author's note: It's probably been about a year since I've attempted to write anything. I haven't watched any Teen Wolf since 3x24, to be honest, so everything in this diverges from canon following Allison's death. Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Wolf or any of the characters.

The first thing Scott thinks is that this should be more along the lines of Stiles' job, not his. Briefly he marks down another loss in missed opportunities for his best friend, before he walks to her side with heavy feet to match his heart.

"Hey," he says softly.

"I wish it was raining," she says back, just as softly, yet somehow with her very own Lydia Martin edge – patent pending. "It would be so much more cliché, but at least I could still pretend I'm made of ice or stone or something else a lot less flimsy."

He brings a hand up to rest on her black-clad elbow, and it seems right. "You don't have to, you know." And there it is, Scott McCall's special brand of comfort, warmth from his palm seeping into her skin. He doesn't try to wipe her tears away, just like he doesn't try to wipe away his own.

"Yeah," she says dutifully, with the air of a queen whose reign has been far, far too long.

She calls Jackson the next morning with the intention of receiving some sort of comfort. Maybe some sadness, or nostalgia, or whatever; she just wants something and Jackson's always been able to give her at least that, if nothing else. Just something.

The phone rings once before a message cuts in, and of course he would change his number and not tell her or anyone else from Beacon Hills, for that matter. It's so Jackson to cut off all ties, whether it's so he doesn't feel the pain of talking to new people, or the guilt.

When it's approaching nine, her mom asks her with an all-too-gentle voice if she's going to school today. Delicately Lydia replies something along the lines of how she'd rather not hear a lesson about three chapters of Organic Chemistry she learned two summers ago, and follows it with a reluctant agreement, and her mom only smiles.

"Listen," Stiles says in a rush, awkward limbs resting on her locker in a position he doesn't seem too familiar with, "listen, there's a party on Friday at Melanie Blackwell's house and I think we should go. Not we, like you and me, but we, like everyone, but yeah, I guess that includes you and me."

She looks at him calculatedly, a slight tilt to her head measured to the smallest degree. There are no traces that the nogitsune left behind besides in the places no one can see, the darkness forcing its way through his heart and settling somewhere deep to lie dormant – where eventually, not even Scott will be able to penetrate. The color of his eyes matches the shade of desperate almost exactly, and she recognizes it as what she sees every time she closes her eyes.

He gives her a look that's somehow loudly beseeching, but her gaze fixates on one of the moles smattered on his face.

"Scott's coming, too," he offers quietly.

"Why should that matter?" she gathers her books and slams the locker shut, just barely missing his fingers.

"You know why," he replies casually, offering to carry her books, and walks beside her all the way to Economics, silent.

The party is nowhere near as good as hers used to be. She lost Stiles awhile back, and she's almost positive he's drinking enough to drown his liver and all the other memories that keep resurfacing. Lydia finds herself eyeing everything critically as the host babbles to her about how her parents are gone for the night and how her brother was being such an asshole and out of the corner of her eye – if she'd blinked she would've missed it – she sees a figure looking suspiciously like Scott head into one of the rooms.

She follows him into the room and doesn't bother spending the time trying to figure out why.

"Hey," he says before she's even registered where he is - sat down, leaning against the bedframe, a shadow fading into the dark and the moonlight slicing through his abdomen.

"Why are you in here?" she takes a blind step toward him, letting out a stifled whimper when she hits something hard and sharp, probably the bedpost, and he's immediately up and sitting her down on the bed. And isn't it always like this? – her, walking blind, him, clearing her a space to put her faith.

"I don't know if you even remember the old me, but I was never really good at it," he shrugs, sheepishly tagging on a, "Partying."

"I knew a lot more about you than you think," she says thoughtfully, wrapping a curl around her finger before letting it go to spring back, not a hair out of place. She took an extra forty-five minutes with a curling wand to make it look exactly right for this party, and now she's sitting in a dark room with Scott McCall and she can't remember why she thought it was so pertinent for her hair to look so perfect. "And besides, you're not the old you anymore."

"Yeah," he agrees, and she can hear the smile in his voice and wants to know if it's wistful or reminiscent or just plain sad, "I'm a lot furrier now." And it should be funny but it really isn't, so neither of them laughs.

They sit, quiet, until the moon disappears behind oncoming clouds. It's so much easier in the dark, where the blackness swallows up their truths and no one can see how glassy her eyes have been since Allison's death.

"Do you ever think about him?" he asks suddenly, and then backtracks. "Sorry, I didn't mean to be so upfront about it. I was just wondering; you don't have to answer if you don't want to." There it is, the way out he always offers without fail when he thinks he's going to hurt someone. The thought makes the part of her heart labeled "McCall Scott" clench, almost imperceptibly.

"Not as much as I should," she admits like the words mean off with her head, but she turns to glimpse at his face and finds only blurred outlines and the whites of his eyes.

"Oh," he says simply, but it's not judging or disgusted it's just Scott. Lydia's spent too many days feeling horrifically guilty when something does remind her of Aiden, not because of his death but her lack of emotion other than the occasion obligatory pangs of sadness.

"I think about Allison a lot more than Aiden," she says fake-lightly, her voice a thousand stars going supernova. The relaxed air is vacuumed straight out of the space between them, and she regrets saying it but only for a moment, because Lydia Martin does not regret much.

"Yeah – I – me too," and mercenaries are tearing it right out of him, his voice husky and quaking and oddly freeing.

Their silence sits well together against the thrumming bass of the music playing outside. She counts every second that passes with each beat of her heart, and when it reaches sixty, she gets up to leave.

"See you in school, Scott." And she leaves, with both of them where they started – him, alone and her, lonely.

Stiles asks her out the next Monday, not nervously but almost resignedly, like both of their lives have been leading to this moment and they predicted it all too soon. She considers the phrase "counting your eggs before they hatch", before she says yes, and he lets out of a half-hearted whoop and runs off to tell Scott.

She feels eyes on her for the whole of AP Calculus, and when the bell rings, she feels a hand on her shoulder.

"Congrats," Scott says to her back so sincerely it hurts, "Stiles seems happy."

She whirls around, strawberry blonde curls slapping him across the face, but he only shakes his head and dimples at her.

"And what about you, Scott?" she smiles back knowingly, clutching her books to her chest. "How's Kira?"

His face falls slightly, a dead giveaway.

"I don't know," he confesses, scrubbing a hand through his hair, "we've been trying to work things out, but I think things have changed."

"Well," she begins, hooking an arm into his, "I hope things work out between you. But right now, we're about to be late to class, so hurry it up, McCall."

"Yes, ma'am." She elbows him, but smiles anyway.

When Lydia heads home later, she finds Stiles at her front door, gesticulating wildly to her mother, who's looking inappropriately amused and a little charmed.

"Stiles," she calls to him, and he turns around so quickly he almost trips.

"Hey, Lydia, hey, I was just talking to your mom, explaining to her that we're – dating, or like, y'know, whatever. We don't have to label it if you don't want to; it can just be a casual thing," he turns back to her mother, horrified. "Not that I'm not taking your daughter and I's relationship seriously –"

"Stiles," Lydia finally reaches the top step, grabs his hand, and pulls him inside before he can do any more damage. "We're going to my room."

"Okay, yeah, sounds great," he sounds relieved, and a split second later, dismayed. He turns to her mother again, "Not like that! I swear, I've pretty much been in love with your daughter since like, the second grade. Okay, that sounded weird –"

"We're going, Stiles," Lydia makes a face at her mother, who winks back.

When they reach the top of the stairs, him apologizing profusely, she tugs him into her room and shuts the door behind her.

"Want to watch The Notebook with me?" she asks when he takes a breath for air.

"Yeah," he says, looking surprised, and she leans in and presses a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth.

"Great," she grins. It's still a second cousin to the real thing, but she gives herself credit for not faking it this time.

So she stays with Stiles, and it feels okay. He makes her happy in all of the right ways: he watches The Notebook with her whenever she asks; he brings her junk food when she's on her period and takes her to Jamba Juice to "cleanse" when it's over. He is sweet and kind and exactly the kind of boyfriend that she always knew Stiles to be, and they laugh together because he gets her nerdy jokes and he even drinks excessive amounts of wine with her when her mind is on Allison, because the littlest things will trigger that in her.

And he holds her when she cries but doesn't bring it up to her like it's a weakness, and she doesn't say anything when tears like quicksand fall on the top of her head.

Sometimes they hang out with Scott (and Christ, does she feel like she's third-wheeling then) and sometimes it's just her and Stiles, the two of them in her room with shitty pop music in the background. She never thought it would be this easy, with him. She always used to assume that he'd spend most of his time kissing her feet and agreeing to anything she suggests, but he doesn't – he's just attentive, and sometimes loud, but he's good. They're good.

"Kill it, oh my God, Stiles, freaking kill it!" Scott yells too loudly for Lydia's comfort. She rolls her eyes and crowds herself against the headboard of Scott's bed.

"This is completely unrealistic. The trajectory of that missile would've killed you and Stiles, not to mention literally everything with a heartbeat within a mile radius," Lydia gestures toward the TV where admittedly convincing zombies are being flung, mutilated, maimed and blown up by two characters who look nothing like the two scrawny teenagers before her.

"That's the thing, Lyd, zombies don't have heartbeats," Stiles interjects quickly between battle cries that could've fooled her into thinking they were entering war at that very moment. "Holy shitsticks, Scott, PICK UP THAT FLAMETHROWER OR I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL KICK YOUR HAIRY ASS."

"MY ASS IS NOT HAIRY, DUDE, YOU KNOW THAT," Scott bellows back. And these are the times where Lydia misses her the most. She wishes more than anything that Allison could be here to witness this and flash her unforgettable smile and shrug sheepishly at her ex-boyfriend and ex-boyfriend's best friend's stupid antics. It hurts even more that Lydia could picture this exact scene with Allison there, maybe quizzing Lydia on SAT vocab words, or gossiping about Isaac, or there to listen about Stiles and his moles and the way he presses kisses into her hair when he thinks she's asleep.

Instead she nudges Scott over with her sockless foot, sits between the boys, and grabs a controller.

"Teach me how to play," she says primly, and Scott flashes a smile at her, and she kills every zombie with a certain finesse that would have made Allison proud.

Seven weeks after Allison – that's how she labels time now; it's unhealthy, she knows, but she can't help but separate her life into three eras: Before, During, and After Allison – Kira and Scott work things out.

She's making out with Stiles when he suddenly stops and asks, "Oh, yeah, Kira and Scott are a thing – you wanna go on a double date with them?"

"Sure," she says, pulling him back towards her, and they meet in a mess of hands and mouths and legs.

The actual day of the double date, Derek surprises them all by calling a pack meeting. And even though Scott is Alpha now, Derek's still the one (occasionally) responsible adult, so they all agree to go anyway.

Lydia steps through Derek's front door with Stiles' hand grasped in hers and Scott and Kira trailing after them. The living room is unoccupied save for Derek and, oddly enough, Malia.

No one mentions the empty space Isaac used to occupy before he ditched town with Chris Argent, off to do God knows what. And it's still the most bizarre thing Lydia's ever heard but she supposes she understands that there's a certain type of unity between loved ones left without a last word. She guesses, by that reasoning, that she's a part of that group, too, but doesn't spend too much time dwelling or else she knows she'll get lost in the shadow of Allison's last smile.

"Fae," is all Derek growls. He doesn't seem too torn up about Allison or Isaac, but Derek's always been a black belt in the art of losing people, so she doesn't take too much stock in his stony expression.

"How many?" Scott asks almost immediately, barely glancing at Malia. Lydia's felt the shift in Stiles' demeanor almost instantaneously from entering the room; the grip on her hand seems to tighten. A glance at the coyote girl reveals nothing except for the fact that she clearly doesn't seem to want to be there, because all she seems to be able to do is stare at Stiles and his hand clasped in Lydia's.

"Not too many," Derek says, stoic as ever. "I'll take care of it."

"Then what was the point of this meeting?" Lydia asks. Derek turns his dark eyes toward her, impossibly thick eyebrows threading together.

"The pack stays together," he says firmly, "no matter who's lost along the way." Scott is looking at her, heartbreak past his eyes. She meets his gaze before turning back to Derek.

"Okay," her voice breaks slightly at the second syllable, but no one dares pointing it out. Kira is quiet and acquiescent when Scott gestures at her, Lydia and Stiles to leave. There is a tap on Lydia's shoulder as she reaches the door; however, she turns to find Malia hovering behind her. Stiles' hand is still in hers, but when she stops, he turns around too.

"Let me talk to Stiles," Malia demands firmly, adding a gritted, "Please."

"By all means," Lydia says sardonically, letting go of Stiles' hand but he grabs it back, eyes searching hers.

"Wait for me? I'll be right out, promise." She nods and allows him a kiss on her forehead, heading back towards the Jeep, where Scott and Kira are sitting in the backseat, Kira's hand resting on Scott's cheek in a way that she feels she shouldn't interrupt.

She entertains herself with the idea of heading into the woods to the spot where Allison tried to teach her to shoot a bow and arrow, but decides against it. The wind that brushes by her is warm and smells of the slowly approaching summer, the last remnants of pollen floating in the air.

Stiles is true to his word and is outside beside her before she even notices. He tugs at her hand and she follows, willing, into the passenger seat of the Jeep. The drive to the diner is uncharacteristically quiet.

"Doing pack stuff now feels really weird," Scott admits finally over his and Kira's strawberry milkshake.

"Yeah, without Allison and Isaac and Chris breathing down our freaking necks every two seconds," Stiles pauses and adds, glancing at Lydia, "and the twins."

She sips at a vanilla milkshake, shared with Stiles for romantic purposes or whatever. He insisted on vanilla earlier and she nodded along but now she regrets it, the too-sweet taste thick in her throat.

"Derek seems to be doing well," Kira comments offhandedly. "Who was that other girl?" She winces when she realizes her blunder, ever the tactful girl. She and Scott are well-suited.

"Malia Tate," Stiles answers. "Peter's daughter. Speaking of Peter, where the hell was he?"

"Who cares," Lydia says dryly, "I'm hoping he's as far away from Beacon Hills as physically possible. Or he's dead. I'll take either option."

"She seems kind of…off," Kira says carefully.

"Yeah, she's a were-coyote, so. Pretty feral sometimes; it's kinda weird," Stiles says as he nudges the milkshake towards Lydia. Kira looks like she doesn't know if she should laugh or not and goes for a smile.

"The shock factor gets a lot lower every time I hear about another supernatural creature. What doesn't Beacon Hills have?" Kira jokes, Lydia coming to the sharp realization that three out of the four of them are anything but normal. She follows that thought with a nudge to her completely-human boyfriend, who wraps an arm around her.

"Mermaids," Scott says, solemn.

"Too bad," replies Lydia thoughtfully, running a finger along the rim of the glass. "Those were always my favorite."

They fight about it later – their first fight. Lydia asks him what Malia wanted to talk to him about, and he responds with, "It was nothing." And she replies that no, no it wasn't nothing; his second mistake is telling her it doesn't matter and "doesn't she trust him" and who the hell brought trust into this.

She gets him to say, finally, "She just wanted to know if we were together."

"And?"

"I said yes, duh," he sounds exasperated, and then his tone changes, "then she said she wanted to be with me. Don't be mad, please, we had a thing –"

"In the asylum, when you were possessed, I know," she replies, razor sharp. She's not exactly mad that Malia had the audacity to try and get Stiles, but she knows she should be. And that's why she's annoyed right now, because she's not sure why there's no resentment or jealousy or other stupid feelings like that bubbling right below the surface.

"Are you mad?" he asks her earnestly, gripping her upper arms so she has to look at him.

"No," she says truthfully, lips curving into a slight smirk. "I suppose I can find it in myself to forgive her, under the circumstances that she's new to the whole 'normal social conduct' thing."

"Yeah," he agrees absentmindedly, leaning in to kiss her. Neither of their hearts is in it, though, and she can't quite remember if the spark of his lips faded over time, or if it was even there to begin with.

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