[ not a whole bunch of fluff and romance in these next few chapters. it's more focus on just willow and her abilities. but we'll have some nice relationship drama in season 3b don't worry ]

☽︎

this is not funny and it's not healthy, especially for willow.

[ 3.09 ]

Willow had been silent the entire ride to the school. It had only been a little over two weeks since her father died — since her father was sacrificed. Though the Stilinski household didn't feel like home, she was at least settled in.

The downside of sharing a house with Stiles was that he now could drag her out of it at any time of the day.

Lydia called Stiles in the middle of the night, demanding that they all meet her at the school. Only, she didn't give them any kind of explanation, which of course sent Stiles into a frenzy, worrying about her safety.

As soon as the jeep parked next to Lydia's empty car, Stiles, Scott, and Willow all scrambled out.

"Where is she?" Stiles asked.

"Over here," Allison told them, leading them over to Lydia.

Stiles rushed over to her, checking her for injuries as the others followed. "Lydia?"

"It's the same thing," Lydia said, sounding shaken up. "Same thing as the pool. I got into the car heading somewhere totally different and ended up here. And you told me to call you if there's a dead body."

"You found a dead body?" Stiles asked, his eyes wide.

"Not yet."

"Not yet? What do you mean not yet? Lydia, you're supposed to call us after you find the dead body," Stiles fussed.

"Oh, no, I'm not doing that again. You find the dead body from now on," Lydia ordered.

"I - I think I'm gonna wait in the car," Willow said quietly. She wasn't ready to see a dead body. Not yet.

"Shit, I didn't even think about that," Stiles said, giving Willow a sympathetic look. Then he handed her his car keys. "You go to the car. We'll find the dead body. How are we supposed to find the dead body? You're always the one finding the dead body."

Willow was climbing back into the jeep but froze when Scott spoke. "Guys. I found the dead body."

Against her mind screaming for her to not, Willow turned to look. Scott had wandered a few feet away from the others. He was staring at the large stone sign of the school, and laying on top was the body of Officer Tara. Blood stained the sign and her lifeless corpse.

It was another sacrifice.

☽︎

Willow did not want to go to school the next morning — which told everyone how bothered she was because Willow hated missing school. But Stiles wasn't going to let her stay at the house alone, so he and Scott practically forced her into the jeep. They made sure to keep her head down as they walked past the bloody school sign, not wanting her to see it again.

During all her classes, Willow was quiet. She had hardly participated since returning to school after taking a few days off to plan the funeral. She didn't answer questions or volunteer to write on the board or try for extra credit points. Willow was just getting through the day, and now that the Darach was moving on to the next sacrifice, that was going to be hard.

"Idioms, analogies, metaphors, and similes, all tools the writer uses to tell their story," Ms. Blake lectured. As she walked down the rows of desks, she spotted the intricate tree that Lydia was sketching. "Lydia, I wasn't aware you had so many hidden talents."

"You and every guy I've ever dated," Lydia replied with a smirk.

"Oh, um, well, that was an idiom, by the way," she said, recovering from the somewhat inappropriate answer. "Idioms are something of a secret to the people who know the language or the culture. They're phrases that only make sense if you know key words. Saying "jump the gun" is meaningful only if you know about the starting gun in a race, or a phrase like "seeing the whole board.""

"Like chess," Stiles muttered.

Ms. Blake smiled happily at him. "That's right, Stiles. Do you play?"

"Uh, no. My father does," he told her.

"Now, when does an idiom become a cliche?"

Instead of paying attention or even answering the question, Willow zoned out. She ended up tuning in to Scott and Stiles' conversation that was happening behind her.

"I think I can get to Ethan," Scott whispered. "I'm pretty sure I can make him talk."

"What do you want to do that for?" Stiles asked.

"The druids are emissaries, right? So what if the Darach was an emissary to the alphas?" he asked.

Willow tensed up, realizing what Scott was getting at. The Darach was here because of the alphas. Willow's father might not have been killed if the alphas had never come to Beacon Hills.

"Okay, first of all, I cannot believe that we've gotten to the point where a sentence like 'what if the Darach was an emissary to the alphas?' actually makes sense to me," Stiles complained. "Second of all, we're gonna have a huge problem getting to Ethan."

"What's that?" Scott asked.

"Aiden," Willow whispered, knowing that Scott would hear.

Ever since getting back from his suspension, Aiden never left his brother's side. Ethan was even having trouble just getting alone time with Danny because Aiden didn't like their relationship.

"She's right," Stiles stated. "Ever since he's been back at school, they're always together. How are we gonna separate them again?"

In sync, Stiles and Scott looked back at Lydia while Willow sighed. Last time Lydia and Aiden started messing around, Cora came to threaten Lydia and demand they stay apart. But evidently, the boys didn't care as long as it helped their plan.

"What now?" Lydia asked, looking up from her tree as she noticed their look. Then she sighed in annoyance. "What's that look for?"

☽︎

When English class came to an end, Willow found herself leaning against the railing of the stairwell as Stiles and Scott cornered Ethan. Aiden was off with Lydia in Coach's office, doing god knows what.

"Why are you even talking to me? I helped kill your friend—"

Willow bit her lip and stared down at her sneakers to not give anything away. Boyd was staying away from school and public places. He rarely left Derek's loft now, not wanting the alpha pack to know that he was still alive. And considering that Ethan was clueless, the hiding was working.

"How do you know I'm not gonna kill another one?" Ethan continued. His eyes landed on Stiles, who didn't appreciate the veiled threat one bit.

"Is he looking at me?" Stiles asked, pushing off the wall. "Are you threatening me? You know what I'm gonna do? I'm going to break off an extra-large branch of Mountain ash, wrap it in wolfsbane, roll it in mistletoe, and shove it up your fucking—"

"Whoa, Stiles, okay," Scott said, pushing Stiles away from Ethan. He also had to keep from smiling. "We get it. We're talking to you because I know that you didn't want to kill Boyd. And I think that if something like that happened now, you wouldn't do it again."

Ethan shook his head. It didn't matter if he felt guilty. They had to follow orders. "You don't know what we owe them, especially Deucalion. We weren't like Kali and Ennis when we met him. We weren't alphas."

"What were you?" Scott asked.

"Omegas," he answered. "In actual wolf packs, omegas are the scapegoat, the last to eat, the one who has to take the abuse from the rest of the pack."

"So you and your brother were, like, the bitches of the pack?" Stiles asked with a smirk.

"Something like that."

"What happened?" Willow asked.

"They were killers. I mean, people talk about us as monsters. Well, they were the ones who gave us the reputation. And our Alpha was the worst of them," Ethan told them.

"Why didn't you guys just fight back? Form Voltron wolf, you know? Kick everyone's asses?" Stiles asked.

"We couldn't, we didn't know how to control it back then," he said.

"Deucalion taught you," Scott realized.

It hadn't made sense at first to Willow, why Deucalion went to the twins when they were the weakest members of their pack. But just like Willow, he must have had a hunch about their ability to morph into one super wolf. Once he was sure they were loyal to him and his pack, Deucalion taught them how to control it.

"And then, we fought. We took down the whole pack, one by one. And by the time we got to our Alpha, he was begging for his life. And we tore him apart," Ethan said. It was a little too much detail for Willow's liking. "Literally."

"What about your emissary?" Scott asked. "They're all dead? Kali and Ennis' too?"

"All of them except for Deucalion's," he told them.

"You mean Morrell?" Stiles asked bitterly.

Suddenly, Ethan clutched his chest and let out a grunt of pain. Willow stood quickly, looking at him, wondering what brought the pain on.

"What? What's wrong?" Scott asked. "Are you hurt?"

"Not me. My brother," Ethan muttered.

The four of them ran across the school, Ethan taking the lead. As they neared the locker room, they heard the sound of fighting. Once inside, they saw Cora on the ground and Aiden above her, holding a weight plate above her head, ready to smash her skull in.

Scott and Stiles both grabbed Aiden's arms, holding him back while Ethan and Willow stood in between him and Cora.

"You can't do this!" Ethan shouted.

"She came at me!" Aiden yelled, still trying to attack Cora. One of his arms got free from Stiles' hold and he tried to shove past his brother.

"Stop! Stop it!" Willow shouted, making sure she blocked Cora from him. "Leave her alone, Aiden!"

They all watched with stunned expressions as Aiden stilled his movements immediately. His and Willow's eyes were locked, both glowing a soft pink color. And then just as quickly as it appeared, the glow faded. Aiden shook his head, not really sure why he had stopped trying to kill Cora.

So, maybe Boyd had forgotten about seeing the same thing, causing the twins to let Willow go that night in the loft. But in his defense, he had almost died.

Ethan glanced warily at Willow, not knowing what had happened. And because he didn't know, he wanted to get away from her. So, he grabbed Aiden's shoulder. "Kali gave Derek until the next full moon. You can't touch him or her."

Aiden glared at Cora for a moment longer before his brother dragged him from the locker room.

"What the hell was that?" Scott asked, looking at Willow.

"His eyes were glowing," Willow said, frowning.

"So were yours," he informed her. "Then he stopped."

"He wasn't going to stop," Lydia muttered, more confused than ever. "He was going to kill her."

"Hey, guys," Stiles said, realizing that Cora wasn't getting up on her own. "I think she's pretty hurt."

They pushed the glowing eyes incident to the back of their minds as they helped Cora to her feet. Willow led her to the sink and carefully began cleaning the blood off of her arms and head.

"You okay?" Stiles asked her.

"She doesn't look okay," Lydia stated pointedly.

"I'll heal," Cora said bitterly. But then she began swaying and grabbed onto Willow to fix her balance. Seeing how everyone moved toward her only made her more annoyed. "I said I'm fine."

"Do you realize how suicidally crazy that was?" Stiles asked. He sounded like a parent chastising a child. "What were you thinking going after them?"

"I was thinking about Boyd!" Cora snapped. "He hasn't been able to go home or school. He just hides away, not wanting them to find him. We almost lost him, and I seem to be the only one that wants to do anything! What's stopping them from killing the rest of us?"

"We're trying," Scott told her, feeling guilty.

"And you're failing," she said, glaring at him. "You're just a bunch of stupid teenagers running around, thinking that you can stop people from getting killed. But all you do is show up late. All you really do is find the bodies. And if not for Willow, Boyd would be one of them too."

As Cora stormed out of the room, Stiles let out a heavy sigh. "She's definitely a Hale. I'll make sure she gets home."

"Me too," Willow said, following Stiles out. They rode to school together, so she didn't really have a choice.

They caught up to Cora just as she exited the school. While Stiles led her to the jeep, Willow snatched Cora's hand, earning a raised eyebrow.

"You're not healing as quickly," Willow noted. "Let me—"

"No. I know you feel bad after. It takes a toll on you," Cora said, shaking her head.

"It took a toll because Boyd was on the brink of death," she reminded her. "You have a concussion. That's all."

Before Cora could protest more, Willow leaned in and kissed her forehead, close to the wound from Aiden. Once again, that warm, healing power rushed from Willow and to Cora. As the gash healed, Cora let out a sigh of relief, glad that her head was no longer pounding.

"Thanks," Cora said quietly.

"Happy to help," she replied.

The girls sat in the backseat of the jeep together. Cora let Willow lean her head on her shoulder, who had a slight headache from the healing. It would pass soon, as it was nothing compared to healing Boyd.

As Stiles drove to his house, Allison called him with an update. She had been snooping around her father's office and evidently found a list of what the next sacrifices would be.

"Philosophers?" Stiles questioned.

"And guardians, which after last night has to mean something like law enforcement, right?" Allison guessed.

"Stiles," Willow said, her voice strained. "Stiles, you have to tell your dad. Tell him whatever you need but you have to get him to believe. You have to. We can't - we can't let it happen to him too."

Stiles glanced at Willow in the rearview mirror, seeing the pain in her eyes. Maybe, she thought, if she had warned her father, he'd still be alive.

"Okay, okay, okay, I know," Stiles said, giving in. He may not of wanted his father to know, but that didn't matter. They had to keep him alive.

"What are you gonna do?" Cora asked him.

"I'm gonna tell him the truth," he said, glancing back at the werewolf. "And I'm gonna need your help."

☽︎

Stiles paced nervously back and forth in his room while Willow and Cora sat on his bed. Noah was watching his son, growing quite annoyed with his inability to explain why he'd asked to talk to him.

"Okay, okay, okay, okay. Yes, okay. No, oh—"

"Stiles," Noah interrupted impatiently.

"Dad, I'm sorry, okay? I'm just... I'm trying to - I'm just trying to figure out how to start here."

"Did you get one of them pregnant?" Noah asked, looking at Willow and Cora with wide eyes.

"No!" Willow denied quickly, shaking her head. "Nope. No. Not pregnant. Neither of us."

"Derek would rip my heart out," Stiles said under his breath, his eyes wide at the mere thought.

"Okay, I don't have this kind of time," Noah told Stiles, who went back to pacing.

"Um, for the last year, you've had all these cases that you couldn't figure out, right? I mean, all the murders involving Kate Argent, and then Matt killing all the people who had drowned him, and all these murders right now. It's like... it's like you've been playing a losing game."

"Stiles, the last thing I need right now is a job performance review from my own son," he complained.

"I know. Okay, see, but that's — that's just it, Dad." Remembering Ms. Blake's lecture from English class, Stiles grabbed his chess set off his bookshelf. "The reason that you're losing the game is 'cause you've never been able to see the whole board. I need to show you the whole board."

While Stiles set up all the pieces, he asked Willow to write the names of everyone important on little tabs meant for annotating books. After color-coordinating them based on what type of thing everyone was, she passed them on to Stiles, who gave his father a rushed explanation of everything that had happened in the last year.

It was safe to say that Noah wasn't impressed.

"Scott and Derek are werewolves?" Noah asked, a confused look on his face.

"Yes."

"And Kate Argent was a werewolf?"

"Hunter," Stiles corrected. "That's — purple's hunter."

"Along with Allison and her father," Cora added, trying to be helpful.

"Yeah," Noah muttered, "and... and my friend Deaton, the veterinarian, is a kanima?"

"Well, no, no, no, no, no. He's a druid, okay? Well, we think," Stiles said.

"So who's the Kanima?" he asked, getting confused again.

"Jackson," Willow answered.

"No, Jackson's a werewolf," he said, looking at the colors on the board.

"Jackson was the Kanima first, and then Peter and Derek killed him and he came back to life as a werewolf. Now, he's in London," Stiles explained.

"Who's the Da-rack?" Noah asked, pronouncing it wrong.

"It's Da-rock," Stiles corrected.

"We don't know yet," Cora said.

Stiles pointed at Cora and nodded in agreement. "We don't know yet."

"But he was killed by werewolves?" Noah asked.

"Slashed up and left for dead," Stiles muttered.

"We think," Cora added.

"We think."

Noah sighed in annoyance and leaned back in the chair he was sitting in. "Why was Jackson the kanima?"

"Cause sometimes, the shape that you take reflects the person that you are," he explained.

"And what shape would an increasingly confused and angrier-by-the-second father take?"

Willow bit her lip and looked at her lap as Stiles winced. "Uh, that would be more of an expression like the one you're currently wearing."

"Yeah." Noah, having enough with the supernatural talk, got up to leave.

"Dad! Dad, would you - I can prove it, okay? Look, she's one of them. A werewolf," Stiles said, pointing to Cora.

"Stiles! That's enough," Noah shouted. "This is not funny and it's not healthy, especially for Willow. So stop—"

"Dad, can you please just hold on?" Stiles interrupted, just as frustrated as his father. Then he pointed to Cora, who got off the bed. "You ready? All right, Dad, just watch this, okay?"

However, Cora didn't flash her eyes and fangs. The girl swayed on her feet before collapsing altogether. Noah and Willow both rushed to her side, seeing that she was completely unconscious.

"Call an ambulance," Noah ordered to Stiles.

☽︎

"They've got her hooked up to an IV and bandaged her head. Looks like the bleeding has stopped. But just get here as soon as you can," Willow said into the phone.

As soon as Cora was in a room, Willow pulled up a chair by her bed. Noah left, as did Stiles. Scott figured out that the next sacrifices were philosophers as in teachers. Officer Tara used to be a teacher before becoming a police officer. And that night, all the teachers were at the school for some recital Ms. Blake organized to honor all the lives lost. Instead of leaving with Stiles and Noah, she stayed at the hospital.

As soon as the ambulance had arrived, Willow called Derek to let him know what was wrong. They stayed on the phone the entire time while Derek hunted down Peter so they could both be there for Cora.

"Peter and I are almost there," Derek told her. "Then we — Peter! Stop trying to grab my phone."

"Willow," Peter said over the line, his voice a little far away from the microphone. "You said you healed her after Aiden's attack, but it's back?"

"Yeah, it just reappeared," she said, looking at Cora's sleeping body. "But it's not just the head wound. She's sweaty and nauseous and has a fever — last I checked, werewolves don't get fevers."

"That's not a good sign," Peter said, showing worry and emotions that he'd only ever show around his family and Willow. "I want to talk to a doctor as soon as we get there — Derek, pick up the pace. You're not taking your driver's test."

It was only five minutes before Peter and Derek arrived. True to his word, Peter sought out the ER doctor to go over all of Cora's symptoms. Derek sat at Cora's side, doing nothing but silently worry as he looked at his little sister. His little sister that looked like she was dying.

"Derek?"

Derek quickly sat up straight and saw that Cora's eyes were open finally.

"Hey. Hey, I'm here," he said softly, leaning over her.

"What's happening to me?" Cora asked him. She sounded so weak and scared.

"I don't know," he admitted. "But I'm not leaving, okay? Not again."

Cora barely nodded her head before letting her eyes shut once more, knowing that Derek would be at her side. He carefully leaned down to kiss her forehead. Soon, Cora's breathing evened out, letting them know that she was back asleep.

"She'll be okay, Derek," Willow said softly. Derek was resting his head on her shoulder, not taking his eyes off of Cora.

"Will she?" he asked vulnerably.

She had to be. Because this pack couldn't take another loss, and Derek couldn't lose what little family he had left.

☽︎

Derek and Peter looked away from Cora as Willow came back into the room. She had stepped out to answer a call from Stiles, and the look on her face when she returned told them it was bad news.

"Will," Derek said cautiously as she took in a shaky breath. "What is it? Was another teacher sacrificed?"

"Yes. In the middle of the recital in front of everyone," she said, her voice distant. She stared forward at the plain wall. "That's not all."

"I'm sorry. Something worse than a teacher being slaughtered in front of an audience of children happened?" Peter asked, raising an eyebrow.

"They found out who the Darach is," Willow said, her voice barely above a whisper. "It's Ms. Blake."

"The teacher?" Derek asked, his eyes wide. Though he only met her twice, he never would've guessed it to be her. None of them would.

"That's not all," Willow said, repeating the same thing from before.

Peter sighed. "How is that not all?"

"She took Stiles' father. She's going to sacrifice him."