"This is my family.
I found it, all on my own.
Is little, and broken, but still good.
Yeah, still good."
- Stitch, Lilo & Stitch
There was a wall; but, not just any wall. It was painted a warm, soft white color that glowed yellow when the sun hit it just right. It filled the room of the little, family owned restaurant that featured it with a homey sense that just added to the atmosphere. On that wall were several photo frames, always holding room for one more. The photos ranged from serious to silly to just breathtakingly beautiful. The frames were different styles, not all of them matching any set theme and held the pictures of the owners' family, both living and deceased. His favorite photo, he had to admit, was toward the lower right in the group of photos.
There, surrounded by a white mat and a black frame, sat a photo of his mother smiling in her wedding dress. Whenever he felt lost, unsure of what to do next, he looked to that photo and he could hear his mother's final words to him, words of encouragement that no longer made him cry but made him smile. That morning, like many before them, began with the sounds of his morning line cooks doing the prep work in the kitchen while he sat at one of the tables in the dining room that was bathed in early morning sunlight as he went over the books. Erica hummed softly to herself as she wiped down the bar on the far side of the room that only served mimosas that early in the day.
"Stiles" Stilinski had been the owner and head chef of Authenticity for the previous five years. The restaurant was one that was known for making authentic food from several different cultures, the cultures of Stiles himself, and those friends that have become like his family. It should not have worked, the hodgepodge of flavors, but somehow, the atmosphere and the union of heritages seemed to draw in a decent enough crowd to do more than just skate by.
"Daddy!" called a tall, blonde girl no older than eight or nine years old (she was turning nine in April, thank you very much) as she came rushing out of the staff room at the end of the hall to the right.
Just the sound of her voice made Stiles look up with a bright smile on his face, and he set his pen down on top of his paperwork. "Hey, Princess," he stated as he watched his daughter come skidding to a stop next to the table he occupied. "Your hair looks lovely all braided up like that. Did Aunt Allison help you?"
The young girl nodded a few times, giving her dad a bright smile as she twisted slightly from side to side with her feet planted firmly on the ground, giving sign of just how much she was excited for her first day back to school. "She did! She also said that I should have time for some french toast for breakfast. Can I have some daddy, Please?" she asked in the rapid speed that she, along with Stiles, was known to possess.
Stiles chuckled and nodded as he stood up before dropping a kiss to the top of her head. He then gathered all the books and said, "Can you take these back to the office, sweetheart? Then, I'll start your breakfast while Erica opens us up."
"Yay!" The eight-year old smiled brightly as she gathered the books and papers before she carefully took them back to the office at the far end of the hallway she had came from earlier. She made absolutely sure that she did not drop a single piece of paper, knowing that they were very important without knowing what they were about. Grown up stuff, she guessed, as she shut the office door behind her when she left to return to the dining room.
When she got back, there were a few regular customers already sitting down at different tables. "Hello, Karolina," Mrs. Baker, one of the elderly women who came in every morning for coffee and the pancake breakfast, said with a warm smile as Stiles' daughter passed their table.
"Good morning." Karolina spoke with a bright smile, one that only seemed to grow when she noticed a very familiar man in a police uniform come walking past the front windows toward the door. "Grandpa!" She all but shouted before running over to catch the man around the waist with a hug, making "John" Stilinski chuckle as he rubbed her back.
He was quite proud of the little girl next to him and never tired of seeing her, or his son for that matter. "Morning, Kaja," he replied with a chuckle before letting her lead him to the table that had her backpack already sitting on one of the empty chairs. John nodded with a smile at Erica when she looked in his direction before the blonde young woman disappeared into the back, no doubt taking the cooks some orders and letting Stiles know that his father was there.
John listened with a soft smile as his granddaughter spoke all about how she was so excited for her first day of fourth grade, that she could not wait to see who her teacher was, and she really hoped that she got to sit next to some boy named Cole because he had the best crayons and loved to share with his neighbors. All the while, the soft hustle and bustle of Isaac and Erica taking orders and chatting with the early morning regulars dinned in the background as it did most mornings until suddenly there were two plates being sat down on the table (John noted that his own was devoid of the well cooked bacon that sat waiting on Karolina's plate), along with some chocolate milk for his granddaughter and a cup of coffee for himself. "Mornin', Pops," Stiles said with a cheeky grin which only then caused John to narrow his eyes at his son at the lack of what made the breakfast the best. "Oh, don't give me that look. You heard Melissa, less of the fatty stuff."
"Yeah, yeah," John grumbled as he stabbed at the pancakes on his plate (devoid of syrup though there was butter so he guessed he could take the compromise).
Only once the orders were delivered and the other patrons checked upon did Isaac, Erica, and Stiles join John and Karolina at the table. They all talked, conversations overlapping each other, but each one had a smile on their face and John; well, John could not help but lean back in his seat slightly and marvel at the small slice of the family that they had created throughout the years.
"Daddy, we're going to be late!" Karolina said as she tugged on her dad's hand to lead him down the hallway. Her teacher that year was new to the school, from what Stiles understood he had taught for a couple years in Los Angeles before transferring to Beacon Hills, and he had requested a chance to meet all his students' parents, if possible, that morning.
From the sounds coming through the doorway that Karolina was leading him to, Stiles could only assume they were not going to be the first ones there. "We're still ten minutes early, Kaja," chuckled Stiles, not missing the smile that his daughter flashed his direction. It was one he knew well from experience, one that read that she was well aware of that but she was impatient and did not care about others sense of time. To her, they were late.
The two of them walked into the classroom that was labeled as being Mr. Hale's Fourth Grade and Stiles paused near the doorway when Karolina stopped just inside the doors. There were all kinds of different posters along the walls with a blank cork board that stretched the entire right wall that was only marked by some cut out letters reading that the wall was going to be an art wall. There were cubbies at the back of the room for students to put their things in, along with a row of hooks for coats and a small rack above it for hats and things. There seemed to be a reading corner near the front of the room, and in the back corner was a bookcase of board games labeled as indoor recess activities.
"Hi," came a voice to Stiles' right, pulling the young man's attention to where the most gorgeous man he had everseen was walking toward him from the front of the room. Were jeans that form fitting even allowed for teachers? Stiles had to practically force himself to keep his eyes upward so that he was not obviously staring. The man held a hand out toward Stiles when he came to a stop a few feet away from the two. "I'm Mr. Hale, Derek."
"Stiles... Stilinski," he offered before taking the man's hand in his own. He gave a quick shake before he pulled his hand back, smiling as he gently squeezed Karolina's shoulder, who seemed to be frozen and pulling in on herself as her nervousness started to overpower her excitement as it seemed to happen every year.
Derek smiled at the introduction and nodded a little before he let his gaze fall to his quiet student who shifted her backpack on her shoulders. "Stilinski... that must make you Karolina," Derek said, smiling once again in a way that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. Stiles nearly swore under his breath at how unfair it was that a man that attractive could even exist in the first place. "I'm glad to have you here. Everyone's starting on a project for me if you'd like to go find your desk and start. It's all about your favorite things, and later I'll tell you some of mine, okay?" Karolina seemed to hesitate for a moment, but she gave a slight nod, still having not found her voice quite yet. Derek then pointed to the cubbies at the back of the room as he said, "Once you get your stuff unpacked at your desk, you can go back there and pick one out for your things. That will be yours for the year."
Karolina did smile a little more at that as she nodded slightly and said, "Thank you."
She then gave her dad a quick hug good-bye before she went to go find the desk with her name on a sticker sitting at the top right corner of the top. "She's shy," Stiles explained as she found her desk and started to unpack her things. "At first, anyway. She's usually a big bundle of energy but with new people it's touch and go until she gets comfortable, y'know?"
Derek chuckled softly once again and gave Stiles one of those eye-crinkle smiles that nearly made the restaurant owner want to punch him in the face because unfair. "I know what that's like. I was the same as a kid, really. It wasn't easy to get me to open up, but I've learned," he replied with a slight shrug. Then, Derek handed Stiles a small packet of papers that he had given to all the parents or guardians that had come in already. "There's my contact information, if you need it, as well as some ideas I've got for field trips and activities and such. I'd like to hear what the parents think of the ideas before getting the okay from the school. There's also the normal school lunch, insurance, computer usage agreement, and other forms like that we need turned in over the next few days." Stiles nodded absentmindedly as he flipped through the papers, nearly grumbling at the fact that now he had even more paperwork to do. He should have expected it, though; it was his homework every year, after all. "Will you be picking Karolina up or does she ride the bus?"
"Oh, I will today; but, we've got a list of acceptable people to pick her up in the office. Sometimes I get too busy at work to come so there's a few others who willingly take the job." Stiles smiled slightly at the memory of Erica all but jumping at the chance the first time Stiles had asked her to go pick up Karolina from school. Derek nodded at the information as he crossed his arms over his chest, glancing over at the students who were filling in the paper that was on their desks, including Karolina, who was concentrating so hard that her tongue was poking out of her mouth slightly on one side. "She's got a really bad allergy to nuts and blueberries, for the record. Last time I didn't actually warn the teacher, she gave everyone something with peanuts in it and... well, that was an experience I would rather not happen again."
The teacher's lips pursed slightly at Stiles' information, finding it just sad that a teacher would not check on something like that. Derek, himself, had already checked over his students' known allergies from the list in the office because he felt like it was the responsible thing to do. After all, if he had a kid in school, he would like the teacher to be prepared for those things. Still, it was kind of nice that Stiles took the initiative to tell him, too; it showed Derek that the young man worried and cared about his daughter. At least, Derek assumed it was his daughter, even though he looked really young to have a eight-year old. Derek nearly had to bite his lip to keep from asking inappropriate questions. "Thank you for letting me know, Stiles, and thanks for coming in. I'd like to know the parents a bit, y'know, faces to names and things like that. Plus, I figure people would like to know the new guy that the school was putting their kids with."
Stiles nodded a little, absently wetting his lips and smiling as he watched Karolina before he looked back to his daughter's teacher. "No, yeah, this was nice. Good idea on your part, Mr. Hale."
"Derek," the man corrected with another one of those smiles that Stiles nearly grumbled at, because as he had already thought several times before, unfair.
"Derek," said Stiles, correcting himself with a slight smile. He then gestured toward the door with the packet of papers, taking a step in that direction as he said, "I should probably head to work and let you get to interacting with the kids. It was nice to meet you."
The fourth grade teacher nodded as he said, "See you around, Stiles," before his attention was drawn to a new student and her parents as they came in. The new student seemed even more reluctant than Karolina had been.
Derek put his attention on them, though a part of him watched as Stiles went over to say good-bye to Karolina quickly, who smiled brightly up at her father before he planted a kiss to the top of her head and then left the classroom.
"And, Mr. Hale said that we're going to do a science fair this year!" Karolina said excitedly from her place at the kitchen table in the apartment that she and Stiles called home. It was fairly small, but there was a large yard behind the building for all the kids to play in, and that was why Stiles had chosen the place when he could finally afford to move out from his dad's house, which was only a few blocks away.
Stiles smiled at his daughter's excitement as he worked on cooking their dinner over the stove that was situated in the island in the middle of the kitchen. "Oh really? Any ideas what you want to do yet?" Stiles asked, stirring the browning hamburger in the skillet.
Karolina shook her head a few times, shifting in her seat as she idly swung her legs underneath her. "Nuh-uh, but we have a long while until then," Karolina replied with a resolute nod.
The rest of their evening was filled with Karolina working on her homework (it was a take home quiz to go over things they had learned the year before, just a quick refresher thing to get their minds back on track), and then watching a couple episodes of SpongeBob before Karolina took a shower and then went to bed. Stiles braided her blonde hair before bed so that tomorrow she could have pretty waves, like Lydia ("Miss Martin at school, remember?" "I know, Daddy."). Once Karolina was in bed, Stiles did the paperwork that he would have to return to the school the following day and used the evening off to catch up on his much-needed sleep. As he slowly drifted off, Stiles could not help but to think back on how Derek's eyes would light up and would crinkle at the corners when he smiled. It was such a nice smile, and the man had a great personality to boot. Of course, the first person in ages that Stiles felt any attraction to would be his daughter's teacher, a fact that reminded him several times over that he needed to quickly stamp out that attraction because he was not going to be that parent. Besides, Derek... Mr. Hale was probably married. Right?