I've been here the whole time

DATE | 15th of June
TIME | Midday
WEATHER | 25 degrees a nice cold breeze and clear blue sky
PLACE | Emerald Street (Selene and Walters old house)
ATTIRE | Oufit - normal workout clothes


The days after new moon was always exhausting, no one really got back on their feet just like that. But after being alone so long with dealing with the pain of losing all the powers of being a pureblood werewolf had made her stronger, which was why she used these days of being helpful for her friends that she had found after coming back. Joining Rafael’s pack, she didn’t even know what that had been about, pissing a little more all over Walter and trying to hate him, thought it was crystal clear she couldn’t.

Everything she had done, all the people she had been with and all the decisions she had made had been a way for her to distance herself from the very fact on how big of a whole Walter had left her with. But it had also given the perspective to what he had to go through, first losing her, then getting over his whole she had left behind and then realizing that she wasn’t dead, and his own sister had neglected to mention it. Asking Elisabeth to keep it a secret, that had been the dumbest mistake she had ever done.

Selene walked into the kitchen and let her hand glide over Derek’s head and crouched down so she could she what he was making “What are you drawing?” she asked with a smile and looked at all the vibrant colors. The thought of this being her kid, always brought a certain feeling on just how much time she had wasted on getting back. If she had just left Irina before, if she hadn’t been so damned stubborn to pay for everything herself. If it hadn’t been because of these children needing her. If just she had known how much Walter had been needing her. A small sigh left her lips as she walked over to the fridge “Want anything to drink?” she asked but just as she had asked that a very familiar scent floated with the wind from the open windows. “Walter” she whispered looking towards Derek sitting by the dinner table drawing on his life content while she had been working on cleaning the house, still contemplating on getting it sold but had put it off as Walter would need to be asked of this decision. “Stay here Derek, auntie will be back in a second, okay?” she said and walked towards the front door and opened it before Walter was even at it. “Walter” she said looking wary at him, all the feelings welled up again and she had to clench her jaw tight not to let it show, not that it succeeded for her. “I can explain” the last thing she needed was anything happening before Diego picked up Derek, why hadn’t she thought of the very fact that Walter might get the same idea and visit their old house? Maybe because she had seen just how long ago it had been since he had last been there.

I’m not supposed to see you.
Being in a new pack meant leaving your old one behind, meaning leaving her old alpha, her greatest love behind. But she couldn’t say it, even as she was complied to. Who is it you have brought into our home? She didn’t hear it at first, our home, he could have phrased that so many ways. My home, our house, but our home?
She took in a deep breath, “His name is Derek” she said and looked at him as he approached her, Selene never lied, and she wasn’t about to do that now. She felt arms locking around her leg and she looked down at the smaller werewolf that clearly could feel the strong aura coming from the man that was standing in front Selene. “Quién es? (who is he?)” Selene didn’t know as much Spanish as his father of course, but who is he? That she understood “This, this is Walter” she said and then crouched down and looked into the little boys eyes “Could you please go in and draw, your father will come pick you up soon, and I really want that beautiful drawing done before he gets here, then I have something to get on the wall, could you do that for me?” the smile that blossomed on Derek’s face was enough to make the normally brute of a woman melt right in front of both the werewolf’s eyes. “Okay!” he then turned around and ran back inside “No need to get jealous about a five-year-old Walter, now why are you here? I got the impression you had left the house after I died” she said in a very calm voice, not wanting to repeat what had happened last time.

She could easily had gotten out of Walters grip, pushed him back, hit him or just told him no. But she didn’t, she just let him pull her outside and close the door behind them. He needed answers. She pressed her brows together, was this about him finding more money that they had ever owned to pay for her medical bills? But she didn’t ask, because she knew this wasn’t the time, he was jealous even as she had just told him there was no reason to. Because why should he? Then it hit her, he thought Derek was hers. A soft smile formed on her lips as she looked into his eyes “His name is Diego, another beta” she licked her lips and took in a deep breath “But it’s not what you think, Derek isn’t mine” because she had never been unfaithful, not that she would have been, not that she thought he had with Tatia. She looked away, even thinking that woman’s name made it hard to even look at Walter.

“what’s it you’re searching for? I’ve been cleaning up and cataloging a lot of stuff, so maybe I can help” she said, she really tried. Not being angry, sad or heartbroken. When every fiber in her body wanted to reach out, the heat from where his fingers had closed around her wrist was still pulsating through her. When they had first met, she had been all over the place with happiness, anger, grief and heartbroken. Out of her mind, was a very good way of describing her. But she was better now, or at least she tried to tell herself that.

He went inside, damn it!
She quickly followed looking into the dining hall that would look into the kitchen were Derek was still drawing out his heart content “Really Walter, can’t you wait till his father’s been here to pick him up? Then we can talk” she asked, not answering his question and saw how he started looking through the shelves, she wanted to ask what it was about. Or even dare to ask him if it was about people coming after him, because they had to, right? But she also knew that it could get Walter’s anger flared up if she started questioning him for his motives.

She sighed and walked over to him crossing her arms, everything about her was still crying out to hold her arm out and touch him. She had dreamed about getting a second change after coming back, just explaining everything, begging him to give her another change. But in all those dreams it turned into nightmares, him telling her that he had never really loved her and then she held on to that feeling. Because that was easier just pretending that he never loved her at all, then she could handle the pain of never being with him again.
“Because I was thinking we should sell the place, and I didn’t know how to call you up after last time”

“Why wouldn’t we want to sell it?” she asked back and looked at him and took in a deep breath. He kept saying we, and it pierced in her heart because there wasn’t a we anymore. She had made sure of that, and she would regret it for the rest of her life. If she had just come home sooner, but it was like every time she had been healed enough to venture on, something happened, and she was put ten steps back. She had fought, crawled back on bleeding hands and knees. Only to realize that she had been too late. The worst thing about it all, was just how little late she was. How long he had waited after she had died, that was even worse because that meant she couldn’t even be mad at him for that.

“It could give closure to us both” she whispered, she wasn’t sure he heard it, because as soon as she said it Derek exclaimed in the kitchen. Walters sneering didn’t really bother Selene and she looked a little annoyed back at him, putting him outside? Really?
“I’ll just go outside and play with him then, then you can get some peace” her voice was strained with emotion as she turned her back to him and walked into the kitchen. Every emotion she had felt while standing with Walter was washed away as soon as she saw the little boys happy face. “Did you draw something cool?” Selene asked with great joy in her voice as she walked over to see what he had drawn to her, a grizzly bear, he had drawn a grizzly bear. Selene did all she could keeping a cool face but sweat started pooling in her neck under her hair. Of all the creatures that he could have drawn, it had to be the one thing she hated with a burning passion.
“How about we go outside and play?” Selene asked and picked up the laughing boy and ran out in the garden with him under her arm.

Selene was so occupied by running after Derek that was trying to get away from the snarling she wolf. His laugh could be heard over at the next house, and there was something about everything that made Selene stop and watch just how happy Derek was. Maybe it was Walter being in the house, that suddenly made her remember why they had bought this house to begin with. It was big, big enough to have a small army of kids running around. But they had never gotten that far, as she had gotten sick.

Derek ran towards her “You forgot to chase me!” yelled the young boy and let his arms fold around her leg. Selene shook her head and laughed “Yeah sorry, you were just looking so cute!” she explained, and then turned her head as she heard Walter’s voice telling her that someone was coming. Diego scent.
“Father is here!” Derek called and started running towards the front of the garden. Selene luckily being fast enough to grab him and put him on his shoulders instead. She could already feel the tension before she turned the corner, and both men called her name. A quick eyeroll appeared. She should have known; both wolfs being so territorial that this could end badly if she wasn’t quick to clear up the misunderstanding.

“Oh, stop puffing your chests like that” she told them with a slight laugh in her voice, before turning her attention to Diego “You are going to give your son bad ideas for when he gets older.”
Derek sitting on her shoulders, she could almost picture the frown on the little boy’s face. “I made a drawing of a, of a” Selene pulled a face, as Derek tried to figure out how to pronounce a grizzly bear. “A grizzly bear” Selene added, and Derek quickly nodded “Yeah that!” Selene looked at Diego and reached up to take Derek off her shoulders “Really Diego, a Grizzly bear, of all animals, and where did he get that idea from?” she huffed with a voice that was a little lower, she placed a couple of kisses on the now again laughing Derek before she handed him back to his father. Her attention quickly turned to Walter and quickly put her body between the two alphas. Even though Diego’s rank was under Walter, she knew just what potential that was just waiting in Diego to be unlocked.
“It’s okay, Walter” she said with almost a caring voice, falling back into the ways of being his Luna was so natural that she didn’t even think about it before it happened. “Look at me” – “They will leave now, okay?” she turned her head over her shoulder “I’ll explain later Diego, see you another time.”

A jolt of electricity glided through Selene as Walter turned his head and his eyes found hers. She hadn’t thought he would actually do it, given that she wasn’t anything to him anymore. Not like they had used to, before she had died. Even as Walter turned his attention back to the beta that slowly walked away, she could still feel how his eyes could look right through her into her soul. She didn’t like that he still had that power over her. That she still wanted him so much, even as she was so angry. But at this point, she was mostly just angry at the world, for pulling them apart, and making sure they weren’t going to be together again. Because that was what would be their fate now – right?
She hated her brain even more, for keeping on hope that someday, one day he would come back to her. Even as she knew that he was already someone else’s.

Of all the things he could have told her or said to her he asked her about the bear. She sighed and let her fingers glide over her neck to her shoulder where such an animal had taken quite a piece off her. “One of the many reasons that I wasn’t here” she just said and went past him into the house and walked towards her bag to get to the academy where she lived most of the time. Giving Walter the peace that he had asked for. Besides, he hadn’t believed her when she had told why she had been gone such a long time. Even though Selene never lied. So, why tell him that she didn’t like Grizzly bears, because one had killed her. And she still woke up screaming from nightmares where she could hear her own bones being crushed and tremendous pain rushing through her body before she had woken up again another place on the planet.
None of this was fair, and suddenly for first time, she wished that she had just died that day. Because then she didn’t have to go through all of this. She walked into the kitchen taken the painting that Derek had made her and packed away the materials he had used. Her eyes fixated on the project at hand, hoping it was enough to keep the burning tears at bay.

She knew that he had moved behind her, but she tried not to react upon it, mostly because she was afraid what would happen if she did. They weren’t what they had been. They were almost strangers, and then not at all. Because she knew everything about him, and he about her. They had shared all their first with each other, and he had been the greatest love her of her life. To be fair he was still that, which only made it so much harder.

He drew in a hard breath as she felt his fingers grazed her skin. It was electrifying. It sent chills down her spine and she wanted nothing more than to just turn around and pull him towards her. Let her lips crash down on his, and the only thing that kept her from it, was because he wasn’t hers. He belonged to someone else. His warmth didn’t leave, as his hand stayed on her shoulder. “Something like that” she whispered “I was trying to save a young banshee, like I told you, I have an ability that respawns be every time I die, and one of those times was getting killed by a grizzly bear” one of those times, how many times had she been killed by now? Her fingers glided over her neck where a thin line still was, from her being beheaded by a male hunter in New York. If none of that would have happened, if she had come home in 2015 had they been together now? She wondered.
“Walter” she whispered with a hoarse voice “You can’t touch me like this” she stood completely still, not wanting to turn around and look into his beautiful green eyes. Those that always seemed so swallow her whole. “I can’t bear it, when all I’ve dreamt about in nine years has been you touching me like this, and now when you, do I can’t act upon it, because you don’t belong to me anymore” the raw emotion in her voice wasn’t to be mistaken. She meant every word, so deeply. Because even though she had found comfort in other people’s arms. None of them would be his. Nothing would compare to what she had felt in his arms.

It wasn’t my intentions.
She didn’t know what hurt her more, his words or when his touched left er. How cold it suddenly felt where his fingers had grazed her dark brown skin. Then he walked out of her kitchen. Small tears glided down her cheeks, and she moved her head back in a try to keep them at bay. She had promised herself; she had done everything she could to forget. Tried to hate him, told herself she was better off. But seeing him again, made all those feelings crush to the ground, and she knew that she would never be able to forget him, and she hated herself for it.
The only thing she could do was getting out of the house, getting away from the memories and him. Hoping that time would heal the wounds that she had gotten. Because that was what time did, right? Heal what had once been broken. But could it heal something as fatal, as losing what you thought was your soulmate?

She had packed the rest of the things, and as she walked towards the front door, she let her eyes fall on his sitting silhouette in the couch. Her brows knitted a little confused together. He hadn’t sounded that upset when he had walked out of the kitchen? But then her eyes fell on the piece of paper in his hand, her brown eyes quickly found the box of all her letters. No.
She hadn’t confronted him about it, because she had seen how long it had been since he had last been in the house. Probably not since she had passed away the first time. She slowly let her bag fall to the floor, and before she could stop herself, she walked towards him. She squatted down in front of him and slowly pulled the letter out of his hands. “It doesn’t help wondering what if’s” she said with a surprisingly gentle voice. “I could have done so much more myself getting in touch with you” she could feel the sting behind her eyes again, and she had to let her eyes fall to the letter in her hands. She had been in Canada when she had sent this, she had been so exhausted after her second death. It was like every time she died, the longer she needed to rest. Only making it that much harder to get back in time.
Her lips trembled “I’m sorry” she whispered, finally letting her eyes glide up looking at him, tears gliding down her cheeks, this time she couldn’t keep them from him "I'm sorry that I left you, and I'm sorry I came back when you had moved on"

It was as time stood still.
His fingers touched over her jaw before the took slightly ahold of her face and started to dry away the treacherous tears that wouldn’t stop falling. She wanted nothing more than to lean forward, let their lips met. But she remembered both how he hadn’t reciprocated the first one they had shared after nine years. How much it had hurt her that time, and how he had rejected her totally by being so angry and so mad at her.
This was different, and even as she knew this time might had a different outcome if she just leaned forward, then the only thing stopping her was that scent she had smelled. The scent of another woman and how he had somewhat explained that he had moved on.

The heat from their skin as their forehead touched, she did just the same as him. Closed her eyes, trying to wash away all that was painful about this moment and turn it in to something beautiful. She was alive, and so was he. Therefore, they could be here right now.
It was like a bucket of cold water as he leaned back; you have to leave.
Even as she could see he didn’t want her too, it only hurt her more. So, he had chosen the other. He had chosen to deal with things alone and didn’t want her here. Had she blown her chance? Selene thought, only to change the question in her head. Did she even had a chance.

The hurt was clear as day in Selene’s face, how she sucked in her lower lip and her brows slightly pushing towards each other. The last thing she wanted was to leave. She wanted to crawl up into the sofa and pull him close. She wanted to feel his warmth again, she wanted just to feel him again. But she didn’t force him or try to convince she could stay and help. Instead, this one time, she didn’t argue with him and stood up.
Selene wanted to say goodbye, or at least something. But the words died out on her tongue, not letting her tell him how much she still cared and loved him. It didn’t tell him how much she wanted to be with him, that her heart would always be his. “I’m sorry” she whispered again, walking towards her bag, and picked it up. She quickly got out the door, closed it behind her and walked straight towards her parked car. There she placed herself behind the driver seat. But before she could do anything a hoarse scream of sadness left her throat. Tears stormed down her cheeks, as it felt like someone was carving out her heart pulling every string that made her body hurt. Slowly making her suffocate and she wasn’t able to get any air down.

She didn’t remember when she had started the car and drove off. She wasn’t sure how she had ended up in front of Diego’s house. Nor did she understand how she had gotten out of the car, and now stood by the front door and knocked on it. All she knew, was she was falling apart and she needed help.

The door opened, and for a time it just felt like time stood still as werewolf looked up into the man that had slowly become like a brother to her. She just stood there, looking with her tired and puffy eyes not knowing what to do with herself or even say. How did you explain what had just happened, without making one a bad guy? She knew what Walter had done to Irina, she knew that he had had a bad attitude when she had first arrived, but could she really blame him for the last thing? And could she judge him for the first thing, as it was a consequence of him wanting to save her all those years ago?

Selene drew in a raspy breath as she felt Diego’s arms wrap around her and pull her into his arms. Her own arms folded around him. Once again, she started crying, something she hadn’t done since a change met with a warlock had gotten her to open up about everything that had happened. Just for a night she had felt better. But now? It was like everything was meaningless.
Selene buried her face in his chest, letting her be vulnerable for once. She couldn’t even recall if she had ever let him see this side of her, or Irina for that matter. Always been the one that kept the spirits up or told them things would get better. But now.


@Irina

Nigel just called back that it wasn’t a problem and that he would look after her. He walked with a cup of coffee in hand and watched how Irina ran over to Diego where he could see the silhouette two people hugging. As he squinted his eyes, he could have sworn it looked like Diego and Selene, but Selene wasn’t a hugger, was she? He shrugged his shoulders and turned around and walked back into the house. Irina would tell him if there was something he needed to know afterwards.

What happened? For the first time she wished so many things hadn’t happend, that she had never died or in the worst case never had revived again. All the secrets, all that she had kept her mouth shut about was about to either make her a very hated and lonely person, or in the best-case Irina would forgive her and understand.

She pulled away and looked towards Irina feeling how her eyes stung from all the tears that had been shed. Then she looked towards Diego “The man you met, I was his Luna” she whispered, “Nine years ago” she took in a deep breath and closed her eyes “Could we go inside?” she asked shifting her eyes towards Irina and felt the pain crush down on her chest making it hard to breathe. Please don’t hate me.