Help me Derek

Chapter 2

He'd run into two kids in the woods, stilling for a moment when he'd looked at one of them, the kid was attractive, not that Derek was going to do anything about that, hell no. It didn't take him long to figure out the other one had been recently bitten by the new Alpha, or for both of them to get him arrested for Laura's murder.

"Derek," The sheriff said, sitting down in front of him and sighing, Derek remembered him from the night of the fire, he was a deputy back then, he'd put his jacket around Derek's shoulders and whispered a few words of sympathy to him, Derek felt the sincerity in his words, that this man could never know the full extent of his loss, but that he'd lost someone, knew how that felt. "I need to understand." The man continued, not completely unkindly.

"Understand?" Derek arched an eyebrow.

"Yeah, you and your sister survive the fire unharmed, within a month you've completely vanished, nobody knows where, then my son finds half of your sister's body buried next to your house. So, help me understand?"

"Stiles is your kid?" Derek says a little surprised, he probably should have realised, now he's closer he can smell the sheriff properly and yeah, he does smell a little like Stiles, or, actually, Stiles smells like him, not that Derek had spent the past couple of days unable to get Stiles' scent out of his mind, definitely not that.

"Yeah." The sheriff smiled fondly before his face grew serious again. "Derek, I don't believe you killed your sister. I don't know what you've been doing for the past six years, and I don't know how that has changed you, but I still remember the kid that could barely speak he was so consumed with grief, Stiles went the opposite way obviously, can't get him to shut up, any silence must be filled. But, that's besides the point, I don't think, whatever you've gone through these past years, that you would ever murder your sister. So, help me understand? Give me another reason, another explanation for why Laura's body was buried there."

Derek paused, trying to keep his wolf under control at the mention of 'Laura' and 'body' those words should never be strung together like that. He took a breath to try and calm himself as best he could, staring at the table rather than the sheriff.

"I found her, in the woods, I, I wanted to bury her next to the house, with the others." He admitted.

"Why didn't you let us know that you'd found her?"

"I wasn't thinking straight, wasn't thinking clearly, I just, she was dead, and I just, I wanted her to rest peacefully." Derek said, his voice cracking slightly. There was a knock on the door and a deputy came in, handing the sheriff a folder and then retreating, the sheriff looked over the enclosed paperwork for a couple of minutes before sighing, standing up and placing a hand on Derek's shoulders.

"It's confirmed as an animal kill, they found wolf hairs on her body. You're free to go." The sheriff said, releasing his grip on Derek's shoulders and leaving the door open behind him as he left the room.

The next few months were filled with danger, fear and confusion, not to mention, for some reason that Derek couldn't understand, a lot of Stiles. The kid was always there, no matter what Derek was doing, Derek figured it was because Scott seemed to be ditching him to spend time with Allison, Allison Argent, Derek didn't trust her, he'd tried to warn Scott but Scott had only snarled and then ignored him.

Jody had called him the month after he'd left New York, demanding to know where he was and which paintings she could take, he told her about Laura, that she had died and he'd left town, that she could take them all, sell them all, and call him when she had, then he'd see if he wanted to sell any more.

He'd been looking through Laura's duffel when Stiles arrived, his fingers brushing several packets of photographs and pulling them out, unable to stop the hysterical laughter that bubbled out of him when he saw it was photos of his paintings.