(In New York, the nurse comes into Miranda’s room with Lily following. She examines the monitors as Julie looks on. Lily looks at Julie who is staring at the nurse working and fidgeting with the machines hooked up to Miranda.)

NURSE- (To Miranda…) “How are you feeling? Is the pain getting worse?”

MIRANDA- (Nodding…) “Yes, it’s more intense…I don’t feel well…” (She looks over to Julie and just stares into her eyes. Julie moves close to Miranda, grasping her hand tightly and putting her other hand on Miranda’s shoulder. Their gazes are fixed on one another. Lily is feeling intense and looking it as well.)

LILY- (To the nurse…) “Is the doctor around?”

NURSE- “Yes, he’ll be in shortly.”

LILY- “Do you know what’s wrong?”

JULIE- “Lily, why don’t we wait for the doctor?”

NURSE- (She looks from Julie to Lily and then back to Miranda…) “Take slow deep breaths. I need you to relax. Your pulse is fluctuating.”

LILY- (Starting to sound annoyed…) “She’s in pain…”

MIRANDA- “Lil, it’s ok…” (Suddenly, Miranda looks as though the pain hightened. She tightens up and breathes irregularly…) “Julie…I…”

JULIE- “I’m here sweetie…” (The heart monitor sounds as though a frenetic beat is building. The nurse puts her hand on Miranda’s head and looks into her eyes, looks at the monitor and back at Miranda.)

NURSE- (She moves towards the wall behind Miranda’s headboard and slams a button and after a beep yells into the speaker above the button… “ICU, bed 17…”)

(In Angelica’s room, Bette remains standing over her daughter. Shane took Tina home to shower and change after a much needed nap. Alice and Kit took turns sitting with Bette and then decided that she needed to be left alone with her Angelica, so they retired to the waiting room. Bette stared at the little wonder, watched her every movement, followed her chest as it rose to breathe in and fell to exhale…she caressed her, kissed her, and admired the beauty that captivated her…a little girl lying so helpless and yet so powerful in the heart of her mother, once estranged and lost, but now singular in her purpose as she had found her place, if nothing else, and everything else was lost to her.

Bette thought about many things while standing and sitting next to Angelica, but in a way could think clearly of nothing. She saw images of times past and words spoken to her by people who seemed so far away now. She recalls Lily’s words, “…I think it’s about time you reminded yourself of what it was within you that you gave, that you extended, that you shared…what was it of yourself that sent her falling, and falling hard I imagine…and what was it that kept you together for over eight years? What is it in you that makes you weep at the thought of the child you left behind Bette? What is it that, as you say, haunts you? What will haunt her…if not now, then one day?”

Bette then remembers Julie’s words, “Bette life is short…And then one day we lost her. That person left each of our lives. We didn’t have any choice in the matter. You do. And what’s worse is that we are talking about a child, a child that you helped raise as a mother for the first year of her life. Don’t transfer the responsibility of your decision to your child. You’ll grow to regret it and she’ll grow up hating you for it.”

As she ponders the words she thinks of recent days and just how short life is and could be…and she remembers the ‘mission’ she and Miranda promised one another when they thought the end was near on that plane…

MIRANDA- “Bette…” (The plane starts moving from side to side.) “Oh my God…Bette I think you’re great and I’m so very glad I met you.”

BETTE- “Miranda, we’re going to be ok, just hold on.”

MIRANDA- “Please Bette, I love her…I lover her so very much…promise me you’ll tell her if you make it out.”

BETTE- “Don’t…we’re both going to be ok.”

PLANE SPEAKER- “Ladies and gentlemen… We are going to have to make an emergency landing.” (The stewardesses start giving instructions. But the plane is being thrashed about and starts to dive.)

BETTE- “Oh my God, Miranda…my daughter Angelica…please…tell her I love her…tell Tina…”

MIRANDA- “Hold on to my hand. You are going to make it.”

Then after the crash…

BETTE- “Miranda? Miranda?”

MIRANDA- (Whispering…) “Bette? See…I told you you’d make it. Make sure you deliver my message to Julie…please…”

BETTE- (Tearing up…) “No, you will deliver that message in person Ms. Dobbs…”

MIRANDA- “Promise me…”

BETTE- “I…I promise…”

MIRANDA- “Promise me you will deliver your message to your own family too…if we get out of here…it’s your mission…understood?”

BETTE- (She strokes Miranda’s head.) “Understood. Miranda…”


Bette thinks of the survival and their first day of recovery in the hospital in Canada and how Miranda wouldn’t let her forget her promise…

MIRANDA- “You promised me.”

BETTE- “Promised what?”

MIRANDA- “If you got out alive you’d…”
…
BETTE- “I’m heading back to New York with you. I want to make sure everything is ok. I live in New York now Miranda…remember? We work together…”

MIRANDA- “You promised.”

BETTE- “I will…but after I get you back to Julie.”

MIRANDA- “You’ll do no such thing. Forget New York, at least for now. Get the next flight out of here to L.A.”

BETTE- “Everything is fine. There’s no rush. Besides, I don’t think it makes a difference.”

MIRANDA- “You know, life altering events like the catastrophe we just lived through are supposed to enlighten one, not cause immense stupidity.” (Bette bows her head.) “What? What’s wrong?”

BETTE- “I’ve been feeling so far from them. I feel like I’m losing her…she’s letting go of me…forgetting me…somehow disappearing from my life. It feels…I want to see her so desperately but what right do I have now…I left, Miranda…I left…that’s what this catastrophe reminded me…I left her…” (She sighs and the lump in her throat forces out a few tears that stream down her face as she wipes them…) “It feels like a tunnel to her, the only connection to her…to them…is collapsing…I’ve been feeling it more intensely this past while…”

MIRANDA- “So you run in the opposite direction? Bette, I don’t understand you. Even battered, broken, and bruised, every fiber of my being is yearning for Julie…are you standing there telling me you’re not overwhelmed, even with your doubts, just totally overwhelmed by the desire to go to them?”

BETTE- “All I ever wanted to do was go to them…but …”

MIRANDA- “You’re a stupid woman…for all the ivy league in your brain, you’re really very stupid…”

BETTE- “Miranda…I intend to keep my promise and there’s nothing I want more than to see my child but as soon as…”…

MIRANDA- “I can’t listen to this rubbish…look at me Bette…LOOK at me… if I had any ability to move I’d be running out of this hospital and heading straight for the airport for the first flight to New York. Julie was probably writhing in pain…thinking she was losing me. For all we know she might still lose me with all these machines I’m hooked up to…anyway…I don’t know what hurts more…my battered body or the thought of her sitting there waiting to hear…and now waiting to touch me as I sit here spending every single moment focusing on the image of her in my mind…well, at least the moments I’m not wasting trying to get through that ridiculously thick skull of yours.”

Bette now thinks how Miranda was wrong…she hadn’t wasted a moment…she had gotten through to Bette. Bette remembers their last conversation…

BETTE- “Do you need anything? Can I do anything before I go?”

MIRANDA- “Yes, actually you can.”

BETTE- “Sure…what?”

MIRANDA- “Give me a goodbye kiss…on the cheek Porter…” (Bette chuckles and sort of starts to get emotional.) “Nooooo….no crying. Not necessary. You and I survived the Polar Express jalopy catastrophe together…we’re both going to be in each other’s lives for the rest of our lives, one way or another. I say we have a lot to be happy about. I get to see Julie again and you get to see that family of yours. And soon, you’ll be back with us in New York celebrating with us, with Lily and Justin and Julie and I. So no tears.”

BETTE- (Putting her hand on Miranda’s upper arm…) “Please kiss all of them for me?”

MIRANDA- “Of course…even Lily.” (They chuckle and Miranda starts to tear up.) “Damn it, I need a drink!” (Bette laughs.)

BETTE- “You be good. I’ll miss you…I wish I didn’t have to leave.”

MIRANDA- “Stop. Enough. I’ll miss you too but, like I said, we’ll be seeing each other in no time. Now give me my kiss and get going.” (Bette nods and bends down to kiss Miranda…except she kisses her on her forehead, drawing some tears from both women.) “I love you too.” (Bette strokes her face as she steps back and leaves.)

Bette is overcome by the thoughts of the words shared with her new friends in place and time now that seemed so far away, as her head has leaned on the side of Angelica’s bed, while still holding her daughter’s hand as she sits in a chair at her side. Bette had closed her eyes. She couldn’t sleep but she couldn’t think all those images and thoughts and words without closing her eyes and feeling them. And suddenly she’s shaken from her concentration as surprising blow is delivered to her nose…Bette sits up and as her eyes come to a stop on Angelica, she realizes that the little girl had been moving and smacked her unsuspecting mother on the face…Bette’s eyes widen as her daughter’s hand more gently now pat’s her mother’s face…all over her face…

BETTE- “Angelica? Angelica honey?!”

(In New York, the speaker system on the ICU floor regales the occupants… “Code Blue, Code Blue, ICU team bed 17 stat…”)

LILY- (To the nurse…) “What’s happening?!”

NURSE- “We’re going to do the best we can, please stand back…”

JULIE- (Hovering over her lover…) “Miranda, Miranda…” (She’s holding her hand still…) “Miranda?”

NURSE- “Ma’am please…” (She tries to bring her away from the bedside as a group of doctors and nurses rush in with a crash cart…)


(In Angelica’s hospital room…)

ALICE- (Walking through the door….) “Alright Porter, a woman’s gotta eat. You need to be strong for…” (She notices Angelica is moving and Bette is smiling…) “Angie?” (She rushes over to the bed after dropping the food on a stand. She puts her arm over Bette and looks at Angelica.) “Hey kiddo!”

BETTE- “I think she’s in pain…she keeps making this frown face but she hasn’t cried much.”

ALICE- “Did she just wake up?”

BETTE- “Yeah.”

ALICE- “How are her eyes? Did she recognize you? Does she seem alert?”

BETTE- “Alert enough that she punched me.”

ALICE- “What?”

BETTE- “I had put my head down next to her and was sort of half asleep. I was awoken by a smack to the nose. I looked up and there she was feeling my face.”

ALICE- (Smiling and addressing Angelica…) “Hey hey…way to go slugger!”

BETTE- (Smiling…) “Gee thanks!”

ALICE- (Looking at Angelica and being a bit sarcastic…) “She had the guts to do what her earth mother couldn’t some time ago…”

BETTE- “Oh, I see. Guess I deserved that.”

ALICE- “And Porter…you put me through that airplane disaster emotional rollercoaster ride ever again and I’ll have Angelica here show you a real beating!” (She looks at Bette and Bette smiles as Alice looks away towards Angelica.)

BETTE- “Can we get the doctor?”

ALICE- “Yeah, I’ll get the nurse to reach him.” (She exits the room to go find the doctor.)

(In New York, Julie is sitting in her chair next to Miranda’s bed. Her head is resting on her hands next to Miranda, just as Bette had fallen asleep next to Angelica. She remembers a conversation in a time long past…Lily was depressed one night and intoxicated, though Julie couldn’t tell whether it was too many martinis or too many magic mushrooms…)

LILY- “I just feel so desolate, empty, like there’s nothing, not now, not tomorrow, not anything…an abyss. It’s like I’m at a crossroads and somebody forgot to put a sign up. Not just one road, not just two to choose from, but a kazillion roads…all at once there and somehow unavailable. It’s like I’m in a dark room…no light nowhere…no windows, no doors.”

JULIE- “Sometimes Lil you just gotta make a path where there isn’t one instead of finding a path to follow.”

LILY- “And how the hec am I supposed to do that?”

JULIE- “I don’t know.”

LILY- “Gee thanks…”

JULIE- “Hey, what do I look like the Dali Lama?”

LILY- “Sorry. I just…”

JULIE- “Don’t know what to do?”

LILY- “No. I’ve got absolutely no idea.” (She thinks and then looks at Julie…) “I want a Miranda.”

JULIE- “What?”

LILY- “I need a Miranda…”

JULIE- “Well my dear I’ve got one but not sure…”

LILY- “NOoooooo…wait…I need a Julie. THAT’S what I need…a Julie.”

JULIE- “Lil, I know you’re a little bit nuts, not to mention a little inebriated right now, and that’s fine because I love you, but you’re really starting to worry me…” (She says with a smile.)

LILY- “She loves you SO much. It’s cliché but when you walk into the room, when she looks at you, when she speaks your name…man…kaboom…crescendo…the symphony explodes…a melody of love just exudes from her…it’s amazing…”

JULIE- (Her eyebrows come together…) “A melody of love? That’s not like you Lily…that’s downright corny…”

LILY- “She’s your victim, not just your lover.”

JULIE- “Victim?”

LILY- “Totally defeated. I want a Julie. I want my heart to be overrun by a beautiful woman to whom I am beholden, who conquers me, vanquishes me…”

JULIE- “Easy there Romeo…”

LILY- “Well I wouldn’t commit suicide for her for crying out loud…”

JULIE- “Oh, I see…just be conquered and beholden to her…”

LILY- “No one, Julie, no one has ever touched me that way, the way that you touch Miranda. You are her life. You make her heart beat with vigor. You’re her Julie. All I’ve ever had are women in my bed but never in my heart. I want a Julie.”

JULIE- “But not a Miranda?”

LILY- “I love her but she’s so square the poor thing…so rigid. Stubborn really. You’re a free spirit, like me.”

JULIE- (Throws her hand up feigning insult…) “Woe there Madam Conductor…”

LILY- “Hey, you mean it’s not a compliment?” (She smiles…)

JULIE- “Ahhh…one day you shall have your Julie.”

LILY- “You really think so Swami?”

JULIE- “Oh, so now I’m a swami?”

LILY- “Yes oh wise one.”

JULIE- “Gawwwwd.”

LILY- (Referring to Miranda…) “You know she’s putty in your hands? She would do anything for you. She would die without you.”

JULIE- “Then I guess I better not go anywhere.”

LILY- “If you do I’ll have to come after you, ’cause I don’t think I can deal with a Miranda who’s without her Julie. Mind you, it doesn’t really matter…”

JULIE- “No?”

LILY- “No. Anywhere you go you’re bound to take a part of her with you. When you leave the room it’s like her whole aura changes…the light is a little bit dimmer. Something of her is dormant…something of her just belongs to you and part of you to her. Something of your love goes on forever.”

JULIE- (Looking at her and squinting, a bit sarcastic…) “Lily my friend…exactly how many of those magic mushrooms did you say you smoked?”

LILY- (Frowning though jovial…) “Hey! Maybe I’m crazy but I know what I’m saying Julie…”

JULIE- “Yeah, I know…part of me, part of her, of each other, our love…you’re not so crazy…a little under the influence, but not crazy. You’ll find her Lily…I know you will. We all eventually find that one person, or even that one thing in life that blows us all apart and brings us back together but like a whole new person…like a whole new state of being…a new version of the self. But really I guess it’s more like a whole new vision of the self…you see things differently.”

LILY- “Clarity…”

JULIE- “No…light. It’s like light illuminating the darkness in your life or your dimmed spiritual light. It’s like when they enter your life the lights go on…someone just walked into your life and turned the lights on. And when they’re not there…well, it’s like you said, the light is little bit dimmer.”

(Julie’s recollection of her talk long ago with Lily ends. She looks up at Miranda’s face. The heart monitor was sounding off the weakened beats of Miranda’s tired heart. It had a haunting sound, ever since the team of nurses and doctors left the room. The doctor in charge of the resuscitation team comforted her and, honouring her wishes, he ushered everyone out of the room. Julie wipes Miranda’s forehead. She whispers to her “You’re the light of my life Miranda Dobbs.” Her voice cracks and her tears flow… “You’re my light…my love, my life.”)

(In LA, mother and daughter were alone again, though not for long.)

KIT- (Entering…) “Hey, Alice said she was awake…” (She walks over quickly to the bedside.)

BETTE- “Yeah, but she seems pretty groggy. Did Alice find the doctor?”

KIT- “The nurse is tracking him down. She said he might be in a procedure right now. But she’s going to come in to check everything anyway.”

BETTE- “I wish I knew what to do.”

KIT- “You do. You’re here. You’re with her. You’re doing all you can.”

BETTE- “Kit…”

KIT- “Bette…it’s going to be ok.”

BETTE- “We don’t know that yet.”

KIT- “Is that right? I think Miss Angelica here knows it.”

BETTE- “What?”

KIT- “I heard she punched you. Sounds to me like she’s got her wits about her already.”

BETTE- “Kit…”

KIT- “Yeah yeah…ok. Let’s just wait for the doctor. He was monitoring the blood levels. Her white count has been pretty high. We’ll see what the next step is.”

BETTE- (Looking at Angelica…) “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

KIT- “Yes you do…you WERE without her until just yesterday and before the plane crash…That’s what it would be like, except there wouldn’t be that little bit of hope, that sliver of hope in the back of your mind where you think ‘hey, maybe one day I’ll see her again…just maybe I’ll see them again. Now you got a second chance…I guess we all did.”

BETTE- “It really hurt…part of me just hurt…almost all the time. If I lost her, I guess I would find out what it means to be alive with part of me just dead.”

KIT- “What is between you and her…that never dies Bette, never.” (She exhales…) “Hey…I didn’t pray for God to bring you home safely so we could talk about worst case scenarios. It’s all going to be ok Bette. Let’s just see if we can get this little girl back to herself and we’ll go from there.”

BETTE- “It’s so good to see you again.”

KIT- “You and me both Babysis, you and me both.”

(In New York, Lily left Justin in the waiting room and approached Miranda’s room hesitantly. She opens the door to Miranda’s room a little…just enough to see what was happening but not disturb Julie. Lily was stoic, her body standing ever so tall and ever so still. She looked at the site in the room and as she stood there her tears flowed…they just streamed down her face…it’s all that her body could do. She watched as Julie now stood next to Miranda’s bed while holding Miranda’s hand with both of her own, while kissing Miranda’s hand periodically, while the heart machine’s echoing, haunting and unmistakable sound of a flatline filled the room.)