Chapter Text
Lydia sits up from the metal table with the help of Stiles. She moves slowly, more aware of the pain in her back now that she’s sitting up. Malia is making a terrible face, like the smell of Lydia’s discomfort is overwhelming to her. Kira is eerily silent and watches Lydia’s attempt to stand with watery eyes. The kitsune reaches out to her when the banshee stumbles, but it’s Stiles who keeps her from crumpling to the floor.
“I’m going to be sick,” says Lydia. Deaton quickly hands her a trashcan, but otherwise, no one moves. She glares at them all from over the rim of the trashcan. “I said I’m going to be sick,” she snaps. She can barely contain her irritation when Scott and Stiles exchange a wide-eyed look with Deaton before the vet nods at them.
Does she need permission to be alone now? She wants to vomit in peace for god’s sake.
“It’s okay, Lydia” says Deaton, “We’ll be just outside the door if you need us.”
“Great,” she says while holding a hand to her throbbing head. She tries to wait until the door closes to allow her first set of heaves. She can still hear them over the sound of her retching.
“Dude, she needs to go the hospital,” says Stiles, “Throwing up like that is really not good after a head injury. I’m pretty sure it’s actually really, really bad. Like extremely bad.”
“Stiles is right,” says Deaton, “It could be a sign of a severe concussion.”
Lydia groans into the trashcan. A visit to the hospital is the last thing she wants to deal with right now. Aside from the obnoxious and constant attention from nurses and doctors and the not so fond memories from her last stay, her family has absolutely no money to cover a hospital visit. The idea of increasing her debt is not appealing in the slightest.
“Maybe we can have my mom check her out first,” says Scott, “She’d know if it’s something serious enough for a hospital stay.”
Lydia relaxes the tiniest bit when she hears what he says. She’s much prefer a visit with Melissa over checking-in to the hospital. She’s also relieved that she only threw up once. It means the concussion probably isn’t as severe as the pack fears. She uses the chair next to her to stand up, already feeling less dizzy. That’s a good sign too.
She’s not prepared at all when she almost falls against the door. She grabs the handle and uses it to keep her body from hitting the wood at the last second. The quick save results in Lydia throwing the door wide open and careening into Scott’s back. He must have used his wolf reflexes to spin around and steady her because she doesn’t see him move, but his hands are on her shoulders now, holding her up.
“Why are you always up and running around after an injury?” Stiles says with a frantic edge to his voice as he watches her sway in Scott’s hold. He’s gesturing wildly with his hands. “I mean seriously! It’s like we have to strap you down to a gurney to make sure you actually rest!” Lydia rolls her eyes.
“Stiles,” she says, “I’m fine.”
“Fine?” he repeats, “Lydia, you just fell out a door!” She winces at the volume of his voice.
“Okay, let’s not yell at her,” says Kira as she widens her eyes, “It’s probably not a good idea to yell at someone you suspect has head trauma.” Lydia forces a smile in Kira’s direction despite the pounding of her back and head. Scott talks next.
“Can you stand?” he asks her. She whips her head to face him, her eyes narrowing with a sharp glint. Unfortunately, the quick movement makes her dizzy again. When she speaks, the fierceness of her tone is undermined by her vertigo.
“Of course I can stand.”
“Don’t let her go,” says Malia, “She’ll sink like a stone.” Lydia quickly turns her head to glare at the werecoyote, and, jesus, she really needs to stop whipping her head around to face people. She leans into Scott’s grip more, her balance almost completely gone now.
“It’s okay,” he says softly, “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
There’s something familiar about these words coming from Scott, and she brushes away the unexplainable panic she experiences when he says them. She doesn’t have time for that right now. Scott shifts from holding her by the shoulders to put an arm around her waist. Then he leans down and scoops her up in one fluid motion. The movement makes her head spin, but she’s relieved to be off her feet.
“Who’s driving us to the hospital?” asks Scott while looking straight at Stiles.
Lydia’s positive she can stand and walk on her own once the three of them reach the hospital, but Stiles and Scott will hear none of it. They won’t let her out of the car unless she allows herself to be carried. It’s extremely embarrassing. She keeps her eyes closed with a hand covering them for extra protection. She can’t stand to see the look on anyone’s face as the Alpha carries her into the hospital. She opens her eyes when she hears Melissa.
“Oh my god. Lydia?”
“It’s just a slight concussion” Lydia answers while Melissa steers the teenagers into an empty examination room. She feels ridiculous talking while Scott holds her like a princess.
“Slight my ass, she’s got a severe concussion.” says Stiles as he takes a seat. He’s tapping a foot and rubbing at his mouth with the back of his hand. Lydia just rolls her eyes.
“No, I don’t.” she says, “I only threw up once, and if you could please tell your son to put me down, I’d prove that I can stand on my own,” she says as politely as she can. Scott makes a scrunched face, and shakes his head like Lydia just said she could fly.
“Scott,” says Melissa, “Honey, I’m gonna need to see her walk anyway. You can put her down now.”
He seems hesitant to release her, but does as his mother asks. He stays close though, hovering near Lydia with clear concern as if he expects her to crash to the floor the moment he gets too far away to catch her. She proves his concern unneeded by stepping out of his range on steady legs. Lydia turns to give both boys a victorious smile.
“I told you I could walk on my own,” she says.
Melissa asks her to sit on the examination table and runs through the concussion indicators. After she administers a light test to Lydia’s eyes, she seems satisfied.
“Well, you’ve got a concussion,” Melissa says, “but it's not a a very bad one. The only thing we’d do here that you can't do at home is keep you under observation, but I don't think you need it. Just let me clean up the cuts on the back of your neck, and you guys will be done, okay?”
Lydia can almost see the tension leaving the room. Scott leans back against the wall and takes a deep breath before exhaling loudly. Stiles slows down the frantic tapping of his foot, and drops his hands from his head where he’d been running them through his hair practically non-stop.
Sometimes it stresses Lydia out of how much the boys seems to care about her. She thinks it has something to do with her being a banshee. As if that makes her more vulnerable to danger than the rest of the them (okay, it probably does, but totally not the issue at hand). Anyway, the point is, Lydia normally wouldn’t mind feeling watched over, but the way the pack keeps tabs on her now makes her slightly uncomfortable. Like it’s more for their benefit and safety than hers. She tries to not think about it because when she does, she can’t shake the feeling that she’s a canary for a coal mine. Just sitting in a cage and waiting to see if the carbon monoxide levels are enough to kill her.
It’s a shitty feeling, especially since mine canaries almost always die.
At least she’s not dead yet, she thinks. And even if she can’t exactly remember it, she’s proud to have survived another attack from Peter. How many does that make it now? Three, if you counted the whole hiding in her head while he was dead thing (which she does, completely). Of course Scott and Stiles go to Peter’s apartment after the hospital visit, but the ex-Alpha is no where to be found. The knowledge that Peter is unaccounted for and on the loose doesn’t stress her out as much as she expects. Maybe it’s that hyper-vigilance thing again. It’s hard to avoid in a town like Beacon Hills. They’re all soldiers on the frontline here. Peter’s attack is proof enough of that.
The first day of her recovery, Lydia figures she doesn’t hear Allison because the hunter is letting her rest. The same goes for not being able to remember her dreams. However, by the third day, Lydia begins to worry that Allison isn’t just being silent. Her worst fear becomes a reality when the banshee spends all of the fourth and fifth day searching for Allison but can’t find a single trace of the hunter in her head.
Allison is simply gone, and Lydia loses her best friend a second time.
********
She hears people talking, but they sound far away. It’s familiar but unrecognizable voices like a past life bleeding over into a child’s unformed psyche. She feels drawn to them. Can’t stop herself from searching for them. She follows the talking down a dark hallway filled with mildew and rusty pipes. She’s never seen it before but it feels like a bad place, somewhere she doesn’t want to be. She needs to hear to this conversation though. She continues down the hallway, walking with her hands against the wall. She knows she’s getting closer, but it’s hard to hold onto the original two voices in the midst of all the others now emerging from the hallway. She ignores the wheezing intakes of breath and sharp gasps to focus on the steady rhythm of the distant conversation. The farther she walks down, the darker it gets until the only light seems to be coming from in-between the rusty bars that block her path of actually seeing the talkers. She presses her face against the barred door and listens.
“Don’t touch me,” she hears a woman say. The voice sounds fiercely strong. “Don’t ever touch me again.”
“Allison,” pleads the voice of a man. Something about this voice curdles her stomach. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay now.”
“NO!” the woman says, “No, Scott, nothing is okay. How could you do this?”
Allison. Scott. She wonders why she can’t remember what these names mean to her.
“Allison, listen to me!” the man called Scott says. “I’m going to save everyone. I’m going to stop this - the assassins, the dead pool - no one else will get hurt. No one else will die. I promise.”
“I don’t care about the dead pool, I care about my best friend.” The woman’s voice is hoarse but carries a undeniable power. Hearing the woman called Allison speak is gut-wrenching. “Just let me talk her, please. I know I can help.”
“Help?” says the man, “You’re reason she’s hurting in the first place! She was going insane from having you trapped in her mind.”
She was not!” says the woman. “You did that, Scott! You’ve practically broken her mind to reach me!”
“YOU LEFT ME!”
It’s quiet for a long time after the man yells. She’s terrified that the conversation is over, meaning she won’t get to hear the woman called Allison speak again.
“I died to protect her, Scott,” the woman says softly. Relief makes her legs give out when she hears the Allison woman speak again. She sits pressed against the bars, desperate not to miss a word as the woman continues to talk. “I made a choice, and I don’t regret it. I just didn’t know I was leaving her too soon. I thought you would protect her.”
“I am protecting her! Why can no one understand that? Do you think she wants to remember every detail of every terrible thing that’s happened to her? You think she wants her night with Stiles’s body memorized?”
“Scott.” The woman says sounding desolate.
“She’s been trying to forget that part of the kidnapping for 3 months, and she finally has because I helped her do it.”
The man’s voice is extremely abrasive sounding. Like someone’s shoving steel wool into her ears.
“Allison, things won’t have to change for her. She can stay the same. She deserves to have happy moments more than anyone!”
“You can’t take away parts of a person to keep them from changing, Scott. It won’t make her happy. She’s going to come apart. I can feel it.”
“Then I’ll take care of her, Allison. If it ever happens, I swear to god, I’ll be there for her.” She hears the woman start to cry while the man speaks. “Allison, I need you. ” The woman cries harder.
“Stop it. Please Scott, just stop. . . stop it now before it’s too late. You’re sinking,” the woman says, “You’re losing your sense of direction and if you don’t realize it soon you’ll never find your way back.”
This conversation is making her very sad, but it’s nothing compared to the heartbreak she experiences when it ends. She waits with bated breath for a long time for either of the two voices to speak again, but only silence greets her. She tries not to panic, but she wants to scream and cry.
What if she never hears the Allison woman again?
The thought forces her mouth open and she begins to call out to the woman. Shrieking the words through the barred door. She attempts to squeeze her body through the rusty bars but her frame won’t allow it. She stops when a male voice calls back to her.
“You’re going to hurt yourself screaming like that.”
It’s not the man called Scott, but a different male voice. It’s just as familiar as the first two voices, except she doesn’t feel drawn to this one. This voice sounds hollow and fake. She doesn’t know why but she feels like she has to get away. She throws herself back against the wall and away from the blocked doorway. She stands up and begins moving as quickly down the hallway as she can without making a sound. She keeps following the hallway until she finds herself in a circular shaped room with condensation covered gray walls.
She’s been here before. She remembers it.
It’s the same room where the oni switched sides. The realization turns her stomach for reasons she can’t place. This room and the hollow voice are connected. She knows she needs to get out of here. She quickly leaves the room and keeps going down the hallway, but she can’t shake the feeling that the hallway is just as bad as the circular shaped room. She reaches a dead end and rests her head against the rusty bars in frustration.
“You’re getting weak banshee,” says the same hollow and fake voice from before, “are the voices taking their toll?”
She turns to face the source of the voice. It’s a boy with dark circles under his eyes and a pale waxy complexion like the moon. He walks down the hallway towards her at a disturbing speed, his eyes never once leaving hers. She can barely make out his black pupils in the faint light, but she doesn’t miss the cold curiosity glinting in his eyes. The way he regards her makes her feel like a lab rat. Not human and only useful for testing purposes.
She thinks she knows this boy. His name is on the tip of her tongue trying to work its way out. It’s the same name that the Allison woman and the man called Scott had mentioned earlier. She remembers it was strange. What was it again? S something.
“Stiles?” she says. The boy stops walking towards her and curls his lips to show his white teeth while tilting his head. The smile feels taunting like he knows something she doesn’t.
“Not quite,” says the boy with a small shake of his head.
Lydia wakes up with a jolt, the same as she has every day since Peter attacked her. She doesn’t know why, but she knows she hasn’t been sleeping well since Allison disappeared from her mind. Every morning she wakes up feeling more and more exhausted. She can feel it in the sluggish sagging of her limbs when she first attempts to sit up. It feels like she’s been maneuvering a overgrown hedge maze at night, stumbling through briars in the more wild areas that snag at her clothing to pull her into the thorny walls. The more you struggle, the more snagged your clothing becomes until you remember that you even if you happen to free yourself, you’re still lost in a maze of briar patches. It’s the kind of physical and mental exhaustion that makes you question your own self worth, and right now, Lydia Martin feel worthless.
The worst part is not knowing what memories she’s lost. She can barely tell where the gaps in her memory are. Everything just feels different. She knows that sleep has become a necessary evil. Something her body needs but her mind fears. She never remembers what she dreams about when she wakes up. It’s a terrible blow because she gets the idea that she was close to mastering her banshee benefits in the dream world before Peter made a playground of her mind.
She hates not knowing what she’s forgotten. It’s a crushing loss to someone as disciplined in their thoughts as Lydia.
She isn’t stupid. She’s aware that she uses compartmentalization to overcome traumatic experiences. She knows her interior world is a dark space, but it was dark by her own volition. A tomb of people and situations that she’d locked away by choice. She used to know what was in there, but now she’s not so sure. It’s a horribly nerve-wracking experience to have someone force repression on your mind. Like getting lost in a zoo at night and you know none of the enclosures are secure but you’re unable to remember which animals the zoo had to begin with. You keep asking yourself ‘will I meet a bear or a tiger while I walk this path?’ She gets reactions to people and places that she can’t connect to a single memory. Just vague impressions that leave her feeling dazed and out of place.
It’s become a serious problem around Stiles, and she knows he’s picking up on it.
It makes her feel like total shit because the last thing she wants to do is make Stiles feel guilty about having been possessed. She knows it wasn’t his fault that the Nogitsune took him over, used her to steal the oni, and then killed her best friend. She’d worked so hard over the last three months to look at Stiles and not see Allison’s death play over and over in her mind (compartmentalizing was good for some things). Whatever Peter had done to her, it definitely loosened the mental control she’d practiced for the careful separation of the Nogitsune and Stiles. She finds herself nervous whenever he makes sudden movements now (which is all the time honestly - the boy’s a total spazz). Little things that used to endear him to her now make her want to take a step back. It bothers Lydia because she’s not sure why she’s taking a step back in the first place. The Nogitsune-possessed Stiles was scary, but she doesn’t remember him ever hurting her - he just kidnapped her and used her to hurt others.
And then it bothers her some more because something about the words ‘he just kidnapped her’ feels like a lie.
It’s terribly bizarre feeling.
She keeps her distance from the pack until she can sort what’s real. In the mean time, she collects Meredith’s things from Eichen House. She thinks of the banshee almost as much as she thinks of Allison. The two dead bodies she didn’t just find, but helped cause. If she had tried harder to keep Allison from following her, if she’d used more restraint when she talked with Meredith, maybe one of them would still be alive right now.
Maybe.
She feels stupid talking to a record player, but she wants to reach out - to feel like she’s trying somehow. Even though the record is silent, she speaks as though Meredith were there. She’s not sure how much control she over her powers now that her mind has been played with, but she hopes the silence doesn’t mean that Meredith can’t hear her. She wants to believe she’s still a functioning banshee. And she must be because when Lydia turns the record off, she hears it. Barely a whisper, but loud enough to raise her curiosity. She listens harder.
It tells her there’s a infection. It tells her someone will die.
She’s so relieved to find her mother is safe in the school that she forgets for a moment that her original fear was directed towards the pack. She remembers as she lets her mother go from a hug and her stomach drops. She feels ill and starts to hear a ringing sound in her ears. Where is her pack? She runs through the school, desperate to find them. Her heart is pounding so fast, her whole body throbs like the skin of a drum. She can’t breathe but she doesn’t stop running until she smacks face first into Malia. Lydia grabs the werecoyote by the shoulders to steady herself. When she sees that it’s Malia, she pulls her into a hug before Lydia realizes what’s she’s doing. She lets go when the girl doesn’t return her hug at all. When the banshee meets her eyes, she’s taken back by the blank expression on Malia’s face. The werecoyote stares at her with dull puffy eyes before stepping around Lydia and walking away without saying a word.
“Lydia!” someone calls out to her. She turns around to see Kira and Scott walking towards her. She scans the surrounding crowd for Stiles, and her heart stops. He isn’t there. Her hands start to shake, but she doesn’t notice because she’s too busy battling the sea of people to reach Scott.
“Stiles,” she says loudly. Her voice cracks in the middle of his name. “Where’s Stiles?”
“I’m okay,” says a hoarse voice from her left. Lydia turns to face him. There’s a splattering of blood across his face. It’s smeared and dried in places like he tried to wipe it off but realized he couldn’t.
“Is it yours?” she asks reaching a hand out to his face, but not letting herself make contact. Now that he’s closer, she can tell it isn’t his blood, but it doesn’t change the amount of relief she experiences when Stiles shakes his head ‘no’ in confirmation.
“The assassin’s,” he says and wipes at his cheek with palm of his hand. Lydia nods, knowing she’ll get the full story later. Everyone seems to be in shock right now.
She’s just glad to see them all alive.
Stiles’s eyes are focused on the end of the hallway. Lydia follows his line of sight just in time to see Malia disappear behind the blue double doors of the school. Stiles’s lips are tight and his eyes are glazed. His complexion doesn’t look that good either.
“Did she get hurt?” asks Lydia.
“Yeah,” says Stiles. His voice is soft, and he keeps his eyes on the door, maybe hoping that Malia will walk back into the school. “By me.”
“Malia saw her name on the dead pool.” Scott says in a quiet voice. “Her full name.”
**********
A storm shakes and howls outside the Martin household on Tuesday night. Lydia finds the weather morbidly appropriate as she mulls over what happened the last couple of days. Malia won’t answer any of the packs texts or calls. She hadn’t even show up to school the following Monday. Lydia had been entirely lost on how to comfort Stiles about it because one part of her thinks the werecoyote should have been told about her Hale heritage long ago, and the other part of her that says it doesn’t matter is still jumpy around Stiles. She’d never been more relieved to have Kira around. The kitsune’s awkward attempts at comfort made Lydia’s effort seem worthy of an Oscar. No one had picked up on the banshee’s lack-luster act.
She’s more bothered by Malia leaving the group than she expected to be. She hadn’t been crazy about the excessive PDA Stiles and Malia showed, but she was really starting to care for the girl. Her blunt way of speaking had been refreshing. Lydia is beyond exhausted by people who handle her like she’s an explosive waiting to go off. Malia had never treated her like that. If anything, the werecoyote had been brutally honest with and about her. And as difficult as it was to adjust to the girl’s behavior, it had been nice. No one seemed to think Lydia could handle the truth except for Malia. The realization makes her feel even guiltier.
Malia had always been so open with her and the rest of the pack, of course it was a huge betrayal to find out they’d all been hiding the werecoyote’s real identity.
Lydia’s so absorbed in her thoughts that she misses the sound of her window opening. She nearly screams when a tight voice says her name from behind her. She turns slowly in the seat at her desk, terrified to see who just came into her room through her window.
She really needs to start locking it.
She gasps as she takes in the sight of a soaking wet Malia.
“I really hate all of you. I never want to see any of you again,” the werecoyote says to Lydia, meeting her eyes with a unforgiving glare, “but I have to tell to you something before I leave.”
Lydia nods, too stunned to speak. Malia hates her. She’d figured as much but it’s akin to slap to hear the words said out loud.
“That day Stiles and I found you by your front door, Peter’s smell wasn’t the strongest scent I noticed,” Lydia’s heart starts to race. She feels like she’s knows what Malia is going to say but she can’t explain how. “Scott’s scent was a lot stronger on you. I asked him about it later, but he said I didn’t understand scenting techniques. That if I did, I’d know it’s only natural for you to smell more like your Alpha then Peter.”
“Why are you telling me this?” asks Lydia. She tries but fails to keep the panic from her voice. She sounds high-pitched and out of breath - a terrible combination to the ears.
“Because I don’t trust Scott and Stiles anymore,” says Malia, “And I don’t think you should either. They keep things from us. Important things.” She walks over to the open window and puts on leg over the sill. She watches Lydia with a relaxed brow line but a drooping mouth as if the werecoyote was too tired to put in the effort to frown. “If you need help, call me. I’ll answer.”
“I thought you hate me and never want to see me again,” says Lydia.
Malia shrugs and throws the words “Doesn’t mean I want you to get hurt” over her shoulder as she disappears out the window and back into the storm.
Lydia can tell she won’t be getting good rest this night. She’s tempted to take a sleeping pill, but the idea of forcibly turning off her mind is unappealing. There’d been too much of that going on in her head lately.
She lets her thoughts spin wild until she falls asleep, not caring where they’ll toss her into the dreamworld. She probably won’t remember it anyway.