Derek thought that signing Eli up for driver's ed classes at the school, even if he wouldn't be eligible for a permit until the beginning of the next school year, had been a good idea.

Ever since he was young, Eli would follow him around the auto shop with fascination in his eyes as he worked tirelessly on whatever vehicle was currently in the shop. At first, it was his car and some of the cruisers from the sheriff's station.

It felt like when he woke up one morning to find the jeep all but abandoned in the parking lot was when his business started going. Eli had been five at the time, and the way the blue of the vehicle shone in his dark brown eyes, Derek should have known that Eli would later have an affinity with the 1980 CJ-5 jeep, but this…this made him regret signing up Eli for those classes.

Because he was now driving to the sheriff's station and seriously hoping that both Stilinski and Parrish would forgive his newly fifteen-year-old's first criminal offense of carjacking.

Sure enough, the jeep was being pulled away by a tow truck by the time he finally arrived at the station, and entering the building felt weirdly nostalgic in the worst way possible back to when Scott and Stiles had convinced themselves that he was a fugitive.

He pushed it back and walked inside with a polite smile as he greeted the man at the front desk, whose name tag read "Hewitt."

"Hi, I need to speak with the sheriff. I'm Derek Hale?"

"Eli's dad?" The deputy asked and when he nodded, he turned to the other desk where Parrish was filing paperwork, "hey, it's the carjacker's dad."

"I've got it," Parrish nodded as he clapped the man on the shoulder when he walked over before turning to Derek, a clipboard in his hands, "Stilinski's not going to press charges since no one got hurt and just leave it as a warning, but this gives us the contact information in case this happens again."

"Yeah, I got it," Derek nodded and scrawled his name quickly on the dotted line, "can I take him home now?"

Parrish nodded and took the clipboard so he could set it on his desk before grabbing his keys, "I'll go get him."

…

The car ride was way too silent.

Part of that was because Eli was unusually quiet and the other part was that Derek was trying to get his anger to dissipate; he knew that there would have to be some consequences for what his son had done, but keeping the fangs at a minimum and trying to figure out why was where he had to start and if there were indents from his hands pressed into the wheel because of it, that would be the best case scenario.

When he pulled into the driveway, he had barely turned the car off before Eli started to rush out of the vehicle to try and escape to his room.

"Hey, we gotta talk before you run off."

His voice made Eli grow still before the two of them made their way inside; Derek shoved his hands in his pockets as he tried to steady his heart rate. 'He is not your beta, he is your son. You can't be rough with him like you were with the others.' He had to remind himself as he shut the screen door before looking at Eli.

"You wanna tell me why you did it?"

"Why can't you just ground me?" Eli questioned as he hung his backpack up on the coat hook.

"Because this is a criminal offense, Eli," Derek insisted a bit too loudly which forced him to take a deep breath and lower his tone, "the station agreed to drop the charge due to no one getting hurt and because this is your first run-in with the law. But if this keeps happening, then I don't know how much any of us can keep you out of prison. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, I get it," Eli muttered quietly with the nonchalant tone dripping from his words, which only made the anger in Derek's chest swell; he forced himself to stay on track.

"Then why did you do it?"

"Because I wanted to," Eli shrugged but Derek could hear his son's heart rate raise with every breath he took, "can you ground me now?"

"We are not done with this conversation, Eli," Derek shook his head, unable to stop his voice from raising, "and we won't be until you tell me what's going on!"

"Well, I'm done." Eli glared as he emptied his pockets onto the kitchen island before stomping to his room and slamming his door as hard as possible before the click of the lock sounded in Derek's ears, which wiped all of the anger from his mind like a wave and filled the space with guilt.

He forced himself to sit on the couch and try to calm himself down when he heard his laptop ding with a notification from the coffee table; he picked it up, expecting it to be the shipment of parts he had ordered last week but when he saw Natalie Martin's email address, he knew that it was the school.

Derek opened the email and started to read it, realizing that its contents had to be what had gotten Eli so upset and his heart sank with regret as he read the subject line again.

Regarding Eli's participation in Biology; Maternal Genealogy Assignment.