The welcoming party was small when he pulled into the Grove in Mikael’s truck. Matalina and Apollo stood a safe distance away from the small patch of land used to park the few vehicles the pack owned. Dean hadn’t seen anyone but Mikael drive before, but none of the other cars looked neglected or unused. He imagined they must be used at some point and he wondered who did the driving around here.

By the time he stepped out of the truck onto the grass, Matalina was waiting for him. The last time he had seen her, she’d been looking as tired as everyone was now saying he did. She still looked tired, but some of her warmth had returned. Lucille’s awakening had brought some of the old lightness back to her step as she came forward to wrap him up in a hug.

“We didn’t know if you were going to make it today,” she said in greeting, beaming the whole time.

Apollo seemed happier too, stepping forward to hug Dean as well. Dean smiled at the both of them, basking in their affection. It was so strange to have all these people care so much about him. It had been so long since he had something like this. Everything, from the affection to the butting heads, was like having a family all over again. It was just one more thing for him to hold onto whenever his thoughts returned to the dark beneath the ground.

“Matalina, you look good,” Dean told her as she took his hand in hers.

“I believe you mean tired but thank you, Dean. I have hoped that this day would come. I have never felt more awake than I do right now. My daughter has been returned to me.”

“How is she?” he asked.

“She is still quite weak. We did what we could while she was asleep to keep atrophy at bay, but there was only so much we could do. We are a resilient species and we heal quite quickly. Still, it will take some time before she gets back to her old state again. Yet, she is young and strong-willed. I know she will return to her former self one day soon. For now, she rests when she can, which frightens us each time she closes her eyes. She opens her eyes every time, though.”

“Has she said anything?”

Matalina shook her head. “Not anything important, if that is what you mean. Mostly it has been asking about what she has missed. For all her eccentricities, she is a strong woman and has been undaunted by her predicament. She tries to question us as much as she can. She’s asked to speak to you, when she’s awake again.”

Dean nodded, not sure what she could want with him. “Of course.”

She clasped her hands together. “I will return to her bedside then. I know she is out of danger now, however I cannot help but want to be by her side. Come in when you are ready.”

Dean watched her walk off, definitely looking a little lighter in her step than she had before. Actually, the entire the Grove seemed a little lighter. He hadn’t actually noticed the heavy atmosphere before, but with it gone, he definitely noticed its absence. Everyone in the Grove seemed to be out today, milling about and chatting happily. It was clear the news of Lucille’s awakening had been met with a great deal of joy.

“It’s nice to see everyone happy again. Even you, Apollo,” Dean punched the quiet werewolf’s shoulder playfully.

“After everything that happened, it is nice to have some truly good news,” Apollo murmured quietly, smiling softly down at Dean.

Dean took Apollo’s arm in his and began to walk toward the main house. “Agreed. Other than this, how have you been, Apollo? Haven’t seen you since the last time I was here.”

“Father has kept me busy.”

“Scouting?”

“Yes, and working with the trackers to help with any search and rescue that needs to be done. The border fighting between packs is causing a lot of chaos.”

“Let me guess. Been paired with up Dante, huh?”

Apollo shrugged. “We work well together.”

“Hey, if it works, it works. I know you must be happy to see him again after he spent so long away.”

“It has been nice to have my friend around again.”

“Friend? What happened to ‘cousin?’ Not a term you use anymore?”

Apollo shrugged again, his only answer was an unreadable stare. Dean stared back, raising a brow in question, but receiving no further answer in return. Apollo was a hard person to read, and if he didn’t want to share something, he was quite skilled at concealing it. Dean was only getting that blank look in return, and not for the first time, he wondered what was going on in Apollo’s head.

“Oh, ya did show up,” Dante’s loud voice cut through the silent questioning, catching both Apollo and Dean’s attention.

Mikael and Dante stood outside the door to the main house, grinning at the two of them. Apollo quickly pulled his arm free from Dean’s grip, making Dean looked sideways at him, but he simply got a little shake of Apollo’s head in return. When Dean looked at the two men approaching them, he saw that Dante was also giving Apollo a strange look. It wasn’t quite a frown and if Dean were to take a guess he’d say it was a look of concern and confusion.

“Got everything taken care of?” Mikael asked when he was close enough. He too wasn’t immune to the brightening effect that Lucille’s awakening had on everyone. Mikael was practically grinning from ear to ear as he stood before Dean.

“Yeah, wasn’t a big deal. Even got Mr. Williams to agree to getting some teenagers out there to help him.”

“Wasn’t sure if you would be able to. Seems like the stubborn type.”

Dean shrugged. “All I had to do was mention how mad Mrs. Williams would be if he was out there all the time and he warmed up to the idea.”

Mikael laughed. “That would do it.”

Dean smiled at the warm sound of Mikael’s laugh. “I take it you got to talk to her?”

“Yeah, she was awake when I showed up.”

“He barely had his clothes on before he burst into the room,” Dante informed Dean.

Mikael didn’t look at all ashamed. “We talked for a little while before she fell asleep again. You’d think, given she’s been sleeping for over half a year, she would have had enough of it. But I guess it’s just part of the healing process. Silun says she probably won’t be sleeping like this for very long; it’s just her body having to adjust to moving around again.”

“Wow. He’s really coming into his own as the resident medical expert, huh?” Dean asked, proud of the shaman in training. Silun doubted himself when it came to his abilities as a shaman, as a werewolf, and as a person. He sure as hell didn’t doubt himself when it came to taking care of wounded people, though. The seemingly shy and awkward werewolf had shouted down the intimidating looking Dante when Apollo had been badly injured months ago. It was good to hear that he was finding a niche he felt comfortable in.

“Kid’s something else,” Dante commented. “Couldn’t get him to hardly talk to me when he first came here. Now he won’t shut up.”

Thinking of what he had learned about Silun’s feelings for Dante, he frowned at the tracker. “You better be nice to him Dante. I mean it.”

“Aww, I ain’t gonna be mean to a kid. Gimme a break Dean, geez.”

Mikael nudged Dean. “You wanna see if she’s awake? She asked to speak to you earlier when I spoke to her. That was a couple of hours ago.”

Dean nodded. “Your mom said the same thing, and yeah, if she’s up to it.”

Dante snorted, following Dean and Mikael only after Apollo trailed after them first. “You kidding me? When she found out about everything that happened while she was out cold, she sounded so disappointed that she missed all of it. I think she was waiting for you to pull some shit before all of this, and then she finds out you only pulled some shit when she was unconscious.”

Pulled some shit? That was an interesting way of looking at it, though Dean found himself agreeing with the odd statement. There wasn’t really a better way to describe the events of the past few months. Dean had spent his time rushing from one disaster and headlong into another. He almost wished he had been the one who had slept through it all.

As they walked through the main house back to the room where they had been looking after Lucille, Dean realized he hadn’t seen Samuel. It was possible that the alpha was with Lucille, but he thought it was strange that no one had mentioned him even in passing. If anything, he would have expected the older man to be in his usual spot in the main room.

“Your dad with Lucille?”

“No, he had to go out to the borders earlier this afternoon. Scouts found something they said he needed to go see personally.”

“Really?” Dean asked, sounding surprised. For all of Samuel’s bluster and seemingly invincible status, the alpha had been as torn up about Lucille’s condition as the rest of them. For him to leave only a day after she woke up was strange. That, and Dean didn’t think he had ever heard of Samuel leaving the Grove itself. The answer came when he looked at Mikael, who had probably arrived shortly before Samuel had left. Samuel’s absence meant that, for now, Mikael was the one in charge. Dean was betting that nothing had directly been said, just understood. It had been a long time coming, but Samuel seemed to finally have faith in his chosen heir.

Mikael opened the door leading to the back rooms. “Yeah. One of the scouts showed up, had a private meeting with him and then he was gone. Barely said more than that to me before he left.”

Dean was hoping it wasn’t another impending disaster ready to drop in their laps. The scattered fighting from the dissolved pack Damian had formed was enough. The few months since Damian’s death had been the most peaceful Dean had since moving to his farm. Perhaps it was only him jumping at shadows, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that trouble was waiting just around the corner.

As they stepped into Lucille’s room, Dean’s eyes were drawn to the bed against the far wall. The small woman was sitting upright, a handful of pillows stacked behind her. Her almost yellow eyes turned to him as he entered. She was the one member of the family he had, so far, had very little to do with, and he still wasn’t sure where they stood. The last time they had really talked, she had been strange and distant with him. Her face was as unreadable as Matalina’s when the Alpha Bitch chose to be, though it was more sharply defined, like Samuel’s.

“And our troublemaker returns as a savior,” Lucille said in greeting, her voice harsh sounding from disuse.

“Hi Lucille,” Dean replied awkwardly, remembering that they hadn’t really developed a rapport before all this happened. She was looking at him now in the same way she’d done when they first met, with an unnerving distant interest. It made him feel a bit like a bug under a magnifying glass. It did nothing for his nerves, and he shifted uneasily as Mikael and Dante slipped quietly to another corner of the room.

“How are you feeling?” he asked after a prolonged silence.

“Ironically, I am tired, but that will pass. Before sleep finds its way to me once more, I wish to speak with you a bit. If you are willing, that is.”

“Uh, sure,” he glanced around, seeing that the only chair in the room that wasn’t occupied by someone or something was the one nearest her bed. Still feeling a little uncomfortable, he sat down. She looked at him for a moment, her eyes searching his face but saying nothing. He couldn’t tell if she was making up her mind about him in that moment, or if she was simply fighting with an understandably foggy mind to try to find the question she wanted to ask.

“I have heard a few stories from my family. About the events I missed over the last few months. Like facets of a gem, I have seen different sides of these events. I have tried to stay awake long enough to hear them all, but I have yet to hear yours. You, who have been at the center of everything, or at least near enough to it all. So please, would you be so kind as to tell me your side of events?”

Even beneath the tiredness, he could hear the eager curiosity in her voice. It was the inquisitive nature he had heard attributed to her many times by many people. She had certainly missed quite a few significant events. For someone who liked to know everything that was happening, he imagined it was immensely frustrating for her to have missed so much. He didn’t know what she would gain from his side of the story, but he didn’t see much harm in telling her.

Taking a deep breath, he began his story from the point she had been found by the scouts. Detailing the break-in at the warehouse by Apollo and him, and his subsequent capture. His learning about Damian’s plan and then the full scope of the man’s psychotic aims after he had been rescued. Even as he moved on to telling of his dream and how it lead to the huge effort to rescue the shamans, he was careful about what he said. He had no problem detailing their travels, and the fights they had to endure to survive. He couldn’t bring himself to describe the fear and pain he felt about his time as a prisoner of Damian’s pack, the sheer horror of his fight with Scar, or his despair at both killing Damian and having to leave the shamans behind to die.

He would give her credit; she was an excellent listener. Not once did he feel that she wasn’t listening or had become lost in her own thoughts. She never interrupted him as he spoke, simply nodding silently as he told his tale. It took longer than he thought it would, and he felt drained when he had finally finished.

For the longest time she said nothing, still staring at Dean long after he had grown silent. The feeling of being under a microscope returned to him. He had faced down multiple werewolves, faced death and torture, but he couldn’t remember feeling quite as uncomfortable as he did under her penetrating stare. It was as if she could see into his mind, and was rooting through each thought and memory in there, including the ones he hadn’t told.

“And your abilities?” she finally asked.

“I’m…getting there. I can communicate with just about any plant now, and I have some measure of control over them if I want it. Still don’t know how I managed to get super strong a couple of times, but if I figured out how to talk to plants, I can figure that out eventually.”

“Could it have been influenced by tapping into the power of the mountain?”

He thought about that for a moment before shaking his head. “No, I don’t think so. Because I was doing it before we even reached the mountain. It has to be something else.”

“Tapping into the strength of the earth?”

“Something like that.”

She nodded slowly. “You may just be onto something with that. But I can see a question in your eyes. Ask it.”

“Tell me about the tube, Lucille.”

At that, she sighed, nodding her head again as if she had expected the question. “Yes, the tube. If you are going to ask what was in it, I can’t tell you. But from the sounds of it, you already suspect what it held.”

“A crystal.”

“While I was out delivering messages, I was also collecting information. In the course of my travels I got close to the original home of Damian’s pack. Among his things, I discovered a collection, an assortment of objects I believe were once owned by the shaman, Nox. I do remember the object Damian spoke to you of. Five tubes, bound together with an empty space for another that was nowhere to be seen with the rest. I could only take the one tube before having to leave. I had every intention of returning here with all that I had learned, and I didn’t wish to be caught.”

“What else did you find?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s all useless to us now that he is dead and his collected packs have scurried back to their corners or are still fighting one another. I do not know what happened to the notes and messages I took with me, or what led me to conceal the tube on my person. I don’t even know what happened after I opened the tube, if that’s actually what I did.”

“Do you remember when this was?”

At that, she smiled softly. “Almost a month before I was found. So either there is a large gap in my memory of adventures I missed, or I opened it earlier than that and…something happened.”

“Something?”

“You, Apollo, and Silun all described the same strange effects of a fully-grown crystal. Who is to say exactly what happened when I opened that tube? However, I do find it interesting that it was Damian’s pack that inevitably found me. That’s a strange coincidence.”

“Do you think he knew you had it and deliberately let you keep it when he dumped you back in our territory?”

“I cannot say. To what end?”

Dean had no immediate answer to that question. Damian had been a master of appearing to do one thing while doing something entirely different. Dean thought the former alpha would have considered it a slow day if he didn’t have at least one or two other plans concealed behind the first two. The werewolf had been the most conniving and manipulative person Dean had ever known. He had also been intelligent and strong-willed, enough to follow through on his ingenious plans. If he hadn’t been blinded by his arrogance and self-serving ambition, he might have been an asset to all werewolves, or he might at least have been still alive.

“I don’t know. Was there anything in there about where they came from? The tubes?”

She shook her head. “Not that I can remember. Most of what I saw there were Nox’s own notes and what appeared to be a journal. I had thought to grab it as well, but I was pressed for time as it was. I apologize, Dean. That is all I can tell you.”

Dean smiled. “It’s alright, Lucille. It’s not like I was expecting anything to be easy.”

“Few things are,” she replied with a wan smile. “But I think I need to rest some more. It’s frustrating how easily I grow tired, and from something as simple as talking, no less.”

He rose as she settled herself back into the pillows behind her. When he turned, he saw Mikael and Dante looking at him intently. Mikael looked a little sad, but resigned. Dante simply looked amused, smirking up at him.

“Time to solve a mystery?” Dante asked casually, drumming his fingers lightly on the table before him.

His tendency to give away his thoughts when he was thinking hard already told them what was running through his mind. He’d already seen what was possible from a few crystals being in the wrong hands. Together, they had become several hundred times larger than they were individually. He didn’t know what the power within them could be used for, but if Nox’s abilities were any indication, it was dangerous.

There was still an unaccounted for tube out there, with one of those crystals in it. One that was separated from the rest and had been missing for who knew how long. Four of them had grown rapidly in the course of couple of months. He didn’t know if there were other ways to make them grow stronger, only that using shamans had been Damian’s method of choice. He had to find that other crystal, or at least learn more about them.

The trick would be to do that without it becoming another disastrous adventure.