Lonely Hearts ▹ Scott McCall ✓

22 ▹ Epilogue

Shaun put his arm around Darren's shoulder as they stared down at the graveyard.

Hillary Johnson. 1976-2002.

He knew his daughter was strong, but if he wasn't holding onto her for her sake, he was doing it for his own sake. He wasn't able to come to his own wife's funeral, too afraid the people hunting him would be waiting for him there, and Darren was too young to remember any of it. This was, actually, his first time coming to her grave, the first time he had been near her since her death.

"Are you okay?"

Shaun looked away from the dirty stone and to his daughter. The girl who unfortunately had to take his ability, the same ability that caused her mothers death. He sighed and gave her a tight side hug.

"Yeah," his eyes passed over her head and to the boy waiting a ways back on his motorbike. "You should go spend time with him since he drove all the way down here from California."

He ignored the red that crept up her cheeks. "You sure?"

Shaun nodded. "It's fine, I'm probably going to head home soon anyway." He shot the girl a warning look. "And I expect you home by tomorrow morning, too."

Another spot of red shot up to her cheeks, but before he would comment on it, Darren gave a quick kiss on his cheek, before running off to the werewolf boy.

"Be safe!" Shaun yelled once more before the two hopped on the bike and drove off. He looked down at his wife's aging stone. "She definitely got her love for danger from you."

---

"It's so weird to be back here," Darren commented as she walked through the town she was in until she was four. "I don't really remember anything, but I have a vague memory of some of these shops."

Scott held on tightly to Darren's hand and allowed her to relive the old memory. He kept his eyes on her and ears on her, while also keeping out for any danger.

Her eyes shifted to an old building with pastel colors covering the windows and doors. Scott watched with a smile as her eyes widen in realization and her heart pick up in excitement. She pointed to the building as if Scott hadn't already noticed her shifted mood.

"I remember I used to go to this ice cream shop every Saturday with my mom and dad." She narrowed her eyes in thought. "I think I always got this strawberry ice cream thing. My mom always told me her favorite was orange ice cream but that shit was disgusting!"

Scott chuckled lightly and felt Darren pulling him towards the building. "A nice old guy used to own the place, I wonder if he still works there?"

The two peaked into the busy shop, seeing an elderly guy shakily handing bowls of ice cream to two young parents and their toddler daughter. He smiled kindly to them and thanked them for coming, handing the toddler a small stuffed ice cream cone pal. The girl takes it and thanks him after her parents urge her. The man nodded and said something else, before turning back to a new customer. He had a small staff helping him and seemed to be training a young adult on the job.

"Should we go get something?" Scott asked and Darren nodded her head.

---

"Do you still want to learn how to protect yourself?" Scott asked out of the blue after stopping his motorbike in front of Darren's house. It was already near dark. He was holding her hand to stop her from entering the house. The brunette looked into the male's eyes seeing how he felt about the subject, but she only saw curiosity. She nervously nodded her and he softly smiled at her. "I talked to Kira before leaving earlier and she agreed that she thinks it would benefit to learn from her. Are you okay with that?"

"Of course." Darren scrunched her nose up in thought. She didn't like the feeling of being helpless and the night at the hospital where she nearly died was the last straw for her. She couldn't just sit around and wait for someone to come to save her...not when she had people who were willing to teach her self-defense. "If I'm going to be someone who attracts unwanted and dangerous attention, I think it's best if I know."

Scott let out a deep sigh feeling relief. Ever since his feeling had developed for the Pakun, he had only felt more and more concern for her wellbeing and having her learn ways to defend herself would help ease up that stress. He felt Darren start to move back towards the door, but before she could escape his loose grip, he spun her around and cupped her cheeks in his hands.

He wanted to say something to her, but his tongue was caught up from the look she was giving him. All her attention was on him and she didn't seem to want anything else to be in her line of sight. He swallowed back his nerve and kissed the girl once more since their first date.

Luckily, nothing was going to come and stop the two from finally having their moment...

...or so they thought.

The security light shined on and the two teenagers broke apart, a dark blush coating Darren's cheeks.

"What are you doing?"

Scott tensed up hearing Shaun Johnson open the front door and his bare feet pad down the concrete stairs. He nervously looked over at the male, seeing his arms crossed and an irritated look staining his face. Perhaps Allison's father won over the scarier of the two girls' fathers, but the look he was receiving still made Scott's blood run cold. He gave a nervous smile to the father.

"I'm just—uh—I'm just going to go." He started to move back to his bike when Shaun called out for him.

"If you're going to date my daughter, I would at least like to get to know you and your parents." He sent an amused smile towards his daughter who whined in embarrassment. "Let your mother know to get back to me about dinner."

Scott nodded his head, politely answering him. "Yes, sir."

Shaun sent him a small smile, the intimidating look not leaving his eyes though. He put a hand on Darren's shoulder. "Alright. Now get going, it's getting late."

not edited

And with that... the story is over!
Thank you guys so much for being apart of Darren's story! Thank you all for the support, as well! Like, seriously, we're almost at 100k reads, like WHAT?! I never thought that when I wrote a Scott McCall fanfiction, that it was going to get as much love and support and attention as it did. I'm seriously grateful for everything!

Okay, so now onto the future of Darren. I know some people aren't going to be too happy with what I'm about to say, but I don't think I'm going to write a sequel. As much as I would love to continue Darren's story because I know a lot of you want it as much as I would love to continue it like that... but... I want to move onto some other things. Like, I've been working on a Peter Parker/Spiderman ff, some anime ff, Harry Potter ff, and even some original work!

However, I'm not going to abandon Darren altogether. There are still some unanswered questions I know you would like to be answered. So, I am going to start a prompt request sheet on the next chapter where you can request things you want to see (the dinner, more answers from Shaun about what a Pakun is, her training, maybe some parts of season 5+, etc).

Thank you all again,
Destiny xx