into a custody battle over Jenny Rebecca, which Michael gets involved with as well. In the final season, after a bomb explosion targeting a gay and lesbian convention takes the life of a fellow lesbian friend, Lindsay and Melanie decide to reconcile for good. The couple's last appearance on the show reveals that they have decided to move to Toronto, Ontario, Canada to avoid further government and personal persecution for being a homosexual couple. James "Hunter" Novotny-Bruckner Hunter Novotny-Bruckner (born James "Hunter" Montgomery), 15 years old (first appearance), is the adopted son of Michael Novotny and Ben Bruckner. While Michael and Ben have just begun living together, Chief Jim Stockwell's recent “cleanup” of Liberty Avenue forces gay prostitutes to solicit in front of their building. Hunter is one of the boys seen by Ben when he initially tries to disperse them off the premises. After several more encounters, Ben allows Hunter to spend the night, and later gives him some money and his phone number. When Hunter ends up in the hospital he puts Ben down as his family member to contact. Ben pretends, reluctantly, to be Hunter's "uncle" and is forced to pay his large hospital bill. Ben is then told that Hunter himself is also HIV positive and takes it upon himself to tell him. Eventually, Hunter starts living with Michael and Ben, but the arrangement is rocky at first as Hunter blatantly disregards the rules and limits the couple laid out for him. Hunter later overhears a conversation between Ben and Michael where they sadly admit that Hunter might be a lost cause and that they should let him go if he's unhappy with them. Ashamed, Hunter begins to make a more sincere effort to adapt to his new home by respecting curfew and enrolling in school. Michael is initially less patient with Hunter's presence in the home, though he eventually comes around as Hunter seems to have equal interests in comic books. Towards the end of the third season, Rita, Hunter's mother, appears. She claims that she had given him up for adoption due to a tumultuous marriage and for fear that she wouldn't have been able to raise her son on her low income. Seemingly grateful for the care that Michael and Ben have shown her son, she relays her intent to bring him home and start over. However, Hunter accuses his mother of forcing