Barging in on the lonesome commiseration of her 30th birthday, Deputy Sheriff Mieczyslaw Stilinski crosses paths with Lydia Martin with the intention of honoring her parents, but intentions are ineffective when he blunders the execution because he's awestruck. And if he's being completely honest, he honestly doesn't want to leave the property grounds if it means he can never come back.
Act 1, Scene 2 - Stiles & Lydia
Hours have passed since sunset but thanks to busted heating the attic stayed warm. Stifling even. Worn rugs overlap the floor, either soundproofing or insulation. Warm tones cover everywhere from art to clippings and age withered handwritten notes. On one side of the snug space there's a modern leaning desk and on the other side a smaller antiquated desk inundated with notebooks. Several mismatched chairs are throughout the place of varying levels of comfort which is great since his ass has gone through varying levels of numb since the beginning of this search. Sweaty brow bent to the task, with sleeves rolled up past the elbow, he's spent hours combing through anything resembling heroic memorabilia. Divided minds occupy this haunted place with overlapping debris; books and boxes, colorful pens and post-its, outdated calendars and obsolete electronic bits, colorful character highlights notches in time. It's intricate, interesting but overwhelming too. Stiles isn't sure what he's looking for anymore. He can't find a photo, a medal, a plaque, or a single object showing proof of Chris Argent's military background. He knew the man took the secret part of his government service seriously, but he didn't expect it to be quite as severe. From the looks of things Stiles is not sure Chris' family even knew what he did for a living? Although his daughter wasn't surprised when someone from the service sought to go through Chris' for a mortuary tribute.
It's been a few days, and it didn't look like the homeowner is interested in helping out. That detached look in her eyes when he first arrived on her doorstep conveyed no interest in helping. Thankfully, she wasn't interested in stopping him either. Since then, his only company has been the clanging of pipes. It's been hours, and she hasn't check up on him, hasn't offered food or drink, hasn't even checked to see if he died of heat stroke. Not that he's complaining since he's stumbled upon something amazing other than a tribute to her late super spy stepfather.
It's getting half-past one in the morning, if the clock on the wall has anything to say about it, he's late and supposed to be across town. Dusting off his jeans, he grabs his jacket and backpack and bounds down the stairs, hopping over the last two. The place is so quiet for a moment he thinks she's gone to bed until he catches onto the tail end of a conversation outside.
Cool, he won't have to uncomfortably wake her to lock up behind him but maybe it's not so cool to interrupt. He tries to slip through the unfortunately squeaky front porch door.
"What?" she's taken aback, like she's either embarrassed or forgotten he's there.
"I'm so sorry." Glancing around he only sees a phone facing upwards, an open champagne bottle but no clue who she's talking to. Must be some important phone call. "Did I interrupt you? Were you on a call?"
"No. What are you up to now?" She noticeably adjusts to sound civil.
"Leaving. I didn't realize it got so late. I've got to leave it here for tonight."
"Yeah, great," nodding she fakes a smile of interest, and he sees it doesn't meet her eyes. There's puffiness there and her cheeks are moist. Something doesn't add up.
The screen door bangs behind him although he moves cautiously down the porch steps towards her. Placing his stuff temporarily on a lawn chair, he leans over to take a close look at the bottle. It looks crazy expensive.
"Oh, are you celebrating something?"
"What?"
"Champagne. It's a festive drink, you know." He makes an awkward party gesture, pointing his index fingers slightly towards the air with a little wiggly and swaying his hips just a little.
She white-knuckle grips the bottle, "no, I just like drinking champagne."
"That looks like a pretty expensive bottle," from the soft scoff he gets in reply he knows he's right.
"I have expensive tastes." After turning the bottle in hand, she leans forward and places it onto the table with weightiness and pushes it towards him. "Have some."
"Sure," a surprisingly pleasant response, and a unique opportunity, so he pounces on it. Savors it. For a moment because he is supposed to be somewhere else, and not drinking with the teaches' daughter. "Ohh, good stuff." She pulls a weird expression seeing him cut off so quickly, "it's just I'm driving, you know."
"Ah, you can take it with you."
"Nah, that's nice of you but-"
"It's fine. I'm done with it."
"Are you sure because it seems like this isn't the kind of thing that you just pass on, I mean it looks kind of, you know," he keeps stumbling on what he means. The cost of the bottle is inconsequential, he just can't shake the vibe that he's interrupting.
"Agent Stilinski-"
"Ah, no I didn't stay with the service. After my dad's stroke, I transferred out to work with him. But I loved learning from here and when I got the call back home, it seemed like an easy fit to use my experience at Quantico to apply to the Sheriff's office. Over there I'd be an officer, well technically Deputy Sheriff Mieczyslaw Stilinski, but Stiles works."
"I'm sorry," pulling the prettiest clueless expression while adding the haughtiest tone, "I wasn't really listening past you're 'not in the service.' So, what's a Stiles anyway? Is any of that important?"
"I just meant I am, you can call me Stiles. My friends call me that."
"Do they hate you?"
"No. Why?"
"It's a horrible nickname," she says critically but with no malice. She really doesn't miss a mark just like her parents, she knows how to keep him on guard.
"Ookay, I'll just be off," Stiles blows out air like steam engine, mentally resetting himself. "When can I come back?"
"Come back? Why?"
"It's a lot of stuff for an attic. It's like a Tardis, seems small but is bigger on the inside. You know what I mean—never mind, I'm just nowhere near finished. Can I come by tomorrow?"
"We have the funeral tomorrow."
"God, you're right," he covers his mouth in embarrassment, but it doesn't prevent his face from reddening. He hopes maybe it's not obvious in the dimness of the evening. "I was going to attend that, if it's alright."
"Sure," if the blunder bothers her, she doesn't outwardly show it. The funeral was unlikely to be a private affair anyway, but he figures it would only benefit him to earn brownie points.
"What about Sunday? Will you be around then?"
This definitely triggers annoyance that reads in saltiness of her tone, "Stiles, you've had three days. You seem like a smart guy, if you were looking for something to commemorate Chris and you didn't find it before the funeral, what logical sense does it make for me to let you keep digging up there after he's buried?"
"I-I just- I didn't think of that."
Her eyes brighten in cunning, "why don't you tell me what you're really looking for?"
"I'm not lying, honest to God, Ms. Argent." It doesn't matter how quickly his mouth snapped shut because he can't turn back time.
"Ms. Argent is my sister, Allison. I'm Lydia."
Any brownie points he'd earned were evaporated.
"I knew that. I totally knew that, but I like-I was trying to be respectful you know. And I just wanted another week at least."
"Are you joking?"
"No?" with a shrug, like an earnest surrender to but she looks straight through it. "You know how much stuff is up there."
"A week?" bitterness hardens the line of her mouth.
"I know you don't need me in your hair right now," sighing, he chances it, and drops into the seat beside her. "Look, I've struggled to spend the last week getting everything divvied up and-."
"Why are you trying so hard?"
"Lots of people cared for both your parents. It might be too late to have something for the service but acknowledging their work, it can do real good for-"
"Good for who exactly?" Leaning forward, she props her chin on her the palm of her hand and challenges him.
"It can be healing."
"No. There's nothing like that up there, and you know it. I've humored you enough."
He studies her face, she's clever by a half but he has to ask, "if there's nothing up there why did you let me look?"
"Because I'm not an idiot. I know enough about Chris that if you didn't look someone else would."
He laughs lightly and looks away, reminded of his status. He's a stranger, an intruder with nothing to show for his presence, "that's true, I guess. But I still feel like I've only scratched the surface, you know there are so many notebooks labelled and dated I haven't even had a chance to looks through."
"Why would you touch those?" she grounds out the words with an ire he's surprised she's capable of, she looked so tired seconds before "those aren't Chris,' and you know it."
Now he's done it. His face screws up in discomfort, "well, right about that. I just think with your mom gone, no one's acknowledged her work either. And since your dad's memorial will be lowkey I thought it'd only be fair-"
"Fair to who?" Distrust threads like a coil throughout her words, and she's within her rights. "Neither of them would want you to go through her things."
"I'm not going to take anything," he quickly assures her. The spark of anger in her eyes is so fast he has to sit back.
"Nothing is in those books. They're garbage."
"Yeah, but there's a hundred and three books," he gently insists.
"I've looked through all of them," she shakes her head in brisk denial. "They're gibberish."
"Someone should read them," he stifles a sigh, barely.
The pause before she speaks is palpable. "She was crazy."
"Sure, sometimes… But the Natalie Martin still wrote them."
"Do you know what a graphomaniac is, Agent?"
"I know she wrote compulsively and call me 'Stiles.'"
Leaning back, she looks briefly towards the sky like she's searching for the right words to get across to an idiot. "It means there's no connection between thoughts and ideas." She spins a finger around her left temple, the universal symbol for 'a screw loose.' "There's just no idea up here, it's like monkeys on a typewriter. It's a hundred and three notebooks of bullshit."
"Let's make sure they're not bullshit," scoots closer, he's stubborn, like a puppy with a chew toy.
"I am sure," she's apparently unfazed by puppies.
"I'm prepared to look at every page," he pleads keenly, "Are you?"
"No," she tsks, and shifts away in her chair, "because I'm not crazy."
They've reached a stalemate. 'Crazy' The ugly word is inarguable. He sees the time on her cellphone from the corner of his eye and hates that he's got to go. There's much more he'd like to say to her.
"Well, I'm going to be late," getting to his feet, he grabs his backpack, and rethinks. "Some old friends are having a kind of band reunion. They're playing across town at 1:30."
"AM?" The pitched surprise in her tone is comical and they share a brief smile.
"Yeah, they're rough so they're lowdown on the bill but they're still good, at least I think they're. I said I'd be there. They play mostly covers of but they close out with a punk version of The Police's 'I'll Be Watching You'."
"Are they also a bunch of Agents?" She's slow to process her amusement as he nods enthusiastically, "are they trying to be ironic?"
"You can see why they're way down on the bill."
"I'll pass. It's a long drive to see a bunch of nerds," but her whisper of a smile remains.
"Raging nerds," he concedes and turns to walk away before swiveling back once more. "You know, I hate it when people say that. It's not that long a drive. I could drive us there and back in less than thirty minutes."
"So, nerds that are somehow worth it?
"Oh, they're great nerds," he flashes a bright contagious grin and proceeds to babble, "They dress themselves, hold down high-profile career jobs, some of them have even switched from glasses to contacts. They're athletic, play in a band, some get laid surprisingly often, so in that sense it sort of makes you question the whole set of terms: nerds, geeks, dweebs, paste-eater."
"You're in the band, aren't you?" She reads him like a book.
"Okay, yes," he bobs his head, expression twisted in reflection. "I play drums. You want to come. I never sing, I swear to God." He pledges scouts' honor with his right hand.
"I'm going to pass."
"Alright look, Lydia. How 'bout Monday, what do you say?"
"Don't you have a job to get back home to, Officer?"
"It's Stiles," undeterred, he reminds her but she's not wrong. Giving it a think, he rubs at the back of his neck. The night's breeze is a contrasting chills creeping over his skin, while that overheated claustrophobic attic-office still somehow felt like a clarion call. It's long past the time to go, but man, he really wants to stay. "Sure, I do. I have some time to sort things out."
"Plus, for band practice."
"Yeah, I guess I don't have time for this tonight," he sighs, his shoulders slump temporarily conceding, his right-hand crosses to rub warmth into his left arm. Body language that isn't completely closed off, but those large drummer's hands keep readjusting, "But I'd like to come back I you'll let me. Look, I loved them, your parents. I'd like to do right by them. Your mom especially and I don't believe that a mind like hers can just shut down. She had lucid moments when she was still teaching, she seemed okay. And what about when she was okay for a year around six years ago—"
"She wasn't as okay as you seem to remember," rising from her chair, she cuts in sharply. Not moving towards him, but he leans away just the same. "And it wasn't a year. It was at most nine months." The correction feels bitter.
"That tracks. Just enough time to advise students. I remember her clearly, I was almost done with my Bachelor's, but I was so close to dropping Analytics, it would have lowered my GPA and diminished my chances at an internship at Quantico. But then your mom kind of mentored me and was also nice enough to recommended me to your dad— I owe your parents so much. If I hadn't met them my career would have been hugely different. I would have been such a disappointment to my pops."
It's like he can't stop the word vomit. Each time he notices the volume, he quiets but gets emotional again before he remembers—Lydia isn't a Chris Argent and Natalie Martin's fangirl. She's their eldest daughter. She loves them, too. She loves them differently than you.
"Somehow, I doubt that" her distant politeness makes him feel awkward.
"Ok, maybe not. I am pretty awesome. Look, just let me do this - your thirty, right?"
"How old are you?" she purses her lips in sizeable annoyance.
"Doesn't matter," he waves away her retort like a busy moth. "Just listen."
"It matters to me, how old are you?"
"I'm twenty-eight, alright," he huffs in frustration but perseveres. "When your mom was younger than both of us, she made major contributions in three fields: game fields, algebraic geometry, and nonlinear operative theory." Her brows rose minutely in curiosity. "Most of us never get our head around one. Basically, inventing mathematical techniques for studying rational behavior, not to mention giving astrophysics a run for their money. Despite unfairly having to use her husband's pen name just to publish."
"Don't you lecture me," she says quietly over the distance, yet the four warning words make him shudder.
"I'm not, I swear!" After wiping distress from his face, he breathes out easing significantly but it's not the tone, it's the words, because words should matter, dammit. "I'm saying if I produced a tenth of what your parents worked to put out into the world, shit just what your mom produced I could have written my ticket for life."
The earlier temperature shift was nothing compared to her glare turning icy.
"Give me your backpack," another four words that shocks him. She sounds ready to fight.
"Wait-what?!"
"Give me your backpack," she skirts the table and crosses across the divide.
"Why?"
"I want to look inside," sounds simple enough.
"For what?" On instinct he twists the straps of his backpack like a child.
"If you have nothing to hide," her voice is melodic in its menace, "then you have no problem showing. Open it and give it to me."
"Oh, come on," he stands to full height, glancing over his shoulder across the lawn towards his getaway Jeep. No, his regular Jeep.
"You're not taking a damn thing from my home."
"The hell? I wouldn't do that!"
"You were hoping to find something upstairs you could put your name on and claim. Either publish or release in your name so you can 'write your ticket'." She goads him, using his turn of phrase against him. Well, that's mildly incriminating.
"No, no way! It would be under your mom's name. It would be for them." This sounds more incriminating; he hears it too late and bites his lip to prevent anymore word vomit.
"I don't believe you," her voice smooth, like a silken rope tying a nose. "I bet you have a notebook in your backpack."
"What are you talking about?" He feels small, despite standing taller than her anger bottled in a frame of 5'3". She intimidates him more than he wants to admit so his tone is both defensive and mildly panicked.
"Give it to me." With a flick of her wrist, she reaches and hooks her finger under a strap of his backpack.
"You're being paranoid." He shrugs over and over, but she doesn't come loose.
"Paranoid?" She flinches at the description, it's enough for him to squirm and stumble backwards out of the interrogatory overhead porch light.
"Maybe a little."
"Fuck you, Stiles!" She advances, her stride is predatory. "I just know you took something from the attic."
"You need to calm down and think about what you're saying. It sounds nuts." This is definitely the wrong choice of words. Like a shield between them, he clutches the backpack to his chest. He doesn't want to believe she can be violent but the vibes he's getting are downright terrifying.
"Did you just call me nuts?"
"Poor choice of words, I swear." He sighs deeply, squeezing his eyes shut briefly as he tries again. "Just take a breather. Just think about what you're saying."
"I'm saying you are lying and stealing my family's property."
"And I definitely think that sounds paranoid."
"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean there's not something in that backpack."
"Lydia," he says her name as calmly as he can. He says her name like it's the nicest word in the English language and if he repeats it enough it'll cast a spell on her. "You said it yourself, there's nothing up there. Didn't you?"
"I-" Her mouth drops open, she examines his face, searching for an argument but this makes sense. Of course it does, he's using her logic against her.
"Didn't you say that?"
"Yes." It seems for the first time; she's noticed the abject fear in him, and it gives her pause.
"So, what could I possibly take? Right?"
Gnawing her lips in thought, a stillness settles in again, that aching noiselessness he shattered when he first stepped onto the porch. Tightening her arms across her chest, almost seeming embarrassed, she looks skyward avoiding eye contact. He opens his mouth a few times to ask if she's alright, but the words never pass his lips. He follows her gaze and sees through the clearness of clouds toward the glittering features in the air but there's emptiness even in those stale satellite lights overhead. It feels like nothing can go right tonight.
"Uhm, you're right," her voice is calm and easy.
"Thanks," he smiles softly, she tries to match it but it's weak.
"Then you don't have a reason to come back," There's nothing left to say.
"I mean, I can stay a little longer," he suggests, drawn to loneliness there. It wasn't supposed to sound like a favor so he quickly corrects, "I can star gaze with you."
Looking rather irritably, she glances around the front yard like there are superior options to him, then toes the grassy lawn underfoot, "leave it alone. There are no stars around here. Things are just dark and there's nothing wrong with that."
"I guess not," Stiles considers for a moment, trying to imagine what's rattling through her head. He sighs, unable to disguise his frustration. "Please, someone should inspect and know for sure whether-"
"We lived with her," she explains frankly, like it's the clearest argument and he's an idiot for not knowing. "For years I lived with her every single day. Fed her. Talked to her, listened to her when she talked to people that weren't there. I watched her shuffle around like a ghost. A very smelly ghost. She somehow always got filthy. I had to bath her, brush her hair, brush her teeth, my own mother. At the end Chris and I cared for her, day in and day out."
"I'm sorry," there's no defending it but he tries. "I shouldn't have."
"When we were younger Chris would disappear for ages," like a nerve triggered, bitterness weaves through her words. As the son of an officer himself, he's familiar, military family get the short end of the stick every time. "Off on classified assignments, and it would leave me, just me. I tried to keep her happy with whatever project she started no matter how idiotic. She used to read all day, and she kept demanding more and more books. I made a deal to buy from students secondhand and I couldn't keep up and still I'd have to borrow from the library by cartloads, we have hundreds left over upstairs. Then I realized she wasn't reading: she believed aliens were sending messages through the ISBN numbers, so she was trying to work out the code."
"What kind of messages?" there's some perversion in even asking but he just wants to help.
"Beautiful mathematics," her memories sound bittersweet. "The most elegant proofs, perfect proofs, proofs like music."
"Sounds amazing," in the pitch-black night, it's unobserved when his dark eyes go tender. He envisions what it's like to share space with such a genius. Lydia's clever and her mom's special, their shared language must be something spellbinding.
"Plus, fashion tips," she addendums, "Animal training advice. Knock-knock jokes, I mean it! She was nuts, okay?" Again, she tightens her arms, like curling in on herself protection from the bleakness of the memory.
"She was sick. It was tragic," gingerly he reaches reassure her with a gentle arm squeeze, instead keeps his hand planted, like this could ground her.
"Later," sounding forceful, those eyes are quite bright in the casting shadows. "There was the writing phase: scribbling nineteen, twenty hours a day. I ordered cases of notebooks, and she used all of them. Just to keep up I dropped out of school. I'm glad she's dead." The words land flat. She means them. She doesn't care who knows it.
"I understand why you'd feel that way," his self-disciple trained his expression and his hand on her shoulder rubs warmth down along her arm.
"Fuck you," she shrugs off his hold but stays glaring.
"You're right," closing his eyes, he lets out a little groan. Why has he said such a dumb thing? "I can't imagine dealing with that. It must have been awful. I know you—"
"You don't know me," she's riling back up and ready for a fight. "I want to finally be left alone and have my home to myself without someone prowling around at all hours!"
"All hours? I didn't think I was around that much—"
"Not you, him!"
"Him, who?" he gives the grounds a cursory glance.
Suddenly, she's incredibly quiet, then moves away towards the table, one hand barely tracing the edge like skating on ice. She's already a world away. "It doesn't matter. I just don't want you here."
"Why?" he can't help but tiptoe in her wake, God knows why.
"He's dead," her gaze is trained on the table, but doesn't feel like him she's avoiding. It's something weighing heavier. "They're both finally gone."
"I'm not. I can be here."
Rolling her eyes, she doesn't need to mull it over, "I don't need protégés haunting this place."
"There will be others," he indelicately reminds.
"What?"
As late as he's getting, Stiles feels obligated to remind her. "Chris' finally passing raised interest in the work your parents did." She looks mind-boggled to have to argue finer points of her father's secret work being picked apart when it's meant to be a secret, but that is short-sightedness. "Someone's going to want to read those notebooks."
"Then I'll do it," she sniffs shortly.
"Nah, you'll just-"
"They're my parents, I know what their work looks like. I'll do it."
Her voice has certainty to it, and he hates to say it, he really does but the reality is-
"You can't."
"Why not?" It's like a caffeine infusion, she's viperously alert.
"I mean, realistically you don't have the clearance. You weren't even trained in their fields."
"You don't have the clearance either," she reminds snappishly.
"Okay, sure," he rubs at his temple he tries to block the oncoming tension headache. "But I have the connections. And you weren't taught the math. All those squiggles on a page, you wouldn't know the good stuff from the junk."
"It's all junk," she sulks, refusing to change her opinion. Uncomfortably, she shifts from foot-to-foot, like the ground beneath her is unsteady and she's digging her fingers into her arms to hold fast.
"Ookkay," Stiles isn't sure how to approach. Although dimness in her eyes has been growing due to grief, there's embers of a fire there. "Lydia, it's not like you can afford to miss anything through carelessness."
"Are you calling me careless?"
There's that fire.
"No!" his braces for impact, trying to think of a retort but there's just white noise between his ears.
"I know mathematics," she says like she knows her own name.
"I didn't say you didn't. I mean, I'd assume you did- but if there is anything up there it's going to be pretty high order. It would take a trained professional."
"I could do it," her tone is unchanged.
Nodding a few times, Stiles ponders the winningest argument. "I know you were close with your mom, I'm sure she taught you some stuff but—"
"You don't think I can do it," her upper lip curls with no humor.
"Wha-I never-I didn't say that! I'm saying your mom's work was unparalleled, so there's you know, no parallel. And well uhm, I think outside of academia-" he's not sure how she's done it but with just a look it feels like she's stolen all his air. Or maybe both, because for a full beat nothing happens, just the resonance of nearby cars passing over wet asphalt.
Quick as flash, Lydia rushes forward, loops her small hand through a backpack strap and yanks it forwards.
"Hey! Come on." he argues in vain because she's already skipped backwards and put the fullness of the table between them. She pulls it open and rifles through it like she's unobserved. "This isn't an airport."
There's a pathology to the way she takes each item out, quickly, firmly and turns them over for inspection despite it never being the thing she's looking for. One at a time, a water bottle. Workout clothes, an orange. Portable charger. Drumsticks. Nothing else. Closing her eyes she sighs, then puts everything back with less care. Not harshly but since she's no longer examining him as a thief and what does dignity matters in the way of grief. As she hands the backpack back, he almost thanks her on reflex but stifles it.
"You can come back tomorrow," she says in a tone that sounds very fucking foreign. Taking it back, Stiles rechecks everything (although he doesn't have to, he's killing time to figure something out). She's embarrassed. Damn, now he's embarrassed for noticing.
"You know, the Service," he clears his throat and continues subtly. "They have extended health services that's uh very good." This just feels too awkward and exposed, really. "They helped me out after my dad's stroke; I would get these panic attacks. Also, my work wasn't going that well here... I went over and talked to a doctor for a while. It really helped me sort things out."
"Good for you," her words are faded, like she's either distracted or preoccupied with the hedges over his shoulder than anything he's spewing. Makes sense, Stiles imagines he'll also want to dissolve into shadows if their positions were swapped. But there's a reason he can't let this lie.
"Also, exercise is great. When I used to live near a preserve, I'd go for a jog a couple of times a week, early in the morning, it was really nice. There's no place exactly like that here but I know where there's a lake to jog around. I think it's a great way to start the day, I could pick you up sometime. We wouldn't even have to talk…"
She cuts him off mercifully, "No thank you."
Heaving a sigh, he deflates and recalibrates. "All right. Well, I'm going to be late for the show. I better go. This is me, going." After she doesn't make a gesture to prevent him, he slinks along the stone path and gives a meek wave over his shoulder.
"Okay," Lydia says softly returning to the lawn chair, snuggling into her sweater tightly, tucking her feet beneath her, perching like a gargoyle. She watches after him instead of the sky and he pause mid-step.
"Hey, look it's seriously like twenty minutes up to the club," he calls over the distance from the garden gate. "We're only half-bad and we buy everyone drinks afterwards to make up for it. You're home by four, four-thirty, tops…"
She is openly smiling now, shaking her head in amusement, until she spots it. "Good night. Wait, your jacket."
"No, you don't have to—" and he's racing across the lawn, long legs tripping over at break-neck speed. Even with all his acclaimed practiced at running he can't teleport to her side quick enough.
The clattering sound of her mom's composition notebook falling from the folds of his jacket smacks down onto the table beside her just as her feet touch ground. She chuckles mirthlessly, reaching over to snatch up the familiar tome with her mom's looping chicken scratch. Although she stands still, she's visibly trembling from rage.
"Am I paranoid?"
"Wait."
"You think I should go jogging?"
"Just hold on."
"Get out!"
"Can I please just-"
"Get the fuck out of my house," she screams at him loud enough surely people several street over can hear them. Were he someone else with other motives, it makes sense to run away with his tail between his legs, but-
"Listen to me for just one minute," without realizing it his voice rises, too.
"You stole this!" she waves the book towards him, and he flinches.
"Well, not effectively," he tries for levity but can see it's a mistake when she's reaching for her phone.
"You stole it from me," she mutters angrily, scrolling through her contact to call - who? - she doesn't even know, "you stole from my mom!"
"Hold on," leaning forward, he stretches his long frame to its length, and snatches the book out of her grip. "I want to show you something, will you just calm down?"
"Screw this, I'm getting the cops," the blood pounding in her ears leaves her deaf to him, her face is flush, and her bare feet are starting to freeze. She paces away from him, up towards the porch where the light consumes her.
"Lydia, please, don't." Stiles pleads, thumbing through the pages swiftly he scrambles after her. "Look, I was just going to borrow the book, all right?" She stops short, nearly tripping him down a step, just so that she can roll her eyes at him. "I'm sorry, I just picked it up before I came downstairs, and I thought I'd-"
"Hello, police?" staying at arm's length, she keeps perfect eye contact with Stiles as she continues, "I – yes, I'd like to report a robbery in progress."
"I noticed something your mother wrote. All right? Not math, something she 'wrote' wrote," Stiles speaks fast like he's already running from the police. "Here, let me show you."
"Yes, a robbery," her voice strains from her open anger, but skepticism reads in the pinch of her brow.
"Will you put the fucking phone down and listen to me?" Stiles hisses desperately, stepping around the porch swinging towards her.
"Yes, I'm at 5724 South–" she ignores.
"She wrote about you. See?" He finds the page and holds it up while pointing directly to the dotted line. When she doesn't respond, "You. It was about you. Here's your name. 'Lydia.' See?"
"South…" she struggles to see the words despite knowing the language of her mom's hand. This is somehow so foreign. Stiles' movement keeps it from being readable and when she doesn't hang up.
"'It's a good day.'" He reads aloud, "'Wonderful news from Lydia.' Not sure what she's referring to, but I thought you might."
Hanging up the phone, Lydia guardedly crosses her arms, with her fingers hovering over the emergency button on her phone.
"When did she write this?"
"Not sure, the notebooks were numbered though."
"Then when what number is it, Stiles?"
"Oh, number fifteen."
"So, six years ago," she looks more troubled than relieved.
"It must have been during her remission. There's more," after gently clearing his throat, she gives him a nod to continue, "'The machinery is not working yet but I am patient.' You see "The Machinery" is what she called her mind, her ability to do mathematics."
"I know that" Lydia scoffs, leaning on the banister beside Stiles while listening to him teach about her mom.
Pausing to reset, Stiles breathes easier realizing she's waiting for him to continue. "'I know I'll get there'," he quotes, "'I am a mechanic who after years of greasy work on a hopeless wreck turns the ignition and hears a faint cough. I am not driving yet, but there's cause for optimism. Talking with students helps. So does being outside, eating meals in restaurants, riding buses, all the activities of 'normal' life'."
He sneaks a glance to see what Lydia's take is on any of this, but her eyes are towards the sky again, while she's leaning gently against him like she's trying to get closer to the words themselves.
"'Most of all Lydia'," he continues, there's a silent noise just beside him, it's not a sigh exactly but Lydia's eyes are closed now. "'The years she lost caring for me. I almost wrote 'wasted.' Except her refusal to institutionalize me- her keeping me at home, caring for me herself, has certainly saved my life. Made writing this possible. Made it possible to imagine doing math again. Where does she get the strength? I can never replay her. Today is her twenty-second birthday, I suppose I can at the very least start with making her favorite for dinner.' It's dated March 19th."
A calm quietness grows between them, after passing back the notebook she re-reads the brief entry, and Stiles moves over to pick up his jacket. It feels like a breach of privacy to look at her right now.
"That's tomorrow," he says finally, unremarkably.
"It's today," she corrects, snapping the book shut and hugging it to her chest.
"You're right," he grins, clumsily dusts his jacket off, shoves it into his backpack, and shoulders it. "I shouldn't have tried to sneak it out. Since tomorrow, well, it's going to roll out how it is, I was going to- it sounds stupid now. I was going to wrap it. Anyways, happy birthday."
This time he doesn't feel right looking back and doesn't give a wave as he passes through the garden gate, it's not like she's keeping an eye on him. At the sound of the latch-lock her vision goes a bit blurry, and she's stopped fighting back tears. Stillness settles in, the city's night noises go ignored until there are sounds of the police marching through the front gate.