Chapter Three

I'm never gonna look back / Woah, never gonna give it up / No, just don't wake me now / This is gonna be the best day of my life...-American Authors, "Best Day Of My Life"

Needless to say, Susan and Jonathan called themselves and their kids in sick for school and work, respectively. They had too much else to do. Haley, surprisingly, didn't give even a murmur of a protest.

After the awkward conversation re: how Trixie and Spud had actually found out about Jake being a dragon, no one really knew what else to do so the family of four just sat around staring at each other.

Finally, Haley spoke. "We should tell Grandpa and Fu that Daddy knows about us now."

"They're going to freak," Jake warned his sister.

"Your father never liked me," Jonathan told Susan. "And I guess the dog doesn't, either."

"They're…getting used to you," Susan said to him encouragingly. "Dragon fathers are just like any other – no guy in the world is good enough for their little girl, no matter how old she is. But dragons are also instinctively more protective and territorial than humans, and when it comes to their kids marrying humans it's only natural to worry. And Fu helped raise me after my mother died, so he's like a second father to me. You think I'm not just as scared of what could happen with Jake, if that girl he's been seeing ever finds out what he is? Or Haley, if she ever brings a human home?"

Wait, what girl? Jonathan was intrigued, but he'd investigate later.

"Why?" he asked. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"Um, Dad?" Jake said, not looking at him.

At that moment, Jonathan remembered exactly why he shouldn't be asking that. At eighteen years old, he had been the worst thing that could happen to a teenage dragon who told their partner what they were. And the last thing in the world he wanted was to see that same look of devastation and betrayal on either of his kids' faces someday.

When Susan gave him that letter twenty years ago, Jonathan had been a scared kid who didn't know what the hell was going on…but that didn't change the fact that his girlfriend, the girl he'd already considered marrying someday, had trusted him with a secret that was incredibly important to her and his first reaction had been to deliberately hurt her and stereotype her people based on lies he'd been told about them by people who were just as ignorant as he'd been. It had to have taken Susan awhile to trust him again afterwards.

If someone ever did the same thing to Jake or Haley, he'd never be able to look at that person again without wanting to punch them in the face a little.

Regardless of anything, though, Lao Shi and Fu needed to know that Jonathan knew what they – and the rest of their family – were. It wouldn't be fair to them otherwise, even if he suspected that at least a few of Susan's relatives still referred to her as 'the one who married a human.'

Besides, he wanted to make something of a fresh start with his fathers-in-law.

Did he just mentally refer to a magical talking dog, who had no blood relation to his wife (or Jonathan was pretty sure, at least), as his father-in-law?

Yes, yes he had. Well, some families were fun like that and you just had to get used to it.

So Susan and Haley left the room to fill Fu and Lao in on what had happened that morning, leaving Jonathan and Jake alone together. They stared at one another silently.

Unfortunately, neither one had never been good with silence, and they started talking at once.

"Dad, I'm really-"

"What does shape shifting feel like?"

"Wait, what?"

Jonathan flushed, embarrassed. "I mean, um…Jake, if you're not comfortable with this…"

"No, it's fine," Jake insisted. "Um…it's pretty fast. There's just a rush of adrenaline, stuff growing, a bunch of heat, and then it's over. It's not painful or anything, if that's what you were wondering."

Okay, Jonathan's thirteen-year-old son was being more mature about this than he was.

"So, about that girl your mother mentioned…"

"Oh my god. I never even should have told Mom about her."

"What's her name?"

"Rose."

"How long have you two known each other?"

"Since the beginning of the school year, because that's when she transferred to Millard Fillmore."

"When was your first date?"

"Last fall."

"What did you two do together?"

"The first time I got her to notice me was the school dance. So we, uh, danced. She went with another guy to make me jealous, and I went with another girl for the same reason."

"Does either of them know that?"

"Jasmine said she kinda figured. Brad hates me now."

"Oh man. I remember the same thing happening with your mom. Although, looking back, some of the guys she rejected for me probably weren't human."

"Yeah, Gramps really wanted her to date another dragon guy. Or at least, someone who wasn't human."

"That's…understandable," Jonathan admitted. "Speaking of, is Rose human?"

"Yeah."

"Please tell me she doesn't know that you're not."

"Um…she doesn't."

"Jakeroo, did you know that you're a really bad liar?"

"Um…"

"How did she take it?"

"Surprisingly well, actually."

"Thank God," Jonathan muttered under his breath, knowing perfectly well that Jake would still be able to hear him.