Chapter 25

"Derek, it's been a whole week, how come he hasn't woken up yet?" I say, my voice wobbly, as I glance down at Scott's still unconscious face. "Deaton said that he was going to be fine."

Derek puts a hand on my shoulder. "He will be fine, I promise." He says. "He was hurt pretty bad, he'll wake up when he's ready."

I sigh and let go of Scott's hand to lean back in my chair, my eyelids suddenly heavy. I've been sitting with Scott for the past six days and haven't slept a wink. If he woke up without me being here, or if he dies and I'm not here, I'd never forgive myself. I yawn and stretch my arms out, and then return to my previous position holding Scott's hand.

"Isaac, you need to sleep." Derek tells me gently. "I'll take you back to Scott's house and when you wake up I'll bring you right back, I promise."

I shake my head. "No." I don't want to leave Scott, let alone go to his house. I don't understand why the pack couldn't have just gone to Derek's loft when Lydia's parents came back.

Derek squeezes my shoulder. "Isaac, we're starting to worry about you. You haven't been sleeping, you've barely been eating and you hardly talk anymore."

I bite my lip. "Derek, I'm fine."

He slowly turns me so I'm facing him. "Isaac, I know that you're not fine." He whispers. "I know that you're worried about Scott, but you're also being reminded of your mother." That's when I can't hold my tears in any longer and I start sobbing into Derek's chest. "She was in the same position that Scott's in now, but that doesn't mean that you're going to lose Scott. He wouldn't want you to be like this, nor would your mother." Derek continues. "I'll take you back to Scott's where you can have a proper meal, and then some sleep."

I clutch Derek's shirt tighter as my heart breaks from the overflow of memories and emotions. "What if he wakes up when we're gone?" I gasp in between sobs.

Derek squeezes me tighter and rubs circles into my back. "Then Deaton will call us." He says soothingly. "Your pack misses you; Monica hasn't stopped asking about you since you came here."

I turn my head to look at Scott and try to think about what he'd want me to do. Yes, he'd want me to go home and relax for a little bit, but that's not what I want. I want to sit here and wait until he wakes up, even if it takes a million years. I don't care if my current behaviour is 'unhealthy,' I just want Scott to be okay. So when I look back to Derek, I slowly nod my head. "I guess a little rest won't hurt me."

I turn to the rest of the pack when I hang up from talking to Derek. "Well, still no change in Scott," my voice breaks on my son's name, "but Derek has managed to convince Isaac to come here for a place to sleep and something to eat." I sit down on the couch next to Ethan, who looks terrible, and sigh. "Isaac isn't in good shape right now, so just, I don't know-"

Peter, who randomly showed up yesterday, cuts in. "Isaac has told Derek things about his past that only they know, and some of that is being stirred up right now, so leave Derek to Isaac."

I stare at him. "How do you know that?"

He frowns. "Melissa, a little eavesdropping never hurt anybody." Peter shrugs. "Besides, I wanted to see how Scott was doing. He was technically my beta once upon a time, before Derek slashed my throat."

"But you're not an alpha." Monica says, whose sitting on the other side of Ethan.

Peter smiles, unamused. "You're right, I'm not. But I used to be."

Monica frowns and crosses her arms. "How could you be an alpha before, but not now?"

Peter leans against the wall. "Oh, I guess Isaac didn't tell you this story."

My mind is scattered everywhere. One second I can focus on the conversation in the room, and the next everybody looks like Aiden, and seeing his face flips some sort of switch inside me. My mind wants to slash his throat but my heart is telling me not to. But my mind is overpowering. And then, as quickly as I see him, he's gone and everything is back to normal.

But the hallucinations never really stop. I duck my head down and try to focus on where I am and who I'm with. I can feel Melissa on my right and Monica on my left, but that's it. Everything else feels nonexistent. I take a deep breath and focus on their scent, using them as my anchor to reality because god knows Aiden won't work anymore.

My eyes unwillingly fill with tears and I feel Melissa squeeze my hand. I try to squeeze back, but I can't move and my muscles go limp, as if my body has given up. And then I can't hold back the tears anymore; they fall down my face in a steady stream and I feel someone hug me. I'm too deep inside my mind to be able to tell who it is.

Once I start crying, I can't stop. There's so much that I've held back that I haven't had time to properly grieve over. My entire family is gone, my alpha is gone, my original pack is dead, my alpha pack is disbanded, my boyfriend was murdered, and now I've lost my brother. I'm never going to be able to hang out with him again, my last shred of family is either going kill me or be killed by me. And neither of those options involves getting him back. Yeah, I can have my pack, but Aiden's my family. My last remaining family member.

Our family had started out great. Our parents were madly in love, we could hear it pretty much every night, and Aiden and I didn't mind that we were the youngest of the kids, because we had each other. One day Aiden and I had come home from school, we were nine years old at the time, and my father was sitting at the table crying.

My mother had been shot at work that day. She worked at a bank, there was a robbery and the criminal was going to shoot a baby just because it wouldn't stop crying, so my mom jumped in front of it. The town had called her a hero, but I still lost my mother. For weeks my family struggled to come to terms with it, but then my dad turned to alcohol and slowly he became more detached from the world.

My oldest brother, Sam, who was only eighteen, left us. With the oldest gone and our dad out of commission, Mitch, Ashley, Aiden and I fell into some pretty bad shit. Our family had always been the smart, sporty type, but in that time all of our grades dropped and Aiden and I only continued in cross country because our teacher thought that it would be therapeutic for us.

A year later, on her seventeenth birthday, Ashley moved in with her boyfriend. It was down to Mitch, Aiden and me. Mitch struggled with three jobs to support us. He was only fifteen, and decided to drop out of school. "You guys are more important to me than an education." He had told us.

But that didn't fool us. The moment he turned eighteen he left like the rest of our family did. Aiden and I left the next day. We wandered into the woods and never looked back. I think that we were both secretly hoping that we'd get killed, but that's when Mitus, our first alpha, found us. He seemed nice at first, but we quickly realized how cruel he was when we became omegas within a day.

But we stayed with that pack for three years before Deucalion found us. At this point we were done, we just wanted to die and get it over with, but Deucalion saved us. He showed us new things and made us more powerful than we ever thought we could become. Ennis and Kali had become parent figures to us and we slowly started to love life again.

But then we came to Beacon Hills in search of Scott, the suspected true alpha, and everything had gone spiralling down again. And I'm not sure if I'm ever going to go up again. But I want to go up, because the alternative is to go down, and nobody wants to go down. Everyone deserves to be happy, but after all the terrible things that have happened to me, and that I've done, it's a wonder that I'm still alive.

I should be with my mother right now, or Danny. But, as my mind slowly becomes aware of reality again and I feel the power of my new pack, I realize that this is my family now. And I remember why I held on for so long. Because life goes on. If I just keep living eventually something is bound to right itself.

"Melissa?" I say, my voice slightly hoarse.

She kneels in front of me. "Yes?"

"I-I love you." I tell her, my voice hoarse. "Like a mother."

Her eyes go soft and she strokes my cheek. "And you're the best son that anybody could have."

I smile a little bit. "What about Scott?"

"And Scott. Every single member of this pack is like my child." She responds.

I look around and find the room to be empty. "Where did everyone go?"

She puts her hands on my knees. "They're upstairs." She says. "They thought that you'd want some space right now."

"Is Monica with them?" I whisper.

Melissa nods and smiles. "Yep, and to be honest, she's fitting in quite well."

I close my eyes and take a deep breath before opening them again. "That's good." I pause, "I really like the idea of expanding my pack." I admit to her. "Is that okay with you?"

Melissa laughs. "You're asking me if it's okay? I thought that you were the alpha."

I shrug and smile at her. "So you don't mind if I bring in more people?"

"Not at all." She says. "As long as you're not attacking random people in their homes in the middle of the night."

I shake my head. "I would never do that. I'm going to do what Derek did and take in people that need the bite."

"Good." Melissa says. "Because I'm not letting my alpha fall off the rails." She smiles. "Now, I'm going to make something for lunch. Any preferences?"

I grin and follow her into the kitchen. "Omelet's would be good." I tell her. I open her fridge and pull out the eggs. "Although, you don't have enough eggs to make one for everybody. And the werewolves could easily eat five each."

Melissa sighs. "Fine, I'll just order something...but I'm going to be broke by the end of the month if everyone stays here."

I pull my wallet out of my pocket and hand her a twenty. "I'm glad to pitch in, and I'm sure that everyone else will."

Monica comes bounding down the stairs and pulls me into a hug. "Don't expect me to give you any money." She says. "I've got nothing."

Melissa smiles and gives me back my twenty. "No, this is my house and you guys are my family. I can pay for it."

I grin and put my hand on her shoulder. "Fine, but don't come to me when you're out of money."

Melissa puts her hands on her hips. "I'm starting back to work next week, so I'll have a steady income again."

I frown as she hands me some take-out menus to look through. "What did you tell the hospital about your absence?"

She shrugs and puts the eggs back into the fridge. "I told them that I was sick, although I don't think that they believed me, but I've been there long enough that I think that they'll let this slide. But if something like this happens again...I'll probably get fired."

I peel Monica off me and sit her up on the counter. "Well, I'll make sure that you don't get fired." I look at Monica. "And how about you look into getting a job." I tell her. "And getting enrolled in school."

She tilts her head in thought. "One or the other." She says. "I am not busting my ass to keep up with both of them."

I sigh and look to Melissa, who only smiles and shrugs. "You're the alpha." She says, "You make the decisions."

"I may be an alpha, but I'm no good at this whole 'parenting' thing." I reply.

Melissa grins and stands beside me. "It's easy," She says. "Watch." She turns to Monica. "Go to school." She tells the girl sternly.

Monica crosses her arms and smiles. "And what if I don't want to?" She says jokingly.

"Hmm, then I guess I'll have to feed you a wolfsbane smoothie." Melissa responds without missing a beat.

"And what if I refuse to drink it?" Monica counters.

"Then I'd get Ethan to kick your butt." Melissa responds. "Now, you guys take those take-out menus up to Allison, Lydia and Peter and decide on what we're going to have for lunch. I'm going to call Derek and see when him and Isaac will be here, and then get you registered with the high-school."

I lift Monica up off the counter and swing her onto my back, giving her a piggyback ride up the stairs. She laughs and I even smile, momentarily forgetting about my brother. I set her down and we walk into Scott's room, where Monica throws the menu's onto the bed. "Melissa's ordering food," she says, "and we're supposed to decide on what to get."

Allison crosses her arms. "We all know that we're going to pick different things."

Lydia flops down on the blanket-less bed and looks through the options. "Definitely not pizza, that's pack night food." She tosses one of the pamphlets onto the floor. "And not Chinese food either, that's more of a dinner thing." Another menu lands on the ground.

Peter plucks the remaining two from Lydia's hand. "The only ones left are subs or fish and chips."

"Subs." Monica and I say in unison.

Peter smiles. "I'm going with subs too." He looks over to Lydia and Allison, "Sorry ladies, but you're out-voted." He picks the other menus off the floor, "I'll go take these down to Melissa, you guys start making the bed for Isaac, him and Derek will be here soon."

"I don't think that it's a good idea for Isaac to be sleeping in Scott's bed, considering the state he's in." Lydia says when Peter leaves.

I frown. "No, he'll want to be in here. It'll make him feel closer to Scott, which is what he needs right now."

"Good point." Allison says and she starts putting some sheets on the bed. "But I'm really worried about him."

"He'll be fine." I assure her. "Scott will wake up soon and things will go back to normal."

Lydia chuckles humorlessly. "I don't think that things are ever going back to normal. Ever since Scott was turned it's seemed as if supernatural drama has been attracted to Beacon Hills."

"It's because he's a true alpha." I tell them.

Everyone freezes. "A-a what?" Lydia asks. But, judging by the tone of her voice, she knows exactly what I'm talking about.

I cross my arms. "He's a true alpha." I repeat. "Well, not yet, but he's well on his way to being one."

"How does someone become a true alpha?" Allison asks. "And you didn't even explain what a true alpha is."

I help her finish putting the sheets on the bed. "You can't just become a true alpha." I say. "It's very rare, but sometimes a beta is able to become a true alpha by sheer force of will; just by being a good person." I sigh. "That's why Deucalion brought us here, he wanted Scott."

Lydia holds her finger up, as if thinking something through. "Allison and I overheard Kali, Ennis and Aiden saying that Scott was the only one who could stop the Darach."

Ethan nods slowly. "Yes, the Darach and the true alpha are connected. Deucalion came to Beacon Hills for two reasons. One, to add a Darach to his long list of supernatural creatures that he's killed and, two, add a true alpha to his pack."

"But, the Darach is dead now, right?" Allison says, her voice wavering slightly.

"Yes." I whisper, knowing immediately what she's going to ask next.

"Then why is the rest of the alpha pack still here? Deucalion's dead, the Darach is dead and you and your brother are going to end up killing each other. Why not leave?" Allison asks.

I sigh and look at the floor, my brother floating back into my mind. I bite my lip and try to push him out of my head, but he won't budge. "They're still here because of Aiden." I say quietly. "H-he doesn't want to leave without me."

I feel Monica's hand grip mine as she senses my sudden sadness. "Don't worry about it." She says, "Just think about something else."

I take a deep breath in, but all I can smell is Aiden. I squeeze my eyes shut, but all I can see is Aiden, all I can feel is Aiden and all I can think about is Aiden. He's like a poison in my head, and there's nothing that I can do to get rid of him. I feel my hands clench into fists as a strong surge of anger sweeps through me. Every fibre of my being is bent on destroying him.

I feel hands grip my biceps, hard, and a voice cuts into my clouded thoughts. "Ethan."

All at once, everything melts away and I'm in Scott's room, surrounded by some very concerned-looking pack members. The person holding me is Peter. I sigh and take a deep breath, pushing his arms off me and taking a step back. "Sorry, I just spaced out for a second."

Judging by the looks on everyone else's faces, they know that I'm lying. I run my hand through my hair and sigh. "I just need to be left alone for a while." Nobody says a word as I walk out of the room and across the hall to the guest room, shutting and locking the door behind me.

(Authors Note: So, I hope that you liked this chapter...its not overly exciting...but there's only TWO chapters left and they're both going to be very exciting and emotional...all reviews are greatly appreciated and I reply to all of them :))