(A/N): This chapter has been a long time coming. I was encouraged by the kind reviews left by user i am cloud. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the reviews you left me lately! I tried to private message you directly but you have them turned off... hopefully this new chapter is sufficient thanks.

Let me know what you guys think. I will try to get the next chapter posted soon! :)

This was the second time she had been over to Derek's house. The first time was a rather short visit, and even at that time, she had been overwhelmed by the size of the estate.

They had something that her mom later explained to her was 'acreage', which means a lot of land. Some of that land was woods, but there was plenty that just served as their expansive back yard.

Bea didn't get the opportunity to do much exploring that first night. They had agreed to team up for a project and there was very little time for them to do much else but use his mother's office to type up pages and glue them onto a flimsy poster for their presentation next week. But it was enough time for her to meet his family, and boy—did he have a huge family.

She had said as much to him that first night, and now as they stood by the fire pit and watched the chaos around them, she found herself saying it again.

"Your family is huge," she muttered through the side of her mouth at Derek.

He stood next to her with his hands in his pockets. They were watching his uncle Peter make very efficient use of an axe, chopping what seemed like an unreasonably large tree trunk down into manageable logs for the fire.

"I guess so," Derek said, which was the same thing he said last time, too. "Doesn't seem like it to me." He paused and turned thoughtfully to her. "Your family is small."

Bea snorted.

"How much wood do we even need?" Laura asked. She was his oldest sister, and Bea was more than a little intimidated by her. She was the type of beautiful that was powerful. With dark wavy hair that was pulled back into a half ponytail, dark eyes that were lined with kohl, and a plaid shirt tied around her waist, she made outdoor living look like it belonged on the runway.

But a gorgeous appearance alone wouldn't have been enough to intimidate Bea. Not at that age, at least. Laura had the kind of presence to back up her beauty. She was very self-assured. The way she and their father quipped back and forth was, at times, hard for Bea to keep up with. More than a few of what she sensed were jokes flew over her head entirely.

Peter paused from chopping to accept a bottle of water Laura passed to him.

He wasn't even sweating yet, which Bea found impressive, since her dad came into the house drenched with sweat just from mowing the lawn—and they certainly didn't have acreage like the Hales did.

"Well," said the other man that stood with them. Derek's dad. "Let's think about that, since you asked."

He didn't sound critical, or sarcastic, or even condescending, like Peter might have. Bea was learning that Derek's dad had a very pragmatic way of viewing the world, and that he enjoyed problem solving, and he enjoyed challenging his children to think critically even more.

Laura scoffed. "What's there to think about? Are we fueling the furnace of a ship tonight?"

Peter shot her an expression that said just how stupid he thought her comment was. "Do you honestly believe that ships burn wood, Laura? Is that what school is teaching you kids these days?"

"Kids? Please, Peter, spare me the routine. You know how condescending you sound when you say that, right?"

Peter gestured at her using the water bottle with a fake smile. "I'm sorry, did you want me to skip the routine or respond to that?"

"I want you to quit referring to me as a child," Laura quipped back with an identical fake smile reflected on her face. "I haven't been a child for years now."

Peter looked almost pitying. "According to who?"

"According to whom," Laura sneered back, and Peter dropped his faux-sympathy to roll his eyes dramatically. Then, Laura decided to go ahead and answer his rhetorical question with loud exuberance. "According to me, bitch, that's who!"

Her dad protested her language in front of 'guests', but neither Laura nor Peter paid him any attention.

"Whom!" Peter mocked, making an ugly face at her. She tried to swipe at him, her teeth bared, but he merely stepped out of the way. "You know, only children feel the need to insist that they're an adult."

"Not when they have Peter freaking Hale as an assho—"

"Ships burn oil," Derek's dad interjected before Laura had the chance to fire off whatever comeback she had loaded for Peter. "But to answer the original question I think you were asking: no. We won't be using all this wood tonight, but we'll use a few logs, and I want to start a pile over by the shed for future use."

"Future use?" Laura rolled her gaze over to Peter, but he had set his bottle of water down on the pit beside them and swung his axe over his head to resume chopping. The impact of metal to wood snapped through the open field that was their backyard, the sound reverberating on the tree line. Bea shifted to keep from flinching at the unfamiliar noise. Derek noticed this, but didn't offer comment. "So this is, like, gonna be a thing now? Bonfires? Camping?"

"Maybe," their dad lightly responded with a shrug. "Probably. Not—" he said, holding a hand up in a futile effort to silence Derek's whooping cheers, "camping. But bonfires, sure. For the meetings."

"Ahhh," Laura nodded. "The meetings. Say, Uncle Peter—remind me again, who leads those meetings? I can't seem to recall."

He swung the axe again before he responded. "Honestly, I can't believe I'm still listening to this. Two weeks later."

"Well you better get used to it!" Laura raised her voice to try and speak over Peter.

"You led one meeting," he continued, raising a single finger and then turning it to point at her. "Don't be overconfident—"

"—going to be leading a lot more after that, you heard what mom said!"

"Don't be overconfident!" Peter said again, this time with some bite, his finger still pointed at Laura and his eyes almost glowing.

Derek's dad stepped up and motioned for them both to relax. "Laura, come on," he said, as she strode across the yard like an agitated wolf, clenching and unclenching her fists. "Is that really necessary?"

"It wouldn't have been," she said through her teeth, "if he didn't insist on making me sound like some incompetent little girl—"

"You started it," Peter reminded her. "It's not my fault that—"

"Oh, my god," Derek's dad murmured, pinching the bridge of his nose. "It's never ending with you two."

Laura hesitated in the searing glare she fixated on Peter. She glanced at her dad, and Bea could see her draw in deep, deliberate breaths. Another few moments passed, and she finally grabbed the sleeves of the flannel tied around her waist to tighten them. "Hmph. I think I've made my point."

"Yes," Peter drawled. "And what a point it was."

Bea looked at Derek from the corner of her eye. "What was the point, again?" she whispered at him.

Derek snorted and shrugged a shoulder as Laura's sharp gaze snapped over to Bea, as though she'd heard. Which was impossible because she was standing way too far away. Still, the message was clear: shut up. Bea averted her gaze and pretended not to be listening.

"So, Bea," Derek's dad spoke up. She looked back at him as he propped a foot against the short wall of the stone firepit and rested his arm along his knee. He wore pale blue denim jeans, which were streaked with ash and soot from his fingers. A brown cloth hung out one of the back pockets and his shirt was similarly stained, black streaks across the burnt orange material he wore. "Where else have you gone camping?"

She shied under all the attention that was suddenly focused on her. Laura had turned to hear her answer and Derek was attentive as well.

Bea toed at a rock on the ground and shrugged. "Uh, this will be my first time, I guess."

"Really?" His dad rose his eyebrows. "Well you've come to the right place!" He gave a winning smile. "I happen to know the best ghost stories around."

"Ghost stories?" She blinked owlishly and Derek pumped his fists victoriously.

"Aw, yes!" Derek's grin spread from ear to ear. "That's perfect! Think you can tell one before Tyler leaves, too?"

His dad pretended to consider it seriously, rubbing at his chin. "Ohhh, I guess I could. Sure it won't be too spooky for him? I wouldn't wanna traumatize the poor kid. Remember Cora's night terrors last time we did this?"

"They didn't stop for weeks," Derek smirked, a glint in his eye. "It was great."

"To be fair," Laura added with a finger raised. "Cora's night terrors were a thing long before she heard dad's scary stories."

"They got worse, though," Derek pointed out.

"Hmmmm." Laura shrugged. "Yeah, probably."

"Cora's the baby of the family. She's scared of her own shadow," Derek told Bea.

Laura sent him a withering look. "She's four years old; give her a break, would ya?"

Derek rocked back on his heels. "I remember when I was four—"

"Yeah, me too," Peter snarked. "Wasn't that long ago."

"Bite me!" Derek snapped, causing his dad to choke on a laugh. The man covered his face when Peter turned to glare at him. "As I was saying, I remember when I was four—"

"You mean when you still snuck in bed to sleep with mommy?" Laura taunted with a mocking pout, and Derek's face flamed bright red.

He very pointedly did not look at Bea. Instead he lunged at his older sister with fire and retribution in his eyes.

Laura dodged him and tried to simply shove him away, but he just kept coming, determined to have his pound of flesh.

"Kids!" Their dad half-heartedly called, using a tone that suggested he knew it was useless to intervene at this point but was obligated by dad-law to try.

Derek feinted another grab and then tried to kick Laura, but she evaded him. "Hah! Juked ya, Der-Bear!"

The fact that she made it look so easy only seemed to stoke the flames of Derek's growing temper.

He roared and raced after her as she streaked across the yard faster than Bea thought was possible, shouting taunting obscenities at him the whole time.

Part of Bea wondered if she should go after them, being a kid herself—if that was normal, to play in such an overtly aggressive way.

Or maybe their dad should, she thought, casting a surreptitious gaze his way. But then, he didn't look particularly concerned.

He pulled a pack of vanilla flavored cigars out from his pocket and withdrew one, rolling it between his fingers under his nose with an appreciative sniff. Out in the woods, in the distance, Bea could hear branches and sticks snapping—Laura's smug and amused ridicule under-toning Derek's enraged screeching.

Their dad and their uncle Peter, however, carried on like nothing was amiss. Like it happened all the time.

Then their dad turned and held the cigar out as though to offer it to Bea, and she must have made a funny face at him, because he barked out a laugh that sounded just like Derek. "Joking, joking. Only joking."

He bent down to pick up the lighter they'd set along the edge of the firepit and used it to light his smoke. A thin trail of sweet scented smoke wafted above them, and he sighed again as he looked around the yard. A particularly loud crash reverberated over the yard, and Bea thought she might have heard Derek yowling in pain and Laura laughing, but she couldn't be sure.

Their dad let out a long, dramatic sigh. "Ahhhh." With one hand on his hip, he stretched his back out and grunted, then sighed sharply as noises from his children's fight continued to echo off the trees around them. He turned to look at Bea as though just remembering she was there, rolling the cigar between his fingers contemplatively.

He lifted it to his lips and looked back at the woods in the direction of the Hale children. "You have any brothers or sisters?"

Bea nodded meekly. "One. A little brother."

He smirked. "So you must know a little of how Laura feels, then."

Slowly, Bea shook her head. "I doubt it..."

At that, he loudly laughed. The smile on his face made his eyes crinkle in the corners like her dad's and Bea felt some tension ebb away and she found herself smiling tentatively back. He peered back in the direction of the woods and sighed again. "I should probably think of some way to punish them..." he looked miffed, and maybe a bit whiny, like dolling out punishments for his children quarreling was a chore.

But, again, he didn't sound mad. He sounded tickled, if anything.

Suddenly, he snapped his fingers and bent down to retrieve the lighter. He stashed it in his back pocket and said, "I'll make them light a fire with no lighter."

Peter snorted to himself and stopped long enough to fix his sleeve, which had ridden up to his shoulder. "Really? Your children? If you do that, we might as well forget about the whole thing. No way they can figure out how to get it lit."

"I think I taught them," mused Derek's dad, tilting his head back to peer up at the darkening sky as he mulled it over. "Did I…. or… yes, that was Laura. I know it was. Wasn't it? Gah! I can't remember. I think my memory's failing me in my old age," he whined, pushing his fingers through his salt and pepper hair with despair.

Peter scoffed. "That would make sense. It would also explain how you still owe me seven hundred and fifty dollars for that Steelers game."

A beat passed and Bea watched him pull a long draw from the cigar, filling his mouth with smoke until his cheeks puffed out. He held it and then tilted his head back to let a ring of smoke puff through the air. It swirled away, and Bea looked on with wide eyes. She had never seen someone do something like that before!

Peter's deadpan expression never shifted as he watched over his shoulder. Their dad turned as though just registering that Peter was addressing him. "Oh, you mean me?"

"Who else?" Peter practically hissed, his patience wearing thin.

He pulled the cigar from his lips and looked askance at Bea. "Bea? Anything you have to say for yourself?"

She stared blankly at him for a moment, totally lost. He just raised his eyebrows at her. Then, mildly offended, she couldn't decide whether to laugh or be concerned when she realized that he thought she somehow owed Peter hundreds of dollars.

She opened her mouth to clarify, but the glint in his eyes and the way Peter shot him a death glare clued her in. He was teasing her!

Her jaw dropped, and Peter shot him an exasperated look, and Bea felt a grin, unbidden, twitch on her lips.

"Man! You're a tough nut to crack." He reached down to point at a spot on her shirt. "Got something on your shirt."

She narrowed her eyes at him. He kept his finger pointing at the same spot and raised his eyebrow after a moment.

"Seriously, it's really big and—"

"No there's not." Bea crossed her arms right over the spot he was talking about. "I know that trick!"

"I think it might be a bug! Ewwww, what kind of bug is that?! It's got so many legs!"

Her eyes went wider and she glanced over at Peter to see if he was looking at something on her shirt too. He wasn't. In fact, he looked ready to clobber their dad over the head with the dull end of the axe. All at once, she realized that not only had their dad tried the lamest trick in the book to get her to laugh, he'd also used it as a way to deflect Peter asking after money he supposedly owed him.

"Whatever," Peter finally grunted, disgusted. "I'm going to get my money, old man. With interest."

Derek crashed through tree line like he'd been thrown, tumbling across the ground and rolling to a stop. His head smashed against a particularly pointy looking rock and he groaned as he finally came to a stop.

Bea straightened, but the fact that neither adult leapt to make sure he was okay made her think it wasn't as bad as it looked. Surreptitiously, she swiped at her shirt to make sure there was no bug when their dad wasn't looking. Peter raised an eyebrow at her but she made a face at him and proceeded to ignore his responding eye roll.

Derek still lay in a ball, moaning on the ground. Laura finally came trampling out the woods, looking disheveled and delighted.

Laura's face was bright with satisfied glee as she stepped haphazardly over her fallen brother like he was nothing more than a stump in her path. He breathlessly grunted when her muddy tennis shoe stomped his chest as she stepped directly in the middle of it to cross over him. Bea could have sworn she saw her grind her toe in a little, too.

Peter huffed and shook his head at Laura as she rejoined them. She dusted off her hands like she'd come back from a hard day of work. "Oh, man! Can't remember the last time I stretched my legs like that." She twisted a knee and Bea heard something pop. "What'd I miss?" She grinned, and then her eyes dulled and seemed to glaze over.

Laura paused, and if Bea didn't know any better, she would say that it looked like she sniffed the air. Laura's eyes narrowed and her brow furrowed as she looked from Peter to her dad, who—at some point—had extinguished and discarded of his cigar like it was never there. Bea did a double take.

"I'm telling mom!" Laura announced.

"Up-up-up!" Her dad warned. "Only if you want me to tell her about the scene you two just caused in front of our guest."

Laura hesitated, her eyes trailing grudgingly to the side to pass over Bea. A beat passed and she deflated with a frustrated snarl. "Fine," she hissed. "One time pass."

"Right," her dad scoffed. "Try to remember who the parent is, here."

"Whatever," Laura sneered, and then turn to set off towards the house just as Derek finally joined them, trying to straighten out his clothes.

Bea thought she saw a streak of dirt across his face, but she couldn't be sure, because he lifted the neck of his shirt up and scrubbed his face with it.

"She cheated," Derek muttered. "Sore loser."

"I heard that!" Laura shouted from their back deck that overlooked the yard. "You want a round two, punk?"

"Bring it, Bridget!" He challenged, with more conviction than Bea felt was warranted, given the fact that Laura had just wiped the floor with him. But that was Derek for you. Always itching for a contest. Or maybe he just liked to fight.

"Don't call me that!" Laura warned, pointing down at him.

"God, when is she moving out?" Derek rolled his eyes away from her to focus on their father. "Hey, dad. Is Laura too old for that all-girl's boarding school upstate?"

His dad snorted. "By about a decade."

"How old is she?" Bea asked without thinking.

Derek's eyes blew wide and his dad sighed tiredly, answering on his behalf. "Old enough to know better."

Bea waited, but Derek appeared to have no desire to clarify any further, and besides that, Laura called out again. "Hey, Derek! Your little friend is here!"

"What?" Derek shouted back. "Bea? Don't be rude! She's been here! Remember? She was standing here the whole time!"

"Not her!" Laura retorted. "Idiot! Michael!"

Derek and Bea exchanged a bewildered look. "Michael Anderson? From basketball? Who invited him?"

"Uh—scratch that! I guess he changed his name to Tyler. Whatever."

"I didn't change it," a quieter voice cut out from the deck beside her, and Bea caught sight of Tyler's spikey black hair. "Clean the wax outta your ears, lady! I'm TY-LER! Always have been! Always will be! Remember it!"

"Listen here, you little brat—"

"Tyler, get down here!" Derek lifted a log and waved it over his head. "We were just about to light the fire!"

"Oh." His dad jumped up and went to retrieve some logs from the pile that was still growing beside Peter, and a crack resounded across the yard as Peter split another piece of wood. "Guess that's my cue."

So much for forcing them to light the fire as punishment, she thought.

Bea was used to her own tight-knit family—her brother and her parents, that was the extent of it. All her grandparents were dead (save for her dad's father, whom he spoke little about and she thought stayed in some sort of living facility), and she had no aunts, uncles or cousins.

Being at Derek's house was, therefore, an eye opening experience. She quickly came to realize that there were different types of families. Up until now, she had always assumed that everyone was like her. That everyone only had their parents and their siblings and that was it.

Not true. Derek has two sisters, and his uncle Peter, and his Aunt Marie—who was indeed scary—plus his parents, and they had lots of other people traipsing through the property, both in the house and gathered in small groups outside. Grownups, who Bea wasn't quite certain were directly related to any of the Hales, and yet looked perfectly comfortable being at their house. Like they were there all the time. Like they belonged there.

She never strayed far from Derek, felt way too overwhelmed to even consider it. No, instead, she made it a point to stick close to he and Tyler.

Tyler was… another curveball. Already overwhelmed by the flurry of activity that happened around them, she was only made to feel even more out of place by the way that Tyler so easily folded himself into the fray. Where she felt out-of-place and dazed, he was thriving in their chaotic environment and appeared even more at home than Derek did. Which was weird.

And he didn't seem to like her all that much. Tyler wanted to run outside, to race and climb trees, and she… well, didn't. She just wasn't that kind of adventurous. Less physically inclined, as her dad might describe it.

But Tyler… Tyler was incredibly physical and bold and he had very little patience for anyone who voiced caution or questioned whether trying to race to the highest branch of a tree was even a good idea.

"Huh?" He turned away from the overlarge oak tree to make a face at Bea. "What are you talking about? It'll be great!"

"It's just really high," Bea tried to explain, even as Tyler waved her off.

"Exactly!" He insisted. "We need to get to higher ground, so that we can see more stuff around us. Trust me on this. My dad taught me all this stuff. How else are we supposed to spot the Snipe!?"

"That might be a good plan, actually," Derek agreed with a shrug.

Bea hesitated and looked away from where Tyler practically vibrated in his shoes with anticipation. "Umm…" she stammered. "Okay, but what if we fall? We might get hurt."

"Then you stay down here if you're so scared!" Tyler finally snapped. "Just don't get in our way and you'll be fine."

Bea tried not to let that hurt her, because she didn't want to be 'in their way', and Derek immediately stepped forward. "Hey! Tyler, chill out."

Tyler scowled, unimpressed, and looked ready to snap at Derek as well for defending her. But before he had the chance, Derek continued. "I said it was a good idea to get a look around, didn't I? So just go already!"

"You aren't coming with?" Tyler gaped, his eyes flitting to Bea uncertainly, and she knew he blamed her for it. "I mean, what are you going to do down here by yourself? You'll miss the view!"

"I've seen it before," Derek assured him, his tone wrier than she'd ever heard it, and she tried not to make her surprise obvious—because he… he was taking her side, kind of, right? Derek then shrugged a shoulder and added, "Besides, we don't both need to go."

"Wait, Tyler." Bea stepped forward. "Before you go—take this with you. Derek's dad said that we need to use the flashlights to see their eyes. They reflect in the light."

Tyler accepted the heavy duty flashlight with wide eyes and pushed the button. It clicked on and a bright beam of light shot across the forest floor, illuminating vivid green leaves and branches. Bea even saw the telltale signs of a spiderweb in some low-hanging branches, and she resisted the urge to shiver, instead rearranging herself to angle as far away as she could.

"Sweet!" Tyler said about the flashlight, swinging the light around to them. Derek's hands flew up before hers to cover his face, and Bea cried out at the pain of being blinded.

"Dude!" Derek snapped. "Watch where you're pointing that thing!"

"Oh, sorry," Tyler snickered, quickly redirecting the beam of light to focus back on the ground before he switched it off. Derek huffed and grumbled to himself, glancing from Bea to Tyler warily. Bea couldn't tell if he was just more annoyed than she originally thought or if he especially hated the feeling of having a light flashed in his eyes.

"This thing is sweet! Where'd you get it?" Tyler asked Derek, who then hooked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate her.

"I didn't," he said.

Tyler looked at her with wide eyes. "Wait a second, this thing is yours?"

"Uh, well, technically it's my dad's—he… really likes flashlights. He's got a bunch of them. It's kind of…" lame, she was about to say, but Tyler interrupted her before she had the chance to continue.

"Oh, cool!" He grinned widely and she pointed at a strap that hung from it, explaining that he was supposed to strap it to the belt loops on his pants so he didn't need to hold it all the time. After doing so, he swung around to reach for the lowest branch on the tree and Bea called out in alarm.

"Stop! Don't touch that!"

Tyler yanked his hands back and Derek spun on her in surprise. "What?!" Tyler danced side to side with pent up energy.

"Ah—no—it's just, there's a spiderweb there! See?" She pointed at where he had almost touched, and Tyler gasped loudly at the sight of a thick, fat spider flicking its little arms around restlessly in its web.

"Groooossss!" He exclaimed, voice steeped in amazement. "Think it's poisonous?"

Derek frowned sharply at the creature and moved to get a clearer view. "Well, it's dang ugly—that's for sure."

"Best not to bother him," Bea surmised with a nod. "They eat mosquitoes and stuff, so they're alright by me. Just as long as they don't touch me or run at me…"

Tyler gave an exaggerated shudder and nodded quickly. "It's not like I'm scared of him or anything," he hastily added, glancing at Derek. "Just… gross."

"Laura said that it's the female spiders you need to watch out for," Derek advised, eyeing the thing with distaste. "She said they eat the males after they mate."

"After they… what?" Tyler gaped, as Bea's eyes widened and she felt a strange mix of awe and discomfiture roll through her.

Derek looked back at them, oblivious to what would make them uncomfortable. "After they mate," he simply said. "You know, like—"

"Whoa!" Tyler exclaimed, throwing his hands out to stop him. "Derek! Have some respect, dude. There's, like, a lady present."

A beat of silence passed, and Bea and Derek's eyes met—and they couldn't stop themselves from bursting into laughter.

"Sure, sure," Derek placated, waving off Tyler's embarrassed scowl at both of them. "Never mind, then."

But Tyler had already turned away, choosing a different branch on the opposite side of the tree to use as his starting point to climb. "Stay here! I'm going to take a look, you guys keep watch down here."

Derek turned to her with a crooked smirk and gestured for her to stand beside him. "M'lady," he mocked, and she couldn't keep from giggling and bowing into a curtsy.

"M'lord."

"Shut up, guys!" Tyler snapped from above him, as his movements shook leaves out and they fluttered toward the ground.

After the time that she came home from school that rainy afternoon and found her front door wide open, the possibility of it happening again lingered in her mind. She also hadn't forgotten the way it made her feel, standing there and trying to explain to her mom that Stiles had been left alone for way too long and the house left wide open to anyone who walked by.

She knew for a fact that her dad would have a lot to say about that. It was a weird feeling, living with the thought that she knew something her mom did that was… was bad. At least, that's how it felt. But that didn't seem right either. Parents don't get in trouble. The thought was absurd. And yet, she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling in her gut every time she thought of that day.

She'd told no one of the incident. Not her dad. Not even Derek. But no one had to tell her that it was wrong. Bea was fairly confident that parents weren't supposed to just lay in bed when they got the flu, or stomach bug, or migraine, or whatever her mom decided to call it on the rare occasions that it came up in conversation. Especially if it was a sickness that just shook off by the next morning. She knew parents couldn't just quit feeding their children because….

But she had been sick, and Bea was perfectly capable of assembling a sandwich for her brother—and nothing like that had ever happened again! Bea had resolved to let it go, to put it out of her mind like her mom had evidently decided to do, and carry on.

After all, the situation had been handled (by Bea, but still) and nothing really bad had happened. And her mom was all better now. She hadn't even needed to go to the doctors, despite the few times that Bea inquired about it. Her mom went back and forth between claiming it had been a stomach bug and a migraine, but more and more lately she was saying it had been a migraine. And she'd been getting more of those. Along with less sleep.

Then, a few weeks after that incident, Bea had awoken in the night to go grab a glass of water, and found her mom seated at the dining table in the dark. No lights on. Robe tied securely around her waist. Just sitting there.

Bea clutched her racing heart and breathed out a laugh in relief when she processed that it wasn't a villain straight out of a horror movie. "Geeze, mom. Lurk much?"

"Bea." Claudia reached out a hand and gestured for her to join her.

The room was dark, save for a single lamp standing in the corner that illuminated their surroundings just enough for Bea to spy a glass of tea with a lemon floating in it beside what appeared to be a manila envelope. There was a stack of papers that her mom was going through.

At least, that's how it appeared at first. As she drew closer, Bea realized that the papers were more scattered than what she had originally noticed. The ice in the glass of tea had long since melted, leaving a ring of water around it that was trailing across the tabletop and inching towards the scattered documents.

The stack was too thick to know for sure but it seemed like the trail of water disappeared underneath the bottom of it, and Bea had a feeling that at least part of the papers would be drenched if she were to lift the stack up.

"What's this say?" Her mom asked, pulling her into her side.

Being that it was nighttime, Claudia had already removed the makeup that she'd recently started to put on in the mornings. Its absence left her skin looking waxy by comparison, and Bea could clearly see dark smudges under her eyes that weren't usually there.

Tearing her gaze away from the unsettling sight of her mother's sickly appearance, she forced herself to focus on what Claudia pointed at.

"Um…" Bea leaned closer. "Beacon Hills Sheriff Department." She paused, as the bold letters that were printed beside it was not something Bea was used to seeing. "W-2?"

Claudia's previously tired expression relaxed into a grin, dimmed down from the bright wattage it usually shone with. To Bea's surprise, Claudia actually choked out a laugh—though it didn't exactly sound happy. "Good, that's… that's good."

But it didn't sound good. Bea's confusion only grew worse the longer they sat there, perched atop her mother's lap as Claudia continued to pilfer through papers and point and ask Bea to read certain sections to her.

At first she had wondered if it her mother was testing her reading skills—which would be an odd choice in itself given the late hour; Bea should be in bed and so should she—but the longer it went on, the more it seemed like… like Claudia maybe couldn't read them herself. But that wouldn't make sense. Still, there wasn't any other immediate explanation and Claudia had not offered one herself.

"Okay." Claudia thumbed through the stack and motioned for Bea to stand so she didn't have to reach around her as she began to organize them. "W-2?" She clarified, holding the paper up to double-check with Bea before she laid it down on the table.

"Health Savings Account."

Bea nodded, and Claudia added it to the pile.

The next paper was shorter than the rest, a half-sheet as opposed to the other two. "Mortgage interest statement?"

Again, Bea nodded. They continued like this, with Claudia reciting the type of document aloud and Bea confirming, until all that was left were a series of identification cards.

"And this is your dad's Social Security Card."

"Oh—" Bea reached out to still her mom's hand before she could lay that on the top corner of the documents. "But… that says Stiles' name, not dad's."

Claudia drew in a short breath and turned a smile onto Bea, though she could tell it looked forced.

"I was just making sure you were paying attention," she assured, which Bea didn't buy for a second. "These are very important documents, Bea, and I've already put off doing this for far too long. We only have a few days to get this taken care of."

So Bea reached out and began to shuffle through the cards herself. "Dad's Social Security card," she said, laying it down beside Stiles'. "Yours. Mine. Your driver's license."

Claudia sighed softly and after a beat, she nodded. "Good… good. Okay, hand me that binder clip."

Bea did as she was told and handed the small black clip over. She watched as her mom clipped all the documents together and then set about scooping up the leftover papers strewn across the table.

She made a noise of surprise when she reached the stack that had been all but ruined with water, and after asking Bea to identify them, she claimed that they were only copies of original documents anyway so it didn't really matter. They made a squelching sound as Claudia chucked them in the bin.

Bea's hand went up to cover a yawn, and Claudia stopped what she was doing to cast a long look at the clock. "What time is it?"

Bea glanced over at the clock. "The long hand is pointing at the two, and the short hand is pointing at the… well… actually, they're both sort of pointing at the two."

Claudia gasped and let the folder of the documents they'd spent the better part of the night compiling fall down to the table with a slap. "What? That can't be right… that would mean I sat down here at… and… who put Stiles to bed?"

Bea frowned. "You did," she slowly said, but her mom just looked blankly back at her. "You put him to bed early… because he wanted to go to the park, and he kept asking. And you kept… I mean, you said you would go after you finished with this." Bea gestured at the piles of papers. "Only… you didn't get finished in time."

"Why would I… was he… tired?" Claudia asked, sounding uncertain.

Bea looked down, feeling unsure—like she wished her dad was there to pop around the corner and explain everything or take control of the situation. She wished it wasn't left to her to make sense of it all, like she had done the day she came home to find the front door wide open.

"You told him to take a nap and you'd come wake him when it was time to go. That was right after dinner." Which was at nearly eight o'clock that night, much later than their usual mealtime—but somehow that seemed… worse to mention, and Bea was afraid of what would happen if she added that part in. Like the whole situation was a teetering stack and one more problem piled on top would just cause the whole thing to...

"I can't believe… I'll go check on him," Claudia murmured, standing from the chair so fast that it screeched across the floor. "Can you finish cleaning this up?"

Bea was exhausted—so tired that her eyes burned and she had to stifle a yawn every two seconds—and she knew that school tomorrow was going to seriously suck. But despite all that, she nodded, and Claudia disappeared down the hallway with her blue robe swishing behind her.

She sighed and turned back to the table, resigned to her task. Once she was finished, she finally grabbed that glass of water she had originally set out for all those hours ago and made her way back down the hall to her bedroom.

When she trailed past Stiles' open door she could see Claudia had pulled a chair up next to his bed and was stroking hair off his forehead.

As she pulled the covers over herself and turned out the light, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong and that if her dad knew what she'd been doing all night, he'd be upset. It left her feeling sick and conflicted, like something was caught in her throat. She was too scared to try and clear it for fear she'd start crying and not be able to stop.

She rolled over and pulled the blankets tight against her neck and slowly exhaled a sigh. Now that she had finally laid down, she didn't feel tired anymore. Just… weary. Most of all, she wished she had someone to talk to about it, but she couldn't imagine who she could tell. She was… inexplicably afraid to go to her dad. Sure that if it was necessary, her mom would have already let him know, and also, maybe he was already aware?

And after all, she had been with her mom, hadn't she? Her mom would never do anything that would hurt her. Would never allow anything to harm her or Stiles.

Still… somehow, Bea knew, deep in her bones, that it wasn't normal. That something was wrong with her mother.

But what could she do?

(A/N): P.S., for anyone who read Paramnesia, I am in the midst of a big rewrite for that. The events taking place in this prequel have somewhat shifted the way I see that story going down. It'll all be for the better though, no worries.

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