Archive of Our Own ^beta

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songof-light.tumblr.com

oh what would you do if you were me?

It is currently two in the morning, and Lydia Martin is drunk.

It was not an unexpected occurrence, she had come to this small party of five expecting to get drunk, and drunk she was.

Her head spun wildly, and the pool lights spun as she twirled, laughter bouncing into the air. J  Jackson was look at her like she was electric, and she felt electric, drunk on life.

Stumbling, she moves towards him and grabs him by the sleeve of his coat, bringing his mouth smashing against her’s. His hands immediately move to cup her ass, and she hears a snort from Allison behind her.

            Allison is not drunk. She is just staring disapprovingly at Lydia, her eyes shadowed. It wasn’t fair, if Scott, her boyfriend, had been able to make it – Allison would be like Danny and Ethan, making out in the corner - like - two hours ago.

            She pulls away from Jackson and skips over to Allison, her hair bouncing and the air alive alive alive.

            “You can go home now Ally,” she says with the air of a genie granting a wish. “I’ll be fine.”

            Allison frowns. “I promised I’d give you a ride home.”

            “But you don’t need to anymore,” she laughs a little. “Jackson can give me a ride!” Allison looks over at Jackson, who nods in confirmation. Still, the worried crease between her friend’s eyebrows doesn’t leave.

            “Well I’m going upstairs,” Lydia drops her an exaggerated wink that she never would have done if she was sober.

            Allison’s nose wrinkles in a way that Lydia knows she’ll probably pay for later, but she just heads determinedly towards the couch. Lydia rolls her eyes.

            “You can wait, but you’ll be waiting a long time!” she sings, grabbing Jackson’s arm and pulling him up the stairs after her.

***

            Lydia struts into school with every intention of razzing Allison for not only letting her get so totally drunk and leaving her to walk home, but for also not picking up her phone the entire weekend – but instead she finds an Allison-less locker.

            Scott McCall is there however, and he’s got the look of a puppy that’s tail has been trodden on.

            “Where’s Allison?” she asks.

            “I don’t know. She didn’t call you?”

            Lydia makes a show of pulling out her phone and looking down at it. No messages.

            “No,” she frowns. “She hasn’t called or texted me all weekend.”

            “Me either.”

            Now that was something. She had kind of expected Allison to be kind of angry at her, she had been kind of bitchy at the party – but there was no reason Allison would be mad at Scott. Allison and her boyfriend were practically glued together.

            “Maybe she’s just sick,” he says. “I’ll call her Dad.”

            He turns away, and Lydia waits anxiously as the dial tone sounds. Scott looks nervous, and Lydia wonder if it’s because Allison is strangely absent, or because he’s calling her Father. Who, for the record, had never been overly fond of Scott.

            “Hey Mr. Argent,” Scott says in a polite voice, resting his forehead gently against the locker. “I was wondering if Allison was home? She’s not at school today.”

            There’s a loud buzzing from the other end of the phone, and Scott straightens immediately. “Not since  - not since Saturday?” Alarm fills every crack and crevice of his voice, and Lydia immediately feels tension race along her body. “No – Lydia hasn’t seen her.”

            There’s more buzzing, and Scott hangs up with a  - “Will do – “

            “They haven’t seen her?” Lydia guesses, her voice quavering slightly.

            “Not since Saturday. Her Dad was under the impression that Allison was staying at yours all weekend.”

            “She was going to, before the party when  - I thought she went home!” Lydia feels anxiety coursing in her stomach, mixing with sickening guilt – she had practically let this happen.

            “Her Dad is going to look around Allison’s usual haunts, and then call the police.” Scott’s voice is factual, but she can see him shaking slightly and knows that he’s in actuality about to break.

            “I was probably the person who saw her last,” Lydia says in a far away sort of voice, her thoughts beginning to spiral down in a dark abyss.

            Allison was gone.

***

            The next day, Lydia gets a text from Chris Argent saying that they’ve called the police and they’ll probably pull Lydia out of class to get a statement.

            Yesterday she had gone all over Allison’s favorite running trails, her haunts, even her make out spots with Scott – and nothing. Not even a scrap of fabric like people left behind in the movies, marking where her best friend should be.

            So she sits in class, only here because her Mother had guilt tripped her over the phone (the police are doing their best Lydia, and the best thing you can do is get a good education) which made Lydia think that her Mother really needed to sort out her priorities.

            So she just sits in AP Chemistry, tapping her pen against her notebook and waiting for the police to call her out of class so she can tell them her last remembrances of Allison.

            “Lydia,” someone hisses in her ear, and she starts, and finds that Jackson has someone managed to convince Greenberg to switch him seats, and he even managed to do it without the teacher noticing. “I’ve been saying your name for like three minutes.”

            “Sorry,” she says, really not that sorry at all – “What do you want?”

            “I want to know what you’re going to tell the police.”

            Her back stiffens. “Why?”

            “Because if you tell them everything, my Dad will probably kill me,” he says, smiling at her like this is funny.

            “Jackson,” Lydia says slowly, like he hasn’t gotten it yet – “Allison is missing.”

            “She probably just ran away. I mean  - isn’t her Dad super pyscho? She’ll turn up eventually.”

            She just stares at him for a moment, and then turns away.

            “So does this mean you won’t tell them about the alcohol?” he prods.

            “You really think I care about the alcohol or your Dad?” she asks in a flat, cold voice. “Allison is missing Jackson.”

            “And so is my free time if you tell him,” Jackson says. “She’ll turn up Lyds. Don’t worry.”

            An office attendant enters the room and hands the teacher a slip.

            “Lydia Martin?”

            Lydia stands up to go, and then turns down to Jackson. “I’ll tell them what they want to know,” she tells him, her voice icy.

***

            The Sheriff has interviewed all of Allison’s friends apparently, and Lydia passes Scott on her way in. He gives her an encouraging thumbs up, but there’s something like hopelessness in his eyes.

            The Sheriff looks like a tired man, lines at the edges of his eyes and mouth, and somehow she doesn’t think they’re laughter lines.

            “Lydia Martin,” he says as she takes a seat. “Scott McCall tells me you were probably the last person to see Allison on Saturday night.”

            “Along with Jackson, Ethan, and Danny,” Lydia says. “It was a party.”

            The Sheriff makes a note on a piece of paper. “Can you describe to me in your own words what happened?”

            “It was pretty early in the morning,” Lydia begins. “We had been drinking – all of us but Allison. And Jackson and I were going to, we were going to go into another room, and Allison was looking like she was really tired, so I told her to go home. She seemed determined to stay, and went and sat down, but when I came back out in the morning – she was gone.”

            The Sheriff nods. “And you’re sure that Allison wasn’t drinking?”

            “I’m sure. She’s usually more sensible than that,” Lydia’s hands were shaking she realized, and tears were beginning at the back of her eyes. “Have you – have you found anything?”

            “We found her car on a forest road that’s been barred off for five years due to potholes.”

            “Why were you looking for her in the forest?” Lydia asks, even though her mind is already connecting the dots. They didn’t look in the forest for people who were alive in Beacon Hills. “You think – you already think she’s dead?”

            “Lydia, we have made no conclusions – “

            The tears are threatening to spill over, and Lydia knits her hands tightly in her lap, trying to stop the shaking.

            “She’s not dead,” Lydia says firmly. And then looks up at him. “She’s not. You hear me?”

            “I know,” the Sheriff says, but it sounds more placating than anything. “Miss Martin, why don’t you go home and get some rest?”

***

            Lydia does not go home. She waits by Scott’s motorbike with her arms crossed over her chest and stubbornness mixing with the guilt and anger in her veins.

            He comes up to her, and seems to see what she’s thinking just by how she’s standing.

            “We need to find her,” she tells him.

            “The Sheriff has people looking,” he says, but she can already see that he’s with her. “But they don’t know Allison as well as we do.”

            “No,” she agreed. “They don’t.”

***

            The forest road that they found Allison’s car on is by now a dark smudge, and Lydia is seriously starting to wish they had taken her car. In fact, she had suggested that they should do just that, but Scott had said that the car would probably break down from the potholes or something.

            So instead, they leave a trail of string behind them, marking where they’ve been on the road so they can easily find her way back. It reminds Lydia of Hansel and Gretel, and she’s really hoping there isn’t a cannibalistic witch waiting for them. That would be nice.

            “ALLISON?” she calls, her voice starting to wear thin. Scott’s voice is cracking now, and it has started raining.

            This was going great.

            In reality, Lydia knew that they should probably go into the trees, but some nagging voice at the back of her brain is wondering – is that what Allison did? But of anyone could find the road again, it was probably her best friend.

            “Maybe we should – “ Scott starts, when, to their right, a twig snaps loudly.

            She and Scott immediately go still, and then Lydia swings her flashlight around towards the sound quicker than she thought was possible, just managing to catch the boy before he stepped back behind a tree.

            He swore, reaching up one arm to cover his eyes, and stumbled backwards, but not out of the light.

            He was wearing a hospital gown, strangely enough, and had hair that was shorn close to his skull. Upon closer examination, Lydia came to the conclusion that he also didn’t have shoes on. He looked like something out of a horror movie.

            “Hello?” Scott says, his voice shaking slightly. The boy lowers his arm from his face, his eyes darting frantically from Scott to Lydia and back again.

            He looks like one good shove would knock him down.

            “Who are you?” Lydia asks.

            “I’m – I’m Stiles,” he finally says. “Stiles. Just Stiles. And um – maybe you shouldn’t shine a bright light thingie  in people’s eyes? I don’t think that’s common practice. I mean, it shouldn’t be.” His mouth seems incapable of moving.

            “Do you need a hospital?” Scott asks, and then Lydia notices how horribly the boy is shaking, shivering, water from the rain dripping off his eyelashes and streaking down his face like tears.

            “No – no hospital. And no police, please,” the boy says. “It got free – I got free, and if we go there, they’ll – they’ll find me again.” He gives another desperate shudder, and then, like he’s collapsing in on himself, his knees crumple and he sinks to the forest floor.

***

            Scott is the one who decides to keep him.

            Lydia is all for turning him into the cops, or the hospital – he did actually collapse – but Scott checks the boys pulse and says that they need to get him dry and warm.

            Which is how he ends up on Lydia’s couch, still in a sopping wet hospital gown, with Lydia thanking god that her Mother had chosen now to go on a cruise with her boyfriend.

            “I’m not undressing him,” Lydia says, gesturing to Stiles. “That’s all you.”

            She has a bundle of Jackson’s clothes that he’d left at her house (or she’d stolen, take your pick) in her arms, and she holds them out to Scott with a sort of evil grin.

            Scott look at her in horror, apparently getting familiar with some strange boy’s junk isn’t appealing to him either – when Stiles wakes up.

            He wakes up with a cry, arms flailing, one foot catching Scott in the ribs, before he rearranges his arms into a semi-fighting position.

            “Oh,” his eyebrows scrunch together. “You didn’t take me to a hospital.”

            “No,” Lydia says, giving Scott a look that says but we should have. “Instead, Scott carried you back to my car. You’re in my house, and you’re welcome by the way.” Without waiting for a reply, she holds out the clothes. His hospital gown is starting to make her uncomfortable.

            He accepts them warily, and then reaches down to pull off the hospital gown –

            “NO!” Lydia and Scott shout at once.

            “Bathroom is down the hall,” Lydia says, grabbing his arm and shoving him towards it. “Change quickly.”

            He comes out in sweatpants that are too baggy on him and a sweatshirt that hangs too loosely on him, and it makes him seem smaller than he actually is.

            “Beacon Hills lacrosse?” he asks, patting the team name on the front. “What’s - lacrosse?”

            “It’s a sports team,” Lydia snaps, and gestures for him to sit down in the armchair across from the sofa. She and Scott are seated on it, so it gives a sort of interrogation room feel.

            Stiles opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else – but Lydia cuts him off before he can even think about it.

            “You owe us some answers.”

            Stiles’ eyes bug out. “Owe you?”

            “We saved your life,” Lydia continues. “It’s only fair enough to tell us what you know.”

            Stiles slumps back. “As long as you won’t tell anyone else.”

            “I promise.”

            He frowns slightly. “Promise?” he asks, testing the word out on his tongue.

            “Yes, a promise – something you can’t break,” Lydia waves her hand. “You know.”

            “I know,” he repeats, but something in his eyes tells her that he’s lying. She decides to ignore it.

            “Okay, so why couldn’t we take you to a police station or a hospital?” Scott takes the lead, leaning forward slightly. Stiles seems slightly more comfortable now that she’s stopped talking. She supposes that Scott has more of a friendly air, although Lydia can’t imagine being friendly when her best friend is missing.

            “Bad people,” Stiles says. “Bad people are after me.” As if wanting to further prove his point, he makes a gun with his fingers and puts them to his temples. “I was running away. Didn’t anticipate the storm.”

            It’s more than she was bargaining for, and something uneasy starts in her stomach. He’s running away, through the same forest Allison’s car had been found in? Beacon Hills had always been a weird town, but even this was a stretch.

            Scott opens his mouth, but Lydia interrupts him. “Scott, will you talk to me for a moment?”

            She stands up, gestures for Stiles to stay, and then pulls Scott into the hallway.

            “Look, maybe we shouldn’t ask him about Allison,” she says softly.

            “Why not? He could know something. They were in the same area.”

            “That’s just it,” Lydia says. “He’s running from ‘bad people’? What if he’s with the bad people? What if the bad people have Allison?”

            “Allison?” Stiles’ voice startles her, and she and Scott both whip around to see Stiles standing a few feet from them, blatantly eavesdropping. “Is that the dark-haired girl?”

            Scott and Lydia blink at him. Stiles rubs his eyes.

            “Allison,” he mutters. “I know that name. Why do I know that name?” All the sudden he looks exhausted to Lydia, dwarfed in Jackson’s clothes, a ghost of a boy.

            “Is there anything you can tell us right now?” Scott asks gently.

            “I remember a dark haired girl,” Stiles frowns. “I just – it’s really tangled.” He looks so frustrated, and Lydia is about to ask him more questions about what is tangled and why, but Scott cuts her off with a pointed look.

            “We’ll talk more tomorrow,” he says. “I’ve got to get home before my Mom gets back from her shift. Why don’t you sleep on it?”

            Lydia glares at him. “Scott – “

            “We aren’t going to find Allison tonight,” he says firmly. “And I have faith in Allison. She’s tough. We’ll find her, but not tonight.”

***

            Scott McCall may have faith in Allison’s perseverance, and in all reality Lydia does too -  but the idea of school right now seems a nauseating idea. So instead, she decides to take a sick day and interrogate the boy sleeping on her couch.

            “We’re going to get clothes,” Lydia tells him. “And then you’re going to tell me everything you know about Allison’s disappearance.”

            The car seems to startle him. When she starts it and pulls out of her driveway, he flings himself back against the seat and scrabbles for something to hold onto to. Despite herself, despite Allison, a laugh snorts out of her mouth.

            “I don’t remember cars having this much power,” he mutters to himself, gradually relaxing. Lydia ignores this comment. She’s determined to stay focused on Allison today, to make up for lost time. She needs to find her best friend.

            “Allison?” she prompts.

            “Oh yes,” he frowns. “She’s alive.”

            “And you know this how?” she asks, her hands tightening on the steering wheel.

            “I’ll prove it to you later. But I want the other one around.”

            “The other one?”

            He waves a hand. “The male one.”

            “Scott?”

            “Scott,” he tests the word on his tongue. “Yes. And you are?”

            She hesitates, but she doesn’t know why. In fact, she hadn’t even realized she had introduced herself until now, it hadn’t seemed important.

            “Lydia,” she finally says. “Lydia Martin.”

***

            She starts towards the stylish hoodies and pants she picks out for Jackson, but Stiles stops by the flannels of all things. He reaches out a hand, and places it on the stack of them.

            “These,” he says firmly.

            “No.”

            “Yes,” he argues. “Yes.”

            (He ends up getting the damn flannels.)

***

            Then she stops at the grocery store. He’s looking relatively normal almost, in a blue plaid flannel and jeans that actually fit him, but as soon as he walks into the store the illusion is lost.

            “Everything’s so much bigger,” he says in amazement.

            “What do you like to eat?” she asks him, and he looks at her in confusion.

            “What do I -  I like to eat?”

            “Yes.”

            He considers this. “I really liked eggo waffles,” he finally decides. “All kinds.”

            “And?”

            “Pizza,” he says gleefully.

            So Lydia buys him Eggo waffles and  frozen pizzas. It’s not something she would ever imagine consuming in large quantities together, but Stiles is all skin and bones, so she supposes some carbs can’t hurt.

            It’s for Allison, she rationalizes, because this boy can possibly find her, and if waffles and flannels are what it takes, she’ll gladly pay the price.

            Though, she can’t help but feel some sort of flare of happiness about the look on Stiles face as he takes his first bite of the waffle, and his entire face lights up like a kid on Christmas. It seems ridiculous to her that someone could get that happy about a frozen waffle.

            Surprisingly, it makes her mourn a small piece of herself, a piece of herself that she hadn’t even know was missing.

***

            Stiles is standing in front of them, his hands curled into fists. He looks better in his new clothes, more human, less alien.

            “Are you ready?” only Scott McCall would ask some strange boy if he’s ready while his girlfriend is missing, Lydia thinks. Then, she thinks that perhaps the world could be a bit more like Scott McCall.

            “I should be asking you that question,” Stiles says, but his heart isn’t in the sarcasm. “Look. I don’t know Allison. I’ve never met her, but I know  - I know she’s still alive. And I’m going to show you something freaky to prove that.”

            She’s begun to notice that Stiles babbles more when he’s nervous.

            He raises one of his hands, and tightly closes his eyes. As soon as he does, the lights begin to flicker. The TV comes on. There’s almost a jolt in the air, like an electric current.

            One of the light bulb bursts.

            Then, slowly, miraculously, Lydia begins to hover over the couch. At first, enraptured in just what Stiles is doing, she doesn’t even notice – until Scott swears in surprise and she looks down to find herself inches about the sofa, floating.

            Her brain automatically shortwaves, every single scientific theory flying out of her head as she just floats in midair, her feet brushing against the top of Scott’s head.

            Stiles is watching her, his eyes alight – and slowly, slowly, blood begins to drip from his nose. Lydia gradually sinks back onto the couch, and Stiles lowers his hand.

            He wipes away the blood like it’s second nature, smearing it on the sleeve of his flannel and across the lower half of his face. It sticks there, a small red crescent. Lydia finds it’s easier to focus on that than on the – magic? New science? She had just witnessed.

            “So,” Stiles says, sinking into the chair across from them, looking as if nothing had just happened. “Um – Allison is hiding from something. She’s alive, and she’s okay for now, but she’s hiding.”

            “Hiding from what?”

            “A monster,” Stiles says simply, looking down at his hands, and then scrubbing his face with his sleeve more fervently, like he’s trying to wipe away all traces of the blood.

            “A monster?” Lydia repeats.

            There’s something in Stiles’ eyes, a hidden secret she wants to find.

            “A monster,” Stiles echoes. “And it’s hungry.”

***

            Malia Tate goes missing the next day while she’s on a hike in the woods.

***

            “Look, I’ll be back later,” Lydia says. “But you can’t come with me to school.”

            Stiles, surprisingly, looks rather grumpy about the prospect of her leaving him at home all day.

            “Why can’t I?” he asks, his arms folded across his chest.

            “Because you’re weird,” Lydia tells him plainly. “Do you even know what school is?”

            “I actually do know what school is – just because I didn’t know what a hair dryer was doesn’t mean I’m completely stupid.”

            “Well, considering you’re a complete stranger who acts like he’s escaped from the asylum – just watch some TV okay?”

            She throws him a remote, and he frowns down at it like it’s unfamiliar. Lydia rolls her eyes.

            “You press the buttons,” she says, and then saunters out of the door like she doesn’t have a runaway stowed away in her house trying to find out how to use the TV. She needs to do some examining at the school, she needs to see if there’s anything she missed.

            When she gets to school, Scott McCall automatically pulls her aside, and only when she sees the concern in his eyes does she notice how most of the student body looks on edge.

            “What’s happened?”

            “Malia Tate is missing,” Scott says. “Hiking around the same area Allison’s car was in.”

            Lydia did not Malia Tate well, just flashes of the spunky and loud girl from around school, but her name settles on Lydia’s shoulders like a weight. Perhaps she should have brought Stiles to school after all.

            “When did she disappear?”

            “Last night,” Scott says. The Sheriff comes out the building, his forehead creased with worry. “They’re placing a curfew on the town.”

            “Should we - “

            “No. He told us not to.”

            Lydia watches the front of the doors, letting her thoughts filter through her mind. Where had they not checked to look for clues for Allison? What if she had gone home before encountering the monster? What if the monster had taken her - of course, this was assuming there was a monster.

            “I want to talk to Chris Argent,” she finally says. “Let’s look in Allison’s room. Allison’s resourceful. She could have left a clue behind.”

            It’s far fetched, considering that they don’t even know if Allison stopped at home at all, but Lydia feels like she needs to do something. Suddenly, there are two - three lives at stake. She counts Stiles automatically, because ‘bad people’ and ‘monsters’ didn’t necessarily have to be separate things.

***

            She gives Scott her house key and tells him to go check on Stiles, while she knocks on the Argent’s front door.

            “Lydia,” Mr. Argent’s voice is strained, worry in every inch of his body. “What are you doing here?”

            “I wanted to look around in Allison’s room,” Lydia takes a deep breath. “I feel like Allison was taken and I want to see if she left any clues behind.”

            She could spin a clever lie and make up something stupid, but Chris Argent has caught out almost every single one of Allison’s lies before. Besides, they could use an adult’s help. For adult things.

            Chris Argent raises his eyebrows, but steps aside. “The police are saying she’s run away,” he says. “I’m glad to hear someone else who thinks otherwise.”

            “They don’t know Allison,” Lydia says simply. “We do.”

            Chris Argent nods with a chuckle, and makes a gesture for her to lead the way.

            She can’t count on all her fingers and toes how many times she’s made the trek up the stairs to Allison’s room, with Allison behind her, gossip on their lips and laughter in the air, and it seems emptier without her best friend by her side.

            Allison’s door, too, somehow seems smaller with the light off and without her friend at her side, and Lydia pushes into the room quickly, not wanting the memories to linger.

            She searches her room for the better part of an hour, and turns up with nothing.

            Chris Argent has gone downstairs to make her a cup of hot chocolate, and her phone keeps vibrating with Jackson’s annoyed texts, the sound filling the silence in the room just barely - because it was so quiet - too quiet and Lydia -

            The lights were flickering.

            Lydia’s thoughts are abruptly cut off, everything focusing on that one annoying detail, of course they’d only flicker when she was alone -

            “Mr. Argent?” she calls.

            Chris appears, a mug of hot chocolate for her, and frowns at the lights. “That’s never happened before.”

            Lydia frowns. The flickering lights are casting the room into a weird shadow, and she can’t help but remember how the lights in her house had flickered when Stiles had made her float.

            She fishes her phone out of her pocket (20 new messages from Jackson) and instead calls Scott.

            “Will you come over to the Argents?” she asks before he can even say hello. “Bring Stiles.”

***

            The moment Stiles (still dressed in the flannel from yesterday, the cuffs stained with blood) the lights go crazy. Every single light in the house flashes in tandem, the TV coming on and filling the quiet house with the voices of news reporters talking about Malia Tate and Allison, and Stiles raises his palms to his ears, as if trying to block out some noise.

            Lydia steps towards him, her hand reaching out, but Stiles’ removes his hands from his ears, glances at the lights and says, in a voice that’s way too creepy for life: “She’s near.”

            “Who’s near?” Chris Argent’s eyes are flickering over the three of them with a level of concern but also, running like a current in the room: excitement. The thought of new things that could be happening, that the dead end that had been Allison’s search could have a new lead.

            “Allison,” Lydia answers for Stiles.

            Stiles points towards the lights. “Can’t you hear her? She’s trying to talk to us.”

            Lydia realizes what he’s saying almost immediately, by just watching the lights for a few more seconds. When she speaks, her voice sounds eerie in the odd lighting.

            “Morse code.”

            Chris Argent is on it like a cat on a mouse, and Lydia remembers all the times that Allison has complained about her Dad’s instinct for survival tactics and the long hours spent in the woods teaching Allison said tactics.

            She didn’t think Allison would be complaining about it now.

            “She’s saying,” Chris Argent frowns - “She’s saying that she’s okay.”

            Lydia doesn’t know why he’s frowning. Surely that wasn’t something to frown about, surely it was something to smile about - be relieved.

            “And?” Scott asks.

            “She says to not try and find her,” Stiles says, closing his eyes. “She says the Monster will come for them too.” As soon as he finishes his sentence, the lights give one bright pulse, and Stiles cries out as they fall into darkness. He drops to his knees, hands pressed once more over his ears. Lydia crouches down beside him, her hand on his shoulder.

            That’s when the phone rings.

            All four of them jump at the sudden noise, Lydia’s heart accelerating rapidly.

            Chris Argent swears and yanks his phone out of his pocket, picking up.

            “This is Chris Argent,” he says, and there is a low buzzing. The phone falls out of his hand and shatters on the floor, his face gone white.

            “Mr.Argent?”

            “That was the police,” he says, his eyes unseeing - “They just found Allison’s body.”

***

            Chris Argent tells her he leaves for relatives in France the day after Allison’s funeral.  

            To Lydia, this is absurd. Even if they had found a body, that didn’t mean she was dead. They had just talked to her, as weird as talking through the lights had been, and Allison was a good hider. Lydia was not ready to just give up on her when they found such a trivial thing as a body.

            Scott seems more hesitant, perhaps because of the fancy lettered funeral card. Stiles, who Lydia thinks barely understands the concept of funerals, sides with Lydia.

            “I’d know if she was dead,” he says, with enough confidence to make Lydia more determined and yet make Scott falter more. She isn’t sure what it means.

            All she knows is she’s going to a funeral for a girl who’s alive, and her black dress is so tight that she can hardly breathe.

            Stiles is at home, so only Scott is there to brave the sympathetic looks, the quiet whispers of best friend and boyfriend swirling around in the air around them.

            Allison’s look alike is in the coffin already, her hair neatly coiffed, her hands folded across her stomach, eyes shut. Lydia knows she’s fake. She has to be fake. Because people only lost best friends like this in movies, in TV shows, in false approximations of life. Not this. Never this.

***

            She takes Stiles on a walk not long after, and he still looks so alien somehow, with his shaved head and his curious eyes that look like they’ve seen enough and at the same time too little of the world around them.

            Stiles seems to be leading the way, and she lets him, because she can’t bear to take this sense of wonder from him on such a sad day. They hadn’t heard anything else from Allison. Their plans were swept away - how would they find her now?

            They had to.

            Stiles stops in front of an abandoned car lot a couple of blocks away from her house. Lydia’s Mom had taken her here to buy her first car, before Lydia had thrown a fit and she’d taken her to a dealership instead. How stupid that argument seemed, now.

            He turns into the lot.

            “Stiles - “

            “He left it behind,” Stiles murmurs, stepping forward, running a hand across the top of a Jeep in the lot that looks like it’s seen better days.

            “What?”

            “He left it behind,” Stiles repeats, and then, before she can do anything, crosses to the side of the car, and yanks open the driver’s seat.

            “Stiles -” she tries, but instead just rolls her eyes as he props himself in the driver’s seat, both hands positioned on the wheel, foot on the pedal.

            She climbs into the passenger seat, hoping the owner is nowhere near by.

            “He left it behind,” he repeats.

            “Who left it behind?”

            “My father,” he murmurs.

            “Your - your father?” she sputters.

            He frowns. “Yes Lydia. You kinda need one.”

            If anyone had asked her, she would have assumed Stiles had been in captivity prior to this his entire life. He was so - fresh. So new. Everything was a mystery to him.

            “You remember what he looks like? Why aren’t you - who is he?”

            “I don’t remember his name,” Stiles murmurs shamefully. “Everything before - before where I was is blurry. I remember this Jeep,” he whispers, and then rests his forehead on the steering wheel. “She told me it was mine on her last good day.”

            The radio crackles to life, and Stiles’ nose starts to bleed.

            “Remember,” Allison’s voice crackles through the car, and Lydia’s heart stops. “Remember that you can make it out.”

            “Allison?!” she cries, clutching at the dashboard. “Allison?”

            The radio crackles off. Stiles slumps backwards, blood making a steady trickle down his face, and Lydia clutches at the dashboard.

            “We need this car,” Stiles says, and she doesn’t disagree.

***

            The Jeep breaks down halfway to Lydia’s house, and that’s when Jackson and his entourage pull up. She doesn’t want to see any of them. They haven’t been invested in Allison’s fate. They have left her to ponder her whereabouts alone, and Lydia is just done. She isn’t quite sure what that means yet.

            “Lydia?” Jackson’s first initial reaction to seeing her broken down at the side of the road is surprise, and then he sees Stiles sitting in the passenger seat. “Lydia.”

            Lydia tries to give him her best winning smile. “Hey Jackson.”

            “What are you doing?” he barks, pulling his car over ahead of her. “And who’s him?” The last comment is directed to Stiles with enough poison to kill a horse.

            “This is my cousin Stiles,” Lydia says brightly. “He was feeling sick, so I decided to drive his car for a spell.”

            Jackson has already made up his mind however, had perhaps made up his mind as soon as he woke up this morning, and an ugly sneer twists his face.

            “You can’t honestly expect me to believe that shit,” he says, stepping forward.

            “And why shouldn’t you?” Lydia is acutely aware that he’s actually spot on, but she refuses to acknowledge that train of thought and instead focuses on - you don’t believe me. It isn’t fair, that this boy who has loved Lydia doesn’t believe her, when she’s given him no reason to mistrust her in the past. This person who she has given so much of herself to - doesn’t believe her.

            “You’ve been acting off ever since Allison - “

            “Today is the day of her funeral Jackson,” Lydia isn’t just annoyed now, she’s enraged. “You don’t think I’d be messed up from that?”

            “Well I certainly didn’t think you’d start sleeping with your relations,” Jackson says. His cronies jeer, and laugh, and Lydia comes to a realization.

            Once, when she had been small and her parents had been together, she’d gone skiing. The cloud was sitting right on top of the mountain practically, and at the top she couldn’t see five feet in front of her. She had slid down the mountain quite slowly, her skis nearly making her crumble over herself many times, her father tugging her along by his ski pole - when suddenly, they left the cloud. The world was clear ahead of them, she could see mountain peaks from across the valley. The cloud hadn’t caught up to this area yet.

            This moment was like this. The cloud was behind her, and she didn’t think she could unsee the valley before her.

            “We’re done,” she says, firmly. “You’re a jackass.”

            Jackson’s face twists. Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t this. He starts forward, his hand reaching, words spitting from his mouth in a fury - and then he abruptly stops. Lydia, her heart pounding a frantic beat in her chest, freezes too as horror spreads across his face.

            That’s when she notices the dark stain spreading across Jackson’s pants, from his crotch.

            Lydia laughs, a sound that feels unfamiliar in her mouth, a true laugh.

            “Looks like you’re not as good at controlling that as well as you thought you were,” she says, and flounces back to the driver’s seat. She climbs in the seat, slams her foot down on the pedal - and miraculously, it starts. She pulls away from the curb and Jackson with a screech, for the first time happiness beginning to sing through her veins.

            She turns her head and catches Stiles in the process of wiping his nose. He glances back at her, and gives her a nod, that somehow conveys you’re welcome and i’ve got your back in one.

            Maybe you could make new friends in only a few days.

***

            They’re on their way back to Lydia’s when Stiles speaks up.

            “I can’t remember my Dad’s face.”

            She glances over, he’s sitting with his legs on the dashboard and his arms drumming on his knees, his eyes darting around the world around them like he’s scared of being followed.

            “What?” she asks, gently, like she’s scared she’s going to frighten a small animal.

            “I don’t remember what he looks like. I remember his voice,and I remember his pancakes, but I don’t remember what he looks like. Isn’t that scary?”

            Lydia and Scott had been content to let Stiles’ past slip out of the forefront of their minds, at least until they got Allison back. Then, once she was with them, they’d puzzle out this mysterious boy together.

            “How old were you when you last saw your father?”

            “I think I was six,” he says softly. “Six years old. Mom had just passed away, and Dad took me and sat me in this jeep and told me it was mine when I turned sixteen.”

            “Do you remember anything about him?”

            He shakes his head. “I remember the day they took me. All in their black big cars, and I was six - I was six - “ he breaks off, voice shaking. She reaches for one of his hands, and he lets her take it, their fingers intertwining for a few seconds. She squeezes his fingers.

“You don’t have to talk about it.”

            He looks over at her.

            “I should,” he says quietly. “But I don’t know much. They kept me inside most of the time. They poked me with needles. They made me do things, made me learn about my power,” he looks down at his hands, clasped tightly in his lap. “I don’t know.”

            “Stiles,” she says - her mind coming up with a conclusion, one that seemed too like something out of a horror film for her to process - “Stiles, did you see the building you came out of?”

            “It was night so,” he frowns slightly. “It was big, and there was a barbed wire fence around it.”

            She knows that building. It used to be a lacrosse team hazing ‘ritual’ (as Jackson put it) that new players were thrown over the fence to spend the night on the grounds of the infamous Beacon Hills lab. Lydia had gone once, before the police had caught wind of it and shut it down.

            She doesn’t share it with Stiles. She’s scared of what it means. Lab. What did that make Stiles? An experiment?

***

            The next morning, she convinces to Scott to take Stiles out to practice lacrosse. She’s got a mission on mind, but doesn’t want to involve either of the boys. She, Lydia Martin, was perfectly capable of handling this herself, thank you very much.

            So she drives up (not in the Jeep) to a couple blocks away from the Beacon Hills Lab facility, and does her best to muss up her hair, and rubs some dirt on her arms for effect. This was going to work. It had to.

            She then puts on an exaggerated limp as she nears the gated entrance to the lab. She limps up to the window, and knocks on the glass. The guard inside looks startled to see her, his face crinkling as he takes in her appearance.

            “I got lost in the woods,” she explains in a bright false voice. “I couldn’t find my way back to my car. Is there a phone I could use?”

            The guard peers out at her, and for a moment she thinks it’s going to work, he certainly looks gullible enough - but a voice cuts them off.

            “Lydia Martin?” his sliding, slithering voice hisses through Lydia’s ears like a snake, and she wants more than anything to slap the smug smile off his face. “It’s been  quite a while since I saw you.”

            “Peter Hale,” she greeted. “As I was just saying, I got lost in the forest.”

            “How silly of you,” he tuts, and her hands curl into fists. “Well, I remember where you live, why don’t I give you a ride home?”

            “Mom’s on a cruise,” she says automatically.

            Peter Hale grins his ugly grin, and holds out a hand. “Perfect. I didn’t need to see my ex-girlfriend anyways.”

***

            Stiles is eagerly watching Star Wars on her DvD player when Lydia’s Mom calls.

            “Lydia!” her Mom crows. “I just got your text. I’m so sorry about Allison!” For some frustrating reason, her eyes fill with tears at the sound of her Mother’s voice. She turns her head into the cushion.

            “Yeah,” she says thickly. “Look Mom, I’m fine.”

            “No honey. I’m coming home as soon as we dock.”

            “No really,” Lydia says. “You and Ted have saved up for like what - three years? I have Scott, and besides - “ she drops her voice to a whisper. “I really just need to be alone right now.”

            Her Mom tuts through the phone. Her Mother was really great, but she didn’t push Lydia. She wouldn’t force her to do something she didn’t want, and there was nothing Lydia wanted less than for her Mother to come home. At least on a cruise to god knows where she was safe. Lydia didn’t think she was safe.

            “I love you sweetie.”

            “I love you too Mom.”

***

            They’re trying to communicate with Allison when the monster attacks.

            They’re all sitting in the Jeep, Lydia in the driver’s seat, Stiles in the passenger, and Scott in the back, leaning forward so he can get a good look at the radio.

            “Are you ready?” Lydia asks Stiles. He nods, and closes his eyes.

            The car begins to vibrate around them, blood starts to trickle from Stiles’ nose, and that’s when it goes wrong. Instead of the radio crackling to life, something slams into the roof of the car. Stiles’ eyes snap open, and he says, in a horrified voice -

            “He’s here.”

            “Who’s here?” Scott’s frantic question is accompanied with the sound of the roof slowly caving in.

            “GET OUT!” Lydia screams, shoving open the door. She flees the car, and Scott and Stiles barely make it out before the roof crumples in. The creature on top - it has wings, Lydia notices with no shortage of horror - gives a beastly sort of cry.

            Stiles dashes over to her, and his fingers fumble with her’s before he clutches her hand like a lifeline, looking up at the monster like it’s his worst nightmare.

            “I need to draw on your energy Lydia,” he says. “Can you help me?”

            “Yes, yes,” she says as the creature turns it’s head. It’s got dark hair, she notices vaguely.

            “GO BACK!” Stiles screams, his palm thrusted forward. Blood gushes out of his nose in a river, and Lydia feels the nauseating sensation of blood dripping from her nose as well as a surgence of dark energy crashes towards the creature. It screams, and this time it almost sounds human, before it disappears in a flash of light.

            Then, Stiles crumples.

***

            He wakes up two hours later, eats an entire pizza Scott had ordered, and accepts Lydia’s offer of a blanket. He sits on the couch like a swaddled toddler, his eyes wide. She and Scott had been tossing around ideas of where Allison could be and how to get her (they were at a stand still now that they didn’t know how to get to her) and what the hell that monster was, but now the room was quiet. Stiles breaks that quiet now.

            “What was she like?”

            “Allison?”

            Stiles nods. Lydia opens her mouth, but Scott beats her to it, considering Stiles with a sort of half smile.

            “It’s impossible not to like her,” he says, leaning back on the couch, his eyes rather far away. “She’s got this sort of  - this sort of glow about her that attracts people to her. She’s the sweetest person you’ll ever meet, but she’s tough as nails.”

            “And you love her.” It wasn’t a question, and Scott merely nods.

            “We all love her,” Lydia adds on softly, and Stiles’ shoulders slump.

            “What if I told you I could track the monster?” he asks, his eyes fixated on the floor.

            “Does the monster have Allison?” Lydia asks automatically.

            “He hasn’t found her yet,” Stiles says. “She’s good at hiding. But if we find where the monster goes - we find her.”

            Stiles isn’t looking at her, but it feels like he’s watching her nonetheless. She remembers his question-statement you love her. When was the last time someone told Stiles they loved him? Since he was six years old? Did he even know what the words meant.

            “Tomorrow,” Scott decides. “Tomorrow we track the monster.”

***

            Lydia and Scott give up going to school. She decides she’ll help him make up work once they find Allison. Right now, the only thing that matters is her best friend, and Stiles asking about her only resolved Lydia in that fact.

            They’re following Stiles now, wearing one of Scott’s jackets, the sleeves hanging past his fingertips as he guides them amongst the trees of Beacon Hills preserve. He seems to be following some compass that Lydia and Scott cannot see. They don’t say much, their little group, but the silence doesn’t feel weighed with unsaid things.

            Until Stiles abruptly stops in the middle of two trees and Lydia crashes into him.

            “Stiles - “

            “There’s a fence,” Scott says, peering up at the ten foot tall barbed wire fence.

            “This is where I came through,” Stiles says in a faraway voice. “Look, they’ve patched the fence.”  He’s a million miles away, and Lydia has to fight the urge to grab his hand and yank him back to her.

            “It’s Beacon Hills Lab,” Scott says, and Lydia realizes with no shortage of horror.

            “They patched it up,” Stiles says again. “Who was it? Peter? Deucalion? Were they trying to keep me in or the monster out? Or me out and the monster in?”

            “Stiles?” Lydia says slowly.

            “The monster,” he repeats. “Nogitsune? It’s in there. It’s in there but we can’t get to it and we can’t get to them to the -”

            Scott steps forward and puts his hand on Stiles’ shoulder. Lydia realizes he’s having a panic attack “Stiles - “

            Stiles, quite suddenly, screams. Scott goes flying back ten feet, smashing into the ground,sending leaves, twigs and dirt flying.

            “STILES!” Lydia screams. Stiles turns around, and for a moment his eyes are wild, crazy - his mouth contorted into a horrifying grin, and then he sees Scott on the ground for a moment and his expression crumples like a piece of paper burning in a fire.

***

            Later, once they drop Stiles off at Lydia’s house and decide to get some grocery shopping done, Jackson finds her again.

            “There you are,” he snarls, and she can smell the alcohol on his breath from here. “Lydia Martin.”

            Scott, his arms full of groceries, tenses.

            “Hello Jackson. Wounded pride?” Lydia says. “I mean, it’s not everyday you piss your pants in front of everyone.” 

            This surprises Scott. His mouth lifts up in a half smile, as if imagining the sight, and before she can help herself, Lydia’s smiling too. The first true smile in ages.

            Jackson, however, doesn’t take this well.

            “So are you and McCall a thing now Lydia?” he snarls. “You’re such a slut that you couldn’t even wait until your best friend was dead two weeks -”

            The groceries Scott’s carrying go flying and in the next moment he’s on top of Jackson, his fist slamming repeatedly into the other boy’s face.

            “Sc - Scott - “ Lydia cries, but she has a feeling it’s fruitless. Scott seems to be in a vengeful fury, one that she’s never seen on him.

            “She doesn’t deserve that,” Scott spits in Jackson’s face. “Not from you. Not from - not from anyone.”

            Lydia’s so touched she almost doesn’t notice the police sirens.

***

            The Sheriff sees the two of them, and the look of pity in his eyes is enough to make Lydia want to scream. Allison isn’t dead, but the only person who believes her is Scott, and sometimes she thinks it’s because he so desperately wants her to be right.

            Lydia gets an ice pack and hold it to the swelling on Scott’s face where Jackson had managed to land a hit. Jackson, his father, and the Sheriff are all in a separate room, and Lydia can hear the swells of their argument from where she sits in the lobby.

            She and Scott do not talk. Eventually, the Sheriff comes out of the argument room and sinks down into the chair across from them.

            “You got away with a restraining order, and no further charges,” he tells Scott. “We’ll go over the details later, but first I want to say something. To both of you.”

            “And that is?” Scott’s eyes are devoid of all feeling. It scares her, because the Scott she knew was full of emotion, to the bursting almost.

            “I had a son who went missing when he was six,” the Sheriff says. “I know how it feels to lose someone, I know it’s hard. But you have to figure out what is the best way to deal with losing someone. My son may be most likely dead, but without him, I wouldn’t be the person I am today.”

            Lydia’s heart is in her throat. “What was his name?”

            The Sheriff smiles a half smile, like he’s laughing at some long forgotten joke. “His name is Mieczyslaw Stilinski. But we used to call him Stiles.”

            Lydia smiles, because she isn’t quite sure what else to do with the feelings erupting inside of her, pushing to escape. Stiles may have become someone’s experiment, but here was living, breathing proof that Stiles was more than that. That there was still someone who loved him.

            She wants more than anything to tell the Sheriff about Stiles, but she keeps her mouth shut. It wasn’t up to her to reunite father and son, this wasn’t about her. It was about Stiles, and in the end, it was his decision.

***

            Scott’s Mom takes him home (quite forcefully, shouting the words restraining order! For all to hear) and it leaves Lydia to go home alone.

            Stiles is curled up on the couch like a cat, the rays of sunlight from the window soaking into his skin, and for a moment - she just watches him. It is always an interesting thing to watch someone when they don’t know they’re being watched, and Stiles is no exception. His eyes are shut, his breathing is slow, and all the things that mark him as being different fade away while he sleeps.

            She feels the hollow loss of Allison like it’s a chunk taken out of her body, but as she watches Stiles, she wonders if this was always meant to happen. Maybe finding Allison was the turning point for her breakup with Jackson, for her sudden friendship with Scott, for finding Stiles.

            “What is Allison to you?” Stiles asks suddenly, and she startles, unaware that he’d woken.

            “She’s my best friend,” she says simply.

            “And that means that you’re going to keep looking for her,” he says. “No matter what?”

            “Yes,” she says. “Friends don’t give up on one another.”

            “Like you and Scott.”

            “Like me and Scott,” she agrees. “Like you and Scott. Like me and you.”

            His eyes widen, and then his face stretches into a smile, a pretty, unabashed smile. “I’m your friend,” he repeats.

            She smiles back, but then remembers the Sheriff’s sad eyes.

            “Stiles, I know where your father is.”

            He sits up straight, all traces of sleep gone. “You do?”

            “He’s the Sheriff.”

            Stiles smiles again. “That’s good. He always wanted to be Sheriff,” his finger traces the seam line on the couch, his expression thoughtful. “But I don’t want to tell him where I am yet.”

            “Yet?”

            “Once we find Allison,” he says. “Then we can down into that - “ he waves around a hand, “Whatever that is.”

***

            The next day, Lydia decides to take Stiles to school, in case there’s some sort of presence at the school they didn’t know about. In reality, it’s an excuse to feel like she’s doing something - anything.

            Scott bikes to her house for a ride, and he leans against her car, arms crossed. Stiles had insisted on attempting to get some of the blood out of the cuffs of his shirt before he had come on his first day of high school, so they were waiting for him.

            “You like him, don’t you?” Scott asks her, and Lydia’s heart stops.

            “What do you mean?”

            “You know, it’s not a bad thing,” Scott suggests. “Allison wouldn’t mind if you liked him while she was missing.”

            “Of course I like Stiles,” she says. “He’s been a good friend.”

            Scott gives her the side eye, and she squirms slightly. “Do we really need to go back to middle school Lydia?”

            Before Lydia can answer him, Stiles practically bounces out of the house, flannel flying behind him like a cape.

            “I am ready for my first day!” he beams at her, and she doesn’t really have the heart to tell him that high school is usually considered to be a sort of prison, and not something to be excited about.

            Even Scott seems a little more perky, although the entire ride to the high school he keeps sneaking knowing glances at Lydia, glances that make her want to bang her head against the steering wheel.

            They’re some of the first people to arrive at the hospital, and Lydia directs them immediately towards the office, saying that her cousin is exploring the schooling options here in Beacon Hills. She tries to ignore the pitying glances the secretary gives her as she makes Stiles a nametag.

            Instead she watches Stiles, who looks around the school with a sort of reverence akin to worship, such painful wonder in his eyes that it almost looks like sadness. She can almost see it from his eyes now, the lines of lockers, the students with backpacks and shoes, the couples holding hands and kissing, the kids bumping fists and laughing. Experiences he had never had. Experiences he never would have, most likely, even if he got returned to his father - he’d be isolated. A miracle.

            So he looks at the high school in mourning, and before she can stop herself, Lydia places a hand on his shoulder. He leans slightly back into her touch, and Lydia isn’t sure what to say -

            “Here you are,” the secretory says, pushing the nametag and a few other papers across the desk. “All set to go.”

            Lydia smiles at her, but it feels forced. Stiles follows her out, his eyes watching, examining, searching - everything.

            He closes his eyes, taking a deep inhale.

            “The power level,” he says softly. “Can’t you feel it?”

            “No,” she replies honestly. “But I don’t feel most of the things you do.”

            “We should come back tonight,” he decides. Lydia doesn’t argue.

            “Let’s go to first period,” she says.

***

            That night, they come back in Lydia’s car. She doesn’t ask Stiles why he wants to come here at night, because part of her is afraid Scott’s right. Maybe she does like Stiles too much. Since that could also be attributed to her recent breakup with Jackson, she does what she does best - ignores it.

            Stiles watches the front school doors. “You know,” he finally says. “I reckon I would have gone here.”

            She laughs, and he looks over at her, a smile spreading across his face, even though he doesn’t understand the joke.

            “It’s just,” she says, gesturing towards the school - “You look at it like it’s some wonderful, life-changing thing. But it’s not. It’s just high school. If you had gone here, you probably would have hated it.”

            “Is that how the world works?” Stiles asks. “Everyone hates something, just because they haven’t experienced the opposite?”

            “The opposite?”

            “I never got to go to highschool,” he muses. “So all I want to do is go. But most people hate it.”

            She reaches out a hand and places it on his shoulder. “If we get through this, you can go.”

            Hope. Pure unbridled hope surfaces in Stiles’ eyes. “You think so?”

            She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know his father, or how those laws work, or anything. “You remember what I said earlier? About how friends don’t give up? Well I won’t give up Stiles. I’ll keep fighting, until you can spend at least one shitty day in highschool.”

            His answering grin is like the sun.

            “Lydia,” he says quietly, “I didn’t know I could have friends before I met you and Scott.” It’s one of those sentences that lifts you up at the same time that it makes you infinitely more sad, and Lydia decides that no matter what the future holds, she is going to protect Stiles Stilinski because he deserves it.

            “I was lost,” he began again, staring back at the school. “For so - so many years Lydia. But you found me - you found me Lydia.”

            She smiles, and ducks her head a little, because while Lydia Martin likes compliments, Lydia Martin isn’t used to compliments coming so sincerely, with little room for argument. He says it like it’s a fact, like without her he wouldn’t have been found, although statistically he’d have to run across some other kind of human habitation at some point.

            “So,” he says. “Tell me more about high school.”

***

            She wakes up with a pain in her neck, and her head pressed against a cold surface. In fact, her entire body is cold, numb, and -

            A sharp tapping near her head sends her shooting upwards, her heart racing - but it’s only Scott, tapping on her - car window?

            It only takes a few seconds for her to realize that she and Stiles had fallen asleep instead of going home, and the fact that she is not dressed for school, and just slept overnight in a parking lot is highly suspicious, but Scott doesn’t seem concerned about that.

            She rolls down the window.

            “Kira Yukimura is missing.”

            She unlocks the car, and Scott automatically climbs in the backseat. She wakes Stiles up, and then starts the car for her house.

            “No school today?” Stiles murmurs sleepily.

            “No,” she says, rage running through her veins like caffeine. Kira Yukimura and she hadn’t been friends, but she was a sweetheart, everyone knew that. She was a bystander. “We’re going to kill the monster.”  

***

            She picks up rat poison, a bear trap, and a mallet. Scott buys new bullets for his Dad’s gun, and buys an axe while he’s at it. Stiles then adds a baseball bat to the pile as his ‘weapon of choice’.

            “So what’re you kids doing with all this stuff?” the cashier’s hand is edging for the phone, probably to call the police or something.

            Lydia gives him her best winning smile.

            Scott gives the man a smile that looks more like a grimace. “Monster hunting.”

            Stiles just gives the man a thumbs up for effect.

***

            They park their car perilously close to the lab, and Lydia leaves the bear trap in the trunk and instead opted for some mace she’d bought earlier that year. She has no idea if mace will actually work, but it’s worth a shot.

            Either way, they all know that Scott’s going to be the one to kill it. His father’s gun looks black and deadly in the dim moonlight filtering through the tree branches, and there’s no doubt in Lydia’s mind that it’s going to be deadlier than a baseball bat or a can of mace.

            “Do you think it’s out here?” Scott’s voice is a harsh whisper, and Lydia wants to tell him to shut up, but before she can come up with the quietest way to do so, Stiles makes a horrified sound. Lydia and Scott whirl around automatically, their flashlights spreading beams across the forest floor.

            The deer carcass looks somehow more horrible and foreboding than if it had been the monster itself, it’s innards spread across the ground, it’s eyes blank and glassy.

            “Is this what it will do to Allison if it finds her?” Scott’s question is a good one, but Lydia doesn’t answer it. She can’t bring herself to.

            “Look that way,” she says, gesturing towards the opposite direction. “I’ll look at the body.”

            Stiles, who looks very white, immediately turns away and wanders off, his flashlight darting against the trees. Scott also turns his head, but Lydia likes to think she has guts of steel. She wanted to study things one day, it was assumed dissection would probably have to occur.

            Still, the animal looks terrified, even in death, it’s legs splayed like it’s trying to run, it’s mouth open in a screech - and that’s when she notices it.

            It’s glowing slightly, and at first she thinks her flashlight is reflecting off the blood, but then she notices the smooth gray membrane flicked with red streaks like veins.

            “Stiles?” she calls, approaching it. Something about it is intoxicating, inviting, welcoming. “Scott?”

            It wants her, she can feel it. It’s reaching out to her, caressing her mind, her senses. It wants her to take that leap of faith. Her hands reach out, one brushes against the membrane, and it sends a jolt of energy pulsating up her arm. She forgets about Scott. She forgets about Stiles. It’s just her, and the tree.

            She pushes through the membrane.

            As soon as she’s through, as soon as she hits solid ground - she realizes her mistake. The horror curdles in her stomach as she looks around, at the dead trees with vines hanging off, the gray sky, this black world, the goop on her clothes.

            She spots the monster at about the same time it spots her. It cocks it’s oddly human head like a bird, and lets out a bestial cry that sends chills down her spine. Lydia whips around, ready to dive back through that tree - only to find empty space behind her.

            Adrenaline pumping through her veins, she abandons all sense of logic and just sprints away away away - And she can hear it’s feet running behind her, can hear it getting closer - closer - closer -

            “LYDIA!”  it’s Stiles, his voice echoing around the trees.

            “Oh,” the thing says, and it’s voice sounds all at once like a million nightmares and something familiar. “You’re the girl.”

            She keeps running.

            “LYDIA!”  Stiles shouts again, and this time his voice is so much closer -

            “STILES!” she screams back. “STILES!”

            “LYDIA!” he shouts again, and then all at once she sees the entrance, the hollow part of tree glowing a faint red, and with no other thought, she flings herself back out of the portal and crashes into something.

            Not something she soon realizes, someone. Stiles catches her as she falls, both of them rocking back to the ground, her ontop of him.

            “The portal,” he says. “It’s closing.”

            She’s shaking too badly to look back, and instead she manages to get herself into a sitting position. Then, without thinking, without planning, she flings her arms around Stiles and pulls him into a hug. He seems startled at first, like he’s not sure what he’s supposed to be doing, but then his arms wrap hesitantly around her and he presses his face against her hair.

            “You’re okay,” he finally says. “You're okay now Lydia.”

            “Lydia? Stiles?” Scott’s panting as he jogs out from the trees. Lydia takes this as an opportunity to disentangle herself from Stiles, and stands up, wiping her palms on her jeans. “Find anything?”

Stiles ignores his question. His eyes are on Lydia when he talks. “I need to tell you something.”

***

All talk of monster hunting is suspended for the night, and Lydia goes to take a shower before Stiles can tell them his ‘burning secret’. If she’s being completely honest with herself,  she’s just scared of what he’s going to tell them. He had repeated it after saying it the first time, this time looking down at his shoes, and everything about him looked so guilty.

It’s after she towels off her hair that she notices that her hands are shaking. She frowns down, trying to make them stop, but they keep trembling like small frightened creatures. Lydia hates feeling like this. She curls her hands into fists and goes to find the boys.

They’re sitting on the couch, Scott Actual Saint McCall had made them some hot tea, and held out a mug to Lydia. Stiles has the other one, clutched in between his fingers like it’s a lifeline.

She sits down next to him, tucking her feet underneath her.

Stiles gives no preamble.

“I’m the monster.”

Lydia gapes. “What?”

“Well, not physically. I mean, I’m not it at all. Well I am. I’m tied to him and he’s tied to me,” he finally finishes. “I brought him here. That’s what Peter Hale was after. They wanted me to bring this monster over so it could be this big weapon - but I’m the only one who can communicate with it.”

“Did you send it after Allison?” Lydia asks, because she needs to.

A flash of hurt spreads across Stiles’ face, but it’s gone in the next moment. “Of course not.”

“So why did it take her?”

“I don’t know,” Stiles crosses his arms. He suddenly looks like that scared little boy in the forest, and Lydia can’t quite recall when she stopped looking at him like he was the boy in the forest, and instead something else. He takes another deep breath. “I call him the nogitsune.”

“What does he look like?”

“He looks like me,” his voice is hard, unfeeling. “Do you see what I mean? I’m the monster. He even looks like me. So that’s why I’m - “

Lydia cuts him off with another hug. She isn’t sure why she keeps giving him hugs, except that she knows that Stiles Stilinski needs more hugs than all the people in the world can give him.

“Don’t you say that,” she says. “You’re not a monster.”

Scott takes his leave not long after, but not after he also gives Stiles a hug and tells him that once this is all over, they’ll take good care of him.

She’s too jittery for sleep, so instead she dredges up an old whiteboard her Mom used to use for lesson plans and props it on the dining room table.

“What’s that?”

“I’m writing down everything we know so far,” she says, and picks up a blue dry erase marker. Stiles stops her.

“Red is for unsolved,” he decides. “Yellow is for to be determined. Green is solved, and blue is just pretty.”

“If we do that, we’re only going to have red on the board.”

He gives her a long look. “I’m aware, thank you.”

She sighs, but follows his instructions, patiently writing everything out in red -

“Wait, what is that?” Stiles squints at the sentence she’d written at the very end of the page. “Inverted forest?”

“When I went through that - that portal,” she says, fighting off a shudder, “It was like I was in the same forest, but everything was darker. Like a horror version of our world.”

Something dawns in Stiles’ eyes. “Inverted,” he says quietly. “Like the Nogitsune and I?”

She looks at him. And looks. And gasps. “We’ve been looking for Allison in this universe - but what if she’s in the other one? And the lab brought - “

“An inverted version of me, of what I can do, to life, and that’s it’s headquarters?” Stiles finishes.

“But that means we’d be talking about parallel universes which is - “

“Upside down,” Stiles finishes. “Allison’s in the Upside down.” He says it with such conviction, such certainty, Lydia has no choice but to believe him. His hands shake slightly, and even though she can’t fathom how he had kept up with her  - he had been in captivity for eleven years - she can’t help but want to trust him with this, with her life and Allison’s.

“They pulled it out of me,” he whispers, his finger tracing the word Nogitsune on the whiteboard, making the marker smear around the edges. “They put me in a tank, filled it with water, and told me to find a monster. So I did,” his voice broke. “I never wanted any of this to happen.”

He scrubs away the word, his hand jerking erratically, and Lydia seizes his fingers, holds them still.

“We’re going to destroy this beast,” she tells him. “We’re going to defeat this monster. And after that, we’re going to reunite you with your father, get you enrolled in highschool, figure out your powers - hell, we’ll even go to a school dance.”

“A school dance?” he asks. Lydia realizes they’re still holding hands, but she doesn’t pull away.

“Yeah. Usually they’re in the gym, and there’s horrible plastic decorations and fancy dresses, and awkward slow dances - the winter formal is coming up. We’ll go to that one.”

“We will?”

“Promise,” she says, linking their pinkies together.

“If the lab finds me - “

“We’ll tackle that problem when we get to it.”

***

She didn’t expect to tackle it so soon.

She wakes up the next morning to Stiles frantically shaking her awake.

“They’ve found me Lydia,” he says. “They’ve found me.”

That’s when she hears the screech of tires out front, the honking of horns. She sits bolt upright in bed, already reaching for a pair of shoes and a coat.

“Who’s found you?”

“The - the lab,” he gasps. “I can feel them getting closer.”

They don’t waste time, Lydia doesn’t brush her hair or change into actual clothes, they just sprint through the house and out the door and into her car.

“Go, go go,” Stiles murmurs. “They’re just around the corner.”

She hits the gas, peels out of the driveway, and down the street, but she isn’t fast enough. Three white vans veer around the corner. She cranks the speed, but there’s three, and one is steadily gaining, even as the speed ticks higher and higher up the speedometer in front of her.

That’s when she sees the other white van pulling out in front of her. It nearly flips onto the street, and judging by it’s speed, it’s not here to stop them, it’s here to kill them.

That’s when it flips. It doesn’t flip to the side, or flip upside down, it literally shoots up into the air, and soars over their car, and lands on one of the white vans behind her. The resounding crash shakes the quiet morning wake-up like a bomb, and Lydia uses this opportunity to get out. Stiles slumps down in the seat next to her, red trickling out of his nose.

***

            “Nobody should be here,” Lydia says as they hike up the hill. She’d left her car at the grocery store, along with almost everything. She can feel the snarls in her hair like they’re barbs, and her pajamas were surely starting to smell. But considering they’d been walking in the forest, back alleys, and god knows what else for three hours, she was pretty sure they’d lost them. “It’s a Tuesday.”

            “Why would the day of the week matter?”

            Lydia kicked over a stack of empty beer cans. They rattled against the ground hollowly, and she tried not to think about how she couldn’t save Allison if she was on the run herself.

            “This is where people come to party,” she says simply. “Nobody parties on a Tuesday.”

            Stiles doesn’t look like he understands, but he doesn’t question her authority as they cross the top of the hill and look down at the place before them.

            “We don’t know how most of these end up here,” Lydia says, looking at the cars that dot the top of the hill. There’s about ten of them. “They just sort of show up one day.”

            She makes her way towards the big yellow school bus, where Jackson used to keep bar.

            She’s a long way from that Lydia now.

            She shoves open the door and collapses on one of the seats, rubbing her ankle, which had developed one hell of a nasty blister. Stiles slumps in the seat across from her, he still looks drained from flipping the car earlier.

            “Are you okay?” she asks, and he just shakes his head, and then gets up to move to her seat, their thighs pressing together.

            “Maybe you should just turn me in,” he says, and she’s already shaking her head before she finishes his sentence.

            “Not going to happen,” she says. “Friends don’t give up on one another.”

            His eyes rise to meet her’s. “You know,” he says suddenly. “If I grew up with you, I think I’d - I’d have the biggest- “ he seems to be struggling for the word. “When you like someone, but more than like someone?”

            “Crush?” Lydia suggests, her voice a rasp in the quiet air.

            “If we grew up together, I think I’d have the biggest crush on you Lydia,” he says.

            “I wouldn’t have noticed you,” Lydia says, and seeing his deflated expression, carries on hurriedly - “But I would see you eventually. I would see you Stiles.”

            She leans forward before she knows quite what she’s doing, yet it feels like the easiest thing in the world to press her lips against his, and kiss him.

            His eyes are wide open in shock, and for a single fleeting moment she wonders if he doesn’t know what a kiss is, but instead he just kisses her back, long and slow.

            “Is that what crushes do?” he whispers.

            Before she can answer -

            “Guys! It’s me!” Scott’s voice rings across the clearing, and Lydia and Stiles guilty slide apart, neither looking at the other. Scott bounces onto the bus, holding a fast food bag. “I brought food!”

            Lydia’s stomach gives an embarrassing grumble, and Scott tosses her a burger and some fries. Despite the fact that normally she’s against intaking such greasy food, she wolfs it down anyways because priorities.

            Stiles is staring at her, and Lydia wonders if he’s going to tell Scott, because if so she was never going to hear the end of it - but instead he swallows the rest of his burger and says - “I think I know how to get into the Upside Down.”

            “The what?” Scott asks, sitting in the seat in front of Lydia. She and Stiles quickly explain what the frick it is and I hate this sentence burn it.

            “But we don’t know how to get there.”

            “I have an idea of where a big portal might be,” Stiles says. “I mean, the largest portal would have to be the one I brought it through, right?” She thinks that once they’re done here, Stiles would be a great detective or FBI agent.

            “In the lab,” Lydia says.

            “And you’re sure that this place exists?” Scott asks. “And that Allison’s there?”

            “We can’t be sure of anything anymore,” Lydia rubs her arms, suddenly feeling really cold. She’s still in her pajamas, and while they aren’t world saving clothes - she is certainly grateful that they’re comfortable.

            “But that’s the most likely place?”

            “Yes.”

            “Then let’s do it,” Scott says firmly. “Let’s get our girl back.”

***

            They decide it’s best to find a gap in the fence that’s already there, have Stiles stall the electricity long enough for them to get through, and then figure out a way into the actual building. They had stopped by the Argents house (now abandoned that Chris Argent had left town) and got Lydia some of Allison’s clothes to wear. It smells like Allison, and excitement thrills through Lydia’s veins that today - today could be the day she gets her best friend back.

            It takes them three hours to find a gap big enough to crawl through. It looks like it was made by natural forces, but the energy sparking around the fence, also with the barbed wire on top, is enough to make Lydia almost second guess herself. Almost.

            She decides to crawl through first. “Don’t fry me.”

            Stiles doesn’t even crack open an eyelid. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

            As she crawls through the gap, Stiles holding out the electricity, she thinks about how Stiles has changed in the last week. Personalities weren’t slow moving things, all they needed was one dramatic event to flip them on their heads.

            She certainly felt like a different person.

            She makes it through, and Scott’s next, and then Stiles, his eyes still closed and blood dripping from his nose onto the grass. When he stands up and opens his eyes, wiping away the blood, she notices that his eyes already seem more faraway.

            “We’re closer to the front doors than I thought,” he says. “All we need to do is grab the door when some lab people go home at night before the automatic lock kicks in.”

            The sun was already setting, and they begin to scurry towards the lab doors, darting in between the trees, trying to keep an eye out for any security cameras or workers, but so far everything’s quiet. And call Lydia paranoid, but it seems too quiet to her.

            In fact, it’s too easy. The lab personnel are too busy gabbing about some drama that they don’t notice Scott catching the door before it can shut and lock, and the three of them slipping inside. It’s so easy it puts a nervous feeling in her stomach - what’s going to go wrong?

            The corridor in front of them is white.

            That’s the first thing Lydia’s startled brain registers about the lab where Stiles had spent most of his life.

Everything was polished to perfection. The hall was long, lined with gray doors with access codes, but her mind kept going back to the white.  It was not a soft white. It was a harsh, unforgiving color that nearly blinded her eyes. It was not a place for a child to grow up in.

The hallway was empty. Lydia tells herself that it’s because it’s closing time, but it feels like a lie. Stiles looks like’s on the verge of exploding, a boy-volcano, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world to reach out and take his hand.

They take one step forward, hands still interlocked, before the alarms go off.

Peter Hale nonchalantly steps out of one of the doors, smirking.

“Wow Stiles made some friends,” he says. “Our little lab rat, all grown up.”

They had brought Scott’s Dad’s gun, but these men had large military looking rifles, all trained at Stiles. Lydia tightens her grip on his hand, fury running through her veins like blood. If she had hated Peter Hale before, she wanted to kill him now.

“I’m sorry to say that you’ve outgrown your use Stiles,” Peter Hale says. “Kill them.”

They fire. Lydia closes her eyes, her death, Scott’s death, Stiles’ death - Allison’s death flashes across her eyes, and fear mixes with adrenaline in her body. Stiles’ hand leaves her’s, and it takes Lydia too long to realize that the bullet would have hit her already. She should be dead.

She opens her eyes just in time to see Stiles (palms thrust forward, back straight) direct all the bullets into Peter Hale’s body. He’s screaming, blood streaming from his nose and - Lydia sees - his ears, tears pouring down his face as he kills the man who had kept him imprisoned for so long. They all hit his body and Peter is dead before he hits the floor, a gruesome mess.

Stiles glares at the guards. He looks truly terrifying, blood smeared across his face, his eyes cold - “Run,” he snarls, and the guards, their guns looking like toy weapons in their hands now (and Lydia can hear Stiles saying I’m the monster on repeat inside her head) turn and do as they’re told, even though they’re ten to one.

It seems to them that they see that they can’t win.

“Stiles?” Scott asks, his eyes trained on Peter Hale’s body.

“Let’s go,” Stiles says, wiping his face clean. “I think I have an idea of where the portal might be.”

“And where’s that?”

He points to the door Peter just came through. “I can feel it.”

They go through the door. Stiles leads the way like some sort of supernatural compass, through doors that Lydia misses at first glance, down halls, through complicated turns and twists, but he’s directed. He’s focused. And he’s angry. Seeing Peter Hale had done something to him, lit a fire in his veins and now he was burning.

Then, they reach two doors marked HAZARD, and Stiles just - pushes them open.

They’re in an enclosed glass shell, the rest of the room around them -

Lydia gasps. Ahead of them, through the glass, a vicious black something oozes from the wall, shot through with streaks of red that look like veins. Just like the tree.

“That’s it,” she says. “That’s the portal.”

Scott points to a line of HAZMAT suits on the wall. “Let’s put those on before we go in,” he says, and Lydia nods.

Even with the suits on, it feels unsafe. It throbs on the wall in a pulsating, sick motion, and her heart speeds up. She was actually going into the portal. She was actually going to do this. She was going to find Allison.

Stiles still looked like a flare, his eyes bright, as he shoves open the door to the rest of the room with little care, and crosses over to the portal. They stand there for a minute, the three of them, gazing up at this immense blackness. Lydia takes Stiles’ hand in one, and Scott’s in the other.

“On three,” she says, her breath coming in spastic little shorts now. “One - two - three.”

They step into the dark.

She has a moment of flashing white, of being pulled, of being stretched - before she stumbles out onto a street. Stiles trips, and Scott swears. Her eyes frantically try to adjust to this new, dark world.

They’re on main street. Except not, because main street is always loud, filled with traffic, and bright. This is the inverted reality. No cars, vines clawing at the buildings like fingers, the windows dark. It’s a ghost town.

Scott swears again. Stiles looks at him, and then tries out the word for himself. Lydia stays quiet.

“Where would she be?” she asks quietly. “This is the whole town.”

“If Allison was hiding,” Scott says - “Wouldn’t she be somewhere that means something to her?”

Lydia pauses. “She wouldn’t be at her house, the monster is connected to Stiles - what if he knew? So…” she trails off.

“The graveyard,” she and Scott say at the same time.

“Morbid, but okay,” Stiles says. “Why there?”

“Something we never told you about Allison,” Lydia says. “So if the monster can somehow sense you, what you know, you’d never know that her mother died. She committed suicide a couple years back, and Allison visits her grave every Sunday.”

“Graveyard it is,” Stiles says. “But if we’re scared it can read my thoughts - why did you just tell me?”

“Because,” Lydia says. “It’s going to be coming for us anyways.”

“Then let’s run,” Scott says. “And then let’s get the hell out of here.”

***

They reach the graveyard in ten minutes, and Lydia feels like her lungs are about to explode. She was in shape okay, but sprinting along two long legged - actually Scott is the only one that looks fit. Stiles is doubled over, gasping for air and retching - and she hopes just for him that he doesn’t throw up in his suit. It would be unpleasant to say the least.

“Allison?” Scott asks, weaving in between the graves. “Allison?”

“Allison, it’s us! It’s Lydia!” Lydia says, her voice not too high but not too low. “If you’re here, please come out.”

“She’s hiding,” Stiles whispers. “Say something only you know to get her to come out.”

Lydia sighs through her nose - but surprisingly Scott answers.

“Ally, if you’re hiding because you think we’re the monster - do you remember, after the dance, how we snuck into one of the school buses? And we didn’t make out, we didn’t kiss or anything. We just talked. And you told me that you were really just scared of turning into your Mother, and that your Dad kept looking at you like a ticking time bomb and - “

Stiles is looking at Scott with a wistful kind of look, and Lydia doesn’t know why she kissed him or what it meant, but she decides that she wants to take Stiles a dance one day.

“Scott?” it’s Allison’s voice. Lydia feels tears welling in her eyes, her best friend’s voice so familiar, so lost.

“It’s us Ally,” she sobs.

Allison drops out of a tree above her Mother’s grave. She looks thin, undernourished, her hair is in ratty tangle and she looks exhausted, but Scott looks at her like she’s holding the sun. They rush forward, and Scott sweeps her into his arms and spins her around.

“You found me,” she gasps. “You actually found me.”

When Scott finally releases her, Lydia throws herself at her best friend. “Oh god, I missed you so much.” Having Allison in her arms, anything seems possible. She could return her to her father, take Stiles to a dance, buy Scott a new bike - anything.

“I hate to pop your bubble,” Stiles says, and Lydia turns to look at him. He has one hand braced against his hazmat suit, as if he’s trying to block something out, his eyes squeezed shut. “But I think he just found out where we are.”

As soon as his words finish, a loud, inhuman cry screeches, echoing around the silent town.

Scott doesn’t even think twice as he grabs Allison and tosses her over his shoulder and starts sprinting towards main street. Lydia’s grateful. Allison hadn’t looked strong enough to run. Stiles reaches out and takes her hand, yanking her along. She clutches to his fingers like a lifeline, their arms swinging between them. She couldn’t imagine being separated right now. It was an unfathomable nightmare.

The monster lets out another screech, just as they turn onto main street. She’s running faster than she’s ever run before as she throws herself into the portal, Stiles jumping with her.

The lab isn’t quiet anymore. Alarms are blaring, sirens are shrieking in the distance, and the portal is pulsating faster now.

“WE HAVE TO CLOSE IT!” Lydia screams as they flee the room, Allison still nestled in Scott’s arms. “WE HAVE TO CLOSE THE PORTAL!”

            “HOW?” Scott hollers.

            Lydia has no answer. There’s a set of doors ahead of them, maybe they could bar them somehow? Scott hits the doors before them, but just crashes into them and ricochets back. Lydia shoves at them, but they won’t budge.

            “They’ve sealed the doors,” she whispers in horror. Her words are accompanied with a crash, and they all whirl around. Scott sets Allison down. The monster is standing in the doorway, and Lydia gasps.

            It has Stiles’ face, and his form, but it has two monstrous black wings that have sprouted out of it’s back, and it’s mouth is crusted with blood. It’s eyes are two black circles in his face, cold, soulless hollows. It’s a monster.

            “Hello Stiles,” it says in a voice that’s Stiles but also isn’t Stiles, because this voice is cold and has no feeling, no warmth, no curiosity. “So nice to see you again.”

            Stiles looks at her, looks at Scott, looks at Allison. For a second he hesitates, his hand on the sealed door like he wants to shove it open, wants to escape, but he turns away. The lab has done what they could do keep him in. He straightens, standing tall - and Lydia realizes what he’s about to do before Scott.

            “Stiles - “ she lunges forward as he takes a step forward, snatching at his wrist, but he merely flicks a hand backwards. Lydia flies backwards and hits the doors, her head smacking against the metal.

            “You’re not going to hurt anymore people,” Stiles says. “We’re not going to hurt anymore people.”

            Scott realizes too, but Stiles slams him back too. Lydia tries to move, but it’s like her body is stuck, as Stiles walks forward slowly, one hand extended backwards to keep Lydia, Scott, and now Allison at bay.

            “And who’s going to stop me?” the monster snarls. “You? You’ve always been too scared Stiles. You could have killed me the moment I came into existence, and you didn’t. You know why?”

            “Because I was afraid,” Stiles says. “But I’m not afraid anymore. I’m not.”

            The monster takes a step forward, but Stiles thrusts out his other hand, and it slams back against the wall.

            “Then do it, kill me,” it snarls. “But you know the price you’ll pay.”

            “STILES!” she screams. “STILES! We can find another way!”

            “Thank you for showing me the world,” Stiles whispers. “I would have liked learning how to have a crush with you. Goodbye Lydia.”

            She’s screaming even more loudly now, as Stiles advances, and then, releasing she, Scott and Allison, he thrusts both his palms at the monster and screams. It’s a scream that swirls with all the unanswered questions she has - what did they do to you? Where did your powers come from? Why did you find me? Why why why?  The monster screams too, frightened for the first time, and piece by piece, they both break apart into dust, swirling up towards the fluorescent lights in the ceiling and out of existence.

***

            Her hands shake.

            “Allison’s going to make it,” the Sheriff says. “She’s running a little low on nutrients, but she’ll be just fine. Can you tell me anything else? About this boy that helped you escaped? We didn’t find a body.”

            She looks into the Sheriff’s eyes. She could tell him. She could tell him about his son. But she finds that she doesn’t want to reopen this wound that’s been scarred over. She doesn’t want him to lose a son all over again.

            “It just - it just happened so fast,” she whispers. Everything did. She knows that he should've gotten his happy ending, that was what was supposed to happen to heroes, right? So where was he? Where was he?