Archive of Our Own ^beta

Never let it be said that Lydia Martin didn't love Stiles Stilinski.

That was the one thing she knew for certain. That she loved him then and she loves him now and she will continue to love him. More than any mathematical theorem, sometimes more than what was real and what was a dream. She knows she loves him.

She'd saved him once by remembering her love, by remembering the boy who loved her and who she loved in return.

She's never loved someone the way she loves him. The way that he could destroy her with a word, the way she'd lose her mind if he died.

(Although maybe she was already losing her mind. Every banshee she knew—Meredith, her grandmother—had eventually been driven insane by their visions, maybe it was just her turn.)

Walking out was the worst moment of her life. The man she was supposed to marry, have children with, grow old beside, she had to leave him. Years later, her heartbreak would still be as acute as the day she left. The pain symptomatic of the open wound that would never heal, her heart cleaved in two, one half left behind with him. The part that had always belonged to him.

She had to give him that chance at life that she bought with her remembered love.

She couldn't be the one to take it away too.

Breaking her heart and his in the process.

But he would be alive. She would never forgive herself for this, for hurting him so much he would learn to hate her and then to forget her as she once was forced to forget him. But he would be alive.

That's what she had to remember. If she was with him, he would die, and she would be there and it would be her fault.

And Lydia would wail his name.

Lydia cried for a month straight after she left. She hid herself away in that fancy San Francisco apartment of hers, the one her father bought because he felt guilty, the one they never lived in together. She cried in that empty apartment because she lost the love of her life and she wasn't sure if it was real.

If she'd wake up in the morning between flannel sheets in a sunny, cozy apartment just outside the city, Stiles's arm around her waist.

If that day was the day they got in the Jeep, that beloved blue Jeep of his that had survived so much, held together by duct tape and luck, and crashed. If it would be the day she would wail his name because she felt his death a hundred times, each more painful than the last.

She lost the love of her life and in whichever reality she woke up to, he would still be gone.

When Lydia finally fell asleep, she wasn't sure which bed she wanted to wake up in.

And when she woke up on a bare mattress, staring up at high ceilings, a scream tearing at her throat and tears in her eyes, she cried the rest of the day. Then the rest of the week.

This was the world that was real. One where he would learn to love her less and less with every day. Would learn to resent her for throwing him away like he always expected her to. For being the cruel girl who ignored him and everyone thought to be below her for years.

He would never love her the same way again, and she would never deserve his love again.

Sensing death was always a curse, her abilities uncontrollable and destructive and painful in ways that the werewolves and kitsunes of her old pack weren't. That side of herself, passed down from her grandmother and brought forth by pain and blood, doomed her to this life.

There must be reasons why banshees roamed the moors alone.

What was it like to feel everyone you love die? To scream their name as they died, knowing there was nothing you could do to save them?

All you could do was find the body and scream. Scream so helplessly, so uselessly, the only use for your power was as a pawn. A warning sign for the worst things to come.

Banshees weren't heroes, they were omens.

Lydia was an omen and death would not reach the boy she loved.

So she haunted that apartment in San Francisco like a banshee on the moors. Crying until all her tears were used. Until she looked at her phone, no calls, no texts, just emails from work and decided this was her life now.

She would never scream for Stiles because she would never scream again.

Never let it be said that Lydia Martin didn't love Stiles Stilinski.

She knew what their friends, their family, strangers they told the watered down story to, would say. That she was the bitch who walked out, the heartless girl who never deserved him in the first place.

And maybe she was all of those things and more. Because maybe she should have fought harder against her fear. Maybe she should have closed her eyes, pushed the dreams to the side like they were nothing more than nightmares and let Stiles hold her and kiss her until morning came.

Maybe that would have ended with her screaming his name in the street, maybe it wouldn't have. The not knowing is what killed her.

Lydia always tried to be in control, and no matter how much she learned about banshees, how she could control her scream, it was never enough. The voices always crept in at odd hours, the noises that buzzed in her ears, the strange dreams that haunted her nights, and the foreboding chill on the back of her neck that meant someone was about to die never left.

So maybe she was heartless and a bitch and cruel for leaving him. For choosing to believe the vision and for wanting to do anything to prevent it from coming true.

Because while Lydia didn't know whether the dream was a premonition or not, she did know that she loved Stiles. That was where she was placing her bets.

The months after she left were like living under a permanently gray sky, never seeing the sun from behind the clouds. Saying that Stiles was her sun sounded so tacky but excising him from her life as cleanly and maliciously as Lydia had removed him from hers seemed to have taken all the color and life out of, well, life.

She went back to the bad habits of her early teenage years—eating only when absolutely necessary, sleeping the bare minimum required for her to be a functional human being, keeping socialization to a minimum and only on a surface level.

She stops living when she leaves. That's her punishment. Her life for his.

Her life for his is what she had to remember in the darker moments. The time when the voices in her head started screaming at her to listen to them, to hear their stories, to solve their murders, to find their bodies. When she couldn't sleep and let the tears run freely down her cheeks, screaming at the pounding in her brain, the kind that felt like a drill to the skull and there was no way to get it out.

No way for everything to just stop. She just wanted everything to stop.

But it was her life for his.

She couldn't let herself waste away in an institution like Eichen (although in those dark moments she considered checking herself in more than once) and she couldn't kill herself. She deserved to live with the pain of what she'd done.

Besides, if word got back to him that she had died or checked in somewhere, he would feel responsible. For this bargain to be worth it, Stiles had to live his life, to be happy and healthy and alive.

So she forced herself back into Lydia Martin, Queen Bitch of Beacon Hills High School, a skin only one person had ever managed to see through, and he wasn't going to be looking for cracks in the façade anymore.

Sitting through meetings, trying to get her research into sound energy technology patented and applied to everyday use was a trial. Smiling tightly at the slick, Silicon Valley tech "experts" who got into MIT or an Ivy on their family's dime and dropped out because "that's how all the greats got their start" look down her shirt and lick their lips was torture. Hearing them and any intern who wanted to get fresh with the boss because she was their age call her "Lyd" was torment.

(Stiles had been the first and only one to call her "Lyd." The nickname had just slipped out one night on a phone call they were both falling asleep on, him in DC, her in Boston, only a few months after she left Beacon Hills for school. He told her later that he had really just fallen asleep in the middle of saying her name, but that only made the nickname even more precious.)

But after she left work, slipping back into her cold, empty apartment, she worked on the Reimann Hypothesis. It was a project she'd been trying to solve since junior year, off and on.

Sometimes Stiles would sit with her, his head in her lap while she scribbled away on graphing paper because it absolutely wasn't the same using a program on a laptop, and let her talk her ideas out. Every time she did, Stiles would smile up at her, that lazy, crooked smile of his, and no matter what contorted position he was in, would sit up and kiss the side of her head.

(Lydia would laugh and roll her eyes, push him away playfully and say she had to get back to her work, but she cherished those kisses to the place where a red scar rested underneath her red hair more than he would know.)

(How she would always remember, for the briefest of moments, being far away from her body, the only thing tethering her back to life was a red string pulling her towards the boy who was pleading with her to open her eyes.)

The first time Lydia went to explain something to him and was met with silence, she shredded every paper in front of her. The tears had smudged her writing anyway, it was unreadable.

For weeks after that she didn't talk to anyone. She prayed that her voice would wither away because then he would be safe. If she couldn't wail, he wouldn't die.

And it wasn't like anyone had noticed. The only people from the pack she could bring herself to talk to were Kira and Cora.

Cora was overseas, a pack of two with Isaac, the two lost, wandering betas that somehow found each other. And they made a cute couple, Lydia could admit when she was able to bring herself to look through Instagram—making sure to only look at Cora's profile to avoid any reminder of all she had lost. But Cora wasn't the most reliable when it came to returning phone calls, so it was easy to let her call ring out and never respond.

Kira was a bit trickier, wanting to have a scheduled phone date with Lydia every two weeks (Lydia had managed to talk the kitsune down from once a week). But, thankfully, the time changes between New York and California were enough that Lydia could just claim inconvenient meetings. Kira was doing well for herself anyways, married to a thunderbird chef, following in her father's footsteps by teaching at the local high school, her powers well under control.

Both girls were happy and in love and would forget about Lydia. It's not like they had ever been close in the first place. And Lydia wasn't one to have many female friends, she never had before, so that didn't need to change now.

She couldn't face Scott after what she had done. He had called her time and time again after she left Stiles, but he never liked her. He only tolerated her because of Allison and because she could find the bodies.

She was part of his pack, he felt responsible for her, it didn't have to go deeper than that.

(Or those were the lies she told herself when she watched her phone ring with tears in her eyes, rocking back and forth, her arms wrapped around herself, and her hands cupped over her ears.)

If she never planned on setting foot back in Beacon Hills, no one would miss her.

And Stiles didn't text. He never called. And she didn't blame him, she didn't resent him. They had promised that maybe at one point they could be friends again, like they were in high school when they both loved each other but neither were quite brave enough or ready enough to take that last step.

She didn't text or call either. She could barely look at pictures.

And she knew that the reasons she never contacted Stiles after she left were the same reasons he never called her. It hurt too much.

She loved him too much, that was all. The beginning and end of everything.

(Just because she had a mathematics doctorate didn't mean she never read.)

"...Stiles?"

"Stiles!"

"Stiles, please, please, I can't move."

"Please, baby, please say something..."

"Mieczyslaw Stilinski look at me right now. Please..."

"It's going to be okay, someone's coming to help, okay? We're going to be okay."

"Stiles...Stiles please say something. Stiles, I'm scared, please, I love you so much."

"You told me you weren't going to leave again! You gave me this ring, remember? And you told me that it was for forever, okay? I want my forever with you, so you need to wake up right now."

"Stiles! I feel it, no, no, no this can't be happening, please don't leave me. This isn't supposed to happen...please, please wake up."

"I-I can't stop it, it's so loud, everything is so loud. Stiles, baby, please don't make me do this without you. I-I can't do this without you."

"Stiles...Stiles, I feel it, please..."

"S T I L E S"

Waking up with a scream was always worse when it was his name on her lips. Lydia barely realized that she was still screaming until her ears hurt and her throat was sore, so used to having Stiles there to hold her and whisper that she was safe until she realized where she was again.

This time, the walls were unfamiliar and the sheets were scratchy and the bed was cold and she sobbed into her pillow.

The nightmare was always the same—the empty road, the overturned Jeep, Stiles laughing and smiling until he wasn't, a diamond ring on her finger, honey eyes staring up unseeingly at the sky, her body rooted in place, she couldn't reach him, his chest unmoving, that feeling of dread and death welling up in her chest, the voices shouting in her ears that he's dying, Lydia. Can you feel it? Until it all came out in a scream.

But it was never a scream. It was a wail.

A wail of anguish and grief and lost time and heartbreak and pain like she's never known. A wound that will never close even now.

The first time she woke up from a nightmare too vivid to just be a nightmare, Stiles pulled her close, so close she could feel his heartbeat thud lightly in his chest. He kissed her hair, her cheeks, her forehead, whispering all the while that he was there, that nothing had happened, that no one had died.

He pressed his forehead to hers, letting her run her hands over his shoulders and face, cupping his neck, skimming against his back and sides. He let their legs tangle, the sheets and blankets of their bed long since kicked to the floor.

He kissed her gently and asked what she had dreamt and she had told him. Lydia had told him the whole horrifying affair, how it felt so real, how terrified she was that it was real.

And he didn't say anything, just let her cry and reassured her that he was okay, that he wasn't planning on dying anytime soon. He made her waffles in the morning and kissed her out the door to the office and the nightmare became just that again.

But then she had the same dream three nights later.

Then two nights after that.

Then she was safe for a week before the nightmare came back every day for the next month.

Every night he was there to wake her. To hold her and tell her that it hadn't happened, but even Stiles couldn't argue that it wasn't not a definitive premonition. Neither of them knew enough about banshees to make that statement...in fact, they knew too much to the contrary.

But he offered to call Deaton or Derek or even Peter, but she couldn't. Maybe she should have. Maybe Deaton knew some herb that could cure her or Derek could look into Eichen House or Peter would be withholding some screwed up piece of banshee lore that could save her.

It wasn't pride that made her turn down his offer.

It was fear. Having the same dream every night for two months straight as a banshee was too much. Her mind was stretched to its limit, there were times she was driving with Stiles to dinner and she'd start screaming because she knew how this ended. It took her hours to wake up from a nightmare, responding less and less to Stiles's pleas for her to wake up.

She would still wake, the tether around her soul binding her to him, calling her back to him.

But when she had just seen him die, his name on her lips, it was hard to believe it wasn't a trick. That it wasn't all still part of the nightmare.

The worst thing would have been if they called Deaton or Derek or Peter and nothing changed. If he still died, because she was still in that car with him, that ring on her finger.

(She had seen the ring in the back of Stiles's sock drawer once when she was looking for a hoodie of his to steal. It had been before the nightmares started. She had pulled it out again one day after, delirious with no sleep because if she slept, she would have to see him die. The ring was the same as the one in her dream and it fit perfectly. It was perfect.)

(And she knew how it would end if she kept that ring when he gave it to her.)

So she did the only thing she knew that would keep him safe. She took herself off the board.

And now that she woke up, Stiles's name on her lips for all the wrong reasons, all she could do was turn onto her side and curl her legs up to her chest and wish that she had kept on being oblivious and bitchy and never went to the Winter Formal with the boy who knew too much.

She wished that Peter Hale had killed her on that lacrosse field.

She wished that the dozens of other monsters had killed her over the years.

She wished that she had never fallen in love with Stiles Stilinski.

(She didn't really wish that.)

The apartment in San Francisco didn't even have heat.

She never stayed here so there was no reason to pay for the utilities past what was required. There were no sheets on the bed, no food in the kitchen, barely any clothes in the closets. She knew that there were probably a dozen things she should do, but she woke up for the first time, Stiles's name torn from her throat, and he wasn't there with her.

The tears were a staple of her life now. She didn't feel them stopping any time soon, so she just stopped fighting them. She let them run down her cheeks, drip onto the bare mattress, her clothes that she hadn't bothered to change. Laying down, she let them run salty tracks up her forehead, into her ears, the ceiling blurring before her eyes.

It took her hours to move from that spot.

It was only when her head started to hurt, and approaching migraine that threatened to keep her curled in the fetal position for the rest of the day, that she forced herself to move.

If she was going to be bed-ridden for a full day, she would at least be comfortable. The migraine was punishment enough, and she was weak enough from the dream, she missed Stiles enough that she selfishly would take the comfort she no longer deserved.

The orange hoodie that clashed horribly with her hair, the one he once offered to her at an ice skating rink, the one she had worn more times than he had, was stashed in the back of the closet. Slipping that on over her underwear, she brought her hands up to clutch at the neckline, the entire thing so oversized the sleeves fell over her palms and the hem reached her lower thighs.

The damn thing still smelled like him. The cologne she bought him for his twenty-first birthday in fact.

Tears dripped down onto the collar, and she slid down the wall, her legs no longer supporting her.

Why does it still smell like him?

She hadn't worn the hoodie in years, and hidden it away in the spare cache of clothes they kept here for emergencies. They did their laundry the same, so it wasn't like he washed it without her knowing.

She kept it here because a part of her must have realized that she would need the comfort at some point. That it was her selfish keepsake when she inevitably had to move here on her own. Some part of her in the past must have known she couldn't keep him, should have known that emergencies in their lives meant the worst case scenarios.

Should have known that it would all fall apart at some point or another. That death that followed her around like a dark shadow would catch up to her, taking everything she loved with it. Starting with him.

Closing her eyes, she pulled the neckline up, covering the lower half of her face and tried to imagine she was somewhere else. Anywhere else. Back to a time when Stiles loved her, when they were happy.

Because they had been happy...

Their first night in their new apartment, Lydia had never slept better. Sure, there were a million and one things to do to move in—there were boxes piled all over the small space, the furniture was sitting just where it had been left, they still had to call the internet company to set up their router, Stiles had to call his boss to get the secure connection he needed, Deaton had to drop off the mountain ash to line their windows and doors, and everything needed a deep clean, especially the oven—but it was theirs.

It was perfect because it was theirs.

Lydia had slipped out of bed in the morning, tugging on a pair of cotton shorts and one of Stiles's oversized flannels as she did so. Looking down at him, his mouth open, already messy even more of a disaster, golden eyes closed, she couldn't help but smile. There was a time she thought that Jackson was the one for her. The only person she would ever love, the only person who would understand and accept her.

But then Stiles, with his buzz cut and uncoordinated limbs, tore through her life, seeing right down to her actual human soul and never looked away. Even when maybe he probably should have.

The universe had given them a second chance, and Lydia was never going to let him go again.

The boy who had seen through her walls, who listened to her, took her seriously, who called her beautiful even when she cried, who was smart and challenged her, who could keep up with her, who made her laugh and smile more than anyone else in her life, who touched her like she was something precious and kissed her like he would never get the chance again.

Unable to keep the love off her face, Lydia dipped down and kissed the tip of his nose, a grin on her face as he wrinkled it before his face smoothed out into sleep once more.

With one last glance at her boyfriend, she crept out into the kitchen to start making them breakfast. They had gone grocery shopping just to have something to eat, but their pots and pans were still packed away so she settled for grabbing some fruit—grapes, strawberries, things she didn't need to cut—and cereal, figuring that they were twenty-one, they were supposed to be broke kids just out of college who didn't know how to fend for themsleves.

It wasn't long before she was scrounging around for their glasses, when she heard Stiles wake up and start moving around. (It wasn't hard to detect the loud bang and curse that must have been him falling off the bed.)

"Why are you in the kitchen, Lyd?" His sleep-rough voice asked. "We don't have any food."

"Wrong," Lydia retorted sharply. "We have food, but nothing to cook with."

"Same difference."

"The difference is that you can eat the cereal I made you or nothing," she smiled as she turned to look at him, pecking him on the lips. His eyes were practically still closed as he heaved himself to sit up on the counter. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" He grinned cheekily, that smirk that meant he was more awake than she had previously thought on his face.

"It looks," she moved closer, stepping between his legs, their height difference now almost ridiculously pronounced but Lydia managed to throw her arms around his neck anyway, "like you're going to be cleaning the counter because that's where we need to cook, Stilinski."

"Mhm," Stiles couldn't keep the grin off his face either, looking at her with faux-seriousness, "is that right, Martin?"

"Yep," she popped the 'p,' leaning up to give him a kiss because this ridiculous man with his bedhead and faded t-shirt that used to have the logo of something on it was the love of her life. Lydia knew she loved him at sixteen, accepted it at seventeen, and finally told him at eighteen, but she would never stop telling him that. She would never stop loving him.

But before her lips could touch his, she was met with only air, her entire perspective shifting as Stiles jumped off the counter and picked her up. Like a sack of potatoes. That he threw over his shoulder. His grip on her legs kept her from slipping, but her now upside-down view of the ground was jarring enough that she let out a shriek of surprise.

"Stiles!" She half-cried, half-laughed. "Put me down!"

But he didn't. Not for a while, running around their new apartment, laughter in the air, eventually transferring her so she could ride piggyback, her arms looped around his neck.

They hadn't been kids for a while, even before Beacon Hills became riddled with the supernatural. But that morning, they laughed and smiled in their pajamas like they were kids again and Lydia had never thought she could be happier.

She thought that every moment she spent with Stiles, the mundane and the exciting alike.

But as she huddled in the corner of the bedroom int he apartment that was not privy to early morning piggyback rides and kisses on the couch when they ran out of energy, dancing in the kitchen at midnight with the refrigerator door open and beeping at them insistently, she knew she certainly wouldn't ever reach that kind of happiness again.

And even though she cried, the apartment was silent.

"..."

"...Hello?"

"..."

"Is anyone there? How did you get this number?"

"..."

"Okay, well if you don't have anything else to say, I'm going to hang up now. ...Seriously, if this is some prank call, kindly fuck off and leave me alone, I am not in the mood for this."

"...Hi, Stiles."

"...No." Click.

"..."

"Did you not hear me before? I don't know how you got that number or why you're using that voice but whoever you are you're in for a world of pain when I figure it out."

"It's me, Stiles...Lydia."

"And why don't I believe that? You know how many fucking evil psychos I've met that can mimic voices and change shape? You're just some freak who stole her voice, so why don't you give it back, Ursula, and then we can talk."

"I know...I know you don't have any reason to believe me, but it's me, Stiles. Lydia Martin."

"...Bullshit. No, see, Lydia Martin walked out on me and said she was going to keep her distance. To keep me safe. So if you are her, I'm going to need some proof like yesterday."

"I first kissed you on the floor of the boy's locker room at Beacon Hills High."

"No, that's not good enough. Lots of people know where our first kiss was, what's something only Lydia would know?"

"The Reimann Hypothesis states that Reimann zeta functions have their zeros only at negative even integers and complex numbers with real part one half, and solving this hypothesis—"

"Okay, that's not helpful, anyone could have taken that off Google. ...When did Lydia fall out of love with me?"

"...I never did, Stiles, it's me, okay? You have to believe me. I never stopped loving you, I was just terrified. God, I was so scared that I was going to kill you. I-I couldn't think of anything else. It was taking over my whole mind, I felt like I was going insane, I never really knew when I woke up or if I was still asleep. But please you have to believe me when I say that I never fell out of love."

"...Okay, okay, just one more question..."

"All right."

"When did you first realize you loved me?"

"When I first kissed you...that's when it all changed for me. When I realized you meant more to me than I had previously thought possible. And when you saved me from Eichen...that's when I knew it was never going to end."

"Lyd? Is that really you?"

"Yeah...yeah, Stiles. It's me."

"...What made you call me now? After all this time?"

"I screamed."

"Like...banshee-scream scream?"

"Yeah, banshee-scream screamed."

"What made you do that, I thought..."

"That I was trying not to be a banshee anymore? Did Scott tell you that?"

"He might have mentioned you a few times over the years."

"...A lot's happened. I'm back in Beacon Hills though and—"

"What! Why the hell are you back there? Did no one think to call me again when there was supernatural hellmouth shit going down?"

"...Maybe?"

"Lyyyd, seriously?"

"I wasn't the one in charge of making that call! Besides...I figured if I was there, you probably...wouldn't want to be."

"Okay, well, for clarification...even if I am super, royally, massively pissed off at you, I am still going to want to be there if werewolves or whatever start a war and you're in danger."

"It was just the Nogitsune—"

"Especially if it's the Nogitsune!"

"..."

"...Sorry for yelling, are you okay? Did anyone get hurt, what happened?"

"It's alright...it's kind of hard to explain but...Derek's dead."

"...Fuck."

"I know, I'm sorry."

"Is Eli going to be okay? When's the funeral?"

"The funeral is going to be in a couple days—"

"Shit, I'm still going to be away. God, do you think the sourwolf will forgive me for missing his death and his funeral?"

"We-you can visit the grave when you come back to Beacon Hills."

"What makes you think I'm ever going back there?"

"Your father still lives there for one."

"...Okay, point."

"And...well, this sort of ties into the 'what happens to Eli,' which is...he's going to be living with Scott...and Allison."

"...Sorry, I think my cell service is acting up. Did I just hear you say Scott and Allison?!"

"Yeah...that's kind of part of the long story."

"Further clarification...if people start coming back from the dead, definitely call me."

"About that...I was kind of hoping that next time...I wouldn't have to."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean. Lyd?"

"Just...sorry, I'm jumping like seven steps ahead, just ignore me. ...I don't even know why I called, this was such a stupid idea, I'm sorry."

"Wait, wait, Lydia!"

"..."

"Why did you call me? You haven't spoken to me in years, I thought...I kind of thought you were never going to talk to me again so like, could I just get some clarification before you go radio silent for another half a decade."

"I just...I've been living with this open wound for three years and it won't close. When I stopped having the nightmare, I thought you died. I called your dad, looked up obituaries, but it wasn't there. I tried to hear you...in my head. But I couldn't. And that's when I shut everything off...until it started creeping in like it used to."

"What happened?"

"I had hundreds of brochures printed where very word was 'Allison.'"

"That intern must have had an interesting morning explaining that one to their friends."

"I know...'Female Tech CEO Loses It' is going to be a catchy headline."

"..."

"But...anyways, I tapped into that unconscious writing thing you taught me how to do and came up with a way to resurrect Allison."

"Hell of a day back."

"Yeah...but, the Nogitsune...it was feeding on my heartbreak. It was the most painful thing around for him, it could satisfy even his insatiable appetite. And then I had to scream."

"Jesus, Lydia, are you...?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine, I just...I want this wound to close one way or another and I-I can't just walk around not, not knowing if you're out there, or if you're safe and happy and I promised myself I wouldn't interfere with your life."

"Lyd...I don't know if I've made it clear over the last twenty-three years, but there's literally nothing you could do that will make me not love you. So...interfere away."

"...Can I see you again?"

"Yeah, Lyd...of course."

She doesn't want to leave. Desperately.

The last thing Lydia Martin wants to do is walk out that door. She wants to wake up from this nightmare, to lay in her boyfriend's arms and cry because she almost left him.

But she doesn't think she's asleep.

(She doesn't know if she's awake.)

And if she isn't asleep that means that he can die. That he will die because she's in the Jeep with him, a ring on her finger, a smile on his face, his name on her lips in the worst way possible.

And if he's going to die, she has to stop it. She has to do everything she can do to stop it.

But, God, she doesn't want to leave. The list of things she would sacrifice to be able to stay is long and extensive and probably includes things she shouldn't sacrifice, but there's no guarantee. Nothing except this will save Stiles.

"Lydia, please," Stiles's voice was quiet and broken. She can't see him, is facing away, clutching onto the back of their couch with white knuckles because it is the only thing holding her upright at the moment, but she can hear the desperate heartbreak just as she can feel it in her chest. "You can stay. You don't have to do this."

Turning over her shoulder, her eyes glassy and the tears spill down her cheeks as she catches a glimpse at his red-rimmed eyes. Neither of them have slept very well int he past week and it shows. Stiles's usually messy hair is somehow even more tangled, his cheeks are pale, nearly gaunt, the bruise-like dark circles under his golden eyes more prominent than she's seen them since...

Since he was dying the last time. The Nogitsune leeching his life force.

Lydia would do anything to save Stiles. She once hypnotized herself into unlocking her memories of him, effectively tearing a hole in space and time to bring him back to her. She can take a few measly steps out the front door of their apartment and never look back.

She mourned her best friend for years. Stiles would still be alive, he'd still be walking and talking and making sarcastic quips and learning and fighting and loving...it just wouldn't be with her.

It shouldn't be this hard. (Of course it is this hard to walk away from the love of your life.)

"If...if it was me," she whispered, making sure to meet his eyes, hoping maybe if he understood he wouldn't hate her quite so much. Maybe he would let her go, because if Stiles asked her again to stay, she was weak enough and selfish enough that she would. "If it was me, Stiles, in my dreams who died. If you dreamed of me dying every night for months on end...wouldn't you be terrified?"

"Of course!" Stiles stepped forward, cradling her face between his hands gently. So loving. Probably more gently and loving than she deserved. "Lyd, I would go out of my freaking mind, remember?"

A thin smile curved up her lips, because of course she remembered. She remembered the brave boy with a buzz cut and a black eye looking at her like he actually would lose his mind if she died. That he cared if she lived, that knew she wanted to help, that let her save the first boy she loved (the one who didn't deserve her love and took it for granted) even though he had loved for longer and more truly.

"You would do anything," she begged him to understand. "What if this is the only way to save you?" More tears leaked out of her eyes at that, and Stiles's thumbs gently (always gently, never demanding, never rough) brushed them away. "Wouldn't you leave if you thought I would die if you stayed?"

His face was conflicted, too many emotions flickering in his eyes to decipher, but she knew that he understood. The way he closed his eyes and a tear dripped down his cheek proved that.

"I have to leave," she murmured, closing her eyes too, savoring this last moment she would ever have with him. "I can't take that chance. I can't...I can't wail your name, I won't do it. I won't be the reason you die."

He kissed her then and Lydia knew he wouldn't ask her to stay.

Because it was a goodbye kiss.

Stiles kissed her fiercely, not slow and soft like he would kiss her good morning, not the chaste pecks before they left for work, not the dizzyingly heated ones when they made love. It was somehow everything at once. It was chaste and soft but fast like he was trying to burn her into him and she was doing the same back.

Lydia kissed him with all the love she ever had, all that she was capable of. All of her grief, her regrets, her fear, she tried to let him know that she wasn't making this decision out of cruelty or apathy. There was a part of her, one that likely wasn't that small, that was staying behind with him once they stopped this kiss. She was losing the man she loved, probably for forever, and damn it she was taking one last kiss.

It was over far too soon for Lydia's comfort. No amount of time would ever be enough. She would stall the world in this moment if it meant she never had to leave.

It's unclear who pulls away first, and she doesn't want to know. They're in sync for so much of their lives, she wants to believe that neither of them makes that decision to say goodbye first.

Even though she's the one leaving, Stiles could stop her with a word. And he knows he could. And she knows that he knows that. But he knows that she needs to leave and so he won't stop her.

Because she knows him, and she knows that he understood what she was saying. If it came down to her life or their relationship, he would choose her life. Every time.

But Lydia could be selfish for one minute more. Because as they drifted back, she studied his face, drinking in every freckle, every mole, the upturn of his nose, his dark hair, his eyes that turned a burnished gold in the sunlight. And he was doing the same back, his eyes roving over her face, burning the image into his mind like he burned her lips into his.

It was torture to step out of the circle of his arms, to let his hands drop from her cheeks and the warmth to retreat, but somehow she managed.

Stiles didn't say anything, just watched her leave with tears on his face and an ache in his heart that matched hers. (Maybe it was hers, the emotional tether keeping them bound in an endless feedback loop of their heartbreak.)

But she...Lydia had to make sure he knew. Her voice broke on the words, but they were clear and if they were the last she ever told him, they would be the only goodbye. "Just...remember I love you."

She shut the door before she could process the pain on Stiles's face. Slumping down against the door, she let herself break. He didn't say anything and he hadn't been going to say anything.

There was a crash on the other side before a thump hit the door and they sobbed together.

Two broken halves...but at least he would live.

"No...please...it wasn't supposed to happen this way," Lydia pleaded, her eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling of the Jeep, red clouding her vision before she had to blink blood out of her eye. "He was supposed to be safe."

She wasn't sure who she was pleading with, in fact, the Jeep was flipped so she wasn't even looking in the right direction if she was making any kind of deal with a religious deity.

"Lydia...breathe, honey..."

"I just want to wake up," her eyes closed, the tears streaming down her battered face, the seatbelt digging into her neck. The airbags deploying had made something crack in her chest...although maybe that was just her heart breaking.

This wasn't supposed to happen. She had to be dreaming. Because they had asked Deaton and Peter and called Cora and Isaac for old Hale family knowledge and talked to anyone else they could think of, and no one could definitively say that her nightmare was a vision.

(But then again, no one could definitively say that it wasn't a vision either.)

"Please," she sobbed, hoping that if she could just close her eyes tight enough, she would wake up in Stiles's arms. "I just want to wake up."

"Lydia...Lyd, please...look at me."

That voice was familiar, so familiar she could identify it in a crowded airport, notice its absence in her memories.

This dream was different. It was cruel. Giving her hope just for her to open her eyes and see her love take his last breaths, blood covering his face. His chest no longer rising, his eyes no longer seeing, no longer blinking. Having that hope and taking it away was much worse and more painful than anything else she could experience.

"Lyd, I swear to you, we're going to get out of here, okay? Just look at me, sweetheart." He never called her that unless he wanted to be extra romantic (or ridiculous depending on the day).

Stiles had never led her wrong before, and she could never resist him when he sounded like that—gentle and patient and in love (but there was an undercurrent of fear and panic there that made her heartbeat spike).

Opening her eyes, she saw Stiles looking at her from the driver's seat, and it was horrible. His hair was matted with blood, probably from the gash that looked like he had cracked his skull open, his nose was broken, and he looked like he was straining so hard against the seatbelt he would have bruises in the morning. But he was alive.

By some fucking miracle he was alive.

And he was punching the steering wheel, wrestling with his seatbelt, trying to get to her.

The pain arrive then, and she knew it wasn't a dream.

In her nightmares, the physical pain was never there. It was all about the horror and the hurt of seeing Stiles die, the anguish that tore the wail from her throat.

But there was no creeping sense of dread and death in her chest, just the painful ache of a battered body and broken ribs and blood loss.

"Stiles," she cried, reaching her had out, coincidentally the one holding a diamond ring that he had given her only a few days ago. She hadn't even had the time to get used to seeing it on her finger.

Thankfully, her arm was free enough to stretch across the center console, her fingers brushing his forearm, and he grabbed her hand fiercely, squeezing it tightly but she had never been so grateful to feel her bones creak.

"Lyd, we're okay," Stiles murmured quickly, eyes bright with fear and relief, "help is on the way. I called 911 while you were out. You just have to keep your eyes open for me, okay? Talk to me."

"Are you hurt?" She asked, because that was the first thing that came to her mind.

He just smiled thinly, not reaching his eyes, but he nodded. "You're the one who passed out on me, Lyd. You might have a concussion, but I do have a broken nose. Say, will you still want to marry me if this sets weird and you have to look at my crooked, malformed nose for the rest of our lives?"

Lydia knew he was joking, trying to get her to smile and laugh (and she can't say it didn't work, a small giggle did make its way out of her mouth), but her answer was more earnest. "Of course, I still want to marry you. I've wanted to marry you for so long, Stiles. And if I have to look at your crooked nose in our wedding pictures every day for the rest of our lives, I'll look at your damn crooked nose."

That got a genuine laugh from Stiles as well, their eyes never leaving each other's, even as the red and white flashing lights of a fire truck started appearing in her peripheral vision. "I love you so much, Lydia Martin."

The tears came back with a fervor at that, because she couldn't believe he still loved her. It had been a year since they had gotten back together, the first time they saw each other after she had left. It was like the past three years had never happened. Well, it was there in the way that he held her a little tighter in the morning, his shaky exhale almost inaudible if she wasn't already awake, like he couldn't believe she was still here. It was in the way she looked at him and waited for his face to twist, just for the briefest of seconds, into hatred, into something like contempt but it never did because he just forgave her for ruining everything.

She was the one who caused three years of pain and misery and lonely nights for him because she was afraid.

Just a damsel in distress like in all the stories.

(Jackson had once told her that he wouldn't come running every time she screamed. But every time she screamed Stiles found her. He found her in Eichen, in random places around Beacon Hills, no matter what, he found her.)

She never wanted to scream for him.

"I love you so much, Stiles," she whispered, hoping he understood the apology there. She had three years of "I love you's" to make up for.

And of course he didn't see it that way, somehow managing to bring her hand up to press a kiss to the back of her palm, in forgiveness, because he didn't think she needed to apologize.

They stayed holding hands for as long as they could, they had always been touchy in that way, even before they were together—hands always brushing hands, hands clasped together as they ran, a hand ghosting over a shoulder, back, a forearm—and it hurt when they were forced apart.

Lydia could hardly remember the ride to the hospital, or even the paramedics who talked to her to keep her awake, checking for concussion symptoms that she definitely had.

The next concrete memory of hers was climbing into Stiles's hospital bed—when the nurse had seen the engagement ring on Lydia's finger, he was quick to put them in the same room—and curling up next to her fiancé. His arm wrapped tightly around her back as she rested her head on his chest.

Lydia needed to hear his heart beat. The steady rhythm would have normally lulled her to sleep, but she stayed awake, not just for the concussion, but to make sure his heart kept beating out the same rhythm.

A-live a-live a-live a-live

Alive.

Lydia always thought she'd end up right back where she least expected to be: the Beacon Hills High School lacrosse field.

When she was fifteen, she only knew that once Jackson Whittemore graduated, he would take her with him to whatever college league team he was recruited to and she would be his trophy until he became a banker or a lawyer or stockbroker, and he would never see the lacrosse field (or Beacon Hills) ever again.

When she was sixteen, she still thought he could see where her blood stained the grass, where she nearly died for the first (and horribly not the last) time. She thought that if she stood in the stands, cheered on her boyfriend(?) and then cheered on the boy who took her to Winter Formal, who was three steps away from scoring the game winning shot, the boy who had never been off the bench before, then everything would be normal again.

(Lydia should have realized that nothing was going to be normal once she let Stiles past the walls she had so carefully maintained.)

And once she and Stiles moved out of Beacon Hills for college, to the East Coast where the four hundred and forty-eight miles separated them, when they would drive eight hours to see each other on weekends when they got the chance she didn't think she'd ever return to Beacon Hills High School.

Maybe Lydia was deluding herself, thinking that the monsters that were drawn to the Nemeton would give the teenagers of the once sleepy Beacon Hills a break, or that she wouldn't be needed, but she knew she'd be back. Scott was still one of her best friends, he was Stiles's brother, and her and Stiles were the last of that small original pack, their bond was stronger than almost any of their lives.

And after three years of hell, and then the start of a lifetime of happiness, there was a feeling as she stepped onto the lacrosse field, Stiles's arm around her shoulders while his free hand lugged a duffle bag full of old lacrosse equipment, that she knew she was meant to end back here.

Maybe not in the way that Lydia eventually did end up here—with a little girl with strawberry blonde curls with an upturned nose and golden, mischievous eyes running ahead of her—but she knew she'd find her way back home.

Looking up at Stiles, she smiled, so beyond glad she had found her way back.

But that little girl was living up to the mischief in her blood, sprinting full tilt towards the center of the field, not even hesitating when she stumbled over the pockmarked ground.

The spring was off-season for lacrosse so the field wasn't quite as maintained and they still had to visit Lydia's mother and her current boyfriend and Natalie was expecting her grandchild to look presentable. (Maybe they should just get her changed at the Stilinskis'. Melissa always kept some extra clothes around.)

But as the girl stumbled again, almost falling and scraping her knee, Lydia had to intervene.

"Ariel Claudia Lorraine Martin Stilinski, be careful!" She shouted. Her baby couldn't get hurt.

"God," Stiles muttered in an undertone, but Lydia could hear the joy underneath nonetheless, "we really did her no favors in the name department, did we? Like that's such a mouthful, just because you have a dozen middle names doesn't mean Ariel has to."

She felt him squeeze her closer in an attempt to soften the tease, but she just pinched her side in retaliation. (The grin was never leaving her lips, however. Lydia had earned this with tears and blood and pain and she was never taking this family, this love, for granted.)

That doesn't mean she couldn't tease her husband, "Okay, Miecyzslaw Stilinski." He rolled his eyes at the use of his full name, but he hadn't stopped look at her with his heart in his eyes, the softest look on his face. "Do you really want to be comparing names right now?"

"You know, I think her name is actually perfect, Lydia Camille Grace Martin Stilinski."

Lydia preened teasingly, reaching up onto her tiptoes to peck his cheek playfully (and just because she could). "Thought so."

Ariel let out a high-pitched shriek—one that was not too far off from Lydia's own banshee cry, and she had to wince at the reminder. Hopefully her daughter would have better control than Lydia had when her abilities first surfaced. Or else, they were in for some loud teenage years.

And before Lydia's heart rate could get too frantic over Ariel being in danger, Eli and Howie ran past her and Stiles, Eli scooping up Ariel and turning her upside down almost immediately. The giggles coming from the two kids were immediately infectious and Lydia smiled at Stiles pulled her even closer to his side, his lips pressed against her temple in a smile.

"I still can't believe they named their kid 'Howard,'" Stiles mumbled into her hair. It was a common joke between him and Scott, and Lydia was worried that if they had another kid that Stiles would want to name them something even more ridiculous.

"Technically, his name is Michael," she retorted, still gazing as the dark-haired little boy tried to grab Ariel's hair as Eli twirled her around upside down in a circle. "She better not puke on that dress or Eli owes us babysitting for a month."

"Oh absolutely."

"What's this about babysitting?" Scott's lovably clueless voice chimed in as he and Allison strolled up, hand-in-hand, pink-cheeked, and as sickeningly in love as they were in tenth grade.

"If Eli makes our daughter vomit because he doesn't know his own wolfy strength, we're cashing in so much babysitting," Stiles retorted as the two boys (they weren't boys anymore, but when they were like this—happy and carefree and together—it was like not a day had passed after 2011) did their handshake.

"As long as she doesn't vomit on our son, that's fine with me," Allison agreed with a smile, kissing Stiles on the cheek before linking arms with Lydia. "Go teach Howie how to play lacrosse even though he's only seven," she shooed Scott and Stiles off, the two lugging equipment bags that haven't been opened in at least ten years.

Lydia watched Stiles run towards their daughter and Scott and Allison's son, and Derek Hale's son who was a grown man now, but still acted so much like everyone's younger brother, and his eyes flashed gold in the sun when he tossed a smile back at her. Her best friend miraculously at her side, the two of them grinning and trading secrets that weren't really secrets and their love for their husbands and families like they did when they were in high school, shivering in the stands watching lacrosse practice and two boys who would mean the world to them.

"I get it now," she whispered, catching Allison's confused glance that soon smoothed out into understanding. "I understood back then too, but I never told you so...I wanted to tell you now that, looking at him..." Lydia smiled as Stiles picked up their daughter, turning and lifting up Ariel's hand in a wave that he mimicked, then helped her blow a kiss Lydia's way, "I know what it feels like."

Allison just smiled softly, clearly remembering that conversation in her car when she was talking about the boy who fought for her to come back to life and hoping Lydia understood in the context of a boy who had never loved her. "I'm so glad you do."

Never let it be said that Lydia Martin doesn't love Stiles Stilinski.

She almost walks away from the door to the same apartment she walked out of three years ago. Multiple times.

There's still that voice, that dream, that tells her he will die if she's with him.

That thought freezes her in front of their—his—doorway, her hand held high as if to knock. He'd always let her into the building, so it's not as if she can pretend she was too busy, can just disappear into the world again as if she had never contacted him. He would have probably thought it was all a dream, something concocted by loneliness and insomnia and too much coffee.

But not now. Not when she had talked to him through the speaker of the intercom system for the briefest of moments, the first time they've knowingly been in the same place in years.

And she knows that Stiles won't open the door. He'll be waiting just on the other side, probably pacing a hole in the floor and staring at the clock in their entryway, the one they picked out together at a flea market one random Saturday a few weeks into living together. It was hideous and gaudy, and Lydia had loved that damn clock so much.

He won't make her choice for her, and Lydia loves that about him, but it doesn't make her nay less terrified. Because she knows that he has a preference (she does too, obviously) and that he'll be disappointed in her if she walks away.

She doesn't want to walk away.

But if she stays, she could kill him.

She can't kill the man she loves.

And God, does she love him. More than anything. Their souls had been tethered together once before, keeping him connected to the land of the living, pulling him back when he needed it, when he was practically dead for sixteen hours. He had pulled her back too, when she died in his arms, the only thing she heard was him begging her to open her eyes. To come back to him.

And he makes her better—less prickly, more fun, proud of her intelligence. And she laughs more with him than she ever has, and he can make her smile without even trying, even when she can't sleep or is pissed off or upset. Just one look at him and she's a little lighter.

He's gorgeous and funny and keeps up with her and challenges her and teases her and is chocolate and honey and red string tied around fingers and promises that will never be broken.

He's a friend and a lover and a partner and a soulmate all in one gangly, slightly hyperactive, endlessly kind, always sarcastic package and she loves him more than there are stars in the sky.

It's why Lydia knocks on the door.

Because she likes to think that she means just as much to him as he does to her. And maybe he will love her enough one day to forgive her, and she will always love him enough to come back. To stay.

The doors open immediately, and Lydia hadn't realized that she was crying but she must be because Stiles is a little blurry.

She exhales in relief, finally feeling like breath is able to fill her lungs and her heart beats for the first time in years now that she is with him.

"Hi," she whispers a little dumbly, and he doesn't say anything, just sweeps her into a tight embrace.

And Lydia shatters.

Because she never thought she would feel his arms around her again, and she clutches at the back of his flannel with one fist, probably crumpling the fabric, the other going to hold the back of his head. He was holding onto her just as tightly, arms wrapped around her waist and leaning so far into her, her back was almost bowed in a dip.

Stiles was real. He was alive.

Tears dropped onto skin, salt streaming down her cheeks as they swayed in the doorway. And it wasn't until she felt lips brushing over her skin that she realized Stiles was moving. Short pecks dotted her shoulders and neck like freckles, and Lydia buried her face in his neck, letting herself cry even harder.

The love was still there.

That had been her fear when she rang the intercom nearly twenty minutes ago. That he would look at her with apathy and disgust and usher her in, but it would no longer be as anything more than an acquaintance. The high school girlfriend who broke his heart. The girl who had put him through hell for years before he realized she wasn't worth it.

But he clutched her waist and held her against him like he wished they could somehow get closer than they already were and pressed kisses into her skin after years apart and miles of heartache.

And he was muttering words too, his voice thick with tears and Lydia had to pull herself together in order to understand them.

I didn't say it back.

He was repeating it like a mantra, an apology, a benediction. And Lydia knew that he was thinking of that awful day, but she just shook her head, his own words echoing in her ears.

"You don't have to," she pulled back enough to look at him, a watery smile stretching her lips so wide she thought it would crack her face.

Her makeup was already ruined, it's a good thing that she didn't care at all what she looked like right now. Stiles was looking at her with warmth and understanding and there was pain there too, but there was a crack in both their hearts that was never going to heal. Her own heartbreak wouldn't fade for years.

But Lydia knew that he still loved her. How could she not when he looked at her like she was the son, like she was something precious and found? When he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her like he had so many times before...like he would never get the chance again?

How could Lydia not feel as if the sun came out from an ocean of night when he kissed her like that?