The next day someone rings the doorbell and when he goes to gets the door, it's Derek.

Stiles leans on the door frame and lifts his eyebrows at him.

"Is anything wrong?"

Derek lifts an eyebrow back at him.

"Aren't you going to let me in?"

Stiles scowls at him.

"I don't know, should I?"

Derek makes an are you serious with me right now? face that ticks Stiles the hell off.

The truth is: Stiles is pissed with Derek.

He's been absent for a few days, now. Hasn't come by, called, sent a text. Nothing.

And it's not that Stiles thinks Derek is obliged to, but it would've been nice of him to check on both him and Laura, after all the fuss he'd made about Stiles' qualifications to take care of her at the beginning.

"Are we gonna do this at your front door, in the middle of the day, with your nosy neighbor trying to spy on us from his window?" Derek asks him as he crosses his arms over his chest.

Stiles smirks at him.

"What, don't want any more rumors to spread around town about you, big guy?"

Derek rolls his eyes at him and takes a few steps towards Stiles, puts his hand on the middle of Stiles' chest, pushes him inside and closes the door behind them.

"Hey." Stiles scowls at him and rubs at the place where Derek's hand had been. "That's gonna bruise."

"Tears," Derek drawls, taking his jacket off and hanging it on Stiles' coat hanger, "are trailing down my cheeks for you."

"Yeah, whatever," Stiles says, turns around and starts walking to the stairs.

He can feel Derek following him, the silence between them getting charged.

Stiles doesn't care. Derek can talk to him first if tension bothers him, Stiles has endured hours long detentions with Harris.

When they make it to his room Stiles sits on his bed, determined to keep doing just what he was doing before Derek came by; he takes the book he'd left at his bedside table and tries to keep reading, but he just keeps going over and over the same sentence.

He looks up from the book, frustrated, and finds Derek picking up Laura from her cradle.

Laura, little adorable traitor that she is, reacts to Derek's presence like a sunflower to the sun. She grabs onto his henley and makes happy yawning sounds that make Stiles' gut tremble and his face want to break into a smile.

Derek just smiles down at her, grabs one of her tiny fists and opens it delicately to trace her palm and her tiny fingers and then he just sits down on his bed, next to him, takes his shoes off one-handed, and lies on his back cautiously, placing Laura on his chest, and holding her with one hand as he puts his other arm behind his head.

His shirt rides up and Stiles' breath catches.

"I've been looking at houses with a realtor," Derek drops, out of nowhere.

Stiles' eyes leave that sliver of skin between Derek's jeans and the hem of his shirt and looks up at his face.

"O... kay?"

Derek huffs, and his face gets pinched before it relaxes again.

"That's why I didn't come by," he clarifies. "That's what I was doing. It's not- It's not that I didn't want to be here."

Stiles nods and leaves the book back on the bedside table.

"It's not," he can't quite find the words, "it's not like this is your responsibility, you know?"

Derek gives him this look, then, like he can't believe Stiles is capable of being so dim, and Stiles feels affronted even if he has no idea what he's said now to warrant such a look.

He looks at Laura, who's drooling all over her fist.

Something occurs to him then:

"Huh, we never bought her a pacifier. Maybe we should get on that."

Derek frowns at him.

"Pacifiers are bad for kids, Stiles, her teeth will grow out all crooked."

Stiles smirks at him.

"That what happened to you, big guy?"

"My teeth. Are not crooked," Derek bites out, ferocious, the arm behind his head moving and his hand twitching a few inches away from his face, as if he was stopping himself from covering his mouth from Stiles' view.

They fall into a much more comfortable silence then, until Stiles gets a little antsy.

"I," he starts, and one of his hand drops to Derek's chest, where Laura is, and he grabs at her tiny fist, as if anchoring himself for what he's about to say, "I don't wanna go to college."

Derek blinks up at him, confused.

"I want to get into the police academy," he keeps going, "it isn't- it's not all about my dad. I want to do this."

He doesn't know what any other words to use to embellish that, so he leaves at that.

Derek doesn't say anything back, and Stiles doesn't need him to. In fact, he appreciates that he isn't trying to cajole into changing his mind about going to college, or telling him that everything's okay. It feels nice not to have to deal with any of that, with any empty platitudes.

It's just... nice to have the truth out there. The knowledge that someone else besides him knows this now is liberating.

Derek goes back to spending time with Stiles and Laura, after that.

His dad's... Weird about Laura.

He'd gone through countless archives, and he'd called other stations and surreptitiously wondered about mysterious disappearances, and there had been nothing. He'd come up with absolutely zero results about her.

He looks at her both like he can't believe she's popped up from nothingness, and like she's the most endearing thing (person) he's seen in a while.

He holds her a lot when he's home from his shifts, feeds her, burps her, talks at her in a sweet and fond tone, but he still drills Stiles about whether they know anything more, if they've found a way to trace the spell (that's the only thing they know for certain, that it was a spell what brought her to Stiles' room, because there's no other explanation, because Deaton had called them and told them he hadn't found any creature with the power to do this, any creature that would do this, just... drop a human baby on them). Anything.

Stiles doesn't want to read much into it, doesn't want to attribute any of that to anything other than the fact that his dad IS the law, he's the town's sheriff, he can't have a baby of dubious provenance under his own roof.

It's hard to, though, when his dad is blowing raspberries on her soft tummy, making her make these faces that crack Stiles up, not quite smiles, not quite frowns, but somewhere in between, like she ain't sure what's happening to her or how she feels about it.

(Stiles gets these pangs, too, when his dad talks about not 'making progress' and about finding her parents, and he tries to ignore them. But they are there. Just like his dad's weirdness.)

It takes Stiles some time to notice that he and Derek are settling into a routine.

When he does, however, he starts wondering how the hell he missed it.

Stiles comes over every other day, helps him take care of Laura. They trade tasks on and off, for the exception of diaper duty and burping duty (which are Stiles' and Derek's things, respectively), and it's... it's oddly domestic.

Sometimes Derek shows him pictures of the places he's considering and they snark back and forth over them; and sometimes he brings a notebook with him and works on his thesis ("A notebook, Derek, seriously?" "Shut up, Stiles.").

Sometimes Stiles talks about school, about the pack, and Derek listens to him.

Sometimes he even talks back.

A lot of the time they actively seek to annoy each other and try to get a rise out of each other, but their words don't have the same sharp, cutting edges they had before, when they'd first met each other.

Sometimes Derek stays for dinner, and he freaking preens under Stiles' dad's attention.

Sometimes Scott comes and hangs out with them, looks at them with knowing eyes that make Stiles feel pinned.

When Derek leans in to kiss him after they've been taking care of Laura for three weeks, it's both shocking and not. It's a calming balm on a faint buzz inside his mind, soothing down to his bones, Derek's soft lips against his, and it's also a blood rush, an adrenaline hit straight to the brain, to his hands that are pulling Derek closer, pawing at him clumsily, and to his feet that are glued where he's standing, chest to chest with Derek in his kitchen, next to a stove where there's a pot filled with water and a bottle.

It's organic, a natural progression of events, kissing like they've been doing this, or a version of this, forever; kissing like they know each other's cues, like they know each other's rhythms, like they can read change and need and want as easy as breathing. It's Stiles finally curling his hands on Derek's soft henley, and Derek tenderly gripping his face like he wants to make sure he's there, like Stiles is something precious to be held with the utmost care.

They only break apart when they hear Laura fussing over the baby monitor, and they smile at each other, foreheads touching like lovelorn fools, like Stiles never thought he would, like he thought only couples in movies did, because who even feels that much?

(They do, apparently.)

"I'll get her," Derek tells him, warms puffs of air touching Stiles' lips.

"Okay," he replies, nodding a bit, still a little dazed.

Derek smirks at him and dives in for a chaste, close mouthed kiss, before leaving him alone with burning cheeks, a fast beating heart, and his suspiciously silent brain.

On the one month mark Stiles wakes up knowing that Laura is theirs. Was always meant to be theirs, as they were meant to be hers. That they aren't going to find anyone out there looking for her because she belongs to them, whoever gave her to them not stealing her away but creating her for them.

He feels that certainty deep down on his bones, can't shake it. It's not the feeling he went to bed with, the heavy one of knowing that sooner or later they'll have to give Laura back, no matter what they may want, or how that might tear them apart because they've carved a space in their lives for her, made her part of it.

It's different, feels set in stone, final.

He gets up from bed and goes to check on Laura, who is sleeping in her rocking cradles, fists by her face, chest rising and falling calmly, and the tug on Stiles' gut that claims Laura as theirs solidifies.

His body tingles as the tugging, the certainty, ties a tight knot on his gut, resolutely plants itself there.

Laura stirs, eyelids fluttering and legs kicking and one fist going to cover her face, as if in response, as if she felt it too

Magic.

It's magic.

Like they'd known before, a spell, but now Stiles can feel it coursing through him, like he feels the darkness swimming around his heart on bad days.

His phone starts ringing, and when he goes to pick it up he sees Derek's name on the screen, of course.

"Do you...?" Derek opens the conversation as soon as Stiles takes the call. "Do you feel it too? Does she...? We need to-"

"Come over?" he interrupts, and starts looking for moderately clean clothes to wear.

"Yeah, yes," Derek answers, and from the rustling he can hear on the other side of the line, Derek's getting dressed too.

When Derek makes it there, Stiles is waiting by the door with Laura. Buzzing in place, holding himself together by sheer force of will.

He tugs the door open before Derek can even attempt to knock or ring the doorbell, and Derek is walking straight up to him, enfolding both him and Laura in his arms, and... oh.

Oh.

"How are we," Stiles starts, and he's got the feeling there's something stuck in his throat, so he starts again, "how are we gonna do this? What are we gonna do? I'm not even out of high school."

Derek's nose is resting against his neck, dragging along his skin slowly, and he nods.

"I know," he says, and he sounds as unsure as Stiles feels, "I... we'll figure something out, okay? We will."

He lifts his head to kiss Stiles' lips chastely and press their foreheads together briefly, and then he goes back to the hollow of Stiles' throat.

(And they do.

It takes them an entire day of almost panicking at the intensity of everything, and Stiles calls Scott about two hours after Derek arrives, and Scott tells them he feels something too, something like a taut string inside that's found its place, and Stiles gets it, and so does Derek.

But they do, even if it's an option neither of them are entirely comfortable with.)

"So, you and Derek, huh."

Stiles chokes on his carrots.

"Well, you and Derek, and Laura." Adds his dad, waving his fork around a little.

Stiles drinks some water and closes his eyes, trying to calm himself. He knew this moment was coming, he knew he'd have to talk about this with his dad sooner or later, but he'd always imagined he'd be the one setting the pace, he'd be the one bringing it up. None of his scenarios had prepared him for dealing with his dad springing it up on him.

He should have been more thorough.

His dad takes a bite of his salad, and then he sets his fork down.

He looks at Stiles and lets out a deep sigh.

"Look, I want you to live up to your potential. To not have any regrets. But underneath everything, and before everything else, I just want you to be happy. I love you, kid. And that's unconditional. No matter what you choose, I'll always be your old man, and I'll back you up."

Stiles gets choked up.

He opens and closes his mouth a few times, not finding the right words, but after a few tries, he succeeds.

"I know, dad. I love you too." He takes a trembling breath. "And I know I'm young and in far over my head, but this? The pack? Derek? Laura? They make me happy."

He laughs, battling tears, blinking them away with stinging eyes, "I feel so sappy saying that. But it's true."

His dad smiles at him, eyes suspiciously bright.

"I know, son."

Stiles smiles back, then he laughs again.

"This might be a good time to tell you I want to be a deputy? And that I will probably end up moving in with Derek sooner rather than later."

His dad rubs his face tiredly.

"Yeah, probably, kiddo. Let's get it all out in one go. Anything else you wanna tell me?"

Stiles squints, bites at his lip.

"I was the one who broke that one ugly vase when I was ten and not Scott?"

His dad laughs at him.

"I already knew that, kiddo. You two couldn't lie to save your lives."