Thanks to Christine and Bella for beta duties, and sucking me into Teen Wolf in the first place.
Spoilers through the end of Season 3. I don't own anything except the words; Jeff Davis & MTV own the characters, and their convoluted and occasionally horrifying backstories.
Between the Fires
by Christina K
Here is something no one knows: banshees are born of blood.
Blood from the mother, blood from the father; somewhere, generations and generations back in Lydia Martin's family, people on each side of her genetic inheritance made promises they intended to keep. To protect their clans. To protect their family. To listen for danger. To warn others of death.
Here is something everyone knows: Allison Argent is dead. Bringing back the dead is a very bad idea.
Lydia is still considering it.
Stiles is watching her today, as he's taken to doing lately: from the other end and other side of a lunch table, in small glances when he's certain she's not watching. She isn't, but she knows he's doing it anyway. Half their lives he did this because of a crush. This isn't the same. This isn't even the curious and exasperated look that would have been his expression at different points over the last year. (What are you? Why are you different? Why can't you mojo out a solution on demand?) This is concern. And grief. And suspicion.
He's been giving her space since the nogitsune kidnapped her, worried about reminding her accidentally about the worst parts of being taken by his double. He shouldn't be. Lydia could tell the difference in everything other than their faces – voice and breath and scent and movement and expression and really, how did no one else figure it out any faster? But she isn't telling him it's okay yet. It gives her time to figure out what to do next, and Stiles is the only one who might realize what that is, or try to stop her.
Scott's torn between grief and guilt and trying to help the others. Sweet as he is, and even knowing she's hurting, Lydia is far down his list of problems. Isaac's overwhelmed and broken and planning to leave soon. Kira barely knows them, barely knew Allison at all, for all that she's sad about her. She's more often starry-eyed and distracted when she looks at Scott. Derek won't think of doing anything about Allison, because Derek does not have that kind of imagination.
Ethan is grieving his brother. She is too, but it is a distant, definite thing. She thinks she is getting used to boys she cares about (or loves) leaving her. They were never going to be forever. If she learns this lesson in life earlier than her Mom? Maybe she'll be better off. It's not fair to Aiden. But it is what it is.
She missed Erica and Boyd too, even if they weren't that close. She can't do for him what she couldn't do for them.
No one else knows enough to look searchingly at her, and wonder why she's so calm.
(If Allison were here, she would know. She would know Lydia was up to something. She would smile and wait and tease and watch and she'd get it out of her, eventually. And she'd help Lydia. She always did, when it was important.)
Lydia returns Stiles' look finally, mild and unthreatening. Not even a defensive glare of What?
He frowns, nibbling on his apple, unsure of what he's guessing.
Lydia rolls her eyes the way she has a thousand times, and goes back to eating her lunch.
A banshee's ancestors met with magic; not just Celtic, despite the name. Maybe fae, maybe god-touch, maybe something deeper, like stars and hearts and sacrifice before there was any human writing. They sealed their promises with blood and love and sex and death.
Blood thins, promises fail, legends die. There's nothing in most of those descendants to give anyone a clue about the changes made within those families. Average people, loving as they are, don't always become more than everyday heroes. They protect themselves, the ones they love. They don't look out into the darkness and see the shadows coming for everyone else while they're safe in their own homes.
Deaton is useful. Occasionally. When he's not being cryptic.
"I won't tell you that."
Or just completely stubborn.
"Why not?" Lydia has already marshaled her arguments for this, as well as her nerve. "I have a right to know. If this is something I can do, I need to know how."
"Bringing back Allison Argent wouldn't be like bringing back Peter Hale." Deaton seems completely sure of that. Even if he's full of shit. Lydia would admire his certainty, but it's keeping her from what she needs. "He prepared for the possibility before he was killed. And he was a werewolf. Neither is the case for your friend."
There's a scream at the back of her throat, but it's not the kind that will do anything but convince Deaton that she's a child.
"She deserves it more than he does. It's been less than a week, not months like it was for him." She is not giving up on this. "If you know how, then it can be done. And there has to be a reason for that."
The look Deaton gives her is full of pity and it makes her want to slap him, hard, nails out to scratch. "Not good reasons. Or kind reasons. For punishment, yes. Or to enact justice. It is not a favor to the dead. Your friend deserves peace."
"My best friend was eighteen and she died because nogitsune are evil manipulative asshats," Lydia says, every word precise. "And because she was a hero. Don't tell me people haven't brought heroes back."
"Those stories never end well," Deaton says, grim.
Lydia tosses her head, fed up and already planning ways to break into his office. "I'm the one telling this story."
Sometimes, something wakes up in the blood. Two people fall in love, create a child, fall out of love; and streams of memory run together, trickling back to lie dormant in a pool of potential, until magic and death and sex and love kindle it back into a bonfire.
Chris Argent is packing up Allison's things. Shoes, purses, books. Make-up and other overly personal items were already gone into the trash. Pieces of Allison disappearing every time Lydia looks away.
Her bow is still out on one table, and Lydia wonders what she'd hear if she strung it, and plucked the string.
"Lydia." Mr. Argent is – different. Not broken, but. Slumped. Wounded, like someone cut out whatever held him upright. Gutted, yes, the way he wasn't even after Allison's mom died. The way Allison had been, for a while. If Lydia thinks about all Allison's dad has lost over the last couple years, she'll puke. So she doesn't. "Come in."
The why are you here? is unspoken but still there, underneath. She'd been here earlier this week, helped pick out the dress for Allison's funeral, eyes streaming, silent. He'd given her one of Allison's knives, let her take one of her books as a keepsake.
(I tried to tell them not to save me, she'd told him after the service. I didn't want her there.
He'd closed his eyes, and hadn't said anything.
Lydia heard it, somehow, anyway, echoing between them: I did this. )
Lydia knows that if she breaks down and cries in front of him, lets her breathing catch like it wants to, he'll give her anything to make it stop. But she wants to be a better person than that, and she won't tell Allison that she crushed her father with grief as a way to bring her back.
"I need to borrow something. Of Allison's." She doesn't smile. "I promise I'll bring it back."
Peter is laughing. Laughing at her when he opens the door, while she points Allison's cattle-prod at him.
It is really viciously satisfying to use it on him. Her hands are still shaking as she kicks the door closed behind her, and waits for the twitching to stop.
"You're going to tell me how to resurrect Allison."
He stares up at her from the floor, trying to get his breath back, and his smile widens in lazy amusement.
"I don't know how."
"Wrong answer." And buzz-stiiiing! as the cattle-prod does its job again.
She takes a step away, patient, as Peter groans and rolls over on his side. When his eyes are focusing again, she speaks.
"Here's the thing, Peter. You owe me." He opens his mouth, and Lydia examines her manicure, raising one finger to tell him not to say anything yet. "You owe me for telling you about Malia. You owe me for your resurrection. And you owe me for all the pain and head-games you put me through before I was zombie-walked into bringing your worthless hide back from the dead." She puts her finger down, and taps one stacked heel. "Tell me how to make that spell work for Allison."
Peter relaxes, licking his lips as he studies her from under his lashes. Lydia restrains the urge to prod him in the balls, the bastard.
"Why would I do that for an Argent?"
"Because if you don't," Lydia's shaking, and she means this, even though she has no idea if she can do it, and he still scares her so badly she wants to scream, but the anger's stronger right now, the need to fix this is stronger, "if you don't. I'll figure out how to undo what I did for you, and use it for Allison."
He watches her for a moment, neck tight, eyes shifting colors, and she knows she has him. Knows she can do this.
"You remember how you did it for me," he says, voice as reasonable as it always is. Even when he's planning sick jokes and treachery. "There's no Worm Moon. And Allison's not a werewolf." Her fingers tighten around the prod again, and he holds up both his hands in surrender. "I'm just saying. It might not work."
"But," Lydia prompts him.
"But." He stretches out, hands behind his head. "The same ritual. The next full moon. Someone to pull her back."
"And then?"
"I guess we'll see. Won't we?"
If Peter hadn't bitten her, Lydia might never have woken up to her magic. Or she might have been awakened by Jackson while he was the kanima, if he'd attacked her. Or maybe decades later, far from Beacon Hills, some dark night, facing a dragon, she would have found her voice. Decided to live twice, take the knowledge of intimate, up-close death back to life, and use that change for everyone else as well, as a giant screw-you to the nature of magic and the afterlife. A choice made in a blinding second, under the worst of circumstances, forgotten later.
It is a choice. It is not an informed choice. But it is a choice.
She visits Meredith at the sanitarium, just to be sure. Unfortunately the other girl doesn't have much help to give.
"Just because you can do something," she whispers in that reedy voice, "doesn't mean you should."
"Am I forgetting anything?" Lydia asks, keeping her tone mild with a major effort. "Is this going to cost me anything like my soul or my life or someone else's? Do I need to track something else down to make it work?"
It had cost Derek something intangible; faith or hope, maybe. But then, Derek had killed Peter.
If she could make the nogitsune pay for this again, she would.
"You won't be the one to pay the price." Meredith blinks at her, huge eyes intent on Lydia, like she could beam the knowledge into her head. "We already paid."
A shiver that Lydia refuses to think is fear trickles down her back.
"Paid for what?"
"The cost of admission." Meredith isn't looking at her now. "I tried, once, to leave the party. Then I changed my mind." Her fingers spidered together, then tapped on her knees. "If you change your mind, you can change the world."
So. That was supremely unhelpful.
"Thank you." Lydia gets to her feet, determined not to show any disappointment. "I'll show myself out."
Meredith sadly watches her go, and Lydia stomps on the thought of There but for the grace of God….
Not God. Not magic. She'd had Allison looking out for her, even back then, right when she first started being someone other than the popularity queen of Beacon High. They'd let each other down a few times, and been at cross-purposes some others. But Lydia was alive and sane and herself right now, because she'd had a best friend with guts and brains to watch her back.
She can't do anything less.
Shamans go through rituals to walk in both worlds, of the living and the dead. They promise to stand between the tribe and anything that menaces it from outside the fires of home.
Sometimes, people make promises for their descendants that they won't be around to see them fulfill.
Every once in a long while, one of those descendants decides to make good on those vows.
One last check, before digging up the grave. Something Lydia didn't think of until after she talked to Meredith.
A Ouija board, a tarot deck, a crystal ball, a candle. Allison's gravestone. Midnight. The new moon, dark and cloudless, with no werewolves around. No druids. No humans. She has no idea if this is going to work. She's going on gut-instinct. It's lead her weird and horrifying places before. It might this time, too.
Just her and the fresh-turned sod over her best friend's resting place.
"Allison."
Nothing.
"Allison. I need to know."
The wind makes the candle flicker. Lydia closes her eyes, and listens. Takes a breath. Then she screams.
"Allison!"
One of the tarot cards flips over: Judgment.
The Ouija board starts moving under Lydia's fingers. She spells out the letters under her breath as it moves.
What?
Lydia stares.
You called, Lydia. Of course I picked up.
Lydia laughs, chokes, sobs. Laughs again.
"I miss you," she tells the gravestone. "It's been ten days. I want to bring you back."
Don't. Lydia's fingers aren't touching the platen any more. Don't do that.
"Why not?" she challenges the air. "Why not?"
There's a long moment. Then:
It's a mistake. There's a chance I'll be like Peter. Don't do it.
"He's alive," Lydia argues. Feeling desperate. "He's healed."
He's crazy. And evil.
"He was crazy before he died!"
Maybe. But dying didn't do him any favors. There's a pause, and Lydia can imagine Allison's serious gaze on her, steady and implacable. I love you. But I'm different now. There's no words for this. It's like calling to you across a canyon. I can't even see you. I just feel you.
"Allison," Lydia begs. "Please, please, let me do this, don't leave me…"
I'm already gone. And I'm never leaving.
She's probably imagining that she smells Allison's perfume. Or feels fingers comb through her hair.
You don't need the gravestone. Or the cards.
Lydia puts a hand to her mouth, biting down, tears burning in her eyes.
If you really need me? Not just want me. I promise. I'll show up. Like that stupid song. All you have to do is call.
The candle flickers out.
The cards scatter everywhere, with the Star landing in her lap.
Lydia stops crying, finally, when the moon sets.
Stiles and Scott are at the gates to the graveyard, waiting for her. Stiles's shoulders slump in relief, Scott's in grief.
"You heard me scream." It isn't a question. Lydia sways on her feet, feeling numb. "I was calling for her."
"Did she..?" Scott doesn't know how to ask. Stiles is just watching her, listening to what she doesn't say, as well as what she does.
"'I can call the spirits from the vasty deep,'" Lydia mumbles. It means something, that they came to get her. They're not Allison, either of them. But they're not no one, either.
Stiles's lips twitch, and he drops an arm around her shoulders. Lydia doesn't shrug him off, and his voice is genuinely curious. "'Why so can I, and so can any man. But will they come, when you do call for them?'"
Lydia lifts her chin, and gives him her best imperious look. "Yes."
And knows she's telling the truth.
Here is something that Lydia Martin knows: choices mean everything. Having them. Giving them to other people. Keeping them to yourself.
Letting them go.
And the same is true of secrets, and friends.
Glendower: I can call the spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come, when you do call for them?
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1
Written because I have been reading some great Lydia Martin fic on this site, and I don't trust the writers to give us mourning or closure enough for Allison next month.