In hindsight, it was old Bobbo's fault he was here anyway. The sneaky bastard was the devil himself, Perry was sure of that. Come on. He took pleasure in other people's pain, but not to the extent that man did. The antichrist of Sacred Heart. He had come up on Dr Cox while he was on a well deserved break………………….

"Hey there Perry! I see you're relaxing. I'll just leave you alo…….wait, why would I do that? I think I'll bother you anyway." With that, he launched into a much smaller, much less impressive, yet an extremely irritating version of Perry's rant. A Kelso rant. Joys. Perry, naturally, began to switch off. Nobody wants to hear an old man squeak about the prices of detergent on a Friday evening. Unfortunately, his daydream involving Kelso's head and a golf club was cut short.

"So, can you come?"

Damn, what the hell had he been invited to? Better check. Just in case it was Newbie's ballet recital or something………..

"Will there be alcohol?"
"Yeh."

"Pizza?"
"Yeh."

"TV?"

"Yup-a-rooney."
"I'm in."

That was his checklist. If all three boxes were ticked, it would be fun. So the next day, he drove towards the address without that many complaints. But when he opened the foor his face fell. It was Ted, dressed in a crumpled grey suit that was far too big for him. He gave a maniac grin and waved.
"Perry! You came!"

"What's going on?"

"It's the Sacred Heart band night! My band is going to be best, naturally. Unless that Janitor shows up..." Perry ignored this.

"Where's the alcohol? I'd kill for a scotch."
"There's mulled wine in the kitchen."

"Pizza?"
"Vegetarian, wholemeal cheese and tomato snacks. In the kitchen."
"TV?"
"In the kitchen."

"Oh, thank god!" Perry yelled.

"It's showing a video of our performances." Ted said proudly. Perry screamed inside his head, and looked around, desperately trying to find a way to make the evening go a little bit faster. His answer skipped- yes, skipped- into his line of vision, brandishing a goofy smile.

"Doctor Cox! I didn't know you were coming!" Newbie said, grinning.

"Neither did I" he said faintly.

Two hours later, Perry found himself running down an alleyway. Very fast. Though not as fast as the young man in front of him. He was wearing a plain white t-shirt, over a long sleeved black top. His jeans, tight and black, didn't seem to be slowing him down. His beaten trainers hit the pavement so hard it looked like he was running a marathon.

"Mary May! Slow down!" Perry yelled, as his tired feet tried to match JD's pace.

"NO!" the man/woman/heshe yelled. It turned out two hours of constant torment and ranting was just too much on the man. All Perry knew was that a crying, confused and soaking wet (Long story) JD was a very bad idea. Especially when he was running through the busy streets, further and further away from their parked cars and the building they'd come from. And he couldn't help noticing JD was running into the kind of area you usally take three mile detours to avoid. And a young crying doctor would be mincemeat out here. So Perry summoned his strength, took a deep breath and threw himself towards Newbie's ankles. The tackle had the younger man flying across the ground and hitting his head on the nearest dustbin. Hard enough to knock him straight out.

Oops.

This was bad. Very, very bad. And although every inch of him wanted to leave the body in the streets, two things stopped him. One was the thought Carla would actually kill him if she found out her Bambi was unconcious in an alleyway. The other was...care. Wait, what was he saying? He didn't care about Newbie, for gods sakes!

So why was he hiking half a mile with the man's form slumped over his back?