When Malia entered his room in the middle of the night, he already knew. She had been walking a tightrope for years, wobbling with every step, waving her arms wildly to keep balance. Malia was on the edge of a great precipice, but this time, she had made up her mind. She wasn't walking the tightrope any longer. She had chosen to get off.

"I'm so sorry." she whispered, and Stiles felt his mattress dip. He blinked, eyes trying to adjust in the darkness of his bedroom. She touched the warm expanse of his forehead with her cool palm, and his eyes fluttered from the feeling.

"You promised you would never leave me behind." he croaked, raising his hands to take off his oxygen mask. He hates how his voice sounds, weak and desperate. He still can't see her fully but he hears her shuddering breath and quiet sniffles, and there is a pressure on his shoulder when she leans to rest her head in the crook of his neck.

"I love you, Stiles Stilinski. You've saved my life over and over again, but you won't be left behind. You're in good company."

Stiles felt his heart break and heal and break all over again at her words. In his heart, he knew it was the end of a great period of his life: the end of Stiles and Malia. But even though tonight it would become official, they both knew it had ended years ago. Maybe sometime in the summer after senior year, when Lydia boarded a plane without a goodbye, and Stiles had never recovered. He loved Malia, just as he loved Scott and Allison and his father. He was attracted to Malia, because she was spirited and sexy and wild. Because she learned to fiercely protect her friends, to adjust in an environment that made it practically impossible. She was a survivor, a fighter, an adapter. And Stiles knew she wasn't done evolving. But she had been stuck in a repetitive loop: stiles stiles stiles stiles the pack, finish school, stiles stiles stiles stiles. He was holding her back. He wasn't going to do that to her anymore, even if no one would understand her reasoning. Even if she herself didn't understand it.

"I love you, Malia. Be careful, okay?"

Stiles knew she would return briefly to pay her respects as they lowered him into the earth. And then she would finally be freed. Maybe she would find her mother, The Desert Wolf. Maybe she would finish school. Maybe she would return as a coyote to roam the Beacon Hills Reserve. Maybe she would fall in love again and it would stay, and it wouldn't break her heart because it would be able to love her back, the way she deserved.

Stiles would never know, but he could hope.

He listened to her rise, and stand at his doorway.

"I just can't watch you die."

"I know."

Malia closed his bedroom door, and was gone.

Allison wasn't sure what to do. Things were getting progressively worse. Stiles had not gotten up from bed since they had learned of Lydia's condition. He refused all food, always saying he wasn't hungry. She wasn't even sure if he was sleeping. He couldn't look her in the eye.

When he would speak, it was in bursts of anger. He would ramble, hands trembling and eyes flashing. The other day she had found him trying to flush his medication down the toilet, and she was so surprised he was out of bed that she almost missed what he was doing. She wasn't sure if it was his condition making him act this way, or if it was just himself. Broken, scared, furious with the world.

Malia was gone. She had vanished into the night, without a word, a note. Stiles told them she would not be returning, and to forgive, but Allison couldn't help feeling abandoned. Scott paced their bedroom during the night when he thought she was asleep. Derek rarely left the loft. He told her the apartment reeked too much, and Allison knew the smell he meant wasn't dirty laundry or overflowing garbage. The Sheriff was over almost every day, trying to get his son to eat, occasionally forcefully hauling his body out of bed to shower. Melissa had taken off work indefinitely. She was there everyday, cleaning the apartment, monitoring Stiles' weight, threatening to insert a feeding tube unless he ate. She had become his full time homecare nurse.

And Lydia….Allison couldn't even bare to think of Lydia. Now that they were all aware of the power of their tether, she was noticing things. How deep the circles under Lydia's eyes became after Stiles stayed up all night. How she began to skip meals. How she no longer had the energy to curl her hair, or wear heels around the apartment. Her hair hung limp around her face, and she grew pale. Her smiles became more and more rare.

Allison did her best to keep her in good spirits. She brushed Lydia's hair, painted her toenails, took her out on girly dates to the movies or to get frozen yogurt. Most of the time Lydia appeared to like it, but Allison knew it was more for her benefit than Lydia's own.

She wondered what Lydia was feeling, what she was thinking. She tried to empathize, to imagine what it would be like if she learned Scott was dying, and that she would soon meet the same fate. She thought of it once, then never again. Even just trying to imagine was too painful.

If it was too painful to even empathize, Allison thought, imagine having to actually live through it.

Lydia wiped the foggy bathroom mirror with her palm. Her eyes looked even bigger than normal because her cheeks and begun to hollow out. She looked older, the bruises under her eyes now matching Stiles' own. Her beestung lips were puffy and void of color, and her collarbone had become more noticeable. She remembered when she first arrived, looking into the same mirror after her shower, and knowing how beautiful she was, consumed with what Stiles would say, how he would act. How long ago had that been? Two months maybe? That day seemed like a distant dream now. She didn't see anything beautiful in the mirror anymore. Just a ticking time bomb.

Deaton had explained that as Stiles' condition would rapidly deteriorate toward the end, hers would follow. The other day, Melissa had told them all they were at the beginning of the end. Stiles had about a month left. Lydia wondered how much time that gave her.

His hair was always limp now, brushing his forehead. He never looked at her anymore. The pack had sent her in to speak to him, shake some sense into him. Most of the time he refused to see her. Sometimes she would try to argue, but most of the time she was too tired to fight. He was confusing words now. He continuously forgot the word, 'wheelchair.' He mixed up his left from his right. He could count forward but not backwards, couldn't count down from ten. He didn't know who the President of the United States was.

There were days he never spoke, and days he would yell and scream and throw things. On those days, he was strung up. Vibrating, shaking like a string pulled too tight. His glassy eyes would flash, and his face would flush. He would glare at her from across the room, yell at people to get out, try to rip out his IV. And Lydia would march up to him, glaring back as she squeezed his wrists with all of her strength. She knew she was hurting him, but she didn't care. He never yelled at her, but his brutal glare was worse, and she would match it. Just glaring and squeezing as he'd grunt and try to pull away from him. But she wouldn't allow it. Stiles would never be able to pull himself away from her, even if he wanted to. They were tied together, after all.

Lydia would much rather see Stiles angry and fighting, than laying there, dead behind the eyes.

Today was one of those days.

Lydia had awoken to screaming from the floor below. She arrived to see Scott holding Stiles by the shoulders as he shook. Allison was righting his bedside table that he had apparently knocked over, and Lydia hated the sight of Allison, pregnant and on her knees, hunched over, sorting through medication that had spilled out of the pill bottles on the surface of the table.

"No, Allison, let me do that." she called to her, rushing to pull Allison up by her elbow.

"Lydia!" Stiles cried out, and the sound of her name made everyone freeze. He hadn't spoken her name since Deaton broke the news. "Lydia, you have to listen to me. I need to tell you something important."

Lydia stared at him, and he stared back, chest heaving and brown eyes burning.

"Please, baby, please listen to me." he spoke, suddenly gentle as he reached out to grab her hand. Lydia, Scott and Allison all looked at each other, a collective question mark forming over their heads.

Lydia pushed Stiles' body to the side, wriggling to sit down on the edge of his bed.

"Stiles, what's going on?"

"Lydia, I swear I'm not going crazy. I promise, but this is going to sound insane. I'm not insane, not yet. I need you to marry me."

You could have heard a pin drop.

Lydia felt his words go right through her, and it stole her breath.

"W-what?" she breathed, and beside her Scott reached out to touch her shoulder.

"He's hallucinating. He's been calling out for you all morning, my mom said this was the last symptom to happen before…." he trailed off, brows knitted together in worry.

"I'm not hallucinating! I know what I want. I want Lydia to marry me."

They sat there in heavy silence, each digesting his words.

Lydia cleared her throat, gaze never wavering from Stiles' own.

"Can you guys give us a minute?"

They talked about it in circles for what seemed like hours. Lydia wasn't sure what was more frightening, the fact that Stiles could be losing his mind, or that he made this decision in perfect clarity. In the end, it was clear which. Lydia called out to Scott and Allison, beckoning them back into Stiles' bedroom.

"Scott, please call our parents. Allison, could you please ask the nearest priest if they do house calls?"