A/N: Okay, so, I'm really sorry for the long gap between updates! Life happened, as it tends to do, and I haven't had time to come back and work on Echoes of Remembrance in a little while. But! I've finally finished Inevitable, my hundred chapter Originals longfic, and I ended up dropping my business class, so I (theoretically) have more time for writing now. :)

In other news, this chapter is more or less an emotional rollercoaster? Enjoy!

Chapter 7

Peter was quiet as he ate his bowl of stew. Riley found it incredibly suspicious.

She let the silence go on as they ate, even though it made her so uncomfortable that she almost started fidgeting where she sat. She focused her attention on finishing up her own bowl of stew (the moss hare meat was perfectly tender; she'd have to remember to thank Gustav later), darting a look at Peter sitting across from her whenever she was sure he wasn't looking.

She wasn't quite sure what to do with a quiet Peter. Sure, they'd had their fair share of comfortable silences between them in the past, but never quite like this. She had no idea what to do.

Finally, Peter seemed to notice her not-so-subtle glances at him. "Why do you keep looking at me like that?" he asked, exasperation clear in his tone.

She fumbled her grip on her spoon, cursing under her breath as it clattered into her bowl. "Looking at you like what?" she replied, feigning innocence as she plucked her spoon out of her stew and patted it dry with the edge of her sleeve.

Peter, unsurprisingly, didn't buy her act for even a second. "Like you're waiting for something. Or for me to do something," he added, narrowing his eyes at her. "So tell me: what are you waiting for?"

"Nothing," she said, perhaps a little too quickly to be believable.

Peter just arched an eyebrow.

"If you must know," she snapped, abruptly irritated with him and not sure why, "I'm not used to you being so quiet and thoughtful; I'm worried that you're plotting something."

Peter blinked at her in surprise, then burst out laughing.

"What is so funny?" she hissed at him, hunching up her shoulders as his laughter drew the stares of the other Lost Ones in the dining hall.

"You," Peter answered, still chucking. Then, before she could feel overly insulted by that response, he went on. "This place. All of this," he said, vaguely waving is spoon around to indicate the situation as a whole. "I find it funny," he continued, expression turning more serious, "that I'm making you uncomfortable."

Riley glared at him. "Why is that-"

"Think about it," Peter interjected. "Ever since we met, you've been ten steps ahead of me. And you'd better take that as a compliment, by the way, because that sort of thing doesn't happen to me. You know me," he went on before she could interrupt him. "And not just me, but m family, too; I've seen your sketches. And it's the little things, too; you know my exact age, and I somehow remember your tattoo. I could go on; I've been keeping track. So I just find it funny," he concluded, "that I'm making you uncomfortable by simply not talking."

Riley opened her mouth, closed it, then slurped up a spoonful of stew instead of speaking because she just couldn't find the words. She should have known, should have realized...Peter, with his hungering need to know and understand...she should have realized that her attitude and behavior would be driving him around the bend with curiosity and frustration.

"I'm sorry," she said at last, pushing aside her now-empty bowl. "I was so caught up in you being here that I didn't stop to think about what you must be feeling."

"I'm not feeling anything," was Peter's immediate answer. "Which is strange," he went on carefully, obviously noticing the slight wince she'd given at his words, "because I feel like I should be feeling something. I assume it's something to do with the gaps in my memory."

"It's really nothing you need to worry about," she told him, trying to stifle the grief and hurt that was burning in her chest. "You've already forgotten all of it; the memories are gone."

"But maybe not gone forever," Peter said, and suddenly he looked excited, like when a new idea popped into his head and he was eager to investigate it.

Riley just looked at him, tracing the lines of his face with her eyes, making mental notes on the angle of his jaw and the shape of his lips...for sketching purposes only, of course. "What do you mean?" she asked him, frowning as she ran his words over in her head again.

Peter glanced around at the other Lost Ones in the dining hall, some of whom were still watching both Riley and Peter as they talked. "Not here," he said, shoving aside his bowl and standing up. "Let's go back to your room; we can talk there."

Riley rolled her eyes at his dramatic actions, but complied, rising to her feet and leading him out of the mess hall and back to her room. "What," she demanded once she'd slammed her door shut behind them and swiped a hand across the security and privacy wards she'd etched into the doorframe, "is so damn important that you couldn't say it back there in the mess hall?"

Peter swallowed hard, but said nothing, his eyes somehow solemn and excited all at once, and just a little bit terrified as well...which scared Riley, because what in the world could possibly put that look in this Peter's eyes? This Peter, who was ten years older than the one she'd known and who had almost certainly seen some pretty nasty shit since she'd been taken away and erased his life. This Peter, who carried himself like someone who'd been destroyed and abandoned, and had clawed their way back into a life that they no longer trusted to be fair or safe. The Peter she'd known before hadn't been naive, not by any stretch of the imagination, but this Peter? It was like he'd both gained and lost something over the years; he was...sharper, with more edges to him than she was used to.

Of course, she supposed that was only to be expected, considering the fact that ten years had passed; she wasn't who she'd been back then, either (she'd be curious to know what Peter thought of who she'd become...if only he could remember her).

She blinked suddenly as Peter waved a hand in front of her face. "I, uh...what?"

Peter tilted his head an regarded her curiously. "Where did you go just now?" he asked. "One second you were glaring at me and demanding answers, the next it was like you drifted away. Mentally, I mean."

"Ah." Riley felt her cheeks heat up as she blushed in embarassment. "I...I do that sometimes, sorry." It was a holdover from her younger days, from her stay in Eichen House; she much better at staying focused now, especially without her psychometry cluttering up her thoughts with akk sorts o fpsychic impressions (she still hadn't worked out why gone almost entirely silent since coming here, but she supposed that in the grand schee of things it didn't matter much at the moment), but her mind still had a tendency to wander at various times.

A few people (her sister and Peter himself included) had theorized that it was her mind;s way of protecting itself; that her thougths had a tendency to drift because that had been her way of mentally escaping her treatment during her stay at Eichen House. She didn't know if there was any truth to that theory, didn't know if she cared or not if it was; she just-

And I'm doing it again, she thought irritably, shaking her head as she caught Peter looking at her with a bemused expression.

"Sorry," she said again with a sigh. "Like I said, it happens. I just...get lost in my head sometimes." She bit down hard on her lower lip, the pain of it focusing her thoughts, grounding her in the here and now. "You were about to tell me something, right? Something that you didn't want ot say with everyone else listening in?"

Peter hesistated, then nodded, and like with the fear she'd seen in his eyes before, the hesitation made her uncomfortable; Peter wasn't one to be so uncertain, not ten years ago and not now, she was sure of it.

"Spit it out," she snapped, her temper flaring as her herves got the better of her. "Now."

"...Never mind," Peter said, taking an abrupt step away from her. "I just..." He shook his head. "Never mind."

Riley frowned at him. "Seriously?" she asked, exasperated. "All that build-up, dragging me out of the mess hall...and that's all you've got for me? 'Never mind'?"

He shrugged, an unreadable look crossing his face before he gave her an insolent smirk. "What can I say, I'm an asshole like that sometimes. Most times, actually. I'd apologize for it," he said in an iverly cheerful tone, "but I'm not actually sorry, so..."

Riley wondered if she could take a swing at him and actually make the punch hurt before his werewolf healing kicked in. "Argh, I can't believe you!" She spun around, snatched up the closest book (it just so happened to be some sort of thick volume of ancient poetry), and hurled it as his head. "I thought you had something important to say, dammit!" She glared at him (he'd dodged the book easily, the jerk), magic thrumming through her body in angry, crackling waves, like someone had hooked her up to a live wire. "This isn't some fucking game, you know! This is life and death, the struggle we've got on our hands here! Or was that not clear enough when that hound laid open my shoulder because I was saving your life?" Electricity sparked at her fingertips and she had to clench her hands into fists to keep from lashing out with her magic.

Something akin to remorse flashed through Peter's gaze as he looked at her, but it was just as quickly as it had come, and then he was standing there just the same as before, all arrogance and insolence. "One thing I can tell you," he said to her, "is that your hunter friend used too much pepper in the stew. Have him dial it back a little next time, okay?"

Peter was impressed with Riley's control; had their positions been reversed, he wasn't sure he'd be able to refrain from lashing out and attacking.

He wasn't sure what had made him change his mind about telling Riley of the two strange visions he'd had since coming here and meeting her. Perhaps it was that he wasn't sure himself if the things he'd seen were real or not; hell, he wasn't even sure if he wanted them to be true or not.

So he held his tongue, deflecting at the last moment in a way that was, he was willing to admit (to himself if no one else), a dick move.

Looking at Riley now, with the way little sparks of lightning were crackling across her clecnhed fists and the way her gray eyes were dark and foreboding like and oncoming thunderstorm with just the faintest ring of silver on the outside of her irises...yeah, he was incredibly lucky that she wasn't lashing out at him in frustration over his obvious non-answer.

He was about to say something relatively decent in an attempt to soothe her (justified) ire, but before he had a chance to formulate the right words, Riley was storming across her room to yet another pile of books and muttering under her breath about men being obnoxious pigs and Peter being the Pig King (he couldn't decide if he found her insults annoying or amusing).

"What are you doing?" he asked after a moment, curiosity getting he better of him as Riley snatched up two small journals bound in green leather and stalked over to the massive chalk drawing on the wall (it had takens ome squinting and creative thinking, but he'd finally ralized, after seeing some of the notations scribled on the wall, that it was a map of the town).

"Updating my intel," was Riley's cryptic answer as she plucked a small chunk of red chalk out of a battered tin can and marked something down on the massive map.

Peter scowled at her deliberate evasion of answering (and yes, he knew very well how hypocritical he was being, thank you), and strode over to get a better look at all the little smudges and notes. "I assume the color-coding serves some purpose?" he said, glancing at the various marks and scribbles that were littered across the representation of the town.

"No," Riley drawled sarcastically, "I'm doing it strictly for personal amusement." She glanced over at him with a fiant smirk on her face before continuing on in a more serious tone. "Red is to mark locations where I've had an encounter with something hostile. Yellow is to mark caution zones," she went on, gesturing to a few spots on the map where the streets were shaded in with yellow chalk. "Places where enemies have been sighted but not fought account for most of the yellow patches," she added, "but a couple of them are spots where a peculiar magical anomaly popped up without explanation."

"What about green?" Peter asked curiously, filing away his questions about anomalies for a later date as he went to stand at Riley's side so that he could get a closer look at the the map.

"Safe places," Riley replied, giving a slight sigh as they both looked at how few green spots there were on the map. "Besides this bunker, there's a schoolhouse on the eastern edge of townm" she told him, pointing to the right side of the circle, "and an old library way up north." She pointed to the top portion of the circle.

"And this is us?" Peter guessed gesturing to a larger green asterisk in the southern portion of the map, seemingly equidistant between the southern edge of the circle and the circle's center. Then he frowned peering at the center portion of the map, which was shaded entirely in yellow. "What's all this for?" he asked Riley, indicating the big yellow section.

Riley's face went completely blank and emotionless, the change so sudden that Peter actually took half a step away on sheer instinct. "Do you see the black crosses?" she asked, her voice eerily calm even as her eyes seemed to almost glow with power.

Peter gave her a wary look before stepping back up to the map, eyes picking out the spots marked with crosses. "...places where people died?" he asked in a low voice, notcing a pattern of crosses both on the edges of town and near the red spots that indicated hostile enemies.

Riley just gave a short nod, eyes narrowed and jaw clenched. "This one," she said, reaching out a hand to brush her fingertips across one black cross at the very center of the map, "is for my sister. She was taken to the center of the circle, like all sacrifices are. I normally don't even bother marking down those deaths on the map, since we all know what happens once someone is brought there, but..."

"Maybe they're not dead?" Peter offered, shifting uncomfortably at the heavy tang of grief that was coming off of Riley in waves. "I mean, if they're just getting taken away again, maybe it's possible that-"

"No," Riley said sharply, her scent spiking with guilt and anger. "No, she's dead. I'm certain of it. I was there," she added softly, her voice now barely a whisper. "A lot of it's still fucked up in my head, but Rhoswen...that I remember well enough."

Peter found himself wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close without any concious decision on his part to do so; his body just seemed to move on its own, as if attempting to comfort Riley was instinctive. "I'm sorry," he said, swallowing hard. "I know how hard it is to have someone taken from you and not be able tp do anything to stop it."

Riley was almost painfully quiet for a long moment, the only sounds in the room their heartbeats and uneven breathing. Finally, she spoke again. "What happened?" she asked, her voice rough. "To the others," she clarified as he slanted her a confused look. "Talia, and Aaron, and...everyone. I saw your face when you saw my sketches," she told him. "You looked like someone had just ripped your heart out of your chest and stomped it into the dirt." She pressed a hand against her own chest as if that same pain was echoing within her. "I don't...I know you don't remmeber me and don't trust me...but I cared about them, too, Peter." She looked up at him with shimmering eyes. "Please, I need to know: what happened?"

Peter felt his claws coming out as memories of the fire surged and set his blood boiling and he immediately jerked away from Riley to keep from hurting her by accident.

Riley, however, seemed to take it as a verbal door being slammed in her face, and her expression morphed into one of hurt before shifting back into that uncanny blankess that had so unnarved gim before. "I see," she said, her voice carefully devoid of feeling. "You don't trust me even that much. Fine." She spun on her heel and started walking away, towards the door.

"Wait," Peter said, lunging forward to grab her by the elbow, his heart poudning in his chest as he struggled to get his emotions under control; it was harder than it should have been, but what else could be expected, really, when he was trying to shove down memories of his beloved family burning to death before his very eyes as he tried and failed to save them? "I'm not...That isn't..." He growled at himself, frustrated at the way the words just weren't coming out right. He needed to tell her, had been able to tell from the level of detail and care in her sketches that she'd loved his family, too, but he didn't want to just dump it on her. But he couldn't think of what to say; the words just wouldn't come. "They're dead," he blurted out at last, and cringed as Riley went ghost-pale and stopped moving lke she'd been turned to stone.

The redhead opened her mouth to say something, eyes wide and shocked, but all that came out was a slight croak. She tried again a second later, but still no sound came out. Then she started shaking. It started as a slight tremble, then grew into a full-body shudder within moments, until Peter was worried she might shake herself to pieces, with the way she was breathing hard and fast yet not letting any tears fall.

"How?" she gasped out, biting down on her lower lip so hard that it split spilling blood down her chin.

"Hunters," Peter told her, his claws digging into his palms as he clenched his hands into fists. "They trapped us in the house and set it on fire."

Riley's eyes flared bright silver and the smell of ozone filled the room even as Peter scented her fury and rage, white-hot and ferocious. "Bastards," she hissed. Then her anger vanished abruptly, replaced by alarm and concer. "You said 'us'...you were there? In the house?"

"Yes," Peter said, and was about to elaborate on what had transpired, but before he had a chance to, Riley was crossing over to him and putting both hands flat on his chest, her expression a strange combination of fierce protectiveness and panicked concern. "What are you-"

"Shut up," Riley snapped as she finished patting him down, a singe tear finally escaping and sliding down her cheek. "How are you alive? If the others are..." She couldn't seem to bring herself to say dead, but Pter hardly needed her to fill in the blanks. "How are you...?"

Peter snorted. "Pure dumb luck," he said bitterly. "I didn't perish in the fire," he added, "but I was severely wounded. Spent years in a burn ward, comatose."

Riley swallowed hard, sympathy and grief heavy in her scent, along with guilt, something that confused Peter. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice tight and unhappy. "I don't...I can't even..."

"I killed them," he told her, reaching out a hand to absentmindedly brush another tear off her cheek. "The ones responsible for the fire."

"Good," was Riley's immediate response, darkly satisfied.

"And not everyone was killed," Peter felt compelled to say, not sure why he was offering her the information when he didn't totally trust her. "Derek weren't at home when it happened, and Cora somehow managed to get out as well." He briefly considered mentioning that Laura had made it out as well, but decided against it in the end; Laura was dead now anyway, even if it had been by his hand rather than Kate Argent's. And dead was dead, so why bother going into detail?

...He somehow still couldn't shake the guilt over the omission though, especially when Riley looked so relieved to hear that he wasn't the sole Hale survivor.

"Derek and Cora," she breathed, closing her eyes as if trying to picture them in her mind. "Derek's, what, in his twenties now? He must be so handsome. And Cora...does she look like Talia?"

"She does," Peter said, then lightened his tone. "They both grew up in true Hale fashion: too good-looking for their own good."

Riley smacked him on the arm in a way that felt familiar. "Ego check," she grumbled at him, then finally seemed to notice how close she was to him and stepped away, cheeks flushing pink. "I, uh..." She cleared her throat and swiped almost angrily at her eyes. "I'm sorry for shouting at you earlier," she told him. "I'm not sorry for being upset with you," she added quickly, "because you are an arrogant jackass. But I am sorry for the way I reacted. I know you don't know me, and as much as that frustrates me, I need to remember that we're strangers now, and that trust is a thing that takes time to build. Neither of us," she noted with a wry smile, "are particularly patient people. But we need to at least try and get along, okay? Even if trust never comes into play...for the sake of survival, we need to not be constantly at each other's throats."

"Not constantly," Peter agreed with a smirk. "Maybe only seventy-five percent of the time?"

Riley snorted. "That'll do," she acknowledged with a faint grin. "That'll do."

A/N: Well, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Once again, I apologize for the delay in updating; this story is on a bi-monthly/ever-other-week update schedule, but I was so busy for the last couple months that I didn't have adequate time to really sit down and work on EoR. I did, however, manage to self-publish my novel Wind and Flames! Unlike my Tales of Camellia series of short stories, W&F doesn't involve werewolves, but instead is an urban fantasy tale involving Norse mythology. If you're interested in checking it out, it's for sale on amazon; the full title is Wind and Fames: Wyrd Chronicles Book One. :)

Anyway, the next update for this story, EoR, will be in two weeks, with a slight possibility for an update sooner, depending on my work schedule; I'm still working full-time at my day job, plus hopefully some freelance writing work on the side if Upwork works out as I'm hoping, so I'm not sure yet how much free time I'll have for writing fanfiction in the upcoming weeks...but I really love working on this story, so I'm sure I'll find the time. ;D

As always, any comments or questions can be directed to my tumblr, yuzukimist, or you could just PM me here on ffnt if you're so inclined. XD

See you guys next time!