spamalot } { hey it's good to be back home again

[impetere]

Cora: So you're saying he's not really going to be able to figure that out until we figure out where we stand?

Derek: I think he doesn't know what he wants right now beyond keeping that little girl safe. He needs to get that first before he's probably going to even think about himself.

Cora: [sighs softly] I'll do whatever he wants me to ...

Lydia: No. You aren't listening. As the resident crazy person, I'm making an executive decision. [she huffs and leans back against the seat] We're staying with your mother. And you and Stiles can deal with this like the theoretical adults that you are.

Derek: Thank you for being a voice of reason, Lydia. [looking at her in the rear view] And you're not a crazy person.

Cora: [is making a face but doesn't argue]

Lydia: You're not the one who had a mental breakdown and needed to leave Boston.

Derek: No, but at least you didn't a near death experience that drove you across the country for your own safety.

Lydia: That's self-preservation, not insanity. I had a screaming fit and was hearing voices in the middle of the commons.

Derek: Did they are least tell you how pretty you look today? [trying to make her feel a bit better]

Lydia: [a small smile at that, before turning her eyes out to the window] Well, it's certainly intersting to be home.

Derek: It's nice to have you home. [looks at his sister] You too, pup.

Cora: [glances back at him with a small smile] Any other surprises I should know about?

Derek: His daughter doesn't know what we are yet. But she's only three.

Cora: [she nods] So ex-nay on the erewolf-way.

Derek: Pretty much. [thinks] Oh, and Peter is Malia and Isaac's pet dog. [such a smirk]

Cora: [a sharp laugh] And he let her?

Derek: He was in coyote form at the time, and Dina is three. Pretty sure he didn't have a choice in the matter.

Cora: [she laughs harder] Poor Peter.

Derek: Dina and Ryan fell asleep on him. Mom has pictures. He couldn't shift out for almost two days [is laughing too hard]

Cora: [is laughing so hard she can't breathe] I'm sure he was very happy with that.

Derek: I think he secretly was, but we didn't see him for a day after.

Cora: Are he and Nadia still ... ?

Derek: I don't think Nadia's going to leave him because he became a pet for 48 hours.

Cora: No, but I think he might have been in it for the belly rubs.

Derek: [nope, back to laughing too hard]

Cora: [grins as her eyes turn back to the window again. She's missed this, being home with her family. It's good to be back]

Comments

[grumpypuppy]

Derek sighed as he pulled up at the Hale house and looked out at the familiar porch that currently had a group of children on it, laying on their stomachs coloring. "Home sweet home. I have to go pick up Liam from lacrosse practice, or I'd stay longer. You two be okay?"

[impetere]

"Fine," Lydia says with a nod as she grabs her bag and slides out of the car. "Come on. Time to put on your big girl pants."

That is directed more at Cora.

Cora rolls her eyes a bit, before leaning in and giving her brother a hug. "Thanks for coming to pick me up."

[grumpypuppy]

He hugged back back. "We'll see you Sunday at dinner. And if you need to talk, just call."

Almost immediately after she shut the door, twin heads popped up. "AUNT CORA!" they shouted in unison and she was hit with two canonballs to her waist.

Derek laughed. "Oh, thank you karma for these twins."

[impetere]

Cora laughs as she catches them, sliding her arms around them and holding them close. They've gotten bigger since she last saw them, closing her eyes and sinking into it. "Hey, guys. Oh, I missed you."

Ryan perks up from his seat on the porch as well, bouncing on his heels and waiting for his turn. "Aunt Cora, Aunt Cora."

Lydia smirks at him as she makes her way closer. "What am I, chopped liver?" He turns and his eyes light up, before throwing his arms around her legs.

"Hi, Aunt Lydia."

[fadingspark]

Which left just a tiny blonde girl standing on the porch, biting her lip and inching her way down. She doesn't know either person, but Ryan, Haru and Kichi seemed to think they were friendly so she wasn't running inside for her daddy.

She's wearing her tutu with leggings and t-shirt with a rainbow cat on it.

[impetere]

"Okay, guys, guys. I need to actually be able to walk," she laughs a bit as she manages to extract herself from the two of them and move towards the steps. She stops when she sees the little girl on the steps. It takes all of second to recognize her as Stiles's kid. She'd know those eyes anywhere.

She takes another tentative step closer and gives her a wave.

"Hi. You must be Dina. My name's Cora, I'm Talia's daughter."

[fadingspark]

Dina nodded. She heard the name Cora a lot. Her daddy mentioned that name. If daddy talked about her, she couldn't be a stranger. "My name is Claudia Marie. I'm three and a half years old. I'm gonna be Thor when I grow up, and my favorite color is rainbow."

Haru laughed. "Thor's a boy. You can't be Thor."

Kichi punched her brother. "She can be whatever she wants to be when she is a grown up. Mommy says girls can do everything boys can do, remember?"

[impetere]

"Kichi's right," Cora says with a nod, moving a bit closer to her with a smile. "Besides, a girl was Thor in the comics once. No saying a girl couldn't be Thor again."

Apparently some things Stiles taught her when they were together still rubbed off.

"I bet you'll make an awesome Thor."

[fadingspark]

"Thank you." That got Dina smiling, and that was the other thing she got from her father - the full, innocent ear to ear grin. "You're very pretty. You look like your mommy."

[impetere]

She smiles widely at that. People have been telling her she looks like her mom since she was a kid. She still never really gets sick of hearing it. "Thank you. You're very pretty too. You remind me of your dad."

In all the best ways.

"Is your dad here? I haven't seen him in a really long time." And more importantly, she isn't sure if he wants to see her, but Dina probably wouldn't know that.

[fadingspark]

Dina nods. "He was taking a shower but that was awhile ago. He moves a bit slower." Her smile fell a moment. "My uncles hurt him. But Auntie Malia says they won't anymore."

Haru and Kichi slid away and were back on the porch coloring again.

[impetere]

Cora's face falls a bit at that, because the idea of anyone hurting Stiles is not her idea of a good time either, but she nods, understanding. "Well, Aunt Malia is pretty smart. When she says something's going to happen, that's what usually happens."

She sighs softly, before glancing over to Ryan, who was standing there very patiently, rocking back and forth on his heels waiting for his turn. "Alright, Ryan, get over here before you explode."

And with that, he launches himself at her with a grin, throwing his arms around her neck. She hugs him back tightly. "Dina, Aunt Cora reads the best stories." He glances back at his cousin with a grin. "She makes noises and does voices and stuff."

[fadingspark]

"My daddy does that too," Dina smiled. "He makes really silly princess voices."

The little girl then looked at Lydia. "You have very red hair."

[fadingspark]

The events of the day always effected Stiles' mind. The fight with Lydia and his conflicting emotions on Cora fueled the nightmares of pain and losing his daughter until he finally gasped awake, his heart pounding in his chest. He had learned a long time ago not to scream at his nightmares, so he was silent and shaking.

The panic attack stole his breath and in the darkness of the room he tried to reach with his one good arm for his inhaler. Dina was curled into his side though and he couldn't reach around her, and his hand knocked it unknowingly to the ground and it bounced under the bed.

He couldn't find it, couldn't breathe, and his panic only got worse as Dina woke up and saw her dad struggling to breathe. "Daddy?" she asked, kneeling in the bed as Stiles rolled onto his back, trying to get more air. "Daddy, it's okay. It was just a bad dream. You can go back to bed now," she said, petting Stiles' face as he squeezed his eyes shut.

"Help." It was barely a whisper, even Dina couldn't hear it, but he didn't know what else to do. In a house of werewolves, someone had to hear it.

[impetere]

Someone does.

In a combination of still being on Boston time and not being used to the quiet of the preserve, she had been awake, staring at the kitchen counter as though it was going to yield some kind of cure for insomnia out of thin air, when she hears the sound of voices from the direction of Laura's bedroom. She pauses, focusing on just listening for a moment, and when she hears the jack-rabbit panic of his heart beat, she's up the stairs in an instant, making her way to the door and pushing it open without a second thought.

"Stiles?" She's across the rooms in two steps, and she places two hands on his shoulders gently, turning him to face her so that she can see what's wrong. "Stiles, look at me. Look at me, you're okay. Just take a deep breath."

She knows that it's hard with a panic attack, but it's something to focus on, instead of the fact that he can't breathe.

[fadingspark]

Dina looked up at Cora and bit on her lip - a habit she picked up from imitating her daddy as a baby. "He was asleep and then he had a bad dream."

Stiles struggled against her hold, not wanting to be touched and his struggles - not her hands - made his injured shoulder spike with pain on top of everything else. His eyes stayed clenched shut, as did his jaw, his free hand was slapping at the side table again, knocking all his pills to the ground in a futile effort to find his damn inhaler.

[impetere]

She pulls back slightly, not wanting him to struggle, and when she sees him slapping at the table, she turns to Dina, hoping that the little girl was paying attention enough to help, then glancing to the ground to see what she's missing.

"Dina, when your dad has a bad dream, does he use anything to help him? Like a stress ball or an inhaler or something?"

There's nothing she can immediately see on the floor, so she lowers herself to the ground, seeing if she can get a closer look. With Dina in the room, using her wolf eyes probably wouldn't be the best idea - at least not in a place where she can see it and ask questions.

[fadingspark]

She nodded her head. "Daddy has ass-ma. He had a thingie he puts in his mouth and he says it pumps up his lungs like a balloon."

[impetere]

Cora nods a bit, flattening herself to the ground and feeling around on the sides of the nightstand and under the bed. Eventually, she feels her fingers brush against something plastic and she looks, eyes flashing gold for only a moment, before she closes her fingers around the inhaler and pulls it out to double check.

Then she's pressing it into Stiles's hand, curling his fingers around it, but not touching him any more than she has to. She then sits down on the edge of the bed next to Dina and waits.

[fadingspark]

Stiles' fingers feel it and it's in his mouth almost immediately, trying to get his breathing going again. He's shaking bad at this point, and he is able to get a few lungfuls of air in after the second pump, but he's still trapped in the attack from the adrenaline at this point.

Dina, scared, crawled into Cora's lap.

[impetere]

Cora wraps her arms around her, pulling the little girl close against her on instinct. As she does, she shifts slightly, turning so that she's facing him more.

"Stiles. Stiles look at me, take a deep breath." His heartbeat is still going crazy. She knows it's mostly the adrenaline, but she needs to pull him out of it somehow, and if she can't touch him, she's going to have to talk him through it. "Tell me what happened."

[fadingspark]

Stiles opened his eyes, trying to find her in the dark. He could hear her now, though, and was trying to calm himself down. He took the deep breath, shaky as it was. "Dream."

[impetere]

Cora moves herself a little bit closer, compensating for his human night vision that might not make it incredibly apparent where she is. She glances down at Dina to make sure she wasn't looking up at her before she lets her eyes flash again, giving him something to look towards in the dark.

"Just keep taking those deep breaths, okay? In, count to three and back out again. Just focus on your breathing."

She keeps her voice even and calm, her hand stroking against Dina's hair in time with the rhythm of her breathing.

[fadingspark]

He saw her eyes and nodded. He took a deep breath, and counted to three in his head, then let it slowly. She would hear each one getting a bit stronger, his heart calming and his anxiety fading as he came back down from it.

When he was finally back to a level he could speak at, he coughed, then closed his eyes. "Thank you."

[impetere]

"Of course."

She keeps her voice low as she resists the urge to reach for him, to comfort him physically. It's her natural instinct, to touch, but she doesn't push it, and transfers that affection to Dina instead, one hand continuing to stroke her hair gently.

"Need me to get you anything?"