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“We’re almost there, Lydia. Just hold on, okay?”
But the voices are too much for her to fight. She can’t hold out any longer, not against the pain of thousands of deaths pressing down on her and stabbing their way into her mind through the hole still bleeding on the side of her head.
Lydia screams. She can’t help it.
Curled against Stiles’s side with his arms tight around her, she lets out a noise more powerful than ever before. Her vision goes black under the force of it, her whole body shaking as it pulses through her.
Beyond her scream she can just make out the sound of glass shattering and brakes squealing, feels the Jeep swerve and then slam to a stop.
It all ends too abruptly and all there is left is silence, the cool night air drifting in from all angles as the tight grip around her starts to loosen, the comforting arms around her going slack.
She blinks her eyes open just in time to see Stiles’s fall shut, his body slumping back against the seat as blood leaks from his ears.
“Stiles?”
Her voice breaks and her eyes dart across his face looking for some kind of reaction, anything other than his lashes still against his cheeks and his mouth hanging slightly open.
She crawls into his lap in an absolute panic, straddling him and pressing her trembling hands against his chest where she feels his lungs barely lift in his chest, then his neck where his pulse is much too weak, and then scramble to cup the sides of his face and try to shake him awake.
“Stiles, come on.”
In the front seat she can hear Scott trying to start up the engine but it sputters out after a few groans and she can feel the life of the boy underneath her hanging more and more precariously in the balance.
“Wake up, Stiles! Please. Please, listen to me, Stiles, open your eyes…”
The engine sputters out again as Scott let out a choked sob and Lydia’s own tears drip down her cheeks and onto Stiles’s shirt as she frantically shakes him.
The voices are still hitting her too hard but something bigger is pressing down on her too.
“Stiles…”
He’s going to die. If he doesn’t get help, Stiles is going to die.
And when she screams again she’s going to kill him before he has a chance.
The second his fate becomes clear she scrambles for the door, practically falling down into the glass littered street below just as the Jeep’s engine finally roars to life.
“Lydia, what are you-“
“Take him to the hospital,” she cuts off Scott with a command because there’s not enough time for anything else. “Tell them you were in a car accident. That he hit his head hard enough you think he has a subdural hematoma.”
Scott shakes his head. “What about you?”
Lydia grips the sharp edge of the blown out window and shrugs as if it’s all so simple. “I’ll never be able to live with myself if I kill him.”
“Lydia…”
She presses three fingers to her lips and reaches inside to press them to Stiles’s cheek, taking in as much of him as she can in her last brief moments.
It’s too soon that the pain starts again on the side of her head and the back of her throat starts to burn. She knows there’s no more time. This is it.
Stepping back, her watery gaze finds Scott’s as she brokenly whispers, “Take care of him.”
He hesitates like there are too many things he wants to say but there’s no time for any of them, all he can do is nod with a promise shining in his eyes.
Lydia presses her lips together, putting on the bravest smile she can through her tears. “You’re a good guy, Scott. I’m glad you were my alpha.”
Scott’s face crumples in a way that tells Lydia he’s regretting this already. That her alpha who would never leave anyone behind is about to argue that there has to be a way to save both of them.
She knows better.
So she doesn’t give Scott a chance to say anything more, turning away to stumble down the road a bit before disappearing into the tree line without looking back.
———
It happens when they’re almost to the hospital.
The piercing scream hits his ears with enough force that it’s as if Lydia were sitting right next to him, screaming with all her might.
He winces and grips the steering wheel until his knuckles go white, somehow knowing that what he’s hearing is the end.
Lydia’s dying scream.
When it finally falls off into silence, his cheeks are wet and there’s a soft murmur coming from the back seat.
In the rearview he can see Stiles shift slightly, still unconscious as his fingers grasp toward the empty side of the backseat. Scott swears he hears his best friend whisper Lydia before he goes still again.
“I’m sorry,” the alpha breathes between his sudden choking sobs. “I’m so sorry.”
He’s not sure which one of them he’s apologizing to. Maybe it’s to both because one of them is dead and the other one is never going to forgive him for it.
———
Everything in Stiles’s mind is a blur, foggy from pain and heavy medication.
He doesn’t remember anything of the last day, looks dazedly around the bright white room for strawberry blonde hair and whimpers her name.
It’s his dad who tells him while he brushes his fingers through Stiles’s hair like he used to when he was a child. His father says he’s so sorry. He says she didn’t make it.
For a moment Stiles’s whole world goes still, everything disappearing into blackness and a sharp buzzing that absolutely drowns him. But then it’s all clear again way too fast, the world still moving on as if it can without her.
Stiles has always known that it can’t though. Not without Lydia. He knows it can’t be true.
It takes mere seconds for him to completely unravel, pushing his father away and growling at him to stop lying. There’s no answer from the sheriff, just a piteous look and more tears, so Stiles begs. Louder and louder, he begs his father to stop lying and just tell him where she is.
Suddenly there are arms around him, hands holding him down, and he’s screaming Lydia’s name, hoping that she’ll hear him and come to him.
There’s a sharp stab in the side of his arm and then he doesn’t have a choice but to calm down. Everything goes fuzzy and too cold as he slumps back and sniffles through tears he hadn’t even known were falling.
Stiles won’t give up though, murmuring Lydia, Lydia, Lydia as his dad brushes back his hair until the world slips away once again.
———
Somehow Stiles still moves forward but he’s only shell of the person he was just days ago. The one piece of himself it seems he has left is his stubbornness, his absolute refusal to give up the only thing stopping him from going out of his mind.
He follows Scott’s reluctant lead across the tree line and into the woods, his hand gripped into a fist against the slowing flow of blood from where he’d ripped out his IV.
“It’s this way.”
Stiles doesn’t acknowledge the alpha’s words, just keeps moving deeper amongst the trees, stowing away everything he sees as if it could be a clue he’ll need later.
Scott doesn’t have to say anything once they’ve reached their destination, Stiles knows as soon as he sees it.
The way the nearby trees are all bowed away from one central, solitary point, splintering in the middle of their thick trunks. The grass follows the same haunting pattern, flattened against the ground as it fans out from the very same place.
Slowly he approaches the center of it all, his whole body trembling as he sinks to his knees at the spot.
This is it. This is where Lydia died.
Stiles’s heavy gaze trails across the tree tops all bent away from him and he touches the grass below his knees reverently, tears spilling over as he whispers her name with so much regret.
It’s then that the wound on the back of his head starts to burn too harshly to be ignored and he presses his hand over the bandage to try to quell it. The cloth squishes under his touch, soaked through with the blood still slowly seeping from the hole drilled in the back of his skull; the procedure that saved his life from the subdural hematoma Lydia knew he had. The same procedure that killed her.
Life could be a really fucking cruel joke sometimes.
“Stiles, we should go back to the hospital-“
“I’m fine,” he grits out, dropping his hand immediately. They both know it’s the biggest lie he’s ever told but things are raw enough between them that Scott won’t dare push it.
Closing his eyes he tries to take a deep breath, thinks over and over again I’m sorry and lays his hand flat on the center of it all like he can feel her there. Suddenly the pain builds in the back of his head again, so sharp and overwhelming that he’s barely able to stop himself from falling flat on his face.
Scott is there instantly trying to take his pain but Stiles shoves him away once he regains his balance because that’s the last thing he wants right now.
“Please, just let me-“
“I’m fine, Scott.”
“Stiles-“
“I said I’m fine!” His eyes are wild as he pushes himself to his feet as fast as his body will allow, backing away from his best friend and that sacred spot. “I told you a million times now I don’t need you to do anything for me except help me find her!”
“Her body.”
The simple, unexpected correction hits him hard, shattering him to pieces for a moment before he can block it out again. “You- You said Malia is getting some of the serum from Deucalion.”
“I also said that Deaton thinks she’ll be immune to it. Like kanima venom and mountain ash,” Scott reminds him through his silent tears. “Stiles, please-“
“But he doesn’t know, Scott! Not for sure. Neither do you!” Stiles narrows his eyes venomously on his best friend. “You can’t explain to me why Parrish is missing. Or why no one can find the Nemeton again. You tell me all this stuff that no one can explain and you want me to just give up-“
“I don’t want you to give up! I don’t, Stiles, really. I just- I don’t want you to have to see her like that, okay?”
Tears gather in Stiles’s eyes so fast that he has to squeeze his eyes shut tight enough he sees stars to contain them.
“Boys?”
Both of them turn sharply to find Deaton making his way to them from between the trees, Kira trailing after him.
Wiping the back of his arm hastily over his eyes, Stiles stomps over in a rush to meet them halfway. “Anything?”
Kira shakes her head. “Liam is still out there looking, though.”
Pursing his lips in thought, Deaton carefully appraises the teenager and begins to slowly circle him, only stopping when his eyes light on the bloody bandage on the back of his head. His eyes narrow and he steps closer, curiously inspecting the wound. “Interesting that they would need to perform trepanation on you given the circumstances.”
Stiles scowls, turning to glare at the vet as he instinctively touches the back of his head. “I believe the word you are look for is ironic.”
“I was thinking something more along the lines of fate.”
The human raises a skeptical brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Deaton shrugs in that mysteriously infuriating way of his. “It means if anyone can find Lydia right now, it’s you.”
“Because of a hole in my head?”
“Because you’re her tether, her anchor, and your connection to the world around you has been amplified in the same way Lydia’s was before her death. Obviously not to anywhere near the level that a banshee of her power experienced but it could still prove to be invaluable right now.”
Stiles face falls and he softly shakes his head. “You’re wrong though. Lydia’s my tether. My anchor. I’ve never been that for her.”
The emissary’s eyes glint, the corner of his mouth turning up in a sad smile. “You’ve been in a lot more pain since you’ve been here, haven’t you? Waves of it, each of them unbearable and overwhelming?”
The teenager goes quiet, eyes glassy as he waits for the explanation he somehow knows is coming.
“You’re feeling her death, Stiles.”
His eyes fill with tears again but this time he lets them fall. “How do I find her?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer for that. But you need to believe you can, Stiles. That’s the only way this works.”
Swallowing roughly, he nods automatically as his mind drifts back to a night that feels like forever ago. “Like the mountain ash.”
Deaton smiles, reaching out and squeezing the teenager’s shoulder. “Exactly.”
“And what do we do when we find her?” Scott breaks in, his eyes too tired as he grips Kira to his side. “You said the serum won’t work on her.”
There’s only one word that Deaton repeats to them, meant only for Stiles, and it reverberates through the human’s soul.
“Believe.”
— — —
They walk for hours, through the hazy light of the late afternoon and all the colors of the sunset, until the moon is high and bright overheard and the night air is too still and cold around them.
Stiles never stops, his feet always moving and his eyes darting everywhere for some kind of sign. As the hours pass he grows weaker and the waves of pain only get stronger and stronger but he keeps pressing forward because he believes with everything he has that he can find Lydia.
Out of nowhere, sheer agony descends on him like a lightning bolt, striking him to the ground before Scott can catch him.
“Stiles?!”
He groans and his visions blackens as he lets Scott take his pain for the first time because he’s too weary to push him away.
When he can finally take a steady breath again, he quickly blinks until the ground beneath him comes into focus. Once he feels like he can breathe again he lifts his weary eyes to the horizon.
Stiles sees it then; the dark shadow out ahead of them.
“Stiles, what-“
Stumbling to his feet, he’s running before he can even think, going to where the shadow waits in the distance with Scott following on his heels.
It’s not a tree stump that they find when they finally reach the shadowy mound but ash instead. Thick and black and ominous, absorbing all the moonlight and reflecting nothing back. Every bit of what was the Nemeton burnt through with dark trails of dust and cinders following the spidery roots out into the scorched earth around it. The powerful tree completely destroyed with no sign of Lydia in sight.
Fingers trembling, Stiles reaches out and carefully touches the edge of the dark heap, gasping when his fingers sink into ash, so cold and soft as it crumples under his touch.
His amber eyes narrow on the center of it all, everything in his mind and heart suddenly telling him to dig.
So he trusts his instincts and digs into it. Slowly at first, pulling away clumps of ash and letting them fall to dust at his feet, but moving faster and faster by the second until he’s kneeling in middle of it and heaving back the char and ash as fast as he can.
His fingers hit something and he chokes out a sob, realizes only then that he’s been crying the whole time. Quickly he clears enough space for the moonlight to reach the object.
A hand. Her hand.
He’s gasping between cries now, eyes darting to find Scott at his side, knee deep in ash too and staring wide eyed down at the tiny appendage. “S-Scott- You-“ Stiles groans deep and rough against his tears and rapidly deteriorating mental state to try to get ahold of himself. “Go find Maila. Get the serum!”
The alpha’s eyes fill with tears and his mouth falls dumbly open yet he remains frozen.
“Go, Scott!” Stiles screeches, shoving his best friend hard to shake him out of it and doesn’t waste another second before resuming digging.
It’s doesn’t take long to free her after that, his sobs echoing in the stillness around him as he follows the path up her arm to her chest until he’s to wiping ash away from her cheeks. He stumbles to his feet in the mess, swiftly hooking his hands under her arms and pulling her out, not stopping until they’re safely in the grass several feet away.
That’s when he lets himself fall, landing hard on the ground and pulling her lifeless body into his lap.
“Lydia…” he sobs her name, curling over her and pressing his face against the iciness of her cheek. “Lydia.“
His tears fall fast against her skin and leave rivulets in the soot as the pain in the back of his head bears down as agonizingly as ever.
Believe.
Stiles believes with everything he has that she’ll wake up.
He believes that she will come back because she’s Lydia and he’s Stiles and he’s always known that means something more. Believes that she’ll open her eyes again because he needs her here with him.
He believes that her heart and her lungs will work again.
He believes. He believes. He believes.
“Lydia…”
A gasp cuts through the air, humming soft and low as her body heaves in his arms.
Stiles pitches back, eyes likes saucers as he watches her lashes flutter open, her green eyes dark and unfocused.
Believe.
He’s shaking everywhere when he touches her cheek, carefully and reverently, and tilts her face so that her gaze can find his in the moonlight.
Lydia blinks up at him so calm and peaceful like she’s just waking up from a too long nap.
Unable to do anything else, he brushes his thumb back and forth across the apple of her cheek and sobs, watching in awe as she breathes in and out.
For now, that’s more than enough.
———
Sweat is starting to bead on Stiles’s forehead when he blinks awake to Lydia shifting against him in her sleep. Heat radiates from her bare skin everywhere it’s pressed against his, hours of skin to skin contact finally warming her from her near hypothermic state. Still, he still lays his palm across her forehead just incase and breathes easier only when he finds it warm as well.
The morning light is creeping over them and he smiles to himself at the flush of her sooty cheeks and the healthy pink of her lips; thanks whatever made it possible for her chest to rise and fall so steadily and for her to sleep so peacefully after how she’d convulsed in his arms only a few hours ago while her body fought for warmth. After she hadn’t breathed at all for so long.
Carefully he pulls himself from her grasp and sits up, throwing to the floor each of the dozen blankets spread over them until there’s nothing but a sheet covering their overheated skin.
“Stiles?”
He turns back at Lydia’s rough voice and finds her eyes watching him, calm and warm when they meet his. He gives her a sleepy smile and sinks back down next to her, arms automatically reaching for her. “Hey Lyds. How are you? Are you feeling okay?”
She nods and softly smiles back at him when he settles on the pillow next to her. Leisurely she trails her gaze across his face and memorizes the details, her fingers skimming his skin to connect the moles across his cheek. “I love you.”
The way Lydia says it so simply and honestly and without any preamble at all has Stiles questioning if he heard her right. But her words are steady and sure and her eyes never once leave his.
It slowly sinks in and Stiles is breathless.
“For so long I let myself think that somehow we would always have time. I thought someday, when we were older and things were different, me and you…” She trails off and turns the corner of her mouth up at him sadly. “Then I was dying and there was no time left and what I regretted most was never telling you. I need you to know now.”
He presses his fingers against her sides and pulls her closer, trying to ground himself in the feel of her skin because everything she is saying is like a dream and he wants to hold on every bit of it. “Lydia…”
Her hand moves from his cheek to curl around the side of his neck, her fingers glancing the edge of his bandage. “You’re going to be alright?”
His mouth hitches up in a gentle smile, his amber eyes wet as he nods. “I think I’m going to be okay.”
“Are you sure? I hurt you-“
“I promise. Here with you, I’ll be fine.”
She seems to relax at that, pressing her lips together and nodding before she suddenly changes the subject. “Do you think we could shower?”
Brushing her ash littered hair back over her shoulder, he nods his assent without a thought to all the different people in his house right now, all of them either trying to sleep or probably getting ready to check on them again soon.
Stiles showers first, anxiously cleaning off as fast as can while avoiding his injury. He leaves the water running when he steps out with a towel around his waist and smiles at Lydia sitting on the closed lid of the toilet picking at her hair with his comb.
She steps past him to take his place, closing the shower curtain behind her and hanging the simple bra and panties she’d slept in over the top.
He’d gathered up two stacks of clothing beforehand, both of them made up of his own clothes but only one meant for him, the other one for her. He grabs the boxers and sweatpants from his pile on the counter, pulling them on before settling down on the tile floor and leaning back against the tub as he towels off his hair.
The mirror is fogged over and Lydia is gently humming behind him and Stiles’s heart swells in his chest because it’s everything he always wanted and he almost almost never had it.
Only then, when he’s so completely overwhelmed with all the things he feels for Lydia does he realize that he didn’t say it back. That her simple and honest admission of love went by without him giving her anything in return. She’d said all those things and didn’t wait for him to respond as if she didn’t expect him to, just needed to say it for herself wether he returned the words or not.
Stiles can’t just let it go though, not after all everything, because of course he regretted it too. He regretted that she died and he never actually told her.
He’s standing there waiting to blurt it out the second she steps out of the shower wrapped in one of his towels with her long, wet hair pulled over her shoulder.
“I love you, too. I love you.”
A smile breaks out over her face, slowly spreading across her lips and then shining in her eyes. Two steps is all it takes before she’s in his grasp, wrapping her arms around him tight.
“So much, Lydia,” he promises against her hair, “and I should have told you so long ago-”
She shakes her head and pulls back, touching his cheek to steady him. “No more regrets, okay?”
Holding her through her damp towel, he nods in agreement.
Her eyes glint with the beginnings of another smile and she leans up on her toes, her nose just grazing his. “I love you.”
He swallows roughly and pulls her impossibly closer. “I love you.”
Then Lydia’s lips find his and Stiles forgets how to breathe.
— — —
There’s no reprieve after that. The beast’s massacre of Beacon Hill’s teenage population doesn’t slow down in the slightest. In fact the body count is growing exponentially, too fast to for any of them to even begin to comprehend the gravity of it.
Bile rising in the back of his throat, Stiles can’t blink away the sight of the bus filled with bodies of his classmates. He’s about to turn away when two floating spots of bright white appear from the darkness inside. Instinctively he flinches back even with the werewolves in front of him because he knows those are eyes.
Stomping forward, the bus shakes around the creature and it swipes a claw out, ripping a body in two and sending it crashing to the ground like it’s nothing.
“That’s big. No one said it was that big.”
Liam rolls his eyes. “I did.”
Scott remains silent, spreading out his arms to shield his beta and his best friend before he slowly starts to walk them backwards.
The beast notices their movement, eyes pinning on them as it lets out a rumbling growl.
“Scott?” Stiles knows the three of them are no match for that thing, no matter their supernatural powers.
The alpha’s claws are out, eyes red as he whispers, “Run.”
All of the boys are already starting to sprint when they turn to flee and all three of them have to scramble to stop before the knock straight into Lydia.
“Lydia, what the hell-"
Her eyes are glassily fixed on the bus like the rest of them aren’t even there.
The ground quakes and Stiles knows the beast is on the ground behind him now. There’s no time to think about anything but getting her out of there so he grabs her wrist and tries to pull her along with him.
“Come on! We gotta go!”
Rooted to her spot, she shakes her head in a daze and clasps her hand over his. “Mason,” she breathes, barely a whisper. “It’s Mason…”
Liam stares at her like she’s finally snapped. “What?!”
She doesn’t pay attention, just nudges a little past Stiles, still holding tight to his hand as the pounding under their feet grows stronger and faster.
The beast is nearly on top of them, it’s long arm already pulling back to swipe but Lydia stands strong.
“MASON!”
The force of her scream is so great and powerful that it’s visible before them, erupting out of her in a concentrated stream that shifts the air away and hits the beast full force without touching the human at her side or the werewolves nearby.
The beast staggers back, crumpling in on itself as the onslaught of sound and strength hits him in wave after wave. It screeches out in agony, it’s bright eyes dimming right before it explodes into a cloud of dark smoke and heavy fog.
When it clears, all that’s left of the giant beast is the teenager it had over taken, curled up in a trembling mess of tears and confusion.
“Oh god, Mason!” The beta rushes to his best friend’s side, the alpha following just behind him.
Stiles is in shock when he pulls Lydia tight into his arms, eyes wide as he tries to comprehend how what he just witnessed was is even possible. He’s barely been able to see her over the days since they admitted their love for each other, too busy trying to help his dad and Scott with the beast. Obviously he should have been working with Lydia instead.
“You okay?”
Nodding, she looks up at him with a tiny, tired smile like even she can’t believe what just happened. “I did it.”
A breathy laugh escapes him, eyes full of pride. “You did.”
Their moment is short lived, their smiles fading away when they look over the scene and it hits them that the beast may be gone but all of the bodies are still there. None of those teenagers are going to get a second chance, not like Lydia did.
— — —
Lydia and Stiles go to the preserve the next day, the sun beating down on them as they walk hand in hand through the woods.
The pile of ash and soot that was the Nemeton is somehow gone, the scorched outline of the trunk and roots the only proof left that the ancient tree was even there to begin with.
“It was Jordan,” she whispers, her eyes tracing the scarred ground. “He burned the Nemeton to save me. He sacrificed himself so that I’d have a chance to stop the beast.”
He squeezes her hand, watching her profile carefully. “But how do you know that?”
Green eyes meeting his amber ones, she furrows her brow at his whispered question.
“And how’d you know about the beast? How could you be so sure?”
Lashes falling shut, she takes a slow breath and focuses on the sounds of the world around her. “Everything is clearer now. It’s like there used to be a fog around all of it that’s lifted. The truth about the beast and then Jordan… It was suddenly so simple.”
Tucking her hair behind her ear, he smiles sadly when her eyes flutter open to his again.
“Like how you don’t have to tell me how I came back. I know it’s because of you. You pulled me back.”
“But you just said Parrish-“
She shakes her head. “I said he gave me a chance. I wouldn’t be here though without you. You saved me, Stiles.”
Tears fill his eyes and spill over too fast for him to hold back even as he tries to keep smiling. “You saved me first, Lyds. I was just returning the favor.”
— — —
“You’re different.”
They’re curled up together on a lounger by her backyard pool, a blanket thrown over them and the stars shining overhead.
She nods, idling her fingers along the collar of his t-shirt. “I know.”
It’s been over a week since the beast was defeated and only slightly less since Lydia returned to school and everything went back to normal.
Except that it’s not really normal because they hold hands as they walk through the hallways and kiss outside of their classes. They spend nearly all of their free time together and constantly text when they’re apart.
It’s more than that though. It’s not normal because Lydia isn’t exactly the same as she was before that night and all the things that happened at Eichen. She’s so much quieter than she’s ever been and so unbelievably calm and at ease. Everything she does and says is tinged with a sense of wisdom far beyond her years like somehow she really does know everything now.
“Do you think it’s because of what happened?” he asks quietly, unsure if he should really be pressing it or not. He doesn’t want to ignore it though, especially if it could lead to something bad. “With the Nemeton and, uh, you know….”
“My death? I don’t know. I feel lighter. Happier. Maybe it’s because the Nemeton is gone.” Lifting a shoulder in a shrug, she smiles up at him. “Maybe it’s you.”
“Me?” He cups her cheek and grins.
Leaning closer, she whispers with her lips brushing against his, “Us.”
— — —
The house smells amazing when he gets home from lacrosse practice, his mouth already starting to water as he sheds his gym bag and backpack by the front door.
The unmistakeable sound of Lydia’s raspy laugh reaches him as he makes his way to the kitchen and he smiles to himself and walks faster. His heart swells when he steps into the room, hovering in the archway to watch Lydia and his father chopping vegetables together at the counter and chatting away.
“Hey.”
Both of them look up at him and the sheriff grins while Lydia’s cheeks flush, neither of them missing the warmth shining in his eyes.
Stiles clears his throat and finally steps into the room. “What, uh, what smells so good?”
The sheriff tilts his head at the strawberry blonde. “Your girlfriend came by while I was deciding between take out menus and insisted on cooking dinner for us instead.”
“She did?” His voice is all soft when he stops at Lydia’s side and smoothes his hand across her back. “I didn’t know you can cook.”
“I can follow a recipe.” She shrugs and continues chopping vegetables to avoid his gaze, suddenly shy and uncertain at doing something so overtly caring and affectionate. “Anyway, it’s only lasagne. I won’t be donning a chef’s jacket anytime soon.”
Overcome with a rush of adoration, he moves closer to her, kissing her temple and curling his fingers around her waist.
Hesitantly, she peeks up at him out of the corner of her eye, a small smirk spreading across her lips once their eyes meet.
The timer dings and the sheriff calls out that he’ll get it. Then Stiles offers to set the table while Lydia finishes the salad, and soon the three of them are sitting around the table together and Stiles can’t stop grinning.
The conversation flows so naturally that Stiles realizes just how close his father and Lydia have become over the last year. It makes sense with all the time she spent at the station trying to help solve the dead pool and then to figure out Parrish but somehow it went totally over his head until now.
Without the threat of the supernatural currently hanging over them though, his dad has the chance to ask Lydia about school and her plans and all the things they’ve never had a chance to discuss at the station. The sheriff seems more than impressed with everything she says and Lydia seems to appreciate how much he genuinely cares.
Eventually any serious talk falls away and the sheriff delves into numerous embarrassing family stories and Lydia grins and laughs while she holds Stiles’s hand tight under the table.
Through all the talk of the 10-year plan, he’s not sure he ever really believed it would happen but it hits Stiles for the first time that this could really be his future. Here with Lydia and his father, her becoming a permanent part of his life doesn’t seem so unattainable.
“So it’s finally happening.” His father teases when it’s just the two of them standing in the driveway watching Lydia’s car drive away. “You’ve liked her since you were in, what, fourth grade?”
“Third, actually.”
The sheriff chuckles at his son, something like pride in his eyes.
“I think she’ll be good for you, Stiles. She has a lot of aspirations and it sounds like she works very hard to accomplish her goals. She’ll challenge you; help you to be the best man you can be.”
“I know she will, Dad.” Stiles smiles easily. “She already does.”
— — —
They have sex for the first time in a tiny hotel room near Stanford, their hair still dripping from the heavy autumn rain that cut short their tour of campus and their discarded clothing forming a soggy trail from the door to the bed.
It happens in a desperate rush, their hands fumbling as they frantically push and pull one another for more, teeth knocking when they kiss too hungrily as they move together.
It’s not perfect but somehow it still feels like it is.
Lydia clings to him after and, once her heart stops racing and her lungs find a gentle rhythm with his, tears gather unbidden in her eyes and slowly slip onto Stiles’s skin.
Brow furrowing, he quickly reaches out to brush them away. “Hey-“
“I’m happy,” she assures him before he can ask her why, a watery smile on her swollen lips. “I’m so happy I didn’t die without ever having us.”
“Lydia…” With a shaky breath, he gently nudges her onto her back and moves over her, lips following the damp tracks on her cheeks with soft kisses. “I’m so happy, too. You make me happier than I ever thought…”
Her fingers bury in his hair and when Stiles’s lips eventually trail from her cheeks to her throat and then to her collarbone, she sighs in content and hitches her legs up around his waist almost automatically. “Stiles.”
“God, Lyds.” Settling his weight on her, he looks down at her with blown pupils and hooded lashes, gaze searching hers. “Tell me, okay? Tell me what you want.”
“You.” She wants him, needs him, and holds him closer, cradling him between her thighs. “Just you.”
Groaning as she presses her nails into his back, he nods dazedly. “Me too, Lyds. I only want you. You’re all I ever want. You’re everything to me. You’re everything, Lyds.”
Movements unhurried and steady, Stiles pushes into her again, more concerned this time with learning and savoring all the little details that make up Lydia.
He takes in the way her hair twists and fans across the pillow in waves, the way her fair skin is even fairer where the sun has never touched it, the faint dusting of freckles he’s never been close enough to see. Stiles memorizes it all while he murmurs a million things against her skin and feels lightheaded when she responds with little breathy moans as she fights to pull him somehow closer.
Stiles and Lydia already share a connection, a tether strong enough to cross the boundary between life and death. They can feel the bond between them shifting though, growing into something even stronger and impossibly deeper as the intensity of everything builds until it’s overwhelming and all encompassing. Both of them are suddenly more raw and open than they’ve ever been before, completely exposed to each other.
Lydia’s eyes fill with tears again, her gaze locked on his amber eyes as she brackets his face in her trembling hands.
Stiles wells up too and he pants her name, his voice cracking somewhere between a moan and a sob.
They both know this is different. This is so much more than any either of them have ever experienced before.
They’re slick with sweat with flushed cheeks and aching limbs when they finally crash, Lydia first and Stiles right there after her.
Body trembling, he collapses over her, gasping to catch his breath with his cheek pressed to the warm skin of her chest. His own racing heart calms as he listens to hers do the same, pounding rapidly against his ear and then growing slower and slower as the minutes pass.
Lydia sinks her fingers into his hair and his eyelids grow heavy but he catches himself before he falls asleep. Tilting his head up, he finds her watching him with so much warmth in her green eyes, a soft smile quirking the corner of her lips when their gazes meet.
It’s rare for Stiles to be speechless but he is in then. There’s no words for what just happened; for what he feels for this girl.
So he pushes himself off her and crawls the few inches so they are face to face. Smiling down at her, he leans in to kiss her with reverence and then lays against her side.
She curls into him and they let their limbs tangle as they cling together on the center of the bed.
Rain taps against the window outside and both of them feel it getting harder and harder to stay awake but they try to hold out and make the moment last as long as possible.
Lydia whispers something to Stiles just as he drifts off but he’s too far gone to make it out. He feels it though even if he doesn’t hear it. He hopes he’ll never stop being able to feel Lydia’s love for him reverberating in his bones the way he can now.
— — —
Slowly, bits and pieces of the old Lydia start to reappear.
The stack of books she pulls from the library shelves each day steadily grows until it’s casting a shadow over her notes as she immerses herself back into her studies and refocuses on her future. More and more, she rolls her eyes and makes little comments that are too witty and poignant to do anything but go over everyone else’s head but Stiles’s. They even start to argue again, playfully of course, bantering back and forth about books and movies and everything until she’s scoffing and he’s grinning.
He didn’t realize just how much he missed all those little pieces of her until he has them back.
Some things stay the same though; the new Lydia so calmly powerful, her strength radiating off her with ease.
The new Lydia doesn’t hide her emotions from him. She knows how fragile their time is; how either one of them could be gone in a heartbeat.
“I love you.”
She tells him everyday, her voice thick and eyes bright with how much she means it.
He smiles at her, his heart swelling at her words like always. “I love you, too.”
— — —
Lydia shifts the gear as she turns onto Stiles’s street, cursing when the whole Jeep shutters around her before jerkily moving forward.
With her extensive understanding of mechanical engineering she hadn’t even questioned being able to drive a 30 year old vehicle but it’s becoming abundantly clear that the skills aren’t translating.
The wheels squeal under her and suddenly she’s speeding the last couple blocks to the Stilinski house and slamming on the brakes to stop, her body flung forward and then quickly held in place by the seatbelt.
She flings open the door and practically rips the belt from around her because even though she was trying to do something nice, now she’s just pissed.
“Stupid fucking hunk of-“
“Lydia?”
Whipping around, her scowl instantly starts to melt at Stiles stepping outside with confusion and the beginnings of awe already shining in his eyes.
“What the… ” He narrows in on the Jeep as he starts to round it, scrutinizing the vehicle carefully incase his eyes are playing tricks on him. “They totaled it out, though. I saw them haul it off to scrap for parts after what happened to all the windows and the gauges that night. Well, ‘cause of that and all the duct tape they found under the hood.”
She shrugs and tries to act nonchalant. “It’s a classic, isn’t it? People restore classic cars from junkyard heaps all the time.”
“Lydia, this is so…” He shakes to his head to himself in disbelief before whipping around to her with his amber eyes uncertain. “You know I was never upset about what happened, right? You didn’t have to-”
“I wanted to.” Because he hadn’t complained once about how she destroyed the one possession he ever cared about, never blamed her for it in the slightest, all while doing everything he could for her. She wanted to do something for him too. “You love this thing.”
“I love you,” he corrects, walking up to her and wrapping his arms around her waist.
“I love you, too.” She kisses the corner of his mouth, pulling back with a smirk when he tries to deepen it. “Now drive me somewhere so we can eat. I’m starving.”
Stiles shakes his head at her, pushing away the keys when she tries to hand them over. “Nuh-uh. You’re gonna drive. I need to observe and figure out what the hell you’re doing wrong because apparently the genius can’t drive a stick shift.”
“I can drive a-“
“I heard you from a mile away. Why do you think I came outside?”
She rolls her eyes and groans. “Stiles…”
Walking to the driver’s side, he pulls open the door and holds it for her, raising a brow expectantly. “Come on, Lyds. You made sure she’s going to be in our lives for a long time still so you should be able to drive her.”
“Her?” Lydia repeats in disbelief even though she’s already reluctantly making her way to the Jeep because he’s right. She should be able to drive it if it’s going to be his car for the foreseeable future.
“Yes, her. She’s my baby.”
“Oh my god…”
Stiles leans inside and over her once she’s buckled in, kissing her soundly. “Thank you. Really, Lydia.”
Her cheeks flush and she shrugs at him. “Compared to all the things you do for me, Stiles, this is nothing.”
— — —
“You’ll forget me.” His whole body is trembling, the words unsteady as they fall from his lips.
Vehemently she shakes her head, taking his hand and gripping it tight. “I won’t.”
She doesn’t, not for a second, even though he’s suddenly just gone from her world a few hours later and she can’t find him anywhere. His face disappears from every picture she has and all of his possessions simply vanish.
The next few weeks of her life are utter hell as she spends every second fighting with the people in her life to remember him, reminding all of them how important he was- is -to each and every one of them.
Of course she takes precautions, keeps his name written in ink across her wrist just incase and traces it over and over until the tip of her pen is scratching into her skin.
“Remember. Remember. Remember.”
The worst part of it all is how much she misses him. She realizes just how big a part of her life he truly is once he’s disappeared from it. He’s become her everything and as the days continue to pass with no trace of him she’s more and more sure that she’ll never be able to go on without him. Neither her heart nor her body are ever not aching for him, her mind constantly overwrought and unable to focus under the fear that she’ll never find him.
The pack fights their way through the wild hunt, Scott forced to go against everything in him and kill when nothing else works.
All of their memories come rushing back when their enemy dies and then disintegrates in front of them. Lydia can see the awareness lighting in the eyes of the other pack members in an overwhelming rush.
They look everywhere for him, find the Jeep parked in his driveway once again and his room restocked with evidence clippings and a disturbing amount of plaid.
But no Stiles.
It’s on a whim that she drives past her own house, only doing so because they’ve already checked everywhere else they can think of. There’s a shadow on her front stoop though and her heart pounds in her chest as she skids to a stop in her driveway.
She realizes instantly she should have known this is where he would be. If the situations were reversed, the first place she would have gone is to the Stilinski’s to find him.
“Stiles?” Lydia calls out frantically as she stumbles out of her car, barely slamming the door before he’s on her, pulling her into his arms and sobbing against her hair.
“Lydia? Oh god, Lydia.”
“I didn’t forget you. Never, ever did I forget you for even a second.” She’s crying now too with her fingers winding in his hair and her face pressing against his neck. “I missed you.”
Her phone erupts with calls and they have to pull apart too soon so they can join the rest of the pack and Stiles can face all of the people who’d forgotten him. He grips her free hand as she drives, thumb brushing against her skin as he tries to regulate his breathing.
“What is-“ His eyes find his name on her wrist and when his fingers trace it, he can feel the letters raised and rough on her skin like the beginnings of a scar. “Lydia?”
She shrugs and pulls her gaze from the road to briefly meet his, green eyes warm and watery. “Just incase.”
He hasn’t been able to stop crying yet so he only cries harder at that, bringing her wrist to his lips and breathing shakily against her skin. “I love you, Lyds. I love you forever, okay?”
“Okay, Stiles,” she agrees easily, reaching out for him the second she stops the car in front of his house. “I love you forever, too.”
— — —
The clear board in front of them has three cities written across the top in his messy handwriting, each of them followed by a bulleted list of pros and cons, some in his handwriting, some in hers.
Lydia leans back against his chest, fingers mindlessly fidgeting with his as she scrutinizes their choices. The three cities with colleges they both got into.
Stiles rests his chin on her shoulder, his voice so gentle and close. “It’s okay to admit you want to go to-“
“I want to go where you want to go,” she cuts him off, anxiously gripping his hands in hers tight. “I want us to be together no matter what.”
“Lydia…”
She shakes her head against him. “I can’t be away from you.”
“Hey, hey.” Gently he pulls his hands from her grasp and nudges her to turn around his arms. When she does, he cups her face in his hands, waiting for her to meet his gaze before fiercely assuring her, “It’s the same for me, Lyds. You know that. And you know that I wouldn’t have applied if I didn’t think we might actually go there.”
For a second she opens her mouth like she’s going to give in but then she stops herself and just shakes her head again, eyes shining. “I can’t ask you to leave everything-“
“You’re not asking me to do anything I don’t want to do. I promise. You’re the most important thing. You’re the one thing I can’t leave. This is what you want, I know it is.”
Pressing her lips together, she leans her cheek against his palm but he can tell she still feels like she shouldn’t give in.
“And I-“ he hesitates, his amber eyes heavy because he’s about to admit to something a small part of him has felt so guilty about since the moment he submitted his application. “I think it could be good for us. Really good, actually.”
“You do?”
“I do. It could be our chance to have a fresh start. Together. Without the threat of the supernatural always dictating our lives.”
She eyes him skeptically. “But what about the big plan? Keeping the pack together?”
“I don’t know. At the beginning of the year I was so stressed about all of us ending up at the same place, sticking together, but maybe I shouldn’t be worrying about that,” he shrugs a bit, eyes moving between hers. “After everything that’s happened this year, maybe it’s more important to focus on actually living. I think we need to give ourselves have a chance to have our own lives. We’ll end up where we’re supposed to.”
The corner of her lip twitches up and she leans past his hold on her to press her forehead to his. She closes her eyes for a long moment, gathering her thoughts and reaching out to grasp the front of his shirt between her fingers.
“Boston?”
She whispers it like a question but her green eyes are sure when she blinks them back open to meet his.
A slow grin curls his lips. “Boston.”
— — —
They go to prom together of course. They drink spiked punch and wedge themselves in the mass of their classmates on the dance floor while the bass from the speakers shakes the floor, trying to fit in. It doesn’t work. In fact, how much more they’ve been forced to grow up than the average teenager has never felt as palpable as when they find themselves surrounded by tipsy students in the high school gym.
It’s Stiles who gives in first and suggests they get out of there and Lydia is more than relieved, both of them knowing that her house is parent free and waiting for them to spend the rest of their night together.
But then they run into Kira and Scott on the way out, the two of them looking just as out of place as they feel, and Lydia and Stiles share a look before giving up their empty house and inviting the other couple to leave with them.
They find Malia scowling by her car in the parking lot and invite her along as well, any expected awkwardness when Stiles’s current girlfriend is holding his hand as she asks his ex-girlfriend to hang out with them somehow nonexistent.
The five of them end up sitting around the pool in Lydia’s backyard, eating pizza straight out of the box and trying their best to put a positive spin on their high school years through all the funny stories they can think of.
It turns heavy and depressing all too quickly though, so Stiles takes it upon himself to break the tension by shoving Scott into the water in his formal wear.
All hell breaks loose after that.
Scott chases down Stiles and throws him in and then Stiles pulls in Lydia. The banshee comes up laughing just as Malia cannonballs in on her own and makes the biggest splash she can to soak Kira where she sits on the sidelines.
It’s the first time any of them have felt their age in too long so they cling to that moment. They stay in the water until their fingers are pruny, splashing and dunking each other as they laugh louder than they have in months.
Nobody mentions the future; how in a few months Stiles and Lydia will be the only ones still together, him at Boston College and her at MIT, while Scott will be going to UC Davis, Milia at San Diego State, and Kira at Columbia back home in New York. For the first time though it feels like none of that matters.
It feels like they will all somehow be okay, no matter what.
— — —
Stiles and Lydia spend every night of their last summer before college together, their evenings spent watching movies or planning or talking about anything and everything until they fall asleep on one of their couches or sneak their way into each other’s beds.
The days, though, the two of them mostly spend apart.
Lydia makes a spreadsheet of different topics and readings to catch up on before her first semester at MIT that keeps her constantly busy. It’s a bit like it was before the supernatural, spending her days at the library or tucked away in her room studying for her own enjoyment, except now she doesn’t have to hide it.
Stiles spends most his days with Scott, the two of them trying to get in as much time together as possible before their first real separation since the month Stiles spent with his grandparents after his mom died. They do all the stupid things they used to do when they were kids and it’s the closest he’s felt to an actual teenager in so long.
Scott leaves for school a few days before they’re scheduled to start their trip across country and Stiles is too quiet after they say their goodbyes, watching the houses and streetlights pass by from the passenger seat as they drive through the neighborhood.
Lydia pulls the Jeep over and Stiles snaps out of his thoughts when he feels it roll to a stop, looking curiously at his girlfriend.
“Are you okay?”
He nods and rubs at his eyes, still red and puffy from crying with Scott. “I’ll just miss him, you know?”
Biting her lip, Lydia nods and avoids his gaze as she reaches for his hand. “It’s not too late. We could take a semester off and start at Stanford in the spring.”
Stiles chuckles breathlessly to himself, gripping her hand tighter and smiling all soft and warm.
“I’m serious, Stiles. We could-“
“There you go again,” he mutters, shaking his head at her fondly. “You said we. You always say we now and I love it.”
Lydia rolls her eyes at him even as smirks. “I didn’t realize it was possible to be so giddy about pronoun usage.”
“You know me, Lyds, I’m all about the little things.” His smile slowly fades as he grows serious, sandwiching her hand between his. “I want to go to Boston, Lyds, more than anything. I’m so excited to start our life together.”
Eyes glinting, she tilts her head at him. “Our life together?”
“Well, yeah, I mean…” Cheeks turning adorably pink, Stiles stumbles over his words in sudden fear that he’s said too much. “I-“
“You know I think about it like that too, right?” she cuts him off and leans closer to him across the console. “When I think about us, it doesn’t stop in Boston or in college.”
His heart starts pounding in his chest at her admission, his voice low and rough as he asks, “What do you think about?”
Lydia shrugs, eyes warm as they roam across his face. “Nothing specific really. It’s just that when I think about anything in my life going forward, you’re there too. Like every thing that could happen is something we’ll face together.”
“Yeah?” He gives her a big dopey grin and presses his forehead to hers.
“Mm-hmm,” she hums as she wraps her arms around his neck. “You being there is the only thing I feel like I can count on.”
Surging forward, he kisses her with his heart too full. It’s an awkward angle with them all twisted in their seats but he needs to be close to her. Has to kiss her harder and pull her closer after she says something like that.
Lydia feels it too and suddenly she’s pressing him back in his seat and following him with her lips and her body until she’s straddling him.
“Forever, Lyds,” he promises as he drags his lips down her skin. “We’re forever.”
———
They climb the creaky steps side by side, the three flights seeming infinitely long with their limbs so tired and achy after too many days on the road.
Stiles slings an arm over her shoulder once they reach their floor, grinning down at her as his anticipation grows. “Got the keys?”
“Of course.” Lydia pulls it out of her pocket and it glints under the hallway lights. “Third floor, apartment B.”
They stop in front of the correct door and share a look full of nervousness and so much excitement before Lydia lets them in.
It’s late so the apartment is dark and quiet but Stiles flips a switch near the door and the empty space fills with light from over head. They reach out for each other automatically, their fingers intertwining as they take it in.
Their new home.
Together.
He tugs on her hand and she lets him lead her to the large window across the apartment, watching him pull the blinds up to reveal the city lights below.
It’s an amazing sight but what really catches her attention is his reaction to it all. She finds her heart swelling when his smile grow as his eyes trail across the skyline and his hand grips hers tight.
“I love you, Stiles.”
Lydia says it when his eyes find hers and she’s overwhelmed with him. It hits her that those are the first words spoken in their first place together and it makes her feel impossibly happy and so full of hope.
Stiles beams down at her and pulls her into his arms. “I love you, too, Lydia.”