Ohh, goodness. Usually I like to build a little more suspense before a final chapter, but man, you guys brought it with the reviews last time. You've earned this.
It's also interesting to know that you don't draw the line at blood rituals - you guys do realize you're encouraging me to go even darker and more disturbing with my stories, right? It's also interesting to see how you all react to what I write. Sometimes when I'm writing I don't even think about how the audience will react, but apparently when I kill both Scott and Stiles in one move, well, that gets you to sit up and take notice. Good to know.
(Also, in response to CMR, my crossover OTP is probably Crazy Spencer WITH Crazy Stiles. Have you seen the thing on Tumblr where Stiles hallucinates Spencer and they totally become friends and it's the most adorable thing ever?)
Anyway. Final chapter. Here we go. Reviews make me do a little happy dance (internally) and also keep my muse happy, so don't forget to let me know your thoughts. Here you go!
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.
The Other Side.
It's dark, and it's cold, and there's a background noise like breaking waves. The only ones around are Scott and Stiles, walking through the endless night. Their footsteps don't make a sound.
.
"Wait," Scott says suddenly.
Stiles keeps walking.
"Stop." Scott jogs to catch up with him, dragging his friend back. "Look."
Ahead of them is a forest, thick trees rising up from the ground like towers, barely visible in the gloom.
"How do we get around it?" Scott asks softly, a hint of fear in his voice. "It looks like it goes on forever."
"It does." Stiles squares his shoulders, grits his teeth, and marches forward. "We don't go around it. We go through it."
And without a backward glance he strides into the trees.
.
Darkness.
Whispers.
Coldness.
.
After what feels like a lifetime, the trees thin and eventually end, and Stiles steps out into pale moonlight. A firefly flits past his face, landing in the grass a few feet away. A hundred more flutter in the air above his head, silhouetted against the sky and looking like stars themselves.
Stiles feels Scott come up behind him, senses anger dissipating. Wonder takes its place, and awe, and a sense of being –
"… scared?"
The boys share a look.
Neither of them had spoken.
.
The voice is distant, female, vaguely familiar but distorted by time and space.
And then the speaker slips out from the trees.
And she's not alone.
.
One by one the stars wink out, but the light from the fireflies illuminates the clearing.
In the pale golden light, Lydia looks like a goddess.
And Allison?
She looks like a ghost.
.
For an eternity, nobody moves.
And then Stiles breaks out of his trance and stumbles forward. Lydia moves to meet him, and he's reaching for her, and –
She slaps him.
.
"What the hell?" Stiles gasps, his hand flying to his face. It doesn't hurt, but he can feel the ghost of her touch.
Ghost being the operative word.
.
.
"Stiles," Lydia says tersely, "you are the stupidest, most irresponsible guy I have ever met. I saw that spell, and you -"
.
"I missed you too," Stiles says quietly.
Lydia's words shudder to a stop.
And then she's kissing him.
.
Stiles has been in love with Lydia for years. He's kissed her before – they even tried dating once – but he'd never imagined anything like this.
Kissing Lydia Martin in the afterlife is nothing short of magickal.
.
After reunions, the four of them retire to the edge of the clearing, settling down on logs and boulders and on the dew-wet grass.
Now he's here, Stiles doesn't know what to say. Here they are, reunited, and he's as tongue-tied as he was the first time he saw her.
.
Lydia breaks the silence. "It wasn't me."
.
The words have no effect on Stiles. "I know," he says, and Lydia blinks in surprise. "Your ghost would never have been that helpful."
For a split second Lydia laughs, and Stiles gets lost in a sound he thought he'd never hear again. He glances over at Scott, who's watching Allison intently, and then the two of them share a smile. Stiles can't remember the last time they were all together like this.
The laughter fades away and Lydia bites her lip. "Then why did you –"
"- let a hallucination lead me into the afterlife?" Stiles supplies, and Lydia's mouth twitches into something almost like a smile. "Why do you think?"
She ducks her head and says no more on the issue.
.
Scott narrows his eyes, shifting his attention from Allison and back to Stiles. "What are you talking about?"
"Remember that time I said I saw Lydia?" Stiles says, not looking at Scott, although he can feel his friend stiffen beside him. "Well, it wasn't just once."
Scott leans forward, resting his head in his hands. "So that's how you knew which spell to do."
"And when to do it," Stiles says, and this catches the other three by surprise.
"What do you mean?" Allison asks, raising an eyebrow.
"Today's Halloween," Stiles replies, as if that answers everything. When he sees that it doesn't, he clarifies, "Also known as Samhain."
He pronounces it Sam-hain and Lydia flinches.
"Samhain," she says, pronouncing it as Sowen, and Stiles rolls his eyes.
"That's great," Allison says, "but does anyone want to explain what that is?"
"It's a pagan festival," Lydia says promptly. "Traditionally viewed as the time when -"
She cuts herself off, only just catching on. Her eyes widen.
"The time when the veil between worlds is thinnest," Stiles finishes. "The only time we could get through to you."
"When you say 'get through'…" Allison trails off, looking quizzically at Scott. "You didn't just cast a spell so you could see us? You actually… "
"Yeah," he says sheepishly, "we, uh, we had to die."
She slaps him.
.
They talk for another hour. Or two. Or a thousand. Time doesn't seem to mean a thing here. The stars don't move, the sun doesn't rise, nothing changes but the four people gathered in a clearing full of fireflies and false hope.
Lydia had been the one to watch the spell; Allison had been elsewhere in the afterlife, and had only received a jumbled explanation on the way to find the boys. She'd assumed they just cast a spell to see the afterlife, not actually be in it, and god, Stiles wishes it had been that easy.
.
"You need to go back," Lydia says at last. She's leaning her head on Stiles' shoulder and he's stroking her hair, a strange sensation for two people who are technically dead, but it feels oddly right.
"She's right," Allison pipes up from her place beside Scott. They're not touching, since Scott is still with Kira, but they're so close a breath of wind could cause them to tumble into each other. "You can't stay here."
"And neither can you." Stiles nudges Lydia so she sits up, and then he looks into her eyes. "You have to come back."
"I can't." Her voice is quiet, but her eyes are determined. "It was a natural death, Stiles. We can't fix that."
Something in Stiles' mind begins to shiver. Natural death. He'd forgotten. Honest to god, he'd forgotten that Lydia hadn't been killed by some supernatural entity. It seems that's all that ever happens in their lives.
"But we can fix it," Scott says passionately. In the time they've been here, he's managed to talk himself into being on Stiles' side – into literally thwarting death in order to get his friends back. "You can come back through with us."
"It won't work," Lydia argues. "The spell you used, it was only to bring you through, wasn't it?"
Reluctantly, Stiles nods.
"Which means it will only work to bring you two back."
The boys share a look.
"What?" Allison asks suspiciously.
"I was the one who did the spell," Stiles admits. "Scott kind of… hitchhiked."
They all turn to Lydia, who made a small squeaking noise. Stiles raises his eyebrows in a silent question, and Lydia shakes her head silently. Then she says, "Stiles, if you were the only one who did the spell… then that means you're the only one who can leave."
.
As soon as the words are spoken, the spell begins to shimmer. Stiles can see it, can feel it, can tell there isn't much time. The fireflies begin to quiver, until eventually, one by one, they drift away. The sky begins to lighten, preparing for the coming dawn.
The clearing is deathly silent.
.
"No." Stiles stares at Lydia, begging her to understand. "We didn't come all this way just to have to say goodbye. I can't lose you again, Lyds. Please -"
She cuts him off with a kiss, but they both know it's a farewell.
"Wait," Allison says suddenly. "I have an idea."
.
Samhain.
Halloween.
The time when the veils between the worlds are thinnest.
The only time when something this crazy could actually work.
.
It takes another hour of discussion for them to all agree. The sun has risen, but the stars haven't faded, leaving behind a bizarre composite sky – neither night nor day but in between.
Slowly, the group stands up, and they start making their way back into the forest.
.
It seems smaller than it was before, and takes merely a minute to pass through.
.
On the other side, they can see the veil. The spell was magnified, using the natural magic of Samhain, and it just might be enough to get them all through. The girls were reluctant about coming back, but it was the only way they could get Stiles and Scott to leave.
The four of them stand in front of the veil, waiting, watching, thinking, hoping –
.
With a crack like thunder, the veil disappears.
.
A rush of wind knocks them off their feet. Stiles reaches blindly, grabbing onto Lydia's hand, and she squeezes back as hard as she can. They can hear Scott's cry of surprise and Allison's yelp as the two groups are separated.
The wind begins to swirl, lifting up grass and dew and even the fireflies, spinning faster and faster until it becomes a vortex –
.
The sound of breaking waves becomes unbearably loud.
.
The pressure of the wind threatens to crush them all, pinning them down.
.
The light from the fireflies bleeds into each other to become a blinding blur.
.
Then another crack of thunder splits the world in two, and Stiles feels himself ripped to his feet and thrown forward by some unseen cosmic hand.
.
Compared to this, dying was nothing.
.
When Stiles finally opens his eyes he sees the veil in front of him, flickering faintly, until it disappears altogether. The sun is slipping over the horizon, spilling pale rays of pink and yellow across the sky.
Beside him, he can feel Lydia trembling. He reaches for her, relieved to find that she's undeniably real. He looks around for the others, but he doesn't see them.
They realize it at the same time.
.
"The veil separated us."
.
"Scott and Allison are on the other side."
.
Lydia stumbles to her feet, dusts some dirt off her knees, and pulls Stiles up too. They look around them, realizing that this place is unfamiliar and vaguely menacing.
.
Samhain is over.
The veil is out of reach.
Scott and Allison are gone.
.
"Stiles," Lydia says slowly as they stare at the place the veil had been, "are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Yeah." Stiles glances at her, and then back at the empty space where the veil used to be. And then he asks the question that neither of them can stand to hear the answer to.
.
"Which side of the veil are we on?"
.
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Cliffhangers are my favorite thing.
As always I'm accepting prompts, but only one-shots at this stage (and it may be a little slower than usual because of NaNo). I will be publishing my mystery one-shot sometime this week, so stay tuned for that.
I hope you enjoyed, and I hope to see you all in the reviews!