Joshua the dog has had a long day. He and his wife had shut the book on three demon cases, of which only one had proven to be a false alarm. (That old Tree Trunks lady was sweet, but doggone it was getting annoying to make the trip out to her cottage every time her air conditioner made a scary noise.) At this moment he wanted nothing more than to get home to his pups, enjoy a supper of delicious leftover meatloaf, and curl up into bed with his lovely Margaret.

However, it seemed the universe had other plans.

"Joshua, dear, do you hear that?" his lovely Margaret asked as they walked home from the office.

"I sure do, darling." The bulldog took a deep sniff, then scrunched up his nose. "And I smell it, too. Probably just some kinda mudfish."

"Can't be, it hasn't rained in days! Come on, Joshua, it could be important."

"All right, all right, we'll go investigate" Joshua relented, taking the lead towards the source of the sound. Margaret, ever the perceptive, spotted it first:

"Joshua, look! I think it's a baby."

And she was right. It didn't look like any baby he'd ever seen, but the loud, chubby pink lump laying in the middle of the forest was undoubtedly some sort of infant. Seeing no obvious signs of danger, the dogs headed toward it.

"What?" Joshua asked, gently picking up the child. "What do you want, baby?" Its only response was to continue wailing. Hm. Perhaps it couldn't speak? Jake and Jermaine could say full sentences almost as soon as they were born (or… hatched, in the former case), but this was clearly no puppy he was dealing with. He decided to rely on to his far more competent wife. "Margaret, this baby won't tell me what's wrong with it, and it's stuck to a leaf, and it stinks."

"Give it here, Joshua," she responded, taking the infant and holding it up. "This baby needs love and kisses to be happy." She made exaggerated kissy noises as she smooched the baby's forehead, and it went from crying to giggling almost instantly. "There, see? Now it's happy."

More competent indeed, Joshua thought, smiling at the scene. Although…

"You just kissed a boom-boom baby," Joshua noted, looking pointedly at the leaf still stuck to the babe's bottom. "So don't expect anymore sugar from me, sweetheart, until we wash your dirty, dirty mouth."

Margaret giggled, and the baby did, too. Now that it had stopped crying, it was less ugly and weird-looking. Cute, even. The two dogs locked eyes, and seemed to come to an agreement.

"Well," said Margaret after a moment, "we'd better get this little one to a bath."

"Right-o, Margaret. Then we'll see what we can do about finding his folks." As the couple got back on the path home, the unspoken if he even has folks hung in the air. Ooo was a rough place to live, and orphans were not uncommon. Joshua couldn't bear the thought of having to send the thought of sending this little guy to an already crowded orphanage, with too-small beds and barely enough food to go around.

He turned to look at the baby again. He was curled up against Margaret, trying in vain to reach up and grab her earrings; After almost half a year with two puppies, one of whom could stretch his arms seemingly infinitely, the woman was an expert at keeping little paws away from her jewelry. She cooed and kissed him as they walked, clearly already attached.

Well, thought Joshua, perhaps we won't have to.

After arriving home and paying their babysitter (who looked curiously at the new baby, but said nothing and left with a shrug) Margaret got to work on preparing a bath. Jake and Jermaine were clearly excited, and she half-listened to Joshua recount the story as she filled the sink basin with warm water. After removing the leaf and what was left of the boom-boom from his bottom, Margaret picked him up to place him in the water, when she noticed something.

"Hm? What is it, little one?" the baby was rubbing at his face, and she realized with shock that the white fur around his head had shifted to reveal yellow underneath - what she had thought was his fur and ears was actually a hat!

"My, my," she said as she removed the article, revealing little pink ears and a tuft of blond hair. "Good thing we didn't put that in the bathwater." On closer inspection, she noticed a tag on the inside of the hat: one side included washing machine instructions, and the other simply read "FINN."

"Finn? Well, that must be your name, dear!" The baby splashed in his tub and giggled, as if to agree. Finn it is, then.

"Finn, huh?" Joshua called from the dining table, apparently done with his explanation. "Guess I was right about him being a mudfish!"

The room fell silent as the family processed the joke. No one laughed. Joshua sighed.

"I got it, daddy." Jermaine said, clearly attempting to cheer up his father.

"Yep." Joshua sounded dejected.

"'Cause fish have fins."

"Mm-hm."

Margaret rolled her eyes, and began shampooing Finn's hair. It was different from any dog's fur, much softer and thinner - hopefully dog shampoo was still all right. Jake, apparently fed up with his father's attempts at humor, had come to join her, stretching his torso to stare at Finn over the counter.

"He smells funny," the pup said, matter-of-factly. Then, "can we keep him?"

Ah, the question she had been avoiding. Margaret took a moment to formulate a response as she drained the sink and wrapped Finn in a fluffy towel. "Now, Jake, Finn here probably has a family to go back to - I'm sure they're very worried about him."

"Bet not!" Jake replied, following at her heels as she brought Finn to the table. "His parents probly don' want him since they left him in the forest an' all."

"Jake, that's an awful thing to say!" They would have to work on teaching Jake to hold his tongue. "We can never know something like that for sure. Why, if I lost you in the woods, I'd go out of my mind with worry!" She punctuated this by giving Jake a good scratch behind the ears, before laying Finn down atop the table. "But we'll see what happens. Now go fetch me a diaper from my bag, okay sweetie?"

As Jake walked off, Margaret looked fondly down at Finn. He was yawning, apparently ready to fall asleep on the dining room table. Awful as it was, a part of her couldn't help but hope that Jake was right.

"We'll see…" she repeated, softly.