The sun was shining and making the raindrops from the night glisten before they evaporated off into their warm surroundings. Flowers whistled in the breeze while bees hovered around them trying to get the last of the sweet tasting honey, and everything was perfect.

Thud, went the ball as it slammed into Dylan's arms, he grasped it into my firm grip and sent it spinning through the air like a shuttle speeding through space. His little sister jumped high but the ball overshot her and landed right at the top of the hill, they both watched as it started rolling down the hill, the giant mountainous hill that lead down into the valley below. It was quite a long way down and even if they started chasing it now the ball would reach the bottom before they reached it.

"You go and get it, you should have caught it." Dylan exclaimed.

"No you threw it, you should get it!"

The argument went on for quite a long time, until their dad who had obviously been listening to the argument yelled over "For God's sake both of you go and get it!"

So we started going down the hill. Down and down and down we went, until we were half way there. "I'm tired" Rosie, Dylan's little sister, complained and she flung herself onto the floor and started to feign sleep.

"Come on, we're almost at the bottom now." he lied.

"No were not" she replied "…and after we have got to the bottom we have to climb back up."

"Alright, if you're going be a girl about it."

He knew that would stir a reaction from her, and sure enough she got up straight away and said "The only girl around here is you". Everyone always says that if you still want to be in one piece the next day, never call Rosie weak, or imply it. 'Hopefully she'll be too tired when we get home and then she'll forget about the insult, so should I be safe' thought Dylan as he followed Rosie down the hill.

She soon ran up to him with the ball and screamed as she ran past "Last one up is a lo-ser!".

"You're on!" he yelled back, and his advantage of longer legs meant he was soon streaming past her at full speed. Dylan reached the top and looked down; Rosie had got quite a way to go and seeing he had beaten her she slowed to a walk. He flopped down on the cool grass and waited still trying to gain his breath. He could hear his parents' voices in the distance and at first he tried not to listen but eventually it became inevitable.

"When I came back from the doctors this morning I told you nothing was wrong. Well that wasn't exactly true." Catherine said lying in the arms of her husband.

"Why what's wrong?" Benjamin asked suddenly all worried.

"Ok well I don't want to worry you and I'll be fine, I didn't tell you this morning because I didn't want the kids to find out. But I have lung cancer."

"What?" Catherine explained to Benjamin everything she had been told at the doctors and while they had this conversation, Dylan was crouching down peering through the bushes listening. He felt guilty because he wasn't supposed to find out but when that feeling started to wear off he only felt frustration because he thought he had a right to know.

"How serious is it? How long have you had it for?" Benjamin asked

"Not long and I'm going to be fine, the doctors said it can be cured and I've got to start my treatment in the next couple of days so we'll just have to wait and see what happens." Catherine replied as she turned to look at him.

He leant forwards and pressed a kiss to her forehead "Nothing is going to happen, you'll recover in no time and I'm going to be with you the whole way. I promise."

After that Dylan didn't get to here anymore of his parents' conversation because Rosie had caught up with him and was running past saying "I'm going to beat you to mum and dad!"

He followed her slowly not bothering to run; he was no longer in the mood to play games and just wanted to go home.

"Hi you two, are you alright?" Catherine said as her kids approached her.

"Yeah, I'm bored can we go back home now?"

"If you want, we were going to hire some bikes and cycle around the park on one of the trails"

"I'm not really bothered"

"Aww!" moaned Rosie "I want to go biking, you're so boring Dylan."

"Whatever I'm just going to wait in the car." And he turned around and started walking over to the car. As he got inside he couldn't stop fresh tears falling from his eyes as realisation hit him. Being alone with his thoughts was probably worse than being with his family and pretending like nothing happened.

Back on the field Rosie was complaining about Dylan saying "he always spoils everything" but Catherine was only half listening because she was watching her son and she knew something was bothering him.

"Don't worry darling, we'll go biking some other time, ok?" said Benjamin trying to calm Rosie down.

"Hold on, you wait here I'm just going to talk to Dylan" said Catherine. Benjamin nodded in reply and she got up and walked over to the car.

When she reached it she looked in through the back window and saw Dylan curled up and crying with his back towards to door, she tapped on the window so he knew she was there and he jumped up startled hastily trying to wipe the tears from his cheeks.

"Hey what's the matter" Catherine said as she opened to door and sat down on the back seat

Dylan looked at her with tear filled eyes and said "Promise you won't get mad?"

Catherine shook her head "no, why?" she asked softly in reply.

He looked down at his lap as he spoke not wanting to see her face "I heard you and dad talking a minute ago before Rosie came back up the hill." When she said nothing he looked up at her face and said "I'm sorry I didn't mean to, I just heard."

"I know, I'm not mad, I just… I didn't want you to find out like that; you had a right to be told properly." She pulled him into a hug and he cried into her arms

"I don't want you to go"

"Hey ssh come on, I'm not going anywhere. The doctors said there is a perfectly good chance of full recovery so don't write me off just yet" she smiled trying to lighten the atmosphere.

Neither of them noticed Benjamin and Rosie walking up to the car and they both jumped when the car door opened "We were wondering where you were and if you're coming biking." He stopped noticing his wife and son had both been crying "Are you all right?"

"Dylan overheard us talking when Rosie was fetching the ball"

"Oh" he said "Do you want to just get home and we can talk about it more then?" Catherine nodded and got out of the back of the car so Rosie could climb in who had stopped whinging and was now wondering what on earth was going on. She didn't say anything because she knew it must be serious because Dylan was crying and he would never be seen dead crying under normal circumstances.

Benjamin started the engine and the Mee family drove home in silence not knowing what to say to each other. Catherine was worried because although she'd told her husband and son that the statistics of full recovery were promising she knew they weren't and she just hoped that Dylan and Rosie would be alright without her. She knew what it was like to grow up without a mother and she wished she didn't have to put her children through that ordeal. At last the family pulled up on their drive and started to clamber out of the car, unfortunately there was someone already stood on the doorstep.

"Bloody hell" Catherine whispered under her breath.

"What?" Benjamin asked as he had clearly not seen the figure standing waving at them or the six people who were walking from the back of the house, looking to see if anybody was home.

"What's my mother doing here?"

He looked up and sighed, he knew the last people Catherine wanted to see right now were her relatives from England and the bags they were carrying looked as though they had come to stay for quite a while. He walked to the boot and started to pull out the picnic rug and box with the leftover food in. Rosie noticing her cousins jumped out and ran over to them giving everyone a hug.

"I've missed you auntie Rebecca" said Rosie as her aunt lifted her up "I've missed you too Rosie, look how grown up you are, you were only four when I last saw you" Rosie smiled as Rebecca put her down realising that she was heavier than she looked. Catherine waited until Benjamin had got the bag out of the boot (taking as long as possible) and then they walked up the drive onto the porch with Dylan trailing behind.

"Hello Catherine, said Margaret as she pulled her into a hug"

"Hi mum, what are you all doing here?"

"Visiting you of course. It's the summer holidays for the kids and we haven't seen you in ages so we thought we'd come and surprise you!"

"Oh great…that's wonderful" Catherine said as she plastered a false smile across her face. Margaret didn't notice her daughter's hesitation and soon the whole family were seated in the living room which consisted of Catherine; Benjamin; Dylan; Rosie; Margaret and Peter, Catherine's parents; Rebecca, her sister; James, her brother-in-law and Rebecca and James' three children: Jessica, Joe and Tom.

'Why did we buy such a big house and invite them to stay whenever they wanted?' Catherine thought as she sipped her tea, one of the reasons they had moved to America was to get away from her family. Lovely as they were they seemed to annoy Catherine very easily and today was really not the best day for them to show up on their doorstep announcing that they will be staying with them in America for the next six weeks. This also meant that she would have to tell her family about the cancer, she probably would have done eventually of course but now they were going to find out virtually straight away and this was much sooner than she would have liked. Now she was going to have to put up with her mother constantly fussing over her and her sisters worried glances not to mention her father who would most likely want to accompany her to every treatment procedure.

"Dylan you're very quiet tonight, you used to never shut up" said James as the conversation died down.

"I'm just tired" Dylan said "I think I'm just going to go to bed"

"Alright, it's been a long day" said Benjamin and Dylan got up and gave his mother a hug before he went upstairs. As he did so Catherine quietly whispered in his ear so no one but Benjamin sitting next to her could hear "It's going to be alright, you know."

"Yeah, I love you"

"I love you too, nigh nigh."

Dylan gave his mum a smile and trailed off upstairs. To anybody else in the room it looked as though Dylan was giving Catherine a normal bedtime hug but Rosie knew different and was too young to realise that Catherine didn't want the rest of her extended family to know anything yet.

"Why was Dylan upset earlier?" she asked looking at her mum and dad.

"He was just worried about something, it doesn't matter now though" replied Benjamin "I think it's time you went to bed too missy, it's getting late" he stood up and put her on his shoulders and she giggled as he went out of the room and took her upstairs.

After that everyone sorted sleeping arrangements out and traipsed upstairs to bed, but Margaret hadn't forgotten what Rosie had said even though making them forget had clearly been Benjamin's objective. She intended to find out the reason why Dylan had been upset because, despite what Benjamin had said, from the way Dylan went and gave Catherine a hug it did matter to him.

"Are you ok?" Benjamin asked as him and Catherine climbed into bed.

"I'm as ok as I'm ever going to be with my mother and father in this house." Replied Catherine exasperatedly, she turned to look at Benjamin and sighed "Yes, I'm fine you don't need to worry."

"I always worry" he said as he lay down and turned onto his sighed.

Catherine smiled and lay down behind him putting her arm around him "You don't need to worry any more than normal then."

Catherine drifted off to sleep, but Benjamin couldn't stop thinking about everything that had happened and everything that was going to happen. As the hour hand on the clock ticked over to 2 he slowly sat up so as not to wake Catherine and got out of bed as quietly as he could. He just needed to calm himself down so he went downstairs and made himself a cup of tea. Little did he know that was someone else I the house who couldn't sleep either. Margaret, hearing someone going downstairs, got out of bed and walked down to the kitchen; entering the room she saw her son-in-law absentmindedly stirring the tea bag round in the milk while he waiting for the tea to mash. He didn't notice here presence to start with so she cleared her throat to make herself known.

"Oh hi" Benjamin said "You couldn't get to sleep either?"

"Probably jet lag" Margaret smiled

"Do you want a cup of tea?" Benjamin asked even though he was already getting another cup out of the cupboard.

"Yes please"

When the tea had been poured they sat in silence for a minute or two sipping at their tea until Margaret asked "Is everything alright with Dylan, only Rosie said he was upset earlier."

Benjamin hesitated before replying carefully "He's just had a lot going on, he'll be fine."

"He'll be fine; I thought you said it didn't matter anymore?"

"Well…It doesn't, he just needs time to clear his head."

"Oh, well I can talk to him if you want."

Benjamin was now realising what Margaret was trying to do and find out some gossip so starting to get annoyed he replied "No it's alright, we were going to talk about it when we got back but…"

"Oh so this something you don't want us to know? What has he done? Or isn't it that bad and you just don't want to tell us purely out of spite!"

"Not everything is about you Margaret."

"I never said that it was, I just don't understand why you won't tell us things, Rebecca and James keep us informed."

"Good for them."

"I still don't understand why you had to move over here"

"Look I don't mean to be rude when I say this but it's really not any of your business, and you've got no right to know."

After that huffing and puffing Margaret climbed upstairs to bed. Next morning at breakfast the tension in the air between Benjamin and Margaret was high and Catherine was wondering what had happened last night that she didn't know about.

Margaret was clearly sick of Benjamin and the dirty looks he kept on giving her so she decided to take matters into her own hands and ask Dylan outright

"Dylan, are you doing drugs?"

"What?!" Dylan spluttered into his cereal as the whole table looked up at either Margaret or Dylan.

"Where on earth would you get that idea?" asked Catherine loudly

Margaret didn't answer so Benjamin did for her "She thinks that was the reason Dylan was upset yesterday."

"What is your problem!" said Dylan standing up "Mum clearly doesn't want you to know why I was upset so don't go trying to work it out by asking stupid questions like that!" and he stormed out of the room.

"I got it" said Benjamin and he followed Dylan out of the kitchen and into the living room closing the door behind him.

"Well, I know when I'm not wanted" said Margaret her head held high, while she stood up and went of the other kitchen door leading outside.

"Is everything ok, did we turn up at a bad time?" Rebecca asked her sister concerned.

"No you're all alright, I just wasn't ready to put up with mum yesterday and clearly Dylan wasn't either."

"Well if there is anything you need."

Catherine nodded "Thanks"

Benjamin then walked back in the room and said "He's alright. Rosie wants to know what's going on now though as well" he picked up his glass and bowl and put it in the dishwasher.

Catherine rubbed her eyes with her hand and sighed "Ok, alright" she said softly and quietly, and with that she too left the room leaving everyone who was still sitting down in the kitchen entirely confused.