P Casey had done it again. She was sitting in a jail cell for being in contempt of court. She wasn't quite sure what she had done wrong. Maybe it was a bad day for judge and he wanted to punish someone.

P She looked down at her watch. It was half past three p.m. She had officially been sitting in jail for over five hours. No one had come to visit her and she was beginning to get hungry.

P A voice came from down the hall. It kind of startled her. It sounded angry, yet had a funny tint to it.

P "I can put myself in the cell. I've done it before. This isn't exactly the first time I've been held in contempt! Give me the damn keys so I can lock myself up. I want to be in the same cell as Casey Novak. I know I can get along with her."

P Casey heard her name and was taken aback. Who in the world could this be? No one ever really got along well with her, they just dealt with her. She was known as a royal pain in the butt which made her enemy number one in everyone's book.

P A knock came on the cell bars and Casey looked up to find the smiling face of Madelina Kregar. Her smile was accented by her messy dark hair. She looked Casey up and down with her sympathetic gray eyes.

P "You want some company Case?"

P Those words were all she wanted to hear. She jumped up and ran to the bars.

P "Yes, oh yes. I really want some company."

P "Good."

P Madelina pulled a set of keys from behind her back and opened the doors. She walked right in, closed the door behind her, and slid the keys back down the hallway.

P "Thanks MAK."

P A cop smiled and shook his head as he picked up the keys. He had worked here way to long.

P Casey smiled at Madelina. She knew the reason she was here had to be good. Madelina was known to be a good girl who screwed up from time to time. Her actions were completely harmless when she did, but they were still unlawful.

P "Why are you here Madie?"

P "I told you."

P Casey looked at Madelina with questioning eyes. She had heard the outburst that Madeline had at the cops.

P "What did you do wrong?"

P "Do you really want to know?"

P "Yes, of course I do. You always have a good reason. Yours are so much more exciting than my, 'The judge was having a bad day,' ones."

P "Ok, fine. I'll tell you."

P She flattened her slacks with her pants and moved closer to where Casey had just sat down.

P "I was in court testifying when the lovely Joel Baxter…"

P "The defense attorney?"

P "Yes… he asked me a really personal question that was irrelevant to the trial. I stood up, slammed my hands hard against the stand…"

P She turned over her palms to reveal massive, bluish-purple bruises. Casey took one look and could feel the pain of them.

P "And I yelled at the top of my lungs, 'Objection, Your Honor, Relevance.' Of course that didn't float well with him and he told me that it wasn't my place to say that. I looked him in the face. I told him, 'I may be a forensic pathologist with a medical degree, but I did go law school, I did get a law degree, I passed the international and New York State Bar Exams, and I was sworn in as a practicing lawyer." Then I smiled and told him that I can say objection to whatever I want to while he was questioning me. I also to him to, 'go to hell, fuck off, and kiss my ass,' in Russian. That's where the trouble started. The judge told me to sit down, be quiet and finish the questioning. He said that I said one word past the questioning he would hold me in contempt. I looked up at him and said in my clearest voice, 'Objection, Your Honor, Leading.' He pointed at the door leading out the back and I left. But not before I heard, 'Madelina Abigail Kregar, go down to the holding cells and think about what you've done.' He knew I would just come down here and talk to you."

P Casey laughed hard. She could imagine Madelina doing all this. She could see the pride in her eyes. Madelina had done what she had to do to prove a point.

P "It wasn't like my testimony was needed in the case anyway. I was testifying that one's heart could be on either side of the chest and that it didn't matter where a heart is or how big it is when it comes to loving someone."

P Casey rolled her eyes. She used to assume she had seen and heard everything. That all changed when she met Madelina.

P "So, who's bailing you out?"

P "Most likely Judge Clark, what about you?"

P "Well, let's see. My father is the judge who put me in here. My mother is going to kill me if I call her. I'm sure my father has already informed her, seeing as their offices are next to each other. Mary's probably bailing you out. David is out of town on the assignment you backed out of…"

P Madelina laughed hard. Her pale skin glowed under the lights. Casey gave her a questioning look.

P "What are you laughing about?"

P "Nothing, it's nothing. It's just; this situation reminds me of a line my father use to say to me. A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend will be sitting right next to you saying, 'Man, we screwed up.' You know if you had gone on that assignment, you wouldn't be here and I would already be out. But we would have the stories that go with the experience."

P Casey thought about what Madelina was saying and began to laugh. She was right. They were having more fun and getting better memories from being in jail together, than they would be if they were doing their normal, separate things.

P "Damn, we fucked up. It was fun though."

P "Casey, you just cussed."

P "Yeah, so…"
P "So, you never cuss."

P "Well, I usually don't, but the occasion calls for it."

P "I guess it does."

P Madelina laid her head on Casey shoulder. It was nothing romantic, just a friendly action that came as an auto-response. They felt comfortable together, like they had been best friends growing up.

P They began to talk about other things, boyfriends, their jobs, life in general. They lost track of time, fell asleep, and eight p.m. rolled around.

P They were still asleep when Mary Clark came to the cell door. She stared at the two of them for a moment. She had mentored them both and they had become her 'children.' She smiled at the thought that they had actually become friends.

P She knocked hard on the bars and startled Casey awake. She jumped up causing Madelina to hit her head on the wooden bench.

P "Ow. That had to hurt."

P They both looked at Madelina, who had gone back to sleep.

P "I heard you two are in need of a person to sign your release."

P "Yeah, we do. Wait, are you going to get to both of us out?"

P "I intend to, as soon as I find Marty, so he can carry Madie to the car. I know she won't be waking up anytime soon."

P Mary looked around and found Marty. She motioned for him to come get Madelina.

P "Thank the Lord she's light."

P Marty passed them and took the young woman's petite body off the bench. He used a little too much force for her body weight and almost dropped her.

P "I take my previous statement back. Umm… she needs to weight more, a lot more."

P He went back past the two women, conveying a strong message to Mary with his eyes, a private message that Casey didn't need to hear.

P "The car is unlocked Marty. Just lay her in the back seat."

P As Marty left, Mary put her arm around Casey's shoulder. She pulled her closer and smiled.

P "You want to get out of here. Go get some food. It's Friday. You can stay the night. We'll get wasted and play poker, let Madie take us for all we got."

P "I'd like that right now. Actually, at the moment, anything that's not a jail cell sounds good."

P "Then come on. I'll go sign the papers for you two rascals and we'll go to my place."

P They came out of the cell and began to walk to where Mary needed to sign the papers. Casey smiled. She was so happy to be going somewhere warm and soft, and even happier that her two dearest friends would be there.

P Casey watched as Mary signed the release papers for Madelina and her. She noticed that she didn't even read the papers.

P "I've signed enough of these to last a lifetime. Every time Mad had a fight with her parents growing up they would send her down her. I would always come get her as soon as I got the tearful phone call."

P Mary finished signing and bid the cops adieu for the night. Casey and she exited into the night. They went to the car and said goodnight to Marty. As soon as he left, Casey looked at Mary.

P "I want to thank you for coming to get us. We would have been here all night, maybe even all weekend, if it wasn't for you."

P "Nah, Arthur would have come and got you. Madie, on the other hand, she would have been stranded."

P They both laughed and got in the car to head home. Today had been stressful enough to give them a reason to sleep in tomorrow. No one would get up before two p.m. if it was in their hands. By the time they came back to work everything would be blown over and they could get back to making the money they so desperately needed. No one would mention what would happen and everything would be normal.