"Are you sure you're feeling better?"

Jude hovered near Callie as she pulled a brush through her hair. Three days after Christmas and she was definitely looking better, but she still didn't look healthy. She still looked half-dead on her feet.

"I'm feeling okay and I've got stuff to do," she said vaguely. "I'll make it up to you tonight. Big post-Christmas dinner, okay?"

"Okay."

"Be home by eight," she warned.

"Where am I going to go?" Jude snorted.

"The Centre," Callie replied.

"What?" Jude scuffed his foot along the floor. "Why would I go? You're sick. I should be home when you're home!"

"No," Callie said. "You're going for your safety. And you promised. And it's the only way you're getting your cell phone back."

Jude rolled his eyes but he couldn't deny that he wanted his phone back.

"All right," he agreed. Plus, part of him was still hoping that Connor was going to show up at the Centre one day, casually saying that he'd found time over Christmas after all, and did Jude want to go get hot chocolate?

It wasn't going to happen but a guy had to have his day dreams.

"So, go. Before I have to go see Nic. I want to know you're out of here."

"Okay, okay," Jude said with a sigh. He gathered up his backpack. "See you later, Callie."

"Eight o'clock!" she called after him.

"Yep!" Jude said, but he doubted that she had heard it. He could tell when Callie stopped paying particular attention to him.

He slunk down the stairs, bolting out the back door when he was sure it was safe. He moved quickly, though definitely not a run, to his bus stop, barely making the bus that Callie had intended for him to be on. He crawled to a seat at the back, letting the bus carry him away to the Centre, which was decidedly less busy around the holiday times. Even the street kids had somewhere better to be, Jude mused bitterly as he waved at Norma before going into the multi-purpose room. It was completely empty, which Jude had once preferred. He sunk into his normal beanbag chair and dealt himself a round of Crown Solitaire, one of the games that had had learnt from his Christmas book.

He was on round three when he heard footsteps. He didn't look up but he kept careful track of where the footsteps were headed. He really wasn't in the mood to be interrupted and he really didn't want to talk to anyone. It didn't work out that way and the footsteps walked right up to him. Jude glanced at the feet, first, thinking that it might be Norma, but the black boots with the small heel definitely didn't belong to the no-nonsense woman in her fifties. More carefully now, since he knew it was a stranger, Jude lifted his gaze to the girl's face, surprised that he did recognize her. Mariana. The girl that Connor had spoken to at tutoring.

"You're Jude, right?" she asked, and Jude just stared at her. She rolled her brown eyes and shifted her weight. "You either say yes or I don't give you this note from Connor."

Note from Connor? "Yes."

She handed him the small piece of paper, folded in half.

"Also, I'm supposed to offer you a drive if you want one," she said, before he had even gotten to read the note. Her voice was strangely sympathetic and the tone raised goosebumps on Jude's arms.

Jude recognized Connor's handwriting on the short note. All it said was the name of the hospital and a room number. Jude's stomach clenched and he thought of the empty house that he had spotted on Christmas. He had been right! Something was wrong!

"I … would like that drive," he whispered. What if something was really wrong? Nothing good could come of being summoned to a hospital. Nothing good at all.

"I'm Mariana," she said. "I think we introduced ourselves before."

"Yeah," Jude said. "I think we did."

He put his cards in his bag and then he crushed the note in his hand. Room 608. Room 608. He tried to think positive but the only thing that he could think of on the so-called positive side was that it was Adam in the hospital and Connor wanted him there, but Jude couldn't make that make completely sense in his head. As he followed Mariana out the door, all he could think of was that Connor was sick and that he knew Connor was sick. Connor wouldn't have sent a stranger to get him if everything was okay.

Mariana was driving an old SUV and there was a boy in the passenger seat, one that looked a lot like her. Jude watched him warily as he put himself in the backseat.

"This is my brother, Jesus."

Jude nodded like it mattered to him.

"Can I drive?" Jesus asked.

"Nope," she said. "Mom gave me the keys."

"Oh, that's just because you asked Lena. Stef would have given me the keys!"

"No, she wouldn't have."

The car started moving and they continued bickering so Jude just tuned them out, staring out the window and trying to remember the last time he'd been in a car. A bus, sure, but a car? That was the easier thing to think of. He watched the houses blur by and he dug his fingernails further into his palm as they got closer to the hospital. An ambulance drove by and Jude felt like he was going to be sick. He hated hospitals. He had never realized it until now but he absolutely hated hospitals. He hated how the building loomed in front of him and he hated how he couldn't tell what he was going to get until he walked inside. He wanted to not feel as anxious as he was.

"This is our stop!" Mariana announced. She turned around in the front to look at him. "I'm sorry."

Her words crashed onto him. "You know what's going on, don't you?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I'm sorry."

Jude almost asked her; he thought that she might tell him. Instead, he whispered a thank you and slid out the door, dropping to the ground. He adjusted his bag over his shoulders, straightening up like that would help him prepare and then he walked into the doors. The edges of his note bit into his palm as Jude walked himself to the elevator. Room 608. Room 608. Room 608. He pressed the button for the sixth floor and didn't glance at the young couple that was next to him. He couldn't tell if they were happy or sad and he didn't want to know. He didn't want to acknowledge anyone else.

They got off on the fifth floor and no one else got in. Jude was alone as he went to the sixth floor and he stepped out onto the bright tiled floors. There were nurses and doctors running around and he took an unsteady step forward. Where did he go? Which direction was room 608?

"Are you lost, honey?" asked a nurse, after nearly running into him.

"Um, room 608," he whispered.

"Straight down that hall on the right side," she said, and then she was on her way and Jude was left to go alone down the hall, watching the numbers on the right side.

Room 608.

Jude heard a woman laugh from inside the room and, as a test, he just barely peeked around the door frame. He saw the woman first, his brain registering her as almost familiar, before he looked at the hospital bed and then that was all he could see. Connor, sitting on the bed, a smile on his face and a grey toque on his head as he leant against the pillows. Jude stepped fully into the doorway, feeling like he couldn't breathe.

"Connor, I think you have a visitor."

The woman's voice sounded hollow and far-off, like she was shouting to him from the end of a long tunnel.

Connor's head turned and Jude became shaky, trapped by the exhaustion in Connor's bright eyes. His smile stretched even wider when he saw Jude and Jude found himself taking a single step into the room, willed there by Connor's presence.

"I'll let you two talk," the woman said, standing and gathering her jacket.

"What's going on?" Jude blurted, feeling like the fact that she had to leave them alone was a very bad sign.

"Thanks for keeping me company, Ms. Adams," Connor murmured, and the familiarity of her clicked dimly in Jude's brain.

"I'll stop by again soon," she promised. As she passed Jude, she laid a maternal hand against his shoulder and Jude didn't even think to shrug her off. "It'll be okay."

Why didn't he believe her?

Jude's knees locked as Ms. Adams left the room; his whole body locked. He felt like he couldn't even blink, lest something happen. Then, Connor said a simple "hey" and Jude flew to his bedside, sitting against Connor's hip.

"Are you okay?" It was such a stupid question, Jude knew, when things clearly weren't okay.

Connor looked away from Jude and if Jude didn't know any better, he would have said that Connor looked ashamed. Connor's bottom lip trembled when he whispered, "Don't hate me."

"Why would I hate you?"

"I just didn't want to lose this," Connor continued, like Jude hadn't spoken at all. "How we are as friends. I know it was selfish, you don't have to tell me but, back when I was diagnosed, everyone started treating me different and they all knew. My school was trying to be inclusive and so they gave an embarrassing presentation on it, telling everyone what it was and that I was still the same but I wasn't and they all acted like it."

It sounded so rehearsed but picturing Connor, laying in this bed and trying to pick the right words to say to him, hurt more than anything else that Jude could imagine.

"I met you and someone finally treated me normally and you didn't know and you can't imagine how grateful that I was for that. I couldn't tell you. I don't know if you can imagine this, either, but Ms. Adams and I have been arguing since I met you, on whether or not to tell you and how I should. I just … I didn't want to. I finally found someone that didn't treat me like a freak! And after you saw my arms, after you saw the bruising, you did start worrying about me and I just thought … I thought it would get so much worse if you knew all of it and I … I did kind of know that this was coming and I was going to end up here. I knew that you were going to have to find out eventually and I just want to put off eventually. Does that make sense?"

Connor finally looked back at him and Jude couldn't even think that it all made sense. All that he could say was: "It's not really a blood disorder, is it?"

Connor shook his head. "No. Well, I didn't make up the platelet stuff. It's a part of it but, um, Jude, I have cancer."

Jude had been punched in the stomach before. Hearing those words definitely hurt worse.

"Cancer and then, Christmas morning, I got really sick and they brought me in and now my kidneys are failing and my doctor doesn't think that she can save them and so I'm going to need a transplant and now it doesn't even matter if I have cancer because that's not what's going to kill me!" Connor was half-hysterical but Jude shut down completely.

What's going to kill me.

"You're going to die?" he whispered, a loud ringing in his ears.

"I …" Connor didn't finish his sentence but he didn't have to. Jude could see it all on his face.

"You're going to die and you've been lying to me?!" Jude jumped to his feet, like he was going to storm out, and Connor grabbed desperately toward him, as if to stop him. "You're my best friend! Think about everything I've told you! Everything that puts me in danger and my sister in danger and you have been lying to me since the day that we met!"

"I know. I don't have anything to say about it."

"I trusted you."

"I know and I can't explain it any better! It wasn't about you! It's about me! I … I just wanted to keep you the same."

"Didn't you trust me? Didn't you know me at all? How could you think that about me? I was worried about you because you're my best friend! Because I care about you! Was I going to wrap you up in cotton? Not let you move? Does that sound like me?"

"I didn't want to risk it."

Jude retreated to the chair that Ms. Adams had vacated and he pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around himself and just stared at Connor, who just stared back. He couldn't leave, he couldn't think, he couldn't breathe. Connor was going to die.

"I'm really sorry, Jude."

"It doesn't matter that you're sorry! I'm mad!"

"I know." Connor fidgeted with the edge of his blanket. "Do you hate me?"

"No." At least that was an easy question to answer. "I just can't believe you."

"I know. I felt guilty, all the time."

He felt guilty but he still hadn't told him the truth and Jude didn't think that he was ready to get over that.

"Do you want me to tell you more about it?"

Jude shook his head. He'd heard enough for today. He already had far too much to process and he just rested his head against his legs. Nothing was right. Connor had cancer. Connor was going to die. How could he get over that? How did he start to process that?

"Are you stuck here?"

Connor nodded. "Yeah. With the medicine and the dialysis –"

"I don't know what that means!"

"It's a machine that process my blood because my kidneys can't. I have to do it kind of often and I kind of hate it. And it keeps me kind of stuck here. Also, Dad. He doesn't want me to be home alone because he still has to work and he knows I'm always taken care of here," Connor rambled.

Jude huffed a sigh. What did he say? What did he do? The questions just served to anger him further because that meant Connor had a point in thinking that Jude wasn't going to treat him different and Jude wasn't about to prove him right. Yet, Jude was confused. How could Connor think things would ever be the same? He was hooked up to machines in a hospital bad, saying his disease was going to kill him. How was that even close to the same?

"Do you hate me?" Connor asked, so quietly that Jude wouldn't have believed he'd spoken if he hadn't seen his lips move.

"I don't hate you but I am mad at you. I trusted you! You lied to me!"

Connor just nodded and went back to playing with his blanket, eyes lowered. Jude sighed and unfurled his legs. If it was normal Connor wanted, it was normal Connor would get. He stood up and grabbed his bags.

"Where are you going?"

Jude just sat on the bed next to Connor, nudging him over so that he could sit next to him. He opened his bag and piled the small dictionary, the sticky notes, and a pen onto Connor's lap. He picked up the pen, staring at Jude.

"This is what's normal." Connor's hand nudged at Jude's arm and Jude shook his head. "No. I don't want to talk about it anymore right now. Maybe tomorrow or something but I don't know what to think or what even to say right now."

"Okay," Connor agreed. "Are you sure you want to read?"

"Yeah."

Jude flicked slowly through the pages to get to where he left off.

"Does that mean you're going to come back tomorrow?" Connor asked.

"Of course," Jude said. "Where else would I go?"

"I don't know how mad you are."

"Not that kind of mad. Not the kind of mad where I'd rather … I'd rather not be here." It wasn't what he meant to say. He'd almost given too much of himself away, saying Not the kind of mad where I'd rather be without you. If Connor really was that sick, then there was a timer on the amount that Jude was actually going to get to spend with him and Jude wasn't going to waste it storming around the streets by himself and being mad.

"Okay," Connor said and he rested his head on Jude's shoulder. "Thank you for being here."

"I can't believe you didn't tell me." The words just slipped out as he stared down at the black ink on the page, everything blurring together. "You knew the whole time."

"Since I was thirteen."

"You could have just told me instead of telling me you had a blood disorder. You didn't just lie to me once you lied to me a whole bunch of times."

Connor worked his arm across Jude, hugging him tightly, but Jude realized that there was almost no strength in his arms. How had he never felt that before? Or was Connor really just falling apart that quickly? He had no way of knowing and no willpower to ask on his own.

"I'm sorry."

Jude tapped his finger against the page. "We left off here, right?"

"Close enough. I could listen to every part of this story a million times."

"You never get bored?"

"What's there to get bored of? It's great! Plus, things feel different every time and I like that I know the ending. It means I can appreciate everything else instead of just trying to get to the last part."

"All right, all right," Jude said. He cleared his throat and picked up at the top of the page.

He read slowly through the remainder of the afternoon and into the evening. Even when he wanted to quit, he kept going because it was easier than anything else. Adam came in about the same time that Connor's dinner did.

"Oh, hi, Jude," he said. "I'm glad you're here."

"Hi," Jude said.

"How was work?" Connor asked.

"It was work. Eat that, Connor. You have to eat."

Connor rolled his eyes but Jude couldn't bring himself to agree with his friend's playful frustration. He agreed with Adam and not with Connor. Connor needed all the help that he could get. Adam picked up the remote to the TV in Connor's room.

"Do you need to get home any time soon, Jude?"

"No." He never had to get home.

"Connor and I usually find a movie to watch. Do you want to sit with us for a while?"

Jude just nodded. Adam moved a seat so that he was right next to Connor's side of the bed and turned the TV on. He found a new comedy and put that on first. Nurses were in and out quite regularly and Jude tracked them as they looked at Connor's things – things that Jude didn't understand but desperately wished that he did. He wished he understood anything a little bit more but he didn't know how to ask Connor about it. He didn't know if Connor would even tell him the truth about it. He hadn't before. The hospital bed wasn't that big but, even still, Connor didn't keep to his own space and Jude didn't push him away, just let him stay close, leaning heavily against Jude. He was glad that Connor was willing to cuddle to him since he didn't have the willpower to pull Connor closer, even though he did want to.

When the movie was over, Adam reached out for Connor. "Do you want me to stay tonight?"

Connor turned his head to the side to look at Jude. "Visiting hours are almost over but sometimes Dad spends the night with me."

Jude nodded. "Um, okay, I'll be back tomorrow."

"Yeah, thanks. See you tomorrow, Jude."

Jude quickly packed his things but he felt that his body got heavier the closer that he got to the door. Once he was almost into the hallway, he turned back around, his eyes falling first on Adam, instead of on Connor. Adam was gripping Connor's hand tightly, his face filled with so much pain that Jude felt hurt. He glanced at Connor, who just waved at him so Jude had no choice but to just wave back at him and then continue on.

He made his way back to the elevator and, this time, Jude was alone when he boarded and descended down to the bottom floor of the hospital. He let himself out into the breezy night, wondering where to find the bus that would take him home. He hadn't spent any time around here before. What did he need with a hospital? He just started walking down the street that he thought that Mariana had driven on to get them there in the first place. Despite how the crisp air should have been clearing his mind, he just felt like he was walking in a haze.

Cancer.

There was so much packed into one small word that Jude didn't even know how to start thinking about it. In fact, the only thing that he could think of the entire way home, spent tripping over his own feet, was the word cancer. He couldn't think of anything else and he finally he was back at his house. He kept to the shadowed edge of the lawn and then he crept up the stairs to his and Callie's apartment. He swiftly locked the door and he stumbled inside, shutting and locking the door behind him. He didn't feel any safer. He didn't feel anymore secure. The world was still tilted on its axis and Jude didn't know if he would ever feel right again. Everything that had ever happened to him seemed designed to knock him off-kilter and he had never felt so out of sorts as he did now.

"Jude! Where have you been? Are you okay? You were supposed to be home at eight!"

Callie's voice came screeching out from their bedroom before she appeared, her feet thudding heavily on the worn floorboards.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

His mouth and throat were still dry from reading to Connor most of the day and he felt like he couldn't get the words out properly.

"Are you sure? Why are you late?"

Because, once he had stepped into that room, Jude had thought of nothing else but Connor. Because, time had ceased to exist for him and he hadn't even thought to seek out a clock. He had forgotten her and he felt ashamed to admit it.

"I … I …" He would have to tell her the truth. He always told Callie the truth but it got tied up in his mouth because once he said it aloud, it cemented it, it made it entirely more real. Connor had said it and now he carried it inside of him and now when he told Callie, when he repeated it, it would mean that he had made it real.

"Jude?" Callie stood in front of him and it occurred to Jude that she was now reaching up to him. Somehow, he had gotten a little taller than her and he hadn't realized it. She placed her hand against his forehead. "Are you sure?"

"He's dying." Jude felt like he'd been punched from saying the words and he dropped his backpack to the ground so that he could lean against the wall. He couldn't hold himself up anymore.

"Who's dying!?" Callie's eyes flew open in alarm and she grabbed at Jude again.

"Not me. Connor. He's … I was at the hospital, Callie! He's got cancer and kidney failure and he's going to die!"

Jude tried to hold them back but he felt the tears rolling down his face, so hot that he felt as thought they were going to scar his skin.

"Oh, Jude."

He couldn't take the overwhelming sympathy in Callie's voice as she hugged him tightly. His knees shook and he broke down against her, crying onto her shoulder. Jude could barely remember the last time that he'd cried, let alone the last time that he had broken down in front of Callie. He had always tried to honour the fact that she had more to worry about and more to think about and that he should try to be as little of a burden as possible, knowing why they were even in the situation they were in was because of him and what she had done for him. He wrapped his arms around her small waist, snuffling and bawling like he was a young child again. He felt just as out of control as he had when they were trapped in the foster system and she felt just as rock solid and dependable as she had then but he wasn't lulled into the same sense of security that he had been then. Then, it was entirely believable that everything would be okay and there was nothing to hurt him in the world outside of Callie's arms. Now, all he could do was think about Connor in his hospital bed. Callie couldn't stop the outside world. Callie couldn't allow him the reprieve.

"I'm so sorry, Jude."

"It's not fair!"

"No, of course it's not," Callie said.

"I can't do anything! I can't! I want to but … It's not fair!"

"I know."

It was all that she could say. It was all that anyone could say. But Jude wished that it wasn't. He wished that Callie had something that she could offer up as a solution. He wished that she could figure out what, exactly, to do so that Jude could go back to Connor with a plan. Some way to help. Something at all to do.

"It's okay, Jude, just try and let it out."

"I don't want him to die!"

"I know."

He waited for the false promise to come – the hope for the miracle, the maybe something will happen, the it will work itself out – but Callie wouldn't do that to him. Both of them knew that there were no miracles in this life, as hard as that was to stomach sometimes.

"Come on, come sit." She settled him down on the couch, brushing her fingers through his hair. "Let's try and eat something, okay? You might feel better after that."

Somehow, Jude doubted that. Somehow, Jude doubted he would ever feel completely better again.

If you have a song that reminds you of The Island Of Misfit Toys and would like it to be on the playlist, send it in and let me know! I'd love to hear your playlist suggestions. This week's songs are: My Heart by the Perishers and Leaving Song by Mary Chapin Carpenter.

So, on tumblr I'm: we are all of legend now (with dashes between every word). If you want to find my replies to anon reviews, add backslash tagged backslash anon dash replies. If you want to see anything I post about The Island Of Misfit Toys, go to my tumblr URL and add backslash tagged backslash the dash island dash of dash misfit dash toys. Punctuation is spelled out due to Fanfiction's restrictions. If you're having any trouble accessing the tumblr content please send me a pm and I can format it for you in a different way.

~TLL~