Sorry, Alice, I've turned a corner. Well, I mean, I told you...
Half an hour ago a courier delivered a massive cheque from Vanth Capital.
What are you doing?
I'm stopping this. Have you lost your mind?
She doesn't decide how I live my life.
Where is she?
She left something for you in case you came.
You know what it says?
No, of course not.
I might build up to it.
It won't change what's inside.
I've been in love with somebody since 2007.
We tried dating but it just did not work out.
Anyway, ever since then we've just been friends.
It's kinda life-changing, isn't it,
when you just put the self-absorption aside
and you focus on the next generation?
You sound like a parent.
I'm gonna be.
You should be.
No, I'm actually going to be one.
My insemination's next Wednesday.
Well, congratulations.
Thanks.
You know she's gonna be calling you, like, every five minutes.
I really don't think so.
Well, I do. Just don't get sucked into it.
Don't get sucked right back into that Alice Dysfunctionality Vortex.
Alice!
Alice. Oh, my God. Jesus Christ.
It's exhausting, isn't it, being in love?
It's fucking brutal.
There. Now this is completely painless.
It will only take a few seconds.
OK?
Question. Yes?
Could Jack do that?
Well, legally, no.
No, I'm sorry.
Oh. It's all right.
But he can put his hand on top of mine, if...
How do you feel about that, Jack?
So we'd be hold... We'd be holding hands?
Yeah, just on top.
For this bit?
No, not for this bit, no. No.
For the next bit.
Yeah, OK.
Yeah, that'd be... Yeah, that'd be...
Yeah.
Absolutely, yeah. No problem.
Yeah. Thanks.
Right.
Question. Yes?
Could Jack and I have a moment alone?
Oh, well, of course.
Yeah. No, that's... I'll just...
..pop out. Thanks.
You OK?
Thank you.
#S
Scone?
LOUD BANG OK. Wow.
Mm, not exactly how I expected the day going.
No.
Do you think anybody's ever done that in here before?
Oh, God, I hope not.
D'you think we should, erm... Yeah, yeah.
They probably have another appointment. Yeah.
God, what a colossal waste of money.
We could have gone to fucking Borneo.
Shh, shh, shh, shh.
Be careful!
Bye now! Thanks very much.
Fingers crossed.
Lovely to meet you.
Here we go.
Caffeine-free, obviously,
plus a little something to keep your glucose up.
Thank you, and can you please calm down?
If it is a pregnancy, definitionally it's a high-risk one, so.
Those definitions are ageist.
So's life.
Works both ways.
My little guys need all the help they can get too.
Your poor old-man sperm,
struggling to navigate upstream.
Yeah, all right.
Is there anything else?
No. Thank you very much and please go home.
And I'll call you in 12-14 days with the results.
I'll also call you, like, 50 times between now and then.
I'm happy to stay.
I'm sure the couch is comfortable.
Do you like fussing over me?
Of course I do.
If I was laid up, you'd wait on me hand and foot.
No, I wouldn't.
But I would hire someone.
And I'd be there also.
That's close enough.
Just think of me like any other possibly pregnant lady.
Not a chance.
Jack?
Yeah?
Do you want to talk about what happened today?
No.
OK.
Bye!
Jack?
Yeah?
Actually, can you stay on the couch?
Yeah.
Thank you!
I didn't hear from you yesterday.
I know. I'm sorry.
I was worried it had gone south or something.
Yeah, no, it... It was...
It went...
Oddly, it took... Yeah, it took an interesting turn.
Well, now you're gonna have to say.
Ah...
Alice and I made love on the insemination table.
Okey dokey!
Erm, golly.
Hm, yeah, I know.
Yeah, I...
I don't really know how it happened
or what it means, or if it even really means anything.
It could have been a one-off, a valedictory
or maybe we crossed a Rubicon again.
Or maybe we crossed it only for a few minutes
and now we'll cross back again, or maybe...
So you're not sure.
Not sure, yeah.
But a non-clean slate just got non-cleaner.
So I wonder if maybe we're...
Hello.
Are you all right?
It's so funny...
Your guys can swim.
Woohoo-hoo!!!
Whoa, Alice, comhghairdeas!
Comhghairdeas, comhghairdeas comhghairdeas!
What are you saying?
That's Irish for congratulations.
Jesus, that takes so long to say.
I know.
Jack?
What?
I think, erm...
I think I'm getting good at it.
You're good at what?
Like, real life.
If that's something that you're interested in,
or anything that you want to take a risk over?
Oh.
Can we think about it?
When have we ever not thought about it?
Never.
My food's here. I've gotta...
I love you.
Woo!
How are you feeling, love?
I'm feeling very well. Thank you.
Am I right in thinking the baby is, like, the size of a fig?
That's right, yeah.
Next week, a lime.
So...
So we did the standard ten-week work-up.
And I need to tell you that it showed some genetic abnormalities
that could be indicative of an illness.
What kind of illness?
They could be indicative of cancer.
But the... I mean...
Cancer?
Yeah. How can they check that when the baby's so small?
It's not the baby.
No.
It's not the baby.
It's you.
Hi, everybody. Thanks for being here.
OK, this is Stage 4 bile duct cancer with distant metastases.
The five-year survival rate is 2%.
Conventional therapy is already under way at the point of attack,
but there are so many...
Sorry, there are so many
points of attack that I believe the only way to save
this patient's life is to harness her own immune system.
Luckily, we have some experience in that area.
Ah, in related areas.
OK.
This is CTLA-4.
It switches off our T-cells after they've killed an infection
but before they start attacking healthy tissue.
Without CTLA-4, our bodies would basically murder themselves.
Cancer cells are clever fuckers.
They use CTLA-4 to fool our immune system into thinking
everything's OK, and then the cancer cells take over.
So what we are looking for is a substance that stops
our T-cells from being fooled,
a tumour-specific form of anti-CTLA-4.
Even if your theory is right and the formulation exists
and somehow we find it, we'd still have to work out how to
deliver it, and then put it through trials, and then get it approved.
Someone'll do it someday.
Yes, maybe, if they've spent a lifetime in cancer research.
You don't just swoop in and cure the worst disease in human history...
You don't if you don't try.
We did something similar on Hashimoto's.
We knew where to look on Hashimoto's.
And we got very lucky.
On this we're in a fucking rowing boat on an open ocean looking
for a drop of water with... We've got lightning-fast computers now.
They can process literally hundreds of candidates a second...
You're not being rational.
You're tilting at windmills, mate.
I've never known what that means.
That it's not gonna work, and you're taking people
and machines away from Dengue Fever and half a dozen other projects
we're this close on. What are you telling me to do?
Are you telling me to let her go?
I'm telling you to let the doctors do what they do.
They'll fail, Paul.
Their science is old. Blast away with chemicals and radiation
and hope for the best.
Meanwhile the person suffers and withers in front of you
and almost always dies anyway.
That can't happen to Alice.
If there's anything that I can do I'm gonna do it.
What if there isn't?
Then I'll die trying.
OK? I'll die trying.
Look, it's not that I don't understand. I'm sure I'd feel
the same way if, God forbid, it were Donna.
If this was Donna we wouldn't even be talking about it
because I would've been in from the start.
OK.
OK?
OK.
Good man. I'll start the moment I get back upstairs.
Good man. Just don't get your hopes up in that way that you do.
This is still insane.
I have to have hope.
OK, well, hope. Just don't believe.
I have to believe.
Hello, miss.
Can I walk you home?
Yeah, you certainly can.
You shouldn't have done this in the middle of a workday.
Ach, I'd spend every minute with you if you'd let me.
Oh, that's creepy.
Yeah.
How'd it go in there?
You know.
We're all terminal. I'm just a little more terminal than most.
OK. I, erm, called around about your doctors
and they all check out,
but people seem especially keen on Dr Anthony Cedarbaum
because apparently he rolls with the punches
and he's a student of the game.
So that's good.
How are you?
I'm-I'm fine.
Mm-hm. Mm-hm.
Yeah, when was the last time you slept?
Can we please not worry about me right now?
Why not? It's a fucking excellent change of pace.
OK, the other thing.
All the shit online.
Do not google late at night, but if you do google late at night -
as I admit maybe I was doing recently -
don't get caught up in stupid fucking papers written by...
Written by stupid people with these ridiculous axes to grind.
It's a waste of time and it'll drive you f...
Mad. So.
Jack?
Yeah?
You wanna go somewhere?
Sure, yeah. Where do you wanna...
..go?
You know where.
Cuba?
Our roof.
It's a long trip for you, Alice.
Yeah...
Yeah, of course. I'll set it up.
Hey.
I've been...
Yeah. Sorry. I've been waiting for you.
I was gonna say that my instinct is it's gotta be a protein. Right?
Mine too, because the monoclonal antibodies are proteins.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. So that's the place to start, then.
OK.
That's gotta be the place to start, right?
Are you OK?
Yeah, sorry, traffic is, erm...
Ah... I'll-I'll call you back. Just you keep...
You keep doing what you're doing, yeah?
Jack?
Hey, Lynn...
Thanks for letting me ruin your week.
Oh, well.
We circle the wagons, Cyril.
How are you feeling?
I'm grand. It's probably just stress.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean...
Sure, we'll see.
Ah, how's Alice?
It's weird, Lynn.
I can tell she's, like, resigned herself to the worst already,
which...I hate but makes sense.
She's always been one for the odds.
But she's still putting herself through the chemo.
And God knows what else after that. I just...
I just can't work out why.
Well, for you, obviously.
Thanks for asking after her.
Aye, yeah, well.
I can't go around hating people.
Except for you, of course.
Of course.
You know, if you ever actually met her
I think that...
..you would really like each other.
I mean, let's not go crazy.
You know, I'm good and over you, Jack. I can promise you that
But it doesn't mean I don't love you.
And it doesn't mean I don't want you wandering
the Earth making someone else miserable.
Good morning to you, Mr and Mrs Caine.
Oh, ah, it's Mr Caine and Ms Mixon.
We're not married. Well, we were, but, erm, we're not any more.
I'm married to...someone else.
You have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome,
a genetic disorder of the connective tissue,
in your case of this piece right here where the artery
meets your heart.
OK.
That sounds bad.
That looks bad.
Because it's an aortic aneurysm which, had it gone undetected,
might have led to dissection, which would have led to death.
But now that we know about it we can keep it from killing you.
Jesus Christ. OK.
Your medical history says that both your parents
died of heart attacks.
Mm. They did.
No, they didn't.
So what are my odds?
Assuming you behave yourself, 100%.
A hundred... A hundred... OK.
As I said, it's a syndrome, not a disease.
You did say that, yeah.
Ha...
Sorry to laugh. Just that was a lot to...
..you know. It's bad news, but it's not...
It's not terrible... News. News. Yeah.
You see all this?
This is you and me passing into obsolescence.
Ach, we've still got some time left.
Oh, really?
Have you looked in a mirror recently?
Because I did, and the ghost of Marie Curie looked back
and told me I was fucked.
Each of these servers is looking at a different set of combinations
and permutations.
Normal proteins, novel proteins, synthetic proteins,
a smorgasbord of proteins.
As you can see I chose yellow for failure,
just for nostalgia's sake.
All we need is one that turns red.
Essentially, that's it.
The programs are up and running.
All that remains for the humans to do is to stare at the screen,
contemplating their technological unemployment
and maybe shout if anything good happens.
Not even that, really, because about 85 alerts will just go off.
So you may as well just go home and recuperate.
Mm. I don't like the word "aneurysm."
Alice wants to go on a trip.
So go on a trip. It's a good idea.
I'll keep you updated.
I feel like I should be here.
Again, that's ego and neurosis.
She thinks it's gonna be her last one.
You haven't told her, have you?
About the Ehlers-Danlos? No, not yet. I will.
No, about this, Jack,
about everything we're doing here.
If it works she'll be my first phone call, believe me.
And what if...
If it... If it doesn't and I'd told her,
then I will spend the rest of my life wishing that I hadn't.
OK?
Yeah.
OK.
Right, so the Paris leg will be a piece of gateau.
Obviously.
Erm, and on the layover an agent named Capucine or Capucina -
I got tired of asking her - she'll be there to take you to
the fancy-person section of the lounge.
And on the second leg, the long leg,
all your meals have been pre-loaded.
And I checked - of the 100-or-so in-flight films
at least seven aren't based on comic books. Mm.
All your documents are in your bag,
in the order you'll be needing them.
Don't get clever at immigration because you might wind up
in the slammer, and then there's nothing I can do.
Erm... At the hotel, tip like a sailor.
Bottled water only.
And the internet is still 3G.
So, yep, no public swearing.
Thank you.
You didn't need to do all of that.
It's just muscle memory.
Well, I love you.
What?
I said I'm not paying you.
Out of my way.
All yours. Move over.
You all right?Yeah...
Yeah? OK.
Jesus!
What's wrong?
Nothing.
I don't like leaving Paul in the lurch.
It makes me anxious.
Honestly, I don't feel anxious about anything right now.
Really?
What's that like?
It's good. Oh!
Oh, for fuck's sake!
What about now? Are you anxious now?
No.
Fuck, do you think he's hurt?
He didn't even spill his coffee.
Well, then what's taking so long? What are they talking about?
Come on, lads.
Someone's not in holiday mode.
Because we're not yet on holiday.
We're watching these two fellas have a chat.
Jesus Christ.
This is... Oh, man. This is not good.
You're looking at traffic.
It looks like my phone is bleeding.
It says if we leave now we get to Heathrow in April.
Ohhh!
Jack, if we miss the flight we'll just get the next flight.
There's... No. There's, like... The next one's in two days.
I just want to be with you.
You know I just wanna be with you too.
Good.
Why don't I ask the driver to take our luggage back to my apartment?
I don't understand. What do we...
What do we do?
Whatever we want.
Yeah.
OK?
Yeah.
So how are your tension levels?
Was a nine. Now a seven.
Ooh! Good.
Seven and a half.
Oh, my goodness. Do you know what's on this street?
What?
My favourite house.
Where?
It's there. It's that white one,
with those windows.
Oh.
Beautiful, yeah.
Not your usual taste, though, I wouldn't've thought.
I dunno, I feel like I would've been ready for
something different, you know?
Yeah.
Something warmer.
I would've liked to have tried to have kids again.
With you.
Yeah.
I wouldn't've have wanted to raise them in my refrigerator
of an apartment, though.
I like your flat.
Hm.
Yeah, there's a time in life for everything, isn't there?
But I feel like a kid needs a...
A window in the bathroom, for fuck's sake.
That's fair enough. Yeah.
I can see us, though.
Two kids.
Them windows.
Can you?
Boys or girls?
Either.
Well, one of each, if I could choose.
Mm.
Agreed.
Celia would have siblings?
Yeah.
The Caine-Long kids. Mm.
Yeah! Polite, charming, more than usually funny.
Nice.
Oh, my God, do you want a fizzy drink?
Do you?
Fuck, yeah, I want a fizzy drink.
It might be my last one.
My farewell fizzy drink.
I'll buy you one. I'll buy you one.
No, I'll buy you one.
Let me buy you one. No, I'll buy you one.
Alice, come on. Jesus Christ!
I'll buy you one. No, I'll get it.
No, it's OK. Cos I just wanna...
Please don't do this!
Hello. Hi!
I'm gonna... I'd like two...
I'm about to pay for... ..two fizzy drinks.
Mm-hm? When the kids are old enough for us not to go totally bananas
and lose our minds, we take them on holiday.
Where do we go?
Skiing?
No.
I've only been skiing once.
I nearly killed myself and a bunch of other people.
It's not funny!
I think I need a friction-based relationship
between myself and the Earth's surface.
I need that with people.
I know exactly what you mean.
I'm aware. Ha.
Erm... OK, no skiing, but we'll go somewhere?
Mm-hm.
We'll travel somewhere. Where?
America!
No.
Fucking America. Donegal?
We certainly can. I've never been.
Yeah! Amazing beaches. Amazing people.
Amazing coastline. Amazing fiddle music.
It's amazing. Oh!
And if you know where to go there's nobody else around,
apart from sheep and a few goats.
OK, and on day one the kids learn to not...
To stay away from the goats.
Mm. You make friends but at a distance.
Yeah. They'll be good at that if it's hereditary.
Fucking stop.
It's true!
And so what are we doing,
while the kids are avoiding goats?
We're gambolling.
You what? Gambling?
No. We're gambolling.
GamBOLLing? Gambolling! Yeah.
Gambolling.
Right? Show me your gambol.
I'll do a gambol if you do a gambol.
All right. Yeah?
Mm-hm. OK.
Finished with your fizzy drink?
What in the actual fuck?
You do it, then, go on!
No, I'll do you gambolling.
Don't do me gambolling. You do you gambolling.
Yeah, OK. This is you gambolling.
That's... "Oh, I'm just...gambolling,
"like... Don't do the accent, all right?
You do you gambolling, then.
I would just... I would just gambol. You know, like cool.
But that's not fucking gambolling!
You've gotta put some spirit into it.
I'd never go back to finance.
What do you do?
Charge ahead with philanthropy,
trying bit by bit to erase the moral stain of wealth.
You?
I'm a lab rat till the day I die.
You'll have to drag me out by my ankles.
I'd like to see that.
And then we see just little enough of each other that when we do
it's, you know...
It's still thrilling.
It's always thrilling, Alice.
People say at some point the excitement fades away but...
..with you it never has.
I feel like that about skiing.
And you. I should've led with that. Yeah!
Maybe my mistake with skiing was the same as my mistake with you.
I never learned to slow down.
Mm.
Well, I wouldn't wanna be one of those couples who sits in silence
having run out of things to say 25 bloody years ago.
That's like a living death, isn't it?
Which is arguably worse than a dying death.
Maybe they're just content.
I don't trust content, you know.
Isn't content like the younger cousin of...
..bored shitless?
No. No?
What about when we're older, like when we're 70?
When we're 80, 90?
Oh, well, when we're 70, 80, or 90
we begin, in a very entertaining way,
to totally lose our wits.
Mm-hm. Chaos.
Absolute chaos.
How's your tension level?
When I'm 90 I hope it's zero.
I hope.
Do you know where we are now?
Yeah, we're a couple streets from Celia's school.
Which you know because you've snuck over there once or twice?
Which I do know because I might have snuck over there once or twice.
Imagine her when we're 90?
Oh, my God, she'll have had her dance career,
and she'll have been all over the world.
And she'll be a diplomat.
A diplomat?
I think she'd be really good at it.
Oh, cause she's had the training. Right, yeah.
I blame myself for that.
I blame me.
She's been well-loved, though.
And there's definitely worse things than that.
Yes, there are.
Oh, my God.
What's she... What's she doing?
Well, she's meeting a boy, Jack.
She didn't tell me about that.
You think?
Do you think she'll be happy?
Yeah.
Do you think she'll see less trouble than we did?
Yeah.
Maybe I should just nip over and say hello?
No.
Unless you want to be reviled for the rest of time.
Why don't you...
Why don't you go over and say hello? She loves you.
Nice try. she doesn't want to see me either, Jack.
Can we go and get a proper drink?
Oh, yeah.
Can we get five?
Yes, we can.
OK.
OK, so we're 100 years old.
Well done, us. Woo!
And you're fine.
You're like a field horse, but I'm on the fade.
What do we do?
We...go for a walk, and we have a fizzy drink,
and we do what we did today but in reverse.
We reminisce.
And you know how I would feel?
No.
I would feel exactly the same as today, which is that
because you're here it's too soon.
It's too soon.
Do you think these hipsters are looking at us thinking
we've run out of things to say?
If they are, they are morons.
Maybe content is OK, eh?
Why are you not...
..angry, Alice?
Because I'm apoplectic.
Do you know what I thought when they first gave me my diagnosis?
No.
I thought, "These people are thieves, they're thieves of time."
But, erm...
I don't want to spend the days that I've got left
just being angry about the ones that I'm not gonna have.
Jack...
..are you gonna be all right if I'm not one of these,
you know, 2 percenters?
No.
Are you?
Jack, I'm gonna be dead.
I think... Technically, I think dead's the opposite of all right.
Yeah, yeah. Sorry. #S
Can I tell you a secret, though?
Whatever happens...
..I think we're gonna see each other again.
You think so?
Mm-hm.
Do you think I'm absolutely crackers for believing that?
No. You don't think it's like the desperate delusions of a...
..nearly expired human?
No.
Do you remember that first night that we met?
I do remember the first time we met, yeah.
Do you remember what I asked you?
Yeah, you asked me fucking everything.
You asked me everything, all in a row, like this.
Do you remember when I asked you if you were religious?
Mm-hm.
I asked you back.
You never answered.
So are you religious now?
No!
Mayb... I mean...
Maybe. I don't know.
I mean, it's hard to find proof, isn't it? Mm.
But I think there are hints.
You're saying you've had a hint?
I am saying that, yeah.
And what was the hint?
I'm looking at him.
That's Paul's ring.
Hm.
Just take it. Go on, take it.
Do you want the same again?
Oh, yeah, please.
Yeah. Thanks.
Paul.
Oh, it's you. I thought you'd be on a plane.
I was expecting to leave a message.
No. Do you, ah...
Do you have news?
No, mate. I'm sorry, I...
I was just calling to tell you we're through the first
hundred million candidates.
I was just keeping you apprised.
I'm sorry.
It's all right.
But, look, a hundred million down, but billions to go.
So this is only the first of approximately 17,000 phone calls.
She wouldn't want this, Paul.
What?
And it's not gonna work, is it?
We should spend her time more wisely.
Stop it.
Go back to the other projects.
Stand down.
Are you sure?
Yeah.
OK.
Just in time.
Thank you.
To us.
Hm.