LYDIA'S POV:

"What do you think will happen?" I turned my head to look at Stiles.

He making us coffee. "With Allison or Scott?"

I adjusted myself on the white couch in his living room. "Both, I guess."

"What do you want to happen?"

My brow rose. "What kind of question is that? I want Allison to be okay and for Scott to be gone." I paused as I met his eyes. "I mean. . ."

He brushed it off. "No, I want him gone, too." He handed me a rustic orange coffee mug. "Here you go."

Without thinking I brought the coffee to my lips and let the hot liquid burn my tongue. "Gahhh." I spilled the coffee onto my shirt and chest.

His hand reached out to take my mug. A smile played on his lips and he sipped at his coffee. "You okay?"

I gave him a look as I got off the couch, praying that I didn't spill any on it.

He laughed. "Relax, you didn't ruin it."

"I'm going to take a shower, if you don't mind." A really big part of me wanted to ask him to join me, but the small part told me that no good could come from it. While I knew he wanted to in a sense wait until this Scott thing blows over, I also knew that if I did invite him that he would come.

"No, go ahead. I'll make some breakfast." He headed for the kitchen.

"Okay," I headed for his room. "Wait," Our eyes met. "This is okay, right?"

His brow rose in question.

"I mean, can I shower in your room? I just feel safer around you-or I guess your stuff." Did I just say that? God, I had to be blushing.

He smiled. "Yeah, that's fine." His gaze lingered, causing my heartbeat to quicken.

Before I could further embarrass myself I headed for his shower. Once I metaphorically scrubbed all my problems away, I dressed in a pair of dark jeans, a grey t-shirt, and chucks-just because.

Cora sat on Stiles' bed, nearly giving me a heartattack.

"Geez, Cora." I took in her glum expression and slumped shoulders. "What is it?"

"Isaac and Deucalion are trying to convince Mr. Argent to let Allison to stay with us."

My heart didn't calm down. "Okay, there's something else, isn't there?"

She looked up at me with wide eyes. "Why would you think that?"

I laid my by his bed. "You just seem like your upset about something else." I met her eyes. "Are you?"

She fell back on the bed with a groan. "I'm not sure." She watched the ceiling.

"Did you talk to Isaac? Are you guys okay now?"

She nodded.

I laid next to her. "Then what's the problem?"

She didn't answer right away. "I don't want to talk about it, at least not right now." She turned her head to look at me. "But when I do want to talk about it, I can come to you?"

A laugh bubbled out of me. "Yeah, of course."

"Thanks." She smiled. "So, what's going on with you and Stiles?"

I could feel my face heat up. "Why does there have to be anything going on between us?"

She made a thinking face that we both laughed at. "Because you're showering in his room. You could've stayed in my room and he rarely lets me in his room. He's making you breakfast and he hates making breakfast." She gave me a smug look. "So, what's going on with you two?"

I bit my lip to keep from smiling, but it failed miserably. "Honestly, I don't know what we're doing. I mean, we both know that this is definitely not the time to start a relationship or anything."

"But?" She grinned.

"But I can't help fantasizing. He's so amazing." I planted my face into the bed and started kicking like a kindergartener. "

She laughed so hard it made me laugh. "You're such a girl."

I snorted a laugh. "I'm sorry, I can't help it. I've liked him for a really really long time, like going back to singled digit grades." I thought back to that Valentines Day so long ago.

"Wow, I can't imagine liking someone for that long." She had a faraway look in her eyes.

"Are you sure that you don't want to talk about whatever's bothering you?"

She gave an appreciative smile. "Thanks, but I'm not ready to talk about it, whatever it is."

The sunrise was peering through the windows, giving her hair a beautiful glow. She gave me a weird look. "What?"

"Nothing," I shook my head. "You're just really beautiful."

Her eyes began to shine and tear up after a few seconds. "Um, let's go eat this rare and magical breakfast." She wouldn't meet my eyes.

Confusion filled me as I followed after her. Stiles was fixing us plates of bacon, eggs, and toast.

"This smells really good." I took my plate to the table as I smiled at him. "Thank you."

"Yeah, thank you, Fabio." Cora teased as she sat next to me.

He grinned as he surveyed me.

Part of me dressed this way because I knew he liked it. I didn't want to be one of those girls that acted a certain way to impress a guy, but it wasn't like I was dressing up to impress him.

He placed some orange juice in front of me and gave Cora coffee before he sat at the end of the table. "Try not to spill this all down your shirt."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Whatever, Stilinski."

"Cheesy" Cora masked with a cough.

I stuck my tongue out at her.

She grinned. "So, are we a hundred percent sure that the alpha pack wants to steal Lydia and Allison and use their talents for pure evil?"

Stiles and I shared a look. "Yeah." We said simultaneously.

"Oh." She picked at her eggs.

"Why? Did something happen?" His voice stern.

She briefly met his eyes. "No, I just wanted to make sure."

He didn't look convinced. "Okay," He sipped his coffee, which I envied him for. I wanted some coffee, but I didn't want to chance embarrassing myself anymore. "You'd tell me if something happened, wouldn't you?"

"What kind of question is that? Of course, I'd tell you." She pushed her food away. "Thanks for the food." She got up.

He huffed. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know." She headed for the door.

He groaned when I slammed the door. "What am I doing wrong?"

Part of me wanted to go after her, but I knew that she didn't want to talk about it. I turned to Stiles with a half-smile. "This isn't your fault. Girls are complicated, it could be about a million things."

He sipped his coffee. "You're right."

A thought occurred to me, but I was trying to make a big deal about it. "Do you have. . ." I pushed my eggs around. "Do you still have feelings for Cora?"

He didn't say anything, which made me look up at him. There was a smile at the corner of his mouth. "You're jealous."

I rolled my eyes. "You didn't answer the question and it's a perfectly reasonable question."

He leaned forward on his elbows until his face was inches away from mine. His honey cinnamon eyes were serious. "I'm always going to have feelings for Cora. She's my best friend, she's the most important person in my life, and she needs me. There's personal things that she's going through, things that only I can help her with. As for being in love, she's not the one I think about."

My heart jumped in my chest as my cheeks blushed. Did he mean what I thought he meant?

"Oh." I said barely above a whisper.

He grinned. "Yeah. Oh."

I met his eyes. "Well, I don't think about Ethan that way if it makes you feel any better."

He laughed. "I hoped. He is gay after all."

"Who's gay?"

I turned to see Derek, Cora's older brother, walk into the front door. I stilled in my seat before turning to Stiles. Ethan probably didn't want me blabbing all over town that he was into dudes, but he said himself that he was comfortable.

"My friend, Ethan." It came out sounding like a question. I couldn't help sounding nervous. Derek made me nervous, he was so good looking.

Stiles shook his head in mock disappointment, knowing what was up with me. "He's off limits."

Derek gave him a look.

"I know you have a thing for high school guys."

He rolled his eyes. "Where's Cora? I need to talk to her." He grabbed a piece of bacon from the stove, then made his way to the table and sat across from me. He gave me a breathtaking smile followed by a wink, almost making me go into cardiac arrest.

Stiles just sighed. "You just missed her, so if you hurry up you can catch her."

Derek raised his brow. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, so get your werewolf ass up and go look for her." He half threatened.

Derek grinned as he looked at me. "I'll see you guys later."

When he left I pretended to be really interested in my orange juice.

"Sorry," He looked into his coffee. "I didn't mean to come off. . ."

"It's fine." I met his eyes. "I thought it was cute." I bit off a piece of bacon.

His eyes softened. "Do you want to go see Allison?"

"Yeah." As he washed and I dried, I asked, "Do you think it's best to bring her here or put her in rehab? I mean, I want her to get better, but I also want her alive. There's no guarantee that she'll be safe in rehab."

He glanced at me before resuming cleaning the plates. "I don't want to underestimate how far Scott will go, but I don't think he will hurt Allison. Before he left he had a crush on her. While that's not enough to guarantee her safety, Scott's not sadistic."

I hoped he was right. On the way to the hospital my thoughts drifted toward what Scott wanted to do with us, then I thought about what was wrong with Cora, and the look he gave her the other day at school. I remembered her asking about Scott's evil intentions at breakfast. She couldn't like him, could she? I mean, the guy was creepy and dangerous.

I huffed, then glanced at Stiles driving. I decided not to make a mountain out of a molehill and start something that probably wasn't even a problem. A smile crossed my lips at the sight of him driving my car. A week ago this possibility seemed impossible.

He felt me staring at him. "What? Is there something on my face?"

Nothing but stubble that was downright sexy. "Nothing that I don't like."

He gave me an amused weird look. "That was really cheesy."

I groaned and looked out of the window. "It's too late to take it back." I blushed.

He laughed. "I need to shave and cut my hair."

My eyes widened. "No, you don't."

His eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?" There was amusement in his voice.

"I mean, you don't have to. You look perfectly sexy as you are." My eyes glanced over his body. Even though he hadn't showered after his sweaty nightmare he smelled pretty good. I wondered if he was giving off werewolf pheromones because he was definitely stirring something in my nether regions.

"Are you aware that I can smell your emotions?" He glanced at me with a smirk.

I froze in fear. "Huh?"

He chuckled. "You're really hot and bothered, you know?"

My whole body had to be as red as a tomato. I was so embarrassed I couldn't even think about that what this meant.

"Your face is priceless right now."

"Not a word, Stilinski." I threatened.

He laughed.

Allison's dad was pacing the room when we entered. He looked at me with tired eyes. I hugged him tight. When he was around he treated me like his other daughter. "How are you?"

"I'm fine." He patted my head. "I'm just worried about her. She still hasn't said anything."

I turned to her. She was sleeping or pretending to be asleep.

"Did Isaac leave?" Stiles asked him.

He looked at Stiles. "I made him go to the cafeteria. He hasn't gotten any sleep. Maybe you can convince him to go home?"

"Sorry, I don't think he's leaving her side."

"So, are you putting her in rehab?"

He didn't answer right away. "I hunt werewolves for a profession. Now the only people I can trust to keep my daughter safe are werewolves. How ironic is that?"

This had to be hard on him. "It's the best way to keep an eye on her. I wouldn't let her be around people that I didn't trust. You know Isaac wouldn't put her in danger either."

He sighed. "Is there room for me?"

"Of course." Stiles assured him. "As for your weapons, I'm not so sure." He joked.

He gave a small smile, then nodded. "Okay."

After a few minutes of small talk I headed to the cafeteria to find Isaac slumping over a cold cup of coffee. He looked at me with sad and tired eyes as I sat down in the seat in front of him. "What's he going to do with her?"

My hand found his. "You can relax. They're both moving into the house. He trusts us, he trusts you."

He sighed. "Thank God. I didn't want her in that looney bin anyway."

I laughed as I pulled away my hand. "Me, either."

He gave a half smile.

"Isaac, you know that this isn't your fault, right?"

He didn't answer.

"So you can stop blaming yourself. Allison was going through this before she knew you."

He nodded. "How did I not know that? I've been watching over her for two years and I didn't know that she was struggling."

"This wasn't your problem to fix, Isaac." I met his eyes. "She can recover from this. She needs all of us and you feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to help anything get better."

He nodded.

"So you're going to have to pull yourself together. You need to be strong for her."

"You're right." He looked down at his coffee.

"You should start by going home and getting some sleep."

He shook his head. "No, I'm not leaving her here again."

I sighed. "Her dad and Stiles are in her room right now."

He met my eyes. "Look, I'm not leaving her. Not when Scott and his pack are out there. She's not going to get hurt because I'm not there to protect her."

"Isaac, you can't put that kind of pressure on yourself. It isn't all up to you."

He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "You don't understand. Deucalion turned us to help him defend this town. He turned us to watch over you and Allison. This isn't just our job, this is what we were meant to do. And if it were you in that hospital bed, Stiles would be in the same position I'm in." He looked around us to make sure no one was listening. "So when you guys get hurt and we didn't do anything to prevent it, the blame falls on us. The guilt falls on us."

I took in what he said. I didn't know all that. No wonder Stiles felt so responsible for me. Part of me couldn't help but wonder if he had feelings for me because he felt responsible.

"Just because we had to protect you doesn't mean our feelings aren't genuine." He added.

My brow rose. "How'd you know what I was thinking?"

He mouth curled at the corner. "We can smell your emotions. You were confused, so I took a wild guess."

I made a face. "You know, that's really creepy."

He laughed. "I guess it kind of is."

"Isaac,"

"Yeah?"

"What does Allison feel? Scared? Alone?"

His head hung. "She doesn't feel anything. She feels empty."

Later that day we all took Allison home. She wouldn't say anything to anybody. I figured it was a matter of time. I also figured that at this point she would be embarrassed about everything and she wouldn't want to talk to anybody. Our job was to help her get better without rehab. It would take some doing, but we had to find a way.

Mr. Argent went to take a shower while I sat on the edge of her bed. She laid on her side, looking at the wall.

"I know that you're not a tin woman, Allison. You have to feel something. You have to know that I'm scared for you, that your dad and Isaac are so lost that they don't know what to do." I sighed. "You have to pull through because I need my best friend. I'm selfish and I want to be happy, so you need to get better because I need my best friend to be okay. Okay?"

No answer.

I blinked back the tears stinging my eyes. Be strong for Allison. I sat there until I heard the shower turn off, then I placed a kiss on her cheek before shutting the door behind me. I ventured to Stiles' room to find him sleeping in his bed. He looked so peaceful I almost awed out loud. Instead, I placed the covers over him.

He gently grabbed my wrists when I began to turn away and pulled me onto the bed. He lazily smiled at me as I faced him. "You're cute when you try to take care of me."

"Try?" I teased. "You would've had a cold nap if it weren't for me."

His brow raised in amusement as he kicked the covers off of him. "Now you have to warm me up."

A smiled played on my lips. "How do you propose I do that?"

He turned his back towards me and wrapped my arms around him. "I like being the little spoon."

I hugged him to me as I laughed. "That's okay."

"Just hold me and tell me that everything's going to be okay." He teased.

I kissed his shoulder. "Everything's going to be okay."

We fell asleep like that.