The first time Cam woke up in a hospital bed, he was six and alone. Some nurse found his side eventually, pinched sympathy all around her eyes, voice baby-talk soft.

And Cam wasn't a baby, and he wasn't stupid. He knew the rules. He dragged out a slow smirk, just looked at her until she looked away. Just watched TV silently until Dad came back, sprang him free.

In the car Mom had her face out the window, hair whipping in the wind. Dad got behind the wheel, scraped his palm across her stiff shoulders until she sighed, stared down at her knees, then up at him.

"That nurse," Dad said later, shoving boxes into the trunk. Dishes rattling in the cardboard, Dad's grip smudging Mom's careful Sharpie handwriting. "Sure asked a lot of stupid questions."

Just then Cam was thinking about the box in the basement, how that wasn't in the moving truck with his bed and his desk, all the furniture from the nursery, and wasn't in this trunk filling up with everything else they were taking to Brooklyn, New York. How maybe it wasn't coming with them at all, maybe...

"You wouldn't give her any stupid answers," Dad said. Voice steady, steady, calm, calm, calm. "Would you, Cam?"

Cam shook his head, met his dad's eyes and didn't blink.

"Of course not," Dad said after a few seconds, real warmth there, Cam finally blinking, breathing, warming up under Dad's approving gaze. "You're so much smarter than that. That bitch nurse, she doesn't understand how much potential you have/. She looks at you and sees a sad sack bruised little baby. Is that what you are?"

"No," Cam said, jaw jutting.

"No," Dad said. A small smile curled into place. "No, you're not."

Dad packed the last of the boxes, slammed the trunk shut, and they went out for ice cream, just the two of them.

The box followed them to the basement of the new house, to the basement of every house they moved to. Cam got too big for it too fast, growing and growing and growing, but that just meant it was working, making him stronger. Training meant getting stronger, getting smarter, better than his dumbfuck sadsack classmates. Survival of the fittest, Cam, are you gonna make it?

One day it'll really fuck with Cam's head how long he believed that.

The last time Cam wakes up in a hospital bed, he's seventeen, old blood in his mouth, fuzzy numbness all over, and Derek Hale is hunched in a folding chair by his side, brows drawn together, lips pressed tight like he's fighting not to cry.

And Cam isn't some sadsack, but in this moment all he wants is to grab Derek by the shoulders and reel him in, not let go for any goddamn thing.

Stupid, stupid: his wrists are leather-cuffed to the bed. Derek's eyes go huge watching him struggle, and Cam stops, shakes his head, says, "Don't cry, man, don't—"

"Sorry," Derek says hoarsely, actually looking it, like he really thinks he owes that apology. He got taller those eight months, and that and how fucking starved he obviously was makes him look like goddamn Mike Teevee from Charlie and the Chocolate factory. Then there's the bruises under his eyes like a Halloween zombie, the whole new screwed-up shape to his spine, and he's sorry. Cam wants to strangle something.

"C'mon," Cam says roughly, too roughly. He really needs to throw someone through a wall, then maybe he can lie here and talk soft, but right now any word he says comes out sounding like a curse. "I'm fine. I swear. I'm fucking superhuman."

"You're not," Derek says. Cold horror splashed across his face, eyes so wide it's like they're stuck that way. "You're—You can't do something like that and just—"

A tear skids down Derek's cheek, and Cam chokes down the need to just Hulk out, tear free from these cuffs and go on a rampage. You and me, Derek, we're gonna make that sick son of a bitch pay.

What comes out is, "Nice to know you care," joking, like Cam's just dropping in from another universe where he's the fucking victim. There's a little smirk at the edge of his mouth. He can't smooth it away.

Cam used to know how to talk to people. How to talk to Derek.

When did he get so fucking broken?

"I'm sorry," Derek breathes, tears falling and falling, and Cam wants to bash his own head in with a brick if that's what it'll take to smooth this smirk out.

"This is crap," Cam says abruptly. "I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I'm trying to talk to you, and all that's coming out is crap."

Derek stares at him. "You have that too?"

"What, like you do? Please." Cam scoffs. "You've never had a problem talking to people. People love you."

"Not anymore," Derek says. "My own mom can't even—"

"She's a bitch," Cam says, relieved. "She doesn't talk to Ash either, does she? No, she doesn't. Ice-cold bitch."

"And I couldn't talk to you," Derek says. "You didn't do anything to me, I just couldn't—And now—"

His eyes fix on the cuffs again, and acid rises in Cam's gut.

"Don't you dare," Cam warns. "Not every fucking thing I do is about you."

"Then why," Derek says.

"It's true," Cam says as Derek white-knuckles the leg of his folding chair. "All of it. I told Jess the truth. Drew Santos, Lisa... All of it."

He looks up, daring Derek to argue. Looks away.

"There's something wrong with me," he says, too quietly.

No, no there isn't. Derek shakes his head. "You're exactly the same," he says. As before, he doesn't have to say, doesn't want to say. "You didn't change at all. You're not—"

"There's always been something wrong with me, okay?" Cam says. "Since before I moved here. I, I just—I have to fix things. When you didn't make the team, or when Lisa dumped you, or when Greenberg said that stuff about Jess and Fistock. It's like—I have to. There's this pressure in my throat."

"Drew Santos," Derek says, half sure Cam's lying now, joking, he can't have really—

Cam shrugs. "It got you on the team."

And Derek can't, he can't believe this.

But of course he can.

No one's actually different, are they?

Derek's just seeing them, really seeing them, for the first time.

"He just kept running," Coach Lahey says, out in the hall. Cam's out on some combination of exhaustion and pain medication, just in time to miss his dad showing. "And Cam, he's fast. Next thing I know he's right over the edge."

"You were there," Derek says, and thinking about trying something like that in front of your dad. Even now he can't imagine it, even with Dad the way he is now. Wouldn't just seeing him be enough to make you stop, break down sobbing?

But Cam would never let himself break down.

"I thought he was stronger than this," Coach Lahey is telling Julie. Something coils tight in Derek's chest.

"He's plenty strong," Derek says.

"There's always a way," Coach Lahey says. "There's always another option. I thought he knew that."

"If he's depressed," Julie says, "or feeling helpless, that's not weakness."

"Is that right?" Coach Lahey says. "What do you call it?"

"Is having a broken arm weakness?" Julie challenges. "Mental illness is no different."

"Mental illness," Coach Lahey repeats, disbelieving. "My kid's not retarded. He makes some dumb fucking decisions sometimes, but we work on that. I thought we were working on that."

Derek's head swims. Julie's still talking, firing back the answer she always seems to have, but Derek can't listen anymore.

Forest shuddering around her, Laura runs. She peers through thick twists of branches, searches for someone else's shadow.

Finds him on the ground, crumpled small.

"Derek!"

His eyes widen in the dark, bright green beams, and she stumbles to them. Trips down beside him as he struggles to get up, get away.

"It's me," Laura says. "Derek, it's just me." Gathers Derek in her arms, tears in her squeezed-shut eyes, she's rocking him gently, back and forth, like a child. He's freezing, still as a corpse; she can't seem to warm him up.

"It's over," she promises. "We found you. You're safe."

"You don't really believe that," a voice says from behind her. "Do you?"

Laura's flailing wrist hits the horn; her car explodes with sound. Laura straightens in her seat, reality flooding back in increments. Her neck and shoulder whine from their awkward positions. She scrapes her palm up and down them irritably, scrabbles for her phone.

In another life, Laura would be living at home. Seeing her little brother every day, the minute she wakes from this kind of nightmare, some looming dark thing behind them, laughing. In another life her family made it, got through this year of self-destruction, and welcomed Derek back the way it should've been, the way he's obviously still hoping for, wide eyed and pleading and so, so let down.

But that's not what happened, and Peter isn't exactly appreciative of Laura ranting in his girlfriend's poor, tear-stained face about how he dropped the ball just as bad as her parents did. He never exactly made up a room for her after that.

Which is fine. Laura can sleep in her car, eat cheap fast food, it doesn't matter. Small fucking sacrifice for having her brother back again. In the hospital, her arm around him, he was warm and solid, real. Mom tried so hard to convince Laura she was crazy, that Dad was a drunken mess disconnected from reality, that Derek was dead, gone, that nothing would ever get any clearer. That her mother was just doing what she had to do to save the rest of them: He's dead, Laura. I won't let you die too.

"Tell me he's okay," Laura says, by way of greeting. She can do that now: She can call up her uncle and just ask how Derek is, and know. Actually know, instead of guessing, hoping, swimming through cold-sweaty blankets all night too sure of things she couldn't possibly be sure of.

She had a TV in her apartment, once. There was a show, one of those morbid crime dramas Ash became so obsessed with after Derek disappeared. Laura always hated the idea of them, rape and murder played out like a campfire story, the more graphic the better. The million identical cold confessions in the last ten minutes, the same steel table or courtroom stand, and for what? So people who'd never had their lives touched by anything like it could play detective through the spilled blood?

But it was late, and Laura couldn't shut her brain off, couldn't stop the nightmares spilling in, so she made a stupid decision and reached for the remote.

And saw a kid stolen by human traffickers, kept in a room with a camera and made to—

She picked up the TV, threw it into the closet so hard the screen shattered.

"Peter," Laura says, when all she gets is silence.

Then Peter says, "He's not here."

"What are you talking about," Laura says, fumbling for her keys, jamming them in the ignition. "How can you—Where is he?"

"He's with the sheriff's wife," Peter says. Laura frowns.

"She's dead."

"The new sheriff," Peter says. "Stilinski."

Right, of course. Gerard Argent mishandled Derek's case, everyone said, was the reason it went cold, everyone said—but Laura never believed it. After Derek went missing, she went to talk to the sheriff, trying to understand, get some kind of idea of what was going on. He was the kindest, most considerate man, always making time for her, always explaining what they had and where it led so patiently. Like he didn't have a massive caseload, and endless pressure on him from every nobody who read the Beacon Hills Beacon and thought that meant they knew something.

After Dad's first arrest, Gerard was so sympathetic. He said he could see the signs, that Dad needed help. He got numbers of specialists, helped Laura organize an intervention—even offered to let her stay in his home if she felt unsafe. But the public feeding frenzy unseated him, replaced him with some bumbling deputy who wasted weeks rewriting the case file from scratch. Who did nothing, and found nothing, who gets lauded like a hero for tripping over Derek's half-frozen body on his way to the donut shop.

"She was at the hospital," Peter reminds Laura, and fine: there they all were, the whole happy family. Sheriff and wife and some little kid forcing Derek to be alright lest he risk traumatizing a toddler. Sitting there like they were Derek's family, like any of them did anything to bring him back that wasn't an accident.

All Derek knows is that the sheriff found him. He doesn't know much effort that took. How the whole Hale family bled for eight months only for the Stilinskis to swoop in and foster him. That day Derek was at their house, Laura was stupid enough to think it was because Derek wanted to tell the sheriff something, but no. He was sleeping there.

"And now Derek's with her," Laura says, threading and unthreading her keys through her fingers. "Again. Is he living with them?"

"He feels safe there," Peter says, and Laura feels so sick she almost laughs. What did John Stilinski ever do to keep Derek safe?

"Are you even keeping track of him?" Laura demands. "Would you even know if they lost him?"

Peter sighs. "I didn't implant a pet tracker in his skin, no," he says.

Laura hits the gas.

Stiles is really starting to think the clock in Math class is actually a trick one, one that goes ten times as slowly as a normal one, or backwards. All he knows is it's going slower than time has ever gone, ever, in his life, and all he can think about is that look on Derek's face when he heard about Cam—not even the biggest news about Cam, just the stupid rumors. Just the stupid rumors about Drew Santos were enough to make him jump up, look like he was going to cry, or punch someone. And Dad said he needs to feel safe, and he needs something stable, and you know what isn't stable? Your best friend jumping off a roof. Stiles would be out of his mind if it was Scott. Even if that was the only bad thing that happened in his life, he'd be, like, throwing up all the time, and having panic attacks—

And, and! Derek used to have panic attacks, he said so. He had one in Stiles' house, even.

It's not supposed to, Dad says it can't happen, but if you can't breathe and you hyperventilate and you never calm down from it, can't you die? You can't live not breathing. Even if it's rare, it can't be impossible. How do they know? Maybe it's just statistically irrelevant, like how much meat the FDA allows in vegetarian food. It can still happen. Dad says a panic attack is just your body freaking out thinking something is wrong, and then freaking out thinking the freak out is something going wrong, and you just breathe really slowly and it stops, but what if you don't? What if you keep hyperventilating and fall down unconscious and get kidnapped all over again?

Because that's what it was, Stiles is pretty sure by now. Derek was kidnapped, and then burned and—and raped and kept for a million billion years and how is he ever breathing ever? Stiles would kick and punch and bite but there's no way he'd be stronger than Derek, so if it was him he'd probably just be dead by now. It's just that Derek is superhuman strong, and and and got away somehow, probably by tricking the bad guys and then bashing all their heads in, probably. That's what Stiles hopes: that somewhere there's everyone who hurt Derek lying on top of each other like human Jenga, all starving to death and drowning in their own blood and so freaking—so fucking, fucking, fucking sorry, which is too bad on them because no one's gonna ever, ever find them. That's why Derek's not even telling Dad who hurt him, so they all have a chance to die slowly first. And plus all of them are just going to the bathroom on top of each other, so it's like Hell, but real. So Derek doesn't have anything to worry about because they're not even scary anymore, it's just funny. And he can remember how stupid they looked and how sorry they were and just, just laugh–

Except he has nightmares. Derek has nightmares, and panic attacks, so it's not over at all. Maybe it'll never be, all because some crazy people wanted to hurt him.

Stiles breathes, breathes, breathes. Watches the clock, his leg rattling against the desk, nudging his worksheet down the smooth wood surface by increments.

Camden Lahey is a bully and a bad friend but Derek didn't believe it when Stiles told him what Jessica Bartlett said. Stiles wouldn't believe it about Scott, but that's 'cause Scott wouldn't ever hurt anybody. But Derek thinks Cam is like Scott, so he's for sure freaking out like Stiles would be freaking out if it was Scott who—and Stiles is freaking out even thinking about it, forgetting to breathe thinking about Scott falling and falling and landing—

Stiles sticks his hand high in the air, says, "I'm gonna be—" and blows chunks all over his worksheet.

Laura's sitting on the front steps of the empty Stilinski house when she remembers—phone, she gave Derek a phone. She takes out her own, punches in Derek's number.

"Hello?"

"You're not Derek," Laura says, her muscles tensing.

"Julie Stilinski," says the sheriff's wife. "Who am I speaking to?"

"Laura Hale," Laura says pointedly. "Where's my brother?"

"He's—He just stepped out," Mrs. Stilinski says.

"Of where."

"Laura, I'm sorry," Mrs. Stilinski says, so sympathetic Laura's blood curdles. "I should have called you. He's—We're in the hospital. Cam—"

Laura ends the call.

Gerard would've contacted her. Gerard would have found her, would be at her door, would have a plan to tackle all of it.

"He told me he'd call me," Laura tells this sad excuse for a sheriff's secretary. It's taking more self control than she has not to speed. "John told me he'd call me if Derek got hurt again."

"Derek got hurt?" Kate says. "What happened?"

And Laura's still not used to that. Kate Argent being family, knowing Derek, or having any claim to him. Caring about him like she obviously does.

"I don't know," Laura admits. "But he's in the hospital. The new sheriff's wife is with him. What is she, his personal bodyguard?"

"There was a jumper," Kate says slowly. "At Derek's school. But I thought—"

Laura nearly causes a five-car pile up.

Mom's new apartment is smaller than Laura expects. Aaron stands in the doorway, stares at her balefully.

"Derek's not here," he says.

"I know," Laura says, and is crushed by the sudden guilt of this, her kid brother she hasn't seen in months. Mom totally lost it; who says he's eating, or, or going to school? He's the man of the house now. Does he even know why? "I didn't come here for him," she lies. "I missed you."

Aaron shrugs, steps back to let her in.

"Mom's treating you guys okay?" Laura asks, examining the ratty carpet, the low exposed bulbs. Trying not to obviously crane her neck, blatantly bypass Aaron to search for her mother. "What was the last thing you ate?"

"Pizza," Aaron says.

"Homemade?"

"Frozen," Aaron says. "And there was corn and carrots, but I didn't eat any." He makes a face at her. "Cooked carrots."

"Gross," Laura agrees.

"Aaron!" Mom shouts. "You can't just leave the door—Laura."

"Mom," Laura says, stunned by the shake in her voice. She's just furious, that's all. Thinking of Derek in the hospital with a fresh broken arm, with bruising all around his throat, under his eyes. Derek so thin it's scary, and so quiet it hurts, watching the hospital doors, waiting.

For nothing.

"Derek's in the hospital," Laura says. "He tried to kill himself."

Mom's eyes widen.

"Yeah," Laura says, acid in the back of her throat. "You think maybe you can, I don't know, be his mother for a few minutes? Actually show up to see him this time?"

"I didn't know," Mom says. "I didn't know it was that bad."

"How bad did you think it was, Mom?" Laura hates the tears in her eyes, the wild tremor in her voice, but she can't stop them. "Did you ever even look at him?" Those bruises all around his throat, forearms freckled with cigarette scars. He was alive, alive, alive to take it, scared to death and screaming somewhere, while his mother was telling everyone to move on. "You just wanted him to die, didn't you? So you could be right and Dad could be wrong."

"That's not fair," Mom says, eyes bright. Good, let her cry now. Let it all hit her now, after the fact, when there's nothing she can do to fix it anymore. Just in time for her Oscar nomination.

"So he's dead," Aaron asks, flat.

"No," Laura says, swiping her eyes clear. Christ, she didn't even consider Aaron when she rushed over. But there's no use pretending he isn't already an adult, that life didn't already decide that for him. "No. I don't know how bad it is, but not—I'm sorry."

"You said you weren't here for him," Aaron says. It's not an accusation, just a statement. Or Aaron's gotten used to tempering his disappointment so well Laura can't recognize it anymore.

"I know," Laura says. "I meant—Mom can't skip out on him again. On any of you."

"Sure," Aaron says, and heads back to his room.

"I'm going to the hospital," Laura tells her mother. Mom's just standing there, looking lost. "Why don't you take a minute, decide if his life matters to you or not."

"Laura," Mom says.

"I'm not gonna forgive you for what you said," Laura says. "None of us are. But if you leave him waiting for you alone again—that's it. That just proves it."

"Proves what," Mom says. Even now, she's challenging, defensive.

"That Dad's right," Laura says. "You're not even a little bit human anymore."

It's impossible to breathe in that hospital, impossible to breathe listening to Cam's dad be so awful. And that's one more thing Derek missed, one more person he got wrong. The lineup never ends.

Maybe he should've seen all of it. Maybe he walked right into it, signed himself up. He called her beautiful, he'd wanted—not that, but something. He got something, didn't he? Even if it turned out it wasn't what he wanted at all, he still talked to her. Hit on her. He should have just shut his idiot mouth. Just followed Cam into that party and had a normal eight months, a normal whole life.

But then he'd probably still be that idiot his whole life. Just walking around in his little bubble of ignorance, seeing nothing.

So maybe... Maybe...

No, Derek's not ready to say that yet. That maybe Cam gets punched in the face in the name of love and Derek gets—gets her in the name of finally seeing things right.

But if there is a god, maybe he just saw Derek floating through his stupid pointless life and said, You're obviously too dumb to exist. Lemme fix that.

And he'd be right, wouldn't he?

Derek's eyes water, and of course he's crying again. He's less stupid but more sensitive, which according to Peter (in hushed tones Derek had to strain to hear) is characterized by big reactions to small incidents. Well congratulations, Peter, here's your print-out Ph.D. Go shrink someone's head who actually asked for it.

The truth is sensitive isn't the word, and everyone already knows that. That's why Julie cares so much. It's why Stiles vowed to protect him, this eleven year old kid trying to be Derek's guardian angel: They know, or they think they know, how fucking broken he is now. They don't have a clue how far down the break goes, but they know enough to follow him like shadows, check on him all the time, try to save him—

But maybe it's not worth the effort. They should think about that, think about the time they're wasting, and the energy, think about how their lives are gonna rot from the inside out the more they spend themselves trying to fix him. Because they don't get it, they don't get how out of control he is now, how his head isn't his anymore, how nothing he means ever comes out right, how he scared Jess away, scared his own mom away—

"You are not broken," Julie says when she finds him, facing the wall out in the parking lot with his arm up in front of his face like it'll hide him, how he's so clearly breaking down, again. How he's just a broken naive idiot who can't ever stop crying, can't ever stop sucking all the life out of everything he touches.

"Derek," Julie says, and it doesn't even feel real, any of it. It feels like he's in a movie, on that show Ash likes with the brothers who keep crying at each other, and the car.

"You may not see it now," Julie says, "but you are so much stronger than you know. You made it through the worst thing that will ever happen to you. You faced some of the worst things in this world, and you're alive to talk about it. Or not talk about it," Julie says, when fear climbs up Derek's throat, threatening. "That's your right. But Derek, all through those months, you had to fight alone. You don't have to do that anymore."

For a second it almost seems obvious, too easy just to spit it out, just tell Julie everything, or the important parts, and screw the consequences. Tell her everything, and hug, and the music swells as the camera pulls away and away and away.

Then reality crashes back again, that old burn prickling the back of Derek's neck. He shakes his head, swipes at his eyes.

"I don't remember anything," he says.

Stiles is sick; that's how Julie found Derek in the parking lot. She needs to go pick him up, needs to—be his mom, instead of standing in for Derek's. She offers Derek a ride home (What home? Derek thinks irritably) but Derek can't leave Cam here with his sad excuse for a father, not until he talks to Cam about it.

He has to take a breath, though, before he goes back in. Put some kind of normal on. He saw how Cam looked at him, looked at him falling apart like it was Derek Hale Sympathy Hour again, even in Cam's hospital room, after his suicide attempt. Derek's always gonna tip the scales for Worst Horror Story now, and apparently that means any time he tries to be there for someone else, all they'll be able to do is go, Who am I to have a problem, look at his problems. Derek wins the Tragedy Olympics. Congratulations, here's that trophy you always wanted. Look, it fits up your ass! Ahh, memories.

Apparently all it takes to get a sense of humor is a near year of hell; is going half-insane, or maybe the whole way. Maybe Cam's been miserable all this time, and Derek just never noticed. That's what a shallow, self-absorbed idiot he was: his own best friend, and he didn't have a clue. He was just desperate to beat his time, steal his glory, take everything that ever meant anything to him. Before Derek was a jackass. He, maybe he deserved—

And just like that, Derek's crying again.

"She's exactly the same," Laura says, pacing across her the floor of her father's den. "Derek doesn't matter to her. He's here, he's hurting, and she doesn't even care."

Her chest feels tight, stomach twisting. She's so angry she can barely speak.

"He's hurting," Dad echoes hoarsely. "I need to see him. Laura, you have to help me see him."

He hiccups. There are tears in his eyes.

Laura feels sick, disoriented, but she should have known.

"You're still drinking."

"They won't let me see him," Dad says. "All I ever wanted was my son back. I never stopped wanting that. Never turned my back on him. Who else can say that? Who else, in this family? Who else, in this world?"

"He can't see you if you're like this," Laura says, somehow. Swallowing down the bile of that accusation, that accusation that she gave up, she left him screaming somewhere, just like Mom did.

"He should be kept from his cunt mother," Dad seethes. "She wanted him dead. Would've strangled him with both hands, I wouldn't let her! I told'im—"

"You told him," Laura says, divorced from herself, from any emotion. "You told him? You told him she wanted him dead?"

"She stopped looking," Dad says. Laura's throat is on fire. "Buried him alive. I was out there, every day, searching, and they try to keep him from me? From me? I would kill for him! I will, I'll make it right. He's hurting, he's hurting, I'll kill'em all. My son," Dad says, thumbing his eyes dry. "My brave, brave boy…" His shoulders start to shudder again.

"You can't see him," Laura says, stepping back and back again. "Don't you get it? He can't see you like this. You're supposed to be his dad."

"I am his dad!" Dad says. "I will always, I will always be—"

"You're a mess," Laura says, shaking her head. Every inch of her held so still she's trembling. "You're out of control. I can't believe you, you really said—God, of course he jumped. You told him Mom wanted him to."

"Jumped?" Dad says, eyes bulging. "He's—I'll kill her!"

"Just stop it," Laura says, forcing herself strong, steady, calm, calm, calm. "Just—call your girlfriend. Go write a book. Derek doesn't want to see you."

Laura's half-sure she's hallucinating when she pulls into the hospital parking lot, sees her brother just leaning against the fence, head bowed, his arm to his eyes.

She's out of the car with lightning speed, at his side, saying, "Jesus, I thought—"

"Guess again," Derek says, but she's already dragging him into a hug, barely fighting the hysteria bubbling all through her.

"She told me," Laura says, breathing him in; Axe and stale sweat never smelled so much like relief. "Julie Stilinski, she said you were in the hospital, and Kate said you jumped—"

Derek stiffens. "She said I—" He pulls away, frowns. "You talk to Kate?"

"Sometimes," Laura says. "She's gonna be family, right?"

"Right," Derek says faintly. "Are you—friends?"

"I barely know her," Laura says. "It's like you and the Stilinski kid. I know her parents, I've just seen her."

"That's not what it's like," Derek says, with some authority.

"Whatever," Laura says. "So you're okay?"

"I'm perfect," Derek says.

"That's—you know what I mean," Laura says. "You're not jumping from anywhere."

"Jumping for joy," Derek says. "Because everything's so perfect."

"Shut up," Laura says, but soft. "I'm serious, do you have any idea—I barely remember driving here. Can you just—Promise me you won't."

"Won't," Derek says.

"And you're not just saying that," Laura says, and Derek says, "It was Cam, okay? Cam jumped. He ran up to the high school roof and just—"

"Cam Lahey," Laura clarifies.

"What other Cam would I be—" Derek lets out a long breath. "Did you know he was depressed?"

"He's depressed?" Laura asks.

"He jumped off a roof," Derek reminds her.

"Derek, I stopped caring about this town when they stopped caring about—" Laura stops, horrified at herself. "That's not—I wasn't thinking."

"Stop stopping," Derek says tiredly. "You don't have to walk on eggshells around me."

"I don't have to rub it in your face, either," Laura says, absolutely despising herself. "And it's not true. People got tired of Dad showing up on their doorstep drunk, crying on their shoulders. It wasn't about you." She loops an arm around his waist, only slightly awkwardly. "Everyone always loved you."

"Except Mom," Derek says, and Laura hates her father, hates him.

"Don't listen to him," Laura says, hugging Derek sideways. "He's—He was a drunk before he met Mom. Did you know that?"

Derek shrugs.

"He went to AA for her," Laura says. "He didn't just—It wasn't because of you." Derek's face so like it used to look, eyes wide open and trusting. "He was looking for an excuse," Laura says. "He drank more when he lost his contract than he ever did coming back from putting up fliers with me. He's selfish," Laura presses, when Derek swallows hard, glares down at himself. "I thought he was this great dad. I thought I could fix him, but he'd rather drink and blame everyone else for his problems."

"He wasn't selfish," Derek says quietly, after a while. Staring out at nothing, leaning light against her side. "Before. He came to all our everythings."

"He's not a Disney villain," Laura says, soothing the shiver out of Derek's spine. "But he gave up, just like Mom did. Before Mom did."

"You didn't?" Derek asks, after a few seconds' contemplation.

"Never," Laura swears, and holds her brother close.

Laura's car is a light-blue 1987 Toyota Tacoma, and it drives like a piece of shit, but Derek doesn't care. Laura's just driving, windows down, the radio under Derek's command. He never really cared about music before, still doesn't have opinions the way Ash does, but it's something, wind rushing cool against the side of his face, Laura's arm steady around him, and something finally going the way Derek means it to.

"Who's this?" he asks Laura when he finally settles on a good song.

"Really?" Laura says, eyebrows high.

"What?" Derek says.

"Canadian band," Laura says. "Wildly resented cookie-cutter sound."

"I like it," Derek decides.

"My brother's a Nickelback fan," Laura says dramatically, looking betrayed.

"Bet you wish they'd never found me now, huh," Derek says, not sure how much he's joking.

"Shut up," Laura says, and reaches over, turns it up a little louder.

It's fine, Stiles is fine. He didn't mean for Mom to worry, to leave Derek and make sure he's okay. That's totally backwards. He just freaked out over nothing, and Derek has a million real reasons to freak out, and nobody else is gonna show up to make sure he's not thinking, Hey, I wonder if that roof is high enough. It's just that there isn't really any tall building in Beacon Hills, but just you wait Cam's lucky and Derek isn't, and Stiles really needs someone watching him right now.

"Stiles, honey," Mom says, and honey makes Stiles think of sweetie, even though it's not. "Baby, I love how much you care about your friends, but I want to see you taking some time for yourself. Doing things that make you happy."

Right, like Stiles is gonna do that, please. Just forget Derek and go play Mariocart and not think about how Derek's so strong, how'd they take him without him getting away? Unless they hurt him so he couldn't fight, then why didn't anyone see them dragging him? Unless they had a car right there and pushed him in, and drove away, and Dad needs to get a warrant to search everyone in Beacon Hills' cars for Derek's DNA, right now. Unless they came from outside Beacon Hills, so then Dad has to check footage from the traffic cameras around where Derek was last seen for license plates from other places, and then track them down and check their cars, and run all their DNA against the kit, and see if any of them have records, and also clear the backlog of kits because Stiles read an article about it and it's crazy, and maybe someone who hurt Derek already hurt someone else first and if that kit would've been tested they would've been locked up a long time ago and never able to hurt Derek at all. So what's wrong with everybody, why don't they just do it right now? Why didn't they already do it a million billion years ago?

But Mom's worrying, and that means stop talking, just nod. Just fine, agree, do it.

"I do plenty of fun things," Stiles says, and keeps listing everything he can think of until Mom gives in and smiles.

"We can go anywhere," Laura says, her arm warm around Derek's shoulders. His sleeves rustle in the wind, skin cool. "We can—Anything you wanna do, anyone you wanna..."

Her hand is loose around the steering wheel, her expression easy. There's gold where the sunlight hits her hair.

"If there was someone bad," she says quietly, "if someone was hurting kids, or ever hurt a kid, I'd wanna hurt them back."

Derek swallows, watches her gaze steady.

"I'd wanna make them hurt," she says. "Even if it wasn't a permanent solution, even if I could only hurt them for a second. Even if I could never make them understand, or apologize. Even if they never connected it to anything they'd done. I'd just want them to feel wronged. I'd hold on to that."

Derek weighs responses, settles on silence.

"I could take you home," Laura presses. "And drive out on my own, and do it on my own. Just so I'd know I did something."

But that's the joke, that's the whole sick joke of it. She's home.

He's never gonna get away from her.

All that time, waiting, playing Guess Who's Coming To Get You, where on good days the answer is someone, and on bad days—well on bad days, he tried not to exist at all. And then were the times where he actually got hope back, somehow, could actually imagine Dad bursting in and sneaking him away, hugging him hard, never never never leaving him all alone like this, swearing, or the sheriff, Argent charging in with a gun and a dog and backup, all all all all defending him, getting in her way, locking her up forever, or even some secret agent descending from the ceiling in a hail of bullets, each one perfectly aimed. And Derek always had clothes in all his stupid fantasies, he's always able to not cry, to be brave and tall and square-jawed so whoever finds him says, You stayed strong, she could never break you, the MI6 needs people like that.

But in real life Derek got put out with the trash, stumbled onto in the rain. In the real one he was naked and shivering and not even a little bit stoic; in the real one he broke a million times, a billion times.

In real life, they brought him back home to her.

Peter found space for Derek, an empty room, but she already had makeup behind the bathroom mirror, a toothbrush by the sink, half an armoire's worth of settled life in Peter's bedroom. She already knew all of Ash's favorite shows and bands, how to take full stock of Bite Me's inventory, how to make Derek's mother laugh around a cigarette, the two of them talking at the door like old friends, bile rising and rising in Derek's throat, rage blinding him. He'd stalked back to his room, wedged that old chair under the doorknob like it was security, like there was such a thing as security, anymore.

That's home now, because Mom won't even look at him anymore. The whole night at the hospital, waiting and waiting and waiting all over again, like it was ever gonna be different. Like she was gonna come back and be his mom again, just wait, you'll see. But she's good as dead, good, let her be the dead one, so home is Peter and Kate soon-to-be-Hale, and Mazel fucking Tov to them, but Derek can't breathe in that house. And he can't keep getting found by one Stilinski or another, can't keep thinking he can just stay there forever, he's running out of time. Running out of places to hide.

All at once the cool air is just cold, and the songs on the radio all sound the same, and Laura won't drop it, won't leave him alone.

"Tell me where you wanna go," she says, and waits, and he bites out, "Just take me back to Cam," and watches the disappointment settle into her face as she nods and turns the car around.

Mom's car is in the hospital parking lot.

Derek squints, like that'll make his vision sharpen and zoom in like a superhero's. All it does is make the world go blurry.

"Mom's..." he almost tells Laura, but then he doesn't. He doesn't want a lecture, doesn't wanna know exactly how awful and selfish his parents are. Some part of him still thinks maybe—maybe she's wrong about all of this, maybe all of them always meant well and just—made mistakes, and now they're sorry. Maybe they're weak and human but they love him and just want to have him home again. Maybe things could be okay again, maybe Dad could sober up once he sees Derek's okay, and then Derek can live with him, or maybe Mom wants Derek home again and Dad's just bitter that she left him, and Laura's just taking Dad's side, and then realizing she hates him but is still too stubborn to admit she picked the wrong one.

Mom's car is in the parking lot, Mom came to the hospital because—because Kate's telling everyone he jumped, and she realized, she realized she didn't want him dead after all.

Derek charges out of the car before Laura can even open her mouth.

Alice's drive to the hospital is soundtracked by the one-man orchestra of Damon vacillating between distraught sobbing and screaming bloody murder as loud as his little lungs can muster, because his favorite toy, a fuzzy blue stuffed triangle with a grinning velvet face, couldn't be located before Alice strapped him into his car seat. Aaron went back inside moments after the ruckus began and found the thing, half-chewed, saliva-soaked, but it was too late: Damon couldn't forget the trauma of the loss, even with his toy clutched firm in both fists.

It really is remarkable how much he takes after his father.

Yards from the hospital, David calls, voice thick, spitting, "You killed him. You killed him. Are you happy now? Bitch!"

Another Alice would let her breath catch in her throat, let terror freeze her solid, forcing her to listen to David rant abuse until he ran out of air. Another Alice would listen to the man she used to love hurl curses at her and take them like blows, lower her face against the steering wheel and cry—

But Alice hasn't been that person in a long, long time.

"I really don't have time for your hysterics, David," Alice says, and pulls into park. Behind her, Damon's wail stops just long enough for a wet, shuddering breath. Aaron reaches over, releases him from his car seat, and pulls him into his arms.

Damon sniffles, and goes absolutely silent. His small fists find Aaron's neck and cling, eyes huge and wet and worshiping.

So it goes: You do your best, give everything you have and more, and watch children and strangers swoop in and steal the reward. So you stand there raw and bleeding and hold yourself together, and prepare for all of it to start again in ten, nine...

In another life, David was a marriage counselor. Alice can no longer muster any appreciation for the irony. He swore by the cliches: Count to ten before reacting. Never discipline angry.

It's too bad he didn't think to add, Don't drink yourself so messy your whole community feels sick even seeing you, but then, he always was a little shortsighted.

Alice saw the big picture. Her five living sons, completely neglected by their father. Her star daughter, suddenly faltering. She did what she had to do to catch the blocks as they fell, to deal with the here and now, the things she could actually control.

For all his protests, what did David ever actually do for Derek? Did he find him? Did he even find a lead? Of course not. He tunneled through their savings, drank himself stupid, burned down their house sober. Humiliated his children, made the case into a tragic joke. Lost his job, his dignity, any shine Alice was ever fooled into seeing in him.

And all the while, he painted her as the devil. A selfish, cold-hearted cunt, stepping over a still-screaming Derek and feeling nothing, nothing, nothing.

"Hands, Eli," Alice says, holding hers out. He watches it for a long moment, like he's carefully considering his offers, then takes it gravely. "Aaron. Let's go."

Candice couldn't make herself available on such short notice; fine, that's fine. Sometimes Alice thinks she remembers what having a social life feels like. She can't be sure. She hasn't had a chance to waste time in such a long time. Maybe she'll exchange small talk with a doctor about the most effective methods, or the benefits of psychology, and she'll refer that doctor to David, the face of and case against psychology in all its forms. There, that's something to look forward to.

Two small hands in hers, she strides forward, fighting to keep her mind blank of all possible worst-case scenarios.

Still, it's this hospital where she saw him for the first time in eight months. This hospital where she made all the wrong moves, and he pushed her away.

But she's a soulless monster for respecting that, isn't she? Laura's got it all figured out. Truly, Alice must have been looking for an excuse to stay away. Like she didn't cry for him, for months, search for him for months, pray to God, for months, offer anything, anything, before she took the silence for an answer.

A nurse intercepts her at the front desk. "Hale, right? I'm so sorry."

Alice's teeth set tight.

"Where's Derek," Aaron says, hitching Damon up his side.

"Number 31," the nurse says. She nods at the plastic plate beside door number 3.

That's not the ICU, Alice notes, without making too much of it. Given Derek's luck, they may have just run out of beds.

She finds her way to 31 and pushes the door open.

And finds Camden Lahey leather-cuffed to the bed.

A million years ago, Cam was a stupid kid who thought—who actually thought Derek was lucky to have a mom like Alice. A million years ago he came to her crying, just to see what would happen, and she held him close, didn't try to say anything.

And she never mentioned it again, never threw it back in his face, or made him do anything about it. It just was exactly what it was, a test, a hug that didn't have to mean anything, or change anything, or be anything more than it was.

One test, and Cam was jealous of Derek for years. Talk about dumbfuck instincts.

But Dad was right, of course he was, and it wrecked Derek maybe even more than the rest of it, coming back home desperate for his perfect mom and finding this cold bitch in her place. Cam, he learned early. That's classic dumbfuck instinct, running after Mommy. Begging for attention. It's fucking embarrassing, thinking back to being that little moron, following Mom like an unwanted shadow.

She just had Isaac, and then took off with half Dad's money and not another look at any of them.

Any time Cam starts getting fuzzy ideas, he just remembers that. Waking up to her room cleared out, and her cell phone disconnected, and Isaac crying without even knowing why. Dad pacing and pacing and then tearing her drawers off the tracks, tipping out everything she left behind, searching through it for some kind of apology.

Even Dad couldn't fight his dumbfuck human instincts all the time, then.

Cam just stood there, watching, feeling like a robot, like a camera, and Dad turned around and saw him, and then—

But that was back when he didn't understand, didn't believe he'd ever get any stronger. He didn't get it, how obvious it was, it's medicine. It's a shot, you don't have to like it, it's saving your stupid ungrateful life. Getting hit just toughens you up, solitary is training, you need to learn how to stay alive underwater.

It makes sense.

Doesn't it?

Matt hasn't talked to Isaac since the pool party. Isaac keeps trying to call him; he doesn't know what Cam did, what he'd do to anyone suicidal enough to put their hands on his brother. Maybe it was what it looked like, or maybe some play fight that would've ended like it never was, but all Cam saw was Isaac hitting the wall.

There are mistakes, and there's what you get for making them; if you can't take one, don't go making the other. It's simple math: most of Dad's logic is simple once you understand it. But Matt gave up and went limp too easy, choked even as he went under, gasping and gasping, flailing uselessly. Cam had to drag him out, tears in Matt's eyes and spilling down his face like that second was anything, like he had a fucking clue what it feels like to drown, but he was shaking so bad he couldn't stand, on his knees gasping and gasping and shuddering with sobs, and Cam remembered: the cold blue slamming into him for the first time, every muscle locking. The way he'd clung to Mom's shadow, after, shivering all the time.

But he'd been a fucking toddler and he got over it, he learned from it. He didn't need anybody holding his hand and talking to him in some baby-soft voice, trying to punish his dad for it. Daehler's twelve and strong enough to slam Isaac into a wall so hard his head made a cracking sound against it. Who would've guessed a little water would turn him into such a fucking baby?

It's just that ever since that stupid party, Cam's been choking on younger, dumber selves. That last time training with Dad, all he could remember was being four, how the water was a monster, every inch of him thrashing to get away, Dad's hands not budging. Cam actually broke free, smacked Dad's hand off the back of his neck and fucking floated. He'd almost felt triumphant before he saw the look on Dad's face.

On the very edge of that roof, looking down, it stopped being about Derek, and all he was was that kid again, sinking and sinking.

But that's exactly the shit Dad always warned about. The age of the dumbfuck, where shitting the bed'll get applause if you tell it right. Well Cam's not gonna turn into some sadsack weeping to the cameras. Enough of this shit. This was exactly the plan: No one's gonna be talking shit about Derek now, not after everything Jess spread around town, not after Cam's body went down like a thrown glass. And that's all that matters. That's the only reason for any of this.

Cam wasn't expecting his dad to like his methods. It doesn't matter. Everyone's off Derek's back now. He'll be old news until he isn't news at all. So he can come back to school, he can have his life back. It's a good trade, no matter how furious Dad is. Good to know Cam could do something for Derek, finally.

He just wasn't expecting Derek's mom showing up here to thank him.

Another Alice would've staggered with relief. It's not Derek. Not her Derek, not her boy strapped to the bed, blinking blearily at her through a haze of pain medications.

But all Alice feels is cold. She was tricked, played for a fool, Laura testing her, embarrassing her.

"I'm popular today," Camden says, staring Alice down, challenging.

"I," Alice says, stupidly. Eli's hand is sticky in hers. "Derek. He's here visiting you."

"He went to get a drink," Cam says, and Alice nods. "So you can stop faking sympathy now," he adds. Alice bristles. "He wouldn't have bought it anyway."

"I'm not faking," Alice says. Impossibly, this accusation of all things brings tears to her eyes. She steps closer, tries to look at him. In another life, she'd worried about this boy. Held him as he sobbed, and saw him as her own, in those moments.

Damon sneezes, and Aaron says, "You're not sick, are you."

"Just in the head," Cam says, sounding nowhere near as acerbic as he probably meant it to be.

And Alice finds herself sitting by him.

Soft, softer than she's managed to sound since—any of this, she says, "Tell me what happened today."

Of course Mom doesn't want Derek dead. Derek can't believe he ever believed it. Even if Dad's a drunk, and Derek didn't know, and Cam's depressed, and Derek didn't know, and Lisa's not gay and Jess was right and Peter's in love with a psychopath—

Derek knows his mom.

It's just Cam, it's just what happened with Cam all over again. That first time seeing Mom again, nothing came out right. And then it just kept happening, so maybe it was never Mom's choice at all, maybe she thought he wanted to go to Peter. That he didn't want her as his mom anymore.

He should've said he did, he should've stopped himself flinching away, he should've—But now, now Mom came anyway. Two jobs and three kids at home and thinking Derek hates her now, and she still came when she thought he was hurt, when she thought he was really hurt.

He runs until he runs out of breath, ends up at Cam's door, heart pounding and pounding somewhere high in his throat, fear fizzing through him, palms clammy. If his stupid broken brain hijacks this, ruins his last chance...

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Derek thinks, thinks—He's not gonna say anything else. He's not gonna risk saying anything else.

He lifts his hand to knock, and then he thinks about that night, outside that party, how standing outside psyching himself up was the worst choice he ever made, and just opens the door, just walks in.

"Derek," Mom says, and Derek says, says, says—

Says nothing, he can't speak. He's going to break down crying if he opens his mouth, he's going to break down crying regardless.

He just stands there, just stands there staring at her, carefully just breathing, just—

And Mom says, "Derek, why don't you take your brothers to get some snacks. Cam and I just need a minute."

Derek stares at her, stares at her, and then he walks the six long steps closer to her, to where Aaron and Eli and Damon all clustered around her, clustered around Cam.

She never came about Derek at all.

He looks at Aaron, and Aaron says, "Yeah, okay," and takes Damon into his arms, takes Eli's hand. Looks at him expectantly.

Derek swallows, swallows, swallows the new fire in his throat.

Turns his back on his mother and his best friend, and lets his brothers follow him out into the hall.

"How'd you break your arm," Aaron says, assessing the vending machine options carefully.

"Accident," Derek says. His voice comes out hard, cold, but at least it's not shaking.

"Where," Aaron says.

"There was a party," Derek says, and has that crazy, out of control feeling again, that What if I just tell someone feeling. His brother's a year younger than Stiles, Derek'd have to be insane to drag him into this. "It doesn't matter," he says, somehow.

"You're the only thing that matters," Aaron says, turning from the machine to stare at Derek. Damon's small hand reaches over his shoulder, bats at a row of Reese's cups through the glass. "To anyone."

He doesn't have to say, Not to me.

Derek hears it anyway.

Derek gives it as long as he can stand, then returns the kids to Cam's room. Finds the parking lot again, the same chain-link fence. The sun's down, air blue-black and cold. Derek squares his shoulders, doesn't shiver.

Peter's in love with a psychopath, and Laura would just say I told you so. Dad—Derek doesn't even know how to contact him if he'd want to, and he doesn't.

It's late, it's dark, it's cold. Derek feels like crying with every bone in his body, but he's holding his body still, refusing, refusing.

His phone rings.

For a few seconds he doesn't even recognize it as his, and then he fishes it out of his pocket, just stares at it, like it's the sudden clue in the nightmare: None of this is real, I don't have a—

But he does. He flips it open, stares at the number, doesn't recognize it. But whose number would he even recognize? Cam's not gonna be calling from the house phone. Derek doesn't know Laura's any better than he knows anyone else's.

"Derek," Julie Stilinski says. "Are you still at the hospital? I called your uncle, he thought you were with me. Do you need a ride home?"