A/N: This happened one night when I couldn't sleep and I just went with it.

This is based on Saving June by Hannah Harrington, so some parts might read familiar if you've read the book.

Messes

Laura killed herself on the five-year anniversary of the Hale house fire.

That was a week ago, and now Derek finds himself in the kitchen of the house he used to share with her surrounded by casseroles, lasagnas, jams, homemade breads, cakes, and something he thinks is supposed to be chicken spaghetti. He'd like to know who came up with the idea that the best way to comfort a mourning family is with plated food, even if the mourning family only consisted of one person. In a town like Beacon Hills it wasn't that hard to figure out why, though.

People loved Laura.

Loved the way she smiled and always said waved or stopped to talk to people while she was grocery shopping or just walking down the street, loved how she sometimes volunteered at the Beacon Hills library or read to the kids there, and the amazing pies she baked for wherever fundraiser the city held. People loved how much better she was after the fire, how she had pulled through so much grief and sadness to become this amazing young woman who could always make you laugh and taught history at the city's high school. But everyone specially loved how happy she seemed to be. Because if someone who went through all of that could still manage to smile and laugh and make jokes, then there was hope for them too.

Well, people were wrong.

And apparently Derek was too.

No one was more surprised with Laura's death than him. She was his sister, the one remaining family member he had left after their childhood home burned down, taking everyone they loved with it. He knew the first year after the fire was hard – especially for him – with the memories of the family they lost still fresh on their minds, along with the smell of smoke and the taste of ash in the back of their throats. But while he shut everyone around him out and became Beacon Hills' resident damaged beyond-belief bad boy, Laura had gotten better.

Or at least he thought she did.

Derek is distracted from his thoughts by the sudden smell of must and cat litter from the old-lady currently giving him a hug. She doesn't seem to notice how his back stiffens, and how he doesn't hug her back, just stands there waiting for her to let go. He doesn't think he's ever been hugged this much by anyone – expect for Laura, always Laura – since the fire, and to have it happen because his sister decided she didn't want to be living anymore makes him feel dizzy, like he's too big for his skin and all he wants to do is claw his chest open and get. The fuck. Out.

"It's such a tragedy," the woman says. The old librarian, Derek's brain supplies. "She was so young."

"Yes," Derek agrees.

"Such a good girl!"

"Yes," he says again.

"Oh, honey, since you haven't stopped by the library to pick up your sisters things, I thought it would be a good idea to bring them here to you," she pauses. Derek thinks she might be waiting for him to thank her, to tell her how generous she is. Too bad all his energy right now is focused on not screaming on her face. "Well, she didn't really have anything left there because a couple of weeks ago she decided to clean out her lock–," she pauses again, her eyes going wide as she realized what she was just about to say.

Laura had cleaned her locker at the library. Just as she had packed up almost everything in her desk at Beacon Hills High. Derek thought that was because she didn't like to live in chaos, that she was only getting rid of the mess. He never thought that she was cleaning up so he didn't have to, not that. Never that. And it was such a Laura thing to do, always taking care of him, even when she wasn't here anymore.

"Anyways," the woman continues, but now going through her purse so she doesn't have to look directly at Derek. "This is the only thing I could find of hers. I thought you should keep it."

She holds out a blue frozen rope necklace for him. When he doesn't make any motions to take it, she presses it into the palm of his hand. "Do you know what this is?"

And of course he knows what this is.

This is Laura's Mets necklace. She got it a couple of years ago in one of their trips to New York. The fact that she kept this there, where he would eventually have to go to and make sure she didn't leave anything behind was like a punch in the gut. Because baseball used to be a family thing. Their parents loved it – his dad lived in New York for part of his childhood and was obsessed with the game –, and he still remembers his Uncle Peter teaching him how to play in the backyard of the old house. How everyone always got together to watch the games, his dad screaming at the television while his mom stared at him with a fond look on her face, his little cousins running around screaming, him and Laura wearing matching Mets' caps too big for their heads. After the fire, watching baseball games was the only thing they did that was even remotely related to their family.

Now, even looking at the necklace makes him want to throw up. Which is why he all but flings it back to the old woman. "No. I don't want this. You can have it."

"But it's hers. You should keep it."

And Derek can't do this. He wants to get away, to run until his legs give out, until he can't breathe anymore.

"I don't want it," and now she's looking at him like he lost it, and he hates it. He hates this. "Okay. I don't. Want. It. I don't."

He hadn't realized he was screaming until he feels firm hand on his shoulder and turns around to find the Sheriff looking at him.

"Why don't we step outside for a minute, son?" and his voice is so filled with understanding and sympathy that Derek wants to kick things.

As soon as they're outside the house, Derek sits down on the porch steps and drops his head into his hands. He's never felt so exhausted in his life, not even after the house burned down, because he still had Laura back then. Laura with her arm draped over his shoulder. Laura holding his hand so tight her knuckles went white. Laura saying everything would be okay, they would be okay, because they still had each other.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, and then another, and then holds the next one until his chest burns so badly he thinks it might burst.

The Sheriff has already turned back around inside, knowing it was better to leave him alone for a little while, so by the time Derek decides to lift his head up he's a little surprised to see someone standing against the side of the house.

Derek gives him a good once over. The boy looks about his height, maybe an inch or so shorter, and lean. His hair is brown, buzzed closed to his skull, and unlike any other male Derek's seen today, he's not wearing a suit. Just baggy jeans and a plaid shirt over the The Who t-shirt he seems to be wearing.

Derek notices his rosy cheeks, the way the he's biting his lip, and stops at the boy's eyes, partly because they're whiskey colored, and partly because they're focused on him, staring intently back.

He looks vaguely familiar.

"So, you're Laura's brother," the boy says, taking a tentative step towards where Derek is sitting.

"Yes," he answers, only it comes out more as a grunt, and Derek has no idea why he's even talking right now.

"I'm Stiles," and he takes one more step. "Stilinski."

"The Sheriff's kid," and now things start making sense.

"Yep, that's me," the boy offers a small smile. "I used to work with Laura at the library. Or, you know, I worked there and had the pleasure of being around some of the times she showed up to help. Even though she spend most of her time making fun of me for that time she caught me lip-syncing to The Killers' Show You How and dancing around instead of organizing the books in the Children's section. But in my defense, it was a Friday and there were no kids around, so you can't really blame a guy for getting his groove on."

All Derek can do is blink in response, because he's never met anyone in his life who could talk so much in so little time without pausing to breathe, and if he's being honest with himself he's weirdly impressed.

"At least she wasn't there when Lydia decided I should know the lyrics to Spice Up Your Life," and Stiles' voice takes this high-pitched tone as he tries, Derek guesses, to make an impersonation of Lydia, "'You'll have to do something to keep them busy while they wait for Laura. And there's nothing better than to dance and sing to the Spice Girls', she said – and completely ignored me when I told her Simon & Garfunkel's At The Zoo could more than make up for it – in case Laura was ever late again for the reading so the kids wouldn't start running around the library and trying to climb bookshelves like they did last time."

"So you know all the lyrics to a Spice Girls song?" Derek hears himself asking, not really knowing why. He doesn't normally talk to people, avoids it as much as he can, but apparently Stiles is the exception. Maybe it's for the fact that Stiles manages to do what he's been failing at since he found Laura, and that is get him out of his own head for a while.

He gets this sick feeling of satisfaction as Stiles' eyes widen, a blush appearing on his cheeks.

"I'll let you know that Lydia is really scary when she wants to be, okay? And no one in their right mind would ever go against her and risk death by pointy heels when she's like that."

Derek arches one eyebrow at that, but looks at the ground when Stiles' blush moves to cover his whole face and down his neck. That's why he misses Stiles' stare going from embarrassed to determinate in a second, misses his change to mentally prepare himself for what he's going to say next.

"I know this doesn't help," and Stiles voice is soft, almost as if he's apologizing for something. "And I know this is probably the last thing you want to hear right now, that you don't think I could possibly understand what you're going through. But I kind of do. My mom–," and Derek can almost hear the way Stiles pushes his emotions down and shuts them up. "I'm– I'm sorry about Laura."

Those last words said in almost a whisper, and Derek can't. He just. He can't. So he gets up and makes his way back up the porch steps and into the house, without looking back.

In the kitchen, he tries to rearrange the refrigerator shelves to make more space, but the quiche won't fit. He thinks about throwing it in the trash, but settles to just leave it on the counter instead. He can feel people looking at him, as if they're expecting him to break down and cry at any moment.

Maybe it's because he didn't cry at the memorial service.

Derek makes his way upstairs without making eye contact with anyone. He figures if he shuts himself in his room, away from prying eyes, everyone will just gather their things and leave.

In the upstairs hallway, there are two framed photos on the wall: the first is of Laura from when she graduated college, and the second is of Derek glaring at the camera on his last day of classes on Beacon Hills Community College. A lot of people say they could be twins, even though Laura was two years older than Derek. Both have the same jet-black hair, and green eyes, although Derek's are lighter.

Derek stares at Laura's picture on the wall and thinks: This is it. I'll never see her face again. It hurts to look at, but he can't bring himself to stop. He wants to soak up everything that is Laura and braid it into his DNA, brand it on his skin, make it a part of him. Maybe then he'll be able to figure out how this happened. How she could do this. Because this is what everyone wants to know, what everyone wants him to answer, expect him to answer. Because she was his sister, and it's wrong that he's as clueless as everyone else.

He makes a bee-line for Laura's room. He hasn't been inside since the day before she died, when he came in to bring her a cup of coffee before she had to go to work. He pushes the door open and steps inside. The room looks exactly the same as it always has. Meticulously clean. Derek wonders if she cleaned it right before, on purpose. She probably did. Like she didn't want to leave behind any messes.

But she left behind plenty of messes. Just not physical ones.

"This doesn't feel real," he mutters under his breath.

Laura left no note. No nothing. Just herself, curled up in the backseat of her car in the garage, an empty bottle of pills in her hand, the motor still running.

Derek knows because he was the one who found her.

Everything has changed and everything is still the same. The only addition is Laura's room is a few plastic bags placed side by side on the desk, filled with all of the valuables savaged from her car. Derek is just about to turn his back and get out of the room when he notices the desk drawer isn't shut all the way.

There are some papers inside, hair ties, an empty pack of bubble gum. Under of all it he finds a postcard, bent at the edges. The front of it shows the Radio City Music Hall in black and white, and when Derek turns the postcard over, it's like all the air has been sucked out of the room.

Written there are the words, New York, I'm coming home, in Laura's handwriting. Nothing more.

Laura always loved New York. From the times they went there with their parents when they were little, to the trips they got to take with just the two of them as they got older and their parents stayed at home, to her going to NYU to study History. The latter being the reason why she wasn't at the house when it caught fire.

Derek always felt a little bit guilty when she decided to move back to Beacon Hills to take care of him, even thought he had been eighteen at the time and could damn well take care of himself. But Laura thought it was best for them to stay together, in Beacon Hills, where it would be easier for them to make a life for themselves.

New York had always been Laura's dream. She must have been suffocating in this town, and Derek hates her a little bit for not coming to him. Not talking to him. Not asking him to leave.

He stands there with one of his hands still on the drawer handle, when the thought comes to him.

"I should take her ashes to New York."

He doesn't mean to blurt it out loud, but once it's out there, it's out. No taking it back. And as the idea begins to take root in his mind… maybe it's not such a bad thing to do.

And it's not just because of the stupid postcard. It's because that's want she wanted for herself but didn't think she'd ever get. It's about how, apparently, there is so much Derek didn't know about his sister, and this is as much as he'll ever have of her. A postcard. A reminder of her unfulfilled dream.

He has a car now. Laura's black Camaro. And as much as he'll hate driving it all he has to do is pack up some things, close the house, grab her ashes, and go. He could do this.

He is going to do this.