Archive of Our Own

“Whoa, Chief!” Daehler practically exploded out of his clothing as soon as he and Stiles got back from the robbery investigation they had been doing. “Who’s the babe!”

Deucalion gave Daehler a sour look, but that wasn’t unusual. Sour was a word that could describe Deucalion’s face at basically all times. “Remember the house that burned down a few days ago, over on McClintock street? Fire chief said it was arson. That’s the house’s owner. Just got here. Lahey was going to talk to her, but he’s not back from his trip to Folsom yet.”

“Can we take it?” Daehler asked, eager to talk to a beautiful lady.

Deucalion sighed. “Fine. But don’t screw it up.”

“Thanks, Chief,” Daehler said, throwing his jacket over the back of his chair before heading for the room where the blonde bombshell awaited. It was the room they usually used for talking to witnesses or victims, a cozy little place with a sofa and two chairs.

“Maybe we should take a look at the file first,” Stiles said somewhat dryly, before Daehler could burst in. Christ, he missed Erica. She had been his partner for his first year as detective, but had left on maternity leave a month previous and now he was stuck with Daehler. He took a quick look through the file. It was pretty thin, just the report from the fire chief about the incendiary device he had found. Further testing would follow, but it was definitely arson. He looked at the information that had been pulled on the homeowner. Kate Argent, thirty-one, a couple speeding tickets but nothing serious on her record. He slapped the folder shut. “Okay, let’s go.”

Daehler put on his most suave smile and headed into the room with Stiles behind him. “Miss Argent? Hi. I’m Detective Daehler. This is my partner, Detective Stilinski.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Kate said, with a smile that lit up her pretty face.

“So, it looks like the fire at your house might not have been an accident,” Daehler said. “It’s lucky that you weren’t there.”

Kate nodded. “I was down at the gym.” She looked Daehler up and down. “You look like you work out.”

Daehler puffed up proudly. “Yeah, you know, when I get the chance.”

Stiles cleared his throat. “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt you?”

The smile slid off Kate’s face, and she looked tired all of a sudden. “It was probably my ex-boyfriend, Derek. We broke up a week ago. I threw him out, actually. He’s been stalking me ever since. He was waiting for me outside work the other day, and after I blocked him on Facebook, he got really pissed and smashed my car windows.”

“That’s awful,” Daehler said, his voice oozing sympathy.

“Yeah. It’s taken me a long time to work up the guts to kick him to the curb, and now I . . . I know I’ll never get away from him, not really.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll make sure he doesn’t give you any more trouble.” Daehler clearly thought he was auditioning for the next action hero movie. He stood up and said, “Let’s go pick him up.”

“Do you know where we can find him?” Stiles asked, since little details like the guy’s address didn’t seem important to his partner.

“I don’t know where he went since I kicked him out, but I can give you his phone number,” Kate said, and wrote it down for them. “Do I have to stay? I really don’t want to have to see him.”

“No, of course,” Daehler said. “Do you need a ride home?”

“No, I drove here. Just – call me once you – have him in custody, okay? So I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

“Absolutely,” Stiles said, feeling a pang of sympathy for her. While Daehler showed her out, he looked up Derek Hale’s phone number with the carrier and found a billing address that was different from Kate’s. “Let’s go get him.”

“I’ll drive,” Daehler said, and Stiles tried not to roll his eyes in exasperation. Daehler spent the entire drive talking about how hot Kate was, and how he was going to have to fun grilling a confession out of her piece-of-shit ex-boyfriend. Stiles let him talk. It was funny, because he had always been the talkative one, but somehow he never had much to say to Matt Daehler.

His GPS took him to one of the more industrial neighborhoods in Beacon Hills, and they parked outside a brick building that didn’t really look like it was a house or an apartment building. Daehler clearly didn’t like it; Stiles could see him fiddling with his holster. But when they took the stairs up, it opened up into a nice-looking loft. The door was open, but Stiles knocked on it anyway, and it echoed. “Mr. Hale? Anybody home?”

There was a spiral staircase at the back, and a minute later, a man came down with a questioning expression on his face. It was Stiles’ turn to stare. He absolutely should not be attracted to some abusive dickbag, but Derek Hale was, in a word, gorgeous. He was wearing a white tank top and jeans that showed off an amazing body, he had the sort of stubble that would drive Stiles crazy, and his eyes were this blue-gray-green color that shifted in the light. Plus he had adorable little bunny teeth. Stiles simultaneously wanted to take him home and wrap him in a blanket, and throw him down on the loft floor to debauch him.

Fortunately, Derek didn’t notice his distraction, because Daehler was already talking and showing his badge. “Mr. Derek Hale?” he asked, and Derek nodded. “Could you come with us, sir? We have a few questions we need to ask you.”

“About what?” Derek asked. It wasn’t rude or aggressive. He looked genuinely puzzled and maybe even a little anxious.

“About the fire that burned down Kate Argent’s house.” Daehler was smirking, clearly hoping that Derek would be a jackass and get himself tased and arrested.

“I . . . oh.” Something in Derek’s face shut down. “Let me grab a shirt.”

There was absolutely no need for that in Stiles’ opinion, but he obviously couldn’t say that out loud. Derek was strangely silent as they escorted him down to the car and then headed for the station. A lot of people didn’t know when to stop talking when it came to the police. They would bluster or ask too many questions or insult the officers who had picked them up. Derek’s silence was a little unnerving.

He was still quiet as they led him upstairs and into the interrogation room. Daehler told him to have a seat, and he did. “So,” Daehler said, still smirking, “can you tell me where you were on Saturday?”

“At home.”

“All day?” Daehler asked.

Derek nodded. “I’m out of work right now, so . . .”

“And you live by yourself?”

“No, I’m living with my sister.” Derek cleared his throat and looked away. “She let me crash at her place after I left Kate.”

“Was your sister home Saturday?” Stiles asked, frowning a little.

“Yeah. She works weekdays. We stayed in and watched TV.”

“All day?” Daehler scoffed, like he had never done that.

Derek’s cheeks colored just slightly. “We were marathoning Lord of the Rings.” His tone was somewhat defensive, and Stiles tried not to swoon. A gorgeous guy who also happened to be a nerd? Who . . . also happened to be an abusive dick, and quite probably straight.

Stiles tried to focus. “Do you still have keys to Kate’s house?”

“No.” Derek shook his head. “I didn’t want to keep them. I didn’t want to ever see her again, to be honest.”

Daehler made a scoffing noise, but Stiles was frowning again, because that didn’t add up. “Kate said that you had been pretty persistent after she threw you out.”

“What?” At this, Derek looked blank. “She didn’t throw me out. I left.”

“Oh, come on.” Daehler clearly didn’t believe a word. “Who would leave a lady like that?”

Derek looked away. “It was complicated. We just weren’t good for each other, that’s all.”

“I bet,” Daehler said.

Stiles resisted the urge to throw Daehler through the one-way mirror and figured that he should get some sort of award for that. “Derek, Kate told us that she threw you out. Why do you think she would say something like that?” He could practically see Daehler rolling his eyes, but he didn’t object. From their standpoint, making Derek elaborate on his lie would only benefit them.

“She doesn’t . . .” Derek rubbed a hand up and down his arm. “Pretty much any time something goes wrong in her life, she blames it on me. She probably just wanted you guys to think I had reason to burn her place down.”

“She also said you were stalking her,” Daehler said. “How about that, tough guy?”

Derek just shook his head. “I never wanted to see her again.”

“Oh, come on!” Daehler’s voice was thick with disbelief. “Do you really expect us to buy this? What incentive does she have to lie about that? She’s the one whose house burned down. She’s the victim here. We know it was arson, Hale. You think she would rather get you in trouble than catch the person who actually did it? We all know it was you.”

Stiles winced a little at how hard Daehler was going, but didn’t object until he saw Derek’s face. Guys like this were predictable. When they were caught, they lashed out. Abusive guys who were called out on their abuse went one of two ways: they lost control of their razor thin tempers and flipped out at the cops, or they got sarcastic and flippant and acted like the cops were stupid. They didn’t just look up with sad Bambi eyes and a face of resignation like they’d had this discussion a hundred times and they knew there was no point. They knew that nobody would believe them.

“I left her,” Derek finally said, “because this is the kind of shit she does.”

“Sure it is,” Daehler sneered.

Stiles sighed. “Well, before we wade any further into this, let’s start by getting that pesky alibi verified,” he said, and elbowed Daehler. “Can we have your sister’s number?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Daehler waited until Derek had given it, then said, “I’ll keep having a chat with him while you give her a call.”

“Okay,” Stiles said, though from a professional standpoint he thought that letting Derek sweat it out would work better. He went out into his office and took out his cell phone to call the number that Derek had given him.

“Halehounds, this is Laura,” a mellow, professional voice said.

“Is this Laura Hale?”

“Yes, it is. How can I help you?”

“This is Detective Stilinski down at Beacon Hills Police Department. I’m calling about your brother Derek.”

“Oh my God, is he okay?” Laura’s voice immediately rose in alarm. Stiles took a moment to note that it wasn’t the response of someone who thought their brother was an abusive dickbag. Not that it necessarily meant he wasn’t, but still, it was worth noting.

“He’s fine. We’ve just had to ask him a few questions because his ex-girlfriend’s house burned down Saturday night.”

“Oh. Oh, I . . .” Laura let out a breath. “Okay. What can I help you with?”

“Can you tell me Derek’s whereabouts on Saturday?” Stiles asked. One of the first lessons he had learned on the force was not to give the alibi and let the person confirm. Ask in an open-ended manner, and see if they came up with the same thing.

“Yeah, he was at home. We were watching movies.” Laura’s voice suddenly rose in alarm. “Wait, is Kate trying to blame this on him? That psycho bitch, I’m going to – ”

“Please don’t finish that sentence with anything I’d have to arrest you for,” Stiles said, and Laura bit off the sentence. “It’s just routine, Miss Hale. We’re asking the same questions of all of Kate’s friends and acquaintances. And yes, Derek will get closer scrutiny since their parting seems to have been acrimonious. But if he was with you all day, then there should be nothing to worry about, right?”

“There shouldn’t be,” Laura agreed, “but Kate will make sure there is.” She sounded tired. “Look, I know how she is. She probably went in there and batted her eyelashes, flirted with you, looked helpless. But for God’s sake, I finally got Derek to leave her for good. Please don’t put him in jail because Kate is a vindictive bitch.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Stiles said. He said goodbye and hung up. Then he headed back to the interrogation room. Instead of going in, he watched for a minute.

“So you were pissed that she threw you out,” Daehler was saying. “Makes sense. I’d hate to lose a woman like that. I can see why you didn’t want to let her go.”

Agree with the suspect. Make him think you sympathize with him. Make him think his actions were justified. Stiles could practically hear the textbook on interrogation that Daehler was pulling from. And it worked. It was a great way to get suspects to confess. He had seen other cops do this to domestic abusers. ‘I would have hit her too if she’d said that to me.’ ‘Sounds like she really had it coming.’

The suspects often agreed with the interrogator, incriminating themselves without realizing it. But Derek just studied the table and said, “It wasn’t like that.”

Stiles rubbed his hand over the back of his head. He texted Daehler, a quick note that said, ‘His alibi checks out.’

Daehler glanced down at his phone without losing place in his sentence. After he read the message, he said, “So we talked to your sister. She said you were with her. Smart of you to use a device with a delayed reaction, so you’d think you could alibi out. Oh, you didn’t think we knew that? Yeah, it’s all in the arson investigator’s report, buddy.”

At this, Stiles wanted to bang his head into the wall. It wasn’t true, but that was irrelevant. The frustrating thing was, Daehler was doing his job correctly. Act like you know the suspect is guilty, empathize with them, hint that you have incriminating evidence, and confessions came flowing out like water. Often whether the person was guilty or not.

Stiles knocked on the window. Daehler gave him an irritated look. Then he turned back to Derek. “Well, the DA is here. I’ll go have a chat with him. Maybe he’ll have a deal to offer you. Trust me, Hale – this will go a lot easier for you if you just admit what you did.”

For a few moments, life flashed in Derek’s eyes. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Sure you didn’t, pal.” Daehler stood up and left the interrogation room. “What?” he asked Stiles.

“You know as well as I do that there’s no evidence that incendiary could have been delayed,” Stiles said. “What are you doing?”

“I’m getting a confession.”

“Yeah, for a guy who has an alibi and might not be guilty.”

“Come on. He was watching movies with his sister? That’s flimsy as hell. He probably already talked to her and told her what to say if the police came calling.”

“I’m just saying, we should at least expand our – ” Stiles cut his sentence off as Sergeant Whittemore came in. He realized that both of them had been raising their voices.

“What’s going on?” Jackson asked, with his usual look of disdain for the lower-ranking detectives.

“We’ve got an asshole in interrogation who burned down his girlfriend’s house after she threw his abusive ass out, and for some reason Stilinski wants to go easy on him,” Daehler said.

“Dude,” Stiles protested. “That’s not what I said. It’s not even what I meant. I just don’t think he did it. I think Kate’s the manipulative one, and that she’s accusing him of this as a way of getting back at him for leaving her.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Daehler asked.

Jackson was leafing through the file. He looked up. “Really, Stilinski?”

Stiles took a deep breath. “He has an alibi. And when I spoke with his sister, she told me that Kate has a history of abusive behavior, and that was why Derek had left her.”

Jackson looked at the picture of Kate. He looked at Derek in the interrogation room. Then he slapped the folder back down on the table. “Seriously, you think that guy is the victim? Look at him. Look at the statistics. Men abuse women; it doesn’t happen the other way around.”

“Yes it does,” Stiles said. “It’s not as common and usually not as physical, but it does happen. Derek has a lot of the hallmarks of a victim of domestic abuse. He – ”

“No guy like that would just stick with a woman who gave him shit.” Jackson turned to walk away. “Get a confession, Daehler.”

“You got it, Sarge,” Daehler said, smirking at Stiles as Jackson left the room. Stiles grit his teeth. He waited until Daehler had gone back into the interrogation room before going to find someone else to plead his case to.

Chief Deucalion was in a meeting, his assistant Kali said, and couldn’t be interrupted. “It’s time sensitive,” Stiles said, wanting to get Derek out of there before Daehler got him to confess to something he didn’t do.

“Well, tell me what’s going on and I’ll see what I can do,” she said.

“It’s about the arson case. The woman said her ex-boyfriend did it, but I don’t think he did. But Daehler won’t stop grilling him, and if he gets a confession we’ll never be able to find the real perp.”

“If Daehler gets a confession, it’s because he did it.” Kali was unimpressed.

“Come on, you know as well as I do that innocent people confess up to forty percent of the time – ”

“Who’s your other suspect, then?”

“I think Kate did it herself, and she’s framing him, to get back at him for breaking up with her.”

“That’s your theory?” Kali rolled her eyes. “Look. I’m going to take it easy on you because you don’t know what it’s like to be a woman. But guys like this, they always try to make themselves look like they were the victim. You know, the ‘my crazy ex’ thing. The friend zone thing. It’s never their fault. Guys like this have no accountability.”

“Okay, yes, I’ll grant that the world is full of dickheads,” Stiles said. “I just don’t think Derek Hale is one of them.”

“Come on, kid.” One of the other sergeants, Ennis, walked up behind him. “I know you’re still new at this. Once you’ve been on the streets a little longer, you’ll get it. This isn’t the only domestic abuse case you’re going to get. It’s always the guy. When a woman gets abusive, a guy just walks away, but when a guy is abusive, the woman stays.”

“That is the most sexist bullshit,” Stiles said.

“It’s true, though. Women can’t physically stop the guys from leaving, the way a guy can a woman.”

“And I take it that in your world, same-sex couples don’t exist,” Stiles said, and resisted the urge to scream. “Look. Just – just ask Duke. Ask him to get Daehler to lay off for one hour. One hour to talk to Kate again, see if I can get any evidence, find any other suspects. That’s all I want.”

“Well, you can’t have it,” Kali said. “I’m not interrupting Duke’s meeting for this. You can do what you want while Daehler conducts his interrogation, but that’s all you’ve got.”

“Jesus.” Stiles headed back to the interrogation room to see how things were going.

“Look, you don’t – you don’t understand,” Derek was saying, when Stiles got there. “Kate’s just – she’s angry at me and she – when she gets angry, she – ”

“Oh, she what?” Daehler asked. “She beats you? You? Come on, man. You could bench-press me and her at the same time, look at you.”

“No, it’s not, not physical, it’s just, she says things – ”

“Shut up, man, shut up,” Stiles said through clenched teeth.

“She always tries to blame things on me – ”

“Because you’re guilty,” Daehler said.

“That’s not what I said.”

“Jesus Christ!” Stiles turned away from the interrogation. After a long minute to think, he took out his phone and went out to the back of the precinct, out onto the narrow balcony that people used for cigarette breaks. He had told himself that he wouldn’t call his father for every little thing. But this was important. He thought that he could probably be forgiven.

“Hey, buddy, what’s up?” the former Sheriff answered the phone.

“Uh, work question,” Stiles said.

Stilinski laughed. “Lay it on me.”

“What do you do when you think you’ve got the wrong guy but nobody else believes you?”

“Well, you find the evidence and prove those bastards wrong,” Stilinski said, still laughing. “Let me guess. You’re just a rookie. You’re not allowed to have a hunch. All their experience proves you wrong.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said, feeling glum. “Are you going to tell me to trust my gut?”

“No, hell no,” Stilinski said. “Guts are often stupid. Don’t trust your gut. But listen to your gut. Figure out what it’s telling you and why. And yeah, the more experience you get, the more you’ll understand when your gut is right and when it’s not. But if your gut tells you that something’s wrong, figure out why.”

Stiles breathed a little easier. “And when the other guys shut me down?”

“Ignore them. Or tell them that you’re looking for other explanations so you know what the defense attorneys are going to try in court.”

“Ooh, that’s a good idea,” Stiles said. “Maybe that’ll get Daehler off my ass.”

“Don’t take any shit from that pipsqueak,” Stilinski said. “He’s got no instincts.”

“And no brain,” Stiles said. “Ugh, Erica needs to pop out her baby already so I can get back to work with a real cop. Which I should probably do now. Thanks for the advice, Dad.”

“Any time, son.”

Stiles hung up and thought about it for another minute before dialing again. Lydia picked up on the third ring. “Hey, can you do me a favor?”

“Those words are terrifying, coming from you,” Lydia replied.

“It’s professional, not personal,” he said. “We’ve got someone in interrogation and he needs a lawyer, like, stat.”

He could practically hear Lydia’s frown over the phone. “Why are you calling me on behalf of a criminal you’re interrogating? Is it Bizarro World?”

“I don’t think he did it,” Stiles said, “but nobody else here agrees with me. It’s an arson case. Woman’s house burned down, she’s blaming her ex-boyfriend and crying abuse, but I think it was the other way around. They’ve had him in there for over an hour and they’re going to grill him ‘til he’s burnt. For some reason he hasn’t asked for a lawyer, and they’re going to talk him around to a confession whether he did it or not. You know how it works.”

“Yes, I do,” Lydia said crisply. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Nobody had been surprised when Lydia had gone to work as a defense attorney. They made jokes about her and Stiles’ long friendship being over, but nothing had really changed. They didn’t talk about work. What had surprised people were the cases she took. She built her practice as a refuge for the poor and the hopeless cases. Lydia didn’t want to be the kind of defense attorney that charged thousands of dollars and got on TV. She wanted to help the people that nobody else was helping. After a research paper on the overburdened public defenders’ program during her sophomore year, she had set her sights on helping fix the problem and never looked back. Her family money kept the practice afloat.

Stiles went back inside and observed the interrogation for a minute before knocking on the window again. Daehler looked pissed, but he left the room to see what Stiles wanted. “What?”

“You’ve been bad-copping him for over an hour, let me good-cop him for a bit,” Stiles said.

“You don’t even think he did it,” Daehler replied.

“Yeah, but everyone else thinks he did, so I’m probably wrong. Anyway, if he thinks that I think he’s innocent, he might open up to me.”

“Fine, Jesus. Give it a whirl.”

Stiles nodded and got a cup of water for Derek before heading into the interrogation room. “Here, I brought you this,” he said, and set the cup of water down on the table. Derek looked at it like it was from another planet. Stiles wasn’t too concerned. He just needed to stall, to keep Derek from confessing to a crime he didn’t commit before Lydia got there. “Sorry about my partner. He can be a bit of a prick,” he said, and Derek just shrugged. “So you broke up with Kate a week ago, you said?”

Derek’s glance was somewhat suspicious, but then he nodded. “Yeah.”

“How long have you two been together?”

After a moment, Derek reached out and wrapped his hands around the cup of water. “Off and on for five years. Steady for about two years now.”

“Yeah? How’d you meet?”

Derek’s shoulders hunched inwards slightly. “She was, uh, it’s a little complicated. My uncle’s boyfriend’s sister.”

“Former roommate?” Stiles joked, and saw Derek’s lips twitch. That was good, he was getting through. “When did you move in together?”

“About six months ago. We, uh.” Derek swallowed. “She was pregnant. I proposed and we moved in. She lost the baby, though. Miscarried about a month later.”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles said. “That sucks.”

“Yeah, it did. It was hard on – both of us.”

Stiles’ phone chimed. He glanced down to see that Daehler had texted him saying, ‘she probably lost the baby after he beat her ass’. He tucked it away without replying. “Things got rocky after that, huh? I know that a loss like that can really be tough on couples.”

“Yeah. Well. Truth be told, they’d been rough for a while. I had actually almost broken up with her right before – but then she got pregnant, so.” Derek swallowed again while Stiles’ red flags went up. He didn’t know a lot about abusive women, but her turning up pregnant just as Derek was trying to break up with her seemed awfully suspicious to him. “Anyway, we argued a lot, and last week I just decided I’d had enough.”

“Uh huh,” Stiles said, trying to think of more things to talk about. Daehler was going to get impatient if he didn’t think that Stiles was bringing him around to a sympathetic confession. “Sounds like you were probably pretty upset with her.”

“I . . . yeah, I was.”

“Maybe you thought about getting back at her?” Stiles suggested. He only said it in the hopes of keeping Daehler off his back, but Derek looked up with wounded betrayal in his amazing silver-green-gray-blue (how???) eyes. Stiles immediately felt like a jackass.

“I didn’t . . .” he said softly, and in that moment Stiles moved from being almost sure that Derek was innocent to being entirely sure. Derek looked like he had never wanted to get back at anybody in his life. He looked like someone who thought he deserved the pain.

There’s a muffled noise from outside and then the door banged open. Lydia Martin marched in, smartly dressed and walking like a queen. “Excuse me,” she said loudly. “This interrogation is over.”

Stiles was already on his feet, feigning surprise. “Miss Martin.”

“Detective Stilinski,” she said, with a nod. “I’m Mr. Hale’s attorney. He won’t be answering any more questions today.”

Daehler came in blustering. “Mr. Hale didn’t - ”

Lydia rounded on him. “Are you charging my client, Detective? No? I didn’t think so. You have absolutely no evidence linking him to any crime. Since he’s not being charged, he’s free to go. My office will contact you to schedule an interview later this week. Mr. Hale, why don’t you come with me? There are a few things we need to discuss.”

Derek rose to his feet, looking confused but not arguing. Stiles took advantage of everyone’s distraction to send Lydia a quick text asking her to meet him at the coffee shop down the street. She and Derek were gone a few minutes later.

“Damn it!” Daehler kicked a trash can. “That bitch!”

“Try being her brother,” Stiles said with a grin, and left the interrogation room.

~ ~ ~ ~

Lydia glanced down at her phone as she swept out of the precinct. Derek was watching her warily, like he was waiting for the ground to turn into quicksand. “There’s a coffee shop on the corner,” she said. “Why don’t we sit down and chat.”

Derek gave a little shrug, then said, “I guess Laura called you?”

“No, Stiles did,” Lydia said, and saw Derek’s blank look. “Detective Stilinski. The man who was questioning you when I got there? He’s my brother. Well, step-brother.”

Derek was still blank. “Why would he call a lawyer for me?”

“Because he thought you were innocent, but he knows that detectives are pretty good at getting confessions out of people, even those who are innocent. For some reason, you had not exercised your right to legal counsel, so he decided to do it for you.”

“I didn’t think he believed me,” Derek said quietly. “What he was saying just before you got there . . .”

“He was just stalling,” Lydia said. She pushed the door open to the coffee shop and the bell gave a little jingle. “Would you like something?”

“Uh, no. That’s okay.”

“You sure? It’s my dime, and you look freezing.”

After a moment, Derek relented. “I don’t really like coffee, but some tea would be great.”

Lydia nodded and headed up to the cashier. She ordered a chai latte for herself, tea for Derek, and a double shot mochaccino for some reason. A few minutes later, they had their drinks and were sitting at a table in the corner. Derek was giving the third cup a side-eye, but wasn’t asking who it was for. “All right, Derek – is it all right if I call you Derek? Excellent, and you can call me Lydia – let me give you the same spiel that I give everyone. As your attorney, it is my job to defend you in court. It is not my job to judge you. Whether you are innocent or guilty does not matter to me. I will give you the best defense I can, regardless. What is important to me is honesty. I can’t help you if you lie to me. If you did commit this crime, I will have to find a way to defend you from any evidence that might end in a conviction. So I will ask you once, and only once: did you burn down Kate Argent’s house?”

Derek shook his head. “No. I did not.”

“Okay. Stiles seemed to think that Kate herself was the most likely suspect. Do you agree?”

“I – it’s the kind of thing she would do, yeah.”

“So the best thing to - ” Lydia broke off as the door jingled and Stiles came in. He saw them in the corner and waved before heading over. She nudged the third cup towards him as he took a seat. “Your caffeinated monstrosity.”

“Thanks,” Stiles said. He looked over at Derek and said, “Sorry about the good-cop-bad-cop routine. I was just trying to keep Daehler off your ass long enough for Lydia to get there, and if I had been too sympathetic, he would’ve pulled me out.”

“It’s fine,” Derek said, giving him that same look of wary confusion.

“Oh, I’m Stiles, by the way. Or at least that’s what everyone calls me. People can’t pronounce my real name.” With a grand flourish, Stiles pulled out his wallet and displayed his driver’s license.

“Miecyslaw,” Derek said, his pronunciation perfect. Stiles gaped at him, and Derek’s cheeks colored slightly. “I studied languages in school.”

“Okay, wow,” Stiles said, and now he’s blushing as well. Lydia rolled her eyes at them, and Stiles hastily cleared his throat. “So where are we at?”

“We were discussing Kate’s likelihood as a suspect,” Lydia said. For Derek’s benefit, she continued, “The best way to get the cops to drop the case against you is to provide them evidence that it was someone else. What sort of alibi do you have, by the way?”

“I was at my sister’s,” Derek said. “I’ve been staying there since I left Kate.”

“I called her and confirmed,” Stiles said to Lydia, “but most of the guys thought that was pretty thin. It won’t be enough. But give me time to do a little digging. The investigator’s final report isn’t in yet – it should be in by tomorrow, and then I’ll have some new leads to track down.” He grimaced a little and added, “Hopefully if I just tell them I’m looking for physical evidence to tie Derek to the crime, they won’t notice if I do something else instead.”

“They’re giving you a hard time, huh?” Lydia said.

“Oh, you know how it is. I’m the rookie, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not allowed to have hunches yet.”

“That’s the trouble with you cops,” Lydia said. “Once you decide who’s guilty, it’s impossible to change your minds.”

“Don’t get me started on my ‘lawyer joke’ repertoire, Lyds.”

Derek cleared his throat, and for a minute they thought he was going to say something about their banter. Instead, he asked, “What would happen if I confessed and pled guilty?”

Both of them stare at him. Lydia recovered first. “Arson is a felony, and in this sort of situation where it looks like the escalation of domestic abuse, there would be a pretty harsh sentence. Even with a plea bargain, I think you’d be looking at ten years, minimum.”

“Okay.” Derek let out a breath. “Thanks for your help. Both of you. But I think I’ll just do that.”

“Uh – why?” Stiles stammered.

“Because Kate – Kate always wins. You don’t know her the way I do. I really appreciate the two of you trying to help me, but I don’t want her going after you because of that. Kate always gets her way, so I just can’t – uh – what are you doing?”

Stiles had taken out his phone during this speech and was dialing. Just as Derek asked what he was doing, he said, “Hello, Laura? This is Detective Stilinski again. If I put you on with your brother, can you talk him out of confessing so he won’t have to try to prove his psycho ex is guilty?”

Laura screeched, “He wants to do what?!” so loudly that Derek flinched. Stiles held out the phone to him, and he took it gingerly.

“Laura, it wasn’t – okay.” Derek deflated immediately. “Okay. Yeah. No, I’m at a coffee shop, Stiles called a lawyer and she got them to release me. What? No, I hadn’t asked for one. Because I’m an idiot, okay? A fucked-up idiot. Okay, fine. No, I’m not going to ask them to – the one on Main and Ninth. Uh huh, right by the precinct. Okay. See you soon.” He hung up and muttered, “Uh, she’s going to come pick me up.”

“Okay, cool,” Stiles said, slurping down some of his coffee. “She seems nice, in a scary kind of way.”

Derek gave a snort, the first sign of a sense of humor that Stiles had seen. He was about to reply when Lydia’s phone rang. “One second,” she said, picking it up. “Martin. Yes. Again?” She sighed and rubbed the heel of her hand over her forehead. “Okay. Tell them I’ll be right down.” She hung up and said, “A frequent flyer of mine just got arrested, so I have to go. Derek, let me give you my card. I’ll call you tomorrow so we can talk about meeting with the police.”

“Thank you,” Derek said. Lydia gave him the card and bustled off.

“Sorry for, uh, calling her. You know, if you’re mad.” Stiles took another drink of his coffee. “You don’t actually have to hire her. You can hire your own lawyer.”

“It’s fine. She seems like a really smart lady.” Derek finished off his tea. “You don’t have to stay.”

“No, well, I sort of do.” Stiles rubbed a hand over the back of his head. “I mean, I still need to ask you a bunch of questions about Kate. Not an interrogation, just, you know, a fact-finding mission. If we want to prove that she burned down the house, I need to know about her.” He could see Derek’s face closing off as he spoke. “I figured that would be easier for you once your sister’s here. Are you two close?”

“Yeah. Well, sort of. We actually didn’t talk for a while. I . . . Kate drove a lot of my family away. Isolated me. I didn’t really realize it while it was happening. When I needed a place to stay, I called Laura.” Derek picked up a napkin and started to shred it into pieces. “I guess Lydia is your sister, so you probably know what sisters can be like.”

Stiles gave him a wide grin. “She’s my step-sister, but we didn’t grow up together. My mom died when I was nine, and Lydia’s parents got divorced when she was twelve. Then when we were in high school, my dad married her mom. I think it’s fun, having a sister.”

“Won’t the other cops think it’s weird that your sister showed up to defend someone you kept trying to convince them was innocent?”

“Well, that’s part of why I want to talk to your sister. So if anyone asks her if she called for a lawyer, she’ll say she did, and get me the hell off the hook.” Stiles gave a nervous laugh. “The other cops aren’t bad guys. It’s just, you know, statistically . . . plus, look at you and then look at Kate . . . you know what it looks like.”

Derek gave him a tired look. “I know.”

Impulsively, Stiles reached across the table and gripped Derek’s hand. “I’m sorry that nobody’s believed you until now.”

Derek’s cheeks flushed pink, and he looked away. “It’s my fault. I never tried to – ”

“God, don’t say that,” Stiles said. “I’m pretty sure that none of this was your fault. Maybe Kate convinced you that you deserved her crap, but you didn’t, okay?”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know that nobody deserves to love someone who keeps hurting them,” Stiles said.

“Most people are probably smart enough to fall out of love when that happens.”

Stiles shrugged. “Derek, I hate to tell you this, but I double majored in criminology and psychology. I could give you a dissertation on why people stay with abusive partners. Traumatic bonding, gaslighting, lack of resources, isolation – there are a lot of reasons, and ‘stupidity’ does not factor in. So I’m just going to say, you didn’t deserve it, and you don’t have to believe me. We can agree to disagree on that subject, but you’re not going to change my mind.”

Derek’s gaze flickered up to him, then back down. “Thanks.”

“No problem, man. I could – ” Stiles was about to start in on the dissertation when the door to the coffee shop jingled and Laura Hale charged in like an infuriated mother hen.

“What were you thinking?” she immediately demanded. “Do you know why I hadn’t called Peter to get a lawyer in there for you? Because it never even occurred to me that you hadn’t told them you wanted to have an attorney! Why in God’s name do you think that confessing to a crime you didn’t commit is going to solve any of your problems?”

Derek looked up at her and said, simply, “If I go to jail, Kate can’t get to me.”

“Oh – oh, Der.” Laura sank down into the chair next to him and pulled him into a tight embrace.

Stiles felt a little uncomfortable witnessing such an intimate moment. He cleared his throat to remind the Hale siblings that he was there. Laura looked up and spoke without letting Derek go. “You must be Detective Stilinski.”

“Call me Stiles,” he said, shaking her hand.

“Sorry I screamed in your ear over the phone,” she said. “Thanks for looking out for my little brother.”

“Just following a hunch.”

Derek frowned over at him, pulling away from Laura. “Why did you believe me? Nobody else did. Not this time or any other times.”

“Because you looked – ” Stiles had to take a minute to think about how to phrase it. “When Daehler started grilling you. You didn’t look angry, or upset, or frightened. You just looked . . . resigned. Like you already knew that nobody would believe you, so why even bother? I don’t know, man. You just looked innocent, that’s all.”

“You’ve got a good people sense,” Laura said.

“Yep. Good with people, that’s me,” Stiles said, and Laura laughs. “Listen, I need to ask some more questions, but we shouldn’t do it here. I can’t really bring you back to the station, and my place is out because my roommate will be home by this time of day. Also, we live like total bachelor slobs, so, there’s that. Do you mind if I tag along with you guys?”

“Of course not,” Laura said. She nudged her brother and said, “Come on, scruffy. Let’s get you home.”

~ ~ ~ ~

“Have you guys eaten?” Laura asked, as she showed Stiles up the stairs to the loft. When Stiles said no, she added, “How about Chinese? There’s a great place on the corner, super quick delivery.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“I’m really not hungry,” Derek said. “I really just want to go lie down for a little while. I’m pretty tired.”

Stiles cleared his throat. “I need to - ”

“Just talk to Laura. She can tell you all about it.” Derek pushed past them and headed up the spiral staircase. A few moments later, Stiles heard a door shut.

Laura rubbed both hands over her face. “I’m sorry about him. It’s just – he’s had a really rough week. Year. Life.”

“It’s fine,” Stiles said. “They treated him like shit today. I don’t blame him for not wanting to talk to me.”

“Thanks.” Laura looked profoundly relieved. “Hey, right, dinner. Their General Tso’s chicken is to die for.”

They chatted about the food and the neighborhood, and she asked how long he had been on the police force. The food arrived in fifteen minutes. Laura had made green tea to go with the meal, and they didn’t talk about Kate again until after they were done eating.

“I really do know all about it,” Laura said. “See, the thing is, Derek doesn’t really talk to most of our family anymore. Kate really drove a huge wedge into this family. Like, she knew we didn’t like her, so she would cry to Derek about how mean we were to her. She would lie to him and tell him we had said or done things we hadn’t. Then Derek would defend her, the others would get angry, and . . .”

Stiles nodded, recognizing this as a classic tactic of an abuser. “You still talk to him, though.”

“Yeah. The two of us, we were always really close. The thing is, to really get Derek, you kind of have to go back a ways. Our parents died when he was a kid, and he blamed himself. He was in this silly school play and they got in a car accident on the way. He was so mad at them for not making it, and didn’t find out ‘til afterwards . . . what had happened. Then he felt guilty about being angry, and blamed the accident on himself. He was a messed up kid. Then he met Kate.”

Stiles had taken out a notepad to jot down some notes to himself, and looked up at this. “He told me they’d been together about two years.”

“Now, yes. But they actually met when he was fifteen. After the accident, we lived with our Uncle Peter. Peter was dating a guy named Chris, and Kate’s his younger sister. She would come hang out. She got kind of flirty with Derek, but I didn’t really notice or take it seriously. I mean, I’m not letting myself off the hook here, but I guess it never occurred to me that she was serious about it.”

“Kate’s thirty-one now, so she would have been . . . twenty-two, then?” Stiles asked, checking his notes.

Laura nodded. “Yeah. The difference between a thirty-one year old and a twenty-four year old might not be a huge deal, but twenty-two and fifteen? It was fucked up. But we all had our own problems after our parents died, and we weren’t paying as much attention to Derek as we should have been.

“Then Cora, our younger sister, walked in on them having sex when Derek was sixteen. She told me, and I – I hit the roof. I told her to get the hell out and never come back. Derek got mad at me and ran away from home with her. Peter called the cops. The cops collared Derek and dragged him back home, but he told them that he and Kate weren’t having sex, and since Cora wasn’t old enough to really understand or explain what she had seen, they didn’t press charges against her. Derek was pissed when we said he couldn’t see Kate anymore. Peter wound up breaking up with Chris because Chris insisted his sister wasn’t like that. Then Derek felt guilty about that. It was just . . . it was an enormous mess.”

Stiles nodded, just to encourage her to keep talking. “What then?”

“Then nothing, for a while. Derek got some of his shit together. He graduated high school, went to college. And then in his sophomore year, he ran into Kate again. And she said, this is a direct quote by the way, ‘look at you, all grown up!’”

Stiles gave a grimace. Laura nodded. “Yeah, I know. Later – like, this week later – he told me about how she was when he was a teenager. How she would say things like ‘I can’t believe I’m attracted to a nerd like you’ or ‘my friends would laugh at me if they knew we were together’. He was . . . so desperate for her approval, and so when he met her again, I think he thought ‘this time, it’ll be different’. You know, he was older now. He was an adult. He was going to be ‘good enough’ for her.”

“God, what a load of bullshit,” Stiles said.

“Yeah. And she just, gradually, took over every aspect of his life. She talked him into dropping out of college because his chosen field – linguistics – is ‘stupid’.” Laura made air quotes around the word. “She told him that she liked to see him work out, and got a friend to give him a job at the gym she goes to. I mean, he is super athletic, that’s true, but it’s not like it was his life goal or anything.” Laura shook her head a little and continued. “God, it’s so hard to explain to, to an outsider, how much she changed him. She told him what to wear and what to eat, who he could hang out with. She drove away all his support systems.”

“You said he really doesn’t talk to the rest of his family?” Stiles asked.

“Just me. Peter stopped talking to him basically the instant he started giving Kate the time of day again. Our two younger sibs, you know, they tried, but they’re still young. Hell, Brendan only just graduated high school this year. They don’t get what Derek’s going through, and so they figure ‘if Derek’s going to date someone who’s always a bitch, we just won’t talk to him’. And even I stopped talking to him when they moved in together. I’m not proud of that, but it’s true. I told him when he finally believed me that he needed help, to call me. I was so frustrated with him, because he’d really been working up to breaking it off with her.”

“But she got pregnant, right?”

“Oh, please.” Laura’s scowl matched Derek’s from earlier. “She was never pregnant. I think even Derek knows that deep down. But he ate it out of her hand. Then she miscarried – somehow without any discomfort, blood, or emotional aftereffects – and just dropped it like it had never happened.”

“Okay. So what happened a week ago?”

Laura stopped talking suddenly. She let out a breath. “You won’t believe me.”

“Sure I will. I’ve believe the rest of it, haven’t I?”

“If you do believe me, you’ll probably laugh.”

Stiles stopped with his mug halfway to his mouth. “Laura,” he said carefully, “is a four-letter word starting with ‘r’ going to be used here?”

Laura’s jaw tightened. It looked like she might cry. She looked away from him and said, “If you want my personal opinion, every time they ever had sex was rape. She messed with his head so good, it wasn’t like consent was ever freely given. But he said that time was different. He was tired after a long day, and he’s been really depressed since Kate lost the baby. You know, whether the pregnancy was real or not, he thought it was real, and the miscarriage was really hard for him. He told her he didn’t want to, even tried to push her off, but she kept – saying things – ‘stop being such a wimp’, ‘I deserve this after everything you put me through’ – until he finally gave in. Then she mocked him for not – you know. Finishing. Told him with an attitude like that, nobody would ever want him, that he was lucky that she put up with him.” Laura had to stop and take a deep breath. “He called me that night and I had to talk him off a literal ledge. I brought him back here and until today, he’s barely left the apartment because he was afraid he would see her. I swear to you, he was here the entire time.”

“I believe you,” Stiles said. “Anyway, he doesn’t seem the revenge oriented type.”

“No.” Laura looked a little sick. “He’s still all twisted up inside over the whole thing. He told me a few days ago that there’s still a big part of him that just wants to go back and beg her forgiveness because he’s so convinced that everything she ever did to him was his fault. And God, she spent so much time reinforcing that in him. A lot of the times he would call me upset about something, later he’d brush it off saying he was the unreasonable one. When he tried to break it off with her, she’d complain to all their mutual friends and they’d give him the cold shoulder. Nobody ever believed that she could possibly be the one in the wrong.”

On an impulse, Stiles reached across the table and gripped Laura’s hand. “You did, though.”

“Yeah. Because I knew what happened when he was fifteen. But Derek wouldn’t talk about that. None of their friends knew. They always hung out with the same crowd, this bunch of super-fit people who knew each other from the gym. When Kate talked to them about how Derek was being so terrible to her, they always bought it. And he never told anyone that she’d groomed him as a fifteen-year-old. How the hell could anyone tell a bunch of random people that? He still thought of their original fling as being romantic, somehow.”

“Ugh,” Stiles said.

“Yeah. Big time ugh.”                

Stiles poured himself more tea and thought that maybe Laura would feel a little better if he opened up a little to her. “I guess maybe the reason I believed him is because I’ve seen this before. My best friend, Scott, his dad was an abusive dickbag. And it was a lot like this. He didn’t beat his mom or anything. But he was always just – he was really degrading, and super controlling. He kept all her money, wouldn’t let her go out with friends without his permission. Any time she wore makeup or came home smiling he would accuse her of having an affair and threaten to tell all their mutual friends. This guy was a Grade A dick. And nobody knew. Melissa is smart, tough, funny – nobody ever looked at her and thought ‘victim’. I never understood it when I was a kid. Hell, I still don’t really understand it now. I mean, I have a textbook, intellectual understanding, but I can’t feel it. I just know what it looks like.”

“It’s just – so different because Derek is a guy. I mean, if your friend’s mom had ever gone to the cops, at least she would have been believed.”

At this, Stiles couldn’t help but give a dry smile. “No. Because Scott’s dad was a cop. All the guys at the station loved him. He was a real stand-up guy.”

Laura winced. “Geez.”

“Yeah. Melissa finally threw him out when Scott was eleven. But it took her years to work up the courage to do it. Because like Derek, she believed nobody else would want her, and she was too weak to survive on her own.”

“God, that’s just . . . way too familiar,” Laura said.

“Yeah.” Stiles finished his mug of tea. “She’s in a good place now. It took a lot of time and effort to get her there, but it can be done. I think Derek’s going to be okay, Laura.” He stood up and said, “On that note, I should get back to clearing him of arson charges. Thanks for your time.”

“Thank you,” she said, and surprised him by giving him a hug as he headed out the door.

~ ~ ~ ~

The arson report was a dead end, but not everything was. Without telling Daehler – without telling anybody – Stiles went to find Kate at her new apartment and said he wanted to talk to her about the other incidents, like the smashed car windows, so they could press additional charges. He treated her like the victim and she ate it up. He didn’t think it even occurred to her that some people might believe otherwise.

Two days later – days in which everyone gave him the coldest cold shoulder he had ever received – he was standing in Deucalion’s office, holding a sheaf of papers and feeling nervous. Daehler was there, by virtue of being his partner, but was refusing to look at him.

“So, you think Kate Argent set her own apartment on fire,” Deucalion said, gesturing for Stiles to take a seat.

“Yes, sir.”

“But he can’t prove it,” Daehler scoffed.

“No, I can’t,” Stiles agreed, giving Daehler a dirty look, “but I can prove that she was lying about the abuse.”

Daehler just snorted, but Deucalion looked interested. “Go on.”

“Okay, so, this window-smashing incident,” Stiles said. “Kate says that she went to the gym on Thursday afternoon. She got there at three, left at four thirty, and when she came out, all her car windows were smashed. Her gym has a sign-in, so I was able to verify that’s what time she got there. But Derek was at a job interview that day. Yoga studio in Redding. The interview was at three thirty. I spoke to the secretary who confirms that he got there ten minutes early and was there until four fifteen. It’s a forty minute drive in good traffic. There’s absolutely no way Derek could have smashed those windows.”

Deucalion considered this, then nodded. “Go on. I assume there’s more.”

“Yes, sir. Now, Kate said that Derek harassed her by phone and text, but there’s no evidence of that. She changed phones the day before her house burned down, which would make sense if someone was harassing her, and threw the old phone away. And I checked Derek’s phone, but of course he could have been calling and texting from a burner, so, that’s a dead end. But she also mentioned in our first interview that she’d had to block him on Facebook.” Stiles shot Daehler a look. “Remember that?”

“What’s your point?” Daehler asked.

“Derek doesn’t have a Facebook.”

Daehler hooted with laughter. “Everyone has a Facebook!”

“Derek Hale doesn’t. He did in college, but stopped using it a couple years ago. I talked to Mahealani down in IT. He was able to confirm with Facebook that Derek hasn’t logged into his Facebook account in over a year. Which, by the way, tallies up with what Laura Hale told me - that Kate had been isolating him, cutting him off from his old friends. It’s a fairly classic tactic of abusers.”

“He could have been using a fake account, or someone else’s account,” Daehler said.

“Yes, he could have, which is why Mahealani also had Facebook’s staff check to see if Kate had blocked anyone in the past three months. She hasn’t.”

Daehler was just getting more pissed off, but Deucalion looked thoughtful. “What else?”

“Derek said that he moved in with Kate because she was pregnant, but she miscarried a month later. Kate told me a tearful story about how awful losing her baby was and hinted strongly that it was because Derek had pushed her hard enough to knock her down a few days before it happened.”

“What a piece of shit,” Daehler said loudly.

“Well, I had a theory about this,” Stiles said. “I checked the birth announcements and found a neighbor of Kate’s that gave birth a few months ago. I talked to that mom, who admitted that Kate paid her five hundred bucks to pee on a stick and then give her the positive test.”

“She was never pregnant,” Deucalion said.

“Nope. Derek was going to break up with her, so she faked a pregnancy to get him to move in, then conveniently ‘lost’ the baby when she had him under her thumb again. And lying to him about that was a piece of shit thing to do. But lying to us about that and framing the miscarriage as abuse is illegal in like three different ways.”

“Mm. Anything else?”

“Not yet. But with your approval, I’d like to get a warrant for Kate’s phone and financial records, to see what else I can find, and see if I can tie her to the arson.”

After a moment, Deucalion nodded. “Find out when she rented that apartment she’s staying in. My guess is that she had all but moved in before she took the final step of burning the place down. Check her insurance policy, too. She doesn’t seem stupid enough to get brand new homeowner insurance just before torching the place, but that doesn’t mean she might not have beefed up an existing policy, or called to see what was and wasn’t covered.”

Stiles felt an enormous wave of relief. “Yes, sir.”

Deucalion stood and gestured to the door to dismiss them. “Daehler, I’m going to reassign you to Detective Boyd while Stilinski is working on this. I don’t want to listen to you complaining about it constantly. Stilinski – go get her.”

A grin split Stiles’ face. “Yes, sir.”

~ ~ ~ ~

It was easier than Stiles had expected. In fact, it was so easy that it pissed him right the hell off. If anyone – anyone – had ever stopped to believe Derek, nailing Kate on abuse charges would have been a walk in the park. She didn’t bother to cover her tracks at all. She knew that nobody would believe Derek, and she just never even thought she would get caught.

So it was the very next day that Stiles was once again standing in Deucalion’s office with more papers to show him.

“Apartment lease, signed three days before the fire, which was three days after Derek left her,” he said. “Homeowner insurance was purchased three months before the fire. I think that after the pregnancy scare got him roped in again, she was already planning her next move. She got the insurance far enough in advance that it wouldn’t look super suspicious.”

Deucalion nodded but frowned. “The lease isn’t conclusive either. She would say that she got a new place because Derek was stalking her.”

Stiles grimaced. “Okay, but in conjunction with the other evidence of abuse - ”

“It doesn’t prove anything. If it was his house that had burned down, that would look like abuse. Burning down her own and framing him is more convoluted, more twisted.”

“But you believe that’s what she did.”

“I do.” Deucalion shook his head. “It’s enough to convince me. But it won’t convince a jury.”

Stiles sighed and got to his feet. “Then I’ll keep digging.”

“All right. But – call Miss Martin. Tell her that Derek Hale will no longer need her services. Not as a defense attorney, in any case.”

That made Stiles grin, despite the fact that he can’t nail Kate yet. “Okay, I’ll do that.”

~ ~ ~ ~

Lydia told Stiles that she was proud of him and she’d taken him out for coffee the next week. As always, she was buried in work. After some thought, Stiles formulated a plan, got what he needed, and headed over to the Hale house. He thought he had a way to nail Kate, but he was going to need some help, and he thought that maybe helping nail her would make Derek feel better.

Laura was up to date on the investigation, but he actually hadn’t talked to Derek since they had brought him in the first day. “He’s just – humiliated,” Laura had told Stiles, when he had called to ask about Derek’s whereabouts the day Kate’s windows had been smashed. “I keep telling him that it’s okay to need help, to get help, but . . .”

“It’s fine,” Stiles had said at the time. But for this, he needed Derek to be present, so he was. He thanked Laura as she poured him some coffee. “So here’s what we’ve got. Kate purchased homeowner insurance three months before the fire, so that’s a red flag. She also had signed a lease for a new apartment a few days previous, so there’s another.”

“That’s great,” Laura said, with true enthusiasm.

“It is great, but it’s not conclusive,” Stiles said, and watched Derek’s face fall. “I’ve been talking about it with the chief, and we’ve decided that we have three options.”

“The chief is okay with this?” Laura was looking at Stiles closely. “He agrees with you that Kate set the fire?”

Stiles nodded. “He took some convincing, but after he heard about Kate buying that positive pregnancy test, he’s on board.”

There was a sudden loud screech of wood as Derek shoved back from the table. “She what?”

Stiles’ eyes went wide. “Oh – oh shit! I forgot you didn’t know that, I’m so sorry, I was going to break that news to you much more gently, I swear to God - ”

Derek looked away. He looked a little queasy, and had to take a deep breath as Laura reached out and gripped his hand. “It’s not like – I didn’t know – it was a possibility. I mean, Laura never thought she had really been pregnant. But I thought – you know – even Kate wouldn’t really - ”

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed, although personally he didn’t see how faking a pregnancy was worse than framing Derek for arson. Then again, he didn’t really want kids, had never had a proclivity towards them. It had to be worse for someone who would have actually enjoyed the idea of having a child.

“I just – need a minute.” Derek scooted back from the table and left the room.

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” Stiles said. “I’ve just been so wrapped up in this, I forgot to watch my mouth.”

Laura shook her head a little. “It would have hurt no matter how he got the news. So don’t apologize for something that’s Kate’s fault. I think we’ve all had enough of that.”

“That’s true as fuck,” Stiles agreed. Laura decided that they needed chocolate, and headed for the cabinet. She came out with a package of Oreos, and they went to town.

Derek came back a few minutes later. “I’m all right,” he said to Laura’s questioning look. “Stiles, what were you saying about the options?”

“Well, there are three. First let me tell you the one Laura won’t like: we drop it. The police department will close the case because we don’t have enough evidence to press charges. You could still get a restraining order, since I found evidence she had lied about the abuse, but no further action would be taken on our part.”

Derek let out a shaky breath. “Personally, I love that option, but I’ve gotten far enough to know that it’s probably not the best,” he said, and Laura squeezed his hand again.

“The second option is to take it to court with the current evidence,” Stiles said. “To be frank, this is my least favorite option. I don’t feel confident that we could get a conviction, and I don’t want to put you through the experience of being cross-examined by a screaming defense attorney who will claim you set the fire, you were the abuser, and poor innocent Kate is being stalked and gaslit and et cetera.” Stiles let out a breath, seeing Derek’s muscles tighten. “We’ve got evidence that she’s a lying psycho bitch, but the jury would be strongly prejudiced against you, as I’m sure you know. We could take it to a jury but I’m not sure we’d win. And I don’t want to do that to you.”

“Okay.” Derek took a minute to peel apart an Oreo. “What’s option three?”

“To get a confession,” Stiles said. “That’s what we need in order to win this in court. We need Kate to confess.”

“Jesus,” Laura muttered. “There’s no other way? The, the arson itself doesn’t prove anything?”

“It was an incendiary device that anyone could have made out of things around the house, cleaning supplies, that sort of thing. Any evidence like fingerprints burned to dust. The fire started while all her buddies swear she was at the gym. She was careful enough that most of our evidence is circumstantial.”

“Kate will never confess.” Derek sounded tired. “She’s played the role of my victim for years. She’s turned it into a God damned art form.”

“I know,” Stiles said. “I talked to her. She’s smart, and she’s slippery. She’s got enough money to hire a good defense attorney, who will just ask where my physical evidence is and maybe even be able to get the charges dismissed. I’ll never be able to talk her into a confession.”

“Then why are we even talking about this?” Derek asked in frustration.

“Because I can’t talk her into a confession. But you can, Derek. You can.”

Derek was taken aback. “I . . .”

Stiles set down one of his papers. “A warrant. To wire you up and send you into her apartment to talk to her while we listen. Get her to admit what she did. Get her to brag about it. And she’ll go to jail, Derek. For a long time.”

Derek let out another breath. “I don’t know if I can.”

“You can,” Stiles and Laura said in unison. Stiles continued, “I’ll be right there on the outside waiting to come in if you need me. You know her better than anyone. Go in there, talk to her, cry about the way she’s treated you. Make her remember how weak and pathetic she thinks you are. You can do this, Derek. She’ll never suspect that you’d be wearing a wire.”

“I don’t want to be that person anymore,” Derek said.

“You’re not,” Laura said. “You’re just pretending to be, that’s all. You’re the one who’s going to be in control now, Derek.”

After a moment, Derek looked at Laura. She gave him an encouraging nod. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll try.”

~ ~ ~ ~

When Stiles was done making sure the wire was working and that it couldn’t be felt by an embrace or a quick pat here and there – a task he did while blushing bright pink – he said, “Okay, remember, all you need to do is get her to admit she was responsible for the arson. Then you can leave. I’ll be right out here. If she tries to stop you from leaving or gets physical with you, say ‘leave me alone’ and I’ll come in to get you. Okay?”

Derek nodded and let out a breath as he looked up at Kate’s building. “I’m sorry to have put you through so much trouble.”

“What are you talking about?” Stiles laughed. “This is my job, man.”

“Well, yeah. But you have to get the confession because you don’t want to put me through a court battle, and I appreciate that.”

Stiles shrugged. “It’s not only about you, you know. I talked to my sister and she said that she was pretty confident that a decent lawyer could get an acquittal. I just don’t want Kate to end up on the streets, hurting you or anyone else. A confession is the best way to do that. Part of my job is making sure that bad guys get put away, and stay away.”

Derek nodded again. “Thanks.”

“You good to go?”

“Yeah. I think so.” Derek didn’t move for a minute. “Can I tell you something? Something that even Laura doesn’t know?”

“Sure,” Stiles said. “You can tell me anything.”

“I never . . . stopped talking to Kate. Laura thinks I did. That after Kate left when I was sixteen, that I didn’t see her again until I was nineteen and in college. But we stayed in touch. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be talking to her, but she would text me and if I told her I didn’t want to see her, she would laugh at me. Tell me what a coward I was.” Derek’s cheeks were colored pink, and he didn’t look at Stiles as he spoke. “One time she talked me into sending her a dick pic, and then the next week she threatened to send it to all the girls in my school if I wouldn’t meet her. Sometimes she would stop talking to me for weeks at a time, and there was a part of me that was relieved, but a part of me that was afraid I had made her angry. That she wouldn’t want me. It was like . . . like a sickness. I can’t explain it. I know it doesn’t make any sense rationally. The need to please Kate was . . . it consumed me. Because I loved her, but I was afraid of her.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Stiles said. “But feelings don’t. They don’t have to, you know. Like when my dad started dating again, after my mom died. I was furious with him for wanting to do that, but at the same time I wanted him to be happy. I knew it didn’t make sense. But I couldn’t just not feel it.” He gave a little shrug. “Cut yourself a little slack. You were just a kid. Kate got in your head, and it’s really hard to get someone out of there once they’re in there.”

“I guess. Laura says that, too. I just feel like . . . I don’t know why I couldn’t walk away. It sounds like it should be so easy, you know? Just walk away. Block her texts. Let it go.”

“Just because it sounds easy doesn’t mean it is. I mean, she told you that nobody else would ever want you. That’s scary as fuck. And she was smart, you know. I mean, the way she drove your family away, the way she always portrayed herself as the victim, so you knew you didn’t have a way out. It’s not that you’re weak, it’s just . . . give her a little credit for being good at what she does. Ahh, that came out wrong.”

“I know what you mean.” A rare smile touched Derek’s face. “It’s just weird to try to think of her as . . . as a bad person. Which probably also doesn’t make sense.”

“I think you’ll get used to it,” Stiles said. When Derek didn’t reply, he said, “Now get in there and make her squeal.”

“Yes, sir,” Derek said, with an edge of amusement to his voice. He got out of the car, so Stiles followed. He wanted to be as close as possible, and adjusted his earpiece as he takes the stairs up to Kate’s apartment on the second floor.

Derek took several deep breaths before he knocked on the door. His knees were actually shaking as Kate opened the door. There was an expression of surprise on her face for a brief moment before her face twisted into that vivacious grin that he both loved and feared. “Hey, Derek!” she said, standing back to let him in. “Miss me?”

“I didn’t . . .” Derek let his voice trail off, because he didn’t know what to say. He walked into the apartment and fidgeted. “Look, I can’t stay long.”

“Aw, don’t be like that,” Kate said.

Derek took one more deep breath before plunging in. Stiles hadn’t told him what to say. ‘Just make her talk,’ was all Stiles had said. And Derek thought he knew exactly how to get Kate to admit to what she had done. “I just came to say goodbye.”

“Oh, really?” Kate laughed at him.

“Yeah. Because . . . I confessed. I called the police and confessed. I’m on my way down to the station to turn myself in.”

Kate blinked. “You what?”

“Yeah. I talked to a lawyer. She said if I plead guilty, I’ll probably get ten years, so.” Derek crammed his hands down into his pockets. “I guess I won’t see you for a while.”

For once, Kate was truly shocked. “What the hell, Derek? There wasn’t enough evidence to convict you. Nothing actually tied you to the crime scene. What the hell did you go and confess for?”

“I thought – I thought that was what you wanted.” Derek looked at her in fake confusion. “You told them I did it. Weren’t they supposed to put me in jail?”

“No, you asshole, they were supposed to scare the shit out of you so that you would know better than to try to leave me again,” Kate snapped. “If I’d known you were going to pussy out and tell them you did it, I never would have burned the place down to begin with!”

Derek let out another breath as he felt a weight go rolling off his chest. “Well, it’s too late now,” he said.

“Don’t give me that bullsh – ”

Before she could finish her sentence, there was a loud knock at the door and Stiles shouted, “BHPD, open up!”

Kate yanked the door open. “I’m fine, Officer – ”

“You’re under arrest is what you are,” Stiles said. “Put your hands behind your back.”

“I – what?” Kate blinked, and turned as Stiles pointed to Derek. He had lifted up his shirt to show the wire. “Oh, you son of a bitch – ”

“You have the right to remain silent,” Stiles said, taking hold of her by the wrist, “so shut the fuck up.”

~ ~ ~ ~

They were at the station for a while. Stiles had a lot of fun playing the tape of Kate for Daehler and the others who had told him he was wrong. Kate was taken to be processed while Deucalion talked to the DA. It would be easiest if she would cut a deal, but Stiles knew she wouldn’t. It wasn’t the sort of person she was.

“Come on, I’ll drive you home,” he said, when the paperwork was done. Derek nodded and silently followed him down to his car. They drove back to the loft building, and Derek was surprised to see that the small parking lot was filled with cars.

“Derek!” A small brunette launched herself off the cement porch outside and into Derek’s arms. He caught her, surprised.

“Cora, what are you doing here?”

Other people were coming out of the loft. Peter. Brendan. Some of his old college and high school friends. “Laura called me,” Cora said. “She said we were all going to come over and have dinner because you were finally back.”

“Oh.” Derek wondered what Laura had told them. But then he realized he didn’t care. His family was here to welcome him home. That was what mattered.

~ ~ ~ ~

Stiles only stayed at the party for about ten minutes. It was nice to see Derek smiling, but he didn’t really felt he belonged there. Laura clearly wanted to turn him into some sort of hero, but he firmly cut her off. “I was just doing my job,” he said, and when she protested, said, “and it’ll only embarrass Derek if you make a big deal out of it.”

“I guess you’re right about that,” Laura said. So Stiles had a beer and hung out for a few minutes and then quietly excused himself.

He was surprised when Derek called his name, hurrying after him just as he was about to get into his car. “Hey, uh . . .” Derek looked at him and then nervously away. “I wanted to ask . . . if you want to go out for dinner this weekend.”

Stiles’ heart thudded in his chest. He took a deep breath. “I would really like to,” he said, “but it’s a terrible idea.”

Derek flushed pink. “I saw the way you look at me, you know.”

“Well, ‘subtle’ has never been my middle name,” Stiles said. “Obviously, I’m attracted to you. Not just physically. But this isn’t what you need right now, Derek. You need to focus on yourself. On your family. A rebound relationship is a terrible idea on every level.”

“I just . . . want to be okay,” Derek said, frustrated.

“You will be.” Stiles reached out and squeezed his arm. “Just take some time for yourself. Think about what you want. Get your degree. See a therapist. Figure out who you want to be and how to get there. Do it for yourself, not for me. I’m not some miracle savior who walked into your life. I’m just a guy who was doing my job. I don’t want you to go into a relationship with me thinking I’m something I’m not. So let’s just not go there right now. Take care of yourself. And when you can get up in the morning and look in the mirror and like who you see there . . . call me. If you’re still interested. Okay? If it’s in a year, two years, ten years. Even if I’m not single anymore, I’d still love to go to dinner with you.”

Derek sighed, but nodded. “Yeah, okay. And . . . thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Stiles held his hand out, and Derek shook it. “I’ll see you around.”

~ ~ ~ ~

Stiles woke up the next morning to a text from Laura that read, ‘Whatever you said to Derek last night, thanks.’ It seemed odd to be thanked for turning down someone for a date (that he desperately wanted) but it made him smile. He texted her back to explain what had happened. He thought it would be best to give Derek a little space, and didn’t want Laura inviting him over for dinner all the time. Much to his relief, she agreed.

They did see each other occasionally while Kate’s trial was coming up, but it turned out that a relationship wouldn’t have gone anywhere in any case. Laura and Derek decided to move out of Beacon Hills, at least until Kate was in jail. She was out on bond, so she was free to harass him although there was a restraining order in place. Laura doubted that she would, but Derek had a lot of anxiety about it. He had been accepted back into college in San Francisco, so it was easiest to just move there.

Other than that, he was doing well, reconnecting with old friends. He had a part-time job as a translator. “Just boring stuff, like blender manuals, but it’s a foot in the door,” Laura said. Stiles friended Laura on Facebook so he could keep up on how Derek was doing without being intrusive.

Work was awkward for a while. A lot of people were impressed with him, but some of the others resented him, especially Daehler. It got better once Erica was back, and he had his old partner back. He ignored the people who disliked him. Peer opinion had never been particularly important to him anyway.

As he had expected, Kate didn’t plead guilty, and it went to trial. Lydia volunteered her time to work with Derek and his therapist about undergoing cross-examination. Everything went smoothly. Kate was sentenced to twelve years in prison.

Days slid into months. He dated a girl named Heather for a while. Derek graduated with his bachelor of arts. Laura posted pictures. Stiles took the sergeant’s exam, passed, and got transferred to a bigger precinct. Derek got a job as an interpreter for a call center. Laura got engaged. Stiles thought about getting a new roommate after Scott got married, but got a dog instead.

Two years had gone by when he looked up and saw Derek Hale waiting in the police station’s lobby, just as gorgeous as he had been the last time they had met. “Hey!” Stiles jogged out to greet him. “Long time no see! How’ve you been?”

“Good,” Derek said. “I’m in town for a job interview. At the hospital. They need an interpreter. So I thought I’d stop by and say hi.”

“That’s great!” Stiles said. “You, uh, you look great. You know. Still all big and buff.”

Derek arched an eyebrow at him, and Stiles tried not to swoon. Then he smiled, and it was like nothing Stiles had ever seen, like the sun had come out and every cloud in the world had disappeared. “So, dinner?”

“Yeah! Absolutely. Let me just – grab my coat and – all my stuff and – ” Stiles was practically turning in circles. “I’m just really glad to see you.”

“I’m glad to see you, too.”

Stiles got his coat and thought that he should stop imagining their wedding and the house they would buy and how many dogs they would have and maybe a kid or two in a few years. It was probably premature.

In the end, though, it wasn’t wrong.

~finis~