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It was like Lydia looked at the world through the eyes of a stranger, holding onto every scent, flash and sound. She was sinking, deeper and deeper into the void of her mind, consumed by her own thoughts and fighting an urge to scream.
She simply couldn't guide herself back to her body – the way its fingers shook when she felt anxious, lips pursed when she wasn't sure and nose puckered when she lied. She couldn't control what used to come to her easily.
Lydia was aware of it all, however. The doctors who pierced her skin, while a friend caressed her hand and held her tenderly. Her best friend. Stiles.
While she, trapped behind her still eyes, desired to respond to his pleas, something about the state of her psyche kept her glued to the clinic's rigid mattress. Lydia couldn't tell how long she'd retained catatonic or how much she'd missed out on, but she remembered it wasn't Stiles' first visit.
Unable to see the face she'd recognize from miles away - the scattered freckles, the umber irises and the crimson lips – the ones she'd kissed once, Lydia wished to reveal the remaining life that still possessed her to the figure sat beside her bed.
Then, she sensed a warm touch, hesitant at first, followed by him fully encompassing her fingers with his.
"Your teachers gave me some of the stuff you've been working on. They wanted us to hold onto it for you. Saw something about the.." Stiles struggled to recall what he'd attempted to memorize earlier. "Riemann hypothesis. Um, things like non-trivial zeros, zeta functions and uh.."
While Stiles scrambled for words, Lydia imagined the puzzled look spread across his face, how his nostrils clenched together and eyebrows furrowed. Her hand still captured by his, the touch hot on her fair skin.
"Other stuff that goes totally over my head." he continued. "Maybe you can wake up and explain it to me."
Lydia tried. With every fibre in her still body, she tried to find her way to reality, to the only person who cared enough to visit her in a hell hole he'd been trapped in before himself. The second she heard Stiles' steps in the hallway, she realized the suffering he must've endured coming back. After all, the last time he and she were in Eichen's, they were both nearly killed. Still, she couldn't move a finger or blink.
"Come on, Lydia, y-you have to come back to us." his voice reached the depths of her brain again, this time sounding lesser than a whisper, for Lydia's ears only. "There's no way we're getting through this without you. Lydia, you have to wake up."
Wake up. Wake up. WAKE UP. She screamed in her mind, over and over, like a mantra, like they were the only two words left in her vocabulary, and for a second, she reached the door. She saw the light that led back to the world with fewer voices burdening her mind.
"I think that's enough." Only a step away. "Stiles?"
But then, with one final brush, the fingers she found comfort in left hers. Her skin turned cold again. Her breath was no longer steady. And her lips forgot the touch of his. Lydia returned to the overwhelming voices, the darkness and the void of her brain.
Stiles was gone.
Lydia felt herself scream for what felt like the thousandth time in a time too short.
The last thing her eyes caught was a body leaning over hers and glass shattering over them both. She sank into the darkness once again.
Yet it suddenly transformed to something else. Images. No, memories.
The lacrosse field. A dark figure approaching. The same red eyes from the DVD store. Someone yelling out her name. Her looking back. Hair shuffling. Stiles running desperately her way. Teeth in her skin. Pain. Two voices. Just kill me, look, I don't care anymore. Tell Jackson where she is, that's all you get.
Lydia. Lydia. Lydia?
The high school. English class. Beginning of the term. Prada bit me. Your dog bit you? No, my designer handbag. Yes, my dog. The teacher looking outside the window. Crows, so many she couldn't count. Glass shattering. Blood. Birds attacking her classmates. A body leaning over hers. Black feathers. Stiles letting go of her.
Lydia, come on.
The forest. Middle of the day. Nearby howling. Gunshots. Bear traps. Her foot mildly pressed on a trap. Lydia, why the hell would they put instructions on the bottom of a trap? Because animals can't read. Stiles unable to read. But Stiles is the one who always figures it out. Trap closing. Stiles holding her up. Breaths heavy. Adrenaline rushing through their veins. Her staring at him like she wants to kiss him. Looking away.
No, no, no, no, no.
Eichen's. Audiotape. Her grandma's voice. Tight handcuffs. A body struggling to get closer to hers. Lydia, look at me. Don't listen to him. Just focus on my voice. Block it out. HEY, TURN IT OFF! A punch. She no longer hears Stiles. A man playing the tape close to her ear. Tears.
Come on, Lydia, wake up.
Dark room. Screaming. Screaming. Screaming again. A head exploding. A ripped off doorknob. A figure running her way. Falling back on the stiff procedure table. Stiles approaching. Hands holding her face. Lydia. You came back. We're getting you out of here. No, you can't, it's too dangerous. Lydia, please shut up and let me save your life. An agreement. A smile. A relief. Stiles is here. The voices are silent for a moment. A pair of arms bringing her out in the tunnels. Another scream but drowned out. Where is Stiles? Where is he? Where is my Stiles?
Come on, wake up.
In the backseat of a car. Stiles is back. Holding her whole. Scream. Window glass cracking. You're gonna make it. But you're not. Ear bleeding.
The images stop flashing. She's losing them. She can't hold on. She can't remember.
Can you hear me, Lydia? Lydia, open your eyes.
The voice is very familiar.
Come on, come on. Come on, listen to me, Lydia.
There is only one person who says her name like that.
Lydia, show me your eyes, okay?
It's on the tip of her tongue.
Lydia, you have to open your eyes.
Style? Stile? Stiles. Stiles! His voice is gone now. Muted breaths surround whichever room her body lies in. Goodbye sighs. Lost hope. Given up, all but one.
Hey...
He says it like he's saying goodbye, too. No. No, no, no, no, no. Wake up. Scream yourself awake. Open your eyes. For Stiles. Please, do it for him. Push yourself through the barrier. Do it. Breathe. Breathe!
So she let out a gasping breath. Quiet, but enough to bring her back.
Immediately, Lydia felt the cold from the shattered windows and the heat from Stiles' skin in contact with hers. She didn't know where, but it didn't matter. He was there. He was alive. She hadn't killed him with her scream. And when Lydia finally managed to open her eyes, it was his she stared at, teary hazels bringing life back to her body. She winced in pain, head throbbing with a headache.
"You're okay." he exhaled the words and she nodded barely noticeably. "You're okay."
Her hand reached for his, intertwining their fingers for what felt like both the first and millionth time. She stared at them, relieved, so relieved.
"You want to try to sit up?"
Lydia couldn't speak. She wished she could tell him. Tell him just how much she adores the safety of his hands. The warmth of his skin. The love sparkling in his irises. How much she loves all of him, for everything, every time he'd saved her life. But she could only nod.
As Stiles helped her sit up, pieces of glass fell from his flannel to the ground, sounding like wind chimes. She grunted in pain again. Stiles never let go of her, not for a second until Lydia spotted another figure in the door of the clinic. Her...
"Mom?" was the first word she spoke.
"Oh, honey." she ran up to where Lydia sat on Deaton's table, trapping her daughter in an embrace that had 'sorry' written all over it. Sorry for not believing you. Sorry for taking you to Eichen's. Sorry about your grandmother. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
But as her mom held her, Lydia could only look at the boy in the flannel, still partly covered in glass, the tears lingering at his eyelashes, the half-smile he couldn't grow because of his remaining worry, the boy she owes her life to.
"He saved me, mom," Lydia uttered, putting her last energy into gratitude, locking eyes with Stiles and smiling widely. "Stiles saved me."
She saw his mouth fall open, then close as he finally blinked away the tears. Lydia kept studying him even when he looked over to Scott and Deaton. Then he smiled, too, honestly and completely. The worry had lifted. Lydia was safe. And she understood.
"I'm not paying for the windows."
What Stiles didn't know is that it was her memories of him bringing her back. Even if it were only for the three words that meant the most to them both.
The next time Lydia woke up, she lied between the sheets of her own bed at home with head bandaged and limbs weak.
Her first instinct was to panic, gasping for air and snapping her fingers. She was alone, without her mom or Stiles. Utterly alone, so alo-
"Lydia."
She wasn't alone. Seemingly from thin air, Stiles appeared at the edge of her bed with his shuffled hair and until Lydia sat up, she failed to notice a pillow and blanket placed beside the bed on the ground. Stiles had slept there.
"Stiles?" saying his name alone brought enough content to Lydia to form a smile, so bright it might've as well-illuminated her entire room.
Memories from after leaving the animal clinic slowly began to capture her mind. Stiles insisting on staying the night in Lydia's room, playing with the hair around the hole in her head to distract her in the car, bringing soup and painkillers to her bed and feeding her with a spoon even when her pride wouldn't let her accept more of his help. Falling asleep with her night lamp on because of her recently manifested fear of the dark and Lydia's hand hovering over the edge of the bed – holding Stiles'.
Lydia stared. Stiles stared back. No one spoke a single word for several minutes, but each was awaiting something. A hug. Another confession. Any form of physical contact because after the last couple of weeks, they desperately craved it.
But then Lydia realized something else.
"Malia?"
Stiles remained silent for a lingering moment, but his heartbreak-filled gaze spoke volumes. "It's over. We knew it wasn't right anymore. We moved on."
"Are you alright?" Lydia asked genuinely. Both Malia and Stiles were her friends first. She'd never wished to ruin anything between them, which is why she hid her feelings for the boy sitting beside her ever since figuring them out last year.
"I am, now that you're back. Are you?" he obviously didn't want to talk about it just yet. Lydia hadn't a clue how long she spent at Eichen's but she understood that his bruises were fresh.
Because of Stiles’ question, however, she remembered something, no, someone else. Wallock. "I don't know." she broke their eye contact, tears blurring her sight.
Stiles immediately jerked up, sitting at the very edge of her bed to give her space. "Lydia, it isn't your fault. You have saved more people than.." he couldn't say kill. "It isn't your fault."
Given permission, he caressed her arm back and forth mildly and Lydia eased into the touch, guiltily. "But it hurts. So much."
"You didn't mean to. It was an accident." Stiles argued, moving a finger over to her cheek and tugging at it lightly. As he then cupped her cheek, she tilted her head so that his hand was trapped between her cheek and shoulder. Safe.
"You know, Donavan was an accident, too."
He shuddered but didn't question how she'd discovered the haunting scene at the school library. Lydia couldn’t tell either, but she'd caught him in the lie when she'd asked him about his shoulder. A feeling at the back of her skull.
Stiles exhaled. "What's it gonna take so that you can give yourself a break, Lydia? What do you need? I can go get you something, anything. Or do you want me to leave?"
"Stay," she ordered more aggressively than hoped for when Stiles slowly started standing up, breaking the contact with her skin. "Please."
"Okay." he sat back down, placing both his hands on her face now. "Is this okay?"
"Better than okay." Lydia inhaled his scent - her own shampoo he'd showered with last night. He smelled like her. Stiles was really here, next to her. In the same reality. With her.
"Stiles.."
"You don't have to say anything." he didn't hesitate, leaning closer to her face with his, spotted her lingering tears.
"But I want to." she pressed his forehead against his but grunted in pain at once. The hole had barely started to heal.
They stayed like that, skin against skin for several moments and his breath fell hot and heavy, like he was nervous to be in his position. After all, up until this moment, it’d been forbidden.
"Thank you," she whispered, leaning into his ear and planting a short kiss on his temple. Stiles shivered.
"How did we end up here?" he pulled a few inches away to be able to bore into her greens. The eyes that were shut just hours ago and he feared would never reveal their light to the world again.
"I'm not sure. But it doesn't seem like any of this mess is ever going to end."
Stiles licked his lips and bit into his bottom. The mannerism alone made Lydia anxious.
"We nearly lost you last night. I nearly lost you. I don't know what I would've done if you... didn't wake up."
Lydia noticed only now that Stiles had teared up. He wasn’t afraid of crying in front of her, but he covered his bloodshot eyes nevertheless.
"I know how you feel. I worried so much before we figured out how to fight the nogitsune. When it was all over, I couldn't pull myself together to talk to you because I knew you felt guilty but I was so broken because of.." she couldn't say Allison’s name when her heart ached so already. "I wished I could help you deal with the situation but every time I tried, you avoided the topic altogether. And I don't blame you. I only wanted to approach you with the right words but finding them felt impossible. I'm sorry for not doing more." Lydia removed Stiles’ palms from his eyes, placing a hand on one of his and playing with his fingers over his freckled skin.
"You worried about me?" Stiles' mouth hung open in shock. Lydia couldn't understand why. Despite her repressed exterior, Stiles must be aware of how much she cares about him. He does, right? Or...
"Of course I did. You're my best friend and.."
"I love you." Lydia and Stiles confessed at the same time, hand holding hand.
Lydia’s room turned silent then. Good silent. Like every sound in the universe, even the distant screams ringing in Lydia’s ears were suddenly blocked out and only the two of them existed, breathing roughly and heartbeats drumming against their chests. Two hearts, one soul.
Stiles forgot how to blink, eyes watering as he opened his mouth wide. "You do?"
"I do love you." now that Lydia had said it the first time, they were the easiest words to say. "I have for a while now. And I can't tell you why it took me so long to catch up and realize that you are probably... No, definitely the only person who I've truly ever been in love with.”
Wonderstruck, Stiles reached for her hands and held them to his lips, brushing them against her skin briefly twice before looking back up at Lydia, who, in truth, could not believe her unforeseen confession, her newfound courage.
She marvels at the second she’d finally understood. Junior year. Mexico. Stiles’ hand on her shoulder as they enter a club owned by infamous werewolf hunters. Malia in the front seat. Stiles smiling at his girlfriend while she stares out the window, taking in the scenery. I thought you just took off, I thought you were running. I was running. No, I mean, like, I thought you were leaving. I wouldn’t leave without you. Really? I would never leave without you. Pain in her chest, perceived by Kira beside her, who is holding her hand tight. Kira knowing before Lydia herself. Jealousy hitting her at the same time as the one realization she tried to push away for months.
“You bring me back every time. You save me every time. You make me laugh in the darkest times and you feel like home wherever we go.” Lydia could go on but she found revealing everything all at once reckless. “It's you, it's always you at the end of the day."
Stiles’ gaze shifted from awed to curious. Not once had he heard Lydia speak so emotionally, like the protective shield she’d built around her to avoid getting close to someone had lifted. Finally, Stiles was staring at the real her. Yet a part of him couldn’t believe.
"Not to argue with something I've spent half my life wanting to hear, but are you sure? I mean you're probably still under a lot of drugs and it could be giving you-" Stiles’ silliness was interrupted by Lydia’s lips glueing to his.
Time stopped when, almost immediately, Stiles kissed her back. There was no moment of hesitation. Her heart pounded in her chest as she lost all sense of control and deepened the kiss, and in that very moment, she was no longer possessed by dying screams or drills in her skull. The bad memories felt like from another lifetime. All Lydia could think of now was the bittersweet taste she’d missed, the crimson lips she’d never kissed like this before and Stiles’ soft fingers getting lost in her hair, carefully, even though nothing Stiles would do could ever hurt her.
Lydia tugged at his flannel, bringing the boy she loved closer to her heart, so close she could count every rapid heartbeat and while her fingers skimmed over his chest, Stiles’ lips explored her neck.
Whatever time passed as they kissed and however blurry their sight turned when their lips were no longer connected, Lydia remembered Stiles’ last question.
"I'm sure."