Warnings: The themes in this story are to bring awareness and not to glorify or cheapen. I am doing research on the topics that do not directly effect my life so as to make them more realistic. I am not aiming to offend or upset anyone who has or is experiencing such things in their own live. That being said, I hope you enjoy the fic and please review.

The Moment We Knew

This was not a place you wanted to end up, physically or emotionally. The front doors were painted a firery orange, the walls were decorated with pictures of the sunny sky and the clear blue water and yellow sand of a summer's day at the beach. Rooms lined the halls of the ward, children lay in hospital beds surrounded by machines, doctors, nurses and worried family memebers. There was an air of hidden sorrow amoungst the occupants of the many rooms. Parents tried to hide their grief and pain as they watched their children suffer the horrors of life with childhood cancer. The Crab Ward as Captiol Children's Hospital and Medical Care Centre was not a place anyone wanted to end up but if you had to be there the staff would do their very best to make it as easy and comfortable for you as the possibly could.

A pretty brunet woman sat on an arm chair next to a hospital bed that held a precious child, with big moss green eyes that stared up out of a tan face. His curly brown hair that once topped his little head now gone and left in place of it was the hairless head and face of a cancer patient. The little guy was his mother's warrior, a little fighter who had kept his smile as he fought this battle with a deadly disease. He was just a little boy, he should be at home playing with his little brother Michael and getting into everything. He should not be here, living in a hospital room, with poisin being put into his body in hopes of killing the cancer that had taken up residence inside him. The woman was typing away on her computer, glancing over at her son every now and again as he watched the televison.

January 13 2013

'As I type this, my little guy is lying in bed watching a DVD and resting. He's doing so well at the moment and I'm so greatful for that. I still can't believe the past few months, I can't believe that my little Leo has cancer. This whole journey started with my little boy complaining that his tummy hurt. He had been constipated for a few days and I noticed that his stomach was a bit swollen so I took him to see our pediatrician. Dr. Alscot felt a lump in Leo's tummy so he sent us to the hospital to run some tests. We arrived at Capitol Children's emergency department and waited as they got arround to us. The took blood samples and sent us upstairs to get some scans. We were admitted to the general care ward while we waited for the results.

After a rough night with very little sleep we were given the results at six fifteen in the morning that next day. They suspected cancer, there was a solid mass in my son's abdomen and another had been found on his kidney. We were then transfererd to the Crab Ward, their Oncology Ward. We were admitted into a temperary room with another family,who were waiting on further tests for their daughter who was even younger than Leo. My son is onlytwo, he'll be three in June. Not even three years old and he already knows what cancer is, it's not right and it sure isn't fair.

Our first day on Crab Ward was Leo being tested, he was taken off for a biopsy. We waited to hear the full news about the tumor. The dreaded news came back and we were told that our son has stage 4 Neuroblastoma. You feel your world starting to colapse around you and you wonder what could possibly be the reason for your toddler to be going through this nightmare. Surgery was schedualed to remove the tumors from his abdomen and kidney. He was given some time to heal from the surgery before they started him on his first round of chemo. We waited for him to heal, I spent most of my time in the hospital with him, swaping out with his Daddy Wendell so I could go home and be with my Husband, Leo's O'Daddy, Jack and our son together, Leo's best buddy Michael Vincent.

While we were going through all of this with our Leo, we got the first picture of our daughter. We had descided before this all happened that we would like to adopt a child from a Waiting Child prgramme in China. We had two healthy little boys and a lot of money so we could offer a sick little girl a chance of life, a family and a home. We were matched with a baby girls who has a clift lipand palet. She'll require reconstructive surgery when she comes home, but she's healthy otherwise. She'll be one in March and we're hoping to have her home some time mid year. She's not the only little one joining our littl family this year.

While Leo started chemo, I was throwing up a lot too, I thought at first it might be the stress of everything and sympathy symptoms for my son. But we soon found out I was expecting another baby, due in June. So here I am, sitting by my son's hospital bed, his head bald having shaved is when he first started chemotherapy in November last year, his eye brows are gone now too. Next to his bed are photos of his brother and his little sister in China. He talks quite well for a two year old, and tells the nurses that he has a baby sister waiting in China and another baby in Mommy's tummy. He loves being a big brother and talks about how he's going to teach Michael how to be one too.

Life has changed so much in just months, but we have each other, this little family and boy do we have some of the greatest friends. They love our little guy and are doing everything they can to help us all get through this hellish journey.

Angela M

Lightning Leo's Mommy

"Mommy?" the little boy said, bringing the woman out of her thoughts.

"What's the matter Baby-Boy?" Angela asked, putting her computer to the side and turning her attention to her toddler.

"Want drink" he replied, at two and a half he was able to speak quite well but didn't often string together more than three words in a sentence.

"Okay, let me fill your sippy" she said, picking up a clean sippy-cup from the bench where they were kept and filling it with the filtered water from the blue plastic jug that sat beside the toddler's hospital bed.

"Here you are" Angela said with a smile, handed Leo the cup and kissed him on the forehead.

"Thank you" he said, smiling his wonderful smile up at her.

"You're welcome Baby, here budge over so I can get a snuggle" she said to her son, tickling his side a bit until he moved over allowing her som space to join him in the bed.

Together they lay, worried mother and sick son, watching the moving pictures on the screen on the wall across from the bed. It was nice to experience a moment of calm together, it was nice that neither of them were feeling neaseous. Moments when Leo just seemed like any other little boy, Angela tried to imagine he was stuck in bed with a cold or maybe chicken pox and not the silent and deadly killer that was childhood cancer. But living out of a hospital room just wasn't the same as being at home with your family. Angela missed going to work, then picking her sons up from the Jeffersonia and Day Care and going home to spend some quality family time with her wonderful husband and the two toddlers.

She began to wonder if maybe she had taken that life too much for granted, she thought back to when Michael not sleeping through the night was their biggest struggle. Back to all the times she complained about Leo running around the house and getting into everything. Or when teething was the worst pain she ever had to see one of her child induring and how she wished she could go back to that. Back to happy families and blissful ignorance, back to complaining about rowdy kids and having to change diapers for two toddlers. Although with the baby girls in China waiting to be brought home and the little one growing inside of her too, that would mean four little ones all in diapers.

Angela smiled as she felt her unborn child move around inside of her, it was a wonderful feeling. Such a contrast, her son lying in a hospital bed fighting for his life and another life growing happily and healthily in her womb. Of course as was the case with Michael, the new baby had a one in four chance of having Leber's Congential Amaurosis and being born blind. But Angela and Jack were up to that challenge, as they were up to the challenge of raising their little girl from China who had been born with a cleft lip and palate that would need to be surgically repaired when she came home, her left ear had not developed before birth, her hearing was some what effected but not too badly. So soon they might be raising one child with a potentially terminal cancer, one child with hearing loss and a need for reconstructive surgery and possibly a blind baby too.

A/N: I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and having a look into Angela's life at the moment. This is a crossover fic and the first one I've really tried at. The next chapter will focuss on one or two more families who are now on the Crab Ward, as well. Not all chapters will be about the sick kids in the hospital. Some will follow cases, adoption journies and even weddings. Some will even be just cute and mundane family moments, like grocery shopping and school meetings. Please let me know what you think.