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The world is as close to falling apart around his ears as it has ever been, but all that he can think right now is that he’s not a pawn, and let him be okay.
Seeing Isaac materialize on the bench tonight conjured up a horribly mixed bag of emotions that he simply had no time to entertain or analyse. While it was such a breathtaking relief to have someone to share his burden, it was equally suffocating to have another soul on the field that somewhere in between scenting him in the locker room for the first time and watching him help that poor creature in the clinic, he has come to care about.
The devastating truth that has been dawning with each new horror over the last few months hits him again with a nearly paralysing force (Stiles would point out that there is some prime situational irony there, but Stiles is a bit preoccupied with other things right about now, such as not dying and not getting his ass handed to him on the field) as Isaac falls and admits, “I think he nicked me,” his spreading immobility proof enough.
Scott can’t save everyone. He said to Jackson months ago that he cannot even protect anyone, and now the stakes have been raised infinitely higher.
But Scott sucks at chess and thinks it’s a game for ideological, scheming old men, and Isaac isn’t ‘everyone,’ nor will he ever simply be a ‘pawn,’ and so in spite of all the effort Isaac put into getting Scott off of the bench tonight, right at this moment, when there is still plenty of time on the clock, he knows where he really needs to be.