"Alright class, settle down and have a seat, now."

Joe leaned back in his chair as his biology teacher began to start that day's lesson. She was writing on the whiteboard, and Joe felt his heart begin to beat a little bit faster than normal when he realized she was drawing a punnet square.

Ah, yes- punnet squares. A tool used to figure out what genetic traits are more dominant than others. For some reason, Joe had always enjoyed learning about DNA and genetics and everything else along those lines. He had first learned about them in seventh grade, which was a whole four years ago. Yet, he still kept his love for the subject alive.

"You all should know what this is and how it's used already," the teacher pointed out, staring at her classroom full of Juniors. "I'm sure some of you have forgotten some of the more complicated aspects but you should be able to answer the few questions I'm about to ask."

The class began to murmur a bit, wondering whether this was going to be a pop quiz or just a vocal discussion. Luckily, it turned out to be the latter.

"To start," the teacher began, suddenly walking over to Joe's desk and standing next to him, "if Joe here were to have a kid biologically, would he be passing down blond or brown hair?"

Joe blushed a bit as the entire class stared at his hair. He knew the answer- it was brown. She was asking the question because he had bleached his hair a couple months before so it appeared blond. Why had he done this? Because, well... why not?

One of Joe's friends, Sage, raised his hand.

"Yes, Sage?"

"Uh- brown."

"Correct."

The next couple of questions asked were pretty easy, Joe raising his hand for each one but only being called on once since the teacher didn't want to have him answer more than once. But just raising his hand was good enough for him, to show that he at least knew the answer.

After the last question had been answered, the teacher walked back to the whiteboard and began writing again.

"We are going to be learning more about genetics and DNA in the next chapter, over the course of the next two or three weeks. At the end of the chapter you'll have a project due where you will be calculating what you and another randomly assigned partner's child might look like. You'll all be taking a genealogy test next week so you can better collect data and see how genetics have been passed along from ancestor to ancestor. This is the basic description of the project, you'll all get a rubric and your partners next class. Your homework tonight is to get the form I'm passing out now signed so you can take the genealogy test. If a parent or guardian won't give you a signature for whatever reasons, you'll just have a little less data to work off of."

Sage raised his hand.

"Yes, Sage?"

"I'm adopted."

The entire class began to chuckle, while Sage smirked, his position of being the class clown once again getting him attention. The teacher sighed.

"I know, Sage. You-"

"So is Joe."

Joe smiled, unsure of what else to do as the class began to laugh even more.

"...I know, Sage. You and Joe can choose to either work off of a genealogy test or your adoptive parents. If you choose the latter I'd suggest asking both of your parents to take the genealogy test instead so you can see both sides of your family."

"Okay."

"Any more questions?"

The classroom was silent.

"Okay, there's only about five more minutes left of class so I'll let you all out early. Make sure to grab a permission slip form from me as you walk out. You're dismissed."

Everyone immediately stood and scrambled to get their belongings, as it was the last class of the day. Joe and Sage met up in the hallway after they grabbed the form the teacher had been handing out at the door and got their stuff from their lockers. They began walking out of school and over to the bus stop, as the always did.

"You excited for the project, I'm guessing?" Sage asked as they approached the school door.

"Yeah, I am." Joe smiled and held open the door for Sage.

"Thanks. I don't see how you are always so excited about this kind of stuff, though. It's just family history."

"That's what's so exciting about it! Learning exactly what has happened before your time. Learning about your parents' parents' parents. It's so cool!" He grinned.

"I'm just trying to point out, though, you might have a hard time because your father's side is pretty messed up."

"Yeah, but my dad's isn't."

"What about your uncle?"

"My uncle's car skidded off the road into a ditch because of black ice, that doesn't have to do with anything."

"Right."

The two got to the bus stop and sat down, both pulling out their phones from their backpacks. Joe opened google.

"What, you getting a head start?" Sage joked.

"Yes, actually," Joe nodded.

"Huh. I don't know what you're gonna be able to find, though, so... good luck."

"I mean, I'm sure there's gotta be some stuff about maybe my parents' high school or something. Like a class photo. Or just anything, really."

"Your parents don't ever talk about their high school, do they?"

Joe chuckled. "Nope. Have your parents said anything?"

Sage slipped his phone back into his bag. "Well, yeah. They talk about marching band sometimes but one time I asked about what your parents were like and what they did, because I know our parents went to high school together. They just glanced at each other and shrugged."

"Huh. Well, I'll just google my dad's name... I think his last name used to be Foster."

Joe typed Patton Foster into google and hit Search. After coming up with nothing he added Florida to the search and tried again. An article came up.

"What's that article?" Sage asked, looking at Joe's phone with him.

"I don't know. I- wait. Janus Foster... this article is about my uncle."

"Oh, huh. Maybe it's his obituary or something?"

"No... doesn't look like it. Doesn't look like it at all, actually. This... oh, wow."

"What? What's it say?"

"Can you seriously not read this? You're breathing down my neck."

"Shut up. I refuse to wear glasses."

"Whatever."

"So what's it say?"

"Oh, right. Uh..."

Joe gulped and skimmed the first paragraph, his eyes also landing on the actual title of the article.

"Well... the title of it is A Look into Cafe's Fourteenth Murder: Janus Foster."

Sage blinked a few times. "Woah woah- wait, he was murdered?! I thought you said he got into a car crash!"

"That's what my parents told me! Oh jeez, apparently he was- oh. Uh, stabbed in the side of the neck with an icicle?"

"Well, at least your parents didn't lie about the ice part."

"Oh, shut up. I'm just confused now. Why wouldn't my parents have told me this? And he was a fourteenth victim- who else did this Cafe guy murder?"

"No clue. Maybe they just didn't tell you because they didn't want you to be scared or something. But I'd assume that the dude is either dead or in prison by now."

"Jeez, I hope so. I'll ask my parents about it when I get home."

And just then, the bus pulle d       u        
p

.

th     e    t             wo                  got oN

rem

y

?

•~~~~•

...This is stupid.

I don't know what I'm doing with this bonus chapter, I really should have thought it through more before I began writing it.

I mean, Joe was supposed to go home and then talk to his parents about it but they would obviously lie about some stuff and then Joe would find out more on his own. That would lead to more questions, and confusion, etc., etc... and that's just WAY too much to fit into what is essentially a one shot.

And what if Joe found more in those genealogy tests? What if Remy and Emile's ghosts were watching over the whole situation? What would they think? They would have to interfere somehow, right? If they could. Could they? I don't know, I am the author, I can literally do anything I want with this.

Yeah... anything I want.

...

Oh no, I'm getting ideas.

No, Maxx. No. You're not doing this. Don't Be So Stoic is being released on August 7th, and that's not only gonna be 40 chapters but it cycles through four xLogan ships so it's gonna be angsty as hell. And it's DarkSide!Logan. You can't do this, not now.

But...

Some people did want this, right? People would read it and enjoy it if I did it right. But they might have been expecting Logan and Patton and Remy and Emile if this ever came into existence, not... this. Would my readers be interested in seeing something more focused on what is basically just an OC?

...Maybe. I can always ask. No, I have to keep this under the radar. Oh, I know, I'll just ask my discord but word it so it sounds like I'm talking about bonus chapters!

I guess that's my answer. So am I doing this?

I don't know.

If I did it would be pretty short, though, probably only 15 to 20 chapters. Unless I added a lot of filler. I could always do that. Maybe even a slowburn sub-plot? With who? Joe and some other character, maybe the kid he gets partnered up with for the biology class project. And he can be FTM but closeted so they still get partnered up. But what about Remy and Emile?

I have an idea for them, I think. Oh, hell yeah I do.

...Okay. I have way too many ideas now not to go through with this, and I have confirmation that at least a couple people would be interested. So, I guess it's decided. But it's not gonna be out until maybe... next year. Since I still have the other book coming out next week.

Wow. But it's still happening, isn't it?

...Yeah.

Okay.

I guess I'll be writing a third book.

OURS: COMING 2021

(note- this book is now published.)