┌─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┐
chapter twenty!
VIVA LA RESISTENCIA
└─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┘

( the overlooked, pt. i )

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

"WE HAVE TO tell Derek."

Vera sits in the waiting room of Deaton's animal clinic with Stiles and Isaac, shivering even with a towel wrapped around her shoulders. Though her hair is mostly dry by now, her soaked clothes still continue to drip water onto her seat and the linoleum tile floor. Her leg bounces in time with her nervous energy.

"Vera, I'm sorry, but you shouldn't be going anywhere," Deaton tells her. He appears in the doorway with his hands shoved into the pockets of his lab coat, giving her a firm look that she knows all too well. "You need to rest. Your body experienced the effects of a smudge stick for the first time and has to recuperate."

"I've been sitting here for fifteen minutes," she counters. "That's resting."

Deaton's expression hardens to one of asperity.

"Look," she sighs. "You of all people should know that the people Derek dates tend to be psychotic in some way." Except for Paige, her brain reminds her as soon as the words leave her mouth, but she doesn't mention that. "He deserves to know before Jennifer can manipulate him any longer."

"And I of all people know you won't rest even after you do tell him," he argues. "You're not allowed to go to Derek's. Doctor's orders."

"You're a veterinarian."

Isaac glances between the bald-headed man and Vera's sour expression. "Sorry, did I miss something here, or...?"

It's not very common knowledge to other people that Deaton used to be the emissary to the Hale Pack when Talia was its Alpha. When they were little, Derek and Vera would sneak around to spy on the pack meetings and see him there. He'd even caught them multiple times but promised not to tell Talia— he and the Alpha had a special connection that Vera thinks may have been more than platonic.

"I'll tell Derek," Stiles offers. "Scott and I will go."

"While you're at it, take some of this." Deaton crosses the room and hands Stiles a small jar. "Mistletoe. A druid can use it, but it can also be used against her. You can use it to reveal her true form and prove to Derek that she's not who she says she is. Jennifer will likely try to convince him that you're lying about her."

"That's stupid," Isaac declares. "He could just listen to their heartbeats to find out if they're lying or not."

"This is also Derek we're talking about," Vera reminds him.

"Good point."

In the end, instead of going back home, Vera convinces Stiles to drive her to the hospital to check on Cora. It's odd— werewolves hardly ever need to visit hospitals since they heal so rapidly, but whatever head injury Aiden had bestowed on her isn't improving. It doesn't sit right with Vera. There's something off about the whole scenario, but she can't pinpoint exactly what it is yet.

Yet another storm is ravaging across Beacon Hills. Sheets of rain pummel the powder blue Jeep as Stiles races toward the hospital, limiting his visibility on the road. He doesn't seem to care. Instead of using caution like any rational person would, Stiles drives with the same reckless abandon he always does, jostling Vera and Isaac around in their seats.

The parking lot is packed when they finally reach the hospital. Vera assumes that there must be accidents — it rains in California and people lose their minds — so Stiles doesn't have room to park. Instead, he pulls to a stop and Vera hops out immediately, holding the damp towel above her head to protect herself from the rain. The car door slams again. As she begins sprinting toward the entrance, she notices a familiar pair of shoes following her and groans.

"Isaac, you don't have to follow me," she tells him, lowering the soaked towel once they reach the safety of the hospital. "I'm fine."

"Yeah, you literally almost died thirty minutes ago, so sorry if I don't believe that," he responds, brushing his wet curls out of his eyes.

She rolls her eyes and walks toward the ER receptionist's desk to find Melissa McCall standing there. The curly-haired woman is frazzled, struggling to organize heaps of paper on the half-circular desk, tanned skin wrinkled with lines of worry.

"Mrs. McCall?" Vera calls.

Scott's mother looks up and gives her a tired smile. "Oh, hi sweetie. You here to see Cora? She's in room 34— third floor, second to the left. But just a head's up, the hospital is evacuating soon, so she won't be here for much longer."

"Thanks."

The two teenagers head toward the elevator. Then, remembering Isaac's phobia, Vera quickly changes direction until she reaches the stairwell. Isaac doesn't say anything, but he appears grateful for the fact she'd remembered his hatred of small spaces.

They reach room 34. The door is open, revealing Cora's sleeping figure on the bed and another person sitting in the plastic chair against the wall. Vera stops short at the sight of them. Peter Hale has his legs and arms crossed, expression unreadable as he regards the unconscious girl. He turns at the sound of their footsteps.

"Oh, I've got both my nieces here. What a nice little family reunion." He eyes Isaac up and down. "Plus one."

"Minus one," Vera corrects him, striding in with a scowl. "Or did you forget about killing Laura?"

"We've all done things we aren't proud of."

"And me helping to set you on fire wasn't one of them."

Isaac's gaze flickers between the two of them as they quip back and forth at each other. Vera's hatred of her uncle is on full display, fists curled at her sides and eyes narrowed to slits, but Peter couldn't appear any less fazed. That's one of the things that hurts Vera the most even if she'll never admit it. She'd idolized Peter before finding out his true colors. She'd visited him regularly when he'd been trapped in his coma. And he doesn't even seem to care that their relationship is ruined beyond repair.

"Yeah, I'm staying," Isaac says. "Or else someone actually could die tonight. And it would probably be you, Peter."

The older man shoots him a glare. He uncrosses his legs and pushes himself to a standing position, gesturing to where Cora lies motionless on the bed. "She's not doing too well."

Vera glances at her sister. Cora's skin is paler than usual and dotted with sweat, the edges of her hairline damp from it as well. But if she'd sustained a head injury, shouldn't there be a bandage there?

As if reading her thoughts, Peter informs her, "Her head's healed."

"So what's wrong with her?" Isaac questions.

"Well if we knew that, we wouldn't be here right now."

Vera ignores their bickering and reaches for Cora's hand. Her palm is clammy and cold, muscles limp as Vera squeezes it.

"I'm here, Cora," she mumbles even though she knows her sister can't hear her in her unconscious state. "It'll be okay."

The lights flicker dangerously due to the storm, causing the three of them to tense. Vera begins to gnaw at her lower lip anxiously. The hall is chaotic, doctors and nurses hurrying past the door without so much as a backward glance toward them.

Peter cools Cora's forehead with a damp cloth. He turns toward the door, shouting, "Hey, anyone wanna tell me when they're getting my niece out of here?"

"Sorry, but she wasn't, uh—" Melissa stops short when she walks into the room and looks up from her clipboard. As soon as she sees Peter, her eyes widen. "You're supposed to be dead."

"I get that a lot, actually," Peter replies nonchalantly.

The heart monitor begins beeping rapidly as Cora's hand twitches in Vera's grip. Her eyes snap open, a sudden gasp coming from her dry lips along with a gargled choking noise. Isaac seizes Vera by the shoulders and pulls her backward just as Cora leans over the side of the bed and vomits pitch-black rejection fluid onto the floor. Vera's brows pinch at the sight of something else within the fluid— something that looks like white beads.

She thinks of the bottle Deaton had given to Stiles. Mistletoe. And what had happened to Danny a few weeks ago? He'd come to the hospital and nearly died because he'd been poisoned by the same thing.

"Jennifer," Vera grumbles. She glances back at Isaac, her mouth turned into a frown. "The bitch poisoned my sister."

— ✯✯✯ —

The doctors, taking note of Cora's unusual illness due to Melissa's help, have finally begun the process of evacuating her. Several nurses help ease her into her normal clothes instead of the hospital gown she'd been in before. Her movements are sluggish and slow, something so outside of the norm for Cora that it causes a knot in the pit of Vera's stomach.

"Stop looking at me like that," Cora grumbles to Vera as a nurse helps her into her leather jacket.

Vera has been watching with her face pinched in worry, but her expression doesn't change upon hearing Cora's snark. "I'm allowed to worry about you."

Peter stands in the doorway with his cell phone pressed to his ear. From the sound of it, he's updating Derek on Cora's less-than-favorable condition. "It's not good. She's in and out of consciousness, she's vomiting up black blood along with one other alarming substance." He pauses, tilting his head to the side. "How did you know?"

Great. That probably means that Derek is with Jennifer right now. She can only hope that Scott and Stiles had reached the loft in time and exposed her with the mistletoe.

Once the nurses leave and Cora reclines back on the bed, Peter crosses the room to stand in front of Vera and Isaac. "Okay, so what's happening here?"

"Our English teacher is a dark druid called a Darach," Isaac answers. "She's sacrificed a bunch of people in the town to gain power, one of which was almost Lydia, tried to kill Vera tonight, kidnapped the Sheriff, and poisoned Cora with mistletoe."

"Why am I not surprised that that actually makes sense to me?" Peter muses.

One of the nurses returns with a larger, sturdier bed than the frail one Cora is lying on. "We've got two ambulances coming back— she needs to be on one of those."

With Peter's assistance, the nurse gently transports Cora to the new bed and begins wheeling them out of the room. Just as they enter the hallway, the girl turns her head so it dangles over the edge of the mattress and vomits again. The black splotches follow them down the hall as they drip from Cora's lips. When they reach a set of double doors, the nurse scans her badge and causes them to swing open.

It reveals Aiden and Ethan's combined werewolf form on the other side.

Vera blinks. "Shit."

Before any of them can react, the beast swings a meaty fist into the nurse's temple and knocks her out cold. Peter attempts to duck around him, pushing Cora past, but the wolf seizes him by the front of his v-neck shirt and chucks him back through the doors. While that happens, Isaac picks Vera up bridal-style and sprints away, dodging a hefty swing from their attacker.

"No," Vera protests, glancing backward over Isaac's shoulder. "Cora—"

"Look, do you wanna die or not?" Isaac snaps back.

"I'll be damned if I leave her behind," she says. "Put me down. Now." When he keeps moving, Vera begins to squirm in his grip, making it more difficult for him to carry her without dropping her. "Put me down!"

Something in her voice makes him skid to a halt. Vera rolls all of her weight away from him and drops to the ground, smacking painfully onto the tile before getting up and sprinting back the way they came. Another animalistic roar echoes down the empty halls. She doesn't dare use her flight until she has to— Deaton's reminder to be careful rings in her ears, and she really doesn't feel like dying from over-exertion.

She reaches the intersection of the hallway just in time to see Derek dart past it and tackle the giant hybrid wolf. It towers over her brother by a decent foot, slamming a powerful elbow to his head even as Derek sends a fist flying into its abdomen. His blows do virtually nothing. The hideous creature picks Derek up by the back of his shirt like a kitten hanging by the scruff of its neck, punching him hard in the face.

Scott transforms as well, rushing forward to help Derek. Vera notices Stiles standing beside Jennifer with a baseball bat in hand. Peter continues to lie on the floor, seemingly uneager to shift into wolf form and help his nephew out in this fight.

Vera glances behind her. She expects to see Isaac, but the corridor is empty except for a few deserted hospital beds. Her brow furrows; where is he?

Stiles catches sight of where Cora lies motionless on the floor. He waves a hand in front of Peter's face and motions to Vera, muttering, "Help me!"

Vera pushes Isaac's unknown whereabouts to the back of her mind and follows the two. As the twins' combined form slams Scott against the wall in a chokehold, they run past him and reach Cora. The girl heaves a groan when Vera taps her gently on the face.

"Yeah, no time for that," Peter says. He unceremoniously grabs Cora and heaves her over his shoulder like a rag doll, moving further down the winding corridors of the hospital's third floor.

"Ethan Aiden, stop!" Scott yells, his voice slightly slurred by his fangs. "You don't know what you're doing!"

"All we want is her!" the two of their voices reply in sync. Vera doesn't bother looking back at the scene; she merely follows behind Peter and tries to ignore the fatigue already creeping up on her weak body.

As they pass another intersection, a figure approaches from the left. Vera whirls around, expecting to see another Alpha, only to meet Isaac's blue eyes when he sprints up to her. She gives him an incredulous look. "What, did you take the scenic route?"

A large hand pushes her forward. Derek's voice shouts, "Keep moving!"

Vera continues her frantic dash. Peter leads them through one of the morgues, Cora's limp body swaying back and forth in time with his movements. When she and Scott hold the doors open for the others to pass through, Stiles pauses in the middle of the room, staring thoughtfully at the bat clenched in his hands.

"Don't stop, don't stop!" Derek tells them, shoving Isaac through the open doors. He turns around when one of them doesn't listen. "Stiles!"

The raven-haired boy ducks behind the door to the morgue's entrance as the wolf's roar becomes louder. Once it enters, red eyes staring greedily at Derek, Scott, and Vera, Stiles smashes the bat over its head. Instead of doing any damage whatsoever, the entire thing shatters to splinters, leaving Stiles with nothing but a jagged stick.

The beast turns to him with a threatening snarl. Stiles drops the destroyed bat and backs up against the wall, quickly racing toward the safety of the others. Vera fights the urge to roll her eyes again.

Derek reaches over and pushes Vera through the doors. "Go! We got this! You too, Stiles."

Both of the teenagers burst into the hallway to find Isaac halfway down it, waiting for them. He waves them along, saying, "Over here," and guides them toward some sort of storage room near the back of the floor.

As they rush inside, Peter is resting Cora onto a metal examination table. He offers no greeting. The power flickers and finally cuts out, dousing them in darkness for a few terrifying seconds until a humming sound kicks in. The backup generators cause the lights to flicker. All they have to see is the glowing exit sign that douses them in green light. Vera's heart pounds from both exertion and adrenaline when Scott and Derek finally join them.

"Where's the big guy?" Peter asks them.

"He's close," Derek answers, locking the doors and peering through the windows.

"What about Miss Blake?" Stiles asks. When Scott shakes his head, he asks, "What do you mean? What does that mean? Like, she's gone? Scott, are you kidding me?"

Derek violently shushes him. "Be quiet!"

"Me, be quiet?" he repeats, his voice lower but infinitely more venomous. He approaches Derek and stops inches from him. "Me, huh? Are you telling me what to do, now? When your psychotic, mass-murdering girlfriend — the second one you've dated, by the way — has got my dad somewhere, tied up, waiting to be ritually sacrificed?"

"Stiles, they're still out there," Scott reminds his best friend.

"And they want her, right? Which means now we don't have her either, so my dad and Cora are both dead."

"Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you're the one who told Peter and I to help you with Cora while Derek and Scott were fighting the twins," Vera points out in a drawl. Stiles turns to her, about to fire back a retort, but Scott places a gentle hand on his arm to stop him.

"Not yet." The lights flicker dangerously. Scott peers over Peter's shoulder to look at Cora, asking, "Is she really dying?"

"She's definitely not getting any better," Peter replies vaguely.

"There has to be something we can do," Scott urges. "We have to help her."

The doors on the other side of the room burst open.

"You can't," Jennifer Blake tells them, stepping inside. "Only I can. I can save her, and I can tell you where Sheriff Stilinski is, but there is a pack of Alphas in this hospital who want me dead. So I'll help you... but only when I'm out of here and safe." Her blue eyes glitter with determination as she regards them. "Only then."

Derek shoves a table aside and lunges at the woman without a second thought. Scott catches him by the shoulders, shouting, "Derek, wait!"

"She was trying to get out," he retorts.

"I was trying to keep from getting killed," she argues. "You can't blame me for that."

"I can blame you for nearly sacrificing Lydia, trying to kill me, and poisoning Cora," Vera pipes up in a monotonous voice.

"If you wanna show you're one of the good guys, then heal her," Stiles adds, motioning to Cora.

"Not until I'm safe."

Vera darts forward in a flash of movement, wrapping a hand around the woman's throat and leering into her pale face. "Listen here, you sick bi—"

Isaac grabs her by the middle and wrenches her away from Jennifer. The Darach gasps for air, slightly leaning forward to catch her breath.

"Threatening me isn't going to do anything for Cora," Jennifer says with a pointed glare at Vera, a hand pressed to her recovering airway.

Just then, the P.A. system squeaks upon activation. Melissa McCall's voice floods through the speakers, causing everyone to freeze. "Um, can I have your attention? Mr. Deucalion — excuse me, just Deucalion — requests you bring the woman calling herself Jennifer Blake to the E.R. reception. Do this, and everyone else can leave. You have ten minutes."

The woman's shaky voice sends a punch to Vera's gut. She glances at Scott's dejected expression, knowing that the entire game has changed now that his mother is in danger.

Jennifer, also understanding this, hangs her head for a moment. "He's not gonna hurt her."

"Shut up," Derek fires back.

"He won't!" Her voice lowers again. "Scott, you know why. Tell them it's true."

Derek turns to him in confusion. "What does she mean?"

Jennifer waits for a moment, then sighs once she realizes Scott's not going to say anything. "You're not the only one he wants in his pack. Deucalion doesn't just want an Alpha pack— he wants perfection. That means adding the rarest of Alphas to his ranks."

"A True Alpha," Peter mutters in realization.

Isaac's brow furrows. "What's that?"

"The kind that doesn't have to steal his power from another," he answers. "One that can rise by the force of his own will." He regards Scott with an unreadable expression, head tilting to the side thoughtfully. "Our little Scott."

Vera thinks back to the past few weeks. Isaac only obeying Scott when he'd been beating Ethan to a pulp. Her feeling inclined to listen to him, something supernatural bending to his will when she'd been acting out. That time in the mall when his eyes had briefly flashed a deep, ruby hue. If what Jennifer and Peter are saying is true, then all of that makes sense.

Scott catches Derek's intense gaze. "It doesn't matter. We still need to get her out of here."

"Scott, your mom—" Stiles argues.

"My mom said there's one more ambulance coming in twenty minutes, and I don't think we've been here that long, so if we can get down to the garage, get to the last ambulance, we can get out of here."

"The twins aren't gonna let us just walk out," Peter says.

"I'll distract them," Scott counters.

Derek takes a step forward, raising a knowing brow. "You mean fight them."

"Whatever I have to do."

"I'll help you."

"Me too," Isaac offers.

"Um, sorry, but I'm not going anywhere without you, Derek," Jennifer pipes up.

Peter sighs. "I'll do it." When everyone glances at him in surprise, he adds something very characteristic of him. "But I'd prefer to be out there with an advantage."

"An advantage like what?" Stiles asks. "You mean, like, a weapon?"

"Something better than a baseball bat," Peter replies.

The next few minutes involve all of them rifling through the various medical supplies in the room. Vera opens drawer after drawer, finding nothing but packets of bandages and various types of medicine she can't pronounce.

Stiles' voice makes her pause. "What about these?"

She turns to see him holding up a defibrillator.

"Do you know how to use those?" Derek questions, his doubtful tone suggesting that he already knows the answer.

"Well... no," Stiles admits.

"Put 'em back."

Scott finds a giant syringe with a huge needle. He reads the label and asks, "Epinephrine?"

"That's only gonna make 'em stronger," Derek says.

Peter's head perks up like an excited dog's. "How strong?"

Moments later, he jams the syringe into his chest — not the best place to put it, really — and empties the entire thing near his heart. Part of Vera actually hopes it'll kill him, but then she remembers that they need his strength for once, so she dismisses the thought. It can kill him later.

He leaves the room along with Scott and Isaac. Vera watches them go with a frown, then glances at Derek once she feels his gaze on her. She shoots him a questioning look and he raises his hands in innocence.

While the boys are fighting the twins, the others sneak out and hurry down the opposite end of the hallway. Derek carries Cora now. She's still unconscious, and Vera tries not to look at her limp body as she sprints through the hospital. The lack of proper lighting is starting to hurt her eyes. She practically has to squint to see, narrowly dodging empty beds and shelves as they get closer to the garage.

They push the doors open to the parking garage at last. An ambulance is waiting for them. Stiles announces, "It's still here!" and helps Derek with Cora. Vera runs ahead to open the ambulance's back doors, allowing her brother to lie Cora down on the stretcher within. She and Stiles climb inside to sit on the bench to Cora's left. Derek nearly follows, but a call from Jennifer causes him to walk around the corner instead.

"Julia," Kali's voice taunts. Stiles reaches forward and silently closes the ambulance doors, pressing a firm finger to his lips to keep Vera quiet. The Alpha's voice echoes in the empty parking garage. "It is you."

Vera tilts her head up to keep her breathing quiet. Her heart is racing, fear flooding her veins at the realization that Kali probably killed the EMTs who are supposed to be driving the ambulance. Shit.

Stiles glances through the small windows in the back doors. He hisses, "Oh, God, what—?" and Vera turns to see Derek and Jennifer fleeing back into the building, leaving them alone in the garage with Kali. He grabs Vera's head and forces it down so they're out of sight of the glass. Vera bites back a yelp of pain, both of them ducking to avoid being seen.

After a few moments, they dare to rise again. Stiles pokes his head up and checks the area first, confirming, "She's gone."

"Oh, my God," Vera whispers. "Oh, my God, oh my God oh my GOD—"

"Hey," Stiles says, grabbing her by the face and shaking her a little. Her cheeks become smushed between his hands. "The last thing we need is for you to start freaking out, okay? Because I'm freaking out and you spiraling is going to send me spiraling, and that's not going to help Cora. So calm down and help me lock these doors."

Vera nods. Stiles releases her, allowing them both to reach over and lock each of the ambulance doors. It doesn't make her feel much better about their situation; they still have no way to the new hospital and there's a dead body right outside the vehicle.

"Okay, okay, okay. We're okay." He glances down at Cora. "You okay? How're you doing?"

Vera blinks. Her sister seems too still. "Cora?"

"Wh–Why do you look like you're not breathing?" Stiles leans forward so his ear is near her mouth. "Because you aren't breathing, are you? Oh, no. Oh, God. Oh, no, no, no, no. Why are you not breathing? Come on!"

Two rapidly-spiraling teenagers and an unbreathing girl are trapped in an ambulance. Vera is pretty sure she's going to lose her damn mind.

________

a/n:

this episode is LONG and there's a LOT going on, so please bear with me as i attempt to organize everything (good ol' teen wolf is back at it again with its plot holes). however, i do really like this episode and i hope you enjoy the chapters involving it!

writing peter hale is so fun, especially since vera hates him so outwardly. he's hilarious and his dialogue is so fun to come up with! that was one of my favorite parts about this entire chapter.

also i just realized that isaac's new thing is grabbing vera and prying her away from harmful situations while she thrashes around like a tiny feral cat and i think that's so iconic of them.

—kristyn

TRANSLATIONS:

Viva la resistencia: Long live the resistance

( word count: 4.5k )