Lydia answers her phone on the second ring.
"Stiles?"
No words come through the other line at first, just shaky breathing punctuated occasionally with a low whine.
"Stiles, what's wrong?"
Lydia put her AP Biology book aside and stands, panic rising somewhere beneath her sternum. Something isn't right.
"C-can you come pick me up?" He finally manages, his voice tight and raspy. Lydia is grabbing her keys as she answers.
"Of course. Where are you?"
Lydia pulls up to the hospital exactly eighteen minutes later to find him standing awkwardly by the patient unloading zone, his arms tucked tightly across his chest and his hands locked firmly between his bicep and his ribs. The rain is coming down in sheets now and though he is standing under an over crop, Lydia notices that he is already soaked. He begins to walk to her before she stops, something like relief spreading across his face. He slides into her passenger seat jerkily, his legs folded awkwardly in the small space beneath the hollow of the dash. Lydia waits for him to buckle himself in before she pulls away. His hands are shaking so hard that it takes him a few tries to secure himself in.
She drives in silence for four blocks before she notices he's crying. He's pressing the back of his right fist against his tight lips trying to hold in whatever is eating him up inside, but his small sobs manage to escape past the flesh and bone barriers he has made. Lydia has never been good with tears. When Allison had cried, Lydia had awkwardly patted her on the back and smoothed her hair back from her pink face and left candy hidden around her room the next day (a pack of Twizzlers in her nightstand drawer, loose Starburst tucked into the smallest pocket of her purse, a bag of gummi bears under her pillow) but this was Stiles and Stiles was different.
Lydia reaches out tentatively to rest her right hand on his thigh. He tenses only slightly before he reaches down with his free hand and wraps his fingers around hers. His grip is tight—almost too tight—but Lydia knows he needs this so she lets him crush her fingers while his body convulses with stifled sobs. She's missed this contact with him—he's been so, so distant since the Nogitsune and Malia and Allison—and even though Lydia has understoodand has given him space it hasn't made her miss it any less.
She makes a left onto the interstate, heading west. Stiles does not question her, if he notices.
"I killed someone," He finally manages, his voice thick with tears. He coughs after the words fall out of him, as though his throat is closing from the effort to get them out. "D-Donovan. He was…different, he had been changed and he tried to kill me and I swear to God, I didn't mean to."
Lydia glances over at him and sees the way his veins bulge out of his tight neck. His wide, watery gaze is leveled on the dashboard, his brow furrowed in pained sorrow. His mouth opens slightly, his tongue darting out to moisten his bottom lip. He tries to form words, but a sob pulls itself up instead and he covers his face with his hand. She turns back to the dark road, focusing on the glowing red taillights half a mile ahead through the slowing rain as she waits for him to continue. She squeezes his fingers for support.
"The Doctors got him, I guess," Stiles continues, his voice muffled by his hand. He drags it down his face and wipes away his tears with the crook of his elbow. "He had these—these teeth all over. Like a Wendigo, only the mouths were on his hands. He got me with one of them, in the shoulder."
Lydia remembers his wince as he shrugged into his hoodie before they went to Eichen House. She noticed, like he always noticed her before they were anything. With a rush of blood to her face she remembers his arm around her shoulder and her back against his chest and how his heavy breathing had made her move against him and how a glow had spread across the inside of her chest when he'd whispered at her and his breath had danced across her neck. But she quickly pushes those thoughts away to focus on him. He's got more to confess and, as Lydia switches into the left lane to overtake the car in front of them, she resolves to listen.
"He caught me in the library. I tried to climb the scaffolding in there—I don't know, I thought maybe I could get around him from the second floor landing—but he got me and I felt his teeth on me and I just…I collapsed the thing on him and it killed him. I didn't mean to, but fuck. He was going to eat me."
He's calmed down enough now for his voice to be even and clear. His hand, clasped in hers, shakes less than before.
"I called the cops, but when they got there someone had moved the body and cleaned up the mess. And I didn't tell anyone because—because, well, you know Scott. You know how he feels about saving everyone, no matter how evil or fucked up they are and I should have told him, I guess, but I didn't. Except…except he found out tonight. I don't know how, but Scott knew and Malia knew and Liam and all of them."
Stiles sniffs deeply and clears his throat. Lydia puts her blinker on and smoothly exits the highway onto the connector leading towards the coast.
"I tried to tell him, tried to explain, I guess. But he wouldn't listen. He didn't want to listen."
Lydia glances over at him when they reach a stoplight. His face is bathed in red, his features flattened and washed out in the harsh lighting. The rain has stopped, but the stray drops clinging to the corners of her windshield glow fiery and angry in the glare. He sighs, shaking his head and running his free hand through his hair.
"He said he doesn't want to see me anymore. Says he can't have murderers in his Pack. The way they looked at me, Lydia…"
He grimaces as he says the words, swallowing hard. Two more tears find their way down the planes of his face. The light changes to green. The car moves forward.
They are silent for the next ten miles, Lydia with her lips pursed and her eyes forwards as she digests the information. Forgiveness was never a question, always a given. Someone supernatural (or scientifically enhanced or whateveryou want to call it) had tried to kill Stiles, so Stiles had killed them before they could. That was simple. That was logical. And, if Lydia was being honest with herself, she was glad he had done it because she had been through a world without Allison Argent and her deep-dimpled smiles and if she lost Stiles and his shining eyes she would literally go out of her freaking mind. She reaches the turn that leads to the small strip of hotels and trinket shops that guard the coast and quickly pulls into the first available space that she can find. She removes her hand from Stiles's to turn off the car, immediately missing the warmth and pressure of his touch, then turns to face him in the semi-darkness. He's looking straight at her now, whiskey-colored eyes glowing in the dim light from the streetlights.
"This wasn't your fault," She says, finally. He exhales deeply, as though he had been holding his breath. "Scott doesn't understand because he doesn't remember how it feels to be powerless—he doesn't remember what it's like to be human. But I know you, Stiles. I know you wouldn't have done this if there was another option."
He's crying again as he looks at her now, his face so open and soft that it almost stops her heart. She reaches out and wipes his cheeks with both hands, cupping his face as she had done all of those months ago in the boys locker room when she had smashed her face against his and time had stood still. She thinks, briefly, of how nice it would be to kiss him now, to kiss him softly like she'd dreamed of when she was alone in the dark of her room…
But now was not the time. Instead, she smiles at him, her hands slipping past the moles speckled across his face and down to his hands, where she takes them into her own with a squeeze.
"But right now, we're going to take our shoes off and we're going to go walk along the beach and we're going to forget for one night that we're being stalked by psychotic Dread Doctors and we're going to forget about all of the fighting and the death and we're just going to be two teenagers having a fun night out in the sand, okay? And we can hold hands if you want to and you can tell me again about the time in third grade when you beat up Cade McCormick because he said my hair was orange if you want to and when we're done, we're going to go to IHOP and you are going to stuff potatoes and pancakes into the skinny body of yours and then we're going to figure out how we're going to make Scott and the rest of them come around, okay?"
Stiles smiles, finally, his bottom lip quivering ever so slightly as he pulls it in between his teeth. He pulls her hands up from between them impulsively and kisses her knuckles, his skin warm against hers. He holds them there, against his lips, as he nods at her.
"Okay. Lets do this."
Lydia kicks off her heels easily, leaving them in the floorboard. Stiles takes longer, since he has to roll up the cuffs of his jeans as well. Finally, they swing out of the car and start heading for the beach. As they meet in front of the car, Stiles places an arm around her waist. Lydia returns the gesture, linking her thumb in the loop of his pants. She loves how well they fit together, how easily the curve of his wrist sits against the top of her hip. She looks up at his face to find him smiling down at her and effortlessly smiles back.
"So, Lydia, did I ever tell you about the time I kicked the shit out of Cade McCormick because he said your hair was orange when any idiot can see that it's clearly strawberry-blonde?"