keeper (d. Hale)

she was a hale.

Delilah told the others not to come as she set up Derek in one of the spare rooms. 

Tonight was not the night.

And right now, while Delilah watched over Derek, she wasn't sure tomorrow would be either.

Derek looked exhausted and ready to end the day as he watched her with downturned and red rimmed eyes. Delilah couldn't blame him for that as she pulled back the blankets to the freshly dressed bed and tucked them in up to his neck. She whispered a soft goodnight into his hair as he turned onto his side and away from the door.

Away from her.

Away from the world.

Quietly, she tip toed back to her room and let out a noise of frustration as she closed the door behind her with the corner of her bare foot. The books she collected from various shelves slide from her arms and were placed on the edge of her bed.

Why did she have to do that? What possibly good thing could come from Derek knowing his family was dead?

Murdered by hunters.

Delilah felt selfish as a small part of her thought Derek would magically turn back into himself if he knew something so critical from his past.

What was she going to do next, rub Paige's death into his face next?

She started to pace from one end of the room to another as she let the anxiety of the day wash over her.

Derek was found in an abandoned town, beneath a church, and covered in wolfsbane. Cora was still not picking up her phone, and the thought that something similar was happening to her was making that bubble of anxiety grow further in the pit of her stomach.

Picking up the first book, she started to thumb through any scrap of information that might shine any light of reason on their current predicament.

There had to be a logical reason for this. Even in a supernatural world where shit constantly hit the fan, there was always a thread to follow.

"The Embodiment of Age"

"Rituals of Time"

"Tales of Wolves and Wolfsbane."

Delilah turned page after page as she propped herself up on the bed and amongst the pillows her husband would usually use for sleep. They still smelt like him, and she found herself starting to drift more and more from the words she was trying to seek on the page and to the cushioned cloud beneath her head.

She missed him. Even if he was technically just in the other room. She wanted her Derek.

Delilah closed her eyes and tried to picture his face. His green eyes and scruffy jaw. His crooked smile and the scar just to the underside of his jaw where a thin line of hair refused to grow.

She missed him, but Delilah already knew she would always miss him.

Even when he was right there.

The book slipped from her hand as her grip loosened, and the blanket at the end of the bed was pulled up to cover her in a comforting warmth.

Delilah was exhausted and sad, but that didn't mean she still wasn't welcome into the waiting arm's of sleep.

- - - - -

Delilah woke with a jolt as one of the books she was reading fell onto the floor with a thud.

She winced, knowing the impact would damage the spine, and she really didn't want to ask Peter to repair another one. He had already volunteered to work on more than a dozen that she was not able to open as the binding threatened to tear with even the slightest thought of its pages were to be bent back to read.