recklessthings | 彡 cora hale

It's not that it offends her. It's that she can't tell if it's a trick or not which very well come with the explanation she's offering. And if her experiences in Chicago thus far are any indication, she wouldn't have trusted what they said anyway. She isn't really sure if she can't trust him either, but she won't rip out his jugular either.

She doesn't say anything, just slowly exhales through her nose as she faces him and crosses her arms in front of her chest, before raising an eyebrow, waiting for him to explain. Okay. She's listening.

(Sometimes, she is so Derek's sister. Unfortunately, Alek won't appreciate that.)

(He will soon enough!!)

For now, he's grateful she at least sticks around long enough for him to explain. "Not everyone's a fan of Wanderers." That's probably an important part to start off with. "There are those that blame you for the rifts, for the way things go haywire, and how overpopulated the city can become. Some of them will leave you alone but some of them won't. There's a coalition called the Chicago Liberation Front, and they make it their mission to take Wanderers down. Be careful and keep an eye out for them."

It's not about whether she can take care of herself or not. It's that they're lethal, they're many, and they can instantly know if someone is from their world or not. Even Alek takes them seriously.

Okay. That's fine. She files that information away for later, under names like the Argents and the Calaveras, but that none of that answers one very important question. Well, two, but the first one she's going to ask is the important one.

"I still don't get what a Wanderer is. What rifts?"

This girl did not get the welcome speech, Alek. You're going to have to start from scratch.

Seriously, what is with the welcome wagon lately. They're slacking.

"Rifts are - I guess they're not much different to wormholes. They're tears in the fabric of the universe, cracks in space and time - that kind of thing. Sometimes things slip through the cracks. ... Sometimes people slip through the cracks. These people are called Wanderers."

A.k.a, Cora. And well, they're called other things, but Wanderers is the friendlier term.

It's not all their fault.

Cora will take Wanderer. She's mostly busy trying to process everything else he just said right now. So she fell through a crack in the universe. Awesome. That explains how Derek was there one minute and gone the next, and probably freaking out on whatever the other side of this crack is.

"Okay. So how do I get back?"

She has family to get back to, family that she just got back and she can't leave Derek alone.

This is the part he really hates, for the record.

He might even be steeling himself in case she decides to punch him for the bad news, though there's never any telling how one will react. There is no right or wrong way to do so. "There is no getting back. It's a one-way ticket."

The look on Cora's face goes through stages as the realization sets in. At first she scoffs, ready to say that there has to be a way. Maybe he just doesn't know it yet, because he's a dumb kid and kids don't know anything about how the world works. Only she knows from experience that some know it a little too well, and that's when the skepticism fades to realization and realization goes to flickers of grief all too quickly.

She just got Derek back. She just had family again, a pack again. But why would they let her keep it? Hales never get what they want after all.

She glances away from him for a moment, her shoulders caving a bit under the pressure of it, before looking down and swallowing hard. It also means that Alek isn't an actual Hale, not a Hale from her world, just a guy with the name.

"Sorry. About the Hale thing." She swallows hard before looking up at him again. "There aren't exactly a lot of us in my world."

Alek is being surprisingly good about not taking it personally.

It's not about him, and whereas his temper usually doesn't let him see that, he's trying to get better at it. He's trying because he doesn't want to hurt people the way he hurt Carter. He could've killed Carter if Jeremy hadn't been there to stop him. He doesn't want people to be scared of him. (He doesn't want to be scared of himself.)

There isn't anything he can do about it, and he is genuinely sorry for the pain she must be feeling. He shakes his head. "I'm the one that's sorry. The rift's not going to apologize, so one of us should." No one should get uprooted from their home, from their family. He tries imagining it happening to him, suddenly finding himself without his brothers, and he grows paralyzed at the thought. They are all he has.

"...You're Hale, too?" he asks, surprise in his voice. There shouldn't be. Her reaction now makes more sense.

She glances up at him and nods a bit. Yep, she's a Hale. It used to mean something. Something good and strong and safe. Now all it seems to mean is death. In some ways that's better - it drives people away, people who could get hurt otherwise, because in other ways all it does is attract those who smell weakness and want to eliminate them for good.

"There's only three of us, back home. Me, my brother and my uncle. The rest of them ... " She's pretty sure he could connect the dots. "I'm not really sure why anyone would pretend to be part one of us, but ... " Someone using her family name still flares her temper more often than not. "Especially another werewolf."

Oh, he does. In a quiet and subtle way, he connects the dots, and it shows in his expression.

Something aches in his chest, and not just for that reason. "If you're already a werewolf, why did you sound surprised about turning into a wolf?" he asks. Because he realizes things might work differently in her world than they do in his, but that means - that means there are more things he'll need to break to her.

And the full moon's coming soon.

She blinks up at him for a moment, but is grateful for the subject change. She doesn't really want to talk about her family anymore than he probably wants to talk about his. Especially since she needs to accept the fact that she's never going to see them again.

"Because that's something you earn." Some wolves could do it. Her mom could do it. But Cora was no where near that kind of wolf. She wasn't her mom. "I haven't."

Yep. That's what he thought. His eyes close briefly as he pulls in a solidifying breath.

"Not here," he says. He doesn't even know why anyone would want to earn it. If he could choose to be anything else, he would. "Being a werewolf here means you're a shapeshifter, and you're given two animal forms. One is the wolf, and the other one is usually a smaller animal, though you don't always immediately find out what it is."

Alek hasn't. For now. He doesn't know it yet, but he will rue the day he does find out.

"The full moon - " He swallows. "We can't control the shift during every full moon, and it's not the wolf we become."

No, it's something far, far more lethal.

It's not the form that Alek is talking about that bothers her. It sounds like it's the wolf form she's had her her whole life. That part at least is comfortable. Familiar. That part she can handle.

It's the other part, the fact that her control on a full moon is being ripped away from her again, that this time she can't get it back, that's so much more devastating. Her body slumps again, hard against the lockers behind her, letting the edge of the metal guide her to the floor so she can rest her elbows on her knees and burying her face in her hands.

She's tired of people and things taking things from her that aren't theirs to take. She didn't ask to be this kind of wolf - she didn't ask to be in this Chicago in the first place. And yet she still has to deal with all the consequences.

Alek doesn't know how to people.

He really, really does not know how to do the comfort thing. He's aware she isn't asking it of him. She isn't, in fact, asking anything of him outside the truth. But that doesn't mean he doesn't want to give it, that there isn't a part of him that wishes he knew what the right thing to say and do was at any given time, but especially in moments like these. He keeps quiet as she slides down to the floor, before he follows in suit next to her. He can't tell her it's not brutal. He can't tell her the pain isn't excruciating; that it's not scary. All of these things would be lies.

But he can do one thing. Something his own brothers have been trying to do for him, and he has not allowed. Perhaps until now, when he realizes he can't teach Cora unless he learns, too.

"I can help you," he says finally. "If you want. There aren't many of us out there in Chicago - you're the first wolf I've met outside of my brothers, but they've already been where we are. They've been teaching me the ropes and I can teach you. You shouldn't have to figure this out on your own." That's what Logan would say, and he's never met anyone smarter than Logan.

Cora shouldn't have to figure it out on her own, but that's how she's used to doing it. She's probably the Hale where losing the pack hit her a lot harder. She was so young when it happened that all of the things that her alpha should have taught her (her mother should have taught her) were learned on the fly out in the real world. She learned to control her wolf because the hunters couldn't see. She learned to control her emotions because emotions were a vulnerability that people aren't allowed to see. She knows she's a predator, she's been one her whole life.

She doesn't want to be a killer.

She knows the world she lives in, and she knows someday she may have to be, but she managed to survive six years on her own without changing the color of her eyes. She even managed to survive what the alpha pack did to her without hurting anyone (anyone but Derek, anyway) thanks to the Beacon Hills pack. She knows that if her control is really, permanently gone she can't do this on her own. But that part of her that was on her own for so long still doesn't know who to trust.

"Are you sure we can't control it?" She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, brushing away whatever may have been threatening to escape as she takes a breath and pulls herself together. "No anchors or anything to stop the shift?"

A heavy silence follows Cora's questions.

Alek had never heard of an anchor for werewolves, but he's a smart cookie. He can put two and two together enough to figure out what that must mean. He knows his brothers work as anchors of sorts for him. They're what keep him tethered to the world long enough to keep from exploding. Or that's what it feels like sometimes, anyway. Like he'll explode. But once that full moon comes, there's nothing and there's no one. There's you and the cage.

There is no softening this blow. Alek slowly shakes his head. "I'm sorry."

She swallows hard, before nodding some more, hands playing with the bottom of the borrowed basketball shorts. It's just settling in how incredibly alone she is in all of this, alone in a way she hadn't really had before. Even after the fire, and she was running through South America trying to keep herself safe, she had hope that someone from her family was out there. She didn't receive her mom's alpha after all, so at minimum one of her siblings had to have survived.

(In reality, there were two, but she didn't get back there fast enough to see one of them. A part of her will probably never forgive Peter for that.)

But here there was no hope. There's no chance of her seeing Derek or even Peter again. There's just her, on her own with something she can't control in a place where she's just as hunted as she was before. She stews in those thoughts for a moment, before she rests her elbow against her knee and brushes at her eyes. There aren't tears, not obvious once, but she can feel them forming and after everything that's been taken from her, she refuses to let the dumb rift have her composure too.

"I don't have anywhere to go."

Which is the closest, in this moment, that she'll probably get to asking for help.

That settles it, doesn't it? Alek can't close himself off to what she is asking, even if she really isn't asking. (It's the closest he'd get too, if he were in her shoes. There is something about her that is familiar to him. as he relates to her difficulty in expressing what she wants to, he makes a decision of his own.)

"Yes, you do."

It's said swiftly and without much room for doubt - at least not on his end. Alek brings himself to his feet, having made up his mind, and he stretches his hand out to her in offer. It's Cora's decision whether she takes it or not, this olive branch he is offering metaphorically and literally, but if she does, he'll take her to the Hale Manor. He knows his brothers would agree with him - they can't leave her alone with this.

The look on her face is a mix of relief and confusion. It isn't that she doesn't appreciate what he's offering, because she does. The idea of being around other wolves, wolves who will be able to help her deal with this, is an important one and she wants to accept his offer, that olive branch, for what it is, but she feels he need to ask more first.

"You don't know me." Obviously. "Why help me?"

She's waiting for the other shoe to drop, the catch that will explain it all. Nothing comes for free in this world or any other, and Hales fall into traps like this all too easily. She doesn't want to accept help and wind up selling her soul, not that she thinks Alek would ask that of her.

"I've been where you are." There's a slight pause. "I am where you are."

If only a few steps ahead of her. It hasn't been that long since Alek learned what it was like to carry the wolf inside of him. It wasn't that long ago he had his first full blooded moon. He is where he is today because his brothers wouldn't leave him alone with it, even when he did absolutely everything to push them away. "You're a wolf, Cora. We help each other."

Maybe it's that simple. Maybe it can be.

She doesn't know why she should trust him, but she wants to. She needs to. She doesn't really have anyone else to trust. It doesn't help that her ears were tuned to the steady thump of his heartbeat, and there were none of the other tell-tale signs of deception. As far as she could tell, he was telling the truth. She'll just have to hope he isn't wrong.

She reaches up, taking his hand and letting him pull her to her feet.

"I just have to pick up some stuff."

Some stuff being her jacket. She doesn't really have anything else.

Trust doesn't come easily. Sometimes, it doesn't come at all. And then there are other times where you just have to take a leap of faith before you know either way. He realizes he's asking a lot here, but he also knows what could happen if he doesn't persuade her. While they might not know each other, he's already invested in helping. It's not something he can explain. He just knows he can't not do anything about it.

It's why there's an inward sigh of relief when Cora takes his hand. Alek's grip is steady as he pulls her up, before he glances down at himself.

"And I should ... probably shower," he says in agreement. "Meet you in fifteen by the school entrance? The rest of the guys will be here soon."

Alek has a feeling she would rather avoid a lot of smelly, dumb boys.

Yes, yes she would. She nods a bit in agreement, before turning and heading back towards the way she came in. She just has to get back to Grant Park, and maybe steal herself a pair of shoes in the process. She was going to need an entirely new wardrobe, but that's something that can come with time.

In theory.

She pauses, just inside the doorway, before glancing back to him with a look that has more gratitude than she can probably put into words. "Thank you."

That's why Alek will enlist Ava's help, Cora.

... The thought of Ava and Cora in the same room with the former giving the latter fashion tips, though. Anyhoo, Alek gives her a faint smile and nods his head, stepping further into the showers once she's off. True to his word, he'll be climbing down the front steps of the school's entrance, freshly showered, in search for her.

He's half wondering if she'll still be there, or if she changed her mind.

The idea of Ava and Cora in the same room together is amazing and beautiful and maybe it will happen one day. But for right now, it's just Alek and Cora and she will make her way back to the high school again, just like she promised. Her long dark hair is hanging around her shoulders, and she's still in that boy's basketball uniform that is too big for her, but over it now is a leather jacket with sleeves that hang a little long over her hands. She's also got a pair of neon colored cheap flip-flops that she ~~stole~~ borrowed from a street vendor.

She's hanging back, just outside the entrance until she sees him, and she pushes away from the wall, falling into step next to him with a small smile.

"Hey."


	✔ Cʀᴏssᴏᴠᴇʀs/AU ✔ Aᴄᴛɪᴏɴsᴘᴀᴍ ✔ Pʀᴏsᴇ	✔ Pɪᴄᴛᴜʀᴇ ᴘʀᴏᴍᴘᴛs ✔ Oᴛʜᴇʀᴡᴏʀᴅʟʏ ✔ Sᴛᴀʀᴛᴇʀs	♥ F/M, F/F ⏰ Uᴘ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴀᴛᴇ

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