"It still doesn't sit right in my mind." said Stiles as Ivy sat on the edge of her bed and zipped up her brown calf-length boots. "You and the big bad wolf?"

Ivy gave him a pointed look when Stiles carried on. "At least now we know why he's such a grump. You broke his freakin' heart!"

"I didn't break anyone's heart." Ivy was quick to defend her good name when the memory of a break-up that occurred over eight years ago struck her.  "I mean⎯" She winced to herself, not wanting to concede that Stiles might be right. "I may have said some stuff that, now that I think about it, could have been unnecessary."

Interest lit up his eyes. "What did you say?"

"Unnecessary⎯" She allowed the space to convene around her words. "... stuff."

"Which are?"

The 15-year-old version of her was propelled by the pain and anguish that controlled her throughout this troubled ordeal.

Her sadness was veiled by a shield of pent-up anger, which she had an appalling abundance of for someone at such a young age. Uncontrolled anger that backfired on those she would never want to harm in her life.

But she did.

Ivy Stilinski always had her way with words and so it happened that when she was mad, her words cut deeper than a knife.

"Which are stuff that are unnecessary." replied Ivy.

"You couldn't have been more specific, could you?" asked Stiles in a sarcastic manner.

"Because it's none of your business." said Ivy crossly, which was met with a groan from Stiles, who slumped back on the bed. "Just admit that you and Scott want to laugh at him in secret."

"This guy is laughable as he is." Stiles said, propping himself up on his elbows. "The prospect that you broke his heart is just pure entertainment."

       "Get a life." said Ivy, her hand pushed his forehead away, causing Stiles to once again land with his back onto her soft bed.

       The white door of Ivy's room creaked open, a soft knock followed the activity as Noah Stilinski entered. "What are you guys up to?"

       "Nothing." The Stilinski siblings replied concurrently.

       "Just talking." added Ivy. "Catching up a little."

       "Talking about Ivy's terrible taste in men." Stiles blurted out.

       Noah's eyes formed a question as Ivy gave an artful chuckle and Stiles beamed upon his pun.

       "Then we started talking about Stiles' plan on how to win over Daphne's heart." Ivy remarked in a playful manner. Stiles' grin soon vanished from his face. "How long has this plan been going on, Stiles? Eight years?"

       "Almost as much as your ex-whatever can't get over y⎯" Stiles' remark was stopped when a fluffy pink cushion smacked him across the face.

       "You know what? I don't want to know."

       "Good decision." Ivy answered Noah with a little smile on her face.

       Over the years, he had grown attuned to his children's behaviour which was beyond odd.

       He gave her a nod. "I was going to ask if you are hungry and feel like grabbing some food."

       Stiles confirmed in a gesture of excitement. "Yeah, I'm starving."

       "I would have killed for curly fries, but I have to stop by the video store first." said Ivy.

"Do you want a ride?" asked Noah. "Then we can go and get some food."

"I'm okay." Ivy assured with a small smile on her face, dimples forming in her cheeks. "Take me some takeaway food."

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       Ivy Stilinski has always been the smart one. She was an overachiever.

       Her intellectual prowess was regarded as intimidating by people her age, but admired by people much older than her.

       Ivy considered herself as the smart one when she was a teenager. The one who knew everything best. The one who was so-called wise enough to go over the top.

       It was before she realised she was so ahead that she fell behind. Now she was the dumb one.

       She ought to know everything the best, so why has she wasted her potential by working behind the counter in a video store?

       In a place where customers were often indecisive or rude. In some cases both of these things combined. But what can be said about the co-workers? Well, they were definitely not cooperative.

       Ivy pushed open the door and the hovering bell chimed with the announcement of one more customer. The late hour was to blame for the fact that the shop was shining with emptiness.

       She buried her hand in the bag to take out the rented film when a boorish and pretentious voice reached her ears. A voice so annoying that Ivy could hardly refrain from rolling her eyes. "Don't even bother. There's no one competent working here anyway."

       Jackson Whittemore. Oh, how much Ivy hated him.

       In her life she'd encountered a variety of people, but she had never met an individual as entitled and obnoxious as Jackson.

       He availed himself of every opportunity to besmirch or belittle whomever once they incurred his ire, regarding them as inferior to him.

       And Ivy Stilinski had a foretaste of that. After all, she was his babysitter when he was just the age of twelve.

       "I just⎯" As she pointed disoriented at the door, she could have sworn Jackson failed to recognise her. This would necessitate a focus on more than just being self-absorbed, which was something Jackson did best from a young age. "Walked in?"

       "So am I, and no one has yet answered me where I can find the damn Notebook!" complained Jackson.

      Boy, just shut the fuck up.

       A huff escaped her lips. "I know where it is." said Ivy crossly. "I'll show you."

       Ivy assumed that Leveque had holed up somewhere in the back room. There were no customers that night and naps in the back room were a common phenomenon during the night shifts.

       Probably why her co-worker did not hear the bell that announced the arrival of new customers.

       Oh, how wrong Ivy was.

       Over the wire framework of the shelf, Ivy gasped for breath when she and Jackson noticed two shoes on the floor with the toes pointing up.

Someone's lifeless body lay on the other side of the knocked over rack.

Ivy and Jackson took another tentative step forward. And then another, only to find Ivy's co-worker lying lifeless on the floor, his throat lacerated by sharp teeth as blood gushed all over him.

Ivy's stomach flipped at the sight of the massacred body stashed in the corner.

Paralysed with horror, Jackson did not make a sound, but started to retreat to the back to escape from there as fast as possible, which resulted in him bumping into a ladder.

The ladder toppled over, the wires snapped and a spark flashed from the lighting fixture. Ivy squealed, one hand covering her head and the other shoving Jackson to the floor to keep him from being electrocuted.

Darkness prevailed inside. A darkness through which Ivy could not see the shock, the shock that dawned in Jackson's eyes that Ivy had just saved his life.

Her act had nothing to do with concern for his life, because nothing could be further from the truth. It was a simple act of human decency.

The noise of a sudden and unforeseen movement spun Jackson and Ivy around. A shelf rattled, the DVD cases shaking as something large moved up behind it.

Ivy yelped as Jackson's hand clamped down on her wrist and pulled her to the front, which caused the two to duck behind one of the shelves to hide from the onslaught of the homicidal creature that was out for blood.

The thumping was furious and relentless. It was Ivy's heart, which seemed to swell like a mallet and pound against her ribcage, a drum full of drudgery that could rupture at any given second.

Her hand traveled to her chest to calm herself down, her shallow intake of breath departing from her lips.

Jackson raised his head from above a stack of DVDs as one of the shelves rocked forward. The shelves began to topple over like domino cubes, crushing everything in its way with the DVDs flying up into the air.

"Run!" shouted Jackson, shoving Ivy out of her hideout, which caused her to roll across the floor.

Somewhat confounded by his act, Ivy landed on her knees, where she crawled to hide behind one of the few shelves that were still left standing.

Ivy's hand went to the back pocket of her jeans, whence she pulled out her phone. She dialled the first number on speed dial, which belonged to Stiles.

Her white Blackberry held up with a shaking hand to her ear, a few signals left unanswered.

       "You've got to be shitting me." Ivy whispered under her breath, her eyes widening as she stared at the screen of her phone in incredulity. "Now you've decided not to pick up?"

to: scott mcfall
big fat wolf in the video store. come and rescue me?????!!!!

Jackson remained still, holding his breath as an ominous silence descended inside. Clicking the send button, Ivy's eyes widened when she heard a growl behind the shelves.

The twenty-two-year-old poked her head out to get a look on the other side of the store as a talon-like hand traced over Jackson's neck, where the impaled claw marks were still discernible.

to: mieczyslaw lol
i hope you choke on your fries when me and jackson whittedick get eaten by the alpha!!!!

Jackson trembled when the tips of Alpha's claws brushed against his skin, retracting and then lifting, as if in preparation to strike.

Suddenly, Ivy's phone rang, the sound of which echoed throughout the Video 2*C, causing the girl to instinctively place her palm on the speaker to drown out the loudness.

The Alpha turned his head, heading in the direction of the sound incentive, while Ivy squeezed her eyes shut in fright. "Shit, shit, shit."

The shelves toppled over, which revealed Ivy who was hiding there. A terrified scream escaped her throat as she threw the phone at Alpha, who adroitly caught the device in his clutches.

She raised her hands in an attempt to appease the overgrown creature. "Good doggie." said Ivy when Alpha crushed her phone in his clawed hand. "Or maybe not."

Ivy crawled to the back, trying to protect herself with anything that came into her hands. "Fucking die!" she yelled, picking up the DVDs from the floor and throwing it maniacally at him.

       Her back slammed against a shelf of DVDs that had plummeted onto her head. She clenched her teeth and ignored the pain as a black figure with eyes as red as the blood of its victims neared her.

The Stilinski girl thought she would share the same fate as his casualties and end up with her throat slashed, bleeding to death in her work place.

And not even on my shift.

A matter of a second, a blink of an eye separated her from being killed once she felt the animal's breath on her.

To her lack of awareness, Ivy did not know that the one who was the Alpha had once been one of her dearest friends who she had relied on through thick and thin.

She had no idea that the one who was the Alpha would never hurt her.

A single tear trickled down her cheek as the overgrown black creature took a few steps back. A moment later, the sound of breaking glass followed as Alpha escaped thence.

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       Derek Hale radiated a sense of annoyance that soon escalated into uneasiness.

      "I⎯It's Ivy." said Scott in a choked tone. "She's in danger."

       That one sentence made Derek's whole world spin. One sentence that made him not hesitate to drag Scott with him to hasten to her aid.

       Fear prickled at the base of Derek's spine as Scott's previous words thudded in his skull. The 16-year-old tried to call Ivy, his trembling hand and buckling heart were the answer for Derek that she did not pick up.

       She can't be dead.

      She was shaken under a heating blanket. Her back would probably remain bruised from a hard bump on the ledge and her head was thudding.

       But her heart was still beating. The blood in her veins was still pumping. Ivy Claudia Stilinski was still alive.

       Noah Stilinski's car pulled into the parking lot, pulling up next to two other Sheriff's Deputy's patrol cars.

       "Stay here." instructed Noah.

       Stiles was sitting impatiently, looking at the smashed storefront, the knocked over shelves, which were preserved. On some of them the blood of the victim whose body was carried out of the video store on a stretcher. His body covered with a cloth sheet in order to prevent pedestrians from panicking.

       However, it wasn't the lifeless hand protruding from the stretcher that drew his attention and left Stiles feeling lightheaded. It was Ivy in one of the ambulances, her mascara smudged under her eyes and her hair dishevelled to every side.

       A heating blanket enveloped over her shoulders and her blank stare was at a non-existent point. She snapped out of her trance when the paramedic handed her a plastic cup of water.

       A thankful and faint, near-invisible hint of a smile showed on her face as she accepted the plastic cup with a shaking hand.

       Guilt racked his body like an unpleasant, steep wind when he pulled his phone out of his front pocket of his jeans and all the non-read notifications popped up.

       "Dad?" called Ivy, her disorientated gaze scanning for the silhouette of her father. One hand held the end of the heating blanket, lifting herself to a standing position and trying to push her way through the crowd. "Dad!"

       Noah lost his stiff demeanour when he heard his daughter's voice. A second passed when Ivy found herself in his arms, wrapping her one arm around his shoulders, tears once again trickling down her face.

       "Dad⎯" Her voice hoarse with shock. Father and daughter pulled away from one another, his hands still holding her shoulders. "I⎯It was a mountain lion. I saw it!" she concocted a lie on the spot, aware that an explanation was forthcoming from her sooner or later. "I wanted to call, but the⎯ my phone fell out of my pocket and..." Ivy let the gap roll around her words as she gulped. "Shattered?"

       "It's okay. It's okay." Noah reassured his daughter, his hands slipping from her shoulders. "The paramedics will take you to hospital to check if you have any major injuries. Stiles and I will follow right behind the ambulance."

       Ivy gave him a quick nod. Noah Stilinski thereafter turned to his Deputies. "Get this place locked off."

       "I don't need to go to the hospital. I'm fine." Jackson attempted to explain, frustration pooling within him. "Why the hell can't I just go home?"

       "I'm sorry, but the EMT's tell me you hit your head pretty hard and they need to make sure you don't have a concussion." The Sheriff tried to defuse the situation, but his attempt only inflamed Jackson's impatience.

       "What part of I'm fine are you failing to grasp here?" asked Jackson snidely. "I want to go home."

       "I understand⎯"

       A voice thick with anger interrupted him in a mid- sentence. "No, you don't understand." said Jackson peevishly. "Which kind of blows my mind since it should be a pretty basic concept for a minimum wage rent-a-cop like you. I just want to go home!"

       Noah did a quick eye-corner scan around the arena, realising that the altercation was the focus of attention for many bystanders, as well as paramedics and his Deputies.

       "Hey!" exclaimed Stiles, diverting everyone's attention from the argument and drawing it to himself. Or, more accurately, sowing unease among passers-by. "Is that a dead body?"

The gathered people dashed to the front. A stretcher with a covered body in the middle of the street elicited an increase in panicked whispers amidst them.

Noah's head snapped back to his son, the heat of his stare made Stiles step back and pretend that he was not the one who had instigated the panic.

       Ivy sank her face into her hands in embarrassment as she was seated back in the ambulance. Her attention was concentrated on how her father was trying to chase away inquisitive passers-by. The thing that escaped her attention were two black silhouettes standing on the roof watching the whole incident.   

       "Starting to get it?" asked Derek.

       "Uh, I get that he's killing people, but I don't get why. I mean, this isn't standard practice, right?" enquired Scott, an uncomfortable lingering feeling in his stomach at the prospect alone. "We don't go out in the middle of the night murdering everyone, do we?" 

       "No." Derek was fast to contradict, his eyes veritably glued to the sight of Ivy who was waiting in the ambulance. "We're predators. We don't have to be killers."

       "Then why is he a killer?" asked Scott. "And if he is, why didn't he kill Ivy? And Jackson? What interest could he have in that?" 

       Derek removed his hands from the pocket of his leather jacket as he watched Ivy drive away in the ambulance. Finally, he honoured Scott with a look. "That's what we're gonna find out."

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       She hated hospitals. 

       The pungent hospital stench had already unlocked some memories once she crossed the threshold. She spent half of her freshman and all of her sophomore year in the hospital on visiting her mother.

       Frontotemporal dementia exhausted her mother with each day. Every day she was weaker. Her mind imagined things that never happened.

       Ivy needed no reminder of how her beloved mother had been slowly becoming less like herself with each passing day until her death. 

       Staying for an overnight observation in hospital to ensure she did not have a concussion was a torture for her. But having Stiles and Scott on her side made it tolerable.  

       Well, Scott stayed for two hours. Stiles was the one who slept in the chair by her bedside for the entire night.

       But Ivy was finally in her bed. After a whole night on a rock-hard hospital bed, it was a luxurious reprieve to be back in a soft double bed filled with soft and fluffy pillows. 

       CREAK. Someone was opening her window from the outside.

       She quickly closed the flap from her laptop and dropped the device from her lap onto the bed.

       She threw off the floral-patterned duvet as her bare feet touched the cold floor. An anxious expectancy rose in Ivy's chest when she picked up the first thing that came into her possession to protect herself from the intruder.

       The item she picked to defend herself didn't seem very useful when it turned out to be her bra. You may be asking yourself, what was Ivy thinking as she stood with the bra by the window? She herself had no idea. 

      "GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE!" shouted Ivy with her eyes closed, swinging her bra and slapping the intruder in her room across the face with it.

      "Ouch⎯Ivy, stop!" Derek covered his face with his hands as his ex-girlfriend sought to bludgeon him to death with the upper part of her lingerie. "Ivy, stop! It's me." he said, catching her wrists to make her stop hitting him. 

       She opened her eyes at the sound of a familiar voice. "Derek?" she asked, his hands slipped from her wrists as Ivy backed away. "What the hell are you doing here? I could have killed you!" 

       Derek was unable to contain himself and snickered at the sight of her frustration. "With⎯" He pointed a finger at the light blue silk bra in her hands. "that?"

       "YES!" Frustration was her second embodiment at the moment, and the fact that she threw her bra at him once again was confirmation of that.

       Derek caught the upper part of her lingerie with a deft hand and thereby managed to avoid getting hit again. He tossed the bra into the corner of her room.

       "You'd better have some reasonable explanation as to why you're interrupting me from re-watching Star Wars instead of doing⎯" Derek arched an eyebrow when Ivy paused, her eyes flicked to him and away again. "Your werewolf stuff." said Ivy, much more silent and less confident. 

       Ivy realised how stupid that sounded, but she didn't back down. 

       "My werewolf stuff?" repeated Derek, his gaze questioning when a soft mhmm escaped from Ivy's lips. "What do you think I do all day?"

       "I don't know." The Stilinski girl said with a shrug. "It's Thursday, so I assumed you were planning to invade a small country with nothing but your tortured soul."

       His eyebrows shot up, the look on his face said 'really', which caused Ivy to keep on talking. "Easy does it, Der Bear. Don't want to get worry lines, do we?" 

       "Stop calling me that."

       The nickname was initiated by his little cousin Aurora. Peter's daughter. She was only twelve years old when she died in the fire.

       Aurora called him that un-ironically. The 15-year-old Derek pretended to hate the nickname when he secretly thought it was adorable. 

       Key word, he thought. It was adorable until his cousin called him that in front of Ivy. And let's just say that Ivy didn't let him rest after hearing that.

       "Oh, I will," Ivy's tone came out teasing when her hands rested on her hips. "If you answer me, what the hell are you doing in my house?"

       "I was driving past your street." replied Derek with a shrug. 

       "Oh, you were driving past my street." Ivy imitated his voice in a mocking manner, which was met with a frown on his part. "Since you've been driving past my street, you might have noticed that my house has these amazing wooden planks called doors. They are so much easier to operate than windows. You just twist the knob and push till they open. Pretty crazy, don't you think?"

       He just rolled his eyes at her otherwise sarcastic response. Ivy hadn't changed one bit since high school.

       "Or you could also have done what normal people do. You could have called." added Ivy.

       "I don't have your number." said Derek nonchalantly. 

       "And I don't have a phone anymore." Ivy cringed at the memory of last night. 

       What had ever crossed her mind to throw her phone at the Alpha? At the most formidable of its species, which was able to kill her with one flick of its claws.

       "A golden rule for the future, don't play fetch with someone who looks like a mutated rat." Somehow, she always opted for the least harmful things to defend herself when her opponent was a predator.

       Derek's eyebrows pinched together. "What exactly did you see last night?"

       The Alpha knew Ivy, moreover, he knew her well enough to keep her alive. This prospect has been keeping Derek up at night. 

       The fact that she had someone in her circle of friends who looked defenseless to her, but at night turned into a monster who murdered innocent people in cold blood. 

       "Well⎯" Ivy drew a sharp breath once she started her interminable rambling. "I found my co-worker lying on the floor dead, throat ripped out, blood running everywhere. A bit of a heinous view if you even care. Then that idiot Jackson hit the ladder and all the electricity in the store poof." she said, her hands imitating an explosion. "Gone. And all of a sudden this enormous, ratty dog barged into the store. Me and Jackson were both hiding, and in the meantime, while he was shitting his pants, I was texting Stiles and Scott."

       "Wait, wait⎯" Derek interrupted her storytelling when Ivy looked at him with her mouth semi-open.

       "Derek, I was on the roll!"

       He ignored her. "You texted Stiles for help?" he asked, full of disbelief. "In what way do you think he would help you? Let himself be the first one to be eaten?" 

       "What would you do if you were there?" challenged Ivy. "Shit on a shelf to show your dominance?" she did not seem to be intimidated under the pressure of his scorching stare and only wanted to finish her story. "May I finally finish my story?"

       "Fine."

       "Thank you." Her mouth twitched with a smile. "So, I was hiding, but Scott kind of blew up my cover by making that call and now all the attention is on me. And of course I'm thinking I can't die not on my shift, so I start defending myself with everything I can get my hands on, but I hit a dead end. This thing deadass breathed on me and believe me when I tell you that its breath smelled like shit."

       Derek began to grow impatient. "Ivy⎯"

       "I'm serious!" said Ivy, thinking Derek didn't believe her and not because he rushed her to get to the point. "It smelled like a toilet full of nasty ass shit."

      "That's disgusting."

       "Yeah, well, try to have that breath on your face!"

       The werewolf observed as Ivy slumped back on her bed. "How much Adderall did you take today?"

       "None." Derek seized her with an amused detachment as Ivy pursued her denial. "I am not lying!" she rebuked as she propped her elbows against the soft mattress. "But I had three coffees."

       Derek gave a nod. This explained why Ivy was more hyperactive than usual. 

       "You know, I could always train you." implied Derek when her look formed a question. Ivy did not understand why Derek cared. "In case neither I nor Scott are around."

       "Why?" she asked. "The last time we tried to help you, you said we couldn't take you to your house because it was dangerous there. Shouldn't you be hiding now?" 

       A smirk threatened to creep onto his face, despite Derek's effort to maintain an impassive expression. "I can multitask." he said, walking towards her window, through which he had sneaked in a few minutes earlier and was about to leave her house in the same way. "Come on, let's go." 

      "Wait!" Her cautionary tone of voice stopped him in mid-step, her eyes were feverish. "Can we stop for a coffee?" 

       Without a hesitation, Derek replied. "No."

      "Derek!" Ivy yelled, throwing a pillow at him. 

      Derek caught the object coming at him with ease. "You missed." he remarked, pointing at her with a fluffy pillow. "Now I'm starting to think you need these trainings more than I expected." 

      "Oh," Ivy shook her head, being prepared to get up from her soft bedraggled position to kick his ass. "You are so getting punched right now."

      "I am so scared." joked Derek in a sarcastic manner. 

       His teasing propelled her into action. She lifted herself from a seated to a standing position, which caused her feet to become entangled in the duvet. The thud with which her body impacted upon the wooden panels was downright comical. 

       "It is not funny!" rebuked Ivy.

       "No." Derek contradicted and shook his head. He did his best to keep a passionless look on his face, but Ivy's actions prevented him from doing so. "You tripping over your own feet. What's funny about that?" 

       "Let me grab that bra really quick." she put a hand on her knee to get up. "I'll show you something funny!"

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author's note:

s1 derek and ivy make me giggle tbh (i almost feel sorry for isaac that he has to endure their petty bickering throughout season 2 and 3a </3). 

lil spoiler for the next chapter: pedo kate heats up the atmosphere again at the hale house 😍😍😍😍