(A/N): Thank you for the favorites/follows!

Cosmetic author's note for the spacing at the top of the chapter...

Despite bonding with Derek on their birthday, things didn't change overnight for Bea. She still spent her time out under the tree every recess. She grew closer to the end of her new book about an eleven-year-old wizard. The Easy Bake Oven she was gifted sat unopened in her closet, waiting for the next night her dad was home from work to make cheese pizzas together.

Kelly-Ann had made it her personal mission to humiliate Bea as much as she could at every turn in class, laughing just that much louder if she didn't know the answer to a question, pointing out any quirks about Bea that she deemed weird, and trying to burn her alive with her glare whenever Derek took a second to acknowledge Bea's existence.

It grew colder outside as the year marched on, and before she knew it, the holidays were there and past. The second half of the school year began and their recess shifted from an afternoon slot, to a morning slot. That morning, they spent about an hour taking turns reading from a story aloud, until it was finally time to leave.

Bea set down her pencil on the desk and turned over her paper, to prevent any classmates from cheating on her math questions she'd been working on. She then stood and prepared to go to her cubby to grab her coat and gloves.

"Wait up, Bea!" Derek called.

She turned around and saw him shoving his arms into a thick blue coat as he bounded over to her. "I got something for you, hang on."

Speechless, she watched him dig through his pockets and then pull something out. It was an envelope, folded and wrinkled. She opened it and pulled out the thin card inside.

"Do you like Batman?"

It was a movie ticket, for a showing called Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero. "This is… for tonight."

Derek grimaced and rubbed the back of his head, forcing a sheepish smile. "Yeah, sorry. It's last minute, I know. But Tyler got grounded last weekend and he can't go anymore, and now I have an extra ticket. I know you like reading and stuff, I guess I… thought you've heard of Batman?"

Startled, a short laugh like a bark escaped her. It was a noise she only seemed to make around Derek. She frowned at her uncharacteristic reaction and then absently said, "Of course I have."

Derek's face flickered with something like surprise, but then he looked pleased. "Great!" He smugly asserted. "So you'll go. My mom can pick you up or we can meet there."

Her mind spun a bit because she couldn't remember exactly agreeing to go, but apparently Derek deemed it a foregone conclusion. She opened her mouth but then Derek was talking again.

"Do you like caramel corn or kettle corn more? I like caramel corn but Laura says that kettle corn is healthier and Peter thinks it tastes better. They're both crazy."

"Who?" She blinked, as she followed him through the hall towards the doors to the playground. Bea pulled her glove over her fingers as Derek answered.

"Huh?" He looked back at her. "Oh! Laura is my big sister and Peter is my uncle. My mom's brother," he clarified, for some reason. "Not my dad's. My dad doesn't have any brothers. He has a sister though, she's pretty funny—mostly because she scares dad a little, I think. She's a vet."

"She was in the army?" Bea perked up. "My dad was too!"

"Oh." Derek looked contemplative as he digested that news while they descended the steps outside. "Uh, no, she works on… dogs and stuff. You know. An animal doctor?"

"Oh," Bea nodded. "That's cool too."

"Yeah," Derek smirked. "But maybe she was in the army, actually. I'll have to ask her. Want to go on the swings?

He was already leading the way, even as he asked. "Sure," she agreed aloud anyway, just to make it feel like she had some choice in the matter.

Derek picked a swing near the end of the set, one that left Bea on the very end. It was an arrangement they'd learned worked best, so that no one sat next to her and bothered them. She stopped at hers to clear the snow away—something Derek apparently didn't feel the need to do because he was already swinging high next to her.

Bea shook off the snow that clung to the black knitted material of her gloves and turned to sit down.

"Have you ever been to the museum before?" Derek asked. "The one we're going to for the field trip?"

That morning, their teacher informed them that their field trip this year would be a day trip to the museum in San Francisco. It was all their classmates could talk about all day. Bea had to admit that she was really excited too. Any time during school hours spent outside the classroom was a treat, and going with her whole class to a big city seemed like an adventure.

She hummed thoughtfully as she considered his question. "Hmmm, kind of? When my little brother was a baby, we went to see the aquarium. There's different parts of the museum you can go to but we just went there. Personally, I've always wanted to see the dinosaurs."

Beside her, Derek's swing ground to a sudden halt as he planted his feet into the mulch and dug his heels in. He focused an intensely forceful expression on her. "Bea—" he demanded. "Did you say… dinosaurs?"

She continued to swing lazily, letting her feet gently drag the ground as she swayed back and forth beside him. "Mhmm. Dad said there's a t-rex in the very front."

He gasped, enraptured as he pictured it, his imagination running away with him11. "A t-rex!"

Bea couldn't help but smirk and felt a giggle bubbling in her chest at his intensity. "But that's not even the coolest part."

Derek shot her what might've been a dirty look, like even the notion that anything would be cooler than a t-rex was just disrespectful, which she ignored.

"There's a skeleton of a whale that's almost ninety feet long!"

His nose scrunched skeptically. "A whale? Like from the ocean?"

She shot him a bemused look. What other kind was there? "Yes?"

"Lame," He dismissed.

Bea reached over to smack his shoulder, which Derek lithely dodged and then set off in a wide swing to avoid her follow-up swipe. He snickered. "Gotta be faster than that if you want to hit someone like me!"

Bea felt a grin on her face despite herself. "You're not even that fast!"

"I'm like the t-rex, and you're like the whale," Derek taunted. "You just can't keep up."

Bea's jaw dropped. "The whale?!" she all but shrieked, going after him with renewed vigor.

A peal of delighted, slightly sadistic laughter erupted from Derek and he easily evaded her.

"Well I guess you being a t-rex explains why your arms are so short!" She shot back.

Derek's smile was traded for slack-jawed indignation, and then he was lunging for her. She had rooted her feet deep into the mulch to try and grab hold of him in their game of cat-and-mouse, but now that the roles reversed she could practically read Derek's intentions even before he moved—the twitch of his eyebrow and determination that glinted in his eye was clear as day, and his eyes locked on her arm.

Before he could reach out she dislodged her feet from the ground and let physics do the rest. The chains squealed loudly and Bea rocketed sideways, almost ramming straight into the pole beside them at the end of the swing set, but it meant that Derek's swipe missed.

Bea let herself laugh loudly, mockingly, enjoying the fire of agitation that burned in Derek's eyes as he glared at her. "See?" she taunted. "T-rex arms!"

He reached over and landed a solid whack on the side of her arm. It twinged in pain and she immediately covered the spot with a wince.

"Oh, man." Derek immediately looked remorseful. "Sorry, I didn't really want to hurt you."

A smile covered her wince easily and she let her hand drop to grab the chain on the swing. "I'll just have to get faster."

Derek snorted. "Think so?"

She started kicking her legs again. "Bet I can swing higher than you!"

That same characteristic, cocky grin plastered across his face. "I want your pudding at lunch if you lose!"

When she got home that afternoon, Bea was surprised to climb down the steps of the school bus and see her dad's cruiser parked in the driveway. Unsure of whether to be excited or dreadful at the rare sight, she took off at a sprint for the front door.

Her bookbag bounced against her back and her pencil case rattled as she swung the front door open and bounded across the wood floors inside. "Dad!"

She found him seated comfortably on the couch with an arm slung casually across the back. Stiles was seated on top of a blanket that spread out across the floor below him, and the TV was playing a baseball game. The sight of her dad in a t-shirt—not his uniform—took all the wind out of her sails and she felt a delighted smile lit up her features.

He grinned back. "Hey, Bea-Bop. How was school?"

Bea made a beeline straight for the couch. She kicked her shoes off and let them fall where they may, climbing onto the cushion beside him. "There's going to be a field trip to the museum next month."

"Oh?" He reached out to pat her shoulder with a warm smile that soothed an ache in her chest she hadn't even consciously known was there, the part of herself that always missed him and wished he didn't have to work so much. "Did they give you permission slips yet?"

"How much will it cost?" Her mom asked, coming out of the kitchen. She wore a pale yellow blouse and tan capris, her feet bare. Her parents exchanged a meaningful look, but her dad's smile persisted.

"It'll be fine, Claudia. We'll make room for it in the budget."

Bea frowned as she thought it over. "I don't remember. And I left the slip at school." She casted a guilty glance in her father's direction. "Sorry."

He let his eyes crinkle with his responding smile, looking perfectly content as he always did when he wasn't getting ready to head right back out the door to work. "That's all right. When does it have to be turned in?"

He reached down to nudge Stiles' ball. It rolled towards the coffee table and bounced off it, changing direction, and Stiles followed after it, his hands and knees smacking the wooden floors.

"Not for a while." She paused and tried not to look like it mattered one way or the other. "Are you… will you stay home for dinner?"

"Yes he will," her mom confirmed, sounding as pleased as she felt. "We were thinking you could finally break out the Easy Bake Oven and make the pizzas like you've wanted. I've got a bigger one in the freezer, just… you know. In case these don't turn out."

Bea gasped and sat up, ready to head straight to her room to do just that, and then stopped when she remembered the envelope in her pocket. She stopped and her shoulders dropped. She pulled off a glove to retrieve the envelope. "I don't know if I'll have time."

Her dad easily accepted the envelope as she passed it over to him, taking the crinkled paper from her fingers. Her mom came closer to peer over his shoulder, leaning down and pressing her cheek against his hair. He reached up to pat her fondly as they read the ticket inside.

"Batman?" Her dad chuckled and sent a wry smirk over to Claudia. "I didn't know you liked that kind of stuff."

"She and Stiles read from a comic every night," explained her mom.

Stiles turned at the sound of his name, dropping the ball. It bounced and he was momentarily distracted, his attention just as easily pulled away from them. "We're more into Spiderman, but don't tell Derek that."

"Derek?" Noah sat a little straighter on the couch. "That's a new name. Is that who's asking to take you to the movies tonight? Talk about short notice."

"Well, he was originally taking Tyler, but I guess Tyler got grounded and couldn't go, so…" she trailed off with a shrug. Her parents looked at each other, communicating in their silent way, but Bea couldn't exactly read the unspoken message that passed between them. "His mom wrote her number inside too. So you can call."

Bea fidgeted a moment while her dad passed the envelope over to her mom. Claudia studied the phone number and gave it thought. "Well… if you hurry and go grab the Easy Bake now, the pizzas probably won't take too much time. I'm sure we can get them done in two hours."

Her dad snorted at the way Bea lit up and jumped off the couch, tripping over her shoes.

"Bea!" Her mom yelled. "What have I told you about leaving your shoes all over the place?!"

But she was already disappearing down the hall in her room. Distantly, she heard her dad laughing at Claudia's exasperation, and her mom said, "That is your daughter. Come on, Stiles. Let's go give Mrs. Hale a ring."

Bea tugged the box onto her bed and grunted from the effort. It wasn't exactly light, and she was just casting a look around the room for a pair of scissors to cut the tape that still sealed it shut when her dad appeared in the doorway.

"What are you looking for?"

"Something to open the box."

"Here," he offered as he came into her room and dug in his pocket. He withdrew a small pocketknife and Bea stood to the side to let him cut the box open. When the tape stuck to his finger, she giggled at the exaggerated way he batted it off. He grinned at her and pointed at the tape in admonishment, like it was misbehaving. "Stay," he warned it, and Bea giggled again.

She reached out and balled the tape up in her smaller hands. "Do you see instructions inside?"

He let out a loud scoff. "Bea, please. We're Stilinskis. We don't need directions to figure out how to work a toy."

She was somewhat skeptical, but she trusted him to not burn the house down, so she merely followed him out of her room and through the house to the kitchen. There, they found her mom with Stiles settled on her hip, standing before the phone.

Her little brother kept trying to grab at the phone cord. Bea reached out to grab Stiles from her mom's arms and Claudia shot her a grateful look. "Yes," she said to the person on the phone. "I'm calling to speak with…" she checked the slip of paper in her hand. "Talia?"

Bea and her dad shared a wide grin when they heard a voice on the phone erupt and her mom had to pull it away from her ear from the force of the shout. She looked at them, her eyes glittering with amusement. "Sounds like you, Bea," she muttered. "Shouting at the top of his lungs."

"I do not," Bea huffed. "Or I wouldn't, if you answered the first time I called for you."

Her mom shot her a dirty look but had to swallow whatever admonishment she had locked and loaded, as someone else apparently came to the phone. "Hello! Yes. I'm calling to speak with Talia—er, Mrs. Hale? Is she in? Oh."

Claudia turned away from them to speak in quieter tones on the phone, and Bea's attention turned to her dad, as he began the task of unwrapping the oven and finding a spot to plug it into the wall. He laid out the supplies and looked everything over, humming occasionally in thought to himself.

Stiles babbled in her ear about nonsense, his weight growing uncomfortably heavy in her arms. He pointed at a little circular pan on the table that must be used for cakes. "Let me see," he commanded.

"Uh," Bea hesitated, and Stiles kicked his foot impatiently.

"Let me see!"

"Put him in his high chair, Bea," Her dad instructed with half a mind, his attention mostly focused on the task of deciphering the buttons on the oven. "And get him some of those fruit snacks he loves."

Stiles squealed in delight at the suggestion. He didn't even object as she transferred him into his high chair, clapping excitedly as he watched her move past their mom—who was still talking on the phone—to reach into a cabinet and try to grab some fruit snacks.

The shelf was too far out of reach for her. Bea turned, but her mom was nodding at something that was said on the phone, and put a finger up to silence Bea before she could even speak. Her dad wasn't paying her any attention at all.

Stiles began to make impatient noises. His feet kicked and he smacked the tray in front of him.

"Bea," her dad said again, barely looking over his shoulder at her. "Did you grab the snacks yet?"

She sighed and pulled herself up on the counter. She climbed to her knees and finally reached the box. Just as she was pulling out a package of the blue ones—Stiles' favorite—she hesitated and grabbed a red one as well, for herself.

"Bea!" Her mom called, pulling the phone off her ear for a second as she snapped a finger in Bea's direction. "Get off the counters, are you kidding me?!"

"Oh, that's probably my fault, Claudia," her dad sheepishly admitted. "I should have known she couldn't reach those yet. I forgot how high up we keep them."

"Shhh," her mom called to all of them, even though she had been the one to talk to them. She reached out to snap her fingers at Bea again, and Bea rolled her eyes but still replaced the box and started the task of carefully climbing down. "Sorry about that, Mr. Hale. You were saying?"

Bea padded across the kitchen to her dad again. She half-expected him to scold her too, but he just ruffled her hair and sent her a crooked grin as she tore the package of blue snacks open. Stiles tried to catch them all as she let them spill over his tray.

"So, Derek, huh?" Her dad said, ripping open a plastic bag of what looked like flour to dump it into a small mixing bowl. "Who's he?"

She considered the question carefully as she tore open her own package of snacks and came to stand at her dad's side. "He's a classmate."

"You mean a friend?" he clarified, side-eyeing her. "He must be if he invited you to see a movie."

"I…" she hesitated. "I guess so."

Noah smiled easily. "That's good. I remember you telling your mom how nervous you were that you wouldn't make friends this year. You and Kelly-Ann really hit it off at that cookout this summer, right? The Sheriff mentioned that you two were in class together. That must be nice, but it's good that you have more than one friend."

"Uh…" Bea stuffed a red, gummy fruit-shaped snack into her mouth. "Yeah."

Her dad definitely noticed her lack of enthusiasm. Before he could comment, her mom swept across the kitchen and smiled at them. "Derek and his uncle will be here later to take you, and then I'll come pick you up after the movie is over."

"His uncle?" Bea blinked. "Huh. Okay," she shrugged.

"What are you doing, Noah?" Claudia asked, swiping the package of shredded cheese out of his hand before he had the chance to sprinkle it over the dough. "You'll ruin it!"

Her dad made a sound of protest, which made Bea laugh because it sounded odd from the man. "I happen to like cheesy crust!"

"Me too," Bea quickly agreed.

Claudia glared at them both. "That is not how you make cheesy crust."

"Why not?" Bea smirked.. "It's cheese, in the crust."

Her dad gestured as if to say, there you have it, and Claudia rolled her eyes.

"Listen, you want cheesy crust? Fine, I'll show you cheesy crust. Grab that bowl, Bea—and fetch some butter out of the fridge, Noah, would you? Where's my apron! Stiles! No. That is not a toy."

Bea grinned and giggled as Claudia caught sight of her dad trying to hide something from view over at one of the cabinets closest to the fridge. Some candy she had stashed away from everyone, apparently, and now he had ripped one of the boxes open and was quickly stuffing the rest inside his mouth before her mom could wrench it from his hands.

She threw her head back and laughed in pure delight at the chaos in her home, and for the first time in months since her dad picked up more and more hours at the station, her family felt whole. At least for tonight. She would savor it while it lasted.

The clock inched two minutes past five-fifteen, which was the agreed upon time that Derek and his uncle would come to pick her up for the movie. Her dad and her mom were laid out across the couch with their legs tangled together.

Stiles leaned over the back of the couch beside her. She held up a pair of binoculars and peered out of the curtain through the large bay window and into the street outside, watching for any signs of movement.

"A car!" She exclaimed, and Stiles eagerly leaned against her side to get a better look.

"Where?" He asked.

A large, white van drove slowly up the street. On the side panel, they saw a depiction of a faucet, and Bea whined in disappointment. "A plumber?!"

"What's that?" Stiles frowned, his tone matching Bea's despite not knowing what it was.

She pursed her lips at him. Then she got an idea. Lately, because of their nightly reading habits, Stiles had become somewhat obsessed with the concepts of 'good guys' vs 'bad guys', especially since he found out that their dad was ostensibly one of the 'good guys' as a deputy. And unable to break herself from this train of thought, her eyes sparkled with mischief as she soberly informed him that, "They stop leaks."

"Leaks?"

She nodded gravely. "They stop people from leaking secrets to bad guys."

A quiet gasp escaped her brother's lips. He looked up at her, his eyes shining, and leaned closer. "Like Spiderman?"

She nodded again, careful to keep any traces of a grin from crossing her features. "Yes. Exactly like Spiderman."

"So… that plummer that you saw… was like Spiderman?"

"Yep."

He shot up and glued his face to the window. "Where do you think he went?"

"To plumb secrets, I guess," she shrugged.

Stiles nodded, looking amusingly solemn for his age. "My turn, Bea?" He held his little hand out for the binoculars.

"In a minute."

"You already said that!" He slid down on the couch and crossed his arms in a pout. "I wanna look too."

"Then look," Bea absently said back. "You have eyes."

"Let me use the biboculas!" He snapped.

Bea heard a snort from the couch, and she turned a wry smirk over at her little brother. "Binoculars," she corrected without moving to hand them over.

"Bea," her dad said softly, a warning in his tone. She sighed and turned to hand over the binoculars to Stiles.

He snatched them greedily from her grasp and then stood on his knees, like she was, and held the binoculars against his face to peer out the window.

"Stiles…" Bea giggled, fondness in her heart. "Bud, you've got them backwards."

And he did. He held them the wrong way around, so that the end of the scope was against his eyes instead of the lens. He huffed and glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "Oops."

She reached over to ruffle his downy-soft hair and he tried to swat at her with a squawk. A pair of headlights shot through the window and across the wall behind them, and Bea jumped up with a gasp when she saw a truck pulling into the driveway behind her mom's jeep.

"They're here!"

Stiles scrambled to follow after her. Bea rocketed to the front door and then stopped short. She turned to look at her parents, suddenly hesitant and unsure.

"Bea?" Her mom prompted. Behind her, her dad was trying to grab a squirming Stiles where he led him on a merry chase around the coffee table. "Everything all right?"

"Should I go outside to greet them?" She picked at the long sleeves of her burgundy sweater, which drooped over her hand slightly. "Or… I could wait and answer the door."

"Whatever you want." Claudia offered her daughter a reassuring, warm grin. "It's fine either way, I'm sure. But it's cold out, so grab a jacket before you go."

She was just reaching for her hat and shoving her stocking covered feet into a pair of warm, black boots when a knock sounded at the door. Her heart leapt in her chest. Bea had never had a classmate come over before, and she was extremely nervous, suddenly self-conscious of her home for the first time ever.

What would Derek think of their front porch? Of the chalk on the ground outside, still slightly visible under the wet spots from melting snow? She and Stiles had spent hours out there the weekend before, and then it snowed in the middle of the week, and now that it was the weekend again it had already started to warm back up. Their chalk drawings were still washing away, warped but visible.

Bea then turned to look at the most potentially embarrassing aspect of her home—her little brother—but before she could make to grab him, he had already skirted out of her father's reach and flew across the living room to the front door.

He flung the door open with a loud cry and then pointed a finger at the face of the teen standing before him. "NOW!" He wound his arm back and then, just as their dad taught him to do, his whole body turned with the force of his throw as he launched whatever was in his hands at the larger target, the taller teenager.

Bea watched in horror as the ball spun around, around, and—with disturbing accuracy for a three-year-old's limited dexterity—flew straight into the teen's face. At the last second, he reached out and stopped the ball from bopping him on the nose.

"Hah!" Derek barked, pointing up at his uncle. "Look at your face!"

The teen's wide eyes narrowed and slowly turned down to glower at Derek.

"Stiles!" Their dad shouted—which was disturbing because he never shouted. Bea froze and fully expected Stiles to freeze up as well, but he didn't. He merely took off sprinting, fast as his stubby legs could carry him, shoving past their mom and even Bea to make haste for the dining room beyond. "Get back here! We talked about this, you never answer the front door!"

"Oh, god," Claudia cringed. She grimaced uncertainly at the still speechless teenager who loomed beside a shorter, elated looking Derek, who waggled his eyebrows in delight at Bea and threw her two thumbs up. "Mr. Hale," Claudia continued, "I'm so sorry about that—"

Derek's uncle looked way younger looking than Bea had assumed he would be (in her mind, uncles were supposed to be just as old as parents). He tossed the ball back to her mom. She fumbled for a second but managed to catch it.

"Just call me Peter, please," he smiled easily, looking for all the world like her three-year-old brother hadn't just launched an attack at him on sight. "Believe me, I'm used to much worse."

Her mom let out a laugh, sounding half-relieved and half-wary as she turned a cursory glance back at Bea. "Well, never mind, then. I'm glad you understand. Oh—Bea-Bop—are you ready to go?"

"Totally! Yep!" Bea watched Derek closely as she approached, still unsure. Behind her, they could all still hear thumps and thuds deeper in the house as Stiles deftly evaded capture. She nodded at Derek, determined to ignore the sounds even as Derek's eyes danced in delight and he leaned in to try and peek behind them. "We should go," she advised. "Before he makes his way back out here."

Derek looked almost reluctant to miss what would happen next, but Peter laid a hand on his shoulder and pulled him out of the doorway. "Yes, we wouldn't want you to be late and miss the previews, would we?"

"Ehh." Derek flapped his hand dismissively as Bea called a goodbye over her shoulder and followed the Hale boys out to Peter's truck. Their breath puffed in small clouds in front of them. "The previews are the worst part anyway. We'll have time to get popcorn too, right?" This question was directed eagerly at Peter.

"Yes, Derek," Peter sighed, as though it was something he had already answered many times over. He opened the door for them and made sure that Bea knew how to traverse climbing into the cab of the tall truck, which was situated fairly high off the ground. "Keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times," he instructed, like an attendant at an amusement park, and Bea giggled while Derek rolled his eyes.

"Thanks, we got it, Uncle Peter." Derek reached over Bea to grab the handle of the door and swung it shut, forcing Peter to take a step back with both hands raised.

Bea looked at Derek from the corner of her eye while Peter crossed the front of the truck to the driver's side. "Do you… not like your uncle?" She quickly whispered, while they were still alone.

Derek shrugged a shoulder. "He's pretty lame most of the time, but not as lame as Laura."

She nodded, though she wasn't totally sure she understood.

When he climbed inside, he reached over to flick the side of Derek's head, which was easy enough since Derek took up the middle seat and was crammed in so close to him. Derek growled and elbowed him in retaliation, but Peter blocked the move, and then the truck roared to life.

"Bea—" she jumped at the sound of her name coming from a borderline stranger's lips, "did you bring any extra cash?" Peter asked as he backed out onto the street.

"Uhh," she stammered, earning a weird look from Derek. "Er—yeah! I mean, just enough for a drink and some Cookie Dough Bites…"

Peter's blue eyed gaze flicked back to her. "Cookie dough… bites?" He slowly asked, as though testing out foreign words. "That sounds repulsive."

Bea was offended, because it was her favorite candy and she could only ever find them in theaters so it was a special treat for her to look forward to, and also embarrassed. Her cheeks heated and Derek thwacked Peter's arm. "Does not! Quit being so rude! Jeeze."

Peter hummed skeptically. "It does. It sounds like a case of food poisoning waiting to happen. I'm shocked at what they'll sell to kids these days, considering how fragile you all are."

Her nose crinkled. Fragile? She had never heard someone describe children as fragile before, and he managed to make it sound like an insult. Maybe she didn't Peter, either.

She inched ever so slightly closer to the passenger door, and released her breath when she saw that it was unlocked. Whatever she had expected when she found out Derek's uncle was picking her up—this was not it.

"Oh, come on! We're not fragile," Derek scoffed. "Right, Bea?"

She nodded, sparing half a glance at Peter. "Uh, right."

"We're not about to croak from some lousy old cookie dough."

"It's not lousy," Bea solemnly informed him, like an oath. "Trust me. You'll see."

Peter snorted, but kept his thoughts on the matter to himself. "All right, so I'll stay with you guys while you order your crap, make sure you get into the theater okay, and then I'll be back before the movie is out to pick you up, Derek."

"You don't have to babysit us," Derek growled. "We're ten, not six."

"Wrong. I do have to babysit you, because Talia trusted me to look after you, and Bea's dad will probably shoot me if she doesn't make it home in one piece, judging by the deputy jacket I saw hanging by the front door."

Bea felt another jolt of surprise move through her. Her dad did hang his jacket and holster by the door, but she hadn't thought that Peter had the opportunity to notice such a thing due to the surprise attack launched from Stiles.

"Deputy?" Derek frowned and turned to Bea. "You said your dad was in the army."

"He was," she agreed, and Peter glanced at her shortly again. "Uh, but he's not anymore. Now he works at the Sheriff's department."

"Oh," Derek nodded. "Cool."

She blinked. Would it feel so awkward if his uncle wasn't in the truck with them? Peter seemed to have a way of stifling any lightheartedness from the atmosphere. Bea shifted in her seat and tried not to press too hard against Derek's side in the cramped space. It was a nice truck, a very shiny black color, and the interior looked fancy and was made from expensive feeling leather—but it wasn't very spacious. Like it hadn't been designed with the thought of children in mind.

Just as Bea's heart was starting to fall with the thought of their friendship being so awkward outside of the classroom, they finally pulled into the movie parking lot. It was busier than she thought it would be.

Peter was grumbling something to himself, inexplicably grumpy beyond his years as he came to a stop on the curb not far from the side doors. Bea wondered if he could technically park here, but he had already shut the truck off and Derek was unbuckling his seatbelt.

Rather than say something and sound dumb—because he evidently could park here—she followed suit and tried to quickly climb out of the truck so that Peter didn't have to bother helping them out.

Derek's boots clomped on the ground as he jumped down beside her, and he offered her a winning smile. "Ready?"

She nodded and he grabbed her wrist to tug her towards the doors. Peter loomed nearby, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket, watching the pair vigilantly as they made their way inside. He nodded at the worker, who accepted their tickets and drolly informed them of their corresponding theater number.

They were waved through, and Peter still hovered by them as they finally settled at the back of the line to the concession stands.

"I wonder if Jake's working tonight," Derek said, and then leaned closer to explain what he meant to Bea. "He's cool because he's Tyler's cousin. He let us in to see—"

Derek broke off and looked over at Peter with wide, horrified eyes, as though he had forgotten his uncle was there. Peter looked down at him with a crooked smile, looking amused with a single eyebrow raised. "Yes?" He drawled. "Go on. He let you in to see… what?"

Derek's mouth clamped shut. He glanced at Bea and shifted on his feet. "Nothing, I was just going to say he let us in to see a movie for free, that's all."

"Mhmmm," Peter hummed thoughtfully, but did not comment further. He smirked at Derek knowingly, and it finally provoked a scowl from her friend. She thought Derek looked somewhat adorable with an angry frown scrunching his nose—not unlike Stiles' looked when he was annoyed with her, in fact.

Derek all but bared his teeth at Peter. "That's all," he insisted, and then dropped the subject. "Anyway. If he's working tonight he'll let me mix together different sodas."

Bea considered this, since it was the first time she had ever heard of doing such a thing. "Mix them… together? Like, which ones?"

Derek's eyes were bright again as he explained. "I like Coke mixed with Dr. Pepper and Sprite, but Tyler swears that Mountain Dew and orange Fanta is the nectar of the gods."

Bea blinked. "The—what?"

Peter sighed deeply beside them, muttering something about kids under his breath.

"The nectar of the gods," Derek repeated. "It's something Tyler heard his older brother, Todd—he plays lacrosse in high school, with Jake—say once, and he thought it was funny. It is, right? It makes it sound cool."

Bea considered it, but it seemed that her opinion wasn't strictly necessary, because Derek was already onto the next topic.

"Oh, look!" He pointed at a movie poster nearby. "That's coming out the day after our birthday!"

"I didn't know they were making a movie!" Bea gasped in excitement. "I love the Rugrats!"

"Hah!" Derek smacked her arm with a large grin on his face. "Me too. Let's see it when it comes out!"

"Sure," Bea easily agreed, pleased that he seemed to think their friendship would last so far into the future, and then they launched into a debate over who the best character was.

Peter, for his part, carried on looking bored as ever, all the way through their purchases at the concession stand and until the kids had to split off from him to go into the theater. Then it was like he just... disappeared. Or like he disapparated, like wizards do in Harry Potter. There one moment and gone the next. Still, she could feel his lingering presence, like he was watching over them from just out view—or from the shadows. Derek had been relieved to be free of his supervision, and grabbed her wrist in excitement as he pulled her into the dark theater.

(A/N): Please leave a quick review if you enjoyed!