SINCE WE ARE ALREADY HERE

SINCE WE ARE ALREADY HERE

"Great gain often comes with risks, my puppy self." Future Sam patted my head again. Humph, don't think I don't know those words were borrowed from Dad!

I can't understand why my wolves let her run as she pleased like that. Wasn't she turning 18 in a month? She was this close to officially becoming their Alpha, this close to her mating ceremony with Bell.

Didn't they realize letting her run around unchecked could not only endanger her, but the entire future of the pack? Even if not from getting lost between the Time Gates, a lot of other bad things could happen.

I remembered watching Future Ki calmly let Future Sam out the backdoor of the Alpha House earlier.

"Why did you just let me go like that?" I scolded Future Ki.

Future Ki smiled, his beautiful smile, "If goddess wants to go, I will wait for her return."

Right… this was the kind of talk that landed up with what Future Ben described in the Stick Forest future.

I turned to my own Ki, "You are not allowed to let me go."

I know I was the Alpha, but shouldn't my wolves at least try to stop me if they saw me running to my doom?

"Understood, goddess." Ki smiled, "I promise when the time comes, I will come with you."

"I WON'T BE GOING." I flared. Somebody had to be responsible for our future!

Future Sam shook her head at me, and then she smiled a knowing smile, "Even if I told you that there is great gain in it?"

"What kind of great gain?" I reluctantly reconsidered. What gain should be so incredible or crucial for this risk?

"I won't tell you!" Future Me was really annoying, "If you want to know, you'd just have to go see for yourself!"

Grrr…

"Hahaha." Future Me was totally enjoying this meeting, "How was I so cute!"

Was that something you should be saying about yourself? Arugghhhh… whatever. I give up. I'm sorry future world - it seemed like I was going to grow up into a very difficult person to deal with.

For some reason, I was the only one annoyed by Future Me though. Everyone else would light up whenever Future Me spoke to them. I was infuriated enough to want to beat everybody up. But I didn't.

Instead, we went into the Alpha House for brunch. Between the two Kis, we had quite a fancy set up in the living room. Ki was very impressed by what Future Ki did with the interior of our home. In turn, Future Ki updated Ki about the various things that happened in the last three years. It was like meeting an old friend again.

Was I the only one who couldn't get along with myself?

Myself being Future Sam who had missed Wolfgang very much. She sat next to him and sighed happily, "I know you're not quite my Wolfie, but its so good to see you in the flesh anyway."

Who the hell was HER Wolfie?

"He's MINE." I told her. I know it was stupid to be fighting with myself, but Future Me just rubbed me the wrong way.

Wolfgang politely coughed into his hand and refused to look either of us in the eye.

{It really makes one wonder what Pretty Alpha's relationship is with Sir Wolfgang.}Fluffy commented over the mindlink.

{There is no relationship!} I snapped back. Grrr… WTH. Don't make it sound weird like that.

Anyway, Future Fluffy was in the Colored Mountain, and engaged to some princess.

"Even so, I'm sure my heart is trapped here with Pretty Alpha." Fluffy said.

The future wolves laughed.

"That's exactly what you said before you left too." The younger future Ben said, "Two weeks later you got engaged."

Fluffy stopped smiling, "Doesn't that sound suspicious to you?"

And suddenly all my Future Wolves looked serious.

"We did think something was a little off. I'll look into it." Harvey promised.

"Please come rescue me, Pretty Alpha." Fluffy smiled again, "Who knows what would happen to my innocence!"

And all the guys laughed. Nobody believed Fluffy owned such a thing.

Anyway, Jax was currently visiting the Red Packlands with some of the other warriors. The continent had been peaceful and some of the ex-fightdogs had taken to travelling and seeing the world and all that. They were also taking turns to take each other back to their birth packs.

"It gives them courage to go with brothers." Future Ki explained.

My warriors were brothers in arms, brave and unafraid of death.

I already knew that some of them were afraid of ghosts. But there were also those who had not returned to visit their birth pack for fear of seeing their family and friends again - or whatever was left of it. There was now a program (that my Future Self initiated), to help these ex-fightdogs reunite their lost families.

"Maybe I'll meet my mate!" Jax was very optimistic.

All in all, we had a good talk. Our future looked amazing - well, all except for Future Fluffy's maybe-not-so-happily-ever-after engagement. But with Future Harvey on the case, I felt quite sure they would get to the bottom of things. Future Me definitely seemed confident, "We can drop by at Heller's castle tonight."

When all was said and done, we said goodbye to our Future selves and Parry decided to accompany us. We would drop One-eyed Future Ben back into his time and then go home to ours. Parry was indeed a much better time traveler than Peony and was quite confident he could get us back to somewhere within 5 minutes of our disappearance - with a bit of luck.

"The Time Gates are complicated." Parry told us, and then proceeded to give us a lecture on the history and magical manipulation theory of the Time Gates. Only Wolfgang was very interested. They continued on with a discussion on the shape of time, and then a debate on whether the Time Gates could possibly open dimension portals.

We probably spent the entire way through the Time Passages with Parry and Wolfgang going on and on "hypothetically".

"Hypothetically, could the two of you shut up?" Future Ben asked.

This offended Parry irreversibly, and now, not only was Parry going to give his full attention to his discussion with the noble Sir Wolfgang, he was going to leave Peony to navigate the rest of us swine.

"I will not cast my pearls to swine." These were the cat's exact words.

"You better take the lead, Sam." Future Ben sighed.

So Peony and I played "Choose the gate" again.

It wasn't that Peony wanted to do this either, but Fluffy had his life literally in his hands.

Ben had come from quite a few years further up the timeline so it took us longer to make our way there, but we did eventually step out of the Time Gate again.

"Where the hell is this?" Future Ben asked.

Which was a bad thing to hear since we were supposed to be getting Future Ben back to his future.

We all took a moment to look around. We were in the Maple tree part of our woods. Future Ben had left from quite a distance from the Alpha House. If I wasn't wrong, we were quite near Lullaby Route.

The Maple trees around us all wore little silver buckets to collect their sap.

"What the hell…" Future Ben breathed, "The Maple Tree Farms are still here."

Eh?

"Weren't you trapped in some Stick Forest, Beta?" Neil asked.

It wasn't just the forests around us that didn't look anything like Future Ben's Stick Forest.

Ben paused and looked down at himself.

"What the hell is this?" He repeated, but he was referring to himself.

"It's like the frog prince." I pointed at Future Ben.

"Who are you calling a frog prince?" Ben growled.

But how else could I have described it? I'm not sure when, but the Future Ben with the eye patch and pony tail and scratched up leather jacket and scuffed boots was suddenly clean shaven with both his emerald green eyes intact. His hair was his usual short crop, and his clothes were the nave blue betamen suit of my betas.

"Okay," I allowed, "Maybe more like magical princess transformation."

Like one moment he was one-eyed fugitive hobo Ben, and the next he was Uncle Ben. Hahahaha. Ben but still old.

"Okay." Future Ben said, and started walking, "Moment of truth."

I didn't quite get it, but the expression Future Ben made reminded me of Ben when he was about to face something big (e.g. possible school expulsion), that I automatically followed him.

His step sped up to a full run. Uncle Ben ran fast!

We All followed without a word. Maybe we were thinking. Maybe it was hard to talk when we had to run so fast. The apple blossoms assaulted our noses before our eyes, and we burst out from the shelter of pink and white blossoms and out into the Alpha House's backyard. This year, the backyard was a dandelion field with the largest dandelion clocks I had ever seen. The rose garden was still there and stood like an antique painting in the background. The vegetable garden too, but instead of vegetables, the beds closest to us were growing strawberries.

The lotus pond had a rock fountain attached to it now. The Alpha House had an entire new wing and was now connected to the Packhouse.

"I remember now…" Future Ben said. He checked his watch and straightened, "I'm due for a meeting. Got to go."

And then without a word of thanks or explanation, Future Ben walked away.

WTH? Did his memories get replaced like his outfit? We were all standing out in the open. Was it too late to slink away? How should we explain our presence to this "new" Future Ben?

"Get Sam home safely." Future Ben called back when we didn't move, "If not, I would know. And I swear, I will sell you cats to His Highness Prince Alaric."

"That's me." Fluffy smiled, so the two cats would understand the implications.

"Then… then we better go now." Peony immediately conceded.

"You don't have to tell me what to do, wolf." Parry was more insulted. Apparently, the goddess' cats believed that they were above being bossed by beta wolves.

"Wait." I had an idea, "Since we are already here…"