Allison hated mornings anymore. She never used to hate them. Hell, she used to creep people out because she woke up like some Disney princess. Well, minus the helpful mice or woodland creatures. Knowing her family, any sketchily helpful animals would end up slaughtered, plucked and served up by her mom for breakfast.
And that, right there was why she hated mornings now; The sudden solid punch to the chest when she thought of her mom and suddenly remembered all over again that she was gone. Once she had remembered she still got caught out by it, but for some reason that first realization of the day was the worst, the hardest to deal with.
She tried to push it all away and climbed out of bed. She was heading for the bathroom when she heard someone banging on the front door. She was just heading in that direction when she heard her dad answer the door.
She started moving again, intending to go see just who it was when she heard Stiles talking. "We need to talk about Kate. I know she's here too, and I don't... no after everything I just can't trust her, so if possible can she just stay out of this?"
Allison froze in shock. Intellectually, she knew just how horribly far she'd fallen thanks to her grief and Gerard's manipulations, but to hear Stiles of all people talk about her with that level of malice was just... sobering to say the least. Stiles had thrown himself into trouble to help her and Scott over and over, had dashed from one end of the school to the other carrying forbidden messages for them. He'd fought at her side against Kanima, wolves and hunters alike, and now, he didn't trust her... now he sounded like he hated her. She didn't know how to wrap her mind around that.
It was strange, but she didn't just find a boyfriend when she found Scott. She found this quirky, strange, almost little brother in Stiles. She wasn't attracted to him in the normal guy way, not that she didn't think he was attractive, but it was like he slipped into being her brother too, just like he was Scott's. She knew Stiles was ruthless when he was protecting those he cared about. He could be loud and brash, but if you were one of his people, his friends or family, he would go through Hell for you. She remembered quite clearly the moment he told her to shoot Derek in the head. Somehow only a few weeks later, if the way he'd just spoken about her was any indication, he'd have been telling Derek to go for iher/i throat instead.
She closed her eyes and forced away the image of Kate's last moments that thought had triggered, and then, as if conjured by the thought very thought of her, she heard Stiles speaking again from the kitchen. "... I have a lot, if not all of Kate's memories."
It just wasn't in Allison to stop listening at that point. She crept silently closer and settled in to listen, and what she heard was insane. How and why did Stiles have her aunt's memories? How could Kate not love little Talia and how could she do that to Derek... with Derek? She had known what he was and he had only been a kid still. Oh God, the way Kate had talked to her about Jackson and Scott... she'd thought Kate was being a cool aunt but that was... that was just sick and gross and made her feel like she was dirty by association.
Allison sat there and listened hand over her mouth as she became more and more confused and nauseated over everything she was hearing. The things Stiles was telling her father were bad enough, but on top of that was the strange way Stiles was talking to her dad and the strange shifts in her dad's demeanor as he replied. He was going from calm and reasonable to vicious and cutting... and Stiles seemed to just go with it, like he expected it.
She tried to push all that aside and listen to the things Stiles was revealing. Each new thing added to the whole mountain of weirdness that was apparently her life now. Stiles was talking about a nurse now; someone who worked for both Gerard and Peter, which didn't quite make sense. She tried to remember all the things Scott had finally told her after Peter had killed Kate, but she couldn't think of anything about a nurse. Not specifically anyway, but he had been in long term care, for six years. Surely he'd had a nurse, and if that nurse worked for Gerard?
Allison jerked backwards as her mind made the connections. Something had brought Derek's sister back to Beacon Hills, and someone had set all of this in motion. She actually growled as she realized once again how badly Gerard had screwed everyone over.
Her frustration gave her away though, and between one moment and the next, Stiles was suddenly just there in front of her and led her into the kitchen, where her father was glaring at him, and at where his hand was on her arm.
"Must you monsters drag her into everything?" Her dad said snidely.
"You don't want to start on just who the monsters around here are, lady." Stiles snarled back. Both of them froze a moment before almost as one Stiles and her dad cringed and looked at her.
Allison looked back at them with one eyebrow raised, confused beyond reason, but determined to stand her ground.
Stiles was clearly trying to come up with some sort of excuse for his comment, while her dad was... just what the Hell WAS her dad doing? His face seemed to shift from a sneer to a sort of 'Let's all be calm' look and back to a sneer again in less than twenty seconds.
"Drag Queens!" Stiles burst out, before he took on a more intense 'Oh shit' look, and began backpedaling and explaining, in a manner she'd come to associate with his often hilarious efforts toward the worst subterfuge ever. "So like there's this drag queen me and Scott met while we were looking for the kanima at Jungle. You might remember her from Lydia's party, she really helped get the party rolling, you know before the drugged punch made us all hallucinate like whoa, right. So anyway your uh dad, he kind of looks like her when she's not in drag and I'm used to calling her her that it uh kind of just slipped."
If her emotions weren't already going six ways to Sunday she'd squish his precious cheeks for that panicked attempt at bullshitting. That and the look on her dad's face at being compared to a drag queen.
Instead of commenting on the drag queen comparison, her dad latched onto another part of Stiles' babble. "Drugged punch?"
"Uh, yeah, from what we can tell, there was some form of wolfsbane flowers in the punch. No one realized, and people had some strange hallucinations, but it went away pretty quick and the cops broke up the party." Stiles explained quickly, tone back to polite towards her dad.
"Were you affected by it?" He asked, quickly checking Allison's eyes, like she'd just taken something.
"I'm fine." She said, trying to smile reassuringly, until her Dad's demeanor shifted again.
"This is all down to your kind," He hissed at Stiles. "some sort of heathen ritual to steal energy and raise that murderer back from the dead."
"Like wolves have the market on coming back from the dead, iChris/i." Stiles hissed at her dad, his voice stressing her dad's name for some strange reason. "I was there that night, and I know just how shitty it was, but there is clearly a lot more going on that lead up to that whole mess, so if you want to start pinning blame, we're going to need to follow the cause and effect back to the people who are responsible."
"Just what is that supposed to mean?" Her dad hissed at Stiles.
"It means, we didn't pay much attention to nurse Crazy, since she was dead and all. We assumed Peter put her up to it, but no one ever asked him back then. We all just assumed he woke up crazy, and he did, but he didn't heal until AFTER he became an Alpha. He doesn't even remember killing Laura. So that bitch was the one who set everything in motion to lure Laura home, and then setting her up to be killed by a feral and still out of it Peter Hale. All under orders from Gerard."
"All lovely speculation, I'm sure."
"Laura was cut in half. Wolves don't kill that way, not that neatly. Peter was out of it enough to strike a killing blow, but someone, some hunter, made sure she wasn't coming back. Kate didn't know anything about it, and you didn't do it, so that leaves the nurse Gerard arranged for him, the woman who put all the puzzle pieces out there to lure Laura in. Someone who had the means and the motive to drug Peter. I'm sure they didn't expect him to heal as quickly as he did, to know who to blame for murdering his family, and to start taking revenge."
"Of course, revenge. Anything to sugar coat an insane killing spree." Her dad said while glaring at Stiles.
"You know, while I'm not even about to attempt to justify his actions, I find it interesting that the number of innocent bystanders Peter went after was quite a bit lower than either Gerard's and Kate's. Now let me think what were their motives again? Oh yes greed and bigotry. A fine sugar coating on those motives."
Allison glared at both of them. "What the Hell is wrong with you two?"
Once again they shared a guilty glance before both started talking.
"Now Allison-"
"What could be-"
"Enough bullshit! Something is going on with you two, beyond this stupid freaking argument. What is going on?"
"Look, if you don't tell her I will, cause it's all kinds of stupid for her not to know." Stiles said, not looking at Allison.
"This is none of your business!" Her dad hissed at him, glaring.
"Yes it is because I've been, Hell, I'm still exactly where she is. Don't be a moron. She loves you, and not taking this amazing opportunity is just... if I had a chance for something like this. You need to tell her. I'd offer to leave for this, but we have more crap we need to work out so spit it out already, or I will."
Her dad looked like he had swallowed a lemon before he turned to Allison and looked her straight in the face. "There is something you need to know, and this is going to be strange. I..." He seemed to shrink on himself, and then something shifted and he was more in control. "Allison, what sh- er what I was trying to say... well it's about your mom. Gerard found a way for a wolf to share a body with a human host. At some point he used that on me."
Allison stared at him, confused and lost. Stiles groaned before sliding in next to Allison, something that made Victoria growl in Chris' head. "There is this whole ceremony, right, with a tattoo and some runes, and once that's been done, there is this other werewolf person in your head, sharing your body. There are ways to make the other person always in control, but luckily that isn't what was put on your dad. Basically your Mom is doing timeshare with your Dad."
Tears were filling Allison's eyes, but she just stared down at the counter, her face twisting up this way and that as she tried to come up with some kind of response to this. She didn't, couldn't even begin to comprehend exactly what they were saying. At least until her dad spoke again.
His voice was soft and hesitant and the tone was something she never heard from him before, but she had heard it. "Allison, I know this is a lot to take in, a lot to process, and if you don't want to... deal with anymore strangeness, don't want me here, we'll figure some way for me to leave. I don't want to hurt you in any way and I don't want to make this harder for you, if I can help it."
His hand had reached out for hers, but 'he' hadn't touched her yet; hand hovering, and then faltering as 'he' moved to pull away.
Allison practically leaped forward to take 'his' hand before looking up at her father's face. "Mom?"
Allison, Victoria and Chris spent a very teary twenty minutes reuniting without, Stiles noticed, Victoria explaining or apologizing for her final choices, but that wasn't really his business, so long as she didn't come after his mates or Scott again. They stayed in the kitchen and Stiles removed himself to the living room; far enough away to give them the illusion at least of privacy.
After the twenty or so minutes, the newly reunited family joined him. Allison's nose and eyes were blotchy and still fairly teary, but she was smiling softly, eyes always returning to her 'Mom'. Chris nodded at Stiles and then pulled out his cell and made a call.
"Claudia, this is Chris. I uh, have some bad news."
Stiles could hear the voice on the other end of the line. "What's happened?"
"It's uh, it's Gerard. He's had some health issues and well, he's dead. There were circumstances, so there won't be official word until we can manage something, but I was there, so we need to deal with everything. With Kate and now Gerard gone, I need to take over caring for Talia."
"Chris, I'm sorry to hear about Gerard, but he left me with some pretty specific instructions, and the main one was that under no circumstances should I let anyone take her to Beacon Hills."
"Claudia, I'm fairly sure I know why he left that instruction, but the point is no longer valid. Gerard betrayed me and this family. He tried to trade my daughter, our next rightful leader, to a wolf in order to get the bite to save himself from his illness. I want you to disregard any of his so called instructions and get Talia down here now."
"Chris there are things about Talia that..." She started before Chris cut her off.
"Let me guess, she's a werewolf." He said bluntly.
"How did you- It doesn't matter, she's just a little girl and she hasn't ever hurt anyone. You can't-"
Again Chris cut her off, a little more kindly this time. "Claudia, I have no intention whatsoever to hurt Talia, and if anyone else tries I'll very happily gut them slowly. I love her just as much as I love my own daughter and even if nothing else was going on, I'd want her here now with Gerard gone. There's more though. I know who her father is and after what this family has taken from him, he deserves the right to know his daughter."
There was a brief pause, as if she was judging his words before she replied. "If I just pack her the basics we can be in Beacon Hills tonight."
"Thank you, Claudia. We'll have rooms ready for both of you."
When Chris hung up the phone, Stiles collapsed onto the couch. "Oh shit, how do I even begin explaining this to Derek?" He asked, somewhat in shock now that the reality of it all rushed over him.
"A helium balloon bouquet that says 'It's a Girl'?" Allison asked, her eyes dancing in mirth.
With a bark of slightly hysterical laughter, he threw one of the couch pillows at her head.