The Tigress | Teen Wolf | Derek Hale

Chapter Nine- The Derek Story

"They were there for two days," Cora explained. "Waiting, hiding. That's what we're taught to do when the hunters find us. Hide and heal."

Tala furrowed her brows, peeking her head out of her bedroom door.

"Okay, so is two days standard, then?" Stiles asked. "Or are we thinking Derek's on like, some extended getaway?"

"Why do you care?" Cora snapped.

"Why do I care? Let's see," Stiles said sarcastically. "Because over the last few weeks, my best friends tried to kill themselves, Scott's boss nearly got ritually sacrificed, a girl that I've known since I was three was ritually sacrificed, Boyd was killed by alphas, I–do you want me to keep going?"

From around the corner, Peter exited his own room, seeming to have the same interest in the conversation downstairs as Tala.

"You think Derek can do anything about that?" Cora asked.

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

"I don't know," Cora sighed. "There's something different about him now. He wasn't like this when I knew him."

"What was he like?" Stiles asked.

"A lot like Scott, actually," Peter said, stepping forward and beginning to descend the staircase. Tala chuckled, following behind him. "A lot like most teenagers. Unbearably romantic, profoundly narcissistic, tolerable really only to other teenagers."

"So what happened?" Stiles asked. "What changed him?"

"Well, the same thing that changes a lot of young men," Peter smiled. "A girl."

Stiles' eyes flicked to Tala.

"Oh, not me," she chuckled in a low voice. It was truly the first time Stiles had seen her not being her cocky self. "No... not me."

"You're telling me some little girl broke Derek's heart?" Stiles asked. "That's why he is the way he is?"

"Do you remember Derek before he was an alpha had blue eyes?" Peter asked. "Do you know why some wolves have blue eyes?"

"I just always thought it was, like, a genetic thing," Stiles said. Tala chuckled.

"If you wanna know what changed Derek, you need to know what changed the color of his eyes," Peter said.

Tala sighed, beginning the story. "When Derek and I were sophomore's, I had this friend Paige, and Derek was playing for the basketball team, living in his own little world. Me, Paige and our friend Kelly were inseparable. And Derek was..." Tala's eyes shot to Peter. "A family friend."

"He was just a teenage boy," Peter explained.

"One day, when I had gone home early," Tala started again. "Derek had basketball. On their way out of the gymnasium, the boys were messing around with the ball in the hallway. Paige had stayed late to practice her cello, but couldn't focus with all of their noise outside the classroom."

"So she went out," Peter continued. "She told them to be quiet, and Derek began to pick on her. But when she gave up fighting back, he followed her, begging for her name."

Stiles' brows were furrowed. "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," Peter said.

"Okay, that was frustratingly vague," Stiles said, turning to Cora. "How old are you?"

"I'm 17," Cora said.