"Well, I'm glad you two had a good time, honey," Karen spoke into the phone, her legs curled beside her on the couch as she listened to Laila's account of her and Ben's honeymoon. "Listen, I've got to get going, but come on over when you get your wedding album done, we'd love to see it…ok honey, you too. Talk to you later."

"Who was that?" Jack asked, pausing in the doorway of the library. He had his jacket on and a Burberry scarf pulled tightly around his neck. With his glasses on, Karen noticed how much he was finally turning into Will, who as they all knew, had been dressing and acting like an old man long before he actually was one.

"Laila, she and Ben are back from the Caribbean," Karen explained. "Honey are you going somewhere?" she asked, noticing his attire.

"Well it's such a nice day out, I thought maybe we could go for a walk in the park," he told her. It was true, for November, it was surprisingly warm, and the sun had been shining through the large glass windows of the library all afternoon as Karen had sat reading. She picked up the half-empty martini glass from the coffee table in front of her and took a drink while nodding at him.

Soon they were out the door, Karen bundled up like Jack, strolling arm in arm down 5th Avenue towards Central Park. Together they meandered down all the little winding paths, crisscrossing the green hills of the park, traversing the little bridges over the streams. They paused at the back entrance of the zoo to listen to the feeding of the big cats; Jack stopped on several occasions to bend down and pet cute dogs that passed by with their cute owners. As they passed a hot dog vendor on the north end of the park, Karen suddenly remembered something.

"So Jack, this morning I went to pharmacist to get a refill on one of my 'prescriptions'" - she made little quotes in the air with her fingers - "and that lazy son of a bitch was closed! So I had to go to back up pharmie, who I haven't seen in years-" suddenly Jack tensed next to her- "and he asked how you were doing and told me to tell you that your refill is ready." Karen paused, frowned, looked Jack in the eye. "Since when do you see pharmacist?"

Jack swallowed, wiped his palms on his thighs. This was not the time he had planned on having this conversation, but he couldn't lie to Karen.

"Kare, are you happy, you know, living with me?" he asked, his voice timid.

"Of course I am," she answered, confused.

"You've never wished you could get married again? Have a real relationship with a man?" he pushed. Karen didn't know where this was going.

"No, Poodle, you're all I need," she answered, twisting her arm around his playfully.

"God damn it, Karen!" Jack suddenly exploded, pulling away from her. They stopped walking. "I'm not going to be around forever, you know! You need to start thinking of yourself for once instead of me all the time! You need to find a stable relationship, someone to take care of you, you know, when…"

"Jack, what is this all about?" Karen demanded, truly frustrated with his outburst. "What's going on?"

Jack sighed, and grabbed her hand once again. His face was apologetic, his tone was pathetic.

"Karen," he began, pulling her down onto a park bench next to him. He swallowed and blinked several times before he could spit the words out: "I'm sick."

Karen just stared at him for awhile, her brows pulled tight, her bottom lip slightly quivering. Jack stared back, a sudden sadness in his eyes that she had noticed before, but mistook it for fatigue, his 62 years weighing on his soul. Now she knew it was something more.

"What -" the word was barely a whisper. She cleared her throat, tried again. "What do you mean? How can you be-"

"I have AIDS."

Karen snapped her head away from him. She wanted to laugh, she wasn't sure why. Maybe because the only other time she had heard those words uttered from anyone, it had been jokingly. You know like when the morning after you sleep with someone for the first time, to lighten the mood you might say "I forgot to tell you, I have AIDS." Or how when someone cuts themselves with a dull kitchen knife and you're disgusted by the tiny amount of blood, you push their hand away exclaiming "Ew! I don't want your AIDS!" But when someone tells you they have AIDS - really have it, not just kidding - its completely different. She looked back at him, a sick smile on her mouth.

"You're joking."

"I'm not."

Her face fell back solemn, and she felt her throat tightening, her eyeballs beginning to sting.

"How long?" she whispered, looking down at her hands. A dark cloud had settled over them, and as she watched the little droplets of water hitting her knuckles, she wasn't sure if they were tears or raindrops. Could've been both.

"I've been HIV positive for 12 years," he told her softly. The words hit her like a knife. Twelve years, my God, she thought, twelve years and I had no idea. He continued. "Last February I went in for a doctor's appointment and they told me it had progressed to the next stage. There's-" Jack's voice broke- "there's not much they can do now."

Karen didn't want to cry, she wanted to be strong. She wanted to be strong for Jack, for the world, but this was too much. She fought off tears for as long as she could, but suddenly, there they were, falling fast and falling hard. Jack reached for her and she cried onto his shoulders, his own tears mixing with hers. A couple of passersby stared at the exchange, but Karen didn't even care.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she spoke softly, wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

"I didn't want to worry you." Karen chuckled bitterly at the irony of it - like she wasn't going to worry now? "They had a new medication, they gave me pills…it worked for awhile…I didn't think I'd ever need to tell you."

Karen sat back from Jack as she dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. He reached a hand up and wiped away some stray mascara from under her eye.

"So what do we do now?" she asked.

"I don't know," he admitted.

"Honey, you should tell Will and Grace," Karen suggested, but Jack shook his head. "Why not? Don't you want their support?"

"I already have all the support I need," Jack told her, smiling feebly and stroking her hand. "You're all I need."