"I grimaced. I had been trying to turn invisible and make my way out of the courtroom before His Honor got to this point. Ironic, because there was a ...ime in my life when I was subsisting on court-appointed cases, and getting handed one out of rotation would have been a nice perk. But those days were long gone, and I had traded my noble-but-poor defender of the underclass gig for a ridiculously overpaid defender of the wealthy one. In actual point of fact, it was probably better characterized. She was wearing black and white checkered open toe shoes which showed her bright red painted toenails, matching perfectly with her hands. I did the obligatory “How are you, how have your been, lovely weather for this year ain’t it? Could be less breezy for my taste. How’s Ben? Talked on the phone but haven’t seen him in person.” and so forth. I saw that she was alone in the house but paid no attention. I got my things and began to head for the door, she said something that stopped me dead. ......My arms felt heavy. Everything... heavy. "...I... I c-," Iuttered. "I can't. I-I... I can't."Mistress Hayley glanced at me."I... can't... do this. I can't..." I put my hands over my opticalsensors. "I can't... outlive you, and Alan, and... the girls, I can't.I won't, no." I shook my head bitterly. "No."She looked quizzical."Not gonna watch you die. No." I plodded away from her, my feetheavy, toward the entrance to the junk-lab."...Nats...," Hayley meekly pipped.I paused."Take. A few minutes later she was just coming back down when the door bell rang. I noticed that she'd changed clothes -- the old ones, no doubt, joining the pile on her bedroom floor. A second later, Lisa called, "We'll be out on the porch." The door closed and they were gone.The show ended and I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. On the way back to the living room I peeked out the window beside the front door. The porch light was off. They were sitting on the top step and making out. Bill was.