outsiderslogs | oo2. | ℒ | what the HELL just happend?

who. Lydia & her roommates
what. Lydia's Triumphant Return
where. Places.
when. This Morning.
warnings. Stiles will fuss.

Lydia wakes up with a start. Her body feels sore, a pull across her chest as if she's been in a collision. The Jeep. She had been in a warehouse. Frowning, she sits up and glances around. This isn't the warehouse. She glances down and she's in a bed. Fingers press to her brow, rubbing at it and trying to wake up more. She feels hazy and when she stands up she feels just uncomfortable. Moving to the door, she exits and then she realizes that she's not in a warehouse somewhere in Beacon Hills. She's on Omega. Again.

Turning around she looks at the door, but it looks like all the others and she's not even sure who would've taken her here -- or why.
Shaking it off, she finds her omni-tool and figures out where she is. It's just a shuttle ride and then she's back at the apartment. She needs to get back.

The ride feels numb, like a blur. She's trying to reconcile being home. She's trying to deal with what she saw. She's not even sure how it happened -- if it happened. Except, it matches what Stiles said to her. Maybe that's what it was. Maybe she dreamed it. Except it feels much more real. She's sure of it. Her fingers rub to the side of her nose again and the shuttle comes to a stop, allowing her to get out.

She gets to the apartment and opens the door. Glancing around, she just speaks loudly, "Stiles? Rachel?"

Her voice carries, mostly because Lydia knows how to project.

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More nodding comes to her, it's easy to just nod along and agree with things. She knows that she worried him and if she would stop to be honest with herself, she'd say that she's worried about herself, but actually saying that takes a lot more than she has right now.

Her fingers pick at the elbow of the shirt she's wearing. She probably smells worse than she thinks she does. Hair a mess of tangles and she realizes that he has every right to be mad that when Mordin went missing that she didn't come tell him first. She's just not used to having someone to check in with. Her mom isn't around enough to care what she does and the only person she used to tell things to was Allison and even that wasn't telling her things. It was attempting to.

Drawing in a shallow breath, she worries on her bottom lip before she looks up at him again. "It feels like it was just an hour ago, but you don't have the bruises, so I know it's not the same." Lydia needs it to make sense, but it doesn't so she's struggling to just hold onto what she knows.

She knows Rachel isn't here right now.

"It's not okay," she says softly. She doesn't want to keep getting pulled back and forth from the past and here. Swallowing, she rolls her eyes, trying to stop feeling sorry for herself. "I sound pathetic and I smell, and I was living in a strangers home for a week. God, I hope I was wearing this the whole time."

Stiles does care, though. And while he can't say it's an entirely altruistic kind of caring, he does want her to be safe. He's trying to stop protecting her at every turn from imaginary monsters, but he does care about her - he wants to show that he does, too.

He sucks in a short breath and then nods. "Yeah, those have been healed for a while."

"There aren't any strange stains, right? You're probably okay," he tries, and then shakes his head. "God, I was so worried about you. You know that, right?"

And, not caring how she smells or what she's wearing he moves forward to give her another hug.

Stiles earns such a look at the remark about strange stains. She doesn't want to go searching her clothing for that and if anyone even tries to ring a black-light near her she's screaming.

"I know. I have messages from you--" she's about to ask him if she should listen to them, if they're things she should hear or not, but then he's moving toward her and hugging her again. She would've stepped away, but Rachel's not home right now and she just needs this. She needs to know someone cares, because for every hour she was back there, back home she had forgotten everything that had happened here. It was like it didn't count for anything.

All the hollow and lies just layered atop the rest of it and she came back into the truth. It's hard to look at, to think that it had been there if only someone could've told her.

Her head tilts and rests to his shoulder, "Should I listen to the messages or are these ones I should delete?"

"You can delete 'em," Stiles says into the slightly greasy curls of her hair - but again, he doesn't care. He's just happy she's here, that she's not home watching Jackson die, that he knows she's safe.

"They're just me freaking out. Actually, definitely delete them without listening." He'd been in full freakout stage near the end, and possibly at one point just begged her to tell him to fuck off if she wanted to avoid him, just so he'd know she was okay.

A few months ago, hugging her, he probably would have been too excited to sit still. Now it's - mostly platonic, on his part, just a way to make sure she's okay and to let her know he's happy she's safe.

"I won't listen," she replies easily. It's probably for the best anyway. She's not sure if she wants to listen to a stream of Stiles' thought process through it all. She knows that it'd do more harm than good at this point. She's heard it. Maybe not this one, but the other one - recently even.

The talk about how he'd be devastated. How things don't happen to her. No matter how long ago it happened, it still has that echo of recent in her thoughts. It feels real and maybe that's why she's okay with the hug. Why she had pulled away that first time, because she hadn't expected the reality of it to be okay.

Her breathing slowed, bringing in a deep breath before she let her head lift up off of his shoulder, "I really need to shower."

The messages aren't quite like the conversation they'd had at home, or even the one they'd had on the station about her looking for a job. But they do all hold that edge of manic worry, and it'd be embarrassing to rehash.

"You do kinda smell," Stiles says, mostly because he's honest, and because, well, she does. He doesn't really let her go, though, just looks at her with a faintly worried expression.

"Bathroom's clear, though. So you can scrub to your hearts content and all that."

To be honest, Lydia doesn't mind that he hasn't let go of her. It's reassuring and it's who he is. She doesn't expect him to stop being worried and concerned just because she's miraculously back from ... the place that shall not be named.

Exhaling, she nods at his remark about the shower, "I'll do that then. You'll be here when I get out, right?" Because, maybe she wants to just have that reassurance again.

"I'm not going anywhere," Stiles assures her earnestly, patting her back once where his hands are before he lets them fall away to his sides. "We can talk about something. Or you can kick my butt at holographic chess."

Lydia nods, exhaling again once his hands leave her shoulders. She knows that she can handle this, that it'll be fine and she'll just push forward and continue on.

"I'll be looking forward to kicking your butt," she replies with an attempt at a smile. Excusing herself, she goes to her space gathering her things and then heading to the bathroom where she's planning on just curling up under the water and letting it run over her for a good bit of time. She'll scrub and clean, but she just wants to breathe and not think about anything for a bit.

Stiles watches her go and he - well he worries. He hopes this is really Lydia, but he's still not sure what this place is like. Still, it seems like Lydia - what he knows of her.

Instead, he sits down and pulls up the games tab to set up the game, wondering if she'll show up. He hopes Rachel will be home soon so he can tell her Lydia's back, too.

Lydia knows that he's going to worry and that there's nothing he can do to not worry. Surprisingly, she's okay with it this time. Mostly because she's worried herself. In the shower, she mostly presses to the wall and lets the water run over her. She scrubs where she can, inspecting every inch of herself that she can see. The scar from Peter is still there, angry and pointing out that vulnerable time in her life, but that's all that's there. She doesn't see any puncture marks, no skin irritation that would be indicative of being held against her will. There's nothing, which is as much frustrating as it is confusing.

So Lydia lets the water just run over her. She lets it run until it's nearly cold. She lets it run until she can't feel the water anymore, just a press of temperature to her skin. Shutting the shower off, she sits on the floor in the bathroom, towel wrapped tight across her as her hair drips water into a puddle. Eventually, she dries off and twists her hair up in a towel while she redresses. She pats at her hair, shaking it through the towel and running her fingers through it. She doesn't dry it, doesn't look to put make-up on or anything else. She just gets dressed and moves to rejoin Stiles.

oo2. | ℒ | what the HELL just happend?

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