This is gospel for the fallen ones / Locked away in permanent slumber / Assembling their philosophies / From pieces of broken memories...-Panic! At The Disco, "This Is Gospel"

Ten minutes after Susan made her phone call, Jake suddenly looked up. "Sounds like Fu and Gramps are here."

"The doorbell hasn't even rung yet," protested Jonathan.

"Heightened hearing. They're coming up the driveway now."

Jonathan peered out the living room window as his father-in-law rang the bell. Jake was right, and that shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did. He took a breath as he opened the door, knowing Lao Shi wouldn't be happy with the news that Jonathan was now aware of his secret.

It had been twenty years since Jonathan had betrayed Susan to the Huntsclan, but if the same thing had happened to Jake with this girl, he knew he wouldn't be able to forgive her and he'd always hold some suspicion that the girl, Rose, was playing with his son's heart. Besides, for all Jonathan knew, dragons could live hundreds of years. Two decades wouldn't be that long to a dragon.

"Daughter's husband," said Lao Shi coolly, regarding him with a gaze that clearly said you break my daughter's heart, I break you. Fu replicated the glare, but Jonathan had to admit it was a hell of a lot more intimidating coming from someone who could breathe fire.

Jonathan smiled shakily. "Good to see you, Lao Shi, Fu. Can I take your coats?"

He noticed too late that they weren't wearing any. Thankfully, Lao Shi simply ignored him. Susan and Haley came downstairs.

"Hi Grandpa," Haley said, throwing her arms around the old man's waist. The hint of fire drained from Lao Shi's face as he smiled warmly at his granddaughter.

"Gwai Neoi, good to see you," he told her warmly. (a/n: according to an online forum for people learning Cantonese, this means something like 'little girl' and is used as a term of endearment for children. if anyone speaks cantonese, especially if you're a native speaker or learned the language growing up, and has a different/better term for me to use, please let me know) "So what's this about your father learning a certain secret?"

Jake coughed self-consciously, rubbing a hand up and down his neck. "That would be my fault."

"Gods dammit, kid, what did you do?" Fu asked.

"It was nothing! I was just nervous and my claws kind of..."

"So it wasn't about the, you know, that thing that happened back in the eighties?"

"Jake, Fu Dog, we all know about the thing that happened in the eighties," Lao Shi informed them reproachfully. "Young dragon, Beyonce Timberlake is a terrible fake name."

"I don't know what happened!" whined Haley, letting go of her grandfather and looking around suspiciously at her family.

"For the record it was not my idea," Fu said.

"Fu, you don't need to throw me under the bus like that," complained Jake.

"I'm not exactly clear on the details, but I assume time travel was involved," Jonathan mused.

"Jake, first the reward and now this?" Susan shook her head. "We will talk about this later, young man."

"Time travel was involved," Fu admitted. "And I may have taught the kid how to use the hourglass, but actually going back to 1986 was all Jake's idea."

Lao Shi swore in Cantonese. Susan glared at her father, and the old man quickly apologized and offered a quarter to the swear jar. Jonathan had never understood why they had such a thing - after all, he and Susan kept their speech pretty clean, and while he was sure Jake used just as much profanity as any other teenager, the boy at least abstained from doing it at home. But now he understood. His wife had been raised by a dragon and a talking dog who cussed like sailors. Just not in English.

"We'll need to see if there were any consequences to the trip, if anything was altered in the space-time continuum," Susan announced. "With time travel, even small mistakes can lead to huge catastrophes."

"Agreed, and believe me, it'll never happen again," Jake said.

"I still don't know what happened," Haley complained.

"I'll tell you later," Jake told his sister.

"We also need to discuss what happened with Trixie and Spud," Susan said.

Lao Shi and Fu exchanged glances.

"Uhh, sorry, no idea what you're talking about," Fu lied uncomfortably.

"You know, Fu Dog, if you hadn't said that I would have believed you really didn't," Susan sighed. "But I've known you since I was a little girl. You're a terrible liar, I have no idea how you ever made it as a con artist."

Jonathan almost choked on his cup of lukewarm coffee. "Con artist?!"

"Ex-con artist," Fu corrected. "I'm reformed, thank you very much."

"You know da - darn well what I'm talking about, Fu," Susan accused the talking dog. "And I'm guessing so does my dad. How did you find out my son's friends sold him to their teacher, who was bent on exposing the magical world?!" Her voice had begun to raise in aggravation.

"Susan, we didn't feel there was any need for you to know," Lao Shi said apologetically.

"They never told me either," Jake volunteered.

"You what?!" Jonathan demanded. "I can understand not telling me and Haley, and telling Susan was wrong but honestly understandable..."

"Understandable?!" Susan sputtered.

"...but not telling Jake? Why?"

"At the time, it was more important that Jake got home safely and in one piece," Lao Shi explained. "Which could very well have happened. After that, Fu and I talked it over, and decided that simply coming to us for help and confessing what they'd done showed that Trixie and Spud could be trusted. It couldn't have been easy, not only to face their best friend's grandfather when they knew his life was in danger, but also when that grandfather was a dragon himself and they'd always been told that dragons were savage beasts? Obviously, since they knew Jake was one, Spud and Trixie had some indication that dragons were not as they'd been led to believe, but they were so new to...everything back then, that they could very well have been in shock, unable to truly process what they'd learned."

Jonathan could relate.

"That said," Fu interjected, "We did give them an...ultimatum of sorts."

"This can't be good," Jake grumbled. "What did you say?"

"That if either of them ever broke your trust again, we would not only tell you they'd sold you, but also wipe their memories of everything magical they'd ever seen. And I...may have dropped a few names from my criminal days..."

"Fu, I'm not exactly thrilled with those kids right now," Susan interrupted. "But was that last part really necessary?"

"C'mon, Susie, you know that I would have done the same thing if it were you instead of Jake," the talking dog said affectionately. "It's called being family. So, Jake do your friends know that you know?"

"Not yet," Jake admitted. "And I can understand why they did, and I'm not mad, so no memory wiping."

Lao Shi scoffed.

"I'm serious! It's been months now, and they haven't done anything to show that they don't deserve our trust."

"Dad, you made a deal," Susan scolded her father. "Now you have to hold up your end of the bargain."

"I thought you were angry at Jake's friends," Fu said accusingly.

"I am," Susan replied. "But I know another human who did something very similar once...and I'm willing to forgive. Humans can learn from their mistakes."

Everyone's eyes shifted to Jonathan. He stared at the floor, suddenly unable to look any of his family in the eye.

Haley looked up at the other magical creatures, puzzled. "What did Dad do? Is this about whatever it is that happened at his and Mom's high school graduation? Or the time travel - oh..."

"Yeah, oh," Jake said.

"I know I'll never be able to take it back, but I truly am sorry," Jonathan said, pulling his wife close. He was never more grateful to have her than now, now that he knew how close he'd once come to losing her.

"I know," Susan said, turning to kiss him on the cheek. "And honey, it's been twenty years. No one was hurt. I forgave you a long time ago, and I'm happy that you know the truth now."

Jake and Haley looked away awkwardly at their parents' open attraction to one another.

"So what exactly did Daddy do back then?" Haley asked, clearly impatient at being the only one not in the know. She wasn't the only one.

"Your mother wrote me a letter explaining that she was a dragon, with undeniable proof," Jonathan said, letting go of Susan and bending down to his daughter's level. He hated knowing he was about to break her heart, especially knowing that some boy or girl could eventually hurt Haley just as bad as Jonathan had hurt her mother. He never wanted to see that look of devastation on her or Jake's faces. "And I...I didn't take it very well. I made a very bad mistake. I broke up with Mommy, and she almost got very badly hurt. But she was okay, and I'm so, so grateful she took me back."

Haley thought this over. "I know there's more to it than that, but nobody except Jake and maybe Fu Dog will tell me, so I'll just ask later."

"I'm not saying anything," Jake told his sister smugly.

"Jaaaaake!" she whined.

"I'll tell you when you're older, kiddo," Fu offered a compromise to the little girl. Haley considered this and agreed.

Watching how the kids interacted with their grandfather and his talking dog - God, he was never going to get used to that - Jonathan felt a twinge of jealousy rise in his stomach. Clearly, these two had acted as father figures of a sort to both Jake and Haley. Jonathan should have had that role, and he'd been missing out on it for a long time because he hadn't known his kids' secret. Was it too late to start over with them? To regain their trust?

"Anyway, we just came over to make sure Jonathan wasn't reacting badly," Lao Shi said. "And it looks like he's doing just fine so..."

"I have a question that hasn't been answered yet," Jonathan interrupted. "Jake, what were you really doing that night, at the ball game?"

"Remember that thing that Fu and I were carrying with us when we traveled back in time? The blue amulet thing? That was actually a time travel medallion. It's called the Euchronos Hourglass. A dragon slayer had gotten ahold of it and I was trying to get it back. I mean, imagine if he'd used it to go back in time a few thousand years, with the advanced technology that dragon slayers have today, and killed like five dragons. Just five. That would indirectly kill their kids before they could have any. And their grandkids. And their great-grandkids...the Huntsclan could use that thing to kill off thousands of magical creatures before they were even born. And it was my job to keep it away from them, so that doesn't happen."

Jonathan didn't know what to say. His mouth just opened and shut for a few minutes, letting out no more than gasping air. After a minute, he spoke. "You're ungrounded. From anything ever."

"No he's not," Susan protested. "He's just ungrounded for that. This means nothing about future groundings, we just can't punish him for doing his job."

"Fair enough," Jonathan said. He ran a hand through his hair, taking a shaky, scared breath. "Jake, I'm sorry. If I'd known, I would never have..."

"Dad, I know and it's fine," Jake said, smiling.

"You could have died! You all could have died, and I grounded Jake because I didn't know...oh my god. That's...that's terrifying. I swear, I never would have..."

"Dad, we know and it's getting annoying," Jake told him.

"Right, sorry." He couldn't even look at his son.