Finding Love Again

Isabelle Stilinski

Sheriff's Point of View

"Hey, daddy-O what you doing?" Stiles asked as he walked into the kitchen followed by everyone else. "trying to figure out why you and the group of puppies are hanging around here all weekend, just because your sister and Derek are out of town for the weekend doesn't mean you all have to come here and bother me" I said to my son never taking my eyes off my newspaper.

"We just want to make sure you are safe this weekend with both alpha's out of town," He said, I looked up at him and looked around the room and saw Scott, "Scott's here," I said in confusion. Stiles looked back at his best friend and then back at, "he doesn't count he's still in training" he say's. 

I roll my eyes at him and go back to my paper. "Don't Y'all have other things to do?" I asked I was met with an assortment of no's. It was quiet for a bit and then "Sheriff, we were actually wondering if you could tell us a little bit about Belle, like why she has trust and abandonment issues and high anxiety, she told us that she was adopted, but didn't know anything about before she was with you" Isaac said.

I set my paper down and they all crowded around. "Does she know that you guys were going to come to me and ask?' I asked them, "Yeah actually that was her idea for us to come to you" Lydia answered and coming from her I knew I knew it wasn't a lie. Nodding my head I took off my reading glasses.

"It was late summer in nineteen eighty-eight, we had a warrant to serve so we headed out to the house and parked on the curb, the neighbor's all came out nosy as ever. The one that was closest to the house we were going to search said that no one had been there in almost two weeks, We still had to search the premises so we broke down the door and searched the place, I was the lead detective that day and one of the deputy's hollard for me to come look at something, I went back to him expecting drugs, but what I found instead was a filthy little baby girl around a year old, with brown hair and bright green eyes, she was malnourished in a dirty diaper, but she was sitting in the middle of the floor with the biggest smile that I have ever seen and she only smiled when I came in the room. So I went to her and she reached her arms up to me and I picked her up and took her out of the house. Everyone who was gathered around gasped when they saw me carry her out. I called for an ambulance and a neighbor brought over a diaper and wipes so we cleaned her up the best we could and put the clean diaper on her. She was nothing but smiles while I held her until the ambulance came. That's when it got bad, I had handed her to an EMT and she just screamed, it broke my heart. So we finished at the house and then called it a day. I went home to Claudia and told her what happened and that I wanted to go up to the hospital to check on the baby. She agreed, when we got to the pediatric ward we could hear screaming coming from one of the rooms, we stopped at the nurse's station, we told them who we were there to see and they told us her room number and we set off down the hall. As we got closer we realized the screams were coming from her room, when I walked into her room and she saw me standing there she stopped crying and she smiles. It's kinda funny now that I think of it, those nurses came running in her room when she stopped screaming they asked us what we did all I said as I walked in the door"  I stopped for a moment and took a drink of my coffee and looked around at all the kids in my kitchen. 

So I got up an headed for the living room and they all followed, "And do you know what those nurses had me do?" I asked knowing they didn't know, but they all shook their heads as I sat in my chair. "They had me and Claudia leave the room and the baby started crying again, we went back in and she stopped, they had us do that for fifteen minutes before I told them to stop and leave the room. They were getting on my nerves let alone the baby. Claudia and I played with that little girl for over an hour before she looked at me and do you know what she said Stiles?" I asked my son he shook his head no so I continued, "She said lets adopt her, I couldn't have agreed more, We didn't want her to stay in the hospital until the court terminated her parents right then let us adopt her so we called child services and we were granted temporary guardianship, the hospital told us her name was Katlyn O'Connor your mother, on the other hand, said she looked like an Isabelle, A week and a half later we found her parent, they were never worried about the girl nor did they care. The day of court the judge stripped their rights and sentenced both to twenty years for child endangerment not to mention the other twenty plus for the original charge. So a short two months later Katlyn O'Connor became Isabelle Stilinski, but our road as new parents weren't easy, Belle had nightmares from whatever she went through, night after night she would wake up screaming" I stopped thinking of the screaming and how helpless I felt, "What stopped them?" Stiles asked. 

 This time I smiled, "Derek" I said he looked at me confused, "Derek? How?" he asked, "the nightmares didn't stop until she was five years old and in Kindergarten, she met and became friends with Derek on that very first day. That night she had a nightmare, but that was the last night after that nights were quiet around here and she slept through the night. It took two weeks before we figured out what was going on. we found Derek sneaking into her room one night. We just let him be that night, but the next day we called his mother. When we told her what had been going on she was surprised and shocked. She was going to put bars on his windows, but we told her no that he could continue to come and we told her why she agreed, only this time he would use the front door, Belle never knew he was here even as they got older, Derek would go away for two weeks at  a time  and she would sleep through the night even though he wasn't here, she built up quite the immunity and never knew it." I paused for a brief moment, "I never really understood why he was the one who helped her so much, it wasn't until she left and I found out what he was and did a little research, I knew they were mates before they did, even as five-year-old kids their souls knew that they were mates." I said.

 "So what about the first night she came home? She was screaming one minute and then she wasn't" Stiles was confused, "She had a nightmare that night son, I'm sure she was having them a couple of weeks before she came back home, the divorce from Robert over what he did trigger a hidden memory, I'm sure and then the fight she had with you and then Derek all on the day she came home sent her into over drive" I said looking out my living room window, "But she stopped screaming" He said even more confused.

I chuckled at him, "that was because of Derek" I said, "But they got into an argument" he exclaimed, "wouldn't be the first time son. They would get into it a lot when they were younger, but that didn't stop Derek from doing what he has always done. He didn't know the cause of the nightmares he just knew he could stop them just by being there" I said.

"So he doesn't know about her past?" Isaac asked, "No, he knows now I told him when he came to ask my blessing to marry Belle, but I also asked him one thing because it had been on my mind for the last twenty-four years, and that was how? he said he heard her, no one else in his family could hear when she cried out like that just him, that's when I put two and two together remembering my research their souls knew that they were mates and only a mate would hear it's mates call." I said just as I heard my fishing buddy pull in the driveway. "Well that's my ride, behave kids" I shouted heading for the door.