"You're a werewolf." Lydia says matter of factly as she sits down across from Scott, her strawberry blonde curls falling into her face. The Latino boy stares at her, as if he doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. Lydia raises a perfectly arched eyebrow at him.

"Don't give me that look." She tells him and he sighs before closing his notebook. "What makes you think that?"

"Your eyes were glowing bright yellow this morning. And unless that's a symptom of Jaundice all of a sudden, the only other logical explanation is that something supernatural is going on."

Scott gulps and Lydia smirks. Gotcha, she thinks. Before she can interrogate him more, the lacrosse players come hollering into the library, and one of them - Mieczyslaw Stilinski or Stiles as she's always known him, says something about nerds dating each other.

Scott shuts down almost immediately and she knows that any further attempts would be ok futile. She smiles at him, and flips her hair over her shoulder before walking out of the library.

She's going to get to the bottom of this. One way or another.

#

Scott is not very good at keeping his supernatural changes a secret, Lydia notices fairly quickly.

Despite having spent the last 9 and a half years being extremely asthmatic and barely able to participate in gym class, he somehow manages to make it onto the lacrosse team.

The rumor mill at Beacon Hills High goes crazy within 40 minutes of the news breaking. No one can believe that Scott McCall just magically got better after 9 years of being chronically ill. No one.

Of course, Lydia knows the truth, so when the rumors of Scott taking steroids and him getting lung capacity surgery start spreading, she rolls her eyes and reminds people that no one likes a gossip.

It's Beacon Hills though, so no one listens to her. As a result, people give Scott weird looks all day, and Lydia decides enough is enough. So at lunch time, she follows Scott into the cafeteria and plops down across from him so he can't see the others staring at him.

"So, werewolf. How did you become one?" She says, lowering her voice so the people around them don't hear.

She did research over the last few days and learnt that werewolves have incredibly advanced hearing. Or at least that's what the Bestiary she found on Google Books said.

Scott raises an eyebrow at her and she raises one back. He sighs, puts down his forkful of Pico de gallo, and begins to speak, low and soft.

"It started on the night of the full moon. Something came at me- something bit me- and I think it changed my life. It changed everything."

#

The thing is, even when he was scrawny and asthmatic and could barely participate in gym class without almost dying, Lydia noticed Scott.

He was the kid who always complimented her on her hair whenever she showed up to school with a haircut or a fancy new hairdo.

He was the one who let her have some of his brownies the day her parents told her that they were getting divorced. Scott has always been there. She can't remember a time when he hadn't.

Which makes it easy for her to find him, because where he goes, she goes as well these days. "Scott." She says as she walks over to him, her Steve Madden heeled booties clicking against the ground.

He looks up at her, his head snapping up as she sits down across from him, his short curls bouncing. "Lydia." He says in response, sounding breathless. She's pretty damn sure it's because of her and not because his asthma is suddenly back. She adjusts her skirt and bends over so their hands are touching.

Lydia smirks. "So I was doing some research and I found out some things. First of all, there's something called scent marking - basically a werewolf uses scents to identify people around them. And there's also this thing called Anchoring."

Scott looks at her, his eyes staring into hers. "What's that?" He asked, and Lydia smiles at him before explaining. "It's something meaningful to you. Something that can bring you back when nothing else will. You'll need to bind yourself to it. It'll help keep the human side in control."

"Control." Scott mumbles and Lydia nods. He looks at her, and the sun from the window beside them glistens on his medium brown skin, and Lydia distinctly thinks that he looks like an angel.

Something clicks. Scott smiles at her softly and her heart skips a beat. Shit.

#

Derek Hale is an asshole, Lydia decides on the fourth day of him staking out their school. Scott is on edge all day, and he loses a goal during lacrosse practice and Stilinski gives him grief for it as a result.

Lydia won't stand for this. Scott has been doing so good, both at control and at figuring things out and he doesn't need this.

So despite her reservations about the 23 year old, Lydia brushes off her Betsey Johnson coat, stands up from the godawful bleachers that Finstock refuses to change and she stomps over to the sidelines where Derek Hale is standing, assholeness and everything.

"Alright, what the hell do you want?" Lydia demands and Derek looks at her like she's nothing. Which, Lydia takes full offense to.

"I'm being serious sourwolf . Why the hell have you been staking out our school? The fuck is wrong with you?" Derek scoffs and turns away from her, and Lydia reacts impulsively and stomps her pastel pink Jeffery Campbell Lita heels into Derek's foot, earning a yelp from the taller man.

Scott looks over at them for a split second and Lydia takes it upon herself to wave at him, grinning as Derek hisses under his breath.

She turns so that she's facing Derek again and lifts her foot. "You keep stalking Scott and you'll have a bigger problem than just a broken foot."

Derek nods wordlessly and Lydia smirks to herself as she stomps away, her curls bouncing behind her.

Anything for Scott she reminds herself. Anything for him.

#

The winter formal comes with little fanfare, something that's surprising for Beacon Hills High which usually takes any opportunity to have fun very seriously.

Lydia honestly doesn't really get why everyone cares so little, especially when they haven't had anything good happen in a year . So maybe, she throws her energy into winter formal planning with 100% efficiency.

And maybe she ropes Scott into helping her. The winter formal committee is small: her, Scott, Danny Mahealani and the new girl in town - Allison Argent.

Danny is well… Danny. Allison however, is something completely new, something different.

Lydia isn't sure if she likes her or not. Especially with the way Scott's eyes seem to always be glued to Allison.

Okay, Lydia might be irrationally jealous. It's not like her and Scott are dating and besides, she's just helping him with his supernatural…. bullshit but still.

It hurts.

So Lydia does what she does best. She hides behind her perfect… well everything and buys a $200 dress and wears her lucky black leather heels and she looks good and she knows it.

It doesn't help the pain, but she gets showered in compliments all night. And then, the gym gets too stuffy and she can't breathe and she runs out of there until she makes it to the lacrosse field.

It's quiet outside. Eerily quiet. The shitty top 40s playlist is booming from the gym and Lydia rolls her eyes. God, she's such a mess.

She stands there, her eyes scanning the horizon in front of her for a long moment. A chill rolls down her spine. Something - no someone is behind her. She wants to move, to run but she can't.

She hears someone yelling her name - Scott she thinks but before she can process it, something sharp is digging into her neck. The man - is biting her, only his teeth aren't regular teeth, they are werewolf canines.

For a split second, Lydia gasps in shock. He smirks at her and bites down harder before releasing her and shoving her to the ground.

Scott runs towards them and through her blurry vision, Lydia can see him manage to scratch the other werewolf.

The pain courses through her body like nothing she's ever experienced before. Her body feels light and heavy at the same time, and she can hear Scott's voice above her.

"C'mon Lydia. No, no, no. Don't close your eyes. C'mon I need you Lyds. Help is on the way, you just gotta stay awake. Lydia! LYDIA!"

Everything becomes pitch black after that.

#

When she finally wakes up inside the hospital, the first thing Lydia does is scream. It's a bone aching kind of scream, one that she has never felt before.

Her nurses and the doctors who are treating her come running in and she can't explain to them what is going on. She just sobs and asks for more morphine and hopes to God that she'll fall asleep soon.

She doesn't though, and the moment of her attack keeps playing in her head. The man who attacked her was a monster she tells herself. She was never going to be able to beat him.

And then Scott comes to visit her on her fourth day of being awake. Not all monsters do monstrous things, she tells herself as he sits down across from her, like she used to do in the library or in the cafeteria.

Scott may be a werewolf but he isn't a monster. He isn't.

Not with those soft brown eyes and the way he sends her Despicable Me memes at 2 in the morning and especially not when he was the one who kept her from bleeding out and who called 911.

Not all monsters do monstrous things. Lydia reminds herself as Scott looks at her. She bites down on her lip and ignores the way the stitches on her neck pull slightly.

"I think…" He starts and she looks at him. "I think you are my anchor. No. I know it." Her breath catches in her throat. "What?" Scott looks at her, those brown eyes staring into her green ones.

She stares at him, her heartbeat picking up. Scott intertwines their fingers. Lydia looks down at their intertwined hands. "You said that an anchor needs to be something meaningful to you. Something that can bring you back when nothing else will. That's what you are for me Lydia. You're my something meaningful."

Lydia doesn't respond. Scott freezes. "Lydia? I-I shouldn't have said that." Lydia looks at him, shaking her head slightly, wincing as her stitches pull again. "No. You should have."

She smiles at him before squeezing their hands together. "You saved me Scott. You saved me and you didn't need to."

Scott shakes his head. "Of course I did. Lydia, I need you. I-I love you Lydia. I mean it. God, I was so scared when you wouldn't wake up. I thought I was never going to be able to tell you."

Lydia grins at him, before leaning forward and pressing her lips against his, her hand coming to rest on his chest. Scott kisses her back, and she soaks in his energy.

The sound of the door opening makes them pull apart, and Lydia could feel her cheeks turning bright red.

Melissa - Scott's mom and one of her nurses comes sauntering into the room as if she didn't just almost walk in on her patient and her son kissing.

"Hi sweetheart." She says to Lydia and Lydia smiles at her softly. "Hi Melissa."

Melissa raises an eyebrow at the two of them, her eyes falling to Lydia's hand which is still resting against Scott's chest. Lydia moves her hand as if she's been burnt and Scott coughs loudly.

"Well then. I'll give you some more pain medication Lydia. Scott, you can stay with her until she falls asleep. Just remember - no making me a young grandmother and don't pull Lydia's stitches." She winks at them both and Lydia could feel her eyes widening in shock.

"Mom!" Scott mumbles embarrassedly. Lydia giggles, and Melissa smirks at them. The door opens again and then they are left alone.

Scott looks at her, his cheeks turning red. "God she's so embarrassing." Lydia smiles at him. "It's fine Scott. Oh and by the way, I love you too." Scott smiles at her before leaning in and capturing her lips again. Lydia smiles into the kiss.

The Lydia from 5 months ago would be very pleased that she got to the bottom of this.

#

Things don't change much after that, other than them exchanging soft kisses every now and then, and Scott's extra jersey staying in Lydia's bedroom more often than not. Stiles still makes fun of them for being nerds but ever since the attack, he's softer with his insults. Allison and Lydia actually become friends and Scott hates it because of the way they gang up on him.

Derek Hale and his uncle Peter - the man who attacked Lydia end up getting picked up by the sheriff and arrested for harrasment of minors and sexual assault. Lydia can breath for the first time in weeks.

She still has nightmares, and some nights, she can feel Peter's teeth sinking into her skin, but the smell of Scott's hoodie always brings her back. It's tough work, and her therapist, a lady named Madeleine Summers, tells her that recovery isn't linear. And when Lydia feels like nothing will fix her, Scott helps.

It's perfect. The way it needs to be. And Lydia's proud of that. She really, really is.

Because the Lydia from half a year ago wouldn't have expected this. At all. She's very glad she got it in the end.