So this was going to be a one shot.. but I received some wonderful encouragement and lovely comments and a lot of followers and instead of just making a new one shot each time, I can link them together and create my own little story out of it... so thank you and enjoy :)

Her hair smelt like gasoline. It was the only thing keeping her sane. Hold onto something anchored in reality, to glue her here. The front door slammed shut, the sound echoed across the empty house. Mrs. Martin was out, again. It was seven fifteen. She could always try and get some sleep. She tossed her purse onto the hall table and made sure the deadbolt was in place before charging the stairs.

The shower was scorching, it was like her skin was melting away with the grime and nightmares she has collected over the past few days. Her green eyes closed as she rested against the far wall of her shower stall. But the action had her jerking back into place moments later. She could only re-live the explosion behind her lids.

The therapeutic sponge her mom brought home one day did nothing but make her hands itchy and sensitive, leaving her skin a puffy red. She could still feel the soft material of Stiles' sweatshirt, like it was bunched between her fingers right now. She could feel the way her hands pressed firmly down on him, blocking him from the fire.

What made her act like that? The previous two days were starting to haze over, morphing into a fuzzy cluttered blur. But some moments cut through her memory like a knife. Or a saw. Those voices, the panic, the anger, the serenity. It would haunt her, she knew it. So many lives lost, and she couldn't help them.

Lydia Martin never thought she'd want to help anyone but herself. But the way that Isaac and Boyd were acting changed that. They reminded her of what she had gone through months earlier. How she wasn't in control and no one should ever feel like that.

Scott was the worst, Scott lived with a guilt that Lydia refused to acknowledge. All the situations that could have been avoided, had she spoken up. But things like that didn't sit well with her, and no one had made her feel guilty for it. Until that night, until Stiles believed she could have had something to do with it.

The cold truth was, Lydia didn't know. She felt like herself, she could account for all her actions in the last four months, educating herself on werewolves helped her feel comfortable living in Beacon Hills, being subjected to what she had been. She didn't want to be terrified inside her own head. Didn't want to feel vulnerable.

But she couldn't forget the way Ethan stared at her, -life threatening incident momentarily forgotten. The look spoke volumes to a girl who got real good at reading between the lines. He knew, and she knew he knew. She just prayed Stiles wouldn't find out. And that angered Lydia, tossed more gasoline onto the fire already brimming inside of her. Stiles wasn't her keeper. She didn't need to tell him every little thing. She could speak to anyone she wanted. Aiden included.

She turned off the water, ignoring the sounds of a baby crying deep within her mind, or the strain of a safe crushing the life of a classmate. Lydia was sure those images would haunt her for weeks. The helpless feeling of not saving someone wasn't her thing. It was Stiles'. He confided in her over the summer his deepest fears. That Scott would find someone better, that maybe he'd finally succumb to his frail humanity, that he wouldn't be able to do it all on his own.

Lydia secretly liked that side of Stiles. His eyes were always soft and his voice a velvety gentle hum that seemed to restart her heart. All those nights under the streetlamps glow. Sitting side by side, eyes locked together, a steering wheel and the oldie's station. There wasn't much better memories than that.

But he was ready to throw it all away. Stiles was willing to lose his life if Scott was ready to go. That angered the red head more than she wanted to realize. He was important, he wasn't a nobody. Nothing quite as amazing would ever happen to any of them again. They needed to stick together. And a guy she hadn't thought twice about a year ago was suddenly the most important thing on her mind.

Saving the two idiots seemed so natural. Their touching moment would've meant nothing if that fire consumed them. And in a strange way, Lydia felt it her job to protect Stiles. He would've done the same for her in a heartbeat.

As she pulled the soft covers up to her chin and attempted to ignore the sliver of morning light that crept through the crack in her curtains, Lydia knew that that was what she needed to be focusing on. People like Stiles and Scott and Allison. People who would believe her without a single justification, and people who risk their lives for each other daily. Popularity and beauty can only mean so much, but brains and wit and strength was going to be what saved her, what saves all of them in the end.

This time when she closed her eyes she didn't smell the gasoline and she couldn't feel the soft, comforting material of Stiles' hoodie. But she also didn't see that distorted, frightening image or the explosion that produced it. That could wait til later. After she had a proper nights sleep. After the suicidal voices stopped echoing inside her head. After-

A small noise sounded from Lydia's cellphone that was only inches away on her nightstand. She opened one eye drowsily to see the sender. Thinking it might have been Aiden again, and praying he wasn't the clingy type. But it wasn't Aiden, or her mother explaining her absence. Of course it was Stiles, complete with one simple, annoying sentence.

Stilinski: We have work to do.

He would more than likely be the death of her.