Allison Argent

Alan Argent will be the first to tell you that his birth was a mistake. In his mind, this is as big an understatement as saying that the Hindenberg was a rough flight.

In most ways, his life isn't all that different from Allison's, chronologically. The biggest difference is in the upbringing: though he didn't learn of his roots as a hunter until Beacon Hills, his mother was clearly resentful of the fact that her only child was a boy. Her disdain of her son was open: she was strict, cold, sometimes even cruel. Though his father was a little more supportive, even in him Alan could see the daily disappointment he represented: his failure to father a woman to one day lead their family, to take charge after his mother passed on. And moving constantly didn't help his feelings of isolation and loneliness. Relationships, friendly or otherwise, were rare, and soon he stopped trying. He stayed active, kept his grades up, and even pursued his childhood interest in archery in hopes of looking good to colleges. His life, his world, narrowed to the day he turned eighteen, went away to school, and could possibly start his life over before it was too late.

Then he moved to Beacon Hills, a girl sitting behind him in his first class lent him a pen...and Alan's life began anew.

Scout McCall was, to Alan, perfect: she worked at the local veterinary clinic, and she was the equipment manager for the lacrosse team. She was gorgeous, kind, gentle, and strong. Kind of shy, a little bit of a tomboy, but for Alan it only added to her appeal. Her best friend, Stiles Stilinski, was kind of a spaz, but the two developed a fast friendship after Alan was convinced to try out for the lacrosse team by the second most important woman in his life: Lydia Martin, queen of Beacon Hills High School. It would make him popular, it would get him closer to Scout...and, at least as far as Alan was concerned, it would give him the perfect chance to show up Lydia's douchebag boyfriend, Jackson.

It was the new life he'd dreamed of, and though it had its problems, it was good to him. He loved two perfect girls, one of whom was his best friend, and the other...okay, so maybe it got hard when he began training as a soldier in the Argent clan after the truth about Scout's nature came out. And he still hated his mother for trying to kill Scout...hated that she would have succeeded if not for his father's intervention. Still, he was co-captain of the lacrosse team, and Scout was becoming more popular not only by association, but had caught Coach Finstock's eye to try out for the cross-country team in the upcoming season. The kanima was a problem, as was Derek Hale's pack (and Alan's innate hatred for the man he believed wanted to take Scout from him), but he had things in order.

He saw Scout in secret, and solved the problem of Jackson Whittemore in his own head: Stiles Stilinski. After all, Stiles was openly in love with Lydia, and had confessed to his actions the night Peter Hale bit her. He'd risked his own life to protect Alan's best friend, the girl he loved...there wasn't a single soul alive, save for Stiles, that Alan would trust with his Lydia's heart. He was stressed, scared, but ultimately happy.

After all, he was part of the pack.

Everything would change, however, when his mother tried yet again to kill Scout, earning herself an Alpha's bite in the endeavor. Victoria Argent's death was just as it had been in Allison's world: the suicide note, filled with words full of love and vengeance, even Victoria's death in Alan's room...Gerard Argent made sure it was all arranged exactly that way.

He would learn the truth after the kanima struck him down with its venomous wound, standing over his paralyzed body as his grandfather confessed his crimes: forging the suicide note, moving Alan into place like "a good little pawn." Helping his daughter in law end her own life after she was bitten, all in the name of claiming the Alpha's bite for himself. It was the realization of his own weak will and confusion that drove Alan to break up with Scout after Gerard had been defeated. He was a liability to her, both as a boyfriend and as a packmate so long as he remained a slave to his own issues. He needed to earn his place at her side, redeem himself for everything he'd done in the name of a mother that never loved him...he needed to earn the forgiveness of the only true family he'd ever really known.

And so he trained for a summer at the Argent estate in France...and told not even his pack what he really went through there.

For four months, he learned far more than just the history of his family: he learned every method ever devised not only to combat the gifts of the werewolf, but to torture them. He hunted game to hone his skills as a tracker, to perfect his ability to kill, but quailed when the time came to actually test his mettle against a werewolf. Returning home to his father, both men came to an agreement: they were done with the hunt.

When he returned to Beacon Hills, he made sure he was no different. Perhaps a little more protective of his friends, his pack, perhaps a little more open with his feelings, but he was eager, even desperate to change for the better, to distance himself from his family. He wanted a normal life, but wanted it far less than he did his loved ones to be safe and happy. For them, he would sacrifice everything.

The act was hard to keep up, and if not for Isabel Lahey, adversary turned packmate, he might not have lasted. After her departure from Derek's pack, she stood beside him, a pillar of quiet strength and gentle approval as he inevitably found his way back into the life of a hunter, and later sacrificed his own life alongside his friends to save their parents. Through it all, she was, as Deaton put it, his emotional tether, binding him to everything that mattered: his pack, his sense of self worth, his faith in things like hope and a future where he could be with the woman he loved.

She gave him the strength to flout his family's legacy, to bind himself to a new Code: We Protect Those Who Cannot Protect Themselves. She believed in him, during their quiet conversations, when he talked about a new generation of hunters, a new legacy where his voice could count...she did more than make him feel as though he were actually changing for the better, she made him believe it.

He didn't love her as he loved Scout. Alan Argent and Isabel Lahey were both cripples, yearning to find the legs with which to walk again, and it was something they both understood.

Together, however, they hoped to heal...a crutch that each could lean on...and Alan soon found himself waking every day, eager to see if it was the day that one of them would take their first step...and he would lean on her more than ever in the aftermath of the surrogate sacrifice, when he temporarily lost his ability to shoot, and later realized that he was losing the guy he thought of as a brother when the Nogitsune took possession of Stiles Stilinski.