"How many underground layers and secret vaults does the Hale family own?" Malia uttered as her head spun from left to right, so that her eyes could view as many details as they were able to.

"Just this one and the vault under the high school," said Peter while closing the sliding metal door behind them.

They both marched along a hallway, once Peter had walked past Malia in order to switch the lights on and guide her inside.

"What was this place used for?" she asked.

"The family kept it to train the young wolves that had issues shifting during full moons," he said, "But after the fire, the Argents used it as a torture chamber," he added.

"Cozy...," she commented.

They kept on walking in a straight line until Peter stopped again in front of another sliding door. It opened on a large empty room, dust being the only element to cover every surface. Malia walked around the place for a moment before dropping her weight to the ground and crossing her legs.

"What are you doing?" Peter was startled by her action at first but then became confused.

"Sitting," she said simply.

"Can't you just sit like normal people do?"

"I am not normal people,"

By the way she acted and the short answers she gave, Peter knew she had something on her mind. He could see her thoughts swirling behind her eyes, "Are you still thinking about Scott?"

"No, I don't want to talk about that," she said, her eyes on the ceiling.

"Right, because if I remember what you said correctly, you have a list of people to talk about this with and I am not even on there," he crossed his arms.

"That's not it. I actually want to talk about something else," she admitted.

Peter's brows furrowed, his full attention on her; he didn't say anything and just waited for her to start.

"This whole thing with Kate and the Argents, from back when they were still hunting werewolves and other creatures...," she trailed off, but caught her words before completely losing the will to ask, "After the fire, you fell into a coma, and you were stuck in that state for six years. I know what happened after you woke up, I heard it all from the others but... I... I mean...," her voice became more hushed the longer she spoke, and the closer she got to the question she wanted to ask, the harder it became for her to utter her words.

"But you haven't heard it from me yet," he guessed. She finally looked at him, still unable to express her thoughts the way they were lined up in her mind; not that they were in a perfect order in there either. Peter wanted to alleviate that weight off her shoulders so, he decided to carry on, "I actually remember a lot about that day. I didn't think so many details would keep coming back to me after so many years, but here we are. I'd been out of the house for a while. Back then, me and Talia didn't see eye to eye, but you already knew that. I did go back to talk to her from times to times, to confront her...," he trailed off.

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"Confront her? What about?" said Malia.

"You," he said in a whisper, his voice trembling. He noticed Malia's confusion so, he explained, "At the time I didn't know I had a child, she'd even made me forget about Corine. But I knew she stole a memory away from me; I wanted it back,"

"The day of the fire. You...," Malia started on a presumption, but she couldn't finish her sentence either.

"Yes, that was what brought me back to the Hale house the day of the fire,"

"There were other people in the house that same day, right?" she asked.

"Talia had taken our youngest cousins under her wing. Their parents had passed only a few months prior to that. They... Weren't supernatural. The argents... Well, Kate didn't care about that, and I am pretty sure Gerrard was proud all the same,"

"That's even more depressing," she stated, then she added, "I know that Derek and Laura were at school, but I recall someone mentioning that another member of the family had survived,"

"Cora. She fled to south America; she came back to Beacon Hills a few years ago but, after the pack had defeated the darak, her and Derek left again, even though Derek came back,"

They both held their pieces for a while. Peter didn't know where to go from there, and Malia looked like she was genuinely trying to pluck up the courage to ask more questions. Questions that would possibly cause him more grief, questions that would throw him back into a spiral of emotions, ones that he'd finally managed to seal away and somewhat move on from. He thought that she was getting good at that, reading the room... Malia had struggled a lot with that before. Peter was proud of the progress she'd made but wanted to spare her the pain of trying to find the right words to ask him what she wanted to know. He didn't want to have those kinds of barriers with her, he figured they'd already had enough of those between them two, "But you want to know what it felt like for me to be in that coma, right?"

She tried to hide it, but guilt was written all over her face, "Yeah, ... I guess I didn't know how to ask about it," she said.

"Well, I definitely remember the panic, then the moment the flames touched my skin, the first burns that I got from that and the unbearable pain that came with it. The smoke that I'd inhaled didn't help my case either,"

"Is that how you fell into a coma?"

"I think by now you know that for most supernatuals that can heal, pain is the trigger for the healing process. What happens when there's just too much pain to bear though?" he asked.

"We don't heal,"

"At first you just lose consciousness, but after a while and the longer you remain in that state, the more of your awareness you regain. My body shut down but not all the way down to death. I could hear people around me, yet I couldn't speak. I could feel all the pain yet couldn't complain or cry. I remembered what happened to me and my family, I remembered who did it to us, yet I couldn't scream the rage out of my lungs. I could do absolutely nothing other than lie down in that bed and wait patiently. I stayed like that for six years, and believe me when I say, six whole years can be awfully long when the only person you can talk to is yourself,"

Peter finished his tale on its lowest note, his voice shaking, not from sadness but from the hints of rage he hadn't gotten the opportunity to express with others yet. With guilt still apparent on her face, Malia spoke again, "I... Am sorry I reminded you of all of that,"

"No, I am actually glad I could talk about it, and I am glad it was you that asked," he went quiet for an instant before continuing, "And thank you,"

"For what?" she asked.

"Not reminding me that what I did after the coma was wrong," he admitted.

"There's a time and place for everything, I guess. Besides, I think you've been reminded of that enough times," she said.