Chapter Text
Stiles is 23 years old when there’s a knock on his apartment door.
“Not it,” Derek grumbles from the couch.
“It wouldn’t be for you anyway,” Stiles teases. “This is my place. You have your own house.”
Derek doesn’t say, But we really do live together, even though it’s true, because they do. The house is the pack’s now and Derek stay with him, and a lot of things have changed. One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is Derek’s people skills.
Before Stiles even reaches the doorway, Derek is in front of him, growling just softly.
“What are you doing?”
Derek holds a finger to his lips. “I recognize the scent.”
“…good scent or bad scent?”
Derek glares.
“Bad scent it is.”
“But it’s not—it’s not the same. It’s different.”
Stiles rolls his eyes. “Derek, can I answer the door please?”
“No,” he bites back, but it’s been a long time since Stiles has let the overprotective stuff fly so he grabs Derek’s shoulder and uses it as leverage to jump over him and open the door.
They don’t look like witches, but then neither had that girl those years ago, and yet they prickle with their combined energy. He makes sure his is felt as well. “Ladies, I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding but this is not where we conduct business.”
“You’re the Skinwalker?” one of them asks. She looks no older than 19 and she has a little bundle in her arms, swathed in pink. And that’s totally a baby.
Stiles glances down at it and back up at the girl. “To some people,” he says. He can feel Derek looming behind him.
“You don’t seem to be very good at listening,” Derek says. “My mate said that we do not conduct business here. That means leave.”
An older woman steps ahead, the oldest of the four there, bringing her disturbingly close to Stiles so that he has to hold his hand out against Derek’s chest to hold him back. “We are not here on the business of wolves, we are here in search of the little one’s light. Her mother is gone but her light survives outside of the child—it led us to you. We would not cross you, Skinwalker, we but we have a duty to what is best for the child.”
Stiles arches an eyebrow. “Her mother? Her mother’s light? I’m sorry, I think you have me confused with someone else. I’ve never…” Then he frowns. “Oh.”
“We believe you met our sister approximately five years ago. Her presence…stirred up some memories.”
Derek growls.
“She left her light in me when she tried to kill my mate,” Stiles tells them. “I just…jumped in front of the…thing.”
“Nevertheless.” The older woman picks up the pink bundle and extends her arms towards Stiles.
Stiles takes a step back, his mask of leadership and confidence falling aside. “Whoa. Whoa, whoa, what?”
“The girl is rightfully yours.”
“I never got anyone pregnant!” he argues. “No, no way—I’m not—just because her mom stuck her magic in me—that doesn’t mean—”
Derek’s hand on his hip silences him. “It’s tradition,” he explains softly. “The witch’s coven is not her biological family and with her gone…you are the next in line to be her caretaker.”
Stiles licks his lips. “I’m a high school English teacher. My mate just teaches middle school kids how to beat the crap out of each other—”
“It’s called kickboxing, Stiles.”
“—and I am not ready to be a dad.”
The woman is still holding the baby out and it’s making Stiles anxious, a little child just being handed out like that—it isn’t right. She should be held close and kept safe.
“She has no father to speak of, not one that knows she exists or would know what to do with a child of light. It’s more than Ability, it is full and nourished power in her. You are not as young as you let yourself believe.” She smiles. “She will be well. A coven is an institute that unites and protects, Skinwalker, but a pack is a family.”
“My dad will think you got me pregnant,” Stiles mutters weakly to Derek.
There’s no way to say no now. Stiles has already made up his mind, whether or not he knows it.
“Just…how?” he asks. “How did this… Why?”
The woman sighs. “Take the child, let us enter your home, and we shall explain.”
Stiles doesn’t need Derek’s permission to do anything, not really, but he glances up all the same, just for reassurance. Derek just blinks at him. And when Stiles turns back to the woman, he takes the child.
She’s tiny and beautiful and very calm. He finds that weird, that she’s so quiet, and her eyes are the same color of the ones he saw all those years ago. She’s looking at him curiously and doesn’t fidget or cry. He looks up at Derek, who is looking at him with those hearts in his eyes, and he knows they’re both done for. He pulls the baby close to his chest as everyone comes inside and then sits across from the women.
“We are a coven in Vancouver,” the older one explains. “Molly, the young witch you met, came to us shortly after the debacle here.”
Stiles still hasn’t looked away from the baby. “What’s her daughter’s name?”
“Her mother passed during childbirth and none of us felt right giving her a name.” She wrings her hands in her lap. “That honor is only for her biological coven.”
Stiles tickles the baby girl softly and she makes a pleased noise, giggling. “Her mother hated us. The whole reason you were led to me is that she tried to kill our Alpha.”
“She was misled. Our coven is close with the surrounding pack—the one that coined your title. They explained her fallacies and she repented.”
“She never even checked to see if I was alive.”
The woman clears her throat. “We all make mistakes.”
Derek is trying to be a badass and not stare at the baby so Stiles hands her to him. Watching him fumble with her is almost good enough to break character and crack up in front of coven. He schools his features and turns back to them. “So she’s mine? She’s ours?”
“Until a time comes in which she needs a coven.”
Derek growls.
“But that will be seen to when the time comes,” the woman amends. “No deals are being made today, Alpha Hale.”
“Except that we get to keep her?”
She nods.
Stiles smiles. “Then thank you for delivering her to us safely.” The few coven members stand to leave and Stiles knows that Derek appreciates the brevity.
He is still looking ridiculous adorable holding the quiet bundle in his arms. The kid’s squirming a little bit and Derek is staring with wonder in his eyes. He doesn’t look away as he says, “If you ever need our favor, my pack is in your debt.”
The eldest witch looks at them as the others file out the door. “She is a wandering little soul like her mother before her, but I believe she will make a fine cub.” With that, she walks out the door, closing it behind her.
“Derek,” Stiles says, standing still and staring at the closed door. “I was going to call for pizza and now we have a daughter. Am I correct?”
“Sounds about right.”
There’s a pause. Then Stiles lets out a little giggle. “We have a daughter. Oh, shit, we have a daughter.” He spins on his heel and his eyes are wide and terrified. “Derek, we have a daughter. But we have no diapers, no formula, no crib, no nothing! We don’t have baby food or medical records or a pediatrician or any of that, like, super important baby stuff—and I have to go to work in the morning and you have to go to work in the morning and what are we going to do?!”
Derek smirks. “Stiles.”
“Don’t—don’t make that face at me!” He points an accusatory finger, but his anger falls short because Derek has his own finger out. And the little girl in his arms is grabbing at it with her tiny, tiny hands.
“Stiles, we have a kid.”
“Holy shit, Derek.”
“You’re going to have to tone down the language, now.” Derek smirks. “She’s yours. And so kind of ours.”
“Derek, she’s definitely ours.” He sighs, kneeling on the couch across from his boyfriend. “You are my Alpha. I am your mate and this is my kid, your cub, our Laura.”
Derek goes really still and Stiles takes the girl in his arms.
The child squirms, a tiny cooing noise escapes her mouth. When both men look down at her she has spit running down her chin.
Stiles thinks it’s the most adorable thing in the world.
Derek lifts Stiles’ chin and kisses him, honest and quick. “Are you ever going to stop giving me everything I don’t know I need?”
Stiles smiles. “Probably not. But you know what we need right now?”
Derek arches an eyebrow.
“Everything I just mentioned.” He kisses Derek again and stands. “Seriously, like—diapers. And baby monitors. And clothes. And food. Laura can’t go without food, Derek.”
“Lydia’s gonna be mad we got the name first.”
Stiles smiles and hums. “Mm, pregnant rage, cannot wait. But she wanted to do it for you. I gotta say, it was sort of driving me crazy that I couldn’t give you that.” He leans down and kisses the baby’s chubby cheek. “And now we have a Laura,” he continues. “Some good things come from near death experiences after all.”
In the end the witch is kind of an important figure in their lives and whatever grudge she had against Derek must have been overshadowed by her affinity for Stiles because… This is everything.
And this just cannot be happening.
But it is.