Who: Malia Tate and Stuart What: Surprise! It's a girl! Where: Malia brings Caitlin to Stuart When: Thursday, after Stuart and K-Mart received their twins Warnings: Nah Status: Closed, Complete
Malia had been here for the kids before. It was a strange time, and she usually ended it with a headache. Lovely. Madison Valley was already on a roll this year. She couldn’t help but wonder what it was leading up to, even though she was pretty sure that she really, really, really didn’t want to know.
She’d left Claudia with Peter, but even she had enough of a maternal instinct to know that it wasn’t wise to let him babysit long. Just long enough to figure out what was going on, why this kid claimed that she was Stuart’s, and to somehow dump the kid off on him. That was the plan, and she was going to stick to it as much as she could.
Knocking on the door enthusiastically, she hoped that he was waiting. The sooner they settled this weirdness down a little, the better.
***
Stuart happened to be home, and happened to be the one who opened the door. He arched his brow, causing it to arc higher than the rim of his glasses, when he saw Malia there. Malia and...a child. Stuart had very little experience and exposure to children and couldn’t begin to guess how old this one was.
“Malia? Picking up misfits?” he asked, making a joke because he was a bit apprehensive.
*** Caitlin squealed when she saw him, and threw her arms around his waist.
“DADDY! Daddy daddy daddy I knew you had to be here. Mommy wouldn’t believe me but I know who my mommy and daddy are you made me memorize it and your names too. Malia and Stuart. So that if I got lost I could tell people.”
She looked up at him, putting her hands on her hips.
“Why aren’t you living with mommy?”
***
Stuart glanced at Malia. Well, that was an awkward question. And the thought that he’d had a child with Malia...that was awkward too. He swallowed hard. He knew she wasn’t going to help him with this one, and he felt like he was floundering all alone, but he couldn’t blame Malia for being...well, Malia.
She didn’t do human interactions well. And with everything going on between her and Stiles at the moment, he was impressed she was actually still doing the human thing at all. He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Do you know K-Mart?” he asked the girl. It seemed a good place to start.
***
The little girl cocked her head and looked at Stuart.
“No,” she said. “Is that a person? It’s a silly name. It sounds like a store. Why do you and mommy live in different places?”
She was persistent, you had to give her that.
***
Stuart nodded. “K-Mart is my girlfriend,” he told her. “That’s not her real name, but that’s what she likes to be called. I live here with her,” he said. He hoped he wasn’t doing this all wrong, but he didn’t know. He had no idea how to react, and interact, with a small child. Kids scared him, no matter how old they were.
“We have two little girls that I think are pretty close to your age. They’re six,” he glanced over his shoulder. The twins were watching some silly cartoon on TV. “Do you want to go watch TV with them?”
***
“No, you’re married to mommy,” she said, rolling her eyes as if Stuart was the biggest idiot she’d ever met in her life. Daddy didn’t have a girlfriend. That was silly.
When he mentioned other little girls, though, he brightened.
“Yeah, I’ll go play!” And she ran off to join them.
Malia looked at him, crossing her arms.
“You can have her.”
***
He watched the girl skip off to find the other girls, then shifted his focus back to Malia. He didn’t want to think about a world where he and Malia were married. He didn’t dislike her, he actually thought she was interesting and fascinating and her world view was different from everyone else, and that was at times refreshing. But marrying her? He couldn’t see that ever happening.
“I’ll keep her with me,” he nodded. Because as out of the blue as it was for all these kids to show up, there was no way he was going to abandon a child who said he was her father, no matter who the mother happened to be. It was odd, it was awkward, and he had no idea what he was going to do with three little girls, but he was grateful that at least they weren’t infants. He could deal with kids who were old enough to kind of take care of themselves.
“She can play with Stella and Clara.” And Malia wouldn’t have to worry about her.
***
“Good,” she said. “I have Claudia at home and I can’t deal with two of them. I can’t deal with any of them. I don’t want kids right now. I don’t like them very much. They get in the way when I want to do things.”
She rolled her eyes, like kids were the absolute most annoying things that ever existed. Because they were.
***
“It’s fine, Malia.” Stuart was shocked he had a kid with Malia, but he wouldn’t take it out on the girl. “I’ll take care of her for however long she’s here.” He meant that. He would take care of the girl. Hopefully K-Mart wouldn’t be too upset by her presence. If she was...well, Stuart would have to figure something else out.
The fact that Caitlin couldn’t possibly and would never actually exist had to count for something. The child couldn’t be blamed for the dome bringing her into reality for a few days.
***
That was all the assurance that Malia needed. The kid was someone else’s responsibility now, and she was glad of it. She also didn’t mind burdening Stuart, since he’d gotten Stiles arrested twice. Or maybe Stiles had gotten him arrested. Really, who knew. Either way, she was annoyed with him, because it had meant Stiles hadn’t come to her party.
Would he have anyway? She didn’t know. But she could say in her heart that he would have been there if not for Stuart. And that meant that Stuart wasn’t her favorite person at the moment.