Archive of Our Own ^beta

Malia wanted to be alone to lick her wounds, so naturally that meant she wouldn’t be.

Peter sat down next to her on the log. She’d come all the way out here and still got tracked down, hint totally ignored. Sometimes being around all these stupid werewolves was a real pain. She didn’t know how she felt about it being him that had found her. He was part of the reason she was out here nursing her wounds. The adoption file and their first little heart to heart hadn’t exactly given her a lot to positives to walk away with, just more reasons for fear and anxiety. She wasn’t who she thought she was. Again. First had been becoming a coyote, then she wasn’t even really a Tate, might never really be a Tate since she could never tell her father — adoptive father — the truth. And her real parents? A man who’d tried to kill her boyfriend and all his friends and very possibly a killer for hire. Every time she put her paw down it felt like she was slipping in mud, any second now she’d lose her footing and tumble into the river and be swept away.

“You know, my sister Talia took all my memories related to you and your mother away. I’ve known for years she took memories from me, just not what they were about. And I’ve been wondering about why she did that ever since I learned she was hiding you from me.”

Malia huffed in annoyance, coyote voice backing her human one. Oh no, he was going to do the long talky thing — monologue. He was monologuing. That was a monologuing tone. She only liked when Stiles did that. He gave her a sideways look and kept talking.

“I wondered why Talia would do that to me. I would never harm my own child, especially not back then. I could never truly hurt my own family. Torment a little? Sure. Antagonize? Why not? But I would never set out to hurt any of my kin intentionally. I wondered if she really thought that low of me.”

Malia turned to look at him, ensnared by his words against her will. She didn’t want to care, really she didn’t. But she was very scared. Scared of how she might lose the only father she’d ever known, scared of being alone again, scared of whatever was still lurking inside her waiting to be found. Scared of being unwanted. When kids got adopted it was because something bad happened or because their parents didn’t want them, she was pretty sure that was how it worked. It wasn’t that she wanted Peter to want her, it was that she wanted someone to. If her other dad found out— she remembered how he looked when he’d trained the rifle on her when he thought she was the coyote that ate his family. It had been replaying in her head ever since she came home, even more since she found out she was adopted. If her human dad rejected her for what she was, what would her werewolf father do now that they were “reunited”? She didn’t want to know, her life hung on knowing.

“Didn’t you kill Derek’s sister?”

Peter sighed. “Yes, I did. For her Alpha spark. I was a little insane at the time. Six years conscious but paralyzed doesn’t make a person more stable. If I could redo it all I’d just I’d just rip in out of her and leave her alive but I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly at the time. Anyway, it’s not really relevant to the conversation at hand, we’re talking about our family, not Talia’s.”

She wanted to point out that Talia was his sister and Laura was his niece which did still make all of that their family, but if she kept interrupting him then they’d be here for the next century.

“The more I learn about the situation, the more I realize that it wasn’t about me. She didn’t think badly of me at all. Hell, I don’t know if she even thought of me in all of this for a second.” He laughed but it wasn’t a funny laugh. It was very bitter. “It’s your mother who’s the mystery, your mother who might be a career killer. I think it was all about her and you, breaking that connection for whatever reason and I was just collateral in her scheme. I hated Talia after the fire for not listening to me, for letting it happen. But as I came back to my senses I forgave her for all of it, she was doing her best to be a good person, a good alpha, and she’d died. She was my sister, I couldn’t hold it against her when she wasn’t there to defend herself. But this…”

His tone had been conversational, philosophic even, but as it came to the end of that thought it hardened. His expression turned dark and stormy, real anger flashing through.

“I don’t think I can forgive her for this. I tried to talk to her about those missing memories for years and she always refused to explain just said it was for the best. But now that I know what she was hiding from me… I don’t care why she did it, I don’t care if I’d agreed at the time and consented to it. She never should have taken those memories away from me. I do not appreciate having my mind tampered with by my own sister who should have known better, and I do not like that I had choices taken away from me. You were mine, as much as you were your mother’s and more than you are those humans’ child. If it was to protect you, then robbing me of information as to why you needed to be protected was idiotic. If she thought that people could get information about you out of me then she was a fool.”

His irritation was palpable and frankly matched her own. She had even less of an idea why her aunt had done any of it than he did and was just as angry about it. It was Malia’s life, why did this dead Talia woman get to have so much power over it even now after all these years? Why on earth did she think that handing a werebaby off to a human family would go well? Even if she hadn’t turned in the car she would have turned eventually. What if she’d been at home? She could have killed all of them. She could’ve gone wild one night as a new werecoyote and rampaged through Beacon Hills totally out of control. The Tates could have seen her transform and disown her or try to kill her. There were a million ways this could have gone horribly wrong, she was inherently dangerous and putting her in a family of easily killed humans was simply cruel and thoughtless. Her mother and Kylie would be alive right now if Talia had just let Peter raise her. She wouldn’t have known them but they would be alive. Just that thought alone was enough to have Malia wanting to summon her ghost and kick its ass.

“My only conclusion is that she knew I would never give you up — never give any child of mine up willingly, under any circumstance — and knew the only way she could pull off her little adoption scheme was to erase you from my mind. If I had remembered you existed I would have hunted you down to the ends of the earth and killed everyone who stood between you and me.”

“Why?” Malia asked, incredulous, before she even registered she’d spoken.

He finally looked at her then like she was insane.

“Because you’re mine.” He said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Wolves aren’t all just hierarchies you know, packs are families, our pack was especially always based around the Hale family. We were almost entirely all relatives or people who’d married in. We don’t give away our young, not if we’re alive and not totally insane.”

She raised a brow.

Peter sniffed. “And I am notoriously possessive, despise being manipulated, and hate having what’s mine taken from me.”

Malia hummed, amused. That was more in line with what she knew of him. Still it did bizarrely make her happy. She was glad he was angry about this too, glad to know that she had been wanted by at least one of her biological parents, if only just on principle. It was better than thinking she was completely unwanted by everyone.

“And you’re telling me all this why exactly?” She asked.

Peter sighed and rolled his eyes like he did when Scott said something super annoying.

“Because I want to make it clear you’re not the only victim in this. Something was stolen from me as well. We were both wronged. And—” he stood up and faced her, his hands on his hips. The sun behind him casting a shadow down on her that made him actually somewhat imposing. Ominous, one of her vocabulary words this month. “— When your human father learns what you are and what you did and rejects you. I want you to remember you’re not a Tate, you never were a Tate. You’re a Hale and you’ve always been a Hale. Your real family is waiting.”

His eyes were very blue, even without the glow, and very scary and she suddenly felt more like the little girl of eight who’d suddenly had a tail and torn her brand new knit gloves with her paws. The way he talked about her dad made her queasy. Made the guilt-sick blood taste salivation feeling come back and she gripped her stomach instinctively to try and make it go away. It was like he knew something she didn’t and she wanted to say he was wrong but she didn’t know. She saw her dad with the rifle, she saw him when he realized she was alive. She didn’t know which was real, which daddy would be one she saw if he ever found out what she did.

Peter didn’t stay to comfort her after he’d scared her, he was apparently only so fatherly. He stared at her for a long moment, as if trying to peel back the years and see all the Malias he’d missed.

“I don’t know if you know this, but the remains of the Hale house are about a half mile east of here.”

Then he walked away without any explanation and left her alone in the woods. Malia watched him go, not sure what to think. Eventually she turned and looked to the East, they’d told her about the fire that killed almost all the Hales, how it’d been started by Allison’s aunt Kate, how it’d killed Derek’s parents — her aunt and uncle, her father’s sister and brother-in-law. Curiosity was a less painful thing to focus on and Peter had probably told her about it for some reason or another. Maybe this was just all part of some elaborate scheme to manipulate her. She wouldn’t know. She didn’t really get that stuff very well, but she had a right to see that house regardless. He was right, she was at least in part, a Hale. It was her biological family that had lived there and been murdered there. The least she could do is see the wreckage, try to really understand their tragedy, and pay her respects. She’d done that and more for her mom and Kylie, it wouldn’t be right not to at least do it once for them.

Malia stood up and started walking East, to see what there was to see.