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sudden spluttering tears lydia out of her doze. she jumps to her feet, her muscles aching from sitting in an uncomfortable position for what? ten hours? twelve? she’s lost any track of time.
deaton and isaac are rushing in the room she feels like she’s spent an eternity in - the room with the three metal bathtubs. stiles, allison and scott are climbing out of their their bathtubs, panting and - alive.
scott is screaming something about how he knows where it is, but she isn’t paying any attention to him. her eyes are fixed on stiles. he is soaking wet, gasping for air and shouting something about a cut down tree in the woods.
she’s not listening. all she can think about is how cold he must be and that she doesn’t want to do anything more than running to him, wrapping her arms around him and taking away the cold.
lydia realizes that she doesn’t even care about getting her dress wet or the biting cold that would meet her.
now allison is talking too and stiles sits down on the brim of the bathtub. she is digging her fingernails in her palms to keep herself from reaching out to him and trying to soothe his exhaustion.
isaac’s voice right next to her pulls her back to reality. “you guys have been out for a long time.” ha, a long time? in her head she snorts. they’ve been out for what feels like forever.
isaac, deaton and her held them underwater for a few minutes, the icy coldness creeping up her arms and filling her body, until deaton told them to let go. she looked at him, bewilderment written all over her face. she was supposed to let him go? she…she couldn’t just let him go.
"lydia, you have to let him go now. he’s on the other side now, it’s okay, he’ll come back.", deaton told her calmly. "i…i can’t.", she whispered. "i can’t let him go."
in the end isaac and deaton had to pull her away from his stone-still, ice-cold body in the bathtub.
she’s not embarrassed. they don’t know what had happened only a few hours before. maybe deaton suspects something, judging by the way how he was looking at her, when she had calmed down again and sat on the ground, her back leaning against stiles’ bathtub.
she was not allowed to touch him, deaton had said. so she spent hours sitting on the cold ground, her back touching the even colder metal of the bathtub stiles’ body was in, her mind unspooling every stiles-moment like a movie.
third grade, first day of school. she had run against him and huffed if he didn’t have eyes to watch out with. he just stared at her and grinned goofily, telling her that he was sorry. it clearly had been her fault and he had apologized for it.
fifth grade, him excitedly waving at her from across the cafeteria.
high school. telling her how pretty and awesome she was, annoying but secretively flattering her.
"you look beautiful when you cry."
"i’m pretty sure i’m the only one who knows how smart you are."
"you don’t care about getting hurt, but do you know how i’ll feel? i’ll be devastated and if you die, i will go out of my freaking mind."
funny how the tables had turned. he was in a not unlike to death state and she was going out of her freaking mind.
she tried not to think of the most recent memories. especially not the kiss and the breathlessness that seemed to be attached to it.
lydia spent eight hours in that state, until she slowly stood up to use the bathroom. when she got back, she caught sight of isaac, slouched on the ground leaned against a wall. he looked horrible.
for one moment she was debating whether to go back to stiles or to stay here, but then their eyes met and she decided to sit down next to him.
she inhaled and sighed. “so allison and you. how exactly did that happen?”
isaac turned his face to her and cleared his throat, “i could ask you the same with stiles.”
lydia looked down on her hands, the bright maroon nail polish already partly peeled off. she couldn’t care less about her nail polish and that somehow managed to make her smile.
isaac continued: “i mean, everybody knows he’s always had a crush on you, but when exactly did you start to become so…reciprocating and overly possessive?”
"it’s…i don’t know. it’s difficult, i guess.", she replied slowly.
isaac laughed quietly and said: “yep. same goes for me and allison.”
they stayed there for about four hours, not talking, just leaned against the wall, their shoulders touching, slipping in and out of doze. his company was strangely soothing.
she bit her lip and got up, shooting isaac an apologetic look and went back to him. stiles.
his features were frozen, somehow stout. eyes closed, long lashes fanned out over the skin benath his eyes. she missed the whisky and amber that was his eye colour, missed the way his eyes would always soften whenever he looked at her.
maybe it was a selfish thing, she thought. maybe she was being selfish, but she needed him. needed him like oxygen. he kept her sane and tied to reality.
he was her tether to normality.
stiles had saved her life many times.
sometimes even with really small things, like smiling at her in the hallway when she felt like she was losing herself again. bringing her a bag of reese’s, when she didn’t come to school because jackson had left. picking her up for the following weeks and gently forcing her to go to school. coming over in his iron man pajama pants, when she called him crying. gently taking the razor blade from her quivering fingers and telling her it would get better.
and now it was her turn to do that for him.
she had sat down in a corner of the room, feeling numb and so, so tired, but unable to sleep.
lydia snapped out of her memory, when deaton slowly said: “sixteen hours.”
she looks at stiles, searching for that familiar warmth in his eyes. he doesn’t look at her and her heart hurts.
maybe everything has changed for him.
the only thing she knows for sure right now is that things definitely changed for her.