Talia Hale decided to deal with the Malia situation by removing all of Peter’s memories of the situation and hiding all the evidence. She raised Laura to be her Alpha Heir.
The concept. The Concept is, that after The Hale Fire, Laura decides to “help” her little brother the way her mom “helped” Peter.
The worst possible version of this is one where Derek didn’t tell Laura what happened with Kate Argent before she went in there. He was just inconsolable, was just suicidal, was just shutting down after the loss of everything, after having to kill his girlfriend, after being tricked into killing his family, and Laura couldn’t stand to lose another packmate. She couldn’t be left alone after all of this. She’s maybe 21. She’s a brand new Alpha and that was never supposed to happen so soon.
She needs a pack, she needs Her pack, she needs her little brother to be her little brother again and she just wants to take away the pain of the fire, of Feeling it happen. Of all those threads snapping one by one and Knowing that they were in Agony. He’d been getting better, these past few months, after Paige. He’d been happier, moving on. She’ll just. She’ll help. So she sticks her claws into his neck and Finds the source of Derek’s “happiness” these last few months.
Laura has her claws in his neck and tries to figure out what to take, can she take out what Kate Argent did to him without him forgetting that the fire happened at all? Should she take away the fire entirely? He was sad for so long after Paige died, she wants her happy little brother back. The one who hadn’t killed anyone, not Paige, not(and she knows he’s a victim, she knows she shouldn’t think this, but she’s looking at his memories and for all that they’re Horrifying, she can’t understand how he could be so Stupid) her family.
The two options at this point are basically that Laura decides not to take the Memories, but has taken all of his Secrets instead. The Knowing doesn’t help. Or, Laura takes the memories, and, in the absence of information, Derek starts to think that maybe Laura did this. Maybe Laura killed the Hales. Is this a pack or a hostage situation?
Either way, really horrific violation of autonomy for whumpbeast Derek Hale. Laura trying to “spare” Derek and doing something almost more unconscionable than what Kate did is Sooooo.
Derek wakes up in New York City, with a sore pain lingering in his neck and no memories of the last two years, his body isn’t his own because his body isn’t 14 going on 15 anymore. It’s too tall and too defined and his face is wrong without all the baby fat. There’s a devastating caverning emptiness in his chest where his pack bonds should be. He can’t believe it, he’s scared. The only bond he can find is to his older sister, but her eyes are the wrong color, his eyes are the wrong color, and he can Feel it. Underneath all the fear and grief that rolls off her in waves, he can Feel that she resents him. Poisonously.
Derek having no information except what he gleans through context and trying to understand why his eyes are blue now, why he feels so guilty, why Laura would do this, coming to conclusions that are almost worse, because they can’t be argued, proven or disproven, because he can’t trust Laura who he can Feel hating him, a little, no matter how hard she tries to hide it. To tell him the truth anymore.
Derek in his studio apartment with his sister, missing a couple years of memory and a whole lot of family and wondering what happened, why he’s so scared and disgusted all the time, why Laura’s lying to him, why she won’t look at him anymore, why this is the 5th apartment they’ve been in in as many months, who Laura is running from. She says they’re being hunted. She says that they have no pack left but the two of them and if he wasn’t listening so closely he would have missed the barest twitch of her heart on the half truth.
Derek wouldn’t leave, not so dependent on his Alpha to keep him from going Omega in an unfamiliar city. Not when he doesn’t know what really happened. Not when for everything wrong with the situation Laura is still his Sister and his Alpha and he loves her. Not when everyone else is dead and he thinks maybe he deserves this for whatever it is that Laura made sure he couldn’t remember doing. He, he thinks maybe he did something terrible. He thinks maybe Laura did something terrible.
