Warnings: Physical abuse. Possibly onscreen (it's a work-in-progress, so we'll see), definite descriptions of aftermath.

Second...not so much warning as informing for those who have certain expectations from an A/O/B fic: Little to no sex. As it is a WIP, I can't rule it out completely, but I've currently no intentions of writing a sex scene. At best, I might share the lead up to a bonding.

So...this story is a bit different from my others...different enough I debated between posting it under a different name...or not at all...but it's begun and I'm impatient so...here it is. (and for the curious, yes, I am still working on my other wip; I've even written two pages of the next chapter. I try to never have more than two wip's at a time)

Basically, this is an alternate universe with alpha/beta/omega dynamics. For those who are new to this genre, it is basically a way to give wolf-like qualities to humans. And mostly (but not only) used for porn purposes. (And then there's me, who likes to play with the pack dynamics and animilistic instincts and ignores the sex). There are often dominant/submissive undertones as well. Omegas are submissive, can go into heat and have children (even male omegas). Alphas are dominant and have knots like dogs (if you don't know what that means, don't worry about it; it doesn't come up in this story anyway). Betas are the muggles of the universe; generally treated as boring and assigned to side characters, but sometimes also seen as vital to balancing the alphas and omegas. There are often non-con undertones to these stories as well, considering the people in them are often so ruled by their hormonal instincts that they lose their free will. My story plays more with the aspects that cause omegas to be treated a bit like children (they by law need an alpha to look after them, either as a parental sort of figure or spouse). Whether omegas actually need this, or if society perceives them to need this, I leave to your interpretation, but this law does land Jack in a bit of difficulty. Hence the Abuse tags.

Story

"You smell of Jack," Jane said, surprise and approval coloring her tone.

"Do I?" asked Michael. "Well…I suppose he is practically family after all." Then he grinned, delighted to discover he still had the ability to make his sister blush. Jane retaliated with a light cuff against his ear before drawing him closer into a comfortable cuddle on the couch. She breathed in deeply, the smell of her family, her pack, enveloping her and filling her with a sense of deep calm and contentment.

Smelling Jack's unique, sweet scent intermixed with her brother and the children felt right. More than right. It had been one of Jane's greatest concerns that after Michael's alpha died, rather than reaching out for the support of his fellow omegas, he had withdrawn. The only comfort he allowed was from his own children, and that only because the children needed him, and he could deny them nothing. Another omega's scent intermingling with her brother on such a deep level was a very good sign. They would have had to have had a proper bonding cuddle to leave that strong an impression so long after the other omega had left.

Yes, Jane would have been happy to scent any omega on her brother, but that it was an omega she instantly recognized was perfect. That deep primal part of her alpha spirit approved of Jack's scent intermingling with her pack. The only thing better would be to know Jack was walking around smelling of her family, of her, that the world would know him claimed.

Except, of course, that he wasn't claimed. Yet. Jane had never intended to claim anyone. Her alpha side felt content taking care of London, of the impoverished ones in need. She had her niece and nephews to settle any brooding she might have felt and, most recently, she had Michael himself under her wing again. And for a while it felt a bit like trying to hold a broken vase together while hoping for the glue to set, and with a vital piece missing from the middle, but they held.

And then there was Jack. And he wasn't the missing piece, but he fit all the same.

"You know," said Michael after a bit, "You smell of Jack, too."

Jane was determined not to blush at that. Luckily, Michael was tucked in against her and not at all in position to know whether or not she failed. Then Michael spoke again, not teasing this time, but in earnest seriousness. Somehow, their position, together but not looking at each other, made such talks easier.

"It's okay if you want him," Michael said. "You know that, right? And it's okay if you don't. He's already pack, either way. I don't think he'll run away, whatever you decide."

Jane didn't think so either. Jack wasn't at all like David had been. David had wanted her all to himself, and the day he realized that wasn't going to happen, that her pack didn't begin and end with him…well…Jack wasn't like David. Jack liked to share. If anything, Jane should be the jealous one, because Jack had friends everywhere.

"I'm glad he's pack," Jane said, instead of answering the unspoken question. Did she want Jack? Did she want to bond with him…start a family with him? To not just have nieces and nephews but sons and daughters? Would Jack really be happy if all he ever got were cuddles and someone else's pups to mother?

Jack had said he'd be happy, no matter what. And Jane tended to believe him. Jack wore his emotions fully. When he was happy, he was happy, and when he was sad, he'd own it, but keep looking up for something to bring his joy back again. And he'd find it, too. It was just so hard to trust that joy. To trust that Jane was enough. No matter how much or how little she gave back.

The children were much more direct than their father.

"Aunt Jane," said Annabel, "When are you going to make Uncle Jack our proper uncle?"

Trying to put her off with a 'whatever do you mean', just got an impatient, unimpressed look that was rather too old in her face. A tiny, petty, jealous part of Jane couldn't help but think that Mary Poppins would have gotten away with that answer.

"You already call him 'uncle'," Jane had tried next. The children had started doing that all on their own, too. Jack's face, the first time, had been priceless. It had started with surprise, and his lips had turned up in joy, but then his eyes had slid over towards Jane and Michael, and his trying not to look too pleased while at the same time being a bit anxious gave him the most ridiculous expression that it was almost impossible not to laugh out loud.

She had to fight the urge so hard, in fact, that it was Michael who put the poor man out of his misery.

"Uncle Jack?" he said, to the children, with a smile that was probably more for Jack than those he spoke to, to show he wasn't displeased. "Is that what he is?"

"Of course he is," Georgie had answered, in that tone of absolutes that only the very young can pull off gracefully, as though he were puzzled by the very idea that it wasn't a universal fact.

"Well, of course, silly of me," said Michael.

"Well go on then," Jane said, "To the park with Uncle Jack." The smile Jack sent her way at those words was so pure in its joy that she actually felt her heart jump in her chest.

So to the children he was 'Uncle Jack'. To her brother he was a pack mate. And to her? He was a pack mate as well, but on the cusp of being something more. That terrified her. And elated her. How was she to explain all of that to a child?

"Uncle Jack likes you," Georgie pointed out, with the utter simplicity of the very young, "And you like Uncle Jack. Doesn't that mean you're supposed to bond?"

"It's a little more complicated than that," Jane answered. Of course, when it comes to big complex ideas, like justice or morality or love or hate, most children are colorblind. Someone is good, or they are bad. If you are bad, you should be punished. If you are good, you should be rewarded. If you love someone, then you should be together. If you hate someone, you should be apart. There are no in-betweens for children.

"Uncle Jack is family," Jane said firmly. "It doesn't really matter, does it, what kind of family?"

"Yes it does," all three children insisted. Which prompted Michael to come over and rescue his sister and to explain to his children that love does not need silly labels and 'you are making your Aunt Jane upset' which she wasn't supposed to hear, but that silenced the children much more effectively than any of her own arguments.

Probably the only person in the entire household who had never suggested Jane and Jack should be bonded was Mary Poppins, and considering she was the reason they crossed paths in the first place Jane rather thought she knew what her opinion on the matter was. Even if she could no longer ask her.

But the point is, well, the point to be understood of all of this confusing and complicated relationship that had developed between Jane and Jack, was that Jack was kind of, sort of family but he wasn't Jane's.

So she probably had no right to the deep, primal fury that sang through her blood and caused her to bare her teeth and snarl when she saw Jack next.

Jack was alarmed enough by the display to immediately flinch backwards while instinctively turning his head to offer his neck. This in itself was unusual because Jack might have been an omega but cowering wasn't a part of his personality and, while he knew when to be politely submissive, such poses were usually undercut by a mischievous twinkle to his eye.

There was no twinkle in his eyes this time. It was closer to a spark of fear. Jack would later insist that he wasn't afraid of Jane, and never would be, but omegas don't instinctively bare their necks for alphas when they're feeling at ease. They do it when they feel a primal need to calm an irate alpha before it attacks.

This might have done more to calm Jane if it hadn't revealed more of what had incited Jane's rage in the first place.

Jack, for his part, hadn't meant to see Jane at all that day. In fact, he had rather hoped to avoid the entire Banks family. This wasn't because he'd suddenly lost interest in the family (in fact, he rather craved their company more acutely than normal) but because he was rather keen to hide some information that meeting with any of them would very quickly reveal.

Later (much later) Jack would laugh a bit at his own folly because really, how had he expected to never be found out? He'd have had to continue to completely avoid the Banks family, and all their acquaintances, for at least a full month…and this while he had his leerie route that took him right down their lane. In fact, Jack had no plans for the future at all…just a strong and instinctive desire to hide what made him feel small and weak and humiliated and a hundred other dark emotions that he wanted to keep as far from the light that was his pack as possible.

So on the day in question, he first tried to trade routes with Angus (and under any other circumstances Angus would have agreed at once, but this time he looked Jack up and down, more or less divined his purpose, and gently sent him on his way). This having failed (and Angus warning off the others from agreeing to a trade), and Jack being determined to do his work no matter how he felt, he then tried to go about it as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for Jack, he found his route more difficult that evening than the evening before, and despite his intentions it was rather later than his normal time that he pedaled awkwardly down Cherry Tree Lane. He furtively avoiding looking towards number seventeen to see if anyone watched for him to wave out the window, and intended to finish as quickly as possible and be on his way.

He thought perhaps he'd get away with it after all (and then he could stick his tongue out at Angus after, never mind that Angus had Jack's best interests at heart or that sticking one's tongue out was ridiculously juvenile). It was darker than usual due to his lateness in lighting the lamps, and the long shadows might well help to hide his presence as he went along.

This hope, of course, was doomed to failure from start to finish.

In the first place, Jack being late to light the lamps was so unusual that the children, who had been watching out for him, had already sounded the alarm to the adults that something was amiss with Jack.

In the second place, it wasn't just Michael and Ellen that the children carried this news to. Jane was over for a visit, and she never intended to simply let Jack pass them by. She didn't quite give in to the temptation to sit at the window and watch for him, in part because Michael had quite enough to tease her about but mostly because the children had already taken that post and Jane trusted them to raise the alarm when Jack was in sight, trust that did not prove to be mislaid.

In the third place, having managed to finish his route, Jack all at once discovered that he'd pushed himself rather beyond his own strength in his determination to finish, and without that goal to aim for all his strength seemed to leave him at once. So instead of finishing and then leaping onto his bike and racing away before any Banks had a chance to call him back, he finished the last light, slid down his ladder, then found himself sliding all the way down to sitting on the pavement.

He sat there, his hands still holding his ladder, and stared up at the lamp's glow and felt very odd and not at all sure how he came to be sitting on the ground. And then the lamp's light was blocked by a face looking down at him and he was caught before he could even make the attempt to flee.

"Jack?" said the voice that belonged with the face, and Jack's lips turned up in a smile in spite of all his misgivings, as they were wont to do whenever he heard that voice or saw that face.

"Yes, Jane?" he answered, and despite the smile, he couldn't help but feel his heart speed up for an entirely different reason than pleasure at her company, and he wondered furtively if pulling his cap lower over his face would help hide what was moments away from being found out, or just draw attention to it.

At any rate, it was far too late. It was dark, and Jane cast her shadow over him, but thanks to the newly lit lamp it wasn't that dark. Jane frowned, and then went down on her knees as Jack had yet to try to rise, and quickly made out what the shadows had almost…but not quite…hid.

To put it quite simply, Jack had a black eye.

To give it more detail, Jack had a spectacular black eye. In fact, half the left side of his face appeared one massive bruise, and if the eye itself wasn't swollen shut yet, leaving it untreated for another hour or two would surely remedy that.

It was this unexpected revelation that had at once incited Jane's fury (and horror) to such a degree that she snarled, and inspired Jack to bare his neck. And while his neck was unblemished, the movement caused the edge of his shirt to shift just enough to allow Jane to notice what she might otherwise have missed: the faint edge to another bruise.

Jack didn't just have a black eye; he had further bruising hidden from Jane's eyes.

Jack tried to look at her while still keeping his head turned away, his expression a bit worried, a bit guilty, but mostly hard to read thanks to half of it being obscured by the horrible crime scene that marred his face.

Because it was a crime. Jack hadn't come by those bruises through some thoughtless accident. Someone had struck him. Jane was certain of this through a deep primal instinct and she didn't need Jack to confirm it; she just knew.

Just as she knew she was going to destroy whoever had done this.

But first things first.

"Michael," she called, though she kept her eyes on Jack. She knew her brother was near, curious (and worried) about Jack but allowing Jane her private moment with the omega, holding his own children back.

"Yes?" he answered, taking a step towards them.

"Call for the doctor, please."

"I don't need the doctor," Jack was quick to say, and it was probably only the fact that he sounded about like he usually did that the children didn't swarm over to them in concern, despite their father holding them back. That didn't stop them from voicing their concern.

"Is Uncle Jack sick?" Georgie asked in alarm.

"I can call the doctor," Annabel said, and she ran for the house to do just that.

"Did he fall?" asked John, who noted the unusual position with Jack sitting on the ground.

"Do you need help with him?" Michael wanted to know, trusting his daughter to successfully fulfill the task Jane had originally asked of him.

"I'm fine," was what Jack said to all of this, becoming a bit annoyed in spite of himself at the way everyone spoke over him, and then, in a gentler voice because he didn't like causing others worry and upset, he said to Jane, "Truly, it looks worse than it is. I hardly even feel it. I…"

His kindly meant, but rather less than truthful self-assessment was interrupted with a very undignified squawk as he unexpectedly found himself drawn up into Jane's arms. Before Jack understood her intentions, Jane had stood up and Jack found himself being held like the world's largest infant.

Had Jack been feeling more himself, he would have protested this move. Loudly. And at length. Sure, intellectually he understood that Jane, as an alpha, was much stronger than she looked; certainly stronger than Jack or Michael, despite them being men and larger than her. But just because he knew it was in her strength to carry him didn't mean he wanted her to cart him about. She could at least leave him the illusion of his manly pride.

Jack was not feeling more himself, though, so instead he reacted with a startled yelp, his arms instinctively going around Jane in return. The yelp, far from being followed by a stream of protests, was followed by what could only be described as a pained whimper, and he positively clung to Jane.

"I'll get the doors," Michael offered, seeing as Jane seemed to have a firm hold on Jack, and he went ahead to do as he proposed while Jane carefully but swiftly brought Jack inside. Georgie and John took it on themselves to grab Jack's ladder, still leaning against the lamp, and bicycle and moved them to their own house's front steps before following the rest inside.

Inside they found their sister and Ellen, the former who had only just hung up the phone with the doctor and the latter who informed the boys that Jack had been taken to the downstairs guest room and the children were not to go in and disturb them.

"We don't want to disturb them," Georgie tried to explain. "We just want to see them."

"Just go and watch out for the doctor," Ellen answered, and this Georgie did with great care. Annabel and John were not so fully distracted by this, but they sat with Georgie anyway.

"What do you think is the matter with Uncle Jack?" Georgie asked while they waited. "You don't think…you don't think he is very ill, do you?"

"I think he got hurt," John answered. He had been the only one of the three who'd noted the black eye. "I think…I think he got in a fight."

"Oh no!" said Georgie. "Do you think Aunt Jane is going to make him sit in the corner or…or…or give him a smacking?" In Georgie's mind, fighting was about the naughtiest thing a person could do.

"Uncle Jack doesn't go around fighting," Annabel protested. "He knows better."

"Well…who's to say he started it?" John asked, who had had his share of schoolyard scuffles, enough to realize that fault isn't always so easily assigned in such cases. "Anyway, I think someone hit him, and if they did, well, I hope he hit them back."

"You shouldn't say that," said Annabel, but not very forcefully because she found she agreed with John.

"What if he stopped a bank robber?" Georgie suggested. "Or…or saved a poor little omega from a mean alpha who wanted to beat him for not bringing home enough money."

"…but isn't Uncle Jack a poor little omega too, Georgie?" John pointed out. The children considered this. Their storybooks suggested that omegas were prone to being randomly attacked and having to be rescued. It was hard to imagine Uncle Jack in that role, though. He was the one who tended to rescue them when they got into trouble. Annabel's first instinct was to dismiss the storybooks completely, already having had issue with the role they placed little girls in, but one aspect of the 'poor little omega' stories did stand out to her.

"Who is Jack's alpha, anyway?"

"Aunt Jane, of course," Georgie answered promptly, utterly certain he was entirely right.

"She will be soon, of course," Annabel agreed, "But he must already have had an alpha before he ever even met us…and I suppose that's his alpha still…until Aunt Jane claims him."

"You don't mean he had some other family's alpha all this time?" asked Georgie, who didn't entirely understand the ways of the world yet.

"It's the law, I think," Annabel tried to explain. "Like how children aren't allowed to live all by themselves without any parents to watch them."

"But Uncle Jack isn't a child," Georgie answered, though this was said a bit doubtfully, as though the speaker wasn't certain he spoke the truth of the matter. Uncle Jack played like a child…but he had a job like a grownup, and he was big like a grownup. Then, with much less doubt, he added, "And Daddy doesn't have an alpha parent; so is he breaking the law?"

"Alphas aren't exactly like parents," John tried to explain next. "It's more…I suppose…well, omegas are gentle and…and sweet, and they look after children but they aren't good at looking after themselves and alphas are there to protect them. And father has Aunt Jane; she's all of our family alpha."

And Georgie supposed that made sense. Their father was prone to forgetting things, like all the times he left his hat or his briefcase lying somewhere or forgot to get the groceries. Their mother had looked after him very well…before. And after, the children took on those tasks, and Georgie had to admit that Aunt Jane was over quite often to help out as well.

"So Uncle Jack has some other alpha that isn't Aunt Jane?" he asked, still not liking the idea in the least. Jack was theirs, not some strange alpha's that none of them even knew.

"Not like…like a mate," Annabel said, trying to reassure him though she wasn't sure she liked the idea any better…though she had more reason than jealousy. All those stories were going through her head, the ones with the horrible villain alphas who the stories were quick to denounce as not proper alphas at all (oftentimes they turned out to be merely betas who were pretending so they could claim an omega as their own…and if they were alphas then the Good Alpha soon proved they were weak, inferior ones). They were the sort of alpha who beat omegas and made them do hard work. Just think what Cinderella had had to put up with, with that horrible alpha stepmother!

Annabel didn't like to mention her thoughts to the others, though. Georgie and John were already upset, and suggesting horrible possibilities would only make them all feel worse. Anyway, they didn't know, so she sat in silence, and worried, and tried to remember that Jack really wasn't at all like Cinderella. He probably wouldn't wait around for some fairy godmother to send him to the ball, for one. If he wanted to go, he'd find his own way or resign himself to finding his own entertainment. He wouldn't go and cry about it.

But if John was right…someone hurt Jack. And Jack must have a family alpha who wasn't Jane. And they had met Jack's friends…but they'd never met this alpha. If it had been a Good Alpha…why had Jack never brought them around to introduce?

The doctor took almost half an hour to reach their house. In all that time, no one came out from the guest room. Not to tell them it was all a false alarm and Jack was fine after all. Not to tell them he was even worse than it had first appeared.

The doctor was shown in, and the door closed behind him, and the children were left to wonder and worry and wait.