Love goes out to Pamena for her amazing beta-ing skills, and to both Keisha and Mars for their constant pushes for me to finish this chapter.

I'm dedicating this chapter in memory of my aunt who died Monday morning after suffering Heart failure, she was a cancer survivor who had recently found out that it had returned.

Anyway, enjoy, and like I warned, tissues at the ready…

Cry for Care

You've got to laugh a little, cry a little
Until the clouds roll by a little
That's the story of,
That's the glory of love
(
Glory of Love, Bette Midler)

The days went on, everyone focused more on Grace's life than her own. Not that she'd blamed them of course, Grace had been a mess for quite some time after her fairytale marriage had fallen apart. They'd all tried to help, in their own way, and she hadn't realised until then, just how little the others valued her opinion. Maybe she just hadn't cared until then, but she'd begun to feel as if she didn't matter to any of them as much as they meant to her.

For several weeks she'd found herself watching the way they interacted, and imagining herself not there, she'd had to force herself to stop when it began to hurt too much to realise that the only difference to the picture would be empty space. It had appeared that her friends would be able to live just fine without her. Of course she'd gotten over that soon enough, alcohol was good for that, but she had made sure to make more of an effort to take part, to be one of the 'gang'.

The night she'd woken up with a nose bleed, had chilled her to the bone. She'd made an emergency appointment with her oncologist for the next morning and had waited on tenterhooks the entire day. Having money could speed up anything. The results had not been good.

When Rosario had gotten ill it had been a reality check she'd desperately needed. She hadn't been able to handle the possibility that her Rosie could die, so she'd ignored the signs to an almost fatal degree. When she'd thought in those moments as the monitors had strung out the one monotonous note, that she'd lost her, she'd felt her heart stop beating too. That it was a false alarm had relieved yet worried her at the same time. What she'd almost been through was what she was setting up for the others. They didn't know of the fatality of her life, and she'd always believed that it was better that they didn't. Better for her, but better for them too. Now she knew differently, and after she'd left Rosario to stay over night in the hospital, she'd begun to plan how she was going to tell them all. She'd known she had to, and she'd known that it had to be soon, but it was going to be hard, and it had taken a lot of thought and planning to come up with the best way to go about it.

But as with so much of her life, things hadn't gone anywhere near to plan, and though she knew that it could have gone smoother, at least it had gotten everything out in the open for the first time, and maybe she had felt a little better once it was.

: flashback :

Karen watched bemused as Will paced up and down the small living room, his hands waving around in front of him as though he were converting his speech to sign language. He wasn't, at least she hoped he wasn't, she knew some sign herself, and that last signal most definitely hadn't corresponded to his words. It had accurately summed up the guy though, as far as she could tell.

"…and then he has the nerve to call me Mister! I mean me? Mister! I told him 'sonny, I'm no Mister, I'm not that much older than you, now straighten that shirt and quit slouching you'll end up with back problems like me.' Can you believe him? Calling me old!" Will finally stopped, slumping down into the arm chair, his mouth set in a petulant pout. His only move was to take the glass of red wine Grace passed to him, as she moved from the kitchen to sit on the sofa beside Karen.

"Sweetie he was just trying to get a rise out of you, now let it go. Let's get on with the point of why we're all here because I have better places to be." Grace stopped at the twin looks of disbelief on her friends faces. "Okay, so maybe I don't, but we should get this started before Karen drinks us out of house and home."

"Honey, you know remarks like that really hurt." Karen realised she might have been more believable if she hadn't followed herself up by emptying her glass in one swallow. But still it had hurt a little, but then she was used to the comments about her drinking, she thought she'd probably miss them if they were to stop.

"But seriously Wilma, why am I here, and where's my Jackie? Isn't he supposed to be here too?" Karen questioned him, sure that there was something she wasn't remembering, as she rose to refill her glass.

"No Karen, remember, I told you that it was important that Jack not find out about us meeting tonight? Please tell me you haven't told him anything! I've been planning this evening for days, do you know how much it cost me to get someone to take him out tonight?" Will looked at her, his annoyance increasing with every word. It was imperative that Jack not know, it would ruin his whole birthday surprise, because there was no way that Jack would not listen in, if he knew what was being discussed. He watched as Karen returned to the sofa, full wine glass in hand, missing the small wince she gave as she rubbed the space between her eyes with her free hand.

"No, I didn't tell him anything Honey, relax, I haven't seen Jackie in a few days, you know how busy he's been lately." Actually she'd been glad she hadn't seen him, it'd given her more time to come up with a way to tell him what was happening to her.

Will sat forward in his chair, his eyes shifting around the room as though looking for spies, Karen turned to her right to find Grace doing the same. Sighing in disbelief at the two, Karen pulled her mobile out from her bag and dialled the familiar number. After only two rings, Jack's voice filled her ear, and she quickly switched it to speaker.

"Hey Poodle, what you up to? I thought we could grab a movie or something." She almost laughed at the twin frozen stares of Grace and Will, she could swear they weren't even breathing.

"Karen! I'm on a date! You know that, it's a Friday night, why would you think I'd be free on a Friday?" Karen smiled at his petulance, whilst at the same time she noticed the noise of what sounded like a very busy club in the background.

"It's a Friday? Sorry Honey, it's these new pills from Pharmacist, I keep losing time, I thought it was Thursday, well get back to your date Poodle, we'll catch up tomorrow!" She'd barely gotten the words out before the dull ringing of the call tone reached her ears. She had to laugh, for all Jack's attentiveness to her; there was never any choice between spending time with her and some man candy.

Slipping her phone back into her bag, Karen watched amused as Grace and Will drew in large gulps of air; they hadn't been breathing after all. She really was interested to know what this was all about, but she could feel a strong headache coming on, and ironically she didn't have anything with her that she could take for it. Just as she was about to loudly announce that this was wasting her time, Will finally began to explain.

"Now I've brought you both here today to discuss something I think you'll agree is rather important. As you can see we are missing one of our group, but their absence will be explained shortly…" Will spoke as though giving a lecture, and Karen felt herself already beginning to fall asleep, she wouldn't hold out much longer if he carried on like that. Luckily, Grace had similar thoughts, and expressed them by reaching over and slapping Will's shoulder.

"Get to the point already!"

After giving Grace a truly dirty look, Will re-focused his thoughts, and cut to what was the real point of the meeting.

"Okay, Jack's birthday. You know how big a deal Jack makes over his birthday each year, well this year, I thought we'd do something really nice for him. We've all had a bit of a tough year, and I just thought that it would be a really nice time to celebrate our surviving. Now I know we have a long time before his birthday comes around, but I figured that the earlier we start planning, the better ideas we can come up with, and the more time we have to put them into action! So anyone have anything they can think of?" Will finished, a huge grin on his face.

He was quite proud of himself; there was about seven months until Jack's birthday, and whilst that really was a long time away, he'd always prided himself on his organisation. He knew that with all that time to plan, this birthday would be the best Jack had ever had; it could really be a celebration for all of them. Looking around at the girls, Will smiled wider at the look of concentration on Grace's face. Through the years she and Jack had become good friends, much closer than he had imagined they would be all those years ago when he'd asked for that for his birthday. Turning his gaze on Karen, he was surprised to find her staring distantly into the space between them, her full wine glass hanging dangerously loose in her hand.

Karen had stopped listening to Will the moment he mentioned Jack's birthday, she'd forgotten that. With everything else, she had forgotten when Jack's birthday was, and though it was a long way off, she couldn't help but think that it would come too fast and yet not soon enough. She couldn't deal with this now, but there was no way out unless she spilled everything, and she couldn't do that, it wasn't in her plan. Suddenly realising that Will had finished talking she shifted her thoughts and gaze back to him, to find his own eyes on her. Smiling slightly to cover up anything he may have read from her, Karen couldn't have been more grateful when Grace jumped up from the sofa in excitement.

"I've got it! I've got it! Jack's birthday is in like seven months right? Well I know that there is going to be a gay icons tribute concert right around that time in Vegas; that would be perfect! We could take the weekend and spend it in Vegas, you know I missed out last time you guys were there, make Jack's birthday into a whole weekend thing!" By the time she had finished, Grace was practically bouncing around the room, her arms waving about excitedly.

Will smiled at her, it did sound perfect and he knew Jack would love it. They'd have to book up soon though, who knew how fast those tickets would sell. He was even more proud of himself for starting this early now.

"Okay, so we'll all go, just the four of us, we won't bring anyone, no matter who we're with at the time."

Karen sat frozen in place. Everything was happening so fast. She couldn't make long term plans like that. The whole thing did sound wonderful, and it hurt so much to know that she'd not actually get to experience it. But she wouldn't and as much as she really didn't want to tell them yet, she knew she had to say something, anything to stop them from including her in the plans.

"Make that the three of you Honey. I won't be going." Her voice came out quieter than she wanted, shakier too, but she held her chin up high, thinking fast of a believable excuse. She almost shrank under the sudden scrutiny of the others, and opened her mouth to tell her lies, but was beaten to it, by an unexpectedly angry Will.

"Oh and why is that? Can't take the time away from your precious pills? Or do you have some pressing matters that will come up then? It can't be because of work, because you don't do anything, and it sure as Hell isn't because of family, because we all know how you feel about anything involving spending time with your loved ones! You know what, you are quite possibly the most selfish woman I have ever met, and you know what?..."

"Will I don't think…" Grace tried to cut him off, throughout his rant she'd been focused on Karen, and she'd seen the effect of his words, seen each wince she gave at every accusatory word, and she could see the blatant pain on her face that Will appeared blind to.

"No Grace, this needs to be said. I don't care what excuse you use to get out of my birthday plans, but this is Jack, and I thought he meant something to you, obviously I was wrong! No one matters but the great Karen Walker, well guess what, you don't matter either, and we will do just fine without you!" Will finally stopped, his voice having risen to a shout, and he turned his back to Karen, unable to even look at her any longer.

"You want to know why I won't be going? You want to know the reason that I'm sitting here taking everything you're throwing at me?" Karen couldn't stop herself; the pain at his words had become anger. Anger at Will. Anger at herself for not saying something sooner. Anger at the injustice of what was happening to her. And before she could take the time to fully understand what she was saying, and what the consequences would be, she found herself spilling it all, while the two other people in the room listened on in shock.

"I won't be around by the time Jack's birthday comes. While you're in Vegas listening to a bunch of Queens singing their hearts out, I'll be 6 feet beneath the ground with worms crawling all over me! And you know what? As hard as it may be for you to believe me, it really hurts that I won't be there with you. That I won't get to be with Jack for his birthday. But you don't care right? Because I mean nothing? Well that's just great, because I've been struggling for ages trying to come up with a way to break this to you, but I shouldn't have bothered because you don't actually care. So here it is, I'm dying. There was no stake through the heart, no silver bullet, it's not the drugs or the alcohol, it's the cells in my body turning against me. And I'm glad you can live quite fine without me, because you will have to!"

She fell silent, her own voice having started out as a shout, had faded to almost a whisper. For the first time, she noticed the tears on her cheeks, and she raised her hand to brush them away, turning herself so she no longer had to look at Will nor Grace, not wanting to see their reactions. It wasn't supposed to have come out like this. Not whilst they were all so angry, and not until her Poodle had known first. Everything was such a mess, and she couldn't stop the tears from flowing freely. The walls she'd built up so long ago crumbled once more, and with no other choice, she gave in to the emotions inside her.

Will and Grace remained in the same places, unmoving, but for the blinking of their eyes and the fast rise and fall of their chests. Neither could process what had just happened.

Will was the first to come out of his daze, and he focussed once more fully on Karen. He could see from the shaking of her back and shoulders that she was crying, and he felt like he would join her. He was so confused over what Karen had said, but most of all, beneath the enormous amount of pain he could feel growing as his mind tried to sort out the new information, the guilt he felt over what he had said, and what he had pushed her to, nearly broke him. Before he knew what he was doing, he'd covered the distance between them, and pulled her roughly into a tight hold. Turning her slightly so her side and shoulder lay against his chest. He felt her stiffen at first, and then, as though the last brick had fallen from her walls, she grabbed hold of him just as tight. He held her close as sobs wracked her small frame, dipping his face to the top of her head, and kissing her hair, one hand rubbing loose circles across her back, his own tears dripping onto her.

"I am so sorry Kare, so sorry."

Grace watched on as Will tried to comfort Karen, her shock at what was happening to her friend, taking much longer to settle in. It didn't seem real, one minute they were all talking about spending Jack's birthday together, and the next one of them was dying. Her own tears ran unheeded down her cheeks, it shouldn't have been happening like this. Karen was still so young, granted she didn't know exactly how young, but still she knew she was too young, and too full of life.

Unable to stay away any longer, Grace moved to stand with her friends, coming up behind Karen and facing Will. Will raised his head and they stared, one tear-streaked face to another, with Karen's muffled sobbing between them. No words were exchanged, and Grace moved closer still until Karen was sandwiched between them. Grace's arms came up around Will's and they stood together supporting each other.

: end flashback :

Thanks for reading! Was it worth the wait? Let me know!