Title: Staying Put

Author: elektralyte

Rating: K+

Characters/Pairings: Sprinklings of Hank/Sheila goodness.

Spoilers: None

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1

Summary: Friends go missing and Hank's behavior arouses suspicion...

Chapter 6

"Trust me to break my own rules," Eric mumbled to himself.

Okay, so I over reacted a little. He decided.

Well, maybe I over reacted a lot. Okay yeah, so I was scared, big deal! Everyone gets scared sometimes. And sometimes they jump to conclusions, he added.

Now that Eric was calmed down and away from the others he started thinking. If Hank were a werewolf, then wouldn't he have changed by now? After all, there were three full moons in the sky. That's triple the affect of moonlight. He probably couldn't help but change if he really was a werewolf, right?

The young cavalier hurried along regretting his poor judgment. He was having no luck finding Sheila and Bobby on his own. And, if Hank happened to be innocent then there was still a creature on the loose that he would have to face all by himself.

As if on cue something ahead of him growled. Eric immediately fell into a defensive posture though his knees were trying to knock into each other. The wolf creature came bursting through the trees. Eric squeezed his eyes shut and held his shield in front of him.

And just like that, the wolf shot past him yelping the whole way.

Well now he looked like he was scared of something. Eric thought bemused.

He was too confused to be frightened as he wondered what could possibly scare the bejeezus out of a werewolf. Then it occurred to him that whatever scared the werewolf was coming his way.

Right on cue 'whatever' came stomping out of the trees and into view. Fear and disbelief crossed Eric's face.

"Ah, you've got to be kidding me!" He called out to no one in particular. Then he turned on his heels and ran for his life.

"Sheila, Bobby! Where'd you guys come from?" Diana asked.

"We were in the forest looking for Uni and ran into some kind of werewolf," Sheila explained.

"Just now?" Hank interrupted.

"Uh hm," she nodded in agreement.

"Well I was with you guys," Hank pointed out. Diana turned to Presto who shrugged at her.

"Yeah, and Sheila hid us under her cloak so the monster couldn't get us. Have you guys seen Uni?"

"No Bobby, we were sort of caught up in something," Presto answered.

"Caught up in what?" asked Sheila.

"They think I'm the werewolf! Apparently the monster and I go to the same hair salon or something," a very annoyed Hank replied.

Sheila gave her friends a look of disbelief then asked for an explanation. Diana and Presto quickly briefed her and Bobby on what was going on while Hank stood off to the side glowering.

Sheila glanced at the ranger. The expression he wore was more at home on Eric's face. From what she remembered of the creature it did have a similar shade of fur that matched Hank's hair and it had blue eyes. Maybe the others were right...

But, as Hank pointed out, he was with the others when she saw the creature so the timing was wrong. Also, Sheila had accused Hank of being something he wasn't once before. She wasn't going to do that again. It was time to get to the bottom of things.

Sheila walked over to Hank and took his hand. She looked straight into his eyes so he could understand where she was coming from when she gently asked, "Why did you disappear Hank? If you're not hiding something, then why did the others think you were acting so weird?"

He looked back at her intently. What he saw in her eyes neither an accusation, nor allegation. It was simply the desire to understand. That wasn't so bad.

Hank decided it was time to come clean, even if it was going to be a bit embarrassing. He sighed and let go of her hands. Then, he tugged open a pouch attached to his belt and fished around for a moment until he pulled something out.

"Here." He held out a spray of slightly damaged flowers to Sheila. "I was hiding something, just not what you all thought."

Oh, they're for me! She thought with surprise.

Sheila took them and blushed happily. She gave Hank a shy smile and he grinned back despite everything that was going on. She looked at the flowers she was holding and decided that they were pretty. They looked very familiar to her, sort of like bluebells. Where had she seen these before?

"What about the cut on your hand?" Diana hated to interrupt but she needed to know.

"The flowers were kind of hard to reach. I got this trying to cut them down," he explained.

Although the explanation proved his innocence, Hank felt foolish for having to reveal his feelings for Sheila in front of everyone like this. He was sure he wouldn't be able to live this down.

Diana and Presto glanced at each other and saw the acute embarrassment their leader was going through.

"We're sorry Hank. We thought you were the creature." Diana apologized. She realized now that they had jumped to the wrong conclusion.

"Yeah, we should have known better." Presto added.

For a split second Hank wanted to tell them to go to hell but then he thought about it. The circumstances were pretty suspicious and he was hiding something from them. Who knew flowers could cause so many problems?

"Yeah well, we'll talk about it later. Right now we have to find Eric and Uni."

"I don't think so Hank, look!" Diana pointed to the trees.

There, sprinting for all he was worth was the cavalier. Everyone immediately readied their weapons and tried to spot what Eric could be running from. He reached them seconds later and dropped to his knees, wheezing with exhaustion.

"Eric, what is it?" Diana crouched down to speak to him.

Though he could hardly catch his breath he answered. "Hank (PANT) not (PANT) monster (PANT)."

"We know Eric, Hank proved it to us. Now we have to find Uni," Presto explained.

"NO!" They all focused their attention on Eric now. "I (PANT)...(PANT) Uni..."

"What about Uni?" Bobby demand.

"Guys...I," Eric wheezed.

Something gave a deep growl. The young ones turned to face the noise and were stunned that something so huge could creep up on them like that.

"I think..."

It was well over six feet tall. It had a dirty cream coat with tufts of orange-red hair on its head. Its eyes flashed pink and its teeth were large, squared and equine in size.

"I think I found..."

While its hands were clawed its feet were shod with cloven hooves. Embedded into its forehead was a single, pointed horn.

"MEEEEEEEEHHHH!" It brayed in a familiar yet distorted voice.

Everyone flinched. No one said a word except Eric who whimpered, "I-I think I found Uni..."