keeper (d. Hale)

there is always hope.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: requested spicy content.

"Did you really just win over your cousin by giving her betting money?" Delilah asked Derek as they sat in the hospital waiting room. His arm was slung across the back of her chair while her hand rested on his knee and drew circles across the rough jeans stretched across his folded legs.

He enjoyed the feel of her fingers gently kneading into him, even if she was doing it to keep herself calm.

Only a few moments before, Liam had been taken away by Melissa to an exam room to get his worsening ankle looked at. He looked absolutely petrified to go and continuously asked Delilah if he would be okay to go back and finish the try outs.

Judging by the amount of swelling Delilah observed as she carefully removed his shoe, his prognosis was not looking good. It almost definitely looked like he wouldn't be playing for a while. A very long while.

Delilah felt awful for him. And that feeling only grew worse when it turned out to be very evident that his step father wasn't interested in picking up his phone to meet them while they waited to hear back from the doctor.

"I definitely did," Derek chuckled as his hand resting on her shoulder played with one of her lose curls falling from her ponytail. He would let it go and watch it spring gently back into place. "Malia has a temper just so you know. Flips like a switch."

Delilah let out a sigh and Derek felt her head lull onto his shoulder. 

"That's because she has the sensibility of a toddler and hasn't even remotely come close to adjusting in her human skin."

Derek nodded. It was completely understandable in the most ridiculous way. Malia had spent more than half of her life living as a coyote. She was practically feral and it was beyond a miracle she was even able to still read and write. 

"Apparently she is failing calculus," Derek added with exasperation. 

"Calculus?" Delilah reeled back with concern. "Why the hell is she in a calculus class? She barely has the basics at most."

Delilah crossed her arms and chewed on her bottom lip. "I'm going to talk to someone at the school tomorrow. The way her education is being handled is no where near acceptable in my books," Delilah's foot tapped anxiously next to his. "Peter will pay for a tutor. He wants to be involved, he just needs a little help from us to do it with out scaring her off."

"Peter is pretty scary," Derek murmured into her with a grin. "Have you seen his face? Absolutely horrifying."

Delilah let out a small snort at his attempt at a joke. He placed a kiss to her hair and rubbed her shoulder affectionately. She leaned into the touch before snapping back to her rigid state as another name, not related to Liam, was called by the nurse behind the ER desk.

She pouted and Derek groaned.

"Did Mel say how long the wait will be?" He asked when he looked up to the clock on the wall. The second hand seemed to be rolling backwards the longer he stared at it.

"Impatient?" Delilah asked as she adjusted her head against his shoulder. The waiting room was a purgatory that Delilah really only enjoyed when she was the one behind the desk but right now she needed to respect that the hospital team was working their hardest to look after everyone.

"Only slightly," Derek answered honestly. This wasn't his favourite place. People were coughing, his wife was anxious and there was the overwhelming scent of incurable illnesses lingering in the air. He tried not focus on the man sitting next to him who held a bucket under his heaving mouth or the old woman across from him who appeared to be knitting her 3rd scarf of the evening.