Chapter Text
“Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there, I did not die.”
Isaac folded the paper he’d read the poem from and put it into his pocket, stepping backwards to join in line with the other mourners. There were a good number of mourners, all dressed in sombre tones that seemed all the more dark against the bright sunshine and grass so green that it couldn’t possibly be real. It was strange how alive the graveyard smelled. The grass had just been cut and the service was decorated with the same colour roses that Erica and Boyd had had at their wedding.
Derek looked down to the young girl at his side. Veronica was staring ahead resolutely, stony faced as she watched her father’s coffin being lowered into the ground. Slowly the dark wood vanished from view until all that was left was the rose coffin topper, red as freshly spilled blood, and then soon even that disappeared. The tiny hand clenched in Derek’s own gripped tighter.
Of all of them, she seemed to have been the strongest through this all. Her brother, currently hoisted up on Stiles’ hip, was still too young to understand all of this, the finality of death, but Veronica knew. She understood her father had gone away forever and she met it with a quiet strength that Derek envied.
Boyd was never supposed to be the one to die. He’d been the strongest of them all, more so than even Derek at times but he had grown to be the most controlled too. When the full moon came around he didn’t even seem to feel it anymore. Whenever you needed him, Boyd was there. Derek had always thought Boyd would be the one to outlast them all, if he didn’t sacrifice himself nobly to save the world first.
Vernon Boyd was not supposed to die in something as meaningless as a car crash.
Instant death the doctors had said, like it was supposed to be a consolation. Fast or slow Boyd was still dead, cut in half by a truck that had run a red and now Derek was holding the hand of his daughter as they threw earth onto his coffin. The sound of soil hitting hollow wood resounded in Derek’s ears. There was not another sound in the universe.
They stood there together until the priest announced the service over. Boyd’s mother had organised the service. There were times that Derek forgot that the pack had families of their own. Boyd hadn’t had much of a family outside the pack, only his mother was left alive. He’d had a sister who had died when he was small but Boyd had never said how she died and Derek never asked. The Pack had been all the family Boyd needed, before he’d had one of his own that was. It was easy to forget the frail old woman who Boyd went to visit four times a week. They knew Mrs. Boyd better now, ironically. In these last few days Derek had seen her more that he’d done in the last fifteen years as she came by to visit the kids everyday. They were staying at the Pack house. The whole Pack was at the Pack house.
A stream of people walked past Mrs. Boyd as she sat by herself. They offered the condolences, told her to call if she needed anything, then moved on, ultimately leaving her alone.
Around him he heard his pack talk in hushed tones but he wasn’t really aware of what was being said. The only thing that seemed real to him was the little girl who still held his hand, staring at an unfilled grave.
“It was a lovely service,” said Allison. “I think he would have liked it.”
It was a lovely service, as lovely as a funeral can be, but it hadn’t been a werewolf funeral. But funerals were for the living, not the dead. The pack would have their own memorial later, away from prying eyes.
“At least Erica’s mother had the decency to stay away,” said Scott.
Erica’s mother had been making a lot of trouble of late. Apparently Derek and Stiles were untrustworthy charlatans who had brainwashed her daughter and were now keeping her children hostage. She’d been around every day that week demanding to take them away now that Erica could no longer look after them.
Derek had never heard of the facility the Weisse Rat had taken Erica too. A mental institution for the supernaturally insane. Erica’s body had survived the crash. Her mind had not. At first they’d thought it was grief but it soon became clear that losing her husband had robbed Erica of so much more. The final straw had been when Stiles had walked in to find her standing over her children while they slept, a knife in her hand. They looked too much like their father.
“We’re going to make sure everything’s ready for the wake,” said Isaac touching Derek on the shoulder as he left.
Derek saw Mrs. Boyd was stood at the graveside now, staring down into cavernous hole. She held a crucifix in her hand, kissing it before tossing it into the grave.
TJ was falling asleep on Stiles shoulder, blissfully unaware of what was going on. Stiles adjusted the boy on his hip, turning his head to press his lips to TJ’s ear in a not-quite-kiss. By Derek’s own side, Veronica let her hand slip from his and ran towards her grandmother, hugging the old woman’s legs tightly. She stooped and wrapped her own arms around the little girl’s shoulders.
“I miss him too,” said Mrs. Boyd quietly. “We’ll always miss him but we know that he loves us still. Your daddy will always love you. Always.”
Derek turned away, giving the two of them a moment together.
“Hey,” he said wrapping an arm around Stiles back.
“Hey,” said Stiles back, his voice thick with tears.
Derek ruffled TJ’s hair, making the boy nuzzle in deeper to Stiles shoulder.
“You alright there kiddo?” he asked but TJ just made a noise of displeasure and gripped onto Stiles’ shirt harder.
Derek leaned against Stiles other shoulder for a moment before pressing a gentle kiss to Stiles lips. Over the last few days Derek had found himself touching Stiles every moment that he could. Shoulders pressed together while they did the dishes, an arm round his waist whenever they stood next to each other, holding hands when they sat watching the kids playing. Life could be short and brutal, the accident had reminded him of that. If he didn’t know how long he had left on this Earth he wanted to make sure as much of it was spent with Stiles as was humanly possible. Stiles seemed to agree.
Veronica pulled on Derek’s sleeve.
“I need TJ’s shoe,” she said.
“Why do you need his shoe?” Derek asked, stooping down to the same level.
“So that Daddy can always have something of ours with him while he’s asleep in the ground. I’m going to give him my bracelet.”
She held it up for Derek to see, in case he didn’t already know what she meant. It was just a cheap little thing made from plastic beads on a length of elastic but it was Veronica’s pride and joy. She never went anywhere without it. Now she was giving it to her dead father. Derek had to struggle to get the words out.
“That’s a lovely idea. Are you sure you want to give him your bracelet? You won’t ever be able to get it back.”
“You said I wouldn’t ever be able to get my Daddy back,” she said quietly. “I’d rather have my Daddy than a bracelet.”
Derek scooped her into a hug that was more for him than for her. It was just that fraction too tight but right now he needed to know that she was safe. When he’d managed to control himself enough to make words he let her go and took her hand. He turned back to Stiles who was holding TJ’s shoe already. He hadn’t tried to stop himself crying. Together they walked over to the grave and knelt down at the edge along with Mrs. Boyd. There was a thin scattering of dirt across the coffin but it was still clearly visible. Hidden from the sunshine, the roses at lost their violent colour. They now looked black.
“Bye bye Daddy,” said Veronica. She was crying now. “I miss you.”
She dropped the bracelet in before turning to hug her grandma. Stiles managed to coax TJ awake enough so that he could drop the shoe in himself. He probably wouldn’t remember this but Derek felt that it was important.
“Now you’ll always have a little bit of you with him so he’ll never be alone again,” said Mrs. Boyd.
“I’m hungry,” said TJ now that he was awake again.
“Can you take the kids back home to the wake,” said Derek, looking up at Stiles as he stood. “I’ll meet you there.”
Stiles frowned at him before Derek jerked his head to the old woman sat at the grave beside him. Stiles nodded knowingly. He manoeuvred TJ around to get a hand free and held it out towards Veronica.
“Come on little lady,” he said. “I hear there might be pie.”
“Pie,” said TJ perking up. “I like pie.”
“I know you do. That’s because you are your father’s son.”
Derek watched as they walked away, talking about Boyd’s obsession with pie until their voices faded away into silence. Pretty much everyone else had drifted off by this point. All that was left was Derek and Boyd’s mother knelt by a grave. They sat like that, in silence, for a long time before she let out a long low sigh.
“A mother isn’t supposed to bury her child,” she said. Her calm was more disturbing than if she’d been a weeping wreck. “It goes against the natural order of things. It’s not right.”
“No. It’s not,” he said.
“A woman should not have to put both her babies in the ground.”
They sat quietly for a moment before she spoke again.
“Help an old woman to her feet, would you dear?”
Derek stood before stooping to help her up off of the floor.
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know what I would have done without you boys.”
‘You boys’ was referring to himself, Stiles and Isaac. They’d been taking it in turns to go by her house, make sure she was doing alright and helping her with all the things Boyd used to help her with. Boyd was Pack. That meant he was family. Mrs. Boyd was family too now.
“It’s nothing,” said Derek.
“No. It’s not. It’s something. It might be a something you think nothing of but that doesn’t make it any less of a something,” she said. “And to think, when he first started tailing around after you and the rest of them I thought he’d gotten himself into a gang or something.”
“A lot of people think stuff like that,” said Derek fondly. How strange their pack must seem from the outside.
“Whatever you guys were, I’m glad he had it. He was always so… lonely before you came along. Kept shutting himself off from the world. I don’t think he ever would have had a family if it hadn’t been for you guys. How are the kids? Really?”
Derek looked out to the car park. With his superior sight he could make out Stiles trying to juggle two kids into the back of the car. TJ seemed to be pitching some kind of fit. He’d been doing that a lot lately.
“They’re not okay but they will be,” he said. “TJ doesn’t really understand what’s going on, keeps asking for his Mom and Dad no matter how many times we try to talk to him. He’s been tantruming like the best of them. Veronica has a better idea. She’s quiet which, well you know Veronica.”
“A drama queen if ever there was one,” she said fondly.
“Yeah. She cries sometimes, we hug it out. They’re both getting through it. They just need time. Sometimes I think they’re handling this better than we are.”
“Good. I’m glad they’re with you rather than the Reyes woman.”
“She was around the house this morning,” said Derek, referring to Erica’s mother. “She threatened to get a court order to take the kids this time but don’t worry. I know Erica wouldn’t have wanted them to live with her. We’re seeing the lawyer on Monday about custody.”
“Good,” said Mrs. Boyd. “I wish I could take them but…”
Her hand unconsciously fell on her hip where arthritis constantly plagued her. There was no way she could look after kids full time by herself and she knew it.
“How are you?” asked Derek. “Really?”
The old woman drew herself up and looked at her son’s grave.
“Surviving,” she said.
She took up her walking stick and began to long hobble back to her car.
Derek watched her go before standing and walking back over to the grave side. He dug around in his pockets for a moment but the only thing he had were his keys. A glow in the dark moon key chain hung from them, a joke present that Stiles had brought back from one of his ‘business trips’. Derek pulled the ball off and dropped it into the grave.
“Good bye Boyd,” he said. “I’ll look after them for you. All of them.”