It's Just a Pull

XVII

The red in Scott's eyes is still fading when you get into the library. Mason is trying to apply pressure to everywhere that Scott is bleeding, but it's too late. There's a half-faded pentagram on your palm, but no healing spell is going to bring him back.

Instead, you focus on gently tugging Mason away from Scott's body. The boy collapses in on himself. These kids are too young for the amount of loss they've gone through. Hell, you're too young for all of this yourself.

The only hope anyone has in this town is laying in a pool of his own blood, and there's nothing you can do.

"Scott!"

Oh god, Melissa. Don't let her see. Don't make her have to see this.

"No no no no no no no no," she continues, skidding to a stop next to her son's body. She starts doing chest compressions, and you don't have the heart to tell her that it won't work.

"What are you doing?" Mason asks. "What are you doing?"

"Bringing him back," Melissa says, and her eyes are full of grief and denial like you've never seen.

"His heart... He hasn't had a pulse in over fifteen minutes." Mason's head drops, voice and hands shaking. "You can't bring someone back that's..."

No one wants to say it.

"He's not someone; he's my son. And he's an Alpha. And he's too strong to die like this!" Her voice raises to a shout at the end. "Come on!"

"I can help."

Melissa turns to you. "What?" her compressions don't stop, nor do they waver.

"I can help," you repeat. "But it will take a lot."

" A lot from me or a lot from you?"

"Both."

Melissa looks you dead in your eyes. "I'll do anything."

"Good. You might have to. Do either of you have a knife?"

Neither of them does, so you find some broken glass and hope you don't get an infection. You draw pentagrams on each palm, then scribble one onto the center of your forehead. You're still riding a high from kissing Stiles, so you think that you maybe have enough power coursing through your body to pull this off.

"You have to talk to him the entire time I do this. I'm going to pull his bonds. If his soul hasn't passed on, I should be able to coax it back into his body. It might not work, Melissa."

"What's it going to cost you?" Mason asks.

"I'm going to have to form a bond between the two of us. This won't work unless we have one. You may want to back up," you tell Mason, then let go of your powers entirely.

The physical world melts away, until all you can see are bonds. Immediately, you find the budding orange bond between Scott and Theo, slicing it. You loop it around the end of your strongest bond: your bond to Stiles. The bond between you and Scott holds, melting into the center of your soul where all bonds start. That taken care of, you reach for the apex of Scott's bonds.

In the back of your consciousness, you can hear Melissa talking to Scott, but the majority of your concentration is focused on handling Scott's bonds gently enough that they don't tear.

You tug each one individually, getting a feel for which are the strongest. Then, gripping the strongest ones, you pull. Hard. You keep pulling until you feel something give on the end closest to Scott's soul.

You pull your powers back, tucking the abilities back into their pockets in your mind until you can see the physical world again.

"That's all I can do," you tell Melissa. "He has to do the rest himself."

"Open your eyes and look at me. Come on," Melissa continues her compressions. "Breathe for me. Breathe."

You and Mason watch as Melissa continues.

"Melissa, it's-" Mason starts.

"Shut up!" Her voice drops to a whisper. "He's too strong to die like this." She returns to talking to Scott. "You can do this. You're an Alpha. You're an Alpha." her voice grows stronger, and you can feel a presence hovering at the edge of your consciousness.

"Come on, Scott. Roar."

"Roar," you whisper, echoing her.

"Come on! Come on, Scott. Roar!" She punches down onto his chest one last time as you tug at the presence, and Scott's eyes open.

He roars.

Immediately, you collapse. Lightheaded and dizzy, you black out completely.

---

You come to on the couch in the McCall household. Mason's asleep in a chair next to you, and someone has cleaned the blood off of your hands and face. You can hear voices upstairs, and you slowly make your way up to where the McCalls are, leaning heavily on the railing.

"I lost, Mom," you hear Scott say, and it's not what you'd expected from him.

"Every leader suffers loss. Sometimes, more than you think is bearable." Silently, you disagree with Melissa. It seems to you that it is often that Scott and the McCall pack suffers loss that seems unbearable.

"But this time, I lost everyone."

"You'll get them back," Melissa assures Scott.

"Why would they come back?"

"Because you're their leader. And even when a leader thinks they have nothing left to give, there's still one thing: hope."

"You haven't lost everyone," you say gently, leaning heavily against the door frame. The Scott that you're looking at is hardly recognizable. He looks broken, and you know you have to fix that. It's what you've done since day one: fix things. "You've still got me." Your eyes glow pink, and you open Scott and Melissa's eyes to the bonds surrounding them. "It's not as dire as you think. You've got me. And Stiles. And Lydia. And Malia. And Mason. And even Liam, still." You point out each bond in turn. "Your mother is right, Scott. They'll be back. Because as weak as some of these bonds look, they're still here."

"Give them hope," Melissa says, and the Scott that finally meets your eyes is a Scott that you recognize and respect.

Those are the eyes of a leader.