Chapter 25: The Mechanic

"Joe, I'm serious! Get - down - here!"

Rolling her eyes, Joe stomped downstairs. Aunt Mel stood by the living room window in her scrubs with a cup of coffee. Whatever she was watching was enough to cause a confused half-smile on her face, one that might have a hint of appreciation mixed in.

"I was working," Joe repeated as she saw no immediate cause for concern in their living room or kitchen. She went to get a bottle of water from the fridge now that she was down here anyway.

"Uh-huh," said Aunt Mel, obviously not paying attention to anything else than whatever was happening outside the window. She waved her hand to Joe to make her come over. "I assume you know this guy?"

With furrowed brows, Joe took the spot next to Aunt Mel in the window. Her sip of water stuck in her throat at the sight of her car with all its inner mechanics sitting next to it on the driveway. The lid of the hood concealed the culprit initially, but of course it turned out to be no other than Derek Hale. That explained Aunt Mel's fascination, as his glistening biceps were covered in grease and on full display in the early spring sun.

"Are you kidding me!" Joe barked and stormed outside. In the early afternoon, most of the neighbors were still at work and only Aunt Mel from the window witnessed her outburst. "What the hell, Derek?"

Derek straightened up as she stomped up to him. He wore a tight wifebeater that accentuated his muscles so clearly he might as well have been shirtless. Wiping his hands nonchalantly on a rag, he nodded in response to her shouting. From what Joe could tell, he had stripped her Ford of everything it needed to function as a vehicle and most of it laid scattered on the concrete next to it. Two large pieces of machinery looked suspiciously similiar, only one was not covered in a layer of grime and soot.

"What are you doing?" Joe cringed at her own voice reaching a higher pitch than usual, but this was her car!

"Changing the engine," Derek said simply and bent back under the hood leaving Joe to anchor deep into the anger to avoid just downright drooling at the sight. Goddamnit, she was more than just hormones! This was crazy!

"Oh my God!" she cried and clutched her own face in case her head suddenly exploded. The still clean engine had to be a replacement he brought from God knows where. "Why?"

"So I don't have to worry about you," his voice came from inside the hood, "getting stranded in the middle of nowhere," he straightened back up to look at her with a raised eyebrow, "during the night of a full moon."

"That's not what I meant! Why do you keep on doing stuff like," she waved her arm wildly in the general direction of the Ford, "this?" Joe lowered her voice to an angry hiss, vaguely noting that Aunt Mel had disappeared from the window. " I know the whole mates thing is bullshit, so you can drop the act, okay? What's your endgame?"

Derek's face locked in a neutral expression. "You know what?"

"No one else I've talked to has even heard about it!"

"Okay, first of all," Derek said calmly and leaned against her car while wiping his hands again. "Scott and Stiles are probably not the most reliable sources of information regarding, well, anything."

"It's not Scott and Stiles," Joe said in disgust as if she, a post-grad, would not show more source critisism than that. "I talked to what's basically an expert," a small white lie, "and they said 'true mates' is nothing but a legend. A myth!" She raised her voice to speak over Derek. "And even in the story, it only happens between two..." Joe gestured towards Derek.

"Say it."

It caught her of guard, so she just sputtered: "You say it!"

"Werewolves?" Derek sounded tired and raised an eyebrow.

"Yes! And I am obviously not one, so no matter which way you look at it, it's not exactly applicable, is it?" She realized she was panting and clenching her fists by her side, so she hastily crossed her arms instead and took a step further away from Derek.

He seemed to wait for her to calm a bit down before asking: "Are you ready to have this conversation?"

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Yes, there is, Joe!" Derek snarled, finally reaching the end of his patience. He flung the rag into the open hood and took two imposing steps towards her, making her squint up at his face outlined by the high sun. "It's not a myth! It's rare. See the difference? It happens to maybe one in a thousand, or even ten thousand. I've only heard of one other case except my great-grandparents."

"Your great-grandparents?" Joe repeated to cover up for her taking a tiny step back.

"They were the first to settle in Beacon Hills," Derek explained tiredly, as if it was an useless anectode. "They were true mates. I've seen it first-hand, it's real."

Joe shuffled further back. It seemed indecent to argue about the guy's great-grandparents. She had more ammo though. "That doesn't change the fact that I'm human. Through and through. One hundred percent."

"I know!" Derek barked. "Which makes this a lot harder than it should be." He bit his teeth together and folded his arms. "It shouldn't be possible, but here we are." Joe flushed as Derek began listing on his fingers: "You smell me. You feel my pain. You're attracted to me."

"You are a very attractive person!" Joe yelled loudly and gestured towards him and his muscles and perfectly symmetric face like it was all his fault.

Derek's jaw flexed as he tried to explain. "It's...deeper than that, okay? I can't explain it, not in words, but I sense it."

"Oh you sense it?" Joe spat and turned away, unable to look at him with his senses."Good for you! What about me?"

"I don't know! But there is no other way you can smell me at all as a human," Derek insisted. "I didn't even know you did until you told me, remember, when you said to 'get out of your nose'? I don't wear cologne or aftershave, Joe, no one else can smell me. Not like you can. And I shouldn't be able to sense you either in your human form, but I do."

Human form? She did not like the sound of that, as it implied another possible form for her. Joe racked her brain for something to distract from that fact. "Okay, but if it's not possible, what if it's something else? Like, I don't know, a curse?"

"A curse?" Derek asked with raised eyebrows, disbelief written all over his face.

"Oh, that's where we're drawing the line? How is a curse any more implausible than 'true mates'?"

Derek kept quiet for some time."You are without a doubt the most frustrating person I've ever met." He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth again. "And I've met Stiles."

Instead of acknowledging Joe's sputtering protest, Derek turned back around to lift the new engine into her car. Judging by his straining muscles, a normal man would probably not be able to lift it.

"Well, excuse me, but I didn't know any of this was real until a couple of weeks ago. I still don't know what's real and not, so sorry if I'm not jumping straight on any crazy train that rides by," Joe said to his back as he picked up a screwdriver or whatever to fiddle with some wires. "And even if it is true, which I'm not saying it is because it sounds like bullshit, it still doesn't give you any right to show up out of the blue and do shit like this!"

His back muscles flexed as he stopped what he was doing, obviously listening.

"It's a piece of shit car, I know, but it's my piece of shit car. My old busted engine. My decision and my money! I get it that you're trying to help, but you have to ask, Derek. You don't get to make my decisions for me!"

Seeing as he remained completely still, Joe just kept going.

"And anyway, I don't want you to do stuff for me because you feel like you have to." Joe swallowed the lump coming into her throat. "If you're gonna do stuff for me, I want it to be because you want to do stuff for me. And even then, ask."

Before she said anything she was going to regret, or before she started crying in the middle of the day in their driveway, Joe left Derek still bent under the hood and hurried inside.

Aunt Mel sat by the kitchen counter, still sipping coffee, but stood up hastily when Joe slammed the front door shut.

"Don't," Joe choked out to stop Aunt Mel from raining down upon her. Aunt Mel stopped hesitantly and Joe continued upstairs. "Not now, please."

Joe went straight to the bathroom and hopped in the shower, hoping the noise would cover up her own ragged breathing from the werewolf still outside.

Derek had left by the time Aunt Mel knocked on the door to ask if she should call the cops. After checking under the hood, Joe deduced he was apparently not petty enough to re-install her old engine. At least the car worked, otherwise she would have called the cops. Aunt Mel suggested they take it to a garage anyway, in case he'd messed it up, but Joe dismissed it. If she got hurt, he got hurt. He seemed obsessed with building strength, if she got in an accident he would be weakened. Why take that risk?

She had to admit the Ford started a lot smoother than before, but it was the principle of things. Besides, Derek hadn't exactly earned any more of her good will when Scott called her in frenzy from school. Derek got another one. A girl this time, Elena or Erica or something. Joe hoped it wasn't an attempt to replace her, the girl couldn't be older than sixteen.

Scott waited on her on the steps of the school and bounded into the passenger seat. "I gotta get to work in like an hour."

"We'll have to hurry then," Joe said and used the new horsepowers to speed out of the lot. It was still light out when they reached the Hale house. Joe tried to suppress a shudder. She hadn't been back here since that night. Old remains of police tape fluttered in the wind, but otherwise it looked deserted as always.

"Watch out for trip wires," Scott warned and she followed him closely up the steps. He seemed to stop and listen for something and Joe's hand went to her back pocket for the werewolf-spray. "You sure you're okay being here, Joe?"

"Can you guys stop sensing my heartbeat or whatever?" Joe muttered and shoved past Scott into the ruined living room. "I'm fine. Let's just get this over with."

Using pieces of debris, they mapped out everyone's positions in the room from when Jimmy took the shot until the choppers turned up.

"I saw Jimmy last when I was lying here," Joe made a scuff mark on the dusty floor, "and turned the other way to see that Kate was still breathing."

"That means I was wrestling Peter over here at the same time," Scott said, marking a larger area on the floor as well as he followed her timeline. "And Derek would have been here."

Step by step, they moved on. Joe's focus was on Kate, from her position she could not have seen Jimmy move or be moved. Scott had seen Jimmy's body afterwards, as he'd almost landed on top of him when Peter threw him on the floor, but they'd crashed through the windows soon after.

"So Derek would've been here after Peter knocked him back while still holding me." Scott worked methodically, drawing an arrow with his foot. Joe followed Scott's line of vision. "So Jimmy would have been in Derek's sight until he left out the front door."

"Of course he would," Joe muttered and they moved on to searching for tracks leading away from the house. Assuming Jimmy left on his own, he would still be severely injured and bleeding heavily. Footmarks and bootprints littered every square inch around the house from all the crime scene investigators and FBI-agents.

"Why is Derek going after teenagers anyway?" Joe mused aloud as she watched Scott sniff the forestline like a bloodhound. This Erica-girl was in Scott's year and somehow the thought of Derek biting an underage girl made her more queasy than the thought of Derek biting Isaac. Okay, no, the thought of Derek biting anyone made her queasy. She kept seeing Peter's face morphing into the head of a wolf, except now it was Derek instead and whoever bit fell to the floor with dead eyes, like Jimmy.

"Stiles think they may be more resilient," Scott answered distractedly. It seemed to take a lot of concentration to detect old blood stains in a damp forest.

"Or just malleable," Joe scoffed. He wouldn't be the first to recruit teenagers to do the dirty work. Cults, gangs, the mafia and third-world guerilla leaders had all caught on to the idea that youth would do just about anything for a sense of belonging. If you got them while they're young, they'd follow you for life.

"Blood," Scott announced and Joe straightened up. He waved at her. "This way."

"Look at us, we're like a whole K-9 unit," Joe quipped as Scott still moved in a low crouch away from the Hale house. "Or would you be considered a K-9 unit by yourself?"

"Shut up," Scott said with a half laugh. "I'm trying to focus."

Joe kept quiet, but still found the joke funny. She did not have any hope of actually locating Jimmy today, but just a clue to where he might have gone would help immensely. She needed answers.

"It stops here, but it looks like there's tire tracks," Scott announced and Joe tried to triangulate their location.

"No way," she said and twirled around. The tire tracks were deeply set, meaning the car went out the same way it came in. "Shit. This is where we parked! I completely forgot about his car!"

Scott waited as she concluded swearing at the open air. "You knew his car was here?"

"I forgot!" Joe insisted, still inwardly cursing. To be fair, she'd been plenty distracted lately. "There was a lot going on! Shit! Okay. Well, at least we know he's still driving the same car. If Sheriff Stilinski ever wants to actually investigate his disappearance, I have the license plate number."

"Why are you so adamant about finding him?" Scott asked when they made their way back to her car as his shift at the veterinary clinic was about to start. "Apart from the fact that you think he might have killed Isaac's dad?"

Joe raised an eyebrow. "Adamant? Learned a new word today, Scotty?" He blushed and mumbled something about pre-SAT prep. She let it slide and answered his question: "Because he's probably the person who knows most about all of this stuff except Derek and the Argents, both untrustworthy by default."

"Uh...he did work for Peter," Scott pointed out carefully as they got in the Ford. "And he might be a killer. If it hadn't been for Derek, he would have killed you."

"Yeah, well, no one's perfect." Joe backed away from the Hale house as the sun set over the horizon. "If Derek's only gonna help you on the condition that you join his pack — which is such a dick move, don't get me started — we need to find you help elsewhere. Getting chained up once a month is not a viable option."

"I know," Scott admitted and he sighed irritably. "Doctor Deaton knows something, but he hasn't mentioned anything about it since he helped me after the Argents captured Derek."

Doctor Deaton, just another mystery on a long list of mysteries. She'd worked for the guy several months at a time. He'd never been particularly talkative, but she never got a creepy vibe off of him either. Not that her judgement should be trusted an inch as proven by her current track record.

"Just be careful, okay?" Joe said when they pulled into the clinic parking lot. "Jimmy was the one to call him when he helped me. We don't know his deal or where his allegiance lies."

"I know, I will," Scott promised. He climbed out of her car and stopped in the door. "I'll be home late. I gotta, uh, study thing with Stiles later."

"Yeah, whatever, just be careful. Last thing we need is a shotgun wedding between you and Allison," Joe said darkly and then laughed at Scott's defeated face. Kate had been right about one thing. Joe and Scott were awful liars. Kate had probably been right about a lot of things.

Lacking any new clues, she drove to the laundromat and checked out Jimmy's apartment again. Still empty, still unlocked. Floor turning dusty, but it looked like there had been a second set of footprints here after her and Scott. Maybe the Sheriff had done some investigating after all? She left a note on the fridge with her phone number and the words 'NEED TO TALK', just in case he happened to pass by here.

So, if she was a werewolf-expert since high school who'd dreamt of the bite for God knows how long, what would her plan be when she finally got it? She'd think gloat would be on the top of his list, but he might as well have disappeared off the face of the planet. The Argents had not gotten to him, as evident by her car trouble, but neither had Derek apparently.

Time...Derek said Scott needed time to get the change under control. Was that what Jimmy was doing? Buying himself time until he was strong enough to stand on his own? She pictured Jimmy living in some secluded cave in the wilderness, eating freshly caught trout and drinking rain water. Without his chamomile tea? Hardly. The only clues she could find from either his blog or literally thousands of forum-posts, was how he seemed to disapprove of the whole Alpha-Beta-relationship and pack-thing. Did he want to be an Omega? According to Derek, that was risky business. Was there an alternative? Still plenty of letters left in the Greek alphabet.

He knew she was following him, so he hadn't left the area. If he wanted her to leave him alone, why come see her in the backyard that night? Motive. Means. Opportunity.

For some reason, she thought of the girl that Peter bit on the lacrosse field. The not-werewolf-and-not-dead girl. Peter had not struck her as the kind of guy to go on some random rampage. Surprisingly meticulous for a delusional mass-murderer. Scott kept tabs on the girl, as far as Joe knew, and nothing suspicious had happened. Yet.

"God, you're getting paranoid," she murmured to herself and drove back home. Peter had probably made a lot of plans, but he had not planned to lose. He had not planned for Derek to slash his throat and claim the Alpha-status. Whatever he had wanted with the girl, it was a fluke now.

An e-mail waited for her back home from Professor Walker asking if she had had enough time to think. Joe sat in front of the keyboard for almost an hour trying to come up with a reply that sounded both intelligent and gave her more time to think as well. In the end, she agreed to a meeting the day after tomorrow. She was not sure if she even had it in her to write a neutral paper about the murders, not when she knew the truth.

"How'd it go with Doctor D?" Joe asked when Scott came trudging in the front door way past his curfew. Aunt Mel was working, so no chance of a reprimand.

"Uh, I got a raise," Scott said happily. His cheeks were still flushed, so she could guess his mind was elsewhere. "Two fifty an hour."

"Joe!" Doctor Deaton was in the midst of stocking glutenfree pet treats on the shelf behind the desk when a jingle alerted him of her arrival. Even if Scott was bribed to avoid asking questions, she would not be so easily bought. She nodded as a way of greeting and watched Doctor D shrug on his lab coat, the white fabric contrasting with his dark skin. "Long time no see. You're doing well?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. You got a minute?"

He claimed he did and gestured for her to come to the back where he had a fresh pot of coffee brewing. Doctor Deaton seemed to pause for a second to watch her flip the hinged countertop back to follow him. She let him chat loosely about the weather and her studies, obviously not in a hurry to get to anything worthwhile.

"Doc, let's cut the crap, you know why I'm here, right?" Joe finally asked when they were halfway through their respective coffee cups. He gave her a perfectly innocent smile and Joe persisted. "I remember you, from that night at Jimmy's place..."

"Mr. Carter, yes. How is he? Haven't seen him around in a while." Something, a twinkle maybe in his eye, gave Joe the impression that Doctor Deaton knew a lot more than he was willing to let on.

"He's missing," she said simply, knowing it to only be half a truth.

Doctor Deaton raised his eyebrows as he took another sip. "Oh, really? I never saw a notice about it. Was it in the newspaper?"

"No," Joe said sullenly. It was not for lack of trying. This was how she remembered her old boss. Perfectly nice and pleasant, but he had this unique ability to shut down any attempt of conversation. She sighed and asked him something he could not deny at least. "The injection you gave me that night, you got any more of that?"

Doctor Deaton gave her a surprised look and lowered his coffee cup to the table. "It is not meant for regular use, Joe." She must have looked so forlorn that he relented a bit. "The shot I gave you was particularly potent. It would not be safe to over-expose you. However..." He got up to rummage in some cabinets, as if checking his inventory. "I could make you a similar concoction. With a reduced dosage." He smiled, albeit a bit thinly. "If I recall correctly, you are not overly fond of needles."

"Nope," Joe admitted and thought of all the times she had to look away when Doctor Deaton injected animals with anesthesia.

"Give me a few hours and I can make some pills," Doctor Deaton concluded and looked up when the front door jingled again. "Looks like my next appointment's here." He stopped her when she got up to leave. "Listen to me, Joe, these pills, they're for emergencies only. Okay? Promise?"

"Promise," she said over her shoulder and turned to smile at the middle-aged woman who came in with her severely overweight cat.

Every time she started the car now, she was reminded of Derek Hale. He kept gathering other werewolves, she kept gathering supplies and the Argents were probably gathering something too, not that she had a clue of what it was. People, maybe, manpower. Battle lines being drawn, preparing for war. And she was still flailing around trying to connect dots.

Her phone rang while she drove back home. She rolled her eyes at seeing Scott's name, he was supposed to be at school and could not afford any more absence.

"Don't you have class?" she said as she answered the phone, pulling over to the side while she talked.

"There's another kid missing."

"What?" Joe spat and put her car back in gear to make a u-turn. "Derek got another one?"

"We think so. The guy who works at the ice rink, he's not in class today." She heard the general buzz of a high school in the background and Stiles' occasional helpful suggestions. "We gotta stop him, Joe!"

"Wait, wait, wait, are you sure he's with Derek? I mean that's two in less than a week!"

"We're not a hundred percent. Stiles' gonna check his house, I need a ride to the ice rink. Can you pick me up in an hour?"

Joe agreed and that gave her enough time to swing by the house to pick up her limited arsenal of supplies. Werewolf-spray and shotgun, a killer combo. Or, hopefully not. She was less worried about Derek than she was of the Argents crashing the party. Okay, she was a little worried about Derek as well. He'd changed after the thing with his uncle. He must have.

Or, according to Professor Kane's color theory, he'd always been like this. Blue eyes. Sign of a killer.

At least he'd made sure she had the motor power now to move across town in record speed. Scott came bounding down the front steps of the school just as she pulled up. She saw him give a nod to Stiles who hurried to his parked Jeep further down.

"He needs three," Scott explained in the car as she drove. "Three Betas. That's how he'll be the strongest. Isaac, Erica and Boyd."

"We know for sure that he already bit this Boyd?" Joe asked and stepped heavier on the gas. Scott chewed his lip, but shook his head no. "What's your plan here, Scott?"

"Talk to him. Make sure that he knows the good and the bad," Scott said and rubbed his head, stress reeking off of him. "Fight Derek, if I have to."

Joe shifted in her seat and Scott must have picked up on it with his keen werewolf-senses. "Yeah, about that...there's something I need to tell you."

She gave him the condensed version, leaving out the mate-part, focusing on the pain-part.

As expected, Scott was as lost as she was: "What? Why? How? How long?"

"I don't know, since...since the night the janitor died, I think. That's when I first felt it." Joe tried to explain and grimacing the whole time. This was the first time she admitted it out loud and it made it more real somehow.

"So...The Argents?"

"Yup."

Scott's eyes were so wide she worried they would pop out. "They tortured him! Joe, why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know, okay? It's weird! Everything's weird!" Joe exclaimed and accidentally used both hands to gesture, causing the car to swerve gently. "Shit, sorry. Don't ask me to explain it because I don't know, okay? But if you fight him-"

"You're gonna feel the pain," Scott mumbled and buried his head in his hands. "What am I gonna do?"

"It's okay, I have a plan. Sort of," Joe insisted and pulled up to the clinic. She turned to Scott who stared confused out the window. "I never told you why Jimmy called Doctor Deaton, right? So when I was, uh, feeling all of Kate's torture stuff, Doctor Deaton showed up and gave me an injection of something weird. It cut my connection to Derek."

"So if you get that same injection now..." Scott said slowly, his poor hormonal brain trying to keep up with everything at once. "I can fight Derek without hurting you."

"Exactly! Uh, not that fighting should be your default option, Scott." Joe squinted at her attempt to be the responsible adult. "But just in case, Doctor D said he would make me some pills, so if I take one of those and then we wait, I dunno, like half an hour, it should be good."

Scott looked less than convinced, but what choice did they have? Joe hastened towards the clinic, but Doctor Deaton had put the 'AWAY'-sign up, the one he used if he had to leave for a short errand. Damn it. They did not have time to wait. She ran back to the car and Scott had his keys on him, thank God, so she could go in the back door.

A half full orange bottle without a label sat next to the tablet press, the one Joe mentally referred to as the pill making-machine. They used it to make half or extra doses of tablets depending on the size of the animal.

"Do I take one or two?" she asked when she was back in the driver seat. The pills were large, around the same size as Advils. Scott did not look convinced that any of this was a good idea, but he was probably just worried about this Boyd-guy.

"Maybe we should wait for Doctor Deaton?" he suggested, but Joe shook her head.

"No, if you really think Derek's gonna bite this Boyd-guy, we gotta hurry."

She took two.

Congratulations USA for being (almost) done with the election! Now maybe I can concentrate on Joe Delgado instead of Joe Biden :p

Was surprised with a weekend getaway to a remote mountain cabin (read: no internet), hence the update today instead of yesterday.

And thank you guys for the reviews!

As for why Derek hasn't bought her a new phone, maybe we can say it's because he blames that entirely on Stiles and his spazziness? Or that it happened so early on when he was still trying to make her stay away? And after today's chapter, I think he (hopefully) understood how it might not be that well received... Like I have plenty of excuses, apart from it being an obvious plot-point that will be touched upon later :p Haha, and I love the continued discussion of Derek's footwear. My headcanon is an extensive shoe closet in the loft in season 3.