Appetite for Destruction

The Past Six Years

There's something to be said about starting over. The initial shift in environment, mentality, whatever - is always so surreal and unnerving that often the effect isn't noticed until long after that shift has taken place. It's an afterthought. A mild blip on the life scale, telling you that your life has changed for the better, for the worse, changed without any hope of returning to its original state. By the time you realize your life has been restarted, by the time you've taken note of the change, your reality is already ingrained. You move on.

So we moved on. Our attempt at re-establishing our lives had turned to dust after we left Beacon Hills.

We left after the funeral, after we found out there was no hope for the lone survivor of the fire. We moved from place to place before Laura took us to New York; it was a huge, busy city and we hated it but the best way to hide was right out in the open.

The pain was still there, but life went slowly by. Laura bought an apartment because the estate might have been in escrow but the fire didn't touch the money sealed away in the vault hidden underneath the High School, inaccessible to anyone without Hale blood. We were never apart. Derek got angrier and Laura tried to fix things and I felt so incredibly lost.

A year passed. Two. Every once in a while Laura spoke about building up the pack. Giving someone the bite. Taking in an Omega. She never did. Instead the subject faded away. Derek was still angry and Laura was still determined and my eyes shone as blue as Derek's now, cold and guilty - Laura wouldn't look at me anymore.

Laura had always been brave. Too brave, Mom used to say whenever she got called into the principal's office because Laura had gotten into a fight or started a shouting match with a teacher. She'd never been the type to back down. Laura hadn't cried when we saw the house. Hadn't cried when they brought the bodies out one by one.

If Laura cried about the fire at all I'd never seen it.

Which was why it wasn't a surprise when, six years after the fire, Laura stood by the front door with her bags already packed at her feet and told us: "I'm going back to Beacon Hills." 

"No." Derek said immediately, voice hard and angry. I remained silent, sitting at the kitchen table with my cereal forgotten in front of me.

"Don't try to..." Laura took a deep breath and pursed her lips, closed red eyes and opened grey ones. "I'm going back, and you're staying here. I mean it, Derek." She said sternly when Derek opened his mouth to argue. "You're not coming with me so don't go getting any ideas. If it... I mean, once I've taken care of things you can come join me."

"No." Derek said again, just as defiant, just as angry.

"It's time to go back, Der." She said, shoulders slumping. "It's been six years and I... Peter's there - our family, the last of our pack. Beacon Hills is ours."

"Laura, don't." Derek had seemed to realize anger wasn't going to get through to her and his next tactic was pleading. "Everything good about Beacon Hills burned six years ago."

Guilt rolled off Laura in waves but she kept perfect eye contact with Derek. Whenever he stared like that people always looked away from his gaze, from the anger burning behind his eyes, but not Laura. Not when Laura was the Alpha.

"I'm going back." She said, and her tone left no room for argument. "I'm going to take care of everything and then you two are coming too. We'll... we can build our own pack, make our family proud."

The truth was, I couldn't blame her for doing this. She'd been looking for answers ever since we found our home in flames all those years ago, but she knew as well as I did that the only place she'd find them was where it all began. I couldn't blame her.