Author's Note: I like the idea that Lydia can boss Derek around. If you don't like it shush.

Disclaimer: Don't own diddly jack, dearest.

Derek was curled up on the couch he had picked up from the side of the road in his new apartment. It was around nine in the morning, if the microwave was correct, and he a book to read. The reviews on the cover said it was a good book and it had been a while since he had been able to just sit and read a book. It was something he was going to try and do more often, if he could help it. He had taken the time off to take Cora back to her pack (which hurt, it hurt like hell that Cora had a pack that wasn't with him, but they texted and emailed) and he had returned with this firmly in mind; there was more to life than getting thrown into walls and yelling at teenagers.

So he did more with his life. He read books. He rented an actual apartment and talked to Scott, even when they weren't in an immediate life or death situation. He cooked, occasionally, though Laura had always been the cook between them, so most of his meals came out burnt or undercooked. He made a batch of cookies last week, though they were sort of like burnt rocks instead of treats, but Derek took what he could get.

What he didn't expect to get, however, was Lydia Martin barging her way into his apartment twenty pages into his new book (which was actually quite good). He started at her entrance, blinking at her dumbly.

"Oh stop that," she said.

"Stop what," he parroted back. He felt kind of small as she marched closer, like he had around his older sister. Laura had favored outrageously colored high heels and skinny jeans and she had never stopped terrifying him, even when he had become taller than her. Lydia was a lot like Laura, from what he could tell; commanding and brilliant and gorgeous. Her presence was something he reacted to from memory, mostly. When Lydia rolled her eyes, marching to stand right up at his knee he felt Laura's absence like an fading bruise, but he didn't poke it, like he once would.

"Stop looking at me like that," she snapped, "and get up. We're going out."

"You should be at school," Derek tried. It hadn't worked on Boyd and Isaac when he had been alpha, so he didn't have high hopes for that to work now. He tried anyway, feeling it his civic duty as the only adult regularly dragged into their teenage mess. Lydia simple smiled before eyeing him critically up and down.

"Get dressed, Hale," she said, not unkindly. "We're going out."

Derek thought about arguing, he really did. But in the end he just stood up and folded the edge of his current page before he dropped his book on the couch. "Are we in danger right now," he wondered aloud as he made his way to his room. He was wearing a pair of sweat pants and a tank top, but he had had four sisters before the fire and lived with one of them after it; he knew the drill for 'going out' with them. Sweatpants and a tank top wouldn't be enough.

"No," Lydia said. Her heartbeat was perfectly even. He nodded to himself and changed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt before washing his face. He scooped up a clean pair of socks and went back to the couch, where he found Lydia perched regally, looking bored. Derek dropped down on the couch next to her and pulled on his socks, ignoring the way she huffed pointedly at his actions. Once his boots were on he stood and plucked his wallet from the coffee table.

"We're taking your car," Lydia said before turning and flouncing out of his apartment. He sighed, feeling much too comfortable in this routine already. But where Scott's hardheaded abrasion was annoying Lydia's hotheaded commands were familiar, especially after a four week car trip with Cora. Derek was starting to believe that all the women in his life were either there to try and kill him or command him around like a lapdog (or some combination of the two, really, that was a little more likely; even Lydia had hurt him, though she had been controlled by his uncle, but that was semantics). He followed her dutifully though, locking up his apartment and going down the steps, keys jingling in his hand.

"Are you missing math class for this," he wondered when he unlocked the Honda with the key fob. Stiles had mentioned that Lydia was a mathematical genius (and then swore Derek to secrecy; apparently while she flaunted her beauty, she didn't flaunt her brain as much) and that Lydia never voluntarily missed math class, mental breaks aside. The haughty look the red head shot him was almost enough of an answer. He rolled his eyes back at her and turned the car on, before abruptly realizing that he had no idea where she wanted him to take her.

"Are you going to tell me where we're going or are you just going to sit there, attendance grade dropping by the minute?"

She pursed her lips before sighing loudly, like his question tired her. "Drive south, to San Francisco," she commanded. She clicked open her phone, fiddling with it for a moment before she reached for the radio. He slapped her hand away after shifting into reverse.

"Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts her cakehole," he said when she shot him the look she usually reserved for Peter. Her expression twisted as she placed the reference before she groaned quietly.

"You and Stiles deserve each other," she muttered quietly under her breath. She settled firmly back into the seat like she had something to prove, like it was important that he understand that she was comfortable in his presence. He knew a thing or two about fronting am image, so he let her have it. He pointedly ignored her comment about him and Stiles, because he wasn't ready to touch that mess with a ten foot pole. He did however turn the radio onto a station that played a wide selection of things, ranging between the 80's and music that was popular today. He figured that was compromise enough.

They were two hundred miles down the road before they needed to stop for gas. Lydia got out of the car and hopped up to sit on the hood, her skirt flashing around her thighs. She watched him pump gas with a calculating expression, like he was some kind of math problem she could wrestle into obeying her will. He figured he probably was, considering they were currently two hundred miles from home and he still didn't know why they were doing this. That probably should have bothered him more than it did, especially since what he was doing could probably count as kidnapping.

Which, actually, was a problem he should probably address. "You aren't setting me up for some kind of kidnapping scandal, are you?"

Lydia laughed, loud and unrestrained, like people should laugh, in Derek's opinion. She threw her head back and cackled, like witches did on the television, and when she glanced at him again it was through her lashes, coy and pleased, and Derek could see why Stiles had been so hooked on her for so long. Lydia Martin was a force of nature, just like Kate had been, just like his mother and Laura and so many people who had died. She was like a summer's thunderstorm and Derek found himself relaxing, not just mimicking an old routine but settling into a new one.

Lydia was still laughing when her phone rang from inside the car. She hopped off as the gas meter clicked shut and Derek let his heightened senses focus in on her voice, as he returned the nozzle back to its place.

"Okay, we gotta make this quick, because the sub for chemistry is even more of an ass than Harris and I didn't think that was possible and if I'm gone for more time than it takes a typical man to piss he's gonna give me detention and I'm so tired of detention, you cannot even imagine, Lyds, okay, jeez."

"Hello to you too, Stiles. Thank you for that lovely stream of information. Can we please just have the address, before you get a detention?"

Stiles groaned loudly from the other end of the phone and Derek bite back a smile as he got in the car. Lydia shot him a knowing look before rolling her eyes and gesturing for him to drive on. He did so, turning the radio down so that Lydia could hear.

"I've got the address, do you have a pen? Sorry I couldn't just, like, text it to you, but my screen's still smashed and I can't read anything off of it. Ready?"

"Ready," Derek said before Lydia could acknowledge him. He didn't think Stiles could hear him, but the phone was apparently on speaker because Stiles laughed a little bit, grin evident in his phone.

"Hey there, sourwolf. Alright, you guys, the shop is downtown and-"

Despite saying he was ready he didn't pay attention to what Stiles was saying. Only about eight percent of what came out of Stiles' mouth was actually useful (mostly because the little shit did that purposefully), so he just waited for the rehash from Lydia. After four minutes or so of the teenager's endless babbling he hung up, supposedly rushing back to chemistry class. Derek tipped his head toward Lydia and waited.

"You will turn when I tell you and not a second before," she said airily. Derek smiled despite himself.

He wasn't smiling, however, when they walked into the tea shop that belonged to the voodoo priestess who resided in downtown San Francisco. Lydia took a picture of his face when the woman's cat claimed his lap at its own. When they got home he found that the picture was Stiles' phone's background.

"The information about resurrection of the dead better be worth it," he told Lydia hours later upon pulling up to the apartment complex he now lived in and finding Stiles on the steps, grinning. She merely cocked an eyebrow at him and huffed, flipping her hair over her shoulders as she hopped out of the car.

Derek did everything in his power not to find these cheeky, bratty, grinning teenagers endearing, but that was a lost hope. He sighed and got out of the car.