The sound of a body hitting a locker was loud enough to make everyone in the hallway look. Lydia threw a math book at Scott's head that he just barely managed to dodge.
"Would you calm down?" Scott shouted as he held up his hands to block the science book Lydia had chucked at him. When she ran out of projectiles, she started clawing into him with her well manicured nails.
"You are an asshole!" Lydia screamed as Isaac pulled her off. She slammed the back of her head into his face, causing him to let her go more out of shock than actual pain. The girl body checked Scott.
"What is going on here?" Ms. Morell, the guidance counsellor demanded as she stepped between Scott and Lydia. "Assault is not tolerated on school grounds. To my office young lady. You two, follow."
With great reluctance, Scott and Isaac followed as everyone stared at them and whispered. He knew it was going to be ugly when he returned to school, but Scott had expected Allison to just be cold and distant. A crazy Lydia going all Wonder Woman on him was a bit of a surprise.
"Mr. Lahey, go to the Nurse. And don't try to slip off because I'll be checking with her," Ms. Morell ordered Isaac when they reached her office. She directed Lydia and Scott into her office and had them sit down. Lydia huffed, but didn't say anything.
Ms. Morell just watched Lydia and Scott as she picked up the phone on her desk and made a phone call. "Yes, could you please have someone come out to Beacon Hills High School? No, the school isn't under attack, I'm just following protocol. Thank you."
She asked Scott for his phone number, but he explained his mother wouldn't be home. Then she asked where his mother would be, and he said she was at work and gave the hospital's number, cringing the whole time.
All he'd wanted to do was go to class, avoid his ex, and go home. What he didn't want was to drag his mother away from work yet again. When they would get home, she'd berate him and ground him and he hadn't even done anything this time.
Ms. Morell tried to phone Lydia's parents, but neither answered so she left voice messages telling them to call the school.
"Now that that's out of the way, would you like to tell me what that was all about?" the guidance counsellor asked of the teenagers.
"He's a tool," Lydia responded angrily as she crossed her arms. "Listen, if he wasn't such a coward then we wouldn't be here."
"Scott?" Ms. Morell gave Lydia a look that clearly indicated that the young woman should calm herself.
He chewed on his thumbnail and thought before answering. "Allison and I broke up."
"No, you dumped her. Over the phone!" Lydia screamed in Scott's ear. It hurt so much that had to cover his sensitive ears.
"Miss Martin, you will quiet down," the counsellor warned in a measured tone. "Just because Scott and Allison aren't dating anymore is no reason to physically assault him."
"He's fine. Aren't you Scott?" Lydia growled as she glared at him.
"I'd really rather just let this go," Scott agreed.
"I can't do that. This school has a zero tolerance policy regarding violence. At the very least, you face suspension, Lydia."
"You can't suspend me! I'm in line to be Valedictorian!" Lydia cried out in what sounded a lot like pain to Scott.
"Maybe you'll think about that the next time you decide to hit someone on school grounds, Miss Martin."
TW
"She got a three day suspension, and my mom wasn't mad," Scott offered as he sat next to Allison. School was out and kids were either driving off in cars their parents bought for them or climbing on buses, but the former lovers just sat under one of the pine trees on the school grounds. "This is weird, isn't it?"
"It is weird," Allison affirmed with a laugh. "I'm glad we can be civil, though. I don't want a repeat of what happened after my mom died."
"Neither do I," Scott agreed nervously as he looked everywhere but at Allison. "I want you to know that it really didn't have anything to do with you."
"That's the oldest let down in the book," Allison pointed out as she began fiddling with a pine cone that had fallen on the ground. "There is someone else, isn't there?"
"There might have been," Scott confessed cautiously as he kept an eye on Allison's hands, "but I decided that, right now, the last thing I need is to get involved in another relationship."
"I want to say thanks, but that's weird. Everything about this weird." Allison opened her backpack and pulled an apple out. It was green and Scott could taste the sour juices just by smelling it. She bit into it before noticing Scott staring at it. "Want a bite?"
Hesitation overwhelmed him for half a second, but Scott reached out and grabbed the apple. Suddenly, he found himself missing Allison even though she was sitting right beside him. He missed her touch, the smell of her hair as he kissed neck, everything.
Nothing was said. The words that wanted to spill from his lips were choked back and he just focused on the crunch of the apple in his mouth.
"Thanks."
"It's going to be weird for awhile, Scott," Allison observed too casually. Scott heard the tremble in her voice he knew she was trying to hide. "It's going to hurt for awhile, too. I'm not going to lie. But I don't want to hate you. I want to be a better person than that. You respected me enough not to cheat on me."
Scott didn't say anything.
"And I want you to know that thing you told me? It doesn't bother me. That's not why I left the restaurant. There are issues happening with my family."
"What's wrong?" Scott fought the urge to reach out and hold her hand. It would probably do more harm than good.
She laughed sadly shook her head. "No offence, but I really don't want to talk about it. Especially not with my brand spanking new ex-boyfriend."
"Okay," Scott acquiesced as he picked at the grass. "What can we talk about?"
"How about Stiles? I heard about his dad..." Allison trailed off and closed her eyes. "Well, I heard his dad is in the hospital. Nobody seems to know anything specific."
"Stiles is dealing with it, I guess. He doesn't want to talk to anyone about it," Scott said as he plucked a blade of grass and began stripping it with his fingernails. "You know he skipped school today to hang out at the hospital? I told him I'd stop after school."
"But you're talking to me instead," Allison noted. "Don't let me hold you up. I'm not important."
"You are important," Scott assured Allison rather forcefully as he put his hand on her knee. She looked at him and he quickly withdrew it. "But, um, can you give me a ride to the hospital?"
"I wish I could," Allison said quietly, "but I have somewhere to be."
Scott heard her heart skip a beat as she lied, but he didn't say anything about it. He just excused himself and walked away. He also heard Allison start crying.
TW
Doing chemistry without a partner was harder than Danny expected. Sure, he did most of the actual work since Stiles was an idiot, but it was nice to have someone to bounce thoughts off. Even if said person didn't understand said thoughts.
He threw his pen across his room in frustration and decided to take a break. It was not his week. Danny missed Jackson. He wanted to call him and tell him about the weirdness with Scott and his friends and have Jackson make fun of him for his bad taste in men. Danny just wanted a friend.
"Everyone likes Danny," he muttered to himself glumly. Sure, everyone liked him, but nobody cared. All he was to everyone was Jackson's friend. If not that, then he was the gay guy. His life was thoroughly mediocre. He didn't even have a boyfriend to talk to anymore. Not that his last boyfriend was big on talking. None of them were, to be honest. When he thought about it, Danny realized that even when he was with Scott and his friends all they did was talk about each other and only talked to him when the whole bringing-people-back-from-the-dead thing came up.
Danny wanted to be someone's priority.
The sound of someone knocking on glass caught Danny's attention and he saw his lacrosse teammate Isaac Lahey perched outside his window. It was weird, because there was no place for him to stand since Danny's room was on the second story.
He opened the window and Isaac slipped into Danny's room. Danny looked out the window and didn't see so much as a ladder.
"How did you get up here?" Danny asked as he stared at Isaac. If he remembered correctly, the last time he so much as spoke to Isaac they were making out in the locker room at school. That only made it odder that Isaac had sneaked into his room.
"Wolf powers. And you have a surprisingly big windowsill," Isaac replied as he looked around Danny's room. He picked up Danny's statuette of Batwoman and shrugged. "I was expecting this place to be a little more..."
"Gay?" Danny finished annoyed as he crossed his arms. "I put my Cher posters up in the living room. What do you want?"
"Derek wants to see you," Isaac answered calmly as he put the action figure back on its shelf. "Something about his Uncle Peter."
"Derek Hale?" Even though he'd never met him, Danny knew the name. Everyone knew about the Hale fire, and Danny knew about the Hales being werewolves from his time with Scott. Even though he knew the answer, Danny asked Isaac why Derek would care about him.
With a grin that could have easily been a leer, Isaac nodded. "He wants me to take you to him. Now."
"I have homework," Danny argued rather weakly.
"We can do this the easy way or the hard way. And we both know you like it rough." Isaac smirked as he stood in front of Danny's window. "And don't think about calling Scott."
Honestly, Danny hadn't even considered the possibility. He just strolled past Isaac, closed his window, then motioned for the werewolf to lead the way.
TW
"You should've come out years ago. I'd have loved to go to your quinceañera," Stiles said as Scott sat beside him in the hospital hallway. "I mean, nobody would've been there, but hey."
"How is he?" Scott asked as he scratched at his hairline. Nurses rushed by, but none was his mother. "And I picked up your homework for you."
"We both know that isn't getting done," Stiles reasoned as he laced his fingers together in a steeple. "And he's the same. There's nothing physically wrong with him beyond dehydration and he has an IV for that. It's a mental thing, the doctor said."
"A breakdown?"
"Something like that," Stiles nodded. "Scott, I never got to know my mom. All I had was my dad growing up. I can't lose him."
"I'm sorry, Stiles." Putting and arm around Stiles' shoulder, Scott pulled him into a half hug. "This shouldn't be happening."
"You know I don't blame you, Scott. I can't even blame Danny even though it totally is his fault. This would probably be happening even if you weren't all fangs and fur half the time. My dad is the sheriff. If it weren't this, he might've been shot or stabbed or something. Being a cop's wife or husband is hard, but being their kid is even harder."
The thought had never entered Scott's head. Beacon Hills, until recently, had always seemed a relatively safe place to live. He never thought anything would happen to his best friend's father because it seemed like nothing really happened.
Without anything to say in response, Scott just sat beside Stiles, his arm staying around his shoulder.
TW
Lydia paced the burnt floor of the Hale homestead. Derek yelled at her to calm down, but she didn't listen. Peter sat on the stairs. His eyes darted between Lydia and Derek but he didn't dare move.
Derek and Peter both perked up, and about ten seconds later Lydia heard a vehicle pulling up to the house. She motioned for Derek and Peter too stay while she checked it out. Without a doubt, one of the werewolves would've been better for a potential threat of any kind, but Lydia had the need to take charge.
"Isaac is back," she announced from the doorway. She walked back into the house and sat beside Peter, silently daring him to say or do something.
"Honey, I'm home!" Isaac called out as he showed Danny into the house. "And look at what I found? Can we keep him?"
"Miguel?" Danny stared at Derek, causing everyone else to stare as well. "What are you doing here?"
"It's Derek," the Alpha corrected.
"Huh, you look just like this guy I met."
"I guess I have one of those faces," Derek said without a trace of amusement. "Lydia here tells me that you did something really stupid. Does bringing people back from the dead sound familiar?"
Eyes trained on Danny, Lydia watched his every movement carefully. He shuffled his feet, jammed his hands in his pockets, and hunched his shoulders. She was suspicious.
"Kinda," Danny answered nervously as he looked at Lydia with pleading eyes. She scoffed and he turned his attention to Isaac even as he continued speaking to Derek. "I mean, yeah, I did it. Accidentally."
"How do you 'accidentally' create zombies?" Derek got up in Danny's face and snarled. Then he looked at Peter as his teeth began elongating into fangs. "And if you knew, why wouldn't you tell me?"
"Hmm," Peter hummed as he crossed his legs. "It was none of my business. Scott and this handsome young fellow seemed to have everything under control. There was no need for me to get involved."
Angry, Derek grabbed Danny by the front of his shirt and lifted him off the ground. "Tell me what you did and how you did it. Now."
"You might want to put him down, Derek. He's terrified," Isaac pointed out as he smelled Danny. "You can smell the fear. And what's that cologne?"
"Armani," Lydia answered for him. "Danny always wears Armani. I used to smell it all the time when he hung out with me and Jackson."
Lydia was relishing the terror evident on Danny's face. She was certain they wouldn't hurt him. They'd promised they wouldn't, and there was nothing they would get from doing it. Still, this was a step in the right direction for making Danny and Scott pay for what they'd done to Allison.
"Fine." Derek dropped Danny, who collapsed on the floor and shuffled as far from Derek as he could. "I'm still waiting for an answer."
"Here," Isaac offered a hand to Danny and helped him to his feet. Danny half-hid behind Isaac.
"Look, it was just a necklace my mom gave me with a black rock in it. When I was a kid, she used to tell me it granted wishes," Danny explained in a quaky voice. "It's stupid, but my cat slipped out of the house and got hit by a car."
"And you wished your cat back to life, causing all kinds of dead people to come back?" Derek groaned and punched the wall. Plaster fell from the ceiling and into Isaac and Danny's hair. "You're right, it is stupid. But I know you're not lying, which makes you even more pathetic."
"May I?" Peter asked as he touched his chest in his own fingertips.
"May you what?" Derek asked as he stormed away from Danny.
"Can I talk to the young boy?" The elder clarified.
"No, your creepy ass may not," Derek informed him. "Just sit there until I tell you that you can move."
A self-serving smirk played at Lydia's lips at looked into Peter's eyes. He held her gaze, but only for a second. He and the rest of the werewolves looked at each other before running out the back of the house. Lydia and Danny were left to avoid looking at each other at Chris Argent and his team of men entered the house.
"What are you doing here?" Chris barked at his daughter's best friend. Then he saw Danny and ordered the rest of his men out of the house.
"We were supposed to have a threesome, but the other guy is running late," Lydia answered in a tone that showed she didn't really care about the dramatics. "See, we kids like coming to abandoned, isolated places to do that."
"Seriously?" Chris asked as he looked between Danny and Lydia.
"No," she laughed coldly. "We came out here to discuss Jackson. Where our parents won't learn about werewolves and Kanimas and the like."
"He knows?" Chris looked at Danny suspiciously, as Danny visibly tried to make himself smaller. "How does he know?"
"Mr. Argent, let me introduce you to Scott McCall's new boyfriend," Lydia grinned as she twisted the metaphorical knife in Danny's back.
TW
Home was not where Danny chose to go after the men with the guns let him go. They told him to go home and not to say anything, but he was too spooked. If he were still alive, Danny would have called Jackson. He called Jackson after that night he was attacked at Jungle. Jackson was dead, though. And he didn't want to talk to a headstone. Even if it were just a makeshift one.
So he did the next best thing: he went to Allison. If there was anyone he could talk to about her father, it was Allison herself. There was hesitation as he knocked on her front door. There was even more when she answered it.
"Danny?" Her head was tilted at an angle and she rubbed her eyes, almost as if to make sure he was really there. "Um, hi. What's up?"
"I need help," he muttered as he looked over his shoulder. He'd parked two blocks down the road just in case her father came home. "Can I come in? Someone might see me."
Allison stepped to the side and Danny walked past her. He'd never actually been in her house before, just the garage for "Werewolf Boot Camp" as Lydia had put it.
"Your dad knows I know. Lydia told him. She told him everything. Your dad's going to kill Scott. Oh god, I can't breathe."
Gasping for air, Danny bent over and held his stomach. Allison slammed her door shut and guided him to the sofa. His breath remained shallow and she fetched him a glass of water.
"Are you okay?" Allison sat the water down on her table and sat beside Danny, rubbing his back. "This looks like a panic attack. I had a cousin that used to get them. You're going to be fine. Danny, listen to me.
"You're going to be fine. My dad isn't going to kill Scott. He already knows Scott is a werewolf. You know this. It's fine: everything is fine. Just tell me what is happening."
After ten minutes of Allison trying to calm Danny down with a soothing voice and gentle touching, including holding his hand, he was finally coherent enough to make sense of what he was saying.
"Allison, we never told you, but I accidentally raised the dead. That's how I found out about Scott being a werewolf."
"I figured," she noted as she continued rubbing Danny's arm and holding his hand. "Scott mentioned it recently but my mind has been elsewhere."
Danny wondered where else her mind could go when it came to people returning from the dead. It wasn't like it was a common occurrence, even in a town where werewolves and hunters roamed at night and his dead best friend was some weird snake monster.
"What he didn't tell you was that Jackson was one of the first. So was your mother."
Allison froze. It was impossible to guess just what she was thinking.
"It wasn't her, Allison. It wasn't your mother. And it wasn't Jackson. But your father doesn't know that. I couldn't say anything. I couldn't do anything. I just..."
He was useless. For around a month, Danny had been part of the secret supernatural society, and he'd made everything worse. His only hope of keeping Scott alive was Allison.
"How do you know it wasn't her?" Allison asked in a small voice as her nails dug into Danny's arm and hand. "How do you know it wasn't my mother?"
"Because she is gone, Allison. It was her body, rejuvenated, but something else was in it. Something not human. It's why I killed Jackson."
Nails pulled themselves out of Danny's skin as Allison softened. "You killed Jackson?"
"It wasn't really Jackson," Danny explained as he fought back tears. "His parents still think he's missing, you know. I have a grave for him, but his body isn't there. I don't know where it is. Scott got rid of the body.. I don't know where. He won't tell me. It's probably best that I don't know.
"But I guess that when Jackson was revived, after your grandfather died, you all thought he was the same Jackson. But he wasn't."
"It's going to be okay," Allison repeated as she hugged Danny.
"No, it's not," Danny argued a little too loudly. "Allison, your dad wants to kill Scott. Lydia told him that Scott is the one who killed her when she came back."
"Is he?" Allison asked. "Of course he is. Dammit. Get up, Danny, we're leaving."
Unsure but compliant, Danny followed Allison out to her garage. She grabbed her crossbow from a hook on the wall and a hunting knife.
"We aren't going to hurt Scott, are we?"
"No." Allison strapped the knife to her leg and put on fingerless gloves. "We're going to go save his ass."
TW
The night wind was cool as Lydia walked through the empty forest of Beacon Hills. She played with the ends of her hair as she twirled in the dirt and dead leaves. She hummed a simple song: a lullaby whose lyrics she couldn't quite remember.
"I was wondering when you would show up," Lydia whispered as Peter joined her, humming the tune where she left off. "So, Derek bought it?"
"My nephew never was the best thinker. Are the Argents going after McCall?" Peter grabbed Lydia's hand as they strolled through the dark brush.
"Of course," Lydia laughed. Peter picked her up and spun her, laughing happily. "Everything is progressing just as we planned. There's just one thing."
"What's that?" Peter asked as he sat Lydia back on the ground.
"I need my reward," Lydia responded as she stood on the tips of her toes and hooked her arms around Peter. She pulled him down into a deep kiss.
TW
Danny parked in front of the hospital and Allison bolted into the parking lot. She'd left her crossbow in his car and he just stared at it before following her. The last time he'd been in the hospital, he was recovering from the attack at Jungle.
"How did you know he would be here?" Danny asked as he followed Allison into the lobby.
"Which room is Sheriff Stilinski in? I'm here to pick up his son," Allison lied to the nurse at the reception desk. After getting answers, she and Danny power walked to an elevator. When it opened, Allison saw her father holding Scott by the collar of his shirt.
"Allison, go home," Chris Argent ordered his daughter.
Defiant, Allison walked into the elevator. Danny stuck his foot in front of the door.
"Let him go, Dad," Allison demanded.
"I take it you know what he did," Chris said as he looked at Danny. "You know the rules. We hunt those who hunt us."
Allison opened her mouth as if to speak, but instead punched her father in the throat. She grabbed Scott and threw him into the hallway, attracting the attention of the nurses and orderlies on duty. Her father recovered, but Allison kneed him in the groin and kicked him against the wall. She slapped a random button on the elevator and leaped out. Danny removed his foot and helped Scott up.
"We have to go," Allison commanded as she led Danny and Scott through the halls of the hospital, dodging the questions of the medical staff. "My dad definitely didn't come alone and we only have surprise on our side for so long."
"Where is Stiles?" Danny asked Scott as they reached the exit. "They wouldn't hurt him, would they?"
"They wouldn't kill him," Allison replied coldly. "He's better off not getting involved."
"Stiles is fine. Your dad grabbed me in the bathroom," Scott agreed as they ran to Danny's car, Allison leading the way. "What the hell is going on?"
Pushing Scott into the backseat, Allison ordered Danny to get into the car. He saw a vehicle pulling up beside them, a black van with no license plates. Allison grabbed her crossbow and sunk an arrow into one of the front tires, forcing the van to stop as she climbed into the car.
"GO!" she yelled at Danny as she loaded a new arrow.
He started the engine and slammed on the gas, almost hitting a parked car.
"Where are are we going?" Danny asked Allison since she seemed to be in charge.
"How should I know? Just get us out of town. Head North. They'll expect us to head for LA or something to try to shake them off."
"We have school," Danny said stupidly. "I have to call my parents."
"No phones. Hand them over," Allison demanded. She grabbed them from Scott and Danny and pulled her own out. Then she threw them from the car window. "They know how to trace the GPS. Speaking of which..."
Danny almost cried when Allison ripped the GPS off his dashboard and threw it out the window as well. "This is my mom's car! She's going to kill me!"
"My dad is going to do worse. Turn up here." Allison pulled her wallet out of her pocket, suddenly glad she'd never been big on carrying a purse. "I have thirteen dollars. You guys?"
"I have a twenty in the glove box for emergency gas money. Why?" Danny wondered as he slowed and turned onto an access road to a highway.
"We don't have time to stop and get supplies. My dad is bound to have all of our houses staked out by now."
Scott finally interrupted from the back seat. Danny looked in the rearview mirror and saw that Scott was surprisingly not freaking out over everything. Then again, Danny was surprised he wasn't more freaked out himself. He reasoned that it was probably a combination of adrenaline and shock.
"Will you please tell me what is going on?" Scott yelled as he looked out the back window. "I thought your dad was fine with me!"
"He knows about my mom, Scott," Allison told him as she double-checked her crossbow. Danny wasn't sure if she was doing it to scare the boys or not. "Lydia told him. Why didn't you tell me?"
"I was scared," Scott confessed in a pleading voice. "How do you tell your girlfriend that you killed her reanimated mother?"
"Well, you don't lie to her about it for weeks. That would be a start," Allison pointed out as she sighed and buckled her seat belt. "Good god, we are screwed."
"My mom is going to have a heart attack," Scott observed. "Is there any way you can talk to your dad? Get him to calm down?"
"After a couple of days, sure. But right now we need distance. And anonymity. Danny, when we're in the next county I need you to pull into a parking lot. Any parking lot."
"Why?" Danny wasn't sure why, but Allison taking charge seemed to calm him down. He felt as close to safe as he could with her.
"We're going to have to swap licence plates. This car would be too easy to trace if your parents report it stolen, and we definitely do not need the cops hunting for us as well," Allison responded as she pulled her knife from its sheath. "Don't stop for gas until you reach about a quarter of a tank. When we're two counties out, we'll get groceries. Bottled water and apples. They're cheap and somewhat healthy."
As Allison looked over her blade, Danny looked at Scott in the mirror. "Dude, it's going to be fine. We're going to be fine."
He didn't believe it, but it felt good to say it aloud.