Title: always one last light to turn out
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Rating: G
Length: ~500 words
Content notes: flashbacks to canonical violence and S1 character death
Spoilers for.. let's say S1 and S2, just to be on the safe side. But mostly S1.

Summary: Grief. Anger. Allison knows which one she prefers.

*****


The police give the necklace back eventually.

Stiles's dad brings it by himself, in a plastic bag with the rest of Kate's jewelry, her wallet, her car keys. The light from outside catches on the plastic and makes it glow in the dim light of the hall. He's apologetic when he hands the bag to Allison's father; they're not allowed to clean anything, he says.

Her dad says he understands, and shuts the front door slowly. The shadows close back in.

Allison ducks down the hallway and fights back the tears that want to come. It's okay if she's angry, she's allowed to be angry. That monster killed Aunt Kate. Aunt Kate was a monster. There's lots to be angry about.

But she's pretty sure these tears are grief, and she's not okay with that. How do you grieve for someone who was never who you thought they were in the first place? The Aunt Kate that Allison remembers isn't the one who killed Derek's family. She couldn't be.

She doesn't hear her dad coming around the corner, and both of them startle to be so close so suddenly. His mouth tightens at the corner. His hand tightens on the bag. Everything inside is speckled dark with dried blood.

They stare at each other in silence.

“It would've looked strange, if we didn't take them,” her dad says finally, in the calm, sure tone that means he's lying again.

“God forbid we look strange,” Allison chokes out, then turns away before he can say anything else. Or maybe before she can.

She's back in her room, her heart pounding from the run up the stairs. Only from the run. Nothing else.

She wants to text Scott: Having a bad day. Come over? And he would, she knows he would, even if they have to hide from her family. If she needs him, Scott will be there.

The thought ought to be more comforting than it is. They can sneak out of the house and go somewhere they can see the stars. He'll hold her, and everything will feel all right for a while.

But today it feels like a lie. Everything isn't all right. Her aunt is dead, and her aunt is a murderer, and maybe nothing will ever be all right again.

Somewhere in this house is a bloodstained necklace given to her by a woman she never knew. There's blood on her family's crest, where it always was and she just couldn't see it. How many innocent werewolves have they killed over the years?

(Would her dad really kill Scott?)

For a moment, Allison can't breathe. For a moment, she's back outside that wreck of a house, the smell of smoke and char still lingering over everything. Kate's blood is spurting over her shirt, the fear on her face settling into something --

Something dead.

Allison claps her hand over her mouth to hold in whatever sounds are trying to make their way out. There's nothing here to scream about. Not in fear, anyway. Rage, though... She's allowed to be angry.

She has so much to be angry about.