Day 46.

"Derek!" Casey cried in pain, holding her stomach "It hurts…"

He kept placing quick pecks on her forehead through his mask. "I know, baby… Just try to get back to sleep."

She had woken up in the middle of the night half an hour prior, due to her constant pain. The second cycle of the chemo was really taking its toll on her already frail body. She'd keep throwing up whenever she would try to swallow anything down, and although her nose and ear bleedings had stopped, she had started to experience unbearable pains in her lower back and joints.

"Derek, please, stay with me…" she whispered, her hand slowly reaching out for his gloved one. Her eyes were beginning to slowly fall shut again as she let a restless sleep take over her once more.

"Derek, please, don' t leave me…" she cried out as she followed the two men up the stairs.

"Dad, just let go of me!"

"No, I won't!" George yelled out, his bloodshot eyes bulging out of his sockets. He firmly tightened his grip around his son's elbow, and dragged him up to his room as he twisted his arms in an effort to free himself from his grasp. "Now pack up so you can get the hell out of here." He threateningly muttered, finally letting go of him, "Your plane takes off at five a.m. tomorrow… and as for you!" the man quickly turned around to the shaking brunette standing behind him, her wrists held high beneath her chin in defense. "Don't even think you'll be coming to the airport with us…" and with that last remark George stormed out of the room.

"Derek!" she cried out as she promptly got into his arms "Derek, what are we gonna do now?"

The fact that she had been so devastated over the last few days had really got to him, he couldn't stand having to see her cry her eyes out every time their parent spoke to them – well, yelled at them, to be exact . "Baby, look at me" he cupped her chin, gently tilting it upwards so that her gaze could meet his through their tears. "Case, please don't cry. It kills me to see you like this, please, baby… it'll be ok. I promise you."

"But what will happen next?"

"Casey… it's the middle of July. College starts in the late August, right? So that means my mother will have to send me back by then. And plus she's not like my Dad… she'll understand."

"What if they made you switch college? They'll never let you live with me, Der… They're sending you off to Spain, for Pete's sake" she laughed out hysterically.

He sighed, and even though he knew she could've possibly had a point there, he intended not to get her any more worried. "Case, I'll find a way to make it back to you. Even if I had to steal money from my mom to afford a plane ride back to Ontario to live like a homeless in Kingston. Just to see you walking down the streets on your way to college."

They both chuckled, his weak smile mirroring into her eyes. "And Case… Here…" He got down to his bedside table, pulling something out of the drawer and handing the small, velvet box to her. "I wanted to give it to you on our first day home together in Kingston, but… at least you'll have something to remember me by while I'm gone" he looked down at her as she opened it, only to find a small, silver chain necklace lay inside, with a pendant shaped into a sun.

Day 53

"Jesus Christ, doctor Welsh, do something!"

The middle aged man looked down, holding back what would've been a harsh reply. "Derek, it's not my fault she's not collaborating!"

They were both standing on the door to Casey's room, looking at her struggling to no avail as some other doctors and a few nurses were keeping her restrained to the bed, where she laid on her side with her gown brought up to her chest, exposing her bare lower back. She'd been crying out in pain for two hours. They had been performing a bone marrow aspiration, inserting a syringe into her hip bone, but a "dry tap" had occurred, meaning the fluid couldn't be withdrawn. Therefore they had to keep moving the needle for other attempts, making the already painful procedure truly excruciating for the poor girl. The more she fought back, the harder it was for the doctors to get done with it.

"Just give her some pain killers, I don't know, just don't leave her like that!"

"Derek" Doctor Welsh sternly began, his patience long lost. "She already took them and we can't have her overdose. I believe it would be best if you left the room, by now. Your worrying presence is only making it worse on her."

A male nurse began to walk down Derek's way.

"No, I'm not leaving her! Gosh, just look at that, you're butchering her!" Derek protested as Casey cried out some more, her blood sputtering onto one of the doctor's chest as they inserted the needle back in for the umpteenth time.

The nurse tightly gripped his arm and forcibly ushered the young man out of the room, despite his fierce resistance.

At that point Derek could only sit back in the small plastic chair that was outside in the corridor, burying his head into his hands as her cries echoed into his mind, his heart pounding hard against his ribcage. "God, please… please, just make all this suffering worth it…"

"Derek? Is this Casey?"

He stood up from the chair as he saw Nora approaching him, looking around herself as she tried to identify where all the screaming came from. "I just got here and I heard all this…"

"Yeah, that's her…" Derek exhaled deeply, still shaking as he tried not to break down once more "They're doing a bone marrow aspiration but they can't get the fluid up so it's getting complicated…"

"Oh my gosh! My poor baby!" Nora cried out as she suddenly let herself collapse onto the floor, down to her knees… "No, please… please, my baby girl…"

Derek promptly grabbed her by her shoulders, making her stand up again and then sit back into the chair.

"Nora, please… calm down. It's not dangerous, it's just really painful on her, but it's gonna be over sooner or later. Trust me, those doctors in there want to be done with it so they can go home just as much as we want for her to be ok." He let out a deep breath, giving her a weak smile as he squeezed her hands. "Look, you want me to go get you some water? I could ask the…"

"No, no, thank you Derek" sighed Nora, tilting her head upwards as if to try to keep the tears from falling down her tears. "I'm fine, thank you. Just… sit next to me for a bit, will you?"

Nora motioned him to sit on the other small plastic chair next to hers, and he did so. "You know, I really wanted to thank you for how you're being there for her throughout everything. I'm her mother and still, I, myself, don't think I could've possibly been half as strong as you've been, dealing with this is just so…"

"Hey Nora, come on…" Derek genuinely smiled at her "My ego is already big enough as it is right now… No need to get it worse…"

Nora let out a small laugh, as she began to pat his shoulder. "You know, I'll never be able to thank you enough for convincing her to get treated for this…"

Derek raised his eyebrow, questioningly staring at his stepmother. "Uh… what are you talking about?"

"Talking her into chemo. You know, a few days after she was diagnosed I came over to ask her what she was gonna do, like what hospital she was going to go to and stuff like that. We got into this huge fight because she said she didn't want to get any sort of chemo or radiation therapy. She never believed in cancer treatment in the first place anyways… she was sure chemo would've only made the remains of her life be even more miserable. I recall leaving your apartment sobbing so hard for how determined she sounded into not letting herself be cured…"

Derek was shocked, he never thought Casey had ever been against treatment. He'd actually been afraid to mention the option to her for the first week after her diagnosis, intending to give her some time to let the news sink in. He had simply waited for the morning when she came up to him asking him to help her find the right hospital for her chemo. "Then what happened next?"

"She called me back a few days saying she was getting herself admitted here. She just said she was doing that for you. I thought you had talked her into it. Then she also mentioned something about the sun, but I don't exactly recall…"

She had been pretending not to notice the fact that he'd been sneaking out of their bed at night ever since her diagnosis. She would close her eyes with his arms wrapped tightly around her body, hugging her from behind, and then anytime she'd wake up at night she'd find no one beside her.

After a week, she had decided to go see what was going on with him one night. She tiptoed her way downstairs to the living room, only to find him sitting at the dining table in front of his computer, his head motionlessly resting upon the wooden surface next to it, as he sounded fast asleep. His arms were spread across the table, a pen still loosely held in his right hand, which was placed upon a blocknotes. She leaned in, hovering over his sleeping form, to see what he had written. On the left side of the paper there were several names of hospitals along with their contact informations and some personal notes Derek had been taking, e.g. which ones had a very well- functioning Oncology units, or provided extra services, and just random stuff like that. On the right side of the paper, though, he had been scribbling a rough drawing of the sun shaped pendant of her necklace, and right beneath it, it read "SOMEONE SAVE MY SUN."

She smiled as she felt tears silently running down her cheeks. Making sure not to wake him up, she got back upstairs. The following morning she solemnly announced him she was going to get started with chemo as soon as possible, and gently asked him to start looking up a few hospitals for her.

A.N.: Alright, folks, I guess this was shorter than usual, right?

Well, theonceanonymous14, since I wanted to thank you so much for constantly reviewing, I thought it would've been nice to put this little nora-derek moment here like you suggested. Hope you liked it.

Actually I hope you all guys liked it, A HUGE THANK YOU goes out to all my other followers and reviewers, your support is wonderful, guys! ^_^

Keep checking this fic as chpt 6 will be up asap.

xoxoxo