A/N: I have no idea what this is. I didn't even like Theo until the last few episodes of the series. Now, for some reason, I adore him and his character. So here's this really strange thing I wrote with an additional character no one really knows about, because why not.

One

He knew this was it. The end of the line. The last few moments of the miserable waste of life his had become since the Dread Doctors had betrayed him, since Scott McCall had caught him in his web of lies, since he'd come back to Beacon Hills and gotten tangled up in all the shit that went down here.

His left cheek was cut open, so deep and so wide that his tongue, as it swiped against the inside of his mouth, could taste the blood seeping inward. Multiple lacerations dug deep into his ribcage, a gunshot wound to the left shoulder, an arrow protruding from his leg. His eyes still glowed a dark amber and he growled and roared, but the fight was fast fading from him.

This was how it'd all end – him, alone, in a fucking sewage tunnel of all places, while the rest of Scott's pack were caught up defending one another from the Anuk-Ite. Maybe it was better this way. Or maybe he just really wanted to believe that.

The hunter that had shot the last arrow, now lodged deep into his right leg, smirked down at Theo, crossbow reloaded and pointed steadily at the chimera's heart. Theo snarled at the smug expression, at his own defeat, but he could do nothing else except drag himself backwards until his spine collided with the cold, hard concrete wall.

"Well, look at you," the hunter, a broad-shouldered, nameless man in his forties, cooed to Theo nastily. "All alone. Where's your pack, boy?"

The other hunter behind the cross-bow-wielder chuckled. "Doesn't look like he has one. Probably the boy Monroe said no one would come for."

No one would come for. No one's coming for me.

Fear seeped into his body; cold, unforgiving fear, unlike any he'd ever felt. Even in that Hell Dunbar had put him in. This was different.

Even in that pit, he hadn't been alone. Not really. But no one was coming for him – he was so expendable, now. So… worthless.

Baring his teeth, he growled as the man holding the crossbow crouched down in front of Theo. His wicked smile, his overt joy at having the chimera on his last limbs, made Theo's stomach hollow out. He refused to close his eyes and resign himself to his fate – if death was really coming for him, Theo would stare it straight in the face.

"How's it feel, boy?" the hunter said, grinning from ear to ear. "Knowing you're gonna die all alone?"

"He's not alone."

Theo's head snapped towards the voice, one that was too familiar, too good to be true. Was he hallucinating? Was his brain trying to give him some final sense of comfort before it was all over? She'd never come for him, not when the others needed her, not when shit was hitting the fan and they needed her skills. She was essentially an extension of Scott's pack, now. She was one of them.

Leather boot-clad legs stepped into view, at the very end of the tunnel's entrance. Zora. Theo blinked, fluttering his eyes open and closed several times, trying to force the hallucination away. But her image stuck.

There was a dark look on her face. One he was well acquainted with. She was primed to kill with absolutely no remorse, and the gleaming karambit daggers gripped tight in both of her hands bespoke this, a suitable comparison to her hard, gray eyes. He stopped trying to force the mirage away. If Zora Haque was the very last thing he ever saw, he could accept that.

But the hunters in front of him had flinched at her voice, too – the one with the crossbow now standing, turned so that his profile faced the chimera on the floor, so he could keep both Zora and Theo in his sights. His partner had aimed his shotgun at her, cocked it back like he was ready to fire. Theo could hear the man's heartbeat pound devastatingly quick in his chest.

"Listen, sweetheart," crossbow-guy said, but there was an uneasy current in his tone. Like he could sense the danger that Zora was, the fight she exuded. Theo could relate. He'd sensed that about her, too, when she first showed up in Beacon Hills four months ago, when she'd questioned him on his involvement with the fight against the Wild Hunt. It seemed like forever ago, now. It seemed off. She shouldn't be here. Not when the fight was at the high school. Not when Scott needed her.

Theo vaguely heard the hunter warn Zora that she, "shouldn't get involved" in the situation, watched as she mirrored the sick, wicked smile the man had only just moments ago looked at Theo with.

"This seems to be precisely the kind of situation I want to get involved in," she said, coming closer yet, gray eyes taking in the men's placement, their weapons, clearly gauging how she would begin her attack. Theo couldn't move. Could hardly breath – God, he was so afraid this would all turn out to be imagined. That he was really just lying there, bleeding out. Dying.

"Look-"the hunter made to reason with her again, but Zora seized the opportunity and lunged forward, faster than any human should really be able to move, and sunk one of her daggers into the hunter's neck. Blood sprayed through the air, hovered in a mist just over Theo, and as he pulled oxygen into his lungs, he could taste its bittersweet scent.

The man with the crossbow immediately fell to the floor while his partner's finger flickered towards the shotgun's trigger. Still, Zora was quick, leaping forward, bracing one foot against the wall and pushing off to miss the fired shot, wrapped her legs around the man as she sliced through his neck, too, and fell with his body onto the murky concrete floor.

Blood covered her chest – he couldn't be sure if any of it was hers or not – but it suited her in the most exquisite way. As her eyes landed on him, finally – finally – Theo's irises faded back into their light green-blue, claws retracting, fangs sinking back into his gums.

The minor distraction she'd provided from his pain was over. He gasped, loud, and clutched at his abdomen, his leg, his shoulder – everything burned because the bullets had been laced with wolfsbane.

Suddenly, Zora was crouched before him, bloodspattered face looking over his injuries. "They'll heal," she reassured him in a quiet tone, one of her hands grazing over his chest to inspect the lacerations. "But we've gotta get you to Deaton's clinic. ASAP."

"Why are you here?" he couldn't help but ask as she slipped one arm under his shoulder and carefully began edging him to his feet. He tried his best to help – he was at least 50 pounds heavier than she was – but couldn't stop staring at her face, those gray eyes, couldn't stop thinking this can't be real. "Shouldn't you be with the others?"

She managed to get him on his feet fully and started trudging towards the tunnel exit with him, taking on as much weight as she could, one hand wrapped tightly against his side, her warm body pressed hard up against his. Some of his blood seeped onto her, mixing in with her already reddened shirt. "We heard you got ambushed," she said simply. As if that could possibly answer all of his questions.

Grip tightening, she pushed them forward more. "Let's get you to Deaton. All right?"

Theo just nodded. What else could he say?

Part of him felt like he really was supposed to die alone down there.

000

Theo watched Zora the entire time Deaton was treating his wounds, slowly extracting the wolfsbane so his body could heal itself. She kept checking her phone, frowning, pacing all around the clinic, until at one point, she sighed in relief.

"It's over," she informed him and Deaton, exhaustion tinging her voice. "It's all over. They… they managed to stop it."

Deaton's deep brown eyes blinked up in surprise and joy. "And the others?"

"They're okay," Zora assured him, managing a small smile. "They're all okay."

The trio breathed a collective sigh – the Anuk-Ite was gone, the war against Monroe was over, their lives weren't in immediate danger anymore. Theo glanced away from the mysterious woman briefly to watch as Deaton opened up the flesh of one of his chest lacerations wider, started cleaning out the wound. He would live. An hour ago, he didn't think he'd survive the night, but he would live. There was a tomorrow.

He glanced at Zora again. She was typing something into her phone, oblivious to his staring. "Why did you come for me?" he asked for the second time. His mind couldn't make sense of it. None of the others would have come for him – he was sure they'd rather see him dead. Certain they'd rather see him dead, since they put him in that Hell after all. So why should she come? Zora, a veritable stranger to them all, a mysterious woman who breezed into Beacon Hills one night and has been there ever since. She'd come into town looking for the Wild Hunt, asking odd questions, putting the pieces together. She wasn't a supernatural. Wasn't a hunter, either. A bounty hunter of sorts, she'd told Scott's pack, but everyone had their doubts.

Still, she'd proven, with the Wild Hunt, that she was trustworthy – apparently more trustworthy than Theo – and so Scott had let her in, somewhat, to the inner circle.

So she should've been fighting with them. Not coming after Theo. Not saving the one person no one else cared about.

Zora's piercing eyes lifted from her phone, settled on him with almost disturbing attention. Like she knew what he was really asking. "I wasn't going to let you die, Theo. We weren't gonna let anyone die tonight."

"The others wouldn't've cared," he almost growled, but he was so tired. His body was slowly stitching itself back together, his muscles were sore from the fight, head exhausted from so many sleepless days. "They would've let me die."

Zora just shrugged. "I don't know what the others would have done. Just what I would do." And that was that.

000

He didn't remember leaving the animal clinic. Didn't remember Zora ushering him into his truck, since she couldn't take him anywhere on her motorcycle. He especially didn't remember falling asleep in her apartment, on her bed – God, a bed, when was the last time he'd slept in one? – or why the fuck she had even let him do that.

They weren't friends. They barely even knew one another.

So when he blinked his eyes open and shielded them against the blinding mid-afternoon sunlight pouring in through the window, he was disoriented.

"Lay back down," she said, pressing a firm palm against his chest so that his head rested once more on the pillow.

Theo's eyes flickered over to her, squinted up at her form, brows knitted together. "Where am I?"

"My apartment, obviously."

"But why?"

Zora gave him a tiny smirk. She walked back towards the kitchen, hips swaying in that way of hers, and pulled a glass out from a cupboard. "You ask that a lot."

After she had filled the glass with water and forced him to drink the entire thing, Theo retorted, "And you never answer."

"Well, I'm not a magic eight ball, so I don't really have all the answers."

"Not even to why you'd bring me back to your apartment?" This time, when he moved to sit up, she didn't stop him. Just folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. "'Cause the others might be wondering the same thing. We're not exactly friends, y'know."

"The others don't know you're here."

Of course they didn't. Because, if they did, they'd probably have sent someone over to act as a sentry for Zora. Not that the woman couldn't handle herself, but still. The amount of distrust the pack felt for him was staggering. Like he didn't bleed for the cause, too. So what if it was to save his own skin?

"Look," she said, pulling him out of his brooding thoughts. Wait, when had he taken his shirt off? Did she? Not that he minded, but damn, had he been out of it. "You need a place to heal," she pointed at the slow-healing wounds on his chest to make her point. "And I don't think resting up in the back of a pickup truck would do you much good. So how about you stop asking me stupid questions?"

He bristled at that. "I never asked for your help."

"I never said you had to." She turned away from him, dismissing the conversation, and grabbed a jacket off a coatrack hanging by her front door. "I'm gonna grab us some food. Just stay put, okay? Not like you've got someplace better to be."

And she left, leaving Theo to stare at the door, scowl tugging on his lips.

000

When she returned, she found Theo looking through her things – what little she had – half dressed, one hand braced over his ribcage as if to protect his healing wounds from getting any worse.

"Snoop much?" she asked, settling the three bento boxes in her hands on the kitchen table.

Theo just gave her an irritated look. "You're human," he said, but it was some hybrid between a statement and a question. He wasn't even sure why. But he hardly knew anything about her other than that, since she'd been pretty aloof when she'd arrived before the Wild Hunt.

Zora rolled her eyes as she placed cutlery on the table. "Isn't that obvious?"

"What's a human doing meddling in supernatural affairs?"

"What are you doing going through my stuff?"

Sometimes, honesty was the best option. "Trying to figure you out."

That seemed to appease Zora, in some way. She sighed, more to herself than anything, and gestured for Theo to sit at her small dining table. He complied, but mostly because his stomach felt hollow with hunger. When was the last time he ate?

She brought two plates over and placed the bento boxes in the middle of the table. He didn't wait for permission – instead, he popped the tops and dug right in, already finished with his first plate of food by the time Zora sat to join him. She didn't seem annoyed, so he didn't apologize, but kept shoveling food into his mouth until his stomach told him to stop. Zora ate in silence, using her chopsticks more gracefully than anyone he'd ever seen, but kept staring at him out of the corner of her eye. He wouldn't go as far to say it was an uncomfortable silence, but it wasn't companionable either.

"There's not a lot to figure out," she said at last, placing her chopsticks on the table and looking him square in the face. "You know why I'm here."

"For the Wild Hunt," he said, repeating the information he'd gained through Liam weeks ago. "But they're gone now. So why are you still here?"

A shrug, if you could even call it that. Barely a lift of her shoulders. "Nowhere else to go."

He wanted to laugh at that. "So we have something in common."

"More than just that."

The look on his face told her he found that hard to believe.

"I mean it," she went on, frown on her lips. "We have more in common that you think. Guess that's not really a good thing, though."

"Yeah? You watched your sister die, then let three freaks harvest her heart? Or wait – you built a pack of chimeras with the help of 100-some year-old doctors who wanted to revive a fucking Nazi? Am I getting close?"

"Do you ever try a tone other than sarcastic or angry?"

"Others don't seem to suit me."

"You're probably right, you've got that resting bitch face going for you."

Theo rolled his eyes. God, sometimes she reminded him of a female version of Stiles. Poking and prodding and always quick with something to say.

Pulling the conversation back to something less touchy, he asked, "You undressed me?"

"If you consider 'undressed' taking off your bloodied and shredded shirt, then yeah, I guess I did." She didn't look very sheepish about it, other than the slight blush tinting her cheeks. He paused, listened to her heart. It sped up momentarily before returning to normal.

He cracked a smirk. "What's wrong – saw something you liked?" Sitting upright in his chair, he allowed his smirk to grow. He'd yet to put a new shirt on, so his chest was on full display – healing lacerations and all.

Zora's blush deepened, but she held his gaze. "Gosh, what can I say? The sight of a man who had his ass handed to him really gets me." She stood, abruptly, and grabbed their plates. He decided to be of some use and tossed the bento boxes in the trash.

"It was two against one." Okay, his voice was a bit more defensive than he would've liked. "Not really a fair fight."

Zora laughed. "Really? Two humans against a chimera doesn't sound like a fair fight to you?"

"With wolfsbane? Not really."

She looked like she wanted to say something more, to push him on the matter, but seemed to think better of it. Offering an indulgent shrug, she instead placed her hands on his shoulders and guided him back towards her bed.

"That's forward," he quipped. "But I guess you did buy dinner."

Zora rolled her eyes. "You need rest. Deaton said it'll take more time than usual for those wounds to heal. So lay down."

He could feel himself lighten up, some. Because she was showing concern. Because she'd even bothered to save him in the first place. "Fine, but only because I don't mind getting bossed around in bed."

She gave him a long-suffering look. "Don't make me regret bringing you here."

But he could tell, by the way her eyes lingered on him a moment too long, that maybe – just maybe – she really wouldn't. Maybe she was the one person in all of Beacon Hills who didn't regret associating with him at all.

000

The second time Theo woke up in Zora's apartment, he was alone. He knew for sure because the nearest heartbeats came from the next apartment over.

Glancing down at his bare chest, he found the lacerations and the gunshot wound almost completely healed. Honestly, it surprised him that it would even take that long for them to seal up, but he'd been struck with Argent weaponry, so maybe that had something to do with it. Getting out of Zora's bed was easier this time around – no twinges of pain as he sat up, no soreness.

He glanced around the place, noting the blanket hanging over the armrest of the sofa – so that's where she'd slept, last night – then a glass of water, some pain killers, and a note on the kitchen counter. He approached the counter and plucked up the note, skimming it.

There's not much to snoop through, but feel free. Had to leave town for a couple of days. Stay as long as you like.

And that was it.

Part of him was disappointed – what, no goodbye? But things would be easier this way. He could return to being the resident pariah of Beacon Hills. Could revert back to the cold and ruthless Theo that hadn't been afraid to die alone.

So he grabbed the clean shirt she'd left for him at the foot of the bed, shrugged it on, and left.

000

A/N: If you liked it, that's awesome, please leave a review. I actually have another chapter typed up that takes places several months after this and reveals more about Zora, so I could always post it. If you didn't like it, sorry! Just an odd project to work on for the time being.