This last week was just crazy at work but thankfully it's done now and I'm back. There won't be any skipped chapters this week, there might be a short chapter or 2 but no skipped ones.

Before we get started some DeGrassi Saviors website news~

1) Check the home page for two new features. Three ship polls and part one of a part series of "If DeGrassi Characters Were" lists. The first list is "If DeGrassi Characters Were Other TV Characters" The ship polls will be coming down Fiday so get in your votes!

2) Check out dragonsprits page for announcements, updates and clues for his stories.

3) Head to tomfeltonlover1991's page for a poll to help her decide on a crossover for DeGrassi and 5 Seconds of Summer. It's currently tied so get those votes in.

In other DeGrassi Saviors news check out dragonsprit's story My Self Inflicted Twisted Reality. If you enjoyed Extremes of Leather and Lace you will like this story.

Now onto tonight's chapter! It's short of course because my Tuesdays are always long.

Ch. 21 Just Think Of All The Time I've Been Losing

(CLARE)

I open my eyes and find Drew in my room, he's always in my room he only leaves when forced to go to work. I squeeze his hand with as much strength as I have and he opens his eyes.

"Hey Beautiful do you need anything?" Drew asks.

"Just you," I respond.

"I'm here," Drew says kissing my lips gently, "how do you feel today?"

"The same."

"They'll be in shortly to give you more blood transfusions and medication."

"And then they'll be in to give me chemo and I don't know how many more I can take. My body is getting weaker and weaker; I can't even leave the bed anymore."

"It will get better; you're going to get better," Drew insists squeezing my hand.

"If I don't promise me that you'll live on. You have to Drew, you have to live and find love again."

"Don't talk like that you're not going to die," Drew asserts.

I know he's not going to talk about it anymore tonight so I give up; the nurse comes in any way to give me more blood. They bring Drew breakfast and after an hour they begin my chemo treatment. I shiver when it begins and lie there for a short time but it isn't long before I feel the need to throw up and I'm shaking and sweating. I hardly have the strength to throw up but Drew knows the look and he puts the bucket near me so I can vomit. He covers me with an extra blanket and does his best to hold me while I'm getting my treatment. Eventually I can't remain conscious any longer, my body too weak to stay awake during the treatment. I sleep a lot lately. The peace of sleep keeps me from the pain. I sleep for quite a while and wake up to lots of voices in the room. I open my eyes and see the room filled with people, Adam and Paige are here, so is Eli, Fiona and Imogen, my parents and Drew's.

"Everyone's wasting their Saturday at the hospital," I say weakly. They were all having their own conversations and my voice is weak they all stop talking and look at me.

"We're not wasting anything we wanted to see you," Eli says coming over and kissing my temple.

"Is there anything we can do for you?" Imogen asks.

"No it's just nice to see everyone."

They stay for several hours; Owen and Ashley come and in the afternoon Jenna and K.C. arrive with Jake and Katie. They kiss my forehead and find somewhere to be in the room. When it's near dinner time I look at Drew who has not left my bedside.

"You should go get dinner with your parents or with the guys," I assert to my husband.

"No I'm not leaving you," he shakes his head.

"Drew you need to get out. Owen," I say turning my head to him and he looks at me, "take Drew out for dinner and make sure he gets away from this hospital for a while. You should all go."

"I'll go to dinner but I don't want you to be here alone," Drew insists.

"I'll stay with her, the rest of you go do to dinner," Adam says.

"I'll be back in an hour," Drew says kissing me softly and getting up reluctantly.

"We'll keep him out for two," Owen assures me.

"We'll bring you back some dinner Adam," Audra tells him.

"Clare if you need anything have Adam text us," Paige says. She kisses Adam goodbye and they all leave.

"Adam you need to promise me something."

"What?"

"If I don't make it through this promise that you'll look out for Drew. Keep him from doing anything stupid like MMA fighting or anything else. Make sure he gets through it and finds love again. He keeps saying that he can't make it without me but you must make sure he does."

"I promise Clare," Adam assures me.

He doesn't argue with me and tell me I'm not going to die because he knows it's a possibility. I know he doesn't want me to die but we both know, especially at this point, that it could happen. I'm very tired after so many visitors today. Adam puts on a movie and I fall asleep not long after it starts, I don't wake up until much later and Drew is back at my bedside.

"How was dinner?" I question.

"It was good but I wanted to be here with you," Drew replies.

"You can't always be here with me."

"I don't ever want to miss a moment I could be spending with you," he tells me and gives me a tender loving kiss.

"I love you and I'm about to fall asleep again. Will you get in the bed and hold me?"

"Always my love, I will always hold you," Drew grins and gets on the bed with me. He wraps me in his arms and I kiss him again before drifting to sleep in the safety and comfort of my husband's arms.

(DREW)

Clare is asleep in my arms, it's very early in the morning and I've been awake for about an hour. Clare's heart monitor was beeping erratically and it woke me up. The nurse came in and assured me Clare was fine but I still couldn't get back to sleep.

I stroke my wife's arm and her skin moves with my fingers. It's frightening how she's literally skin and bone; she doesn't seem to have any flesh or even muscle any longer it seems. I feel like she's just withering away, like I'm just going to wake up one morning and find that she's withered away. It's all I can do to just hold Clare, caress her arm and watch her sleep. When the sun begins to come up I begin to fall asleep again. My eyes close and I feel myself drifting off again but when I feel Clare's head nuzzling against my chest my eyes open again.

Clare's eyes open at the same moment mine do and I smile, not just because I'm gazing into my wife's beautiful eyes but because they seem brighter today. As the sun brightens the room a little more I see her skin seems to have some color back and there's even some pink in her cheeks. She looks more alive and it's an incredible relief to see the life back in her. I smile and kiss her because I'm just so happy to see the life back in her.

"Hi beautiful wife, you look so much better today."

"I feel a little better," she says and I even hear it in her voice it's stronger and happier.

I'm so happy that she's looking better and feeling better that all I can do is kiss her. I kiss her lips and the tip of her nose then each of her eyebrows and her forehead and then her lips again and again and again.

"Well we seem to be in a good mood this morning," Dr. Shaye says when he comes in to start Clare's treatment.

"She looks better today, she has some color and she feels better," I tell him.

"Yes you are looking a lot better Clare. I think we're going to take some blood before we being your treatment today. Drew you'll need to hop off the bed," Dr. Shaye comments and I kiss Clare one more time and get off the bed.

Dr. Shaye leaves the room for a moment and comes back with a nurse. The nurse is holding a tray with all the stuff he'll need to take some of Clare's blood. They take three vials and then wait half an hour before they begin her treatment. I hold her in the bed like I always do and we watch a movie while it's going, she still gets sick after the chemo treatment but she doesn't fall asleep. Usually she falls asleep just after vomiting because she can't stay awake but today she stays awake and I hold her in my arms just looking into her gorgeous blue eyes. We stay like that pretty much all day, I don't even leave her to eat, I'm not hungry I'm just happy that she's looking better and feeling better.

"I have some very good news," Dr. Shaye says coming in late in the evening, "you no longer have A-plastic anemia. We will keep you on the medications and infusions a few more days and we will continue to monitor you closely. In a few days we'll begin increasing the chemo treatments again. For now we need to let your body heal a little."

Dr. Shaye says a little bit more about how her treatments will increase and such before he leaves. I stay in the bed with Clare but call or text everyone that her aplastic anemia is gone. The last person I call is Adam because he and Paige were at the clinic today to get their fertilized eggs implanted in Paige's womb making Paige officially pregnant today.

"Hey is everything okay?" Adam asks when he answers.

"Yes better than okay her aplastic anemia is gone she's getting better. They still have to monitor her and make sure it doesn't return but she's better, you should see her Adam she has some color back and her eyes are alive again."

"That's fantastic news we'll come tomorrow after work. Tell her that's great and we love her."

"Here you can tell her yourself," I say and put it on speaker. They tell her and we talk for another moment before hanging up. "You're getting better, this is one step back to healthy you're going to be this Clare," I declare to her and kiss her gently.

"I will beat this," she smiles and joins our lips again.

Over the next couple of weeks she continues to get stronger, they're able to stop the blood transfusions and the medications. Even after they increase her treatments the aplastic anemia doesn't return and she stays strong, relatively anyway. She still gets sick with every treatment and she's generally pretty weak for an hour or two after her treatments. Even so she remains strong overall, with color in her cheeks and her eyes look alive. By the time school starts and I have to go to work I'm not even worried about her. She's able to get out of bed, goes on walks in the garden and she's begun physical therapy to start rebuilding her muscles.

"I'll be back by five; Adam is coming as soon as he's off. Call the school if you need anything," I tell Clare. I already changed for work in my room at the hotel. She won't be alone her mom is here, Clare is rarely alone there's almost always one of us here with her.

"I know, have a good first day with your students," she says and kisses me.

"I will but I'll be thinking of you the whole time. I love you."

"I love you."

I say goodbye to Helen and leave the hospital. I drive to the school and go to my classroom. Today Hazel, known to the kids as Mrs. Harrison, and I are teaching together but after today I'll be teaching Thursdays and Fridays and every other Wednesday. I greet Hazel and we wait for our students to arrive. Like the other teachers we were here most of last week getting the classroom ready for today. Kids soon begin arriving with their parents and Hazel and I greet them and introduce ourselves. We tell all the kids to find the desk with their names on it but they all look around the classroom before finding their desk. We spend the day getting to know the kids and having them introduce themselves to the class. They have two recesses and a lunch which is an hour and a half of the day. School lets out at 2:30 and we wait until every kid has been picked up or is on the bus. We clean up the classroom and then Hazel goes home to her twins and I go to the hospital and my wife. Helen is still here and so is Adam. I greet Helen and Adam before kissing Clare.

"How was your first day?" Clare asks.

"It was good, the kids are sweet for the most part but there's always that one trouble maker. How are you feeling?"

"Good I even ate a little dinner," she says.

"That's great," I smile and kiss her forehead.

"Hey are we interrupting anything?" Owen asks poking his head in with his arm around Ash.

"You know you guys are always welcome here," Clare grins waving them in.

"You know Owen and I went away this weekend," Ashley comments as they come in.

When Clare had the aplastic anemia no one wanted to go anywhere and anyone who didn't live in New York was here as much as possible to be with her. Even after she was doing better it took a couple weeks for anyone to go away for the weekend and not be here all weekend. Owen and Ash decided to go away this last weekend, they had been planning to go away in August but Clare was too sick and they didn't want to get the call that Clare had died while they were gone.

"Yeah how was it?" Clare asks.

"It was great, very romantic and we got lots of pictures to show you. We also got engaged," Ash tells us and shows us the ring.

"You guys that's great! I'm so happy for you," Clare grins getting out of bed. She pulls her IV pole and goes over to hug them both and kiss them both on the cheeks. "That ring is gorgeous. It's about damn time Owen," Clare says smacking his arm lightly.

"Yeah well we were going to go last month but we didn't want to leave you," Owen replies.

I hug Owen and Ashley so does Adam and Helen. They stick around for a couple of hours and show us pictures of their vacation. Helen goes back to the hotel and the others go home by eight. Now it's just me and Clare and she's already starting to shake and sweat from her second chemo treatment of the day.

"I don't know that I'm going to last another five weeks or longer of these treatments. This is better than Toronto Western but it's still a hospital and twice a day, no matter how good I feel, I get these treatments and I want to die."

"I know and I hate how the treatments make you feel and what they do to you but they are working. You can last five more weeks or ten more weeks or however long it takes to go into remission and get better. I'll be here with you, so will everyone else and I'll do whatever I can to make this seem less like a hospital."

"I love you Drew. I'm grateful I have you."

"I love you Clare."

Update next Tuesday will begin with Drew and Clare having a date at the hospital.