"So that's why Ziva flipped out after the challenge," Emma said. "I thought she was terrorizing the pack even more because Elam won instead of Galen. I thought she was angry that Galen didn't win, that her favored son wouldn't become Alpha, not freaked the fuck out that Elam did. And how Elam won... Oh my, no wonder she was so bitchy in those next few weeks!"

Kate wasn't quite following.

"What do you mean?"

"Can you imagine? Put yourself in Ziva's shoes for a minute. On top of being traded to the wolves to begin with, she's raped, by a shape shifter. She abandoned the baby that resulted from that rape, who we now know to be Elam, from everything she said in the cave. Then she finally moves on to a new pack, a fresh start, and her old pack gets wiped out, wait...I thought no one survived the human's attack. How did Elam? And wasn't Elam found wandering alone in the woods at about two years old? And didn't Ziva say she killed his 'fake parents?' Wait, I'll come back to that. So Ziva abandons Elam, only to find herself raising him anyway, somehow, after she thinks he's dead. Then he goes and beats her favorite son, with the shape shifting skills he got from his rapist father, who we now know is Thomas. And Thomas had no idea?"

Emma aimed the last bit at Galen.

"Thomas had no idea that Elam was his?"

Galen shook his head saying, "Not until then."

"I remember, right after the challenge," Emma said. "Elam won and Thomas said, 'I knew that boy was special, but even I didn't expect this. Who in the hell were his blood parents?"

Galen said, "Yeah, that was his first reaction. My understanding was that Ziva's crazed, desperate mutterings around him when he was weak and she thought he was sleeping finally tipped him off. I talked to him again later, right before he died and I went looking for Elam in the cave. He figured out that when he took Ziva, having sex with her in the woods like he did, Elam was the result. He put all the pieces together- her having to raise her son, her not ever telling anyone that she ever even had one before me. Keeping all that knowledge from everyone, especially Thomas."

"And then there was Thomas, keeping his own secrets about being the mist-man, and never realizing until right before he died that he was raising both of his biological sons. Wow, that is crazy," Kate said, shaking her head in wonderment.

"Ok, so go back some," Emma jumped in. "After Ziva's whole pack was wiped out, and she thought Elam and his wet nurse were dead too, obviously they weren't. How did they escape? Where did they go?"

"I'm guessing the wet nurse ran to the village, with Elam. She knew Ziva was originally from the village, and she knew she was nursing Ziva's abandonded baby, so she went there. They took the pair in. I'm guessing that when Reine went there and made that 'we will leave you alone' pact with them, they were in that crowd of women and children. Ziva would have recognized them, but she wasn't with them, she was still in the woods, on her knees, where Reine and Thomas found her when they went back to take care of the dead."

"So the village raised Elam until he was two? Ziva said she killed Elam's 'fake parents' in the woods, and Thomas found Elam wandering around in the woods all alone. So either they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when Ziva stumbled upon them and recognized them..." Emma was thinking out loud.

Galen added his thoughts to hers, "Or they were on their way here to bring Elam to her. Maybe he started shifting, and to the village he was a constant reminder of the wolves? His wet nurse knew he was Ziva's, and had probably heard the story of her rape, but maybe him shifting upset the balance and the village decided to give Elam back to his mother? Or yeah, wrong place, wrong time, with them all just ending up at the same place in the woods and Ziva realizing who they were? I guess that part we will never know."

"Well, we know she killed a man and a woman in those woods. She said so herself. I guess Elam got away and was found later?"

"The whole pack knows the story of when Elam was found, that part of it was never a secret. Thomas was out in the woods, heading out to hunt, when he found a two year old boy wandering by himself. He was shifting already, so Thomas knew he was a wolf at least. There was no mention of Elam ever shifting into any other form as a child, but they knew he was a wolf shifter from the moment they found him. The story Thomas told was that he abandoned the hunt once he found Elam, and was heading back to the den with him when he came across Ziva and the two dead humans in the woods.

He said that Ziva said she found them like that, alive but quickly dying, and that she tried to help them. They died anyway, and Thomas assumed the pair was the boy's parents. Although, the male was quite a bit younger than the female. Maybe one of the teens from the village that had grown into a young man. He was probably escorting them on their way to the pack, or whatever they were doing. Ziva probably killed them, and was looking for Elam to kill him, too. Only Thomas found him first."

"And took him in, much to her dismay." Kate added.

"Never knowing until the end that it was his own son he was taking in." Elam said, of himself.

"Well hell, no wonder Ziva was bat shit crazy."

"And then, after everything else, Elam turns into a bear and beats Galen. Then Thomas dies. And Galen wants to move Ziva back to the territory where it all began for her. Reine's cub is back, taking over in her eyes, and she is forced to move. Not only out of her cabin, but back to where it all began."

"So when Ziva saw me all alone, headed to the hot spring, on the very day that the pack was to meet to decide about the split..."

"She decided to kill you, too. Only you shift, and kill her instead."

"Wow. Just, wow. That is a lot to take in right after being shot."

"Well, you've got to admit," Kate said to Emma with a grin. "Our time here has not been boring. I'm thinking my parents in Africa have nothing on our adventures here, so far."