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

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

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]

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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.

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."

"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?"

He starts to shake his head no, but stops as he remembers Lydia's words from earlier. "Can you watch her?" he asked, looking at his daughter curled up in Cora's lap. "I need... I need to take a shower." The steam would help his breathing, and he was drenched.

Cora nods in return. "Yeah, of course. Take as long as you need." She was probably going to be up for a while anyway. The least she could do is try and help Dina get back to sleep.

"Thanks." He slipped out of bed, grabbing new clothes from his suitcase and going to take a long shower where he just spent half of it leaning against the wall, getting his heart rate back down the rest of the way and clearing his lungs.

Dina, meanwhile, was still snuggling with Cora, then looked up at her. "I can't fall asleep with a story. Can you tell me one?"

Cora shifts a bit so that she's half sitting against the headboard, getting them both so that they're almost lying down and she smiles a bit at that.

"Sure I can. What kind of stories do you like?"

"Princess superheroes." Her pajamas were Wonder Woman. Take a wild guess who bought them, Cora.

She can hazard a guess. She smiles a bit at that, considering for a moment as she tries to think of the right story.

"Okay. Once upon a time, there was a princess who lived in a far, far away kingdom. And she was a good princess, and her people loved her because she made sure to take very good care of them, and protect them from all kinds of monsters like dragons and evil witches and wizards. Everyone who lived under the princess's care was safe and happy, and lived long, long lives."

Dina smiled, already liking this story. "Did fight the monsters with a magical sword?"

"Of course there was a magical sword." Duh. All stories about princess superheroes involve magical swords. "It was completely indestructible, even against dragon's blood which is kind of like an acid and it burns up everything it touches. It was the most powerful sword in all the realm and the princess knew how powerful it was so she only used it when it was absolutely necessary. That didn't stop other people from wanting the sword's power for themselves. They thought that if they were able to control the sword, they could control the princess."

Dina yawned a bit, snuggling more into Cora's side. "What did she do?"

Stiles was coming back to the room and he heard the story, so he stopped outside of the door a moment, not opening it just yet. He leaned against the wall instead, just listening.

"At first she managed to fight them off. Most of them weren't very smart. They didn't think about what going up against a superhero princess would mean. It was peaceful in the kingdom for a long time, until an evil king decided that he was going to take the sword for himself, but instead of just fighting her one on one, he teamed up with an evil wizard, who cast a spell over the entire kingdom, making everyone very sick. He told the princess that unless she gave him her magical sword, all of the sick people in her kingdom would die in one week."

"For a week, she tried every spell she could think of, because she knew that giving the sword to the evil king would end very badly, but in the end she couldn't find a cure. She knew that she had to protect her people no matter what, so she did the only thing she could do. She brought the king her magical sword and made sure he lifted the curse."

"But that... she can't give it up... the monsters..." Dina closed her eyes, falling asleep slowly.

Stiles smiled to himself, his head against the door frame. There was a stab of pain, knowing this was the kind of mother Dina deserved. This was the family he should have had. And he couldn't interrupt, because he also wanted to hear the end of the story and just give his daughter that moment.

"Ah, but the princess knew something that the evil king didn't. She knew that it wasn't the weapon that made her powerful and strong - it was her love for her people. The sword just let her get rid of the monsters faster - everything that made her special, that made her a hero? Was right here."

She taps her finger gently against Dina's chest, right where her heart should be.

"She also knew that she would always have her friends and the people that she loved to help her when she needed it most, and they did. As soon as the spell was broken, the people of the kingdom came to her aid to help her fight the evil king. The king, thinking he had won, tried to fight them off with his new weapon, not realizing that a weapon, no matter how magical, is only as strong as the person who holds it. They over took him quickly, got the princess her sword back, and ran the evil king all the way to the edge of their lands, never to be seen again."

When Dina didn't respond to the end of the story, Stiles knew she was asleep and he opened the door slowly and slipped back in. "And they lived happily ever after," he said softly, tossing his dirty clothes in the laundry basket. "She, uh, she usually ends all my stories with that."

She glances over at him with a small smile, trying not too move too much so that she doesn't wake her. She knows she'll have to head back to her own room eventually, but for right now she's just going to stay put until she's sure Dina's really asleep.

"You probably tell better ones than that."

Cora isn't exactly the creative one of the family. Stories on the fly aren't really her thing, but sometimes she can make it work.

"I just retell her fairy tales but make the main hero a superhero princess. It tends to work." He knelt down to grab his pill bottles from the floor, the light from the hallway giving him something to find them with. He took a pain pill quickly and then flexed his arm since he wasn't wearing his sling.

"Thank you for helping," he added softly. "I wasn't sure if anyone was awake to hear me."

"Thank jet lag, I guess." Which is a lie. She probably would have woken up the second she heard the race of his heartbeat or felt his panic. This time, she just happened to be awake, so it took less time. "I'm still sort of on Boston time."

"Shouldn't you be exhausted then, since it would be three hours later there?" His eyebrow went up in confusion at that.

She waves a hand to indicate that she has no idea. "I slept for a while, but I normally have to be up at six AM to make my seven thirty class." She glances down at her watch. "I'm not really sure my body knows what it's doing right now. But my sleep schedule's probably going to be out of whack for a while."

"I know the feeling. When Dina was born, she was colicky and couldn't sleep. Between that and Google, I think the only sleep I got was in the sleep pods at work when I was supposed to be at lunch."

It was easier to talk about Dina. Talking about his daughter made it so he didn't have to talk about himself.

"You may not be able to escape that grip she's got on you."

"Laura and Jason were always exhausted when the kids were really little. I think Laura being home a lot of the time helped, though. She could nap when they napped."

She glances down at the girl in her arms, snuggled up close against her and back at him. For a moment she looks uncertain, almost as though she was intruding on something he didn't want her intruding in (and considering the way she left things, she honestly wouldn't blame him). She knows she could probably wiggle her way out and leave Dina and Stiles to sleep, but she doesn't want it to seem like she's running from him.

(Again.)

"I don't mind," she says softly, giving a bit of a shrug. "I mean, I can go, if you want me to. Or you could take my room?" Or he could stay, but she isn't exactly holding her breath for option C.

She would see the wheels in his head turning, going over all the options here and weighing them. "No, it's fine," he said finally. "I mean, she's starting to form attachments to people, which is good. She didn't have a lot of people who were there for her back home."

He pressed his back against the wall opposite them and slid down it to sit on the floor. The bed was too close, and there wasn't really anything else for him to sit on. And he wasn't going back to bed anytime soon after a night terror like that.

"Just be careful, or she'll start following you around everywhere. She and Ryan are attached at the hip at this point when he's here."

She shifts a bit so that she's lying down more, but that her head was still propped up enough so that she could see him. The scent of his panic was still in the air and it made her heart lurch, but for now, she just focused on talking to him. She's pretty sure this is the longest they've actually spoken to each other without fighting since she ended things all those years ago.

It feels like progress, in it's own way.

"I think that was a given," she says with a bit of a smirk. "McCalls and Stilinskis usually go together very well."

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