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  Once there, he drank like a half bottle of Pepto Bismal and climbed into bed. Whatever this was didn’t show any signs of going away. He would have sworn it was food poisoning if he had eaten anything to have caused it. He was certain Tommy hadn’t given him anything in his drinks as he would have begun to feel the effects long before now. Whatever this was seemed to only get worse as the night progressed. By morning, he was bent over the toilet sweating and dry heaving. Once the initial round of illness subsided a bit, he leaned back against the tub and called to get the school clinic hours.

  Sitting in the waiting room, Charlie could feel the sweat beading up on his body as his stomach threatened to churn over right there in the middle of all of the other students that were alongside him. He wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t pass out before he got in to see someone, but finally he was called back and put on a table for examination.

  “I’m not sure what is going on here, Charlie, but you appear to have some sort of mass in your abdomen,” the doctor said.

  “What sort of mass?” he asked, the fright in his voice apparent.

  “I’m not sure. You haven’t noticed it before?”

  “No. Not at all. I was fine until this morning.”

  “It’s quite a large growth, Charlie. I mean, it is visible from the outside. Look in the mirror.”

  Charlie stood up from the table and looked in the full length mirror that hung on one wall near the exam table. Much to his surprise, his stomach had an obviously rounded look as if he was bloated. It hadn’t been like that even as late as this morning.

  “What do we do, Doctor Burns?”

  “I’m going to send you down the hall for an ultra sound. If it has come up that fast, it is best that we figure out what it is right away. Go ahead and get dressed and I’ll call you down as soon as I can get a tech in there to do a scan.”

  “Okay. Thanks, doctor.”

  The doctor left the room, leaving Charlie sitting there feeling more scared than he had ever been of anything in his life. He slowly began to get dressed, feeling achy and tired. It didn’t help that he was feeling still so sick and that now it felt like something was moving around inside of him. This was all just unreal.

  “Charlie, come on and let’s see what we can find out about this for you, son,” the doctor said as he opened the door and poked his head in. Charlie nodded at him and followed him down the hall, feeling like he was on his way to his own execution for some reason. Moments later, he was on another table with his pants unsnapped and his shirt pushed up.

  “This is going to be a bit cold,” the tech told him as she smeared some weird blue gel on his stomach with what looked like a big microphone to him. She moved it around from place to place and looked at a screen by his bedside, a puzzled look on her face. He saw her eyes grow large and she seemed startled for a moment.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Um, I’m not sure. Hold on a minute. I need to get the doctor to look at this.”

  “Please, just tell me,” Charlie pleaded as she ignored him and hurried out of the room. She returned only moments later with the doctor and a nurse in tow. Resuming her position, she began moving the wand around again, pausing and pointing at something as the doctor looked at it puzzled.

  “Charlie, were you perhaps a child of multiple birth?”

  “Multiple birth?”

  “You know, like twins, triplets, etc. Do you know if your mother took any fertility drugs?”

  “No. Mom got pregnant the old fashioned way as far as I know and it was only me. Why?”

  “Print that,” the doctor told the tech. She hit a button and a small printer whirred into action. The doctor reached for the printout and handed it to Charlie.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s an embryo.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s a what?”

  “A baby to be. I don’t know how, but you have a baby floating around your abdomen in some sort of pocket space that seems to have developed off of your stomach lining.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “If I weren’t seeing it, I would say the same thing, but it’s definitely an embryo.”

  “How? I mean, I don’t understand.”

  “Perhaps there was a twin that didn’t quite separate and has been in there dormant all these years. Perhaps something sparked it into growth. I don’t know. What I do know is that you have an embryo growing against your stomach lining. That is why you are so sick.”

  “What do we do?”

  “All we can do is remove it. We will have to schedule you for surgery to have it taken out before it does any damage to other organs or your stomach lining.”

  “Okay. When can we do that?”

  “Let’s get you cleaned up and meet in my office. I’ll see about getting a surgeon to get you into an operating room right away.”

  “Okay.”

  Charlie waited while the tech cleaned the goo off his stomach and began to get redressed, finding that he already was no longer able to fasten the buttons on his jeans. He had been able to only moments ago, so this thing inside of him was growing fast. He was terrified. Following the nurse to the doctor’s office, he listened in a daze as the doctor told him they could get him into the operating room in a few days and that he would need to meet with the surgeon tomorrow to discuss what would be done further. He left even more frightened than when he had arrived.

  At home, he paced. He felt like he was going mad as he walked back and forth across the living room. How could this be happening to him? Finally, he decided that he needed a drink. Putting on a pair of loose pants and an untucked polo shirt to hide his swollen belly, he went back to the Banana Stand to drink his worries away. The nauseous seemed to have passed but he was still left with this thing floating around his belly. Sitting down at the bar, he ordered a double scotch and waited for the bartender to get to him in his drink queue. It was crazy busy there tonight.

  “Charlie?”

  He turned at the sound of Tommy’s voice and looked at him with haunted eyes. He was hoping that his bump wouldn’t be noticeable beneath the shirt, but it seemed that Tommy’s eyes went right to it. He stared for a moment longer than was polite before looking back up at Charlie.

  “Are you okay, Charlie?”

  “I’ll be fine. I just have a bit of a problem. The doctors are going to take care of it for me,” he replied, trying to sound much more positive than he felt.

  “What kind of problem?”

  “I don’t want to bore you with the details.”

  “I think that I might not be very bored at all. Tell me,” Tommy replied, seeming oddly more curious than Charlie would have expected from someone who really barely knew him.

  “Look. It’s really weird, but somehow I guess I was supposed to be a twin and my sibling has remained in my body all these years. It’s attached itself to my stomach lining and begun to grow, so I have to have it removed before it does damage.”

  Tommy looked positively bewildered for a moment and then seemed to calm down. He put his hand on Charlie’s stomach and held it there, looking at him fondly. He smiled broadly and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Come on, you’re going with me.”

  “What? Where? No. I’m not feeling up to a repeat of last night, Tommy. It was fun and all, but I am not feeling well and I look like a pregnant woman.”

  “We need to talk. I don’t want to do it here. Come with me.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “Just come with me, Charlie. You need to listen to me.”

  “Okay, fine.”

  Charlie got up and followed Tommy outside to a quiet corner of the parking lot, where he stood with his arms folded across his stomach, feeling terribly self-conscious.

  “Charlie, this is not going to be easy for you to hear or for you to accept, but it is important that you know. That is not some leftover twin that needs to be surgically removed. It is a baby.”

  “Oh, come on, Tommy. Don’t give me some sort
of speech about how aborting babies is wrong. I’d hardly say this qualifies as that. It’s just an anomaly.”

  “It is not an anomaly. It is a baby. It is my baby.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “There is something you don’t know about me. I’m not exactly human. I’m a bear shifter.”

  “Right. Okay. Are you high? You’re a bear shifter and you’ve gotten me pregnant.”

  “No, I’m not high and yes, that is exactly what has happened.”

  “That is ridiculous.”

  Tommy looked around and then pulled Charlie behind an old shed that sat to one side of the parking lot beside the corner bar. Charlie watched as he stripped down completely naked and stood in front of him. Before he could ask what he was doing, Tommy’s body began to shift, to contort. His nose and face changed and hair began to sprout all over his body as he grew taller and broader. In the near darkness behind the shed, it was hard to make out what was happening until he heard the low grown and felt the hot breath of an enormous bear standing in front of him.

  “Jesus Christ!” Charlie said, jumped away from the creature. He looked for a place to escape, but his path was blocked by the incredible beast. Just as he was about to panic, the creature began changing shape again, returning to human form. It was Tommy. Charlie looked at him in disbelief.

  “Now, do you believe me?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I saw it, but it is just too crazy. I don’t know what I’m supposed to think or say.”

  “I need for you to come with me, Charlie.”

  “Come with you to where?”

  “I need to take you with me to visit the leader of my pack.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I’ve known all along that I am the real leader of the pack. I’m bigger. I’m stronger. I’m smarter, but he has everyone on his side. He has them all convinced that he is the leader and I’ve had no way to prove him wrong. That is, until now.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “Don’t you get it? You don’t have some errant twin floating around your body. You’re pregnant. I got you pregnant.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “Did you just watch me turn into a bear and back into a human or not? Is it any crazier than that?”

  “Okay. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you got me pregnant. How does that prove anything about you being the leader of your pack?”

  “Because only the true leader of a bear pack can get another man pregnant. I didn’t even know it was true. Legend says that our kind were once nearly wiped out, but the leader of the pack somehow prevailed upon a local witch to grant him the power to impregnate his male partner so that the pack might carry on. Since then, his direct descendants all have the same power. It’s never been proven true, because I am the first gay descendant of that leader.”

  “Then why am I the first one that you’ve knocked up?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that. Perhaps it was the timing of the moon at the edge of fullness or just some point in a cycle I don’t understand. Maybe it requires that I’m with the one person fate has designated as my true life mate. Whatever it was, it happened and you are carrying my baby.”

  “I can’t let this thing be born, Tommy! It will kill me!”

  “No. It won’t kill you. You aren’t the first and they survived without losing their life.”

  “How would it even be born?”

  “The pack doctor will do a caesarian when the time comes.”

  “No. Absolutely not. I’m not having a baby I got from a one-night stand. I’m not having some sort of freak bear baby!”

  “Charlie, you are much more than a one-night stand. I felt something strong for you from the moment we met. Now I know why.”

  “You didn’t even try to get my number or make plans to see me again after our night together!”

  “I was afraid you couldn’t accept what I am. I didn’t want to keep getting closer only to have you reject me once I told you the truth.”

  “Well, we are far beyond that now, aren’t we?”

  Tommy smiled at him and pulled him close, smoothing his hair with his powerful hands. Finally, he pulled him away and looked at him for a moment before kissing him softly on the lips. There was something in his eyes that spoke to Charlie just as it had the first time he had looked into them and he suddenly felt calm, completely at peace. It was the oddest effect that Tommy had over him.

  “It will be okay. Let’s go take care of getting my rightful place in the pack and anything you want or need will be yours, Tommy. We will get through this together. I promise you that you will never be alone.”

  Charlie found himself mouthing the word “Okay” as he followed Tommy toward his Lexus.

  “Give me the keys. I’ll drive. I don’t want to endanger you on the back of the bike.”

  Charlie handed him the keys and climbed into the passenger seat. They started out of the parking lot and headed in the opposite direction from the way they had gone to Tommy’s place before.

  “Tommy, I just started school. It’s going to look bad if I drop classes so soon. My parents are going to be livid.”

  “Do your parents know that you are gay, Charlie?”

  “Yes. They don’t accept it and I have always kept it private so as not to rub their noses in it, but they know.”

  “Okay. This baby is going to be delivered in about a ten days. The normal gestation for humans and bears is much longer, but because of the dire straits the pack was in when the first shifter was impregnated, it is said that the gestation was put into a sort of hyper mode. That seems to be true based on how fast you have started to show and the doctor has been able to detect that this is a baby. Go to classes until you can’t hide it anymore and then call in sick for a few days. Once the baby is delivered, you can resume classes as normal.”

  “Um, yeah. That’s all fine and good, except for one thing.”

  “What is that?”

  “What am I supposed to do with a baby? A bear baby, at that.”

  “You won’t be alone, Charlie. The pack and I will take care of our baby while you attend classes. That is, assuming you want to remain a part of the baby’s life. If you don’t, we will take care of the baby without you.”

  “Or I could just have this thing taken out and get on with my life.”

  “Do you really want to do that? How often does a gay man get to have a baby? Do you not want children?”

  “I wanted to adopt one or two someday. I never considered growing my own and having it excised from my belly.”

  “It will be okay, Charlie. The baby’s blood will empower your body to get through this. You won’t even be able to see a scar afterwards. The healing powers of a baby like this will be temporarily embedded in your blood so that your wound disappears almost immediately. His power will heal your body to its natural state.”

  “I need to think about it. It’s a lot to ask, Tommy.”

  “Okay, but you don’t have long. You have a decision to make rather quickly.”

  “I know.”

  They both fell into silence as Tommy turned onto an old dirt road that seemed to lead to nowhere. They drove quite a way down it before entering what appeared to be a bit of a gyspy camp filled with tents and RVs that were situated along some cliffs and a river on one side. A tall, broad looking man not much older than themselves walked toward the car, flanked by several other men.

  “Come on Charlie,” Tommy said as he climbed out of the car. Charlie climbed out of the opposite side and made his way around to the front to wait. Tommy took his hand and walked toward the larger man.

  “What are you doing here, Tommy? I thought we had agreed you’d stay away from the pack while the council decided your fate.”

  “My fate? I think my fate is cemented now, Harrison. It seems that I was right all along when I said you weren’t fit to be leader. As it turns out, I’m the rightful leader just as I’ve said all along. You could have spared me that
fight with you if you’d just admit you were a liar.”

  “Come on, Tommy. Why are we going through this again?”

  “I’ll tell you why. You lied. You claimed to be the descendant of Austin Ambrosio, but you aren’t.”

  “And how do you figure that?”

  “Because I now know that I am the only descendant. The legend holds that there will always only be one male child that extends down the line of the Ambrosio clan and I am that male child in this generation.”

  “Your claim is quite spirited, but I’m afraid that you have no proof.”

  “Ah, but that is where you are wrong. Have you met my friend, Charlie here? We met a couple of nights ago and spent a beautiful evening together.”

  “And this means what to me?”

  “It means that you are a phony, because if you will look a bit closer, you will see that Charlie is pregnant. The baby he is carrying is mine.”

  Tommy reached for Charlie’s shirt and pulled it upward to expose his now very rounded belly. Charlie looked embarrassed and pulled his shirt back down, standing quietly as the events continued to unfold before him.

  “It’s a hoax! What did you do, fill his belly full of air? Find someone with a tumor?”

  “It’s not a tumor!” Charlie suddenly shouted. “Don’t you dare call our son a tumor!”

  Tommy looked at him, caught off guard by the outburst. Then he smiled proudly and turned back toward Harrison.

  “See? Not a tumor. It’s a were bear and it will be here in no time at all to secure our place as the head of this were bear clan.

  “I am the leader of this clan. I am the leader of this motorcycle club. I don’t care about this little prank you’ve conned your friend into playing along with. You’ ll never be the leader.”

  “Now wait just a minute, Harrison.”

  The men all turned to look at an older man who had stepped up from among the crowd that had gathered. He looked like he was eighty years old, very fragile, with long white hair and a scraggly beard.