Tad would have liked to spend more time with Connor, as the two of them were friends, but it seemed like his friend from Quantico while growing up was moving forward with his own life and that had its responsibilities. Things like Connor battling questions over his sexuality was a surprise, as Tad had never remembered seeing anything like that growing up and was never exposed to anything like that at home. Of course, knowing his mother was a werecat made the entire sexuality issue something of a given as all werecats were at least bisexual woman, if not outright lesbians, just as werewildcats were at least bisexual men. It was one of the quirks about weres that no one really had a full answer to.
But Connor and his family seemed to be adapting to Moon Lake quite well and in ways that from his conversations with Amy and what he'd also gotten from his parents that wasn't likely given that the Ross family didn't know about weres being real before coming to Moon Lake. The parents had seemed more than willing to consider becoming weres and Connor had become a werewildcat as found the answers to his own questions. Tad was most pleased with that, as they were friends and represented a successful path going forward. Tad also figured that Connor would now also be better able to help his family out when it came to conversion and getting in contact with other weres that could handle all that. That was all good, but it would mean that Connor would for the immediate future have some new responsibilities that came with joining a new pride, and in that, Tad couldn't stay all day. He'd come to see on how things were going and was glad that things had gone well.
That left Tad with his own return home with his own thoughts on how far he and his mom had come. They'd come to Moon Lake after Lionel Ulysses, a wererat that his mother had tutored in high school, murdered his father in Quantico, Virginia. Finding a city of weres was a surprise to Tad, given that he'd grown up having to hide that he was a werewolf from everyone he knew. But it provided for opportunities to be free and find a partner in Amy Howler, who he'd just happened to meet on his first day in Moon Lake. And when Lionel Ulysses was caught in a gun battle in Seattle and was later assassinated, the thing that had brought Tad and his mother, Jen, to Moon Lake had been avenged, though it also carried a "reveal scare" that also stung with the fears of exposure that Tad remembered all too well growing up.
And that fear of the were secret coming to end was something that appeared to be growing higher of late. A lot of it came from a werefox named Tom Herald, who'd come to Moon Lake and managed to persuade the City Council that a dedicated plan to reveal the existence of weres to the world had to be made and launched. It raised fears for many that the "nightmare scenario" of weres ending up in cages or in zoos or being killed would come as a result of it. But in attending the meeting, Tad got the sense that weres might well be facing that regardless of what they did. It all started with Lionel Ulysses' tail getting caught on a cop's body cam and it grew from there and drew more FBI attention to Moon Lake. Tad had his fears and worries, but to a great extent he understood Tom Herald's argument and that there was the potential that if something wasn't done... the were secret might not remain a secret and ends in a bad way.
Parts of Tad’s mind wondered on what it would truly be like without the “secret.” There was always the fear of being hunted, as was the case with so many old stories older weres told their children about churchmen following some dogma to keep their kids in line, but that assumed the response to the existence of weres would be completely negative. The arrival of the Ross family had shown that to not be the case. Tad had never told Connor about being a werewolf while they’d been growing up and no member of the Ross family seemed overly interested in the “occult,” but the worst reaction they had was more surprise than fear or hatred. Connor, his younger sister, and parents had been quite accepting, and that raised the possibility that Tom Herald’s reveal plan wouldn’t entirely be what some feared it to be.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Meanwhile, Tom Herald was busy looking over the sudden rush of emails that had come in regarding his assignment to get answers regarding law enforcement readiness in Washington State, and much of it likely carrying some element of wanting to make sure Washington voters were ready for when that issue came up in the Presidential election the next year. Particularly as there had been a fair amount of fairly big incidents that had come in before Halloween and the time immediately after it. Tom didn't cover all of it, but he'd also known that a lot of things had gone on and that attracted the potential for a lot of attention, which his editor felt was worthy of coverage.
It started with the Gambonis coming into Washington State. The organized crime family typically operated on the US east coast, primarily in New York City but had some rumored operations in New Jersey, upstate New York, and Connecticut. In recent years there were rumored cases of activity in other places, but Tom had seen nothing that fully confirmed it. Then came a pair of incidents where Albert Gamboni was caught trespassing on Fort Wolfe and had evidence of various computer crimes that had been suspected, but there hadn't been enough evidence to confirm the suspicions. Then security cameras caught Marcus Gamboni killing a park ranger at Mount Saint Helens and effectively leading law enforcement on a merry chase before he and Vito Gamboni were caught and arrested after a scuffle with the FBI and Moon Lake PD. That had to have made Moon Lake nervous over the were secret, but that one was small enough that things didn't become too big.
What then followed, though, was what brought Tom to finding out about Moon Lake, weres, and everything else and thus leading to his present plans. It started with a gun battle among the warehouses at the port facilities between Seattle PD and FBI agents and the "Rat Pack," a group of low time crooks known more for distributing drugs and things like that. The thing that drew Tom's attention was when Lionel Ulysses was wounded, and police body cam footage revealed what looked like Ulysses growing a tail before disappearing behind a crate. Tom had been covering this, and when the police released that footage, Tom had the sensation that the tail was real and that something was going on. In reality, the tail was real and a result of Lionel Ulysses being a wererat and transforming on reflex to accelerate the healing process from the gunshot wound.
From there, Tom began digging more into the tail than almost everything else that related to Lionel Ulysses' actions. It represented something big and something that he felt needed to be exposed. He did his best to try and get more information, but ultimately got little more than a runaround that led back to what the police and FBI thought the tail was, a costume piece. It was something that lead to him meeting Alice Stevens. It started with questions on Ulysses' tail, but in time Tom seemed to bond with her at times and then to the discovery that weres were real and that Alice was in fact a werefox vixen. That was a big surprise, but for Tom, the bigger surprise was the realization that he also loved Alice. From there, he became a werefox with her and felt the bond that she'd begun feeling since their first meeting, and in a way, it felt wonderful and better than any of his previous relationships and everything told him that he and Alice would be together for a long time.
But that also soon brought things back to the shot of Lionel Ulysses and his tail from that gun battle that revealed it. Becoming a werefox and bonding to Alice revealed the errors that Tom had been pursuing, but as he thought back on that now, it had more to do with HOW he'd been going about it. If he had gotten more information that confirmed the tail, it was quite possible that he would have revealed weres in a way that would have associated them with Lionel Ulysses crimes, and that part wasn't true. It didn't change Tom's personal thoughts on the were secret, but merely changed how the were secret was to told. Weres couldn't keep hiding and had likely had more lucky breaks than many would care to admit... and it left them continually looking for places to hide. That was in part why he'd pushed for the big reveal... to come into the open, where a were like Alice would never have to hide how wonderful she was from anyone.
It wasn’t something that would be super popular, as many would fear the sorts of changes that would come with the reveal, and he had to admit even convincing the Moon Lake City Council had been a tough sell, but Tom remained determined. It would be a hard path, but he was certain it would ultimately lead to a better world. The hardest part was going to be dealing with those that didn't want change and would do anything to prevent it from happening, and Tom knew that was there. He had already had one run in with the agents of those that would try to fight against the big reveal. They were a Quintus Fives and Gustavas Amehr. Tom felt Quintus might be one that could be convinced in time, but Gustavas seemed more reactionary and for the moment both were against it. They also carried the sort of vibe that if Tom wasn't careful, they'd make sure he disappears and is never seen again.
The best Tom could do was at least temporarily move him and Alice to where it would be harder for Fives and Amehr to pull off some kind of murder. It would mean commuting to Seattle from Moon Lake for his own work and getting help from Moon Lake's Skulk for security, and they were more than willing to help provide that security. Ichiro and Yoshiro Tachibana seemed to have been personally assigned to the case and had been helpful for the security around things and also protecting Alice's parents, there wereraccoon Harold Stevens and his werefox wife, Lucy. It all helped make some things easier and balance the work of assisting Moon Lake come up with the plan for the big reveal, which wouldn't reveal anything about Moon Lake. It would make for a lot of work and balance, but for the most part, a lot that work would be understandable.
For a time that was also easy because of how little attention his present assignment for Seattle Times in seeing on how well Washington state was prepared for any possible "crime wave" wasn't progressing well. A few departments had accepted interviews, but most of them were all close to Seattle. But most either rejected interview requests or didn't even respond. For a while, it looked as though he wouldn't have much to put into the story he was assigned beyond the immediate local area, which might ease things around Seattle and the immediate suburbs, based on what he found, but it wouldn't cover everything. The one thing that it did allow for was to make it easier for coordinating his work for his paper around the times Moon Lake's City Council would meet on the reveal plan each week, with those meetings scheduled for Wednesdays.
However, this morning had so far brought in a series of calls from departments that had rejected interview requests earlier were now suddenly calling in. Tom now had to make sure he would have the ability to drive to these points and keep Wednesday free, as it was probable that Moon Lake's City Council wouldn't cancel meetings because a non-member of that council couldn't be there. But that was difficult as he had Asotin County Sheriff's Office scheduled for the coming Sunday at eight AM, the Vancouver, Washington PD at ten on Saturday which would make for an interesting tomorrow, and that wasn't the end of it. He also had the Montesano PD at three thirty and South Bend at five PM that day, and those he'd had to reschedule to try and keep from running over the next Wednesday. It was a surprise and Tom couldn't explain it, and for the moment, he also had to roll with it as the big reveal wasn't ready to go public, yet.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Back at the Decker home, Jen was going over some last things before heading out to run a few errands. The school might be out on this Friday, but that didn’t mean other things just stood still. It also, all set up the sets of changes that had gone on for her. She had returned "home" to Moon Lake following the murder of her werewolf husband, Jeff Decker, by a wererat, Lionel Ulysses. At the time, she didn't know that, but she remembered the issues that Lionel Ulysses had in high school were there and when she married Jeff and followed him as he went about his career in the Marines, she was glad to be away from Ulysses and those issues. Jeff's murder, though, was frightening and it brought her and Tad "home."
And being back in Moon Lake helped in many ways. While finding the note that indicated how forward Amy Howler was toward Tad was a surprise, as Amy showed herself to be a responsible young woman, Jen came to accept her involvement with Tad. She even agreed to help Tad help Amy's younger siblings when it came to their first transformations. That made her proud of her son and also relieved when Lionel Ulysses was caught in Seattle. It meant justice for her husband and the removal a criminal were that she'd tried to help get on the right track while in high school. The rest was now on getting a new start for herself and working to overcome the pain from Jeff's death.
That started with joining a new pride. Her mothers' old pride might have accepted her, but she also knew that this was to be a new start and that let her rejoin with old friends. Samantha and Frances Twist had married and formed their own small pride in partnership with a pair of werewildcat couples, Simon and Greg Trask and Jose Melto with Spencer Treebury. They'd also taken new resident to Moon Lake, a bisexual woman named Martha Anderson, who had a very sexy voice, but was bisexual and happily married to a new werefox. But the first meeting with them all went well and revealed a few things that related to her mourning Jeff's death and Frances was more than happy to help, which ultimately Jen agreed to take. Which then came off fairly well when that offer allowed Jen to meet someone new in her own life and had things getting better in her personal life as well.
Moon Lake High still had its Halloween Dance, and something that often did attract alumni and grownups to it, as it was an event where weres could be out in public in their fursonas and not have to worry about exposure or anything else. That went back to when Jen was in high school, and while attending the dance, she'd met a young woman named Claire. She'd apparently moved to Moon Lake over the summer and had been fine with all of Moon Lake's rules, laws, and secrets, but was a heterosexual woman who wanted to be a werecat, which ended up being something that many of Moon Lake's werecats would be hesitant over, largely because werecats and werewildcats were both mono-gendered and all their members were at least bisexual if not homosexual. And cases where "accidents" occurred often found that any straight normal human would have their sexuality change when they became a werecat or werewildcat and would become either bisexual or homosexual. Established weres didn't want to wreck families or anything else when normals came to Moon Lake and became weres.
But, from all that she'd been told, Claire had seemed determined to be a werecat. In that, Jen slowly accepted so long as Claire understood what the transformation would do beyond just her physical form. It wasn't something that was expected to last long and Jen figured that Claire would say "thank you" and return to her life, and while Claire did return to her work as part of the custodial and maintenance staff at Moon Lake College, she also seemed to stay close to Jen. It was something that Jen found herself loving as found out more and more as she found herself falling for Claire. Jen didn't expect it, but it happened and was helping with her recovery from Jeff's death. That then left one last thing... work.
To a degree she could survive for a while on Jeff's pension, as he was a war veteran and an officer in the Marine Corps with a distinguished record, but that would really only be a short-term solution. Mostly because of the fact that as a were, she could live to be four hundred provided she didn't catch some deadly disease that could infect weres or meet a more violent end. The pension that Jeff earned was something that would really only work with someone who would be lucky to make one hundred years, and with the were secret still intact, that part couldn't be explained. The big reveal plan may help solve those issues, but even there, Jen also wasn't the sort to do nothing. She'd often worked various jobs while Jeff was on deployment and things like that. They may not always last long given that she would move with him when he was transferred between various US Marine bases, but that didn't mean that Jen wasn't able to work or unwilling to work.
With this, Jen began looking into the various openings in Moon Lake with the expectation that a fair number of those applications would lead to a lot of replies. A lot of that had happened before as she went about her work searches before. This time, Jen caught a lucky break in that one of her applications went to Tachibana Enterprises, Moon Lake's largest business that focused on scientific exploration and pharmaceuticals for both weres and normal humans, though they did other things as well. This also included a security division that often partnered with Moon Lake and a few other small towns in the area whenever there was something that required extra "muscle." Even with the job being a secretary, it was a prestigious post given who ran the company and its reputation to Moon Lake.
Here, Jen had made it through two rounds of interviews to be Akane no Tachibana's personal secretary and had the position, as the Skulk's leader had only just called to inform Jen of that development. She was to report in on Monday at eight AM to cover all the last bits of paperwork, and so on before establishing the schedule and working into the routine at the couple. And while Moon Lake was under a mixed form of tension as a result of the present debate over the big reveal, Jen now had a job and could look forward to providing for herself and her son and might have a new life partner in Claire for the foreseeable future.