High Infidelity [Midnights #2]

chapter 5

Tink. Tink. Tink.

The gentle sound of metal hitting metal was all Derek and Noah had needed in the way of company for over an hour now. And neither of them had said a word since the others had left. But that was okay. They were both used to the quiet, had grown accustomed to it.

To them, it was nice. Lately, anyway. In the beginning, not so much. In the beginning, quiet meant being alone. In the beginning, quiet meant debilitating, life-altering grief. Now, quiet meant something different. Something good.

Tink. Tink.

Deaton was nearly finished. Derek could hear it in the way he breathed. Slow. Steady. And it wasn't forced either. To the untrained ear, it was hard to discern the difference since he was a doctor. On occasion, Deaton breathed that way purely for the benefit of the patient, to calm his shaking hands. But this wasn't that. Isaac would be fine. Derek could sense it.

He would live.

Derek's phone rang, disrupting their peace, and he jumped slightly at the noise. "Stiles?" Noah sat up straighter out of the corner of his eye. "What's going on? Is Lydia okay?"

The other boy sighed heavily into the receiver and Derek slammed his eyes shut. Not again. Not another one.

"She's alive, but... but she was bitten," Stiles finally admitted. "Fucking bitten."

He was mad. Seething, even. Derek's eyes opened back up slowly and his brows furrowed in confusion. She was alive. That was good. No, great. Amazing.

"Okay," he replied slowly.

"By a werewolf, Derek."

Oh. Fuck. "The rogue?"

"Nope." Stiles gave a laugh. A spiteful, derisive sort. The kind Derek never wanted to hear coming from Stiles again. It felt wrong. "Guess again."

"Is she okay, Stiles?"

"No, Derek," Stiles insisted. "No, she was bitten by your psycho uncle."

Derek balked. "Peter?"

"That's what she said."

"Lydia told you it was Peter?"

Weirdly, the fact that Lydia had enough strength to point fingers at anyone, even his uncle, gave him hope. It bolstered him.

"She told Melissa," Stiles clarified. "But same fucking thing." Agreed. "And I swear to God, Derek. I'm going to kill him." Yep, fair enough. "I don't care if she pulls through now. I'm going to kill him myself." Okay, uh, no. Too dangerous. "That's not true," he corrected. "I care. Of course I care. She better fucking make it. I just meant even if she does, he's still dead."

"Stiles, I..."

He had no idea how he was going to finish that sentence, so he let it filter off until there was nothing.

"What?"

It was Derek's turn to sigh. "She was bitten, Stiles," he repeated.

"Yeah. That's what I said. They stopped the bleeding," Stiles offered. "Melissa said it was still touch and go, obviously, but she's in the ICU. They got it all under control. Jackson's with her now."

"She was bitten, Stiles," Derek said, starting again. "Even if they stopped the bleeding."

He had no desire to speak those words out loud. They were too hard. For a multitude of reasons. The first being that losing another person was no easier now than it had been before Stiles called. So he waited. He waited for Stiles to come to the correct conclusion.

"She might not make it."

"Not everyone is capable of accepting the bite," Derek explained softly. "And you don't find that out until it's too late. That's the risk people take, though."

"She didn't ask for this, Derek."

"I know."

"I'm going to kill him," Stiles promised.

"I'll help," Derek growled.

"Listen, uh, Sourwolf. I'm... I'm sorry. About earlier."

His voice was so low. Nearly a whisper. But Derek had heard everything. "Sorry?"

"I should have listened to all the evidence about Peter instead of just assuming he couldn't have done anything wrong," he elaborated. "I shouldn't have just blown it off and told you to trust him blindly. I..."

"It's fine, Stiles. I get it." And he did. "Don't worry about it, okay? Just go be with your friends."

"Okay." He sighed into the receiver again. "Bye."

As the line went dead, he stared down at the blank screen before looking up to meet Noah's eyes. He had no words for him still, and he suddenly felt bad. He'd been able to talk to his son just fine. But it was clear he didn't need to either. Noah just nodded. He understood without the recap.

The bell above the door jingled, jerking them rather violently out of their silent conversation. And then Kate was there.

Derek smiled up at her. Or maybe it was more of a grimace. He had no idea. It didn't matter, though. Kate was beside him, lowering herself into the chair next to him and rubbing his back. Sure, it didn't feel quite as good as before, but it was familiar. And he was short of that lately, so he'd take it.

"He's fine." Derek motioned with his head toward the room where Deaton was still working on Isaac. "Lydia too."

"Lydia?" Kate asked. "Lydia Martin?"

He nodded. "Yeah, uh, she was bitten. By Peter."

"Peter?"

Derek hung his head. He couldn't say it again. He couldn't confirm her worst fears. It was too hard. It stung way too fucking much.

"Well, do you, umm, want me to go over to the hospital and check on everyone there?"

"Do you mind?"

"Of course not."

"I don't like them by themselves," Derek confessed. "Melissa is there, but she's probably busy. And exhausted."

"I don't mind," she reiterated.

As Kate rushed back out with hardly a backward glance the bell sounded through the lobby again, and both Derek and Noah leaned back in their chairs, reassuming the same positions they'd been in before the world had gone all topsy-turvy again. And they waited.

Tink.

Tink.

Deaton sighed, dropping the instruments he'd been holding to remove all the itty-bitty bullet fragments. And then Derek and Noah did the same. It was over. Or, rather, this part of the nightmare was over. Isaac was alive. And his heart grew stronger with each beat, no longer weighed down by the poison others called wolfsbane.

One part of the nightmare was over. A million more to go.