Chapter Text
Derek wakes up to the sound of a door creaking open slowly, a faint and careful noise nudging into his dreamless sleep and dragging him into consciousness. He cracks one eye open to a slip of sunlight breaking through a gap in the blinds, colouring the edge of his pillow yellow-gold, and catches the rustling of socked feet against the floorboards for only a second before a figure pounces onto the bed and a small, deceptively sharp elbow jams into his ribs.
“Mommy! Daddy! Wake up!”
He groans around a smile, wrapping arms around his wriggling daughter and tugging her down, giggling and squealing, until she is tucked against his chest, hair tickling the underside of his chin.
“Your daughter’s awake,” he says.
A hand reaches out to card gently through his hair, a body rolling over until a soft, sleepy face comes into view.
“She’s your daughter before seven,” Paige replies.
She smiles around a yawn, shuffling closer until he can extend an arm to curve over her waist, hand slipping beneath her tank top to splay a palm at the small of her back, their daughter happily trapped between them.
“I’m pretty sure she wants mommy to make her breakfast today,” he teases, smirking when Paige narrows her eyes at him. “Isn’t that right, Trix? You want mommy’s French toast today?”
“Nuh uh!” Beatrix declares loudly, one arm flinging out wildly and almost catching him on the nose. “It’s Saturday. I want daddy’s pancakes.”
“Yeah!” Paige concurs, sticking her tongue out at him over Beatrix’s head.
He huffs a laugh through his nose and feels a warmth bloom through his chest as Paige snuggles closer to Beatrix.
Beatrix looks so much like Laura did, like Cora did, when they were her age. She has the sharpening Hale bone structure, the line of her jaw strong, the bones of her cheeks high. But her eyes, her nose, her lips – they are all Paige. Warm, brown eyes and soft, turned-up nose and full, smiling lips. Her dark hair is a shade between the two of them, slightly darker than Paige’s and slightly lighter than Derek’s; a colour all her own.
Her eyes flash beta-gold as her mom tickles her sides lightly, and he allows himself a moment to press a kiss to the crown of their daughter’s head, a moment to lean up and over and brush his lips over Paige’s, before he heaves a great sigh and swings his legs over the edge of the mattress.
“Daddy’s pancakes it is,” he says, getting up to grab a shirt from the wardrobe. “But we eat in the kitchen. I could do without finding any more syrup on my pillow.”
“That was one time,” Paige argues, exaggerating a pout as she pulls Beatrix into her lap. “Daddy’s no fun, is he, Trix?”
“No fun,” Beatrix echoes, bursting into more giggles when Paige starts kissing all over her face.
The sound of their blended laughter follows him as he pads from the bedroom, down the hallway, and into the kitchen. Their apartment is small, two bedrooms and one bathroom, a crowded living room and a cramped kitchen, but it’s been their home ever since Beatrix was born four years ago, and he loves it.
He falls into the familiar routine of grabbing utensils and ingredients to get started on the first batch of pancakes. It’s basically habit at this point, a Saturday morning tradition that sees him whipping up breakfast in the kitchen to the sound of his girls chatting and giggling from the bedroom.
As he cracks the first egg against the corner of the mixing bowl, he finds himself smiling; a small, private smile as that warm feeling spreads out even further through his chest. Nowhere near for the first time, he finds himself marvelling at the slice of happiness he has been able to carve for himself, the happiness he thought for so long he would never feel again.
He has made a lot of mistakes in his life. He fell for the wrong person at sixteen, shared parts of himself with her that got his entire family killed, condemned to burn alive at the hands of the woman who had pretended to love him. Even after Kate’s conviction, even with the knowledge of her life sentence, he was still completely alone – still a lone alpha without a pack.
For years he had wandered through life aimlessly; he had moved around a lot, eventually settling in Stanford where he could find steady work as a mechanic. He didn’t need the money, the fire came with an insurance pay-out that could last him five lifetimes over. But it was something to do, a reason to wake up in the morning when he had nothing else.
Things changed when he was nineteen. He met a girl, a student studying English Literature at Stanford, with brown hair and brown eyes and a smile that curved in a way that left him breathless. A girl who laughed brightly and argued hotly and wormed her way under Derek’s skin one car trouble at a time.
Later, she would admit to him that all of those car issues were made up as an excuse to come see him. Even later, he would admit that he knew all along; he could hear the tell-tale skip of her heartbeat as she said them.
She accepted him, every part of him, and he quickly realised that what he’d felt before couldn’t have been love, because it was nothing like this.
Even when, at twenty, that pregnancy test came back unexpectedly positive – a surprise, she had insisted, nothing like an accident – he didn’t feel scared. They loved each other, and they would love their child, and they’d find a way to make it work so that Paige could still get her degree, so that they could be the happy family he ached to rebuild.
Paige’s family didn’t accept their choice to keep the baby and they haven’t spoken a word to her since the day they told them. But she always tells him that she doesn’t care, and he doesn’t hear a single trip in her chest when she does, so he knows it’s the truth.
Here, now, at twenty-five years old, making pancakes in his modest apartment, listening to Beatrix explain to her mom why she definitely should be allowed to wear her tutu to the park today – his breath catches as the joy almost overwhelms him.
“How are those pancakes coming along?” Paige asks, wandering into the kitchen with Beatrix perched on her hip.
“Almost done,” he answers, flipping one high into the air and catching it again, much to Beatrix’s delight. “No chocolate chips today though. Think we’ve run out.”
Paige clicks her tongue, setting Beatrix down so she can clamber onto a chair by the kitchen table. Paige opens a few cupboards to check for herself and comes to the same conclusion, shutting the doors once again before grabbing his car keys from the counter.
“Well that just won’t do,” she says, nudging her sneakers out from underneath the table and toeing them on. “I’ll run to the store and grab some.”
“You don’t need to do that,” he says.
She comes up behind him and wraps arms around his middle, pressing a kiss between his shoulder blades, right where the swirling lines paint the triskelion that she has always loved. He leans back into her hold, peering back at her with a smile as she nuzzles into him for a second more before pulling away.
“I won’t be long,” she says, jangling keys next to his ear. “Me and the Camaro will be back before you know it.”
“Can I come, mommy?” Beatrix asks, practically vibrating in place from her seat at the table.
“But if you come, who’s going to eat the first pancake?” Paige says, ruffling her hair as she walks by.
“I want the first pancake,” Beatrix says, voice so serious as her eyes widen in Derek’s direction.
Paige snorts, grabbing her jacket from the hook on the wall and blowing them each a kiss before she rounds the corner into the hall, towards the front door.
“Make sure daddy saves me some!” she shouts out.
“Then you better hurry up!” he calls back.
The front door clicks shut behind her and Derek listens to the sound her footsteps heading down the stairwell, her steady, familiar heart beating, until he can’t catch either of them anymore. He grabs a plate and slides the first two pancakes in front of their daughter, turns his back to her tucking in messily, syrup smearing all over her mouth, and pours the batter into the pan for two more.
If he times it right, they can be ready for Paige when she walks back through the door.
Paige never walks back through the door.
The police tell him she died on impact when the other car hit her.
He should have known he wasn’t destined for that much happiness.