Chapter One: The Odyssey of Greg Parker

Author note: This story is part of the Magical Flashpoint Side Story series. It follows "No Home Like the One I've Got" and comes before "Mali Sniperist".

Although all original characters belong to me, I do not own Flashpoint, Harry Potter, Narnia, or Merlin.

Fair warning, ya'll. This story is going to have a significant rehash of the past few stories in the main It's a Magical Flashpoint storyline. Specifically, "Homeward Bound", "The OMAC Project", and, of course, "No Home Like the One I've Got". Now, I promise that it's not all rehashing stories that you've probably already read, but unfortunately, as of the beginning of this story, only Team One and Holleran know what's been going on with poor Greg. I'll try to make it interesting, but it will be a touch repetitive, I'm afraid.

Even so, enjoy!

Wordy stayed with Sarge and the kids while his teammates dispersed to handle damage control and arrange safe passage through the barn to the team leader's van. The stocky, gaunt man was still hugging his kids, but Wordy could see the gray tinge to his skin and the extreme exhaustion written all over his face and body. Sarge had pushed himself well past his limits, over and over again, without so much as a syllable of complaint.

Oh, the brunet was well aware that his boss was no saint – Sarge had undoubtedly complained to himself over the situation more than once – but never within earshot of his team. Wordy just wasn't sure if that was because Sarge was being stoic or if it was because he was terrified of losing his friends. And after hearing the older man's tale of John Reese and Lionel Fusco – not to mention remembering their own reaction to finding out about the magical orders – Wordy understood Sarge's fear all too well. Knowing what he did now, he was rather ashamed he and his teammates had deepened the old wound his friend carried. However justified they'd felt at the time…well, suffice to say that Kevin 'Wordy' Wordsworth was going to do his best to make sure Sarge never had to worry about his friends rejecting him ever again.

"Word."

The team leader glanced over his shoulder at his Sergeant. "We're clear?"

Ed nodded. "Need any help?"

Wordy considered the offer seriously, then shook his head. Turning back to his boss and the kids, he asked, "Lance, can you get his right side?"

Alanna scooted out of the way as her brother and Wordy bracketed her uncle. The big man crouched, getting under Sarge's left arm. Reaching out with his right hand, he gripped Lance's left arm behind the Boss's back; the young man returned the favor, allowing the pair to share their strength and stabilize their lifting power. As carefully as possible, the two hefted their burden up and out of Commander Holleran's office chair. Sarge made a valiant effort to support his own weight, but he simply wasn't capable any more.

" 'Lanna, no healing spells, but could you do a protective spell?" Wordy asked, glancing down at Sarge's bare feet meaningfully.

"I can teach her one," a new voice offered. To Wordy's mixed surprise and relief, Neal Queenscove appeared in the doorway, sneaking past Ed into the office. Once inside, the wizard glanced back out the door and furtively drew his wand to cast a spell at Sarge's feet. "That should last two hours."

"Okay," Ed agreed, stepping inside the threshold. "Neal, can you go teach 'Lanna that spell now while Lance and Wordy get Greg here out to the Wordy Express?"

"Of course, Auror Sergeant Lane."

The Sergeant nodded once, moving on. Switching his focus to Sarge, he said, "Greg, I'm gonna hang onto your leaves, okay, buddy?"

Sarge managed a short, jerky nod, too wrung out to even attempt speech.

Blue sought out the team leader's gray. "Word, you just focus on the Boss. We'll start figuring stuff out in a day or two."

"Copy," Wordy acknowledged.

The big man was very grateful when Ed's plan went off without a hitch. Their team ran interference while he and Lance carried the exhausted, half-asleep Sergeant-turned-Lieutenant through the station to his van. Neal taught Alanna the spells to protect Sarge's hands and feet and gave her a fresh supply of the same two paste-like potions the team had been using all week, along with a stash of nutrient potions. In less time than Wordy would've believed, they were ready to go and on their way home.

The group ran into trouble once they reached the Wordsworth homestead. The guest room had long since become Lance and Alanna's bedroom. Instead of a large queen-sized bed, there were two twin beds on either side of the room. Pale blue paint decorated the walls and one wall was devoted to movie posters and Lance's prized bald eagle landing poster. The opposite wall sported a whimsical array of artwork and crafts, all of which Alanna had found at various fairs, craft shows, and even at a Comic-Con.

Lance helped Wordy get his uncle to the couch while Alanna retrieved a blanket so Sarge could sleep while the trio dealt with the bedroom. Rather slyly, Wordy coaxed his boss through drinking two potions – one for pain and the other for sleep – and waited for Sarge's breathing to even out before quietly signaling the kids out of the room and towards the guest room.

Before casting any spells, the teenagers went through the room, shutting down all their electronics and stacking them in a handy cardboard box that Wordy grabbed from the garage. Once it was full, Wordy carted the box to the living room – they could figure out what went where after they had the guest room set up again. With the vulnerable electronics safely out of the way, Alanna began shrinking down the beds while her brother retrieved one of the trunks they'd originally brought with them from England five years earlier. Impish, he drew his wand and directed a spell at the massive bookcase they'd squeezed into the small room. Wordy returned just in time to watch in awe as the books seemed to march off their shelves and into the trunk. He even noted that the trunk held far more books than he would've expected, though that, at least, the brunet had gotten used to.

Once the bookcase was empty, Alanna shrank it down as well, a slightly smug expression on her face. Lance eyed the walls anxiously and Wordy intervened. "We can worry about the walls later, kids." The big man stepped inside and inspected the bedroom, searching for anything they'd missed, but between Lance's packing spell and Alanna's shrinking charms, the room was bare of everything save the dresser both siblings used. The brunet frowned at it a moment, then shook his head. They had enough room to bring the guest bed back in and besides, it wasn't fair to ask the kids to empty the dresser and store clothing that they were still going to need access to.

When Sarge had been 'sent to rehab', the lease on his apartment had been maintained, but after the fire, there hadn't been any point. With the lease holder missing and presumed dead, it hadn't taken much convincing to get the apartment manager to end the lease and start searching for a new tenant. The team and their families had packed up everything in the apartment and put it into storage, planning to go through everything after the funeral. The good news was that none of Sarge's stuff had been sold or otherwise disposed of, but well…once he was feeling a little better, they were going to have to find him a new apartment.

"Okay, kiddos, let's go get the bed."

"Copy that, Uncle Wordy," Lance agreed, though he waited long enough for Alanna to add the shrunken furniture to the trunk before closing it and hefting it out to the living room.

Once out in the garage, Wordy looked around with a frown. Shelley had been the one who'd initially helped the teenagers set the spare room up as their bedroom and he had no idea what she'd done with the queen-sized bed. To his surprise, Alanna breezed past, clambering up the ladder he used to get up to the garage's upper level, and disappeared for a few seconds. When she reappeared, she was carrying another cardboard box. Lance moved forward and his sister dropped it down to him; he caught it with a small grunt, but didn't drop it.

As Alanna climbed back down, Wordy arched an eyebrow at the box. "That's it?"

Both teens smirked at him. " 'Lanna's really good at Charms," Lance explained cheerfully. "And our family likes to use a variant that's longer lasting." He hefted the box and added, "You can leave stuff shrunken for a really long time without causing any damage."

Wordy blinked at the information, but it made a certain amount of sense. Even shrunken, there would be a sort of tension between an object's real size and the magic that kept it in a tiny form. Sooner or later, that tension was bound to take its toll.

Alanna wrinkled her nose. "We'll have to wash the sheets, though."

The brunet stifled a snicker. "You two have been here for five years and Sarge's never taught you how to do laundry?"

The siblings fidgeted. "We cheated," Lance confessed. "We talked Uncle Greg into letting Mindy do all the laundry so she'd have something to do."

Wordy shook his head, still amused. "Well, it's high time you learned. Come on, you two, I'll show you the ropes." With that, he led them back inside the house, silently blessing the sleeping potion he'd slipped his boss. With the potion, he didn't have to worry about accidently waking the man up while he taught the kids how to use the washer and dryer.

By the time Shelley came home with their three daughters, the guest room bed was back in place with freshly washed sheets, along with a memory-foam pillow that was really Alanna's, but she'd insisted Sarge needed it more than she did. Wordy had carried Sarge from the living room to the guest room, silently cursing over how light his boss was. It was going to be a very long time, if ever before Sarge 'won' the heaviest member of the team 'competition' again. As best Wordy could figure, the only reason Sarge was still stocky was because that was simply the way his body was built. He wasn't quite as thin, gaunt, and skeletal as a concentration camp survivor, but that Wordy could even make the comparison…yeah, if he ever got his hands on whoever had Portkeyed Sarge to the Colorado Rockies…they weren't going to survive that meeting.

"Kevin?" Shelley asked as she came into the living room to find Wordy, Lance, and Alanna silently contemplating where they were going to put the things they'd taken out of the guest room. The blonde woman glanced down at the box full of electronics and the Calvin Family trunk sitting next to it. "What are you doing?" A thread of warning lurked beneath the question, cautioning Wordy that he'd better not be evicting Lance and Alanna from their room.

The constable swallowed hard. "Ummm…"

"It's okay, Aunt Shelley," Alanna immediately replied, pulling attention to herself. "We volunteered."

Technically, they hadn't since Wordy had never specifically asked the pair if they were okay with surrendering their room to Sarge, but since they'd helped clear out the room, Wordy knew it was close enough. With a sigh, he looked at Lance. "We can keep the electronics in here for a couple nights, kiddo, but can you put the trunk in the garage?"

"Sure thing, Uncle Wordy," Lance agreed. "I'll grab our sleeping bags, too."

"Kevin."

Wordy winced and turned back to Shelley. "Shel, we needed the room."

His wife's eyes narrowed. "And we needed the room, why, Kevin?"

All three of them cringed at the acid in her tone. Then Wordy forced his back to straighten. "Lance, go do that and grab the blowup mattress while you're out there. 'Lanna, can you watch the girls for a few?"

Both teenagers agreed at once and Wordy guided his wife out of the living room, doing his best to ignore his daughters' intense curiosity as to what on Earth was going on. The constable considered, then nudged Shelley outside. If he told her in the kitchen, the girls would overhear, but if he took her to their room, then she would see the guest room before he could explain. Shelley allowed him to guide her to their backyard, anger giving way to curiosity of her own, but she patiently waited until they were well out of earshot.

"Shel, you remember a couple days ago, I called you and told you to take the kids out of town for a couple days?"

"Yes, of course," Shelley replied. "You called this afternoon and told me it was safe to come back." Reaching up, she cupped his chin. "Kevin, what's going on?"

Wordy brought his own hand up, gently gripping hers. "Well, it's a long story, but, um…my team and I…we've been undercover."

"Undercover?" Shelley repeated, confused. "But you're not an undercover unit."

"No, we're not," Wordy agreed. "But we had to, Shel." He swallowed hard and looked down. "Shelley, a week ago, Holleran pulled us into his office. He'd just gotten the final report on the fire…the one Sarge was in."

Confusion shone on Shelley's face, but she nodded, encouraging him to keep going. Gently, she rubbed her thumb against his hand, knowing all too well how difficult the topic of his boss's death was.

Tears slipped free. "He, ah, he told us that they found two bodies, but one of 'em was female." Shelley gasped. "And, um, the other one…it wasn't Sarge."

"Oh, Kevin," Shelley cried, pulling him close and hugging him fiercely around the neck. "How awful."

Despite knowing the truth, a lump materialized in his throat. Shelley was right…it had been awful, terrible news. To know that Sarge had survived the fire, but they hadn't even looked for him… It would've shattered them completely, if not for the miracle that had occurred only seconds later. "Shelley, Shelley, stop," Wordy whispered, disentangling himself. He even managed a smile at her expression of pure bewilderment. "Holleran told us because…because he figured something out. It was staring us right in the face, but we…we just couldn't see it."

"What was, Kevin?"

Gently, he tugged her back inside and guided her towards the guest room. "He figured out how Sarge could survive that fire and never check in," he murmured in his wife's ear. Then they were at the door and he pushed it open enough for her to peer into the room.

Shelley gasped, hands rising to her mouth and eyes going as wide as dinner plates. Then she whipped around, pinning him with an utterly livid expression. "Kevin James Wordsworth, how long have you known?" she hissed, propping her hands on her hips.

He returned her gaze steadily. "It was Commander Holleran's call, Shelley. Sarge was still assigned to Intelligence Services a week ago. He's been lobbying for Sarge to be transferred back to the SRU, but it wasn't done yet." Broad shoulders slumped. "And…and it was Sarge's call, too, Shel. He couldn't risk anyone finding out about the kids."

Horror reappeared and she gasped again, reading his face and body language enough to understand. "That's why you wanted us out of town?"

Wordy nodded. "Ed had his family leave too, Shel. That way, the bad guys wouldn't realize Sarge has family close by."

His wife's blue eyes hardened. "I want the full story, Kevin."

The big man lifted his hands in surrender. "And you'll get it, Shel, I promise, but we have to tell our girls, too." Unhappiness shone. "I think I can keep it kid-friendly for them, but I'll have to tell you and Sarge's kids the rest later."

Shelley considered his reply, then flicked a slight glare at him. "How much later?"

Fidgeting, Wordy confessed, "Maybe a lot later. Ed and I need to do something this evening and I'm not sure how long it'll take."

Blue narrowed, but Wordy refused to offer any more details. If Sarge wanted to tell Shelley about what had happened all those years ago, that was his decision. Not Wordy's. He owed the man that much, especially after their unwarranted overreaction while undercover.

At last, Shelley nodded acceptance, though her displeasure was crystal clear. "I'll feed the children and then you'll explain things to them, Kevin."

"Yes, ma'am."

Claire, Lilly, and Ally were stunned and wide-eyed at the news that their father's boss had reappeared two months after dying in a fire. Wordy gently explained to the three that Sarge hadn't been resurrected or anything like that and promised to tell them more after dinner. In the meantime, once Sarge woke up, the constable and Lance supported him from the guest room to the bathroom. Wordy evicted Lance and helped his boss through a shower, patiently overriding Sarge's embarrassment. Oh, Wordy was just as embarrassed by the situation, but he refused to let that stop him.

After the shower, Wordy retrieved a bag with Carl Elias's outfits that he'd brought home and picked out the most comfortable looking of the lot. As much as he really didn't want his boss looking like Carl Elias, the sad truth was that the Elias clothing was the only clothing that fit Sarge's shrunken frame. Gritting his teeth, Wordy headed back to the bathroom, snagging the two paste-like potions on his way. It took another half hour to get Sarge dressed and treated, then the big man supported his injured boss to the living room. The carpet was better for Sarge's bare feet than the cool hard tile of the kitchen.

Alanna retrieved one of the small wooden folding tables that Wordy's family kept on hand and set it up while Wordy himself headed to the kitchen to let Shelley know that Sarge could only have soup for another week. In light of the invalid, Shelley decreed that the whole family could congregate in the living room for dinner, news that made their daughters goggle – they were rarely allowed to eat anywhere except at the family table in the kitchen. Wordy himself was just grateful that Alanna was able to cast a protective spell on Sarge's hands in the living room without any risk to the electronics once dinner was served.

Even with the spell and several hours of sleep under his belt, Sarge struggled to eat, his exhaustion and the nerve damage to his hands combining to make them shake. He dropped his spoon back in the soup bowl more than once, but soldiered on, refusing to let his poor physical condition win the war. By the time he finished his meal, his shoulders were trembling, as though his entire body was reacting to the exertion he'd just put forth. Alanna crept close with a nutrient potion, but the girl had to hold it for Sarge when his shaking hands nearly knocked it to the ground.

Lance cleared the dishes and the folding table away, his solemn expression keeping the girls quiet. Wordy didn't even bother trying to support his boss back to bed. Ignoring Sarge's weak protest, he hefted the older man up and carried him to the guest room. Alanna went ahead of them to pull the covers down and the pair had Sarge tucked in almost before he knew what they were up to. Exhausted, Sarge curled in on himself under the covers, oblivious to Alanna sneaking sideways on the bed to be right behind him. She reached forward, to the same spot Ed had told the team about, and started rubbing. In seconds, Sarge's breathing evened out as his gryphon instincts pulled him under. Wordy might've protested, but the last thing they needed was to accidently get Sarge hooked on sleeping potions. He'd already had one earlier and the constable was wary of giving him another so soon.

"You're gonna bring them in here, aren't you, Uncle Wordy?" Alanna murmured.

Wordy gave her a sharp look, then nodded. It would've made more sense to leave Sarge alone and tell the story in the living room, but… As much as his head knew that Sarge was alive, his heart was still having trouble remembering that fact. Even when he – and the others – had been angry with Sarge over the magical orders, he'd woken up more than once in a cold sweat, convinced Sarge's miraculous return had been nothing more than an impossible dream. Sarge didn't know it, but every member of his team had snuck into Elias's penthouse during the nights, just to reassure themselves that they weren't dreaming, that he was still alive and solid and real. To tell the story anywhere else…where he couldn't see Sarge and know he was there…he couldn't do it. Maybe someday he would be able to, but not now. Not with it still so fresh and so raw.

Reluctant, Wordy straightened and headed back to the living room to help clean up the dinner dishes. And try, once again, to figure how to tell his girls without giving them so much as a hint how bad it had really been for Sarge.

Shelley protested all of them cramming into the guest room, but Lance temporarily shrank down the dresser and levitated the bed – with his sister and Sarge still on it – to the very back of the room, pressing it against the wall. Both actions gave the group enough room that the little girls were able to haul in two bean bags and a cushioned blue fabric something that could lay out on the ground or fold into a chair. Lance perched on the bed, trading off with his sister to keep rubbing Sarge's back, thus ensuring he wouldn't wake up during the story, and Shelley rolled her eyes, then dragged in a comfortable rocking chair and positioned herself behind their daughters.

Wordy opted to sit with his back pressed against the bed, mentally reaching for the 'team sense' every so often to reassure himself. The sound of Sarge's even, steady breathing helped more than the older man would ever know, but as unnerving as the 'team sense' often was…it had become theirs. Something the team shared with each other, a tangible symbol of the unbreakable friendship that lay between them. It could shake and tremble and even fracture, but a part of Wordy knew it would never, ever break. If they lived a thousand years or more, still the 'team sense' would remain, as constant as the sun, moon, and stars.

Focusing on his girls, he leaned forward, forcing his eyes to light up with enthusiasm he didn't truly feel. "All right, kiddos, ready for the story?"

"Yeah!" Ally enthused before her sisters could reply.

Wordy grinned at his youngest. "Okay, here we go." The grin grew wider and he leaned further in. "Once upon a time…"

"Daddy!" Lilly protested, making a face. "That's baby stuff!"

"Yeah!" Ally agreed vehemently. "Baby stuff!"

The brunet gave them a look of mock offense. "Baby stuff?" he demanded. "All great stories start that way!" He shook his head in mock sorrow. "Kids these days," he lamented. "No respect for the classics, I tell you."

Behind him, Alanna giggled and Lance muffled his snort.

"Well, if you guys wanna hear the story, you're gonna have to put up with it," Wordy declared, casting his daughters a jaundiced expression. "You still wanna hear it?"

The three girls traded looks of despair, then sighed and turned back, adopting attentive postures. "Yes, Daddy," Lilly replied.

"All right then," Wordy agreed. "Now, where was I?" More snickers came from behind him. "Quiet in the peanut gallery back there!"

"Yes, Uncle Wordy," Alanna said contritely even as her brother muffled another snigger and Shelley sighed at her husband's antics.

The brunet smirked to himself. "All right… Once upon a time, there was a team of cops," he preened, "who always stopped the bad guys and kept the peace."

His daughters cheered.

"The team had many adventures," Wordy continued. "And saved a lot of lives along the way. They saved so many lives that they were famous throughout the land."

More giggles from his girls – and the peanut gallery.

"But one day, the team's Sergeant found out that a bad guy he arrested a long time ago had broken out of prison. The bad guy's name was Castor and he was so evil that the king of the realm decided that it was too dangerous for the Sergeant to stay with his team and his family, so he ordered the Sergeant to leave his team and lie to them about why he was leaving."

"But why?" Lilly interrupted. "Why would he make the Sergeant lie, Daddy? Doesn't he know that's not nice?"

Wordy nodded gravely. "Sometimes, pumpkin, the bad guys are so dangerous that you have to lie. If you don't lie, then the bad guys might hurt the people you care about. The Sergeant knew that, so he didn't argue with the king and he obeyed the king's order to make his team think he was leaving because he'd…um…gotten sick." The brunet closed his eyes, struggling for the best words. "The king ordered the Sergeant to go undercover and pretend to be a bad guy. Only two people knew that the Sergeant wasn't a bad guy. The Sergeant's boss and a woman named Brenda. The Sergeant's team believed he'd gone away to get better and the bad guys thought the Sergeant was one of them."

"What happened to the Sergeant's team, Daddy?" Claire asked anxiously.

Wordy smiled sadly at his eldest. "The Sergeant's team was very sad, Claire. They missed the Sergeant and wished he could come home, but they didn't know he was pretending to be a bad guy. They thought he'd started drinking and that he didn't care about them anymore." Oh, dear gawd, this was harder than he'd ever thought it would be. "When…when the Sergeant left, one of his teammates was made the new leader and he led the team for two months. During those two months, the Sergeant and Castor started fighting with each other. The Sergeant liked to be sneaky and he'd set up traps so Castor's men would get arrested without anyone getting hurt, but Castor didn't care who he hurt. He knew the Sergeant had promised to protect people and if he hurt people, he would hurt the Sergeant, too."

"The Sergeant's team should tell Castor's Mommy on him!" Ally declared.

Shelley swallowed a snort, though her eyes danced at Wordy's poleaxed expression. "Well, um…Ally, Castor's Mommy wasn't like your Mommy. She never taught him that it was wrong to hurt people. That's why he was evil." Clearing his throat, he quickly moved on. "So one night, Brenda came to the Sergeant's team and told them that she could help them catch one of the bad guys."

"The evil bad guy?" Lilly asked hopefully.

"No, sweetheart, she said she could help them catch another bad guy. His name was Elias." Wordy shifted, hearing an ever so slight hitch in Sarge's breathing, but it quickly smoothed out. "The team agreed to help her catch Elias and she told them where Elias lived. When they went to arrest Elias, they found out that Castor was attacking Elias to try and hurt him. Then one of Castor's men tried to hurt the team's new leader."

His daughters gasped in horror and Shelley froze, eyes widening in shock.

"But someone stopped the bad guy before he could hurt the leader," Wordy hurried to add. "And when the leader looked up to see who had saved him, he thought he saw the Sergeant."

"Did he, Daddy?" Claire asked immediately.

"He wasn't sure, honey," Wordy replied. "One of Elias's men came and talked to the team. If the team would help them get away from Castor's men, then they would let the team come with them to their hideout. The leader agreed, but asked the man if he could meet Elias." He smiled briefly. "The rest of the team was scared, but they trusted their leader to know what he was doing, so they went with him to the bad guys' hideout."

"Did the leader meet Elias?" Alanna asked quietly.

Wordy craned up to meet her eyes. "He did. But he didn't talk to the team about the meeting when he came back to them." Shifting back to his girls, he continued, "So the team left the bad guys' hideout without Elias. The leader was so sad that Elias wasn't the Sergeant that he called the Sergeant and begged him to come home."

"Did he?" Ally whispered.

"No, pumpkin, he didn't. He and the leader talked for a little bit, then the Sergeant started slurring his words and hung up. But before he hung up, the leader told the Sergeant that Brenda had been the one to send the team after Elias." Wordy bit his lip, wishing he could skip over the fire, but it was too important. "Two days later, Castor managed to hurt the Sergeant's boss. But the Sergeant was too smart for him. He tricked Castor into coming after him and he stopped Castor from hurting anyone ever again."

The girls didn't cheer; his expression alone told them that the story wasn't over.

"But the Sergeant disappeared," Wordy choked out. "The Sergeant's boss finally told his team the truth about all the lies and he told them something else, too." Tears slipped down. "He told them that Brenda was Castor's sister and that when she sent the team to arrest Elias, she'd really sent them after the Sergeant."

"Oh, Kevin," Shelley cried, knowing how much that must have hurt to hear.

"They…we…we thought Sarge was gone and that Brenda had gotten away." Wordy hung his head, unable to maintain the cheerful storytelling tone anymore. Absently, he hugged himself. "He…he was gone…and we never got to say good-bye…"

His girls surrounded him, hugging him fiercely. He savored their warmth, just as he savored the even breathing he could still hear from behind him. Mentally, he clung to the 'team sense', to that part of himself that was Sarge's. After several minutes, the brunet forced himself to continue. "The, um, the Sergeant, he found himself in the mountains."

"The mountains?" Shelley asked skeptically.

Wordy nodded without looking up at her. Gazing down at his daughters, he strove for the storytelling tone again. "Now, the Sergeant had magic. Not many people knew about his magic, but his team did and so did his family. And one part of the Sergeant's magic let him turn into an animal."

"A kitty?" Ally wondered, cuddling close to her father.

"No, a doggie," Lilly disagreed. "He's loyal, like Daddy."

Wordy managed a chuckle. "Yes, he is loyal, but his animal form isn't a dog. It's a gryphon, like Lance."

"Oooooh," all three girls cried. They remembered when Lance had been turned into a four-year-old and his gryphon form had been the size of a lion cub.

"Now, normally, the Sergeant could transform back and forth, but someone put a collar on him. The collar had bad magic in it, so the Sergeant couldn't transform and he couldn't call for help either. He was stuck as a gryphon."

"In the Colorado mountains," Lance filled in drily.

"They're called the Rocky Mountains," Claire offered helpfully.

Wordy nodded soberly. "So the Sergeant decided if he couldn't call for help, he would have to walk all the way home." Manfully, he ignored Shelley's horrified gasp and the sudden stillness from behind him. "The Sergeant started down the mountains, but part way down, he ran into a woman named Amber." In spite of himself, Wordy smiled. "Amber was trying to get away from two bad guys, but her car had broken down, so she was running through the woods. The Sergeant stopped the bad guys and after he did that, the local cops showed up and arrested the bad guys."

"Did they help the Sergeant?" Lilly asked.

Sorrowful, Wordy shook his head. "No, honey, they didn't. They thought the Sergeant was a wild animal, so they chased him away. But Amber figured out he wasn't a wild animal and after she got herself a new car, she found the Sergeant and offered him a ride. She couldn't get him all the way home, but her home was a lot closer to Toronto, so the Sergeant went with her." Drawing in a breath, Wordy continued, "When Amber arrived home, the Sergeant started walking to Toronto. Thanks to Amber, he was closer, but it was still a long ways away, so it took him another two months to walk all the way home." Again, his eyes slipped closed. "But when the Sergeant got home, he found out some evil wizards had captured his team and put them under a mind-control spell. Two of them had gotten away, but the others were about to hurt a lot of people."

"That's mean," Ally declared.

He couldn't smile…it was still too close, too raw. A sniffle escaped. "The two…the two that had gotten away, they tried to stop their friends, but the leader was too far away and they couldn't stop him before he started a fire." He felt his daughters latch on again, but nothing could warm the cold pit of his soul at the memory of Ed, trapped in the path of a fire. The way Ed had begged him to go, to leave his one remaining best friend behind to die. That terrible moment when Hawke had used a chokehold on him and his last instant of consciousness had been Ed calling Sarge's name… When he'd woken up, he'd known, with everything in him, that Ed was gone, that he'd heard Ed die because…because Sarge was dead and Ed had to have seen him to call out his name. He hadn't really believed Ed was alive until the next day, after he'd had gotten out of the hospital with no more than a few bruises and a bit of smoke inhalation.

"The team…they had to leave the leader behind because he was right in the middle of the fire." Unbidden, a sob escaped and he reflexively clung to his daughters. "But the Sergeant showed up in the nick of time. He charged into the fire and got the leader out safely. Once the fire was put out, the team found the collar around the Sergeant's neck and a message that Amber had tied to it. They called her and she helped them figure out how to get the collar off the Sergeant. Once they got the collar off, the Sergeant was able to transform back to human and…and the team was happy again. The End."

It wasn't the end and he knew Shelley and Sarge's kids had already seen right through him. His daughters probably had, too, but he had no intentions of telling them about the undercover assignment or why the lies had been so very necessary. Without speaking further, he clung to his girls and the 'team sense'. They clung right back, nuzzling into him and finally warming his soul. If he never had to tell that story again, it would still be too soon.