Chapter Five

She had been standing at La Iglesia, her boots covered in dirt and a shotgun in hand. Her cheeks had been stiff from the dried tears, and it was amazing how real it felt.

Because it had been.

It had been over a year since they'd driven down to Mexico to rescue Scott and over a year since she'd sworn to Derek she wasn't going to let him die. Her mind hadn't registered that when stuck in the memory-infused nightmare, or that when his head had listed to the side and he'd stopped breathing that it hadn't been the end. All her mind latched onto was the blood on her hands and her own soul-crushing heartbreak.

She'd only just started to get to know him.

She'd only just started to love him.

Braeden jolted awake, her eyes popping open in the darkness and slowly she pieces together where - and when - she was. They were safe, even if just for the moment. He was healing. He was…

Her fingers found an empty bed next to her and Braeden sat up, eyebrows drawing together. He wasn't there.

She tossed back the comforter and swung her legs around, bare feet meeting the cold floor. She moved quickly to her bag that had been dropped on a pile of boxes and dug until she found a pair of jeans to slip on under the t-shirt she had worn to bed, socks, and a sweater. Dressed so that she wouldn't freeze, she started down the stairs in search of the man that she'd fallen asleep next to the night before.

The house was quiet, the only sound the occasional squeak of a loose floorboard as she moved across them and the soft pattering of rain outside. Braeden reached the bottom and found the living room empty, Lydia having gone to her mother's house and Argent having vacated his place on the couch he'd claimed while Scott was there. There was no sign of Derek, though, until she followed her nose - admittedly not as keen as his - to where a pot of coffee sat on the warmer in the kitchen and a familiar figure stood on the porch just outside, watching the rain fall from under the cover. She searched for a mug and poured herself a cup before stepping out and joining him, noting the way the mountain ash had been broken to let him out. "I'm guessing you didn't do that?" she said by way of a greeting as she moved to stand with him at the railing, noting that his own coffee was nearly gone. He'd been out there a while.

"Argent. I needed some fresh air and he needed to get me caught up."

"Anything of interest?"

"He wasn't thrilled I kept the link to the DeBois Pack under wraps." He took a quick sip of what was left of his coffee, looking like he was trying to make it last. Braeden took her mug and dumped half into his. He blinked in surprise, but that softened almost immediately. "Thank you," he murmured with more depth than a cup of coffee warranted.

"You look like you need it more than I do."

"For keeping it to yourself," he said softly.

"I wasn't sure if I should at first, but when I thought about it… them knowing wasn't going to help find you."

"Would you have kept it for me if it had?"

"Oh no. I would have sold your secret in a heartbeat if the payoff was finding you," she answered cheerfully and sipped at her coffee. "How are you feeling?"

"Better. My healing's kicked in more. Should be good in a day or so."

"I woke up and you weren't there."

He pursed his lips together. "I couldn't sleep, but I knew you needed to. I don't know how long —"

"Three days missing, two and a half before you woke up last night."

"Did you sleep at all before last night?"

She tried for a smile, but it felt stiff. "Not much. I've been dreaming about Mexico."

Derek glanced towards her and his voice was soft. "It's nothing like Mexico," he promised.

"You didn't see yourself. You… we got there after Deaton had already started working on you. You were so still and burning up. You were bleeding black blood."

"I'm alright."

"Now, but then I thought you'd gotten your abilities back just to be killed by some psychotic distant cousin."

"Is that better or worse than my psychotic uncle?"

She rolled her eyes at the attempt to lighten the mood. "At least Peter knows there's nowhere he could hide if he hurt you. Anton's about to learn that lesson."

"Argent said the Hunters did more damage than they even realised."

"Not in casualties, but they had to relocate. We're thinking that's why they haven't tried coming for you." She let her gaze drift to the soft rain. "You really think you have another uncle or something that's trying to help you?"

"I don't know, but I think he must have looked like my dad or something. I could have sworn he was the one that opened the door."

"You didn't say that last night."

He shrugged. "Doesn't really matter."

Braeden pulled in a breath, letting the fresh air fill her lungs as she took in every inch of her lover's face. The way his jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed just a little to bring dark brows down and in. "You almost never talk about him. Were you close?"

"More when I was younger," he said after a moment. "He was…. Different than me. Than any of his kids, I guess, but it felt like he focused it on me. Especially after… after Paige." He grimaced at her name and Braeden reached out, her fingers light against his arm. "He didn't want me in sports, didn't want me hanging out with friends. It felt like he was punishing me." He stopped, the subject weighing heavily on him. Slowly he closed his eyes and his fingers tightened around the coffee mug. "Looking back, I think he was just scared. I couldn't…I lost some of my control after she died and he saw that. I thought he thought I'd hurt someone else, but…"

"You think he was afraid they'd link you to her death?"

"We dated, so yeah. I didn't get it though. From sixteen to the day he died, I fought him on everything. If he wanted it, I hated it, and if he was for something I was against it."

"Sounds like a teenager to me."

"We fought like hell and I…said things I can never take back. Pretty sure at one point I even questioned if he was my dad."

Braeden reached up, her fingers gentle on the side of his face and her thumb ran along his cheekbone. "That's PG next to some of the stuff I said to my dad along the way."

"You got to apologise though. He knew you loved him."

"My dad never thought anyone really loved him, but yeah. As much as he could believe it, I think he did. Your dad, though… I bet he knew."

Derek tried for a smile and she stepped just a little closer, her arms going around his middle. He leaned in, dragging in a shaky breath as he folded around her, the sound of his heartbeat steady in her ear. "I love you," she murmured softly.

"Promise?"

"On my life."

"Not yours," he answered, pulling back to meet her eyes and there was no tease in his voice. "Never yours."

"Or yours."

They stood there for a long moment, arms wrapped around each other and rain falling just beyond the patio. He leaned in and kissed her gently, and she could feel another promise sealed between them. They'd fight. For themselves, for each other, for everything and everyone they loved. They had to. Neither of them knew any other way.

"If you two are done, I could use some help with the groceries."

Braeden and Derek both looked over to find Chris Argent standing next to his SUV, a bag already in either arm. She snorted a laugh and begrudgingly released him as they moved to help.

He hadn't known what he expected when Peter finally returned his call from a week before. They had traded jabs, Derek snapping at Peter for leaving Beacon Hills high and dry and Peter firing back that there had only been a couple of days between his and Malia's departure and Scott's impending return after finals. Surely even Beacon Hills wouldn't find itself in peril that quickly, and wouldn't have if Derek hadn't put it on the DeBois Pack's radar.

"You don't get to pin this one on me this time, dear nephew. You're the one that followed his mercenary girlfriend into DeBois territory early last year and just about got caught by Hunters there. What? Did you think Anton simply wouldn't notice another Evolved Werewolf skulking around the outskirts of Paris? Or that he couldn't track him back to the Hale family? Talia and Tobias' son. The Evolved heir of the Hale and DeBois packs. Of course he came for you once he took his place as Alpha. If you thought he wouldn't, you're as much a fool as your father."

Despite the cutting words and the bravado Peter hid behind, Derek could hear the fear lining his voice. The unspoken desperation, and he couldn't help but think back to when Kali had been coming for him.

Of course I want you to run. Sprint. Gallop. Leap your way the hell out of this town.

"I'm not going anywhere until this is finished," Derek had sworn softly, his back pressed against the kitchen wall with the cheerful voices of the people he cared about echoing in from the living room. A temporary reprieve that Derek couldn't find it in himself to feel.

"Then perhaps you're more a fool than even your father," his uncle had breathed before ending the call without so much as a goodbye.

He was afraid. Derek had only heard stories and read a bit of history about the pack, but Peter knew more than anyone had been willing to divulge to him. He knew it, but even though Derek though he might mourn his death, he'd mourn his daughter's more, and coming back now would ensure Malia landed right in the middle of the battle that was brewing.

Derek wanted to hate him for it, but he had to admit that it wasn't totally reprehensible.

"I take it dear Uncle Peter isn't coming to help."

The Werewolf turned to find Lydia Martin standing at the entrance of the kitchen, a thin and mirthless smile on her face. "No. I don't think he is."

"I know you and Argent don't really want to bring Liam and the others in, but…"

Derek loosed a long breath, feeling his shoulders sag as he leaned a little heavier against the sturdy wall behind him. "All of this is…. delicate. Volatile."

"Like a fire?" she murmured and he turned to look at her, the word striking instantly against his already raw emotions.

"Yeah. One spark could burn us all up."

Lydia took a step further into the kitchen, then another, and finally moved so that she was directly in front of the table. She turned on heel and braced her arms against the back of the chair, leaning a little to echo Derek's posture. "I know this is probably the last subject you want to talk about -" There it was. - "but I think it's important."

"You're the one that tends to know," he murmured.

"I had a vision after Braeden came to Boston, but before we left. I was walking through your home. Not the loft. The house out in the woods, but it hadn't been burned yet. There was a little boy that was laughing and playing, but when I followed him he led me through a door and the whole place went up in flames."

"Was it me?" Derek asked, the words escaping on a breath before he gave them permission to, Peter's accusation that all of this was falling down around his home town because of him echoing in his mind. He'd led them into the fire.

"No. I don't know who he was. Dark hair, but not you."

He tried not to feel too relieved. It didn't really change anything. "That could have been any number of kids living at the family home when it went up."

"But why your home? The DeBois Pack didn't have anything to do with the fire, did they?"

"That was all Kate."

"Then what are we missing?"

Derek opened his mouth, but closed it again, the words not coming to him. He shook his head. "I don't know yet. They were tied back to my dad who died in the fire, but other than that…. They didn't have anything to do with it."

Lydia frowned, but didn't argue. "There's something we're missing."

"We haven't been playing with all the pieces of the puzzle since this started."

"I'm not sure we can beat them until we have those."

"No." Derek glanced back at back patio door and the line of Mountain Ash that lay strewn across the pathway. "Do me a favour?"

"I thought you were still healing."

"I just need to check on something."

"What?"

"Following an instinct."

She watched him and he held her gaze for a long moment. She was strong. Stronger than most people saw in the beginning, and a hell of a lot smarter than she let on. Finally she moved, reaching a toe out to push a small break into the line and let him pass. "Derek?" He paused as he crossed, fingertips on the door. "Even if they didn't light the fire, that doesn't mean they don't want you to burn with the rest of the Hales. Be careful."

He gave a small, quick nod before pushing through the door, leaving her behind with her warning following him out.

Life had been different when Gerard had headed up the Argent family/ His father had always ruled by fear. He'd said it was discipline, loyalty, but Chris had known better in his more honest moments. Even cousins that still kept watch over their original stomping grounds in France had feared him enough to fall into line with just a word. That control had slipped with the sickness though. Not the cancer, but the Bite that he had stolen that has turned so wrong. Gerard hadn't dared risk the family finding out or they would have demanded of him what he had demanded of Victoria.

In the wake of his father using his wife's death to brainwash his daughter, Chris had taken a step down and the Argent structure had fractured, each small cell doing what they thought was best and interpreting the Code as they saw fit. Chris had hoped - foolishly it now seemed - that the respect for him would still be there if nothing else. That's why he'd reached out to Lucien and why he had trusted the other man to fall in line while he was on American soil. He hadn't, and it had almost gotten them killed.

"Nous chassons ceux qui nous chassent," Lucien quoted their family motto, his sharp tone not matching the casual posture he had adopted from his place on the couch in the penthouse suite of the hotel he was staying in. "Wolves bite, Christopher. You went in to save a creature that should have died with the rest of them."

"You sent in children with no experience that bombed a warehouse."

"Perhaps if you had taken your father's place as head of the family we would have had the contacts of our own to work with. Monroe is doing your job for you and her people are willing. Their age doesn't matter." He reached for a glass of wine.

"Monroe is a sociopath who plays judge, jury, and executioner."

"And you are an Argent trying to protect a Werewolf who has spilt innocent blood. I had heard you'd stepped back, not that you had fallen so far."

Once a monster, always a monster, and if not there yet a quick trip to becoming one. He'd been there before. He'd believed it, but he'd seen things since then that had shattered that belief. He'd fought next to Scott McCall, Isaac Lahey, and yes, Derek Hale. He'd learned what he thought a part of him had always known: the world wasn't as black and white as the Argent family wanted it to be.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he caught Scott's name on it. He needed to wrap this up. He found and held Lucien's gaze. "I want to be clear that this isn't a request: Go home. Beacon Hills is my responsibility."

He turned towards the door, but Lucien's voice stopped him. "Is the Hale you're working so hard to protect the same one that killed your wife? The one that killed Victoria?"

Chris' chest tightened painfully at the question and he worked to steady himself against all the emotions that it dragged up from deep inside of him. The memories, the struggles, the mistakes, but in those, there was one bright light. One that demanded that he moved past the darkness, not sink into it. "Nous protégeons ceux qui ne peuvent pas se protéger eux-mêmes."

Lucien's voice was startled. "Quoi?" *

"We protect those that cannot protect themselves. Alison came up with that. You can live and die by the old code, but this is the one I've sworn to. Be on the first flight out." He pulled the door open and was gone.

* English: What?

The rain from that morning had eased up, leaving patches of ice as a reminder that it had been there at all. The further into the woods he walked, the colder it felt, and he realized he hadn't been out this way since they'd torn the house down. He'd held onto its broken frame and the memories of happier times that echoed like ghosts haunting it for as long as he could, but he'd finally decided that enough was enough and let the city have its way with the property he'd called home.

It was cleared land now. Gone were the splintered beams and the shattered glass. There hadn't been much left inside. Nothing of value at any rate. He stood at the edge of the clearing like a physical wall had stopped him and he double checked to make sure no one had surrounded it with Mountain Ash. Nope. Just old and painful memories.

Derek pushed forward, his breath visible as he sighed, drawing another in after it. He missed them. This time of year especially he missed them more than he thought he could bear. He blinked hard, surprised at the tears escaping, and he let his eyes drift closed.

"Thought you might be here."

Icy blue eyes snapped open, a snarl crawling its way up his throat as fangs and claws extended, ready for the fight. And just as quickly they retracted as he spotted Chris Argent with his hands held up in mock surrender. "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you."

"What are you doing here?" Derek snapped irritably.

"Scott said you disappeared after talking with your uncle."

"I'm fine."

"You're also exposed, and I don't think Anton has any interest in letting you go." He took a step forward, boots crunching against the thin ice. "I think you know that too, meaning you knew the risk. Why take it?"

"Lydia had a vision about the night of the fire. I thought, maybe…. coming out here would help me find some clarity."

"And?"

"Well I just got here and you interrupted that, so…" The smallest of smiles tilted his lips. "Who would have thought ten years after it you'd be the one out here checking on me?"

Argent chuckled mirthlessly. "Not me. Not even three years ago."

"Well, you were too busy making not-so-veiled threats while cleaning the windshield of my car."

That pulled a more honest look of amusement from him. "Ah yes. The lost son had returned. And Kate right after you. Looking back, I should have seen it."

"We see what we want with the people we love," Derek said softly.

There was a beat, then another, and Argent shifted. "How did you see it? How did you know it was her?"

This was not the conversation he wanted to have standing on his family's land that had dated back generations. "I saw her. In the woods when Laura and I came from the school. She shot me."

Argent hummed a small sound, his gaze sweeping out to the openness. "Kate was…. is, a wild card. You never know what you'll draw with her. Ten years younger and I can't remember a day when she'd back down to me. She was loyal then too, in her own way. She was… almost thirteen when Alison was born and I remember her looking me in the eye and telling me she'd kill anyone that ever threatened her. That she'd protect her new niece with her life."

Derek turned, finding a distant look in Chris Argent's eyes. His daughter, his sister… he might not have lost them the same way, but they were both gone. And if it had been anyone other than Kate, he thought he could empathise. Hard to empathise when the family member in question is the one that burned yours alive. "Your point?"

"That she was as focused as she was driven, and I never understood why she was focused on you."

The younger man drew in a breath, watching it visibly leave his lips. "Maybe just the one left behind. Last one standing."

"Peter was in a hospital under his own name and an easy target for years. We both know her. If that's been it she would have taken him out long before you."

He could feel his chest tightening and his mind racing against all the things he tried to shut out. He wasn't sure how they'd gotten to this topic. All he had wanted to do was find answers about why Lydia had seen his home burning. About who was next. He didn't want to relive this. Didn't want to think about it or to feel the crushing guilt that he'd never fully shaken off. "What do you want me to say, Chris? That she got one over on me? That she knew what she wanted and she used me to get it?"

"Derek…"

"Or that I should have seen it? Should have at least questioned it." He could still see her lying there, sheets wrapped around her and supposedly listening as he vented. As he leaned on her, trusted her. He'd pushed the memories as far back in his mind as he could in the years since, but right then, staring at the empty land that had once been his home, he felt like he was drowning in it. "That I told her things…. Things that didn't seem like anything. That the only reason I was going to make it to the basketball tournament was because everyone would be too tied up at home to notice I was gone. I actually believed that she gave a damn about it, but she wanted information." He snorted, the breath catching in his throat and choking him. "It was stupid. I was stupid to trust her."

"Derek!" Argent's voice cut through and it took half a beat longer for Derek to realize he'd shifted his stance, trying to catch his eyes. "Hey."

"Yeah," he breathed, grimacing as he did. It hurt, but it had nothing to do with his still-healing injuries.

Argent reached out and his touch was strangely gentle against his shoulder. "Look at me." He waited until Derek met his gaze. "Were you sleeping with my sister?"

Derek's dark brows drew together. "That's what you're latching onto?"

"Were you?"

"Yeah."

Argent loosed a breath, hinging forward at the news like it was more than he could have ever fathomed. "You were a child."

"I was eighteen."

"Barely. She was twenty-two and you were a high school student that she seduced to get information that she could use to murder your family." He straightened, and Derek hadn't expected to see the agony in his eyes.

Even so, Derek felt the ice cold guilt press up against the red hot rage he felt towards Kate and, as always with her, he leaned into heat. "You think I don't know that?" he snapped, feeling his eyes flash dangerously. "You think I don't know that all of this is my fault. All of it! Every time I get close, someone suffers. Someone dies. I handed my family over to Kate, Boyd and Erica are only dead because I turned them, and now…. Now the town I'm supposed to protect - the people I want to protect - are in another psychopath's crosshairs because of me!"

"This isn't your fault."

"Yes it is. I was in France last spring."

He watched Argent's expression grow more and more confused. "You were in France?"

"Yes."

"That's it?"

"I shifted. Someone must have seen. Must have told Anton…"

"Derek. Look at me. I need you to hear and to listen to me. Can I get your word?"

The younger man nodded numbly.

"This isn't your fault for existing in the same hemisphere as a lunatic just like it wasn't your fault that Kali took her hatred out on you or that my sister used sex to manipulated you at the very least."

"I was —"

"This isn't your fault. Not what's happening now, and sure as hell not this." He motioned to where his childhood home once stood. "Evil people use others with no regard for the lives they destroy in the process. That's not you. You fight for them. You, Scott, the rest of them. I loved my sister once - I still love the person that I hope she was at one time - but all of you are my family now. And I'm sorry… Derek, I am so sorry… for the irreversible damage Kate did to you. Never believe the lie that it's your fault."

Derek opened his mouth, fully intending on the argument he had swirling around in his mind, but the dam broke. He felt his knees give way and Chris caught him before he could fall and pulled him in close. The two men stood there for some time, holding onto each other, and the man that had threatened him if he dared to cross his family fewer than four years before whispered apologies on his sister's behalf. Derek couldn't say he agreed with every word, every shifting of all the guilt he had internalized for so long, but he did feel a sense of safety with the other man - of family - and his fingers wrapped up in the fabric of the back of his shirt as he clung to him and cried.

He wasn't sure how long had passed when he felt what he hoped was the final sob leave his chest. He loosened his vice grip and Chris reached a hand gently to the back of his neck in one more show of affection. "Thank you," Derek managed.

"I meant it."

"Thank you."

Chris finally released him. The movement was slow and careful, as if he were worried Derek might instantly crumble to the ground. Instead he stood steady, scraping his palms across his eyes in a desperate attempt to push the tears away. "I still didn't get what I came out here for."

"What was that?"

"The reason Lydia saw my home in her vision. Banshees don't see the past and they don't predict pain."

"It's always death," Chris agreed softly. "We'll figure it out before it happens."

Derek didn't have the energy to argue. He nodded and they both turned to start back towards the treeline.

"Derek."

His name, called out across the clearing by a voice that he swore he knew but thought he hadn't actually heard in years, caused Derek to stop. He turned, eyes wide as they came to rest on the owner of the voice. His hazel eyes, dark hair, and towering stature was as familiar as it had been ten years before, and Derek felt like someone had landed a blow straight to his gut, driving all the air from his lungs. "Dad?"

TBC

Notes: Well, I've been promising a big twist ;)

Next time: Derek struggles through conflicting emotions and disaster strikes the McCall house.