in front of your abusers is going to be hard, but I know you're strong. But we've talked about this before I can ask your family not to be in the courtroom if you feel that would make it easier." Erin told her.
Jules shuddered. She didn't want them there. She didn't want to tell them anything, let alone the parts she kept quiet. "I might take you up on that." Jules said in a small voice.
"And this of course includes them being absent during my testimony." Erin added as an afterthought.
Jules jolted upright. "Your what?" She asked flatly.
Erin frowned. "The DA didn't inform you? I'm offering expert testimony. This means I've been given the questions I'll be answering. Some of them I wasn't prepared for." She said uneasily. "I do have answers for them, but ones I've observed. Nothing you've told me."
Jules's heart sank. "What do you mean?" Her voice was low.
"I can't tell you. You know that." Erin said in a heavy voice. "What I can do is ask if there is something you wish to share. Something important." She pressed.
Jules leaned back into the couch.
God damn it's been one hell of a week.
"I'm clean." She assured, relying on Erin and her thinking about the same issue.
Like that means anything considering I'm jonesing but I'll just keep that to myself. Like an idiot.
"That doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it." Erin said, Jules noticed a hint of eagerness in her voice. Like her drug problem was an exciting topic of conversation.
"I think the rule is we don't talk about anything I'm uncomfortable talking about." Jules said uneasily.
Erin leaned forward in her chair. "There are things I can do to help you Jules, things we can keep to ourselves, nobody needs to know."
Jules stood up. "We are done talking about it." She said in a dangerously calm voice.
Erin was unperturbed. "Can I ask you why?"
First of all I shouldn't have to give you a reason and secondly it made me compliant. It made me weak. It gave them power. It gives the defense counsel leverage and I don't want to open this door and you're not supposed to push.
Jules wanted to scream her thoughts in the face of her psychiatrist but she stayed quiet instead. After another moment of tense silence Jules's eyes flicked over to the clock above the door.
"Our session is over." Jules stated and stood up. Slinging her bag over her shoulder as she stalked out of the home. Erin's eyes tracked her as she left. Then she scrawled something into her notes and readied herself for her next patient.
Stiles wasn't familiar with the address he was picking up Jules at. It was outside of town and down one lane roads in the woods. He slowed down when he saw her, pacing at the top of a gravel driveway. He leaned over and opened the door. His eyes fell on a sign behind her.
Erin Giles. M.D, PhD.
A psychiatrist.
Jules silently got into the car and shut the door with a loud bang. Stiles wanted to ask but he was getting better at identifying her emotions and what to do about them. He looked her over. Her eyes were narrowed and she looked deep in thought as she clenched and unclenched her hands. That was rage and he wasn't going to poke at it.
"Do you know if Allison and Scott have made it to Gerard's yet?" Her voice was strained; he noticed that her eyes were shining a bit more than they should be. Stiles didn't know if he should say something. Ask her if she was okay.
"Yeah, I think they're on their way." He answered quietly, his eyes flicking to between Jules and the road. She nodded stiffly and fell back into silence. Her hands tremored.
"You know you don't have to come. It might actually be boring." He said in a lighthearted voice. She shoved her hands in her pockets. Stiles cringed inwardly.
Damn. I need to get better at this.
"You shouldn't go alone. I've heard bad things about Peter. From you." She pointed out.
"Cora will be there." He assured. "I'll be fine."
Jules didn't look particularly impressed with idea of Cora being the only thing standing between him and a sociopathic werewolf.
"Regardless, it'll be better if we have two sets of ears. You have more werewolf experience I have more experience with…" She trailed off and paused and thought on her word choice. "Unsavory people." She said in a sour voice. Stiles didn't know how to respond but he knew he had to say something. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, trying to find a topic of conversation that wasn't horrible in nature.
"You know like a million years ago everyone thought science was witchcraft." He commented.
"They also though the earth was flat." She said in a monotonous voice. Her eyes darted to him and she turned towards him, her hands ringing. "What I've actually been wondering is how much of human behavior affects people who aren't actually human. Does Scott react differently to situations based on experience or instinct? I know that I'm not supposed to apply human logic to a supernatural serial killer but can I? How much of a divide is there between human behavior and supernatural creatures? I mean does it vary? How cool would it be to study that if you weren't branded a lunatic? Have you thought about it?" Her words spilled out of her mouth excitedly. Her mood switched on a dime. Stiles gaped at her for a moment.
"No. I haven't thought about." He admitted, slightly dumbfounded. "But now I'm going to." He looked back at her. She was ready to start talking again. He wondered how often she used to ramble. If it was an old habit she was falling back into. He smiled to himself and hoped it was. He didn't want to think about what she might have lost, but it was good to know she might be getting things back.
"And also I don't believe that the government doesn't know. That's preposterous." She stated.
Stiles snorted. She flashed a grin.
"Gonna start playing the X-files theme again?" He deadpanned.
She looked accusingly at him. "That was top notch comedy and you know it."
He rolled his eyes. "Sure. Hilarious."
He watched from the corner of his eye as she leaned back into the seat and smiled to herself. He spotted curls of her hair straying from her braids and he wondered if she noticed. It didn't seem like she would. Her eyes were on the road ahead of them and her hands playing with a thread on her sweater. She had others things on her mind.
Jules was reluctant to go back into the loft. She didn't want to tell Stiles and she didn't want to show him but she wanted him to know that.
Well what kind of paradox is that then?
She quietly walked behind him with small steps up to where Derek and Cora lived. She stopped at the final landing. Stiles turned around and gave her a small smile. He held out his hand. She remembered her thought from the night of Boyd's death.
"Is this what he does? Offers his hand to people and hopes it will help them? Does it work?"
She took his hand and stayed a pace behind him as they opened the door.
It works.
Boyd's body was gone. But that didn't mean she didn't see him lying there in the water that had now drained away. Cora and a man who must have been Peter were standing inside. They both turned around. Cora had little interest in either of them. Peter on the other hand was looking intently at Jules.
"Who's this?" He asked. Jules hated his voice. Her hand tightened around Stiles's.
"Jules." She said in a flat voice, Peter was still looking at her. Half of her wanted to smack him and the other half wanted to leave.
I could make up an excuse. Like a medical emergency. Or I could just say feminine issues and flee.
"Peter." Stiles's voice cut through the uncomfortable silence. "I'm pretty sure we're here for a reason. And it isn't so that you can creep out my friend."
I need to step up my snark game.
Peter's eyes slid away from Jules and then to his niece. "Well, we should start at the beginning."
"They were there for two days." Cora said, telling them about a time when Derek and Peter were hunted. "Waiting, hiding. That's what we're taught to do when the hunters find us. Hide and heal."
It had begun to poor rain outside.
They're hunting people like animals. It's sick.
"Okay, so is two days standard, then or are we thinking Derek's on, like, some extended getaway?" Stiles asked her.
"Why do you care?" Cora asked him.
"Why do I care? Let's see." He stared at Cora. "Because over the last few weeks my best friends tried to kill himself. His boss nearly got ritually sacrificed. A girl I've known since I was three was ritually sacrificed. Boyd was killed by alphas. I… do you want me to keep going? Am I missing anything?" His voice rose as he went on and he looked to Jules.
"Yeah actually." Jules shot a glare at Cora. "Nine innocent people who didn't have anything to do with this are dead. Six more are going to die. Not to mention all the other people who have died or gotten hurt as a result of this, people are terrified. And Kali and the twins are still out for blood!" She shouted; images of Boyd being murdered in front of her flooded her mind.
"We can go on for like an hour!" Stiles iterated.
"You think Derek can do anything about that?" Cora snapped.
"Well since he's the one everyone seems to be after, it's more like he should do something about it, yeah." Stiles began pacing.
"Instead of leaving it to teenagers to die and telling them it's okay." Jules said harshly. "Although, it isn't his fault that a psychopath has pegged him as his next protégé or whatever it is Deucalion does." She added as a quiet afterthought.
"I don't know." Cora said thoughtfully. "There's something different about him now. He wasn't like this when we knew him."
"What was he like? Stiles asked in a quiet voice.
Jules turned to the sound of footsteps that signaled Peter's reappearance. "A lot like Scott, actually." He said. "A lot like most teenagers, unbearably romantic, profoundly narcissistic. Tolerable really only to other teenagers." Peter explained.
Jules kept her eyes trained away from him. "It's true that most teenagers exhibit a surplus of narcissistic and sociopathic qualities. Although I don't see how that's anything like Scott." Jules mused.
Stiles nodded in agreeance. "So what happened to him? What changed him?" he asked.
"The death of almost his whole family?" Jules offered.
"Good guess." Peter said. "But it was the same thing that changes a lot of young men." His eyes flicked to Stiles and then to Jules. "A girl."
Her heart pounded, "So the curse of young love strikes again?" She scoffed, flickign ehr eyes around the room.
"Yeah, so you're telling me some girl broke his little heart? That's why Derek is the way he is?" Stiles was incredulous. Jules agreed. It seemed like an over dramatic statement to say it was a teenage romance gone wrong that created Derek the way Stiles had described him. Dark, broody, very angry and very broken.
"So you remember Derek before he was an alpha, had blue eyes?" He asked Stiles and Cora. "Do you know why some wolves have blue eyes?"
"I feel like I'm about to find out why." Jules muttered from her seat on the sofa.
"I always thought it was like a genetic thing." Stiles admitted.
"If you want to know what changed Derek." Peter told them. "You need to know what changed the color of his eyes."
Jules pulled her feet up into her chest; getting the feeling she was not going to like this story.
Jules listened intently from the other side of the couch, as far away from Peter as she could get without getting up. So far it was just two kids meeting and flirting. Nothing she hadn't read or seen on TV a million times before, but Stiles, as always. Had questions.
"So if Derek was a sophomore back then how old was he? How old were you? How old are you now?"
Jules raised an eyebrow. "Like fifteen. He was a sophomore." She stated. "Or am I wrong? As for him…" She glanced at Peter's feet and shrugged.
"Not as young as we could have been but not as old as you might think." Peter answered cryptically.
Jules scoffed. "I'm sorry what? Can I have that line?" She looked at Stiles.
"That was frustratingly vague." Stiles said to Peter, he turned to Cora. "How old are you?"
"I'm seventeen." Cora answered flatly.
"See that's an answer." Stiles said to Peter. "That's how we answer people."
"Well seventeen in how you'd measure in years." Cora added. Probably just to irritate Stiles.
Jules narrowed her eyes. "Elaborate? Is this like some full moon stuff?"
Stiles shook his head. "We're just gonna drop it. What happened to Derek and the cello girl?" he asked disinterestedly.
"What do you think happened?" Peter asked sarcastically.
"Nothing good considering you're telling this story." Jules pointed out. Peter rolled his eyes and ignored her.
"They're teenagers. One minute its 'I hate you, don't talk to me' the next its frantic groping in any dark corner they could manage to find themselves alone in for five minutes."
"Romantic." Jules said sourly.
Is that really how it works? Stiles talked about Scott and Allison like they were star crossed but they didn't sound like that.
Jules tried for a moment to picture herself pulling someone into some closet or empty hallway after some frenemy type relationship. She couldn't do it. If she was pulling anyone into a dark corner. It would be someone she cared about a lot, someone she maybe loved. Or could love. She continued to ponder while she half listened to Peter.
What are the odds someone wants to be with me anyway? Especially when so many other people…
She shuddered and cringed. She didn't want to complete that thought.
Whoever I'm pulling into abandoned distilleries is gonna know. And they are gonna love me anyway.
Stiles hung onto every word Peter said, but it was impossible for his thoughts not to stray. He found himself thinking about Scott and Allison. Scott had to have known they wouldn't end well, a werewolf and a werewolf hunter's daughter. But Scott had loved her anyway.
Well that's what it is. Dealing with mounds of crap and loving someone anyway.
He loved Lydia liked that. He would have fought Jackson in any form if it meant protecting her. He would have done anything. He still would. But he wasn't sure if it was the type of love Peter was talking about. He thought about Lydia differently now. Whether it was time apart over the summer or growing up a little that let him move on. His eyes flicked to Cora. He wasn't blind. She was attractive. But she was also kind of mean. He looked across the room at Jules. Stiles wasn't sure if she was listening to Peter. She was staring, unseeing, out the window. Her thoughts either with the story or someplace else entirely. He wondered what she was thinking of when she looked like that. If her mind raced like his did, or saw connections and patterns where he did or if she saw the world the same way. He had a feeling she might. It was an odd feeling to have.
Peter traced the spiral he spoke of on the window. "Our mark for vendetta." He said.
"Man you guys really take that to like a whole new level, don't you?" Stiles commented.
Jules had since moved to sit beside him at the desk. She nudged him. "Wolves are incredibly territorial. I would think that this is just human emotion applied to an animal instinct…" She whispered to him, trailing off when Cora and Peter shot her identical looks of irritation. Stiles glanced at her.
"Smart." He mouthed.
"It's not just revenge." Cora stated. "Losing a member of your pack isn't like losing family." Jules felt Stiles stiffen beside her. "It's like you lose a limb."
Jules dropped her head.
Sara.
There was a part of her that would forever be bleeding out in a bathtub. A piece of her heart Jules would never get back. She felt her chest and throat tighten.
If she was alive she'd testify. She'd be strong enough to do it. I would have brought her here and she could have moved into Gail's room and…
Her eyes burned. She had never figured out in what way she had loved Sara.
It doesn't matter. She's dead.
"They wouldn't even let him see the body." Peter said about Ennis.
Jules couldn't imagine why Ennis would want to.
When you see someone you love dead. You don't exactly get past it.
She looked back up, Stiles was watching her. He nudged her with his shoulder, eyebrows raised. She shrugged and reluctantly looked back in the general direction of Peter.
"What does this have to do with Derek?" Cora asked. Stiles thought she had a point. Right now Peter was just telling them about Ennis's personal tragedy. At the time Derek was perfectly fine, he wasn't even involved. Peter turned around.
"Everything." He began walking away from the window. "It's never just a single moment. It's a confluence of events. Personally I looked at Ennis's circumstances, I saw profound loss."
Jules quietly scoffed. Stiles didn't blame her. He had painted Peter as the sociopath everyone was sure he was. And Jules had to be good at reading people. Stiles didn't think she would have reason to believe Peter felt sympathetic towards Ennis. Peter stood at the table, across from Jules. She leaned back slightly. "Derek saw something different. He saw opportunity."
Stiles quirked an eyebrow. "Opportunity? To do what?" He asked.
"To always be with her." Peter said.
Stiles frowned.
People can't always be with each other. Something will always get in the way.
Stiles knew that but he thought back to Scott. Just because someone's head says one thing doesn't mean their heart cares at all.
I don't trust one slimy word out of your mouth Peter.
Is what she wanted to say. But Jules kept her mouth shut and listened with a grain of salt. Peter Hale was telling the story of a relationship he wasn't in, to people who weren't there. Jules thought Peter knew he couldn't lie outright without that coming back to get him, but he could spin the story. Frankly, Jules wanted a second source. She wondered what happened to Paige. But this story probably wouldn't end well for her.
"I kept telling him not to do it." Peter pressed.
Jules rolled her eyes at Stiles, he returned the look.
"Every day the more the thought about it the more convinced he became. You know teenagers. I bet he even blames me. He's probably convinced himself the whole thing as my idea." Peter looked at Cora.
"Probably was." Jules muttered.
Saying that is a good way to cover your own ass.
"They keep us connected to humanity." Cora explained emissaries. "But they're a secret, even in the pack. Sometimes only the alpha knows who the emissary is. Derek and I had no idea about Deaton."
"Or his sister, Morrell." Peter added.
Jules blanched.
"She's an emissary too?" Stiles said exactly what she as thinking.
"For the alpha pack." Peter answered.
"What? She is an accessory to murder!" Jules said angrily, thinking of Boyd. Stiles looked at Jules and then back to Peter.
"Our guidance counsellor?" He looked at Cora. "Why the hell don't you people tell me any of this stuff, huh? I shared some really intimate details with her." He was angry.
Jules quirked an eyebrow. "Intimate? Interesting word choice." She mused with a smirk. Morell had lead group sessions at Eichen House Jules had attended but never spoken in. She wasn't a woman Jules would say she trusted.
Stiles rolled his eyes.
"Did she give you good advice?" Cora asked him.
"Actually yeah." Stiles admitted, slightly confused. Jules prodded him.
"Accessory. Murder." She reiterated.
"It'd be difficult to get her charged with that." Stiles whispered.
"That's what they do." Peter interrupted them.
"Murder?" Jules asked. She was baffled.
"Advice." Cora said shortly.
"That's what Deaton used to do for Talia." And Peter jumped back into the past.
"Wait, wait, wait." Jules interrupted Peter as he said Paige's name. "Deaton knew that Deucalion tried to make peace with Argents which clearly didn't work and he hasn't told us this?" She glanced at Stiles. "Doesn't that strike you as weird? That's seems relevant now that he is trying recruit Derek." She paused and furrowed her brow. "Or kill him. I'm still not clear on that."
Cora let out an exasperated sigh and Peter shot a glare at Jules. But she wasn't paying attention. She was looking at Stiles.
"Sometimes Deaton doesn't tell us everything. We just go with it." Stiles said quickly and looked back to Peter. She reached forward and put her hand on his forearm. He stared at it. Hyperaware of the weight of her hand, the old and new scars and bruises.
"Yeah but it speaks to motive. He has a history in Beacon Hills, that has to be important. I just don't see why Deaton isn't telling us this." She pressed.
"Well why don't you leave and go ask him." Peter drawled.
Anger bubbled up inside of Stiles as he watched her draw back into herself. Stiles knew Peter knew he made her uncomfortable. He probably liked that he could do it. Stiles then felt very compelled to hurl something at the man's head.
"As I was saying…"Peter continued.
"Ennis?" Cora sounded shocked. "Why would he choose him?"
"Why not?" Peter retorted.
"Because he sounds like the most unstable of them all." Jules said to Stiles. He nodded in agreement.
"Ennis needed a new member for his pack. Paige was young and strong."
Youth and strength is what monsters like.
"Doing a favor for Derek meant Ennis would be in good with Talia. Back then, everyone wanted to be in good with her." Peter explained.
"Sounds like a crime ring." Jules said bitterly, far too bitterly for it to be a joke.
"Did he turn her?" Stiles asked.
Jules felt sick. She hated this story. She didn't see this as a tragic end to what could have been a great little romance.
"If he had Paige would never have forgiven him. Even young love couldn't overcome that kind of…" She chose her next word carefully. "Violation." She spat.
Peter glanced at her. "Maybe. But almost." He began speaking about how he saw Ennis with Paige, her struggle to get away. "He came at Ennis. A fifteen year old boy against a giant."
Jules bounced her foot up and down. She was seething. Everything about the story and the man telling it enraged her more than she was uncomfortable.
"But there was no reason for him to fight. She'd already been bitten." Peter said in a flat tone.
Jules jumped to her feet. "Who did he think he was?!" She shouted, her hands shook with rage and her voice was raw. "What gave him or anyone the right to make that kind of decision for her?! Did anyone think about what she wanted? Did anyone care? You were there!" She screamed at Peter. He was visibly taken aback by her sudden outburst. "You knew and did it not occur to you to maybe tell somebody that your stupid nephew was planning on-"
"Hey, hey, hey." Stiles stood between her and Peter. His hands were on her shoulders and his eyes bore into hers. "Jules." He whispered and walked her a few paces away. Her heart hammered. Cora and Peter were watching them, her eyes darted between them.
Don't they get it? Cora has to understand what happened to Paige. Symbolically anyway. There is no other word.
She looked back up at Stiles. "He could use a different four letter word and what happened to Paige is something that could happen to anyone." Her voice was low and biting. Stiles absentmindedly pushed a strand of hair from her face.
"I know." He said in a sad voice. "If you want to-"
"I'm fine." She cut him off, wanting to pretend a bit longer that maybe Stiles didn't have any coherent ideas about what happened to her. Her voice had a bitter edge as she looked back to Peter. "What happened to Paige?"
"So did she turn?" Cora pushed Peter to finish the story. Stiles watched Jules play with the string of his hoodie; her eyes were trained on the window as she listened.
"She should have." Peter said. "Most of the time the bite takes. Most of the time."
Jules's stomach dropped. She figured Paige met a horrible end, but nothing in mythology she was familiar with indicated that a bite from a werewolf might not take. Stiles's head jerked up and he looked at Peter.
"When you offered it to me you said 'if it doesn't kill you'." Jules's head snapped up and she gaped at Stiles. He had left that part out of his retelling of what had happened the winter before. The string fell from her hands as she froze. For a moment she felt betrayed, she had trusted that he was telling her the truth.
You know it's stupid to think that you aren't being lied to by omission. It's all you do after all.
She scolded herself but couldn't help but feel some anger towards him. Despite the hypocrisy.
No. I asked him for the truth, the whole truth and so help me god what else did he leave out?
He turned to her. Jules knew she looked pissed. She hoped he could figure out why.
"If." Peter said quietly. Dragging Jules's attention back to Paige.
"It didn't matter that she was young and strong." Peter said. "Some people just aren't made for this." His voice was dark.
Jules's stomach churned. She thought of her most recent cravings for an escape. How she had to tell herself all the time that understood what was happening. That she could handle it all. She glanced back at Stiles. His eyes were red and watering. She felt the urge to comfort him but pushed it down.
You're mad at him remember?
"But she fought." Peter continued.
Jules felt her own eyes began to burn.
"She struggled desperately, trying to survive." Peter's words were dramatic but they rang true.
Jules dropped her head and stared at her trembling hands. Her breath caught in her throat as she tried to stay calm. She listened to Peter tell them how Derek was trying to take her pain. How he held her as she died. Jules clenched her jaw to keep quiet. Her thoughts strayed from Paige.
Jules held down with all the strength she had in her thin arms. Half of her was immersed in luke warm pink water as she dug into Sara's wrists. Trying desperately to stop the bleeding. The issue was the bleeding was slowing already. There was only so much one tiny girl could lose before there was nothing left for her weak heart to pump feebly through her frail body. It covered Jules and ran down her arms and soaked her jeans and the sides of the cheap bathtub and the moldy floors. Jules wondered if it hurt. If the last weak beats of Sara's heart caused her any pain. If her hands inside of her wrists caused her agony in the last minutes of her life. Jules was never sure if she had screamed for help. She didn't think she did. She knew in her heart there was nothing she could do. Part of her had wished that Sara would die so that Jules didn't have to grapple for her a life that was fast slipping away. That if Sara's body stopped desperately struggling to stay alive maybe Sara could finally find peace. Sobs wracked her body and her tears joined the bloody water and mingled with what remained of her best friend. The last beat of her heart marked a promise. Jules would survive. She wouldn't live in a world with no one to tell the story of Sara. Because what a sad story it had been.
Stiles could see Jules slipping out of reality. He grabbed her hands and her eyes snapped to his, wide and blue and shining like his were. Her hands were shaking in his and her chest shuddered with the rise and fall of her breath. He didn't want to know where her mind had gone, but he wanted to bring her back. He moved just a bit closer to her, enough that their shoulders and hips were brushing. Cora was watching them. He shot her an annoyed look. Jules leaned forward slightly and rested her forehead on his shoulder. He briefly wondered if she'd forgotten if there were other people around or if she just didn't care at that point. If comfort mattered more then what they thought was going on inside of her head. Stiles let go of one of her hands and brought his arm around her shoulders and held her tightly. He felt her relax, if only a little. But that was all he had wanted. Stiles hoped for a moment that she trusted him, by now she must. Jules climbed into his car with ease and asked him for help getting back into her own house. He felt her hand tighten around his as they listened to Peter explain how Derek had pulled Paige close in his arms and held her as tightly as he could. How they'd clung to each other as he held tighter and tighter until her weak body couldn't take it. He felt Jules wince and he felt the same.
"I remember taking her body from his arms." Peter said. "And bringing it to the woods, to a place where I knew that it would be found. Another in a long line of Beacon Hills animal attacks." He voice was quiet, soft almost. But Stiles could still see the parts of him that unnerved everybody he met.
He leaned over slightly and rested his head on top of hers. He hadn't expected to hear something so horrible.
"And what about Derek?" Cora asked, still focused on why they were learning all this in the first place.
"Taking an innocent life takes… something from you as well." Peter was looking at his hands. "A bit of your soul, darkening it, dimming the one brilliant, golden yellow to a cold steel blue." He said slowly. "Like mine." He added.
Stiles wondered if Peter's eyes were blue before he had killed Laura. His eyes flicked down to Jules. He noted that her hair was soft and that it smelt like peppermint. She was still shaking. He wanted to do more for her but with Cora and Peter around he was stuck to the way they were. The second issue was he couldn't find words. He didn't know how to comfort her because he didn't know for sure what was going through her mind at the moment. He rubbed small circles on her arm with his hand and hoped that for now,it would be enough.
"What?" Cora asked Stiles. Jules was only half listening.
The three of them were seated near the door of the loft, not far from where Jules had watched Boyd die only a few nights before. Jules was quiet as she sat right at Stiles's side. Her thoughts flip flopping between Derek, who had now lost two people he cared about by his own hand, not to mention the guilt he must feel about the fire. And Sara, the way it had felt to feel her die. Stiles was rubbing his hands together, he looked deep in thought.
"What this, what's this look on your face?" She asked, gesturing to her own face in the process.
"What look?" He asked her.
Cora rolled her eyes. "The kind of look that makes me want to punch you."
"That's his 'thinking' face." Jules said in a detached sort of voice.
"Oh my god you are so Derek's sister. I forgot." He deadpanned.
"Well what is with the look?" She pressed.
"I just don't believe him." He stated and moved so that he was facing Cora. Jules leaned forward deciding to actually inject herself into the conversation. "All right, in Miss Blake's class we're reading Heart of Darkness and it's in first person right? Narrated by Marlow." He glanced at Jules.
"And he is an unreliable narrator." Her eyes flicked from Cora to Stiles who looked at her sheepishly. "We know that details have been changed because-"
"Of his perspective." Stiles finished.
"Well then we heard the story from Peter's perspective." Cora said.
Stiles nodded. "Right and I don't think we got the whole story."
Jules looked at Cora. "Like when Peter was telling us that he was trying to stop Derek. He couldn't have been. Like I was semi incoherently yelling earlier if he had really tried to stop him he could have gone to Talia." She insisted "And no teenage boy in love would purposely think to do something he thought his girlfriend might not survive. At least I don't think that makes any sense. Someone gave him the idea." She looked at Stiles and then back to Cora. "That someone being Peter."
"So what, are you just gonna ask Derek about the girl he fell in love with and then killed?" She asked him slowly.
Jules watched the gears turn in Stiles's head.
"If I have to…" He said, looking at the ground. "Yeah." He brought his eyes back up to Cora. Jules gaped at him.
"No. Let's not ask people about the people they loved who they watched die." Her eyes were focused on Stiles but she knew her words would hit the place in Cora's heart where Boyd had been. And she watched Stiles's face change, something painful passed through his eyes and Jules wanted to take back her words.
His mother.
Jules was a few steps ahead of Stiles as they left when they finally stepped out into the chilly night Jules checked her phone. "I've gotta get home." She muttered.
Stiles stood at her shoulder watching her closely. "Are you okay?" He asked in a soft voice.
"What kind of question is that?" She scoffed. "None of us are okay."
Jules was staring up at Stiles, waiting for a response.
"When Peter was talking about Paige dying. That was personal and I-" Stiles didn't get to finish.
"Clearly not personal enough for you not to ask." She said in a sharp voice, a collage of images flooding her mind.
"I'm sorry but after Scott…" He looked incredibly pained. Jules wanted to reach out, to help him instead of vice versa but she was frozen. "I saw you talking to him. I saw you that entire night. It felt like you'd seen it before." His voice was hardly audible, unlike him. But they were standing close enough to each other that she could hear every breath he took.
I saw you.
To Jules the words seemed oddly intimate. She sighed and rubbed her face.
What do I say? What does he want me to say?
She looked at him. He didn't look like he wanted anything. Jules got the feeling she could say anything and it would be okay. Jules stared open mouthed at him; she didn't know what she wanted to say. But the best part was he didn't know her like anyone else did. He didn't have an idea of what she should do or say or think. What the old Jules might have done. Jules had to make a decision. She could shut down like she always did or she could say something. Anything that would get rid of a fraction of the burden she carried.
"Some people just aren't made for this."
"Her name was Sara." Jules spoke so quietly she wasn't sure if Stiles had heard her. Her eyes left his. "She was the first."
The first person I cared about after I was taken, the first person who cared about me, the first person I watched die, the first person I knew who had killed themselves.
She was also the last of many things. After Sara Jules hadn't let herself care about any of the other girls. Each of them became transient figures she resigned herself to not being able to help.
Is doing nothing the same as not saving them? If I was a werewolf? What color would my eyes be?
Jules looked back up at Stiles. She had just handed him the one thing that nobody knew about, even if it was just a name and assumptions for him to make and he handed her back a small smile and a soft look on his face. Stiles took the first step towards the jeep.
"Let me drive you home."
As Stiles drove away from Jules's quiet home his thoughts stayed with her. There was so much he wanted to know. Why had she been so determined to know what she knew would most likely hurt her? Why had she gone into that rest stop bathroom? Or into the gasoline? Or charging up to the loft alone? He was getting pieces; she was giving them to him. Enough for him to decipher some of the meaning behind the things she said and the decisions she made. But not enough for him to understand.
Does she want to save people because people saved her or because she couldn't save someone?
He didn't want to dwell on what was her business. He didn't want to make assumptions. But one thing bothered him through his short drive home. Who had Sara been?
Stiles had resigned to not wanting to know the whole truth of who she had been to Jules. And he didn't want to think on why it nagged at him.
"Perfect combinations are rare in an imperfect world". Very insightful Peter.
She rolled around in her bed with bitter thoughts. Trying to find sleep. Jules was more reluctant to take the pills now than ever. What she had dubbed the "Dilaudid Incident" had made her reluctant to touch any drug. But she knew what would happen if she skipped on her daily medication.
Crushing anxiety and paranoia. Frequent and extreme mood swings. Great.
She curled herself up in her blanket like a cocoon and shut her eyes willing herself to sleep.
Would I ever find someone who I fit with perfectly? Perfection doesn't actually exist so that's stupid question to ask. Isn't it just one jigsaw puzzle piece trying to find another and the closest fitting piece is jammed in the place of perfection? It works sure, but maybe it has to bend or be shoved or something has to change for it do to so. There is no perfect. But if psycho Peter believes in perfect combinations maybe they do exist for some lucky bastards.
Jules untangled herself from her blankets and changed potions. She thought about Stiles.
It was his shady behavior that roped me into this.
He was the first boy she saw that she didn't want to shy away from. The first person she'd mentioned Sara to because… Jules wasn't too sure why. Even if there were pieces he didn't know she had mentioned Sara. A girl that she hardly ever mentioned to herself and he had decided that the best thing to do with that information was to be kind and offer her a ride home. Because he probably knew by now she didn't like to ask for help. But he was always offering it. Jules thought back to the feeling of his head on her and his arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders. She wanted to be able to do the same. But he always seemed like he had himself together. The only time she could remember Stiles breaking down was at the hotel.
Whereas I, an emotional disaster am very close to a nervous breakdown all the time.
She pounded her pillow.
And I keep ending up next to him.
