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spamalot } { crossed wires

Moving clear across the country so that her fiance could join another pack to get away from his crazy dad is not exactly what Caroline Forbes had planned on doing with her life at this particular age, but when it comes to things like fiance (mostly that fiance being Tyler) and getting Tyler away from his crazy dad she's willing to make little changes in order to benefit the good of all. It also helped that Elena and Matt were already on this coast to make the transition a little easier.

(It was five hours to Palo Alto. Five hours driving was still better than all the coordination it takes for a five hour plane ride.)

Still, once she actually arrived in Beacon Hills, she's willing to admit that she may have prejudged this town a little harshly. It's actually more than a little adorable. It's got a Mystic Falls vibe all it's own, but lighter, which I guess is what happens when your mayor isn't a psychopathic alpha werewolf trying to make your life miserable. Talia Hale? A plus alpha from what Caroline could tell - which, she could tell a lot, if just knowing Cora even as little as she does is anything to go off of - and she has a feeling they're going to be very happy here. The TV station even approved her transfer to the local syndicate, so as soon as they find an apartment, she's pretty much set.

Which is what she, Elena and Matt (poor, poor Matt) are doing while Tyler is doing his alpha bonding with Talia and getting to know the pack as a whole. It's been a few days of meetings up at the Hale house, and him coming back to the hotel seeming so much happier than she's seen him in a long time, and that? That is worth every inconvenience, every hiccup, every ounce of homesickness because they fought for this for so long, and now they finally have it.

(This is probably the only universe in existence where Caroline Forbes would actually be grateful for Klaus Mikaelson. Whadaya know?)

She's coming out of one of the buildings, finishing up the details with the realtor, when she spots Tyler coming up the sidewalk and grins. Once they part ways, she's skipping over to him, throwing her arms around his shoulders and pulling him in close. "I love this town."

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Stiles' eyes popped open, confused a moment, and then they narrowed as he sat up. "What do you mean, you were never with him. I saw you at the weddings with him. Two weddings, a year and a half apart."

"People bring friends to weddings sometimes when they have no one else to go with. And I wanted him to spend time with my mom."

She crosses her arms in front of her chest, his reaction putting her on the defensive which is not how she wants to do this. She wants to just talk but that doesn't seem to be a card in her favor at the moment.

She takes a deep breath, before letting her arms drop, trying not to close herself off. "Can you just let me explain? Please?"

"Fine, explain." But his jaw was grit, and there was a slow bubbling anger starting to brew inside of him.

Yeah. She can see that. She takes a deep breath to keep herself calm before taking one tentative step into the room, so she's not talking at him from the hallway.

"Tyler and I met when Lydia and I first moved to Boston. He and Elena and Matt were living in the same building as us, and we found each other pretty quickly." Werewolf noses and all of that. "Elena and Matt had just gotten married so Tyler would hide out in our apartment a lot because they're ... well, you've met them."

Elena is Elena and very well meaning, and she and Matt are a great couple, but take as they are with a baby and multiply that by fifty, and you have them as newlyweds. Cora loves her, she does, but they can be a little much.

"Anyway. Tyler's pack is not like ours. His alpha is his dad who is an abusive dick, and was going to force him to marry some bayou werewolf princess in order to build an alliance between their two packs. It was supposed to happen when Tyler finished school, and he even went so far as threatening to kill Caroline if he saw Tyler anywhere near her. We were both sort of in this position where we ... "

She pauses for a moment trying to figure out the best way to say it.

" ... We couldn't really have what we wanted. For different reasons, of course, mine was my own fault and I recognized that, but I think in different ways we were both trying to get each other back where we belonged. I couldn't really do much for Tyler unless I convinced him to leave the pack, but he was so convinced if he did his father would kill him. I kept trying to get him to take a trip to the city with me to see Victor, or to at least call Mom to talk to her, but he wouldn't."

She pauses for a minute, because she was getting to the harder part, the part he was going to hate her for, but she needed to say it, to explain it, to put it out there as best she can.

"I wasn't going to bring him to the wedding originally. I was going to go by myself because I thought that maybe ... I wanted to try and talk to you. But then Scott said you were bringing a girlfriend and I panicked and I thought that if there were any other way for Tyler to see how a real pack was supposed to work, this was it. So I did it, and maybe it was a mistake for me but it wasn't for Tyler. The time he spent with my mom then and at Malia's wedding helped, and when the wedding with Andrea fell through, it gave Tyler the push that he needed to get out."

She runs a hand through her hair and tries to stay calm as she finishes.

"You were with someone else. You were starting a family. I didn't know what was going on, and maybe if I had I would have done things differently, but I didn't. So be angry with me all you want for not saying anything, but don't take it out on Tyler. He didn't do anything but play along when I asked him to."

Stiles was scowling at the end of that, then shook his head. "You're right... I punched the wrong werewolf today."

And the look she got when he looked back at her was one of pure pain and hatred.

Yeah. She pretty much expected that. She can't stop herself from crossing her arms this time, pulling it around her like armor, even if it's a mostly feeble one.

"She was pregnant, Stiles. You could barely even stand to be in the same room as me, let alone actually let me talk to you, and I thought you loved her. What was I supposed to do?"

Be that girl who tries to tear him away from the family he's starting, the life he's moving on from because she still loves him? That's not love. That's petty and she wasn't going to be that girl.

"I know now it sounds like a load of crap, but I thought you were happy."

"I was happy with Suzanna then, yeah. Because what else did I have? The girl who I loved with my entire heart, body, and soul threw me away because I wasn't enough for her. That's not something you come back from, Cora. That's not just happy - that is complete. only one girl has ever made me feel that way - you. But you took it away from me and any amount of pain that the Graysons have given me over the years doesn't even come close to matching that."

He didn't remember standing up, or stalking closer to her.

"So what, you didn't tell me how you felt because she was pregnant? Girls get pregnant all the time and have babies without being married. But even before then, was picking up a fucken phone too hard for you when you did figure it out? I begged you for my entire senior year of college to change your mind. I never changed my phone number or e-mail, and hell as people like to remind me so much lately - we are pack, Cora. You knew how to find me, but you didn't when you realized you wanted me back. You took the chickenshit way out and made excuses for yourself. And because of that, you left me to continue into this life and look at me now. Are you happy to see what I've become? I'm fan-fucken-tastic now, aren't I?"

His voice was getting loud, the lid off on the pain and it was not nice, and Stiles' reliance on sarcasm as a defense was coming out.

"That little girl downstairs should be ours. Instead, she's going to grow up wearing a face of a woman who took away from me anything that I was and made me into this person. I shouldn't be worried that there's a family of mobsters who are going to come here one night and slit my throat in bed and take my daughter away. I shouldn't have panic attacks at night, or feel pain anytime someone even touches me. Do you know how many times I've had to patch myself up in the dark of night while sleeping on the floor of a bathroom? How my daughter used to play doctor on me with real injuries to treat? You can't even being to imagine the horrors I've lived through because you wanted me to be happy and never even asked me if I was.

"I had a plan for us, and you said I was giving things up for you, but you never let yourself believe that maybe I wasn't giving up a single thing. I was giving us everything. But you choose not to trust me in that, and this is where your choice led. And if you're expecting me to forgive you for that, you have another thing coming, Cora Hale."

The tears on his face spoke different to the last piece of that, and the panic attack was just on the edge of taking over on him. But he glared at her one last moment.

"Looks like you take after your dad more than you thought after all."

Edited 2014-07-31 15:38 (UTC)

She takes it all, no matter how awful. She recoils at the last line like she's been slapped, but she doesn't try to protest any of it. He's right. He's right for a lot of different reasons, and she never said she was blameless in any of this. She wasn't expecting this to fix it.

She could point out how he never bothered to ask her if she was ready for his plan, if she was ready to go full steam ahead into something that would have probably made them both happy, if not for the constant waiting of the other shoe to drop. She could make excuses about how she was trying to protect herself or tell him how much being away from him killed her inside every day, but it doesn't seem to matter in the face of everything else.

He's already angry enough.

"I'm not expecting you to forgive me." Her voice is quiet and even, because if anything she knows how in the wrong she was. She buries the emotions, the feelings, everything he worked so hard to drag out of her once upon a time under the surface because she knows that she deserves whatever she gets. "Just wanted to make sure your anger was in the right place."

Her lips purse slightly and she doesn't look up completely. "Lydia and I found a place. We'll be out in a few days, so - you won't have to worry about me." It's also entirely possible she may spend most of those days at Derek or Laura's anyway, just to try and escape.

And with that, she turns to go, wanting to escape to the safety of her own room where she could let out whatever is swirling in her head in peace.

"Yeah, well you don't have to worry about me either. Because I'm done with all of you!" He knows you can still hear him, Cora, and honestly, he doesn't really care who in the pack hears him at this point.

"I'm going to staying with a family that there's no way I can ever really be a part of. Not the way I should have been. I'm tired of everyone who claims to care about me hurting me."

And yeah, he's packing. His jeep is outside, and he's done and too angry and hurt and his heart is breaking all over again and he just needs to run. Run far away from her, from the Hales and all their promises of things being better.

Things will never be better for him. It was the only thing he was starting to truly believe.

The problem with a fight that loud is that everyone in the house - no matter how human their ears are, can probably hear you. Allison heard Stiles explode and is already halfway up the stairs, but when he makes that declaration to leave, she's done.

Done.

She's tired of this back and forth and walking on eggshells and if Stiles thinks that any of them are going to actually let him walk out of this house and run from them, he has another thing coming. Because this situation with Cora, whatever sort of bullshit is happening between them now? That's not her problem.

She's not going to let Scott lose his best friend because his best friend is too caught up in a girl to realize what he has in front of him.

She reaches the door of the bedroom, and the look on her face is a mix of anger and grave determination, and her voice is absolutely deadly.

"Stop what you're doing right now."

"Stay out of it, Allison." He doesn't look up at her, just focusing on packing. He knows that kind of tone of voice, and it doesn't help stop him.

"Sit. Down. Stiles."

Nope. She's not staying out of it. She can't anymore. She's been sitting on the sidelines and coddling him long enough.

"I really didn't want to be the one to have this conversation with you, but I am sick of this so guess what? We're going to have it. I'm cranky, I'm hormonal, and I've ceased to give a shit so sit down. Now."

She gets a look over his shoulder at her, a warning that he was not in a very rational mood, and just to be stubborn he's not going to sit down. But he will stand up, stop packing, and cross his arms over his chest and give her his attention.

He stayed silent though, his jaw grit and his eyebrows just went up to give her permission to continue and take her turn laying into him. He really doesn't have a fuck to give at this point.

What a coincidence. Neither does she. Not a fuck to give between the two of them, because Allison isn't just going to let him walk away again.

"I'm getting, slowly, that we have no idea what the past few years have been like for you, but do you have any idea what they've been like for us? Do you have any idea what it's been like for me, having to watch Scott worry about you all the time when you stopped calling or responding to us at all? Or your dad, worried sick all the time? Do you have any idea what losing you would do to them, because I really think you do."

She pauses for a moment, keeping her distance because she doesn't want to seem like she's trying to intimidate him, and she can already feel the tears starting to well, but she does her best to keep it together because she's not done yet.

"You were the one who cut us out, Stiles. You were the one who distanced yourself from us, and maybe you had your reasons, and that's fine. But don't run off thinking that we don't care about you, because you're not the one who has to see what it does to Scott, every time it hits him what you went through and that he wasn't there to protect you. You won't be the one who has to sit there and watch as John loses you again and will spend nights pouring over notices and or news articles and wondering if he'll see you or Dina in there somewhere. You don't have to see the guilt that Malia and Isaac feel knowing that they were right there and never even realized that anything was wrong."

She holds out her hands to the sides. "That's me. I'm the one who has to deal with that. I'm the one who's going to have to clean up the mess when you're gone, of Ryan who's going to ask where his cousin is, of the great big Stiles shaped hole that you leave in everyone's lives whenever you go away. So I don't care what Cora did to you and what happened as a result, I'm also not going to let you spit in the face of a woman who did nothing to you but open her home. So don't you dare say that the people who care about you only hurt you because some of this is on you too. And I swear to God, if you run out on Scott again, I will find you and I will drag you back because this is your family and we fuck up sometimes, but doesn't mean that we stop loving you."

She sniffles slightly, swiping at her eye with the back of her hand, before letting it rest on her hip. So there. She said it. If you're still leaving, she will actually start crying, ugly messy sobbing, so do not do it, Stiles. That is a mess you do not want to clean up.

Edited 2014-07-31 16:49 (UTC)

His eyes dropped as she explained what she had been through, the bitter edge wearing back away, and he rubbed at his face to get rid of the wetness that was still there. His hand started to shake on at his elbow, the anger shifting back into nerves. But the pain was still there, probably more evident now as the harshness faded away. It was hard to be mad at a pregnant woman who was doing nothing put pointing out everything wrong he had said and done himself.

"Maybe you should," he said softly. "Maybe I'm just not worth it anymore. You deserve someone better in your life who has something to give back. I don't have that anymore, Allison. I have nothing left to give, and I can't fake it anymore. And knowing now that all this happened because no one said anything to stop me from marrying Suzanna?" He looked up at her, his eyes red as he rubbed at his face again. "I can't. I just can't do this anymore. I can't stand here faking that I'm okay, that I don't walk through this place and remember how happy I was here and how much it hurts that I can't have that anymore. That the person I love can't even tell me if she even still loves me after everything she's put me through..."

He took a deep breath, trying to find a calming point so he didn't set off another panic attack. "I won't drop off the face of the planet this time. I'll keep in touch, come back to visit after the divorce is final. But I can't stay here surrounded by a ghost of a life that I can't even look at without feeling my heart being ripped out my chest all over again. Talia and dad mean well, and I appreciate it, but I just want to stop being in pain all the time."

Allison sighs heavily, a bit of her anger fading away as well. But she's standing her ground on this one.

"No. Not good enough." She swipes her hand at her face again, before taking another step closer. "I rewrote the code. I can't remember if you where here for that or not. Nous protégeons ceux qui ne peuvent pas se protéger."

We protect those who can't protect themselves. Maybe Stiles feels like he can, but she doesn't, and clearly her feelings are the ones that matter right now.

"You stay here until this is finished, for better or worse. Maybe not here, in this house, but in Beacon Hills." She pauses for a moment, trying to think on if there was somewhere he could go. "My dad still has a place here. It's loaded for bear and there's a panic room ... it's safe. We didn't bring it up before because it hasn't been lived in in a while, Talia's place is easier to defend."

But now it's probably going to be their only option. "Just give me a couple days to make sure everything still works, okay? Just a couple more days."

"That's a good code," he said, nodding, and then he sighed. "Sure, a few more days won't kill me."

"Okay."

The rest of the tension ebs out of her, because just knowing that he's going to try and stay is enough to get her to relax. She doesn't have to go home and tell her husband that his best friend is running away from Beacon Hills again.

"I'm going to hug you now."

Because physical affection needs warning labels with him these days, and it seems like they're both really in need of one. But if he really doesn't want it, she won't force him.

Edited 2014-07-31 17:56 (UTC)

Stiles made it a bit easier on her, and he walked to her and pulled her into a hug. He did need it too.

"Thank you. For being there for them."

She nods a bit, sinking into the hug firmly and just closing her eyes as she rubs his back gently. She knows it's not really going to do much good in a house full of werewolves, but she's going to try.

"Don't give up on it yet. That life? It's not gone if you don't let it be." She pushes up on her toes a bit and presses a soft kiss to his cheek. "It'll be there when you're ready for it."

Stiles closed his eyes a bit, finding some comfort in the hug before he sighed. "It's not that easy."

"I know," she says with a bit of a nod. "Nothing worth having ever is. That's why you have to be ready." She pulls back just a bit so that she's looking up at him. "She messed up. She royally messed up, I get that. But she knows that too. And honestly, I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing if I was faced with Scott's new pregnant girlfriend at his best friend's wedding. But she loves you. Really loves you. She wasn't ready before but she's ready now, so when you're ready - not before, but when - she'll be there. So just take your time, and you'll figure it out."

He licked his lips. "No offense, Allison... but she needs to be the one to tell me that. Doesn't really work any other way. And even then, how can I trust her not to just decide to do it to me again when things get hard? I was a lot easier to handle back then. I'm pretty fucked up at this point."

"That I can't tell you. You're going to have to be the one to make that choice for yourself." She hopes he will, because he deserves this, deserves to have something for himself, even if he doesn't fully get there right away. "But like you keep saying, you're not the same guy. She's not necessarily the same girl, either."

He just nodded at that, then looked at his suitcase. "I think I just need to take a walk and cool off a bit."

spamalot } { crossed wires

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