AN: I'll be wrapping this up in a couple of chaps… I do take requests though, so feel free to PM me if there's anything you guys want me to write on… helps hone my skills :P Meanwhile hope you enjoy this… r/r!!
The chipettes are sitting, deep in conversation, when the door to the detention room swings open. Looking up, they see the three male chipmunks standing before them, grim faced and silent. Jeanette and Eleanor are silent, waiting for their boyfriends to say something, but Brittany can't hold it in.
'Theodore how COULD you??? Do you KNOW what Ellie would have done if she'd found out you killed yourself?'
'Huh… what??' Theodore looks genuinely confused, while Alvin is suppressing a small grin. Brittany's fiery temper was amusing when it wasn't directed at him.
'Stop playing dumb Theodore… Simon said he almost lost a sibling… HOW COULD YOU???' Brittany walks up to a cowering Theodore, with a look of anger on her face usually reserved for Alvin. The old Brittany was back. The one who would maim ANYONE who had the nerve to even THINK about hurting one of her sisters. Theodore was more than a little afraid of this Brittany and can't seem to speak. He looks pleadingly at his brothers, and Alvin feels the need to intervene.
"Britt… he's telling the truth… he didn't try to kill himself…"
'B-b-but… Simon SAID…' Brittany turns towards Alvin, confused.
Sighing, Alvin moves towards Brittany and puts his hand on her shoulder, bracing himself as he speaks.
"Britt… Theo isn't Simon's only brother…"
PLOP!!
Brittany opens her eyes find herself lying on the teachers table, five concerned pairs of eyes peering at her. She homes in on a pair of sky blue eyes, so intense they seem to be burning a hole into her subconscious. She wonders what happened, and as she remembers her earlier conversation with the red clad chipmunk, she snaps to attention, her eyes filled with tears.
'ALVIN SEVILLE… HOW COULD YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT…'
"Why Brittany Miller… I didn't know you cared…" Alvin tries lamely to lighten the mood, only to earn a glare from Simon. This is NOT the time for Alvin to be Alvin. Ignoring him, Brittany pounces on him in a fierce hug, sobbing into his chest. Taken aback, Alvin holds her close, stroking her hair before pulling back and looking into her eyes.
"Britt… I didn't try to kill myself."
Confused, Brittany looks up into his eyes and sniffles, before turning around to glare at Simon. If this was his idea of a sick joke… he would pay… sister's boyfriend or not.
Gulping, Simon turns to look at Jeanette, who is holding his hand protectively.
'Alvin… you'd better tell her the truth… preferably before she kills me…'
Sighing, Alvin motions for the chipettes to sit down, as he moves to stand beside his brothers. When he has their attention, he starts to speak.
"Ok guys… think back to Freshman year… do you remember how, the last month before we moved, I was tired all the time and out of school a lot?"
'Are you kidding me… school had never been that peaceful… you weren't even pulling any pranks…' Jeanette speaks up, earning nods from Brittany and Eleanor.
"Yeah well… Dave thought that was unusual too… he thought I must be sick… so he sent me for a full check up… physical, blood test, the works…"
Brittany gulps, suddenly afraid of what Alvin is going to say.
"The results of my bloodwork came in… and it turned out that I had leukemia"
'L-leukemia… but isn't that…' Brittany turns pale, and Alvin reaches a protective hand towards her, in case she faints again.
"Cancer…who knew chipmunks could get it, huh?" Alvin's tone is wry, but Simon and Theodore's faces are contorted with pain as he speaks. Jeanette and Eleanor pat their hands reassuringly, unsure of what to say at this point.
"When we got the diagnosis… we moved to L.A. Because no one had ever heard of a chipmunk getting this disease, Dave wanted me to get treated at the UCLA medical center…we left in a hurry, and we thought we'd be there for a couple of weeks at most; get a transplant, move back… continue as if it had never happened…"
'Alvin didn't want to tell you girls what was going on because he didn't want anyone to worry… it was bad enough that we were so upset… and he honestly thought he'd be able to get a quick transplant, and everything would be fine…' Theodore speaks softly, looking Eleanor in the eye. He wants her to know that he'd never planned on hurting her or hiding anything from her.
"Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple… neither Theodore nor Simon was a match, and I couldn't go on the transplant list as the doctors weren't sure if chipmunks could accept human bone marrow…"
'He had a life threatening disease, and there was nothing we could do to help him. I spent hours arguing with the doctors but in the end I was… helpless…' Simon's voice breaks as he speaks, causing Jeanette to hold him close as he cries softly into her shoulder.
"Yeah, Simon here was a real basket case… who knew he would actually miss me… you'd think he'd have been glad to be rid of the old troublemaker…" Alvin jokes, earning glares from Simon and Jeanette. Brittany is pale and silent throughout the conversation, willing herself not to cry.
'We- we didn't tell you because Alvin didn't want us to… and we were afraid to call you girls because we were all so emotional… we knew we would end up spilling it out… we… kind of thought it was Alvin's last wish…' Theodore's voice wobbles slightly, as Simon's eyes fill with tears once again.
'WHY didn't you want us to know… Don't we have the right… Don't we… mean ANYTHING to you???' Brittany finally speaks, angry tears streaming down her cheeks. Alvin moves forward to comfort her, stroking her back until she calms down before speaking.
"Of course you do… Britt… part of loving someone isn't being selfish… it would have been easier for you to forget me if you thought I was a jerk who couldn't be bothered to keep in touch with his best friend… than if you thought I was dying…" At the word dying, Simon and Theodore wince, and Brittany breaks into fresh sobs.
'But… you're all back… that means you're OK now, right?' Jeanette's voice is pleading. Alvin's been a good friend over the years. Images of Alvin "helping" her win a beauty contest in elementary school, of the times on the road when conspicuously dragged Brittany, Eleanor and Theodore out of the room so that she and Simon could talk, the times he'd stood up for Simon, Theodore, herself and Eleanor in front of his jock friends in middle school, as well as the adventures he'd constantly dragged them on. Alvin was no Simon, but Jeanette did care for him, and didn't want anything bad to happen to him.
"I was getting to that actually… as I was saying… Simon here was a real basket case and I… I'd more or less written my own orbituary… I'd even written some original songs to be sung at the funeral…" Alvin pauses and gives the group a brief grin which isn't returned.
"But.. Theodore here turned out to be strong one among us…" Alvin smiles gratefully at his little brother who blushes as all eyes turn towards him.
'Theodore?' Brittany is able to squeak out. She'd never imagined Theodore to be the one to be able to use his head in a crisis, but then again Eleanor had surprisingly been a pillar of strength for herself and Jeanette for the last couple of years, too.
'He secretly contacted Vinny in the forest and told her what was happening… and she rushed down…' Simon explains, also turning to smile fondly at his little brother.
"She even braved the big city to come and see me… stayed with us all the way…" Alvin smiles briefly at the memory before continuing, "Long story short.. her bone marrow was a match… the operation was scheduled for the end of freshman year…"
'But SOMEONE ran away from L.A the day before surgery and didn't come back for a week… we had to postpone the transplant for another couple of months…' Simon sounds slightly angry as he faces his brother, who has suddenly turned slightly red and is looking at the floor before looking up to catch Brittany's eye.
Realization dawns on Brittany and she gulps before speaking softly… 'when you said you came back at the end of the year… that was just before your surgery…'
Not quite meeting her eye, Alvin speaks in a low voice, "I didn't know if I was going to wake up after the surgery… I just thought I'd see you one last time… find out how you were doing… see if you were OK… maybe say goodbye…"
Her eyes filled with tears, Brittany cuddles against Alvin's chest, sobbing hard. She remembers all the time she wasted being angry with him for leaving, the "revenge date" she went on with Reuben, all the subsequent dates with Reuben that she had subconsciously compared with her platonic outings with Alvin (which had been much more fun), the time Alvin had dressed as a mummy to help her win a bet, the time he had brought her to a dance, even though he'd wanted to flirt with all the girls there, the time he'd chased a bully out of the gym in a motorcycles for bothering her (who knew a fifth grader could even ride a motorbike, anyway?). All the time, he'd been sick… and still thinking of her.
'And you found out I was with Reuben…' Brittany's voice is soft when she finally speaks.
"Yeah… I didn't blame you… well not much anyway… I'd left without promising you anything, and I guess you had a right to date who you wanted…"
'But… I thought you didn't like me… and I… I was trying to get over you…'
"Over me… when were you under me?" Alvin grins cheekily down at her, gaining a slap on the wrist.
"Anyway I figured I was going to die, so you might as well move on with your life properly… if I'd come up to you and talked to you then, you probably would have dumped Reuben in a heartbeat…" Alvin flashes a cocky smile, causing Brittany to protest mildly.
'I wouldn't have… OK maybe I would have…but why didn't you guys come back after the surgery…'
"I had to go through a couple of rounds of chemo… plus they wanted to observe me for a couple of months to make sure the cancer didn't come back… since I'm apparently the first chipmunk to have this disease… they wanted to write about me in this medical journal…" Alvin rolls his eyes.
"Anyway… I met Charlene again at my first chemo session… apparently she's been volunteering as a candy striper in the UCLA cancer center while piecing together some part time acting gigs.
'How nice of her…' Brittany has started to grip hard on Alvin's arm, a smile pasted on her face and her voice dripping with undisguised sarcasm.
"We went out for a few months… but my heart wasn't quite in it… I was always preoccupied about whether or not I was going to get well… and… other things…"
'What other things?' Brittany enquires innocently. She hopes she knows what he's going to say, but she wants him to say it.
"I still had feelings for you, OK?" Alvin rolls his eyes, as she smiles in satisfaction. Women!
'So why did it take you three years to come back?' Eleanor is curious now. She feels sorry for the boys, but is extremely proud of Theodore. In a way, he'd saved his brother's life. Lifting his hand to her lips, she plants a kiss on the back of his palm, before meeting his eyes and smiling sweetly.
"We… I wanted to make sure I was completely cancer free before I came back.. and…"
'He didn't want to come back before his hair grew back…' Simon snorts.
"Hey… I HAVE an image to maintain…anyway, I got a clean bill of health, and we decided we'd been away from home too long… we missed.. our friends…" Alvin looks at the group, smiling slightly.
'And we all lived happily ever after…' Theodore pipes up, his eyes shining. He's proud of his brother, for fighting his illness, for not giving up, and for trying to keep his spirits up even when he may not have believed he was going to be OK. He remembers the long hours in the hospital room, when Alvin had entertained his brothers and other sick kids from his bed with his guitar… how he'd pinched nurses butts and shamelessly flirted with candystripers during each hospital admission, how he and Simon had camped out at the hospital overnight several times talking about old times and what they were going to do once Alvin was out of this 'dump'. The past three years had been tough, but they had strengthened the bond between the brothers. Alvin and Simon, in particular, had learned not to take each other for granted, and were fighting MUCH less than usual. The chipmunks were closer than they'd ever been, and Simon was now fiercely protective of Alvin.
"Well… I do have to hike back up there once a year for checkups, but as of last week, I'm still officially cancer free…"
'Is it… is it going to come back?' Brittany swallows hard, scared.
"The doctors say the chances are extremely low… and will get lower with each year…"
'So… it might come back?'
"It probably won't, Britt…"
'But it MIGHT…'
"But it WON'T…"
'What if it does… and and and.. you… and…" bursting into tears, Brittany suddenly dashes out of the room. Alvin is rooted to the spot for the moment, in complete shock, after getting up and heading towards the door.
"I'd better go after her, guys… don't wait up…" with a worried half-smile, Alvin heads out the door to chase after Brittany for what seems like the millionth time that day.