Disclaimer – Big surprise, I know, but I don't own anything. Unless I end up creating some OC's which may or may not happened depending on how I feel but if so I do own them…

Summary – In a small, run down house in the town of Beacon Hills lives a boy who is only human. A boy who has lost everything he ever loved. His mother. His brother. His father. No, his father wasn't dead but he certainly wasn't the same man he had once been. A boy who was in the right place at the right time and managed not only to save a life but to finally make some real friends and, you know, save the whole town. His name? Isaac. Isaac Lahey.

Things you need to know about this ALTERNATE UNIVERSE/CANON-DIVERGENT UNIVERSE I've created for the purposes of this story – Isaac is still human; Derek never turned him in Season Two, he just turned Erica and Boyd. Mr Lahey is still alive; the Pack managed to stop Matt before he was able to force Jackson/the Kanima to kill the former swimming coach.

Warnings (will add more as required) – Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Language, Alternate Universe/Canon-Divergence, Child Abuse, Medical Inaccuracies

~ Only Human ~

~ Chapter Four ~

Jordan didn't know what he had been expecting to find but a pretty little red-bricked house, complete with a perfectly maintained front garden, definitely wasn't it. As he stepped up onto the porch, adjusting his gun belt out of habit so that it was perfectly placed for him to reach his weapon should he need to, he noted that the white trim had been repainted recently as there were splotches of paint here and there and that the front door was new.

As he reached out to ring the doorbell he noticed a tiny piece of tape over the buzzer, the words 'OUT OF ORDER – PLEASE KNOCK' written it what was undeniably a teenagers hand printed on the scrap of paper the tape was holding in place. It settled something in his stomach, discovering something that wasn't picture perfect about the property of a suspected child abuser. He had been worrying that he might have had the wrong house…

All thoughts of having the wrong address flew out of his mind when the door was opened in response to his firm knocks, revealing an older man with a weather beaten face who was dressed only in his boxer's shorts and an off-white vest. His glasses, wired rimmed, were falling down his long nose and the hand that he brought up to push them back up was holding a can of beer which was mostly empty if the sloshing sound was anything to go by.

"Yeah?" the older man grunted, leaning against the doorframe. "Can I help you?"

"Mr Lahey?"

Jordan found himself straightening up to his full height as the received confirmation in the form of an unimpressed glare, a quick nod which was interrupted by a large swig of beer.

He barely hid his grimace when Mr Lahey let out a grotesque burp before demanding,

"So? What do you want?"

Jordan cleared his throat, fishing out his notepad and pen simply to give his hands something to do that wasn't snatching the other man's beer away and disposing of it.

"Sir, what can you tell me about the whereabouts of your son, Isaac?"

As far as changes in demeanour were concerned the one Mr Lahey went through was blatantly obvious; his body stiffened, pushing away from the doorframe to stand at his one full height which, thankfully, was an inch or so shorter than Jordan. A cold look entered his blue-grey eyes behind the thin panes of glass and his lips thinned out as he clenched his jaw.

"He's out."

Jordan frowned.

There wasn't even a trace of concern in Mr Lahey's voice even though Jordan knew his son had been missing for a couple of weeks. In fact if anything the older man sounded annoyed.

"Do you have any idea where he might be?" Jordan pressed. "Or when he'll be back?"

"Nope."

"Mr Lahey…"

Jordan couldn't stop himself from dropping a hand to his weapon, still secured inside its holster, when the older man let out an angry growl and crushed the can of beer in his hand, beer spraying out of the hole at the top as he turned and threw it back inside his house.

"If I knew where the lazy little shit was don't you think I'd have dragged him home by now?"

Any doubts that Jordan had had upon arriving at the property faded away as he glimpsed his first sighting of the monster that lurked beneath the surface, as he caught sight of the pure contempt Mr Lahey felt for his poor teenage son and the explosive nature of his personality.

Not to mention his strength, if only against a can of beer, as well as his violent reactions.

Oh, yes, Jordan thought, this man is perfectly capable of creating those healed fractures.

"Perhaps I could come in and wait for him to get home?"

The reaction to his suggestion, pitched using a purposely innocent tone, was instantaneous.

"No! And get the fuck off of my property you filthy fucking pig!"

Jordan flinched back just in time to save himself from a broken nose when the door he had been leaning towards was slammed shut with enough force to crack one of the six panes of glass which were incorporated into the top third of the door as a practical design feature.

Well, Jordan thought with a shake of his head, that answers that then.

Turning away from the door he was about head back to his cruiser when he spotted something sticking out from one of the evergreen bushes which, unlike the others bushes and trees in the front garden given the time of year, was still covered in plenty of leaves and therefore could be considered a good hiding place. Or, alternatively, a place for things to get missed even if they'd been dropped accidentally which he suspected was more likely to be the case when he crouched down and retrieved the item from where it had been concealed.

The mystery item turned out to be a simple black leather wallet, fraying around the edges and cracking along the spine, and when he flipped it open he found himself looking at Isaac Lahey's high school library card, an old scrap of newspaper and a grand total of four dollars.

He waited until he was seated in his cruiser to unfold the scrap of newspaper.

It was an obituary for Camden Lahey, Isaac's older brother, and whilst the printed words were unblemished the photograph which had been published alongside them was smudged as though tears had fallen upon it on more than one occasion. He also noticed that it had been carefully folded in such a way that the creases managed to miss everything important.

It was a miracle that the damp hadn't gotten to it, given where he'd found it, and so he took great care to fold it up as it was meant to be and returned it to the safety of the wallet. The leather wallet, in turn, was placed inside an airtight plastic evidence bag for safekeeping.

Isaac had enough problems without losing something that was so obviously precious to him.

Heading back to the station he had just pulled his cruiser into its assigned bay on the parking lot and was in the process of exiting the vehicle when he was almost clipped by a painfully familiar older model blue jeep as it sped towards one of the visitor bays nearer the main entrance of the building. It was followed by a Toyota Prius, driven in a significantly less reckless manner, and a sleek black motorbike which parked in between the two other cars.

"Deputy Parrish!" Stiles called out as he literally tumbled out of the driver's side door of his jeep. Scott, his usual smile absent from his handsome young face, quickly climbed out the passenger side door before turning to help the young woman who had been riding in the back of the jeep to exit the vehicle. "How you doing? So…find anything stupid the Lahey's?"

"How did you…actually, no, I don't want to know," Jordan muttered as he noticed Lydia and Allison exiting the second car, both young women looking as perfect as ever. He felt the back of his neck heat up as Lydia smiled across at him; he didn't know what it was about the young woman that affected him so but affect him she did. It was inappropriate in so many ways, none the less because she was still in High School and he was an Officer of the Law, but he had to admit to having developed a little bit of a crush on the redhead. "If you're here to try and get more information about the case then you're going to be disappointed."

Stiles scoffed, trying to pretend that that wasn't the reason behind their visit.

"We're just worried about Isaac," Allison murmured genuinely, moving out of the way for the two figures who had arrived by motorcycle. Jordan recognised their faces but couldn't instantly place a name to them. "We…I…we don't want him going home to an…unpleasant situation when he eventually gets out of the hospital. Not after he saved my life like he did."

Yeah, Jordan could understand where she was coming from.

"We've only just begun our investigation so there is nothing to share at this moment in time, officially or unofficially," he told the group of teenagers who all seemed to deflate with disappointment. Lydia wrapped an arm around Allison's back. "But, rest assured, none of us want Isaac to return to an unsafe environment after what he's just been through. Ok?"

"I'd like to give a witness statement."

The announcement, coming from the figure who had been riding pillion on the motorbike, seemed to take them all by surprise as the entire group turned to stare at the Hawaiian boy.

"Danny?" Scott murmured with a deep frown. "What do you…?"

"When I used to hang out with Jackson at his house we'd hear Mr Lahey attacking Isaac," Danny explained, the words rushing out of him like blood from a wound. His friends stared at him in shock. "We could hear him screaming and shouting, things smashing. Isaac never shouted back but we…we could hear…and then it would always go quiet. We didn't…I…"

Jordan didn't miss the way that the handsome owner of the motorbike linked his fingers with Danny's, giving the shaking teens hand a gentle squeeze of reassurance and support.

"We tried telling Jacksons parents but they told us not to get involved. But…but I can't…"

"It's ok, Danny," Jordan murmured as several other hands moved to rest reassuringly on the tearful boys arms and shoulders. "How about we head inside and do this properly, yeah?"

Danny nodded.

"Can…can Ethan stay with me?"

"No problem," Jordan murmured, gesturing for the two teenagers to enter the station before turning to face the others. "We have to do this by the book, you understand?"

They nodded almost as though they were one sentient being.

"Good. Then you won't be offended when I tell you to stay out of the police investigation."

They nodded once more, significantly less enthusiastically, and this time Stiles had to be elbowed in the side to encourage the action which didn't exactly fill Jordan with confidence.

He didn't have time to worry about them, however, as he had a report to give to a rather stressed Sheriff and a statement to take from an understandably emotional teenage boy.

A/N Sorry, this chapter ended up a lot shorter than I'd initially planned but it worked better for the storyline/storytelling that I split them up here rather than where I had originally intended to. As to the Danny/Ethan bit…I liked them too much and hated it when the show got rid of them so in my universe Danny admitted his knowledge of the werewolves earlier and accepted Ethan for what he was, prompting him to switch sides. Lol. I've messed with the timeline enough already so what's a little more, eh? Comments/Suggestions welcome. X