"Thomas spoke of one such hallucination, in particular.

He said that the group had been partying pretty hard there for a while, lots of herbs, lots of sex, lots of drunken tutorials on how to shift one's shape and wreak havoc on the general population.

He told me of this one time where he was still learning how to shift into things other than his wolf form. He remembered being pretty high when he was practicing, and horny as hell because they wouldn't let him join in with the group sex part of the party until he proved he really could be one of them.

So he threw his essence out into the forest.

He said that when he materialized again, there was this beautiful girl there with him, all alone. He thought it was one of the witches, teasing and testing him by taking on a human appearance in the middle of this clearing. So he took her.

He said he pounced on the female, there in the woods, and took her there, on the forest floor. When it was over, all of the others celebrated with him, and the party continued on into the wee hours of the night.

He said he never really thought about it again.

Until the night his father pulled rank and made him attend a meeting between the two adjoining packs.

As the meeting was getting underway, one of the other pack's females came in. Thomas said he recognized her immediately, even though he hadn't seen her in about a year or so. He asked around discretely. He said the people he asked took his interest to be from more of a primal place than a curious one, something about the look in his eyes and the strain to his voice.

They told him she was available. She was, of course, Ziva."

"Holy shit." Elam was the only one who spoke.

Galen just looked at him, and continued.

"The rumors around her pack were that she wasn't right in the head. That she'd gone out by herself into the woods one day, and when she came back she'd told stories of a mist-man. A mist-man who came out of nowhere and raped her. The pack never mentioned the child, though. They probably felt like they needed to give the amorous Alpha's son some kind of a heads up, since she was so damaged mentally, but no one spoke of the babe she'd recently had. And wouldn't have anything to do with, apparently.

So Thomas said he claimed her because he felt guilty. He knew she was the female he had taken in a drugged, shifting stupor in the woods that day, not one of the witches playing around. He knew that he was responsible for breaking her, for her being the way she was.

So he claimed her and took care of her. And having his actions staring him in the face every day made him step away from the witch crowd he'd been running with, and really take his place in the pack as someone who had a future in the pack instead of as a spoiled Alpha's son going through a rebellious phase.

He said she never recognized him as the mist-man she'd come across in the woods, and he never told her that he knew anything about it. He said he planned to, at first. That he wanted to come clean, to confess and do right by her, but that she never would talk about her life in her old pack. Not after her old pack was wiped out, anyway.

So he never spoke of it either. He just took care of her.

He said that after he lost the challenge, she turned away from him some. And that once she was with cub, with Galen, she really didn't do well. She kept to herself a lot, taking long walks in the woods alone.

Thomas said that he was never completely sure, but he thought that she had something to do with Reine leaving the pack.

Thomas grieved his sister leaving, but he had his hands full with a newborn Galen, and then almost immediately after that, trying to lead a pack that was angry and confused when their Alpha walked away.

He said Ziva got better, eventually, after Reine left. And he felt that he was able to be a good wolf to her over the years, and that somewhere along the line he realized that he did love her. And that she loved him as well."

"He just told you all of this? Out of the blue?"

Kate asked the question this time.

He nodded at her.

"Yes. He said that as his son, he owed me the knowledge that his parents had hidden from him. He told me to be careful, to be aware, that shape shifter blood coursed through my veins, too, and not to let that fact change anything when I became Alpha. He wanted me to learn from his mistakes, but I've never felt any kind of ability to shift into anything other than a wolf. I'm certainly not going to seek the witches out though, just to find out for sure."

Galen sighed, and went on some more.

"Thomas also said he realized over the years that family was everything. That's why, when Henry mentioned the trouble you were getting into in the human's world, Emma, he pushed Henry to bring you here. Against Ziva's protests."

"I've been meaning to ask," Emma piped in. "How was it that my dad was still in contact with you all? If he and mom walked away still pregnant with me? I remember him saying that pressure from mom's family was one of the reasons he sent me here instead of leaving me in jail to deal with my own consequences."

"After you were born, and your mom died, Henry got the job with the Sheriff's department. For a while there another pack, over the mountain, was starting to cause trouble in the nearby towns. The Sheriff at the time, when Henry was still a deputy, needed someone to head up some kind of wolf posse to trap and kill or relocate the suddenly troublesome wolf population. Your dad, of course, knowing the things he did, knew that it probably wasn't a wild wolf issue but a werewolf issue. He volunteered to look into the problem for the county, and he came back here to see Thomas.

He told Thomas about your birth, your life as a small child and of Reine's passing.

Together Henry and Thomas were able to keep the other pack's wolves mostly on their own side of the mountain. Their friendship continued. Henry eventually became Sheriff, and kept coming to visit.

Thomas often asked Henry to bring you back here, for you both to stay here, but Henry wanted to honor your mother's wish that you be kept away. He never knew exactly why Reine wished it to be so, but he honored it. Until he felt like he had no other choice, that this place probably was the best choice for you when you wouldn't stay out of trouble."

"Why didn't you say anything before? About Thomas being the mist-man, about any of it?" Elam asked, as Emma still chewed on all of the new knowledge.

"There wasn't any reason to. We were going into the challenge soon, and I figured it was knowledge that would stay with me forever. If he had made peace with it, and Ziva never said anything, well, I couldn't see any reason anyone else needed to know."

"And then I won the Alpha challenge." Elam sighed.

"And then you won the Alpha challenge," Galen echoed. "By turning into a fucking bear."