33) will i ever hear your voice again? the darkness is like an old friend...

[theresalwayshope]

[Spam-ish - OPEN]

[When Allison returns to the Barge, she's happier than she's ever been. Paris was a perfect vacation, she's loaded down with new clothes, shoes, food, and souvenirs...and she's spent several days of her week in a luxurious borrowed bed with Isaac wrapped around her like a blanket.

She goes looking for her people, but they don't all show up right away. She waits to check on people as they seem to pop back in clusters, scans the network, and settles in to the task of unpacking, tending her animals...she has plenty to keep her busy.

As the hours wear on, however, she feels a growing sense of...something. She can't put her finger on it, but there's something that's just not right.

She sleeps on it. The trip was fun, but exhausting in a good way. Sliding into a new satin sleep shirt she got at a boutique in Paris, she curls up in bed with Brownie tucked against her back and Duchess curled against her chest.

It's the perfect end to a perfect trip.

In the morning, she walks the ship looking for the pack. Every scent she finds without a problem, every heartbeat, every voice...all but one.

She's not ready for what she finds when she reaches Isaac's cabin.

There's no announcement. No message on the network, no text to those that know and love him.

Mid morning, the only word that anyone gets about Isaac's departure is the soul-shattering howl of a werewolf in mourning.

She's a nonentity on the ship that day. For a while, at least, Allison stays huddled in the corner of Isaac's abandoned cabin, sobbing openly. Later, if no one's found her there, she will flee down to Zero, where she can be found tucked into the furthest corner of the farmost cell with the door standing open. She'll no longer be weeping openly, but as she stares at the nearest wall, tears continue to spill silently from her eyes as she tries to make the open wound in her chest start healing.

Duke is gone, and she's coped. Zane is gone, and she had Duchess to hold onto, to make that loss easier to bear.

Isaac, however, is gone...she can feel that he's gone, and she can't bear it because she let him in so much further than she had before she arrived on the Barge.

Forgetting life with him is so much harder. It hurts that much more to carve him out of herself...to believe in a world without his constant, comforting warmth until she gets her deal and she can go home.

She has to stitch that hole back up and eliminate everything he gave to her here...because it's the only way she's going to be able to keep going without him.]

Comments

[Spam - Isaac's Abandoned Cabin]

[chillestrogue]

[Cold, lying on his new bed staring up at the ceiling in thought, can hear the crying from next door. He lets it go on for a few minutes, debating whether or not it's worth the trouble to get involved.

Someone will come around. Someone always does.

When the crying doesn't stop, he gets up off the bed, and walks to the open doorway next door. He crosses his arms, leaning against the doorpost, and stares inside. When he talks, it's casual; conversational, as if he hadn't been listening to her cry for the last five minutes.]

Oh, uh. I don't suppose you'd be able to help a guy out, Allison?

Bad time?

[Spam - Isaac's Abandoned Cabin]

[theresalwayshope]

[He catches her by surprise: the footsteps don't register, the familiar scent doesn't set off even an animal warning in her brain. He just...appears, and when Cold speaks she hiccups in her haste to try and stop the flow of tears.

She fails, and the hiccup turns into a cough as a fresh sob strangles it.

Looking up at him with red rimmed, feral gold eyes and tear streaked cheeks, she bares her teeth at him on reflex. They're very human teeth, however, more the posturing of a wounded animal than the threat of a healthy predator.]

Go away. [She likes Cold. She doesn't want him here, seeing her this weak, or possibly offering her comfort.

Alone is safer right now.]

[Spam - Isaac's Abandoned Cabin]

[chillestrogue]

[Why did it have to be him? Weren't there other people on this ship who could hear this girl crying? This really wasn't Cold's area of expertise, and her showy emotional side really didn't fall in line with the cool exterior he was trying to convey. He continued to lean against the doorway, not moving a muscle just yet. Allison's lashing out didn't scare him.]

Can't do that, kid. But I like the effort you put into that.

So what's the matter? Someone beat you up, stole your lunch money?

This doesn't look like your room to me.

[Spam - Isaac's Abandoned Cabin]

[theresalwayshope]

[The wisecracks earn him a low, lupine growl, but when he points out the state of the room she goes silent, looking down at her hands as the tears continue to fall.]

It's not. It...[Her breath catches, and when she tries to speak again her voice is thick with tears.]...belonged...to someone that didn't come back with us from Paris.

Someone I love. My b--[Her boyfriend? It doesn't sound right anymore. He's her touchstone, her tether. He's sunshine in the dark and still water in the desert. He's all the hope she ever gave up on, a skin graft on the wound losing Scott left behind: a patch at first, and now as much a part of her as her right arm.]

--my...Isaac.

Re: [Spam - Isaac's Abandoned Cabin]

[chillestrogue]

[Snart finally enters the room, giving Allison a wide berth as he walks along the perimeter, picking up the few things left over, if any]

Looks like Isaac left in a hurry.

So your plan is...what?

[text]

[americasdirtiest]

[It's not exactly that Mickey doesn't notice, but... it takes him longer than it probably should. Things with Isaac have been kind of distant since Mickey came back from Chicago, and now that he has the Admiral powers, Mickey doesn't actually need him for anything. So it's actually not until the next day that he texts her:]

r u still here??

[text]

[theresalwayshope]

[She hasn't moved from her place in Zero, not even to eat. She can't, she can't, because at least down here she can't hear the wolf howling in her head, making the sorrow even worse with animal misery...

Any other message, Allison wouldn't have answered (maybe), but it's Mickey, and even while it only intensifies the gaping void Isaac's departure has left behind, it also reminds her that she has to look out for Mickey now.

Whoever becomes his warden...he's pack, and therefore hers. She's only sure of it in that moment.

Silent tears still sliding down her cheeks, she texts him back...so he knows he hasn't been abandoned.]

yes.

[text]

[americasdirtiest]

[Pause. Mickey had sort of been assuming what was, maybe, easiest and safest to assume. Allison's reply casts that into doubt. More than doubt, really.]

idgi

his rooms gone

i figured the 2 of u went on vacation r smth

[text]

[theresalwayshope]

no we didn't. i'm here.

[For a second, she can't breathe past the fresh sob she swallows.]

he's gone.

[text]

[termofendearment]

[When he first got back, Tig didn't think much of the return. Field trip's over, nothing to see, business as usual.

Except when everything's settled back in, some of the novelty of the trip worn off and the new normal re-established, that's when Tig takes his time to check back in with people. Most of them are there but there's one that's palpably absent, and it's what has him texting her when there are probably plenty of just as good methods that aren't as immediate. The howl he hears certainly spurs his fingers on for a slightly different reason, but still.]

you make it back kiddo?

[text]

[theresalwayshope]

[There's a very delayed response, because the sound of her comm doesn't quite reach her for a few moments as she huddles in the corner of Isaac's empty cabin, sobbing because it's all she can do. She can't rip out the shattered fragments of her heart, she can't get him back...and she can't go home until she's gotten her deal.

In a lull between sobs that have her hugging her sides to try and hold herself together, the sound finally sinks in. Sniffing and hiccuping, she pulls out her comm and sees Tig's message.

She struggles to keep her composure just long enough to type out a reply.]

yes

Re: [text]

[termofendearment]

where are you

[No point in beating around the bush, and he figures she's not going to argue. Not with their dynamic the way it is.

He just needs to check in anyway. Get proof she's still here. That's it.]

[text]

[theresalwayshope]

[She starts to type leave me alone, but his thinking is right: she stops before she can send the message, hiccuping and struggling to see through the tears.

Pack. Hurts. Help.

She can't abandon her pack, can't let Tig think the worst...and the animal in her head howls louder still, calling out to him so intensely she has to clench her teeth to resist the urge to let the signal for pack roll out of her throat.

Deleting the message, she sends a different one.]

Isaac's old cabin.

private, text

[imfollowinghim]

[Bucky used to be decent at this sort of thing, but it's a skill that kind of gets burned out of you when you're a giant fucking mess yourself. All the empathy and protective instincts are still there, they're just muted and weird and smothered by guilt, so he doesn't really know what to do.]

need anything?

private, text

[theresalwayshope]

nothing anyone can give me.

[Through the comas, the losses, the trials of the pack...she's not altogether aware of what's happened to Bucky. She felt bad about that, but now as she sits in Zero, answering his message...she can't bring herself to feel anything but raw, aching, and alone.

She knows he means well, but the new hole that's opened up in her can't be filled. The one person who could, the one person she wants...

At least she can be honest rather than rejecting him outright.]

private, text

[imfollowinghim]

okay.

private, text

[theresalwayshope]

[It's such a simple thing, but the immediate agreement, the lack of a presence...it's exactly what she asked for, and it helps just a little.

Even if it's only to remind her of Cold's help, Cold's advice: stick to the plan. Move, function, but stick to the plan. She has people counting on her, and things to do.

Things she can't bring herself to do.

It takes about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, but eventually Bucky gets another message.]

do you want to have a drink with me?

spam;

[adelphoktonos]

[Helena finds Allison in Zero. She has a restless habit of wandering the ship but sometimes spending time in empty cabins just makes her think of Cosima and the memory of her body against her is unshakable. When that happens, she finds new places to wander. Today, it's the cells.

In the doorway of the cell, she smells of blood and ceramic and bleach and sugar. She doesn't come close, not yet, but empathy twines with understanding with sorrow in her scent.]

spam;

[theresalwayshope]

[She comes to Zero because her powers are cut off here: she can't hear the wolf braying mournfully in her head anymore (or she can pretend she doesn't, even if the echoes are there, the memory of the part of her that's pining for its mate). Still, the sixth sense of the hunter that's been bred into her tingles at the presence of another person.

She looks up at the doorway. She manages to find it in her to be surprised by the figure in the doorway. It's been so long since they last talked...]

Helena?...

spam;

[adelphoktonos]

Allison.

[Helena's experience with having friends is not exactly huge. For almost everyone, she tends to go for long stretches of time without talking much, seeing them from a distance and keeping an eye on them without much contact. She wasn't seeking Allison out specifically this time.]

You're crying.

spam;

[theresalwayshope]

[She laughs at that, and it's hard, bitter. There's no smile as the sound tears out of her throat...she'd be scared by the way she sounds if she could feel anything more than just plain raw.]

This is nothing...should've seen me earlier. Now that was crying.

Cabin spam

[semifreakingnormal]

[Scott knows something's wrong when he finally gets pulled back. Stiles and Lydia still aren't here, and that's fine. But he can feel a - a loss, a weird one, because it isn't like death. It's not like someone hacked off his arm. But there's this pressure that he doesn't really know how to deal with, not sure what to make of it.

Not until he hears her howl.

It has to be because he bit her, he thinks: he made her what she is, and now he hears...he hears everything in that howl. For a second as he rushes out the door, he pauses to look down the hall at Isaac's room - not his cabin, but the room Scott's mom gave him in their house. It won't get used at all now, he realizes, and the pressure gets a little heavier.

He runs to her, quick and easy, leaving that behind so he can shove the door to the now empty cabin open. That she's crying like this just makes it so much worse. Scott doesn't hesitate, heading for her corner and folding himself down beside her so he can wrap his arms around her.]

Cabin spam

[theresalwayshope]

[There's no room to think, there's barely any room to breathe...she hasn't felt this lost and alone in a long time, and somehow the familiar scent and warmth and power that fills the room with Scott's arrival both hurts and helps.

The second he reaches for her, she curls into him. It's instinct, human and animal, to turn her face into that broad shoulder and let those familiar arms hold her.

Pain. Alone. Hurt...pack, help, pack, help, hurtpainpackhelp.

Her sobs muffle against his shirt as she wraps her arms around him in return. The wolf overwhelms her, and for what seems like ages, she drifts in a fuzzy black and grey haze that could be so much colder, but isn't.

Alpha. Safe. Hurts. Pack. Alpha. Safe.

She doesn't know how much time passes before the worst of the sobs begin to fade. They do, though, however gradually, until she's sniffling and hiccuping against his shoulder instead of all but howling into it.

Allison eventually lifts her head and rubs at her face, angry smears of her hands while she tries to take back control of herself and her feelings. The wolf wants to curl into Scott again...the girl can't allow it.

If she lets herself be comforted, to feel the pain, she feels like it will kill her.]

Cabin spam

[semifreakingnormal]

[He lets her cry, never shies away or tries to silence her. Sometimes crying helps.

He remembers crying a lot, after.

Scott does what he couldn't do after her mom died: he holds her against him, he strokes her hair, he rests his cheek or his mouth against her head. He's here for her, like she needs someone to be. Everyone needs someone, he learned that a long time ago. And everyone needs to let go for a while.

When she starts to quiet, he brushes her hair back, off her face. He remembers, when she was Alan and he was Scout, how annoying long hair could be when it got in his face.]

He's not really gone.

Cabin spam

[theresalwayshope]

Yes, he is.

[Her voice is hollow and still heavy with the promise of tears...tears that continue to spill silently from her eyes because she can't stop them. Drawing her knees to her chest, she wraps her arms around them and stares into the middle distance.]

He's not really gone for you...for Lydia, for Stiles, for Kira. For you...you can go see him. You can be with him.

[Not Allison. She can't go to him, can't be with him...because if she goes home, to her own world, she's dead.

Until she changes her deal and graduates Tig...she can't ever go home.]