Jayden's POV

I pulled my headphones down over my ears, trying to block my thoughts. That was hard to do when everything you saw stirred a memory from deep in your subconscious. Memories flooded into my mind and I turned up the volume on my iPod. My Chemical Romance burst into my ears, I had it on random. I recognized the familiar tunes of Cancer and I felt tears form behind my eyes.

Baby, I'm just soggy from the chemo.

Counting down the days to go.

My body shuddered for a second and I considered collapsing in the pile of leaves in someone's yard. Dad and I used to rake leaves together, back before he got sick. I saw my hands shiver as I thought of my father, once my knight in shining armor, reduced to a number on the wall of a hospital room. The doctors, the countless doctors, didn't even call Dad by his name whenever they toured with college students. They boasted about his lung cancer, saying it would more than likely kill him. Forty percent chance was all that he had, if he survived the surgery. I walked up the steps to my house and opened the door to see my little brother, Blake, watching TV. Blake got home from kindergarten before I got home from junior high, and he was always thrilled to see me. "Jay!" he screamed, so overly excited. He ran up and wrapped his arms around my legs, the top of his head barely touching my knee. "Hey, Baby Blake." I said, calling him by the nickname I used to annoy him. Dad started calling him that after he was born. Blake was premature, so he was tiny whenever he was born, hence the nick name.

"Don't call me that!" He said, looking at me with his emerald eyes. My dad always said that he looked just like him, and it was true. Even though his name was Blake, it should have been Eli Junior. He had Dad's dark hair and his eyes. The shape of his face, everything. "Where's Mom?" I asked gently, wanting to reach out and touch his face. "She went to get something for Daddy. We get to go to the special place soon!" Blake said, bouncing up and down excitedly. I smiled weakly back at him. Blake was only four, and he didn't understand what a hospital was, and he couldn't say it either. So Mom just told him that it was a "special place" for sick people. She also told him that dad would be getting better soon. Just as he said this, Mom walked in the door, holding two grocery bags. "Hey, Jayden." Mom said, leaning over to kiss Blake. "I just ran to the corner to buy some bread and something for dinner." She pulled my favorite drink, Explosion, out of her bag and handed it to me. This was more of a bribe, really. Her blue eyes met mine and I understood what she was trying to tell me. 'I bought you the drink that cost more than double of the usual crap I buy you. Please watch Blake so that way your father and I can talk.' I nodded a little as Blake clamored for Mom's attention. She turned, trying to adjust her pregnant stomach. Mom had gotten pregnant right before Dad got sick. She was already six months along.

On the way to the hospital, I put the cherry-lemon soda to my lips. It was a weird combination, but that was why I liked it. When we pulled up to the hospital, I was the first one of the car. I ran into the elevator. There was a patient in a wheelchair already inside, with eyes that were blank and emotionless. His face sagged and his eyes didn't move, they just stayed unfocused. Would my Dad be like that? The nurse pushed him out at the floor and I ran to my Dad's room. Left turn, right turn, left turn. There was my Dad's room down at the end of the hall. I counted my steps, just like every time. Fourteen, as usual. Dad's room number was 148. I burst through the door to see my Dad behind a computer screen. He looked up whenever I came in, and my heart dropped into my stomach. He looked worse. He looked even paler than last time, and skinnier. I just saw him three days ago! His eyes lit up with the normal brightness I saw every time I came over and I ran to him. "Dad!" I said, jumping into his arms. He shoved the computer onto the nightstand and held me to him. "Hey, beautiful. Where's your Mom and Blake?" he asked me gently, smoothing my hair back. He kissed my forehead and I wanted to hold onto him forever. "They're coming. I just wanted to see you first." I said, smiling at him.

Dad smirked up at me and gently laid me down beside him. "How's the baby?" he asked me, trying to brush his dark hair out of his eyes. "The baby's good. We went to go see the sonogram yesterday." I said.

"Well, is it a boy or a girl?"

"They couldn't tell, Mom brought pictures though."

"That was thoughtful of her. How's your mother and Blake?"

I looked up as Mom and Blake walked through the door. "Why don't you ask them?" I said, putting on Dad's identical smirk. People say I look like Dad, and I do. I have his eyes and his smirk, and his sarcasm. I have Mom's hair color naturally, light brown, but I dyed it black to look more like Dad. "Hey, gorgeous." Dad said, seeing Mom. She smiled for the first time in three days, and I know how much she missed him. "Where's Blake?" Dad and I said in unison. "Well, Adam showed up to visit you too, and he took Blake to go get a juice at the vending machine." Mom said, and Dad leaned up eagerly to kiss her. It wasn't one of those 'Hey honey, I missed you' kisses. It was the burning kind, the kind that you could feel the passion a mile away, the kind that made my cheeks flush. Whenever they broke apart, Dad's eyes burned with love for my mother. Instead of my mother's eyes, her cheeks were burning. "How's the little one?" he asked her, kissing her stomach. "The baby's great! Here, I brought you pictures." Mom said, pulling the sonogram photos out of her purse. Dad put one hand on Mom's stomach after he flipped her shirt up a little, and then looked at the pictures. "She's beautiful." He said, looking at his baby.

Me and Mom looked at each other. "She?" Mom asked. Dad smiled a little, a slight blush forming in his cheeks. "I can tell." He said, running his hand over Mom's stomach. "But baby, the doctors couldn't even tell. Are you sure?" Mom asked, her blue eyes shining. I knew that she would never tell Dad, but she really did want a little girl. He put the pictures down and placed his other hand on Mom's stomach. "Oh yeah, it's a girl." He said. Mom grinned as the baby kicked her and Dad started laughing. "And a soccer player, too." Mom and I left to find Blake, and an alarm went off. The doctors started rushing past us in the hall, running into dad's room. "Get the IV ready, get his stats!" A doctor said. Adam came running down the hall, holding Blake, and Mom, terrified, told him to take us home. After that, my mind was in a blank.

*At home, Adam and Blake are downstairs*

I held the razor blade in my hand, contemplating. Dad was dying, I could feel it. I pulled the razor blade across my wrists and I felt the veins slice open. I looked down at the picture that I had abandoned on the floor, a photo of me and Dad at camp. He was giving me a hug, saying goodbye to me for a week. I looked down at the photo before I thought my final thought. If you're going, I'm going to.

A/N What do you think? Good, bad? One shot, or more chapters? Does Jayden live or die? Does Eli live or die? 10-15 reviews to update, tell me what you think! Also, what do you think the baby's name should be?