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Isaac comes back different.
At first Scott thinks it’s just him, like maybe he did something to inadvertently make Isaac more guarded, but when he shares his concerns with Stiles, Stiles thinks for a moment, then nods.
“Now that you mention it, yeah,” he says. “I thought it was just Isaac being Isaac, but you’re right, it is kind of weird.”
“Thank God,” Scott says, relieved. And then he frowns. “Do you think something happened? Should I talk to him?”
Stiles shrugs and says, “I wouldn’t bring it up first. If he hasn’t said anything, that means he probably doesn’t want to talk about it. If I were you I’d wait for him to say something. At least for a little bit.”
So Scott leaves it alone.
Well, he leaves it mostly alone. Anyway, Isaac mostly acts normal. It’s a dream come true having him back in the house, hovering around him and his mom (and Argent, now — Scott doesn’t think he’s admitted it yet, but he’s practically moved in) like he never left. They dust off their old habits and by the end of the week they’re back in a practiced routine; the extra sheets go through the laundry and then take up occupancy on the guest bedroom mattress, and mostly, it’s business as usual.
But not entirely.
Scott tries chalking it up to jet lag, or the adjustment period between living presumably alone in France and moving back in with the McCalls. Instead of falling asleep slumped into each other on the couch, Isaac starts making the sluggish trek back to his room, no matter how late it is, no matter how much easier it would be to just sleep on the sofa. When jet lag stops making sense as an excuse, Scott figures it has to do with the fact that sleeping in a bed is infinitely comfier than a couch. It’s weird, sure — Isaac never used to have an issue with dozing off in front of the TV, head drooping onto Scott’s shoulder — but not weird enough to raise the alarms.
Then it happens in Scott’s room.
It’s past midnight by the time the movie ends. They had to pull it up on Netflix so Scott’s laptop is balancing on his knees. Isaac’s endless legs are askew beside Scott’s, and their shoulders are pressed together every inch. Scott can hear Isaac’s heartbeat starting to slow just as the credits begin to roll.
Carefully, he closes the tab and shuts the lid of his computer. Isaac makes an incoherent mumbling noise.
“Yeah,” Scott says, nodding. “I agree. It is time to sleep.”
Isaac says something like, “N’guh mabeh.”
“I liked it too,” Scott says. “C’mon, get under the covers, I’ll get the lights.”
But then Isaac groans and sits up. “No, I’m…goin’ to my room.”
“You can stay,” Scott says, doing his best to make it sound like an open invitation and not a plea. He would like for Isaac to stay, but anyway Isaac seems pretty comfortable right now, so keeping him here would be wins across the board. “Just sleep here.”
“No,” Isaac says, waking up a little more with every adamant refusal. He shakes his head and grips the comforter, swaying. “No, no. I’m going.”
“Why?” Scott asks, before he can help himself. This is officially weird enough to ask. Isaac has slept in Scott’s bed more times than Scott can count; it’s a pack thing, he thinks, or a werewolf thing, or maybe just a them thing, but it’s definitely a thing, and Scott doesn’t see why that would have changed.
Isaac looks up at him with sleepy ocean eyes, then looks away. “I, um, I still get nightmares, and I wouldn’t want to wake you.”
You had nightmares before, Scott wants to say, I’m used to it, but he can’t figure out a way to say it nicely. He also can’t figure out how to say once upon a time I helped you with that without sounding arrogant.
“Oh,” is all he says. “Well, um, I don’t really mind. I have them too,” he offers nervously. “Sometimes it helps if someone else is there.”
You taught me that.
Isaac shakes his head. “No, it— I can handle them. Just don’t want to, like, slash your face in my sleep or. Whatever.”
He chuckles awkwardly, and Scott, at a loss, does the same.
“Okay,” he says. Isaac appears to wrench himself free from the soporific grasp of Scott’s blanket. His feet land hard on the floor, and he tries to straighten up, all six foot something like the leaning tower of Pisa. “You good?”
“Only need to be awake for like ten steps,” Isaac mumbles. “I’m good.”
You know, Scott wants to say, if you would just sleep here you wouldn’t have to be awake at all. He imagines the disheveled mess of Isaac’s golden curls splayed across his pillow. It’s an old memory, faded with time. It could use an update.
Although clearly Isaac disagrees. Scott doubts he’d been lying about the nightmares, but he can also tell there’s more to the story. Nightmares are a convenient excuse. Scott wonders what Isaac is hiding, and then hates himself for wondering. Isaac is entitled to his privacy.
He just never used to want any.
But it’s been a long time since they were in high school together. Isaac lived in France, Scott has to remind himself. Two years overseas, largely alone if what little Isaac has shared is any indication, might change a person.
Of course. Isaac is probably used to sleeping alone. Maybe he just did it so much he grew accustomed to having his own space to stretch out.
But then why would he lie? Doesn’t he think Scott would understand?
Scott sighs when he hears the door to Isaac’s room down the hall click shut, and sets about getting ready for bed himself.
They’re ten minutes into their patrol when Isaac stiffens. Scott immediately follows suit.
“You hear something?”
Isaac shakes his head and looks back at Scott, grim. “Caught a scent,” he says. “You don’t smell that?”
It hits Scott after a second and he wrinkles his nose. “Wolfsbane.”
“Hunters,” says Isaac.
“Maybe.” Probably. “But shouldn’t we be able to smell them?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Isaac growls. “I’m not letting any hunters get the drop on me.”
“But it might not be hunters.”
“Who else carries wolfsbane? Even if it’s not hunters, I doubt they’re looking to befriend the local werewolves.” Isaac starts forward with renewed purpose.
“Isaac, wait. It could be dangerous.”
“Yeah, that’s why we’re gonna handle it before it becomes a real threat.”
“Just— hold on!” Scott says. Failing to stall Isaac, he hurries after him. “Okay, look, if it is dangerous, can we at least make a plan?”
“I have a plan,” Isaac says without pausing. “Stop them.”
“You don't want to call for backup?”
“I can handle it,” Isaac says. “If you want to go for backup, be my guest.”
He's not stopping. Scott jogs to catch up and grabs Isaac's arm. “ Isaac.”
Isaac turns to him. His face is set and severe, but he says, “What?”
“You're being reckless,” Scott says, and Isaac opens his mouth to argue so Scott holds a finger up to it. “But if you think I'm letting you handle this alone, you don't know me very well.”
Isaac sighs. It's hard to tell what kind of sigh it is, relieved or exasperated or what. “Okay.” He jerks his chin. “The scent is stronger that way.”
They take off deeper into the woods, Scott at Isaac's heel.
By the time they can hear heartbeats, they're too late. Gunfire rings out, and Scott and Isaac dive to opposite sides to evade it.
It's a blur after that.
Scott roars as he shifts, and Isaac roars back. There are only two hunters — have they not heard of Scott's pack, Scott wonders; don't they know this area is defended? — so Scott tackles the trigger-happy one, leaving Isaac to incapacitate the tall one. It shouldn't be hard, but they fight well. Trigger-Happy gets off more than a couple shots; nothing hits Scott, but he worries about the path of the stray bullets. There's a lot of grunting and growling from Isaac's side of things. Scott wrestles the gun from Trigger-Happy’s hands and knocks her out with it.
Breathing hard, Scott turns toward Isaac just in time to see the other hunter fall. There's sudden silence in the forest. Scott approaches Isaac, whose back is to him, and says, “We should go. There might be others.” Isaac shakes his head, still facing away. “Are you hurt?”
Again, Isaac shakes his head, his shoulders rising and falling with his breath.
“Isaac, come on,” Scott says urgently, pulling Isaac’s shoulder to spin him around. Isaac starts a protest but it dies as their eyes meet, and anything Scott was going to say dies, too.
He’s looking at the Isaac he knows and loves, and his eyes are a bright, searing blue.
Scott’s stomach bottoms out. He doesn't mean to look this stunned, but he can't help it.
“You…your eyes.”
“Yeah,” Isaac says curtly. “Surprise.”
It comes out more grave than a death sentence.
Scott tries hard to school his expression into one of nonjudgmental interest, rather than abject shock. All of Isaac’s confusing behavior suddenly makes sense. Something did happen in France. By the looks of it, something big.
“So this is why you wouldn’t sleep with me.” Scott winces. “I mean…you didn’t want to have nightmares around me in case you shifted?”
Isaac ducks his head. When he lifts it again, his eyes are back to their familiar, human shade of blue. There’s desperation etched into the lines of his face, like he wants to beg Scott for forgiveness without admitting that forgiveness is what he needs. All of Scott’s heartstrings are pulled taut.
“What happened?” Scott asks gently.
Isaac shoves his hands in his pockets. Then he takes them out and crosses his arms. “I killed someone. Simple as that.”
“I don’t believe it’s as simple as that,” Scott says in a low voice, one he hopes sounds soothing and not patronizing.
Isaac huffs, looking intently at a spot roughly a foot over Scott’s left shoulder and shifting his weight in obvious discomfort. “There was this hunter that wouldn’t stop pursuing me. I thought I lost him after he didn’t show up for a while, but then I came home after work one night and — he was there, and he had my roommate hostage. My best friend. With a gun to his head.”
Isaac closes his eyes then, tensing like he’s reliving it in his mind. This is the first Scott has heard of a roommate in France, much less a best friend. A bubble of envy rises in his chest at the thought of Isaac with someone new whom he loved like a best friend, but it quickly bursts. Waste of energy.
“He had no idea why,” Isaac continues, “he didn’t know I was a werewolf — he was terrified. I— I didn’t have time to think, to make a plan, I just, I knew that if I didn’t do something he would pull that trigger and I would lose my best friend, so I shifted, I roared, I caught them off-guard, and then I attacked. I tried to maim, not kill, but I was so angry, too angry, I’ve had less control since I became an omega — not that that’s an excuse,” he adds stumblingly, beseechingly, “but I just— I didn’t mean to kill him, I didn’t mean to. But I did it.”
With his head hung low, Isaac makes himself far smaller than his lanky frame should allow. Scott fights the urge to reach out. He gets the feeling any such action right now would harm more than help.
“And then what?”
Isaac swallows hard. “He couldn’t look at me the same. It was bad enough with the werewolf thing, but add that to the fact that he watched me kill someone— he knew I did it to save his life, but it— it was never the same after that.” He breathes out, and it’s bitter. “Eventually I moved away just so he wouldn’t have to.”
“That’s why you didn’t say anything,” Scott says softly.
“I knew it would change things,” Isaac says, bowing his head again like he’s trying to hide his eyes, like maybe Scott will forget. “And I didn’t want them to change.”
“It doesn’t have to change things.”
“Yes, it does. You have that look.”
“What look?”
“Like…you want to forgive me, but you can’t, because I broke the golden rule,” Isaac says morosely. “We don’t kill people.”
“That’s— what— that’s not— did you really think I wouldn’t understand?” Scott yanks at his hair, frustrated. “Do you know how many members of my pack have blue eyes? You know if Stiles were a werewolf, he’d have blue eyes too?” This seems to give Isaac pause. Good. Scott barrels onward, with feeling: “We don’t have rules in the pack. We try to save as many people as we can. Operative word being try. Sometimes we fail. Sometimes our hand is forced. And sometimes—”
His self-restraint reaches its breaking point and he reaches out anyway, putting a hand on Isaac’s arm. Isaac looks like he’s being branded.
“Sometimes there’s nothing we can do but feel sorry and be better next time,” Scott says, his voice thick with emotion. “Of course I forgive you. There’s nothing to even forgive.”
Isaac gnaws on his lip. He hasn’t moved away from Scott’s touch, though, which is a step in the right direction.
“I don’t want you to think that this is conditional upon you…following some set of rules, or being some kind of person,” Scott says, crestfallen at the idea. “I already know who you are. I know you, Isaac. And I know how hard you try. To save people. That’s all we can do. Just try.”
“But you never fail,” Isaac says hoarsely.
A sigh coming from somewhere deeper and more vast than Scott’s body escapes through his mouth.
“I believe every life is worth saving,” he tells Isaac. “I believe everyone is capable of changing for the better, but…sometimes I wonder if sparing someone doesn’t just doom someone else down the line.”
Isaac knits his brow.
“Gerard…” Scott breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth. Staving off the helplessness that plagues him at the thought of every casualty that could have been prevented if Scott had just killed Gerard when he had the chance. A man who chooses when to abide his principles has no principles at all, Deaton once told him, to reassure him, but it hadn’t done much. Scott’s goal has always been to save as many people as possible. One cruel, sadistic old man for the hundreds of innocent lives his influence had taken — how do Scott’s principles justify that choice? What do the families of so many dead care about Scott’s principles?
“Gerard wasn’t your fault.”
“The fact that he was alive to get to Monroe is,” Scott says mechanically. “I have to live with that knowledge. But Isaac, the people who love me forgive me for that. Because they know I did the best that I could, and that I’m trying to do better.”
“I didn’t do the best I could,” Isaac says.
“Yes,” Scott says firmly. “You did. And it doesn’t matter what you did — it matters what you do. I’m not the one who needs to forgive you, Isaac.”
Silence. Scott’s hand is still on Isaac’s arm, so he lets it fall, though what he really wants is to tighten his grip, to pull Isaac closer, to promise that it doesn’t matter to him and beg him to let them go back to normal. Whatever normal means for them. He misses playful roughhousing and sharing beds and helping each other through nightmares. He misses Isaac.
It takes a minute for Isaac to reply. When he does, it’s just to say, “We should deal with these guys.”
“I’ll call Argent,” Scott says. “Isaac. Look at me.” Isaac doesn’t. “Please?”
That does it. Isaac lifts his tortured eyes. The afterimage of that icy blue glow is imprinted on Scott’s brain, but now that he’s over the shock, it’s not an unpleasant memory.
“Just promise me you’ll try,” he says.
“Try what?”
“To forgive yourself.” Scott apprehensively touches Isaac’s shoulder. “I want you to feel like you can trust me. Nothing you could say or do would make me want you out of my life. You’re my—” Oh, man. His what, exactly? “You’re pack.”
Isaac raises his eyebrows. “But I left. And I broke the rule.”
“We just talked about this.” Scott crosses his arms. “You’ve always been a part of my pack, Isaac. That’ll never change, no matter how far you go or what you do.”
Trigger-Happy Hunter stirs. Isaac whips around and kicks her in the head, and she collapses again.
“Okay,” he says. There’s a strain in the word, like he’s having trouble believing it.
“Okay,” Scott repeats. “So…you won’t lie anymore because you’re afraid of how I’ll react?”
“I don’t have any more secrets,” Isaac says, spreading his hands. A trace of familiar sarcasm is weaving its way back into his voice, which is a good sign. “That was kind of the big one.”
“Good,” Scott says. “No more secrets, then. Starting now.”
Isaac studies him. “You’re a really good guy, you know?” The way Scott blinks must be amusing, because a small smile returns to Isaac’s lips. It’s the first time he’s smiled since — well, not since before they began their patrol. The sight of it is like coming in from the cold. “I don’t— I mean…I’m grateful.”
“For what?” Scott pushes his shoulder gently. Remember this? “Friendship?”
Isaac shrugs. His cheeks turn a little pink, and it’s intolerably cute. “You.”
Scott’s whole body flushes from the comment. He doubts he’d feel if it started snowing.
“I’m glad you’re home, Isaac,” he says, infusing his words with as much sincerity as he can muster.
As he goes to call Argent, he sees Isaac mouthing home with a contemplative look on his face. Like he’s writing a carefully-worded speech, weighing each term for its accuracy, its strength. Deciding if this place is really home, and what a home even means to a person whose childhood house was a den of nightmares. For Isaac, home is no doubt a complicated subject.
“Me too,” is all he says in the end, with a faint twist of the lips. Beacon Hills passes the litmus test for home.
Or maybe, if he dares to dream — maybe Scott passes the test.