The following Monday was damp and dreary. In a rare occurrence for the state of California, it had drizzled lightly throughout the day. It was soothing, and in the morning Eleanor was at liberty to miss 40 minutes of school due to the ineptitude of several students, most of which had forgotten most of what they had learned in drivers ed, taking to the roads of Beacon Hills at a snail's pace. In the short walk to her car from her front door, Eleanor's hair had managed to forget all the work she had done with her straightener, but it was worth it for the light misting of lukewarm rain that dotted all over her face. It was comforting, like a distant memory of times past.

By the fifteen-minute mark, the grid-lock situation of the parking lot had grabbed the attention of the school staff, and several teachers were being ushered around by Finstock, who was in his element, standing on some poor students parked car with a megaphone in hand, towering over the lot and yelling directions. She was of the opinion that he was, perhaps, intending to cause more harm than good, something she wasn't keen to put an end to as it was starting to eat into her first period class with Mr Harris, the science teacher who had crawled up from the depths of hell, and she was willing to endure just about anything to escape his frosty gaze.

Eleanor fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat, slouching down and reaching forward to fiddle with the radio, switching it to angry sounding pop-punk. It helped to drown out the sound of the Toyota behind her who had been non-stop blaring their horn as if she was the root of their issues. It wasn't an entirely displeasing experience, her car was warm, any sort of music was always a bonus, and being alone with her thought without needing to worry about anyone else felt like a rarity. Sighing, she rested her head against the cool pane of her window, grounded with its chill.

Something that was deeply displeasing, however, was the rapid tap on her window that almost made her scream. Pressing a hand to her chest and able to feel her own heartbeat thundering underneath them, she turned to glare at the perpetrator. Scott McCall at least had the decency to look bashful. His shaggy hair was strewn over his eyes, damp and limp.

"What the hell?" she demanded, not giving him the liberty of an open window to talk through. The Beacon Hills High rumour mill was vicious and it just needed the smallest of sparks to ignite. A Sophomore sticking his head through a Seniors car window was the perfect ignition. He stared for a second, pausing and blinking, waiting for her to do something and frowned just a little when he realised this was as much as he was getting.

"Annie Parks stalled a few cars up," Scott elevated his voice slightly so she could hear him. Eleanor bit down on her tongue to refrain herself from snapping, telling him to lower his tone so nobody could hear. As far as he's concerned, she reminded herself sternly, you're something closer to human. "I, uh, I saw you here," he continued, oblivious to her inner turmoil, "so I just thought…"

Just thought he'd trap her in conversation. Eleanor couldn't hold back the instinctual need to roll her eyes. He had a lot more in common with Derek than he seemed to realise. "Where's Stiles?" she asked, his gangly friend's absence very noticeable and had been for a few days running. There had been talk that the Parent Teacher Conference for the Sophomores had ended in somewhat of a catastrophe, an actual mountain lion prowling the parking lot and causing some real terror. Somewhere in the story the Sheriff had either been bitten on the leg by the fierce beast or had been hit badly by a car in all the commotion.

Scott seemed troubled by this question, bringing a hand up to fiddle with the straps of his backpack. "We're not speaking," Scott muttered, turning down his head and speaking at his shoes. If he didn't want her to hear he was in for some bad luck, his words were as crisp as ever. There was something guilty to his tone that didn't go amiss, and spiked with intrigue, Eleanor straightened and cocked a brow. Scott shook himself bodily, jerking himself from his own thoughts and back onto his task at hand. "That's not why I'm here."

"Okay," Eleanor conceded, "then why are you here?"

He straightened and put on a mask of confidence. "I need to speak with Derek," he proclaimed, entirely rehearsed and almost laughable.

Eleanor pursed her lips and replied, "unless he's in my trunk and I didn't notice, I don't see why you're coming to me."

Scott hesitated, looking like he was starting the process of second guessing himself. "Well," he started, "you and Derek are… friends." She didn't like the sound of his pause and wondered if it was because he couldn't see Derek managing to maintain a relationship with someone who wasn't forced into it by blood, or if it was because he was reading into something that had never happened, would never happen, and that Eleanor definitely hadn't spent a single thought about.

Attempting to hide her discomfort, she hummed. "Do you want his number?"

In an instant, Scott's face turned into a look of pure disgust. "You want me to – he won't pick up. I doubt he'd even reply."

Yeah, Eleanor conceded, twisting her mouth and regarding Scott with a level look, he was definitely right. "What do you want him to know?" she asked, defeated and unwilling but forced to play the part of messenger.

Brightly, Scott beamed. "Thanks," he said, almost gushing. "Tell him – tell him I accept his offer."

Eleanor frowned. "What offer?"

Scott leaned close and reflexively and even with a window between them, Eleanor leaned back. "Trust me," Scott pitched his voice a little lower conspiratorially, conscious of the pane, "he'll know."

"Um," Eleanor hummed, "I don't think – hey!"

Scott was backing up, grinning and pleased with himself, making his way towards the school doors. "Scott!" she called out, frustrated as she watched his retreating form. She didn't consider herself to be a Derek Hale expert (but she was the only one in town who knew the most, she supposed, which was sad enough in its own right), but she knew Scott McCall must have been downright foolish to think that Derek actively kept up with their conversations.

/ / /

The inside of Eleanor Richards' room was one Derek Hale was becoming almost intimately familiar with. The walls were painted a muted blue colour, more pastel than anything else, and along the skirting board of the left wall which had her bed pressed up against it were hand drawn flowers of various kinds – bluebells, daffodils, roses, daisies, and a whole bunch he couldn't identify. They weren't the nicest of drawings, in fact, they were rather petulant, but they matched the insides of her funny little book with the funny little words that had a funny little way of infuriating him.

She had a dated white vanity on the opposite wall, littered with makeup, perfume bottles, pens and notecards (all school related, he had checked), and behind her door she kept her coats and jackets, which was next to her closet where she'd drop her school bag, and there were pale wooden side tables at either side of her bed, the right one containing under garments and the left containing items that he didn't quite know what to make of – items such as her book, where she stowed away most of the tricks and Tupperware she had used to make him that foul smelling paste that one time, and where he suspected contained the clues he'd need to piece everything about her together. She had a quaint bay window where she grew her own selection of herbs, and that was right next a large tree which made for easy climbing, but it wasn't like he needed it.

Her bed was comfortable, much better than the lumpy mattress in his apartment in New York that was provided by his landlord, and infinitely better than the one at his hotel room. She had too many pillows and two childish stuffed toys that always occupied the exact same place, no matter when he'd drop by (with Eleanor's knowledge, most times without it), and everything in it reeked of her.

It wasn't that she smelled unpleasant, it was actually quite the opposite, a fact Derek was only quite happy to admit to himself and himself only. It was a sweet scent, pleasant and non-invasive but definitely there. It didn't always follow her around (because she could apparently turn her scent on and off at will), but there didn't seem to be anything she could do about her bedroom. It was oddly assuring, at least Derek could count on his senses to trust that she, at the very least, slept there and didn't slink off into the night like some reptile half-breed. What he wasn't sure of, however, was if it was a scent unique to just her, as every living creature had, or if it was the scent of her kind. Her uncle lacked it, but Derek knew he'd be foolish to discount that theory entirely based off of such a meaningless piece of evidence.

There was something familiar to Eleanor Richards. In an odd way, she reminded him of his mother; she carried around the same air of superiority, she had the ability to command a room (quite literally), and she was the only person in his life who's knowledge seemed to have no bounds, carrying around an encyclopaedia of information inside her own mind. She also seemed to care, she'd always turn her head and look away like she thought Derek couldn't notice her anymore, and she'd frown pensively into the distance, and it almost always occurred when the topic of his family came up – which seemed to happen a lot, especially in recent days.

Thrown a curve ball by the detestable bitch more commonly known as Kate Argent, Derek had tried his hardest to check her reliability. He'd be dammed if he fell for her lies again, and he wanted to avenge Laura in the only way he knew how. Alone, however, he had been on the cusp of dry heaving several times as he scrolled through her socials, sickening pictures of her smiling radiantly with some quirky caption, living her life as though she hadn't murdered an entire family and ruined his life. He had no choice but to recruit help, and Eleanor had jumped at the opportunity to feel like they were making progress.

She had, however, faltered when Derek had produced a rather feminine looking bag. "What's that?" she asked cautiously, regarding it with the same amount of suspicion one might give to a live bomb.

"My sisters," he answered shortly, "it was what was left in her hotel room." Purposefully, he neglected to mention that it was the same hotel room that he was currently residing in, having taken over the bill after it made the news she had been brutally murdered. While not ashamed at the fact he had to use fake crocodile tears to get the other key (he did feel bad that they weren't real tears, but he was sure he'd get to that point when his task of vengeance was complete), he wasn't willing to go around admitting that freely.

She had done that sad look and, just as he had expected, all traces of her live smell evaporated from under his nose completely and he was left with the stagnant scent of her room. "Why don't you look through Argent's pages?" she suggested, and Derek dug his fingers deeply into the palm of his hand to refrain from snapping at her moodily.

"No." And he didn't say anything more. Thankfully, Eleanor also seemed to be one of the few people – possibly even the only one – who didn't expect much from him, and so she just shrugged awkwardly and sank into her mattress, pulling a laptop out from under the other pillow.

They did their respective tasks in silence, occasionally Eleanor would click forcefully down on her track pad and tut under her breath, presumably a bad internet connection, or maybe she could sense Kate's falseness already, and Derek browsed through the little of Laura's things he had in the state with probably too much disconnect. While, yes, he could sense that these belonged to his sister, it didn't quite seem to register that these were among the last things she ever touched. The very same grey hoodie he had just been holding may have been something she had pressed against herself before venturing out into the woods that night, it might have been what she could have been wearing. What he might have ended up burying half of her in.

The moments passed, each content to let the silence hang and, for once, Eleanor didn't seem eager to have it filled. Only she did eventually, gasping sharply and her heart rate sky rocketing. His eyes were on her before she even looked up from her screen. "I forgot!" she proclaimed, and Derek could feel his brows pinch together instinctively. "Scott McCall," she started and Derek's interest was instantly gone, looking back towards the crumpled and creased bit of hotel paper he had found in the compartment of Laura's bag, trying to figure out if it was an O or an A. "He told me to tell you that he accepts your offer." Derek could practically hear the quotation marks.

It took him a second longer than it should have to fit together the pieces. Surprised, almost pleasantly so, Derek put the paper down and looked just above Eleanor's head pensively.

Unable to take this particular silence with as much grace as she had earlier, Eleanor shifted restlessly. "Well?" she pressed, "what did you offer him?"

Much to his surprise, he almost found himself telling her without another thought. Managing to catch himself before he did, however, he kept dutifully silent. It was worth it to see her squirm.

"Derek," she muttered, fed up, and not for the first time he let himself wonder what it would have been like to give into her, what she would have sounded like whispering his name into his ear, what she would have felt like underneath him, melting into his touch as nicely as she did. "You're seriously not gonna tell me?" there was a heated spark to her tone, one that ignited the air with electricity, and he was reminded once more that she was almost definitely dangerous.

Rolling his eyes and feeling a little petulant, Derek answered, "I offered to help him."

Eleanor's face screwed up at his answer, "oh. That's dull."

Derek closed his eyes briefly, replaying her sentence again and again, reminded almost painfully of Laura.

/ / /

Eleanor stretched her legs out underneath the cafeteria table, resting back against the faded mural that was dated back to the early 90's. The cafeteria was busy, a steady hum of chatter taking place all around her and it made the table she had managed to secure all to herself feel that much sweeter.

Wednesday lunch periods were her favourite. Miranda had a track meet where she'd be forced to eat a home packaged sandwich on her feet as Finstock lamented about something or another, and Kat was sitting at the other end of the room, sitting cozy with James Pert's arm slung comfortably over her shoulder. They often took turns sitting with each other's friends and Pert had always been rather keen on making sure that Wednesday's they'd take place with his friends, where he'd sit at the head of the table and, occasionally when he didn't think he was being watched, he'd pass weary eyes Eleanor's way. She didn't need to have her eyes on him to know what he was doing.

It was amusing, but only because she had her grip on Katrina long before he had, his words of warning did nothing but make Kat laugh and dismiss him entirely. He was a peculiar anomaly, one of the few full humans who could sense her difference in energy, a gut feeling that told him to stay far away for she wasn't all she seemed to be. She had encountered few like him in her time, so she felt right in declaring him to be one of the most idiotic. Hopefully, time would tell him to trust his gut instinct – that it was there for a reason, and often, that reason was something you didn't want to know.

Eleanor smiled to herself, catching his eye for the briefest of seconds and taking great pleasure in watching him turn just as quick, disguising his lick of panic as an awkward movement to place a soft kiss on the side of Kat's head.

Letting out a breath of a laugh, she picked up an apple and placed it to her mouth, taking a clean, sharp bite. She turned her cell in her free hand, careful not to pull the earphones she had worn to ward off any unwelcome visitors out her ears, contemplating if she should hit play and submerge herself in 30 minutes of scrolling aimlessly through Twitter or Facebook before she had to return to class. Chewing slowly, she placed her phone face down and sat up slowly, straightening out her back.

Familiar hushed whispers caught her attention before she knew why. Turning and making herself look like she was adjusting herself into a position more comfortable, she turned, pressing her back up against the wall and lifting her feet up onto the spare seat. Scott McCall, despite his apparent best efforts at hiding, was the half of the duo she identified first, ducking his head low to the table, shielding himself from God knows what.

Arching a brow, feeling deeply amused, Eleanor took another bite from her apple and observed them silently.

"- crap has infiltrated my life, so now I have to do something about it… Plus I'm definitely a better Yoda than Derek." Eleanor had to stop herself from snorting with mirth.

Derek's presence had been pretty scarce, something that she supposed was understandable. Their searching had come up with little to nothing – Argent was likely telling the truth, and Laura's belongings had been nothing more than a reminder to Derek that his older sister was dead and wouldn't be coming back.

It was odd, not anticipating his shadow lurking in dark corners, or just waiting for the next call of bad news, it almost felt as if her life had been catapulted back to what it had been several months before, when her knowledge of Derek Hale was very slim and Scott McCall was nothing more than an unidentifiable face in the hall way. She didn't miss him in the same way she'd perhaps miss a friend, but there was a noticeable gap in her life now that made her feel rather spooked.

However, they were back at the very beginning with nothing more than speculation, and since they most definitely were not friends, his time had been predominantly taken over with his attempt at being Scott's Lycanthropy for Beginners teacher, as opposed to lazing around her bedroom staring at the wall with nothing to talk about. But judging by the speed it had taken Scott to turn to Stiles Stilinski, a boy who had about as much knowledge about the Supernatural as a freshly born infant, it probably wasn't going very well.

"- you know what?" Stiles was continuing, licking at his lips and pinning Scott with a look that she couldn't see properly, "I definitely still hate you. Uh-huh! Oh yeah." He scraped himself out from his seat, snatching the book from before Scott's face, denying him the pleasure of hiding.

She watched as Scott balked and scurried to catch up and caught the moment when a very pretty brunette stood up, calling his name. Rolling her eyes, Eleanor turned her focus back to her empty tray.

/ / /

The day had come and gone, and with it went the bright blue Californian skies. The sky was dark, almost deep purple in colour from smog, and Eleanor lay within the comfort of her own home, sprawled on the sofa on her stomach, head turned towards the TV, cheek pressed against the leather. It was one of her more boring Wednesday nights, and she would be the first to admit it, but the mid-week party she had been invited to by Miranda and Kat was at the bottom of the list of things she'd rather occupy her time with.

Much of her afternoon had been studies of various topics, from Chemistry and History, to practicing sigils of protection and various tricks and tips from a book she hadn't cracked open in many years. She ate dinner alone, receiving a frenzied voicemail from Thomas apologising, but he had a last-minute case to prepare for with a hearing first thing Monday morning, and he already had a pretty heavy caseload already so overtime was a must, but she wasn't to worry, he'd get his intern to pick him up something for dinner, and if she needed it, he had a stash of money in his top drawer that she could use for Chinese or pizza.

It didn't bother her at all, in fact she was pleased that she wouldn't have to deal with his presence, but she left that out of her text for obvious reasons. Her mind and body ached and throbbed with a sort of exhaustion that surpassed mental and physical. Being disturbed was the last thing she wanted.

The good thing that came from it, however, was the low level thrumming she could feel radiate through her body, from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. It was a comfort she hadn't felt in a while, a sure sign that she was getting stronger, able to contain the power she had harvested healthily and without mishap. Just the thought of what it meant made her lips twitch into a half smile.

Silently, Eleanor watched the TV with only a little interest. A rerun of an episode of Gilmore Girls she had likely seen twenty times over, and if she really paid attention she could probably quote a few lines off the top of her head. While not especially tired, the eccentric ramblings of Lorelei Gilmore were surprisingly soothing, and the last coherent thought she could remember having was distinctly wondering if the characters were magical and powerful like her.

It didn't last long. Three sharp taps to a door was enough to make Eleanor sit straight, ignoring the way her cheek ripped off from the leather, and her heart stuttered. End credits rolled over the screen, and the house in its entirety was quiet, listening so hard that she could hear Miranda's younger brother across the street play with his Playstation.

Just as she nestled back into the cushions, making peace with the fact that it was her mind playing cruel tricks, possibly a side effect from lazing around for the first time since the presence of the Alpha had been made aware to her, several knocks sounded from the kitchen in rapid succession again. Eleanor gulped thickly before standing.

On her way to the kitchen, she grabbed a paperweight. Slightly pedestrian, but the nervous tension in her body compelled her to hold something. Eleanor tiptoed the length of the kitchen, moving swiftly to the back door. She pressed her back up against the wall, hovering a hand above the doorknob.

"Hello?" she called out, tentative and cautious. There was the unmistakable sound of a heartbeat, but in the midst of her own panic she couldn't tell if it was just hers. "Who's there?" she tested, hoping for something of a clue, "I'm – I'm armed!"

A crackling wheeze filtered under the door and for a moment, Eleanor just started puzzled. It shared likeliness to the crackle of a fireplace, an almost entirely uncommon fixture in any Californian home. Curiosity getting the better of her, she grasped at the handle and twisted, slowly pulling open the door.

The back yard was dark, lit only by the neighbour's lights on either side of the wooden fence, but even then, she still had to squint to make out anything. Empty, would be a word to describe it. Neither Eleanor nor Thomas had an affinity for proper gardening (all of Eleanor's interests she preferred to keep close, somewhere where the neighbourhood cats couldn't pee all over them), so it wasn't much to look at, just regularly primed by one of the local boys who wanted to earn a few dollars, but even that was only for show so they didn't have to answer to the NHA.

Eleanor yelped loudly, stumbling back into the kitchen. Something had brushed against her feet. Something that felt undeniably like human fingers.

Derek Hale lay on her back porch, face down, hands bloodied and trembling.

/ / /

With great difficulty, she had managed to pull Derek into her house before the neighbours started to gather outside to investigate the source of her scream, and with even greater difficulty she had sat him up on her sofa and pulled of his jacket and shirt (which was definitely not the way she had imagined her first-time undressing Derek Hale would go). He had several small entrance points along his back, each narrowly missing the length of his spine by some unknown miracle. She didn't know much about the danger points in the human body, but the spine certainly seemed like one of them, even for a werewolf.

He had passed out not long after (which Eleanor may or may not have played a part in), and so she sat on the ground just before him, the TV on silent so she could listen to the steady rhythm of his heart and his raspy breaths. Anxiety still thrummed through her body, her hands trembling ever so slight and her thoughts oddly stagnant and yet so muddled.

In his drowsy state, he was able to alert her to the fact that this was the Alpha's work, and she knew immediately that this wouldn't be something he could just sleep off and, instead, would probably take several days for him to get back to normal. Eleanor turned her head, sneaking a look at Derek's lax face, younger in sleep and looking somewhat peaceful despite the dried blood around his mouth and down his chin.

Sighing, she leaned back against the sofa, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. The way her body had yearned for rest before had completely evaporated, and now she was eager to wait. Something told her that the Alpha was likely considering Derek unfinished business, and she was alert for any sign of danger. She chewed at the inside of her cheek, absently watching an ad for expensive pet insurance.

Eleanor wondered about the likelihood of her own safety, something she hadn't considered in a long while. She wondered if the Alpha was aware of her presence, if he had been watching her as keenly as he appeared to watch Derek. And what of Thomas? Revenge was high on the Alpha's list, but just how liberal was he at handing out his vendetta? Would her alignment with Derek put her on the list, and if so, did that extend to her entire family? Suddenly Thomas' silence was worrying.

Sharply, she gasped, pressing her fingers to her mouth to smother any noise of shock.

Scott McCall.

All at once, she was reminded of his conversation with Stiles at lunch, where he had told his friend of Derek's plans to train him after his shift at the vet clinic. The healthy puppies insured under APIC made her feel slightly queasy.

Eleanor got up to her feet clumsily, grasping the TV remote between clammy fingers. Derek had turned up alone, bruised, beaten and battered, and she wasn't sure that this rested in Scott's favour. She paced the length of the coffee table, careful not to bump into Derek's outstretched, sleep limp arm that draped down onto the floor, punching in number sequences onto the remote, trying to find the local news channel.

The longer her search went on, the thicker the lump at the back of her throat got. Whatever had happened to him, she hoped it had been quick and relatively pain free. Not one for best case scenarios and the entire situation already making her rather pessimistic, she didn't even let herself contemplate his miraculous escape.

" - where five students were trapped inside of the school, fearing for their lives."

Eleanor stopped still in her tracks. The screen split in two, and alongside the news reporter sitting at his desk came a petite woman with a very stern face.

"Nia, what can you tell us?"

There was a moment of silence as she was fed his live feed, and Eleanor watched with bated breath as the on-site reporter held her microphone closer to her face.

"Yes, hello Andrew. You're joining me at quite the scene down here at Beacon Hills High School. It has been confirmed that five of their own students were trapped inside of the school for almost two whole hours. No suspects have been arrested, but we have received reports that Sheriff's department are starting to process a warrant for an arrest. The kids made it out with no physical injuries, but it is expected that the mental –"

Eleanor sighed, her body sagging with relief. She turned and glanced back a Derek who was still sleeping soundly and nodded, the picture becoming clearer in her head. While she could only make assumptions based on the very little information she had at hand, she liked to think that whatever Derek had done had been a contributing factor for saving Scott's life. Tipping her head up to stare at the ceiling, she stretched her arms out and arched her back until it clicked, ridding herself of the built-up tension.

"Sorry, Nia, but we actually have breaking news. A state-wide warrant has been issued for suspect Derek Hale, who is assumed to be armed and very dangerous."

Eleanor looked back to the TV quickly, just in time to see the mugshot of the man she had sprawled out and sick on her sofa fade in. It was recent, and most of it was artistically interpreted, the sharp glare of his eyes had skewed the quality, casting a harsh white glare over most of his face. It was a face to remember however, and the drawing that had been sketched out roughly held remarkable likeness.

She felt guilty before a full thought could be completely about Derek's innocence. Very briefly, and only for a second, Eleanor contemplated his nature and how much of a reach it would be to believe that he was capable of something so heinous.

Just as quick as the doubt had crept in, she was flooded with a sharp sensation of pure panic.

A tip line flashed across the screen, and she could see the news anchor tell, in detail, the recent entanglement he had had with law enforcement in his short time back in Beacon Hills, and they were painting a very convincing story. Buried the missing half of his sisters' body on his old property, had lingered around when there was nothing left for him, conveniently around the time when bodies started to drop like flies.

"Oh my God," she gasped, rubbing the palm of her hand over her cheek, "oh my God!" The remote clattered to the ground and she threated her fingers through her hair, digging her nails into her skull. She bit down hard on her lower lip to refrain from yelling explicits whilst California's most wanted man snoozed on her sofa. At the moment, a sleeping Derek was a safe Derek.

On the verge of breaking down, she picked her cell from coffee table and with shaky fingers, flicked through her contacts and pressed dial.

It didn't take long before he picked up, answering with a lazy hello.

"I need you to get home. Now. Like, right this second."

She could hear him straighten and the beat of his heart raise to an elevated panic. "Why?" Thomas demanded, "what's wrong? Are you hurt? In trouble?"

Eleanor wanted to cackle. "No!" she breathed shaking her head, "yes," she amended within a second. "Maybe. I just – you need to come home. I –" pausing, she looked over her shoulder, glancing at Derek's still body. "I can't say anything on this. But get here quick."

"Eleanor, I –"

"Thomas!" she interrupted shrilly, "you'll see when you get here. Get into your car and drive home, don't make any stops." Hanging up, she pressed the side of her cell to her chest.

Thomas bust in through the front door fifteen minutes later, out of breath and sweaty. With five minutes shaved off the standard time it took to drive to the office in minimal traffic, she considered him lucky he was a good lawyer to get himself out of those traffic violations.

"Eleanor, what –" he cut himself off, hanging in the door way and staring with large bug eyes at Derek Hale. "What have you done?" he accused in a whisper, conscious of Derek's large size compared to him and deciding quite rightly not to poke the sleeping bear. "What did you do?" Thomas demanded, edging closer and cautiously. She could see the exact moment he spotted Derek's shirtless state and a second later when he located his shirt, sticky and still wet with blood, bundled into a ball on top of the coffee table. He said nothing else, just turned to her with wide, panicked eyes.

They started at one another for a moment, Eleanor unsure how to approach the subject of her stowing a fugitive, and Thomas probably thinking up the worst possible scenarios. "Did you –" Thomas cleared his throat, looking decidedly more pale, "is he… you know…"

"He's fine," Eleanor flicked her hand through the air, turning over her shoulder and pointing the remote at the TV, turning up the volume. They were still talking about the school, and Derek's picture was still on screen down at the bottom right, a large headline stating his name and the very accusatory MURDERER next to it.

Thomas looked up, catching site of the TV and took a few seconds to mull it over. "Thank God," he murmured eventually, breathing a very audible sigh of relief. Eleanor balked, confused. "I thought you killed him; I didn't want to spend my night burying a body."

Oddly touched by his sentiment, Eleanor smiled tensely. "No," she confirmed, "he just showed up like this."

"So, you're not in trouble then?" he asked, although she could tell that he really wanted to know if she had any involvement in the terrorisation of five high school teens. She shook her head.

Looking pleased that she, at least, hadn't been in trouble that night, he passed by the couch, casting a weary glance over Derek's body and paling only a little, and collapsed into the armchair untainted with blood. "So," he started, looking very pointedly at Eleanor, "I take it getting questioned about his sister isn't the only piece of trouble Mr Hale has been getting himself into?"

Eleanor scowled.

She had been successful on keeping Thomas relatively in the dark, and by that, he knew about her, he knew about the Hale's, and he knew she had some weird inherited duty to serve and protect them. Eleanor was fine with that. He had picked up on the fact that it, perhaps, wasn't just a mountain lion that was prowling the streets of Beacon Hills (her behaviour had probably tipped him off on that, what with her sudden interest in reading the newspaper and listening to the news and whatever else was covering the sudden uptick in violent, feral animals), but he hadn't made an attempt at guessing who or what it really was.

He knew enough to excuse her random outings during the night, the second pair of footsteps he may have heard in her bedroom at night, and he never once lectured her for a glass broken from a trick gone wrong.

"Uh," she stumbled, looking down at her feet, looking to Derek, and then at the puddle of blood that had been left by Derek's shirt. "There's another werewolf in town. He's, uh, he's not good."

"Not like the Hale's?"

Eleanor shook her head. "No. Not like, uh, not like the Hale's. He's – They're out for revenge…"

Thomas' brows raised. "Are you –"

"Oh no," she denied quickly, and if it was too quick Thomas didn't say anything about it, "we don't know what they're getting back at, but it's most certainly not me. We – that's Derek and I – are trying to figure out who they are and get them to stop. It's Hale territory, and as long as Derek's in Beacon Hill's, he has the right to tell them to leave," in theory anyway, she added to herself.

Thomas said nothing for a second, mulled it over before nodding. "Okay, so I don't need to worry about turning on the news one day to you being the next victim of… uh, mass murderer Derek Hale?"

Eleanor smiled, bitter. "No," she promised, "Derek's not gonna kill me." The Alpha, however, she made sure not to promise anything about that.

/ / /

I'm so sorry it's taken literal months to get back to this! University came out of nowhere and slapped me in the face with responsibilities. But my final ever deadline is tomorrow so I can write without feeling guilty for it not being about something dull and academic.

I have a portion of the next chapter already written, so that should be up within the next week hopefully.

Drop a review and let me know what you think!