Sorry for the long delay. I got distracted by Scottuary, and 12,000 words later...
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
Stiles changed his room since the last time Lydia was here. She's gotten so used to him murder-boarding all over his walls the last few months that it's actually kind of a shock to see them so empty. They're not completely barren, there's still some posters and pictures, but it looks a lot more like it did the first time she'd ever come over here, after that fateful lacrosse game when Jackson died and then came back to life, and she'd become irrevocably entangled in Scott's pack.
There's not a hint of red yarn anywhere.
That doesn't mean the room itself is particularly clean. She has to step over piles of rumpled clothes and random lacrosse equipment to get in. The bed is unmade, there's a couple of bowls and glasses on the nightstand, and the entire room has kind of a funk to it that has Lydia wrinkling her nose.
She lets out a sad sigh at the state of it. Stiles might not be the most organized person ever (or rather, he's only organized at things he wants to be, like solving mysteries—and then only in his particular way), but this is bad, even for him. This is the kind of mess of a person who hasn't left their room in a while. Hasn't left their bed in a while.
Being the type A personality that she is, her impulse is to start cleaning up, and since she doesn't really know what she's looking for, she decides she might as well. Besides, her "powers" usually work best when she's not trying too hard. She doesn't really want to touch the dirty clothes, so she decides to start with the desk, making a face as she picks a musty towel off the back of the chair and brushes crumbs off the seat. Carefully perching herself on the edge, she begins sorting through the mess of papers, making piles accordingly.
Lydia's never been all that shy about going through people's things—she can't help her naturally inquisitive mind—but for some reason it feels a lot more invasive to go through Stiles' stuff. At first, she's a little worried about what she's going to find, but most of what's there is just unfinished make-up work from all the school he's missed.
Once she's got all the papers sorted, she opens the drawers in search of a place to put them, and finds more mess inside the desk. Might as well straighten that up as well. She organizes the office supplies, throws away the empty boxes of gum and candy wrappers, and collects all the random keys (what are these even for?) into a tub.
Upon opening the second drawer, she's greeted by a photo that catches her off-guard. It's one she's seen plenty of times, as it used to be pinned over Stiles' bed with the collage of other pictures he kept there, but that space on his wall is empty now.
The tears hit her out of nowhere, pooling in the corners of her eyes as she reaches for the photo. She vividly remembers when it was taken, right after Scott scored the winning shot in a lacrosse game early sophomore year. One one side, Stiles is a blur of excitement, his whole demeanor screaming utter joy that they'd just won. Next to him, Scott's grinning ear to ear, but in a more subdued fashion. Perhaps because he's busy looking at Allison, who has her arm around a reluctant Lydia's shoulders.
The photo had been taken for the yearbook, and Lydia isn't even sure how Stiles got his hands on a copy of it since he's not really friends with anyone on the yearbook committee, but then Stiles is always finding ways to get his hands on things. Lydia complains about it every time she sees it—she wasn't very happy to be dragged into the photo and has a weird smile in it. But whenever she tells him to take it down, he just makes a face and waves her off, telling her that she always looks amazing and that if anyone should hate the way they look in the picture, it's him, because he looks like an absolute idiot.
And now, here it is, hidden away in the bottom drawer.
She takes it out gingerly, letting the tears slip down her cheeks. It's hardly been a month, and Lydia knows it will be a long time until she feels okay, if ever, but it's funny how certain things hit her harder.
"I miss you, Allison," she whispers, touching her friend's smiling face with a gentle finger. "Why did you have to leave us?"
She suddenly flushes with anger. Anger that Stiles would hide this memory away, tuck Allison into a bottom drawer as if she never existed. A rational part of her tells her that she's not being fair to him, that he's allowed to process his grief in his own way, but the louder voice in her head doesn't care. Allison died saving him, saving all of them, and Lydia refuses to let that sacrifice be forgotten.
Taking out a thumbtack from the tray she just collected them into, she goes to put it back in its spot above Stiles' bed. Stepping back, she smiles, pleased at her handiwork.
As she's turning back to the desk, she notices Stiles' laptop perched on the edge of his nightstand. If he has been up to something, that's where she needs to look. She'll bet anything on it. She snags it and takes it back to the desk with her, opening it up and hitting the lock screen.
Damn.
She bites her lip thoughtfully, looking around the room for inspiration of what his password might be. Maybe something to do with Star Wars? Or that online fantasy game he's talked about a couple times? He would probably use something nerdy like that, right? She tries a couple of random combinations, adding in various numbers like his birthday and graduation year, but nothing works. On a whim, she even tries a couple with her name and birthday, since it's no secret he's had a crush on her for ages. She's not sure whether to be relieved or annoyed that those don't work either.
"Couldn't make it something easy, could you?" she mutters, giving up on the computer for now.
By the time she's finished rummaging through his desk and trying to hack into his computer, almost an hour has passed, and she hasn't found anything useful. Not that she knows what useful thing she's even looking for. She shoots off a text to Scott to see if he's had any luck. It sounds like it's raining now, which means whatever scent he might have been able to pick up is probably going to get washed away soon.
While she's waiting for a response, she wanders over to the bookshelf, running her fingers along the dusty shelves to see if anything catches her eye. There's actually less books there than she would have imagined he would have—a lot of what's stuffed on the shelf isn't even books, but trinkets from his childhood. The books that look like they've gotten the most use lately are a stack of library books toppling over next to the shelf, with riveting titles like Cryptozoology for Beginners and Full Moon Rising: Lycanthropy and the Science of the Unknown.
Curious, she picks up the second book and flips it open to a page bookmarked with a receipt. The receipt, which he must have gotten when he checked the book out, shows that it's more than a year overdue.
A message from Scott interrupts her. found the jeep off rt 12. still no sign of stiles.
Route Twelve? That's kind of tucked back off the beaten trail. Why would he have gone over there?
Frowning, she goes back to the book, hoping it'll give her a spark of inspiration. The section the receipt is marking seems to be all about wolfsbane and other herbs, and at the top of the page are pictures of some of the different types and their distribution range. In the margins there are some scrawled notes in Stiles' sloppy handwriting which Lydia manages to translate as 'don't let Scott near these—very bad!' She sighs. Not very helpful in figuring out why Stiles drove out to the middle of nowhere.
Her breath catches the thin receipt paper, making it dance out of its place in the book and flutter back toward the desk. It probably doesn't matter, but she goes to pick it up, keeping her finger between the pages of the book to mark where it was so she can replace it.
Bending down to pick up the receipt, a flash of yellow under the desk catches her eye. Tilting her head to get a better look, she sees that it's a post-it note stuck on the underside, all the way at the back. She pulls it off, holding it up to see a random combination of numbers, letters, and symbols.
A password.
"Nope, never would have guessed that," she mutters to herself, forgetting all about the book and going back to the laptop.
As much as going through Stiles' papers felt like an intrusion, going through his computer feels a thousand times worse. She opens up the browser and clicks on history, trying not to think about how mortified Stiles would be if he knew she was digging through his past internet searches. Except she doesn't find what one would expect to be lurking in a teenage boy's search history. What she finds is so much worse.
Stiles has been tracking down every news article, report, press release, and story about the recent attacks on the sheriff's station and the hospital. About all the people who died.
She purses her lips, the tears returning. "Oh, Stiles."
Clicking through the pages is hard enough for her, so she can only imagine what it's been doing to Stiles to see all of this. The facts in the articles are sketchy at best—it's still unknown exactly what happened in Beacon Hills other than it was some kind of terrorist attack. The official report isn't very clear, but basically says that the person behind the attacks, an unknown male, was confirmed dead, killed when an explosive device he was planning to plant at the school went off unexpectedly.
That leaves room for a lot of theories of government conspiracy and cover-ups, which isn't entirely inaccurate since it is a cover-up, orchestrated by Scott and Stiles' dads to protect the kids. But Stiles doesn't seem as concerned with the stories of eye-witnesses who saw a teen matching his description leading a group of sword-wielding samurais. No, the bulk of the stories he's been reading are the ones about the victims. About the families they left behind.
Twenty-three people total. All of them leaving grieving spouses, children, parents, siblings…
"Lydia?"
Lydia lets out a yelp of surprise at the voice, spinning to see Kira standing in the doorway.
"Oh, sorry!" Kira apologizes quickly, wincing as she picks her way across the room. "Scott told me that I should meet you here, and when no one answered the door, I let myself in."
"It's fine," Lydia says, turning back to the computer. She'd gotten so lost in what she was doing she hadn't noticed that it was already past time for school to let out. "I just didn't hear you."
"Find anything yet?" Kira asks, looking over her shoulder.
"Other than evidence that we need to take away Stiles' internet access so he can't torture himself looking at all the stuff the nogitsune did?" Lydia sighs, clicking on another link in the search history which pulls up the obituary of a young woman who died at the hospital. "Nothing to give me an idea of where he might have gone. Is Scott having any luck?"
Kira shakes her head. "He said they're having trouble tracking his scent."
"Well, the rain probably isn't helping," Lydia mutters, scrolling through the obituary. She'd seen a couple of other articles about this woman, who had been a nurse. Only twenty-six years old, engaged to be married in a few months. Tragic.
She suddenly notices that Kira is looking at her in that funny way people have done since her banshee powers started manifesting. "What?" she asks nervously.
Kira bites her lip. "It's not raining, Lydia," she tells her quietly.
Her eyes snap to the window, and, indeed, there are no raindrops falling outside. It's not even overcast. But she had heard the dripping, like rain overflowing from a gutter.
Eyes wide, she looks back at the screen, at the picture of the nurse and her fiancé. The dripping sound gets louder as she focuses on the picture, and is accompanied by a hint of a smell. Something rank. Something she's been smelling all day.
Her eyes catch on the caption underneath the photo, which reads: Maddie Fisher (26) and fiancé Tim Reynolds (28) got engaged while on a kayaking trip through Bluffton Creek last year. They were planning to be married in April.
"Bluffton Creek," she whispers. To Kira, she says, "There's a shortcut, isn't there? Off of Route 12. You could park there and cut through the woods to get to Bluffton Creek. People do it with kayaks sometimes."
"Uh, I guess? I've never really been over there before," Kira says, like she's unsure what's happening. She knows about Lydia's abilities, but hasn't seen them in action before. "Did you… Hear something?"
Lydia finally meets her gaze as all the pieces of the puzzle snap together. "I think I know where Stiles is."
As expected, Derek shows up a few minutes after Scott parks the car. "Anything?" he asks, appearing beside Scott without warning.
Someday, Scott is going to get him to share his secret of how he sneaks around so efficiently, but there's no time for that today. He shakes his head, turning his face into the wind to try and catch a scent. "Nothing yet, but I just got here a few minutes before you."
Derek looks around and then takes off without another word, heading north. Dead leaves crunch under his feet.
"Derek!" Scott calls after him, jogging to catch up with his long strides. "You said something weird is going on out here. What were you talking about?"
"Don't know," Derek says without breaking his stride.
"What does that mean?" Scott persists.
Derek doesn't even spare him a glance. "It means, I don't know."
"Derek, my best friend is missing. Again," Scott practically growls, eyes flashing red. He does not have time for Derek's monosyllabic answers right now. "If you know something—"
Derek finally stops and spins to face him, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets. "Look," he says, "I can't really explain it. I've just been getting this… Strange sense, that something's off about the woods lately. Pay attention and you'll know what I mean."
Scott frowns. "What kind of sense? Like a smell?"
Derek scowls at him, shaking his head like he's wondering how Scott has survived this long despite being such a moron. "Scott, have you ever heard of the sixth sense?"
The confusion between Scott's eyebrows deepens. "Like, the Bruce Willis movie?"
"No, not like the Bruce Willis movie," Derek says, rolling his eyes. He turns and begins to walk again, slower this time so Scott can keep up. "I'm talking about that sense everyone has, like when you can tell something is off. Like when the hair on the back of your neck sticks up. That feeling in your gut like something's wrong. Kind of like intuition. You know what I'm talking about?"
Scott searches his memory for a time he's felt that way, and, yeah. He supposes he's experienced that before. "Yeah, I guess so," he says.
"Well," Derek continues, seemingly pleased that Scott is at least kind of tracking, "just like the rest of our senses, a werewolf's sixth sense is also heightened. It's just a little harder to recognize sometimes. You have to know what you're looking for, or you might miss that you're even using it."
"Okay," Scott says slowly, thinking he understands what Derek is talking about. "So, what you're saying is, you've been feeling, like, extra creeped out about the woods lately?"
Derek glances at him. "Exactly."
To be honest, Scott has been extra creeped out by the woods since the night he was first bit. But he thinks he gets where Derek is coming from. Since the Nemeton, it's only been worse. Like this sense of dread at the back of his mind, this slight nausea in the pit of his stomach any time he has to come out here. It's easy to ignore, but now that he's paying attention, it's definitely there.
"Well, couldn't that just be the Nemeton?" he argues. "Deaton did say it holds a lot of power. Couldn't that just be, like, throwing off the energy around here or something?"
"Sure," Derek agrees. "But if I'm noticing it, that means others are probably noticing it, too. And it's been getting stronger the last few weeks."
Oh, right. Deaton also said it would become a beacon to other supernatural creatures. Things like the nogitsune.
Great. Scott was beginning to think more and more that they should've spent a few minutes longer thinking about the consequences of sacrificing themselves to find the Nemeton. Not that he regretted saving his mom and Stiles and Allison's dads, but, shit. They definitely hadn't realized the weight of that decision.
"So if you don't know, where are you going?" Scott asks, because Derek is walking with too much purpose to be simply meandering around looking for clues as to where Stiles might have gone.
"Following my instincts," Derek answers simply, speeding up again so that Scott has to practically jog to keep pace.
Scott still doesn't think he's quite getting the whole sixth sense thing, because while he's noticing the uncomfortable tingle at the back of his neck now, it's not leading him in a particular direction like it is Derek. But it turns out, whatever Derek is getting is spot on, because it isn't long before Scott does pick up something he knows—that familiar smell of old leather, gasoline, and musty sports gear that he always associates with the Jeep.
Sure enough, they find it on the side of the road fifteen minutes later.
"How did you know?" Scott asks as they approach the abandoned vehicle.
Derek shakes his head, looking a little surprised himself that he'd led them straight here. "I told you, I don't know. I just felt like we needed to come this way."
Freaky stuff going on in the woods, indeed. Scott wonders if Derek is somehow channeling Lydia, because this is a lot more like the kind of thing she usually does.
"Why the hell would he be out here?" Scott says, deciding not to get too caught up in the questions of how for now. There usually aren't satisfying answers to those questions anyway, and right now, his priority is to find Stiles.
The door to the Jeep is locked, which Scott chooses to take as a good sign. A sign that Stiles knew where he was when he got out of the car, that he locked it because he intended to return and didn't want it stolen or broken into while he was gone.
But it's weird. He literally pulled off onto the grass on the side of the road, just beside the forest line. And this isn't a well-traveled area. There's no trails close to here, nothing to do, really, except maybe go down to the creek. But there's better access points in other places, access points that have actual parking near them. Why come here?
As far as he knew, Stiles hadn't had another sleepwalking incident since… That night. But this is all feeling a little too familiar.
Pulling out his phone so he can call the Sheriff, Scott sees a missed text from Lydia asking if he's found anything yet. He shoots her a quick update before making the call.
"Stiles' dad is on his way out here," Scott tells Derek, even though he's sure the other werewolf heard the whole conversation.
Derek is looking through the trees, which are still bare of leaves and so give a decent amount of visibility into the forest. "He went that way," Derek says, nodding toward the northeast.
Stiles' scent is masked next to the overpowering smell of the Jeep, but Scott knows it immediately once he finds it. As he moves toward the forest line, it's easier to distinguish. It's not strong enough to be fresh, which means Stiles hadn't been here for hours, possibly even since yesterday. The idea that he might have been missing all night without anyone even realizing sends an icy shudder through Scott. At least it's warmer now than it was then, he tells himself, so Stiles is probably fine. Even if he was out here all night.
It's not long before Stiles' trail gets harder to follow, and by the time they reach the creek, it disappears altogether. Scott and Derek spread out, trying to pick it back up, but they can't find anything solid enough to follow. It's like Stiles came out here and vanished.
Or he knew they would come looking for him and got in the creek to hide his scent on purpose so they couldn't follow him.
Scott dismisses that thought. Why would Stiles want to hide from them?
At some point in their ramblings, the Sheriff calls back to let Scott know he's checking in at a couple of nearby places—a bait shop, a gas station—to see if anyone saw Stiles. Scott uses the opportunity to check in with Kira as well, telling her to go help Lydia.
Derek, who's standing on a downed tree nearby and scowling at the forest as if it personally offended him in some way, glances at him when he hangs up.
Scott jumps up next to him, trying to get his bearings. "I don't get it," he says, frustrated. "There's nothing out here. Why would Stiles come here?"
Derek just shakes his head slowly, his eyes still searching for something in the distance. "Do you hear that?" he asks.
Rubbing his forehead to try and alleviate the headache beginning to form there, Scott frowns. "Hear what?"
Derek tilts his head as if he's listening, but after a moment, he sighs. "No, nevermind. It was nothing. Just an animal." He hops off of the log. "Come on, I think we should go this way."
Derek led them to the Jeep, so Scott doesn't question him as he leads them downstream. He can tell the older werewolf is just as frustrated as he is at the trail going cold. As much as Derek complains about Stiles, Scott knows he has a certain fondness for him. For all of them, really. He might act like an Omega, but Scott knows better. Derek is like the pack's older brother, treating them as if they're nothing but an inconvenience, but worrying over them and protecting them all the same.
He's about to say something, to thank Derek for sticking around and helping them out after everything that happened over the winter, but he's cut off by his phone buzzing again. Pulling it out, he expects it to be the Sheriff asking where they are, but it's Lydia's face on the screen this time.
"Lydia?"
"Scott," Lydia says, words spilling out almost too fast to distinguish. "It's the dripping. The dripping and the smell. I—I didn't even think, I kept getting little whiffs—but it's been getting stronger all day. It has to be a clue—"
"Lydia," Scott interrupts. "Slow down! What are you talking about?"
"The place Stiles is, Scott." It's funny how Lydia and Stiles talk to him in nearly the exact same tone when they've figured something out, like it should be obvious and why is he taking so long to catch up to their much faster brains? "He's been looking into some of the families of the people the nogitsune killed. This guy, Tim Reynolds, in particular. He disappeared earlier this week. The police suspect suicide, but they haven't found a body yet. But, get this, Scott—his fiancé was a nurse who died at the hospital, and they got engaged at Bluffton Creek."
Scott's heart clenches at the idea of Stiles seeing the fallout from what he did while possessed. He swallows back the emotions. They can deal with that later.
"Okay, but, Lydia, that's a big area," he tells her, looking around. They might actually be in what's considered Bluffton Creek now, though he knows the campsites and canoe livery are still a ways up the road. "Is there anything more specific?"
"It's got to be someplace wet, someplace that smells bad. Like, really bad."
Scott shares a look with Derek, frowning. "You mean, like the coyote den?" That's where Scott's dad had found him the last time, but it's pretty far from here.
"Nonono, it's not the same. It's more like…" Lydia makes a frustrated sound. "Like, like sewage! Sewage—the sewers, Scott! Most of the tunnels are big enough for people to fit inside."
"Okay, okay. Are there any sewage tunnels in Bluffton Creek?"
Scott can hear typing. "Um, I don't—" Lydia and Kira devolve into arguing about where to click for a minute. "No, this isn't… Scott? I'm still looking. I can't really find a good map…"
"What about Malia?" Kira suggests in the background. "She probably knows the Preserve better than anyone, right?"
"Scott?" Lydia asks. "Did you hear that?"
"Yeah," he says, already thinking about the best way to get her out here. Malia doesn't drive, and he has Lydia's car, which is now a few miles away. "Okay, you call her and get her up to speed, I'll call Stiles' dad and see if he can swing by to pick her up on his way out here."
"And I'll keep looking for a map," he hears Kira add.
"Scott," Lydia says before he can hang up. Her voice goes thin. "Hurry, okay? I—I'm starting to get a really bad feeling."
Yeah, no kidding. If Stiles is in the sewage tunnels for some reason… Scott has a bad feeling, too.
Thanks so much to all those who have left reviews! They really make my day and motivate me to write more. :)
