Eventually, Max did find the script, and he was sitting at his desk when Leo returned that night.

"Be right back, huh?" said Max, glancing up at him over his reading glasses.

"I-I'm s-sorry, Max…" said Leo, closing the door behind him.

"That's all right. I managed to find the script," Max told him, taking off his reading glasses and itching his nose.

"Y-you did? That's g-good…" said Leo, his blue blanket in his hands.

"Leo, put that thing away and come here!" Max told him. Leo did as he was told and cautiously approached Max. "So, what do you think of it so far? I think the writer is long dead now, unfortunately… We could probably talk to Rodger and Carmen about directing, and maybe Franz for any potential revisions."

"Oh, no! Don't revise it! It was an amazing piece back in its day!" Leo exclaimed, standing behind Max now.

"Was it? I never really saw it. Well, I did, but I didn't pay attention. My eyes were on the star," said Max, looking up at Leo.

"No, you should never revise this one! It's great the way it is!" Leo exclaimed, taking the script from Max's hands and looking at it.

"All right, if you insist," said Max, still looking up at Leo. "Say, have you ever gone looking for another girlfriend?"

"What? Er… No, Max.. I don't want another girlfriend," said Leo, not taking his eyes from the script.

"I understand," said Max. "Who would want a repeat of what happened between you and Ulla?" Leo sighed. No, Max did not understand. He thought he did, because Leo wouldn't tell him why he really didn't want a girlfriend.

"Exactly," Leo lied, not looking at his best friend. "Max, I can tell you anything… Right?"

"Of course you can, Leo! That's what friends are for!" Max told him cheerfully.

"Well…" Leo began. Max was listening intently. What upset Leo was the fact that he knew he couldn't tell Max his true feelings about him, so he decided not to say that. Instead, he told Max something that Leo was sure he already knew. "Keep the moustache… it adds to your appearance." Max gave him a confused expression and knew very well that that was not what Leo was going to say.

"All right…" he said. "Should I still call Franz and Rodger and Carmen tomorrow and have them come over or what?"

"I guess you could…" said Leo, closing the script and handing it back to Max. "I'm kind of tired now… I think I'm going to go to bed."

"All right. Good night, Leo. Take my bed for the night. I'm going to finish up here," Max told him, placing his reading glasses back on his nose and opening the script.

"All right. Good night, Max," said Leo, and he went into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. As he lay down in Max's bed, he smiled to himself. The bed smelled of Max, and it was a comforting scent to Leo. He felt as if Max were hugging him, and when he closed his eyes and pulled the blanket around him tighter, he envisioned that Max was holding him, and he fell asleep with a smile on his face.

The following morning, Max was up early. Leo hadn't woken up yet, so Max was reading over the script once more when suddenly, there was a knock at the door. He looked up with a curious expression and stood.

"Who would be knocking on my door at this hour?" he muttered to himself, and he went to answer the door. Standing outside of it was Evelyn Saunders, and behind her was a young man who looked very similar to Max. "Evie?"

"Good morning, Max. Sorry about the early intrusion. May we come in?" Evelyn replied as Max yawned into his hand. Max nodded and stepped aside as he finished yawning, and closed the door after the young man stepped inside. "Max, there's someone I'd like you to meet." Evelyn took the young man's arm and pulled him to her side. "Max, this is Charlie. Charlie, this is your father, Max Bialystock."

"The Broadway producer?" asked the young man who was Max and Evelyn's son, Maxwell Charles Bialystock. Max nodded, not saying a word. "Aren't you a failure?" Max was taken aback, but he wasn't surprised. Evelyn was right when she said that Charlie was much like himself.

"A failure! HA! I was a failure… Not anymore. It's a pleasure to finally meet the boy that I can call my son," said Max, sticking out his hand. Charlie just kind of looked at it, then leaned into his mother's ear.

"Can I go home now?" he whispered, and Evelyn looked at him.

"Charlie! That isn't a nice thing to say…" she told him. "Charlie, excuse us a moment. Just… go into the hallway…"

"Gladly," said Charlie, and he left, slamming the door in the process.

"He doesn't like me, does he?" Max asked Evelyn.

"Well… I can't say that he does, and I can't say that he doesn't. You haven't exactly been there for him, Max," Evelyn told him.

"I know, I know… But it wasn't my fault, it my defence," said Max, turning and walking to the window. "I wish he'd at least let me be there for him now."

"Maybe he will… He might have a mouth on him, but give him a chance," Evelyn told him, now standing behind him. Max turned to face her, taking her hands in his very much like he did during the afternoon on the day she left him.

"Would you be willing to give me a second chance?" he asked her. Evelyn looked down at her hands and said nothing for a few moments.

"Well, I… I guess the way that I… reacted was a bit… unnecessary…" Evelyn murmured, and Max caught her chin beneath his finger and forced her to look at him.

"A bit?" he asked. "Perhaps it was a bit… But I don't blame you one bit." Evelyn's eyes were on his now, and her breathing had turned to nervous breaths. "You had every right in the world to be upset with me that night. I'll probably regret saying this later, though, so keep that in mind." Evelyn nodded, looking anywhere but Max's eyes. "Evelyn?" Her eyes made it back to Max's and before she knew it, Max was leaning into her and, very gently, he pressed his lips against hers. There was still a fire that exploded within Max when he kissed Evelyn, but for some reason, it just wasn't as strong as it used to be back in 1944. Was it maybe the amount of time that had taken place in between their last meeting and their current one? Max just couldn't explain it. Quietly, the door to the bedroom opened, and Leo's disgruntled head appeared in the crack of the door.

"Max? Was that loud noise you?" he asked, and he let out a cry when he saw Evelyn and Max kissing by the couch. Max and Evelyn jumped apart and looked at Leo, who was naked from the waist up. When he saw Evelyn blush and look down, Leo looked down at his chest and let out another cry, and then he pulled himself back into the room and slammed the door. Max, of course, couldn't stop staring at the door, and then he tore his gaze from the door and looked at Evelyn.

"Excuse me…" he said, and he went to the door and opened it. "Leo!" He closed the door behind him and looked at Leo, who jumped and covered his bare chest with a blanket as Max approached him. "Oh, stop that nonsense! You don't have tits!" He ripped the blanket from Leo's hands, and Leo raised his hands to his chest as if to protect it. "Why did you walk in on us like that?"

"I-in m-m-my def-fence M-Max… I-I d-d-didn't know y-y-you two w-were… were m-m-making out…" Leo stuttered, looking anywhere but at Max. He was taller than Max by a good four inches, so it was pretty easy to miss him.

"I thought you were sleeping!" Max exclaimed in a hushed whisper.

"I was, b-b-but I h-heard a c-crashing sound…" Leo stuttered. Max sighed.

"I shouldn't be getting mad at you. It's giving me a headache. Just get dressed," Max told him, and he went to the door. "Oh, and Leo?"

"Y-Yes, M-Max?" Leo asked him.

"I'm sorry for frightening you," Max said, and then he exited the room. Leo was stiff, but as soon as Max closed the door, he collapsed onto the bed and searched for his blue blanket among the other blankets.

"Right… So your mother left you with me…" Max said a few hours later after having discovered that Evelyn had things to do and she left Charlie with Max. Charlie nodded, his hands shoved in his pockets. "Why would she do that to me?"

"I'd like to ask the same question," Charlie said to him. "Some father you are!"

"You watch your mouth, boy!" Max exclaimed, sitting up from the chair at his desk.

"Why don't you watch yours? I refuse to be spoken like that by some old man I've never even met until now!" Charlie shouted back.

"Old man? For the record, I am a little over thirty years older than you! I'm not even close to being in my sixties, and I'm rather fit and good-looking for my age!" Max spat back. "I won't take any of the shit that comes out of your mouth, young man! I can't even call you a young man… You aren't old enough!"

"Like I care!" Charlie spat back. He and Max were now face-to-face. It was certainly hard for a fight to be won when it was Bialystock versus Bialystock!

"You'd better apologize to me, Maxwell Charles Bialystock!" Max snapped at him, jabbing his finger in Charles's chest.

"As soon as I'm old enough, I'm changing my last name to my mother's. I'm already cursed to be the biological son of the likes of you!" Charlie snapped at him. "I am not a Bialystock! I might be legally, but in my heart, I'm not!"

"It doesn't matter what you change your name to. You'll always be Maxwell Charles Bialystock no matter what," Max spat in his face. "When I was at the rebellious age of seventeen, I, too, wanted to change my name from Maxwell William Bialystock to my mother's maiden name, but I didn't! Do you know why I didn't? Because I have respect for the family that I come from! Just like you should!"

"Respect the family that I come from? You're telling me that I should respect the man who didn't even have the decency to show up at least once in my life? And you dare call yourself my father…" Charlie said to him. Obviously, the boy didn't know all of the facts yet.

"You don't know anything, do you, you naïve little shit?" Max asked him. He placed an arm around the boy's shoulder and led him to the window. "Listen to what I have to say for once: Your mother left me in 1944 a week before we were due to be married. On the day of what was supposed to be our wedding, a letter from your mother arrived, calling off the engagement. I tried to write back to her, but the letters were sent back. She never contacted me again after that… She wanted nothing more to do with me, and she sure as hell didn't tell me about you! Otherwise, I would have been there!"

"Wh-why would she do that?" Charlie asked Max, looking up at him. Max shrugged.

"I don't know… Did she ever tell you about me?" he asked his son, looking down at him.

"A few times… She explained to me why my last name was Bialystock and not my step-father's," said Charlie.

"So she told you about me… She didn't tell me about you until my business partner snooped through my drawers and somehow found her. How he did that escapes me. I tried to find her for the first five years after she left me, but no name came up. I had assumed that she had married and changed her last name, which made it much harder for me to find her," Max said to him. "How old were you when she married?"

"About three," replied Charlie.

"And what was the man's name?" asked Max.

"John Tracey," said Charlie. Max looked at him with an are-you-kidding-me look.

"Of course it was… That was one of the first names that I found about three years after she left me…" Max said in an irritated tone. Charlie laughed and pulled out of Max's grip.

"Serves you right for hurting her the way you did," Charlie said to him. At that statement, Max had had enough, and with all of his might, he slapped the boy right across the face.

"Don't you DARE say that again, do you hear me? I know the mistakes I made and I DON'T have to be reminded of them! You don't think that for the past eighteen years, I regretted all that I did that night? You don't think that the guilt ate away at me every minute of every day? You don't know anything, you little shit, and you never will!" Max yelled at him. Charlie knew that he had gone too far, but now he had an excuse to leave.

"Fine… I'll just leave then… Things were much better for all of us before that stupid partner of yours contacted my mother!" Charlie shouted, and then he ran out of the office before Max could do anything about it. Just as Max made for the door, Leo had come out of the bathroom after a long shower wearing nothing but a towel and watched someone – a young man that looked a bit like Max – run by on the sidewalk through the window.

"Wh-whose that?" asked Leo, looking out the window. Max raced to the window and watched Charlie disappear, and he sighed.

"That, Leo, was my son… And he's right, I am a horrible father," he told Leo, sitting down on the couch.

"Oh, no! No, Max! He didn't say that!" Leo said, sitting down next to him. "N-not that I was… eavesdropping or anything…"

"He didn't have to say it," said Max, staring at the coffee table. "Go and put some clothes on or something… You'll catch a cold." Leo nodded and stood.

"I'm here if you need me, Max…" he told him. Max said nothing, and Leo went into the bedroom to change.