Stepping into the kitchen, his gaze immediately fell on Margo who was sat at the kitchen island with a coffee in her hand. It was blatantly obvious that she was still recovering from her mental turmoil that had exploded the previous night. Her face was blotchy with a few small smudges of mascara beneath her eyes. Her hair was thrown into a messy pony bun and she was wearing a pair of leggings and one of Derek's t-shirts.
In front of her sat a letter which had already been opened and read. "How are you feeling?" He asked, as he got close enough and she closed her eyes momentarily as she thought about whether she should answer or not.
"My book's being published," she deflected, bringing the coffee to her lips to take a sip. The bitter liquid burnt her tongue but she didn't care that much, it was just another sensation that felt numb to her. Perhaps it hadn't burnt her at all and it was just a reaction in her head.
He immediately frowned and looked over at her confused and ever so slightly startled, "what?"
"Yeah, I sent it off a couple of weeks ago," she admitted, "I've been writing it since the kanima," she added on and he raised his brow.
"You didn't tell me."
"It didn't feel too important. I'd actually forgotten I'd even sent it off actually," she admitted, and he hummed before pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
"You know, I need to go to the school to deal with some pack stuff. Do you want to come with me?" He asked, and she glanced up at him confused. It wasn't often that he'd ever invite her along for anything involving the supernatural, instead, it seemed to be a mission of keeping her out of it.
"Why at the school?"
A smirk formed on his lips, "you'll see."
Liam walked into the locker room to grab onto his lacrosse stick but as he reached out for it he was forced to stop. There was no longer a lacrosse stick there. Frowning, he looked around not understanding, "what the hell? Where's my stick?"
"Is this yours?" At the voice, he whirled around to see Derek who stepped out of the shadows with a lacrosse stick in hand and a smirk on his face. Margo was there too although she was watching and waiting to see what was happening. He hadn't explained much on the way over there and instead she was simply guessing as to what was going to happen next.
Derek's ego also seemed to be radiating from him.
Liam's body was tense and he began to lowly growl in warning; Derek snapped the stick in half. Liam roared and leapt forward but Derek grabbed onto his shirt and pinned him against the lockers. Margo flinched, "Liam," Scott's voice rung out, and Margo rolled her eyes realising what was happening.
Stepping forward, she scoffed slapping Derek's arms away as Liam calmed down and looked over to Scott annoyed, "what are you doing? You're going to stretch the fabric," she pointed out and he looked at her blankly before releasing Liam and allowing him to fall to his feet, "honestly you lot never have any respect for other people's things."
"You're right," Derek mused, ignoring her words and turning to focus on Scott, "he is angry."
"You did just break something which belongs to him," Margo added on.
"This one's yours," Scott assured throwing another lacrosse stick to the said boy and Liam looked at it to check over for any damage. Scott offered a smile before nodding, "Get to class, Liam," he ordered and Liam looked between them all before leaving and doing as told.
Derek began smiling whilst Margo was trying to work out what it all meant as a collective. Did that mean there was a new person in the pack? She assumed so, but where had they come from and why had no one told her beforehand. "What are you looking like that for?"
"You're gonna be good at this," Derek assured.
"Are you kidding? I am totally unprepared! Remember how you said you could teach me a few things? I think right now, I could use a full-on training manual..."
"I'll tell you one thing-- that anger he's got? It'll make him strong." Derek assured.
"And dangerous..."
"Very," Derek cheered looking way too happy and it was Margo's turn to shoot him an unamused look and she bat his arm in warning.
"This was supposed to be the semester I could focus on school again... But Kate's back, and I've got a Beta, and there's a Deadpool..."Scott trailed off and Derek nodded whilst Margo only grew more confused.
"If all of our names are on that list, then that's what we should be focused on. Do you think Lydia can get that second key?"
"She's working on it..." Scott assured just as the bell rang and he sighed, "I gotta get to class."
As he left, Margo looked up at Derek, "what's this about a Deadpool and who was he?"
"Yeah, we've got some explaining to do," he sighed out, crossing his arms as he did.
He didn't have time to explain as Argent had asked for them to meet him at the Hale Vault so that they could try and work out Kate's motifs. It felt rather easy to work out to Derek but for the benefit of the doubt, he went ahead and had a look himself. Derek was holding the triskele medallion that he'd used to help Erica, Boyd, and Isaac learn to control their shift (although it had to be said it didn't do much good). Margo was stood a short space behind him with her cheek pressed against his arm so that she could see the object that was in his hand.
"She was here for this. We use it to teach young Betas how to control the shifts on a full moon," he explained and Argent took it to have a look at it with a sigh.
"Control never was one of Kate's strengths..."
"You knew she was alive, didn't you?" Derek asked and Argent shook his head as if denying the statement but they all knew it was a lie.
"Not for certain... But, I'd been searching ever since you handed me the shotgun shell."
Margo did not remember any of this happening; in fact, she believed she'd missed the majority of what happened throughout the earlier stages and current stages of the supernatural. She'd only been used as a buffer to prevent Derek from killing people. "What are you gonna do when you find her?" Derek asked.
"There's a place I can take her..."
"Are you saying you have some kind of Werewolf jail?" Derek asked and Argent nodded with a grim look.
"Something like that."
"Wait, so she gets to live and yet you were going to kill everyone else?" Margo cut in, not out of spite but out of pure curiosity (or perhaps it was fuelled a little way by spite as she'd watched him try and kill her brother and he had been the reason she had a bullet-shaped scar in her shoulder after the Kanima incident).
"She won't go quietly," Derek added on.
"I don't expect her to... And I'll do what's necessary," he added on in reference to Margo's comment.
"What if I asked you not to?" Both humans turned to look at him confused not understanding. They both thought he would have wanted her dead, "She took something from me. At first, I just thought it was a part of my past...I started to lose something else-- my sense of smell...I'm losing my power."
"So, you're on a supernatural hunting list..." she droned, and he nodded with a sigh, "and Scott bit Liam?" She was stood by the window in the loft with one arm crossed around her waist and the other was using the arm as an armrest and she was toying with her necklace in an effort to distract herself. Derek, on the other hand, was stood by the kitchen making a coffee.
"Scott bit Liam," he confirmed.
"What is it with all of you biting teenage boys? Surely, you'd want someone older and less... teenagey," she pointed out and he could only shrug not being able to explain it. Humming, she turned around to focus on the view out of the window, "and you losing your power? What's that? What does it mean?"
She could see his shoulders tense at the words through his reflection in the window and she knew exactly what it meant. He'd hoped she'd forgotten but she hadn't. You don't forget about those things so easily. Not after living the life they had. "I don't know," he sighed out and she nodded turning to look at him to see what was on his face.
"Why didn't you say? This type of information feels pretty important."
He walked across the loft and leant back against the table facing her and she frowned not understanding what he was doing, "when we can I think we should leave." She didn't understand that either, "to a different state, to a different country, we just have to leave. To get out."
"I don't understand- we can't just leave."
"I think we have to."
He didn't look at her but instead, he too was looking out of the window; he was afraid to tell her the truth. "Why?"
He shifted his gaze to her and studied her for a moment. Since he'd been back there had been a somewhat recovery in her physical health: the colour was returning, her eyes looked a little less dull, and she was beginning to regain the weight that she'd lost. There was still something lost though, something which he feared might never come back.
It was the look in her eyes when she smiled. The look she'd held every time they'd met when they 'bumped' into each other around the world. Her eyes used to be incandescent with love and now it was gone. He'd noticed it a long time ago but it hadn't really settled until this morning when something that had been a dream of hers since she was a child didn't seem to matter at all.
He still remembered discussing metaphors for the sky back in the school library.
How could he tell her that they needed to leave so that he didn't lose her? How could he tell her that it was not only to prevent himself from watching the person that he loved break apart but also to prevent himself from watching her fade away until she didn't love him anymore?
Eight years. Eight years ago they met and eight years ago he fell in love with a girl who was never seen. Who could probably walk into a bank, rob it, and no one would ever notice. He fell in love with the girl who was so quiet that she heard everything about everyone. He fell in love with the girl who even though seemed so invisible had a soul so large that the world probably couldn't handle its weight.
He'd raced her for that seat in the library purely for the aim of her attention and to know that he could prove to her that he saw her. He knew she got annoyed but it was amusing in a strange way.
Except ever since that night in the cellar beneath his house everything had changed; after he'd finally been forced into telling her that the supernatural existed and that he was a part of that world. Ever since then, nothing had been the same. He was not the man that she fell in love with but then she was not the girl that he fell in love with.
Of course, that didn't mean that any love was lost.
It was just terrifying to know that ever since the supernatural had become apparent in their relationship everything had changed. Looking at her now, he realised he didn't want to risk it changing even more because one day that change might alter their love. One might fall out of love.
There was also another factor: what if one of them ended up dead? They couldn't love if they were dead.
Sighing he held out his hand and robotically she pulled her hand away from her waist and took his. He held it so gently rubbing his thumb on the back of her hand so gently that you'd think he was caressing a newborns cheek. She watched the action carefully waiting for him to say something. To explain it to her yet he never did.
"I just think it would be safer if we did."
Right now, the distance felt stronger than ever and yet they could see each other perfectly fine.