i'm not giving up, i'm just giving in

Melissa McCall stares at the girl sitting at her kitchen table as her son pleads with her.

'Please mom?' he says. 'It won't be for very long. She has nowhere else to go.'

'Really? Out of all the insane creatures in town, you're her last resort?' she shifts her weight onto the kitchen counter as the ghost looks at her, eyes glistening with misery.

'There's no way I'm leaving her with Derek or his pack, and Stiles' dad would want to know why a complete stranger suddenly appeared and now wants to live with them. He'd think Stiles got her pregnant or something,' Scott goes to sit beside Casey as she nervously picks at her fingernails.

'Please, that boy will be lucky if he loses his virginity by the time he graduates college,' Scott's mother feels a tiny bit of pride blossom in her chest as a smile creeps onto Casey's lips. 'And what if she does stay here? What if people think that you got her pregnant?'

'They won't think that,' Scott awkwardly stares at his hands and Casey clears her throat. 'We can say she's my cousin.'

Casey rolls her eyes. 'Nobody is going to believe I'm related to you.'

'You're adopted?' Scott says, his face unconvincing.

'Fine, she can stay,' Melissa sighs, picking up her keys and heading towards the door in her scrubs. 'Just for now. And you both owe me big time.'

'Thank you, Mrs McCall, you have no idea how much I appreciate this,' Casey gets to her feet to hug her, but then stops herself as she remembers she would probably pass right through her.

'It's alright, just don't make me late for work again,' Melissa nods at her before turning to her son. 'Seriously, Scott. Whatever you do, for the love of god don't get her pregnant.'

'You are the most perfect person on the planet,' Stiles declares as he bursts into Scott's room. 'Coach said he never thought he would see the day that I got an A in his class. It's my fourth one this week!'

Casey grins as she gets up from the rug she was sitting on and puts down the tablet on which she was reading the Argent's beastionary. 'Glad I could help. You wanna see what I learned to do today?

Stiles nods, and she disappears. His mouth drops open, and he starts to feel through the air with his hands, taking small steps towards where she was standing. 'Casey?'

'Yes?' she says from behind him, and he jumps a foot into the air and lets out a high pitched squeal.

'What the fucking fuck,' Stiles bends over to rest his hands on his knees, feeling slightly sick. 'You can turn yourself invisible again?'

'Nope,' Casey holds out a can of soda as Scott runs into the room, clutching an identical can.

'How did you do that?' he says through gasping breaths, staring at the can Stiles warily takes from her fingers.

'Oh, I can totally teleport now,' she says with a smug smile, vanishing from the doorway and reappearing next to the stereo. She turns on Scott's music and pumps the speakers up to full volume, dancing back over to the two flabbergasted boys. 'Cool, right?'

They gape at her for a few more seconds before doubling over with laughter. Casey grabs Scott's hand and lifts up his arm, spinning herself underneath it. He twirls her towards Stiles, who goes to catch and dip her but instead his hands go straight through her spectral form. They all jump from foot to foot in time with the beat, singing along to every word and in that minute all their worries were lost. Through the window, Casey sees a girl in a black leather jacket approach the McCall house. As the song winds to an end, she turns on the spot and moves herself down to the first floor, answering the door just as the girl raps her knuckles against the wood.

'Um, hi, who are you?' the girl says in both a surprised and an accusing tone.

'Casey,' she nonchalantly replies. 'Who are you?'

'Is Scott home?' the other girl ignores her, and instead turns to look back to the car pulled up to the curb, where Lydia is sitting behind the wheel.

'Sure, come on in,' Casey steps back, waving at Lydia who gives her a tight smile.

The girl steps into the house, her brow crumpling at the noise coming from upstairs. 'So, I saw you guys were having a little dance party. Do you, like, live here or something?'

'Only temporarily,' Casey says, shutting the door. 'Scott's mom has been really nice.'

'Yeah, she's like that. I'm Allison, by the way,' she says, looking Casey up and down. 'Scott's probably mentioned me.'

'Right, Allison. The werewolf hunter girl who tried to kill all of Scott's friends. Nice to meet you,' Casey clasps her hand behind her back and stares at Allison pointedly.

'They weren't… I didn't…' Allison stumbles through her words. 'You know what, maybe I'll just come back later.'

'Allison?' Scott's appears at the top of the stairs, Stiles not far behind him, as per usual. 'What are you doing here?'

'I came over to give you your DVDs back and she answered the door,' Allison's shrill voice matched the shaking finger she had pointed at Casey. 'Who is she? Why is she living with you?'

The silence is stifling as Scott takes cautionary steps down the staircase, not wanting to betray Casey, but not wanting to let Allison think the worst. 'She's pregnant,' Stiles butts in. 'It's his.'

'Stiles!' Scott and Casey both cry out as Allison's face falls. 'Allison, no, that's not true,' Scott leaps down to the bottom step and tries to grab her arm.

'Then what?' she rips away from him and tries to move towards to door, but Casey stands in her path.

'She's my cousin,' Scott says in desperation. 'But adopted.'

'What?' Allison's eyes narrow. 'Why are you lying to me? Is she another werewolf? God, we have enough in Beacon Hills already, Scott, you can't start breeding here too.'

'I'm not a pregnant werewolf,' Casey snaps as Scott's gaze bores into her, pleading with her to help him.

'Well if you're not pregnant and you're not a werewolf and you're definitely not his adopted cousin, just what the hell…" Allison's face goes white as Casey's hand claps over her mouth to shut her up and it slightly sinks into her skin.

'Pipe down,' Casey says after sarcastically mimicking her shocked expression. 'Did Lydia not tell you? She broke whatever barrier there is between this world and the spirit world when she brought Peter Hale back from the dead. I recently died. Consequently, here I am with no idea where to go. That's why I'm staying with Scott, because my family would be devastated if they ever saw me like this. I have no place to call home.'

'I'm sorry,' Allison whispers, her warm breath burning the cold air on her mouth. She casts an apologetic look at Scott, and edges around Casey to escape out the door.

'You know everybody in this town thinks you're pregnant, right?' Isaac takes a seat next to Casey on the bleachers after lacrosse practice.

'So I've heard,' Casey groans, propping her chin on the knee she has pulled to her chest. 'Give them a couple of months. They will have grown older, but I will have stayed the same. Still not alive. Still not pregnant.'

'Jackson thinks you can talk to the dead,' he says, studying her face intently.

'Jackson also thinks that being a terrible person is a charming character trait,' she says. 'I wouldn't put much clout behind what Jackson thinks.'

The lines around Isaac's eyes are deep, worn in from years of frowning. He deepens them further, and she wants to reach out and fill them in, smooth them away, to take back everything that carved them in the first place. 'Wouldn't you want to, if you could?' he asks.

'I don't know,' she replies, wishing there was another answer for all the questions she was constantly asked.

'I'd want to,' Isaac says immediately. 'Some people die with things unsaid. Things that need to heard.'

Casey bites her lip, unsure of what to say. 'But maybe the truly dead can't even be reached. Peter came back because he's a supernatural evil genius and he left a gap for me to come back because I was in a coma. What about just regular people who die in regular ways? I have no idea what happens to them.'

'Did Scott tell you about my father?' he glances at her from the corner of his eye.

'Derek did,' she says. 'He told me about you, and Erica and Boyd, why you all wanted to change. So yes, I know about your father. You would really want to speak to him again? After everything he did to you?'

'Is that so bad?' he says quietly. 'To want to gain back someone you lost, even for a second?'

'Yes, Isaac, it is,' she stands up, brushing her hands on her pants. 'We've all lost someone at some point in our lives. Nobody can hold on to another person forever.' She looks over her shoulder at him. 'You won't find what you're looking for. It will only hurt more than it did before.'

'What are you going to do if you can hear them?' Derek's eyes are blazing with excitement. 'Can you tell them from me…'

'Hold up,' Casey cuts him off. 'I'm not going to be a medium for you, okay? I'm just testing the waters. I want to know what will happen if I try.'

He breathes out of his nose and shrugs his shoulders, and she rolls her eyes. 'You're not fooling anyone, Derek Hale,' she says.

'What are you talking about?' he says, sullen as always.

'You act like you don't give a fuck, but I've seen you fight for those kids like crazy,' she says. 'You want to keep them safe. You want Scott to be with Allison and Stiles to make it to college in one piece and Isaac to find something that makes him happy. But you also don't want that because then they won't need you anymore, and they'll leave you behind.'

'You're just a kid too,' Derek says angrily. 'And you don't know me, okay?'

'I'll always be just a kid,' she says, and his chest tightens at her icy expression. 'And I can see right through you. You don't have to worry about me leaving. It's not as if I have anywhere to go.'

'You know what happens every time I believe someone will stand by me?' Derek's voice is low and dangerous and Casey thinks she may have pressed one too many buttons. 'I've been left standing alone. Every time. No offense, but I'm not exactly going to take your word for it. Can you please just do this ghost whisperer schtick and get it over with?'

'Fine,' she huffs, moving to stand next to Peter's shallow grave below the Hale house. Taking a deep breath, she stares at the ground, focusing her energy on the air around her and waiting to sense if there was something there outside of herself.

'Is it working?' Derek says after a couple of minutes.

She shushes him in response, and he returns to his brusque pacing. Sighing, she shuts her eyes. Suddenly her face is hot and she can see nothing but flames. People are screaming from every direction, and at her feet lays a gasping, burning man she recognises as Peter Hale. She turns and sees a teenage girl with a mocking smile and a gun strapped to her hip standing in the open doorway, smoke billowing out into the fresh air behind her.

'Give Derek my love,' she touches two fingers to her lips and blows a kiss at him. 'Let him know that next time he should really think more carefully about exactly who he's sticking his dick in.'

Her laugh is cold, and it rings in Casey's ears even after she's climbed into a waiting SUV and left the carnage behind her. But then another Peter appears in the living room, standing tall and unburned with his eyes glowing red, and he's holding the girl around her neck. She's a few years older and Casey knows what's coming. Peter slits her throat with his claws, and Allison's scream is deafening.

'Casey!' a voice makes her eyes snap open, and the fire is gone but the spot where she stands is still scorched with the evidence of it.

'Are you alright?' Derek's hand is on her shoulder and his face darkens at the tears that drip from her eyelashes.

'I saw her,' she says, pressing her forehead against his collarbone. 'Kate Argent. I saw the fire. And Peter, when he was burned and when he killed her.'

She wants to shut her eyes and forget, but she's too afraid. Instead she concentrates on the stitching of the pocket of Derek's jacket. It's worn at the seams and she knows the feeling.

'Did you see anyone else?' she's cold against him but he can't push her away, so he tries to rub comforting circles on her back without submerging his arm into her. 'Did they say anything?'

She shakes her head, wishing that his touch was numb instead of prickling against her like pins and needles. 'I may not be able to talk to the dead, but I can certainly watch them die.'

Derek parks two blocks away from the McCall's house and his footsteps are loud in the empty street. His shadow shrinks and grows as he passes under streetlights, and he can see the glow of Scott's laptop coming from his room, even though it's late. He figures Stiles wills be up there with him, working away at whatever crazy theory he had texted him about that afternoon. But instead of explaining it, the trail of messages cut off and not for the first time, Derek feels the urge to strangle his hyperactive, attention deficit disordered neck.

He pulls out his phone to let them know he was coming up when a black van screeches around the corner and comes to an abrupt halt outside the McCall's. Derek feels his hackles go up on the back of his neck and he readies himself to sprint towards them. But instead a limp body is tossed onto the lawn and the van disappears as quickly as it had arrived. 'Oh no,' he says.

He skids onto the grass and kneels down beside the body. 'Stiles,' he says, patting the boy's cheek as gently as his panic allows him. 'Stiles, can you hear me? Fuck, Stiles, wake up! Scott!'

His name is like a roar and Scott sits bolt upright in bed. Casey flashes from her seat at his desk in front of his computer to beside the window, covering her mouth with her hand as she looks out and gasps. Then she's gone and Scott sees her appear outside next to two other people. He runs into his mother in the hall who asks him what the hell that noise was. He doesn't have time to explain so he just shoves past her and takes the stairs in one leap, bursting out the door and running over to the huddle of people.

'What happened to him?' Scott puts his hands on either side of Stiles' face.

'I think he found out something he wasn't supposed to know,' Derek says, the rage rumbling in his throat. 'And someone obviously didn't want him to tell anybody.'

Melissa has followed the group outside and she emits a little scream as she sees who it is that's unconscious on her front lawn.

'Mom, take him to the hospital, quick, ' Scott says as his eyes turn a menacing yellow colour. 'Derek, go with her.'

Derek opens his mouth to protest, but Scott leans in closer to him and says in a quiet voice 'if it looks like he won't make it… change him. Please.'

'Where the hell are you going?' Derek yells as Scott takes off down the street. 'Answers,' is the distant reply.

Scott bends his knees and moves to jump onto the roof of the Argent's house when Casey suddenly materializes in front of him and he stumbles backwards.

'What are you doing here?' he says.

'House full of murderous werewolf hunters,' Casey points behind her, before pointing at Scott with a single raised eyebrow. 'Werewolf.' She shrugs. 'You need some back-up.'

Scott mind is racing with too many questions for him to ask if she knows if Stiles made it to the hospital okay, so instead he gives her a grateful smile and launches himself onto the roof tiles and Casey appears at Allison's windowsill before he does.

Allison looks confused before she sees Scott slide down towards her. 'What is going on?'

Scott slides in through her open window and turns on her angrily, Casey reappearing by his side and Allison trips back and clumsily sits down on her bed. 'What did you do to Stiles?' he says.

Allison's face scrunches in confusion. 'Nothing. Why, what's happened?'

Scott takes a deep breath to yell at her, but controls himself at the last second. 'Don't do this, Allison. All he's ever done is be a good person. He doesn't deserve this.'

'Deserve what?' Allison looks genuinely worried. 'Scott, what's wrong with Stiles, is he hurt?'

'He's dying!' Scott says with a snarl, struggling to keep his wolf form in check.

'Are you serious?' she says, her voice shaking. 'Scott, it wasn't me or my family, I swear.'

They stare at each other in furious silence before Casey punctures it with a thick sob. Scott moves to her side and she meets his eyes, his full of concern and hers shimmering with tears.

'Are you okay? What did you see?' he says softly.

She glances over at Allison, who looks bewildered. 'A woman with short red hair,' she says, 'and a knife.'

'You saw my mom?' Allison is immediately on her feet and tries to grab Casey's arm, but instead grabs at nothing as her fingers go right through her. 'What did she say?'

'Nothing,' Casey feels her cheeks go hot. 'I just watched her sit on that bed with a man who was holding her and they both cried as they shoved a knife in her chest.'

Allison holds a deadpan stare for a few seconds before pushing her way through Casey to throw up in her wastepaper basket.

'I thought you only saw supernatural deaths,' Scott says, remembering how they had taken her to see Laura Hale in the woods and Isaac's dad in the alleyway and the other people the Kanima had killed, but she had stood at the bridge where Gerard drowned Matt for almost an hour and couldn't see a thing.

'She had already started to change when it… happened,' Casey said, glancing over at a still heaving Allison.

'Derek Hale bit her,' Allison spat the words through her heavy breathing, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. 'He has to be stopped.'

'But she was trying to kill Scott,' Casey says, and Scott's eyes widen. 'Derek was trying to save him when she attacked him.'

'What are you talking about?' Allison looks between the ghost and her ex-boyfriend. 'Scott?'

'I wasn't…' he starts to say, then shakes his head. 'It's not important. You shouldn't have that as the last memory of your mom.'

'She tried to kill you?' Allison stands up, and her knees tremor as she puts her weights on them. 'Why would she do that?'

'She found out about us,' Scott scratched the back of his head and wouldn't meet her gaze. 'She was just trying to protect you.'

'By murdering my boyfriend?' Allison shoves his shoulders and he finally looks at her. She has dark circles under her eyes and her hair is a knotted mess piled on top of her head and she smells like vomit but she's still the most beautiful girl he's ever seen. She bites her lip and turns to Casey. 'So you're telling me nobody in my family has been following this stupid hunters code?'

'I, uh, yes?' Casey considers vanishing back to the roof to wait for Scott, but realises he might never leave if he's left alone with Alison. 'It's not really any of my business.'

'It is now,' Allison grabs her keys and heads to the window as the first glimpse of sunlight appears on the horizon. 'Fuck my family, where's Stiles? I want to help you. I'm on your side.'

and the crashes are heaven for a sinner like me