A request from Alyssa and awesome for a Fem!Scott fic because there is a lack of them. There wasn't really a prompt, so I kind of went with minor Scott/Derek. It's canon but not? I don't know. I just hope you enjoy it!

(Not my best written work, I apologise if it's not what you wanted)

Scott figures she has absolutely no one to blame but herself for this current situation. Stood at the bottom of a flight of stairs, Boyd and Derek's sister locked behind a thick steel door, Derek breathing harshly in the corner looking shocked and hurt and lost.

She could have let Isaac come with him, let Chris or Allison do this while she stayed outside to help lure them into the building. Instead, she practically offered herself up on a platter, running interference with him up until this moment, letting all those feeling she only ever seems to get when Derek is in close proximity loose.

When they're apart, it's far easier to see his many flaws and be very much not in love with his stupid sour face, but up close like this? Both of them having chased and worked and won. It's a baffling mixture of feelings she knows she isn't supposed to be feeling. Especially when her ex-girlfriend is somewhere outside of this very building.

She's trying so hard not to turn around and stare at him, ear pressed against the cold metal of the door instead so that she can listen to the too-fast heartbeats of the wolves inside. Measuring their cadence, the heavy exhales of their breathing, often followed by frustrated growls. She so distracted by trying to distract herself, that the first indication of there being a third person in the boiler room is the sharp click of heels on concrete.

"Derek." Scott's voice is low and soft, she does not want to attract the attention of the feral wolves inside to the possibility of their being a third, human person within the radius of their claws or canines.

"What is it?" His voice matches the look on his face the last time Scott had checked, like he was finally at the end of what had been a rather long rope, quiet and almost broken, scared maybe. Her heart aches for him.

"There's someone else in there, a woman." Derek is on his feet and nudging her to the side before the words are out of her mouth. The touch of his arm across her bare skin where the sleeve of her jacket is torn feel electric, cold and hot, pain and pleasure all at once. Scott has this urge to press against him again, just to feel it, just to see if maybe he feels it to. She restrains through, watches as Derek clenches his eyes shut, forehead pressed against the cold of the metal and hand hovering over the lock they had slid into place.

"Please, tell me you're not going in there again?" Scott can feel the whine in her voice, wants to reach out and grab his ridiculously muscled forearm and drag him back, away from what is likely pain and battle and anguish. She can see two ways this ending up, Derek dead, or Boyd and Cora dead. Neither is an option Scott wants, and the sun will be up soon if they just wait. Surely, surely the wolves will be too disorientated by the temperature differences, the steam, the everything of the situation to figure out where this one woman is when Scott didn't even hear her when he was searching for heartbeats inside of the room.

His gaze when he looks back at her is resigned, like he's had the same thoughts and come to the same conclusion she has. Derek will sacrifice himself to save whoever the innocent woman inside is.

They can't have any more human blood on their hands tonight.

"You lock this door behind me, okay?"

"Derek-" The want, the need, to reach out and just touch him is almost tangible. Like a heady taste on her tongue.

"Scott." Derek barks out, exasperated. "Okay?"

Scott can't trust her voice, suspects it will break with the fear clawing in her throat, but she nods because Derek is still looking at her out of the corner of his eye. She watches him intently as he breathes in deeply, lets it out slowly, and straightens up. There is a kind of finality to the act, the kind you expect to see on a man going to war, someone who can honestly be doubtful of their return.

It's obnoxiously loud in her ears as the metal lock slides open again and Derek pulls at the door just enough to create a gap for him to slip through, and although it's the last thing she wants to do, Scott pushes it shut behind him and slams back the long metal pole that acts as a deadbolt. Her ear is pressed against the metal the moment the door is secure; listening to the feral growls of the two shifted wolves, the erratic heart rate and breathing of the unknown woman, the soft scuff of Derek's shoes as he takes slow measured steps towards the danger. Scott just about catches the whispered 'stay back' as Derek must cross paths with the human in the room, and there's a faint whimper from whoever it is followed by the scuffling of someone pushing themselves on hands and knees further away from the door she's pressed against.

It's so tense after that, the rapid uptick of Derek's heart the single most important sound echoing out to Scott right now.

From this side of the door, she can hear someone get thrown into metal, the sound of the woman stifling a scream, Derek growling out a warning to them. It goes on and on until all there is, is the sound of tearing clothes, skin, muscle. The smell of blood reaches them even out here and Scott knows, without a doubt, that it's Derek's that is flowing in abundance inside that locked room.

"Scott!" Isaac's shout from somewhere a floor up startles her but she doesn't reply, trying to focus everything she has on the inside of that room. Listening intently to the hard beat of Derek's heart, a sound individually loud to her echoing out through all that space between them.

"Scott, the sun's coming up!" Isaac lumbering down the stairs a moment later is accompanied by a silence inside of the room that pushes the fear weight down Scott's chest to explode. Both of their hands scramble for the metal locking them out, locking Derek in, pulling and tugging at it until Scott can throw it down into the corner Derek had been sat in not ten minutes ago. They rush, because all they can smell is Derek's blood, can hear the too-fast and thread beats of three hearts inside of here and the unknown beat of the human yet to be identified.

Scott is both desperate to get around the corner that leads to Derek, and does not want to go around there in fear of what she might see, all at the same time. It has a sickness twisting in her stomach, a tension closing down over her throat like a hand. It's almost like she's blind, a step behind Isaac as they go, and she startles at the relieved sigh he lets out when Derek is finally in his sight.

"Get them to Deaton, keep them locked down for the night." Derek's voice is hoarse and painful, his head dropped down to his chest. Scott can see the blood still seeping from deep wounds over his chest, side and back, lacerations across his face and claw marks on his thighs. She wants to run to him, to help him up and tell him that it's okay, everyone survived, he didn't lose anything or anyone tonight. But she can't. In fact, she's fairly sure that Derek would gather the last ounce of his fight just to push her away. So instead, she follows Isaac's lead and moves to help him grab Cora. They can come back for Boyd, it's easier this way than each of them trying to take one unconscious werewolf up the stairs by their selves.

Derek has managed to stand, which is reassuring, but what is not is the view that Scott has of the way he approaches the woman. Ms. Blake, the English teacher, stares up at him with wide eyes brimming with tears and terror. Scott has never seen Derek be so tender, so gentle, it forces her to freeze to the spot, holding Isaac there to watch the scene as well.

It causes an unbidden pain so real in her chest to grow and magnify until she wants to gasp, cry, clutch at it. The way he's looking at this new woman, all gentle eyed and reassuring, hand outstretched and waiting, patient and gentle and kind.

Scott would give anything, anything, to have Derek look at her like that. Treat her with that amount of finesse.

Isaac sighs, drawing her out of her reverie and throwing her a sympathetic look. She must be throwing out the bitter-thick smell of jealously and unrequited-ness right now so much, it's a wonder that Derek can't smell it from across the room.

It's actually probably better that they leave now, before he does.

It takes longer than expected to get Cora up to Argent's car, sitting her on one side of the car and letting Chris tie a wolfsbane soaked rope around her middle just in case. By the time they get back downstairs, Derek and Ms. Blake are gone, and Scott has never been so thankful.

Derek could have died tonight.

Derek went into that room knowing that if he wanted his wolves, his sister, to survive, he might have to sacrifice himself.

Derek probably would have been dead, if their plan had been executed even ten minutes earlier.

It's all she can think about as herself, Chris and Isaac accompany the two unconscious wolves to the vet's clinic. All she can think about as she watches them get tied down with wolfsbane ropes and circled in mountain ash to ensure everyone's safety. It's all she can think about when she leaves Chris and Isaac with Deaton and runs in the direction of Derek's loft on instinct.

Derek has the door open before she's even raised a hand to knock, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, concern, annoyance. He stands in her way of entering the loft as she stares at him, slowly lets her eyes wander over him in search of injuries that haven't healed or blood that shouldn't be staining the clothes he's changed into.

"Scott?" Derek's voice breaks her out of her inspection, snapping her attention back to his ridiculously unfair face. It's hardly even a conscious decision when she pushes past him and into the loft, leaving him glaring at her from the doorway of his own home.

"You're an asshole." Scott hisses at him, dragging her hands through her hair. Derek slides that stupid industrial door shut with a slam, and it brings back unpleasant memories of having to lock that steel door behind him even though they both knew he could die.

"Stiles informed me of that fact about fifteen minutes ago." Derek deadpans, stupid muscular arms crossed over his even more stupid muscular chest. Scott has to take a moment to be thankful that neither seem actually damaged by what went down in the boiler room tonight.

"Not but really-" Scott takes step closer to him, and then another, and another, until they're maybe a foot apart. She stares up at him, can see the slightly red tinge of the outside of his eyes and shudders at the thrill they send down her spine.

"You're really such an asshole. You went into that stupid room and made me lock that door behind you knowing they could kill you. You can have died!" She can feel the fluttering edges of hysterical panic in the peripheral of her very being, tries to block the image that comes unbidden into her mind of Derek lying cold on the floor, of not being able to hear his heartbeat through the cold steel between them.

"I know. It's why i went in alone." Derek drops his arms to his side with a sigh, rolls his neck obnoxiously in a way that reminds Scott of the way Derek transforms into his beta form.

"Why do you even do this shit, Derek?" Scott closes the gap between them, throwing a hand out and hitting against Derek's shoulder. He stumbles back a step, shock and annoyance warring in the set of his eyebrows, the glow in his eyes.

"What-"

"This stupid self sacrificing bullshit. It's reckless and idiotic and how do you think we'd do without you, huh? What would Isaac do? Who would keep Peter in line? Where would i be? You're such a bastard, Hale." Scott's breathing is heavy and harsh in the silence that falls over them. She can't meet his eyes, see what is probably anger, rejection of what she is trying to say. It hurts too much sometimes, to feel like this about the one person you've claimed to have no trust in for almost two years now.

"Scott-" Derek breathes out. He sounds exasperated and exhausted, and she can't blame him. She's pretty exasperated and exhausted with herself right now. Scott can feel herself deflating, shoulders slumping, chin dropping down so that she won't even meet Derek's gaze by accident.

"Nevermind. I just came to make sure you were okay. I'm leaving now." Derek doesn't move as Scott edges her way around him, trying to be so careful to not touch. The jolt of electricity when they brushed earlier is still clear in her mind, the feeling of everything and nothing all at once. She doesn't think she can take that again. It's such a pain and such a relief when she finally gets out past that irrationally large industrial door and doesn't have to share the same air as Derek Hale and his stupid morals and ridiculous face.

Scott is not an idiot, okay? She's not, it's just sometimes she forgets that people are not oblivious to her actions and that yes, sometimes the things she does are actually being seen by other people.

In this case, however, it's the things she doesn't do that are catching people's attention.

It's almost two weeks since the full moon, since that awkward conversation with Derek in his stupid pretentious ugly loft. Which means it has also been approximately two weeks since Scott has been alone with Derek, made eye contact with Derek, been anywhere closer than five feet away from Derek or spoken about anything but virgin sacrifices with Derek.

Whenever she sees his car around now, it's likely that two seconds later he'll also see Ms. Blake somewhere in the nearby vicinity. The stench of her perfume clings to Derek these days like a blanket, chipping away at the pack-forest-musk smell that she'd come to associate with him. It made something in her stomach clench tight, had her avoiding him if they happened to be in the same diner or supermarket or goddamn Starbucks.

Strangely enough, it's not actually Scott that this gets mentioned too first. Isaac and Stiles corner Derek in the loft on a Wednesday evening after school when Scott is at the vets.

"Have you noticed anything weird around here, recently?" Derek raises his eyebrows, leaning against the windows at the back wall.

"Apart from an alpha pack, my sister not being dead, virgin sacrifices and Peter? I can't say i have." Stiles rolls his eyes at him as Isaac tries to suppress a laugh. It's hard to be stoic and serious when Derek is throwing out sarcasm like a fountain.

"No, dude!" Stiles reaches out a pushes Derek's shoulder. The alpha doesn't move, but he does glare at the him until the human stumbles back a step with a frown on his face.

"Scott! Scotty is being weird and ignoring you and stuff. For like, a fortnight now." Isaac nods along seriously, hands twisted in the material of his jacket to stop from fidgeting.

"Scott ignores me all of the time. This is not a new development in our lives." Derek pushes away from the window, crossing to the desk to rifle through the pages and print outs of notes on whatever the hell is doing the sacrifices if not the alpha pack.

"Dude-" Derek sighs.

"Do not call me that, Stiles."

"Fine, Derek! Seriously, something is up with her. You need to go talk or something, cause it's seriously getting awkward whenever you two are in the same room, or y'know, street together."

"She smells funny, too." Isaac points out lamely as Derek drops his chin to his chest and drags a hand down his face in exasperation.

"If i talk to her, will you please go away and stop being a pain in my ass all of the time?" Stiles nods wildly, glaring at Isaac until he nods in agreement also.

"Yep, absolutely, one-hundred percent we will leave you alone until you call upon us again."

Which is how he ends up sitting in Starbucks at freaking half past six in the morning waiting for what Stiles had called 'Scott's morning respawn'. He watches her come in, jogging pants and vest top sticking to her with sweat. She smells like exertion, exercise, sweat and that baser smell that all wolves recognise as pack. Even if she doesn't accept him as such.

Scott seems to sense him around just after she's placed her order, some frou-frou iced mango something or another, and he can see the way her shoulders set and tense, the uptick in her heartbeat, the slight turn of her head like she wants to look for him but won't. Derek sighs, something he's been doing an increasingly alarming amount since he decided to become involved in the lives of teenagers, collecting his own coffee from the table and carrying it over to where Scott was waiting. He can hear her heart rate picking up the closer he gets, can smell that strange smell that Isaac had mentioned. Bitter and acidic on his tongue, lemons on the back of his throat, tingling in his nose like ground pepper.

"Stiles and Isaac have informed me that i have to fix whatever i've done to piss you off this time." He leans against the counter that she's stood in front of, turned to the side to see her. Her face is impassive like she doesn't care, glancing at him in her peripheral vision, but he can see the way her fingers are clenching around the wood of the counter-top, can smell that strange smell, can hear the rushing of blood through her veins from the too-fast heart beat.

"What makes anyone think i'm pissed at you?"

"Well, the fact that you can't even look at me is a pretty good indication." Scott's shoulders slump slowly, he can see her clench her eyes shut and flex her fingers against the counter-top before she steels herself, turning on her hell to look at him with the most unrealistic smile on her face.

"It's fine, you haven't done anything wrong. Tell Isaac and Stiles to keep their noses out of where they don't belong." The barista arrives at the counter a moment later, handing over an unbelievably sized clear cup filled with what looks like ice and gloopy orange stuff. Scott takes a deep pull of the straw, turns back to Derek and the gestures to the door.

"I gotta go. School starts in like an hour and i need to get home and get ready." Derek nods, draining the last of his coffee and dropping the cup in the bin behind him.

"Good, you can give me a ride then since i saw your car outside. Cora has the Toyota." Scott's heart rate sky rockets, the bitter acid taste floods and saturates the air around them, but she nods anyway, leading the way out to her moms borrowed car.

"Why do you have the car, if you're out running?" Derek tries breaking the silence, driving perfectly at the speed limit in the direction of his loft. Scott's eyes stay focused directly in front of her, body tense as she keeps her hands at ten and two on the wheel.

"It's easier to drive up and use the trail there than freak everyone out by running at insane speeds through the streets at this time of the morning." Silence falls over them again, tension thick in the air. The bitter taste of the scent that Scott is giving up is burning down Derek's throat, making him uncomfortable for a reason he doesn't understand.

He sighs as they reach his loft and Scott twists in her seat to look at him expectantly. He can tell she doesn't want to be around him, and that really isn't unusual for them, but this is more than normal. Most of the time, she doesn't have a problem being within the same area as him, but right now it feels like she's trying to be as far away when inside a close space as possible.

"What's going on Scott?" Derek asks weary. It's coming up to seven in the morning and he really doesn't need this shit right now.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing is going on!" She grins too brightly at him, heart beat skipping on the uptick to indicate a lie.

"That was a lie. What's going on? Isaac and Stiles informed me you've been avoiding me, and i have to agree with Isaac. You reek of bitter lemons." Scott goes back to staring out of the windscreen, hands clenched back on the wheel as she breathes deeply.

"Yeah, well, you smell like whiteboard erasers and strawberry shampoo and perfume with lilies in it."

"I- what? That's Jennifer's scent." Scott whips her head around to glare at him and he can feel the ball of tension in his stomach grow.

"That's what this is about? Me spending time with Jennifer? Scott- what the hell is going on here?"

"It's just- She isn't pack! Everywhere i turn these days she's with you. It so- it's- god Derek! You're a wolf, sniff out what im trying to tell you or something!" Scott drops his gaze but doesn't turn away this time, just refuses to look up at him as he takes in a deep inhale to try and figure out what the hell she's talking about.

There's the bitter lemons, the tickle of something like pepper in his nose, the base scent of pack and wolf, and underneath all of that there is the hot ripe scent like chocolate and red wine and copper. Arousal and embarrassment.

Oh.

"Scott-"

"I know, okay." She cuts him off, the scent of her coppery embarrassment grows stronger than the rich taste of her arousal on the back of his tongue. It's easier to figure out that the lemons and pepper is jealousy and annoyance now.

"I know you don't want me like that. Hell, you don't even like me. I get that i have no right to be acting the way i do and it's so stupid, but after nearly dying and you helping us to survive and everyone saving people's lives.. It kind of just snuck up on me okay? I'm sorry."

"So, all of this? The avoiding me, the funny looks, everything. It's because you think i'm what? Dating your English teacher?" Derek snorts, trying not to wince at the glare Scott momentarily shoots his way.

"Well you are, aren't you?" Scott challenges. It's nice to see some fire back in her, as she stops avoiding his eyes and begins searching his face like the lines around his eyes will give her the answers she needs.

"No! Scott, honestly, do you think i would ever trust another human woman like that again? After Kate? I'm not an idiot. Jennifer is just confused. I'm trying to help her out with understanding so that she doesn't go blabbing to the nearest human with a wolfsbane bullet."

"But.. you smell like she's been all over you, all of the time!" Scott protests, he can see her taking in a deep breath as if to prove her point. The wrinkle in her nose makes him snort.

"She's a hugger. Every time we meet up and every time we go our separate ways she gives me a hug." The peal of laughter from Scott is slightly mocking, but welcome non-the-less.

"Why would she hug you? You look like the least huggable person ever."

"Says the girl who likes me." Derek deadpans. He thinks he's made a mistake by making a joke out of it, but Scott just flushes with embarrassment and laughs it off. Silence settles over them again after that, but it's not nearly as tense or as awkward as it was on the ride over here. Scott needs to get going for school soon though, and Derek really needs to start figuring stuff out as far as Cora, and the alpha pack, are concerned.

"Listen, Scott." He turns to her in his seat, catches her undivided attention. "Right now, with the sacrifices and the alphas. With Cora. We can't look into this yet, alright?" He can see Scott's minute hope dulling in her eyes. It causes unexpected jolts of tension across his chest.

"But hey, maybe once it's over and we finally get some peace around here, we can figure out where we are at then, okay?"

"Really?" Scott looks up at him from underneath long eyelashes, and Derek is trying to think back, figure out why he never saw how beautiful she was before. Even a day ago, before Isaac and Stiles had forced him to talk to her, there wasn't this attraction there.

Or maybe there was, he just didn't want to look closely at it until now.

Derek reaches a hand out slowly, cups a side of her face gently and revels in the trust she offers him when she leans into his touch. It's new between them, this tentative belief in one-another.

"I like you. I do Scott. But we both know that right now, with everything going on, isn't going to be conductive to us figuring out what we want between us. When things are quiet we'll reassess."

They sit there in relative silence again, before Scott startles him by pushing forwards. He thinks she means to press the soft kiss against his cheek, but as he twists she brushes warm lips against his mouth. It's a shock, to say the least, when he finds the hand already on her face moving to grasp the back of her head and pull her in for a deeper kiss. It's still chaste, in the relative scale of kissing, but it's intense. He doesn't let go until a needy whimper escapes Scott, pulling back and nipping at her bottom lip as he does.

"Not now." Derek shakes his head, pulls away from her completely. His voice sounds deeper than usual even to himself. "Later, Scott. Okay?" He watches from his peripheral as she nods frantically, tips of her fingers pressed to her mouth as if it will savour the feeling. He starts to get out of the car after that. It's probably too much of a risk, for a newly developed feeling to be assaulted with a kiss like that and still stick around. Derek doesn't have the best self-control in any aspect of his life, being inside an enclosed space with an attractive girl whom has feelings for him, that he may return, and whom he has just kissed is probably not the best idea.

"I'm gonna go now." He tells her, half way out of the door already, just to make sure she's actually able to be pulled away from wherever she has drifted off to in her head. She drops her hand from her mouth, cheeks flushing lightly.

"Yeah- urm- yeah. Okay. I'll just- school. Yes. Okay. Goodbye Derek." Derek can't help the chuckle that escapes him as Scott resolutely turns back to the wheel and starts the car, he can still see the faint pink staining her cheeks and the distant look in her eyes. She gives him an awkward wave as she backs away from his apartment building, taking all of her confusing scents away from him.

Scott goes back to normal, after that. She comes to pack meetings, and the newly allocated pack bonding nights courtesy of Stiles and Lydia who have take it upon themselves to 'fix the bonds'. It's actually a good idea, not that Derek would ever tell them that, but having Cora against him while they watch movies is something he never thought he'd get to have again, and the not so sly glances and the faint blush that is always apparent on Scott's face make the experience that much more pleasurable.

It works in the end, being closer as a pack. There's an underlying current of constantly knowing the wellbeing of the others. A faint knowledge of where everyone is and how they're fairing, and Derek absolutely believes that is the only reason they manage to beat the Alpha pack in the end with only minor injuries. Driving them out a full five months after they arrived, killing Deucalion and Kali in the end is what does it. The others were just too terrified to leave the controlling, murderous pair that held their past actions over their heads like a guillotine.

The Darach is a little more difficult, reversing the ritual they put together by cleansing the areas of the sacrifices and then having them blessed by a true druid was not easy. Hell, finding a true Druid was more difficult than any of them could have imagined. But they got there in the end, two months after the Alpha's leave. Stiles gets hurt in the final fight between them and the current evil inhabiting their town, and Scott spends a week with him at the hospital while he recovers.

She turns up on the eight day though, all nervous smiles and twitching fingers and she's still as appealing and beautiful as that day in the car when he realised what he'd been missing.

"Do you-"

"Yes." Her smile is ridiculously blinding as he pulls her further into the room, flush against his chest, mouth dropping down to latch against hers.

He lets her needy whimper turn into a moan this time, because God, she makes beautiful noises. And it's been far too long since he's touched her.

"I've missed you." Scott gasps into his mouth as he starts moving them across the room, dropping her ungracefully on the sofa once they reach it, following her down a second later to cover her with himself.

"Yeah?" He whispers into her ear, pressing a hot kiss into the soft sip of skin just behind it before dragging his open mouth along her jaw and in a hot line down her neck until he reaches her collarbone. The rich smell of her arousal is present again, like a memory he hadn't realised he'd missed, this time not tinged with bitter lemons, annoying pepper or the copper taste of embarrassment. It's heady and intoxicating. He drags his mouth back up along the line of her throat when he's managed to blossom a dark mark against her collarbone that will heal slower than usual because he's her alpha now. Presses kiss into the soft, submissive line of her throat, followed by nips that make her squirm and whimper until he's back at her mouth.

"I've missed you too."