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Lydia Martin went to the clinic and put herself on birth control the day Jackson Whittemore asked her out. It was the last day of eighth grade, so her mother balked at the request. Lydia has always been a skilled manipulator, though. She explained it was preparation for the future, and not the near future.
She did not lose her virginity that summer. It happened during freshman year, spring break to be exact. Crickets chirping, the occasional odd car driving by, and Jackson reading a WikiHow article to her out loud, trying to act like he wasn't scared out of his mind. Jackson had presented her with a bouquet of flowers upon her arrival, and she'd produced a box of condoms. Perhaps it wasn't romantic, but it was pragmatic. Lydia prided herself on being a very smart girl. Smart sex involved protection, and as Lydia closed the little tin on the bathroom sink without swallowing a pill for the thirty-third time in as many days, she felt stupid.
She feels stupid now, staring at the table as her husband fries up bacon omelets on the stove.
"Happy Mother's Day. Is that fucked up?" He stops himself. "Yes, it is. Sorry."
"Oh shit." She glances up. "We're going to your mother's today, aren't we?" She mentally kicks herself for the slip, but he answers brightly.
"Oh yeah, Scott's excited to show us Cody can run now." He sits down with the pan and serves them both, grinning at her. "Besides, I have a feeling tonight's the night."
She already feels queasy. He's been saying that for a month now. It's as though her body is deliberately rejecting him, even though looking at the curve of his jaw still makes her heart thud in her chest. She's been married to Stiles for two years, and she is twenty-nine quickly approaching thirty, so she shouldn't still blush. She does anyways. He does it when she's too lazy to get dressed and lies around in bed naked, going beet red and stammering before he remembers they slept in the same bed the night before, and before that, and before that, and that he's finally got her right where he wants her. With him always.
"It's so frustrating." she mutters.
Scott and Kira have a two year old already, who has a stress-inducing penchant for playing with electrical sockets that Scott blames entirely on his mother. Cody is cute, Lydia loves her nephew, but he's going to be a reminder today of how every night is a swing and a miss, another disappointment.
It's awful because Stiles can't even call her baby now without her bursting into tears, and he loves calling her baby.
"I have to call my mother." she mumbles, leaving the kitchen without so much as taking a single bite. She feels Stiles's eyes on her back as she rushes to the bathroom, throws herself down on her knees...and nothing comes out. Because she isn't pregnant, she's just stupid.
~~~~
"Happy Mother's Day, eh?" The sheriff greets her warmly with a hug and pulls back to check her face. His falls, and he speaks in a whisper. "You can tell me the truth. Is it Stiles? Is he the problem?"
Lydia shakes her head, refusing to cry, and Mr. Stilinski beckons her inside without another word. Stiles watches them disappear into the house, and only then does Lydia see him get up and out of the car.
Technically, Melissa McCall is Stiles's stepmother, but you wouldn't know it with the way she fusses over him, fixing his tie for him. Then she turns her attention to Lydia.
"Lydia."
God, is it Scott that's the werewolf or Melissa, because it feels like she smelled Lydia's distress. Lydia does not cook very often, but she finds herself chopping carrots. Isaac has just arrived, with not only a more expensive car than he had on Christmas, but also a bodyguard who speaks solely French and is refusing to sample even one of the hors d'oeuvres, much to Kira's displeasure. She's fond of her biscotti. The bodyguard is getting along just fine with Cody, though.
"Chop this for me?' Lydia is handed an onion.
"So what's up?"
Lydia shakes her head. "Nothing."
"Lydia, I've known you for about fifteen years now, and this isn't nothing. Is something wrong with Stiles?"
Everyone keeps jumping to that conclusion.
Lydia almost cuts off her finger. "God no, god forbid, he's fine. He always is."
"So then?"
It comes out in a rush. "I can't get pregnant."
From the look on Melissa's face, and Lydia's knowledge of Stiles's closeness to his father, she would like to draw the conclusion that Sheriff Stilinski is a terrible gossip.
"Have you gone in for tests?"
"No, not yet." Tears are pricking at her eyes. Definitely the onion.
"There's always adoption." she's reminded and Lydia nods.
"I know. It's just...hard."
"You should probably take a break and then return to it again. The stress must be getting to you. I've never seen you without lipstick before."
Lydia touches her lips and is shocked herself. She hates her mouth's natural color. Peachish.
Thankfully, it is soon time for dinner.
Stiles loves LA. Lydia was expecting a ton of moaning and complaints when she got the offer to work at a prestigious interior design company in downtown Los Angeles, but Stiles pointed something out. (Funny thing about the moaning-nope, not a topic for family discussion) There are cops everywhere. It's only a few hours from Beacon Hills. And Stiles being a cop is somehow far less frightening than she expected. There aren't supernatural creatures in Los Angeles, or if there are they know to avoid Stiles, who has a bit of notoriety in the underground already. He's finally been promoted to detective, but his favorite year was the one he spent working in traffic with Scott, who's still stuck in domestic.
Stiles has the entire table enraptured, even Cody, who listens avidly as Stiles details a DUI he pulled over when he saw a trail of clothing dragging along behind it, soaking wet. It turned out to be the last vestiges of an ex-boyfriend.
Everyone's laughing, and Scott receives a look from Kira. He rolls his eyes and theatrically places his hands over Cody's ears, but Cody begins to complain. By complain, Lydia means he just keeps saying no over and over.
The turkey is delicious, and Isaac will not explain his job. Stiles has been ninety percent sure he's an assassin for years now, and Lydia has become quite accustomed to the conspiracy theory, so when Stiles meets her eyes over the table and winks, she can't help giggling a bit. Isaac stares at her.
"Sorry."
"As I was saying, it's confidential."
"If you weren't saying anything, why does it matter if Lydia interrupts?" asks Stiles, and Isaac responds by simply challenging him to a game of basketball in the backyard. Scott would get in on this normally, but Scott and Stiles are already taking ballroom dancing (Lydia's idea) and Scott might want all the rest he can get, because tomorrow night's a full moon.
Yeah, that shit still happens. Kira's worried about Cody's potential, despite Scott being bitten. Then again, Kira's notoriously a worrier.
~~~~
Scott instead joins Lydia to wash the dishes. It's weird. Lydia loves Scott to death, but she can tell there's an ulterior motive. It's revealed at the third knife.
"Cody was an accident, you know." Scott says it so casually that Lydia almost doesn't get it-and then she does.
"Scott, no."
"We tried for quite a while. Man, it was insane. We were-in all the rooms of the apartment-and then Kira was complaining that she was sore all the time, right, because she can't heal like a werewolf can, and werewolves go hard apparently, which I thought was a pretty funny pun-do you get the pun?"
Scott literally stops to hear her answer, which is a crisp "Yes."
"Okay. So we were just doing it for the fun of it, but then it turns out that when you don't try so hard, which is what I'm trying to get at and-"
"Please stop talking."
He looks like he's changing the topic. Thank God.
"Do you know what ovulation is?"
Lydia can't even dignify that with a response.
"Okay, so it's like, a woman thing. You and Stiles should look it up. I mean, you probably don't fully understand it because I don't. So there's a certain time of the month when-"
"Scott, I get it."
"No, not when you're bleeding! Or um, your moon time...not that."
Lydia scrubs this dish especially hard, wondering whether it would be rude to scream and shatter a window.
"Can I help?"
Scott responds with ample enthusiasm to the sudden appearance of Derek Hale, who is predictably late.
"We already had lunch, Derek." Lydia chides him, and Derek's mouth twitches.
"There aren't leftovers?"
"Ask Melissa."
"She's playing with the...child."
"My kid, Derek. Cody."
"And your godson." Lydia adds. "That is something you ought to recall, no matter how little you show up to family gatherings-"
"I'm not family."
If Scott could girlishly gasp, this is the moment when that would have occurred. As it happens, he merely flashes red eyes. "That is not true!"
Derek looks a little embarrassed. "I know." he mutters, and Lydia understands his discomfort. Scott is way too touchy-feely on a regular day, and it gets even worse on national holidays. He has a spa day planned with his mother and Kira's, for no discernible reason other than Kira wanted to not go. Derek Hale is not a touchy-feely guy. He is master of stoicism.
"Cody can say your name now."
Derek smiles despite himself. "Can he really."
"Yes! I'll show you!"
Lydia mouths a thank you at Derek, and maybe she shouldn't have, because while Scott exits, Derek lingers.
~~~~
"I interrupted something."
"There is chicken in the fridge."
"Is it-"
"If you ask me if it is Stiles, I might actually kill you."
"That's not how banshee powers work."
Lydia turns to face him fully, holding a spoon in one hand. She tilts her head and does her famous smile. She can see Derek wilting under her gaze. "Why don't you try me."
"So it's you."
"We want kids."
"Why?" Derek has genuine bewilderment on his face, and Lydia remembers that his girlfriend is an on-the-move bounty hunter, and they don't settle, which is why Derek's never really around. She's surprised he came back to Beacon Hills on such an unimportant (and painful) day too.
"Some people like kids, Derek."
"Just Scott, I think."
"I want a kid, okay?"
"Isn't Stiles enough?"
Lydia is sick of everyone blaming Stiles. "We're having trouble with it."
"Is he depressed?"
"What? No." Lydia shifts her footing. "I don't think so? He's been promoted."
"When a man is depressed, it can sometimes affect...performance." Derek is staring directly above her head, and Lydia might just have a stroke by the end of the night.
"There's no problem with performance."
"So you're not attracted to him."
Lydia brings the utensil to stab into her chest. Alas, it is merely a serving spoon. The most she can do is a good bruising, like Stiles needs more to worry about.
"Yes I am. I'm in love with Stiles, remember? That's why we got married."
"Why are you asking me for advice? I am childless."
Lydia is really on the verge of a scream. "I didn't ask you!"
Derek holds up his hands, and she can see the question about her cycle forming on his face, so she leaves the kitchen herself. If Derek wants company so badly, he should work on his social skills.
~~~
After an hour arguing European politics with Isaac, she is ready to leave. She just needed to blow off some steam, and she's pretty sure Isaac's now a Socialist.
"Wait, I have a last point to make." Isaac insists.
Lydia is ready for something about the Baltic states-she'd gotten a little hysterical-and instead Isaac gets right in her face, and smirks.
What the fu-
"Animals get pregnant all the time."
"That's the least helpful information I've gotten tonight."
"You should do it like they do."
Lydia's lip curls and he jumps back. "Just trying to help."
"Never try at anything, ever again."
He reties his scarf. "I'll keep that in mind."
~~~~
Stiles and Scott are having some sort of tea party with Cody in the living room. Watching Stiles accept an empty cup and pretend to drink, Lydia's heart seizes up. Suddenly, she wants to go swimming. She has no idea why, but it's California, so it's not out of the question.
"Stiles?"
"Yeah, babe?" He looks up, face brightening at the sight of her. "Want some tea? The flavor is Faux Pourri." Another wink, and yeah, she wants to be alone with him right now.
"Do you want to go to the beach?"
Scott looks up now. "It's almost six."
"I don't plan on tanning."
Scott makes an o with his mouth, but Stiles is laughing a little.
"There won't even be lifeguards. Unless-Scott, do you want to-"
"No, go on, Mr. Married."
"You're more whipped than I am." Stiles laughs, shoving Scott off him.
"We'll pass. Cody needs to go to sleep in Grandma's house. Right, Cody?" Scott makes the kid nod. "We're gonna say goodbye to your godmother and Uncle Stiles, okay? Good night!"
They kiss the boy goodnight, and he starts yawning, mumbling about trucks.
~~~~
Walking on the beach barefoot has always been one of Lydia's favorite things to do with Stiles. She's participating in the latest episode of Isaac: Double 0 France, and Stiles has his arm around her shoulder. They haven't touched outside sex for a couple weeks, and she realizes she's been missing him. Hard.
That just brings the awful conversation with Scott to mind, and she tells Stiles. Her husband has the audacity to double over laughing, so she shoves him into the ocean.
"I had to hear about their sex life, and Kira's ovaries, and then Derek came in-"
"Oh god, did Derek join in?"
"Derek thinks your performance in bed could be improved if you weren't so depressed." Lydia whispers into his ear after she's followed him into the waves, and Stiles tugs her down to sit directly in the wet sand, the water coming up around their waists.
"Depressed? Is he projecting?"
"I guess he has history with...poor performance?" Lydia blinks several times. "Let's just not."
"Yeah, as exciting as Derek Hale's bedroom is, I'd rather discuss ours."
Lydia pouts. She's won medals for pouting, meaning when she didn't win something she knew she deserved, she would obtain it with a pout, and she gets the hug she's angling for instantly, because Stiles is a sucker.
"We're going to keep trying."
"We don't have to."
"Yes we do."
Lydia sighs, pushing her hair out of her face. It's freezing at night in the ocean, Jesus Christ.
"You know you're enough for me, right?"
"What do you mean?"
"I don't need a child. I can just have you. I love you, and you're enough for me. You don't have to feel obligated to keep trying to have a baby-I know you just got a new job and you need to settle in, and this will mess it up for-"
"Lydia, I wouldn't be trying to have a kid if I didn't want to take care of it." Stiles kisses her, and shit. It is cold. She makes a plaintive noise, and he laughs. "Yeah, it's cold."
"We could stop for a little while."
"Only if you don't mind."
"Your mom said we should."
Stiles buries his face in her chest. "Oh god, did everyone weigh in?"
"Isaac says maybe a different position."
"That little-"
"Settle down, cowboy. We should go home."
"In a little bit."
"Yeah." She strokes his hair, shivering. She gets seasick sometimes, but right now she's fine.
~~~~
It's morning, a week later. They've stopped trying for now, and the tension is slowly leaking out of her bones as she is reminded that Stiles is really enough for her. It's automatic now when she pulls out a stick from the box, sticks it under her in the toilet bowl, and stands up to toss it in the trash. She flushes.
Wait, no.
Two lines. She fishes it out of the trash and examines it.
Two lines.
Two lines.
She does scream, and Stiles hollers something at her.
"I'm fine!" she calls back. "It was a happy scream!"
~~~
She sits down at the table and is served a glass of wine. This'll be a good lead in.
"Case of life or death." She's going for cryptic.
"It's actually just death today. Double suicide."
"Gruesome." She swirls the wine around without drinking. "What's the occasion, or are we alcoholics now?"
"I've got a partner."
"That's wonderful!" She claps her hands excitedly. "Who?"
"Scott."
This is fantastic news, and she's glad she has some of her own to share. Work doesn't start until four, and he'll be back by one, so they can properly celebrate then.
"I was actually talking about the wine though. It's a life or death situation here."
"What do you mean?"
"Hinging on one decision."
"Life or death for whom?"
A man after her own heart, this one. Course, he's got it. She rolls her eyes at her own thought.
"The gestating zygote within my womb."
She likes watching it dawn on him. His eyes get wide. It reminds her of when he spent so much time sweating over how to propose that she ended up doing it herself at Christmas.
--
"Stiles?"
"Do you want the ham?"
"No, I want to get married."
The jaw dropped, and so does the other shoe.
--
"Lydia Martin Stilinski, I am in love with you, and you are the universe, and you are the ocean, and holy shit I'm a father."
She wants to take a photo of his face and put it up online. She wants to memorize this expression forever. She wants it on her bedside table.
"Yes. You are."
He starts out walking towards her slowly, but then he runs at her, pulls her up out of her chair, and whirls her around in the air, beaming.
"You're in there?" he asks her stomach directly, setting her down. He kisses her and he's still smiling, and it's weird, and she's so, so happy.
"She's in there." Lydia affirms.
"She?"
"Yep, two of us. I sense it."
"Baby, and baby, and this is so fucking surreal." He's half-talking to himself. Stiles kisses her again, and it feels like the first date, her wedding day, Christmas all over again. And she guesses she's stuck with orange juice for breakfast.
~~~~
Lydia is four months pregnant, and she cannot fit behind the wheel. Stiles drives her to her gynecology appointment, and they already know there's a girl in there, but he loves seeing the heartbeat. The baby likes to wait until her father is nowhere in sight to actually start kicking. Already playing hard to get from the womb, Lydia wishes she could high five her.
When the traffic light ahead of them goes green, Stiles starts the car very slowly.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes, I just have to be careful. For Allison."
Lydia is very confused. "What?"
"I don't want anything happening to Allison."
"Allison is dead, honey." She's worried now.
Stiles pulls the car over to the side of the street, cutting off a city bus that honks obnoxiously. He turns the engine off and almost snaps at her. "What are you talking about?"
"She died years ago, Stiles. Are you feeling okay?"
Is he having his nightmares again? Is it-is it what his mother had? She'd thought that was all behind them, but now-
"Oh my God, no, Lydia, no." Stiles is pressing on his own eyelids. "I meant little Allison."
Lydia glances down at her stomach. "We're naming her Allison?"
"Only if you want to."
She doesn't want to look at him. She's so sick of crying. She cries at every single thing now. She watched their wedding tape the other night, and she was crying. Stiles was also crying, but he was crying in the video, not in real life. In real life he was out investigating a murder.
"Lydia, is that okay with you?"
"You should have explained it earlier, you moron." She's smiling though, so he turns the keys and starts up the car.
"Yeah, that was some bad communication there. We should probably see a counselor."
"Yeah, about our problems in the bedroom." Lydia laughs.
"I can't wait to see her again."
She knows that it's crazy, and he means the baby, but as her husband drives them to the doctor, it almost feels like she is about to see her best friend again.