September had come and gone with such a swiftness that Derek feared that he would get whipslah if he tried to look back. Derek looked out his window of hs hospital bed in number 452 in the Ontario Children's hospitol. It was a frosty morning in October, snow already falling onto the ground. It was so beautiful and serene that Derek couldn't help but think of Casey.

Their relationship has countined, they managing to keep their relationship away from their parents. There had been a close call when Edwin caught them fooling around in Derek's room, but they had cleared that up quickly telling him that they were having a wresteling match.

Derek smiled, remembering the moment fondly. He hadn't seen Casey in nearly a week. Not since he had started round two of his chemotherapy. She had stopped by once, but almost burst into tears when she saw him. He did look like death, and for Casey, that was just way too much to handle. Of coarse, she had walked in on his worst treatment to date. He felt like his intestines had been ripped out and the doctors were pushing morphine into him by the liter. And the nausia was horrible. He had actually pulled muscles in his stomach and back from gagging so hard. If chemo wasn't hell, it sure was in the same ZIP code.

But Casey kept him fighting, kept him alive, and he needed that. He needed her, as much as he didn't want to admit it, and he knew that he was falling in love with her. And that scared him. She preoccupied his mind constantly. It seemed like all he could do was think about her laugh or how the corners of her mouth twitched when she tried to hide her smile when he did something stupid. He could only picture how she would tuck her hair behind her ears constantly, and how when she looked into his eyes, she sent a shiver down his spine because it felt like she could see right down into his soul.

He let out a muffled cough as he pushed those thoughts out of his mind. He scratched at the Canadian Hockey beanie that was on his head, acting as replacement hair. He felt broken in two.

He was so scared. God.

He needed Casey.

A tear rolled down his face as another twinge of pain hit him in the side. The cancer had spread to his kidneys, and he knew that it wasn't looking good for him. He had to get of of that hospital. It was suficating him in there. All he wanted to do was get away from the place that brought all his greatest fears to life.

Another tear came as he wiped it away, embarased. He didn't want to die. There were still so many things that he wanted to do with his life.

He wanted to play hockey professionally, visit Paris, marry Casey in the church where his parents wed in Italy. He couldn't fake his emotions as he started sobbing. His heart was breaking. He wanted to visit the Grand Canyon, go sky diving, teach his kids how to ride their bikes, try sushi, go skinny dipping, visit Jim Morrison's grave, meet the queen of England, drink coffee in Prague. But most of all he wanted Casey. Just her.

-------------------

Derek must of fallen asleep because when he opened his eyes, darkness had filled his room. He checked that small clock that was on top of the Beauro. It was 2:17. Derek checked his IV which had been newly refilled, which ment that the night shift nurses were probably watching late nite infomercials at their perspective stations.

He grimiced as he rolled himself out of bed. It was nights like this that he hated most. Nights when you were so restless that you couldn't stand it. As he walked out into the hall in his black school sweatpants with a hockey shirt, his IV rolling along with him he couldn't help but notice the silence. It was deafening to Derek. It seemed like something was always going on in the teen ward. Someone was always crying, or a new paitient was always being brought it.

A lot of the kids had grown attatched to each other, which the nurses discouraged. They knew that most of these kids didn't have much time left, and they didn't want the people who got left behind to feel any more pain than they had to.

Derek thought that that was the biggest load of bullshit that he had heard since he had found out that Bush had been elected president in the states for a second term. A lot of these kids were in a tough situation. Most of them were dying and there parents were working. They needed each other.

Derek walked the halls, his ankle socks protecting his feet from the clilling linolium floor. The ward was huge. Much bigger than needed, only half of it's potential occupancy taken up, which was good for Derek. It allowed him to have his own room.

Derek winced as a light flashed at the end of the hall. His eyes had become used to the darkn4ss of the depressing corridor and he found himself temporarially blinded. As he grew closer to the room, he heard gagging noises and sped up his pace.

When he got to the room he saw a girl about his age with blonde hair over a sink throwing up.

"Are you alright?" Derek asked as he looked in.

"Yeah, fine." The girl said between lurches.

"No, seriously. Are you alright?" Derek said as he stopped in the doorway. "Because I can go get someone-"

"No- I'm alright" The girl said as she rinced out her mouth and turned aroung. "See. All better." She stopped, her eyes wide with shock. "Derek?"

"Laine?" Derek said, almost as suprised as her. She looked different. More natural, her blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. She was wearing hot pink cotton pajama pants with matching flip flips and a black tanktop. Her blue eyes were even more blue than he had remebered, and were framed by eyeliner.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, a smile spreading across her face.

"Cancer-" Derek stated for some reason fealing extreme happiness.

"Wow. That's awesome!" She stated as she closed her eyes, embarased. "I mean it's awesome that your here. Not awesome that you have cancer. You didn't seem sick at the party..."

"Yeah. I know. I was just diagnosed when I went-" Derek stopped as he sat down on one of her chairs.

"Oh. That's not great..." Laine said.

"What do you mean?" Derek asked.

"Two months? That is really fast for cancer to spread. You must feal like garbage."

"Yeah, well. I'm hanging in there." Derek stated. "Well, what about you? Why are you here?"

"Kidney failure" She said a little too happily as she pounced onto her bed.

"That sucks-" Derek said, surprised. "You never seemed like it at school. You are there almost every day..."

"Yeah, I try. I do not really want people knowing about me. I don't think you do either. I really fell for that story you had about you trying a new hairstyle."

"Really? I thought that it was the lamest thing ever. My eleven year old brother could of come up with better." As he looked up, he noticed the yellowly color of her skin, so comming to kidney paitiends. He never would of guessed.

"No, it was good." Laine said, seeing him look at her skin, but ignoring it. "And it got that Emily girl off your back. She was crushing on you for the longest time. At the party-"

"About the party-" Derek said. "Sorry that I blew you off."

"Don't worry about it-" She smiled. "I was pretty sure that you were there with that Casey MacDonald chick but whatever. You can't blame a girl for trying..."

Derek smiled softly. "Me and Casey aren't togeather. We're siblings."

"Yeah, alright" Laine said sarcastically as she tightened her pony tail. "No offence, Derek, but your pretty much the worst liar ever."

"Am not." Derek smiled, mocking hurt. "I am the best liar in my family."

"That is nothing to brag about." Laine smiled."Maybe I am just very preceptive. Or maybe that it was the fact that you looked down at the ground, and twitched when you said that-"

"Jerk-" Derek said as he threw a pillow at her.

They talked for another hour or so before Laine fell asleep on her bed durning a play by play of one of Derek's games. He covered her up with a blanket a wide smile on his face.

Talking to Laine was like a breath of fresh air in his lungs. It seemed like he hadn't had any real human contact in days, and he felt like she really understood him. There was such a sweet madness about it. How they were suffering from these horrible sicknesses, and still could laugh about stupid things like teachers and rollerskating.

At the same time he was a little bothered and turned around in the hall back to Laine's room.

He gently nudged her. She woke and smiled gently. "I'm sorry. Did I fall asleep on you? I guess that I have just been running on empty lately."

He looked down at the ground as he spoke. Choosing his words carefully he said. "Don't you...Don't you care that your dying?"

Laine sighed, sitting up, patting for Derek to sit down next to her. She crossed her legs indian style. As she spoke she talked as if she was talking about a dream.

"I got sick the day I turned 13. It was a really shitty birthday." She smiled. "I kind of got the lose end in the family genetics pool. I have a rare bloodtype, so no one in the family could donate one of their kidneys. It was a month until my right kidney stopped working, the other one pulling at 30. That's when my parents told me that I wasn't going to live until Christmas. I remember that the only thing that I could think of was the fact that I was going to miss the Christmas dance. It took days for me to relise that my parents wern't joking, and that I really was dieing. I think that I lost it for a little while, then. I was just a little kid, you know. All the things that I wanted to do filled my mind. I wanted to fall in love, have a family. I had even named my kids. Girls just do that kind of stuff, I guess-" A tear rolled down her cheek. "I was lucky. Really, really lucky because a kid in Quebec got in a car accident and I got both of his kidneys. I was literally hours from dieing. I used to waste so much time dreaming of being alive, that I had forgotton to live." She paused as Derek listened to her. Not just acting like it, but really listening to her. "I actually sort of wished that some other kid would of gotton these kidneys. No matter how many surgerys I have, I am always going to end up with a really good sob story, and two jacked up kidneys."

"That's all I can think about" Derek said. "All the things that I won't be able to do-"

"Derek. you have cancer. Your only going to die if you let it kill you. Your going to get older and have a life."

"I really don't think so-"

"Oh, god" Laine said voice full of spite. "Will you listen to yourself? Your giving up, Derek. Your letting it kill you. I thought you were a fighter"

"I am" Derek said

"Then start acting like it, because your not convincing me. I've spent my entire life in this hospital. I know what breaks people-"

"So your telling me that you are perfectly fine with dying?" Derek asked unbeleivingly.

"Hell no. There are a lot of things I want to fo, but it's not like I can change them."

"Like what?"

"I want to wright a book, ride my bike across Rhode Island. I've always wanted to climb the sleeping bear dunes in Michigan... Do iceskating in my bathing suit."

"Were going to do it, Laine. Me and you. Once I get better, and you get new kidneys, we are going to do all that stuff." Derek said confidently, and he beleived it. After he got better, if he got better, he wasn't going to dream anymore. He was going to live his dreams.

"Alright, Derek-" Laine said, rolling her eyes.

"No- I'm serious" Derek smiled. "Were going to do it"

"Were going to do it?"

"Yeah, we are"

"Alright"

"Fine"

"I hope you not lying to me-" Laine smiled.

"Well, apparently, I am a bad liar, so you would know."

"Your insaine-"

"Yeah, well. It wasn't the cancer that did that-"

Gosh. I am soo sorry that it took so long to get that up. But my computer crashed, and then I had horrible wrighters block, and it was just a mess. So. You like? I am taking a whole new twist with this one, and I hope that you like it. I will try so hard to hurry and be faster with these chapters. As always, read and reveiw, and I will always take your ideas. Aiden.