Stiles didn't last too long in comfort at the hospital. After spending some time in the NICU with the baby, she went back to her room only to have to be checked over quietly by Deaton. Pained and tender as she was, Deaton checked over her magical stability and declared it finally even, growing back steadily and completely under Stiles' control in a way it hadn't ever been before.
It was only a few hours, a nap and a nightmare later that she demanded to go home.
"You woke up less than twelve hours ago after massive blood loss and a c-section, Miss. Stilinski. I'm sorry, but in good conscience I cannot let you out of the hospital, no matter how fast you appear to be recovering." Stiles throws desperate, pleading looks at both Derek and her father, tears still drying on her cheeks as they both shake their heads at her. Derek's heart aches at her pained sigh, the trembling, careful way she turns on her side away from them all and curls into herself as much as she can without straining her incision site.
The doctor gives them a grim nod each, leaving the room quickly. The sheriff stares worriedly at Stiles' back, fingers clenching together at his side. It's obvious that he doesn't know what he is supposed to be doing here, and as much as Derek would like to help him, he can't. Instead, he crosses to the other side of the bed, sitting in the chair closest to the bed so that he can reach out – careful, so so careful because this is like Stiles three months ago – and grasp her fingers between his own.
"Tell me what's going on inside of your head, Stiles." His voice, by default of months trying to coax Stiles to just outside his bedroom, goes soft and quiet. She trembles lightly, obviously in pain with how she has decided to lay, but makes no move to get more comfortable. Instead, she looks up at his with wide, wet eyes that practically beg him to get her out of here and to anywhere that she would be safe and content.
"S'not safe here." Derek sighs softly, letting his fingers rub over her cold ones slowly.
"Of course it is, the entire pack is drifting around this hospital, not to mention your father and Melissa are always within five feet of you. You've never been safer." She shakes her head a little, eyes clenching so tightly together that it is not surprising when those held back tears break through.
"They- here. Out – In the – the carpark. Derek.." Behind her, her father closes his own eyes, and Derek can hear the hitch in his breathing as he tries to get control over himself. Derek has grown able to hold back what he is feeling, having been the outlet for Stiles' memories after nightmares and flashbacks. He leans over, presses a kiss to her forehead.
"They're gone. All gone, Stiles. Nothing will hurt you now." She tenses, more than he thought possible, before letting out a deep breath.
"What if- What if Chris lets it slip to his father or some other hunter that.. What if more hunters turn up looking for her, or for me?" Derek, for all that he believes that Chris would not do that to them, cannot help but picture the scenario in his mind. Can see the ways that could turn out, pack against hunters, humans against humans, after the baby or Stiles and turning this hospital into a bloodbath while they do so. He can't just brush off this fear, because the ingrained fear of hunters is in them all now.
"How about someone goes and talks to Chris? We can get a good list of names and maybe headshots of hunters he knows and we can position pack members over the hospital on look out? Stiles, I promise you, we won't let anyone hurt you. Not ever again."
Her eyes, always full of expression, lock onto his face with frightening focus; searching for whatever she needs to find. Thankfully, she must find it, nodding slowly and letting out a relieved breath. Derek diverts his gaze and nods to the Sheriff, who nods back in relief.
He tries hard not to notice the look of relief on the Sheriff's face as he backs out of the room without a word.
John has been a few important things in his life.
Husband. Father. Sheriff. Widower.
And now, too soon and under the worst circumstances, grandfather.
He stops by the NICU on his way out of the hospital, weary and confused as he watches that tiny little girl swathed in wires and electrodes. Jackson and Lydia are in there with her, all sterile and protected as they stroke gentle fingers through her gloves at the side of her incubator. Looking all like a little family, where Stiles and whoever she had chosen as her partner should have sat ten years from now, if his plan for her had gone even remotely right.
He wishes Stiles would name her, so that John would have a word to put with the feeling of loss if they do lose her. Because now, after everything, this child born of his daughters pain might not live through the night.
It hardly feels worth it, all of this pain for a flicker of hope in what has been the worse year of his (their, he reminds himself, they have all suffered) life.
John tries not to think too hard about the way Stiles had looked, all curled up and in pain yet again because of what those men have put her through.
He tries not to think about how he became a murderer for her.
When Claudia was alive, sick but alive, she had made him promise that he would do anything and everything to keep her safe. He had failed in that, but maybe one sin would make up for another. Maybe, maybe killing those monsters kept his promise in the end.
Maybe he doesn't have to hate himself for becoming what he protects against.
Where Claudia used to tell Stiles 'I love you more than my heart can take sometimes. I love you so much that it feels like I'll explode from it' he brought her up telling her 'I love you more than my mind can understand sometimes. I love you so much it feels like you're all I live for, some days.' He wonders, if he and Claudia did anything good for their little girl. Wonders if her life wouldn't have been better if she'd just had parents that had told her they loved her and left it at that.
Thoughts just as jumbled as they have been for weeks, he turns away from his granddaughter and begins to make his way out through the maze of the hospital, nodding at each pack member he comes across. They are randomly spread out over the entire building, on watch for a general 'just in case' situation, even to him it is somewhat reassuring to know they are there.
Outside the hospital, waiting in a non-conspicuous car in the parking lot, is where John knows he will find Chris Argent.
Finding him here is not that surprising, given that he had seen both Scott and Allison still sat in the ER waiting room where Derek had told them to stay; he could hardly blame the alpha, even he didn't want them near either Stiles or the baby.
They shared a nod when John was halfway to the car, which he took as non-verbal admission to enter the car, and a moment later he was sliding in next to the hunter.
They sit in silence together, John taking the time to appreciate dirty, unsterilized hospital air.
"So, what can I do for you, Sheriff?" Chris breaks the silence, twisting in his seat in a way that looked significantly uncomfortable. John sighs, scrubs his face with his hand tiredly before leaning his head back into the seat. He can feel the exhaustion creeping up on him from days of watching from Stiles' bedside as she remained unconscious, trying to recover from the blood loss.
"Stiles has doubts about your desire to keep her safe. It's probably irrational, but Derek wants a comprehensive list of all the hunters you know, and their headshots if you have them." Chris scoffs, turning back so that he is looking directly at the hospital doors.
"You know I can't do that. In no way do I condone what they did to your daughter or the pack, but I can't just give them all up to a bunch of wolves and magic users. The best I can do is alert you if we see any in town or around the hospital." John's hand shoots out to grab Chris's wrist when he reaches out to flick the radio on, yanking him back around to face him.
"The male leader in your family is the root cause of everything that has lead to this here moment. Do not make some bullshit honour amongst men reason to not give us what we want. Do not give us the one thing that might make Stiles feel safe enough to stay here and recuperate. Get me the goddamn list, Argent."
They stare at each other, silent and tense, before Chris finally nods and shakes his head softly. John lets himself deflate a little in relief, only now noticing just how tense he had been the moment he had climbed into the car.
"Thank you, Chris." The hunter nods again, hands clenching around his steering wheel.
"I'll head back to the house and get you everything I can. Meet you back out here in an hour." John nods his consent, reluctantly heading for the door to the car.
It's not that he doesn't want to be with Stiles right now. It's just that he doesn't know how he's supposed to be her father when he's all these other important things.
Protector. Sheriff. Drunk. Murderer.
Chris' hand clamps down on his forearm just before he climbs out of the car, pulling his attention back. The hunter looks shattered, a look in his eyes that John has only seen in veterans.
"I really am sorry for what they did, we did, to your daughter." His voice is quiet and contrite, laced with honesty and probably a little heartbreak. He imagines that is how he has sounded every time he's spoken to Stiles since they killed those bastards who put here in this hospital. John can't find any words that would take away the blame he knows Argent is shouldering, instead offering an equally broken smile and shaking off his hand, climbing out of the car and back into uncertainty.
In his life, with all of his wealth and all of his pain, Jackson has seen many beautiful and equally as beastly things. He has seen a sunset in the Bahamas and he's seen bodies bleeding out on the floor. He's seen people he cares about fall in love and die in pain.
He's seen Stiles ripped apart again and again, and he's seen this tiny little piece of perfection that came from it.
Before wolves and kanima's and hunters, he had hated Stiles Stilinski. Jackson had hated her connection with her father and her true friendship with McCall and the way she was completely the opposite of perfect and yet so completely content with all of that imperfection.
Since then, all of the horrible and beautiful things that have happened to them, he's come to love her. She takes up a part of him that craves family and safety and acceptance. She holds almost all of his secrets in the palm of her hand and she keeps them safe, will always keep him safe.
It kills a piece of him every time he looks at her and knows that he couldn't do the same for her.
Now, sat opposite Lydia over an incubator holding possibly the one thing holding Stiles together right now, he can't help but look at this tiny piece of Stiles and be thankful that she survived the horrible things. Survived enough to grow and live and give life to something as beautiful as this child. He can't help but be thankful that she's given him another member of family that he knows will have him, whatever he does or doesn't do.
Through the sterile latex of the incubator glove, he can feel the heartbeat of the baby girl, can feel her chest rise with the pressure of artificial breath and fall with its retraction. He can feel every twitch and jump her tiny muscles achieve, fighting to grow and live and be life, just like her mother.
Lydia's free hand is intertwined with his over the plastic encasing the little girl, rubbing circles on his skin as they wait for something to happen. A glance up at her and he knows what she is thinking, how they're here and not even sure if they will ever be allowed to hold her, feed her, watch her grow up and up and up.
"She'll be okay." Jackson tells his girl, tugging on her hand just a little. Glad that she can't hear his heartbeat the way he can hers, unsure of what he truly believes. "She's strong. If anyone can survive, it will be her."
The look Lydia gives him is positively heartbreaking.
"Are you talking about the baby, or about Stiles?"
Stiles doesn't want to go back to sleep. The last time she went to sleep, she woke herself up screaming from a nightmare that is still clinging to the edge of her conscious the way the bad ones always do.
However, now that he dad has left the room and Derek is sucking away her pain through the palm of his hands, it's becoming more and more impossible to stay awake. Her dads jumbled, half-hidden thoughts and feeling had been a sharp shock in her mind while he had been in the room and she had been able to add his pain to hers to keep her from drifting off, but now with only her emotional pain to keep to herself and Derek taking her physical, she can feel her eyes dropping, her hand in his slackening.
"Don' wanna." She manages to mumble out, exhausted, trying to lift her head from the pillow to glare at Derek. He used his free hand to move hair out of her eyes, leaned over to press his usual kiss to her forehead and she settled back with a desperate sigh.
"Just rest." Derek whisper kisses against her clammy-cold skin and just like that, she obeys him.