Something he can say.

Alan Deaton stood at the sink, washing his hands, when Scott came into the back room. He looked up, smiling. He always smiled when Scott came in, but now that Scott rarely got the chance to visit the clinic between hunting for Monroe and trying to go to school, the smile seemed to have grown wider when he managed to arrange it.

"Hey, Doc."

"I'm happy to see you. I hope everything went well."

"It did. It's over."

"That's very good news." He cocked his head to the side. "Though, I feel it is right to warn you—"

"That there might be a few skirmishes still, but that's clean up. There's always clean-up." Scott walked over and picked up the broom from its customary location. "Monroe is in federal custody; my father has enough evidence to put her away as a domestic terrorist for decades. Her crusade is finished."

"She was captured? I'm surprised, though not disappointed."

Scott began to sweep the back room. "Not as surprised as Peter was, though, unlike you, he was very disappointed. He really thought I was going to let him kill her."

Deaton watched him from where he had been working across the room. Instead of breaking the silence, he simply waited to see if there was anything else that Scott wanted to talk about. Perhaps, he knew that there was something else Scott wanted to talk about but didn't see the need to pressure him to begin.

"I didn't let that happen for several reasons." "You don't need to explain yourself to me."

With a smile, Scott kept right on sweeping. "I know I don't. But I like explaining myself to you, because ..."

"Because?"

"Because even True Alphas need someone to tell them they did the right thing once in a while." The veterinarian chuckled. "Fair enough. Tell me why Tamora Monroe is still alive."

"First, I'm not an executioner. No matter what crimes she's committed, and she's committed plenty, last night she wasn't even close to killing me or Peter or anyone else on our side. The plan worked as it was supposed to — I guess there has to be a first time for everything — and once it was sprung there was very little chance of her getting away."

"Your plans work out more often than you pretend, Scott. No plan survives contact with the

enemy, but that doesn't make them bad plans."

Scott looked sharply at Alan. "Peter said the same thing."

"Peter is unscrupulous, not ignorant. Regardless, you won't find me questioning your evaluation of what constitutes self-defense."

"Second, she was right."

Alan raised both eyebrows.

"She wasn't entirely right, but we do hold our secrets as more important than the lives of regular human beings. We lied. We lied a lot. We have to acknowledge that. On the other hand, she was also wrong. We lied to prevent greater harm, not to solely get what we wanted. At least, I didn't."

"Maintaining the secrecy of the supernatural was a lesson learned millennia ago. It's not fair to either side, but it's better than the alternative."

"I wish she hadn't taken the path she did, but as I learned from many people ... well, one of my weaknesses seems to be that I tend to underestimate the power of trauma over people who experienced it. She didn't start down this path through a dispassionate decision. She was pushed."

"Pushed by the Beast. Pushed by the Doctors. Not by you or your pack or even the sheriff."

Scott brought out the dustpan from the cabinet. "Third, it's a strategic decision. Martyrdom can be attractive. I didn't want to create a beloved leader slaughtered by monsters. She'll spend decades in prison; that's a lot less glamorous."

"You hope she spends decades in prison."

"I hope. It's a gamble that I'm willing to take, which is, of course, the fourth reason. In the end, it was my decision. Peter and anyone who thinks like Peter can choke. I'm done arguing the merits of not killing anyone who threatens me or those I love. If it angers people I don't like, well, I'll indulge myself and take a little pleasure from their frustration."

At that confession, Deaton brought his hands down and folded them behind his back. "You've never talked like that before."

Scott dumped the dustpan in the garbage can and then turned to look at his Emissary. "I know I haven't, but there's a part of me that's always felt like that. There are parts of me that might scare you. What I've felt. What I've wanted to do and say but I never have."

"I doubt that."

"You can't really—"

"I think I can." Deaton cut him off before he could go on. "If you thought that I believed you were some paragon of virtue and justice with no trace of any darkness within you, you were mistaken. The ritual I helped you perform would be enough to dispel me of any conception of that being true. And I also know about most of what you've gone through from Kate turning into a Berserker to your father abandoning you. Any of those things — all of those things — leave their traces, and those traces don't vanish because you stepped up when you needed to do so."

For some reason, Scott couldn't meet the man's eyes.

"Some have said that no good person is ever truly good, and no evil person is every truly evil. Unfortunately, they most often try to turn that into some sort of argument designed to render good and evil irrelevant, yet, in the end, that is a self-serving stance. In the tradition I follow, it means that good and evil aren't objective states which one can enter or leave; they're descriptions of a person's choices and their consequences. When I say you are a good person, Scott, I mean that you have a strong tendency to take actions and make choices that benefit others and hurt as few as possible."

"Sometimes it doesn't feel that way."

"Of course not. Five minutes from now, you could lose your temper with me and strike me across the face. Unlikely, but it's possible. What I find more likely is that if you did so, afterward you would realize that you shouldn't have done it and try to make it up to me." Deaton smiled. "You're capable of great evil, Scott. Everyone is."

Scott didn't blush. Deaton understood. It was silly of him to think he wouldn't. "If I may reassure you once more without seeming too patronizing ..." "You've never patronized me."

"There is nothing, Scott, that you can't say. No matter how harmful, how manipulative, how cruel, you have the ability to speak those words. Yet, it is part of what makes you who you are that you won't say them no matter how your power or your reputation or the love others bear for you might shield you from the consequences. You've simply chosen not to say them. And that I find very encouraging."

Scott felt lighter. He always did after talking with Deaton. He felt so light he laughed. "What's so funny?"

"You Gandalf-ed me."

"Did I?" Deaton frowned exaggeratedly. "I guess I did. Purely unintentional."

"If you say so. So, what else is there to do?"

"You know I don't actually employ you now that you've gone to school." Scott shrugged. "I want to work. I'm told I like to focus on the mundane."

Deaton turned away. "Very well. You can help me prepare for the surgery I have this afternoon. And, if you feel like it, perhaps you could unburden yourself of some of those things you feel you can't say."

So they did, and while they did Scott told Deaton about everything he had wanted to say for so long, but hadn't. Nothing changed.