Mysterious Marilyn’s heels click on the linoleum floor as she circles around Debbie and the duck...or Michael.

“There’s no doubt it’s him,” Marilyn concludes, confirming Debbie’s impossible claim, “Feathers as dark as night, too calm and knowing around you all.”

“Just like when he was a young boy,” Debbie concludes.

Brian rolls his eyes and stands up, “You are so full of shit, Marilyn. Michael? Calm? Yeah, right.”

Michael flaps his wings angrily and quacks in protest before Debbie shushes him by petting his back.

“Don’t listen to him, sweetheart.”

The duck glares at Brian before looking at Ben, once again, pleadingly.

Ben looks around, unsure of what to say. He’s not convinced. This whole scenario is completely preposterous. They are just wasting time here with these ducks when they should be out looking for Michael. He’s sorry that his mother-in-law is obviously mentally disturbed by her son’s disappearance and this false prophet she called to confirm her hysteria but he can’t put up with it.

So Ben clears his throat and stands up as well.

“Brian’s right. Michael’s not calm-”

The duck lets out another quack but Ben holds up his hand to silence him.

“And he especially wouldn’t be calm if he turned into a duck. That’s just the way it is, Debbie. I agree that he’s a very persistent duck and seems to be highly intelligent but-”

“Quack! Quack quack quack!”

The duck flaps and hops up onto the kitchen table. Ben watches him silently as the duck stops right in front of him, pecks at his wedding ring, and extends his wings to point him himself.

“Quack,” the duck lets out softly, staring at Ben with intensity.

Ben feels himself shaking but shakes his head in denial, “No. No, you’re not my husband.”

“Ben, sweetheart,” Debbie tells him soothingly, “I can prove it to you. You all wait right here. I’ll be right back.”

Debbie gets up and quickly goes upstairs. The two minutes she’s gone, Ben just stares at the duck...at the man? The duck that may be a man. His man. God, why did his life have to become such a chaotic mess?

“Quack,” the duck whispers.

Ben swallows and starts to slowly reach out and touch the duck’s head but is interrupted by Debbie’s shriek.

“Here it is!” his mother-in-law cries as she runs down the stairs.

Debbie comes back into the kitchen and stands beside Ben.

“I shouldn’t have kept this a secret from Michael. He was only four so he doesn’t remember. But this happened once before. I...I was in complete shock. I didn’t know what was happening. If he hadn’t turned right in front of my very eyes I would have been in denial, just like you are now. But for about three months, my son wasn’t a little boy. He was a little duckling. Marilyn’s mother helped me get through it. You can get through it too.”

With that, Debbie passes him an aged picture. When Ben looks down, he feels shock course through his body.

“...I-Is….Is this-?” Ben stutters, feeling hope, fear, bafflement, and dread all at once.

“That’s Michael,” Debbie confirms, “That’s my little boy.”

Ben bends over, gripping the table until his knuckles turn white. He tries to catch his breath and feels the du-Michael nuzzle his arm.

He collapses back down in the chair and looks at Michael with wide eyes.

“Michael?” Ben says to the duck, voice filled to the brim with emotion, “Baby?”

“Quack!” Michael exclaims, love and relief lacing his voice.

Ben holds his arms out and Michael flies into them. He feels his face start to crumple as he breathes in Michael’s duckish scent. It’s different but there’s still the underlying scent of home.

“Give me that,” Brian mutters, taking the picture.

Ben ignores him as he holds his husband or whatever they currently are with Michael’s unexpected species change.

“Shit,” Brian says, studying the picture, “It’s true.”

“Daddy?” JR asks with both fear and awe as she leans into her disturbed older brother.

“Quack,” Michael confirms as he turns in Ben’s grasp to stare affectionately at his daughter.

“Let me see it,” Justin tells his ex before he takes it from the man’s hands, “How...how did…”

Excluding Ben and Debbie, the rest of the gang stare up at Marilyn, waiting for an explanation to all of this.

“I wasn’t there first hand. For the most part at least. I was only ten at the time and my mother was assisting Debbie with Michael. Oh, I played with the duckling from time to time when my mother brought me over and I knew he was technically a little boy but the way it worked was over my head at the time. I was just beginning to grasp the true strength of my own power and didn’t have the means to help other supernatural creatures at that point in my life.”

“Supernatural?” Lindsay gasps, “You mean he isn’t human?”

“If he was, he sure isn’t now,” Emmett says under his breath, getting a laugh out of Ted.

“He’s...humanlike. Hell, he’s mostly human. There’s just a little spark there that makes him not quite the same as all the rest.”

Marilyn looks at Debbie and she nods to give the psychic the okay. Marilyn goes out into the hall, comes back with a huge ancient book, and, with the flick of her wrist, the book turns to a page on its own.

“Michael Novotny comes from a family who was once very gifted in the art of shapeshifting. His great-great-great-great-great-great-”

“We get it,” the gang says in unison, not caring about the family tree.

“Fine. Alphonse Devore was the head of one of six supreme supernatural families in Western Europe. Alphonse hailed from France. He was very brutal. He would hunt innocents and eat their flesh because he could. But what do you expect? His go-to shift was a wolf. It was in his nature. In some ways, he fit in with the werewolf clans. But he had an advantage because he could shift into anything. If he was running from a pack, he could turn into something as small as a fly and get away. He was a powerful man. This angered the head of the supreme werewolf family, Diedrich Holtzer. Diedrich was not a good man himself. He wasn’t angered by Alphonse’s actions but by his ability to be...versatile. He vowed to kill Alphonse in order to absorb his power. Soon, Alphonse found himself on the run from the Holtzer pack. With his eldest son, he took off and disguised himself as…”

“A duck?”’ Ted guesses, intrigued by the story.

“Five points for the cutie on the left,” Marilyn says flirtatiously before continuing, “His son, Alphonse Jr, shifted into a duckling to disguise himself with his father. The abilities of shifting passes from father to son and mother to daughter so it wasn’t very hard once he saw his father in that form, even if his go-to shape was a wolf as well. They hid with a brace of ducks by a pond in the forest and the werewolves couldn’t find them. They thought they were safe and were just going to wait a little bit longer to make sure. Unfortunately, they underestimated the ducks they joined.”

“Ducks...ducks are interesting creatures. The males can be quite violent and manipulative within their own brace. But Alphonse thought he was safe. He could turn into almost anything, after all, so why wouldn’t he be? Besides, ducks are cute. But those ducks...those ducks caught him while he was sleeping for the first night in a week. Pecked his eyes and blood feathers out before snapping his neck. The transfer of power is a complicated thing in supreme families, especially with shifters. If the head kills himself, dies in an accident, or of natural causes, the status goes to the next in line, like the eldest child or the partner, and the family’s abilities stay the same. If the head is killed by another head or just a supe outside of the family, the surviving members go under the killer’s power. If they are killed by a human while they are in human form, the surviving members lose their power and become humans themselves. And if they are killed by a genuine member of the species they are taking the form of, the rest of the family is cursed to only be able to only shift into that animal and to never regain the power of a supreme family again. In Michael’s lineage’s case, that animal is a duck.”

Ben’s sure the whole room is gaping like he is but he can’t force himself to take his eyes off of Marilyn as she tells this fascinating story. The scholar in him wants to ask questions about the time period and shifters in the region of Tibet but he forces himself to stay on topic.

“So, even when Danny Devore came back into town, he didn’t say shit to either of you?” Brian asks Debbie, pursing his lips.

“Oh, Danny doesn’t have the ability. He doesn’t even know about it,” Marilyn reveals, “After Alphonse Jr got over the trauma and grew up, he married a nice human girl and that’s the way it has mostly been for several generations. After a while, sometimes there’s a skip in the line because of that and it catches up later. Danny’s generation got skipped. Now, Danny’s father was a shifter. He kept it a secret and it’s a shame that he did. Poor man got shot down by hunters when he was flying by a river in West Virginia. It’s not like anyone could bring the body back. The only reason my grandmother knew was because she had a vision of it. Danny and his mother thought the man had taken off and ditched the family.”

“So, if he didn’t have the ability, how did he pass it down to Michael?” Mel asks.

“Danny is still a carrier. But since Danny couldn’t shift it makes Michael not very strong of a shifter. This is only the second time he has done it. Many shifters seem to be triggered by a full moon or absolute rage. While Michael’s trigger is an emotional one, it isn’t anger.”

Debbie turns to her son and clutches her heart, “Baby, what’s the matter? Oh, please tell me. Last time it just broke my heart.”

“Quack,” Michael chokes out, looking away from his mother.

“What is it?” Justin speaks up, “We need to know what emotion is causing Michael to turn into a duck. That way we can fix it.”

Marilyn sighs, “I’m afraid it won’t be that simple. His change doesn’t seem to happen just like that. It’s weeks, maybe months, in the making. The feeling builds up to become all-consuming and in order to escape, his primal urge to let his supernatural ability take over kicks in. Many would try anything in order to escape life if you’re depressed.”

“...So Michael turns into a duck when he’s sad? Shit, Brian. I thought you dealt with your emotions in a bad way,” Justin says to his ex, crossing his arms in defiance when Brian glares at him.

“More than sad,” Debbie corrects Justin softly, “Helpless. Heartbroken. Hopeless. Alone.”

After Debbie realizes what she has said, she turns to Ben in outrage.

“Why the hell haven’t you been taking care of my baby?!” Debbie yells as she whacks Ben on the back of the head.

“I have been! Debbie, would you stop hitting me?” Ben insists, batting her hands away.

Michael and the rest of the ducks start quacking up a storm, circling around Debbie in order to intimidate her to stop hitting the love of Michael’s life.

Debbie looks at the ducks in alarm before sitting back up straight and clearing her throat.

“Well, even if Ben isn’t at fault, he is my son’s husband. He of all people should know what has Michael so depressed. Last time it was because all the other children had a father and he didn’t. He just dwelled on it so much but we didn’t know the trigger at the time so it took a couple of months to pinpoint it. When we finally did, I thought about bringing Vic around but he was off fucking his way through Italy. So I did the next best thing: bought Michael a father figure who could understand him. Watching that duck with my baby just warmed my heart. Once Michael was content about our living situation again, he woke up as a little boy and told me our duck’s name was Geraldo, not Mr. Featherpuff. We had that duck for nine more years. He died the year before you came to town, Brian. I’m sure Michael mentioned him. He remembers Geraldo even though he doesn’t remember why we got Geraldo.”

“Yeah...I ignored that my best friend was a dweeb who used to have a pet duck,” Brian admits.

Debbie shakes her head at her pseudo son’s rudeness before turning back to Ben.

“So there’s an example, sweetheart. Is there anything you can think of that has him upset like that?”

Ben sighs and runs a hand down his face before looking down at Michael. Michael, ever so subtly, nods his permission to Ben.

“I’ve been so worried about him. It’s been hard since JR and Hunter left. Not that we aren’t proud of you or don’t understand but it’s been lonely. We...We want a family. Michael wants a baby so desperately. We’ve tried. We usually get denied by families for adoption since we’re gay and I’m positive. We did have one person who said yes but she changed her mind just a couple of months later when her aunt said she would get her a job after the baby was born. So we lost money on that but we had a little to spare. We decided to get donor eggs and a surrogate. My sister offered to donate her eggs but my colleague, who was going to be our surrogate, found out she has cancer. She’s going to be okay but she can’t do it. We looked at getting one through an agency but it’s too expensive. Our debt has been getting higher and we are spending all of our money trying for a child as well as child support for JR and the loans we got out for Hunter’s education. All great things so it’s no problem. But trying to have a child together has started to feel completely out of reach. Hunter has been so busy that we haven’t seen much of him for a while.”

“I don’t want it to be like that. I’m just getting a lot of work,” Hunter says, his voice stressed and guilt-ridden.

“I know, Buddy. God, we’re so proud of you. We just miss you a lot,” Ben insists before bracing himself to talk to Lindsay and Mel, “I don’t mean to put you girls on the spot, but you haven’t exactly come to visit recently nor have you accepted the days we wanted to visit. It is so hard for him, for both of us, to not see JR on a regular basis. I understand why you moved but you promised us that we would see her.”

“I know,” Mel tells him softly, “I’m sorry. Our money situation hasn’t been that great either. I didn’t expect the time it would take to get into the classes I would need to become a Canadian lawyer. We’re lucky that Linds got a job but it doesn’t pay as well as her job down here did. I just got licensed last year and I’m lower on the ladder than I should be at this point of my career. I mean, come on. I’m a public defender. I was a partner at a firm here. We’re struggling, Ben. Things are really hard right now.”

“Then you should have thought it through before you took off,” Brian snaps.

“Our children are safe!” Mel shoots back, “That’s all that matters to us.”

“Ladies, ladies not in front of the babies,” Marilyn shushes them, gesturing to Gus and JR.

“I’m NOT a baby,” JR insists, coming up to Marilyn, “I’m four years old!”

“Wonderful,” Marilyn drawls with complete disinterest, “We’re going off topic. If you want to make Michael turn back to the way he was before, these things, or at least some of these things, in his life need to be fixed.”

“Well, we can’t just move back,” Mel sighs, “Not right now. We have too many ties up there at the moment.”

Marilyn purses her lips, “Fine. The baby issue seems to be bothering Michael the most anyway. What he needs is a surrogate. Is that what would make you happy, Michael? A surrogate for a new baby?”

Michael stares at Marilyn intensely, as though he is trying to find a catch.

Marilyn starts to slowly walk around the table once more, staring down at each and every one of them.

“I don’t see why this is a problem. There are three people in this room alone who are completely capable of carrying a child for you.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Lindsay frets, “Gus was awfully hard on me. As much as I love him, being pregnant with him was so miserable that I changed my mind about becoming pregnant again.”

“I am working way too much right now. I’m not at the top of things. Maybe in a couple of years that will change but by then I’ll be forty and I don’t know if I would be an ideal candidate to carry your child,” Mel admits.

Emmett looks around, “Who’s the third person? Debbie, have you not hit menopause yet?”

“Don’t remind me,” Debbie grumbles, “And besides, I’m his mother. I don’t think Michael wants me carrying his child. And frankly, the idea would disturb me as well.”

“So, what? Did you just say the wrong number?” Emmett asks, genuinely confused.

“No, there’s three,” Marilyn smirks.

“...Oh my god, you aren’t suggesting that Michael fuck one of the ducks-”

Everyone in the room but Brian groans as Emmett excuses himself by saying, “Well, what else am I supposed to think?!”

“No, Mr. Honeycutt. I am not suggesting that. There is another person in this room who has the ability to carry children.

As Ben looks around the room, he can see that everyone, including Michael, is as baffled as he is.

Except for Brian. Brian is as white as a sheet with small sweat beads starting to form on his forehead.

“Well, I give up,” Ted announces, “Who is it?”

Marilyn turns to look at Brian and murmurs, “Mr. Kinney? Don’t you want to help your friend?”

Every single person in the room stares at Brian intently as he glares at Marilyn with the promise of death in his eyes.

“Fuck you,” he says in a deadly whisper.

Marilyn purses her lips, “Come on, baby. You’re going to have to say something sooner or later.”

“Brian?” Justin asks, “What’s going on?”

“You shouldn’t be ashamed of the ability you have, Brian. You are special. You are blessed.”

“Even if I wanted to fucking help him, you know that I can’t. You fucking know. I can tell,” Brian seethes, gripping onto the table.

“What are you talking about? I know of what happened in the past but all I can tell is that you are still a healthy man. So what’s the problem?”

“I can’t help him!”

“Why not?” Marilyn presses.

“Because I’m already fucking knocked up!” Brian finally bellows, breathing heavily with anger.

The room is so silent that you could hear a pin drop and all Ben can think is, ’What. The. Fuck.’

Marilyn takes pity and kneels down next to the angry man. A very brave move, if you asked Ben.

“Calm down,” she quietly orders, “I didn’t mean to make you so upset. But you couldn’t keep hiding it. You’re barely hiding it now under the loose jackets and sweatshirts you’ve been wearing.”

“Oh, fuck off!” Brian snaps, rubbing his stomach almost instinctually.

“It’s going to be alright. What happened last time won’t happen again. But you are almost done with your first trimester. You need to go to Morgan and take care of yourself and the babies.”

Brian turns his head sharply at that, “It’s just baby. Singular.”

Marilyn shakes her head and smiles, “No, sugar. It’s babies. Plural. As in two. You’re going to be a lucky father of a little boy and a little girl as well as your eldest, Gus, of course. I already had the vision. You look pretty good considering it’s twins. But I’m sure your baby bump will pop out loud and proud in the next month or so.”

Ben thought today couldn’t get any more bizarre. He was wrong.

And he’s proven that he’s wrong yet again when Brian lets out a sob and weeps into his hands.

As Justin stutters and tries to get Brian to snap out of it so he can get him to elaborate on whatever the fuck is going on inside his body, Marilyn stands up and brushes off her skirt.

“He’ll be okay,” she says calmly as she pats him on the shoulder and walks back over to Debbie and Michael, “Pregnancy hormones can even move the stone cold Brian Kinney to tears.”