Sitting in some class that had something to do with x-variables, Bender found himself dozing off with worry for Allison. Pissed that he couldn't stay with her, Bender wished he knew what the hell was wrong with her. The whole classroom was a huge tie-dyed blur. It was so not who he was to worry like this for anyone but himself. Especially a girl. Even with Claire, he really didn't act like such a pathetic dipshit.

His relationship with Claire had been extremely complicated. Since March 24th, 1984, he'd seen her as his girlfriend, and she eventually became so important to him that he'd made her his ONLY girlfriend. He burned all the old pictures in his wallet and one by one, dumped the 7 or so ladies inside. Some of them had taken it pretty hard, but they eventually got over themselves and moved on. But other than the wallet of girls, Bender did nothing out of his way for Claire. He teased her and she called him a pig, then they'd go on dates as Claire dictated. Bender would usually hate her choice of dates, and he'd put up a fight, but eventually let her do her thing. It wasn't exactly a loveless relationship, but they did constantly 'acknowledge their differences'. The fact that Bender WAS pissed about Claire leaving him almost made him feel weak. But there was real love there or so they thought for awhile. It took Dickface to show them just how unstable their relationship was, and that it wasn't love, but sexual tension between them. He was great at hiding his feelings, so he made 'brushing it off' seem flawless.

He wasn't exactly 'brushing off' Allison's stomachache, though. It seemed like there had to be more to it than a mere bellyache. She was sweating and squinting. The cafeteria was nearly given a show as he'd gotten her out of there. Like she was in labor or something. Talk about melodramatics. He probably acted like Brian or Andy would have. Bender felt his face turn red, realizing he'd really played up the drama in there and he probably looked like he was going out for the lead in the fall musical. Bender groaned and shot up, patting his pocket. He needed his 'doobage' more than ever now.

As he went to leave the room, the teacher, an older woman about half his height, glared at him. Bender glared back threateningly, and the teacher went on with the lesson, letting Bender pass. It was almost TOO easy to scare the old-bird teachers!

Going into the men's bathroom on that floor, Bender sat on the heater and began rolling a joint, putting it between his lips and lighting it up. Soon, the blurry sensation of getting high overwhelmed Bender, and he loved it. His headache didn't go away, but at least his intense feelings (which he wasn't even SUPPOSED to feel) were numbed away. The whole room was fading, and he was suspended in time for as long as that joint hung from the corner of his lip. If Dick should walk in just now, Bender would not hesitate to sock him.

But the one thought that didn't leave his head was Allison and whether she would be alright. She'd seemed to recover faster than Bender did as far as their ex-significant others went. She seemed to absorb her new life as a 'criminal' (other than the drugs, of course). Of course, Allison refused to actually do 'criminal' type things, but for some reason everyone else accepted that instead of giving her a hard time. Bender would often come down to his cousin Ernie's auto shop and find Allison already there, talking with one of the oily mechanics, or even Ernie. Sometimes, she would be found on the second floor, where that old apartment used to be, just staring out the ceiling-to-floor length windows, or dancing to herself, as if she were in her own little world. In school, Rudy, Tad, and most of Bender's other friends had made her feel welcome. She was, after all, the first female member of the gang that 'counted' (nearly all of them had girlfriends, but they never 'counted,' according to the guys, and Allison never quite figured out why). She wasn't anyone's girl, and again, other than drugging up, she was one of them. Her remaining sober actually was an advantage to the rest. She'd go to parties with them and act as their designated driver (even though she technically didn't have a license).

Bender really hoped that Allison had some kind of 'woman' problem and wasn't dying or anything. More than likely it was PMS or something, but a little more intense. What Bender really worried about was the floor show he'd put on for the entire lunchroom. Maybe Claire saw…?

Well, one thing was for sure. He sure was acting like Claire, worrying about what others thought of him. Maybe his stash had gone bad…

Bender completely lost track of time, and before he knew it, the bell rang and Bender quickly climbed up on a sink to open up the window and let the air in the room. He threw his joint in the toilet and flushed it before leaving the bathroom. He quickly went to the nurse's station. A different nurse was 'on duty' (did the other irresponsible bitch go home?) This nurse was younger, with red hair and a freckled face. She was sorting through some files when Bender stomped in. Allison was nowhere to be found.

"Where is she?" Bender asked.

"Who?" asked the nurse. "No one was here all day," she said. Bender grunted. Before he could say something else, the first nurse (the lazy one, Nurse Hale) shuffled into the station.

"You again," said Nurse Hale. "She's not here."

"Why?"

"She without a doubt had more than a stomach ache. After you left she began feeling queasy and started blowing chunks. Her dad picked her up and took her to the emergency room at St. Mary's Hospital downtown, poor little thing," said the nurse.

"What do you mean 'more than a stomachache'?" asked Bender.

"Go back to class, kid!" said lazy Nurse Hale, leaving the room again. Bender snorted, turning red. The redheaded nurse smiled sympathetically and tapped Bender's shoulder.

"I'm sorry about Ruth, she really shouldn't be a nurse here," said the redheaded nurse (her nametag read "Kitty Johnson").

"Johnson? You related to a Brian Johnson who used to go here?" asked Bender. Why the hell was he making small talk now?

"Yeah! He's at NYU now…my cousin! He helped me get the job here," said Kitty. "You know him?"

Bender nodded. Kitty was silent a moment. "You have a fever," she said, winking. Bender looked at her a moment. After processing the information, he felt his face start to recover from the blushing. "You can't stay here with a fever, go home!" Kitty said, nodding. Bender nodded a silent 'thanks' to Kitty and ran out of the nurse's office.

Outside of the school, Bender realized he didn't have his El Camino with him. He'd rode with Tad that morning in his minivan. Bender wondered what the hell he could do. He couldn't walk to Chicago!

"Hey man, here's the keys," said Tad from behind Bender. He turned around and took the keys.

"Thanks, man," he said. Tad nodded and shoved Bender off the sidewalk towards the van, parked in the fifth row of the parking lot. Bender got in the van and drove off with incredible haste.

Tad's van smelled like used condoms and stale cigarette smoke. It was musky inside from Tad either having a pot-smoking session or a girl or both inside it the previous night. But Bender didn't care. He just needed to get to the hospital and fast. The hospital was outside of Shermer, but not quite inside the Chicago city limits. Bender hated hospitals in general. They gave him bad memories of times when his father's beating got too bad. He'd been there 3 times by the time he was 11, but his mother Roxanne always told the doctors that "boys will be boys" and made it sound like Bender was either playing on roller skates or being a reckless punk like most 11-year-old boys were. But Bender kept quiet. Who would believe him anyways? The last time he was there for himself was when he was 14…he'd skinned his spleen "in a bicycle accident" and had it removed.

Another time, he'd been with an old girlfriend who was having a pregnancy scare. Luckily for them both, she was just late in her month, and she got her period the following day. Other times he'd been there were for friends who'd been caught in the crossfire of gang fights downtown or who'd had a bad LSD trip and almost 'flew' out of a window. Bender didn't have a good history with the hospital and was almost superstitious that the hospital brought bad luck to him. But that didn't stop him from speeding down the highway heading north (if he got into a wreck, he'd wind up in the hospital anyways). It was Allison who needed him now. Not Tad or Rudy or his parents or anyone. Allison was as fragile as a butterfly when it came to this kind of thing. Last summer, when Andy had a knee operation, she'd tried to visit him in a family-only ward. For the brief time she was there before being kicked out, Bender had been with her. She seemed so frightened to be there. All those horrible-looking machines, noises and smells easily overwhelmed her. Even though she couldn't see 'her Andy,' Bender could sense that a part of her couldn't get out of that hospital fast enough.

The hospital was only a few miles away, but Bender couldn't get there fast enough. He pulled up to the parking garage and parked right outside of it (he couldn't afford the parking rates…even if they were only a few quarters an hour). He ran inside the ER entrance and went up to the nearest reception desk. A young man with a blonde buzz cut was working behind it. He looked up at Bender and smiled as if he was trained like a monkey to do so.

"May I help you, sir?" asked the man.

"Allison Reynolds here?"

The man nodded and stood up. "The name sounds familiar. I'll go check for you," he said. "I might be a minute, go ahead and have a seat," he added, leaving the waiting room. Bender grunted. The second worst thing about hospitals: waiting.

Bender took the nearest seat and plunked down in it, looking quickly around. There was an interesting array of people waiting to be treated. A man actually sat in the room with a knife stuck into his arm. He actually looked pretty calm, considering he freaking had a kitchen knife crammed in his bicep. A few women were in labor, breathing along with their husbands. A little girl had a huge burn running across her cheek…it looked almost like it was white…infected? The worst sight yet had to be the young father holding his son in his arms, the son limp and almost lifeless with a huge gash in the back of his head. The father looked like he was ready to kill himself.

The waiting room had a small TV in the corner (black and white…at least 15 years old) that was vaguely tuned in to The Price is Right. Bender thought the show was funny. Watching little old women jump up and down (most didn't wear bras, Bender noted) as they won hot rods and trips to Aruba was too hysterical. All the young college kids who went on the show would always lose or, or if they won, they would win a set of bed sheets or something.

"Sir?" Bender stood up as the young male receptionist came out. "Miss Reynolds was indeed here with her father about ½ an hour ago, but they've since left and gone back home. I'm sorry sir," said the man. Bender nodded at him.

Allison was home. And Bender knew where that was. School was still in session, and would be for another hour or so, but Bender wasn't about to go back. He had his priorities, and right now, Allison was number 1.

He couldn't say exactly why, but she was number 1 on his priority list.