Chapter Text
“Momma?” he says from the doorway.
She turns from the counter.
For a second, her face is blank.
Then it shifts into a smile.
“There you are,” she says.
He steps into the kitchen. The light is warm, afternoon-yellow, dust floating lazily in the air. It feels like late afternoon always does, unhurried, like nothing is about to change.
“You’re talking fast again,” she says, laughing. Not the tired laugh his dad usually has, but a real one. The kind that bubbles up and makes her cover her mouth like she’s embarrassed by how happy she sounds.
He talks faster. Words tumbling over each other, excited, unchecked.
She listens.
Nods.
Watches him.
Her attention stays on him, steady and complete, like there’s nowhere else it needs to be.
The kitchen feels big around them, all counters and corners, but she makes space for him just by looking at him like that.
He reaches for the counter.
The moment settles into something solid and finished, like it can’t be interrupted.
The memory dissolves. Stiles is sitting on his bed with the photo in his hands, thumb rubbing the worn edge without realizing he’s doing it. She’s smiling in the picture too, arm around him, the same smile she always has in his memories.
Always smiling.
Always right there.
He puts it back in the drawer carefully, like you do with something fragile.
The drawer closes.
The memory does too.