Chapter Text
Violet stares at the paper in her hands. It isn’t much, isn’t important, doesn’t say anything about her or mean anything to her…except that it does, somehow, and Violet isn’t sure when that happened. She isn’t sure when silly accomplishments and irrelevant milestones started to mean something to her, and it scares her a little.
Scott sits next to her on the picnic table. “Congratulations.”
Thank you, she means to say, but, “I never really expected to make it this far,” falls out instead.
Scott nods, mouth twisting into a sad sort of smile. “Yeah, I get that,” he says. “I know it’s not the same thing, but – yeah.”
Violet slips her high school diploma back into its folder and takes off her graduation cap. “So, is college as fun all the movies say they are?”
Scott laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “I mean, it’s a lot of work, but…” He ducks his head. “Most weeks, the worst I have to worry about is passing my exams. It’s so…”
“Normal.”
He nods. “It’s nice.”
“Good.” Violet has no intentions of going to college; she has plenty of contacts to pick jobs from, and sometimes Deaton sends her around the world to hunt down some rare fungus or tree mold. Garrett’s been working with the twins more, lately, on longer jobs all over the county, but Violet finds herself reluctant to stray too far from Beacon Hills. She’s settling, as much as she can be, more than she’d ever really hoped that she could be, and…it’s nice.
Scott glances at his phone. “Oh, Braeden said she wanted to talk to you later,” he says. “Something about a job, I think?”
Violet hops down from the picnic table. “Is she finally going to stop sending me on boring milk runs now that I don’t have to worry about homework?”
Scott shrugs, grinning a little. “I don’t know, boring’s kind of nice sometimes.” He holds up his spare helmet. “Need a ride?”
“Yeah, sure.” He’s right, of course. Boring is nice, nicer than Violet ever expected to be. She isn’t about to admit that to Braeden, though. “Hey,” she says after Scott parks in the apartment’s garage, “Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Scott says, pressing the call button for the elevator. “It’s the way to the Dunbars’ house.”
“No, I mean,” Violet says. She pauses, trying to find the words. “For everything. Giving us another chance. Thank you.”
Scott turns to her, eyebrows quirked. “Another chance?” he repeats. “I didn’t help with that. That was all you.”
Violet rolls her eyes. “Just shut up and let me thank you, Scott.”
“Okay, okay, ‘thank you’ accepted,” Scott says, laughing as he follows her into the elevator. “You know, half the time, I feel like we’re not really talking about the same thing.”
Violet shrugs. “Yeah, but it still makes sense, so who cares?”
Scott watches her as the elevator slowly ascends, gaze inscrutable. “I’m not who you think I am, Violet,” he says. “I’m not what you think I am. You know that, right?”
She shrugs again. “You’re Scott McCall. You’re the reason I’m still here.”
It doesn’t matter if it’s all in her head or if the True Alpha really did pull her through space and time to give her a second chance. Violet had never really bought into the legend of Scott McCall, and she still doesn’t now. She can’t understand Scott McCall, the True Alpha hero of heroes, but she can understand Scott. And even if he doesn’t remember knocking her out of her hardened ways, even if he can’t actually send her back in time and restart her life…he still gave her a chance. He still saved her life. And he still helped her so much, for no reason at all, that she wants to stay. Violet owes Scott McCall, more than he could ever know, and she’s okay with that.
Scott doesn’t really look okay with it, though, so she adds, “It’s just kind of nice to have someone to believe in, you know? Someone who believes in you.”
His gaze drops. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “I get that.”
The elevator finally reaches the top floor. “You didn’t have to walk me up, you know,” Violet says, digging through her pockets for the key. “Shouldn’t you be going to lunch with Liam and Mason’s families?”
“Soon,” Scott says, nodding. “But I promised them I’d keep you distracted while they set things up.”
“What-” Violet begins, and then the door opens in a deluge of balloons and silly string.
“Congratulations!” Erica and Paige yell from somewhere behind the silly string, and Isaac’s gangly arm winds around her neck as he rubs his knuckles into her head. Violet swats half-heartedly at him. “Guys,” she whines.
Braeden smirks at her. “Admit it,” she says. “You love us.”
Yeah. She really does.
Maybe, Violet thinks, it’s okay to want things.
It’s not that she’s a stranger to wanting things, or anything like that. Revenge, renown, money and tools to make it happen. She’s always been rather extravagant with her weapons. She likes nice things, and she likes having tangible goals.
But things like comfort, safety, acceptance, home…they aren’t tangible. She’d never considered them more than a child’s fantasy, or at the very least, something that she could never dream of attaining. They were things that she didn’t deserve.
But now, after all these years…maybe. Maybe now that she has a place to live, friends who like and trust and know her, maybe they aren’t so unattainable after all. She still doesn’t entirely believe that she deserves them, but she wants them all the same.
“Ducks or ponies?”
She looks over to see Paige holding up two sets of baby pajamas. “She’s turning one,” Violet says. “She probably doesn’t even know what they are.” Paige frowns a little, so she adds, “Get the one with the ponies. Everyone likes ponies.”
Paige puts back the duck pajamas. “You’re just saying that because you’re giving her a plush pony.”
“A plush unicorn,” Violet corrects, wiggling its rainbow-spun horn. “Even a werewolf with a kitsune mom should get to have imaginary creatures to believe in.”
“Unicorns aren’t real?” Paige asks. Violet shakes her head. “Damn. You’re just ruining my whole childhood.”
“Yeah, I can really see how turning thirty still counts as ‘childhood.’”
“Hey, I’m still twenty-nine for eight more weeks.” Paige lingers in front of a toy piano, slightly too old for Emma Yukimura McCall’s age. “I hope Emma likes music when she gets older. I’m starting to think Schuyler’s a lost cause.” She snorts. “Should’ve seen that coming, with Derek for a dad.”
“I tried teaching Braeden the violin once,” Violet says. “It wasn’t pretty. Poor Schuyler never stood a chance.”
Paige laughs. “I didn’t know you tried to teach Braeden the violin.”
“It was kind of a joke,” Violet says, shrugging. She grins at Paige. “If she really wanted to learn, I know she would’ve asked you, Miss Music Teacher.”
Paige rolls her eyes. “Hey,” she says, tilting her head at Violet, “how come I never ended up teaching you the cello?”
“Never got around to it, I guess,” Violet says, shrugging. “I guess it’s a little late, now.”
“It’s never too late to try something new,” Paige says. She plinks out a melody on the toy piano, then shrugs in a way that almost looks wistful. “Might’ve been nice.”
Violet has always been wary of wanting things. It’s easier not to care, because then it doesn’t matter what happens. But wanting something and watching it slip out of her grasp…that’s harder. That’s painful. That’s vulnerable, and Violet hates being vulnerable.
But maybe, she thinks, maybe sometimes, vulnerable can a good thing.
“We could, if you wanted to,” she says. “I could pay you back-”
Paige frowns. “I don’t want you to-”
“-with dinner?” Violet finishes. She takes a deep breath, then adds, “Tonight?”
Paige stares at her for a long moment. “Violet,” she says slowly. A smile breaks across her face. “Are you asking me out?”
She bites her lip. “Maybe.”
“Well, then,” Paige says, beaming as she steps closer. “Maybe I would love that.”
Her hand wraps around Violet’s, solid and warm like a quiet affirmation. Violet smiles. “Maybe I’d love that, too.”