Meltdown [Derek Hale]

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

"Oh, what did you do?"

Julie slowly trudged towards Joe, hiding half her face behind the clipboard.

"Is it that bad?"

"Oh, Jules... I've never seen anything so - no, I'm only messing. It looks completely fine, a bit on the lighter side but it doesn't look like you did it in your bathroom mirror," he mused, and she breathed out in relief dropping her arms so that her face was no longer hidden. "You know, have you considered therapy? You're going to end up with one of those buzz cuts with stars painted in with hair dye if you carry on."

"It's fine, I'm fine, I just needed a change," she dismissed, "it's all good, you know it's not like my boyfriends missing again after the alpha pack forced him to kill a sixteen year old boy who was actually kinda brilliant scientifically you know, academic wise and to top it all of the alpha's grabbed Jennifer thinking that she was the one who was you know going to ruin Derek's plan. It's not like any of that happened at all," she said laughing nervously, "so yeah, I'm doing great. Real great. Are you doing great?"

"You two!" A voice shouted, and the pair both looked behind them to see Dr. Greyer staring at them, "I need help in the E.R, there's five car-crash victims coming in."

The pair looked at each other before sighing, "least it's not an animal attack," Julie droned, both of them having a new meaning to the excuse.

______

"Any word on Derek?" Melissa asked, as she caught Julie on her break. The younger girl was in the canteen trying to make her coffee taste nice by putting all the different kinds of sugar in.

"Nope, still hiding," she sighed, not wanting to think on it. Why Jennifer? Why did the alpha pack grab her instead of herself? Did they really think that Jennifer was someone who would create a bigger impact than herself? They must have done. "do you think as staff we could all vote to get nice coffee. Like what is this? It's more bitter than Peter's heart," she huffed.

"I'm worried about Scott," she began, and Julie froze slightly as she looked over to the elder woman confused, "I can just sense that he's hiding something from me. It's like when I found out he was a werewolf. I knew something was going on, I was torturing myself over it but... well, you know."

Humming, Julie tilted her head from side to side. She imagined any secrets Scott was keeping now was to try and ensure that Melissa wasn't worrying about him. She didn't need to know that Scott was actually the alpha (or soon to be alpha) that the demon pack wanted.

"I'm sure he's fine, he's a kid forcing himself to bear the weight of supernatural drama. He's naturally going to be secretive," Julie urged, and Melissa nodded.

"How's Stiles holding up?"

"I can see it in his face, he doesn't sleep very well anymore. Pretty sure his anxiety is coming back."

"Back?"

"Well, you know, after mom died he couldn't even sleep in his own bed. It took him two years to step into my father's room. He just... he couldn't be around all the reminders of her. I'm pretty sure he started wetting the bed again - classical case of a child regressing, but you know, dad was there for him. He got better, he had someone to care for him and protect him."

"And now he doesn't have that," Melissa agreed.

"Don't worry, to my knowledge he's not wetting the bed again," Julie assured, taking a sip of her coffee with a grimace. "I just think he needs his dad."

"Well why don't you tell him?"

Julie thought about it for a moment before she shook her head, "I don't think he'd believe us. Besides, Scott doesn't want anyone else knowing."