It was no secret that Ryan had done many more questionable things that the average teenager. Hell, he'd done more questionable things than the average resident of Ashdene Ridge, which was saying something.

But Mike thought, reading the contract that Ryan had somehow managed to acquire behind his back, that this had to top all of them. Even the time Ryan had put his job in jeopardy.

"... How did you even afford this?" he asked, after a full minute of awkward silence.

"Pro bono," Ryan explained. "I'm a teenager living in care, my allowance doesn't cover it and I'm dying, so he did it for free."

"What's going on?" May-Li asked, having just entered the office and sensing the tension in the air.

Mike gave Ryan a stern look, indicating that he should be the one to tell May-Li himself.

Ryan took a deep breath, looked her in the eyes and said, "I got a lawyer. He put together a contract allowing me to have the surgery I want without the doctors getting sued for it."

May-Li sighed. She thought he'd dropped the idea weeks ago, but clearly Ryan was more persistent than she'd thought. Honestly though, she couldn't say she was utterly surprised - it was very in keeping with Ryan's track record - and the lengths he would go to get what he wanted were both admirable and absurd. "How are we going to tell your doctor about this?" she asked in the end.

"My lawyer says he'll do it," Ryan explained. "He's the father of one of Dr Gareth's other patients."

"Well, we'll need to talk to him too," May-Li said. "Do you have his number or anything?"

Ryan pulled out the dog-eared business card and placed it on Mike's desk, forgetting briefly that it also had Finley's mobile number on the back. "It's all on there."

Mike sighed. "We'll need to discuss this ourselves first. You, go upstairs, get some rest. School tomorrow, you need to conserve your energy."

"No," Ryan said harshly, gripping the arm of the sofa. "You're not going to discuss this behind my back. This is my life, my body, my cancer. I deserve a say in what happens to me!" Sizzling hot anger suddenly bubbled to the surface.

May-Li sighed. "Fine, you can stay for this. Mike's right though, it's best you rest after. Save your spoons and all that."

"Spoons?" Mike frowned.

"Not important," Ryan dismissed. "Look, what even is there to discuss? You both know what I want and why I want it. Hell, you were supporting me before Dr Gareth said no. Now I can actually, legally, go through with it and suddenly you're against it?"

"We're not against it," Mike placated. "I can understand wanting to prolong your life and not letting cancer beat you. It's just that even if this surgery solves your problem, it'll leave several new ones in its wake. If you think what you're going through now is bad, your symptoms will be ten times worse after the operation. Can't walk, incontinent, your back will still hurt-"

"Except I won't die a horrible death in a few years if I have it," Ryan argued, losing his patience.

May-Li sighed. "Ryan ... I don't want you to think that we don't want the best for you, because we do, and that's why you shouldn't hide things from us and go behind our backs. That's gonna land you in trouble one day."

Wow, wonder what it's like to land in trouble? said Ryan's inner monologue, though he knew better to say it out loud.

"May-Li's right," Mike agreed. "You should've come to us, we could've sorted this out in a better way."

"Right," Ryan mumbled, relief over not being (strongly) reprimanded washing over him. "Thanks," he added, albeit through gritted teeth.

"Dinner in an hour," Mike said. "Use that time to rest."

Ryan did so, except he opted for the short walk to the adjoining quiet room rather than trying to go upstairs. Much as he didn't like to admit it, his care workers were right. The conversation had left him with seven spoons, which wasn't bad, but they were right about saving them up for school. He didn't want to imagine the amount that would be spent by concentrating in class, walking between classrooms and keeping on top of homework. Just doing all that before he got ill could make him tired - how could he possibly do it now?

It felt like he'd only just nodded off when he was awoken by a monotone, droning male voice, only it sounded like this guy was talking right in his ear.

"Yet more female celebrities have spoken out about the sexual harassment and abuse they have suffered at the hands of Harvey Weinstein, including ..."

"What in the ..." Ryan muttered, waking up properly. His eyes opened to see the faces of Floss and the twins staring expectantly down at him, Floss holding the radio right next to his face.

"Very funny," Ryan said, too tired to get more angry at having his nap interrupted. "Go and annoy someone else."

"We're trying to help," Billie explained, looking slightly disappointed. "May-Li says she always has to take you for radio therapy. We thought you could do that here instead of having to go out all the time."

Ryan sighed. "It doesn't work like that," he explained, reaching over to turn the radio off. "Radiotherapy isn't listening to the radio and it's somehow gonna make me better."

"Then what is it?" Toni asked, frowning.

Realising this was an opportunity to scare them, Ryan smirked slightly and replied: "It's where they take me into a dark room, strap me down to a table and fire laser beams into me to kill the cancer cells."

Sure enough, the twins' eyes widened in shock and fear and they stepped back from the sofa. Floss looked surprised too, but she was made of sterner stuff than the twins.

"Then why is it called radio therapy if it has nothing to do with radios?"

"It's short for radiation therapy," Ryan explained, before hurriedly adding, "and no, I can't just sit next to a radiator and get the same effect. It's a special type of radiation, strong enough to kill cancer cells."

"Does it hurt?" Billie asked, her eyes still wide like saucers.

"Not during it, no," Ryan replied, "but I am left with this." He pushed himself up into a sitting position and pulled his shirt up to show off the rash on his back, which was turning angry red at this point.

At that point, even Floss grimaced.

"Yeah, I know," Ryan said, sensing their shock before letting his shirt down. "Now can you let me go back to sleep?"

"But dinner's nearly ready," Toni said.

"Not hungry."

"Fine, more for us then," Floss said, before leaving, the twins trailing behind her.

Ryan wasn't looking forward to school.

He wasn't looking forward to people inevitably asking questions about the cane and how he was perpetually tired despite supposedly getting a break over the summer. Honestly, even giving up summer break for more school would've been preferable over the summer he'd actually had - being diagnosed with a terminal illness followed by weeks of pain and fatigue wasn't exactly a trip to a 5-star resort.

Well, apart from meeting Finley. In spite of everything, he couldn't say that their time together hadn't nearly made it all worth it. Nearly.

Speak of the Devil, his phone buzzed with a message.

Good luck at school, Ryback ;-)

Ryan supposed he should thank him for the sentiment, but something else caught his attention.

Ryan: Ryback?

Finley: There's a wrestler called Ryan Reeves with that nickname

R: Do I look like a wrestler to you?

F: It's either that or RR

R: I'm not Ryan Reynolds either

F: I couldn't tell, you both look like male models to me ;-)

Ryan's heart skipped a beat. He's probably just joking, said his inner monologue, but still, he couldn't deny the odd leaping sensation around his midriff reading that text, or the return of the weird fizzy feeling from yesterday.

Perhaps Finley thought he had weirded him out by that message, however, as the next one he sent was a complete change of topic.

F: Spoons?

R: 20

F: Decent, but don't waste them. School is when you truly need those spoons, you'd be surprised how many you used without thinking before you got sick.

R: Don't remind me ? school is tiring enough

F: Good thing I don't go back until next Monday

R: Wtf

F: I go to a private school

R: Silver spoon ...

F: Yeah I know

R: Enjoy your time off, alabaster boy

F: What about the contract btw

R: I'll tell you later

F: Fine, talk later

"Ryan." Mike placed a hand on his shoulder at the breakfast table fifteen minutes later, "a couple of things. First, we've had to tell the school about your illness. They're not going to shout it to the whole year or anything, what the other kids know is up to you, but the teachers know to not give you detention if you fall asleep in class."

Ryan rolled his eyes slightly at the comment, but internally, he'd been worrying about that too. "You could've told me you were gonna tell them before," he muttered.

"I know, but we have to tell them about any circumstances that may affect your performance or your grades. This is a crucial year for you, Ryan, I'm sure you already know that," Mike explained. "Secondly, if you're feeling bad, you can just give us a ring and we'll come and pick you up. That's another reason we had to tell them, so you're not accused of truanting if you disappear in the middle of the day."

"Thanks," Ryan mumbled simply.

"I'm jealous," Jody muttered to Tyler. "I mean, I get why he can go home any time he wants, but still, you kinda wish you could get a break sometimes too."

"Yeah, cancer would be a lot of fun if it didn't involve continuous pain, radiation rashes and chronic fatigue," Ryan retorted, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Jody deflated guiltily. "I'm sorry Ry-"

"Save it," Ryan interrupted. "Look, we all know that cancer is a shit-show. Like, a Yakov Smirnoff opening for the Spin Doctors at the Iowa State Fair shit-show, and under no circumstances do you want to be starring in that show."

None of them actually knew what a "Yakov Smirnoff opening for the Spin Doctors at the Iowa State Fair" show was like, but suffice to say, if it was anything like cancer, they didn't want to know.

Not even May-Li had the heart to admonish him for his profanity, and the rest of breakfast was spent in quiet.

Most of the new Year 11s' first day at school had been taken up by assemblies and lectures about the start of the new term and about the importance of their GCSEs. While these had mostly been extremely boring, it had helped Ryan somewhat that they were mostly just sitting in halls and classrooms and he could tune out if need be, which helped in saving spoons. Surprisingly few people had asked about the cane, ("I broke my leg in the skate park, still recovering.") which he was pleasantly surprised at. Maybe school wouldn't be as hard as he'd feared if he could be just as stingy with spoons.

Of course, the following days had to be harder than the first. The demands of school made the task of saving and recuperating spoons to be next to impossible and he quickly forgot about trying to roll them over to the next day. His timetable required him to make what felt like pilgrimages between classrooms, which wasn't aided at all by sciatica and chronic fatigue. He could practically feel the spoons falling from him even before he'd gotten to where he needed to be. His radiotherapy appointments had also been rescheduled for after school, but even these seemed an intolerable burden. By the time sixth period on Friday rolled around, he was just about ready to throw in the towel - it hadn't even been a whole week back at school and he was almost totally depleted of spoons and motivation - he had no idea how he was going to get through the next week, let alone a whole year full of exams and revision.

"Now, you'll have run across quadratics last year, but this year, you'll come across different variations of them. You'll also need to learn how to draw them on a graph," said the maths teacher, Mr Leroy.

"Does he ever shut up?" Peter muttered, sitting at the back of the classroom along with three other boys.

"I'd like to see the day I use these in real life," Simon added.

"Yeah, he's being so boring that he's put Ryan to sleep," Alex pointed out, gesturing to the boy next to him, who was resting his elbow on the table and his head on his hand, eyes closed.

"Can't say I blame him," Peter murmured, hiding a yawn behind his hand.

"Boys," Mr Leroy interrupted, "anything interesting going on over there? I'm sure the rest of the class would be fascinated to hear about it."

"Nothing, sir," Alex said hastily, stomping on Ryan's foot under the table in an attempt to wake him up.

Surprisingly for him, it didn't work. In hindsight, he supposed that he shouldn't have been stamping on the other boy's supposedly injured leg, but still, it should've at least woken him up, right?

It seemed that Mr Leroy himself had noticed, however, as after he set the class to do an exercise from the textbook, he approached the back table and woke Ryan in a more gentle fashion. "Do you want to go home if you're feeling tired?" he asked.

"I'll go when this period ends," Ryan murmured, rubbing his eye.

"Okay, let me just let your guardians know," Mr Leroy said.

"We're tired too," Simon chimed in, "can't we go home?" The resentment was clear in his voice.

Mr Leroy sighed. "There are ... one or two special circumstances with Ryan," he explained delicately, before leaving the room to make his way to the school reception.

"What kind of 'special circumstances'?" Peter asked, narrowing his eyes.

"None of your business," Ryan said harshly.

The boys recoiled under his glare and left him alone until Mr Leroy returned to say that the care workers would be at the school by the end of the lesson. The period ended and Ryan disappeared, presumably to be taken home.

"Honestly," Simon huffed as soon as Ryan was out of earshot, "just because he's injured and happened to fall asleep in class. Are those really 'special circumstances'?"

"I'm gonna try falling asleep in last period," Peter said. "Bet you five quid that I'll get a detention instead of being allowed to go home."

Alex remained silent. On the one hand, he too was annoyed at the apparent favouritism towards Ryan, but on the other, the boy had seemed slightly more melancholy ever since they'd come back to school, and it still struck him as odd that he apparently hadn't felt Alex stomping on his foot.

"How's it been?" Mike asked, as Ryan came through the door with May-Li.

"As well as it could've, I guess," Ryan shrugged, staggering to the seat in the corridor and flopping down.

"You've done well," May-Li said. "Rest up now, you still have radiotherapy later."

Ryan groaned. "Radiation takes up three spoons, I only have six left."

"You're going to have to explain to me what you mean by 'spoons' some time," Mike said.

"Gimme a sec." Ryan got up, went to the kitchen and gathered up 12 spoons from the drawer, along with the extra thirteenth in his pocket. Mike followed him, looking perplexed, as they both sat down at the counter. Grasping the spoon bouquet in his hands, Ryan looked Mike in the eye, said "Here you go, you have cancer," and thrust them into his hands.

Drinking game - take a shot every time the word "spoon(s)" appears in this chapter.

Just as a heads up - I'll be going on hiatus for the next month or two. Yeah, I know that happens with most of my chapters, but this one is because I have A-Levels coming up soon and I've got to prioritise them.