"2 Kool 2 B 4-Gotten"

"I'm sorry I tried to kiss you at the reunion. How much does your girlfriend hate me?"

Kyle smiled that same old half a smile. "She could smell the booze on your breath from a mile away, Katherine. Besides ... she understands my raw animal magnetism."

Katherine laughed, then groaned. "Don't make me laugh," she said. "I'll end up puking again."

He sat down on the hospital bed, which barely creaked under his negligable weight. Between the two of them, they were barely above the average weight of one person from this town.

"We had some good times," Kyle said, brushing her hair back. "We were good for each other, for a while. Got each other through some hard shit, no doubt. It's just ... time."

"Time's a bitch," Katherine said, squeezing the hand that was on her brow.

"No doubt," Kyle said. "But hey, I've still got my hair. And you didn't need two chairs like that cheerleader bitch who used to call you Bones. We could've done worse."

"Let's not fight anymore," Katherine said.

"Deal," Kyle said. "Look, I need to run -- Julie's gonna want to call home and check on her kids, and we left the cell phone at the hotel."

"You can't stay with your brother?" Katherine asked.

Kyle just looked at her. "Oh, yeah, you're 'living in sin,' I guess he'd say."

"Aren't we all?" Kyle asked. He leaned down, kissed her forehead. "See you in the funny pages."

He walked out of the hospital room, and dropped his head down. The Brennans were talking to the doctor on duty tonight in the emergency room; "the" doctor, a phrase that wouldn't make any sense at all in the places where Kyle was used to living now, but in a small town...

"How could she not have told us?"

"It's not full-blown AIDS; at least that's something. Right, doctor?"

"I really can't discuss it with you, sir; she only authorized me to tell you she has HIV."

"Well, I'm sure drinking at the reunion on top of a dozen pills a day can't be good..."

"I need to see the next patient. At least the drunks aren't on the road, yet..."

Kyle walked past them silently, and he might as well have been invisible; her parents had never approved of him back in high school, they weren't acknowledging him now, they wouldn't accept his condolences or his advice that he knew a dozen people who'd had the virus for years, and hell, they'd probably blame him, even though he was clean, by some dumb luck.

No point in talking to them. At least that's what he told himself.

He got to the car, and looked inside. Julie was asleep, cell phone in her lap. Good. He wouldn't have to explain the tears. No need to lie to both of them tonight.