Archive of Our Own

Carrie poured herself a mug of coffee. She would have gone for a bowl, but honestly? She couldn’t find any.

She sighed as she took a sip, looking out the window in front of her. Not that she wasn’t used to pulling all-nighters, but the last four days had just been getting everyone down and all she wanted to do was scream in frustration.

There hadn’t been any more casualties other than the two vampires five days ago and they were all working to find out what was going on, to no avail yet. The patrols had been more targeted, centered around the bar and clan's whereabouts, keeping an eye out until they had figured this out.

They'd examined the vampires' bodies and even though the bites could be quickly dismissed as a werewolf, something didn’t add up. Because if you looked closely, some things were slightly off. And if someone had gone to such great lengths to make this look like a werewolf attack, there had to be a good reason. And it was definitely not a good reason.

She heard footsteps and felt someone wrap their arms around her.

"Hi," Flynn said, her voice coming out muffled from Carrie's shoulder.

"Hi," Carrie said with a sigh as she slightly leaned into her.

"You didn’t come to bed last night," she said as she moved her head to rest on Carrie's shoulder.

"Yeah, I think I fell asleep with my head on the table for like half an hour, I’m good."

"Didn’t Alex start his speech about sleep and healthy lifestyles?"

"I don’t think Alex has slept at all during these past two days," Carrie said and turned around to face her. "Hi," she sighed with a smile and leaned in to kiss her.

"You want some good news?" Flynn asked as she pulled back.

"Is this a thing?" Carrie said with a scowl, making her chuckle.

"It is actually, surprised?" Flynn grinned at her.

"Shocked," Carrie said in a monotone voice.

"Well, we might not have found a way out of this crisis yet, but someone called me a couple of days ago because he wanted to surprise you and won’t you look at that, the day has come," she said.

"What are you talking about?" Carrie asked confused.

"Come with me," Flynn said, catching her hand. "Maybe leave the coffee for now."

Carrie remained confused, but left her mug on the table and let Flynn take her with her out in the lobby. It was empty and Carrie turned to look at her with a raised eyebrow because she needed that coffee if she was going to keep working, but Flynn remained excited.

She waited a couple more seconds and was about to ask what were they actually waiting for, when someone opened the door causing her to divert her attention again. And then she paused.

"Dad?" she said, entirely too surprised to say anything else.

"Hi, Care," he said with a smile as he came closer.

Carrie smiled back as she ran in and wrapped him in a hug. It’d been a few months since they'd last seen each other face to face and she had no idea he'd been planning to come over. Then again that would defeat the purpose of a surprise.

"How are you here?" she asked as she pulled back, still grinning.

"Well, we hadn’t seen each other in a while and where else would I spend my few days off?" he said.

"And you knew about this?" Carrie turned to Flynn.

"Yeah, I’m special like that," Flynn said, pushing her hair behind her shoulder.

Her dad chuckled. "Hi, Flynn."

"Hey, Trevor, what’s up? How’s the Academy?"

"Still going strong, how’s the Institute?"

"We haven’t slept in two days, but you know, what’s new?" Flynn said with a shrug.

"Why not?" He looked at them both.

"Something's happening with the werewolves and the vampires and we’ve been trying to figure out what before it’s too late," Carrie said. "So far we know next to nothing and Flynn made me leave my coffee in the kitchen," she added, looking at her with a pout.

"I seriously doubt lack of sleep is gonna help with that, honey," her dad said.

"I know, but until we figure this out there are so many people in danger and we can’t expect them to live like this forever. We need to find out what’s going on," she said with a sigh. "But you’re here and I’m happy for that," she added and gave him a little side hug.

Her dad kissed the top of her head. "Good because there’s also something else I found out yesterday and I thought you should hear it from me first..."

"By the Angel, is the Apocalypse coming?" Carrie said.

"No, not the Apocalypse," he said. "David."

"Ugh," Carrie gagged, "I preferred the Apocalypse."

"Who's David?" Flynn asked.

"My cousin," Carrie said with as much disgust as she could convey through her voice. "You know how most of my family is shit?"

"Carrie," her dad said even though they both knew it was true. Many of the Ashdowns had been affiliated with the Cohort years ago and even though David was just a kid back then, he hadn’t grown up to be any different than other elitist Shadowhunters out there.

"What? They’re awful and you know it," she said with a shrug. "I have one good cousin. One. His name's Cameron, great dude, he actually suggested the Institute here. Got to give him props for that."

"I know you don’t like him, but let’s just try to be polite," her dad said. "I don’t think he’s staying for long anyway, he has a meeting I believe? I’m not sure. But you’ll survive."

"Yeah, I'm not planning for our paths to cross," she said.

Her dad shook his head, barely hiding a smile. "I have to go talk some things out with Diana first, will I get to eat breakfast with you two after?"

"Absolutely!" Flynn said. "Feels like I haven’t eaten in forever."

Carrie chuckled. "We'll be waiting for you."

He kissed her cheek and left them to go find Diana upstairs. Carrie was beaming as she turned back to Flynn who in turn smiled at her.

"You’re happy again," Flynn said.

"How can I not be?" She didn’t have any siblings, wasn’t particularly close with her cousins for obvious reasons and had stopped waiting over the phone for her mom to call her back long ago. Her dad was the only family she had left from her life before the LA Institute and she would hold onto him with everything she had.

They moved back to the kitchen, Carrie taking her coffee back, as they both started working on making breakfast. It wasn’t until a few minutes later that Julie stomped into the kitchen, dragging Alex behind her. She brought him in front of a chair and pushed him to sit down. She grabbed a plate with bacon - the only thing on the table - and put it in front of him.

"Eat," she said.

"Bacon?" He looked at her confused.

"Yes," she said opening one of the drawers and turning back to him, "here’s a fork."

"So, good morning," Flynn said.

"You know he hasn’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday?" Julie looked at her, betrayal and exasperation written all over her face.

"Meh, neither have I," Carrie said with a shrug, putting some oatmeal in a bowl.

"What-" Julie turned to her. She grabbed her hand and sat her down on the table too. "Both of you, eat!"

"Is that coffee?" Alex asked, staring at Carrie's mug. Before Carrie could even answer he’d grabbed it and taken a sip himself, sighing happily.

"My coffee," she said taking it back despite Alex's protests.

"How did we even get to this?" Julie said. "You two are supposed to be the responsible ones here, you can’t starve to death!"

"I'm not starving to death, I just forgot to eat for a while," Alex said like it wasn’t a big deal. Well, who was Carrie to talk?

"Look, I know you want to figure this out as soon as possible, we all do, but we also have to take care of ourselves in the process, right?" Julie said.

"It's been four days and we know nothing," Alex said with a sigh, "no idea who might be doing this."

"And no idea if they’re going to attack again," Carrie added.

"People are starting to get restless and they have every right to," Alex said.

"Everything is shit," Carrie continued.

"And they’re expecting an answer from us," Alex carried on with the pity party.

"Also David is coming over," Carrie informed them.

"Oh come on, now?" Alex said with a scowl as he leaned back into his chair. Carrie couldn’t blame him, she definitely shared the sentiment.

"Who's David?" Julie asked.

"My cousin," Carrie said. "Let’s just say two dead vampires and the prospect of more following isn’t really gonna move him."

"Can't we just pretend he’s not here?" Alex said.

"That’s what I’m planning on doing," Carrie said. "But you know who else is here?" she added with a smile, seeing her dad approaching the kitchen.

Before Alex could question her, they all heard the footsteps and turned around.

"Good morning," her dad said as he walked in.

"Trevor? I didn’t know you were coming," Alex said surprised.

"That would defy the whole purpose of a surprise," he said with a smile.

Carrie let herself relax for a bit. She deserved an hour to just calm down and be happy she had her whole family there. They would figure this out later, they had to.

Alex was looking over the photos they’d taken of the 'bites'. Something wasn’t adding up, he just couldn’t understand what. They’d established that they hadn’t been made by a werewolf, but someone had definitely gone the extra mile to make it look convincing enough.

There was a small burn on one of the vampires, right on his side, which also didn’t make sense. Almost as if someone had passed a lit match over half his rib cage. Another big question mark in their list of unanswered questions.

"Hey," he heard Luke’s voice and raised his head to see him on the library's doorway, "you’re ready to go?"

Alex gave the photos one last glance before he got up. "Yeah, let’s go."

Patrols carried on as normal, although they did keep close to the werewolves and the vampires. They didn’t think anyone would be dumb enough to attack right where they all were, but they were still looking for any suspicious moves, a clue, something. Alex just wanted to go back home with good news for a change.

Willie had been on edge too. He and Dante were trying to keep everyone alive, while also making sure they didn't turn on each other. They knew there was something more at play, but not everyone was one hundred percent on board and some were just looking for an excuse to fight. Alex was afraid that another hit could be more than they could handle. If Alex could find something, anything that could help, then maybe he could take some of the pressure off.

"You’re with me?" Luke asked from where they were perched up on a roof, legs dangling over the edge. Reggie would freak out if he was there. Which he would be in a few minutes. Kayla was doing rehearsals for a performance she was part of and even though most of them started early, she had to stay in late two nights every week. She didn’t live far, but Reggie wasn’t about to risk it and not at least make sure she made it home safe.

"Yeah," Alex said even though his mind was running a mile a minute.

"We're gonna figure this out you know," Luke said.

"When?" Alex sighed, staring straight ahead.

"Alex, we’re literally doing everything we can. You’re doing even more, you can’t keep beating yourself up about it just because we haven’t worked things out yet."

"It’s not about us though, is it?" He turned to look at Luke. Because Alex wouldn’t be freaking out as much if they were the ones in danger. They were used to being in danger, it wasn’t fun, but it happened more often than they cared to admit and they’d learned to live with it.

This however, this wasn’t about them. This was about creating fear and pushing people to their limits until they snapped. How long where they supposed to stay like this before tragedy struck one way or the other?

"We can’t work miracles," Luke said. "We’re trying, but we can’t manifest a solution to this. We know more than we did four days ago, we’re keeping an eye out, werewolves and vampires have us on speed dial, we’re doing everything we can."

"It’s hard to agree with you when you’re making sense."

Luke chuckled. "The world's not going to end if you admit I’m right for once."

"Yeah, but should we risk it?" Alex said with a smile.

They heard a shrill noise on their left and noticed something moving in the distance. Because amidst everything else, life still continued.

They got up and jumped on to the next roof and the next, covering more ground faster. They’d pinpointed where the demons were and quickly jumped down and into action. Alex was almost grateful to have a few seconds where he wasn’t thinking about everything else, he just had a task to complete. Even if it wasn’t exactly mundane.

He was just about to stab the last demon when it was suddenly thrown back, an arrow sticking out of it, ichor splashing everywhere around it.

"Hello," Reggie said as he walked up to them. "Few minutes of normalcy?"

"Anyone else worried that this is our normal?" Alex said.

"Ah, well, what can you do?" Luke said with a shrug before he turned to Reggie. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah..." he answered. "Just weird, you know?"

"Yes," Alex said. He felt like everything was hanging from a thread. He didn’t want to find out what would happen when it got cut.

"Nothing new then?" Reggie asked as they started walking away.

"No..." Luke said.

"Actually," Alex cut in, "did you see the burn?"

"What burn?" Reggie asked.

"There was a burn at one of the vampires' sides. It didn’t heal, it must have happened seconds before they died. I don’t know if it means anything or I’m just grasping at straws, but it was there."

"Maybe they were trying to immobilize them? Vampires and light don’t work well," Luke said.

"Yeah, I know, it’s just..." Alex sighed trying to put his thoughts in order. "It feels like we’re missing something. It’s right there and we're missing it."

"It’s not like we’ve given up, we’re looking," Reggie said.

Alex was still caught up in trying to figure out what was right on the tip of his tongue when his phone started ringing. He grabbed it out of his pocket seeing the unknown number and quickly answered it.

"Hello?" he said.

"Alex? It’s Nicole. Look, you said to call you if there’s something wrong and I was supposed to meet Robbie ten minutes ago but he’s disappeared. He’s not answering his phone, he’s not in his apartment, I’m afraid to keep looking around," she said, barely taking a breath in between sentences.

"Where are you?" Alex asked, taking off running with Luke and Reggie the second he had an address. They couldn’t let any more people die.

They weren’t extremely close, but they were closer than everyone else and they really didn’t have the time to sit and talk about it. Not when every second counted.

They ran down the street in the dead of the night, Alex wishing they had some kind of portal to help things out. When they found Nicole she was standing in front of a building pacing up and down the sidewalk close to the street lamps.

"What happened?" Alex stopped next to her while Luke and Reggie were already running past them without a second thought, searching.

"He's not home, he's not answering his phone and I don’t know, maybe I’m overreacting but can you blame me?" Nicole said. Alex could only hope she was.

"No," he said as he looked around. They were alone out on the street, but that didn’t guarantee them there actually wasn’t anyone around. It’s not like Alex could take off and leave her alone.

"I’ll come with you," she said, understanding what his issue was.

"No, that’s not-" he started to say.

"You don’t want to leave me alone, I don’t want to stay alone," she cut him off. "I can keep up with you, you know that. I just want to make sure Robbie's okay."

Alex didn’t really have any room to disagree, they needed to do something about this and if he could at least keep an eye on her he’d feel better. Yes, she could keep up and probably protect herself if needed, but she was also obviously scared.

They started running after the guys who’d already disappeared in the shadows. Alex had his eyes and ears open, trying to go through every little sound and movement around him, hoping it would lead them somewhere and at the same time wishing it was nothing.

Nicole was the first one to notice it. She stopped him and pointed to their right with a shaky finger.

"Blood," was all she said. The fact that Alex couldn’t see anything yet, but Nicole could smell it all the way there, was not a good sign.

They walked down the alley, both careful not to make any excessive noise. It was eerily quiet which only worked to make Alex feel more uneasy, Nicole straining to hear something next to him.

And then suddenly all silence was broken by a scream.

Alex had been solely concentrated on what was going on ahead of them, he snapped his head around in surprise when he realized the scream had come from Nicole.

"It stopped," she whispered and took off running. Alex ran after her, thankful for the runes on his skin that were enough to make him a good match for a werewolf, when they came to a dead end.

Nicole had already crossed all the way to the other side, falling next to someone on the ground. Her sobs were loud enough to echo all through the area, cutting right through the silence.

Alex had frozen on his place. They were too late.

It stopped.

She'd been talking about his heartbeat.

He wanted to run. He wanted to sit right next to her, somehow try to say something that would make this better. Nothing he could say though could make this better. Nothing coming from him right now.

He heard more footsteps. Familiar this time. Everything was going by him in a blur when Luke ran past him and Reggie stood next to him.

"Alex," he said. Maybe he wanted to say something more, maybe he didn’t know what to say.

They knew these people. Alex better than everyone else. He'd become closer with the whole pack over the last four years. Some more than others. They liked him. They trusted him.

He would see Nicole in the bar almost every time he was there, her shifts usually coincided with his days off or his later patrols. Robbie came by often. He wasn’t fond of Alex at first. He didn’t outright hate him, he just didn’t see him as a friend either. As far as Alex was concerned, that was a good first step.

And then the years passed and things started changing. Everyone came by the apartment, whether there was a problem or not. By the time Alex moved in he’d been getting along with almost everyone, people were happy to see him.

He hadn’t demanded their trust, they didn’t know him and he couldn’t blame them for being skeptical about Shadowhunters. Somehow he’d earned it though.

And this was his job. He was supposed to keep them safe. He’d told them they were trying to figure this out. And now he’d failed them.

God, he knew Robbie.

And now he was lying dead a few feet away from him.

"Alex," he heard Reggie's voice again and felt a hand on his wrist, helping him register back into reality. He felt the tears running down his face before he'd even realized he was crying.

How the fuck did this happen?

Everything moved in a blur after that. Because yes, Alex was devastated but he was also determined and as soon as Nicole wasn’t alone, they started searching. They called in the others and they scoured the whole area, going further and further away as long as they were coming up empty handed.

And that’s how everything came to an end. Coming up with no results whatsoever. And Alex felt like there was a lump in his throat, it was getting harder to breathe.

He went back to the apartment much later than usual. It was empty, but he knew as much already. He sat on the couch, not bothering to get changed, his head in his hands.

He didn’t know what he was supposed to feel, how he was supposed to just accept this for what it was. There was a part of his brain that knew he couldn’t just take all of this on himself. He hadn’t stopped trying ever since this whole thing had started and he'd been on alert in case he was needed. But the one time he actually was, he’d fucked up.

He didn’t even realize how long he just stayed there, alone with his thoughts in silence. The darkness had only started to lessen when the door finally opened. Alex estimated it must have been around 5:30? Maybe 6 am?

He turned his head and saw Willie coming in, looking a million times worse than Alex did. His expression was still reserved, somehow not crumbling in the face of everything. Alex sensed that would come much later, after everyone else had been taken care of.

For now though there was only silence.

Alex stayed on his place on the couch not sure what would happen if he suddenly moved. Willie stayed leaning against the front door on his right. No one talked. Alex didn’t know if that was good or bad. He didn’t know what he’d say if he had to make the first move.

"Nicole called you," Willie eventually said after a couple of minutes. Alex didn’t know what he'd expected but he was getting an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach from how hollow and monotone his voice sounded.

"She did," he said, his own voice just quiet and defeated.

Willie turned to look at him, Alex feeling nauseous before he’d even asked. "Then where were you?"

The words hit him with full force. He hated this. He hated all of this.

"We didn’t make it in time," he said, trying to get around the lump in his throat. If only they were a minute earlier, then maybe, maybe things would have been different. But they hadn’t made it.

"There are so many of you out there," Willie said. Alex had never heard his voice so emotionless, it was unsettling. He’d prefer it if he’d just started shouting at him.

"We were closer," Alex said, knowing where the conversation was heading.

"Then where were you?" Willie asked again, this time a hint of desperation in his words. And there was a part of Alex that knew this wasn’t about him, that knew Willie wasn’t actually mad at him, but really, all he could think about was where had he been? "You asked them to call you."

And then you weren’t there. He knew that was left unsaid. And there was nothing he could say to make it better.

"There was a bite mark on his neck," Willie said after a few seconds, his voice straining to remain unaffected this time. "Almost no blood left."

"It wasn’t the vampires," Alex said. They already knew as much, but he felt like the conversation was gonna go off the rails fast and the pack would follow if Willie started having doubts. It was hard to focus on what was actually going on and accept they had no real answer when vampires just made sense.

"How do you know?" he asked and the atmosphere started shifting. Willie was being defensive because this affected the whole pack, not just him. He’d just lost someone.

"The same way I know none of you killed the vampires five days ago," Alex said, keeping his voice level. Dante had been furious, but he was also sensible. He recognized there was something more going on and he’d said the clan wouldn’t retaliate until they knew what was going on. Alex trusted they'd listen to him, especially knowing the werewolves were keeping an eye out for themselves too. Willie knew what was going on too. But now wasn’t the time for sensible thinking.

"You’re asking me to take their word for it?" he said. "For all we know someone didn’t believe we didn’t do anything and this was payback!" he finally raised his voice in the end. He was angry, of course he was.

"Okay, forget about the vampires," Alex said getting up and taking a step closer to him, still leaving distance between them. "What about me? You trust me, right?"

And Alex had gone into this still with some kind of control over everything. Because he knew the answer to that question.

It only took a second for his world to crumble around him and lose any semblance of control of the conversation he thought he had. Because he’d been used to the positivity, the blind trust you get with someone after being together for four years.

But this time Willie hesitated.

"You trust me," Alex said again, an uncertain statement this time, almost as if talking to himself. Trying to rememeber how things were supposed to be. "Right?" he added, looking for the answer this time. As if he wasn’t sure, as if this wasn’t something he could count on. When had this suddenly stopped being a certainty?

Willie had a hand go through his hair as he looked down with a sigh. "Alex, I love you. This doesn’t change," he said and all Alex could think was that he’d never thought Willie telling him he loved him could actually bring more pain than happiness. "I just..." he stopped, closing his eyes for a couple of seconds as if this was causing him pain too. "I can’t be here right now. I’m sorry." He opened the door and left just as he’d come in, leaving Alex alone in the middle of the living room.

And suddenly Alex was suffocating. He couldn’t stay inside the apartment, not right now, not after this.

He followed only a few seconds later, heading to the Institute. All he felt was numb and he just needed something familiar. It’s not like he had anywhere else to go. He just hoped everyone was asleep. He was pretty sure he did. He wouldn’t even know what to say. He wasn’t sure himself about what had happened. All he knew was that the numb feeling wasn’t going to last for long and if he was going to break down he couldn’t be in the middle of the street.

His room hadn’t changed ever since he’d left, it was still his room. Admittedly kind of empty, he’d taken all his stuff with him when he’d moved out. It still felt like his room though, he’d spent quite a few years living in the Institute. If anything it was still a familiar, safe place for him to go. He just hadn’t needed such a place for a while now.

It didn’t take him long to reach the Institute. Or maybe it did, he wasn’t really aware of the passage of time. All he knew was that by the time he arrived the sky had turned a much lighter blue, the sun would rise in a few moments.

He walked through the gates and up the steps. He opened the front door, finally feeling some kind of relief, almost as if he was protected now. He didn’t have to keep up pretenses, if he wanted to break down, to cry, to scream, he could.

It was quiet. He didn’t imagine many people would be awake at this time. It was the sweet spot between Luke and Julie going to sleep and Carrie and Flynn waking up. Reggie could be in either group to be honest. The rest of the Institute had slightly better sleep schedules than they did, he was still safe.

He walked into the kitchen exhausted and emotionally drained, filling a glass with water. Not that it did anything to help, his throat was still closing up. He moved to leave it back next to the sink, only for his hand to slip, the glass falling in the sink and breaking to pieces. And really, a minor inconvenience was a little more than he could handle by that point so he finally just bursted out crying.

Carrie had been awake for a while now, staring at the ceiling, tapping her fingers on top of the mattress. Last night had been a disaster and she didn’t even know how it’d gone so bad so fast. They had to do something before more people started showing up dead under much too mysterious circumstances.

The question still remained though, what was causing these deaths? Someone was obviously trying to create a rift between the two largest Downworld groups in LA and it was only a matter of time before tensions rose and there was no going back. Carrie knew that neither Dante nor Willie wanted this to escalate, they didn’t want to put their people in danger and they didn’t want to hurt anyone. But people were already in danger and they were already getting hurt and Carrie hadn't seen Willie yesterday, but she could only imagine he wasn’t taking it well.

She sighed and quietly sat up, trying not to wake Flynn up. Everyone had been exhausted and today was only going to be harder. Maybe she could go throw some knives in the training room to get the tension out and then come sleep again. Anything to not be staring at the ceiling at 6:15 am. The sun had barely even risen outside.

She climbed down the stairs with every intent of heading to the training rooms when she came to a sudden stop. She walked straight into the kitchen, following the muffled sound only to find Alex sobbing over the sink.

Her first instinct was to rush right next to him, ask what was wrong, give him a hug. But she also knew Alex better than this and she could easily make things worse just by trying to make it better.

She walked in, slowly approaching him but leaving some space between them. She’d seen Alex freak out multiple times, she’d seen him having panic attacks, she’d talked him down from panic attacks. This was different.

"Alex?" she said quietly. It was somehow enough to startle him as he turned to look at her and before she could say anything else, he wrapped her into a hug.

Carrie was momentarily surprised, but if that was what he needed she wasn’t going to say no, so she wrapped her arms around him too, her hand going up and down his back as he cried on her shoulder. She could guess what this was about, although it still didn’t explain why he was there so early. Unless things had turned out even worse back at the apartment.

They stayed there for a few more minutes until he was slightly calmer and Carrie thought it was the right time to ask, "Did you get any sleep?"

She waited for a few seconds until he shook his head against her shoulder. "Okay," she said, "let’s start from there." She reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. He eventually pulled back and followed her upstairs. Carrie tried not to ponder much on how destroyed he looked because before anything else, he definitely needed sleep.

It wasn’t like he protested, he was out the second his head hit the pillow, but it still begged so many questions. Alex had a tendency to blame himself for things that were out of his control, but even that seemed extreme there. Unless she was missing something.

She suddenly wasn’t sure where she was supposed to go as she closed Alex's door behind her. She was well awake, that was certain, but what came next? Training? Breakfast? Should she just stay there in case something changed?

Just then though the door to Reggie's room opened and he came out looking a million times better than Alex did, but there was still something wrong. He was surprised to see Carrie there, but he quickly realized she was standing in front of Alex's room.

"Is Alex here?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yeah, he fell asleep."

"Is it really so bad?" he said and it was then that Carrie noticed the dried tears on his face.

"How do you know?" she asked. He talked as if he knew something more. They expected Alex to take it a bit harder than everyone else, but Carrie was getting worried.

"It's as bad as it was with Luke," Reggie said.

Luke had checked out for that entire week when Julie had forgotten who they were. He’d justifiably taken it hard and Julie was also avoiding him because she had no idea what to do and all in all Carrie had never seen him so quiet and reserved and overall devastated for such a long period of time.

Alex and Reggie had been right there every day, dealing with the situation better. Reggie had befriended Julie again, just happy that the warlock hadn’t hurt them in any other way and they were both alive and back in the Institute and Alex was very insistent on the fact that until Magnus had said there was nothing that could be done, they couldn’t say that it was over.

And then Carrie had seen them both suddenly burst into tears for no apparent reason in the middle of the day. And at first she’d thought that yes, sure, this was a stressful situation, it’d taken a lot out of all of them, she could only be grateful the memory loss had stopped in LA because she didn’t know how Flynn would handle Julie forgetting her too.

But when she’d tried to say something both Alex and Reggie had reassured her that they were fine. Yes, things were bad and everyone was stressed, but this wasn’t coming from them. So Carrie had filed this under weird parabatai stuff that keeps happening to these three even though they’re not actually connected and accepted it as it'd come. If the guys could actually feel some part of Luke's pain and desperation though that meant it was far too intense and all consuming. It wasn’t okay, but it made sense with everything going on.

Reggie was telling her now though that he could feel the same pain they did three weeks ago and that was unsettling to say the least. Yeah, no, Carrie was scared.

"You-" Reggie stopped himself not sure if he wanted to go ahead with it. "You don’t think they..."

"Broke up?" Carrie whispered as she took hold of Reggie and walked further away from the rooms. "No," she said but her heart wasn’t a hundred percent into it. She had just seen Alex breaking down in the middle of the kitchen.

"I hate to even think about it but I don’t usually wake up crying in the morning," he said. "What happened last night was awful, I mean I barely knew Robbie and it was still a lot to take in. He will blame himself like he always does and I can understand the pain and the sadness, but this is more. You really think he would just leave Willie alone and come here?" He was right about that, but Carrie still didn’t want to jump to conclusions.

"I don’t know," she said with a sigh, a hand going through her hair. "Do you want to make breakfast? I need to do something."

"Yeah," he answered, obviously sharing the sentiment. They had so many things to do today and now she had no idea what to start with. She also felt like she was forgetting something... Things had been going to shit for the past day, if there was something else to come it probably would soon enough.

They settled into the routine task in silence. It was comfortable, but somehow also unsettling. Carrie was used to Reggie talking about whatever was on his mind at any given moment without even expecting an answer from her. It really worked for her since she was more on the quiet side and Reggie wouldn’t really get offended if she didn’t participate. He knew she was listening.

They were aware most things would be cold by the time everyone was up, but Carrie didn’t really care. She needed to think.

Flynn showed up about half an hour later confused to find them already there while they both tried to explain what was going on. Luke came along ten minutes later which was just terrifying on its own seeing as it was barely 7:20.

"What happened?" he asked.

"We're not sure," Reggie said as he picked at the scrambled eggs on his plate.

"Willie is a sensible person, right?" Luke said as he sat down.

"Yeah, under normal circumstances..." Carrie said. "A person died yesterday."

"You think something happened between them?" Flynn asked.

"You think it can be fixed?" Reggie asked instead taking it as a fact that something had happened.

"Yes, of course, Reg," Luke hurried to say. Reggie was the sweetest guy you’d ever meet and the biggest supporter of all of his friends' relationships as long as they were happy. He’d also been there to see his parents' relationship crumble to pieces though while they did nothing but fight with each other while it went down. And he’d said that things used to be fine. Until they weren’t anymore.

They all started eating or just pretended to while messing with the stuff on their plates, Julie joining them too after a while. They just stayed there in silence, trying to find the energy to start the day.

"I know nobody wants to talk about it," Flynn started after a while slowly, "but we need to talk with them. We need to examine the body."

"I don’t know if they’re gonna agree..." Reggie sighed.

"Flynn and I can go," Julie offered. They agreed and pretended to eat for a few more minutes until they got up and went to make the call. Carrie honestly didn’t know how it was going to turn out.

Her dad joined them at around 8:30. Carrie had really missed him and wanted to spend some time with him for the few days he was going to be there but they really needed to deal with everything else first. They’d been so close yesterday, whomever was responsible clearly knew how to cover their tracks. So many people were in danger and more could get hurt at any moment.

Julie and Flynn left soon after to meet with Willie and the pack while Luke and Reggie went to brief Diana and the few other Shadowhunters in the Institute about what had exactly happened and Carrie was left to call Dante. He wasn’t usually happy when they showed up in the middle of the day, much less early in the morning, but the situation was a bit pressing.

"You’re calling about the werewolf," was the first thing he said as soon as he'd answered.

"You heard," she said. It wasn’t surprising really, everything had gone down in the middle of the night, it wouldn’t be hard to reach vampire ears.

"It wasn’t us," he said.

"We know," Carrie reassured him.

"Does the pack share the sentiment?" he asked.

Carrie wanted to say yes, because subconsciously they should know, but it’d looked so much like a vampire attack she wasn’t sure what to make of it. At least Flynn and Julie would make sure they understood. How long that lasted for... They would find out.

"They will," she answered.

"Right," Dante said recognizing how she’d evaded the question. "So is this a courtesy call or a warning?"

"I thought you should be aware," she said. "Whomever did this knew exactly what they were doing. There was almost no blood left on the body, there was a bite mark on his neck, we must have missed them for seconds. It looked way too convincing."

"So how do you know?"

"What?" she asked confused.

"How do you know it wasn’t one of us?" Dante said.

"Do you want us to blame you?" she said, still not sure where he was going with it.

"No, I’m just trying to understand your endgame here," he said. "At least with the werewolves there were some inconsistencies with the killings. Why are you so quick to give us the all clear?"

"Not everyone is out to get you you know," she said. "You’ve never given me a reason not to trust you and I like to believe I haven’t given you one either."

Dante hummed in agreement. "Call me when you have more information," he said. "Maybe I can lend a hand."

"Thank you," she said. That had gone better than expected.

She climbed up the steps about to head to Diana's office to join the others, but hesitated for a second. It’d only been a little over three hours, Alex should still be asleep or at least she hoped he was. She walked closer nonetheless, quietly cracking the door open. It was dark, but she could still spot Alex staring at the wall. He glanced over at her and then back to the wall.

Carrie wondered whether she should call the guys, but eventually got in and closed the door behind her. She walked over and sat down on the empty side of the bed.

"You talked with the pack?" he asked her, his voice hoarse.

"Flynn and Julie are with them right now," she said. "Did you sleep at all?"

"Sure," Alex said but didn’t elaborate.

She looked at him for a couple of seconds. "Are you okay?" she eventually asked.

"No," he answered, "maybe I should be," he added as if he wasn’t sure what he should be feeling. "I don’t know."

"A fight-" Carrie started to say but Alex cut her off.

"We didn’t fight."

Carrie was certainly relieved at that, but Alex didn’t seem as happy for said fact. If they hadn’t gotten into a fight why had he come over looking so broken? Why had he left in the first place?

"You know," he said, still looking at some unidentified spot on the opposite wall next to them, his voice way too monotone trying to keeping any feeling away, "I thought getting in a fight would be the worst that could happen. Shouting, arguing... That kind of stuff. Having someone you love tell you they hate you to your face. And it is, it’s awful and it would make sense for me to be feeling the way I’m feeling."

Carrie didn’t interrupt even though she really couldn’t see where this was going.

"He told me he loves me," he said quietly, "and then he left."

Carrie moved in the second she saw the tears falling and wrapped him in a hug. It wasn’t as bad as it’d been that morning - three hours of sleep were definitely better than none - but it wasn’t okay either. And then suddenly just like a switch had been flipped, he told her everything. Exactly how it’d gone down between him and Willie.

And there was a small part of Carrie that wanted to go over there and talk some sense into Willie's head because Alex was right there crying in her arms and that was not okay. But there was also another part that understood more. A part that realized Willie wasn’t mad at Alex and he really needed him now even if he was pulling away. She also knew what had been going through Alex's head these past few days and Willie voicing all of it even through his distress wasn’t helping.

"You know he-"

"Isn’t mad at me?" Alex finished her sentence. "Maybe. I think I did. Would he be wrong to be?"

"Yes," she said. "And somewhere in the back of your head you know that. I know it’s not fun, but if he needs a second give it to him. I don’t think it’s you he's avoiding, no matter how it sounded. He loves you, he said so."

"Sometimes love is not enough," he said quietly. "You need to be able to trust each other."

"Alex-"

"Look, can we-" he stopped, taking a deep breath trying to compose himself. "Can we just do something about this? The killings. I need to do something useful right now, we need to figure this out."

"We haven’t heard anything from Flynn and Julie yet," she said.

"Luke and Reggie?"

"Briefing."

"Okay, let’s go," he said and sat up.

"Wait, Alex-"

"Carrie, please," he pleaded with her. She sighed and followed. At least he was determined, maybe something good would come out of this.

He followed her out of the room both of them looking like a mess as they passed by the staircase to get to the others. Before they could round the corner though she heard a familiar voice calling out to her.

"Carrie!"

"Oh, fuck." She stopped in her tracks, Alex beside her. That's what she'd been forgetting.

David came up the stairs with a smile Carrie would love to wipe off his face. Her dad had said to be polite. Well, she was gifted in other ways, it was fine.

"What?" she said.

"That's a great way to greet family," he said.

"Dude, it's just us, you don't have to pretend," she said. "We're all aware we don't like each other."

"Always with the attittude..." he said with a sigh, stupid smile still on his face.

"Always a pretentious asshole..." She smiled back.

"And Alex, how are you?" he ignored her, moving on to the only other person in the hallway.

"Not emotionally stable enough for this," he said with a straight face.

"Where did it all go wrong between us?" David wondered.

"I don't know, maybe it was the part where you said that Zara made some good points. Or the part where you ready to torture an innocent vampire to get information he didn't have. Or, or  the part where you told me I'm disgusting for dating a vampire. I really can't choose, what do you think?" She turned to Alex.

"I think we should go because we have things to worry about," he said.

"Right," she said and they both walked away without another word. David was really the last thing they needed right now.

"I'm only staying for two days," he called after them. "We can at least pretend to be getting along."

Carrie hoped her middle finger was a pretty clear answer.

The front door creaked as Carrie pushed it open, she and Alex walking into the darkness. Dante had offered to lend a hand when they had more information and Flynn and Julie had come back a few minutes ago. Carrie was already getting ready to go meet Dante and Alex had tagged along because he needed to do something. Not that she blamed him.

They went up the stairs, already knowing where they would find him just like the fact that most vampires would probably be out of commission right now. Not that they had bad run ins with them other than Ivy, but that was over two years ago and she'd left LA soon after.

"Any new information?" Dante asked as soon as he saw them.

"Maybe you can help with that," Carrie said as she took out her phone to show him the photos.

"I'm truly sorry about what happened last night," Dante said, looking at Alex. "I don't think Willie will want to talk to me right now, but maybe you can find the right moment to tell him."

Alex looked at him for a couple of seconds and Carrie could only imagine what he must be thinking about with everything going on. He eventually gave him a small sad smile and said, "Thank you."

Carrie showed him the photos Flynn had taken. There wasn't much to see and it would probably help to see the bite up close, but bringing werewolves and vampires together right now wouldn't be the best idea.

"It certainly does seem real," he said, looking closely. "A few inches off to be honest though..."

"Off?" Carrie questioned.

"The jugular. Don't get me wrong, it gets the job done, but it wouldn't be the most efficient way. Then again if there was a struggle..."

"There wasn't," Alex said, thinking about it. "We think there wasn't, there weren't any other bruises or anything, everything seemed pretty cut and dry. He must have been knocked out first."

"How do you knock out a werewolf without getting in a fight?" Carrie said.

Alex sighed. "I don't know."

"If he was knocked out the bite should have been more precise," Dante said. "Also I heard he'd been missing for twenty minutes or so and there was still blood in the body? Any vampire would need a couple of minutes to drain someone. This took time."

"Someone took the time to knock out a werewolf and then drain them while also staging it to look like a vampire attack," Alex said. "It was careful, there was no blood left behind, they'd thought this through. Same with your guys, the only reason it was off was because they wanted us to get evidence. If there's one more casualty-"

"Everyone will stop being patient and we get a war to deal with," Dante said.

Carrie breathed out, a hand going through her hair. The dim lights weren't doing much to help them see, even though she could clearly make out Alex's expression and he was just as lost as her. She reached for her stele to draw a Night Vision rune on her arm, something to keep her hands busy while she was trying to sort things out.

"A war wouldn't be at anyone's best interest," Alex pointed out.

"That's not true," Carrie said as she swung her hand around, the rune half finished. 

She suddenly heard a hiss and Dante pulled his hand back. "Careful where you aim that thing," he said, looking at the stele with a scowl.

"Sorry," she said at the same time Alex shouted, "Wait!"

They both turned to look at him confused, but he was staring at Dante's hand. "Fuck," was all he said.

"What?" Carrie asked.

"The burn at his hand," Alex said without taking his eyes off of it.

Both Dante and Carrie looked at his hand to see the small burn the stele had left behind. It wasn't anything serious, it would only take a couple of minutes to heal, but it somehow did look familiar.

And suddenly Carrie understood why Alex had frozen in his place. A reserved reaction to be honest.

She looked back at him. "It's a Shadowhunter."

"A fucking Shadowhunter!" Carrie was shouting as they walked quickly down the street in between everyone else. "Right under our noses and we missed it!"

"Starting a war? Why? Isn’t it better for everyone when it’s just calm out there? Everything’s been working great for a while now!" Alex was saying, his phone glued to his ear as he tried to find Willie. Carrie wasn’t sure if he actually wasn’t near a phone or just ignoring his calls.

"Because some people don’t give a fuck about calm and some people want to see the Downworld burn and I swear to Raziel I’m gonna destroy David," Carrie said. It wasn’t even a question in her mind, his sudden appearance there amidst everything couldn’t be a coincidence.

"Wait, Care, he's despicable no argument there, but do you think he’d go that far? We need proof," Alex said, taking his phone off his ear and scrolling through his contacts.

"Who else could it be, Alex? He’s probably been waltzing around LA for the past week and showed face just in case we bumped into him by mistake. He killed three people and I bet you he’s willing to kill more."

"Leah! Where are you?" Alex finally got an answer on his phone. So Willie hadn’t picked up then. "Great, stay there. We think we found him, he’s a Shadowhunter." There was a little pause where he was listening to her on the other side. "Yes, just please let everyone know, I can’t find Willie, you know where he is?" He slowly came to a stop, Carrie stopping next to him with confusion evident on her face. "No..." he said confused as well. "We were just..." His eyes widened. "Fuck, I have to go. Just stay where you are, I’ll call you."

"What happened?" Carrie asked fearing for the worst the second he’d hung up.

Alex had already started walking the way they’d come from. "She said Dante called Willie to meet up," he said his voice showing no emotion.

"Shit," Carrie said and with that they started running. It wasn’t lost on her that they had no weapons on them - except of course the occasional knives - but they’d need something stronger so she took her phone out, sending texts to the group chat for the guys to meet them over.

It didn’t take them long to get back to the clan's headquarters and bursted right back into the darkness.

"Hello?" Carrie shouted hoping it would catch someone's attention. It was the middle of the day anyone there should be asleep or incredibly annoyed that they were shouting over their heads.

"What the hell?" Trixie, Dante's second in command, came up from a staircase, looking at them with a mildly annoyed expression. "Carrie?"

"Where is Dante?" Carrie asked.

"Upstairs I think?" she said uncertain.

She and Alex both ran upstairs searching the building for him. They’d only left twenty minutes ago, where could he even be?

"They're not here!" Alex shouted as he slammed one of the doors shut. More and more vampires had started joining them, realizing something was wrong. Not that they could do much, they were trapped inside until sunset. Which made it pretty clear that Dante hadn’t left on his own.

"What's going on?" they suddenly heard new voices, Flynn and Reggie approaching them. Alex started explaining everything to them while Carrie turned to Trixie.

"It's a Shadowhunter," she said. "If both Dante and Willie are missing I’m guessing this is where it all comes down to it, but we're gonna get them out."

"Like you did last time?" a guy asked.

"You wanna take a shot?" she snapped. "We’re going to help them, but if anything goes wrong, you need to know who's responsible. This all started to create tensions between you and the werewolves."

"They didn’t do a bad job," Trixie said with a sigh just as everyone's voices started overlapping with each other's. She pulled Carrie with her a few feet away. "You'll find him right? It’s still day outside, one wrong move and-"

"I’m not letting him die," Carrie said.

"You can’t promise that."

"I’m stubborn as hell, you don’t know what I can do," Carrie said making her smile slightly. "Look, we're going to do everything in our power to find them. That much I can promise."

Trixie nodded. "Okay."

Carrie walked over to the others where Julie was already talking to someone on the phone.

"What's the plan?" Carrie asked.

"Julie's talking with Fuego," Luke said. "We still need to spread out and start looking. I called back home, everyone who was in the Institute is already out looking."

"David was already gone by the time you called," Reggie said. All Carrie wanted to do was find him and punch his fucking face. At least they had the numbers, that was good. It still wouldn't matter though if they didn't find them in time.

They split up, Carrie going with Alex. They'd started this together, they were going to finish it. They took their gear and weapons from the others, Carrie already feeling more comfortable with the added weight.

"I saw David carried a shortsword and I really wanted to get you a mace to be honest, I feel like that would help work your frustrations out, but I figured it would probably be more of a hindrance in moving quickly. So I got you a sword," Flynn said with a grin handing her the blade.

Carrie was in love.

"We should one hundred percent put the mace in the training schedule," Carrie said. Nothing like pointing a heavy spiky thing around taking out demons left and right.

"Be careful," Flynn said and leaned in to kiss her quickly before the split up.

"You too," Carrie said as she ran off with Alex.

It was true that they didn't have a particular place in mind, but there were so many of them out looking. They needed something more isolated, in the shadier parts of town. David would somehow have to get Dante in there without the sun killing him in the process. He had a plan and that plan entailed having a body for the vampires to find.

There were already people looking in Caleb's club, the basements, abandoned areas all around Los Angeles while Fuego was also trying to track them. Alex hadn't talked much, focused on the issue at hand. Carrie wasn't going to ruin his concentration.

After the second dead end they hit, Carrie was starting to get frustrated. They hadn't gotten word from anyone else and they must have searched half the city by now. She could also feel Alex's growing frustration with everything and the fact that he probably wanted to climb up a rooftop and scream until this made some sense. It wouldn't really help with the actual issue at hand though.

And then suddenly, after over half an hour of looking, Alex's phone rang. He scrambled to answer it, voice unsteady - it could be incredibly good, but also incredibly bad news.

"Yes?" he said. Carrie couldn't hear what they voice was saying, but a lot of information were coming in and Alex didn't look devastated. "Where?" he asked. "Yes. Okay, five minutes tops. Bye."

"What?" Carrie asked and followed him when he started running.

"Fuego got the word out, turns out two pixies saw the car he used heading a certain way. The only thing that makes sense in the area is a school. It's closed for renovations," Alex said. "They have to be there," he added, a bit more depseration seeping into his voice.

"Alex-"

"No, it's okay, I'm okay. We're talking about Downworlder leaders here," he said as if that was all Willie was to him. "There's a reason why they're in that position and they've been doing this for years. This is not how this ends," he added more determined than before. Carrie wasn't sure if he was referring to the fact that Willie and Dante could hold their own against a Shadowhunter even if he'd somehow gained the upper hand or the way he and Willie had left things.

Being closer than everyone else, they arrived first at the school. It was at the end of one street, not exactly what Carrie would call isolated, but no one would be going in and out for the time being so it worked well enough. Everyone else was closing in on them but they didn't have time to wait. They didn't know what was happening and they couldn't risk being too late. Not again.

They put a rune on the front door, unlocking it and walking inside. It was eerily quiet as expected, but not really dark, the fact that it was still early working in their favor. They were quiet, many different runes on them to make sure they didn't miss anything.

They walked further inside still seemingly alone, until they heard a banging noise. Followed by a growl. 

Carrie could actually see the relief on Alex's face even though nothing was over yet. They ran towards it, passing by the classrooms and hallways trying to find a staircase to the basement. 

They were running through the gym when Carrie heard a different noise. It was extremely quiet and could have easily been nothing, but Carrie wasn't one for ignoring hunches and so slowed down, taking a knife out of her belt. Alex was about to question her but she moved quickly, throwing it towards the sound, embedding itself on a door that was only slightly ajar.

"Second one goes through your hand," she shouted.

It took four seconds for the door to open all the way and David emerged still somehow with a smirk on his face.

"Go," Carry told Alex without taking her eyes off of David.

"Carrie-"

"Trust me, I've got this, go!" she said again and he eventually ran down the hallway.

"Took you long enough," David said, taking a few steps closer.

"I'm not proud of it," Carrie said, sword at hand. She usually preferred smaller blades, knives, daggers, things like that, it was easier for her to move. A sword though - or a mace even - she had to admit she felt pretty confident. "You do realize this is over, right? Everyone knows it's you, you're not getting out of this free."

"Oh I know," he said with a nod, "I just thought we'd have some fun first."

Carrie almost laughed. This was going to be interesting.

He lunged at her first. She brought her sword up, blocking his blade, pushing him back a little to give her some space.

"You know," he said, "I never really liked you."

"Yes, I'll try not to burst in tears," she said, almost rolling her eyes and came at him. Their blades clashed together, each of them blocking the hits that came their way. Carrie was gaining ground, pushing him back, further and further towards a wall, until he suddenly counteracted a bit harder than she expected and she almost got hit, stumbling back and trying to regain her balance.

They kept going, Carrie getting backed up towards the bleachers but she just jumped up, using them to her advantage as she gained ground. She kicked his chest, trying to push him back, but he caught her leg taking her with him as they both crashed to the floor. 

She quickly turned around, just in time to grab his wrist, blocking a punch that was coming for her face. Their weapons had fallen only a few feet away and Carrie still had several knives on her, but hand to hand combat would probably work better in a situation like this.

She had just enough time to bend her legs back just as David tried to straddle her and kicked him once more making him cough at the impact. She was quick to get on her feet but regrettably so was he and came at her with a roundhouse kick she was quick to avoid as she ducked and moved further back. She blocked the hits coming for her face even getting a punch on the side of his face that was guaranteed to leave a bruise, but just like that he punched her in the chest, making her lose her breath for a second.

A second that was enough for him to grab her arm and turn her around, bringing her right against him, keeping her in a chokehold. Carrie already had trouble breathing a second ago and this wasn't really helping.

"Ready to give up yet?" he asked and she could hear the smirk in his voice. She was gonna wipe that smirk off permanently.

All she could do was cough in response though.

"Good answer, you know I graduated on top of our class in the Academy," he said.

That was enough to make Carrie laugh. "Oh, honey, you know that's because I left when we were sixteen," she said and immediately brought her head back with as much force as she could, colliding with his face.

He groaned, his hold on her loosening, giving her a chance to get out of it. She dashed for her weapon only for something to take her down and she was once again lying on the floor, David straddling her waist as he grabbed the sword from the floor and brought it right down on her. Carrie had just a couple of seconds to move to her side, the sword missing her center as it was originally intended, but going through her side, making her let out a strangled scream. 

She was in pain, but moving out of the way had saved any vital organs and even though she was bleeding, she was pretty sure it wasn't that bad. It had only been her side, it could qualify as a scratch. Okay, maybe not a scratch. But she was not losing this.

She stayed on her side, panting while her right hand inched closer to one of the knives on her back. David was thankfully still gloating on top of her.

"You were saying?" he said.

Carrie mumbled something that got lost behind all the exaggerating panting.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" David asked leaning only slightly closer.

Carrie held her breath. This was going to hurt. "I said," she started, her voice suddenly coming much sober than before as her hand closed around the knife, "you never fucking shut up, do you?"

Choosing to ignore the pain on her side she sat up bringing the knife forward and stabbed him through the shoulder. She took the knife out and scrambled to get up as he fell back, thanking the adrenaline somewhere in the back of her head. She wasted no time running forward, jumping up and kicking him right against the injury. He gasped in pain just like she did and looped her leg through his own, bringing them both down once again with her on top this time.

"You were right," she said breathlessly just as she heard footsteps approaching from somewhere around them. "That was fun." She grabbed the sword from where it'd fallen, turning it around and bringing the handle right to the side of David's head, knocking him out.

She finally breathed out just as she heard someone shouting her name. She rolled over to the side, lying on the floor, breathing heavily. She was finally feeling the pain flaring up at her side and she was vaguely aware that someone was running towards her.

"Carrie!" she heard again and suddenly Alex was there kneeling next to her.

"Hey, you came," she said with a smile. "Did you find them?"

"Yes, everyone's fine," he said just as she felt a pressure against her injured side and a burn from an iratze on her neck. "Are you in pain?"

"Oh, so much..." she said with a chuckle that only made her hurt worse. "But it's fine, it'll be fine," she said with a gasp. "It didn't hit anything major."

"By the Angel, Carrie." Alex was looking down at her with an exasperated but still fond expression. Yeah, he looked at all of them like that at times.

She let her eyes wander for a second until she noticed they weren't alone. "That's a wolf," she said. Either that or she was delirious from the blood loss.

"Yeah, Willie," Alex said.

"Oh, good, I thought I was hallucinating," she said her voice growing distant in the end.

"You're okay," Alex said softly as he moved a few strands of hair away from her face. "I've got you, okay?"

"Okay," Carrie whispered just as she slipped into unconsciousness.

Alex couldn't really believe the day was over. He was grateful, that was certain, but also surprised. He was just happy to sit in a chair in the infirmary for the time being while Flynn slept on an identical one on the other side of the bed. If he was being honest though, the day was half over. He just wasn't ready to deal with the rest yet.

"Hey," he heard a small voice coming from next to him and turned to find Carrie awake, looking at him from her bed. "What are you doing here?"

"I love you too, Care," he said with an eye roll.

"You know that's not what I meant," she said and shifted ever so slightly with a little wince.

"How do you feel?" he asked her.

"Peachy," she said. "David?"

"Detained and far far away," he answered.

"Hmm, that's nice," she said with a smile. "Dante and Willie?"

"Dante went back to the clan the second the sun set," Alex said, "and Willie had some things to sort out with the pack before he went back to the apartment." 

"And you?" she pushed on.

"And I wanted to make sure you were okay. I literally got Trevor to go get something to eat like five minutes ago."

"I'm fine, dude," she said, waving her hand in dismissal.

Alex chuckled. "Obviously. You were really great out there," he said.

"I've really wanted to punch him in the face for a while now..." she said with a sigh.

"Yeah, I know." He smiled. "Thanks, Care. For everything you did today."

She smiled back. "Can I tell you something before you leave and go back to talk with your boyfriend?" she asked, although the phrasing of her question resembled a line of direction. Alex couldn't really disagree, but still.

"Sure," he said, shaking his head slightly.

"What you, Luke and Reggie have going on is... I mean it makes sense somehow, even if no one can really explain it, you know? I'm happy you have that, you deserve it," she said. "We met when we were sixteen though and sometimes I wonder..."

"What?" Alex asked softly.

"How things would have been if we were the ones to do the ritual," she said.

Alex would like to say that he was surprised by her statement, but then again... "Yeah," he agreed, "me too." He'd be lying if he'd said he hadn't thought about it. Of course he had and sometimes he regretted it that they had never even mentioned it back then. Granted it took them some time to get to know each other and then Alex had come out to his parents which hadn't gone great and he wasn't even thinking about parabatai, but after that... They'd just never said anything.

He loved the connection he had with the guys, even if no one could really explain it, and he wouldn't want to change it, but he and Carrie also understood each other on another level. And they still had that, parabatai or not. It was true though, sometimes he just... wondered.

"Carrie?" They both turned to look at Flynn who was trying to rub the sleep away from her eyes.

"Hey." Carrie turned to look at her with a smile. "I think overlooking the mace was the right choice."

"I mean, the time will come at some point," Flynn said as she leaned in and kissed her cheek. "I want us to be prepared."

"When would be the right time to use a mace exactly?" Alex asked.

"I don't know, dude, have you seen the demons parading out there?" Flynn said just as they heard the door open and Trevor came back.

"Carrie?" He rushed by the bed to make sure his daughter was okay. "I leave for five minutes..."

"Look on the bright side," Carrie said, "I'll probably get some time off too now. We can spend so much quality time together."

"This is not exactly what I'd had in mind when I came here," he said.

"I know, right? Even better. And David's imprisoned. That's a huge plus in my book," she said.

Alex bit his lip to hide a smile. He'd love it if he could just stay there, joke around a bit, pretend like everything was over and they could get back to normal. Which they could in sense, but he still had to go back home. He wanted to go back home, he needed to talk to Willie, make sure he was okay, but at the same time he was scared. 

He'd found the room he was in back at the school easily. The second he'd managed to open the door though he was immediately falling back with a wolf on top of him who looked extremely aggravated. He could understand the sentiment and the fact that he'd changed was probably what had saved him and earned them some more time. Apparently David was more familiar with human anatomy making it harder to carefuly bleed out a wolf. 

The second he'd realized it was Alex and not David he'd moved right back, his expression turning neutral again. Or at least Alex thought it was neutral. The only emotions he could spot on a wolf were angry and calm to be honest, he really needed to work on that. They hadn't said anything, they couldn't really say anything like that, so they'd found Dante and then Carrie and after the others showed up and Willie had changed back, all he'd said was that he needed to go talk to the pack first. Alex had said okay. And now that a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders all he wanted to do was go back and fix this.

After a few more of Carrie's ever so subtle pushes to get up and leave, he finally did. He was trying to figure out what he'd say as he walked down the street. How the conversation could go, what Willie would say. But then his mind would inadvertently slip to worst case scenarios and it just made him want to cry in the middle of the street and that was not the goal there.

He reached the apartment and started climbing up the stairs, his heart beating only slightly out of his chest. What if everything went wrong? What if Willie was mad at him? What if there was no fixing this? All Willie had been doing ever since yesterday was running around for the pack trying to make sure everyone was okay, everyone was safe and Robbie's body wasn't left in the middle of a dirty alley. He hadn't had any time for himself.

Alex took a deep breath and unlocked the door. He was surprised to find Willie only a few feet away, taking his jacket off. He must have just gotten back too.

They both stopped and looked at each other for a second. Alex pushed the door closed with his right hand and opened his mouth to say something, anything really that would make things even remotely better, but was cut off by Willie before he even had a chance to.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered with a sob.

Alex didn't even think about it twice before he moved in and pulled him into a hug. And it was enough to make Willie break. He cried against Alex's shoulder, finally getting the chance to let everything out ever since last night. And all Alex could do was just hold him tightly, a hand going through his hair, trying to provide whatever comfort and reassurance he could.

It wasn't until a few minutes later when the cries had subsided a bit that Willie talked again, his voice hoarse. "I'm so sorry about what I said."

"It's okay," Alex said without missing a beat. Because really, right now? It was okay. Because this had never been about Alex in the first place.

"It's not okay," Willie said.

"We can talk about it tomorrow, okay?" Alex said, placing a kiss on the side of his head.

"Just," Willie said as he pulled back slightly so he could look at Alex. "I've never trusted anyone in my life more than I trust you. I need you to know that."

Alex moved his hands to cup his face, wiping some of the tears away with his thumbs. "I know," he said. Willie had proven so time and time again. That didn't just disappear.

And yes, Alex hadn't been okay that morning because of so many things combined, but Willie had been even worse. And he was still not okay. So everything else could wait. For the time being they were there, they were together and Willie needed him.

He slowly reached over, wrapping his arms around him again. Willie melted against him. It was exactly where Alex wanted to be.