"That comes to $86.50," the cashier said. Kenny pulled a crisp new hundred dollar bill from his wallet and handed it over, looking ruefully at his shopping cart.

"A hundred bucks sure doesn't buy much these days," he remarked as she handed him his change. Still, he'd managed to fill the cart with enough stuff to give Butters a nice party, including a bucket of chicken and several side dishes from the deli, a dozen pointed foil party hats, and an ice cream cake with Happy Birthday Butters inscribed in blue icing. He knew he'd have to head straight home before it melted.

"I hear that all the time, sir," she said with a smile as Kenny put his wallet away and started pushing his cart toward the exit.

Being able to buy this many groceries gave Kenny pause. Three months ago, he was lucky if he had five dollars to his name; now (thanks to an insurance settlement for being only one of three people to survive the bus accident that killed most of the rest of the South Park High senior class) he had a six-figure bank account.

He spared a moment to think about the other people who would be at their house for Butters' party. They'd begun to call themselves 'the survivor's club'; besides himself, Butters and Clyde were the only other people who hadn't been killed in the accident, and Bebe and Timmy (along with the three older Goth kids) weren't even on the bus that day. Everyone else in their class had died in the wreck. Butters had invited the Goth kids to his party, but Henrietta's baby was ten days overdue and she wasn't feeling up to doing anything, and Michael and Pete were staying close by her.

Kenny pushed his cart outside and loaded everything into the back seat of the Honda Civic Stephen Stotch had given him before skipping out of town like the cowardly piece of shit that he was. It was a cool crisp autumn day, and only a ten minute drive back to Butters' house. Kenny judged that the cake would be fine until he got home.

He drove out of the parking lot and turned onto the street toward town. As he rounded a curve, he spotted a car up ahead off the side of the road, its hood raised and steam rising in a thick plume from the engine. He recognized the car first: It was the Goth kids' only form of transportation, Pete's old beat up Chevy Impala. He spotted Pete and Michael a moment later, standing anxiously beside the open passenger door, and when Michael put his arms in the air in a stop! gesture, Kenny realized something was wrong. He braked sharply and pulled off the road, parking behind them and shutting off his car. He started to climb out when Michael called over to him, his long moon face paler and more frightened looking than Kenny had ever seen it.

"Can you call for an ambulance?"

Shit. "Yeah, sure." He reached back into the car, picked up his phone from the center console and dialed 911. He stood up again and hurried toward Pete's car, the hissing of steam growing louder as he approached. The air was rank with the burned piss smell of an overheated radiator. "What's going on?"

"Henrietta's going to have her baby!" Pete replied, standing four feet from the passenger door of his car, his hands pressed to his face and sounding as frightened as Michael looked. Red hair dye mixed with sweat ran down his neck in thin rivulets. "I mean maybe—"

"No," Michael interrupted. "She's having her baby…right now."

"Nine one one, what is your emergency?" Kenny heard from his phone.

He turned away from the scene in front of him so he could focus on making this call. "Yeah, hi. I need an ambulance. I'm on Fairfax road about two miles north of South Park. There's a lady on the side of the road here, having a baby."

The reply came back at once: "All right sir; I'm dispatching an ambulance to your location. What is your name please?"

Kenny gave the operator all the information she requested, and finally ended the call and turned back toward the car. "They said an ambulance will be here in ten minutes…"

"I DON'T HAVE TEN MINUTES!" Henrietta shrieked. Pete and Michael both appeared frozen in place with fear, so Kenny walked around them and looked inside the passenger door…and was suddenly looking at more of Henrietta Biggle than he ever thought he'd see, and in a way he never wanted to. In the midst of it was the top third of a baby's head, a surprising shock of black hair on top, its forehead just beginning to emerge.

"Whoa guys, um," Kenny said, taking a step closer. "We need to help her…"

"Have you ever done this before?" Michael asked, still appearing rooted to the ground, unable to move.

"What do you think?" Kenny replied sarcastically, crouching down beside the door while his mind raced.

"Should we boil some water or something?" Pete asked, looking like he was about to be sick all over Kenny's back.

"Don't be a retard," Michael replied, finally coming over to squat down beside Kenny. "What do we need to do?"

"Just…do something!" Henrietta wailed, followed by another scream.

"Um, push I guess," Kenny replied. Henrietta glared at him.

"I am pushing!" she raged. "I want this out of me!"

"We should recline the seat," Pete suggested from behind them. That seemed like a good idea, and Kenny found the lever on the side of the car seat and lifted it. The backrest dropped, and Henrietta settled against it, one foot on the floorboard of the car and the other on the ground. Kenny's view of what was happened was better than ever now.

"She's right…she doesn't have ten minutes," Kenny muttered as more of the baby's head emerged. He realized that help wasn't going to arrive in time and that they were going to have to deliver this baby, and judging by the other two Goth kids' deer caught in headlights expressions, he knew he'd be doing most of this himself. He could only think of one thing to do, and reached into his pocket and pulled his knife out and flicked open the blade. "Does one of you have a lighter?"

Michael and Pete both reached into their pants pockets and extended black Bic lighters toward him. He handed Michael (the calmer-looking of the two) his knife and said, "Use that to sterilize this when I tell you to." Michael nodded, and Kenny turned back toward the car and Henrietta, who was moaning and bearing down again.

"You're going to be okay," Kenny said, trying to sound reassuring. She took a deep breath and moaned, her face contorted with effort.

"FUCK YOU CTHULHU!" she screamed, leaning forward to bear down one more time, and just like that it was over. A newborn baby boy practically shot out of her into Kenny's waiting arms; Kenny immediately felt his arms and the front of his shirt growing damp.

Kenny looked down at the newborn infant cradled in his arms. The baby looked back at him and shrieked, his face pinching up and turning bright pink as it wailed again, drawing in great lusty breaths. Kenny knew enough to realize that everything had gone just about perfectly. He heard a siren approaching in the distance.

"I don't usually have this effect on people," Kenny said wryly as the baby continued to cry. "Um…you can go ahead and sterilize that knife now."

Michael nodded and ran the lighter flame up and down both sides of the blade and handed it to Kenny. He looked doubtfully at what he was about to do, and finally pinched the cord between two fingers six inches from the baby's abdomen and sliced through it with the knife. Let the people who know what they're doing fix it later if they need to. He dropped the knife on the ground and watched the baby as it hiccuped a couple times, its tiny fists shivering near his pinched up face.

After a minute, the baby stopped crying and lay quietly in Kenny's arms. Kenny looked at the two Goths standing behind him, hoping one of them would take over for him now, since he'd done the hardest part.

"No way…" Michael said, staring in awe. Pete was looking at the baby as well, the color slowly returning to his face.

"He looks like yours, Mike," Kenny remarked with a smile. He knew that neither Pete nor Michael knew which one of them was the father, and judging from the baby's face (especially his nose) and surprising amount of jet black hair, they wouldn't need a paternity test to figure it out.

"No way…" Michael repeated. He seemed to snap out of his daze. "Um…here." He stood up and took off his black trench coat, looked at it doubtfully and let it fall to the ground. He unbuttoned his white shirt and took it off next, revealing a pale and scrawny chest and stomach. His ribs were sticking out as much as Kenny's used to. He reached forward and, while Kenny supported the baby's shoulders and head, carefully wrapped the shirt around him. Kenny leaned forward and placed the infant on Henrietta's chest.

"Hey, baby," she said, looking down wonderingly. "Welcome to the world."

The ambulance arrived a few moments later, and Kenny stepped back as one paramedic hurried over to them while another rolled a stretcher out of the back door. Pete stayed with Henrietta while Michael followed Kenny back to his car.

Kenny opened his back door first to check on the ice cream cake, and saw that it was well underway to melting. The blue inscription on the cake was blurring into the rest of the icing, and the entire cake was beginning to slump inward on itself. At least I have a good excuse, he thought wryly.

"Ouch," Michael said from behind him. "Today's Butters' birthday, isn't it?"

"Uh huh," Kenny replied, closing the back door again. "I should get this cake home before it completely melts."

Michael appeared lost for words, finally saying quietly, "Sorry about that…but I'm really glad you came along. Tell Butters I said 'happy birthday', okay?" He looked up and forced himself to smile. "And tell him we're sorry we ruined his cake…" He seemed to be trying to think of something else to add.

"His cake in his perfect Disneyland fairy tale world?" Kenny asked, and they shared a laugh together, standing on the side of the highway while two paramedics loaded his newborn son and Henrietta onto the stretcher and began wheeling it toward the ambulance.

"I was thinking something like that," Michael admitted. "I just didn't want to say anything. Especially now that we're parents and have to become conformists like the rest of the world."

Kenny nodded. He wanted to hurry home before the cake completely melted, but he also needed to say something else before he left. "You look like you haven't been eating very much." Now that he bothered to notice, Pete had looked extremely thin as well. It was a look Kenny was very familiar with.

"Yeah," Michael replied, looking down at his boots. "It's been kind of hard, making ends meet."

Kenny nodded, all too familiar with what that was like. "Is that why none of you had a cell phone?"

Michael nodded meekly. "Yeah."

"Well, you know," Kenny said. "Me, Clyde, and Butters all got nice settlement checks for surviving that accident. Hell, you don't even want to know how much money Butters got for all the shit he's been through the last three months." He took a step closer to Michael, hesitated a moment, and put his hand on Michael's shoulder. "Any one of us would have helped you guys, you know…"

Michael nodded again, still looking at the ground. Kenny realized how awkward this conversation probably was for him; he'd never liked offers of charity either during his poverty years.

The paramedics were loading the stretcher into the ambulance. Kenny tipped his head toward them.

"Dude…you need to get going. Do you guys need a ride to the hospital or anything?"

"Oh fuck no," Michael replied. "You've done enough already. We'll ride there in the ambulance; we can call Henrietta's mother from the hospital; she'll come pick us up."

"All right, good." He climbed into his car and just before he slammed his door, he looked up at Michael and said, "Congratulations, dad!"

He finally pulled into their driveway five minutes later and shut the car off. He wondered if he was in shock as he realized he was more worried about the ice cream cake melting than he was about the fact that he was about to walk into their house with the front of his tee shirt covered with blood.

He was three-fourths of the way up the wheelchair ramp he and Clyde had built a month ago when their front door opened and Bebe looked outside. "Geez, Kenny! We were about to send a search party after you—whoa!"

Kenny took the last few steps up the ramp to the front door and handed her the cake. "Here. You should stick this in the freezer for a while; it kind of melted…"

"Ken?" Butters appeared in the door beside Bebe, standing without his crutches or cane. "Kenny!" he cried when he spotted the blood. "What happened? A—Are you all right?"

It took Kenny a moment to understand the question. "Oh, yeah…don't worry, dude. This isn't my blood." He took a step inside their house and stopped, realizing that everyone in the room was now staring at him. "Um…there's some more stuff in the back seat of my car that someone could bring in…?"

Clyde rose from the couch. "I'm on it," he said, heading toward the front door. Timmy gunned his motorized wheelchair and followed him outside.

"Kenny?" Butters asked urgently. "You're okay?" At Kenny's nod, he took hold of Kenny's arm and led him into the bathroom.

"Um, fellas?" Butters called just before he closed the door. "We'll be back, okay?"

Once they were locked together in the bathroom, Butters turned to him anxiously. "Kenny…? Get those clothes off and get in the shower. What happened?"

Kenny began to strip, and the thought of being naked in Butters' presence under these circumstances had never felt less sexy. "Butters, I…" He dropped his shirt on the floor. "I…just delivered a baby."

Butters boggled at him. "What…Kenny? You mean Henrietta's?"

"Uh huh." Kenny lowered his pants and underwear together, stepping out of them toward the bathtub. Butters had the shower on now, and was adjusting the faucet. "How about I tell you and the rest of the guys the story at the same time, okay?"

Butters nodded, and Kenny stepped into the bathtub, looking down at himself as the water from the showerhead ran down his body, traces of red mixed in.

"Here, Ken," Butters said, handing him their bottle of Axe and watching as Kenny started washing his belly. "Get yourself cleaned up…I'll go get you some clothes, okay?"

Kenny looked up from where he was lathering himself. His hands were shaking; what had happened earlier was starting to sink in. "Okay, dude." Butters turned and walked out of the room; Kenny heard him say something to the others as the door closed, and he turned his attention to washing his legs and stomach. He lathered and rinsed himself three times before Butters returned a couple minutes later carrying a clean tee shirt and jeans.

Kenny shut the faucet off and Butters handed him a towel. He dried himself with trembling hands while Butters watched him anxiously.

"Kenny? Y-you're looking kind of pale."

He nodded, stepping out of the shower and hanging the towel over the curtain rod. "Yeah…that was pretty intense. I think it's just starting to really hit me. I mean…what if I'd dropped the baby, or something had gone wrong?" He shuddered.

"But it didn't," Butters replied. "Everything turned out fine." He had been about to hand Kenny a pair of underwear, and set them back on the pile of clothes he'd brought him beside the sink instead. He held out his arms, and Kenny stepped gratefully into his embrace. "You're okay now, Ken. It sounds like you were a hero today!"

"I didn't really even do that much," Kenny replied, closing his eyes and resting his face against Butter's shoulder. "Henrietta did all the work. I just caught the baby…and cut the cord afterward."

"You did plenty, Ken," Butters told him, and they held each other quietly for a few minutes until Kenny had stopped trembling. Butters leaned back to give him a small smile, while his right hand moved from Kenny's back to the front of his upper thigh. "Do you, ah…want me to do anything to relieve some tension?"

Kenny grinned. "God yes…but later, okay? I, um…" He swallowed. "Yeah, later." His eyes said it all: He wanted 'to relieve some tension' all right, but he wanted to do it tonight during a long session of lovemaking, not with a quickie in the bathroom with their friends in the next room.

Butters nodded. "Got it." His expression made it clear they were in perfect understanding of each other. He turned away and started straightening the bottles of shampoo and body wash in the shower, giving Kenny privacy to get dressed. Once he'd pulled his tee shirt over his head and was finger-combing his hair in the foggy mirror, Butters joined him again and took his hand.

"You ready?"

Kenny hugged him. "I love you, Butters."

"Aw, Ken." Butters seemed taken aback. "I love you too! You…you're my whole world now."

"You too," he whispered. "And yeah…I'm ready."

Butters opened the bathroom door and they rejoined their friends. Clyde and Bebe had busied themselves setting out plates with chicken and side dishes around the living room table. They'd each put on one of the party hats Kenny had bought. Timmy had put on the other ten, each one pointing a different direction from his head, giving him an odd (and hilarious) pineapple appearance. They looked up when Kenny and Butters rejoined them.

"Kenny…?" Clyde asked. "What happened to you today?"

Kenny reached for Butters' hand. "Guys…do I ever have a story to tell you."

0-0

Which is how Butters ended up celebrating his birthday sitting around his living room table with the other members of the survivor's club, eating fried chicken and three different side dishes, followed by half-melted ice cream cake they shared from a plate in the middle of the table. By the time the cake was half-eaten, they began to settle back in their seats and began sharing the inevitable stories about the friends they'd lost.

After a few minutes, Butters squeezed Kenny's hand and leaned close to whisper, "Gonna go pee." He carefully stood and walked off, taking his cane with him this time. Butters was barely limping now, but Kenny knew that by bedtime his legs would be hurting again and he'd probably be using his crutches.

"Craig tried to convince Tweek that his hand was a poptart and that he should eat it," Clyde was saying, almost laughing too hard to talk. "But Tweek wasn't having it. I think that's the only time those two ever did acid together—"

There was a buzzing sound from the living room table. Kenny recognized it a moment later as Butters' cell phone.

"Um…" he said, looking toward the bathroom and not sure if he should answer it. He finally picked it up…and scowled once he read the display:

Incoming text from: S. Stotch - Happy birthday son! Mom and I are sorry we can't be there, but mom is doing well, and we hope you're having a great day!

"Oh…crap," Kenny muttered, staring down at the phone. Clyde and Bebe were both reading the screen over his shoulder.

"Maybe you should just delete that?" Bebe said a moment later.

Kenny debated the merits of her suggestion. "Nah." He saved the message and put Butters' phone back down on the table. "I'll show it to him later."

Butters emerged from the bathroom, and as he was walking back into the living room there was a knock on the front door. Kenny stood up immediately to answer it, but Butters was closer and opened the door first. He took one look outside and burst out laughing.

"Oh…hey, fellas!" Butters said a moment later, sounding delighted. Kenny joined a moment later, looked outside, and started laughing as well. Michael and Pete were standing at the top of the ramp, wearing clothes that look like they'd come from Banana Republic.

"Hey, Butters," Pete said. He was clutching a grocery bag against his yellow on blue checkered shirt; the necks of four wine bottles were sticking out of the top. He offered it to Butters, and Kenny took it from him. "We brought you guys some wine. Happy birthday."

"Thanks! Come on in." They stepped inside and Pete closed the door behind him.

"You guys want some half-melted ice cream cake?" Bebe asked, once they were all seated in the living room again.

"How about a couple pieces of chicken too?" Kenny asked, remembering his earlier encounter with them.

"Sure," Michael replied. They each took a piece from the bucket on the table and proceeded to devour them as if they hadn't eaten in days.

"Sorry about your cake, Butters," Michael said, setting the scraps from his drumstick on another plate where everyone else had piled their chicken bones. Unlike the others pieces, he had picked his completely clean.

"Oh, that's all right," Butters replied. "It was still good!"

"How's Henrietta and the baby?" Bebe asked.

"They're both doing great," Michael said. "Henrietta's mom is there now; she let us use her minivan to bring back some stuff from our house. The doctors said we should be able to take them both home tomorrow."

"His, um…" Kenny faltered. "Belly button? That's going to be okay?"

"The doctor said you did fine, Kenny," Michael replied. "He said the…stump will just fall off in a few days."

"We're glad you came along when you did," Pete said. He took the grocery bag back from Kenny and removed four bottles of Boone's Farm Wine and set them on the table. "Happy birthday…and, ah, about that." He and Michael shared a look. "We talked about it, and since we sort of ruined your cake, we're going to name our son Leopold."

"You're naming him after me?" Butters asked, grinning.

"Yeah," Michael replied. "It seems like a good idea. We thought about naming him after one of us…but we don't want to lose all of our Goth heritage, and we got to thinking about our son's name. Leopold sounds more Goth than Pete or Michael does."

"Or 'Firkle'," Clyde remarked, and everyone in the room laughed.

"So anyway, yeah," Michael continued. "Now there's two people in this town named Leopold who were born on nine eleven."

"Well, thanks fellas." Butters seemed humbled by their gesture. There was a long silence.

"Have some more chicken," Clyde finally said. "There's plenty."

Once they'd eaten the rest of the chicken (Kenny had one more piece so they wouldn't feel quite as self conscious), they sat back in their chairs.

"How are you doing, Butters?" Michael asked, eyeing Butters' cane, a plain aluminum pole with a curved white plastic handle. "You seem to be walking okay."

Butters nodded. "I usually use a cane to get around. Some days when it's bad I let Kenny push me around in the wheelchair."

"Or when you're feeling extra lazy," Kenny added. Butters elbowed him.

"We'd better get back to the hospital," Michael said a few minutes later, after they'd finished what was left of the cake. "Happy birthday, Butters." He looked pointedly at Kenny. "Hey…I have something for you outside…?"

Kenny nodded and stood up, looking down at Butters. "I'll be right back." He leaned down to plant a kiss on Butters' forehead. "Okay, birthday boy?"

Kenny followed them outside, and Michael opened the passenger door of the minivan and reached inside. He pulled out his cane, glistening black lacquer reflecting the brilliant afternoon sunlight. Kenny's eyes widened at the ornately carved handle; small red gems glittered in the eye sockets of the skulls engraved in it.

"Here," Michael said, handing the cane to Kenny. "I never really needed this anyway, and I guess Butters could use it more than me. So give this to him, and tell him I said 'happy birthday'."

Kenny took the cane. "Thanks, man…from both of us."

"Um…and Kenny?" Michael looked down, shuffling his feet awkwardly. "We thought we might take you up on what you said earlier…?"

"We're behind on our rent," Pete added. "We have until the 20th to get it caught up, or we're gonna get kicked out."

Kenny nodded. "Sure, guys. Little Leopold deserves only the best." He pulled out his wallet and took out all the cash he had, two hundreds and a twenty. "Take this for now." He handed the money to Michael. "I'll talk to Butters tonight and we'll see what else we can do. Come over some time tomorrow and we'll talk, okay?"

"Thanks, Kenny." Both of them looked extremely humble. "We hate having to ask. We're both working full time, but we just can't seem to ever get caught up…"

"Dudes, don't say another word. I've been there too; I know what it's like. We're glad to help…and we won't say anything to Clyde or Bebe either; this'll just be between us."

Michael nodded. "Thanks…we'd better go."

"Okay…well, congratulations again; and thanks for the cane."

Kenny watched them drive off and went back up the ramp and into the house. The others had cleaned the living room, and Bebe and Clyde were putting on their coats, getting ready to leave. Kenny leaned the cane against the wall.

"We're going to get going too," Clyde said as they were standing by the front door a minute later. Timmy was already driving his chair down the ramp toward Clyde's truck. He tipped Kenny a wink. "You two probably want to do some private celebrating."

Kenny laughed, putting an arm carefully over Butters' shoulder; Butters was eyeing the cane against the wall while leaning on his cheap hospital-issue one.

"You know," Bebe said, smiling at Butters. "Something tells me that because today's your birthday, Kenny's going to give you whatever you want later. But you have to whisper it in his ear before we go first."

"Oh, geez…" Butters said, more sarcastically than nervously. "Um…"

Clyde laughed. "Ooh…this could get interesting."

Kenny scoffed. "Yeah…or downright kinky!" Butters laughed and his eyes brightened as if he'd just thought of something.

"So," he asked, looking at Bebe. "Anything I wish for…?" Kenny rolled his eyes.

"Anything at all, sweetheart."

Butters turned back to Kenny. "Okay…then my wish for my birthday is that Kenny…" he put his arms around Kenny's shoulders and leaned in to whisper. Kenny's mind was racing as he wondered what Butters was going to say. It ended up being the last thing he expected: "I don't know Kenny. Just pretend I'm whisperin' somethin' really perverted in your ear I guess."

Kenny burst out laughing at that, pulling away so he could double over. He caught Clyde's eye as he started to laugh too, and realized that Clyde had no idea what the joke even was. Butters was looking expectantly at Kenny.

"Young man!" Kenny managed to gasp. "I don't believe I know you!"

"Good night, you guys," Bebe said chuckling, and they stepped outside. "Timmy!" Timmy called from beside Clyde's truck.

Once they were back in the house, Kenny handed Butters the cane Michael had given him. "Here, dude. Michael said to tell you happy birthday, and that he didn't need this anymore, since they're jumping ship to become conformists."

"Aww…this is a real nice cane. I can't wait to see their baby! You said it looks kind of like Michael?"

Kenny put his arms around him and hugged him. "Not kind of; he looks exactly like him. Poor kid even has his nose."

Butters laughed, pressing a kiss against the side of Kenny's neck. "You were a real hero today. Well, you're a real hero every day, but still."

"I don't know about that." He took a step back to look Butters in the eye. "Hey…I have a couple things I need to talk to you about. Nothing bad or anything." He was thinking about the help he'd offered Pete and Michael, as well as the message on Butters' phone. "Let's go to bed; we'll talk, um, afterwards."

Butters nodded agreeably, feeling himself growing hard at the word 'afterwards'. "Okay, Kenny." He leaned in to kiss him. "I love you."

Kenny pressed his lips back against Butters'. "I love you too. Happy Birthday, Leopold."

THE END