It was clear from the way that Toby's eyes were widening that he had come to the exact same conclusion.

"You don't think…" Jim started.

"It would make so much sense, though," Toby said. His hands flexed repeatedly, a tell-tale of his excitement. "He literally looks exactly the same as when we went to school. I know we joke about it, but you can't deny it's strange."

Jim nodded slowly.

"He does make an awful lot of strange jokes about meeting historical people," Jim admitted.

It was really about fifty percent of Walt's joke arsenal. The other half was very, very bad puns. It was probably why he and Barbara had clicked so quickly, Jim thought ruefully.

"Still," He said, shaking himself out of his thoughts. "None of that is really enough to prove that Walt is a changeling."

"I have that gaggletack that Blinky gave me," Toby offered.

"No."

Jim shook his head. Mortification at the jokes aside, he was really fond of his former history teacher. He owed the man a better turn than that.

"What brings you here today, Jim," Walt asked, looking up from the papers he was working on. "Extra cookies from class?"

"Afraid not," Jim said.

Now that it came to it, he was nervous. He hovered by the door trying to gather up his courage.

"Jim? Are you quite all right?"

He glanced up to see Walt watching him with a concerned expression. It caused his heart to clench in a rather painful way. He really hoped this would go well. He didn't want this man to be his enemy.

He drew in a deep breath, fully entered the room, and closed the door behind him.

Walt straightened up slightly, a frown forming on his face.

"There's no real way to ease into this, so I'm going to cut straight to the chase," Jim said before he could think better of it. "I know you're a changeling, Walt."

Walt chuckled awkwardly.

"What's this now? One of Mr. Domzalski's joke ideas?"

Jim noted that his hand had strayed under the desk. He fought the now almost instinctual urge to reach for his amulet. Once things escalated it was nearly impossible to deescalate them. He would not draw his sword unless he absolutely had to.

"It's not a joke," He said firmly. He sounded far more confident than he felt. "Blinky told me about them yesterday and well… There are a number of strange things I've noticed about you over the years. My point is: You being a changeling makes a little too much sense."

Walt's eyes darted around. He was getting tense.

Jim held his hands out in front of him, palms up, in what was… for humans anyway… a nearly universal gesture of peace.

"I'm not here to fight," He said quietly.

"Then why are you here?" Walt asked raising an eyebrow. "Surely, Blinkious has told you exactly what us impures are like. Do you hope to get information from me?"

"Only if you want to give it." Jim refused to rise to the bait. He'd dealt with enough troubled students since he started teaching to recognize that when he heard it. "What I want is to hear your side of the story."

Walter blinked. His posture loosened just slightly and his hand dropped from where it had been hovering under the desk.

"Why would you want that? Do you not believe we serve Gunmar?"

"No," Jim said. He'd seen a little too much evidence for that so far.

"Then why?"

"Because a wise man once told me that there were more sides to each story than we could ever realize." He hadn't realized the importance of that statement at the time but he thought that he might now. "He also told me that the real value could only be found in history when we sought to study as many of those sides as we could and learn from them."

Jim held his breath as Walt watched him, expression completely unreadable, for a long moment.

Finally the old history teacher let out an incredulous laugh and his shoulders dropped. His hand returned empty to the top of the desk.

"You truly do make for a strange Trollhunter," He said. "I knew there was a reason you were my favorite student."

Author Notes:

I saw an AU by bifacialler on Tumbler where Jim was the Arcadia High home ec teacher and really liked it so I had to do a little dabble for it. (If you look up this fic on AO3 I have included the link for the post there.)

I feel like this fic is a bit on the optimistic side but I also think Jim would have done better dealing with finding out Strickler was a changeling if he was older.