The Wild Side | Stiles Stilinski | One

41 - Epilogue

My eyes fluttered open to the stark white of the hospital. My eyes snapped shut and I lifted my heavy head with a groan. I sniffled and rubbed the back of my hand across my chin to wipe away the drool, trying to twist my head back and forth. My neck was too stiff to make it very far, but that was the price I paid for falling asleep in the chair next to Lydia's bed. If it meant having my head on the cot, one of her hands in mine at all times, it was a price I was willing to pay.

Stiles had broken several traffic laws to get Jackson and I back to the hospital. It was a good thing, too, because my mother was having a complete meltdown. Natalie had told her I'd be down on the first floor with Allison—which, of course, I wasn't—and no one else had a clue where I could have gotten to. The only person who'd had any luck calming her down was Sheriff Stilinski, who'd managed to assure her that he'd already spoken to me, that I'd sounded like I might need some time to clear my head, and that he'd make sure I was okay himself. They'd apparently held up a pleasant, if tense, conversation about Stiles and me until we'd wandered right into the waiting room. At that point, my mother sprang up from her chair, launching herself at me and squeezing so tight, I felt like I was being suffocated by a Burmese python. She bombarded me with question after question, even ones that I'd already told her the answers to. Finally she looked down, trailing off only when she noticed that Stiles and I were holding hands.

That had given Stiles enough time to explain that he'd shown up at the hospital a little later than he'd intended. He'd wandered restlessly after talking to his dad and bumped into me on a completely different floor. After making sure I was okay, he and Jackson had taken me for a drive, all three of us so worried about Lydia that we couldn't stand to stare at the white walls any longer.

It was a crappy cover story—the biggest problem being that Jackson rarely offered to drive me anywhere, let alone Stiles—but it sated our parents for the moment. My mother passed me the T-shirt and sweatpants she'd grabbed me from home, which I took gratefully. I was ready to stop wearing Kate's clothes.

Mrs. McCall had shown up on our floor as soon as she heard what happened. Stiles and I assured her that Scott was fine. He was taking care of Allison and would be coming as soon as he could. Mrs. McCall had pulled me into a gentle hug, considerate of the padding on my shoulder. She'd noticed the several glances I stole to Lydia's room and promised she'd talked to the doctors to see what she could do about letting me in.

Lo and behold, twenty minutes later she returned. The best deal she could bargain was for my mother and I to be allowed inside, since we were living with the Martins and Natalie had given us a pass. Stiles, on the other hand, would be confined to the waiting from. I was almost tempted to stay with him, but in the end, my loyalty to Lydia won out. Stiles hugged me warmly, letting me cherish that warm smell of cologne and curly fries one more time, and promised he'd stay nearby as long as I needed him to.

Since then, I hadn't left Lydia's room. Mom and Natalie brought me food from home or from the cafeteria, and I stood to use the restroom when I had to. Besides that, I hadn't left her side in days. The doctors assured us that Lydia was under the care of their finest doctors, and while that had helped to console her mother, it wouldn't do anything to move me. I head a few whispered phrases behind my back, things like "separation anxiety" and "survivor's guilt." I wasn't going to argue with them, not if it meant I could stay. Even if they were right, it was only part of the reason I was staying. They could bring all the specialists in the world to see Lydia; none of them would be able to predict what was happening to her.

And that was the scary part. No one knew what was really happening. Not the specialists or the nurses or the doctors. Not even Dr. Fenris knew what was going on with Lydia. He'd stopped by for just a few minutes, the dark look in his eye telling me that he knew precisely what had happened to Lydia, but no clue what it might mean for her future. He'd promised vaguely to look into it, and if he found any explanation, he would let me know.

At first, I'd thought for sure that Lydia's body was rejecting the bite, that I might only have a few days with her before she died. But by the next day, her body had returned to a stable condition. If she wasn't dying, it should have meant she'd been turned, but she wasn't healing either. She was caught in some limbo in between—not healing, not dying, not turning, not waking. The confusion alone was enough to drive me mad.

Of course, I was happy she was still hanging on, but every breath felt like a lifetime apart, every blip on the heart monitor too far away. I was hanging on the edge, just waiting for something to go wrong. I was sure that if I ever got too comfortable, she would flatline or stop breathing again. It was a wonder I got any sleep at all.

Scott had checked in, too, when things calmed down. After my desperate fainting spell, Derek and Mr. Argent had decided to postpone their fight for a single night. They had Kate's dead body and Peter's burned corpse to deal with. It was only a matter of time before someone happened upon them, and there was still an open murder investigation in town.

In the end, they had concluded that it would be best to pin it on Kate. The police knew that all of the murders had been connected to the Hale fire, and that the mastermind behind the arson had been a young woman with a fancy necklace. Allison had offered the heirloom up for the frame job, making it look like Kate had gone after all her accomplices before killing herself out of remorse. Then Derek had disposed of Peter's body in some deep grave beneath the house, where it would hopefully never be disturbed again.

I blinked around the room, trying to get my bearings once more. Lydia was still motionless on the bed, her hair lying unmoved on her shoulders, but her cheeks looking like they had a little more life in them. There were a few cards that had been placed in the room while I was asleep, all from Lydia's friends and admirers. I wasn't sure how many people had heard about what happened, but Jackson had carried her body through the parking lot while students were pouring out of the school. It had probably caused a bit of a panic.

My free hand reached out blindly for my cell phone on the chair next to me, intending to check the time, but instead I found something soft and fuzzy. I frowned, picking up the teddy bear that had been propped up in the seat. Upon further inspection, there was a nearly identical one nestled on Lydia's pillow, wearing a yellow T-shirt that said "Get Better Soon." Mine, however, read "Thinking of You" with a small heart drawn sloppily on the hem in black Sharpie. I turned back to the chair to find a water bottle and a pack of Reese's peanut butter cups as well.

A wide, bleary smile spread over my face. Of course—Stiles.

Stiles. My stomach still fluttered just thinking about him: the way we'd danced, the speech he'd given, the fact that I'd finally gotten to kiss him amidst all the other crazy things that were going on. And that was the point. There were other things that were going on. Things we had a responsibility to tend to before we could focus on ourselves. I hated it, absolutely despised it, but I had to make sure that Lydia was going to be okay. Or deal with the fact that she wasn't going to be okay. Either way, the entire situation with Lydia needed to be closed before I could let myself concentrate on Stiles.

Thankfully, he understood. He knew me well enough to get that it was nothing personal, that I was nervous and I was scared, but that I wanted him. So he'd promised to wait until I was ready to talk about it. And so far, he'd done a pretty amazing job of staying by my side. This time, it was his turn to keep me sane.

I laid my head back down on the bed, cuddling my new bear to my side. I wanted to enjoy these quiet moments before a wave of new problems hit. We had survived a lot over the last few months, but I knew deep down that it wasn't over. In reality, everything was just beginning.