Victoria takes a deep breath, feeling the blade point scratch against the delicate skin of her breastbone. "Chris," her voice hitches against her will. "Chris, I can't, I need your help..."

His hands are ice cold around hers, and shaking just as fiercely, but he clasps her close and steadies the knife as well as he can. "I love you."

Maybe she can't keep her voice steady, but Victoria Argent refuses to cry. "I love you too, and Allison, she won't understand. Tell her I love her, that I'm doing this for her..."

And then the moon breaks through the clouds and she can feel a rushing in her blood unlike anything she's ever known and her eyesight is dimming and her hearing and sense of smell are overpowering her other senses and she just barely chokes out "Now, do it, now," because she's distracted by a noise on the stairs that she hadn't been able to hear before and something intensely painful is happening to her chest and there's a voice screaming, a voice she knows...

And then Chris lurches out from under her, whirling to cover the bloodstained knife that had twisted aside at the last moment of Allison's shriek. But the pain is already so much less than before, and as she looks down she can see the skin knitting back together, even with her diminished eyesight, and but she still smells blood and there is prey in this small space with her and even disoriented, her body knows what to do.

The wolf crouches on the ground, weighing who to attack first - the larger one is closer and gripping a weapon that could be dangerous later but the smaller one is too terrified to move and wolves always go after the weakest prey first.

But as she tenses her muscles to spring, the smaller one holds out a hand and says, "Mom?"

For a moment, the wolf is confused at this odd sound, but then her brain is translating and Victoria blinks, struggling to focus her suddenly improved vision. Off-balance, she sits down hard, catching herself with one perfectly manicured hand. "Allison?"

There is a moment of complete silence. Allison stands in the middle of the room, one hand still stretched out in entreaty, the other clasped tightly over her mouth. Chris is holding himself primed to spring: weight evenly-spaced on his toes, knife in one hand, pistol in the other, poised between her and their daughter. But his eyes are wide, so wide, and there are tear-tracks drying on his face.

Victoria looks out at the moon, still glaring malevolently through the window at their little tableau, and then down at her hands, her normal, human hands. "What..."

Allison is glancing back and forth between the blood on her shirt and the knife in Chris' hand, rapidly gaining control of herself. "What are you doing? What's going on?"

For a moment, Chris stays frozen, watching her in horror or perhaps wonder, until he shakes his head and blinks, belatedly sheathing the knife. "Allison, go downstairs."

"What? No!"

"Go downstairs. Now."

"NO!" And then Allison, their pretty, dimpled, good-natured daughter, sinks into a fighting stance, pulling out a pair of Kate's old blades from the back of her jeans. "I don't know what the hell you were doing up here, but I am not leaving."

"It's okay, Chris." Victoria puts a hand out, proud that it doesn't shake, and after a moment, he helps her to her feet. "I'm sorry you had to see this, sweetheart. I wrote you a letter, for after, to explain everything..."

"A letter?" Allison's voice rises and one of the knives falls from her loose grip. "You were going to kill yourself in my bedroom and just leave me a letter?" She takes a step back, empty hand going to her throat. "What is wrong with you?"

Unable to help herself, Victoria steps forward, trying not to let her expression change when her daughter flinches back. "Honey, I'm so sorry. But surely you understand, now that the bite has taken, I can't..." she searches for a word. "The Code..."

"Screw the Code!" Allison bites out. "Look at you! It's the full moon, and you're controlling it! How is that against the Code? And what about me? What about your daughter? You were going to leave me without a mother because of some stupid Code?" Tears well her in eyes, but she clenches her jaw and they don't fall. "What kind of monster would do that?"

Chris puts an arm around Victoria's shoulders, and she leans back against his touch, trying to shove down the fact that she can still hear his heartbeat racing, and smell the tears in her daughter's eyes. "Allison, the Code is there to remind us that we don't always need to kill. But it is also there to remind us that sometimes we have to."

"But Mom hasn't done anything! She's controlling it! Like Scott! We said we wouldn't kill him if he kept to the Code-" At their studied silence her eyes narrow. "You both just flinched. What does this have to do with Scott?" She drops the other knife as her hands fly to her mouth. "He didn't bite you, did he?"

Victoria exchanges a glance with her husband, and Chris sighs. "No, not exactly."

"Not exactly? Who bit you? One of the betas? Erica?"

She takes a deep breath, ignoring all the new sensations that come with it. "Derek Hale."

For the second time in as many minutes, Allison looks completely stunned. "Derek? Why would Derek bite you? He hates you!"

Feeling simultaneously like she's aged half a century and like she's never had more energy in her life, Victoria sinks onto the bed, and pats the spot beside her. After a moment, Allison hesitantly perches on the edge, leaving several inches of space between them. "It was... it was an accident." She sighs, and tries not to think about the unbearable pain, the disgust, the power she feels. "I can promise he didn't mean for this to happen."

Allison's brows draw together and she frowns suspiciously. "But what does that have to do with Scott?"

Unable to help herself, Victoria takes Allison's hand, revelling in a touch she'd never thought to feel again. "It doesn't matter now. What... what I am, it changes everything."

Against Victoria's hopes, her daughter turns to her and catches her other hand, clutching them tightly against the flowery bedspread. "It does, but not the way you think. You're controlling it! On the full moon! Even Scott couldn't do that the first time. This has to mean you're not a danger to us. You're not breaking the Code. This could change so much, don't you see? A hunter and a wolf? We could have peace! If anyone could manage it, it would be our family..."

Chris sits next to her, heavily, more heavily than he's sat since Kate's death. "Gerard..."

At his name, Allison flies to her feet. "He's not family! He didn't care about Kate, he doesn't care about us! Scott told me what he did to that Omega - he's just trying to pit everyone against each other and we don't have to listen!" She takes a deep breath. "I know you don't like Derek or Scott, and I know I don't like Erica, but they haven't killed anyone. The only person they killed was Peter Hale, and they're trying to stop the kanima - just like us! If we could work together..."

Chris sighs and presses a gentle hand to Victoria's shoulder. "Perhaps we should just get through tonight? I'm interested to know how your mother managed to control it so easily."

Victoria doesn't know when they stopped thinking in terms of her death and started thinking in terms of her life. She swallows and meets his eyes. "I wouldn't say it is easy. I just... when I saw Allison..."

Her daughter sits back down and hesitantly takes her hand again. "Scott said that you have to have an anchor, something or someone that keeps you grounded, keeps you human. He said Derek's is his anger, but Scott's is..." she blushes, "-well, me."

She can actually hear the skin move over Chris' face as he raises an eyebrow. "I guess we have more in common with him than we thought."

Victoria makes an unconscious face at that idea and Allison chuckles wetly. "I'm going to have to start charging or something. Professional werewolf anchor."

Against all odds, she feels herself start to laugh. And why not? It's funny. Victoria Argent is a werewolf. It's hilarious actually. She can't seem to stop laughing at that thought and Chris is on his feet again and the blade is out and oh god she wasn't supposed to live through this, she wasn't supposed to become this and her eyesight is going again but then soft hands are grabbing hers, heedless of the sharp claws running out and a voice is chanting, "Mom, Mom, Mom, hang on to it," and then she can see Allison again but only for a second before she blurs and she can't shift, she has to hang on to it, her daughter is in the room, she can't shift. It's only when she feels two pairs of familiar arms around her that she realizes she's not shifting, she's crying, she's crying, she's crying.

But Allison and Chris hold her between them, and she clings to her willpower with all the strength in her weak human body and Victoria doesn't shift.