Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf and I am making no profit from this writing.
Warnings: MAJOR SPOILERS for Season 3B finale, major character death (canonical), some non-graphic violence possible, work in progress, un-betaed
HUGE thank you to Madame Vastras, the GENIUS who came up with this idea and awesomely allowed me to use it. This fic was inspired by her beautiful gif set, which you can find at: madamevastrasDOTtumblrDOTcom/ post/81014139304/teen-wolf-au-nobody-really-dies-in-beacon-hills (or go to my profile for the link)
Title from Coldplay's "Fix You." Don't ask, I have no idea.
Chapter 1: The Awakening
"No, Allison."
"Allison."
"No."
"Allison!"
She can hear Lydia screaming as she floats higher and higher. As she rises above her body, watches the connection sever where the sword struck her. She wasn't lying when she told Scott it didn't hurt. She can't feel anything. She reaches for her body, tries to stay just a little longer, wishing she could feel his arms wrapped around her, holding her safe, protecting her (too late, too late). She drifts, watches him get farther away. Makes another grab for him, just before he slips out of her reach. She tries to rest her hand on his shoulder, only manages to brush her fingers through him for an instant. She hopes he felt it.
Then everything goes dark.
She wakes in the woods, in a bed of rotting leaves. She rises, staggers to her feet – no, she expects to stagger, but her feet are sure beneath her. Her shoe goes through the pile of leaves, and they lay undisturbed. As if no one had ever been there at all.
She walks around the stump in front of her, realizes she recognizes it. The Nemeton. Where she first met Scott. Where they made their sacrifices. Where everything began.
This is not what she imagined Heaven to be like. Nor Hell, for that matter. Maybe she is in Purgatory. Maybe this is where souls go while they are waiting to cross the River Styx.
She hears a noise behind her, leaves rustling.
"Mom?" she whispers, scarcely daring to hope. A branch snaps – and no, she was soundless when she moved, if her mother was here, she would be too, wouldn't she? She whirls, automatically reaching for her crossbow, and realizing she doesn't have it.
It's a deer, watching her calmly. She breathes a sigh of relief. The deer looks up, then, freezes. And she runs, her white tail held high in the air like a warning flare. Allison hears movement all around her, and then suddenly, nothing.
The air is still. The birds are silent. The woods are empty, quiet like death. For the first time since she left her body behind, she thinks she almost feels something – a chill down her spine. Something is coming.
She takes to the trees, climbing as fast as she can, hand over foot over hand – but she can't seem to get a grip. Her fingers go right through the tree branch when she tries to grab it. She takes a deep breath. Pushes her palm into the trunk of the tree. Closes her eyes, and passes through. Inside the tree, it is quiet. Safe.
Even within the tree, she can hear the creature roar. If she still had a body, her hands would be shaking, she is sure of it. She's grown steadier since Aunt Kate's death, but this is a whole different creature. There is something monstrous about it – and yet, beneath that, something almost human.
She hears footsteps, like someone, or something, running towards her. She opens her eyes and realizes she can see past the tree – not well, but she can see the silhouette of what she thinks might be a person. A man. Hunched over, running on all four limbs. He sniffs the tree where she hides, and she would hold her breath if she still had lungs to fill.
Something about him, though. He feels so familiar. She knows, deep in her bones that lay cold and still beneath the earth, that she can trust him. She is safe. He will not hurt her.
She can barely see his eyes, but she knows this man. Somehow, she does. She summons her bravery and slips her hand from within the tree, presses it against his cheek, hovering so carefully, wanting more than anything to touch, to feel the warm skin against her palm.
"Allison," he says her name like a prayer.
"Scott," she whispers as she steps out from the tree, bringing her other hand up to cradle his head, "Scott, I'm here. I'm right here."
He can't see her. Can't hear her. Can't feel her.
"Allison," his voice breaks, and she can't feel the wetness on her fingers, but she can see the tears rolling down his face.
"Scott," she whispers helplessly. Fights back tears, until she remembers it doesn't matter anymore – the dead cannot weep.
She follows him home. She isn't sure why, but it feels right. If no one is coming, if there are no reapers or banshees to show her into the afterlife, then she has to find her own way. She feels drawn to Scott, and why was he at the Nemeton so soon after she woke? Did he somehow sense her presence?
She hopes he did, hopes he knows she's watching. She knows he can't actually see her, but sometimes, his eyes linger a few seconds too long, and she thinks maybe he knows, somehow, that she's there. Close enough to touch, and yet, not. She wants to hold his hand, walk together like they used to, when they were so in love and all she could see were the stars in his eyes. Pretend she doesn't know about werewolves, or Aunt Kate, or the Hale fire – any of it, just pretend none of it exists, so they can go back to being Scott and Allison, just the two of them.
Scott opens the front door, slams it behind him. Automatically, she reaches for the doorknob. Her fingers slip through, go beyond the knob to disappear into the door itself. She closes her eyes, because this is still so weird, and steps through the closed door with ease.
"I have to go, I'll call you back," Mrs. McCall is hanging up the phone, looking at Scott with wide, anxious eyes, "What happened?"
He shakes his head, stares at a patch of wall behind her head, "Nothing, just went out for a run."
His mother purses her lips, obviously skeptical, and with good reason. She hesitates, as though carefully considering her next words, before finally saying softly, "Chris says he's never seen you at the cemetery. Isaac too. Sweetheart –"
"She's not there," he snaps, then looks contrite at her raised eyebrows, "She didn't like cemeteries. She…she always said, she didn't like visiting her mom's grave, because it was too sad, and if her mom had a choice, she would be at home, in their library. She said…she said she felt her there, sometimes."
"And where do you feel her, Scott?" Mrs. McCall asks gently. His mouth twists in a pained, sorrowful smile.
"I feel her everywhere," he whispers.
"I'm here," she tells them helplessly, "I'm right here."
Then they're gone so fast that she thinks she might feel nauseous, if she still had a stomach. She looks around. It's her room. Or it was. But it still looks the same, like her father hasn't touched it since her death. Maybe he hasn't.
Her bed is made, though, and she knows she didn't do that. She walks around it. It feels too neat, too deliberate, for her father. There are small rumples in the comforter, though, as if someone had slept there, on top of everything. The window is cracked open. She leans her head out, and there are claw marks on the windowsill. Isaac.
When she thinks about it, it makes sense. Isaac is an orphan. He left Derek. (She's sure he would take him back, but Isaac is too scared to ask.) When she died, he had still been living with Scott. But maybe her death had upset the balance. Maybe Scott was too unstable for Isaac to feel safe there. He never liked much conflict.
She runs her fingers along the edge of the bed. She's getting better at this now, at judging where to put her hands so it looks like she could be touching, even if she can't feel it. She imagines herself like a soft, cool breeze, the air just barely disturbed by her spirit passing through.
It's almost painful, to be here, to be reminded of her life, so ordinary now. She touches the desk. Her physics homework is still strewn across, equations half-finished. Now she can't even hold a pen. She moves to the dresser, and that's her hair in the brush. I was here, I was alive, that was me, she thinks.
There's a book, on the nightstand, next to her bed. Othello. She was on Act Three. The bookmark is still there, just a piece of red ribbon. She was reading it for English. There was a quiz on Friday.
Her economic test is stuffed in the drawer, she remembers. She didn't want her father to see the big red F written on the top of the page. She had been worried about econ, and Isaac, and the Nogitsune – and now, she's dead. Now, there is nothing.
What is she here for? Shouldn't she be with her mother? Maybe she didn't deserve to go to Heaven, maybe Heaven didn't exist, but if this is the afterlife, where is everyone else? What was it they always said about ghosts, that they had unfinished business? She was seventeen, of course she has unfinished business. There was – is – still so much she wants to do with her life.
She wants to graduate. She wants to go to college. She wants to visit France, like her father promised they would one day. She wants to tell Derek that it's okay – she can't forget what happened to her mother, but she understands, and she doesn't blame him anymore. She wants to tell Isaac that he's a wonderful person, that he didn't deserve what his father did to him, that he should give Derek a second chance. She wants to tell Stiles it's not his fault, the Nogitsune could have chosen any one of them. She wants to tell Lydia she's the sister she never had, and she doesn't need a man to be amazing. She wants to tell her father that it's okay to be happy again, and just because her mother is gone, it doesn't mean he can never talk about her and smile one day. She wants to tell Jackson to stop being a coward and just come back already. She wants to tell Scott she still loves him, and she wants to try again.
She can't do any of those things now, because she's dead. She was only seventeen. She doesn't regret her last minutes, the decision to protect Isaac. She couldn't have known she would die, but if she had, she would have done it anyway. It was the final crux in her story. Some good could come out of her family, for once. Instead of killing an innocent, she saved one. Her mother might not have been proud, but she thinks she would have understood. Her mother had fought and died by her cause, and so had she – their causes were different, but her mother understood what it was to fight for something, to put your life on the line for someone else's.
"Why am I still here?" she asks the empty room.
It's not that she doesn't want to be. She does. More than anything, she wants to stay. She wants to see her friends all grow up and graduate, get married and have kids, do all the stupid things they've always done. She wants to watch over her father, make sure he's okay.
But she's dead. What can she do for them now? She's nothing but a useless spirit watching over them. She can't even touch them.
She can't bring herself to leave. She's not ready to see her father so soon after seeing Scott. She sits on the edge of her bed, thinks of Lydia sitting where she is now, telling her she had awful fashion sense. Eventually, Isaac comes in through the window, as she had suspected.
He walks around and sniffs the air as if to be sure the room has been undisturbed since he left. Then he lies down on her bed, buries his face in her pillow with a sigh. Curls into the fetal position.
Allison lies next to him, wraps one arm around his chest and rests her face against the back of his neck. Imagines that he can feel her steady breath (imagines she can still breathe). Tries to hold him tighter, pull him close enough that she can feel his warmth. She finally settles for wrapping around him with light touches like a cloak. Whispers, "it's okay, it's okay, I'm here," until his eyes close and his breathing evens out. Keeps murmuring in his ear until the sun comes up.
Ally A is back! Well, sort of.
I know it's a bit choppy, I promise it'll be better next chapter. I'm still working on my set-up / intro stuff.
I'm sure people are thinking "oh sure, Allison can teleport now, wtf." It's necessary for some things I have planned later, and why she teleported (is it really teleporting if you don't have a physical body?) will be explained later.
Please review and let me know what you think. Con crit is LOVE. Feel free to ask me any questions.