Foreword: Heyyy...so I'm masochistic and wrote this extremely painful fic, springing from the scenes with Isaac from the most recent episode of season 3 of Teen Wolf, Motel California. I warn you that Isaac Lahey feels are imminent if you read further. Good day!

Re-Broken

Emily rises in the hospital elevator, her stomach dropping as the floors blink consistently by. It's like this every time; she drives to the cold, sterilized building with resolve, her mission clear in her mind, but as she goes deeper into the building and closer to that door her heart begins to fail her. Emily feels weak. She wonders why she keeps coming here every day, following the same routine until room 312 comes into view in the long-term patients' wing.

Then, she steels herself, and enters. No one tries to stop her; after all, every nurse in that wing knows who she is. They all smile sadly when they see her, a fact that makes coming even more depressing, and sometimes they try to give her a hug or word of encouragement if they pass by. "He seems better today," they'll say, or, "don't give up hope, hun, we've seen worse cases come around." Emily always smiles slightly and nods, but doesn't believe them. She doubts more than a few of them have ever even been in his room, seen the way he's broken. How could they know?

Today is no different. Nurse Liz offers Emily coffee, and isn't surprised when the young woman turns the beverage down, thanking her anyway. With her last chance at distraction gone, Emily lifts her hand and opens the door quietly, closing it gently behind her. For the next few hours, this room is her cell, too.

He's sitting on the bed today, facing the large window that overlooks the pond beside the hospital. They gave him this room on purpose, one with an open view and higher up. Other than the bed, a small bedside table and the one chair, there's nothing here, not even a cabinet. Even the monitors are installed inside the walls instead of out, just in case. Sometimes he still thinks he's so very strong. Today is one of those days where he seems calm, though, so Emily knocks on the doorframe so she won't startle him.

"Isaac?" She calls softly, testing the waters to see how out of touch he is on this particular Tuesday. The young man seems to wince, his shoulders tensing at the sound before he turns just briefly enough to see where it came from. He doesn't reply, just returns his gaze to the window.

Emily's heart catches in her throat when he turns, her eyes frantically searching for signs of clarity on his face. Nothing. Feeling the familiar, slipping-into-an-ocean sensation come over her as usual, Emily sighs and blinks the tear out of the corner of her eye as she approaches Isaac's bed and carefully seats herself beside him.

For a few moments, neither boy nor girl stirs. The air-conditioning in the room switches on, making everything seem loud for a minute until it too dissolves into the silence which seems to blanket everything else. Emily takes Isaac's left hand and separates her fingers between his, a movement he used to jerk away from, but now one to which he is either accustomed or indifferent. It makes her feel a little better, though, that he lets her do it. She studies his face, vacant as it seems, to try and gauge him, try and read his mind. Isaac's honey-colored, curly hair sits brushed to the side and clean, almost reminiscent of how he used to style it himself. Other than being pale and making him look gaunt, his skin is clear and smooth, like always, and his lips still their almost unnatural shade of red that Emily envied from the moment she met him. Yes, Isaac looks point-for-point just as he did before except-

His eyes. Every day Emily looks for that spark in his gem-blue eyes that would say, "I'm awake now." She looks so hard, searching him.

Summoning courage, the disheartened brunette squeezes his hand and tries once again to converse with Isaac. "You.." She starts before suddenly remembering she has nothing to say. She tries again anyway. "My mom sends her love, as usual. She tried to send a coffee cake too, but I told her again they don't really want me to bring food here. You would've liked it though, it was lemon poppy-seed." A weak laugh escapes her lips. Glancing up at him again, Emily bites her lip while hoping for response. Isaac simply continues to stare outside, blinks, inhales a little deeper. Nothing.

Sometimes Emily talks about home, about things going on in her life. Those things run out quickly, though, since most of her life still revolves around visiting Isaac every day. She doesn't always like to talk about them anyway, since they don't trigger any reaction from Isaac generally. She told him once about a guy at work who hit on her, consistently, and Isaac didn't even flinch. Before, he would have been pissed as hell, probably even gone and scared the guy off.

"It would be Erica's birthday today," Emily tells Isaac now while rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand. This time his brow furrows slightly.

"Erica..."

Emily's breath quickens; he's responding. "Yes baby, Erica from high school? She was in Derek's pack, remember?"

He breaths in sharply, eyes darting around. "I couldn't...I couldn't see her, couldn't see..." Isaac swallows and screws his eyes shut tight. No, Emily realizes sadly, it's only a bad memory of when she died. He's not here.

She rubs his back, smoothing out any wrinkles in his shirt and feeling the tense, knotted muscle underneath. Even here, he's retained much of the physique he had before. His broad shoulders are still fairly strong, as are his arms. He's like a shadow, though.

He's calming down again, his breathing evening out and his eyes opening, but looking slightly glassy. Emily disentangles her hand and places his back in his lap. It's only been ten minutes and she's already tired. Leaving him to his eternal contemplation, the girl escapes momentarily to the bathroom. As she washes her hands, she examines the face returning her gaze from the mirror. Her own image used to shock her, but by now she is used to the shadowed, hollow brown eyes that stare back, complete with dark circles underneath. There are wrinkles beginning to appear on her forehead that she knows shouldn't appear till she hit forty. Her brown hair is thinner than it used to be, hanging limply around her oval face; she assumes that's what happens to girls who have no reason to care what they look like to others since the one person whose attention they want barely recognize them.

She opens the mirror cabinet with the key the staff had given her and grabs a couple ibuprofen, hoping to cut short the headache rapidly coming upon her. Emily re-locks the cabinet and swallows the medicine with a handful of water from the faucet. In an unfortunately clumsy moment, her hand knocks a glass off the sink as she turns the water off. The item falls against the edge of the small waste-bin to the side of the sink, knocking it on that side and sending it loudly spinning across the bathroom floor, while the glass itself shatters. "Shit!" The ear-splitting clatter makes Emily yell then clap her hands over her mouth, thinking she can hear noise in the main room.

In a second, all is silent again. She rights the bin and tries to pick up the broken glass, quickly dropping what she can in the trash. Taking a deep breath, she pushes the bathroom door open and peeks out into Isaac's room.

The bed is empty, as is the chair. No one is looking out the window. Panicking, Emily surveys the room, her head practically swiveling. Where has he gone? She wonders, noting four empty corners and no unusual bumps in the curtains.

"Isaac?" She whispers, her hands wringing together. The clamor in the bathroom must have scared him, he's so used to quiet, on purpose of course. He doesn't answer her, and she begins to wonder if he left the room somehow. Impossible...

Emily bites her lip and tries a second time. "Isaac where are you, you have to be in here...there's not even anywhere-" She realizes how stupid she is, then. There isn't anywhere to hide in the room except-

Under the bed, where she can see a shadow now. Kneeling down, Emily pushes her bangs out of her eyes and lifts the bit of covers dangling over the end of the bed. Sure enough, a scared Isaac jerks his head up to look at her. There's sweat glistening on his forehead and fear in his eyes, his whole tall body crunched and huddled into a ball in the dark. Emily chokes back a sob, seeing him that way. She can feel her lips trembling as she reaches a hand under the bed toward him.

"Shh, it's okay, nothing happened. I broke a glass by accident. You can come out, Isaac, it's safe."

As her hand reaches closer, Isaac jerks back out of reach, pushing himself further toward the wall at the head of the bed. "Please come out, Isaac!" Emily begs, beckoning. He only shakes his head, cowering.

Emily can't stop them now, the small sobs pushing out of her throat as she keeps asking, pleading over and over for him to come out, to come back to her. Although it's only a few minutes, it seems like hours that she sits looking under the bed, no longer sure if she's asking for him to crawl out, or asking for him to be whole again and come back to loving her. Soon, she is weeping uncontrollably. Somehow, Emily manages to lift herself into the lonely chair, bunching her legs up and wrapping her arms around them so she can bury her face. The tears soak through her sleeves and into her jeans, but after so long she can't stop. Memories of old Isaac keeping welling up inside her mind. Back when he was so confident and had all those friends. He was funny, too. Then they ruined everything by finding that cure. Not that many people even knew there were werewolves in Beacon Hills, but the rest who did decided it was best for all of them, even Derek, to be rid of it for good. No one stopped to think there might be other consequences. No one thought about what happened to a boy when you took away the only strength he had ever felt, took away a family bond when he had no family left.

So they cured Isaac along with everyone else. They all graduated, and since Emily only met them six months before the cure, and started dating Isaac three months later, they didn't know her so well. Everyone went their separate ways, either moving or to work or college. Emily felt lucky to end up at State with Isaac, but it was there that she watched him slowly fall apart. While everyone built themselves futures, his dreams quickly vanished. He had confidence for a biology major, dreams of medical school even. But one thing after another knocked him down. The lacrosse team had a reputation for being irrationally harsh, but he tried out anyway. So they he rejected for the team, and instead he gained a herd of guys with no qualms about continually mocking the loser freshman who wasn't good enough. He was brave about the blow for a while, and Emily felt like she helped by being there.

It got worse when his lab teacher took to disliking Isaac for no reason at all. Despite completing all the work well, it wasn't enough and the teacher failed him. Emily's eyes burn as she remembers the day she went to meet Isaac after class, only to listen and watch through the door window as the teacher raged at him for poor performance.

"What the hell is this report?! You think this kind of work is going to cut it in my class? You're the worst student I've seen, Lahey. You think this will get you into medical school? I think you'd better start looking at some janitorial jobs, kid, because out here in the real world you can't just come in here like you're fucking fantastic and expect to slide right through! You're nothing here, useless and less than nothing! Little shit, get the hell out of my classroom!"

Emily couldn't move for shock that day, and Isaac ignored her as he pushed out of the classroom and practically sprinted out of the building. Every grade he got under an A increased the stress. Despite all Emily's attempts at intervention, she often found Isaac with new bruises from encounters with the upperclassmen from the team. So she had called Scott, who couldn't get there from school all the way in Boston, where Stiles also was. Derek was in Brazil, and unreachable. She tried everyone, and no one could, or would, come.

Then came the day second semester when she went to Isaac's dorm room and found him sitting on his bed, rocking back and forth. On the floor was his transcript, with not a single passing grade, a letter announcing that his father had leftover an incredible mortgage debt when he died, an empty bottle of gin, and the obituary cut out of the Beacon Hills newspaper from the car crash that killed Boyd even after the cure.

He was holding a razor blade, then. Emily instantly tore it from his hand and threw it across the room before throwing her arms around Isaac and holding him. She had buried her face in his neck, feeling her own heart shredding itself as he muttered over and over, "Useless...can't fix...I can't fix it. All my fault. I know, Dad, you're right. Not good for anything, not good at anything. Useless...can't fix it." After that everything spiraled so quickly that within two months room 312 became his home indefinitely.

Now, with all these painful memories attacking her, Emily feels like the useless one. No matter what she does, no matter if she comes everyday, he never gets any better. He doesn't recognize her, just tolerates her. She feels like her own body is falling apart piece by piece.

Then, a hand touches hers. "Emily, don't cry. Please don't cry." The voice is gravelly from disuse, but clear and real, not wavering and distant. Her head shoots up in disbelief.

Isaac crouches in front of her, his blue eyes for once wholly focused. He is looking at her, he has said her name. She hiccups over a laugh.

"I must be dreaming," she chokes, pressing a hand to her forehead. Isaac shakes his head.

"No, you're not. C'mere." With that, he wraps his long arms all the way around her, even while kneeling on the floor. She is crying again, this time tears of relief. She has no idea how long his moment of lucidity can last, but she absorbs every second.

Isaac stands and, taking her hand, pulls her over to sit beside him on the bed. There he wraps himself around her again and she breathes him in. After a moment Isaac tips Emily's chin up and presses his slightly chapped lips to hers, giving her something she misses so indescribably that she nearly faints. For a few minutes she allows herself to be lost in him, her arms pressed against his chest and his hands gripping on her waist or twining in her hair.

"Your hair is so soft," he whispers, sounding like the Isaac she first met. She giggles.

"Okay," Emily replies, smiling against his lips. She can't possibly argue, knowing she doesn't take care of her dumb hair, when he's finally here. "Isaac, I love you," she whispers.

He hums partly in response, kissing her neck gently before replying, "Sweetheart, I love you too." The way he holds her, solidly, she knows that this moment is utterly true and real. They let themselves fall back on his hospital-cornered bed, cuddling each other despite the roughness of the cover and the stiffness of the mattress. Every second soaks into Emily like milk into a sponge, her heart feeling like it's ten times larger and more full. With her ear pressed to the warm skin through his shirt, listening intently to the steady beating of the heart buried inside, Emily dreams they could stay like this forever. Maybe they would.

"Ahem, dear? Dear, wake up," a soft voice pricks at her ear as a gentle hand nudges Emily's shoulder. She stirs, wishing not to wake up and have to move from Isaac's wonderful arms. It's a moment later before she realizes that she has already moved from them, or rather, his arms have moved. Emily drags herself up to sitting and looks about the room to find Isaac static in the chair, not straight but not quite slouched either, and watching the lights past the pond outside the window. Or, she hopes he's seeing them, and not just staring into the void again.

She licks her lips and speaks. "Are you looking at the lights, Isaac?" True to her greatest fear, he doesn't respond. She turns instead to the nurse, Patrice by the name-tag, and asks, "How is he?"

Patrice smiles that horrible, sad, pitying smile all the nurses seem to share. "He's fine honey, same as always. Ate dinner just twenty minutes before you woke up."

The joyful light of hope from that afternoon flickers and shrinks in Emily's chest at the nurses well-meant words. Same as always. She doesn't want to hear that, she wants to hear that he seems miraculously lucid, totally aware and chatty, that they could hardly stop him from waking Emily up earlier.

The girl slides her legs off the bed and leans closer to the nurse. "No," she says in a low tone, "I mean really how is he? Earlier he was talking to me, and knew who I was. He was moving a lot and even hugged me." She just catches herself before saying held me, which seems too personal. That's hers to keep, and no one else's. Patrice stands still, holding a half-folded blanket. She blinks, sighs, and to Emily's complete horror places a hand on the young woman's shoulder.

"Dear, he's not there." She leaves.

Emily almost wants to cry. She can feel the threat of tears building up behind her tired eyes, but it never breaks. She thinks, I've cried enough today. And, I shouldn't anymore, because he was here, even if he's not now. She takes a few pathetic attempts at a deep breath, each one breaking part-way through, and finally stands up. With a firm resolve she marches over to Isaac's chair and crouches in front of him the way he had earlier when she was crying.

"Listen," she demands, and takes his chin in her hand, forces him to at least point his stare toward her face. "I don't care where you hide inside that stupid, curly head of yours. I don't care that you don't know who I am, right now or ever, or that you probably won't again tomorrow. I know that somewhere, hiding from all the pain in life, my Isaac is still alive and still loves me. So, even though I may never get another day like today, and even if you never know it's me saying it, I love you, Isaac Lahey. And I am going to be here every day proving it until one of us dies, and probably after that."

A tiny crinkle mars his brow momentarily, then passes as his eyes move across her face listlessly. Emily lifts herself up and presses a firm kiss to his lips. She pulls back, brushes his hair lovingly, and leaves the room with a determined gait.

Patrice is just outside standing at a cart and filling small plastic cups with pills. "Goodnight, dear," she calls, smiling.

Emily waves, her eyes filled with purpose, and replies, "Same time tomorrow, sharp," as she steps into the elevator.

Inside room 312, the curly-haired boy looking out the window sits keeping watch. He doesn't seem to move. But, just for a second, a warm smile brushes his rosy lips as he gazes directly at the pond. A second later it fades, whatever thoughts he has pulling his consciousness back, deep inside.

Author's Note: Thank you for reading! As always I appreciate reviews/favorites/follows more than you can imagine. Also, for anyone who is wondering, yes I am obsessed with this show and, yes, Isaac is my curly baby angel who deserves nothing more than to be snuggled away in a warm blanket with a cup of tea and all the kisses. From me.

Thanks!

- Clever