The bus for the Lacrosse team leaves before Rowans so she goes with Isaac to say goodbye. It feels like a much more significant parting than it really is. She hugs Boyd when she sees him and frets a little bit making sure he's all right. He's not really; she can feel the tension inside of him. Losing Derek wouldn't be good for any of them. With out a pack they're weak and without and alpha, to Deucalion they're useless. The wolves all get of the bus and Rowan walks over to talk to Stiles. He's been more wrapped up in the darrach problem but she knows he's useful. A human that runs with wolves.

"Look after my boys for me." She tells him earnestly. Stiles bobs his head forward and looks at her with concern in his eyes. She probably looks like shit, not just because she's grieving Derek, but because the soulbond is messing with her.

"Are you gonna be alright?" Stiles asks her. She gives him a tight-lipped smile.

"Just keep them safe please." She gives him a hug and then leaves.

A few hours later she's boarding her own bus and after doing head counts and getting everyone seated she sits down at the front of the bus by herself and leans her head against the glass. She feels like crying but she also feels too tired to cry. She remembers Peter telling her that losing pack was worse than losing a limb. She'd felt that when Erica died. She looked back on her memories of Derek falling. Those moments were confusing for her. She tried to peel apart what hurt was because of losing Derek and which was because of Isaac.

She starts thinking about Cora and the rest of the pack. If Derek was really gone there was going to be a lot of pain to go around and a lot of blame too. She was going to have to be strong for her pack; she couldn't afford to be weak now. That's what she'd always done for Isaac. Even though they were both dealing with pain they always put it aside to be there for each other.

The bus stopping jolts her and she looks up at the center her girls will be performing in and decides she better start being strong. She already owed it to the girls to give them a good trip. She put on a big smile and got ready for a very long day.

She missed Isaac already.

After the motel Isaac's nerves were frayed. He was shaking and his breathing still wasn't evening out. He needed to calm down. He needed… He needed…

"Isaac?" Rowan picks up on the third ring.

"Hi." He breathed out clutching the phone even more tightly in his hand. The sound of her voice was already soothing him. He let his ragged breathing fill the air for a minute too long. It is a sound, a routine, that is wretchedly familiar to the pair.

"What happened?" The question was all too familiar to their ears and to their lips. Isaac managed to choke out what their time at the Glenn Capri had been like. He had his own seat and his knees were drawn up as he talked to her. At one point Coach yelled to him to get off the phone but Rowan was having none of it.

"Put him on the line."

He handed over the phone and watched as Coach went from yelling to frowning to embarrassed and pale. He pulled the phone away from his ears and all the werewolves on the bus heard Rowan yell, "Do I make myself clear! Coach?" She used the name as an insult. Coach handed the phone back to Isaac and then was strangely quiet. Isaac smiled wearily.

"He's gone."

"Damn right he's gone." She said fiercely and he laughed. Well, barely but he was proud of himself for the gesture.

"How are you? In the bus I mean."

"Not great but I've been worse. How did the show go?" He just wanted to hear her voice. She took her cue and launched into story mode.

"So great! You know Alex? The little girl who skipped two levels into this level? She was so fantastic! Turns out, all you need to do is give her a stage and she blossoms like a tulip in the spring! I was…" She continued talking and Isaac was impressed with how she could talk this long with out a break. He was also so very grateful because it calmed him down completely. It was like without her anchoring him he was just going to slip away. His phone buzzed in his hand. Battery at 2% Fuck.

"My phone's going to die." He said softly.

"Okay. Are you okay?"

"Yeah." His voice shook and his wished it wouldn't have. If she were there she would've been able to hear his lie.

"Isaac it's okay you know. You know that–" He phone went black and he put in his pocket and sighed, dropping his head against the window. Calm. Calm. Calm.

Stiles' phone rang in his pocket. He fished it out and looked at the caller ID. Rowan?

"Hello?"

"Hey Stiles. Do you think Isaac can borrow your phone for awhile?"

"What happened to his phone?"

"Died." Stiles was perplexed but looking up he saw Isaac pressing his head against the glass with his eyes squeezed shut. He decided to let Rowan do her thing and made his way to Isaac's seat.

"Hey buddy." Isaac jumped at the sudden presence but Stiles just casually holds his phone out for him to take. "It's for you." Isaac unfolds enough to take the phone with shaking hands and Stiles goes back to sit with Scott.

"Hello?"

"As if you expect it to be anyone other than me!" Rowan chastised him playfully. He smiled.

"Okay so I don't want to commandeer Stiles' phone for too long, but I know you're almost home and I know you're still not alright. But we're still two hours out and I'll be home to see you okay? And then I think we should bury the cooler."

"What?"

"I think we should bury the cooler. Or destroy it, burn it, something. We've got to find some way to keep this from haunting you. I know Scott got around to destroying it before we could but I think we've got to do something. We can sneak into the graveyard and give it it's own headstone and everything."

"What would it say? 'Here lie the night terrors'?"

"'Here lies the last cage'?" Isaac laughs softly.

"I like that."

"Then it's a date. Stay calm until then Starfish, I love you."

"Love you too."

"Put Stiles back on the phone." Isaac clambered up to the back of the bus to return the phone.

"Hello again." She said sweetly.

"Hey, everything good?"

"Yeah, um yeah. Izzy told me about everything that went down at the motel. How's Scott? Is everyone back in their right mind again?"

"Yeah I think he's good. Well as good as we can be."

"Do you think Derek is dead?" Whoa, change in subject much. "I don't think he's dead. I was texting Cora not long ago. They can't find his body. He can't be dead and when I next see him I'm gonna give him a good smack in the face if he went to someone who isn't pack before he told us he's still alive."

"Slow down. No I don't think he's dead. Ethan said the Alphas don't think so either."

"He's alive." She said relived and more confident now.

"Calm down and wait a second we don't know that for sure yet."

"I do. He's alive I can feel it." Stiles' confusion was growing by the second. Ro always ran a mile a minute; he wondered if that's what others felt talking to him.

"Well then why did you ask me?"

"Because I feel like you always know the most and I needed affirmation. After what Isaac said I thought maybe we really had lost Derek."

"What do you mean?"

"Scott."

"What about him?"

"Isaac said he was beating the shit out of Ethan and that nothing was going to stop him until Scott ordered him to stand down. Kind of of like how betas obey the Alpha, you know? And then he said that part of Scott's hallucinations were his eyes turning red. His eyes aren't actually red are they?"

"Buddy." He smacked Scott in the chest. Scott had almost been asleep and he jumped at the contact. "Look at me and shift your eyes."

"What?" Scott said blearily. Stiles flapped his arms about twisting in his seat impatiently.

"Just do it." He did.

"All gold." He said to Rowan.

"I thought so. Derek wouldn't have chosen Scott. Not with Cora around."

"Chosen him for what?"

"To be the Alpha. To be Beta Heir." There was an indignant scream in the background and Rowan groaned. "Listen I've gotta go I've got a few of the girls fighting and they need my help. Bye."

The line clicked off, leaving Stiles with a very confused Scott and a racing mind.

That night when Isaac gets home he meets Rowan at the end of his block. She's borrowed Mariah's red pick up truck and she jumps down out of it when he gets there, holding him in her embrace tightly. They shift and go running through Isaacs old house. He wrecks a lot of stuff and Rowan is there to help him. They put the mangled cooler in the back of the pick up truck and Isaac loads it with various things tossing them vehemently into the cooler with barely contained screams of anguish. He puts a lot of tools in. Glasses. Pillows. Stuffed animals. Swimming trophies. Belts. They slink across the street to the Whitmore

Isaac operates the machine and digs a grave big enough to fit the cooler and the drop it down unceremoniously shielding their eyes from the dust cloud it creates. Rowan pulls out a tank of gasoline.

"Only if you want." She says and he laughs brokenly like someone punched the air out of him. He takes the container with shaking hands sloshing it into the ditch. He seems steadier by the time he lights the match. Calmer each second the flame burn. He reaches out for Rowan's hand and pulls her close so that her back is to his chest and he presses his face into her hair.

"Thank you." He says into her ear. She nods lightly and twists back to press a kiss to his temple. They stay like that until the fire dies down. Isaac gets in the machine and dumps the dirt back over the grave. He told Rowan he didn't want to give it a head stone.

"The things that happened to them are indescribable in words. And for the most part I think they're better left unsaid. Not because it didn't happen, but because we won't let it happen again." He'd told her resolutely and she smiled at him and nodded understandingly.

They go to Stiles' house afterwards, where Boyd and Cora and Scott have been while they were gone. Rowan tucks herself into Boyd's side, making sure he was okay knowing what he'd seen at the motel as well. They watch movies and take comfort in each other's company, but the night is still tainted.

Derek is still unaccounted for.