They stay at the house for almost two weeks before they go back to Beacon Hills for a weekend. Lydia feels out of place and like the rest of the pack looks down on her for leaving. She quickly realises that she's not ready to be back yet. After that they spend almost a month at the house. Scott visit them sometimes, Stiles does to sometimes but every time Lydia feels even more alone so after a while Derek tells them to stop coming by. They still call, but he only tells her when she asks.
After almost 6 weeks with Derek by her site, she's back on track with her school work, she's sending applications to colleges and she's not drinking or hurting herself anymore. The pack doesn't know how bad it was with her, they know she was down and that she needed help, but only Derek and Scott knows how bad. She doesn't want the others to know. Especially Stiles, he would never forgive himself if he knew how bad she were and not did anything to help her.
Logically she knows her and Derek can't stay at the house, hiding forever but a part of her wishes they could. She loves it there - the house is perfect, outside there's the forest and the water and it's only 20 minutes to the little town where they had their first date and their first big argument. All her memories with Derek is in this place and she fears that they'll drift apart when they move back home.
After three weeks they say ‘I love you’. Lydia have never told anybody that, so it was a big step, but she's glad it happened. She loves Derek and he loves her, he even bite her to mark her as his, but still she wonders.
They're laying at the couch, her legs on his lap as he's massaging her feet after their long walk.
“Better?” he ask her as he stops. She just hums for him to continue. “Guess not.”
He keeps going, sensing something is off with her.
“Baby, what's wrong?”
“Huh, nothing.” Her nails seems to be very interesting at that moment.
“Lydia…”
She just shakes her head, moves to stand up but he pulls her to him so she's straddling him.
“Tell me.”
“Are you going to keep loving me when we have to move back?”
“Baby .. of course I will. Is that what's bothering you?”
“Yeah, I don't really want to go home, I wish we could stay here.”
“I wish that to, but they need us and we need to get back to our lives. But .. this might help.”
He lifts her up a little and fishes something out of his pants pocket. When he opens his hand there's a leather string, something shining on the end. He offers it to her, looks at her eyes as she takes it.
“It's not like something big, it's not even anything if you don't want it, but if you do it's yours. I want to be with you.”
She looks at the string, seeing a key and a ring.
“Derek ..” tears are running down her face. “I want it, thank you.”
He takes the string from her and pulls of the ring to place it on her finger.
“I love you,” he whispers as he slides it down on her finger, holding her hand to his heart. “I love you too.”
She kisses him, holds him close. She only breaks away when she needs air, he keeps kissing down her neck, making her giggle.
“Does the key mean I can come and go as I please?”
He moves away only a little to whisper into her skin. “It means I want you to live with me at the loft.”
