"Alex, I am so sorry for your loss." Doctor Nye greeted them in the waiting room, Paulo helped him stand "What did you do?"
"I think its a torn tendon and damaged ligaments, maybe a fractured bone then a cracked Fibula and fractured Tibia." Paulo commented answering the question
"Doctor Nye." the doctor introduced himself
"Paulo, I am a paramedic." he added at the doctors raised eyebrows
"Well, lets get that bandaged and some painkillers for you. This way, can you support him or would you like a wheel chair?" Nye asked turning
"I can cope, its fine." Paulo replied after Alex looked at him they were led to a examination room, Paulo sat on the chair after depositing Alex on the bed. The doctor examined his leg and then returned with a nurse and bandages
"Paulo, could I have a hand here?" the nurse asked when the doctor was out the room, together they bandaged the leg
"What colour?" the nurse asked holding up the cast wrapping colours
"Pink definitely." Paulo grinned
"I am not unconscious this time, and do have a say in the matter. Though I will go with a more entertaining colour for you." Alex grinned, the nurse laughed and held up day-glow yellow
"Suitable?" she asked with a smile, Alex laughed slightly and looked surprised
"Thank you." Alex smiled at the nurse for making him laugh, the nurse understood knowing about the boys resent parental status
"We can do stripes?" the nurse suggested Alex and Paulo grinned
"Yes." they both stated, the nurse smiled
"Colours?" she prompted
"Blue, green, yellow, purple and pink." Paulo suggested
"Sounds good." Alex agreed. Ten minutes later he was equipped with crutches and a stripy cast, much to the boys disgruntlement they coloured crutches did not come in his size. The nurse led Alex to the doctors room again and led Paulo away, Alex sat slowly and looked at the grave face of the doctor
"Nice cast." he commented
"Thanks." Alex replied "What were they?"
"Positive." Nye delivered the blow. Alex nodded once absorbing the news, he shut his eyes
"OK. Can anything be done?" he had seen cancer too much to know nothing happened when you were in denial
"Transfusions. Transplants. If you get enough bone marrow we should be able to 'swap' yours for that. If we do a complete compete transfusion. There is a new treatment..." Nye added Alex looked up
"What?" he asked not letting himself hope
"We do Chemo then the bone marrow, then you have injections every five hours." Nye explained
"Like a diabetic?" he asked
"Yes, in theory. We would keep you here for three days making sure you get in the routine then give you pens to inject yourself with, you would be part of the pilot study." Nye admitted
"That's fine. When?" Alex asked
"As soon as possible really. After the funeral." Nye stated Alex nodded
"How long would it take?" he asked worried
"Chemo for a five days then transplant, you would have to find a donor, anyone would work really, then two days of transplanting then three days of observation and you would be free, two weeks really." he closed his folder "Here is a copy of your notes for you to take home and the plan and timetable to study. If we start in four days, that gives you recovery time from the funeral, thank you for the invite," he added Alex nodded sadly "Then you should be up and kicking in three weeks." he explained
"Thank you." he stared to stand
"Oh and Alex?" the doctor called him back
"Yes?" he asked confused
"Try to avoid seven hour runs." Nye smiled looking at his leg, Alex nodded "Though the fact you managed that shows you are still kicking."
"Hey, he still in there?" Li asked Paulo finding him in the waiting room
"Yep. Though he left one vital thing off his Doctors title." Paulo replied looking at the doctors sign
"Doctor Albert Nye, Oncology." Amber breathed "No." she shook her head
"Hey." Alex hopped across the room on crutches looking more tired than normal, Camille took the folder out of his hand to let him get a better grip
"Hi." Hex said flatly
"I see you read the sign." Alex sighed "I'll explain at home."
"So..." Hex prompted they were all sitting around the table eating lunch
"Multiple myeloma." Alex summarised
"Cancer of the bone marrow." Paulo groaned they all looked at him "It can affect your kidneys and blood, bones etc." he summarised
"What can be done?" Camille asked
"Kidney removal or transplant, the latter less common due to lack of matching donors. Bone marrow removal. Chemotherapy." Paulo looked at Alex, Camille was flicking through the medical file
"Why are your families record in here?" she asked confused
"They're not." Alex replied
"Yes they are, William Allende, kidney and bone marrow transplant. Aggie Allende, liver transplant, Phoebe Allende, Bone marrow transplant. all three Blood, platelets. James and Lucy Allende, Lymphocytes, White blood cells, Blood in general. It has them all." she replied, Paulo took the file off her
"Alex is right, its not their notes." he stated realisation dawning
"But-" Li was cut off
"They're all his. He gave the blood, bone marrow, kidney, liver, everything. that's what he meant when he said he couldn't do enough. He gave all of them something of him, and now he cant have a kidney transplant. He can't have his marrow removed." Paulo concluded, Alex inclined his head letting him know he was right, the phone rang, it was handed to Alex, he gestured for his file to be returned with a pen,
"OK... no that's fine... OK... bye." he hung up and scribbled on his file "As for what they are doing to me, Chemo in two days, starts three hours after the funeral ends, the only time could fit me in, then they transplant the Bone marrow, if they can find enough, and then I get pens like Amber. After three days in the hospital I get set free. I inject myself every five hours, when I wake and before I go to sleep doesn't matter if I do two, you can't overdose. Then a week later I go back. Then two weeks. Then a months, then two. Eventually its just the three monthly check ups." Alex explained.
"Alex." Camille whispered, there was a groan from the bed
"Go away." he whispered voice thick and heavy with exhaustion
"No." she replied jumping onto the bed. Alex rolled over and Camille fought to keep the look of shock off her face
"Good thing I haven't looked in a mirror since this started." Alex whispered hoarsely his sarcasm marred by his sore throat. The Chemo had been going for four days, tomorrow he was getting the last batch then being transplanted, seven hours of surgery.
"It's not that bad." she tried
"Don't lie. I have seen it before " Alex sighed. His hair was all gone and he was as white as a sheet. His eyes were dark and sunken in. He was as thin as Li but his thinness was coupled with weakness.
"What did you do today?" Alex made an effort to talk, this was different, normally he slept.
"Climbing again." she rolled her eyes "Is Li part monkey?" she asked, Alex laughed half heartedly then coughs racked his body, he rolled on his side and coughed for at least three minutes. Camille rubbed his back soothingly, he rolled back onto his back and was paler and his eyes were shutting.
"Probably." he mumbled, Camille was confused until she remembered her previous comment
"As soon as you are better you can take me up there and I won't look like a complete idiot." she smiled. Alex was one of the better climbers but compared to Li he was as useless as her.
"Did you go riding?" Alex mumbled
"Yes, Paulo is still not impressed I am better than him." she added
"You will be ready for the adventure trek." Alex muttered. She was doing the adventure trek in Zambia the Alpha force had done twice and come second the first time and first the second. This was Camille's first time with the UN. She was excited, yet terrified at the same time. What she didn't know was that Alpha force were planning to do it as well, with or without Alex. They had three and a half months, yet it may not be enough.
"I hope so." Camille replied biting her lip worried. She watched the sun set fully "Sleep." she told him
"Your wish is my command." Alex teased, shut his eyes and was gone.
"How is he?" Li asked when Camille descended the staircase
"Worse. But he tried to have conversation. I told him to sleep." she added
"That's new." Amber commented handing around plates
"I am glad its the last dose tomorrow." Paulo sighed
"Then seven hours of surgery." Camille added
"Any signs of bruising, other than understandable ones, fainting, light headedness, anything out for the ordinary, call me on my mobile. If it is serious, bring him back." Nye instructed the five nodded. Alex wheeled himself in "Here he is. Now you got my list of do's and don't's. You have your watch set for when you have to inject yourself. I will see you at this time in exactly a week. No travelling abroad remember." he added looking at Alex's companions, they all nodded. "For gods sake Alex, don't do anything stupid." Nye added as he turned to leave
"Me, do something stupid! I think you are confusing me with Will!" Alex replied
"Wouldn't be the first time. I seem to recall you almost got Chemotherapy in his place because we didn't believe you were not your brother." the doctor sighed and left them
"Really!" Li asked
"Yes. Funnily enough they don't believe when you say 'I am not William I am his identical twin brother Alexander, he is in the bathroom!'" Alex replied with the grin, they all laughed amused
"Shotgun!" Amber said jumping onto Alex's lap, he rolled his eyes and Camille came and sat on the other leg, more carefully than the former, then Li sat on the both of them
"Home boys!" Amber exclaimed. Paulo and Hex rolled their eyes
"Race?" Camille suggested Li jumped off
"Me and Paulo, you and Hex, and Cam and Alex." she stated, Amber slid off and Camille grabbed the handles of the wheelchair, Li and Amber jumped onto their boyfriends back and they got ready to run
"GO!" Hex exclaimed against his usual quiet introvert behaviour, they ran
"WE WIN!" Camille exclaimed reaching the car laughing, those who could all lay on the ground laughing then Alex pulled his phone out as it vibrated, he laughed again and looked at the hospital
Alex, I said nothing stupid. It was from the doctor
I was perfectly safe. You said nothing about my friends not being stupid. Alex sent back, a few seconds later there was a reply
Well played. I mean it though.
Camille slipped under Alex's arm and helped him to the car, he got the front seat, then the rest followed him, the chair and crutches got put in the boot
"I'll drive!" Camille exclaimed they all groaned
"Seatbelts!" Alex exclaimed pretending to be worried, the African rolled her eyes
"Ha ha." she replied rolling her eyes at them,
"ALEX!" Paulo rushed to his friend who was walking towards the kitchen slowly, without crutches, he rushed to his side and slipped under his arm and helped him to the seat, Alex nodded gratefully
"It doesn't look that far from my seat over there." his watch beeped and Alex groaned, he pulled out a syringe pen, he jabbed it in his leg and sighed "Bloody drugs." he sighed
"Alex." Amber walked in from climbing with Li on the moors, she pushed a folder towards him "As you couldn't stay awake long enough, that is the plans for you charity idea." Alex had come up with an idea for a charity for orphans around the world, he opened the folder
"MAD OCC?" he asked confused reading the top of the sheet
"Middleton Allende Daguerre Orphaned Children Charity." Camille explained a smile flickered onto Alex's face
"Sounds brilliant, couldn't have done better." all his friends smiled and high-fived
"You came up with the idea in the first place." Amber commented dryly they all laughed
"How did the check up go?" Hex asked entering the room and kissing Amber lightly
"Get a room!" Li threw a scrunch up ball of paper at the two of them, she turned to Alex "How did it go?"
"At the moment I am clear, just need to return if I start to feel like I did when it started." Alex replied
"And when was that?" Paulo asked turning from the stove
"Just before mum was diagnosed. They noticed I was weaker, told me to go to Nye. I told them the results came back clean like they had last time. Then mum got told she had to have surgery, dad had to to to Africa, she had complications and you know the rest, I didn't want them to know." Alex explained
"Did the previous tests come back clean?" Amber asked having stopped kissing Hex
"No." Paulo answered for the younger teen, he grabbed the medical file off the side where it lived and flicked to the scan pages "The past four tests came back positive. The first was small. Another came back worse. Then a break of a few months." he flicked his eyes to Alex and Camille grabbed the file
"This was just before you left." she exclaimed
"Is that why you left!" Li exclaimed, Alex nodded once.
"You moron!" Paulo and Hex exclaimed for once thinking the same thing.
"You should have told us." Amber hit him with the folder on the arm, Alex laughed humourlessly
"I came home. Got treatment, left for Canada. I couldn't do that to you. No one knew." Alex stated
"Are you freaking telling me you went to Solambia with Cancer!" Amber exclaimed
"Technically no... I was in remission. As with just before I left, then I thought I was in remission but I wasn't." he sighed and rubbed his eyes
"Oh my God Alex!" Li shrieked "You... You... YOU!" she hit him repeatedly with the folder after snatching it off Amber,
"Help?" he asked the others
"Not likely, you are lucky there is only one folder." Hex snorted.
"Dinner!" Paulo announced Alex took advantage of the distraction to grab the file and sit on it. Li glared at him and slapped him around the head with her hand for good measure then sat.
"ALEX!" Camille exclaimed
"I am getting so tired of hearing that." Alex sighed, Camille grabbed his arm and examined the bruises
"What happened? You get hit by a car?!" she demanded
"No, a folder." Alex admitted, Li's eyes flew open wider
"NO!" she stated "That was so gentle!"
"Give it ten minutes and I will have a hand shaped bruise on my arm." Alex commented eyeing Camille's hand, she let go like he had burnt her
"That light a touch!" Hex commented Alex nodded
"You remember throwing the cushion at me yesterday?" he asked, they all nodded, Alex lifted up his top and showed then a square bruise on his side, they all winced
"It was quite a forceful throw Paulo." Hex commented, the Argentinian looked guilty
"Sorry." he apologised
"It's cool. Its when I get the bruises from simply picking up my crutches you need to worry." Alex replied
"That doesn't happen." Amber commented rolling her eyes, when Alex didn't smile reassuringly she paused "Does it?"
"Well I haven't seen it with the owners crutches but Will passed my crutches to me. His hands bruised." Alex stated they all looked at him "I had broken my leg, he used to be on crutches because he sprained his ankle tripping up the stairs but he didn't have the strength to use them. He couldn't push his own wheelchair either because his hands turned black and blue. Four weeks later he deteriorated. God we had so much fun in wheelchairs." Alex grinned
"Both of you or just him?" Hex asked quietly having no seen this side of Alex before
"Both of us. I had just donated my kidney and they didn't want either of us using crutches, I had a broken leg and him a sprained ankle. We had races." Alex grinned "It was just us by then." an old sorrow pulled at his lips "I gave him a purple cast once." he added "The sprain. He was under drugs, so asleep, they had done the transplant and re did our casts while we slept, but what we were not told was that he planned as I did for the nurses to give the other a girly cast before we went under. We laughed so hard when we woke."
"I can imagine." Camille agreed smiling at the thought.
Alex ran his blood pounding in his ears and head. His breath was steady though. His body felt like it was about to drop. The distance was only three miles, he used to be able to do it easily in under thirty minutes, but he was nearly an hour. Yet he ran. He saw the gates and felt relief fill him, he ran through them and followed to all to familiar path through the graves, he reached his destination. He crouched slowing his breathing and stretching is recently healed leg out wincing. It ached maybe the run was not the best thing to do. He felt the sun break the horizon and warm his sweaty neck it lit the black slab of marble in front of him
William Alexander Allende
1996 – 2008
Beloved Son, Brother,
Nephew and Cousin
The Colour Of Extraordinary.
Alex traced the familiar letters pausing on the final line. He smiled faintly
"Looks like we are now identical." Alex ran a hand through his stubble of hair pulling his hat of as he went, frost covered the ground and he had found being outside with no hair was cold.
"MMBM. We always joked that if there were any I would get that one. Unlikely survival rates, involves what I have given most of. Stupid Bone marrow." Alex sighed and was so distracted he didn't hear Camille crouch behind him he kept talking "James would be twenty one. Sorry I missed it." he turned briefly to the grave next to the one he was crouched at
"You are probably laughing your heads off at the moment. Alex got cancer. The only one who became a teen, one of the two who reached double figures. You have mum and dad now." he laid a hand on Williams grave and pulled out four cards. He stood and walked to the most recent graves
"Happy belated Birthday mum." he put one card down "I'll get you some flowers like I always do later." he moved down the line "Hey dad. Look after them." he kept walking "Hey James, happy belated birthday. You were probably laughing at he puking my guts up on your birthday. Hello Lucy. And Aggie and Phoebe, Phoebe and Aggie. Happy Birthday." he crouched and placed the two remaining cards on their graves then returned to Williams
"I am sorry for teasing you mercilessly when you went Chemotherapy. It is horrible, everyone wanted to talk to me, all I wanted to do was sleep. Cam, I told you about her, jumped on my bed. She is probably thinking I am crazy for talking to grave stones to be honest. And giving you cards." Alex stood and held out a hand, Camille took it
"Hardly. Orphan as well remember. I did it all the time. I talked to the plants, the animals, I just talked, at least you aim it at something." Camille replied Alex laughed slightly
"I suppose you have a point. Its the twins birthday today, mums was yesterday and James' on my fourth day of Chemo." James explained, Alex turned to face her just as she went to kiss his cheek, their lips met and they kissed, Alex slid his arms around her waist and pulled her closer, a few minutes later they broke off, Camille's eyes were shining
"Cammie, would you like to get back together?" Alex asked grinning she kissed him again
"Thought you would never ask!" she grinned "Though, you cannot run away again just because you have cancer again." she scolded him, he smiled guiltily
"Deal." they kissed sealing it again
"I think our friends were planning to lock us in a room together again." Camille commented, Alex laughed and crouched again still holding her hand wincing as his leg twinged, he moved it and laid a hand on Will's grave shutting his eyes
"I should have waited." Alex grinned at her, she crouched next to him
"I will look after him don't worry." she promised the grave, Alex smiled faintly "What does the last line mean?"
"It's something we did, we wrote notes to each other and left them places. Mainly sarcasm but that was the last thing I said to him. He was in the hospital bed, all the wires gone, I took his hand and said 'You are the colour of extraordinary.' he smiled weakly and simply said 'Thank you for being my brother.' Then he died. When his hand was taken from my grip I found he had left a message in my hand." Alex smiled sadly
"What did it say?" she asked, Alex laughed, Camille found this strange
"'I told you I was sick.'" Alex explained "It is what I want on my grave." he added "When we were three we decided what we wanted on our graves Lucy had just died and we thought we would decide now. He said he wanted to be the colour of Extraordinary when he grew up. He was. He never gave up. I said I wanted 'I told you I was sick.'" they stayed like that for a while before Camille had to speak
"I hate to ruin the moment but my feet are like ice blocks and my but is dead." she whispered, Alex laughed and pushed her backwards, she grabbed him and pulled her with her, from the easy way he fell it was clear this was expected, they rolled down the hill and landed at the bottom laughing trying to catch their breath, Alex leant over Camille and grinned, he kissed her, she rolled on top of him and kissed him longer, deeper, Alex framed her face with his hands
"Why did I ever leave you." he murmured, she stood and offered a hand to Alex
"Because, obviously, you are an utter moron. I thought we made that clear with Amber and Li hitting you around the head and Hex, Paulo and myself wishing there were more medical files to hit you with." she replied kissing him again
"Obviously." Alex grinned
"Why I let you go is another matter all together." she added
"Because you are a moron." Alex grinned
"Obviously." Camille grinned too "Race you?" she asked, Alex groaned, then knocked her over and ran towards the gate, when there he stopped and collapsed on the bench
"Damn, you is fast for a boy only off crutches three days and Chemo seven weeks." Alex grinned as she sat beside him, he was shockingly out of breath
"Don't be silly. You could run circles around me." Alex gasped out, she eyed him critically
"Is this our lovely friend cancer or you being un fit?" she asked worried
"The latter due to the former." Alex stated
"Well, looks like its a long walk home." she grinned "With company when we get there." she groaned
"No," then Alex groaned "Bank holiday Friday. Who puts one on a Friday!"
"England. It's Easter, they are here for three weeks." she replied rolling her eyes "Anyway, we are training for the adventure trek. You can come recover your fitness." she grinned they stood and Alex grabbed her hand
"When does your boss want you back?" he asked curious, all the others had gone back to their universities but Camille had stayed
"Not until after the Adventure trek. The others on it from the UN are all on leave and not returning until two weeks after the trek. We meet up one week before to train together. They want to raise awareness of the UN and what we do. They can't really do that unless we get a good placing. They know we can't train properly in the field so they free us up and set us loose." she explained at his shocked look
"I am not complaining," he grinned
"Alex, don't leave like that again. Please. Not just before, but this morning. You terrified me." Camille asked stopping walking. Alex hugged her and kissed her lightly
"Sorry. I am not planning to." worries sorted they continued the walk home.
AN: So... please tell me what you think if anyone reads this. It would really brighten up my day.