Disclaimer: I promise, I don't own any of these characters or Teen Wolf or anything even affiliated with Teen Wolf. They all belong to their rightful owners and creators, so please don't sue me. The original characters, however, are mine.

Author's Note: Alright, so this is my first Teen Wolf fanfic, so I hope I don't screw up any of the characters. I was totally craving some Stiles!Whump but I also need some more Stiles/Lydia in my life and so this story was born. Thanks and enjoy!

Lydia stood rooted to the floor, her whole body shaking with adrenaline and fear. She felt the stickiness of dried tears on her face as she watched Jackson transform, fresh ones burned behind her eyes. For a moment, she thought that the key hadn't worked, and that her boyfriend was once again turning into a monster.

But this was different. There was no scaly skin crawling over his naked body. There were no long, poisonous claws growing from the tips of his fingers. Jackson remained human for now - a pale, muscular creature rising before her.

And she knew what he was before his eyes had turned a crisp, vibrant blue.

Jackson was a werewolf, and when he turned his now fur-covered face and looked her in the eyes, she knew she had lost him. As Lydia saw an unfamiliar glint in his neon blue eyes, she knew that his lust for power was stronger than his lust for her. She was just a memory now, a faded photograph.

As the key she had given back to him only moments before lay abandoned on the ground, Jackson ran. He left Lydia like she was nothing to him anymore, even if she had told him she loved him and that she always would.

And he still left. He ran into the night like the animal he had become, and Lydia stayed, broken and humiliated, surrounded by friends and yet feeling so alone.

She didn't know how long she had been standing there before she felt a hand on her arm. She turned and saw Stiles, who had apparently tried very hard to mask his tears but only ended up smudging them on his face, looking at her insistently. No words were spoken. Lydia only let Stiles guide her to his scratched up Jeep, and she easily complied when he opened the passenger side door for her.

As they drove away, Lydia could see Scott and Allison drop their hands that they had been holding only moments before. Those who didn't know Lydia would have only thought that she could only resent Scott and Allison's mended relationship, when in fact, her heart soared a little at the sight of the two. She hoped that something good would come out of this mess.

Lydia didn't look at Stiles, and she was thankful that he didn't ask her any questions or try to start conversation, which must have been quite the task for Stiles Stilinski. She stared at the blurring streetlights outside and started to count backwards from 1000, which she regularly did when she needed to fall asleep with a mind that wouldn't shut up.

I mean, werewolves? Kanimas? In Beacon Hills? Really?

Lydia was startled from sleep by someone shaking her by the shoulder.

She groaned and tried to focus through her disorientation. Stiles. Stiles was shaking her arm, leaning over her from the driver's seat. She opened her mouth to speak, but he pressed a finger to his lips, his eyes wide.

"Someone's following us," he whispered. "Has been for like fifteen minutes now."

"Stiles, you're paranoid," Lydia replied. She really wasn't up for anymore paranoia.

Stiles shook his head, incredulous. "You just saw your boyfriend transform from a giant lizard into a fucking werewolf and you're calling me paranoid?"

Lydia winced a little at the term boyfriend.

"Sorry," Stiles said, sheepishly.

Lydia shook it off and looked around herself. The car was stopped, but she didn't recognize where she was due to the darkness outside.

"Where are we?" she asked. They were both still whispering, as if they would wake some unknown thing if their voices were too loud.

"Some parking lot. If this guy is really following us, he's gonna have to get out of his car and face me," said Stiles determinedly. This new found courage kind of surprised Lydia after hearing Stiles scream for a minute straight after Jacks- the Kanima jumped on to his car's windshield.

"How do you even know he was following you? Did you ever consider he was just driving in the same direction as you? " Lydia asked.

"I'm not gonna take that sarcasm personally. You know why? Because I know you only get this snappy when you're upset," said Stiles.

Even in the dark, Lydia could see Stiles flush as he realized what he had just said. And she flushed as well, because as much as she wanted to dismiss that comment as invasive, she felt a warmth in her heart that she only got when someone saw passed the shell she wore.

Now that she thought about it, she felt the same warmth when Stiles had recognized her intelligence that night they went to the winter formal together.

"...I know that somewhere inside that cold, lifeless exterior...there's an actual human soul. And I'm also pretty sure that I'm the only one who knows how smart you really are, and that once you're done pretending to be a nitwit, you'll eventually go off and write some insane mathematical theorem that wins you the Nobel Prize."

"Fields Medal."

"What?"

"Nobel doesn't have a prize for mathematics. A Fields Medal is the one I'll be winning."

But they pretended the comment never happened, anyways.

"Can I just go home, please?" Lydia asked, but she was cut off by Stiles' urgent "SHH!"

She didn't hear anything, but she could also see the blood fade from his face, his finger poised in the air like it will help him listen.

And that's when a large dark palm smashed down on Lydia's window and she screamed.

The hand was cracking the glass, but Stiles was already up and running to the other side of the car with a large metal object while Lydia scrambled out of her seatbelt and climbed over to the driver's seat.

She stumbled out of the car and looked over the roof to see Stiles smack the large guy on the back of the head with a tire iron. She screamed again as she saw him slump to the ground.

Stiles' eyes were wide and he was swallowing like crazy, the tire iron still poised over the guy's slumped body that Lydia could no longer see over the roof of the car.

And then Stiles was grinning, swinging the tire iron around. "Yeah, that's right! Follow Stiles Stilinski in your sketchy white van and you get tire ironed."

Lydia's heart was still beating a mile a minute, but she also managed to roll her eyes at the typical Stiles behavior. She could feel hysterical laughter bubbling in her stomach because not only did her boyfriend just turn in to a werewolf, but she was also just senselessly attacked by a large man who could crack a window with his palm.

But that's when her heart jolted a little bit, because could someone - a regular human being - really break a window with hardly any muscle power?

"Stiles, I think we should go. Get away from him, I mean," Lydia said slowly.

Stiles stopped smiling and swinging the tire iron around at the tone of her voice. "Don't you think we should call the cops or something? He tried to attack you."

Lydia moved over to the other side of the car to take a closer look at the guy. He looked unconscious, but she had a feeling he wasn't. Her and Stiles started up some kind of conversation using their eyes. Stiles was looking at her with furrowed eyebrows, but as she stared back at him, his eyes were widening slightly.

And then they were backing away, Stiles taking her arm and pulling her back with him until they were scrambling back inside the car, Lydia getting in the backseat so as to avoid having to cross paths with the guy on the ground. When she looked outside the window, her heart plummeted, because she was right.

He was a werewolf with incredibly sharp teeth and glowing eyes. And he was right behind Stiles.

The werewolf raised a clawed hand and as Lydia tried to scream Stiles' name, he brought it down across his back, a long gash from shoulder blade to waist. Stiles made some kind of screaming, strangled noise that Lydia could hear through the open driver's door and cracked passenger window. Instead of falling forward though, Stiles gripped the roof of the car and turned himself around to face the werewolf. Lydia could see his back drenched in red as Stiles looked up at his attacker.

As Lydia watched in horror as the werewolf was about to bring his claws down on Stiles throat, she heard a female's voice. It was muffled, but she heard her words clear enough.

"NO! Don't kill him. Drug them both and get them in the van. And would you hurry up? They'll be pissed if we're late."

Her thoughts were cut short as the door was torn open and her scream caught in her throat as a cloth was pressed down on her nose and mouth. She didn't struggle for long as she felt her muscles melt and saw spots dancing before her eyes. Her head became light as air, and soon enough, her vision faded to black.