So heres another chapter. I hope you like it...it is kinda, ok, a lot sad. Please please please let me know what you think. Reviews make my day!

Enjoy!

-Jen



We wound up falling asleep together, sleeping for over twelve hours, skipping our plans to see the Eiffel tower. And when I woke up, I was alone.

I heard Oliver in the bathroom, getting sick. The doctor had warned me about this. As time went by, he'd get worse and worse. Getting out of bed, I grabbed my robe and pulled it on, then knocked lightly on the bathroom door, and went in.

Looking much paler, frailer, and thinner, he lent over the toilet. I saw blood in there.

I sank to my knees beside him, gently pushing his hair away from his sweaty forehead, and gently rubbing his back. "Get out of here, Miley," He said hoarsely, but I ignored he said he was done being sick, I helped him clean up, brush his teeth, and then helped him back to the bed, where I sat beside him, holding his hand.

"I'm calling the airport," I whispered, cutting him off as soon as he started to protest, "Don't Oliver. You're medical care is in LA. You've gotten worse. We're going home. I'm sorry, but we have to."

Without fighting, he gave in.

I got up and went to my phone, looking at him shut his eyes.

Worse?

Yes, he was much worse.

--

Less then twenty four hours later, we were back in LA. Lilly met us at the airport, and brought us back to my dad's house, where Jackson and his wife were, and also where Oliver's parents were.

His younger sister, Chelsea, who was a junior at UCLA looked shocked upon seeing him. She'd been studying abroad in Italy for the past six months, but had gotten out early. Oliver had tried to talk her out of it. He didn't like people going out of their way for him.

"Chels," He said, smiling at her upon seeing her, "Welcome home."

As Jimmy stepped forward to help his son to the couch, Sally's and then Chelsea's eyes caught with my own. I gave a small nod. He'd been worse on the plane.

Chelsea sat on the couch beside him, and wrapped her arms around Oliver, burying her face against his shoulder.

The room was silent, but her body shuddering gave away her crying, and I turned away as Oliver wrapped his arms around her and began muttering things to her. It'll be ok. I'm fine.

I'd heard it all before. I'd heard all the lies before. And lies they were.

--

Less then an hour later, Oliver collapsed, out cold. The night that all of this had started replayed in my head as, the neighbors of my father watching, I climbed in the back of an ambulance with Oliver laying on the stretcher.

I held his hand tightly in mine, and combed my fingers through his hair. "Hold on, baby," I pleaded, "Please. Don't leave me yet. It's too soon." I sobbed, as he blinked up at me with tired, heavy eyes.

His mouth moved, forming words around the oxygen mask, and with his free hand he reached up to move it. "I love you," he managed to say.

I kissed his lips quickly before moving the mask back in to place. "I love you too." I whispered. "So don't leave me."

It seemed like the ten minute ride to to hospital took hours, like each minute ticking by was three hours and that Oliver was running out of time.

But of course, when we got to the hospital, I was separated from him as I wasn't allowed past the triage doors.

I guessed that the other had gotten stuck in traffic, because they still hadn't arrived. Sitting by myself on a chair, I fought back the tears.

"Hey." A voice said, and I looked up to see a girl that I had not met before.

"Hi..."

"Sorry...I saw we were both sitting alone. And I saw you come in. I know what it's like. My husband's dying. Has been for years." She said. Husband? She couldn't be older then me.

"I'm Miley." I said, shaking her hand. She smiled, sitting beside me.

"I'm Maura."

"How old are you, if you don't mine me asking...?"

"I'm twenty."

"But you're married?" I asked, unable to hide the shock.

"Yea. I married Tom when we were eighteen, while he was in the hospital. He's dying. I love him. We've been together since freshmen year of high school."

"Maura, you can see him now," A nurse said to the girl.

"I'm sorry to leave so soon," she said, standing, "But..." She trialed off, waving, handing me a piece of paper. "If you ever need to talk, call me, Miley."

--

The doctor came out ten minutes later, no one else was here yet. I got to go see Oliver, who was asleep now, but safe...for the moment.

"Miley...we're entering the final stages," Doctor Jacobs said. "He toldme...he wants to go home. He just wants to be with you. I'm going to give him a morphine pump to monitor the pain...and just play it by ear, Miley."

"Will he be in a lot of pain?" I whispered, stroking his hair away from his face.

"Not if I can help it." the doctor promised me.

"There's nothing you can do?"

He paused for a moment, and looked at Oliver, before shutting his eyes, and shaking his head.

I knew I wasn't the only one. The doctor knew there were options, but Oliver wouldn't listen. and he'd clearly banned him from telling me.

"I'm so sorry, Miley." The doctor said softly, placing a hand on my shoulder as I held on tightly to Oliver's hands, and stared down at him, part of me hating him for what he was doing to himself, to me...and then hating me more for hating my dying soul mate.

--

Oliver made me let him get discharged as soon as the doctor said it was ok. The Morphine pump now attached to him, we moved in to my dad's house because Oliver wanted to be near the beach, near where we grew up. Oliver's parents didn't have room, and so Oliver and I took the downstairs bedroom and bathroom, since Oliver and stairs weren't a good match nowadays.

As soon as we got home and I had gotten Oliver in to bed to nap, I excused myself and took the stairs two at a time, and found myself in my old room.

It was much how it was when I'd left it. The bed made with my old comforter and sheets. The things I hadn't taken with me when I had made the change from high school student to high school graduate making a living for herself, and moved out of my father's house still sat on their shelves and in place. Dad had replaced the picture of my mom that had always sat there with a new one, because I had taken mine with me.

The tears that had begun to fall on my trip up the stairs were falling full force now, as I slowly sank on to my bed, hugging the pillow to my chest, and sobbed.

It wasn't long before I heard the creak of the floor, and then my bed sank as more weight was added. Opening my watery eyes, I looked up at my father, and I sat up, and he wrapped his arms around me. Burying my face against his shoulder, I sobbed. These sobs were different though. They tore through me, and with each cry it felt as though my heart was about to be torn from my chest. I was in pain, a pain much deeper then anything before. I was going to loose the love of my life.I was going to loose my other half. I was going to loose myself, when I lost him.

"It hurts so bad, daddy."I sobbed, "Nothing has ever hurt this much. He's in pain, he's sick, and I can't do anything." I choked out. "He's dying, daddy, and I can't save him. I love him.I l-l-love him."

"I know, baby," He said softly, stroking my hair, "I know."

Had it been anyone else, I would have yelled that they didn't. But he did. "Is this what it felt like?" I whispered, looking up at my father with puffy, tear filled eyes.

"What what felt like, sweetie?"

Voice congested with tears I said, "Is this what it felt like for you when mom was sick? Especially right before she...died?"

He nodded slowly. "Yea, Miles. It was." He said softly.

After a moment of silence, I asked him, "Once she was gone...how did you get over it, daddy? How did you move on?"

There was a long period of silence in which he just held me, stroking my hair, before he finally spoke.

"I still haven't."