January 1985 was a bitter cold one, in more ways than one. Allison managed to find some of her grandmother's old baggy sweaters, so they fit Allison in her growing state. Even her baggiest sweater was growing tight. Her parents were talking to her, but they weren't kind or encouraging, or even sympathetic words exchanged. Danny always quoted some Bible text about illegitimate children, and Marty kept repeating that Allison was the reason why she lost a major case (Allison couldn't find a connection) and that the new baby would cost Marty and Danny a 'shit load of money, and we can't afford to keep any kids around right now.'

The day Brian went back to college at NYU was a sad one for Allison. Brian had been a great support to her and Bender. He was as loyal as a hound dog and as sympathetic as a person could be. He'd been asked by Claire about Bender multiple times during his stay, and Allison knew it. Brian sided with Bender, however, and as much as he felt everyone deserved a second chance, Claire had crossed a line at one point, and Brian rarely addressed her back. Bender, Allison, and Brian had spent Brian's month home together as much as possible. They were tight. Even Rudy and Tad grew to think of Brian as more than a skinny nerd in baggy pants. Brian, of course, had to get past their initial skeptical attitude, but Brian quickly grew on Tad and Rudy. The five of them had one of the best months of any of their lives. Allison thought that maybe, this was the real Breakfast Club she was walking around with now.

As for Andy's message on her answering machine, Allison had taken the tape out of the answering machine, labeled it, and played it over and over just to hear Andy's message. It gave her a tingle up and down her spine listening to his voice. She decided in the end to not respond. It wouldn't do much good. Besides, she had everything she ever wanted in her four friends. Why would she want to risk breaking that up? Besides, Andy's message felt forced. Like he was on lockdown or something until he made the call. No use dragging Andy back home where he didn't want to be. So after about a week or so, she threw out the tape and didn't think about it again.

Allison managed to push on through school even without Bender there with her. Ernie had generously given him full time at the garage on a nice salary. Despite being called down to Hashimoto every other day to talk about "options" and Liz spreading the rumors which would make a being of the norm shoot themselves, Allison still had Tad and Rudy by her side. That was plenty. Bender would take his lunch breaks at the school and then they'd be together for that ½ hour every day, Allison's favorite ½ hour of the day.

On the second Saturday of January, Allison had an appointment with Dr. Wilson for her monthly check up. She usually got a bus to take her into Chicago to the appointment. Bender usually wouldn't go near the doctor's office. Allison didn't know why…maybe medical buildings were his weakness or something? Allison brushed it off. After the appointment, she was going to go home and start packing. Bender would help her, and tad and Rudy planned to meet them at the garage. They, along with Ernie and a few of the mechanics, had been working since New Year's at building walls and fixing the plumbing up…and adding a few appliances like a stove and refrigerator for free.

When she got home from her appointment, Allison found Bender sitting on the sofa in the living room about to light up. Allison threw her coat at him, startling him.

"DON'T! Marty and Danny will kill—"

"—you aren't living under their roof as of next weekend. I don't think you should concern yourself with them anymore!"

"They can still pick up the phone and have you arrested!" Allison grabbed the joint from Bender's hand and opened a window, hurling it outside to the street below. Bender gave Allison an odd look. Allison raised an eyebrow, and Bender groaned. "Let's get some stuff together."

"How much do you have?" asked Bender, following Allison into her room.

"Other than 60 lbs of sweater…and 121 pounds of mom, not much," Allison said, handing Bender a box and opening her desk drawer. Bender didn't have time to get a look before Allison began unloading the wads of notebooks, papers, photos, etc., into the box in his hands. A book fell to the floor. Allison picked it up and looked through it before putting it on top of the pile. Bender looked. It was a journal! He wondered, if only for a sec, what could possibly be written in it.

"121 lbs?" asked Bender. "Geez…"

"I know," Allison muttered, rubbing her stomach lightly.

"Did you get the pickup from Big Joe?" asked Allison. "We'll need it…"

"Yeah, it's out front," Bender said. Suddenly, he heard a door open, and voices. Marty and Danny were home. Time for the 'fun' to begin. Bender groaned and put the box down, looking at the door with anticipation.

"Danny! I tell you, that's NOT the way to handle the Swanson case!"

"And I tell YOU, Marty, Kathy and Chip Swanson had no right to try handling it on their own before they came to us! The whole file looked like a tornado ripped through it!"

"But come ON! You were WAY out of line!"

"ME?"

"YOU!"

Allison sighed and gently closed the door to her room. Marty and Danny sounded like they were arguing. Again. They were fighting with each other a lot more since the 'news' came out, and not just ABOUT Allison either. It used to be work was the one thing they truly agreed on. Not anymore, obviously. Allison didn't bother letting them know that she was planning to move out by the end of next week. Why would they care? More room for them to argue! Maybe they'd start throwing things at each other like Jack and Roxanne Bender! Might as well make it a perfect 10 in the dysfunctional family department! All the more reason for Allison not to look back after she left.

"Sounds like World War Four…" Bender muttered.

"Four?"

"Roxanne started Three last week when she told my old man that 'cigarettes weren't in the budget, the electric bill was overdue' or something like that," said Bender. Allison nodded.

"Sucks to be you," Allison said.

"No more than it does to be you," said Bender.

Allison finished emptying out her bedside stand and went to her closet and opened the door. Bender was amazed. Her closet, a walk-in, was bigger than her room as a whole! Rather than being stuffed with clothes and shoes, there was only a large trunk in the corner of the room covered in an old sheet. Allison sighed and removed the sheet. "Might as well go through this and see if anything's worth keeping around…"

"What is it?" asked Bender.

"My Grandma Flora's old trunk. She secretly left it to me after she died because she didn't think Marty and Danny were 'worth half of what was inside.'"

"She fucking got that part right! You know what's in it?"

"Yeah," said Allison, cracking open the trunk. The first things she extracted her a few old ledgers and photo albums. "Keep these…" she instructed Bender, placing them in the box he'd just picked up. "…and these…" she said, putting a small jewelry case in the box. "I think her ruby engagement ring was in there…."

"And your parents never wondered where this stuff was?" asked Bender.

"Hell no," Allison shook her head. "They were too busy fighting over her estate and her cash, which she had none of anyway. But Danny and Marty are eternally convinced that there's a buried box of cash somewhere around. Too bad they didn't get to it first…"

"This is a buried box of treasure? More like pawn shop junk to me…"

"I'd expect you to say that," Allison muttered, putting a few fedora hats, certificates, a bottle of brandy from 1927, even a flapper-like dress and straight out of the 1920's in the box. Bender wondered why she really needed all that junk in the first place. Allison pulled out a single heeled shoe, all but disintegrated, looked at it, even smelled it, and then put it in the box. She sifted through a few strings of pearls, a TIME magazine from 1925, and four or five booklets of sheet music for various jazz tunes. Grandma played the trumpet, and even that was carefully preserved in it's black trunk off to one side. Allison opened up the trumpet case and looked at the faded brass instrument inside. She sighed and closed the trunk, putting it in the box.

"Ah! Here we go…" Allison carefully extracted a wad of yellowish-white lace from the bottom of the trunk. After unraveling it, it was revealed to be a very old-fashioned, very dolled up wedding gown. Bows, fluffs, crinoline skirts, and satin sashes tumbled every which way. Bender thought it could pull double duty as a wedding dress and a tent if the honeymoon was at a camp site. "It was Flora's grandmother's wedding gown! Surprised it's even in this good condition! Over 100 years old…"

"Jesus Christ, a 100 year old marshmallow!" Bender laughed.

"Marty didn't wear it to her wedding. Flora wouldn't give it to her. When I went to stay with her, she'd put it on, and I put on one of the fedora hats and we'd play 'wedding.' And I never wanted to put this thing on! I wanted to be the groom."

Bender snickered. "What a dyke you were!"

"Exactly," Allison said. "This alarmed Danny, so that's how he got me into those damn beauty pageants. I'm not a dyke, but I guess I am a tomboy."

Bender laughed more. "You taking it with you?"

"No shit, Sherlock," Allison muttered, carefully folding up the dress and putting into a box of it's own.

"What is he doing here?" chimed an angry voice from behind the pair. Marty, bottle of booze in hand, stood behind them. Danny, behind her, was squeezing a liquid stress buddy so hard Allison felt it was going to pop.

"He's….helping me move," said Allison. Marty went red.

"Wha?" Danny asked. "What the hell is this? Moving?"

"Definitely not, Allison!" Marty demanded.

Bender was about ready to leap to her defense, but Allison managed to speak first.

"Why do you care?" asked Allison, hauntingly calm. "You didn't seem to care about me before I got pregnant….why do you bother caring now?"

"You'll have nowhere to go!" Danny said.

"I'm living in nowhere right now," Allison shot back. "You're not my parents," she said, shaking her head.

"Yes we are, and as long as you're living under our roof—"

"—but that's just it! You don't give a damn about me! I'm not living under your roof anymore!" Allison said, her nose turned up.

"If anyone finds out you're illegitimately pregnant, who'll cover for you?" asked Marty.

"No one has before. Oh, wait….ONE person has stuck up for me…and he's not either of you," Allison said, looked at Bender. He looked interested in Marty's and Danny's next play.

"If you leave this house, you can just forget about coming back!" Danny said.

"Thanks for the blessing," Allison snapped back. Marty wore a look of fury. Danny's stress buddy popped, spilling blue goop all over his hand. He didn't even notice.

"Allison Marie Reynolds—"

"Have a nice life, you two."

Allison picked up two of the packed boxes, and pointed silently at Bender to pick up the third. He obeyed without a word and followed Allison to the door. She let Bender go out the front door into the hallway first, but then Allison suddenly stopped and turned back to her former parents.

"By the way, it's Portia. Not Marie. Por-tia."

And with that, she walked out of her prison cell and stepped onto the street a free woman. Free at long last.