𝙽𝚊𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚊'𝚜 𝙿𝙾𝚅

"They were there for two days. Waiting, hiding. That's what we're taught to do when the hunters find us. Hide and heal" Cora finishes telling us a story of Derek and Peter when they were younger.

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

"Why do you care?" Cora snaps at him and I roll my eyes, sitting down on the table.

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

"You think Derek can do anything about that?" Cora asks.

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

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

"What was he like?" I ask curiously.

"A lot like Scott, actually" I hear Peter answer and I turn my head to see him walking down the stairs "A lot like most teenagers. Unbearably romantic, profoundly narcissistic...Tolerable really only to other teenagers"

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

"Well, the thing that changes a lot of young men. A girl" Peter explains and I frown.

poor Derbear

"You're telling me some girl broke his little heart? That's why Derek is the way he is?" Stiles scoffs and I grab the nearest thing to me which happened to be a pencil, lobbing it at his head.

"I'm gonna break your legs" I threaten him and he glares at me, rubbing the spot on his head that the pencil hit.

"Do you remember Derek before he was an Alpha had blue eyes?" Peter asks Cora before looking at Stiles and I "Do you know why some wolves have blue eyes?"

Stiles shakes his head no and I shrug, knowing a little about the subject.

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

"If you want to know what changed Derek, you need to know what changed the colour of his eyes"

Peter goes on to tell us about the girl that broke young Derek's poor heart and how the pair first met. Her name was Paige. She had a sassy attitude and she played the cello. As Peter talks about the girl, I find myself smiling and knowing that if she were still around, we'd be great friends. The way Peter describes young Derek as cocky and narcissistic but completely smitten with Paige makes me almost sad that the Hale man lost this side of him due to the teenage heartbreak.

"Okay, so if Derek was a sophomore back then, how old was he?" Stiles asks.

"How old were you?" I add, furrowing my brows at Peter "How old are you now?"

"Not as young as we could have been, but not as old as you might think" Peter vaguely answers.

"Okay, that was frustratingly vague" Stiles states, glancing at Cora "How old are you?"

"I'm 17" Cora answers simply.

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

"Well, 17 how you'd measure in years" Cora adds and I snort at the lost look on the Stilinski boy's face.

"All right, I'm just gonna drop it" He huffs "What happened to Derek and the cello girl?"

"What do you think happened? They're 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 in for five minutes" Peter says in a fed up tone "Their favourite dark corner was an abandoned distillery outside of Beacon Hills"

"All right, hold up" Stiles buts in "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 confidante. That's how I know" Peter answers and I raise my brows a little in surprise.

Peter tells us about Ennis, Kali and Deucalion gathering when they still had their own packs to confide in Talia Hale about the Argent hunters killing Ennis' beta. The Hale man gets up and walks over to the window, drawing a small spiral as he talks.

"Our mark for vendetta" Peter explains the spiral.

"Man, you guys really take that revenge thing to, like, a whole new level, don't you?" Stiles asks and I flick his nose, making him slap my hand away with a glare.

"It's not just revenge" Cora replies "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 states and I frown at the unfairness of that situation.

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

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

"Opportunity to do what?" I ask curiously.

"To always be with her" Peter answers.

"The thing was, he had this constant fear. He was obsessing over it, thinking about it all night, all day. Always on his mind" Peter adds.

The Hale man tells us about Derek's fear that Paige would find out about what he really was and she would leave him, or hate him. Peter says that Derek suggested turning her so that they'd always be together and I frown, not liking that at all.

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

Peter then starts to tell Stiles and I about the emissaries and what they do for a pack.

"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" Cora explains.

"Or his sister, Morell" Peter adds.

"She's an emissary too?" Stiles asks in disbelief.

"For the Alpha pack" Peter states.

"Our guidance counsellor? Why the hell don't you people tell me any of this stuff, huh? I shared some really intimate details with her" Stiles pouts, making me smile in amusement until I catch Peter eyeing me with the same look Cora gives me when I'm near the Stilinski boy.

"And did she give you good advise?" Cora asks the boy.

"Actually, yeah" Stiles nods.

"That's what they do. That's what Deaton used to do for Talia" Peter informs us.

He begins to tells us about how Derek decided to go through with his idea and asked Ennis to bite Paige. Ennis agreed and hunted the girl down in the high school, where Derek had said he'd meet her.

"Ennis? Why would you choose him?" Cora asks in disbelief.

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

"He doesn't remember it was Ennis, does he?" I speak up.

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

"So then what happened?" Stiles asks "Did he turn her?"

"Almost" Peter drawls off, looking away from us "He came at Ennis. A 15 year old boy against a giant. There was no reason for him to fight. She'd already been bitten"

"So did she turn?" Cora asks

"She should have. Most of the time, the bite takes. Most of the time" Peter frowns.

"When you offered it to me, you said, 'If it doesn't kill you...'" Stiles pipes up.

"If" Peter repeats.