Chapter Seven

Every sound felt like it was amplified and scraping against the bare remains of his last nerve. The squeak of tennis shoes on the floor, the night nurses' discussion about a movie one of them had seen released last Thursday…. not to mention the perpetual and rhythmic beeping of the machines. They should have given him some comfort. It meant that all the readings were coming back normal. Not one machine was sounding off the alarm to alert the doctor that he needed to come in and she could just rest. Scott would have too if it weren't for the squeaking and the chatting and the beeping. Oh, and the breathing. Not his mom's. That was fine - even comforting - but he hated the fact that Argent's steady in-and-out was somehow like nails on a chalkboard.

By the time that Scott had gotten to the hospital, his mother had been admitted and was resting comfortably. Chris Argent had been sitting vigil by her bedside and, despite the fact that Scott had settled down in the chair on the opposite side of the bed, hadn't left. His mom had woken up briefly, urging him in a drug-induced slur to go home and get some rest. It had been everything Scott could do not to lose it in that moment. They didn't have a home. There was nothing to go back to.

She'd drifted back to sleep after that and Argent hadn't been too far behind, slouched down in his chair and Scott could see the gun resting in its holster under his jacket hanging on the stiff back. He wasn't leaving, and while his presence somehow irked him, at least he knew that there was someone that had her back even when he wasn't there. He was just tired. And really, really didn't want to think too long and too hard about the fact that that was Allison's father that he had smelled all over the house when he'd first gotten back. Some things he was just better off not knowing details of.

A very light tap on the door drew his attention and he saw Derek lingering there, looking just as tired as Scott felt. The younger Werewolf pushed himself up from his chair, quiet and smooth, and padded his way to the door and out into the hall. "How's Braeden?"

"She's okay. Honestly, she only got checked out because I asked her to," Derek huffed, his gaze flickering down the hallway. "How's your mom?"

"She came out of it with a concussion, a broken wrist, and smoke inhalation. The doctor said he wants to see how her oxygen levels are in the morning. She's here all night."

"You staying?"

Scott frowned, glancing back towards the room and the one next to it where he knew his best friend was crashed out in the chair next to his girlfriend's bed. Lydia had come out of it with just a concussion. All in all, for the fact the house had been set on fire and literally blown up, they'd all come out of it relatively intact in the end.

"I guess so," he said at last, running a hand along his face and hating the uncertainty. "I mean… I don't know if it's better or worse to be here. Anton may be after you, but he's willing to take out anyone in his path to do it."

"I'm sorry."

The apology was so quiet Scott was sure he wouldn't have heard it if he hadn't had enhanced hearing. He looked over to find Derek's gaze fixed on the tile floor at his feet, the weight of everything that had happened seeming to press on his shoulders. "It's not your fault."

"You were right. He went after you to get to me."

"Yeah, but why?" A moment passed, then another, the question weighing between them, but it had been clawing at Scott. He glanced down either side of the hallway. "Stiles said Lydia had a vision."

"I know. She told me. That's why I left the house... To go out to our land and see if I could figure out some answers. I misread it."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know, but it's still true." He watched Derek duck his head, uncomfortable with the subject and yet pushing through it. "He needs to either kill you or have me leave of my own choice."

Scott blinked, not entirely sure he heard right. "Leave?"

"Your pack," Derek answered, his voice quiet and small, like the confession was one he wasn't ready for anyone else to hear.

"Then are you… part of my pack?" He found Derek's sharp gaze on him and he resisted the urge to take a physical step backwards. "I'm not a Hale."

That gaze softened and Derek eased an inch back instead. "You're my brother, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Then it doesn't matter what your bloodline is." Derek drew in a deep breath. "That's putting a target on you and I'm sorry."

"I've got your back, Derek. We all do. Just like you have ours."

"Strength in numbers," he murmured softly and, somehow, he looked even more exhausted in that moment. His gaze drifted down the hall a microsecond before Braeden appeared there. "I get it if you want to stay with your mom, but if you need somewhere to go, the loft's yours. I can promise the couch is actually more comfortable than it looks."

Scott found a smile tugging at him, despite himself. "I think it's safer that way. For my mom. For the others. They're not going to look at the Humans as members of the pack, are they?"

"Probably not."

Scott nodded, risking a glance back towards the room. Argent would keep his mom safe while Stiles and Lydia watched after each other. He hated splitting the pack up, but it was the safest route right now. If they chose to attack, they'd come for the Wolves, and the Wolves would be ready for them.

The last thing that Derek wanted to do that evening was spend any of the remaining hours going over the day's events. He was exhausted. More than exhausted. He felt drained both physically and emotionally. All he wanted to do was go home, scrub the lingering smell of smoke off his skin and out of his hair, and hope that he was too tired to remember the nightmares.

He had almost made it out of the hospital when he heard Chris Argent call his name from behind. Derek hauled in a deep breath, his shoulders sagging just a little lower on exhale. "Can't it wait until morning?"

"Can it?" Chris asked pointedly.

"You boys want to fill the rest of us in on whatever it is?" Braeden asked from her place halfway out the sliding doors.

Derek rolled his eyes at the look Chris shot him. "When I was out on the land this afternoon we had a…. unexpected visitor."

"That's how you're gonna frame it?" Chris deadpanned and Derek shot him a glare.

"Sorry if I needed five minutes to myself to process the fact that my dad faked his death."

And just like that, all the exhaustion didn't matter with the other two.

"Your dad's alive?" Braeden managed, her voice soft.

Scott straightened. "Is he with them?"

"Maybe."

"Didn't seem like a maybe in your book earlier," Chris pointed out.

"They waited until you were gone to set the fire," Scott all but growled. "Was he there to distract you? Keep you there while we all burned to death?"

Derek flinched at the question. "I don't know."

"And we're not going to figure it out tonight," Braeden said firmly, her tone leaving no room for argument. "We have the information now. Let's get some sleep and reconvene in the morning. We're all past our limits right now."

Scott looked ready to argue for half a moment before the fight seemed to ride out on a long breath and he nodded in agreement. Derek waited, locking eyes with Chris and there was a long, tense moment before the Hunter offered him a small nod. "Be safe."

The drive from the hospital to the loft was painfully quiet. Derek spent it staring out the passenger window, the rest of the town lit for Christmas as if it had no idea what had happened that day. Maybe it didn't. He did though, and despite what Scott had said earlier, it was his fault. His family was dead because he had let Kate into his life and Scott's nearly was because some distant relative had his sights set on Derek. He felt sick, and part of him wondered how Scott could stand to be around him. He wasn't sure if Tobias' return made it worse or not. That probably depended on if he really had played a hand in the McCall house fire or not. Derek didn't trust his own judgement enough that night to decide how he felt about it.

He moved like a ghost, every trudging step automatic. Braeden moved to his side as they made their way into the building, her hand finding his and her fingers laced through in quiet support. He pulled her hand up, pressing a kiss to the back of it as they climbed the stairs.

Something felt off as he tugged the door to the loft open, but his sluggish mind didn't piece together what immediately. Instead he sensed Scott tense behind him, a low and angry growl emanating from him. Braeden moved to flick the switch next to the door, flooding the loft with light. In the middle, his hands raised as if he were surrendering, was Tobias Hale.

"Derek," he breathed, "I heard what happened and I needed to explain. To tell you… I didn't know what Anton had planned."

Scott snarled dangerously again and Derek didn't need to look to see his eyes were glowing. He felt it. "DeBois nearly murdered my mom. There are people in the hospital. This —"

"You're the Alpha," Tobias breathed, a strange note of awe in his voice. He straightened, his expression somber as he met Scott's glowing eyes with his own hazel ones. "I swear to you, if I had known, I would have found a way to stop him. No one deserves to have their entire life burned to the ground."

The words sounded sincere, but Derek didn't trust his own judgement. "What are you doing here?"

Surprise flickered across his father's face. "Just what I said."

"You waited ten years to tell me you were alive. You couldn't wait until morning to try to convince me you didn't have anything to do with Anton trying to murder everyone I care about?" Derek snapped. "Get out of my home."

Tobias stared at him for a long moment, his expression conflicted. "Derek, I understand that you're angry, that —"

"Stop. I'm not a kid and I've heard enough bullshit in my life that I know when I'm being manipulated."

"I'm not trying to manipulate you," he swore, taking a step forward, but then stopped, his gaze sweeping over his grown son. "But you're right. You're not a child. And I owe you an explanation. It's up to you how you take it, but please. I can't change the last ten years, but I can fill in the gaps."

"Won't Anton be missing you?"

"I've made my choice."

"Hey." Derek turned to where Braeden was moving past him and to the kitchen to their left. She returned with two glasses and a dusty bottle of whisky he'd left when they had gone down to South America. She offered them up. "You owe it to yourself." She held his gaze and slowly, carefully, he took the offering from his own kitchen. Her lips tilted up at one corner. "I'll take care of the kid."

"Hey!" Scott argued and the smirk only broadened.

"Go."

Derek looked from her to Scott and finally to his father - his dad - and felt his chest tighten as he nodded before starting for the balcony.

The sun had dipped down below the horizon, leaving Beacon Hills shrouded in shadows hours before. It was beautiful, almost peaceful on the balcony overlooking downtown. The air was cool, the sky mostly clear, and Tobias could see his breath as his son wiped the glasses down with the edge of his t-shirt and poured three finger's worth in both glasses.

"She knows we can't get drunk, doesn't she?" he asked as he took his.

Derek leaned against the railing, taking a long sip from his drink. "You don't get anything about anybody in my life before you say what you've got to say."

The words stung, but he couldn't say he was surprised. Derek had always been headstrong. It had bordered on arrogance as a teenager and both Tobias and Talia had felt the weight of their son's part in his girlfriend's death. Part, only because they'd both known who had pushed him to it. Manipulated the situation, as he so often did. Talia hadn't been willing to cut her brother out of her life, but Peter had forever changed the course of Derek's and Tobias had been convinced that that influence had continued even after Paige's death. The more Tobias had tried to protect him, the more hostile he'd become. Right up until the fire.

"You were right. We'd sent Laura after you, and I thought you'd made it out. When the fire started, we were trapped. Locks on the doors that had been infused with Mountain Ash. None of us had any hope of getting out until it was too late. I don't know… exactly how your mother got me out, but I remember choking on the smoke and then I was in the forest outside our home. The look she gave me…." He closed his eyes, picturing Talia. She had leaned over him, speaking even as he was still coming around, and she'd pressed one last kiss to his lips. He hadn't known it was their last. If he had, he would have reached out for her. He would have begged her to stay with him. He would have tried and he would still have failed. "She knew she was going to die in that fire, but the others were trapped. She went back to try to get them out." He looked over, finding Derek's gaze fixed on the buildings below, but he seemed to be listening.

There was a long moment before Derek drained his glass like it'd do him a damn bit of good. "That still doesn't explain why you didn't even look for us."

"There were gunshots. Hunters. There was no question who they were chasing down."

"So of course you just assumed they killed us."

"Do you think I got out in one piece?" Tobias demanded, feeling his temper flare. He pulled back his sleeve and held out an arm to show off the burn scars that started on his palm where he'd tried to block a falling piece of wood that had come crashing down that night and wrapped up - the marred remains of the triskelion tattoo barely discernible beneath them - further than the sleeve would fold. "Up the shoulder and all down the back. It's not something you think about when you're raised around people who never scar. If you're Human and you take the Bite, every mark stays, even if you weren't born with it."

"So you just, what? Got to the next town on your own? Paris?"

"I had help."

He watched a flicker of change in his son's expression before those green-blue eyes shifted to land on him. "Who?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Like hell it doesn't!" Derek snarled and, in a burst of rage that looked like it had been building for some time, he threw his empty glass at the concrete balcony at their feet. "You left for a decade and then show up like I owe you something. Bullshit. I get the truth tonight or you can try your chances with Anton."

Tobias sucked in a breath, weighing his son's anger, and the truth rode back out on the exhale. "Your mother's emissary."

"Deaton?"

"Yes."

He saw the realization settle in. "You. You left me there."

"I thought you could get away if I opened the door, but you barely made it to the woods. Anton would have found you and I couldn't risk him letting you die. It's all the same to him. Either you submit and he has you or you die and he thinks he's down one more enemy."

"But Deaton knew, didn't he?"

"That it was me?"

"That you're alive."

"It's been years, Derek. There's no reason for him to have assumed I'm the one that left you there. I left and never came back. I didn't think I had a reason to."

"And so you just… what? Went back to the family you hated?"

"I know you saw me differently, but even Human-born I was raised with a pack, and my pack that I had chosen had been slaughtered. I thought you and your sister had been killed along with them. Laura hid you both well and Anton confirmed that you were gone when I found the pack in Paris. As much as I hated them, as much as it went against everything I'd come to believe, I was alone. An Omega without being a Wolf, but becoming one would give me the chance to topple the Argents. To make sure they never did to another pack what they did to ours. That man you protected? Christopher Argent? He's one of them. He's responsible."

"His sister was," Derek argued softly.

"His sister, his father. Can you look me in the eye and swear he's different?"

Those familiar eyes, so like his own, snapped up to meet his. "He's different."

Tobias' lips tugged down. "I believe that you believe that."

"I know that. I've fought next to him. For this town, which is what Mom would have wanted. What I thought you would have wanted."

"I wanted my family to live," Tobias bit out, his voice more desperate than he would have liked. "You mother always thought that we could show them a different way. Maybe not the Hunters, but the people, and it worked for the Hales for generations. Until it didn't."

His son watched him carefully, studying him, and finally sagged back against the railing. "If you'd asked, I never would have thought you'd be the one that went looking for power," he said softly.

"Neither would I. Not back then," he admitted softly. "I'm not proud of everything I've done, but I have tried to put myself in the position that I could stop them from ever doing to another pack what they did to us."

Derek tensed, gaze snapping up and there was a fire in those eyes. "Anton just did. He just burned Scott's house to the ground with all of them trapped inside to get what he wants."

"I swear to you, I didn't know," Tobias said, taking a desperate step forward. "And when I found out, I left them and I came to you."

"Then you're choosing to be an Omega. Do you understand that? What it takes to turn your back on the Alpha that bit you and fight him? You'll feel it in your veins, his howl echoing in your ears until it feels like your head's going to split. There's a better than even chance he'll just kill you and be done with it."

"I'm not leaving you. Not again. Not when I know you're alive and in danger."

Derek stood there a long moment, taking it in, until finally he pushed a long breath out his nose. "Scott gets the couch, you get the floor."

An overwhelming sense of relief washed over him. "Thank you."

"Don't think I'm doing this because I trust you. I'm doing it because I can't risk the chance you'll go back to him. I'm not letting you out of my sight." He turned, starting for the door, but paused there. "I'll tell you one thing about me. Those people in there and the ones that were hurt? That's my pack, and I'm gonna kill Anton before he has a chance to hurt them again."

With that he pushed his way into the loft, leaving Tobias alone in the cold night air.

Steam filled the bathroom, pouring out of the shower and crawling up the walls as Derek toed off his boots in the same movement that he tugged his t-shirt up and over his head, leaving them all in a pile on the floor. He thought he'd have felt something after the conversation, but he was too tired. Too worn down. He just wanted to scrub the day off and crawl into bed for a few hours.

"What's the verdict?" Braeden called from behind the foggy door.

Derek's fingers worked at his belt until it loosened and he kicked his jeans to join the rest of his clothes. "Not sure yet."

"So you kicked him out?"

"Too much of a risk either way. Scott promised not to kill him if I hopped through a quick shower."

He tossed his briefs back and opened the door, finding Braeden standing with her back to him. She turned, a playful smile tugging at her lips. "Well get in here."

Despite the weight of the day, Derek felt the barest of smiles threatening as he followed her instructions, closing the door behind him and she turned to look at him. Her dark eyes traveled up and down before she reached out and let her fingers ghost over the nearly healed wound along his side. It had been the deepest of them and the only one still visible. Her gaze was fixed on the spot, though, and she pursed her lips together thoughtfully as her fingers continued up his ribs, pulling a shiver from him. He reached up, capturing her hand and holding it. Even with the water pouring down around them he heard her heartbeat jump and he leaned in, lips on hers and she didn't lose any time wrapping her free arm around his neck with her fingers tugging lightly at his hair. The kiss only deepened as he stepped her back against the wall of the shower, shutting out everything he didn't want to think about with the very welcome distraction.

His kisses traveled down to her jawline and then her neck. He felt her scars under his lips and her head rolled back as he made it to the crook of her neck. "Derek," she breathed and he paused, waiting. A soft, determined breath left her and he felt her fingers loosen and travel down until they found his chin, tilting it up so he was looking at her. "Hey."

"Hey," he greeted back roughly. Teasing him just wasn't fair right now, but she knew he wouldn't make a move until she gave him the signal, no matter how much he wanted to.

Her eyes softened, brows drawing together. "You know none of this was your fault."

"Well there goes the mood," he huffed.

"Derek, I'm serious."

"Me too." He pushed back and reached for the shampoo.

"Derek."

A soft growl escaped as he finished scrubbing the soap into his dark hair and shoved his head under the downpour. He closed his eyes, letting the hot water wash over him while Braeden waited. Patiently. Maybe more patiently than his short fuse deserved.

Finally he pulled back. "I appreciate the sentiment, but it is my fault. Even if my dad didn't know - and I'm not sure of that yet - Anton's after me. He burned down Scott's house with all of you in it to get to me."

Braeden tilted her head a little, indecision worn more fully than it usually was on her expression. He motioned for her to just say it already and she frowned. "He had to have known."

"Of course he knew." He stopped, the deeper meaning clicking into place. "About Kate?"

"I don't think he was trying to kill us any more than he was really trying to kill you. This has all been one big chess game to him. Test you, push you. The fire didn't just kill your family."

"You think she's involved?" Derek closed his eyes, sighing deeply and letting the possibility batter around his head for a moment. Kate loved screwing with his head, but she also liked to be seen for it. If she was involved, there wouldn't have been any room to question it. "No, I don't think so. I think Anton was after Scott and he wanted to make it hurt."

Braeden reached up, a palm on either cheek and he let his eyes slip back open. "If she's involved or not, she doesn't get to win. Anton doesn't get to win. Promise me."

"Of course they don't."

"I know you, Derek Hale. I heard him. Look at me." He did and he felt that gaze down to his soul. "You're worth it."

He stood under the stream of water that was starting to turn cold - he really needed to talk to his maintenance crew - but couldn't find it in himself to move. Finally he leaned in and this kiss was gentle. A promise. He wasn't going anywhere. No one was taking him away.

A loud crash dragged them apart and both he and Braeden were moving in an instant. Water off, floor treacherous, he nearly face planted before he caught the towel she threw at him and she grabbed a gun hidden under the counter next to the sink.

"You planning to shoot Scott or my dad?" he asked as she wrapped her own towel into place before checking her clip.

"If they come at me, either one. They'll heal."

Oh yeah. She was terrifying. Derek shook it off and started for the door. Worse case scenario his father was the traitor he feared and he and Scott were at each other's throats, but best case Scott finally just snapped. Neither were very good.

He pulled the door open and the steam from the bathroom escaped with it and out into the main room. It caught the attention of the Alpha in question who was…. not in the fight.

"Hey, Derek," he greeted, his voice as exhausted as Derek felt. "You're uncle's here."

The two warring Wolves slowed just enough for Derek to catch a glimpse of Peter Hale, all angry glowing blue eyes and bared fangs.

"Shit," he snarled as he jumped forward and into the middle of the fight.

TBC

Notes: Part of me toyed with the idea of introducing Kate into the chaos, but then I remembered that I'm trying to keep this story to 10 chapters or less. As much as I'd love to open up that can of traumatic chaos, I think I've heaped enough on poor Derek for one story. At least he had five seconds of rest before everything blew up again. That's about all he gets though :')

Next Time: Anton's plan starts to fall into place.