Chapter Text
It’s been two years since Oak Creek. It’s been two years since Allison Argent died. It’s been two years since Chris let Isaac tag along with him to France, since he, inevitably, left him there on his own only a month later. Isaac’s grown up enough now that he no longer holds it against him, that he no longer feels that sting of betrayal when he thinks of Chris getting that text from Scott, Chris going back to Beacon Hills while Isaac stayed in Paris.
It hurt, at first. Scott reaching out to Chris but not to Isaac, Chris leaving Isaac behind – abandoning him.
But Chris didn’t abandon him, not really. Chris still visits every few months, still calls as often as he can. Chris just wasn’t ready to say goodbye to his life in Beacon Hills, wasn’t ready yet to hang up his hat of responsibility, of being involved. Isaac thinks he understands, at least a little more than he did at the age of seventeen. He thinks he understands that that town is Chris’ greatest link to his daughter – Scott is his greatest link to his daughter, greater than Isaac’s link, at least.
It’s been two years since Isaac first arrived in France, but, really, things haven’t changed much since then. He’s still living in Argent’s apartment – though, they both call it Isaac’s now, even if his name isn’t on the lease. He’s still digging graves at a cemetery only a short walk away, a walk along the Seine. Isaac doesn’t love the job, hates it actually, but there are dead people everywhere. It’s a universal skill and one that doesn’t require him to speak French – even if he is fluent now, he wasn’t when he first got here – and one that allows him to work nights, to go to school during the day, to graduate high school a few months ago and begin university six weeks ago.
Isaac still doesn’t know what he’s doing with his life. That much is clear to him. He’s going to class – no subject of focus declared yet, just the basics – and he’s going to work, but, other than that, his life is empty.
Hollow.
It’s been hollow for a while, longer than two years probably, longer than the time since Oak Creek and Allison. Losing another friend so unexpectedly was just the last straw, the last blow that broke Isaac’s stride and strength, that finally allowed him to fall into exhaustion, to grow so tired that he had no choice but to leave.
Isaac is in the cemetery now, dark sky shining with stars above him and excavator engine rumbling beneath him. It’s routine, this task and this skill. Isaac has known this job since he was fourteen years old, known it for five years. It doesn’t seem long enough, doesn’t seem far enough away when the days of Beacon Hills’ cemetery feel like they happened to a different person – someone who was never supposed to get out of that town.
And yet, Isaac did. He left Beacon Hills behind and he hasn’t looked back since.
There’s movement, rustling through the bushes that line the cemetery, that give it the illusion of privacy despite being near the heart of a city like Paris. For a moment, Isaac blames it on the wind, but then he hears the telltale sound of breathing, a huffing breath that can only come from an animal, from the snout of something too big to be the squirrels Isaac is used to.
Isaac cuts the engine of the excavator, keys turned towards himself and the rumbling dying out, sound going quiet so he can hear a little better. Isaac leans forward too, trying to get a better look, trying to see through the dark and through the leaves and twigs of the bush, through the thicket and into whatever nest has been built inside.
“What the hell,” Isaac breathes, barely a question.
Blue eyes glow out of the darkness. And that’s… that’s a coyote. A familiar one at that.
—
She shifts right in front of him, right out in the open. She comes out of the bush, fur rippling into bare skin, and then there’s a naked girl standing in front of Isaac. He turns his head quickly, whispers a curse of, “Christ.”
But his suspicions were correct. That’s Malia Tate.
They never properly met, back in high school, back when she was stuck as a coyote and her dad put bear traps out in the woods. Isaac winces just at the thought of it, at the memory of metal teeth scraping into his skin and biting down to the bone, the blood that ran down his shin as Allison stood beside him, as her hands shook with the darkness around her heart.
That was the beginning of it all, Isaac thinks. That was the beginning of the end.
“I know you,” Malia says, but she sounds confused by it. She hasn’t moved, still just stands there, making no efforts to cover herself, to care that they’re in public and she could get arrested if anyone else sees her. “Why do I know you?”
Isaac exhales a breath, tips his head to the heavens and curses whatever almighty being is up there, whoever thought it was a good idea to allow their two paths to cross. But, in the end, he gets no answer. In the end, he looks down again, slips off his jacket, and forces himself off the excavator, forces himself to approach Malia and hand it to her.
She looks at it suspiciously for just a moment, like she has no interest in putting it on, but Isaac says, “I’m not talking to you until you get dressed,” and, from there, Malia’s curiosity wins out. She slips the jacket over her shoulders and zips it. Isaac thanks his height for being just enough to cover her, at least for this temporary moment.
Malia crosses her arms, looks at him expectantly, tilt of her head too superior for someone who is barging in on his life, who was naked not five seconds ago.
Isaac gives into her, introduces himself. “I’m Isaac.”
He lets it hang there for a moment, giving nothing more. Because Isaac knows Malia was indoctrinated into the pack not long after he left it, and the self-flagellating part of his mind wants to know what she knows, wants to know how much he was spoken of after he left. It’s misguided and stupid and shouldn’t matter when his priority should be in understanding why Malia is here right now, how she found him and what she wants – though, it seems, somehow, that this might just be one impossible coincidence.
“Oh,” Malia says, nods in recognition. “You helped bring me back, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Right,” Malia offers, but gives nothing more, gives no further insight into what stories she’s heard of him. It stings a little, this pang of insecurity and disappointment in Isaac’s throat, but he ignores it, swallows it down to settle low in his gut instead.
Isaac wants to turn away from her. He wants to walk away and get back to work, wants to leave her to leave him alone, but…
But she’s wearing his jacket. But she’s here in this cemetery, and, coincidence or not, Isaac knows what he has to do. He knows the right move here, the moral move, and he’s beyond trying to fight the good in him.
So, he asks, “What are you doing here?”
“Here, in the cemetery?” Malia asks, but answers the question before Isaac can confirm or deny, “I dunno. Here, in France? I’m traveling, on vacation, being a normal teenager while I still have a chance.”
So she’s not here because there’s a crisis back home.
Isaac’s not surprised. If there was something going on in Beacon Hills, Isaac wouldn’t know until after it happened. That’s been the way of things for the past two years, and if it did ever change, it would be Chris calling him, not some random girl he barely knows showing up in Paris.
So it really is just a coincidence, just an epic plot twist by the universe, just a twist in Isaac’s plans and a twist of the ring dagger that’s been lodged in his back since he was seventeen years old.
Isaac’s mind is screaming at him to walk away. His survival instincts, his self preservation telling him to get out while he still has a chance, before Beacon Hills and the McCall pack can drag him back in, can pull him under and drown him once again. He shouldn’t get involved. He knows that. He should chalk this up to nothing more than happenstance, not fate or destiny, just a little… test of his boundaries.
Isaac should walk away, but he also can’t let Malia go off on her own, not dressed like that and not when she could cause trouble with the packs around them – or worse: the hunters. Isaac has a tentative peace here, with Chris’ influence among the hunters and with his omega status posing nothing of a threat to the wolf packs. He keeps his head down, he minds his own business. He has safety here, but Malia’s presence, another shifter from Beacon Hills, could compromise that.
Despite all instinct and better judgment, he asks, “Where are you staying?”
Malia shrugs, “Not sure.” Then, “I don’t mind sleeping outside.”
And Isaac knows where this is going before it even gets there, but, still, he asks Malia where her stuff is. Still, she leads him over to the other side of the cemetery where there’s a larger mausoleum, where there’s a suitcase and her plans for a den. Still, he feels his expression drop and his hope for this being a one time occurrence being crushed under his foot.
Isaac looks at her and says, “No way. The people of Paris are not going to take lightly to a coyote squatting in one of their cemeteries just–” Isaac sighs, and, here it is, “You can stay in my guest room.”
Again, he wants anything but. Again, he doesn’t have any other choice.
If Isaac was expecting Malia to put up a fight, he was surely mistaken. She seems almost relieved at his act of kindness, agrees readily and Isaac feels… he doesn’t know what he feels, actually.
—
Isaac finishes his shift while Malia waits. At some point, she digs into her suitcase to get dressed, throws Isaac’s jacket at him once he’s off the excavator. It hits him in the chest but he doesn’t react, just tucks his arms back through the sleeves and leads them on their walk back to his apartment, Malia’s suitcase squeaking along the sidewalk as they go, as the Seine ripples softly beside them.
The apartment complex is small, only a few other units, and it’s quiet at this time between morning and night, before dawn when most of the city is asleep – either still or just falling into it. Isaac holds a finger to his lips, gesturing for Malia to be quiet too as she drags her suitcase up the two flights of stairs, wheels banging against the steps a little too loud for his liking. Malia huffs at him but retracts the handle and carries the case at her side instead, listens to him in a way that surprises him.
Once the door is unlocked and the apartment entered, Malia stops just inside, eyes dragging over and inspecting the space. Isaac would feel more self conscious about the slight mess and the clumsy decorating if he cared about Malia’s opinion, or if most of the stuff here wasn’t Chris’ anyway. But Isaac doesn’t care and he pushes past her, not rough and not mean, just getting inside and expecting her to follow him. She does, follows as he leads her to the guest room, the room that only Chris has ever stayed in.
He opens the door for her and says, “You can sleep here.”
Malia doesn’t thank him. It’s probably a little rude, but, Isaac finds, he doesn’t actually mind. This whole thing is begrudging, more an act to save his own skin than hers, so.
So, he doesn’t deserve her gratitude. So, he stands in the doorway, leans on the frame and watches her for a moment, watches Malia drop her suitcase to the ground, unzip it and reveal its contents. There’s a blanket taking up one entire side – a blanket that immediately gets thrown on the bed. And Isaac realizes what she’s doing then, making a den here instead of in the cemetery, replacing the stale scent of a room mostly abandoned with her own smells of home and Beacon Hills. It’s a little too permanent for Isaac’s liking, but he doesn’t deny her the comfort.
Instead, his curiosity gets the better of him and he looks at the rest of her suitcase. One pair of jeans, two pairs of shorts, and a pile of shirts. She is the least prepared packer Isaac has ever seen.
He tells her as much, says, though, really she’s the only one he’s ever met, “You’re the worst tourist I’ve ever met.”
Malia looks up at him, frowning just a little. She seems almost genuinely hurt, but it falls into defense as she says, “Well, I’ve never traveled anywhere before, so I’m doing my best.”
Isaac feels a little bad then, but doesn’t want to show it, stays unaffected as he asks, “Do you even have a toothbrush?”
The frowning glare slips from Malia’s features, replaced instead by something sheepish, something questioning and hopeful, something that clearly says no and please help me.
Isaac doesn’t want to. He’s gotten through the last two years by not helping, by keeping to himself, by avoiding moments like this one. He’s gotten through by keeping his nose clean of Beacon Hills, surviving only on the fractured updates Chris shares when he has the chance. Isaac isn’t entirely happy here but he also isn’t fighting for his life everyday. Isaac is alone here, but at least he isn’t grieving everyone he’s ever cared for, losing them in death but also in distance and detachment that couldn’t be explained.
Isaac is safe here, and yet Malia Tate sits on the floor of his guest room, looking just as lost as he felt when he first got here. Except, when Isaac first got here, at least for that first month, he had Chris. He had his guidance and his company. He had someone, so Malia should too.
Isaac heaves another sigh. He doesn’t want to help her, but, still, he says, “I have a spare.”
He walks away, to the bathroom conjoining the guest bedroom and his room, to find the unused toothbrush from the pack of two he bought a few months ago, and, as he goes, he wonders what the hell he’s just gotten himself into.
—
Isaac wakes the next morning. Well, afternoon, technically. He wakes with the sun high in the sky, getting just enough hours of rest that he can manage sitting through his math lecture, can get through to the evening release without falling asleep with his head in his hand. Isaac gets ready to leave the apartment, and, for a moment, forgets about his guest.
But, of course, she’s waiting for him as soon as he leaves his bedroom. She’s sitting in the living room, but perks up when she hears the door open, turns so her body is hanging over the arm of the sofa with, “You slept for so long.”
It’s a complaint, but Isaac shrugs it off, gives her a short answer of, “Sorry?”
He makes his way to the kitchen, aware of Malia in his peripheral vision, aware of her turning further so that now she’s hanging over the back of the couch, but he doesn’t say anything else and neither does she, not right away at least. She watches him and Isaac tries to ignore the feeling of being observed, of being assessed and studied in his own home. It makes his skin crawl and irritation buck up inside him, but he’s determined not to snap at her, not to be rude to someone who doesn’t know him, doesn’t know better than to make him feel cornered.
Isaac makes himself a bowl of cereal and only when he’s started eating does Malia ask, “What’re you doing today?”
“I have class,” Isaac answers around his mouthful, uncaring for manners. Malia doesn’t seem to care either, though she does slump a little, body sliding off the back of the couch so she’s kneeling more than she is almost launching herself over the edge.
“Oh,” says Malia, disappointment distinct.
Isaac hoped, faintly, that she would have some plans for her travel, some itinerary. He hoped, futilely, that they’d be distant roommates for a week or two before she found somewhere else to stay or took off back home or to some other travel destination. He hoped, but he knew better than that, knew better than to expect it from Malia, who didn’t have a hotel lined up or even a toothbrush.
Unfortunately, it seems that Malia has come here on a whim, and, now that she’s found someone she knows – as distantly and secondhand as it is – as well as some kindness, she has no hesitation in exploiting him and his good grace. She has no issue with bugging him with questions about what attractions are worth seeing and which aren’t, about his local “expertise” and what he recommends. She’s looking for a tour guide in him while Isaac just wants to eat in silence and go to class before he ends up being late.
Isaac tries to explain to her that he doesn’t know much about the tourist attractions of Paris, that he actually hasn’t been to many of them, despite living here for as many years as he has.
It’s not that he’s never explored the city, it’s more that, when he first got here, he was so full of grief that the backdrop didn’t matter. He was carrying such a heavy burden that it didn’t matter that he was in such a beautiful place, such an incredible city. He had no interest in Paris because, at the time, he had no interest in anything – still doesn’t, really.
And, when that period of frozen grief began to thaw, Isaac was inclined not to linger. He dove head first into what was next. He buried himself in finishing high school and expanding his knowledge of French beyond Beacon Hills High classes and digging graves for bodies to be buried in. He didn’t have the time for exploration because he didn’t allow himself to, because it was easier to be distracted by the mundane than the divine, easier to forget with his head buried in the sand.
Isaac is the absolute last person Malia should be asking for help in planning her trip, and yet she has no one else to ask. And yet, they met in the cemetery and Isaac brought her home like a stray dog, like an idiot biting off way more than he could chew, like a sentimental little shit who should’ve known better.
It’s too late now though. He can’t send Malia away and, it seems, she’s persistent and stubborn and more enthusiastic than Isaac can handle running on less than six hours of sleep – he wonders, distantly, how she has this much energy with the time difference she’s just crossed.
To get her to be quiet more than anything, Isaac says, “I have class today, but we’ll go out tomorrow.”
Malia frowns, for just a moment, but, quickly, it flips. Quickly, her lips twitch and she gives in to a grin, nodding and going silently pleased.
—
The sun is beginning to dip in the sky when Isaac gets out of class and he knows it’s been too long since the last time he grocery shopped, so he stops in for takeout on his walk home. He gets some for Malia too, of course, because he’s nice like that.
Except he’s not, though.
Nice is never a word that has been used to describe Isaac Lahey. He hasn’t been nice since he left home and he probably hasn’t been for even longer before that. The words of Stiles Stilinski pop into his head, something like, can you at least try to be helpful?
Isaac was trying then, is the thing. And he tries now, too. He tries to be nice, orders more Chinese food than they can probably eat because he doesn’t know what Malia likes and he wants her to have options. He pushes his spending more than he usually would and carries the hot brown paper bag nearly a mile back to the apartment.
He’s not sure why he does it, really. Because they both need to eat, probably, and, again, grocery shopping and the lack of doing it. But, more than that, Isaac is making an effort with Malia because… because…
Because she’s here. Because she’s dragging up painful memories of Beacon Hills – even if they have yet to talk about their shared hometown beyond that first meeting at the cemetery and the brief allusions there – and nostalgic, fond ones too. She’s here and Isaac would rather pander to her for a couple weeks, try to be nice even when it’s hard for him, than fall into bad habits of words harsher than he means. He’d rather try than slide into resentment and coldness, that chill of his bleeding into arguments.
Isaac would rather eat takeout with her than fight with her, than split open old wounds, so he buys them Chinese and smiles when Malia smiles first.
They sit around the coffee table, eating out of takeout boxes – Isaac with chopsticks and Malia with a fork. She pouts at him a little when she tries to use the chopsticks to pick up a piece of sesame chicken and fails miserably, the piece falling into her hand as a thanks to quick reflexes, narrowly avoiding her lap. Isaac makes no attempts to teach her – has to keep some distance between them, cordial and nice but not friendly – and wordlessly gets up to get her a fork.
They eat and Malia talks about all the things she wants to see – the Eiffel Tower and paintings by the guy who cut off his ear at the top of her list – and Isaac listens and tries to mentally prepare himself for the exhaustion her trip is going to cause him. It’d be easier, he thinks, if he had been expecting her.
But he wasn’t.
She showed up at the graveyard and Isaac had no choice but to extend an olive branch, though he’s still unsure if he regrets that choice or not. Her scent is crowding his apartment and there’s no silence or decompression because she keeps talking, breathing, existing. She keeps bringing with her hauntings of the preserve of Beacon Hills. She carries memories of bringing her back to human and Scott reminding them of saving her just outside the gates of Oak Creek.
Isaac didn’t know Malia back then and he doesn’t know her now, but there’s a shared location between them and that seems to be enough for Malia. She seems to be latching onto him like it only makes sense, like it’s only natural, like it’s only instinct. Isaac doesn’t know what to make of that when pack has never been this simple for him, when relationships have never been cut and dry, black and white. Isaac doesn’t understand her at all, but she’s here, kneeling in his living room and eating takeout with him.
It’s more company than Isaac has had in months, since Chris’ last visit when he came with tales of the Ghost Riders and new scars from their whips. Another in a long line of supernatural disasters that Isaac will never be a part of.
Isaac tries to enjoy Malia being in his space, even if it was at first unwelcome, even it was completely out of the blue. He tries to allow himself to enjoy her chatter, to participate in it and accept it. Because, soon enough, she will leave this place too – a way station on her journey to something better. Soon enough, Malia will be gone, abandoning Isaac and forgetting him, just as everyone else has done.
—
As promised, Isaac takes Malia to the Eiffel Tower the next day. She tries to drag him up to the viewing deck, but Isaac knows better than to greet that metal box of an elevator and a platform, lets her run off without him and lies about being scared of heights. If she can hear his heartbeat give away the truth, she doesn’t comment on it, only shrugs and goes on without him – unbothered.
Isaac stands on the lawn in front of the tower, unsure why it’s taken him so long to come here. He’s seen the Eiffel Tower in the distance of course, but he’s never visited in his two years in this city – strange, considering it’s usually the first place people go, Malia proof enough of that. It’s odd, but this is Isaac’s first time here, his first time seeing it up close.
It’s bigger than Isaac thought, more impressive maybe.
The tip scrapes at the sky and at the clouds, cascading down into criss crossing metal and flared legs. It takes Isaac’s breath away, just a little, though he won’t admit that to Malia, won’t tell her she was right about the touristy crap he’s been avoiding. He won’t give her the satisfaction, but he’ll stand on the lawn and stare up at the tower, even as the sun blinds him a little, even as it scorches his skin with the overly warm day.
Malia eventually returns from her journey to the top and says, “That was incredible.”
She’s smiling so wide and so true, so unabashed in her emotions, so different from the way Isaac keeps his on lockdown. He doesn’t say anything back to her, and, for a short while, they stand on the lawn together, looking at the tower, two people who are still basically strangers but are tethered by so much, who are connected despite never having met before two days ago.
—
Next, Isaac takes her to Musée D’Orsay. They considered The Louvre, but Malia shares his disdain and impatience for crowds and lines. Isaac figures they can skip it for now, and, if she’s really interested, she can go on her own, once she gets a feel for the city. For now, though, they go to Musée D’Orsay, and Malia gets to see some of Van Gogh’s paintings.
Isaac doesn’t mean to leave her behind again, doesn’t intend to wander off on his own, but it happens anyway. He trails away from the exhibit, ending up in another, ending up in a hall with seven paintings by Claude Monet.
He ends up standing in front of Coquelicots, painted in 1873.
Isaac isn’t ready for it, but, instantly, he’s transported back to his brother’s funeral and his brother’s grave, both decorated with poppies: the church pews adorned with bouquets and the tombstone with its own bundles at its base.
Isaac, honestly, tries not to think about his brother or his funeral or his headstone often, but he thinks about it all now. It burns, when the guilt washes over him, when it laps at his insides like poison acid. It’s guilt, mostly, for leaving him behind, for leaving him in Beacon Hills with no plans to ever return, to ever visit his grave or place flowers there again.
Isaac is the last of the Laheys, the last of the family that will ever visit the tombstone of his brother – or even his mother or father, too. Isaac is the last of them, and he left. He left the cemetery, the legacy of their family, behind. He left them and he’s not going back.
He’s not.
Even with Malia here, even with memories being drawn to the surface, he refuses to be roped back in, refuses to be called by the beacon of pain and of the nemeton. He refuses.
Isaac wants to reach out and touch, wants to drag his fingers over the poppies of the painting, wants to feel closer to them, wants to feel the shapes of the mother and the son walking through the field. He wants to feel closer to Cam and to the mother that he hardly ever knew, but he can’t touch. He can’t touch this art and he can’t reach out to them, can’t feel them in the beyond, can’t visit them in the cemetery.
They’re gone, and Isaac is left standing in front of a painting, eyes wet with the sting of grief and unshed tears.
Isaac’s not sure how long he stands there before Malia finds him, before she bounds up next to him, smells his pain but doesn’t comment on it. For a long minute, she stands beside him, looks at the same painting, probably trying to figure out what about it is making Isaac so sad.
Isaac doesn’t tell her that poppies are a symbol of remembrance and a brighter future, that they’re often used to honor soldiers that died in battle. He doesn’t tell her anything at all, and, when she starts to get restless beside him, he turns and walks away, leads her out of the museum and back into the streets of Paris.
They walk home together, mostly in silence, and Isaac finds that, despite everything, he’s almost enjoying himself.
—
The next day, Malia ruins it. The tenuous calm that they’ve fallen into, the unspoken left unsaid. She breaks it with one sentence.
Isaac, though, can’t find it in him to be annoyed at her or mad. Not when he knew it was coming, not when he knew this discussion was inevitable, not when he knew that, eventually, the elephant in the room would need to be acknowledged, addressed.
Malia asks, as they’re sitting in the living room and Isaac is considering slipping into his room, “How come you never came back?”
Isaac knew it was coming, but, still, he’s disappointed. Still, he curses himself for not locking himself away when he had the chance, for not making avoiding this conversation paramount. Isaac’s just grateful, then, that she doesn’t ask why he left in the first place, glad she doesn’t dig that deep. She’s clearly curious, and yet she’s only scratching the surface without drawing blood, only skirting the boundaries without breaking them entirely.
Isaac gives a non-answer of, “No one ever asked me to.”
He supposes it’s part of the truth, part of the reason. If Scott had texted him during that first month, when Isaac had just left and Kate was brought back from the proverbial dead, he would’ve gotten on the plane with Chris. He knows himself and he knows Scott’s influence, knows he never was able to turn away when Scott made it clear to him – or even just implied vaguely – that he needed Isaac, that he needed his help.
It happened during that lacrosse game in sophomore year, when Isaac was ready to run away with Erica and Boyd, when Scott so much at looked him with the smallest bit of longing, with the smallest bit of a question that he refused to ask. Isaac thinks Scott knew, even then. Isaac thinks Scott knew that, if he asked, Isaac would answer. Scott kept his mouth shut that day in the animal clinic, but it was enough, that glint in his eyes.
Scott didn’t ask him to stay, but Isaac did it anyway. Because Scott needed someone, because Scott needed him.
Maybe Scott knew and that’s why he never asked again, never sent him a text. Or maybe he didn’t know it all. Maybe they were never as close as Isaac thought they were, maybe Isaac was never as important to Scott as Scott was to him. Maybe that look in his eyes was just a reflection of the fluorescent lights above them. Maybe it was nothing, maybe Isaac stayed for something that was never there to begin with.
Scott never called, never texted, never once tried to contact Isaac after he left.
And sure, Isaac didn’t call or text either, but it’s… it’s different, somehow. It’s different because Isaac was thinking about it, preparing what he would say, readying himself to make that call. He was days away from doing it when Chris got that text that changed everything, when he left Isaac in France and went to Beacon Hills because Scott asked him to.
Isaac’s answer is at least a little true, but it’s cheap too and Malia knows that, fires back with, “Do you only ever do what people ask you?”
Isaac shrugs. Kind of, he thinks, but doesn’t say. That obedience was trained into him at a young age, and, though he no longer has the oppressive figure of his dad leering around every corner, peering over his shoulder, Isaac still feels him there. Isaac still doesn’t know how to act on his own, still doesn’t know how to be brave.
Malia seems to recognize that she isn’t going to get anything more out of him because she says, softly, “Scott talked about you sometimes.” And, absentmindedly, “Stiles did too.” Then, before Isaac can get caught up in those alarming details, she tacks on one even worse, “There was a freezer in the Argent bunker. We used it to recover our memories. Scott talked about you then, about an ice bath and hypnosis.”
Isaac hears her speaking, but his mind stops on freezer, stops on the image of Scott getting inside one. It floods his mind unbidden, transforms into the basement and the chains and Scott’s limbs tucked together to fit inside. It’s too much, this thought.
Malia is offering Isaac information, offering him an insight into the stories of the pack that he wasn’t there to witness. She’s offering exactly what he was fishing for that first night in the cemetery. She’s offering him a chance to know how important he actually was to the friends – and to the something more – that he left behind, to know how much he was mentioned and in what context. But, now that Isaac has it, he doesn’t want it. Now that the words are in the air, Isaac wants to suffocate them, wants to drown them out of existence.
Isaac pulls back his panic, though it’s difficult to do. He forces his mind away from the freezer and towards his anchor, towards Chris and ring daggers and silver arrowheads. Isaac holds the thought in his mind, heavy as it is to carry, and, slowly, the anxiety drains from his limbs and from the swirl of his brain. Slowly, Isaac opens his mouth and says, “Wanna get ice cream? Walk along the Seine?”
Malia blinks at him, pauses in her confusion. She must know that this is an avoidance tactic, a distraction, but she allows herself to be distracted. She must have her own reasons to want to not think about Beacon Hills because, easy as anything, she pushes to her feet and says, “Sure.”
—
Isaac is trying very hard to be chill about his space being invaded, infiltrated.
Isaac remembers Beacon Hills, remembers them accidentally running Malia out of her home – out of her den. He remembers, and, if Malia does too, she’s definitely not trying to learn from their mistakes. Rather, she’s acting on vengeance and making him suffer the way she had.
Isaac knows it’s probably not that pointed or calculated. He invited her here, after all. But, still, he’s struggling.
Isaac is used to being alone, is all. Isaac is used to his apartment smelling like it’s his, used to the place being quiet. Isaac is used to his space and his boundaries, used to giving them up only a few times a year for a week or two at a time. He is not used to people dropping by unannounced and staying for an undisclosed amount of time. He is not used to his visitor being another shifter. He’s not used to having a coyote in his home.
Isaac finds he has nothing against Malia personally. As the days drag on, he gets used to her dry humor and her blunt way of speaking. He gets used to her taking showers that are too long and waste all of his hot water. He gets used to making dinner for two instead of one, gets used to eating with her around the coffee table. He gets used to her and finds that he likes her, just a little. He finds that her company isn’t so bad.
However, he’s finding it a little more difficult to get used to fur in the living room and her scent everywhere.
It’s his wolf that’s the problem, Isaac thinks. It’s not a human angst he’s feeling, but, instead, something primal and animal, something instinctive in a wolf and a coyote trying to share space.
To combat it, Isaac cleans. Malia hasn’t even been here a week, and yet Isaac has cleaned the apartment more times than he has in the past two months. It’s incessant, the itch under his skin and the pacing animal within him, the stirring discomfort in his veins and the twitchy restlessness in his limbs. Isaac vacuums twice a day and is sure his neighbors, who he’s never had a problem with before, are starting to hate him. He cleans the bathroom and scolds Malia for leaving her hair on the shower wall. He washes his bedding twice, even though Malia hasn’t even come near it.
Isaac is trying so hard to be calm and rational, to be welcoming, to settle in Malia’s company and try to enjoy it while she’s still here. He’s trying so hard, but he didn’t know she was coming and he doesn’t know when she’s leaving and–
Isaac likes routine, likes plans, likes knowing the dates and deadlines. Isaac likes these things because these things give him the illusion of control, make him feel like he’s standing on the shoreline instead of desperately treading water like he is now, doing everything he can to keep his head above the waves.
Malia, if she notices Isaac’s antsy habits, doesn’t mention them. She probably thinks Isaac is always like this – uptight and neurotic. Maybe he is, Isaac doesn’t know. Malia doesn’t know him well enough to know if this is normal behavior or not, and Isaac doesn’t know himself well enough to have the answer either. Though, if he is like this all the time, it’s definitely worse now. It has to be, Isaac tells himself.
Isaac, despite it all, doesn’t snap at Malia, doesn’t ask her when she’s leaving. He’ll start questioning her next week, he decides. He’ll give her a few more days, and then he’ll get nosy and pushy and try to imply his need for his space and her need to get out of it. For now, though, he lets her stay. For now, though, he continues to clean more than he should, continues to be used to her human company but not her coyote.
For now, Isaac sucks it up and tries his hardest to be nice – as out of his nature as it feels.
—
Chris knows Isaac’s schedule – which he rarely ever deviates from – well enough now that he calls just as Isaac is leaving the apartment to walk to work, when he has enough time to chat as he walks along the river, alone in the dark with nothing but his thoughts to occupy him. Isaac answers because he doesn’t have an excuse not to, lets his phone trill and light up with the contact name of Father Figure for a good ten seconds before he caves with, “Hey, Chris.”
It’s afternoon back in California now, 2 PM compared to Isaac’s 11. They usually talk at times like this, when it’s a little more convenient for Chris than it is for Isaac, though he doesn’t mind it. He’s just glad to have Chris in his life at all, glad that he calls and visits and seems to care about Isaac even when he has no reason to. Isaac is eternally grateful for Chris, for his stupidity or bravery in bringing a grief stricken seventeen year old across the world, and then letting said teenager stay in his Parisian apartment all on his own. Isaac’s just grateful for the trust Chris had in him then and now.
“Hello, Isaac,” says Chris, and though he knows the answer, “headed to work?”
“Yes,” Isaac says. There’s a part of him that still wants to tack on sir, that still struggles with the sound of Chris’ voice and the dynamic between them – it’s not father and son, despite the joking contact name, but it’s close enough that Isaac can’t ignore those instincts entirely.
“How’s university?”
“Fine,” Isaac says, honest. Then, because he knows he has to tell Chris, knows he has to do it now or he’ll find excuses not to, knows keeping it to himself will betray the trust that Isaac didn’t ever do anything to really earn, that could be taken away from him at any moment, “Malia’s here.”
“Huh,” Chris says, faintly amused and curious, but not demanding for more information. “Well, I knew she was visiting Paris, but… it’s a big city, didn’t think to warn you.”
Isaac huffs a breath, nearly a scoff but closer to laughter. He’s not mad that Chris didn’t tell him, not at all. Chris must’ve figured he could save Isaac the pain, keep him in the dark.
Fate, though, had other plans.
Isaac could probably leave it at that, could probably get away with omitting the most vital of his information, but he doesn’t. Because, again, he owes Chris more than he can ever repay him. Because Chris is the only consistent presence in Isaac’s life and he can’t afford to lose that. And so, because it’s the right thing to do, Isaac adds, “She’s staying with me. In the guest bedroom.”
“Oh?” Chris intones, and there’s something shocked there, but it’s subdued, like he’s trying to hide it. Isaac gets it, gets where the surprise and the hesitancy come from. Isaac has been so adamant for so long about keeping his hands clean of Beacon Hills and, now, Malia shows up and he opens his door to her like it’s easy for him to do so – Chris knows it isn’t, though. Chris knows that Isaac doesn’t have friends here, doesn’t let people into his life. Chris knows him enough that he knows this is a big deal, but tries to downplay it for his sake.
It’s nice of him, but Isaac still explains anyway, says, “She showed up in the cemetery her first night in the city, didn’t have a hotel room lined up or anything, was planning to make a den in one of the mausoleums.”
Chris gives his own soft laugh in response, says, “That sounds like her.” Then, toeing the line, just barely crossing the thresholds of words that could make Isaac snap, he adds, “It might be good for you.”
Isaac knows what he means, knows full well what Chris thinks. Chris thinks it would be good for Isaac to have a pack again, to have friends, to stop running from Beacon Hills as fervently as he has been. He thinks Isaac needs closure.
Isaac also knows that Chris is probably right, but, for his own sanity, he deflects, “It’s a safety thing. She won’t be here long.”
Chris hums, probably doesn’t believe him, says, “Malia is a good kid. So are you.”
Isaac doesn’t know what he means by that, doesn’t know what implication lies between the words, but he doesn’t ask Chris for clarification, too busy trying not to fall apart at Chris thinking he’s a good kid, a good person. Instead, Isaac simply says, awkward, “Thanks.”
He’s getting close to the cemetery now, and Chris must know that because he says, “Take care of yourself, Isaac.”
“I will,” says Isaac in return.
They don’t say goodbye when they hang up, never really have. Isaac thinks it’s a superstitious kind of thing, an aftermath of the two of them and how much they’ve lost. Regardless, the call is left only with Isaac’s secret exposed and a promise hanging in the air. Regardless, Isaac walks the rest of the way to work in silence, feeling the barriers and the distance between Paris and Beacon Hills beginning to weaken and waver for the first time in two years.
—
It’s Chris’ fault, really, that this particular shift is one filled with introspection, with more thoughts than Isaac can handle. Usually, he zones in on the excavator beneath him and the smell of fresh dirt. Usually, Isaac loses himself in the task of digging graves, doesn’t pay attention to the new tombstones and the new names, just allows himself the quiet of the night and the quiet of his mind.
Tonight, of course, the workload is lighter and thoughts of Beacon Hills are closer to the surface. Tonight, of course, Isaac is thinking of that night in the Lahey family cemetery. The night that changed everything, the night he met Derek Hale, the night he was told about werewolves and offered the bite. Tonight, of course, Isaac is looking up at the stars and thinking of his mother, of the two of them on the hill behind the cemetery back home, of her hand pointing out the constellations above.
Isaac can’t picture her face very well, not in his memory at least. He’s seen enough photographs to memorize her features – tries to focus on the ones taken pre-cancer, the ones taken before she went frail and gaunt and sickly. He’s seen enough photographs to know she had curly hair just like his and just like Camden’s, but darker than their dirty blond. She had eyes darker too, not ice blue like their father, but honey brown and amber softness. He’s seen enough to trick his mind, to pretend that he can remember her well, but the truth is: he doesn’t.
The truth is: Isaac has three memories of his mother.
One, on the hill behind the cemetery, stargazing when Victor was working late and Camden was away at camp. When it was just the two of them, was just her hand pointing heavenward, just her finger tracing around Pisces and over Pegasus and further north to Ursa Minor.
Two, her hands ghosting over the keys of the piano in their living room, tickling “Clair de Lune” into existence. He remembers the hem of her floral skirt sitting at her ankles, remembers sitting at her feet and listening for hours while she played, while she brought soft music into their home, gentle melodies – lullabies – filling him up inside, turning him warm and sleepy.
Three, her hand in his, the cannula in her palm and the slow drip drip drip of medicine that wasn’t working, that wasn’t slowing the cancer or saving her life. He remembers looking at her skin, at the wrinkles of hands that were once so smooth and soft and young. He remembers not recognizing her, being almost… scared of her, in those last few days before she died.
Isaac doesn’t remember his mother well, but he thinks about her now. He’s not sure why, maybe because it’s easier than thinking about Derek and their broken pack and broken glass. Maybe because it’s easier to think about his life in Beacon Hills when it wasn’t full of monsters and demons, when it was full only of Camden’s crooked nose and crooked smile, his mother’s soft hands and soft music, and his father’s home cooking and home built happiness. It shouldn’t be easier. Isaac should think of that time and grieve it, should mourn his mother and his brother and his father, should miss the picture perfect family they almost were, they almost could’ve been.
Isaac should look back at that time with remorse and regret, but, instead, it’s only relief that he feels. Relief in the notion that, at one time, Isaac had something normal. He can barely remember it, but it still happened, it still happened to him. To Isaac, who is so used to being surrounded by tragedy and death and sadness.
It’s not hope that Isaac feels, it’s not tied to some idea of life being that way again, because he knows it won’t be – can’t be. Everything that happened after his mother’s death will never go away, will never unhappen. Isaac will always have this tragedy and death and sadness that surrounds him, from now until the end of his days, but the start of his days, the beginnings…
They weren’t like this.
Isaac finds some peace in that, in the dark of the graveyard and the sky above. Isaac finds some peace in the memory of his mother, the memory of the way she loved him, even if he can’t remember her face.
—
Malia wants to see more art, wants to see more of Paris, so Isaac takes her to Musée Marmottan Monet. It’s a little selfish in his curiosity, in his memory of Coquelicots and the emotion it stirred within him. Malia doesn’t seem to mind though, excited by any prospect of tourist attractions and perhaps excited that Isaac is sharing in her infectious wondering and wandering. Perhaps she knows that Isaac is taking her here out of his own interest, and perhaps she’s glad for it.
Malia points at some of the paintings, some of Monet’s most famous works, and says, “I like all the water lilies.”
“Nymphéas,” Isaac corrects, slipping into French and the translation.
Malia repeats it back to him, a little clumsy in her pronunciation, but smiling around the edges. Isaac nods in his approval, despite the small mistakes, and Malia’s grin grows. She disappears further into the exhibit then, though Isaac can still hear her mumbling the word, lips trailing over it, memorizing it and reciting it.
Isaac’s lips twitch, a little fond, but he suppresses it in favor of following after her, in seeing more art, more depictions of nature in soft colors and brush strokes that enchant, that draw Isaac in and make his breath catch in his throat. Isaac hasn’t taken an art class since he was in high school, since the one he shared with Allison and Lydia, but walking through this museum makes him want to start again, makes him want to sign up for one next semester, makes his fingers itch with some energy inside him – something waking that’s been dormant and hibernating for so long.
Isaac stops in front of Bras de Seine Près de Giverny, Soleil Levant. It’s not the same stretch of the river that Isaac walks beside nearly every day, not when Giverny is at least an hour outside of Paris, but it’s close enough that Isaac recognizes it at once. He recognizes the reflection of the water and what it’s like to walk along the Seine at sunrise, coming home from a night of digging graves, watching the river tint with shades of purple and pink before fading to its usual green-ish blue – a temporary painting of its own, the brushstrokes of the sun giving Isaac a private show as the rest of Paris sleeps.
Isaac drinks in the painting, but doesn’t linger as long as he did before, doesn’t make Malia come find him and doesn’t let her get too far away from him. When her scent begins to fade and her footsteps gain their distance, Isaac peels himself from the painting and follows her down another hallway, leaves this artwork behind to find more, to be granted with more and more beauty.
Eventually, after almost two hours inside, Isaac and Malia tire. They make their way back to the entrance, but stop in the gift shop for just a moment before stepping back into the hot Paris sun – autumn not having yet settled in the weather. Isaac doesn’t buy anything here, too expensive considering he’s currently shopping for two everywhere else, but he browses and, entirely by accident, spots a sign on the glass counter that reads: Embauche.
Hiring.
Isaac’s not sure what comes over him, but, when Malia isn’t paying attention, he speaks in French to the attendant, gets an application and folds it into the pocket of his jeans, leaving with a, “merci beaucoup,” called behind him when Malia snags his wrist and drags him out.
Isaac’s too distracted to be impressed by the fact that he doesn’t flinch.
—
When Isaac wakes the next day, stumbling out of bed to get ready for his morning class, he’s instantly aware that Malia isn’t in the apartment. It’s not hard to realize when she brings with her a constant litany of noise, nothing loud or annoying, but just the soft sounds of another person, just her breathing or her heart rate or her rustling around in the kitchen, just the things that can’t be ignored when Isaac is a werewolf with heightened hearing. But, this morning, on Malia’s eighth day in Paris, the apartment is silent. Besides Isaac’s own breath and heartbeats, the apartment is quiet and empty.
Isaac rushes out of his room and checks, just to be sure, but, as promised, Malia’s room – Isaac wonders faintly when it became hers and not the guest room – is empty and so is the living room and kitchen. Malia isn’t here, but her stuff is. Which means she hasn’t up and left for good without a warning or a goodbye, but it does mean that she’s not here, that she’s gone off on her own, maybe for the first time since Isaac allowed her to stay. Though, also, maybe not. Isaac never assumed that she spent her time during his classes cooped up waiting for his return, so maybe she’s just getting an early start. Maybe Isaac should stop his brain from jumping to the worst possible scenario.
But, of course, Isaac’s life always ends with the worst possible scenario. His mother, Camden, his father, Erica, Boyd, Allison. When Isaac is involved, it’s always death. His paranoia is always validated, always vindicated.
Isaac should’ve left Malia alone, he’s realizing that now.
Though she seemed entirely clueless when she arrived, though she seemed like she needed his help, she didn’t. Isaac has realized that too, has realized that independence is Malia’s default state, that she doesn’t need him to guide her, just maybe wanted some company, to not be alone. She might not know Paris, might not know the territory of the packs and how to not piss off the hunters here, but she knows how to take care of herself – Isaac is sure of it, it must be true of someone who survived as a coyote in Beacon Hills for eight years.
Isaac should’ve left her alone.
He shouldn’t have tried to do the good, right, moral thing. He should know by now that it never turns out good, right, moral when it’s him. He should know that his presence is more dangerous than what lingers outside of the walls of this apartment, should know that Malia would be safer without him.
Isaac should’ve left her alone, shouldn’t have allowed himself to get attached to her, to her company, to her being in his space. Because now she’s gone and she could be hurt and Isaac is going to have to grieve her, going to have to grieve another friend that, really, he hardly knows at all, that, really, he has no claim to – same as Boyd and Allison and maybe even Erica too.
Isaac should’ve known better, but, then again, he’s repeated this same mistake so many times now that he must be insane. Didn’t Derek mention it once, didn’t he say something of predictability, didn’t he punish Isaac for it? Didn’t he try to warn Isaac of this?
Isaac doesn’t remember, can’t think with the way he’s freaking out, but then there’s a knock on the door and everything falls away. Isaac rushes to open it, to unclick the latch and reveal Malia standing at the top of the stairwell with a white paper bag in one hand and a drink tray in another. She’s smiling, holding up her treats like they’re the spoils of victory, but, quickly, her expression drops. She leans closer to him, like she’s sniffing the air, and asks, “Why do you smell like anxiety?”
Isaac opens the door more fully and lets her in, doesn’t answer her question because it’s embarrassing. Malia doesn’t tell him where she’s going one time – and it’s probably happened a dozen times before, he was just unaware, just none the wiser – and Isaac freaks out, loses his composure and assumes that she’s dead. Because that’s Isaac’s life, that’s how things go for him, but Malia doesn’t need to know that, doesn’t need to understand his tragedies more than she already does (what exactly she knows about his past, Isaac isn’t sure but he’s starting to think he wants to keep it that way, starting to think he doesn’t want to know what she knows – ignorance is bliss and all).
Malia huffs when he doesn’t answer, but lets it go, instead holding up her bag and her drink tray, to say, “Look what I did! I got breakfast!”
“Did you order in French?” Isaac asks, because it’s easier to just let the paranoia fall away, to not get stuck in starting off his day in such a wrong and terrible way. It’s easier to take one of the drinks from the tray and sip it, even though he knows it’s coffee and he hates the taste of it. Malia got it for him, so it’s easier to accept it than deny it.
Malia shakes her head, says, “No. I just pointed at stuff, but still!”
Isaac smiles at her, lets her walk into the kitchen to open the white bag of pastries, lets her hand him a pain au chocolat. Isaac lets himself breathe, taking in her scent and the sweet patisserie and strong coffee. Isaac lets himself move forward and indulge before class, glad Malia is okay and, surprising himself, glad she’s here at all.
—
Isaac walks home from class later that afternoon, walks along the Seine, the one place in this city that he’d actually admit to knowing well. In the two years that Isaac has lived here, he’s walked along its bank more times than he’s been anywhere else, that much he’s sure of. He walks at its side to work each week and, now with classes starting at the university, he goes out of his way to find its sidewalks to mark his path.
Before all of that though, before working and before university, Isaac used to sit on a bench and watch the water lap at the stone wall that lines the river’s edge, used to sit and talk – to himself, more than anyone else, idle in his lack of company. He doesn’t remember what he used to say, doesn’t remember the looks he used to get from Paris locals, but he remembers holding Allison’s ring dagger in his hand, the sharp blade dragging over his palm. He remembers that he’d just talk, just to let it all out of his head, just to be free from it all for those fleeting moments, sitting on this branch of the Seine.
It’s a weird time to think about now, looking back on the loneliness that was inherent for Isaac, that pushed him to speaking to himself or to a river. It’s even worse now that Malia is here to be spoken to instead. She’d probably make fun of him if he revealed this old habit of his, lighthearted but still scathing.
And yet, even with her here to fill the silence, Isaac still ends up at the Seine most days anyway, still ends up walking beside it.
He does so now, remembers the painting at Musée Marmottan Monet and almost wishes it was sunrise or sunset, wishes he could see the day ending or beginning, reflecting like a work of art in the water of the river. But it’s mid-afternoon and the sun is stagnant and hot, so, on a whim, Isaac ducks into a bookstore – a stone building with a red awning, right next to a café – to escape it, just for a little while.
It’s quiet inside but not silent, mostly empty with the fact that it’s the middle of the week and most Parisians will be at work or school. There’s a young girl behind the counter – her name tag reads with Manon – who greets him with a soft, “Bonjour.”
“Bonjour,” Isaac returns, ducking into the shelves to avoid being asked if he needs assistance or if he’s looking for anything in particular.
Isaac doesn’t intend to buy anything, is the thing. He intends to browse the shelves, trail his fingers over the spines of books, and dip back into the scalding heat when the sun has dipped a little too.
But, of course, intentions don’t often mean much. But, of course, Isaac finds something he can’t turn away from, a glossy spine unlike the ones around it that are matte or leatherbound, a spine that reads with, “l’art et la vie de Claude Monet.”
Isaac takes it from the shelf, hands more gentle than he really has any reason to be, leafing through the pages interspersed with stories about his life and prints of his paintings. Among the pictures is the one of the Seine, and Isaac knows he can’t turn away from this book, knows he’ll be leaving with it.
Still, Isaac browses a little longer, lingers a little more than he should, until, eventually, he greets Manon at the counter and pays for the book, thanks her as she passes the bag into his hand, leaves with a chiming of the door’s bell above his head.
—
Isaac doesn’t mean to do it, doesn’t mean to shut himself in his room and read the whole book in one sitting, but it happens anyway. Something about Monet’s appreciation of Paris and Giverny and the nature and beauty of the city Isaac has been ignoring for two years… it ignites something inside him, makes him tear through pages and tear over words, reading faster than he ever does when he’s reading for school.
Isaac doesn’t mean to do it, but he ends up stopping on a painting of Camille, Monet’s first wife, on her deathbed. Isaac doesn’t mean to come to a total standstill, to pause in the face of her gaunt and haunting beauty, but he does it anyway. He traces his fingers over the print, the way he couldn’t do to the paintings in the museum, no matter how much he wanted to.
At first, Isaac thinks of his mother, thinks of Julia Lahey dying only two years older than Camille. At first, he thinks of them both lost to cancer, thinks of the parallels drawn between this painting and his mother in her hospital bed. At first, Isaac thinks of a tragedy that feels like ancient history, the tragedy of Camille Doncieux and Julia Lahey.
But then, Isaac thinks of Allison.
It’s a mistake, he knows. It’s a mistake to let his mind go there, to allow himself to think about her, but he can’t help himself. Reading about Camille and about Alice and about Monet, about the three of them and the history of jealousy and affairs, he can’t stop his mind from straying, to drifting to a triangle of his own.
The affair should sour Isaac’s opinion of Monet, his view of his paintings – especially this one – but it doesn’t. Maybe because Isaac understands, just a little. Maybe because Isaac understands Monet turning away from Camille and falling in love with someone else. Or maybe he doesn’t actually understand, maybe that’s just the wishful thinking talking, just what Isaac wants, just the part of Isaac that he could never quite get to quiet down, the part of him that wanted more from Scott than friendship and pack mates and alpha beta dynamics.
Maybe Isaac doesn’t have an unbiased perspective here, but he thinks of Monet and Scott, thinks of them losing their first wife or first love so young, thinks of them living to old age after her death… and Isaac wants both of them to be happy, to have the chance to move on.
It’s tragic for someone this special, someone as talented as Monet or as strong as Scott, to have to live on without a muse or a person to protect, without someone to love in the way of immortalizing them.
Because that’s how Scott McCall loves, Isaac knows. Even without ever feeling it for himself, without ever being loved by him, Isaac can still remember how time stood still when Allison and Scott looked at each other. Isaac can still remember Oak Creek, how he held her in his arms and pleaded with her to stay, to let him take the pain and the burden for himself. He remembers Allison’s dying words, remembers her telling Scott that she would always love him.
She died in love with him, and that kind of love never goes away. That kind of love goes on forever, stained in the ground of Oak Creek right alongside the crimson of Allison’s blood.
Scott didn’t say it back, as she faded from his arms, but Isaac knows he felt it too. He knows Scott will always be in love with Allison as she will always be in love with him, but that doesn’t mean Scott can’t love again, doesn’t mean he can’t find happiness in someone else’s touch, heart, arms.
Isaac wants that for him, wants Scott to get away from Beacon Hills and all that it has taken from him. Isaac wants Scott to be happy, even though that means they’ll probably never see each other again, even though that means Isaac will never know how it feels to be loved by Scott McCall.
Isaac’s made peace with that, he thinks. He’s made peace with what could’ve been between them dying as Allison did. He’s made peace with the fact that he’s too close to the fire, too close to Oak Creek not to burn Scott, not to be tainted and poisoned in his own right. But, still, he lingers on this painting longer than he should. Still, he traces Camille’s expression with his fingertips, heart in his throat and tears in his eyes. Still, he allows himself this moment to think about how things could’ve been if Isaac had stayed or if Scott had ever called him. Still, he allows himself this reminder of his mother and Allison and everything else that was lost in Beacon Hills – not just the people who died or who he’s no longer in contact with, but the future that could’ve been but never would be.
Isaac allows himself this one moment, this one longing for someone he hasn’t spoken to in two years. And then, he turns the page and tries to move on, but, as is true of him running away to Paris and never picking up the phone, it’s not that easy. Moving on is something Isaac still hasn’t done. His heart is still with Scott in Oak Creek, still left to bleed out on the pavement as the loss of Allison changed everything, broke something inside them that couldn’t be fixed.
Isaac hopes that Alice was happy. He hopes that she knew how lucky she was to get the guy, even if she was always second best to Camille, even if she isn’t immortalized in the same way. Because even if Isaac was wracked with jealousy, even if he was always less than a love that will be echoing through the universe until the end of time, even if he was always second choice… it would still be better than this, better than the nothing he was dealt.
Isaac would be happy with any of Scott’s love, even if it was only a fraction of what Allison received. And yet, he will never get any of it, that much he’s sure of.
—
There’s a knock on his bedroom door, but Malia doesn’t wait to be welcomed. Isaac isn’t surprised anymore, is starting to get to know her and understand her a little better. She knocks because she’s supposed to and because it’s polite, but she doesn’t care enough to wait for his answer, just sticks her head through the door and says, “What the hell is wrong with you today?”
No build up, no explanation, just goes right in for the kill.
Isaac closes the book that still sits on his lap, lets it fall shut and tries to leave his pain within the pages. He’s sure it won’t actually work, but the illusion of closure has always been enough for him anyway, enough that he plays dumb with, “What?” And, “Nothing?”
Malia rolls her eyes impressively, says, “You’re stinking up the entire apartment. Stop it.”
She’s not kind or gentle about it, but, still, she’s here. She’s not reassuring or finding out what’s wrong, not offering him any help in the form of silken words. She’s all harsh edges and demanding, but, still, she’s here. Still, she’s here to interrupt his moping, his melancholy. Still, she opens the door and asks, still she tells him to stop and Isaac actually wants to listen to her, actually wants to obey, wants to do as he’s told.
For the first time in a long time, Isaac has somebody around to notice.
Sure, Chris visits every once in a while and calls when he can, but he’s not around enough to be there for the low moments. Isaac puts on a chipper facade when Chris is around, and, if Isaac were hedging bets, he’d say that Chris is doing the same, that they’re playing a game of who can act best, who can pretend with the most believability. Though, Isaac thinks, they’re neck and neck, both too practiced in the skill to not be gold medal champions in hiding things from the people who care about them most. So, yeah, Chris visits and cares, but Chris doesn’t see him like this, isn’t exposed to an Isaac who is so down, isn’t there to pick him up.
But Malia is here, and she’s not being nice about it, but she’s doing it anyway. She’s dragging Isaac out of his head and into the present moment, asking him, “Dinner?”
Isaac hasn’t had anyone to help him in a long time, hasn’t had anyone to keep him afloat for years now.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” says Isaac, and he really means it.
Malia nods, leaves him alone and closes the door behind her, leaves him to pull himself together that last bit more. Isaac keeps the book closed and sets it on top of the bookshelf that’s full with more of Chris’ things than his, lets it rest there to maybe be coated in dust or maybe to be picked up again in a day two – Isaac isn’t sure yet. He isn’t sure if it’s worth the agony, exploring this city and letting himself get attached to it. He isn’t sure if it’s worth the application that’s still in the pocket of his jeans, discarded and hanging over the back of a chair. He isn’t sure if it’s worth it to try to build a life here when it could all be taken from him as it was in Beacon Hills. He isn’t sure yet, but he’s not saying no yet either.
Isaac thinks that’s a win, thinks that’s something he can be okay with for now.
For now, Isaac gets himself out of bed and enters the kitchen, fishing around for ingredients and something to make since they can’t do another night of takeout, not if his budget is going to survive Malia staying with him a while longer – and Isaac’s starting to hope for that, starting to hope that she won’t leave just yet.
It’s a dangerous thing – hope. Isaac knows it, knows the risks, but Malia’s arrival in this town has awakened something in him that Isaac doesn’t want to put to rest again. She’s made him feel more alive than he has in years, less hollow and more filling up, finding himself in paintings on the walls of museums, breakfasts shared in the morning, and walks along the Seine.
Malia is here now and Isaac’s starting to not only be resigned and used to it, but to like it, to appreciate it.
And so, Isaac makes dinner for two and they eat around the coffee table, watching TV in a language only one of them can understand. And Isaac thinks that maybe, just for a moment, he can have this, can have something besides loneliness and literal graveyard shifts. He thinks that maybe he can allow himself a life that’s a little less empty and a little closer to full.
—
It’s been two weeks since Malia’s arrival in Paris, and, finally, Isaac is starting to embrace their routine, starting to enjoy their time together. It’s been two weeks and Isaac was supposed to be thinking about telling her to leave now – that was the deadline he gave her around day six – but, now, he wants to ask her to stay forever. It’s odd, when they still barely know each other, when they’re still in the early stages of acquaintance, only just beginning to slip into friendship. It’s odd that Isaac is already so attached to her, but it’s Malia.
It’s Malia who Isaac helped bring back to human. It’s Malia whose name brought them hope before The Battle of Oak Creek. It’s Malia who is so connected to Isaac’s life before, his life back in Beacon Hills, but who he never met there. She’s just distanced enough that they can start something new, something beyond the things they went through under the tug of the nemeton – the things they went through mostly separately, but a little bit together too.
There’s just enough shared experience between them that they’ve almost entirely skipped that awkward phase, jumped right into being roommates despite the fact that Isaac hasn’t let anyone close since Oak Creek, only let Chris in because he didn’t have a choice, because Isaac’s walls were so thin from grief and Chris was his only way out of that town.
There’s just enough between them that Isaac let her stay with him, just enough that Isaac didn’t turn a blind eye, just enough that he tried, despite himself, to be nice.
And, now, that one decision in the graveyard, that one coincidence, has brought Isaac to a point that he never thought he would reach: one where he can think about Beacon Hills without wanting to scream like Lydia, without shutting down completely, without wrapping his pain in the armor of leather jackets and the security of bank vaults. Isaac has reached a point where he wants Malia to stay, even if they’re only just beginning to be friends. Isaac knows it won’t be permanent, but he’s attached to her now and he wants to maintain this routine of theirs a little longer, wants to hold onto this as long as he can, as long as she will let him.
So, of course, the next morning things go wrong. The next morning, the routine breaks.
After the first time Malia went to get them breakfast, a habit formed. Every time Isaac has class in the morning, Malia goes out to a patisserie, practices her French and brings back coffee that Isaac won’t drink and pastries that he will eat. He should probably tell her about the coffee thing, but he doesn’t want to complicate her order and, also, it’s happened too many times to correct her now, enough for it to be a proper routine, enough for Isaac to be expecting it when he wakes up and Malia isn’t there, enough for him to be waiting to hear her key in the door. (He gave her his spare, just for convenience. It doesn’t mean anything.)
Isaac goes about his morning on autopilot, waiting for Malia to come back, to bring with her sweet treats and bitter drinks.
But, when her key hits the door, when it twists open, she brings with her something else instead. She comes back not with a drink tray and a white paper bag in her hands, but with blood pooling on her temple and her frame dripping with exertion. She’s panting for breath, heart beating like crazy, bringing a strong scent, not of coffee, but the drying, metallic, burning copper of blood.
Isaac knows then, as soon as he sees her, that their tentative peace has been broken. He knows immediately that he’s going to have to call someone.
Someone in Beacon Hills.