Archive of Our Own

The night was crisp and cold, more so than Lydia had expected. The bite in the air was unusual for April in Southern California, and she couldn’t help but wonder if it was due in part to the minotaur the pack was tracking that night. Isaac, Scott and Derek had their noses to the ground while Allison kept a moving perimeter watch, crossbow loaded and at the ready as she watched the wolves’ backs.

Behind them, Stiles and Lydia trailed along, offering up bits of information as they continued to read bits of the Bestiary off of the screens of their phones. Their research had been far from complete when the pack took to the preserve to track the creature, and Stiles and Lydia had been forced to bring their studying along with them.

“Minotaurs are solitary creatures,” Lydia said, “and there have only been a handful of sightings of minotaurs traveling with mates. But it’s most likely that we have a single bull acting on their own here since they haven’t been too destructive.”

Derek grunted quietly in understanding and Allison gave a quick nod. They weren’t really responsive to the information that Lydia or Stiles offered up, just letting it pass over them, keeping their senses trained on the other stigma around them.

“No history of venomous encounters. So if it bites you, you only have to worry about being eaten,” Stiles said darkly. Lydia gave a shaky little laugh to acknowledge his joke, and he looked at her appreciatively.

Despite the small miracle that Lydia had capitulated to Allison’s nagging and worn boots without a heel, she had insisted on still wearing a light grey t-shirt, half-sleeved black cardigan and a short, floral skirt. In retrospect,she made a mental note that her instinct to act out of spite was getting a little out of hand. She was already shivering in the cold.

As they slowly progressed forwards through the preserve, Stiles leaned over and nudged her arm with his elbow. She startled and looked up at him sharply, her long fishtail braid whipping over her shoulder with the abrupt movement. He held up both hands, palms facing her in a gesture of apology and benevolence.

“Do you need my sweatshirt?” Stiles asked in a whisper. She gave him a tight smile and shook her head.

“I’m good right now, I’ll let you know though.” The little hiccups in her speech caused by her shivering undermined her words, but Stiles let it lie. They both knew that he’d offer again in five minutes. He always did. They also both knew that she’d capitulate the next time. She always did.

“You guys are cute and all, but would you mind shutting the fuck up?” Isaac snarled back at them. Lydia smiled again, briefly, but Stiles made a face in Isaac’s direction.

“Asshole”

“Say that to my face, Stilinski.”

“Which face? The one that looks like a wolf or the one that looks like an eight-year-old boy?”

“Hey, guys, you’re not helping,” Scott asserted, straightening up and turning to face the conflict behind him, phone in hand. “Boyd and Erica just texted me and let me know that their section of the preserve is clean, but we have to keep moving, the minotaur is likely in our section. The last thing we need is to be caught-”

“Incoming!” Allison’s voice was shrill, but demanding, and it got the pack’s attention immediately. The creature stood easily over seven feet tall, and was completely solid, body lined with rippling muscle. It was charging in with incredible speed given its bulk. The nostrils of the bull head flared wildly, and its coal-colored eyes were wide in anger.

“Lydia, we’re moving, we’ve got to move, Lydia- right now,” Stiles snapped at her, his voice shaking with panic. The creature was making a beeline for the pair, but Lydia felt rooted to the spot, limbs heavy and eyes wide. It must have been able to identify the weakest in the pack right off the bat. Scott, Isaac, and Derek dove in to intervene, but even as they fought, the creature was moving steadily towards Lydia and Stiles.

Stiles didn’t wait for Lydia’s consent before swearing and grabbing her upper arm, stumbling and yanking her into a run towards the peripheries of the grove, whispering encouragements and commands at her in alteration.

Allison stood nearer to Stiles and Lydia than she did to the supernatural fray in the center of the open area, but she still fired arrows into the creature to aggravate and distract it. The role of “research nerd protection” had clearly fallen to her this time around. In a spare moment, she looked back at Stiles and Lydia with the cool composure of a seasoned general.

“Does the Bestiary have any information on killing this thing?” Allison asked over the din, eyes flitting back and forth between the pair and the minotaur.

“Check your pages,” Lydia breathed at Stiles. She began to scroll rapidly through the photos on her phone, eyes scanning the pages frantically. She didn’t notice the way that Stiles froze next to her.

“I’ve got- shit, I’ve got the start of it!” Lydia said excitedly. “The rest of the information must be on one of your first pages, Stiles!” When she looked up, Stiles wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was looking over towards the grounds near the fight with a faraway look in his eyes.

“I dropped my phone,” he said quietly. “I dropped it when the minotaur ran at us.” Lydia paled at the quiet determination in his voice.

“No. Stiles, no, do not go get it, we’ll tell one of the wolves to check it, Stiles,” Lydia begged, grabbing one of his arms, trying to hold him back. He shook off her grasp and slipped backwards into the moonlight of the grove.

“I’ll be right back, Lydia, it’ll be fine!” He held out his hands to keep her at a distance, his reassurances meant to calm her, keep her in place. Then he turned and broke into a run towards the fight.

“Stiles, no!” Lydia cried. She tried to take a step out to follow him, but Allison stepped in her way, blocking her from following.

“Just stay, Lydie,” Allison said quietly, using the affectionate nickname in an attempt to calm her. “I’m watching his back, but I can’t protect both of you if you go running out too, okay? Just stay back behind me.”

Lydia leaned against the side of a tree several meters behind Allison, and slightly further into the wooded area, out of the creature’s sightline. Her breath came in strained gasps. She watched Stiles creep around the edges of the fray, glancing at Allison every few seconds to make sure that she was truly watching and guarding just him.

Just as Stiles crouched down to pick something up out of the grass, the minotaur seemed to take notice of him, and it snorted, tearing at him.

“Stiles!” Lydia screamed. Seeing the beast, he started scrambling away towards the treeline while Scott challenged the minotaur face to face. Knocking Scott out of the way, the minotaur continued its pursuit after Stiles. Lydia felt a scream building in the back of her throat, but she suppressed the sound, clamping her lips down. She refused to scream for him, not tonight, not in this grove.

Not Stiles. Anyone but Stiles. The wolves could survive this fight. Stiles could not.

By some stroke of miraculous luck, Stiles ducked between two trees standing close together, and when the minotaur tried to pursue him, its curved bull horns simply rebounded off the solid trunks. That was all the time that the wolves needed.

Lydia heard the giant beast roar in anger as it dropped to its knees, falling underneath the combined effort of Scott, Derek, and Isaac, one of Allison’s silver arrow’s planted firmly in the creature’s neck as she too had stepped out into the moonlight, closer to the conflict. Within seconds, the minotaur shuddered and stilled, dropping face down in the dirt.

Lydia sighed with overwhelming relief. They were going to be okay.

He was going to be okay.

And that’s when a second, bellowing roar erupted from the trees directly behind her.

She saw five heads snap back to look towards her in horror, and she felt the acute numbness of fear washing cold through her veins. Allison was the closest, and her eyes were wide with terror, fixated on something just over Lydia’s shoulder.

“Lydia!” Allison’s scream sounded very far away despite their proximity. “Lydia, RUN!”

She didn’t even make it two steps.

The second minotaur drove one of its horns through the back of her left shoulder, tearing through muscle and shattering bone as if Lydia was made of straw and twine. Lydia realized faintly that the spear-sharp tip of the horn had emerged through the front of her chest and lodged itself in the bark of a tree. All that she could think about was that her shirt was ripped now. It was the easy thing to think because she couldn’t see anything but the rough ridges of ashy brown bark. The surface was rough against the skin of her face, and Lydia realized that she was slumping forwards, into the tree.

Then suddenly, a jerking motion rocked her body and with a violent lurch, the horn withdrew from it’s visceral holding in her shoulder. Lydia found herself swaying on her own two feet, sagging into the trunk, pain spreading out from her shoulder like a wildfire.

Looking down at the source of the pain, Lydia saw blood slowly spreading across the pale grey fabric of her shirt, originating from the hole torn through her shoulder. With curious, unthinking hands, she reached up to touch the hole in her shirt. As her fingers skirted around the tear, Lydia realized that there was a matching hole drilled through the skin of her upper chest. It was circular and nearly and at least half an inch in diameter. Wine-red blood was already spreading across her heather-grey shirt at an alarming rate, wetting the entire front within seconds. The blood stained her investigative right hand, and she gingerly reached up to confirm the wound’s existence with her left hand. The movement burned, and wet, hot blood soon spilled over that hand as well, coating it.

The building scream inside her throat was for her.

At least it wasn’t him.

Her head swimming, she decided that staying upright was her only initiative.

If she was fine, she could stay standing. If she could stay standing, she would be fine.

Lydia looked dazedly back over to the pack charging across the glen, the wolves snarling with feral rage, Stiles screaming in tortured, incoherent sounds as he ran towards her. It all seemed to be happening in slow motion, but their speed and thoughtless movement was clear. She wanted to tell them not to rush into anything.

She was still standing, she was fine. The tightening in her chest, the shaking in her knees, the fire… she could stay upright. This wasn’t going to kill her. She wouldn’t scream for herself.

Lydia then turned her head slightly to see Allison expertly dodging the minotaur’s next advance as the werewolves collided with it. Allison then turned, eyes then fixated on Lydia and she moved to cover the short distance between them, eyes wide with panic, mouth grasping for words she couldn’t vocalize.

When she reached Lydia, Allison’s hands flitted over her chest but didn’t touch her immediately, unshed tears already building. Lydia distantly realized that Allison was trying to talk to her, so she closed her eyes in an attempt to focus on listening.

“Lydie, no,” Allison’s voice was hoarse and cracking. Desperate. This sounded nothing like the steely-eyed commander from only minutes earlier. “Lydia, keep your eyes open. Look at me, come on Lydia, please. Look at me now!” Lydia felt her brows contract as her eyes opened again, eyelids heavy and hooded. Allison’s relief was palpable.

“I’m… okay,” Lydia croaked.

She needed to be. Because as long as they believed she was fine, she would be fine. She tried to smile at Allison, but the gesture was not returned. Allison’s face was cracking, shattering.

“Lydia, no, no,” Allison said, voice breaking. Lydia realized faintly that this was what heartbreak sounded like on someone else. She’d only ever felt it before, never witnessed it on another person’s face.

Allison was already mourning.

“Please don’t… don’t cry.”

Lydia realized that she couldn’t complete a sentence without wheezing. She wasn’t respirating properly. Something was constricting her lungs. Panic welled up inside of her, and she tried not to think about it. She tried to not think about the explosive pain in her shoulder, so loud that its pounding rose into a thunder, nearly drowning out everything else.

Don’t think about it.

So she focused on Allison.

“I’m not crying,” Allison assured her, a shaky hand reaching out around her on both sides, to press into the gaping wound on Lydia’s chest and the matching puncture hole on her back. Lydia hissed at the contact, but Allison proceeded to increase the pressure. Lydia felt a grinding, grating sensation under Allison’s hands and recognized the signs of shattered bone fragments around the wound.

“Lydia!” A second voice entered the small sphere of Lydia’s awareness, and she felt her face break into a second, faint smile.

“Stiles…” she gasped. She was trying to breathe a sigh of relief, but that wasn’t possible at the moment. “Stiles, you’re… you’re okay! I thought you were… you…”

The incredible resolve that had kept her upright seemed to crumble with her relief, and Lydia felt the rush of vertigo as her knees buckled beneath her. Some strong, solid force caught her fall, easing her to the ground. She wanted to thank them, but the fire flaring in her shoulder wasn’t allowing coherent words.

Instead of being gracious and composed and everything she prided herself in being, she quickly sunk beneath the crushing weight of hysteria.

Instead of being Lydia, she became weak.

Lydia started sobbing, contorting her body in a desperate hope to stem the pain burning through her back and chest in equal measure. She writhed under the pressure of Allison’s hands being crushed forcefully against her chest and back once again after she lost her grip when Lydia fell. She took some comfort in knowing that it was Allison; she was the only person Lydia trusted to stem the steady flow of life leaking out of her. She would always be that person.

There were voices above her, and she tried as hard as she could to find their sources, tried to surface from under the all-encompassing existence of pain.

“Lydia, Lydia, no, no, no, no, come on Lyds, it’s… it’s gonna be okay, please, please, God, it’s going to be- you’re gonna be okay, alright Lydia? You hear me?” It was Stiles again. He was practically shouting, his voice tight and pained.  “Open your eyes, Lydia, please, please just stay awake.”

With great effort, she pried open her eyes focused her gaze on his face, hovering over her. The angles of his face were sharp and his eyes were frantically moving between her face and her shoulder. Her vision was blurred at the edges by tears, and she coughed and choked on her own breath as her crying continued. Terrified, Lydia reached out her blood-wetted right hand, grasping weakly at air until Stiles grabbed it tightly, his hand as wet and warm and slick as her own.

She had to say something. She couldn’t say anything. She tried anyways.

“Stiles?”

“It’s me, Lyds, it’s okay, you’re doing so good,” Stiles said, his voice shaky, but proud. “Just keep it up, you’re so strong Lydia, look at you, keep- keep looking at me. Talk to me.”

When she tried to respond, tried to open her mouth, the pain burnt anew in her shoulder, and she let out a strained, angry groan through clenched teeth. The sound soon faded, giving way to quiet crying.

A heaving, sniffling gasp wormed its way out of Stiles’s mouth, and Lydia realized for the first time that he was the solid pressure wrapping around her body. She should have known. He was holding her across his lap, her head cradled limply against his shoulder and neck. Her good shoulder was sagging into his chest, and his arms were wrapped tight around her waist and ribs, trying to keep her somewhat upright. He was rocking her slightly, as if that could soothe the pain tearing its way through her body.

She realized it was the only thing that he could do.

“Stiles, she needs- we need to get her to the hospital now.” Allison’s voice cut in, shaking. Scared.

“I know, we need Scott to get her to the car fast enough, we need one of the- all three of them to take her pain,” Stiles said, his voice a warm vibration against Lydia’s side.

“Thank you… both,” Lydia said quietly. “You know how much I-” The constriction on her throat was tense, and she could feel a scream coming, but she had so much to say.

“Shh, shh we know baby, we know,” Allison said, her voice warm and kind and comforting over the panicked grief hidden below. Lydia’s vision mercifully focused in for a moment and she smiled with adoration at her best friend. Allison managed to force a smile back. They both knew. Their love had been proclaimed thousands of time.

“You know I love you, right?” Stiles’s voice was haggard, a miserable hum.

Lydia forced the heavy weight of her head to lean back, letting her look up at Stiles. The movement was not without its bloody toll. Lydia felt a wrenching burn in her in her shoulder, and she groaned heavily, trailing off into miserable whimpers, biting her lip hard. Allison made frantic hushing sounds, punctuated by a hiccuping sob, hands pushing into Lydia’s shoulder harder. The bleeding must have intensified with the movement, because for a moment Lydia saw stars, and she closed her eyes again for a moment, exhausted.

“I love you, Lydia.” His voice came out in a miserable, desperate whine. “I love you but I’ll never forgive you if you die here and now. You can’t-” His breath was heavy and labored. “You can’t leave me now, Lyds, don’t… you have to hold on, okay? I love you, I can’t lose you, I love you, I love you, I love you...” His words trailed off into sobs.

A hot tear dripped down onto her cheek, then another. He was crying along with her. She wanted to tell him everything, but she felt like they didn’t have time for everything.

Lydia’s head was spinning and her vision was spotty, blackness encroaching. But she still managed to fix her gaze on his eyes, that dark amber salvation that had never failed to warm her before. They were failing to warm her now. Her body started to tremble with the overwhelming cold settling over her.

“I love you too, Stiles. Allison can tell you… everything.” Lydia’s voice hitched, tight from the sobs, and weak from… whatever this sensation was. She could hear her own voice starting to slur words together. Even her thoughts seemed to be slowing down. More people were approaching them now, more voices. The voices seemed to run together in a buzz, auditorily blurring.

“Allison isn’t allowed to tell me anything, Lyds, because you’re gonna tell me, alright?” Stiles’s voice was stronger now, more commanding, more angry.

“I…”

“You’re gonna tell me yourself, Lydia. Do you understand? I love you, and you’re not dying tonight, okay?”

The tightness in her throat and the scream building in her chest, both dulled suddenly, and she felt the muscles of her diaphragm relax. No scream. She’d live. At least that’s what she hoped it meant.

“Lydia come on, stay awake!” Allison’s voice was shrill, but it couldn’t change the tide of exhaustion flooding through her bones. She moaned, trying to respond, licking dry lips to try and force out the words. It was difficult.

Her eyelids were finally too great a weight for her to bear, and she felt her eyes drifting shut for the final time that evening. She couldn’t really see much anymore anyways.

“No, no, no, no! Lydia, look at me! Open your eyes, Lydia, please, come on Lydie, please, don’t…” It was Stiles this time. She could feel his sobs. It wasn’t right. She tried again.

“I love…” The darkness was too heavy. The feeling of Stiles’s arms faded, and the sounds of the world were leaving with them.

“No, no, I love you, Lydia, don’t leave me, don’t you dare leave me here alone…”

And then nothing.

She had been alive when they brought her in. Unconscious, but somehow still breathing. Deathly pale, but still carrying a pulse.

There were three emergency surgeries that needed to be performed in the first ten hours.

1) Repair the nick in her left lung.

2) Set broken scapula, set the fractured collarbone, set broken ribs, weld all injured bones into place with metal plates.

3) Reconcile muscle damage, close wound, apply skin graft.

She needed 2 liters of blood transfusions.

After the first surgery had been a success, Melissa told them that based on her size, Lydia should have been dead on arrival with that much blood loss. She could have easily died from the punctured lung alone. But she was still alive.

Lydia had always been a statistical anomaly anyways. Hypothetical words like should and could weren’t hugely applicable to her.

Stiles was glad that she had decided to keep up her streak of indignant stubbornness when it was her own life hanging in the balance. It was the first thing he heard that night that had even began to thaw the immoveable numbness that had settled into his chest. His limbs felt heavy, far too heavy to move. His hands and neck and shirt and pants were still painted red by Lydia’s blood.

Allison’s hands and arms were too, and there was a streak of the blood on her cheek from where she had wiped at her tears after Lydia was pried from between her hands, torn away from Stiles’s arms.

The two of them sat side by side, unmoving, unspeaking, but screaming inside.

So much else could have gone differently. It could have been either of them, but it was her. Each knew it would have been easier if it was them. It always was.

Death doesn’t happen to you, Lydia, it happens to-

No.

It wasn’t death. It couldn’t be death. It was trauma. It was pain.

It was just memories, that was all.

It was the little, gasping yelp and then the resounding, cracking sound of shattering bone as she was driven into the tree. It was the look on her face when the minotaur pulled away from her, its left horn stained red. It was the way that she stayed upright against the tree for so long, her expression shocked and confused before the pain settled in. It was the way she fell to the ground, relieved that he was okay.

It was her disoriented sobbing and screaming on the ground, in his arms. It was the way she had smiled at them with faraway eyes, how she had tried to soothe them, tell them she loved them. It was the way she turned to look at Stiles even though it forced a brief but violent torrent of invaluable, hot blood to gush through Allison’s fingertips. It was all that fucking blood.

It was the limpness of her body as Scott carried her, running from the car straight through the doors of the ER. It was the way that Melissa McCall asked, voice tight, if she was dead. It was the way that Scott had answered not yet.

But most of all, to Stiles, it was the words she’d choked out like a final prayer, a final confession, begging for reconciliation.

I love you too, Stiles.

It wasn’t fucking fair. She couldn’t tell him that she loved him when she didn’t know if she would ever see him again. How dare she leave him with those words? With that knowledge?

With painstaking effort, Stiles turned to look at Allison. She was looking at some fixed point in front of her, but Stiles could tell that she wasn’t really there.

“You’re not allowed to tell me,” he croaked. Allison looked back at him under a heavy, tired scowl. She knew what he was talking about.

“I won’t. She will.”

“Good.”

They didn’t say anything else until Scott told them that Isaac had called their parents, and they both had clothes to change into, that they could shower off in the hospital employee locker rooms. Both did so with tired resignation. Stiles watched Lydia’s blood rinse off his skin, red, cloudy water circling the drain below him. It was easy for him to remove. It seemed wasteful, all that blood going down the drain, given how much she needed it only hours earlier.

He changed dispassionately, and when he emerged back into the waiting room, his father was there, and he pulled his son into a tight hug.

“It’s gonna be okay, Stiles. She’s gonna be okay. She’s a fighter.” Stiles’s arms automatically reciprocated the hug, though his gaze was lost over his father’s shoulders.

“She told me that she loved me,” Stiles said quietly. His dad released the hug and pulled back, holding his son’s shoulder and looking him dead in the eye.

“What?”

“When she was… when I was holding her. Before we could get to the car,” Stiles said, feeling tears gather along the rims of his eyes. “She said she loved me too, Dad.”

Melissa and Chris Argent seemed to have been listening in the background, because he heard Chris’s soft sigh and Melissa’s quiet utterance of, “oh, God.”

“She’s going to be alright, Stiles,” his father assured him. Stiles looked back at him, still misty, his eyes and the tip of his nose pink from the unshed tears.

“She loves me, Dad. She said… she has to be okay.”

Approximately eight hours later, their greatest hopes had been confirmed. She made it through all the surgeries. She made it through the night. She wasn’t completely out of the woods yet, but they were optimistic that her survival through all of the trauma and surgery so far were solid indicators that she was going to recover.

Stiles and Allison both started crying when they were told. Scott was restraining his emotions more for the good of the pack, but the relief and the sag of his shoulders spoke for themselves. He pulled Allison into a tight hug against his chest and allowed her to sob within his comforting embrace, finding solace in being able to hide his own sobs in her hair. Isaac and Derek were both overwhelmed with relief. They didn’t fail her. She didn’t die because of them. From where he was sitting, Derek leaned forwards with his elbows on his knees, putting his head in his hands, a slight tremble in his back and shoulders revealing the emotion that he tried so hard to conceal.

Isaac approached Stiles with fearful hesitation.

“I… I’m sorry that I was fighting with you. It caused all of us to be distracted. Lydia’s one of the pack, and my friend and I never-” his voice hitched. “I would never, ever, want anything to happen to her. You and I might not get on, but…” He didn’t finish his sentence, and Stiles gave him a brief hug, clapping his shoulder in a masculine sort of reassurance. Isaac returned the gesture with visible relief.

After their exchange, Stiles rounded back on Melissa.

“I need to see her.”

“I know,” Melissa answered firmly. “And I know that no hospital rules are going to stop you from meeting those ends. So here.” She held out a guest pass card marked ICU-Family. She gave each of the other pack members a pass as well.

“Thank you,” Stiles breathed, pausing to hug Melissa. She hugged him back, and spoke over his shoulder to the rest of the pack.

“Are either of her parents here?” She asked. The pack looked amongst each other, suddenly stunned. Argent and the Sheriff shuffled uncomfortably behind the kids.

“I contacted them both. Neither was able to book a flight home until about noon today. They’ll both be in by this evening,” Sheriff said carefully. This was no big surprise to the pack. Lydia was often left at home unsupervised for long stretches of time. But that didn’t make it easier to here, and Melissa’s expression broke into sad sympathy, but she nodded, turning back to address the pack.

“Three in the room at one time, maximum. If you break that rule, I cannot stop security from dragging you out of there.” The pack looked briefly amongst each other, but the choice was fairly obvious. Allison, Stiles, and Scott stepped up.

“What room number?” Allison asked, her voice thick.

“501. I’ll take you there.”

Melissa kept a decent clip ahead of the teenagers, making sure that they didn’t get any suspicious looks, but when she pointed out the room number, all three of them broke into a frantic scramble for the door, shoving and squeezing through the door frame simultaneously, only to freeze once they were in the room.

She looked terrible.

Stiles didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this.

Her skin was jaundiced and yellow, and despite her blood transfusions going through, there was an underlying shade of grey in her cheeks that turned Stiles’s stomach. Her left arm was in a sling, the heavy bandaging of her shoulder and chest visible through the shapeless hospital gown. A heavy-duty respirator covered the entirety of her mouth and nose like a scuba mask, and there were light, faded abrasions and bruises on the left side of her face from when she hit the tree.

Stiles had thought this was going to be easier to see, but it wasn’t. He thought she’d be magically better, but she wasn’t.

Allison was crying again, and Scott had her tucked back under his arm, whispering calming reassurances despite the pallor on his own face.

Stiles only froze up for a moment before striding to the corner of the room with purpose. He grabbed the stiff, wooden armchair sitting there unused and he dragged it unceremoniously over to the far side of Lydia’s bed, ignoring the screeching sound, and sitting down on the plasticy maroon padding. His knees were bumping up against the metal mechanics underneath the mattress, but he was close enough to lean his head against the plain, pale blue sheets of the bed. Reaching out and gently taking Lydia’s uninjured right hand in his, Stiles leaned forward on the bed, his head tilted so that he could look up at his face.

Scott, Allison, and Melissa all looked at him, slightly bewildered by the sudden aggression and speed of his movements paired with the gentle affection he afforded to Lydia’s hand. No one had the heart to say anything, but Allison and Scott seemed to be inspired by this movement, and they combined efforts to pull the couch off of the wall opposite to Lydia’s bed, dragging it to the other side of the bed. Scott could have easily done it on his own, but it was clear how much Allison needed this. She needed to feel like she was contributing.

Melissa watched the three teenagers with no shortage of disbelief. She had understood their devotion to their sense of pack, but she never could have guessed the true connection that seemed to bind them all in this way. She especially could not have anticipated that their devotion extended to such a degree involving Lydia. The girl was the last of the four of them to be read-in on the supernatural world. Before her they knew each other, Melissa knew very well what Lydia’s reputation had been.

But here they were. What Melissa McCall may have believed or expected was not of importance here. What was important was the small family huddled around Lydia Martin’s bedside, exhausted, hopeful, supportive, loving. Their family-only status was appropriately awarded.

Lydia woke up to the sound of Stiles’s voice. It was the first thing that registered in the muddled, murky waters of her mind. She thought she was imagining it at first, because it had been the last thing she had heard before she went under. But his words were gentle, not panicked. His words mingled together with quiet humming, and as her senses began to return to her, she could feel the comforting touch of a thumb rubbing over the knuckles of her right hand.

With all the effort she could expend, she tightened her grasp around his hand, opening her eyes to look at him tiredly, hoping that her affection was showing through properly. The glow of evening sun warmed the otherwise stark, white fluorescent room, and it felt kinder to Lydia’s eyes.

Stiles started at the pressure on his hand, eyes darting up hopefully as he rose to stand, his eyebrows raised sharply, the haze of sleep evaporating from within his eyes.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Stiles said rapidly, his voice hushed. “You’re awake, oh my god, they didn’t think you’d wake up for another six-to-eight hours, hi.”

She tried to take a deep breath, to say something, but her breath hitched somewhere in her throat, and with a jolt, she realized she was gagging on something. Withdrawing her hand from Stiles’s, she gestured at her throat quickly. She could feel her eyes and eyebrows pulled into an expression of resigned pain and fear, and Stiles’s expression turned to pure panic in a heartbeat.

“Respirator, Lyds, they have a tube in your throat, I’ll call a nurse, just stay calm, okay?” Stiles said frantically, slamming the call button next to her bed with vigor. Still dazed from the drugs, Lydia reached out for Stiles’s hand again, her eyelids already heavy from the exhaustion of staying awake.

Stiles took her hand delicately, but as Lydia gripped his hand harder, he seemed to calm at her contact and generally relaxed conduct. He sat back down with tentative affection back in his eyes. He looked prepared to say something, but a nurse came bustling in immediately, and he focused on addressing the problem.

“She was gagging on the intubation, that’s good right? She’s breathing on her own?” Stiles asked quickly. The nurse was a slim, very young-looking woman with seemingly flawless dark skin and curly natural hair pulled back into a practical bun. She checked the monitors reporting Lydia’s vitals, and then looked at Lydia critically. She then stared up at Stiles.

“She’s trying to breathe on her own,” the nurse corrected him. “I’ll get Dr. Cuerdas in here so she can check everything out, see if we can get that intubation out. That sound alright to you, Lydia?”

The kindness with which the nurse addressed Lydia was soothing, and she blinked, moving her head barely a centimeter in an affirmative nod.

When the doctor arrived, Stiles had already called Allison and Scott, telling them to tell Isaac, Derek, Erica and Boyd and then come to Lydia’s room again. After Dr. Cuerdas introduced herself as Emily, she took a quick look beneath Lydia’s respiration mask and confirmed that the tube could come out.

Lydia hadn’t expected the ragged, burning sensation in her throat as they removed the tube, and she certainly hadn’t expected the violent heaves that ripped through her stomach, forcing vomit and bile out through her throat once the tube was out. Somehow, it was all made easier by Stiles’s hands, one wrapped around her good shoulder, the other pressed against the small of her back.

After doping her with more pain medicine and hooking her up with nasal oxygen tubes, the nurse and doctor left the room, and all that was left was Stiles and Lydia.

They stared at each other silently for a moment as if regarding their proximity and the conversation that needed to be had. Lydia wasn’t sure if she could stay awake for it all, but she sat up a little straighter anyways. Stiles was hovering, still standing at the side of the bed. He was the one to break the silence.

“You parents, they were here a while. Your mom went back home to get some food and some sleep, but at least one of them should be back in three or four hours, if you want to see them.” Lydia looked at him blankly.

“Why are you here?” She asked. It wasn’t an accusation, but rather a genuine question. Why was he the one who stayed? Stiles cleared his throat, bringing one of his hands up to rub at the back of his neck.

“Um… I’ve just… I’ve been here a while. Allison and Scott and I have all been taking turns being here,” he said lamely.

“I don’t think you’ve left,” Lydia asserted. Her eyes traced up and down his body critically. “Did you donate the blood before or after I was out of surgery?” She nodded towards the small band aid in the crook of his arm. He glanced down at it, then back up to her, smiling a little at her keen observation skills resurfacing so quickly.

“After,” Stiles said.

“Are you a blood type match for me?”

“No. If I was, I would have given it as soon as I got here.”

“They wouldn’t have used it on me if you did.”

Stiles gave Lydia an irritated, but amused look. Then his face seemed to relax. She knew why. He’d been there for hours. He hadn’t known whether or not she was going to live. If she was dropping dry, merciless humor on him, he could hope again.

“Who said I was trying to give it to you?” Stiles snipped back playfully, squeezing her hand. It was Lydia’s turn to smile.

“Oh well, if you weren’t, I’m sorry to say that you have the wrong room,” she said airily. Then her face grew serious. “No one else was hurt, were they? Were you?” Stiles huffed, and exasperated, tight smile on his lips.

“We’re all fine, Lyds. Except for the fact that you gave us all a heart attack. I mean, on that front I think we’re on the mend, but physically we’re all absolutely fine.”

Lydia snickered at that, but the movement caused a dull, hot pain to flare up in her shoulder. She presumed the drugs had reduced the majority of the pain, but the soreness still lingered. Stiles’s joking expression dropped from his face at her quick wince, and he leaned over her, pulling his hand out of hers to let it linger over the nurse’s call button.

“Are you okay? Do you need more pain medicine? I can call the nurse back in and-”

“Stiles.” Lydia reached up with her good hand and slipped it back into Stiles’s hand. She realized that his hand was shaking, and Lydia felt a pang of guilt in her chest. As she slowly guided his hand down onto the bed, her eyes traced the contours of his face. Her vision was so much clearer than the last time she saw him, but she wasn’t so sure that she liked that.

His eyes and cheeks seemed sunken, and there were dark shadows under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept for more than 15 minutes in God knows how long. His hair was sticking at odd angles, and he moved with a stiffness that was indicative of spending way too much time in an uncomfortable hospital armchair. He looked worried. So, so worried.

The pain in her shoulder burnt, yes, but she sensed that the mutual pain in their hearts was far stronger, and probably more lethal. But fortunately, this shared pain was the one that she could relieve more easily.

“I remember what I said last night.”

“Two nights ago,” Stiles corrected. Lydia blinked slowly, her expression flat, but her head buzzing.

“How… how long?”

“We were in the preserve on Friday night. It’s Sunday evening now,” Stiles clarified gently.

“Oh.” Losing time in a fugue state was always disorienting. This was even worse, because she’d been in the same place the whole time. Other people had been forced to watch it. Stiles picked up on her discomfort and rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand, careful to avoid the IV cords.

“But… but hey, what did you say about… what you… remember?” He was nervous. It was almost a familiar situation, bar the warm, comforting hand in hers, and it made Lydia smile.

“I remember everything. I told you that I loved you,” Lydia said carefully, looking up at Stiles in the waning light of the evening sun. It hit his eyes just right, and his irises burned bright, golden and brown and everything warm and beautiful in Lydia’s world at that moment. He wetted his lips, seemingly lost for words. He tried to start saying something, but then paused, huffing a little.

“Did you mean it? Or did you just say it because…”

“I didn’t just say it because I thought I was going to die,” Lydia said plainly. “I said it because I do love you. I wanted you to know. And now that I’m… alive… that doesn’t change how I feel.”

Stiles’s eyes held her gaze with intensity, clinging on to her every word. With the drugs slowly loosening her limbs and her tongue, she struggled to match that level of intensity.

“You really mean it then?” Stiles asked quietly.

“I love you, Stiles. I’m awake. I’m mostly lucid. I’ll say it now, and I’ll say it again tomorrow and a week from now, and a month from now. I really, truly love you.”

Tears were welling in his eyes once again, and he swiped the sleeve of his sweatshirt over his eyes to wipe them away.

“Good. Really, that’s… that’s really good Lydia. I kept telling myself that if you lived, I wouldn’t care if you really loved me. I thought that if I had a trade off, I’d rather that you lied and lived instead of you telling the truth and dying.”

“You’re pretty lucky, you got the good ends of both of those things.” Lydia was slowly leaning back further against the bed, exhaustion beginning to take its toll. Stiles smiled at her with all the brilliance of the slowly setting sun.

“I love you too, Lydia,” he said. “I’ve told you that so many times, but I really do mean it. I love you.” Lydia felt her grasp on Stiles’s hand loosen, but he compensated with a little added pressure from his own end.

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Lydia started. “Because it’s really cold in here, and I don’t want to need to turn down your sweatshirt out of courtesy right now.” Stiles laughed faintly and unzipped his hoodie. He started to hand it over before recognizing their predicament. Ever so carefully, he turned the sweatshirt around backwards, putting her right arm in the left sleeve and just draping the back of the sweatshirt over her chest.

“Is that okay?” Stiles asked.

“Mmmhm,” Lydia hummed.

“The nurses are gonna kill me when they have to check you out again,” Stiles informed her, humor in his voice.

“Well, if they’re already gon’ be mad, can you sit with me up here?” She asked tiredly, looking down at the bed space next to her. Stiles hesitated.

“Lydia, you just woke up, I don’t want you to move or hurt yourself or anything, I don’t know if-”

“Stiiiiiles,” she whined. “Please?” With an exaggerated grumble, Stiles kicked off his shoes and gingerly lifted himself up into the bed with her. Instantly, she leaned into the warmth of his body, a content sigh slipping out through her lips.

As Lydia drifted off to sleep, all she could think about was love.

She loved someone for real, and he loved her back.

Everything in her body was aching, except her heart.

And god, she wouldn’t change that for the world.