John set down his pen, rubbing his hands over his face as he looked down at the piece of paper in front of him, having tried to imagine the scenario leading to the baby being abandoned in the woods. A few days had passed since the boy had been found and John was at his desk at the Sherriff's department, trying to figure out the chain of events leading up to the child being abandoned.

Option number one on his list was that the mother had gained a new boyfriend, who was abusive to her child by another man, and eventually persuaded her to abandon the baby in the woods.

Option two was the same as option one, except with the roles reversed, and it was the father's new partner who was abusive, a sort of Hansel and Gretel scenario

The third option involved the boy's mother developing Post natal depression, either a year after having her son, or, perhaps more likely, after the birth of a second, younger child. That scenario particularly scared John, as it meant that another child was out there perhaps being mistreated as well.

A fourth option was kidnapping, although it seemed unlikely as the baby boy didn't match any missing children's reports in the state, although now they were beginning to comb through records for the rest of the country.

John's fifth scenario was that the baby's parents, perhaps thinking that he'd be found earlier, had left him there in the hope that someone else would give him a better life, although that seemed like a less likely option when the signs of prior abuse were taken into account, unless it was an extended family member or a family friend who was the abuser. It could be that the little boy was the product of a teenaged pregnancy, and he'd been abandoned by his parents in an attempt to get him away from his abusive grandfather or uncle.

The sixth scenario was that either of the baby's biological parents was also the baby's abuser, and the one who left him in the woods hoping that he would be found and escape the abuse.

So on down John's page the potential scenarios went, some of them incredibly unlikely, and some of them very plausible. The footprints he had found had been not very helpful, except for indicating that, if the footprint belonged to the same person who abandoned the baby, they were probably male, with an average shoe size, and an ordinary pair of work boots. There were millions of pairs of such shoes in the country, and John knew that, really, there was no way the evidence would stand up in court, even if they found the individual responsible.

The clothes that the baby was found in hadn't been much use either, all potential DNA samples washed away or contaminated by the rain and the fact that the baby was in the woods.

Really, all of John's theories were just speculation, but he found writing out scenarios helped him think about ways he could track down whoever it was who abandoned the baby. So far he wasn't having much luck, and he wasn't overly optimistic about his chances of catching whoever it was that abused the boy…not unless more evidence was found.

John let out a heavy sigh and glanced at his watch. It was his lunch break, and he decided to go and visit Claudia. Claudia worked at the library four days a week, and on the other weekday she volunteered at the hospital, reading to the patients, or keeping them company, or doing other menial jobs that freed up the doctors and nurses to do their jobs. Today was a hospital day, so John walked the few blocks to the hospital, enjoying the spring sunshine as he ate the salad roll Claudia had made for his lunch.

By the time he reached the hospital he'd finished his roll, so he disposed of the rubbish, and walked into the emergency room. A quick question to one of the orderlies directed John to the pediatrics ward, which John wasn't overly surprised by. Claudia had most of her volunteer hours in the pediatrics ward, spending time talking to the kids whose parents had to go to work, or were absent for some other reason, or playing board games with them, or things like that.

He saw Melissa working on paperwork at the main desk at the entry to the wards, and caught her gaze, waving cheerfully.

Melissa beamed and rose to her feet, having finished the paperwork she had been working on, "Claudia met our little baby John Doe today," she told John, leading him into the ward, "I think she fell in love just as much as the rest of us have."

"Hard not to," John admitted, "How is the little fighter going?"

"Great, we're weaning him off his IVs now that the allergy tests have come back all clear. Now that we know he's not going to go anaphylactic on us we can start him on foods to see how he copes with it."

Together they walked into the room that John had become rather familiar with, although he smiled broadly as he saw Claudia sitting in a chair, the little boy from the woods, looking a lot stronger now, sitting in her lap and leaning against her lazily as he sucked on a bottle of formula.

"Hey…I see you met the little guy," John greeted his wife, who nodded, giving the boy a gentle hug, before tilting the bottle some more to help him drink it.

"They wanted to see how he went with formula first," Claudia explained, "And I volunteered to feed him. He likes his food; I guess that's a good sign."

"The plan is to keep him on formula for a few days just to make sure he's handling that okay and then we'll start him on solids and work our way from there until he's eating what is average for a child his size and age. It'll take awhile, and we'll probably have to include additional vitamin supplements in his food until he's back within the normal weight range, but he's doing very well so far. The Hales visited this morning as well. Derek got to have a bit of a cuddle, although the little guy started getting nervous when the younger girl, Cora started crying.

John nodded, pleased that Derek got the chance to see the little boy he saved now that the baby was more alert and doing a lot better. He wasn't surprised that the boy got upset at young Cora Hale's crying, though. The boy never cried, but he did tense up and shy away from loud noises like crying. It was one of the things the doctors and nurses caring for him had noted. Having lots of people around him too caused the boy some distress, and most of the male doctors and nurses too, although he didn't seem to mind the female nurses and doctors...or John for that matter. John suspected that this was an indicator that whoever the abuser was, it was a man who had done it, although he personally didn't understand why the boy had chosen to make him an exception.

So far the boy hadn't spoken a single word, although he'd been checked over by a speech specialist, who concluded that there was no physical reason that the boy wasn't talking, and that it was probably a psychological problem stemming from the abuse. There was nothing wrong with his hearing, so it was now just a waiting game for the boy to relax enough and be confident enough about his surroundings to start talking.

Still, despite everything that had happened to him, all of the setbacks he faced, John could see how strong the little baby was, and knew that he would keep fighting for as long as he could, and he would win, and heal, and live a happy and long life, despite everything that had happened to him for the last few months. More than anything, John wished he could be a part of that life...and from the look on her face, Claudia felt exactly the same way.

TEEN WOLF

Six Months later

Oblivious to the eyes on him, the newest addition to the Stilinski household slept in his crib, the toy wolf given to him by Derek Hale and his family held tightly in his little hand. In the doorway to their son's room, John and Claudia watched the sleeping one year old, John's arms around Claudia's shoulders, both of them smiling happily.

Six months had passed since the little boy, now named after Claudia's father, although John doubted he would ever get the pronunciation of the name exactly correct, had been found in the woods, and the little boy had progressed in leaps and bounds. Sure, there were side effects from the trauma he'd been through, and he had a long list of things that triggered him, but with a bit of work, patience, and understanding, the little boy was becoming more and more settled and comfortable.

It had only been a week after he'd been found that John and Claudia had approached Social Services offering to take their little boy in. They'd started off as his foster parents the day he was released from hospital, and then they'd started the process of a formal adoption, which had been quickly approved. Now he was theirs, officially, and nothing would ever take him away from them.