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When she was little Lydia wanted to be a famous mathematician, or, if that failed, a cytologist.
“Girls aren’t really suited for that sort of thing, sweetheart,” her father said, before suggesting, “What do you think about becoming a nurse, instead? They wear cute outifts, and you love playing dress-up!”
When Lydia said she could be a scientist and wear cute outfits at the same time, her father pressed his lips together in the way he did when he thought a topic was exceptionally off-putting.
For her next birthday her mother bought a book about physics and put in in her own library, allowing Lydia to take it out in secret whenever she wanted to.
Physics wasn’t what she was interested in the most, but Lydia was the kind of girl who learned both types of Latin. She got bored. And what better remedy for boredom than new knowledge?
It’s a feeling she gets less now that she’s dropped her ditzy persona and raises her hand in class again without shame.
“Today, we’re going to talk about entropy. Can anyone here tell me what it means?”
“A gradual decline into disorder,” she says, feeling the weight of her classmates’ stares on her and barely concealing a smirk. “A measure of uncertainty or randomness.”
She presses her lips together and tastes strawberry, like her hair. School stopped being interesting to her a long time ago.
“It’s everywhere.”
Every and all interaction between her parents has begun to morph into something hostile. What used to be friendly banter has become constant shouting, cruel insults hurled to one another without a second thought.
Lydia sits on the stairs—the door to the living room is closed, but she can hear them anyway. She can’t help but wonder if it’s somehow her fault, even though a part of her knows it’s illogical. The truth is; they’ve been having problems, even before the incident. Even before they had Lydia at all, if her mother’s sad, wine drunk confessions are to be believed.
And yet, despite that, she makes a rare decision to ignore logic. She can be a scientist and wear cute outfits at the same time. She can put on red lipstick and wear pretty clothes while she learns yet another language.
She will act shallow and unassuming and then cackle at all the fools who ever underestimated her when she wins a Fields Medal.
And she does, for a while. Right up until reality as she knows it gets shattered, by knowledge that had alluded her the whole time. The knowledge of the supernatural.
Everything gets broken down eventually.
Allison’s smile used to radiate, infecting everyone around her, lighting them up. Allison’s not smiling when she jams ringdaggers into Isaac, her cool demeanor hiding the grief that’s threatening to swallow her whole and spit an entirely different person back up.
Erica, the epileptic with a hidden fierceness, gets an upgrade and experiences life as she’s only dreamt it. It doesn’t last her long.
Lydia and Stiles save Boyd in a crappy motel. Not too long after, Cora’s tears mingle with the shallow water in Derek’s loft, hunched over Boyd’s body.
There’s a wolfsbane petal.
And another, and another. She follows them with dread, all the way to the dirty corpse of a man she’d rather forget. The eyes on the charred skull open wide and he gives her a slimy smile. Her feet feel wet.
She looks down and finds herself standing in a puddle of gasoline.
Her gaze darts upwards. Peter is nowhere to be seen. The puddle stretches and stretches and in the distance, she can see a familiar interaction. She knows this. Stiles and Scott are crying and Stiles grabs the too bright road flare before throwing it away.
Lydia runs towards them, slippery in the liquid, but it’s too late. The pair of best friends go up in flames. Allison shares their fate because the gasoline is everywhere. The fire spreads. Lydia can see people she knows, everywhere she looks, and they’re all burning, but she remains unharmed.
She’s the last one standing.
She’s the one left behind.
Their deaths pass through her and she screams, screams, screams until she’s awake, her voice hoarse in a way that’s started to become familiar.
Her mouth tastes like ash.
“I’m fine,” Scott says when she asks how he’s doing. “Seriously. Don’t worry about me.”
She can see right through his facade.
His eyes are tired. Haunted. He’s wearing black, because all the color disappeared from his life when Allison died. It’s cliché, but she’ll let him have it, because he’s grieving.
They’re all grieving. It feels like that’s the only thing they’re ever doing, these days. Scott smiles a lot, forces positivity, but a lot of the time, it isn’t genuine.
Lydia doesn’t say “of course you’re not fine,” and she doesn’t say “okay, I believe you,” because she knows that he’s lying to himself. But she can’t call him out on it, either. Instead, she says,
“It’s okay, Scott,” and links her hand with his like she’s done once before, when they were already dealing with death but not like this, and lies, “We’ll be okay.”
They’re at the beach, feigning nonchalance. Yes, they’re completely normal, just teenagers playing in the sand and swimming in the ocean, nothing to see here. No, there’s no one missing, this is how things should be. Everything’s normal, thank you very much for asking.
Except…it’s not.
Lydia’s mind wanders to Allison, as it often does, while she lays tanning on her towel. The warmth of the sun on her face is comforting (the snowy landscape from bardo is one of the many things that haunts her dreams). To distract herself from her best friend’s demise, because she can’t think about it, she can’t, she’s pretending to be normal—she focuses on the group (the pack) instead.
Malia is building a sand sculpture not too far from her—though what it’s supposed to be, Lydia has no clue. Besides the werecoyote, Kira excitedly and frantically tries to guess the answer. Malia shakes her head and laughs while Kira gets more frustrated, her suggestions getting stranger and stranger. Selfishly, she feels resentment when she looks at them, so she looks away.
She knows it’s because she wants what they have. Someone to laugh with, someone to share with, someone to cry with. In Lydia’s experience, boyfriends come and go, but a best friend? That was supposed to be forever.
Scott and Stiles are having a water fight filled with injustice considering one is human and the other is not. They’re having fun, though, which is good. Even if the three of them are only keeping up appearances—pretending they’re fine when they’ve been broken down.
Like entropy. Being pulled apart, left with cracks that will never go away.
She remembers screaming Allison’s name in that tunnel. She remembers clutching at Stiles in the same tunnel, and how she kept clinging to him afterwards, as if close, personal contact would somehow hasten a banshee prediction and save his life. As if it would be that easy.
She never let go. He was the one who left her side, to pick up a sword and point it at his own stomach, decimated.
Lydia closes her eyes. The laughter of children reverberates in her ears and the smell of fried fish invades her nostrils. She just wants it all to go away.
When she opens them again Scott and Stiles are walking out of the water towards them, and Lydia doesn’t need to see Scott’s small but gleeful smile to know that he was the victor. Her gaze flits towards Stiles. She has stopped looking at him and expecting the nogitsune’s empty, calculated stare to look back at her.
But—that doesn’t mean she’s not uncomfortable when she looks at him. Especially when he’s shirtless, like now. His bones are just—too visible. The way his ribs cut against his skin makes her feel like she’s staring at a corpse.
However, the purple bags under his eyes that made them look bruised have faded into dark shadows, and his broken lips have started to mend, so she supposes she can’t complain about progress. Just look at Malia. Progress is good.
Speaking of. Malia pulls in her boyfriend and they share a short, eager kiss. Something Lydia refuses to identify burns hot under her skin at the sight of it.
“Hey,” Malia greets, gesturing wildly at her creation. “Look what I made! It’s a sand sculpture of Kira.”
“What?!” Kira sputters, indignant. “That looks nothing like me!”
Scott gives a genuine smile and even Lydia can’t hold back a snort.
Malia begins to talk animatedly to Stiles but Lydia tunes it out, focusing on the upwards curl of Stiles' lips instead. It’s a hollow smile, just like the rest of him.
It’s a fact. It’s math. Entropy always increases, because the universe only has so much energy to spare.
Things get worn out.
(People do.)
She is. Worn out, that is. Because she’s only a teenager, and has already experienced death so many times she can’t even count it on both hands anymore.
The girl she could tell anything, her confidante, is gone. Lydia screamed for her and felt her death. The boy she liked making out with in Coach’s office, the bad guy who died doing one good thing—she felt his death, too.
She has saved a life with love and a key before being abandoned for London. She has seen shards of glass fly through the air, made possible by the sacrifice of innocent people. She has kissed a boy and then held him under while he drowned the same day.
She has loved, and lost, and she has brought someone back to life.
The one person who didn’t deserve it, of course. Because in Beacon Hills, only the villains get to cheat death.
She waves off concern from teachers (“You used to be such a leader, Lydia, what happened to you?” which is the lesser evil to “Allison was a wonderful girl. I’m very sorry for your loss.”).
She ignores hushed murmuring in the hallways about crazy Lydia, who screams in empty classrooms and writes nonsensical messages on the blackboard and wanders around the woods naked. Their whispers are nothing compared to the whispers of the deceased, calling to her, letting her know who’s next—until there’s no one left but her.
(After which she can join Meredith in Eichen House, locked up and screaming, her friends already gone, just like her mind. The fate of a banshee.)
It’s been tragically long since she got drunk, and even longer since she went to a party, so Lydia goes to a club and resets the clock.
After the buzz of alcohol enters her system, she lets out the first sincere laugh in a long time. So she drinks more, and dances with a stranger. It’s refreshingly familiar, and infuriatingly empty, because she’s not this girl anymore.
“Hey, you wanna get out of here?” he asks when they’ve danced a while, smirking like she’s already said yes. And something inside her just goes cold.
“No,” she says, stiffly pushing her way past him, back to the bar.
“Aw, come on, don’t be like that. I thought we had something going.” She hears him behind her, but he doesn’t move to follow her. Probably has his sights set on the next girl already. Good.
She doesn’t know how long she sits at the bar, focusing on the loud, thumping noise of the music, and she doesn’t know when she closes her eyes. But she finds herself opening them, startled, when she hears a familiar voice next to her.
“Mind if I join you?”
She gives her best sassy expression, perfected in her old, queen bee days. Back when she was Lydia the unattainable instead of Lydia the insane.
“It’s a free country,” she slurs.
Stiles lifts an eyebrow. “Exactly how drunk are you?”
She hold up a hand and pinches her thumb and index finger, indicating that she’s only a little bit drunk. “Jush a little. Jus. Jush.” She frowns.
“Uh-huh,” he says. “As long as you’re not seeing any mountain lions.” He waggles his eyebrows meaningfully, but she has no clue what he’s talking about.
“How’d you even find me?” she asks, her voice coming out more petulant than she wanted it to.
“I used the Force, obviously.”
She groans. “Ugh, sometimes I forget what a nerd you are. My social life is in shambles.”
He glances around the club before looking back at her. “Seems like you’re doing pretty well to me.”
“Hm.” She makes a face. “What we were—what were we—oh.” She points an accusing finger at him. “Don’t change the subject. How did you find me?”
“Danny called me,” he says. She glances at the crowd until she spots him, dancing with a hot looking guy—good for him. Lydia remembers when she used to be good friends with Danny, and is filled with unexpected warmth and nostalgia.
“Well this just scrambles my eggs,” she sighs, aware of the reason Danny must have called Stiles.
He gives a lopsided grin that makes her face flush. She hates him. He’s not supposed to be able to do that to her. “Want me to take you home?”
Maybe it’s because she’s really drunk, maybe it’s because she doesn’t want to be alone. But she agrees.
(Maybe it’s because she misses him.)
He follows her all the way to her room to make sure she gets in okay, defending himself by saying that there are professional assasins around and she has a price on her head. Like she needs to be reminded.
“Whoa, hey, Lydia,” he says, and it’s only then that she realizes that she’s burst into tears. God, how embarassing. And yet— (I think you look really beautiful when you cry.) “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” she snaps, because anger’s easier than sorting through her feelings. Anger she can do—she’s got plenty of it, after all.
“We’re being hunted by these—these killers and bad things just keep happening, people keep dying.” Salty tears spill down her cheeks but she ignores them. “Allison—“ Her voice breaks. “Allison died and I’m just supposed to suck it up. Like she didn’t matter. Like she wasn’t the bravest of us all.”
“She was,” Stiles agrees, quietly, in that guilt-ridden way he always does when talking about Allison. It’s why she avoids mentioning her around him usually, but she’s intoxicated and all out of damns to give. She’s feeling selfish.
Lydia pulls him towards her and presses her lips to his, sloppy and uncoordinated. He freezes up until, gently, he pushes her away, his eyes wide.
“Lydia…” The rejection stings. She never thought it would come from Stiles of all people. “You’re really drunk right now.”
She snorts. “Really? That’s your argument? Not, ‘I have a girlfriend’?”
They sit down on the foot of her bed. She runs a hand over her face and it comes back stained with a mix of tears and mascara.
Stiles wrings his hands together. “Well, I sort of, uh, don’t…right now.”
“…You and Malia broke up?”
“Yeah. She found out that Peter’s her biological father, so.”
Lydia looks at him accusingly. If her boyfriend were keeping a secret like that, she’d break up with him, too. “You should have told her.”
“I know,” he snaps, the anger fading as quick as it came. “I know,” he repeats, softer. He meets her eyes and effortlessly changes the subject. “So why did you get drunk?”
“Didn’t we go over this already?” She rolls her eyes. “It’s just—entropy.”
“What?” he asks, confused. “I don’t see what something we learned in physics class has to do with you almost drinking yourself into a coma.” The exaggeration of the situation makes her bristle. “I mean, jesus, Lydia, what are you, suicidal?”
“This is coming from the only one in this room who’s actually tried to commit suicide,” she points out vindictively, out before she can stop it, her mind flashing to snow and an awkwardly angled katana.
His entire body goes stiff and his jaw clenches at the reminder. He edges away from her. She regrets but she doesn’t take it back. Instead, she offers,
“There are lot of forces putting things together. Like gravity and magenetism. But entropy… That’s what pulls things apart.”
She doesn’t know why she’s explaining this to him. She never talks science with boys she likes as a rule but he’s—different. And she wants to explain herself. Give a reason why she’s been so tired lately. Wants to—needs to—talk about it, finally give a voice to her feelings.
“It’s like…you drop a plate. It breaks, and then…it’s always broken.”
“Sure,” he says, hesitant. “But you can glue it back together, or something. Get it fixed.”
“But it won’t be the same,” she disagrees. “The cracks will stay. And after that, it’ll break more easily, and fixing it takes effort. It’s easier to just…throw it out.”
A lump swells in her throat but she makes herself continue.
“It’s not just plates, it’s everything. Computers, glasses, stars. People. They all get broken down. …It’s unavoidable.”
“People, huh,” he says, voice rough.
She nods, not meeting his eyes, her voice lowering to a whisper. “And it just won’t be the same as before. It’s always going to be slightly more broken. And then slightly more, and slightly more. Until it’s gone.”
He stays quiet for three breaths, before his face morphs into a determined scowl. “No.”
She can’t help but smile. Leave it to Stiles to argue the laws of physics. “This isn’t some metaphor, you know. It’s fact. It’s physics.”
“Screw physics,” he says. “I never liked physics, it’s boring and pointless. What do I care how light waves bend around an object, they just do.”
She lifts an eyebrow. “I take offense to that.”
“Look, Lydia,” he barrels on, clearly on a roll, “All that stuff—I get it. I mean, not the science part, seriously, leave it to you to explain your feelings with science—but. The part about…feeling like…well. I mean, you know I feel it, too.”
“You,” she murmurs. “Me. Scott, Allison. Everything gets broken down eventually.”
“Sure,” he says, not even wincing at Allison’s name this time, “yes. Entropy. But…you know, it might take effort to glue a plate back together, and it might be hard, but maybe, if we put in the effort, we can put it—ourselves— back together.”
“We’ll still have the cracks,” she reminds him quietly.
He grabs her hand and holds it. His skin is warm like it wasn’t when he was posessed. He healed.
“Cracks are a part of life.”
Lydia rifles through her drawers until she finds it: a birthday present from what feels like lifetimes ago. She puts the old physics book back in her mother’s library.
“Oh, honey, wow. I haven’t seen that book in ages,” her mom reminisces behind her. She turns around. “I forgot I bought that for you.”
“It was a good present.” Lydia gives a smile. “Young me appreciated it.”
She gets a curious look. “So why return it now? It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
She glances at the shelf, then at her mom. Her smile doesn’t falter.
“I’m done with it.”
It’s not like she ever wanted to be a physicist, anyway—she’s still holding out for that Fields Medal. Or, if that fails…a cytologist.