All We've Lost to the Flame [Day 22: Fire]
They’ve been putting this conversation off for as long as possible, but when two headstrong people used to being alone clash as often as Cora and Derek Hale do, it was bound to happen eventually.
“Why was he even here?”
“He and Scott are a package deal. Trust me; I’ve tried to get rid of him. It’s useless.”
“Wow, Derek, just how shitty of an alpha are you?”
“I’m doing the best I can.”
“Would you stop whining?! God, no wonder Laura couldn’t stand you growing up.”
“Don’t you fucking talk about her,” Derek growls at her, very much wolfed out.
“Why not? She was my family too, Derek. You walk around all broody and remote like you’re the only one dealing with this but you’re not. I thought I was literally the last Hale alive. You at least had Laura for six years, and Peter after that. Stop being a fucking martyr.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he warns, putting as much distance as he can between the ghost he’s been waiting on for seven years to say it all out loud.
“I don’t know what I’m talking about?!?!” Now Cora’s in full-beta mode. “Who the fuck do you think you are?!”
“I’M THE ONE WHO KILLED THEM ALL!” He shouts, because he knows it’s finally time to face judgment for what he’s done. There’s no more getting around this.
Cora stills. When she summons the presence of mind to respond, it is with quiet, threatening rage. “What. Do. You. Mean.”
He’s had this conversation enough times in his head to have the audacity to tell this story to her face, though all the fight has gone out of his voice. “Didn’t you ever wonder how Kate Argent got close enough to trap everyone inside and burn the house down?”
The shock of the pieces fitting together causes her to step back. “The mystery girl was-“
“The biggest mistake I ever made.”
Cora will not remember the next five minutes, save for a world shaded in redscale and the not-so-curious fact that Derek refuses to fight back. Just like every other time she’s attacked him since their reunion. He doesn’t fight her because he has no right to defend himself. It takes Peter showing up and prying Cora off of Derek’s rent body for her to articulate her feelings as anything other than the desire to slash the traitor’s throat.
“How dare you pretend to be an alpha, you fucking bastard!! How dare you call yourself a Hale! I wish you fucking died in that fire instead of my family!”
“Cora!” Peter scolds. “That’s enough!”
“Oh, of course you’d come to his rescue; the two family murderers!”
“Stop it, Cora.”
“Did you tell him, Derek? Did you tell him you’re the reason everyone’s dead?” Derek hasn’t looked up from the floor. He has the calmest expression of resignation anyone has seen on him since he and Laura left Beacon Hills. It looks almost like peace.
“Let it go.”
“‘Let it go.’ Wow, that’s rich. You know what, fuck this. I’m done. I came back because I heard my family was alive, but clearly all I have left is ghosts.” She bolts for the door. “You two should have stayed dead.” Cora Hale runs out into the night, an omega once more.
Finally, after seven years of holding back memories that threatened to destroy him from the inside out, Derek’s nightmares came true. His therapist back in New York had consistently assured him that, were his family able to come back and hear what happened, they’d forgive him. They wouldn’t want him to beat himself up over this. He thought she was full of shit. Cora just proved him right.
“Feel better?” Peter asks after letting his nephew stew for a few minutes.
Derek laughs. “How the fuck do you expect me to feel better?”
“Because in my experience, finally facing the messed up shit you did makes it a little less painful to live through the day.”
“I doubt it.”
“Derek, I don’t hate you.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s pointless. Do you hate me for killing Laura?”
“I’m not happy about it, if that’s what you mean.”
“It’s not. I mean, do you hate me?”
Derek rolls his eyes. “No.”
“I didn’t think so. See, even if you think what I did was unspeakably awful, you understand it and you got over it. You don’t trust me, but you understand me.”
“So you’re telling me you understand why I let our entire family die?”
“The humans have a term for what happened to you: statutory rape. She took advantage of you like a good Argent. You didn’t know what you were doing. See? Understanding.”
“Doesn’t make it right.”
“No, it doesn’t. But it does make it easier.”