I know my readers are going to be happy with this chapter for more than one reason!
Shout out to:
*Serena Sterling: I know I am! No, I can assure you, Jacob really is just in town to see his Grandmother, he's not a baddie, there's too many baddies already :) Thanks and you're welcome!
*Tesla424: Yay, there was some suspense then! It is totally going to happen soon!
*Maxine Hale: He's got a pretty good idea, yes! Thank you, here's the update!
*TheHungryRainbow: No, sorry, Rafael doesn't get his consequences dished to him just yet!
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It's getting late, really late. They still haven't let John out or let anyone in to see him yet.
Stiles is finding all of this too much, over-stressing. He doesn't like hospitals to begin with. He sat at his own mother's side and watched as she weithered away in a hosital bed, until she died. He's scared to see the same thing happen to his father. Jessie still sits beside him. She's got her fingers threaded through his, rubbing the back of his hand with her other hand. Stiles' other hand is up at his mouth, allowing him to bite at his thumbnail anxiously.
"Hey, it's gonna be okay, Stiles." Jessie says, seeing the tears gathering in his eyes again.
"You don't know that." Stiles says.
"But I believe it." She says. "Do you?" She asks him.
"I..I don't know." He sighs sadly. "I just don't like being alone." Stiles says, tears in his eyes as he waits anxiously to hear any results about his father. "I'm not good on my own."
"You're not gonna be alone, he's gonna be okay." Jessie tells him, rubbing his arm.
"Just..m-my head? It just gets so loud, and nothing makes sense. Nothing..nothing syncs up. I start thinking about my thinking and-and i'm just getting lost in the details of nothing." Stiles says, his body starting to shake as his heart starts to speed up.
"You need sleep, Stiles." Jessie says, looking at the bags under his blood-shot eyes.
"No. I have to wait for his papers to go through, be processed and then maybe they'll let me see him." Stiles says, his voice as tired as he looks.
"She's right, Stiles." Ash says. "Get home, get some rest. I'll call you the second I know anything." She says. Stiles shakes his head.
"I can't leave him." He says.
"He wouldn't want you sitting here for hours on end, you know that." Ash says. She leans forward, putting her hand on his knee. "Come on, get home, Jessie will drive." She deligates.
"What about you?" Jessie asks her.
"I'll be okay to stay." Ash says. She shakes Scott awake from beside her. "Hey, go home with Stiles and Jessie." She tells him. He groans tiredly, blinking rapidly to wake up properly.
"What?" He asks.
"You three are going home." Ash says.
"Ash, I should really stay-" Stiles tries. Ash puts on her 'Mom' face.
"Go home and sleep." She says evenly. "All of you. I will ring you if anything comes up, I swear. But please, get some rest." She says. Scott nods and gets to his feet.
"Come on, Stiles." He says to his best friend. Stiles sighs and nods, getting to his feet. "Jess, let's go." He says.
Jessie stands up as well.
"If you need anything, call me." Jessie says to Ash because she saw the way Ash bolted earlier and how Derek went after her.
"Yeah." Ash nods. Scott kisses her cheek before Ash watches the three exhausted teenagers leave, Stiles as reluctant as ever, but the most drowsy of them all.
Ash leans back further in her chair, relaxing her body but her mind is a completely opposite place. She sighs, her eyes watering a little. But this time, while she's alone, she doesn't sniff them away, she doesn't wipe them away, she does nothing. She just lets the ones that need to fall, fall gently and silently down her cheeks.
It doesn't take long for the silence and calmness of the room to take it's toll on Ash. She's almost drifting off to sleep. She's been trying not to because she needs to stay awake in case something happens with John but she's having difficulty sticking to that.
She wakes properly when the door opens though. Ash is glad though as she's been waiting to hear from the doctor for hours. But when she looks up, she pauses. That's not the doctor. She looks down into her lap again, picking at her cast so she has something to occupy her hands and eyes.
"Where's Jessie?" Derek asks her.
"She left with Scott and Stiles, they're gonna try get some sleep, they're exhausted." She says.
"They're not the only ones." Derek comments, looking at the bags forming under Ash's eyes from staying up.
"You should get home, go check on the kids." Ash suggests, wanting to be alone again. And her and Derek are..things between them are..troubled right now. They're okay, then they're not, then they fight and argue, then they almost kiss, then-
Whoa.
What?
Almost kiss?
Is that what that was?
"The kids?" He questions her terminology.
"Yeah. They are kids." She bites out.
"You're only a few years older, Ash." He points out. Ash just shrugs, she's always been the 'parent', the 'adult', so they do feel like kids to her.
"Just go home, Derek. It's late." Ash sighs. "I'm perfectly capable of waiting by myself."
"No, I'll stay too." Derek says as he sits down across from Ash. She doesn't answer him, not knowing what to say to that because she knows he won't listen if she tells him to go again anyway. The alpha's going to stay put, wait it out with her.
"How's John?" He asks after a few minutes of stretched silence.
"He's doing a little better. They still won't let us see him though" She says, still looking at her arm. "Did you find anything?"
"No..again." He sighs, disappointed.
"John might know something, we'll figure this out." She says, trying to convince herself as well as him.
Derek sighs, already sick on talking to her silky black hair instead of her face.
"Did you think I was gonna hurt you back there or something?" He asks her. Ash's eyes shoot up to him. "Hit you-"
"Don't." She warns him, not even letting him finish. The reaction to him grabbing her just jumped out of her body, like an instinct. She looks back down with a scowl, pissed that he brought that up.
"Then can you look at least look at me?" He asks her. Ash slowly looks up at the older man but doesn't say anything, still wearing her wicked glare. And if looks could kill..
So, Derek decides he'll just use this time they have alone to talk to her about a few things that have been weighing on his mind.
"You know, you've got some heavy secrets, Ash." He says. "I see the weight of them, I see how they drag you down. But it's for your family, right? It's why you haven't been telling the truth, yes?" He asks her.
Ash falters, her glare falling into a frown.
"You don't know shit about it." She says. She doesn't think anyone can understand the twisted up crap she feels every day. She hopes noone feels the same way, for their sake. The things she does, is to protect her family. But Derek does understand, better than anyone.
"You're wrong." He says.
"No, you are." She corrects him. "You have no idea what I have done for my family." She says bitterly.
"I get it, okay? Because I'd do anything for my sister as well." He says, getting a little defensive, feeling as though the hairs on his coat should be starting to rise, if he was an actual wolf that is. "I get that you're hurting. I know, I've lived it too." He says, not commenting on her snappish attitude.
It's just how she is, she'd rather be angry than sad. Normally, she snaps and they leave her alone after that..but not Derek though, he has a stronger constitution than that.
Derek looks down before he admits this next part.
"I still live with it." He admits.
Ash looks at him properly now. She supposes he does get it, his mother, actually his whole family, were murdered. He gets it. If anyone gets it, it's Derek and Jessie.
"But you didn't come all this way to talk about your hidden feelings, Derek. What do you want?" Ash asks, getting straight to the point but dropping her attitude a little bit. Derek does appreciate her straight-forwardness, reminds him of himself.
"You know what I want." Derek says.
"I told you, I don't know anything." Ash says. "I said it more than enough, I was jum-"
"Don't lie to me twice, Ash." He says seriously, not letting her finish her lie. He didn't really believe she was jumped from the beginning, and after the things Ash said, he certainly doesn't believe it now. But he's tried to respect her, to keep his mouth shut. But now, now it's just out of hand, everything is out of hand. if he can fix one thing, he's going to try. He's ]the alpha, his pack's safety is his responsibility.
"Just back off, it's not your business." Ash says, looking at him with hard eyes.
"Thats where you're wrong. When that 'business' comes along and hits you hard enough in the face, then it becomes my business." Derek says.
He's not trying to be an asshole, but the 'nice and comforting' path hasn't worked for him so far. But then Ash looks away because his words ring true. She knows he's right, she knows she has to tell the truth eventually. But what she knows and what she does, they're two different things.
"I don't know you like Scott does. But I do know something about burying the truth." Derek says. Ash feels the tears stinging in her eyes but tries to force them back. "And I can tell you, it's a mistake. You wanna carry that guilt around for the rest of your life?"
"I'm not guilty of anything." Ash says.
"Neither was I." He says. "But I'm still guilty because I lied."
"About what?" Ash asks him. Derek just shakes his head because Peter's the only one who knows the full truth about him and Kate, about their secret relationship. Not even Jessie knows the full extend of it all, she was so young when the fire happened. "What the hell did you do, Derek?"
"It doesn't matter. Just know that my screw ups got people hurt, alot of people." He says. Ash swears saddness has washed over him but he's so good at masking his emotions. "If your lies get people hurt then you're as guilty as I am."
"That's unbelievably cruel." She says. "I did it so noone else would get hurt." She says, her voice cracking as a tear slips down her cheek.
Derek feels a tang of regret pass him as the girl starts to weep, he's never been that good with words, he didn't mean to make her cry, he's just trying to help. Then realisation comes over him when he puts together what she just said.
"What did you do, Ash?" He asks her.
"I lied, okay? You're right, I wasn't jumped. I've been lying the entire time." She admits, hiccuping as another couple tears dribble down her cheeks. He obviously knows she lied so Ash doesn't bother to hide it anymore.
"Then what the hell happened to you that night?" He asks her. It's Ash that shakes her head this time.
"I don't want anyone to know." Ash says. "Things are hard enough with what h-happened to Mom..I don't want everyone to know about this." She sighs, wiping the tears from her face and sniffing. "If I tell everyone, this won't be about my Mom anymore, or about any of these murders, it's gonna stir-up alot of shit that my family doesn't need." She says. "Trust me, it's better noone knows."
"Ash." Derek says. She refuses to look at him. "Ash, look at me." He says. She sniffs and looks at him. "The only thing worse then everyone knowing, is nobody knowing."
"I-I know." Ash says, a sob raking through her. Derek sighs. He gets up and takes the seat beside her, bringing an arm around her shoulders. He gets that this secret or whatever, isn't to protect her, it's too protect her family, and that makes it much harder for Ash to reveal.
Ash just leans her head on his collarbone, trying to vent through her own crap.
"Just tell me who hurt you, Ash." Derek says. "We'll deal with it, no cops." He says. "I just need a name, we'll make sure they never hurt you again."
"N-no. He's gonna hurt my family." She says, looking down as more tears slide down her cheeks. "I can't." She shakes her head.
"Who, Ash?" He asks, pulling back enough to look at her.
"I-I can't." She says. "If I do..Jade and Scott are gonna be taken away and I can't let that happen, Derek, I can't. My Mom would hate me if she knew I let that happen, Scott would hate me too, and I'd have no family and..and.." Ash is in hysterics by now, rambling quickly and anxiously, taking quick swallow breathes but it feels like she's suffocating under the crushing weight of all of this.
Derek just looks at Ash, frozen. He had no idea this person, this man, had this kind of hold over her. He can see how it's been built up and how scared she is of the outcome of coming clean. He can see exactly why she's tried so hard to keep it a secret.
"Ash, listen to me." Derek says in a softer voice. He digs deep for this part of him. It's rare for him to bring out the small part of him that's a comforter and caring. The part of him that comes straight from his mother and that's much more potent in Jessie, not so much him. But he can see clear as day that this girl needs it right now.
"Noone is hurting your family. And noone is hurting you ever again, alright? Just tell me who it is and we'll figure it out." Derek says, putting his hand on her knee.
Ash sighs, uncertain.
"No, I'm sorry." She says quietly.
"Ash, you gotta tell me." He says. Ash sniffs, looking up at Derek. She puts her hand over his and squeezes it, threading her fingers through his. Derek just watches her unsure whether she's going to give him the name or not.
"I told you already, you're a good man, Derek." She says with a weak smile. He frowns, because even thought that was kind and sincere, she's avoiding the subject.
Ash brings his hand up to her mouth and kisses the back of it, looking down into her lap because she's never felt this conflicted before. She needs to get this out, she can't keep lying to everyone she cares about anymore. But, she also needs to protect her family.
Derek watches her, momentarily stunned but also intrigued.
"But no..I-I can't." Ash shakes her head, pulling away from him and standing up.
Derek looks up at her, seeing how twisted she feels right now.
"I want to help you. Just let me help you, Ash." Derek says.
"I don't need your help." Ash says, running her hands through her hair. "Please, can you just leave it alone."
"No, I can't. You need something-" He says.
"Stop trying to fix me!" She snaps at him angerily, unable to hold it in because of her own conflict and frustration. "I'm not broken! I don't need your help! I don't need anyone's h-help!" She yells at him, hiccuping a little.
"That's not true." He shakes his head, standing up.
"It is true!" She spits. "I can handle this by myself-"
"You keep saying that and it's fucking bullshit!" Ash, and maybe Derek even a litte too, are surprised when the man yells back at her, getting fed up with her 'I can do it all myself' attitude. That got her hurt. That made her lie. That's tearing her apart.
And Derek's done pretending, he's done pretending he doesn't give a shit about how it effects her anymore. God, he's so done acting like he doesn't feel sick every time he thinks of someone hurting her and leaving those wounds on her body. He's just done pretending. He's done with it.
"Maybe if you weren't so goddamn stubborn, we could have dealt with the person that hurt you! We could have dealt with it and you would be fine! But no, instead you wallow in this self-hating shit, you stop talking and sleeping, thinking you deserved it for I don't know what reason when we all know you didn't!" He bellows at her. "Do you have any idea how we felt when we found you? How I felt? We thought you were dead! We thought..we thought we'd lost you!"
He's never yelled at her like that before, not with that kind of depth, not with that need to drill the truth into her head, the real truth.
Ash's eyes widen and she just looks at the man with watery eyes, not able to summon a reply to any of that.
"Why are you doing this to yourself, Ash?" He asks her, letting his voice calm back to a normal volume again.
Even though this is about her, it's about Derek too. It's about him making all these same mistakes when he was younger and not wanting to watch her, someone he cares about, make them as well. He's not just yelling at her, he's..he's yelling at himself, doing what his mother, or father, or older sister never got to do for the stupid things he did. But those mistakes took their lives and Derek will never forgive himself for that. But he will make sure Ash doesn't follow in his footsteps, he won't let her go through all the pain he went, and still goes, through.
"You..you don't get it." Ash says quietly, her voice cracking like dry skin and shaking like it's cold outside.
For a moment, Derek's worried he's scared her. But she doesn't run away, she stands her ground even if she is in tears and feels so much worse than she looks.
"No, I don't." He agrees. "I don't understand why you're lying about this. You say he's gonna hurt your family? Who, Ash? Who is gonna hurt your family? Because if you don't tell me, he's gonna do it anyway-"
"I'm a criminal, Derek!" She exclaims loudly, like that's the answer to it all. Derek doesn't say anything, he just lets her say what she needs to say. Ash laughs but it's completely humorless and broken, sounding more like she's going to burst into tears which isn't far from the truth considering there's already tear tracks down both of her cheeks. "He's as straight and faultless as they come-"
"No, he's not." Derek speaks up with his disagreement this time. "Look at what he did to you-"
"I know that, okay? I know! But noone else will believe it because of that." She says, trying to make him understand without telling him the truth.
"I'll believe it, Scott will believe, John will too." Derek says.
"Even if that were true, the law will be on his side, like it has been since he starting working for them." Ash sighs, rubbing her hands down her face, scrubbing away her tears.
It's like a clock ticking by the seconds in Derek's head as he pieces the puzzle together.
'This isn't about the pack'
Derek thinks back to how Ash was jumpy with her Aunt and Uncle. But that was just being jumpy. Flinching though.. There's only one person he's seen her completely flinch away from in fear.
And he works in law enforcement, the law on his side.
"Your Dad?" Derek says. He knows he's right by the way Ash's eyes widen and she opens her mouth to object but doesn't, he'd be able to hear she was lying anyway. "Your Dad?" He says again, anger starting to blood through each vein because her silence is just the confirmation he needs.
"Derek.." Ash says, unsure how to proceed with this. She sees the way his frustrations spell out across his face, his arms becoming tense.
"Your Dad was the one doing this to you?" He asks her. "The one leaving the bruises, the one that.." He doesn't finish his sentence but his eyes sweep over the wounds on her face and her cast. "He's the one that hurt you." This is in no way a question, that one's a statement. A statement that Derek knows is completely true.
He feels angry, every part of him is angry. Not only did Rafael leave his family behind but he came back and beat one his children, his daughter. Bet her and threatened to go after the rest of her family. Not only that, but he's been trying to take Jade since he showed his face. None of that is okay with Derek, or his wolf, not at all.
"Derek, please.." She says, holding her hands up as not to set him off. "Please, don't.." But he doesn't reply because he knows all that'll come out will be something angry. He's not angry at her, he's frustrated that she thought she's had to hide this all this time. And he's mad at himself for not catching on. How she was around her father, how he had a black eye of his own..how was he so blind? How were they all so blind? "Derek?" She calls out when he doesn't say anything. "Please..I can..I can handle this." She pleads.
Hearing her say that, again, just sets something off in him. Like I said, he's done pretending he doesn't care.
Derek looks at her and she's silently begging him to stay put. But he can't do that. He bounces off his feet, walking towards her purposefully. He's going to show her right now why he can't just turn the other cheek, why he can't just lie along with her.
Not far down the hall, Jacob hugs his Grandmother goodbye before heading out of her hospital room to let her get some rest.
He straightens his shirt and takes a breath before walking towards the Sheriff's waiting room where he knows Stiles wil be waiting. And hopefully, Ash too. That's why he's going there. He wants to see her again.
But when he gets to the doorway, he's shocked to a pause.
Ash shakes her head, taking a step back as Derek walks up to her.
"No. No, stop. I don't need your self-help bullsh-" He cuts her off by grabbing her face. There's not a single second for Ash to react before he pulls her forward, pressing his lips to her's. Both of Ash's hands, on instinct, shoot out like she's going to shove him away. Except they never make contact, instead slowing and stopping to hover above his chest.
Jacob watches from the doorway, swallowing thickly.
He watches as Derek kisses Ash, Jacob's ex that Jacob wishes he never hurt. His ex that wasn't supposed to get away. His ex that he was maybe hoping to fix things with, more than just make amends.
The ex that is standing there, half shocked, not kissing Derek back, but not pushing him away either. Her eyes have shut without her consent, as they do whenever you kiss somebody but her face is screwed up a little because she was not expecting this at all.
Derek pulls away slowly, opening his eyes to look at her.
Ash takes a longer moment to recover from the kiss, her eyes lazily opening and looking back at him.
And by the time they've done this, Jacob is gone from the doorway, not wanting to stick around and watch some guy kiss his girl. What used to be his girl. But he screwed that up all on his own.
"I'm sorry, but I can't let this slide. He has to suffer the consequences for what he did to you." Derek says before he turns on his heel, shooting out the door before Ash can realise what he means by that.
"No, no, no. Wait! Derek!" Ash yells after him. She sobs, knowing he'll be going after Rafael and he'll probably do something stupid, something bad. This is not going to end well. This is exactly what Ash was trying to avoid.
..
Pumped with adrenaline and anger, Derek inhales deeply, seeking out a particular person's scent. That asshole that put his hands on the girl that deserved it the least, not that anyone does deserve it. But Ash especially not. Her biggest obstacle is her own heart, her need to put her family, and everyone else, before herself. She was willing to lie about who beat her just to save Scott and Jade from some painful truths. That's the kind of girl she is. She's the kind that doesn't deserve harm, but she seems to think otherwise.
Derek stops, hearing the rustle of leaves. He looks around the woods surrounding him. He hears more rustles. His eyes instantly flare up alpha red when a canine scent fills his nose.
But he backs down when he sees it's just a German Sheppard, a Rottweiler and very large Great Dane. He lets his eyes go back to human green.
"What are you doing all the way out here?" He asks them, confused. His eyes widen as he watches something even he has never seen before. The sound of cracking bones fills the air and in the place of the Great Dane now stands a man, a naked man.
"We were waiting for you." The man says. The other two dogs round him and Derek lets his eyes shine red again, standing his ground as his claws and fangs come out. "We thought all of you Hales were dead."
"Well, you were wrong." Derek says, watching the man's every move, keeping the dogs in his sights too. He's never seen something like this before, only heard the legends, the stories of this species.
"Then that would mean that dark red-headed gash is your sister. Yeah, I like her-" Derek doesn't even let him finish. He roars loudly, charging at the man as the dogs rush at him too.
His roar draws the attention of all the wolves. Peter. Isaac. Scott. They know exactly what that was, that was a challenge to fight. That was an intimadation display before he fought. They have to go, they have to go to their alpha, he needs them.
..
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Oh! Here they come! And oh, my God! A Dash kiss, finally! It wasn't as 'magical' and 'fireworks exploding' as Stessie's first kiss, but given the circumstances, I think that would have been unrealistic if it was considering they were just fighting. If you couldn't tell, Jacob's a little hurt from what he saw :( Favourite, follow and review!