Welcome to my fic! This has been a labor of love. It's been rolling around in my head for a good, long while. This is going to be set during the period of Derek's childhood. Bea will be our leading role, and the majority of the fic will be from her POV. Bea is an OC who is featured in a separate WIP of mine, Paramnesia, which I am in the process of rewriting.

This will serve as a sort of prequel to that story. It will delve into Claudia's sickness and how that impacted their family. I plan for the fic to span all of school through high school graduation, and subsequently, the Hale fire.

This isn't a fix-it fic, unfortunately. I don't aim to change things that happen in the canon plot, but rather, explore the details of how they came to happen in greater detail than the show provided and the actions of those involved. There will be angst, fluff and humor abound!

Please be considerate with any reviews and let me know what you think!

Derek Hale blew into her life with all the subtlety of an uncontrollable wild fire. He shone brighter than the other kids their age, more vivacious and fearless. Filled with all the courageous confidence that a privileged youth gifts you, unafraid of consequences and sheltered as he was. They were in their fourth grade class together for over four months, and during that time, they never spoke once. Bea thought she pretty well had the measure of him.

She wasn't even certain he knew her name. She was just a background, stock character to him—someone that barely registered in his peripheral as he commanded the awe and attention of all their classmates like a local celebrity. By that point and time, Derek had already earned himself somewhat of a reputation as a golden boy.

He basked in the attention that their classmates gave him—borderline hero-worship in some cases. The girls, up to that point, had mostly found him annoying, but more and more started to turn bashful and giddy in his presence for reasons she couldn't fathom.

That was, until today. She doubted she'd ever be giddy when near him, but now she could at least see that maybe she'd been harsh in her rash judgments. Everyone has their perceptions of strangers. That doesn't mean they're right.

But let's start back at the beginning, the morning of her birthday.

"Bea, honey! Smile for the camera!"

Bea turned her head to where her mother called out. She grinned up from her seat at the dining table, a small pile of presents surrounding her. A three-year-old Stiles was beside her in his high chair. He gurgled and giggled at the flames dancing on the end of the nine candles sticking out of the top of the chocolate birthday cake.

"Why don't you start with the big one first, honey?" Suggested her dad, brushing a hand down the stiff-feeling material of his starched deputy uniform. "I want to you see open that one."

The camera shutter clicked as she obligingly pulled the largest present closer. Stiles squealed when she took the shiny green bow off first and reached over to pop it on the top of his head. He smacked his hands against the worn, stained plastic tray attached to his highchair and his feet kicked so furiously that they hit the table a few times, knocking over one of the presents.

"Okay, okay," her dad said. Before her mom could even ask, her dad had slipped Stiles into his arms and let him play with his shiny deputy's badge—which instantly went into Stiles' drooling mouth and silenced his squalls like a pacifier. Her mom huffed out a fond laugh at the pair of them and lifted the camera up to take a picture of them right as Bea started the task of tearing into the white wrapping paper on her present.

"Ohhhh, wow!" Her mom drawled, as if she was just as surprised to see the Easy Bake Oven that revealed itself as Bea was, as if she hadn't been the one to wrap it. "How about that, Bea?"

The camera shuttered again. Bea felt slightly confused, trying to think of when, at any point in recent memory, she had indicated an interest in such a toy. And given that it was the biggest in the pile, it was very likely her 'big ticket item' of the year. Which meant it would only go downhill from here.

Her dad must have seen something in her expression. "Remember when you and granny used to make those pizzas when you'd go over for the weekend?"

She did. Flashes of rosy cheeks dusted in flour and sticky dough clinging to tiny fingers and excited giggles with warm chuckles that followed played in her mind, and Bea smiled sadly. Her heart ached with the memory of granny, who had been gone since a little while before Stiles was born, three years ago. "Oh," she said. "Yes."

"There, see? Open this next." Her dad held out a polka-dot bag with tissue paper sticking out of the top.

She pulled out the tissue paper and then one of the packages inside. It was a box with a picture of a simplistic, small cheese pizza on the front. "Wow," she said, thinking of nothing else appropriate to say without being ungrateful.

"Those are recipes," her dad explained. "To use with the oven. You just add water to most of them."

Then, she looked at her dad with hope. "Maybe you could help me tonight?"

Her parents exchanged a knowing look, and by the way her dad's mouth downturned at the edges she knew without him having to say another word that he would not be home tonight. He smiled apologetically at her crestfallen reaction. "I'll ask the Sheriff," he said, though he didn't sound hopeful.

Managing a small smile, she nodded. Then she took a steadying breath and pointed at a smaller box. "That one next?"

"Whichever one you want, Bea-Bop. It's your day!" Her mom beamed.

Stiles kicked his leg in their dad's arms and pointed down at the scraps of wrapping paper. "Mine!"

They all laughed at that.

Recess was her favorite part of the school day. Not because she liked to play kickball with the others, or stow away in the jungle-gym on the far end of the wooden bridge with the girls in her class to spy on boys and giggle.

No, Bea preferred to carry her latest book of interest out to the massive tree that was tucked in the corner of the playground. She would sit under the branches and lose herself in a story about a magical school for wizards until the teacher called them back inside.

It was a book she had selected out of the school library, chosen purely because she always liked to read the new releases and she took no small thrill of walk-racing other studious kids through the library to choose the book at the very top of the new-releases display by the librarian's desk before anyone else could.

But this book had been much more than she expected. She couldn't remember ever enjoying a story so much. And, for the first time, she found herself wishing that she had a friend like Ron or Hermione to make her time in school a little less… lonely.

But, as they say, be careful what you wish for. She heard the sound of giggles intruding in her private corner on the playground and a spike of hot annoyance shot through her mind. It manifested as a dark scowl when she saw Kelly-Ann, the prettiest, blondest girl in her class, leading her other two friends, Amy and Ginger, straight in her direction.

They were giggling and calling out, "Derek! We have a present for you. Come see!"

Bea drew her feet in close right as Ginger passed close enough to spot her if she looked. Closing her book, she held it protectively to her chest and tried to think of what she might say if they saw her, wondering if there was any way to get out of the impending confrontation.

"Come on, birthday boy," nasalized Kelly-Ann. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" Another chorus of giggles frayed Bea's shortening temper, and just as she rolled her eyes, she caught a glimpse of a familiar looking sandaled foot swinging from the branch high above her. It could only be one person. No one else in their right mind wore sandals and shorts at the start of November.

She followed the foot up the leg, to the tan shorts, the striped shirt and then to the face of Derek Hale himself. He was leaning over the sturdy branch above her, and when their eyes met, he pressed his finger to his lips in a 'shhh' motion, his eyes twinkling mischievously.

Bea's eyes were wide and she didn't have time to think of a response as Ginger finally discovered her hiding spot.

"Hey!" Her raspy voice called, and then Ginger stopped short and let out a snort. "Oh." She pushed her candy-red braid over her shoulder. "It's just the weirdo, with her nose stuck in a book as usual. You see Derek?"

"Yeah!" Amy materialized from the opposite side of the tree, as though the girls had split up to circle it to prevent Derek from outrunning them. "We have a birthday gift we want to give him before recess is out."

"Girls!" Kelly-Ann snapped as she came to join them. "Who are you talking to?"

"It's just the weirdo, Kay-Ann!" Ginger called, and Bea rolled her eyes again at the nonsensical nickname. It didn't even shorten her name, what was the point? "Derek's not over here."

"Are you calling me a liar, Ginger?" Kelly-Ann came to a stop a short distance away from the tree with her arms crossed. Her hip jutted out and the purple skirt of her dress fluttered in the wind. "Because like I already told you, I saw him head this way."

"Well he ain't here now!" Amy defended Ginger, because as pretty and perfect as Kelly-Ann, she wasn't queen bee. Yet. And everyone knew Amy and Ginger were neighbors. They'd been together since they were in diapers, more like sisters than friends, and Kelly-Ann had yet to establish her dominance over them. "He probably snuck off already. Let's go ask Tyler."

And with that, Amy grabbed Ginger's wrist and tugged her past Kelly-Ann.

Kelly-Ann didn't immediately run after her friends. She lingered just a moment, long enough to glare down at Bea. "Did you see him?"

She tried not to look at the sandaled-foot dangling overhead. Pressing her lips together, she could only shake her head, not trusting herself to lie verbally. "Mm-mm."

"You'd better not be lying," Kelly-Ann warned. "Or I'll tell my grandpa you're being mean to me and then your daddy will pay."

Bea didn't often feel burning hatred, but right then, she felt it so strongly that it made her sick to her stomach. Kelly-Anne was the only granddaughter of Beacon Hills County Sheriff—her dad's boss.

As soon as Kelly-Ann recognized Bea at the beginning of the school year from when they met at the station's annual cookout over summer break, Kelly-Ann had not hesitated to lord it over Bea at every given chance. It was strange, because at the cookout Kelly-Ann had actually been relatively kind to her, but something about seeing her in class changed all that and she had decided to make Bea her enemy ever since.

So, even though she held no loyalties to Derek, Bea took great pleasure in getting in on his little deception. "Amy is probably right. You know how he loves to play kickball. If you don't hurry and they find him first, you won't get to see his reaction to the present."

Kelly-Ann's face blanked as though she hadn't thought of that and her hands fell from where she'd crossed them over her chest. Without another word, she turned to take off after her friends, shouting at them to wait for her.

For another lingering moment, nothing happened. Bea's grip loosened on her book and overhead, Derek dropped to the ground beside her. He landed agilely and shifted to beam at her—like he hadn't just dropped ten feet through the air—and brushed dirt off his hands. "Thanks!"

She shrugged a shoulder. "Why are you hiding from them? Don't you like presents?"

Derek glared in the direction their classmates had ran off. "Not from them. It's a can of soda. Crush. And they wrote on it with permanent marker, so it says, 'I've got a Crush on you.'"

Bea snorted before she could stop herself. She clapped a hand over her mouth and peered up at him. "How do you know?" She asked, peeling her hand away from her mouth.

Derek looked panicked for a second. Then his face smoothed and he shrugged a shoulder much as she had done moments ago. "I just saw it, in class, before we came outside."

"Ah," Bea nodded and chewed her lip as she fingered the pages of her book. What she really wanted was to crack it open and continue to read about the misadventures of Harry Potter, but to her immense surprise, Derek plopped on the grass next to her. "Uh—what are you doing?"

He blinked and then turned to glance over his shoulder where Kelly-Ann and her troop of girls had moved on from Tyler and the rest of the boys to go search the jungle-gym again, their feet smacking the wood chips on the ground as they ran. "Trust me. This is the safest spot on the playground right now."

Disappointment burned in her heart as she realized that she wouldn't be reading anymore before class. "Right."

At her tone, he pursed his lips. "So why do you come over here every day, anyway? Don't you like playing?"

"Not really."

"Not even kickball?"

She snorted. "Uh—no."

Derek look aghast at the very thought. "Why not?"

She shrugged a shoulder. "I'm not so good at it."

"Well, that's not the point," Derek protested. "Even if you can't kick the ball that hard, you can at least run."

"I always strike out," she bitterly admitted. "So it's just a lot of standing around for me."

Derek looked troubled as he contemplated that interpretation of his favorite game to play during recess, his nose scrunched. "Well… what about dodgeball?"

Her eyes widened and the small spark of fear she had been conditioned to feel at the thought of the sport made her grip on her book tighten. "No!"

"Well then what do you like?" Derek pressed. "There's gotta be something you like playing."

"Well…" Bea gave the question its fair consideration. "I guess heads-up-seven-up isn't so bad."

Derek snorted. "But that's inside!"

"True," Bea allowed, scanning over the playground thoughtfully. "I guess… I like to play on the swings."

"Really?" He frowned at the row of swings, where a handful of their classmates were all competing to swing the highest. "I never see you use them."

"I was on them all the time last year. But this year…" She trailed off, suddenly feeling shy. Too ashamed to admit that she was afraid to go on the swings for fear of facing a confrontation from Kelly-Ann. "I guess I just discovered that I like reading more."

"Hmph." Derek's nose scrunched and he eyed the book in her arms distastefully. "It's my birthday, you know. If I ask you to go swing, you can't say no."

Surprise colored her features. "Yes I can."

Derek scoffed, but he look genuinely amused. "No, you can't! It's my birthday."

"Oh yeah?" Bea hugged her arms around herself and restrained a smile from crossing her face, like her dad sometimes did when arguing with her mom about something that didn't truly bother him. "Well it's my birthday too, and I don't want to go on the swings."

Derek's eyes widened. "Your birthday is today?" At her nod, he gasped as if she had just divulged the single most wonderful news he'd ever heard in his life. "We—we might as well be related!" he declared.

A short laugh burst out of Bea. "How?!"

"Because we were born on the same day!"

"So?!"

"So!" He gaped. "So! Get up."

And with that, he grabbed her by the arm and wrenched her to her feet. Ignoring her squawk of indignation, he frog-marched her across the playground and deposited her into a swing. She landed into the plastic seat and swung backward so hard that she almost fell out the other side, but with a flail of her arms she kept herself upright.

Her book was not nearly so lucky. It toppled across the mulch and landed at Derek's feet, where he took the swing right next to her.

Bea had never been so manhandled in her life. She looked at Derek with shock coloring her features—and any anger she might have felt was quickly smothered by the overwhelming silence that had descended upon the playground.

Kelly-Ann was seething at them with an expression of such searing hatred, Bea's skin nearly prickled from the heat of it. In fact, everyone was gaping at the pair of them. Ginger and Amy whispered back and forth furiously, and even Tyler and his group of friends rudely pointed their direction.

Beside her, Derek pushed along the ground and started a steady rhythm of swinging. The rusted chains squealed under his weight and slowly, noise started to pick up around them again—this time in the form of excited murmurs. "Want to see who can go higher?" Derek asked, oblivious.

"Uh—Derek," Bea said. "Everyone's staring at us!"

Her face flamed hotly and Derek turned his confused frown away from her to cast a cursory glance around them. "Oh, yep. You get used to that. Guess they're surprised to see you out on the playground, you know, instead of hiding under that tree."

Bea's jaw dropped. "I don't hide."

"It's okay, it's a really clever spot! That's why I went over there, too." He kicked his feet out in order to start swinging again, the rusty metal chain singing quietly as its joints ground together. "It's in plain sight, but it also gives lots of cover. You should try climbing it though, if you really want to avoid people. No one would expect it. And I don't mind if you copy me, before you ask."

She wouldn't. Ask, that is. The thought of climbing that monstrosity of a tree was as likely as scaling the side of the school in Bea's mind. This was not a conversation she had ever pictured having. Not on her birthday, and not with Derek Hale, of all people. "You're so weird!"

He laughed. "I'm just trying to help you out!"

She puffed through her lips and began to kick her feet, as the majority of their classmates had lost interest and returned to their own activities. Tyler and his friends set the ball back in motion and their game was back on.

"Why?" She finally asked.

"Because," he started as he flew past her on the swing, moving opposite of her, so that he was going up when she was coming down and vice versa and they met in the middle for a split second. "You helped—" he waited until they passed each other again. "Me!"

Bea turned to look at him when they passed this time. "I did?"

"Look at Kelly-Ann!"

She did, and she saw the girl in question sitting at her usual spot beside her friends on their jungle-gym they had claimed as their own near the beginning of the year. Instead of coming over to pester Derek, they stayed back and glared at the pair of them from afar.

The look in Kelly-Ann's eyes promised pain and retribution when she looked at Bea, and she felt a flutter of dread in her heart. Sent a silent apology to her dad, because she was unsure of the far-reaching consequences, whether Kelly-Ann might make good on her threat.

"Watch this!"

She turned back in time to see Derek take three long swings, clearly winding up, and then he suddenly launched out of the leather seat like he was in a catapult. He flew through the air—all flailing limbs and peals of joyful laughter—and then veered back to the ground like a meteorite. Chunks of mulch exploded around him as he landed, and in the next moment, the teacher called them inside.

(A/N): Obviously, Derek is going to be slightly OOC from what we see in the show, especially at first. He's just a kid here. I doubt he started off as a broody sourwolf. In fact, in canon, Peter described high-school!Derek as "a lot like Scott", so, I'm going to venture to demonstrate how he got from Point A, to Point Sourwolf, and every development in between.