*shows up 3 years late with starbucks* Uuuuuuuuh, hey. Y'all know what's up. I got some chapters this time, at least. And rewrites of a bunch of the old chapters, but I'm supposed to go to bed and I sure as fuck am not proof-reading those right now. I'll update them later. I have a google drive folder full of the originals (except the first 3 since I rewrote them once already and didn't save them) so you don't have to worry about saving them if you want to. Just ask and I'll link you the folder. I also have readings and discussion videos on my youtube channel but I'm gonna be restarting from the beginning with the rewrites, so you might want to wait, but if you don't my channel is called Jack O' Lanny for halloween at the moment, I'll link it later so y'all can still find it once my name changes again. My Tumblr (hells-finest-gentleman) is also a pretty smart place to be for "#HAWOM" updates and content, since I'm gonna have a bit to post or link in the near future. (Map of Beacon Hills in the fic, blueprints of relevant buildings, readings probably? I don't know, man, do what you want.) I just saw Syronapha's comment on Ao3 while I was checking how many new chapters I have ready (11) and I'm nothing if not a dramatic bitch. So uh, here. Thank you all for the very kind comments. I'll respond to them all later. I've got an alarm set for 4 and it's 10am, so I gotta move this shit along real quick. Enjoy the update, the next one will be at some point. Love you!

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It was a relatively slow night, besides the cases they already had to deal with. No murders, no break ins, no public disturbance complaints, and even their three lost pet cases were wrapped up earlier today. So Tara was stuck in her office, drowning in the killer mountain lion case. Where had it come from? Where did it go? She bit her tongue to keep "where did it come from cotton-eyed-joe" from being her next thought.

She needed another goddamn coffee, and since she didn't want to leave Norrie alone when Dean was supposed to show up at some point, she was stuck waiting on their shitty 10 year old coffee maker and stale dollar store coffee grounds. Why oh why couldn't they just get a keurig already? Because new office equipment meant paperwork and she didn't wanna deal with it and kept procrastinating? Well, that's pretty rude to point out. God, she should just say fuck the bureaucratic bullshit and buy one herself. Maybe they could do an office pool?

But, she couldn't distract her focus away from her primary goal for long, that being solving this godforsaken case. Figuring out if there was some human behind this somehow or if it was just some rabid animal. The attacks seemed too clean to be random, but god knows she'd be happy to officially write these off as animal attacks. Weird shit like this was why their paperwork was always so abysmal. The State Troopers had made her keenly aware since she started as Sheriff, that this was precisely why the feds hated them. Or at least towns "like them". 'Stupid hicks with their weird bullshit. Who the fuck can't tell the difference between a murder and a mauling?' Well, fuckfaces, we can probably tell the difference a hell of a lot better than you! Those assholes would shit themselves if they had to work a case like this once, let alone the insane amount they had over the years, that she now had to go through to make sure there wasn't any that could finally be closed, or at least "Resolved"- John's old system for cases that were solved or dealt with but couldn't officially be closed for various reasons. Which was another thing she'd heard mocking complaints about, but also heard a lot of other departments praising and saying they started using it themselves, or want to. She really didn't get why it bothered the big picture boys so much. It was just as helpful with normal cases as weird ones, and it got rid of the issue of closing cases prematurely. Tara had added a new category: Unsolvable. Pretty self explanatory. A lot of "resolved cases" were shit where they knew what happened, but there was nothing they could really do. The category just got bogged down a lot with… Well, with shit like she was starting to worry this case might be. It was mostly stuff that was too weird to even investigate properly. Maybe Stilinski could've figured them out, somehow. He was pretty good with that. She was not. Some of the cases might have been perfectly well resolved, but she could hardly make sense of John's case notes enough to tell, let alone explain them to a higher up if asked. Half of them were damn near gibberish, and another third of them were just… insane. In a strange unfortunate way she was grateful for this case. At least it was pulling her away from archiving duty.

She got up to stretch her legs, and go check on the coffee maker. And of course, Norrie. She went for the coffee first, because of course she did.

"Don't you dare touch that coffee 'til it's done brewing! I'll break your fingers!" Norrie yelled at her from up front.

"I'm the sheriff!" She answered with sarcastic indignance, though not taking the about half a cup that had managed to brew.

"Fine, I'll break your sheriff fingers." Norrie drawled amusedly as Tara came out to the lobby. "I think that raccoon is back at it, I heard the trashcan again. Can you go scare her off before she gets stuck again?" Tara sighed, knowing Norrie couldn't very well leave her post. "Pleaaaaase, Tar?" She gave Norrie a long suffering look. "Think of her big old cutesy eyes! Think of her all scared, Tar." Norrie begged with a cutesy voice.

"I'm going, I'm going…" She shook her head, figuring it was a bit too much of a possibility that she might get mauled by the loose rabid cougar to joke about it. She walked to the door, hand suddenly very conscious of where her gun was with that thought in her mind. As she went to glance out the door to see what was messing with the garbage, a figure instead quickly made its way up the ramp towards her. She jumped with a gasp as she looked up, only greeted with Dean, looking up from the drink holder he was carrying none the wiser to how much he just scared the shit out of her. "God fucking damn it, Winchester…" She said with a panted breath, pulling the door open for him a bit roughly, still happy to see their latest friend over a rabid mountain lion, or worse.

"That's a funny way of saying 'thanks for bringing us food, Dean', but hell, I'll take it." He said with a smirk, stepping in and aside so she could close the door. "Hope burgers are okay, couldn't find anywhere else open 'cause of the curfew."

"Burgers are great." Norrie said excitedly as Dean went over to the counter and handed her one of the coffees as he checked the bags of food. "But just so you know, Beaman's Pizza is still open 24/7 on Ferret Street, and Parks' is out of town technically but they're only about 5 minutes up the road from you, and they're staying open because they get a lot of that good good 'only place on the thruway' business."

"Oh. Cool, thanks, I'll keep it in mind…"

"I'll write 'em down for you before you head out." Norrie offered with a nod and a welcoming smile. The two of them were both such sweethearts, but Dean wasn't as close to Norrie yet as he was to her, and it could be a bit awkward at times between them. She figured it had to do with the fact she had worked with Dean a lot on Stiles' adoption and she'd put a lot of time into getting to know the guys who would essentially be Stiles' new father figures. Not that Norrie hadn't been involved and supportive, helping wherever she could. Tara and Dean had just really clicked right off the bat. No one could replace John in her life, and Dean was definitely more of a peer than John who was always more of an older brother figure to her, but the late nights they'd spent on the phone together getting things set up and talking about their personal lives had definitely landed them at least at the standing of "good friends." Dean was about on as good of terms with Norrie as Tara was with Cas. But Dean had also been really good with everyone at the station about not being condescending like a lot of older dudes had a tendency to be with their mostly young adult police force, who had to not only patrol Beacon Hills, but also patrol across Beacon County. It had earned him a lot of esteem with everyone, that he'd come in talking to people like equals and didn't seem opposed to learning new information.

"Dean, you scared the hell out of me!" She chastised lightly, a bit calmer now after her tangent thoughts of how cute it was to see her new bestie and her girlfriend get along. "Did you mess with the garbage at all?"

"Yeah, I ran into it coming up, sorry." Dean said, seeming surprised she would ask or maybe that it would cause a disturbance. "I made sure to put it back good as new, though."

"It's fine…" Norrie assured. "We thought you were a raccoon getting into it. Tara's just a bit jumpy lately."

"All the overtime getting to you?" Dean asked, that concerned, big brother look on his face that he insisted was just a habit. Tara smiled and shook her head.

"No, no. I started off the day with a shitload of drugs to the face and now I'm missing bedtime, that's all." She explained with a bit of a chuckle. Dean gave her a surprised, non-judgemental look.

"Novacaine. She had a dentist appointment earlier." Norrie clarified, giving an endeared smile.

"Ooooh, good one." Dean nodded with a now understanding smirk, switching around a few food items between the bags. "Hope I'm not making you stay any later?"

"Naaah." Tara groaned. "I count anything involving Stiles as work, just as a precautionary measure for when he inevitably becomes a supervillain."

"Riiiight, that's my cue to leave you guys alone." Norrie murmured, inconspicuously going back to busy work on the computer. Dean took one of the bags, leaving it to the side of Norrie's computer, opposite her mouse, before following Tara back to her office.

"Sooo, what kinda info you looking for, Winchester?" Tara asked, sitting in her chair and kicking her feet up on the corner of the desk, only bothering to take her coffee as Dean set out the food.

"Well, it's not about Stiles, strictly speaking…"

"Ruh-Roh…" Tara joked, watching Dean for any tells. Dean was great, and she certainly trusted him a fair amount, but calling her and saying they were going to talk about Stiles only to then say it's not about Stiles was a bit sketchy… "About that boyfriend of his again, the Hale kid? Derek?"

"Uh, not this time."

"S'up then?"

"Stiles' parents…"

"Oh." Tara blinked. That explained it. Dean looked at her carefully but seemed to be mostly apologetic… "Okay. Well. What… do you wanna know?"

"Just trying to get to know as much about them as I can, without bothering the kid about it…" Made sense she figured despite her sigh, taking her feet down from her desk.

"Well, I didn't know Claudia super well. Mostly through John, and of course, growing up around town with her." Tara shrugged. As much as she would've liked to help, she didn't know enough to be at all useful, particularly not useful enough to be worth talking about it.

"Been getting a lot of that tonight." Dean sighed. "Do you know anyone who did know Claudia well?" Tara could think of a couple people she knew Claudia was fairly close to, but she had little insight into how to get a hold of them, other than of course those still in town.

"The only person I can really think of who's actually around is Melissa. I think she was close with Natalie's mom, but she's supposedly dead, I think. She had a sister, Rosa, but she took off before Claudia was even in the ground. John always insisted it was nothing, Rosa just didn't want to see Claudia waste away like that, but… I don't know, always seemed like they might've had a falling out, seeing as John never talked to her much after, and from what I heard she barely bothered to call Stiles. Oh! She was really close with Marin right up until she died too. I don't know if they knew each other through her being Stiles' therapist or what, but I know they were really good friends. She was their lawyer, executor of their estate, I think she was technically Stiles' godmom even."

"What? I thought she was a social worker or an adoption agent or some shit? If she was his godmother, why'd she adopt him out?" Dean put his coffee down as he went to take a sip.

"Girl's a jack of all trades, I guess. As for why she didn't take Stiles, I don't really know. I don't think they ever really thought she'd have to, and if so, I doubt it'd have been permanent. If it came down to it, he probably would've emancipated himself and Melissa or I probably would've taken him in... if we hadn't found a wealthy, loving couple looking to adopt and willing to move into town, that is... Marin just doesn't seem like the child rearing type, ya know?" Tara shrugged, unwrapping her burger and taking a bite. Dean seemed to take it as an explanation, going back to drinking his coffee.

"Alright… Who's Natalie, who's her mother, and what's 'supposedly dead' supposed to mean?" He asked once he finished a leisurely sip.

"I feel like that's not something I should tell you, but you'll probably figure it out by context. Her mother is Lorraine Martin. And supposedly meaning weird shit happens around here too much for me to trust fuck all. She supposedly died up in Echo after going crazy and taking a power drill to her own skull. But we never got a body, and I trust the shit that goes on in Echo even less than anything else that goes on around here."

"Jesus fucking christ, that's gruesome… Stiles mentioned Echo House earlier, I figured he was exaggerating. Is it really that bad?" Dean asked, starting in on his fries.

"Oh, worse. Much worse. They're just good at covering up most of the stuff that goes on up there. I don't even know how many times the department's tried to get that place shut down. Never amounted to any action against them, but everyone around here knows that place is hell on earth. John nearly lost his job a couple times keeping Claudia out of there." She didn't know why, but she felt bad bringing it up. She apologized to John and Claudia in her mind for her irreverence, in case they were looking down on her.

"Did she get that bad?" Dean asked before biting into his burger.

"Yeah. It was more than half the reason she eventually had to have a permanent room at the hospital. She got pretty violent sometimes… And John and Melissa were really the only ones who could manage to reign her in when she'd go off." She took her turn to bite her burger.

"Well, how about Peter? I heard her and him were pretty close." Dean asked quickly. Tara cursed him a bit in her mind as she pushed the food to her cheeks so she could mumble a response as articulately as possible.

"Peter who?"

"Hale." Dean said as if it was nothing. Tara had to take a moment to chew and swallow to properly communicate her shock.

"Hale? Fuck no. Claudia hated the Hale family." Tara said, flabbergasted. "I think whoever told you that might have been fucking with you."

"The entire family?" Dean asked, as if this was shocking. Which she supposed she could see why it might be considering Stiles was dating Derek.

"Well…" That made her pause and think a second.

"Well?"

"No, I suppose… I suppose I only really ever saw her have issues with Talia… I guess I assumed since she pretty much ran the family, that that meant she wasn't on good terms with any of them. But I never really saw her interact with any Hales other than Talia, so I don't think she was… Well…" God, it was confusing to think back to Claudia in her childhood.

"Well?" Dean repeated curiously.

"She… They could have been friends when I was a kid but… They certainly didn't act like they liked each other by the time I joined the force… Peter I don't think ever even acted like he knew her… And I don't- I don't see Claudia getting that violent with a friend's family… Even after she started going." Tara mused, half to herself, confused about the alleged relationship.

"Claudia got violent with Talia Hale? Why?" Dean asked, again shocked. "She- Talia… from what I've heard at least, doesn't seem like someone I'd want to fuck with on a good day. And Claudia attacked her? While sick?"

"Neither was Claudia…" Tara scoffed. "Around the same time as the Barros incident, one of Talia's d- I mean s- Wait. Hey, no, no way. Not a story I should be telling you, especially not when Derek is dating Stiles." Tara caught herself thanks to her slip up giving her a chance to think.

"It has to do with Derek then?" Dean continued to question.

"None Of Your Business, Winchester."

"I mean…" Dean set down his burger as she glared at him. "Now that I know he knows about it, and it happened around the Barros incident…"

"Dean."

"I dunno, man, seems way more invasive having to find out that way…" He argued feigning innocence and good intentions. She groaned and slapped the desk, rolling her eyes so hard her head followed.

"You know I could lose my job…?"

"The most qualified cop in miles, over some rich douche half the county probably thinks probably murdered his family?"

"He didn't-"

"I know that!" Dean insisted. "I'm just saying half the county probably doesn't."

"Dean…" She sighed, already resolved she was probably gonna give in.

"Tar… Come on, I already know something's up, and the kid is dating our boy. I'm never gonna trust him again if I don't know… If I'm not gonna trust him, I wanna do him the justice of at least knowing why." As she sighed again, Dean leaned back. Apparently accepting whatever her answer was going to be.

"Not long after the Barros accident, another girl who Derek was friends with died. Like weird kinda died… He was there, everyone on the case seemed fairly sure he had something to do with it. He was absolutely devastated, so I don't have the smallest clue what must've happened. But the Sheriff was pretty sure Stiles 'had something to do with' Anna Barros dying too, so who fucking knows honestly… But Sheriff Amontillado was… not happy, and it didn't help that Lorraine Martin's whole spectacle had happened in the last year or so either. So he roped the two of them in to give them shit about it. I'd guess out of a lack of anything else he could really do." Tara paused, to catch her breath and try to remember exactly what had gone down the day of.

"Okay… So how'd they get into a fight? From that, it sounds like they're in a similar situation, with a common… Well, 'enemy' for lack of a better term. Why'd Claudia snap on Talia?" Dean asked, apparently not feeling particularly patient, or maybe just wanting to eat up the silence.

"From what I remember from the yelling, it went something like 'Don't you compare my little girl to her hellspawn of a son!' 'What the fuck is that supposed to mean, you conceited bitch?!' 'My daughter made one mistake. How many bodies does that boy have to his name so far?!', 'Say another word about him and I'll make you one of them.', 'Delicia's never going to do this again. Can you confidently say the same for your filthy little-', aaaand then Claudia made a very determined effort to claw Talia's eyes out, and about 4 of us, including John, pulled her off her. I don't know much Spanish, but there was a lot of yelling of what I assumed weren't very nice words." Tara muttered, annoyed, more at the memory of Talia's bullshit than at Dean for dragging the story out of her. Dean seemed shocked. She didn't know what at though. Talia being shitty, Claudia being probably a lot scarier than Dean expected, the two's apparent relationship... She couldn't blame him honestly, whichever it was.

"Wow… Wishin' I was there. And what? Hale just sat there and took it?"

"Uuuuh… I wasn't in the room yet, so I can't say for sure… She obviously put up enough of a fight to keep Claudia from straight up taking out her eyes, Talia did have some scratches on her arms and hands, but her face was bleeding a fair bit by the time we got in there. Not enough to go to the hospital apparently, but enough it was fucking scary to see. Honestly though, I'd be shocked if Talia would have raised a finger to Claudia. She was one of the only people who had at least as much pull around town as her. If she hurt her, it definitely would have hurt her relationships with people around town. She threw a bit of a fit, demanded Claudia be arrested, which I'm sure even she realized was never gonna happen, and then just stormed out. John and Claudia got chewed out, but from what John said, Claudia talked the boss man down enough to avoid any actual punishment." Tara turned her attention back to her fries, trying to dredge her appetite back up after remembering that scene.

"Any idea what Talia was going on about? With the shit about Stiles?" Dean asked after a moment, finishing a bite of his burger and taking a swig of coffee to wash it down. She studied his body language for a moment, the way he shifted, the way his body seemed closed off though consciously extended outward, the way his glances to her seemed coordinated and observant themselves.

"Why? Something up?" She asked, cocking her head to the side a bit.

"Nah." Dean brushed off at first. Only once he saw she didn't buy it did he change his tune. "Nothing too serious. I think he's just grieving mostly…"

"Weird shit then?" Tara asked, keeping an eye on him. He rolled his eyes, looking away, and then shrugged. Nailed it. "Don't give me the skeptic act, Winchester. Anytime I've brought it up before, you've known exactly what I mean. If something's going on with Stiles, I wanna know."

"Like I said, it's not even anything serious... Ghosts maybe. Ya know the old creaks and breezes." Dean lied, shaking his head, and glancing at his food. Clearly not fully lying. It seemed like it might have actually been ghosts. But he was lying about what was happening.

"Just John or…?"

"Nah." Dean said with a sigh, apparently deciding to open up a bit more. "Barros girl too, his mom, couple others we think. But Stiles has been feeling like shit about it. Having nightmares, panic attacks, guilt tripping himself it seems like… Seems his own brain is causing him issues more than them being around is. That's why I'm asking around. Wanna get an idea of the kid's family, his past, where he's coming from, ya know? Who's hanging around is a side note, at this point." He didn't seem to be lying or holding back this time so she let it go.

"Wouldn't know, no one around here talks about weird shit unless they know you know as much about it as they do… And I don't." She gave a strained chuckle out of mild irritation. "Most I could tell you is he's got some pretty shit luck, but I'm guessing you could've gathered that yourself. John and Claudia were really private when it came to more personal family stuff though, especially once they had Stiles. Though Clau and Rosa were pretty tight lipped about their family pretty much the entire time I knew them, so it might just be a family culture kind of thing. Melissa or Marin probably know a bit more. Maybe ask Derek if Talia ever ran her mouth about anything?" Tara offered, taking one of the last few bites of her Burger. Dean nodded and put the last of his in his mouth. The quiet as she finished up her dinner was a nice change of pace, and seemed to mark the end of the interrogation. Dean sipped his coffee, worked on finishing off his fries while she finished up.

"So…" Dean said after a bit of time sitting there, apparently waiting for her to have finished her burger for some reason. It didn't seem like a "So Bye" so, but she wasn't sure what else he'd wait to tell her.

"So?" She asked, quirking her eyebrows up.

"So, Derek is…?" He started. Her eyebrows fell with worry.

"Is what…" She said, hoping it wasn't what she thought.

"... Y'know."

"No…" She groaned.

"No?"

"You didn't know?" She hissed, before burying her face in her hands.

"I had no clue, nah." He said, a sympathetic lilt undercutting it. "He stealth?"

"How the fuck would I know?" She sighed, coming back from trying to suffocate herself with her own palms. "I can't believe I told you that, I shouldn't have fucking told you that, fuuuuck..."

"Hey, it's fine. I know how to keep my mouth shut. Anyone asks, I heard it from the senile old bag always hanging around the supermarket. Lady's constantly running her mouth, can barely remember her own birthday." Dean assured. She shook her head.

"I mean thanks, yeah, but I'm more- Look I'm not assuming you're- but if it comes up or anything, like please be chill about it? Again not that I think you're, like, phobic or anything, but I already feel like an asshole for even outing the poor kid, I don't want him to have to deal with some weird conversation because of my big mouth."

"No weird conversations necessary. I mean it's not my first rodeo, I have trans friends, been with trans people. And if I had a question, trust me, I'd google it way before I'd go putting Stiles' sketchy boyfriend on the spot."

"I just can't believe you didn't know…" She groaned once more. "I should've thought about it, I mean, kid passes hard and it's not like they've been dating that long…" She went on beating herself up about her misstep.

"So was that whole bullshit before he, ya know… came out?" Dean apparently decided it was better to change the topic rather than try to talk her out of feeling shitty for the next hour. Tara sighed. If she'd already fucked up, she might as well be honest and use the chance to shed some light on Talia's questionable at best parenting.

"Nope. He'd definitely been out for a while before that. Short hair, chest flat as he could get it, he/him, going by Derek, and everyone 'round here knew that. Well, except Claudia, since she avoided anything involving them. I told her afterwards. Too bad she didn't know, honestly. That would've started a fight real quick. Might've even got Talia to throw a punch if Clau played her cards right."

"So, Talia-"

"Was a 'vile, transphobic, abusive bitch'? Yep."

"I was actually going to say 'didn't approve'. But fair enough." Dean reeled back a bit at the venom.

"Hey, Clau's words, not mine." She scoffed a laugh. "Whether or not I agree, I'll leave to the imagination. Not nice to speak ill of a dead bitch."

"Sounds like it was maybe a sensitive issue for Claudia?"

"I mean yeah, probably. Rosa was pretty open about being trans, could've just been defensive from everything she saw her have to deal with in general, but from what little they did say, it didn't seem like they had a great relationship with their mom either. So it might've been something she literally watched Rosa deal with." Tara offered.

"I heard Claudia had some family in town, other than Rosa. Aunt, grandmother? Know anything about them?"

"Um, no, and I'm almost certain she didn't? Her and Rosa didn't have any other family, at least that they talked about. Most they really said about their family was their parents died when they were kids. Clau occasionally told stories about being homeless and living in Mexico growing up, but she told a lot of stories, and I was a kid when she told most of 'em, so I don't know how true that stuff was. I remember people making jokes about her looking like so and so, but I asked her about it and she said they were jokes about her looking younger than she was."

"Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense then." He nodded, seeming more like he was dropping the topic than fully satisfied with the explanation. "So… how'd Derek deal with his mom being… like that?" Dean asked, shifting his weight a bit, probably realizing he was on thin ice.

"No clue, and not really pertinent to what we're discussing tonight, Dean." She half scolded, glaring. "From what I recall Talia eventually started using his real name sometime before the fire, but she didn't seem to care at all about letting it slip unless he was around either. So, I honestly couldn't tell you for the life of me how he might've felt about her." They both fell quiet, Dean giving a shrug at the information. They sat for a moment, in silence, as the topic died.

"So, what about John?" Dean took the opportunity to change the subject.

"What about John?" She asked just a bit confusedly. It's not like the whiplash from the topic jump helped at all.

"Well… I might've heard some things, Tar." Dean said carefully. She appreciated the sensitivity but didn't want Dean thinking she'd get defensive.

"You don't have to tiptoe, Dean. He was kinda shitty for a while... I loved him, but I'm not gonna condone the place he went after Claudia died..."

"Kinda...? I heard for a while Stiles was flinching every time any adult man gestured at him and having a nervous breakdown anytime he mildly inconvenienced people…" Dean was a bit more forthcoming, but still careful about how he spoke the familiar claims.

"Ah, good to see Harris is still running his mouth…" She muttered at the macabre reminder.

"You saying he shouldn't be?"

"Not saying nobody should be talking about it. I'm just saying, if anyone shouldn't be, it's probably him. It's not like he's a perfect guy either."

"Is he lying?"

"Well, no- I mean, I don't know, I assume not, but the only reason he's bringing it up after all these years is because he's got a grudge against John for doing his job. Probably the only reason he started spreading rumors about it in the first place."

"Pretty sure he brought it up because I asked." Dean argued. She shrugged, giving him that point.

"Well, I stand by the second bit."

"You don't think it's more likely he was worried about Stiles, as his teacher, seeing him like that on the daily?"

"Please. We were all worried about Stiles. Shockingly he's the only one who tried fucking up their lives."

"By reporting… suspected abuse? By an alcoholic father? That's the take you wanna go with, Tar?" Dean narrowed his eyes. Tara rolled her eyes.

"You just don't know John. He obviously got better." She sighed. "Besides, that's not how any of that shit gets dealt with around here. If it ever got bad, we'd have had Melissa or Marin take him for a while, while pressuring John to get his shit together. And it never got as bad as Adrian tried to say it did. Stiles was just an anxious, hyperactive, grieving kid, he wasn't getting beat or anything. Which John got him going to Marin to help with before any of that shit went down. John was a loving dad, trying his best. He needed help and support, not to be thrown under a bus by some nerdy jackass with a vendetta against him."

"You don't think it's possible you might be biased toward seeing John as the good guy here because he's your friend?"

"Really?" Tara deadpanned. "Dean, like I said I'm not trying to paint over how he acted. It was shitty, abusive, I'm on that. I'm not even saying Harris was necessarily wrong, I just don't agree with his motives."

"And I'm just saying you might have assumed the wrong motives." Dean sighed. "Talking to the kid, it seems like he just knew a very different side of John than you did, and wasn't about to trust the kid's safety on the hope that John was a good guy deep down and was gonna get better while he didn't see anybody doing shit about it…"

"That doesn't really line up with him constantly giving Stiles shit..."

"Does if he's a hardass to all his students and Stiles has behavioral issues. Which tracks, given you've said yourself he's a little shit." Dean argued with a smirk. She sighed.

"Okay, I'll give you a firm 'Maybe, I'll consider it.' if we can please just move on."

"Cool... 'Cause I was more wondering about when John met Claudia. Not after." Dean offered the topic change casually.

"Oh." Tara paused, taking a moment to change gears and think. She was pretty sure she had memories from before Claudia had started hanging around John, but they were from when she was super young, and could've just been memories of her not being present and they could've already known each other. "I'm not sure. I was really young. I think she was at my 5th birthday, so I'd say when John was 15- Well, before, since they obviously knew each other before that."

"Fifteen?" Dean croaked almost breathlessly, obviously trying to temper his shock. "Like a one then a five? As in he was at most 14 when he met this girl?"

"I mean, woman technically. I'm pretty sure Claudia was an adult."

"How adult?" Dean ground out, a bit wide eyed.

"At least 20, I think. I remember John joking about it at the time. Course I didn't realize what the fuck that meant at that age. Don't know if they were dating, I don't remember them, like, kissing or anything until way way later. Though that might have been because… ya know."

"Lady didn't want everyone in town Chris Hansening her? Yeah, makes sense."

"Again, not saying it's not weird, it's definitely weird. Glad the two of them ended up happy and all, but still very weird, and of course, illegal. Not denying, not condoning."

"I would hope not." Dean gave a nervous laugh, still obviously shocked. "So let me get this right, Claudia was 37 or older when she died?"

"Ummm…" Tara thought about it for a second, doing the mental math. "Yeah, think so."

"Huh… Why does Stiles' adoption paperwork say she was 32 then? I mean, Marin wrote it up, didn't she? She should know Claudia's age, right?"

"Wait, does it?"

"Yeah."

"Um… I dunno, probably a typo, I guess?" Tara figured, unable to figure out anything else. She knew Claudia was older than John, and John had definitely been 32 when she passed, so that was the only really reasonable conclusion.

"Could you maybe check her exact age so I can correct it? Her age should be on file, right?"

"Well yeah, maybe, but you'd have to ask Melissa. We don't have a file on her here."

"She was getting in fights with one of the richest chicks in town, and she never got in any legal trouble?" He asked incredulously, collecting his trash in his burger's wrapper and balling it up.

"Yep, favoritism, my guy. Same reason pretty much every Hale had a mile long record of petty shit. Well, except the kids, of course, and Peter, I think? The department seemed to pick its side of whatever rivalry Clau and Talia had going on. Didn't help that Talia was a fan of trying to screw over the department whenever we caught her in a mood."

"Wait, wait. Peter Hale got preferential treatment in the department? And Claudia didn't have anything to do with that?" Dean asked, pausing with his ball of trash in his hands.

"It was going on before I was here, so I couldn't tell you. I know John was always pretty nice to him, and encouraged others to be. And he was pretty good at talking himself out of trouble all on his own. But there were certainly people who gave him a fair amount of shit. Hell, my friend Rourke probably wrote 80% of the tickets in his file. Always whined that he was 'annoying' and 'such a smartass', but honestly he hated the other Hales beyond fucking around. Peter was probably the only one he was fond of, and he just still loved picking on him."

"Jim Rourke?"

"Well, Jamie to me most of the time, but yeah, lot of people called him Jim. Stiles mention him?" Tara smiled at the thought someone else remembered and was thinking of Jamie. He'd always been a great guy, if a bit anti-social and standoffish.

"Yeah, something like that. What makes you think he was actually cool with Peter?"

"The amount of times I caught them with their tongues down each others' throats? Or Peter picking up Jamie's phone half the time?" She caught a breeze from the window and decided to wheel over to close it really quick, since the night air had already filled the room and cooled it down a fair amount, and she didn't want wind moving any papers.

"Oh… They were…?"

"Mm-hmm." Tara gave a bit of a giggle as she came back over, sipping her coffee to warm up. "Very cute."

"And he was giving the guy tickets?" Dean laughed. She laughed along.

"Yeah. It gave them a chance to banter, and flirt, and be a pain in each others' asses. Mighta been how they met now that I think about it. It's not like Peter ever complained so Jamie never got in trouble, at least for that."

"Okay, I won't yuck their yum, I guess…" Dean shook his head, smiling. "I heard the dude had a huge grudge against Derek though. Never came up?"

"Oh.. Jamie didn't have any personal issue with Derek, other than being 'a bougie little pain in my ass brat', at least not until Talia and Der pitched a fit to the old man and claimed Jamie was 'stalking and unfairly targeting' him. And it was after the whole thing with Talia, and Claudia had gone on like an hour long rant to him about what a piece of shit she was to 'that poor boy' and how he should've said something, so the old man felt bad for him and Jamie had Talia complain about him a shitload, and the old man didn't want them to end up suing us for not addressing it… So he suspended Jamie and put him on patrolling the Reserve."

"I assume that's bad… How long?"

"Suspension was a couple weeks. Reserve patrol was only supposed to be a few months, but one day he… He just didn't come back. He called in that he'd heard some screaming and was gonna check it out, and never called back in. Found his car abandoned in the woods, lights still going. We figured maybe he mistook a mountain lion's scream for a human and got taken by surprise." She tried to not depress the mood too much, but it still hurt to think about, even years later.

"Shit, I'm sorry, Tar. You were close?" Dean said, resting his hand on the desk, giving the edge a light squeeze. She appreciated the subtle gesture of comfort to allow her a bit of her pride, but she shook her head.

"Kinda, yeah... We started out as work friends mostly. We knew each other a bit from around town, and me hanging around the station when I was in school, but we only really started hanging out when I joined the force. I can't know how he felt about me, obviously, but… He taught me a lot as a newbie, kind of a junior mentor along with John. He meant a lot to me, we had a lot in common, we supported each other since neither of us had much of a support system, at least in town. I guess I've got a bit of an 'older brother friend' habit." Tara felt warm and fuzzy and secure getting to talk about him with someone for once, the happy memories comforting her like a snug hug. "I know he's probably happier wherever he is now. He was certainly one depressed son of a bitch. I know for a fact there were days he was only sticking around for me or Peter or not wanting us or his landlady to find him dead… I just miss him… It's nice to talk about him for once."

"He close to John and his family too?"

"Not particularly, no. He knew them, first name basis, perfectly friendly, but that was the case for everyone in the department. Claudia liked his snarky attitude, and Jamie liked that mischievous kind of humor Clau had, but I'd say they were at most friendly acquaintances. Friendly co-workers for him and John, though John helped Jamie become a cop and encouraged him to, and was also always kind of our superior, so they had a bit of boss/mentor energy in there, ya know? But didn't mean much with Jamie, he wasn't really one for reverence. Just added a bit more warmth and tolerance between them."

"Yeah, that makes sense, I guess… So, uh…" Dean drew out a cautious pause. Gosh, after everything he'd already gotten her to talk about, she imagined this one must be bad if he was that hesitant about it.

"Yeah, what is it, Dean?" She sighed with a smirk. He gave her a stunned, "caught red handed" sort of look. "Out with it, ask what you wanna ask."

"I- Um… I was gonna ask… So how did Claudia- and of course John and their friends…- feel about the Hale fire?"

"Oof…" She huffed, a bit floored by the question. "I mean, Claudia was really far gone at that point, she died not long after, so I'm not sure how seriously her reaction can be taken… But John and Mel were there, they were the ones who got Peter and his niece out. So they were understandably fucked up about it. But they didn't like, mention him being an old friend or anything… so that's why I'd be a bit surprised if he had been. Be kinda weird if they had just not mentioned it."

"Wait, John and Mel did what now?" Dean sat forward.

"They were first on the scene, even before the fire department. They heard Peter's niece and realized they were alive, thank goodness."

"And they just… ran in and carried them out?"

"Well, basically, yeah. Heard it was Mel's idea. They heard the girl screaming, realized it was coming from the basement, Mel drenched herself in water and ran in to get her. Swoon. John told the kid to stay where he was and went in after her, carried Peter out."

"Wait, which kid? Derek?"

"Yeah. He was out when it started, he was supposed to go to a… I think, a concert with friends? He said he saw the smoke and ran back home before they ever showed up."

"So… he'd definitely know Mel and John then?" Dean seemed to ponder on it a bit.

"I guess." She snorted a small laugh at Dean's one track mind. Here he'd been so curious about the fire just like, what? Last week? And now that he was hearing about it, he was focused on Mel and John. "Don't know that he'd remember them though. It was a crazy night, I'm sure for him especially. Don't know that the poor kid even slept more than a few minutes at a time until Laura dragged them out of town the second their sister was cleared for discharge."

"Okay… What was Claudia's reaction…?" Dean must have seen the apprehension on her face as she hesitated to talk about it, partially again surprised by the topic change. "That bad?"

"Look, I wasn't there, I don't know anything." Tara spewed the disclaimer as quickly as she could manage.

"But it was bad…?" Dean jumped to.

"But there were some rumors that her reaction might have seemed bad to an outsider…" She corrected then sighed. "From what I could tell, she was laughing hysterically one hour, morosely screaming the next, and catatonic the next… But that was just her every other day at that point. Like I said, she was really far gone. There just… might have been some… inappropriately morbid… celebratory… yelling… Right after she found out… Supposedly." Tara winced at Dean's look of shock.

"Holy fuck, so she really hated this chick…"

"Like I said, supposedly she was crying and screaming Talia's name before the end of the night. You can't really hold her reaction against her. Her brain was practically rotting out of her head. She'd probably react the same to finding out the local McDonalds shut down…"

"Yeah, but still, fuck. That's dark, man."

"Everything about Claudia was dark at that point. It was hard to see her like that..."

"Yeah, I gotcha. Just- damn. Went from hearing she was practically a saint to… this."

"...Yeah…" Tara sighed. She couldn't really say anything else. She'd been shocked to see that shift in Claudia first hand. It must have been a lot harder to believe just hearing it.

"Feel bad for the poor chick… I can't even imagine going through that." Dean fortunately sympathized. She gave him a grim smile, nodding. "What'd she even have? The paperwork didn't specify what her condition was…"

"Oh, uh, I don't think the doctors ever really figured it out. The main thing was the dementia. But she got so weak and sick as it got worse, I can't imagine that was the only thing. They tried just about everything, couldn't find the cause. Eventually John and Claudia gave up trying to. The treatments they tried seemed to slow it down temporarily, but towards the end it was just… prolonging a bad situation. Delaying the inevitable. Not to mention it must have been expensive. John constantly complained about the department insurance trying to weasel out of covering them. Don't know if they ever managed to, can't imagine how they'd have covered costs otherwise, but one of the first things John did when he got in office was replace them with another insurance company. A great one, mind you. Only fucking outside organization I've talked to that's actually been helpful with the whole switch… or nice to me." She hoped she succeeded in coming across as somewhat joking, though it was fairly true.

"Well, shit, sorry I was such a bummer tonight. I really do appreciate you helping me make sense of all this." Dean offered, clearly as a way of signaling he wanted to wrap the discussion up, leaning to the side of the desk to toss his trash in the wastebasket.

"It was no problem, a nice talk. If anything, I'm sorry I can't be more help." Tara smiled. "Let me know if you find anything super interesting, 'cause I'm probably going to be buried under piles of paperwork for the foreseeable future." She sighed. Tossing her own trash and surveying to make sure she hadn't fucked any folders up. "Oh, and of course give everybody my love. Tell Cas I promise I'll work on getting over for dinner, I'm just super busy."

"Hey, don't break a sweat over it, kid, Cas is patient to a fault." Dean said, heading over to linger by the door. "And understanding. And-"

"And I know." Tara laughed, knowing how easy it was to get poetically waxing about one's significant other. "I can't wait. I'll see you guys then. Drive safe. And don't linger outside too much."

"Jeez, fine, mom. See ya." Dean joked before heading out.