I'm baaaaaaaaack. Please enjoy this chapter!

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Jefferson's p.o.v

Okay, in retrospect, I was wrong about the whole it'll get better thing. Because I was so, so, so freaking wrong. More wrong than when I mistook Hamilton for a girl in a bar (before me and James got together and I realised I was bi) and started necking him. More wrong than a three-pronged fork. More wrong than I've ever been in my life.

The vomiting? Yeah, I suppose that was a bit of a bummer. Nothing like a bit of highly corrosive hydrochloric acid and partly digested food to take the edge off your day, right? It wasn't until the muscle cramps reared their ugly heads that I started begging James to take me off the medicine.

"Oh my God, unplug this damn poison!" I screamed, tears rolling down my face as the muscles in my arm began to contract violently, sending waves of fiery pain from the depths of hell crashing down my arm, all the way from my shoulder to the very tips of my fingers.

"I can't, baby, you know I can't," James replied, trying to wipe away my tears. More just kept coming. I reached up with a shaking hand, the one that wasn't cramping, and lay it on his cheek.

"I-I don't think I can do it," I said faintly, but James heard. His face fell.

"I know it's horrible," he whispered, stroking my hair back. I continued to shake. "But if you don't do this, you're..."

He stopped, steeling himself. "You're going to die!"

"I-I don't want to die," I sobbed, letting out a cry of pain. "I-I don't wanna leave you, Jemmy. I never wanna leave you!"

"You don't have to," he replied, crying himself now. "You don't have to, but you have to do this. For you. For me. For us, Tommy. For us."

I nodded, biting my lip so hard I tasted blood. He reached over my head and pressed the call button. A nurse hurried in, not Zoe. Someone else.

"Can you give him some pain meds or something?" James asked as I squirmed, clutching my arm. She made a sympathetic face, but shook her head.

"I'm afraid we need clearance from Dr Washington to do that," she said, but I never heard most of it because I passed out from the pain and the sheer exhaustion.

I dreamed.

I dreamed about mine and James' wedding.

It was an outdoor wedding. A low-ish arch, a wicker wood with small daisies and lavender flowers weaved in. There was 5 rows of white chairs with satin bows on the back, and after the chairs, a summer-house-like thing. I was standing at the arch, my father's arm linking mine. James stood waiting for me at the end of the aisle, dressed in a beautiful black-and-white tuxedo, nothing too fancy, but showing off his fantastic figure. Daaaaamn, his butt looks good in that... anyway, I walked slowly down to him, feeling better than I'd felt in a long time. Y'know, a month being a long time. He'd smiled at me, and that's where it all disintegrates.

He suddenly gets further away, so far away. I try to run to him, but he never comes any closer. It's like running on a never-ending treadmill.

Words always swirl around my head, voices, all sorts...

Then I come to my tombstone.

It's a pretty freaky sight, seeing your own name there, on a piece of stone. That's it. That's all you get at the end of your days. A carved stone, whatever shady internet history you didn't delete and memories.

I have that nightmare every night now.

That first time, however, I was woken from it by a harsh light in my eye and a soft voice.

"Thomas?" it said. "Thomas, son, I need you to open your eyes for me."

Oh. Washington, then. I slowly cracked my eyes open to see his blurry face. James was hovering nervously at the side somewhere. Moving gingerly, I tested out my limbs, shaking them one by one. All there. All hurting, but all there. I was soaked in sweat, and I was still shaking a little.

"I don't like this," were the first words which tumbled out of my mouth.

Washington chuckled, helping me sit up and resting the back on his hand on my forehead. James came hurrying forward, taking my hand and kissing it.

"I don't like seeing you like this," he murmured.

"Go home," I said suddenly. He gave me a strange look. "I don't want to put you through this. Send my mother, my father, maybe, whilst they're still in town. Tell my siblings they can come visit when they feel like it, but if you don't want to come, you don't have to."

He smiled at me, and gave my hand a tight squeeze.

"I'll still visit," he promised as he gathered his things. I nodded, watching him as he left.

And I was alone with Washington.

"So not such a great first night, then," he said, trying to keep the mood and his tone jovial.

"He's gonna leave me," I whispered to the bedsheets before looking up at Washington and repeating a little louder, "He's going to leave me."

Washington's face softened and he gave me a soft hug. I leant into him, feeling almost traitorous to James.

"He won't leave you," he said, patting my back before straightening again. Unfortunately, the simple motion jarred my stomach and I barely had time to snap my mouth shut before it all came rushing up. Washington grabbed a basin and held it to my chin as I spewed everything, mostly bile, up. I hadn't even eaten anything! How did I have so much to throw up?

"Feel better now?" he asked, dumping the contents of the basin into a plastic bag and then dumping that in the biohazard bin. I nodded a little, wiping my mouth on the back of my hand.

"How do you not get grossed out?" I asked as he bustled around, checking my heartrate, temperature, everything.

"What do you mean?" he replied, tilting his head to the side as the thermometer in my ear beeped.

"By all the blood and pus and sick and stuff? How?"

"Practice, I suppose," he shrugged. "You should've seen me when I first started out, squeamish at the first sight of pus."

"If you didn't like that stuff, why did you become a doctor, especially an oncologist?"

He stopped and thought for a moment before answering.

"The satisfaction, I suppose," he finally said. "True, you lose a lot of patients, but there's nothing better than telling someone that they've gone into remission and seeing the look on their face. It's the best thing in the world, better than money and all that crap."

I smiled at his sentiment.

"That's nice," I said. "You could make it into a cat poster."

He laughed this time, ruffling my hair good-naturedly. A nurse came in, wheeling a food trolley behind her. I grimanced involuntarily as Washington passed a bowl of sloppy-looking oatmeal to me, quickly followed by a glass of lukewarm orange juice.

"I'm not hungry," I mumbled, pushing the bowl away.

"If you don't eat, you'll feel even worse," he told me, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Hey, just imagine it's your favourite food."

Look, I'm really tired and this is useless anyway. Can we finish this off tomorrow? Go haunt James for a bit, I give you my blessing.

Go on, scram!

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Hope you enjoyed! No chapter this Saturday or Sunday, I'm afraid, on a D of E expedition!