A.N.: So, I'm adjusting my face-claim for Mary - imagine the dramatic features of Phoebe Tonkin, with dashes of Emma Watson (smile, eyebrows and nose) and Lily Collins (lips, bone-structure) mixed in. I think, that combo, and you'd have Allison's sister. And a curvy, healthy figure. She has hips and an ass, and boobs!

I realised whilst driving to work that if there's "Sterek", then Derek and Mary make "Deary" and that had me laughing all the way to the carpark!

Also, I've found face-claims for Deary's children.

The timings of things, of the Hale fire, how long since Derek's seen Cora, how long Peter was in a coma etc., aren't consistent in the TV show, so from here on out… I need to figure out my own timeline that makes sense, paying attention to the extended werewolf lifetimes! As Satomi hasn't aged since the 1940s, and due to their regenerative powers, I'm imagining the aging process for werewolves is slowed right down. So Derek can look mid-to-late twenties but be quite a bit older - Cora can look seventeen but in reality be late-twenties or even in her thirties.

Jekyll and Hyde

12

Toxic

He followed his nose up the spiral staircase, and scowled, not honestly annoyed in the slightest, at the young-woman singing and dancing along to a playlist on her laptop. His sparse and neglected but clean kitchen smelled overpoweringly sweet. The sudden vibrancy in the room had little to do with the playlist pounding from the laptop and more to do with the irrepressible Mary, who was singing along and checking a YouTube tutorial she was cooking along to, and the contents of little glass dishes on the counter in front of her.

He never noticed how gloomy the loft was until Mary had left it. And since she had been spending more and more time here over the last week, he truly felt it when shewas gone. Considering how angry she had been when they first met, over the last few times they had met up to hang out, discuss Scott and watch rugby, she seemed to have shed her rage like a cocoon, emerging a bright and vivacious force of nature determined not to let herself be crushed by the weight of her grief.

Derek wondered how she'd done it.

"What're you doing here?" he asked, sounding more put-out than he felt, and feeling a tiny flicker in the pit of his stomach. He knew what that flicker meant; he liked her picking the lock to get into his sparse loft. She made it seem less empty, somehow.

"You let me in."

"Once. A week ago," Derek scowled at her, and Mary ignored it. He always did; and she always did.

"You know what they say, let the right one in," she smirked over her shoulder. She was still made up from her shift at the cosmetics store; every day, a different look, sometimes dark and sultry, sometimes vintage, sometimes vibrant and shimmering - she was an artist, and she loved to play, even on her own face. Her job gave her the opportunity to indulge. He never knew what he was going to get with her.

"I'm gonna regret telling you where I live, aren't I?" Derek sighed.

"Time will tell," Mary smiled, peering into the large, unfamiliar saucepan - he'd bet she had brought her own with her, and frowned at the cardboard box on the table beside her whirring laptop.

"What is all this?" Derek frowned.

"I'm creating confectionary fusion," Mary smiled. Derek sidled forward, arms folded over his chest, and sniffed cautiously at the contents of the saucepan in front of her.

"Fudge?" he murmured, startled. His mother used to make fudge; Laura had made it, too, whenever she was stressed or upset - or both. It was the only thing she could make that she wouldn't immediately start eating before it made it to the oven; and the number of times he'd burned his mouth as a kid, trying to sneak some from the stove when Mom had him standing there stirring it.

"I'm impressed you can tell," Mary smiled gently. She admitted; "I have no idea what I'm doing."

Derek swallowed. "My mom used to make fudge on Christmas morning," he said quietly.

"A family-tradition?" Mary said, and her smile was warm and genuine, delighted.

"The first one to get out of bed had to stand at the stove, stirring the fudge for twenty minutes, while my parents drank their coffee," Derek smiled sadly. "It had always set by the time we got back from our walk. Then we had fudge in front of the fire, and opened our first gift. It was always a book. My…sisters and I would go outside and play catch with Peter while my parents cooked and…drank wine and played cards with any friends who'd come to stay."

"You did that every year?" Mary asked, smiling.

"Every year," Derek nodded, staring into the fudge and battering away memories threatening to overwhelm him - memories full of laughter and warmth and music and joy. A different life.

He thought of it as B.K.

Before Kate.

Everything after was hell.

"That sounds…perfect, all cosy and snug, full of laughter," she said wistfully, her expression drifting off sadly.

"It was," Derek said softly. He swallowed, and gave himself an internal shake. Mary tilted her head thoughtfully, reaching out to run her hand through his hair; the simple way she trailed a fingertip along the curve of his ear, and rub her thumb against his cheek, made him stifle a shiver, and it was at once a deeply comforting gesture that made him startled into awareness. He cleared his throat. "What about you? Does your family have any traditions?"

Mary gave him an ironic little smile, and Derek stifled the urge to roll his eyes, a little embarrassed; it was a loaded question. "Not many I'm keen to carry on… At Christmas, my parents tried to overcompensate for all the moves with gifts…it was always so sparkling and…almost sterile…you know?"

"Like a window-display," Derek muttered, and Mary nodded.

"The illusion of perfection," she said gloomily. "Our family isn't perfect. Not even close; there was no point pretending on Christmas… I did have Allison convinced the Easter swan was real until she was twelve; I'd do an egg-hunt."

"Easter swan?"

"Makes more sense than a bunny that lays eggs," Mary shrugged, flashing a grin. "Allison was a very gullible child."

"She must've had a lot of trusted in you," Derek remarked. He'd only met Allison Argent once, when he'd taken her home; she was shy in his passenger-seat but had thanked him sweetly for the ride. And he'd observed Scott long enough to get a few glimpses of her, and despite Mary's assurances that her sister knew nothing about her family's dark secret, his stomach knotted unpleasantly with anxiety every time he saw them together. Even if she wasn't initiated, should her parents find out they could still use Allison Argent to hurt Scott McCall, a young beta in way over his head - and innocent. After Paige he hadn't quite been innocent, but Derek had been vulnerable, and Kate had scented that a mile off as sharks did blood in the water.

"I guess," Mary sighed. "Here, am I doing this right?" Derek peered into the saucepan.

"You need to beat it 'til it's grainy," Derek said quietly, and Mary glanced at the fudge. She offered him the hand-whisk, and Derek realised he'd been conned. He sighed, turned on the whisk, and stifled the memories threatening to overwhelm him as the scent of warm fudge teased his nose. As he squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing hard, a hand rested gently on his shoulder-blade, and he knew she understood what was going through his head. Her touch brought him back firmly to the present, to her; he preferred to be here with her. When Mary was gone, he read. A lot. He could escape to a thousand different worlds and never hurt anybody. When the fudge had reached the consistency his mom would've approved of, he turned the whisk off.

"Okay, so now I add the flavouring and colours?"

"Uh-huh," Derek said dubiously, relinquishing the saucepan, frowning at the little dishes full of Jelly Belly beans, mini-marshmallows, sprinkles, sugar-pearls, silver-balls, freeze-dried raspberries and edible glitter. He watched in silence as she divided the fudge, adding fuchsia food-colouring gel to one batch, turquoise gel to another, and a small tin of Dole crushed pineapple to the larger uncoloured batch.

"I shouldn't ask. What the hell is that?" he asked, wondering why Mary was ruining a perfectly decent batch of fudge.

"Unicorn fudge," Mary beamed.

"You murdered a unicorn for that?" Derek frowned, and Mary chuckled.

"If you're a good boy and stop being grumpy, you can help me decorate it," she coaxed. He sighed, watching her carefully combine the coloured fudge with the pineapple-spiked batch, swirling the colours through like tie-dye.

"Fine. Do you have a tin ready?" he asked, and Mary smiled, setting a small square tin buttered and lined with baking parchment in front of him. "Who's this for, anyway?"

"The light of my life," Mary beamed. He raised an eyebrow at her. "She's five years old and lives in San Francisco; she loves roller-derby, brown cows, Bowie and unicorns."

"She was in your pack?"

"She was the best part of it," Mary said quietly. "Piper brought me back to life, she was just this tiny ball of awesome. And I miss her."

"So - unicorn fudge."

"Unicorn fudge."

"You know you're gonna make her so sick with this." Derek rolled his eyes as Mary laughed maniacally. "So, why fudge?"

"Mm. Meringues would've died in the mail. Principle's the same with macarons."

"Macarons?"

"You've seen 'em everywhere," Mary said, tapping at her laptop screen to bring up pictures of the little treats. "They're the beguiling little bitches of the pâtisserie world. And I will dominate them; it is a goal of mine, along with rebuilding old bridges, finishing Doctor Zhivago and composting."

"So…you checked your phone," Derek said quietly, as he scattered half the sprinkles and marshmallows and Jelly Belly beans on the bottom of the tin.

"I did," Mary said, her smile slow and warm and beautiful. She carefully poured the swirled fudge over the candy; he decorated the top with the remainder of the sprinkles, edible-glitter, mini-marshmallows and freeze-dried raspberries, gently pressing them in so they'd stick while the fudge set. "That's why I didn't come by for a couple days, I was pretty much on my phone the whole time, talking to some of my good friends… Well, one family from the Pack in San Francisco."

"That's cool," Derek said softly.

"Yeah," Mary smiled, and he guessed the reason why she seemed so much lighter was because of those phone-calls. One friend could make all the difference. He shot Mary a sidelong look.

"Who are they?" Derek asked.

"It's, um…it's a single father and his daughter, Piper, and his half-sister; Adalind's just started high-school… I think she's struggling a little," Mary said. "Well, a lot. I spoke to her, too, after I talked things over with Linc for like three hours!"

"What about the little kid you're sending the fudge to?"

"Piper? She answered Linc's phone when I called, let me just say, no-one knows how to guilt-trip like a neglected five-year-old who's not had her monthly mani-pedi and mixtape," Mary said, and Derek gave her a weird look. "What?"

He rolled his eyes. "I didn't think kids made mixtapes these days."

"Kids? How old are you, Father Time?" Mary laughed, her eyes twinkling. "This kid makes mixtapes, only they're on CDs. With customised cases, no less. I think I watched a little too much School of Rock or something, I'm just trying to encourage Piper - and Adalind, too - into being politically aware and socially critical and creative. Trying to stop them becoming one of the youths of today." She grimaced comically.

"You are one of the youths of today," Derek pointed out, and Mary gaped at him, appalled.

"Rude." She set the tin aside, peering fondly at it. "I don't know about you, but I think that looks amazing!"

"It looks toxic. This kid's gonna need an oxygen-mask when she crashes from eating all this sugar," Derek said, shaking his head, and Mary chuckled to herself. "Why are you making fudge to mail off, anyway?"

"It's nearly Valentine's Day! Toxic fudge is the gateway confection!"

Derek grunted, crinkling his nose. Valentine's Day was Laura's favourite holiday. Pink prosecco and candlelight, sharing desserts and holding hands, she loved that stuff. No roses, though; Laura always maintained that red roses were cliché, any time of the year. She'd decorate the whole house with Valentine's crap every year, worried as she always was that he was spending yet another Valentine's Day alone.

"Just no confetti," Derek said, giving her a dangerous look.

"I make no promises."

Derek rolled his eyes, unable to hide the flicker of amusement from her; they were becoming attuned to each other's moods, purely through scent. And Mary had a way of ignoring his moods until they improved. "Why are you doing this at my house, anyway?"

"Because otherwise I'd have to do it at my parents' house, and that would mean no treats for anybody," Mary muttered, sitting down at his table, to tap at the mousepad on her laptop, bringing the screen back to life. He sighed.

"Are you hungry?" he asked, and Mary nodded, handing him the Japanese takeout menu without looking away from her screen. He scoffed, rolling his eyes, but dialled his cell and ordered everything Mary had circled; they had to double up on their favourites, as he'd learned better than to take the last dumpling.

"So, what did you do today?" Mary asked, as he carried the takeout upstairs; she had moved her boxes and laptop, which was still playing music, and set the table with plates and cutlery. They both disliked eating on the sofa; they had both been raised eating all their meals at the dinner-table with their families. And without their families, they had found each other.

"Not much," Derek said, setting out the teriyaki donburi, the katsu curry, the mushroom onigiri, the short-rib ramen, the shrimp pad-thai, the mushroom and panko-crumbed eggplant bao buns, the chilli squid and duck gyoza. He sighed as he took the lid off the miso soup, the scent filling him with nostalgia, taking him back to family dinners out at his mom's favourite sushi restaurant. Picky Cora would never eat anything but plain rice and the miso soup; Laura loved the vegetable tempura. Derek, his mom used to tease, would eat anything that wasn't still blinking at him.

"What was that?!" Mary asked suddenly.

"What?"

"What?! - That! That was almost a smile," Mary said.

"Nervous twitch."

"That was not a twitch - that was something," Mary smiled. "What were you thinking about?"

"It's the miso… The smell of it…"

"It smells like comfort," Mary said softly, her eyes downcast as she shared out the food, and Derek stared at her, silently agreeing, staggered that she understood, without him having to say anything.

"Wouldn't have taken your family for Asian-food fans," Derek muttered. He imagined the Argents were good old-fashioned meat-eating Americans; all pot-roasts and ribs. Roasted baby-wolf with an apple in its mouth.

"My dad is. I mean, he loves his short-ribs and his steaks, but he likes Asian cuisine too. His first gun-deal was with Yakuza when he was eighteen," Mary said quietly. "He's been back and forth ever since. And we lived in Japan when I was nine. I took to the cuisine like a local; after a few months, my mother brought Allison back Stateside, blaming the school-system."

"You lived in Japan?"

"I've lived in lots of places," Mary sighed. "Japan, Barcelona, England, Croatia, South Africa, all over the States, most places not for very long, and some I don't even remember. But some places stick out, you know? Japan, it was the food and the language, South Africa…it was the magnificent animals we saw on safari." She went quiet, and fiddled with the paper napkins as she sat down, clearing her throat. "England, it was the fierce independence I had. We lived an hour's train-ride from London, there was Devon and Cornwall a couple hours south, and I just…I was out on my bike with friends, or exploring London, going to museums… What about you? Where besides Beacon Hills have you lived?"

"South America and New York," Derek said. "My mom's family had, um, ties with South American packs."

"Do you have family down there?"

"I don't have any family anymore," Derek muttered. "Well, my uncle Peter…he didn't die in the fire, but…it would've been kinder if he had."

"How do you mean?"

"He's been in a coma since then…healing…cell by cell," Derek said, suddenly hollow.

"Jesus," Mary let out a gust of breath. She frowned softly. "And he's the only one who got out?" Derek nodded. Mary frowned, turning back to her meal.

"Just him," Derek muttered. "Laura and I were in New York City."

"Have you found anything…on the Alpha, I mean?" Mary asked. "Stiles and Scott reek of anxiety, it makes my nose twitch just being in the same hallway as them."

"Sort of," Derek muttered.

"Hm?"

He sighed, wondering how much to tell Mary. He had already told her Paige's name, more than he had told anyone since his mother found him in the root-cellar all those years ago. But he didn't need to tell her of the danger implicit in Scott McCall dating her sister: she was cutting ties with her family because she respected that danger.

"I told Scott to keep away from Allison." Mary scoffed, pulling a face that told him exactly what she imagined Scott's reaction was to that. "He needs to learn control."

"He does," Mary agreed. "The boys've figured out that actually, Allison's sort of an anchor for Scott. Or, the desire to protect her, at least. His first full-moon, he thought you were going after her, followed her scent into the woods…"

"Her jacket," Derek nodded. He had taken it; then he had returned it to her locker at the high-school. It was strange being there again; the last time he had tripped through those halls, he had been riddled with bullets and poisoned by wolfsbane, delirious with pain and nausea. But it was the same school he remembered; just more trophies in the case by the administration offices, cluttered around the ones with his family-member's names on. His still-unbroken basketball records; Laura's track and cross-country and long-jump trophies. Even Cora had had medals behind the glass, for high-jump and hurdles. She'd been a freshman, and excelled at science and economics. He frowned at Mary, mentally tamping down the surge of - nausea? Guilt? Dread? - at the thought of the ghosts lingering in that high-school, and asked, "What do you mean, they figured it out?"

"Stiles figured out the shift is related to our heartrates, and that Allison calms Scott's down - when he's on edge, at least," Mary said, with a knowing little smirk. "Scott's…using Allison as an anchor, in spite of my warnings."

"That Allison's parents are hunters?"

"That they're teenagers in high-school. Only Naley ever lasted," Mary said, and Derek rolled his eyes, offering Mary a napkin as her noodles splashed her nose, leaving her looking startled. She muttered a small "Thank you," and sighed, eyeing him thoughtfully. "So where's Peter, then?"

"He's in the long-term residential-care wing at Beacon Memorial," Derek said focusing on the food rather than Mary's expressive hazel eyes. "Why are you frowning?"

"Nothing, I'm just…you and Laura didn't move him to New York to be near you guys?"

Derek focused on his food, trying to find the words to explain how he didn't feel guilty abandoning Peter here in Beacon Hills all these years… "Peter… Peter told Ennis about Paige."

"Ennis…as in, Deucalion's Ennis? The Enforcer, Ennis?"

"You know about the Alpha pack?"

"It's the Hunters' White Whale," Mary said, frowning. "Why would Ennis…?"

"It was just before Deucalion was blinded, before he built the Alpha pack. I remember my mother talking about it with the others. Laura told me about it, after," Derek said quietly. "And…there was this kid, a young Beta, he was shot through the throat by a crossbow, by a Hunter…by your dad - right in front of me."

"My dad?"

"I recognised his scent when he came out into the woods the last full-moon," Derek said. "He was in town, back then. This Beta had killed two Hunters who were stalking him; they strung him up in a distillery, cut him in half with a broadsword."

"Gerard," Mary breathed, her eyes widening a little.

"He set up an ambush when Deucalion called for a meeting on neutral territory, my mother said he wanted to stop any bloodshed; Ennis wanted war. Gerard blinded Deucalion; all he wanted was peaceful resolution," Derek muttered.

"He underestimated Gerard's bloodlust," Mary said, shaking her head sadly. "He's a sociopath, more monster than the creatures he hunts… That was the last time Hunters were in Beacon Hills?"

"No…"

Mary eyed him sombrely. "Right," she said softly.

"I don't know what keeps drawing them back."

"It's the currents. The telluric currents, energy flowing through the earth - this town is literally a beacon," Mary said, and Derek stared at her. "You didn't know that? This is your home-town! The telluric currents can be affected by lunar phases…"

"How do you know that?"

"Hunter training. The strongest telluric currents are usually found around a Nemeton, or…the Nemeton grows bigger, more resilient because of the currents, there's symbiosis either way," Mary said. "And Nemetons draw the supernatural like an oasis in the desert."

"And where the prey gathers, there will always be Hunters," Derek muttered.

"Exactly," Mary sighed. She scoffed quietly. "Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy - I mean… Gerard, and Deucalion. In trying to get one step ahead of him, Gerard actually turned Deucalion into the many-headed Hydra he could never defeat."

"The White Whale," Derek repeated quietly, and Mary nodded.

"So, Paige…it was Peter's fault?" Mary asked softly. Derek sighed heavily, reaching for his cup of miso. Just a mouthful felt strengthening, somehow.

"Peter was…toxic. I think he must have had some kind of narcissistic personality disorder," Derek muttered. "He always craved power, disdained others, put them down. My mother was…an exceptional Alpha, everyone either wanted to be in her Pack or respected her as a fellow Alpha. Peter…was impatient, belligerent, thought he knew everything… And he…was brilliant at manipulating people."

"'Decent people are so easy to manipulate'," Mary whispered distractedly. She caught his eye. "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."

"He had me halfway convinced the only way to be with Paige was for her to turn… My mom…never would've done it," Derek said, through barely-parted lips. He never even talked to Laura about this, about Paige, about what he had witnessed that night in the distillery, what he knew had happened after. He had spent three nights in the root-cellar with Peter after witnessing that Beta - whose name he still did not, would never know - being shot through the throat with an arrow. Mary seemed to have her own special kind of gravitational pull; she drew his words out, in a way no-one had ever managed to get him to open up. Not since Paige. Not since Mom, and Cora, and everyone else. His family. His fault.

"So Peter went to Ennis," Mary guessed, and Derek nodded.

"Maybe he thought he stood a better chance of taking Ennis' Alpha-status than he did my mother's," Derek said. "Ennis was a brutal Alpha, but he's not known to be clever. Peter could've easily manipulated his way in, if…"

"If Paige hadn't died," Mary finished for him sadly.

"If Paige hadn't died," Derek said, swallowing hard. "Then there was the fire…"

"Did Laura know about Paige?" Mary asked curiously. Derek nodded.

"So leaving him here, after the fire…maybe it was his penance?"

"There were eleven people at home the night of the fire," Derek said quietly. "Of all of the people who could've walked away, why did it have to be him?"

Ever since Paige, Derek had secretly wanted something horrific to happen to Peter. He had loved his family, and he had wanted Peter punished. For Paige; for the colour of his eyes. For taking away the life he might've had, the lives they both should've had. Paige had deserved better; she had deserved a bright future playing the music she loved, was born to play.

He was aware of the irony, that it was Peter alone who had survived the fire.

And in the back of his mind, the thought that crept up on him in the middle of the night, woke him choking on terror of the fire he had not experienced, couldn't remember, was that of all of the people to come out of the fire, it was Peter.

And until he had caught Scott McCall's scent in the woods, and collided with Mary Argent on her run… He knew Peter was the only werewolf in town.

The fire, the Hunters, had pushed everyone out.

"It's not your fault, you know," Mary said quietly.

"When the World Tree is harmed, it brings on all kinds of devastation," Mary said softly, a quiet urgency in her eyes. "Someone cut down the Nemeton."

A.N.: An update! Shocking, I know. I think the next chapter might be my version of 'Night School'.