thanksgiving is, after all, a word of action [set on 11/26]

[triskehale]

Thanksgivings in the Hale house used to be quite the big deal. Feeding over a dozen werewolves, many of them teenagers was no easy feat. Derek loved all the chaos, and he helped out in the kitchen since he was old enough to stand on a step stool and reach the counter.

The first year after everyone died, he and Laura each got a rotisserie chicken and some biscuits, trying to hang on to some semblance of tradition, but the food tasted like ash. Laura went to bed early, and Derek pretended not to hear her cry. They stopped trying to do anything for the holiday after that.

It's been almost a decade since that disastrous attempt, and a few months ago Derek decided that he wanted to try again. While Laura and the rest of his family will always be the cause of this gnawing ache in his heart, Derek has a new family here in Darrow. He has so many people that matter to him, and care about him. It's more than Derek deserves, or ever thought that he would get, but he's grateful. He's thankful.

So he decides that he's going to do his best to put on a Thanksgiving of his own, and invite his new ragtag sort of pack. His new family.

The invitations go out and on the big day, Derek arrives at Semele's just after dawn. He puts two giant turkeys in the oven and quickly sets up the long table and chairs in the middle of the bar. With each chair he places, Derek marvels over just how many people he has in his life. It's astounding to him, and it's the perfect day to show his gratitude.

And then, all that's left to do is cook. And cook, and cook some more. If he's lucky, he'll have time to go shower and put on something nice before all his guests arrive.


[Hale pack Thanksgiving! Treat this as a gathering post. Tag in, tag around, give thanks! ♥]

Comments

[shuck_you]

Eventually, Thomas got himself off the sofa and wandered around some. Derek's house wasn't huge but there were a lot of people around, some familiar and others not.

When he caught sight of Kate, he wandered over to say hello and see how she'd been. He hadn't seen her since before that other city and he wasn't sure if she'd been there or not.

"Happy Thanksgiving," he said, having picked up that lingo quickly. "How's it going?"

[everyonetakes]

"I think I'm dying," Kate answers and she knows it's dramatic and given everything Thomas has told her about his past, maybe not the best choice of words, but she's never censored herself before and she's sure as hell not going to start on Thanksgiving. "I think I'm dying of a turkey induced illness with some pie related side effects. That's a thing, right? People who die when they eat too much Thanksgiving food and have to be buried, young and beautiful, while their friends and husband weep over their coffin?"

Not that she ever wants to get in a coffin again. Once, while paralyzed by that stupid dress, had been more than enough for her. When she dies now, she's totally making sure they cremate her.

[shuck_you]

Even if Thomas knew it was an exaggeration, he feigned concern anyway. He frowned and nodded thoughtfully at her list of very dire, very food related symptoms before sighing and shaking his head.

"Sounds like you're not gonna make it to tomorrow," he advised solemnly. "You should probably keep eating today just so you can go out full and happy."

Thomas thought that going out with a full stomach, surrounded by friends and loved ones wasn't too bad a deal, actually. It was better than what he'd imagined for himself when he'd been in the depths of his Flare depression and now that he knew he wasn't going to croak anytime soon (because of the Flare, at least), maybe he could imagine something better for his future.

"I would definitely weep," he told her, nodding and still solemn. "Big fat tears."

[everyonetakes]

"I would make a beautiful tragically dead person," she says with a happy sigh. "But then again, I make a pretty beautiful living person, so I guess that only makes sense. I appreciate your tears, though. It means a lot to me."

She probably shouldn't joke about things like that, especially when she's come so close to actually being dead so many times, but shit like that, all the serious stuff, she needs to joke about it in order to give it less power.

"This is a hell of a dinner, huh?" she asks. "I mean, I know there's a lot of people here, but this is a shit load of food. I'm pretty sure I could steal half a turkey and no one would even notice it was missing."

[shuck_you]

"This is the most food I've ever seen in one place," Thomas said, nodding his agreement. Even though he'd been around for some of the prep, he didn't even want to think about how long it took to cook all this and how much effort Derek and Bitty and everyone else had gone through to get it all done in time.

"First Thanksgiving I can remember and I don't know if anything'll top this one," he added. If he'd had Thanksgivings in the past, he'd figured them to be small, contained to his parents and him. With his parents long dead, Thomas figured any holidays would be like this from now on: full of friends he'd made and could remember since everything else was locked away.

[everyonetakes]

"I mean, when you put it like that, it's a pretty great Thanksgiving to have as your first memory, right?" she asks, looking around. It's true that she does't know everyone here, she's not sure she even knows all their names, but they're all important to Derek and that makes sense. It also makes her happy, seeing that he's got so many people around him who care, and she's totally going to use this as evidence of all the people who love him the next time he gets down on himself.

It's entirely possible she's not the most compassionate person, instead preferring to shake people until they admit they're loved.

"No one's fighting, no one's punching the food or throwing it at the walls. I don't think anyone is drunk enough to start puking everywhere," she says. "That's my experience with most family holidays, so you're really getting off light here. I feel like I should purposely cause some drama just to make it more American holiday appropriate for you."

[shuck_you]

"Punching the food?" Thomas asked, picking that particular tidbit from everything else she said because it just sounded the most amusing. The way she said it, the specific detail of it made it sound like this was something Kate had experienced and not just an insane situation she'd thrown out at random.

"Has that happened at your holiday dinners before?" he wondered curiously. "Has someone punched some food and thrown it in your experience? That seems like an awful waste of something good."

Frypan had made some terrible meals before but Thomas knew that if he'd even thought of throwing it at a wall, the ground, or someone else, Alby would have smacked him silly and thrown him in jail. Thomas wouldn't have blamed him either.

[everyonetakes]

"Yeah, my dad punched and threw a turducken once. Which, if you want to get to the real heart of American gluttony, is a duck inside of a chicken inside of a turkey. Or maybe the chicken is inside the duck. Whatever the case, it's three birds all shoved inside each other and cooked that way. Gross, right?"

It's actually delicious, but that's totally not the point at all.

"It was kind of insane, we were having this last family dinner before my mom went off for some serious business therapy and everyone was trying so hard to be normal and my dad just finally snapped. He just had this serious freak out about all the shit the world has poured on his family and how none of us deserve it." Her mouth twitches slightly and she shrugs. "It was actually kind of funny."

[shuck_you]

"He took his anger out on a turducken?" The word is completely new to Thomas and it sound strange to even say. It sounds more like a bunch of words just haphazardly thrown together rather than one actual, real word.

"When you first said, I thought maybe he was mad at someone and he took it out on your food, not that he was mad at the world and he took it out on your food," Thomas said, snickering. "Bet that made a mess."

[everyonetakes]

"It was gross," Kate agrees. "His knuckles were all greasy and there was this big grease stain on the wall where he'd thrown the turducken, but my mom, being like, totally cool somehow, didn't even transition or anything. She just like... I don't know, passed the green beans or something."

And it wasn't better, not by any means. Max wasn't magically made happier or less stressed, her mom hadn't suddenly been cured. Kate's own life had still been all up in the air, but somehow it had been simpler. Their life was exactly what it was and no amount of freaking out would ever change that.

"And the next day they left," she says. "I was left with my brother Marshall and they went off and hopefully everything got worked out. I don't know what happened to them next, that's where my memories sort of just cut off."

[shuck_you]

"Well, hopefully someone decided to paint over the grease stain or something," Thomas joked. "Or I guess it might have made for an interesting story whenever you had people over. Here's the living room, here's the dining room, here's the big stain leftover from when my dad through meat at the wall."

For a second, Thomas wished he had a story like that. He wished he remembered something ridiculous about his father that he could share. Maybe he'd fallen into a pool once or put a whole in the wall while trying to hammer a nail. All he had was the memory of his father screaming and ranting, threatening his mother while in the grips of the Flare.

"Does it bother you not to know?" Thomas wondered. "Or is it something that you've gotten used to over time?"

[everyonetakes]

"I don't know," Kate says, thinking about it. "No, I don't think so. It's just how it is. I mean, I can't remember stuff I wasn't even there for, right? It's different than what happened to you."

She's honestly not sure if that would drive her crazy either. It probably would, she'd probably go nuts trying to figure out what had happened in her past and where things were going from there, but the way it is now, just not knowing what happened to her family after she showed up on that island, it's not so bad.

"I wish I knew if they were okay," she says. "But that's not the same."

[shuck_you]

"That's what I think about more than anything," Thomas told her, nodding slowly. "I wish I knew if everyone was okay. I'd be fine with not knowing anything else if I knew they were getting by and were still alive."

With Newt's arrival, his hope had been renewed that his friend had found the Safe Haven even if Newt had been in bad, bad shape. Somehow, he and Minho had led them there even while they'd been stressed, alone and dealing with Newt's sickness.

"Too bad this place doesn't give like status updates or something," he sighed. "You could know if someone was doing okay but then you'd also...know if they weren't and be helpless to do anything."

[everyonetakes]

"Well... it kinda might do exactly that," Kate admits, looking over at Thomas with a small smile. "When I left Kansas, it was right after this tornado ripped through our neighbourhood and for a long time that was the last thing I remembered. But then a little over a year ago, there was just suddenly all this other stuff I was remembering."

It had been really weird and complicated and for awhile it hadn't made much sense, but now the memories just all sort of fit together somehow.

"I remembered like, a full year of stuff that happened after I'd already left home," she explains. "It was weird, but somehow it all makes sense now."

[shuck_you]

That was...that was something he hadn't heard before from anyone. He squinted, trying to process what Kate was actually telling him before he blew out a long breath and rubbed the back of his neck.

"So, I could just randomly remember new things?" he asked, finding that both terrifying and exhilarating all at once. Even if he could never remember the past, knowing what happened in his present, in his future would be something. It'd give him something. "And it just happens instantaneously? You wake up or you're walking down the street or eating dinner and you suddenly remember?"

[everyonetakes]

"Yeah, for me, I woke up with it all suddenly in my head," Kate tells him. She actually hasn't spoken about it all that much with anyone besides Newt, wondering if people would think she was going totally batshit insane, just like her mother. But for some reason she doesn't think Thomas is going to judge her for any of it, no matter how weird it might sound. He's told her stuff, after all, he's trusted her and she figures she can do the same in return.

"It hurt," she says. "It was like waking up with what I imagine a migraine feels like. I've never had one before, but my mom always said it felt like glass was being ground into her eyes. It hurt a lot, because it was like my brain was all wrong. I had memories of the island I'd lived on and Darrow, but also memories of Kansas that I wasn't supposed to have and they were mushed and mangled together. I had no idea how I could just know all this stuff I hadn't known the night before."

[shuck_you]

"That's....that's crazy," Thomas breathed, shaking his head. It seemed impossible in extreme ways too. How could you just remember experiencing something that you weren't around for? How could this place just plant memories in your head so intrusively and make it feel like you'd lived through something you know you hadn't because you'd been in a different place the entire time.

"How did you deal with it?" Thomas asked quietly. He couldn't even begin to imagine what he'd do if he suddenly woke up with more memories of the Scorch, of his friends and of WICKED. He didn't know how he'd deal if the memories were terrible and dark, if his friends were dead or dying or if WICKED had just taken over where his government had failed.

[everyonetakes]

"I don't know, it was weird at first," she says. "I felt like I was going totally batshit insane, but I think what maybe helped was that I went home at the same time, too. Me and Newt. We woke up in my bedroom in Kansas. It was only temporary, it was one of those things this place does and I know my family wouldn't remember it if they came here, but it all felt so real to me."

It was just so many levels of crazy that somehow trying to work our the memories had seemed like the least of her problems.

"By the time everything settled and we ended up back here again, it was like they were already a part of me," she admits. "I wish I knew how I dealt with it, like I had some kind of advice or something, but the thing you'll probably figure out about me soon enough if you haven't already is that I don't know what I'm doing like, almost all the time."

[shuck_you]

"Holy shuck," Thomas said, wide eyed and slack jawed by the time she'd finished talking. The sudden influx of new memories was one thing but hearing that you could go home albeit temporarily was a whole new thing. It brought the question roaring back to life: what was this place and how did it do the things it did?

He knew, if anyone knew the answer, they would have shared but he couldn't stop thinking about it. The magic he'd seen from some of the different people that called Darrow home was nothing compared to the magic that the place itself did.

"And it was home?" he asked quietly. "You weren't dreaming or anything?"

[everyonetakes]

"Not unless me and Newt had the same dream," she says and she figures that's not actually impossible, given the weirdness of Darrow, but it would be kind of impressive. "It was like we were actually there. We spent days there. And you know how with dreams everything's just... not quite right? Like the door that used to lead to your bathroom now leads to a park or to your driveway? Nothing was like that. Everything was right."

And she remembers it all with perfect clarity. Even now, more than a year later, she remembers it all. That had been home and Newt had been there with her. He'd met her mother, he'd met Marshall, Max had appraised him and had actually been nicer than Tara in the end. It was like Tara had been making up for lost time and she'd gone full third degree on him.

"But time was different. We were there for ages and here it was only a day or two," she says. "I missed a shift at work, so I know it was at least one day."

[shuck_you]

"Wow, that's -- that's something," Thomas said, struggling to come up with words to describe how that sounded. He wondered if there was a way to just stay there if he got the chance to go home. Maybe there was a way to anchor himself to his home and not return when the time came.

He quickly realized that something like that would be too easy. Darrow or whatever controlled Darrow was powerful. It'd had the ability to find him in the Scorch and take him right out of that world and into this one. He knew that he couldn't hide if this place wanted him back.

"Every time I think I've managed to get my footing here, someone tells me something new and I end up on my shucking ass again," he said, laughing at the absurdity of it all. What Kate was telling him should not be possible and yet he absolutely believed her. He couldn't not, not after everything he'd witnessed.

"This place is just...bloody insane," he said, taking a word out of Newt's (his Newt) vocabulary because it just seemed to fit.

[everyonetakes]

"Got it in one," she agrees, having long since given up trying to understand or explain this place. What she knows is that without the island and now Darrow, she wouldn't be the person she is now. Her mother's bullshit had always taken top priority and Kate had needed to be physically removed from the situation in order for that to change. As much as she misses her family and even the alters, she still knows it was for the best. Seeing them now would be different, she thinks, she's learned how to be on her own without them and having them here wouldn't just suck her back in, but it's been almost six years. She needed that time.

And so, insane or not, this place is home. It's where she found freedom and autonomy and her new family. Her friends, her dog, her husband, her potential career path. It's given her everything. And yeah, it's insane, but Kate's lived with insane since the moment she was born.

"I guess having a crazy mom probably prepared me for this shit better than some," she admits with a grin. "I mean, when your mom sometimes turns onto a poncho goblin, it's sort of hard to be surprised by new memories or turning into a dude for a week."

[shuck_you]

"Wait, what?" If they hadn't been having a fairly serious conversation and he hadn't been watching her face, Thomas would have sworn she was saying these things just to get a reaction from him. He'd barely started to digest the fact that he could one day wake up and know if they'd gotten to the Safe Haven or if they'd all died in the Scorch when she'd had to spring something else on him.

"You turned into a guy before?" he asked, eyes wide yet again. He knew that questioning Darrow was ridiculous and did no good but he'd never thought that changing someone's gender would be something he'd have to deal with. "Really?"

[everyonetakes]

"Yeah, for like, a week. I was super hot, which probably isn't surprising, since I'm super hot to begin with," Kate says. "But it was kind of both insanely awesome and scary at the same time, because I just wasn't turning back. I was stuck as a dude for ages and I kind of like being a woman. I'm an awesome woman."

Then she pauses and grins. "But Newt and I had fun anyway." Which is probably way too much information, but she's never really been known for her filter and it's not like someone wouldn't wonder about it anyway. She figures it's probably just easier to say it out loud and then no one has to awkwardly ask about it.

[shuck_you]

It took Thomas a second to realize what she meant by having 'fun' and then he winced and shook his head. It wasn't that he was embarrassed or afraid of that type of thing, it was more that it was new to him and he wasn't used to people talking about it so candidly. It didn't surprise him that Kate would be the one to be blunt about it, though.

"You're an awesome woman," Thomas agreed with a quiet laugh. "I don't know if I want to experience the wonders of being a woman because I would not be awesome. I'm barely managing to get by like I am now. Changing my gender...yeah, let's avoid that."