Chapter 4 — What the Sheriff Sees
Sheriff Noah Stilinski came home at 3:52 in the morning and knew something was wrong before he had the key out of the lock.
The porch light was on. Stiles did not turn on the porch light. The kid had turned that light off every night since he was fourteen because he said it made the house look like it was waiting up for somebody.
Noah stood on his own welcome mat with his keys in his hand and listened.
There were voices in the kitchen. One of them was his son's.
The other one was a girl's.
He went through the door the way he went through most doors, which was quietly and to one side, and he stopped in the hall with his hand halfway to his belt before he heard the actual content of the conversation and let his hand drop.
"— she does not need a schedule, she *has* a schedule, the schedule is her."
"That's not a schedule, that's a hostage situation."
"You've known her for five hours."
"And she's taken three of them."
Noah came around the corner into the kitchen.
There was a girl sitting at his counter. Eighteen, maybe, dark hair, a cardigan that had seen a long car ride, and a coffee at her elbow she hadn't touched in a while.
His son was leaning against the sink holding a baby.
Noah stopped in the doorway.
Stiles looked up.
"Hey," Stiles said.
Nobody said anything for about three seconds.
"Okay," Noah said. He took his hat off and put it on the table by the door, slowly, the way you set something down when you want your hands free and also want to look like you don't. "Good morning."
"It's four."
"I'm aware of what time it is, I've been awake for twenty hours." He came into the kitchen. "Son."
"Yeah."
"Is there a baby in my kitchen?"
"There's a baby in your kitchen."
"Okay."
Noah pulled out the third stool and sat down on it heavily, and he looked at the girl, and he put out his hand.
"Noah Stilinski," he said.
"Hope," she said, and shook it. "Hope Mikaelson."
"Hope." He nodded. "You want a real cup of that? That one's gone cold, I can see it from here."
"I'm okay."
"You sure? Because I've got a feeling this is a conversation that goes better with something hot in front of everybody."
Hope's mouth moved slightly. "Then yes. Please."
Noah got up and poured her a new one and dumped the old one in the sink, and he did it standing right next to his son and did not look at the baby once while he did it, which was its own enormous effort.
Then he sat back down.
"Alright," he said. "Somebody talk."
Stiles took a breath.
"So in June," he said.
"In June you went to Louisiana for a week to clear your head."
"In June I went to Louisiana for a week to clear my head."
"Uh huh."
"And I met Hope."
"I'm following so far."
Stiles shifted the baby up a little, and Noah's eyes went to the movement and came back.
"Dad," Stiles said, "this is Mira."
Noah waited.
"She's mine," Stiles said.
The refrigerator hummed.
Noah Stilinski sat on a stool in his own kitchen at four in the morning and looked at his son, and his son looked back at him, and neither of them moved.
"She's three months old," Hope said, into the silence. "She was born on the second of September in New Orleans. I didn't tell him. He found out four hours ago when I knocked on your door."
Noah turned his head toward her.
"You drove here?"
"Thirty-one hours. Four days."
"By yourself. With an infant."
"Yes."
"In what?"
"A 2007 Corolla."
Noah closed his eyes briefly.
"Ma'am," he said, "with all respect, that is the single most dangerous thing anybody in this room has done this year, and I want you to understand what kind of room this is."
Hope's chin came up. "I stopped every two hours."
"Good."
"I'm not an idiot."
"I didn't say you were. I said you drove an infant across the country in a Corolla, and I've worked the other end of that phone call, and I'd rather say something rude now than think about it later." He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "Okay. Okay."
He put his hands on the counter.
"Stiles."
"Yeah."
"Are you sure?"
"Dad."
"I have to ask that question. You know I have to ask that question, I'd ask it of a stranger who walked into my station."
"I know."
"So I'm asking."
Stiles looked down at Mira. She was awake. She had one fist against her mouth and she was looking up at the ceiling light with the total concentration of somebody solving it.
"She's mine," he said.
"That's not evidence, kid, that's a feeling."
"Yeah, well." Stiles looked up. "I've got a feeling."
Noah looked at him for a long moment.
Then he turned to Hope.
"Is there any question in your mind?" he asked.
"None," Hope said.
"None at all."
"There was never anybody else," she said. "Not before, not after. I'm not going to be embarrassed about saying that in your kitchen at four in the morning, because the alternative is you spending a year wondering."
Noah nodded once, slowly.
"Alright," he said.
And then he sat there and did not say anything for about fifteen seconds, and his face did something complicated, and he pressed his mouth flat and looked off toward the dark window.
"Dad?"
"Give me a second."
"Are you okay?"
"I said give me a second."
Stiles shut up.
Noah breathed out.
"Your mother," he said, "used to say she was going to be a nightmare of a grandmother. She said it about once a month from the time you were four. She had a whole bit about it. She was going to feed you sugar and hand you back."
Stiles's throat moved.
"Yeah," he said.
"I used to tell her she was getting way ahead of herself."
"I remember."
"She'd say, *I'm pacing myself, Noah.*" Noah wiped his hand down his face. "Damn it."
Nobody said anything.
Then Noah pushed the stool back and stood up and came around the counter.
"Okay," he said. "Give her here."
Stiles blinked. "What?"
"Give her here, I've been sitting here for four minutes doing math instead of meeting my granddaughter and that's a stupid way to spend the first four minutes."
"Dad, she's — "
"Son, I have done this before. You were considerably worse."
Stiles handed her over.
Noah took Mira the way people take a baby when the last one they held was their own — not carefully, exactly, but completely, one hand behind her head and the whole of her along his forearm, and he turned automatically, without seeming to notice he was doing it, and started to sway.
Mira looked up at him.
"Hi," Noah said.
Mira did not blink.
"That's a hell of a look," he said. "You got that from your dad. He used to do that to me from a high chair. Used to stare at me like I owed him money."
Hope laughed, once, and then put her hand over her mouth like she hadn't meant to.
Noah looked over at her.
"You've been awake how long?"
"I don't know."
"That's an answer." He shifted Mira up onto his shoulder. "Go to bed."
"I'm fine."
"You are not fine, you're vertical, that's different." He said it without heat. "There are three adults in this house and two of them have been up all night. That math works out for exactly one person and it's the guy who slept until two this afternoon."
Hope hesitated.
"She'll want a bottle in — "
"Then I'll make her a bottle."
"You don't know where — "
"Ma'am, I have been finding things in this kitchen since 1994."
Hope stood up. She looked at Mira on the sheriff's shoulder and did not move for a second, and Noah saw it, and his voice changed.
"Hope."
She looked at him.
"I've got her," he said. "That's a promise from a man who keeps them. Go lie down."
Hope nodded.
"Thank you," she said.
"Don't thank me yet. We're going to have a much longer conversation in about six hours and I guarantee you're not going to enjoy all of it."
"I know."
"Good. Go."
She went.
Noah listened to her go up the stairs, and the guest room door close, and then he stood there swaying with the baby on his shoulder and his son standing four feet away not knowing what to do with his hands.
"Sit down," Noah said.
Stiles sat.
"You're not in trouble," Noah said.
"I kind of feel like I'm in trouble."
"You're eighteen and you have a daughter and you found out about it at midnight. Trouble's a small word for that." He patted Mira's back. "How are you doing?"
"I don't know."
"That's honest."
"I've been sitting in that chair for four hours going through every single thing I know about myself," Stiles said, "and about eighty percent of it doesn't apply anymore."
"Yeah," Noah said. "That's it. That's the whole thing. That's what it is."
"Does it stop?"
"No."
"Great."
"It gets *specific*," Noah said. "That's the good news. Right now it's a fog. In about a week it'll be, does she need the drops, is that cough anything, why is she doing that with her leg. And you'll be so busy answering those that you'll stop having time to be terrified in general and you'll only have time to be terrified in particular." He looked over. "That's an upgrade. I'm telling you that sincerely."
Stiles laughed, low.
"Dad."
"Yeah."
"I don't have a job. I don't have money. I've got a Jeep that doesn't start in the cold and college applications on my desk that are due in eleven days."
"I know."
"So how do I — "
"You don't do it in one night," Noah said. "Tonight you did the whole job. You opened the door and you didn't run. Everything after that is logistics and I'm extremely good at logistics."
"Dad — "
"Stiles." Noah stopped swaying. "I'm not going anywhere. That's the sentence. You want to argue about the rest, fine, but not that one."
Stiles put his elbows on the counter and his face in his hands and sat like that for a few seconds.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay."
Noah went back to swaying.
Mira had fallen asleep on his shoulder.
"She's out," he said quietly.
"Yeah?"
"Cold. Absolutely gone." He turned so Stiles could see. "You did that. You were talking and she went under. Voices do that. You did it to your mother constantly, she used to read the phone book at you."
Stiles looked at his daughter asleep on his father's shoulder in the kitchen where he had eaten cereal for eighteen years.
"Hey," he said. "Dad."
"Mm."
There was a silence.
Noah looked up.
"What?" he said.
Stiles was looking at the sink. At the drawer beside it. At the knife drawer.
"Nothing," Stiles said.
Noah watched him.
"Alright," Noah said, and let it go, because it was four in the morning and he had a granddaughter asleep on his shoulder and he had learned a long time ago that his son told you things on a delay.
"Go to bed," he said. "I've got the first shift."
Stiles didn't move.
"Dad."
"Mm."
"Are you disappointed?"
Noah stopped swaying.
"Look at me," he said.
Stiles looked up.
"I have been disappointed in you exactly twice," Noah said. "Once when you were eleven and you lied to me about a window, and once about two years ago when you looked me in the face and told me nothing was going on in this town. Neither of those was tonight."
"That's a pretty low bar for a guy who just found out he's a grandfather at four in the morning."
"It's not a bar at all. That's what I'm telling you." Noah shifted Mira on his shoulder. "Son, I got told at twenty-three that I was going to be a father and I had about six dollars and a patrol car with a broken heater. Your mother cried for an hour and then made a list. That's all this is. It's the list."
"You had a job."
"I had a *shift*. There's a difference and you'll learn it." He tipped his head toward the table. "Sit."
Stiles sat.
"Here's the list," Noah said. "One. She has a checkup with Melissa's pediatrician friend this week, I don't care what paperwork came with her, I want eyes on her here. Two. There's a crib in the attic and I'm not going to pretend I don't know exactly which corner it's in. Three. You finish those applications."
"Dad — "
"Three," Noah said. "Not negotiable. You want to argue with me about it you can do it in eleven days when they're submitted."
"How's that supposed to work?"
"I don't know yet. Neither do you. That's not a reason to hand in nothing." He looked at him. "You don't get to make her smaller than she has to be, and you don't get to make yourself smaller either. Those are the same mistake and I've watched people make both."
Stiles rubbed the back of his neck.
"Four," Noah said.
"There's a four."
"There's a four." He came around and sat back down on the stool, careful with the sleeping weight on his shoulder. "That girl upstairs has a family."
Stiles went still.
"That's not a question," Noah said. "Every kid who shows up at a door at midnight has somebody behind them, and that somebody either knows where she is or is about to find out. Which is it?"
"I don't know."
"You didn't ask?"
"I asked a lot of things tonight, Dad, that wasn't in the top ten."
"Then it's in tomorrow's top three." Noah's voice didn't change, but his eyes did — the cop came up behind them and sat down. "Because either they're good people who are scared out of their minds right now, or they're not good people, and both of those show up at this house eventually."
"She's eighteen."
"She's eighteen with a three-month-old and no plan she's shared, and I'm not saying that against her. I liked her. She looked me in the eye and she didn't flinch when I was rude about the car." He shook his head slightly. "That's a kid who's used to holding a line. I want to know who taught her that."
Stiles looked at the counter.
"Yeah," he said. "Okay."
"Good."
The house was quiet. Out front, a car went past, and the light moved across the kitchen wall and left.
"Hey," Stiles said.
"Yeah."
"When I was seven."
Noah looked over.
"What about it?"
"The driveway," Stiles said. "Mrs. Ferrell."
Noah's expression flattened out.
"That's a hell of a thing to bring up at four in the morning."
"I know."
"I didn't sleep for a month after that. I want you to understand that I don't think about it, I *avoid* thinking about it, and I've gotten good at it." He said it evenly. "Why."
Stiles opened his mouth.
He looked at his father, holding his daughter, at four in the morning, in the dark kitchen, after the longest night of both their lives.
"Nothing," he said. "I was just thinking about Mom."
Noah's face eased.
"Yeah," he said. "So was I."
He reached over and put his free hand on the back of his son's head, briefly, the way he had done since Stiles was small enough to reach without standing up.
"Go to bed," he said. "Both of you. I've got her."