Lydia's hand is still in his when they make their way back to the jeep, and she gives a sharp nod each time he presses her fingers. It's silent communication; their back and forth, You holding up okay? Yeah. You sure? A hundred per cent.
The drive back home is equally quiet. Dr. Valack's words haven't fully left them, and Stiles can still hear Lydia's scream going off in his head. It wasn't the first time he'd heard it, and he knows for a fact that it definitely wouldn't be the last. Still, he hates hearing her screams; the ones that carry the burden of dying, and the crushing weight of death.
Stiles glances at her as they stop at a traffic light. She's staring straight ahead, eyes unflinching and rigid, her hands quiet at her side. When they finally reach her house, he notices how dark it is inside.
"Is anyone home?"
"Guess not." Lydia notes that her mom's car isn't there, and when Stiles proceeds to turn off the engine and open the door, she shakes her head. "Stiles, it's fine. She's probably out running a late errand, or something."
"Then I'll just wait until she comes back."
Lydia is about to protest, but when she looks at him again, she finally makes out the uneasiness in his eyes and how they're not just meant for her. She thinks about how tight he'd held her back in Eichen House, as if she were a safety harness that had prevented him from keeling over; until she'd finally heard his breathing gradually slow down. Until he'd felt okay enough to let go of her, but even then, not entirely.
When she looks at him again, she thinks: there's no way he's driving back home alone tonight; not after Dr. Valack and his third eye, and definitely not after the Dread Doctors popping up when she least expects them to.
Lydia leads him into the kitchen where she makes them chamomile tea. She hasn't had to prepare anything for anybody in a while, especially since her mother's taken on the job of the guidance counsellor at the school and she's left to have lunch—and sometimes dinner—by herself. She pushes the memory of dropping by the Argents' after school every day well out of her mind before it can take any effect on her. When she sets the two mugs down on the kitchen counter, Stiles lets out a tired laugh.
"You have a Princess Leia mug?" Then he shakes his head impetuously. "Wait a minute, you like Star Wars?"
"My father force-fed me the franchise at first in an effort to 'get us to bond', especially after he and my mom… you know." Lydia shrugs. "It worked, though."
"Well," Stiles sighs in relief, "at least one of you will get the references I make from now on."
"Honestly, Scott's been driving me crazy about it, too." Lydia rolls her eyes, grinning. "I mean, how hard is it to just plug in his DVD player and watch the movie?"
"We should have a Star Wars marathon." Stiles nods eagerly to himself. "Yep, we should definitely have a Star Wars marathon. The poor kid needs educating."
Lydia takes a sip of her tea and watches as Stiles's edginess fades away. It's so rare to see him like this nowadays; enthusiastic and even passably happy. He's still prattling on about Scott refusing to acknowledge a lot of things that Stiles tells him about when he gets to the topic of Pokémon, and Lydia slams her mug down excitedly.
"Oh, god," she says, "that reminds me."
"What?" Stiles peers at her. "What the hell could Pokémon remind you of?"
Lydia is making her way to her room before she can answer, and while Stiles waits patiently in the kitchen alone, he notices how big and mostly empty Lydia's house must be. He thinks about how Lydia must have felt staying here by herself, at night, when he and his friends had been busy dealing with the kanima. He thinks about how easily Peter must have gotten into her head, with nobody to protect her or even listen to her while she suffered at his manipulative hands. Stiles suddenly feels sick at the thought, especially now that they're more or less doing the same thing to her, while she has been more than willing to help the pack in any way she could.
If she could forgive him and the others for Allison, then he supposes it's time he should stop blaming himself and avoiding her out of his own guilt. He'd had enough guilt on his plate, what with Donovan—
"Stiles, you okay?"
"What?" It's then that he realises he's been wincing the whole time. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"It's your shoulder again, isn't it?" Lydia drops the pack of cards she's been holding onto the counter and reaches for his hand, which was massaging the back of his neck, and she admits that she'd memorised his nervous gestures enough to know he's hiding something. "Stiles, what really happened?"
"It's nothing," Stiles snaps at her, then he sighs tiredly. "Lydia, it's… it's nothing."
She doesn't push him about it; at least, not yet. Just for tonight, she wants to see him light up again. They'd been through a lot in one night alone, and she doesn't want to make it worse for him. Stiles notices the trading cards scattered across the counter, and his mouth hangs open.
"No way," he breathes, "are these…?"
"Yeah," she says, casting a sheepish smile to the floor, "I meant to give them back to you, but—"
"Lydia, you… you've kept them this whole time?" Stiles glances at her only to see her smiling very hard at the floor again. "How come?"
"I just—" Lydia takes a deep breath before finally looking him in the eyes. "I just know how much Pokémon meant to you at the time since you couldn't stop talking about it, and the fact that you would just give them to me, especially when we barely knew each other then… well, I thought that was really… something."
Stiles can already feel the words that he'd been burning to say, morphing on his tongue, too ready to spill out of his pathetic mouth that he fiercely swallows them all back; the desperate (and much, much too late) I'm sorry, and the I can't believe I thought I could ever get over Lydia Martin that dares to tumble, and I still like you and more than you could ever know and the threatening I really, really fucked up that throbs along to the dull pain in his shoulder.
He clears his throat instead and says, "So, should I shuffle the deck, or would you like to do the honours?"
"Go ahead," Lydia replies, "but, fair warning: I've been practising."
"What?" Stiles slumps forward, disappointed. "With who?"
"Apparently Prada's really good at devising strategies." Her lips twitch upward. "So, I'm never playing against her anymore."
"Fair enough." Stiles grins and hands Lydia her cards. "You know, this game may take a while."
"That's okay, I've got all night," Lydia says quickly. She can't imagine Stiles leaving now, all by himself in the dark, making his way back home in his beat-up jeep. The fear of him not making it home at all is towering above every other feeling she currently has.
Lydia is one move from winning when they hear the front door open and Natalie calling out, "Lydia? Sweetheart, you home?"
"In here!" Lydia calls out, and Natalie finds them both in the kitchen, with their already cold tea and the Pokémon cards strewn all across the kitchen counter. "Hi, Mom. Stiles had another panic attack tonight and I can't let him drive home by himself, so I told him that it's all right if he stays over."
"Of course," Natalie replies, while she eyes her daughter skeptically; to which Lydia raises her eyebrows. "I'll go and get the couch ready."
"Thanks, Mrs. Martin," Stiles says, not daring to argue with either Martin woman, and before he can pick up his cards again, Lydia is tossing hers all across the counter and declaring herself winner.