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Even though there is hardly anything there but rotted wood and the acrid stench of smoke and death, Derek remains at the Hale house. He remains, because sometimes when he stirs in the morning, still sleep-slow and half conscious, his mind allows him to remember his family; the sound of footfalls running down the stairs, the smell of his mother cooking breakfast, the feel of his father ruffling his hair and telling him it's time for school...
The most frequent memories are of Laura though. He will never stop seeing how she looked in death - it's burned to the back of his eyelids - but in these rare moments between wake and sleep, he gets to see her smiling, laughing, sticking her finger up at him, and she's alive.
He knows his pack believes he still lives in the house as a form of penance; but it's more than that. Derek lingers at the Hale house, because so do the memories of his family; and no matter how painful those memories might be, they're still better than nothing. If Derek can't have them back then he'll stay awhile with their ghosts. On his better days he allows himself small fond smiles, on his darkest days he just wishes he could join them.
