Sophie Acton followed a sniffling Melissa down the halls of the suddenly quiet hospital. Sophie's red hair had since fallen from its tight bun as it now lay flat against her back in waves of unprofessional style.
Sophie lifted her head silently, tilting it to watch Melissa as the dark haired woman wiped under her eyes.
"I'm sorry," Sophie told the mourning mother.
Melissa jumped the slightest, she had forgotten she had the Acton deputy following behind her. She turned her head towards Sophie, giving the other woman a nod.
"Thank you," Melissa whispered. Of course, Melissa new this wasn't real, but unfortunately, the aunt beside her didn't.
"I need you to trust me," Melissa started telling Sophie.
Sophie stopped in her steps, "I've heard that sentence before, and it normally leads to a big revelation of some serious information," she stated. "And I'm really not in the mood to arrest you for harboring something that goes against code, Melissa."
Melissa held her hands up, "Don't worry, okay? I think you're gonna want to see this."
Sophie ran a shaky hand through her hair as she released a shaky breath, "Charlie's gone, Melissa," she whispered to the woman. "My nephew is dead and now..." she shook her head, "now I don't know what to do."
Melissa grabbed Sophie's cold hands in hers, "You need to trust me for right now. Please, Sophie, this is important."
Sophie cleared her throat, giving the tan hands of Melissa McCall a squeeze before nodding, rolling her neck and setting her shoulders, "Okay."
Melissa nodded, "Just prepare yourself, alright?"
Sophie nodded as they continued walking, "Consider me prepared."
Melissa lead Sophie to a set of double doors and Sophie instantly shook her head, "Absolutely not. I am not looking in there."
Melissa sighed, "Sophie, you need to trust me and know that whatever I'm doing, it's gonna be fine."
"I don't want to see his body, Melissa!" Sophie exclaimed. "I wanna remember Charlie like he was before, not what he looks like now."
"Psst! Melissa!" A voice whisper-yelled from the morgue.
Sophie's hand went to her gun, "Who the hell is that?" She asked Melissa, leaning towards the morgue doors.
"That's where trust comes in," Melissa told Sophie.
"I'll trust it when I can see it," Sophie grumbled.
Melissa advanced to the doors, pushing past them with Sophie trailing behind her. Sophie kept her hand resting on her gun as she made her way into the morgue. Her eyes widened at the group of kids surrounding the bodies of Scott McCall and Charlie Acton.
"Stilinski?" Sophie exclaimed, dropping her hand from her gun. "What the hell are you doing in here?"
Stiles' jaw dropped, "Oh, God," he muttered, dropping his head to scratch his temple nervously.
Melissa approached her sons paled body, "I sill hate this plan," she announced to the group, Kira's mom seeming to nod in agreement.
"What plan?" Sophie asked. "What the hells going on here?"
"We're currently trying to save the lives of everyone in Beacon Hills," a voice told her.
"Liam, seriously? That's what you came up with?" Stiles sighed.
"She asked!" Liam exclaimed.
"Hey!" Sophie interrupted the arguing. "I'm gonna ask time more time, and if I don't get an answer, I'm getting your father," she told Stiles.
"Well, that won't exactly work," Stiles trailed off.
Sophie rose a brow, placing her hands on her hips inquisitively, "And why's that?"
"Because he's kind of a part of this plan too..."
Sophie gave Stiles an annoyed look. But her annoyance wasn't all towards him. It was towards the other Stilinski that reframed from telling her that her nephew wasn't really dead.
Sophie pinched the bridge of her nose, "I want the short explanation."
<>
"So.. a supernatural hit man," Sophie concluded.
"Basically," Stiles nodded.
"Great, who is this guy?" Sophie wondered.
"If we knew, we wouldn't be doing this plan," Stiles also replied.
Sophie rose a threatening eyebrow at the time of the boy, and Melissa followed, crossing her arms as the two women stared at the youngest Stilinski with disdain aimed towards his attitude.
Stiles cleared his throat in an attempt to make himself seem less small under the intense gaze of both women. Their goal was to intimidate the boy, and needless to say, they completed their goal.
"How much time do we have?" Melissa suddenly voiced.
Sophie shook her head, "For what?"
"Forty-five minutes," Noshiko responded.
"Forty-five minutes till what?" Sophie asked louder.
"I bring Scott and Charlie back the same way," Kira said.
"And what way is that exactly?"
"Well.." Kira looked around her for help.
"The way that she made them unconscious is gonna be the way she makes them conscious because if she can make them unconscious all she has to do is the opposite to make them... well, conscious," Stiles rambled.
Sophie gave Stiles a pointed look, "Thin. Ice." She reminded him.
"Right," Stiles nodded.
"No, I mean what happens if they stay like this longer than forty-five minutes?" Melissa asked.
The three teens exchanged looks and Kira gave her mom a guilty look.
"No ones told her yet?" Noshiko wondered, astonished.
"What're you talking about?" Sophie asked worriedly. "What the hell happens to Charlie after forty-five minutes?"
"They die," Noshiko told Melissa McCall and Sophie Acton.
Sophie and Melissa froze, turning their heads to give each other a shocked look. Neither of them knew how to respond. Were they to be calm and collected; confident in the group of teens that held both Scott and Charlie's lives in their hands? Or were they supposed to be angry with the situation of danger that the two boys were lying in.
"I-I'm still a cop," Sophie said randomly.
"Yes..." Stiles said, though it came out as a question more than anything.
"I promised to always do the right thing, even if I had to do it the wrong way," Sophie told the group. "I-I can't just ignore the fact that there's something going on in this town."
Stiles shook his head, "You've lost me."
"I'm gonna have to get the station involved," Sophie said.
Stiles's eyes widened tremendously, "What? Soph, no!"
Stiles couldn't retract the sting of betrayal he felt in his chest as Sophie stared at him with such... Disappointment. Stiles could try, but it would be no use denying that he had always looked up to Sophie. She was strong. In the face of a problem, Sophie was someone who would not stop to find answers. It reminded him of his father.
And the more Stiles thought about it, his father seemed different around Sophie. He almost seemed happier. Even when the two were working on ongoing murder cases, the Sheriff never left the station without that small pep in his step.
Until a few months ago when Stiles had asked his father not to tell Sophie, someone Mr. Stilinski had come to see as a best friend, anything about the supernatural creatures roaming Beacon. Suddenly, Noah Stilinski would come home with deep circles of purple weighing down his eyes. He seemed more stressed.
And Stiles only now realized it was because the secrets being hidden from Sophie were weighing on the eldest Stilinski's heart. But Stiles wanted to know more. He had to know what exactly was going on.
"Stiles, do you know how many murder cases could be solved witth this new information?" Sophie exclaimed. "I'm talking hundreds!"
"Sophie, my dads tried that," Stiles said. "It would've consumed if I I hadn't convinced him to stop."
Right, I forgot Noah had know this entire time. This entire time I was bending over backwards to try and solve all the murder cases that kept popping up, Noah knew the cause of them all. Sophie thought bitterly.
She was ready to give that man a piece of her mind.
"Why would you do that?" Sophie asked.
"Because opening these cases would do nothing more than tear you apart," Stiles told her. "And I don't want that, for either of you."
Sophie sighed, "I'd be going against everything I've been trained on," she told Stiles.
"I know," Stiles nodded.
"I could lose my job."
"You won't!" Stiles was quick to reassure. "Dad wouldn't let that happen, I promise."
Sophie licked her lips nervously, glancing down at Charlie's even paler than normal form. His lips were a dangerous chill of blue and Sophie shivered without meaning to. Charlie looked so... cold.
A shock of pain rang throughout her head and she began to massage her temples, groaning under her breath, "Damn it, I thought these were gone."
"Thought what were gone?" Melissa wondered worriedly.
"Stress migraines," Sophie said, wincing. "I used to get them a lot when I first became a cop, but ever since I've been taking care of Charlie, its like they just... went away. But now that he's not here-"
"They're back," Melissa nodded. "Well, how about we let them get this thing over with so we can get our boys back, and I'll find you some ibuprofen?"
"I was thinking wine," Sophie huffed, letting Melissa usher her away from the group, "lots and lots of wine."
Sophie suddenly halted her steps, "Wait a second.." Sophie whirled around, her hand falling from her temple, "Where the hell is Malia Tate?"
Kira swallowed the anxious lump in her throat and Liam bit his lip, "Uh, well, she doesn't, umm, exactly know what's going on."
Stiles couldn't hold his surprise, and even slight fear as his eyes widened, "You didn't tell Malia Charlie was dead?"
"Well, he's not technically dead," Kira told Stiles.
Stiles's eye twitched and Kira nodded, "Right, not helping."
"Well, someones gonna have to call her," Sophie told the kids. "She deserves to know what's happening to him."
"Do you think she'll even come?" Liam asked. "Ever since her and Charlie broke up-"
"Broke up?" Sophie interrupted him. "When did they break up..." She trailed off, remembering the day Charlie had stumbled out of the school in a crying mess, saying Malia had left him.
"What did he do?" Sophie wondered. "Those two were always attached at the hip, so what could Charlie have done to change that?"
"Its more of what Charlie didn't do," Stiles told Sophie.
Sophie gave Stiles a clueless look and Stiles sighed, "Charlie didn't tell Malia who her birth father was."
"Malia's adopted?" Sophie exclaimed.
"Hey, yeah, he also forgot to mention that too," Stiles laughed nervously.
"Who's the father?"
"Peter Hale," Stiles winced, awaiting Sophie's actions.
Sophie nearly fainted, "Peter Hale? As in the mass murderer Peter Hale? The one who killed my best friend, also his niece, Peter Hale?" She began yelling.
Stiles sucked on his teeth, wincing, "Yep, that's the one..."
"Well, I can see the appeal of a few secrets," Sophie said, not going as far as to register the hypocrisy of her words.
"What're you doing?" Kira wondered as Sophie pulled her phone from her pocket.
Sophie glanced to the girl, "I'm gonna call this girl and tell her to get her ass down here."
"You might want to try a more subtle approach," Noshiko voiced her thoughts. "Such as maybe suggesting she head over to the hospital?"
Sophie rose an eyebrow at Noshiko as she heard Malia grunt a 'what' through the phone.
"First of all, don't what me, and second, I need to see you at the hospital," Sophie told Malia.
"I'm busy," Malia simply told the woman.
"Well, clear your schedule because you're needed for more important things," Sophie tried Noskio's mention of subtlety.
"What could be more important than what I'm doing?" Malia scoffed.
"What're you doing?" Sophie asked challengingly.
Malia was lying in her room in her adoptive father's house, currently snuggled loosely in one of Charlie's blue hoodies. The fabric of the hoodie seemed to release Charlie's smell each time Malia touched it and she felt her chest ache in a pain of lonesomeness.
Malia didn't know how to deal with the pain of a breakup; she didn't like crying, it made her face sticky, she didn't like getting angry, it made her feel guilty, and she definitely didn't like being sad, it made her tired. But she would never tell anyone that, it was her own business, and no one else's.
"None of your business," she decided to say. She squinted in confusion as she felt an apology work its way to her mouth, as if upon instinct.
Malia knew she was being rude, at least, Charlie said whenever she spoke to people like she just did, it can come off as rude. And judging by the tense silence that settled through the phone, she came off as rude.
"Forget subtle," Sophie huffed. "Malia, Charlie's in the morgue, come to the hospital and find me if you want to see him. We need your help."
Silence rang through the other line and Sophie could have swore Malia had hung up, had it not been for the teenage girl's heavy, panicked breaths invading the speaker. Malia said nothing, quickly pushing jeans up her legs and leaving Charlie's hoodie on. She pushed her feet into boots, not bothering to tie them before she took of from her home.
Sophie decided to end the call, not seeing a point to staying on the line any longer. She had completed her mission, Malia was on her way.
"I'm so dead," Kira whimpered. "So dead."