When he and Laura had been the only remaining Hales unaffected by the fire, Derek hadn't caved or cracked. Not to this extent, anyway. The serious, stubborn attitude that had started to set after killing Paige had only intensified, detaching himself from anything and anyone that wasn't his sister, but deep inside the terror that Laura had just witnessed was everything that ran through his veins. The overwhelming guilt, the grief. He had used it as a mask, a shield to protect him from the rest of the world, but right now it was gone. It was gone, and that very same guilt was pulling him further and further away from the surface.
Laura's words echoed in his mind, though. The force behind them were enough to make them feel like physical blows that knocked the air right out of him, but he couldn't talk. He couldn't do anything but listen as Laura spoke, looking uncharacteristically choked up as well.
"I don't want to let you go," he finally said, tearing his eyes away from the other table so that he could turn to his sister. Green eyes bore into her, and he reached for her hand. The fact that he could hold onto it, that he could hold her hand made him turn to their hands joined together in silence. Ever since being found Derek's body refused to hold on to any kind of body heat, the drugs slowing down his system to the point that any power the wolf could give him was gone, but he didn't feel it right now. He could only focus on Laura. The one that had been his lifeline for so many years, the only one that had somehow managed to make him hold to some piece of his sanity that remained. Laura, who had grown up being so damn important in his life. She had been his alpha. His older sister.
"I can't let you go, so please don't ask me to do that." His voice was quiet, so damn low compared to the usual booming and commanding voice everyone else was used to. Maybe not all of him had died in that cellar, or in that fire; as he turned to her, there was a glimpse of the person he had once been before the tragedies that made up their lives started hitting them. "I still need you. I need you to stay."
It didn't even dawn on him that, if Cora could be having this conversation with him, she would be telling him everything he was telling Laura.