Something starts working.
Her systolic blood pressure increases.
The pain starts fading slightly, and there's no longer blood creeping up her throat or spreading from underneath her and wetting her thighs.
Her heart rate has slowed down, stopped hammering against her ribs so violently the bones bend and break.
There are no longer hands wrapped in surgical gloves running all over her body, sticking her with needles and administering drugs, trying to heal.
The blood on the doctors' scrubs is dry, a dull red instead of the bright crimson colour it is when fresh.
She's stopped bleeding.
She's alive.
;;
It's ridiculously unlikely, and doesn't make any sense in terms of distance and speed and mode of transport, but the six of them arrive at the hospital at the same time, with the same wet, solemn eyes and breaking hearts on their sleeves.
They glance between themselves helplessly as they drift together outside the massive glass doors, the situation becoming a thousand times more real as they read the devastation on each other's faces, listen to the words hanging in the air that no one can bear to speak.
If they break the silence, it will only trigger more destruction.
;;
James watches the six of them stand before the hospital with his head pressed to the backseat window, his breath fogging up the glass and blurring them slightly; they look helpless, utterly destroyed, like the hospital is some enormous monster that's going to eat them alive the second they step into it, and James doesn't blame them for not wanting to be sucked in.
He's scared, too.
He knows it's not really his place to be there for Naomi – he doesn't think she likes him much, really, although she's always nice to him and never hits him like Katie and Emily, though he guesses it's more to do with politeness and fear of his mother than her fondness of him – but he wants to be. He wants to see her, and talk to her, maybe try and get her to laugh – he's always doing that, making her laugh, and sometimes she ruffles his hair and smiles at him afterwards and it's actually really lovely – because he doesn't expect she's smiling much these days, if she's as sick as Katie says.
James reckons he could get her to smile. He wants the chance to try at least.
James slides his hand across the glass to clear away the condensation, watching silently as the group start to pair off – strength in numbers. The black boy and a girl wearing more colours than James has seen in his life lock their fingers together and start walking slowly towards the entrance, their steps unsteady as though they're injured, somehow; three boys band together behind them, their arms wound around each other so tight James is sure they must be breaking, somewhere; and then Katie is left alone, one of the boys glancing back at her with a pained look just before he disappears from sight.
It's the way his sister looks stood unsteadily on the concrete, so small and pale against the bright backdrop of the sunset, so full of colour when Katie is completely drained of it, that prompts James to unlock his car door and make his way towards her, his dad following closely behind.
He takes her right hand in his gently, their dad gripping the fingers of her left, squeezing in what he hopes is a reassuring way when she turns to look at him with wet and shiny eyes. James clears his throat, tries to be brave for her. "Come on, Kay. She needs you."
The tears start falling thicker and faster down Katie's face even as she stumbles deliberately towards the glass doors, fiery determination brightening her eyes.
If this is the state Katie is in – and James knows she likes Naomi, loves her even, though she'd never admit it – he can't bear to think about Emily.
;;
Arizona tells them Naomi is stable – her scrubs so red there's almost no blue to speak of – and Emily feels the iron grip around her heart loosen and it starts beating again.
"She's okay? She's not going to die?"
Arizona sighs, the blue in her eyes incredibly bright. "Not at the moment. But if we don't start treatment soon, she's going to haemorrhage again, and we might not be able to save her."
Gina and Effy sink into their seats, the brunette placing a trembling hand on Naomi's mum's back when her head falls into her hands and an almost inhuman sound escapes her.
Emily wipes her eyes – which are rubbed red raw from crying by this point – and takes a deep breath, something uneasy stirring her stomach at the looks on everyone's faces. Sure, it's a shit prognosis, and everything inside Emily is aching at the thought of Naomi having to go through all this again – that it won't make a difference and she'll lose her anyway – but Naomi has come this far, has just survived something fucking awful that no one was expecting her to, and she's beaten this three times before against the odds.
Now is not the time to give up on her.
"So, just start the treatment already. She has a chance right? If you start right now?"
Arizona's eyes drop to the floor and Gina starts crying harder beside her; Emily turns to Effy with a creased brow feeling like someone has stolen all the oxygen from her lungs.
Something isn't right.
Effy's jaw tightens as she sucks in her cheeks, face hardening. "Naomi doesn't want treatment."
Emily's face slackens and her eyes grow wide. "What?" she says, her voice flat and barely there, almost lost in the noise of the waiting room. Effy stays silent, shakes her head minutely. "That's not true."
(Because if she wishes hard enough, it might not be.)
"No," Emily exclaims, an angry husk to her voice, because what the fuck does Naomi think she's playing at? "No, she wouldn't – there's no way she'd leave us here, she fucking, she wouldn't do that, Eff." Emily grabs Effy's shoulder, pulls her close so their faces are inches apart and she's staring into cobalt blue irises. "Please. Tell me she wouldn't do that."
It's impossible to misinterpret what Effy isn't saying, and Emily feels like she's been ripped apart and reassembled incorrectly, so that every part of her is messed up and out of place.
No one has given up on Naomi.
She has given up on herself.
;;
Naomi wakes to the play of stray rays of dying sunlight falling across her face, filtering through the slits in the blinds and starting a burning in her head, and it's only when she attempts to turn her face away that pain shoots through her body and she realises that everything really fucking hurts.
Naomi groans, but it irritates the fuck out of her throat, which is beyond sore from vomiting; the muscles ache deeply, and the coppery taste of blood is strong on her tongue and the roof of her mouth, like she's been sucking pennies, and it makes her want to throw up some more (if only to replace the metallic tang with something slightly less repulsive.)
Everything is blurry – she can make out shapes and colours, but little else, and it looks like the world has been disconnected and objects are just floating about, untethered by gravity. Naomi blinks heavily, tries to clear her vision, and her gaze drifts to the monitor beside her bed, beeping away steadily as a line of green peaks run across the screen to the rhythm of her heartbeat.
Her heartbeat – she's alive.
Naomi smiles weakly, focuses on inhaling and expelling oxygen from her lungs, and she thinks the air has never tasted sweeter; she remembers the struggle to breathe earlier, the oxygen blocked from her airways by a thick lining of blood, the crushing feeling in her chest from carbon dioxide she was unable to exhale, like she was suffocating.
She nearly died.
The smile drops from Naomi's face when she realises that she still could do. Will do, even, if she doesn't start getting treatment soon.
Naomi still doesn't want it, can't think of anything she wants less in the world; the haemorrhage had only served to remind her how fucking awful it was to be treated for cancer, and she didn't have a clue what they could give her anyway – with APL, once one treatment had been utilised, it became pretty much ineffective and would no longer work, and Naomi didn't have any options left that she was aware of; whatever they were planning on trying would probably be experimental, dangerous, a clinical trial of some description that could very well kill her anyway. She doesn't want that.
But she doesn't want to die either.
The catch-22 is making her head hurt, and although she her eyes are bone-dry, they burn anyway. It's so fucking unfair, and she doesn't care that it makes her sound childish and petulant because it's true. Naomi hates that she's been put in this position, where every fork in the road has an uncertain outcome, and whichever path she chooses to follow she'll get hurt along the way.
And she won't be the only one.
Naomi thinks of Emily and her promise to stand by her through all of this, her determination and conviction that she can not only fight the cancer, but win against it; it pulls at the threads of Naomi's resolve to just give up and let go, and it should surprise her, but Emily has always been able to unravel her completely.
Naomi doesn't think Emily is lying, just underestimating the shitstorm that is chemotherapy; Naomi wonders how much she knows about it – will she still think Naomi is beautiful when all the chemicals make her hair fall out? Will she hold her hand when she can't stop vomiting because of the constant nausea from the drugs? Will she still be there in two years time, when Naomi no longer needs consolidation therapy, or will Emily decide that it's too difficult and she's not worth the wait in the months between?
It's not a quick fix. It takes years. And Naomi honestly thinks that she won't make it through them if Emily isn't there to love her at the end of this.
Naomi closes her eyes in an attempt to clear her head, and when she opens them Emily is stood beside the hospital bed.
She looks shell-shocked, and Naomi can hardly blame her – if Emily had nearly died in front of her she wouldn't look much better – but there's a fire in her eyes that unsettles Naomi and makes her skin itch with nerves, but then Emily is crying and kissing her hard and Naomi forgets, momentarily.
She wants to tell Emily to stop, because she's been throwing up blood and it really can't be all that pleasant, but Emily doesn't seem to care, just grips her face gently with both hands and presses her lips to Naomi's in short, sharp kisses that taste of blood and tears and the possibility of an ending.
Emily breaks away, strokes her fingers across Naomi's cheeks. "I thought you were going to die."
Naomi swallows, raises a hand to Emily's face and runs it through the curtain of red falling across her face, the pain wracking her body doubling at the fear in her girlfriend's voice. "I'm okay, Em. I'm okay now."
"Yes, but for how much longer?" Emily asks, fingers stilling on Naomi's face, the fire back in full force. "I mean, if you're not having treatment, you can't have much time left, right?"
Naomi freezes, her eyes widening, the hurt and betrayal radiating from Emily cutting into her skin like a knife between her ribs. It suddenly hurts to breathe. "Emily – "
"How can you do this, Naoms?" She's furious, the muscles in her neck and jaw tightening, eyes hard. "You'll die if you don't get help, do you understand that? This will kill you."
"Of course I understand that!" Naomi snaps, shifting away from Emily even though her body screams with pain at the movement, because of course Naomi understands, she's lived through this shit for fuck's sake; the cancer's almost killed her more times than she can bear to recall, she's well aware of how dangerous it is. "I know I'm going to die, okay? But it's nowhere near as simple as you think, Em. Whatever the fuck the doctors would do to me won't just magically make everything better; it'll make me a whole lot worse, and it might not even help."
"But there's a chance. There's a chance that you can survive this and get better. How can you not even try?"
"Because I'm sick of trying!" Naomi wipes her eyes angrily, watches the way Emily's hands shake on her bedsheets, and knows she's just seconds away from breaking completely. "You have no fucking idea how hard it is, Emily – how much it hurts, how tiring it is, how terrifying. It wouldn't just be today, Em, or tomorrow, or the rest of the month – it's years. Years of hospital visits and medication and people staring and laughing and looking at you like you're a freak because you're bald and your skin is fucked up and you're sick; your whole life revolves around fighting against your own body, letting doctors inject poison into your veins in the hope that it'll kill off the cancer that's eating away at you, day after day. It's awful, Emily," Naomi cries, eyes closing in exhaustion. "I don't want to die, but I don't know if I can do it again, if I can make it on my own."
Emily takes a deep breath, and Naomi feels cold and shaky fingers weave between her own. "You won't be on your own. I'll be with you, Naoms. Through everything. I'll never leave your fucking side, I promise."
Naomi shakes her head, salt burning her eyelids as her eyes stay closed. "I don't want that for you, Em, having to fucking look after me when you should be out living your own life instead of fighting to save mine – "
"I don't care about that!" Emily squeezes her hand until her eyes flutter open, her face flushed and angry. "You really think I'd have a life to live if you weren't here? If you were dead?" Her grip tightens, pinching the skin at the back of Naomi's hand. "I'd be fucking lost without you, Naoms. I want to be there, every step of the way."
"That's what my dad said. It's what my friends said. It's what everyone fucking says, Em, until they realise what it's like and fuck off because it's not worth it. Because I'm not worth it."
"You are. I love you, Naomi, I'm so fucking in love with you I can hardly think straight. I don't care what it takes to be with you as long as I get to have you; I'll take anything I can get. If being with you means living in hospital for the next few years, having dinner dates in a shitty canteen and sleeping in a room that never really gets dark because of glowing heart rate monitors, then that's fucking fine. Fucking brilliant, even, as long I have you with me."
Naomi's tears have soaked into her pillow, the material wet and cold against her face, but her whole body flames with heat when Emily strokes the back of her hand, looks at her with so much truth in her eyes Naomi falls in love all over again.
It all becomes pretty simple then, and Naomi makes a choice based on one irrevocable fact:
She cannot lose Emily.
"What if I still don't make it?"
Emily's eyes darken, and she clears her throat to hide a sob. "At least we'll have had a little more time. And I'll know that you tried."
Naomi bites her lip, chokes back tears, and when she speaks her voice barely qualifies as sound. "You promise you'll be here?"
Emily nods, smiling tightly, looks right into Naomi's eyes. "I promise, Naoms."
Naomi inhales shakily, breathes out an okay against Emily's lips as she leans in to kiss her, feels Emily collapse into her mouth with relief as all the oxygen rushes from her lungs, and then she's kissing Naomi desperately; it tastes of blood and tears and the possibility of a new beginning.
Naomi's not sure who says I love you first, but she figures it doesn't really matter, because she could feel it in Emily's touches and kisses long before the words ever left her lips.
And then her mother and Effy appear from nowhere, the brunette slipping into bed behind her and carefully laying an arm across her waist, pressing a kiss to her hair, her mum perching on the bed somewhere near her legs with an enormous smile on her face and tears in her eyes. "Thank fuck for Emily Fitch," she says, folding their hands together and casting a grateful look at the redhead. "She's always been able to sort you out."
Naomi laughs then, though it hurts to do so, feels Effy grin against her shoulder; Emily kisses her again, whispers I promise into her ear, and Naomi starts thinking that maybe she can make it through this after all.
;;
Emily leaves to go and find a change of clothes – Naomi's blood had soaked into her tshirt and skirt, the sight of it making her feel incredibly sick – and Gina goes to find Arizona and tell her that Naomi has decided to stop being a cunt and get some help.
Effy is still spooning her, staying silent and stroking her hair casually, and Naomi feels a sudden surge of affection for the brunette; she carefully turns over in her arms, tries not to unsettle her body, and presses a kiss to her cheek before burying her head in her neck.
"Thanks, Effy. For everything," she murmurs, because Naomi honestly thinks that without her she never would have admitted that anything was wrong, and would have been sat at home or in class when the haemorrhage started, would have died before anyone knew what was happening.
Effy's pulse beats a little faster against Naomi's cheek. "You're welcome."
Naomi sighs, pulls back from the embrace and looks her friend in the eyes, tries a smile. "I kind of love you, you know."
Effy's lips twitch at the corners, before something over Naomi's shoulder catches her eye and her expression falters slightly. "Hold that thought," she says, and Naomi frowns and looks behind her.
They burst into her room in an explosion of speed and colour, a haze of fear and worry and a thousand other daunting emotions flooding in with them.
They all stare at her with open mouths and horrified expressions, and JJ looks like he might pass out; Naomi looks like death, with her almost translucent skin that is black around her eyes and blue nearly everywhere else, her mouth still red with blood, and in the oversized and papery hospital gown it's easy to see how thin she's gotten, little more than a skeleton.
They slowly filter into the room more fully, creating a semi circle around the foot of her bed, trapping her between them with their terrified gazes.
"Oh mon Dieu."
Naomi freezes, briefly contemplates cracking open the window and making a run for it – overkill, she thinks, but she really is that desperate to escape this situation – before remembering that she is beyond exhausted and in an incredible amout of pain, can barely sit up in bed and she doesn't really fancy risking her life so soon after almost losing it, so she just doesn't move in the (naïve) hope they'll go away.
Something clicks in Naomi's head, and she is overwhelmed by the desire to fucking murder Effy.
"For fuck's sake, Eff!" It comes out weak, scratchy, nowhere near as menacing and cutting as she was intending it to be. "You could have warned me."
Effy avoids her eyes and shifts away from her a little, opens her mouth to give her excuses.
Katie starts yelling before she has the chance.
"What the fuck?" The older Fitch twin stalks towards her, and Naomi almost flinches, but doesn't quite have enough energy to manage it. "You have leukemia, you're stuck in hospital and full of like, needles and drugs and all this other awful shit and you didn't think to fucking tell us?"
Her voice cracks towards the end, the angry façade slipping off her face before Naomi can blink; the aching look that lies beneath should surprise her, but Naomi knows that the hostility between them is a thing of the past, replaced by something she values more than Katie could possibly know.
She should be nice, understanding, but Naomi doesn't want to seem as weak as she looks.
(As she is.)
"I'm sorry, okay? It's not like any of this is fucking simple. I know you would have found out eventually, but I didn't want you to have to worry about all this shit until you had to."
Cook steps forward, locks his eyes on hers. "Until you died, you mean."
The silence is suffocating, like a thick blanket that wraps around them all much too tightly, and it hurts to breathe. Naomi exhales shakily, forces herself to sit up despite the pain that erupts inside her when she does so, desperate to fool them into thinking it's not as bad as it looks. "Jesus Christ, Effy. What did you tell them?"
Effy's voice is sharp. "The truth. Which is more than you were doing."
"I didn't even know the cancer was back until today, for fuck's sake – "
"Back?"
Naomi faces JJ, nods slowly. "I was diagnosed when I was two years old." There's a collective intake of breath, like a snake's hiss. "I relapsed when I was seven, and again when I was twelve." Naomi pauses, frowns. "Should have seen this one coming – five year pattern."
No one speaks, and this is exactly what Naomi wanted to avoid – it's bad enough seeing Emily and Effy deal with it all, she doesn't want the rest of them experiencing this too. Naomi knows she would have told them – there's no way she couldn't have, she's stopped being selfish – but later, when things look a little better, brighter, once she's been having treatment a while and there is good news to be shared. As it stands, they look fucking desolate, hopeless, like they know it's unbeatable, and she knows they're all thinking the same thing –
"Are you gonna die?"
Naomi's eyes snap to Panda lightning quick, and the way she's crying openly, her face creased all over and shoulders shaking with massive sobs hurts more than when the answer to that question explodes in her head, burning everything but the truth into ashes.
She thinks it's time to start being honest.
"I don't know, Panda," Naomi sinks back into her pillows, flicks tired eyes to all of their faces, "Maybe." Katie makes a noise in her throat, and Naomi smiles at her, tries to make it reassuring, brave. "But so far, I've kicked cancer's arse three times. I reckon I can manage a fourth."
Freddie chuckles weakly. "Yeah. What was it thinking, trying to fuck with a hardass like you?"
Naomi's smile widens, because this is easier, this joking around; everything hurts less this way. She manages to summon the energy to raise her arm, tenses the muscle and feels her bicep. "I know, right? With guns like these, you'd think it would've known better."
Everyone manages to smile, and it's not much, but it's enough to make Naomi think that maybe there's hope yet, and perhaps Effy was wise in telling her friends. Maybe they can't fight for her, when she's too tired to do it herself.
Thomas touches her arm, his expression warm. "If there is anyone of us who could be strong enough to fight this, it is you, Naomi."
"Yeah," Cook adds, nodding at her. "You're proper fucking fierce, you are, Blondie." He pauses a moment before smirking at her and Effy. "Also, Cookie is very much appreciating the two of yous in a bed together. Thanks for the visual, ladies."
Effy tells him to fuck off through a grin, but honestly, Naomi has never loved Cook more for making this just a tiny bit easier, simpler, for just knowing that the only way they can make it through this is to focus on the good and not the bad, not let all the shit drag them down; most of all, Naomi loves him for not acting differently around her – he's still the same twattish knob he's always been, and she's never been more grateful for him.
"I'm disappointed, Cook. You're supposed to be all about me and Naomi in bed together."
Everyone turns to look at Emily in the doorway, who looks ridiculously adorable in a pair of over sized blue scrubs and is glancing at Cook with a raised eyebrow and her arms folded across her chest.
(Naomi doesn't miss the look that passes between her and Katie, in which the older twin tilts her head to the side gently and Emily nods, just a little; Naomi smiles, because they're still taking care of each other.)
Cook roars with laughter, claps his hands loudly. "I am, Red, trust. You're still my favourite lezza couple. I'd love you even more if you gave me that tape we talked about."
Emily shakes her head and smiles, sinks into the chair beside Naomi's bed and reaches for her hand. "Not a chance, James."
Naomi's about to ask exactly which tape they're talking about – there's a few lying around and she really hopes Cook thinks Emily's joking or she'll never hear the end of it – when Arizona and her mother walk through the door, her doctor wheeling in medical equipment she recognises instantly, and suddenly everything is serious again.
"Sorry to interrupt," Arizona apologises, pushing further into the room, and everyone scatters to the right side of the bed to make room for her. "But I thought it'd be best if we got started now."
Naomi glances at Emily, who nods and squeezes her hand, at all her friends lined up against the window, blocking the rest of the world from view. She takes a deep breath, releases it slowly and turns to face her doctor.
"Okay."
And so it begins.