Author's Note: Sorry for the brief delay in getting this up, but here we are, the last chapter of this little series! It's a long one, kind of a gauntlet of emotions and Scott asking himself some hard questions, but I hope you enjoy it!
- - - -/- - - -
iii. Too Late.
- - - -/- - - -
The hospital was a blur.
Nurses and orderlies scurried back and forth, shouting over each other, calling in Liam's stepdad, prepping multiple surgery rooms. It was another night in Beacon Hills Memorial, but for the first time in a long time, their patients hadn't been victims of something strange they could explain away, like wild animal attacks or strange men with swords. Gunshot wounds, human violence at its simplest and cruelest, were almost a novelty, but they wouldn't remain so for much longer. He's armed the whole town...
"Scott, the map." Argent's voice was far away, beyond an echo. "It's Nemetons. Gerard's not stopping at Beacon Hills. He's not stopping at all. This ends with every supernatural in the world dead. It's a genocide."
The word swam with the war in his veins, but it was languid, untethered, without form or function in the current state of his reality. He had to be asleep. It had to be a nightmare. He had been tired, so tired after the armoury and all the air leaving his lungs, after everything that came before, and the darkness creeping in his vision and singing sweetly in his ears seemed so much more real than genocide, it had to be a dream. He counted his fingers, and thought they must be lying to him. He stared at the glowing red EXIT sign above the hospital doors, and waited for the words to stop making sense. He couldn't stare too long at the red, seeing laser sights he should've seen sooner, before the bullets, before the blood. He'd been too late. The cruelest words in the world: Too late.
Time became unknowable, transient, minutes and hours all the same in the long wait. Liam was the first to leave to patrol the hospital perimeter, and Theo followed to patrol him and his rising anger. Argent was gone next, remembering his training, compartmentalising in front of their eyes in a way that looked like breaking, and headed off into the night looking for answers, hope, anything. Corey arrived, turned invisible so they couldn't see his tears, and pressed a crumpled piece of paper in Scott's hand. The list of supernaturals Scott had tasked him to retrieve, before.
"I already called them," said Mrs Martin, glassy-eyed with shock. Scott hadn't even seen her arrive. "I already called everyone on the list and told them not to come to school today. I told them to stay home."
"Home's not safe either," said Scott, hollow. "Home's not safe..."
The blur of the hospital returned, so white and sterile he was blinded by it. When vision returned to him, she was the first thing he saw. They were in a bathroom, and Malia was leading him to the sink. She hadn't left his side once. She was still there. It wasn't until he heard rushing water that he looked down and realised why they were there: his hands and hers were both crimson, flakes of dried blood falling to the floor like powdered red snow. His father's blood, he remembered. He had trusted Chris to keep pressure on his mom's wound, and gone to his dad's side. His dad's blood, but it looked like Lydia's and Mason's and his mother's too.
"It'll wash off," Malia promised him, but she didn't guide either of their hands to the water. She had both Lydia and Mason's blood on hers, he remembered.
Scott swallowed the lump threatening to consume his throat. "Will it?"
Their eyes locked in the cracked mirror above the sink. Hers were shining with fear and determination in one, both impossibly lost and irrevocably found. In them, he saw her mother and her sister, her dad, the Desert Wolf, everything else she blamed herself for, deep down inside. His eyes were impossibly dark, but he wondered if she could see Allison in them, or Boyd and Erica and Aiden, Brett and Lori, Jiang and Tierney, and all the others he'd failed in between. The spray of water sounded like bullets.
Eventually, they got to work. After all these years, cleaning blood off was almost second nature. The only new thing about it was that they were doing it together, his hands and hers. He couldn't have found the words to thank her for being there if he tried. It felt like they were back in the tunnels, one of her hands on his and the other on his cheek, taking his pain away, only this time her very presence leeched from him his fear and cast it down the drain with all the blood. This time, they knew why she was able to take his pain, and he hers. Had it only been hours ago they kissed, stealing from the world what little they could, a fraction of what they deserved, in between brushes with death's cold embrace?
By the time their hands were clean, he found the words. "Tell me you're okay." His voice sounded distant to his own ears. "My dad, Mason, Lydia... my mom... I just... I just need you to tell me you're okay."
"I'm okay," she replied instantly. "Scott, I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere."
But she had, almost, back in the armoury, her soul escaping in his arms no matter how hard he held on. He'd almost lost her. And then he'd almost lost her again, because he'd been too late, and they had come for him. They were coming for everyone.
"I'm okay," she said again. "You're okay. And if you're not, you're going to be. Your mom and Lydia and Mason and your dad are going to need you. Because we do, okay? We all need you. I need you, Scott."
"I need you too," said Scott, half-broken, half-whole.
And she said, "You have me."
She took him in her arms, fierce and gentle and so very her, wrapping them around him tighter than she ever had, and he breathed her in for what felt like forever. Having her so close he felt a thief all over again, to be trusted in, cared for, beloved so. She was okay, and so was he. And soon, the running water didn't sound like gunfire, and all of the blood was washed away.
It was the longest night of his life, sitting in the waiting room and waiting, waiting, waiting. Malia sat beside him as long as she could, leaving only twice to check in with Liam, and both times her heartbeat stayed strong in his ears, guiding his own as he guided hers. When his mother's operation began to wind down, Malia's hand found his effortlessly, and when the all clear was given, the hand collapsed into his own as they had collapsed into each other. And in that instant, Scott was never gladder to be awake in a world where they all survived the night. A world where they all made it, and still could.
- - - -/- - - -
"You don't run," his mother had told him, looking so very pale, sunken, but sounding so sure, "You fight."
Fighting meant soldiers, soldiers for an army, and as it stood, his army was small, and dwindling by the battle. Throughout the long night, he'd run through his reinforcements in his mind, over and over, names upon names. Stiles, in Virginia and as vulnerable to bullets as ever; Kira, lost with the skinwalkers for good; Derek, wanted for mass murder, location unknown, and Cora's and Braeden's with him; Hayden, gone to ground with her sister; Isaac, last heard from in Amsterdam months ago; the omega Quinn, skipped town, probably the state; Jackson, in London and unlikely to care. Ethan, unknown; and Deucalion... His first call, but had proved ultimately fruitless; Deucalion was too seasoned by war, had tasted a peaceful life and preferred it going down, and after him they'd been forced to solicit their next worst option: Peter Hale.
And unfortunately, Peter had been Peter. Ever playing games, podding and poking at him like a needling insect he should've squashed long ago, Peter had brought him a present, one of Gerard's hunters, locked in a cell. The man, and he couldn't have been much older than Scott, had been given a gift of his own, and once fully armed, he had fired from within his cell, and he hadn't stopped. He had looked them right in the eyes, saw they weren't glowing, saw their teeth weren't fangs, and kept firing until he couldn't, and when all else failed, dove through the glass and tried to kill them with his bare hands. He wasn't just willing to kill, he was willing to die. He was a soldier, a prisoner of war, and his conviction was as strong as his fear. Peter's words echoed, "He never gave up, I would fight with him, I like him!"
Afterwards, Scott and Malia sat silently in the Jeep, the looming shadow of Eichen House hanging over them. Every base instinct screamed at him to start the car, to get away from that accursed asylum that even empty of patients felt full in the way a great beast having fed on despair for all its life did, sickeningly satisfied yet ever hungering for more. He wanted to get away, but he didn't know where to go, what to do. He knew Liam and Theo were looking for the Hunters that shot up his house, Corey was with Mason at the hospital, and Parrish and some deputies were watching over the other injured. Deaton hadn't returned his calls, still out there looking for information on the Anuk-Ite. Argent had disappeared.
Gerard's not stopping at Beacon Hills... If it didn't end there, if Gerard Argent's genocidal ambitions weren't ended before they could truly begin... His army, united by their ideal, encouraged by their fear, and so much bigger than Scott's pack... Sometimes wars take prisoners, ran through his mind over and over, the Sheriff trying to warn him. He never gave up... Peter Hale trying to push him... If he didn't have the army, he'd need to minimise Gerard's. He couldn't afford prisoners. He would need to leave bodies. That was the reality he had awoken to.
And yet... "It doesn't just stop with Gerard," he said aloud, breaking the silence. "If he dies, he dies a martyr, and Monroe takes up his mission. She dies, same thing, and it just keeps going and going..."
In the passenger seat, Malia tilted her head, listening.
"You know," he began, "when I got bitten, Derek told me it was a gift. I was attacked by an insane Alpha pretending to be a burned coma patient in his free time, and I was meant to think it was a gift. Peter, he... He was so relentless, he just kept killing and tried to make me do it too, and Argent was talking about putting down rabid dogs and... I thought he was right. Thought we were all monsters, that I was a monster, and I came so close, so many times, to killing, and..." With a sigh, Scott reached forward and gripped the steering wheel. "But soldiers kill people too. If they're fighting a war, if they have to. And that doesn't make them monsters, right? If doing it means keeping the people they love safe. That's different, isn't it? It's not a solution, something that should be done to end a problem, or because it's easier. It's not, and it can't be. No matter what Peter thinks."
"Peter's a jackass," said Malia bluntly.
"But if he's right... I don't want him to be -"
"Then he won't be."
"- but everyone's telling me I have to kill. They've always been telling me I have to kill. Peter wanted it, and Deucalion and his Alpha Pack, they wanted it too. And Kate..." Scott fought to suppress a shiver; some nights he could still feel the weight of the Berserker's skull on his. "I let them live. That wasn't weakness, it was the hardest thing in the world. And... I let Deucalion live, and he helped us against Theo last year. Aiden died a hero, Ethan gets to find redemption out there... Even Peter helped us stop the Wild Hunt. And then Theo... it was Liam who brought him back, so I let him bear that responsibility. Because he's kind of becoming his own Alpha, for Mason, Corey, Hayden, even Theo, somehow. When I bit Liam, I told him he wasn't a monster, because I thought we could be better, and believed it 'cause I was a True Alpha. But True Alphas only come once every hundred years, so the only way Liam becomes an actual Alpha is by killing another. He won't get a chance to be any different, and he's so angry, he's so angry all of the time and all it takes is one bad day and it'll be like when he almost killed me on the night of the supermoon..."
When he tore his gaze away from the dashboard, Malia wasn't looking at him. She was staring at Eichen House, and stared for a long moment before saying, "I killed my mom, Kylie..." She said it not with her usual frankness, but the tone of someone saying aloud a secret kept deep inside, even if everyone in the world already knew it. "I wasn't in control, I get that, it took me a while but I got that, but... I've done it before. I'll do it again. If the time comes, when it comes, and if it comes to it, I'll be right there beside you. You know I will be. I'll do it so you won't have to."
"Malia..."
"It's okay, Scott. I can do this. I can take it."
"No, you can't." Scott leaned over and touched a hand to her face. She turned her head slowly, and he cradled it, coaxed her to meet his eyes. "And you shouldn't have to. Do you remember when you were going to kill the Desert Wolf? I told Stiles that I thought if any of us would've killed someone by that point, it'd be you. Not because you're a bad person, or a monster, but because you would do anything if it meant protecting us. I knew you had it in you."
"Then let me do this," she whispered. "Let me do this for you."
He shook his head. "Listen, Stiles and Lydia, they have blood on their hands too, because I couldn't be there in time. Not just to stop them, but... I would've spared them that, if I could've. I would've spared you too. You didn't kill Corrine - you had every reason to want her dead, but you found another way. And you could still get out of this without killing. I want that for you, same as I do for Liam, for any of us. And if you're beside me when the time comes, then you know that means I'm there beside you. If it comes to it, it's my burden to bear." He let his words dangle in the air, and tried to find the right way to tell her why, and all he could come up with was, "It's what an Alpha does."
Malia shook her head out of his hand. "You're different."
"Not to them. That hunter back in the cell..." He never gave up. "None of them know about the Anuk-Ite. I'm the thing they're afraid of. Gerard never cared that I haven't killed, I'm still a monster."
"You're not." In her defiance, Malia bared her teeth, and her eyes blazed. "You don't have to be, and you won't. Because you're Scott McCall. You're good, and you make the right calls. Sometimes they're dumb calls, sure, but they're still right. And what's your plan now? You're going to fight, right?"
"Yeah."
"Why?" she pressed.
The answer came to him as simply as breathing. "Because we have to stop the Hunters before they hurt anyone else."
"You're not doing it for revenge, you're not doing it because they almost killed you? Almost killed your parents and your friends? Because they've already killed more of our friends, and an entire pack of innocent werewolves? You're doing it to keep everyone safe, even the people in town who think we're the monsters? Right?" She reached over and poked her finger into his chest, and not gently. "That's Scott McCall."
"Lia... It's still going to be a fight."
"Yeah, but if you don't want me to be a killer, and I don't want you to be a killer, then..." She tapped his chest again, softer this time. "I don't know what we'll do. Not yet."
He didn't either.
"But I do know one thing."
"What?"
"You're going to be a vet," she said, with the utmost certainty. "After all this. You'll be a doctor. You won't have to kill. You'll get to save things."
Vets put down animals, he wanted to tell her. Animals that were too sick, too afraid, too old, too wild, animals that hurt people. Animals like them. Animals like Gerard Argent. But her faith in him was so intoxicating that his frozen tundra of doubts began to melt, icy waters receding and receding until the soil became fertile enough to plant seeds of hope again. It was a wonder he ever made it this far without her believing in him.
Feeling inexplicably relieved, and with a renewed determination surging through him, Scott declared, "I'll try Deaton again. If we can stop the Anuk-Ite, we can stop the fear. That should be our priority. And in the meantime, we get ready, just in case, and we raise an army to protect everyone."
"I'm with you," agreed Malia. "We are still pretty desperate though, but I've got a couple of ideas." She reached into her jacket pocket, and pulled out her phone. "Let's get moving," she said, but he'd already started the car.
Not killing isn't running, Scott told himself. And fighting doesn't have to mean killing. It shouldn't.
And yet, when he swallowed, he swore he tasted blood, and it tasted like what was yet to come.
- - - -/- - - -
Midnight approached, and Scott would enter the new day with one new soldier for his army, and Peter Hale at that. It didn't dishearten him as much as it should've, for they knew now what the Anuk-Ite was looking for, knew Lydia could communicate with the dead hellhound Halwyn, and maybe, if they were lucky, they could still escape the war without any more bloodshed, without needing Peter Hale and his petty revenges as their best worst option. It was a nice thought, and he held onto it tightly as he watched the man who bit him a lifetime ago stroll out the door with his daughter, grousing about his overwhelming need for a shower.
"I'll call the Sheriff," said Liam, pulling out his phone. "About the bodies."
Scott let him go with a nod, leaving him alone with Theo and three corpses shut in a freezer behind them. He stood a silent vigil there for a moment, for three more dead supernaturals he'd never met, whose names he didn't know, and Theo let him for a minute before speaking.
"He almost killed Nolan yesterday," he remarked, as if they were talking about the weather. "Liam, I mean. Still beating himself up over Brett and Lori. Tried to kill Gabe today, too, he was so pissed about Mason and everyone else. He didn't, obviously, but I thought it best I didn't tell him Gabe was lying to him. Gerard trained him pretty good, but not good enough." He tapped at his ear, twice, a heartbeat. "But I figure it doesn't actually matter who shot up your house, not to you."
"It was the Anuk-Ite," said Scott, resolute despite the dull anger in his gut. He shot my mom. "It's all the Anuk-Ite."
"Yeah. Sure."
"Do you feel it?" Scott turned to him, honestly curious. "The fear?"
"I've been to hell." Theo shrugged the words. "What's there to fear in Beacon Hills?"
"Losing the people we care about."
The other boy rubbed at his chest. "I don't think I have to worry about that."
"Because you don't care about anyone, or because you think we're not going to lose anyone else?"
"I wouldn't be that optimistic..." Theo hooked a thumb over his shoulder to the freezer. "But I'm here, aren't I?"
Scott almost thanked him for that again, but said instead, "Stopping Liam from killing Gabe and Nolan was the right call."
"He stopped himself."
"You were there, weren't you?" Scott shot back.
Theo shrugged again. "He pulled me out of hell. I owe him one."
And you've repaid that more than once, thought Scott, but didn't push. "Still, he shouldn't have to live with that."
"Well, I did offer to do it for him," said Theo, with no shame. "But then I figured it'd still feel the same to him. And to you."
He was right, and Scott didn't know how long he could avoid that issue, not anymore. Not with Theo on his side, and not with Peter Hale. He clung to the destruction of the Anuk-Ite as the only solution, and parked that train of thought there to stay. It was past midnight by now, and they'd made it to a new day.
"I should probably get out of here," said Theo, adding sardonically, "before the Sheriff tries to pin those three on me."
"I wouldn't worry about that." said Liam, returning to the room with a grave look on his face. "The Sheriff got fired and Monroe has control of the department."
Theo glanced to Scott, something like the boy he was in his expression as he said, "We're not really the catching breaks type, are we?"
Scott's exasperated sigh said it all: Not really, no. Another thing for tomorrow, another battle to fight.
- - - -/- - - -
The deputies had withdrawn from the hospital, but Parrish was on watch, and he wasn't alone. He nodded his head to them when they approached the entrance, and gestured to three other men patrolling the grounds. They were all tall and walked like they were soldiers, and in the moonlight Scott could make out the shape of pistols concealed in shoulder holsters. Parrish's gesture hadn't been a warning, however; the men weren't Hunters, but mercenaries, and that meant Argent had supplied them. Without a word, Liam slipped off into the night with Theo his shadow, to check the perimeter themselves and assess the new bodyguards, just in case. Scott watched them go, nodded back to Parrish, and made his way inside.
He wasn't surprised to find Chris himself in his mother's hospital room, half-shrouded in a shadow softened by the hospital lights and his minute smile. He stood at Melissa's bedside as she had once his, after the Wild Hunt had almost gotten to him months ago, and their hands were linked. The sight warmed Scott; his mom more than deserved someone who looked at her like she was the light at the end of a long, dark, tunnel, and Chris deserved the light too.
His mom perked her head up when she saw him. "There he is," she said, as weak as she was pale, but still beaming at him.
"Hey, mom." To Chris, he nodded, and said, "Glad you came back."
Chris nodded in reply. "I can't stay long," he said apologetically. "I've got a lead on someone who might be able to help us out. My guys are paid up, they'll keep everyone safe."
"Thank you."
"Of course. I should probably get going, so... I'll leave you two alone." Gently, his free hand reached up and stroked a hair off of Melissa's wan cheek. "See you soon."
"You better," she murmured. "You still haven't called."
With a deep chuckle, Chris reluctantly pulled his hand from hers, and turned. His eyes encountered Scott's, and blinked away the same fear Scott had felt since the gunfire had stopped. A fear that looked like a girl they both lost a long time ago.
Moving by instinct, Scott embraced the older man, clapped his back once, and whispered, "She'd be so proud of you."
"You too," Chris choked out. "She'd be proud of you too."
He departed the room with each step more purposeful and composed than the last, the consummate professional once more, and Scott's mother beckoned him to the chair by her bedside. He sank into it gratefully, but kept the sigh to himself.
It didn't quite work. "You okay, kiddo?"
"Tired."
His mother snorted. "You're tired? I'm tired. I got shot, and the food here really sucks." She smiled to soften the blow. "How goes the fight?"
There was no other way to sum it up but, "Peter's going to help us."
"Ahh." The "That bad, huh," went unsaid. "And you? Are you okay?"
The words threatened to break the dam that had been leaking all day, but he forced himself to stay strong for her. She was being strong for him, had been for all his life, it seemed only right. It felt like growing up, the last tattered remnants of his adolescence lost, but he forced himself to nod, smile, and say again, "Just tired."
"Oh, Scott..." His mom placed her hand on his. "It's going to get worse before it gets better."
"But it's going to get better?" he asked, the thing he'd been daring to believe all this time.
"I should think so. Otherwise, what's the point of hoping? If we don't have hope..."
"We have nothing."
His mom smiled, exhausted from injury, worn down by life, aged in fear, but never more alive. "That's my boy."
Some time later, after his mom had fallen asleep, her words carried Scott out into the hallway, where Liam was waiting for him. He, restlessly pacing the floor, reported that Mason was being discharged in a couple of days, that Corey was with him, and that the hospital was safe for the night. Scott took it all in, then told him to go get some rest himself.
"Yeah, that's probably a good idea... You should too, you kind of, uh, look like you need it."
"Yeah."
But he didn't leave. Agitation rolled off of his beta in waves, an unasked question he feared to ask, for the answer had already been written in history. Scott waited, until Liam could no longer, and said quietly, "Jiang and Tierney are dead too, aren't they?"
They had to have hope, or else there was nothing. But false hope could be a dangerous thing, beguiling one second, treacherous the next. There was no point in lying to him, no need to not trust that Liam could take this burden with all the rest, so Scott said, "Yeah. They're gone."
Liam nodded briskly, kept nodding like a puppet jerking on strings, absorbing the answer he'd expected but no more wanted to hear. He breathed in deeply, then out again, and while the agitation remained, the anger stabbing at his heart sounded like a dull blade.
Scott reached out and grasped his shoulder. "It's not your fault. None of it's your fault. Not Brett and Lori, not Jiang and Tierney. The more we get caught on what we could've done, what we should've done, the less chance we have to move forward and honour the fact that we made it. We were too late, but next time, we don't have to be."
Liam stared at his shoes, and said nothing for a long time. Eventually, he said, "... We tried, didn't we?" He sounded very young. "We did everything we could?"
We always do, thought Scott, and said, "Mason made it. My mom made it, Lydia, my dad. We all made it today. And tomorrow, we're going to do better."
"But I... I'm still losing control."
"No, no you're not," Scott said firmly. "I've seen you out of control, but even then, especially then, you didn't let the anger win. And you haven't yet. They beat you up at school, and you didn't break. And Theo told me about Nolan and Gabe. You stopped yourself before he ever had to step in, right?"
"And if I can't next time?" he asked. "And if no one's there to stop me?"
"You just will," said Scott simply. "You just will."
"Yeah..." Liam seemed to like the sound of that, just enough. "It's just... I'm tired. Of being angry all the time, being afraid..." He closed his eyes, and let out a frustrated breath. "And I've missed, like, all of my classes, and god, I am really, really, regretting taking Latin. You know that was all Monroe's idea? She let me think it was an easy option. Shoulda known she was evil."
Scott chuckled, and squeezed his shoulder again. "I can't help you with Latin, sorry. But I'm here. And after all this is over, you'll have time to catch up. You'll have time for everything."
Liam seemed to like to the sound of that too. He nodded his head, and shrugged off Scott's hand. He spun on his heel to leave, then turned back. "... Hey Scott? I think we're going to win this."
"Yeah," Scott told him. "Me too."
The beta's heart was calm as he left, murmuring the mantra, "The sun, the moon, the truth..." to himself, and Scott felt indescribably proud of the man Liam Dunbar was going to become.
His last stop was Lydia's room. She who had been fighting with him the longest, who had saved him and Malia from the armoury, who had taken a bullet warning them all, who had been found wandering in a fugue state earlier that night, drawn to the dead Primal Pack and the Anuk-Ite's trail like a grim magnet to dread metals. He and Malia had delivered her to her mother to take back to the hospital after getting the call from Liam and Theo about the bodies, and he was beyond relieved to find her sitting up in her hospital bed. He was also mildly surprised her mom hadn't had her daughter restrained, but he kept that thought to himself.
"The nurse gave her a sedative," said Mrs Martin when she saw him at the doorway. "It should be kicking in any minute now."
From the irritated look on Lydia's face, the sedative had been administered far longer than a minute ago and wasn't working at all, but natural sleep was creeping into her glassy eyes, and hope for a restless night with it.
Mrs Martin moved to give them the room, but before she could leave, she said, "I almost didn't do it. The list, I almost didn't warn everyone on it. I was terrified, I didn't..." She tipped her head to her daughter, the haunted look in her eyes reminding him all too much of Chris's. "She believes in you." Her eyes turned flinty. "Don't let her down."
"He hasn't yet," rasped Lydia, before he could. "It's okay, Mom. I'll be okay."
Scott waited until Mrs Martin left the room before letting out the relieved sigh he'd been holding in. He reached up and massaged his forehead with the tips of his fingers, and the motion seemed to amuse Lydia, for she chuckled.
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," she recited. "That's Shakespeare."
"I know."
"Yeah, but now you know."
He did at that. "Does that make me King of Beacon Hills?" he asked, drifting to her bedside. "Funny, I wouldn't've even expected getting crowned Prom King, let alone this. Y'know, if we'd actually gone to prom."
"Well, the Prom Committee got taken by the Wild Hunt," said Lydia airily. "Kind of ruined it for everyone."
"Maybe they did us a favour. After the Winter Ball, back in sophomore year..."
She grimaced. "Ugh, don't remind me."
"Sorry." He was sorry for a lot of things.
The lighter mood evaporated, or perhaps revealed itself for the cloud hanging over them all along, and for a moment Lydia was very quiet. "You didn't call him, right?" she asked. "Tell me you didn't call him."
The plea in her voice felt like a claw squeezing his heart. "I didn't."
"He can't heal like you and Malia and Liam, and if he'd been at the house…"
"I know." He tried not to think about it. He tried not to think about how lucky she had gotten, and his mom, his dad, Mason. "I know. I didn't call. We promised we wouldn't."
With a relieved sigh of her own, Lydia leaned her head back on her pillow. "I almost did. You know, call him. Not just to pretend, or hear his voice, but... for real. I almost called him because I had that vision and I didn't understand it, and I was scared, and I needed him. We all need him. And seeing you and Malia at the armoury, how you almost lost her... When we got back to your place, I had the cellphone in my hand when..." Her eyes closed shut, and a second Scott thought she'd drifted off to sleep, but they opened again. "One of the bullets that almost went in me hit the phone. I don't need to be a harbinger of death to know that's probably a sign."
"I don't know." As much as he wanted to give her his phone, any phone, and let her call the one she loved, one they all loved, he didn't. No matter how much it hurt, it would hurt far worse if he did. His mother's words echoed through him, "It's going to get worse before it gets better."
"I don't need to be a harbinger of death to know that, either."
You're going to see the world, he'd told Malia. You're going to be a vet, she'd told him. And now, he told Lydia, "You're going to win a Nobel Prize. After all this, one day, years from now. Probably only, like, one year, knowing you. But you'll win it. And we'll be there in the crowd, all of us. Me and Stiles in tuxes, Malia'll wear a dress. We'll annoy the some stuffy old math professors at an after party and embarrass the hell out of you, but it'll be fun. The prom we never had."
The ghost of a smile graced Lydia's lips. She looked impossibly tired. "Fields Medal," she said gently. "I'm going to win the Fields Medal."
He smiled back. "And you will. King Scott decrees it so."
"King Scott..." Lydia's words slurred in her drowsiness; sleep was pulling her away. "And his fierce werecoyote queen Malia, always by his side... his most brave and stalwart knight Sir Liam... and me, the royal chancellor with the visions and who really, really, doesn't get paid enough..."
"And Stiles?" Scott prompted.
She snorted. "Court jester."
"I'll have to tell him you said that."
"Go ahead. I can pull the 'I got shot' card. Instant sympathy. And foot massages."
Scott chuckled, and leaned down to press a kiss on her forehead. She winced when his weight brushed her stitches, but she didn't cry out, and didn't scream. There was no death in his moment, and nothing to fear.
"I really don't pay you enough," he told her.
"It's okay," said Lydia, slipping into slumber, "I forgive you."
The way she said it, he almost heard, Believing in you doesn't cost a thing.
- - - -/- - - -
Scott McCall had long made peace with the fact he wasn't running. Not from Beacon Hills, not from the fear, not from the war, not from anything. So, he decided, if they wanted him, they knew where they could find him. That night, he followed the beating drum of his heart, and returned to the ruin of his house.
Despite the abandoned police tape, the vacant neighbouring houses and the buzzing of nearby streetlamps, at first Scott thought he was looking at the Hale house, drowning in ashes and spent screams in the forest. Through the obliterated windows he could make out the bullet-ridden walls and furniture, see the layer of glass and bullets on carpet that almost looked black with bloodstains, and then movement, the shape of something familiar, something that belonged there. Someone. He heard glass crunch underfoot, and the beating of a heart he knew as well as his own, and followed it inside. In the darkness, he fumbled for the nearest light switch, flicked it once, twice, before realising the light was a casualty of the shooting, and that Malia probably already tried it when she entered earlier.
"Hey," she said, rising from where she was crouching on the hardwood. Most of the glass had been gathered in a pile to the side; her den instincts at work.
"Hey," he replied softly.
"I dropped off Peter at one of his safehouses," she explained. "Thought you might come back here and... I didn't think you should be alone."
He smiled. "I'm not now."
Silently, he trudged over to the couch, picked up the fallen lamp, and righted it. Unbroken, its light became the brightest thing in the night, until he turned to look at Malia. His gravity aligned with hers, and drew them closer, the anticipation of comfort from the cold, a return to the warmest of means. Earlier in the night they had felt it again, the will of the Anuk-Ite imposed upon them like a hurricane of dread, closing in like an inferno of fear, rushing over like a tsunami of terror, and hand in hand they had weathered the power of the storm. Hand in hand, they tasted victory upon their tongues, even as they smelled the dead Primals on their nostrils. It was why Scott allowed himself to hope. It was why he told Liam they would win, and Lydia they would all make it. She was why. They all were, for their belief in him, for their loyalty and trust, the greatest pack any Alpha could ask for. Scarcely a gust against the storm, a speck of dust against a universe, but a legend in the making, already made, set in stone. Of course he wasn't alone. He hadn't ever been.
Amidst dried blood and broken glass, Scott and Malia wrapped themselves in the familiar blanket of their silence, and together on their knees, they picked up the pieces and made of a battlefield a home again. The glass was swept, piled, thrown out. The blood was scrubbed until their hands were pink and raw, healed, then raw again. There was no saving the carpet, but they could always replace it, and judicious flipping of couch cushions and strategic blanket placement covered most of the damage to the furniture. The walls still needed a new coat of plaster and paint, but none of the holes had bullets in them anymore, fished out with claws, discarded, forgotten. The empty window frames were covered up with cardboard, and by the time they were done, the first pink light of dawn was peeking through.
After, they stood in the kitchen, leaning against the counter side by side, hips touching, a satisfying exhaustion settling in their bones. It seemed like they would keep the silence, until Malia muttered, "Too late."
He looked to her. "What?"
"I said... Too late." Abruptly, she pushed herself off of the counter. "I found out why Peter's fighting for us."
"Why?"
The simple question seemed to vex her. She huffed, like it was on the tip of her tongue, an epiphany she'd been trying to put to words all night, but being Malia Tate, she instead opted for the direct approach. "Earlier, when I went to convince Peter to stop being a jackass and help, I made him put his claws in my head. Y'know, he was scared of the Wild Hunt and helped us fight them because of that so I thought that if he felt the Anuk-Ite, it'd motivate him to help us stop it, because that thing is scary and wrong and even Peter might be human enough to feel that, but it... it didn't work. Then it turned out it did." She swallowed, but did not hesitate. She never did; it was one of the things about her he admired most. "He saw something else. In my head. Something that brought him back."
"What was it?"
Her eyes locked with his, and he knew the answer before she said, "You. You being there for me. I think me being there for you too. Protecting you. Wanting you to survive more than anything else, needing you to. And I think it happened when I was showing him the Anuk-Ite because lately, every time I've felt afraid, you've been there for me. You make it okay. It's not like an anchor, it's more like there's a big storm and the boat hasn't even thought about moving, because it doesn't need to. Not with you there. I guess that scares me too, but in a different way, if you know what I mean. A better way."
Scott knew what she meant this time, every time. Without thought, he reached for hand just as she reached for his; their hands belonged to each other now.
She squeezed his grip. "Peter's going to fight for us because of that. And after I realised that, we were watching you get in your car and he tells me that you're going to get yourself killed and I shouldn't fall in love with a dead man. And then I told him... Too late." She bit her bottom lip, failing magnificently to suppress a smile and the skip in her heartbeat. "And I do, y'know, and I have for a while even before all this because you're our friend and Alpha and we all, y'know, you because you're there for us and deserve it, and it's just, it's... I know what we got is new, and we're not even, like, dating, but..."
"We're dating," blurted Scott. "We got burgers, I paid, you shared your fries. It was a date."
The smile broke on her face like the dawn. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah it was."
"And then," he continued, "and then we tried to blow up an armoury, and almost died. And tonight we went looking for a pack of primal werewolves to recruit for our army. That's… I mean, it's kinda weird, but that sounds at least like three dates to me. Think I liked the first most, though."
"Same. No dead stuff. And there was food."
"Yeah."
"And we did spend, like, all summer together."
"You came over nearly every night," he agreed, and his cheeks were fit to burst from his grin. "We watched movies and ate candy and talked..."
"And before that, when the Wild Hunt was around," she said, as if realising. "We started saving each other."
"You know," said Scott, remembering his conversation with Lydia and realising something himself, "if we'd gone to prom... I would've asked you to go with me. We would've had fun."
"Well you could ask me now," Malia said coyly, "But I think it's a little -"
"Too late," he finished. Suddenly, those words didn't scare him anymore. Nothing did.
That inescapable feeling of wanting to kiss her, to kiss her every chance he could take, swept through him once more, and that time, he could, and he did. His hands reached for her face, her arms wrapped around his neck, and together they stole from the night and welcomed the morning. A new home arose from the ashes, warm, quiet, alive, all at once the past, the present, the promise of a future. It's everything. They're everything.
They were still at war, and it was going to get worse before it got better, but there were new words beating like a drum in his veins, words like hope and promise and after. And names too, names of those that were there, names of those that weren't, names he didn't know, names he had to protect. The names of his friends, his pack, his family. His name, her name, united as one, Scott and Malia.
When the kiss ended with a sweet sigh escaping them both, he pulled back to lean his forehead against hers. Their hands linked, and swayed between them as they ascended the stairs to his room, found his bed, lay down and curled up together, held on to each other, and dreamt of life after war.
- - - -/- - - -
Uneasy lies the head, but easier, with another to lean on.
- - - -/- - - -
End Author's Note: And there we have it! Bit overly sentimental sure, but this is Scott's POV we're talking about, and these kids all deserve the love. This fic began as an exercise of getting out some feelings about the pack after 6x15, because the 6b group and where they're at in their development and relationships with each other is destined to be underappreciated by the fandom in comparison to the "good ol' days" so I hope y'all didn't mind me overindulging. Also, I did try and get this done before last Sunday's episodes, but I ain't going to complain about getting beaten to the punch with a cleaning blood scene (especially with what happened next...), but yeah. Probably not going to fic 6x18/6x19, but I have more ideas for more Scott/Malia oneshots, including one that's a bit more humorous, and if things go well I might even have one up before the finale next week. And post finale fics too, rest assured, 'cause I got a good feeling there'll be some great stuff there.
Until then, thank you for reading, bookmarking, leaving a kudos or a comment, and for just appreciating this ship with me. And if me or the other Scott/Malia writers around here can inspire even one of you to want to write some yourself, then we've done our jobs, and we'll be reading for sure, because our tiny fandom needs all it can get, and, again, these two deserve the world. Thanks again, and hope to see you soon!