A/N: I just wanted to thank everyone for the response I've been getting to this story. I was so freaking scared when I posted that first chapter, but your reviews have given me the confidence I needed to keep going, so thank you!

The second morning in a row that Stiles woke up next to Lydia, he was elated. And yeah, last night he kind of told her that he still had a crush on her, but he wasn't surprised when she didn't return the sentiment. She was Lydia Martin, after all, and she was fucking perfect. It may have bothered him a little bit, he wasn't going to lie, but she probably had better prospects than skinny, geeky Stiles Stilinski.

It was eight o'clock when Stiles got up, and Lydia and Kristy were still sleeping, so Stiles checked his email first. It was something that he'd been slacking at lately, but he needed to be able to be contacted if anybody had a job for him. There was an email from an alpha in Los Angeles who was dealing with some strange occurrences. After a little bit of research, Stiles wrote back to her and told her that she was dealing with faeries – the one creature that Stiles hated more than anything, especially since they had tried to take him away from the pack more than once – and asked her if she wanted him to come and deal with them. He did that for his clients, for extra. All in all, his business went great. The clients paid generously for his advice, and even more generously for him to come and take care of the problem. He usually worked with Derek and Danny, who he had become really close to over the past few years. Never in his mind did Stiles ever think that there'd be more to his relationship with Derek than sarcastic comments and death glares, but they were close. Not as close as Scott and Stiles, mind you, but near that.

"What are you doing up so damn early?" Lydia's voice was laced with sleep as she came into the kitchen and started the coffee maker. Lydia was almost as bad as Stiles was now with coffee. She needed it to function, and nobody got in between Lydia and her morning coffee.

"Couldn't sleep," Stiles said, turning away from his laptop and turning to look at her. "The question is, why are you up so early?"

Lydia shrugged, "I like to keep to a schedule. Kristy'll be up soon, and I like to be up before she is. When I wake up, you're usually gone."

"Yeah, well I've been dealing with pack stuff. Scott's looking for Deucalion."

Lydia rolled her eyes and shook her head, "He shouldn't. Deucalion and Aiden'll kill everyone if they think it'll get them to Kristy faster. I'm not going to let you guys die for us."

She poured her cup of coffee, added some milk and a little sugar, and went over to sit beside him. "I know that is what you do with pack," she said, stirring her coffee, "but I feel like we need to earn it. I've been away so long, Stiles."

"There's nothing you have to prove to us, Lyds. You were pack before and you'll always be. I don't care what happened to you back in Boston. You'll always be Lydia Martin, the girl I've loved since the third grade."

Okay, so maybe he was an idiot for admitting that to her. He knew he probably shouldn't have, but it left his mouth before he even meant it to.

"Well, thanks, I guess," Lydia said, blowing on her coffee before taking a sip.

A few moments of silence passed, but it was different. With other people (well, other than Scott, let's be honest), Stiles was almost always babbling about something. Sure, he'd gotten pretty mellow during college and didn't even need his Adderall anymore, but a lot of times, he was running his mouth to kind of cancel out the silence. Here, now, though, he didn't have to. The silence between himself and Lydia, it almost felt…right.

"I've gotta drive down to LA today," Stiles said almost five minutes later, after getting a confirmation back from Alpha Moore. "I usually take either Derek or Danny, or both, with me. Is that going to be okay?"

Lydia laughed, "Shouldn't you be asking your alpha that?"

"I know that you think Scott is being unreasonable," Stiles said after a moment of thought. "But he's really not. We're afraid for you. And I know you, Lydia. You're not going to put Kristy in danger. Hell, I know that if anyone comes for Kristy, you're gonna do everything in your power to make sure they never get the chance again. You're fierce, Lyds, and while that's a good thing, it's also putting you in danger."

"She's my daughter, Stiles. It's my job to protect her. That's what a parent does – they protect their child, no matter what. Ask your dad, ask Melissa – it's what they're supposed to do. And Kristy's special. Her being half banshee and half wolf is going to put her in danger probably her entire life. I'm going to make sure that she's safe."

"Maybe I shouldn't go to LA today," Stiles said, taking a drink of his coffee. Lydia sighed.

"Look, go to LA. Take Derek and Danny. I want to spend some time with Ethan anyway."

"Really? Ethan?" Stiles asked, surprised.

"What?" she asked him, noting his reaction. "Am I not allowed?"

"It's just that…well, since you've been here, you've kinda been avoiding him. Scott and I figured that it was just because of Aiden…how he changed, and how Ethan's his brother, and Ethan probably reminds you of him."

"Last night, at Kristy's party, Ethan asked me if I was afraid of him. I'm not, not really, because logically, I know that they're different. Stiles, Ethan is so far from Aiden it's almost comical. They've never really been alike – I mean, even when they were still part of the alpha pack, they were never the same. Remember how, when they were supposed to be keeping tabs on me and Danny, that Ethan had more compassion than Aiden? Ethan's got a good heart. I honestly didn't expect him and Danny to still be together, I give him that. It's not that I'm afraid of him, or that I don't like him – I don't really know him. And when he told me yesterday that he'd like to get to know me and Kristy, I figured, why the hell not? I know he's not going to hurt me, and if Scott trusts him enough to be in his pack, then I can trust him around my daughter."

"He's not a bad guy," Stiles said after a moment. "And if you can spend some time with him, then yeah, I think you should."

-x-

It was an eight hour drive from Beacon Hills to LA one way, and even though Stiles knew that Lydia and Kristy would be safe with Isaac and Ethan protecting her that day, he still worried. He spent the first four hours of the drive worrying out of his freaking mind. Finally, Derek reached over and smacked his arm, "You're going to drive yourself crazy."

Deciding to play dumb, Stiles shrugged, "Huh? I have no idea what you're even talking about."

"Sure you don't," Danny piped up from the backseat. "Dude, even I know you're freaking yourself out and I don't have super human senses like he does. Lydia's going to be fine."

"You don't know that," Stiles said, sighing. "I mean, sure, she's with Ethan and Isaac, and I know they won't let anything happen to her, but when we talked this morning, she seemed...I don't know man, she seemed like she was so sure that Deucalion and Aiden are gonna kill everyone in their way. I mean, she knows them better than we do, right?"

"You can't do your job well if you're just worrying about Lydia today," Derek said. Stiles shot him a dirty look, so Derek sighed, "Look, I know that you're in love with her. Everyone knows how you feel about Lydia Martin. And I get the concern. I'm worried about her and Kristy, too. But I know that Ethan and Isaac are gonna take care of her. They both really like Lydia, and they both fucking adore that little girl. But if you spend the remainder of the day worrying about it, you could very likely get killed while trying to do your job. Just concentrate on that. I know that Ethan or Isaac will call either me or Danny if something goes badly."

Danny nodded, "Yeah. Things are going to be fine."

-x-

Lydia was nervous. In her head, she knew that Ethan was absolutely nothing like his brother, and she wasn't scared of him – she wasn't. Like Lydia had told Stiles earlier that day, Ethan and Aiden were so different that it was almost comical. But she never really did spend much time around Ethan, so she wasn't really sure what he was like. She stood outside of Danny and Ethan's apartment door for the longest time, just pacing back and forth. What the fuck was wrong with her, anyway? She was Lydia Martin. She was absolutely fearless. Lydia Martin didn't worry about things; she got shit done when it needed to be done. She didn't worry about trivial things.

But, as a voice in her head kept reminding her, this wasn't exactly trivial. Her daughter's life was on the line here. And Lydia knew that Deucalion wouldn't outright kill Kristy; he wanted her. He wanted to collect her, as creepy as that sounded. No, the person in danger here was Lydia herself.

Finally, after about twenty minutes of pacing back and forth, the apartment door swung open and Isaac was standing there. His blue eyes watched her green ones and then said, "Ethan and I both could hear you pacing out here, and so I figured I'd give you time to get over whatever freak out you were going through out here. But it's been almost twenty five minutes, so please, come in. We're not going to hurt you, you know."

"I know," Lydia said, picking her daughter up off the step next to her and picking up her bag. "I'm not afraid."

Isaac just raised an eyebrow.

"I keep forgetting, werewolves," Lydia muttered, mostly to herself. She sighed as Isaac stood aside so she could get inside the apartment. "I'm not afraid of you guys. And, contrary to popular opinion, I'm not afraid of Ethan, either. There's just...there's just a lot going on right now and I'm not one hundred percent sure where exactly my head is at."

"It's okay," Isaac said, sounding somewhat comforting. "It happens to the best of us."

Even though Lydia was really worried about how things were going to go that afternoon, she was pleasantly surprised when things went well. The conversation was light and Lydia realized that both Isaac and Ethan adored her daughter. The pack had seemed to really take a liking to Kristy, and that made Lydia happy.

"So, when are you two gonna get together?" Ethan asked her out of the blue as Lydia was fixing Kristy something to eat. Lydia looked at him quizzically.

"Huh?"

"You and Stilinski," Isaac said. "In case you weren't sure who we were talking about. We all have eyes and can see the way that you two look at each other. We can see how he watches you when you're not looking, or how you look at him when he looks away. And the lust you two are carrying for each other? God, it fucking reeks."

"It's nothing," Lydia said, cutting up some hot dogs for Kristy to eat. "Nothing's happening between me and Stiles. Nothing's gonna happen between me and Stiles, because nothing can happen. He's a nice, platonic human friend, because I need one of those right now."

"Allison doesn't count?"

Lydia rolled her eyes, "Sure she does. But Stiles gets it. I don't know, he just...he's there for me right now. I appreciate it. I'm not going to screw that up by jumping into bed with him."

"But you have feelings for him," Ethan said, grabbing a beer out of the fridge and then sitting at the dining room table.

Lydia set Kristy down with her hot dogs and then, after grabbing a bottle of water, sat down at the table beside Ethan, "Sure. I do. He's a good guy. But I am not going to screw this up. Do you know how long it's been since someone of the opposite gender even looked my way? I haven't had a single date since I got pregnant with Kristy. Nobody's interested. My hormones are going crazy and yeah, I want to jump him. But I'm not going to jeopardize everything for that. My daughter deserves better. She deserves people who are going to protect her."

"This is just bullshit," Isaac piped up, leaning against the dining room wall. "I mean, the two of you want each other. Anybody with a working werewolf nose can tell, too. Neither one of you are fooling anybody. I don't see why not just admit it and move on from there."

Lydia licked her lips absentmindedly, "I'm afraid, okay?!" she snapped. She sighed and then looked at Ethan, then Isaac in turn. "I haven't been involved with anyone since I got pregnant with Kristy. Aiden...well, he really messed me up. I just worry. I don't even know if I'm gonna stay in Beacon Hills after this whole mess gets straightened out. I want to finish my doctorate, and I'm even thinking about going into teaching, but I haven't made my mind up yet. What happens if Stiles and I get involved, get really serious, and then I decide I don't want to be here anymore? I mean, I can't do that to Stiles. I was enough of a bitch to him in high school, I can't break his heart any more than that. I just can't do it."

It became so quiet in that room that you could hear a pin drop. Ethan and Isaac looked uncomfortably at each other, and then at Lydia, before Ethan said, "Sorry, Lydia. I didn't mean to push. I just want to see you happy."

"I don't know if that's even going to happen," Lydia answered honestly. She took a drink of her water before adding, "I like him, you're right. I want something with him." It felt really good to admit that to someone other than herself. "I really want something with him. And Stiles – he's a good guy. He's always been a good guy. I just...I don't want to hurt him."

"So you're going to suffer in silence?" Isaac asked.

"Look, guys, I appreciate that you're trying to play matchmaker between me and Stiles. It's actually kind of sweet. But it's just not happening."

Isaac nodded as Ethan said, "Okay. I'll drop it." But somehow, that didn't really make Lydia feel satisfied either.

-x-

"God, it's good to see your face," Erica said to Lydia over Skype that night. "You look good, Lyds. How've you been? How's Kristy?"

"She's fine," Lydia answered. "She's sleeping. I went over and saw Ethan today and she kind of wore herself out."

"Really?" Erica said, sounding surprised. "You actually went and saw Ethan?"

"Why does everybody keep asking me that?" Lydia said, mostly to herself. "Yes, I went and saw Ethan. Isaac, Ethan and I spent time together, we bonded with Kristy, and when she was taking a nap, we played a few rounds of Halo."

"A video game?" Erica asked incredulously. "Seriously, Lydia Martin voluntarily played a video game? After years of Boyd and I constantly bugging you to play with us?"

Lydia shrugged, "Sure. I mean, why not? It was fun."

"Okay, who are you and what have you done with Lydia?" Erica asked sarcastically.

"Believe it or not, Erica, that is not why I called you."

"I'd love it if you'd tell me why, then," Erica answered.

"Stiles," Lydia said. Erica just watched her.

"Yeah, Lyds, I'm gonna need a little more," Erica said. "What about him?"

"I have feelings for him. I'm trying hard as hell to keep it as platonic as possible. I could use a few platonic human friends, you know? But it's getting harder every day. Not to mention, Kristy fucking adores him. Actually, she's really taken a liking to most of the pack. I just…I don't know what to do, Eri."

"I think you should do what feels right," Erica said. Lydia sighed in frustration.

"That tells me absolutely nothing."

"Why not ask him out? I mean, the worst that can happen is that he says no."

"Actually, that's not true and you know it," Lydia said. "Stiles is in love with me. I was sure that he'd moved on when I first got here, but I've noticed the way that he looks at me. He's even mentioned that his crush never went away totally, but I'm…I'm in like with him. I'm not in love with him, not yet, but I like him a lot and I just…I don't want to jeopardize anything."

"Well, talk it out with me," Erica said, taking a drink of the soda she had next to her. "Maybe I can help you understand what you're thinking and feeling."

So Lydia started talking. She started talking about how her feelings for Stiles were growing, about how she wanted to be with him. She told her what she had told Isaac and Ethan earlier that afternoon, and how she wanted nothing more than to be together with him, but didn't want to hurt him. Even though they never got together in high school, Stiles was a good guy and he was loyal and always made sure that she was protected. She was so fucking confused.

Her phone buzzed with a text, so she checked it and saw a text from Scott. Stiles is staying in LA 2nite, it said. Ally & I are coming over to stay with u and Kristy.

"Great," Lydia mumbled. When Erica asked was going on, Lydia told her that Scott was coming over to babysit her and Kristy that night.

"They care about you, Lyds," Erica said. "Scott's really trying, you know. Despite what anybody thought about him being the True Alpha, he's actually really good at it. He's taken to it amazingly. I hear that even Peter's in his pack."

"Ugh," Lydia groaned. "Don't even talk to me about Peter Hale right now."

Erica looked confused, so Lydia added, "Eri, Peter Hale and my mom are a thing."

"What kinda thing?"

"A serious thing, with a capital T," Lydia groaned. "They're, like, dating or something. Derek said he's fucking courting her. Do you realize what this means?"

"That if Peter and your mom get any more serious, there's a serious risk of Peter becoming your new dad?"

Lydia groaned, "Ugh. Just shoot me now."

"Look, back to your situation with Stiles," Erica said, deciding it was best to change the subject. It was always best to change the subject when someone brought up Peter Hale to Lydia. "Lyds you need to ask him out. You deserve to be happy, and so does Stiles. I think the two of you would go well together."

Lydia bit her bottom lip and was silent for a few moments before she said, "Fine. When he comes back tomorrow, I'll ask him out. I can't take the goddamn peer pressure."

Erica just smiled sweetly, "You know that I'm only doing what's best for you. And don't worry – you'll thank me later."