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John was twenty-four when the Podolzkys moved in on the same road as him. His father mentioned them from time to time, even invited Zbigniew over for drinks a few times but John had been more concerned with finding his own place and the demands of his new job down at the station to hang around much. Sheriff O’Connor was a good man but he cared about the town and worked his deputies hard.
So hard, in fact, that John barely found time to visit his own family, let alone his new neighbours. He knew they had a daughter who was maybe half John’s age, and that they were Polish-American, but that was the extent of his knowledge, and it stayed that way for a long time.
~
Tammy’s cruiser pulled into the lot a little after midnight, and anyone could tell just by the look on her face that there was going to be trouble. Or more specifically, a troublemaker. From where a twenty-seven year old John was sitting, he watched as his fellow deputy opened the back of her cruiser, and pulled out a young girl with long dark hair falling into her face, mouth set into the most downward curling frown John had ever seen. He hadn’t even known it was possible to make a facial expression like that.
John, half slouched over the desk, sat up as Tammy dragged her through the door.
“This one was setting off cherrybombs in the park. Seriously kid? This isn’t the seventies.”
“Oh my god,” the girl grumbled, rolling her eyes.
“John, can you call her parents?” Tammy asked, jerking her head towards the girl slouching at her side, “it’s Podolzky’s kid.”
“Oh,” John said, raising his eyebrows, “Yeah sure.”
“You’re on duty tonight, right? I was just about to get off work and I just- I’m done dealing with kids. That’s more your kind of thing, right?”
Unsure as whether that was an insult or not, John nodded regardless. He’d been dying of boredom at the desk anyway. Tammy sighed in relief, manoeuvred the girl to sit on the bench opposite John’s desk, punched out, and left the building unceremoniously.
The girl remained seated, glaring at the floor, her mouth now drawn into a pucker as if she was viciously biting the insides of her lips.
“Kid.”
She jerked her head up, eyebrows pinched high, looking like a deer caught in headlights.
“Yeah?”
“You recognise me?”
The girl started to shake her head, but then stopped, tilting it as her eyes narrowed at him, “You look familiar. Should I know you?”
He cleared his throat, “I’m John Stilinski. I used to live two doors down from you. Fallon Avenue, right?”
She nodded.
“Stilinski. Z-K-Y?”
“S-K-I,” John spelled.
“Polish?”
“Eh, a little on my dad’s side. Not like your family though.”
“There aren’t a lot of families like my family,” she said, a little wryly. John tamped down a laugh.
“Wanna tell me your name?”
She hesitated, blunt fingernails scratching at the bench beneath her fingers.
“Claudia.”
“Oh.”
“What?”
“Wasn’t expecting Claudia when I know your father is Zbigniew.”
Claudia laughed openly, “Hey. Zbigniew is a cool name.”
“The fact that I like your father is the only thing preventing me from disagreeing with you,” John said, reaching over to turn off his desk light, “C’mon, I’ll give you a ride home.”
Claudia looked both startled and suspicious at the same time, “You’re not going to call my dad?”
John shook his head, “How old are you?”
“Fifteen,” she said, quietly.
“You’re fifteen and you were fucking around with cherrybombs? Isn’t that a little middle-school for you?”
“Oh my god,” Claudia groaned, covering her eyes and flopping over sideways on the bench, “I wasn’t fucking around—ugh. I don’t. I wasn’t trying to blow things up. Well, not things that weren’t the cherrybombs. I was trying to blow those up, but it’s not. I wasn’t. They don’t know.”
John waited patiently until Claudia had sat up again, pushing her hair back out of her face and taking a deep breath, before he asked her, “Okay, then will you tell me what you were doing?”
“There was an argument,” she said, quietly, “I don’t want to break things in our house. I don’t want to hurt people, say impulsive things. So I keep my anger in me, until I can light it up and watch it explode.”
“Is that what you were doing tonight?”
She nodded, almost looking ashamed.
“Who were you angry with?”
“My dad,” she said, barely audible, “Our dog is being put down. I know it’s not Dad’s fault. Stupid dog liked to lay behind the car, Papa didn’t even see him.”
John winced, sat down next to her even as she continued talking.
“It’s hard when you move halfway across the country to a new place where you know no-one. And that dog. That stupid dog. My best friend.”
He realised, suddenly, she was crying, as she squeaked out another stupid dog, fists clenching in the hems of her jean shorts, and John placed a tentative hand on her back.
“C’mon, kid, let’s take you home.”
Sullenly, Claudia nodded and got to her feet, allowing John to take her out to his cruiser. The drive was mostly silent bar the occasional sniffle, right up until they pulled up outside the Podolzkys’ house.
“What are you going to tell them?”
He had been thinking about it all the way over, and eventually let out a sigh, turning his head towards her, “Just that you were upset, and I found you. Everyone needs an outlet, Claudia. I’m not sure yours is the healthiest or the safest, but if it’s keeping you sane? If it’s helping you deal? Then do it. Just be careful. And don’t let Tammy catch you.”
Claudia nodded quickly and stifled a wet chuckle, hastily wiping at her eyes, breathing deeply.
“Thanks, deputy.”
“No problem. C’mon. Let’s get you inside.”
~
“You know, this is ridiculous! I’m twenty-one in four months, okay? And- and how is it that we can serve the country, but the country can’t serve us drinks? It’s unfair, that’s what it is.”
“How much have you had to drink, Claudia?”
“It doesn’t matter. A lot. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is the injustice of it all.”
“Oh, it’s unjust that I’m arresting you for breaking the law?”
“Well, it’s a stupid, dumb law.”
“That ‘stupid, dumb law’ is in place to stop you and your idiotic friends from drunkenly wandering into the preserve and getting stuck in big ass tree.”
“I did not get treed, I do not know why you’re arresting me.”
“You were also trespassing on the Hale’s land.”
“That’s debatable. The trespassing thing.”
“Telling me that Talia Hale is your ‘bro’ isn’t making anything you did any less illegal.”
“Oh fine, whatever, arrest me. Big bad deputy. C’mon big guy, arrest me.”
“Oh wow, I’m so putting you in the drunk tank.”
“You have to CATCH ME FIRST.”
~
The thing was, it was hard to meet women when you worked like John did; diligently and often. And Claudia just kept popping up left right and center. If she wasn’t getting into trouble, she was stirring it up in the station, vying for John’s attention whenever he worked desk duty. He couldn’t tell if it was a good or a bad thing, but he didn’t exactly dislike having her around.
“There he is.”
“CJ Podolzky.”
“My name just sounds cooler when you say it like that,” she hummed, batting big brown eyes at him, sarcasm edging in on her voice. John hid his grin in his coffee cup.
“Shouldn’t you be at work? Poisoning young minds?”
“Lunch break. Thought it’d bring my favourite cop some donuts. That’s what you get, right? Teachers get apples, cops get donuts. I hope you like donuts because I don’t like apples.”
“You brought me donuts?”
“Uh, yeah, yes, but in order to get to the donuts there is a survey you have to fill out. And you only get donuts depending on whether I find your answer satisfactory or not.”
“A survey?” John’s brow furrowed. He could practically feel the nervous energy radiating off of Claudia, and wondered vaguely if he could help. If she was okay.
“It’s just one question,” she said, sliding a folded A4 page across the desk. Indeed there was only one question printed on the page, and he felt his heart lurch into his throat as he read it.
Based on recent findings, would you like to go on a date with me? Circle YES or NO. (If no, please state why. I’m awesome. Say yes.)
~
“You still like me, right?” Claudia whispered, as he slipped the ring onto her finger, and his laughter echoed all through the church.
~
Stiles looked, quite frankly, like a drowned rat. A drowned, thoroughly kissed, rat.
“Stiles, you’re dripping on the mat. Could you please stare into space elsewhere,” John said mildly from the kitchen, and Stiles almost slipped down the door and onto the tile in surprise.
“Dad! You’re up late. You’re awake. I mean. Hi,” flushing deep red, eyes bright and surprised, Stiles reminded him more and more of Claudia every day. That same look like a deer caught in headlights, like prey almost, before he melted right back into dazed and pleased.
“I take it from that stupid look on your face that your date went well?”
Stiles, immediately flustered, flapped his arm.
“Date. Date? No, I was just hanging out with Scott, remember? Scott, and Kira. And Derek. Derek, who is… outside.” He finished, lamely, more incoherent than John had seen his son in a long time. “Not a date.”
“You’re telling me you didn’t just spend five minutes macking on Hale in the front drive.”
“Um.”
“Stiles. C’mon now. I didn’t get this sheriff’s badge for my good looks.”
“You don’t,” Stiles swallowed thickly, hands wringing the bottom of his soaking sweater, adding a steady trickle of water to the puddle already forming at his feet, “You don’t think he’s… he’s too old for me?”
Something about Stiles’ tone, something about the way his voice thickened as he struggled to get the words out, made John think that it wasn’t his approval that Stiles really wanted.
Derek was nearly twenty-eight, the guts of ten years older than Stiles. Now that things in Beacon Hills had quietened down, Derek was at that age where a man might start to think about settling down, getting married, having kids. Stiles was barely an adult, was starting college in the fall.
What Stiles was really asking, was did John thing he was too young for Derek.
“You don’t think— he’s too mature for me? That I’m just a kid?”
John huffed out a breath, smiling as he closed the case file and slowly made his way towards his son. Stiles’ closed off stance was so familiar, matching his crystal clear images of Claudia in his mind, that first night she was dragged into the station, every night she turned up again after that. At times their age difference had been stark, tangible, but only in the way he felt her energy, how vivid and young and bright she had been. How alive she had made him feel.
“Stiles. If you’re anything like your mother, and I know you are, I think you’re going to be the light of his life.”