...

A teenager is running through the woods, running from someone. He stumbles and falls down a dirt hill. When he hits bottom he looks up and sees a silver stake in the ground with a glowing top. An emitter. He covers his ears as the high pitched tone blares right next to him and he rushes away again. Hunters are looking for their prey. The teen covers his ears again and glances at another emitter stuck in a tree. He runs away from that one and bumps into another young man.

They take a moment to assess each other. "You're a Hale, aren't you?" The young man asks.

The teenaged Derek Hale doesn't get a chance to answer as an arrow is suddenly lodged into the young man's throat from behind. He instantly dies and falls to the ground, revealing a Hunter with a crossbow aiming at Derek now. The bolt is let loose, but a half shifted younger Peter catches it before it can plant itself in Derek's chest. Peter throws the bolt down, grabs Derek, and hightails it out of there.

Gerard and Chris, with a band of Hunters, come to the woung wolf's body. The young man had killed two Hunters. Chris orders them to find the others and to take them alive saying that they follow the code. They spread out and survery the area with flashlights. The beams seep through the gaps in a wooden door. The door leads to an old root cellar where Peter and Derek are hiding.

"They were there for two days, waiting, hiding." Cora stands by the window in Derek's loft, the rain that falls starts to wash away the Alpha pack symbol painted on the outside of the panes of glass. "That's what we're taught to do when the Hunters find us- hide and heal." Y/n gives a small hum of agreement. She's been taught similiar things, especially since her kind were a little more rare than your average wolf.

"Okay, so is two days standard, then, or are we thinking Derek's on, like, some extended getaway?" Stiles questioned.

"Why do you care?"

"Why do I care? Let's see- because over the last few weeks, my best friend's tried to kill himself. His boss and my girlfriend nearly got ritually sacrificed. A girl that I've known since I was three was ritually sacrificed. Boyd was killed by Alphas. I- do you want me to keep going? 'Cause I can, all right? For, like, an hour."

"Easy there, tiger. It's gonna be okay." Y/n took his hand and gently ran her thumb over his knuckles in a calming way. It worked as his shoulders became less tense and he fidgeted just a little less.

"You think Derek can do anything about that?"

"Well, since he's the one everyone seems to be after, it's more like he should do something about it, yeah."

"I don't know. There's something different about him now. He wasn't like this when we knew him."

"What was he like?" Y/n wondered.

Peter comes down the stairs then. "A lot like Scott, actually. A lot like most teenagers- unbearably romantic, profoundly narcissistic, tolerable really only to other teenagers."

"Oh, so like you? Minus the romantic part and the fact hardly anyone can stand you?"

"I was actually quite the romantic in my youth." Y/n rolled her eyes but didn't say any more.

"And so what happened? What changed him?" Stiles asked.

"Well, the same thing that changes a lot of young men... A girl."

"You're telling me some girl broke his little heart? That's why Derek is the way he is?"

"Do you remember Derek before he was an Alpha had blue eyes? Do you know why some wolves have blue eyes?"

"I just always thought it was, like, a genetic thing."

"All werewolves start off with yellow eyes." Y/n informed him.

"If you wanna know what changed Derek, you need to know what changed the color of his eyes." Peter said.

A metronome ticks a steady rhythm as a pretty girl with brown hair holds a bow to a chello's strings. Her eyes follow the notes on the page in front of her as her hands manupulate the instrument to make a beautiful sound... Until the sound of a basketball in the hall makes her pause. She sighs and starts the song up again. Only to be intrrupted by the ball again mixed with boys' racous laughter. She scoffs and sets the bow down.

A group of boys were messing around in the hall next to the Music Room, bouncing around a basketball and laughing. "Hey, do you guys mind?" The girl asks as she walked out of the room and confronted them. Derek turned around with the ball in his hand to see who was there. "I'm trying to practice." The other boys teasingly 'ooh' at her.

"How do you know we're not trying to practice here too?" Derek asked.

"Yeah, well, see, I was practicing in the Music Room, and I'm pretty sure basketball practice takes place in the gym."

"Well, I'm pretty sure basketball practice takes place anywhere you got a basketball." The boys around him laugh. Derek then goes up to her, dribbling the ball between his legs making her roll her eyes. "See?" He smirked and she turned to walk away. "Wait. Hold on. Hold on." She pauses with her back to him. "If you can get the ball from me... Maybe I'll stop." She turns back to him. "Come on." He starts to bounce the ball. "It'll be easy." She stares at him and makes a grab for the ball, but he sidesteps it making his friends laugh. More dribbling and they have a stare off. She tries again and again he dodges, bouncing the ball and going behind her. He goes around her and back to where he was before, showing off and bouncing the ball quickly between his legs. She shakes her head and walks away, done with the little game, going back to the Music Room. Derek's friends walk away with more laughter and he only spares them a glance, still staring after the pretty girl. She started the song again when he walks in. "Sorry about that."

His apology makes her pause and look at him by the door. "Whatever." She turns back to her music sheet.

"Hey, what's your name?"

"I'm trying to practice, if you didn't notice."

"Okay." He moves closer. "I'll just leave you alone, then..." She seems satisfied, until. "After you tell me your name."

She gives it a moments thought. "All right, I'll tell you my name if you can play one instrument in this room."

"One?"

"Just one."

"Any of 'em?" She gives a little head tilt and he goes over to where the instruments are held. He carefully looks over them all, trying to make the perfect choice. He makes his selection and walks back to her with his hands behind his back. He brings them to the front to reveal a traingle, giving it a little tap with the rod and making a successful chime.

She looks away in disbelief and amusement. "My name's Paige. Now please go, so I can practice."

"My name's-"

"I know who you are." Derek walks away with a smirk and she watches him, unable to keep the small smile from her lips.

"Okay, so if Derek was a sophmore back then, how old was he?" Stiles asks Peter. "How old were you? How old are you now?"

"Not as young as we could have been, but not as young as you might think."

"Okay, that was frustratingly vague. How old are you?" He asks Cora.

"I'm 17."

"See, that's an answer. That's how we answer people."

"Well, 17 how you'd measure in years."

"All right, I'm just gonna drop it."

Y/n couldn't help sharing an amused smirk with Cora before something occured to her, and she looked at Peter. "You're in your 40's aren't you?" She asked the male Hale. He lightly squints his eyes in question of how she knew. "You're about as old as my mom would have been." She mentioned with a softer tone.

Stiles took her hand like she had done earlier. She didn't talk about her mom much, and each time she did he could see the pain still lurking behind her pretty e/c eyes. He decided to change subject and continue the story. "What happened to Derek and the Cello Girl?" He asked Peter again.

"What do you think happened? They were teenagers. One minute, it's, 'I hate you, don't talk to me'. The next, it's frantic groping in any dark corner they could manage to find themselves alone for five minutes. You two should be familiar." The couple rolled their eyes in sync at that comment. "Their favorite dark corner was an abandond distillery outside of Beacon Hills.

Paige and Derek smiled at each other as they ran to the distillery in the cover of night. They immediatly started to kiss.

"All right, hold up. How do you know all this? You just said that they were alone."

"Back then, I wasn't just Derek's uncle. I was his best friend, his closest confidant. That's how I know." Y/n lightly frowned at that. Somehow she doubted that was true. His heart didn't change in beats, but his eyes. There was something in his eyes that said this was a bit of a stretch.

Peter peeks through gaps in the old wood and watches his nephew and his girlfriend be happy together. Paige pulls away from the kiss suddenly and looks down. "What?" Derek asks.

She looked at him. "Why do you like me?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Why do you like me?" She repeated with a smile.

"Why do you think I like you?"

"Honestly, I think, at first, you liked me because I didn't like you."

"So now you're worried that now that I know you like me that I'm gonna stop liking you?"

"Not worried. Just wondering when."

"What if I never stop liking you?"

They smiled at each other and went to kiss, but then he whipped his head to the side when he heard a distant thump. "What? Did you hear something?" Then he looked up at a suspended chain. "What's wrong?"

"Something happened here."

"What do you mean?"

"I caught a scent. It's blood." Then he heard distant creaking. "All right, now I definitely heard something."

"Derek, I don't hear anything."

"We have to go. Come on. Let's go." He took her by the hand and quickly got her out of there. Just in time too as a large group of werewolves made their way to the distillery. Peter noticed them and moved to be hidden from view, still eavesdropping on the new arrivals. The group split into four groups, four packs, three of them headed by their Alphas, Kali, Ennis, and Deucalion.

"There." Ennis looked up at the chain. "You see it?" He faced the packs. "They dragged him here, an arrow in his throat, and they hung him and cut him in half. They killed one of ours."

"One of yours." Kali emphasised. "Why should I care about one of your pack?"

"'Cause the Hunters don't discern packs, especially the Argents." Laura Hale spoke up in place of her mother.

"But they do discern motive." Deucalion pointed out. "Ennis, why did they kill him?" Deucalion's Beta, Marco, answered for the other Alpha.

"Because your young, naive Beta killed one of them."

"Marco." His Alpha called in a warning tone.

"He killed a Hunter, didn't he?"

Ennis stepped closer to Marco. "Accidentally."

A howl rings through the night pulling everyone's attention to the doors. A black wolf with Alpha red eyes padded in through the woods and into the distillery, standing in front of Deucalion who stood at the front of everyone. She shifted back into her human form and Laura put a coat on her mother, Talia Hale.

Peter watched through the cracks as Talia addressed the situation. "It's his right. We're not the only people to adhere to rituals thousands of years old."

"Which is no excuse for not evolving." Deucalion argued.

"They ripped his claws right out of his fingers. How is that evolving?" Ennis asked upset. "Useless debate. I'm done with it." They watched as he paced over and slammed his hand on the tin wall, making a loud rumble akin to a crack of angry thunder.

"Ennis, don't. Don't make us part of a historical cliché. With two such powers, it- it never ends at an eye for an eye. A skirmish becomes a war. A murder becomes a massacre. And we end up no better than our enemies." Deucalion tries to keep the piece, but Ennis is too angered. He wants revenge. And he cements his agenda by bringing out his claws and carving the vendetta spiral into the metal, sparks and heat reflecting his rage.

Peter draws the same spiral into the condensation of the window. "Our mark for vendetta."

"Man, you guys really take that revenge thing to, like, a whole new level, don't you?" Stiles asked.

"It's not just revenge." Cora said. "Losing a member of your pack isn't like losing family. It's like you lose a limb."

"They wouldn't even let him see the body." Peter continued.

Noah and two other deputies rush into the hospital for a disturbance. "Somebody called for a-" He cuts himself off when he sees an angry Ennis holding a male nurse off of the ground by his scrubs. "Whoa."

Ennis let the man go and walked up to the officer making him put a hand on his weapon in case things get too heated. "I want his body. It belongs to me- both halves." Ennis insisted.

"First off..." Noah put a placating hand on the wolf's chest. "You need to step back. I'm just a deputy. I do what I'm told. And right now they're telling me there's a young man who was shot in the throat with an arrow and literally cut in half. This is a homocide investigation. Second, no matter how close you were... You're not related."

"He was family to me."

"I don't get it." Cora said. "What does this have to do with Derek?"

Peter turned to her. "Everything. It's never just a single moment. It's a confluence of events. Personally, I looked at Ennis' circumstances, I saw profound loss. Derek saw something different. He saw opportunity."

"Opportunity? To do what?" Stiles asked.

"To always be with her."

Derek is in class, but he's not paying attention to the lesson. He's listening as Paige practices in the Music room, making his way to her when he could. Paige glides the bow along the strings of her cello and a smile slowly spreads across her face until she looks at the door. "What are you staring at?" Derek leans against the jamb.

"I'm not staring. I'm listening. Am I distracting you?"

She shakes her head. "No. I've got laser-like focus. "She turns back to her music sheet and starts the song again.

Derek moves away from the door towards her, taking the challenge. "You sure about that?" She ignores him as he comes up behind her, lightly touching her arm. He leans closer and moves her hair away from her neck before lightly grazing his teeth along the shell of her ear.

Her eyes flutter before she pulls away with a smile and looks at him. "I hate you."

"No, you don't." He moves around her to the empty seat next to her. "You love me."

"Hate you." She quietly teases.

He looked into her eyes. "You love me." She doesn't answer, but nods. And then he kisses her.

"The thing was, he had this constant fear. He was obsessing over it, thinking about it all night, all day, always on his mind." Y/n couldn't help but frown at Peter's words. It didn't seem like Derek, even younger Derek. It honestly sounded more like something Peter would think.

Derek sits outside for lunch and watches Paige as she sits alone at another table. Peter slides into the seat in front of Derek. "Why does she eat alone?"

"What are you doing here?" Derek asked his uncle.

"I'm looking out for my favorite nephew, making sure no one has a crossbow aimed at your throat."

"I could get you banned from school grounds. You know that, right?"

"No one would ban me from anywhere. I'm too good-looking." Derek just raised a brow with an amused smile. "Doesn't she have any friends?"

"A few, but she likes to study during lunch. And I kind of just don't think she likes my friends."

"No one should like your friends. They're a bunch of hormonal half-wits. But that one over there- she's perfect for you. And perfect combinations are rare in an imperfect world." Derek sighed and grabbed his bag, rising from the table. "It would worry me too, though. I'd probably be thinking about it all the time."

"Thinking about what?"

"Her finding out. You've thought that through, right? You know it always happens. One minute, you're in this blissful teen romance, and next, she sees fangs, glowing eyes, claws."

"She doesn't have to find out."

"But they always do... Especially when they're perfect for you. There's really only one way to make sure you'll always be together. Turn her."

Derek frowns. "You know, just because your last relationship ended doesn't mean you have to meddle in mine."

"I told you, I'm just looking out for you. I didn't have this problem with her."

"Yeah, but she still left." Just like Derek did then, walking away and leaving Peter frowning himself.

"I kept telling him not to do it. Every day the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became. You know teenagers. I bet he even blames me. He's probably convinced the whole thing was my idea." Y/n had a feeling it probably was Peter's idea.

"I have the perfect idea." Peter stood over Derek as the teen sat on a bench in the locker room.

"Go away." Derek said but Peter ignored him.

"Laura told you about the packs being here, right? There are more Alphas than I've ever seen in one place. Your mother would never do it. And these packs won't be here much longer. The time to do it is now. One little bite, and she never gets sick again. She stays younger, more beautiful. Think how she'll be able to protect herself. Derek... The Bite is a gift."

Soon they started to explain to Stiles what druids were to wolves. "They keep us connected to humanity. But they're a secret even in the pack. Sometimes only the Alpha knows who the emissary is. Derek and I had no idea about Deaton."

"Or his sister, Morrell." Peter added onto Cora.

"She's an emissary too?" Stiles asked.

Y/n nodded. "For the Alpha pack." She informed and he looked at her wide-eyed.

"Our guidance counsler? Why the hell didn't you tell me any of this stuff, huh? I shared some really intimate details with her."

"Why do you think I never went?" She raised a brow.

"Because you don't like therapy?"

"No, because I don't like Alan's sister."

"Did she give you good advice?" Cora asked him.

"Actually, yeah."

"That's what they do. That's what Deaton used to do for Talia. In fact, there was even a witch who worked with Talia before she moved away." Peter looked at Y/n. "You wouldn't happen to know a M/n would you?"

Y/n furrowed her brows in surprise at the man. "Actually, I do. She was my mother."

Peter's eyes lit up in recognition. "Ah, I see it now. How could I have missed it before? You look just like her."

"She used to work with Talia?" He nodded. That makes sense, actually. M/n's pages in her grimoire, the H's must have been the Hales. That's why the triskele on Derek's back looked so familiar, now that she thought about it, because it was the same one her mother drew in the grimoire. The Hale pack symbol.

Paige walked though the dark halls of the school, a note in her hand from Derek asking her to meet him there. She looked around. "Derek?" A door creaked open and closed from out of sight down the hall and she squinted her eyes. "Derek, is that you?" She walked down further, taking a glance behind her as she advanced. She stopped and looked behind her again, trying to catch a glimpse of the boy, but when she turned around someone was with her, and it wasn't Derek.

The hulking silouhette of a wolfed out Ennis stood before her. He lightly growled and the note fluttered to the ground from her fingers. She quickly spun around and started to run, the unknown creature chasing her.

Derek sat in the locker room, bouncing a basketball in front of him as he sat.

"Ennis?" Cora breathed. "Why would you choose him?"

"Why not?" Peter answered. "Ennis needed a new member for his pack. Paige was young and strong. Doing a favor fro Derek meant Ennis would be in good with Talia. Back then, everybody wanted to be in good with her."

Derek could hear her. He could hear her breathing heavily and whimpering in fear. And Ennis' snarls.

"Derek doesn't remember it was him, does he?" Y/n asked.

"If he does, he keeps it to himself."

Paige cries out and Derek clenches the ball in his hands. Ennis growls and Derek can't take anymore.

"So then what happened? Did he turn her?" Stiles wondered.

"Almost."

Peter hides behind a wall, breathing heavy as he hears and sees everything. Paige crawls on the ground, trying to get away as Ennis stands over her. Derek burst through a set of doors and sees the two.

"He came at Ennis."

Derek braces himself and runs at the Alpha with a shout.

"A 15-year-old boy against a giant."

Ennis easily grabs Derek and throws him against the wall. Paige crawls up some stairs with a whine. Ennis crouches over Derek and holds his head down with his hand, forcing Derek to see Paige and what's happened.

"There was no reason for him to fight."

Paige whimpers as she holds her side. Blood stains her shirt and the floor where she had been.

"She'd already been Bitten."

Ennis lets Derek go and walks away. Peter hides back behind the wall with wide eyes.

"So did she turn?" Cora asked.

"She should have."

"But she didn't." Y/n realized.

"Most of the time, the Bite takes. Most of the time."

"When you offered it to me, you said, 'if it doesn't kill you'."

"If."

"Wait, you did what now?"

Peter opened the trap doors to the root cellar, going down a little and finding Derek with Paige cradled in his lap. Derek looked up at him. "What's happening to her?"

"He knew the answer, though. It didn't matter that she was young and strong. Some people just aren't made for this. But she fought. She struggled desperately, trying to survive."

Derek laced his fingers with Paige and took away some of her pain. It was only a scatch on the surface. "I'm sorry." He whispered to her.

"I knew." Her voice was weak.

"What do you mean?"

"Right after I told you my name, I think I knew. I've seen things in this town before, things no one really could explain. And then there's the way that you talk- how you say things, like how you'd catch a scent. And I know you can hear things, things that no one else can hear. I knew."

"And you still liked me?"

"I loved you." And then she cried out again. Derek pressed a kiss to her forehead as she cried. He tried to help her pain again, but he couldn't take any more. "I'm gonna die... Aren't I?" All he could do was nod. Her breath shuddered as the pain worsened. "Ow." She cried. "I can't. I can't take it anymore. Derek, I can't. Derek. Please." He knew what she was asking him. "Please." He lifted her up further in his arms, wrapping them around her fully.

She clung to his arm. "I'm sorry." He muttered again. His breathing grew heavier as his eyes shifted, glowing a brilliant yellow. He lets out a scream and squeezes his eyes shut as he digs his claws into her spine, severing her spinal cord and putting her out of her misery. He screamed in agony. "I'm sorry." He gasped out and her arms fell from him, limp in her lap.

"I remember taking her body from his arms, to the woods, to a place where I knew that it would be found... Another in a long line of Beacon Hills animal attacks."

Cora had tears in her eyes. "And what about Derek?"

"Taking an innocent life takes... Something from you as well, a bit of your soul... Darkening it, dimming the once brilliant, golden yellow, to a cold, steel blue... Like mine." Peter flashed his azure irises.

Later Y/n, Stiles, and Cora sit together in the loft, Peter having left. Y/n could tell there was something bothering him. "What is it?" She asked. "You have this look on your face."

"What look?"

"The kind of look that makes me want to punch you." Cora had also noticed.

"Oh, my God. You are so Derek's sister. I forgot."

"What is it?" Y/n asked again.

"I just don't believe him."

Y/n nodded in understanding. "I don't either."

"Why?" Cora asked to which Stiles explained.

"All right, in Ms. Blake's class, we're reading Heart of Darkness, and it's in first person, right? Narrated by Marlow. The thing is that he's- he's an unreliable narrator. You know the details of it have changed, you know, just because of his perspective."

"Well, then we heard the story from Peter's perspective."

"And we didn't get the whole story." Y/n said. "I'm not sure what it was exactly, but there was something in his eyes. It was almost like he believed some of it himself, like he's convinced himself that that was all true. Whether he knew it or not, or even realized, he omitted some things and changed others. I can't tell you what exactly, but he did. I could see it in his eyes."

"So, what, are- are you just gonna ask Derek about the girl he fell in love with and then killed?"

"If I have to... Yeah." Stiles nodded.

Derek holds his head in his hands, eyes shut tight, as he sits alone in the root cellar. Talia descends the old stairs to stand in front of her son. "Derek." She called.

"I did something... Something terrible."

She got closer and crouched in front of him. "I know."

She put her fingers under his chin and made him lift his head. "My eyes... They're different."

She gave him a kind smile. "Different, but still beautiful... Just like the rest of you." Derek opened his eyes. Instead of yellow, they're now blue.

~~~
Published: 5/12/21
Edited: 4/12/22