Archaic Latin -Chapter 56

~A Teen Wolf fan-fiction collaboration between Miss E Charlotte and Sage Londyn~

Avery tried to open the door to her house, but it was locked. Allison still had her car and keys, and her house key was on the key ring.

Sighing with exhaustion, Avery rang the door bell and waited until her dad opened the door with a confused look on his face.

"Avery, what's going on?" He asked her.

"One of my friends borrowed my car." She admitted as she pushed past him inside the warm house out of the cold night air.

"Teagan?" He asked.

"No, Allison." She admitted.

"Who's Allison?" He asked, with an even more confused look on his face.

Avery's 1965 Mustang was her dream car and she was very selective over who she let drive it.

"She's one of my friends; it's been a really long night dad. I'm just going to bed." She said with sigh as she started up the stairs.

Richard stood in silence as he watched his teenage daughter head up to her room, he wasn't sure what to say or do. He was still pretty new to actually trying to act like a dad.

Finally he decided she probably needed some time alone.

As Avery reached the top of the stairs and started for her room she stopped as she saw what looked to be a whole roll of toilet paper shredded and spread all over the hallway.

"What the hell…" she mumbled as she walked to the doorway of the bathroom and looked in to see Annabel Lee asleep on the edge of the large bathtub surrounded by even more shredded toilet paper.

"And you look so harmless." Avery said, with a small smile as she picked her black kitten up and looked at her.

"Annabel Lee, I have bought you every toy the pet store had… not to mention Stiles bought you a kitty play center and you want to play with toilet paper?" Avery continued as she walked in her bedroom and turned on the light.

Her eyes widened as she saw some things from her desk down on the floor and one of her school notebooks had the cover and some pages clawed up.

"Nope, you just like to destroy things. Bad kitten." Avery lectured as she looked around her room.

She could feel Annabel Lee's small body move against her arms as she purred loudly and looked up to her.

"If you keep this up I'll have to send you to Teagan for some training." Avery said nodding to her kitten.

When Teagan had gotten Aspen as a puppy, he chewed things up and would destroy the house when they weren't there, but Teagan had worked with her husky until he was a well behaved dog.

Still carrying her kitten with her, Avery walked into the bathroom and sat her down on the edge of the sink as she changed into her pajamas for the night.

"Bed time." She stated as she picked Annabel Lee back up and walked into her bedroom.

Annabel never had a problem with being held, especially by Avery who the young kitten had claimed from the first time she saw her.

But as soon as Avery walked back into her room, Annabel Lee arched and hissed loudly before she scrambled franticly to get away from Avery, clawing her arms up as she did.

"Annabel!" Avery screamed angrily as the kitten got away and darted under her bed.

Letting out a pained groan Avery looked down to her freshly scratched arms and then back up as her bedroom door opened and Derek walked in.

"Well that explains it." She stated with an arched eyebrow.

"Ever heard of calling before you show up? Or hell, maybe even knocking?" Avery asked.

"You have a cat?" He asked looking over to the bed, where the scared kitten was hiding underneath it.

"A kitten." She explained.

"What the hell are you doing here? I locked my windows for a reason." She angrily said.

"Your dad let me in." He answered as he eyed her now bleeding arms.

"Of course he did." She grumbled.

He opened his mouth to say something but she cut him off.

"You can leave, Derek. I'm not going to tell you where Jackson is." She snapped, thinking that was his only reason for coming to see her.

"I'm not here for that." He admitted as he walked farther into her room.

Avery could hear Annabel Lee continue to hiss and even growl under her bed.

"Jackson is my friend and even though I'm not as close to him as I used to be before this year, I'm not going to sell him out to you so you can kill him." She continued.

"Avery, I'm not here to ask you where he is. I'm here because Isaac told me that you tased him." Derek said, his voice loud and gruff in response to her telling him to leave.

"Well, I'm sorry I hurt Isaac but I'm not going to apologize for what I did. I asked him to stand down, but on your orders he refused." She argued.

"When did you start carrying a taser?" He asked her.

"Get out." She said, with a heavy sigh.

She was physically and emotionally drained and the last thing she wanted to do was fight with anyone, especially Derek.

Derek looked around her room.

It didn't even look like the same room as when he'd lived with her.

The formerly slate gray walls were now a deep, bold purple. There were cat toys all over the floor and a large cat play center in the corner of her room.

He saw a bottle of pepper spray on her bedside table and a baseball bat by the inside of her door.

"Derek!" Avery angrily exclaimed when he didn't move.

His eyes lingered for a few moments on some self-defense workout DVD's stacked by her TV.

"I didn't come here to pry information out of you, I came here to check on you." He finally admitted, as his eyes locked with hers.

"Why?" She asked, as she kicked a black and red fuzzy cat toy across the floor of her room.

"Honestly, you're not going to like my answer." He admitted to her, as he looked back to the large cat play center in the corner of her room.

"I don't really like anything you're saying." She admitted, with an arched eyebrow.

"I think you're scared." He admitted.

Before she could argue, he continued "You never carried a taser, or even pepper spray before. You didn't keep a bat in your room, and you weren't working out to these." He said as he crossed her room and help up the self-defense DVD's.

"There is nothing wrong with being cautious." She said, her voice almost in a growl from him pointing things out to her.

"But that's not what you're doing, is it?" He pushed.

"What am I supposed to do? It's just me and my dad here and he's gone most of the time… I don't have anyone to protect me and you know what? I don't need anyone to watch out for me. I can defend myself, now more than ever." She said, her voice stronger than she felt.

Derek's eyes locked with hers before she looked back down to the floor, and he looked back to the baseball bat.

"Avery…" He started to say his voice softer than before.

She closed her eyes and shook her head as she swallowed hard, "Derek, don't. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking the same thing that my dad is; that I haven't dealt with what happened to me, after the attack."

"The attack? No, Avery I think you're scared because someone sought you out and hurt you." He pointed out.

The way Avery had been talking, it sounded like she was also trying to convince herself of the story everyone else knew; that it was a random attack.

She rolled her eyes, immediately angered by his words.

"Kate is dead." He reminded her.

"I know that! But what about when the next Kate comes along?" She yelled.

"What are you talking about?" He asked her.

"What if someone else comes after me? I need to be ready." She explained, her light brown eyes intense as she stared back at him with an unwavering certainly in her words.

Derek opened his mouth to speak, but Avery looked at him as she said , "Do you know I just willingly left with Kate the day she came after me?"

He looked at her confused.

"She had a gun, and to be honest I didn't really care if she killed me. You warned me about how dangerous it was for us to be together, and I didn't care. But she threatened Teagan, and I didn't have a choice but to leave with her. If I didn't, she was going to kill my best friend." Avery explained as tears burnt her eyes.

Derek didn't know what to say as he stood and watched her; she'd never talked to him about what happened that day before.

"If I'd had a taser, or mace… or hell, if I knew any self-defense I could have fought back, but I didn't. I was completely powerless and I can't let that happen again. I won't let it." She said, her voice growing a little hoarse as she spoke.

"Nothing like that is going to happen to you again. I'm not going to let it, I'm the alpha now… I'm stronger and faster, I won't let you get hurt again." He said.

She stared at him, her forehead lined with confusion, "You almost make it sound like that's why you became an alpha."

He looked at her, but didn't answer.

"Oh… oh my god, that is part of it. Isn't it?" She gasped in realization.

"I had to watch you suffer that day, Avery. I almost watched you die, you're not the only one who felt powerless. I won't feel like that again." He admitted.

"Why? Why do all of that, just to turn around and decide I wasn't important to you anymore?" She asked, her eyes pleaded for an answer, for some kind of explanation to how he could do that to her.

"Don't do that, I never said you weren't important to me." He argued as he took a few steps closer to her.

"You did too! You told me I wasn't important to you anymore, that the only thing worth your time was trying to build a pack." She yelled.

He shook his head, "Is that really how you remember it going? Because I never said any of that to you."

"Well that's how it felt." She admitted, her voice quieter than before as she realized how close he was now standing to her.

"Of course you're important me to, more important than you know." He admitted as he reached out and held onto her chin making her face him.

She held her breath at his speaking in present tense; he didn't say that she had been important to him. He was telling her he still cared about her and she was still important.

He could hear her heart pick up speed as she thought of how he was only like this with her, she was the only one who ever got to see this side of him.

Her eyes traveled to his lips and her heart jumped at the memories of how those lips felt against hers, the feeling of his flesh against hers, and how passionate everything had been between them.

Before she was even sure how it happened, he leaned in and their faces were only inches apart.

Closing her eyes she quickly jerked her face back and shook her head back and forth.

"No… you chose your pack over me and you don't get to ride back in here on some white horse and sweep me off my feet again. The truth is I'm seeing someone else and I'm not going to do this to him." She said, as she thought about how Stiles was always there for her and he treated her like the single most important thing in his world.

"Stiles?" Derek asked, already knowing the answer.

She looked at him confused at how he knew that; she didn't know he'd seen her in the lake with Stiles the night of their first date.

"Is everything okay?" Richard asked as he walked into his daughters' room.

"It's fine, dad." Avery said.

Silently Derek crossed the room as he started to leave, his eyes stopped on the top of Avery's dresser where there was a dark blue fabric memory board with black elastic crisscrossed over it, a movie ticket, and a pressed flower from the bouquet that Stiles had brought her.

In celebration of Avery trying to live a normal teenage life and dating Stiles, Teagan had bought her the memory board, so Avery would have a place to display memorabilia and pictures from their dates.

Derek glanced over at Richard and gave him a small nod as he left the room in silence.

Once he was gone, Richard looked to his daughter. "At least he didn't jump out of the window this time, he about gave me a heart attack that last time."

Avery looked at her dad, "Dad… that's really not funny." She said, but couldn't help but smile at his attempt to cheer her up.

Once her dad went back downstairs, Avery got down on the floor and crawled underneath her bed to retrieve her kitten.

The small black kitten was still shaking, and her tail was fluffed out as she looked all around the room with wide green eyes.

"It's okay… the big, bad werewolf is gone." Avery said softly as she crawled into the bed and laid on her side.

After looking around a few more times, Annabel Lee crawled up on Avery's side and curled up to sleep for the night

~()~

The next evening, after moving the van that held Jackson so the police couldn't find him, Avery, Stiles, Teagan, Scott and Allison were on the other side of town, deep in the woods overlooking the town.

Stiles had been on Jackson-sitting duties all day and was explaining to them how he tried to explain to Jackson what he was doing, but he wouldn't listen to him. The rest of the group thought he would listen to Teagan the most, which was why she was not sitting across from him in the van.

"You know, I would expect this from McCall and Stiles, but not you." Jackson said to her with a disappointed look on his face.

"I know you don't believe it but we are doing this for your own good." Teagan said sincerely.

"Right cause I'm a lizard. Oh sorry, a murderous lizard with a tail." Jackson said sarcastically, then added, "Right, cause that makes total sense."

Teagan rolled her eyes at his tone then leaned toward him a little, looking right into his eyes as she tried to get through to him. "I know it sounds crazy, believe me, just the thought of werewolves being real was crazy when I first heard it but obviously it's not that crazy cause it's true. Just like it's true that you are the kanima."

Jackson broke eye contact and shook his head as he let out a sigh, feeling very annoyed right now. Like he told her earlier he wasn't surprised that Scott and Stiles were involved with all of this craziness, but he never thought she would believe any of this. She was always so level-headed.

"Jackson I'm serious. This is not a joke, trust me I wished it was, but I-I saw it with my own eyes." Teagan said, her voice cracking slightly as she remembered seeing him turn.

"You saw it?" Jackson asked softly, as he turned to look back at her, seeing the fearful look in her eyes.

"Yes. You shifted right in front of me Jackson." Teagan answered softly.

"Did I hurt you?" Jackson asked, as he glanced down at the floor. He would hate himself if he had hurt her, although he still wasn't completely sure if he believed all of this. He knew there was no way she could fake the fear in her eyes, but it was all so ridiculous to even think about.

"No. No you didn't hurt me." She said quietly, then added, "But you did scare the hell out of me and I just want to help you, Jackson. We all want to help you and that is why we are doing this."

"You really want to help me?" Jackson asked, then when she nodded her head 'yes', he moved his arms to shake the handcuffs on his wrist then yelled out, "Then let me out of here, Teagan!"

"You still don't believe me?" Teagan asked surprised. She had really thought she was getting through to him.

"No. I mean I would like to think you would never lie to me but this is crazy, Teagan. There is no way in hell that I turn into some kind of reptile looking creature with a tail who goes around paralyzing people and killing them." Jackson said, as calmly as he could but he couldn't help but yell out, "It's just not possible."

He shook the handcuffs again as he added, "And I swear if you don't let me out of here right now I'm going to ..."

"You're going to do what?" Teagan asked, challenging him when he paused. She knew he would never really hurt her, which is what she told him.

Jackson clenched his jaw as he tried not to lose his temper on her. She was right, he wouldn't hurt her, which meant he needed to get her out of there before he did say or do something he would regret.

"Get ... out." Jackson said slowly.

"What?" Teagan asked surprised.

"Get out! Get the hell out of here Teagan, right now!" Jackson yelled at her, causing her to gasp in surprise as she pushed out the door and fell out of the van.

As soon as her feet hit the ground, she took several steps backwards, putting as much distance as she could between herself and the van. Avery, Allison and Stiles were instantly by her side, asking if she was ok as Scott quickly shut the van door. The group of teens walked away from the van and over toward the edge of the cliff that over looked the city.

"So… I take it the talk didn't go well." Stiles said, stating the obvious.

"No. He still doesn't believe us or maybe he does but he doesn't want to believe it. I don't know, but either way it didn't work." Teagan answered, as she shot them an apologetic smile. She honestly thought she could get through to him.

"It's ok." Avery told her quietly, as she wrapped an arm around her to give her a sideways hug.

"What do we do now?" Teagan asked with a sigh, as she nervously ran a hand through her hair.

"I couldn't find the tablet anywhere. If I would have found it then we could have proved to him that he is the kanima." Scott said.

Earlier he had talked to Danny, who told him he was able to fix the footage on Jackson's video from when he recorded himself on his first full moon, but when Scott tried to get the tablet from Danny's car, it was missing.

"If Jackson doesn't remember being the kanima, then I doubt he's going to remember stealing Danny's tablet." Avery pointed out.

"Why would he steal the thing if he doesn't even know what's on it?" Stiles wondered out loud.

"Maybe someone else took it." Teagan suggested.

"Which could mean someone knows what he is." Stiles pointed out.

"Which means someone is protecting him." Avery added.

"Well the bestiary did say 'the kanima seeks a friend'." Allison reminded them. Recently she had the guidance counselor, Ms. Morrell, to translate the notes they had stolen from her family.

"We need to get Ms. Morrell to translate more, maybe there is something in there that we are missing, something that will help us." Scott said.

"Maybe I can get her to translate more tomorrow." Allison suggested.

"What language is it written in?" Teagan asked, curious.

"Archaic Latin." Allison answered.

"Seriously?" Avery asked with a chuckle.

"Yeah, why?" Stiles asked her.

"We took a class for archaic Latin years ago." Avery answered, as she pointed to herself and Teagan.

"Really?" Allison asked, as he looked at the two girls.

"Yeah, we were bored and wanted to learn a new language so me, Avery and Lydia took a class." Teagan answered, then added, "We use to talk to each other using it when we didn't want anyone to know what we were talking about. It was our own little secret language."

"You know now that you mention it I do remember hearing you three talk in a weird language back then, but I never knew what kind it was." Scott said to them.

"Wow that's kind of hot." Stiles said smiling, as he looked over at Avery, then added, "Do you know any other weird languages?"

"I actually don't even remember archaic latin. That was so long ago." Avery answered, as she shot them an apologetic smile when she saw their disappointed looks.

"So I guess we're back to square one." Scott said with a sigh.

"Um, actually no we're not. I still know it." Teagan said to the group, then added, "I still took classes for it at my old high school. They didn't have anything else to choose from and I already kind of knew how to speak it so I figured why not."

"That ... is ... awesome!" Stiles called out happily, then added, "Seriously that's so amazing I could kiss you."

When everyone shot him a look, he quickly added, "I don't mean really kiss you cause I don't like you like that but I'm just so happy I could kiss someone, but not you cause your werewolf boyfriend would kick my ass."

"As would Avery." Allison added with a laugh.

"Actually I would just laugh while Isaac kicked his ass." Avery said with a laugh of her own.

"How about instead of getting my ass kicked I just kiss you?" Stiles asked Avery.

"If you want to do it, do it, you don't have to ask." Avery shot back with a flirty smile.

While they were all laughing and joking around, Teagan looked down at the ground and took a deep breath as she tried to keep the tears that were threatened to spill out back.

She had not told any of them, not even Avery, that Isaac had broken up with her the night before. It's not that she was trying to keep it a secret; it was just with everything else going on now was not the time to talk about it.

Besides as pathetic as it was, there was a small part of her that helped he would take it back soon and things could go back to normal.

"Hey, you ok?" Scott asked Teagan when he noticed the look on her face.

At hearing his question, Avery stopped flirting with Stiles and looked over at her best friend, noticing the same look Scott saw. She took a step closer to Teagan as she asked, "T, is everything ok?"

"Yeah, yeah, everything is good." Teagan lied, then added, "I mean other than being worried about Jackson. I mean, what are we going to do?"

"I say we kill him. Problem solved." Stiles said, as if it was the most simple explanation.

Teagan shot him a look then said, "Stiles! No! This is Jackson, we are not killing him."

"She's right, Jackson is a friend." Avery added.

"Maybe to you two, but not to the rest of us." Stiles argued back.

"I don't care. We're not killing him. We're not hurting him. He doesn't know what he is doing, this is not his fault." Teagan argued back.

"It was his choice to get bit, this is what he wanted." Stiles said back.

"He wanted to be a werewolf, not a vicious killer." Teagan pointed out.

"Ok stop it you two." Avery said, as she stepped in between them ,"You can stop arguing about this cause we're not killing him. We're going to save him."

Scott nodded his head to agree then said, "They're right. We're going to help him."

As Allison nodded in agreement too, Stiles sighed, realizing he was out numbered then said, "Fine. We'll help him."

"I think first we need to start with the bestiary." Avery suggested.

"I agree." Teagan said, then she looked at Allison as she said, "Do you have it with you?"

"No, I have it at home, but I can go get it and bring it to you." Allison answered.

"I can take you home." Scott said, as he wrapped an arm around Allison's waist, then added, "I need to go pick up mom from work and stay at home until she falls asleep."

"I need to get home too. After being gone for most of last night, I need to make an appearance at home or dad will get suspicious." Teagan added.

"After I grab the bestiary I'll meet you at your house." Allison said to Teagan, who nodded her head, letting her know that was fine.

"Then who's going to watch Jackson tonight?" Scott asked.

"I can stay. Dad never notices if I'm home or not." Avery volunteered.

"I'll stay with you." Stiles said, as he looked at Avery. Liking the thought of spending some alone time with her. He just wished they were doing something better than kanima-sitting all night.

A/N- Thank you so much for reading! I really hope you guys all liked the chapter. ^_^