Derek knows Peter can smell his betrayal on his skin, but he can't make himself care. He tries to be subtle when he watches him, examines everything through new suspicious eyes.

"Something wrong?" Peter asks lightly, and Derek startles, takes too long to catch his breath.

"We should find Cora," Derek says. "It's her pack too."

"Is it?" Peter challenges. "She's not your pack. She said so herself. She only ever came back for Braeden." On any other face, that twist of lips would be a smile. "Ahh, young love."

Cora did say she wasn't pack, but—Derek's eyes narrow.

"You weren't there when Cora said that," Derek says. "You weren't even in town." The world is starting to tilt again. "Were you?"

"I keep track of my family," Peter says.

That's not an answer.

"Were you here all this time?" Derek presses. "Did you see me with Kate?"

"Now, Derek…" Peter starts. Derek's throat goes so full of sharp things he can barely speak.

"Why didn't you warn me about her?"

"You were bloodthirsty," Peter reminds him. "You would have killed me for her. I had to adopt a more… delicate approach."

"She could have killed me," Derek says, trying not to tremble. "And you were just waiting?"

"I knew she wouldn't hurt you," Peter says. Derek chokes on a dry sob. "She had plans with you. Killing you wouldn't make sense."

"You have plans with me," Derek says, "and you could've killed me."

Peter sighs. "You know I knew you would survive that."

"Laura didn't," Derek says darkly.

"Her chances for survival dwindled significantly after Kate Argent stole her unconscious body and cut it in half," Peter says smoothly.

Derek stares at him.

"It was tragic coincidence that I turned Scott McCall," Peter says. "I was weak, half-mad with pain and sickness, when I found two humans stumbling over Laura's ravaged body. I only meant to avenge my family. I attacked… But the newly-crowned alpha wolf had other ideas.

"As soon as I'd realized what I'd done, I ran," Peter says. "I knew the hold the alpha wolf had over me. I tried to keep away from the boy. But the wolf was too strong, and I was still healing. I was powerless against it. And as my unwilling beta rebelled, he became an enemy to both of us."

His eyes are faraway, just a little lost. His voice has faded off into nothing.

It's a great story, but it doesn't change anything.

"You should've told me about Kate," Derek says stubbornly.

"Would you have believed me?" Peter challenges. "Would you even have believed your precious Stiles? Or would his condemnation of your true love have only brought the two of you even closer as you shut out the rest of the world."

"I believed you about Scott," Derek says uncertainly, because Peter's right, and Derek hates it.

"I only confirmed what you already suspected," Peter says. "Had I started with Stiles, you'd be deaf by the first word. I know you, Derek. The things that drive you… instinct, love, trust… are so easily corrupted. You've always been… sensitive, and after your father, and Paige… You think the whole world is made up of people with shoulders for you to cry on. You never bother to ask what they want."

"Maybe you're right," Derek says, after a long moment of consideration. "Maybe I do need to ask."

"You're already learning," Peter says, a slight smile playing on his lips.

"So tell me," Derek says, raising his eyebrows. "What do you want?"

Peter holds out his hands. His palms are cracked and blistered. Derek's eyes water just looking at them.

"We bury the bodies of our loved ones under knots of wolfsbane," Peter says softly, "so they cannot be disturbed by warring packs without incurring… significant injury."

Derek stares at him for a few seconds, uncomprehending, before his meaning clicks into place.

"You found my father," Derek says. His voice is very thick. "You should've told me you were doing that. I would've—"

"You weren't here," Peter says simply.

"So—so you dug him up?" Derek says. "Where is he?"

"Healing," Peter says quietly.

"Healing," Derek repeats. "He's—Dad's alive?"

"Slowly but surely," Peter says, a smile curling the corner of his mouth.

"Show me," Derek says, but he's already searching, senses flickering frantically in effort to examine every direction once. "Show me my dad. Take me to him."

His mind is racing. Dad's alive. Dad's alive.

And Peter's gonna take Derek to him, Derek is gonna see his dad breathing—

There are other thoughts, questions, but Derek can't make them matter, it's been seven years—or it's been more, Derek keeps forgetting he isn't a teenager anymore, but who cares?

"How does he look?" Derek presses as he follows Peter step for step. "You said he's—What's he healing?"

"Decay," Peter says. "Over time, a body—"

"I know," Derek says hurriedly. He doesn't want to think about it, to think about Dad like that. "But—the cancer—"

"Cancer," Peter repeats slowly. "Oh, Derek. You didn't really believe that… Did you?"

Derek's stomach goes tight. "It was cancer," he says shortly. "We heal, it's a gift but it can be—it can be a curse when, when your body doesn't know—"

Peter's eyes are so full of snake sympathy, Derek feels sick to look at him.

"So what was it," he bites out. "Why would, why would Mom lie—"

"It was suicide," Peter says, light as a murmur.

Derek jerks back.

"No it wasn't," he snaps. "Dad would never—Shut up!"

Peter makes an infuriating art out of persuasive silence.

"Why," Derek snarls, eventually. It doesn't come out nearly harsh enough. Little shudders keep getting in the way. "We—we were happy, then. Weren't we?"

"Who can know what struggles motivate a disturbed mind?" Peter starts, but Derek can't—can't.

"He wasn't disturbed," Derek spits. "It was—it was gr-growing in him, just a few days, nobody had any way of kn-knowing, and then—"

"And it never occurred to you that that could have been a metaphor," Peter says kindly. "You were young. Talia knew you were sensitive—"

"No!" Derek howls, and then Peter is all around him, holding him steady as he shakes and shakes and shakes.

It's impossible. It's impossible, it's—

It's Dad.

If there's one person Derek knew, one part of the world he could be sure of, it was Dad.

But Derek doesn't know anything about anything, does he?

"But now," he says hoarsely, when he can, "now he's healing. He's alive. And I can talk to him, I can ask him w-why—"

"I wouldn't," Peter says. "It can be dangerously easy to slip back into that frame of mind."

"Back," Derek says, and then he's struggling in Peter's arms. "Take me to him. Take me to him now."

"I did advise bringing them all back," Peter reminds Derek. "Talia knew how to deal with his… moods."

"Shut up," Derek begs, squeezing his eyes shut and wrenching away. "Shut up, shut up, just tell me where to go."

Peter leads him to the morgue. It's stupidly easy to slip past the shoddy security and into a freezer full of dead things, where Peter pulls out a drawer.

The body is nothing like Derek remembers him, its face waxy and contorted, sunken. Its paler than pale, and ice cold. It doesn't look—or feel—alive at all.

Derek inhales sharply and regrets it as the smell of rot and death hits him hard, makes his head spin. He sways slightly.

"Give him time," Peter says, clamping his hand down on Derek's shoulder. "His very organs are rebuilding from dust. His skin already looks healthier than it was just a few hours ago."

"Healthier," Derek says. Dad looks dead. He looks worse than dead.

"For one thing, it exists," Peter says, and Derek has to run past him and be sick in a broom closet.

"It's been fourteen years," Peter says, placing his hand lightly on the back of Derek's neck as he heaves into a white bucket he'd barely thought to remove the mop from before he couldn't think at all. "Give him time."

"I just—" Derek tries, and is sick again.

Did he ever figure it out, in fourteen years? Did older Derek ever think back, or, or put it together?

Did Laura tell him?

No, Derek realizes, all too suddenly. Cora did.

Laura knew shit at eleven no was ever gonna tell you.

Did everyone else know? Was Derek the only sensitive one, the only one too stupid—

He shudders, chokes on nothing, tears streaming down his face. Peter's fingers slip into his hair.

"This process will take hours," Peter murmurs. "Maybe days. You don't have to stay here and watch."

"I can't leave him," Derek says, his voice ragged. His throat is sour sandpaper, and his head is on fire. "What if—"

"You'll know when he's awake," Peter says. "The pack pull will come alive again, like it was never broken."

Derek can't stop shivering.

"He wouldn't want you to see him like this," Peter says, and Derek knows he's right. Dad never admitted when he was hurt, or sick, he was always fine, or okay. He was strong, he could handle it himself, he didn't want to—

Derek closes his eyes.

He didn't want to worry anyone.

So he just didn't say anything, so Derek just thought he really was fine, and okay, and even better than that, Derek just believed him. And then he—

Derek knows, distantly, that things like this run in the family. But Dad wasn't like—Dad was never anything like that. Derek never would've imagined that Dad could be laughing at Mom's jokes, and ruffling his hair, and hiding that.

Even Derek, it was only one time, and it wasn't even really—He's alive, he's not actually gonna—He couldn't have stopped Peter anyway. It wasn't actually anything. It's not like he, like he planned it—

Did Dad plan it?

Derek shakes so hard his knees knock together.

A wretched howl comes out of nowhere, spears all through him. He goes still.

"Malia," Derek says, and swipes at his eyes.

"Go to her," Peter says. "I'll keep an eye on your father."

"Both eyes," Derek says, and stumbles into a run.

The smell of smoke hits Derek almost instantly. He fights every stupid instinct he has and runs toward it.

If Malia's hurt, if he loses her too—

He never really considered Malia his to lose before, but of course she is. The closest she came to being Scott's pack was when Derek added her, and the real Malia always felt like family. A distant cousin, maybe, someone Derek never met but can't help knowing.

Derek's not gonna lose any more family.

He's nearly breathless when he finds her, his wolf already snarling, looking for someone to fight.

But it's just Malia, trying to put out a barely-smoking bonfire with—

With Dad's jacket.

"What are you—" Derek starts, scandalized, but then he sees what he's really looking at, and his chest tightens so bad the world goes white.

It's Malia's father.

What's left of him, anyway.

As soon as the horrified paralysis wears off, Derek jerks into action, smothering the smoke with his own hands, ignoring the blisters that form and heal just as quickly. Malia tries to shove him away, say, "I can—" but she stops, shudders at Derek's new burns, and wraps her arms around him, dragging him out of reach and keeping him there with a trembling but firm hold.

"I know," she says hollowly, ages later, her heart pounding against Derek's side. "I know he k-killed people. I know Lydia found bodies. Like multiple—" Her jaw goes tight, defiant. "But he's still my dad."

It's not until the burning is abruptly gone that Derek realizes she's pulling his pain away.

"I guess it runs in the family, huh," Malia says bitterly. "The killer gene."

Derek stares down at his hands.

Malia catches them, hides them from him. "Stop it," she says sharply. "I heard Stiles. That wasn't the same at all." Now she's just hugging him, only the thinnest inky black lines still bleeding up her arms. Derek hasn't let anyone do this for him in years. More, probably. Not since Dad.

"You feel like family," Malia says. "Like blood. So does Cora."

So she feels it too.

Most packs are matrilineal, but Malia wasn't raised in a pack. Her father didn't even know the supernatural existed. Did Malia's mother just never tell him? Never tell him she was a Hale?

"Yeah," Derek says, instead of any of that, and lets the family tie wash over him, make the world manageable again, even with the smell of smoke so close, the scent of burning—of burnt—

He tries not to breathe in at all.

"You are family," Malia says. "It's obvious. Like I just know."

"Instinct," Derek says without thinking, and immediately wants to kick himself, claw himself open. But Malia just says, "Yeah."

The smoke keeps rising and rising, twisting Derek's stomach into knots, but the ease of family almost settles it again.

"He really misses you, y'know," Malia says quietly. "It's like all he can think about."

"Sorry," Derek says, guilt swelling in him again, but Malia shakes her head impatiently.

"He's worried about you," she says. "They all are."

Peter's bringing my family back, Derek almost wants to tell her. Our family.

But he can't. Not by her father's body, not while it's still sizzling.

Not knowing who did it, and why.

"How long have you been out here?" he asks softly.

"I just felt this pull," Malia says. "Like panic. And then I was here. I don't know. I'm still not good with time," she admits, her arms falling to his sides. "I can't get the hang of it. I've never needed to know it before. Not like humans do."

Derek was trapped under his wolf for a few hours. Maybe less. How Malia kept her humanity for eight years—how she can still talk, still move like she's the right shape without the coyote convincing her otherwise—It's incredible.

"You're doing amazing," he tells her. "With everything. And after what Kate did to you—"

Malia tenses for just a second.

Derek shuts up.

"Stop it," Malia snaps. "Stop beating yourself up for everything. I survived eight years as a coyote in the woods. I survived being kidnapped and having my claws pulled out with tweezers. I can handle talking."

"Okay," Derek says.

"Good," Malia says. "What did she even want with you? It never made any sense. If she was just some hunter looking for a target. Why you? It's like a dog catcher going after one of the puppies in the Sarah McLachlan commercial."

"Dog catcher," Derek repeats, still wincing at the thought of what Kate did to Malia, his claws practically retracting into his knuckles.

"From like Benji."

Derek looks at her blankly.

"It's this kids movie," Malia says. She's barely looking at the body at all anymore. Derek steps out of the circle of her arms, gravitates to her side, the faintest shadow of fire hissing back into his palms. "There's this dog named Benji, and he has a family, and then this evil dog catcher tries to ruin it." She frowns. "Maybe I'm remembering it wrong."

"How do you remember anything?" Derek asks. "I've never heard of anyone picking humanity up this fast."

"You know a lot of formerly feral people?" Malia challenges, raising an eyebrow. Derek ducks his head.

"I mean, from what I've read," he says sheepishly.

"Maybe I'm just that awesome," Malia says, after some consideration.

"That explains it," Derek says.

"What am I supposed to do now?" Malia asks. "What do people do when—when—"

"When they find this?" Derek asks. "I don't know. I can't actually remember the fire, or anything after it, so—"

"So I'm not doing it wrong?" Malia asks nervously. "Like crying too much, because I know what he did, or not crying enough, because what's wrong with me, he's my dad, or—"

"I don't think there's a wrong way to do it," Derek says. It's not like he's some kind of expert at taking this well, or making the right decisions. Malia's doing fine. "I mean, you don't want to fake cry or anything, that would be stupid. Just feel whatever you're feeling." Even now Derek wants to take everything he says back as soon as he says it. He sounds like such a tool. As if he knows anything about anything.

But she nods, says, "Good," brimming over with relief, so it couldn't have sounded that dumb. "And if I feel kind of sick, but also don't want to just leave him, and kind of like I can't talk to anyone right now, but I don't want you to leave, is that—"

"That's fine," Derek says, and bumps her shoulder with his, just a little. "I'm not going anywhere."