The Skeptic

by alvfr

Joe is building her degree on the premise that werewolves, witches, ghosts - all those things that go bump in the night – aren't real. She chooses the attacks in her own hometown as a case study and gets sucked down the rabbit hole. Her cousin thinks he's a werewolf, this other guy claims to be her mate, and she is just trying to make her next deadline without dying in the process.

79. Chapter 79: The Talk

Warning: Mention/description of suicide and sexual assault.

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Chapter 79: The Talk

Your mother would have been proud.

Things were bad.

Even on their own, each point on Joe's growing list of concerns was bad. Cora was sick, that was a given. Alphas in the hospital, Scott somewhere — hopefully getting Aunt Mel to safety — and Kali hopefully too concerned with finding Jennifer that she hadn't noticed Stiles hiding in the ambulance. Those were all points beyond Joe's control.

Furthermore, she had not slept in closer to fifty hours now. Hallucinate-Kate kept nagging her and making severely inappropriate jokes. Her hands trembled constantly. She was trapped in an elevator. This elevator contained not only Derek, but also the evil druid AKA the Darach or Julia Baccari or Jennifer Blake or Little Miss Pencil Skirt or the nasty skank bitch — whatever you wanted to call her. The ventilation had cut off, filling the elevator all too quickly with the scent of Derek, which Joe tried to squash into the bottom of her conscience.

And if that was not enough, Jennifer seemed to want to use this opportunity to have a heart-to-heart with Derek.

"Anything?" Julia/Jennifer asked when Derek checked his phone for the tenth time. If Joe hadn't been so miserable herself, she would have found his stress level funnier. Something had finally thrown him off his game. Spell or not — Joe still hadn't made up her mind why he was acting weird — the guy clearly wanted to be anywhere but here. "Derek, I know what you're thinking-"

"Oh Christ," Joe muttered and tried to shut off her ears, leaning her head back against the wall.

"- that I'm using you," Jennifer continued, as if Joe wasn't there. "That everything that has happened between us is a lie. Or that I'm evil. A bitch."

Kate looked as impressed as Joe felt. "Not that I'm condoning suicide, but if you shoot yourself, I'm spared of this as well, right?"

"But I hope you're not thinking the most superficial thought."

Jennifer sounded thoroughly heartbroken, Joe had to give her credit for that. Derek made a point of not looking at either of them. Ironically, or appropriately, he was in the middle of the elevator with Jennifer and Joe in each separate corner behind him.

"'Is that her real face? The slashed, mutilated face revealed by the mistletoe... Is that what she really looks like?'"

Joe had no idea what the woman was going on about. How and what had been revealed by mistletoe and when? She found herself curious to know what Jennifer really looked like. All she knew was that this face was not her real one. Woman had to be at least forty years old, probably older, and the face of Jennifer Blake looked to around twenty-five? Could be really extensive skin care, but Joe doubted it.

"How does age work with you guys?" she found herself asking, breaking off Jennifer's sad little monologue. As before, Jennifer could not quite hide that displeasure when looking at Joe, even though she did try, probably realizing she would need both of them to get out of here alive. "I mean, considering you were literally there when I was born and I'm guessing you didn't become an Emissary when you were three."

She caught Derek's disturbed look at Jennifer, but Kate in the corner just laughed. "Look at him being all innocent. Come on, we both know he has a thing for older women."

Ignoring Kate to the best of her abilities, Joe focused on Jennifer's slightly confused expression. "The med-records I broke in and stole eight years ago listed a Julia Baccari present. I got a picture that my dad took as well, but you don't look like that anymore, do you? Congratulations on the glow-up, by the way. Vast improvement."

"You know, I could have killed you," Jennifer snapped instead of answering the initial question and Joe's eyebrows rose. "Snuffed you out before you even took your first breath, before your first heartbeat. No one would have known and yet, I let you live. As a human, with your father, the better option."

"I'm not gonna be grateful you didn't kill me in the womb," Joe said with a laugh, because that's what Jennifer had made it sound like she should be. "Jesus Christ, lady, and I thought I had issues?" She closed her eyes, still smiling at that mental image, and leaned her head back again. "Sorry if I don't believe you did me a favor here."

"If you listen to my heartbeat, you will know I'm not lying."

"Don't see a stethoscope, so I think I'm gonna pass." The silence that followed made Joe sigh again, just knowing neither of them understood her well-timed jokes. "You messed something up, Jules. In short, I got my mother's eyes, but my father's ears."

The silence that followed now was heavy, but still more comfortable than listening to Jennifer's voice. Of course it did not last long enough.

"I'm sorry that happened to you," Jennifer said, sounding sincere. "That was never my intention. Stuck in-between like that. A wolf with no claws and no fangs, right? And no senses."

"Nine millimeter bullets trumps nine millimeter claws," Joe said evenly with her eyes closed. "I'm compensating just fine, lady."

"She's right about one thing," Jennifer said with a sigh, obviously focusing back on Derek. "Julia Baccari. That was my name."

Derek's voice came so fast Joe nearly missed how angry he sounded. "I don't care."

Mixed signals for sure, Joe thought with a mental raise of her brows. Was he under the spell or not? Was he fighting it? Or was this just a stress-reaction?

"I guess I should have changed it to something with different first letters. I think I read somewhere that people always pick aliases that are subconsciously derivative of their original name. It's a way of not completely letting go of your identity, since your name is so tied to your sense of self." Jennifer turned to Joe, who despite herself had opened her eyes to stare at the woman. "You understand this, right? There is a reason you never let go of Josefina, even if you try to hide it behind the nickname Joe."

Joe blinked her eyes fully open. "Excuse me, leave me and my issues out of this, please."

"Do you know what else is tied to your sense of self? Your face. The one that's supposed to be staring back at you in the mirror." Jennifer's voice turned dark and Joe saw how she studied her own reflection in the shiny elevator doors. "Not some hacked up atrocity you can't even recognize."

"I still don't care."

"Is he telling the truth?" Kate asked in an inquisitive voice and squinted at Derek who stood with a ramrod back ignoring all of them. He probably couldn't see Kate though, but he was definitely ignoring Joe and Jennifer. Short clipped answers and tight jaw. "Does this seem like the Derek you know? He's not usually so pliant."

Without thinking, Joe answered with a sigh. "Pliant's my word. You're slipping up."

"Who are you talking to?" Jennifer asked, a worried look in her eyes. She probably remembered Joe's time limit. "This hallucination, what form does it take?"

Joe opened her heavy eyes fully, seeing both Jennifer and Derek staring at her and the empty corner Joe had addressed. "Oh, just this sociopath I know. I hope she's a hallucination at least. There's a slight chance she's astral projecting here to mess with me. Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt," Joe lowered her voice to add under her breath, "she's just a lot more interesting than you."

"You're not curious?" Jennifer asked and Joe wasn't sure if she was talking to one or both of them. She must have been waiting for this moment, Joe realized, to monologue about her tragic fate. "I bet you wonder exactly what happened."

Now that Kate had mentioned it, Derek did still sound too soft even when he said matter-of-factly: "You were Kali's Emissary. She tried killing you along with the rest of the pack. Mystery solved."

The anger Joe was so accustomed to, the one always simmering beneath the surface, was subdued. Knowing it to be unwise, because his scent was incredibly present in the elevator, Joe opened her eyes to take stock of him. Arms crossed, back straight, feet slightly apart in a firm stance. Jaw flexed and she could not see his eyes from this angle. Were they hard and staring straight ahead? Or flickering to the side in doubt?

Was he still under her influence? Without Cora here, without the physical evidence of what Jennifer had done, had the spell taken hold again? Kali's words rang in Joe's mind, about how to break it. The question was if he even wanted it broken...

"I was the one she couldn't kill," Jennifer said, obviously not too bothered by the lack of response. She was telling this story no matter the audience's disinterest. "You think you know your mother, Josefina? Not like I do. I was her Emissary for fifteen years and her... friend for even longer."

There was something about the way she said 'friend' that made some bells clang in Joe's head, but she only said: "Again, is age really just a number for you guys?"

"And when Deucalion came, when he twisted her mind into killing her first Beta and slaughter the rest of their pack, she argued that I was harmless and he still made her do it. She took me out into the forest and used her claws, the claws you can feel blessed not to have inherited, to cut me down. And she left me there to die, gasping for breath and bleeding out."

Something nudged Joe's mind, and she opened her eyes again — they kept falling shut — to squint at Jennifer. "And you're angry with her for not finishing the job? Anyway, Deucalion never twisted her mind, he offered her the two things she wanted: power and Ennis."

Again, that slight twitch to Jennifer's face Joe might have missed, but didn't.

"Ohh," Joe laughed and threw her head back. "Oh-ho-ho, that's it, isn't it? That's the missing piece. Ennis."

Finally things made sense and Jennifer's tightly drawn face only made Joe laugh harder.

"You really did think you were special, didn't you? And then she left you for love. And even worse, for a guy." With a snort, Joe shook her head. "For the second time, no less."

"She never loved your father."

"Oh, whatever," Joe said with a scoff. "No wonder you hate me so much. I'm like the physical embodiment of what you couldn't have. Of how you couldn't have Kali. Friend indeed. That's why you did what you did, right? The whole mistletoe-shenanigans?"

"You're overestimating your importance, Delgado."

"Am I though?" Joe asked, tilting her head and watching Jennifer through tired eyes. "I'm guessing that's the real reason you didn't kill me in the womb. Because that could hurt Kali. Maybe not physically, but mentally at least. So instead you poisoned her, body and mind, I presume, so that the rejection seemed like her decision. You drove a wedge between her and Dad too, telling her that he was the one who'd done something to make me come out not quite as expected."

Jennifer squared her shoulders and held her head up high. "Everything I did was to protect the pack."

"From what? A newborn?"

Looking Joe in the eyes, Jennifer took a step towards her and hissed: "Weakness."

The word stung like a sharp slap, and Joe would instinctively have taken a step back if she wasn't already in the corner.

"He knows," Jennifer nodded at Derek who was caught in the middle with another disturbed expression on his face, "that there are two types of werewolves in the world. Those that are strong enough to survive and those who aren't."

For a brief second, Derek met Joe's gaze, almost apologetically.

"Your father was weak," Jennifer continued and her nostrils flared by mentioning the guy. "And he made her soft."

Breathing harder than she would like to admit, because the sentiment cut harder than she would like to admit, Joe kept her gaze trained on Jennifer. Not Kate, not Derek, but this woman — for lack of better words — who had messed with her life almost before it came into existence.

"Who was José Garcia?" Joe asked quietly and did everything she could to discern the minuscule tells on the woman's unfamiliar face. A slight flinch at the name. "I know Kali killed him, I assume you were the one who told Dad about him, but who was he?"

Because there had been something Jennifer said before. Kali had just become Alpha when she found out she was pregnant. There were a limited number of ways to become an Alpha.

Joe swallowed, fighting the sheer exhaustion riding her body now, not helped by the increased saturation of Derek's scent in the enclosed space. "He was the old Alpha, wasn't he?"

A glint in Jennifer's eyes, something gleeful almost. "Technically," she said, her mouth locked somewhere between a smile and a snarl, "he was your grandfather."

There was no hiding the tremble passing through Joe's body. Lineage was simple. Kali had killed her own father to become Alpha. It should not come as a surprise the woman was capable of something like this, but it still made Joe sick to her stomach.

"Well," Kate drawled from her corner, "look at the bright side, babe. You might have a genetic advantage here. Murder's in your DNA, basically. You got the gun, why not use it?"

"So I might have made the mistake of thinking I was special," Jennifer continued while Joe just focused on breathing. "But you'd be more foolish than me if you think Kali would ever do you any favors because of something as insignificant as blood-ties.

Joe wished she could will her heart to slow down because she knew Derek could hear it going hard inside her chest. If nothing else, she hoped the fatigue would cover up most of her other chemosignals.

"Even her own sister knew she wouldn't be spared. But you already know this, don't you? What did she do to you? Break your bones? Starve you? Train you, I assume, from your lack of shoes. I know her style, it's not gentle. At what point do you call it torture instead of tough love?"

Nostrils flaring, Joe bit back: "I'm not that disillusioned that I think Kali's ever loved me. And I guess that makes one of us."

"If you think you know Kali," Jennifer said, voice tighter now than when she was relaying her monologue, "you tell me what else can make her spare a life."

"Pity?"

It was hard to tell exactly what would have happened if Derek didn't physically step between them. Jennifer had bowed her head and Joe thought she saw a flicker of bright light in her eyes, not like a werewolf's, but like something eradicating both iris and pupil. At Derek's touch, Jennifer slinked back, but Joe still had her gun out.

"Firing that in here is suicide," Derek barked at Joe from where he physically held Jennifer back with a flat hand. "If the ricochet doesn't kill all of us, it will bring the Alphas right to us."

Kate laughed from the side. "He's protecting her, babe."

"Not seeing the issue with either of those options," Joe spat, the first time she'd addressed Derek directly the whole night. Nevertheless, she tucked her gun away, only to hide the fact that her hands were shaking so hard.

Derek's nostrils flared and his chest heaved as he remained in check. "Are you forgetting about Cora?"

"Are you?" Joe countered, slamming herself back into the corner, as if she could force her arms to stop vibrating. Biting her teeth together, she asked: "How do we know she's not already dead while we're wasting away in here listening to the tragic backstory of someone who didn't die?"

"Cora's not dead," Jennifer said from the side.

Derek and Joe both snapped: "Shut up!"

"And the only reason I didn't die at the hands of Kali," Jennifer said, raising her voice, "was because of Derek."

This seemed to be just as much news for Derek as it was for Joe, and Joe mentally did the math — he would have been fifteen. Seeing their stunned silence, Jennifer elaborated:

"For years, the Nemeton's power was virtually gone, like the dying ember of a burned out fire. But a few months earlier, something happened that caused that ember to glow a little brighter."

She turned to Derek, who had retreated into the opposite wall of Joe, staring down to the floor with sweat forming at his temples. Obviously recalling something, but he was by far the least talkative one in here and would likely not be sharing with the rest of class anytime soon.

"Something that gave it a spark of power again. The sacrifice of a virgin."

Oh shit. Kate grinned. "There you go, it's almost like she is here after all!"

"You didn't know what you were doing back then, but killing Paige in the root cellar, sacrificing her there, gave power to the Nemeton."

Because she had been watching him, Joe saw the flicker of guilt on Derek's face. She sighed a bit, because there were a lot of focal points. First of all, there was nothing called the Nemeton. It was a Nemeton, plural: nemeta, but Joe did not bother to argue about that. It was a sacred space in for the Celtic, usually a grove of trees and they appeared all over the world.

What she wanted to argue was something else she had just realized.

"Oh my God!" Joe burst out and straightened up to stare at Jennifer with fresh eyes. "That's who you look like. Jesus, I was going crazy trying to figure out where I'd seen you before, because you don't look like your old self at all, but now I know. You look like her. You made yourself look like Paige."

It was not a carbon copy, but it was similar enough for it to be obvious, even from the yearbook photo Joe had seen of the girl. The hair-color, the larger eyes, something about both nose and mouth. Derek's eyes snapped first to Joe, then to Jennifer, eyes narrowing, but also filling with doubt.

"You made yourself look like the girl Derek lost," Joe said with a fatigued laugh in her breath. "And you came back as an English teacher, because all he does is read all these weird books all the time." Her voice sounded exhausted, even to her, no matter how much she laughed. "And you let him save you and protect you in the boiler room, because that's his baseline personality. You made yourself perfect for him."

Something else clicked, and she leaned back, eyes closing as much of heaviness as to avoid seeing the look on Derek's face.

"I never figured out the timeline, but that's why the three virgins had to die that night. It didn't really have anything to do with the full moon, it was just to get to Derek. Oh man, it all makes sense now."

"I don't know what she's talking about," Jennifer tried, but to be honest, Joe did not even care if Derek believed her or not. "Derek, you have to-"

"There's really only three motives to crime," Joe said, talking over Jennifer. "Crime as its basic definition, not any derivatives. It's power, sex and revenge and you're ticking all the boxes, aren't you? I thought it was only power and revenge, that's why I never could figure out why you started with the virgins."

Joe squinted at Derek who returned her stare expectantly with slightly raised brows. "Don't get me wrong, you're an attractive guy, pretty much a perfect specimen, but I just couldn't see why someone would be that obsessed with you. But it's not you. Not really. It's the sacrifice, and not just Paige, but that little part of your soul that changed the color of your eyes."

Instead of saying anything, Derek seemed lost in thoughts, but at least he looked at Joe when she talked. Did he know any of this? The virgin sacrifices? Had he figured it out and was he still so hung up on Paige that he thought he deserved it? Or worse, wanted it?

"It really is all connected, huh?" Joe asked Jennifer, who in turn only looked at Derek, but he was not doing anything more interesting than flexing his jaw. "That's what Marin meant that I'm part of the imbalance. You started this. It's not a coincidence that you mess up my werewolf-lineage, then later gets saved by Derek's actions and then I end up as his mate. I'm not really sure what's going on, but I'm guessing it's about the universe restoring balance one way or another."

"You want to talk about imbalance?" Jennifer spat and for a moment, something flickered about her face. Something else shone through, a ghastly white figure, but it was too fast for Joe to really notice many details. "With how many lives Deucalion has to answer for? The slain packs, the Alphas he couldn't recruit, the regular people who had done nothing wrong other than to be in the wrong place in the wrong time for his plans?"

"I'm sorry, are these the same regular people you've been killing left and right to gain power?"

"They're called sacrifices for a reason! A necessary evil." For some reason, she focused back on Derek again. "You know mistletoe is important to druids, but do you know the myth of why people kiss under mistletoe?"

Derek let out a single uncharacteristic: "No."

Why was he still letting her talk? It was like he was reading after a script of how she wanted him to react. Still under the influence. He had to be. The scent — his scent — felt like it clogged Joe's pores now, it was so invasive and she wished she couldn't smell it. She wished she couldn't smell the bitter undertone accompanying it. She wished it didn't have to come to this.

What followed, while Joe watched Derek intently to see if there was anything of him ready to emerge, was Jennifer's not-so-quick summary of the story of Baldur's death from Norse Mythology. Frigg overlooked the mistletoe plant when she went around to ask everything in the world to not harm her beloved son Baldur and then Loki, the trickster god, fashioned a dart of mistletoe and killed Baldur anyway.

Joe kept quiet, looking down at her trembling hands, wondering if she could even make the shot if she got the chance.

"Frigg was heartbroken. She decreed that mistletoe would never again be used as a weapon and that she would place a kiss on anyone who passed under it." Jennifer sounded wistful and gentle again when she talked. "So now we hang mistletoe underneath our door during the holidays... so that we will never overlook it again."

That at least brought Joe out of her musings.

"Okay, but no. No, no, no."

Joe pushed off from the wall, gun momentarily forgotten and folded her arms over her chest.

"I can take you talking shit about a lot of stuff, but not this, you got it all wrong. First of all," she pointed her finger at the woman, "Baldur was not killed by Loki, he was killed by his blind brother Hod. Baldur was not overly beloved by everyone, but it was believed his death would be the starting of Ragnarok, so they tried to avoid it. The gathering wasn't about testing him, it was him gloating over the fact he was invincible. So when Loki asked Hod to throw a spear, Hod saw no reason to hesitate and in some versions of the story, Baldur even encourages his blind brother to take part in the event. In other versions, Loki's not even in it! Moral of the story is hubris will be your downfall."

"Second of all," Joe held up another finger, "mistletoe is not native to Scandinavia at all, that version of the story comes after the vikings sacked England, where mistletoe does grow in the wild and is a big part of Celtic traditions. Earlier translations of the story names the plant as either a thistle or a reed."

"Third of all, that is not why we kiss under mistletoe! Kissing under mistletoe developed as a tradition somewhere in the 18th century and it was deemed as bad luck if you didn't do it. There is no supernatural reason why, this is basic human behavior. Most likely this tradition developed in parts of England where public displays of affection was frowned upon and could tarnish your reputation or whatever. So the fine ladies of society used the mistletoe as an excuse to steal kisses from men they desired without repercussions, because after all, it was bad luck not to."

"I don't know if you were trying to portray yourself as Baldur, Frigg, Loki or the actual mistletoe in your story, but either way, you got it all wrong." Joe was only wearing tights and a sports-bra, but the stifling air inside the elevator made her wish she wasn't wearing clothes at all. Even as much as she tried to ignore it, she could feel Derek's scent even more now, and she glared at him and his stupid pheromone-emitting self. "Stop that. Please."

Like a scolded dog, he snapped his attention down to the floor again to at least make her know he respected her request. His jaw flexed though, same with his arms — anger, but not directed at her. They were as far away from each other as possible in the enclosed space, although Joe was not sure how much he detected her scent now in Jennifer's presence.

Jennifer gave her a disdainful look. "Sometimes you have to just appreciate the analogy of a story."

"No, I don't, that's why I'm not an English Lit-major. I like facts. But okay, you told your wildly inaccurate story, did you have a point?"

"We were the overlooked, like the mistletoe," Jennifer said, raising her voice and pointing to herself. "The Emissaries. It was a mistake Deucalion and the Alphas should never have made because I made an oath of my own."

"Okay, so you're both mistletoe and Frigg in this-"

Jennifer's voice gained power, turning hollow. "From virgins and warriors, from healers, philosophers and guardians, to loan me their power so that I could teach these monsters that their monstrous actions would never be overlooked!"

Her voice died away while Joe and Derek stared at her. It was too hot in here and Joe felt the rivers of sweat go down her chest and into her bra. They'd been here for far too long already and she was getting angrier by the second. Especially at Derek who normally had no qualms in talking back and now he was trying to win the prize for fewest words said in one sitting.

"Lady, you've been stringing up people all over town! Do I need to repeat the number? Twelve! And you're aiming for fifteen, because it's the goddamn five-fold knot. Four plus one. Four directions, plus the center. Four elements, plus energy. Four moons, plus the eclipse. Four Alphas, plus Deucalion. All the time, four plus one."

From her corner, Kate added: "My shotgun held four plus one shells. Coincidence? Think not."

"Shut up!" Joe snapped at Kate, without thinking.

"Do you see how delusional she is?" Jennifer hissed at Derek, who had the definite look of someone who saw how delusional she was. His bright eyes were laced with concern from where he regarded Joe, still as a statue with Jennifer getting every bit closer to him. "Everything she's been saying about me is fueled by that delusion. They filled her head with lies and she's trying to fill yours."

She twisted around him, facing Derek so she was between him and Joe. "You saved me because that's who you are, you help people. And you came to check up on me, because you worried. And we made a connection, you can't deny that. That was real. So when you needed help, when you were dying, you came to me. You found me and I helped you. You let me in, Derek, you let me see the real you. You have to admit that at least."

Scoffing, Joe rubbed her scalp under the frizzed up curls unfolding from her braids. Sleep tried to claim her as much as the heat. "I'm not gonna fight you for him so you don't have to bother," she told Jennifer, because that was the honest truth. "I'll fight you for everything else; for Cora, for the Sheriff, for Jimmy, but I won't fight you for him."

"Really?" asked Jennifer, sounding genuinely surprised.

That surprise was easier to take than the expression on Derek's face. If he had ever been cold earlier, he was now glacial. And angry.

"I'm sorry if you were expecting a whole speech where I try to win you over," Joe said with a lopsided smile to Derek. "You know I was in the debate team in high school, I could've prepared one if I wanted. I don't have any grand gestures, Derek." She scoffed again and put both hands on her hips. "Nothing that can beat three sacrificed virgins at least and let's be real, I'm not in the best state of mind to do the whole epic announcement at the moment."

She laughed to herself, body and mind so heavy she was surprised she didn't fall asleep while standing. Looking up at him, all six feet and two-hundred pounds of stubborn werewolf, she said: "I just love you, in a quite simple desperate human way."

A pause, before she added: "Well, semi-human anyway, but you get the gist."

The look on his face became too much, and she felt her own face settle into a steely cold blankness. "And it's because I love you, I'd rather kill you myself than watch you let this bitch hurt Cora."

"Really, we're going there with the name calling?" Jennifer asked with a scoff, saving Joe the near physical pain of seeing Derek's expression of how it had shifted so fast from cold to shocked to angry again.

"Oh honey, I don't think you realize how bad you messed up when you had my dad arrest Jimmy," Joe said and tried to rub her head again, finding her hands near shaking too much to settle. "I'll admit, me and him, we got some real co-dependency issues we probably should work on at some point. When we say ride or die, we mean it, like," Joe thumped her heart with her fist twice, "and he was friends with Paige too, by the way, but he actually went to therapy afterwards so he's only partially messed up, not like..." Joe gestured vaguely at Derek.

They both stared at Joe's hands and she found herself not caring anymore. She held them out, like she would do whenever Cora, Jimmy or Erica asked her to, because they knew it to be a sign of slipping.

"So, here's a fun fact for ya. Stage four doesn't really come until maybe seventy-two hours of lost sleep, but I've been averaging at maybe three hours a day for the last months, so... Realistically, I should be dead. Sometimes I'm not sure I'm not. I don't really care either way, to be honest. All I'm saying is that the clock's ticking and you've not made any compelling arguments. If I were you, I wouldn't have wasted my time with the Norse Mythology you obviously don't have a clue about."

"Joe," Derek said and held his hand up slowly, carefully, almost like he'd done several months ago when they first met each other in the upstairs hall of the McCall house. She wondered what he had smelled on her — murderous intent? A big sense of zero fucks given anymore? At least something that prompted him to finally look at her, talk to her, say her name. His eyes closed in defeat. "Joe, you can't kill her."

She shrugged. "Eh, I'd give it another twenty minutes, tops."

"Joe," he interrupted again and hearing her name out of his mouth was like claws down her back, "I won't let you kill her."

Feeling her own nostrils flare when she inhaled, Joe gave him a bitter grin. "Here's the kicker, Derek, you don't let me do anything. I'm not your beta, remember?"

"I know that."

"Do you really? Are you sure?"

"Yes, and I still won't let you do it."

"You think you'll be able to stop me?"

Whatever Derek was going to say was lost when his phone vibrated. Holding Joe's gaze for as long as possible, he bit his teeth together and checked his phone. "They have a plan." With a last glance at Joe, he addressed Jennifer. "They want your shoes."

"Finally," Joe said, just grateful the others had a plan. She needed to get out of here. Should she be worried that Hallucinate-Kate was gone now? Stage four was setting in and Joe preferred the hallucinations she knew weren't real. It was when they blended things went all wrong. When she stopped being able to tell what was real or not.

The elevator doors clanged when Derek pulled them further apart. If the Alphas were still in the building — which she guessed they were if Deucalion was after Jennifer — they would have heard that. The signal came at the top of the elevator doors and Derek stuffed the shoes through the narrow crack.

Now they'd wait, either the power would turn back on or they'd be stuck here until the Alphas figured out where they were. Derek must have been thinking the same thing as he turned around to Joe.

"I need to know I can trust you," he said, keeping a respectful distance of at least three feet, but that wasn't his fault. He kept his voice low, but the elevator wasn't big enough to allow for any real privacy. "Joe?"

"You can't," Joe said honestly, almost laughing in his face. He was so close her brain was overdosing on the dopamine — this was not like the jacket, this was the real thing. "And I can't trust you."

His nostrils flared. "But you trust the Alphas?"

"Of course not. And I don't trust her and she doesn't trust us. This is an elevator filled to the brim with trust issues." Joe swallowed, throat parched after sweating for so long in here. "And I don't think you can trust yourself, Derek." At his confused flickering eyes, she scoffed. "Do you see how you act? How you talk?"

His voice lowered further. "Joe, when I said I won't let you kill her, it's because I won't let you become a murderer, not even for her."

"That's a handy excuse, isn't it? Do you even understand what's happening? What she used the virgin-sacrifices for?"

His eyes were hard. "Yes."

"Yes, and...?"

"Let me deal with it."

"Deal with it?" Joe repeated with another laugh. "Dude, you haven't said a fucking word all night. If that's your idea of dealing with it, you can take it and shove it up your ass for all I care." Joe found herself reaching back and bracing against the wall, preparing to spring. "I never wanted to be an Alpha, you made that choice for us, so congratulations, here I am, being a fucking Alpha."

His eyes closed, struggling to stay in check. Good. She wanted him angry. "Killing her won't save Cora."

"We don't know that until we try, do we?"

"That's a risk we can't take. There was a time you insisted killing people didn't solve anything."

Joe did not back down from his angry stare. "Yeah, then the last chick obsessed with you came after me a few times and I changed my mind." She drew in a deep breath, instantly regretting it because it filled her head with him — and her from where she still lingered on his scent. "You think I went to Kali because I wanted to? I did it because I had to. I told you that you couldn't leave Cora, and you still did."

"Because Scott called me-"

"You left her!" Joe shouted, pushing off the wall and forcing him to step back. "Tonight, at the hospital, you left her-"

"Because Scott called me!" Derek repeated in a snarl, pushed back as far as he went. "Because she," he pointed a hard hand towards Jennifer who had pressed herself into a corner again, "tried to strangle Lydia and then kidnapped the Sheriff!"

"I only did that beca-"

"Shut up! And how did that help, Derek? I don't see Lydia or the Sheriff, so what? How did you leaving Cora change anything? You've been playing into her hands all night and you can't even see it!"

His eyes flickered to the side. Uncertainty. "I had to go there."

"Really? And before that?" Joe focused on Derek, noting how the sound of gunfire echoed in the distance. Something was happening, but she did not have the capacity to care. "When you had to spend several days in the woods? Leaving Cora and Boyd alone? Why? For what? Because I shot you?"

"No."

"Jesus Christ, Derek, what are you on? Does she have some sort of druid-like muzzle on you? Have you forgotten how to talk?"

His eyes flickered to the side again while she could see his teeth grind into each other. Almost as if trying to remind Joe of their company, like Joe could care an inch about Jennifer Blake right now. "It wasn't because you shot me. It was because you shot me and didn't feel it!"

Joe rolled her head and eyes back. "Wow, we're really making groundbreaking observations here, aren't we, Derek?"

Apparently not done, he raised his voice: "Because that meant you could control it both ways. That meant you could have, at any time, shut off my pain and you didn't!" He swallowed hard, looking at her with teeth gritted together. "Not until that night."

She was almost shaking too hard to answer, and she scoffed. "You hurt Jimmy. You don't get to do that."

"I know." Derek snorted harshly and his shoulders flexed. A little voice inside of Joe reminded her that they responded to each other's emotions and she was pretty much only feeling angry. "And you ask me why I went to the Preserve? After I almost gutted your roommate? I know what it's like to not be in control, Joe."

"Do you now?" Joe tilted her head, feeling the curl in her lip. "Do you really? Can you tell you're under her influence now? Because I can. I can smell it all over you and it's making me sick."

"Derek, you have to believe me, I don't have-"

"Shut up!" Derek roared in Jennifer's direction, not taking his eyes off Joe. "You're not a killer, Joe."

"Yeah? I think Erica would disagree."

The words slipped out before she could think them through and his face blanked in an instant. Biting back tears, Joe shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant.

"Because that's what I was doing while you were busy playing hero in the high school boiler room," she continued in an impossible tight voice. She wanted to get a rise out of him; she needed him angry. "And you'd think, that me with no claws or fangs," she spat that part at Jennifer, "would be an easy match for a moonstarved werewolf during the full moon, but turns out, I'm still an Alpha. Because you made me an Alpha, Derek and I hate it!"

Her hands raised in the air, angry gestures like she wanted to choke something, but found nothing.

"I hate the responsibility, I hate being the leader, I hate making decisions for other people. I absolutely hate these fucking instincts that's making me run around in circles. You know Cora's the last one, right? I killed Erica, you pushed away Isaac, I made Boyd leave, you," she glared at Jennifer, "had Jimmy arrested... So I meant what I said up there that I'm not hanging onto anything anymore. No strings, nothing."

He had to be able to smell her rising fury as his arms came up slowly. "Joe-"

"So the least you can do, Derek," Joe bit out, "is fight back!"

Without thinking, too angry and spent, she kicked him in the chest. It was not a good kick, not well-placed, but this was a small elevator and he sailed back into the wall with a hard crash.

"Fight back," Joe snarled as Derek got up from the floor.

Tunnel vision kicked in, focusing on all the minute details, looking for clues of his next move. Her feet moved on their own, placing her in a balanced stance, weight centered. He was not, however, not even raising his arms.

"Damn it, Derek, fight back!"

"I'm not gonna fight you, Joe," Derek said, even though his chest heaved and his eyes glowed red. He wanted to fight her, she could see it all over him. He snarled, fangs flashing for a second while he kept himself back. "You can fight me," he held his arms out, like at the loft when she shot him, "but I'm not gonna fight you."

"Fight back, Derek," Joe bit out and she saw red, literally, as she could feel her own eyes switching over. All the same, tears ran down her cheeks. "You owe me that!"

"No."

"Fine."

In a heartbeat, Joe had the pistol out. Finally, her hands had stopped shaking. She didn't aim it at him, but rather at the stricken Jennifer in the corner with both arms up.

Even as she watched her, she morphed into Kate and Joe smiled, feeling the wetness on her cheeks and the fog in her mind.

"Joe!"

"Time's up!"

Several things happened at once: Jennifer's face morphed into something monstrous, Joe pulled the trigger, and Derek's bulk slammed into her.

The shot went wild, lodging overhead and Joe heard an electric crackle while she and Derek crashed to the floor. It must have hit the emergency lights because it plunged them into pitch-black darkness. Only Derek's red glowing eyes shone like beacons in the dark over her, giving Joe a target to aim her punches.

Fighting for the pistol, she used her free elbow to land a blow to his face. His angry roar shook the elevator and nearly drowned out her second shot. A faint ping suggested it had hit metal somewhere — probably a wall — and Joe felt Derek's larger hand twist the gun out of her hand. Less about strength than reach and the gun clattered to the side in the confusion.

Not that it mattered — she didn't need it anymore. If there was one thing werewolves understood, it was body language. She would force Derek to fight back.

Elbows, knees, clenched fists; she hit him with everything she had, using what she could to jab into soft spots on his torso. The first ten hits or so he only tried to grab her arms, pin her down, but when she drove her knee into his crotch, ears nearly blowing out from the painful roar, he bashed his head into hers. It smacked back and a sharp, glorious sting erupted; Joe laughed.

He fought back — finally!

Equal in strength and speed, he still had several advantages. Ten of them in fact, in form of razor-sharp claws, but Joe knew how to fight werewolves by now. Knew how to avoid the natural deadly weapons, and how to inflict maximum pain with her own human fists.

Derek was a trained fighter though, and it was more like fighting Kali than Erica, Cora, Jimmy or Boyd. His knee sailed into her abdomen and she hissed, losing breath, but grinning hugely.

Finally!

They writhed around in the dark, slamming into walls and floors, throwing, kicking and punching each other with everything they had. Neither had the upper hand, neither relented. Snarls and growls from him, sharp breaths and grunts from her.

Joe went all in. It was the only way. Using every single thing Kali taught her — every thing drilled into her from countless hours in the desert, night and day, over and over again — Joe fought Derek with everything she had.

He had no choice but to fight back.

Every hit he landed made Joe's ears ring, and she tasted her own blood in her mouth after Derek crashed a hard jab to her nose. "There you go!"

Spinning around, Joe pushed off the floor and slammed her heel into his chin, like she had done on the loft. The darkness didn't even matter anymore, not with their glowing red eyes picking up details not even visible to humans. Through this red lense, Derek did not look remotely human anymore.

Wolfed out, teeth bared, eyes livid. Joe felt a grumble somewhere in the back of her throat, a beginning growl and she clenched her fists together. "Come on."

Snarling, he charged at her, but she dodged, kicked his shin out from him, tried to dig her heel into his knee. Too slow; he grabbed, spun her around, and threw her into the far wall so she could feel the metallic plates loosen and rattle as she lost her breath with a sharp: "Ugh!"

Her teeth coated in blood, she grinned as she pushed herself off the floor. Joe wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, glaring at Derek who looked less than seconds away from tearing into her.

He held back.

Why? Why, why, why? Why couldn't he just fight her?

She swayed, more from exhaustion than pain, but her fists remained clenched and ready. "Come on."

Even now, he shook his head, barely able to hold back. "No."

"Come on!"

"Stop."

"COME ON!"

Joe roared, sounding more animal than human, and the metal plates rattled. His whole body bucked, fighting for control, and Joe slumped a bit more. The roar cost more than she had right now. But she was so close, she just had to hold on a little longer. Except it was like a bubble had burst and she could sense her adrenaline drooping.

"Come on, please..."

To her utter disgust, hot wet tears dripped from her eyes. A hard laugh escaped her, but it sounded more like a cry.

"Please," she repeated and spat out blood. She was so tired. So, so, so tired, but she held up her hands, her fists, her only weapons. "Please, Derek, I can't-"

The red outline of him shifted, going from a half-crouch, rising slowly. Her chemosignals were probably off the charts.

"I can't," Joe whispered and stumbled to the side, hands gliding over the smooth wall to regain her footing. "I can't do this, Derek. You have to- you have to do it."

His red eyes trained on her and he sounded fearful. Genuinely afraid of her answer. "Do what?"

It was too much. Her head swam. Her mind did not longer buzz, it swarmed, like her thoughts were a million flies without purpose or meaning.

"I can't break it," Joe sobbed, knees giving in and she flopped backward, hitting the wall again. "I can't break it, I'm not strong enough, you have to do it." Her words came between hitching breaths. "There's only one way to break it and I can't-" Her eyes dimmed down and she only saw his eyes where she leaned against the corner. "I can't do it. I know I can't. I can't kill you, so- So please, you have to... Just please do it. Please fight me."

It sounded like he took a step back and Derek's voice was barely a whisper: "No."

"It's the only way!" Joe shouted, slamming her own head into the wall behind her, adding to the ache already there. "Don't you get it, Derek? It's the only way you can be free!"

"Joe, no, no-"

"Because I can kill her," Joe gestured into the darkness, "but that's only half of it. I'd still be here and how am I different? How- I mean, how? You never had a choice, you never wanted this, and it's the only way to break it and I'm not strong like you. Not like that. Just please, please, Derek, I-"

Suddenly, his eyes disappeared in the darkness. Back to his normal green, but that didn't show up in the pitch-black elevator. It was hard to tell if her eyes were open or not and Joe slumped against the wall, so tired. So, so, so tired.

Her legs buckled, but she never hit the floor.

In the dark, he was suddenly there, holding her up. His arms around hers, even when she tried to lash out, he wouldn't let her. She could feel his face against her frizzy braids, how his pushed into her temple, hard and desperate.

"Derek, I can't-"

"Shh," he mumbled, but his voice sounded strained. Like hers, raw and jagged from crying. "Don't, Joe, please don't say that. You don't mean that."

She laughed and sobbed at once. "I can't do this, Derek."

"You just need sleep," he said and now sank down with her, still holding her. Her head swam — pain from the fight, fatigue from lack of sleep and a general lightness from his scent, encapsulating her. "Okay? You just need rest."

"But I can't," Joe instinctively pushed away from him, but found herself trapped, "live with this. I can't live with you hating me. It hurts. It hurts so much."

His voice fanned over her temple, the only clue to his presence in the darkness. "I don't hate you. I've never hated you."

"You should."

"No."

"You should hate me. I killed Erica."

Another sob wracked through her body, still mostly held up by Derek's strong and warm arms, her head pushed against his shoulder, and as much as she wanted to fight him, her treacherous body just melted into his.

Breathless because of the continued sobbing, it all spilled out:

"I didn't mean to. I never wanted to. I didn't think I could hurt her, ever. But I did. With the moon and your pain and my delusions, I- I saw Kate. I only saw Kate. I swear, Derek, I thought it was Kate."

He stiffened at her words, but didn't let go. She could feel his claws retract from his hands where he held her. But he didn't let her go.

"And we were fighting, and I was so scared and I... The branch, I drove it through her stomach and I held it there, until she stopped healing, until she stopped breathing and it wasn't until her eyes dimmed I saw it wasn't Kate. It- it was Erica."

He tightened his grip around her, like he could physically contain her pain somehow. "Joe, I- I'm so sorry."

"And I've been hallucinating since I got back, that she showed up at the apartment, that she was alive, just to cope. But it's not working anymore. She's really gone. It hurts so bad, Derek, please, I- She trusted me and I failed her."

The tears on her face weren't her own anymore, she realized. They were his, dripping down from somewhere above her. "Joe," he murmured so low she barely heard it, "it wasn't your fault."

"But it was," Joe sobbed and her throat became too tight to get words out. "It was. And I should have told you. I should have told you everything, but I- I don't know what's real or not anymore. They broke me, Derek."

"I know."

"You don't. They broke me completely. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. Ground me down to nothing... I was nothing. And then built me up from scratch. And I couldn't tell you. How could I tell you that?"

His breath shuddered — anger, guilt, everything.

"And I knew what was happening. I knew they were manipulating me, I could see it clear as day, but it didn't help. It still happened. I couldn't stop it. Brainwashing, Stockholm Syndrome, radicalization — I don't care what you call it, but they made me theirs and I just can't keep doing this. I can't keep hurting people."

"You won't. We'll figure it out."

He sounded gruff and livid and tearful all at once. Again, he tightened his grip, almost to a painful level, and more hot tears dripped from him down to Joe's face and he shifted to press a kiss into her hair. That hurt worse than any blow to her face and she felt her eyes squeeze together, unable to keep the tears at bay.

"It's gonna be okay, Joe, I promise."

"How?"

"I don't know," he admitted breathlessly and his body trembled. "But we can't give up. We'll figure it out."

Before Joe could reply, a gentle hiss sounded through the air and the lights blinked on. At least half of them, the other half taken out of commission by a wayward bullet.

The elevator jolted a bit as the machinery started up and Joe looked up at Derek from where he held her, both of them on the floor in the corner of an elevator. It was weird seeing Derek in a normal shade instead of the sickly blue of the emergency lights. He had a cut to his eyebrow and a split lip, already slowly healing, and his face shone with sweat and tears alike.

There were too many emotions on his face. His brows were barely drawn together, eyes open wider than usual, staring back at her, wet and shining in the new light. His mouth in a tight line, it opened like he wanted to say something, but clamped shut again. Joe flinched when he raised his hand to her face, but it was only to wipe away what she presumed to be blood from her jaw. "I'm sorry. Joe, I'm so sorry."

"Yeah," she choked out, staring into his bright beautiful eyes, "me too."

He pulled her further into him, her face buried into his neck, and she could not bring herself to fight him anymore. Weak. She was weak. And she wanted this. She had missed him so much.

Time seemed to behave differently in the elevator, she had no idea how long they sat like that. Neither said anything, words hurt too much, and Joe just closed off her mind and relished hearing his heartbeat through his chest. Did it help? She had no idea anymore.

The elevator must have had some failsafe-mechanism, because they felt the gentle whirr from it moving to the closest floor. Both looked up when the doors opened, remembering the final occupant, their chance to heal Cora.

Both saw the empty elevator and the open service hatch.

"Oh no," Joe whispered and she pushed away from Derek, anger fueling her body again. "Oh no, no, no."

No Jennifer.

"We messed up. I messed up." Joe dashed to the hatch, peered up, but there was nothing up ther. The vivid image of Cora laying half-dead in an ambulance flashed before her. "She must have done it when I tried shooting her. Shit." Joe didn't think, just slammed her fist into the elevator wall so it buckled under her knuckles. "Shit!"

She flinched when Derek put a hand on her shoulder. His hand felt like fire. "It's okay," he said, voice tight and business-like. Pragmatic. "We'll get her. But we have to move, can you do that?"

"You should have let me kill her," Joe spat and dove for the 9mm discarded on the floor. Muscle-memory had her eject and insert the magazine, to avoid any jams. Her body did not feel like her own anymore. Spiraling fast, free-falling. "Stage four of sleep deprivation," she recited, sounding like a textbook and saw Derek's eyebrows furrow in confusion. "It will now significantly impair your perception. Your hallucinations might become more complex. You may also have illusions, delusions, disordered thinking, mood-swings and severe depersonalization."

"I'd ask if you were okay," Derek commented drily, watching her handling the gun and tucking it back in her waistband, "but it feels a bit superfluous."

"I'm obviously not okay," Joe muttered in agreement and used her hand to wipe her face. "But if you're not gonna kill me, I have to find someone else who will."

He took a step back, like she had kicked him in the face. "Joe-"

"Relax. It's a joke. Sort of."

The elevator doors opened up to the lowest floor of the garage, one level lower than where they had left Cora and Stiles, and let in a breath of cold air. Joe leaped out, hoping at least to cool off before she either exploded or evaporated. That feeling of control when she entered the hospital was long gone. Naked feet over the asphalt, she saw nothing ahead. Shit.

"She couldn't have gone far," Derek said, but sounded uncertain. If that was because of Jennifer or Joe was hard to tell. Who knew how much power that bitch actually had? She was obviously strong enough to open a service hatch bolted from the outside.

In lack of better options or even coherent thoughts, Joe followed Derek towards the exit of the garage. He stopped halfway across, eyes darting up and she whispered: "What do you hear?"

"Car," he said, for once not telling her to shut up while he focused on listening. "Taking off fast."

He didn't need to say anything else. That had probably been Jennifer. Trying to breathe, Joe leaned forwards on her knees. She wanted to shoot something. She wanted to sleep. She wanted...

"Derek, I need to know," she said as she straightened back up. He turned his head slightly towards her, obviously still listening to whatever he could hear. Even Joe could feel a faint howl on the edge of her consciousness. "I need to know you're not completely under her thumb."

He paused, eyes going up again. "The Alphas are pulling back." To answer her question, he looked at her. "I'm not."

"Are you sure? Did you ever realize something was off in the first place?"

For a while, he said nothing. He looked as exhausted as she felt, but he seemed to muster up some remaining strength and turned to face her, giving her all his attention. "Not at first, no."

"But you do now?"

Derek gave a sharp nod. Swallowed, before saying: "When Scott showed me her real face, with the mistletoe, it did something. Weakened it. I can fight it."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Do you even want to?"

His steps echoed in the empty basement garage when he came towards her. The dim lighting cast heavy shadows over his face, accentuating the sharp edges of his cheekbones. Something indescribable on his face. "What?"

"Do you want to?" Joe asked again, hating that she had to, but knew she still did. "I'm not gonna judge you if you don't, I just need to know."

He sounded hoarse. "Why wouldn't I want to?"

"Because I get it, Derek!" Her voice came too hard, too hurt, but she was not fully in control of her own body anymore. "I get it, okay, what it's like to love someone when you don't really want to. When you probably shouldn't."

"Joe-"

"And I meant what I said that I want you to be happy, I do, but I can't- I physically can't let you hurt Cora, no matter what."

"I don't-" Derek looked sick. Pale, bruised, exhausted and sick. "I don't love her."

"Really? You know I felt it, right? I felt it when you had sex, I felt the emotions too, the feelings and I-"

Derek interrupted her with a shout that echoed in the garage: "I thought it was you!"

Her turn to stumble back. "W-what?"

There was an anger and a hurt on Derek's face she had never seen before. His eyes shone, livid with tears, and he bit his jaw together, obviously done balancing whatever tight edge he had been walking.

"I thought it was you," he repeated, almost in a sharp disgusted laugh. "You asked me if I knew you had been keeping me alive for eighteen hours? Of course I fucking knew. I could feel you the whole time. You took my pain continuously for eighteen hours, it was the only reason I survived, and at times it felt like you were right there next to me, helping me. And I tried to find you. I went to the school to find you, I could smell you on the car and-"

His chest heaved with the effort of talking and Joe's mind buzzed with a million flies. A hard pit began to form in her stomach.

"And I thought I found you. I thought, somehow, that it was you who got me to the loft." His voice lowered into a raw whisper, ladened with pain and complicated contemptuous emotions. "That it was you who..." He swallowed, like he was going to be sick and Joe felt it in her own body, the physical feeling of repulsion. "That it was you."

"Oh, no..." Joe hadn't even noticed the fresh tears on her face. Derek blinked his away. "Why didn't-"

She cut herself off. Why hadn't he told her? Why hadn't he said anything? Classic examples of what you never should ask a victim. Why didn't people come forward immediately? Why did it take some years to even begin acknowledging what happened? A million reasons. Shame. Self-blame. Guilt. Confusion.

And still she couldn't help herself. "How?"

Derek shrugged wildly. "How? I was half-unconscious. Delirious. I felt the connection to you. Maybe she used some sort of powers? I don't know, it doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters."

"No, it doesn't. I hurt you. In a way I never thought I could. I betrayed you and worse, I knew you had felt it." He gave another hard jerk with his head, feigned nonchalance. "You want to know when I realized it wasn't you?"

Joe trembled. "You don't have to-"

"When it felt like someone punched me in the face," Derek said slowly, his voice hard and his face glacially cold. "A split second where I felt your pain for once and then you were gone. And I realized what was happening, that it wasn't you and," his nostrils quivered just from the effort of staying still, "and I still couldn't stop it."

"Derek..." She fought to breathe, to think, to get her head straight so she wouldn't say anything that couldn't be taken back. This was Derek. This was Derek, who always took the blame, even when it wasn't his fault. This was Derek, who could always see where he had done wrong and never where he had done right. "That wasn't your fault."

"Are you sure? Because I'm not. I don't know what was me and what wasn't. I wasn't forced. Confused, maybe, but not... The only thing I do know is that those feelings you sensed," Derek's beautiful face was drawn tight, every part of it tense, "wasn't for her."

Head reeling, Joe fought to just keep standing. Of everything she had expected, that hadn't been it. Manipulation, yes. Making him drop his guards, maybe. Impersonating Joe? No. And she had even helped by tapping into the bond so much while taking his pain. Sick, she felt sick, and she did not have the words to make him realize what had happened was in no shape or form his fault.

"Derek, I'm so sorry-"

"Don't. Please don't. Please don't say you're sorry or ask if I'm okay when I've failed you over and over again since you came back. When I didn't even realize where you had been. When you're in so much pain you wanted me to-" His voice broke off, hand gesturing in the direction of the elevator. "Please don't feel sorry for me when I'm the one who's hurt you."

She had her hands folded over her mouth, trying to slow down her breathing. Breathe, just breathe. And function. Joe took down her hands.

"I don't care," she said, voice stronger than she felt. "I don't. I'm sorry. I love you."

"Don't."

"I love you so much it's ridiculous. And that wasn't your fault. She used you. If anything, it was my fault. I've smelled something was wrong since the beginning, since the night of the full moon. It got stronger over time and I never told you, because I thought it was because of me, because of what I had done."

Derek shook his head. "I should have been able to-"

"She sacrificed three virgins!" Joe shouted, not caring about the echoes. "You have any idea what kind of power that is? Jimmy only needed to sacrifice one to resurrect himself."

A brief pause. "Jimmy what?"

"Himself. He sacrificed himself, he's the virgin, long story," Joe said, waving her hand away. "Not important. But you can't, please Derek, you can't think you did something wrong. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry that happened to you, but it wasn't your fault. Please believe me. Heartbeat, chemosignals, whatever kind of senses you need to use, just please believe me."

A long painful silence stretched out between them. Joe, even though she tried to remain calm, was crying softly. She hugged herself, feeling naked and exposed in her running tights and sports bra, and just tried to watch Derek's face as brief glimpses of emotions flickered around.

Eventually, he settled on his usual pragmatism, at just dealing with whatever crisis that was going on and asked: "Can you still smell her?"

Hating it, Joe nodded. "Yes."

"So I'm still..."

"Probably."

He shook his head in disbelief and ran a hand over his face. "How do I- how do we break it?"

"Uhm..." Joe cleared her throat, shifted her stance around. "Kali said something about it. That I was an expert, so, uh, in mythology and lore there's a lot of ways to break a spell. But there are two ways that are most predominant. One is to kill whoever cast it."

His face darkened and Joe wondered if he regretted making her miss her shot. "And the other?"

The other. Joe wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Learning what she just had, of how things had happened that night with Derek and Jennifer made her skin crawl and she didn't want to even say the other way spells could be broken.

"It might not work," she admitted, biting her lip and looking away from him. "But there's a pretty common theme in a lot of old texts and stories. And you know, it's been translated and reiterated through modern times and-"

"Joe, can you please just tell me?"

He had seen through her stalling and Joe nodded to herself, unable to face him. "Well, uh, it sounds kind of ridiculous, but you know fairytales can all be traced back to ancient stories, like the original fables and stuff like that and, uh..."

Heart pounding inside her chest, she hated the way even now a blush rose up from her back. After glancing at his face for a brief second, she saw the understanding, and she swallowed heavily.

"But I can't ask that of you, not when..." Not when she knew what she now did. Derek deserved a choice. Now more than ever. "As I said, it might not work."

Her eyes closed when she heard him move, taking a few steps towards her, but not closing the distance completely. A rustle made her glance at him again, and she saw Derek held his hand out. Empty palm facing up, an open invitation.

"Is it okay for you?" he asked, but she could not bring herself to look at his face. "Joe?"

"It might not work," she repeated, as if to talk him out of it. "It's not just a- it has to be a special kind, you know, the Disney-version."

A true love's kiss, but she could for the life of her make herself say those words.

"Then it should work with you," Derek whispered, and he extended his hand further. "And no one else."

Joe unfolded her arms, but was hesitant at taking his hand. Her eyes flickered up to his. "Are you sure?"

He nodded.

Unable to think, Joe placed her hand in his, feeling the familiar tingle at his touch alone. It was hard to tell if he pulled her in or if she just moved on her own, but she soon found herself inches away from him.

"This won't fix everything," Joe found herself saying, but not pulling back either. Instincts. Always these stupid instincts and it made her feel sort of better. Like there was hope. If the Alphas retreated, the others had made it out safe. At least she could believe so right now. Maybe Deaton or Marin or even Professor Kane could help Cora. Maybe things would be okay.

"I know."

This close, she could feel all of the heat emitted from his body. Almost too hot to be comfortable, he was like standing next to a furnace.

"Are you sure?" he asked her, still holding onto her hand. A request for permission. A chance to back out. A chance to lean in.

Joe swallowed, mind racing with all the confusing signals. She nodded. This would not fix anything, she thought to herself, but it was a lie. It would not fix everything was probably the right statement. It would fix something. Hopefully.

He kept quiet, but did not let her hand go. She found him just looking at her. From this distance, or lack of, she could see everything. His stubble, now closer to an actual neatly trimmed beard, the line where it ended on his neck before it picked up again as a dark shadow of chest hair going from his collarbone and down, disappearing into his neckline.

"Is this real?" she asked, searching his face for whatever clues she could find.

"It is to me."

"That's not what I meant."

"Does it feel real?" He waited while she nodded, for once not overthinking it. "Then does it matter? Right now?"

"No," she said, barely hearing it through the roar of her own ears.

Her free hand traveled on its own, landing on his chest to feel his heartbeat underneath. This was too easy, too fast. Did it matter? Right now? Slowly, his other hand came up to her face, cupping her cheek and she leaned into the touch. She tried to turn off her mind. This close there was again that sensation of not knowing whose breath was hers. Joe found his chest heaving as much as hers did.

She swallowed and focused on his lips. "It might not work."

Fingers tightened in the edge of her hair. "I dont care."

This won't fix everything, Joe thought, and found she did not really care either when he kissed her. It was a lot of pressure to put on one kiss anyway and that was the last coherent thought she had.

Derek pulled her in or she leaned in or both, but the end result was her lips on his. Finally.

It was more desperate than tender, both pressing hard into each other when both succumbed at the same time. So hard that she could feel her top lip curling back from the force. Just when she thought her lips would bruise, he relented slightly, giving her space to move, to kiss back, to open his mouth with hers. The contrast of the cool concrete under her naked toes against the intense heat of his lips and the arms pulling her to him was indescribable.

It turned soft, easy, and gentle. When he pulled back, her lips tingled from his breath.

It didn't fix everything, but for a few valuable seconds, it didn't matter. She could hardly breathe when it ended and found to her delight that neither could he. Unable to take his dark eyes, because she knew already now that her body was sending him signals he might find it hard to ignore, she leaned against his shoulder. Breathe. Just breathe.

His arms had circled around her, one around her waist, the other on her neck, while hers were around his upper back. Neither said anything and Joe wondered if she might have slipped into micro-sleeps while standing there.

"Did it work?" she asked into his shoulder.

She heard his voice more through his chest than her ears. "You tell me."

"I have to smell you."

He murmured into her temple: "Go ahead."

"Can you, uh, close your eyes?"

He stiffened underneath her and did the opposite, leaning back to look at her with eyebrows raised in confusion.

"It's weird, okay? I feel weird. I can't do it with you looking."

Derek blinked. "Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"You want me to close my eyes?"

"Yes, Derek, did I stutter?"

She saw his eyes briefly roll back before they shut.

"And, uh, cover your ears?" Her voice turned shrill when his eyes flew open in disbelief. "Derek, I feel really weird, okay? I'm about to sniff you to find out if an evil druid bitch still has a seduction spell active or if we managed to break it through the power of love. And I'm not naturally a sniffer!"

"This has been a long night," he muttered, and dropped his arms from her. With a hard clench to his jaw, he both closed his eyes and brought his hands up to cover his ears. Truth was, she had no idea if covering his ears had any effect considering how powerful their hearing was, but it was at least placebo for her.

Feeling very much like a creep, she leaned forward to, well, sniff him.

Mistake really, as her mind flooded with emotions. It was him. All him. Woody, earthy, musky, all those things that was him. Nothing bitter. Nothing of her anymore.

Just Derek.

Not really believing it, she leaned in further, pushed her nose into the crook of his neck and inhaled deeply. He jolted a bit at the contact, but remained still as she put her forehead against the side of his neck. The muscles moved under her face as he slowly took his arms down and back around her.

His chest rumbled. "Joe?"

"You're good. Clean. I'm just really tired," she murmured, as her body recognized another hurdle for passed and begged her to now rest. "I hate being an Alpha."

His breath flew across the side of head as he puffed in amusement. "Yeah."

Instinctively, they moved closer and Joe pressed herself against him, still resting her head. Her arms rose to his upper back while his pulled around her waist and shoulders. She definitely heard him inhale, sniffing her like she'd just sniffed him.

"I don't think I'm being seduced by the evil druid lady."

"I know, but it's... it's helping."

"Okay. I got your text."

"I figured as much," Derek mumbled with a sigh. "It seemed too much of a coincidence that you would quote Vita Sackville-West out of the blue." He rubbed that spot between her shoulder blades slowly. "Are you sure it's gone?"

"As far as I can tell." Joe squeezed her eyes together, not wanting to move, not wanting to think. "So now I'm the only one we have to worry about."

"You just need sleep."

"You can't trust me, Derek. Please don't. I don't want to hurt anyone. Please don't let me hurt anyone." Like before, he only tightened his grip around her and she inhaled his scent again. He was right, it did help somehow, but not enough. "I miss her. I miss her so much. It feels like I lost my right arm when I- I did what I did. And Jimmy, Boyd... I don't have any limbs left. If we lose Cora, I can't-"

"Shh," he whispered, although she had felt him stiffen, his muscles flexing. "We won't. I don't care how, we'll figure it out."

"I don't- I don't know what's real or not, Derek," Joe whispered in a thin voice, hating the sound of it. Weak and pathetic. "I don't know if this is real. I want it to be, but I'm seeing things all the time. I see Kate constantly. And I saw Erica, in the apartment, like she wasn't really gone. Like I hadn't killed her."

"Joe, it's-" He cut himself off and pushed her away, placing her behind him. "Someone's coming."

"Oh," she said, remembering absolutely everything that the kiss did absolutely not fix. The time-crunch they were in. Dizzy, tired, scared — the effects of those seconds where nothing else mattered was already fading. Not knowing what else to do, Joe reached back for her gun, waiting for the inevitable.

The garage burst open and Stiles rushed through. Another figure followed him, one with long dirty blonde hair and a pissed-off expression. Joe's sholders slumped and she looked at her shaking hands. Stage four.

"Jesus Christ! I've been looking all over for you!" Stiles' voice echoed over from where he ran towards them. Somehow, he managed to look worse than the last time she saw him. For some reason he focused on Derek, who had frozen stiff with his jaw open. "Yeah, I know!"

Derek looked like he had seen a ghost. "What?"

"I don't know!" Stiles exclaimed loudly with his whole body. He was breathing so hard he must have run down the stairs instead of taking the elevator."Okay? But we don't have time for this, so-"

"Erica?" Derek whispered and Joe backed off from him slowly. Mind playing tricks. He wasn't real either. No matter how real it felt when he moved to stare at Joe in shock.

"You're not real," Joe mumbled, tired and heavy of heart. "I asked you and you responded with a question..."

Now his eyebrows rose while Erica scoffed loudly, rolling her eyes.

"She thinks she's hallucinating," she told Stiles who was pretty much the physical embodiment of a question mark. "Look at her hands. She probably thinks none of us are real now."

Automatically, Joe held them out for all to see. It wasn't even a mild tremor anymore, but heavy shaking, a bodily reaction to the increased stress-hormones.

"That looks kinda bad, yeah," Stiles admitted. For some reason, he snapped his fingers twice in front of Joe's face. "You're completely off the rails."

It was Derek's hand that struck out and grabbed his wrist to make him stop. His eyes never left Erica though. "You're alive."

"Yeah, duh!" Erica exclaimed loudly with her arms folded, but Joe shook her head.

"No, I killed you. Your eyes, they-"

Erica groaned. "Yeah, yeah, I tried to kill you, you tried to kill me, neither succeeded. We've been through this litereally a hundred times. Let it go, already!"

"Joe, she's here," Derek said softly, now looking at her with concern in his eyes. "Erica's here. She's real."

Shaking her head, Joe backed away further from all of them. Nothing was real.

"Yeah," Erica tilted her head at Derek, "that's not gonna work. Hi, by the way. You look like shit."

"Hi. I know."

Stiles waved his hands, still high-sprung. "Then how do we make her realize we're real?"

"Like this," Erica said, pushed past both Stiles and Derek and punched Joe right in the face.

Her vision exploded in fireworks as the force slammed her back, lack of balance dropping her to her back. Blinking, Joe touched her now swollen nose, already healing and felt blood dripping. Behind Erica, Stiles and Derek stood immobile with slack jaws.

"You see me?" Erica snapped as Joe only stared, momentarily speechless. "You hear me? I know you felt that! Taste the blood? Smell it too? Congratulations, Joe, that's five out of five!"

"What is she talking about?" Stiles whispered conspiratorially to Derek, who shook his head.

"I have no idea."

"Jimmy had a Plan B," Erica yelled, drew back her foot and would have kicked Joe in the face if Joe hadn't instinctually dodged back so she laid flat on the ground. Muscle-memory had her roll back and flip to her feet. "He also had a Plan C!"

Erica sent another hard swipe at Joe's face with her fist, one that Joe parred with her arm.

"C for Cut the Crap!" Erica kept yelling and kept hitting after Joe with fast, werewolf moves. "With him gone, I have to step in and I won't put up with your bullshit either!"

A series of blows that Joe barely dodged, until instincts kicked in and Joe grabbed Erica's fist that had been headed straight for her face. Her eyes went red and Erica's were already glowing yellow. She grinned.

"There you are."

The world seemed to sharpen a bit, more in focus. Still not enough.

"Erica?"

"Erica?" Erica repeated in that same breathless tone Joe had used. "Yes, Joe, it's me. Erica! Living and breathing and all that fun stuff that cool kids do. Now can you get your head out of your ass for five seconds please? Baby Hale's sick, Jimbo's arrested and I can't find Verne anywhere — which by the way, how do you lose Verne? The guy's a literal giant — so now you gotta step up and face the music, Mama Goat."

"Does that mean anything to you?"

Derek took a second to think before admitting. "No."

It hurt to breathe, think or function. "Erica?"

"Oh my God, we do not have time for this, Joe! You have to function, okay? You have a function. And so do I. Okay? Like it or not, we need you and you need us and," Erica spun around, obviously searching for something, "and where's Miss Skank-A-Lot?" She glared at Stiles accusingly. "You said they had her!"

"I said I thought they had her!" Stiles also darted around and he spun full circle. He sounded like already knew the answer and was not going to like it. "She's not here is she?"

"Who?" Derek asked, voice back to flat and business-like. "Jennifer? No, she took off. We-" His eyes darted to Joe, who could only look at Erica. "We couldn't stop her."

Erica's eyebrows drew together, her mouth working as she bit the inside of her lips. "Well, that's not good."

Breaking out of her trance, Joe took a tentative step towards the girl, gently placing her hand on her shoulder. She could feel her. "Erica?"

Erica absent-mindedly patted her hand. "It's okay, Joey, you'll get there eventually. I got you."

"Yeah, yeah, eventually's not good enough, " Stiles said, and rubbed his head irritably. He seemed to force himself to breathe through a small opening in his mouth. "Okay. Uh, I think," he gulped and looked at Erica, "or we think she took Scott's mom."

Joe could not even breathe. She wanted to ask what he meant because he couldn't mean what she thought he meant. That what he said wasn't possible. Except it was. She always had an extra target. Losing Joe as leverage made her focus on Aunt Mel.

"She took her?" Derek asked instead because Joe could not breathe. Her chest heaved, she felt air going in her nose, but nothing came down to her lungs. Everything stopped in her throat. Blocked.

"Yeah, and if that's not enough of a kick to the balls," Stiles said, bouncing on his feet and glaring at the dark corners of the garage, "Scott left with Deucalion, okay? So we gotta get you guys out of here. The police are coming right now, and we gotta get you the hell out of here."

Flailing blindly, Joe leaned forward, hearing her own breath, but not feeling it. Aunt Mel was gone. Her one solid point in life — gone. Taken. Taken because she was too busy getting worked up over what? Nothing. Over Derek? Over her own self-loathing? Over what? Nothing.

She vaguely noticed Derek grabbing onto her waving arm, keeping her upright as her breath came faster and faster, still not registering further down into her system, still blocked in her throat, blocked by something hard that was fighting to let loose.

"Cover your ears!" Derek ordered Stiles, but it was Erica who moved, rushing to tackle Stiles and clamp her hands over his head. "Now!"

Joe's eyes were red now, giving an eerie glow to the whole garage. Faster, faster, she was breathing so hard, chest filling up. Aunt Mel was gone. She took Aunt Mel.

Joe threw her head back and howled.

The sound pierced through the foundation of the basement, shaking loose dust overhead, and seemed to not only come from Joe's mouth or throat, but her heart directly, bleeding and aching. The few cars left in the garage all started to beep in tune as she trigged their sensors. It was a bestial sound as much as it was disgustingly human, filled with raw and unadulterated emotions.

It lasted for as much breath as she had and like last time, she slumped forward when the force left her. This time it was Derek who caught her easily, lowering her down to the floor.

---

Well, it had to happen eventually that I missed my own deadline. Sorry for the delay, but I hope the extra-long chapter makes up for it.

It probably should have been split in half because there's a lot going on.

It was hard to write and edit, so I'm sorry if it comes off as less polished. The heavy emotions got to me after a hard week with a lot of stuff happening at work. Also, I've read it so many times that it sort of lost its spark, but I hope you still liked it and that it answered some questions. Also, don't worry, Joe and Derek's gonna have a chance to talk about this some more later. It's bad timing as always.

And as always, thank you for reading, and please let me know what you think. I'll try to have the next chapter out on Tuesday 😊

Thank you for your patience and your nice reviews. I'll try to respond more at a later time, I have to admit I'm a bit spent now.

Hope you all have a nice weekend! Stay safe, guys.