Lydia stops crying by the time they get to the hospital. When Stiles helps her out of the car she grips his arm so hard her fingers turn white and he remembers Lydia on his bed, a red string twisted around her fingertips.
He has to guide her where to walk, one hand firm on the small of her back and the other gripping her shoulder. It's like she's lost command of her body, allowing him to move her like a puppet. She looks like she's sleepwalking.
"She's in shock," Scott mutters beside them, watching Lydia's eyes slide in and out of focus.
Melissa is waiting for them outside an exam room on the third floor. She frowns and reaches towards Lydia, who stumbles back into Stiles, gripping his shirt.
"Oh sweetheart," Melissa murmurs. She comes up to Lydia slowly, her hands held up in the air. "It's okay. We just need to do a little exam to make sure you're not hurt, alright?"
Lydia nods mechanically, her grip loosening on his shirt. She turns her head to look searchingly at Stiles, like she's asking him a question he doesn't know the answer to.
Stiles leans down to press his forehead to hers. "Do you want me to go in with you?"
Lydia shakes her head and gives him her bravest tremulous smile, the same one she gave him when he found her bleeding out on the floor with Kira's hands pressed over her stomach.
"I can do it," she whispers, nodding determinedly.
"I know you can." He cups her face and Lydia sighs, her eyes drifting shut.
"I'd say don't go anywhere," she whispers, "but previous experience tells me I don't have to worry about that."
Stiles kisses her forehead. "Never."
xxx
Scott sits in a hard plastic chair next to Stiles down the hallway from Lydia's exam room. He sits and thinks about Allison, thinks about how he failed her.
We protect those who cannot protect themselves.
He couldn't protect Allison, and he couldn't protect Lydia.
Stiles is shaking, fingers tapping nervously on the arm of his chair, looking down the hall towards Lydia's room.
Scott is thinking murder, he's thinking of the satisfaction snapping that man's neck would bring bring him. He's thinking revenge.
"Thinking of revising our no-kill policy?" Stiles asks knowingly.
Scott growls and curls his hands around the arms of the chair. "Yeah."
Stiles nods and runs a hand through his hair. "I was thinking castration, personally. Make it poetic."
"Points for creativity," Scott agrees.
"Hey Scott? Did you see who did it?"
Scott shakes his head. "Something was wrong with the memory. I couldn't see it clearly."
Stiles frowns. "What do you mean?"
"It was almost like the memory had been damaged," Scott explains. "I saw it from Lydia's point of view, and everything was like...blurred out. I couldn't make out anyone's face."
"Maybe she was drugged."
Scott scuffs the floor with his shoe. "I really wish Allison was here right now," he admits.
Stiles is still looking in the direction of Lydia's exam room. "It's decided then. Castration by arrow. Allison would be proud."
Scott doesn't tell Stiles about what the man said to Lydia. It's not that he's trying to keep it a secret.
He just can't.
xxx
The tiles on the ceiling are a mind-numbing white. There are fourteen tiles by sixteen tiles. Fourteen times sixteen equals two hundred twenty-four tiles.
Lydia multiplies and divides the numbers in her head, over and over.
She doesn't think in words, or images. She can't. She only thinks in numbers, the elegant way they fold into each other, perfection in each equation.
The cold comfort of a number is that its value always remains the same, as does the rules. In a world of chaos, mathematics is divine order.
Everyone is very gentle with her. The doctor explains everything she's doing and her touch is light. She's treated like a fragile piece of glass, like the slightest touch might break her.
It really doesn't matter. She can't feel anything, anyway.
xxx
Lydia comes out of the room looking worse then when she went in. She's very pale and when Stiles puts his arms around her she stiffens up and won't hug him back.
Melissa hands a bag of prescription bottles to Scott that Stiles assumes are for Lydia. "Are you sleeping at home tonight?"
Scott glances over Lydia's head at Stiles. "Lydia's mom is out of town."
Melissa nods in understanding and kisses the side of Scott's head. "Okay. Call me if you need anything. Lydia?"
Lydia startles in his arms, turns halfway to face Melissa. "Yes?" Her voice sounds full of tears even though her eyes are dry.
"Do you need me to go over your medication before you go?"
Lydia shakes her head slightly. "I understand."
Melissa gives her a tired smile and pats her shoulder. "Okay, sweetie. Call me if you have any questions."
Lydia nods and presses her cheek against Stiles' chest. "Thanks you," she whispers.
"Come on," Stiles murmurs, pressing his hand against the smooth expanse of skin between Lydia's shoulder blades. Her skin is cold to the touch. "Let's go home."
xxx
Scott and Stiles don't even ask her if they can sleep over, it's just implied. They swing by Stiles' house and pick up sweatpants for him and Scott before going back to her house.
It stings a little, a reminder of how she and Allison used to be, trading tops and headbands, like they were siblings.
Scott stays in the car while Stiles runs inside to get his stuff. Lydia presses herself up against the door, leans her cheek on the cool glass window. She knows Scott's upset; if she was a werewolf she'd probably be drowning in the scent of his guilt.
Scott still won't look at her.
When Stiles comes outside, backpack slung casually over his shoulder, he gets in the backseat with her, and gives her a smile that makes her want to cry.
"Almost home," he says softly, like he can feel how tired she is, how much she wants to crawl into bed and never get up.
She stumbles into her house as soon as Scott gets the jeep in park, Scott and Stiles rushing to flank her on either side like bodyguards. She feels dirty, unclean, the recovered memory crawling under her skin like it's alive.
"I want to take a shower," she whispers to Stiles, and he follows her dutifully up to her room.
"Can you unzip me?" she asks, and turns around for him.
Stiles hands are warm and gentle on her back. He's careful with the zipper, his free hand on her hip, anchoring him to her. It's the only thing keeping her here, his steady touch, his warmth burning through the ice coating her skin.
Lydia steps out of her dress, leaning against Stiles as she kicks off her shoes.
"Lydia," he murmurs, one hand on her shoulder.
"I'm fine Stiles, I just want to take a shower."
"Lydia, you're not fine."
She walks to the bathroom, refusing to face him, because she can't see it, can't see the evidence of what happened to her all over his face.
"I know that," she whispers, and slams the bathroom door shut.
xxx
Scott waits until Lydia's in the bathroom to follow Stiles into her bedroom.
"Here," he says, handing the bag of pills to Stiles. "I think she has to take these when she's out."
Stiles nods, taking the bottles out and lining them up on her nightstand. "You're staying too, right?"
"Yeah, of course, but I need to do something first." Scott eyes Lydia's dress from across the room. "Think she'll notice if I take that?"
Stiles shrugs. "If I was her I'd never want to see it again."
Scott takes that as permission and picks up the dress from where Lydia left it on the floor. He rubs the silky fabric across his nose, trying to dig past the scent of blood and Lydia.
"Are you gonna..." Stiles waves a hand at the dress.
"Yeah, I was thinking I'd call Derek. Maybe go back to where we found her, see if we can work backwards."
Stiles' head jerks in agreement, his hands twisting in his lap. "This is bad, Scott."
"I know." More than Stiles does, he thinks, remembering Lydia's terrified scream from when he was in her head.
"It's like...no matter what we do, she always gets hurt. She always gets hurt and I don't know how to stop it!"
Scott sighs heavily. "Maybe we can't stop it."
Stiles groans quietly and flops back on Lydia's bed. "Then what do we do?"
Scott stares at the picture Lydia has stuck under the edge of her vanity mirror. It's her and Allison, sitting on the bleachers, probably at a lacrosse game. Their arms are looped around each other, cheeks pressed together.
"We be there for her," Scott says quietly, reaching out to trace Allison's face. "It's the only thing we can do."
xxx
She cries in the shower, under the spray to protect herself from prying werewolf ears. Lydia turns the water as hot as she can stand it, scrubs her skin until it turns pink and raw.
She runs a hand over her scars, the faded white points from Peter Hale's teeth and the thin line across her stomach from her surgery after Tracy cut her open.
This time her scar is on the inside. How will anyone know that she's hurt if they can't see it?
Once upon a time Lydia wasn't afraid of anything. She ruled with an iron fist and a cruel smile, kept her heart and her brain carefully locked away where no one could touch.
Oh they'd be sorry, all those peons who underestimated her, just because she wore heels to class and pretended not to understand how cosigns worked.
That was before Peter Hale tore her open with his teeth, before she saw monsters everywhere.
"Lydia!" Stiles, banging on the bathroom door. "Lydia, you've been in there for twenty minutes, are you okay?"
She turns the water off reluctantly. Of course Stiles won't let her hide in the bathroom forever.
He's the one person she's never been able to hide from. Stupid Stiles Stilinksi, who loved her before she deigned to acknowledge his existence.
Stiles, the boy who always has a plan, whose only weapons are his brain and a baseball bat.
The boy who was always there for her, before she even knew she needed it. Needed him.
"Almost done," she calls out softly, stepping out of the shower on shaky legs. She leans out to balance one hand on the wall as she grabs a towel, like that will make the room stop spinning.
The thing about monsters is even when you kill them they never really go away. They wait, in the darkness, until you think you're safe, until you think you're finally alone.
And then they strike.
