Ignite

Orphan

There were cinnamon buns, bagels, and hot chocolate waiting for them in the morning, with another note with Stiles’ number taped to the front of the bags. Derek had no idea why Stiles kept bringing them food, but after trying to down the hospital breakfast of spongy waffles and slightly green tinted sausages, he was grateful for the decent meal Stiles insisted on providing.

Derek was sitting next to Laura on the floor when Cora woke up, blinking the haze from her dark brown eyes. She focused her gaze on Derek, her eyelids drooping. “Where am I?” she asked slowly, her words slurring as they left her tongue. She shifted a little, grimacing. “I feel awful…” She lifted a hand to scratch her forehead, but froze the instant she saw the burns that spread all the way to her elbows. She started to tremble. “No. No, it was a dream. A bad, bad dream.” She looked at Laura desperately before catching sight of Peter in the bed next to hers, his burned chest rising and falling shallowly as he breathed like there was a knife to his throat. Cora started to cry. “This can’t be happening…”

“Cora, it’s going to be okay.” Laura stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Cora as gently as she could, letting her little sister rest her head on her shoulder and tremble. Cora made little whimpering sounds, and her thin shoulders heaved.

Derek and Laura cocooned their sister in their arms, holding her gently and whispering assurances to her until she had no more tears to cry. She fell back asleep after that, and Derek and Laura returned to their seats in silence.

Melissa came into their room an hour later with paperwork to fill out, chatting lightly between instructions and giving them sympathetic glances when she thought they weren’t looking. “Let me know if you need anything,” she kept saying, and left once they were done. Officer Stilinski peeked in on them briefly to make sure they were okay, and promised to be by to check in on them in a little bit.

Derek waited until Laura was asleep again to sneak out of the room, retreating down the hall to a more secluded location before he took out his phone. There were no new messages, no missed calls… he scrolled down his contacts list and hit CALL, waiting as the phone rang slowly once, twice, three times…

“This is Kate,” said the answering machine on the other end of the line. “Leave a message.”

The machine beeped, and Derek sighed. “Kate, it’s Derek,” he said, and couldn’t keep his voice from quavering a little. “I need you to call me back when you get this message… if you’ve seen the papers, you know why. Talk to you soon.” He hung up and shoved his phone back in his pocket. He needed Kate right now. He needed her comfort, her safety, her arms around him and the warmth she gave him. Where was she?