"Stella I cant do this anymore" came the voice behind her
"What, what do you mean" Stella said turning to the brown haired girl behind her
"This, Us I am sorry"
"Why?" Stella said trying to hold back the tear that escaped her eye not wanting to look like she meant it she let the tear fall until a thumb wiped it away carefully.
"Because, we are work colleages Stel, Lawson would kill us and we would both lose our jobs. And I know how much you love it"
"Shannon come on, I would give up my job over you any day. Please you cant leave"
"I'm sorry stel" Shannon walked out of the room before reading the piece of paper in her hand for the hundredth time today it read
Shannon Henry
Her immune system was shown to be low, with the blood taken for testing it was found that she had leukaemia and has only four weeks to live due to the fact that the cancer wasn't treatable.
She hated that she was hurting Stella but this was the best way, she had a day before she was to be admitted into hospital and four days till her four weeks where up. She was terrified of what was going to happen and if it was going to hurt but after talking to the doctors they promised it wouldn't hurt. Shannon walked down the stairs and ran around the neighbourhood for the last time, towards the end Shannon collapsed.
Josh was running, he didn't know why he was but he had to run he was sick of being stuck at base again after hitting a guy for saying stuff about Stella. He respected her and sure he found her annoying but if anyone hurt Stella or Shannon than they had him to answer too, he was about half way through his run when he saw someone laying on the ground in the park. He started to run over too them, he realised it was someone familiar very familiar it was Shannon he sprinted upto her. He could see she was breathing but barely, he grabbed out his phone and rung an ambulance before ringing stella
"Hey stella I need you too meet me at the hospital"
"Why Josh whats wrong?" Stella's voice sounded gravely from crying
"Shannon, she has passed out in the park near her apartment"
"I don't want to see her at the moment, I will talk to you later" with that Stella hung up the phone and took the battery out of the back before chucking it in the lounge room.
Back at the park Josh is confused about Stella's reaction, Josh notices a piece of paper that is in Shannon's hand it looks battered and warn, he grabs it and reads the message before looking down at the woman in front of him. He picked up his phone again and rung Lawson
"Hey Lawson It is Josh"
"Hey Josh, what's wrong?"
"I was going for a jog, I found Shannon passed out in the park near her apartment, Stella is upset. Also I found a piece of paper in shannon's hand I need you too get here NOW"
"Okay, but what does the piece of paper say?"
"Lawson I need you here now not time to explain"
"Okay I will be there in five"
"Okay" with that Josh hung up the phone before dialing Kerry's number
"Hey Kerry"
"What do you want Josh cause if this is a social call I will kick your ass"
"No this isn't I found Shannon passed out, you need to go get Stella from her apartment and bring her too the hospital, And I mean now"
"Okay Keep your pants on what's going on?"
"I Dunno with Stella but I am pretty sure she had a fight with Shannon and well Shannon I just need you too get to the hospital because this is serious and I need you to read something"
"Josh, stop pissing around and tell me what I need to read"
"No Kerry you need to read this yourself" Josh could hear the sirens approaching "I need to go the ambulance is coming now get Stella and come down to the hospital" Josh hung up just as the ambulance came into view. As soon as they had stopped the men where out of the ambulance and looking over Shannon
"Can you tell me anything about this woman?" said the older guy
"Yeah she works with me, her name is Shannon Henry um and I found this on her" Josh gave the piece of paper to the guy, the guy read it and nodded before giving the piece of paper back to Josh and getting the stretcher out of the ambulance and lifting Shannon onto it.
Josh helped load her into the ambulance and then waited until Lawson came, the ambulance was just about to leave when he arrived. He looked at Shannon and then towards Josh before striding over to him "Josh what is going on?"
"this" Josh handed Lawson the piece of paper and as Lawson read it his face turned grim, he looked at Josh wishing this was one big joke but It wasn't.
"You cant be serious josh, she can't have Leukaemia. It's not possible"
"Do you think Stella knows?"
"No I don't think so"
"Shit is she coming to the hospital?"
"I told Kerry to pick her up she said she didn't care when I rung her before"
"Okay well I can drive you to the hospital hopefully she will be okay"
"Yeah lets hope" Josh said before turning and hopping into Lawson's car
When they reached the hospital Kerry and Stella where in the waiting room, it was obvious that Stella had been crying and Kerry just looked worried and pissed off as per usual.
"Josh what the hell is going on?"
"Shannon collapsed i found her on a run, she had this in her hand" Josh handed over the piece of paper to Kerry and her face fell from anger to sadness this couldn't happen again. First Grace now Shannon this was going to hurt the team more than ever
"Josh this cant be right, she hasn't told me anything" Kerry turned to Stella who hadn't moved since Kerry had dragged her into the hospital "Stella" Stella didn't respond "Stella" this time stella looked up at Kerry and noticed that Josh and Lawson, she looked confused cause she hadn't seen them come in
"Yeah Kerry"
"Did you know about this" Kerry gave the paper to Stella, Stella read it and broke down, Josh sat down beside her and pulled her into a hug
"Stella, did you know?" stella stopped crying for a second and looked at Josh
"No, she broke up with me tonight, she said she couldn't do it anymore and that it would affect our jobs but I didn't think that it was anything like this" Josh had found them kissing in the change rooms but he promised not to tell anyone else even though Stella had bagged him and Grace out at every chance
"Hey, it will be okay"
"How can it be Josh, you know how you where when Grace died. How do you think I am going to be?"
"She will be okay, Shannon is strong she will pull through"
"How long have you too been going out" Kerry said still shocked by the development
"Six months, Josh found out a couple of months ago. He promised not too tell anyone since it wasn't affecting the job"
"Why didn't you too tell us?" said Lawson calmly
"Cause Shannon didn't want either of us too lose our jobs, especially with TR"
"We wouldn't have done that, sure we would have separated you too but it doesn't mean that you would lose your jobs in TR"
"Thanks Kerry but that doesn't matter now" Stella stood up and walked out of the hospital trying to clear her head
"I need to talk to a doctor and see what is happening" Just as Kerry said that a doctor came around the corner and spotted the group he walked up too them
"Hello are you here with Shannon Henry?"
"Yeah we are whast going on?"
"she has come around we did another blood test and we found that the test must have been mixed up with someone elses she has absolutely no sign of leukaemia"
Everyone was happy about the outcome but Kerry got angry
"then why did she collapse?"
"stress and dehydration"
"Can we see her?"
"Yes she has been told that she doesn't have cancer and she is happy"
"Yeah well so would I"
"Hey Kerry can I go talk to her first?" Josh said
"yeah if you want"
"thanks" Josh walked down the hall and into the room which the doctor had told him seconds ago, he poked his head through the door and saw Shannon sitting up in bed in the exact same position as grace had been in before she died, Shannon felt someone watching her and looked at the door, her face was stained red from the tears that ran down her face.
"Hey" josh said before walking over to her bed and sitting down on the chair beside her
"Hey" Shannon's voice was croaky and broken from crying
"Kerry, Lawson and Stella are here"
"How did they know?" Shannon said looking at josh
"I rung Lawson when I found you in the park, i read the note that you where holding and rung Stella then Kerry, Stella is pretty upset" Josh said trailing off
"Yeah well I wouldn't blame her all I was trying to do was protect her"
"Shannon you know how much she loves you, she asked me what she would be like if she lost you. She said she would be like me when I lost Grace"
"I don't want to lose her either Josh, but now she probably hates me since I hurt her and didn't tell her about the test results"
"Yeah but Shannon they are negative you can still be with her Shannon, if you want to be. I can tell you that she deffinately wants you back she is outside crying because she thinks that she is going to lose you"
"I want to be with her, I love her Josh"
"I can tell her you are okay if you want and why you did what you did but I need you too be positive"
"Josh you think that I don't want to be with her, either you haven't had enough sleep or you are really going crazy" Shannon said laughing
"Okay well then I guess that is a yes, I'll go talk to her. But you probably will have to talk to Kerry and Lawson and they know about everything"
"Oh god, who told them?"
"Stella actually and they said they where fine with it so don't freak okay i'll let them talk to you and I'll go talk to Stella"
"Thanks josh, for everything" Shannon kissed him on the cheak and watched at josh walked out of the room. Josh could see Kerry and Lawson talking a meter away from the door
"Hey you too, you can talk to her. I am going to go talk to Stella" with that Josh walked down the hall and out the door where he could see Stella know sitting on a bench with her legs to her chest
"Hey Stel" Josh said happily
"Shannon is sick and you are acting happy, are you crazy?"
"She just asked me the same thing" Josh said laughing
"What, she is awake?" said Stella shocked as she tried to get up
"Yeah she is sit down" Josh said before sitting down himself "After you walked out the doctor came and told us that Shannon Doesn't have luekemia and that she passed out from stress and dehydration, i just went and talked to her and asked her what was going on. The reason she broke up with you was too protect you from what was coming and she wants you back" josh waited for a minute before he saw a smile come across Stella's face
"Can I see her?"
"Yeah she is talking to Lawson and Kerry right now though, they will come and get us when they have finished"
Back in Shannon's room
"You okay?" said Kerry in her usual mood
"Yeah I am fine now" said Shannon looking at Kerry
"Yeah well you better bloody be cause you have alot of explaining to do, why the hell didn't you tell us Shannon, not just about you and Stella but also about the test?, cause if it wasn't for that bloody new test I would be killing you myself right now"
"I am sorry Kerry, I didn't want Stella to lose the Job at TR, so we lied until Josh caught us a couple of months ago. We made him promise us that he wouldn't tell and that it hadn't affected our job at all so he agreed to keep it quiet. And with the luekemia I was scared and didn't want anyone to feel sorry for me, I hated that I was going to end up hurting Stella but I thought it was for the best"
"Bloody hell Shannon, by the way she is acting you can bloody tell that she loves you. You need to talk to her cause I swear one more lie and I kill you"
"Okay Kerry I think that we will let Stella and Shannon talk"
"OH no you bloody don't Lawson, you aren't going to make me"
"Kerry it is either you walk out of her voluntarily or I get josh and we will drag you out of this room"
"Do you know what Lawson you are a real pain in my ass sometimes"
"Yeah yeah just get out" Lawson said pulling Kerry out of Shannon's room before looking back at Shannon "Do you want to talk to Stella know?"
"Yeah can you get her?"
"Yeah of course" Lawson walked out of the room with a complaining Kerry and out the front doors before he saw Josh and Stella sitting on the bench and pulled Kerry over too them, he wasn't letting her go because she would probably run back inside and start telling Shannon off."Hey Stel, Shannon wants to see you" Stella's face wasn't upset anymore but was now replaced with fear of not knowing what was going to happen
"Thanks Lawson" Stella stood up and walked into the hospital with Josh beside her, until they reached the door before Shannon's room, josh gave her a quick smile before she walked over to Shannon's room. She waited at the door but this time Shannon was waiting and gave Stella a smile when she saw her.
"Stella, I am sorry" Stella nodded not trusting her voice and walked over to her and hugged her telling her she forgave her through the hug
"I didn't want to hurt you like what happened with Grace and Josh" Shannon whispered into her ear
"Don't worry I have you now that's all that matters" Shannon and Stella talked about everything and then agreed everything was great.