And there's that done! Do enjoy it.

"Dear, you looked so lost. You eyes were red, the tears were shed, this world you must have crossed, you said…"

"You don't know me, you don't even care." I sung under my breath as I sat at the stone table in the courtyard. It was getting a little cold, but I didn't mind. I must have been here for hours, listening to the CD and singing along, watching lizards dart around in the dirt and flowers turn toward the sun.

The song I was listening to now was one of my favorites on the disc so far. The already-tattered song list, full of fold lines, said it was called "Boston." I had listened to it on repeat almost twenty times, and the words were coming easily to me when I wanted to sing them.

There were twenty tracks on Axel's mix, some fast, some slow. Some long, some short. Some I liked, some I didn't quite, some I loved.

I pressed the repeat button twice, turning off the function and allowing the next song to play. It was a faster tune, with a high female voice draped over strong guitar chords. "Come on home, girl, he said with a smile. You don't have to love me, let's just get high a while."

I wondered if real drugs were any different from the stuff they gave me for the pain. I felt funny after being on an IV, but I heard from some guys at the home that real drugs were like magic. Flying, rainbows, visions.

I was past all that now. I added drugs to the List and put it from my mind.

The List was a new invention of mine, a receptacle for all the things I'd never done and was insanely curious about. I'd had this mental list for two hours and it was already getting difficult to remember.

The song changed once again, startling me out of my mental reverie. "It doesn't hurt me. You want to feel how it feels?"

This was perhaps my favorite out of all twenty songs. It wasn't the message of switching lives with someone, though that was a great idea. It was the portions of verses that talked about hurting someone and not knowing. "See how deep the bullet lies? Unaware that I'm tearing you asunder…Tell me, we both matter, don't we?"

I didn't think I'd ever fully understand this. It sounded like a dark love story, one telling about a relationship where neither person understood the other. Relationships. That was another one to add to the list. Never would I know what it was like to have a girlfriend or a wife, like on the terrible six p.m. sitcoms. I wouldn't be able to kiss her, or buy her Valentine's presents, or have arguments about mother-in-laws. Wait, I didn't want to do that last thing.

"Hey, kid, you supposed to be here?"

A voice jarred me out of my thoughts. It was a male voice, coming from somewhere about a foot in front of my face.

I opened my eyes, amazed that I'd heard anything with the headphones on. "Uh…"

"I'm not gonna say anything if you aren't, dude! It's cool!" The source of the voice was a boy, not much older than me. He had a truly ridiculous hairstyle, though I'd gotten used to that from being around Axel. His hair was dark blonde, a darker color than mine, and longer…at least some of it. The top layer stuck up in small spikes, and the bottom layer hung loose to his shoulders. He wore one of those janitor shirts, though his name patch said "Demyx." Oh, I knew who this guy was. He was Axel's day-janitor friend.

"No, I'm allowed to be here. I'm a patient."

"Are you? What for?"

"Cancer."

"Ooh. Tough gig, man." He winced like something had stung him.

"Yeah, you'd think so, but I don't have to do much. I'm Roxas." I held out a hand for this not-such-a-stranger to shake.

"Roxas? Like, room-412 Roxas?" His face remained friendly, but took on a guarded quality.

"So I take it Axel told you about me."

"Yeah, dude, he went to RadioShack yesterday to get you that little music machine." Demyx gestured at the CD player resting on the table. "He likes you kid, he won't even go there for me, and we live together."

"Why's that?"

"Oh, we're in college together, we share a crappy dorm room. He didn't tell you? The name Demyx ring any bells?"

"Yes, he just said you were his friend, though. What are you in college for?"

This question was apparently a sore spot, as his expression drooped like a wilting daisy.

"Well, I'm in the music school, studying Middle Eastern instruments, but my parents want me to be a dentist. Who wants to be a dentist? Everyone hates you!"

"I wouldn't know, I think I've seen every other kind of doctor than a dentist. I figure if you brush your teeth, nothing horrible will happen."

"Exactly! My dad's a dentist, and he put me in head gear for three years! If I wanted to get some action in high school, I was shut down!" At this, Demyx pushed a palm toward the ground, as if showing how far 'down' his chances were.

"Join the club, when I was still in school, no one wanted to touch Cancer Kid." I felt myself grimace, but wasn't sure if it showed.

"Dude, that blows. I'm suddenly happy to have had head gear." Demyx shifted from foot to foot awkwardly, as if he were uncomfortable.

"…I don't know if I would have been…" I saw the humor in the situation as if I were not involved in it.

"Anyway, I'm here to blow off the leaves." He held up a red and black blower that suddenly appeared in his hand. When the hell had that gotten there?

"What leaves?" The courtyard was free of tree detritus, seeing as the trees weren't losing leaves yet.

"Yeah, I know, but I have to run the blower or the boss looks at me funny."

"Well, don't let me stop you." Demyx reached for the cord to start the engine. Before his fingers reached the string, he looked at me in a strange way, almost like I was a zoo exhibit he didn't quite understand.

"I'll tell Axey I met you, huh?"

"Axey? He lets you call him that?"

"Haven't died yet." He smiled widely and yanked the start cord.

I walked back upstairs, waving at Nurse Ketterley at the desk, and meandered toward my room. Lunch would be soon, and maybe the meat would be recognizable.

I wondered why that Demyx guy looked at me oddly when he mentioned telling Axel about meeting me. Did I have something in my teeth?

This train of thought was interrupted by Dr. Even, whose presence in my room was pretty surprising. Except for my weekly blood tests, I almost never saw him.

He stood up when I entered the room, as if he'd been waiting on me. "Roxas. I'd like to take some bone marrow for a test."

I was mildly confused. Bone marrow was used to determine how far along the line you were, and they'd already done that. I really hated getting lumbar punctures.

"What for?"

"Well, the nurses who see you have noticed a significant increase in activity, and I'd like to check the levels of cancer cells in your body." He explained it matter-of-factly, as if poking a needle in someone's spine was as routine as drinking a glass of milk.

"Fine." I'm not enthused in the least.

"All right, Nurse Gainsborough will be in to perform the procedure in a moment." With this, the good doctor left. Did he always leave the painful work up to the assistants?

Aerith entered, in her sunny pink scrubs, holding a small tray full of metal instruments. Her last name was Gainsborough? "Good morning, Roxas. Would you turn over for me, and take off that shirt?"

The syringe glinted sharply under the sterile fluorescent light. A huge needle, one about to go places nothing ever should. I complied with Aerith's request, if only to give her a little peace of mind about the unpleasant thing she was about to do.

The light caught another glint, this time one on Aerith's hand. A ring? It was shiny silver, with emeralds and diamonds in the shape of a rose. "That's pretty, your ring."

"Yes, it's my engagement ring. My fiancé proposed last night. We'll be getting married in a few months. Maybe you can come."

"I'd like that."

"I'm sorry I have to do this. I'd hold your hand, but I have to hold the needle."

"It's okay, no one ever held my hand all the other times. I'm used to this." In truth, having a lumbar puncture was something you never got used to.

"Roxas, honey, I know this hurts. I've had one, and they're awful. Are you sure? I could call Nurse Lockheart in here, if you want. She's not busy." Aerith's brow furrowed, as if she was genuinely concerned about me. Maybe she was.

I didn't want to sound like a baby, but having something to hold on to might help. "Yeah, okay."

"Good. I'll be right back." It was a new concept that someone wanted to give me a hand to hold. It made me feel warm and tingly, like snuggling up in a warm blanket on a cold day.

An attractive black-haired woman in dark brown scrubs walked into the room. Her eyes were a dark mahogany. Are all the nurses here hot? Okay, no, because some of them are kind of gross. "Hi, Roxas, I'm Tifa Lockheart, the head nurse on this floor."

"Hi." From my facedown position on the hospital bed, I reached a hand up for an awkward wave.

"Aerith, you go ahead and start." Tifa's eyes were kind as she held a manicured hand out to me. "Squeeze my hand when it hurts, okay?"

I nodded into my pillow, cringing when Aerith applied the antiseptic to my lower back. I felt the needle resting against the entry point, and tried to relax.

"Ow…" I heard myself whimper, much to my chagrin. I gripped Tifa's hand tight. She smiled at me and began making small conversation. It took a long time to draw bone marrow, and the pain never stopped.

"So, Roxas, how old are you?"

"Fourteen." This was followed with an agonized twist of my mouth. Damn, that hurt.

"Wow, you're pretty grown-up about all this. I wouldn't be nearly so good about the tests, and the food would drive me nuts." This was distracting, as I had a few food complaints of my own.

"Yeah, I…ow…I don't think I'm getting my protein requirements, because I can't tell what the meat is, so I don't eat it. Aerith told me it was dead patient, and I haven't eaten any since." Tifa giggled softly, while Aerith paused in withdrawing my spinal fluid.

"I was joking!" She resumed the procedure, and I winced.

"It feels like my back is a toaster and the needle is a fork. You're not supposed to stick a fork in the toaster."

Tifa frowned slightly. "I'm sorry. They tell us in school not to get sympathetic, but I always do with the nasty tests like this one."

A few minutes and a little small talk later, Aerith was finished and taking the vial off to the lab, while Tifa bandaged the needle's exit wound and promised to visit again. She called me brave. Brave for facing cancer so well. I was a little proud that she thought highly of me. Some days I didn't think I was so adult about it.

I found I was tired again after my bath, and when I crawled into bed in my boxers, I left a note for Axel on the comforter.

Axel:

Hi. I was a little tired today, but wake me up if you come by. I don't mind, and I have lots of stuff to tell you.

Roxas

"Ax?"

"Yeah."

"I met your friend at the hospital today."

I put the orange juice back in the shared fridge and looked over the fridge door. "Roxas?"

"Yeah."

"He's a cool kid, right?"

"Yeah…Axel, he's great and all, but are you sure you want to be getting close to a dying kid?" My eyes narrowed. It wasn't like Dem to be that way.

"Demyx, I didn't walk into the cancer ward and ask him to give me a hug. I tripped over a cart in the wrong room, and he was in it. Why shouldn't I make friends? He doesn't have any now."

"I know, I just…I don't want him to die and you get depressed again."

"Hey, if that's what God wants, that's what will happen." After an…event last year, I'd become fairly religious. I figured there was a Big Man Upstairs who wanted me here, or I wouldn't be. I tried to go to church when I could, but I prayed every day.

"I guess…Ax?"

"What?"

"Can we…Can you cook tonight?"

"Can we what? What was it you were about to say?" He had that habit, and sometimes I could get the truth out of him.

"Nothing. You'll be late for work. I'll make something."

"Okay…call me if you need something." I kissed his cheek, and felt him flinch. "Bye."

I walked into the kid's room at around three. It was a little early for me to be off work, but there were less rooms on the list today.

I sometimes thought my job was to remove all traces of someone who'd died from a room. My second secret was that sometimes, I left a small possession of theirs in a drawer, under a bed, so they're not entirely gone. Keep that one too, huh?

There was a piece of paper resting at the foot of the bed, covered with small, jagged handwriting. "Axel…tired…wake me…" Okay, the kid wanted me to wake him up. I wondered what it was that he had to tell me. It must be important.

I reached out a hand and shook him gently, surprised by the immediate presence of bone in his shoulder. "Kid. Roxas. Wake up, huh?"

He stirred groggily, as if I were pulling him from an extremely interesting dream. "Nuhhh?" I had to smile at that. Coherent English wasn't anyone's strong suit when they were waking up.

"No, Axel. Not Nuh."

"Axel?" He shot straight up. I thought I almost saw his hair spike up in excitement. "Whoa, you're here! There's so much stuff that's been happening!"

"Since yesterday?"

"Well, yeah!" Roxas nodded vigorously, bed-head nodding along with him.

"Okay, calm down. What happened that's that great?" I figured I'd be here a while if there was that much to be said. There was usually a chair in these rooms…oh, there. I pulled it from its position behind me to one closer to the bed. Sitting down, I leaned forward to better hear the story.

"Well, Aerith showed me this place today with plants, and lizards, and a table. And I took the CD out there, and I really love this song about a hill and I had a lumbar puncture, which wasn't all that great, but there's this other nice nurse and Aerith's getting married, and I met your friend Demyx, and he had a blower and-"

I reached out and gently covered Roxas's mouth. He'd kill himself with a babble rate like that. "Okay, slow down. Who's this Air-something person? You listened to it already? You met Demyx? Wait, I knew that."

"He told you?" I recalled that awkward conversation.

"Yeah, he did. He said you were a great kid." Who's about to shuffle off the mortal coil. I kept this thought under my tongue, crystallized to spit out later. "Now who's Aerith, your girlfriend? Wait, she's getting married. What's up with that?"

"She's a nurse, a nice one."

"Well, it's good someone's nice here, huh?"

"Yeah, she showed me this courtyard thing, and I sat out there all day. That's where I met Demyx." He seemed so excited to have seen something new.

"That's great, Rox. What's that about the CD? You heard the whole thing already?"

"Yeah, I went to the grassy place and listened to it and watched a brown lizard. I like the song about God and the hill. Running Up The Hill, or something."

This was a new Roxas. Well, not new, but different, excited like a kindergartener on a trip to the zoo. Were all these things so foreign to him?

"I like that one too, kid." I nodded as if to affirm what I'd just said. "I understand if you don't wanna say, but what's a lumbar whatever?" This might have been a touchy subject, but if he would tell, I wanted to know.

"It's when they…uh…they pretty much stick a needle in your back and get spinal fluid. It hurts, really bad. I had this nice nurse come in to hold my hand while Aerith did it." He smiled. I assumed this other nurse was pretty.

"What's this one's name? She hot?"

"Well, yeah, her name's Tifa. But I think she's married."

"Can't stop you lookin'."

"No, I guess not." He chuckled, a low growly laugh much too mature for his teenage body. "I wonder if I'll ever have a girlfriend or get married, or any of that."

"Maybe. You never know."

"I want to know how to drive, and go to the supermarket for groceries, and go to a petting zoo and hold a rabbit."

"You might wanna make a list of this stuff, in case you get to pick some of them to do." I internally sighed, because it was unlikely Roxas would even live to the age where he was legal to drive, let alone able to marry.

"I have." He seemed happy to have preempted my idea.

"Really? Where?"

"In my head."

"How long is it?"

"Uh…about thirty so far." He looked off to the right, as though the list was stored in the corner of his vision.

"Dang, kid, you're going to break your brain. Write it down. They give you paper for this stuff." I gestured toward the pad and pen Mother of Mercy provided.

"No, I think I'll keep it up here for now." Roxas tapped his temple like a safe box.

"Suit yourself. So…what's your top three?"

"Well…" He looked like he was keeping a secret, like he'd swallowed something bad and couldn't spit it out for politeness' sake. "I want to ride a roller coaster."

"Well, that can be accomplished." I nodded, as if to emphasize the simplicity of getting a dying kid to an amusement park.

"I want to…smoke a cigarette." He turned slightly red, as if wanting to try it was an odd thing for a teenage boy.

"That's a lot easier than a roller coaster, I can get you a cigarette now!" I began to search my pockets, number one on the list momentarily forgotten.

"Wait, you didn't hear the last one!"

"And what is that?" My legs paused momentarily, waiting for the answer.

"Uh…" Roxas looked down at his clasped hands, interlacing his fingers. "I want to…uh…wellI''slike." This said, he flopped back onto his pillow, making a small whumf sound.

I had to hold back a laugh at this. "THAT'S number one? You want to kiss a girl?"

"Yeah…"

"It's not worth thinking about, believe me, girls are way overrated." Shit. I just pretty much came out of the closet to the kid. I better hope he doesn't-

"Axel? You don't like girls?" Roxas looked puzzled, like this was a medical impossibility.

No use lying now, was it? "No. I don't like girls."

"Then you're-"

I held up a hand. "Yeah. I'm gay. Whatever."

"Oh. That's, that's okay!" Roxas waved his hands manically, as if to ward off the demons of awkwardness.

"Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna go and let you process this, then. So. Uh, see ya tomorrow. If you want." I pushed my chair back and left, waving in what I hoped was a casual fashion.

Shit, shit, shit.

Damn, another evil mother effer of a chapter. This one was planned out, so I just wrote until the plan was done. I wanted less words. Words make my arms hurt.

So, no one has figured out the song yet! It's not hard…look at the chapter titles… They will show you the way.

What song, other than "Boston" and "Running Up That Hill", was mentioned in this chapter? Tell me, and I'll be very happy.

Expect delay on next chapter, I have a life and stuff :)

Love, Swiss