Unbroken ▹ Teen Wolf [02]

15; love without loss

For days following Boyd's death, the Hale loft was painfully silent.

Derek was gone. Peter stayed in the shadows. Cora stayed in her room. Rachel waited for her to come out. She did on occasion, going to the kitchen for food, but she didn't say much— she answered Rachel's questions with no more than three words & didn't stay long. Rachel didn't blame her, nor did she pry for more conversation, she knew her sister would need time. Much like Derek, who still had yet to return. Death, while it followed them closely, never became easier to deal with, especially in this particular situation when everyone was blaming themselves.

It wasn't any of their faults. As much as they all liked to think there was something they could have done differently to prevent tragedy, there wasn't. Not without endangering & potentially ending more lives. That didn't matter though, because no amount of reasoning was going to change the minds of those already convinced they could have stopped it, like Derek. Even thought he had absolutely no choice in what had been done.

Isaac had been the one to explain bits & pieces of what really happened, after Derek left. The twins & Kali had forced the alpha to kill one of his own; three against one was a war he would never win, and everyone knew that. Everyone except Derek. He couldn't see beyond the fact that his beta's blood was on his hands, in his mind, that meant the death was entirely his fault & he needed to leave.

One thing Rachel had learned over the years was that Derek didn't deal well with loss. He didn't deal well with any emotion, but anything in relation to sadness was particularly tough for him to handle. Perhaps it was because he always liked to be the strong one, the one who solved his problems with violence & never cried (ever). Rachel had never found out the exact reasoning, but what she did know was that whenever her brother was hit with so much emotion he couldn't help but show it, he did the only thing he knew how to do— run & hide.

He did it when he lost his family, and he did it when he lost her.

Rachel was like that too, in her own way. She didn't cry— no matter how badly she wanted to scream, she remained quiet (and rest assured, she had never wanted to scream more than she had following the aftermath of Boyd's death). She didn't like to show emotion because it made her feel weak, and the moment her enemies knew she was something other than a stone cold Hale, they could use it to their advantage.

She supposed that was why Derek left. The alphas had given him to the next full moon to join them, or his entire pack would be killed by them— implying that until then, they weren't going to attack again, but that didn't matter. Boyd was still dead, Derek still blamed himself, and he was going on a guilt trip to drown in the emotions awoken by that blame.

The only person who seemed to have a problem with that was Stiles.

"They were there for two days, hiding, waiting." Cora continued the story she'd been telling Stiles of one of the many times Derek & Peter had been found by hunters. She was standing, facing the window, watching the rain pour down outside whilst Stiles was standing behind her, a way back from the window. "That's what we're taught to do when the hunters find us.. Hide and heal."