Thanks for all the kind comments, it means so much to me. I was pleased with how that last chapter turned out so hope this one is okay too. Ethan fans, bear with me - chapter 4 is all about him. Writing has been slow the last few days but hopefully a few reviews will spur me on ;) Seriously, I really do appreciate any comments or feedback.

casslourocks: Thank you so much for your comments on my writing. That's what I was aiming for with the detail so I'm really pleased you picked up on that. It would have been so easy to gloss over the medical stuff as I'm not confident at all with that, but I felt not including it wouldn't do the intensity of the treatment justice. Hope you enjoy this part too.

Bonnie Sveen Fan: I'm glad you liked the little bit of humour in there as I find that so hard to write. Sad stuff comes much easier to me for some reason! Thank you for reviewing.

Beccs2202: Thanks for reviewing. I wanted to try to keep it realistic as we're often teased with their inability to have deep and meaningful conversations. I'm pleased you're finding it interesting.

Teeloganroryflan: Thanks for your review. Ethan is okay for now, but it may not last!

L: It means a lot that you were excited for an update. Hope you enjoy this one too. Thanks for your lovely review.

sweeet-as-honey: Thank you so much. I love that you picked those moments out as I was trying to get across their awkwardness in communicating meaningfully. Their hearts are in the right place (at the moment anyway) but it's not easy to break habits of a lifetime and actually say what they think. I'm really pleased you're enjoying this.


3.

Cal unearths a three day old newspaper from beneath a pile of glossy magazines and idly flicks through the sport pages, scanning over stories he'd already heard on the staff room radio. He thinks about his colleagues, several floors below him in the ED, and wonders exactly how much they'll rib him if they see him lingering around his place of work when he should be at home, sleeping off a hangover.

The hangover is unanticipated and Cal decides that makes it all the more painful. He tries to recall the events of the night before but after Max and Jez goading him into a five-shot challenge, it becomes a blur. He wishes he'd known his presence at Ethan's examination would be forbidden so that he could have stayed in bed.

Cal recalls the small smile his brother gave him after he accepted that there was no facility for guests and feels a twitch of amusement at Ethan's gratitude. If Ethan's gullible enough to assume his lack of response was because he's a good big brother, then Cal has no intention of correcting him. Truthfully, he'd been overwhelmed by a burst of hungover nausea and by the time he'd felt well enough to speak, Ethan had already been marched away. He tells himself that waiting for his brother to finish is a good enough compromise.

Cal's head hurts now and the small print within the newspaper is doing nothing to ease it. He opts for a women's fashion magazine instead, hoping there's a lingerie section. He opens the magazine at a random place and slumps against the back of the chair, not bothering to disguise a yawn. He considers forgoing the pictures of pretty models in favour of a short nap. But before he has chance to try, the peace is disturbed by the sound of a woman shouting. The doors to the waiting room crashes open. Cal chucks the magazine back onto the table, just in case the woman has enough faculties to notice what he's looking at.

He sits up straighter as he digests the newcomer's appearance. She's younger than Ethan, he decides, although it could be that her leather backpack makes her look deceptively youthful. Her delicately pale skin is flushed and her blonde hair is ruffled from the phone jammed against her ear.

"You don't care about me at all!" she accuses of whoever is at the other end of the phone. "No, I've had enough. You don't get a say any more."

Cal hastily looks away and pulls out his own phone as way of distraction. He taps out a quick text to Max to see if his mate can shed any light on what they got up to on their night out.

"You can't stop me, Mum. I'm at the hospital now." She unleashes a growl of frustration. "No, I'm not lying!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Cal notices the girl stop in front of him.

"Excuse me," she says, "sorry. Can you just tell her that I'm at the hospital." She holds out the phone to him expectantly.

He takes the phone but keeps it in his palm and raises his eyebrows, making it clear he's deciding whether to conform.

"Please!"

He lifts the mobile to his ear slowly, all the while maintaining eye contact with girl. Although he can't decipher the words, he can hear another woman ranting down the phone. He clears his throat and waits for a break in the tirade. "She's at the hospital," he recites at the first opportunity and hands the phone back.

The girl gives him a look which makes it clear he didn't perform his designated task to the standard she expects. She throws herself onto another plastic chair, just two seats down from him and returns to the conversation.

Cal's own phone buzzes. He snorts with amusement at Max's reply: not a clue, and fires a one word response: dying. He slides his phone back into his jean pocket and rolls his head to the side making it as obvious as he can that he is watching the girl. Her appearance makes him feel much better about failing to locate the lingerie page in the magazine. The anger that exudes from her only fuels his attraction.

"Just some man," she is saying. "Look, I've told you. I'm doing this." She pauses, holds the phone away from her ear and winces. "I'm not stupid, Mum," she suddenly barks into the receiver. "You want me to be ill, don't you? Because if I don't need you, nobody will."

Cal can't help but pull a face at the brutal turn in the conversation. He's no stranger to family arguments, but has less experience in listening to one than in participating. He wonders if his own cheeks turn as red as hers when he and Ethan are amid one of their worst fights.

"I can say that because it's true!" the girl continues. "You love having this hold over me. Well once I'm better you can forget it. I'm gone." She wedges the phone between her cheek and her shoulder and fishes through her backpack. "Of course it's going to work," she says. Her search of her bag becomes more desperate and she groans as she can't find what she's looking for. "Got a cigarette?"

Cal's so engrossed, it takes him a few moments to realise she's speaking to him. His fingers toy with the half squashed packet in his pocket. He knows there's just one cigarette in there, one which he was saving for after the worst of his hangover has passed.

"Is it that difficult for you to be happy for me?" she says. "Oh really."

Cal relents and draws the remaining cigarette from its packet. Their fingers brush as she takes it from him and he can't help but wonder if she did so on purpose.

"Bye, Mum." She ends up the call and drops the phone into her bag in one swift movement and then jumps to her feet, Cal's cigarette poised between two fingers. "Can't last any longer," she says. "If they call my name, tell them I'll be back in five."

"Right," Cal says. "There's just one problem with that."

"What? Doctors keep me waiting all the time!"

Cal laughs. "I meant I wouldn't know if they called your name. You're yet to introduce yourself."

"Oh," she says. She looks a little sheepish as she tucks her hair behind her ear. "Rosie. Rosie Townsend."

"I'm Cal." He's pleased when she returns his smile. He waits just long enough for her to be almost out the door before speaking. "That was my last cigarette, you know."

She turns to face him, eyes wide. "Please don't tell me you want it back,"

"Well…" he says, drawing out the word to make her think he's deliberating. "It's a massive sacrifice. But it sounds as if you need it more than me."

He watches Rosie shuffle from one foot to the other as she looks him up and down, presumably deciding how honest to make her response.

"She's trying to talk me out of the treatment," she suddenly blurts. "Can you believe it?!"

"Oh, um," Cal replies, aware that he sounds more like Ethan than himself.

"Bet no-one did that to you!"

"Actually, it's my brother, who-"

"What kind of relative wants to prevent someone from getting better?"

Cal looks away and rubs at his hand, trying to fade the remains of a stamp from wherever they ended up last night. "Dunno," he says as non-committedly as he can manage. "That cigarette. Don't suppose you'd mind sharing?"


It had been Ethan's fault really. If he'd been that desperate for Cal not to find the letter, he should have shredded it or set it on fire. Hiding it in the not-so-secret box under his bed was practically an invitation for Cal to go rummaging.

In his brother's defence, Ethan had at least been cautious enough not to leave it on the top of the pile. That meant Cal had needed to search through a heap of certificates, photographs which included both mums but no dad and a faded letter from a girl Cal knew nothing about. He had put the last find to the side, intending to rile his brother about it later, but the discovery of the letter shattered any amusement.

He thought he was seeing things at first. He even considered that someone was playing a cruel joke on Ethan. But after the fourth read of the letter, it finally sunk in. He collapsed onto Ethan's immaculately made bed, letter clutched in one hand, secret shoebox still open on the floor, and rested his head in his arms.

His brother wanted to be involved in a research trial. An experiment. He was planning to allow some single-minded doctor to pump drugs into his body before they were confirmed to be safe. It was as if Ethan had forgotten all about that time they treated the victims of a drugs trial gone wrong, when half the subjects had come down with a virus so severe that one of them had almost died.

But Cal had been there to save the day then, and he would again now. He had to make Ethan see sense. He had to destroy his little brother all over again by telling him a cure wasn't possible, that it was just claim to entice vulnerable people. Ethan would hate him for it, but when didn't he? Cal could take an argument if it meant preserving Ethan's wellbeing.

He just hadn't expected the argument would have begun so soon.

"What are you doing in my room?"

Cal quickly recovered from the shock of seeing Ethan. He stood up and thrust the letter against his brother's chest. "Are you insane?"

"Caleb!" Ethan spluttered. "That's private!"

"I have the right to know before you damage your body."

"Before I- what?" Ethan retrieved the letter and folded it carefully in two. "Cal, I'm not damaging anything. This is good. This is treatment. Imagine if-"His lip wobbled. "Imagine if Mum…"

"She'd be able to see it was a con."

"A con? No, no, Cal, I've studied the research. I'll show you. It sounds particularly promising, you see the way it targets the-"

Cal interrupted with a groan. "Next you'll be telling me there are no risks."

"Well of course they can't guarantee…"

"Yeah, exactly. Look I know the ways these things work. They're going to make you sick and all for nothing. Come on, you must know how unlikely it is they'll find a cure."

"But even if it just slows down progression."

"And if it doesn't?" Cal took a step forwards and gripped his little brother's shoulder. "I know how much you want to be rid of this but this isn't the way to go about it, Ethan."

Ethan shoulders slumped from beneath Cal's hand. "And you have a better idea, hmm?"

"Just-" he began. "Just enjoy the time you've got."

Cal watched as Ethan shook his head and turned away. He was certain they were pondering the same question. With no way of knowing how long before the first onset of symptoms, how could Ethan possibly relax? Every day could be the day he notices a tremor in his hand or a slur to his speech or gets hit by a depression that he cannot shift.

"I don't want to enjoy myself," Ethan said. "I want to find a solution."

Cal exhaled slowly. Ethan had been fascinated with fixing things since he was a small child, starting with jigsaws and small puzzles and progressing to complex diagnoses and his defective big brother. But this was one thing he couldn't fix. No-one could. Cal could scarcely imagine how tough the future was going to get, but he'd witnessed Ethan's frustrations when he could solve something and that, on this huge a scale, would only torture him further.

"I'm not letting you do this," Cal declared.