Broken Family Tree

10 - Nightmare

"Malia?" His voice was raspy, not used to talking after a week in a coma.

"Hey Thomas," she spoke softly, stepping slowly into the room. She was solely focused on Thomas—so much so that she didn't notice the door closing behind her.

"When are we leaving?" Through his exhausted expression, he looked almost desperate, which confused and slightly worried Malia.

"Once they say you're good enough to go. Don't worry, you're not the only one anxious to take you home." Malia soothed him, smiling at the end. Thomas smiled back, but a sad look invaded his eyes.

"What's wrong?" Malia walked over to Thomas's side until she was standing right next to his head, gently placing a hand on his cheek. Thomas just looks at her and smiles a sad smile, tears forming in his eyes. Then he started speaking, saying something that scared Malia to the deepest parts of her soul:

"It was nice getting to know you Malia. Thank you for the best memories of my life."

With that, his eyes closed, a single tear escaping, and the monitor monitoring his heartbeat sounded off with a singular and  long BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP—

~○~○~○~

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Malia screams out, sitting up from the air mattress in the loft's living room with tears running down her cheeks. Derek and Braeden, sleeping in their bed, jump up and nearly—well, actually—fall to the floor, Derek with his claws out and Braeden with a pistol in her hands. Malia doesn't notice as she continues to bawl her eyes out, falling back onto the mattress and curling into a ball. Seeing no enemies around, Derek rushes over to her and rubs her shoulder and back to try and calm her down, repeating "It's okay, Malia, it was just a dream, it's alright, it wasn't real" over and over. When she continued to sob, he came to her level and pressed himself half against her back and half over her side (I wasn't sure how to describe this, sorry...), hugging her and whispering calming words into her ear. Unbeknownst to the two, the rest of the pack came rushing in, pooling inside the loft and wanting to know what was going on. After getting Thomas to the hospital, the trio—Deaton, Derek, and Malia—had run into Melissa outside in the parking lot. After they had left and Melissa went home for the night, she told Scott that she had seen Malia at the hospital. Immediately, Scott went looking for her in every nook and cranny of the town and practically ambushed her at Derek's loft. He was happy that she was back but upset that she had left without telling him where she was going, and demanded an explanation. Since neither of the two Hales were in the mood to explain themselves, too worried about the state of their new family member, Derek punched Scott for two reasons: to let off his anxiety, and as payback for treating his only cousin the way he did. In addition, he barred him from coming inside the loft and threatened him to leave them alone or else, not giving any details. Scott left, confused and hurting, nursing his broken cheekbone. He had probably planned to interrogate her with the pack present, not that they knew that—most of them were there to say hi to Malia, having genuinely missed her the past month. Some had their suspicions about Scott's motives, though—mainly Peter and Stiles, who knew better than to trust any of Scott's plans.

Braeden had lowered her gun long ago and was signaling them to stay back and wait. Derek slowly and gently lifted Malia up, cradling her to his chest and letting her sob onto his shoulder. Eventually, she calmed down, but made no move to extract herself from Derek's embrace.

"He should've been adopted with me," she mumbled. "Why wasn't he with me? That woman—that demon—destroyed him. If Talia was so worried about me being with her and Peter, then why didn't she take us both—wait, could it be? Was it because he was a boy? Was that why?! Did she leave him because of his gender?! No...God, please, nooo!"

She went off into another crying fit, clinging tighter to Derek, and Derek reciprocating the hold. The explanation Malia proposed made him sick to his stomach, driving him to go into denial. Talia would not have done that, not to a baby. He was sure of it! She would have tried to get him away from them! She just didn't know it was twins! ...Right? But that couldn't be—she would have heard the heartbeats of both babies; she must have known! So why was he the one left behind and Malia taken? Was it really because of his gender? Was Talia so focused on the mother-daughter relationship of werecoyotes that she ignored—abandoned—the second life as soon as she found out it was going to be a boy? Did she actually believe the boy was going to be okay because of his sex?

This was too much to think about right now, so Derek pushed it to the side and shifted his focus back to Malia.

"It doesn't matter now. What matters is that you found him and brought him home and he's getting the medical attention he needs. And he's going to be fine. You wanna know how I know that?" He asked, feeling Malia nod against him. "Because Melissa's with him, and we both know just how much of a badass nurse she is."

This got Malia to giggle, loosening her hold on him.

"Yeah," she said, sniffling, "you're right. Nothing'll happen to him, I'm sure. But still...I'm worried. I don't want him to die. Not after we just met and he found out about us—not after he found out he has other family."

Derek hummed in agreement, and carefully pulled her back so he could see her. Her face was red and her eyes were puffy, and there were silent tears continuing to run down her face. He wiped them away carefully, holding her face in his hands. She nodded against his hands, bringing her own hands over his as a sign of appreciation.

"I'm sorry—" she was beginning to say, but Derek stopped her.

"Don't be. I care about him, too, but I'm not the one who found him; I don't know what he looked like before you helped him and I didn't spend as much time with him as you did, so it's understandable that this would be harder for you. Listen," he said, removing his hands from her face, "why don't we go visit him today? Visiting hours should be open by now, and I think we both need some visual reassurance, yeah?"

Malia looked at him, smiled a watery smile, and nodded. Derek smiled back and helped her up, leading her to the bathroom.

"I'm sorry, but—what the heck are they talking about? What exactly's going on?!" Stiles broke the following silence, causing the cousins to remember that they weren't alone in the loft.

Crap. Now they're all gonna want to come, aren't they? Malia and Derek looked at each other and seemed to communicate telepathically.