Yours Mine and Ours Chapter 4 Part 1

[angelzfurys]

Chapter sixteen
Year sixteen

Jensen


Jensen has decided that he will study medicine for his vocation. Both human and veterinarian medicine so he can help his people in any way he can. He knows from doing research that the beginning medical classes will be about the same for both vocations. There will be biology and chemistry as well as anatomy. Of course animal anatomy is very different from human but some of the organs and bones are the same or similar. Also surgery is surgery, you must be careful and repair similar problems, the only difference is the size and location of the organs in the body. Also beforehand a human patient can tell you what hurts and talk about what is wrong. He is still in high school but thanks to his schedule he is almost done. For his last year he will take as many health related classes as possible to give him a leg up in college. He still has to decide which medical degree he will go for first, human or vet but he has time to choose.

Steve knows of his plans for a medical profession and quizzes him on what he has learns from his gathered books. Steve even lets Jensen practice simple first aid on him for pretend injuries. Steve doesn’t want to go into medicine or be a doctor but he knows just as much as Jensen about medicine. Jensen helps out the healer on occasion to get some hands on experience. He also gets a little cash he squirrels away for when he goes to college. He starts looking into various colleges and decides that if he can he’ll stick with smaller ones out of big cities. He knows that there are packs that will foster Weres from other packs and wonders if he can find a college with one such pack close by. Since he still can’t transform he isn’t sure how welcoming any other pack will be. Failing that he might ask Gerald to see if he can find out if there are any other Weres getting medical degrees to become traveling wolves. If there are he might be able to apply to the school they attend so he’ll at least have someone he can talk with. But that is still far in the future.

Jeff has been busy setting up his own house in preparation for his mating in the winter. Jensen helps him out when he can when he isn’t in school or helping the healer. Since he had set up his own little house a few years back he is familiar with some of the issues Jeff is facing. He is in wonder however when Jeff and Gerald take a trip into a town outside their normal traveling range to pick up a real bed. It’s called a king size and it’s huge. It doesn’t have any pillow sides on it and it sits on a frame that is held up off the floor. He vaguely remembers a fuzzy memory of another bed like it in his parent’s room. Sherri has to explain that once a Were goes out on their own they can get a bed but that all mated couples have a bed. This is so that they can sleep together as either their human or Were forms. Jensen also fills in the blanks that Sherri hesitates over and doesn’t say in the end. It will help in the making of new pups. He wonders what it will be like to sleep in such a bed. When he goes to college he’ll have to stay in a dorm for at least a year maybe for most of his schooling if he’s on a budget and dorms have beds.

Life goes on until winter and Jeff gets mated. It’s over a weekend with a full moon so that they can celebrate as humans and wolves. There is a ceremony of marriage for both forms as well but he is only allowed at the human one. It’s held outside in a huge tent so that the pack can come and go in both forms and so to Jensen it’s very cold. This winter has been the coldest in almost a decade and he is dressed up in a tux since he was in the wedding party. The woman who was his opposite left his side as soon as she could after the human ceremony and photos. She is a little older and a relative of Jeff’s mate Alice who belongs to another pack. She hadn’t even been with Jensen’s pack for more than two days when about Jensen’s inability to transform. She wasn’t outwardly mean or overly rude but she avoided him when she could and was distant with him when they were together. He was glad when the whole affair was over and things got back to normal.

It took a month to get used to not seeing Jeff in the house or at the dinner table when he ate with his family on the weekends. Jeff brought Alice to his birthday party and Steve even stopped by his den to drop off a book for his present. Inside the book was a note that Steve couldn’t meet him at Jensen’s sanctuary due to having plans with his family. Jensen decides that he won’t go to his sanctuary that evening since it’s still cold out and it won’t quite be the same without Steve.

Jared


Jared spend the first part of the year on pins and needles. His parents have come across a chat group and website they think might belong to actual werewolves. They have been over the site with a fine tooth comb to compare the information with their own experience with Jared and what they suspect. Some things are clearly fictional but they are obvious things that can be found on every other werewolf website and in movies and books. The chat rooms have a mixed bag or people with all kinds of information, history and theories as well as claims on werewolves and personal experiences. They have a list of people who have stories the most like theirs and that are never online on full moon nights. It’s how they have eliminated some of the people claiming to be werewolves. The ones who claim to be and are online during the full moon are not telling the truth. Some people are on some full moons and off others in an attempt to fool the others online. But as Jared and his family know it’s impossible for him to be human on the nights of the full moon. The most promising room is exclusive and called the Kane Fields. The moderator of that chat group has offered to exchange pictures and contact information with them. After a family discussion they decide to do so but they will pretend that Alan is the werewolf just in case.

Alan sends off and older picture of himself and only his first name and cell phone number. He gets back a picture of a middle aged man with tanned skin and shoulder length brown hair that has a few stands of gray woven into it. His eyes are an unusual shade of yellow that isn’t a contact lens and as far as they can tell not photo shopped. He is smiling wide and his eye teeth are sharpen then a humans. The name he gives is Kane and there is a phone number. Alan makes the first call a few days later after he and Donna make a script with a few various answers to questions that might come up. He makes the call at the family dining table with everyone present but it isn’t on speaker. When Kane answers and Alan introduces himself there is a moment of silence before a deep and baleful howl comes over the line forcing Alan to hold the phone away from his ear. Jared sits up straight as if he’s been shocked and half transforms into his third hybrid form. He whines low in his throat longing to howl in return and his claws scratch the table where his hands grip the edge white knuckled. He heard the howl with his superior hearing and something in it called to him.

When the howl has faded and Alan can put the phone back to his ear Kane demands to talk to the Were. Alan is confused and says that he is the werewolf. Kane chuckles and tells him he knows he isn’t but that he heard the real one. Alan is reluctant but after a moment turns the phone over to Jared. He doesn’t want to ruin Jared’s chance to know another person like him after how long they have looked and hoped. They can only hear Jared’s half of the call but it’s enough to know that they have found what they are looking for.

When the call is over Jared tells then that Kane is actually William Kane and is Alpha of the Kane pack of Texas. His pack has almost fifty werewolves called Weres. Jared is welcome to call him and talk in depth about his situation since he hasn’t heard of anything like Jared’s situation before. Doesn’t mean that other packs haven’t. And that is a revelation that there are several other packs in Texas. Jared had told him his whole story and Kane told him that his own pack has been around for at least seventy years.

Jared made many calls over the next few months learning about Were history and society and well as biology. He learned about life with a pack and began to long for it. His parents noticed and made plans with Kane to visit his pack. Jared was blown away by the surprise when instead of going camping like his parents told him one weekend they went to visit Kane. Jared felt immediately at home around the other Weres and made friends quickly with Christian aka “just Chris son”, Kane’s son. Chris introduced him to Tom, Genevieve and Sophia. In turn Tom introduced him to Mike and Sophia to Chad. Chad latched on to Jared and by the end of the trip they were thick as thieves. Plans were made for Jared to visit again soon.

After Jared’s third visit to the Kane pack Alan and Donna made the decision to move close to the Kane pack. They talked it over with William and were surprised when William offered to let them stay on pack land so that Jared, if he chose, could become a member of the Kane pack. Josh took it a little hard since he’d started to make his own life where they were. But in the end he was assured that if he wanted to move with his family that William would help him find a job and the college close by would give him a discount on tuition if he chose to study there as long as he put in volunteer TA hours. It was almost winter by the time the Ackles’s clan had packed up and sold their house and Alan and Donna had quit their jobs. The move to the Kane pack was uneventful and the house that they bought was perfect. Most of the pack turned up to help them move in and there was a big welcome dinner that night so that everyone could become more acquainted.

Jared took a few weeks to establish a routine but was grateful that everywhere he turned the pack was there and helpful. If he had questions of concerns or just didn’t know something there were people and friend there to help him. No one treated him badly or differently because he didn’t know something that they had for years. They understood that he had a lot to learn and they all wanted to be the ones to help him learn. They were proud of their heritage and history. His new friends became his closest core group besides his family. They took him out and showed him the best places to run as a wolf and how to find the best spots to play. For his birthday they threw him the biggest party he had ever had, also celebrating his official status as a Kane pack member. When the human festivities were over they took him out for a late night run and the best games of tag and hide and seek ever. He’d never been one to regret things or dwell on the negative but that night, just for a moment he wished that he’d been born into pack life and to a family that was like him. He would feel guilty about it later but it was soon forgotten as he enjoyed life with his new pack.

*************************************************************************************
Chapter seventeen
Year seventeen

Jensen


Jensen has started to gather books on medicine for his future studies. He doesn’t want to be like the packs healer but like the doctor and nurse who had helped bring him into the world. He has looked many times at the first pictures of himself taken by a nurse after he was born when he was presented to his parents. They looked so happy in that moment to have him before they knew what he was, or rather what he wasn’t. He thinks that if they smiled like that at him and the nurse taking the pictures they must have smiled at the doctor the same way. They must have been happy and grateful. They must have been nice. If he can be that doctor or that nurse and have other people look at him like that then maybe life away from the pack won’t be so bad. Maybe he can live with the illusion of content and not hate himself and everything so much. He’ll have done something good and will be rewarded for it and treated with joy.

Medical school will take a long time even if he starts on some of the outlying courses now. He’ll have at least three or four years of college and then there will be residencies for a long time after. To be able to qualify to practice all over the US he’ll have to visit some of the states with slightly differing laws and pass tests there. He’ll have to keep up his training every few years. It will be expensive but his parents will pay and he is sure that he could get a scholarship of some kind. They are a small enough place and any schools outside his area are relatively small so he has that working for him. While his parents have money it doesn’t look like it on their personal paperwork. The majority of the money in accounts under the pack’s joint corporation. Another plus on his side as far as he is concerned. He has excellent grades and is ahead of his age group thanks to his focus in home schooling and that fact that for him school is almost year round and there are no vacations. To the everyday world he isn’t a minority, he is a white male but they don’t know that he is…well that he comes from a family of werewolves. The public can’t be allowed to know about them which is why going into medicine is also good for him. He’ll be able to help his kind in two ways, to keep them healthy and to keep the public medical community from finding out about them. This he hopes will endure him to his pack when he is gone.

When he leaves he knows that he will be allowed back since he was born to them and he isn’t being exiled but he probably won’t return unless he has to. He is unwelcome as he is now because he isn’t like them and in the passing years to come he’ll be less like them. The people who know him will grow and some will move on, others will die. He wonders for a moment if he will be allowed to come back to die when he is old. By then new generations will be running the pack and he could outlive his siblings and Steve. A weight settles over his heart at this thought but then it isn’t too different from the weight he is constantly carrying there. No one would really miss him all that much now if he left for college so it’s logical that it would be more so in the future. But that is then, for right now he has to look into a field of medicine and present his choice to his parents. Since it will be expensive and time consuming he will have to make the pitch good since he’ll probably have to repeat it to the pack.

It takes him a week to decide that he’ll do a double major and practice general medicine to get by at any doctor’s office with a side of minor surgery and a course in midwifery along with basic veterinary care. This way he can help his kind in both of their forms. He will be available to travel to any city and even if invited onto other pack territories to work his trade. The compensation will be better than average and he can work to pay back the pack funds which he used for school as well as the basic fee any pack would normally pay for his services. Since he doesn’t have a wolf himself he doesn’t have to worry about the cat problem and he hopes he won’t have to work with the larger farm animals. Not all packs he knows lives in rural or country areas but a lot of them prefer to, his parents have told him this many times and any packs he knows of lives this way. He knows there are in some of the small cities in the state but he’s never seen anyone from any of them. These people he will help with his general practitioners training.

When he presents his plan to his parents later he is correct in having to repeat it to the senior members of the pack. They discuss it for a day and in the end it is agreed that this is what he will pursue. In the summer he will in turn with the pack healer as well as take a summer course in science and anatomy. In the fall his parents will have filled out the paperwork for early graduation and enrollment in college classes. His high school work is cut down to just the core of what is needed to graduate. His electives will be his intro basic classes for medicine. He is given use of an older model laptop with internet access to do his introductory college work and chat online with other students and the teacher. An unexpected bonus is that Steve meets with him a little more frequently now. Steve had joked that he wouldn’t let him play doctor on him but he knew a bit more than the average person about medicine given his uncle was the pack healer. So he would practice anatomy and diagnosis with Steve and was glad he had chosen the profession he had. For a brief bit of time he didn’t feel so sad about his life and his scratching, which had never truly gone away at least lessoned. For Christmas he even got a newer model laptop and he felt truly happy. But it wasn’t to last. Two weeks before his seventeenth birthday a traveling wolf came to his home. His father and mother were upset by his visit and he could hear shouting from the study in the kitchen. His mother came out with red eyed and tears on her cheeks. She saw him and stared at him for a bit before his father came out and put a hand on her shoulder. She fled to their room at this and his father told him to go to his room. They didn’t tell him what was discussed but he guessed it had something to do with him since his mother either stared at him or couldn’t look at him and his father generally avoided him. He got scared when he was taken to the healer and his blood was drawn as well as samples taken from his inner cheek and ink prints taken of his feet. No one would tell him anything until his birthday.

A few days before his birthday the traveling wolf and a member of a pack called Kane were received into his home. He was sent out and he wished for the billionth time that he was wolf so that he could use that forms superior hearing to know what was going on. He didn’t have long to wait. For his birthday it was the usual just him and his family. But this year everyone was subdued. They had dinner and cake and he opened gifts from his siblings. Steve had given him one the day before and it was in his room but his parents didn’t know that. When he was finished thanking Jeff, Megan and the twins his parents excused them. They took him out to his room for their gift. He wasn’t sure what this meant and he was very nervous and a bit scared. He hoped that his parents weren’t using any part of their wolf forms or he would die of embarrassment if they confronted him about it. When they were seated around his table they gave him an envelope. He opened it with care like it would explode if handled to shakily or quickly. Inside were sheets of paper, test results from a quick glance and for a moment he thought that maybe he was sick or going to die but he swallowed down any panic and read them. Half of them didn’t make since because of the scientific wording which he hadn’t learned but the end summary was in plain layman’s terms and he felt as if the world stopped. He couldn’t breath and he had gone numb. He was sure his heart had stopped and his vision started to gray out before he inhaled deeply and the world resumed. He was still numb but he was shivering a bit and his heart was now going a mile a minute and he could only hear his pulse pounding in his ears as if he was standing next to a swift moving river. His vision clouded again but this time it was with watery tears. The paper said that he wasn’t a wolf, that he was human and that he, Jensen Ross Padalecki wasn’t a Padalecki. Gerald and Sherri Padalecki, his dad and mom weren’t really his dad and mom, he wasn’t their son. His parents were other people, human people not Were.
In the envelope there was a single photo which he held with a shaking hand. His tears and the shaking couldn’t stop him from seeing the image though. It was a family portrait. A tall man with graying brown hair was standing next to a woman with chestnut hair. They were smiling wide arms over each other’s shoulders. Bookending them in one each side were tall teenaged boys both with brown hair but the younger one on the woman’s side was taller than all of them. Standing in front and at the middle of the parents was a young girl with blonde hair. This was his family. But he was confused. If he had ended up with his par…with the Padalecki’s who were not his parents where was their child? He looked at them and they must have known what he wanted to ask but couldn’t speak the words.

“You and our son were switched at birth” Sherri says and she has begun crying too.

He looks down at the photo again and focuses on the tallest person in the picture. That must be their son and looking at the boy with the shaggy brown hair, big goofy grin with dimples and tanned skin he can see Gerald and Sherri in him more than he ever saw in himself no matter how hard he had looked.

“We’ll let this settle in” Gerald tells him and he and Sherri get up “a representative of the Kane pack will be back next week with more information and to set up a meeting with the Ackles.” With that they leave him sitting looking at his true family. The Ackles Gerald had called them. He is an Ackles. He wonders what name he would have had if he hadn’t been switched at birth. He doesn’t know if this is the best birthday or the worst. He had learned that he isn’t a freak of nature and that he does fit in somewhere, but at the same time his whole life has been a lie and he has missed out on so much. If he had been with his true family would his life have been better? He’ll never know for sure but he wants to think so. After all they did raise a Were and they look very happy. At least he thinks that his counterpart id a Were otherwise why would they have been contacted by a representative of another pack? He knows appearances can be deceiving but he isn’t sure that anyone can fake the amount of happiness shining in the eyes and smiles of the family in the photo. He goes to sleep that night dreaming of the various things the future now holds and many of them are nightmares.

Jared


It’s a never wracking year for Jared as his parents move them into their new home in the neighborhood of the Kane pack. For the latter half of the last year Jared and his family have been visiting the Kane pack and getting to know them. This year he is now a full fledge member and lives just a block away from the pack’s Alpha and namesake. Two houses down is Chad who he knows best and then Chris who is the son of the Alpha and future Alpha of the Kane pack himself. Two blocks away is Tom, Genevieve and Sophia. Three miles away and closer to the heart of the small city is Michael. Tom and Mike as Michael prefers to be called are mates. He was confused by this when they told him after he saw them kissing not long after he had met them. He will never forget the quick crash course his new friends and his soon to be Alpha at the time had given him on mates and mating. He was embarrassed beyond belief to be talking about sex to an adult not his parents or health teacher and to admit that yes he was a virgin. It had seemed like everyone was having sex but him even if he knew that wasn’t true. He had not told anyone, not even his new friends about his experimental fumblings and fondling of his crush and sort of girlfriend of the previous year Sandy.

This year his Were education was to be intense since he hadn’t really had any at all. No his internet searches didn’t count and his observations on his own behavior couldn’t be 100% accepted as well since he had nothing to compare them to and being alone he had developed a bit differently. Nothing bad or wrong about that he was fine and everything was normal for a Were of his age he was assured. But there was a lot he didn’t know about his heritage that was important to his future. Chris and his father would tutor him along with the healer and Genevieve’s mother who was the pack’s history teacher.

He would go to normal school and after he would have lessons every other day with Chris or his father or Genevieve nicknamed Gen since her name was a handful’s mother. When he wasn’t in his lessons he was with Chris, Chad, Tom, Mike, Sophia and Gen. He slowly lost touch with his old friends from before but he wasn’t too sad about it, thing like that happened and with a twinge of guilt he considered his new friends to be superior to the old. They could give him something his old friends couldn’t. A chance to be his true and whole self. He didn’t have to worry about letting his wolf out now and didn’t have to constantly watch his back. He could relax and really have fun. But this lead to another problem that he hadn’t thought of. Since the age of eleven he had been guarded with his regular transformations into his wolf form and doubly so for his hybrid transformation. He actually had one photo of this transformation taken on Halloween of his tenth year standing next to Josh dressed as a knight and Mackenzie dressed as a princess. He looked like a very scary version of the Wolfman from the classic horror movie. He was still human shaped for the most part but he was covered in fur with a wolf’s ears and tale and long claws for finger nails with a slightly protruding muzzle and sharp teeth. After his twelfth birthday he only transforms into that form when it becomes too much pressure to keep it inside. With the Kane pack they expect him to be running around as his wolf all the time and he just can’t do that anymore. He goes on the full moon runs and some the day before and after or on short runs with his friends but when they stop he takes the time to be human.

He learns that Were’s have been around in recorded time since the Romans and Greeks and were probably around even before that. He learns a history of Were’s much like elementary school education of world history. As a general a general and on the whole until the last couple of centuries when it starts to get more detailed and more localized. He learns modern pack structure and educate for dealing with each level and other packs. He learns about the importance of their health and how it relates to the cycle of their transformations. He learns their biology and how it differs and is the same to humans. And he learns about mates. This is fascinating since it pertains to his interactions with his friends and potential friends and his future. He is most fascinated by the idea of soulmates. Weres can have them although it’s pretty rare given the huge population of the world and some factors of biology and psychic energy and auras and some other stuff he doesn’t understand. But the idea of someone who is so matched with you physically, spiritually, mental and biologically that over time it would be impossible to live without them once mated is intriguing. Someone you could get along with perfectly and who knew you inside and out and whom you could belong to and feel a part of forever had to be the best thing ever. He liked his friends and appreciated his pack who treaded him as a valued member and he loved his parents and siblings but he always felt as if there was something missing, that something was being kept from him, a part of him hadn’t blossomed yet.

Halfway into his first year with the Kane pack his friends caught him in this hybrid form. When he had to be in that form he usually did it at home and told his friends that he had wanted privacy. This time they were supposed to be camping on some reserve a few miles away and he had felt free to roam around a bit. But they had come back covering the long distance with ease of speed in their wolf forms to get something they had left behind. They saw him and promptly freaked, so had he. Then next day he cowered in his room thinking of one terrible scenario after another of what could happen to him when he was summoned to meet with the Alpha. He thought about not going but in the end had decided that would be worse. It wasn’t like he could just leave there was nowhere for him to go since his aunt lived so far away now and he had lost touch with any old friends who might be able to lend him a couch to sleep on over a weekend.

He was asked to explain his hybrid form and show the Alpha which took some time to do since he was so nervous he couldn’t transform with anyone watching. The Alpha had to leave the room and come back a little later. He had been startled but not scared. Tom’s dad the healer was brought in to look him over. When he was allowed to change back to human form the Alpha gave him an awkward hug and the healer told him that there was nothing for him to be ashamed or scared about. It was very rare but there were other Were’s like him. None that immediately came to mind or were close by but there had been some like him and there would doubtless be more in the future. Were’s like him were from old bloodlines and once were worshiped or seen to hold special power. It was Were’s like him that had most often found their soul mates in past centuries. It was also Were’s like him that were in the history books or were who had inspired myths and legends and had humans hunting them in bygone eras. They had also been Alpha’s of their packs and if not from the ruling families were promoted to Alpha when they were of age and experience. He was told he could go about in that form whenever he wished it wasn’t bad and once everyone got used to seeing him that way they wouldn’t comment on it. They might when they first saw him as his friends had many questions for him but he was reminded again that it was nothing to be ashamed of. He didn’t want to be questioned or stared at or thought of as a novelty so he opted to keep on as he had been only sustaining that form long enough to keep him healthy. Besides the basics he ignored or put down his friends questions about it. It didn’t take long for them to get the hint and they helped fend off any odd pack member who came around to see him about it when the news became common among the pack. Life went back to normal a month later and he didn’t think anything could change how happy he was.

At Christmas, his parents got him tickets to see one of his favorite bands who was playing at an arena sixty miles away in the big city. He was informed that his friends also had gotten tickets. His last present was for his birthday but he was to open it then since it went with the concert tickets. Inside what had been a jewelry box was a set of keys. His parents were getting a new car so he could use their old van, which the keys were too, as long as he kept the gas tank filled. Since Tom and Mike were older then him and everyone was going as a group he could take the car to the concert. They had two rooms booked at a hotel nearby the arena for them to stay the night in the city. The concert was right after New Years.

When the day came for the concert it was cold and wet with snow in the forecast. Jared and his friends had packed way too much stuff for an overnight into his van and the back of Chris’s car. Since wolves never liked being confined in small spaces for long periods of time and the weather would have them driving slowly they had opted to take two cars to the concert. Jared, Chad, Gen and Sophia would go in the van and Chris, Tom and Mike would follow in his car. They said goodbye to their parents got a lecture on driving safe from Alan and were on their way by midmorning. It grew dark by afternoon and it began to snow. Jared was confident in his driving so was going just under the speed limit checking the rearview every now and again to see how Chris was keeping up. He was doing this right before a bend in the highway when things went wrong.

He would learn later that the car coming in the opposite direction was driving too fast and had lost control on some ice going around to corner. It had tried to break and had swerved about wildly fishtailing a little before crossing the center line and hitting the car in front of them head on pushing it back with its greater force. Jared had looked back while this was happening so that by the time he looked forward again it was too late to avoid the crash. He had slammed on his breaks causing the wheels to lock up and had gone skidding into the back of the car in front of him. Chris had crashed into the back but since he’d seen the first crash he had had a little more time to break and they hadn’t hit too hard or badly. He had blacked out for a minute or so and when he came to help was already being called by other motorists who had managed to stop and not hit them. The cops arrived first with several ambulances close behind. Tom had managed to borrow a phone from a driver who had braved exiting his car to come see if they were alright and called his father and their pack Alpha. They had to go to the hospital but they needed someone who would understand their biology and cover up anything the tests might deem not human. Besides they needed to be checked out asap because their wolves were already hard at work healing any damage they had sustained. When they got to the local hospital, thankfully one closer to the way they had come and not further towards the city it didn’t take long before Tom’s dad showed up.

They had been able to get to the hospital in pairs since they were deemed walking wounded and took their time filling out paperwork and putting off more than just general look overs and x-rays. Their total injuries were summed up rather quickly and didn’t sound so bad to Jared. He had hit his head on the steering wheel and then been knocked into the window by the airbag deploying. His larger frame had him begin twisted and squished and he ended up with a sprained ankle when his foot got caught on the brake pedal. He and Chad had mild whiplash and bruising from the seatbelts. Chad had almost the same thing happen to him on the passenger side except that he had put his hands out and the airbag had given him a broken wrist instead of a sprained ankle. Gen and Sophia had bruises from the seat belts and Sophia had hit her head on the window. They had both been hit by various objects and bags from the back which had been propelled forward by their sudden stop and Chris hitting them from behind. Gen had whiplash and a cut to the shoulder from something, most likely a tool from the back. Chris had a black eye from his airbag and bruising. Tom and Mike had been in the back seat and Tom broke his nose and hit his head on the side window. Mike had braced against the front seat and had fractured his arm and wrist and gotten a minor case of whiplash.

Because Jared had blacked out for a bit and his bruising was rather spectacular he was tested to see if he was bleeding internally in both his head and his torso. Blood was taken and he had an ultra sound and CAT-Scan which came back normal. His blood was typed first so that if he heeded surgery and or transfusion they could be ready. Further testing would be done later and Tom’s dad managed to get those samples. By then every ones parents had arrived and plans were being made for their release. Schedules were being made with cops to give statements of the accident and details about what to do with the cars were hashed out. Everything seemed to be going as well as it could for the aftermath of a car crash when Tom’s dad asked to speak with Jared’s parents privately. He took them far enough away that Jared couldn’t hear them over the general thrum of the hospital noise. When they can back they had tears in their eyes and he panicked thinking something was wrong with him or one of his friends.

They had to calm him down by reassuring him that he was okay and so were his friends. Nothing more than he already knew from the accident. This was different. This was about the sample of his blood taken for typing and testing. The testing would be done to confirm the unusual results of the typing. Jared’s blood type didn’t match theirs and it should have, the only way it couldn’t have was if they won’t related. By the blood type test Jared was not and could not be their son. Tom’s dad would do further genetic tests and a paternity test but he was sure that the typing test was correct. Jared didn’t know what to say and shaking his head in denial gave him a headache. He didn’t speak after that until it was to say goodnight to his parents once they got home. They woke him every two hours for half the night to make sure he didn’t have a concession and the next day he didn’t talk about it. He was taken to give his statement of the accident to the police and he checked in with his friends. He sat in the living room while Tom’s dad and Chris’s dad talked with his parents about Jared’s newest revelations. The blood and paternity tests would be run and a traveling wolf working as a private detective would look into how this was possible. Jared didn’t speak and didn’t mention it to his friends since they hadn’t been told. He supposed it would all come out sooner rather than later but he would put it off as long as possible. He didn’t know what to think about it. If he wasn’t his parents son who was he? Where was their son because they had had one, he had been told the story of his birth many times. It would seem that most changes in his life revolved around accidents and he didn’t want to have anymore. He just wanted to be Jared Ackles, son of Alan and Donna, brother of Josh and Mackenzie.

A few days later the tests came back and they were conclusive, he wasn’t an Ackles. The detective was already working on how it was possible and was due to check in before his birthday. He wondered if his birthday really was his birthday for a bit but came to the conclusion it had to be, he just didn’t know how.

Two weeks before his birthday the detective was back with news. The day Jared had been born there was another couple having their baby at the same hospital. They had started with the delivery when Donna had been brought in from their accident. The doctor delivered the other couples baby and came straight to Donna to deliver her baby. There had been a mix up in the nursery and a nurse hired by the other family, the Padalecki’s had given then Donna’s baby and Donna was given the Padalecki’s baby. The mistake wasn’t caught and here they were now raising each other’s, children. Jared was a Were because the Padalecki’s were Weres. In fact, they were the Alpha couple of the Padalecki pack on the opposite side of the state. By law, since Jared and the Ackles son were under age they must be told and the detective was taking the Alpha’s brother as a representative to inform them. They would be the go between the families so that a normal court of law and social workers wouldn’t need to be involved.

Jared didn’t speak about this with anyone either, keeping it inside and mulling it over. He wished that he had been able to stop the van in time and that the accident never happened. He couldn’t quite wish away the accident that caused his mom…was she still his mom, to give birth early. He didn’t know family other than the one he had and he had no idea what his life would have been like should he have grown up with his biological family. He preferred wat he knew to what he didn’t and he liked the life he had, he didn’t want it to change. It would, it had to but he would put it off as long as possible. For his seventeenth birthday he got the paperwork showing he was indeed the son of one Sherri and Gerald Padalecki and not Donna and Alan Ackles. He also got a photo of his biological parents. He studied it and saw himself in their faces. He looked a little like the Ackles but he looked a lot like the Padalecki’s. He had two brothers and two sisters not in the photo and there was no photo of the son who had been raised in his place. They were happy to be meeting him soon and he supposed his parents were taking care of that. For now he would concentrate on one day at a time. The day after his birthday his friends came over for a movie marathon and all day were very tentative to him and by the end of the day they told him they knew and so did the pack. They would be there to talk to him about it if and when he wanted. He was grateful and for the first time that night thought ahead to what it would be like to meet the Padalecki’s.

************************************************************************************
Chapter eighteen
Year eighteen

Jensen


Jensen feels a kind of euphoric release and peace when he learns that he will be meeting his biological parents in a month. These people will be like him or rather he like them. He is normal which is fine, there will be no disappointment that he isn’t a wolf. There will be no more sideways glances around the time of the full moon, there will be no more grumbling about cooking his food longer at gatherings and picnics. He can go to school and make friends. Then he hears about the plans to have the Padalecki’s son, Jared, come and visit with them while he is still here. Maybe for half a year of that and then he will go to visit with a pack called Kane. Jared lives with and has been a part of the Kane pack for the past year. This gives him pause and brings about new worries.

Jared still lives with his…Jensen’s…their ….parents? The Ackles he settles on, Jared still lives with the Ackles. And the Ackles live with the Kane pack. He’ll be almost in the same situation the only difference will be that he won’t be the lone human. Donna and Alan are human and so are his brother and sister. He had a meeting with Donna coming up soon in a little over a month. For the month leading up to the meeting, he keeps his mind off of it by studying like crazy. He hoped that she would be impressed with his choice of career.

For the month he listened in when Gerald and Sherri talked about what they had found out about Alan and Donna. They had home schooled Jared for his first few years of his education. A year ago they had found on joined the Kane pack who were progressive. Their son Josh was going to community college and their daughter Mackenzie was still in junior high school. Donna had a sister Sara who had a daughter in middle school who they visited at least once a year. Jared ran track and was pretty good at it and he would be given the length of his legs in the photo he had. Other than that he didn’t hear much since he couldn’t hear through the thick walls of the study. The only other thing he did know was that Sherri had cleaned out Jeff’s room for Jared to stay in. Jeff was at the end of the street in the house that used to be Gerald’s fathers.

When the day finally came for him and Sherri to go meet Donna and Jared Jensen had to sit on his hands for the whole ride to the meeting place so that he wouldn’t scratch himself bloody. The scar he had acquired over the years had thankfully been faint and he had gone from scratching his arms to his elbows or knees so that any scars would blend in more. For the past year he has tried very hard to stop the scratching and he thought he was doing a good job but all this stress is bringing it back. Instead, he tries to focus on the things he wants to ask Donna and share with her so she’ll say good things about him when she gets back home. It will be the foundation for when he goes to visit.

When they arrive Donna and Jared have arrived already and are waiting in separate rooms. Jensen doesn’t have any interest in Jared at the moment, he has seen him in a photo and will see him in person soon enough when he comes to take Jensen’s place in the Padalecki pack. If he is a Were like he is certain Jared is Gerald and Sherri will be happy to show off their new son, the son who is like them, who is everything they wanted, who belongs. He waits for a moment at the door to the room the detective motioned him to and takes a few fortifying breaths. When he walks in he sees a slightly older version of the woman in the photo he has studied every night. She gets up from the chair she was sitting in and comes towards him as the door shuts behind him and he almost backs into it when she opens her arms for a hug. Jensen hasn’t been hugged in a while and he feels a little put off that Donna wants a hug without ever a hello or knowing about him. At least he doesn’t think she knows much about him. The representative sent to the Kane pack hadn’t told much about him or the Padalecki pack. Unless they used the detective who is outside the room waiting to look into him he’ll have the chance to tell her what he wants her to know about himself. She seems to notice his hesitance and stops short her arms going to her sides. She looks a little sad that she is being refused but Jensen won’t change his mind. There can be hugs later…maybe.

They just stand and look at each other in awkward silence for a minute before Donna backs towards the seat her was previously sitting in. When she is again seated he feels a lot better and giving a little shiver to get his body moving sits in the chair opposite from her. She smiles at him seeming to really look at him now and he fights not to blush at her scrutiny or think about her judging him but it’s hard after all the looks the pack healer hand others have given him over the years.

“Hello” she finally says and that seems to break whatever spell they were under.

“Hi” he replies and waits for the next prompt from her to speak. All his carefully thought of questions and examples of himself seemed to be lodged in his throat and threaten to choke him. Their conversation is stilted progressing in starts and stops. She tells him about herself and Alan and his brother Josh and his sister Mackenzie who like sot be called Mack. She tells him about their house in the Kane pack territory. She asks if he plays sports, what he likes to do for fun, what his house is like, who his friends are and so on. He lies through his teeth with this answers and thinks that they, the Ackles will never know the truth because they won’t see him at home and he is sure Jared will be too busy getting to know his family and pack that he won’t notice what Jensen is doing and won’t tattle on him. She does seem surprised and happy that he is going to study medicine for college. He doesn’t tell her that he has already started.

It seems like no time at all and all the time in the world when there is a knock on the door signaling the end of their meeting. Donna leaves first and he watches out the window as they walk away together to talk about what happens next. As soon as they are half way across the library he leaves the room and follows. He doesn’t have super hearing and he wants to know what is going to happen. They stop in an aisle on the far side of the library where there aren’t any patrons. The detective is close by so he stays in the aisle behind theirs and watches from between a gap in the books. A few moments later he gets the feeling as if someone is watching him but he pushes the uncomfortable feeling to the back of his mind. He is used to it after all. Donna and Sherri have exchanged numbers and a tentative date for the exchange will begin in two weeks with Jared to be first staying with the Padalecki’s. Since he has no wish to be in any trouble before chaos begins he quickly makes his way back to the meeting rooms and pretends to look at the books offered on a nearby shelf as if he was been interested and looking the whole time. He sees Jared by the door waiting for Donna but doesn’t go over to say hi. When he gets home he gets something to eat and goes to bed. The next few months are going to be trying.

Jared


A whole month had passed since he had first learned that he had another family. Representatives from both packs had met with the Alphas of both packs to arrange a meeting. The first was to be short and only involve the boys and their mothers so as to not overwhelm any of the parties involved and to get a general feel of the overall situation. They had picked a neutral place for the first meeting and if all goes well the next meeting will be with both parents and the boys. If that goes well there is talk of Jared going to stay with the Padalecki pack for a time before the Ackles’s boy, Jensen his name is, will come and stay with the Kane pack. During that time they will get to know their biological families and see what life is like in the pack they should have been raised in. Only that isn’t right because if they had never been switched Jensen would have grown up with a normal human life and never know about Weres.

The night before the meeting Jared is so anxious that he goes over everything only to forget it minutes later. He feels as if he knows what a schizophrenic now has to live with his thoughts are so jumbled and he talks to himself and contradicts his own thoughts in his head as they pop up. Jared is nervous about meeting his parents. His real parents, but that’s not right the parents who raised him are his real parents so…biological parents then? Jared doesn’t know much about them other than that they are werewolves like him and have been raising a human boy in his place. That human boy belongs to his…he would think parents under normal circumstances but things are going to get pretty confusing pretty quickly with the title of parents for all adults concerned. He decides he should stick with first names even for his own…well yes more confusion. So first names for the couple who gave birth to him and first names for the couple who raised him until everything can be sorted out. Hopefully.

So the facts as he knows them (again). Gerald and Sherri Padalecki are werewolves and his biological parents. They are the Alpha couple or leading pair of the Padalecki pack of west Texas. They have been raising a human boy, the biological son of Alan and Donna Ackles. Each couple and therefore he and the other boy, Jensen his name is Jensen, he keeps forgetting, have an older brother and a younger sister. However Gerald and Sherri have a pair younger twins as well, a boy and a girl. Alan and Donna know more but he didn’t want to hear it, he wants to learn for himself as he gets to know his long lost family. He hopes that he will enjoy staying with them as he like living as a member of the Kane pack and they have been very accepting of him. Especially of late when he has taken to wandering the town to burn off energy and think about what is happening without talking to his friends.

He runs thought the plan again in his head to relax himself and make sure there aren’t any flaws. For his first meeting he’ll be introduced to Sherri and his counterpart in their family Jensen. Gerald couldn’t get away on such short notice so they will meet on the next get together and hopefully some of his new siblings will be there as well. For now he is kind of glad he won’t be meeting this new family all at once. He remembers how overwhelmed he was meeting the Kane’s and then being introduced into their pack. It had been such a change he’d almost wanted to run away from it all and imagine that he was still just some freak of nature in his human family. That may seem a harsh way to think about himself but it was the way he had thought and felt for years even though his, er Alan and Donna and told him repeatedly at every turn that he was not a freak and that he was just their special gift from heaven.

He knows that the Kane pack knew or at least knew of the Padalecki pack before this news of his being their son and he had been avoiding everyone now for days to not hear anything he wanted to find out on his own. Chris got his feelings on the subject the most and had promised not to talk about it so he was still allowed to be around Jared. But he didn’t trust Tom and especially Mike or Chad not to spill the beans even if they had said they wouldn’t. Genevieve most likely wouldn’t tell him but she talked about it with Sophia and Sophia couldn’t hold any secret for long. In the morning he is tired and he looks a bit warn down but it’s nothing borrowing his sister’s hair dryer and eating lots of sugar with breakfast won’t fix.

The car ride goes by in a blur even though he knows that a decent amount of time has passed. They arrive at the meeting place, a library in a neutral city that doesn’t belong to any pack but is the buffer between two city territories. The detective who first brought everything together after Jared’s accident is waiting at the door for them. He shows them to little meeting rooms that feel way to big and way to small at the same time. Jared is placed in one, Donna in the other to wait until Sherri and Jensen arrive. There is a small slit of a window in the door but Jared spaces out while watching it so his focus is only in blurry shapes when it darkens and the door handle begins to turn. He stands up and waits while a woman enters the room and closes the door behind her.

“Hello Mrs. Padalecki” he greets the woman who gave birth to him. He is unsure if he should hug her, shake her hand or do some kind of werewolf sniffing ritual so he just stands there. She takes a deep breath through her nose as her eyes water with tears and he hopes she isn’t about to cry. But she doesn’t and he feels relived and yet somehow slightly ashamed at the same time. It’s not that he wants her to be weeping and moaning about how good it is to see her lost son but at the same time it is a reunion of long lost family. Granted she did raise a son and believed that he was hers biologically so she didn’t miss out on having a child. Maybe he has seen too many reality shows about reunions and long lost relatives. He is broken out of his thoughts when she steps closer her hand coming up as if to touch him but stops short and she is whispering “my boy, my boy” to no one in particular. He stands there as she drops her hand to her side and comes closer to him trying to be discreet about continuing to sniff the air to catch a whiff of him. Whatever she smells she must like because she leans forward a bit once she has stopped advancing to get a big lung full before exhaling loudly and standing up straight a bit of a blush on her cheeks as she does.

“Would you mind” she starts as her eyes water again and she brushes away tears before they fall “would you mind calling me Sherri?”

He nods and is relieved she didn’t ask him to call her mom even though it might be her right since that is what she is in the literal sense. They continue to stand looking at each other for a few moments before his manners kick in. “Um do you want to sit down?”

She nods and they sit in the plush chairs facing each other that are in the room for this purpose. They are soft and comfortable and the kind that under normal circumstances he would have sunk into and curled up, perhaps even in wolf form to take a long nap. But he doesn’t, he sits almost on its edge and keeps his hands in his lap not on the wide arm rests. Neither spoke for a few minutes and he was starting to get fidgety under Sherri’s gaze.

“Do you have any questions?” Sherri is the first to speak and he nods not sure of what to ask.

“Is your pack large?” Is all he can think of first because he knows the rank she holds already.

“Not large per-say, we live in a fairly large territory but we keep most of it as natural as we can. Maybe a medium size is more like and most of our members are from stable bloodlines, there isn’t a lot of coming and going.”

That answered part of his next question about similarities between their pack and his. The Kane pack is fluid with members coming and going their numbers swelling and ebbing around a core group. The part about keeping the territory natural is curious. “So what is the town like, or community…housing?” He isn’t sure how to phrase his question but he must get his meaning across because she answers.

“Every family has a house but were are a little spaced out. There is a core part to our own town with all the public buildings in the center in a square. The homes branch out in the four directions from there. Not a lot of new homes get built and any homes that are unoccupied in slow years are taken care of by relatives of the family who used to live there.” Your brother Jeff has a house of his own further along the road of our house.”

Jared is in awe that his older brother is out of the house but then again he doesn’t know his older brother’s age. Josh is only four years older than him and he can’t see Josh moving out just yet. Maybe in a year or two but not right now. “Will I stay in Jeff’s room if I visit?” He doesn’t saw when because he doesn’t want to get his hopes up. So far the Padalecki pack doesn’t sound bad and he has taken an instant liking to Sherri. He was unsure how things were going in the next room with Donna and Jensen since he couldn’t hear anything and didn’t want to lose focus on Sherri trying to focus on them. He hoped that everything was going was well for them as it was for him.

“Yes, if you want to that is” Sherri nodes and smiles. We have a guest room too if you feel awkward about staying in his room. Most of his things he took with him but there are still a few things of his lying around.” Sherri spends a little more time talking about the town and how everything is set up. Beside it’s being much more rural and old time like it’s much like the Kane pack.

Jared learns that besides Jeff his siblings are Megan, Jacob and Margaret in order. They are all Weres and excited to meet with him. Almost all the kids play soccer in the summer with their wolves matching them evenly despite size and age once they are past eight or nine and under twenty. Jensen doesn’t play but he coaches and comes up with very good moves for whatever team he is put with for the game.

Sherri asked him what kinds of foods he liked so that when, she wouldn’t say if she was very adamant about when he came to visit she could make him more comfortable. She asked about his hobbies so he wouldn’t be bored with their similar ways of living and had something to do besides join in on the sports. They were getting into the particulars about full moon runs when there was a knock on the door. Their time was up and Jared felt a little relieved as he wasn’t ready to tell Sherri about his hybrid form or his reluctance to run as a wolf sometimes. Sherri excused herself for taking a few more sniff of him before she left the room to talk with the detective and Donna about their respective first visits. He stayed in the room for a few minutes but there was nothing to do and curiosity about Jensen was getting to him. He liked to think that he was as good as any old time spy and he cracked to door open and took a peek outside to see if the coast was clear. It was so Jared slid out of the cracked doorway instead of opening it all the way closing it slowly and quietly behind him and shuffled over to the room next door. It was wide open and empty. Apparently, Jensen had no qualms about leaving to snoop. But he had gone to snoop on Jared and that both disappointed him and irked him a bit. Since he couldn’t spy on Jensen he would spy on Sherri and Donna and that was when he saw Jensen for the first time.

He found Sherri and Donna easily by following the sound of their voices. They were in an aisle facing each other talking in low but friendly tones. In the opposite aisle peeking through a gap in the books was a boy almost his own height and his age watching the women. As Jensen watched Sherri and Donna talk he watched the boy who grew up in his place, with his family. He feels a pull to Jensen he can’t explain, it’s slight but it is constant and he wonders if it’s because he knows what Jensen is going through and feels for him or if it’s because he thinks Jensen is kinda cute. Well that gives him pause and he shakes his head to clear it before giving him a better look over. Jensen has short dishwater blonde hair that will probably turn darker and a straight nose. He can’t tell eye color from here but there is time for that later. He is lean but not skinny or lanky and he calks his head to the side as he takes in the fact that Jensen’s legs are slightly bowed.

*********************************************************************
Continues in part 2 for space length.