I leaned my head on Scott's shoulder as we looked out at the town of Beacon Hills. The full moon was shining high in the sky and casting a cool glow on everything around us, but the city-- it was beautifully lit up.
Stiles came around the Jeep, slapping a map down on the hood. "They still sleeping?" I asked, referring to my two babies who were sleeping in the backseat of the Jeep. Stiles gave me a quick nod, circling a couple places on the map as he spoke, "they'll probably be out the rest of the night... All right, so I found some cool three bedrooms in the Mission District, but they're pretty expensive. A couple in Height and Ashbury, also expensive..."
Scott moved to look at the map with Stiles, pointing to Berkeley as he spoke. "What about Berkeley? Don't a lot of students live around there?" Stiles nodded, thinking it over for a second before circling it, "Yeah, yeah, we could try Knob Hill. But, the Jeep would probably burn through a lot of clutches."
"You're bringing the Jeep?" Scott asked with amusement, Stiles and I shared a look before turning to Scott. "Is that even a question?" I said while Stiles went on, "You know the plan, okay? No one gets left behind. That's the plan. Lydia's not gonna have a problem getting into Stanford. Kira's thinking USF. Malia's, uh, gonna, you know, she'll figure something out, okay. The plan's perfect."
"Or we could also wait until we actually get into college and then figure out where to live." I nodded at Scott, knowing he had a good point but also knowing about Stiles' big plan. He's had this planned out since we were kids and it wasn't changing anytime soon.
Stiles waved his hands around, "I have a vision, dude. Okay? And it is a beautiful vision. Don't ruin the vision. Okay, we can check out the East Bay. Haven't looked at Oakland yet, you know." I wet my lips, leaning over the map, "we could also try for a two bedroom, Scott and I wouldn't mind having a crib in the room, Noah and Olivia can share." Stiles nodded, turning to ask Scott what he thought, only he was staring off into the sky, "You all right? You starting to feel it?"
Scott shook his head, "No. Just thinking." I put my hand on his back, rubbing up and down in soothing circles, knowing he was stressing out. He's been in his head a lot these past two weeks, something to do with nothing being good or bad forever? I'm not sure.
"About what?" I asked, dropping my hand to place my palms on the hood of the Jeep behind me, bracing myself--physically and metaphorically. Since the babies have been born I've had this constant feeling that something is going to go wrong. Like something is going to happen that I'm not going to like.
"Senior year," he answered simply, shrugging. Stiles pulled a face and then stuttered out, "Senior year, come on, that's, that's... That's nothing. That's going to be easy." I nodded in agreement, "you have nothing to worry about, Scottie."
Scott sighed, turning to us, "It's more like something Deaton told me once. You ever hear of 'regression to the mean?'" Stiles shook his head while I nodded, I'd heard this one before. "No, I don't think so."
"It was his way of saying that life can't ever be all bad or all good. You know, eventually, things have to come back to the middle. So, think about the last few months. Things have been good, right? But not amazing." Scott explained.
Stiles nodded, "Yeah, but no one's tried to kill us in six months either." Scott nodded in agreement, crossing his arms. "Right. We've been pretty much in the middle for a while... Which means, at some point, the scale has to tip one way or the other. Things are gonna get really good again..."
"Or really bad." Stiles said. I frowned, "OR things will stay in the middle for awhile. You're talking about regression Scott, not... whatever the opposite of that is. I say everything will be okay and Senior year will be perfectly normal and then we'll go off and live our best lives, okay?" And with that I turned and went to the Jeep, Climbing to the middle seat between the two babies.
They were both sleeping peacefully, Olivia with her binki in her mouth and Noah with his lips pursed in the most adorable way. I smiled down at my son and I lightly traced my finger over his nose, he pushed his head up as I got to the tip, his mouth opening and I knew he thought my finger was a nipple or a binki.
I laughed under my breath, turning to Olivia next. The binki was half out of her mouth, drooping to the side about to fall. I did the same thing I did to Noah, tracing her button nose lightly, she sucked her binki into her mouth quickly, beginning to suck on it. I pulled my hand away knowing if I messed with either of them too much, they'd wake up and then we'd have to start the hour process of getting them fed, changed, and soothed before leaving.