Blue Eyes & White Lies Lead To I Love You's

Chapter Five

A/N: I did it again and got lazy with this fic, I've been really busy with A Levels and school recently among other things but I promise I'll try to update at least every 2 weeks from now on, also, if you could comment on where you think the story could go that'd  be great, I have a couple ideas but I'd love some feedback!

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Derek got out the car and started walking up to the house, leaving me behind, I reached the handle but hesitated as I noticed the look on Derek's face. Anger. He was staring at the ruins of what would have been a home to someone, to Derek? 

I took a minute to get myself together before getting out of the car, then I slowly opened the door, the cold air attacking my face as I made my way towards Derek. I didn't know what to say or do, yet somehow my hand found his. To my complete and utter shock he gripped my hand tight, he looked over to me and gave me a small smile in thanks. 

"Did you live here?" I asked, although I already knew the answer, the story of what happened solely from the atmosphere that was choking me I needed to hear him say it, I needed to hear the story that had already seemed to shatter my heart.

He chuckled slightly, looking down to the ground, "yeah, I promise, it used to look a lot better than it does now, it was home, it still is." He lead me to what would have been the front porch but what now just broken pieces of wood, caked in ash, I hesitated before entering the burned down house, stopping dead in my tracks.

"Is this safe? The damage, are you even allowed to go in there?" I asked, panic was starting to replace every emotion I had, what if something went wrong? why did he bring me here? why did I need to see this? Questions were racing through my mind faster than I could comprehend them, I was brought back to reality from the laughter that filled the air. I looked over at Derek and scowled, only resulting in him laughing even more and tearing his hand away from mine, putting his hands up in surrender and trying to keep a serious face, but failing as his lips started to curve upwards.  

He grabbed my hand again, "come on, I've been coming here for years and nothing has ever happened, the police department said it was safe to re-enter years ago," his facial expression changed completely, his eyebrows knotting together, "do you really think I'd risk putting you in any sort of danger if I wasn't completely sure?"

"Well, no, bu-"

"No buts, come on, its safe, I promise." With that Derek pulled me inside the dark house, the atmosphere was heavy and dark, the only safety coming from Derek's hand in mine.

"What happened here Derek?" I said, it was barely audible, much lower than a whisper, yet somehow he heard me. 

"You see, I used to trust everyone, when you're young and naive you do that, you have no enemies. It takes something horrible to throw you into reality, you lose people because of those you had chosen to trust, and its you fault, and they're gone, and there's not a thing you can do about it but blame yourself every day, with every waking minute." Tears were forming in both of our eyes, the lump in my throat threatened to break into the sob I was trying my hardest to hold back. I shook my head free of the sadness I was feeling, at the same time swallowing the lump that was still prominent at the back of my throat.

"They died, didn't they? Your family." It wasn't a question. We both knew the answer, no words needed to be spoken for confirmation, the pain in his eyes were enough to show exactly what happened. 

"I still have Cora, and Peter, my uncle, but sometimes, it's not enough you know? I need the rest of them and I should have taken better care of them, I woke up, that night, to Cora screaming, I didn't realise what was happening at first. I just ran out of my room and saw the flames coming towards her, she was curled up next to my mothers room, screaming, trying to get in but the door was locked, it had jammed. It's kind of ironic, it had always jammed, and we all used to laugh about it, my mother saying she was happy it did it, she could escape from the chaos going on in the house, but this time it was the reason she couldn't escape from it. I tried, I tried so hard to get the door open, but then Peter came and shoved me aside, screaming at me to get Cora out of there, that he'd take care of the rest, so I did, again, I trusted someone." He walked to the other side of the hall and sat on the bottom of the blackened staircase.

"What happened?"

"I learned another lesson. I should have done what I wanted to do and not be stopped by someone else, he crawled out of this house no more than two minutes after he promised me that he would save her, he left her there, he told me it was too late, that when he got into the room she was already gone, but it turned out that once the fire was out, the fire department found her in the room, they had to knock the door down to get to her, he hadn't even tried to do what he promised me he would do. After that he took off, and I was too young to look after Cora at the time, so she moved away to stay with family friends. I tried to do the same, take off and just leave this mess behind me, but I couldn't do it, so I came back about a year after and ever since I've been trying to stay unnoticed." 

I went over to him and took his hand in mine again, looking up and smiling at him. I didn't understand why he was telling me this, Stiles was constantly making jokes about how guarded he was with everyone other than Cora, yet only a couple times of meeting me, he was telling me about what must have been the hardest part of life. 

"Let's go, I've got a couple more places to show you" He said quickly, leading me back out of the house and to his car.

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I got home late, the hours had crept past so quickly I hadn't noticed it was almost midnight until Derek pulled up outside my house, telling me I should get some sleep before school the next day. I crept up the stairs, careful not to wake anyone else up, knowing I'd be in trouble if I did.

Derek had taken me to the places he would go as a kid, the lake near his house he had learned to swim in, talking about how we could go there when it was summer again, he took me to a diner him and the his family would go to every Friday night, it was a small place on the outside of town, where all the students go to study, we stopped there for food then argued over who should pay. Of course, he won. Then we just  drove around, him pointing out more places he would go, we spoke a little more about our lives, timing slipping past without me knowing. 

I drifted off to sleep smiling as I remembered every detail of what had happened.