She awoke from another nightmare, resisting the urge to scream, scraping the skin off her skull with her bloody fingernails- she could feel where the holes, they had drilled into her head, her brain, her mind, used to be.
She heard a whisper, a constant white noise. It was as if they hummed, the voices, they hummed and hushed in a choir, they didn't let her go. She always heard them and it made her want to scream so bad.
She rolled up in a ball, tiny, rapping her hands, her arms around her knees, her legs, trying to relax. She barely remembered eichenhouse, but she remembered the change. She remembered it as if it was a bad dream and she still hadn't woken up. She knew so much more now. She was of use now.
She had expected them to safe her, she had waited, scared that their names would vanish in oblivion and the whispers had stopped. In all the horror, she had thought of them and she had hoped and waited and he had come.
She hadn't expected him to come. He wasn't cut out to be a savior. He was a different kind. He was the brains and the whit, but again she wasn't herself either. It was a master plan of pure desperation and he had executed it. She was afraid, yet the determination in his eyes, the love, he could never quite hide, but now seemed as bright as ever, so bright- It was as if she suddenly understood why he looked at her that way, that what he felt was real, after all, not some fantasy or a crush or affection. She knew affection. She felt affection before, but it was a distant, lonely thing.
He had saved her. He, so human and imperfect, he who had every reason not to, but he didn't give up on her and so she didn't either. It was a dangerous path in dangerous times.
Hell was breaking loose; she felt it with every inch of her body, in her bones, in her heart. She tried to conceal it, but it was always there, the rotten feeling of death. She didn't know if they would survive. All the voices in her head they echoed and they silenced each other, words lost, vanished in the humming of the crowd.
She wasn't going to sleep, who was she kidding. She couldn't and even when she closed her eyes, just for a second, it only got worse and she wished to wake up again.

She didn't knock, she wasn't sure if the sheriff was home, not that it had really mattered. Maybe they were sleeping, save and sound caught in their sweet dreams. There was still light though, up in his room. She snuck trough the house, like a thief in the night.
The door was wide open and he was sitting on the floor, red band, red wool strapped all over. The room was covered with it, like a mad man's work. He kneeled over the pinned down pieces, thinking way too hard, dark circles under his eyes. She still couldn't believe she hadn't seen it all along, him, clearly. She couldn't imagine a world without him in it, where his face would vanish and where he couldn't read the feelings from her face and match them with his expression. It seemed absurd for him to die. It seemed absurd that any of them would die.
"Do we have enough.." He startled when he saw me standing in the doorway, approaching. "You couldn't sleep either, hm?" "No." "Scott is over at Keira's and everyone's rekindling and I just feel like.. I need to.. like I am so close..I almost can see it.. just." He shook his head manically. He couldn't catch it, she understood. He looked so exhausted and sad, almost too sad. She sat down next to him, gently took the red wool out of his hands, untangled his fingers. He smiled, faintly remembering the moment they had shared, still having all the trouble and all the guilt and all the sorrow on his mind. She wished she could take it. She crossed her fingers with his. He just looked at her. She thought about just how far away from sane they were, how tired of it all. How they were wrapped up in this mess.
She just needed this moment, sitting next to him in perfect silence. She clanged onto it. She was afraid of it all, but it was a different kind of afraid. She could still smell the blood of tomorrow, taste the bitter scent of death around her, she knew. It drove her mad, but she wasn't helpless anymore, she could save him as well as he had saved her.
"What are you thinking?" He asked. She shook her head. "I am thinking of all the doom day stuff, but I don't mean to. I need a break from my brain. It is literally screwing with me, well not literally literally I guess. You see, it makes me stupid." "You're not stupid, Lydia." He said a little too fast. Just fast enough. She thought about kissing him right then and there, but it wouldn't help anyone. It would make it worse. She wanted him to know that when she kissed him it was because she loved him, like he loved her, and not because they would die or because she needed it. She wanted it to mean something. Most kisses she had shared didn't, hadn't and it wasn't even about kissing him or touching him the way she wanted to- it was about him, every aspect and every particle of him that she just loved. It still overwhelmed her that those feelings had surfaced, swallowed her. Everything was put into perspective and there he was. He would know, she promised herself. They would all survive and they would laugh about this, how silly it was of her to think like that and that they should have just started ripping their clothes off, but they didn't, they sat next to each other until the dawn broke and it was perfect because she finally knew it was true and she wasn't afraid anymore because she was in love and it would all be alright, it had to be, she would make sure of it.