Thankless Season
By Cheezey

The cold November wind whipped around the lanky figure in the long brown trench coat as he stood at the end of the driveway of his destination. It was only five thirty, or a little after, but just the last glows of sunset lingered on the horizon. Darkness was encroaching fast, casting ominous shadows that fell across the lonely and barren ground of late autumn, the grass long since died back for the oncoming winter. The houses in the little suburban development on the outskirts of St. Canard, across the bridge from the city proper, were already lit for the evening, festive with pumpkins and other late fall, post-Halloween decorations adorning their porches. Another gust of wind blew against him, shaking his frail frame. He hated this time of year. It got dark so early, and nothing made Reginald Bushroot feel weaker than little sunlight and the cold kiss of winter's breath. It felt like a world away from his greenhouse, warm and supplemented with plant lights in the darkest days of the year, as opposed to this place.

Home.

Or at least, he hoped so.

It was Thanksgiving, a holiday traditionally spent with family and loved ones. Bushroot had not seen his family—his parents, his sister, or any of his aunts, uncles, or cousins—in over six months. Not since last spring, when everything in his life had changed forever. Not since he had been angry and desperate enough to run one of his research experiments on himself, not since he had turned himself into what he had become. A mutant plant-duck. A criminal. He glanced down at his hands, covered in gloves that made them look almost normal. The coat, the gloves, and the large hat he wore were for more than comfort, although in that wretched wind he was certainly glad he had them on. They were what allowed him to get on and off the bus without screams and stares, or worse, recognition. The last thing he wanted to see was the police, or that annoying crime-fighter duck. Of course, Darkwing probably had better things to do on Thanksgiving than chase after criminals who probably also had better things to do than commit crimes. Even someone like Darkwing had friends, like that sidekick of his or those children that always seemed to follow him around.

Bushroot sighed and looked at the house that belonged to his parents. Both of their cars were in the driveway, and he recognized his sister's as well. Taking a few steps closer, he saw that it had a sizable dent in the back, and he shook his head. Heather always had been accident-prone. He wondered what she backed into that time, and how much her insurance must be running her in light of it. Bushroot thought about the last time he saw her, at their parents' house when both of them had come home to celebrate her birthday last March. She had laughed about how even approaching thirty she still looked way younger than him, even though he was only older than her by three and a half years. The edge of his beak turned down wistfully. Bushroot's own birthday had come and gone since then, but he had celebrated it with Spike, complete with a fertilizer cake, since he had been hiding from Darkwing Duck and the law at the time. He had called his mother from a pay phone that day, just to make contact with her as much for his own sake and sanity as hers, but it had been brief. He closed his eyes as he recalled the conversation.

"Reggie! It's you! You are alive! Oh thank heaven."

"Oh yeah, Mom, just fine."

"The news reports were awful." Mary Bushroot's voice had cracked with hoarse grief. "I knew you weren't dead… but they said you were hit by a tractor mower, and we never heard from you."

"Oh, that." Bushroot fell silent for a moment. "Yeah, it was bad, but I grew back. Regenerated. That was a while ago now." He winced at the memory. So much else had happened since then, since Darkwing had broken into his greenhouse to "rescue" Rhoda from him. As if I'd have ever hurt Rhoda, he thought bitterly. I loved her. I wanted to spend my life with her. Sure, she was afraid, of course she was! Who wouldn't be nervous about being transformed to a new state of being? But I'd done it before. She'd have been fine…

He heard his mother's voice tremble on the other end of the line. "We thought the worst, you know. Some of the family thought we should have a memorial, do something for closure, but… but I couldn't believe you were dead. I knew you had to be alive." Bushroot heard her sob on the other end of the line. "Then we heard some other news stories about you, but they were so hard to take at face value, even if they did give us hope that you weren't—weren't gone forever. Everything is classified when you ask about it, when it comes to the 'strange' cases like yours. When we talk to them they treat us like criminals, they interrogate us, assuming we're harboring or abetting you or withholding information from them." She sighed. "Why would we even be asking if there was information if we knew more than we were telling them?"

Bushroot took a sharp breath. "Do you want me to hang up? Do you think they're tracing your calls?"

"No!" His mother almost yelled into the phone. "No, don't hang up, Reginald. Please." Her tone grew shaky. "I have to know. Are—are the other stories true? That you've done other… experiments? Like the one you tried on Dr. Dendron and," she faltered, "and yourself?" A terrible silence fell on the line for several moments. "The papers say such awful things. I don't know what to believe. Media loves to sensationalize, and half the things that they say about Darkwing Duck, Gizmoduck, and the crazy people they fight have to be exaggerated, I'd think."

Bushroot tried not to feel a sting at being called crazy, even inadvertently, by his own mother. Knowing that he likely read the same papers that she did and watched the same news programs when he could, he knew exactly how accurate they were. While they were certainly polished for effect with a spin that suited their publishers' interests, he could not deny that they were mostly true. "What did you hear?" he asked, deciding that he would frame his answer to what she specifically wanted to know and volunteer nothing more. The last thing he wanted to do was upset her further.

"That you were counterfeiting money, and then stealing it with plants. That you did experiments with plants to mutate and alter them, things like making giant destructive daisies and bringing potatoes to life for… oh, I don't even want to repeat the kind of filth they were saying you were doing, like you're some kind of twisted pervert or deviant." She let out a beleaguered breath.

"It wasn't anything like that, Mom," Bushroot assured his mother. "I never, ah, deviated with a potato. I promise." That much was true; while Posy had been intended as a bride, she was also an experiment gone horribly wrong, and had not survived long enough to be anything more than a regretful mishap, especially once Darkwing Duck had gotten involved.

Mary Bushroot sniffled on the other end of the line. "Can I see you again, Reginald? Can you visit us? Just once?" She paused. "I know it might be difficult, but I want to see you. I—I don't know exactly how much you've changed, but I've seen some of the police sketches… a couple blurry photos. I know you don't look the same. But that's okay," she assured him hurriedly. "You're still my son, and you'll always be my little boy."

It was Bushroot's turn to be surprised. "You mean it?" He could not keep the optimism out of his tone. "I, well, I figured that you and Dad wouldn't want to see me. I mean, with me being wanted and how most everyone reacts when they see me…"

"Whatever you are, you're still our flesh and blood."

"Even if I'm sap and wood?"

"Oh, Reggie," his mother said softly, chiding him as if he was still a little boy. "Why don't you come home on Thanksgiving? It's just us this year; your father, Heather, and I. The rest of the family has other plans. Nobody else has to know."

"I'd like that," Bushroot said wistfully. "Are you sure they want to see me?"

"Your father will want to see you and know for himself that you're all right as much as I do, and I'm sure your sister feels the same."

"How are they?" he asked after a moment. Brief images of his family flashed through his mind. He had thought about them sometimes in his lonelier moments, but this was the first he had dared making contact with any of them.

"Your father's been busy, working long hours. He's been throwing himself into his work a lot this year." She sighed, and Bushroot did not have to ask why. Reed Bushroot had always been the type to shut down and play the workaholic when he was stressed. It was easy to guess what had him so stressed, Bushroot had thought when he glanced down at his leafy hand on the phone receiver. "Heather's gotten a promotion and a better shift," she went on to say in reference to his sister, who worked as a nurse at St. Canard hospital. "This'll be the first year she's not working the whole holiday. She is working until the afternoon, though, so come around five thirty or so."

"Okay. I'll," Bushroot paused, looking over his shoulder from the pay phone booth as he heard some commotion outside. "I'll see you soon. I gotta go."

"See you soon. Oh, and Reginald… happy birthday. I love you."

"Love you too, Mom." Bushroot had then hung up the phone and slipped away, avoiding others as best he could as he made his way back to his greenhouse.

That had been a little more than a month ago. Bushroot had not spoken to his mother, or anyone else in his family since, but he assumed that the invitation still stood. Pulling his coat tighter around him, he stepped onto the porch and rang the bell.

Several seconds passed, feeling more like minutes to Bushroot, until the door opened. His sister Heather stood on the other side, a wine glass in one hand and the doorknob in the other. She stared back at him with wide eyes, clearly at a loss for words. "Reggie? Is that you?"

Bushroot forced an uneasy smile. Heather had changed little in appearance in the last six months; her sandy brown hair was in the same style of hanging loose down to her shoulders, her beak was still larger than average, tipped with the same fuchsia-tinted gloss she typically wore, and the long green skirt and butter yellow sweater she had on were typical of something she would wear, down to her sensible shoes. "Hi Heather," he greeted her. "You look good." Bushroot stepped into the foyer as she moved aside to allow him in. "Don't worry, I don't expect you to say the same about me." He turned away. In the brighter indoor lighting, he knew his mutated features were more evident, and while he had thought he had prepared himself for his family's reaction, now that the time had come he was actively dreading it.

"Well you, uh, sound the same," Heather said softly, while Bushroot could feel her eyes seemingly burning through his coat. "Mom and Dad are in the kitchen. Want me to get them?"

"Okay." The more he looked around his parents' home, his childhood home, the more out of place Bushroot felt. Though he had lived years of his life there, and as he glanced at the hall that led to the stairs to his old room on the second floor and was flooded with memories of growing up there, now it felt like a lifetime ago and someone else's life. His gaze fell upon a Christmas cactus hanging in the window. His mother always had plenty of houseplants; part of what had made his own fascination with plants take seed was her enthusiasm for her plants and flowers.

What're you so glum about? I'm so happy! I'm going to bloom soon. This is the most wonderful time of the year!

Bushroot heard the potted plant's voice in his head, and arched an eyebrow in its direction. "Says you. Me and the rest of the summer-blooming types have a different opinion," he retorted.

"Reggie?" Heather gave him an odd look and followed his gaze to the window. "Who're you talking to?"

"Him." Bushroot gestured to the plant.

"The Christmas cactus?" she said, surprised for a moment before recovering. "Oh. Right. The reports said you could control plants." She stepped backwards, giving the plant a wary look. "You won't do anything, uh, weird with it, right?"

Bushroot's beak turned down in a frown. "Of course not."

"Okay, sorry, I didn't mean anything by it." She looked at him as if searching for something to say. "Do you want me to take your coat and stuff?"

"I guess so." Bushroot first removed his gloves. He tried not to notice how Heather stared at his hands as though they were some kind of terrible medical anomaly, with the forced impassive look that they had taught her in nursing school to wear around patients so as to not alarm them. Next he took off his hat and set it on the chair, but Heather was not able to hide her shock when she saw her brother's altered face and head in person for the first time.

"Oh my god…"

Bushroot stared back at his sister. "What, you didn't see the pictures? Those news clips don't get my best side, I admit, but you must've at least had an idea."

Heather gripped her wine glass tighter. "They were kinda, um," she fished for the right words, "they weren't that detailed, I guess." She forced a smile. "Your hair is, well, it's unique. Never thought you'd go purple." She looked closer. "Is that hair? Or is it petals?"

"It's more than I had as a duck," Bushroot replied with a shrug, and mirrored her awkward smile with one of his own. "I haven't had this much hair since I was twenty. It's kinda nice."

She laughed along with him uneasily, still adjusting to the drastic changes in his appearance, but when Bushroot took off his coat and she saw his entire body in its mutated form, Heather could not help but gasp out loud and she dropped the wine glass she had been holding. Instinctively Bushroot extended one of his vine arms to catch it before it could hit the floor and shatter, which startled Heather enough that she let out an ear-splitting shriek. She stumbled backwards, colliding against an end table and up-ending one of their mother's decorative vases, which in turn wound up falling and breaking instead of the glass Bushroot had saved. As she tried to get her bearings, Heather then managed to trip over the table completely and smack her head against the bottom of the Christmas cactus pot, making it swing wildly back and forth.

Hey! I hate it when this happens! Bushroot heard the cactus' irate protest loud and clear. He ignored it, instead freezing up with a mixture of hurt and anxiety. It was bad enough when strangers reacted to him that way, but his own sister…

"What's going on?" Bushroot looked over when he heard his mother's voice and saw both her and his father standing in the doorway, apparently having come running when they heard Heather scream and the crash that followed it.

While Heather got back on her feet, Bushroot addressed his parents. "Hi Mom," he said softly. "Hi Dad."

Reed Bushroot's jaw went slack, his beak wide open as he got a good look at his mutated son for the first time. "Reginald! Holy sh—" he began, but Mary Bushroot's horrified scream cut him off. Bushroot watched as his mother cringed visibly and shrank back against his father, trembling.

I guess the pictures didn't do me justice after all. Bushroot felt a miserable stab of hurt that only being regarded as a monster by one's closest family could engender. "Mom," he began, taking a step toward her, "It's okay. I told you it would shock you." Bushroot reached for her, but she recoiled from his altered hand before she could even stop and think about the cruel message that conveyed.

Bushroot's father, a few inches taller than his son and bearing a fair resemblance to what Reginald Bushroot might have looked like in twenty years had he not been mutated, put a comforting arm around his wife while she continued to stare at the floor, unable to look at her son's altered form. Her brown and gray hair fell forward, mercifully occluding her peripheral vision while she cried. "What did you do to yourself?" Finally she managed to look up at him, with fearful and teary eyes.

Reed sighed, eyeing his son warily. "Reginald," he began, "I… well, frankly I don't know what to say. I thought we were prepared for this, but…"

Mary let out another sob. "I knew you'd changed, but this… this? When they called you a monster and all those other horrible things, I had no idea."

Wincing at her mother's poor choice of words, especially when she saw the hurt look that flashed through her brother's eyes when she said it, Heather added, "It is kind of a shock."

"But you said you saw it on the news." Bushroot looked to his mother imploringly, unable to stand the way she stared at him, as if she could not stand the thought that she had hatched such a thing as him. "You said—"

"I'm sorry, but I never expected this!" Mary blurted back in a moment of regretful honesty.

Hurt, Bushroot immediately turned away, his gaze once again falling on the Christmas cactus, which expressed a bit of concern. Gee, I don't know what her problem is. I thought she loved us plants! You ought to see how she dotes over the ficus in the den. She calls him her little baby and everything.

The plant's words had the opposite effect as intended, and Bushroot snapped back at it angrily. "Oh, shut up!" Unfortunately Bushroot's family assumed he was addressing them, and reacted accordingly.

"Don't you talk to your mother that way!" Reed said, frowning at him with a fierce and stern demeanor. "Just because you've changed into something that gets away with doing whatever you please on the fringe of decent society doesn't mean I'll stand for it under my own roof, from my own son!"

Bushroot glared back at his father, further stung by the harsh words and judgment. "I was talking to him." He thumbed over his shoulder toward the Christmas cactus. "And you invited me here."

"Because we thought we could get through to you, help you, be a family again," Reed argued. The anger and disappointment that Bushroot's father had for his errant son, emotions he had kept largely bottled up for the past half a year now seeped like acid into his tone. "The kinds of things you've done, if even half of them are true…" He shook his head. "I don't know. You weren't raised that way, to be like this. What in the world happened to you, Reginald? What's the matter with you?"

Now standing at her mother's side, Heather gave Reed an imploring look. "Dad, please. It's not all his fault. You know he needs help."

At first, Heather speaking up on his behalf gave Bushroot hope, but her condescending qualifier squelched that almost instantly, and instead just made him angrier. "I'm not crazy!" he yelled. "You don't know a thing about what's happened. All you know is the Darkwing Duck ego-stroking version pushed by the police and news!"

"What about Rhoda Dendron's version?" countered an equally agitated Reed. "You think we didn't read her statement?"

"Rhoda's confused! I was never going to hurt her."

"Please stop," Mary pleaded with a sob, while Heather hugged her more tightly to calm her down. "All I wanted was for us to have a nice family dinner. Just like it used to be before." She met Bushroot's gaze, finding his eyes to be the only part of him she could bear to look at, the only part still familiar. Although the initial shock had worn off and she was trying to hide it for his sake, it was clear that she was still repulsed by his appearance. "We want to help you, Reginald. We miss you, and we want you back. We can find good lawyers, and Heather knows how to put us in touch with all sorts of specialists that might be able to cure you…"

It was the wrong thing to say. Bushroot drew back, hurt on a deeper level than he could have ever imagined upon hearing that his family did not, and never would, accept him for what he was. "Cure me? You want to cure me?"

Unnerved by the look he was giving them, Heather pursed her beak slightly. "You've been through a lot, Reggie. But think about it, if you were changed back to normal, everyone would realize it was just your experiment that made you act that way, and you'd be given a clean slate. You could start over. It'd be the perfect solution for you."

Rage blazed in Bushroot's blue eyes. "No, it'd be the perfect solution for you," he said acidly to his family. "Am I right? No more embarrassing questions, awkward looks, questions about 'how's that nutcase plant-mutant son of yours doing?' from your friends like the Muddlefoots, and no more police bothering you. And most important, no criminal freak son or brother to be ashamed of. That's it, isn't it?" He clenched his leaf-fingers together into fists as he trembled with emotion. "You think I'm crazy. That I'm not in my right mind. That's the only reason you wanted me here… because you felt sorry for me."

"Reggie—" Heather started to argue, but Bushroot cut her off as he angrily continued to rant.

"Do you actually think I couldn't reverse my condition if that's what I really wanted to do? I did this research for years; I could tell you far more about the process than any of your so-called medical expert friends!" Bushroot advanced toward the three of them, while they stepped back, wary and frightened of him as he loomed more dangerously before them. "Cure me," he repeated again, spitting out the words as if they were as repulsive as they found him. "Change me back, back into being a lonely unemployed scientist with no powers, bad posture, a weak body, no prospects, and no hair?" He tugged on the purple foliage atop his head. "Sure, sign me up for that. I may be a freak and an outcast now, but at least I'm a powerful outcast." To prove his point, he pointed over at the Christmas cactus, which grew several inches in seconds, large blooms opening up on several of its stalks as it shook and danced in its pot. "Things can never go back to what they were. I am what I am. Either you accept me or you don't."

Seeing firsthand that the powers he was reputed to have were both true and not exaggerated, Mary cried out and buried her head on Reed's shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably with hysteria. Reed's own adrenaline began to race and his heart skipped a beat, while Heather trembled alongside her mother. "Maybe you ought to go," Heather said, the first of the three able to speak. "Maybe it's just too soon."

Bushroot's angry expression changed to one of well-worn sadness, regret, and resignation. "Yeah. Six months, I guess that wasn't enough to come to terms with something like this." He pulled on his coat and hat, and picked up his gloves. "Maybe I'll see you at Christmas," Bushroot said as he opened the front door.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think that's a good idea," Reed replied, glancing at his crying wife, who could not seem to find the words to say anything to her son as he stood in the door, the cold November night air behind him. Bushroot's father took his mother's hand and cast his son a regretful look. "Maybe your next birthday."

Bushroot curled his leafy fingers around the doorknob and let out a sardonic chortle. "My birthday's in October, Dad." He stepped through the door and started to pull it shut. "Don't worry, I won't bother you again. Despite what you've heard, I'm a reasonable monster. Happy Thanksgiving," he finished flatly, and slammed the door shut behind him. He resisted the urge to look back as he went up the driveway, braced against the wintry wind, but when he reached the end he succumbed and looked anyway. Neither his parents nor his sister were visible in the window, only the potted Christmas cactus, which waved one of its newly grown blooms back at him in a cheerful manner.

He sighed. "Yeah, happy holidays to you too." Bushroot waved back at it and then continued on his way to the bus stop with a newfound bitterness in his heart. Happy holidays indeed. Thanksgiving had cast him as the turkey, and he doubted Christmas would be much better. The scowl on his beak wore deeper as he dug his gloved hands into his pockets. He hated this time of the year.

The End