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“You smell of Jack,” Jane said, surprise and approval coloring her tone.“Do I?” asked Michael. “Well…I suppose he is practically family after all.” Then he grinned, delighted to discover he still had the ability to make his sister blush. Jane retaliated with a light cuff against his ear before drawing him closer into a comfortable cuddle on the couch. She breathed in deeply, the smell of her family, her pack, enveloping her and filling her with a sense of deep calm and contentment.Smelling Jack’s unique, sweet scent intermixed with her brother and the children felt right. More than right. It had been one of Jane’s greatest concerns that after Michael’s alpha died, rather than reaching out for the support of his fellow omegas, he had withdrawn. The only comfort he allowed was from his own children, and that only because the children needed him, and he could deny them nothing. Another omega’s scent intermingling with her brother on such a deep level was a very good sign. They would have had to have had a proper bonding cuddle to leave that strong an impression so long after the other omega had left.Yes, Jane would have been happy to scent any omega on her brother, but that it was an omega she instantly recognized was perfect. That deep primal part of her alpha spirit approved of Jack’s scent intermingling with her pack. The only thing better would be to know Jack was walking around smelling of her family, of her, that the world would know him claimed.Except, of course, that he wasn’t claimed. Yet. Jane had never intended to claim anyone. Her alpha side felt content taking care of London, of the impoverished ones in need. She had her niece and nephews to settle any brooding she might have felt and, most recently, she had Michael himself under her wing again. And for a while it felt a bit like trying to hold a broken vase together while hoping for the glue to set, and with a vital piece missing from the middle, but they held.And then there was Jack. And he wasn’t the missing piece, but he fit all the same.“You know,” said Michael after a bit, “You smell of Jack, too.”Jane was determined not to blush at that. Luckily, Michael was tucked in against her and not at all in position to know whether or not she failed. Then Michael spoke again, not teasing this time, but in earnest seriousness. Somehow, their position, together but not looking at each other, made such talks easier.“It’s okay if you want him,” Michael said. “You know that, right? And it’s okay if you don’t. He’s already pack, either way. I don’t think he’ll run away, whatever you decide.”Jane didn’t think so either. Jack wasn’t at all like David had been. David had wanted her all to himself, and the day he realized that wasn’t going to happen, that her pack didn’t begin and end with him…well…Jack wasn’t like David. Jack liked to share. If anything, Jane should be the jealous one, because Jack had friends everywhere.“I’m glad he’s pack,” Jane said, instead of answering the unspoken question. Did she want Jack? Did she want to bond with him…start a family with him? To not just have nieces and nephews but sons and daughters? Would Jack really be happy if all he ever got were cuddles and someone else’s pups to mother?Jack had said he’d be happy, no matter what. And Jane tended to believe him. Jack wore his emotions fully. When he was happy, he was happy, and when he was sad, he’d own it, but keep looking up for something to bring his joy back again. And he’d find it, too. It was just so hard to trust that joy. To trust that Jane was enough. No matter how much or how little she gave back.The children were much more direct than their father.“Aunt Jane,” said Annabel, “When are you going to make Uncle Jack our proper uncle?”Trying to put her off with a ‘whatever do you mean’, just got an impatient, unimpressed look that was rather too old in her face. A tiny, petty, jealous part of Jane couldn’t help but think that Mary Poppins would have gotten away with that answer.“You already call him ‘uncle’,” Jane had tried next. The children had started doing that all on their own, too. Jack’s face, the first time, had been priceless. It had started with surprise, and his lips had turned up in joy, but then his eyes had slid over towards Jane and Michael, and his trying not to look too pleased while at the same time being a bit anxious gave him the most ridiculous expression that it was almost impossible not to laugh out loud.She had to fight the urge so hard, in fact, that it was Michael who put the poor man out of his misery.“Uncle Jack?” he said, to the children, with a smile that was probably more for Jack than those he spoke to, to show he wasn’t displeased. “Is that what he is?”“Of course he is,” Georgie had answered, in that tone of absolutes that only the very young can pull off gracefully, as though he were puzzled by the very idea that it wasn’t a universal fact.“Well, of course, silly of me,” said Michael.“Well go on then,” Jane said, “To the park with Uncle Jack.” The smile Jack sent her way at those words was so pure in its joy that she actually felt her heart jump in her chest.So to the children he was ‘Uncle Jack’. To her brother he was a pack mate. And to her? He was a pack mate as well, but on the cusp of being something more. That terrified her. And elated her. How was she to explain all of that to a child?“Uncle Jack likes you,” Georgie pointed out, with the utter simplicity of the very young, “And you like Uncle Jack. Doesn’t that mean you’re supposed to bond?”“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Jane answered. Of course, when it comes to big complex ideas, like justice or morality or love or hate, most children are colorblind. Someone is good, or they are bad. If you are bad, you should be punished. If you are good, you should be rewarded. If you love someone, then you should be together. If you hate someone, you should be apart. There are no in-betweens for children.“Uncle Jack is family,” Jane said firmly. “It doesn’t really matter, does it, what kind of family?”“Yes it does,” all three children insisted. Which prompted Michael to come over and rescue his sister and to explain to his children that love does not need silly labels and ‘you are making your Aunt Jane upset’ which she wasn’t supposed to hear, but that silenced the children much more effectively than any of her own arguments.Probably the only person in the entire household who had never suggested Jane and Jack should be bonded was Mary Poppins, and considering she was the reason they crossed paths in the first place Jane rather thought she knew what her opinion on the matter was. Even if she could no longer ask her.But the point is, well, the point to be understood of all of this confusing and complicated relationship that had developed between Jane and Jack, was that Jack was kind of, sort of family but he wasn’t Jane’s.So she probably had no right to the deep, primal fury that sang through her blood and caused her to bare her teeth and snarl when she saw Jack next.Jack was alarmed enough by the display to immediately flinch backwards while instinctively turning his head to offer his neck. This in itself was unusual because Jack might have been an omega but cowering wasn’t a part of his personality and, while he knew when to be politely submissive, such poses were usually undercut by a mischievous twinkle to his eye.There was no twinkle in his eyes this time. It was closer to a spark of fear. Jack would later insist that he wasn’t afraid of Jane, and never would be, but omegas don’t instinctively bare their necks for alphas when they’re feeling at ease. They do it when they feel a primal need to calm an irate alpha before it attacks.This might have done more to calm Jane if it hadn’t revealed more of what had incited Jane’s rage in the first place.Jack, for his part, hadn’t meant to see Jane at all that day. In fact, he had rather hoped to avoid the entire Banks family. This wasn’t because he’d suddenly lost interest in the family (in fact, he rather craved their company more acutely than normal) but because he was rather keen to hide some information that meeting with any of them would very quickly reveal.Later (much later) Jack would laugh a bit at his own folly because really, how had he expected to never be found out? He’d have had to continue to completely avoid the Banks family, and all their acquaintances, for at least a full month…and this while he had his leerie route that took him right down their lane. In fact, Jack had no plans for the future at all…just a strong and instinctive desire to hide what made him feel small and weak and humiliated and a hundred other dark emotions that he wanted to keep as far from the light that was his pack as possible.So on the day in question, he first tried to trade routes with Angus (and under any other circumstances Angus would have agreed at once, but this time he looked Jack up and down, more or less divined his purpose, and gently sent him on his way). This having failed (and Angus warning off the others from agreeing to a trade), and Jack being determined to do his work no matter how he felt, he then tried to go about it as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for Jack, he found his route more difficult that evening than the evening before, and despite his intentions it was rather later than his normal time that he pedaled awkwardly down Cherry Tree Lane. He furtively avoiding looking towards number seventeen to see if anyone watched for him to wave out the window, and intended to finish as quickly as possible and be on his way.He thought perhaps he’d get away with it after all (and then he could stick his tongue out at Angus after, never mind that Angus had Jack’s best interests at heart or that sticking one’s tongue out was ridiculously juvenile). It was darker than usual due to his lateness in lighting the lamps, and the long shadows might well help to hide his presence as he went along.This hope, of course, was doomed to failure from start to finish.In the first place, Jack being late to light the lamps was so unusual that the children, who had been watching out for him, had already sounded the alarm to the adults that something was amiss with Jack.In the second place, it wasn’t just Michael and Ellen that the children carried this news to. Jane was over for a visit, and she never intended to simply let Jack pass them by. She didn’t quite give in to the temptation to sit at the window and watch for him, in part because Michael had quite enough to tease her about but mostly because the children had already taken that post and Jane trusted them to raise the alarm when Jack was in sight, trust that did not prove to be mislaid.In the third place, having managed to finish his route, Jack all at once discovered that he’d pushed himself rather beyond his own strength in his determination to finish, and without that goal to aim for all his strength seemed to leave him at once. So instead of finishing and then leaping onto his bike and racing away before any Banks had a chance to call him back, he finished the last light, slid down his ladder, then found himself sliding all the way down to sitting on the pavement.He sat there, his hands still holding his ladder, and stared up at the lamp’s glow and felt very odd and not at all sure how he came to be sitting on the ground. And then the lamp’s light was blocked by a face looking down at him and he was caught before he could even make the attempt to flee.“Jack?” said the voice that belonged with the face, and Jack’s lips turned up in a smile in spite of all his misgivings, as they were wont to do whenever he heard that voice or saw that face.“Yes, Jane?” he answered, and despite the smile, he couldn’t help but feel his heart speed up for an entirely different reason than pleasure at her company, and he wondered furtively if pulling his cap lower over his face would help hide what was moments away from being found out, or just draw attention to it.At any rate, it was far too late. It was dark, and Jane cast her shadow over him, but thanks to the newly lit lamp it wasn’t that dark. Jane frowned, and then went down on her knees as Jack had yet to try to rise, and quickly made out what the shadows had almost…but not quite…hid.To put it quite simply, Jack had a black eye.To give it more detail, Jack had a spectacular black eye. In fact, half the left side of his face appeared one massive bruise, and if the eye itself wasn’t swollen shut yet, leaving it untreated for another hour or two would surely remedy that.It was this unexpected revelation that had at once incited Jane’s fury (and horror) to such a degree that she snarled, and inspired Jack to bare his neck. And while his neck was unblemished, the movement caused the edge of his shirt to shift just enough to allow Jane to notice what she might otherwise have missed: the faint edge to another bruise.Jack didn’t just have a black eye; he had further bruising hidden from Jane’s eyes.Jack tried to look at her while still keeping his head turned away, his expression a bit worried, a bit guilty, but mostly hard to read thanks to half of it being obscured by the horrible crime scene that marred his face.Because it was a crime. Jack hadn’t come by those bruises through some thoughtless accident. Someone had struck him. Jane was certain of this through a deep primal instinct and she didn’t need Jack to confirm it; she just knew.Just as she knew she was going to destroy whoever had done this.But first things first.“Michael,” she called, though she kept her eyes on Jack. She knew her brother was near, curious (and worried) about Jack but allowing Jane her private moment with the omega, holding his own children back.“Yes?” he answered, taking a step towards them.“Call for the doctor, please.”“I don’t need the doctor,” Jack was quick to say, and it was probably only the fact that he sounded about like he usually did that the children didn’t swarm over to them in concern, despite their father holding them back. That didn’t stop them from voicing their concern.“Is Uncle Jack sick?” Georgie asked in alarm.“I can call the doctor,” Annabel said, and she ran for the house to do just that.“Did he fall?” asked John, who noted the unusual position with Jack sitting on the ground.“Do you need help with him?” Michael wanted to know, trusting his daughter to successfully fulfill the task Jane had originally asked of him.“I’m fine,” was what Jack said to all of this, becoming a bit annoyed in spite of himself at the way everyone spoke over him, and then, in a gentler voice because he didn’t like causing others worry and upset, he said to Jane, “Truly, it looks worse than it is. I hardly even feel it. I…”His kindly meant, but rather less than truthful self-assessment was interrupted with a very undignified squawk as he unexpectedly found himself drawn up into Jane’s arms. Before Jack understood her intentions, Jane had stood up and Jack found himself being held like the world’s largest infant.Had Jack been feeling more himself, he would have protested this move. Loudly. And at length. Sure, intellectually he understood that Jane, as an alpha, was much stronger than she looked; certainly stronger than Jack or Michael, despite them being men and larger than her. But just because he knew it was in her strength to carry him didn’t mean he wanted her to cart him about. She could at least leave him the illusion of his manly pride.Jack was not feeling more himself, though, so instead he reacted with a startled yelp, his arms instinctively going around Jane in return. The yelp, far from being followed by a stream of protests, was followed by what could only be described as a pained whimper, and he positively clung to Jane.“I’ll get the doors,” Michael offered, seeing as Jane seemed to have a firm hold on Jack, and he went ahead to do as he proposed while Jane carefully but swiftly brought Jack inside. Georgie and John took it on themselves to grab Jack’s ladder, still leaning against the lamp, and bicycle and moved them to their own house’s front steps before following the rest inside.Inside they found their sister and Ellen, the former who had only just hung up the phone with the doctor and the latter who informed the boys that Jack had been taken to the downstairs guest room and the children were not to go in and disturb them.“We don’t want to disturb them,” Georgie tried to explain. “We just want to see them.”“Just go and watch out for the doctor,” Ellen answered, and this Georgie did with great care. Annabel and John were not so fully distracted by this, but they sat with Georgie anyway.“What do you think is the matter with Uncle Jack?” Georgie asked while they waited. “You don’t think…you don’t think he is very ill, do you?”“I think he got hurt,” John answered. He had been the only one of the three who’d noted the black eye. “I think…I think he got in a fight.”“Oh no!” said Georgie. “Do you think Aunt Jane is going to make him sit in the corner or…or…or give him a smacking?” In Georgie’s mind, fighting was about the naughtiest thing a person could do.“Uncle Jack doesn’t go around fighting,” Annabel protested. “He knows better.”“Well…who’s to say he started it?” John asked, who had had his share of schoolyard scuffles, enough to realize that fault isn’t always so easily assigned in such cases. “Anyway, I think someone hit him, and if they did, well, I hope he hit them back.”“You shouldn’t say that,” said Annabel, but not very forcefully because she found she agreed with John.“What if he stopped a bank robber?” Georgie suggested. “Or…or saved a poor little omega from a mean alpha who wanted to beat him for not bringing home enough money.”“…but isn’t Uncle Jack a poor little omega too, Georgie?” John pointed out. The children considered this. Their storybooks suggested that omegas were prone to being randomly attacked and having to be rescued. It was hard to imagine Uncle Jack in that role, though. He was the one who tended to rescue them when they got into trouble. Annabel’s first instinct was to dismiss the storybooks completely, already having had issue with the role they placed little girls in, but one aspect of the ‘poor little omega’ stories did stand out to her.“Who is Jack’s alpha, anyway?”“Aunt Jane, of course,” Georgie answered promptly, utterly certain he was entirely right.“She will be soon, of course,” Annabel agreed, “But he must already have had an alpha before he ever even met us…and I suppose that’s his alpha still…until Aunt Jane claims him.”“You don’t mean he had some other family’s alpha all this time?” asked Georgie, who didn’t entirely understand the ways of the world yet.“It’s the law, I think,” Annabel tried to explain. “Like how children aren’t allowed to live all by themselves without any parents to watch them.”“But Uncle Jack isn’t a child,” Georgie answered, though this was said a bit doubtfully, as though the speaker wasn’t certain he spoke the truth of the matter. Uncle Jack played like a child…but he had a job like a grownup, and he was big like a grownup. Then, with much less doubt, he added, “And Daddy doesn’t have an alpha parent; so is he breaking the law?”“Alphas aren’t exactly like parents,” John tried to explain next. “It’s more…I suppose…well, omegas are gentle and…and sweet, and they look after children but they aren’t good at looking after themselves and alphas are there to protect them. And father has Aunt Jane; she’s all of our family alpha.”And Georgie supposed that made sense. Their father was prone to forgetting things, like all the times he left his hat or his briefcase lying somewhere or forgot to get the groceries. Their mother had looked after him very well…before. And after, the children took on those tasks, and Georgie had to admit that Aunt Jane was over quite often to help out as well.“So Uncle Jack has some other alpha that isn’t Aunt Jane?” he asked, still not liking the idea in the least. Jack was theirs, not some strange alpha’s that none of them even knew.“Not like…like a mate,” Annabel said, trying to reassure him though she wasn’t sure she liked the idea any better…though she had more reason than jealousy. All those stories were going through her head, the ones with the horrible villain alphas who the stories were quick to denounce as not proper alphas at all (oftentimes they turned out to be merely betas who were pretending so they could claim an omega as their own…and if they were alphas then the Good Alpha soon proved they were weak, inferior ones). They were the sort of alpha who beat omegas and made them do hard work. Just think what Cinderella had had to put up with, with that horrible alpha stepmother!Annabel didn’t like to mention her thoughts to the others, though. Georgie and John were already upset, and suggesting horrible possibilities would only make them all feel worse. Anyway, they didn’t know, so she sat in silence, and worried, and tried to remember that Jack really wasn’t at all like Cinderella. He probably wouldn’t wait around for some fairy godmother to send him to the ball, for one. If he wanted to go, he’d find his own way or resign himself to finding his own entertainment. He wouldn’t go and cry about it.But if John was right…someone hurt Jack. And Jack must have a family alpha who wasn’t Jane. And they had met Jack’s friends…but they’d never met this alpha. If it had been a Good Alpha…why had Jack never brought them around to introduce?The doctor took almost half an hour to reach their house. In all that time, no one came out from the guest room. Not to tell them it was all a false alarm and Jack was fine after all. Not to tell them he was even worse than it had first appeared.The doctor was shown in, and the door closed behind him, and the children were left to wonder and worry and wait.
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Jack was not a poor little omega. He refused that role with every fiber of his being. Just because his every instinct was to lie back and let his alpha take care of him didn’t mean he had to lie back and let it happen. No, not his alpha, an alpha, (but still his pack), and he didn’t need to be taken care of. Except for the part where he hurt, and Michael smelt of comfort, and Jane smelt of that too and…and safety and everything warm and good. So when Jane set him down on the bed he didn’t jump up and try to run away (and not just because he didn’t think his legs would carry him), but he didn’t cling to her either, never mind how hard it was to make his arms let go, never mind that he felt colder when she drew away, never mind that he needed closeness, because he wasn’t a needy, poor little omega pup.He knew they wanted to see what his clothes still hid, to see how he was hurt. He didn’t want them to. He was upsetting them already, and he didn’t like that either. And he knew if he did what they wanted, and bared himself, bared his every hurt, his every weakness, then he’d hurt them even worse.He knew this because he knew how he’d certainly hurt if he saw one of them covered from head to toe in bruises. It would flay him to the heart to see anyone he loved so injured, and he didn’t want to be the one to bring that pain to them. He didn’t want to be injured in the first place. He wanted to be strong. He wanted to be unblemished.He wanted a lot of things.Michael helped him to take off his jacket, and that was fine because he had long sleeves on underneath. Michael hesitated to actually start working on buttons. Jane didn’t touch him either. They waited for Jack’s permission. That is not to say they waited patiently.“Jack,” Jane said, a hint of Command in her voice, a hint of a growl. “Please remove your shirt.”He didn’t have to do what she said. She wasn’t his alpha…exactly. In the eyes of the law, sure, but they had no agreements between them. She was an alpha in his pack. If she had Commanded fully…maybe. It’s hard enough for him to resist an unknown alpha’s Command voice; he’d find it even harder with an alpha he respected. But there was only a hint of Command and he could resist.He could resist, but there wasn’t much point. They already knew he was hurt, and they weren’t going to let it go. He wouldn’t, if the situation were reversed.His fingers trembled when he reached for his buttons.“Let me,” Michael said. And then, “Please.” He sounded so…in earnest. Every move Jack could make in this moment would hurt them. He chose the easiest path (the one he wanted the most himself, which was almost enough to make him resist, almost.)Michael was unbearably gentle as he removed Jack’s vest. And Jane…if Jane had been a stranger Jack had come upon in the street, he might well have been scared of her. She exuded danger and violence and fury as she hovered over him, using her great alpha strength to hold herself back from what she clearly wanted to do, which was to rip away his clothes herself and see how he was hurt.But she wasn’t a strange alpha, she was Jane. Jack felt perfectly safe in her presence. Even if she had given in and started grabbing at his clothes…he might have resisted and felt worse over it, but he wouldn’t fear her. Because she might exude danger…but to him she exuded danger towards everyone else, towards anyone who might be a danger to him, or Michael or the children…towards anyone who was Not Pack.Jack didn’t know the exact moment he’d joined the Banks family pack. Even science couldn’t explain how packs formed, just that everyone knew they did, and everyone knew who was pack and who wasn’t, and to Jack, the entire Banks family was Pack. It used to be, Jack would identify the leeries as his Pack. Now, he’d still identify them as a pack he was party to, in the same way Jane might identify her SPRUCE friends as a sort of pack, or Michael might see his bank coworkers as a sort of pack, but these are not their Pack. Most people were part of at least three packs, if not more, but only ever one Pack.Jane was Pack, and she was an alpha. Technically, in the eyes of the law, she could be accepted as his alpha, even if they never made it official. And he wanted to be hers in every sense of the word, in every possible way, but he’d be happy to simply be part of her Pack, happy with whatever she could give. Which was why he’d never asked, never suggested.Which was why he still had someone who tried to call himself Jack’s Alpha. Jack didn’t call him his Alpha. Not anymore.The law was on Jack’s side. Omegas had the right to choose. Brute violence was on the alpha’s side. Michael undid Jack’s buttons, both layers, before he began to ease his shirt open. And Jack knew the exact moment Michael saw. There was a sort of noise, not soft enough to be a gasp, not loud enough to be a cry, just a sort of noise. And Michael’s hands froze, for just a moment.Jack tried not to make any noise at all while Michael got his upper garments. That was hard, because his body was rather sore, and the movements necessary were far from comfortable. But he couldn’t give in and whimper or groan (and he definitely, absolutely was not going to break down and cry). He wasn’t going to make everything worse for everyone by voicing his discomfort.Jane, for her part, was both surprised (horrified) and not surprised (still horrified) by what the removal of Jack’s upper garments uncovered. She didn’t know what would soon be shown, of course, she couldn’t know, but at the same time she had suspected. All this time, the absolute worst case scenarios for what Jack’s clothing might be hiding had filled her head.The worst case scenario was far too similar to what was uncovered. She knew there was bruising around his collarbone because she’d seen it. There was also deep bruising at his wrist, swelling even. That wasn’t from being struck. Someone had held onto him, held onto him tightly enough, viciously enough, to do that. The splotches of color across his chest, on the other hand…those were from being struck. From the look on Michael’s face, his back was just as bad…if not worse.Someone had beaten Jack. And even worse than that, worse than knowing her omega (not hers, not hers, not hers) was hurt, hurting and in pain, was seeing that the bruising was in various stages of healing. This was not all from a single incident. She was an alpha. To society, that meant she had responsibilities towards those in her care. To biology, it meant she was going to rend whoever touched her family limb from limb.Michael was not an alpha. Society had a rather confused view when it came to omegas. On the one hand, they are supposed to be delicate, gentle creatures, lacking in self-preservation and common sense, whose role is to be protected and provided for while they, in turn, protect and provide for the family. On the other hand, they are also child bearers, and in this role they are fierce protectors. Medical science has a very specific term for a person who deliberately attempts harm against a child in the presence of an omega, and that term is suicidal. Not only will the omega respond with deadly force to the threat; they will call on any within hearing range to help. And the child doesn’t even have to be their own.Jack wasn’t a child, but he was an omega in Michael’s pack, and he was hurt. Hurt deliberately. Michael didn’t know himself what he felt in that moment, except that it was a hot jumble of something unpleasant and strong, so his hands clinched into fists and his eyes teared up and he at once wanted to wrap himself around the injured omega and he wanted to go out and find the one who did this and he wanted to remove that person from ever being a threat to any of his family again.He’d be satisfied allowing his sister the privilege however, while he held his family close until the threat was eliminated.There was no way to remove the threat in that moment, however, so he fell onto his other instincts, that screamed at him to do everything in his power to make things better for Jack. He couldn’t take away the pain, so he wanted to do the next best thing, to hold him close and let him feel his warmth and love and care until Jack stopped trembling and stopped hiding and allowed them in.Only, Jack looked horrible, and Michael was terrified to touch him anywhere. He had purple and blue and red and black blotches across his chest, which were bad enough, but there were welts across his back and he hurt to look at.“Jack,” he whispered in the end. “Can I hold you? Can I hold you without hurting you more?”Jack, for his part, was still trying to hold himself rigid, to make no pained noise, to do nothing that might suggest the horrible marks across his torso (across his face, around his wrist) actually hurt.They did, of course. Hurt. They’d ached all evening, making it hard to move as he turned up the lamps, making it hard to breathe, making him feel hot and cold and pulling the strength from his limbs, but he’d been so determined to work through it that, with his job to concentrate on, he could ignore the hurt. Barely.He didn’t have his job to concentrate on now, and he could see he’d upset Jane and Michael, and that upset him in turn, and he knew they’d have questions and he didn’t want to answer because it was humiliating, and horrible, and painful.But he’d hurt Michael if he pulled away.And he hurt.And this was his pack.Michael smelled of home and safety and light when Jack fell into him, burying his face into Michael’s shoulder, or at least the half of his face that wasn’t sore (as if that might hide when he lost the battle against his own tears), and Michael felt warm and solid as they fell back together on the bed. Michael guided them now, pulling them properly up onto the bed and rolling slightly so Jack was half on top of him, Jack’s back carefully held away from anything that might hurt it further.Jane made a distressed noise, seeing his back for the first time. Then she crawled onto the bed too, not to hold them (she didn’t dare touch Jack, terrified she’d make things worse (that she’d already made things worse when she carried him)) but to be close to them. Jack was glad, though he didn’t say anything, still made no noise at all, though Michael’s shirt was beginning to grow damp. Jack could sense her there, and it felt safe.Michael’s hand ran gently through Jack’s hair and he whispered gentle words in Jack’s ear, the sort of words he’d whisper to his children if they were distressed, and Jack listened to the tone more than anything, to the deep and familiar voice and tried to hold himself together while at the same time to sink into the warmth and comfort.“Jack,” Jane whispered after a bit. “Who hurt you?”Jack answered with a distressed whine that had Michael instinctively clutching him tighter.“Jack,” Jane repeated, her tone firmer this time, a definite edge of Command in her tone. “Who. Hurt. You.”“I don’t want to,” Jack answered into Michael’s shoulder.“Jack,” Jane growled, going into full on Command in her distress and aggravation because she needed to know. Michael reached out and grasped her by the shoulder, subtly shaking his head at her, voicelessly begging to allow him to try, and with a snarl she nonetheless gave the barest sign of submission.“Jack,” said Michael, his voice gentler than his sister’s. “Imagine someone hurt me. Someone beat me. And I refuse to say who did it.” He felt Jack go tense in his arms, and Jack actually pulled himself up slightly so he could look Michael in the eye. The look made Michael wince as he saw the bruising on Jack’s face anew, but he didn’t look away, just let the other omega study him in an almost frantic manner, checking for any sign that Michael’s suggested scenario wasn’t imaginary. After a moment, Michael said, “No one hurt me, Jack; I promise. And if someone did, I would tell you. And I would tell you who did it. Pack takes care of each other.”Jack stared at him a moment longer, then seemed to accept Michael’s words, or perhaps his strength simply gave out. Either way, he dropped back again, allowing the good half of his face to lay against Michael’s shoulder. His whole body trembled against him. Jane frowned at both of them, not liking Michael’s suggestion any more than Jack had, but still hoping that he had gotten through to Jack. She held back a growl, held back from demanding answers, and gave Jack a moment to find his voice. But if he took another minute, she would start Commanding, and she would know.“’s name’s Bill,” Jack said into Michael’s shoulder. “An alpha. Not mine. Court appointed him after…after me and some of the boys had a bit of fun and…a policeman picked us up. And I didn’t…Mary was gone and…I didn’t know you and…they said I had to have an alpha take me home and…they appointed Bill. And he… he keeps coming around, and I can usually keep away but…told him he wasn’t my alpha…I have an alpha…and he got angry and…don’t really remember properly. ‘cept it hurt.”Jane and Michael let Jack talk, Michael still stroking his hair, Jane lying as close to them as she could without inadvertently hurting Jack. Jack could feel the heat of her body, could smell her, and he rather wished she would hold him, never mind if it would hurt. He’d rather feel her, even if that feeling was pain.Jane and Michael didn’t ask questions either…not yet. Later. They’d get Bill’s surname, or failing that, which court, what dates. Bill would be found. And eliminated. Later.Right then, they had an omega to take care of. This Bill was a threat, but not an emanate threat, and there was no chance either Jane or Michael were going to let Jack out of their sight in the near future. Nor was there any chance that Jane would allow Jack along when she went for Bill. Jack was never going to see Bill again. But that meant Bill would have to wait, because she couldn’t leave Jack.With remarkable timing, it was shortly after they finally got Jack to speak to them that the knock came at the door. Jane growled in response, not appreciating the intrusion into her pack’s space, guessing (rightly) that it wasn’t Ellen or the children on the other side of the door.“That will be the doctor,” Michael reminded her. To that, Jane leapt from the bed and ran for the door, because she couldn’t make Jack better, and the doctor could. Jack, in contrast, made a noise like a whine, trying to burrow himself deeper into Michael, as though that might spare him from the examination that was to come.“He’ll take away the pain,” Michael whispered, still running his fingers soothingly through Jack’s hair. Jack responded with a second whine. Apparently he was done with words for the moment, and had devolved into a sulking, cross child. If it weren’t for Jack’s very real injuries, Michael might have been amused. As it was, Michael rather felt that if acting like a child helped Jack in any way, then he could behave as juvenilely as he liked.The doctor, thankfully, was one they knew. Dr. Jenkins was an older man and, like the majority in his profession, was a beta. He generally brought with him a young omega, trained as a nurse but, more importantly, in calming tense situations, as generally arose when a member of a pack took ill or was injured. There was a reason alphas didn’t become doctors, and it wasn’t because they weren’t considered intelligent enough to do it; bring an alpha onto a scene containing a hurt omega, and that omega’s alpha was likely to attack the intruder as a threat. Bring in a beta, and the alpha might be tense, but they’d allow aid to be rendered. Add in an omega, an omega who implicitly trusted the beta doctor, and the situation at hand would become much less tense.Jane knew Dr. Jenkins, something already in his favor for being allowed to help Jack. She didn’t know the omega, but she appreciated the calming influence.She also rather appreciated seeing the children, who’d not quite dared to follow the doctor into the room but did come to the doorway. She didn’t want them to see Jack, not as he was, wasn’t ready for the conversation that would be necessary to explain that ‘Not all alphas are Good’, but it soothed something inside her to see all her pack present at once (Ellen was in the doorway too, of course, showing the doctor in while holding the children back). If there had been a way to allow all her pack in the room and keep the children from the distressing sight of Uncle Jack’s injuries, she would have done it at once. As it was, she took in the sight of the children’s worried faces as they tried to see in, and was glad for the chance, but equally glad when Ellen firmly shut the door.“What seems to be the…oh,” said Dr. Jenkins, answering his own question when he caught sight of his patient.“Some foolish alpha thought it was okay to hurt my omega,” Jane answered anyway. “Please do what you can to help him.”“Of course,” the doctor answered.What followed was not pleasant for anyone. Jack, whenever he could, seemed to be trying to pretend he wasn’t there and that nothing was happening, mostly by hiding his face against Michael, but when that wasn’t possible for the examination, he’d shut his eyes.Jane didn’t like people who weren’t Pack, even someone who she knew and trusted, so near her injured omega. Every distressed noise Jack made had her clinching her fists, wanting to drag away the ones causing the noises (and Jack made several; it seemed that finally allowing his pack to help him meant he’d given up on not making any noise…that or the pain was just that bad. Either way, he spent the entire examination making small whimpers and occasional pained cries).Michael wanted to hold Jack the whole time, but that was impractical for an examination. Instead, he had to help Jack sit up while the doctor checked his ribs, checked his vulnerable organs for signs of injury or internal bleeding, and then he had to help remove Jack’s lower garments because they’d no other way of being sure he wasn’t injured further down (Jack certainly wasn’t about to tell them).The end result was that Jack received medicine for the pain, more medicine to promote general healing and stave off infection or illness (he already proved to have a mild fever), a soothing balm over the bruises, bandages over much of his back, and wrapping for his wrist and ribs. Some ribs were cracked after all, and the doctor was a bit concerned the wrist might be broken or sprained, but wanted to wait on the swelling first and in the meantime had it immobilized. And there were bruises on his legs as it turned out, particularly his knees from falling on them but also on his right hip and upper thigh. Jack didn’t answer when asked, gently, how it had happened but the doctor conjectured he might have been kicked, and Jack didn’t disagree.When all that could be done had been done, the doctor left Jack under the gentle care of the two omegas and drew Jane aside for a moment. By law, when it came to matters of health care, Jane, as Jack’s legal alpha, was viewed as his guardian. More importantly, in such abuse cases, there were other legal concerns.“I’ll have to report this,” the doctor explained in a low voice, a bit apologetically. “I’ll include the name of the accused, of course, and my belief that you weren’t the…er…abuser. I don’t anticipate any complications there. Anyway, it will help your case if you do…er…take care of the errant party yourself rather than through the law. It’s your right, but this isn’t the dark ages and there will be a hearing afterwards. To make sure it’s justice and not…murder. It will go better, too, if you do appeal to the police beforehand rather than after; less…messy.”“Will Jack have to make an appearance?” Jane asked, not refuting her intentions to ‘take care of the errant party’.“No, no, of course not,” the doctor was quick to reassure her. “I’ll bring my report and you’ll speak for yourself. The court might demand you bring a character witness, so best to have one at ready; anyone respectable who isn’t part of your family Pack will do. I can do it myself, but it will look better if you bring in an outside party.”“Of course,” Jane answered, having, in fact, been such an outside party for other’s cases in the past.“Well, as for Jack,” continued the doctor, “Keep him warm, keep him resting, make sure he takes his medicine, and if his fever rises or he experiences sharp pains…for the first, contact me. For the latter, take him directly to hospital.”“Are you sure he shouldn’t be there now?” Jane asked.“He’ll heal better surrounded by Pack, in a place he knows,” the doctor answered. “I’ll come again tomorrow and see about his wrist, unless you call for me sooner. And we’ll see how he’s doing then, and decide where to go from there. I trust you won’t leave his side in the interim? By the sound of it, the one who hurt him isn’t currently a threat. It’s important you stay with your omega while he heals. There’s still a chance he could grow worse. I know it’s not what you want to hear, but his body is severely weakened by the abuse, and there are dangers both of illness, and of some hidden injury within his body suddenly making itself known.”Jane paled at this. She was already in a heightened protective state, and at the doctor’s warning she was half convinced at once that Jack was at death’s doorstep. The doctor knew this too, and knew his warning wasn’t going to be discarded, and that Jane wouldn’t be leaving Jack alone anytime soon, no matter what murderous urges awakened within her against Jack’s attacker. He gave her a somewhat apologetic look, but didn’t take back his words.“Is…is Jack likely to worsen?” Jane asked, not quite daring to ask what she feared most…that he’d been hurt to a deadly extent.“I do not think he is fatally injured,” the doctor answered, knowing what she was really asking. “Or that there is any permanent harm done. But I should be surprised if he wasn’t in for a long and painful recovery. He should sleep quite a bit; the medicine and his need to heal will keep him tired. As I said, if his fever rises, that is not a good sign and you should contact me at once.”“And if he does have sudden sharp pains…?”“There may be internal injuries that I missed; these can be very dangerous. Take him to hospital if he complains of pain, or falls suddenly unconscious, or begins to bleed freely.”The doctor and his omega left. Jack was dressed once more, though in loose garments suitable for sleeping rather than his original clothes (he wore Michael’s clothes, not having his own handy; they were luckily the same size) and tucked into the bed, on his side, arranged as comfortably as he could be. The medicine had already taken affect, and between that, and the stress of the entire evening, and everything, Jack was asleep even before he was completely settled.Jane, it must be confessed, panicked a bit at that point, trying to decide if that counted as ‘suddenly falling unconscious’, but Michael convinced her it was natural sleep, as the doctor had thought would soon happen, so the doctor wasn’t called back.They allowed the children in, now that Jack was mostly covered and not nearly so alarming a sight, though there was no hiding the bruising on his face.“Did Uncle Jack get in a fight?” Georgie asked in a small voice.“No,” Michael answered, but hesitated to explain the truth of the matter.“Was it a wicked alpha?” Anabel asked then.“…Yes,” Michael answered, a bit reluctantly, but there was no hiding that someone had injured their uncle, and as much as he wanted to protect his children, there were some realities they couldn’t be protected from.The children didn’t have any further questions, not even John, who was usually full of questions. Perhaps they were afraid to know more. Michael knew they needed to have a proper conversation…but not just then.They all slept that night in the guestroom. It was a tight fit, particularly as they had to be careful not to crowd Jack, but the children were small and the bed was large and they brought in cushions and turned the floor into an enlarged sort of pallet.This was not a night for separate bedrooms and separate beds. Jane needed to know her Pack was safe, all of them. They needed each other. Michael held Jack, and Georgie curled up against his father while John, Annabel, and Ellen all found comfortable spots on the floor, the children holding each other. Jane sat at Jack’s other side, too alert to sleep, and she guarded her family all the long night.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Looking back, Jack’s alpha troubles probably really started when Bert left, though it hadn’t looked like it would cause troubles at the time.Bert was probably about the best alpha Jack could hope for. He was patient, protective without being possessive, brotherly (or as Jack felt in his secret heart of hearts, fatherly), and he had modern views on how much freedom omegas under his care should be given. That is to say, Jack was encouraged in his career, allowed to keep his own space, his own earnings (even though, as his master through his apprenticeship, Bert was actually entitled to some of his wages for compensation), allowed his own opinions and choices, and basically been given all the freedom as though he were a beta while still having a support system to fall back on.That is not to say that Bert thought all omegas should simply be free of alphas entirely. He wasn’t that modern.“It’s biology,” he explained once. “Omegas need alphas…and alphas need omegas. And we all need betas to balance us out. Keeps us all happy, same as having food and a coat. Don’t mean you’re not an adult, mind, but we can all use a helping hand.”And when Jack was truly an adult, and had learned all Bert had to teach him, Bert decided he’d like to see a bit more of the world. Jack, who was only just finding his feet in London, was happy enough to stay behind with his leerie friends and experience the joys of still being young enough that being an adult was a novelty.Bert didn’t just cut and run, of course. He was a bit of a free spirit, being his own master and deciding each day what he wanted to do, but he took his responsibilities seriously too, especially when his responsibility was tied up in a friend. So he made sure Jack was settled with a new alpha, that Jack had his Pack with the leeries, and even introduced Jack to an older lady as a sort of backup alpha, knowing as he did how the unexpected can cause unforeseen difficulties.No one could have thought he needed a backup for his backup.Bert left, and Jack had a small flat he shared with a couple of his omega mates and he was comfortable enough with Chalky, Bert’s alpha friend who agreed to keep an eye on Jack, that Jack could go to him when he felt the need for an alpha’s comfort. And he had Matilda, the old lady, to visit from time to time as well. As Bert had said, it was biology. Omegas needed alphas.It was also the law.About a year after Bert left, Matilda died. She was old, and it wasn’t exactly shocking, but at the same time it was unexpected. One day she seemed as spry as ever, then the next she’d caught a bit of a cold, and a week later was the funeral.Jack was sad but he wasn’t heartbroken. She was a nice sort of acquaintance he took tea with about once a week, but she wasn’t a close friend. She wasn’t his Alpha. Bert knew her better. Jack attended the funeral and then spent about a week with Chalky, more clingy than usual due to the unexpected loss, and then he went on with his life and only occasionally thought of Matilda, and then with a fond sort of remembrance, without grief.He did fret, a bit, that he had no way of passing on the news to Bert. Bert wrote from time to time, mostly to share pictures as he was more comfortable with art than letters, but by the time Jack got the letter, Bert would doubtless have moved on from wherever it was sent from, and Bert himself didn’t know where he planned to go next.Acting on a bit of whimsy, Jack did write the letter anyway, then tossed it in the fire, letting the draft bear it up. Likely the fire consumed it in the end. At any rate, Bert made no mention of receiving any such letter.So Jack was down one alpha, but he had Chalky, and that was enough. Until the incident.Biologically speaking, Chalky was Jack’s alpha up until such a time as Chalky cast him aside or Jack found a new alpha. In the eyes of a law, Chalky was Jack’s alpha right up to the point when Chalky willfully engaged in indecent behaviors.To put it simply, Chalky was found drunk and disorderly one too many times. Added onto this, he attempted to punch a policeman. He was lucky enough to miss, which meant a night behind bars, rather than being detained for a month. There was also a fine. And he was declared unfit as a guardian to others.The fine was a hardship; It took his own savings, Jack’s savings, Angus’s savings (Jack wasn’t the only omega in his pack) and a very tight budget for two months afterwards to pay it.Being declared an unfit guardian was disastrous, not least because Jack happened to have been picked up with him.To put the entire incident less simply, Jack had been at the Red Cow (or the Flaming Row, as the leeries tended to refer to it, or the Torch for short) with Chalky and Angus and just about his entire pack. Leeries, as a rule, did not stay out late, considering they had to be up rather early. On the other hand, it was winter, when the lights were lit early in the evening, and turned down late in the morning, and the cold was enough to drive anyone into a pub just for a bit of warmth.The warmth Jack found was in the fire, but also in his friendships, and it was a very warm evening indeed. Chalky found his warmth in his drink, as did many of the men and women there. Jack was less inclined in that direction, simply enjoying the atmosphere and general fun that seemed to arise when the leeries all got together. So when Angus said he knew a great place for a bit of kick and prance, to the general approval and merriment of all present, Jack was ready to join in. So was Chalky.Chalky didn’t have the coordination for dancing at the best of times, but he’d drunken enough to think it a great idea. No one minded how bad he was at it anyway; it was amusing to watch him try and they weren’t the kind of people to do more than a bit of lighthearted teasing at the other man’s shortcomings.The place Angus had found was a quiet little corner with plenty of space for moving and jumping, with just the right sort of obstacles to make it more fun; lamp posts and trash bins and benches and the like. Someone had a fiddle and someone else turned an old bin into a drum and soon they had a rhythm going and a bit of music, that those inclined could sing to, and a proper dance was started and no one minded being out in the cold when the dance was keeping them warm, and there was laughter and antics and fun.Jack felt warm all over, almost glowing as he joined in, though he always, in those moments, felt a faint sort of emptiness…a sort niggle of incompleteness, like not quite all his Pack was there. He sometimes thought it was Bert that was missing. Sometimes, when he noted companions pairing up, he wondered if he wasn’t missing a person he hadn’t even met yet; the alpha who wasn’t just to be his companion, but his mate. Other times, he was quite certain it was a person he knew well, who was Pack, but not his mate (not even an alpha, but a beta), a person even more inclined to roam than his erstwhile alpha.He didn’t pine in Mary Poppins’s absence, but when he was at his most content, having the most fun, felt the most companionable…he noticed all wasn’t quite perfect. That didn’t lessen his enjoyment any, (in some ways made his enjoyment better, like adding a bit of salt to the biscuits to bring out the sweetness) but it did make those times when she did come all the better.He couldn’t help but keep one eye upwards, outwards, just in case.Mary Poppins didn’t join them that evening. Jack liked to think that if she had known what would happen in her absence, she would have come. Jack liked to think she’d care enough to intervene.Someone in their quiet little corner of London didn’t care for their dance. Police were called for, and police came.Jack had a great respect for the police of London. He admired their dedication towards protecting and serving her citizens. He recognized that it was a dangerous and difficult job, and not one he’d take on in a hurry.He also knew that not all of his friends felt quite the same respect towards them, and with justifiable reason. In the first place, it is an institution made up of human beings, and human beings are corruptible and they are liable to prejudice and people of Jack’s social class were generally on the wrong side of said prejudice and corruption.So when the whistle shrilly intruded across their music and voices shouted for them to all ‘Move along! Party’s over! Get to your homes!’ Jack was disappointed at the interruption, but not unduly alarmed or angered. If he was annoyed, it was at whoever had complained and had the police called in, not at the men doing their jobs.Jack’s friends were less inclined to be reasonable.Some ran. Some kept dancing. Some called insults, interspersed with invitations to join them, as they ran about in the darkness, impossible to catch. Jack didn’t join in that kind of fun, but he didn’t run either. His friends were there, and he felt a need to see them safely home. Chalky, for one, was quite drunk and had been having a great time attempting complicated steps that continuously almost had him sprawled on the concrete if the leeries didn’t catch him and set him right each time. Chalky wasn’t inclined to run either.“Wh’re y’ ‘trudin’ ‘r fun?” he demanded with a voice so slurred by drink it was near impossible to understand, but the belligerent tone was easy enough to decipher.“Just you move along, before we have you in for being drunk and disorderly,” an officer told him sternly, admirably ignoring the young man prancing behind him and making faces. Or perhaps he hadn’t actually noticed Angus there.“You move ‘long,” was Chalky’s brilliantly thought out answer, complete with an attempt to poke at the officer. Jack jumped in just then, managing to slide between the two before the situation could become worse as he knocked Chalky’s attempt at poking into being an arm around Jack’s shoulder.“’Scuse us, officer,” Jack said in what he meant to be a respectful tone. “I’ll just get this one home to bed.”And that probably would have been that, except for Angus.“See that you do,” said the officer sternly. Angus copied him at his back with such ridiculous likeness that Jack (who was far from drunk but had had his share, and was still on a high from the dance besides) laughed out loud. And so did several other officers, who had witnessed the scene.The officer being mocked had spun around with unexpected agility, grabbed Angus by the arm, and given him a bit of a shake, shouting, “You young scallywag!”Chalky was not the most aggressive of alphas, and, sober, he might even have laughed and said Angus deserved what he got. Drunk, and already feeling displeased with the officer, he wasn’t about to let this clear attack on his omega go.With a roar of rage, Chalky swung at the officer. Thanks to being less than coordinated, he missed by a good foot. Jack hardly knew who to try and help at that point; whether to free Angus or try to drag Chalky away before he made things worse.Angus made things easier by escaping on his own, using Chalky’s attack as a distraction. The officers converged on Chalky, seeing him as the clear threat, and Jack, terrified they’d soon resort to knocking the man senseless (a not unreasonable fear), didn’t take his own chance to run away, intent on making Chalky back down and see reason.Chalky didn’t want to see reason, but with his omega between him and the officers he stopped swinging at them, and the officers in turn lowered their batons.The police decided to grab anyone who hadn’t run off, which was mostly those who were too drunk to do so, and Jack, who was too anxious for Chalky’s safety to do the sensible thing and run.Anyway, they were police, and no matter the horror stories his friends had on the matter, at heart they were good people. Jack was certain of this. At heart, most people were good people. There were exceptions; he wasn’t a fool and he wasn’t naïve. He just refused to allow a few true monsters to destroy his outlook on life.And Jack’s belief proved justified, because they took him in but they didn’t charge him with anything, recognizing his attempts to calm the situation. Besides, he was an omega. Omegas aren’t responsible for their own actions, not in the way betas and alphas are.In some ways, Jack’s presence made things worse.“It is bad enough, Charles Stone,” said the judge sternly, the next day when Chalky was sober and ready to be held accountable for his actions, “That you get picked up every other week for your misbehavior…”“It’s been three months since the last time!” Chalky protested, perhaps not wisely, particularly since ‘three months’ wasn’t much better than ‘every other week’ to be picked up by police.“…but to bring a young, impressionable omega with you!”“I’m thirty years old,” Jack pointed out, somewhat pointlessly. For one, the judge was sixty himself, and rather inclined to think ‘thirty’ was quite young. For another, Jack could have been fifty, and the judge would still have been looking on his like a poor, misled child, simply because he was an omega. In fact, all his interruption gained was a pitying glance before the stern gaze returned to Chalky.“Inciting violence and rioting,” the judge continued, “Attacking Officer Johnson…”“I missed!” Chalky pointed out, and Jack wondered if there was a way to cover Chalky’s mouth before he helped his case any more, without being too obvious.“This is not the responsible behavior of one entrusted with a duty of care towards the vulnerable of our society,” the judge insisted. “And I am relieving you of that duty. You have been found incompetent and unfit as a guardian, and so you have no right to act in that capacity towards any man, woman, or child.”The fine was almost an afterthought. And he was to stay another night behind bars, aside from the one already spent sobering up.“You are free to go,” the judge then said to Jack, in a sickeningly gentle tone, full of pity for the poor omega forced to put up with a drunken brute of an alpha. “…Just as soon as you can call on a responsible alpha to collect you.”“…I don’t know any other alphas,” Jack was forced to admit. He knew Matilda, but she was now dead. He knew Bert, but Bert was somewhere out in the world and not in London. Chalky had already been taken away. The rest of his Pack were all omegas or betas. One of them probably knew an alpha he could call on, but he didn’t think the judge would appreciate him sending for all his Pack to ask.He didn’t know Jane Banks yet. It would be a few months before that happy meeting.If he had some way of calling on Mary Poppins, he might have tried her. She wasn’t an alpha, of course, but he couldn’t see any judge that would dare turn her away. She could probably have walked right in, and then out again with Jack and Chalky behind her and no one would find a reasonable objection to detain them. And she’d do it in the most respectable way imaginable.She wasn’t there, though, and she wasn’t likely to be, and Jack could no sooner ask her to come than he could ask Bert. The judge was more sympathetic than ever…and even less inclined to simply let a poor defenseless omega just walk out the door into the big bad London all by himself.“That’s no difficulty, my boy,” he said. “We can have an alpha appointed to you.”And that was when Jack met Bill. Or, as Bill insisted on being called, ‘Sir’. In fact, he preferred ‘Master’, but accepted ‘Sir’ as an alternative.If Bert was a modern alpha, Bill was about as medieval as it was possible to be.He was shorter than Jack, which was unusual as alphas are typically larger, but even when they aren’t, they are still stronger. Bill might look small, and he had glasses, but he felt…larger somehow; dangerous. He smiled at Jack when they were introduced, and Jack took one look at those smiling lips, and unsmiling, cold eyes, and something inside him screamed ‘run!’.Instead, he had to allow the alpha to take his hand and lead him back into the street, and into a cab, and he listened as the address was given and couldn’t help but say, “That’s not my address.”“It is now,” answered the alpha with the same cold smile, and there was no point in arguing, not then and there. The cab driver wasn’t going to listen to an omega’s instructions over an alpha’s, and Jack couldn’t exactly jump out and run, especially since the law was on Bill's side.Bill was smart enough to keep a hold on Jack’s wrist when they got out, and Jack thought it prudent to bide his time and allowed himself to be led into Bill's flat. It was small and dingy, for all the man appeared to hold a respectable position in society, respectable enough that the judge had seen him fit as a guardian.“I live simply,” Bill explained, a slightly defensive tone creeping into his voice despite the fact that Jack hadn’t actually said anything. “And I shouldn’t think you’re used to much better.”“My place is cleaner, at least,” Jack answered, knowing as he said it that it was unwise but feeling trapped and uneasy so he needed to find his own footing and answer back. Bill looked him up and down coldly, and Jack did his best not to cringe away or bare his neck. He couldn’t stop his own instincts though, his instincts that sensed a dangerous predator in front of him, and his head twitched to the side anyway, his eyes sliding down and away, avoiding challenging the other man.“I leave that to you,” was all Bill said. “Cleaning is an omega’s job.”“I’m not staying here,” Jack answered, wishing he dared to say it while looking Bill in the face, but somehow he couldn’t lift his eyes above his chin. “And I have a proper job. I’m a leerie.”“What are your wages?” Bill asked with some interest, completely ignoring Jack’s first statement. To this, Jack remained silent, not appreciating the alpha’s interest in his earnings. He knew there were omegas who gave all their wages to their alpha, trusting the alpha to handle all their finances, but Bert had never even taken what was due him as Jack’s teacher.“I expect to be answered when spoken to,” Bill said, almost mildly. “And you may call me Master William. Or Sir.” And when Jack didn’t answer that, Bill went from mild to aggressive almost quicker than Jack could process. One moment, Jack was staring at the man’s chin while biding his time wondering how soon he could get away back to his own flat, and what they were going to do about Chalky’s fine, and whether Angus made it home alright, and basically looking forward to getting out of this horrible situation and putting it all behind him.The next moment, an aggressive alpha, with a horrific snarl, had grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against a wall.Jack reacted as just about any omega would in that situation, offering his throat with a whimper, head turned away, body still and exposed, submissive. It was humiliating, but instinctive. It was also effective, because Jack was let go and even left alone until his heartbeat settled back into something less akin to that of a frightened rabbit.“I think you’ve been let alone too long by that horrid excuse for an alpha,” Bill decided. “I think you need a little lesson in respect.”Bill's idea of ‘lesson’ had Jack bent over a chair, shirt pushed up out of the way, while Bill made use of his belt. Jack wasn’t inclined to go along, only he was already feeling alone and vulnerable and when Bill used his full Command voice to say, “Bend over that chair now!” Jack was in position before his brain caught up to suggest he shouldn’t, and a “Stay there!” was enough to hold him in place. “Let’s start with ten, since you’re new,” Bill decided.He was kind enough to fold the belt and avoided using the buckle. It was somewhat hard for Jack to appreciate his kindness. At any rate, that was the only kindness he afforded. Bill used his full alpha strength from the first lash, and Jack, despite every intention to accept the beating stoically, cried out at the shock of pain.By the tenth, Jack was crying through clenched teeth, a strong mixture of anger, and humiliation, and fear, and pain making him feel almost too much. Jack wanted to strike back. He wanted to be a million miles away. He wanted his alpha (his Real Alpha) to come and teach this imposter a lesson. And he didn’t want his alpha, because he didn’t want to be seen in this humiliating situation, to be seen bent over, to be seen allowing the beating, when he wasn’t even restrained. To be seen beaten.This wasn’t going to be a permanent situation. He knew his rights as an omega, and he had the right to choose his own alpha, and this was the last alpha in the entire world he’d ever choose.But Jack wasn’t stupid, so when Bill asked, “Now, omega, what do you say?”, “Thank you, Sir, for correcting me,” is what he said and not, “I’m out of here, you violent, crazy psychopath! Try that again and I’ll hang you with your own belt!” like he rather wanted to say.“Hmm…I’d prefer Master William, but that will do. You can start cleaning now, and later you can show me to your workplace and I’ll see if I approve.”What he meant, Jack rather thought, was ‘I’ll find out what money I can make out of you, now that you’re mine.’Jack obediently started to clean, ignored the way his back protested every movement, pushed down the desperate need in his chest for comfort (for his Alpha, for other omegas, for his Pack), blinked away the tears that wanted to fall. And the moment Bill was slightly distracted, Jack was out the door.It was distressingly easy to get home; Bill lived far too close for comfort, but he was home and he was away from Bill and the nightmare that his life would become if Bill had his way, and Angus was there (safe), and so were several other leeries, his Pack (but no Chalky, of course) and they drew him close, and asked him where he’d been and what had happened.Jack told them what had happened to Chalky. He even told them he’d been sent home with Bill and had escaped and come back. He didn’t mention the beating, and liked to imagine none of them would ever know (but they weren’t stupid and Jack knew they weren’t, and for not knowing they were far too gentle with him, far too careful).And Jack thought that was the end of Bill. Only Bill didn’t think that was the end.
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Dear Bert,I hope this letter finds you well. I am sorry to inform you that Matilda died last Thursday of a sudden illness. She did not suffer much. I am in good health and Charles treats me well. That’s Chalky, in case you don’t know his proper name.Your Omega,Jack~~~~~~~~~~Dear Bert,It was good to hear from you. I had no idea the Egyptians liked curses so much. You did have a narrow escape. London is has its own curses. Yesterday, Angus saw a man walk right under a ladder. Sure enough, a curse got him…Angus’s curse when he near knocked him off his lamp. It is colder here, though. Some of the pack complain in the early morning hours, but I like them best. It’s a like a gift, the morning, watching the sky wake up and the city come alive.I miss You would enjoy the sunny weather. It is still cold, but no rain. You would be a sweep today, I think. It’s a good day for sweeps. Cold enough that folks want their fires but nice enough to make the job easy.Your Affectionate Omega,Jack~~~~~~~~~~Dear Bert,I got your letter from Greece. I wish I knew how to send you mine. It has rained for days and days here. Most of the boys got a cold. I got a bit of a sniffle myself, but it’s not too bad. Fred has the worst. He sneezes so he put out his own flame this morning. Everyone says the wish the pleasure to stop, and I don’t want anyone ill, but the rain isn’t so bad. You see things in the rain that you don’t in the sun. I watched a leaf riding the currents down a gutter, and it was like seeing a ship at sea. Perhaps you would laugh. You’ve seen real ships at sea. You’ve been on a ship. But when I saw it, I felt like I had too. Some kids ran after it and the policeman asked what they found so amusing. He said it was just a leaf.I helped the kids make a raft of twigs, with a leaf for a sail. I meant to do extra oddjobs, and this didn’t pay, but I felt paid anyway. Is that what you meant when you always said you didn’t need paying because you were already paid?I don’t know why I am writing you now. Perhaps I’m writing to a robin who needs to line her nest, and will find my bit of paper convenient. I like to think I’m helping someone. Maybe I could guess your next address. Do you go to Australia next? Or to New York. I don’t know what is closest to Greece.Still your Omega,Jack~~~~~~~~~~Dear Bert,What a funny sort of castle you drew. And you say everyone takes off their shoes when they go inside. And omegas have all sorts of rules. I don’t know I want to visit Turkey, even if they do have good food. Imagine, always having to take off your shoes.We had a lovely kick and prance today. Chalky complained after because we had it in his working hours. He said it was disrespecting our alpha to leave him out. He was joking, but I think he really did feel hurt, but we couldn’t help it. It’s summer, so we can’t stay up late and get all our amusement in the afternoon before the time to trip the lights. I suppose you know it’s summer. Is it summer in Turkey too? Or I suppose you went on to a new place since. Fred thinks you must be headed to India or China. He know geography better than me. I spent all my time reading the wrong sorts of books; all fairy stories and princess tales. If you meet a princess, draw me a picture.Your Omega Friend,Jack~~~~~~~~~~Dear Bert,I hope this letter finds you. The last one flew so poorly I actually saw it dive back into the flames after I sent it up. I know it’s silly to think any of these could reach you, but I took the time to rewrite that one. It felt wrong to just watch it burn. I wonder why.It’s been a while since I wrote. That was summer, and it’s fall now. One of the best times of year, I always say. It’s when there’s magic in the wind. And a wonderful wind it was because guess who it blew in? No, not our dear friend. It was a robin, blown right into the road. I caught it in my hat before it came to harm, and it sang so beautifully. It decided to winter with us in our flat. Angus pretended he didn’t like it; said it would sing all night and make a mess. Then I saw him giving it a worm he caught.I put all your pictures on our wall. It’s like a museum of art in there. You will find it funny to see when you come back. You are coming back? Another funny thing, Chalky got drunk and decided it was a good idea to enact a bit of opera on the steps to the cathedral. The police kindly let him finish the song before they took him away. He sings better than he dances. Some people don’t appreciate good music. Or maybe it was because it was midnight. They let him go in the morning with just a warning, and wanting tickets for his next performance.Still your omega,Jack~~~~~~~~~~Dear Bert,Chalky got in trouble again. They said he can’t be my alpha, and sent me home with another. I can’t tell the others all about it. It’s…I…I am so weak and useless…I can tell you because I know you will never read this. He wanted to keep me. I was never going to stay and I know my rights to choose but I had a nightmare that I couldn’t leave and I cleaned and I cleaned and he kept growling and I did nothing right and. He hit me with a belt. I didn’t tell anyone. I think they know. They know what happens to omegas. It hurt but it was worse because I had to lay there and let him and I don’t want them to know. If I tell Chalky he will want to fight him and Chalky will get in trouble because he isn’t my alpha. I mean he is, but the law will say he isn’t. I can’t tell him. And I don’t want them to know. Anyway, it was just a small beating. It only hurts a little now. Angus tried to take my route this morning but I said I could go and it was hard but I don’t want to be a poor weak omega who gets beaten and has to lie down all day. I won’t be.I’m glad I have you to talk to. And gladder that I don’t. You would be upset to know. I don’t like upsetting people.Your omega not his,Jack~~~~~~~~~~Dear Bert,I’m sorry if this is hard to read. My hand keeps shaking. Bill came around looking for me. I saw him first and hid. Angus pretended I lived on the other side of London and told him so. Then he wanted to find me and ask questions. I’m still hiding. I don’t want to answer. Anyway, Bill is gone.I don’t know why I’m acting so silly. He can’t hurt me anyway. He can’t make me go to his home or hit me again. If he saw me I would just say no, and I can shout for help and anyone would come. He can’t hurt me again. I’m being silly. You would laugh if you were here. I wish you were. Angus has left and never found my hiding place. We were going to the worker’s protest together. I should go. It’s quiet. Except for Phil. He just found me when Angus didn’t. That’s the robin, by the way. He’s singing. I think he wants me to smile and stop crying. It’s good to have friends.Your friend,Jack~~~~~~~~~~Dear Bert,I know, two letters in the same day! I’m almost glad I don’t know how to send the letters. That last one must have sounded half mad and all over the place. I’m better now. Angus said the SPRUCE meeting was head lops. That’s the worker’s protest group; we haven’t taken up gardening. Though now I’ve said it, I wonder why not. We could have a pot in the window full of potatoes or beans or tulips or anything. It might be nice for Phil to have a bit of nature inside.I’ve just asked Angus and he says we are definitely not doing a garden but I saw Fred wink behind him, so I think we are. And Chalky came in and it’s the middle of the day so I’m going to stop writing to see why.It’s later a bit now. He said he came because he felt lonesome at work and wanted a visit with his omegas. This is suspicious. I think the boys called him home and said I was poor. I didn’t ask though because if it’s true that’s just humiliating and I’m making him miss work because I’m being silly. And maybe it isn’t true. Maybe he was just lonesome. I get lonesome sometimes and want others around.Your omega friend,Jack~~~~~~~~~~Dear Bert,Bill hit me again. It’s not so bad. I don’t know why I went all to pieces before when he hadn’t even seen me. It was just a few hits and it hurt but it’s nothing to worry over. I mean, anyone cries for pain and it’s nothing to do with being weak. And he Commanded me and I said no, so he isn’t so strong. I was right in the first place. He can’t make me do anything. Even if he is stronger than me. Muscles I mean. Not brains or will or the like.He caught me when I was turning up lights. I didn’t see him ‘til he grabbed my wrist and said “You omega bitch, running off, I’ll teach you some respect!” and I said, “Let go or I’ll scream and the police will take you”. And he tried to command me to come with him and I dug in my heels and said, “No!” and he got angry and punched me with his free hand in the stomach and I couldn’t scream because all my breath was gone and it really hurt and he dragged me down an alley and pushed me against the wall and he had my torch and he hit it against my back a few times and he said “That will teach you now come home” only he didn’t expect me to turn around and grab my torch back and I hit him back and he howled and I ran and got on my bike and left him. Only I had to finish the lights and it was hard to go back because I thought he’d be there, and Angus asked me why I was standing at a street corner and looking at the dark light and he said he’d do it and I couldn’t let him because Bill might hurt him so I did it but Angus watched and Bill never came.And he is just a man not a monster. And Angus wanted to know what happened but I couldn’t tell him. If I tell him he will tell Chalky and Chalky still isn’t allowed any omegas and they will all be angry and be hurt and I don’t want to hurt them. Anyway I’m not really hurt bad. I just have a few bruises. So I’m alright.Angus is frowning still and I think I’m upsetting him anyway. But he doesn’t know because all the bruises are under my clothes so he can’t see. No one needs to know anyway. I got Bill good and I don’t think he will come back.But if he does, he knows my route. Part of it. And I can’t trade because then he might hurt someone else and that’s worse.Sorry if I’m rambling. All my letters seem to be about Bill now. I will try to write something nicer next time. Even bird’s nests deserve to have pleasant words lining them. And flames need good meals not horrid ones.Your affectionate omega,Jack~~~~~~~~~~Dear Bert,You know how I said the wind blew in a friend and it was Phil the robin? Well the wind blew in a new friend today and she came down on Georgie Banks’ kite. Mary Poppins as I live and breathe! I suppose it’s just as well you won’t read this because you might have elephants and funny castles but we got Mary.The Banks family are a nice little pack. There was a wolf from the bank after their house and we had to stop time to save it and it’s funny but I met the girl I used to wave to in the window. I say met. I mean I bumped into her and knocked her papers all about. I must have looked a fool, but she smiled and she said she knew me by my smile and she didn’t mind and I gave her a ride later. She is part of SPRUCE too. And later we flew together with balloons in the park and everything in the world is possible and nothing is impossible and if I was ever going to have an alpha it would be her. Only Michael says she was crossed in love and now she’s wary and I don’t mind if we are only friends because friends with her is better than a wedding with anyone else. It’s springtime now and the cherry trees are in blossom.If the police pick me up again and say to send for an alpha I’ll send for her and I know I’ll get her.I suppose you’d rather hear about Mary than Jane, and it was glorious fun having her while we did. She never does stay for long, but we had a dance and a half while she was here and I think she made all the good things happen somehow even though she pretended she didn’t. She’s good at getting you out of yourself and seeing things from a new way. She also knows what a thing is when she sees it, even if it looks like something else. She doesn’t think omegas are useless either. Or that alphas are stupid. I’m glad the Banks have their house, but I think they would be happy anywhere because they are together. That banker could live in a castle and still be alone and sad.Your omega,Jack~~~~~~~~~~Dear Bert,Jane is wonderful and perfect. I wish I were stronger. And better. And not so foolish or weak. Bill hasn’t left after all. I don’t want to talk about it. Not even to you and you won’t really read this. I’m still not his omega. I’ll never be his omega. No matter what he says. I told a policeman and he said to mind my betters and a bit of discipline never hurt anyone. I think he didn’t know how hard Bill hit me because it was all covered up and I wasn’t screaming or crying over it. And he’s not my alpha.Jane isn’t my alpha either. I mean, she is because we’re pack and she’s an alpha in my pack. But we aren’t bonded or promised. And I don’t mind if we never are. Angus and Chalky don’t understand. Chalky says ‘Oho, you found yourself a nice alpha gal’ and wiggles his eyebrows, and Angus says if she doesn’t bond then she’s just playing with me and it isn’t right and he gets angry. And I can’t explain that she was hurt, and she is enough. I’d rather talk to you about Jane for hours than Bill. Jane is worth talking about.I didn’t tell Jane about Bill. Michael notices me wincing when we had a good cuddle and I didn’t want to lie so I didn’t say anything and he is too polite to ask. I mostly hid it. The children are the hardest because they like to tackle me with hugs and they’re little things and I love them but they can catch me at the wrong angle if I’m not careful. John is too observant by a half and he actually asked if they hurt me yesterday. I said I was just a bit sore from a hard morning’s work and that was a little bit true so it wasn’t lying but it wasn’t all the truth and what kind of omega lies to children? But the truth would just hurt everyone worse and anyway I will just tell Bill I have an alpha. He should smell my pack on me and know anyway. It’s nice having a pack. I mean I always had the leeries and you but this feels more like it’s just for me, my family. I love Angus and Fred and Chalky and the boys and Mary and you but the Banks are different. I guess it is different when there are children and the alpha you love isn’t your father or master or…well it’s different having a young woman as an alpha. That’s all. It’s nice.Still your omega even if I’m Jane’s,Jack~~~~~~~~~~Dear Bert,I told Bill he wasn’t my alpha because Jane was. He got so angry. I don’t really remember what happened. He hit me across the face. He never did that before. I think he knew if he hit where people see then he’d be in trouble. He trusted me not to tell but I can’t hide that. I fell and he kicked my chest and I curled up and he kicked my leg instead. He got my shirt up and used his belt again. I think I’m bleeding. I can’t really look. I can hardly move. He grabbed my wrist and tried to drag me to his flat. I thought he was going to kill me. Or lock me up and never let me leave.I wish I could say I got the better of him and escaped. That I hit him in the throat or the…the place you told me to hit blokes who mess with me. Only my brain was all fuzzy and all I felt was my heart beating in my ears and a lot of pain and nothing was real and it was all a nightmare and I didn’t even shout for help.Only Fred came out of nowhere and ran into Bill with his bicycle and Fred shouted “Murder, Police!” and Bill ran off. A policeman came and wanted to take me to hospital and wanted to know what happened. Everyone kept asking what happened and who was that man who attacked me. And I couldn’t answer anyone. I hardly remember myself what happened in all this time. I just know that Fred flared a lamp and someone came and said they’d finish my lamps for the morning. I couldn’t even tell you which leerie it was, and I must know him. Fred took me home and when my words came back I told them he just got my face and I didn’t mention the rest. They looked so angry already and I don’t want to make things worse. Everything just keeps getting worse. I know I should tell because alphas aren’t allowed to hit omegas but maybe the police will just call it discipline again and want me to go home with Bill and I can’t. And I know Jane will care and all the Banks but I can’t let them see. What if Jane decides to go after Bill? She might get hurt too. He’s so strong and he has a violence in him and a danger and she’s light and beauty and good and I don’t want his darkness to touch her, he can’t touch her, they can’t know. It’s just bruises. It will pass. And I will still have the Banks pack and my leeries and sorry if you can’t read this I’m writing with my wrong hand. What am I saying. No one is reading this except the fire.I can’t see Jane until my face looks better. Fred told them all it was a mean alpha and Angus wants to get Jane or Chalky or anyone. What will happen tonight when I light the lamps? I go right by the Banks’ house. I do their lamps by their door. The children like to wave. Maybe if I’m quick. Better, I’ll ask Angus to trade. He can think up something. He’s good at stories.I don’t mind telling the fire that I feel awful. Everything hurts. I’m trying to pretend it doesn’t so the others will think it’s just my eye. Riding my bike is going to be a nightmare. I can’t just skive off work for a bit of bruising though. It isn’t fair.Angus will trade. He must. I want Jane so badly I feel sick but I feel sicker imagining her seeing me like this. Weak. Pathetic. And it will hurt her. It would hurt me to see her hurt. Or anyone I love. I’m hurting everyone and it’s awful.Sorry if I rambled.Still your omega, always,Jack
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Jack awoke in a fog.Or rather, he half awoke. The world felt very much unreal, like he were trapped in a sort of waking dream. He was too chilled, too achy, too uncomfortable to slip back under, but too heavy and dazed and foggy to come to full awareness.The bit of the world he was aware of most was that it smelled of Pack, of family and safety and comfort. But the way his body hurt, and shivered, did not feel like safety. There were soft murmurs of voices, familiar voices that calmed him even as he whined, too uncomfortable to lie quiet and too out of it to censor his displeasure or quiet his whimpers and protests.There were hands, gentle and familiar, stroke his hair. One hand rested for a moment against his forehead, too cold, his skin feeling oversensitive and tight and he whined again and shivered and tried to pull away. The hand had no trouble following, but a moment later it left of its own accord. There were more voices, barely coherent words that he didn’t even try to make sense of. He couldn’t seem to stop shivering, even as he felt a blanket pulled over him, and it was exhausting and his ribs ached deep inside.Someone pulled him up and that hurt, but is a distant sort of way, and a cup was held to his lips and water poured into his mouth and he discovered his throat was so dry it felt like sandpaper when he swallowed. The water was welcome and soothing and cool, which was funny because he felt so chilled but inside his throat felt like a furnace and the cool was welcome there.The cup was taken away and he was laid down again and he felt like he were floating.He didn’t know how long it was when a cup was offered to him again, but this time instead of water the pungent odor of something medicinal hit him even before it was poured on his tongue. It was bitter and horrid and he tried to turn away, coughing when it only half made it down his throat.“Come on, Jack,” a voice said soothingly, “Try…for me?”And that wasn’t fair because he didn’t want the medicine, but when the cup was moved back to his lips he allowed it, and he was rewarded with fingers in his hair, and then after a cup of warm tea to wash away the taste.Someone familiar and comfortable was holding him so carefully, so gently, and someone was singing a soft lullaby, and this time when he slid down towards sleep, all the aches and chills faded and let him fall until he was asleep.Jane sat next to him, watching as his breathing slowly evened out, the soft whimpers of discomfort he doubtless hadn’t even realized he was making silencing as he drifted off. She ran her fingers through his hair, desperate to touch, to comfort, and not daring to try anywhere else in case she accidently hurt him worse. She didn’t know how Michael managed to hold him, but he did, supporting him so he could lie without the worst of his bruises or welts touching the bed. The children sang, wanting to help and not knowing any other way.His hair was soft beneath her fingers, the skin beneath unnervingly warm from his rising fever. The children still sang even after it was clear he was asleep, their expressions of concern far too old for their faces. They should really be sending them out, letting them play, but Jane couldn’t stand the thought of sending any of her pack from her sight, and she didn’t think the children would go even if she tried.The doctor had been and tutted over the rising temperature but only said it was to be expected and told them what medicines he needed to combat it. It still wasn’t quite alarming enough that he thought a hospital necessary. Or perhaps he just thought a hospital wouldn’t be any more help.“He needs his pack around him to give him strength,” was the doctor’s opinion on the matter.The doctor had said that about Kate too. It was no wonder the children looked so solemn.Michael had taken them aside that morning to explain, or as aside as he could without taking them from the room, which Jane wasn’t keen on allowing yet. She only begrudgingly allowed them to go one at a time for the toilet or to fetch a needed object, like Gillie. Ellen, being an adult and not an omega, had a bit more freedom and was able to go make them all breakfast. At any rate, Michael took the children to a far corner, where Jane could still hear all they said and watch over them.Michael tried to think of how to explain without giving too many details. He wanted them to understand that Uncle Jack was hurt, but he didn’t want to give them nightmares about the fact that someone had hurt him. Badly. Deliberately. But it was hard to get around that point without outright lying. And the children were smart. They had already guessed most of it.“A wicked alpha beat him…like in Cinderella,” Annabel said, before Michael could even think of where to start. Michael and Jane didn’t contradict her. If she needed to see it like a story to process it, then all the better.“Is Aunt Jane going to kill the wicked alpha?” John wanted to know. This was a logical leap to make, considering that was what the Prince of the story did to Cinderella’s abusers. Grimm could be…well…grim, sometimes, and didn’t shy away from the realities of the deep instincts inherent in alphas or omegas or even betas.His question was a hard one to answer, at least for Michael. How to explain the complexities of the situation? On the one hand, he didn’t want his children imagining their aunt as a killer. On the other hand, he didn’t want them imagining that any of the adults in their pack would allow Jack to be hurt without repercussions.It was simple for Jane to answer and she did it for him. “Yes.”If Michael thought this would shock or horrify the children, he thought like an adult and not a child. Children accept the death of villains as a matter of course, and are untroubled by the severity or finality of such justice. So, far from looking disturbed or scared, they nodded their heads in agreement.“Good,” said Georgie. And, not unaffected by the same instincts governing the adults, he added, “Then he can’t hurt any of us ever again.”Michael felt like he should be saying something more, perhaps curtailing some of his children’s bloodlust or at least directing their thoughts in a more positive direction. He couldn’t seem to find the words, though. It didn’t help that he agreed with the sentiment.That was around when Jack started to stir. He didn’t seem to awaken, not entirely, and Jane started to fret, on edge and having gotten almost no sleep the entire night. It was soon all too clear that his temperature had risen, and Jane struggled between her need to call for the doctor right away, and her need to keep every member of her pack in the room.The doctor solved the issue by arriving of his own accord. Ellen was allowed to open the door only after Jane had a chance to look out the window and make sure the visitor was a friend. Then Ellen took the children from the room so the doctor could do his examination so long as they stayed together, with Ellen, and the front door locked. Jane was a bit tense over it.“And you need to rest, too,” the doctor had told her, after he’d seen to Jack and helped him as well as he could. “Is there another alpha you trust who can help to guard your pack?”Jane, tired and edgy and cross, growled at him. Michael, who had at least gotten some sleep, was more inclined to respond reasonably.“Doesn’t Jack have an alpha among his leerie pack?” he asked. Jane growled at this too. She didn’t like being reminded that Jack wasn’t entirely hers…and that it was entirely her own fault that he wasn’t more hers. Michael was not the least bit cowed by her response, but continued on with his idea. “We should send word to the leeries anyway. Just imagine if he had been hurt, or gotten sick, and they kept him and never even tried to tell us about it?”“He was hurt, and they didn’t tell us,” Jane answered, but she knew she was being unreasonable even as she said it.“And they’ll need to know he won’t be able to light the lamps,” Michael pointed out. The doctor, who was listening all the while, felt confident enough in the absence of further aggression from Jane to speak again.“Bringing in pack mates from beyond the family Pack is a good way to lessen the burden,” he pointed out. “So long as none of them are complete strangers to you. You all need to take care of each other, too. You’ll do no good to Jack if you fall ill from overstressing yourself.”Then the doctor left again, after checking on Jack one last time and finding him incoherent and fevered but not dangerously so.“It’s to be expected that he will be groggy, between the pain medication and the injuries themselves. He needs rest, quiet, and for his pack mates to keep close. If his fever rises any further, call me back. I can be here in five minutes, if need be.”After he left, and after Jack had his medicine and had fallen back into sleep, Michael reminded Jane of the leeries.“And what about your SPRUCE friends?” he added. “Is there an alpha among them you’d trust?”Jane wanted to say that she would have trusted Kate. She would have trusted Bert. She would have trusted Father. All alphas who were no longer available. She would even have trusted Mary Poppins, and she wasn’t actually an alpha. Sometimes, Jane thought she secretly was a sort of alpha…but also she was a sort of omega…and those two halves met in the middle and she became a beta by default.Jane couldn’t say any of that, though, especially the bit about Kate. So instead she huffed, then begrudgingly stated, “The leeries he lives with can join us.”“What about the alpha?” Michael asked.“He doesn’t live with Jack, now does he? Anyway…he didn’t stop Jack from being hurt so he can’t be much of an alpha.”Jane didn’t stop Jack from being hurt either, but it would have taken either a braver, or stupider, man than Michael to point this out. Anyway, he rather thought his sister already knew and was destroying herself on the inside over it and she didn’t need him to make it worse.And if Jane didn’t feel comfortable inviting in a potential rival for her omega, Michael couldn’t blame her for that either.Actually finding a way to tell the leeries in question proved difficult. Jack’s flat didn’t have a telephone, and even if it did, it was unlikely the leeries would be there so late into the morning.In theory, they knew a few places the leeries might have gone to and could go look for them.There was no way Jane was allowing anyone in her pack, especially a child or an omega, to go off on their own when there was a dangerous alpha about somewhere in London.In the end they were saved the trouble of working out how to go about it when Angus arrived at their door. After the same process Jane had performed to allow the doctor, Angus was allowed entry.“I’m here to check on Jack,” said the leerie to Michael, who had been the one to answer.“How did you know he was here?” asked John, who had followed (to Jane’s annoyance, but there was no way for her to draw him back without leaving Jack, and she didn’t really see Angus as a threat).“I followed him yesterday,” Angus answered. “We knew he was too sore to work, but he’s a stubborn one. This was the easiest way to get him to his pack when he was refusing to go. I knew you’d take him in as soon as you all saw the state he was in. And if he tried to run, I was ready to nab him and drag him back. I saw the doctor leave. Is he that bad off? He said it was just his eye.”“He lied,” Michael said, and he invited Angus further into the house, shutting and locking the front door behind him.“Uncle Jack doesn’t lie,” John protested as they made their way to the guestroom that had become a sort of nesting room for the pack.“Jack will lie through his teeth if he’s trying to protect someone,” Angus answered, and then he paused at the threshold, an outsider peering into a family space.“Come in,” called Jane, approving of his respect, and Angus did so, slowly and keeping his neck bared towards Jane in a submissive stance. He stumbled slightly when he got close enough to Jack to clearly see how he was wounded (or at least as much as wasn’t covered by blankets and clothes).Without Michael to hold him, Jack had been rolled on his side, his bad wrist on top. In fact, all Angus could really see was the horrible bruising on his face and the way his wrist was bound, and perhaps just the hint of a bruise peeking out from under his shirt, but that was clearly enough to disturb the young omega. It didn’t help that, even asleep, Jack’s expression was tense, as though he were in pain.“A wicked alpha beat him,” Georgie told Angus, in case the leerie needed all the pertinent details. “Aunt Jane is going to kill him.”“How bad…” Angus started to ask while staring at Jack, but then his eyes slid towards the children and he trailed off. To Michael and Jane’s surprise, it was Annabel who answered the unfinished question.“Quite bad, I think,” she said. “The doctor put bandages all over his back, and he said he didn’t think the wrist was broken but it might still be sprained, and anyway he wants to keep it wrapped, and Uncle Jack got a fever and he cried when he was awake.”Angus made a sort of distress noise in response to this information while the other adults stared at Annabel in astonishment.“How…we sent you from the room,” Michael said, frowning (and Jane had hated having the children out of the room, but she had hated more letting them see everything as the doctor undid the bandages and looked Jack over a second time).“I saw the bandages myself when you helped Uncle Jack sit up,” Annabel pointed out. “And you talked with the doctor when we were in here. And anyway, we all heard him crying. And we can see it’s bad, or he wouldn’t still be sleeping.”“My children are too smart by a half,” Michael said, part aghast and part proud and entirely fond. “You can come closer, Angus. We know you’re his pack too.”“He’s ours now,” Georgie added, wanting to be sure the leerie knew were things stood, “But we don’t mind sharing.”“Georgie!” Michael admonished.“Oh don’t scold the boy,” said Ellen as she came in, having only just finished cleaning up after breakfast. “He’s only saying what you’re all thinking.”“I’ve no intention of stealing Jack away from you,” Angus told Georgie with great seriousness. Then he approached the bed.Jane watched him approach, rather surprised to find she really didn’t mind the omega’s presence. Before, the idea of anyone not Pack coming into the room had set her on edge, but now that Angus was here, he smelled familiar, soothing even. His scent was a part of Jack’s scent, and vice versa.“Come on, then,” said Michael. “Omega bonding cuddle.”“And what about me, then?” Jane asked.“You are supposed to sleep now,” Michael answered. “We can cuddle you too, while you do.”“And what about us?” Annabel asked.“Honorary omegas until proven otherwise,” Michael answered. Of course, he had his suspicions of which of his children would prove to be an omega, and which an alpha, and which was most likely to be a beta…but they wouldn’t really know until puberty hit, unless they wanted to perform invasive and unnecessary (and therefore expensive) testing to find out, which almost no one did.“And betas?” asked Ellen.“You’re half omega then, and perhaps you’ll be alpha enough that Jane will sleep for us,” Michael decided.“Half omega indeed,” Ellen answered, not at all impressed with this answer. But she joined them anyway.Angus hesitated, and not just because this wasn’t his Pack.“I really should be telling the others the news,” he said. But he clearly wanted to stay.“Just for an hour or so,” Michael said, who saw the longing in Angus’s eyes, the need, and knew he wasn’t ready to leave yet. Angus didn’t answer, but he didn’t leave, so everyone supposed he agreed.Michael took his old place, holding Jack. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, as Jack was warm enough to be uncomfortable to hold onto, and besides that it was awkward finding a way to do it without hurting him. But Michael felt better holding him and did it anyway. Jane lay on his other side. Angus didn’t dare come between them, so settled on being at Michael’s other side. Georgie, with the impudence of a child, clambered up between Jack and Jane, and Jane indulged him and held him, comforted by being able to hold someone in her pack even if it wasn’t Jack. Annabel and John settled in a comfortable heap at her other side, and Ellen settled herself next to the bed in a chair with a bit of knitting to work on.Jane still didn’t sleep, but she did manage to relax, at least an iota, having her Pack close.It would be nice if there was another alpha to share the burden. But for now, this would have to be enough.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jack’s back was on fire. The pain was all consuming…but in a distant sort of way. It was there, growing and sharp and horrible, but more like a memory than a fact…but also still a fact.
Bill was there, and he loomed, larger than the pain, larger than life, an impossible menace that caused pain upon pain and made Jack into something less. Weak. Worthless. Small. Owned. The sound of the belt cracking against Jack’s back sounded like a cannon shot, and he trembled as the pain swept over his entire body in a wave, and he cowered.
“Worthless bitch, I am your alpha and you will respect me!” Bill’s voice Ordered and Jack cowered from that too. He couldn’t seem to do anything but cower, not fight back, not even get up, not run away. His limbs seemed to be held somehow, perhaps wrapped in the bindings of Bill’s voice, and he was trapped and helpless and Bill was going to destroy him utterly in his quest to own him. He was going to break him. Jack knew it deeply in his soul, simply knew it was happening, and he couldn’t find that place inside himself to dig in and fight. There was no fight. He was trapped and he was alone.
“Jack?”
And then he wasn’t alone, and Bill was gone. And he could feel his family around him.
And his nightmare (a part of him knew this was a nightmare, but at the same time it was real) didn’t end. It got worse. A hundred times worse.
Jack still couldn’t move, but he could hear Jane’s voice.
“Jack?” she whispered, and she sounded…wrong. Small and scared. Jack wanted to answer her, to leap up and hold her and calm her fears and he couldn’t move. And then her voice came again, closer, and it was like he was inside and outside his body at the same time, because he could see her face, but he still couldn’t move…he could see himself. He looked…broken. His back was ugly and awash in blood and he lay over a chair, unmoving and Jane…the look on Jane’s face when she saw that…it broke him.
“No,” she said, then, hurrying to his side he could hear her repeating, “Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead.”
“I’m not dead,” he wanted to tell her, but he didn’t have a voice, just a broken and useless body and when she felt at him, felt his neck, put her fingers beneath his nose, searching for any sign of life and finding none…this was his worst nightmare. Not being dead, which might have been a bad dream but only for himself. The nightmare was in watching someone he loved find him, watching them collapse, grabbing his body and just holding it and begging and sobbing and knowing he caused this pain. He supposed the only thing worse would be the reverse…being the one to find her dead.
And then he heard her words and they were like nails to his heart.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have saved you if I knew. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He was dead because he kept secrets and now Jane was in agony and it was all Jack’s fault. Entirely his fault. Just look how easily the monster that was Bill had vanished with Jane’s arrival. If he had told her…
“Jane?” said a new voice, and there was Michael. And Angus. And the children. And Chalky and Matilda and Bert and Mary Poppins and everyone in the world who he loved. And they saw Jack and he saw the horrible devastation in their eyes and they were all crying and in pain over him and his lies.
“I’m sorry,” Jack tried to tell them, tried to touch them, and they couldn’t hear and he couldn’t touch and it was the worst feeling in the world, worse than feeling small and beaten, worse than the pain of the beating, worse than being trapped and alone. His family was in pain and it was his fault and he could do absolutely nothing about it because he was dead.
“Please,” Jack tried and, “I’m sorry, I won’t hide, I’m sorry.”
And when the pain of watching their grief felt like it was going to utterly crush him he pushed, desperate to hug, to hold, to comfort, to fix and finally, finally he moved.He was still all tied up and one arm seemed to be trapped against his body and the other under him and something heavy was over him and he opened his eyes and struggled to escape and reach his Pack while familiar voices called his name.“Jack, shh, you’re okay,” said Michael’s voice, and “Jack, Jack, wake up,” said Jane’s and…and…Jack got the arm free from under him but his other arm was still securely wrapped and he grabbed at Jane who seemed to be in front of him and she grabbed him back and he could touch and feel.A lot of what he felt was pain because his back really was on fire and squirming seemed to have ignited every bruise in his body and it was hard to say where he hurt the most when he felt one solid ache from head to toe, with sharp highlights here and there, and his heart was beating hard in his chest and he could hear his own voice making pained, distressed noises.“Sorry,” Jack managed to say at last and he clung to Jane with his free hand and he could feel her arms around him, not tight, too careful, but warm and solid and there.“Hey, shh, are you with us now?” Jane said and she looked him in the eyes and he looked back and his brain slowly made sense of where he was, and that he wasn’t dead after all, that he’d been saved from Bill and was still sore but not beaten to death. He was in the Banks’s house, surrounded by Pack (And Angus, when did he get there?) and they were worried.That part wasn’t just his nightmare. He had hurt them by allowing himself to be hurt, and he was hurting them still.“I’m sorry,” he said again, and when Jane looked like she was going to shush him again, he said, “I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I hid. I’m sorry I didn’t tell anyone about…about Bill.”She didn’t shush him again. Her expression did something complicated that he couldn’t get a read on. It wasn’t anger. She didn’t withdraw from him either. Nor did she tighten her hold. She held him and looked him in the eyes with that unreadable expression and in the end Jack looked away, allowing his eyes to slide down to her chin, to her neck, offering his own.“You should have told me, Jack,” she said at last. “You should have told someone.”“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Jack answered towards her shoulder. “And…and I didn’t want you near him. I didn’t want him touching you. You are good and light and…and he isn’t. I didn’t want you to touch.”“It hurt more to not know.” That was Angus and Jack cringed because he could see that now, even if he hadn’t then. “We knew you were hurt, but not how, or how bad, and you wouldn’t let us help. I never felt so useless.”“I’m sorry,” Jack said again, and it was harder to say this time because he’d started to cry, and his family drew closer.“But Jack,” and it was Michael speaking this time, “You should have told. But it is not your fault that you were hurt. It’s not your fault that we don’t like you being hurt. You didn’t hurt us, Jack. He did.”Jack didn’t know how to answer that. It felt like the entire mess was his fault. Sure, he didn’t exactly control Bill, but he could have done a thousand things different. He should have fought back harder, or escaped sooner or…he really should have told. Only the one time he’d tried it was to a stranger (it was easier to a stranger, to someone who wouldn’t look at him in horror and pain) and…and…“I did tell a policeman…about Bill,” Jack admitted. “He called it discipline and didn’t care.”Jane’s hold at his back abruptly tightened and it was all he could do to keep from yelping aloud at the sudden flare of pain. She seemed to know anyway and pulled her hand away entirely as though it were burned. He rather missed the touch. It returned again, this time to the nape of his neck where she was certain he had no sore spots.“…I don’t suppose you got the fine officer’s name?” Angus asked, his tone aiming for casual and light and missing the mark by about a mile.“…he said I should respect my alpha and behave and I wouldn’t get hit,” Jack said. Jane growled in response and Jack wondered if it were normal that, instead of feeling anxious that an alpha who was holding him was growling, he actually felt more safe and a bit warm.They clearly disagreed with the policeman’s assessment of the situation. And Jack knew they would but…perhaps reaching out for help and being told he deserved what he got had gotten to him…just a bit. It was nice to feel protected. Even if it were humiliating to need protection.“Uncle Jack?” said a small voice, reminding Jack that the children were still there too, which almost made Jack wince, because this wasn’t how he wanted the children to see him. He liked being their guiding light, their savior who turned back time, not as the one who was burned and needed rescuing.“Yes?” he said, trying to keep his voice normal and pretend he hadn’t just been crying (never mind they’d seen him do it).“You don’t really think it’s your fault a wicked alpha beat you…do you?” That was Georgie. Jack couldn’t see him from his angle but he could imagine the boy’s expression, confused and worried while he clung to the giraffe his mother made for him.And how was Jack supposed to answer that? It wasn’t his fault…but at the same time, it was. He never fought, not properly. He didn’t tell the judge he’d take any other alpha but that one, even though he knew the moment he saw him that he was bad. He didn’t try to make the cab driver see his side and take him to his proper home. He didn’t resist, didn’t make the alpha drag him into the flat kicking and screaming. And when he was Ordered to lay over the chair he did. And when the alpha kept coming back, he hid what was happening from everyone who could have helped (except the policeman, but he didn’t try another policeman after).“It’s not Jack’s fault at all,” Angus said, when Jack paused in answering for a bit too long, trying to find the right words. “It’s mine.”“What?!” said at least three voices, Jack’s being the loudest. How in the world did Angus reason that out?“I was the one who started the dance that got Chalky and Jack arrested. In fact, they were arrested because I was acting silly. So Jack got assigned a wicked alpha because of me.”“That’s ridiculous,” Jack objected instantly.“And,” Angus said, as though Jack hadn’t spoken, “I could see that Jack had been hurt, and I didn’t make him tell me. We aren’t stupid, Jack. When you go out fine, then come back white as a sheet and needing a cuddle and…and wincing…we aren’t stupid. And I didn’t make you talk. And when you ran off when a strange alpha came around asking after you and didn’t show up for hours…and when you don’t want to light a lamp but won’t let me do it for you…when you insist on doing your route no matter how ill or jumpy or tired or…or hurt you look…I didn’t stop you.”“Because you aren’t my nanny,” Jack said. “I’m a grown man and you aren’t responsible for me.”“But Chalky is. Miss Banks is. And I didn’t tell them either. We let you stay silent. So it is my fault.”And before Jack could explain just what utter nonsense that was, Michael spoke. “Then it’s my fault, too. I noticed you were injured somehow when we were cuddling, and I didn’t push to find out how.”“Is it my fault, too?” John asked, his voice unbearably young and he sounded half in tears, “Because I asked if we hurt you when we hugged you too rough and you said you were sore from the lamps and…and I didn’t tell anyone or ask again.”“It is not any of your faults,” Jack insisted. “I’m the one who hid and didn’t talk so if it’s anyone’s fault at all, it’s mine.”“No it isn’t,” Annabel answered, her voice not teary at all, but angry and indignant. “It isn’t John’s fault and it isn’t Daddy’s and it isn’t Aunt Jane’s and it isn’t Uncle Angus’s.” (to this last, Angus whispered ‘Uncle Angus?’ but Annabel wasn’t finished and no one else paid him any mind). “It is the wicked alpha’s fault. And maybe the judge if he made you go with him. He’s the one who beat you. No one else hit you. He did. It’s his fault.”“Well said,” Michael agreed. “Either it’s all our fault or it’s the wicked alpha’s fault, and I refuse to take the blame for a wicked alpha.”Most everyone said their agreements. Jack was quite ready to accept that it was more the ‘wicked alpha’s’ fault than anyone else’s…but it still felt at least a bit like it was his own fault too. He thought no one would notice that he didn’t join in with the others. He thought wrong.“Say it,” Jane ordered Jack, though not quite an Order despite the insisting tone. “Say it wasn’t your fault.”“It wasn’t your fault,” Jack answered obediently, and received a (feather light) cuff to the back of his head for his efforts, and his lips twitched upwards in spite of everything. “Fine. It wasn’t my fault.”He didn’t know why, but something in his chest felt lighter for saying it.“Family cuddle!” Georgie ordered, and Jack couldn’t help but cringe slightly in anticipation of one of the children’s tackle hugs, but they had the sense to be quite gentle with him, almost unbearably so, and the warm feeling in his chest grew and grew until it began to crowd out the darker feelings of being small and helpless and causing everyone he loved pain.It was a good family cuddle.Then of course real life intervened, and Jack had embarrassing but necessary help to reach the toilet, and more horrid medicines to take, and soup, and there was a suggestion of a bath and a council into the logistics of getting Jack cleaned without upsetting his bandages, and a slightly more secret council determined to get Jane to sleep. Because she hadn’t. At all. Since they first discovered Jack sitting beneath their lamp.“This is why everyone says healthy packs have at least two alphas in them,” Michael grumbled when Jane resisted any suggestion towards soothing teas.“I just can’t, not yet,” Jane snapped at her brother, clearly aware of what they were trying. “It’s like a buzz under my skin, and that monster is still out there, and I can’t let down my guard.”“What about the Admiral?” Michael tried (Angus had suggested Chalky and gotten a snarl for his troubles that had him sulking on the opposite end of the room for a good ten minutes and pretending he wasn’t cowering from the irate, overtired alpha).“Would you feel safe with him guarding you?” Jane asked in response.“Gillie’s an alpha. Maybe we could let him guard us, like he guards my sleep,” Georgie suggested. This was the first any of them had known of the giraffe having a secondary gender. Jane didn’t growl at Georgie, but didn’t accept the toy as a sleep aid.“Please, Jane, do sleep a bit,” Jack tried. “For me.”That was not fair at all, and he knew it, and she knew it, but it almost worked. She really couldn’t shut down enough for sleep, not even when she was trying.She did look like she was at least on the verge of dozing, after Ellen reassured her that every door was locked, and there was a beta who was alert and could rouse her in a moment’s need, and Jack was resting as comfortably as he could, and all her Pack was present and accounted for (including Angus…he’d suggested again he needed to leave and Jane had growled at that idea. And since Angus didn’t really want to go…he stayed). And she was exhausted to her soul, and almost, almost she could relax enough to doze.And then there came the knock at the door.She jerked upright as though attached to a spring, alert and on edge and she went to the door herself, not even stopping to see who it was but throwing the door open, ready to fight if it was a danger and scare whoever it was away if it was not.There was an alpha on the other side of the door. It was not Bill. Or Chalky. Or a threat.“Bert?!”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Bert was in Dubai. It made sense to head south as winter had approached; Dubai was a far cry from London during its winter months, being dry and warm, but not too hot, as he came to understand the summer would be.It was easy to converse with the people of Dubai, considering quite a number of them came from other countries, and it was harder to avoid those who spoke English, in some form or another, than to meet with them. Bert enjoyed the markets, and the weather, but was already thinking about going on. He was travelling to see the world, and, as he had discovered, cities were interesting and exciting but not the places to really get to know the intricacies of the country. Everyone went to the cities, travelers and natives alike, and to really understand a place, the smaller towns were better. That was where he practiced what little he could say in each place he visited; usually hello, thank you, lovely weather, sorry, and other small, random words.On the other hand, cities were more familiar, and sometimes he felt a bit homesick, and at such times a city would both help to cure him and to make it worse. Either way, countryside or city, he’d get to chatting with the country’s equivalent of a sweep or leerie or busker (those were the same the world over), or whatever the locals mostly worked at. Sometimes he helped drive cattle, or mend roofs, or farmed. Sometimes the work was hard, sometimes it was just strange. Most of the time, he’d earn a bit of money by giving a performance. Being a foreigner helped him there; his songs and dances were exotic, and people liked his voice, even if they didn’t understand a word of what he said. And when work was done…they played. That was when Bert really got to know a new place; when he knew what people drank for pleasure, how people moved in a dance, what songs were sung just for the joy of singing and what was sung or danced for a purpose, for a wedding or funeral or to celebrate a new baby.Bert would never get rich living as he did…but he felt rich, richer than a king (or a malik, or a basilias or a roi). That was the way to travel, to really know the world, to know the people and their customs and their language and their music. Not everything he saw was wonderful, of course. He saw places where omegas were treated as slaves, where an alpha could beat his omega in the street and no one would interfere. On the other hand, no one looked approving either. More often, omegas were treasured, and hidden away, which still didn’t sit right with Bert, and he was kind of glad he hadn’t brought Jack, but the omegas he did manage to see didn’t appear to feel particularly hard done by or oppressed, so maybe it wasn’t all bad. Anyway, there were good alphas and bad alphas (and good and bad omegas, and betas too) the world over.He missed Jack, like he missed London, like he missed Mary. It was in the same place he kept his homesickness and the distant ache where his parents once resided. He missed them, but it didn’t consume him or detract from his enjoyment of the moment. And he found new companions on his journey. A young beta had gone along with him for months before they parted ways. For a while, he was a part of a troupe of travelling performers, until one performance got a bit too hot with the local constabulary and they scattered and he never met up with them again, though he did sneak back to make sure they got away. He was never alone; if he hadn’t found some companion on the way, he’d meet up with locals. He’d play with the children. He’d find the local fun.Now he was in Dubai, with a vague idea to continue on a ship to India, maybe keep on heading south until he reached Australia. He wasn’t expecting for the young boy to come running up to him.“Excuse me, English man?” said the boy, his accent making apparent that English was not his first language.“Yes?” Bert asked, slightly cautious of the location of his current funds (along with seeing the darker sides of the streets in his travel, he’d seen his share of pickpockets and scammers…usually as they plied their trade against someone else). He was cautious now at this unexpected greeting but not on edge, curious more than anything.“I have you letter,” the boy explained, and he waved a bunch of paper in Bert’s direction.“My letter?” Bert asked with some surprise. “Cannot be.” (he had learned to avoid contractions; non-native speakers found them harder to understand). Then, more to himself than the boy, “No one in the world knows where I am.” Well…he could think of one who could probably find him if she wanted to, but surely she wasn’t writing him letters?“You English man who sing? You man who dance? You name…Bird, yes? I have you letter.”And the boy insistently thrust the papers at Bert. Bert accepted them, still confused and rather thinking this must be some sort of scam, but being of a generous nature he was already drawing forth a coin in payment. Likely the paper would prove to be worthless nonsense and this was all a trick to get payment for delivery, but Bert was willing to let the little scamp get away with it.“Thank you,” said the boy when he had received the coin. “Woman say you pay.” And he ran off again before Bert could ask about the ‘woman’. Instead, he looked at his ‘letter’. Letters, more like, and with no little astonishment, he discovered that each one was addressed to him. There were no envelopes, no postmarks, no stamps, and several of the letters were dashed out on mere scraps of paper, and in an unsteady hand, and most had scorch marks at the edges, but all were easily readable. More to the point, he knew that handwriting. Jack had written him letters. Jack had written him and somehow, impossibly, managed to deliver them to his exact location.He should have given the boy a larger coin.The letters seemed to already have been arranged in chronological order, and it was quickly clear that Jack had not written them all in one go. Nor had he even expected Bert to actually receive them. In fact, Bert felt slightly bad about reading them the first moment he realized that, but then, they were addressed to him.The first letter was a sad one. Matilda had died. She was older than him, but not by a vast amount, and it was hard to imagine her as being old, as frail. The woman in his memory was anything but. And now she was dead.The next letters to follow were more detailed, often referencing his own correspondence, and several made him laugh out loud. The ache in his chest where his homesickness lived was more acute than ever, yet he felt lit like a blessing.The first mention of Bill was a bit of a shock.Jack never really meant for Bert to read any of what followed but Bert couldn’t stop. He had to know. And anyway, it was still addressed to him. What followed was an odd mixture of wonderful and nightmarish. Jack had found himself an alpha, and what’s more, it was an alpha Bert knew and approved of. Out of all the world, he’d found his way to Jane Banks. Well, that clearly wasn’t an accident, not when Mary Poppins had returned to London. But the bad just kept getting worse, and worse, and Bert never in his life wished so badly that he could be transported home all in an instance.And then that last letter…and nothing after.Bert read through all the letters once, and then a second time, and his brain was already working through the long miles of distance he needed to travel, the days, weeks, if not months it would take (for he hardly had the budget even if he could find a train that went direct; he’d have to work his way back just as he’d worked his way there), and all the while not knowing what happened after. No one bothered him as he considered this; no one approached him. He couldn’t see his own face, but he could feel his own rage, helplessness, fear, and he knew he likely projected it all in his face and few would dare approach an alpha stranger who had those expressions written across his face. He was glad to be alone (wished he wasn’t, but the ones he wanted to not be alone with were not there). He stared down at the letters. So when he was approached, he saw the shoes first.They were stylish shoes. They were a woman’s shoes. His eyes traveled upwards, taking in a dress that was stylish and, somehow, completely in tune with Dubai but also distinctly British. The face that was over the dress was not a complete surprise, not after the letters, but it was still a shock.It had been a few years since he last saw Mary Poppins. As always, he felt a mixture of joy and fond nostalgia at the sight of her, mixed with just a smidgeon of regret and something like loneliness, but for her rather than for himself. She hadn’t aged a day, and she was a wild thing that couldn’t be kept and she came when she liked (when she was needed) and he was so much older than her now. How could she not be lonely, living apart from everyone else? And he ached for her.He was happy to see her, but the anger the letters ignited didn’t just let go, nor did the fear. So his first words to her weren’t a proper greeting at all. He’d never imagined in his life he’d fail to give her a proper greeting, yet there they were.“Did you know?” was what he asked, harsher than he meant to be (he wasn’t angry at her, not really, he was just angry).“Know what?” she asked, and he could hear her disapproval at being so addressed.“Jack’s letters…” he said, and with a great effort he toned down the harshness of his own voice.“I do not read other people’s letters,” Mary Poppins sniffed, clearly offended by the very notion, and Bert’s fingers grasped the letters tighter. He wasn’t even sure what he felt in that moment except that it was unpleasant, and he wanted to vent that feeling, but he didn’t want to attack her, not even with words.“You did deliver them,” Bert said, certain of this.“Really, Bert, what do you take me for? Some kind of postman?”He’d almost forgotten about that trick of hers, to make out she did nothing when she did everything. It usually made him feel more fond. This time, it made him almost want to lash out. He didn’t, of course, not against Mary Poppins, but he wanted to.“…Jack says there’s this alpha that’s been coming round and hurting him,” Bert said, taking the effort to re-aim his anger to where it truly belonged. But he couldn’t help but adding, “Did you know about him?”Mary Poppins looked like she might sniff at him again, but then her expression changed, and for a moment she actually looked deeply troubled. Not angry, like him, but sad.“Jack is a grown boy,” she said, her voice gentle this time. “He can make his own choices.”“He’s an omega,” Bert corrected her. “And his choices are hurting him.”“Not all his choices are bad ones. He chose Jane, didn’t he?”“I suppose that was your doing as well?” Bert almost managed to smile at her then, and felt nothing but fondness when she once again became offended.“Are you implying that I go around like some kind of…of Cupid…” Bert let her get out all her disgruntled feelings, and something inside of him eased, at least a bit. It was good to be reminded that Jack wasn’t utterly alone. He couldn’t imagine Jane Banks allowing an omega in her pack to be attacked, not if she knew of it. Chalky wouldn’t allow it either. Nor would any of the leeries or sweeps; no one that knew Jack or knew Bert would stand for Jack being hurt. That last letter though…it was hard to shake off the deep feeling of dread that had chilled his very bones. He tried anyway, giving Mary Poppins her proper due at last.“It is good to see you, Mary,” he said. For a moment, Mary Poppins looked like she wasn’t going to accept his half apology, but of course she did a moment later, taking his hand in hers.“Well, come along then, Bert,” she said. He didn’t ask where they were going. He rather thought he already knew, and anyway, it did little good to ask Mary Poppins questions.They went on a train, but as far as Bert had travelled, he’d never seen a train that had a penguin for a conductor. Nor did he know of any train that went express from Dubai to London in a single night.Mary Poppins could probably have brought them to London even quicker. He didn’t know how, but he was certain she could have done it, just as she had somehow saved Jack’s letters from the fire to deliver them exactly to him, when Bert himself didn’t know where he’d be staying next. She probably had her reasons for getting them there exactly when she did. Just as she had her reasons for not getting off the train with him.At least they had a lovely evening together, where he almost forgot his fear (but he couldn’t, not entirely) and forgot that he was so much older than he used to be (so much older than her, she who had once been older than him), and simply enjoyed a lovely song and some teacakes and then perhaps the nicest sleep he’d had in an age, no matter the worries that should have kept him up. He dreamed of penguins dancing in a field of books. He rather thought Jack was there too. He woke up refreshed as the train pulled into the station.Mary Poppins never said it was time for another goodbye, no tearful kisses, no last look out the window as the train drew away. He had thought she’d exited the train with him, in fact, but he turned around and she was gone.He said goodbye anyway. He always did.He went to Jack’s flat first, naturally, and found it empty. He didn’t know how he felt in that moment. He looked at the wall of pictures he’d drawn himself, and listened as a robin shouted at him for intruding from its nest inside an old hat. There were no less than three potted plants about the place; two in the window and one on a shelf next to the bird’s hat nest.There was nothing untoward or out of place; no blood-soaked shirts or the like. The place was clean and pleasant and empty except for Phil the robin.“Don’t you worry,” he told the bird who was still shouting at him. Generally the language of birds is simple; it all boils down to ‘want to mate?’, ‘Intruder!’ ‘I challenge you!’ and ‘Lovely day!’. “I’m a friend of Jack’s.” Bert told it, when his first words proved ineffective to silence its song.He didn’t actually expect the bird to understand this, but the robin did stop screaming. For a moment. Then it started…well, it sounded like scolding to Bert.“Yes, I know I should’ve been here, but I’m here now,” Bert told it. “I don’t suppose you know where Jack’s gone?”If the robin knew, it kept the secret. After a train ride with Mary Poppins, Bert wouldn’t have been shocked if the robin had spoken, or if it had flown and led him right to the errant omega, but the bird only looked at him and stayed in its nest. It occurred to Bert that perhaps ‘Phil’ might well be sitting on eggs. No wonder the bird screamed at him so. He’d been away from London for so long he’d half forgotten how the seasons worked.He left in the end and made his way to the park. It was odd to suddenly be back in London, when only the day before he had been in Dubai. The air felt too chilly to Bert, though it was spring and not what most Londoners would consider a cold day. It was in the park he saw some children flying a kite, and thought of the Banks children. Then of course he called himself all sorts of names for not thinking of them sooner. Jack had called them his pack; chances were good Jack might be with them. And if he wasn’t, his pack should learn some of what was in the letters. Jack might not want anyone to know, but Bert did know now, and it wasn’t the kind of secret that was meant to be kept.But did the Banks family still live in the same house? The letter mentioned their house…a banker had tried to steal it. Surely it was the same house. Michael and his family had been living in it when Bert had left and why would they move?He made his way to number 17, feeling strange. Thanks to Mary Poppins, everything had happened so quickly (as it often did around her) with no time to process. He knocked at the door, having no idea what to expect.He certainly didn’t expect Jane Banks to throw the door open, looking stressed and angry and generally projecting danger.Bert was an alpha and she was an alpha and things could have escalated very quickly if Jane had decided to view him as an intruder. Bert offered a submissive twist to his head quickly, as was only polite as he was intruding on her family space. She lunged at him anyway.Far from an attack, he suddenly found his arms full of distressed alpha as she hugged him so tight it hurt.“Hey now,” Bert said, instinctively holding her in return as he led them both inside the house. Ellen shut the door behind them and locked it, offering him an approving look before wandering off again towards the kitchen. Behind Jane, Bert could see several faces who had come to see what was happening but knew better than to intrude. Three children stared at him looking alternately confused and distrustful. The most distrustful was Georgie as he didn’t remember Bert at all. John and Annabel could just about remember seeing him before. Bert recognized Angus as well behind the children, and Michael. Michael looked tired, and a bit confused, but mostly relieved.“Bert, thank God,” he said. “And here we thought we’d never get Jane to sleep because every alpha we trusted was far away or too old or…” He didn’t finish the thought, mindful of the children and not wanting to bring up unpleasant things, but Bert’s brain finished the thought for him. Or dead.It was on the tip of Bert’s tongue to ask about Kate Banks, but something made him hold back. Instead he asked what he really needed to know, because there was another person he still didn’t see.“Is Jack here?”“Why do you want to know?” the youngest Banks demanded before anyone else could answer, his voice full of mistrust.“It’s alright, Georgie,” Michael told him, gently rather than scolding because he approved of wariness towards strangers, “He’s a good alpha, not a wicked alpha.” Then, to Bert, “Jack is in the guest room. Well, by this point it’s more of a Pack room than a guest room. You better come in and we’ll put Jane to bed at last. Unless…you are tired from your journey?”“Arrived this morning on the Mary Poppins express,” Bert answered. “You don’t get a better sleep than on that train.”At the mention of Mary Poppins, all three children lit up and even Michael raised an eyebrow.“Oh,” said Georgie, “Mary Poppins sent you. Why didn’t you say so? Uncle Jack is this way.”Clearly, knowing Mary Poppins had removed all doubts that the children held concerning his strange and sudden appearance.Jane finally let go of him, staggering a bit as she did so. She was clearly ready to crash, the stress of everything and the lack of sleep getting to her. Now that there really was another alpha that she trusted, trusted implicitly, half the tension inside her just dropped away and it was all she could do to walk back to the bed before she dropped into a deep sleep.The children were a bit alarmed by this, in fact, but no one else paid her much mind, except in a vague, relieved sort of way. The adults rather expected it, and Bert was utterly distracted by finally seeing Jack. Jack watched Jane join him in the bed, blinking a lot in confusion, then turned his gaze to stare at Bert. Bert took the time to stare right back.Bert didn’t know what he expected after that last letter. ‘He hit me across the face’ it had said, and he could now see the bruise and ‘grabbed my wrist’ and there was his entire arm bound up and tied to his torso and ‘used a belt’. He couldn’t see those marks, but he could see the lines of pain on Jack’s face, the stress as he tried to sit up, the way his face was far too pale where it wasn’t a horrid mixture of purple and green and red and black. And the very fact that he was still in bed, rather than jumping up and running to him spoke volumes for the state he must be in.“Bert?” Jack said and he sounded…well, disbelieving mostly. Bert couldn’t blame him for that, considering he was supposed to be half a world away getting ready for his journey to India. The poor omega probably thought this some strange dream.“Jack,” said Bert, and then, because it had to be said and better to get it over with, “I got the letters you wrote me.”For a moment, Jack just looked confused. Then he flushed red, realization hitting him of which letters Bert must mean.“I…I put them in the fire and let the draft take them. I didn’t think…did you really get all of them? Did you…read them?”“I read what I got,” Bert answered, and Jack looked…wrong. He wasn’t even looking at Bert anymore, but towards his blanket, and he looked almost ashamed, though for what Bert couldn’t imagine. So Bert crossed the room and knelt on the floor at his side.“Jack,” said Bert, “What is going on inside your head?”Jack played with the blanket a bit, and Bert waited, knowing it was sometimes hard for Jack to find the words. Michael and Angus gave them their space, and Ellen hadn’t even followed them into the room, but the children weren’t quite as tactful.“He thinks it’s his fault that the wicked alpha hurt him,” said Georgie, his young voice a mixture of anger and indignant disbelief at this wrong thinking. “We told him that isn’t true.”“Of course it isn’t Jack’s fault,” Bert stated firmly, and was rewarded by a sideways glance from Jack, as well as the strong approval radiating off the children. Then Georgie walked up to Bert and tugged at his jacket. Bert looked down at him, having no idea what to expect.“It isn’t your fault either,” said Georgie. “We all decided that too. It isn’t any of our fault. It’s the wicked alpha who beat him’s fault; that’s all.”“You come from a very smart Pack,” Bert answered, and Georgie beamed. Even Jack’s lips turned up in spite of the wary way he still picked at the blanket. Bert waited.“I feel…ashamed,” said Jack at long last. Georgie immediately opened his mouth, clearly intending to inform Jack how unashamed he should be, and Bert grabbed the boy’s shoulder to silence him. Gently, of course, but firmly. And Michael came forward and called his children away, telling them to let Bert talk with Jack alone. In fact, he drew them right out of the room, something that had hardly been allowed since the whole mess had started, but Jane was asleep and didn’t protest and Bert was on edge but more over Jack than anyone else (he knew them, even cared for them, but they weren’t his Pack) and they were allowed to go.Jack watched them go, not worried, not relieved…he just watched them go.“Why do you feel ashamed?” Bert asked, once they were, more or less, alone. Jack returned his attention to him, still not looking him in the eye.“I let him…”“No,” Bert interrupted. “You didn’t ‘let’ anything. You didn’t choose him. The court did. You didn’t choose to be beaten; he decided to do that. And he was wrong to do it.” And I might well join Jane when she goes after him, he didn’t say. He just thought it very loudly.“I didn’t fight,” Jack tried next. “I was too weak…”“The person who wrote these letters didn’t sound weak,” Bert answered. “And he didn’t sound like he’d stopped fighting. He sounded smart. He did what he could to survive and got away when he could.”“I should have told someone…someone besides you, when I knew you wouldn’t really read the letters…”“Yes, you should have,” agreed Bert, and then, “But I understand why you didn’t. You were trying to protect everyone. That’s always been your greatest weakness, your need to protect everyone. And your greatest strength. And I’d never ever blame you for that.”And then Jack looked at him at last, looking shy and (and that horrid black eye marred his expression) and sweet and there, in the corner of his good eye, there was that spark that had been missing.“And how did you get my letters, Bert?” he asked.“Delivered by a boy who called me Bird, the English man who sings. And he got them off a woman who assured me she is not a postman and she doesn’t read other people’s letters.”“You saw Mary Poppins?” he asked, pure joy filling his face, before a bit of the shame returned. “Does she…know?”“She’s Mary Poppins,” Bert answered. “If she knows anything, she’ll never share it. Anyway, she led me onto a train yesterday evening with a penguin for a conductor and this morning I was in London.”“We went travelling ourselves when she was here,” Jack said, the smile Bert had been missing all this while appearing at last. “To China, so to speak.” And then he laughed. And it was beautiful, and for the first time since receiving those horrible letters, Bert felt a bit of tension leave him. At this moment he was certain that, come what may, Jack was going to be alright.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Lighting Jack’s lamps, when he already had his own lamps that needed lighting, was rather more burdensome than Angus would ever let on, especially to Jack. Of course, Jack already knew; he’d covered for other leeries before himself. There had been one horrible winter when they’d all been stretched so thin from illness (and death, it had been a hard winter), that they’d been obliged to leave some of the lights lit day and night just to get through the rest in a reasonable time. It burned at their pride (not to mention, burned up extra fuel) and friends of friends helped lighten the load without expectation of pay wherever they could, but there was one dark corner of London that saw light all winter long, day and night. It could, just barely, be justified because it was a shadowy street.There was no need for such extreme measures that spring, but covering for even one man was tough. In fact, by quick arrangement (no questions asked), Angus split the route with four other leeries who happened to cross routes with Jack. Two of them didn’t even know Jack well; they heard a leerie was in trouble and needed a hand, and they jumped to it. Two did know Jack and did have questions, questions Angus hadn’t been able to answer at the time, but no questions about whether or not they were willing to help out. They just wanted to know what was wrong.So the five leeries performed a sort of dance that morning and again that evening, as they took on the bits closest to their own route, nodding their hats to the others as they passed each other, seemingly at random and yet, somehow, not one of Jack’s lamps was likely to be missed.Angus hated to leave number 17 as the afternoon turned towards evening, but unlike Jack, he wasn’t injured and the lamps did need lighting. There was no reason to create the unnecessary burden of Angus’s route on top of Jack’s. Anyway, the others really did deserve to know what was going on with Jack, Fred and Chalky especially, but all his other mates as well.Luckily, Jack was asleep again as he left, so no one had to argue with Jack about whether or not he was well enough to do his job. Knowing Jack, he’d want to try, and knowing the Banks, they’d sit on him (gently) before letting that happen. Ellen may or may not have timed an innocent cup of medicated tea that led to his falling asleep at almost the time for Angus to leave, but perhaps it was lucky coincidence. She certainly wasn’t admitting to anything. Bert watched Angus go, clearly wishing he could offer to take Jack’s route himself, but Jane was still fast asleep and he wasn’t about to let her down and just leave, no matter how safe the Banks and Jack really were locked inside the house.Angus started backwards from the way Jack usually went, considering he was already at the wrong end and there was no point going in circles and creating extra work. He swerved off his own way a couple of streets down, tipping his hat to a passing leerie and going around several streets before going aside again to do some of Jack’s.What happened next was so entirely unlikely that Angus would have nightmares even a year later over what should have happened.He never should have converged at a certain lamp at almost the exact time as Fred. That is to say, if they were going to cross paths, that would have been the place to do it, because Fred was set to take on a bit of Jack’s route just there, just where Angus was set to go down a shortcut through a wall and on to his own route, with only a little bit of backtracking needed to manage. But them actually both managing their routes so that they crossed at almost exactly the same time was incredibly unlikely.What should have happened was one of two scenarios. Angus should have reached a certain lamp first, and the confrontation that was inevitable should have happened to him, and there shouldn’t have been anyone about to intervene. Or Fred should have reached it first, alone. They should have faced the lamp alone, either of them, because it was a lamp at both their cross roads and whoever reached it first would have felt obliged to light it.It was a somewhat familiar lamp. Angus had watched Jack staring at that lamp for some five minutes once, as though willing it to ignite without his doing a thing. The lamp was next to a dark alleyway in a remote, shadowy corner with no businesses nearby and no doors opening on the street and not even much in the way of windows.It was the perfect place for an ambush. And a young omega leerie, being alone, could easily be grabbed by an irate alpha, and very likely even if the omega did shout for help, no one would hear. Especially if the alpha were quick to silence any cries.Fred or Angus should have been that lone omega. Like Jack was.What happened was Fred rode up to the lamp alone. He wasn’t wary in the slightest; it was near there that he’d run down the alpha trying to drag Jack away but not at the lamp and he hadn’t made the connection.He wasn’t wary but he was anxious. Not over being attacked, but knowing that Jack had been attacked. He was very much preoccupied in knowing his friend was injured. He remembered how Jack had trembled, how he had looked so unlike himself so…so small. And the horrid policeman who didn’t seem inclined to run after the alpha, not even seeing Jack’s eye, just asking his questions and tsking when Jack wouldn’t (couldn’t) answer.They probably should have made Jack go to hospital, but when Jack would speak it was to ask to go home, and the horrid policeman had said ‘well, if he wants home, he can’t be that bad off’.And then Jack lied, and they all knew it was a lie because it wasn’t just his eye, it clearly wasn’t; he was holding his arm all the while and holding himself all stiff and…and it was all just horrible and Fred kept looking to Angus to make things right, because Angus was the one who always knew what to do (when it wasn’t Jack who knew what to do). And Angus did know what to do.“He needs his alpha,” he said, and Fred was ready to run for Chalky in a moment, only Angus held him back. “Not Chalky…his alpha. His Chimney Stack.” Angus meant his Pack.That had hurt, just a bit, because Fred saw his own Pack as being Angus and Chalky and Jack, only Jack had found a new Pack and he was still their friend but he was no longer theirs.“He won’t go,” Fred had pointed out.“Oh yes, he will,” said Angus. “Just wait until it’s time to trip the light. His route goes right by the Banks’ house. And not a one of them would let him just ride off having seen that.”“He can’t possibly do his route!” Fred had protested, a bit aghast at the very idea. And he was certain he was right, and Jack himself would admit defeat. (Jack, who was still shaking, at once curling in on himself and holding himself so stiff and rigid, Jack who still wasn’t speaking, not really, just holding to himself, holding himself away from them). There was no way Jack was well enough to light the lamps that evening. Angus, it seemed, knew Jack better. Jack insisted he was fine. Except he wanted to trade routes with Fred.If he hadn’t spoken to Angus first, Fred might have assumed Jack wanted to trade because he was attacked while doing his own route, and he would have traded in a heartbeat. After talking to Angus, he knew better. Jack was avoiding his Pack. Fred refused the trade. He felt a bit like he was betraying Jack in that moment, but he trusted Angus so he stuck with it.Then Angus came back and Jack didn’t, and Angus explained to him and Chalky that it had worked and Jack was with his Pack and unlikely to do his route in the morning.“You should have gotten me,” Chalky had growled, irate at being left out, irate that his omega had scampered off to a new Pack that Chalky didn’t know, and so he couldn’t judge if they were good for Jack. Irate that apparently his omega had been attacked, and he didn’t know. Irate that if he did what his instincts were screaming at him to do, the court might well say he had no right and turn against him.“You should have already known,” Angus growled right back, which Fred thought unfair but Angus meant it.Usually, Chalky had his own place and the three omegas had theirs, but that night Chalky stayed. He wasn’t about to let Fred or Angus out of his sight. He mostly cuddled with Fred, as Angus was too prickly and growled away any attempt at comfort.Fred rather thought Angus truly did blame Chalky, at least a bit. Worse though, he blamed himself. Between all the blaming, Angus neither felt inclined to take comfort from Chalky, nor felt he deserved the comfort in the first place.Then the next day, Angus went to see Jack and didn’t return. Chalky, who didn’t go to his own work, still hovering, lamented that he was losing all his Pack.“I’m still here,” Fred had said.“Until you meet some nice alpha who sweeps you off your feet,” Chalky had said, then held up a hand when Fred tried to protest. “And that’s as it should be; you all were always meant to move on from me in the end. It was just nice…being needed.”It grew later and Fred left to light his lamps, as well as the lamps of Jack that were allotted to him. Chalky didn’t like him leaving, but he’d never been the sort of alpha who ruled over his omegas, and he allowed Fred the choice.Fred wasn’t about to let the other leeries down, not even for Chalky.He had Jack in his mind as he went on his way, remembering the last time he’d seen him, which was not the nicest picture to hold in his head. It was hard not to think about Jack when he was swinging away from his own familiar route to follow Jack’s path.He came to the lonely lamp and clambered up his ladder and lit it.He wasn’t expecting hands to grab him from behind and drag him away from the light, into the darkness of the alleyway.“Hey!” he shouted, surprised more than scared, and he tried to twist away, only to be thrown instead so that he ended up half fallen against the wall.“Where’s my omega?” growled his attacker, and in an instance, Fred understood. Before him was the same alpha that had been intent on dragging away Jack, and now he wanted to do it again, only it was Fred who had come instead.Fred would be lying if he said he didn’t feel fear in that moment, because he did, a deep and primal sort of fear. It’s just, that fear was almost entirely overshadowed by something much stronger; an incandescent rage.“Jack is not your omega,” Fred growled right back, crouched against the wall as though ready to spring, whether at the alpha or in the other direction to escape, not even Fred was certain. He wanted to attack…but the parts of his mind that were still rational knew it would be stupid to do so, that he was in very real danger of being hurt like Jack had been, if not hurt worse, if not killed.Part of the anger wasn’t just in that the alpha had attacked Jack, either. It was in what the alpha had intended to do. Because he had been dragging Jack away, and Fred had spent half the night imagining what could have happened if no one had stopped him.The best thing to do would be to run. Failing that, he should scream and shout and raise a fuss so someone would have to come.Unfortunately for Fred, who felt a helpless fury he knew he couldn’t act on, and who fully intended to follow through with those self-preserving plans, he had, with his words, ignited a similar fury in the already irate alpha before him. The alpha who was, in fact, blocking the way out of the alley and who was, by nature, much stronger than Fred, and now was stronger yet, fueled by his rage.So before Fred could attempt to flee or shout, he was pushed to the ground with such force it knocked the air out of him, making any attempts to shout for help impossible, and in that terrifying moment, when the alpha became as big as the world, looming over him, Fred was certain he was about to be killed.“Try to keep my omega away from me, will you?” the alpha snarled. “I’ll teach you what happens to stupid rude omegas who don’t know how to respond to their betters!”And he cast about for something to beat Fred with. With Jack, he’d used Jack’s torch, but Fred’s was back with his bike, out of reach. His belt might have done, but his hands trembled in his rage, and undoing the belt in that moment seemed far more difficult than it was worth, and would certainly take too long. So the alpha might well have simply given in and used his fists and feet with devastating results, only his eyes swept the alley first and alighted upon an old umbrella, doubtless broken or rusted shut, for why else would it have been left in an alley?The alpha grabbed it by the handle and raised it, intending on raining down blows enough to teach the omega a lesson not soon forgotten, before he’d again demand the location of his omega.Only the umbrella bit his hand.“Yah!” he shouted, dropping it, and then staring at the blood that now coated his palm. Alpha and omega both stared at the umbrella. One was thinking ‘umbrellas don’t bite, not even umbrellas with parrot head handles, it must have a sharp bit sticking out I didn’t see, no wonder it was abandoned’. Fred’s thoughts were rather simpler and pretty much boiled down to ‘I know that umbrella’ and ‘this is going to be good.’In the meantime, Angus, who, by all probable odds, should have missed out on everything, due to being too early or too late in passing the lamp, happened by very shortly after Fred was dragged into the alley.Angus saw the lamp was already lit, saw the abandoned bike, remembered the lamp as being the one that Jack had actually been afraid to light, and came to the reasonable conclusion.The smart thing to do would be to shout and scream and go running for any help he could find.Not quite as smart, but the course Angus went with, was to grab up his heavy torch, light it, give a loud and piercing whistle that echoed throughout the neighborhood, and then charge into the dark alleyway with a war cry.Fred was only just pulling himself up, and Bill was only just about to make a move to kick him down again, when the whistle caught their attention. Fred, who recognized a call for aid, grinned.This was pretty much all the warning that the alpha had before a lit torch was being swung at his back with all the force the omega could muster. Angus might have been no alpha, but that didn’t mean he was nearly as weak as society liked to pretend, and at any rate, a strong torch can make up for quite a bit of weakness.It didn’t catch Bill in the back, but the side, because he’d started to turn. The surprise of it, along with the heaviness of the blow, was enough to knock him clean off his feet. The fact that the torch was on fire didn’t actually help or hinder much, but it certainly intimidated when he rolled over to face his attacker and was met with a swinging ball of flame.With an enraged growl, the alpha rolled away from the torch, and naturally grabbed at anything at hand to defend himself. In this case, it was, once more, the umbrella.The umbrella bit him again, even harder this time. Only this time, it didn’t let go.He howled, waving his hand around that had a parrot’s beak firmly clamped to it (that was no sharp bit sticking out, the umbrella was biting him!). And so he did basically nothing to ward off the oncoming blows from not one, but two directions. Angus had his torch. Fred had his feet. And the alpha was still on the ground.By the time two leeries and a sweep showed up, drawn by Angus’s whistle for help, the only help needed was in deciding whether it was proper for them to kill the alpha themselves, or if he shouldn’t be saved for their alphas.The law would actually find it more questionable for omegas to kill an alpha (at least with no children involved) than if an alpha did it, which wasn’t particularly fair, but also not the reason they hesitated (because if it came to it, the leeries and the sweep could also have been a help in getting rid of the body).“Miss Banks won’t feel right if she doesn’t see it done,” Angus decided, which was the real reason they left off before administering the killing blow. So instead they tied him up and then sort of just looked at him, not really certain what to do next.Despite the way he now had a bloody nose and the beginnings of a black eye, (and a bleeding hand, and a rather bad burn across his shoulder…and those were just the obvious wounds that could be seen) Bill glared furiously at the crowd of omegas and betas that surrounded him.“If you do not let me go this instance,” he said, his voice oddly proper despite the cold tone it was delivered in, “I will see you all before the judge. In fact, I believe I will see you all there, regardless. I know him well, and he looks down on those who keep an alpha from his omega, and as for omegas who go around attacking their betters…he may well have you put down like the mad dogs you are!”“Why didn’t we gag him, again?” Angus asked, not sounding particularly worried by the threats.“Nothing appropriate to do it with,” the sweep answered, equally as unconcerned. “We could try knocking him senseless?”“We should fetch a pork chop,” Fred suggested, to the general disapproval of the others, who had less kind opinions on the police and didn’t trust they’d be on their side.“Here, what’s going on?” said a suspicious voice that didn’t belong to any of them, and an electric torch was shone down the alley, going from the leeries, to the sweep, to the generally respectable looking, if rather beat up alpha, trussed up on the ground and glaring coldly at everyone. They hadn’t had to fetch a cop after all; one had found them.To Fred’s annoyance, it was a familiar policeman. He began to feel the others might have the right opinion after all. It was the same man who hardly seemed to care that Jack had been attacked. And the alpha at their feet was the first to answer him.“These barbaric thugs attacked me,” he said. “Arrest them at once.”“He attacked me first!” Fred protested. “And he attacked Jack and tried to kidnap him. You know, the omega you helped walk home who you thought didn’t need real help because he wasn’t fallen unconscious on the pavement.”The others didn’t speak. They just stood there, making five of them to the single policeman.The policeman might have thought them guilty or he might have thought them innocent, it was impossible to tell with the way his light shown at them, making it hard to really get a good read on his face. What the policeman was not, was stupid, and he did not attempt to arrest five men on his own. Not even at the words of a man it was soon evident he knew.“What is going on here, Bill?” he demanded. “What’s all this talk about you kidnapping your omega, anyway? Why were you having to drag him home? Surely it’s better to let a bad one go than get into all this trouble?”“He’s mine!” the alpha growled furiously in response. “Whether I have to drag him or not!”“Is that what all this is about?” asked the sweep. And then, “I’ve changed my mind; should have doused ‘em when we had the chance.”Which wasn’t exactly how a leerie would have said it, but close enough that none of them mistook him for wanting to take the alpha out to dinner. The policeman might or might not have understood, but either way he changed tactics from suspicious to trying to calm everyone down.“Look,” said the policeman in what he clearly meant to be a consoling tone, “The boy had got knocked around a bit, sure, but he was standing and talking and, well, Bill wouldn’t do him real harm.”“No real harm?!” Angus exclaimed. “Cracked ribs, welts all across his back, and bruising from head to toe bad enough the doc warned about pissing blood, and you say not that bad?!”There was a longer moment of silence.“Anyway,” Fred added. “Like I told him. Jack has an alpha. And if you think us letting him live is a mercy, just wait until Miss Banks comes for him.”“Now see here…” the poor policeman tried to say, only he clearly didn’t know what he wanted them to see, as became apparent when everyone waited for him to come out with something coherent and intelligent and he just opened and closed his mouth for a long moment.“Just you arrest them all!” shouted Bill. “Or better yet, get me out of this, and I’ll teach them myself the meaning of real discipline!”“Not much of a lesson if you die from it,” one of the leeries pointed out.“I think you should all come with me,” the policeman tried to order, only it came out as more of a suggestion, and he clearly avoided mentioning arresting anyone. “I will call for backup,” he added, in case they didn’t think his suggestion intimidating enough.“I was rather wondering why you hadn’t already,” Angus said. “Isn’t that what cops do? Wander the streets in gangs?”“We protect the innocent,” the policeman answered, indignant. And then he blew his whistle and everyone tensed. Instinctively, at least half of them wanted to run, but they knew the best thing really would be to stick together and make their case. The law didn’t favor omegas or betas attacking alphas…but it also didn’t look kindly on alphas who attacked omegas first, and it really was not favorable to those alphas attempting to steal another alpha’s omega.When new person did enter the alleyway, everyone tensed, no one knowing what the new policeman would think. Only, it wasn’t a cop.“Oh good, a strong, brave policeman,” said a woman’s cultured voice. “I’m so glad I ran into you. You see, I seem to have mislaid my umbrella and was rather hoping you could help me find it.”
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Jane slept soundly and deeply for hours. Then, once her body had mostly caught up on the missed rest and refreshed itself from the prolonged stress of watching over her Pack alone, she began to stir. She surfaced enough to dream those half-awake, troubled dreams that disturb the slumber of those who go to bed full of anxiety. In her dream, she was walking around London, down dark alley after dark alley, looking for her Pack. They were all missing, every last one of them, and she was a horrible alpha who failed them utterly, and there was a deep feeling of doom. No violence, no scenes of blood, no one dead, nothing to startle her awake with a cry…just an unsettling feeling of everything is wrong, and she was alone, and no matter where she went her Pack was gone.It was a bit of a relief when a hand grasped her by the shoulder and shook her awake.The dregs of the dream stayed with her, but even before she opened her eyes, she calmed. She could smell her Pack around her, knew she was in her own territory and that no strangers had invaded, and that went a far way to settle her frayed nerves. And she wasn’t fully rested, not really, but she had slept well enough that she was ready to face another day, or rather night, as the sun had already set.That it was Bert waking her was a bit surprising. She had rather thought he’d been part of a dream as well.Then she had to wonder why he was waking her, particularly as it was dark out, and she looked at him, suddenly very wide awake, and waited for him to speak.“Jack has a fever,” Bert told her calmly, but seriously. “I’ve asked Ellen to call for the doctor again.”Jane turned in the bed. Jack was still present. He was still asleep even, but restless; Michael was holding him still to keep him from twisting onto the worst of his wounds and hurting himself. Even asleep, Jack looked like he was in pain, his face tense. Jane reached out a hand to feel his forehead and was distressed to find that Bert wasn’t exaggerating the need for the doctor. Jack wasn’t just too warm; he was like a furnace.“When did this happen?” Jane demanded, only in a whisper to avoid disturbing Jack further.“It came on suddenly,” Michael whispered back, sounding stressed but not defensive, clearly worried himself. “We were letting him sleep. Then he started to move about and I came to keep him from hurting himself and…and that’s when we realized.”Jane moved her hand away from Jack’s forehead, and Jack whimpered, tilting his head towards her, searching out her touch even in his sleep, and she quickly brought her hand back, this time to stroke against his hair.“He wants you,” Bert remarked. “This is the calmest he’s gone since he started stirring. He wants his alpha…and that’s no longer me.”“But he isn’t mine…not really,” Jane said, sounding miserable to admit it. “I mean…he wanted me to claim him, I know he did, but I…I never…I was…”“You were afraid,” Bert said, finishing her sentence for her with such gentleness that it almost hurt. Jane looked over her shoulder towards him, her body still facing Jack, her hand in his hair. Jack was so warm beneath her fingers it rather terrified her. Jack had stilled when she’d reached for him again, and that almost scared her more than the thrashing had done, because he was so still, and he was fevered and at least when he moved she knew he wasn’t actively dying. She had allowed an omega in her pack to come to this, and now Bert was there, the next best thing to being Jane’s uncle…to being Jack’s father…and surely he would be furious at what she had allowed her fear to do.But he didn’t sound angry, and he didn’t look angry. He looked like he understood and sympathized.“He mentioned you in his letters, you know,” Bert said. She hadn’t known Jack had written anything to Bert, but just then didn’t seem the time to discuss Jack’s correspondence. Jane continued to look towards Bert, and Bert was kind enough to move about to Jack’s side of the bed so she didn’t have to crane her neck. Or perhaps he just wanted to be closer to Jack too. From there, Bert continued to make his point.“He said he was happy to know you. And he didn’t care if you ever bonded or married. He was just happy to be in your pack. He’s rather fond of all the Banks family, I think you’ll find.”“If I had bonded with him, that alpha would never have dared to touch him. He’d know Jack was claimed.”“Perhaps,” Bert agreed. This earned a look from Michael, no matter that he was now the one who had to twist his neck around to manage it. “But any alpha insane enough to think it’s okay to hurt an omega like that…who doesn’t hear ‘no’, who stalks an omega…that isn’t the sort of alpha who is going to respect a claim. See, I know his type. In his mind, he’s already claimed the omega as his, never mind biology or laws, and as his property it’s his right to do whatever he likes with his omega. Even beat him to death. If anything, you claiming him would enrage him worse, and who knows what he’d have done in his rage.”At the words ‘beat him to death’, Jane shuddered and Michael inadvertently tightened his hold enough to make Jack squirm again.“You’re okay,” Jane half crooned to Jack as Michael quickly loosened his hold to something gentler. Then, in the same half crooning tone, she said, “Where is the rest of my Pack?” Because it was only the four of them in the room.“I sent the children to keep an eye out for the doctor,” Michael answered. “Ellen is with them.”“And Angus?”“Oh…is he Pack now?” That was Bert, sounding amused in spite of everything. “Poor Chalky, losing half his Pack in one go. Angus went to light the lamps.”“Alone?” Jane asked, her voice deceptively calm as she continued to stroke Jack’s hair.“He’s a grown man, and it is his job,” Bert pointed out gently, knowing she couldn’t help her instincts but that didn’t give her the right to become her Pack’s jailer, particularly as Angus hadn’t actually agreed to be in her Pack yet.“…There’s a mad alpha still out there who has already attacked one omega leerie…and now Angus is doubtless doing Jack’s route…alone…”Well, when she put it like that, perhaps it would have been a good idea to have held Angus back. Bert actually flushed a bit and tilted his head, submissive to another alpha’s reprimand. Michael, on the other hand, was having none of it.“What exactly could we have done differently?” he demanded, voice low and soft enough not to disturb Jack, but clearly displeased. “Stop every omega leerie from doing their job until the mad alpha is destroyed? Make them double up when they are already stretched too thin? Or I suppose next you’ll be saying omegas shouldn’t have such a dangerous job as lighting lamps. As far as we know, the only leerie the wicked alpha is interested in is Jack. And he’s here, with us. So you can stop growling at Bert.”To which Jane and Bert shared a look, alpha to alpha, that acknowledged that Jane was right, but they were going to humor Michael, because he was sort of right too. Michael noticed the look, and might well have responded to it to share his displeasure, but at that moment there was a cacophony of cries from the other room.The doctor had arrived on their lane and the children sang out the alarm. The noise was followed by clear attempts to shush each other, and then came a respectful and quiet knock at the bedroom door.Bert opened it because none of them wanted to shout to allow them entry in case it disturbed Jack.“Aunt Jane,” said Annabel, “the doctor and his omega assistant are here. May we open the front door to let them in?”“Yes, thank you for asking first,” Jane answered softly and sweetly, and then gave Bert a significant look over Michael’s head, and she didn’t even need to ask before the older alpha headed for the front door after them.Michael noticed the looks anyway.“I don’t actually mind you being protective of my children,” he said, sounding perhaps grumpier than the situation called for. “If you want an alpha to open the door for them, you can say so.”“Tetchy,” Jane answered with a sort of smile (she was too anxious still for a full smile).“Well…you got to sleep half the day. I’ve had three anxious children to entertain indoors, along with a sore omega who doesn’t like being in bed and likes to pretend he’s fine, and an anxious alpha who spent the day trying to pretend he wasn’t anxious in the least. Why everyone in this house has to pretend all the time…”“Pretending is fun,” said Georgie as the children walked back into the room in front of Bert and the doctor. Michael rather ate his own words with the speed in which he tried to arrange his face into something less anxious and irritable so as to keep his children at ease.The doctor waited in the doorway politely for Jane to invite him in, which she did.“I’m happy to see you did find another alpha to help guard your pack,” said the doctor, eyeing Bert as he walked past him into the room, the omega assistant at his heels. “Now, let me see how our young man is faring.”And while he said ‘let me’ in the authoritative sort of way all professionals got, he meant it literally as well, because alphas are not always reasonable in the protection of injured or ill pack members. Jane rather found she wanted to growl at the intruders, in fact, but she had enough sense to allow the doctor closer instead.Bert had a worse time of it, not actually knowing the doctor, but this wasn’t his territory and, love for all of them aside, it wasn’t strictly his Pack, so despite being older he bowed to Jane’s authority and had plenty of self-control to refrain from doing more than glaring. The omega’s presence helped, too. She stayed in the background, but her clear alliance with the doctor went far towards easing the tension.With some reluctance, Michael disentangled himself from the sick omega on the bed, then ushered his children back out of the room, to the children’s equal displeasure. It wasn’t even completely about protecting his children from the reality of exactly how badly Jack had been hurt, either. The fewer vulnerable pack members in the room, the less anxious the two alphas would be about the non-pack members’ intrusion.“But, we want to help…” Annabel protested, while John tried, “We can stand out of the way,” and Georgie said, “We can sing to Uncle Jack and calm him down again.”Michael, with long experience, didn’t even bother to argue but had them out of the room and the door closed in moments.The first thing the doctor did, upon being allowed to approach Jack, was to lean over him and pat at his cheek.“Jack?” said the doctor in a gentle but firm tone, and Jack made a distressed noise but didn’t open his eyes. Jane growled at the doctor. The omega assistant was quick to intercede.“It’s okay,” she crooned gently. “The doctor only wants to assess him, not hurt him.”“It would be better if he were able to wake up,” the doctor explained gently. “I’d prefer to be able to talk to him. And if he can’t wake up, taking his temperature will be unpleasant for him.”Still glaring, Jane nonetheless acknowledged the doctor’s words, and turned to Jack herself, gently patting at his cheek (the one that wasn’t all bruised, of course).“Jack?” she said, soft through habit, then reminding herself she wasn’t meant to be soothing him back to sleep she tried again, more loudly. “Jack? Can you answer me, please?”Jack made more distressed noises, but he didn’t open his eyes or even make an attempt towards a coherent answer.“His temperature appears to be very high,” the doctor observed. “It’s not a good sign if he’s unable to become coherent.”“Jack?” Jane tried again, louder yet again as she felt her own heartbeat speeding up with worry and concern. “Jack, wake up.”“Ja…” Jack said, what might have been an attempt at her name or might just have been more noises, but Jane was desperate enough to take it as a good sign.“That’s it, Jack, wake up, come on. The doctor is here to take your temperature and he’s going to make you feel better.”But Jack still didn’t open his eyes. His face did sort of scrunch up, like he was aware at least on some level of what was happening and he didn’t like it, but he didn’t attempt anything else resembling words, just more distressed noises.“Jack?” Jane said again, pleading and terrified.“This isn’t entirely unexpected,” the doctor said, his tone gentle but all too serious to be reassuring. Of course, it wasn’t his job to be reassuring; it was his job to find out what ailed Jack and do his best to help him. So, to that end, he said, “Help me undress him. I need to take his temperature, and I need to find out what is causing the fever in the first place. If there’s an infection in his wounds, or if his weakened body picked up an illness or it could simply be the stress of everything. We need to bring the fever down, whatever the cause.”The first time the doctor had examined Jack had been uncomfortable and awkward but necessary. This time, with Jack not even coherent, it felt almost like a violation. At least they were able to leave his pants on this time as they already knew there were no significant wounds hidden there (and it turned out Jack was coherent enough to hold the thermometer in his mouth…at least he was when Jane begged him to not spit it out; he still didn’t open his eyes but he responded to her).Even as they waited on the thermometer, the doctor had his assistant unwind the bandages and he himself dug in his bag for a needle and some drugs. Jane worked hard to not panic, if only because Jack was definitely responding to her voice and she didn’t want to upset him.“106 degrees” was the pronouncement when the thermometer was removed, and as though in attempt to contrast, Jane felt like a shard of ice had pierced her heart. Too high was an understatement, and the doctor didn’t even attempt to console them that Jack would be fine.Bert hovered, probably rather in the way. He had gone quite pale, in fact, and the pronouncement of the temperature was only partly to blame. It was the first time for him to actually see the damage done to Jack’s torso.“No infection here,” the doctor remarked, as if it were perfectly healthy for a back to look like that…black and blue and yellow and sewn shut in a few places and…and Bert was going to kill the alpha who did this. No matter that technically Jane had prior claim, that even Chalky currently had greater claim than Bert at the moment. He was going to kill him.Just as soon as Jack was better. Jack had to get better.The doctor looked far too serious when he directed the closest tub to be filled with cool water, as he prepared an injection, as he quietly explained that they had to get Jack’s fever down right now, or there could be permanent damage. He didn’t say, or Jack could die, but it was rather telling that he also didn’t reassure anyone that that wasn’t an option.That wasn’t an option.They stripped away the remains of Jack’s clothes after all, because there was no point in modesty in a medical emergency and they were in the way in the tub.They rather wished that Jack would open his eyes and protest. He wasn’t even whimpering anymore. He’d gone utterly limp, even as Jane lowered him into the water.For the longest five minutes of any of their lives, Jack lay still, and his fever burned, and Jane and Bert watched and wondered how it could have come to this so quickly.And then Jack started to shiver, and made a whining sort of protest, and he opened his eyes.“Well,” said the doctor, “This will make taking his temperature again much easier. Jack looked at him, blinked a few times, then turned to look at Jane and Bert, as though waiting for an explanation.Jane would have felt better if he’d actually ask why he was sitting naked in a tub while they all watched him, but the fact that he was awake at all felt like a blessing.“You had a bit of a fever,” she explained, despite the fact that Jack hadn’t actually asked. “We had to bring it down.”“I believe he can come out now,” the doctor said. “The medicine seems to be doing its work.”And when his temperature was taken again, it was a not quite so alarming 102. Half an hour before, if Jane had learned that Jack had a fever of 102, she’d have been alarmed. Now she felt relieved.“Well young man,” said the doctor, as they redid his bandages and helped to settle Jack back in the bed. “You gave us quite a fright. I would feel better if you could answer some questions. Verbally.”Jack looked at the doctor, then at Jane again, who gave him an encouraging sort of look, then at Bert, who hadn’t quite lost that mixture of murderous rage, horror, and worry that had entered his expression when he first saw Jack’s naked back. Bert nonetheless also tried to offer an encouraging look. From the slightly alarmed way Jack stared back, Bert suspected he’d missed the mark.“Is everyone alright?” were the first words Jack said since the entire ordeal began. Not quite as clearly as he’d normally say the words; there was a slight slur and a slight hoarseness to his voice, but he was perfectly coherent.It probably didn’t reassure Jack in the slightest that his question was met by Jane bursting into tears and Bert, looking seconds away from following suite. The doctor patted Jack on the arm.“They’ve just had a trying time,” he said gently. “Do try to get some rest. Rest will do you a world of good.”The doctor stayed with them until Jack’s fever had dwindled to 99.8. He left them with more medicine, and many whispered instructions.“But what caused the fever?” Jane wanted to know. “Is he sick?”“Not as such,” the doctor answered. “The simple answer is stress. Omegas are naturally weaker than alphas or betas, and the stress of being attacked and injured was too much for him to handle.” It was probably just as well that Michael was still outside the room with the children; he wouldn’t have taken that well. Jane wasn’t sure she accepted such a simplistic explanation either. Jack spiked a fever just because he was weak? Jane glanced at the doctor’s omega assistant. If she had been anything like Michael, she’d be taking offense at that moment, but she merely smiled kindly and sympathetically, doing her job of calming the stressed alphas in the room and not seeming to care what the doctor implied about omegas.“It has been known to happen in similar cases,” the doctor added, clearly sensing her dissatisfaction with his answer.“Jack didn’t seem stressed before all this,” Bert said, frowning as well. “He was just resting, in fact.”“Well…it could also be he picked up some minor ailment, and in his weakened state it spiraled out of control,” the doctor suggested.“And is it likely to happen again?” Jane wanted to know.“He responded well to the medicine,” the doctor said, which wasn’t a yes or a no and not at all reassuring.The doctor and his assistant were repacking his bag and preparing to leave when Bert dragged him aside.“How likely is this to kill Jack,” he whispered, not wanting anyone else to hear but needing to know.If he had hoped for the doctor to say “Not a chance” then he was disappointed.“He is in a precarious position right now,” the doctor said instead. “Another fever like that and…it wouldn’t be good. His body is weakened, and he is stressed. He was…stalked, yes? By a rival alpha? And beaten. Omegas are fragile; I can see you don’t like me saying that, but they are. If he had simply gotten his injuries by accident…falling maybe…I wouldn’t be so concerned, but the stress of being attacked…there have been similar cases in the past, as I said, and they did not all end well. Having his Pack around him will help. If he can be kept quiet and resting…he is already healing some and nothing in the way of his wounds is fatal. I would like to say he will have a full recovery but…I cannot tell you that death is not a possibility. Not yet. Keep to his medication schedule and stay close to him. I do not think he will die, but I cannot tell you he won’t.”The doctor left and the rest of the pack was allowed back in the room. The children were surprisingly quiet, subdued even. They clearly sensed the seriousness of what had just happened, even if they didn’t know the details. At least, the adults were fairly certain the children didn’t know the details. Sometimes, they seemed to have a supernatural knowledge of everything going on.“Is Uncle Jack alright?” John whispered as they gathered close to him.“I’m fine,” whispered Jack right back.“You are supposed to be resting,” Jane scolded gently.“Am resting. Look, my eyes are closed and everything.”“Do you want us to sing for you?” Georgie asked.“That would be lovely,” Jack answered, so the children did, and slowly the tension eased from the entire room. At least it did, until there came yet another knock at their front door.“Is it the doctor coming back?” John asked.“Perhaps it’s Angus,” Michael suggested, “Or one of the other leeries.”“It’s a policeman,” Ellen announced. “Shall I let him in?”This time, Michael held the children in the room and Bert went to answer the door alone.
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“…You lost your umbrella?”Constable Earnest Johnson was not having the best of evenings. To begin with, he was meant to be off duty. As such, he probably should have changed out of his uniform before beginning his walk towards home, but he felt rather proud of his uniform, which was much nicer than his every day clothes, and inspired a certain amount of respect from passersby (and scorn, but he turned his nose up at those types of people…low-lives and criminals surely to have such strong feelings towards a keeper of the peace). And if someone happened to need his help and called on him even during his off duty times, well, it made him feel important.Only when he was on duty, properly, he would be sent out with Constable Henry Robins. Being off duty, it was rather alarming to hear a ruckus and stumble upon the esteemed and well connected William Hyde, bleeding and bound, surrounded by no less than five rough looking sorts who looked to be planning murder. Sure three out of the five were omegas, but he’d been a policeman long enough to know better than to discount an omega’s abilities in violence. And two were betas. And Earnest was alone, and a small part of him that he wasn’t proud of would have liked to back away and pretend he’d never stumbled upon this scene. He didn’t back away though, not with a clear crime of some sort in progress (at any rate, if they didn’t kill Bill, the man would be sure to remember his cowardliness and the constable would be lucky if it only cost him his job).Being alone, he tried to make sense of the situation as best he could, without inviting further violence. This was about Bill’s omega…the one Bill had gotten a bit too rough with a day or so ago, that Earnest had escorted home. That entire situation made Earnest feel uncomfortable. Everyone knew omegas needed a firm hand for their own good…but there were lines that shouldn’t be crossed. And in his heart, Earnest had to admit that Bill had crossed them. Striking an omega was wrong. And it was against the law. But…what could Earnest have done? Arrest William Hyde for a bit of overzealous disciplining? It would have come to nothing…and probably cost Earnest, if not his badge, then certainly his rank. And the omega wasn’t that bad off. If he’d just behaved nothing would have happened, and anyway, the omega was walking and talking and it was just a bit of a bruise and…he was fine.The five rough attackers didn’t look inclined to see reason, though. They weren’t just angry over a black eye either, saying Bill attacked them. That he tried to kidnap his own omega off the street. That bad feeling, the one Earnest had felt over Bill being too rough with his omega, it was back, only twice as strong. Earnest felt almost like he was the one in the wrong, and it wasn’t a pleasant feeling. So when he tried to get William Hyde to explain, he might have come across as a bit strong.“What is going on here, Bill?” he demanded. “What’s all this talk about you kidnapping your omega, anyway? Why were you having to drag him home? Surely it’s better to let a bad one go than get into all this trouble?”“He’s mine!” the alpha growled furiously in response. “Whether I have to drag him or not!”Bill’s response was far from being reassuring. For all the roughs looked the likely candidates for crime, Bill certainly sounded half mad. Certainly, the roughs didn’t sound impressed.“Is that what all this is about?” asked one of them. And then, “I’ve changed my mind; should have doused ‘em when we had the chance.”And no, that kind of talk shouldn’t be allowed, and…and Earnest should surely be backing Bill because, well, if Bill was in the wrong then maybe Earnest had been in the wrong, at least a bit and that was too uncomfortable to contemplate. No…what Earnest needed to do was calm the situation down before it got worse. Things weren’t as bad as the young omega was trying to make them out to be, not bad enough to start speaking about dousing people. Earnest had to explain.“Look, the boy had got knocked around a bit, sure, but he was standing and talking and, well, Bill wouldn’t do him real harm.”“No real harm?!” one of the omegas exclaimed, not placated at all, sounding furious in fact. “Cracked ribs, welts all across his back, and bruising from head to toe bad enough the doc warned about pissing blood, and you say not that bad?!”There was no good way to answer that. Earnest wanted to explain that Bill hadn’t done that…but…Bill looked outraged, only, for all the wrong reasons. He wasn’t outraged at the suggestion that he’d done…that. He was outraged because people were saying he shouldn’t.Still…William Hyde was a respectable man. And Earnest felt he had to say something when the other omega came out with , “Anyway, like I told him.” And he gestured at Bill. “Jack has an alpha. And if you think us letting him live is a mercy, just wait until Miss Banks comes for him.”“Now see here…” Earnest tried to interject, only he didn’t really know what he wanted them to see. It was just the sort of thing one says to try and calm things down, only usually everyone tries to keep on speaking and Earnest wasn’t sure what he was meant to say when no one did. See that Bill was a well connected alpha who the likes of them shouldn’t make lowly constables arrest because it would go bad for all of them? That wasn’t right, surely. The law was for everyone. See that Bill hadn’t done any real harm? Only…only maybe Bill had. He looked mad enough to do quite a bit of harm in that moment. See that Earnest wasn’t even on duty and he just wanted to go home and forget he’d seen anything? That wouldn’t go over well with anyone.“Just you arrest them all!” shouted Bill. “Or better yet, get me out of this, and I’ll teach them myself the meaning of real discipline!”“Not much of a lesson if you die from it,” one of the leeries pointed out. It was strange to look between them because all six were furious, but where the bound alpha looked half mad in his fury, the roughs burned coldly, angry but contained.This was not something he could handle on his own. He needed them all to come with him so someone with better pay than him could sort things out. Only…he was alone. How was he going to get five rough sorts and an irate alpha to follow him if they didn’t want to?“I think you should all come with me,” he told them anyway, and if it came off as more of a suggestion than an order, well, he knew and they knew that if they decided to fight him, he wasn’t going to come out on top. Feeling he had to at least make some effort, he added “I will call for backup.” And he held up his whistle importantly and tried to pretend that he knew for a fact there was another officer in hearing distance who would come running the moment he blew on it.“I was rather wondering why you hadn’t already,” one of the omegas said, his tone scathing. “Isn’t that what cops do? Wander the streets in gangs?”“We protect the innocent,” Earnest answered, indignant enough to break through his own doubt and fears. He blew his whistle, rather hoping that someone was nearby. Perhaps that someone would even take complete charge and say something like, “I say, Earnest, aren’t you off duty? Just go along home, we’ll deal with this lot.” And then he could go on his way and maybe start bringing his change of clothes to work so he wouldn’t be expected to intervene in such situations in his off hours.What he got was a cultured woman who somehow, with a single look, seemed to know everything about him…and found him wanting. How she did that with just a look, he couldn’t say. He just had a feeling that his shirt was mussed or his hat crooked or a button had come undone somewhere.“Oh good, a strong, brave policeman. I’m so glad I ran into you. You see, I seem to have mislaid my umbrella and was rather hoping you could help me find it.”“…You lost your umbrella?” Surely, the evening could not get any stranger.“Mislaid,” the woman repeated, somehow sounding polite and impatient at the same time.Far from rendering him aid, thanks to the whistle he now had five roughs, a bound and irate gentleman, and a lady who appeared entirely unrelated to any of the others and who might well need to be defended.At least…he thought they were unrelated, until all five of the young roughs beamed at her.“Here it is, Mary Poppins,” said one of the omegas, and sure enough, there was a rather nice umbrella lying next to Bill, looking entirely out of place in the alleyway.“That…demonic thing… bit me!” Bill shouted furiously. The woman, Mary Poppins apparently, gave him an unimpressed look, not that Earnest could blame her. The alpha sounded raving.“You wish to suggest,” she said, in a careful tone of disapproval, “That my umbrella is in the habit of biting?”“It did! My hand is still bleeding!”“See here, Bill,” Earnest tried carefully. “Umbrellas don’t bite.”“It did! Just look at my hand!”As Bill was looking rather worse for wear all over, the fact that his hand was, in fact, bleeding, did not do much to convince that an umbrella, of all things, had caused it.“This…gentleman,” said Mary Poppins to Earnest, in a cultured tone of distaste, “Does not seem at all right in the head. Is it not your duty as an officer of the law to escort him from the streets and see to his…failings?”Earnest tried to stand up straighter, to embody the kind of policeman the woman implied he should be, and said, “I was just in the act of escorting all these, er, gentlemen to do just that.”“And where did you intend to escort them?” she asked.“…the station?” Earnest really intended that to be a bold statement, but somehow the woman, with just a look, managed to turn all his bold resolutions to water.“And lump them all in your cells, without knowing the guilty from the innocent?” she said, sounding shocked by the very notion. “When there are still lights all across London in need of being lit? And I suppose you will say it was not your fault when an unlit lamp causes a car to knock down an old man as he crosses the street. Or allows for a thief to break into a business with impunity under the cover of darkness. No, you were just doing your duty in detaining half the lamplighters of London.”“Well…I mean…I wouldn’t call five half…”“I’m a sweep, if you please,” said one of the five.“And,” Mary Poppins said in the same dire tones, “When a house burns to the ground because its chimney is clogged, I suppose you won’t own that to be your fault either.”“You can’t expect us to just let everyone go about their business when a crime has been committed!” Earnest said, feeling unaccountably guilty all the same. It didn’t help that he kept looking at Bill, and remembering that young omega, the way he didn’t want to look Earnest in the eye when he said ‘Bill hit me. He’s not allowed to hit me.’ And Earnest had known it was wrong but…he couldn’t change the world and if the omega would just…just be respectful and behave…none of this had to happen.And Mary Poppins looked at him, and somehow she seemed to know his every guilty thought. And she didn’t say anything, not to condemn him, not to absolve him. She just waited.“If it helps,” said one of the omegas, “Them three didn’t do more than help us tie him up.”“Well then,” said the woman, as though that settled everything, and then she looked at Earnest expectantly.“If…if you three had nothing to do with…with nothing…” Earnest tried, not exactly saying they were free to go but…who was he kidding; if they wanted to go, he wasn’t going to stop them.“They are ruffians who ganged up on me!” Bill protested furiously. And normally, Earnest would remember who Bill was and would bow to his fury but…he still remembered that omega’s face and…and the young woman appeared just as respectable as Bill, if not more so, and he found himself wanting to please her.“I don’t think all of you need come in to the station,” Earnest said firmly. To his surprise, rather than scattering to the winds at his dismissal, the three of them looked a bit disappointed. And they looked to the woman, rather than to him.“Aw, Mary,” said one, “Must we? I wanted to see the blow.” At least, that was what Earnest heard, but perhaps he misheard, because Mary Poppins, answered severely with, “Show? This is not a circus. And the lights must be lit.”To that, the young man tilted his head, touching his cap, and then two of the young roughs took off, leaving three. Bill protested this, loudly, calling Earnest all sorts of unhelpful and rather hurtful names for letting them go, until one of the remaining leeries helpfully thought to gag him with a convenient handkerchief. Earnest probably should have protested but…well…those were some hurtful words Bill had been calling him. Where the young leerie had found a handkerchief when there hadn’t been one before was harder to say.Bill silenced but still glaring furiously, Earnest considered the remaining three roughs. Two omegas who were clearly friends with Bill’s omega (he vaguely recognized one of them from the incident the other day) and a beta who now sported a stubborn expression in the face of the young lady’s look.“I’m no leerie, and I’m not on duty,” the self-identified sweep said, mulishly crossing his arms. And Earnest had thought the trouble would be to keep the roughs from running off.“Really, Sean,” Mary Poppins said, sounding disapproving, and Earnest thought for sure she’d have him off in a moment. Instead, she abruptly turned away to face Earnest again.“Constable Johnson,” she said. “Just where are you escorting us?”“Let’s go to the station, then,” said Earnest, just barely making it a statement rather than a suggestion. She clearly took it as one anyway.“A secure and safe environment, I’m sure,” she said. “And when are we to be heard by the judge so this whole matter can be settled?”“In the morning, I suppose,” said Earnest, knowing it was far too late in the evening for any of them to be heard that day. This seemed entirely reasonable to Earnest, though he was used to it seeming less reasonable to those he nabbed but…somehow the look he got from this Mary Poppins made him feel the entire situation was anything but reasonable.“You expect me to sit in a cell for an entire night, waiting on a judge?” she asked.“Not you, exactly,” Earnest said quickly. “I mean…you were just after your umbrella…weren’t you?”“Never mind,” said Mary Poppins. “I’m sure arrangements can be made when we get there.” And then she looked at him expectantly.It turned out, transporting the esteemed and respectable William Hyde to the station was the hardest part of escorting all of them. The two young omegas followed along quite calmly, and the sweep clearly couldn’t be shaken off when they had tried, and Mary was kind enough to accept his arm when he offered it, and for some reason that both elated and terrified him.She was a beta, clearly she was a beta. So why did she project the gentle delicateness of an omega? And why did he feel he’d offered his arm to a predator as fierce as any alpha he’d ever met?It was a very strange evening.It was stranger still, when somehow the judge happened to be in because he’d forgotten his hat, and when he saw the state Bill was in, he naturally wanted to know all about everything. “What’s the meaning of this!” he yelled at Earnest, “What is the matter with you, dragging Mr. Hyde to the station, with the state he’s in! He should be in hospital, and the ones responsible behind bars! And who is responsible?”Bill, still being gagged, could do little more but glare fiercely. Earnest, feeling rather attacked himself, nonetheless mumbled something about the two leeries. The judge looked astonished for a moment (two omegas, taking down an alpha? Unheard of!) but he quickly turned on them as well.“You’ll get what is coming to you, see if you don’t, attacking upright citizens, you young ruffians! I don’t care if you are omegas, you clearly are undisciplined and uncultured, and your alphas are in for it, see if they aren’t! Just tell me who your alphas are and we can put this whole matter to rest!”Bill looked smug and vindicated and still a bit furious, all at once. Earnest felt a bit ill. He knew that was how things would go but…but…“Excuse me, your honor,” Earnest heard his own voice saying. “Only…only I know for a fact that Mr. Hyde beat on his omega and…” and everyone was staring at him, Bill in fury, the judge in confused shock, the three roughs with surprise and approval. And Mary’s expression was complicated. There was approval there, but also…well, perhaps Earnest should have tried harder to say something before, and perhaps she knew that. Earnest knew how things worked. He knew that people like Bill don’t get in trouble over a young leerie, and he knew that trials of any kind wait for the morning, and that judges aren’t inclined to make exceptions.And young ladies didn’t wander the dark streets of London in search of their fancy umbrellas and stumble over crime scenes. And young ladies didn’t follow roughs into a station and give judges a severely judgmental look.Only, this one did, and, somehow, it was almost eight in the evening and the judge was in his chamber and they were waiting on the alpha the two omegas had named as their own.Well, one had muttered something that sounded like, ‘Chalky’ only that wasn’t a proper name and Earnest must have heard wrong, and anyway, the other one had stepped on the first one’s toes and hissed something at him, and after that they both said, “Jane Banks.”“Jane…Banks?” the judge had asked, sounding rather surprised. It wasn’t the kind of last name one expected to be associated with lowly leeries.“Her father was a banker,” one of the omegas put in helpfully. “Brother is a banker now. Respectable enough for you?”Which then had the one who’d muttered ‘Chalky’ stepping on his friends toes in turn, because that really isn’t how one should talk to a judge who had quite a bit of power over one’s fate.“You will find her at number 17 Cherry Tree Lane,” Mary put in. “Her brother’s address. A member of her pack was recently injured…” here, she turned her scathing look on Bill, “and she has taken up residence there for convenience.”“Quite a respectable address as well,” the judge said, more to himself than to anyone else. “Are you sure this alpha will be interested in these misguided young men?”“Quite,” was the scathing answer, and the judge actually tilted his head slightly, submissive to her.So a policeman was sent to fetch Jane Banks. And a doctor was sent for as well, considering Bill really was rather bad off after the attack. No one had untied him yet; even the judge seemed to think better of it when he saw the way Bill glared fiercely at everyone.No one mentioned that Earnest was technically off duty and should be allowed to go home. He didn’t like to bring it up himself. Particularly as the judge was supposed to be just as off duty, and he was staying.It was half an hour before the doctor and the sent for alpha arrived almost at the same time.“A Doctor Jenkins is here,” announced the receptionist. “And there’s an alpha who says he was sent on behalf of Jane Banks.”“Aha!” cried Bill, who had regrettably been ungagged. “Sir, they are trying to fool you with all that nonsense about a respectable alpha; clearly he is no respectable alpha!”His triumphant exclamation was somewhat drowned out, however, by twin cries of “Bert!” coming from one of the leeries and the sweep. The other leerie looked less surprised but did offer the incoming alpha a raised eyebrow. The new alpha, in turn, called out with surprised delight, “Mary Poppins!”The judge called the court to order. It was time to get to the bottom of things. And then Earnest was going to take a cab home. Never mind the expense, there was only so much drama of an evening a constable could be expected to take during his time off.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The policeman was not asked in, nor did he look like he expected to be. He looked rather uncomfortable in fact, as though he sensed he shouldn’t be there, but had to be anyway.“Yes?” Bert asked in what he hoped was a polite tone, because it didn’t do to be rude to policemen, but also with enough warning in his voice to keep the man at the doorstep.“I’m here to ask for Alpha Jane Banks?” the poor policeman answered, trying to peak around the tall alpha at the door just in case the one he sought was hiding just around him. She wasn’t. She was still in the bedroom, guarding that door. It is just as well the policeman couldn’t see her. Her scowl was rather fierce and not at all polite. It didn’t help that the knock had brought Jack back to full wakefulness, just when he looked about to drift off again.“Jane Banks is looking after an injured pack member,” Bert answered, still polite, but the threat was clear, if only because everyone knew how packs got when there was an injured one in their midst. The policeman got the message too, because he hopped half a step backwards, as though to make it absolutely clear he had no intention of intruding.“Yes, well…ah,” said the policeman, “I was told to ask for her presence for an emergency courtroom session on behalf of two omegas in her pack…”Bert raised his eyebrow at that, in part from the unusual request considering the late hour but mostly because as far as he knew Jane didn’t have two absent omegas in her pack. She had Michael and Jack, who were both in the house, and sort of Angus who was not in the house but also not officially hers. The policeman, feeling on more even footing now that he had official business to convey, pulled out a bit of paper to read off of.“There’s a Mr. Angus and a Mr. Fred. Er…their surnames were not given to me before I departed.” Then he looked at Bert in an apologetic sort of way. “They told us to come to this address. If they have lied about having a respectable alpha here, you can tell me now, and I’ll be on my way.” And he clearly expected to hear exactly that, and to be able to put the whole mission behind him and get on with his more regular duties. Except of course that Bert didn’t say anything of the kind.“Jane Banks is here, as I said,” said Bert. “And she does have two omegas by that name in her pack.”“What, really?” asked the policeman. “I mean…she can have who she likes in her pack, as long as they’re willing only…are you sure it’s the same Angus and Fred? These two are lamplighters…”“Yes, that’s right,” Bert agreed, still convivial yet somehow, something in his smile looked a bit sharp and predatory. “Three of her omegas are leeries, and one is a banker. She’s happy to let her omegas work at professions they enjoy.”“Right, yes…of course,” the poor policeman answered, eying Bert nervously now. “Well then…will she come? Only there was some trouble with an alpha and…”At that, the door to the bedroom was thrown open and Jane strode to meet them, fire in her eyes. Behind her, three curious faces peered through the now open door before their father reached around them and firmly shut it again.“What alpha?” Jane snarled. “What did that monster do to my omegas!”“Nothing!” squeaked the policeman, taking yet another step backwards and almost falling. “It’s what the omegas did to the alpha…attacked him, and him a respected gentleman!”If he had hoped to stun her with her omegas’ criminal activities, he failed, because her furious snarl relaxed into a pleased grin.“Good,” she said. Then, “They didn’t kill the alpha, did they?”“No,” answered the policeman, still eyeing her warily. “Just battered him around and tied him up.”“Good,” Jane repeated, and perhaps the policeman took that to mean she disapproved of the attack, because he tried to explain his purpose there again in careful and apologetic tones.“The judge wants the trial to happen at once and needs the omegas’ alpha to be present…to…to account for the omegas’ crimes. Are you sure you want to claim the omegas?”“Of course I’m sure,” Jane answered. “Just as Bill,” and she muttered the name like a curse word, “will stand for his crimes. And then, if justice doesn’t kill him, I’ll do it myself.”“Oh…” said the policeman, part horrified but part fascinated, like he was in the middle of watching a train wreck. “Then…you had best come along with me.”“No.”The policeman blinked at her, discomfited once more. He looked at Bert, as though expecting a more reasonable answer. Bert didn’t say anything, just looked on.“No? Only, you said you would speak for the omegas, and the trial is directly, and I’m to fetch you…”“Because of that monster masquerading as an alpha,” said Jane, “I have a severely ill and injured omega to look after. I have three young children and my brother to see to as well. Now, if it were just them, and I was certain Bill was detained, I might go with you. But I am not going to risk my omega’s fragile health for anything. If worst comes to worst, I can make an appeal for the rest of my pack, an appeal likely to be won under the circumstances, and they will be safe in the meantime. Unhappy, but safe.”“So…you won’t come?” asked the policeman, trying already to work out in his head what he was meant to say to the judge when he returned, especially as it sounded like the victim the judge wanted to avenge might really and truly be the criminal.“No.” And then, just when the policeman was sure the door was going to be slammed in his face and he would have to go back and try to explain somehow, she added, “I’ll send Bert in my stead.”“Oh,” said the policeman, at once relieved and not, because it would still be awkward but at least he’d have someone to back him up when he made his report.“Just give us a moment and I’ll come with you,” Bert agreed, and then the door was slammed in his face, and for a rather long five minutes the policeman wondered if he’d been lied to and was now waiting around like a fool and no one was going to come. But Bert did come out at last, wearing his coat and hat (or Michael’s hat, actually; he’d have worn Michael’s coat as well to look more respectable only it didn’t remotely fit).So the policeman returned with Bert and the announcement was made. And of course the first thing the judge and Mr. Hyde tried to say was that it was a trick and the respectable Jane Banks wasn’t anything to do with them. It fell a bit flat when the newcomers greeted their friends. At any rate, the policeman felt the need to explain himself.“I spoke to Alpha Jane Banks, your honor,” he answered. “She is real enough. She refused to come on account of looking after an injured omega of her pack, like he said.”To this, Mr. Hyde growled, “Lies, I’ll wager. Did you see the injured omega?” Even the judge looked at Hyde a bit askance at that, because of course no alpha was going to allow a stranger in to see their injured pack member, especially if the injured one was an omega. Still, it was a point, and not an impossible one, only…“Jane Banks, did you say?” said the doctor who had given Hyde a very preliminary exam but hadn’t been allowed by the man to take him into a side room for a more in depth examination. “Of Cherry Tree Lane?”“That’s the very address I went to,” the policeman agreed.“I know that household well, your honor,” said the doctor. “I cannot, due to patient confidentiality, give further information, but I can attest to Jane Banks’s honesty.”“That’s alright, Doctor,” said Bert. “She won’t mind if you give the judge the particulars, not if it will get that one off the street and away from her pack.” He nodded his head towards Hyde.“I will need to receive that permission directly from her,” the doctor said, his tone apologetic.“I would think,” said the cultured and rather unimpressed tones of Mary Poppins, “That the report you already filed with the police on the incident might suffice. And if it does not, a phone call to Miss Banks would do.”Of course, the solution was obvious…once it was said out loud, and once the doctor came to understand that the very man he had attempted to treat was the same alpha who had attacked Jack.“I suppose I could find the incident report,” said the other policeman who had escorted Mary Poppins, the omegas, and Hyde into the station in the first place. He sounded reluctant, perhaps hoping for someone else to volunteer for the task after all.“Excellent, constable,” answered the judge. “Just get the particulars off of Dr. Jenkins and fetch the report at once.”“This is nonsense,” growled Hyde, furiously. “They attacked me; why are you trying to find incriminating information against me?”“Who said it was against you?” asked Mary Poppins with a raised eyebrow. “I thought we were ascertaining the existence of an injured omega under Miss Banks’s care?”“Yes, Bill, it is unusual,” said the judge, not sounding friendly towards Hyde at all despite the familiar term of address, “but it’s important to understand all sides of a matter before justice can be done. And to that end, while we wait on the constable to return, I want to hear all sides of the story. You start, Bill. Tell me what happened.”Bill got a disturbingly triumphant look on his face that might have alarmed his opponents, (and after all, he was an alpha and the judge knew him, and could they really expect things to go in any way except in Mr. Hyde’s favor?). He actually looked a bit discomfited when everyone else responded by respectfully taking their seats and listening quietly.“I was searching out my omega,” Hyde started with, taking on injured and somewhat less psychotic tones, and for the first time one could see how anyone could ever mistake the man for being a respectable gentleman. “The one you assigned to me, the poor young omega with the horrible criminal alpha. I know his route as a lamplighter, and I went to join him. Only…only that one came along instead. And when I came to ask after my omega, he attacked me. And his friends joined in. And they tied me up and talked of murder.”“I see,” said the judge, giving the two omegas a severe look. The omegas responded by sticking their chins up and refusing to be intimidated, which was actually not in their favor as the judge was of a class to go easier on a timid and cowering omega than an uppity one, but then, they were sitting between Mary Poppins and Bert so it would have taken a lot in that moment to cause them to cower. When his severe look failed to have the expected reaction, the judge nonetheless said, “Then I will hear from the omegas now. First, the one who attacked first.”“I’m afraid, your honor, that the story starts a bit further back then tonight,” Fred said, his tone respectful even if it wasn’t submissive. “It starts, in fact, with the night you handed Jack over to that alpha.”“Oh nonsense!” growled Hyde, “They are trying to obfuscate the proceedings!”“You had your moment, Bill,” the judge answered, just as severe on the interruption as he had been on the omegas for attacking Bill. “I said I would hear all sides, and I intend to. Go on, young man, but be sure you stay to the point, or you will not be allowed to speak after all.”“Yes, your honor,” answered Fred, and this time he did bend his head in a more submissive stance, which the judge clearly approved of because he severe expression softened at once. For the first time, Bill actually looked a bit nervous.So Fred explained about Jack coming home all shaken and pale and scared.“And he’d been beaten,” Fred said.“Discipline!” Hyde shouted, “I hardly touched him, not a proper beating!”The judge once more gave Bill a look, but then, albeit in a gentle tone, he asked, “Are you certain of severe injuries? Could it not be that the young omega was justly disciplined, and sore over it and complaining? Did you see any wounds?”A bit reluctantly, Fred answered, “Jack didn’t tell us anything about a beating at all. He didn’t want us to know, I guess. He doesn’t like worrying others over things like that.”Bill looked triumphant, right up to the point Fred added, “But after he fell asleep in our cuddle, Angus pushed up his shirt a bit to check, and it was all over in bruises. That was no ‘discipline’, that was a proper beating.”“And did a doctor…” the judge began, glancing towards where Dr. Jenkins still sat near Hyde, just in case his poor health caught up to him and he had to accept medical attention after all.“We didn’t let on to Jack we knew,” Fred had to reluctantly say. “We didn’t tell anyone. We thought…we thought Jack got away and he was safe now and that was the end of it. Only…only the alpha, Bill, he came around looking for Jack. And Jack got all quiet and clingy and…it wasn’t right. And then Jack met Jane and we thought…we thought she would be his alpha and Bill would leave off. Only, yesterday morning I was doing my rounds, turning down the lamps and I saw him, and he was dragging Jack off, and he’d hit him across the face, and I…I ran the alpha down with my bike and I screamed murder. And Bill ran off. And a policeman came…same one that nabbed us tonight, in fact. And he said Jack was still standing and talking so he was fine and he walked us home and didn’t go to arrest Bill like he should have.”“I was only bringing my omega home when that ruffian ran me over!” Bill shouted. “It was a kindness that I didn’t bring you up on charges right then, one I regret!”The judge did look a bit doubtful, though it was hard to tell who he found less believable, Fred or Bill. Finally, Fred explained what happened that night, that Bill had attacked him (and Bert growled at that, and for a moment it looked like he meant to attack Bill right then, forget trials or justice, but then Mary Poppins said, “Enough, Bert,” and that was that). And Fred tried to imply he and Angus subdued the man all on their own, with the sweeps help, not wanting to bring the two leeries into it. Unfortunately, the judge turned out to be rather sharp.“I thought it was mentioned that there were five men involved in Mr. Hyde’s attack,” he said, sounding suspicious now, and it wasn’t a good sign that he was still calling it ‘Mr. Hyde’s attack’.“That’s right,” said Fred, sensing that he’d only damage their case if he tried to hide things further. “Angus whistled for help and got two leeries and a sweep running to our aid. Only they got there after we’d already gotten Mr. Hyde on the ground and didn’t do much more than stand around while we tied him up. The constable let them on their way.”“Did he?” said the judge, turning his eyes on the unlucky constable, who had by then returned, having found the report with unusual alacrity. Somehow, everything did seem to just run smoothly that evening, even things that usually would take an age.“Of course he did,” said Mary Poppins, and the judge tried to give her a severe look for her daring, but rather missed the mark. “Seeing as they had nothing to do with anything, what was the use detaining them? Or did you not think your courtroom crowded enough as it is?” And she gave him a pointed look that, unlike his own, didn’t miss.“Yes, well,” said the judge, and then, to the surprised policeman, “Just don’t get in the habit of it.”“Yes sir, I mean, your honor,” answered the policeman, feeling rather like he’d dodged a bullet, and he tried to give Mary Poppins an appreciative look, only she wasn’t looking in his direction.After Fred finished, it was Angus’s turn, and then the sweep’s. Then the judge wanted to hear from the policeman and finally, Mary Poppins herself.“I came looking for my umbrella, which Mr. Hyde was kind enough to hold onto for me.”“Hold onto!” shouted Mr. Hyde. “It bit me! Twice! It held onto me!”“Now, Bill,” said the judge, looking less and less inclined to take his old friend’s side every moment, with ever new testimony against him, including the words of a constable who shouldn’t have any reason to take the side of the attackers unless there was some truth to what they said. “Umbrellas don’t bite.”“It did!” shouted Bill in a full on rage.And then the doctor came forward, having both made a quick phonecall to the Banks household and having his submitted report to fall back on. And he informed on exactly how severe Jack’s injuries were, that he’d that very night had a sudden fever that, without intervention, would surely have led to the omega’s death.The other omegas went rather pale at that. Bert looked grim. The constable looked ill. And Bill…Bill didn’t look horrified at what he’d done or guilty or anything of the kind. He looked almost like a child who was sulking after having his hand slapped when he’d reached for a biscuit that wasn’t his.The judge looked at the doctor. He looked at Bill. He looked at everyone in the courtroom.“The alpha William Hyde has been found guilty of omega abuse, attempted kidnapping of an omega, battery, attempted pack theft, and attempted murder. That is my judgement on the matter and the alpha in question will be detained without question of release until such a time as the victim’s alpha, Jane Banks, demands restitution, at which point the William Hyde’s fate will be at her discretion, whether that be life imprisonment, physical retribution, or death. William Hyde is banned from all association with omegas. This is my judgement.” And he slammed his gavel down to make it official.Bill ranted and raved and more or less proved himself to be utterly guilty, growling that Jack was his, and he could discipline him how he deserved and worse.Angus, Fred and Bert felt a strange sort of shock; they had known things would go alright, how could they not with Mary Poppins in the room, but it was different to think everything will end well and to actually see it happen.The constable looked a bit shocked as well, as though he’d seen the world turned upside down and everything was back to front.“That never happens,” he kept saying, and he stood around and just watched even after the other policeman had said, “I say, Earnest, aren’t you off duty? Why don’t you go on home; I can finish up here.”“That poor omega,” the judge said, looking a bit haunted. Then, more to himself than anyone, he added, “Well, how was I to know? Bill was always so respectable and…and…clean and upright. How was I to know?”Then he went home, only to realize in the end that he still had left his hat at the station. He didn’t go back for it, which was just as well because Fred, who was in a somewhat jovial mood after all the dark and horrible proceedings, had found it and it wouldn’t have helped anyone for the judge to have walked in on that.Everyone who wasn’t an official policeman or judge or convicted criminal returned to Cherry Tree Lane. In fact, Earnest did escort them home, or rather, walked with them and theoretically was escorting them except none of them paid him much mind, and when they got there he wasn’t invited in and had to go on to his own house the longer way around. He still felt better for it.What followed was the quietest celebration imaginable, because Jack was sleeping, but just knowing that Bill was never going to be a danger to them again lightened every heart in the house, and Jane didn’t even protest the sweep being invited in, despite not knowing him in the least, or several more leeries that showed up all on their own without invitation.And when Chalky showed up, looked cowed and nervous and oddly submissive for an alpha (he clearly knew that Jack’s new alpha could potentially have a problem with his presence) he too was invited in with only the minimum of growls from Jane and one punch from Bert that was pulled enough to only barely knock him down instead of knocking him out. Fred was rather aghast anyway, while Michael and Angus rolled their eyes, but the alphas all shared knowing looks and Chalky certainly seemed to feel it was only his due.“I should have done more for Jack,” he explained gently to Fred. “Shouldn’t have gotten myself arrested in the first place.”“But it wasn’t your fault!” said Fred (only in a whisper because everyone was still being quiet).“It wasn’t…but it was,” said Chalky.“The judge shouldn’t have taken Jack from you,” Fred insisted. “It was his fault.” Angus remained silent, and still looked a bit guilty himself over the incident.“I would have made the same decision in the judge’s place,” Bert said, to Fred’s utter shock. “Given the situation. Only I know him, so I’d have known better.” And at any rate Bert and Chalky hugged after, clearly still friends, so the omega had to let it go. And the rest of the evening was devoted to merriment and released tensions and joy in each other’s company.In spite of all intentions, the party might have gotten a bit too boisterous and would surely have awakened Jack in the end, only, one of the guests seemed to have an almost magical ability to keep voices lowered and stop clinking glasses from clinking or bumped vases from falling. And when she was convinced to do a bit of singing and dancing, it somehow turned into a sort of gentle lullaby that had them all away to those nighttime places that are mysterious and ancient and bright and perhaps they dreamed they danced or perhaps they did dance, but not where it would disturb anyone’s slumber.And when Jack finally awoke in the morning, he found himself surrounded by pack, old and new. And he was stiff, and sore, but in that moment, all was right in the world, and he wouldn’t have traded that moment for anything. The journey had been rough, but the destination was perfect.