A/N: Sorry for the late update xx
Sam looked out of the window, watching Tom's car leave the street, taking her brothers to school and her mum to the doctors. She sighed heavily, throwing herself backward onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling. 'I hate being ill... Why can't it just go away and let me live...' she thought and eventually pushed herself up, though it took up most of what energy she had left, and she slowly made her way down the stairs. "I'll do some toast or something... that will get my energy up..." she muttered to herself, trying her best to appear normal.
Once she had made her way down the stairs and into the kitchen, she forced herself to walk over to the kitchen side and put some bread in the toaster. She took the toast when it had popped up, put both slices on a plate and, deciding she couldn't be bothered walking to the fridge, sat at the table and ate it dry. While it wasn't the best, it did however, restore some energy to her body, and she slowly stood up, taking it slowly walking to the sink and putting the empty plate inside, before making her way into the living room and started looking through the drawers for the address book. "Bloody thing's got to be here somewhere." she muttered, and grinned when she eventually found it, opening it to look for Reynold's address. "He should know..." she added quietly. She took her phone from on top of the TV and texted Lauren to come to hers, and to bring Finn with her, then she called Bex.
Bex was sat in the corridor with her friends and the rest of her class waiting to go into the theatre to begin her exam when her phone rang. She took it out of her bag and answered it. "Hello?"
"Hey Bex.. are you free?" Sam asked.
"Sorry... got ten minutes until my exam... why what's up?" Bex asked quietly.
"Oh...well I've got a plan... I ain't got long left, and I want to say a final goodbye to my dad."
"Right... and do you know where he is?" Bex asked, she didn't know the situation surrounding Reynold, she had always made a point that it was not her business and she wasn't interested in knowing.
"Well this bit of paper says he's back in Blackpool...he deserves to know, don't he?"
"Yeah.. if it's what you really want to do..." Bex said, and something clicked in her head. She was saying goodbye to her too. "Sam.."
"Don't worry about me. After today I'll be okay. Good luck yeah?"
"Don't be gone too long." Bex said, keeping her voice level.
"You just try and stop me." Sam smiled and hung up.
Bex took a deep breath and put her phone away. She closed her eyes for a moment, swallowing back her tears and she sighed heavily again. "I'm fine." she muttered, opening her eyes and looking at one of the guys who spoke to her. Within minutes the group was called into the room, and Bex didn't get chance to think about the situation any more.
Rose made her way home from the doctors with Sam's medication, after a very long talk with a lovely nurse who wanted to listen to her and give her some advice. upon opening her front door she called up the stairs. "Sam! I'm back!" She waited for an answer, and when she didn't get one she thought she was asleep, and Rose walked up the stairs to check on her. "Sam?" she said gently, peering into her daughter's room, and started to panic when she saw no sign of her. "Sam!" she shouted, rushing back down the stairs into the living room. Sam's wheelchair had gone, and her address book lay open on the coffee table. "No..." she mumbled, seeing a name she never wanted to again as long as she lived. She took her phone from her bag and called Tom. "Tom... she's gone... She's gone to find Reynold... what if he hurts her?" she panicked.
"Rose.. calm down... she can't have gone far can she? I'll come over, I'll ask Karen to find me some cover." Tom told her calmly. "She's a strong kid, she'll be fine."
Rose nodded, hung up and waited anxiously for Tom to arrive. Sam wasn't strong at all. She was dying. She was weak. And Reynold was a monster that could break her so easily, so readily.
Tom sighed heavily, running his hand through his hair and walked out of his classroom, telling the class to keep quiet. He bumped into Josh, just making his way out of class. "Where you off to?"
"Toilet?" Josh raised an eyebrow at his dad.
"Right.. well if you see Finn or Lauren anywhere tell them to stay here, Sam's gone walkabout."
"They've gone. They left before first period." Josh answered, walking down the corridor.
"Where have they gone?" Tom called after him.
"Lauren said she got a message off Sam!" Josh called back, disappearing round the corner out of sight.
Tom nodded. "Great." he muttered, walking to Karen's office, explained the situation and was granted permission to leave and find them.
Karen looked out of the window. Waterloo Road certainly did have its troubles. The pupils in her care were struggling to find their place in the world, and for most of them, the back grounds they came from, the place they lived, held them back, stopped them from realising their potential because going down the wrong path was all they knew, and all Karen wanted to do was help them all. She didn't like the fact that Sam was just one child she couldnn't help. Karen was jolted from her thoughts when Janeece popped her head round the door.
"Miss Fisher, Bex is on the phone for yer." she said.
Karen nodded. "Put her through, Janeece." she said, sitting down, picking up the phone to receive the call, "Hello, love. How did the exam go?"
"Stressful so far... almost done now though. We've been monitored so far on contempory, music, and scripted work... all we've got left is testing our creativity when it comes to acting, how much of a story we can act out just making it up as we go on." Bex said softly.
"You'll do fine. You've always been creative."
"If you count random little drawings as a kid then yeah I have." Bex giggled.
"You were always a good story-teller as well, you used to go to your grandma's every weekend and she always used to say you'd have her laughing with the things you'd come up with, acting them out." Karen smiled.
"Oh, I'd forgotten about those." Bex gasped, smiling and looked as one of her tutors had signalled for her to go back into the theatre. "Got to go.. oh, and before I forget this, we've got our final performance of the year next month, it's going to be huge." she said.
"Alright, tell me more later, and I'll make arrangements to come up and see you." Karen said.
"Okay, love you." Bex said and hung up.
Karen hung up, raising an eyebrow toward the phone. "Love you too." she said sarcastically, nobody could hear her. She stood up and headed out of her office, walking down the corridor. She was about to walk down the stairs until she was stopped by Daniel Chalk.
"Mrs Fisher, could I have a word please?" he asked, unsure of himself.
Karen looked and nodded. "Of course." she answered, stepping away from the stairs.
"It's about Denzil. He's feeling a bit upset cause of the whole... situation with his sister... He had a cry earlier and thought he wasn't being a good brother because he couldn't do anything to help her. I did explain to him that it wasn't his fault, and that it's okay to cry and everything..."
Karen nodded in understanding. "Of course he would be." she said gently. "Do you want me to help talk to him or are you capable of handling it yourself?"
Daniel looked at her. "I think I could handle it. That is, if you want me to." he nodded.
"I'm sure you could. Any problems just let me know. Sam's gone off somewhere and Tom's gone to find her, and Finn and Lauren as well, so best to catch him later on." Karen told him with a smile and walked off down the stairs.
"Come on you lot, home time." Tom said, looking at Sam, Lauren and Finn.
Sam, although now extremely tired, still managed to give him a cheeky smile. "I'm allowed to have fun aren't I?"
'She's still in there... Somewhere, but she's there.' Tom thought, and gave her a smile back. "Yes you are, but not when you're half asleep on your boyfriend." he commented.
"Hey I don't mind." Finn grinned.
"Yeah I bet you don't. Come on. It's getting late now and I stilll have to get back to the school." Tom answered, helping him to get Sam back to the car.
Lauren got into the back of the car with Sam, while Finn got in the front with Tom and they were driven home in silence, Sam lying against the huge teddy bear that was won for her. Lauren couldn't help but glance over at her best friend every so often, Finn looking in the wing mirror at her, keeping a close watch on her.
A/N: sorry it's been so long. I would go further but I'm crying already, so I'll end it there.. we don't really need to know what happens next we've all seen it, we've all cried... Next chapter may be a funeral.. haven't got that far yet.