A bit of a problem was a bit of an understatement.

Ever since Rachel had finally admitted that she'd done the stupidest, most idiotic thing she could've possibly done, she couldn't stop dwelling on it. Love was a menace; a stupid, useless menace that she absolutely loathed because more than anything, it was a weakness. She saw what it did to Derek, to Scott.. and she could already feel what it was doing to her.

It didn't feel all that different from what she'd felt before, aside from the dull ache of emptiness caused by the knowledge that the person she loved was in a coma, due to her best friend being possessed. That was mostly because it wasn't a new feeling, it was something she'd grown used to over time. The only thing new about it was the realization. The feeling of being in love never had a chance to feel new to her, because the onset was so gradual, like every cliché teenage girl, she failed to noticed until it was too late. Only, unlike other cliché teenage girls, the boy she was in love with didn't move onto the next pretty blonde cheerleader.

He died.

A coma wasn't dead to most people, but to someone like Rachel, who'd watched her uncle rot in a catatonic state with near identical burns for six years, it was the equivalent. It was hopeless, like everything else— Stiles was missing, Isaac was dead & Rachel was probably going to unwillingly pull an Edward Cullen and die too, whenever the psychotic scientists caught up to her.

She'd fight them, of course. She fought everything, but there was no point. She wouldn't win. No one won. The only thing that could ever truly be considered a win in Beacon Hills was getting out alive and never coming back. Scott liked to think that keeping everyone alive for the time being was a win, but it wasn't— it was a stalemate. Hell, it was challenging whatever else lurked in the shadows to a best two out of three match, and even if they did manage to survive all three rounds, it wouldn't be without casualties.

The threats didn't stop. They would never stop, because Beacon Hills was a beacon without an off switch. Every time they took one out, another would replace them sooner or later— it was like Sir George Pearce trying to control the emu population in 1932 Western Australia, and everyone knows how that went. Horribly. Emus like Australia, supernatural homicidal maniacs like Beacon Hills, and no one's getting them out or controlling them anytime soon, if ever.

Rachel was in a daze, walking down the school hallway. She trailed a few feet behind Scott, and used him as a guide so she didn't run directly into anyone. She was fairly certain he was talking to Kira, but she couldn't be bothered to catch up with them and join the conversation; she was too focused on overthinking. She had to have been able to consider it her hobby by now, because lately it was all she did.

She noticed Scott and Kira part ways up ahead, the alpha heading to the boys' locker room whilst Kira went to the girls' down the hall. Rachel should have followed her, the only reason she was at school this early in the first place was for track, but she couldn't find the will to do so. Isaac had been the one to sign her up for track. There was no point in going anymore.

The brunette trudged down the hallway to her locker, spinning the small dial to unlock it but froze on the last number. An all too familiar sound caught her attention and snapped her out of her daze in an instant— it was an ultrasonic emitter, one used primarily by the Argents, and it was coming from inside the school. The sound hadn't been there moments prior, Rachel was certain of it; meaning someone had just now turned it on.

Rachel followed the sound down the hallway, stopping in front of the door to the basement stairs. It was coming from down there, without a doubt, and whoever had activated it was still down there. She soon found hadn't been the only one to hear it, as she glanced over her shoulder to see Scott, Aiden & Ethan, all looking as confused as she was.

"Should we—" she was about to question, but the twins didn't bother waiting to hear the rest of it. Scott and Rachel followed quickly after them down the stairs and into the basement.

The next few seconds went by so quickly, Rachel almost missed it; she was so shocked by the sight of Stiles, the twins going at him didn't even register in her brain until Scott had thrown one of them off and growled the less aggressive one into submission.

"Okay, I know what you guys are thinking, but it's me." Stiles' words were rushed, panicked. He was shaky, dark circles underlined his eyes, indicating he hadn't slept in days. "I swear to God it's me."

Rachel was conflicted. The twins weren't convinced. Aiden growled, watching Stiles closely for any sudden movement. Even Scott looked a certain degree of conflicted, but he wasn't going to let the attack dogs loose on his best friend regardless of whether or not it was him.

"Stop!" Scott yelled at Aiden, who took a step forward. "I said, stop!"

The omega reluctantly obliged, but didn't take his eyes off Stiles. Ethan didn't either, but he was far more willing to listen than his brother and seemed at least a little interested in hearing what Stiles had to say.

"It's me, Scott. I swear it's me." Stiles promised. "I don't know where I've been the last two days or what I've been doing, but this is me. I promise."

Rachel looked towards Scott, to find he had already turned to her. Was it really Stiles? It was easy for a monster to wear his face, and claim to be him. It had done it before, and they didn't doubt it would do it again. There was a power struggle in his mind, and they had to determine whether or not Stiles was strong enough to win; if only their judgement wasn't clouded by the ache in their hearts.

"Do you know what happened at the hospital?" Rachel asked him, biting her tongue so hard she tasted blood. He said he didn't know anything about the past two days, but she had to know if he was aware of the aftermath of his antics at the hospital.

Stiles nodded softly, taking a few steps over to a large duffel bag. He shifted through it for a moment before retrieving a large blue sheet of thick laminated paper littered in red markings. "I know more than that. You see this? It's a blueprint of the hospital's electrical wiring. You see all these markings in red? That's my handwriting. I know I did this, I know I caused the accident.. and everything in this bag, it's all stuff that could be part of something bigger."

Ethan and Aiden were already in the midst of going through the duffel bag. One twin was holding a drill, whilst the other (Rachel was pretty sure it was Aiden, but she still struggled telling them apart when they were side by side) picked up a bundle of rope. "What the hell were you doing? Building a terminator?"

"Thank you for that." Stiles snapped back, his tone dripping sarcasm.

"What's that piece of paper?" Rachel furrowed her brows, ignoring Stiles' comment.

Her gaze was locked on a folded up piece of paper on the table that Scott quickly took notice of and picked up. He unfolded it, his eyes scanning over the information displayed on it before he looked back up at her, this time far more concerned than before. "It's a map."

"Isn't that the cross country trail?" Aiden questioned, looking over his shoulder.

Rachel took a few steps across the room so she was over beside Scott and able to examine the map. Geography was never her forte, and her ability to read maps was far from desirable, but it took no more than a moment for her to recognize the all too familiar trails.

It was a part of the preserve near Lookout Point, she had been through it a few times, most recently on the day before Halloween. The most vivid memory she had of that trail was the wrecked car, it had to have been there for years. It wasn't all that far from a coyote den.. Wait. "Isn't that where you guys found that werecoyote?"

"That's the Tate car." Scott nodded, tapping the exact spot on the map. "Where Malia Tate's family died."

Stiles tensed. "You mean that's where her father put the steel-jawed traps."

—

Suddenly Rachel's family didn't seem so dysfunctional anymore.

As it turned out, Malia Tate's father had littered the cross-country trail with steel-jawed traps in effort to catch the coyote he'd seen wandering nearby, believing it to have been the reason Malia's body was never recovered following the crash. Little did he know, the coyote he set out to kill was Malia, and he was damn lucky that Scott found her first.

There were multiple holes in the story, particularly regarding how Mr. Tate wouldn't know the coyote was Malia, but Rachel filled them in with assumptions— the first one being that the werecoyote was adopted. One of her parents would've had to have been a considerably powerful werecoyote in order for her to be one capable of fully shifting, and Mr. Tate definitely wasn't supernatural if his first instinct was to grab a gun.

It wasn't much of a topic to dwell on, being that Malia was probably far from Beacon Hills by now, but it was something for Rachel to think about on the way to the cross country trail. She needed a distraction to dwell on, something she could devote her focus to so she could refrain from thinking about Isaac. It only worked for a minute, but it was a minute where her chest didn't hurt quite as badly, and she cherished that minute.

It took her a maximum of five minutes to sprint there alongside the other werewolves to the cross country trail, where she found her new distraction. Stiles took a minimum of zero-point-five seconds to render everyone who saw him speechless, and his panicked words that followed ensured the crowd remained that way.

"Stop, stop, stop!" Stiles shouted, frantically waving to get everyone's attention. "Everyone, stop!"

Everyone gathered around, not only hearing his frantic tone of voice but seeing the panicked look on his face. No one questioned it as the last few runners finally joined the crowd and Stiles kneeled to the ground. He brushed away some of the orange fallen leaves, in search of a trap, and after a moment, he found what he believed to be it.

Amidst the leaves he had discovered a length of silver chain, the entirety of it still buried beneath shades of orange. Cautiously, he tugged the chain, pulling it free from the cover of the leaves until he had unearthed the entire thing. At the end, was nothing— it was merely a cut piece of chain.

Everyone seemed to relax at the sight, but Rachel shot a nervous glance towards Scott and Kira. Neither noticed it, and while they did seem rather confused, Scott's level of concern had noticeably decreased. Even the twins didn't seem as panicked as before, and Rachel had to admit that she allowed herself a sigh of relief once she knew it wasn't a bear trap at the end of the chain, but she couldn't shake the feeling of panic.

The nogitsune was a trickster; it played sick, twisted jokes. It tricked people for its own entertainment. Rachel's gaze moved to Stiles, who looked puzzled yet relieved, just like Scott. There had to be something else. Maybe not here, but there had to be something somewhere. A nail gun hidden in the janitor's closet & rigged to shoot at whoever opened it, another severed wire, a bucket of acid rigged to fall on whoever opened a door, there had to be something. They had to be missing something.

"Congratulations, Stilinski." Coach clapped obnoxiously loud, moving towards Stiles. "You found a length of chain! Can somebody, now, please tell me what the hell's going on?"

They noticed it just a second too late. Both Scott and Rachel had turned just enough to see the wire gleam in the sunlight poking through the treetops, but neither was quick enough to warn Coach of the grave mistake he was making by taking another step forward before it was too late. "Coach!"

In the blink of an eye, an arrow shot past them and straight into Coach Finstock's chest. The crowd remained silent, staring in horror at the sight of Coach with an arrow sticking out of his chest. Rachel was no stranger to being shot, or witnessing people get shot, but to see it happen to someone incapable of healing as easily as she and others like her did, she couldn't help but be just as horrified as everyone else around her.

"Ah, crap." Coach muttered as the initial shock wore off and reality set in. He fell backwards to the ground moments after muttering the two words, and that was when the panic kicked in.

The crowd surrounding them was no longer silent. Some nervously looked around, afraid to take another step whilst others screamed, and a few took out their phones to dial 911. Scott, Aiden and Stiles were all knelt down beside Coach, the two werewolves holding his shoulders so he didn't sit up and worsen the injury. Stiles was attempting to put pressure on the wound, to no avail, and Coach was just screaming.

"Get it out of me! Get it out of me!" He yelled, his voice louder than they'd ever heard. Perhaps that was just because he was screaming directly into their ears as they attempted to help him.

"That's a very bad idea." Rachel chimed in, kneeling down beside Aiden. "Coach, you have to—"

"Oh my God, I'm gonna die. Get it out of me! I'm gonna die!"

Rachel cringed, as did everyone else nearby. He made Lydia's banshee scream feel like a whisper.

"Coach, you're not gonna die!" Scott reassured him.

Rather than listening, Coach screamed again. "I'm gonna die!"

"Coach, you're not gonna die as long as you stay still and leave the arrow in place." Rachel yelled back, hoping he'd at least listen to some of what she said. He was too focused on the arrow, and Rachel took that as a hint to move back before he screamed again and deafened her.

Crowd control seemed far more appealing to her as she noticed the horde of teenagers crowding around in attempt to catch a glimpse. She mentally rolled her eyes; she never understood how people were always so drawn to tragedy. Standing, staring and screaming did nothing but worsen the situation and create more chaos.. which is exactly what the nogitsune wanted.

"Back up and shut up!" Rachel screamed at the top of her lungs, hoping she hadn't somehow become a banshee in the past ten minutes— last she could recall, she was on werewolf mode in case she stumbled upon a steel-jawed trap, but she no longer trusted herself to be able to maintain anything. Especially not in her current mental state. No one in the crowd looked as though they'd been deafened by a supernatural scream, so she deemed it somewhere along the lines of a non-failure. Nothing was a win anymore.

The crowd surprisingly complied, after a few more seconds of staring and mumbling to each other. Most, anyway. Rachel narrowed her eyes at a particular girl who wasn't seeming to move along with the group. "Move it, freshman, before I pick you up and throw you. Standing and staring isn't gonna do shit."

"Neither is cursing at the freshmen." Aiden commented, standing up beside her.

"Fuck off." Rachel snapped. If there had been any question about whether or not she was still angry at Aiden for nearly killing her sister, she'd just answered it loud and clear. She wasn't just mad at him, she was infuriated. Ethan, she could tolerate, but Aiden— God, if he wasn't helping them.. It was the only reason she was holding back. She hated him more than she hated Peter, and Peter had actually killed her sister; but Aiden had tried to kill her twin.

He knew better than anyone that the unbreakable connection between supernatural twins lasted until death, and he had to know Rachel felt all the pain that Cora did. She felt her twin slowly dying, because of him, and could do absolutely nothing to stop it. Perhaps that was the true reason she never genuinely tried to kill him in retaliation, because she knew Ethan would feel it as well.

Not that she really cared about or liked him, but she certainly hated him less than Aiden. He may have assisted his brother in killing Boyd, but he showed remorse and he tried to make up for it. He did everything he could to show that he wanted to be a part of Scott's pack, he was willing to change for the better if that was what it required.

Aiden didn't even know how to apologize.

Rachel sighed softly, turning back to Coach who'd finally ceased screaming. Upon glancing down, she found that it wasn't because he had accepted his horrible luck, but instead because Scott was taking his pain. Her gaze then moved to Stiles, whose back was facing her so she couldn't see the expression on his face. It was intentional, of course— she couldn't see his face, otherwise she'd know. She'd see it in his eyes, just like Scott would, but Scott was too preoccupied taking away pain to look up at the glint of evil in his best friend's brown eyes.

"Guys, I think he just passed out." Aiden commented.

"Thank hell." Rachel whispered. She could no longer withstand Coach's screaming, and if she had to listen to it for another minute she'd no longer care about whether or not he was okay, she'd just leave.

"I could have killed him." Stiles spoke softly, looking between Scott & Rachel. His hands were covered in blood, and shaking now that he took notice of it. "I could have killed him, right? What if it was his head or his throat?"

"But it wasn't." Scott reminded him, knowing it wasn't his fault. It wasn't Stiles who set this trap, it was the nogitsune, and everyone knew that. Anything done by the nogitsune wasn't Stiles fault, or anything he could've prevented. "And he's going to be alright."

"I think I just heard an ambulance." Aiden informed them. Scott & Rachel picked up on it a moment later, now listening more closely for the sound of a siren.

But in a case like this, paramedics weren't the only ones dispatched— and Stiles realized that in an instant. "And my dad."

—

UNEDITED.

"don't fall in love with a dead man"
"too late"

hello yes it is i, sobbing. there's only two more weeks of teen wolf, and after what i just watched, i'm not ready. at all. i'm terribly sorry for the wait, but here i am, back with a mediocre update. we're nearing the end of unbroken & i'm happy to tell you that i will be doing a third book, set in season 5, and my new brotp is ralia. move over, riles. i'm excited to do some evil things leading up to that, and even more excited to descend into the darkness of season 5. also cackling because i just realized the quote above also applies to risaac. oops?

quick question for you all: is there anyone else ship rachel with aside from isaac (and stiles)? your answer can be characters she's met, and ones she has yet to meet.