"We have to go."
Stiles groans, pressing his face into his pillow. They've been talking about this nonstop for twenty four hours, and he just really wants to sleep.
"Lydia. Why? What good will it do?" He argues, voice slightly muffled.
"I don't want to get fired-"
"Because showing up at work with no idea how to do your job is going to what, get you a promotion?"
He can't see anything, eyes still smushed against the pillow, but he can feel her irritation regardless.
"Stiles." Her voice isn't angry, just heavy with exhaustion. He feels it too, that kind of intoxicating fatigue that comes with staying up much too long and trying to retain altogether too much information. Usually, for him, it's due to studying.
"Yeah."
"Can you look at me?"
He rolls over with a sigh. He's not even totally sure how they ended up in bed. His memories are beginning to blur together, but he remembers offering to sleep on the couch. Yet here they are, exactly where they woke up a day and a half ago, him in his boxers and Lydia wearing a pair of pajamas with the periodic table on them. They haven't slept since they first woke up here, there's been too much ground to cover.
Her lips are pulled into a tight, worried line, eyes droopy but serious.
"We have to sleep at some point." He reminds her, wondering if the shadows under his eyes match hers.
"We have to think about what happens if we can't get back."
She says that like she's already accepted it, given up. It's so completely unlike her that Stiles sits up.
"You're really worried that we're going to be stuck here." He realizes, frowning down at her. She shrugs, sitting up beside him.
"Stiles…" She's been chewing on her lips all day, a nervous habit much cuter than Stiles' tendency to bite his nails. They look swollen and sore now, and he feels a pang of guilt. He's supposed to figure it out, he's supposed to fix this. He's supposed to make her feel safe. "You don't think this one might be over our heads?"
The urge to touch her, to comfort her, is overwhelming. He reaches out, hand settling on her shoulder.
"A couple years ago, if you'd told me my best friend was going to turn into a werewolf I probably would have said the same thing. But we figured that out, and everything that's happened since then has been even crazier, and it turned out-"
He stops, remembering the bow and arrow on the back of her leg.
"-we've gotten this far." But not all of us. He knows they're both thinking it, and a familiar wave of shame and regret rolls over him as he remembers his part in that. Her gaze drops to the sheets.
"This is different, you have to know that." She mumbles. And she just sounds broken. She's been different since Allison died, she doesn't seem so bulletproof anymore. She still walks with her head held high, she's still the brightest person he knows by a wide margin. But she's just…softer. Like her sharp edges have been slightly dulled by the friction of the past few years. And then there's the darkness behind her eyes, but that doesn't worry Stiles quite as much. He knows all about darkness. His hand on her shoulder drifts down to curl around her bicep, thumb gently stroking across her skin.
"I know. But if there's a way to send us here, then there's a way to send us back. And if anyone can find it, it's us, right?" His voice is soft, but strong. He needs her to believe him, he can't do this without her. She looks back up at him, eyes full of doubt.
"Or Deaton." She finally concedes. Scott called the vet earlier, and they're driving back to Beacon Hills tomorrow to see him. It seems like their best lead, for now. He forces a smile.
"Yeah. I'm sure he'll have some vague and minimally helpful information for us. But hey, it's a start."
Her answering smile is so small he almost misses it.
"And if-"
He cuts her off with a sigh, already knowing what her next words will be.
"If we can't figure out how to get back…we'll cross that bridge later, alright?"
Her eyes spark a little, like maybe she's going to argue. But then the exhaustion takes over, dramatically, like her batteries have suddenly died, and she leans back against the pillows.
"Alright."
He slumps down beside her, folding his hands over his chest to quell the overwhelming urge to throw his arms around her.
"Goodnight, Lydia."
There's a pause, like she's thinking about saying something else. He waits.
"Night, Stiles."
He falls asleep half hoping that they'll just wake up back in 2015.
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
This time, when Stiles wakes up, Lydia is already gone. For a moment, he wonders if it was all a dream. Then he hears the sound of running water and blinks until the room comes into focus. Definitely still in 2020.
He sits up, stretching his arms above his head until he hears a satisfying pop in his shoulder.
"That's gross."
Stiles blinks at Lydia, who he hadn't heard come in. He rolls his eyes.
"It's called stretching. We don't all wake up bright eyed and limber." He mutters, fully aware that Lydia is actually far from a morning person these days. A towel is wrapped around her head, and all she's wearing is the kimono from the other day. He can smell the mixture of fragrances from her shampoo and body wash from the bed, it settles like a sweet fog around his head.
"I guess I was just anxious to get going." She shrugs. And that makes sense. The sooner they get to Beacon Hills, the sooner they have answers. They have at least a three hour drive ahead of them, Stiles looked it up the night before, and he suddenly finds himself anxious to get there as well.
Plus, Beacon Hills is home. Even if it is a Beacon Hills he hasn't seen for five years.
He rolls out of bed, and for a moment, he thinks he catches Lydia staring, eyes on his chest. But then her gaze is on the closet, and he decides he must have imagined it.
"Okay. I'll shower and then we can go. See if you can find our wallets." He reminds her, not anxious to be caught without his again. Her nod is directed at a rack of shoes, but at least he knows she heard him.
The shower doesn't feel familiar, not yet. But he reaches for the soap with his eyes closed and his fingers find it immediately. It's a strange sensation, his body knowing something his mind doesn't.
This time, he remembers to bring a change of clothes with him, and he tugs the jeans onto his still damp legs, running a hand over his chin. He needs to shave again. The razor glides easily over the planes of his face, ones that have sharpened, angled over the years he missed. Lydia's worries from the night before flash in his mind. If they do get stuck here, this will be his new routine. He wonders if one of them will move out. The apartment has a second bedroom, one that's currently being used as a den. Maybe they'll convert it back and just be roommates. The thought of living here without her, or moving out and finding a place of his own, disturbs him. He feels lost enough as it is. Being separated from her will only make that worse for him.
He rinses the last dregs of shaving cream away, and pulls the bathroom door open to find Lydia fully dressed on the bed, face bare and hair pulled into a messy knot on the top of her head. She's holding a leather wallet open, and frowning into it.
"You found it." He observes, the cool air of the bedroom deliciously refreshing after the steamy heat of the bathroom. It's still warm though, and Stiles is reminded that they're further south than Beacon Hills. She looks up at him.
"Yeah, but…" She tilts the wallet so he can see the contents. A couple bills and no credit cards. No cards of any kind. He frowns.
"That's all we've got?"
"No credit cards, no debit." She replies, still frowning. Then she holds up what looks like a driver's license. "I found this, though."
It is a driver's license, his. The colors have changed, he notes, but it looks pretty similar to his old one. The picture is different though, as is his listed address.
"Huh." He pulls the cash out, heart sinking when it totals barely fifty dollars. In the Camaro, that won't be enough to get to Beacon Hills and back. "Seriously? You didn't find credit cards anywhere?"
Her brows furrow in irritation.
"No. I've got this," she holds up another wallet, something mint green that he assumes is hers. "-but no cards in this either. I do have another forty though." It doesn't make sense. There's no way that in five years that the country has moved to cash only. Stiles swipes his cellphone off the nightstand, firing off a text to Scott.
Do you happen to know where Lydia and I keep our credit cards? Can't find plastic anywhere.
And a minute or so later, Scott replies.
On your phone, dude. Just pick a card and tap.
Curious, Stiles swipes through the apps on his phone until he finds one labeled iWallet. It opens to reveal a list of several credit and debit cards, and what appears to be a punch card for Chipotle. He holds the phone up so Lydia can see.
"It's all digital, now, I guess."
Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
"That's…efficient." She finally says. He agrees, silently, but can't help but notice the way the corners of her mouth turn down as she looks at it.
"So we can leave now." He says, breaking the silence. "If you're ready."
She nods, picking up her own phone and a small white purse from the foot of the bed. Her navy skirt flutters around her thighs, a light blue tank top tucked into it.
"Okay." Lydia turns back to him, squaring her shoulders like she's heading into battle. He blinks.
"Don't you want a jacket or something? It won't be as warm there."
Her eyes roll, even as she reaches for a grey cardigan from the closet.
"Okay, mom." She mutters, grabbing his hand and dragging him out the door. "Let's just get on the road already." He throws their luggage, packed the night before, over his shoulder and follows her out.
Stiles MapQuested the drive before they left, and the printed pages are tucked neatly into the passenger side door. Lydia took one look at them before rolling her eyes and stuffing them into the slot.
"I can't believe you used MapQuest. I didn't even think they were still in business. And that was five years ago." She mumbles from beside him. His fingers tighten a little on the steering wheel, but he forces a smile.
"I don't know how reliable these phones are. Maybe cell service in 2020 sucks." He replies. And it's true. It just makes him feel safer to have the directions printed out in a format that won't disappear along with their reception.
"I'm surprised you planned that far ahead." She admits, fiddling with the radio. He shoots her a quick glare, offended.
"I plan." He says, defensive. She shrugs, seeming to give up on the radio and sitting back in her seat.
"You try."
"I'm a great planner! I plan stuff all the time!" His voice edges up an octave in indignance.
"Sure, for pack stuff. But you can't even remember to bring me that book on dark pools I lent you like, six years ago. And you keep saying you're going to go to Stanford for a tour but you never do." When he glances at her again, she's smiling.
"Okay, well, first of all, you're counting the five years that we were like, in the void. That's not fair. Second, we live together now, so odds are you probably have that book back. And third, I-" He's about to tell her that he keeps putting off that trip to Stanford in the hopes that she'll come with him. He knows it's where she wants to go, too, but he can't seem to just come out and ask her. He can hear her waiting for him to finish his sentence, and remembers that they're not actually together, she isn't actually into him. And that the Lydia he knows has been firmly rebuffing his advances for years. "I'm guessing since I have a degree in criminology that I did eventually go for that tour after all." He finishes lamely.
If she suspects that wasn't what he was originally going to say, she doesn't let on.
"Huh." She muses. "Maybe I just moved in with you to get the book back."
He forces a laugh, but it hits a little too close to home to be comfortable. Why the fuck did she end up with him? He's been asking himself that ever since they got here. He'd asked Scott that, the day before when they were pumping the alpha for answers.
I don't actually know. You didn't tell us you were together. We just walked in on you guys hooking up one day and that was it.
Not a satisfying answer, really. Barely an answer at all. He remembers shooting Lydia a quizzical look, but she'd just shrugged.
"Makes as much sense as anything else." He says, now, under his breath. He can tell she hears him by the way her fingers stop tapping against the console.
"What do you mean?"
He curses himself for opening his mouth, as always.
"Nothing. I was thinking we could stop in Albany for breakfast. We should be there around 10:30."
There's a long pause, and he silently prays that she'll let it go.
"Sure."
He exhales.
.
When they hit Albany, they decide getting to Beacon Hills, and Deaton, is more important than a leisurely breakfast. Which is how they end up in a Panera drive-thru.
"What do you want again?" Stiles asks, peering up at the menu. He can't decide between just getting a bagel or getting a breakfast sandwich. Coffee is a given, though.
"Avocado, egg white and spinach." She reminds him, for the third time.
"Right." He's probably going to forget that again. "Can you get my phone out of the bag in the back?" This whole digital money thing is probably going to take a while to get used to.
She leans between the seats to reach for his bag, and his eyes snap to the backs of her thighs, exposed where her skirt rides up. The bottom of her tattoo is just barely noticeable. A car honks behind them, and he realizes the line has moved up.
He pulls up to the speaker and places their order, not entirely sure if he got Lydia the right sandwich. She pops back into the front seat a moment later, his phone in her hand and a strange look on her face.
"You okay?" He asks. "Are you carsick or something?"
She shakes her head.
"Stiles…" Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth again, he notices. That's a bad sign. He pulls up to the second window to pay and grab their food, handing it over to Lydia and pulling back onto the freeway.
"Sorry. You were saying?" He prompts, because she's fallen silent. And he happens to know that she can eat and talk at the same time. On most people, it would look disgusting. When she does it, it's adorable.
"Why did you bring the engagement ring?" She asks.
Oh. Right. The ring, which he had packed carefully away in the bag he'd just asked her to dig through. He sighs.
"I just…didn't want to leave it. I guess I don't know if we'll even be going back there, and I…I just didn't want to leave it."
It's the truth, or most of it. But it's all he's willing to admit.
"Oh." Her voice is soft. "Okay."
They both fall silent, and his mind begins to drift to the years that Scott filled in for them.
This is what he knows so far.
He is, in fact, a police detective. He works for the San Francisco Police Department, and has for the past six months since graduating Stanford with a BS in Criminology and spending a year at the academy. Lydia is an Aerospace Engineer. She makes almost three times as much as Stiles, and works mostly out of Silicon Valley. Stiles would be jealous, if he wasn't still so confused about all of it.
They went to Stanford together, and lived in the same dorm. According to Scott, there was a month, about halfway into their first semester, where the others genuinely feared one of them would kill the other. The following Christmas break that they were outed to the rest of the pack, so they probably got together sometime in the last half of the semester. They all moved out to San Francisco as a pack, after Stiles graduated the academy. The decision had come from the whole pack needing a break from the constant supernatural drama of the Nemeton, and everything else in the cursed town. They've only been out here six months, but Lydia and Stiles have been living together for the past two years.
Malia is still part of the pack, but her and Theo travel, a lot.
Stiles asked for the engagement ring two weeks ago, after a close call at work. It strikes him as funny, they dealt with life or death situations all the time in Beacon Hills, and somehow a human with a gun was enough to push him into making a commitment. Or maybe he just finally had an excuse to do something he'd been waiting to do for years.
He looks over at her now, the tension in her shoulders, fingers tapping on the plastic of the door. She's anxious. Then again, the last time they were on a long drive together they got stranded at a shady motel and shot five years into the future, so he can't really blame her.
"Aren't I usually the one freaking out?" He asks, voice feeling strange and loud in the quiet car. She turns from looking out the window to blink at him.
"I'm not freaking out." She says, slowly. He snorts.
"My lily white ass. We haven't even talked to Deaton yet, why are you so convinced that this will end badly?" It comes out a little harsh, probably because her moping is starting to freak him out a little. It's like she's disappearing, piece by piece, right in front of his eyes.
"God!" She hisses angrily, clearly as fed up with this conversation as he is. "I just-I'm tired, Stiles! We can't catch a break! I want to graduate, and I want to go to college, and I want to win a Field Medal and I don't want to have to do all of those things while chasing werewolves and Kanimas and time traveling genies around!"
Her voice slowly rises as she speaks, and by the end of it, she's shouting. Stiles is just ridiculously glad that she's shouting again.
"I don't think that was a genie." He says, just to goad her on. Maybe getting some of her frustration out will be cathartic.
"For all we know it might as well be." She huffs, folding her arms across her chest. "I had my whole life planned out. I had a boyfriend, and a…a best friend who I loved. And now I'm-" she gestures around the Camaro. "My boyfriends die, and my best friend died. And I can still have the career, but I don't even want it! I just want to stop being terrified all the time!" She hiccups. Stiles hadn't even realized she was crying until he hears her voice crack at the end. He looks over to see tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Shit. I'm sorry, okay? I'm an asshole, don't cry." He once told her she looks beautiful when she cries, and he stands by that, but it breaks his heart when he hears the muffled sobs beside him. He pulls off onto the shoulder, unbuckling his seatbelt, and leans over to brush her tears away with his thumb.
"You're a jackass!" She grunts, hitting him. "You did this on purpose!"
He's pretty sure he'll have a bruise on his arm tomorrow, but he just sighs, using the sleeve of his hoodie to blot at her face.
"I thought you would just yell and feel better."
"Well I don't." She glares at him, but there's fire behind her eyes again, so he raises his eyebrows.
"Are you sure about that?"
She hits him again.
"Lydia." He cups her cheek in his hand, and she lets him. Something shifts, the mood between them instantly heavy again. "Do you trust me?"
Her eyes go wide, but she nods.
"Yeah."
"Okay, then I need you to hear this. If I could tell you to go live your life, to leave Beacon Hills and never come back, I would. Even though I-we need you. I want you to be happy more than-" His own voice threatens to break, and he clears his throat. "I would let you go. But you're in this now. You're not a bystander, you're a Banshee. And your best bet of figuring out what that means is by sticking with the pack. I wouldn't ask you to stay if I didn't think it was the safest place for you. Do you believe that?"
Her green eyes darken a little, from sage to jade, lips parting.
"Yes. I believe that." He can feel her breath on his wrist. "And I wouldn't stay if I didn't think it was the right thing to do." She tells him, like she's reminding him of her agency, that she doesn't do things because other people tell her to. As though he could ever forget that.
"So just…believe that I'll find a way to get us home, okay? At least until we know for sure whether or not it's possible."
The silence hangs between them, his hand still on her cheek, thumb almost brushing against her lips. His body responds to her differently now, he's always reacted to being close to her, but now she's like a magnet, drawing him in. He suspects it has something to do with chemicals, hormones maybe, their bodies recognizing one another and the history between them. Stiles can't help but wonder if she feels it too. Ever so briefly, her eyes dart down to his lips, and he takes that as an answer. Not that it's real for her, just a chemical reaction.
"Okay." She finally says, but she doesn't lean away from his touch. It takes every ounce of self-control Stiles possesses to pull away, dropping his hand. It would be cheap to take advantage of something Lydia can't control. He would never want it that way. But it doesn't stop him from wanting her.
"Right." He coughs, voice cracking. "We should get going."
"Yeah. Deaton's probably expecting us." Something about her voice is off, it's a little breathless.
They don't talk again until they hit Yuba City, just under an hour outside Beacon Hills. The scenery starts to slowly turn green, and there's something about the forest thickening around them that's comforting, familiar.
"Do you think it's different?" Her voice is a whisper beside him, and Stiles isn't even sure if she's talking to him. But he knows exactly what she's talking about.
"It's Beacon Hills." He says, shrugging. "How different can it be?"