I'll Know When I Get There

Summary: One phone call was all it took to rip Ryan Sloane's life apart (Parrish/OC)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters of Teen Wolf, Ryan however is all mine.

Chapter 36:

Kylie wasn't sure what time it was, nor did she really care, all that mattered was getting into her mother's room and crawling into the bed. Her nightmare had been awful, yet again the wolves had been chasing her, and she needed to know that her mom was okay.

The hallway was dark but the little nightlight plugged in gave her enough light so that she could see her way without running into anything. She approached the door to her mom's bedroom and grabbed the knob, turning it and releasing the door. It flung forward but she had been expecting it, so she had managed to catch it before it collided with the wall, which certainly would've woken everyone in the room up.

Kylie sucked in a breath and stepped inside, moving to where she knew the bed was. When her hand connected with the footboard at the bottom, she moved her other hand out and grabbed the edge of the covers, using it as a guide as she tiptoed up towards the pillows.

"Mommy." Kylie hissed and leaned forward, stopping her feet as she nudged the front of the nightstand with her elbow. "Mommy."

Ryan stirred slightly, which was enough of an invitation for Kylie, and the little girl jumped up, attempting to get herself up onto the bed.

Her hand reached out and grabbed hold of Ryan's arm, which woke up the older woman. Ryan's entire body jerked at the feeling and she reeled backwards, knocking her head against Jordan's chin, which had been resting in her hair. He let out a pained groan and Ryan sat up, flipping the lamp next to the bed on and lighting up the room.

"Kylie?" Ryan tilted her head to the side and studied the sight of her little girl, who was half hanging onto the bed and half standing on the floor. Jordan's arm slipped around Ryan's waist and he made a move to pull her back down so that she was lying against him. They had been spooning before Kylie had made her entry into the bedroom and now Ryan had more pressing matters, she needed to figure out why her little girl was trying to get into her bed with her.

"Another nightmare?" Jordan asked in a muffled voice and Kylie nodded her head yes, her eyes locked with Ryan's.

"What do you mean another nightmare?" Ryan pressed and pushed her hand backwards, connecting with Jordan's t-shirt covered chest and trying to move him back so that she could get some more room for Kylie.

"The other night I tried to come get you but Jordan found me instead." Kylie confessed and reached further onto the bed. Ryan extended her arms down and grabbed the waistband of Kylie's pajama bottoms, when Kylie jumped, she lifted her up and before she could object, Kylie was curling up against her chest.

"You've been having a lot of nightmares lately?" Ryan asked in a low tone and lay down, giving into Jordan's silent request and letting him take her against his chest. "Oh Ky-pie."

"The wolves were after me." Kylie mumbled and reached her hands up, grabbing onto Ryan's shoulders and hauling herself closer to her mom. "Just like before."

"Well you're okay. I won't let any wolves get you." Ryan let out a little yawn and settled into the pillows. She made a move to reach out and turn the lamp off bur Kylie grabbed her wrist and made an attempt to pull her arm back down, away from the lamp. "Okay, I can leave the light on."

"Jordan said he wouldn't let the wolves get me either." Kylie whispered and Ryan turned her head around, stealing a look at Jordan. He had his eyes shut but at Kylie's words, a smile crept up onto his lips.

"I did tell her that." He let out a chuckle and Ryan dug her elbow into his gut, forcing him to open his eyes and look at her. "What?"

"You said that to her?"

"Yeah, wasn't I supposed to?" He looked utterly confused and maybe it was because it was the middle of the night and they were all supposed to be sleeping, but Ryan wasn't about to brush this off.

"Well I guess but you know you didn't have to do that." Ryan stated and Jordan leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss against her lips. When he pulled back, he dropped his head into the pillows and tightened his grip around her waist.

"It's true, if the wolves come after Kylie, or you, then I will do everything I can to stop them." Jordan murmured. "Now, how about we all just go back to sleep, I'll go check the perimeter for wolves in the morning."

"What's a perimeter?" Kylie's tired voice sounded out from in front of Ryan and the two adults stifled chuckles at her innocent question.

"The outside, I'll go check the outside of the house tomorrow." Jordan answered and listened to Kylie letting out a huge yawn. He didn't say another word, and neither did Ryan, instead, the two of them remained silent and waited for Kylie to fall back asleep.

It wasn't even five minutes later that her breathing was even and Ryan moved her hand down, slipping her fingers between his and letting him hold her hand against her side. He pressed a kiss to the side of her head and shimmied in the bed behind her, moving a little bit so that more of his front could be felt against her back.

She appreciated that he was right there for her and the fact that he had dealt with Kylie's nightmares before didn't go unappreciated. The more time she spent with Jordan, the more she was starting to realize that he was definitely turning out to be father material. Kylie may have lost her biological dad but so far Jordan was doing a pretty decent job of filling in.

"I love you." She murmured and felt his fingers gently biting into her side.

"I love you too, whether the wolves are in her dreams or like Derek Hale, I won't let them get you or Kylie."

"I know. Thank you."

"You're my family, I'm going to take care of you." Jordan whispered and let go of her hand. Ryan was about to object but when she saw his palm come to rest on Kylie's shoulder, she relaxed against him.

Maybe it was time to bring up their future again, maybe it was time to see what he was expecting in the long run.

XxxxxxXxxxxxXxxxxxX

Jordan was somewhat glad to be back at work the next day. After the impromptu trip to Derek Hale's loft, where he had learned that werewolves, and certain other supernatural creatures, really existed, he had been looking forward to getting on his computer and looking up a few names.

Lydia's grandmother had seemed like a good starting point and if he was going to break the case surrounding the dead pool, maybe her life, or even her death, held pertinent information that would lead him to a suspect. Jordan wanted to bring down whoever had published the dead pool; he wanted them to pay for what had happened to not only him but to everyone else on the list who hadn't survived.

While he didn't consider himself totally lucky, he knew that he could've faired much worse. Instead of surviving his own personal inferno, he could've died, he could've lost his life and everything good that was in it, including Ryan and Kylie.

The two of them weren't something he wanted to lose and he hadn't lied the night before when he had vowed to take care of Ryan. He'd do whatever he possibly could to make sure she was around to watch Kylie grow up. The little girl had already lost her father, she didn't need to lose her mother too and Jordan knew that he wasn't going to let that happen, not if he could control the situation.

Sure, Haigh had probably deserved a beat down even before he had the audacity to light Jordan on fire, but it had certainly felt good leveling the man out, knocking him unconscious and leaving him in the middle of the station, bloodied and bruised. It was the man's own fault, he had brought it on himself and now, not only was he hurting real bad, he was also out of a job and most likely facing a huge jail sentence. Attempted murder was no joke, especially when the intended victim was part of the local law enforcement.

Fighting against everything he had in him, Jordan held off on calling Ryan. He wanted to talk to her, he wanted to hear her voice, but he knew that if he started getting too clingy, his job, as well as hers, might be affected. For now, he'd try and keep his desire to contact her to a minimum, even if it had taken every ounce of willpower he had to leave her in her house that morning.

"Parrish, what are you doing here?" One of the other deputies appeared from the front lobby and approached his desk. He held a cup of coffee in his hand and a surprised look on his face. Apparently no one had been expecting Jordan at work that day, maybe word had gotten out that Haigh had attempted to end his life. Surely that would've warranted at least a few days off.

But Jordan needed to be at work, he needed to find answers before more people ended up hurt. He was just the beginning and if he could figure out who the hell had created the dead pool, and how they had chosen the names on it, maybe he could keep anyone else from dying.

"I've got a job to do. The case isn't going to solve itself." Jordan replied and tried to act as nonchalant as possible. Truthfully, he was freaking out just being in the same room as he had beat up his former partner in the night before, but he didn't have access to the records he needed anywhere other than at work.

He hadn't been lying when he said he had a job to do, first on his list was looking into the life and death of Lorraine Martin.

"Right, well, I guess…if you need some help, or if there's something I can do for you, just let me know." The deputy offered and Jordan nodded his head in understanding. He wasn't going to be asking him for help, he wasn't going to be asking anyone for help.

The only person that he even would've considered asking was the sheriff, but he was out getting his gunshot wound taken care of.

His colleague gave Jordan a tip of his head and moved away from his desk, disappearing back into the main lobby. Jordan looked around the room and made a mental note that he was the only one there, although he knew there were more people in the station, there was someone manning the front desk, and probably another deputy or two floating around.

Perfect for him, he could do what needed to be done without any more interruptions.

First thing was first, he pulled up the files pertaining to Eichen House, which was where Lorraine Martin had spent her last days. He didn't feel like looking at them on the screen so, one by one, he printed them off and when he had printed them all, Jordan stood up and wandered across the room to the printer, grabbing the papers from the tray.

His eyes immediately fell on the first file and he made his way back to his desk while looking it over. Apparently there were quite a few suicides at Eichen House over the years and Jordan was surprised to find out the exact total. This was a place that was supposed to be helping people, wasn't it? If that was actually the case, why was the suicide rate so high?

"Find a connection." Jordan muttered to himself and let the papers drop down onto his desk.

He peered at his phone again and fought off the urge to grab the handset and dial Ryan's number. She was okay, she had to be okay. If something was wrong, if she was in danger, then he'd know about it, wouldn't he? The deputies would be the first people that would be called in the event of an emergency and Jordan had to convince himself that no news was good news. So long as he didn't hear anything, he could try to assume that all was well.

That didn't sate his worry though. If someone like Haigh could easily over power Jordan, who was a trained deputy, how hard would it be for someone to do the same to Ryan?

His hand gripped the phone but he shook his head. If he was going to keep himself on track, he was going to have to start learning to let it go. Ryan was fine, if she needed him, she'd call him.

Jordan let out a frustrated sigh and picked up the papers one more time. He began reading over the one on the top and when the all too familiar name of the orderly he had encountered too many times before showed up on the page, Jordan narrowed his eyes.

Apparently Brunski had been the one to discover the body of the first person in the pile who committed suicide.

Jordan flipped to the next page and spotted the man's name in the same spot, apparently he had discovered more than one body.

Upon looking at the third, forth, and fifth pages, Jordan had found his pattern. Brunski was linked to all of the suicides in his hand and that was definitely worth checking out.

Fighting off the desire to call Ryan one more time, Jordan rose up to his full height, let the papers fall down to the surface of his desk and took off for the front of the building. The faster he could get to Eichen House, the faster he could get home to Ryan, and until he laid his eyes on her, he'd be worrying sick over her and Kylie.

XxxxxxXxxxxxXxxxxxX

Getting into the building had been easy, even though it was after hours. All he had to do was flash his badge to the night guard and he was in. Getting the lady at the front desk to cooperate, now that was a different story.

"Ma'am, I'm here to talk to Brunski."

"Sorry but the last I saw of him, he was doing his rounds." The lady replied without even bothering to look up at him. Jordan fought off the urge to growl at her and tried to remain calm. If he could just charm his way into the building, past this particular woman, then he'd maybe be able to locate the man he was looking for.

"Is there any way that you could possibly page him?"

"Well maybe." She shrugged and averted her gaze to a piece of paper off to the side on her desk. "Actually, my bad, I was mistaken. The last I saw of him, he was escorting two lovely young teenagers down to the records room."

"What?" Jordan snapped at her and moved forward, leaning his elbows on the desk and staring at the woman. She finally brought her attention up and met his eye, jerking backwards at the glare he was giving her. Okay, apparently she now understood how serious this situation was.

"Yeah, not too long ago, this sweet looking red headed girl came in with the sheriff's son, we've had him in before, you know, for an overnight stay." The lady was clearly trying to help by providing as much information as she could but right now Jordan just needed to get to Brunski and get Stiles, and who he assumed was Lydia, out of there before something happened to them.

"Give me the keys." Jordan demanded in a low tone and the lady's eyes widened at his request. "Now!"

She spun around in her chair and stood up, heading over to the hook on the wall where there were numerous keyrings loaded with keys. She grabbed one of the sets and turned back around to face Jordan, then she tossed them at him. Jordan caught them with ease and took off in a mad dash down in the same direction that they had gone when they had come to see Meredith.

He knew where he needed to go, Stiles would've figure out that they needed the same information that he had been looking at before he had come to Eichen House and the best way the teenagers would've been able to do that would've been to go right to the source. They had to be in the records room, as per the lady's exclamation and Jordan kicked it into high gear, hoping that he could keep the teenagers unharmed.

Following the signs, he came to the end of the hallway that he needed to be in, faint voices echoed out of the dark room about halfway down and Jordan wondered what he'd see when he entered.

He drew his gun out of the holster and held it in front of him as he tiptoed towards the records room, praying that Stiles and Lydia were unharmed.

He poked his head inside the open doorway and peeked inside, looking for any sign of distress from anyone. When his eyes landed on Brunski, who was squatting down next to Lydia, Jordan sprang into action and surged ahead.

There was a syringe in Brunski's hand and the end of the needle was pressed firmly against Lydia's neck as Jordan rounded the corner, spotting Stiles' attempt to stop the orderly too. With his weapon in his grasp out in front of him, Jordan was prepared to use whatever means necessary to protect the teenagers who were clearly in a bit of a predicament.

"Drop it." Jordan commanded and took a few steps forward, putting Brunski clearly in his sight and getting a better vantage point of what was going on. "Take your thumb off that needle and slowly withdraw it from her neck."

Brunski turned his head to the side and looked up at Jordan, a cocky smirk ever present on his face. There was something about this guy that bothered Jordan, and even if he wasn't seconds away from plunging a needle into Lydia Martin's neck, he'd still watch his back when it came to Brunski; it was just a gut feeling and his gut was rarely wrong.

"Young Deputy, you're just a kid. I bet you've never even fired a-"

Jordan noticed the man's fingers moving first and within a split second, he pulled the trigger of his gun and let the bullet fly into the man who had tied up the teenagers. This was his job, this was what he was supposed to do, protect those that needed protecting. He wasn't going to let anyone get hurt, not if he could help it.

Brunski collapsed backwards, blood began trickling out of his mouth and without hesitating for a second, Jordan sidestepped towards Lydia, crouching down to get a quick look at her neck, just to make sure that Brunski hadn't gotten a chance to hurt her, and then slipping her a set of keys to get herself free.

"He-he killed my grandmother." Lydia's voice was low and husky, no doubt laced with fear, but Jordan wasn't going to lower his guard yet, not until he knew for sure that the threat had been neutralized.

Quickly moving back to the other side of the room, he kept his gun trained on the fallen Eichen House worker, stepping closer to the man to get a better look at the damage his bullet had done.

"He was controlling Meredith. He used her to create the dead pool, and killed her when she tried to help us." Lydia continued but Jordan kept his focus on the fallen man. Jordan turned his attention to Lydia for a split second and in that time, the man on the floor let out a grotesque cough, sending blood spouting out from his mouth.

Apparently Jordan's bullet hadn't killed him, not yet anyways.

When Brunski began laughing, Jordan leveled the man with a glare, his gun still pointed at him in case he tried to attack anyone one more time. He wasn't taking any chances, not after his week.

"You-you think it was me? That I was controlling her?" His laughter sounded more and more maniacal by the second but Jordan wasn't going to take his eye off him. Brunski had proven, time and time again, that he was not to be trusted. "Idiots, she was controlling me."

His head rolled to the side and his eyes remained open, an emptiness there that hadn't been present mere seconds ago. Jordan lowered his gun but kept it in his hands, not willing to put away his major defense.

"Oh, God. It's not him. He's not The Benefactor." Lydia breathed out and Jordan looked from her to Brunski, taking in the sight before him. If Brunski hadn't been the so called Benefactor, then that had to mean it was someone else, someone who spent day in and day out in the very same building.

No, he wasn't controlling Meredith, she was controlling him.

"No." The voice sounded more confident than the last time he had seen her, locked away in the cell while Lydia and Stiles spoke to her.

Meredith appeared around the corner, her eyes darker than Jordan remembered, and once he did a quick look over of her, he made a mental note that he still possessed the advantage in this particular situation as in, he had his gun out and ready and she didn't have any visible weapons.

She kept close to the nearby shelf, her forehead resting against the aging wood, everyone else in the room was watching her closely, anticipating what she was going to say next.

"And he wasn't on my list, but he was a bad person."

"Don't move!" Jordan called out and took a step closer to Meredith.

He reached his hand back and fumbled with the handcuffs on his belt, desperate to free them so that he could get them on Meredith and have total control of the situation. His plan was to secure Meredith and then check for a pulse in Brunski's neck; just because the man appeared to be dead, didn't mean he was. He needed firm proof and once he had that, he'd make a call into the station and request backup.

When he finally managed to get his cuffs free, he let them dangle from his hand and moved towards Meredith, his gun never leaving her. She just stared at him, her eyes wide and dark, and it wasn't until he was within reach of her that she moved a muscle and that was only because he had taken hold of her one wrist and roughly spun her around, immediately securing her wrists behind her and neutralizing the threat.

"Check his pulse." Jordan commanded and Stiles scrambled over to Brunski, dropping down to his knees next to the man's body.

Stiles' fingers pressed into the side of the man's neck and Jordan waited until Stiles had an answer for him, without him having to actually ask the question.

"There's no pulse." Stiles called out, confirming what Jordan already knew.

"You two, come on, I'm getting you out of here." Jordan nodded at them and then proceeded to holster his weapon.

Stiles and Lydia stood up and moved to stand together, the two of them waiting patiently as Jordan used his radio to call in what had just happened.

He had decided that once he was back at the station, he was going to call Ryan, whether he really needed to or not, it wasn't important. After the way his shift had gone, he was feeling pretty rattled. At this point in time, he just wanted to hear her voice.

XxxxxxXxxxxxXxxxxxX

Back into the swing of things for Jordan, who seems to be doing really well with Kylie. How are you guys liking the story?

Thank you again to my ever appreciated reviewers A and poorxbrokexcollegexkid, and now sarahmichellegellarfan1!

sarahmichellegellarfan1: Why thank you! I hope you continue to read and enjoy!

poorxbrokexcollegexkid: I totally agree! Derek needs a friend that's not trying to kill him, his friends or is a total nut job!

Guest: No I didn't mean to break your heart a little, well, maybe I did :$ Ryan's not just going to get over it, that's for sure. Thank you so much for the awesome review!

A: Just not even say a word to her, that's how he'd handle it haha, no, he couldn't possibly just brush the fact that he came home naked off, Ryan wouldn't have let him. Ryan's got a lot to deal with now for sure but I think she'll maybe be able to keep from completely falling apart. Thanks so much for the review! Love hearing from you!