Hey to all mylovely readers ...we're getting there! (Yeah yeah, I said that like, I don't know how many chapters ago, but I really mean it!) I'm banking on the next chapter or the one after that being the last ...but who knows how this will go ...and on that note, please let me know if you think there's something I should be doing better, or differently ...I know exactly how I'm wanting to excute these last couple chaps, but I'm not sure if they're turning out as well as I would have liked. But hey, what can ya do, eh? Still, if you've got something you want me to know about, don't hesitate! Most of all, enjoy:-)

"Hey," Will whispered to Jack as they followed Karen through the glassed in front doors and through the lounge, "do that face that you did when Karen offered to fix you up with either her masseuse or Mason's swim coach but told you you were only allowed to pick one."

"You mean like this?" Jack screwed his face into a mixture of longing and agony.

"Hey hey! Slim Fast deficient! Nancy!" Karen barked. "Arms in, straight line, yaps shut! This isn't midnight at the oasis!"

"Well, if it was, would this little excursion include a bathroom break?" Will wanted to know, "because Jack has to…make some lemonade."

"Lem--oh God, can't you just say take a leak like a normal person?" Karen groaned.

Jack arched a puzzled eyebrow. "I do? I mean…I do," he said vehemently as Will elbowed him painfully in the ribs. "It's those…lattes…thirty six of them…maybe thirty seven…I stayed awake on last night, waiting for Brian to call…they're still…working their way…uh, Down Under…you know?"

"And," Grace added, unnecessarily, "the three burrito supremes I grabbed at dinner with all that extra…hot sauce? Yeah…um, doing the Mexican Hat Dance in my digestive system as we speak…"

"Don't help," Will warned her through gritted teeth.

"Well, they are," Grace muttered back.

Karen shrugged coolly. "Well, it's not my fault that no one thinks enough of Reject to return his phone calls or that Glutton can't abstain from drive thrus. So you're just going to have to grin and bear it. Only for a few more minutes, mind."

"Okay, but I can't promise I'll be able to hold everything in when you're slicing me up like some fine cheese, and take it from someone who had an apartment that smelled like a cat that lost its way to the litter box--"

"And still does," Jack added.

"--human waste coupled with nine liters of blood creates an odor that does a number on everything, including--"

Will whistled at her under his breath. "This is getting way too complicated," he muttered, then raised his voice. "Hey--what's that on the rug?"

"What's what?" Karen glanced down, as he hoped she would.

"That." In the blink of an eye, he had forced Grace and Jack off the rug and yanked it up by both hands, causing Karen to topple over.

"Help me!" he hissed at Jack and Grace, who were jointly able to aid Will in enclosing Karen within the rug and getting her up off the ground.

"Oh my God, do these prescriptions cause an excess weight gain too?" Jack groaned, and the high pitched but muffled scream that rang out was just as much one of protest as it was one of fury.

"Come on, I've thought about this," Will grunted, "and we're going to do the same thing with Karen that she does with Mason when the butcher stops over to deliver the meat of the week--"

"Oh, oh, you mean we're going to stick her in the laundry room?" Grace exclaimed. "That's perfect! She never goes down there herself, just shoves him through an oversized laundry chute, so she wouldn't know her way out!"

"Precisely." They heaved her into the closest bathroom, and with much difficulty, sent her down the chute, giving themselves a moment or two to make sure she hit the bottom. When the thump came that indicated this, they scurried upstairs. Had they stuck around for much longer, they would have witnessed Karen pulling herself upward, having been able to maintain a solid grip on the edge and letting her handbag and custom made Prada shoes wrapped in the rug drop to create the impression that she had in fact fallen.

"Okay, kids," she said cheerily as she brushed herself off, "the stakes were high enough before, and unfortunately for you, they just got a whole hell of a lot higher."

"Come on," Will muttered frantically, tearing Karen's room apart in his foray for pills and not caring; he knew it wouldn't matter in the end, "it's got to be here somewhere…concealed in at least one padded bra or an empty Jack Daniels bottle…unless she's storing everything under her rack to save time…"

"I thought I was the only one who knew she did that," Jack said indignantly.

"No, but I know at least two people in this room who wish you were," Grace said.

"Excuse me, Grace, could you wait and repeat that after I get off the phone?" Will retrieved the receiver to Karen's bedside extension and put it to his ear. "Yeah, help? Uh huh, I called a little while ago looking for you, but you still don't seem to be here…"

"Like there's a chance in hell that I'm going under Karen's boobs for you," Grace snapped. "I only needed to go through that once."

"Aaaaaaaaaaand I know two other people in this room who wish we didn't know that," Will said, referring to himself and Jack.

Grace crossed her arms. "I'm just saying I'm not."

"I never asked you to, Grace," Will barked. "I asked you to abandon your belief of the myth that Jewish people have crap for eyesight and give me a hand here!"

As if on cue, an arm stretched forward out of the corner of his eye, the hand attached offering him a bottle that he took to be the prescription he was looking for. "See, Gracie, once you dispel one illusion, you'd be amazed at how many others you can--GAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

Before he knew what was happening, a sharp blade had connected with his wrist, drawing a broad line of blood. He dropped the bottle he was grasping, clutching his wrist, falling back on to Karen's bed in pain.

"Were you looking for something, honey?" Karen chirped. She held out the bottle, waving it in front of his face. "Was this it?"

"Will!" Grace began to move toward him before Karen swiveled the knife in her direction which stopped her at once.

"Grace, what the hell was so important that you couldn't warn me that she was right behind me!" Will demanded crossly.

"Sorry, Will," Grace said in a small voice, eyes to the ground, "I had an Almond Joy in my pocket, and I…hadn't finished…chewing."

"I told you to lay off the candy!"

"No, you told me to lay off the licorice!" Grace pointed an accusing finger at him. "There's a big difference!"

Will breathed hard through his gritted teeth, squinting at his wound, which, thankfully, had not appeared to have damaged any veins. "I don't know if you take requests, Karen, but if you do, Grace just made it to the top of my list."

"Well--" Karen bit her lip. "I did think she'd make a marvelous main course to my entrée-" She gestured toward him "--and my dessert--" Traveled over to Jack. "But I suppose if it means that much to you to be the main course instead of the entrée…"

"No fair, the main course is the best part!" Grace shouted. "So naturally I should be it!"

"Oh, we're talking about natural now, Grace?" Jack piped up, "in which case should make me the main course to your dreary little entrée."

"There's nothing dreary about my entrée!"

"Brrrrrriiiiiinnnnggggggg! Hey, Leo, Gracie here claims there's nothing dreary about her entrée, and my cotton candy cologne and collection of facial coupons for your begging to differ…"

"Shut up!"

"Please shut them both up," Will muttered to Karen, searching both of his pockets frantically for something that would suffice in putting pressure on his wrist.

"Here, honey, no sense in you bleeding out before I'm ready for you to," Karen said impatiently, tossing him a clean washcloth. "But that's one of my finest, so try not to get it too stained."

Will shook his head at her and carefully wrapped his wrist. The sound of a bottle being popped open and pills shook out made his head snap up.

"NO!" He dived forward, knocking both the bottle and the pills in her hand to the floor. "Jack--Grace--get them!"

They scrambled to do as he said. Karen stomped on Jack's hand when she noticed he had gotten a hold of the bottle, and in the same beat, yanked Grace's hair as Grace scooped up the pills.

"OOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" they howled in unison.

Karen and Will eyed each other as they both went for the desired items, Will snatching up the bottle with his good hand in no time, and slightly panicking when he saw that he couldn't quite reach the pills before Karen could.

"Karen!" he said frantically, "Jack…he's…trying to sneak one!"

"Huh?" Jack looked up with a dazed expression, and expression that changed to horror as Karen turned on him. In a flash, Will had rammed his full body weight against Karen, sending her crashing into her vanity dresser, and grabbed Jack and Grace by the arms, pulling them along with him.

"My mistake!" he called over his shoulder. He had gotten them through the hallway and all the way down the stairs before Grace cried out.

"Will! Will! Stop! Just…" She swallowed hard between rapid breaths. "Please stop. We need a better plan than this."

"I know," Will agreed. "But I'm dry, you know? I just wanted to get us back here so we had a chance at getting that prescription. And we got it. So I don't know where we're going from here."

And a slow grin, similar to that of the Cheshire Cat's, spread over the face of Jack, who had been as much help as an electrical appliance on a desert island thus far.

"Maybe you don't," he said deviously, "but that's okay, because I think I do."