InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Ding dong the witch is dead."

No… no no no.

Lydia couldn’t stay at work after that notification. Maybe she’ll get in trouble with her superior for that, or whoever ran the faculty, but she wouldn’t get anything done if she stayed. So, she left.

When she got back to her apartment – their apartment – she dropped her things right at the door before walking in. His stuff was still there. Was that usually how it happened? Did people return without their belongings? Did Vallo leave things behind for them to pine over? Lydia had already lost him once, very nearly from her entire memory, but she got him back. And then he landed in Hell and she fought tooth and nail to get him back again. She couldn’t deal with losing him again.

A hoodie of his still remained tossed on the back of the sofa. And on any other day, she would have shook her head and picked it up to either throw it back into their room or just worn it herself. It was hers now, sorry, Stiles. If you didn’t want your stuff taken, put them on the hanger!

This time, all she could do was pick it up and hold it against her chest as she struggled to take a deep breath in order to keep herself together. She failed. She really had lost him again.

Having left for the library that morning, Stiles hadn’t bothered to check his phone on the walk back. The only person he’d really be messaging was Lydia, and she knew when to expect him. He’d seen his hoodie on the back of the couch before he left, and fully intended to wear it, but then of course something else had caught his attention and he’d forgotten all about it.

Walking through their door, the last thing he expected to see was Lydia holding it up to her face, looking like something horrible had just happened.

Actually, given this place that probably wasn’t too out of the ordinary.

“Lydia…?” He spoke her name tentatively, a question as much as an announcement that he was back.

Lydia’s heart stopped. Or at least it felt like it, but it was probably just a minute moment of arrhythmia because she hadn’t expected to actually hear his voice even though she badly wanted to. She spun around, tears having already made tracks down her cheeks and into the hoodie she had been holding to her face.

“Wha– how are you ev– You disappeared!”

Looking back over his shoulder for a second as if the answer could be found there, Stiles turned a confused expression back towards her. “I don’t think I did?” But her expression said this was a bit more serious than a flippant quip about the whole thing. Which meant it was more likely Vallo doing something. Again.

Pulling his phone from his pocket he flicked to the network, realization dawning as he saw all the messages about people not actually being gone. “I haven’t looked at my phone,” he told her, half an apology, half an explanation.

Lydia was angry. Okay, no, not entirely angry. And none of the anger was at Stiles. She was absolutely relieved but it came out as a frown as she stomped over to him and pushed his hoodie into his arms. “You… you could have looked! And you could have messaged me!”

And then she hugged him.

He instinctively took the hoodie when she shoved it at him, prepared to accept the wrath of Lydia Martin because in fairness, if the roles were reversed he would have been pissed off too. Not at her, never at her. But at this place and the bullshit it seemed to delight in sending their way. And Lydia had already dealt with losing him more than once.

“I know. I’m sorry.” But she knew him. Or at least, he hoped she knew him well enough to know he didn’t mean to not be entirely logical about how he did things all the time. When she hugged him, his arms went around her in turn, the hoodie left hanging from one hand as he held her close. He doubted he’d ever get over how well they fit together.

“Stupid Vallo,” she mumbled into his shirt, because she had kicked off her heels when she came home and so she didn’t have much height as she normally did standing next to Stiles. Still she held on a little tighter. If she could cry with relief she would but now she was just plain exhausted. Lydia finally pulled back just enough to look up at him with her arms still around him. “I’m going to have you start texting me on regular intervals now.”

He would have been happy to have her stay there for a while, but he loosened his hold when she pulled back. “That definitely sounds like something I won’t forget to do and freak you out again.” He brushed back some of her hair, his hand lingering by her cheek as he gave her a small smile. “So how long did it take you to start smelling my clothes?” He couldn’t resist teasing, even if having good sense might have made him give it a bit longer.

Lydia slapped at his chest lightly, the tears had long subsided though there were probably marks on her foundation across her cheeks. “Excuse me, I wasn’t smelling it, I was clutching it close to me like the last time your jersey was left behind after the Wild Hunt took you away from me.”

“It’s fine, you don’t need to explain. I get it, you think I smell good.” He didn’t know as much about what had happened to him in their future as she did, but she’d explained it to him. He knew the basics. And he did feel bad that he seemed to have a knack for disappearing on her, or even fake disappearing, apparently. Lucky for both of them he seemed to have an equally good knack for coming back again.

Lydia shook her head, before pulling away and leading him to the sofa. The tumble of emotions that had hit her in the past few seconds was leaving her now and she was feeling… well not so frustrated as curious now at what happened. “In my time being here,” she said, sitting down, taking out her own phone and looking at the notifications. “These have never been wrong. Not that I went and investigated but it wasn’t like people came back and were like ‘surprise I was always here’. They did come back through whatever portal exists to get them over here.”

He let himself be led, dropping down to sit close beside her, their shoulders brushing. “Well, there’s a first time for everything.” And once, as his dad would say, was a coincidence. It wasn’t a pattern yet. The pattern was them being true. “For the record, if you ever leave, you better find a way to come right back.”

“If I leave,” she started with a scowl. “It better back to the point I remember when you and I are together and nothing terrible ever happens again because we all decided to get the hell out of Beacon Hills.” Her expression then changed to a smile. “But anyway, I don’t think there’s anything in any universe that could keep us apart for too long.”

He didn’t mean to smile at the scowl, but he couldn’t quite help it. There was something undeniably adorable about that expression on her. How someone could simultaneously be adorable, sexy and terrifying was a mystery. But that was Lydia Martin for you. “It hasn’t got us beat yet. I like to think that tether is too strong for anything to break.”

Lydia moved to bring both of her legs under her, sitting cross-legged and facing Stiles. She took his hand, and though it was devoid of the red string she knew he always carried because his brain couldn’t let an unsolved mystery go, it was what she was thinking of when he mentioned their tether. “Nope. That red string is unbreakable,” she said with a sigh. “But… I did think I lost you again, and I had started to grieve. And grieving is exhausting. So I think we should not do anything for the rest of the day except order takeout.”

He liked that they were both thinking the same thing. It had been such a simple moment between them, so brief when so much else had been going on, but he would never forget it. He squeezed her fingers when she took his hand, shifting to face her better on the couch. “You’re not wrong.” Grieving really did drain all of your energy. It was one of the reasons October had never been his favorite month. “I can live with nothing and takeout. Preference?”

Lydia shook her head, entwining her fingers further into his before moving closer. “We’ll pick something at random when we’re ready to stop cuddling and get off this couch.”