At first it seemed like a prank, something that the school bully would yell in your face, then shove the chocolate-or strawberry-pudding up your nose as they chortled with laughter. Unfortunately, this was no prank, despite how bizarre and odd it seemed. One moment I was filled with the warmest passion imaginable and the next the world had crashed down upon my head.

I moved closer to Case and rested my hand on his shoulder in support. He looked up as we touched and a glimmer of hope passed by his cocoa eyes. "She asked for you…just before she lost consciousness…She wanted to tell you something," he told me, referring to "she" as Max.

"Something what?" I asked.

He shrugged, shaking his head with the floppy mop of brown hair. "I don't know, Alanza…I wish I did though."

It was at this time that I noticed James. He stood apart, by himself, looking out of the large windows that gave a god's eye view of the city below. His hands made bulges in his black pants' pockets, while his bare chest seemed ghostly in the contrasting moon and sun light. Yet, as placid as the scene may have appeared, it wasn't. Every muscle in James' body was constricted, and his hands were in the shapes of fists, while I perceived a twitching muscle in his temple.

"We need to go to the hospital," I said to no one in particular, voicing only the obvious. Then lowering my voice so that only Case heard me, "I'll see if I can get some blood to her."

Blankly, he nodded, but without any real gusto behind it. "Let's get going then."

"You go on, Case," James said, breaking the silence. "Alanza and I will take my car. I can take her home, then, after we make sure that everything's all right." His voice reminded me of a movie villain lying to the damsel just before her boyfriend is ripped to shreds, and I felt myself stiffen with fear.

"Thanks guys…I just…it seemed like…there was no where…"

I gave him a warm hug and smiled with what little happiness I could muster. "You just go to my girl and make sure she takes care of herself."

After Case had left, I moved towards James with instinctive caution. It wasn't that I was afraid of any damage he could cause because I knew how much stronger I was than he, but the fact that he was suddenly so agitated disturbed me nonetheless. With the knowledge that he was already hiding something from me planted firmly in my mind, I was starting to realize just how much I really didn't know James.

"James?" I asked, approaching him like one would a spooked horse. "James?" I repeated.

Slowly, he turned to look at me, forcing himself to tear his earthen eyes away from the window. Between the time he began to turn towards me, and when he finally did, I swear that the action had taken over eighteen years. Once we faced each other in the light that came from the large window, he didn't say anything and neither did I for a moment. Finally, licking his bottom lip, James nodded as if I asked him a question. "Let's get to that hospital, then."

We rode in nervous silence that couldn't have been broken by a jackhammer all the way to the hospital. I was anxious to just come out and ask James directly what the hell his problem was. Naturally, that tactic would have to be saved for a later date. After all, my best friend was possibly near death, along with a dead baby. For never having met the child, I felt an odd sort of affinity to it. Life always is full of mean tricks and I was pretty sure that this was one of them.

Arriving at the hospital, I felt my stomach churn in fear and trepidation. The hospital was where James had been. It was where Mom had nearly died. Technically, I suppose, she had died, but was brought back to life by yours truly. Thank God for supernatural blood. I'd probably be a big hit for vampires.

Although James walked a couple feet behind me as we entered the hospital through the revolving doors, I wasn't about to wait up for him. If he had some kind of problem, then he'd better start talking. I couldn't sit around and act like a therapist if he wasn't going to say anything. Still, I couldn't help noticing that now he didn't appear nearly as angry as he had back at the apartment. Instead, his head was rolled forward, shoulder slumped in, and the sweatshirt he had thrown on was crumpled and disarrayed, giving him the appearance of a depressed drunk.

Surprisingly, Case was already in the lobby and waiting for our arrival. He looked slightly happier than when we had seen him back at the apartment. Naturally, he wasn't springing off the walls while pouring wine and cutting cheese, but he didn't have the knife poised over his wrists anymore. He greeted me with a warm hug, then, as we pulled away from each other, he jerked his head down the same hallway that Renfro had been living in not too long ago.

"Max wants to see you," he told me.

"She's ok, then?"

"Physically, pretty much. Won't hurt if you can sneak her some blood. But emotionally, she's whipped. I haven't been able to sit down and actually talk to her about the baby so I don't know if she knows that the baby's dead. I think she does though, but all she's been saying is that she wants to talk to you."

"What room?"

"Third one on the left."

Right across from Renfro's office.

"Thanks, Case."

"No problem. Oh," he said as I began to walk down the hallway in my glimmering dress, "she's had a lot of pain medication, so she may not be making sense."

"I'll understand her, anyway."

"I knew you would, Alanza," he smiled faintly. Moving towards Max's room, I heard James' voice in the background saying something to Case about them needing to talk. I decided to ignore it and let the boys handle it for themselves. Max was much more important than they were at the moment anyway.

Inside the dimly lit hospital room, I found Max lying her bed, struggling to stay awake with fluttering eyelids. Her left hand was twitching, and there was both a blood bag and drip I.V. attached to her body. As I pulled up a chair, it squeaked, running across the floor, and Max lobbed her head towards me.
"'Lanza?" She sounded as if she were drunk with cotton shoved in her mouth to prevent full communication. Her usually loquacious and perfectly articulated voice was horrendously distorted.

"Yeah," I nodded, pinching off the line from the blood bag to her arm. I pulled out the stopper of one end and pricked myself with the needle, which caused my blood to flow directly into her. Noticing her scrunched eyebrows, I smiled slightly. "Special deluxe blood, delivered to you by Alanza."

Max attempted to laugh, but her voice came out thick and gravelly. Her head rolled back to its upright position, and she continued to stare at the ceiling. "The baby's dead-isn't it?"

I nodded sadly. "I'm sorry."

"It was for the best," she sighed, "I suppose."

"Doesn't matter, really, something that was alive no longer is."

"I heard Case was pretty upset."

"Yeah…"

Not turning to me, she clasped my hand in hers and we sat, joined together for an infinite amount of time. In the months that I had known her, I couldn't ever remember seeing her so serious. Case was right; the pain medications can cause a person to act out of the norm.

Finally, when I was beginning to feel dizzy from the lack of blood, and I had disconnected the tube between us, Max spoke. At first I couldn't hear her and had to lean closer to fully understand her mumbled tongue. "What did you say?"

"Remember how fortune cookies tell you your future?"

"Supposedly," I replied.

"I gave you a fortune cookie saying, too."

"Yup. 'My mom named me well. I'll put it to good use.' I think that's it, anyhow."

She smiled, pleased with my memory. "Well, all right, 'Lanzie, I got one for you right now."

"What is it?"

Just as she was about to tell me, Case came into the room, followed closely by James. Neither had an improved attitude, which wasn't a tremendous surprise. In fact, Case looked more miserable than when I'd first seen him in the lobby.

"What are you guys doing here?" I asked.

"I was called down here," Case replied. Then, with a jerk of his thumb in James' direction, "He just followed me."
As if hearing that Case was in the room, a nurse came out, dressed in green scrubs with tiny traces of blood. "Mr. Smith?" she asked, in Case's direction.

He arched an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"We here at Metro Medical, have had patients who have suffered the loss of a child say that it feels better if they can actually hold the child to give them closure. Would you like to do so?"

Not even bothering to glance over at the drugged up Max, Case nodded. "Yes, I would."

"Come with me then, please," the nurse said.

Turning to me, Case asked if I would come with him. Shrugging, I followed him nonetheless.

Inside a separate room that appeared to be an operating room, two other nurses, a male and a female, were cleaning up bloody medical instruments. The flashback of Mom on the operating table was so powerful I nearly swooned from the strength, but was able to remain focused on the task at hand. Case needed me now, and I couldn't let him down.

The same nurse who had requested Case came towards him with a wrapped bundle. "This," she said, offering the white bundle to Case, "is your child. It's a he." She then moved away and back to her fellow colleagues where they chatted in hushed tones, oblivious to Case's grief.

Gently, with more tenderness than humans should contain, he peeled away the top layer of the blanket. There, underneath the warm cotton, lay a tiny baby. Perfectly formed with deep red skin that was wrinkled terribly and eyes shut tight, the baby looked starkly similar to both Case and Max despite the early age.

I heard Case's voice catch in his throat as he prevented himself from sobbing. Using one hand that seemed massive against the baby's cold skull, he pulled away the whiskers of hair on the head. In fact, the entire body of the child was still covered in lanugo, indicating a premature birth. The child shouldn't have been born for at least another four months.

"Case, I'm so sorry."

"God…he's so perfect."

We both stared at the child in Case's arms before I saw tears falling out of Case's eyes onto the crimson skin of the baby. Case sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

"Are you going to name him?" I asked, finding it difficult to hold back my own tears.

For a moment, Case paused, then reconsidered my question. "His name will be Jack, after an uncle that never saw freedom either."

After giving the child back to the nurses, we headed back to Max's room. James was waiting for Case in the hallway and the two men immediately dispersed themselves back to the lobby. I returned to Max to say my finally good-byes, until I could see her again.

"How did he handle it?" she asked, upon seeing my arrival.

"Case? As well as could be expected. You had a boy."

She nodded, pursing her pale lips together.

"Case named him Jack."

"Appropriately named."

"You're going to be ok, then?" I asked her. "I need to run home and get changed, then I'll probably come back to see you."
"I'll be fine, Alanza."

Just as I had stepped out into the doorway, I remembered how she had said something about the fortune cookie statements and I asked her about it.

"Cookie?" she asked, her eyelids closing droopily. "What about cookies…?" Kissing her on the forehead, I wandered out to the lobby so that I could have James give me a ride home.

Just as I had entered the lobby, I saw Case punch James in the side of the face, sending his friend reeling. "You son of a bitch!" Case screamed with all the force he could muster, which caused some disturbed looks from the staff. He turned sharply on his heels and began to head down the hallway.

James scurried to his feet and pushed Case up against the wall by his shoulders. "Listen to me," he hissed. "You have to get over it." Narrowing his eyes in defiance, Case sucked his air back and spit right in James' face. James shoved Case to the ground and headed towards the door.

I hurried over to the fallen Case and supported him as he rose to his feet.

"What was that all about?" I asked.

"Et tu Brute."