Epilogue:

Laura is a terror.

Stiles is pretty sure she is going to give him premature gray hairs.

She runs more than she walks and she scrapes her knees with an alarming frequency and she puts her little, mischievous hands everywhere. Stiles has already had some minor heart attacks over that; once when she tried to stick her fingers in a power outlet; and another time when she wanted to put her hand down the garbage disposer.

(Derek has some horror stories of his own to share about her propensity towards getting in trouble (that he blames on Stiles, the dickhead) and her love for mischief, and he when he tells them he does with this fond look in his eyes that betrays his unamused façade, because he's the softest softy to ever soft; he's a total pushover, and Laura (who isn't even five, yet) knows it perfectly well and exploits it.

It's sort of hilarious, to see Derek's big, hulking frame, intense brooding face and hard cold steel determination yielding to Laura's whims as soon as she bats her eyelashes at him and calls him dada.

It's also quite possibly the cutest thing ever, and Stiles can't help but falling in love with him all over again, the tenderness and the quiet love shining through Derek's demeanor making him itch to hold his hand and kiss him silly.)

His dad often tells him she's his karmic retribution (and they spend quite some time together, now that Stiles is a deputy, so he does it all the time, with knowing and smug smiles), here to make him experience what raising a Stiles was like, firsthand.

Laura is also the best thing that's ever happened to Stiles.

She sneaks into their bed on stormy nights because lightning scares her, kicks them n the kidneys with her sturdy little legs (and Derek in the nuts, this one hilarious time) when she climbs over them, she gives the best hugs, even when her little fingers are grubby and sticky, and gives the best slobbery baby kisses (Stiles had thought of those kinds of kisses as gross before having his own slobbery kid, how things change).

She also has the most amazing and imaginative mind, makes Stiles look at things in different ways, makes him come down from his cynicism and do ridiculous things with her just to hear her clear, bright laugh.

She's brilliant. Lydia spends a lot of quality time with her, and brings baby Einstein type books that Stiles thinks he probably would've never been interested in as a small kid, but Laura listens to Lydia in rapt fascination, hanging onto her every word and making questions, so many questions.

And she's kind. So kind. Scott takes her with him to the animal clinic, and she spends hours with the animals, talking to them earnestly, telling them they will get better soon, and that she'll come visit them until they can go home and it's gut wrenching andbeautiful to witness.

("Man, are you crying?" Scott smirked at him, eyes crinkled and soft and Stiles muttered back, "No, I'm not, you asshole," sounding a little choked.

"Swear jar!" Yelled Laura, pointing at him with one of her tiny fingers, diverting her attention from the kittens she was petting diligently towards him for a few seconds, until one of them meowed demandingly at her, and she went back to them, cooing.

"Sure you aren't, buddy," had been Scott's reply, accompanied with a condescending pat on his back.)

And maybe every parent thinks their kid is special and perfect and capable of no wrong, and maybe Stiles knows she can be a little moody sometimes, and that she doesn't always remember to be her most polite self, and that she can be a little spoiled from time to time, and that she honestly is a terror, but whenever he lays eyes on her, all he sees is how frankly wonderful she is, and how lucky they are to get to have her in their lives.

Derek calls her a miracle in private, because of course he does, the big ol' softy.

Stiles can see his point when Laura smiles at them with a miniature version of his own nose and a set of bunny teeth like Derek's. Eyes crinkled and that indecipherable color that's pure Derek, and the chocolate brown unconquerable mess of hair that screams Stilinski.

A miracle, yes.

"We're two old saps," he lets out onto the warm skin of Derek's neck.

Derek's hand rubs circles on his back, and he hums deep in his chest.

"We're two old married saps," he replies matter-of-factly after a while, the thrumming waves of his voice sending thrills down Stiles' body. "Do you wanna have domestic, sappy married sex? The way old married saps like us do?"

Stiles smiles against Derek's skin, slides his hand down Derek's chest and onto his abs, curls his fingers over the elastic band of his underwear, where there's a trail of curly hair still damp from Derek's shower leading down.

"I think that can be arranged."

(And then they grow old together to be the most embarrassing dads ever.)