Disclaimer: The characters are not mine. Obviously.

Pairing: Stiles/Lydia (some Jackson&Lydia).

Summary: There's this boy, he likes to call himself Stiles. He's funny, she thinks.

Timeline: Third grade, until 1x01.

Notes: Yeah, this came out of nowhere.

Strawberry jelly.

There's this boy, he likes to call himself Stiles. He's funny, she thinks, and he always gives her strawberry jelly when her mother packs her orange (and she hates orange jelly, her mom should know that, but she doesn't; Stiles does know).

He sits next to her, gives her a smile when she answers correctly and lends her his pencil when can't find the one she brought. He seldom talks to her. Mostly he just stays silent and smiles shyly at her. She likes that. Sometimes people are noisy, and nosy, and some peace is more than welcome.

Lydia is only eight years old, but somehow she feels older or, maybe, just too mature for her classmates. Sometimes she feels like she doesn't belong. Maybe she's too smart, or too quiet?

There's this boy, he likes to call himself Stiles, and he knows she feels this way. And he smiles at her and gives her his grape jelly and she gives him her orange one and then he says something that she would never forget:

"You are really smart," he whispers, looking at her straight in the eye, "I like it. I mean, you're very pretty too, but… It's really the way you speak that made me want to sit next to you."

. . .

There's this boy, he likes to call himself Stiles. His mother died three days ago and he looks and Lydia, and she looks back, and he says, "Your eyes are pretty," like he never noticed before.

And when his breathing starts to change and his eyes are wild while looking at hers, she suddenly doesn't know what to do. And it's horrible, she feels helpless and she promises that she doesn't want to feel like that ever again.

"Your eyes are the same as hers."

(She doesn't get it, because she saw his mother once and her eyes were brown.)

. . .

There's this boy, his name is Jackson. He's handsome and his eyes are really blue. Lydia is eleven years old when he moves to Beacon Hills, and she falls for him almost at first sight.

Oh, he's the one I want to marry, she thinks. It's silly, really, but she's eleven years old and she's allowed to be silly. Besides, who knows, right? Maybe they are going to be together, and maybe it'll be forever.

She looks at Jackson in class, and she looks at him at lunch. And her mom packed orange jelly again, but this time no one offers her to change, because Stiles didn't sit next to her today.

Okay, weird. Whatever.

She looks at Jackson while she throws the jelly away.

. . .

"I mean, I know I never talk to you, but I feel great when I know I have someone smart next to me," and he laughed, his eyes shining, and Lydia laughed too.

It's been years since he said that, but she can't forget it. And as she pretends to be stupid so people don't treat her like a freak, she remembers clearly.

She stumbles upon him in the hallways sometimes, but she ignores him (and ignores the voice inside her head that tells her that she shouldn't be ashamed of her smarts), and she keeps walking without looking back.

"Hey, Lydia," he says as she walks past him, "You look..."

She keeps walking, as per usual. "Like you're gonna ignore me."

Any opinions? :)