Chapter 73: The Healer

You do realize what they're trying to do, right? They're trying to make me your beta so you can kill me. So you can become stronger.

Love comes in strange forms sometimes.

Sometimes love is a cup of freshly brewed coffee when you wake up. Sometimes love is a solid punch in the face to knock you out when you need it. And sometimes love is tidying up the apartment both of you tore apart the night before while you sleep in.

Joe should feel loved, in short. And she did.

No clue what time it was, she woke up to the sound of rummaging outside in the hall. Waking up was probably an exaggeration — she managed to squint at her dark bedroom, but her thoughts were incoherent. She slipped back under the waves even with the vacuum cleaner going on full throttle just outside the door.

Eventually she awoke again when Jimmy tapped his knuckles on the door and shuffled inside in his bathrobe, carrying two steaming cups. One coffee for her and one chamomile tea for him. They stared at each other, both heavy-lidded and pale. Bare-chested under his bathrobe, it looked like he was fully healed.

Jimmy handed her the cup of coffee and tapped his chin with his now free hand. "Drool."

She just nodded, too tired to be embarrassed, and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand — a pink smear from the crusted blood still on her face mixed with saliva. Out of habit, she scooted over in the bed to make room for him and tried to force her eyes open, peering at him when he placed himself on top of the covers.

"How do you feel?" she rasped as last night's events trickled into her conscious thoughts.

He must have showered and shaved — he'd told her before that the beard reminded him too much of fur now — because his wet hair dampened the collar of his robe. "Like garbage. Insert any suitable unfavorable adjective in front." They both sounded like they had swallowed sandpaper. "You?"

"Like shit. No adjective needed." The coffee tasted like nothing, but at least it was warm. "How long have I been out?"

"Sixteen hours."

Joe huddled the covers tighter around her, like a personal little den of comfort. No wonder her neck was stiff. "Shit. Aunt Mel?"

"Stayed the night, but had to go to work a few hours ago." A pause as Jimmy sipped his tea. "Said something about being back later." Another pause. "She still thinks you've been in San Diego all summer."

"I know."

"You have to tell her."

"I know."

"I'm not going to go behind your back, but I will be highly uncooperative if you don't tell her soon."

"I like you cooperative."

"I know." The covers shifted as Jimmy got comfortable, slurping his tea. "I like her. She even cleaned the bathroom."

"Heh. Did she do a better job than-" Joe cut herself off, the slight smile slipped off her lips again as her thoughts collided with each other. Her whole face felt brittle and her mouth like it was stuffed full of sawdust. "Jimmy, was- was Erica here, or did I just think she was?"

For some reason, that made Jimmy let out a long sigh and lean back in the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. Now when she glanced over at him, she found him grinning at her, the purple in his eyes almost hidden underneath heavy lids.

"What?"

"Looks like there's hope for you yet, Delgado."

Breathless and still woozy, Joe looked around the room. Glossy magazines, the flat-screen TV, all of Joe's closet out on the floor — although that might have been Joe's own work — Erica had been here. No doubt in her mind now.

"Shit." More force to Joe's voice now and she sat up straighter. A sixteen hours headstart was a lot, but not impossible. "Okay, uhm," she tried to run her fingers through her hair, but got stuck halfway, "give me ten minutes to get dressed and-"

"Relax. She's safe," Jimmy said easily, making Joe pause her ministrations to get out from the covers. "We had a plan B."

Still hoarse, Joe asked: "You what?"

"A plan B. If things got out of hand, she knew where to go. Don't give me that look. Not after we had to listen to you talk to yourself the whole goddamn night. Not when hallucinating is so normal for you, you don't know what's real or not. Of course we had a contingency plan. She's safe, don't worry. I've been in contact with her."

Nothing about what he wa saying made Joe worry less. "Where is she?"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Do you trust me?"

"No."

"Do you trust yourself?"

"Hard no."

"Do you understand why I'm not telling you where she is?"

Understanding it did not mean accepting it, but she nodded all the same. "I just don't like her being gone," Joe mumbled into her cup after a while. "I swear, if you sent her up to that cavern of yours-"

"Yes, I sent a sixteen-year-old with absolutely no survival skills to fend for herself up in the middle of the Preserve, that's exactly what I did." Jimmy rolled his eyes. "She's safe and not alone. That's all I'm gonna tell you."

"Are you sure she's okay?"

"She's okay," Jimmy answered where he leaned against the headboard. "Typical you start to remember her now." Glancing down at her cup, Joe noticed her hands were steadier than they had been in forever. Jimmy must have seen where her attention went as he sighed. "Sixteen hours help, but it won't make up for months in deficit."

"I know," Joe said quietly and took another sip. "Jim, I'm sorry about leaving last night, I was- I wasn't thinking, I was just so angry and-"

Probably still feeling the aftermaths of the half-moon, Jimmy growled. "Since you're covered in Derek's blood, I'm not sure I want to know what you did."

"I shot him."

"Killed him?"

"No." She swallowed, tried to lick her dry lips, tasting the blood and shuddered. "Wanted to. Sort of."

"Because he attacked me?" Jimmy sneered at her. "I'm not your beta, remember? Not yours to protect. But you know who is? Erica. The sixteen years old girl you're supposed to look after. Protect from those who wish to harm her, like the Alphas, but instead, you ran straight to join them when faced with the least bit of resistance."

His words washed over her like scalding water. Excuses presented themselves: how bad it had felt, how angry she was, how much it hurt. Didn't matter — he was right. Limp curls danced around her face when she nodded. "I shouldn't have left."

"You're right, you shouldn't have. Personal is not the same as important." He waited for this to sink in before he grinned, easing the mood again. "So, Kali finally got you to howl, huh?"

"I swear," Joe sucked in a harsh breath, "I had no idea Derek would-"

"Come rushing to help you? I'm not sure if he could have resisted if he wanted to," Jimmy mused and Joe tried to ignore the new rush of hot anger to her stomach. Derek had no right to do what he did. "It was a good howl, I'll give you that. Not that I am defending him and I for one would have loved to see the look on his face when you shot him, but I was slightly affected by the half-moon last night."

She stared at him. "Did you talk smack?"

"Hm." Jimmy took a final slurping sip of his tea. "Let's just say he did not take kindly to me questioning his motives to come to check up on you." At her narrowed eyes, he smirked into his cup. "There was a tendency to smack-talk, yes."

"What did you say?"

"That I was done trying to cover for his mistakes and that I was not going lose another friend to his lack of foresight."

"Jesus Christ, Jimmy!" Joe blurted out. If Derek had come here in a frenzy, Jimmy hyped up from the half-moon and the topic had been Paige it was a wonder Jimmy lived to tell the tale. "You didn't."

"I did," Jimmy said unabashedly. "And I asked him if he realized the danger he'd put the pack in by his little revenge-kill, but I'm actually not sure if he understood the question." Joe didn't either and Jimmy reluctantly explained. "Ennis was the Alpha who tried to bite Paige."

He continued by telling her the rest of the story, of what she had only heard pieces before from Kate. Ennis had lost one of his betas to hunters — there was a summit of sorts to Beacon Hills, led by Peter's sister and Derek's mother, Talia Hale. There needs to be balance in a pack, so Ennis looked for a replacement for the beta he lost. Peter suggested Paige. Jimmy was not sure if Peter suggested it to Derek who again asked Ennis, or if Peter went behind Derek's back. End result was the same — Paige rejected the bite and Derek killed her out of mercy.

"Wow," Joe said after trying — and failing — to digest all of that. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not Ennis's biggest fan, but I had no idea he was that bad."

Her brows furrowed, trying to reconcile her image of the deceased Alpha with what Jimmy told her. Of all the Alphas, Ennis was the one who had hurt her the least. Aiden was a psychopath, Ethan submissive to his brother, Deucalion a master manipulator and Kali a whole other story, but Ennis had only been rough, never cruel.

A tiny voice in the back of her head asked what she would have done if one of her betas died like that. All that anger, pain and guilt... It was no excuse, but not that unfathomable either, that things had gone wrong. The more she learned about what happened to Paige, the more her heart ached for the poor girl. It all seemed like such a tragic accident from start to finish, hurting everyone involved, killing the most innocent one.

"Peter told me this once," Jimmy said quietly. "When I came to see him at the hospital before he was healed. He did not even know I knew Paige. At least I think he didn't know. He told it a little differently, of course, but he is an unreliable narrator at best. He shouldn't be trusted."

"Derek said the same about you," Joe recalled, not even wincing when saying his name. She just felt numb. When she had this guard up inside of her, shielding her from his pain and holding her pain inside, she could pretend there was no bond. There was no lost love between Jimmy and Derek though and she could imagine it had gone from zero to sixty in a heartbeat. "Jesus, Jim, are you suicidal?"

"I landed a few hits."

Even after fighting Kali for who knows how long, Derek hadn't had a scratch on him before Joe entered the loft. She decided to not share that fact. "Okay, well, I think he got the message you're off-limits. I know," she raised her voice, "that you're not my beta, but you're my friend. Anyone coming for you have to go through me. Even him."

Jimmy nodded and rubbed his head, wincing slightly. "Not an empty threat by any degree. Next time, do the roar first and the skullsmashing after please." Without letting her answer — because she had plenty of bruises herself that she wanted to point out — he shifted out of the bed, taking the empty cups in one hand as he got up. "Time to face the music, Delgado. Start with a shower, you reek."

"I hate that word."

"Fine, your body odor combined with the bloodstench is offensive to my nostrils. Shower. Now."

Stretching down under the covers, Joe asked: "What if I just really really don't want to deal with stuff today?"

"Belief in body autonomy prevent me from undressing you, but I have zero qualms physically moving you to the shower, bedsheets and all." His voice drifted farther away when he trudged out of her room. "Chop chop."

"Uuugh."

"Shower!"

"You're not my real mom, you know!" she yelled back and could practically hear him roll his eyes. "But fine, whatever, bossy-pants. I'll shower."

The bathroom did not hold too much evidence of last night's events. A dent in the cabinet under the sink, a heavy stench of bleach, but nothing else. Passing the mirror, she automatically tried to avoid her own reflection, but caught it anyway and promptly burst out laughing. She looked like shit. Streaks of dried blood, hair reduced to a matted mess of drywall plaster and dirt, fading bruises all over her face. Most had healed during the sixteen hours she was out, but some still lingered.

A long shower remedied some of the worst issues. For once, she took the trouble working some product through her curls, applying a layer of mascara to her lashes and some bronzer to her cheeks. This really was the palest she had ever been, but she noted how the dark circles under her eyes had cleared up a bit. In the end, she looked slightly better, but still felt mostly like shit.

It definitely was a sweatpants-day instead of a leggings-day and Joe rummaged through the clothes-pile on her bedroom floor to find some. Combined with a non-matching sweatshirt, she at least looked like her old self.

"Now there's a sight for sore eyes," Jimmy said conversationally where he suddenly appeared in the doorway. Still in his bathrobe, he looked like some asexual underwear-model between shoots. "Heads up, your cousin is at the door."

Sure enough, the buzzer went off just as Jimmy finished talking.

"Can we just keep really quiet until he leaves?"

"You've made your metaphorical bed, Delgado. Now lie on it."

The buzzer rang again, a loud and angry sound in the empty apartment. Extra empty because Erica had always had the TV or radio on and now there was nothing. In rapid succession, the buzzer went off again and again. Groaning the entire way out of the room while the buzzer buzzed incessantly, Joe slipped into her sneakers and went downstairs.

As expected, Scott stood outside the apartment front door with worry written all over his adorable face. His one arm was fixed on the buzzer, but he took it down when she waved at him through the window. There was no way to prepare for this, so Joe just unlocked the door and blinked at the daylight outside.

"Don't you have school?" she tried, but the worried frown didn't lift from Scott's face.

"It's Saturday." For a second, it looked like he didn't know what to say. Unfortunately, he did. "Stiles told me what happened." Joe groaned again and Scott looked if possible even more worried, eyebrows curled on his forehead and his uneven jaw working overtime. "Joe, what is going on? Did you really shoot Derek?"

"Yup."

The large brown eyes that Kate loved so much widened. "Well, is he still alive?"

Joe shrugged. "Probably?"

"You don't," Scott pointed at her torso vaguely, "feel it?"

"No, I turned it off."

Scott's eyes bugged. "You can turn it off?"

"No, not really," Joe admitted with another shrug, "but you can sort of control it." Her nostrils flared as she gained steam. "Which Derek never told me about, by the way. Deucalion was the one who taught me that. Always thought it was stupid how the mate-bond would make us twice as vulnerable, but I guess I was just stupid for thinking that." She inhaled sharply, anger fueled by the thought of it. "And he had me take pills to dampen the stupid bond instead and because of those stupid pills I ended up getting captured and nearly killed by Kate."

"Deucalion made you take pills?"

"No, Derek did! And he was like, 'oh, I'm a werewolf, I heal', like that was the point at all when it's pretty damn obvious it was just about his need for control, his need to control me."

"So you shot him?"

For a few seconds, they stared at each other with equal amounts of disbelief. Joe snapped out of it first. "No, Scott, I shot him because he came here and tried to maim Jimmy!" He still looked disbelieving, so she clarified. "My friend. My best friend. My Stiles!"

"Okay," Scott said weakly, a little more understanding at the mention of Stiles. "Okay, so you were angry?"

Again, Joe shrugged. She was not going to admit to Scott she had been seconds away from shooting him before Jimmy too, that was just what tipped the scales. The day after she woke up from feeling his pleasure, she had not really been heading for Berkeley.

"But is he alive? Can you check?"

"No."

"Joe!"

"What? I don't want to feel his pain. Go check on him yourself!"

Another disbelieving look from Scott. "He's missing, Joe!"

"Well, you should have lead with that!" Joe half-shouted back. "How was I supposed to know? He was alive and, uh, groaning when I left there. I only shot him a little, I didn't kidnap him."

"No, he left on his own. Cora and Boyd said he disappeared long before he finished healing. And we can't track him because Cora says he's used some Alpha power to mask his scent." His brows pulled together as he flexed his jaw again. Looked like Scotty-boy had learned to use his senses. "Do you even care?"

"No."

Scott sighed deeply. "You're lying."

"Okay, so I care," Joe huffed with folded arms. "Whatever. It's not like I care a lot."

"You're still lying."

"Shut up, he's fine, I barely scratched him. Are Cora and Boyd okay? Isaac?"

"Everyone's fine, except for that we can't find him. He didn't come here?"

"Why would he? I shot him."

Scott decided not to comment on the obvious juxtaposition between her two statements. "Isn't that part of your thing? That you're drawn to each other when hurt?"

"I thought so, but it looks like Derek's drawn to anything remotely female when hurt. You'll probably have more luck over at Little Miss Pencil Skirt's than here."

The bitterness in her tone annoyed her, but she couldn't help it. It evaporated slightly at the sight of Scott furrowing his brows.

"What," he blinked a bit, "what's a pencil skirt?"

"Oh my God, okay. It's a sort of tight skirt with a straight cut," Joe demonstrated on her own body, "knee-length typically. What your teacher wears." He still looked blank. "The one with brown hair, pretty eyes, way too high heels for a school setting? The one Derek saved in that boiler room."

His face cleared. "Miss Blake?" So that was her name. "Wait, is she- is she Little Miss Pencil Skirt? Why would Derek be there? Hang on, does this have something to do with why the Alphas took her to the loft yesterday?"

Huffing, Joe waited for the dots to connect and Scott's jaw dropped open.

"But I thought... What? Did you guys break up?"

"I-" Joe hesitated. A good question. Had they technically been together? For all her talk about normal relationships, they had never agreed on the exclusiveness of whatever arrangement they had. Her three months MIA probably hadn't helped either. "I don't know. It doesn't matter. Bottom line, you'll probably find him there. Okay? Cool. Bye."

Her attempt to just sneak back inside the building and close the door in Scott's face backfired when his arm shot out to hold the door.

"Joe, did he," Scott's voice turned dark, "cheat on you?"

Funny how he sounded angrier now than when learning the Alphas abducted her. Rolling her eyes, Joe tried to play it cool. "That depends if we were even in a relationship in the first place of which I'm not really sure."

Something was not computing for poor Scott and she watched his face shuffle through expressions, not surprisingly landing on confusion. "The day we went to the meet?"

Now her eyebrows rose. "Uh, yeah? Do I want to know how you put that together?"

Scott did a weird half-shrug. "When we went up to check on him at the loft, there was, uh-" He cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck. "There's a very distinct scent after-"

Joe felt her stomach lurch and she held her hands up. "Okay, I'm gonna stop you right there."

"I just assumed it was you and-"

"Shh, stop, stop, stop-"

"He seemed really out of it," Scott said, still with his brows twisted. "We thought he was pissed off because the attack failed, but it was just a cover to get us out of there, wasn't it?" A rhetorical question and his face shifted through emotions again. Confusion turned to anger, but this was Scott McCall after all and he ended up with worry. "You want to talk about it? Are you okay?"

"No," Joe admitted and kicked her sneaker into the ground. "But I'm better and I slept for sixteen hours after Aunt Mel pulled her ninja-style Maleficent-move last night." She sighed at Scott's bewilderment. "The evil fairy from Sleeping Beauty who poisoned the spindle and," she waved her hand, "it doesn't matter. What'd you tell her to make her show up here with a syringe filled with sedatives anyway?"

Scott shrugged. "That you're not sleeping. Again." A brief pause. "Wait, she did what?"

Standing on the curb outside the laundromat, they exchanged war stories. A surge of guilt exploded in Joe's stomach when Scott told her how he had found and rescued Doctor Deaton — who was okay, thank God, no thanks to Joe — but he seemed to understand why she had bailed after seeing the so-called Miss Blake at the high school.

"You were right about the last doctor though," Scott concluded and Joe ran a hand through her damp hair — it had been a busy day yesterday for a lot of people. "So the Darach got all three healers."

"Three down, two to go." Joe sighed and leaned back against the wall. Five-fold knot. Everything's connected, but how? She bit her lip in thought. "Did Doctor Deaton actually see anything?"

"Moths." Scott shrugged helplessly when she furrowed her brows. "Yeah, I know, it doesn't make much sense to me either." He filled her in on the rest: the Darach had strung Doctor Deaton up in the vault — the vault — and surrounded his body with a circle of mountain ash. And when Scott tried to unsuccessfully push through it... "Uh, my eyes kind of, uh, changed color."

Her stomach filled with ice. "To?"

"Red." Scott sighed deeply and Joe realized she had seen Scott's red eyes at the mall, roaring at her to stop fighting Isaac. It hadn't been a hallucination. And if Scott's eyes were red, that meant-

"No," she whispered and grabbed onto his hand. "No, Scott. No, no, no, how? Why? Because of Ennis?"

"No, Doctor Deaton called it, uh, a True Alpha," Scott admitted weakly and squeezed her hand back as if he knew the implications. As if his innocent teenage mind could fathom the consequences. His human brown eyes looked at her with worry and uncertainty. "And he thinks Deucalion is not just after Derek. He's after me too."

Breathe, just breathe.

"That's not a good thing, is it?"

Shaking her head, she tried to think. Had Deucalion known all along? Always ten steps ahead. Always, always ten steps ahead. Everything was connected.

Instincts took over and she fell forward to wrap her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. Hugging her big stupid cousin who did not deserve all this shit in his life.

A sigh passed through him as he squeezed her back. "I was hoping you'd do that."

"Do what?"

"Stiles's been sending me articles," Scott murmured into her hair, "and they're pretty clear on that you should be the one to, uh, instigate physical contact." Without letting go of her, he continued: "I don't know how to help you, Joe. I think we should tell Mom."

"Yeah."

"And Uncle Rob."

"No."

Before Scott could question that, his phone rang and he pulled back.

"Hey, what's up? No, I'm over at Joe's." His face fell slightly. "Everything okay? Something hap- okay, uh, right now? Are you sure? Okay, okay, yeah. Okay. Bye." Dropping his hand with the phone, he stared at Joe. "That was Isaac, he said we better get back home. Both of us."

Joe was already moving before he finished talking.

And it's working.

Out of everything Joe had expected to find at the McCalls — the Alphas, her dad, even Derek — she had never anticipated meeting Isaac and Boyd exiting through the front door. Both looked to have the same clothes on from last night and where Isaac ducked down to avoid looking at her, Boyd held his head high and stared straight past her.

"What's going on?" Scott asked when they came up the driveway, subconsciously shielding Joe with his body. He might have smelled or sensed their hostility towards her. "Isaac?"

Neither Isaac nor Boyd stopped walking, but Isaac turned around to answer Scott.

"We're, uh, heading for Derek's house," he glanced briefly at Joe, before looking away. "See if we can pick up a scent there or..." He threw his arms out desolately with a shrug, still walking backward. "I'll keep you posted."

Standing halfway behind Scott, Joe tried to breathe. She hated this. Hated these instincts. Hated it, hated it, hated it. With a groan, she threw her head back. Screw it.

"Boyd," Joe said, putting force into her voice and he stopped. His muscles flexed under his white sweater topped with a denim vest, so it was easy to see he fought conflicting instincts too. Without realizing it, Joe took stock of him, determining him to be unharmed after her assault last night. He looked more tired than angry too, but at least he managed to hold eye-contact. "You okay?"

His nostrils flared, but he nodded. There was a glint in his eye as he glanced back at the house. "You better get inside. Your aunt's making hot chocolate."

A chill spread through Joe and she froze in the driveway while Scott, who knew the implications, dashed inside the house. "What did you do?"

"Talked to her." Boyd shrugged, his eyebrows twitching upwards a bit. He put both hands inside his denim vest and sauntered backward after Isaac. "Let's see how you like having your decisions made for you."

"That is not the same." Her voice shook, but her hands did not and she noticed his gaze flickering down to them. "Boyd, you would have," she could barely say the word, "died if I hadn't intervened."

"Intervened's a nice way of putting it," he challenged. "That's what you did last night, trying to kill Derek? Intervening?"

"I didn't kill Derek," Joe spat, hands clenching into fists. "If I wanted to, he'd be dead." She gestured towards the house. "What did you do?"

"Intervened," was his final remark before he joined Isaac, heading for what looked to be Derek's SUV.

Fighting conflicting instincts again — half of her begging for a fight, other half urging her to find Derek — Joe remained in the driveway, only staring after Vernon 'Death before Dishonor' Boyd. When they started the car and she still hadn't moved, Joe swore harshly and followed Scott into the McCall house, dreading what she would find.

"Shit," she swore again at the sight of Scott sitting demurely by the kitchen table, Aunt Mel with her back to them at the counter with a cardigan tightly wrapped around herself. Milk, saucepan, and mugs waited near the oven.

Aunt Mel flinched at Joe's voice, but didn't turn around and Joe briefly wondered if she could ask for another shot of sedatives to postpone this conversation another sixteen hours. She and Scott shared a look and he shrugged softly, apprehension written all over his face.

"Aunt Mel, I'm sorry, this wasn't how I meant for you to find out, I-"

She cut herself off when Aunt Mel held up a finger, still with her back to both of them and her head bent over the counter. With shaky movements, she pointed towards the table and Joe inched her way into a chair next to Scott. Her heart hammered so loud in her own ears, she had to physically fight the urge to just run. Break out through the backdoor, escape into the forest, never looking back. How could she look Aunt Mel in the face after this? After Aunt Mel learned the truth?

They both watched Aunt Mel lean against the counter, pulling in a large breath, obviously steeling herself to turn around before she did. Her face was dry, but there was no hiding that she had been crying and Joe felt tears form in her own eyes at the sight.

"So it's true?" Aunt Mel's voice sounded tight and ragged. She blinked rapidly, turning briefly towards the ceiling as she sniffed.

A warmth wrapped around Joe's hand — Scott reaching over to hold it — and she got enough strength to whisper: "I'm so sorry, Aunt Mel."

"Why-" Aunt Mel bit her lips together, holding back a sob, and tried again. "Why are you apologizing? Oh my God, Joe, sweetie, I'm sorry! I'm so, so, so sorry, I had no idea and-" She gasped for breath, pulling on every last reserve to get a grip. "Are you okay? Which is the stupidest question ever, of course you're not okay, but-" Her hands waved around vaguely. "Physically? Are you- do you need- I don't-" She let out a breathless laugh, even as fresh tears streamed down her face. "Sit. Both of you just...sit."

In synch, Joe and Scott had both risen from their chairs, but now they slid back down again. They exchanged another look — Aunt Mel was making hot chocolate. It was both a way to get them to relax because sugary foods weaken the body's ability to respond to stress and a way for Aunt Mel to keep herself busy instead of malfunctioning completely. It was her go-to in these kinds of situations — when she divorced Uncle Raf, when Joe got arrested for the hospital break-in, after every near-death situation the last nine months — Aunt Mel made hot chocolate.

"Mom," Scott started, but fell back down when Aunt Mel held up another finger.

"I'll have to preface this with saying that I'm not angry." Aunt Mel's voice sounded a bit more steady from where she poured boiling water into three mugs to heat them up. "That is a lie, I am angry, but not at you, Joe. I need you to understand that. A little at you, Scott, but we'll deal with that later."

Joe and Scott glanced at each other, neither sure of what to say.

"I'll admit that I'm still adjusting to the fact that werewolves are real. I'm still adjusting to the fact that my son is a werewolf." The metal clanged when Aunt Mel slammed the saucepan onto the stove where she combined sugar and cocoa powder. "And I am starting to slowly accept that means an even more stressful high school experience than otherwise thought possible." A dust of dark powder erupted as Aunt Mel whisked it hard. "And that it means when bad things happen, Scott will try to stop it just because he can."

She took a break, obviously to catch her breath. "It is what it is."

"And you," Aunt Mel used her whisk to indicate Joe, "share the same gene, because you will also try to help people whenever you can. Both of you, since you were young, running headfirst into whatever kind of dangerous situation if someone else needed help."

"So," the pot sizzled when Aunt Mel poured milk into it, "imagine my surprise when I learned that yesterday, you shot Derek Hale at point-blank range." She stirred without looking at Joe anymore. "And then my surprise did not exactly subside when I learn that Derek Hale is not just a guy you sort of kinda had a thing with, he's apparently what is referred to as a 'True Mate' to you?"

Squirming on the chair, Joe made a small noise of confirmation.

"Which explains that when you nearly gave me a heart attack the other day, you were feeling his pain because you're connected somehow, right?" The whisk never stopped in the pot where it had started to simmer over the low-medium heat. "Am I correct in my assumption that this connection is random? It's not like the werewolf bite where an Alpha chooses to bite someone?" As Joe nodded again, Aunt Mel did too, still whisking away. "So, as much as that sucks, you never chose to be connected to Derek Hale and he never chose to be connected to you either?"

"No," Joe said while hunched over in her chair. That was the ugly bitter truth of it.

"Okay," Aunt Mel said and took the pot off the stove before it fully boiled. She poured in chocolate chips, vanilla extract, and salt to the still-hot liquid. "I can't say I understand it, but again, it is what it is."

The smell of chocolate now wafted over the kitchen while Joe stared down into the tabletop to avoid looking at either Scott or Aunt Mel. This was the easy part. She did not like the next part.

"So, that's the stuff that's beyond our control, right?" Aunt Mel emptied the waiting mugs and set them back on the counter. "Scott's a werewolf and you, apparently, have a soulmate."

It made it sound so romantic when it really was anything but that. Steam rose from the pot as Aunt Mel tipped it to pour the thick hot chocolate into the waiting mugs.

"That I can handle, even if I don't like it. What I can't handle," Aunt Mel slammed the now-empty pot back into the sink, where she supported herself, "is that my own son," Scott shrank on his chair now, "not only convinced me nothing was wrong all summer when I worried about my only niece, but upon learning that something definitely was wrong, he refrained from telling me about it!"

Her voice ended in a shout. Shaking her head, Aunt Mel tore open the fridge and brought out some canned whipped cream. She shook it vigorously and plucked the cap off with a loud pop.

"And not only was something wrong," Aunt Mel's voice was flat as she topped the three mugs with a tall stack of whipped cream, "but it was so wrong that I am having a really hard time even thinking about it based on what Boyd told me."

Joe squeezed Scott's hand as he bent his head in shame.

"And I can't even imagine going through that," Aunt Mel's voice became tighter as she sprinkled mini-marshmallows into the whipped cream, "which you," she looked at Joe, "and three other kids apparently have."

"And," she placed one mug in front of Scott, but looked at Joe,"I am so sorry that happened to you." The other mug for her. "But what I'm most sorry for is that you felt you couldn't tell me and you had to keep going through this alone."

Joe looked to the side, unable to meet Aunt Mel's eyes.

"I'm sorry that Scott," she took her own cup and nodded at her son, "with his limited experience as a high school Junior, did not fully consider the implications of what three months of captivity does to a person. And that's without the-" She stopped herself, face scrunching briefly. "The rest, we don't have to go into details."

As both Scott and Joe quietly took each of their mugs, Aunt Mel temporarily disappeared behind her own stack of whipped cream.

"I'm sorry that both of you," Aunt Mel said in a tight voice, "are thrust into these situations beyond your control. Not because I don't think you can handle it or because I think you're not strong enough, but because you never asked for it. I became a nurse, Rob became a federal agent, we chose this, but you guys didn't. And again, I'm sorry you feel you have to shoulder this responsibility alone."

A long and tense silence followed. With shaking hands, Joe took a sip of the hot chocolate, not even tasting it.

"It's my fault."

Looking up, it became clear Scott was crying. His lips were swollen and twisted as he held onto the hot mug like a lifeline. "It's my fault. I told Joe not to tell you about it. I just, I just wanted things to get quiet again before we told you because we'd already been through so much and..." He swallowed as he glanced at Joe. "It's my fault we didn't know you were missing too. I should have heard it, on the phone, that it wasn't you. I'm sorry."

Aunt Mel had tears in her eyes as well, but she remained standing on the other side of the kitchen.

"It's not just your fault, Scott," Joe mumbled, too worn for tears just yet. "You couldn't have known. And I could have told Aunt Mel as well. I don't usually take orders from you. I'm the adult of us, remember?" That admission made her cry sooner than she'd expected, voice cracking on the last word.

"Sweetie," Aunt Mel almost whispered, "being an adult does not mean going through everything on your own. You have friends, family, people who love you."

They shouldn't, Joe thought and rubbed her face. Shouldn't love her. "What did he-" Both Aunt Mel and Scott waited for Joe to regain her voice. "What did he tell you? Boyd?"

"That you haven't been in San Diego this summer. You were in the vault," it was obvious she fought to keep her voice neutral, "and that I should hear the rest from you."

Small mercies. Even now when she deserved it the most, Boyd refrained from cruelty. He hadn't told Aunt Mel everything.

She looked at Aunt Mel now. "I'm not sure I'm ready to tell yout the rest yet."

"Joe, you don't have to tell us anything," Aunt Mel said as she closed her eyes, tears slipping silently down her cardigan. "You never have to tell us if you don't want to, but you have to know you can tell us. Everything, without judgment, any time you are ready if you ever feel like you are." She took a deep breath, regaining composure. "Is this why you don't sleep?"

"Yeah," said Joe, thinking about the steel grip she had on the pain-bond at all times now. It was obsessive, she knew it was an obsessive thought, that if she let go, Derek would die. Or Boyd would die. Or Cora. It didn't help knowing it, she couldn't let go. "Slept tonight though."

"God, I never should have-" Aunt Mel shook her head. "I swear, if I had known, Joe, I never would have done that."

"It's fine," Joe tried to smile, feling like a grimace. "Tough love, right? It helped, so... Thanks."

"How long have you been up before that? It can take days to recover after just one night of missed sleep and something tells me you've been running on fumes for weeks now." The nurse took over and Joe tried to think. On average, she was getting so little sleep she should be dead. "Joe, you know how bad insomnia can get. If you're not ready to talk about it, that's fine, but you have to let us help you with the rest."

Joe opened her mouth, but didn't find any words. She jolted a bit when Scott reached over to squeeze her hand again — his face was red from silent crying. Her Scott. Her baby cousin Scott. Her baby cousin True Alpha Scott who had no idea what was coming for him.

"We're your family, Joe," Aunt Mel said and if Scott hadn't held her hand, Joe would have made a run for it. This was becoming too much. Family. Pack. Bonds. Too much. "And we love you. We love you no matter what has happened and no matter what you do."

Bad things. She'd done bad things. Her hands shook, even the one holding Scott, and he got up from his chair to hug her, moving slowly in case she wanted to pull away. Her baby cousin, taller than her by several inches, and so strong now. Aunt Mel came around too, wrapping her arms around both of them as far as she reached. Closest thing she has ever had to a mother-figure in her life, a real mother, not just someone who gave birth to her.

And no matter how undeserved it may be, she felt loved.

I'm worried about Verne. He hasn't eaten in days.

For some reason, Joe had expected Erica to be back when she returned to the apartment. Like she expected instant gratification from agreeing to at least work on her insomnia.

Through a lot of tears, hugging and apologies, she and Aunt Mel came up with a set of rules for Joe. It had worked before, when it got too bad, even if she never became a 'solid eight hours a night'- kind of person. Limit caffeine to once a day, create and follow a strict bed routine, never stay in bed awake for more than thirty minutes, set up and attend a meeting with a therapist before the end of the week. Aunt Mel had plenty of other suggestions that Joe shot down — moving back in with them was out of the question, so was telling her dad about everything, so therapy was a compromise.

Joe wondered how that would work — even with the patient confidentiality, she could not tell a regular therapist everything without fear of being forcibly admitted. Maybe she did not have to tell everything. Apart from the mate-bond, everything else was just regular old trauma. Nothing unique, nothing special. People get kidnapped and tortured all the time.

If nothing else, Jimmy at least seemed pleased when she told him of Aunt Mel's rules. A step in the right direction.

"Maybe we can do like a group therapy kind of thing," Joe suggested weakly and slumped down into the armchair with large furrows in it. "You, me, Cora, Boyd and Erica. Have you heard from her?"

"I have. She's fine. Now, tune your brain into this human sacrifices now instead. I have a bad feeling about it."

"Okay." Joe tried. Virgins, warriors and healers were the list of official sacrifices. The virgins still presented the biggest mystery. Even if they had been sacrificed for the power of seduction, how was that the most important part of the Darach's plan? Who could be important enough to seduce first before gaining strength and healing abilities? And what was the Darach's endgame?

"It all started when the Alpha Pack came into town," Joe said aloud and winced at the grassy taste of the tea Jimmy had made her. It was like he had seeped dandelions into lukewarm water.

"No, the Alpha Pack had been in the area for a while then. It started right around we broke you guys out of the vault," Jimmy corrected her. They'd gone back to their old ways and had strung up the board in the living room. He must have caught her expression as he sighed. "You may have been hallucinating, Delgado, but you have been too busy to run around sacrificing people." Under his breath, he muttered: "Nor are your power of seduction on the level of three sacrificed virgins."

"I heard that." As Jimmy did not seem particularly bothered, Joe just huffed. "What's your take on these telluric currents?" They had been part of how Scott and the others found where Deaton was held. "It's too pseudoscience to be part of my field."

"That's just because it's a fancy term for something quite simple. It's energy. The Celtic Druids operated with three types of currents: Solar, Lunar and Telluric. They're all connected. Solar currents affect the energy flow of the different solstices. Traditionally seen as the masculine current," he ignored Joe's scoff," and is the current of knowledge."

"Lunar currents correspond to the lunar phases. Current of enlightenment. It's less tangible and sometimes thought of to be the combination of solar and telluric energy. Telluric is earth energy. The one we can touch, the tangible and the only one we can directly manipulate. It's feminine, with Mother Earth and so on. Current of power."

"Still sounds like pseudoscience, but okay," Joe said when Jimmy finished his lecture. "So the Druid is using the earth energy for her purposes because it's the only one that's malleable?"

He seemed to consider this for a while, staring at the board showing a map of Beacon Hills as well as a list of all the victims. "No, they're all connected. That's part of the Druid ways. Five-fold knot, the Triskelions — everything's ultimately connected." His voice came in a whisper. "We're missing something..."

"Obviously, considering nine people are dead already."

For some reason, it did not seem like Jimmy appreciated her helpful contributions. He went over to his desk and rummaged in his notes, ultimately bringing up a calendar. "The next full moon is a full lunar eclipse. It only happens when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are exactly aligned."

"Combining Solar, Lunar, and Telluric energy," Joe finished for him as Jimmy tore off a piece of the calendar to add to the board. "Okay, so whatever the final step of the Darach's plan is, it happens on the lunar eclipse?"

Instead of answering, Jimmy took a step back to take in the full board. He scratched the light stubble that had erupted on his cheeks. In the bathrobe and checkered pants, he looked like the old Jimmy, even with the six-pack. "You know what happens with werewolves during the full lunar eclipse, Joe?"

"Probably nothing good?" Joe guessed and squinted at the board. "Traditionally, lunar eclipses are seen as a bad thing. You're not supposed to eat, sleep or have sex during the eclipse in most cultures. If you eat, you'll spoil the harvest. If you sleep, you might never wake up. If you have sex, your firstborn dies or something. Pregnant women weren't even allowed to go outside during the eclipses, because it would bring misfortune upon the baby."

When Jimmy did not say anything, Joe nudged him with her foot. "So, was I right, it's not good?"

"Depends on your point of view," Jimmy said quietly as he turned to smile at her, a thin bad replicate of the expression, his purple eyes forever glowing. "During the lunar eclipse, werewolves lose all their powers."

As he said it with such dramatic flourish, Joe decided to give him his moment first. "Okay? So it's after the Alphas?"

"The timing is so tight-knit it can't be coincidental. Only other coinciding event is you breaking out of the vault."

"Thought you said the first victim disappeared a few days before?"

"She wasn't necessarily killed until the full moon when the two other virgins were taken. Look, I'm not saying it's connected to you, it was a simple theory. All I'm saying is that the Alpha Pack had already been in Beacon Hills, more or less, for months already. They didn't really do anything that full moon, they'd placed their cards long in advance."

"I doubt us breaking out of the vault triggered the Darach's sudden need for virginal sacrifices," Joe muttered, but now also staring at the board, trying to make it make sense. "I did not feel particularly seduced that night, did you?"

"With a punched-in ribcage and a broken lung, no, I did not."

"Erica, god bless her, was probably not feeling in the mood either. Cora and Boyd were tearing Derek apart..." She trailed off, again narrowing her eyes at the board. A theory jutted up to the surface, the same one Kate had laughed about the other night. The teacher.

Jimmy turned to her with an expectant frown. "What?"

"It's nothing."

It sounded stupid in her head, it would probably sound pathetic out loud. The facts didn't change though. The reason Derek was in that boiler room getting torn apart was because of a teacher also being down there, a female teacher, who he'd later gone to check on. How many female teachers were there at Beacon Hills High School? The image of the pretty brunette — Miss Blake, as Scott called her — trembling in the doorway of the loft made her scoff at herself. Hardly how she imagined an evil Druid to look like.

And anyway, why would an evil Druid bother to seduce Derek? Okay, so he was pretty much the perfect physical specimen of a man, but other than that? There were easier ways to pick up hot guys than to sacrifice three virgins. Sexual frustration was of course a valid motive, but it seemed like an odd place to start if your end-goal was killing a bunch of Alpha werewolves.

"Time for bed, Delgado."

"What?"

"It's ten. Bedtime."

Grumbling, but knowing she had to at least try, especially today, Joe got up from the armchair. "I didn't even know we had a clock in this apartment." She shuffled over to the bathroom that still reeked of bleach. Maybe if she got this under control, Erica could come back. Joe did not like not knowing where she was.

Joe paused in the doorway and glanced back at the purple-eyed man trying to solve a string of supernatural murders, just like in the good old days. "Are you gonna stay up? I'm only allowed to try and fall asleep for half an hour at a time."

"I'm not going anywhere, Joe."

She smiled. "Thanks, Jim. Noches."

"Sweet dreams."

Not my strongest chapter, but a necessary one. Slim Jim and Mama McCall are too pure for this world ❤ (And so are Scott, Erica, Boyd, and Isaac too obviously). Anyway, Derek's out doing God knows what, but he'll be back in the next chapter. Joe is obviously feeling a little better from shooting him/sleeping a bit, so maybe they'll talk?

I might be without internet this weekend, so the next chapter's up on Friday. This three-day update rate is going great 😂

Anyway, thank you for reading as always, let me know what you think. Hope everyone's staying safe and healthy, especially for you guys suffering the cold front in Central America/Southern USA ❤

Side-note: I am finally, as an elder millennial, on TikTok so let me know who's your favorite TikToker to follow 😊