"Well I guess that makes me lucky…because I don't have anybody."
How long had he been rooted to this spot? How long had it been since he'd gotten here, since he'd located what he had been looking for and had subsequently been frozen where he stood? Long enough.
Long enough for his legs to cramp and tense up till they could no longer support his weight. Long enough for tears to have finally found their way to his eyes, despite his desperate attempts to misdirect them.
He felt an odd sense of familiarity as he glanced around the desolate graveyard, recalling with nostalgia the days when he used to work here, digging graves late into the night and early morning. To anyone else, it seemed like a job nobody wanted. After all, what teenager wanted to spend their nights- weekends included- working in a creepy, old graveyard? To him, however, it was an escape: because no matter how lonely and unpleasant digging graves out here all alone had been, his alternative- going home- was much worse.
Looking back now, they seemed like the memories of an entirely different person, from some entirely different lifetime. In reality, he realized with a jolt, they were the memories from only months ago. Before he had gotten himself involved in all the supernatural happenings Beacon Hills had to offer, and before everything had become so complicated.
With another jolt, he realized that the last time he had been in this graveyard had been the day after the incident with Derek, when he had been questioned by Sheriff Stilinski and his father had been very much alive. That had been the day, after seeing Derek again, that he had made the fateful decision that set him upon this strange and difficult track. His life had never really been simple, and certainly had never been easy, but lately it had reached completely new levels of complication and weirdness.
Coming back to the present, he blinked his tears away furiously and looked down at the gravestone before him. At some point, he had sunken to his knees in front of his father's grave. His abusive, dead father. He didn't know what had brought him here, and why after months of resolving to put his past behind him, to forget about the childhood that had been robbed of him by his very own flesh and blood, he had suddenly felt compelled to visit the grave of the man who had once made his life a living hell. He liked to think it was due to some strange, unexplainable instinct.
In reality, he knew better. He knew it had little to do with instinct, and everything to do with the events of the past months. Of hunting down the kanima, of being a fugitive, of Gerard and the Argents, of Jackson and Lydia and Derek-but above all, of the suffocating feeling of being alone.
A few weeks after the whole kanima incident had been resolved, Allison had finally realized that she could no longer bear being away from Scott, and Scott had welcomed her back with open arms. Erica and Boyd were no doubt together somewhere, after having run away to join another pack. After all they'd been through, Lydia and Jackson finally had each other again too. Stiles…well, that was different. Everybody loved Stiles. And it certainly didn't take any heightened werewolf senses to realize that something was going on between him and Derek, no matter how much the two tried to deny it. Who did Isaac have? No one. Absolutely no one.
After years of having the idea drilled into his head that he was worthless, unwanted, and unloved, as he had the living shit beaten out of him by his oh-so-loving father, he was really starting to believe it-that he didn't deserve anyone. His own father had hated him-why would anyone else love such a failure, such an abomination?
He squeezed his eyes shut at the sudden onslaught of memories, of his father's booming voice and disapproving scowl, of being kicked and punched and beaten mercilessly, of no one ever bothering to come for help, despite the fact that something was clearly amiss in the Lahey house and had been ever since Isaac's mother had died.
It was all just too much: his father being killed, the aftermath of fighting the kanima, helping Derek and Peter track down the new alpha pack, and all the while juggling his problems with school and lacrosse and trying to get through everyday life as a teenager without a real home. God, what his dad would do to him, had he still been alive, if he could see his grades now. Isaac smirked bitterly. If he had been rewarded with a glass chucked at his head for getting one D, imagine what punishment would result from the multiple classes he was now just barely passing. He'd be locked up inside his claustrophobic little box down in that torture chamber of a basement for days.
Abruptly, and with an unpleasant lurch in his stomach, Isaac realized he was not alone in the graveyard; he could sense someone else's presence nearby, and after hours of kneeling here in complete silence, the sound of someone's footsteps padding lightly in his direction thundered against his eardrums.
Still frozen to the spot, Isaac snapped his eyes open and swiped angrily at the tears that he seemed to no longer have control over. He tensed when he heard the person stop behind him, and it became increasingly difficult to breathe as he attempted to hold back the sobs that threatened to escape his body in front of this mysterious stranger.
Out of sheer force of habit, Isaac flinched when he felt the stranger's comforting hand rest lightly upon his shaking shoulders. Only, this wasn't a stranger at all, he realized, turning his head around and finding himself looking up at an evidently concerned Scott McCall.
Isaac's first reaction was embarrassment at being seen in such a weak and vulnerable state, and his second was utter confusion as to why Scott would be here in the first place. He opened his mouth to voice this very thought, to which Scott responded with a shrug and, smirking slightly, said "I just had a feeling…I guess you could call it an instinct."
When Isaac failed to respond, Scott squeezed his shoulder lightly and asked gently, "Hey, man, are you okay? Seriously. I didn't come all the way out here just for you to ignore me."
At this weak attempt at humor, Isaac rewarded Scott with a tiny smile before the confessions started pouring out of him. He didn't know why he was telling him all of this, his painful secret that he had resolved to never speak of to anyone. Because talking about it made it real- and Isaac didn't know if he was ready to accept that yet, if he would ever be able to accept such a thing.
Yet here he was, pouring out his heart in front of his father's very grave, Scott's comforting hand never leaving his shoulder. When he had finally run out of things to say, Isaac gritted his teeth and, without meaning to, spoke the words that had been bothering him most the whole time he had been here. "I am completely alone. It's like I said before- in the vet's office- I don't have anybody."
Scott looked at him with eyes that were not filled with pity-not pity at all- but rather with understanding and a deep look of sadness. Finally, after a few seconds of careful deliberation, Scott shook his head slowly and responded.
"I'm sorry Isaac. Truly, I am. For everything you've been through. But you're wrong. You're not alone. You have friends- you have us. Me and Allison and Lydia and Jackson and Stiles and Derek. Even Peter, really. We're your friends now. Your pack. Why else would I drag my ass all the way down to this creepy old place while I could be doing any number of other things? So don't just stay here and sulk all day. Seriously, get up! Come with me, back to Lydia's place. She's having another one of her crazy-big parties, and everyone is going to be there. Even Derek might show up, if Stiles can convince him. And I'm not leaving until you say yes."
Scott tightened his grip on Isaac's shoulder again, and with it came a rush of warmth and belonging that he felt sure he had never truly experienced before. For the final time since coming to the graveyard, Isaac was bombarded by memories. Except this time, they didn't involve blood, pain, fear, and a crushing sense of loneliness. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Suddenly Isaac recalled the night of the rave when he and Erica had been assigned the job of knocking out Jackson. He remembered the genuine concern in Scott eyes as he told him to be careful and not to get hurt. He remembered the way Stiles had shielded him and Erica from the kanima, an act of true friendship. The memories continued to flood through his mind, as the image of Scott rushing to his side after he had been paralyzed by Jackson on the lacrosse field swam before his vision. He remembered how later that same night, Scott had come to his rescue from Gerard. He remembered Derek's comforting hand on his shoulder, holding him back and reassuring him when, for that one horrible moment, they had all believed Jackson to be dead.
Most of all, he remembered the small smiles, the teasing banter, and the feeling of belonging that had accompanied various other instances throughout the past months. Scott was right- how had he not noticed it before? He wasn't alone anymore- not with friends like these.
Slowly, on legs stiff from kneeling for so long, Isaac stood up and turned around to face Scott. This time, he gave him a smile that reached his eyes and nodded gratefully. "Alright then. Lead the way."
Scott's look of concern immediately melted into one of happiness, and he grinned back at Isaac, giving him a friendly punch on the shoulder.
"That's the spirit. Come on, I'll race you back!" Scott laughed and nodded towards the shortcut through the woods.
"You're on. Oh, and Scott?" Isaac looked back at the spot where Scott's reassuring hand had laid on his shoulder, and then thought back to the dog back at the vet all those months ago. "Thanks for taking some of the pain away."