a/n: because this week's episode made me want to hug Isaac forever.
Concrit appreciated!

just the same

"Just the same," Cora says, "I'd rather not be the reason you lose another person you love."

Derek doesn't look away from the window. Hasn't since that boy—Isaac, Cora knows—walked out, left in a spray of shattered glass and pounding water. She can smell the need on both of them but she's got more tact that her brother thinks. She'll break him down piece by piece, do all she wants but Isaac...Isaac she just wants to play with.

"Cora," Derek finally says, but she cuts him off.

"You're not going to kill any of them," she says, bitingly, "not Isaac, not...not Boyd. Not even me. That girl...she's dead. And that's no one's fault."

"It's mine," he says, "for not being good enough. For making them want to leave."

"You'll never be good enough," Cora says, agreeing, "but that's not your fault either. I just don't think this—you, really—is a good idea."

"Would you prefer the killer that Peter became?" His voice is dry. He still won't face her, and for a second she wants to walk over, smooth the tense muscles of his shoulders like an etch-a-sketch—shake it and it's all better. Cora doesn't say anything, thinks of the uncle that she had loved. There's no way in Hell she's willingly seeing him anytime soon. And she won't pretend that she and Derek are okay, either.

"You won't kill us," she repeats, and stands from her crouch behind the column. "You can't kill anyone like that." That, like their fragile mental states, and that, with the brutality demanded of Derek. He's never been that person. Never will be.

She takes a step towards her brother, pauses when he finally looks away from the darkened window to glance at her. An impasse, she thinks, and then wonders what else she's lost to the new Derek. The new Derek who is not the brother who protected her but the new Alpha of a pack struggling to make it. The Alphas will eat them alive...then again, she'd rather a dead Derek than one who wants to be.

"What do you want," he says but there's no inflection; he doesn't want the answer. Cora does though. She wants a real Alpha—she wants Laura, she wants her mother, she wants a Peter who won't turn on them. She wants a life before the Argents, but she won't get it, so she'll settle for hurting her brother. He's all she has left but these two Hale siblings have never been good at showing how they care. Isaac is a good example of that.

"I smelled her on you, you know," and she sees the imperceptible widening of his eyes, the flare of his nostrils. His shoulders stiffen further, somehow, yet she stills wants to reach out, make it better. "We all did. We thought she was just some human girl you'd gotten lucky with." She laughs, hoarse and painful for more reasons than one, "Who knew it was the opposite."

His fists are curled now, and she stops. Being an omega for some eight years has taught her quite a bit about when the time is right. Seven years her senior but God help her she wants to tear Derek's throat out, scratch and cry and hold him, curl up in his lap but it's. It's too much; he was right when he said that.

"Call him back," she says, "call him back. Now. I can't be here with you. No."

"Cora," he says, again, and turns around this time, stares at her. Now her fists are clenched, legs shoulder width apart. "Relax."

"I hate you," she says, and her heart doesn't stutter, "I hate you for doing this. For doing it to them."

He stays silent. The I know lingers in the air. She takes a step back. "I have no pack, Derek. But I won't let you lose yours."