Ivy Claudia Stilinski gazed around.

       The 15-year-old wandered through the cemetery with her eyes to see one family, brought together, to mourn for one of their own. Countless numbers of dark figures stood on parade, speaking in unison to pay the respects to one whom they adored. The sadness corrupted Ivy's inner soul and her heart bled a river inside. Nothing could change the wretchedness which she felt.

       Now Ivy could say that she has never understood others suffering from a bad loss of a dear person. The brown- eyed girl would hate to hear that anybody died. When this tragedy fell upon her family, when her dear mother died, Ivy started to understand all those people who lost someone they loved. There are perhaps no proper words to describe this pain.

       This intolerable pain which tears you apart, which is like a stone on your heart, and which make tears run down your face with each moment spent with the dear person who passed away. Time is unlikely to pass so fast this hurt, no matter what others claim.

       The memory of her mother will follow the grieving teenager wherever she go, and however far living her dreams with a gentle scent of her perfume and the shimmering of her laugh. She was there to show her kids how much she cared about them. Claudia Stilinski was there when her first- born made her first steps. She taught little Ivy to smile and laugh.

       And now she was gone for good.

       She held back the tears in her eyes to the point that they began to pinch her from the inside. The teenager knew that if she blustered at this point, she would not be able to stop crying. A crazy aspect of her life was that she always visited the hospital after school to tell her mother how her day at school had gone. Ivy was strong throughout her illness, refusing to cry in front of her younger brother, who had experienced enough.

       Ivy kept it all together for Stiles.

       Little Stiles squeezed her hand tighter, staring with weeping eyes at the buried coffin as Ivy tightened her grip, sniffing.

The girl felt someone's insistent gaze on her persona, turning her head in every direction as the brown finally met the green.

       Derek hid behind a distant grave, watching his girlfriend. He promised her that he would support her above all else, but he also knew that those closest to Claudia Stilinski could only attend the woman's burial.

       He was not going to take his eyes off her at this moment or any other. He wanted to be by her side at all times during this difficult period of time.

       Ivy looked in his direction, a weak and almost imperceptible smile graced her lips, but it was a split second, after which she turned her head again.

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She was wearing a blue jumper, the sleeves of which she had pulled up to her knuckles. January days, such as the one in the Beacon Hills situated in the state of California, have not been the coldest, but neither have they necessarily been the warmest.

The winter breeze lashed her pale face with its frigid chill. The discordant strands of hair coming out of her braid flapped in all directions as twenty-two-year-old Ivy Stilinski leaned against the bike racks in front of her old high school.

The place evoked a reminiscence of melancholy. Many said that high school was the best time of one's life, but how could it have been in her instance?

Most of her friends were dead, had left town or lapsed into a coma before Ivy had even graduated.

"I said I'd pick you up after school." said Stiles, surprised to see his older sister waiting outside Beacon Hills High School for him.

"I know." Ivy shuffled her feet in the direction of a nearby parked Jeep that looked like it had survived and seen more than either of them. "But I had already taken care of everything I had and I had some extra time."

Ivy climbed up into the front seat as Stiles clicked the button on the keys, which unlocked the vehicle.

As Stiles' hand went to the bag of food she had brought with her, Ivy quickly slapped his hand away.

"Ouch!" Stiles pulled his hand back quickly and sent her a look full of incredulity. "Do you want to walk back on foot?"

"I'm sorry." Her tone appeared in such a sarcastic manner. "Did you pay for it?"

"No, but you should reconsider that it should be your payment to me for giving you a lift." Stiles hinted, which caused Ivy to give him a questioning look as her head tilted. "You know, car does not run on water. The fuel is expensive now."

Under normal circumstances, Ivy would not have asked for a lift unless she desperately needed one. On the previous night, as she was driving back fatigued from a night shift from Video 2*C, she caught a flat tire.

"If you don't stop yapping, I'll be late." said Ivy, taking her eyes off her wrist, which bore a watch on a brown strap. "And then you'll be the one running."

"Ungrateful." Stiles clicked his tongue. "You know, you should be glad I agreed⎯" His expletive was interrupted by Ivy's hand slapping him on the back of the head. "Okay, okay!"

Students rushed to the parking lot, racing to their cars at the end of the day. He backed away, spinning for the exit, when an individual stepped right in front of his hood.

"Stiles, watch out!" Ivy alarmed.

Her little brother slammed on the brake with Ivy slumping back onto the seat, wide-eyed as if trying to process what had just happened. The cars behind came to a screeching halt as well, creating a near-collision in the school parking lot.

"You've gotta be kidding me." A scoff left Stiles' lips when the well-known dark silhouette collapsed onto the pavement in front of his stalled Jeep. "This guy's everywhere!"

Ivy sent him a deadpan stare before she opened the door and jumped out of the car to help an injured passer-by. The sound of syncopated horns made Stiles turn in that direction ⎯ a long line of cars that now bottlenecked behind his stalled car.

To worsen matter, the other students who were loitering outside the school also began to observe the scene unfolding in front of them.

"I am so sorry. Are you all right? You didn't break anything? Do you want us to⎯" Ivy began to panic. The words flowed out of her like water, to such an extent that she failed to detect who she was speaking to until a man raised his head up. "Derek?"

Scott McCall ran up to them in a heartbeat when he noticed what was going on. "Do you guys know each other?"

"Erm⎯ we used to go to school together." replied Ivy.

However, she left out the essential fact that the two had been dating in their high school days. She had not considered the information as something they needed to know, given that Derek and Ivy were just stupid kids back then.

His green eyes stared at her wistfully, as if he was trying to memorise every inch of her face or spot the difference after their last conversation, which had shattered both of their hearts.

To his obliviousness, Stiles jumped out of the car and spoke up. "Dude, he's not looking too good."

Derek struggled to get a word in edgewise, breathing out the answer in the end on one exhale. "I was shot."

The injured man attempted to stand up while Scott and Ivy knelt beside him, trying to prevent his face from coming into contact with the soiled pavement.

"Why aren't you healing?" asked Scott.

"Maybe because he was shot?" Ivy gave him a scathing reprimand, as if it was the most obvious thing. "We need to take him to the hospital."

"I can't⎯" protested Derek. "It was a different kind of bullet⎯"

A spark of thrill flickered in Stiles' eyes at the thought. "A silver bullet?"

"No, you idiot."

"Wait a second." Scott felt enlightened upon remembering last night and, in particular, the words of the woman who was to blame for Derek's condition. "That's what she meant when she said 48 hours."

"What?" Derek looked at him with deepened interest. There was no option that they had in mind the same person for whom Derek harboured a hatred like no one else in this world. "Who said 48 hours?"

"The one who shot you⎯"

Ivy groaned, sensing she was being excluded from the conversation and had absolutely no idea what they were chatting about. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Derek sucked in a breath, and a wave of pain rippled over his body. His hitherto green eyes flickered to a cold blue. Ivy dropped him from her arms, backing away as Derek grunted, his head poised to almost bump the pavement again.

She pointed a finger at him with an expression of disbelief. "What the hell was that?!"

"What are you doing?" Scott snapped at Derek. "Stop that!"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you. I can't."

Scott grabbed Derek by the shoulders, frantically trying to keep him from collapsing onto the pavement. Behind Stiles' car, horns started blaring. "Get up. Derek, get up."

However, he was earthbound, apparently helpless as the witnesses moved closer.

Scott looked panicked at Stiles, hopeful now that they would be able to get Derek out before he could reveal his true identity in front of the whole school. "Help me get him into the car."

"Him? My Jeep?" Stiles questioned, staring at his best friend as if he had completely lost his mind. "No way."

"What about you and you," Ivy started, pointing her finger at the two teenage boys. "Explain to me what the hell is going on here. In case you haven't noticed, I'm a little disturbed."

Stiles and Scott looked at one another, the same appalled and significant look on their faces.

There was no likelihood of her being told any reasonable lie that she would believe. Especially once she saw Derek's eyes change colour firsthand.

Scott tried to come up with a lie that would give them more time, but lying to Ivy was a dangerous game.

This did not involve a hatred of lying to the girl whom he had known all his life and was like an older sister to him. The implication was that Ivy Stilinski would not allow them to breathe for as long as she did not know the truth.

Scott failed to come up with a lie under her demanding look, so he decided to make it a Stiles' issue to explain everything to her. "Stiles will explain everything to you, I promise."

The 16-year-old in question raised an eyebrow. "Stiles will?"

"Stiles!" Scott raised his voice at him, irritated by his defiant demeanour.

Ivy opened the rear door of the Jeep, and Scott and Stiles pushed Derek inside with all their might.

As he plopped down in the rear seat, Derek gripped Scott's arm, refusing to let go. "I need you to find the same kind of bullet. I have to know what they used."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"She's an Argent. She's with them⎯"

Scott cut him off. "Why should I help you?"

"Because you need me." replied Derek.

"Fine, fine. I'll try." Scott consented under the pressure of yelling people from their cars for them to leave and stop blocking the only route of access. "Get him out of here."

"I hate you for this." replied Stiles, dissatisfied with the situation Scott put him in.

Ivy gave him a look, pointing her finger at him before she headed to the front seat. "You have a serious explanation to do."

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"So you are telling me that you dragged Scott's ass in the middle of the night to look for a corpse that turned out to be Laura's body." Ivy had to admit that the amount of information imparted to her in the last few minutes was a lot to process. "Then some wolf man⎯"

Derek interrupted her, his voice weak. "Alpha."

"Whatever. Same thing." replied Ivy, not seeing any distinction between the two phrases. Her words made Derek roll his eyes and rest his forehead against the car window. "This whole Alpha dude bit Scott, resulting in him turning into a werewolf. Then it turns out that his new girlfriend is from a family of werewolf hunters."

Stiles gave her a nod, keeping his eyes on the road. "Yep."

"Are you a werewolf too?" asked Ivy, looking back at Derek. The man raised his eyes from above the window and gave a barely perceptible nod. "Oh, my God!" She buried her face in her hands for a minute. "I was dating a furry!"

"Dati⎯ dating? Ivy, what the hell?" Stiles yelled in a shocked manner when Derek's death glare flicked between the two. "You and that?!"

"Leave me alone!" defended Ivy, her hands slipped from her face. "I was 15!"

One hand on the steering wheel and his free elbow propped by the edge of the car window. His countenance looked as if he was about to throw up, and he felt that way too.

His older sister and Derek Hale, the same one they suspected of murdering his own sister a few days ago. The same one who lurked in every corner wherever they ventured, skulking about Scott to sabotage his burgeoning relationship with Allison Argent.

How did this even happen?

"Try to not to bleed out on my seats, okay?" Stiles warned when he saw in the front mirror how Derek slumped down, cradling his arm. "We're almost there."

"Almost where?" asked Derek.

"Your house."

"No." The werewolf protested. "You can't take me there."

A note of incredulity in Stiles' voice. "I can't take you to your house?"

"Not when I can't protect myself." replied Derek, which resulted in Stiles hitting the brakes, skidding to a stop.

"What happens if Scott doesn't find your magic bullet?" Stiles and Ivy turned to look at him when the Jeep ended up being parked on the side of the road. "Are you dying?"

"Not yet." replied Derek, a kind of relief descended from Ivy upon hearing these words. "I have a last resort."

Ivy arched an eyebrow. "What the hell is a last resort?"

Derek revealed the bullet wound by rolling up his sleeve. The wound had ceased to bleed, but the surrounding veins were climbing up from his forearm like vines, creeping towards his inner elbow.

The Stilinski girl covered her mouth with her hand as she nearly barfed upon this sight. "Do you want me to drop dead here?" asked Ivy. Under the insistence of his disgruntled stare, the meaning of her words crashed back into her. "Sorry⎯ too soon? Okay."

A groan left Stiles' lips ⎯ a panic-stricken and disgust-filled reaction akin to his sister's. "What is that? Is that contagious? Maybe you should just get out."

"Start the car." Derek demanded with a faintness in his voice. "Now."

"I don't think you should be barking orders the way you look." Stiles said flatly. "In fact, I think if I wanted to, I could probably drag your werewolf ass out to the middle of the road and leave you for dead."

"Start the car or I'm going to rip your throat out⎯ with my teeth." His threat worked like hypnosis in an instant as Ivy looked at Stiles, who quickly twisted the keys in the ignition and pressed down on the gas pedal.

Notwithstanding his deteriorating condition, Derek still had the capacity to frighten everyone in one car with a single sentence.

"Donut?" suggested Ivy, waving a bag of food in front of his face, but received no reply, only a disgruntled look. "No?" She removed her hand together with the food back to herself. "Okay."

Stiles and Ivy dipped their hands into a bag of sweet snacks, eating donuts to assuage their dismay over the situation they found themselves in.

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The air grew cooler as the night absorbed the Beacon Hills. Darkness had monopolized the sky and the stars were now viewable as fiery blazes overlooking the town.

From the blue Jeep, music blasted, drowning out the lingering silence and mounting tension inside the vehicle. For the last few hours they have been driving around the town without any significant direction.

Impatience increased as dusk settled in and there was still no response from Scott.

"How long can you search for a single bullet? What is he doing there with them?" complained Ivy, twisting the radio dial, which caused the music to quieten down and silence ensued all over again. "Baking a freaking cake?"

Stiles pulled over to the side of the road, pulling on the parking brake. "I'm calling him."

They both agreed that the situation had gone on far too long. They had been driving around Beacon Hills for over six hours with no destination and Derek's condition was beginning to deteriorate significantly.

It was not only his diseased appearance that left a lot to be desired, but also the smell that emanated from him as he began to reek like death itself.

As Stiles commenced to complain about Derek's condition over the phone, Ivy tucked her hand under the seat where Stiles always left a bottle of water. The piece of plastic looked as if it had been lying there for some time, and its contents were only half-filled.

Her mission in life, which she entrusted to herself at that very moment, was to keep Derek awake until Scott found what he needed to survive.

"Here. Drink it up." said Ivy, throwing a bottle in his direction.

Derek realised too late, his reflexes failing as the bottle contacted his face.

Ivy cringed as the plastic hit Derek in the face. Her ex-boyfriend looked up at her with a grumpy look on his face. "I am already dying. You don't have to throw anything at me."

"Shut the hell up." said Ivy, a little defiantly. "No one is going to die in here, okay? Now drink up that water."

Stiles butted into their conversation. "You're not going to believe where he's telling me to take you."

Derek grabbed the phone out of his hand. "Did you find it?"

"How the hell am I supposed to find one bullet?" Scott queried in a rhetorical way, his tone pretentious as he was helpless to search around Allison's house. "They have a million. This house is the freaking Walmart of guns."

"Well, it's not like Derek looks like he just crawled out of his own grave." Ivy rolled her eyes, calling out sarcastically towards the phone. "You are right, Scott. Let's just chill!"

"Chill?" Scott whispered- yelled, looking nervously around the hallway to see if someone is coming. "I'm not even close to being chill!"

"You don't find it, I'm dead." reminded Derek.

"I'm starting to think that wouldn't be such a bad thing." Scott mumbled.

"Then think about this: the Alpha called you out against your will. He's going to do it again. And next time you either kill with him or you get killed. You need me. Find the bullet."

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Stiles looked up from the text as the three entered the clinic. "Does Northern Blue Monkshood mean anything to you?"

Propped against the wall, Derek gradually opened his eyes. "It's a rare form of wolfsbane. He has to bring me the bullet."

"Why?" asked Stiles.

"Because without it, I'm dead." replied Derek.

His reasoning was sufficient for Ivy to start to protest once again. "Scott is going to bring it in on time, all right? No one will die and we'll all forget about it." said Ivy, walking up to the metal cabinets, but didn't really know what to look for.

She could stitch up a wound, treat a paper cut or a broken finger, but she had no idea what to do in this situation.

It was not every day that her ex-boyfriend appeared in her life with a poisonous bullet in his skin.

Derek switched on the light and slowly pulled off his shirt, revealing a gunshot wound that looked much worse by now. Veins were coming up from the open wound and the rest of his arm had turned a sickening yellow.

A groan left Stiles' lips. "Well, that doesn't look like anything some Echinacea and a good night's sleep couldn't take care of."

"What?" asked Ivy, disoriented by what her little brother was saying while she was too concentrated on rummaging through the cupboards. With a bandage and a few band-aids in her hand, she turned around and the sickened state of Derek's arm was revealed to her eyes. "Oh, God! Oh, my God! It totally does not look like a specimen of health."

"When the infection reaches my heart, it'll kill me."

"Positivity just isn't in your vocabulary, is it?" Stiles queried in a sarcastic manner as Derek started opening drawers in search of something.

"Try to be positive when you look like he does." Ivy pointed to his arm. "Impossible!"

"If he doesn't get here with the bullet in time⎯ last resort."

"Which is?" asked Stiles.

Derek stopped at a drawer and found what he needed. He pulled out an electric bone saw. "You're going to cut off my arm."

"Erm⎯ no?" said Ivy as Derek handed the bone saw to Stiles.

The werewolf begun tying a tourniquet around the infected arm.

"What if you bleed to death?" The human boy asked.

"It'll heal. If it works." assured Derek.

"I thought you were a werewolf, not a fucking starfish." Ivy snapped, snatching the saw from Stiles' hands. "No one will cut off your arms."

"Thank God!" Stiles breathed a sigh of relief, all the heaviness associated with that thought had left his body. "I don't know if I could do this."

"Why not?" asked Derek.

Ivy sent him a look that said 'are you serious?' when Stiles spoke again. "Because of the cutting through flesh, the sawing of bone, and especially the blood."

"You faint at the sight of blood?" Derek asked with a look of pure incredulity.

"No." snapped Stiles. "But I might at the sight of a chopped off arm!"

"How about this: Either you cut off my arm or I rip off your head."

"You are the type of breed that is all bark but no bite, aren't you?" Ivy grew progressively more defensive towards Derek, who sent another of his plethora of death stares. "Just shut up already."

"Yeah, bitch." Stiles followed. "I'm not buying your threats anymore."

As Derek grabbed him by the shirt, Stiles' outlook on the situation changed completely. "Okay, bought, sold, I'll do it, I'll do it!"

Derek's hand slid feebly off Stiles' shirt. The werewolf gasped and coughed.

Leaning over, he opened his mouth as if to vomit. But instead of vomit, he gushed out an ink-black liquid that spilled across the floor.

A scream practically ripped from Ivy's throat as she jumped onto the metal countertop, her legs hugged to her chest.

Stiles gagged at the sight. "Holy God, what the hell is that?"

"My body⎯trying⎯to heal." responded Derek while catching a deep breath, as if each new one was going to be his final.

"Well, your body is not handling it very well." said Ivy, cringing.

She was scared to even look at the black ooze, which was an imitation of human vomit. The twenty-two-year-old was convinced that if she looked in the direction of the black ooze, it would throw itself at her.

Kneeling on the floor, Derek looked up with glowing blue eyes. "Now⎯ you have to do this now. I⎯Ivy, give him back the saw and turn around."

In this case, she did not need to be persuaded for long. "Fine by me!" she said, practically throwing the saw on the metal countertop once again.

Stiles gaped in disbelief, his mouth dropped open in shock. "What happened to no one cutting off his arm?"

"That was before he started vomiting his own guts!" Ivy shouted desperately in his direction, jumping down the other side of the countertop to avoid the black fluid deposited on the floor. "Don't worry, bro, I've got your back⎯" she said, retreating to the threshold of the door. "From right here!"

Picking himself up, Derek placed his infected arm on the examination table as Stiles cringed. "Look, honestly, I don't think I can⎯"

With an impatient shout, Derek interrupted him. "Just do it!"

"Oh, God!" said Stiles, switching on the bone saw and at the very sound of the machine Ivy shuddered. "All right, here we go!"

My therapist will never believe me. (She thought to herself as her little brother was about to put a saw to Derek's shoulder).

A salvation in the form of Scott McCall rushing into the animal clinic with Derek's only rescue in his hand interrupted the looming disaster. "Stiles!"

"Scott?" asked Stiles, surprised and relieved at the sound of his best friend's voice.

Scott stormed through the door, shell-shocked to see Stiles preparing to saw off Derek's arm. "What the hell are you doing?"

"You just prevented a lifetime of nightmares."

"Did you get it?" asked Derek when Scott held up the bullet.

The dark- haired man grabbed it, raising it up to look at it in the light.

"What are you gonna do with it?" asked Ivy, more courage mustered in her once the bone saw was out of his arm's reach and in the non-possession of her younger brother.

"I'm going to⎯I'm going⎯" He was not given time to finish when he lost consciousness and his inert body fell to the floor.

The bullet dropped and went rolling.

Scott darted after it. "No, no, no!"

The bullet fell through the metal grate into the drain. Kneeling down, Scott dug his fingers into the grate but could not reach the bullet.

"Wake up!" shouted Ivy, slapping Derek across the face, but her ex- boyfriend did not wake up, just turned his head the other way. She slapped him again. "Wake up!"

"Scott, what the hell are we going to do?" Stiles panicked, asking his best friend who was trying to get the bullet to the surface.

"I don't know⎯the bullet⎯I can't reach it⎯"

"He's not waking up!" alerted Stiles to what they were all acutely aware of. "I think he's dying. I think he's dead. Wait, Ivy⎯ what are you⎯" he asked, his mouth gaped wide when Ivy's fist collided with Derek's face.

Ivy staggered back, cradling her sore hand as Derek's eyes fluttered open.

"Give it to me!" he ordered, struggling to his feet when Scott threw a bullet in his direction.

Derek snapped off the tip and pulled a lighter from his pocket. He held the flame to the contents inside. Sparks rushed out and pieces of wolfsbane flamed up. He took the smoldering ash in his hand and fragmented it onto the gunshot wound, wincing as he did so.

An ear-piercing howl of agony ripped from his throat. Derek fell to his back, his sweat-soaked skin hitting the cold cement floor. His hand went down to his side. Within a few seconds the open wound had healed and was back to normal.

All three looked on in disbelief at the phenomenon of an incurable wound, of which no trace remained. "That. Was. Awesome!" said Stiles, unable to contain his excitement.

"Rather amazingly frightening." Ivy corrected.

"I'm sorry if me being on the brink of death is a minor inconvenience to you." said Derek, pushing himself back up from the floor.

Well, you should be sorry.

She really didn't have any of it.

A supernatural bombshell had fallen upon her that day and she didn't know how to process this torrent of information.

It turned out that she never really knew the man standing in front of her, whom she once called her first love.

Where did the truth of what they had begin, and where did the truth of his identity dilute?

Moreover, Scott, a boy she had known since he was a child, appeared to be the victim of what other people might describe as a gift.

"Are you okay?" asked Scott, his voice wreathed in genuine solicitude.

A response full of sarcasm was the only answer Scott received from Derek. "Except for the agonizing pain."

"I'm guessing the ability to use sarcasm is a sign of good health." Stiles remarked when Derek grabbed his shirt, pulling it back on.

       "We saved your life. That means you're going to leave us alone." said Scott, letting him understand that he now owed them a debt of gratitude. "You got that?" The question was met with no answer, but that didn't stop Scott from giving him an ultimatum. Something that will happen if he doesn't stop meddling in his life. "And if you don't I go back to Allison's dad and tell him everything⎯"

       "You're going to trust them?" asked Derek, his tone vitriolic. "You think they can help you?"

       "Why not?" Scott snapped, reaching the limit of his endurance. "They're a lot freaking nicer than you are."

       "I can show you exactly how nice they are."

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author's note:

IVY MISSED Y'ALL!!! SHE TOLD ME HERSELF

As I mentioned before, the chapters will be the same, but I will add more information and, above all, improve my writing style, which has changed a lot over the last year.

If I say that her trauma from the last episode of the first season will be more detailed and included throughout the seasons, then what?

Anyway . . . don't forget to comment and vote because it keeps me quite motivated </3. I'll try to post a second chapter soon, once I've managed to sort out my college assignments over the forthcoming week.

Love you all!!