As fate would have it

Chapter 3

"Oh god."

"What?!" Lydia gasps, exasperated.

"I..." Kira stutters and frowns, trying to understand what Scott is mouthing to her. "I- I think that Stiles just hung up on Scott."

Lydia stops breathing. "Oh no."

Kira tries to reassure her friend. "Don't panic, Lydia. Stiles is probably just overreacting, you know Stiles..."

"Yes, I do!" Lydia hisses to the phone. "And he doesn't do that lightly." In fact, Lydia can't remember a time when Stiles had hung up the phone on his best friend, not out of a situation like this. The strawberry blonde starts pacing nervously in the middle of their living room, feeling guilty to her core. "I- I'll tell him to forget about it. I can't put him through this, Kira, I can't. I shouldn't have asked, why did I even-"

"Lydia, just do what you do better. Talk to him. You'll figure out a way, you'll see. You always do," Kira encourages.

Lydia runs her free hand through her hair anxiously and her breathing picks up. "I shouldn't have said anything, I'm so stupid. I should have just told Jade that I couldn't or-"

Kira interrupts the banshee's rambling. "Do you trust Stiles?"

The question takes Lydia by surprise. It's not every day that Kira steps up and makes her stop talking, especially regarding the brown-haired boy. Lydia tries not to talk about him much. "W- What?"

Kira repeats the words slowly, smirking. "Do you trust Stiles?"

"Of course I do. With my life." Lydia has never meant anything as wholeheartedly as she means this, not that anyone understands. No one but Stiles, that is.

"Then you're gonna end this call right now and you are gonna take a deep breath. You're gonna relax and wait for that boy to get home and then you two are gonna talk it out, alright? You can do it."

Lydia can say for a fact that the kitsune has exactly the same amount of information about Stiles and Lydia's current situation as Scott does, yet somehow Kira always seems to be able to say the right thing to reassure Lydia, like for some reason she knows more than she lets on. She's been an amazing friend. "Thank you, Kira." Lydia doesn't elaborate; she's sure that Kira understands how she feels. Partly, at least.

Kira teases her friend. "Oh and let us know what you guys decide on. We need to start betting on it," she giggles in amusement.

"Ahah, very funny." Lydia chuckles, feeling just a little bit better. "Now I'm definitely ending this call." Much like Stiles, Lydia has been hearing from Kira all about how she and Stiles are apparently dating.

Which, for clarification, they're not.

"That's fine, go on. Me and Scott, we have to head inside again anyways. Talk to you tomorrow?"

"Sure. And Kira?"

"Yeah?"

No one understands. Lydia knows that just like Stiles does. Still, she smiles at their friends' intentions. "Thanks."

xxxxxxxxxx

It's easier said than done, of course. Lydia is a nerve wreck when Stiles gets home. He took way longer to get back than he usually does and it only added to her uneasiness. Not knowing what to expect always leaves her anxious, more so in the last two years, ever since the damned incident.

"Lyds?" Stiles calls for her when he enters the apartment, closing the front door behind him. Lydia mumbles something incoherent from the kitchen and Stiles notices that something is wrong the second he steps into their living room.