I've got nothing left to prove:
You wake up to the sound of gasping, and for a second, for one blissful second, you don't remember. And then you do.
"Scott, Scott, it's okay," Isaac murmurs, and you realize he's not lying in front of you anymore.
"She could have died," Scott chokes out. "They broke her fingers, they took off her shirt, what were they going to- I don't, how could they-" He sobs brokenly and you feel a cold wave run through you.
"I know, I know," Isaac whispers, and you feel the bed shift. "She's okay, Scott, she's okay."
"She's not," Scott sobs. "Did you see what she looked like when we came in? I can't...it's my fault, I should have known-"
"It's not," Isaac says quickly, sounding scared. "It's not, Scott, please."
There's a pause and then you hear the soft sound of mouths moving together.
"Isaac," Scott gasps after a second, and the bed jerks more violently this time. "Please."
"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay," Isaac says, though he sounds like he's trying to convince himself just as much as Scott. "Just, Scott, just, please."
The bed shifts again as they come down next to you, breathing heavily.
"Isaac," Scott moans, and you hear the sound of clothing being removed. "Can you, can you-"
"Yeah," Isaac says shakily. "Yeah, we need...I can get..."
"No, it's fine, I need-" Scott says, sounding on the verge of tears.
"Okay, okay," Isaac says, the bed shifting again. "Okay, turn over."
Scott does, arm brushing your back and you feel very odd and very empty as you listen to them fuck next to you, in Scott's mother's bed, Scott making soft broken noises into the pillow.
This is a very odd dream, you think to yourself. I'd like to wake up now.
You don't, though. You remain awake the entire time, and when you think they're asleep you roll on your back, wincing in pain at the strain it puts on your stomach.
"Hey," Scott says, in that same slurred way he always does right after he gets fucked. He scoots over closer to you and balances his chin on your shoulder. He reaches out to touch your arm and after a second the aches in your body fade a little. "Tell me what you're thinking about."
"My parents will come here eventually," you tell the ceiling. To be honest, you're surprised they haven't come already.
"I told them to leave you alone," Scott mumbles, petting your hair absentmindedly.
"They'll come," you say, certain of it. "They'll come and take me away, and then I'll never see you again."
"Allison," Scott says, raising his head and looking down at you firmly. "I will never let that happen."
"You won't be able to stop it," you gasp, heart beginning to pound again. "They'll probably blackbag me, take me away in the middle of the night with no trail and-"
"I won't let them touch you, I swear to God," Scott says, sitting up suddenly and leaning over you, cupping your left cheek carefully.
"You can't always protect me," you tell him, and even as you say it you hate yourself. You're supposed to be strong, protect yourself. But you guess that was always a pipe dream, because you are just a fragile teenage girl, useless without a gun in your hand.
"I will," Scott swears earnestly. "I'll always come for you."
You squeeze your eyes shut and want to believe him. You shouldn't, but you want to. You want to feel safe, but you don't think that's possible anymore.
He presses his forehead to your temple and strokes your face gently with his thumb. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you, but I swea-"
"Don't," you whisper, not opening your eyes. "It's not your fault! It was me, I was careless, I should have, I should have...been more careful. I was stupid."
Scott doesn't say anything, just holds you to him until you fall asleep.
You wake up around dawn, pain lacing up your belly and fingers. You slip out of Scott's embrace and grimace at the stiff material of your jeans. You desperately need a shower. You smell like piss.
You pad slowly over to Scott's mother's bathroom, inhaling sharply when you shut the door behind you and glimpse your reflection in the mirror. You're even paler than usual and the right side of your face is heavily swollen and dark purple. Your splinted nose is bright red. You swallow and carefully pull off the hospital gown. It take more effort than you think and you have to bite back whimpers of pain as you raise your arms above your head.
Your stomach is even worse than your face. How many times did he even punch you there? you think as you stare at the mottled bruises across your belly. You can't remember. You open your mouth as much as you can, looking around for your broken tooth. It's not hard to find-your left canine. It's shattered. Shit. Cora picked it up, right? Can they glue it back together or something?
You start to feel sick looking at yourself, so you turn away and push down your jeans and underwear carefully, letting gravity do most of the work for you. You turn on the shower and stand under the hot spray of water, but you can't work up the energy to reach for the soap or shampoo. You can't see how you're going to clean yourself properly with one hand, and it seems like too much work to think of the best way to do it.
So you just stand there, staring at the tile wall, wondering all the ways you could have gotten out of last night. Could you have run the second you saw them in the kitchen, gotten out of the house and driven away? Or maybe you should have gone upstairs to the bag of guns in your closet and killed them all. Or grabbed one of their guns out of there hands. Kicked them, punched them, just anything not to have been so weak.
"Allison?" Isaac says from the bathroom door.
You close your eyes and take a deep breath. The air is very hot and humid. You look down at see that your skin is bright red, that your fingers have started to prune. How long have you been in here?
"Allison?" Isaac says again.
You swallow and tell yourself to be strong.
"Can you come in here?" you whisper.
Isaac opens the door immediately, and pushes aside the shower curtain. "Shit, Allison!" he says, eyes widening with shock, and reaches for the shower handle. "It's too hot!"
He turns down the temperature, and then after a pause strips off his shirt and boxers and steps inside the shower. He puts his hands on your shoulders and looks down at you worriedly, reaching up to smooth back your wet hair.
"Hey, is that supposed to get wet?" he asks, looking down at your bandaged fingers.
You shrug wordlessly.
"C'mere," he murmurs, pulling you into his arms and kissing the top of your head.
"Can you...can you get the shampoo?" you ask quietly, leaning your forehead against his shoulder.
He uncaps Scott's mother's coconut-scented shampoo and massages it through your hair way too gently. He grabs her bar of Dove soap next, working up a lather and carefully smoothing the bubbles down your sides, ducking down to get your legs.
And suddenly, like a chick flick cliché, you start sobbing.
Isaac bolts upright immediately and pulls you into his arms. "Allison, Allison, it's okay, it's okay."
"I'm so stupid," you sob messily into his shoulder. "I'm so stupid, and weak, I couldn't do anything, I've never felt so helpless in my life, I couldn't, I couldn't- I thought I could be, but I'm not-"
"No, no, no, no, no," Isaac says, sounding terrified. "No, Allison, you did good, you did good, and you're safe now, Scott and I won't let anything happen to you."
But it already happened to you, and nothing can change that. And now your parents know, know what you did to Gerard. You can't go home and you have no idea what you're going to do.
"You did good, you did good," Isaac keeps saying, but you didn't. You were weak and now your parents know about Scott.
You kept your mouth shut, you let them hit you, break your nose, your fingers, strip you half-naked, but it didn't mean a thing. It was all for nothing. They know now, about Scott, and you have no idea what they will do with that information.
Crying so hard hurts, though, now that the pain medication they gave you at the hospital has worn off, and you force yourself to regain your calm. Isaac finishes washing you off and then dries you off with one of Scott's mom's fluffy blue towels with bleach stains on it.
"Hey," Scott says when you come out, looking up from where he's stripping off the sheets of his mother's bed. "You okay?"
You nod shortly, and cast your eyes down to the floor, not wanting look at him, and tighten your grip on the towel with your good hand. "Can I borrow something to wear?" you mutter.
"Yeah! Yeah," Scott says. "Here, I can...I can wash your clothes too."
He sounds embarrassed. Because he and Isaac had sex right next to you last night? You don't really care about that.
You follow him to his room, and Scott hands you a t-shirt and a pair of his mother's pajama pants.
"Underwear?" you ask, raising your eyebrows at him.
"Uh," Scott says, looking awkward. "I'm not really comfortable with going through my mother's underwear drawer..."
You smile, but stop immediately because it hurts your face. "Just give me a pair of your boxer briefs," you tell him.
"Okay," Scott says, rooting through his dresser drawer before handing you the pair of black boxer briefs that, if you're being totally honest, make his ass look amazing. "Do you, do you need help?"
You look away and shake your head jerkily. "No, I got it," you say, and then go into his bathroom to change.
"Allison, you okay?" Scott asks after two minutes go by and you're still trying to ease the t-shirt over your head.
"Mmhm," you say tightly. "Where is your mom anyway?"
"At work," he says. "But she...she left a note asking us to bring you back to the hospital."
A cold rush of fear goes through you and you freeze.
"Allison, it's okay!" Scott says quickly, sensing your panic. "We just, we really need to get your fingers x-rayed. And she said your ribs might be broken."
Yeah, that explains a lot, you think bitterly.
"We'll make sure...there's no one waiting for you before we go in, okay?" Scott reassures you, sounding anxious. "And get you some pain medication."
And, sold.
Scott's mom took the car, so Scott takes you on his bike, while Isaac runs ahead to meet you there. You protest that you can totally walk yourself, but Scott insists on carrying you inside, and you feel kind of ridiculous with everyone staring at you.
They x-ray your fingers and your chest, but nothing shows up on the chest x-ray. Your bottom two ribs on your left side are probably still broken, but just fractured slightly, which is a far better scenario than the alternative. Your fingers are put in a bright blue cast without much fuss, but your jaw is much more problematic. It's broken as well and after a brief scare where they discuss wiring it shut, they eventually decide it isn't bad enough and just refer you to a oral surgeon and advise you to drink only soft foods and liquids until then. Your ribs and nose will heal on their own after six weeks, so they just give you antibiotics for those.
It's after lunch by the time you're finally released, dizzy on pain medication, and Scott and Isaac take you home and feed you mashed potatoes and a strawberry banana smoothie, and ice your jaw. You're pretty out of it from the medication and are perfectly content to sit on the couch (still in Scott's lap as he's very reluctant to relinquish you) and watch bad daytime TV for a couple hours.
At some point in the afternoon Lydia and Stiles come over, and Lydia wraps her arms around you and assures you that she can cover up the bruises when the swelling goes down and that she'll do all your homework for you until you can come back to school while Scott and Stiles talk quietly in the kitchen.
"Really, it'll be fine," Lydia says, stroking your hair, but she's very pale and sounds terrified. "We have the Sheriff on our side and my dad's a lawyer. We can drag litigation out until you're eighteen and you'll just stay with me from now on, okay?"
"Okay," you slur, not at all confident in that plan. Like your parents would be stopped by the law.
So you're not particularly surprised when they show up halfway through Scott and Isaac making dinner.
"You are not coming through this door!" Scott yells from the front hallway while you cower in Lydia's arms in the corner of the couch.
"Get out of the way, you will not keep us from our daughter!" your mother shouts back, and you flinch reflexively because your mother shouting has never meant good things for you.
"You have one chance to step aside or we will use force," your father says furiously.
"Oh, you know what, you can bring it!" Isaac says, a growl in his voice. "I don't care how many guns you have, we are not letting you near her again!"
"We're her parents!"
"Some parents," Scott says, and you've never heard such disgust in his voice before. "She's terrified of you. You don't get to see her right now. You need to leave."
There's a scuffle and you stiffen in fear as you see Stiles, who has been hanging back watching from the end of the hallway, fumble with his phone.
"Get your hands off hi-" you hear Isaac yell, but he's cut short by another voice.
"What the hell is going on here?!"
Oh, God, you think in horror as Stiles mutters to his dad to get over here right now. You know that voice. It's Scott's father.
"Who the hell are you, get your hands off my son!"
"Your son," your father says, voice shaking with anger, "has kidnapped our daughter!"
"What?" Scott's father says, sounding bewildered.
"She doesn't want to go with you," Isaac says angrily. "You leave her alone!"
"Alright, everyone calm down," Scott's father orders. "What is going on?"
"Stay out of this, it doesn't invo-"
"Isaac, enough," Scott interrupts. "Dad, I'll explain later. You need to leave now. Allison is fine, but she doesn't want to see you."
"And we should just take your word for it?" your mother snarls. "What have you done with her, where is she? Allison! Allison, come out here, right now!"
There's another scuffle and three people shouting, and Stiles stumbles backwards as your parents barrel into the living room, Scott and Isaac on their heels.
They both freeze when they spot you, eyes going wide at your injuries, and you shrink back into the couch as far as you can, too exhausted to think about running.
Lydia drops the ice pack she was holding to your jaw and leaps to her feet to stand in front of you, fists clenched at her side. "Get out!" she says, voice rising to a painful pitch.
"Allison, you need to come with us right now," your father says, though he speaks slower than normal, his expression still stunned. Beside him, your mother just looks at you in horror.
"No, she doesn't! Get out of my house!" Scott yells, pushing past them to stand in front of Lydia. "You have done enough!"
"You will not keep her from us!" your mother shouts.
"Just you try and touch her!" Isaac snarls from behind your parents.
Your mother whirls around to reply and a jolt of fear runs through you, but Scott's father enters the room before she can say or do anything.
"Alright, that's enough!" he says loudly, startling everyone. He's holding a cardboard box with a lamp in it and sets it down on the floor next to the wall. "What the hell is going on here?"
"This doesn't concern you," your father says after a pause, voice low with suppressed rage, and you try to look under his jacket to see if he's armed. You think he is. "We're just here for our daughter and then we'll go."
Scott's father glances at you and his jaw tightens, the same way Scott's does when he's angry. "How did she get those injuries?" he asks slowly.
No one replies.
"Allison, get up," your mother says, turning to you. "We're going home."
"No, I don't think so," Scott's father says sharply, crossing his arms over his chest. "I think you need to go."
They all start yelling at each other then, Scott's father demanding that your parents leave and you feel sick, because God, even Scott's asshole deadbeat dad thinks your parents are crazy. You hear the faint strains of police sirens, and you can't stand it, so you slip off the couch and run into the kitchen and out the other door to the front hallway, climbing the stairs quickly behind them. Upon reaching the second floor you can't figure out what to do, where to go, and climb into the linen closet at the end of the hallway and sit down under the shelves of towels, shutting yourself in the dark. You press your hands over your ears, but you can still hear yelling, and you find yourself rocking back and forth to distract yourself.
After a while, it fades, but you don't dare get out for fear they're going to be standing right there outside the door, and you gasp loudly as the door opens.
"Hey," Isaac says, looking down at you worriedly. "They're gone."
You make a noncommittal noise and turn away from him, letting your hair fall forward to hide the side of your face closest to him.
"Are you, are you going to come out?" Isaac asks carefully.
You shake your head jerkily, looking down at your knees. The idea of leaving your sanctuary makes you want to scream, even though you know a linen closet is not going to protect you. Nothing will protect you. You could go anywhere and they'd still find you. You wish you could just disappear.
After a moment of hesitation, Isaac crouches down and crawls in too, leaning up against the other wall across from you with his knees as close to his chest as he can get them to fit. You reach out and pull the door shut, feeling comforted by the barrier between you and the rest of the world.
Isaac inhales sharply. "So, Stiles's dad and Scott's dad made them leave," he says, sounding incredibly nervous. "Said they'd arrest them for forced entry."
You say nothing.
"Scott's trying to explain to his dad what's going on now," he continues nervously, swallowing audibly and shifting around uncomfortably. "Something about loan sharks beating you up."
You lean forward and rest your forehead on your knees. You don't want to think about that right now. You don't want to think about anything. You want to stop feeling like this, stop feeling so afraid of being attacked at any second. It's only been twenty-four hours, but you don't think you can do this for much longer. You'll explode. You'll die.
"Allison?" Isaac says, reaching for your hand hesitantly. "Can you... can we just-"
"I can't do this," you gasp. "I can't do it. I can't keep feeling like this. It has to stop, but I don't know how, I don't know how to-"
"Okay, okay, okay," Isaac says desperately, hands shaking against yours. "Tell me what you want me to do. I can-I can-"
He shudders and you feel your eyes fill with tears. Why is this happening to you? Why can't you stop it?
The door flies open and you cry out in shock, pressing yourself further against the wall. Scott crouches down in front of the both you, looking between the two of you in concern. "Hey, hey, it's okay," he tells you, and then turns to Isaac. "Are you-"
"Gimme a second," Isaac gasps and practically leaps out of the closet. You stare at him in shock as he runs down the hall to the bathroom, eyes widening when you hear dry-heaving.
"What?" you say, looking to Scott in confusion.
"I-" Scott says, looking towards the bathroom and then back towards you. "Just stay right here, okay?"
He stands and rushes down the hall to the bathroom. "Hey, hey, Isaac, it's okay," you hear him say as Isaac gags more. "It's okay, just breathe."
You climb out of the closet, distracted from your own panic and turn to look at it in confusion, unsure why Isaac's freaking out abo-
Oh. He's claustrophobic after his dad...
You walk over to the bathroom and lean against the doorframe, looking down at Scott rubbing Isaac's back, looking like he's going to start vomiting himself. Hey, you wanted a distraction.
"Hey, Allison," Lydia says, coming up the stairs. "We're done with dinner. Do you...do you wanna come down?"
You're not really hungry, but Scott says. "Yeah, go ahead, I got this."
So you go downstairs and have possibly the most awkward dinner of your life with Lydia, Stiles, and Scott's dad. Eventually Scott and Isaac come down, both looking exhausted, but you keep zoning out during Stiles's terrible conversation starters and thinking about ropes slithering up your arms and tying you to Scott's kitchen table chair.
But you force yourself to sit through it until Scott's mother comes home from work and everyone else goes home.
"Hey, how are you doing?" she asks you after you come out of the upstairs bathroom, peering at you closely. "How's your pain?"
"It's okay," you say, attempting a smile. "Thank you for everything, letting me stay here, and at the hospital..."
You know your hospital stay would have been a lot longer, with many more questions about insurance and the circumstances of your injuries if it hadn't been for her.
"Hey, no problem," she says, reaching out to squeeze your arm. "Stay as long as you like."
"Nuh uh, I can't," you say, shaking your head and scratching it distractedly. "I think, I think I have to leave, I need to, just for two months, maybe, until I'm eighteen. I'm not sure how I...I have money and this bag with clothes and stuff in it I keep in my closet just in case, I'll have to figure out how to get it, but-
"What, Allison, no," Scott's mom says, looking shocked and confused. "Where would you even, no, listen to me, you're going to stay here, okay?"
"I can't, I can't," you tell her hoarsely, feeling your throat tighten up with emotion. She's too nice, why is she so nice? "My parents are going to come back and they'll-"
"We'll deal with them," Melissa says firmly, dark brown curls swaying forward as she steps a little closer. "I don't want you to worry about anything, okay, honey? Just relax and let us take care of this, okay?"
I have no idea how to do that, you think, staring at her blankly.
"Oh, sweetheart, it'll be alright," she says and hugs you. You're not really sure what to do and awkwardly put your hands on her sides in return. You haven't been hugged by an adult since you were a child.
"Hey, mom," Scott says quietly, coming up the stairs. "The dishes are done."
Melissa lets go of you and turns to Scott. "Thanks. Do you need anything else?" she asks you. You shake your head and she smiles wearily. "Alright, I'm going to do to bed. Just knock on my door if you need anything. You have your medication?"
"Yeah, I think it's downstairs," you say.
"I got it!" Isaac calls.
"Okay, good night," she says gently. "I'll see you tomorrow."
She goes into her room and Scott steps onto the landing, reaching out to pull you into his arms, leaning his forehead against yours.
"We are going to make this okay," he tells you firmly. "You don't have to run away or be afraid, okay? All of us are behind you."
"I know, I know," you say, because you do, intellectually, but you can't help how you feel. "I just...I can't stop thinking about it. I just keep...remembering, and I don't want to, I just keep thinking that I should've been able to get out of it to stop it-I just...I need a distraction, I need to stop thinking."
"Okay, okay, we'll figure something out," Scott says, rubbing his hands up and down your upper arms.
"Do you...do you want to have sex?" Isaac asks dubiously, walking up the stairs with your pain medication and a glass of water, glancing at Melissa's closed door.
Scott gives him an alarmed look, but you snort with laughter despite yourself. "I would, but I don't think I can...my ribs...I'm not supposed to exercise."
"How about a movie?" Scott asks, taking you by the hand and leading you to his room. "Something we haven't seen before."
"Okay," you say bracingly, unsure if it'll work, but knowing it's probably a better idea that taking more painkillers and washing them down with alcohol, which is what you've wanted to do since dinner.
Scott and Isaac finally decide on Little Miss Sunshine, after reading through the entire summary on their phones to ascertain there aren't any violent scenes in it. You sit between them with Scott's battered laptop on your lap and try very hard to concentrate on the plot. It sort of works; it's funny and there are scenes where you manage to forget your own life. When it's over, Scott and Isaac curl themselves around you protectively to sleep. You wish Scott's bed was further away from the window, though.
A/N: One of the most challenging parts of writing the end of this fic (only three more chapters, can you believe it?) was getting into Chris and Victoria's heads. I wanted to avoid making them cardboard cutout villains and be true to their characters in canon, while still acknowledging how terrible they are (which the show seems to have completely forgotten about.) I hope I'm able to get that across in these last few chapters, but we'll see what you think. Please review!