Chapter 03.
Dougie's point of view

"Dougie?"

Automatically my eyes closed at the sound of Tom's deep voice along with the sound of a door closing behind him. My senses shut off, the barrier I had put up fell immediately when he sat down on the edge of the bed. Slowly he removed the duvet from my face and sighed once he spotted all the fresh tears I had along my cheeks. I could literally see his heart break and despite mine had already been broken time after time... it broke once again.

"What happened earlier?" he asked. I exhaled deeply and a small sob fled past my lips. "Don't keep it in, Dougie, just don't. It will do you no good,"

"You s-shouldn't have let them over..." I muttered tearfully. "It only m-made things way worse than they wore b-before!"

"I have a feeling that's the case, yeah. But what happened?" The blonde leant closer so he could move the fringe out of my eyes. His deep, sad chocolate brown eyes gazed far into mine – before I knew it I shuffled closer to him and snuck my head onto his lap. He shifted and made us comfortable, nearly dragged me further onto his lap and a pair of strong and gentle arms came around me for protection.

"H-Harry really h-hates me.."

Tom sighed. "He doesn't hate you. I saw he had taken all your alcohol and your cigarettes, which means he cares about you and wants you to stop ruining yourself. This is self destruction, Doug. You're so deep into this pit of darkness you're just falling apart. The booze is a tool. Each cigarette steals a bit of your life and makes you ill. I'm really afraid of losing you and so is both Harry and Danny. Danny's really sad McFly is over... and if you would've been alright we could've sorted everything out and given the band another chance. While you're not okay... it's not possible. Your health goes first,"

I whimpered and looked upon his face. "T-Tom... he d-doesn't care. He hates me"

Hushing me he shuffled so he sat with his back against the headboard of my bed, drew the duvet over me and he shook his head slowly while looking at me with sadness in his eyes. "I wish the two of you had solved everything before it was too late for the band. Then we all would've still been best mates,"

"I-I miss the Harry I once k-knew…" I whispered. "I don't k-know what to do to c-change this… I'm so sorry…"

Tom kissed at my head and rubbed a gentle hand up and down my arm, motioning me closer to him. I sat pressed into his body and trembled due to how I was right now just falling apart mentally. I couldn't drop all the thoughts of Harry. After all that had happened between us… I finally realized I missed him and I still loved him. I was afraid that things would stay this way and we'd never be the best friends we had once been.

The time in McFly had been the best time of my life. Together with Harry I had ruined it. Somehow I just couldn't take the blame on myself, as I knew he had been involved. He'd had a huge part in it all.

"Dougie, if you will just let me help you then I'm sure we can somehow work this out, we'll take it in baby steps and get Harry involved in this. If we work through all the things that happened and get to the point where we ask the question 'why did this happen?' then I'm sure the two of you can get a somehow normal friendship again. But that'll need you to try," Tom sighed. I doubted his plan. I didn't like it very much, even if I actually wanted to sort things out with Harry – the issue was my fear. I was afraid he'd laugh at Tom's idea and reject me even more.

I didn't reply Tom. He looked at me – it was the tears in his eyes that made me shut up entirely. The pain was getting stronger, realization hitting me… Tom really got hurt by the way I lived. He said I lived an odd life and destroyed myself, maybe he was right… Maybe I'd one day die through all of this, in case I didn't attempt to change my life back to how it was before.

I sighed. "What am I going to do?"

"Try," Tom whispered. "You need to try and sort it out. You need to try and not be in bed all day long. You need to try and not drink alcohol when things get too much, as well as you need to cut down on the cigarettes… What you need is to eat properly, be healthy, just like you were when we were on tour,"

At first I tried. I tried to wake up at a reasonable time of the day, met Tom outside my room and I struggled to head down to the kitchen with him for breakfast. The first day went well – I ate, then I helped Tom tidy the house. We had a surprisingly good time together, as we later ended up in the sofa to watch a movie together. In the evening I fell asleep in his room, after a short jamming session. It had been a struggle for me to remember how to play my bass the way I had done months back, but with help from Tom we managed to even write half of a song.

I'd never forget the proud look on Tom's face, and his glittering eyes, clearly telling me he was satisfied with how things had gone.

But the day after that… I was such a mess I didn't see nor think clearly. I couldn't sleep during the night, and after a short hours light sleep I woke up to the sound of Tom's voice. I remember how he asked me to get out of bed and join him for a morning walk. It had to be rather early in the morning. I didn't even have the energy to get out of my bed and once Tom began pleading me to get out of it I lost the little temper I had right then, shouted and cursed at him, made sure he was told lies of how much I hated him, how I wanted him to disappear from my life and let me waste away.

Through it all I could actually see the fear on his face. The situation was a discomforting one and most of all it looked as if he just wanted it to end. As well as I wanted it to end, deep inside my heart was breaking due to how I spoke to him, the way I made him feel as if he was worth absolutely nothing.

I tumbled down the stairs, stumbling over my own feet as I burst through the front door - only to seconds later have Tom throwing himself over me. We both crashed to the harsh ground. I could feel how the skin on my cheek tore open and a bit of blood came from the scratch.

"Dougie, stop screaming, please!" he shouted. While he wrestled me down I heard how he panicked dug for his mobile phone, dialing a number and the words 'Fletch, please come over!' came from his mouth - the panic in his voice was very evident to me, but it didn't stop me from screaming and crying how I wanted to die, how I wanted to be rid of all the pain I was feeling.

My insides were ripped apart, my heart, any other organ. I had exploded and in the process of falling apart in a way that would prevent me from ever being able to be repaired. Tom could fall for all help he'd be able to think of, but no one would be able to save me. They could grip me, leave hand marks imprinted on my sensitive, burning skin. They could toss me around while wrestling me in attempt of stopping me from being a whirlwind ripping through the area - but nothing would save me.

I laid pretty much motionless on the ground with rain pouring down on us when Fletch's car pulled up and came to a hasty halt by Tom's house. I saw blurred shapes of Danny, Fletch and Harry fall out of the vehicle, quickly running to Tom's side.

"H-He lost it… F-Fletch help him…" cried the former guitarist and he let his head fall onto my chest, face down. I had no energy to once again fight him off. I had already given up and now all I could do was to try to pull through this hell. Fletch would obviously lecture me, try to make me understand what the hell I was doing. I didn't know what it was… I didn't know what I did wrong.

"Move, Tom, let me get him up so we can bring him inside. Danny, go and bring some warm blankets, and something hot to drink, into the living room so we can tuck him down in the sofa. We need a serious chat about this, boys," Fletch's voice was harsh, stern, but I could also hear his concern. It was a bit unbelievable to me how they were concerned about me - I wasn't worth anything. I'd made so many mistakes in my life and the way they actually struggled with me… Harry didn't say a single word though while I was brought up from the cold, wet ground and brought inside. I felt as if he was a bit in the background, keeping himself away while Fletch took care of me.

Tom removed my wet clothes. Danny wrapped me into warm blankets and he turned up the heat inside the room. Fletch struggled his best to make me drink the tea Danny had hurried to cook - but no matter how badly I wanted to actually drink it I closed my eyes, whimpered and turned my face away. His tone was tired as he asked me several times to open my mouth and drink. I couldn't. It felt so wrong.

"Harry… could you take over while I'll go and make a phone call?" Fletch asked. If I would have had some energy left inside of my body I would have struggled at the sound of this. As I opened my eyes I saw Harry slowly make his way towards me and he took the cup and the tea spoon from Fletch. Those strong drummer hands were trembling. He nearly looked terrified as he sat down on the edge of the coffee table, eyes landing on my face.

"I…" he began, stumbling on his words. "Can you not just let me take care of you now? Forget all our issues. What matters now is your health,"

I ended up obeying him. I parted my lips and let him feed me the tea. All the time he took care of me I suffered, because I wished he would have done this because he wanted to, not because he had to. I didn't want Harry's attention this way. This wasn't the way things had been meant to end up. Harry had meant the world to me and now he just tried to take care of me because he had been told to do it. His words… well I didn't care about them, my health didn't matter to him and I knew it. He had been lying to me.

Eventually I pushed his hand away and turned my face to look at the wall instead. I heard Harry sigh as he took a hold of my hand, giving it a squeeze which had me wrecked into pieces, silently crying my heart out. "H-Harry stop…" I whispered.

"Doug, please," he sighed. "Don't do this to yourself, for Christ sake,"

"G-Go away…"

Harry tugged harshly at me, turning me so I faced him. His eyes were as deep as as the Seven Seas. I was gazing into something endless, and the emotions were some I couldn't put a title on. Clearly he was about to speak, but no words came past his lips that occasionally parted slightly, making him end up looking like a gold fish struggling to breathe, brought out of the water. He just swallowed his words, and the courage to speak as well. It made me curious to what he had been about to say.

"Harry…" I whispered weakly and bit down on my lower lip. "I can't d-do this anymore. I-I miss having you a-as a friend,"

"We're still friends, aren't we?" he snapped harshly and gave me a slight glare. I trembled in his hands by now, pleadingly gazing at him as I wished he would just let me go and leave. But I had no time to say anything before Fletch showed up again, sitting down next to Harry on the coffee table. My focus drifted off to someone else though… and my heart broke at the sight of that blonde man standing a bit away, arms wrapped around himself as Danny caressed his back, whispering in his ear that things would be sorted. Tom's eyes were full of tears, cheeks lined with dry tears, they were red and sore - just a simple evidence of all the tears he had obviously shed.

"Danny," Fletch called. "Be a gentleman and head up to back Dougie's bag,"