This is the sort of chapter where you'll see I've dipped into another programme for their ideas and plots because they fit well with my fic :) Or of course, I just really like it! But, of course, I don't own any of it!
Sorry I didn't update as usual, crazy day for me!
Shout out to:
*Serena Sterling: He is! And he gets even worse! Thanks :)
*Susana: I know, right? But yes, her death plays heavily into the supernatural creature tormenting Beacon Hills. And, of course, the McCalls will want some revenge! Thanks!
*Tesla424: I know, poor girl :( But she's going to get a little revenge of her own this chapter :P
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"How may I help you?" The woman asks as Ash, finally, gets to sit down with a family court worker.
"Hi, I need to know how to over-right an application to becoming the new guardians of a 1 and a half year old child." Ash says.
"Oh..okay." The woman, her tag reads 'Marilyn', says. She turns to her computer, typing something in. "So, this child-"
"Her name's Jade May McCall, she's 18, almost 19, months old and she's my little sister." Ash fills in before Marilyn can ask.
"And who are you looking to over-right as guardian?" She asks Ash.
"Her father." Ash says. The woman's fingers slow and she drops her hands to her desk. Ash sees and frowns. Marilyn turns to face her properly now. "What?"
"You want the application for her father to be declined?" Marilyn asks.
"Yes, but you don't understand." Ash says. "My mother's just passed, she was Jade's guardian. My father wants to take her away and raise her with some lady we don't even know-"
"It sounds like your father wants to take care of his daughter-"
"No, he doesn't." Ash interrupts her. "You don't know my father. He walked out on us before Jade was born, he only meet her for the first time days ago. He's not taking her."
"I don't think that's something you can control."
"No, he can't, alright? He's bad news for her." Ash stresses.
"If he's never been convicted with domestic abuse or an offence relating to the harm of the child, he can legally take her. He's her father." Marilyn says, seeing Ash is getting angry and upset.
"No, no, please." Ash begs.
"I'm sorry, if you want to fight this, you need to go to court with a case. I can't help you." Marilyn says. Ash sighs, running her hands through her hair. "Do your research and give me a call if anything changes." Marilyn says, handing Ash her private card. She can see this issue is really worrying the younger girl, but there are processes and rules for a reason. Marilyn knows she has to follow them, even if she wants to help.
"Okay, thank you." Ash nods. She takes the card and gives Marilyn a weak smile. Ash stands up and starts making her way out of the building.
She gets to her car. She unlocks it, tossing her handbag, with the card securely inside because she might be making that call, on the seat. She blows out a breath, leaning againist her car. She rubs her eyes with her hands, her head still pounds softly, she's still feeling dehydrated. Ash looks up and sees her, and her blood just boils.
"Stupid bitch." Ash mutters under her breath. She barely registers what she's doing until she's done it. Everything falls into place too easily for Ash to stop herself. Danielle's walking in her direction, not realising Ash is actually standing there. Ash sees a teenaged boy skateboarding past. He trips up, his board stopping as he stumbles forward. Ash really means to help the kid up, she does. But then Danielle's too close and the skateboard is right there.
So, instead, Ash grabs the board and swings. Danielle falls to the ground, holding her hand over her nose as blood spills from it.
"Oh my god!" She exclaims, looking up at Ash with wide eyes. "What are you doing? Why did you do that, Ash?" She asks. People start to surround them and Ash's face drops as she realises what she just did. No, she doesn't regret it, it did make her feel better, but she probably should have given it a second thought..or a first.
Ash sighs, dropping the skateboard. She sits down on the sidewalk, hanging her arms over her knees. There's no use in trying to run. Danielle knows who she is and there's at least 3 witnesses. So, she sits and she waits for a cop to arrive and take her away.
..
"What were you thinking, Ash?" John asks, standing outside the cell Ash is locked in.
"Her name's Danielle. She's with my Dad." Ash says. She sits on the uncomfortable bed with her knees up. She looks down at her hands, not wanting to meet John's eyes and see disappointment, not from him, that would hurt too much right now. "They came to my place yesturday and gave me these papers. Adoption papers, for Jade." She says, a frown coming to her face as she looks down at her hands still. "Change the guardianship from Mom to him and his girlfriend."
John stops pacing and turns to face the girl properly.
"What?" He asks.
"Rafael wants to take Jade and raise her with Danielle." Ash says. "They were trying to split up my family and I..I couldn't bottle that rage, not this time." She says, remembering back to when Melissa asked her to stash away the rage she felt for her father, just for a little while.
"Ash.." John sighs, leaning againist the bars of her cell. "You can't just lash out like that. You could have seriously hurt her."
"I know." She nods, still not looking at him. "I'm sorry."
"Don't apologise to me-"
"No, I need too. I let you down, again." Ash says. John frowns, looking at the girl before him. "Everytime I ended up here, I let you down and for that, I'm sorry."
"Hey..it's okay." John says. "Just stop, alright? I don't want to see you in here again." He says. Ash smiles a little but still won't look at him. "Can I get you anything? Something to eat? Water?" He asks her. Just because she's being detained doesn't mean they won't feed her.
"I'd love a smoke." Ash says, glancing up at him from under her lashes. John sighs softly but nods. He digs past his belt, with his gun, handcuffs, etc, and into his own pants pocket. Ash raises an eyebrow in surprise when a packet of Winstons come out in his hand.
"I don't really smoke, just on the odd occasion." He justifies. "Don't tell Stiles." He says, holding a cigarette out to hr through the bars. Ash chuckles and stands up, walking over to him and taking it. She puts it to her lips and John lights his almost empty lighter, lighting it for her.
"Don't worry, Sheriff." Ash says with a small smirk. She takes a drag from the cigarette, revealing in it's different flavour compared to her favourites, Malboros. "You're secret's safe with me." Ash tells him. John smiles a little, grateful for that because Stiles is so set on making him overly-healthy, he'd kill him if he knew he had a smoke or two here and there.
"Looks like you've got visitors." John says, seeing the small group coming down the hall from the window in the doors..
"Don't let him in." Ash says, knowing it's Scott. "Please. I don't want Scott to see me like this." She says, still looking down in shame. "Just send him home, please, John." Ash says, blowing out her mouthful of smoke.
"Okay." John nods. He slips out the door, pulling it shut behind him. He stands in front of the doors, blocking the group of Scott, Stiles, Jessie, Isaac and even Derek, from getting in. "You can't go in there." He tells them.
"John, it's Ash. I have to see her." Scott says.
"She doesn't want any of you in there, especially you." John says, looking at Scott.
"Dad..just let us through, we'll deal with the backlash." Stiles says.
"No..no, I'm sorry." John shakes his head. Scott sighs and sits down on the floor, leaning againist the wall. "What are you doing, Scott?" He asks.
"I'm staying until they let her out." Scott says.
"So am I." Stiles says, sitting down with Scott.
"That could be a couple days." John says. Isaac leans againist the wall. Jessie sits down alongside Stiles. And of course, if Isaac and Jessie are staying, Derek is too. He leans againist the wall as well. John sighs, realising they're all wanting to stay. He turns and locks the door so they can't get in while he goes back to his duties. He squeezes Scott's shoulder as he passes him.
..
Ash is grateful for the quiet as the sun goes down. It's quiet here, it's getting dark, she's alone. She needs to be alone, to process everything that's been going on. Her Mom, her Dad..she needs this time to think.
"Ash?" Scott says from where he's leaning againist the locked doors. Ash looks up with a confused frown. It's dead quiet so she hears him well, only a thin door between them.
Well, she thought she was alone. She should have known Scott wouldn't just leave her here.
"Ash, can you hear me?" He says when she doesn't respond.
Ash keeps her mouth shut, picking at her fingernails. Scott can hear her heartbeat, it's not even, she's not asleep, she's ignoring him.
"Listen, you can't do that. Hurting her like that..it wasn't smart." Scott says. "I always knew you had a temper, but shit, Ash, really? A skateboard?" He says. Ash can't help the chuckle that leaves her lips. And all of them hear it too.
"Shit." She sighs, knowing he would have heard her. "It happened so fast, I didn't realise what I'd done until I'd done it." Ash admits, looking over at the doors dividing them.
"Parrish said Danielle's not pressing charges." Stiles says. Ash frowns again, hearing a second voice.
"Jesus Christ, who else is here with you, Scott?" Ash asks with a sigh. It's bad enough Scott's here, and now he's got people with him? That's exactly what Ash wanted, exactly. Please, do note the sarcasm.
"Me." Jessie says.
"Me." Isaac says.
"Yeah." Derek says. Ash sighs, realising they're all here, aside Peter.
"Really, Scott? You had to drag them all into this too?" Ash asks him.
"Hey, they wouldn't still be here if they didn't want to be." Scott says. Ash snorts at the idea of Derek, and maybe even Isaac, wanting to be here. "You were right, about me not fighting hard enough for this." Scott says, his voice serious again.
"No, I wasn't. I was being an asshole." Ash admits. "I went to the Family Court office earlier..they can't help us. Not unless I go to court." She sighs.
"I'm sorry." Scott says, leaning as far back againist the door as he can.
It's close to awkward, because they can all hear the McCall's family business, but right now, they don't care. They just don't want to lose Jade.
"What about guardianship?" Isaac speaks up. Scott looks over at him. "After my Dad died, Derek took me in, signed off on some guardian papers." He tells them. Derek looks down a little shyly, the way Isaac said it..he sounded so grateful that Derek took him in. Derek's not used to having people feel that way towards him.
"But that's what my Dad and his girlfriend are doing." Ash says. "They're trying to take Jade under their guardianship since my Mom.." She trails off, not saying the word, but they understand what she means. Derek looks up now, realising what Isaac is getting at.
"Why don't you apply for guardianship?" Derek asks her. It falls quiet and for a moment Derek thinks he's said something he shouldn't.
"He's right." Scott says. Scott gets to his feet, turning to look through the little window over at where he can see Ash sitting in her cell. "Ash, you should apply to take Jade."
"Like..as my kid?" Ash asks, looking up but keeping her eyes on the wall in front of her.
"Yeah." Scott nods. "You're like a mother to her anyway, you could do this, I'd help you."
"We all would." Stiles throws in. For the first time in a while, a proper smile comes to Ash's face.
"You think they'd give her to me after what I did today?" Ash asks.
"If she didn't file a charge, it won't be on your perminant record." Derek says, speaking from his own experience.
"How do you know that?" Scott asks, turning to face the alpha.
Derek doesn't answer, he acts like he didn't hear the question. Jessie glances at him, meeting his eyes. She remembers all the stupid crap her brother would do when he was in his teens and she was a little girl in pigtails. Derek looks at her and away again, knowing exacly what she's thinking and remembering.
"Okay." Ash nods, part of her wondering why Derek didn't answer as well. "I'll make some calls, see what that will take." She decides. "Hey, it's getting pretty late. You should all go home." Ash says.
"We're okay." Scott says.
"No, c'mon. Please, Scott. Go." Ash says. "I just wanna be by myself for the night." She says. Scott exhales through his nose before nodding. Ash hasn't once looked at him and met his eyes, she's really scared to see disappointment in them.
"Okay then." Scott says and Ash sighs in relief that he listened. "I'll come back tomorrow after school and check in with John, see what we can do."
"Okay." Ash says. Scott looks to the rest of the pack and they get up, ready to leave with him. Scott walks out first, Stiles with him. "Derek?" She calls out. His ears pick it up. He stops, letting the others leave. He goes over to where Scott just was. He looks in the window, seeing the girl sitting in her holding cell. Ash swallows before looking up and looking at him. "Just make sure Scott's okay for me." She says. He nods and then leaves.
Ash lets out a breath, laying down on the bed. She knows she's not going to sleep tonight, but she doesn't mind. As long as she knows someone's looking after Scott while she's locked up.
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Oopsie-daisy! Ash lost it for a moment there. I love the idea of Derek being a huge troublemaker in his youth, I don't know why, I just think it suits his character alot :) Favourite, follow and review!