She starts her new life, like most beings, gasping for air. She's got arms coming around her, hands smoothing hair away from her face, and water coming up from her lungs as she coughs and coughs. She thinks she might be crying, or maybe someone else is, because even after they dry her face it still becomes wet again. She isn't being born, unless being born feels a lot like almost drowning. But she's coming back to life, and that's the important thing.
They wrap her in blankets and sit her next to the fire and for the first time in a long time she registers feelings, good feelings. She is cold, but she is warming. She's weak and vulnerable, but she is safe. She is not alone. That repeats in her mind like a mantra, like a prayer.
She is not alone.
"What happened?" is what she means to ask. Instead what comes out is, "What did you do?"
She doesn't mean it to sound accusing, but it does and they cannot escape it. They, the three of them, exchange uncomfortable looks before Lydia opens her mouth to explain. It comes out clinical and detached—a spell or a ritual or a curse. She wonders if it might be the latter and they're just unwilling to say. She doesn't care. She should—and it bothers her, because she really should—but she doesn't, and she says it with a smile. It eases them a little and the telling goes a little smoother. It required some sacrifices. They each show her a cut on different parts of their bodies. Lydia on the wrist, Stiles on the shoulder. Scott's is on both palms. Their eyes meet when he shows her and her eyes do not water because they're already wet. There is more—of course there is more—but none of them are forthcoming and she doesn't ask.
She crumples. They all move to steady her, but Scott gets there first. His arms around her are an anchor, much stronger than anything Isaac could have hoped to offer her. It feels as though she's shattering, the pieces of her they'd so painstakingly put together coming undone, and he just holds her. He holds her and they hold him and they all hold one another.
"Where are we?" she wants to ask. Instead she says, "Will this last?"
They are silent in response to this and for a moment that terrifies her. Then she hears Lydia's scoffing and Stiles' sighing and Scott's arms around her are so tight she thinks she might bruise. Still, they don't say a word and she wonders if this is really only a temporary thing. Could she bear it, to leave them again? To be cold and frightened and alone?
"We went through this much trouble to get you; do you really think we'd give you up that easily?" Lydia says. The frankness of it startles her and she laughs—her first real laugh—and clings to them all the tighter. The boys chime in with their agreement; perhaps they were waiting on Lydia to give the okay. Either way, it breaks the sudden tension and suddenly it's almost as though nothing ever happened.
After a while, a long while, reality starts to set in. She is exhausted beyond measure, from drowning and adrenaline it would seem, and she really, really wants to see her dad. They're starting to pack up when her stomach gives an impossibly loud grumble. The others turn to look at her and she covers her stomach with both hands before she breaks out into laughter.
"Maybe we should stop for something to eat first," she says.