After Stiles' beloved jeep has a run-in with the tree at the end of season 3A, the master of sarcasm falls into a coma. Stiles' friends sit by him every day and pray that he'll wake up, but little do they know Stiles is fighting a battle for his min...
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Lydia didn't visit Stiles as often as Scott, but by the third week of his unconsciousness, she had come to the hospital over a dozen times. She had a strange feeling about Stiles' coma that she couldn't quite put her finger on. But each time she visited him, the feeling got stronger.
By the thirteenth time, she realized that she was hearing him scream. Each time he swallowed or moved. His mouth stayed closed and vocal cords silent, but she could hear it faintly, in the back of her mind. And it terrified her.
She hadn't told Scott yet, scared he would either write her off as crazy or do the opposite and completely overreact and panic. But today, the screaming was so loud, his movements so frequent, that she didn't think she could take it anymore.
"I need to get out of here," she whispered as Stiles's eyes flickered and his scream rose. But she couldn't make herself leave. His screams clearly meant that he was in some kind of trouble, and she couldn't bear to leave him alone.
Stiles finally grew still after a moment, and Lydia breathed a sigh of relief, muscles untensing as the scream faded.
"Can you stay still for a little longer?" she asked, massaging her temples and trying to drive away her headache. "I don't want to leave you alone."
The beeping of the heart monitor, which had always been so steady and quiet, suddenly began to accelerate faster and faster. Dread grew in the pit of her stomach, and she reflexively clamped her hands over her ears as Stiles swallowed, his face tightening into a scowl as if he was having a bad dream.
This time, his scream was torn into an agonized shout, and didn't subside. His physical body swallowed several times in a row, one right after the next, until it looked like a gag reflex. His voice carried on inside her head longer than any person should've had the air to scream.
Lydia clamped her hands over her ears as the boy's screams grew into desperate pleas for help, broken by cries.
"Help me, Lydia!" he sobbed. "Please, please just help me!"
"I can't!" Lydia shrieked aloud, and she immediately clamped a hand over her mouth, for fear of someone outside hearing her.
The screams broke off with a retching, choking noise. She watched as his face kept twitching and the heart monitor stayed in hyperspeed, his throat continuing to make swallowing motions. When she leaned in closer, she saw that it looked like he was choking on something, so she carefully rolled him over onto his side.
Foam dribbled silently out of the corner of his mouth.
And then, as she realized what was happening to Stiles, she wanted the whole world to hear her screaming for help. "He's having a seizure," she whispered to herself, spinning on her heels and making a mad dash for the hallway. "Hey, help! Somebody!"
The hallway was empty, no doctors in sight. Panic tightened in her chest as Stiles' screams in the back of her head died off with a strangle.
He really was reaching out to her from beyond the grave somehow. And he needed her help now.
Empty room after empty room flashed past her. It was like a horror movie. Eventually, growing desperate, she took the stairs down to the ground floor, not wanting to wait on the elevator. It wasn't the easiest in her heeled boots, but the sudden silence of Stiles inside her head made her go faster.
She didn't think she would miss his screams in her head so much, but she suddenly wanted them back. The screams had meant that he was okay, in a way, compared to not being able to let them lose. Even if they were imaginary screams in the first place.
The receptionist, who just happened to be Melissa McCall, looked up in alarm as she saw Lydia sprinting towards her.
"Mrs. McCall," she said breathlessly, pushing the red hair from her eyes. "Mrs. McCall, Stiles needs help. I--I think he's having some type of seizure."
Eyes widening, Melissa handed the patient who was currently standing at the counter a slip of paper and stepped out from behind the desk, urgency in her posture.
"Show me."
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Lydia watched in quiet despair as Melissa pulled a needle out of Stiles' arm, having just administered a sedative. She double-checked the other needle that was still stuck in his hand, the one that was spilling life-giving fluids into him.
"This should calm him down," she said, tossing the needle into the trash can.
"What's happening to him?" Lydia asked. She knew Scott would be bombarding his mother with similar questions within a matter of minutes---she had texted the alpha on her way back upstairs.
"Well..." Melissa pursed her lips and shrugged. "He's waking up. That much is certain. There's just a little too much going on for his injured brain to handle, I suppose."
Lydia's heart sank. If Stiles was going to come out of this coma as an epileptic, she knew nothing would be the same as before. Stiles would most likely be a completely different person with a changed personality, and there was no way he would be able to come on their little missions with them again. Life would get pretty boring pretty quick without the loud-mouthed king of sarcasm to aggravate her while they were fighting for their lives.
