"Why did we get stuck on lookout?" Stiles asked with a groan, hitting his head against the back of his Jeep seat in frustration.

"Probably because we are the only two in our group of friends without super-fast healing abilities?" Lydia answered. "And when we are all running around in the middle of the night trying to save the town from, yet again, another supernatural crisis, it's easier for the ones who can actually help solve the problem not to be worrying about us getting hurt."

"I can help." Stiles crossed his arms and stared out the windshield, pouting.

"We are helping. We are making sure that the wendigo doesn't circle back around this way. And if someone DOES get hurt we are here with a way to get them safely to Deaton's. We're helping."

"Yeah. Helping." Stiles sighed. "This is so boring."

"You told me once that you couldn't handle it if something happened to me."

"Yeah." Stiles replied automatically. "Still stands, by the way."

"Okay. You don't want me getting hurt. Did it ever cross your mind that I don't want YOU hurt either?" She asked.

Stiles huffed a quiet laugh. "No. No not really."

"Well I don't." Lydia smiled. "And nobody else does either. So yeah, keeping us here may be a way of them keeping us out of the way, but they are doing it to keep us safe. Not because they don't think we can help."

Stiles slammed his hands against the steering wheel in front of him. "I know that, I do. This is just so freaking boring!"

"Do you remember," Lydia began, trying to distract Stiles, "When Kate took Scott and Kira to Mexico and I was trapped in the school with Mason and the berserker?"

"Yeah. I sent Dad to go look for you and he blew the thing up with a grenade." Stiles replied.

"Well before he showed up," Lydia continued, "I was determined to get out of there. So Mason and I had a plan to go after the berserker. With baseball bats."

Stiles laughed. "Seriously Lydia? You were gonna go after a berserker, with a BAT? Do you know how dangerous that was?" He meant what he was saying but the seriousness of his words were lessened by his laughter.

"Yeah well I figured it had worked for you in worse situations. And I didn't exactly have any better options." She smiled back.

"And all these years I thought you were the one with the responsible, well-thought out plans." He teased.

"I guess I have just spent too much time around you." She joked, realizing a moment too late to stop, that she was flirting.

Stiles was silent for a moment before reaching up and rubbing the back of his neck as he asked, "I guess it's my turn now?"

"Turn for what?" She asked.

"You just shared a secret about me. I'm pretty sure playground rules state that now I have to tell you one of my secrets about you." Stiles said.

"It wasn't exactly a secret…" Lydia answered. "Just a story."

"That involved me. That I didn't know. That qualifies it as a secret." He informed her.

"Do you remember," Stiles began after a pause. "Right after the ritual with me, Scott, and Allison? That morning when we realized that something was wrong, that we had opened a door?" Lydia nodded.

"Well that morning, when I had all the nightmares? You were in one." He confided.

"Like, as a banshee?" Lydia prompted, curious.

"No. As you. You know how you sometimes have a dream within a dream?" Stiles asked.

"A false awakening." She answered.

"Right. Well this was a nightmare within a nightmare within a nightmare within a nightmare. But in one of them. The second one, I think, I dreamed I woke up from a nightmare and everything was fine, I was in my bed, everything was normal. But you were there. Sleeping right next to me, one of my old tee-shirts falling off your shoulders. You woke up and asked if I was alright and told me to come back to bed, and I realized, after a little while, that it was weird that you were in my bed, that was what clued me in that it was another dream. But for a second there, everything was perfect. Everything felt like it was exactly the way it was supposed to be. Because of you."

Stiles took a breath and stared out the windshield, afraid to look over at Lydia. Worrying that he had crossed a line, that he had taken their newfound comfortable friendship and messed it up. Not wanting this secret to pull her further away. So he was shocked to say the least, when he heard a quiet "Thank you." come from the passenger seat of his Jeep.

"For what?" He asked.

"For being the only guy in the world adorable enough to think so highly of me that he has a dream about me, literally, just sleeping." Lydia answered with a smile.

Stiles breathed a sigh of relief. "Yeah well thanks for giving me a moment of peace in the middle of my crazy twisted dreamworld." Stiles replied.

"Anytime." She told him, turning her head to scan for trouble out her window, the pane of glass reflecting the flash of her smile back towards him.

And while Stiles wasn't exactly looking forward to his next nightmare, the bad still outweighed the good in those situations, he definitely wasn't going to complain the next time he and Lydia got stuck on lookout duty again.