02. Lydia the Mastermind

"No."

"Yes!"

"No."

"Oh, come on! Yes!"

"Not going to happen."

"We talked about this! She only has 60% evil, 40% on a good day. It will be fine!"

"Stiles, no. She probably thinks I'm a freak and wants to avoid me as much as humanly possible."

Alright, so let me explain. Stiles and I are arguing about me and going to meet Lydia after he was done with his little hissy fit, and decided to come back to my room because I was his friend, even though he claims that he strongly dislikes me. But that is irrelevant. I am supposedly going to the Martin household tonight, and Stiles says that Lydia is already here and how I should go meet her, but Persephone does not agree.

"You're not a freak Persephone! She is going to love you." Stiles continues with his goofy grin.

"Yeah, because running out of the woods bloody and broken into a parking lot, then passing out in said parking lot and having to be rushed to the hospital by a stranger then waking up and not even remembering why the hell I was running in the woods in the first place, is totally normal." I snapped out sarcastically. Sarcasm and I are beginning to have a very lovely friendship. I am starting to think that's the reason I can handle being in a room with a hyperactive spaz that goes by the name of Stiles Stillinski, (Who the hell even names their kid Stiles Stillinksi, I was going to definitely be having a chat with the Sheriff about that) without strangling him.

"Hey, at least you werent naked." Stiles stated like what he just said wasn't absolutely weird and out of place.

"What are you talking about? Why would I be naked?" I asked, trying not to laugh at his face as he looks at me trying to figure out how to explain what he just said.

"You don't know? I swear that I told you." He says, slightly confused.

"Tell me what?" I ask. I was about to tell him how weird he is, but then a thought flooded into my mind. "Oh my god!" I yell out, causing Stiles to jump about three feet out of his seat in fright.

"Are you trying to tell me that you ran in the woods naked before!?" I exclaim, slightly horrified but laughing none the less. Through my slightly blurry eyes from the tears wanting to leak out from laughing, I can see Stiles' eye twitch in frustration, then he huffs and drags his hand down his face. "Oh for the love of god, Persephone. I can't say anything to you without you accusing me of some horrid, and utterly embarrassing thing, can I?" His eyes are shooting daggers at me, but hey, he was the one who said it.

"Okay." I say, slowly calming down. "So if it wasn't you, then who was running through the woods naked then?"

"Well you know when Lydia disappeared from the hospital, right?" He asks me, moving to sit on my bed without permission and stretching his legs out across mine as he sprawls out on the other side of the much too small hospital bed. I didn't really blame him though, those hospital chairs do no not look very pleasing to me either. "Yeah." I answer, trying to piece together where the spaz was going with this.

"Well, for almost two days she was, for whatever reason, running in the woods naked, then when we found her she said she had no memory of doing it, the doctors don't know why either, but she wasn't hurt or anything so whatever. Lydia is still Lydia." After he finished talking he got this look in his eyes, and I smirked right at him.

"You really like her don't you?" I tell him, still smirking.

"Wha-? Psh, no. No, I don't know what you are talking about." He rambles on, his brown eyes not meeting mine.

"Yeah, okay. So you said she was running around in the woods naked for two days, without any knowledge of why, she has about 60% evil in her, 40% on a good day, am I keeping up?" I ask him.

"Yeah, pretty much." Stiles replies, with a slight frown on his face.

"Okay, okay. So she might be a little bit of a fixer upper, but I can tell that you really care for her when I heard you yelling for her when she screamed, and how you spent hours in the cold looking for her, and how I heard Melissa saying how you slept on those waiting room chairs for the whole weekend because you didn't want to leave her." Stiles just looks at me, and I mean just really looked at me registering my words.

"You can really figure things out with very little information can't you?" He says sighing, then flopping down all the way on the bed, which was a struggle for him because even though he was skinny and pale, and totally harmless, he was quite tall so his legs were bent in weird angles, but he just stayed there.

"I have been in love with her since the third freaking grade. This is the first couple of months that she has actually realized I exist and can actually remember my name." I smiled, then moved his feet a little further away from my face, because come on, who wants feet in their face? I poked his side, and he spazzed out, so I did it again and he twitched again and muttered a Stop it, I'm trying to wallow in self pity and unrequited love, but I did it again anyway.

Stiles flicked my hand away from his side to stop me from tickling him. "But hey, think of the bright side!" I exclaim, clapping my hands together. "What bright side?" He asks, still laying there looking like a kicked puppy, and I didn't like kicked puppy Stiles.

"Well, she finally started talking to you right? Maybe in a couple months you guys will be kissing!" My arms swinging frantically as I try to prove my point. "Yeah, in my freaking dreams!" Stiles said rolling his eyes.

"Stiles Stillinksi! It will happen one day! You and Lydia Martin will one day kiss and it will be magical and I don't care what it's for, you guys will kiss, and it will be better then any of your wildest dreams, lover boy." I could hear Stiles chuckling at my enthusiasm, playing with my toes as they stuck out of the blanket that I was currently wrapped up in.

"Is that a challenge I hear?" Stiles tells me playfully, still doing whatever he was doing with my toes. "Oh no, lover boy! It's a promise! It's going to happen, you know why? Because Persephone is alright right, and you should always listen to her!" I state confidently, acting like I did not just speak about myself in third person.

Suddenly, he sits up, his hand in a deal making position. "Alright, oh wise one, I will one day kiss Lydia Martin, and if I don't in the next year you owe me the whole batman movie collection."

"Alright Stillinski, you will one day kiss Lydia Martin, and if you do in the next year you owe me a gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream." I say, shaking his hand.

"You're gonna lose."

"You're gonna lose."

"You're gonna lose!"

"No, you're gonna lose!"

"Oh my god!" Stiles says throwing his hands in the air, then getting off of the bed. "You completely and totally changed the subject, you— you little runt!" He exclaims, realizing how clueless he was.

I just smirked, and rose one eyebrow at him, as if to say "I have no idea what you are talking about, I am completely innocent and this face has never been used to do something evil."

He grabbed my hand and tugged me out of bed, he caught me before I stumbled to the floor from how unready I was. Stiles starts for the doorway. "Oh no no no no! I don't think so!" I spat out as I tried to yank my hand from his grip, but I gotta give it to him, he is stronger then he looks.

"Stop being so stubborn! You're acting like she is the devil or something." The brown eyed boy mutters, dragging me down a random hallway. "Well you said she wears Prada right?" I ask shakily, trying to grab onto anything to save me from the judgmental strawberry blonde he was taking me to.

"Yeah, so? Shouldn't you be happy, you can go shopping. . .. and whatever the hell else girls do at sleepovers."

"Have you ever heard of the movie The Devil Wears Prada? I rest my case." My words don't stop him, he just scoffs and turns down another hallway. He started walking toward a hospital room, and I could see Melissa in there, and I also got a glimpse of red hair— oops, strawberry blonde, my bad. Instantly I turn my body around but Stiles sees it and wraps his arms around me to drag me into the room, but me being me, I instantly fake hiss and whimper. "Ouch, ouch, my shoulder, Stiles my shoulder!" I said, fake tears glossing my eyelids.

"Shit!" He says, then quickly lets go. "I'm sorry! I forgot." Right when he releases me I turn the corner and start running, where? Who knows. Not me.

"PERSEPHONE!" Stiles yells then runs after me. I was more fit then I thought because I have gone through various hallways without being caught by him yet, and at the same time dodging many nurses. I could feel myself laughing in victory, but then Stiles is in my line of vision at the end of the hallway, damn it.

I try to skid to a stop, but it's hopeless and I crash right into him. My shoulder actually does hurt now, along with my wrists as I use them to sit up. A headache is starting to form, and I'm guessing that with a minor concussion I really didn't think this through.

Stiles quickly took a pump of his inhaler, before sitting down next to me. "Why in the hell. ." Rasp. "Did you do that?" He finishes. I just take a deep breath before falling backwards again and lay down again, rather roughly as I try to stop the aches and pains. "Yeah, that wasn't really a good idea on my part, oh my god ouch." He just rolled his eyes and stood up and held his hand out. "And I really mean ouch this time, like seriously, ouch." I grumble then grab my shoulder, not even attempting to stand up yet. Stiles goes down and basically picks me up, when I got on my feet, I heavily leaned into his side as I got a little dizzy. He sighs, then wraps his arm carefully around my waist and we walked down more plain white hallways.

We end up at the room where my nurse and Lydia are but I really did not feel like protesting any, just kept leaning on him for support, just wanting to go lay down again. When we walked into the room, Melissa gasps. "Stiles what the hell did you do to the poor girl!" She quickly grabs me in her arms and makes me sit in a chair, and man was I right about them not being comfortable, then leaned my head onto the wall behind me.

"Well. . . I wanted her to meet Lydia, but she was being stubborn and ran away from me after playing a trick on me, then I chased her and I took a shortcut to catch her, but she was faster then I thought because right when I turned into the hallway, she was there, and then she kinda ran into me and yeah, yeah." He muttered sheepishly.

I scoff. "You mean I ran into a freaking brick wall, oh my god. Because that's what it feels like." He just rolled his eyes, but then I heard another laugh to my right.

I turned to see a certain strawberry blonde that's forever on Stiles' mind, and let me tell you, I suddenly wanted to put a paper bag over my head from how utterly perfect she was, it was not fair. Her hair was perfect shade of, well, strawberry blonde, they were curled in perfect ringlets, her lips were full, her skin was smooth with no sign of any blemishes. So, I just slowly slid down my chair, as if it would make me magically transport out of this very room.

I was expecting her to start listing off all my flaws, which I didn't even know how many I had because I still haven't looked into a mirror, the only thing I knew was that my hair was blonde, and my skin was pale, but she just smiled at me. "I'm Lydia." She says. "I would hug you but the spaz here seemed to have broke you." A laugh escaped my mouth, she just smirked and flipped her hair over her shoulder.

"Well, Lydia, everything looks good, nothing different then before your little— uh, run in the forest, so you can go call your mom to come pick you up, and if she is ready, as well as Persephone." Melissa stated as she checked her clipboard. "Thanks Melissa." Lydia said then stood up, grabbed her purse, and dialed her moms number. I could hear Lydia mumble random thing like, "Everything is good. Come pick me up. Sign out Persephone." Stiles walked into the room with a ice pack and placed it on my shoulder, and I told him a quick "Thanks, asshole."

"You're breaking my heart over here, Persephone." Stiles said in mock hurt. "Well you made me run into you and I'm in actual physical pain, so shut it Stilinski."

Lydia got off the phone and told everyone her mom would be here in 20 minutes. Stiles and Melissa escorted me to my room, Melissa because she had to, Stiles because he was actually feeling guilty by the look on his face.

Good.

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"Alright, here are all of your pain medications, take them according to schedule, no more no matter how much pain you are in, sorry. Here is a bag with all of the belongings you had on you when you were brought here, you will come back for a check up in about a week to get the stitches in your shoulder removed." Melissa listed off, then smiled at me when she was done. I had to smile back, because c'mon, it was Melissa.

"Thank you." I said sincerely, then pulled her into a hug, she hugged back quickly then we broke apart. Stiles had to go back home before his dad started freaking out, he told me he would see me tomorrow, whatever that meant. Why would he see me tomorrow? I just brushed it off and paid attention to Melissa, then Mrs. Martin showed up. She signed a couple papers, then when she saw me, she smiled brightly then hugged me as well. Lets just say there was a lot of hugging.

"You must be Persephone! Oh, you are beautiful just like Melissa said. You can call me mom, or whatever you feel comfortable with." Mrs. Martin told me, I smiled. I like her, I don't know why, but I just did.

In the car they didn't really ask me many questions, thank god, just a couple about my stay at the hospital, they knew about my major memory loss and knew that I couldn't answer anything before that. We pulled up to a really, and I mean really, nice house. I kind of just dumbly stood there in awe as they got my backpack and walked up to the door. Lydia playfully rolled her eyes and grabbed my wrist, dragging me into the threshold. The inside was really nice too.

"Well Persephone, this is your new home, you can act like it, no awkwardness and all that jazz, Lydia will show you to your room." Mrs. Martin says before giving my bag to Lydia, then following her up the stairs. She led me into a room, it was a guest bedroom, the walls were white, the bed was a queen size with pure white sheets and a light blue comforter, there was a t.v on the wall, along with a large bathroom, a large wooden dresser and a walk in closet. It was perfect.

"When you get settled in, you can decorate however you want it." Lydia told me, before dropping my bag onto the bed. "Also my bedroom is right though that door—" She then pointed to another door in the bathroom. "So if you need anything just knock on the door, but we have school tomorrow so—" "Wait, what?" I interrupted. "We have school?"

Lydia laughed before nodding her head. "Yeah, I'm not excited either. Running through the woods naked for two days and all, but whatever, We will look too amazing for them to judge us anyway." She confidently. "We. .?" I asked dumbly again.

"Yes, we, you are practically my sister now, and no sister of mine will look anything less then perfect on her first day of school." She smiled at me, before taking a piece of my hair, looking at it, then taking in my face, she then slowly walked around me, just taking me in, I felt weird and kind of squirmed under her gaze, but she didn't let up and continued her quest. When she got all the way around a smile was already on her face.

"Yes, yes I can work with that, I can definitely work with that, I already have an idea for your outfit, oh my!" She exclaimed before she rushed out the door and into her own room.

This is gonna be a long night.

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"Ow."

"Ow."

"Lydia, ow! Do you get what ow means! Ouch? Painful? Any of these words ringing any bells?" I hiss out for about the thirtieth time since she decided to do my hair. Lets just say she doesn't know the definition of the word gentle.

After a long night of nail painting, outfit picking, plucking of the eyebrows, and hair washing and conditioning to the point where I think my hair will forever hold its shine, Lydia let me escape to my bed and fall asleep, only to be woke up about four hours later. I was definitely not a happy camper about that.

"Shush, I'm trying to work a Lydia Martin masterpiece." Lydia mumbles before starting to comb and bobby pin my hair once again.

After Lydia's death wand— whoops, curling iron, going through my hair over and over again until it was curled into perfect spirals, then Lydia professionally putting the front of my hair into a headband braid, letting the rest of my hair flow over my shoulders, and hair spraying it to death, we were finished with my hair. The grin on Lydia's face just made me roll my eyes and turn to go look in the mirror.

"Hey! Nu uh uh! I am not done yet Missy." Lydia snaps, then turning me around before I god forbid see my own hair.

Finally, after 15 more minutes of her stabbing my face with god knows what and smearing black stuff on my waterline and putting a pinkish color on my lips, she let me stand up to go get dressed. I have to admit that the outfit she chose does look really cute, but of course she didn't need to know that. One pair of black tights with random swirls and shapes sewn into them, a black skirt that flowed down to a couple inches before my knees, a white knitted sweater, a red infinity scarf, and a pair of black combat boots later, I was presentable for my "first" day of school.

"I'm a mastermind." Lydia hums confidently as she takes me in. "Yeah, yeah, whatever." I mumbled before walking out of my bedroom while I waited for Lydia to finish getting ready. I decided to eat a bowl of cinnamon toast crunch while I watched a show called Gossip Girl. And I only have two words: Nate Archibald. Enough said.

"Oh! I love this episode!" Lydia sings as she struts down the stairs, and no I am not just exaggerating, she literally strutted down the stairs as if she owned them, it was quite interesting. "Yeah, well I love the boys in this episode." I sang back.

During the night of makeovers I got to really know Lydia Martin, and she wasn't as bad as I thought she would be. Even though I did not agree with her poking and prodding at an ungodly hour of the morning, I think we would get along perfectly fine. Maybe even be a sister to me one day. And not once the whole night did we venture into the "running in the woods and have no idea why" discussions. It was comforting, and I actually got rid of my stress in that little capsule of time.

"Okay, now chop chop I do not believe in fashionably late." Lydia says while walking to the front entrance, waiting for me to follow her. "Oh, and by the way I am picking up my friend Allison, don't worry, she will adore you."

"Alright, just let me get my bag real quick." I yell to her as I rushed for the stairs. Swinging my bedroom door open I see my bag— well technically Lydia's bag, but it's not like she was ever going to use it again, and swung it over my right shoulder to avoid the still tender wound on my left one. Melissa said that it looked like a gunshot skimming, and I couldn't piece together why exactly someone would try to shoot me. Was I getting robbed? Was someone trying to break into my house? Maybe I was just really annoying, but whatever it was, I couldn't remember one sliver of it, let alone everything else.

Melissa also told me that my amnesia was unusual as most people wouldn't forgot their whole life, only parts of it, while others couldn't remember anything after a certain date in time, or a day of an accident, but lucky me right?

I sighed before going to walk out the door, but my feet halted as I realized I still haven't got the chance to look into the mirror yet, I slowly crept over to the wooden vanity that Lydia made sure that I had, and closed my eyes.

"Here goes nothing." I quietly whisper to myself. I manually fix my hair and make sure that none if it dropped out of the bobby pins, (as if Lydia would let that happen) and opened my eyes.

And then I screamed.

•a/n

>> Song of the Chapter- Dollhouse by Melanie Martinez<<

cliffhanger (; #sorrynotsorry Alright! So here is an update (:

Also, can somone please do me a favor? I started school last Wednesday and I have Algebra 1st period, and my school thought it would be a good idea to have homeroom after 1st period because people would purposely get to school late so they wouldnt have to go to homeroom. SO I literally have Algebra first thing in the morning so if you could just like push me off a cliff, that'd be great. . . .