A/N: Hi lovelies!
First of all, I want to say sorry for the fact that I haven't posted in a few months. I had this chapter mostly finished for a while, but every time I sat down and tried to get it done, it just wasn't working. (if it helps, I haven't written anything in months, not just this story). But, hopefully I can get back into a routine of getting some writing done again, so chapters should at least be more regular than they have been lately (because let's face it, they've never exactly been properly regular haha) This chapter, and what will be the next one, were originally going to be one chapter, but I realised that a) it was starting to get a lot longer than previous chapters, and b) it meant it would have been a few more days before I could post it, so I broke them apart. That does mean that the next chapter is probably going to be fairly short, so it should only be a few more days before it's done :D
There's going to be another A/N at the the end of the chapter, to answer a few questions that were left in reviews on the last chapter, so if you're not interested, feel free to ignore that :D
I'm not going to say too much more now so that you can get on with reading the chapter! Also, it's nearly half past one in the morning here, but I wanted to get this posted before I went to bed! Hopefully everything in this chapter is clear, if it's not, please let me know. This chapter is fairly long, and I've been writing it bit at a time for a few months, so it's more likely to have some mistakes in it. If you see any, feel free to point them out!
I understand that it's been a while since I updated this story, so I get it if people have lost interest, but if you do read it, please please please let me know what you think, good or bad!
Thanks a billion!
xoloveJBox
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ricky was waiting dutifully outside the hospital when Kyle and Lydia arrived. Lydia stepped out of the car, throwing a goodbye to her brother over her shoulder, and Ricky waved as Kyle drove past. The blonde woman watched as her friend approached, silently judging whether the girl was well enough for the task at hand. Brax was coming home, and she'd made no headway with getting Casey's stubborn self into his wheelchair, and she needed Lydia's help with her new plan. Ricky took in her friend's appearance. Lydia was dressed in comfortable pale blue jeans and a light grey jumper. Her long brown hair was down, laying across her shoulders, and as Lydia got closer, she pushed it back from her face, tucking some behind her ears. Her cheeks were a little pale, and there was the slightest purple smudge under her eyes, suggesting a disturbed sleep, but she smiled warmly as she approached.
"Hey Rick," Lydia greeted, slipping her bag over her shoulder.
"Morning Lyd," Ricky replied cheerfully "how are you feeling today?"
"Good," Lydia answered determinedly and answered "I'm going to work this afternoon."
"That's so great!" Ricky told her sincerely, knowing how bored Lydia was starting to get, holed up in the house by her hovering, and sometimes overbearing, brothers. She shot Lydia a wide grin "You want to help me sort out your brother?"
"Sure," Lydia agreed as they headed towards the entrance to the hospital "What did you have in mind?"
"You fancy a little bit of good cop, bad cop?"
"As long as I get to be bad cop." Lydia chuckled easily.
"I wouldn't have expected anything else from you Lyd." Ricky replied as they entered the building, pulled into the soft thrum of activity inside.
"Hey!" Lydia laughed heartily, "I am nice to my brothers, alright, but when Casey is being an idiot, I'm not going to pass up the opportunity to yell at him without Brax being on my case about it."
"Fair enough," Ricky answered as they approached Casey's room. For a moment, Lydia was struck by how long it seemed since she had shared the room with him, about how much seemed to have changed, despite the fact that it had only been a week. Brax being gone hadn't helped any of them stay on balance, but they all also understood that sometimes, the oldest of them needed time away from everyone, to think and recharge the energy he usually spent so much of sorting out everyone else's problems. Lydia hoped she would manage to get somewhere with Casey before Brax returned, to take some of the ever-present weight from her eldest brother's shoulders, but, she had to admit, she'd be glad when he was around again.
As they passed, Ricky grabbed a wheelchair, and they waited just outside of Casey's room.
"You want to go first, bad cop?" Ricky asked quietly so that Casey wouldn't overhear their plan.
"I'd love to," Lydia replied, shooting her an amused smirk. She took the handles and nudged the door open, striding in with a determined look on her face.
Casey gave her a confused look when she walked in, but offered no words of greeting. His sister reciprocated the lack of niceties, stopping at the side of his bed, pushing her foot down on the brake of the wheelchair.
"Get in." Lydia told him firmly, folding her arms across her chest determinedly. Casey did the same, but his steely gaze screamed defiance instead.
"No." He replied, matching his sister's tone.
"Casey Braxton, you will get in this chair right now, even if I have to drag you myself."
Casey merely scoffed and rolled his eyes at Lydia's threat, and if she hadn't been so adamant that Casey was going to get in the wheelchair before Brax came home, she might have found it funny as well. In comparison to other girls, Lydia was quite tall, but her brother's had always been significantly bigger than her. But, unfortunately for Casey, Lydia was in a tenacious mood, and if he didn't think she was willing to drag him by his ears into the chair if it came to it, he was wrong.
"Get in." Lydia repeated resolutely, pulling at the blanket Casey had draped over his legs.
"No!" Casey answered, snatching it back, his irritation levels rapidly rising.
"What exactly are you so scared of?" Lydia asked, feeling just as irked as her brother at his bull-headedness.
"If I get in that chair, there's so much that I won't be able to do for myself ever again!"
"Oh yes, because you can do so much from that bed!" Lydia retorted sharply, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. "Stop being a baby Case!"
"I'm not being a baby!" Casey yelled back at her "You don't know what this is like!"
"You're right, I don't!" Lydia snapped venomously "But I do know that if it were me in this situation, I would be doing everything possible to get out of here!"
When she heard the two begin to shout, Ricky stepped quietly into the room. Casey saw her enter, and rolled his eyes impatiently.
"Are you here to yell at me too?" He challenged moodily, and Lydia turned on him quickly.
"Don't talk to Ricky like that," She expostulated "None of this is her fault."
"It's alright Lyd," Ricky told her gently, before looking to Casey "Brax is coming home today.
"So?" Casey asked indifferently.
"He thinks you hate him Case." She revealed, a surprise to Lydia as well as Casey "He thinks you won't get in that chair because he wants you to."
"How could you make him think that?!" Lydia demanded lividly "He pretty much raised us! How could you make him think that you hate him?"
"Oh come on Rick," Casey retorted "Brax knows that I don't hate him."
"How is he supposed to know that Casey?" Ricky asked calmly "You throw him out of here every time he comes in. That's why he took off for a few days."
"You're saying it's my fault he left town?" Casey exclaimed indignantly.
"No, of course not." Ricky assured him quickly.
"Well I am." Lydia interjected, a new kind of rage rolling over her. She'd seen her brothers argue with each other more times than she could count in her lifetime, but never once had she had the impression that it had gotten to the point of one of them-Brax, no less- believing that he was hated by one of his siblings.
Casey and Lydia started arguing at the same time, with Ricky trying to calm the pair, and they didn't realise how thundering their voices sounded out in the corridor until April, busy making her rounds, overheard and hurried inside, recognising the voices of her friends.
"What's going on?" She asked, surprised to see the siblings arguing so loudly. In the years she'd known the Braxtons, she'd never witnessed more than a minor dispute between the two youngest.
"April, will you get rid of her please?" Casey implored, eager to get away from his sister.
"No, I'm not going anywhere." Lydia retorted emphatically "Not until you get out of this bed!"
Lydia and Casey began shouting over each other again, and April had to physically get between them before they started actually hitting each other, something she was sure was on the brink of happening.
"Lydia, out! Now!" She ordered angrily, pointing towards the door. Lydia was about to argue, but quickly realised that her friend wasn't above calling security and having her kicked out, and that wasn't going to help anyone. Casting one last livid look at Casey, Lydia snatched her bag from the end of the bed and stormed out the door. She could tell that April was following her- to talk, or simply make sure she actually left, Lydia wasn't sure- so she waited outside Casey's room, scrubbing a hand exasperatedly over her face.
"Lydia!" April hissed "What were you thinking?"
"I'm thinking he's being stubborn, and a sook!" Lydia answered loudly. April hurried grabbed her elbow and pulled her further away from the room, clearly not wanting Casey to hear his sister's words.
"Lydia, Casey's very fragile right now. We need to help hi-" April began, but Lydia quickly cut her off.
"Oh, fragile my arse, April!" She retorted, then took a deep breath. Falling out with April was not something she'd anticipated, nor particularly wanted. "You're one of my best friends April, and I love you," she huffed, her voice slightly steadier, anger genuinely coursing through her veins, no longer part of a 'bad cop' act "but babying Casey isn't going to help him. There's no reason for him not to be in that chair, and by not pushing him, you're being his friend, not his doctor. What he wants and what he needs right now aren't the same, and I would have thought that you would know the difference."
Before April could say anything else, Lydia stomped back over to the door of Casey's room and threw it open, but didn't step in.
"Rick, I'm going to work now, since Case is clearly being an idiot." She told the older woman, her voice carrying the trailing remnants of her argument, sounding harsher than she'd intended, and Ricky nodded.
"You're going to work?" Casey asked, a mixture of concern and surprise crossing his face "Already?"
"That's what happens when you actually put some effort into a recovery." Lydia retorted sharply, stalking away before he had a chance to retort.
Arguing with April and Casey had taken a lot more out of her than Lydia had imagined it would, so rather than take the moderate walk to her brother's restaurant, which had been her plan, she wandered over to the small cluster of waiting taxis. It meant being earlier to work than she had intended, but when she arrived and followed the steady stream of eager lunchtime customers up the stairs and into the packed dining room, she realised that her help would probably be gratefully received.
Her suspicions were confirmed when Kyle seemed to let out a relieved sigh as he spotted her, though it was gone almost as soon as it had appeared, replaced with a slight frown.
"You're early," he commented as Lydia hurried behind the bar, kicked her bag underneath it and pulled off her jumper, revealing the plain black singlet that served as her uniform.
"Good job by the looks of it." She answered simply "Where's Tamara? I thought she was supposed to be working?"
"I gave her the day off." Kyle replied evasively.
"Dating the boss has it's perks then, ey?" Lydia joked, though her smile quickly fell when she spotted the expression on her older brother's face. Kyle knew from the look his sister was now shooting him that it was going to be one of those times he wished Lydia was a little less inquisitive.
"You know the conversation we had this morning, and the fact that I shared a secret with you?" Lydia began, feigning casual innocence "Feel free to reciprocate that, brother."
"We broke up, alright." Kyle told her, sighing as he avoided Lydia's shocked expression.
"She dumped you?!" Lydia exclaimed, surprised, then lowered her tone and leaned towards him when he shot her a sharp glance.
"No," Kyle answered defensively "I broke up with her."
"Why?" Lydia questioned incredulously, though that did explain why he had seemed so miserable that morning "Kyle, you are so in love with her! Why would you do that?!"
"Look, can we actually get some work done?" Kyle snapped irritably, stalking away with a new order from the kitchen.
"Alright," Lydia called after him, making her way to the other side of the bar, ready to start taking orders "but this conversation isn't finished Kyle!"
She was definitely going to need to keep an eye on her brother.
A/N 2: Ok, so some answers to questions that were left in a few reviews on the last chapter:
* I don't know exactly where Brax has gone- him leaving for a few days is something that happens in the show, I haven't just thrown that in without thinking it through properly (lol). Ricky convinces him to go so that she can try to get Casey into the wheelchair. I just added Lydia to that.
* Kyle is sad and lonely because he broke up with Tamara but didn't tell anyone in his family- something I knew I was going to put in this chapter. Hopefully that makes sense now :)
* Lydia's dreams are going to be a recurring thing, and will (hopefully) become clearer soon.
* The email in Lydia's inbox will be answered in the next few chapters, but I needed to show her going back to work first, something that, again, will be clearer soon.
* And finally, yes, Lydia really isn't pregnant. The test was right. I'm not going to put that on Lydia, I think she'd hate me for it!
