A/N: And six more months go by. I'm really sorry about that. Honestly, things have just been shitty lately plus I think it's totally possible that I've just forgotten how to write by this point. This was easily the most difficult chapter I've had to write for this story and now I guess you'll finally see why.

They were nearly back to the house when the Sheriff had called. Melissa's car was already gone when they drove up, and the Sheriff was dressed in his uniform and waiting by the door with Hanna when they walked in.

"That was fast," the Sheriff remarked.

"Yeah, we decided to cut it short," Stiles said as he immediately took Hanna from his father.

"Oh really? So it had nothing to do with the fireworks called in where the Hale house used to be?"

"Fireworks? No, we don't know anything about that, right?" Stiles turned around to see Scott shake his head a bit too enthusiastically. Malia did nothing. Kira stared like a deer caught in headlights. Stiles sighed and squeezed his eyes shut before turning back to his dad.

"Right," the Sheriff said. "Well I have to go. The accidents are already piling up so I'll probably be gone most of the night. Will you and Malia be okay here by yourselves?"

Stiles glanced over at Malia. She seemed a bit nervous about the idea, and he had to admit he felt the same. It would be the first time they'd be taking care of her on their own for an extended amount of time. His dad wouldn't be just down the hall if they needed help. Still, he figured they had to try.

"Yeah, I think we can handle it."

"Good. I fed her about 20 minutes ago and she's been sleeping ever since. Call me if you need anything."

They all said their goodbyes to the Sheriff, and once he was gone there was a bit of an awkward silence. Everyone knew what the rest of the night was supposed to entail.

Scott was the first to speak up. "Kira and I can stay for a while."

"You don't have to –"

"I know, but we can take care of Hanna so you and Malia can talk without getting distracted. It's time."

Stiles nodded and watched Malia. She was trying to smooth down Hanna's unruly hair, a feat she'd not yet learned was impossible. "This could take a while, Scott. Are you sure?"

"I don't mind. I'll stay as long as you need me to."

"Thanks." Stiles gave Hanna to Scott and then said to Malia, "Let's go talk in my room."

Malia nodded and looked at Hanna one last time. The next time they saw her, her fate would be decided. They left Scott, Kira, and the baby behind and made their way to his room together. Once they got there, they kicked off their shoes and sat on his bed. For nearly five minutes they simply sat there, cross-legged and facing each other without saying a word.

Stiles finally said, "I don't even know where to start."

"Maybe you can start by telling me what's happening tomorrow."

"W – what?!" he spluttered. The conversation was already going in an unexpected direction. "How do you . . . you know about tomorrow?"

She rolled her eyes. "I just know there's something going on tomorrow. Everyone was talking about it today, but they weren't saying what it is. So what is it?"

Stiles supposed it was as good a place to start as any. He took a deep breath before explaining, "Before you came back, my dad set up this thing with an adoption agency. Someone is supposed to come over tomorrow."

Malia went completely still. Her voice was soft and slightly shaky when she asked, "To take her away?"

"No!" Stiles cried, then slightly calmer he reiterated, "No. They're just supposed to explain the whole adoption process and answer some questions. They weren't gonna take her away or anything. Not yet . . ."

She was still confused. "Then why did he do it?"

"You were gone and I didn't know if you were coming back. I didn't know what to do, so he thought talking to someone about it might help me figure it out."

"Do you think it'll help?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "It was something proactive to do while I waited for you to come back. But we can cancel the whole thing if you want. We don't have to go through with it."

Malia didn't say anything for a while, and when she finally did it wasn't about the meeting with the adoption agency. "Did you really think I wasn't coming back?"

That was a dangerous question. He tried to be honest without sounding accusatory. "I expected you to come back at first, but then it took so long that eventually I thought maybe you were staying away because you'd already made your choice. That you still wanted to be in the woods."

"Oh."

Stiles watched her pull at a loose thread on his bedspread while biting her lip in an effort to get it to stop quivering. A question suddenly occurred to him, and he felt he had to ask it. Her answer could possibly determine everything. "Is that what you want? Do you want to go back to the woods?"

Malia drew her legs up so she could wrap her arms around her knees. How could she answer that honestly without seeming like a monster? She tried desperately to keep herself from crying again. "I don't know."

He surprised himself and especially Malia when he abruptly stood up and started pacing the length of his room. "Okay, maybe we need to approach this in another way. So . . . I kind of came up with this pros and cons list."

Despite everything, Malia found herself smiling. "You made a pros and cons list about our baby?"

"Yeah. What, is it too callous?"

"Remind me what that means again."

"It means insensitive, cold, cruel. You know, having a dark, gaping hole where your heart should be."

"Right, I should know that one," she said softly. He stopped pacing for a moment, his hands on his hips and eyes narrowed at her remark. But he let it go and waited patiently for her to answer his original question. She sighed before saying, "Maybe it is callous, but let's do it anyway."

"Okay," he said with a clap of his hands, "I guess I'll start with the cons?" She nodded and he started pacing again. "Well for starters, we're only 17. Most people tend to agree that babies raising babies isn't exactly ideal, and now I see why. If I've learned anything the past few days it's that taking care of a baby is really, really hard."

Malia said nothing. She'd only been with Hanna for one day and hadn't even had to take care of her nearly as much as Stiles had, but Malia could still see that taking care of a baby wasn't going to be easy. Taking care of herself, especially as a coyote, now that was easy. But a baby? She shook herself out of her reverie when she realized Stiles was still talking.

He ticked off another point on his fingers. "And being 17 means I still have a year left of school. I can't even imagine having a kid and being a senior in high school."

"I can barely imagine high school, much less the baby part."

"Exactly! You had plans! And my senior year was supposed to be a cake walk. I was gonna breeze through my classes, play lacrosse, apply to a few colleges, hang out with Scott and everyone else, and pray nothing tried to kill us. You know, normal teenager stuff. But with Hanna . . ."

Malia understood. "I can't stay a coyote anymore. And your plan, the future plan you told me about –"

"Going away to school, getting an apartment with Scott . . . yeah, that probably wouldn't work out. And I am very invested in the plan."

"I remember." Malia hugged her knees tighter as she watched him pace for a moment before asking, "What else is on the cons list?"

"Well speaking of things trying to kill us, our lives aren't exactly the safest. I know you weren't around for most of it, but trust me, it can get bad. In fact, while you were gone a bunch of assassins tried to murder everyone. It was a whole thing."

"So you don't think we can protect her?"

"You guys? Probably. Maybe. But me? Not so much. The point is she doesn't have to be here, you know? Not when she can be somewhere safer. But then obviously we couldn't give her up to just anyone considering she's a werecoyote. I've got an idea about that though, and I already talked to Derek about it –"

"Wait, what?" Malia asked. There was genuine surprise in her voice. She stood up on wobbly legs. "She's a werecoyote like me? Are – are you sure?"

"Shit," he swore under his breath. How had this not come up? He didn't know why he'd just assumed she already knew. Just because it had been at the forefront of his mind didn't mean it was the same for her. "Sorry, I should've – yeah, Deaton's pretty sure she is. Since you're a werecoyote, she will be too."

"But maybe not! If that's true, then how am I one? I think I would've known if my parents were werecoyotes."

Stiles immediately felt guilty. He tried to calm his racing heart so it wouldn't give him away. He couldn't get into this now. This would have to be a conversation for another time. "Deaton's usually right about this stuff. Right now all that matters is that you're one so that means so is she."

Malia found herself slowly sinking back onto the bed. So she'd given this to her baby, this thing inside her that had made her kill her mom and sister. Hanna had it too. Not that being a coyote was all bad, maybe even preferable in her eyes. But how would this affect Hanna? "Is this a pro or a con?"

". . . What?"

"Hanna being a werecoyote. Is it a pro or a con?"

"No, it – it's not either, really." He hadn't expected a question like that, and it left him flustered. "It's just a fact about her, like how she has my nose and your lips. I don't think I'd feel any differently about her whether she was a werecoyote or not."

"Really?"

"Of course," he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "This has nothing to do with the fact that she's a werecoyote and everything to do with her being a baby."

"But still, if we gave her up, if we decided to do that . . . what happened to me could happen to her too, right?"

"I guess it's possible," Stiles said with a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders, but he couldn't look at her as he said it. He knew he shouldn't downplay it, but it was the only way to convince himself he wasn't a horrible person to consider giving her up, that he wouldn't be handing off a ticking time bomb to some poor, unsuspecting couple.

"Earlier, you said something about Derek?"

"Yeah, I asked him if he knew any werewolf couples looking to adopt. I thought he could look into it. That way, she'd grow up knowing what she is and there would be someone there to help her."

"I guess that could work but . . . what if we can't find anyone?"

Stiles had thought of that too. He'd thought of everything. "Then maybe in a few years we pay her a visit and say, 'Hey, we're your birth parents! And guess what, you're a werecoyote!' Sure, it might be a bit awkward, but it's better than nothing."

It didn't sound great to her but it was more of a warning than she'd ever gotten. Malia rubbed her weary eyes. She didn't want to think about this anymore. There were just so many factors to consider, and every point Stiles brought up just made it all more complicated. She didn't want to feel sad or guilty anymore, so she changed directions. "What are the pros?"

"Okay, the pros. One of them we kind of just talked about. If she's here then she'll have a lot of people to help her. She'll have Scott and Derek and Isaac. And you."

Malia shook her head. "I'm no expert. I was stuck in my coyote body for years, remember? I still have trouble controlling myself on a full moon. I don't know how much help I'd be."

"Maybe not now but by the time she shifts for the first time, I'm sure you'll be a pro."

"I was nine when it happened," she remembered. The horrible memories of that night tried to resurface like they so often did, and she did her best to push them away. "Can you imagine us with a nine year old?"

Stiles let out a humorless little laugh. His nervous energy was finally waning, and he sat beside her on the bed again. "God no. I never could've imagined any of this. I still can't believe this is happening."

The disbelief was obvious in both of them. They sat there in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. For what felt like the millionth time, they wondered how they'd gotten themselves into this mess. Months ago they'd just been a couple of kids looking for comfort in a time of uncertainty and fear. Now that feeling had returned, just in a completely different and heartbreaking context.

Malia was the first to speak up. "We need more pros."

Stiles inexplicably found himself smiling. "I only have one more, but it's kind of a big one."

"What is it?"

"That she'd be here with us," he said with a shrug of his shoulders. "We would get to watch her grow up. We'd never have to say goodbye."

It was so simple and obvious. They smiled at the thought of being there for all of Hanna's milestones. To see her walk and talk and laugh for the first time would be a gift. But was it one they deserved? Stiles couldn't help but think of the two times he'd already tried to give her up. And Malia, she just couldn't let go of the fact that she'd run away.

It was her turn to get up and pace around the room. "That's nice and all, but that doesn't mean we'd be good parents."

"Miracles do happen –"

She ignored him. "Or that she'd be better off with us –"

"Maybe she would be –"

"Or that we could keep what happened to me from happening to her anyway –"

"We can't predict the future, Malia."

She wasn't done ranting, "And did you know that all day people kept telling me to listen to different body parts?!"

"What?" Stiles laughed. He had no idea where that had come from or what it meant.

"Yeah, Isaac told me to trust my gut. Lydia told me to go with what my head tells me is the most logical thing to do. And Scott told me to follow my heart. So which one do I listen to? Is it my gut or my head or my heart that knows the right thing to do?"

Stiles smiled warmly. She could be oddly endearing. "So let's take these one at a time. What does your gut tell you?"

"It told me to run. So that's what I did," she said sheepishly.

"Okay, forget about your gut. What about your head?"

Malia took a moment to think on it. "My head thinks that if we kept her, it would be hard. Really hard. It says we're too young and have a lot more to do before we become parents. Everything on your cons list made a lot of sense."

Stiles was keeping a tally in his head. So that was one vote for total avoidance and one vote to give up Hanna. "And your heart?"

"My heart . . ." Instead of stopping her tears, she finally let them fall. "My heart doesn't care about any of that. It wants her close to me so I don't ever have to miss her."

Stiles nodded. It seemed their gut and their heads and their hearts were in total agreement. He was just about to tell her so when –

"But," she said, and her voice sounded so pained that it caused tears to spring up in his own eyes, no matter how hard he'd been trying to keep them at bay. "I also just want what's best for her, and I don't think that's us, Stiles. It's definitely not me."

"You don't know that. You've been doing great with her-"

"But I have no idea how to take care of her!" she cried. "Not really."

"We'll figure it out, just like all new parents do!" Stiles wasn't entirely sure why he was arguing with her, especially when she was saying everything he felt too. Maybe he was right about what he'd told Derek; that he had to argue a point no matter what side he was on. Or maybe he needed to pretend, even if it was just for a moment, that they had the ability to be excellent parents. But mostly he could see she was on the verge of a total meltdown, and he wanted to stop it from happening.

"But we're not like most new parents. We're just teenagers, remember? You're still in high school, and I . . . I'm just screwed up. I don't have anything to give her. I don't even have anywhere to live."

"You heard what my dad said. You can stay here as long as you want. Or you can go home to your dad –"

"I can't do that! I ran away, Stiles. Who says he'd even want me back."

"Of course he wants you back." He tried to reach out to her, but just like almost every other time he'd tried to comfort her, she pulled away.

"I can't do it," she insisted, and Stiles knew she was talking about more than just not being able to return home.

She was the very definition of inconsolable. Soon she was curled up on his bed and crying softly, and he felt totally helpless. All he could do was wait it out. Malia finally stopped crying a few minutes later, and when she did she sat up and took the tissues Stiles offered her. She dabbed at her eyes with shaking hands and took in a deep, shuddering breath. She was completely spent, but she had to admit there was some feeling of relief by letting out everything she'd been thinking since the moment she'd seen her baby and realized this was all so much more than she was capable of handling.

When Malia was finally able to speak again, she asked, "What do you want, Stiles? Just say it."

What did he want? The truth was, he wanted too many things that were in total contradiction of each other. He wanted to be with Hanna, but he also wanted to be a normal teenager. He wanted to know his daughter, but he didn't want the overwhelming responsibility of raising a child. He also wanted what was best for her, but after all this time he still didn't know what that was. It was so hard to decide what to do when the decision to keep her and the decision to give her up felt equally selfish.

Instead of saying all of that, he said what felt truest in the moment. "I want to keep her."

She was surprised. "Y-You do?"

"Yeah, that's what I want. But sometimes what you want and what you can have are two different things." When she looked confused, he sighed and explained, "I know I want her to be with us, what I don't know is if I can do it. I don't know if we're ready."

Malia simply nodded in agreement. Stiles tentatively reached for her hand, and this time she let him take it. She was trembling uncontrollably, and he squeezed her hand even tighter. He knew that she'd all but decided that she couldn't do it. And that was okay. Maybe it was way too much to expect her to be mother when days ago she hadn't even been a girl. Suddenly, Derek's voice was in his head saying, "So what are you going to do about it?" In that moment, Stiles knew what their decision had to be. One of them just needed to say the words, and he figured he should be the one to do it.

"Malia," he said, choking over the lump in his throat. He dragged a sleeve across his wet eyes. "We aren't keeping her. Right?"

Her voice was a raspy whisper when she told Stiles, "I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?"

"I just feel like this is all my fault."

"No, we did this together. And now we've decided what to do together."

She didn't have any faith in herself to be a good mom. He felt the same about being a father, and he certainly couldn't do this without her. If things were different, maybe they would've had a chance. Maybe if they were just a little bit older. Or if they'd had months to prepare. If they'd known each other for more than a month. If they were together.

"Stiles?" Her face was red and swollen from crying. He imagined he didn't look all that different.

"Yeah?"

"Can you get Hanna? I want to see her."

"I can do that."

When he stood up he felt as if his legs might give out at any moment. It was as if he was back at the hospital, when every step toward that social worker had felt like a step away from Hanna. Logically he knew this wasn't their last night with their daughter. They'd have at least a few more together. But somehow it still felt like the end, or at least the beginning of it.

A/N: Well? I don't know how I feel about it but I think this is as good as it's gonna get. After 6 months I just want to get it posted and finally finish this fic. I hope people still care about this story and let me know what you think? Oh and if you hate me after this one, just remember there's still one more chapter to go . . .