Warning: implied/referenced child abuse

there's hope in this admission

"Isaac?" asks Melissa from the doorway.

The boy looks up from where he was staring down at his knees, and Melissa feels her face pinch up in sympathy. He has a dark bruise spreading across his jaw, and his bottom lip is split open, beginning to scab over. The contrast is sharp against his otherwise soft features.

His hair is a mess of dark blond curls, his eyes a lovely blue. Though now, those eyes look rather apprehensive, wary as he looks her over, her faded blue nurse's garb with her nametag pinned to her chest, hair pulled out of her face by a scrunchie. He's cradling his left arm at his side awkwardly.

"You're Isaac Lahey?" she repeats when he doesn't answer.

He nods. His chart tells her he's eleven years old – the same age as Scott.

She tries to put him at ease, with what Scott likes to dub her Mom Smile™. "I'm Melissa. I hear you sprained your arm?"

She closes the door behind her and walks over to him. He's sitting up on the examination table, his feet dangling less than an inch above the floor, and his muscles are tense. He nods jerkily.

She sets the clipboard on the table to her left. "How did it happen?"

"Fell off my bike," he answers almost immediately. There's something about the haste of the answer that bothers her.

"Fall off your bike often?" At his look, she gestures to his face and elaborates, "That split lip is new, but those bruises look to be a few days old, at least."

Panic flits across his face briefly. "I – uh – yeah," he stammers. "I'm – um – I'm really clumsy." He doesn't meet her eyes when he answers. He's been avoiding looking at her since she entered the room.

A cold feeling begins to form in her gut, but she focuses on the boy's injury. "Were you riding fast?"

He hesitates a moment, and nods. She crouches in front of him. "Ok, so depending on how fast you were going, you could have fractured your bone. Do you remember feeling anything snapping? Or popping?"

She takes his arm in her hands gently. He hisses at the movement.

"I – I don't know," he says after a pause. "It just hurt a lot."

"I'm going to need you to take your shirt off," she says. At his alarmed look, she adds, "Or we can just roll your sleeve up, but I need to check for swelling and taking your shirt off will probably be less painful."

He shakes his head. "Th-that's okay." He starts to slowly pull his sleeve up with his right hand.

The coldness in her gut grows. Her instincts are singing wrong, wrong, wrong. He's too timid, too nervous. He's just shy, she argues, but she knows shy, and this isn't it. Scott used to be shy, before Stiles came crashing into their lives like a hurricane, and he was never like this. This is more, somehow.

His arm is swelled up, a great yellowed bruise just beginning to show on his skin. She notes silently, the coldness spreading, the small scars on his palms, small scratches and cuts like from glass. And the bruise, though still faint and swelled up, looks suspiciously like the shape of fingers.

No, she thinks, but her instincts are screaming now. She doesn't want to come to the type of conclusions she's thinking, but she is a certified nurse and she's been trained to spot this sort of thing. And Isaac, God have mercy, fits nearly all the signs to a T.

Multiple injuries, with vague and simplistic explanations for said injuries. Timid, tense. Avoidance of eye-contact.

It's awful, it's horrible, and she doesn't want to think it, but…

"Alright, you can put your arm back in your sleeve now. Careful."

Slowly, he does so. Melissa worries her bottom lip a moment, then stands from her crouch and cautiously eases down next to Isaac. The boy tenses immediately, eyes locked on her every movement.

"Hon, who brought you here today?"

His eyes are edgy, his body language shifty, as he responds. "My dad."

Melissa nods. She remembers a severe looking man outside. She sets a hand on the boy's knee, to attempt to put him a bit more at ease. He goes stiff at first, but then his muscles relax slightly.

"Isaac, I'm going to ask you something," she begins. "And I want you to know you can be honest with me."

Isaac's eyes are wide. He's not breathing as he waits with bated breath for her to speak.

Her heart clenches at having to broach the subject, and she asks him, "Is someone hurting you at home?" His entire body jerks. "Your father?"

Isaac's breaths are fast, shallow. "W-what? I – no! I – I don't – " His eyes, a grey-blue, swirl with panic, and the color suddenly seems so much more sharper than before.

It's as good as a confirmation. Melissa breathes through her anger slowly, careful to keep it from her face.

"I want to help you," she says. She keeps her voice low and gentle, and hopes she appears genuine. This boy has no reason at all to place his trust in her, but she hopes against hope that he will. "But to do that, I need you to talk with me. Is something going on at home? Or somewhere else, maybe? School?"

Isaac stares down at his lap, his face hidden. His hands clench and unclench against his jeans. He remains silent.

Melissa sighs. She doesn't know how to deal with this. Signs of abuse are something she's been trained to spot, but this is the first time she's had to deal with such a situation herself. It's a delicate situation, as fragile as a child's trust, and she doesn't want to say the wrong thing and have him shut down.

"You know," Melissa begins, her lips forming a smile as she glances at him. "I have a son who's about your age." She makes her voice warm and casual, and is rewarded by Isaac giving her a quick glance. "His name is Scott. His father left us a few years back, so it's just him and me." Sadness creeps into her heart, but she keeps her smile. "I missed him a lot, when he left. Maybe you know what that's like?"

Isaac is silent for a long time before he speaks, his voice barely a whisper.

"Mom passed about a year ago. And Camden… Camden went off to go fight." He bites his bottom lip, his eyes glassy. Her heart aches at the pain on his face. "I miss them a lot. Things were… were better when they were here."

She hesitates on the next question, wary of pushing too far. "With your father?"

Isaac flinches. His hands shake.

"He gets angry sometimes," he whispers.

"What does he do?" She lowers her voice to match his and covers one of his shaking hands with hers. "When he's angry?"

"He…" Isaac swallows, his jaw working. "He—"

The door slams open, hitting the wall with a loud bang. Isaac pulls his hand from hers, jumping away like a skittish animal.

Melissa feels a surge of anger when she spots the strict man she spotted out in the hallway. The man who interrupted their conversation at a pivotal moment—the man whom she now has no doubt is hurting his son.

Dr. Harrin is behind him, a middle-aged woman with a gentle smile and kind disposition.

"Good afternoon, Isaac," she greets warmly. "How are you feeling today?"

Isaac doesn't answer, just curls up on the bed with his knees against his chest.

"His arm is definitely sprained," Melissa confirms. She drifts closer to the doctor, wary of Mr. Lahey as she leans close to her and whispers, "Can I speak to you outside for a moment?"

Dr. Harrin tells her there's nothing they can do. That without confirmation from Isaac or more concrete evidence, their hands are tied. Melissa knows the woman is distressed by this, can read it in her face, but it still pisses her off. This is a child. A child being hurt by his own father, someone who is meant to be a pillar of support and love.

She thinks of Isaac flinching away from her, and his face blurs with Scott in her mind. She shakes with repressed fury.

It's not right.

It's not right, it isn't fair, but there isn't anything she can do. And less than half an hour later, she watches the bruised boy leave with a splint on his arm, his father's hand tight on his shoulder. She watches as the boy disappears, and guilt invades her stomach like snakes.

She goes home that day and pulls her son into her arms, holding him extra tight.

Six years later when she first hears the name Isaac Lahey from her son's lips, it doesn't click immediately.

She's heard of Mr. Lahey's murder a few months back, and knows he has a son, but she wasn't aware that he and Scott were friends. Last she heard of it, Isaac was a member of Derek Hale's pack—something her son had been very vocal about rejecting.

It isn't until Isaac shows up at the hospital, being prepped for a surgery he doesn't need, that she puts a face to the name. Perhaps it's the familiar setting of the hospital that jogs her memory, but she suddenly remembers a skittish boy covered in bruises; bright blue eyes shining with fear and a hand that shook beneath her own.

He gets angry sometimes.

Two weeks later, that boy is sitting at her kitchen table, homework spread out in front of him. She's behind the counter of the kitchen, and her eyes are drawn to him insistently. She watches as he works in silence, and her mind keeps going back to that little boy who walked into her clinic six years ago—that boy who she failed in the worst way possible.

Guilt wells up in her chest. How many more years did he have to endure his father's cruelty, she wondered? Had it continued until his death? Six more years of abuse that she could have ended then and there, but instead chose to do nothing.

She failed Isaac Lahey that day. Now that boy is living in her house, older and less skittish, but still undeniably the same, and she bites back on all of the apologies that threaten to burst forth. He probably doesn't even remember her.

But shCe has to say it anyway.

She walks over to her son's friend, holding out a glass of water in her hand. He looks at her questioningly, and she says, "I thought you might be thirsty."

"Oh." He takes the glass from her. The smile he gives her looks unpracticed, as if his mouth is unused to making it. "Thanks, Mrs. McCall."

She waves the words away. "Think nothing of it."

"No, really." He looks up at her with sincere eyes. "Thank you. For everything you're doing. I know you don't have to let me stay here…"

She slides into the seat next to him. "I'm more than happy to have you. Scott wants you here, and I can tell how much you care for him." She thinks back to Isaac in that hospital bed when she asked him if there was anyone else she could call, and the faith shining in his eyes when he answered. Call Scott. "You can stay as long as you need."

"I don't want to burden you…"

Her heart aches at the words—at his disbelief that her kindness could be given to him freely, and his assumption that his presence is an inconvenience. She feels a burst of anger toward the man who made him feel this way. Even after he's gone, he's still affecting Isaac.

"You're not a burden," she tells him, meeting his eyes with certainty. "I told you I'm happy to have you, and I meant it."

He doesn't seem to know what to say to that, and simply looks down at his homework. She clears her throat, working up the courage before she loses it again.

"I don't know if you remember," she says, "but we've actually met before, at the hospital. You were just a kid at the time…"

Isaac's eyebrows furrow slightly, then he nods. "Yeah, I remember. My dad sprained my arm." She flinches slightly at the blunt words, and the confirmation of what she already knew. "I remember you tried to help me."

Melissa closes her eyes, that eleven-year-old boy such a clear picture in her mind. She opens her eyes to the seventeen-year-old one sitting at her table. "I'm so sorry," she whispers. "If I had only done more… maybe…"

Isaac is quick to shake his head. "No," he says without wavering. "You couldn't have done anything. You tried your best."

"If I told…"

"My dad was smart," says Isaac, a bit bitterly. "He was good at convincing people. Telling someone wouldn't have done anything. It certainly wouldn't have gotten me away from him. If anything, it might have made him come down on me even harder."

Melissa doesn't want to think about what even harder would entail. Still, her regret still clings to her.

"Maybe. But I still should have done something. You were just a kid. You didn't deserve any of that."

"Look…" Isaac lets out a shaky breath, avoiding her gaze. "I won't say that I'm over it, because… I'm really not. I still have nightmares. I flinch away from people. I have issues with small spaces. He… he messed me up pretty bad. Maybe I'll always be messed up. But I don't blame you."

Isaac shrugs as he looks at her, sincerity in every line of his face. "You tried," he tells her gratefully. "That was more than anyone's ever done. It was enough."

She wants to protest—it wasn't enough, how could it have been enough?—but he smiles at her gratefully, eyes the same shade they were then only much lighter, much more free.

"Thank you," he tells her.

And so, she pushes her guilt away, allows herself to feel relief instead—relief that he is here now, he is safe, regardless of the circumstances. She reaches forward to cover his hand reassuringly, just like in that hospital room six years ago, and she smiles back.

"You're welcome," she responds.