And yet, methinks, a gleam of peace
Doth through my cloud of anguish shine:
And for a while my sorrows cease,
To know thy heart hath felt for mine.
- Lord Byron, "And Wilt Thou Weep When I Am Low?"
He'd been there for days. Just lying on his bed, not talking, not moving, not eating. They were worried he hadn't even slept. The Sheriff went in to see his son almost every ten minutes, driving himself to distraction at work. Scott worried incessantly over his best friend, his brother, going to see him every single afternoon once school ended, and on more than one occasion skipping the entire day to spend more time attempting to rouse him from the near-catatonia. Melissa Mccall also went by as often as possible, using any nursing or mothering skills she could to try and help the boy who was nearly a second son to her. Allison, once freed from the hospital after healing from the oni's stab, came with Scott in the afternoons as well, and added her voice and touches of comfort to the mix.
Nothing. No one got any response, and it was making them all near-frantic with worry. Stiles had defeated the Nogitsune, and yet they might still lose him to his own grief.
All this Lydia heard secondhand. Allison and Scott continually begged her to go see Stiles, but she couldn't bring herself.
She wanted to see him, god knew she wanted to see him so badly. But she wanted to see the Stiles she knew from before, the one she was now pretty sure she had fallen in love with. To see in the flesh the shell of a boy whom she had failed, failed as his tether, so many times over the past weeks, was something she was terrified of facing.
And yet, as three days stretched to four, and finally five, she knew she had to swallow her fears and her feelings of inadequacy and go to him. No one else close to him had worked. Maybe - maybe it took the emotional tether connection. Maybe it just took her.
She tried not to think of the second option, unsuccessfully.
On the day she finally elected to visit him, school was unbearably long. By the final hour she was tortured with anxiety, tapping her pen against her notebook incessantly. A notebook that, she realized with a sigh, was covered in doodles about Stiles. His name, his face, his hands. She'd scribbled them all over the page. There was a nematon in the corner, which still appeared occasionally just out of muscle memory, and she scribbled it out as blackly and thoroughly as possible, scowling and biting her lip.
Finally, the bell rang, and Lydia bolted out of the classroom and down the hall to where Scott was at his locker with Allison. Now that she'd finally decided to go ahead with it, she was beyond impatient to finally see Stiles, no matter the condition she'd find him in. "Are you ready?" she begged Scott. He was going to go with her to the Stilinski home, still sticking to his strict routine of visiting Stiles every day.
"Someone's nervous," Allison observed, but there was a sad smile playing around her lips.
Lydia crossed her arms across her chest and couldn't help bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I'm just - I want to see him. I've waited way too long."
"We know." Scott raised a disapproving eyebrow at her, but it wasn't very serious, and his face relaxed into a more sympathetic expression almost immediately, and he rested a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, Lyds. This was all rough on you too. You had to be ready."
"I'm ready now," she pledged. "Please, please can we go, now?"
"Absolutely." The alpha gave her another encouraging pat, and turned to kiss Allison goodbye. The two of them had gotten back together after Allison nearly died in his arms after the battle with the oni. Lydia was glad for them, tinged only slightly with bitterness. At least they could be happy, again, with the one they loved.
"We're taking your car?" Scott asked on the way out of the school doors.
"Of course," she scoffed. "I wouldn't get on one of those two-wheeled death traps if you paid me." With a slight pang, she thought of Aiden, and his brother, who had both ridden that very same type of vehicle.
As they got into her car, there was a far worse spasm of pain in her chest as she thought about Stiles' jeep, the thing she'd once hated and dismissed as a beat-up piece of junk. Now she'd give anything to ride in it again, Stiles at the wheel, fiddling with the finicky radio until he managed to land on that station they both liked. They'd sneak glances at the other out of the corners of their eyes, while also both singing along - the two of them had equally awful voices, but neither minded.
Lydia's fingers tapped nervously against the wheel for the entire drive. Scott noticed, and when they'd finally pulled into the Stilinskis' driveway, he reached over and covered her spastic hand with his own. She looked over and met his eyes. He looked at her with understanding and that steady, sweet kind of reassurance that he seemed to be able to call up at any moment. "It'll be okay," he promised her softly. She nodded, only a little stiffly, and opened her door to get out. He did the same, and they walked up to the front door.
She raised her hand to knock, but her fist seemed to freeze an inch from the door. She squeezed her eyes shut and her hand was clenched so tightly it trembled. Scott waited patiently, and finally she managed to bang gently a few times.
It only took a few moments for the Sheriff to answer. The man looked exhausted and care-worn, more so than usual, as was to be expected. His son had been possessed by a random Japanese trickster spirit, nearly died, been used as a vessel to kill and injure a bunch of people, and now hadn't moved from his bed in days. Going over all that in her head, Lydia felt her courage wobble even more, and she swallowed hard. "Hi," she eked out.
The Sheriff gave her a look of grateful, if grim, understanding, and stood aside to let them through.
She purposefully slowed her pace and let Scott take the lead upstairs. But finally they came to Stiles' door, which was closed nearly all the way. They locked eyes again. "I'll go in for a minute first, and then it'll be your turn. Okay?" The alpha smiled slightly.
Lydia nodded and tried to smile back, but she knew it was brittle and tired.
He quietly opened the door and slipped into the room. Stiles lay curled up facing the wall. All she could see was the painfully unresponsive expanse of his back. He laid a hand on his best friend's unmoving shoulder. "Stiles? Buddy? It's me. How're you doing today?" He let out a long exhale. "That's what I thought. But, uh. I brought somebody with me this afternoon. Not Allison or my mom or. Anyone. Um. It's Lydia."
Stiles' shoulder gave a twitch, and Lydia gasped quietly. Scott whipped his head around to look at her. That was the most reaction anything had gotten out of him. It made her fragile hopes just that much stronger. Scott gestured her forward, and she entered the room, treading carefully. "I'll give you a few minutes," he muttered, and left her there. Alone. With a once again still and silent Stiles.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything. Hi, Stiles. Stiles, it's me. Stiles, get your ass out of bed. I need you, we need you. None of it came out - nothing did. She stood there gaping like a fish for at least a full minute, and then slowly closed her lips.
Lydia had, especially in regards to Stiles, found that following her own natural instincts worked better than anything. Especially because he was the one who trusted her more than anyone. She knew that if Stiles were here with her right now, as opposed to the one she was trying to help - somehow she assumed, she knew, that if she were helping someone else, Stiles would be here by her side - he'd tell her to just trust herself and follow her feelings. She could hear those words from that unbearably poignant moment, that stood out in her mind vividly even amongst all the awfulness, when he'd convinced her so sweetly of his unwavering faith in her. You knew it. You felt it. Okay? And look, if you wanted to, I'd go back to that school right now and I'd search all night just to prove it. She remembered the way her insides had swooped and soared during that, the feeling of his hands around her own, the look in his warm honey eyes. She remembered how tempting it had been to just lean in and kiss him senseless, but how once again, her own fear had held her back.
No more fear. She'd trust herself because Stiles trusted her.
Lydia gave into the crazily powerful instinct that had gripped her since she first saw him lying there. She slipped off her shoes, pulled back the covers, and crawled in there with him. She wrapped her arms around his still form, and pressed her face against his back. "I'm here, Stiles," she whispered, voice slightly muffled, lips moving against the soft cotton of his tshirt. "And I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving you." I'm never leaving you again.
Maybe it was her wishful imagination, but he might have relaxed slightly in her arms. She tightened the embrace, pressing even closer against him. It was an unbelievable relief, being close to him again. She could smell him, more powerful than ever because she was here in his room, in his bed, with him, holding him. And God, it felt good, terrifyingly so.
But Lydia was sick of being frightened, of this. Of him, and what they could be to each other.
They laid there for hours. She wasn't wearing a watch, and wouldn't have moved her arms away from him to check it even if she was, so all she had to mark the passage of time was the shadows moving across the wall as the sun sank in the sky.
Scott returned after the first ten or so minutes, took one look at them, and shut the door gently before going back downstairs.
It was full dark eventually, and Stiles had kept his window shades down, so not even any possible moonlight reached them. Lydia was prepared to stay all night, to fall asleep here holding him.
And then - Stiles moved. Not only moved, he rolled over completely, without leaving her hold. He faced her, and even in the dim light, her eyes had adjusted enough that she could see him. His wonderful eyes wide, full of unshed tears, with dark, dark shadows underneath them. He looked at her in a way that made everything she had ache, and she wanted to explode.
Instead, she just lifted her hand and rested her palm against his cheek, her thumb stroking the shadow under his eye. Their noses were almost touching.
He surprised her again when his own hand came up and covered hers. He pressed it harder against himself, and Lydia's other hand came up and stroked his hair back. "Oh, Stiles," she couldn't help breathing out, voice cracking and breaking and shattering.
The tears in his eyes welled up and over. He took her hand and moved it to cover his whole face, nearly. And then he started sobbing.
He started healing. And, holding him even closer, Lydia silently swore would be there with him every step of the way.