disclaimer: i don't own teen wolf.
notes: i started writing this last summer, while 3a was airing, and only just finished it. therefore, you might notice some changes from canon - i didn't include kira, and i made up my own reason for cora being separated from peter and derek come 3b. there is some romance, especially towards the end, but this is mostly a character study into cora hale. also, it's a non-linear timeline, just to warn you.
dedication: to hope (allisonarrgent) and becca (aebbe) for encouraging me in writing and actually finishing this, particularly hope who has been wanting me to post this since last summer. i love you both, and i hope you like this!
"When you were born," her mother used to say, "it was a blue moon. Two full moons in a month. And that night, your brother and sister went running through the woods, celebrating your arrival. We were the most powerful we had ever been. A blue moon is a sign of strength for us."
Cora would look up at her mother, her eyes glowing gold under the light of the moon. "Does that mean I'm strong?" she had asked at age six, seven, eight, up until she was eleven, every night on her birthday, and Talia Hale would smile like she knew all the secrets of the universe, and maybe, back then, she did.
"You are very strong," she would say, and press a kiss to Cora's forehead, her own eyes burning red. "Of course you are strong. You are my daughter."
And Cora believed her.
-:-
The forest is heavy, empty, and desperately lonely when she visits it again for the first time in years, a month after her release from the vault, the night of a blue moon. Even though there are other animals in the woods, they skitter and dance around her, never getting near the wolf that walks inside their home. When she was younger, the animals had adored her – she had been one of them, she had been a wolf, part of a pack, part of their home.
And now she is seventeen instead of seven, and even though her eyes still glow gold, she thinks she is more human now, more fallible now, less powerful, less wolf – (less Talia Hale's daughter).
Cora collapses underneath the shade of an old redwood tree that Laura had once taught her how to climb, a long time ago under a different moon, and she breathes, and she waits for somebody who isn't coming.
Because her parents are gone, and Laura is gone, and all she has left are Derek and Peter, and Peter killed Laura and Derek killed Peter and she wasn't there.
Because Cora ran.
-:-
"Come on, Cora!" Derek yells, his voice carrying bright and clear over the usual hum of the forest. "Don't be such a slowpoke!" he adds over his shoulder, a laugh evident in his tone as he bounds through the trees on feet too fast for normal humans to follow.
"I'm coming!" she shouts back, even though she's skidded to a stop so she can lean against a tree for support to catch her breath. Derek is so far ahead now that he can't even hear her anymore. Cora sighs, dropping her head back against the trunk of the tree, mentally kicking herself.
Mother said you were strong, hisses the voice inside her head that is always pushing her to be faster, smarter, better, because nothing less could be expected for the daughter of Talia Hale, the queen of shapeshifters. Be strong. Always be strong.
Cora takes a deep breath, inhales and exhales, and then she shoots off like a hunter's arrow through the forest, closing her eyes and letting the world blur into the scent of the forest, the sense of her brother up ahead, and the power that comes from being wild.
She catapults through the trees and barrels into Derek like a bullet wound, like a firework exploding, and she laughs as they both go tumbling down onto the grass and dirt of the forest floor, her on top and Derek grinning up at her, his back pressed against the ground and his arms settling around her waist.
"I win," she says smugly, giggling as she rolls off him and lies on the ground beside him to stare up at the sun lowering itself over the horizon. "I told you I was faster than you."
Derek laughs, stretching out luxuriously on the ground. "Guess so, Princess," he teases, the familiar nickname making her warm even in the chill of the evening, and then his hands dart out to tickle her and she starts laughing so hard she thinks she might never stop.
Around them, the forest bustles with life and energy, and here, with her brother near, is where Cora believes she is the happiest she will ever be.
-:-
The night Boyd dies, Derek disappears somewhere deep into the forest, leaving the rest of the pack to pick up the pieces of his broken pack. Isaac and Lydia take Ms. Blake home, all three still visibly shaken, but Stiles is the one who stays behind to help her with Boyd's body. He doesn't say anything as she sits and weeps over the dead body of a boy who had been her only salvation during a time when she thought there was none, he only kneels beside her, silent but still strong, and listens to her cry.
"It'll be okay," he dares to whisper only when her tears subside. "We'll be all right. We're going to win this, we're gonna do it for him, okay?" His words echo distantly in the haze inside her mind, too faraway for her to really comprehend, but she sits back and leans into his open arms anyway.
"I'm going to kill them," she breathes when she thinks she's capable of forming words, and her whole body shakes, and Stiles holds her close until she calms down again. She buries her face in his chest because he smells so much better than the rotten stink of death and the alphas that surrounds Boyd. He smells clean, simple, like toothpaste and shampoo, like normal human things.
"I'll help you," he murmurs, in a way that makes her think he's been wanting to say that for a long time, been wanting to kill the alphas for a long time, and his fingers cart through her hair, the same way Derek used to in a time when they were younger and happier and not falling apart. "We'll win."
She doesn't really think so, but she lets herself believe him anyway, just for a moment.
-:-
A million times every night, she dreams about the fire. There are, equally, a million different ways for her to be poetic about the way the fire fills her dreams, but the truth of the matter is that there was nothing poetic about those flames. There was nothing but sheer, burning destruction, devastation, and death. There was nothing in the fire but fire.
She remembers screaming Derek's name, Laura's name, screaming for her mother and her father, and nobody responded. Nobody found her, nobody saved her. The only person she could find to be her hero was herself.
Cora dreams about running, too, almost as often. She dreams about her hazy, panicked, terror-filled run through the woods that night, tripping over every branch and root in her way, startling all the animals, crying for Derek, for Laura, for anyone to help her and wishing she didn't have to cry – wishing she was strong.
Your mother would be strong, the voice in her head says in every single dream. Laura would be strong. Derek would be strong. Cora is eleven, and Cora is not strong.
My blue moon princess, her father used to call her, but her father is dead, and Cora is alone, and the power of the blue moon can't save her anymore.
She awakes every night and feels flames blazing around her.
-:-
Scott finds her after the battle, when the alphas have cleared out and the loss of her brother rings in the quiet of the room as everyone slowly picks themselves up and tries to breathe normally again. Everyone is human now, fangs redacted and claws withdrawn, full of nothing but hollow silence and shock, and when Scott meets her eyes, she almost breaks down.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, his hands hanging limply at his side like he's not sure what to do with them. "Your brother – Derek, he… it was my fault. I'm sorry."
He sounds so earnest that she kind of wants to punch him. She's not even entirely sure whose fault it was that her brother went tumbling off that ledge, but she knows that Derek, for all his posturing, had liked Scott, had believed in Scott, had wanted Scott in his pack. And that means something to her.
"We didn't know that he's dead," she offers weakly, her voice a little choked. By the next day, she would have control of her emotions, would surpress the memory of Derek being given the ultimatum of her or Boyd, family or pack, would get to work on sorting out what had happened tonight and who had lived and who had died.
Tonight, all she has are empty platitudes for a boy she doesn't completely think deserves them.
Scott looks down, his breaths deep and heavy like the weight of the whole damn world is on his chest. "I'm sorry," he repeats, the words so soft on his lips that she doesn't think even the other werewolves heard him. His tone of voice verges on helpless, and maybe he is – maybe they all are, at this point.
She doesn't know what else to say, doesn't know if there is anything else to say, and he seems to sense that, so he turns away, heads back to Allison, to Isaac and Boyd, leaving her standing alone in a room with no pack to guide her, no brother to love her, and nothing left to stay for.
So she runs.
-:-
"Just keep climbing!" Laura calls from somewhere far below, but Cora doesn't dare look back for fear of falling. "You're almost at the top!" Her voice is steady, calm, guiding her through the steps, and Cora wishes she was better, wishes she could make her sister proud.
"It's just a tree," she hears Derek grumble from beneath her, and Laura promptly smacks him. "What?" he protests. "I'm just saying, I could climb a tree when I was seven."
"Shut up, Derek," Laura snaps, and Derek quiets, but it's not like Cora hasn't heard anything anyway. She frowns at the trunk of the tree, feeling something cold unfurling in her stomach. There is nothing she wants more than to prove Derek wrong, to prove everyone wrong, to prove that she's just as good as her siblings in everything she does.
Her foot slips. Down on the ground, she can sense Laura cringe in anticipation. Swallowing what feels like lead in her throat, she tightens her grip on the branches of the redwood tree and manages to steady herself. Breathe, she reminds herself, just like Laura does. In and out, in and out. She reaches for another branch and listens closely for her siblings.
"Oh, my god," Laura breathes. "She made it! Cora, you made it!"
"Ow," Derek complains, probably from Laura hitting him again. "Congrats, Princess," he adds belatedly. "Can we go eat now?"
"Be nice to your sister," Laura chides. Cora smiles, though they can't see her, and thinks privately that she has the best siblings in the world, and then she lets herself fall down, because Derek will catch her. He always does.
-:-
She runs into Allison Argent, of all people, when she returns to the building where her brother had fallen off the edge of the Earth. It's not like she isn't grateful to the other girl for her help in the battle, but it's also not like she really fancies the idea of talking to her. Not when she's looking for her brother's body, not when she's scared of what she'll find there.
Allison notices her immediately, which is impressive for a human. Cora wonders if that's a hunter thing, if maybe they aren't as different as they claim to be when it comes to the lines between the natural and the supernatural. "What are you doing here?" Allison demands, three arrows in her hand that make Cora feel vaguely uneasy about being near her.
"I was looking for Derek," she explains, walking closer anyway, because six years on the run has given her a taste for the dangerous, perhaps. "I need to find his body, take it home. What are you doing here?"
"Oh, right," Allison says, and she at least has the grace to look a little sheepish. "I was cleaning up my arrows. I didn't get a chance last night because – well, Scott wanted to talk, and then – "
Cora holds up a hand to stop her mid-sentence. "Yeah, I really don't care," she says, stalking past Allison towards where she is reasonably certain the bodies of Ennis and Derek had landed.
There's silence as she observes the area, trying to remember if she has the right location of the bodies, before Allison speaks again. "I hope you don't blame him."
Cora stiffens. "Blame who?" she asks carefully, purposefully not bothering to lift her gaze up towards Allison. She can feel the other girl's eyes on her back, still.
"Scott," says Allison simply. "It wasn't his fault that Derek – "
"Don't," Cora interrupts sharply, whirling around, her temper lost. "Listen, Argent, I appreciate the help you gave us last night, but that doesn't mean I want to sit here and talk about my feelings with you. It doesn't matter who I blame or who I don't, because the end result is that my brother is dead. So, sorry, but I don't give a damn what you think about how I should feel about what happened last night."
Allison, to her credit, doesn't back down, even under the weight of Cora's glare. When she speaks again, her voice is quiet. "I blamed Derek for my mother's death for a long time," she says, making Cora falter in her anger out of surprise. "It didn't really help. I just – I didn't want you to blame Scott like I did Derek."
Cora doesn't speak for several moments, unsure of what to say to this confession, and Allison takes that as her cue to leave. Cora watches as she gathers up the last of her arrows and starts walking away, feeling a curious sense of déjà vu. Except this time, she doesn't run from the scene. She owes Derek that.
-:-
The night before she leaves Beacon Hills, she steals Derek's car and drives into the heart of the town, not entirely sure what she's searching for but hoping to find it nevertheless. It is strangely quiet without the alpha pack looming over their shoulders, and she finds the drive peaceful the way sitting in the forest with her brother and sister had been, back when she was younger and not so war-weary.
She ends up in front of Stiles' house, almost coincidentally, except she remembers the way from when he had taken her there before. The memory is hazy, blocked by her headache and the pain of her injuries at the time, but the route must have imprinted in her mind somehow. Wolves are meant to be good at tracking, anyway. She lingers outside, hands drumming a semi-familiar rhythm on the steering wheel, unsure if she wants to go in and talk to him or not.
Stiles solves the problem for her by coming out of the front door, hair mussed and in his pajamas, a half-smile on his face when he sees her sitting behind the wheel. The baseball bat he'd been holding falls harmlessly to the ground.
"Thought you were an alpha," he murmurs, voice still sleepy, when he reaches the car and she rolls down the window to talk to him. "Come to kill me in my sleep or something. Or Derek. Which is even worse."
Cora laughs a little, the sound ringing in the empty night air. "Just me," she affirms, deciding to get out of the car to talk to him. "Just a beta. Or omega. I guess I don't really have a pack anymore."
"S'not true," Stiles says, leaning back against the car next to her. "You have us."
"No, you have each other," she corrects, crossing her arms and frowning up at the star-kissed skies. "I have Derek. And Peter, I guess. Which is stupid, because he sucks."
Stiles grins. "He does suck," he agrees. "But you're always welcome here."
"You're too sleepy to say sweet things," she mutters, elbowing him lightly, and he laughs, catches her hand, turns it over. "We're leaving, you know," she says, the sort-of secret spilling out of her. She's sure Derek has already texted Scott or something and Scott would have told Stiles, but it feels important to tell him anyway.
"I know," he says quietly, squeezing her hand. She doesn't have anything else to say, and neither does he, so the two of them stand there, backs against Derek's car and the sky and the forest, his hand warm in hers and his heartbeat steady, one two three one two three, as she listens to the night.
"I'll miss you," he says after what feels like an hour has passed. "Write sometimes, okay?"
"I will," she promises, and drops his hand. "I'll miss you, too."
He pulls away to let her get back in the car, something indecipherable in his eyes as he watches her. Cora pauses at the edge of the car door, wondering if there was some other way to end their story, like a hug, or a kiss, or god knows what, is he going to say something, is he going to tell her any last secrets, should she say –
"Thanks for saving me," she adds impulsively, a smile playing on her lips. "With the kiss, I mean."
Stiles flushes red. "It was – it was CPR, I just – you're welcome," he manages, sounding kind of choked when he gets the words out. "I'm glad you lived."
"Me, too," she laughs, and then she slides into the car and he watches her drive off. It's not such a poetic end, but it works. She hopes Derek has his address.
-:-
After her first full moon of being properly transformed, glowing yellow eyes and all, Derek finds her in the morning light, leaning against her favorite redwood tree, and sits with her as they watch the sun rise silently into the sky.
"You did great, Princess," he tells her, voice gentle in the softness of the dawn around them. "You're gonna be a great wolf."
Cora leans her head on his shoulder, fitting peacefully against his neck. His hand comes up and tangles in her wild brown hair, caught with leaves and dirt from all the running she did in the night. Quietly, she murmurs a thank you and lets the words ring in the morning light.
Laura finds them after an hour to call them in for breakfast. Cora has almost fallen asleep on Derek, drifting hazily off into dreams of woods and wolves and moons. Laura only smiles and watches Derek shake her awake.
Cora doesn't remember much of her first full moon, but she remembers that morning for the rest of her life.
-:-
Lydia Martin might just be one of the most annoying people Cora has ever met, and she's related to Peter Hale, and yet, for some reason, she finds herself hugging the other girl when she finally returns to Beacon Hills, a solid year after the two of them had helped save the city together.
"How're the twins?" she asks casually as she joins Lydia and the rest of Scott's pack in sprawling out along the couches in Derek's new house. It's taken the full year for her to get any lingering bitterness out of her voice when talking about the guys who helped murder Boyd. She's seen enough death in her time to know that it never helps to keep a grudge.
"Oh, Aiden and I broke up a while ago," Lydia says airily, and she clearly notices the way Cora's eyes dart instinctively towards Stiles, because she adds, "I'm single, don't worry."
"I didn't ask," Cora grins, letting herself sink down into the couch next to Lydia. Across the room, Scott catches her eye and raises an eyebrow. He doesn't look much like the boy she'd left behind in Beacon Hills a year ago – being an alpha seems to agree with him.
She mouths the word what? at him, and he shakes his head and smiles before tuning back into Stiles' babbling about some supernatural occurrence that she has been determinedly ignoring since she returned. She wanted a vacation to catch up with her brother and his friends, not to get drawn into another life-or-death battle in the wolf world.
"So, where have you been lately?" Allison asks her cheerfully from Lydia's other side, one of her hands tangled in Isaac's. Cora blinks at the scene for a moment, having always been mostly certain that Isaac had a total thing for Scott, but things change, she supposes.
"Well, Derek and Peter got into a spot of trouble without me in Europe, and then they had to come back to Beacon Hills without me for some crazy emergency," Cora explains, rolling her eyes upwards where she knows her brother is brooding behind her. "So, I decided to just keep touring Europe on my own, let them deal with their own mess. It's been pretty nice, but I wanted to come back and visit."
"How many countries did you visit?" Isaac asks with an air of genuine curiosity from where he's sprawled out, limbs upon limbs, on the couch. Allison smiles fondly at him.
"Most of the big ones," Cora says as Derek's hands come down on her shoulders from above, warm and steady. "I was in Italy last, actually."
"Ooh, did you meet any cute Italian boys?" Lydia asks eagerly, and Cora shoots her a smirk. "Come on, I've been to Italy. They don't make them like that here, you know."
"No, they don't," Cora agrees, her eyes straying inadvertantly over to Stiles, who seems to have paused in his super top secret hushed discussion with Scott to pay attention to the girls' conversation. "But no, I've been hanging out with various werewolf packs. Not a lot of time for boys when you're touring Italy with wolves."
"Come on," Allison presses with a teasing smile on her face. It's remarkable, Cora thinks, how easy this rapport is, how simple it is to be accepted by Scott's pack of misfit wolves and humans and hunters and banshees. "There's gotta be someone special you've met in Europe."
"There better not be," Derek snorts, the pressure of his hands suddenly gone from her shoulders. Cora makes a face at him and he tweaks a strand of hair in reply before there's a crash from upstairs and Derek sighs very dramatically before going off to deal with whatever Peter's done now.
"I can't believe you're all still letting Peter hang out with you," Cora remarks after he disappears up the stairs. "I mean, I know he's my uncle, but he's so…"
"Awful?" Stiles supplies, smiling when she looks over at him.
"Evil?" Lydia adds, glowering in the general direction of the stairs.
"Sociopathic," Isaac pipes up.
"All of the above," Cora agrees, returning Stiles' smile and settling in more comfortably. "I gotta say, you have a nice pack here, McCall."
Scott grins at her. "It's your pack, too, Cora," he says simply, and then stands up, clapping Stiles on the shoulder. "I'm gonna go scrounge up Derek's groceries for lunch. Hey, bro, you wanna show Cora our new training equipment?"
Cora blinks at the two of them in confusion. At her side, Lydia giggles a little. "What training equipment?"
Stiles coughs, clears his throat, and shoots Scott a look she can't decipher. "Yeah, sure. Come on, Cora. Derek really splurged on it."
"Derek?" she repeats disbelievingly, allowing Lydia to push her off the couch and towards Stiles. "Splurging? Have you met my brother?"
"I heard that!" Derek calls from upstairs, and Cora grins. Stiles smirks and shoves his hands in his pockets, tilting his head towards the door in askance, and she follows him and tries to ignore the looks that she knows Lydia and Allison and probably Isaac, the traitor, are sending at her back.
There's something stupidly sweet about being back here, about being surrounded by the kids she'd fought alongside a year ago, surrounded by the makeshift pack that has somehow accepted her brother and accepted her with him. Stiles looks over and smiles at her, and it feels a lot like home.
-:-
Cora still remembers vividly the first girlfriend she'd really been aware of Derek having and bringing home to meet their family. The girl, whose name started with an M – Meghan? Melody? No, Melanie – had been blue-eyed, red-haired, and one hundred percent not Derek's usual type. Cora is ten when he brings Melanie home, and to this day, she is still the only girlfriend of Derek's she ever liked even remotely.
Laura doesn't like her, naturally, but Laura has a thing about no girl being good enough for her baby brother. "You have bad taste in girls," she informs Derek after Melanie leaves when the three of them are relaxing on the balcony like they always do after dinner. "Her voice is so annoying."
"I have great taste in girls," Derek says, looking mildly affronted. "You have ridiculous standards for my girlfriends."
Laura snorts and looks over at Cora, who is watching the two of them the way one would a tennis match. Laura and Derek's fights are legendary in the Hale household. "What do you think, Cora?" she demands, reaching out to ruffle her little sister's hair. "Did you like Melanie?"
Cora tilts her head at them as Derek turns to look at her beseechingly. "I like her hair," she finally says slowly. "She's really pretty."
Derek beams and loops an arm around her shoulders as she giggles and settles in against his side. "Told you so," he tells Laura smugly, sticking his tongue out at her. "She's got Cora's approval."
He says this like it's the only thing that matters. Laura rolls her eyes and stands up to head back inside, leaving the two of them to sit and watch the stars in peace.
"Do you really like her?" Cora asks him after several long minutes of comfortable silence, turning wide eyes upon him when she looks up into his face.
Derek smiles down at her. "Yeah," he says simply, "but I like you more," because he's always known just what she needs to hear. "Always have."
Cora smiles and presses her head back against his shoulder. "Always will?" she asks quietly, and feels Derek's lips brush against the top of her head.
"Always will," he agrees with all the certainty of a boy with the whole world ahead of him, and Cora sinks into his arms like she belongs there. Like she always has.
-:-
July brings with it a new blue moon and a surprising lack of supernatural monsters to fight, so Scott organizes a bonfire at Derek's semi-willingly-loaned house for the seven of them to relax and enjoy the peacefulness of Beacon Hills when it's not under constant attack. Cora finds her own log to sit on around the fire – Scott had gone traditional when planning the thing – and watches the flames flicker in the night, her mind a thousand miles away.
She doesn't think anyone notices, except maybe Derek, who stops by to offer her marshmallows and one of his patented overprotective big brother looks of concern that she waves off, but then Stiles has left his spot between Scott and Lydia to slide in next to her.
Cora blinks, startled out of her reverie and memories of times long gone by, and looks over at him. Stiles extends an already-toasted marshmallow towards her in a gesture of goodwill, and a half-smile plays on her lips as she accepts.
"You were thinking loudly," he tells her, keeping his voice quiet even though he's surrounded by werewolves, so it doesn't much matter. "Are you okay?"
"I'm good," she assures him, and it's not as close to being a lie as it would have been just a year ago. "I was just thinking about – about my family."
The words spill out like a secret. On the other side of the campfire, she can see Derek pause in his regularly-scheduled brooding to shoot her a concerned look. Cora sighs, dropping her head onto her hands. Werewolf hearing can go straight to hell, as far as she's concerned.
Stiles' hand on her bare arm jolts her back into his presence. "Do you wanna talk about it?" he asks quietly, taking the uneaten marshmallow from her and holding it up to her lips. Cora smiles a little and opens her mouth so he can pop it inside. "I mean, we could – we could go somewhere more private, if you like."
Now Derek is frowning. "I don't think that's a good idea," she murmurs, and Stiles flushes but returns her smile anyway. "Don't worry about me, I'm fine."
"Okay," he agrees, but he stays by her side and toasts her more marshmallows nevertheless. Derek finally stops glaring in his general direction after a while, and the others' conversations start up again. Up above, the moon shines silver-white, brighter than she remembers from last month's full moon, and she thinks back to when she was younger, when her whole world was younger, before Stiles or Scott, before Boyd or Erica, before the fire.
She'd been happy then, she knows that much, but here, surrounded by a pack that accepts her without question, with Stiles' shoulder warm against hers, she thinks she might even be happier now. Here, under a blue moon, with new friends, family, and pack at her side, she thinks this is where she's always been meant to end up.
And the next time Stiles looks over to smile at her, she reaches up and kisses him, ignoring Derek's spluttering and the others' laughter across. Stiles kisses her back, and the blue moon has never seemed brighter than tonight.
a/n: i swear when i started writing this in the summer it wasn't going to be stiles/cora but then just wow otp i love them so much. fun fact, this turned out to be exactly 5000 words, which is about 3000 more than i thought it'd be. if you read this far, please drop me some feedback to let me know what you thought? i'd really appreciate it!
and DON'T favorite without reviewing, please and thank you.