Chapter 2

"Uh. That is all you have to say," Lydia scoffed as she pulled herself together. Wiping her face with her hands, she breathed a deep breath, belly expanding and contracting as Stiles watched in fascination. When she opened her eyes again, she was the Lydia he was used to. Take charge, commanding and scary. As she crossed the room to grab a bag out of the closet she squared her shoulders and Stiles knew that it was going to be be a wide ride.

Blinking a few times Stiles realized that she was no longer standing in front of him, turning his head he watched as she started packing books into the bag. Dropping from his knees to sit on the floor completely, Stiles opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to find the right words to figure out what the hell was going on. Lydia was pregnant. It seemed so weird, not that one of his friends was pregnant necessarily because as the evil Druid had proven he was the lone virgin among them, but that it was Lydia. She seemed too smart for this. Getting pregnant at seventeen was something that dumb girls did, girls who ended up on bad reality shows and waiting tables t-o pay rent in a trailer park. Not girls who were geniuses or girls who were going to win the fields metal. "Wait, so you have been skipping school for the past week because you found out you are pregnant?"

Looking up from the bag she was packing, Lydia fixed him with a bored stare, "Please Stiles I am 17 weeks, I have known for a while." She scoffed and of course she had, Lydia knew everything.

"A while, 17 weeks," He muttered, "Lydia were you planning to tell any of the rest of us?" He awkwardly stood up from the floor and rearranged his over shirt.

"I wasn't aware that the happenings of uterus were of particular interest to the pack," she spit the word as if it had personally offended her.

"Wait, what?" he physically shook his head as if that would help him follow this conversation, "Why, Lydia I know that I have been a shit friend lately and that is why I am here to apologize. I mean I get that you had this whole banshee thing just dropped in your lap and none of us really helped you," he began, trying to get back to the reason he had come here to start with. "But we all care about you and we will all be here for you,"

She spun around from the closet were she was shoving more things in the bag, "No," she snapped, pulling a purple hoddie over her head, effectively hiding her belly, "You don't 'get that this banshee thing was dropped in my lap' and you sure as hell don't all care about me, or each other. You are all so self absorbed and short sighted that you can never see beyond the happenings of the moment. You and Scott and Allison rushed into a ritual that you didn't understand to save your parents without a second thought to the consequences but you couldn't work together to save your pack members," she charges.

"Lydia, Boyd and Erica where, there was nothing that we," he stammered.

"Bullshit!" She yelled and he actually jumped, "If Scott would have gotten his head out of his ass and dealt with his shit or Derek could have just asked for help, he and Derek could have been working together all along. Boyd and Erica wouldn't have gotten taken to start with and Jackson may not have had to die. Maybe he would have stayed," her fury fell off a bit as she sat down the bag with a sigh, trying to regain her composure.

"Lydia," Stiles took a few steps forward, "I know you must miss him. Does, um," he looked down before looking back at her, "Does he know? You know," he gestured forward a bit, "About the baby?"

Looking down at her own, still relatively small belly, she looked confused for a moment before looking back at Stiles, "Stiles, I am 17 weeks pregnant, Jackson has been gone six months."

Quirking his head, realization dawned, "Oh, so, he is not, I mean, the baby isn't his?"

"No," Lydia said slowly, as if he were suddenly very stupid.

"Oh, uh, well," how was he supposed to say this without sounding like a complete ass, "Do you, I mean of course you, you know, know who the father is," he fiddled with his hands.

Her glare became cold as she zipped closed the bag a looked at him, "Of course I do." she snapped before walking into her bathroom. Returning she dropped something into a side compartment and grabbed a wooden box off of the vanity, placing it in the same side compartment before zipping it and grabbing her phone. Sighing, she turned to Stiles, "Yes I know who the father is, yes my mother knows I am pregnant, no I am not going to discuss this any further. Now," she tossed the strap of the bag over her shoulder, "Do you have a passport?"

Shaking his head again at the breakneck speed of this conversation he repeated, "Huh?"

"A passport," her eyes widened, "Do you have one?"

"Yeah but what"

She cut him off, "We can stop by your hour house to grab it and an overnight bag but you cannot take more than 15 minutes, we're on schedule." She informed him as she turned on her heel and marched out of the room. Stiles had yet to connect the pieces from the girl who was crying in his arms twenty minutes ago and the this version of Lydia, when she bellowed "Stiles!" up the stairs he pulled his keys from his pocket and jogged down the stairs.

"Take your car to your house, I will meet you there. Make sure you are not being tailed," She said curtly as she climbed into her mother's SUV and he could only follow her instructions. Pulling up to his own house a few minutes later, he entered the house only after Lydia pulled up across the street. She was on the phone so he just nodded and wondered into the house. Grabbing a bag he kept for emergencies and a first aide kit, Stiles got his passport out of the desk in his father's office and paused for a moment. He knew that he had to leave a note but what could he tell his father Leaving the country with Lydia. Don't know where or why but she is pregnant and unstable and I am scared to leave her alone... Yeah that wasn't going to work. He settled on Dad, I am helping Lydia for the next few days so I won't be around. I will call you with updates. I love you, Stiles

Rubbing his forehead Stiles swallowed the guilt of leaving his father, once again, to worry about him with only an evasive note to attempt to explain the things that Stiles no longer understood himself. Breathing a tired sigh, Stiles picked up his bag and jogged outside. When he approached Lydia's SUV, he was surprised to see a passenger in the car. Opening the backdoor, he tossed the bag in and climbed in after it, only then noting that Isaac was in the passenger seat. Looking at Lydia in the rear view mirror, he scoffed "Isaac? Seriously, Senor scarf is going with us?"

"Fuck you," Isaac snarked from the front seat.

"Fuck you," Stiles snapped back.

Rolling her eyes, Lydia sighed, "You two can fuck each other later. Or better yet, both of you can fuck Scott and move passed this your homoerotic triangle bromance bullshit after we go get Derek okay."

"What," Stiles looked at her, "Derek? We are going to get Derek? We need passports to go get Derek?"

"Yes," she answered curtly as she turned the key and started down the road. After a few minutes, Stiles asked, "So why are we going to get sourwolf?"

"Because," she answered, her annoyance with his questions clear, "Someone is trying to kill him and we all know how self preservation is not exactly a skill he possesses."

Isaac snicked from his seat, nodding.

"O-Kay," Stiles hated feeling like he was missing something, "Derek left with his sister like two months ago and somehow I don't think you and Cora are pen pals so how, exactly, do you know that someone is trying to kill him. I mean aside from his overall charming personality and homicidal taste in women."

Lydia tensed but knew he wouldn't shut up until she gave him an answer so she relented, "What do you know about banshees Stiles?"

"Um," he was clearly uncomfortable at being called out, "I know that you scream for death and that most legends say you are part of the fay" He attempts an answer.

Scoffing she corrects, "Yeah, thanks wikipedia. Banshees are tied to particular families. The Celtic legends say that each of the original families has their very own banshee. The thing that most origin legends seem to leave out is that each of the families are supernatural somehow. Some were Druids, some were fey, others,"

"Were werewolves," Stiles finishes, catching on.

Nodding she sends him a sly smile in the review mirror as she pulls onto another freeway, "Exactly. Wanna guess who one of those families was?"

"The Hales," Stiles rolls his eyes.

"Right again," she changes lanes, "Because of proximity or pack or whatever, it would seem that I am the Hale's banshee. So when one of them is in trouble, I know." The bitterness in her voice bleeds through her flippant tone.

They ride for while in silence, Lydia focused on the road and Isaac staring intensely out the window. For his part, Stiles sat in the back dumbfounded, trying to process all of the crazy that his life has become. Lydia is the banshee for the Hale pack. The Hale pack who was a wise and old family reduced to a zombie psycho, a professional brooder and the angriest teenage girl Stiles had ever met. And Lydia was their banshee. Their pregnant banshee. Lydia was pregnant. Lydia was a banshee. And he was allowing her to drive him and bitch- wolf to a foreign county. Wait, he leaned forward, "Where the hell are we going anyway?"

Both Isaac and Lydia jumped a bit at his voice, looking back at him, Isaac rolled his eyes and returned to staring out the window. Lydia gave an exasperated sigh and answered, "Mexico."

"Mexico?" Stiles started, "We are going to Mexico. Why is Derek in Mexico? Did he leave Beacon Hills to work for a drug cartel because being menacing is like the only job skill he seems to have. Is that why someone is trying to kill him? He messed up a drug smuggling ring and now el hefa is going to wack him?" Stiles rambled.

"I think you are mixing your culturally offensive stereotypes there," Isaac muttered.

"What?" Stiles was confuse at the interruption in his rant, then thinking about what the other boy said he nodded, "Maybe, but still why is Derek about to get killed in Mexico?"

Gripping the wheel tighter, Lydia bit out, "I don't know yet," as she followed the GPS on her phone and took an exit.

"So you have no idea who is trying to kill him or why they are trying to kill him but we are traipsing off to a foreign country to help? Did you ever think maybe he is a freaking werewolf, with his werewolf family and he can take care of himself?" Stiles yelled.

Suddenly the car jerked to the side of the road, horns blaring as the passed by the car as Lydia brought it to an abrupt stop. Jumping out of the car, she slammed the door before bolting to the field off the shoulder of the road. Staring after her for a moment, Stiles sighs and follows her, "Lydia," he calls after her, flinching when he hears her start to vomit. Grimacing, he approaches her and kneels beside her. She is on her hands and knees, one hand pathetically trying to hold her her hair out of her face while the other shakily supports her body weight. Gently brushing stray hairs out of the way, Stiles pulls her hair back with his left hand, using his right hand to awkwardly rub her back. After a few more moments of gagging, Lydia drops back on her haunches, panting for breath.

"Are you alright?" Stiles asks tentatively, still rubbing her back.

Gulping in air, she nods, "Um, yeah, I will be fine."

"So," he looks down, "Is this like morning sickness or something?" He quirks an eyebrow at the darkness surrounding them.

Chuckling a bit, she shrugs, "Morning sickness is supposed to end with the first trimester. I don't know what this is, all I know is that she is not happy with me right now," she looks down and rubs her hand across her belly. It was the first time Stiles had seen her acknowledge the baby beyond telling him that she was pregnant. He knew something else was going on but he was afraid to ask her. Honestly he was afraid of what her answer might be.

"I'm sorry I upset you, I just, I need to know what is going on," he tried to explain.

"No," she said, "you don't need to know what is going on, you want to know what is going on, there is a difference. I needed to know what was going on when my boyfriend was killing people, when I was in direct danger, but none of you told me," her voice was not angry, it was just sadly detached. "And then you let me hook up with the enemy without telling me what was really going on, I had sex with the person who killed Boyd," Wiping her mouth, Lydia stood on slightly wobbly legs, "Look Stiles, I know I dragged you along and I am not even sure why, you just," she looked back at him, still kneeling beside her vomit somewhere in a field in Arizona and she smiled sadly, "You are the only person who is even trying to be my friend right now and I know I am not making it easy but thank you." She crossed her arms over herself and he just nodded, understanding the loneliness and sadness he saw in her eyes, "I kept having dreams about, well honestly I didn't know what they were about at first, but then I started getting this overwhelming feeling that something was wrong,"she looked up at him, "Like I do when I need to scream. Finally I saw Derek in the dreams and I knew," she had began to pace a bit, "I knew that he was in danger. I tried calling him and Cora, hell I even tried to contact Peter, but it didn't work. Phones numbers were dead and I didn't know anything about where they would have gone."

"So you went to Isaac," he surmised and she nodded, "Yeah, I figure if anyone could find Derek it was Isaac. But he didn't know either."

"I didn't know he was leaving," Isaac said, his voice barely a whisper over the noise of the highway but the pain in his words hit them both, "Derek had tried pushing me away, he thought that it was the only way to keep me safe from the Alpha pack. That is how I ended up staying with Scott but," he looked at the hard desert soil, his hands buried in his pockets, "We had an argument when Cora was sick, I," he toed more insistently at the dirt, "I said some things that I wish I hadn't. I didn't realize he was gone until a few days after he had left. I thought they would be back soon, but," sighing he looked up, "Lydia came to me a few weeks ago, she asked if I could find him. I tried but I couldn't so I put her in contact with someone who could."

"Who?" Stiles asked, finally standing.

"Braeden." Isaac answered, "She is the woman who saved me from the Alpha pack. We stayed in contact and I knew that if anyone could find a werewolf no one wanted to be found that she could, so Lydia contacted her."

"She actually remembered me from the time she bruised my arm," Lydia rolled her eyes, "She is not trusting and she is expensive but once she knew that I was not trying to hurt the Hales and that we were on the same side, she said she would help. She called me earlier and told me that she had found them. She is moving to get them out in the morning and we need to be in place in case anything goes wrong or she needs help. We will have to move fast once we get them back because we don't really know what we are dealing with."

"So Mexico?" Stiles nodded.

"Yeah, little boarder town outside of Sonora, that is where she traced them to. There is a family of hunters there, but they aren't like the Argents," Isaac explains.

"So they are sane?" Stiles snaps.

"Not so much, but they don't have a code, they are more mercenaries and fortune hunters. We don't know why they want Peter and Derek but I know we have to get them back before someone dies." Lydia explained.

Nodding Stiles approached her, "Okay," he pushed her hair back again and kissed her forehead, "We get them back."

Once Isaac had entered the car, Stiles looked at Lydia, "Does he," he tilted his head, "know?" he looked to her midsection.

"I think so, but I haven't told anyone but you and my mom and I would like to keep it that way."

Nodding Stiles followed her back into the car where Isaac was now driving. Sighing as he leaned back into the seat he couldn't help the sense of dread the bubbled up in his stomach. This was going to be a bumpy ride.

In the middle of the Mexican desert Derek could not hold back the scream as 6000 volt passed through his body again. He was tired and hungry and in more pain than anyone ever needed to be in but beyond all of that, he knew he was going to die. He was going to die and the only person who was going to be with him was Peter. As his uncle rambled on inanely beside him he thought about how the man had been present for every single tragedy of Derek's life. He had been the cause of many and but he had been the one constant so maybe it was fitting that the last tragedy of his life was spent with the man he would never understand. He felt himself start to lose consciousness as gunshots sounded in the distance.