parents.

erica's parents loved her, they did. but the seizures started when she was so young, when she was still barely a person. they did their best, looked up all the ways to deal with a kid that had epilepsy, and provided her with whatever medicine she needed to help treat it. thing is, though, the epilepsy quickly eclipses erica herself in their eyes. erica's still their daughter in all the ways that matter, but she's barely a person to them now. just her disorder, this vague child-shaped thing that they love and care for, but otherwise don't see when she's not seizing or crying for help. that's not to say her childhood was devoid of happiness, because there were plenty good moments, good days when her parents weren't busy working, where her dad would spend time with her in the garage while he repaired his friends's cars. he'd have erica hand him the tools he needed, explaining why he needed it and what he was doing as he went along. she eventually develops an interest in fixing up cars because of those afternoons, those lazy sundays spent listening to her dad talk about it all. erica's relationship with her mother was clumsier, less casual, but her mother was always the first one to react whenever erica had a seizure, her hands quick, and always right where they needed to be. her mother was the one who always stayed, after, when erica was climbing down from an attack, pale and sweaty and so vulnerable. her mother was the one who held her until her trembling ceased.

erica felt her parents's love everyday, but outside of those quiet pockets of time together, it was like they barely knew each other. erica didn't know how to confide in her parents about her experience in school, and her parents didn't know how to ask. so a chasm is formed, this initially insignificant gap that widens until it's bigger than them. erica notices it, of course she does. she has no friends, no partner, all she has are her parents, but she doesn't know how to broach the subject, doesn't know if she can even do anything about it. whenever she approaches them to talk, to ask about what her dad's working on, what her mom's cooking for dinner, their first response is always concern. is everything okay? was it another seizure? did you run out of medicine? and erica gets it, she does. they still care, and that should be a good thing. but— their attention wavers. when she comes to talk to them and it isn't about her epilepsy, their gazes wander. she knows it's relief, she knows it is, but it still feels like a sucker punch every single time, whenever they stop listening once they're assured she's fine. nothing is as important as the epilepsy. most people would hear that and think that's the way it should be. erica just wishes they cared more about the rest of it, the rest of her.

de/rek hale.

her parents, strangers. her life, as quietly disappointing as it's always been. and then, de/rek hale. tall, imposing, promising her things she's only ever dreamed about. he says it's a gift but when his teeth breaks her skin it feels like he's taking something instead. it doesn't matter though. it doesn't matter when she's cured, fixed. her senses have always been her worst enemy, a hairpin trigger like a bug in a computer, ready to jumble up that one line of code that has everything glitching. her senses after the bite aren't against her anymore. they tell her things, they warn her. she can smell the grease underneath her dad's shampoo, the dying flowers sitting in a vase on the kitchen counter. she can hear the neighbours arguing like they're screaming at her. everything's overwhelming and that's it. too much has never been just that before. just a feeling. just a building of something— no fallout. no seizure. her body is still. for the first time in her life she is entirely in control.

it's not about gratitude. scott tries to talk her out of being part of derek's pack like he thinks she's deluded about the kind of man derek is, as if it was a choice to join him. she had wanted something from him, and he had wanted something from her, in the end this is what it boils down to. she's grateful, yes. she was saved, yes. but there was never room for her to say no, not if she wanted her epilepsy gone. so, see, there was never really a choice to begin with. and scott can preach all he wants about doing the right thing, about how derek is just using her, but none of it will matter. derek had given her something, had made her into someone new, someone better, so she will kill if he needs her to. she will fight if he wants her to. and it is still not about gratitude. not really. she would not die for derek, she would not hurt for him. this had never been anything more than a trade. the bite, in exchange for her services, her addition to his pack. there is nothing she wouldn't have given to be cured.

derek is no saviour. he is no less broken than she had been when he found her, than isaac or boyd had been when he got to them. this is a bitter pill to swallow. the word alpha doesn't mean much, in the end, not in derek's mouth. scott was right about one thing, she had no idea what she was getting herself into. but derek's mistakes don't sting like betrayal, not for her. for her it's about the disappointment, the loss of something she thought was a certainty, the fear. a new home, crumbling apart as quickly as it was built. they both made promises they couldn't keep.

isaac la/hey & vern/on boyd (+ co/ra hale).

no one else would have them. erica likes to think of the three of them that way, like jagged pieces of a puzzle that they couldn't fit into, so they found a way to connect to each other instead. she'll credit derek for getting them together, but what happens after? that's all them. licking each others's wounds after fights, trying to make sense of their circumstances when derek refuses to give them answers. that was just them.

erica's never really had friends before, but even then, she knows that isn't what this is. calling someone pack is different. isaac and boyd are different. nothing is right about any of it, not the werewolves, the kanimas, all the deaths. but the three of them, at the centre of it all, they feel right.

if the world had found her hard to swallow before, if it does now that she has claws, they don't. that's the beautiful thing about it, knowing that they can still accept her at her worst, knowing that she will still love them at theirs. makes it all the more terrible, when she has to make that choice to leave, when she recognises there is no way they don't end up getting chewed up and spit back out. them, the three of them, who the world had never really cared for in the first place. in what version of reality were they going to make it out in one piece?

scott mc/call gets to isaac before erica can open her mouth to beg. scott and his dumb big heart. scott and his kindness and his acceptance and that thing in him that screams alpha more than anything about derek ever did. her right hand is empty. she runs, she takes boyd with her, and they don't get far. she was right, before, when she said none of them were going to make it out of this in one piece. they trade hands from the argents to the alpha pack and there is no room for regrets, when they're locked behind those thick vault doors. erica laments anyway, spends her days and nights inside shaking, feeling the way she used to feel when she was more fragile, worried about everything, fearing another seizure.

there is no version of events where cora can properly fill the hole isaac leaves. erica lets her try anyway. lets her presence take over the empty space on her right side, pretends it doesn't feel off, look wrong. this here— the vault, the alpha pack— is at the very least as much cora's as it is erica's and boyd's. do broken people always come in threes? it's easier, with her there. derek's sister, who didn't look much like him, but sounded like him sometimes, with those firm words, that sharp tongue. erica learns to like it in cora, in her softer features, in her straight eyebrows. it's a lifeline, in this small space, to find new things to learn about each other.