Hey everyone, sorry for the insane wait ...life has been just that, insane ...but bear with me, we'll be drawing to a close in just a few short chaps from here...

By the time they were pulling up the cast iron gates of a very distinguished looking building, tempers were twice as high as they had been before.

"Jack, if I hear 'ohhh…do it again…harder…' one more time…" Will threatened.

"It's the way he says it, Will," Jack said earnestly. "With so much passion, so much…drive…but I can see how you wouldn't understand the art of it, you know, not being part of the club."

"What? The hardcore club? Yeah, I pulled my membership a long time ago, it was just too rough for me…"

"Haha, that was funny, Will, like…1995 Oklahoma City bombing funny."

"Jack, that wasn't funny," Grace intoned, aghast.

"I rest my case." He leaned back in his seat, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, "Amateurs."

"Like encouraging heavy sexual activity is so much of an art," Will scorned. "Yeah, I can see how many years of training it must take to develop the perfect 'do it again, do it again' articulation to your delivery."

"Yeah, and to think Jack perfected it with zilch for training," Grace added. She shifted the car into park and sighed. "Soooo…we gonna do this?"

They retreated bit by bit from the car, ambling in single file to the stone steps.

"How is it that I'm more frightened now than before we went into Karen's bedroom?" Will murmured.

"Don't worry about it, his tone had that low 'if you come in, you're never coming out' quality to it, but that's just the movies…I mean…" Grace chuckled offhandedly.

"Well, we thought Karen was something from the movies too," Will pointed out, "even before this happened."

Jack, missing the fundamental point as usual, giggled. "That's not so true, Grace, Will went in one time and eventually ended up coming out…"

"Enough with the Thanksgiving reminiscing!"

"Grace!" Will hissed.

"I wasn't even talking about that," Jack grumbled. "I just meant in general."

"Jack, I don't want to hear from you," Will said ominously.

"Well, I don't want to see you, but with your flab blocking all that's holy, can it truly be helped?"

"And can it truly be helped when I choke you before Karen does?"

"Timmy! Tommy!" Grace hissed. "Enough!" She seized the brass knocker and banged in the fashion as promised, studying the peephole and section in the door that the one who answered could slide open and speak through without the visitor ever seeing who it was. "Well, we're done." She threw up her hands in defeat. "He's going to see that we're not--"

"Mrs. Walker. I see that indeed."

They jumped, and Grace gulped.

"Yet--" There was a long, deliberate pause. "I see it is in her car that you have arrived. I would know it from anywhere."

"I think anyone in your position would know her car from anywhere," Will said, letting out a snort of laughter. When no one joined him, he stopped abruptly.

"So. You know her."

"Yes, we do…" Grace trailed off, unsure of whether or not he was asking for an explanation.

"Well?"

"We would say so."

"Well, then you must tell me how it is that you have come here."

The three exchanged diffident glances.

"Um," Grace hedged, "it's…could you open the door…maybe?"

The silence went on for so long that they thought for a moment that he would say no more. Finally, "I don't know who you are. Only that by some way or another, that you know Mrs. Walker. With nothing more than that to go on, I don't wish to open this door to you."

"Okay." Will rubbed his hands together anxiously. "Now…as it's…us who's here, should indicate to you that Karen could not be…"

"Which I find highly unusual. Normally her driver comes up to the door, dear man could take well into half an hour to reach the steps, but she would always be in the car. She could be a rather…tough customer, but I daresay she was content with anything that came in large quantities."

"Except Stan, and he came in countless large quantities," Jack protested.

"She never would have admitted it even when she was," Grace snapped, "now shut up!"

Will nudged both of them hard and chuckled tautly. "Anyway, uh…we digress…would you happen to remember if she came by…yesterday?"

"I recollect."

"Well, it's…really important that we know what you gave to her."

"I'm afraid I'm not really at liberty to discuss that."

Grace slammed herself against the door so suddenly that Will and Jack grabbed one another in alarm; then realized what they had done and let go.

"Listen, Lurch, I don't know about you, but I woke up to taxi drivers cussing at each other in Russian down on the street, this dingwing--" She slapped Will on the back of the head "--pigged out on the last of the bagels, cream cheese included--"

"Gracie, I'm sorry, I didn't know you wanted--"

"--and this dingwing--" She slapped Jack on the back of the head "--shoved my second breakfast choice, the remains of my last box of Fruity Pebbles, if you must know, down his throat without even chewing, a prospective client didn't go for the Mediterranean theme I was going for and decided to give one of my competitors a call, the soup special at my favorite deli was split pea soup, the cab I went home in smelled like freaking rotten milk and sweat socks, my assistant can't answer phones or hug her kids or hand out a blasted piece of Halloween candy and now she wants my head on a platter, so I suggest that you drop the tight ass butler act before I discuss certain things with certain people who would not be very happy with what I had to tell them and open the damn DOOR!"

As if her outburst had never happened, the door slowly creaked open. "Very well."

Grace stepped through in a very dignified manner, Will following her rather guardedly.

"Jack, what are you doing?" Will asked him in a low voice when he noticed Jack hadn't moved from the doorstep, instead scribbling in a pocket sized notepad.

"Taking notes," Jack replied. "'Neurotic flare ups coupled with mindset of no better days ahead…'" He snapped the pad shut and shoved it back into his pocket. "It might come in handy for the future."

"You don't need to take notes for something that is oh, so much a part of your charming persona already," Will told him, clapping him on the shoulder before he kept on, Jack trudging sulkily behind.

"Please," the "pharmacist," or so they had come to assume him to be, said, ushering them into what looked like a small office. They still could not distinguish a face, as the residence was bathed in shadows, including the office. All they could make out was a tall, slender figure donning dark clothing. Once he was seated behind his desk, Will, Grace and Jack in chairs before him, he nodded very slowly.

"Go on."

Wordlessly, Will offered him the prescription bottle, which the pharmacist took and studied under a sliver of light emanating from a tiny desk lamp.

"Ah. Yes. I only just…started including this."

"We noticed," Grace responded coolly. "And she only just began taking it, and she only just started coming after us like cows in a slaughterhouse, so do us all a grand favor and explain."

He rolled the bottle around his palm, studying the label for far longer than the others deemed necessary, as he had been the distributor. "Well, I can tell you it's something relatively new, and again, not something Mrs. Walker has had before…not to my knowledge, at any rate."

"Okay, so what's in it that could be making her do this?" Will wanted to know impatiently.

"Well, it…I'll assume that you know that Mrs. Walker is somewhat…of a drinker?"

"The Pope knows that and Karen's never even met him!" Grace exclaimed.

"All right. Most…medications, if you will, contain…elements that no sort of alcoholic beverages would respond well to…the results of consuming something of that very nature with a medication tend to be very…great. However, Mrs. Walker's body has long since become accustomed, and in turn, almost immune to most of these drugs and the effects simply seem to…bounce off of her."

"If that's true, what's so different about this one?" Will demanded.

He leaned back in his desk chair and laced his fingers together. "I cannot say for certain, but I can give you my best guess. It's comprised several different…well, you must keep in mind that it was only a sort of experimental…piece…" He cleared his throat. "It contains a combination of everything Mrs. Walker is in the habit of taking on its own and the outcome of it doesn't seem to be treating her kindly, from what you have told me."

"A combination ? Of everything she's used to taking on her own?" Grace repeated. "But that's--you can't--how is it--okay, wait." She massaged her temples briefly. "What Karen takes on a daily basis is enough to knock a herd of elephants over and keep them there and you're telling us you've got something that would put it in her system all at once?"

"I suppose you might put it that way. But I should tell you it works in stages…that's how it was composed. Quite the contrary to all the drugs acting at the same time."

"That still doesn't tell us--"

"What it tells us, or so I believe, is that it would never be a wise choice to allow as many types of alcohol as I am certain of Mrs. Walker to be consuming into the body when such a plethora of drugs are at work," he said. "While Mrs. Walker may be good with most aftereffects, when that amount of medication enters your system with as much alcohol, and as quickly as this particular pill is designed to move, I must admit that the reaction you have come to me regarding does not surprise me."

"Has it been a problem for anyone else?" Will asked.

"Not thus far, but I don't know of anyone who comes with a wine glass so surgically attached as she does. Too much of too many hard beverages with this medication is not something to be mixed, and though I warned her of it…"

"Yeah, well. She was born with that wine glass in her hand, and trying to get her to change is like telling someone that they can't have brown eyes. There's nothing they can do about that," Will pointed out.

"Yeah, or like telling Jack that boys are yucky, there's nothing that can be done about that either," Grace added. "Nothing in the world can make him go for the girls and believe me, I've shown him everything under the sun--"

"Grace--" Will slashed the air, indicating for her to stop.

"Well, you get my point," Grace concluded vehemently.

"What you've got is enough to make anybody want to sleep with boys," Jack sneered.

"I'm putting you in Karen's front line vision," Grace threatened scathingly. "The first chance I get, I swear to you…"

"Any-waaaaaaaay…" Will said pointedly, nodding in the pharmacist's direction. "So what can we do? Is there anything? I mean…if it's like any other drug, it'll wear off eventually…"

"That's quite true, but with this one, it's hard to tell. And you don't know how much damage she's capable of before that occurs. You could also attempt to get her to flush it out of her system, and not with Bacardi's…but with straight and simple drinking water."

The threesome gawked at him in unison. Will opened his mouth several times, but no sound would come out.

Finally Grace managed to squeak out, "Water?"

"She's never heard of such a thing," Jack murmured.

"Consuming enough of it will override any other liquids in her system," the pharmacist explained. "She needs something clear and solid flowing through her right now and I would think that would be the best thing for her."

"But that's like locking Grace in a bakery and telling her not to eat anything," Will protested. "It can never happen."

The pharmacist slowly got to his feet. "Well, I'm afraid I don't know what else to tell you," he said. "I have shared what I was able…the rest will have to be up to you."

The other three stood with him.

"I'll keep this with me," he said evenly, tucking the remains of the prescription into his pocket, "and you'd do well to get rid of any more of it you might come across."

"I thought you just gave her the one bottle," Will said with a frown.

"No. Two, to get her through the holiday."

"That's beautiful," Grace groaned.

"Yes, and even more beautiful than that is that you would not disclose any of the things you saw or heard tonight," he advised them. "If this would end up being a problem, it would be best to remember that I have your number."

Will and Grace eyed him for a moment, or believed they did, as they were unable to see his actual face, but Jack squealed.

"I so think this secret agent thing you've got going on is hot," he raved, "so if you've got my number…please do use it."

"I'll do that," he said as he saw them to the door, "if you remember to leave Red some Fruity Pebbles next time. I would hate to think what might have happened if you finished off her Coco Puffs."