Chapter Text
The rest of the night is mostly a blur for her. Between Deaton and Melissa checking on her and making sure she was okay, her mom hovering guiltily by her side and the Sheriff urging both Scott and Stiles to go home and get some rest, she really didn’t get to talk to them. To thank them.
But now that she’s at home, finally clean and in her bed, there’s one thing she can’t stop thinking about: the look on Stiles’ face when she opened her eyes back at the clinic. There was a fear there that felt so-- familiar. She can’t quite explain it. And as exhausted as she is -- mentally and physically -- she pushes herself up from the bed slowly and over to her vanity where her phone is still charging.
With a deep breath, she sits down and for a long moment, she stares at the screen. Hesitating. She’s never hesitated before sending Stiles a text before. But right now, it feels-- different. She can’t help the soft smile that appears on her face as she reads the last few texts he sent her.
Lydia. I’m serious. CALL ME BACK.
Goddammit, Lydia! Would it kill you to pick up your phone just once?
Seriously why does anyone in this pack bother having a cellphone at all?
LYDIA?
L
Y
D
I
A
CALL ME!
All unanswered, of course. But she can hear his voice in her head, his frustration and worry increasing message after message. That same worry she saw on his face earlier in the clinic…
And that thought is enough to make her smile slip and her eyes tear up a little. It takes another deep breath from her before she adjusts the phone in her hands and finally types the message.
I guess my reply is a little delayed. I just wanted to thank you. I’m home and I’m okay. :)
It hardly feels like enough. Like what she wants to tell him. She suddenly wants nothing more than to talk to him and make sure he is okay. She wants to ask him everything she missed while she was in there. She wants to tell him everything she learned. And she wants him to know how much it means to her, everything he did to save her life.
But-- it’s three in the morning and hopefully he listened to the Sheriff and he’s actually home getting some rest. So Lydia wipes away the tears that are threatening to spill from her eyes, sighs softly and finally presses send.
The response is almost immediate.
Why are you awake? You should be resting. Are you sure you’re okay?
She jumps when the phone vibrates over the table, arching her eyebrows a little as she picks it up and cocks her head.
Just haven’t been able to fall asleep yet.
But she’s only been home for about an hour and she still had to shower and that was a long process, especially washing her hair, which begs the question:
Why aren’t you sleeping? You must be exhausted.
This time there’s a short pause before he responds. I’m outside in your driveway.
Her eyes widen when she sees that text message. Lydia stands up slowly, phone in hand, and makes her way over to her window. Sure enough, there’s the jeep, and there’s a Stiles sitting inside of it. For a second, she just stares at him, a soft smile appearing on her lips as she shakes her head. Then the turns her attention back to her phone.
Well, are you planning on coming inside?
Stiles climbs out of the driver’s side of the jeep and looks up at her window when he sees her standing there. He lifts his hand in a slight wave, a relieved smile pulling at his mouth. He slides his phone into his jeans pocket and slowly heads toward the front door, waiting for her to come down, starting when it opens much sooner than it anticipated, considering she’s still not moving that fast.
He grows still when he sees Natalie Martin standing in front of him. “Uhhh.”
“I was wondering if you were just planning on sitting out there all night,” she tells him, holding the door open halfway.
He doesn’t exactly know what to say because he hadn’t really been prepared to see Lydia’s mom. “I was thinking about it?” He doesn’t step any closer to the door. The last two times he’s gone to see Lydia, she’s thrown him out. He knows things may be different now since she seems to be in on things, and she knows that they’d gone in to break Lydia out of Eichen, but that doesn’t mean she’ll be thrilled to see him again so soon. She probably wants him to stay as far away as physically possible considering how much trouble Lydia keeps getting into because of all the supernatural drama.
And because he’s a big part of the reason she’d been dragged into it to begin with. “I’ll go.”
“Stiles.” Natalie calls out to him, opening the door and stepping aside to make room for him to come into the house.
Stiles hesitates for a second, then nods and steps into the house, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. “I know it’s late. Early. Whichever.” But he hadn’t been ready to let Lydia out of his sight yet. Not after everything. Not after how close she’d been to dying so many different times tonight.
“I was gonna say you could wait here until she wakes up, but--” she glances upstairs when the floor creaks. “Don’t come downstairs, sweetheart. I’ve got the door!”
His gaze shoots toward the stairs when he hears the floor creak, too, and he takes a step toward them almost unconsciously, then stops again. “She texted me. I wouldn’t have -- come up otherwise.”
Natalie takes a deep breath as she focuses on Stiles, her voice a little softer than before. “Looks like it’s impossible to try and keep the two of you apart.”
Stiles looks down at that, for a moment. Then he takes a deep breath of his own and draws back his shoulders, fixing her with an intent look. “If she wants me to leave her alone, I’ll make myself scarce.” He shakes his head. “I realize you don’t like me, and I get it. I wouldn’t ever do anything to intentionally hurt her. Not…her.”
“I trust my daughter’s ability to kick you out if she doesn’t want you here, Stiles,” she says, tone drier once again. And then her expression changes as she takes a deep breath, posture a little less strict, shoulders down.
“What I was going to say is-- I’m sorry I didn’t listen when you were trying to help her before.” There’s a weight of guilt in her voice that she can’t really hold back. “I’m glad Lydia has friends that care about her as much as you do.”
The first part of her words almost gets a smile out of him. But not quite. Part of him wants to lash out at her because he’s not a forgiving kind of person, and as far as he’s concerned she had a pretty big role in all the injuries and trauma Lydia’s gone through. He also thinks she’s already aware of that and making her feel worse won’t make him feel any better. So he just nods, falling silent for a moment.
“And I get why you didn’t want me -- any of us -- around her.” He does. He’s pretty sure he wouldn’t want a version of him around his kid either. “The stuff in Beacon Hills is dangerous. But I’m -- I’m always going to try and keep her safe. I promise.”
“I won’t stand in your way next time.” Her tone is still thick with guilt, but sincere as she nods toward the stairs again. “Go, before she tries to come down after you.”
He nods, rubbing the back of his neck and moving toward the stairs. He definitely doesn’t want Lydia to try coming down the stairs in her condition. “You should talk to my dad and Melissa McCall. And uh -- Chris Argent. Maybe some kind of supernatural catch-up pow-wow for the parents.” He tries to smile but then turns and heads up the steps, taking them two at a time.
Lydia is actually right there, sitting on the top step of the stairs. A soft smile appears on her lips when she sees Stiles rushing his way up. Most of the time, she can’t help but wonder how he manages to look both graceful and like he’s about to fall on his face at the same time. With a deep breath, she pushes herself up on her feet. Slowly, but definitely steady.
He gets there in time to help her finish standing, an arm slipping easily around her waist, encouraging her to lean into him for support. “Hi,” he greets her, this time actually managing a smile even though his eyes are full of ever-present worry over her condition.
“Hey,” she says quietly, her smile widening a little as she cocks her head to look at him better. “Glad she let you stay this time,” she adds quietly as she starts toward her room.
That gives him pause and his eyes widen a little before he follows her. “Wait, you remember that?” He hadn’t thought she was conscious enough to really know what was happening around her either time. He follows her into her bedroom without a second thought, like he belongs there.
“Not vividly?” Once they step into the bedroom, she starts toward her bed. “Can you get the door? Anyway, I remember you coming into my room and I remember looking at you, but I couldn’t understand what you were saying.”
She sits down on her bed, looking over at him even as she does. “And Eichen-- it was kinda like an out of body experience.”
He closes the bedroom door behind him quietly and watches as she sits down. He moves to sit down in the chair beside her, nodding. “I couldn’t tell at Eichen if you knew I was there or not,” he admits quietly.
“It was like--” she purses her lips together, considering her words. It’s not exactly something easy to explain, especially not without sounding like she does belong in Eichen. Lucky for her though, she doesn’t have to worry about Stiles thinking that of her. “Some days, when you came, I was right there with you, standing behind you, watching you talk to me. And some days I could just hear your voice from a distance while I was training with Meredith.”
He doesn’t think she’s crazy. Not after everything they’ve been through together. Not after everything she went through there in general. “I uh -- I kinda get that, actually. It was like that for me with the nogitsune.” His voice is quiet and he drops his gaze for a moment.
“Oh. I didn’t realize it was like watching from the outside.” She assumed at the time that it was like being trapped in his own mind. But then again, that’s not so different than what happened to her. The main difference is that there wasn’t anyone else controlling her actual body. “I’m sorry, Stiles. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”
“No, it’s fine,” he says immediately, shaking his head and looking up at her again. “You should talk about it. I want you to. I mean if you want to.”
“There’s not much more to say, I guess? Meredith helped me find control and-- I don’t know where she is, Stiles.” And now she’s more than a little worried about the other banshee.
“She’s okay. Scott and Liam saw her in there. She helped us find you. Well, she helped Scott find you by telling him to find Parrish, who...burned through the mountain ash ward and that’s how he found us down there.” Just in time, in fact.
Lydia sighs softly and nods, making a mental note to check in on Meredith as soon as she can move a little faster. Even if she’s not looking forward to going back there. At all. “Is everyone else okay? Kira? Malia?”
“Everyone’s okay,” he assures her, reaching out and taking her hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze. He doesn’t know the details of what happened with Malia and Kira, or even the full story on what went on with Scott and Liam, but at the end of the day they were all still standing. The details can wait. All he cares about is they all made it out, and Lydia’s safe again.
Her face brightens again as soon as he reaches for her hand. Lydia wraps her fingers around his, looking at their hands for a second. “And your brilliant plan for the rest of the evening was to sit in your car outside and get no rest whatsoever?”
“It always looks better on paper than in reality,” he admits with a tiny smile and a shrug. Things never go according to plan. Ever. It’s why they always had a Plan B. Sometimes they get lucky and Plan Be actually works, like it had tonight. He drops his gaze to their hands, too. “I guess I wasn’t really ready to...be away from you yet.”
Lydia holds her breath at that, lifting her eyes from their hands to his face, her heart skipping a beat as she nods slightly. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Stiles meets her eyes, his chest tightening at the memory of how she’d been so still at the clinic. How for one horrible moment, he’d thought he was going to have to figure out a way to live in a world without Lydia Martin in it. He rises to his feet and moves to sit beside her instead, wrapping his arms around her and closing his eyes. “I missed you,” he whispers.
She doesn’t question it for a second. As soon as he comes closer, when he sits next to her and wraps his arms around her, she doesn’t hesitate before wrapping her arms around him, too. Lydia leans against his chest, closing her eyes when they start tearing up. She has lost count how many times she felt their deaths in the past few days. Their names gone from the library. The overwhelming screams in her head. The blood in his ear. It was so close. And the threat is still not gone. But for now, he’s there. And they’re all safe. And she’s grateful that he’s okay.
“I missed you too,” she whispers quietly, shifting a little closer to him and taking a deep, shaky breath. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
He nods against her, tightening his arms around her just a bit, protectively and resting his chin atop her head. It feels like it’s been forever since the last time he’s hugged her and now he doesn’t really want to let go. He’s afraid that if he does, he’ll wake up and this will all have been a dream. That she’ll still be trapped in Eichen House, or worse yet, that last scream would have been a signal of her own death.
“I’m glad you’re okay, too.” His voice is a little strained now. “Lydia, if you hadn’t been…” He swallows heavily. “I don’t think I could do this without you.”
“Stiles…” her eyes tear up more and she pulls her head back to look at him. “I felt your death coming so many times since you got there.” She sniffs quietly, shaking her head, her eyes wide, pleading. “You can’t just-- throw yourself at danger like that anymore.”
Stiles meets her eyes and doesn’t think about it before lifting a hand to her cheek. “I wasn’t gonna leave you there. I couldn’t. Neither was anyone else.”
“I know,” she whispers quietly, leaning into his touch. Her chest and stomach tight as she looks back at him, holding his gaze for a moment as she hesitates before forcing herself to tell him the truth. Because-- what if she doesn’t get to tell him later? “But I can’t do this without you either.”
His eyes brighten just a little at that and he takes a breath, exhaling slowly and brushing his thumb gently over her skin. “Well, we do make a pretty great team.”
Lydia smiles softly at him and nods as she reaches up to cup his hand, her eyes still on him. “You do need some help with your plans.”
His lips curve up into a smile. “Yes, I do. Definitely. Always.” He hesitantly leans in and presses a kiss to her forehead. “I should let you rest.”
Lydia holds her breath and tenses immediately at his words. And her own words roll out of her lips before she can stop herself. “Can you stay here? With me?” The idea of being on her own is terrifying all of the sudden and as hard as her mom has been trying since they got home, she just doesn’t get it. Not many people would. Not the way Stiles does.
“I wasn’t really...planning to leave,” he admits. “Even if it meant camping out in my jeep the rest of the night. Is that weird?” It’s probably a little weird, but...Lydia knows him. She knows he’s weird. She accepts it.
“Probably?” She smiles a little, but it’s still tense. “I’d prefer if you stayed where you are.” On her bed. Which is probably more than a little weird too.
He wants to ease that tension that’s crept into her expression. “I’d prefer that, too.” He glances toward the door, then rises to his feet, taking his shoes off. “What about your mom? Will she kick me out?”
“I won’t let her,” she promises quietly, watching him closely. She’s not quite relaxed yet, but she does manage to take a deep breath. “Besides. She told you she wouldn’t.”
Stiles pauses at that, glancing at her before he carefully sits down again. “How much of that did you hear?”
Lydia takes another deep breath and shifts on the bed, pulling the covers down so she can lean more comfortably against the pillows. “I was at the top of the stairs when she told me to stay upstairs, so it was kinda hard to miss?”
She purses her lips together and shakes her head. “It’s really hard on her, Stiles. She means well. But she doesn’t know how to deal with things she doesn’t understand and she can’t control. And-- to think a bunch of kids know what’s better for her daughter than she does? I’m kinda proud of her for actually managing to apologize to you.”
“I know. I get it. My dad was the same way.” His voice is quiet. “He was freaked out, and in denial and I think for about thirty seconds he thought he could keep me out of all the supernatural stuff but then he remembered my best friend is a werewolf and...well, to be honest half the time he likes Scott more than me, so.” He offers her a lopsided smile. “Obviously that wasn’t going to work out too well.”
“Definitely not,” she agrees quietly, reaching for his hand once he’s settled on the bed again. There’s something incredibly relaxing about being able to hold his hand and be reminded that he’s really there. “Maybe he can talk to her and help her understand. But she might need a few more days to work through things on her own.”
“Yeah. She and my dad and Melissa and Argent should talk. Start a club or something.” He looks down at their hands, and turns his, linking their fingers together. “She’ll work through it. They all do. And maybe...it’ll make you guys closer.”
“Yeah. I think that’ll help,” she tells him quietly, glancing down at their hands too and taking a deep breath, this time, she manages to let it out evenly, calmly as she relaxes again. “Thank you for staying.”
If it was truly up to him, he’d never leave her side again. He offers her a soft smile and squeezes her hand, glancing at the pillows and then back at her. “Should we get more comfortable?” He knows she needs her rest so she can heal. Unlike werewolves, or kitsunes or werecoyotes, banshee’s don’t have any fast healing powers. He wishes like hell they did.
“Yeah.” She smiles over at him and lets go of her hand so she can adjust the pillows. And then she pauses and focuses on him again. “Do you need anything?” Because she’s still Lydia Martin, after all. And she’s a good hostess. Even if it means telling him where to find whatever he needs because it’ll probably be five times faster.
“I’m good,” he tells her, hesitating a second before crawling over to the other side of the bed so he can lie down beside her. “Do you need anything? Can I get you something? Water or pain pills or anything?”
“I’m good,” she echoes, watching as he gets into bed for a second before sliding down herself and laying on her side so that she’s both facing him and so that the side of her head that is hurt isn’t pressed against the pillow. “Melissa said she’d come by in the morning to check on me.”
“That’s good,” he answers, shifting so he’s on his side facing her, too. He searches her eyes, then moves a little closer to her, reaching down and tugging the blankets up and over them. “She’s a good one to have around when you don’t feel well. Or when you fall out of a tree and break your arm.” He smiles a bit.
She smiles a little more and nods, shifting a little closer to him. “Yeah, I’m sure that has happened to you a lot over the years. A lot.” Because she can’t help but think back to when she was watching him climb the stairs. Graceful and about to fall on his face.
He narrows his eyes a little at that, but then smirks and shrugs. “I only broke my arm the one time for your information.”
“When was that? Sixth grade?” she asks quietly, arching her eyebrows with a soft smile on her lips as she watches him closely. “I just vaguely remember how big that cast looked on you.”
Stiles smiles. “Yeah, sixth. It was bright orange and I cried when they cut it off because this girl I liked signed it and I wanted to keep it.”
“Really?” Her face softens as she watches him. Most people wouldn’t know how sweet Stiles can be underneath all the sarcasm. “Who was it?”
He prefers most people have no clue about that. She’s the exception. She’s always been the exception. He arches his eyebrows at her a little. “You.”
She pauses at that, her smile slipping a little as she looks at him, but not completely. Yes, he had a crush on her once upon a time, but he’s Stiles now. Everything is different. She cares about him pretty much more than she cares about anyone else right now. He’s the person who saved her life more times than she can count in the past twenty four hours. It’s a little jarring to think she meant something to him so long before she actually noticed him. And now he means so much to her.
Her eyes tear up a little and she takes a deep breath as she lifts her arm, showing him her hospital bracelet. “I’d have you sign it for me, but I don’t wanna cry in front of people when they cut it out.”
His expression softens at her words and he holds his breath for a moment, reaching out and taking her hand in his, bringing it to his lips and kissing her knuckles softly. “Yeah, well, I definitely don’t ever want to be the reason Lydia Martin cries,” he whispers. “No matter how beautiful she looks when she cries.”
Lydia brushes her fingers over his hand gently, watching him with a soft smile on her lips. “Crying isn’t always bad, Stiles.” Right now, the tears in her eyes are mostly of overwhelming relief that they’re both there.
“I know.” His mom had taught him that at an early age. It’s why he doesn’t tend to feel like he has to hold back his own tears when they come.
“Let’s get some rest, okay?” she whispers quietly to him, then nods at the light on his side of the bed. “Can you get that?”
Stiles nods, giving her hand a squeeze before shifting in the bed and turning over just enough to shut the lamp off. Then he turns back toward her once more, intertwining their fingers again. “Night, Lydia,” he whispers.
“Night, Stiles,” she whispers back, pulling his hand closer and pressing a soft kiss to the back of it before sighing deeply and closing her eyes.
* * *
It’s just past ten in the morning when Melissa knocks on the door of the Martin residence. Her shift at the hospital doesn’t start for another couple of hours but she wanted to stop by with plenty of time because-- you never know what kind of symptoms will show up when it comes to the supernatural.
And no. She didn’t miss the very familiar blue jeep parked in the driveway.
Natalie answers the door a few moments later, already dressed for the day, even if she is looking a little more tired than usual. “Hello, Melissa. Please, come in.” She steps aside to let her in the house.
“Hi, Natalie.” She smiles at the other woman and nods at her as she steps inside with her bag. At the very least, she’ll change the bandages. “I see I’m not the first one here. Any surprises?” She hates surprises at this point.
“No, thankfully not. I just checked on her a few minutes ago.” She purses her lips. “They’re both sleeping still.” As in Stiles had spent the night in her daughter’s room, in her daughter’s bed, and somehow she couldn’t find the nerve to be upset about it. Not after everything last night.
“Ah-ham,” Melissa says, nodding carefully as she watches Natalie’s reaction to that information. “And how are you doing with everything?”
She offers Melissa a wan smile. “I’m considering becoming a functional alcoholic,” she responds, mostly joking. Mostly.
“We do alcohol Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and recreational drugs on the weekends, you’re welcome to join us,” Melissa jokes back with a smile.
Natalie chuckles softly at that and motions to the kitchen. “Can I interest you in a plain old cup of coffee for now? Give her a little more time to sleep? If you have the time of course.”
“I never say no to coffee,” Melissa tells her, following her into the kitchen. “And I don’t have to be at the hospital until noon, so we can let the kids sleep for a while longer.”
“Good. I have a feeling they both need it.” She smiles faintly and moves to the coffee pot.
“I don’t know how these kids do it,” Melissa says honestly, shaking her head with a soft sigh. “All this insanity and this responsibility. But they manage somehow. They’re good kids, Natalie. And they’re good together. All of them.”
She pauses at that, smiles faintly as she pours two cups of coffee. “Yes. I’m starting to see that.”
Melissa smiles back at her and nods a little. “Doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to be grounded sometimes, though. Especially the boys.”
“Well, right now I’m leaning more toward giving them some kind of outstanding citizen awards,” she admits. “I don’t think Lydia would have survived another night in that place.”
Melissa sighs deeply at that and shakes her head. “I try not to think about all of the close calls. I’ve seen Scott dead twice already. I never want to go through that again.”
Natalie looks startled at that, eyes widening. “How do you go through it at all?”
“I don’t know. I try not to ask too many questions. I let them help me and tell me what I need to know to help them. I trust them, I have to.” She sighs deeply and shakes her head. “There are things we’ll never understand, so we have to look to them and do our best when they need us.”
She sighs softly, nodding and handing Melissa one of the cups of coffee before picking up her own. “I feel like I’ve just woken up in the middle of some kind of horror movie and I don’t understand the plot.”
“Thank you,” Melissa says as she takes the cup from her. “My advice? Don’t try to understand it all at once. Talk to Lydia, talk to us. Understand what she is, understand what’s happening right now. Little by little, you’ll put the big pieces together. But leave the details to the kids. They’ll ask for help when they need it.”
It sounds like good advice, even if she knows it’s going to be a struggle. She’s silent for a moment, and then she looks over at the other woman. “And Stiles. He’s someone I can trust with her, isn’t he?” Her voice grows more quiet.
Melissa visibly relaxes at the change of topic and smiles. “When Stiles was eight years old, he came over to the house and showed me a Valentine’s Day card he had made for the smartest girl in school. It was the first time I heard the boys talking about girls. And it was the first time I heard about Lydia. He never stopped talking about her since. He’s always cared about her, one way or another. And Stiles, for all his sarcasm and attitude, he’s a good kid.”
Natalie relaxes at her words, a soft smile touching her mouth as she glances past her toward the stairs. Somehow she’s not entirely surprised that the friendship is more than that. “He does treat her very well,” she murmurs thoughtfully.
“I don’t think there’s anything Stiles wouldn’t do for Lydia,” Melissa adds sincerely.