Fabian sat on the couch, strumming his guitar softly. Everyone knew he wasn't exactly bad, but he wasn't exactly good either.

"We're going to the gatehouse."

His head snapped up as he heard Eddie's voice.

Fabian placed his guitar the side. "Okay. Let me go get my coat."

He got up and began to walk to his room, but Eddie grabbed his shoulder.

"I want you to stay here. Me, KT, and Alfie will go. We need to talk to Harriet."

Fabian was confused. They were going to the gatehouse, yet they didn't want him coming with.

"What do you want me to do?" He asked.

"You and Patricia can come up with a cover. And…and I need you to look out for her. Going to the gatehouse is getting more and more dangerous, with Frobisher lurking around. He almost got KT, remember? So, if anything happens to me, I need you to look after her. Protect her, if you can. Make her smile, okay?"

Fabian was taken slightly aback. His friends were going to a house where an evil man lived, yet he thought he had an even bigger task than them.

But Eddie was his best mate, and if he needed someone to make sure Patricia was okay, he knew Eddie thought he was his best chance.

After a brief moment, Fabian nodded.

"Do you promise?" Eddie said, uncertain.

"I promise." Fabian tried to make his voice sound confident, to reassure Eddie that he wasn't going to let anything happen to Patricia.

Eddie nodded swiftly. "Alright then. I don't really know what time we should be getting back, but text me if anything happens, okay?"

Fabian nodded again, and then watched as Eddie slipped on his leather jacket and headed out the door, with Alfie and KT flanking him.

Fabian stood in the hallway for awhile, wondering what he should do. He could go practice his guitar again, or do his homework, or go talk to Patricia.

Yeah, that definitely sounded the best.

He ran up the stairs and down the hallway to her room. He knocked on the door softly.

"I'm not home." He heard an unmistakable voice say.

Fabian rolled his eyes and said, "Patricia? It's me."

Silence.

Then, "Who's 'me?'"

Fabian opened the door. Patricia was lying on her bed, an open magazine in front of her.

"Oh. It's you." She flung the magazine to the other side of the room nonchalantly and stood up.

"What's up?"

Fabian looked around uncomfortably. Sure, he talked to Patricia all the time, but they were never really…alone. He thought back to years earlier. Before Nina, before Eddie, before Sibuna.

Everything seemed so simple then. He wondered that, if Nina and Eddie hadn't come, if these mysteries would've ever been solved.

He doubted it. Without Nina, all of this wouldn't have ever happened.

He wondered how the girl he loved could be the cause of so much unbelievable things in his life.

He remembered when it was him, Patricia, and Joy. The three amigos. Suddenly, he felt it. He felt how Patricia must've felt when Joy left, and how Joy must've felt when she came back. They felt replaced. Replaced by Amber, and Alfie, and Eddie, and KT.

But most of all, they felt replaced by Nina.

"Um, dude?" Patricia's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

He looked her in the eyes. "I'm so sorry."

She scrunched her eyebrows together. "For what?"

He sat down on her bed, and she sat next to him.

"I'm just…so, so sorry. For everything. You, Joy, and me. We were close. Really close. And then…Nina came, and I guess…she made me forget about how much I really cared about you guys. I guess, you know, you were kind of a jerk to her, but still…"

Fabian's voice drifted off, and Patricia sat there, trying to process his words.

Okay, not my best work, and no Peddie, but Fabicia friendship to the max!

And a preview for next chapter...

Eddie talks to Victor (let's say he wasn't trapped by Frobisher) about Patricia and her cancer...and he asks him about the Elixir of Life!