Title: this girl, she keeps haunting me
Summary: He names his daughter Allison.
Author's Note: Just a little, old future character piece on Scott. I wish I could've developed it a little more, but honestly, I think this is all I had left in me for this piece.
/
He names his daughter Allison.
She's a perfect mixture of Scott and his wife, Maria. Her fingers are thin and inch out to reach him as soon as he picks her up for the first time. Scott's breath gets caught in his throat.
"Allison is a lovely name," Maria whispered to him, when he first proposed it, his long fingers splayed on her big belly. "A name for a strong girl. A girl who will do something."
When Allison is born, Scott holds her in his arms for approximately three minutes and fifty two seconds before returning her to her mother's arms. He throws up in the bathroom by the waiting room and watches his eyes turn blue in the foggy glass.
/
For the first few months of Allison's life, Scott sleeps in a chair in her room.
Once, Maria asks him in a scared, tired voice, "Is there something wrong? Are we not okay?"
He shakes his head, kisses her forehead, and smiles at her.
"I want you to sleep as much as you can and I — I just worry about her."
Maria wraps her arms around his neck and murmurs compliments — you're the most wonderful husband, father, lover.
Scott worries that the locks in the nursery won't keep all the demons out.
/
On the eighteenth anniversary of her death, he rips open his flesh with his fingernails.
His daughter is ten years old and has seen a decade of these days — days of disinfecting wounds with salty tears. She knows by now to take out the First Aid kit.
On these days, he does not meet his daughter's eyes. She is rosy cheeked now and still has a roll of baby fat on her belly. When she runs past him (always running around), he swears she is the spitting image of her namesake.
"Daddy," Allison murmurs, fingers shaking, "Why do you get so sad on this day? Mom never tells me."
Scott's breath catches (she's always making this happen), his head gets dizzy, and his stomach rolls. After she covers each with her Hello Kitty Bandaids, Scott pats his daughter's head, staring absentmindedly out the window.
"I lost someone I could've helped," he says, simply.
His daughter nods and returns to her room, satisfied by her helpfulness.
/
At twelve, Allison begins feeling the force of the full moon. She wakes up panting, sweating, heart beating.
Scott waits for Allison to begin transforming, but it never takes. She only wakes up on full moons, stuck in an insomnia spell, and watches her father move toward the woods.
Once, Maria asks Scott if he was sad Allison was mostly human. Her fingers curl around his wrist. Her touch makes him stay sane. He kisses her against the fridge and her laughs drown out the fact that he never answers the question.
/
Scott finds Allison practicing archery in the backyard when she turns fourteen.
"Where did you get these things?" Scott demands, gesturing to Allison's bow and arrow.
"Lydia got them for me," Allison says, keeping her focus on her target. "Said she thought I'd enjoy this."
When Scott reprimands Lydia on the phone, she laughs harshly.
"You named your daughter after Allison, yet you can hardly stand to see her in your daughter!"
Scott hears Stiles over the phone, soothing Lydia from saying more, and soon it's Stiles' voice over the phone.
"I hate to say it," Stiles says lightly, "But you know she's right."
Maria asks him later if he would like to have Lydia and Stiles over for dinner. Allison's ears perk and insists upon the suggestion.
Scott frowns, "No."
Allison blinks. Maria turns to the stove. Everyone around Scott shifts back into their spots, never wishing to be the one to make him finally explode.
/
Allison attends her first dance at fifteen. She drips in her mother's silver costume jewelry - wears thousands of necklaces that tangle into each other. Her ears are adorned with long, intricate earrings. She wears a black dress and smiles so brightly that Scott forgets what year it is; pours himself a drink.
His flesh and blood looks both like her mother and his first love. When he looks at her, he is constantly overcome with a heartbreaking sadness for the past and for the future. He can hardly make himself reconcile the two.
Her date has an impish smile and sandy blond hair. His eyes are blue, but his vision is weak. He wears thick framed glasses. Allison's pupils get wide when she sees him. Her vision is twenty-twenty.
When it's time for them to leave, Allison comes over to Scott's study, where he pours over his latest research. The scent of sandalwood intrudes his nostrils when she kisses him on the cheek, leaving a lipstick mark.
"I love you," Allison says.
Sometimes, Scott doesn't know if he'll ever be able to swallow his grief. His Adam's apple bobs.
"Have fun," he says in return. "Be safe."
Allison rolls her eyes, insists she's not little anymore. Right before she leaves the study, Scott swears her eyes darken.
/
From sixteen to seventeen, Allison begins to distance herself from her father.
No longer does she come into his study to tell him of her day or question the mystical going ons of the town. She comes home late and studies when she's home. Sometimes, Maria shows him blood stained clothes that have been appearing in the laundry.
"I'm scared, Scott," Maria says.
It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. Scott keeps saying this over and over. Maria stops asking what goes bump in the dark, just leaves him newspaper clippings with black circles and arrows marked on them. Could this be what she's investigating?
He feels a darkness settle over him whenever he realizes his wife will never truly understand what real fear does to the youth of Beacon Hills. He kisses Maria, tells her what she needs to hear, and listens to her pleas to just talk to her, please.
He's never told her all his stories. Never explains fully why Stiles appears stricken at their doorstep every few months in the middle of the night, clutching himself. Nor does he disclose why Lydia sometimes calls the house in tears, desperately asking for Scott to answer the telephone.
He assures himself that he is sheltering her from the evil he must face, but he knows, deep down, that he is sheltering himself.
But, one night, Maria wakes him, wild eyed, and only says, "Allison is in trouble."
He can hardly get himself out of bed, only thinking of sword wounds, but forces his aging bones to spring to action.
His voice sounds too quiet, "What happened?"
"She's not home," Maria sobs. "She didn't come home, Scott. She would've called if it was nothing."
His eyebrows furrow and his only inclination is to rub Maria's back. She flinches away from his touch. A thousand reasons rush through his mind: teenage rebellion, secret boyfriend, car accident, mystical happenings, kidnapping. None ease his mind. None will ease Maria's mind.
"Maria, I have to call Lydia and Stiles."
"What? What could they possibly do right now?"
Her eyes are filled with salt. He is a terrible husband. He is a terrible father. He needs to call Lydia and Stiles.
"Ly," Scott barks into his phone, "I need to know if Allison's okay."
The call is disconnected.
There is a sound of a thump from downstairs and Scott immediately goes to the door, eyes already starting to gleam.
"Stay here, Maria." When she opens her mouth to say something, he only insists, "Stay."
He rushes down, feeling the effects of his change slowly begin to slide into place. But the noise has not come from an intruder, but rather, his daughter.
She's bent over by the front door. She does not raise her head, just whispers, "Daddy?"
Then, she looks up at him.
Her eyes are red.
/
She sleeps for days — misses two days of school. Maria goes to work, but Scott stays home, drinking coffee and sitting in his study. He only hears Allison's door open when she goes to the bathroom. He doesn't get up to talk to her.
On the second day, she comes into his study.
"I'm sorry for scaring you and mom," she says. "Or just, scaring mom."
He turns to her and has make himself swallow, clear his throat, reply, "I was worried, Allison."
The shadows under her eyes make her look more like her namesake than ever.
"You don't have to pretend," Allison says, tracing circles in the dust of his file cabinets. "I don't need you to do that."
He closes his eyes.
"I just have to ask you," her voice is trembling, "What did I do?"
"What?"
"What did I do?" she asks, crying. "Did I do anything or is it just you? You don't ever look at me and — and — was it me?"
He stands up, takes a step toward her, and stops.
"You didn't do anything, Al—Allison. It's me. It's just… me."
She stops crying, wiping salt off her cheeks with the backs of her hands.
"Do you love me?"
His sigh shakes and the words come out unclean, "Of course I love you."
Allison closes her eyes, clenches her fists together. "I know who I was named after."
His eyes narrow, "Who told you?"
She barks a laugh, "It's not hard to figure it out. Old yearbooks, old teachers, old friends… Why would you name me after someone who… Why would you give me this name?"
Scott blinks at his daughter. She looks strong, stronger than him. He's always been frightened of his daughter, but seeing the darkness and anger in her eyes, Scott wonders if he should be truly frightened.
"Why were your eyes red?"
Allison's face turns blank.
Scott asks again, "Why were your eyes red?"
She bites her lip, sucks it into her mouth, and when it's released, it's dark red.
"I just wanted to be your daughter," she says, finally. "Not someone else, not that girl. I wanted to be your daughter."
Allison leaves the room and it takes Scott hours to finally realize the sadness in his chest. When it finally registers, salt is burning his face, scarring him. He starts crying and doesn't know when he'll stop.
But, eventually, he does. Eventually, it runs out. And it is only after he stops that he knocks on his daughter's door, and says quietly into it, "Let me teach you how to howl."
He hears her laugh sharply and when she opens the door, there are tears in her eyes, but a smile dangling on her lips. She wipes away the tears, grimacing, grinning.
"Only if you promise to learn, too," she says.
/
One day, when Allison is running through the woods, laughing, Scott sees his daughter and only sees her.