Author's Note: Been too long since I wrote some Stydia goodness. Let's set this sometime after Malia and Stiles get together. Spoilers for season four. This will be about two to five chapters, depending on the muse strikes me. Anyways, please enjoy!

"Because what's worse than knowing you want something, besides knowing you can never have it?"

― James Patterson

Beacon Hills Memorial is a place she knows all too well.

She knows each curve of the building, where each twisted corridor goes. She can find the best coffee machine and knows which nurses to flatter to get semi-decent food. She knows which chairs are the comfiest for long vigils and which places to pace without getting in the way of someone.

Today, as her heels click on the pristine floor, she wishes she wasn't so acutely aware of this place. She wishes that she had never seen the inside of this cursed building. She vainly hopes that nurses won't recognize, won't lower their gaze in pity, because she's back and she's on the verge of losing someone else important to her.

Just like Aidan.

Just like Alison.

"Lydia." Scott greets, the alpha's arms folded across his chest. His eyes are wild and unfocused and it's almost as if he's vainly trying to keep himself from splintering into a million tiny pieces.

Kira stands alongside him, one hand rubbing circles on her boyfriend's back and the other squeezing his hand. The kitsune shoots her a reassuring smile but it doesn't reach her eyes.

"How bad?" Lydia manages to ask, her voice barely above a whisper, her voice dry.

Scott doesn't say anything for the longest time, as if he needs to gather his strength to voice the diagnosis. Finally, after what seems like a small eternity, he manages to explain, "He was poisoned."

The first impulse is for her to laugh it off. Poison seems so benign compared to the other various ways people have tried to kill them. The Nogitsune and its crazy methods come to mind. Then, there are the clever ways that people have been trying to kill them since they got on the deadpool. Poison immediately brings images of apples and combs to her mind, of true love conquering all, of evil witches being vanquished.

"Someone poisoned Stiles?" She asks again, her mind spinning, trying to make that statement logical. Running a hand through her hair, she grimaces. "There's an antidote then, right?"

"They're looking." Scott murmurs. "But they haven't been able to identify it yet."

"So, what?" Lydia challenges, raising her voice, as the fury she's been storing boils over. "We just sit here? We wait?"

"What else can we do?" Scott snaps, lashing out at her.

"Easy." Kira interjects, eyeing both of them. "Turning on each other isn't going to help Stiles."

Kira's right, of course, and immediately, the anger fades away, replaced by weariness that seems to weigh her very existence down. The adrenaline that she's been running on since she got the phone call is leaving her system and suddenly, she feels exhausted.

"We're going to find who did this." Scott swears, voice low and dark. "I swear, whoever did this, will pay."

"Go search then." Lydia urges him. "I'll stay and keep—"

"Where is he?" A breathless voice inquires urgently from down the corridor.

"Malia." Lydia breathes as Stiles' girlfriend—yes, that's right, she's his girlfriend and she'll be staying by his side, not Lydia—comes running down the hall.

"How is he?" Malia questions urgently and as she's filled in on the situation, Lydia can't help but feel her stomach sink. Her place isn't by Stiles' side. She doesn't have that right nor should she have even expected it.

He chose Malia.

He loves Malia and it was foolish of her to have even hoped for a different outcome.

Even so—

"I'll stay with him." Malia promises and Lydia forces herself to nod her head in agreement.

Lydia needs to go, needs to do something useful, something other than stand here, feeling like a complete idiot.

"I need you to pick up the scent." Scott tells Malia instead. "The Sherriff has a few leads and it will go faster if you and I split up."

Malia blinks a few times, tilts her head to the side as she processes the order, but then finally nods her assent. She glances at Lydia, almost as if she's searching for something, but then finally moves towards the door.

"Give me a minute with him." Malia says softly, not waiting for a reply before she goes in.

"Lydia." Scott starts and the banshee faces the alpha that she's trusted to keep them safe. But tonight, she doesn't see that fearless alpha. She sees a young teenager, terrified of losing someone else important to him. They were all too young for this amount of tragedy. They'd grown up much too fast and seen too much.

But, if she had learned anything, they were survivors, all of them.

"I'll keep him safe, Scott." She swears.

He just nods his head.

She's never done the bedside vigil before.

She's never really had the opportunity to do so. All the other times, her friends died long from her side—she'd been too busy screaming anyways. Her role as a banshee had always, for some reason or another, taken priority over her friends.

Yet, as she sits next to Stiles' bedside, she can't help but wish that she could be out there with the others. She is useless here, really. She should be researching or chasing down leads—not watching the soft rise and fall of Stiles' chest, not wiping away the sweat on his brow with a moist towel.

It terrifies her to see him like this—so close to slipping away. His skin is a sickly pallor, not unlike that of a corpse and as the poison wreaks havoc on his bloodstream, a fever grows. He's resting at 101 but that's with the fever reduction medicine. When it wears off, he'll shoot back up to 104 or 105.

"Stiles." She murmurs and reaches for his hand, only to jerk it back. This isn't her place. She's not the one who should be comforting him.

His eyes open, dull and unfocused.

"Stiles?" She tries again, trying to keep her voice upbeat somewhat, just in case he can hear her.

His mouth opens and closes a few times, but no sound escapes it.

"Stiles? Can you hear me?" She reaches for an ice cube off the bedside table and presses one to his chapped lips. The liquid rolls down his lips and drips onto the hospital gown.

He eyes shut close and Lydia grimaces.

"Hey there." Mrs. McCall stands in the doorway, her eyebrows drawn and eyes filled with pity. The nurse comes into the room and glances over Stiles' monitors and then turns to the strawberry blonde. Placing a warm hand on her shoulder, she asks, "How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine." Lydia replies quickly, much too quickly for it to be true. Still, she wants to believe that she is holding herself together and not falling into a million tiny pieces. She needs to be strong for Stiles. She needs to keep it together—the pack is counting on her to stay strong and look after Stiles.

"You want me to get you some food—?"

"No, thank you." Lydia forces a well-worn grin onto her peach lips.

An intercom sounds, telling Melissa she has a call on line two.

"Okay, well, if you need me," She gestures to the nurses' station Lydia nods her head. "Okay then." With that, Melissa is down the hall and vanishing around the corner.

"Stiles?" Lydia tries once more, but he's too far gone into his fitful sleep to even hear her. Still, she can't stop herself from reaching for his hand and holding it within hers. He's alive, she has to tell herself, and he will live.

The pack would find the person who did this and they would give Stiles the antidote. And then Stiles would wake up and she could go back to pretending that her feelings for him meant nothing, that she had missed her chance, and that there was nothing she could do now.

Honestly, he and Malia could swear their undying love to each other right in front of her right now if they wanted, and Lydia wouldn't care.

So long as he lived, that's all she cared about.

"Please, Stiles," A tear snakes its way down her cheek. "Come back to me."

Stiles just sleeps on.

Author's Note: Next chapter, the pack gets a lead, but is it too little too late? Please review if you have a moment. Thanks!