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She wakes up howling, the phantom ache along her middle a little too sharp, a little too real. She wakes up howling for revenge, trapped in a forced transformation with wet, damp earth surrounding her on all sides.
She feels the pressure binding her to her wolf form easing and before she knows it a hole has appeared above her. She can feel the moonlight, can see a patch of sky and flash of skin above her. She tries to raise her hands, tries to widen the hole above her but they do nothing but twitch beneath her commands.The hole gets steadily bigger before her eyes and then she sees an all too familiar face.
Hands reach out to her, before being promptly pulled back and she tries to smile at him, tries to tell him it’s okay, that she’s okay. Slowly, cautiously, hands envelope her and she can feel tears against her skin, can smell the pure, unrestrained relief and joy. They give her the strength to finally do more than twitch her fingers and she wraps her arms around her baby brother.
After Peter comes back from the dead and after Jackson does the same just a few days later, Derek is a little more than a believer.
The impending danger is gone and just like like that he has a truce with the Argents and more than his fair share of free time.
Boyd and Erica come back, disillusioned and weary, Isaac sticks close to Scott, makes a home in him and Peter just disappears. And Jackson, Jackson tries to pick himself back up with the help of Lydia. Needless to say, his pack is scattered and Derek, he has no clue what to do (except he does). He calls weekly training sessions, tries to get them ready for the next full moon.
He doesn’t think it’ll be a problem, Isaac’s found his anchor, Jackson will find his in Lydia and Erica and Boyd seem to have found one in each other. He doesn’t have much to teach them.
The days go by and Derek focuses on an inkling of an idea. He does research, looks through the laptop Peter left behind and even gives Deaton a visit (Deaton gives him a pitying look but Derek ignores it, he has to at least try).
The idea gives way to a plan and before the month is up he has a vague notion of what he’s going to do.
The full moon comes. Jackson shifts for a second before he finds Lydia and anchors himself, the others don’t shift at all. He leaves before the moon hits its peak but by then, the betas are all snoozing in their restraints.
He makes his way to the burned out husk of what used to be his family’s home and rather than the usual guilt and anger (anger at himself and the role he had to play) he feels nothing but resolve. He can’t fix it all, but he can fix this, he has to fix this.
He slowly walks up to the side of the house and the mirrors he’d left there the week before and carefully positions them around the no longer fresh mound of dirt, the wolfsbane growing strongly in the center. He keeps his transformation under wraps, his determination making it easy. Once the mirrors are in place and the moon is set to hit its peak at any second, he slowly walks around to the base of the mound and rolls up his sleeve.
Taking a penknife, he makes a deep cut in his forearm and shakes the blood into the dirt. The wound heals and he makes it again and again and again. The moon hits its peak and the mirrors reflect it right over the spot where his blood is seeping into the dirt.
He thinks about Laura, he thinks about how much he loves her. He thinks about their childhood, about rolling together down hills and running together through the trees. He thinks about the aftermath of the fire and how she stepped up, about how she put him back together as best she could and did the same herself. He thinks about New York and about the apartment that they made a home (not their home, but a home). He thinks about the day she left and how she promised she’d call in a day or two. He thinks about finding her body and how that had left him cold, alone, and howling at the moon. He thinks about burying her, half of her, the first time and then all of her the second.
Over and over he drives the knife into his arm, a little bit of his memories and love flowing out with the blood.
The moon travels across the sky, moving out of the range of the mirrors and and Derek is left in front a wet spot in the dirt and nothing else.
He tries again the next month.
and the next.
and the next.
Before he knows it, a year has passed and the moon in the sky is the same one that brought Peter back. Derek hopes he missed something in all his research, overlooked a very simple, but also very important part.
He makes his way to the house one last time (because even though he doesn’t want to give up, he knows that if this doesn’t do it, nothing will). When he arrives, the mirrors are already in place. He looks around and spies his pack just beyond the treeline. They've bonded over the past year, become something resembling an actual pack and not just one playing at it. He hadn’t told them about this though, didn't want them to give him the same look Deaton had, but somehow they’d found out.
He nods at them, a small part of him grateful for their presence (and acceptance). They approached him silently and as the moon rose to sit proudly in the center of the sky, they took his knife one by one and cut a stripe against their arms and disappeared into the night (he’d find them in the morning and express his thanks, having regained the knowledge that even though he was the alpha, they were equals, just like he and Laura had been because even though they were werewolves, they were still human).
Taking the knife, he began the familiar ritual and as the blood touched the soil, a howl began to pierce the silent night and Derek felt goosebumps rise on his skin.