Everything Has Changed [LIAM DUNBAR] #2

Better Luck Next Time

Aspen closed the door to Hayden's room behind her and she shrugged off her jacket, mumbling, "Sorry I'm late. Your sister let me-"

She stopped, noticing Hayden's sleeping form on the bed, sheets twisted around her. She smiled and put a gentle hand on Hayden's shoulder, wondering if she should wake her or not.

Aspen didn't have to decide, though, because Hayden jumped awake when Aspen's hand made contact with her skin. "Sorry," Aspen smiled sheepishly as Hayden sat up. She sat down on the wrinkled sheets and sat cross-legged on them, pulling her hand off of Hayden's shoulder. "You wanted to talk?"

Hayden stared at her, and Aspen raised her eyebrows. Hayden closed her eyes, hastily shaking her head to clear her thoughts. "Um yeah.. I just wanted to say.. Sorry." Aspen frowned. "For what?"

"Leaving you at the bottom of that cliff, being a jerk," Hayden listed, "Everything really." Aspen laughed a little and placed her hand on Hayden's bare knee comfortingly.

"Hayden," she said, "We already talked about.. This." Hayden sighed. "I know.. I just.." She paused, meeting her eyes. "I love you Aspen."

Aspen smiled brightly. "Hey," she said, squeezing Hayden's knee, so, so, oblivious, "I love you too Hayden. You're like a sister to me." Hayden's face fell and she nodded. Aspen yawned, standing up.

"I'm gonna go," she told her, "Unless there's something else you wanted to talk about?" Hayden stared at her for a moment, brown eyes sad. "Uh.. No. We're good." Aspen squeezed her hand and waved. "See you sometime tomorrow?" Hayden nodded absentmindedly. "Yeah.. See you."

Aspen grabbed her coat and walked out to where she had parked her car, something still pressing down on her chest. There was something Hayden still wasn't telling her.

-/-

"There's four steps," Stiles told them, clicking around on his lap top, "We get in, we get into the closed unit, we get Lydia, and we get out." Scott nodded.

"And we have to do all this while getting past orderlies, guards, electronic door locks, and a mountain ash barrier," he said. Malia raised an eyebrow. "And you have a plan for all that?"

Stiles pulled the ID card off of his belt, holding it up. "Stole this off of an orderly last night. But it's useless, because they reset the codes each night." Kira frowned. "So why'd you take it?"

"Gettin' to that."

"The only way to get Lydia out of Eichen, is to get that key card working again," Scott filled in. Liam looked up from the maps on the table that Aspen had been fingering, nervous. "How are you gonna do that?"

"We're getting to that."

Aspen nudged him gently. "Just listen." Stiles held a hand out, "Thank you." He spun his lap top around, saying, "I pulled all of the history off the keycard. Two weeks ago there was a brown-out. Security system rebooted.. During a reboot, all the key cards revert back to a default code.. So, if we trigger a reboot-"

"Card goes back to the default code and.. It works again," Liam finished, finally understanding. Aspen smiled to herself.

Kira, however, wasn't smiling.

"H-how are we gonna cause a brown out?" she asked. Scott nodded at his girlfriend reassuringly. "That's your part. You're gonna draw power from the mainline, but only enough to cause the brown-out."

"Not," Stiles warned, "A black out. Doing that will send Eichen into lock down which will be bad. Very, very bad."

Scott leaned over the map, pointing. "There's an electrical room behind the reception counter. The main power line goes into two breakers that run power to all of Eichen."