A/N: This is based on a tumblr prompt. They wanted a domestic Stora with their kids. I quite like this one.
Cora had never quite been a morning person, so when she heard the screech of the small child heading for her bedroom, she rolled over and tucked her head in-between the pillow and where her husband's head lay. She groaned low.
Stiles, while he wasn't quite a morning person, either, was more of one than Cora was, and he was a pretty light sleeper. When he felt the vibration of her groan against his skin, he chuckled.
"What's so funny?" Cora asked, slightly irritated.
"Hey," Stiles said, rolling over so he could look his wife in the eye, "She's your daughter, you know."
When the child catapulted herself into her parents' room, on their bed, Cora sat up slightly. "Baby," she said to her daughter, "what have I told you about running in the house?"
"But I'll heal," the child said.
"Claudia," Stiles said, watching the child who was such a perfect combination of himself and Cora, "That doesn't matter. We don't run, okay?"
Claudia nodded.
"What are you doing in here, Claudia?" Cora asked. She lay down next to Stiles as Claudia climbed in-between her parents and lay down in a cocoon of blankets that just happened to be there.
"It's beach day!" Claudia exclaimed. "We need to leave right now!"
"Claudia," Stiles said, kissing her daughter on the top of her head, "It's five-thirty in the morning."
"All the good spots are gonna be used up if we don't go, Daddy," the girl said, a pout apparent on her face. Cora chuckled.
"A kid just like her daddy," Cora mumbled as she closed her eyes. Stiles just groaned.
"Claudia, your mama and I need a little more sleep. Can you hang tight for a few more hours? Maybe go back to sleep yourself?"
"But Daddy," Claudia whined, "I'm awake. And you promised me and Ryan."
"I know I did," Stiles said, almost sorry that they had made the promise in the first place. Cora and Stiles had promised their two children if they had behaved and didn't get in trouble for two weeks, they could go on an outing. And to both of their surprises, Ryan and Claudia had chosen the beach.
It was the middle of June, so it wasn't too hot no, it was pretty much just the perfect temperature to go to the beach. And they lived about an hour from a good one that Cora and Stiles used to frequent when they first got together.
"Mama and I need a little more sleep," Stiles said. "We were up really late and we need to be fully rested so we can have fun at the beach today, right?" When Claudia nodded enthusiastically, Stiles said, "You can lay here with us or you can find something else to do, but we need quiet for a little bit."
In the end, Claudia was snuggled up in-between her parents, and Cora dropped a kiss on Claudia's temple before falling back to sleep peacefully.
It was almost three hours later when they were awoken one more time. Cora opened her eyes and saw their eight-year-old son, Ryan, standing at the end of their bed.
"Hey," Cora said to him quietly, noting that both Claudia and Stiles were asleep. She silently got out of bed and walked over to her son. "How long have you been standing there?"
Ryan shrugged, running a hand through his shaggy brown hair. He really needs a haircut, Cora thought, but then chastised herself for changing the subject in her head. When Ryan finally did speak, he said, "Probably two minutes. Claudia didn't wake me up like she normally does on Saturday mornings."
Cora laughed, "yeah, she chose to wake me and your dad instead." She motioned to the door of the bedroom, "Let's go out in the kitchen. I need to start breakfast."
"Doesn't Dad usually cook on Saturdays?" Ryan asked, but he followed Cora anyway.
"Yeah," she said, nodding, "but I thought I'd give him a break today. Besides, when they wake up, we've gotta get ready to go."
Ryan nodded, "Can I help?"
Cora gave her son a surprised look, but then nodded, "Sure. What do you want to make?"
They decided on eggs and bacon with toast, and Cora started the coffee pot when the breakfast was almost finished. She knew the scent of the coffee would wake Stiles.
And she was right. Around nine-thirty, Stiles came stumbling out of the bedroom with Claudia at his heels. "Breakfast?" he asked, kissing Cora on the cheek. She nodded and he grabbed a coffee mug out of the cupboard, placing his hand on Cora's lower back to steady himself. "You're a goddess."
Cora giggled, giving Stiles a peck on the lips. She heard the groan and the "Gross!" that crossed their son's lips, but she didn't care.
This was the type of morning that Cora loved. Everything was slow paced, kind of lazy, and it felt like they had all the time in the world to just be a family. When Cora was small, her parents loved each other very much, and you could tell, and they lived for mornings like this. When the fire took everything away from them, and then Cora, not knowing that her brother and sister had made it out alive, had gone through protection of close family friends in South America, she felt like she'd never get a happy ending after all. And then she heard tale of a Hale alpha in Beacon Hills, and reunited with her brother once again, and everything just kind of fell into place. She was really lucky.
"Hey, Cor?" Stiles' voice broke through Cora's thoughts and she looked over at him. He had a cup of coffee in his hand and was holding it out to her. "You want some coffee?"
Cora nodded, taking the cup from him. She added her milk and sugar and then let it cool for a few seconds before she took a sip.
As they sat at the dining room table, eating their breakfast, Cora saw the concerned looks that Stiles kept shooting her way. She cocked her head at him and sent him a look of her own, but he seemed to be ignoring it.
Meanwhile, Claudia and Ryan were chatting about what they wanted to do that day at the beach. Cora looked out the window and saw, thankfully, that it was a beautiful day outside. It would've really sucked if they had been preparing for the beach and it turned out to be rainy.
After they finished breakfast, and Ryan went off to take a shower, Stiles stuck behind and helped Cora clear the table. He watched her carefully as Cora loaded the dishwasher, and then said, "Baby, what's wrong with you today?"
Cora shrugged, "I was just thinking. This is a lot like the Saturday mornings I grew up with as a kid. Just the closeness, I guess."
Stiles came around and wrapped his arms around Cora and kissed her temple, "I'm glad I get to spend this with you, Cor. We're gonna grow old together."
-x-
The drive to the beach was about an hour, and on the way there, Claudia and Ryan were actually getting along. They talked to one another and Ryan played on his Nintendo DS while Claudia just watched out the window.
"The scenery is just so pretty," Claudia said dreamily. "Look at all the flowers and trees."
Cora giggled, and Stiles looked at her, "I guess it's the wolf genes, huh?"
Cora smiled. "I don't know," she said, "but maybe we just have an affinity for nature. Your son doesn't seem to mind it, though."
Claudia was a born wolf, like Cora, but Ryan was very much human, like Stiles. At first they hadn't been sure how difficult it was going to be with their daughter a werewolf and their son a human, but besides a little jealousy every now and again on Ryan's part, things went extremely well. Claudia was six now and even though she still had certain difficulties during the full moon, she seemed to grasp everything pretty well. Derek had told Cora that Claudia was just a fast learner – very adaptable, a lot like her mother.
Cora's memory of her family was really fuzzy before the fire. She was eleven when the fire happened, and she didn't remember much about her parents. She had a few contacts of her mother's reach out to her over the years, sending her pictures and belongings that had managed to be salvaged, so Cora at least had pictures to remember what her parents looked like, but she couldn't remember how well she had learned control. She knew that Derek struggled with it, though.
Stiles glanced back over his shoulder to see his son, his Nintendo DS out and he was tapping away at the buttons. He sighed before looking at Cora, "Yeah, well, he's just weird like that."
When they got to the beach and Stiles looked back at Claudia, saying, "Hey bug, we're here," she let out a squeal and raced out of the car after it was parked. Ryan followed closely behind her, saying, "Wait for me!"
Stiles and Cora lingered, unlocking the trunk to get at the picnic basket that Cora had packed up that morning. Stiles grabbed the basket and Cora grabbed a few beach towels that she had thrown in there. They wandered onto the beach and found where their kids had run off to, a a spot that Ryan was declaring to Claudia that was "just perfect, Claud."
Once the blankets were set up and the picnic basket and cooler were set up beside them, Ryan and Claudia automatically pulled Stiles to the water. They knew that Cora didn't care for water that much, but she brought herself a book to read while the three of them flocked to the water. Cora rolled her eyes, pulling Treasure Island out of her bag and started to read. "The kids should have been born fish, I swear to God," Cora muttered to herself, laughing.
The kids and Stiles stayed in the water for about an hour, and Cora was half-asleep when they came back to her. They were sopping wet and Cora groaned as Stiles reached down to kiss her cheek. She smiled at them, "How was the water?"
"It's really warm, Mama," Claudia said. "Why don't you ever go in with us?"
Cora shrugged, "I just don't care for the water – not like the three of you. I'd rather stay on land, thank you very much."
"It's her loss, huh, kids?" Stiles asked, rubbing each of their kids' hair in turn. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm starving. How about we get something to eat?"
"I brought sandwiches," Cora said. "And a few other things."
"What things?" Claudia asked with interest. "Please tell me that there's some kind of watermelon or something."
"I'll never get over your weird obsession with fruit," Ryan said, and Stiles high-fived his son. Cora rolled her eyes.
"It's a wolf thing," she said quietly, looking at Ryan and then Stiles. "Junk food and foods just drenched with fats, oils and sugars just don't taste good to us. We prefer things that are fresher…lighter. Besides, fruit's good for you."
Cora had packed a bunch of different fresh fruits, along with sandwiches, egg salad and peanut butter for Ryan who hated mayonnaise, and then pulled out a few sodas for the kids. She wasn't kidding when she said that oils, fats and sugars were unappetizing to a werewolf – that's why she drank Diet Pepsi, and had one packed for Claudia as well. Ryan and Stiles, being human, had no problems with the fatty food that Stiles had snuck into the basket, including a few snack cakes and a few bottles of regular Mountain Dew.
They ate in silence for a while, and then Cora looked at her kids and husband. She knew she was truly lucky and blessed to have a family like this, so she turned to her kids and said, "While our food settles, do you wanna play Frisbee or something? We don't have to, if you don't want to, but I just figured it'd be fun. It's family bonding time."
The kids nodded enthusiastically.
They stayed at the beach until the sun started to go down. At sunset, at Claudia's insistence, they stayed on the beach while pretty much everyone else cleared out, so they could watch it. The sun was almost completely down when Stiles noticed a group of college kids starting a bonfire, and knew he should probably get Cora out of there. Even though the fire happened almost fifteen years ago, Cora was still a little iffy around fire – with good reason, of course, but Stiles didn't like to remind Cora of that time in her life.
They had only been driving about twenty minutes when Cora looked back and noticed that both Ryan and Claudia were asleep. She looked at Stiles and said, "We did good, right? Those kids of ours, they're just great."
Stiles smiled, and it was the kind of smile that Cora treasured – one of those genuine, I'm happy smiles – and said, "Yeah, Cor. I'd say we did really well."