Your Author Pixie: Look I wrote another one. Part 4 of Being Special Series

It would be hard to explain to anyone else except Stiles…well maybe Isaac would understand but Stiles would be the only one who actually looked, the only one who could track the way her eyes lit up when he walked into a room. The only one who could know, just know in the way she twitched, that even just a little pet on the head meant more than anything. Lydia doesn't know how to explain it but Peter has turned into something more…something deeper more meaningful than anything she ever thought he would be. He's not some guy from the dead. Not some boy who understands her more than he really ever should and isn't really there. He's like a parent to her if she admits it to herself really. A parent who knows what it's like being in your shoes…sees your pain as the pain they knew. And if she feels drawn to him like a moon circling planet she hasn't complained; he hasn't complained either. It's like they need another, like they feed off another. She yearns for a parent while he yearns to lead. Sure this isn't the pack he's leading into the night and she hates having to depend on adults but it works. For them it works. They're tied together in bonds that have already been proven, in death he haunted her and in life she follows his spirit.

Lydia doesn't mind so much now of days when her sperm and egg donors argue about where she's spending the holidays or how much they need to remember to put into her account. She just thinks of how she can gain an approving nod, a pet on her head, a brush across her neck in acknowledgement, in twisted love. Because it's love, she knows it is. It's the love that a parent, a real fucking parent who doesn't lord over the fact that their child loves them more or will if they give them more stuff or toys, has for their child. It's the love that will compel someone who claims to never care about anyone in the pack except himself to shove her out of the way from an attacking witch. It's the love that makes him roar as if he's the alpha again and try to rip a stupid hunter to shreds who thinks it's actually smart to point a gun at someone in their own woods. It's the love that makes her run to him when she can't even remember to run to Jackson.

And it's wrong, Jesus it's so wrong for her to feel like this. This is the man who dragged her across the field on prom night and attacked her, bled her and maimed her. This is the asshole who haunted her waking and sleeping dreams; carved nightmares into her mind and behind her eyes that made it hard to sleep or even breathe. Peter Hale is the reason why she had to get over a phobia, a phobia of seeing the color purple. PURPLE. It's his fault that when she meets someone new she has to check around to make sure she isn't the only one that can see them, to be sure that this isn't another perverse illusion.

She's not sure quite when it started to become a thing, when she could pinpoint with absolute certainty that she wasn't afraid of Peter Hale anymore. When she was sure that she wasn't losing her mind and yes she was looking to him for guidance. It's just one day she's looking into a book that's been left on the coffee table in the new Hale house and muttering to herself how this isn't right and how this should be that and doesn't anyone know what they're writing about here except her when she hears him chuckle. He has a nice chuckle, she remembers in her nightmare dreams that he had a kind smile and a softer touch when he hugged her. She looks at him and if he smiles at her before reaching up on the shelf and sliding a book that he says will be more for a brain like hers she tells herself to ignore it. But a week later she's walking up to him, she finished the book in two days but was trying to convince herself to move already 'you are Lydia Martin you do no cower', and asking to discuss things with him. He actually smiles again and sits down at the kitchen table to hear her out. He actually responds to her. He actually gives her questions to answers that have her stumped. Before long they develop a routine; he gives her a book to read and they discuss it over the kitchen table sometimes with food sometimes without.

Lydia isn't dumb, she knows she should be afraid of the way they end up moving into other topics, about her life, his life, the pack, the world. How she runs a little bit quicker to get to the house that she's starting to slip and call home to tell him about the ways she made everyone else look and understand they were peasants to her. But she sees it in the way he smiles at her that she's not alone in this, that it's finally a two way street and they're both digging claws into each other.

She's not the only one who's making the pack a family in new and interesting ways. She sees the way Isaac looks to Stiles and Derek as if they are his mother and father respectfully. Hell, the pack treats Stiles as if he's the second alpha aka the alpha bitch without ever saying a thing about it and the crazy thing is it would be wrong to imagine it any other way. So who cares if she's tied herself to Peter, no can really judge her, this is their pack and their rules.

She tries not to think too much about it, doesn't want to think too much about it, just wants to let it be and that's fine with her. But Peter's messing with her mind again. It's when she sits down for their talks and he's giving her a necklace that makes Derek freeze up and Stiles pause in a full fledge lecture about the greatness that is Star Trek: Next Generation that she knows this is too much. That somehow they're going to cement the link that's been plaguing them for so long it's not nice. That somehow this is going to make sure no death will erase their bond. She isn't aware of when the other two leave, her eyes are glued to the necklace. Lydia can't force herself to meet his eyes. To see his face. She tries to block his words out, she already knows it'll be too much but he knows her already. He knows her better than she could ever ask someone to know her than herself. He's grabbing her hands and holding her tight so that the pain drowns her own thoughts away and stampedes his in.

And it's too much to hold in and her eyes are running but she can't pull her hands away they've become lead weights that pull her down and anchor her there. She forces herself to listen because this is the least she can do, this is her duty and she isn't a coward. So Lydia Martin listens to Peter Hale talk about his wife and four year old daughter. The wife with her strawberry blond hair and their daughter, Julia, with more straw than berry curls who thought she ruled the world. How she did rule his world, how he went insane thinking how if he could he would have died to let her live to see her smile. How he was upstairs while they played downstairs and how he tried to reach them. How he was burnt on his face trying to claw through the door and when he couldn't he just stayed there with his ears nailed there forcing himself to hear their please and cries for him knowing he couldn't do a thing to save them.

The necklace which she can't even bare to look at he whispers to her belongs in the Hale family, it's given to the children or mates to mark them as pack. So that even apart they know their home. It was going to his daughter, her birthday was two days away. But she's dead and Lydia is shaking her head so hard because he can't give her something like that. It'll mean she can never fail him, that she'll be tied in ways like Jackson is to the ghost of dead parents to always do well. She can't say no to him though so she slips it on. Her tears haven't stopped and if she was more aware he should realize this is the same design she's seen around Stiles' and Allison's necks.

She can't think about anything other than the heavy weight around her neck now, the symbol that this isn't just a game of cat and mouse, that this is permanent. It's been that way for a while but now it's there and she knows she'll never take it off; death would find her with a necklace even in heaven or hell.

Her tears are still falling when he pulls her close, she's not sure if it's from happiness or sadness. Lydia holds on tight as he coos at her and like the magician he is pulls out a handkerchief because Peter Hale is a gentleman. She pretends that she's too busy wiping her eyes to hear his whispered "Mine." yet can't help the way she squeezes back to agree.

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