"John?" Liz was the first person to say anything. John looked over her and the other people in the room were able to see that the agent's skin was slightly greenish.
"Liz," he said.
"John, why didn't you tell us?"
"No offense, but it wasn't really your business. I've spent the last 26 years learning human habits and trying to blend in. You all, everyone here, believed I was just some other human that Prof. Broom hired. I wasn't going to tell you otherwise."
"Were you going to tell us at all?" Abe asked.
John nodded slowly, "I had planned on it eventually. Though I wasn't going to say anything until someone noticed that I don't age."
Manning mumbled something and John shot him a dirty look.
"You wouldn't have known if you hadn't been snooping."
"I wasn't snooping! It's my job to go over agent files!"
"Maybe, but not in the restricted files! Even as director you don't have access to those! Prof. Broom locked them for a reason!"
"What the hell is going on?" Hellboy shouted.
There was a few moments of tense silence before Abe said, "Red, I do believe John has told us. He's not human."
"So what the hell is he?"
Four sets of eyes turned to the man in the chair.
He shrugged and said, "We don't really have a name among humans. Sometimes we're mistaken for dryads or woodland pixies. We're called tree talkers, mostly. Altogether, we just call ourselves the People."
The only one to react was Abe, a look of awe and understanding crossing his face.
"You've heard of us," John said.
"Yes," Abe nodded, "in passing, though I've never been able to find any detailed information."
"We try to keep it that way. There are only a few of us left; we don't want humans tramping through the forest in hopes of seeing one of us."
"I'm going to bed," Hellboy said.
"Red!" Liz started.
"Let him go," John interrupted.
The large red demon stalked out the door. John watched him go and sighed, rubbing the palms of his hands over his eyes. He reached down and picked up a towel that lay beside his chair and pulled his feet out of the bucket.
"What is that?" Liz asked.
"Fertilizer," John grinned.
"You absorb nutrients through your skin?" Abe asked curiously.
"I can," John answered, "but I can survive off of human food, too, if the need arises."
"When are you leaving?" Manning interrupted.
The three nonhumans shot him nasty looks, but John answered anyway.
"My flight leaves tomorrow morning at nine."
"Fine," the director said, also leaving the room.
"Do you have to go so soon?" Liz asked.
"I, too, would like you to stay," Abe added.
"Yeah. It's time I go home for a bit. I miss my family; my land."
"Is that why you're so sick?" Liz asked, "Because you've been away too long?"
John nodded, "Some of it. Down in Antarctica, there hasn't been any sunlight for six months. I'm not sick, so much as malnourished."
Liz wrapped her arms around John and said, "Come back to us healthy, okay?"
"Okay."
Rowyn watched Draighean dance with some other creatures in the meadow. The moonlight danced across her skin and over the leaves of her and her mate's tree. She leaned back into the rough bark behind her and sighed.
"Why so down?" asked a deep, familiar voice from behind her.
Rowyn jumped and spun around, staring into the deep brown eyes of her life mate.
"Aodh!"
She wrapped him in her arms and welcomed him home.
