Isaac had always liked nice clothes. Sweaters, scarves, boots, jackets... Every time he'd go to the department store with his dad he'd always wander over to the menswear and look at all the nicely dressed mannequins. Of course, his dad never got him anything nice like what they were wearing; Isaac was stuck usually with hand-me-downs from distant cousins or cheap clearance clothes. He always told himself, at least I have clothes.

But when he joined Derek's pack, there was hope yet for his fashion sense. Erica, in her newfound confidence, had developed a new style of her own and significantly looser pockets. Most people failed to realize that Erica was in a similar situation financially as Jackson; her father being an insurance agent had no shortage of money, and now that there were no medical bills to pay, their family could afford to do things like give their recently socially-transformed daughter money. Once Isaac was over with being a fugitive, she had decided it was time for him to get some new clothes, seeing as all of his and his father's things were repossessed by the bank.

Erica's parents were a bit disturbed, of course, by the sudden shopping sprees, but this was slightly overshadowed by the fact that her epilepsy had somehow vanished.

But now Erica was gone. And all Isaac had left of her were those nice clothes she had bought him. And now he couldn't even wear them.

He already outgrown at least one pair of his jeans. The rest would be soon to follow. And seeing as Isaac was a homeless, unemployed, pregnant student, he was sure he wouldn't be getting any new pants anytime soon. He was reduced to borrowing clothes.

The only drawback was that Isaac happened to be an unfortunate few inches taller than most of his friends. Most, but not all.

"Hey, Boyd, can I borrow some pants?"

His fellow beta looked up incredulously from his curly fries. Isaac sat awkwardly twiddling his thumbs in the seat across. Boyd raised an eyebrow.

"Pants?"

"Yeah. Stretchy ones, preferably."

An odd silence formed between the two betas. Isaac avoided eye contact while Boyd just poked at his curly fries. Finally, he sighed in resignation and looked up at Isaac.

"Sure. I'll drop them off after school."

Isaac grinned and slapped Boyd on the shoulder. "Thanks, buddy."

It was worth pointing out again that Isaac was fond of Boyd. Being part of the same pack must have had some impact on their relationship; there was a sort of instinct to want to be close to members of your pack. That's why Isaac preferred staying with Scott; he was pack, so there was a familiarity. Plus, he trusted Scott. But with Boyd, there was a different trust. It was like if he fell back, Isaac knew he'd be there to catch him. Sure, Boyd was aggressive, and sure, he was a little distant, but he was pack, and that meant more than family to Isaac.

Also, he was the only was taller than Isaac. A guy had to get his stretchy pants from somewhere.

Boyd did as he said and dropped them off later Scott's(Scott himself had gone out to deliver dinner to his mom at the hospital), only instead of a pair of sweatpants, it was a barrage of pants; jeans, khaki, shorts, and eventually, sweatpants.

"What's all this...?" Isaac asked, confused, while rifling through the garbage bag of clothing his fellow beta had brought him. There were even a couple shirts.

"Clothes," Boyd said simply. "It's all stuff that Erica bought me that was too small. I figured it would fit you just fine." Isaac didn't need to look up to see the bitter frown on Boyd's face. Talking about Erica was a touchy subject- she was the first person Boyd had let get that close to him. No one reacted stronger than he did when they lost her.

Isaac stood up and smiled at Boyd. "Well, thanks a lot. I'll make good use of all this." He held up the bag and Boyd grinned a little bit. They shared a mutual nod and he left without another word. When you were talking with Boyd, there wasn't all that much actual talking.

Isaac headed upstairs to what had become his makeshift bedroom. Ms. McCall, with Scott's help, had set it up for him. It wasn't much other than a spare mattress with sheets, a chest-of-drawers, a mirror, and a desk, but it was better than any couch. Isaac cried when he saw it and that's when they all realized that the pregnancy hormones had kicked in.

Isaac had been a lot more emotional as of late, he realized. He seemed more shaken by all the deaths and kidnappings, more anxious about the Alphas, more stressed about school. Being near his pack helped a lot, but Isaac had a lot of classes where he was all by his himself. No level-headed Stiles, comforting Scott, or brave Allison, and that's when he got worried.

And to make matters worse, he had to pee practically every class period. That wore thin on some teachers pretty fast.

"Mr. Lahey, I'm going to have to deny your request," Ms. Blake said sweetly one morning. "You've asked to go to the bathroom every day as of late. I think you can manage to sit through biology once this week." And with that, she went back to the slideshow.

As there had been no proper replacement for Mr. Harris yet, Ms. Blake was stuck subbing for biology, an interesting subject for an English teacher to instruct. And while Isaac had to admit she wasn't bad on the eyes, there was something about her that seemed... impersonal. She seemed detached from everything, like she was below it. Or above it.

Nevertheless, Isaac was going to be late to his next class due to a detour to the bathroom. However, he would soon discover, he would never make it to his next class.

Scott barreled into him as the halls were emptying into classrooms. He didn't have any books on him and his next class was in the opposite direction.

"Whoa, sorry," Scott cried, steadying the two of them. "Sorry, sorry, uh, are you hurt? Did I hit you?" He proceeded to look Isaac up and down and flounder like a mother hen.

"Scott- Scott!" Isaac pried his fellow beta's hands off him, "I'm fine. Where're you going?"

"Uh, I need to go, Deaton's about to- I mean, he's the next-" Scott searched, internally and externally, for the words to say, but Isaac got the picture. After what had happened the previous night, with the two doctors, Deaton being the next sacrifice wasn't that much of a stretch.

"What do you need to do?"

"I need to leave," Scott said, looking more worried by the second. But then he paused and looked up at Isaac. "Actually, you need to leave, too."

"Do you want me to go with you?"

"No, no, actually, I want you to go to Derek's. Boyd, too. Cora said something earlier," Scott waved vaguely in the air, "something about the Alpha pack. They're gonna attack. Tonight."

So Derek needed backup. Well, any reason to leave school early. Isaac nodded. "Go," he said, pushing Scott in the direction of the door. He needed to find Boyd.

"What is this supposed to accomplish, again?"

"Just shove it in my face, c'mon. We don't have a lot of time."

Boyd stood with Isaac, down the hall from the nurse's office, with a bottle of women's perfume in his hand(strawberry passion breeze). Boyd looked a little skeptic and sounded even more so.

"I dunno about this," he said, twirling the bottle in his hands. "Can this really make you puke? Just like that?"

"I can smell differently now," Isaac explained in a rush, "different than before. Like, certain smells are so strong, they make me nauseous. Lately it's been perfume, and we need to get to Derek's quick, so I need you to spray me right in the face."

Getting sick on purpose was probably the lowest thing on Isaac's bucket list, but they needed a reason to get out of school, and if he could present irrefutable proof, then all the better.

"Can't we just leave school? I mean, Scott-"

"Boyd," Isaac locked eyes with the taller beta, "if you don't spray with that perfume right now, I'm going to rip your throat out." He hadn't meant to sound so violent, but they were in a rush and lately he'd felt it was easier to get angry. Boyd shook his head, raised the bottle, and pressed on the nozzle.

The effects were immediate. The stuff was potent, and even if he weren't pregnant, even if he didn't have super-werewolf smell, he probably still would've gagged.

"Omigod," Isaac groaned, leaning over. He could feel the smell of fake strawberries swimming in his head and rearranging his organs and constricting his throat and he reached out to Boyd for support.

"Did it work?" Boyd asked, taking Isaac's arm.

"Oh yeah, it worked," Isaac managed to squeak out between gags. "Now get me to the nurse's before I vomit all over you."

Boyd didn't need to be told twice. He slung Isaac's arm over his massive shoulders and walked him the fifteen feet to the nurse's.

"Go back to school."

Isaac smiled as he and Boyd entered Derek's downtown loft. His alpha probably heard them coming from down the block.

"Well, actually, we can't," Isaac called into the space. "Well, I can't. Boyd here is my, uh... getaway. See, I've come down with an incredibly sudden bout of nausea." He smirked when he saw Derek perched at the top of the staircase, looking down as his betas drew nearer.

"We're here to protect you," Boyd explained. Their alpha came down, an incredulous, but amused, look on his face.

"You're here to protect me?" he asked, looking between the two of them. "Well, I'm in trouble." He stopped in front of Isaac and raised an eyebrow. "And what do you mean 'we?' You shouldn't even be leaving the house."

"If you're done doubting our competence, Boyd here came up with a plan," Isaac retorted shortly. he flipped lazily through a book on the table, not really reading it. He had the suspicion that Derek just kept it there because it looked important.

"I was thinking about the time Gerard had me and Erica locked up," Boyd knelt down and unzipped the duffle he'd brought in with him, "and tied up with electrical wires, pushing a current through us. I was thinking of how we could do something like that." Out of the duffle came a bundle of thick wires. "But on a bigger scale."

Isaac looked from Boyd to Derek, searching for a reaction. Derek seemed... genuinely impressed in his betas. After a brief contemplation period, he gave a quick nod and they went to work.

Boyd and Isaac got busy hooking the wires up to main power in the loft while Derek grabbed a hose and started turning the floor into a concrete swimming pool.

"Why is there even a hose here?" Isaac asked, watching the floor get saturated.

"This place used to be a factory building," Derek explained as he set up wooden slats for them to walk on. "They needed a quick and easy way to clean up when the day was done. We're just lucky they decided to keep that feature when they turned these into lofts."

Across the room, Boyd flipped a switch and the lights came back on. That meant the wires were live and they had to stay on the slats lest they be electrocuted when Boyd threw them into the now four-inch-deep pool that was Derek's apartment.

Isaac looked over the room. That wire had crackled with electricity as soon as it hit the surface of the water. Now it was quiet, like a silent killer. "Will this kill them?"

Boyd sighed. "God, I hope so."