Chapter Text
Cora Hale could smell her brother’s bullshit 10 miles away. She knew for sure that Derek could not have extra practice for Math Olympics after class, no matter what he told their parents. He not only hated school, save for sports, but he sucked at Maths. There was something fishy going on, and she was getting to the bottom of it. After all, annoying her older brother was part of her job description.
That afternoon she waited in the fields next to the track team until she saw everyone else leave school. Then she snuck back in and started walking towards Derek’s homeroom, where she expected to find him and the Math group with Ms Mann.
As she approached the door, it suddenly opened, and both Derek and Ms Mann came out of the room, alone, murmuring. They walked in the direction of the exit slowly, while Derek carried his backpack and Ms Mann’s briefcase. Where are they going? Are they done already? It was weird that it was just the two of them. Derek had said he’d be late. Maybe they were done early, and Derek would use it as an excuse to go over to Boyd’s and play some video games.
She was about to turn around and leave when she saw Derek carefully look around and then taking Ms Mann’s hand. They linked their fingers and continued walking towards the parking lot. Cora frowned. What was her idiot brother doing?
She followed them to the parking lot, taking care to stay behind and not get caught. Derek and Ms Mann approached her car, and she opened the trunk. Derek placed her briefcase and his backpack in. She closed the trunk, and they both got in the car.
What the hell is going on? She approached the car to try and get a better look inside, and what she saw nearly made her fall on her ass. Ms Mann and Derek were passionately kissing inside the car. Derek’s hand was inside her blouse, fondling her breast, and her hand was very close to Derek’s crotch. They were both moaning loudly, and Cora was horrified. What was her dumbass brother doing with his Maths teacher?
Cora got her cell phone out and quietly filmed them. Once she got a few pictures clear enough to identify Ms Mann and Derek, she silently backed away and started running towards her bike. She thought about calling her mom right away but knew that showing her the video would be better than a phone call. Cora was worried about Derek. She might be young, but she knew that what Ms Mann was doing with Derek was wrong.
***
Derek felt like a champion. This afternoon had been fantastic, and he still could not believe how happy he was. Ms Mann, Jenna, had taken him to her apartment and they had finally had sex. He was no longer a virgin, and he felt fantastic. Nothing could ever ruin this mood. Jenna had dropped him back off at his car a while ago, and they had kissed some more against the Camaro before she got into her car and left.
He showered quickly in the locker room, just as a precaution. He didn’t want his family to catch him smelling like sex and Ms Mann.
They had agreed to meet that Friday. He would sneak out of the Pack reunion and meet her in the Preserve. He was already planning to pack a picnic and bring several blankets. He could not wait for a repeat of this afternoon.
As he drove, he thought about Jenna. About how mature she was and how comfortable she made him feel. He was in love with her. He parked his car next to his parents’ and wondered what dad was doing home so early. He wanted to get something to eat and go to bed. He was exhausted.
When he got inside, his parents were waiting for him in the living room, hands clasped together. He could hear Cora and Laura somewhere inside the house. His parents were pale, his mom barely controlling her tears.
“Derek, where were you this afternoon?” asked Talia.
“Mom, I was at school, extra practice with Ms Mann, remember I told you?” said Derek. “Is everything alright?”
“Derek, we need to tell you something,” said his mom.
“Mom, Dad, what’s going on?”
“We know about you and your teacher. Cora saw the two of you together in her car, kissing,” his dad said.
“I swear I don’t know what you are talking about! I have no idea what Cora thinks she saw, but it’s not true, you have to believe me!” Derek said, desperately.
“Honey, I promise you’ll be OK,” Talia said soothingly. She realised Derek was starting to panic. “We are not mad at you, but we need to tell you something.”
“You, you don’t understand. We are in love. She loves me!” Derek said, finally.
***
She plasters on a fake smile and opens the door for the two Deputies that have been ringing her bell for the last 10 minutes. She’s wearing a towel around her hair and shorts and a tank top.
“Good evening, ma’am, I’m Deputy Stilinski this is Deputy Ellis. We’re with the Beacon County Sheriff’s Department. We have some questions for you.”
“Deputy, what is this all about? She sizes them up and slowly removes the towel from her head.
She makes sure to rub her arms together to show more cleavage.
The deputies look uncomfortable but stand their ground.
“May we come in, please? Unless you’d prefer to do this at the station.”
She lets them in. Ellis seems to be easy to persuade with some flirting and she’s sure she can get Stilinski too. She approaches Deputy Ellis slowly, as seductively as she can, and places her palm on his chest.
“Deputy, you still have not told me what this is about. I am sure we can work something out…” she flirts.
But Deputy Stilinski is not having it. He immediately stops her hand, now angry with the situation.
“Ma’am, I think we better discuss this at the station”.
She takes a step back and sneers, “I am not going anywhere with you!”, throwing the towel at Deputy Ellis. She flings a chair to Deputy Stilinski and tries to run away.
Having evaded the chair, Stilinski ran, quickly caught up to her and cuffed her.
“Jenna Mann, you are under arrest for the assault of a police officer. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.”
“Oh honey, you have no idea who you are messing with.”
***
“You, you don’t understand. We are in love. She loves me!”
“Listen to me,” his mom says. “After she dropped you back off at school, Ms Mann was arrested at her apartment. When Cora came home to tell us about what she saw, Derek, she had proof. She had video and pictures. We immediately called the sheriff’s department. You have to understand, honey, she was taking advantage of you.”
Derek was paralysed. He could not believe this was happening. His parents had found out, and now Jenna was in jail? There had to be a way to fix this!
“Mom, Dad, listen. I know this is not the way you should find out, but Jenna and I are in love. Everything will be OK. We’ve got plans, and I’m sure all this is a big misunderstanding. Please, talk to the police mom, they have to let her go. We are in love!” pleaded Derek.
“Honey, there is more. She tried to seduce the deputies that went to take her to the station. Once that failed, she attacked them. They ran a background check on her, but there was no record of a Jenna Mann. With this information, they got a warrant and went to her apartment in search of evidence of who she is. Derek, baby. I’m so sorry, Jenna Mann does not exist. Her name is Kate Argent. The police found a dossier on each of us, schematics of our home, even of the secret tunnels below. She was planning to start a fire the day of the Pack gathering. She wanted to burn us all down, and she used you to get the information.”
They were all crying by now, Laura had come in in the middle of the explanation and had plastered herself to Derek’s back, holding him while he cried. Cora was silently crying from the door, not daring to go near Derek, in fear of him lashing out on her for telling.
Derek sat there, dumbfounded, surrounded by his family, processing what he had just heard. Jenna did not love him; there was no Jenna. Kate Argent had flirted with him, kissed him, fucked him for information. Information to kill his Pack.
“Kate Argent is a hunter. She comes from a hunter family, and she’s dangerous. Sources tell us this is not the first time she’s seduced a member of the family to gain access to the packhouse. She surrounds it with Mountain Ash and watches them burn. She pays off the fire investigators and then moves on to her next target. My sources are trying to link her to previous fires. She’s killed or decimated at least 15 packs that we know of.
Derek couldn’t stop crying now. How could I be so stupid?
“I promise you, Derek, she will not succeed. You are OK; we are going to be OK. This is not your fault, Derek” his dad says.
They all kept repeating it, hoping he would trust them and accept this was not his fault.
***
The Trial takes over a year. Both Derek and Cora are called to testify. The police, working with the FBI, manages to link one fire to her. A Pack in New Orleans. Twenty four deaths, thirteen of them children. Kate is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and ordered to pay a multimillion-dollar reparation to the families, including the Hale’s.
And just like that, life goes on.
Derek spends most of his time in his room, going through different scenarios in his head of what could have happened if Cora had not gone to their parents with the video. He constantly has nightmares of fire and screaming and dying. Sometimes, he dreams of Jenna (Kate, her name is Kate, idiot) and their kisses, touches, the sex, and wakes up drenched in sweat, a hard-on tenting his boxers, and ready to vomit. He feels filthy and appalled. This woman was planning to murder his entire Pack, and he still thinks with his dick. The guilt is slowly eating him away.
One day, Derek is in the kitchen when Laura and Cora come home. Cora stops at the door, unsure of whether to talk to her brother or scurry away like she’s been doing for the last year. She starts to back away when Derek speaks to her.
“I don’t hate you, you know?” says Derek.
Cora is surprised by him talking to her. As much as she’s been avoiding him, he’s been doing the same.
“I don’t hate you,” he repeats. “If it weren’t for you, we’d all be dead.”
Cora is frozen in place by Derek’s words. Derek mistakes her shocked face for loathing, looks at her with remorse in his eyes, and quietly turns around to go back to his room, leaving a half-finished banana bread dough on the counter.
Cora struggles. On the one hand, she wants to hug her brother, give comfort to her packmate. She misses him. On the other hand, Derek doesn’t seem to be very receptive. She’s scared of making it worse.
“Derek, wait,” she says. “Look, I know that I did the right thing, OK? But I hate seeing you like this. You have to understand this was not your fault. I miss you! I feel like I destroyed any chance of us having a relationship when I went to talk to Mom and Dad,” she says, raising her voice. She is not just sad; she’s angry.
“You cannot shut me out! I am tired of not being able to be in the same room with you, of you not even looking at me. You want to be mad at me, BE MAD AT ME! Yell, I don’t know, wrestle, but PLEASE, Derek, please, stop avoiding me!” she finishes, now crying.
Derek turns around and grabs Cora into a fierce hug, full of love and gratitude.
“I am so sorry, Cor, I am. So sorry!” he tells her. “I swear I am not mad at you. I’m ashamed that my little sister caught me. I’m appalled that I almost got the whole Pack killed. I feel many things, but none of those has anything to do with you. If anything, I am grateful for what you did, even if it hurts. I love you, Cor, please don’t cry,” he finishes.
That evening Derek goes to bed feeling lighter.
***
Derek’s senior year is a quiet affair. He keeps a very low profile, only talking when he needs to, and just hanging out with Boyd and Erica. He prefers the solitude he finds in early mornings at the gym, where he punishes himself with ridiculous amounts of exercise. Or the quiet he finds at home, in the kitchen, baking, which has become his therapy. When he bakes, he finds contentment in the simple things, measuring ingredients, kneading the dough for bread, preparing Cora’s favourite chocolate chip cookies. He enjoys the smells, not only of the baked goods but the scent of a happy family when they come home to find him baking and not barricaded in his room.
He’s been making an effort lately, of being more in the kitchen and less in his room. He wants to be better, wants to be the son his parents want him to be. But he still feels guilty.
The graduation celebration is very low key, just him, his sisters and his parents. Dinner at home. Nothing fancy. He takes a few months to finish figuring out what he wants to do with his life. He knows going away to college is not an option for him. He cannot leave his home. Has to make sure they are safe, always.
Derek enrols at the Baking and Pastry Arts program in Beacon Hills Community College. He midway decides to register for Business Administration too. Four years later he is a certified Baker and the proud owner of a Bachelor’s degree. He is also terrified at the prospect of being a grown-up since with the reparation money he’s got enough to start his business, purchase a cabin in the Preserve, and not work a day in his life.
***
Frontier Bakery was blooming. Boyd and Erica had come to work with him, although how the business could thrive with Erica’s customer service style was a real mystery. Derek had a routine that he religiously followed. He’d wake up at 3:30 a.m. and run to the bakery from his cabin. He then took a shower and started with the baking. Erica usually arrived around 5:00 a.m. to help with the opening, at 7:00 a.m. Derek had decided to specialize in Italian bakery, and he prepared focaccia exclusively. And after his focaccias ran out, he closed the bakery until the next day, so he ended his days at around 2:00 p.m.
This left him time to volunteer at the local animal shelter, where he would work at whatever Mrs Henderson asked him to do, from cleaning cages to bathing puppies, and he stayed there until closing, at around 6:00 p.m. He would then visit his parents, sometimes catching a ride with Laura, and remain there until after dinner. He’d then run back home, exercise for a couple of hours, read a bit, and go back to sleep. Then rinse and repeat.
He only changed his routine on Sunday, when he’d run around the Preserve, take a dip in the lake if it wasn’t too cold, and then go back home to read by the fire in winter, and out on the porch during summers. He lived a quiet life.
Erica was tired of this easy, boring life he’d made for himself. Derek was young, he was very handsome and had a beautiful smile. But ever since Kate, he wouldn’t date. Wouldn’t even consider looking at anyone, sleeping with anyone, let alone connect with anyone. And as Derek’s best bro she was entitled to meddle with his life and make it more exciting, which is why she hacked his email account and signed him up on a sex chat app. If he wasn’t getting any, at least here, he could figure out what he wanted when he was ready.
***
‘Erica? Why is there a sex chat app on my phone?