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Summer is truly starting to set in as the sun rises slowly in the blue, cloudless sky, and the birds outside are chirping merrily. But with the large window covering most of the wall in the main living space and the sunlight above, Derek stirs with a groan, burying his face further into the warm pillow and the covers surrounding him to shield his sensitive eyes.
He feels a little groggy as he starts to pull himself out from the depths of sleep, not that far from what it feels like after experiencing wolfsbane in his system, and, what he can only assume, it feels like to have a hangover.
It doesn't take long for him to fully come to his senses and when he does he jolts up with a start. Brigid. He looks to his right where she's still lying beside him, but thankfully he doesn't appear to have disturbed her. She looks peaceful in slumber, he thinks, unable to remove his eyes from her sleeping form, and he reaches out without thinking about it, carefully brushing the wild strands of red hair away from her face. He finds himself smiling, almost as if nothing's changed and they're still teenagers without a care in the world, but the weight of the darkness around his heart doesn't let him forget for long.
He's glad she's here, he realises, even though he still can't let himself believe it's going to last; he wants to, but he can't. The second he starts to let himself hope, he knows everything can only go downhill from there, it always does. But maybe if she sticks around long enough, if she manages to settle without bolting as soon as she discovers every single sordid detail, and he knows she's going to have to meet the others at some point.
Derek carefully manoeuvres himself into a sitting position, back against the head of the bed and covers hanging over his clothed lap. He didn't plan to sleep through the entire night and half of the morning as well, but he needed it, and he knows that Brigid did as well. And he can already feel a lot of the weariness gone from the solid night of sleep. He catches the fresh scent of Isaac, but he can't hear his heartbeat from within the loft, so he knows he must have been and gone, always trying to stay out of his way to make sure he's not a nuisance. He doesn't mind having him around, though, and it's not as if either of them have anyone else, but he can't help feeling relief that he can hold off on introductions a while longer until he can catch her up with the recent going-ons.
He doesn't know how long he sits there, watching as the sun fully rises in the sky and glancing down to the woman beside him, a woman he never thought he would get to meet and the memories of the girl she used to be faded from the hard years that followed. He's an alpha, yes, but he knows he's far from perfect, that he wasn't born to the role, and that he's going to make a lot more mistakes before he finds his feet. And he's still got a long way to go before he can be anything to anyone beyond that, but if she's at his side then he thinks he can learn to try that much harder to discover who he was supposed to be before he got thrown off course.
He feels a little groggy as he starts to pull himself out from the depths of sleep, not that far from what it feels like after experiencing wolfsbane in his system, and, what he can only assume, it feels like to have a hangover.
It doesn't take long for him to fully come to his senses and when he does he jolts up with a start. Brigid. He looks to his right where she's still lying beside him, but thankfully he doesn't appear to have disturbed her. She looks peaceful in slumber, he thinks, unable to remove his eyes from her sleeping form, and he reaches out without thinking about it, carefully brushing the wild strands of red hair away from her face. He finds himself smiling, almost as if nothing's changed and they're still teenagers without a care in the world, but the weight of the darkness around his heart doesn't let him forget for long.
He's glad she's here, he realises, even though he still can't let himself believe it's going to last; he wants to, but he can't. The second he starts to let himself hope, he knows everything can only go downhill from there, it always does. But maybe if she sticks around long enough, if she manages to settle without bolting as soon as she discovers every single sordid detail, and he knows she's going to have to meet the others at some point.
Derek carefully manoeuvres himself into a sitting position, back against the head of the bed and covers hanging over his clothed lap. He didn't plan to sleep through the entire night and half of the morning as well, but he needed it, and he knows that Brigid did as well. And he can already feel a lot of the weariness gone from the solid night of sleep. He catches the fresh scent of Isaac, but he can't hear his heartbeat from within the loft, so he knows he must have been and gone, always trying to stay out of his way to make sure he's not a nuisance. He doesn't mind having him around, though, and it's not as if either of them have anyone else, but he can't help feeling relief that he can hold off on introductions a while longer until he can catch her up with the recent going-ons.
He doesn't know how long he sits there, watching as the sun fully rises in the sky and glancing down to the woman beside him, a woman he never thought he would get to meet and the memories of the girl she used to be faded from the hard years that followed. He's an alpha, yes, but he knows he's far from perfect, that he wasn't born to the role, and that he's going to make a lot more mistakes before he finds his feet. And he's still got a long way to go before he can be anything to anyone beyond that, but if she's at his side then he thinks he can learn to try that much harder to discover who he was supposed to be before he got thrown off course.
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It takes him aback, then, when she confesses her feelings on the matter as if she thought he would agree to it on any other terms himself, but rather than rushing to speak, to jump into an explanation, he frowns, the expression deeply etching itself into his features, and he remains quiet as he lets her go on.
He watches her with the book, knowing the exact page without thinking, and the way she touches the agreement as if it's an old gesture she's done thousands of times. It hits him, then, more than anything so far of how much this means to her, that it's truly been something she's held onto. It's something he's held onto, too, but not in quite the same way. He kept her as a happy place, somewhere safe and warm where he could go when he needed it, when he felt he could allow himself the luxury, trust himself with it. But he accepted a long time ago he could never have her, not like that, not after everything.
It's different, now, though, and he can feel that, the change, the way he knows he's already accepted the terms of the agreement, but not because they exist in writing, or because his mother signed the dotted line. It's because he never stopped caring for her, never stopped thinking about her, wondering where she was or what she was doing, and if she had someone there to go through everything with besides her father. A part of him sometimes, selfishly, hoped she didn't, that there was still room for him, but the rest of the time he really hoped she did; he knew he was too broken for her, not good enough, not anymore, and the last thing he ever wanted was for her to be alone, to lose out on a family because of a promise he couldn't keep.
She's here, now, and that thought, that thought is slowly coming back to the surface and twisting into a different shape; he's seen the woman she's become, even if he doesn't quite know her properly yet, but he thinks - no, he knows - that he's never stopped loving her, that from what he's seen and heard so far, he only wants her more than he ever did because it's here and it's now, and she's the last good thing he's really got left outside of his new pack and their allies, and those, well, they were out of necessity, a way in which to survive.
His frown grows that much deeper, though, when Isaac returns and interrupts them, his mouth closing after he had been about to speak. He can't do it with the beta here, and it's not as if he yet knows exactly how to say what it is that he needs to, so it's probably for the best. But he needs to set her straight, to make her realise he meant to agree whether or not her previous alpha came looking. If she had never come here, it would have been different, but she's here, and he can't lose her again. He's lost everyone else, but not her.
"You don't have to," he says, watching Isaac as he leaves again, and then to the boxes he brought in. "Cook, I mean. We get by, even if what you could make would be healthier. But the responsibility, it doesn't fall to you. Not unless you actually want it to." The last thing he wants is for her to feel as if she has to do things because it's what she's used to or what she thinks would be expected of her; if there's one thing he knows how to do and do well it's survive, and whether she stays or not, she doesn't have to put herself out for anyone but herself.
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There's measuring spoons and cups, in plastic, metal and glass. Whisks are hung up behind the counter, ready to be used for a variety of things. Parchment paper, aluminum foil, waxed paper, cling wrap, and tupperware suddenly find places among his cupboards. A blender that looks like it could probably run the kitchen itself is tucked into a corner of the counter.
The freezer quickly becomes a tetris puzzle of fruits and meats. She tucks the juice in there as well. Then she smiles at Derek. There's a slight worry to her eyes, but she doesn't let it out. She'd said her piece and the decision is his.
Boxes pile up as she unpacks and plans to clean everything before it gets used. "I like cooking. I especially like cooking for people I know will appreciate it."
She glances back at Isaac. "That's all baking supplies, just tuck it in the corner over there and I'll organize it. Thanks."
"No problem." Isaac isn't stupid, though. He can smell the emotions in the air, even if he isn't sure what they are. "I'm going over to the clinic. Deaton's got some work for me. Do you want me to tell him anything?"
Brigid stops her nervous fluttering around, her hands buried in the warm, soapy water. She looks at Derek. It's his call. She can translate while things cook. Having the knowledge will help them all.
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He knows he's not an expert in this area, but he's almost certain that she's nesting right now, even if half of the things she's putting away into places he's trying to take stock of are desperately needed around the place, especially if he's sticking around for a while.
"Tell him that we have a new member in our pack, but nothing more. I'll pay him a visit personally to fill him in on the rest later." Because there are things he needs to ask him, anyway, and he wants to do it directly without involving anyone else until he's got a better grasp on things.
"Okay. I'll probably head over to Scott's after, so don't wait up."
Derek merely nods in acknowledgement, but he takes it to mean he probably won't be back at all tonight, and for once he doesn't mind all that much.
He turns back to Brigid, leaning against the nearest wall, watching her as she moves around the kitchen and making herself at home.
"I don't," he offers, frowning at his own pathetic attempt at words; he can practically hear Stiles mocking him. "Feel trapped by the situation."
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Brigid bites her lip. She finishes washing the new dishes and pans that she's bought, setting up the crockpots, because those will definitely be getting a workout. The freezer has plenty of food in it, but nothing prepared and that makes her twitch. She likes being able to walk in and grab something to munch on without too much work.
She's not an idiot; if Isaac is anything like the teenage boys of her former pack, he'll take to being able to grab meals like a duck to water soon enough. And it's one thing that she loves doing. She'd learned out of self-defense for the food budget, but she'd come to enjoy and revel in being able to create in such a way.
Brigid hadn't been lying when she said she'd bake cookies and not allow Stiles to have any.
"Markus started shopping for others to marry me off to." Brigid whispers, staring at the chopping board. She reaches for the vegetables after lining the crockpot. "Alphas, mostly. I've met more than one, the last year or so, since I got back from Ireland." Her fingers start chopping vegetables with delicate, practiced movements. She wants Derek to understand everything that she knows, even if she's really not good at this. "I told him I was holding to the agreement."
Brigid licks her lips, finally looking up at Derek. "The priest said he'd marry us, if that's what we want. It's... I promised Da. I don't care about a big wedding, or fancy clothes, but in a church, with a priest. None of the rest of it matters." Now she is just rambling and isn't even sure of what she's saying.
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"You don't need to worry about Markus anymore," he assures her, and he means it, even though he knows he can't promise, he's going to do everything within his power to ensure that he stays away whether he finds her or not; she's not a prize to be fought over and won, but she's clearly made her choice, so he intends to respect that. "If he comes, I'll see to it that he gets the message."
There's another long moment before he speaks again, but he unfolds his arms and pushes away from where he's leaning, stepping closer to her, slowly, as if he's unsure of himself, but when he brushes a hand to her arm, it's firm, confident.
"I'm not agreeing to marry you because of the document," he admits, sighing in frustrating as he tries to find the right words, taking a minute to try and put them in order in his head first. "I never intended to do it for that reason, even when we were young. But knowing that was a binding contact, it... I selfishly liked that, knowing that you would be mine, no matter who else came along." He's grown up a lot since, then, though, and, now, if she chose someone else, even later on down the line, he would never stand in her way, he would let her do whatever she needed to in order to be happy.
"I thought there was someone else, once, but I was young and stupid, and I paid for my mistake the same way I always do." He paid with his entire world burning to a crisp, but he still has one good thing left, he still has her. "But even before I saw her for what she really was, Brigid, I always knew she could never compare to you. When you came back, when you tracked me back here, I didn't want you because I wanted you to be happy, to be safe. I can't promise you either of those things, but I-- I want to try."
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"I don't want you hurt because of Markus, Derek." She whispers the words. Markus terrifies her in a way that Derek will never be able to. It's a fundamental childhood fear; something she's never grown out of, despite her adulthood and her travel away from him.
Brigid believes everything Derek says. There's no reason not to. She can read a lie as easily as he can, and neither of them have reason to lie. Not about this, not about anything.
"There's never been anyone else." The admission softly echoes around them. She raises her eyes to his. "I just... didn't want anyone else." It's a truth that she's realized about herself in the last couple of weeks. "Being here with you? That makes me happy, Derek. I'm safer here than I'd ever have been in Boston." Which is another sad truth about her life.
Her Da had approved of Derek. Whatever has happened to him since they were kids, she thinks her Da would still have approved of the man, the Alpha that Derek is right now. Young, unsure - obviously - and still trying to find his feet, but not many would have simply taken her in after all this time; nor stood up to Markus the way he had.
There will never be anyone else for her. Brigid believes in only marrying once. "If you are willing, I am, Derek." Her own fingers curl over his.
She wants to grab him and yank him toward the county offices - get the marriage license and then run to the priest before he can change his mind. But she doesn't. Brigid knows that there are other things that probably should be worked out.
"But you get to be happy too, Derek. You do know that, right?" She holds onto his hand and fully turns to face him. "No matter what, you do get to be happy. It's something I'm willing to teach you, if you'd like?"
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"I can't make you a promise that it's going to work out," he tells her, voice shaky, but honest, lacking the usual blunt harshness he tends to deliver facts with. She deserves to know that much, though, that he won't make promises he isn't sure he can keep. "But I want to. I want to be with you, to marry you, to have a family with you." He craves it like nothing else, the bond that comes with family, but the kind that also comes along with pack; he misses it, because as much as he cares for his betas, they're not blood, and it's not the same, it could never be the same.
"I want to try to be the man I should have been," he admits, and he feels naked, like he's been ripped open out of no where and he's spilling his insides everywhere, not sure how to stop them or if he even wants to, or even how it happened. "I've been so lost since..." The fire, he thinks, but can't quite manage the words. "But with you, I know I can do it. I want to try."
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Looking up at him, she steps closer, wanting his body warmth. She listens to his heartbeat, able to hear the truth in his words. Brigid wonders when he lost all confidence in himself. He's not as bad as he thinks. Sure, he needs a break and some help, but from what she's seen, he's dealing with a deck stacked against him and at least one teenager that knows nothing of respect.
Brigid licks her lips, hoping she says this right. "I want the fairy tale, Derek. But I'm willing to work for it." Her lips twitch just a little bit. "A dream is meant to be worked for." She's put in the work to learn Gaelic, to get her PhD, to do what she'd dreamed of doing. This dream? This is one she's willing to work harder for, to run herself ragged in helping him find his feet and become the Alpha he wants to be.
Her fingers ghost along his jaw, feeling the scruff. It makes him look older, harder. She wonders what he would look like without it. "I will help you do anything you want, Derek. Pick a direction and I will follow you and help you reach whatever it is you want." Her tongue darts out, wetting her bottom lip. the blush rises again. "And I want to give you a family. I always dreamed of having children with you." Another dream she's willing to work for.
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He takes her comfort, though, giving her hand a squeeze, because he's grateful that she's choosing to stay, and beyond flattered that she believes him to be worth it, but there's still that part of him that's waiting on the other shoe to drop and he knows if it does it'll be his own fault from something catching up down the line.
But he meets her gaze when she confesses she's dreamed of having a family, and not just any family, but one with him, one with their children. It brings out a small smile, but it touches his eyes, and the overwhelming feeling behind it is genuine.
"I miss family," he confesses himself, the smile turning sad, but he's learning to think of everyone he's lost without breaking beneath it; it's a work in progress, but at least he's trying. "And I thought I'd never get the chance to have one of my own, not with the trouble I always find myself in the middle of." And he didn't think he deserved one, couldn't stand the thought of anything happen to anyone else he loves, but with her, with them both, and a pack that holds potential - well, he feels more secure in that thought than he has in any other since the night of the fire.
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Brigid smiles, her own eyes meeting his. "I can't promise trouble-free futures for anyone. And I can't promise that you won't find me slumped over translations, even after you've ordered me to go to bed five or six times." Brigid knows herself. She's had that happen more than once even before her Da had been killed. "I won't promise you a huge Irish Catholic family." One of the reasons Markus had such a huge pack was that almost all of them were Irish Catholics that followed Rome's teachings about birth control. Something Brigid didn't follow.
"I can promise, though, to bore you with history reciting of some of the most obscure facts ever. And slipping into Gaelic, because I don't swear, but Gaelic has a few phrases that just sound good." Her favorite one involves a sheep. "And, after we marry, I can promise you children. Probably loud ones that would make our parents smirk and point out that we were the exact same way."
To be honest, she's looking forward to it. Loud children, loud pack members, Sunday dinners, arguing over football and hockey.
So many dreams, so many thoughts about the future that she could share. But there's food to start cooking. Rubbing her thumb along his jaw, she turns and starts chopping vegetables again, after washing her hands. "If it's with you, I'm willing to work for a lot. I always have been."
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"You don't need to promise me anything." He means it, she doesn't, and he doesn't expert her to. "But when you paint it like that, I can't deny the fact that I'm tempted by it."
He's beyond tempted. He's not there yet, but in time he thinks he'll show her the letters he kept, every last one that she sent him, safely stored away in a small box with their envelopes still encasing them. After the fire, he missed waiting for the next to come, eagerly waiting for the mailman to leave what was for the Hales and to sift through them to find her handwriting staring back at him. He smiles at the memory, a stupid kid with foolish dream, but here he is - here they are - and it suddenly feels incredibly real. But he's letting it sink in a little bit at a time, not sure if he can withstand to break the dam all at once.
"I was never loud, though," he teases, a smile playing aruond his lips in spite of himself, and they both know it's a lie.
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Her stomach is pretty sure her throat has been sealed off from real food.
"I had all sorts of dreams about us." Brigid admits softly. "They never stopped. It's part of why I was so ready to believe a stranger's voice on my phone."
And why she'd thrown everything away and bolted out here. She hadn't lost many dreams in her life - she's one of the privileged few - but losing him had just made her more determined to make everything else come true.
His tease, though draws an inelegant snort from her as she tosses vegetables into the crockpot. "No, I'm sure you were the model of patience and silence when I wasn't around." Brigid looks at him, cleaning off the carrots. "Was it just my innocent presence that made you lose all decorum?"
She'd been just as loud as him when she'd been out here. It was around Markus's pack that she'd been subdued. Markus didn't like noise; she obeyed.
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"If anything, I was more behaved when you were around." He can imagine his mother, now, giving him an amused look of disapproval at the lie, but lacking any real heat behind it; he couldn't even recall the amount of times the rest of the family complained about the basket ball bouncing at all hours and the laughter that often escaped him. It still hurts to think about, but it comes easier in her presence somehow, and he hopes he can reminisce this easily from now on because one of his fears is forgetting them, even if the boy he remembers feels like someone else now.
"Tell me about them?" It's a question, not a demand, but he's curious, and although he can't say he's had too many in recent times, he never stopped wondering, letting himself have a little light in the dead of night when he couldn't take much more of his own depressing thoughts. "Your dreams."
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It's part of the reason, she thinks, that her Da always approved of Derek. Someone to draw her out of self-imposed silence and make her see more of life.
His question startles her and she stops scraping the carrot for a moment, while she thinks. Her cheeks pinken, again, and she takes a moment to gather her thoughts.
"I never thought we'd live in the big house, with the entire pack. We'd have something smaller, on the edge of the reserve. It'd still be on Hale land, but separate enough that we had our own household, and we didn't bother your mother." The house had been nice in her dreams. Hardwood floors, warm colors on the walls, with pictures of the family lining up next to each other. "It wasn't huge, but it was ours. My Da would have left Markus and come out here when I came, on the premise that he can't spoil grandchildren across the country."
Brigid is a natural storyteller. Her voice takes on a lilting quality that storytellers of old had used to teach.
"Our kids would constantly run between the two places." She'd often been over to her grandmother's place as a child. Even after her mother had died. "I'd be a professor, probably of history, and while every once in a while, there'd be an issue or trouble, it wasn't anything we couldn't handle. Our daughter would have these deep, black curls with green eyes and she'd constantly try to run away whenever someone chased her with a comb. But she'd sit for you, even if you were terrible at doing hair."
The carrots drop into the crockpots, making soft thunking sounds.
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He pulls and slides himself up onto an empty counter instead, hands curling around the edge, as he makes himself comfortable to watch her, to listen to the voice he thought he would never hear again, and his memories never quite did her justice.
As she speaks, Derek watches her unseeing, imagining the picture she paints so vividly, and he smiles as he does, even picturing their daughter and feeling something pull tight inside of him that he didn't realise was even there at the thought of her being a daddy's girl. It's almost as if there's a void there on top of the one where his family should be that he hoped to fill once upon a time, but didn't realise just how much he craved it.
"Mom would have liked that," he adds, because he knows she would; she would have loved for him to be happy, to have found someone to settle with, to create a family of his own, but also to have stayed closer. He knows all too well if he had been given the choice, he would never have strayed far from his family, he couldn't have, so when she says her father would have joined them, he starts to feel the weight of a dream they could have lived if things had been different. But they can still have that, even if it's not quite the way it should be. "Laura always said if one of us were having children, it wasn't her, but she'd spoil mine rotten. She would have been someone they could turn to when they didn't feel they could come to us. And Cora someone they could have looked up to." He barely got to know his younger sister, but she was a character someone would have to see to believe.
"It won't be the same, but we can still do it." He spent the previous night lying awake for a time, thinking about how the Hale land is going to be taken from him if he doesn't take any action. But he has a reason to, now, a purpose worthy of it, something to rekindle the family name and make it mean something again. "There's still time."
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She tosses the last of the vegetables in the crockpots and flips over the cutting board, pulling out the meat. Chicken for one; pork for another. The last will be just a vegetable soup.
"I want to still do it." Brigid admits, looking up at him. "I want to come home and find you collapsed on the floor with the kids, watching some inane cartoon we've seen a million times." Her attention goes back to the meat she's chopping for the crockpots. "Or get up in the morning to one of the kids giggling and saying your pancakes don't look anything like mine." Because hers are the best of course. "I want to argue over the colors to paint the living room, and which kitchen appliances we should invest in."
A deep breath. "And I'd love to stay on Hale land. It's beautiful and there's a peacefulness to it that Boston never had." Brigid looks up at him again. "We can build new dreams, a new home. From the ground up."
She knows nothing about construction, but building the house can't be that hard, right?
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The woman before him is offering him a path to walk that he thought was long cut off, lost to every mistake he's made to lead him where he is today, and he knows if he decides to take it, to follow through on it, nothing will ever be quite the same as it's been ever since his world was burned down to the ground around him; he fears the thought, the change, but most of all he's terrified of not being able to live up to it, of stepping across the line and ending up somewhere worse, and, even more so, taking everyone else with him.
But he knows he's already make the decision, he made it as soon as he clapped eyes on her and it dawned on him who she was; he hadn't wanted to believe, at first, told himself it wasn't possible, and it's all happened so suddenly. But he knows.
Using the strength of his arms, he lowers himself back down until his feet are firmly on the ground, and he takes a tentative step closer, standing behind her and hesitantly lifting his arms up to wrap aruond her slight waist. He lowers his chin to her shoulder and closes his eyes, nuzzling his face into the spot where her neck meets her should and breathes in her comforting scent.
"Marry me," he whispers, throat dry around the broken words, and he sounds as vulnerable as he feels, which is far from the image of what an alpha should be. "Marry me, and I'll find a way to give you it all. Whatever you need, anything you want."
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The warmth of his body and his touch make her melt back against him. Her eyes close and her head drops back against his shoulder. As if its done it a thousand times, her body molds itself to his, fully relaxing and enjoying the moment.
She laces her fingers with his, wanting everything she'd been talking about. Admitting to herself that some of it would never come true had been a hard thing to realize. But they can still have some of it. She can still marry Derek, still have that bright-eyed, black-haired little girl who wraps him around her little finger.
Her heart flutters just a moment at his words. Tears prick her eyes because yes, always yes. "Yes." Her own throat forces out the croaked word. "As soon as possible, as soon as you want, yes." Brigid doesn't want him to mistake anything she says. "There's a church and a priest. All we need is the license and the witnesses." She'll call Carlos. He'd run up here if necessary.
Her hand cups his cheek. "But. We'll give each other everything and anything we want." Gently, she strokes the scruff that covers his face. "Not just me, Derek. Us."
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"Isaac can be the witness, Scott and Stiles aren't usually far behind," he offers, knowing Isaac would do it if he were asked, and not even begrudging the others if they were to follow. It's a new start, for him, for her, and for their pack, and he's never felt quite so at peace with things as he does in the moment, even if it is moving quick, it's not as if neither of them have considered it before, planned for it.
But he pauses as something occurs to him, turning awkwardly in their embrace to meet her gaze.
"But don't you want the big wedding?" he asks, unsure, because Laura always banged on about how her wedding would be a big deal, a day to remember, and he knows the wedding doesn't make the marriage, but if it's something she wants in spite of their other circumstances, then he wants to make sure she knows it's on offer. "I don't know about having enough people to fill the church with, but don't you want something more than a simply ceremony?"
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His question draws her eyes open and she looks at him. A sputtered laugh escapes her and she shakes her head.
"Oh, no. No no no. I am not... no." It's amused and fond and warm, but a definite statement. "A church, a priest a few witnesses and our marriage is done in the eyes of God and the state. I dislike being the center of a large amount of attention." Which doesn't do her much good when she's teaching, but that's different. Then she has facts and dates and knowledge to back her up. She can retreat into them when she feels out of place and awkward.
She knows that had the Hales survived and her Da lived, there would have been a much bigger deal than this, but then she would have gone through with it for the packs, and not for herself.
Brigid turns in his arms, draping her arms over his shoulders. "I need the Church to sanction the wedding and for Carlos to come, but beyond that? I don't need or want anything else." She shrugs a shoulder. "I've always liked the simpler things in life." Give her a good book and a little bit of music and she'll lose herself for hours. Give her a chance to cook and she's happy.
Brigid is a creature of simple pleasures.
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But he tries to subtly wipe away the smile that's making his face ache with the effort as she shifts around in his arms, feigning seriousness.
"A teacher who doesn't welcome attention." It's a statement, not a question, and the amusement is evident, now, creeping in through the cracks as he rests his hands around her waist. "If you're sure that's all you want, then that's okay with me." He's not one for a fuss, either, although it wasn't always that way, but since losing his family, and especially Laura, he keeps himself to himself; it's usually the best for everyone.
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She shrugs. "His boyfriend might loom, but Kevin's a teddy bear." Brigid wrinkles her nose. "He's huge, but a teddy bear." She's tiny compared to him and it's an odd thing to feel when she's used to bigger people around most of the time.
Brigid threads her fingers into his hair. "When I teach, I can disappear into facts and dates and things I've memorized. Doing that around people tends to put them a bit off." She shrugs. "there's a reason I usually retreat into a corner with a book."
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"The car's off-limits."
But otherwise, he doesn't particularly mind; he doesn't exactly sound like anyone he keeps around, but if he's important to Brigid then he'll do whatever he can to make them feel welcome.
"I prefer the quiet," he assures her, but he also likes sitting down to conversation that goes beyond small-talk, which he's never been great at; if she wants to discuss whatever it is at the time that she happens to be reading about, then he definitely doesn't hate the thought of getting to listen. "Not that I've had the chance to enjoy it recently, but I'm hoping that's going to change."
With a soft, rare smile, he leans in to her touches and brushes his lips to hers, and then leads her to the living room to pass the time until dinner. Something tells him that everything might just start to look up from here on out.