Derek smells her before he sees her. Except she isn't even a her then, just a scent floating through a crack in the door, and it must be new student because he's definitely never smelt anything like it before. It's warm, pervasive, and it he almost twitches towards it. He'd been halfway through pulling his things out of his bag, but his highlighter drops and bounces off his textbook with a light thud, landing on the floor. He doesn't lean to pick it up until the door opens and snaps him out of it.

The scent intensifies. Derek sits up slowly.

There's a blond woman standing at the front of the class, smiling. His heart feels like it's going to beat out of his chest.

"Hello," the woman says, eyes sparkling like she's seeing a punchline no one else is, "My name is Miss Argent."

"Where's Mr. Harris?" says someone at the back of the room, and Derek jerks because he'd briefly forgotten there were other people there.

"Mr. Harris is taking some time off for personal reasons," Miss. Argent says, "So, I'm here to teach you guys in the meantime." She moves, walking to lean back against the front of the desk. She keeps talking, something about Mr. Harris' class plans, and wanting to shake things up a little, and Derek sits in his seat and breathes.

—

She stops him as he's leaving the classroom a week later, fingers light on his arm. "Derek Hale, right?"

He blinks and nods, unsure if he can find his voice when she's touching him like that.

"You've seemed distracted. Is everything okay?" She smiles, wide and white, and her scent swirls around Derek. "Or do you just not like chemistry?"

"No- uh, Chemistry is fine." He swallows, but it doesn't stop his mouth from drying out even more. "I was just distracted."

"Good," she says, folding her arms. "Because I've been looking at the classes transcripts, and yours are pretty good. I'd hate for them to slip." She winks, something clicks inside Derek, and he beams back at her.

—

They have to pair up for a project but there's an odd number of people in the class. Derek wouldn't mind working alone, but Miss. Argent suggests that whoever isn't in a pair works with her. If he was ambivalent about pairing up before, he's completely anti the idea now. When he approaches her desk she smiles.

"Well, I was hoping it would be you."

She says he should treat her like a fellow student, that she's not going to give him access to any of her knowledge from college. He leaves her office with another wink, a playful, "So, while we're working on it you can call me Kate," and the sense of home home, safe safe safe pounding through his veins.

—

They work in the school library. Well, Derek works, and Kate grades papers from her other classes, and makes occasional helpful comment. Eventually she sighs, pushes her pile of paper aside, and says, "So I think this is around the time your potential student partner would say something like, 'these chairs suck,' and you would completely agree with them." Derek chuckles, pen wavering where it's scratching onto his paper. "I always used to think it was on purpose. To keep people from falling asleep on these very, very old books."

"If it is, it doesn't work," Derek says, abandoning any pretence of focus, and looking up at her.

She's watching him, a smile playing around the corner of her mouth that makes his heart catch a little. "We should probably find a better location for our next session then." Her foot brushes his ankle, fast enough that it could have been accidental. "I can't do anything tomorrow afternoon, but I could swing Friday after school." He nods, and she smiles wider. "My place?"

—

Her apartment is a tiny, barely furnished one bedroom in the middle of town. She drops her bag on the kitchen counter, and says, "Substitute teaching jobs aren't common in towns this small." Something in Derek's heart twists at the idea of her being away from him. He inhales, because her scent is so strong in this tiny place, and she smiles at him. "I don't know about you, though, but I'm pretty glad that I'm here."

She gives him books, but nothing else, and they sit on the couch side by side. They've been there an hour when she suddenly shifts, twisting so she's leaning against the armrest with her feet in his lap. He freezes for a moment, but she just keeps working and after a few moments, with her presence so strong around him, he can't help but relax.

Everything becomes warm, and lazy, he loses track of the words in front of his eyes. Time slips by and when he looks up she's staring at him. The papers are on the floor beside her, and she's just watching him. So he puts his books aside, slides out from under her feet, and crawls up her body to kiss her. His head pounds with how hard he knows he shouldn't, but between her scent and her body warm against him he can't help it. He starts tentative, lips barely moving against hers, but her fingers scrape at his jaw, urging him forward.

She pulls him in with a fist clenched in his shirt, and fingernails on the back of his neck.

—

He crawls back down her body, with her palms on his shoulders and his want leading him. It's uncomfortable. He doesn't know what he's doing, his lips get tired. His tongue aches, and her hips roll into him hard enough that it almost hurts. But his nose is pressed tight against her skin, she's all he can smell, all he can hear, and he never wants to leave. He's hard in his jeans, dizzyingly aroused, even just from the sounds she makes. When she comes he does too, and when she pushes him gently away from her, he rests his cheek on her thigh and says, "You're everything I want," in a rough voice.

She smiles, fingers stroking over his cheek, and he feels warm from head to toe.

He tells her more as the weeks go past. Whispers against her skin. He rests his chin between her breasts and tells her he's in love with her, and she cups his face and kisses him and tells him Good. Her fingernails scrape through his hair as he runs his nose along her jaw and talks. Sometimes about his family. Mostly about her. She lets him curl against her, press his face into her hair, and she never tries to stop him speaking.

It's been two weeks when he confesses. He hasn't spoken to anyone in his family. He knows what the way she smells means, he wants to do this carefully, and her not knowing makes him tense and antsy. She notices, of course, and straddles him, runs her hands over his body until he shudders and gasps, until he's left unable to not relax. So he doesn't let her touch him while he tells her. He sits cross-legged at one end of the couch while she mirrors him on the other side, and he stares at her hands as he speaks, voice low and fast, about full moons, and transformations and please believe me please don't leave. He expects her to think he's crazy, but she just stares and says, "I've always known there's something special about you, Derek."

He shifts forward until their knees touch, taking her hands. "That's why I wanted to tell you. We're-" he chokes for a moment, shaking his head. "We're meant for eachother. You're meant for me, I-"

She stops him with a murmured, "Sweetie," and a kiss, and he melts into her.

—

Pieces of the house are still smouldering. The sky is clear from clouds, but a haze still smokes all around the house. Derek is cold. The smell of pack is distorted by the bitter sting of scorched flesh, but it still smells like home. It takes him a moment to realise, to breathe in at the right moment and sway with the familiarity. Before being blindsided by how strong the scent still is and how she- she was there. Nothing distorts her scent. Laura's hand is wrapped tight around his, and he can't feel it.

—

He sees Kate once afterwards. Smells her first. He's cleaning out his locker, and she's coming out of the chemistry classroom, carrying several bags. She smiles, and his heart throbs with safe safe safe and something in him wants to run to her, to bury his face in her neck, the burn out the smoke that still clogs his nostrils. She smiles wider, tilting her head, and waves. The cold starts in his fingertips again and spreads fast.