The ways of our love

Chapter 5

The banshee doesn't go home. Instead, she drives straight to the hospital and asks one of the receptionists to let Melissa know that Lydia will be picking her up. Until the nurse's shift is over, Lydia waits in her car alone with her thoughts, fingers tapping on the wheel anxiously the whole time as she tries to keep her tears at bay. When Melissa finds her, the redhead is almost in a trance.

Lydia offers to pay for lunch and Melissa reluctantly accepts it, not before hugging Lydia tight and telling her how much she's been missed in the past weeks. They settle for a small diner on their way to Derek's and while they're waiting for their food, sitting on a cornered booth and mostly away from prying eyes and ears, Lydia explains to Melissa all about Stuart. As expected, Melissa is a little skeptical at first so Lydia tells her what happened at the loft. They agree that Melissa will have to see with her own eyes to believe it.

They are already eating when Melissa pops the inevitable question. "So, have you talked to Stiles already?"

Lydia lowers her gaze, her throat feeling a little dry. Her voice trembles. "Just barely. I- I uh..."

Melissa gives her one of her famous Mama McCall smiles. "It's okay, sweetheart. You can talk to me."

Lydia purses her lips in a thin line, taking a deep breath to try and calm her nerves but she can feel the wetness swiftly forming in her eyes. "I don't know what I'm supposed to say to him," she whispers. "What am I supposed to say to him?" she asks, pleads in a shaky tone. Tears start to roll down her cheeks as she breaks down, sobbing in a silent crying.

"Oh honey." Melissa gets up and rushes to Lydia's side of the booth and the girl moves over, making space for the older woman. Melissa hugs her close, her fingers running through strawberry blonde locks soothingly as she murmurs comforting words. "It's okay. You'll be okay, you both will."

"I had to do it, I had to..."

"Shh I know..." Melissa only found out about what had happened between Stiles and Lydia when the girl was already on the plane to France. After that, she gave such a lecture to Stiles that the boy avoided her gaze for a whole week. "He knows too, Lydia. He knows you had to do it."

"He was so mad at me," Lydia pouts, wiping away some of her tears. "But I had to do it, I had to save him."

"He knows that. And he doesn't blame you, honey..."

"But he won't forgive me. He'll never forgive me but I had to save him." She pauses for a second to try and even out her breathing. "I'd do it all over again," she states resolute as she remembers the events.

The pack had been faced with another supernatural threat; another that went after Stiles for his intellect, this time one from the realm of the dead that couldn't be seen or heard, only felt. The boy had been on the verge of losing his mind all over again. It had attacked him aggressively twice and in between those times and after the second one, Stiles would feel incredibly tired, mostly melancholic and almost unable to talk. The first time he was attacked Stiles was unconscious for over 24 hours and the second time he fell ill during a whole weekend, in the beginning struck with dizziness, then hypothermia, incoherence, nausea and violent migraines. And that was before he started bleeding nonstop from his eyes in a slow, agonizing rhythm as whatever that sort of spirit was consumed him, his mind and his soul. And just as violently as it began, it stopped; Lydia wouldn't have it a third time. Only she knows how many hours of sleep she lost to find some sort of a plan, to come up with something that could save him. When she did find something, she went to Deaton to try and get some confirmation, some sign that it could actually work. Her sleep deprived self wasn't sure that it was even an option but alas it was, her only in fact. Stiles didn't even have a month left.