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CHAPTER FOUR;

FATAL FLAW IN FATE

Sage shuffled through the random CD's that Stiles had left in the compartment box. There wasn't really much inside, a good majority of it actually belonged to her considering Stiles didn't think CD's were cool anymore and opted for modern technology that consisted of plugging a cord into the radio and playing through his phone. She, having grown up with the old legends, shoved one of her favorite discs into the radio and made him listen to Nirvana for two hours straight. This was over the summer, and due to their previous fight, she hadn't had a chance to get any of her stuff back that lingered in her boyfriend's car. Despite owning her own vehicle, thanks to Derek who grew tired of her stealing his Camaro, she still enjoyed riding with Stiles. It gave a sense of comfort and familiarity. She hated driving alone, it was too quiet even when she had music blaring. That's why she spent all summer with two of the loudest people she had ever come to meet: Stiles and Lydia. She wasn't sure how she survived being Lydia's best friend and Stiles' girlfriend all at the same time. Most people would have gone crazy. Take right now, for instance.

"Can you please stop destroying my car?" Stiles huffed out, his eyes flickering over to his girlfriend every time he heard the painful bang of a CD hitting his interior. "You're twitching and it's making me nervous."

Sage's hands went stiff on the CD's, and slowly, she turned her head to look at Stiles. Her blonde hair fell in front of her face, completing the 'shut the hell up' look that she had mastered over the years. Throwing the remaining discs into the compartment, smirking slightly when Stiles cringed, she rotated her body slightly in her seat. "I'm making you nervous?"

"Yes," Stiles admitted, rolling his eyes. "And not in that way."

"Are you sure? I mean, you've been staring at my chest like it's Christmas morning," Sage quipped, her eyes flickering down to her tank top that only provoked Stiles into frowning even deeper because now she was just teasing him. "Besides, I have a right to be twitchy. We're going to drown one of my roommates with no potential idea of what the hell might end up happening to me."

Stiles' eyebrows furred. "We're not drowning him, and you're not connected to Isaac. You'll be fine."

"Uh hu," Sage agreed, rolling her eyes. "Just like I was okay the time he got fifty of Allison's knives stuck into his side. Just like the time his dick of a dad decided it was cool to throw a glass at his face. Yes, I'm perfectly comfortable with this idea."

Stiles' mouth opened slightly at how much of a pessimist his girlfriend was. Of course, he was worried that something would end up growing wrong. To be honest, he didn't really give a shit about what happened to Isaac, but he did care about what happens to Sage. He saw what she had to experience the night Jackson died —then came back to life— and and he didn't want something going wrong and her face the repercussions.

"It's not one of our best ideas," Stiles muttered, his lips pursed slightly. He wasn't the one that thought of the idea, Derek had been the one to go to Deaton to ask for any insight on the subject. The vet new of something, but that something seemed to be extremely dangerous for Isaac, who was the one being nearly drowned, and Sage, who had no control over her abilities at this point.

Sage blinked a few times, staring at his face. "It's not one of our best ideas? Stiles, when have we ever had a good idea? Honestly, I can't think of a single time that anything has ever gone smoothly."

"Whenever we went to the ice rink—"

"Lydia went crazy and started screaming about seeing Peter Hale in the ice."

"What about whenever we triggered Scott's anger about Allison by—"

"Okay, one, that idea was completely stupid and you nearly got all of us jumped by a bunch of guys that looked like they sacrificed bunnies for fun," Sage started, holding a finger up before switching to a second. "And two, we sat in detention with Harris' brooding self for two hours. So, no, both of your examples sucked ass, Stiles."

"Whatever," Stiles huffed out, annoyed that most of the ideas that he listed were all his own. Granted, all of his ideas did suck ass, but he wasn't going to admit that to her. So, in an attempt to change the subject, he asked, "Can I ask you something?"

"No, I'm not listening to some boy band," Sage declined, assuming that Stiles wanted to ask if she could switch the CD's for him.

"That's not what I was going to ask," Stiles dismissed. Her attention was on him after that, and she turned to give him a raised eyebrow, ushering him to ask the question he was meaning to ask. "How are we going to get past this? I mean, we haven't even talked about what happened."

"I'm a big fan of ignoring the problem until it goes away," Sage said, pursing her lips.

She didn't want to get into this, not now. She was still trying to get all of the information about the twins and Deucalion from Derek, and that was a part of why she was so nervous about tonight. Isaac had seen something, she just didn't know what and if Erica and Boyd were going to be okay. She didn't need Stiles prying into the secrets that she and Derek were keeping. That would only put him, and the others, in more danger.

"Sage, seriously," Stiles pleaded, trying to get her to cooperate with him. His side of the story had been explained, but she hadn't spoken about what happened in the hallway. Not about who the two boys were or why she was even in the supply closet with them. "Who were they?"

Sage tapped on the interior of Stiles' car, her tongue pressing against her cheek. "I met them whenever Derek and I lived in Atlanta. Nothing more to it, really. I didn't do anything with them, if you were wondering. Not in the supply closet. We just know each other from the past. That's it."

"That's it?" Stiles asked, his eyebrows raising.

Sage nodded. "That's it."

To ease up the conversation, she leaned forward so that she could turn the volume up on the radio. Stiles groaned, heavily annoyed considering the song playing was one of his least favorites. He accepted the fact that Sage liked wearing black and enjoyed listening to depressing and somewhat angry music, but he still didn't accept her choice in music. He could tolerate her listening to it while he wasn't around, only because he wasn't hearing the songs. Some of it wasn't bad, like when she was in the mood for The Beatles or ACDC, but a majority just made him cringe.

"You know you're a pain in the ass, right?" Stiles seemed to shout over the blaring music.

Sage turned to look at him, giving a slight shrug. "I figured that was my best quality."

"Debatable. Very, very debatable."

"Well," Sage started, giving him a smile as she leaned over to press a kiss to his lips whenever they hit a red light. "You're stuck with me, so you better get used to it. I'm not going anywhere, Stilinski."

"I know," Stiles stated. "That's why you're my pain in the ass."

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The last thing Sage expected to be doing tonight was filling up a bathtub full of ice so that she could shove her friend in it. Deaton's store was full of empty ice bags as Sage, Stiles, and Scott all continued to pour more in the tub that Isaac was going to be laying in. Her hands were practically frozen at this point, and she had to continuously stop just so she could blow into them and get some of the heat back into her body. Stiles and Scott didn't seem to mind the cold. She was still questioning how well this plan is going to go if she can barely hold a bag of ice and Isaac is going to be getting inside a shitload of it.

Can werewolves even catch hypothermia?

"This is a horrible idea," Sage muttered as she passed by Scott, going to grab one the remaining few bags they had before the tub was completely full. Scott frowned deeply, having been in total agreement the entire time since they began the process. Deaton, Derek, and Isaac were standing aside, discussing what was actually going to be happening in the process while the three other teenagers did all of the work. How ironic, that the three werewolves weren't the ones doing all of the luggage. Surely, Scott was doing one-third of it, but Isaac and Derek weren't doing shit.

"Your negativity isn't very encouraging, Sage," Isaac muttered, rolling his shoulders as he continued to eye the bathtub.

Sage sighed, rubbing at her eyes in exhaustion with her cold hands. "My negavity is the only thing that's keeping me from freaking out right now. How do you even know all of this is going to work and we're not just flooding your store with ice?"

"It will work," Deaton bluntly said. Sage's frowned, making him purse his lips before moving to explain. "If we slow his heartbeat down enough, he will fall into a trance-like state."

"Like being hypnotized?" she questioned, arms crossing over her chests as she finished with the last bag, discarding it off to her right somewhere. To be quiet honest, she was more concerned about Isaac not waking up from this and dying right in front of them.

Maybe she is a pessimist.

"Exactly!" Deaton praised, nodding as he smiled over at Sage. She frowned, feeling like a dog in that very moment despite the fact that she was half of the non-hairy population in the room. "Isaac will be half transformed. It'll let us access his subconscious mind."

"Oh," Sage commented. "Sounds like a party."

Everyone gravitated closer to the ice bath, Isaac crouching down so that he was face to face with the water that they were going to 'half drown' him in. Sage felt her jaw begin to clench, still getting a bad feeling about this whole thing. She would rather just find an alpha to shove their claws down his neck. Granted, the only alphas in town were both homicidal psychopaths that have probably killed more than the entirety of Beacon Hills.

Scott shifted around, beginning to feel his own doubt sink in. "How slow does his heart rate need to be?"

Deaton didn't even flinch. "Very slow."

"How slow is very slow?" Derek reiterated, narrowing his eyes slightly. He wasn't going to lose a pack member, and he knew that Sage wouldn't handle losing another person that she cared about. The beta has grown somewhat tolerable in the time that she's lived with him. For one, he no longer wanted to kill her, and two, she realized that they both had complex and overly depressing lives. Both lost their parents, as well as their older brothers. As much as she loved Derek and Scott as her support system, when it came to needing a surrogate brother, Isaac was actually the most suitable for the role. She wasn't sure she could lose Isaac, too.

Deaton's eyes circulated around the room, and Sage tried to find any concern in them, but nothing. The vet shrugged off the question like it wasn't a big deal, answering, "Nearly dead."

Most everyone in the room tensed up at Deaton's nonchalant response. Derek's worry for his beta only grew as he realized that there was a possibility this could kill Isaac and he may never find his other two pack members. The fear of being alone hit him like a wrecking ball, and he was growing more convinced that this wasn't the best idea. Isaac didn't seem too pleased with the answer either; his gaze fell on Derek and Sage, who had become his support system over the summer. In a way, they were the only two apart from Scott that had actually been there for him and cared. Scott and Sage had a more open way of showing it than Derek did, but even now he could see that all three of them were contemplating calling this whole idea off.

"No, we're not doing this," Sage voiced, shaking her head.

Derek paused, his hands falling on the rim of the tub as he considered all of his options. "We have to."

"You have to be kidding me," Sage exclaimed, whipping her head to look at Derek in surprise. "You want to risk his life just to find two people that are probably already dead? You know what h—"

Sage's voice trailed off as she realized she had gone too far into the conversation, nearly blurting out a major secret that Scott and Stiles didn't know about yet. That Scott and Stiles weren't going to know about, if she had it her way. She knew that she was being inconsiderate about Erica and Boyd, too. Maybe it was the hopelessness that she felt, or that she's already accepted they were gone.

Isaac noticed Sage's distress and looked over at Deaton to change the subject back to his life-or-death situation. "It's safe though, right?"

"Do you want me to answer honestly?" Deaton asked, shoving his hands into his pockets.

The werewolf pulled his hand from the ice water, his bottom lip pushing out a bit. "No. Not really."

There was a loud slapping sound of elastic meeting skin, and everyone turned their head to see that Stiles was completely oblivious to their current situation discussing Isaac's life, too busy playing around with a glove lying around Deaton's place. His head turned around, a smile on his face up until he turned around to see that those in the room were glaring at him.

"What?" he questioned. Derek's eyebrows raised, making Stiles huff out before begrudgingly pulling the glove off of his skin and rejoining the conversation. Sage rolled her eyes at her boyfriend before returning to glance back at Isaac, who let out a deep breath before standing up. She could practically feel the nerves gravitating around him, she wondered how strong the smell was for Scott and Derek.

"You don't have to do this if you think it's too risky," Sage said, trying to give Isaac a way out if he really wanted one.

Scott nodded from beside her, letting the beta know that he was with Sage on the decision. He didn't want Isaac doing something like this if there was a chance he wouldn't walk out of it alive. Isaac didn't seem to think too deeply on it though, because he was pulling at the hem of his shirt to signal that he was going through with the idea. Sage sighed, shaking her head before moving to pull off her leather jacket. It was tossed aside, and she shared a look with Scott, who had been tugging his own jacket off. Both of them were reluctant, but it was done, and Isaac had already climbed inside of the ice bath. Derek and Scott both grabbed a hold of the werewolf's shoulders, and together the two pushed Isaac's body down into the water.

He came up immediately after, now in transition as his canines were baring towards the ceiling. Stiles and Sage seemed to scramble over to his legs which were the body part not being held down at the moment, trying to secure them back down into the water before he had a chance to escape. Sage tried to ignore Deaton's continuous calls to hold him down, doing her best to just restrain the boy without her hands freezing off or being ripped apart by Isaac.

When the werewolf came crashing up again, Deaton repeated his words. "Hold him."

"Don't you think we're trying?" Sage snapped, lifting her head up to give the vet a glare before pushing Isaac down once again. She wasn't given any time to worry in between the stages of keeping Isaac down and not actually drowning him. Then, it went quiet as the water stopped flowing over the edges of the bath. The struggles of Isaac ceased, and everyone slowly pulled their hands from the water. Concern laced in Scott and Sage as they watched Isaac begin to move back to the top of the water, breaking surface just as he let a deep intake of air.

Before anyone could move, Deaton outstretched a hand to halt them. "Now remember, only I talk to him. Too many voices will confuse him, draw him out." He looked around the room, making sure everyone knew not to speak, before moving closer to Isaac's body. "Isaac? Can you hear me?"

It took a second, but Isaac answered. "Yes. I can hear you."

"This is Dr. Deaton. I'd like to ask you a few questions. Is that alright?"

"Yes." Sage stood off to the slide, slowly stepping away as she looked over to Stiles. Well, he had been right. She didn't need to worry about being an Altor in this situation. She wasn't exactly sure what would have even happened to her. Isaac isn't dead right now because he's a werewolf, but she's technically still a human. Had she been connected to Derek's pack, and him, what would have happened? She didn't give herself time to think about that.

"I want to ask you about the night you found Erica and Boyd. I want you to remember it for me in as vivid detail as possible, like you are actually there again."

"No," Isaac protested, beginning to shift in the ice. "I don't want to do that. I don't— I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that."

As Isaac spoke, thunder began to crackle outside of the window, lightning flashing every so often which only added onto the effect that what they were doing wasn't human. Sage didn't feel comfortable, she didn't like standing around Isaac's nearly dead body, asking him questions while he didn't even realize he was speaking. She didn't like having to restrain him right now, or that the lights were now flickering in the room. She didn't like anything of this.

"It's okay, it's okay," Deaton soothed, trying to get Isaac to calm down so that he could resume asking the questions about Erica and Boyd. "They're just memories, you can't be hurt by a memory."

"I don't want to do that, I don't want to do that," Isaac continued to repeat, all while the lights remained flickering. Sage and Stiles both looked up, and then at each other, but didn't bother saying anything in fear that it would only alter Isaac's reaction even further.

"Relax," Deaton assured, and eventually Isaac's rapid body movement fell still. "Good. Now, let's go back to that night, to the place you found Erica and Boyd. Can you tell me what you see? Is there some kind of building? A house?"

Isaac's face contorted in denial, eyes still closed. "No, it's not a house. It's stone — l-like marble."

No one failed to notice how Isaac stumbled over his words, but Deaton continued to usher Isaac further into the abyss. "That's perfect. Can you give me any other descriptors?"

"It's dusty, empty."

"Like an abandoned building?" Deaton asked. The only response he got was a twitch in Isaac's face and the appearance of more flickering lights. "Isaac? Isaac?"

The werewolf grabbed a hold of Scott's forearm, begin to move around in the water again. "No, no. Someone's here."

"Isaac, relax."

"No, no!" Isaac exclaimed. "They see me!"

More water came out of the sides, Sage and Stiles placing their hands back on his legs to keep them in the water as his grip on Scott got tighter. Deaton's calming voice mixed in with Isaac's pleads and cries for help. After a few more, "Relax's," from the veterinarian, the werewolf was once again calm and the water went steady. Sage let out a breath in relief, moving the back of her wet hand forward so that she could move some of her hair out of her face.

"Good," Deaton praised. "Now tell us what you see. Tell us everything."

"I hear Boyd. He's talking about the full moon, about being out of control when the moon rises."

Scott and Derek looked at each other confused, while Deaton asked, "Is he talking to Erica?"

"I think so. I can't— I can't see her. I can't... I ca— I can't see either of them," Isaac admitted, his words slurring together as he stared ahead at the ceiling, eyes wide open and only blinking every so often.

"Can you hear anything else?"

Isaac paused. "They're worried. Worried what they'll do during the moon. They're worried that they're going to hurt each other."

Derek's head shot up at the information just given, glancing in between Deaton and Scott. Sage and Stiles kept to themselves, knowing very well that this wasn't their forte. "If they're locked in their together, they're going to rip each other apart."

Almost everyone knew that if you locked two rabid wolves in the same cage, there would be two rabid wolves when you came back. It's in their nature, a fight till the death. They would literally claw each other apart until they both drop dead at the same time, or continue to overkill until they've essentially killed themselves over loss of energy. Animalistic creatures, werewolves are no different.

"Isaac," Deaton's voice got more stern as he realized the situation they were now in. "We need to find them right now. Can you see them?"

"No." Sage's head fell down, disheartened.

"Do you know what kind of room it is? Is there any kind of a marker? A number on a door? A sign?" Deaton pressured, continuing to try his hardest to retrieve any information out of Isaac before Erica and Boyd end up tearing each other apart.

The light above Isaac buzzed in and out once again, although this time Isaac shot up abruptly with a loud gasp. He sat straight, his eyes falling right on Sage and Stiles despite the fact that it wasn't them he was looking at. In fact, he was looking at nothing. Pure horror was contorted on his face as he managed to stutter the words, "They're here."

Sage's eyes closed, the information now confirmed that Aiden and Ethan were a part in the kidnapping of Erica and Boyd. She and Derek already assumed that, it was really a no-brainer that Deucalion would take them, but she didn't know why. More importantly, she wanted to know what was so seemingly important about this town that made them come here. Why Beacon Hills?

"They're here, they're here," Isaac replayed, his tone of voice growing more distressed as he experienced the whole thing over again. This had to be when he was caught, or at least when he met eyes with his pack's captors.

"It's alright," Deaton assured, doing his best to console the boy that was, once again, moving in hysterics.

"No!"

"Just tell us—"

Isaac only continued to struggle more, his voice raising to a scream. "They see me! They found me! They're here!"

"This isn't working," Derek snarled over at Deaton before turning towards Isaac. "Isaac, where are you?"

"I can't see them. It's too dark!"

Derek only shoved the werewolf's shoulders. "Just tell me where you are!"

"I can't see!" Isaac cried, desperately trying to get Derek to understand that he didn't know.

Derek didn't seem to care at this point, though. "Isaac, where are you? Just tell me where you are!"

Sage had pulled away from Isaac's legs, rushing forward so that she had shoved Derek's body away from her friend. He glared down at her, all while she kept a tight grip on the front of his shirt, creating distance. "Stop yelling at him! He doesn't know!"

"His heart rate! He could go into shock!" Deaton shouted, glancing in between Sage and Derek who were shouting at each other profusely with red faces. The mixture of voices was going to confuse Isaac, exactly what he didn't want to happen in the first place.

Sage glanced over at Deaton before narrowing her eyes on the Alpha. "Don't you dare touch him. You're not going to find them! He's told you as much as he knows!"

"That's not enough!" Derek snapped, shoving Sage to the side as he grabbed Isaac's shirt. Screaming one last time in his fit of rage, Derek asked, "Where are you? What did you see?"

Deaton had been right, the boy eventually got overwhelmed with all of the voices merging together, different octaves and different questions. That didn't stop the words from spilling out of his mouth though, and Isaac was desperately clawing the words out his throat. "It's a vault! It's a bank vault! But something...something's wrong. It's a room, it's big. It's got a body. It's— It's Erica."

The sudden rush of memories was enough to wake Isaac from his paralysis, the teenager jerking up into the water. Dripping wet, he gasped out more answers to the question Derek was screaming. "I saw it, I saw the name."

He struggled to get out, but with Scott's help he managed. Derek had grabbed his upper arm to guide him out, too, all while Sage got up off the ground with Stiles' help. Derek shoved her hard the last time, hard enough for her balance to disagree with her and make her stumble. That, or it could be the last thing that Isaac said that threw her off.

"It's, uh, Beacon Hills First National Bank. It's an abandoned bank and they're, um, keeping them locked inside— inside the vault." Isaac seemed to realize that nobody was itching forward or racing out the door, faces of absolute defeat all around the room. "What?"

"You don't remember what you said right before you came out of it, do you?" Stiles asked, swallowing hard as he gravitated closer to his girlfriend.

Isaac shook his head, completely confused. "No."

"You said when they captured you that they dragged you into a room," Stiles explained. "And that there was a body in it."

"What body?"

When no one stepped forward to speak, Sage did. Glancing up, she bit down hard on her cheeks. "Erica. You said Erica."

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partially edited.

so this is the newest chapter, and i just wanted to apologize because i feel like its been forever since ive updated. maybe its just because im used to updating like every day from the summer and now school has basically ruined my life. im sorry that updates are so slow, ive had half of this chapter written for a week and just havent had a chance to write the huge gap of fucking dialogue between isaac and his whole trance state.

that shit took longer than my mom giving birth to me.

but, anyways, comment and let me know what you think about this chapter. i wanted to let you guys know right away that stage isnt completely mended already. they're never going to completely trust each other again, and thats a big issue between them all of this season (especially when he finds out the truth about who aiden is and that they used to be more than just blasts from the past).

also, i rlly like the title for this chapter btw.

& this episode is long af. ive already written two chapters on it, and this is like a thousand words longer than most of my chapters. so aye.