Karen ducked her head and tried to look into the glass windows of the coffee shop, obscured by people seated along the windows and the occasional decorative plant. Why she had chosen this coffee shop, the one three blocks from Will and Vince's apartment where they all used to spend their Sunday afternoons and where any one of them could show up at any time, was beyond her. She sighed thinking of her stupidity, but was also relieved to realize that no one she knew was in the shop at the moment.

Well, there was one person.

Ben stood politely as Karen approached the table in the corner, then pulled her chair out for her to sit.

"Thanks for meeting me here," she told him, glancing around nervously, despite the fact that she had just assured herself that no one here would be interested in what was being discussed at their table.

"Sure," he answered. His face was warm and friendly, not unlike his father's. He gestured toward the order counter behind Karen, looked up at the menu that was screwed into the molding near the ceiling. "Do you want something?"

Karen licked her lips and glanced behind her.

"No, no, I'm fine. But thanks, honey," she answered him. She noticed his hands cup around a pale green coffee mug in front of him. Was she late? She looked at her watch. Actually, she was two minutes early.

"I've been here for a little while already," Ben explained, as if reading Karen's mind. He produced a legal pad and black ballpoint pen from beneath the table and placed it in front of Karen. The top page was a flurry of scribblings and equations; all jibberish to Karen. But then Ben flipped the page, and the next, and the next, and a finally came to rest on a mostly blank page, with four neatly printed lines of numbers at the top. They were prices.

"These are all the drugs that are on the market right now for HIV and AIDS patients," Ben explained, using the tip of his pen to point to each item on the list. "Xeripol, Slandrandine, Hexprinol, and Lexvitine."

"And these…work?" Karen asked him, not taking her eyes off of the writing on the page. Ben was silent for a minute, and she finally looked up at him. He was frowning.

"Well…" he bobbed his head from side to side, "yes and no."

"What do you mean?"

"Most of these only lessen the symptoms of whatever virus or bacteria it is that attacks the weakened immune system. So in essence, the attacking virus is still there, the patient just isn't as aware of it. The end result is still the same, and the time frame doesn't change much…the quality of life is just different."

That didn't sound so bad to Karen. She just couldn't bear to watch Jack suffer.

"So which of these is the new experimental one?" Karen asked. Ben's eyebrows shot up in surprise. Apparently his mother-in-law hadn't told him very much about why Karen wanted to meet with him.

"Who told you about that?" he asked, his voice almost a whisper as he leaned forward across the table toward Karen.

"Grace did," she replied, crossing her arms in front of her.

From somewhere on his side of the table, a cell phone rang.

"Excuse me, for a minute," Ben told her, holding up his index finger with one hand and pulling his phone out of his pocket with the other. "This is Dr. Truman," he answered it, turning in his chair as if Karen couldn't hear him if he wasn't facing her.

Karen sighed and leaned back in her chair as Ben chattered in a jargon that was completely foreign to her. His face was tensed and serious, and he fidgeted absent-mindedly with his silk tie. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, Karen thought. For a moment, she felt as though she was back sitting in Will's office, sighing and rolling her eyes at him as he patiently tried to explain legal things to her that she didn't understand and really didn't care to. But this was different. This was a matter of life and death.

Jack didn't even get out of bed this morning. He had good days and bad days, but Karen knew the bad days were slowly edging out the good days. He hardly ever touched his piano anymore, and rarely went outside. Karen laid in his bed every night, pressed a damp cloth against his forehead and sang him the sweet lullabies her mother had always sung to her when she was sick. It felt comfortable and natural to her, being a nurturing force, but it was killing her to watch this disease killing him.

"Sorry," Ben apologized, slipping his phone back into his pocket and turning back towards Karen.

"Let's cut right to the chase, Ben," Karen told him. She wasn't threatening or condescending, she was just worried. Tired and worried. She had to do something now. "I can't sit back and watch this destroy Jack. And I need more than just a temporary solution, more than just the illusion that he's ok…he's all I've got. Please."

They looked at each other in silence for a minute. Ben and Karen had been friends for a long time. He thought of her as more of an aunt than just one his dad's friends, in fact. Sometimes, when he was younger, she had stepped in and filled the role of mother for him, even. He knew the intricacies of the relationship she had with Jack, saw the love she had for him in her eyes…the love that would never come to fruition. He suddenly felt bad for Karen, pitied her in a way that she normally would never allow herself to be pitied.

"It's called Thenazedrine," he told her, and she smiled with relief. He was going to help her - help Jack. "We've gotten it to the point where it isn't dangerous anymore, but there are still some side effects we're trying to work out. We've only tried it on lab rats so far, but it's been pretty successful."

"Great," Karen breathed, excited. She was no stranger to experimental drugs. She wasn't worried.

"But Karen…it's going to be expensive."

Karen reached down into her purse, withdrew her hand and slapped down a pile of hundred dollar bills on the table in front of Ben.

"There's five thousand there," she told him. He just stared at it and chuckled, shook his head.

"Karen, $5,000 isn't even a fraction of the sales tax on this stuff. This doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the price tag on this."

"Oh, honey, I know," Karen smiled at him. "Don't you know by now how much money I have?" She took his hand off of where it was resting on the table and opened it so it was palm up. "This is just your tip," she told him, and placed the stack of bills into his hand and closed his fingers around it. They share a broad smile.

Suddenly, Ben's phone was ringing again, but this time it is a different tone. He quickly slid his phone out of his pocket and pressed it to his hear.

"Hello? Ok…OK! I'll be right there. Love you!"

Karen raised her eyebrows at Ben as he shoved the phone back in his pocket and quickly stood from the table.

"I've got to go…" he starts, ripping the legal pad from under Karen's nose and shoving it into his briefcase. "Laila's in labor."

"Oh my God!" Karen exclaimed, standing to hug him briefly as he stuck the wad of bills she had given him into a zippered compartment on the front of the leather case.

"I'll get those pills over to you as soon as I can," he assured her, leaning down to kiss her cheek. "I'm gonna be a daddy…" he stated, awe and anxiety in his voice and eyes. Karen giggled and kissed him once more before he swiftly headed towards the door. "We'll call you when the baby is here!" he called back to her over his shoulder. And then he was gone.

Karen sat back down at their table and smiled down at her folded hands. Yes, this was a good day.