Author's Note: Hello everyone! Thank you for sticking through To Build a Home with me, and now the sequel Hang the Moon! I've been really sick (I have a chronic illness) for the past few months and extremely busy with work, but I have A LOT written that I just need to sort through, add to, and send to my amazing beta reader Casey before posting. :) Please favorite, review, share, etc.! Don't forget to subscribe!

"Can we even handle another child right now?" Derek asked quietly as he held the four-month-old baby in his arms in the center of their kitchen, one of her clawed hands reaching up at him as she let out a series of shrill cries that shook her little body. She then took hold of his thin t-shirt, five small puncture marks soon visible in the navy material. He carefully extracted each finger before enveloping her inside of the yellow blanket so that it wrapped her arms and legs tightly inside, the swaddling sensation calming her tears just enough so that he could talk over them. "I mean, we've only had Isaac a little under a year now and I'm worried that he's not ready for something this big."

"We can't let just anyone have her, Derek," Stiles sighed, running a hand through his hair. He hated that he was too fragile to handle a werebaby that had just been separated from her mother, that Derek, the one who hadn't even wanted children, was the one embracing her as she sobbed and searched frantically for her mother. What was worse was that he could already feel a strong love for the child growing within him, a sense of attachment so strong that he knew he'd never be able to break it even if she was placed somewhere else; he imagined his father on the phone with social services, pacing in his office as he attempted to push the necessary paperwork through the right channels so that she could be theirs.

"I could find someone else. Another pack," Derek offered, Stiles able to hear the guilt in his husband's voice and see the worry in the way his wide, focused eyes were watering.

"She needs to be with an alpha," Stiles said, shaking his head. "One that was born a werewolf." Derek wasn't surprised that his husband knew that without someone like him, the child would struggle to gain control of her transformations. That she might not find an anchor, especially after losing both of her biological parents at once. "You know that, so I don't understand why you're just willing to hand her off-"

"I don't want to hand her off, Stiles," Derek stated sternly, his hold around the baby tightening at the thought. "I'm just saying that I don't know if we can do this!"

"She needs us, Derek! Just like Isaac needed us. We weren't ready then and we've been doing fine. I mean, who could ever be ready for parenthood?" Stiles rambled, pacing anxiously in front of Derek, hands moving from his hair to his pockets and back again. "Plus, that other pack could be tracking her right now. My father knew that after what happened in the preserve last night and that's why he asked us."

Isaac, woken by the commotion of Max's not-so-quiet drop-off that morning, appeared in the doorway in his white and red fire truck pajamas, eyes focused intently on Derek holding a baby in a fleece blanket.

"Who's that?" he asked quietly, Balto in one arm, fingers of the other going right for his mouth. He tilted his head as he narrowed his eyes, confusion making his lips twist.

Stiles and Derek paused for a moment and looked at each other, both parents unsure of how to answer. Finally, Derek nodded to Stiles as if giving permission to take the lead. With a deep breath, he complied.

"This is baby Maxine," Stiles smiled as he knelt down to his son's level, looking up at the infant for just a moment before returning his focus to Isaac. "She doesn't have a mommy or daddy anymore so we're inviting her to join our family."

"Where'd they go?" Isaac asked innocently, not even noticing the second part of Stiles' sentence.

"Max's mommy and daddy went to heaven last night, honey."

"Like all our mommies and Papa's daddy?"

"Yes, just like that," Stiles smiled meekly, one hand coming up and resting atop Isaac's shoulder. "So we need to make her feel welcome and loved. She's a little scared because everyone and everything here is so new, just like when we first brought you home."

"She's gonna stay forever?" he asked, fingers still in his mouth.

"We think so," Stiles stated, waiting for Isaac's reaction.

Isaac wasn't sure what to think. He could hear the baby gurgling and making soft sounds, could only see her dark, wispy hair peeking out from beneath the blanket as she wiggled and whined in Papa's arms.

"Why don't I lift you up so you can say hello to your new baby sister?" Stiles asked with a warm smile, Isaac not responding but also not resisting when his daddy picked him up to get a somewhat closer look. Her hazel eyes locked with his the moment Derek peeled the edge of the blanket away from the baby's face, a tiny clawed hand reaching out towards Isaac just as Stiles managed to nonchalantly pull him away.

The doorbell rang and interrupted their family moment, something Stiles was actually thankful for because it meant that maybe Isaac hadn't seen the claws and therefore wouldn't be asking even more of his recent toddler questions that began with, "But why?" for hours on end.

He'd expected to see a person at the door, but a cardboard box with a printed picture of an overtly girly highchair stood in the way. A quick glance towards the curb in front of their house revealed a cherry red mustang with a coffee colored ragtop. Lydia.

"Hello, hello!" she chirped excitedly as she appeared from behind the box in a white linen sundress, a large Coach bag on one arm and bags from Babies R Us hanging from the other.

"Aunt Lyddie!" Isaac cheered, squirming from Stiles' arms and rushing out onto the porch to wrap his arms around her legs.

"What is all of this, exactly?" Stiles asked, suddenly overwhelmed by the eight large plastic bags of toys and baby supplies Lydia had carried into the house.

"Don't play stupid, Stiles. You were always the intelligent one," she smiled as she adjusted Isaac on her hip, the four-year-old grinning as he rested his head on her exposed shoulder. "Oh, and there's a huge box of diapers in the trunk."

"What I meant was, why did you purchase all of this stuff?" He took a deep breath to quell his increasing anxiety, his lungs burning as he switched from inhaling to expelling the air. He had the sudden urge to excuse himself to the bathroom and take a few puffs of medicine, but his right hand slid into his pocket instead and gripped the inhaler as if touching it would be enough to help him breathe easier.

"Because there are things you're going to need today and I know that you can't leave the house with Maxine," she explained, her voice brimming with excitement only so that Isaac didn't sense the argument Stiles was obviously trying to start.

"I could have picked up a few things on my own," he grumbled, trying to discern between the feeling of being overwhelmed and that of jealousy.

"Thank you, Lydia," Derek offered from the two of them as he came closer with Max still wrapped in her blanket. "You know that you didn't have to get us anything."

"So, you guys said, "yes," then?" she finally asked, the eagerness in her eyes nearly sending Stiles over the edge; he'd had the word 'yes' on his mind since his father had called him early that morning, but Derek was the one thing holding them back.

Stiles' scornful eyes tried to meet his husband's, but Derek was already keeping his gaze in line with Lydia's, a small chuckle erupting from him as he looked down at the bundle in his arms. "Yeah," he offered sweetly with a nod, relieving the constriction that had settled in Stiles' chest during the past few hours, the upward curve and genuine content in Derek's lips as they formed a smile reminding him in every way of the man he'd married.