With you I become again

by writergirl8

"The way I see it," she says, "You have two options right now. You can kiss me goodbye. Let me get into my car and drive away from you, and maybe you can send me a friendly text every once and a while. Or you can kiss me hello, and we can get into your car and drive to your apartment together and have one night before I go back to Boston. And it's completely up to you."

And one by one the nights
between our separated cities
are joined to the night that unites us.

---

Lydia can't remember a time during which she actually liked Christmas.

She can remember long, loud brawls between her parents, fighting over alcohol and affairs and a million other things that Lydia hadn't wanted to have to care about. She remembers them fighting after the divorce as well, fighting over who gets to buy her what; using her as a pawn in the games which had torn them apart in the first place. And she remembers the quiet tears that always marred Christmas morning after that, usually from her mother. She remembers the first Christmas that her sister had decided not to come home for the holidays and the first Christmas that Lydia had finally accepted that her father was never coming home either.

Her mother needs her. That's why Lydia is here. Christmas is always impossible for her mother, so Lydia goes home. It's not like being in California during the winter is a chore. The streets of Boston are covered with snow, making the already too-tiny city even more clustered. Lydia is glad to get away from the endlessly biting cold and the equally bitter college students, if only for a few days.

Except it's the twelve year anniversary of the divorce being finalized, just a few days after Christmas, and her mother is just as much of a disaster about it as she was during the eleventh anniversary. Natalie Martin holds herself together the entire year, making sure that nothing seeps through the cracks of her facade. And she's good at it, too. Watching her mother recover from the divorce is how Lydia learned to cover her flaws with lipstick and high heels. But every facade has to fall sometimes, and the one that her mother puts on is no exception.

Which is why Lydia needs more wine.

She's too lazy to drive all the way out to the liquor store, so she decides to pull her car into the parking lot of the giant Walgreens a few minutes down the street. They carry mini bottles of alcohol, and Lydia would rather get drunk on cheap pink wine than haul her ass onto the highway to grab something harder. She lives in Boston. Generally, she just walks everywhere. She's learned to hate driving since she moved into the city for college when she was eighteen.

It's the kind of evening that could never happen in Boston in the middle of winter: warm-ish, and a beautiful, starry sky. Lydia leans her hip against her car for a moment before she walks into the store, watching the stars and feeling grateful that she is there to witness them. Being back here reminds her of all the times the world could have gone dark, like it had done for Allison. But Lydia never lets herself linger on that anymore- makes a point not to- so by the time she saunters into the drugstore, she's got the same self-assured smile on her lips that she has always been known for.

The liquor is in aisle two, so Lydia doesn't bother to make much of a detour. She goes straight for the tiny pink bottles and grabs multiple packs of them, shoving them all into her little cart. She's just about to head into the candy aisle for a giant chocolate bar when she hears something that makes her skin crawl.

"Hey, how about that meeting yesterday? It was so good, I almost woke up."

Six years ago, the sound of Stiles Stilinski making a joke would lift Lydia's heart. But it has been six years since Lydia graduated from Beacon Hills High School, and in the current state of the world, there is only one thing she can do when she hears Stiles' voice: duck.

The bottom of the shelf has gum on it. It makes Lydia's nose immediately wrinkle, even as she wonders what flavor it is. The pink would indicate that it could be bubble gum, but it also could be something strawberry-flavored. She'll never find out, obviously, because it's not like she's going to sniff the gum, or pop it into her mouth. And, god, as ridiculous as it is, Lydia hates not knowing.

She hates not knowing.

Without thinking about it, she pops up, immediately finding herself directly in Stiles' line of sight. He's standing opposite her in the other aisle, phone wedged against his shoulder as he scans the shelves. When he sees Lydia, he startles, mouth dropping open at the sight of her. The package that was in his hands tumbles to the floor as his arms fall limply to his side. He's wearing a ratty old flannel- big surprise there- and an expression which might indicate that he is looking at a ghost.

"Lydia?" he questions, and that's almost enough to make her laugh because duh.

"Hi," she says, biting her lower lip. He doesn't say anything else, so she feels that it's probably her responsibility to make some sort of move. Ease him into the moment. Leaving her carriage of wine, Lydia walks out of her own aisle and into Stiles', far too aware of his eyes following her as she walks around. When she reaches him, she leans down to pick up the item which he had dropped to the floor when he saw her.

Pampers. He dropped diapers.

She almost doesn't want to touch the package, as though giving them to him would make his baby more real than it apparently is. Still, she wipes her face into a mask of blankness before wrapping well-manicured fingers around the plastic and offering it to him.

"Congratulations," she says coolly, checking for a ring in a manner which she desperately hopes doesn't seem desperate at all.

"What?" he asks, frowning, then looks down out the package. "Oh. Um, no. They're not for me."

"Well, I should hope not," Lydia says, stifling a snicker.

"No, I mean, they're for Gabe. Ah, Gabriel. Scott and Izzy's kid."

Lydia remembers, very vaguely, some sort of wedding invitation coming in the mail. She also recalls ignoring it and polishing off an entire bottle of prosecco by herself. Because if Scott was getting married, it meant that Stiles wasn't far behind.

"Izzy, huh?" she says, ponytail swishing behind her as she tilts her head. "Short for Isabelle?"

"What are you doing home?"

His voice is abrupt and harsh, making Lydia halt in her visual exploration of his body, which is still made up of gangly limbs and an abundance of moles and long fingers and a glorious Adam's apple, all weaving together to make a beautiful boy who she spends far too much time decidedly not thinking about.

"I come back every year. For Christmas."

Stiles' eyes widen in surprise.

"And you never call us when you're back?"

"Well, seeing as we haven't spoken in four years, I feel like you already know the answer to that question."

She knows how harsh she's being, but she's never able to stop herself. Speaking like this is the easiest way to make sure that Lydia Martin remains on top of the world. In a professional environment, it's different. She's formal and charming, but not quite as calculating. When she's back here, it's easy to slip right back into the skin she wore in high school. Stiles doesn't know her any differently. He's never known the other version.

"Yeah," he says, laughing slightly to himself, his eyes on the floor. "Yeah, good point."

Lydia stares at the diapers, her lower lip twisting between her teeth. She wonders what Scott's baby looks like. She wonders what his wife looks like- if she is anywhere near as beautiful as Allison. If she could possibly be a good replacement, or a better version than Lydia's best friend. The thought of Scott loving someone more than he had loved Allison makes Lydia ache somewhere in her stomach, but she doesn't think she has the right to feel that way. Just like she didn't have the right when Stiles was with Malia.

Somehow, Lydia had come to learn that it is never about her. Not in Beacon Hills. Not when everybody around her is falling in love and she is falling apart. Alone.

"I have to go," she says abruptly. "I have… wine. And a mother. So I have to go."

Stiles' eyes snap sharply up to hers, searching them intensely. When he sees Lydia's hard look, he steps back.

"Okay," he replies, squinting slightly as he nods. "Bye."

"Bye," Lydia whispers, turning on her heels and heading back down the aisle. She places her hands on her carriage and grips the handle too tightly, this time pushing towards the ice cream aisle. She needs ice cream. And right now she needs Allison; it's one of the moments in which her best friends' absence crashes into her, and Lydia misses her like a stomach ache.

There's a loud thump, and Lydia turns around to see Stiles behind her, having bumped into several boxes of "cooling corks" for already opened wine bottles. They fall to the floor, scattering around, and he swears, diving down to clean them up. When he notices Lydia staring at him, he rises immediately, leaning against the shelf and clearing his throat, resting his head on his closed fist.

"So," he says, voice about two octaves deeper than it normally is. He clears his throat, horrified, and then begins to speak in his regular voice. "So, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go get a drink with me."

She glances down at her belted striped dress and black cardigan.

"I'm not really dressed to go anywhere," she says, and he grins.

"But that's not a no."

"I don't go places that I'm not dressed for," she reminds him. "So that definitely is a no."

"We'll just go somewhere that you'll blend right in," he insists. "It's not like you have big plans tonight."

"And how would you know that?" she asks, raising her eyebrows.

"You're buying pink wine. You don't have big plans tonight."

She sighs heavily.

"Fine. One drink."

And Stiles is already taking her carriage from her, dropping the diapers into the cart along with her mini bottles of wine as he starts pushing it out of the aisle for her. Lydia lingers behind for a moment, trying to stop herself from smiling.

"Are you hungry?" he calls over his shoulder.

"I said one drink," Lydia says from behind him.

"Yeah, you did," he agrees. "But I'm famished, so that drink's going with dinner."

"Dinner? I told you, I'm not dressed for-"

"Don't worry about it," Stiles says, brushing her off. "I know just the place."

---

There are peanuts on the floor. Peanuts. And they're everywhere, all scattered around, some of them in shells, some of them just lying there, waiting for someone to slip on them. Lydia is grateful that she's wearing wedges, not stilettos, because she might actually fear for her life were she to be in this restaurant with less support. Yet Stiles seems absolutely unphased as he happily trods after the hostess, who drops them off at a table with a grin to accompany the supposition made on her t-shirt: "I love my job!"

"I bet she doesn't actually love her job," Lydia says as the woman leaves. "I bet that t-shirt is a lie."

"Nonsense," Stiles says, diving for the breadbasket in the middle of the table. He cuts a piece in half, then begins to spread the sweet-smelling butter onto it. It melts right in, so he shoves the roll into his mouth, moaning and patting his stomach. "Who wouldn't love working here?" he asks rhetorically, mouth still full of food.

"Gee, I wonder," Lydia says sarcastically.

"Try the bread," Stiles insists, thrusting a piece at her. When she stares at it, he takes matters into his own hands and butters a piece for her, then hands it to her, a hopeful smile twisting his lips to the side. Lydia sighs heavily and puts the bread in her mouth and- holy god. It is cake on a bun.

"What is this place you have brought me to?" Lydia asks, looking around at the far too joyful faces of families dining.

"Disneyland," Stiles says. "Duh."

Another waitress stops by their table, a grin stretching across her face.

"Hi, y'all!" she says, even though they're in the middle of California and this place is absolutely ridiculous. "Welcome to Texas Roadhouse. What can I get for you?"

"Yes, hello!" says Stiles enthusiastically. "We will have two hurricane margaritas, please."

"We will?" Lydia asks.

"And-" Stiles says, ignoring Lydia as he checks the waitress's name tag, "And Hollie, why don't we just speed up the ordering process. We will have two bacon cheeseburgers, please."

"Sure thing," she grins. "Let me just take these menus right out of your way."

"Wait," Lydia says. "What exactly is a hurricane margarita?"

"Captain morgan, grenadine, and orange and pineapple blended with regular margarita stuff," recites Stiles.

"That sounds disgusting."

"It's a gift to society."

"I can't drink that."

"You did say that you needed a drink, didn't you? This is your drink. You're welcome."

Lydia checks the exits for escape from this ridiculous, snarky man who apparently never grew up and never had any plans to.

"Plus, I absolutely can't eat a bacon cheeseburger. I mean-"

"Lyds," Stiles says, looking serious for the first time. "You graduated six years ago and never looked back. You stopped replying to my texts four years ago. You have no idea what's going on in my life and I have no idea what's happening in yours. Just... let me do this. Let me take you out to dinner and order for you and force you to eat bread that is sinfully delicious. After that, you don't have to talk to me again for another four years. I promise."

She settles back in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest, but not saying anything.

"Fine," replies Lydia sniffily.

"Good," Stiles says, smiling. "Although- you're paying, right?" She's silent. "Just kidding."

Lydia rolls her eyes. "I should hope so."

"Hey, there she is!" Stiles grins, just as their drinks come. "So, go ahead, Lydia Martin. Sip now, thank me later."

The margarita is fucking delicious. Goddamn it.

---

Three hours later, Texas Roadhouse is closing and the ache in Lydia's stomach from missing Allison has been replaced with the ache of good food and even better laughter. Her face is flushed pink, half from laughing and half from the duo of hurricane margaritas that she'd been stupid enough to consume, and her hair is falling out of its graceful bun, wispy strands flying freely around her face.

Stiles' flannel is on the booth, revealing his arms to her, and she's been trying not to stare all night, but there is something so perfect about him that Lydia cannot stop looking at. She loves the slope of his nose and the moles on his neck and the tenor of his voice and she loves the way he is staring at her, making her feel beautiful even though she just finished the last, greasy French fry that had been on her plate. He's wearing a simple cotton t-shirt, and she's drunk enough to be able to admit to herself that she wants it off.

But right now, he's telling a story.

"And what happened next?" she asks eagerly, her palms flat against the table, elbows tucked into her side, as she leans towards him.

"Okay," Stiles says, licking his lower lip quickly before throwing his hands back into the air, trying to demonstrate with gestures. "So the baby is suckling on the lemon, right, and Scott's, like, frantically searching google because what if babies aren't supposed to eat lemons?"

"But it was the only way he'd shut up?" Lydia reaffirms.

"Right!" laughs Stiles. "So Gabriel is on my lap, watching Breaking Bad and wearing the Paddington Bear outfit, lemon in his mouth, and Scott is totally ignoring us as he frantically googles about babies and lemons, sitting amongst piles and piles of buttered pasta, when suddenly the door opens."

"No," Lydia moans, sagging back against the seat and hitting her head against it. "Izzy?"

"Izzy," Stiles confirms.

"This isn't going to end well."

"It's me and Scott; does it ever?"

"Point taken," Lydia chuckles, taking another sip of her fourth hurricane margarita, although they'd started drinking virgins after the second.

"So she looks at us. And then she just grabs the baby out of my lap, throws the lemon on the floor, and wordlessly exits the house."

"How long did it take for her to come back?"

"Well, she had a diaper bag in her car."

"Ooph. Bad luck for Scott."

"We both had to clean, and he ended up on midnight diaper duty for two weeks."

"The dude is totally whipped, huh?"

"Like, embarrassingly whipped." His phone buzzes with a text, and Stiles glances down at it, eyes widening when he sees the time on his screen. "It's almost closing time."

It's kind of hard not to look disappointed, because Lydia suddenly doesn't want to leave this table. She can't remember the last time she laughed this hard, or felt this unburdened. She hasn't thought about work the entire night. She hasn't thought about her mother since sending a text to let her know that she was going out with Stiles.

She pulls on her cardigan, watching as Stiles flails into his flannel, nearly slapping a waitress in the face as she passes. They paid an hour ago, so Lydia is able to walk freely out of the restaurant and into the cool of the night, trusting Stiles to follow. When she reaches her car and turns around, he is ambling behind her, hands tucked into his pockets, shoulders pushed nearly up to his ears as he stares at her.

"Well," she says, "this was really... great."

Stiles is looking at her like she is the sun and the moon, and it makes her swallow hard, clenching her fists.

"I thought so too," he says, eyes intent on hers. "You should come home more often."

"Mmm," she agrees softly, taking two steps closer, her hands behind her back.

"I think you missed us," Stiles says jokingly, and the light of the stars in the sky makes his eyes look like they are swimming in moonlight.

"Mmm," Lydia says again, stepping even closer. Stiles stares down at her wordlessly as she takes his chin in her hand. Slowly, she moves closer, lazily pressing her lips against his. He takes his time kissing her back, moving uncertainly at first, then suddenly drinking the kiss in. Lydia pulls back only because she wants to see his face. It does not disappoint her. "You have two options right now."

"What are they?" he asks, voice husky. Lydia glances down at his hand, lying at his side. She takes it, winding their fingers together, and Stiles swallows.

"You can kiss me goodbye," she says. "Let me get into my car and drive away from you, and maybe you can send me a friendly text every once and a while. Or you can kiss me hello, and we can get into your car and drive to your apartment together and have one night before I go back to Boston. And it's completely up to you."

He nods, a wrinkle appearing between his brow as he frowns. Stiles places a hand on Lydia's back and tugs her closer, flush against him. She watches as his eyes zero in on her mouth, and he leans down to place a slow, deliberate kiss on her bottom lip. For a moment, she thinks he is letting her go. Then he opens his mouth and suddenly she is wrapped up in a heady, consuming kiss that makes her clutch onto that stupid flannel to stay upright. He tastes like a hurricane margarita, and that would make Lydia laugh if she weren't so dizzy with his kiss.

"Hello," he murmurs when he pulls back, and Lydia's heart begins hammering against her chest.

"Hi," she whispers, the word causing a smile to drift across his face. When he leans down to kiss her again, she shakes her head, dragging him away from her car and to his. "We should get going," she says, and he nods as he settles into the driver's seat.

There's a tiny, niggling part of Lydia that thinks she should ask him if he has a girlfriend. But she finds herself not caring- and if she doesn't want to answer that question, why would he? It's just one night, one night with Stiles Stilinski, whose skin is glowing as he drives through the streets. Every once in a while, his whiskey eyes will become illuminated by streetlamps and Lydia wants to drop kisses onto their delicate lids; wants to feel his long eyelashes brushing against her cheek as she gets closer, closer, closer.

His apartment is only a few minutes away, thank god, and when Lydia reaches over to place kisses on Stiles' neck before he's even got the car turned off, she doesn't realize that this will end with her pressed against the apartment door, her skirt climbing up her legs as Stiles fumbles for the keys. She's laughing as he swears into the kiss, which has become sloppy and has too much teeth and he's somehow missing half of her mouth because he's missing all of his keys. He only finds them when Lydia ends up sticking her hand into his back pocket and emerging with a little gold key which makes Stiles roll his eyes so hard Lydia can practically hear it.

They back into the apartment, a clumsy tangle of limbs and mouths and chests, and Lydia doesn't feel the need to make a comment about the sloppy way Stiles drops her dress to the floor because she is too busy pulling his shirt over his head. She tugs at his pants and he shucks them off speedily, only to straighten up and wind his fingers into her hair elastic, smoothly pulling it out of her hair. It tumbles down, all the way to her hips, wild and wavy from being in a ponytail all night. For a moment, Stiles stares at her breathlessly, and Lydia wonders what she must look like: a twenty-five year old who still feels like a teenager in a pink bra and black pair of panties, with wild hair and swollen lips. Then he's kissing her again, hands on her cheeks, and god, she wants him to kiss her forever.

But it's just for tonight.

She doesn't know where the bedroom is, but Stiles guides her towards it with his movements, and it's going pretty well until he bumps them into a wall. Lydia tilts her head back and laughs as Stiles grunts in minor annoyance and dips his head to tuck it into her neck, where he places kisses against her skin. Lydia's laughter soon turns into sighs; she clutches at Stiles' head as he gets lower, trailing kisses across her chest and down to where her breasts swell over the cups of her bra. And he's so tender, so delicate with her, that something in Lydia's heart contracts painfully as she stares down at his body dropping kisses lower and lower, eventually ending up on his knees in front of her. He sits back and stares at her calmly, his face a mask that is covering the tornado of want that is whirring in his eyes. Outwardly, he looks like he is simply waiting. But she can see the moment resounding through his eyes, and she knows exactly what he is thinking: he is on his knees in front of The Lydia Martin.

Lydia takes in his hands resting on his upper thighs, his earnest expression, and the way his teeth are scraping his upper lip. Then she exhales shakily and nods, goose bumps immediately breaking out across her flesh as he touches her upper thigh before widening his stance and moving closer to her. He slides his hands up to her waist, breathing for one moment which is too long, and Lydia squirms, waiting. The door frame is starting to feel uncomfortable against her spine by the time she looks down to see his brown eyes intent on her, scrutinizing her like she is some sort of puzzle, and her breath catches in her throat.

Lydia closes her eyes, resting her head back against the door frame and clutching onto the back of a chair against the wall so that she won't topple when he lifts her leg over his shoulder, pressing a kiss against her knee as he does so.

Suddenly, her mind goes blank.

After, she thanks him in any way that she can. Pushes him against the mattress but kisses him as she crawls onto it. Runs her hand up along his back, her foot up his leg, but lets him wrap his fingers around hers when he wants to. Presses soft, sloppy kisses along his jaw as his mouth gapes open and his eyes squeeze shut. In the darkness of the room, she is able to focus on the sound of him breathing as he falls next to her, resting his head over her heart and listening to it beating.

"You going to sleep?" she asks, carding her fingers tenderly through his hair, and as he nuzzles lazily against her sweat-slicked skin, she is suddenly reminded of the fact that they are twenty-five-year olds and not teenagers. For some reason, it makes her smile.

But Stiles shakes his head, groaning as he lifts himself up. Immediately, Lydia misses the comforting weight of his body pressed against hers, and the smell of aftershave mixed with their drinks from earlier that night.

"You said one night, right?" Stiles asks, and Lydia nods. "Well then. I'm going to go consume multiple Monster drinks, and you're going to stay here and take your bra off. Ready? Break!"

She laughs, and he captures the sound with a kiss.

"Hmm," she says against him. "I think that, if you need a Monster to stay awake during sex, I'm doing something wrong."

Stiles snorts, dropping one last, chaste kiss on her lips before rolling off of the bed and stretching.

"Oh, I'm not drinking the Monster for me," he says as he searches the floor for his underwear.

"No? Who's it for?"

"It's for you," he says, winking and tugging his boxers on. Lydia realizes that they have the Star Wars logo on them and has to bite back a laugh. "You're welcome. In advance, you know."

Lydia reaches around her back for the clasp to her bra. She undoes it, and for a moment, Stiles lingers in the doorway, waiting for her to allow the bra to fall down to her lap. When she doesn't release it, he looks up at her, puppy-dog expression in his eyes.

"You're welcome too," she says pointedly, gesturing with her chin towards the kitchen. "But… in advance."

He knocks his head twice against the door frame before he leaves the room.

---

They hold hands over the center console.

Lydia tells herself that it is because she is tired, and Stiles is tired, and the warmth of their entwined fingers is keeping them both awake. It's not because she wants to hold his hand. It's for safety. They are holding hands because it keeps them safe.

He makes her feel safe.

Shit. No. She is not going to think about him that way. She's taking a flight back to Boston tonight. She's returning to her little apartment with her giant wine glasses and her favorite duvet and her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend who she really needs to call, because when she'd woken up, she'd found no fewer than five missed calls, only one of which wasn't from him. The fifth was from her mother, who had probably been waiting up for her, not realizing that she was going to spend the entire night not-sleeping with Stiles Stilinski.

They're silent until they reach the Texas Roadhouse parking lot, where Lydia's car is parked in the same place as it was last night. She runs her thumb along the edge of her car key, letting the grooves press into her skin. The idea of leaving seems impossible. Getting out of this car will break the bubble that they're in, and even after less than twenty-four hours together, it already feels like home.

"What ever happened to Malia?" she asks, staring at the black fabric of her cardigan. She's stalling for time. The truth is, she doesn't care much about Malia. He hasn't mentioned her, which is far enough removed for Lydia. "Did you two break up, or-?"

"Yeah," Stiles nods. "Sophomore year. I was in Vermont and she was here and there didn't seem to be much point in being together anymore."

"Even after you'd lived together?"

He shrugs, looking like he wants to shrink. Even though their hands are still pressed together, he can't look at Lydia.

"The breakup… it should have been harder than it was. You know? I felt so shitty about how easy it was."

Lydia nods at her knees, which are pressed together, shaking slightly in the chill of the morning. It was easier, she realizes, because Malia was a childhood love. And you don't keep on loving your childhood love for the rest of your life. You just don't.

"So, what are your plans for today?" Stiles inquires casually, his fingers tapping against the steering wheel in his- newer- jeep.

"Packing," Lydia says. "I'm going home tonight."

"Back to Boston?"

"Back to Boston."

"Well," he says, looking over at her for the first time since they got into the car. "Goodbye, then."

It suddenly hits Lydia that she is about to cry. Her eyes widen as her throat closes, and she nods, trying not to let her mouth turn down. To disguise it, she smiles at him.

"Bye, Stiles," she says quietly, kissing him on the cheek.

With one last squeeze of his hand, she's out of the car, bolting into hers. He takes off too quickly, zooming out of the parking lot as soon as she's got her door closed, and Lydia is able to blink hard enough to let warm tears glide easily down her cheeks.

"Fuck," she gasps into the air, gulping oxygen as her chest seems to explode with pressure. She leans against the steering wheel, beating her head against it once before realizing how very Stiles the movement is. The thought makes her explode into a frustrated scream. And then she's done.

Lydia pulls her car out of the empty lot. One minute down the road, she is startled to see Stiles' car pulled over to the side. For a moment, she is inclined to stop. They can cry together. They suffered through so much together in high school. But this isn't high school anymore, and if she's going to get out of this without a broken heart, she needs to keep going. He's already broken her once, and she'd had to move to Boston just to get away from him.

Her mother is waiting in the living room, face drawn and pale when Lydia walks in through the door.

"You're alright," she says, relieved, and Lydia doesn't know why because it's not like she looks like she's alright. She certainly doesn't feel it.

"I need to sleep," she says, instead of agreeing with her mother. "Wake me up three hours before my flight, though. I have to do my hair before I leave."

It's the ultimate defense mechanism. When she steps off of the plane and into Grayson's arms, he won't ever know what happened while she was in Beacon Hills.

---

Lydia lets herself pretend that she has the flu for approximately two weeks.

When she gets off the plane, Grayson has sent her a text saying that he's stuck in office hours, so she heads to her apartment and flops onto the bed, falling back asleep. She only wakes up when he's climbing into bed with her, kissing her on the cheek before kissing her on the lips.

"I'm tired," she says apologetically. "I'm sorry, babe."

She hates calling people babe. One day, she'll be done with it. Not with Grayson, but with someone else. Someone who she can call 'sweetheart' or 'love' and actually mean it. She could've called Stiles sweetheart, she thinks. If.

"It's fine," he says, kissing her temple, and he falls asleep spooning Lydia, one hand on her hip, one curled around her breast. She lies there and thinks of Stiles, of his mouth on her, and his hands in her hair, and the way she had felt him pour every piece of vulnerability that he had into their kisses.

She realizes, a week after she gets home, that the idea of sleeping with someone else feels unfathomable. Her body doesn't quite feel the same as it had before; when she places her hands on her hips, she can feel Stiles' there. When she laughs, she is reminded of the rumble of his own throaty chuckles smothered by her thigh.

By the time she's been home for two weeks, she's almost run out of excuses not to sleep with Grayson. She finds herself relieved when he stays late with students, pretending to be asleep when he gets in bed. And when she starts throwing up, it's easy to pretend that she's got the flu. He rubs her back and kisses her cheek and brings her the biggest, most comfortable sweatshirt from the university he teaches at. She pulls it over her head and thinks about the fact that she had sex with someone else.

She'd known that there was no going back from sleeping with Stiles- known it before she'd begun- but she doesn't feel like she had thought she would. Instead of feeling awful about cheating on Grayson, she feels terrible about deceiving Stiles. Even with another man in her bed at night, she feels constantly lonely, aching for Stiles in a way that she hadn't anticipated. The number of times that she pulls out her phone and nearly texts him is almost funny, because it's just Stiles, but she can't bring herself to type three little words.

Instead, she writes them on the bathroom mirror in loopy cursive, clutching onto her towel with one hand as she writes i miss you i miss you i miss you with her index finger. Then she scratches it out. Then she throws up.

At some point, it's easier to just know. She calmly gets out of bed, puts on makeup, throws on one of her favorite outfits, and makes her way down to the drugstore to buy six pregnancy tests. She likes the number six. Divisible by two. Divisible by three. It's a good number. She can't look the cashier in the eye when she buys the pregnancy tests, instead choosing to keep her head down all the way back to her apartment.

She pees on the sticks one at a time, gulping down iced tea in between, then lines them up to wait.

If she's pregnant, the first thing she needs to do is break up with Grayson. The second thing she needs to do is tell her mom. And then… then there's Stiles.

Her phone is sitting on the top of the counter, lined up next to the pregnancy tests. Lydia settles herself on the closed lid of the toilet and crosses her legs, then reaches for the pink phone, clicking on Stiles' contact. His default picture is from high school, and Lydia notes the hair that is too long and the jaw that is totally void of scruff. But he's got a stupidly goofy smile on his face, which makes her laugh, an equally goofy smile on hers. And without thinking about it, she presses the 'call' button.

"Are you butt dialing me?" Stiles asks in lieu of hello.

"I wouldn't be able to answer you if I was butt dialing," Lydia points out.

"But your butt wouldn't have judged me for asking anyways."

She laughs. Damn. Why doesn't Grayson make her laugh like this? It would be so much easier if she laughed.

"How are you?" Lydia asks hesitantly.

"Working."

"Is that an emotion, or-?"

"That's a 'I am a paralegal and I am drowning in paperwork'."

"Ah," Lydia says, nodding. "See, I mainly force the interns I have at the lab to do that part."

"I am the intern. The glorified intern, at least."

She glances at her watch. One minute.

"Do you have to get coffee?"

"We switch back and forth with that part."

"We?"

"Well, you know what they say about paralegals."

"Um. No?"

"You can't get just one."

"Oh god. Oh my god. Has anyone ever laughed at that joke?"

"You did. Just now."

"No, I most certainly did not."

"I heard you coughing to cover up your laughter."

"You're delusional."

"Let it loose, Lydia. Let yourself unleash unbridled laughter into the universe. Do it."

Done. It's been five minutes for the first one. Lydia reaches over and picks it up. Positive. She's pregnant. For another thirty seconds, she just breathes into the phone. Stiles is babbling happily on the other end, and she clings to the sound of his voice as she checks the next test. Positive.

"Stiles," she says. "I'm coming home next week."

"You are?"

"Do you want to meet me for coffee?"

Shit. She can't have coffee. No caffeine, or else the baby will have six heads. That sucks.

"Sure," he says easily. "When? Where?"

She gives him the address of the little coffee shop that she used to study at in high school and gives him a date and time. Numbers. They're easy. Dependable. Always remain the same. After they hang up, Lydia walks calmly out of the bathroom and sits down on her bed, reaching underneath for her organic chemistry textbook from college. She grabs a pencil and notebook and flips to the back of the book for the extra practice problems, losing herself in the familiar scratch of lead against paper and the rhythm of numbers and logic mashing together.

When they combine, they make something beautiful.

---

It doesn't hit hit until two nights later, the night that she breaks up with Grayson. He sits in the chair opposite to her, gray shirt matching his gray eyes, and she finds herself concentrating on the bland color instead of the emotion that can be found within. As he mourns the loss of a year-long relationship, Lydia thinks about what Stiles said. "The breakup… it should have been harder than it was."

She wants him to leave so badly that it is like an itch, clawing at her skin. By the time Grayson gets out, she is exhausted from pretending to care, exhausted from trying not to vomit, and exhausted because she thinks that she is allowed to be exhausted.

Though it would be easy to go right to bed, Lydia sets to making herself a salad for dinner, making sure she stays healthy. Because she's got a baby growing inside of her. An actual baby.

The fork that she is holding slips from her fingers and clatters to the floor.

This is ridiculous. One single night of Texas Roadhouse food and sexual debauchery led to a pregnancy? Lydia doesn't get it. Well, the sexual debauchery part makes sense. But not the Texas Roadhouse part, because who wants to have sex after eating a bacon cheeseburger? And, seriously, the only thing more decadent than sex with Stiles is the series of three billion calorie margaritas that they had consumed as they got more and more consumed with each other.

And there is a baby growing inside of her.

Panicked, Lydia braces herself against the counter, her grip tightening as her heart begins to beat faster. She desperately tries to calm her breathing, but then she thinks about the clump of cells in her stomach that is half hers, half Stiles', and she crumbles to the floor. She does not have girlfriends to call- she had picked school and work over them time and time again, until there had been nobody left. Seven years ago, she could have called Allison, but now Allison is dead and Lydia is having a baby and she is alone.

Shakily, she reaches for her cell phone and slams her fingers into the touchpad.

"Hello?" comes a familiar voice, and Lydia half-sobs in relief.

"Mom," she says, collapsing to the floor, her cheek hitting the tile, and she has never been the girl that lies on the floor, always preferring to stand and deal with her problems, but today there isn't a clever thing to say or a logical solution to the puzzle (she looks down to see his brown eyes intent on her, scrutinizing her like she is some sort of puzzle, and her breath catches in her throat.)

"Lydia?" she responds, voice concerned. "Dear, are you alright?"

"Mom," Lydia manages to choke out. "I… I need help."

She cannot remember the last time she said that. She can't remember the last time she needed her mother to get her through something. And Lydia can't remember the last time she couldn't rely on herself for an answer.

---

The grass is crunchy underfoot as Lydia plods through the graveyard. She had purposefully worn ballet flats, knowing that her heels would sink into the soil if she were to wear them. But in a pair of skinny jeans and a simple, white long-sleeved shirt, Lydia feels safe and comfortable, walking over to Allison.

There are flowers at the stone- Stiles had said that Scott visits often, as do Mr. Argent and Isaac. Lydia spreads her jacket across the ground before sitting down on it and staring at the grave. Allison Catherine Argent, it says. Daughter. Friend. Warrior. Lydia remembers a time when Allison had made her feel like a warrior. Being friends with someone like Allison had served to make her even more formidable, but not for the reasons that Lydia had once found valuable. Allison had turned her into a better version of herself, a warrior in her own respect.

She used to scream into the darkness, listening for Allison's voice among the whisperings of the dead. Sometimes, if she struck just the right chord, she could hear it chanting Lydia's name in a laughing, musical voice. But that could have simply been wishful thinking, and Lydia doesn't truly think that the world grants that many wishes. She doesn't try anymore. Instead, she puts on skinny jeans and a plain white shirt and scrubs her face free of makeup, and when she sits in front of Allison, she is the barest version of herself. The simplest version. The one that Allison would have been proud of.

"So," Lydia says, trailing the word to avoid having to say what she needs to. "There's kind of a lot to update you on."

There's one particularly long piece of grass sticking out of the ground, and Lydia plucks it from its place in the soil, using her small fingers to tie it into knots. In the fog of the early morning, she can barely see anything past the ground, the gravestone, and her hands as they twist and twirl the grass.

"I got a new job," she says. "I liked the old place, but there are more opportunities at the new one. It pays better, and I have my own lab, and I have more authority. I feel… in control. Maybe for the first time since high school. Before Scott McCall turned into a werewolf and Peter Hale tried to murder me on the football field. I have a plan… fields medal by thirty, remember?" She laughs bitterly, plucking up another piece of grass. "Okay. Maybe that's not such a solid plan anymore."

Allison had been too good for this world- too good for Lydia. Even when she was flawed, she had always been a kindhearted girl, wanting to do what was best morally and best for her friends. Lydia had never been like that before Allison. Before Allison, Lydia doesn't think she had a single friend at all. And now that Allison is gone, having a girlfriend like that would feel like betrayal. She'd had them in college, of course, but there's always been some level of detachment between Lydia and other girls. And once she'd graduated, gone to grad school, and started working, she hadn't had time to uphold friendships that had just barely felt necessary in college.

Much less the ones from high school that she had let go of several years prior.

"I had sex with Stiles." It's easier, Lydia thinks, to blurt it out. "I probably shouldn't have done it, but it was… it was the kind of thing that might fool you into thinking that you could fall in love with someone."

Sometimes she has to remind herself that she barely knows Stiles. That they haven't really been friends since high school. It feels odd to think that- he's always been so seamlessly integrated in her life, even when he wasn't. A world in which Stiles means nothing to Lydia seems unfamiliar right now, like a picture you can't remember taking.

When she sees them in hindsight, she sees two people who had been achingly familiar with each other. She had somehow already known the rhythm of his breathing, and the way the coarse skin of his elbow would feel as she brushed her thumb against it, and the way their smiles would fit together as they kissed each other.

"I'm pregnant, and it's his, and I had a boyfriend but I broke up with him, and I think I would have anyways, regardless of whether I was having this baby, because every time I breathe in I think about Stiles and I miss him somewhere in my gut that won't stop stabbing me."

She lets the blade of grass flutter to the ground and rests the heels of her hands on her forehead, ignoring the way her elbows dig into her upper thighs. And she had expected to feel dirty once she had vocalized it, but she doesn't. She's not tarnished from this, as life-changing as it is. If Beacon Hills has taught Lydia anything it's that, when something like this happens, you just keep on living.

"Anyways, you're Aunt Allison, of course, and I'm a mess, and I have to be a mom now." She chuckles darkly. "I had a one-night stand with Stiles Stilinski and now I am raising his baby."

Saying it out loud makes it even weirder. Lydia pinches the bridge of her nose and squeezes her eyes shut, suddenly getting a headache. She misses coffee.

"Oh my god, Allison. If high school me could see me right now, she would kick my ass."

But then Lydia thinks that current-her wouldn't let her do that. Current-Lydia would absolutely fight back.

---

She tries on about twelve different outfits and does her hair six different ways before finally realizing that there is no outfit that would completely prepare her for what is about to happen. In the end, Lydia settles on what she is the most comfortable with: business attire. If she treats this like an everyday, average business meeting, maybe she'll feel detached from it and won't freak out as much.

It doesn't help, of course, that she vomits twice while picking out her outfit. Business woman Lydia does not vomit.

Maybe she shouldn't be wearing stilettos, but she rationalizes that they're the only shoes that work with her tight black pencil skirt and matching top, with a little belt pulled in at her waist to make her look decidedly un-pregnant. She puts on the proper makeup and pockets her favorite red lipstick before leaving the house. And that, believe it or not, is the easy part.

Stiles is already there when Lydia arrives. He's seated at a tiny table for two, his limbs just a bit too large for the tiny space which is confining him. When he sees her, he skyrockets up, a large grin on his face even as he accidentally knocks his chair to the ground.

"Hey!" he says, fingers wrapping briefly around her wrist as he leans in to kiss her cheek. His freshly-shaven jaw brushes against Lydia's skin, and when she thinks about the way his scruff had felt against her on that night, she has to place a hand on the table to steady herself. "You came back so soon. That's awesome." He smells like the same aftershave as he'd smelled like before, and it's making it hard to concentrate. Lydia sits down promptly to keep herself from wavering in her heels.

"Yes, well," she says formally, ignoring the ghost of a frown that flits over Stiles' face before he waves it off and settles into the chair across from her. "I had business to attend to."

"I can see that," he teases, eyes flicking to her outfit. "Do you have a meeting after this or something?"

"No," she says tersely. Stiles' smile falls slightly.

"Lydia, did someone die? In your family? Is everybody okay?"

"Everybody is fine," she assures him, the harsh demeanor cracking slightly at his concern. "How are you?"

Asking that question is enough impetus for Stiles to launch into a long anecdote about Scott and Izzy, which turns into a quick story about work, which morphs into a talk about his dad having to make a turkey for Thanksgiving last year because Melissa was on-call for two nights straight and wasn't able to do it. At some point, Lydia zones out and watches the way his pink lips form words so specifically. She watches the wild gestures that his hands make, gracefully painting pictures with those long, delicate fingers (she lets him wrap his fingers around hers when he wants to. Presses soft, sloppy kisses along his jaw as his mouth gapes open.) She watches his eyes dart around, flitting to the display cases and the other customers and the ceiling, but always coming back to her.

It's easy to slide out of the moment they're having and into the future. Which of these traits will their baby have? Which of these attributes will she grow to love even more, just because they are attached to someone who is theirs?

And suddenly, Lydia can't wonder alone anymore.

"It's like, no matter how many times I type 'fuck,' it makes it 'duck,' and I'm like, what the duck auto correct? We spend all day together and sometimes I feel like you don't even know me." Stiles shakes his head, pausing to take a sip of coffee, and that's when Lydia slips it in.

"I had a boyfriend when we slept together."

Stiles chokes on his coffee, coughing and spluttering, and Lydia wonders if she should take it away from him until she says what she needs to say.

"What?"

"I had a boyfriend, but, that night, it felt more important for me to be with you than to preserve whatever I had with him. He didn't seem to matter as much as you did. And he doesn't. When I got home, I broke up with him."

More ridiculous than the actual words Lydia is saying, is the monotone voice in which she is delivering them to Stiles.

It's clear that he doesn't know whether he should be happy about this or sad. Instead of choosing a feeling, Stiles just gapes. Lydia subtly pulls his coffee away from him, and he's so focused on her eyes that she doesn't even think he notices.

"And also… I'm pregnant." Nothing changes except for an almost imperceptible widening of his eyes and his mouth dropping just a little more open. Lydia powers through. "I know it's yours because I hadn't been with my boyfriend since my last period came. There were business trips and arguments and then I went to California for Christmas and when I got back, I suddenly didn't want… yeah. This baby's yours." Stiles still doesn't say anything. "I've decided to keep it," Lydia says. "Not that it was really much of a decision... it's more like… I am going to keep it." For the first time, her eyes flicker down to the steel table top, where her fingers are twisting together nervously. Her voice grows quieter as she says, "This baby is never going to feel like it's unwanted."

Lydia has spent so much of her life feeling unwanted. Not necessarily by her parents, and especially not her mother. But she has felt unwanted by boys, and peers, and professors who wrote her off as a silly, little rich girl. She has watched the effect that being adopted had had on Jackson; his neediness, his bitterness, his competition, his unwillingness to commit to anyone but himself. And Malia, who had always felt so out of place; so uncomfortable in her own skin. It hadn't gotten better once she learned her true identity and had met the Desert Wolf. Sometimes, Lydia thinks that knowing her origins had made Malia even more lost.

No child deserves that.

This baby is going to grow up like Scott McCall, who continues to put faith in his mother's love for him even as an adult. She wants this baby to grow up like Allison Argent, who may have taken issue with her father, but who only changed him for the best; who turned him into the greatest version of himself. Lydia wants this baby to grow up like Stiles freaking Stilinski, who loves his father so much that he would do anything to take care of him.

By the time Stiles speaks, she's even more decided than she was before.

"What's his name?"

His voice is dry, scraping roughly against the quiet of the coffee shop.

"The…the baby's name?" Lydia clarifies, glancing down at her flat stomach. "Um… it doesn't have one yet. I'm less than two months pregnant."

"No," Stiles says, frowning. "Your boyfriend's name."

"Ex-boyfriend," Lydia says quickly. "And. Um. His name was Grayson."

Stiles nods slowly, staring at his coffee. He nods at it some more as he lifts it to his lips, taking a sip. As he sets it back on the table, he continues to agree with the coffee.

"No offense, Lydia," Stiles says finally, looking up at her. "But Grayson is kind of a dick name."

"And Stiles isn't?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Ha," he says drily. "It is. But in a good way. Not in the same way that Grayson is."

"It must suit him, then."

He doesn't say anything for too many moments, and Lydia is starting to go insane by the time Stiles' fingers have begun to drum steadily against the tabletop. She needs to know how he feels about this. She hadn't exactly expected the pause to last this long- if she had, she would have done this over the phone so that she could panic while Stiles was contemplating.

"What are you thinking?" Lydia finally asks, voice desperate.

"Honestly?" Stiles says, tilting his head slightly, and Lydia nods. "I'm wondering if they sell Beacon Hills Lacrosse onesies. And, if they don't sell them, can I, like, get one made?"

It's like he's cut the string that has been pulling Lydia taut. Her body sags, and she feels like she can breathe again. Lydia knows what this means. She tries not to smile.

"So, that means-?"

"Well, it means that I'm moving to Boston with you, for one thing," Stiles says, nodding to himself. "Yep. I can't live here while you live there. I'll get my company to transfer me to the Boston branch, and then I'll find an apartment. Do you have an available one in your building? I want to be close to Scotty junior as possible."

"We are not naming our child Scotty junior."

Stiles grins.

"We'll talk about it."

"Why aren't you freaking out?" Lydia asks, laughing in disbelief. He scrunches up his nose adorably, cocking his head to the side so that he can shoot her a look that has raised eyebrows and a small smile.

"Because," he says, "don't you think this was just supposed to happen?"

---

Stiles drags Lydia to dinner with his father. It feels like news now, as opposed to the ticking time-bomb that Lydia had been toting around in her bare hands. She sits next to Stiles and across from Sheriff Stilinski and their laughter seems to wrap around her like a blanket, making her feel instantly comfortable. She finds herself at ease with Stiles' dad, with the wrinkles that deepen around his tanned, weathered eyes when he smiles, which he does often and easily. Her father's eyes don't crinkle like this, so she can't say, exactly, why she looks at them and thinks the word 'home' over and over again.

Then she looks over at Stiles. He's laughing at a joke she made, and his eyes have little lines around them, not quite as deep as his father's, but they're there. Like tiny smiles that make his eyes shine brightly at Lydia.

And she thinks, out of the blue, how much she wants to be there when his face is as wrinkled as his father's and his eyes are just as beautiful as they are now.

---

"You know, I don't think I've ever seen you in jeans."

Lydia glances up from the box she is bending over, her hands continuing to smooth out the tape. Stiles is wrapping up mugs, placing them in another box, but he halts when he notices her looking at him.

"It's because I have abnormally large hips," she tells him, tugging at the bottom of her brown MIT t-shirt. The material doesn't quite disguise the jutting of her curves, and she wrinkles her nose, annoyed.

"I like your hips," Stiles says, absently frowning at a coffee cup as though wondering whether to pack it up or smash it.

"Why?" Lydia scoffs. "Because they add character?"

He rolls the mug carefully into paper, then sets it delicately in the box.

"You don't need hips to add character," he says quietly, and she can't help but notice that he has been treating her delicately ever since dinner with his dad. She wants him to tease her or jab her, or maybe get angry about her not fully disclosing her relationship with Grayson. Instead, he treads carefully around her, as though afraid that a light breeze might sway past and blow Lydia away from him.

"Are you okay?" she asks, because she's not sure if he's flirting with her, and the idea of flirting back only to find that he has no interest makes Lydia's skin crawl with discomfort. "I know this is a lot to take on at one time."

"It's a lot for you too," he says, cheeks pinking up slightly. "I mean, you're the one with the hips."

Lydia laughs even though it's not the kind of joke you laugh out loud at. Stiles offers her a wan smile, and it makes her heart hurt because she is helping him pack up his life, and the only person who benefits is Lydia. Stiles is leaving behind his dad, his best friend, his surrogate mother, and his childhood home. And what does he get as a replacement? A selfish woman mothering the child that he probably had not wanted at only twenty-five years old.

"Stiles," she says loudly, walking over to him and grabbing the mug he is holding. She sets it on the table and stares him dead in the eye. "I'm going to need you to freak out, please."

"Did you just say please?"

"Freak out, Stiles!" Lydia exclaims, standing on her tip-toes so that she can properly flick him in the head. "You had a one night stand with some girl you knew in high school and now she's pregnant with your spawn and you have to move all the way across the country because she's too selfish to give up her career for you!"

"It's fine, I got transferred, and-"

"It's not fine! This fucking sucks! You have to start all over in a brand new city, in an apartment that I tricked the former tenant out of-"

"Wait, what?"

"And you have to be a dad. That sucks."

"No," he says, turning back to his boxes. "It doesn't."

"You can't just wait to freak out, Stiles. I don't want this hitting you when it's already too late to change. Just… have your freak out moment, and we'll get through it, and then you can decide if this is still what you want."

"It's what I want and I'm not going to freak out."

She actually stamps her foot.

"Why not?"

"Because there's no need to, Lydia," Stiles says pointedly. "Just shut up and go back to packing my underwear."

"I am not packing your underwear! Stiles, you are leaving behind everyone you love in the world. Are you not getting that?"

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, exactly, you're not getting it! You're not getting the fact that you're leaving behind Scott, and your dad, and-"

"No, I get that I'm leaving. I'm just not leaving everybody I love in the world."

The words echo across his empty apartment, like Lydia might need to hear it more than once to really comprehend what he has just said.

"Oh," she says breathily.

Stiles squeezes his eyes shut, steadying himself, and Lydia wants to kiss him so badly that she has to ball up her fists at her sides so that she can dig her nails into her palms.

"You're right," Stiles says, and Lydia waits with bated breath for him to say it, for him to say something to let her know that it's okay; they're going to be okay together. "I shouldn't make you pack my underwear. I'll do it yourself. Would you mind calling my dad and asking him which seasons of Friends he wants me to leave for him?"

Her nostrils flare slightly, and for a moment, Stiles looks taken aback.

"You know that you're an insanely frustrating man, right?"

"Consider it payback for high school," he says shortly, before picking up an empty box and heading into the bedroom, closing the door to keep her out of his head space.

---

The last time Lydia ate a cheeseburger, she got pregnant.

Not that she thinks it could happen again; she's already knocked up, so she may as well eat as many cheeseburgers as possible. But Stiles is sucking the salt off of the end of a french fry, and Lydia thinks he might be doing it on purpose, just to make her reevaluate her self-view. She has never wanted to be a french fry, but at this point she's just about ready to try for twins.

"Do you want one?" Stiles asks, offering a fry innocently to Lydia. She takes it, pointedly dropping it into her mouth and actually chewing, and that is how one eats a French fry, thank you very much. "It's such a great coincidence that your across-the-hall neighbor moved out."

Yeah. Totally coincidental.

"This place is great," Lydia says, admiring it. "Not as great as mine, of course, but you'll... get there," she adds, looking disdainfully at the bare walls and sad lack of décor. It's Stiles' first night here, so she shouldn't be teasing him about how bare-bones his home is, but judging the state of his last apartment, it's not going to get much classier.

"All the way there?" Stiles asks, teasing her. They both know that he won't put nearly the amount of effort into the place as Lydia would.

"No," she says, nose wrinkled. "But you'll approach there."

"How close?"

"If I decorate for you?" He gives her a look. "Okay, if you decorate...not close at all."

Stiles shakes his head, taking a bite of his burger. "Man. I can't believe I moved from California to Boston to raise a baby with a woman who doesn't put any faith in my decorating skills." She snorts, and he takes another bite of burger. "I almost became an interior decorator, you know."

"You... you did?"

"Oh yeah. But then I went with Neurosurgeon instead." When he sees her quizzical look, he breaks out into a grin. "We are talking about the Game of Life, right?" Lydia throws a fry at his head, which Stiles manages to dodge, laughing.

They could be eating in Lydia's apartment, reclining on the cushy couches and watching old episodes of Grey's Anatomy, which Lydia is currently binge-watching because work is sucking all of the energy out of her and crying over Owen and Cristina is just about all she has the motivation to do when she gets home. She has a feeling that she could get Stiles into the show, and ugh, he'd be the most annoyingly hardcore fan of Meredith and Derek, because Stiles believes in true love and soul mates and emotional tethers and- and, damn. She hasn't thought about emotional tethers in years. Lydia glances over at the man currently sitting on the wood floor next to her, admiring his brand new moldings, and thinks about the fact that she was once his anchor. She was something to him. Something important.

For Lydia, trying to make the beginning the end was the only thing she could do to move on. And she had gone to MIT to try to get over him. Luckily for her, she'd done it. When she'd been immersed in classes and ideas and this new, beautiful city, Lydia hadn't thought about Stiles as much as she had in Beacon Hills, where everything had reminded her of him. The place they used to grab coffee before heading back to his house to solve the mystery. The places they would go for walks, trying to think it out together, because when they worked together, amazing things would happen. And when Stiles was with Malia, it felt like every corner she turned had a jeep on it, and she'd have to wonder if they were making out in the back of his jeep and when the first time they'd made out was and whether Stiles ever thought about making out with Lydia anymore.

She's twenty-five now. Not the same, insecure teenager who couldn't let herself stop thinking in public, lest she be accused of being anyone more than who she pretended to be. Now, she is a full-fledged mathematician with a second degree in biochem and she is fully allowed to be whoever she decides she is. It doesn't matter that she is on the floor with Stiles Stilinski in his new apartment which is across the hall from hers. She isn't the same Lydia who was in love with him in high school. She's way stronger than that. Now that they're having a baby together, it's even more important that they don't get together, because god forbid they end up hating being in a relationship and making this harder for their baby than it was already going to be.

So. It doesn't matter if she's his anchor anymore. He can be his own anchor, and she will be hers.

"Ah, that's the stuff," Stiles says loudly, finishing off his cheeseburger. He wipes his mouth, then lies down on his back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. "C'mon," he says, glancing over at her and patting the floor. "Sit back. Relax. Enjoy life."

"Lying on the floor has nothing to do with enjoying life," Lydia says prissily. "It's just you reclining among the dirt of a thousand movers."

"Fine," Stiles says, closing his eyes contently. (He sits back and stares at her calmly, his face a mask that is covering the tornado of want which is whirring in his eyes.)

Lydia gets on the floor. But only to disguise the shiver. Only because of that.

"We're lying on the floor," she points out, just in case Stiles doesn't realize it.

"Really? I thought we were lying on a bed out roses laid out by Scarlett Johansson."

There's a pause.

"Scarlett Johansson is your go-to hot person?"

"She has nice... hair."

"Pig."

"No, I really do like her hair!"

"Sure you do."

"This is no way to welcome your new neighbor into the hood, you know."

"Stop calling Boston 'the hood.' It's been driving me crazy."

"What? When did I call it 'the hood' before?" She picks up her phone, scrolls through the texts he had sent her on the drive up, and wordlessly hands him the device. "Okay, so I may have used it once or twice."

Lydia closes her eyes, sighing deeply, letting it seep through her entire body.

"Stiles?"

"Mmm?"

"Shut up and enjoy the floor."

---

The knowledge that food is in Lydia's refrigerator makes her nauseous, so she sends Stiles out to get it and put it in his own fridge. When she comes home from work, she sneaks into the apartment with the key that he had given her, steals his Beacon Hills Lacrosse hoodie, and then pads back over to her apartment, washes off her makeup, and then slides into bed.

It's been a few days since Lydia's been able to hold down anything that isn't saltines, so all she wants to do is fall asleep, continuously devoid of energy. Before she puts her head on the pillow, she sends a text reminding Stiles to buy milk for them. She's just closed her eyes when the phone vibrates, startling her. Lydia grabs it and frowns at the screen, annoyed.

Stiles [6:23]: Blue cap or green cap?
Lydia [6:23]: Blue.

Stiles [6:24]: My dad buys the green one.

Lydia [6:25]: How lovely for him. I'm sure it brings him much joy.

Stiles [6:25]: Mean.

Lydia[6:27]: I am carrying your child. Blue cap.

Stiles [6:28]: You aren't even going to drink the milk!

Stiles [6:30]: I mean, I'm just assuming, since you keep walking into my apartment to vomit in the middle of the night.

Lydia [6:31]: I want you to feel the pain that I am feeling.
Stiles [6:31]: Aren't you sorry that that's biologically impossible?
Lydia [6:32]: I am. Believe me, I am.

When he doesn't reply for a few minutes, Lydia is satisfied that she has finally outwitted him. She crawls deeper under the covers and closes her eyes, ready to go to sleep. Then her phone buzzes again, this time with a facetime call, and the goofy contact picture that she'd selected for Stiles in high school pops up on the screen, beaming at her with too much teeth.

"What?" she asks, selecting the answer button with mostly false annoyance.

"I'm lost," he replies promptly.

"In the grocery store?" she inquires, glancing around the giant Trader Joe's in the background. "I would follow the signs if I were you."

"No! It's just that everything here is different from what I buy because I never usually bother to buy organic shit, and the result of this is abject confusion about your snobby food."

"There's no such thing as snobby food."

"Clearly you've never been to a French restaurant."

"You don't like French restaurants?"

"Oh hell no."

"Well then, I think I know where we're going for my birthday."

"Hey, I'm thinking about going on vacation. Mind if I borrow your condo in the fiery pits of hell?"

"Only if you buy the kind of milk I want."

"I hear they have that kind of milk in hell, actually, why don't you come with me?" he asks as he points the phone towards a wall of bread. When he turns it back towards himself, he looks completely puzzled. "Which kind of-?"

"The 35 calorie one."

"What? No!"

"It tastes fine and it's good for you. None of those awful ingredients that could make your head explode or make your baby come out with six fingers on each hand."

"Six fingers?"

"Six of them. All in a row."

"That's wicked cool."

She wants to reach through the screen and smack him upside the head for using the word 'wicked' after only living in Boston for a few weeks.

"Really?" she says instead, offering him the most annoyed look in her arsenal. "Really?"

"I'm trying to blend in with the natives."

"You need to buy fruit," she says. "It's good for you."

"Organic fruit probably tastes disgusting."

"Do you suddenly not like fruit?"

"Is it processed?"

"Um, no?"

"Then... no."

"Well, you're going to be keeping my apples in your refrigerator, so if you could just begin walking towards the produce section, I would greatly appreciate it."

He babbles on about his workday as he strides over to the produce section, telling a story about his evil new boss and his cool new coworker and the okay new restaurant that he's been eating his meals at. Lydia just stares- hasn't been able to stop staring, actually. Not since they slept together.

"Lyds?" says Stiles, brow creased. "Ya with me?"

"Apparently so," she says, nuzzling slightly at her pillow as she tries to get more comfortable.

"Okay," he says. "So let's see... pears, oranges, strawberries... ah, here they are. Red or green?"

"Red."

"I like green."

"So you do eat fruit!"

"Sometimes. I'm mostly made up of sour patch kids, though."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"Probably because you've known me since kindergarten," he says absently. "Okay," Stiles adds, turning his camera around. "So, Lydia. How do you like them apples?"

---

If Lydia were a better person, she probably wouldn't remind Stiles that he is Polish.

However.

"You're Polish," she points out. It's 7:30 in the morning and Stiles is in her apartment, drinking tea instead of coffee even though Lydia hasn't asked him to. He takes a bite of cinnamon toast crunch and frowns heavily at Lydia, a slight pout in his lower lip. It would probably be embarrassing for him to see her just after she's woken up, with her tangled morning hair and silk sleeping shorts, but Stiles tends to make his way into her apartment on most mornings. It has become interchangeable with his. They keep food and coffee over at his place, but usually end up eating most meals at Lydia's.

"Good morning to you, too," he says. "Have some negativity, why dontcha?"

"That's not negativity, that is fact," Lydia pronounces, lifting his tea and taking a sip. Mmm. Raspberry with zing. "You are Polish and this is not your holiday."

When he stands up to put his bowl in the sink, she sees that even his socks are green. Lydia can't help but laugh.

"Is your office holding a competition for who can have the most humiliating St. Patrick's day outfit, or...?"

"Nope," Stiles says, searching the floor for his messenger bag, which he usually drops somewhere near the door. "I just think that it's my first St. Patrick's day in Boston, and I have to figure out how to blend in."

"You're not going to blend in," Lydia says, raising her eyebrows and pointing her finger towards his cereal bowl. He sighs, then drops it in the sink. When Lydia does nothing but cross her arms over her chest, he groans and puts it in the dishwasher.

"Happy?"

"How can I be when, first thing in the morning, my eyeballs have been assaulted with the most vulgar shade of green ever brought onto this earth?"

"One day, when the aliens arrive and are this exact color, you are going to regret saying that," Stiles tells her, sitting on the counter as she begins to make a breakfast smoothie. "Any plans for tonight?"

Yes, definitely. She is going to stay home, lock herself up in her bedroom, and cry over the fact that a one-night-stand has taken away her opportunity to get drunk along with every other person in Boston, regardless of whether they're Irish or Polish or whatever. On St. Patrick's day, everybody in Boston is Irish. Everybody cheers for the parades, everybody gets stone-cold-drunk, and everybody eats corned beef and cabbage for dinner.

"Not really," she shrugs.

"Good," Stiles says. "Because I do."

"Going out with your coworkers?"

"Nope. There's this place on my way home from work that's been advertising corned beef and cabbage for weeks. I say we go out, eat it, have alcohol-free beer, and come back here to marathon Grey's Anatomy."

Her ears perk up.

"Sorry, did you just say-?"

He nods, grinning.

"The embargo is officially over."

Lydia contemplates jumping up and down and screaming, but she is a twenty-five year old woman with a masters degree and her very own chem lab. She contains herself.

"Thank god," she says. "I mean, not that I don't appreciate you freaking out over every pregnancy storyline, but when we have to stop watching the show it starts to become an actual factor in my life."

"Much like the pregnancy," Stiles jokes.

It makes Lydia pause, her hand on the button to turn the blender on. He's sifting through her cabinet, trying to find the prenatal vitamins that she takes every morning, but when she doesn't respond, he turns around to frown at her. Lydia's eyes pop up to Stiles', which are asking the question without him having to ask.

"This is your last St. Patrick's day in Boston," she says.

"No, it's my first," Stiles replies patiently. "Your pregnancy brain is starting to get to you."

"No, but like..." she pauses, trying to get her mind in order. "Next St. Patrick's day, you're going to have a five-month-old baby. You aren't going to be able run off into the streets of Boston and get totally pissed with your friends."

He shrugs. "That's okay."

"No, but then, for the next eighteen years, you're not going to be able to go either. You are stuck at home, not going to ragers, until this kid is eighteen years old. Go get it out of your system."

"There's nothing to get out. It's fine."

"It's not! You deserve this. You deserve this one last raging holiday."

"Maybe, but I don't want it."

"Well, why not?"

He rolls his eyes.

"Because you can't go out, so why should I?"

"You're not pregnant. You can drink."

"It takes two to accidentally inseminate a zygote."

"It takes one to push a giant watermelon out of her vaginal canal."

"Oh, so you're just going to take all the credit for this baby now?"

"Just... go out tonight. Please."

"Hey," says Stiles, hopping off of the counter and grabbing Lydia's arm. "I'm not being a super selfless human being by deciding not to go out. I'm new to the city. I don't know where to go and who to go there with."

"You told me about your friend from work who-"

"He's got a fiancee and a pre-established group of friends. He has a life. I'm not a part of that... I can't just worm myself in."

She stares at him, biting her lower lip.

"God," she says finally. "I really fucked up your life, didn't I?"

One shoulder goes up as Stiles offers her a sideways smile.

"Not really. Just a little bit."

For a moment, she is back in high school, and she can't control her powers or anything about them, can't ignore them or use them for good, can't seem to stop bothering everybody with them because they have control of her, not the other way around. Her breath comes out in short spurts, and she remembers how he'd made her feel back then, how he hadn't meant to hurt her, but had dented a piece of her every day that she suddenly was no longer important to him.

She wants him out of her apartment. She doesn't want to have to stare at the damage that she caused on him and the hurt that he caused on her.

"You just... I think... we have..." Her voice comes out in short, breathy spurts, and she wants to grip his hand to steady herself, feel the pulse beating steadily under his wrist, but instead she just gapes at him, feeling utterly and completely useless.

"Woah there," he says, leading her over to the kitchen table and gently pulling the chair back. "Jesus, I'm sorry. I was teasing you." Stiles squats on the floor, right in front of her, and soothes his thumb over the heated flesh of her cheeks. She can't even look at him, too ashamed of the weaknesses that she'd thought she'd been rid of coming to the surface like ghosts. "Lydia, I am happy to be here. The reason I don't want to go out tonight, truthfully, is that you are the only person I want to spend the evening with."

"You hang out with me every night!" she protests, voice still coming out choppily. He wrinkles his nose, looking down at the floor, and for a second, she can see a flash of awkwardness in his eyes.

"Well... that's mostly because you're the person I want to spend every evening with."

She's so busy playing those words over and over again that she misses him checking her pulse.

"Okay," he says, nodding to himself. "Panic attack averted."

"That was a panic attack?"

"Yeah," he says, straightening up and kissing her on the forehead. "But there ya go. All better."

He fishes for his phone in the pocket of his pants, then pulls it out and begins firing off a text message. God, she hopes he isn't texting her mom to tell her about this. Stiles has been texting Lydia's mom way too much lately.

"What are you-?"

"Texting my boss to tell him I'm going to be late. I'm walking you to work."

"You don't have to," Lydia protests, but he presses send and shoves his phone back into his pocket.

"Of course I do," he says flippantly, settling down into the chair across from her. "Now go get dressed. The sooner you get to work, the sooner you can come home and we can watch Grey's Anatomy."

She strolls into her walk-in closet on unsteady legs, trying to focus on what she's doing, but somehow only able to think of Stiles' lips on her forehead. Lydia's fingers close around a dark blue dress, considering it. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she spots an emerald green wrap dress that she usually saves for business meetings. She walks over to it, scrutinizing the wall for a pair of shoes that might dress it down slightly.

Shaking her head, Lydia slides the dress on and goes over to the mirror to look at herself. There's the smallest of bumps in her stomach, one that wasn't there before, and it causes the green silk to hug her in ways that she's not used to on her body.

"Happy St. Patrick's day," she says.

In the end, she wears the dress more for Stiles than she does for herself.

---

"What do you think it will sound like?"

Stiles' voice is low and eager in her ear, but Lydia is too focused on the odd colored goop that the nurse is spreading across her stomach. It's cold, but she barely flinches. She's read enough to know that this is to be expected. It is supposed to be cold, and the baby's heartbeat is supposed to be over 120 because if it's lower that's bad, and-

"Stop freaking out," Stiles murmurs from where he is crouching on a stool next to her. "It's going to be okay."

It had better be okay. Lydia thinks that they deserve okay after all the shit they've been through.

The nurse puts the wand on her stomach, and Lydia sucks in a breath, waiting. For a moment, there is nothing as the woman moves the wand around, trying to locate their baby. Then, suddenly... boom.

It sounds like a million werewolf packs running simultaneously, their feet thundering against the pavement. Lydia tries to put herself into the moment: This is her baby. This is the baby's heartbeat. This heartbeat is happening inside of her, not just on the monitor. For Lydia, it's hard to reconcile what she's hearing on the monitor to the barely existent bump on her belly.

But then she looks up at Stiles, whose mouth is parted, whose eyes are glistening, and whose hand is desperately grasping for hers. She offers him her hand and he squeezes, and she thinks that, with their wrists pressed together, there are three heartbeats of one family all connected together. Her stomach fills with butterflies and she sits up slightly so that she can stare harder at the little bean on the monitor. Stiles places a kiss on Lydia's wrist where their hands are joined, his eyes still clapped on the small screen.

By the time they get out of the room, Lydia doesn't think she's ever felt so shaky. She takes several deep breaths, trying to calm the fluttering of her heart as a combination of laughter and tears bursts from her. And this is ridiculous, because it's just a heartbeat and Lydia Martin doesn't cry over heartbeats.

Except she does. She cried when Allison's heart stopped beating, and when Aiden's heart stopped beating, and she felt her own heart stop beating every time she thought Stiles was dead. Heartbeats are important, and now she and Stiles have brought a brand new one into the world. They made a whole heartbeat. Together.

Without thinking about it, Lydia pushes Stiles into the nearest supply closet. It's not locked, and there's a light switch in the corner which Stiles immediately finds before slamming the door shut with his foot and diving for Lydia's lips. She barely has time to register the fact that his lips are on hers before he begins to kiss her in a possessive way that is brand new to her. In her experience, his kisses are sweet and hungry and buzzing with an undercurrent of something that he is trying to keep only for himself. But this kiss is open, and vulnerable, and he's not bothering to think about technique or even rules. He's just kissing her with everything that he is feeling.

He kisses his way down her neck and then lifts the hem of her shirt up, offering the hem to her. She holds it in place as he presses kisses on her stomach. Lydia bites her lip to keep from saying anything, worried that it will pull him away from the moment.

"Stiles," she murmurs, only because she wants to kiss him again, but he looks up, eyes clear and bright, and she doesn't think she's seen this expression on his face since the last time they had sex.

"What?" he pushes. "What, Lydia? Tell me what you want. I want to give that to you. Anything."

What she wants, honestly, is him. She wants him to crawl along the intricacies of her personality and learn her quirks and be the person who can tell what mood she's in just by seeing one particular look on her face that he has seen a thousand times before. She wants their bodies to already have a rhythm together, something so familiar that it makes her feel like she's about to fall to pieces with the force of what is about to occur and what has already happened. And she wants him to say 'anything' to her again, wants him to look like he's looking all of the time.

"Just... home," she insists, tugging at the sleeve of his t-shirt to pull him up. She kisses his shoulder, then the corner of his jaw, and then pulls him out of the closet, trying to ignore the way her knees are shaking.

Later, when he's inside of her, he says it again. Anything. She's too scared to say it back, but before they go to sleep, she kisses him on the lips and lets him say it all over again.

---

"I think I might be in love with the father of my child."

Lydia doesn't mean for it to come out funny, but her mom starts cracking up immediately. She can hear her on the other line, the little guffaws that her mother is famous for crackling through the speaker on Lydia's phone. If they were on Skype, Lydia would be able to cast her mother a disapproving glance, but as it is, she is currently doing her nighttime skincare routine and probably wouldn't look very threatening even if she tried to be.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sweetie," her mother says, and Lydia imagines her swiping a tear away from the corner of her eye before taking a sip of wine. "It's not funny. Of course it's not funny."

"Thank you," says Lydia, voice stiff.

"So, what brought this on?"

Lydia pats her face with a towel, scrutinizing her forehead for any potential breakouts. She's never had acne before, but ever since she read in one of the baby books that pregnant women normally get zits, she's been watching her complexion like a hawk.

"Well... I slept with him, for one thing."

"Yes, I know, dear. That's how we got into this situation in the first place."

"No," Lydia says, wincing slightly. "I mean... I slept with him again."

"Oh!"

"And then there was cuddling."

"Oh?"

"Like, a lot of cuddling."

"Oh."

"Stop saying 'oh,' mom,"

"Oh, sorry!"

Lydia sighs, flicking off her bathroom light and throwing herself onto her bed.

"It was a little bit perfect? Like, one of those things that happens and you know you should probably feel guilty about it but all you can think is that, if this were a mistake, you'd make it over and over again."

She flips onto her back and stares up at the ceiling, back ramrod straight. Because a few days ago, Stiles was on this bed. With her. Kissing her and touching her and- and she definitely shouldn't be thinking about this while she's on the phone with her mother. She needs a new bed. And, ugh, a new apartment.

Although the baby sort of makes any efforts to forget about Stiles completely moot.

"Are you sure you don't want to tell him how you feel about him?"

"He doesn't even know that I had a thing for him in high school."

"If you tell him, would it make him see your situation differently?"

"Maybe," Lydia says doubtfully. "But, the truth is, I convinced myself ages ago that me and Stiles aren't supposed to be together. And maybe this baby is supposed to reaffirm that."

"Why would you think that having a baby with somebody is an indicator that you two don't belong together?"

Lydia's mom thinks that she's crazy. Well, that's nothing new. She's kind of used to it by now.

"Because if we get together and screw it up, the baby gets punished more than we do. But if we just remain friends and raise a kid together, I know that we could be great at it. I trust Stiles, and I think he's going to be a great father."

"If you lock away your feelings, you might resent each other."

"We're good as friends," Lydia begins to protest, but her mother cuts her off.

"Do you remember how hard it was to watch Stiles with Malia when you were in high school?" Lydia doesn't say anything, but her mom knows her well enough to take that as agreement. "Well, imagine having a baby with him and having to watch him fall for somebody else. Get married, and have more kids, and raise them in a house with a wife in the suburbs."

"Have you ever considered the possibility that I don't want the suburbs, mother?"

"You will," she says. "Once you watch Stiles get the suburbs with somebody else."

She falters.

"And... and how do you know that I won't fall in love with somebody else first?"

"Because you're stubborn," her mother says. "And after this, the only person you're going to love more than this baby is the man that gave it to you."

"We're just friends," she says, but her voice comes out weakly. Lydia clears it pointedly, just as there's a knock on the door. "Hang on," she says to her mother, and she gets up to walk out of her bedroom and over to the front of her apartment. When she looks out the peep-hole, Stiles is standing there, looking adorably nervous. "Hey," Lydia greets him, swinging open the door.

"Hi!" Stiles says, a bit too loud. "So, um, I'm wondering if maybe you wanted to go for a walk." Lydia doesn't say anything, but he keeps going after a few awkward moments, and Lydia can't understand why all of the people in her life seem to believe that silence is an invitation to keep babbling on. "It's the first nice night in April and I am really fucking craving a canolie and Bova's is open 24/7 so I figure we just head down there and get some pastries and maybe a sub and-"

"I already did my nighttime skincare routine," Lydia tells him.

"Oh," Stiles replies, blinking. "So, yeah, I guess that's a no. I knew it was late, but-"

She's about 50-percent certain that he's giving her doe-eyes on purpose. But the other 50-percent wants to wrap him in a blanket and offer him tea and protect him from the universe because he just looks so adorable, and fuck, is this pregnancy brain?

"Hang on," she says. "I'll get changed."

She leaves the door open and turns around, walking into the apartment and not looking back until she has reached her bedroom. Lydia hears her front door close, however, and she smiles. When she remembers that her mother is still on the phone, the smile slips from her face. She squeezes her eyes shut as she presses the phone to her ear, leaning against the wood of her bedroom door.

"So," she says, pausing as she tries to figure out what to say. "I have to go..."

"Mmm, I heard," her mother says knowingly. "Have fun with your 'friend.'"

"I heard those air quotes!"

"What air quotes? There were no air quotes."

"There were tons of air quotes."

"Okay, you go get dressed," says her mom, laughing. "You can call me tomorrow and tell me all about your date."

"It's not a-" Lydia begins, but her mom clicks off almost immediately. "Fine," she mutters into the phone.

But if this isn't a date, Lydia doesn't really know why it takes her so long to pick out her outfit.

---

It hasn't felt like this in a while.

Her heart is speeding up as her fingers race over the notebook; big, loopy numbers on white-lined paper. Lydia has to remind herself to breathe as she stares down at the page, her fingers working as hard as they can to catch up with her hand. And she loves this; loves the challenge and the ease, loves the familiarity. This is what she does. This is what makes her heartbeat pound in her ears and her palms sweaty with energy.

This is the only time Lydia feels truly unsettled, yet completely peaceful.

Maybe it's because she is totally in control. When she does this, there isn't anything she can't figure out. Even if it takes a few moments, she gets it eventually, solving it like a riddle. Math is the one mystery that Lydia has an interest in; she never listens to the police reports now, too worried that she'll hear something which will trigger her powers. But math? She's never been able to resist a single equation that was put in front of her.

Maybe it's because, with every problem she does, she gets just a little bit better. And with that comes power. With that comes control.

She's so lost within the world of numbers and symbols and letters that she almost forgets the rest of the world exists. So when Stiles crashes into her bedroom, door hitting the wall as he searches wildly for her, she nearly jumps out of her skin. He's got an apple in his mouth and a book in one hand, with his phone in the other. She wonders why he hadn't just used it.

"Lydia!" he says around the apple that is clenched within his teeth, and when she narrows her eyes, his own eyes widen. He holds up one finger, then throws his phone onto her bed and takes the apple in hand. "Lydia," Stiles repeats. "This book has told me something wonderful."

"Please don't tell me it's the bible," she says dryly. "So overdone."

"It's a baby book," Stiles says, hopping onto her bed.

He's the worst trained puppy she's ever had.

"If you get food on this comforter, so help me-"

"The baby book says that you're going to get really, really randy during your pregnancy and I want to say that I find that to be kind of hilarious and to offer my deepest emotional support."

If he doesn't stop flirting with her, she's actually going to have to give in. And Lydia doesn't think that either of them are quite prepared for that. Having sex randomly because their emotions were heightened is one thing. Making a concentrated effort to have a relationship? Quite another.

"Well, it hasn't happened yet," she says. "But don't get me wrong, I'm very glad that me being sexually frustrated is the only thing you seem to have gotten out of this extraordinarily informative novel."

"It's April," he points out. "We've got six months left."

"To read up on being parents?"

"No, for you to get horny."

She wonders if she could strangle him using her drapes. They're thick, but she's strong, and Stiles' neck is pretty tiny.

"Like I said, I wouldn't worry about it."

"I'm not worried. Just enthused."

"Well, aren't we all."

Maybe if she goes back to her work, he'll ignore her?

"Are you horny yet?"

Apparently not, actually.

"Nope."

He waits a moment.

"How about now?"

Lydia sets down her pencil. "Here's an idea," she says. "Maybe if you go finish that book, I'll actually have hit the horny stage by the time you're done."

Stiles' feet fly wildly through the air for several enthralling seconds before they make contact with the floor and he springs off of Lydia's bed, catapulting himself out of the room. He ends up tripping on the rug, falling flat on his face, and glancing behind himself to see if she'd seen. Lydia waves.

"I meant to do that," Stiles says. "The floor is comfortable."

"I'm sure."

"I'm just going to finish reading right here."

"You do that."

He crawls back into Lydia's bedroom, then drags some of her comforter off of her bed to drape it over himself.

"I'm gonna read now. On the floor."

"Hogging my covers."

"Graciously borrowing your covers."

"Keep telling yourself that, Stilinski. Doesn't make it any more true."

---

There is a diamond ring sparkling on Lydia's fourth finger.

The sun keeps catching it, making it dance right in front of her eyes, and there's a part of Lydia that wishes she would stop staring at it, because she's relatively certain that Stiles is going to catch her and ask why her eyes are fixated on it. But there is a ring on her finger, and she and Stiles had picked it out together, laughing quietly to themselves and putting too much effort into the mere act of not knocking anything down, and their quiet giggles had disturbed the peace of the teenagers in the store, but Lydia hadn't cared. Because all of it had led to this ring. On her finger.

"Dear, how long have you been engaged?"

People have been asking her questions all day, but all Lydia has to do is allow a beam to stretch across her lips and flip her hair as she glances lovingly over at Stiles.

"Oh, since a little before the baby announced its arrival," she giggles, and he lifts her hand to his lips, eyes twinkling as he presses a kiss to her knuckles.

"And is it a boy or a girl?"

"We're waiting to find out," says Stiles. "My Lydia loves surprises."

She elbows him in the gut because she is not the one who doesn't want to look at the envelope. Stiles, impressively, keeps smiling. Almost like he was... expecting it. Oh god, is pregnancy making her predictable?

"How wonderful," the old lady says, pinching Lydia's cheek and putting more potato salad on her plate. "I do love seeing kids like yourselves ending up happy."

"Oh, we are," Lydia says warmly. As Stiles accepts a fourth hot dog onto his plate and steers her away from the crowd of old people, she makes sure to keep her fingers twisted around his.

"Laying it on thick, are ya?" he asks through a smile. Lydia just shrugs, plopping herself onto the ground. Her dress fans out on the green grass, and she kicks her wedges off, wiggling her toes into the warm soil.

"It was your idea," she says, voice bright.

"I didn't realize how much you'd enjoy it," he snorts, and then both of them freeze, cringing slightly at his words. "By the way, are you horny yet?"

He keeps asking her at random moments, a teasing smile on his face, as though he might be able to surprise a positive answer out of her.

"Well," says Lydia, recovering quickly. "You know how much I love acting. And, no, I am not horny yet."

Stiles frowns.

"Is that a dig at the entirety of your high school experience?" he asks, and Lydia smirks before throwing a grape into the air and allowing it to land seamlessly in her mouth. An admiring grin settles across Stiles' lips. "I kind of didn't think you had that in you."

"Of course I do," she says breezily. "I have drawn a veil over the high school experience."

"Sure you have," he says offhandedly. "That's why you're having a baby with the boy that spent the entirety of high school in love with you."

She doesn't know what part of his sentence makes her ache the most. The fact that he had said it so offhandedly, like it didn't matter? The fact that he had said 'entirety' of high school when she had given up on him so quickly? Or the fact that his sentence implied that he didn't feel that way about her anymore?

"Stilinski!" calls Stiles' boss, and they both turn around to see him lumbering over to the two of them, a plate full of burgers grasped in his hand. "You'll have to introduce me to your little lady!"

"This is Lydia," he says, game-face turning back on. "My fiancee."

"And how long have you been engaged?"

"Oh, since a little before the baby announced its arrival," replies Lydia. She wonders how many times she'll say those words before they'll start to taste bitter in her mouth.

Maybe just one more time before she begins to realize that none of this is real.

---

"Stiles, I think this is my calling."

He rolls his eyes, pointedly turning up the volume on the episode of Parks and Recreation that they're watching.

"I think you'll survive."

"Please?" she whines. He raises his eyebrows at her voice; she doesn't usually lower herself to begging.

"Lydia, you'll start and then give up as soon as the nesting phase passes."

"No I won't!"

"Yes you will. This is just your hormones telling you that you need to start building your nest for your baby bird. Don't listen to them. Squash them like a bug."

"It's not my hormones," Lydia protests, crossing her arms over her chest and pouting slightly. "It's the fact that you have lived here since February and your apartment still hasn't been decorated."

"I just haven't decided on a theme yet," Stiles says calmly. Lydia doesn't like this behavior. It is making her seem like the weirdly energetic and sarcastic one.

"I've got a perfect one! It's called 'new couch.'"

"I like this couch," he says, patting it. "It's got character."

"Well character is hurting my pregnant ass. Get a new couch."

"Naw," he says, going for the volume again. Lydia knocks the remote out of his hand, which effectively makes him mad. "Dude!" he protests.

"Brah," she replies. "It's been four months. Decorate."

"Okay," he says, grabbing the remote back from her and flicking the TV off. "Here's the deal. You don't get to redecorate the apartment... but. If you stop asking me about it, I'll let you look at the envelope."

Her eyes widen as she sits up, staring at him.

"Wait, seriously?"

"It might be more practical to know what the baby's gender is anyways, right?" he says, shrugging. "Plus, you gotta shut up about this. It's driving me crazy."

"So is your apartment," Lydia hints.

Stiles heads over to his mail pile, sitting askew on top of his kitchen counter. He shuffles through it until he finds the bright yellow envelope and brings it back over to Lydia.

"Ready?" he asks. Suddenly, her heart is pounding in her ears. She sits up, faces Stiles, and crosses her legs, resting her hands calmly in her lap. When she looks up at him, he's just looking at her. Waiting.

"Ready," she whispers, and she wants to grab his hand to hold it, but he's got to open the envelope first. Lydia would prefer to open it herself, but her hands are shaking and her legs feel weak and she wonders why every moment in her life with Stiles Stilinski seems to feel like the biggest moment she will ever have.

He doesn't look at the card as he takes it out, instead choosing to offer it to Lydia. She takes the card from him and he licks his lips nervously. For a moment, he looks like he's having trouble swallowing, and that makes Lydia smile. Doing this with somebody else makes it so much better.

Girl.

The word, written in the loopy handwriting of a nurse, stares right back at Lydia. A girl. They're having a little girl. Without thinking about it, she starts to smile.

"I might want to name her after Allison," she says, trying to ignore the whine in her throat because she's so bad at not crying lately. "Not the actual name, but maybe something that starts with an 'A.' So that Allison knows that she's named after her and she knows that she's named after Allison, and-"

"It's a girl?" Stiles cuts in, voice squeaky. Lydia wants to look up from the card to see his face, which she is sure looks very amusing at the moment, but she can't seem to tear herself away. Yes, it's a girl. And yes, this card suddenly seems to have opened a universe of stories and possibilities and hopes and Lydia can't stop reading the word, over and over again as if it might vanish and this could all be taken away. Like it's some sort of dream that she could wake up from instead of solidly, thankfully, her actual life.

"It's a girl," Lydia reaffirms, beaming as she looks up from the letter.

"Oh god," Stiles says, wiping a tear from his eye. "Oh my god. I gotta tell Scott, like, right now."

She laughs as he dives for his phone and dials the number, which he knows by heart.

Mine, she thinks, staring at his thumbs as they whiz across the keypad. Mine, mine, mine she tellsherself as his eyes blink back tears and his lips curve up at the edges.

Yours.

---

Lydia is sorting her laundry when it starts up again. She grabs for her phone, pressing the first speed dial before pressing it to her ear.

"Hello?" says Stiles.

"Toe jam," Lydia replies. The call ends, and she hears his apartment door slam just before hers bangs open. Stiles skids into her living room, slams into the coffee table, and enters the bedroom, swearing loudly.

"Where?" he demands, leaping onto her bed, and Lydia grabs his hand and places it on her stomach. Immediately, his face changes. He drops lower onto the bed, right by her belly, and stares at his hand where it rests, where there is some part of their baby moving underneath Lydia's skin. "Hi, baby girl," he coos. "Hi. It's daddy. Again."

Lydia picks up a dress and folds it neatly as Stiles presses little kisses against her stomach where the baby is moving.

"Wonder if she's getting sick of the sound of our voices yet," she teases. Stiles ignores this.

"I'm so excited to meet you," he says to their baby. "I love you so, so much. And mommy loves you, and Uncle Scotty loves you, and Grandpa loves you, and Auntie Allison loves you, and-"

"You're going to have the stop the baby talk when she comes out, you know," Lydia says. "We want her to learn to speak as quickly and efficiently as possible, which means talking to her like an adult."

"But she's so cute," Stiles says, brown eyes somehow pleading with her. "She's a lil baby."

"She could be ugly," Lydia reasons, pausing as the baby moves particularly jarringly. Stiles pats her on the stomach comfortingly, which makes her feel like a horse, and she frowns at him.

"We did not create an ugly baby," Stiles scoffs. "She is beautiful. Just like her mommy."

"Kissing up will get you nowhere."

"That's not what your mom said last night," Stiles says, wiggling his head as if to say 'I told you so.' Lydia stares at him expressionlessly. "Okay, yeah, sorry, got kind of defensive there."

"Next time this baby moves, I'm not going to tell you. Just for that."

He sighs heavily, flopping over onto his back but keeping his hand on Lydia's stomach.

"Fine," he says. "By the way, are you horny yet?"

The laughter on his face makes it way too difficult for Ice-Queen Lydia Martin to hold her angry glare.

---

It's the first time Lydia has had to go shopping for maternity clothes without Stiles since she had gotten pregnant, and she's starting to realize just how heavy bags are. Before she'd been knocked up, she'd had the perfect system for how many shopping bags she could carry on her arms and in her hands while still looking and walking normally. Now, it seems that her entire balance had been thrown off, and she hadn't accounted for it. But this morning she had woken up and her stomach had seemed to pop out overnight. She went to bed at eight and had woken up with the desperate need for new maternity clothes. Stiles hadn't been up yet, so Lydia went shopping on her own.

And now, walking up the stairs to her apartment, she is seriously starting to regret it.

She doesn't regret the clothes. They're adorable, and she's so grateful that she gets to be pregnant now and not during the 90s, because her mom's maternity clothes had been atrocious. But she definitely should have dragged Stiles along with her, because walking up these stairs with seven bags and only wedges for ankle support is way too much effort for a woman who is almost six months pregnant. So as soon as she gets to her apartment, she is too busy being grateful that it is unlocked to wonder why, exactly, the knob turns so easily.

"Hey," says Stiles, and Lydia shrieks and drops her bags. "Are you horny yet?"

"Fuck," she gasps, raising a hand to her rapidly beating heart. "Are you trying to terrify me into giving birth three and a half months early?"

"Is that a thing?" Stiles asks, no doubt mentally sifting through the pages of the dozens of baby books that he has consumed since Lydia got pregnant.

"Yes, of course," she fibs.

"No, definitely not," comes a voice, and Lydia approaches the couch to see Scott McCall's idiot, golden-retriever face lopsidedly grinning from Stiles' iPad.

"Hey," she says. "Is there a reason Stiles is Skyping you in my apartment, or-?"

"He says the couch is comfier," Scott divulges, as Stiles shouts, "DUDE!"

"Aha," Lydia says triumphantly. "So he admits it. Finally."

Stiles sinks lower into the couch, grumpy.

"So you gonna give us a fashion show?" Scott asks, nudging his chin towards the corner of the screen, where Lydia's bags can be spotted in the background.

"No," she says primly. "Because I am a grown-ass woman."

"At least give me a look at the bump," Scott presses, nudging his nose closer to the screen. Lydia crosses her arms over her chest as one of his nostrils gets alarmingly close to the camera. "You know you wannnnaaa."

"Scott," says Stiles. "The last person who asked her to show them the bump got escorted out of Trader Joe's. I would back off, if I were you."

"Oh, come on!" Scott complains. "I'm mishpokhe!" They both stare at him. "It means family. In Yiddish."

"Izzy is Jewish," Stiles clarifies for Lydia. "He does this all the time."

"You two are mashugana," Scott mutters, shaking his head.

He looks like a sad puppy dog, and maybe it's hormones that makes Lydia sigh.

"Fine," she says, and she lifts her shirt up and turns sideways so that Scott can properly observe her protruding belly.

"Hello, niece!" coos Scott. "Aren't you beautiful? Uncle Scott loooves you!"

"This is humiliating," she says. "I should make you show me your stomach."

"Please," Stiles says as Lydia lowers her shirt. "You don't want to see it. The kid hasn't played lacrosse in years."

"Neither have you!" Scott protests, defensive.

"I have a pickup soccer league," Stiles replies proudly.

"That'll all go out the window by the time you have a two-month-old baby."

Stiles looks like he's just considering this for the first time. Lydia pats him comfortingly on the head before hopping onto the couch next to him. She has to fit her face into the screen, so she settles in close to Stiles and rests her chin on his shoulder so that Scott can see her better.

"So did Stiles tell you that he's been cooking a lot?" Lydia asks, because Stiles still seems to be inwardly panicking about the fact that he will probably not be able to brag about his thighs once this baby arrives.

"He did!" Scott says cheerily. "Is he any good at it?"

"Of course I am," Stiles says indignantly, while Lydia shrugs and says, "Eh."

Stiles looks over at her, wrinkling his nose.

"You seemed to like my cooking last night."

"Well, I was craving fish."

"It was chicken."

"Wait, really?"

Scott chortles from Beacon Hills, California, just as his wife comes into view. She is pretty, with honey-blond hair and deep brown eyes. Somehow, Lydia thinks that her enormous nose adds character. Maybe she's gone soft since moving out to Boston.

Usually, when they Skype, she's with the baby, but it seems that it's his nap-time because Izzy settles onto the couch next to Scott

"Hey, Stiles!" Izzy says, waving at the camera. "Did you get the food I sent you?"

"Yeah!" he says, nodding. "Thanks. I tried to make your koogle recipe a few nights ago, but it didn't turn out quite like yours."

"I actually thought it tasted better coming back up," says Lydia, causing Stiles to elbow her in the side, annoyed. "Ow!" she says pointedly. "Carrying your child around there."

"I hit bone," he says, annoyed. "That was your hip."

"So," Izzy cuts in, ignoring them. "Lydia! I feel like we've barely had a chance to get to know each other!"

"Well, you're so busy with the baby," Lydia says, brushing it off. And I'm so busy wondering how similar you are to my dead best friend.

"So, you're the one that Stiles had a crush on in high school, right?" Izzy asks. Scott's smile widens.

"Yep, she's the one."

"And you're the banshee, yes?"

"Um, yes," Lydia replies.

"How are you doing with repressing your tendencies?"

"Pregnancy is making it a bit harder," Lydia responds, shocked that someone would be asking.

"Yeah, I've read that it can throw a werewolf's powers way out of wack, so I've been wondering if it would apply to a banshee, especially because your powers seem to be so much more spiritual than physical."

"Right," Lydia says, suddenly feeling like she hasn't done enough research. "It's particularly strong when the baby moves."

Izzy's eyes brighten.

"That's so interesting!" she says. "Wow, okay. So Lydia Martin. Banshee, Stiles' crush, and the one he saved from the lacrosse field. I think I'm all caught up now."

"Oh, no," Lydia says, brushing it off. "Jackson saved me from the lacrosse field, not Stiles."

Izzy and Scott stare at her. Stiles plays with a loose thread on Lydia's couch. She's going to have to remember to snip that later; it's been driving her crazy and she keeps forgetting.

"Lydia," Scott starts slowly. "Um-"

"Dude," Stiles says, looking up for the first time. "Don't."

"Lydia," Scott says again. "Jackson didn't save you from Peter. Stiles did."

She feels her stomach bottom out as nausea begins to grow that has nothing to do with pregnancy.

"Wait," she says. "What?"

She looks over at him for confirmation, but Stiles is just staring at the couch, biting the inside of his cheek.

"Stiles saw you there with Peter and-"

"Okay," he says, looking up suddenly. "That's enough."

His voice is so final that Scott stops talking immediately.

"Stiles-" Lydia whispers, because all these years and she never knew... she'd always thought... he saved her, and she took so long to be grateful, to fall in love with him, and now she wants him like a heartache and it is consuming her, starting in her fingers and spreading to her stomach and nose and he has saved her life one more time than she believed and maybe it doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of all the danger they've ever been in, but Stiles is the one who saved her on the lacrosse field.

"We have to go," Stiles says abruptly. "I'll call you guys tomorrow." He jabs his finger against the screen, ending the call, and gets off of the couch.

"Wait," Lydia says, scooting closer, but he doesn't look at her as he walks to the door and slams it behind himself.

Later, when she tries his apartment door, she finds it locked. The next time she sees him, they don't talk about it.

---

Stiles is in Lydia's kitchen when she gets home from work.

He's always there, trying out new recipes, and she doesn't know why he's gotten into this weird baking kick, but she does know that she's super grateful for it. Yesterday, he made apple strudel pumpkin cinnamon muffins. She ate, like, six of them, and then she woke up in the middle of the night and had two more and didn't feel guilty because she's already got a giant stomach from growing a human being inside of her.

Today, he's got his sleeves pushed up past his elbows and he is rolling a wine bottle back and forth across dough as though it is a rolling pin.

"Hey!" he says, beaming at Lydia from where she stands in the doorway, and he swipes his flour-covered hand across his face, leaving a long, white streak on his forehead. "I'm making pie."

It hits her like a wave, making her waver on the spot, and she drops her purse onto the ground, licking her bottom lip. Stiles, for his part, doesn't notice. He cheerfully turns back to the pie crust, whistling some stupid, popular song that Lydia loves.

"Okay," she says calmly. "Now I'm horny."

Stiles' body freezes. He turns around slowly.

"Wait," he says. "What?"

Lydia kicks off her shoes and reaches behind her skirt to unzip it.

"I said," she tells him slowly, "'Now I'm horny.'"

His eyes widen as she gets closer to him, boxing him into the counter, and he doesn't move as she unbuttons his shirt and pushes it off of his shoulders. Her movements are slow as she lifts her chin so that her lips can touch his. As soon as her mouth opens, their actions are suddenly a frenzy.

Lydia pushes Stiles to the floor and straddles his hips, leaving bite marks on his neck and down his chest. He groans as her hands move to the buttons on his jeans, and he lifts his hips to help her pull them down.

"Wait," he gasps as Lydia moves lower. "Wait, wait. Are you sure you're horny?"

She glances at his boxer-briefs, then looks pointedly back up at him.

"Definitely," she says.

Stiles sits up on his elbows, not willing to let her tug down his underwear. She huffs, annoyed, and moves in to kiss him, trying to nudge him towards what she wants from him. He kisses her back, lips hungry, but when he pulls away, she can see that he's trying to talk her out of it still.

"Are you sure it's me you want?" he asks. "Like, I can totally get you someone else."

Lydia settles back, a little offended.

"I'm actually curious as to who you have in mind, Stilinski."

He cringes.

"I don't know," he says. "Um, do you want me to call any of your ex-boyfriends, or-"

"You're ridiculous," she says emphatically. "I didn't spend the entire day researching good sex positions for pregnancy so that I could use them with somebody else. Now will you please get naked?"

He nods quickly, shucking off his underwear faster than Lydia ever could have.

When she settles on top of him, she doesn't miss the way they both shakily breathe out at exactly the same time. And from the look on Stiles' face, he doesn't either.

---

Lydia thinks it's too hot to do anything. Stiles disagrees. He comes home from the supermarket with two cartons of ice cream and immediately sticks them in her freezer, turning back to Lydia with a wolfish grin on his face.

They've been sleeping together for several weeks now, and Stiles has all but moved in to Lydia's apartment, but whenever he has that look on his face, it sends shivers down Lydia's spine.

"Hey," she says weakly, because she's too busy thinking about the most time efficient way to get her clothes off to concentrate on anything else.

"Hi," Stiles says, voice low. "So..." Lydia nods, biting her bottom lip, and an impish grin spreads across Stiles' lips. "Horny time!" he shouts, pumping his fist into the air delightedly. The movement reveals the treasure trail that goes down his naval, and Lydia is so weirdly obsessed with it that she would feel guilty for objectifying him if she weren't also in love with him.

Of course, he doesn't know that. Neither of them really speak about it, but she's pretty sure he loves her too.

"Horny time," she agrees, and that's when the song starts.

"Horny time/horny time/it's now time for horny time," he sings, reaching behind his neck to pull off his t-shirt. There are three more verses of this song, which Stiles had composed on week one of horny time, but Lydia decides to nip it in the bud by walking up to him and kissing him. Still, he hums the tune against her lips, and she rolls her eyes.

And it may be too hot to do anything, but this man is willing to sleep with her even though pregnancy is giving Lydia the first zits she's ever had in her life. In translation, she's willing to do anything to make him smile. Give him anything.

That day is the first time she whispers that word back to him.

---

Even though Lydia is relatively certain that Stiles' dad is going to recognize him, she still helps him make the sign. She decides to pretend that it is not at all dorky when he holds it up at the airport, bouncing on the balls of his feet as people begin to exit the gate. Stiles' nervous, excited energy is making Lydia nervous and excited, and she slips her hand into his and squeezes, trying to calm both of them. For a moment, Stiles looks down at her, his breathing steadying as he stares.

Then, suddenly, someone shouts, "Stiles!" and Lydia looks up to see Sheriff Stilinski striding towards his son, a beam on his weathered face.

"Dad!" Stiles says, jumping forward. His dad throws his arms around Stiles, thumping him twice on the back for good measure. "I'm so glad you're here," Stiles says, pulling back. He lowers his voice. "The other day, Lydia stood in front of a display of back-to-school supplies and started sobbing. What do I do?"

Sheriff Stilinski laughs.

"And Lydia!" he says, approaching her and throwing his arms around her. Lydia tries not to think about the fact that she's totally been doing his son. That's a weird thing to think about when your high-school-crush-slash-the-father-of-your-child-slash-horny-time-buddy's-father is hugging you. "How's pregnancy treating you?"

"The other day the baby got the hiccups and I wanted to sever my brain from my body," she says, straight-faced. "But other than that... great."

"So what's been driving you more up the wall?" asks Sheriff Stilinski. "Your kid, or my kid?"

Stiles chooses that exact moment to bend over and pick up his dad's suitcase. Lydia swallows thickly.

"It's a draw."

---

Stiles takes the day off to decorate the nursery with his father, and when Lydia comes home to her apartment, she expects to find disaster. What she doesn't expect to find is a fully assembled crib and a giant rack upon which a plethora of plushy toys have been set. Sheriff Stilinski is seated in a rocking chair, his eyes closed and his hands on his stomach as Stiles reads to him. The latter is sprawled across the floor, his feet kicking up and down to release his energy.

"How about Allegra?"

"People will call her Ali, and didn't you two say that you didn't want a baby named Allison?"

"What? That's not the same thing!"

"Next," says the Sheriff without opening his eyes.

"How about Alyssa?"

"Nah."

"Why?"

"Too many S's?"

"Speaking as someone named 'Stiles Stilinski," I can tell you that the 's' is an excellent letter and you should be more respectful of it."

Lydia knocks on the door frame, and both men look up to see her.

"Hey!" Stiles says, scrambling up. "Whaddaya think?"

"It's beautiful," she says. "Where'd the toys come from?"

"Dad had them shipped here," Stiles says. "What do you think about the name Alyssa?"

Lydia glances over at the Sheriff.

"Too many S's," she says, making Stiles groan and his dad cheer.

They'd spent all of yesterday setting up the rocking chair and building the bookshelf and deciding where everything was going to go in the room. Lydia had spent Sunday afternoon in cutoff shorts and a flowy tank top, barefoot and shouting over the music that was blaring out of the speakers that Stiles had set up. She hadn't even cared that the window was open, because whatever was happening had been a million times better than being a good neighbor.

She's starting to daydream about all of the time that they are going to spend in this nursery together.

"So where do you want to hang up the painting that Isaac sent?" Stiles asks, looking around the room. "We were thinking right over there."

"Looks perfect," Lydia says, and the baby moves inside her as if she agrees with her mother and father's choice. "Toe jam."

Both Stiles and Sheriff bolt towards her, but Mr. Stilinski reaches Lydia first, and he offers her his hand, and she places it on her stomach. He's been talking to the baby a lot in the last week since he's been here, hoping that she'll get to know his voice. Lydia thinks that he'll probably come back when the baby is born, but that's two months away, and she already knows that she's going to miss him terribly. Having him around has reminded Lydia of what it was like to grow up with a father, and how much she missed having that when she was a teenager.

Stiles will stick by this kid. Stiles will be there for their baby. Their little girl, with her 'A' name, whatever it is, will never know what it's like to grow up without a father.

"Are you guys hungry?" asks Stiles, looking through the boxes. "I was thinking of making chicken cordon bleu."

The Sheriff frowns at Lydia. "What have you done to him?"

Lydia just shrugs.

"Pretty sure he did it to himself."

The Sheriff chuckles.

"Well, even so... what have you done to him?"

"Dad," Stiles complains, shoving his hands into his pockets and scuffing his foot back and forth across the floor.

"Alright, alright. Why don't you two hang that painting up and I'll go start making a salad."

He leaves the room before they have the chance to agree or disagree, and Stiles just looks at Lydia from where he stands by the bookshelf.

"Remember in high school," he starts, "when we had the pack and it was, like, our family?" Lydia nods silently. "I haven't felt like I've had a family since Allison died," Stiles admits. "After she died it was like... like what does it matter? This isn't family anymore. This is just a collection of broken people and the thing that stuck them together is gone." A lump has formed in Lydia's throat. She ignores it, because Stiles is speaking and this is for him, not her. And he can't even look at her because he's too shy to get this out while staring; his back is turned, ridgid as he stares at a wall of baby toys. "But then you got pregnant, and my dad came to visit and suddenly it's... we're a family. You, and me, and dad, and Scott and Izzy and Gabe. And Lydia I'm just... I'm really happy. I'm so fucking happy right now."

She tiptoes closer to him, then wraps her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek between his shoulder blades. Stiles' hand comes to rest on her hands, and for a moment, Lydia syncs up their breathing, wanting to be as close to him as humanly possible.

"I love you," she says. "I'm not sure if you could tell, but I do love you."

"I love you, too," he breathes out. "But you knew that already."

She hadn't known, but she presses a kiss against his shoulder anyways because she knows now, and that's what matters.

---

Lydia doesn't see Stiles' father off to the airport.

It's not that she doesn't want to, but his flight is at 6 AM, which means they have to leave at 4 o'clock because of that stupid 'two hours early rule,' and when Stiles shakes Lydia's shoulder to wake her up, she ends up attacking him with her nails until he runs out of the room screaming. They leave without her, and when Lydia wakes up around 8 AM and remembers what she's done, she immediately orders an Edible Arrangement as an apology to the grandfather of her baby.

As for the father... that's a different story.

She makes French toast and pancakes, so when Stiles comes home to change for work, he is greeted by a collection of food that could all probably give him a heart attack. He eats all of the bacon and devoutly ignores the strawberries that Lydia has cut up for him, and as he tastes the coffee that Lydia has brewed for him, Stiles smiles lazily.

"This is really good," he says, reaching for another piece of bacon. Lydia watches him chew, amused. She sips her tea and tells herself to stop staring but doesn't, which goes to show that her self-control has gone way downhill since Stiles Stilinski pranced into her life. "By the way, I'm thinking of selling my apartment."

Lydia blinks.

"Where are you going to live?"

"With you," he shrugs. "I mean, I never decorated it, so it's not like it'll be hard to move."

Well, that's starting to make far more sense now.

"Oh," she replies, frowning. "Right."

"I mean, it makes sense," Stiles adds, getting up and depositing his plate into the dishwasher. "After all, we're dating now, so." She gapes at him, and he presses a kiss to her lips. "Bye, Lyds," he says, heading to the door and twiddling his fingers at her. "Have a smashing day at work."

---

When Stiles wakes up screaming, Lydia is reasonably prepared to deal with his nightmares. This isn't the first time he's had one- the vivid dreams, leftover remnants from the time that he died and she pulled him back to life, anchoring herself to him. And Lydia realizes, now more than ever, that to be someone's anchor, you have to have the strength to drag them out of the water.

But the nightmares are usually about the past; things that have already happened, and Lydia can kiss away Stiles' tears and state the facts to him: he is in his twenties, not in high school, and he is lying in a bed in Boston, Massachusetts with his very, very pregnant girlfriend, and Scott is safe and his dad is safe and Lydia is safe and Stiles is safe, not possessed by a dark, evil, demon spirit.

Tonight, it's not so simple.

"We can't protect her," he's saying, clutching onto his knees, which he has pulled up to his bare chest. "Lydia, she's being born into this crazy world of werewolves and nogitsunes and berserkers and we can't protect her from any of it. We don't even have active powers; we're just two passive people who think that they can raise a baby and be able to protect her, and we can't. We can't protect her."

"Of course we can," Lydia says groggily, wiping at her eyes. "Stiles, we can," she says, again, at the look of disbelief on his face. His knees are drawn up to his chest and there are tears sliding down his cheeks and he's shaking. This is a panic attack, and she wants to kiss him to suck his anxious breaths into her body, but Stiles won't even look at her. "This baby has Scott McCall as her uncle and godfather, and her granddad is a Sheriff, and when we bring her back to California, she is going to melt the heart of Derek Hale, who will do anything for the people that he loves, and Kira will be her aunt and Kira is a kitsune. This baby has so many more people to protect her from the crazy supernatural stuff, and she will never want for anything. We're all going to love her so much, and loving her means protecting her. She's going to be just... perfect, Stiles."

His breathing starts to even out, and she takes the opportunity to rub her hands up and down his arms and press kisses to his jaw, moving as close as she can without overwhelming him.

"Yeah," he breathes. "Okay. Okay."

"Plus," Lydia continues, still kissing him anywhere she can reach. "You're her dad, and I don't think anyone loves as fiercely as you love. Maybe that's your superpower, Stilinski." He laughs slightly. "And besides," Lydia says. "I love you. And this baby is yours, and I will do everything in my power to protect what is yours and what is ours. She's going to be fine."

Finally, he allows her to kiss him on the mouth.

"You love me," he says, like he's just remembering.

She nods, and kisses him, and watches the sun come up in his eyes.

---

They aren't prepared.

They were supposed to have a few more weeks of reading and planning and preparing, but then Lydia's water breaks during her Prenatal Zumba class, that's just it. It's time. She walks calmly downstairs, walks until she finds a cab, and then gets in and tells the driver to take her to Mass General. Then she calls Stiles.

"Hellooooo," he sings into the phone. She pictures him at his desk, sorting through paperwork with one earphone in his ear and his tie slightly askew. "So, I was thinking about cake, and I'm wondering if you think that surrounding raspberry with chocolate makes it taste better or if they're just two individual ingredients that are great on their own but wicked awesome when you put them together?"

"My water broke," Lydia says abruptly. She exchanges an exasperated glance with the cab driver, who seems to be panicking at the idea of having a woman in his back seat who is about to give birth. Lydia doesn't blame him.

"Hmm? What was that?"

"I said 'my water broke,' you doe doe bird."

"God, I haven't heard anyone say doe doe bird in a wh- wait. Holy shit."

"There it is," Lydia says, rolling her eyes.

"Oh my god oh my god oh my god," Stiles chants. "What do we do?"

"Go home, grab the suitcase, then meet me at Mass General. And don't forget to make a birthing playlist!"

"What?"

"I need a birthing playlist," Lydia says. "If you're looking for something ironic, I might suggest Push It by Salt 'N Pepa."

She hangs up before he can completely freak out in her ear.

Stiles arrives at the hospital thirty minutes after Lydia has gotten there. She's on the phone with her mother, but when he shows up in her room, red-faced and gasping desperately for breath, Lydia hangs up.

"Hey," she says. "How'd you get here so fast?"

"I- I passed a Duck Tour boat and forced the driver to let me on by banging on the door and screaming when he was at a stoplight."

"Did you get to do the water part?" asks Lydia, interested.

"What? No! I just had him drop me off at the hospital, of course."

"Well, it just seems cool, is all. I hear they let you drive the boat."

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah."

"Man, that's awesome."

"Right?"

"Wait, no, how are you?"

"Oh, you know. The usual."

"You're usually in labor?"

"I feel like you know the answer to that question. Just a hunch."

"Well, do you know how dilated you are?"

"Um, about seven centimeters? Or, at least, that's where I was at the last time they checked."

"Already?" he yelps.

"Sorry that I can't control what's happening in my cervix."

"Me too, Lydia," he says, shaking his head. "Me too."

They're silent for a few moment while Stiles paces anxiously.

"So," Lydia says, trying to relax herself. "What did you put on the birthing playlist?"

He bites his lip.

"I sort of... panicked."

"Um... okay?"

"I'm really sorry."

"Can I see it?"

"Sure."

He reaches into his pocket and grabs the phone, then leafs through it until he lands on the playlist. Stiles hands the phone to Lydia, then sits down in the chair by his bed and twiddles his thumbs while she reads.

Track 1: Uptown Funk

Track 2: Uptown Funk

Track 3: Uptown Funk

Track 4: Uptown Funk.

Lydia stops scrolling after track ten.

"Stiles," she says shortly. "Is this entire playlist... Uptown Funk?" He nods anxiously, and she sighs heavily, closing her eyes. "Good call."

---

Adelaide Stilinski is six pounds, five ounces. Stiles had panicked when he'd seen how small she was, but the doctors had assured him that it was a perfectly normal size, and he had calmed down.

He hadn't wanted to stop holding her when Lydia had woken up from her nap, but Lydia had insisted, and that is how she had ended up having to fight with her boyfriend to get to hold their daughter for the second time, just hours after she was born.

"Your mom is on her way," he says, rubbing a thumb against the soft, downy hair that rests on top of Adelaide's head. "I think she's taking the same flight as my dad."

"Good," Lydia says softly. "It'll be nice to have some time as just the three of us."

"Yeah," agrees Stiles. "Except... god, as soon as we take her home, I'm not really sure what to do, Lydia."

"What do you mean?"

She can barely open her eyes, but she does long enough to fix Stiles with a judgmental stare.

"Reading about having a baby was one thing," he says, "but actually having one... it's like all of the stuff I've learned has drifted out of my head."

"So we puzzle it out together," Lydia says, yawning. "Like we always do."

"Maybe," Stiles says doubtfully. "I hope so."

"Don't worry about it," Lydia murmurs softly. "You'll figure it out. You're the one who always figures it out, Stiles."

He seems far more peaceful as she drifts off to sleep.

---

Lydia's veil is about two inches longer than she had wanted it to be.

Idly, she wonders if she might be able to hem it herself. But she's never been good at making her own clothes, and there isn't really enough time. She lifts the veil onto her head and stares at herself in the mirror, smoothing out her dress. She loves everything about it; from the sweetheart neckline to the sparkly yet somehow understated belt that rests at her waistline. It seems odd that this dress signifies hers and Stiles' wedding day, because Lydia already feels so, so married to him.

Izzy knocks on the door and enters in her bridesmaid's dress, carrying two glasses of champagne, one of which she hands to Lydia.

"How's the baby?" Lydia asks, still frowning at the veil slightly.

"She's asleep," Izzy tells her, doing a double take at Lydia's expression. "What is it?"

"The veil."

"Too long?" Lydia nods. "It's okay," Izzy says, gently removing it from Lydia's up-do. "I can hem it real quick."

"God, thank you," Lydia says. "I know that I shouldn't be obsessing with perfection, but-"

"This is your wedding day!" argues Izzy. "It should be perfect."

"I've lived long enough to know that perfect isn't an actual possibility."

"Nonsense," Izzy argues. "It's just in how you look at it."

"I think perfect days are when Stiles remembers to pick up milk at the grocery store."

"Or the day that we moved into the house," comes a voice on the other side of the door. "That was a pretty perfect day."

Lydia turns away from the mirror, smiling towards the door.

"You're not supposed to see me," she says, even though he can't.

"Well, I already stepped on the tail of a black cat and broke two mirrors, so I feel like the luck ship has sailed."

"Oh, and I opened an umbrella inside," Lydia tsks. "We're totally screwed."

"Might as well not even get married," says Stiles from the door. "It's pointless, at this rate."

"I mean, we did take all those tango lessons though," Lydia reasons. "Why don't we just do the reception?"

"Um, I hate to say this," Izzy interjects. "But the two of you signed the marriage license a week ago. You're already married."

"Oh shit," says Stiles' disembodied voice.

"We're stuck," sighs Lydia. "Whatever will we do?"

"No clue," teases Stiles, then says, "Oh- hey, buddy."

"Is mommy in there?" asks a voice.

"Yeah, she is, and I bet she looks beautiful. Wanna go tell me if she does?"

Connor pushes through the door and runs at Lydia, the bow-tie on his tiny little suit flapping as he launches himself into her arms. Lydia squats so that she can pick him up, and he presses kisses all over her cheeks, wriggling like an excited puppy.

"Hi, baby," Lydia says, laughing. "How's your day been so far?"

"Uncle Scott fell down and ripped daddy's tux!"

There's silence between the four of them. Then:

"Kid! You promised you wouldn't tell."

"Sorry daddy," Connor giggles.

"I fixed it," Izzy promises. "Don't worry about it."

Lydia breathes out.

"Do you know where Addie is?" she asks her son.

"She's with Uncle Isaac and Uncle Derek," says Connor. "They're teaching us how to do roundhouses."

Oh god. This is the third time Lydia has left her children with Derek and Isaac and gotten back ninjas. She's going to kill them.

"And are you ready to help Nellie walk down the aisle?"

Connor nods importantly. Nellie is only one and a half, and she's walking, but Connor is going to help her. He's the ring bearer, and Nell is the flower girl, and Addie is the maid of honor.

"I'm so proud of you, honey," Lydia says, swooping down to kiss the top of his head. "And now, do you think you and Auntie Izzy might be able to let me and daddy have a moment?"

"You're not supposed to see him before the wedding!" Connor argues.

"I promise I won't look," Stiles says from over by the door.

"C'mon, sweetheart," says Izzy, grabbing Connor's hand. "Let's give your mommy and daddy a moment. They're both really nervous."

As soon as they leave, Lydia presses her ear against the door, listening to the sound of Stiles breathing.

"Ready?" she murmurs.

"To marry you?" he replies. "Yeah, I've sort of been ready since the third grade."

Lydia laughs lowly.

"I feel kind of nervous."

"Why?" he asks. "Cold feet?"

"What's the opposite of cold feet?" Lydia inquires rhetorically, reaching through the crack in the still-open door to offer him her hand. He kisses the inside of her wrist, then her engagement ring, which she's been wearing for the past six years, since Addie's first birthday.

"Warm hands," Stiles replies. "I notice that you're not wearing gloves..."

"They're fine on their own," she promises. "It's weird. I feel like we're already married and this is just a dumb vow renewal. But then I also feel like this is the beginning of my life."

"Yeah," he responds. "I get it."

They're quiet for a few moments.

"I can't wait for our first dance," she says. "And I can't wait to see our babies in their outfits, and if I have to wait another minute for that stupid cake, I will go out of my freaking mind."

He moans out loud.

"Oh, the cake."

"The cake."

"Well then," Stiles says, swinging the door open so that they're face to face. She doesn't know where she wants her lips to land first. His cheeks, or the moles on his neck, or the soft skin under his earlobe. "Ready to start?"

She kisses him on the mouth first. That's where she begins. And where they end? Well. That is completely up to them now.

---

Here we are at last face to face,
we have met,
we have lost nothing.
We have felt each other lip to lip,
we have changed a thousand times
between us death and life,
all that we were bringing
like dead medals
we threw to the bottom of the sea,
all that we learned
was of no use to us:
we begin again,
we end again

---

A/N: Well this fic invaded my life. (No big deal. Everybody's fine.)

The poem featured before and after the fic is by Pablo Neruda. I also got the title from it.

Thank you to Ashley (sass-is-the-new-class) and Hannah (ananbeth) for their beta reading skills. Y'all are superb. Thank you for Sophii (blackjacktheboss) for her support and for listening to me scream about this fic and about Stydia constantly. Thank you to my dad for letting me put multiple things he's said into this fanfic as Stiles' dialogue.

If you enjoyed this, I hope you'll review and tell me what you think. Thanks, and have a wonderful day! ~writergirl8