Chapter Twenty One – Anchors II

Jules sat hunched in her chair, staring lividly at Finstock. She had no patience for the man or for his class. Not with everything else buzzing in her head. Like where her mother might be and if she was coming back, the state of her friends, the state of her stalker, and the state of New York. When the Coach began to blow his whistle she just about shot up out of her seat. Until she realized he was poised in front of a very disoriented Stiles Stilinski. Anger rose in her chest along with worry and fierce protectiveness. She tried to force it all down.

Jules eased back into her seat as the Coach snapped at Stiles and demanded he answer a question that Stiles didn't hear. Jules could feel Scott's eyes burning into the side of her head.

"I'm okay. I just feel asleep for a sec." She heard Stiles assure Scott.

"Dude, you weren't asleep." Scott told him. His voice low and worried.

Jules pressed her hands into temples and shut her eyes. Both of her knees bouncing. Her heart hammered and her thoughts raced through her head. All questions and fears about countless things.

"Hayes, not you to. Pay attention!" Coach barked.

Jules knew that he meant well. She really did. Her eyes darted around the classroom to avoid Finstock's and they fell on Scott's concerned gaze, geared towards both her and Stiles.

Her eyes burned.

Why does everyone have to mean well?

Jules stood up and hurriedly collected her things and charged for the door.

"Hayes, what are you doing?" Coach asked her, in a softer voice then he might have taken with another student.

Then Jules remembered that each of her teachers had been warned to go easy on her. She wondered how that conversation had gone down.

"Now faculty, remember to take it easy on the sex crimes victims!"

"I have to go." She blurted out, trying to ignore the curious glances from classmates and the looks from Scott and Stiles. "I…" She trailed off and turned and left without a second glance.

Jules charged for the school doors and then to the field. Wondering when her life had become too much for her to handle. Jules had always told herself that if she survived New York she could survive anything.

She collapsed onto the bleachers and stared at the ground, tears welling in her eyes.

Jules had been able to survive anything when anything was a lot less then what she was contending with. Now, she wasn't so sure about how long she could hold on.

By the time the bell rang for lunch Jules had been called into action again. Apparently, there was a top secret werewolf meeting happening at a table outside, where they could be overheard by anyone. Reluctantly, Jules sought out her friends in the courtyard and took a seat next to Lydia. Stiles avoided her eyes and Scott shot her a worried glance.

"Okay, so what happens to a person who has a near death experience and comes out of it seeing things?" Scott asked.

"And is unable to tell what's real or not?" Stiles added.

"And is being haunted by demonic visions of dead relatives." Allison concluded their symptoms.

"They're all locked up because they're insane." Isaac said pointedly.

Jules shot him a murderous glare. "They have PTSD and they get counselling." She said poisonously. Making sure to glower at Stiles.

Stiles glared at Isaac. "Ha. Can you at least try to be helpful, please?"

"For half my childhood, I was locked in a freezer. So being helpful is kind of a new thing for me." Isaac said smoothly.

Jules let out an exasperated sigh, wondering why Lydia had thought it was so important she came to this.

"Hey, dude, are you still milking that?" Stiles asked Isaac incredulously.

Jules aimed a kick at him underneath the table. "Hey, dude, I didn't realize that reeling from years of abuse was 'milking' something. Someone really should have warned me." She spat, mimicking Stiles's condescending tone.

Isaac shot Stiles a smug look and Jules a small smile. Lydia glanced wryly at Allison and then looked pointedly, eyebrows raised, at Jules. She ignored all of them.

"Hi." Kira appeared at her side. "Hi, sorry. I couldn't help overhearing what you guys were talking about." She said, nervousness oozed off of her.

Jules gave her what she hoped was a warm look, but might have just seemed congested. The group of them exchanged surprised glances.

"And I think I might actually know what you're talking about." Kira said.

Each of them looked at her, silently asking her to continue. Jules wanted to tell her to walk away, that she didn't want to get involved in this group or any of their conversations. She wanted to tell Kira that she might regret it, but Jules said nothing. Still unsure about how she felt about her own reservations.

"There's a Tibetan word for it. It's called "Bardo." It literally means "in between state." The state between life and death." Kira finished.

"And what do they call you?" Lydia asked in a bitter sweet voice.

Jules pursed her lips.

"Kira." Scott and Jules answered at the same time. Scott and Kira smiled at each other and Jules bowed her head.

Oh god. Kira run away. RUN AWAY.

"She's in our history class." Scott explained, gesturing towards Jules.

"So are you talking Bardo in Tibetan Buddhism or Indian?" Lydia asked her.

Kira sat down across from Jules and smiled nervously at her. Jules did her best to seem welcoming. She failed.

"Either, I guess. But all the stuff you guys were just saying? All that happens in Bardo. There are different progressive states where you can have hallucinations. Some you see, some you just hear. And you can be visited by peaceful and wrathful deities. Kira elaborated brightly.

"Sounds like a trip." Jules muttered.

"Wrathful deities?" Isaac questioned. "And what are those?"

"Like demons." Kira said to them.

Jules stared blankly at the table.

FANTASTIC. AWESOME. WOW.

"Demons. Why not?" Stiles quipped.

Jules couldn't bring herself to list reasons "why not". Mostly, she just wanted a nap and maybe a smoothie.

"Hold on," Allison cut in. "if there are progressive states, then what's the last one?" She asked

"I get the feeling the journey between life and death doesn't have an ideal final stop." Jules said in a sour voice.

"Jules is right." Kira said. "Death. You die."

The group of them exchanged look of mutual fear and disbelief. As Kira got up to head to her next class.

"Well, my PTSD idea doesn't seem so far out of left field now, does it?" She said in a light but biting voice. Jules stood up. "I'll be sure to visit you all in Eichen, kids." She glanced at Isaac. "Where they lock up the 'insane' people. I should know. I spent six months in the place." She shot him a venomous look and then turned on her heel, abandoning the conversation.

Allison and Lydia exchanged knowing glances and collected their things in sync as they went after Jules. They caught her in the doorway of the school.

"Jules." Lydia said.

Jules froze with one hand on the door handle. And for a moment in crossed Lydia's mind that she just might keep walking. She might just walk away. Jules had been drifting since the eclipse, drifting and withdrawing from her, from all of them. Relief bloomed in Lydia's chest when Jules turned to face them, one hand still on the door.

"Yes?" She quirked an eyebrow.

"You know you can talk to us, about anything." Lydia assured her. "Right?" She said, mostly for the assurance of herself.

"You don't need to talk to Stiles or Isaac or Scott. But whatever you need, Lydia and I are here." Allison continued.

Jules wasn't looking at either of them; she was looking at the ground. "I know that's what you think." She raised her eyes to meets Lydia's. "The truth is another matter."

"Jules-" Lydia began, hoping that she could spin words that would make Jules open up. The way she had always been able to do.

"There's a lot happening right now." Jules pointed out the obvious. "Not just with you guys but with me. And a lot of it isn't, and no offense, but a lot of it is my business and mine alone."

The words came out of her mouth strong and easily. Probably, because they were true. Lydia knew that Jules might never totally come clean about what she'd been through and Lydia didn't expect her to. But she had expected to be let in, just a little bit more. She had a wedge in the door, which might have been more than anyone else had. But there was a lot behind that door, pushing back, pushing her out.

"I don't know if I can help you guys." Jules told them. Her one hand in her pocket, the other clutching the door with white knuckles.

Is it to keep from shaking?

"Jules." Allison's voice was soft. "All you've done is help us."

Jules rolled her eyes. "I know I have the ability. What I'm saying is I don't know if I should." She gestured to the table where Scott, Stiles and Isaac still sat. Watching the girls, but trying and failing not to make it obvious.

Lydia could see Stiles pressing the two werewolves for details. Lydia shot them a glare, but it didn't look like it made them stop.

"I've been thinking a lot about what's best for me. This might not be it." She said in a low and solemn voice and then turned and walked through the doors without another word or glance.

Lydia sighed and leaned against the wall. "She's right." She huffed.

"You were right." Allison said.

Lydia quirked a brow. "Yes, but about what?"

"At that rest stop. You kept telling us that you didn't think Jules was ready for this. We didn't listen." Allison said sadly.

"Well at least she's figuring that out for herself now." Lydia said almost bitterly. "Jules always used to think about herself first. Maybe she's getting that back. Maybe she'll be less likely to fight a druid. Maybe she should walk away."

"Then what does that mean for you?" Allison asked Lydia.

"It means I lose her. But I don't think I ever got her back." Lydia said in a broken voice, her eyes on a crack in the pavement.

"What do you mean?" Allison pressed, her brows knit together as she leaned on the wall next to Lydia, following her line of sight to the ground. The boys across the courtyard began to gather their things and leave, Stiles and Isaac bickering.

"I imagined my Jules coming home. But the Jules you know isn't the one I did." Lydia glanced inside the school at Jules's blonde ponytail disappearing into the sea of students.

"You didn't think you'd have to get to know her again." Allison confirmed what Lydia was trying to say.

Lydia nodded. "I didn't think I might lose her again either."

Allison grabbed Lydia's hand. "You're not going to."

Lydia pushed open the door and they walked into school. She didn't believe Allison, not that she would admit that. Jules was faraway and getting farther. She was keeping her entire life close to her chest and she had every right to. If Jules wanted to take care of herself, if she wanted to walk away, Lydia wasn't going to stop her. She loved her far too much to do that. It would hurt, but it seemed like most things did hurt eventually.

- Stiles – crazy

- Scott – crazy

- Allison – crazy

- Beacon for the supernatural – active

- Upcoming trial – rapists

- Drugs

- Mother?

- Poor coping mechanisms and too much to cope with

- Stalker

Jules continued to contemplate what else should go on her list of horrors. Because things were missing, she knew that, they just sped through her head far too fast for her to consider writing them down. Afterwards she was going to number them. Prioritize. It was hard; trying to decide which things took precedence over others. She knew what Erin would say.

"Your needs come before everyone else's wants. That's what taking care of yourself is."

Jules tossed her pen down and it rolled to the floor with a clatter. She didn't want to think about this. She didn't want to think about anything. She just wanted the world, for just one moment, to stop, or even slow down. Jules wanted to reach the eye of the storm instead of being stuck standing blindly in the rain, trying and failing to dodge the debris hurled at her by the wind.

She just wanted some peace.

There was a knock on the door, soft and tentative, decidedly not Noah-like. Jules thought for a moment it might be her mother, returning from wherever it was she had been with one hell of an apology. Jules's gaze was frozen on her notebook.

"Jules? It's Lydia."

Her familiar voice was muffled by the door. Jules shut her notebook and shoved it back onto her shelf.

"Come in."

Jules got out of her chair, her hands clenching the back of it with white knuckles.

Is she mad? She doesn't sound mad.

The door creaked open and Lydia look a small step inside, she closed the door behind her.

"Your dad let me in." She explained unnecessarily.

Jules nodded her gaze on Lydia's neck. Where the bruise left by Jennifer had long since faded. As had the handprint Jules had worn on her own skin.

Lydia sighed. "You can talk to me. About anything."

Jules stared blandly at Lydia, one eyebrow raised. "Maybe I don't want to." She said.

She could feel the reverberations of her words. She knew they probably hurt but they were true. Jules didn't know what she wanted. She didn't know what she wanted to say. She didn't even know if she wanted to talk. She could let little pieces of herself slide into the open, enough to feel like she was getting better. But Jules wasn't getting any better, just different. And she should have expected that.

"It will only get different and all you have to do is hang around long enough to see if you can make it work."

"Don't say that." Lydia said to her, her voice was teetering on breaking. "You have to want to talk to someone and if you bring up your therapist, I will lose it. I don't know if they think you're making progress, but I don't." Her voice grew in strength and speed. "I don't think you're getting better and I don't think anything we've put you through is helping."

Jules let out a tense puff of air, her nails dug into the wood of her chair. Erin did think Jules was making progress, not that Jules had believed her. She thought maybe she didn't see it. But if the ever perceptive Lydia didn't notice change, then maybe there hadn't been any.

"And what do you want me to do with those thoughts?" Jules asked her coldly.

Lydia appeared unfazed by her terseness. "I don't know. But at that rest stop when they decided to bring you in, I think I was the only one who thought about you. What you might already be trying to handle. And I think I was right."

Tears were welling in Lydia's eyes and she had taken steps closer to Jules.

Jules clenched her jaw. "If it's any consolation, I think you might have been right to. But I…" She trailed off; she didn't know how to finish that.

Jules didn't owe her friends anything, she didn't have any fascination with the supernatural that couldn't be directed elsewhere, and despite her poor decision making skills, and she didn't have a death wish. 'But' what, she didn't know.

"You care." Lydia told her. "You care, you want to help or you feel like you're compensating for something." Her words came quickly. "But you shouldn't at the expense of yourself."

Jules scoffed. "And what about you? Are we gonna pretend that you're fine?"

"Jules don't do that." Lydia urged. "Don't turn this on me."

Jules's hands shook with anger. "Well something needs to not be about me, Lydia. Something needs to be about somebody else's problems." She snapped.

Lydia folded her arms over her chest. "Juliet you can't fix anything by not dealing with it."

"I am dealing with it. I'm dealing with everything." Jules said in a flat and dangerous voice. "That, Lydia Martin, seems to be the problem."

Rage coiled like snake in her stomach. She didn't want to yell. If she raised her voice her father would hear. If she yelled she would come off as the irrational one. If she yelled she lost this battle.

Not everything is a fight. Not anymore.

She pushed her thought away. This was. This was a fight.

"Are you?" Lydia asked her.

The worst part was she sounded genuine. She wanted an answer. Well, Jules didn't want to talk about it.

"I don't know Lydia." She said sardonically. "Why don't you keep telling me whether or not I'm fine? Or you could do something that would actually benefit me, like leave my house." She hissed at her.

And that was it. Jules knew it. That was the blow that would end this conversation. And in a second Lydia's heart was on her sleeve, the pain Jules had just inflicted was plain on her face and it felt like a knife in Jules's heart. But she forged on.

"Go." She said lowly. "Just go Lydia. I want out. You want me out. And you're in. So how do you want that to work?" Her voice was a hard edge, ensuring that Lydia wouldn't press. That Lydia wouldn't see a door to push. She'd see a brick wall.

"Fine." Lydia said reluctantly. "But you still have me, Jules. No matter what. You're still my best friend."

Jules set her jaw and locked eyes with Lydia. It was time to say what needed to be said. To cut the rope. To speak the words that had sat silently between them since the night in August when Jules had knocked on Lydia's door.

"I'm not your Jules."

Lydia couldn't sleep. How was she supposed to sleep after what had happened? She had thought she was losing Jules. But it was a thought in the abstract. She lost Jules, and she got her back. Jules wasn't supposed to slip away again. And if she did it wasn't supposed to be a decision she made. Is that how friendships end?

No, it's not over.

Tears stung her eyes and dripped into her pillow. She recounted a conversation she'd had with Morell about Jules. The guidance counselor had asked Lydia what it meant to her that Jules was home, and what it meant going forward. Lydia had told her that now she didn't have just one best friend but two. She had told her that it meant someone who knew her inside and out was home. Lydia had told Morell that her best friend was back where she belonged. And Morell had put it lightly that Jules was a changed girl, and that so was Lydia. Lydia had been too stubborn to consider that the Jules before her wasn't her friend with experiences added on. But it was Juliet Hayes made new, built out of pain and suffering and rage. This wasn't the girl Lydia had known. She hadn't grown like Lydia had, with her roots still in the ground. Juliet Hayes had been ripped up and apart, and Lydia didn't want to believe it.

"I'm not your Jules."

Lydia knew it now. The Jules she had lost wasn't the one that came back. Lydia had missed her so much, and she still did.

Jules surfaced beside Lydia. Her hair plastered to her face with lake water but her smile was plain as day.

"You weren't supposed to pull me in!" She shouted through laughter and water coming out of her nose.

"You weren't supposed to be afraid of the lake." Lydia said matter-of-factly, swimming out a little farther.

Jules followed her lead and went even farther then Lydia.

"I'm not afraid. I just can't see the bottom." She splashed Lydia. "You never know what's down there Lydia. Beacon Hills has stories."

Lydia quirked an eyebrow. "Oh really? Like what? The animal attacks? Those don't happen anymore."

Jules dove down under the water, disappearing into the blackness of the lake. Lydia waited for the inevitable tug on her leg but it never came. Just as her heart blipped as she scanned the water for her friend Jules popped up behind her. Lydia let out a short scream.

"Who's afraid now?" Jules taunted and splashed Lydia again.

Their laughter echoed across the lake and into the surrounding woods. The two girls paid no attention to it as they traded made up stories of what they did over the summer. They were going into the eighth grade, all their drama had to be made up.

"Lydia, you know the Juliet jokes get old right? Nothing good happened to her." Jules pointed out as they dragged themselves onto the dock.

"It's funny because nothing bad ever happens to you." Lydia said with a smirk.

Jules rolled her eyes. "How could it? I'm perfect."

"Perfect idiot maybe." Lydia muttered.

Jules laughed and then shoved her in the lake.

Lydia had seen it coming. That made it more hilarious somehow.