"I'm out for an evening run, though totally wasn't expecting to run into you." There was a silent question in there, one that Mr Fysher didn't seem to hear or want to answer.

'Fair enough.' Ruby thought it was fair payback for her answer earlier in the day.

"You mean to tell me you ran twelve or so miles straight after classes?" Ruby swore to herself when she did the math, normal people ran twelve miles in about two hours, it had been only an hour and a half since she'd last seen Mr Fysher. He wasn't dumb and he'd likely already done the math before she'd even realized how far she'd run.

"Yes? I thought that was normal? Why are you walking around half naked anyway? That's not normal." Then again, it did contribute to the persona that he was egotistical and thought far too much of himself. Ruby had to smile at that, if he was acting just to cover his tracks when he was doing just as good a job as she was.

"It's normal, I just think you're a bit weird. Are you running all the way home? I'll give you a ride, don't like the thought of you running home in the dark. Let me just get a shirt and my car keys." Ruby wanted to protest, she even thought about continuing her run but Fysher would probably stalk her all the way home. This way if he insisted on meeting her father then Ben was there waiting, she just hoped they didn't come home to anything weird.

Ruby wandered towards the house that Fysher disappeared into and waited while he did his thing.

In that time she managed to scope the neighbourhood around his home, it was a pleasant sort of area. There were family homes all over the place, toys and children's play sets scattered around the place. She didn't see many people out and figured many were in their homes eating dinner or doing whatever shifters did after school.

Fysher's home seemed just like every other home in the area, which was a surprise.

"Come on, my truck is over here." Ruby wasn't surprised by the beat-up pick-up sitting out the front though, she wondered how long he'd had it and why he still drove it. Humble in some ways but totally arrogant in other ways, a bit of a puzzle she was glad she didn't need to solve.

"So, going to revise your answer from this afternoon? Teenagers don't run that far that fast, not unless someone lit their *ss on fire or they're being chased by something. They also don't calmly approach and then try to pat a wolf they've never seen before with three others behind them. I'm noticing these things you know." Fysher said Ruby, rolled her eyes. He might notice some things but he was totally deaf and blind when it came to his sister and her boyfriend.

"Maybe my *ss was on fire, you never know and that wolf was harmless. If he'd wanted to attack me he would have, I think it was just showing off to its friends." Fysher snorted, Ruby waited for him to say something to her response but he didn't.

They sat in stubborn silence, Ruby was trying to think of some way to be dropped off before they reached her home but it was no use as Fysher asked where she lived.

She told him and as they pulled into the driveway Fysher let out a low whistle, "this is a nice place Y'all have here. Is your dad home? I want to introduce myself."

Ruby got out of the truck well ahead of Fysher and raced to the front door to warn those that were inside, but the door opened before she reached it and there stood Benedict looking every bit the father type she had expected him to be from day one.

"Ruby where have you been and why are you bringing a boy home?" Ruby gave him a weird look as Fysher came up behind her and extended a hand out towards Ben.

"Sorry sir, I ran into Ruby not far from my home. Seeing as it was getting dark I offered her a ride home, I'm Topher Fysher." Ruby was sure Benedict could have dropped dead at the mention of his name, she'd only mentioned it several times already in the school week.

"Oh...the history teacher? Ruby's been talking a lot...ow! Do you want to come in and have something to eat? I just cooked dinner. Ruby go and set a place for Topher," Ruby wanted to protest, she glared at Topher and Benedict but didn't argue as she walked past Ben. She gave him a quick jab to the ribs as she passed him, letting him know she both appreciated and detested the invite.

Oliver was already sitting at the table, he was still in his running clothes.

"I cheated, Mr Fysher gave me a ride home," Ruby said by way of warning as she went to grab another setting for Topher before setting it out at across from Oliver.

"And this is my son, Oliver. He and Ruby are twins if you couldn't tell," Ruby smacked a hand over her face as she tried to stifle the laugh. Ben said it in such a matter of fact way that made it sound like the total opposite of what he'd meant to say.

"Sure, I don't think I've met you yet Oliver. I'm a...I'm Mr Fysher, Ruby's history teacher." There was the first slip up she'd seen in a little while.

"Good to meet you, sir, can I get you a drink of water?" Ruby gave Oli the stink eye at his offer, he never offered to get her a drink of water but when she indicated she wanted one he nodded and headed to the kitchen.

Dinner would have been awkward if Ben hadn't been there, he and Fysher spoke about a lot of things while Ruby and Oliver picked at their dinner. They were listening, Ruby could tell that Fysher was politely trying to get information out of him and was failing miserably.

"Okay, obviously I'm not making myself heard and I don't mean to be rude in your home. But I can't keep quiet anymore. None of you are human, it's plain to see in the way you all interact. Ruby, you're not as young as you say, you're far too mature for your age and I can see the wisdom in your eyes whenever you look at me. Oliver I lied, I have seen you around the school and I've heard some of the students talking about you...you don't fit in and the more you try the more you stand out. So I'm going to ask my question again and I hope I get the answer I'm looking for, what are you?" The question wasn't aimed at any one person, in particular, Ruby could see that Topher was frustrated. She understood where he was coming from but now that he'd laid his suspicions on the table they could deal with it better.

"You first. What are you?" Ruby turned the question back on him, Topher's look of surprise was cute but he covered it quickly and shut his mouth.

She held a hand up when she heard Benedict clear his throat, they weren't going to say anything until Topher answered the question first. Ruby knew well who and what he was, but she needed him to verbalize it before she could give him what he wanted.

After a few moments of silence, Topher sighed heavily, ran a hand through his hair roughly then squared his attention on Ruby.

"I'm a wolf shifter, I'm the alpha of the Cavendish Swamp pack and I'm a time-walker. It's an ability passed down through the males of my family, my great-grandfather passed it directly to me and not to my father. It allows me to effectively walk back through time...any time. The only limitation is that I need to be in the area that I want to time walk through." There, Ruby thought it hadn't been so hard to reveal that bit about himself but it seemed to make him nervous just saying it all out loud.

"You can relax Topher, we're not going to leave you hanging. We're part of a group of protectors that have been assigned to this area, a prophecy has been tied to the Cavendish Swamp. We're not sure what it means in its entirety but we've been stationed here to keep an eye on...you'd call it supernatural activity. So far we haven't picked up on anything but it doesn't mean it isn't coming. I was out scouting a perimeter when I ran into your pack members." The longer Ruby spoke the higher Topher's eyebrows rose until they were almost part of his hairline, apparently he wasn't expecting to be told all of this. But it was better to get it all out in the open now and not when Topher was doing stupid things to get information.

"And...you, what? Move in, watch and then kill whatever is going to attack?" Was Topher on the verge of becoming hysterical?

Ruby looked at Oliver and then Benedict to see if they were thinking the same thing, Oliver shrugged and Ben pat her on the shoulder reassuringly.

"That's the gist of it, yes. We're generally well resourced, you may notice a few new faces in town over the next couple of weeks. Don't freak out if you smell a shifter or two, they're exempt from your pack laws but as a courtesy, there will be several of them in the team." Olive added, Topher seemed to be having a hard time accepting that the two teens were doing much of the talking.

"Why aren't you talking?" Apparently, physical age meant everything to Topher as he eyed Ben. Ben merely shrugged without replying verbally.

"He's the youngest out of the three of us, I'm also the team leader here so technically all answers should come from me." Topher scoffed at the response, Ruby raised a brow challenging him to ask the question.

"Fine, how old are you all then? Why does Benedict look the oldest and while we're at it, what are you?" Now they were getting down to the all-important but slightly mundane questions. After several hundred years the question had been asked many times and the only thing that had changed was the number of years that Ruby had been alive.

"I'm almost 600 years old, Oliver is 320 years old and Benedict is 185. He looks older because he took the oath later on in life whereas Ben and I took the oath quite young. I'm lycan, Ben is fae and Oli is elven. Does that answer your curiosity?" Ruby asked unable to help the smugness she felt at finally giving Topher the information he'd been craving and also blowing his mind with the answers.

"Bullshit, you can't be that old...wouldn't you age?" Another mundane question, Ruby rolled her eyes. She'd been expecting at least a few intelligent questions from Topher but he was acting like most other people when they were told their ages.

"The magic we carry, the magic that makes us immortal stops the aging process. So long as you keep your sanity you keep your job when the hate of the world begins to grow heavy on your soul and it starts warping your views of humanity then the oath is forcibly reversed and you're left an old, haggard body praying for death." Benedict said almost defensively, Ruby hated the thought that one day soon she'd be a haggard old lady having to live her life somewhere quiet with no one to help her.

"Okay that makes sense, so what can my pack and I do to help? Sure this prophecy is going to impact all of us? What are you going to do about the human population?" The humans, they were always an issue to work around but also an easy fix in most situations.

"Human's are easy, they're almost exempt from a lot of the magical happenings around the world. Magic manifests differently for humans than it does for other magical folks. While a battle full of spells and magic might look like a whirlwind of color and a whole lot of bodies flying everywhere to the human population it'll look like a storm of some sort. Ever heard of freak weather events? It's the easiest way to explain large death tolls, the council of elders started using it many years ago to disguise large scale battles." Ruby had to admit, it was one of the better cover-up techniques at their disposal. That way if humans were given enough localized warning about a coming weather event they'd evacuate the area and leave the magical beings to do damage to each other.

"Huh, well that's smart. What about my pack? This is going to impact them obviously, I need to make sure they're safe and won't be harmed." That was a little harder to plan around, Ruby thought it over for a few minutes and was still unsure of an answer.

"We can't guarantee everyone's safety, we're not even sure who this prophecy is going to impact. But if we have a list of all you pack members we can begin planning their escape routes. We might need to borrow your local knowledge and your best warriors for a few hours. Oliver and I are looking for our fall back perimeter, we need quick escape routes and points that are easy to hold in battle. We'll need to come up with a plan but I won't begin doing that until a few of the other protectors show up. When should we set a meeting? I'm going to have to disguise myself again, I can't be Ruby while I'm sitting in a pack meeting." Ruby died off, there was still so much planning to do before they even began the actual planning. She'd need to request another profile for herself, dual profiles had rarely been done on a mission but to save one she needed the other.

"You know, you could always just put a request in to go as yourself? Like your actual self, no one here has probably seen your actual face and it's not like you take photographs often." Ruby eyed Oliver for a while, he had a point. All she had to do was walk around without the necklace on and she'd look like the seventeen-year-old she had been six hundred years ago.

"That's a good point Oli, I'll put that to the council soon enough. Are you satisfied with our answers?" Ruby asked as she turned her attention back to Topher, he seemed completely lost in thought for a moment.

When he realized the attention was on him he looked up and nodded his understanding.

"Yeah, Ben can I get your phone number? Until you get your new identity sorted out Ruby it would look less suspicious if I communicated through your father." That was the smartest thing Topher had said since their initial meeting, Ruby wondered if there was hope for him yet.

Authors Note: You may all be wondering why I've uploaded twice in so short a time, well this chapter is dedicated to the amazing @AFleetingDream_91 for making the awesome cover that I now have.