Chapter Text
The treaty is something that’s been a part of Scott’s life ever since he was born.
Nothing’s written down, nothing is official or set in stone, that’s what his mother says at least, but Scott knows.
He’s known it since he was nine, but its been a fact for longer.
He’s promised to a Hale. And that’s the way things are.
They meet with the Hales regularly when Scott is young. Scott’s mother is close friends with Talia Hale, its how they ended up in this situation.
When they're young, Scott is grateful. He looks forward to visits with the Hales, the week long trips that mean breaks from politics and stiff businessmen and advisers and generals.
Most important to nine-year-old Scott, it means breaks from his father.
He notices on these trips, that Derek doesn’t seem to feel the same way about his father as Scott feels about his.
Scott never says anything about that, though.
When they’re growing up, Scott gets along with Laura the best. Laura is loud and takes up space where Scott is more reserved, smaller than Laura in every sense of the word. Laura takes charge of every situation that she, Scott and her siblings find themselves in, but she always double checks everything with Scott first. They couldn’t be more different. But they get along well. Talia comments more than once that its a shame that it couldn’t be Scott and Laura that they promise to each other.
They’re both set to inherit the throne. There’s no way they can take the crown prince or princess from their country.
When Scott and Cora are nine, Derek is twelve and Laura is fifteen, Cora overhears Talia and Shane and Melissa and Rafael discussing something in hushed voices over dinner while the Hales are paying a visit to the McCall’s.
She comes back to where Derek is reading and Laura is tapping away at her phone and Scott is assembling a rather complicated tower of Legos and tells them all, her wolf eyes flashing in her distress because she’d thought their parents were joking when they were younger but they weren’t.
“Derek and Scott are gonna get married! I heard mom and dad and Melissa and Prince Rafael talking about it. Mom said something about promises and someone said be-troth-ed.” She sounds the word out carefully. "I dunno what that means, but it sounds not good.” Cora’s expression is the most concerned Scott’s ever seen it.
Derek snaps his book shut and storms out of the room, confusion written all over his face, eyes glowing gold.
When the Hales go home, Scott asks his parents what it means that they promised he’s going to marry Derek and it becomes a very long night in the McCall home.
Scott is sent up to bed after a short explanation.
He doesn’t sleep.
Even from his room, even behind the heavy doors, he can hear his father shouting about Scott’s question, about the marriage, about an arrangement she had the nerve to set up without him.
He can hear his mother shouting back, the sound of a glass shattering, Melissa screaming “I’m the goddamn Queen, you have no right…”
Scott pulls the pillow over his head then, tries to drown out the yelling.
It doesn’t work.
When the little red numbers on the clock by his bed read 1:06 and the yelling is still going on, getting louder, even, Scott climbs out of bed. His little feet pad across the floor, and he throws all his weight into dragging his heavy door open, stepping out into the still lit hallway, rubbing his eyes.
“Mom?” he mumbles blearily, so, so tired. “What’s going–ah!”
“I told you to go to bed!”
The smell he catches on his father’s breath is sharp and wrong. He learns it was the smell of alcohol when he’s seventeen.
And then his father’s hand is closing around his wrist and he’s moving too fast for his feet to catch him and then there’s nothing to catch his feet on and he’s falling and…
He blacks out to the sound of his mother’s scream and wakes up to a doctor hovering over him.
He remembers nothing after he was sent to bed.
He doesn’t see his father again.
He hears whispers of court and jail time and never coming back between his mother and some of her advisers. He wonders why there’s a little bit of his memory missing from the night his dad left.
He doesn’t find out until years later.
After that night, they don’t visit the Hales as much.
Scott wonders why. He misses seeing Laura and Cora so much, but Derek…
After the news from Cora, finding out they were likely to be married, Derek avoids Scott.
The older two Hales, while they didn’t often take part in the games anymore, always made a point to hang around in the same room as Scott and Cora as they played or watched TV.
Derek stops doing even that.
Scott wonders if he did something wrong.
Laura insists he didn’t.
Scott isn’t so sure, but there’s nothing to do about it.
He shakes the thought out of his head and returns his attention to what he’s doing with Cora. and doesn’t think about Derek.