can I go where you go

[stiles]

Having a baby had changed everything. No matter how much he desperately loved this new version of her, Malia’s body would never be the way it had been before she carried Ava. Stiles can’t remember the last time he slept through the night. Or finished an episode of a show. Or ate a hot meal. And it turns out that going out of town is now a nightmare.

It doesn’t help that the reason is less than ideal. His grandfather had been sick for longer than he could remember, but it was still a shock when his dad had called Stiles with the news his grandfather had died. When he told Malia, she had started to wordlessly undress him, like she didn’t know what to say but she knew how to try to comfort him in that moment. And he had let her, realizing that once again, she’s rubbed off on him more than he even realizes. But it was afterwards - after she had nursed the baby and promptly fallen asleep for the three hours she had between feedings - in the quiet of their bedroom that his mind began to race. Because a loss meant arrangements. And using vacation days. And travel. And time in close quarters with family he maybe saw twice a year.

Family who knew a year ago at Thanksgiving, he was as single as could be, showing up now with a two month old baby.

(Really, there was never even a conversation about whether or not Malia should go with him. He just assumed that she would be there with him, continuing to be that source of comfort. And if she ever questioned whether she should be there, she didn’t voice it.)

The added complication of the baby dawned on him later. Sometimes, it felt like packing her up to take her over to his dad’s on Sunday night for dinner felt like what packing for a weekend away used to be, and that was only for a few hours. Now, she would need something to sleep in and something to sit in when they were both busy. Suddenly, she was awake more, which meant that she needed toys so she didn’t start to fuss because she was bored. And there was so much Stiles didn’t even know. How many diapers did they need for a few days away? How many outfits? And did they bring stored milk and the bottle warmer? Or did they count on Malia being able to feed her on demand? And how did he keep his sanity?

Planning became his answer. He had list after list of everything that needed to be gathered up and packed. He spent Monday night packing everything he possibly could into the Jeep, checking and double checking that they had the pack-’n-play from his dad’s and the rocker Ava had just decided she didn’t hate. For once, Ava had woken only once during the night, leaving them well rested, and when they pulled out of the driveway early the next morning, Stiles foolishly thought maybe he had blown the whole thing out of proportion.

At least, he thought that for the first two hours.

Now, Ava is screaming in the backseat. It started as whimpering when they hit morning rush hour traffic and the Jeep slowed to a stop. But that was almost twenty minutes ago, and now she’s wailing in a way that would normally make his heart literally hurt but currently has him white knuckling the steering wheel. Malia coos softly to her from where she sits beside her, but the baby doesn’t seem to respond to her voice or the toy she shakes or her singing.

Stiles rubs a hand over his face, feeling his own blood pressure climb, and reaches to turn up the volume on the stereo, trying to drown out the baby. It’s not Ava’s fault that he’s anxious about… well, everything. About facing this grief, about facing his dad’s grief, about facing his family with his new family. And the fact that she’s not tolerating the drive is just another thing to weigh on him.

Ava’s crying rises in volume again, almost like she’s trying to compete with the music, and Malia’s rises in return, and Stiles isn’t going to make it another seven hours. He cranes his neck, eyes flickering between the rearview mirror and the road until Malia looks up, helplessly, making eye contact with him in the mirror. “Can you do something?” he says, his voice short and entirely unhelpful. “I can’t drive if she’s screaming like that.”

[malia]

Long car rides were never something she’d been good at. She hadn’t been good at them when she was a little girl. She just hadn’t had the patience. And then she’d spent so much of her life never even setting foot in car that the car itself became something to be feared, especially after the last time she’d been in one with her mother and sister. But then she’d come back, and not only had she gotten used to the car, but she’d learned to drive. And on top of that, she was pretty damn good at it.

But long car rides, they were a different monster all together, and Ava didn’t seem to be any more fond of them than her mother was.

Malia didn’t know much about babies, in general. Or maybe more so about the general population of babies. She knew about their baby, and overall Ava was a gentle spirited, generally happy, and good baby. She didn’t cry much, only when she was hungry, in pain, or had a dirty diaper. And even then they had both gotten really good at calming her down, even when it didn’t involve physically taking her pain. This cry is different though. It’s a cry of frustrated impatience. Her little face begins to turn red as she balls her fists up and kicks her little legs. The emotion of the whole thing is overwhelming. Stiles is anxious and sad and the baby is impatient and sad, feeding off of her daddy’s emotions and being stuck in her car seat for such a long period of time. And Malia is sad. She’s sad for her mate, her partner. Sad that he’s experiencing this loss and sad that he’s dealing with the anxiety that comes along with it. But she didn’t expect this. During the shorter amounts of time that Ava was in the car, she usually slept as soon as they started moving. There was something about the vibrations of the car that seemed to lull her to sleep. But she wasn’t going to be having any of that today, Malia could tell.

She can feel the tension rising in the small, confined space and it’s making her skin bristle. She coos soft words to the baby, letting Ava grip her finger as she cries. She tries her pacifier, tries a bottle. She tries toys and her little books and even a frozen teething ring that she doesn’t even need yet. She catches his eyes in the rear view mirror and she can see the shortness reflected back at her. He clenches his jaw as he speaks, and his words sting a little. She tries not to take it too personally, knowing that he’s not feeling himself.

“I’m trying,” She tells him stoically. She’s not sure what he expects her to do. So, she does the one thing her instinct and her body tells her to do. She pulls her shirt up, unbuckling Ava from her car seat and pulling her into her arms. The baby coughs through some frantic sobs before she reluctantly latches onto Malia’s nipple and begins to nurse hesitantly.

[stiles]

Malia’s voice is calm and even when she says she’s trying, and it’s enough to make him stop - at least momentarily. She doesn’t snap back or call him out for being an asshole. Her calm is soothing to him, even if it’s not to the baby. And his mind slows down for a minute. Ava had been nicknamed the “car baby” because she never made it to the end of their block without drifting off to sleep in her carseat. So he had stupidly assumed that this would be the same way. The problem was that this was a much longer drive, and Ava was still only eight weeks old, nowhere near sleeping through the night. So she fell asleep seemingly before they even reached the end of the driveway, but now it’s been two hours. And it’s not the baby’s fault that she’s just a week past being labeled a newborn. And that they’re stuck in traffic. And that-

His list of reasons is cut short by the sharp sound of the metal buckle of the carseat hitting the base. Stiles’s eyes immediately whip to the rearview mirror, just as Malia lifts the baby into her arms. And just like that, all of his frustration rushes back.

“What the fuck, Mal?” he says, his voice just as sharp as before. He’s too frustrated to notice the baby falls quiet as soon as she’s on Malia’s breast. He does catch how wide Malia’s eyes are when she looks into the rearview mirror, but he’s already looking away. He checks over his shoulder before jerking the car onto the shoulder, bypassing the bumper-to-bumper traffic. His eyes flash back up to the rearview mirror. “You can’t take her out of the carseat when I’m driving!” He says, hitting the palm of his hand against the steering wheel.

She’s quiet in the backseat as he maneuvers the Jeep on the shoulder the short distance to the off-ramp. It’s equally unsafe, but it’s the only thing he can think to do with the baby in her arms. She’s still quiet as he turns into the first parking lot he comes to. Still quiet when he pulls the car into a spot and jerks the car into park before rubbing his hand over his face again. And it pisses him off. Or at least, it pisses him off until he realizes it’s her calm demeanor. It’s her ability to stay so level-headed. And it’s his own frustration that’s pissing him off, really. He’s always had a temper that flares at the worst moments, a mouth that runs before he thinks through the weight of his words. But this is the first time all of that frustration has been directed at a situation involving Ava. And the only thing stronger than his frustration is his guilt.

And he can’t sit there in the car with her the absolute picture of serenity in the backseat any longer.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells her, his tone still sharp, as he yanks the key free from the ignition and climbs out of the car, headed for the gas station behind them. Before he can run his mouth again.

[malia]

She takes him by surprise when he responds to her actions with such hostility. She almost gasps, holding the baby tightly to her chest as he slams the steering wheel in a reaction that is more physical than she’s used to. She’d known he was upset, but she was just trying to defuse the situation. She’d honestly thought this would help. Was it bad to take her out of the car seat if she was still holding her? She’d just wanted to eat.

She doesn’t know how to respond as he immediately pulls them off the highway and pulls into a parking lot. Maybe she should’ve stopped what she was doing and tried to strap the baby back into her seat. But she’s frozen, his reaction is so uncharacteristic of him. Besides, if she’d done that, Ava would have just freaked out. She would’ve started screaming and crying and then he would have been angry all over again anyways. She doesn’t know what the right thing to do would have been. She’s experiencing one of those rare moments that she doesn’t often have any more where she’s not sure what the right human reaction is. This is something she should’ve known she thinks to herself as she watches him get out of the car and walk away from them. She’d pushed a button that she hadn’t meant to press. She looks down at the baby in her arms as Stiles disappears into the building. And it’s the perfect contrast. Just when things had intensified with them, Ava had calmed down. She’s sucking quietly now, her eyes dropping shut as she takes her milk happily. Even Malia’s emotions don’t seem to be affecting her right now. She’s perfectly content, and she’ll probably fall asleep soon.

But Stiles is more upset than she’s seen him in a long time and it’s clearly her fault. She doesn’t know what to do. She can’t get out and follow him. She won’t leave her baby alone. She she can’t just get out of the car and follow him into a public place while she’s nursing.

So she does the only thing she can do. She sits in that back seat in the parking lot of a gas station and nurses her baby. She leans down and presses a kiss to her dark hair. Lets the calmness that Ava is giving off try to calm her down. She feeds on the baby’s serenity and she tries to think about what she’s going to say to Stiles when he gets back to the car.

He’d already been upset and now she’d just upset him more.

[stiles]

The key digs into his palm as he makes his way across the parking lot. He’s not sure where he’s headed or why. He just knows he can’t sit in that car any longer. He’s too anxious and frustrated and angry. He’s too angry.

It’s the reason that he reaches for his phone halfway to the door. He’s a safe enough distance away from the Jeep now that Malia won’t hear him call his dad and tell him that they’re just not coming. It was stupid to think the baby could make it that long in the car. And it was selfish of him to think that they should come with him. But as soon as his dad had called him about the arrangements, he had wanted Malia there with him. No, he needed her there with him. He needed to be able to lay down beside her each night after they made it back to the hotel. And he needed to be able to hold Ava while she slept on his chest, a reminder that not everything was terrible in the world. That he had somehow lost someone else before he was even thirty, but he had gained a lot in the last year, too. He had needed to have them there so much, he never stopped to think about the logistics.

But it’s the thought of Noah’s disappointment that stops him - literally stops him - a few feet from the door. If there’s anything that his dad loves more than him, it’s Ava, so there’s no doubt in his mind that Noah will understand if they turn around now. But it won’t change the fact that Noah will be navigating his grief and all of the tasks it takes to pack up a life on his own. Just like he couldn’t fathom this trip to Portland without his family, he can’t do that to his dad now.

Stiles sighs as he pockets his phone again. Instead, he tries to focus on his breathing as he pulls the door open to the convenience store at the station and is met with a hot rush of air. It’s a technique the social worker he saw after Claudia died had taught him. He had been angry then, so angry. His rage would get the best of him, and Noah would sit there with his head in his hands and whiskey on his breath as he told Stiles, I don’t know how to help you. But the social worker had. She had given him a breathing technique and a mantra - All feelings are temporary. The problem is that adult Stiles knows that there’s different kinds of temporary, and the seven hours they still have on the road (if they somehow miraculously don’t stop again) is a long kind of temporary.

He wanders aimlessly for thirty seconds before he realizes there’s a Dunkin inside. The line is long, crowded with that same morning rush that slowed the interstate, and he feels grateful for the delay. He keeps one eye on the Jeep as he slowly inches up to the counter, watching for any sign of her. Part of him had expected her to follow him in, the baby on her breast, and it’s only now that he realizes that part of him wanted her to follow him. Because how upset could she be with him if she was on his heel? Now, he waits for the door to swing open so she can stretch her legs, so she can lift the baby out of the car and offer her the tiniest fresh air break, so she can crane her neck and look for him the same way he’s looking for her. But the Jeep sits unchanged as he moves to the front, orders a coffee for both of them, and then waits for his name to be called.

Stiles is surprised by the bite in the air when he steps outside again. He missed it in his rage across the parking lot, but now it’s a bitter reminder that they probably didn’t pack to keep the baby warm enough as they move up the coast. He sighs to himself again, that knot forming in his stomach once again as he makes his way back to the Jeep. He tries to ignore it as he reminds himself again that all of this - his anxiety, the road trip, his grief - is temporary.

He stops at the passenger door, catching her by surprise when he swings it open. Her eyes are wide, and he can tell that she’s uncertain, a reminder that he had lost his cool in front of both her and their daughter, something he had never wanted to do. Before she can say anything, he reaches silently across the carseat to hand her a coffee, a silent kind of peace offering. He knows that he owes her an apology, probably more than an apology, but his frustration is still just raw enough to keep him from saying it. “Have you changed her?” he asks instead.

[malia]

She’s not sure how long they sit there, but it can’t be longer than twenty minutes because Ava is still nursing from her other breast by the time he comes back. She’s barely keeping herself awake, her eyes staying closed for longer periods of time before she flutters them back open and continues to suckle. But Malia wants to make sure she’s nice and full before she tires to put her back into her seat. She doesn’t want Stiles getting even more upset than he already is.

She smells his scent getting closer before she sees him making his way back to the car with two cups in his hand. She’s not expecting him to come back bearing gifts, but he opens the door and hands her one of the hot cups of coffee. She takes it, her brown eyes soft as she looks at him. She takes a sip of the burning hot liquid, shaking her head no when he asks her ifs he’s changed the baby. She wants to say something to him, but these are the areas where she doesn’t think she’ll ever be good at being human. These deep emotional moments where she’s done something wrong and she doesn’t know exactly what the trigger was, or when somebody she loves is dealing with extreme grief and she’s done something wrong. More so, when the person she loves more than anyone is hurting. She wants to comfort him physically, but that’s not really on the table right now. Especially not since she can still smell his anger and frustration.

“Are you okay?” She finally ventures to ask as Ava really does fall asleep. She pulls the baby away from her breast and lifts her to her shoulder so she can burp her before she really passes out. But she doesn’t take her eyes off of him. He looks tired, his hazel eyes troubled and his hair messy. “Maybe I could drive the rest of the way.”

[stiles]

Stiles’s eyes are drawn to Ava as he stands beside the car. Her eyes are closed, her tiny fist balled up against Malia’s skin, and it’s almost like he can feel his frustration melting away. It’s hard to hold that same amount of anger towards something so small and so perfect. It wasn’t Ava’s fault that there was so much traffic this morning, or that they were on the road to begin with, or that she’s only eight weeks old and obviously incapable of lasting seven hours straight in the car. And as his frustration melts away, he can feel it be replaced with guilt. He crouches down, running a hand over the soft down of her hair as she continues to sleepily eat. Ava will never remember this trip, but he already feels like he might remember the way he yelled in front of her for the rest of his life. And he’s not sure there’s a worse feeling in the world.

Malia’s question pulls his attention away from the baby. Her voice is soft, and her expression is full of concern when he looks up, and it just seems to multiply his guilt. He’s never felt more certain that he doesn’t deserve her. If he were still with Lydia, she’d be giving him the cold shoulder right now, or she would’ve called an Uber while he was in line for coffee, leaving him alone in the parking lot to make the rest of the drive up the coast on his own. And maybe that’s what he deserves. Now, it feels selfish on his part to make Malia and the baby make this trip with him, just because he didn’t want to face this on his own. A better person would probably give her an out now, taking them back home and then doubling back to finish the long drive. But Stiles is too selfish for that.

“No,” he sighs in response to her question. Having Ava had unlocked some new level of their relationship together, and now he doesn’t know how to be anything but honest with her. “But I’ll be okay.” He brings his hand to rub the back of Ava’s head again now that she’s moved to Malia’s shoulder, taking a deep breath as he silently reminds himself again that this will somehow be temporary. At her offer, he shakes his head without looking away from the baby. “I can drive. You’ve never driven in traffic like this.”

The unspoken part of his response is that he has no control over anything happening in Portland right now, and even less control over how Ava handles the rest of the trip, but being the one in the driver’s seat gives him the illusion of control right now. The part he really can’t say out loud is that as much as he knows he would never hurt Ava, he’s worried about when his anger might flare again in this journey. Instead, he brings his hand back to her face, forcing her to meet his gaze. He had thought about just letting it go and moving on, but his mind keeps replaying all of the trainings he’s sat through, the videos he’s been forced to watch, and the (thankfully) small handful of times he’s responded to another family’s trauma. “Please, please, please, don’t take her out of her car seat when I’m driving,” he tells her, fighting to keep his voice even. “We can pull over. I’ll always pull over for her.”

[malia]

She hadn’t really expected him to take her up on her offer when she’d presented it, and he doesn’t. Ava burps lightly, a sleepy burp, and Malia turns to buckle her back into her car seat. She scrunches up her face for a moment and she’s afraid that the tears are about to start all over again, but the baby begins sucking softly on her pacifier and sucks herself right back to sleep. Malia covers here up with her soft blanket and turns back to Stiles as he watches her. She’s not sure how much longer they’ll have in the car, but right now she feels like any amount of time will feel like forever.

His eyes are serious when she turns back to him, but they’re not angry like they were before. He’s gentle as he touches her face, turning her back to him. She bites her bottom lip, a little scared of what he’s going to say. But he only softly pleads his case. She nods, offering him a weak smile and feeling very guilty for what she’d done. It was clearly something that wasn’t okay…taking the baby out of her seat while they were moving. “I promise I won’t,” she tells him. She leans in to press a kiss to his lips before he can pull away, hoping that it’ll help ease some of his anxiety.

She’s not sure if it does, but she does think that perhaps he smells a little less than he did before they stopped, so she’ll take that as a win.

They don’t say much as he gets back into the driver’s seat and they take off back onto the highway. He turns the music on softly so the baby doesn’t wake. And she doesn’t. She’s good, she sleeps soundly as they drive for another couple of hours. Finally, they have to stop for gas which is good because she actually has to go to the bathroom. She does that while he fills the gas tank and keeps his eye on the sleeping baby, and then he takes a turn when she’s finished. She climbs back into the car, adjusting Ava’s blanket. She’s awake now, but still quiet. She smiles as Malia looks down at her, and she tickles her little neck as she speaks softly to her.

She looks up as Stiles climbs back into the car and starts the engine, the little girl in her that was impatient on car trips coming out. “How much further?”

[stiles]

It’s the punctuation of her statement with the kiss that lets Stiles know she understands. Malia has never been great with words, but in this sequel to their high school romance, he understands her communication style. It’s the way her fingers comb through the short hair at the nape of his neck. It’s the soft pressure of her kiss, like kissing a little harder might make a bigger emotional impact. It’s the wide eyed sincerity he’s met with when he pulls away. It’s enough to make him feel a little relief. He stands again, nodding aimlessly as he runs a hand through his hair. “We should probably get back on the road,” he says.

His stomach sinks at the idea, knowing rush hour traffic will only have gotten worse, and there’s another seven hours laying ahead of them. But he tries not to fixate on the part of this journey he can’t control. Instead, he heads back to the driver’s seat as she starts to move the baby back to her carseat. When he starts the car and puts it in drive - once Ava is safely buckled again -, he holds his breath, idling across the parking lot as he waits for the moment Ava realizes she’s no longer in her mama’s arms and absolutely loses it. But the moment doesn’t come. The baby continues to sleep peacefully, and they make it back onto the expressway without incident.

Stiles turns the radio back on as they settle into a comfortable silence. It gives him something to focus on as they settle into the rush hour crawl again. Luckily, they’re farther into the city than he realized, and it’s not long before they break free, the traffic dissolving into thin air. The downside of the traffic disappearing is that his mind is able to wander more. It doesn’t matter how many times he tells his dad that his new Jeep can read and send his texts, Noah doesn’t contact him whenever he knows they’re on the road, so Stiles has no idea what’s happening in Salem. He doesn’t know if the cousins he hasn’t seen in years have already descended upon his grandparents’ house, or if his aunts and uncles have started to grill his dad over Stiles’s instant family, complete seemingly overnight. And he still doesn’t know if Malia understands any of this. They’ve both suffered enough loss to know that she understands the loss part. But he’s not sure she fully understands just how much human interaction will be required of her in the days to come. And thinking about it now is enough to make him feel like there’s little to no chance he gets through these next few days without an ulcer.

Miraculously, they make it another two hours before they need to stop for gas. The baby sleeps soundly, continuing to sleep soundly when he fills up the car, and then when he and Malia swap. She’s awake when he returns from the bathroom, but is still happy, cooing softly. It’s not until they’re pulling out of the gas station and Malia asks how much longer than he looks at their ETA. He scoffs to himself, because it’s a better alternative to screaming or pulling his own hair out, before meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror. “We’ve still got four hours,” he tells her.

As if Ava can understand what he says, the baby begins to fuss in the back. It’s soft and doesn’t last long, but he knows by now that she’s hungry, and they’re not far from a full-blown meltdown. “Maybe we should all eat something,” he sighs, trying to keep his cool. Because it’s not the baby’s fault she’s an infant, or that they hit traffic when they did, or that they have to drive all the way to Oregon.

Malia doesn’t try to argue, probably because she’s already trying to soothe Ava. This time, though, he keeps his cool as he turns into the parking lot of the first restaurant they come to. He strategically picks a spot in the back of the parking lot, leaving Malia to nurse the baby while he goes inside to order. Ava was hysterical by the time he left, but when he returns with lunch for both Malia and himself, he can see the dark crown of her head through the window, nestled against Malia’s chest. It’s quiet in the car when he climbs back inside, save for Malia’s soft coos.

“How’s she doing?” he asks, turning in his seat to see her. The baby’s eyes are closed again as she sucks eagerly at Malia’s breast. But even as Malia says that the baby is good, he’s struck by the way they’re crammed in the backseat, the carseat in the middle with malia on one side and the contents of the diaper bag spilling across the other. And there’s another four hours ahead of them. “Maybe this was a bad idea,” he says before he can think better of it. “I shouldn’t have made you two come with me.”

[malia]

She doesn’t have the same regrets that he does and the drive is actually kind of nice to her. She enjoys listening to the music and looking out the window and seeing the countryside pass them by. Ava is quiet as she sleeps in the car seat next to her, and even Stiles seems to calm down a little bit. The scent of his anxiety seems to fade slightly the further they get away from the stop at the gas station. It’s almost like the entire thing just fades into the distance behind them just like the gas station itself.

By the time Ava starts to fuss again, ready to eat after another couple of hours in the car, they’re ready to eat too. She lifts Ava into her arms and pulls her shirt up so the baby can start to eat while Stiles goes and gets them food. She can tell his mood has shifted again by the time he gets back. She watches him climb into the car again, handing her a sandwich and observing the car and her and the baby. Ava’s eyes are already growing heavy again as she nurses, sucking greedily and then stopping to sleep for a few seconds before she remembers what she’s doing and starts to eat again. “She’s fine,” she assures him when he asks, knowing that’s not really what he’s thinking about. His next statement confuses her slightly. She looks around, wondering if he was upset at her still…because of what had happened earlier. If he thought he’d have been better off on this trip without them.

“Where else would we be?” She asks him curiously. She didn’t like it when he went places without her that weren’t work. And she didn’t really like to go places without him. He doesn’t look angry, he just looks sad. She puts the sandwich down, reaching for his hand and taking it in hers. “You’re not doing this alone, not without us.” She tells him, not meaning to sound trite or cute, just honest. “That’s what families do right?”

[stiles]

The longer he watches the two of them in the backseat, the more his guilt builds. The baby was just barely starting to adapt to a routine, and now he had yanked her as far away from that as possible. Because he needs to feel like he’s in control, he’s left Malia on her own to care for the baby. Malia hates people, especially people she doesn’t know, and she hates bringing the baby into uncertain situations even more. And then he let his anxiety get the best of him and lost his patience with both of them in record time. And not once did he ask Malia if she wanted to do any of this. His stomach turns at the realization. His dad had texted him the arrangements, and then Stiles had set off on making a plan, and then he had only told her after the fact. She had sensed his tension when he came home that night, insisting that he let her comfort him in the best way she knew how when they went to bed that night, and then he had relayed this plan to her like an afterthought afterwards, when she had pulled the baby into bed to nurse in between them. And then he wondered why its been such a colossal mess.

Her brow furrows in response, though, and he wants to kiss that spot where her brows almost meet. He’s thinking so much about that, it takes him a second to process her question. Stiles scoffs in response, a mile long list of other places to be running through his mind: Back home, laying Ava down for a nap in his own bed. A weekend at Derek and Braden’s, if she didn’t want to be alone. A beach. A campground. Literally anywhere else for a weekend away.

But before he can vocalize any of that, she reaches for his hand, threading her fingers through his. You’re not doing this alone without us, she says, and his laughter catches in the back of his throat, forming a lump he can barely swallow around. He’s never felt lonely, not really, but this is the first time he can remember feeling the weight of something like this and not feeling alone in it. Which is probably why he just assumed she’d be right here, by his side. Because now he has her.

There’s a genuine curiosity behind her next question, and he nods immediately. “Yeah,” he says, his voice cracking. He clears his throat before he adds, “That’s what families do.” The moment feels profound, even if they’ve technically been a family for eight weeks now. Even as they settled into life with a baby, he’s not sure he’s really thought about their family unit in those terms until right now. Until right now, it had just been him and Malia and Ava, a group that couldn’t be separated, but not one he had labeled a family. Not until Malia does it for him. He pulls her hand to his lips, kissing the back of her hand and then keeping his lips against her skin as he murmurs, “God, I love you so much.”

When he finally drops her hand with another soft kiss, he has to blink rapidly to clear the moisture that’s gathered in his eyes. “When she’s done, I’ll take her,” he says with a nod towards the baby, sniffing in an attempt to stop that wave of emotion. “Give her a break from being cooped up in her carseat.”

[malia]

His hips are soft against her hand and she smiles, a bit of a sad smile as she moves her thumb against his lips after he pulls a way. “I love you,” she tells him sincerely. He wouldn’t have to do this kind of stuff on his own anymore, and neither would she. She can tell that there are tears in his eyes but she doesn’t say anything about it, knowing he probably wouldn’t want to talk about it anyways. She finishes up her food just as Ava does the same. And as soon as she’s done, she pulls the baby away from her breast and hands her to Stiles to burp. She reaches over to the diaper bag and pulls out a burp cloth for him to drape over his shoulder as he pats her tiny little back. She was two months old, but she was still such a small little thing. Malia can still remember what it feels like she was inside of her. She misses that feeling sometimes, even though there was nothing quite like holding that baby in her arms.

He climbs in the back seat with her as he continues to burp Ava so he can get them both out of the chill of the air. It was getting a little cooler the further north they went. They both laugh slightly as Ava lets out a little burp that sounds way too big to have come out of her tiny body. It breaks the tension and she rests her head against his other shoulder. She wasn’t good with words, but she felt like she needed to be close to him.

“I bet she’ll sleep the rest of the way,” she offers positively, hoping that she’s predicting the future. It would be really nice for Stiles if she could just sleep and they could make the rest of the trip in relative silence. Ava squirms a little in Stiles arms, but it doesn’t take too long of him softly patting her back before she stills and her breathing grows steady. She falls asleep there against his chest, in her daddy’s strong arms.

[stiles]

It’s calming to have Ava in his arms. He eats quickly and she eats quickly, and then he ends up in the backseat there with them, the baby nestled against his chest. And he doesn’t realize just how calming it is until his chest is suddenly no longer tight. Life a baby hasn’t been easy, maybe most evidenced by today, but it’s hard to deny how good her presence has been in his life. She settles into his arms like she was made to fit there, and he forgets to be worried about what’s awaiting them at the end of this journey. He laughs along with Malia at the way the baby burps, and the tension of the morning starts to dissipate. She drifts off with her cheek pressed to his shoulder, and he never wants to move from this spot.

Malia’s voice is soft and just a little too eager, and Stiles sighs in response. “God I hope so.” He presses a kiss to the crown of the baby’s head, silently willing her to just stay asleep the rest of the way. She needed the sleep, and he and Malia both needed the quiet if he was honest. Maybe not the quiet, but the calm. The lack of guilt for him, the lack of tension for her. If the baby just stayed asleep for the rest of the journey, they could make this last stretch without stopping. He purposely waits far longer than necessary, wanting to be sure that she’s in a deep sleep before he finally, slowly, eases Ava away from his chest. Malia holds the straps open wide in the carseat while he deposits her back in. As soon as she’s inside, she starts to fuss, but Malia is there with her pacifier, and Stiles gently coos. In the end, she never even opens her eyes, drifting back asleep with her pacifier furiously bobbing in her mouth.

“We should get going,” he whispers, and Malia nods, pulling him in for a short kiss before he finally gets out of the backseat and moves back behind the wheel. The baby stays asleep as the car starts, as he pulls out of the parking lot, as they merge back onto the expressway. He waits ten minutes before he tests his luck and turns his music back on. Ten minutes later, Malia is also asleep. Traffic has cleared, the car is quiet, and this last leg of their journey couldn’t be anymore different. At least, it couldn’t be more different until he’s left alone with his thoughts for too long. Until the time left on the GPS goes from three hours to two hours to one. Sometime after they cross the last state line, his dad starts to text him, but he ignores them instead of letting the car read them to him. He tells himself it’s to keep the baby from waking up, but it’s really because this tightness in his chest is starting to creep around to his back. Each mile brings them closer to his family, closer to his grief. And now, even more than when Ava was losing her tiny, sweet mind, he wants to turn around and go back home.

Malia wakes up in the last hour, and he must be throwing off some pretty intense chemosignals because she asks if he’s okay before the sleep has even cleared from her eyes. “It’s raining,” he says with a nod towards the windshield, like that might explain it away. The rain came with crossing the stateline, too, but they both know it’s not the reason why he feels like he can’t take a deep breath right now. But she’s quiet the rest of the way, not asking him further. Everything else, though, seems to increase. The rain pours. His anxiety makes his hands tap against the wheel. He gets another two texts. The traffic grows again. It all feels like it’s building towards something.

Ava wakes up as they pull into the parking lot of their hotel, but the rain doesn’t stop. Rain dots their clothes by the time they make it inside to check in. He talks to the concierge while Malia wrangles Ava from her carseat, trying to sooth her as she fusses, hungry after her long nap. He’s probably lucky that she waits until they’re in the elevator before pulling her shirt down and letting the baby latch, but then again, he’s also moved past the point of trying to tell her how to feed their child. He unlocks the door, then follows her in to drop off the carseat. “I’m gonna get the rest of our stuff,” he tells her as she settles onto the bed with the baby. Once again, he’s glad to have a task to keep him busy.

[malia]

She’s not sure how long she sleeps, just like she’s not sure what really wakes her up. Maybe it was the sound of the rain hitting the windshield, or the fact that they were coming to more stoplights and less seamless highway cruising. Or maybe it was the smell of his anxiety as they drew closer to their destination. But she knows that he’s troubled when she opens her eyes even when he tells her it’s raining, as if that’s an explanation. But the craziest thing about it is, that she gets it. It kind of is an explanation for him, for her. They just kind of got each other like that. She knows that he’s grieving. She knows that he’s anxious. And she knows that all she can do is be there by his side in case he needs comfort. And she would be.

Somehow, they manage to make it to the hotel and get checked in. And somehow, she manages to get Ava to wait until they’re in the relative privacy of the elevator before she lifts her shirt so the baby can nurse. She knows well enough by now to cover them both up with a blanket in case somebody else gets in or passes them in the hallway. But nobody does and they’re in the safety of the hotel room before she knows it. she settles herself down on the bed, relief filling her as Ava drains the milk from her full breast. She nods as he tells her he’s going to get the rest of their stuff and she burps the baby before switching her to the other side before he even gets back to the room. When he does, he’s a little more wet than he was before and she’s a little more concerned. She can see the way he nervously looks around the room, trying to find an outlet for his anxiety.

“Why don’t you take a hot shower and try to warm up while I finish feeding her?” She suggests.


He had to be chilly being so wet, and maybe the hot water would calm him down a little bit. She know how she wanted to comfort him, but she had to finish taking care of the baby before she could do that. Maybe if he was in the shower long enough, she would join him. But she can’t even tell if he’ll agree to that idea yet as he nervously paces the room and begins to pull things out of Ava’s bag.

[stiles]

Stiles is soaked by the time he makes it inside with all of their things. His shirt is plastered to his back, and water drips from his hair, but none of it even registers. His mind is a few miles from their hotel, thinking about his dad already settled in at his grandmother’s, helping her sort through the kind of logistics that felt so unfair in the wake of a loss. And his mind’s a few hours ahead, thinking about tomorrow morning when they’ll have to pack Ava up for another long day - first, the visitation, followed immediately by the funeral mass. And his mind’s back in Beacon Hills, too, wishing for a night in his own bed. A quiet day spent at home, just the three of them, where the rest of the world seems to cease to exist. But physically, he’s in an elevator, juggling their bag with the baby’s many bags, with no option to just pack the car again and head back home.

Malia and Ava are right where he left them when he returns. His heart wants to drop their bags on the threshold and settle onto the bed beside them, running his thumb across the baby’s cheek while she nurses, and pressing soft kisses against Malia’s shoulder. But his mind can’t slow down enough for him to sit still. Instead, he sets their bag in the corner and piles Ava’s under the window. He hangs the bag with his suit and her dress in the closet, and then he stands there, searching for the next task as he runs a hand through his wet hair. He can feel Malia’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t return her gaze. Instead, his eyes settle on the diaper bag. Because the baby will need a clean diaper after she finishes eating, and getting it out of her bag feels like it’s the least he can do after leaving Malia to parent alone the whole time they were in the car.

Her suggestion comes as he’s pulling out a diaper and the package of wipes, and he’s suddenly aware of the way his clothes stick to him, drenched in the rain water. Just when he’s starting to consider it, his eyes land on the pack ‘n play instead. “I should get Ava’s stuff set up first,” he says with a sigh as he tosses the diaper and the wipes gently onto the bed. And then it only makes sense to pull out the diapers that they packed to free up space in the diaper bag. He moves to set them on the desk, creating a space to keep her things. Then it’s the frozen milk they brought just in case, finding a spot for it in the mini fridge. Malia insists that it can wait somewhere behind his back, but he shakes his head without turning around. “Yeah, but then someone just has to put it together when we get back tonight.”

His stomach knots at the idea of heading over to his grandma’s, and he turns his energy to the pack ‘n play instead, burying those anxious nerves down as far as they’ll go (which isn’t very far at all). He’s ready to wrestle with her tiny bed. He wants to curse his way through this, lose the rest of the afternoon to it. Instead, it unfolds exactly the way it’s supposed to with a loud click that indicates that it’s locked. And it might take him a minute to locate the sheet for the newborn insert, but it, too, snaps right into place. And then he’s left with… nothing else on his to-do list.

He straightens and turns to Malia. Her mouth immediately opens, that same request on the tip of her tongue, but he cuts her off. “Okay, okay,” he says, rubbing a hand over his face. “I’ll take a shower.” As much as he doesn’t want the time to himself to think, he knows it’ll feel good to wash the car ride and this mixture of rainwater and sweat coating his skin away. He stops the bed, pressing a quick kiss to her mouth to let her know that he’s frustrated with himself, not her, before he finally makes his way to the bathroom, closing the door behind him.