HOW THE COOKIE CRUMBLES

7 MARCH, SUNDAY, TIMELINE 3

It hadn't sounded too difficult at first, all we had to do was stand in for "us" and continue living as if we hadn't time travelled until "we" got back from Incident 0. I still had no idea what kind of new and improved plan my wolves had come up with for "us" to do instead of whatever we did to fix Jude.

Anyway, how hard was it to be "ourselves"?

But you know how once you outgrew your favorite sneakers as a puppy, you'd never be able to put your feet back into them ever again? Yeah, it was surprisingly hard to walk a mile in our old shoes of our past lives.

Here are all the ways we tripped up over ourselves in an attempt to be ourselves:

It started, like avalanches and a number of natural disasters, rather innocuously at first. We were just in Dad's office eating sandwiches and cookies, drinking tea (with less milk) and coffee (black as always), like it was any other day at Night Leaf.

But then one of my betas decided to double check his notes (guess which one), and realized that they were different from the ones he remembered.

{Oh s***, I misremembered.} Harvey realized into my betas' group link, {The notes in this timeline have some differing details from our Original time.}

And suddenly ALL my betas pulled out some kind of screen to consult their notes/schedules/almanac/horoscopes or whatever it was that they referenced to pull off their lives so perfectly.

"What?" Beta Lucas noticed immediately, "What happened?"

You know, how meerkats popped out of the burrows - and many meerkats popping out would mean something was up right? Beta Lucas quickly took out his phone to check too, "What happened?"

"Apologies." Harvey quickly took responsibility for the beta-uproar (it was all very calm in the office - the uproar was mostly in their beta heads.), "I realized there were some discrepancies in the agenda for the New Town Committee Meeting than I last remembered."

"Oh." Beta Lucas sounded relieved. He nodded while still checking his own screen as if to make sure everything was in place, "Yah man, it happens."

Wolfgang, who was hanging back in a deep frown and even deeper thought looked somewhat aghast, "But Beta, since we had traveled back to just after our past selves had left, our Original Timeline should not have been altered yet…"

Which was true. But what was also true was that it had been altered, and Wolfgang's expression clearly showed that he had also just started "misremembering" certain details.

"We probably left a tear in the space-time continuum" Fluffy smiled beautifully as he announced.

Wolfgang closed his eyes at the thought. I think it was too much for him. If he had to put words into his emotions right now, he would probably be scolding us, "I knew it. I told you again and again not to mess with time lightly, but no… you had to joy ride up and down the timelines, split it up into 34 alternative timelines - 34! - and then some… now see, you broke time. Congratulations guys. You really messed up big time. There's not a wolf in the whole of the history of lycandom in ANY timeline that managed to do what you guys did."

"Yay, teamwork!" - This would have been the response that would land me more homework for sure.

But of course, Sir Professor Wolfgang was not a wolf who would verbalize something so disrespectful in front of my Alpha Dad. Actually, I'm sure his actual vocabulary set would be quite different too, but the feeling was like that.

"Don't worry, Sir Wolfgang." Beta Lucas assured the fire wolf with inexplicable confidence, "It'll close up on its own and everything will stabilize okay."

Like, WTH. I felt myself become alarmed on hearing that, but this time, I wasn't the only one freaking out.

"What the hell, Dad!" Ben said. I could tell he was freaking out a bit too because Ben always sounded extra annoyed when he was panicking, "Define OKAY."

Because we all knew "okay" was as subjective as when Beta Lucas had assured me that "everything is as it should be" in our new timeline.

I glanced nervously over at my dad, but he looked relatively calm at the news. He was frowning, yes, but it was his thinking frown, and it wasn't even very pronounced.

Wolfgang was far more deeply invested in Time's welfare than Dad was, "How can we be sure it would close up on its own, Beta?"

Beta Lucas shrugged jauntily, "It always does."

"Yes, and Beta Lucas would know this because he had done this quite often before." Fluffy smiled.

Beta Lucas opened his mouth to answer and then thought better of it and shut it again.

"Kaius." Dad said lowly, "Leave it."

"Understood, Alpha." Fluffy beamed because he now knew that his guess must have been closer to the truth than Dad wanted to admit. Heck, WE ALL KNEW. Even me, the dumb pup. I wasn't so dumb anymore.

"Dad!" I flared a little.

Dad raised a brow at me and I decided to leave it, "No, it's nothing."

I went back to eating my sandwich. I was just a dumb pup. I didn't know nothing.

"What Sam?" Ben prodded.

I shook my head, "It's fine. Time is the greatest healer."

"What?" Ben frowned as he tried to understand my words. There was nothing to understand really, I had misquoted Alpha James.

"What can we do about it?" I challenged my wolves, "It's not like we should time travel back to prevent it, right?"

That would just rip another hole.

And there was a part of me, the part with a very uncanny lucky sense of direction, that believed that Fluffy was right. Dad and Beta Lucas had done this sort of thing way more than they let on, and as long as Dad said to leave it, it would probably be best to do as he said.

"You've changed, Sam." Ben realized, but with his usual bad attitude, it sounded like he was accusing me.

"We've all changed." I pointed out, "Nothing can go back to what we were. Not me, nor you, nor time."

Because even as the words left my tongue, I realized it was true. We THOUGHT we were traveling back in time, but in truth, time, like its watery passages and gates was everchanging.

"The world is changing every day." This was especially true if someone was messing around with the timelines left right and center. I mean, we were messing with it, our past selves were messing with it, our future selves were messing with it. Who knew how many descendants of the goddess' bloodline had cat-access before us?

"Okay…" Ben put his hands on his hips, "Sam. You need to tone it down."

"Tone what down?" I tilted my head, nonplussed.

"I mean, you're gonna stick out too much if you don't at least try to pretend to be the Original Sam." Ben explained (badly as usual).

"You mean, like a dumb pup?" I asked.

"What?" Ben looked confused, and then he dropped his hands from his hip, "Whatever Sam, do what you want, but you're the one who has to go home and have dinner with your mum and Savy…"

Oh.

Now that changed everything.

"Oh, no! Dad what should we do? Mum would notice for sure!" I panicked.

Dad was as calm as before, "It should be fine. She never noticed before."

Oh.

I stopped panicking… and then it hit me all over again - Dad had definitely done this before! My Dad had too many secrets… I sighed. Maybe it was high time I reconsidered Fluffy and Wolfgang's conspiracy theory about Dad being some kind of ultimate mastermind pulling the strings and controlling the play on the chess board across the timelines.

I shrugged - the cool Lorent one I picked up from spending too much time growing up with Bell and Charles, "No issue. I'd just pretend to be a dumb pup again."

How hard could it be?

Ben looked skeptical (but that could just be his bad-attitude face), "Really, Sam? No issue?"

I took pause at that. Opps. I guess that wasn't in my vocabulary before. I produced my usual wide grin, "I mean, NO PROBLEM. Leave it to me, I'm the Alpha!"

Wow, I used to sound like such a dumb pup.

Over the mindlinks, Ben muttered, {Okay, Sam's gonna blow it. Dog, make sure you cover for her.}

{Understood, Beta.} Ki smiled like a flower to the sun.

{Can I help?} Fluffy offered.

{NO!} Everyone else yelled silently, but it was very resounding.

I ate the last cookie on my plate and considered how the situation was escalating. It wasn't just me! I mean, I wasn't the one sporting a fight dog tat on his butt (not that I've seen Harv's butt to verify), or the one still estranged from Bell (because Ki still was), or the one with a bad attitude x3 (I think Ben got worse every life he lived). I'd like to see how Dad explained his new godson to Mum too!

I discretely flicked the crumbs from my fingers back on my plate and wiped them on the napkin tucked neatly under my saucer. When that was done, I finished my tea and placed it back with an easy quiet clear clink. Ben watched, his mouth ajar, but what did he expect me to do? Lick my fingers clean, gulp everything down with sweetened milk, end up with a milk mustache, and then wipe it off with the back of my hand?

I guess he was right, I was very likely going to blow it. I smiled brightly at him. Oh well. This was how the cookie crumbles.