I'm Home

Summary: Mike is finally coming home to Graceland, but things can't ever be the same.

Disclaimer: I own nothing; Graceland belongs to Jeff Eastin and USA.

A/n: I totally failed at updating this the other day as planned, and I apologize to all of you for that. My comprehensive portfolio is due tomorrow (well, now I guess Monday because of the conversation I just had with my professor), and I've done pretty much nothing but work on that all week. But it's finally DONE! And I have an entire free day tomorrow to do nothing but relax, which probably just means I'm going to be writing…

Anyway, on to the story!

Paige was starting to get used to the monotony of the hospital, but it didn't necessarily make it any easier for her to deal with the fact that Mike was constantly struggling to keep any food in his stomach. "We're not even all the way through the first round of treatment – I know that it's difficult, but we can't pull back this early on in the process if we want to have any chance of actually managing a transplant…" Paige squeezed Mike's hand as Dr. Coleman spoke, knowing he wouldn't be happy knowing that he would have to spend most of the next few months constantly getting ill. "We could try a stronger dosage of the nausea medicine, but that can have negative side effects as well…"

"So we don't really have much of a choice but to keep going…" Paige summarized.

"It's a difficult road, but it's the only option available to us right now. We have to give this a chance to work if there's going to be any chance of a cure…" Paige watched as Mike closed his eyes, nodding slowly.

"Okay."

Paige waited until Dr. Coleman had left the room before she squeezed Mike's hand again, sighing slightly. "You don't have to do this, you know… you don't have to keep going if it's too much…"

"Paige… what are you talking about?" Paige looked down into the man's eyes, smiling sadly at him.

"I can't ask you to go through this, Mike… you've already been through so much, and if you're just doing this for me…"

"I'm doing this because I want the chance to spend more time with you, Paige. I know you helped convince me to do this, but I wouldn't have agreed to any of it if I hadn't wanted to give this a chance. As soon as I saw you again, I knew that I didn't want to lose you for anything…" Paige closed her eyes, leaning down to press a soft kiss against the man's cheek. "I'm still not ready to give up, Paige… I'm not going out without a fight, not this time…"

"Mike…"

"I'm not going to back out now… if I give up at this point, all I've managed to do is lose some of what little time I have left. I'm too weak…"

"Please stop…" Paige began, pulling away from the man and turning her back so that he wouldn't see the tears that were already starting to form in her eyes.

"I'm sorry… but Paige, I'm not going to lie to you." Paige shook her head, wiping away the tears before she could turn to actually face him again. "I'm sorry… I didn't want to make you cry."

"I don't know why I'm crying… in my head, I've been trying to prepare myself for the fact that we may not have a whole lot of time left together. But to hear you actually saying all of this… it still hurts, even though I know it's true." Paige moved to sit down in the chair next to the bed, shaking her head even as Mike silently invited her to sit back on the bed next to him again. "I don't… I just need to take a break, okay? I need to go for a walk, or just do something to get out of this room for a little while…"

Paige watched as Mike nodded slowly, closing his eyes again. "Then go."

"Mike…"

"Just go, Paige… it's not like I'm going anywhere. If you need space, then take it. But don't sit here and pretend that everything is fine, because it's not and I can't deal with this right now." Paige sighed, standing up. "Just… take care of yourself, Paige. You can't constantly be worried about taking care of me when you aren't okay, either." Paige closed her eyes. "I'm just going to sleep, anyway… just go. Do what you need to do, and let me worry about myself."

"Mike… I can't just leave you alone…" Paige began.

"I'm not nauseated, I'm not being given any of the chemo meds right now, and I'm still on the IV. There is nothing I need right now that I can't take care of myself or with the help of a nurse. So stop arguing with me and just go."

Paige sighed, grabbing her phone and starting out of the room. She stopped at the door, turning around to face Mike. "I do love you, Mike."

"I know. I love you, too."

Paige left the room, making her way silently down the hall and into the elevator by the waiting room before she allowed herself to start crying. She shakily dialed a familiar telephone number, praying silently that the call wouldn't be sent to voicemail.

"Hello?"

"Charlie…" Paige began, her voice breaking before she could get anything else out.

"Shit… Paige, are you okay? Is Mike okay?"

"Mike's fine… I'm… I'm not handling this as well as I thought I would, though…" Paige took a deep breath as the elevator finally made it to the first floor of the hospital, allowing her to flee outside the building that she'd been camped out in for the past several days.

"What do you need?" Paige sighed, sinking down onto a wooden bench just outside the front doors of the building.

"I don't even know right now, Charlie… I have no idea what I'm doing here, or why I'm putting myself through all of this when I know there probably isn't any hope and… and it's killing me to think that Mike chose to do this because of me…"

"Paige, slow down… breathe…" Paige did her best to listen to the other woman's advice. "Why do you think he chose this for you?"

Paige took a deep breath, sighing and closing her eyes. "Because it was my idea to have him see a doctor out here… I was the one who didn't want to believe that he was actually dying…"

"But has he said that he was doing this for you?"

"He said that he wanted more time with me… that he didn't want to lose me…"

"Would he have lost you if he hadn't made this decision?"

"Of course not…" Paige began, reaching up to wipe away the tears again, even though they were still flowing. She wasn't ready to stop her crying just yet.

"Then why the hell do you think this is about you? Get your head out of your ass, get yourself together, and go take care of the man you love." Paige smiled slightly at the other woman's advice, taking a deep breath and sighing. "You've been up there alone all week… if you need someone else to come take over for a while, one of us can come keep Mike company for a few hours. I'm sure you probably have things to take care of…"

Paige sighed. "You're right. I need to come back to the house and check my messages… do you think Johnny would be able to come down here for a couple of hours and not drive Mike completely insane?"

"I think that can be arranged, though it may take some threats of grievous bodily injury…"

Paige couldn't help smiling at the other woman's joke. "I'm sure that can be arranged. Considering the skill sets we have in the house and all…"

"Yeah… and we could probably manage it without leaving behind any evidence, either…" Paige laughed, shaking her head.

"Speaking of which, is Johnny there?"

"I'll send him your way now. You want me to make some zombie virus for you?"

"No… I just need a couple of hours away from here, to get away from talking about chemo and medications and vomiting…"

"Seriously, stop right there before I get sick…"

Paige smiled, shaking her head again. "Sorry… I swear to you, there's something about being stuck here that really fucks with your ability to know what is and is not appropriate conversation with people that aren't dealing with this shit…"

"Yeah, I think we're going to have to make sure you don't get stuck thinking about that all the time, because I'm not cool with talking about the medical stuff…"

"Thanks, Charlie."

"No problem, chica. Now go take care of your man until Johnny gets there to give you a break."

Paige shoved her phone into the pocket of her jeans, taking a couple of moments to compose herself before she made her way back into the hospital, ducking into a ladies room to make sure she hadn't completely destroyed her eyeliner. The last thing she wanted to do was upset Mike by making it obvious that she had been crying the entire time she'd been outside.

The elevator ride back up to Mike's floor took a few minutes, but Paige was thankful for the extra time to make sure that she wasn't going to break down again just thinking about everything that was going on. Paige knocked before she opened the door, peeking in to make sure that everything was okay.

"Hey…"

"Hey." Paige made her way into the room, shutting the door behind her and moving back over to the chair she'd only recently vacated.

"I'm sorry… we shouldn't be arguing about stupid shit right now…"

"It's not stupid, Paige…" Paige watched as Mike rolled over to face her, resting his head on his arm. "We need to talk about things, if we're ever going to make this work. And I really do want this to work…"

Paige smiled, reaching out and taking one of Mike's hands. "I want this to work, too. But I don't think I can handle being the only one here for you, 24/7, until this is all over…"

"I know."

"Would you absolutely hate me if Johnny came over and hung out with you for a while so that I could go home and get some work taken care of?" Paige asked. She watched as Mike smiled, nodding.

"It's fine… it'd be nice to see someone else from the house for a little while. Besides, you're right… you have work to do, and you can't do that from here. I can't expect you to be here all the time." Paige stood up, moving closer to the bed and gently stroking the small amount of hair he had. "Don't get used to it… it'll be falling out soon."

"I don't love you for your hair, Mike… I'll still love you, no matter how ridiculous you may look when you're bald."

"I didn't say I looked ridiculous bald," Mike replied.

Paige smiled, leaning down and pressing a soft kiss against the man's lips. "I've been trying to imagine you bald. I'm not going to lie, it's kind of ridiculous in my head…"

"It's too bad I got rid of my old phone, or I could have shown you a picture. I shaved it all off when it first started falling out…"

"That's the kind of picture you should have held onto," Paige replied.

"Sit with me?" Paige waited as Mike moved over a few inches, before climbing back up into the hospital bed and settling in next to him. "I'm sorry that I can't take you out on a proper date and do this right…"

"I don't care about dates or any of that bullshit. As long as I have you, I have what I want."

The two of them lay there for a while, talking softly and occasionally giggling over something ridiculous that one of them said before Johnny showed up.

"Dude, I did not want to see the two of you in bed together…" Paige rolled her eyes at Johnny's comment as the younger man came into the room.

"At least we have our clothes on," Paige retorted, pressing a soft kiss against Mike's lips before she got up and turned to face Johnny. "Don't get him into any trouble while I'm gone… I'd like to still have a boyfriend when I get back."

"Me? Get Mikey in trouble? Yeah, right…" Paige shook her head, giving Mike another quick kiss before grabbing her stuff and starting to leave.

"Text me if you need anything. And I'll bring you some clean pajamas when I come back in a few hours."