Lil' Red Riding Hood | Derek Hale

61: Maggie, the adult

"All right, fine, then look at his jacket, huh? How many people do you know who wear black leather jackets?"

"I've got a leather jacket. Lydia has a leather jacket. Allison has a leather jacket-"

"Okay, okay, I get the point, jeez-" Stiles huffed out as though Paige had highly disrespected him.

"Okay, can we scroll forward?" Scott interjected, just wishing to get down to the bottom of this with proof, "There's gotta be a shot of him coming at one of the cameras."

"Right there!" Stiles yells out, "Stop, stop! See, there he is again."

"Unfortunately, that's the back of his head again."

"Okay, but look." Stiles points at the person parallel to Matt in the video, "He's talking to someone."

"He's talking to my mom..."

Maggie had her head in her hands as she sat across from Deaton in her dining room. Paige was with the Stilinski's again today since Maggie needed a moment to herself. She inhaled deeply and sat up, threading her fingers through the ringlets of her hair.

"Margaret."

"Don't."

"We need to talk about putting someone else as Paige's godparents."

Maggie furrowed her brows together as she felt the tears beginning to form in her eyes. She had enough of death for once in her life. She didn't want to deal with it anymore. She felt too young to have gone through this all. And in the moment, Maggie felt like a complete jerk, since others had to have had it worse than herself. Like Derek, who had practically lost his entire family in the fire.

Deaton went straight to the point, "You can no longer have Talia as-"

"I know that." She finally looked over at him, a tired look in her eyes as though the youth in her had officially begun to disappear, "Who else would take care of her if she lost me? She can't lose me too, Alan."

"I know that but in case of an emergency-" Deaton was unable to finish his sentence because Maggie already had her answer.

"I want it to be you." She states firmly while wiping at her eyes, keeping them downcast to not look at him, "You need to be the godfather if anything were to happen to me."

"Maggie, you have more family."

"A family of humans who have no idea what goes bump in the night. They wouldn't know what to do with Paige or how to raise her. Or how to even handle what will eventually happen. I don't even think I'll be able to handle it. I can't leave Paige alone in this world without knowing she'd have someone who understands what she is."

For a moment Deaton felt like bringing up the other Mercier family, but recalled how Erik was very clear how he wanted Paige to be kept away from them. "Okay, I agree. But, only if, you allow Paige to have the right to choose her guardian as long as she is over the age of fourteen."

"What? No. Who-"

"Paige will grow. She will make friends. If anything were to happen to you and she was not comfortable living with me. She should have the choice to live with someone else as long as they're willing to put her on. Such as the Stilinski family or the McCalls, they have gotten much closer to Paige these past few years."

Maggie wondered what would have happened if Paige had been with the Hale's during the fire. If Maggie hadn't gone through with the separation of the two. Paige might have died with the rest of them. But maybe Paige was all they needed to survive that. She would never know. Never know if her decision to cut ties like that was right or not. But she couldn't stand to know that Paige had been traumatized by what she saw.