Lucy leaned against the counter, peering into the pot on the stove with a phone nestled between ear and shoulder,

"Prudence, I think it's done!" she called just as the ringing stopped, "Hello?

"…"

"I need to talk to Max, it's an emergency."

"It's her again," then the murmur of someone's incoherent reply, "He's at work."

Lucy exhaled, nodded briefly at Prudence who pushed her aside with a wooden spoon, "He's always at work. Have you told him I've been calling?"

"Sure have."

"Tell him again."

They hung up.

She tossed the phone onto the table viciously, glaring at it as if it did so of its own accord. Prudence took down a bowl, spooned some chili into it, "Dinner is served."

"He's there I know it. They're turning him into some sort of-of drug fiend and I can't do anything. It's like the draft all over again."

"You have other options."

"I'm not calling Jude." she took the bowl still glaring at the phone, "I'm not."

It took all of twenty minutes to match the address to the phone number Prudence gave him. An aging complex on a side of town they couldn't have paid Jude to live in, worse than any place he'd seen in Liverpool. A man was passed out on the stoop, no stench of liquor but no less out of it, giving only a grumble when Jude nudged him aside to break the lock and jog upstairs to the right floor.

Jude remembered that first night he and Max hung out together. Smoking in the dorm room, goofing off at the bar, flirting with anything that had long legs and a cute smile and making a run for it when they took it too far. Max had been a sight then, shaggy blond hair always in motion because he was always on the run from one thing or another. A trouble maker with a grin that didn't give you any choice but to like him.

"Well well. Looks like your prior arrangements ran a little long."

"Jesus."

"Unfortunately not. Why don't we step outside."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"Lately you seem full of good ideas. We're all worried sick and here you are burnt out with a bunch of scags."

"You don't know what it's like for me, okay!" he rubbed the side of his forehead, a scar running down from there to his jaw line. Jude remained stationary at the door, hands shoved into his coat pockets, "It's not that I hate you for not going through what I went through, but I'll be damned if you get to lecture me about how I cope with it."

"You're not coping, you're taking the cowards way out slumming here. Not everyone who came back from the war started using, Eddie's working full time and your mate Nicholas just got his degree."

"I'm not Nicholas and I'm not having this conversation." He bent down, stuffing his torn short into his cargos and lifting up a knocked out body to retrieve his coat. A few wrinkled bills were on the couch, he snatched them and straightened up to his full height when he came to the door and Jude still wasn't moving.

"You're not going anywhere until we work through this."

"I'm done talking."

"You can't be done if you never started."

"Get out of the way Jude."

"No."

"Move before I move you."

He shrugged, "So be it."

Max pushed his shoulder. Then he pushed it again and again until Jude's hands were out of his pockets and he was holding Max back, tightening his fists in the other man's lapels and trying to walk him backwards. Max dug his heels into the carpet and set his jaw, the muscles in his arms flexing as he finally got the upper hand and shoved Jude onto his knees. Before he could step over him though a kick sent him into the side of the grandfather clock, the shoving match turning into a fight as palms were closed and fists thrown instead of frustrated pushes.

Jude could hold his own having had his share of brawls, but nothing could compare to the reflexes honed by expecting death each waking moment. Apart of Max knew whose arms were wrapped around him from behind, that the voice in his ear telling him to stop was Jude's and no one else's. But then the arm made to come around his neck and Max saw red, he saw red and black and heard the echo of a shrill cry from an enemy out for his blood and it was too much to resist.

When he snapped back into reality he was standing up and Jude was on his back, a stream of blood coming from his nose and an eye already swollen.

I'm sorry, Jude, I'm sorry I- "I can't do this."

"-then he took off and I came here."

"Here's the swabs."

"Thanks." Lucy smiled at Prudence who went a little red then backed out of the room, saying something about nosy guests and extra blankets.

Technically speaking Jude wasn't supposed to be in the dorms as they weren't co-ed, but they'd snuck him in when he showed up on campus, bleeding and with news of Max. He was taken into the bathroom, seated on the toilet and made to stay still while Lucy sat on the sink and went to work on him with a first aid kit. He relayed everything to her, even the parts he didn't want to say like the track marks on Max's arm and the fact that him and some guy named Donny went halves on a car so there was a chance he could have skipped town.

"Any idea where he'd go?"

"There's a few places I suppose, but God! I've never seen him like this before. He didn't even smoke pot that much before he was drafted. It's like he's a different person."

"He's been through a lot of horrible things, doesn't mean he's changed completely."

"I kicked Pink Thunder out." Prudence said gently, rejoining them, "Cynthia's pissed."

Jude wasn't too bruised up to not raise an eyebrow, "Pink Thunder?"

"It's a women's liberation group."

"Sounds political."

Prudence rolled her eyes, "Relax, their idea of terrorism is forcing a girl to wear pink and a boy to wear blue."

Insisting that he wasn't fit to go looking for Max and in the meantime swearing to get in touch with anyone who would know where he went, Jude accepted their offer to stay the night. Prudence offered her room and when he asked where she'd sleep she blushed again and told him not to worry. He circled the small quarters, noting that it hardly seemed to be broken in, a few clothes in the closet and framed photos but little else.

"Wonder if she's cuter than the contortionist." Jude mused and fell backward onto the bed.

Max looked hard into the side mirror. It had been a while since he'd left New York, fought and bought his way into the group of bikers who were putting him up now. A few of them were from the city, had helped the police during the protests and didn't even consider that not long ago Max had been one of those people. Two days after he was drafted, walking through the crowded streets with Prudence on his shoulders and Jude and his sister at his side. What had he promised her?

Nothing is going to happen to me.

Someone shouted into his ear, hopped onto the back of his bike and told him to gun it. The rest of the gang were straddling their motorcycles, a few of them with bundles of cash which they put into their packs while their wheels kicked up dust. Max didn't ask, just started his engine and followed after.

Max wasn't a little kid. The officer kept saying it as if Jude and Lucy were kids themselves, explaining that they couldn't put out a missing person's report for someone who skipped town of their own accord. There were people out there who actually were missing, victims who needed more face time than a twenty-something year old who was picked up for vagrancy and palled around with bums who had an even worse track record before and after they were drafted.

"Nothing we can do." he drawled and showed them the door.

Lucy was a wreck. Her parents had called, claiming that Max had called them up for money and when they told him they'd only give it to him if he talked to a shrink the line had gone dead. All while they were talking he'd been muttering beneath his breath, obviously out of it and just before they'd been greeted with silence they thought they heard the sound of multiple engines. It wasn't much to go on seeing as how he could have been at any truck stop in the united states, but it was something.

"I still have my advance from the newspaper advertisements." Jude said and Lucy balked

"I've already lost Max now you want to leave?"

"I have a hunch where he might be headed, I've been working on the bug and it's fine for a cross country drive."

Prudence wrapped an arm around Lucy, "We'll come with you then."

"No. You've got a job and Luce your break isn't for another month."

"He's my brother."

"But he's my…" He trailed off, rubbed the back of his neck, "It doesn't matter. He'd want you to stay on track and I'll call at every motel I stop at to check in, yeah?"

They argued for a bit more but Lucy knew that it would come to this. Ever since she'd seen him lying in the hospital with black unseeing eyes she knew that she wasn't enough to rescue him. It was why the war had hit her so hard, knowing that there were things she couldn't bring him back from.

She watched Jude pack his sparse luggage into the van, arms crossed and eyes red.

"If you really love him you'll bring him back."

"I do," he buckled his seatbelt, "and I will."

"I was really looking forward to riding off into the sunset after our grand proclamations of love." Max drawled crossing his arms and leaning against the bumper

"Were you?" Jude scratched the top of his head, staring down at the smoking engine, "Maybe this is why there aren't any cars in fairytales."

"Come on prince charming let's find a magical mechanic," Jude let Max wrap an arm around his shoulders and tug him away from the defunct van.

"This isn't over ya know." Jude said, letting himself be lead along the side of the road

"That's what I was hoping."