warning for miscarriage (part vii.)

you are the yolk of fury
slipping through fingers /
caught on a nail, staining muslin

pearls on a tarnished chain
blood on your mouth /
you loved once

you loved once /
you were, once

vi. back in california, laura had dated a guy who'd raced - she'd spend at least a weekend a month with him, down in LA. their mother had hated the guy. laura had always loved cars, though, and she was good about telling talia about everything that went down, where she'd be, how long she was gone. it wasn't one of her prouder moments, but talia had tolerated it for laura's sake, even if she hadn't hidden her pleasure when laura finally broke up with the guy after a good two years of dating, just before she left for oregon.

he dies the weekend before thanksgiving, and laura is inconsolable the day she gets the news - the funeral's on wednesday, and she needs to be there (this, she tells herself). she dresses up in black and paints her mouth red, and she spends the night down there with his sisters, offers her shoulder as a temporary replacement for the brother they won't get back.

she's home in time for dinner the next day, poker faced, and no one makes any comments about justino or where she's been. derek doesn't see her shed a tear beyond those that fell when she got the call, doesn't hear her after the one sob she stifles while in her bedroom, getting ready for the wake. nobody asks about him, after that thanksgiving.

but laura, laura used to say she would marry him, if he'd ask. she'd been seventeen, the summer before senior year, when the two of them had finally fixed up the camaro; maybe she'd been bluffing, maybe she hadn't. she'd said, in front of peter no less, "i'll have his kids, sure, why not? who else."

when they weren't in front of peter, she'd said, quieter, "no one else, honestly."

derek never quite understands why they'd split in the first place.

vii. laura suffers three miscarriages before she curls up in his arms and asks what's wrong with me. no one has an answer for her, and instead they go see the malabes again, mireya plying them with drinks and valencia watching him with black eyes.

she's the one who comes over, afterwards, serving manzanilla and atole and more mexican food than dominican. she fries plantains for them and scrubs the kitchen tiles while laura lies in their nest of blankets, derek picking up extra hours over winter break. he'll be twenty soon, and laura's just turned twenty-two. it doesn't feel like it's been so long, but it's been almost two years since the fire.

on new year's eve, six weeks since she lost the last baby (every time, she says, 9 weeks and it just dies), laura crawls out of bed and says, "get dressed, we're going out," and they meet up with the malabe sisters at some cousin's party, cumbia blasting overhead. she goes straight for whatever drinks they've set up, and he finds himself between the two dominican girls, feeling more than a little lost.

"can you drink yet?" mireya says, and he answers honestly.

"sucks," she says, voice loud, before flouncing off - hip-checking valencia into him in the process.

val smiles, says, "you wanna get out here?" and has him blindfold her, later, when she's perched on the counter of her sister's empty apartment, inner thighs against his hips.

viii. phones have never been his forte. he's shit at answering texts - doesn't like the pre-programmed ringtones, the vibrate setting is annoying, who does he actually want to talk to regularly? val calls him, but she spends the night just as often, and laura and he are in the same apartment they've been in for five years. he's twenty-three years old and wondering if buying a ring is a good idea.

then laura leaves. "i'll be back," she says. "it won't be for long," she says. "this could be it," she says, and he doesn't have the heart to ask why now. what more do you need to know. i don't want to talk about kate argent.

laura knows. laura knows everything, and she wants to slit argent's throat, but she'll settle for second-hand information if she has to. for now, at least.

but then she stops answering the few texts derek sends - good morning, goodnight. her answers get vague. laura's never been one for theatrics, even if she knows how to have fun. instead of waiting on her any longer he catches a flight out, takes a couple days off from work. he's been debating whether or not to get his master's, what with val in the process of getting hers. he tells himself he'll ask laura, once beacon hills is sorted out.

(and this is how it ends: derek finds her, in pieces, his sister - his sister, his protector, his everything, his life - in the forest, at night, broken, dead, bleeding, gone. he smells another wolf on her but the scent is faded, not enough for him to pinpoint and track that bastard down. it's been a day or two or three since they got her, and derek wonders what he could have done to stop it. he calls mireya and tells her he's not coming back, says to tell val the same thing, that he's had it with new york.

he lies. he keeps laura's death for himself. later, they tell him she was eleven weeks pregnant.

he tries not to hurt the two high schoolers who come after him. he tries and tries and tries. kate argent finds him anyway.)

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