Bravely Courageous

32

Stiles, Maggie and Caleb were in Derek's loft talking to Cora. Derek was MIA, so they were trying to figure out what exactly was going on. Cora began telling a story. "They were here for two days, waiting, hiding. That's what we're taught to do when hunters find us... hide and heal."

Stiles took a moment to think. "Okay, so is two days standard, then, or are we thinking Derek's on, like, some extended getaway?"

Maggie glanced at Stiles, then back to Cora. "Hopefully he comes back."

Cora turned to Stiles. "Why do you care?"

"Why do I care?" Stiles repeated. "Let's see... because over the last few weeks, my best friend's tried to kill himself. His boss nearly got ritually sacrificed. A girl that I've known since I was three was ritually sacrificed. Boyd was killed by alphas. One of my best friends could have died fighting them. I... do you want me to keep going? 'Cause I can, all right? For, like, an hour."

Cora narrowed her eyes. "You think Derek can do anything about that?"

"Well, since he's the one everyone seems to be after, it's more like he should do something about it, yeah."

Caleb raised a brow. "You know, Maggie's supposed to be the more pessimistic one." She hit his arm. "Hey! You know it's true."

Cora rolled her eyes before saying, "There's something different about him now. He wasn't like this when we knew him."

"Then what was he like?"

"A lot like Scott," Peter answered, walking down the spiral staircase. "A lot like most teenagers... unbearably romantic, profoundly narcissistic, tolerable really only to other teenagers."

"Okay, what happened?"

"What changed him?" Stiles wondered.

Peter turned to him. "Well, the same thing that changes a lot of young men... A girl. A circumstance I'm quite certain you're familiar with, Mr. Stilinski. As are you, I think, Mr. Hawthorne."

Stiles glanced at Maggie and she said, "Okay, so a girl broke his heart. What happened?"

Peter reached the bottom of the stairs and placed his hands on the corners of the table. "Do you remember Derek before he was an Alpha had blue eyes? Do you know why some wolves have blue eyes?"

Stiles frowned. "I just always that it was, like, a genetic thing."

Maggie shook her head. "Werewolves are different than humans. Their eye color changes are due to the death of someone. An innocent, right?"

Peter glanced at her and nodded. "That's right, Maggie. If you want to know what changed Derek, you need to know what changed the color of his eyes."

He began telling them a story about a younger Derek and a girl named Paige Krasikeva.

Stiles frowned. "Okay, so if Derek was a sophomore back then, how old was he? How old were you? How old are you now?"

"Not as young as we could have been, but not as old as you might think."

Stiles rolled his eyes. "Okay, that was frustratingly vague. How old are you?"

"I'm 17," Cora replied.

"See, that's an answer. That's how we answer people."

"Well, 17 how you'd measure in years."

Stiles shook his head. "All right, I'm just gonna drop it. What happened to Derek and the cello girl?"

Maggie shot him a look. "Paige."

Peter stared at him. "What do you think happened? They were teenagers. One minute, it's "I hate you, don't talk to me." The next, it's frantic groping in any dark corner they could manage to find themselves alone for five minutes. Their favorite dark corner was an abandoned distillery outside of Beacon Hills."