Stiles awoke with a start. Something was wrong – he could feel it in his gut.

"Hey, Lyds?" He called out into the apartment, but got no answer. He got up, feeling lazy considering it was only quarter to five, throwing on a pair of basketball shorts, and went looking for Lydia. He poked his head into Kristy's room and saw that she was fast asleep, and then went out into the living room. He noticed an envelope sitting next to what Lydia had dubbed "his" chair and saw his name on it. His heart filled with dread, but he opened it and started to read.

Stiles –

This is probably one of the hardest letters I've ever had to write. If you're reading it, it means I'm gone. I met with Deucalion almost a month ago – and I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but I knew you and the pack would try to talk me out of it. He gave me a choice – Kristy's life or mine. He wanted her – the whole alpha pack wanted her, Stiles, but I refused to give up my daughter to them. I know more about the alpha pack than I'd like and I'm not subjecting my daughter to that willingly. So it's my life on the line. And given the choice between Kristy's life and mine, I'd choose her to live every single time. I don't know if you can fully understand it without being a parent, but ask anyone; the need to protect her is always there and I know she's safe with you.

This is the last you'll probably ever hear from me, so I need to tell you this. I love you. I'm in love with you. I love you so damn much, Stiles, and I'm sorry I didn't say anything before, and I'm really sorry that you are probably never going to hear me say it. You're a good man, Stiles, and my last request is that you take care of Kristy. Raise her as your own. She loves you, and she's familiar with the pack, but I need you to understand that she needs you guys. However, if you can't, for any reason at all, my mom will take her. Explain this situation to her, will you? Just let her know I had to do this to ensure my daughter's safety.

And someday, can you tell Kristy about me? Just tell her that I didn't abandon her, and that I needed to do this for her. Tell her what I was like growing up, and tell her about you and me. I need her to know that I loved her, but I need her to know more than anything that you and the pack love her just as much. I have you listed as guardian in my will, Mr. Whittemore helped me draw it up a few weeks ago, but like I said, Mom'll take her if you can't. And please don't make the reason that she reminds you too much of me.

I can't tell you where I'm meeting Deucalion because I know that you're stupidly brave. You would try to stop me. Just know that I died loving you, and that I'm sorry I couldn't see the guy you were before. You're worth a thousand of what Aiden and Jackson were.

I'm sorry about this, and I hope one day you can find it in your heart to forgive me.

I love you,

Lydia.

Stiles wiped away some tears before his phone rang. He jumped at first, who the hell would be calling him at five in the fucking morning? He saw it was his dad, so he answered it, "Yo."

"Stiles, Lydia was brought to the hospital about five minutes ago. Scott called me. She was attacked – her throat was cut, and it looked like claws. Is it a werewolf thing?"

Stiles had to find his voice, "Yeah. She left me a note."

"Get down here, will you? Melissa's already on her way to your place. Her shift was just ending as Lydia was brought in, and she'll take care of Kristy. I figured you'd want to know."

Stiles nodded, "Yeah. I'll be down."

Melissa arrived about two minutes after Stiles hung up with his dad, and Stiles raced to the hospital. He saw Natalie Martin and his dad right away.

"When are we going to know anything?" were the first words out of his mouth.

"I don't know yet," Natalie said. Next to her, Peter was silent, but was gripping her hand and rubbing her back. "She's in surgery. I need to know what's going on."

Stiles felt like she needed some kind of explanation, so he got out the letter that Lydia had left him. Handing it to her, he said, "She left me this. It's a letter explaining things."

She read it, and tears started to fall. Stiles pulled her into a hug, and it felt like they were mourning. Lydia couldn't be dead – she just couldn't. But they had brought her to the hospital, not the morgue, so that meant she was going to be okay, right?

They waited at the hospital for hours. Peter was being uncharacteristically silent, but brought Stiles and Natalie coffee as they tried to ignore the gloom that was hovering over their heads. Finally, around ten, when Stiles felt his heart jumping out of his chest, a doctor came up to them.

"Mrs. Martin?" he asked. Natalie just nodded.

"I'm Dr. Jones. I want to update you on your daughter, so if you'll come with me –"

"Why?"

"It's for immediate family only. I figured you wouldn't want anyone else to know."

Natalie looked at Stiles, "You can talk in front of him. My daughter finds him good enough to take care of her daughter, so that makes him family to me."

"And Mr. Hale?"

Natalie almost looked offended, "He's family, too."

The doctor shrugged, "Fine with me. She was mauled by an animal, that much you know already. It clawed her throat, and it was deep, but it'll heal. We have her stable, but she's in a coma. She'll be in a world of pain when she wakes up, so pray that she sleeps for a while. Also, the baby is fine."

It was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Natalie looked at Stiles and then back at the doctor, dumbfounded. Finally, Stiles cleared his throat and said, "Uh, you wanna run that by me again?"

"She's pregnant, Mr. Stilinski," the doctor said. He saw the look of confusion on Stiles' face, "You didn't know? It's understandable; she probably didn't even know yet, herself. She's only a couple of weeks along. We gave her blood because she was bleeding out, but you can see her now."

They walked into the room, and Stiles hated seeing Lydia like that. She was lying in the hospital bed, looking almost peaceful, until he saw the gauze wrapped around her neck. She had a little bit of a claw mark on her cheek and down her chin at an angle, and even though she had been cleaned up, she was still kind of a mess. There was dried blood in her hair and a little bit on her cheek. Stiles grabbed a chair and sat down beside her bed, grabbing her hand.

"You should really get some sleep, Mrs. Martin," Stiles said, looking in her direction. "It's no help to Lydia if you're tired. You know that she'd be worrying about you right now."

"I can't even think about sleep right now, Stiles," Natalie said.

"C'mon, Mrs. Martin," Stiles said. "You need your rest. It's no use for both of us to sit up, worrying."

"That's my baby girl in that bed, Stiles."

"Yeah, I know," Stiles said. "But I'm not going to be able to rest until I know more about her condition. Besides, Kristy needs one of us rested."

Natalie hesitated at that, but Peter said, "Stiles is right, Natalie. You need rest. I'm sure Stiles will tell us if anything changes."

Natalie nodded, "I guess you're right."

"Go home, and get some sleep. If she wakes up, you'll be the first to know," Stiles said.

"Thanks, Stiles."

Stiles sighed to himself, watching Natalie and Peter leave, and then looked at Lydia, "Lyds, I need you to wake up. You're the most important thing in my life and I just can't go on without you."

-x-

When Scott and Derek came into Lydia's hospital room almost three weeks later, they were not surprised to see Stiles sleeping in the chair next to her bed.

"How long has he been here?" Derek asked Scott, looking concerned.

"He only leaves when someone makes him. Doesn't even go home – he's got a change of clothes here, he showers here, and sits there, holding her hand and waiting for her to wake up. I have to come by everyday just to make sure he eats."

Scott gently shook Stiles awake, "Hey, buddy."

Stiles blinked sleepily, "Hey, Scotty. 'Sup?"

"I understand that you need to be here with Lydia, but you've got a job to do," Derek said softly. "The alpha of that one pack just contacted, and she's not happy."

"I can't leave her," Stiles answered. "Besides, they're dealing with a succubus; can't you just go to take care of it?"

Derek sighed, "C'mon, some fresh air'll be good for you. Scott's gonna go with you."

"And what about you?"

"I'm going to stay here. Y'know, in case she wakes up."

Stiles sighed; he had wanted to be there when Lydia woke up, but he knew that Derek wouldn't let anything bad happen to her.

"Hey, Der?" Stiles asked before he left the room. "What happened to Deucalion and the alphas?"

"Deucalion and Aiden are dead," Derek said gruffly. "The rest of the alphas left."

Stiles nodded, giving Lydia a kiss on her forehead and left.

Once Stiles was gone, Derek sighed softly, sat down in the chair that Stiles had been occupying, and looked at Lydia. "I get why you did what you did," he said softly, "But it was an idiotic choice to make."

Her eyelids fluttered, and Derek sat up; maybe she was finally starting to wake up. When her eyes snapped open, he wanted to yell for Stiles, but wasn't sure if he should. After all, Stiles did have a job to do.

"D'rek?" Lydia mumbled.

"Yeah, it's me. Stiles had to leave." Of course, of fucking course it would have to be the only time Stiles had left in the last three weeks that Lydia would wake up.

"Throat hurts," she mumbled.

"Yeah, probably. He got you good." He pressed the call button for the nurse and then said, "How're you feeling?"

"Sore."

Derek nodded, "Yeah, I get that."

"Where's Kristy?" she asked.

"She's at Scott and Allison's apartment. Scott's not there right now, he went with Stiles to do a job, but Allison is there and she'll take good care of her."

Lydia nodded silently.

"You've got Ethan to thank for the fact that you're still alive," Derek said to her. "He killed his own brother for you."

Lydia's eyes widened, "He what?"

"You heard me right. He killed Aiden for you. He was really upset about what happened to you, when we got there and found you bleeding out on the ground."

"Who found me? In fact, how the hell did I get here?"

"Ethan told us about your plan – which was idiotic, by the way. He told us everything you told him, and said he couldn't live with himself if he took Kristy's only capable parent away from her. You didn't tell Ethan when you were planning on sneaking out, so we kind of just hung around and watched Stiles' apartment. We saw you sneak out and followed you."

"Who's 'we'?"

"Me, Scott, Ethan and Isaac. We got there too late, though, because you were lying on the ground, bleeding out. Deucalion's getting careless in his old age, because he didn't even check to see if you were still alive. Probably thought you were just going to bleed out and that would be the end of that. Isaac and I took care of Deucalion, and Ethan took care of Aiden, and the rest of the pack fled. Scott brought you to the hospital while we were fighting them off. You've been in a coma for almost three weeks."

It was then that Melissa came in. She looked Lydia over before asking, "How're you feeling, sweetie?"

"Sore," she said, telling Melissa the same thing she'd told Derek.

"Yeah, you will be for a while. Here, I've got some painkillers for you. I can't give you the heavy duty stuff because of the baby."

Lydia's eyes widened, "Uh…what?"

"You didn't know? Not surprising. You're about six weeks now, the doctor said."

Lydia took a deep breath. Christ. She'd almost killed her unborn child doing what she did. She felt a lot of guilt for that. However, she just nodded.

"Look, Lydia, I understand why you did what you did," Melissa said in a soft voice. "If it was my child, I probably would have made the same choice. But you worried all of us to death. You really shouldn't have done it."

Lydia nodded, "I know. I just…Kristy deserves a life without all this supernatural bullshit."

"She's a banshee," Derek said from beside her, and Lydia had honestly forgotten he was there. "She's always going to be involved in this supernatural bullshit."

"You've got a point," she said to Derek. Then she looked at Melissa, "How long am I gonna be here?"

"They want you here at least a week, for observation and to make sure there's no long term damage to the baby," Melissa said, checking Lydia's IV. "You lost a lot of blood, so they had to give you more. If Scott hadn't found you when he did…" Melissa's voice trailed off. "Well, that doesn't matter now. What matters is that you're here and you're safe." Melissa looked at Derek, "You might want to call Natalie and tell her that Lydia's awake." Looking at Lydia once more, Melissa said, "Your mom wanted to take time off of work to make sure that you were okay, but you were in that coma for three weeks, Lydia. She couldn't take that much time off, so Stiles has been sitting here with you and promised to update her when things changed."

"Where is Stiles?" Lydia wondered.

"I sent him to do a job," Derek said, deciding not to mention that he'd already told her that. "He hasn't left your side since you were admitted and he had a job to do. I told him I'd stay here with you in case you woke up."

Lydia yawned, "Okay."

Melissa took her vitals and told Lydia that everything looked okay. Not long after that, she left, saying that Lydia needed to get some rest. Derek took out a book that Lydia didn't even know he had and sat back in his chair, opening it.

"You need to sleep," Derek said. Lydia rolled her eyes.

"I've been sleeping for the last three weeks," Lydia said.

"It's not the same and you know that. C'mon, get some sleep. I'll be here when you wake up. Even though Aiden and Deucalion are dead, I promised Stiles that I wouldn't leave your side."

-x-

The next time Lydia woke up, Derek was gone, but Peter was there, looking out the window. Without even turning around, he said, "You stupid, stupid girl."

"Thanks," Lydia said sarcastically.

Peter turned around and looked at Lydia, "Do you realize what you did? You almost gave your mother a heart attack."

"I'm sorry for that," Lydia said, "but I felt like it was my only choice."

"Don't you trust the pack? Don't you trust Scott?"

Lydia sighed, "Yeah, I do, okay, but I didn't want anyone to die for me. I refuse to do that."

"So you'd rather die and let your daughter grow up without a mother?"

"I don't get why you're so mad at me, Peter," Lydia said, "unless it's to get in good with my mom."

Peter rolled his eyes as he looked at Lydia, "I care about your mother dearly, Lydia, don't ever question that. What I am referring to, however, is that you almost left your child motherless. Why would you do that?"

"To protect her," Lydia bit out. "I know it's not anything you'd ever understand."

Peter sighed, "I know that you don't like me, Lydia, and I understand why. But I was half mad back then. I was crazy with the need to avenge my family, who, if you don't recall, burnt to death in a fire."

"You're not going to make me feel guilty, Peter," Lydia said. "I did what I felt I had to do for my daughter to live. I would make the same decision again."

"Even if it meant your death?"

Lydia nodded, "Yes. Kristy's life is worth way more than mine. A parent's job is to protect their children. I wanted to ensure that she'd grow up well, and she had Scott and the rest of the pack to watch over her."

Peter sighed, "Look, Lydia, I know you don't like me," he repeated, "but I care about your mother very deeply. I'm not dating her to get back at you, nor is it a trick of some kind. I'm not the manipulative bastard I was six years ago. Dying kind of changes your perspective on things."

Lydia sighed, "Scott seems to trust you."

Peter just nodded.

"I guess I can give you a chance. But I don't need you lecturing me about my choices, okay?"

Again, Peter just nods.

"Hey, where's Derek?" Lydia asked.

"He went down to the cafeteria when I came up. He knew you'd be safe with me."

"That's almost ironic," Lydia said, mostly to herself. "I'm safe with the one person who tried to kill me."

"My intent that night was not to kill you, Lydia," Peter said. "If you recall, your banshee mannerisms didn't come out until after I attacked you. I knew you had a connection to the supernatural. You should be thanking me."

Lydia rolled her eyes, "Yes, Peter. Thank you for attacking me and making me some kind of weirdo who senses death and hears voices. I really appreciate that."

"Derek's in the hallway," Peter said. He started towards the door, but then looked back at Lydia, "And you're wrong, by the way."

"What do you mean?"

"I had a child, once. She died in the fire."

Lydia was silent as Peter walked out of her room.

A/N: Okay, I want to put a couple of notes on here. First of all, I know nothing about the medical field. I myself have never even been in the hospital before so I don't know how things work. I had to use other resources to find out, so if I've messed anything up about her condition then I'm sorry. Also, I've never been pregnant and can't get pregnant, so I don't know what drugs, etc. you can take while pregnant, but I know there are a few.

I also really like Peter, and part of my headcanon is that the fire drove him crazy. Yeah, I know it's probably different than the Peter we actually know, but I'm living in denial on that one. I kind of wanted to paint a different picture of him, if he were to give up his evil, manipulative ways and become a productive member of society.

That's the last update for this story for a little while. I have had this chapter in particular planned out since I began this story - hell, this is the very first chapter I wrote. I'm actually really pleased with it.