disclaimer: i don't own what you recognize.

dedication: for hope (allisonarrgent), because she's my inspiration and i love her, and for jenny (downeyjr), because i love her too and this is for our little write-20-ships teen wolf edition competition.

notes: spoilers for 3x07, including the major character death that happened.

Truths are a rarity in Beacon Hills these days, most especially when the moon is shining, crescent-shaped and hanging by a thread in the middle of a sky that has seen far too many horrors in what should be a sleepy little town. Scott knows this, and he knows that there is still a pack of alphas roaming his town, ready to tear it to pieces at a blind man's orders, knows that he is anything but safe wandering around the streets in the dead of the night, but he walks on anyway.

(Truth is, he knows how to be a wolf now, but he misses the peacefulness of humanity more than words can say, and this is how he ends up in Lydia Martin's backyard, a little broken and a lot lonely and painfully human, above all.)

-:-

Scott hasn't lived in Beacon Hills his whole life, and Stiles likes to tell the story of how he was the first person who met and befriended Scott when they were kids, but the truth is, Scott met Lydia first. It's not like it's some big secret, but it's one of those things that happens and then slips from your mind as more things happen and you grow older and memories get blurry, until one day, you're fifteen years old and staring at a pretty girl across a crowded hallway and wondering if she remembers when she was nine years old and helped a lost boy home.

The memory isn't anything spectacular. He'd gotten lost trying to bike down the streets he lived on now, and his mom was at the hospital on her first day of work, and he didn't even have a phone to call her up, anyway. Lydia had appeared around the corner, a burst of redheaded energy and sparkles, and asked him with no holds barred, "Who are you?"

"Scott," he had said, more than slightly intimidated by her long curls and her confidence and how pretty she was, even at nine. "Scott McCall – I'm – I'm new here," he'd said hesitantly and she had rolled her eyes.

"I know you are," she said in a tone that implied he was silly for saying so, "I know everybody in this town," and even though, in hindsight, that was probably an exaggeration, nine-year-old Scott had believed every word out of her mouth. Lydia Martin has always been a force of nature, moreso than any wolf he's ever known.

"Where do you live?" she had asked him, arms crossed and head tilted, eyeing him like he was a shiny new toy or maybe a science experiment. Scott had blurted out the street their apartment was on – they had moved twice in the years since to nicer parts of town – and after a lot of mumbling on his end, Lydia had decided to help him get home.

"Where are your parents?" he'd asked her as she walked beside him on his slow-moving bike, and she'd shrugged, as if walking alone on the streets was a normal occurrence for her. And maybe it was – and maybe it still was.

"Working," she informed him. "They're always working." At that point, they had reached his house, and she waved goodbye before skipping off to God knows where, and Scott still remembers watching her go, his heart suddenly heavy in sadness for the little girl who seemed to have even less parents than he did, despite the fact that she had both.

His mother had come home that night and smothered him in hugs and kisses before making him a dinner that had made his mouth water, and Scott also remembers wishing Lydia was there so he could share it with her, even though he didn't know then if he would ever even see her again.

-:-

The words Boyd's dead glare up at him from the tiny, brightly-lit screen of his phone. Scott receives the text on his way home sometime near midnight, when the town rests quietly and the moonlight seems to sing to him from the skies above. His heart drops like a leaden weight down into his stomach when he comprehends the words.

Boyd's dead.

Stiles follows that with a somewhat more normal text, Isaac and I r going to stay at Derek's tonite. Lydia went home, can you check on her? and then radio silence. Scott stands frozen on the sidewalk and waits for a miracle that doesn't seem forthcoming.

Almost listlessly, his fingers press buttons that type out the word Sure, and then he shoves his phone into his pocket because staring at Stiles' texts is making him feel like the world is closing in on him. It takes him several solid moments before he realizes that he should start moving in the general direction of Lydia's house. The moon seems unbearably bright all of a sudden.

His feet and instincts lead him straight to Lydia's house, drawn by the peaches and roses perfume scent he has long since memorized. Scott hesitates outside her front yard, part of him wondering if, despite everything that's happened and everything that's changed between them, she'll actually want to talk to him.

But his wolf remembers the feeling of packmates, of sleeping safely on the school bus with Lydia in arm's reach, of her hands combined with Stiles' pushing him away from a blazing fire. After everything they've been through, he thinks, she is irrevocably a part of his pack, and so he pulls out his phone and texts her.

Are you ok? Stiles told me what happened tonight.

Within a minute, his screen lights up with her reply. Are you outside?

He almost smiles. Trust Lydia to know he's standing near even without the benefit of enhanced werewolf senses. Yes, he texts back, and he hears her window open before he sees it.

She looks out at him, her hair a halo of sunrise-red around her face - tear-streaked, he notices with a sudden surge of protectiveness. A small smile curves her lips when he raises a hand to wave to her, though he's certain she can't see him properly in the dark.

"Did Stiles send you to check on me?" she demands quietly as he steps forward. "Because honestly, Scott, I'm fine."

He can smell the fear, the sadness, the rage inside her body though. From underneath her window, he tilts his head up and offers her a smile that takes more effort than moving did. "Was Aiden there?" he asks quietly, and he feels rather than sees her falter.

When she speaks again, twenty heartbeats later, her voice is too low for any normal human to hear. "Jackson killed people too," but she sounds more like she's trying to convince herself of the truth in her untruth instead of him.

Scott shakes his head, an immeasurable fury filling him at the confirmation that Aiden and Ethan had helped kill Boyd, had already killed Erica, and still had the nerve to mess with his friends, to kiss Lydia, to be in the same room as Lydia - it takes him several breaths to calm down. "Jackson was being controlled. These guys are murderers, Lydia."

"I know!" she snaps, making his stomach twist up. The last thing he wants to do is make her feel worse. "I knew that when I started seeing him," she continues in a softer voice, "but I hadn't seen him kill until today."

"Lydia," he murmurs, any possible words of comfort abandoning him because the only thing he can be certain of when looking into her eyes is her name. Her next breath is so sharp that something jumps inside him, and the next thing he knows, he's halfway up the wall, making his way to her window.

"You didn't have to - " she begins in half-hearted protest, but she moves to let him clamber inside, and then he's got his arms wrapped around her in a hug that smells like aching loneliness and white-hot anger and Lydia's expensive perfume mingling with his own scent. Her hands are desperately clutching his shirt, her body curling into his, and he holds her for so long he thinks they might melt into each other.

-:-

Freshman year, for English Lit Honors, Scott had gotten paired with Lydia to do a project on a Greek god of their choosing during the mythology unit, and it had taken a whole three days for Stiles to forgive him, so they didn't talk about it anymore. It wasn't like Lydia had been his first choice, but she was the only other student in the class to have an A, so he didn't argue with the teacher, either.

"We're doing our project on Helen of Troy," she says matter-of-factly when he runs into the library, already late to their first work session and out of breath from lacrosse practice. "Unless you have any better ideas, which I doubt." The last words were said under her breath, but he managed to catch them anyway.

"Uh," Scott had to stop to regain his composure. "I was thinking… Hercules?" he suggested, faltering on the word when Lydia aimed a steely-eyed stare at him. "Or, um, Persephone?" He had been quite proud when he thought of Persephone, thinking that would be right up Lydia's alley.

This, she paused to consider which he counted as a victory, before declaring, "No, too cliché. Everyone and their mother will want to do the myth of Hades and Persephone. We're doing something unique."

Unique, he learned quickly, was Lydia's modus operandi when it came to school, fashion, and everything in between. He had never met a girl quite like her before, all fire and sparks and energy, a veritable whirlwind of trendy, pink-glossed perfection. She steamrollered over him during their work on the project, but he found he didn't mind that much, because watching Lydia Martin at work was like watching a flower bloom before your eyes.

"Do I look enough like Helen?" she asked him one day when he was at her house with a video camera to film her. "Or do I look too modern?"

Quite honestly, Scott thought she looked beautiful, whether modern or not, but he had swallowed his first instinct to tell her, "You look great, Lydia. Just like Helen."

She had sent him one of those piercing looks that made him feel like he was standing naked in front of her. "Are you just saying that to appease me?"

He blinked at her. "Possibly," he admitted, because he knew she valued honesty, judging by how many times she had critiqued his wardrobe over the course of their project.

"Hmph," she huffed, twirling around so her white cotton gown flared out around her. "Fine, let's get started. Do you know how to work the camera?"

He did, of course. And they earned an A, and Lydia went on to become the undisputed queen of Beacon Hills, girlfriend of the star lacrosse player, and he became Scott, just Scott, unknown and unremarkable until the night he was bitten by a wolf.

-:-

"Are you going to be okay?" he asks after her heartbeat has steadied to match his, the words a whisper lost in her hair. Lydia slowly lifts her face up off his chest, and there are no tears on her face when she does. Scott thinks he shouldn't be surprised - werewolf or not, Lydia Martin is one of the strongest people he knows.

"I've been through worse," she reminds him, holding her head up high as she steps back. Inexplicably, he feels a rush of cold air where her warmth had just been. "I can handle a murderous boyfriend."

Scott shifts his weight from foot to foot anxiously. "Uh, he's not going to be your boyfriend for much longer, is he?" he demands, more annoyed at the prospect of Lydia continuing to date Aiden than he had thought he was.

She laughs, almost genuinely, and pats his chest in a move that reminds him distantly of a lacrosse game from times past, and a pretty girl telling him, "Nobody likes a loser." Scott nearly smiles at the memory.

"Well, Derek's little sister already warned me away," she informs him, moving past him to sit on her bed. After a moment's hesitation of wondering if he was still welcome, Scott takes a seat on the chair across from her.

"Not that I think you should make a habit of listening to Derek," he says cautiously, "but I mean... Aiden is kind of... evil. And a murderer. And… you know, evil."

Lydia huffs. "I'm aware, but this is Derek. He doesn't even like me, and anyway, he's related to... to Peter." She makes a face that would be adorable if she weren't talking about the man who had ruined their lives.

Scott sighs, thinking about Peter Hale and everything that had done, every way in which he had violated the two of them. It's almost funny because here they are, the boy who was a wolf and the girl who was immune, and not even a year ago, she wouldn't have looked twice if she'd seen him in the halls. And here he is, sitting in her bedroom, both of them equally lost in a sea of supernatural horrors thanks to the same man, and she has seen him far more than twice in the past week alone.

"Did I ever tell you that Peter's the one who turned me?" he tells her, almost casual even though the memory of the night he received his bite still haunts his darkest nightmares. "He wanted me to kill you guys so I could join his pack."

Lydia stares at him. "He… he wanted you to kill us?" she demands, sounding outraged. "Who in their right mind would want to be in his pack anyway?"

"Not me," Scott snorts. "Remember that night at school? When I locked you guys in? That was all because of him. Everything that's happened to us is all because of him." It's hard to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He's made his peace with what he is, but there are still times where he longs for humanity, for normalcy above all else.

"Remember it?" Lydia rolls her eyes and falls dramatically backward onto her bed. Scott tries not to track the movements of her body, the way her hair catches the light, but he doesn't really succeed. "How could I forget? I was right, wasn't I? You did lock us in to save us – from yourself."

"Yeah," he offers her a half-grin. "At least that kiss wasn't misguided," except that was probably the wrong thing to say, because she sits up straight and pierces him with a look that makes his stomach somersault, and suddenly all he can think about are Lydia's lips on his and Lydia's fingers in his hair and Lydia's body warm against his and –

"Good," she says lightly, averting his attention back to her as she sits up again. "I'd hate to have cheated on my boyfriend for nothing," and even though there's almost nothing funny about her statement, he laughs anyway, and she joins him. Her laugh feels comforting, like coming home to his mother's cookies, like falling asleep on Stiles' bed, like hearing his packmates' voices around him.

When they quiet, her face becomes somber again. "Scott," she says, her voice a breath above a whisper, "do you think we're going to make it out of this alive?"

He listens to the sound of her breathing before answering, slow and steady, light and easy, one, two, three, one, two, three, just to be certain that she is here and she is alive. He's not entirely sure what he would do if she weren't. The idea of Lydia Martin dead seems unthinkable, despite how many dangers surround her every day.

"We will," he tells her gently, as confidently as he possibly can. "I know we will. We're fighters, you and I. We could have died when Peter bit us, but we didn't. We fought, and we survived, and we'll survive this, too, I promise."

She locks her gaze on his, holding it for what seems like an eternity, and he feels as though his soul is being judged. Lydia always did have that effect on people. He doesn't look away, though, not this time – he's not nine or fourteen or anything in between anymore; he's not the lost little boy she had once met in a time long ago when they were two different people. He's Scott and she's Lydia, and he needs her to believe him when he says that they'll survive.

Because if Lydia doesn't believe him, he doesn't think he can believe himself.

Dynasties have risen and fallen in the time it takes for her to let out her breath, he thinks. She doesn't smile, doesn't say anything, but her hands shift, like she's reaching out, and Scott may be a clueless teenage boy, but he's also an alpha, and Lydia is in his pack, so he moves without hesitation to join her on the bed and wrap his arms around her.

She settles in nicely, her head fitting between his shoulder and cheek and her body warm and comfortable against his chest. Her breaths come slow at first, but they even out, and he sits there with her, listening to her breathe again, counting every inhale and exhale as if they could be her last. His lips find her head somewhere in her long red hair, and his voice somehow reaches her ears.

"We'll be okay, Lydia," he promises, inhaling her peaches and citrus scent, imprinting the fragrance of her into his memory. "We'll be all right."

Maybe she doesn't believe him entirely, because he's not sure if he believes himself entirely, but when she lifts her head to look at him, she doesn't argue. Instead, she almost smiles, and although her smile is shaky, the emotion behind it is real.

"I believe you," she tells him softly, absently tracing the graphic design on his shirt in a way that sends shivers down his back. "I believe in you," she adds, the weight of the extra word making his head spin. "You're going to be an amazing alpha."

"I don't – " he begins to protest, but he's struck dumbfounded by the knowledge that she knows about him actually being an alpha, even though she wasn't there when his eyes turned red, and she wasn't there when Deaton told him, and yet, she's still looking at him like she's spoken nothing but the utter truth, and he falls silent under her gaze.

"Thanks," he whispers finally, when he's gotten his heartbeat back to a normal rate, and then she smiles at him the same way she smiled at him once upon a time in an empty classroom during the full moon, right before her lips met his, and the next thing he knows, he finds himself leaning down.

-:-

That night on the bus outside the haunted motel, Scott found himself drifting awake in the early hours of the morning, unable to rest easy knowing what had almost happened earlier. Boyd had almost died, Ethan had almost died, he had almost died, and he had almost taken Stiles with him. His dreams weren't too sweet that night.

When he woke up again around two in the morning and looked around to make certain of the safety of his friends, of his pack, his eyes met Lydia's, wide awake. She didn't move, probably so as not to disturb Allison, but she did offer him a smile, still weak from the night's earlier events.

Scott hesitated a moment, then moved quickly, switching seats across the aisle so he was sitting in front of her. "Are you having nightmares?" he asked her, his fingers digging in perhaps a bit too deeply onto the back of his bus seat.

Lydia shook her head, lifting her hands to cover his. Almost instantly, he could feel his pulse skitter and then steady out to a normal rate, his fingers relaxing underneath the warmth of her own. "All I ever have are nightmares," she confided in him, her voice soft. "But I'm fine."

He couldn't find anything to say, so he just sat there for a moment, letting his heartbeat align with hers. It was comforting, almost natural, to allow himself to follow into this rhythm with Lydia. It felt a lot like coming home.

"Are you okay?" she asked after the length of twenty breaths, his mingling with hers. "Will you be okay?" And it seemed almost surreal for a second that Lydia Martin, queen of Beacon Hills High, was concerned for him, but he remembered how she was the reason nobody died last night. She was the reason he was still alive. Whatever she was, Lydia Martin was special, and he owed her his life.

"I'll be fine," he told her, the words perhaps untrue but still confident. "I'll be fine," he repeated because she didn't look convinced. "We should go back to sleep before the sun comes up."

She had smiled at that, nodded, and slowly let her hands drop from his. The lack of warmth was palpable, but he swallowed and stood, going back to his original seat in front of Stiles. Lydia's eyes closed behind him, and as he settled in, he could feel his eyelids drop too. Sleep came easy, though he had no dreams, and it was much later that day that he realized he had Lydia to thank for that as well.

-:-

This time, the kiss is sweet, simple, nothing quite so heated or passionate as their last, and Scott thinks he enjoys this more, probably. Truth is, he thinks he could live off kisses like these, off the feeling of sunshine everywhere she touches and bubbles inside him. Lydia is far more than human, just like he is, but the way they fit together still feels human, feels natural, and there is nothing less than the truth in the way she kisses him.

(Truth is, Lydia Martin is a girl made of miracles, all fire in her hair and light in her eyes, immune and magical and beautiful, and he is a boy who needs miracles more than most, and maybe, in the end, that's the only truth he needs.)

a/n: if you've read this far, please do drop me a review to let me know what you thought, i'd really appreciate it!

and DON'T favorite without reviewing, please and thank you.