HE'S NOT THE MAN HE USED TO BE

When Harvey hesistated, every alarm bell started going off in my head on his behalf. He was going to do it. He was going to tell on Kev. Or he wasn't, which was even more alarming.

Or maybe in this life, Harvey was less calm, less smooth, and less perfect? Could that even be possible in any life? I examined my good beta carefully, on the outside, he was really exactly the same as when I had first met him. From his hair down to his leather jacket and relaxed jeans, he was the perfect level of cool sophistication of a high school senior.

Was it just me, or did Harvey seem a little more scuffed up, a little more frazzled, a little more guy-who-drives-a-pick-up-truck and a little less Porsche? (Get it, he's a little less posh - Porsche? Cos he drives a Porsche in our Original Timeline? Ah, never mind. Pretend I never said that.)

"Sam, stop staring at Harv." Ben said, "You're making him freak."

"It wasn't me!" I answered quite by reflex. Why me? Didn't Ben know that in this timeline, everything was Fluffy's fault?

It's not as if Harv could be so easily freaked out anyway.

Harvey cleared his throat a little. Actually, he did look a little stressed and a lot uncertain, but he seemed determined to make his statement anyway, "I would like to report certain discrepancies in Morning Light that had come to my attention since we had arrived."

Yeah. Now that sounded like the good reliable beta I knew.

"How recently?" Fluffy asked, "Does Big Brother Beta mean to say he had not once noticed anything amiss until the last 24 hours?"

Suddenly it became clear to me that Fluffy had missed his calling. He should have been a lawyer.

Harvey nodded and lowered his gaze, "I have something to confess."

Oh, oh, oh, oh… Harvey was going to do it! He was going to come clean on Kev's secret rogue army!

"I believe there is something suspicious happening under the wing of the Morning Light Beta Office." Harvey said.

Eh? The Beta Office? Did Harv mean Beta Gerald or himself? I waited to hear how the words "rogue army" might appear in the beta office.

"The accounts… I've found several discrepancies and today… today I snooped around my Dad's office and found several extra ledgers containing quite incriminating evidence of our hotel business being the facade of some kind of large scale rogue organization."

Wait… what? Now that wasn't anything like what we expected to hear. So it wasn't Kev but Beta Gerald who was the traitor? And it wasn't Morning Light but the Langston Hotel that was funding them?

"There's no way!" I felt quite sure this was impossible, "Beta Gerald would NEVER betray Morning Light!"

There was no doubt that he loved his pack with all his heart and soul. There was no way.

At this point Harvey shook his head and turned teary, "My Dad… he's not the man he used to be."

What? Eh?

It was at this point that I noticed Harvey's clenched fists were shaking, his wolf was so close to the surface.

"Calm down, beta." Wolfgang was the first who stood up. He put a hand on Harv's shoulder, "Tell us the details to what you have discovered."

"I… I don't know how." Harvey said miserably.

"Report, beta." Wolfgang said, but he said it gently, "Just report it, as you would any other discrepancy you might have found. So you found additional ledgers? What made you search your father's office?"

"Like I said…" Harvey said, and then he sighed, "My Dad isn't himself."

When Harvey went home last night, his sister Haylee was outside on the front porch in her pajamas crying.

"Dad's home." She whispered the moment she saw him.

And Harvey suddenly had a very bad feeling. He moved towards the front door.

"No, don't go in!" Haylee grabbed his arm.

But Harvey saw something in his memory, something he had never seen in his previous life, nor could ever in his wildest imagination or worst nightmare fathom, a scene from just a year ago of his father and mother, the blood and tears, his mother's screams.

"Wait here." He told his sister, and barged into the house.

He could hear his mother's muffled cries from the bedroom, it made his blood turn icy cold.

"I couldn't believe it. My father, he had never once in my previous life even talked back to my Mum… he was… he was…" Harvey's voice cracked, "He was hurting her."

He broke into his parents bedroom, pretty much crashing through the door. He was not much of a fighter in this timeline and spent his days like a regular student. His dad had told him not to rush and to wait till he was 18, so Harvey was only Kev's honorary beta. His responsibilities included driving out to fetch his drunk or beaten up alpha home at 2am, and keeping his dates scheduled and sending the appropriate gifts to his lady friends at the appropriate occasions.

But the Harvey he was right now, came from a timeline when he had to kill a rogue with his bare hands from the time he shifted to survive. Although not having an extra alpha around to save the day for Morning Light was tough, it also made him a lot tougher. Not to mention, his time running with me as the FAO's administrator… it made him quite a different wolf. He crashed into his parents bedroom and ended up throwing his dad out of the second floor window.

Fluffy and Ben clapped.

"Well done, Big Brother Beta." Fluffy smiled.

And Harvey hit him. It was the usual back handed slap across his shoulder, but Harvey immediately apologized, "Sorry, old habit."

"No, it's good for him." Ben said, "Please continue."

Wolfgang glared at Ben, "Beta, I fail to see how you can joke right now."

Ben shrugged, "Wolfgang, Wolfgang, we're brothers, so it's our job to help him laugh through the pain."

"What kind of logic is that?" Wolfgang said.

"Idiot logic." Fluffy shrugged, "You won't understand unless you're raised by idiots."

Dad cleared his throat, but he nearly laughed out loud, "Hn."

"I want to go back to our original timeline just to beat this fool." Ben said of his Young Alpha.

"Are you sure you should be saying that while I'm still your Alpha, my lovely beta?" Fluffy smiled, but I was beginning to understand that Fluffy was just playing.

Fluffy was very playful in this timeline… oh wait, no. Fluffy was always playing. ~❤️

Wait, Wat was tat? Why a ❤️?

No, focus on Harv's sob story.

Anyway, after leaving Haylee to take care of his Mum (Haylee was very much more sensible and mature in this timeline), Harvey went over to the Morning Light Pack House. It was a long walk (he didn't have his precious truck in this time line), so while walking, he logically reconstructed the memories of his father and Morning Light in this timeline against our Original Timeline.

Basically, it was the same as before, even his father was the same mild mannered gentleman (except during business negotiations and when he was on Harvey's case).

The timelines diverted when the Young Alpha Kev shifted. Alpha Kev was Harvey's hero. Alpha Kev would run out every time the rogues attacked and save the day. He was an amazing fighter, and the young Harv of this timeline knew he would never be able to beat him.

Yeah right, the Harv I knew would have beat up Kev in two blinks and a heartbeat. But the Harv in this world didn't have the same pressures to train and become strong, to survive or keep up with a certain blue haired alpha princess.

At first, things were looking up when Alpha Kev first took office. Everyone in Morning had believed the worst was now behind them when Alpha Kingsley's firstborn and their pack's champion chose to move over. Harvey himself had just shifted, but he remembered how his Dad praised their new Alpha's bravery.

His dad began to change a little while after Alpha Kev took office. At first his Mum said it was just stress from work, and then once she worried that his Dad wasn't seeing eye to eye with the new Alpha over certain issues. Since Harv had always thought his Dad was too straight laced to began with, he had shrugged it off.

But later on, his dad gradually underwent a personality change. He stopped smiling, and on the rare occasions he came home, he would leave Harv's mum in tears. The arguments escalated into fights. His mum sometimes mumbled things like, "What do you think if we ran away from home? Just you, Haylee, and me?"

But then she'd laugh, "I'm just joking."

And then that night last year when Harvey came home late from school and found Haylee on the front porch in her pajamas. He had stayed outside with her then. It didn't happen very often, but he hadn't know what else to do about it. The next day, his dad would leave and his mum would be like nothing ever happened.

He couldn't say anything to anyone about it. He was too ashamed for most part.

"I couldn't protect her." Harvey said to his hands, "I was too weak."

We all nodded solemnly.

"Well, you threw him out the window last night." Fluffy pointed out brightly, "I hope he was naked."

"Somebody hit him." Ben groaned.

Wolfgang obliged, "Pardon Young Alpha, but this is for your own good."

Alpha Fluffy only laughed.

Harvey huffed a little, "Thanks guys."

His wry smile was a shadow of his former self. The Harvey right now was way too raw and vulnerable.

Anyway, Harvey continued his investigations by checking the accounts, "I thought his business sank or something."

But he found something worse, his Dad was using his family's finances to support some kind of rogue organization. To make matters worse, it looked suspiciously alike to Bell's types of expenses when the Underground Army was first taking form.

"It's almost as if my father was raising a rogue army." Harvey said.

Ping pong! Those were the words I was expecting... But I still felt surprised.

"Or perhaps he is covering up for someone who is." Fluffy smiled.

"What?" Harvey's head shot up.

"It would certainly explain why I can't find anything weird with the Morning Light Accounts." Ben said.

"You were looking at accounts?" I narrowed my eyes at Ben. I thought he hated stuff like that.

"My alpha made me." Ben pointed accusingly at Fluffy.

"I… I don't understand…" Harvey said miserably. Poor Harvey.

"On the bright side, you aren't a traitor in this timeline." Fluffy smiled brightly.

"Please just tell him and put him out of his misery." Ben said.

"But isn't it funny?" Fluffy laughed, "It's so obvious but Big Brother Beta can't see it."

"It's often harder to see the truth when you are caught up in it." Wolfgang said.

"Kai, what do you think?" Dad had enough of the games, "What is happening in Morning Light?"

"I think you know better than we do, Dad." Fluffy smiled.

"Tell me anyway." Dad ordered. (Good job, Dad. Don't let Fluffy bully you!)