Author's Note: One chapter left after this. It's been a great ride, I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have.

Naomi is released from the hospital Friday afternoon feeling like death warmed over from her most recent bout of arsenic therapy, but Emily has one hand splayed across her shoulder blade as the other steers the wheelchair towards the exit, and she is warm and happy and chatting to Arizona as the blonde doctor skates alongside them on her ridiculous sneakers, so it's a detail that Naomi almost manages to overlook.

"So," Arizona begins, turning to face Naomi when they are stopped outside the hospital doors. "I expect to see you here every day at four o'clock for the treatment – for the next six weeks at least. At that point, we'll do a bone marrow aspiration to determine whether or not you are in remission. If you aren't, we'll schedule a longer and more intensive treatment plan with the arsenic, and if you are, we'll work out the chemo schedule, okay?"

"I know the drill," Naomi replies, a little shakily as she carefully manouvers herself out of the wheelchair, Emily sliding an arm around her waist to support her the second she's upright. "I'll be here." When Arizona extends her hand, flattening all of the digits to her palm besides her pinky finger, which she curls into a hook, Naomi rolls her eyes even as her lips curve into a smile. "Mature," she snarks, even as she entwines their fingers and shakes, once.

Arizona smiles. "It's insurance. There's no way you'd break a pinky promise."

"The guilt wouldbe unbearable."

Her doctor breaks into gentle laughter even as Emily mock-reprimands her, and then Gina brings the car around and Naomi bids farewell to the woman who is saving her life for a fourth time with a fist bump and what would have constituted as a hug if Naomi was that sort of person, but she isn't, and so it doesn't.

"Thank you, Arizona."

"Don't mention it."

In the car, Emily curls into Naomi's side, and the heat of her skin helps to quell the nausea roiling her stomach slightly. The apple scent of her cherry red hair soothes the pain vibrating through her skull, and the warm kisses she presses to Naomi's neck chase away the chill wracking her body.

Fuck the arsenic, Naomi thinks, burrowing into her girlfriend's warmth. Emily is the best medicine.

(Later, back at the house, she runs into Kieran sitting at the kitchen table whilst she's looking for her pain meds.

Ah, the prodigal child returns, he quips, glancing up from his steaming mug, newspaper forgotten. You and your mum gave me quite a fright, disappearing like that. I was afraid you'd left me for pastures greener. Or finally buggered off to actually save the world one lentil at a time.

What, and left the wholesomely cynical Irishman behind? Naomi grins, popping some pills from a cabinet and settling herself opposite Kieran, gritting her teeth against the sensation of her intestines knotting themselves together like shoelaces, forcing a smirk. We wouldn't dare.

Good to know. His expression shifts from bemusement to a gentle sadness, and Naomi's gut tightens even further. You could have told me, you know. I should have been there, looking out for the two of you. I would have been there, Naomi. And I will be from now on, okay?

You don't have to, she mumbles, twisting her fingers together, avoiding his gaze, because he doesn't; he's not her father.

But Kieran shakes his head, and that teasing glint is lighting his eyes again. Are you kidding me? I love hospitals – so many drugs, so little time.

Naomi laughs, insides uncoiling slowly, tension fusing to calm. Well, you'll have to get in line. There's a rota.

JJ?

Yep.

Fucking hell, Kieran gripes, shaking his head. Tell the fucker to pencil me in. I'd like to see him try to spell my last name. See how he likes his rota then.

Somewhere inside Naomi, a weight lifts, and an emptiness erodes; Kieran is not her father, and that's just fine by her.)

Outpatient therapy is just as Naomi remembers; in lieu of a bed, there's a battered old recliner that's worn well past the point of traction, and she keeps sliding into a slouch at its base. It's adjustable, kind of like a dentist's chair, so she can sleep if she wants to, and there's a shitty little plastic tray that masquerades as a table attached to it should she want to read or smash her head on something. The room is sectioned off by curtains for privacy, and in her tiny little square compartment Naomi can pretend that there are no other patients in the cancer ward who are suffering the same way she is, and it's all so familiar to the years before that Naomi can't stand it – after all, familiarity breeds contempt.

Speaking of contempt.

"No offence or anythin' Naomikins, but that is proper disgustin'."

Naomi spits into the emesis basin provided by the nurses in an attempt to erase the taste of vomit from her mouth, draws a hand across her lips and then gives Cook the finger. When he simply chuckles gleefully, she glares at him as best she can with a pounding headache and slouches back into her chair with closed eyes.

"No one's forcing you to be here, Cook."

And they weren't. The gang had traipsed back into Naomi's room after she'd finished her first treatment – sometime around ten in the evening, she thinks, and she isn't sure she wants to know the kind of shit they pulled to get around the very strict rules about visiting hours – and devised a rota of sorts about who was going to sit with Naomi during treatments, despite her adamance that she didn't need a fucking babysitter.

(Katie had rolled her eyes and told her to stop being a stubborn cunt whilst Effy glared in a way that said let us do this or I'll take a rock to your head and Emily had simply looked at her and that had been the end of it.)

Of course, Emily demanded to be there every day, but Naomi didn't want that for her; she'd get behind in college, and probably end up severely depressed, and – to Naomi's surprise – the others had argued that they wanted to be there, too, and the hospital's restrictions on visitors for outpatients eventually led to everybody taking turns according to their surname's position in the alphabet (fucking JJ.)

And so, for Naomi's first treatment as an outpatient, which was putting her through absolute hell and had caused her to vomit sixteen times in the last hour alone, she had none other than James Cook for company.

Lucky her.

"I wanna be here," Cook mumbles, scratching at the back of his neck before tugging on those fucking ridiculous suspenders, and the sincerity startles Naomi for a moment.

She forgets, sometimes, that Cook's actually a decent human being.

Recovering, and twisting on her side to face Cook in his shitty plastic hospital chair, careful not to upset her IV, she gripes, "So there's no chance you can go and be a cunt somewhere else, then?"

Cook grins. "Not likely, Naomikins."

"Shame."

"You love me."

"Falser words have never been spoken."

"Fuck you," Cook laughs, in that gasping, breathless way he has, with glinting eyes and a shit-eating grin.

Naomi can't help but return his smile, and fires off a reply. "Fuck you right back."

They are both sucked into the memory at the exact same moment, and suddenly the air is charged with a tension that should be sexual, but isn't, just as it wasn't the day of the elections in Kieran's classroom; Naomi feels the static stand her hairs on end, and she coughs uncomfortably as she avoids Cook's eyes.

"I'm glad we didn't, y'know."

Naomi looks up at Cook, quizzically. "What?"

He starts fidgeting, fingers toying with those damn suspenders again, but he manages to look Naomi in the eye. "Y'know. I'm glad we didn't willy waggle."

"Oh, cheers, Cook. You sure know how to make a girl feel attractive."

"I'm serious. It's nice, y'know? Havin' a mate I haven't shagged."

Naomi knows Cook is trying to be sincere, but frankly, that scares her, because it's just a reminder that something is very, very wrong, and also, she honestly doesn't have the willpower to resist. "Wow, James. I mean, I'd always figured you and JJ were bum buddies, but Freds has never really struck me as a fudge packer."

Cook's laughter is bellowing, and his seat shakes along with his torso, and he somehow manages to choke out a 'fuck you, Naomikins' between convulsions. One he's calmed down, he wipes the tears from his eyes and clarifies, "I meant a girl mate, you bint. Proves I'm more than just a sensational fuck, don't it?"

"And you're so modest, too," Naomi comments with an eye roll. "But it's like I said. You're much nicer than most people think, when you're not being a prick. And you're a good friend, Cook."

His smile is shy, and impossibly pleased, and Naomi feels her heart warm for him; he may be an arsehole, but he's an arsehole with a heart, and he's sat by her side unflinchingly for eighty-six minutes as she's puked her guts up and made her laugh so hard with anecdotes of the three musketeers' adventures that she'd forgotten she was in agony for several long, beautiful moments.

But then Naomi catches sight of Cook's left arm, and feels anger swell inside her like the raging waves of the ocean. "What the fuck have you been taking?"

"Sorry?"

Naomi glares at the crook of Cook's elbow, where a midnight blue bruise is slowly blossoming on his milky skin. "You've been shooting up? Jesus Christ, James, are you trying to get yourself killed?"

Naomi can't even remember the last time she burned so intensely with fury, and the heat that flushes through her body triggers another round of wretching. Cook tries to keep her hair out of her face where it has slipped from her hairband, but she pushes him away and feels her rage building as she empties her stomach until she is brimming with it.

Cook is pumping his body full of poison just like she is, only he is perfectly healthy and Naomi is not, and it's not fucking fair. He is choosing to walk the line between life and death, risking everything to feel sky high, whilst Naomi is tied to the tracks and feels so close to death she can almost taste it. And sure, it's an overreaction and riddled with hypocrisy because she is no stranger to drugs but she's fighting for her life here and Cook is throwing his away like it's trash.

"Listen, Naomi, calm down," Cook placates, trying to grab onto her shoulders, but Naomi is having none of it, twisting out of his grip even though she feels seconds from collapsing, "it's not what you think."

Naomi snorts. "How fucking original."

"Listen to me!" Cook yells, finally securing a hold on her and bringing her face close to his. Naomi is breathing heavily and her eyes are a steely grey. Cook can't quite meet them with his own, and when he speaks, his voice is uncharacteristically quiet. "When we first came here, that night Eff told us…I asked that fit doctor of yours if there was anythin' I could do to help you. She said yeah, I could help, if I was – " Cook scrubs a hand through his hair, buries the other in his pocket, and sighing, finishes, "we have the same blood type, Naomi."

Naomi feels her face slacken, her brow smoothing out of its glare as she follows Cook's eye line to the two IV bags attached to the metal pole beside her chair. One is a little under half full with a liquid as clear as glass; the Trisenox drug that is scorching through her veins. The other contains the dregs of a thicker liquid the colour of unpolished rubies; the blood transfusion that is keeping her platelet count stable enough to stop her from haemorrhaging again.

That is a gift from Cook, trying to help her any way he can.

Naomi turns to him, a string of apologies lined up on her tongue and ready to spill from her lips, grattitude wetting her eyelashes, but before she has the chance to tell Cook what a cunt she is, she starts spitting stomach acid instead. This time, she lets him scrape platinum strands from her forehead, touch his large hand to her back and mumble hushed comforting nonsense into her ear.

Just as Naomi is finishing hacking up her internal organs, she feels Cook's gravelly voice buffeting the shell of her ear. "I fuckin' love you, Naomikins. You're gonna be just fine, ya hear me? Cookie's gonna take care of you."

On Sunday, it's Emily's turn.

"I've been going crazy not seeing you at you these things," Emily admits, nodding her head at Naomi's IV pole as they settle in for the two hour torture session, Arizona fiddling about loading the arsenic trioxide into the IV bag. "Fucking JJ and his rota."

"Emily, you're living at my house. You see me twenty-two hours a day."

When Arizona fails to completely stifle her laughter, Emily gets defensive. "We spend a lot of that sleeping! And I'll be at college again next week, so I won't see you as much. Have you sorted anything out with Roundview, by the way?"

"Mum talked to Harriet when I was first admitted," Naomi answers, wincing as Arizona slides the IV needle into her hand. "I only have to go in if I feel up to it, otherwise they'll just send work home."

"Seriously? You still have to work? I would have thought cancer was a pretty good excuse to slack off."

"Yeah, well. Harriet's a cunt."

Arizona coughs disapprovingly, and Naomi sends her a sheepish look in apology. "Well, we're all set up here. If there's any problems, just ring for a nurse, and I'll be back in two hours to check on you, okay? Oh, and watch your language, or I'll wash your mouth out with Trisenox."

Naomi winces. "Ouch."

"Ouch is right."

"What's Tryzinocks?"

Naomi grins. "Littlest Fitch!"

"Hi Naomi!" James breaks into a run towards her chair, ducks under her IV and throws himself at her. "I missed you."

Katie and Rob look on in amusement for a moment before following in James' footsteps, dragging over plastic chairs and dumping them next to Emily's, shooting greetings at Naomi as they do so, who has trouble replying because James is crushing her ribcage.

Arizona smiles at the scene, and departs with, "I'll leave you guys to it."

"What are you doing here?" Emily asks, frowning and looking a little annoyed.

"We're next in line, remember? Fucking JJ and his rota."

"I'm next in line, Katie. It's your turn tomorrow."

"Chill out, Ems. Christ. Twins are supposed to share things, bitch."

Emily smirks. "You want to share my girlfriend?"

"She's my friend, you tit," snorts Katie, flipping her hair over her shoulder, "not just your girlfriend."

"Aha!" exclaims Naomi, who is no longer being strangled by James – he sits beside her on a chair of his own, staring blatantly at her chest – although her face is bleached of colour, made all the more startling by the curls of platinum cutting across her forehead that are too short to be tied back and are only a shade lighter than her skin. "I knew you liked me. I want that in writing."

"Fat chance, Campbell," Katie retorts, but there is no bite to her words and her face is creased with concern.

Rob's expression is much the same. "Are you alright, love? You don't look so good."

Naomi screws her eyes shut as a particularly potent wave of nausea rolls through her abdomen and ripples up her throat, and she swallows against it, determined to make it more than five fucking minutes without throwing up. She feels Emily's hand tangle itself with hers, and the warm weight of her brings Naomi back to the present.

"I'm not so bad," she lies, opening her eyes and grimacing, "and it means a lot that you came. But you shouldn't be here, little Fitch. This isn't something you want to see."

James looks heartbroken, and argues, "I wanna be here! We brought Monopoly, because Gordon McPherson says that hospitals are total bollocky wank shite for entertainment – "

Before James can finish his ode to his twattish best friend, Naomi is being violently sick into the pink emesis basin clutched in her hands. Each bout of wretching wracks her whole body as though some invisible being is cracking her spine like a riding whip, and it doesn't let up for what feels like days no matter how gently Emily traces her vertebrae with shaking fingers, or how afraid James looks when his eyes shift to wide.

Finally, the convulsions stop and Naomi collapses into herself as a nurse takes the basin away.

"Holy shit."

Naomi cracks one eye open – even that hurts her head and feels like a gargatuan effort – but doesn't have the energy to focus on Katie too clearly, or formulate a reply, or feel anywhere near as embarrassed as she knows she should do. She wants to sleep for a week, but her throat is red raw and her abdomen is on fire, and she needs to pretend to be okay for Rob, Katie, James.

(Emily never buys the shit she sells.)

"You don't want to be here," she manages to rasp out, struggling find enough saliva to form the words. "It's no fun. I'm bollocky wank shite for entertainment, too."

"I think you're brilliant."

The ghost of a smile flickers across Naomi's waxen face. "That's why you're my favourite Fitch."

"I'm a close second, though, right?"

Naomi isn't quite sure where all these Fitches keep materialising from, but for the first time in forever, she feels relief relax her aching everything at the sound of Jenna Fitch's lilting Scottish accent, the sight of her anxious, angular face. Because Jenna doesn't hate her anymore, never did, really, and she is a nurse and nurses have access to drugs and Naomi could really use a chemical-induced coma right about now.

"Depends. Usually you bring up the rear, but if you load me up with narcotics I'll bump you straight to first place."

As Jenna's face breaks into what appears to be an involuntary smile, Emily's darkens to the colour of storm clouds. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Emily," Naomi warns, even as Jenna replies, "I'm working, love. Dr. Robbins asked me to keep an eye on Naomi during her treatment."

"Like you give a shit about how she's doing."

Rob narrows his eyes at his daughter, and cautions, "Oi, that's enough of that, Emsy. Jen's tryin' to do her job, is all, and it looks like Naomi could use her help."

Casting her eyes to her girlfriend, Emily's breath catches at the grimace twisting her face into the visual equivalent of excruciating pain; sweat beads her skin like shards of liquid glass, but there is a complete absence of colour in her sallow skin despite the fever, and exhaustion clings to wet eyelashes like leaden weights. "Stop it, Em, okay?" Naomi pleads, and Emily realises with a start that there would be anger there if the blonde had the energy to summon it. "She helped, before. Tried to make me tell you. And get treatment. And…you have two parents, Em. They love you, and they've never left you, and you take that for granted. Your mum's trying, now, to help, and be okay with us, and you need to let her, because you don't know what's going to happen, and I'm too tired to help you fight her, and I really, really want the drugs she has, so please, just stop it, okay?"

Naomi is crying with the effort of talking through her pain, and Emily swallows, guilt gnawing somewhere in her chest for prolonging her suffering. "Okay," she agrees, squeezing Naomi's hand and pressing a kiss to her palm.

There is silence for long seconds before Jenna clears her throat and annouces, "Right, Naomi. Let's get some pain meds in you. I'll be your favourite Fitch yet."

"'S'awfully cocky of you."

"Reasonably so. This stuff is marijuana based."

"Sweet Jesus, there is a God."

They are laughing, then, and as the drugs slip inside and soothe so deliciously Naomi becomes a little more conscious; she catches the look that passes between mother and daughter, a malgamation of emotions that fire back and forth between them like flashes of lightning – anger, guilt, hurt, sorrow, forgiveness, relief. Love.

By the time her IV bags are empty, Naomi is sure that she is not the only one who has been healing today.

The next day, Naomi returns to college, not because she is feeling well enough – she still feels like seven shades of shit and can't move any appendage without pain rocketing across some synapse or another – but because her mother won't stop hovering, waiting for the inevitable tragedy that will land her back in hospital and it is driving Naomi fucking crazy.

So, she calls on Katie and Emily bright and early Monday morning – Naomi had insisted Emily return home for the evening to properly make amends with her mother – knocking on the door this time because she and Jenna are on pretty good terms, and smiles tiredly when James answers it in his pyjamas.

"Naomi!" he exclaims, beckoning her inside before throwing his arms around her; when his hands inch a little too close to her arse, she smacks the side of his head and calls him a little shit.

"Worth a try," he smirks, scurrying up the stairs before she can attack him again.

Shaking her head and making a mental note to bumba mumba jim jams him later, Naomi wanders into the kitchen where the rest of the Fitch family are congregated; Rob and Jenna are seated at the head and foot of the table, with Emily and Katie between them on the side facing the door. The table is laden with plates of egg, bacon, toast and crumpets, and Naomi can't help but marvel at how different the Fitch household is to her own, where her and Gina eat stale bagels over the sink and slurp coffee out of paper cups because all the other crockery is dirty.

"Naomi!" Emily smiles, sounding so much like her brother Naomi can't help but laugh. She seats herself opposite her girlfriend, replying in kind when the others offer their greetings; in lieu of a kiss, Emily tangles their legs together beneath the table.

"James let me in," she says, not wanting to seem rude, but some of her chagrin must have shown on her face, because Emily's brow furrows angrily as she asks, "He groped you again, didn't he?"

Katie lets out a bark of laughter when Naomi nods, looking vaguely disgusted, and says tauntingly, "It's not just you, you know. He had a go at Eff the other day at the hospital. Don't go thinking you're anything special."

"Please, Katiekins. We both know you think I'm sex on legs."

"You wish, babes," snorts Katie, giving her the onceover before adding, not unkindly, "you're not looking so hot right now."

Naomi smiles. "Yeah, well. Cancer's not good for the complexion."

Emily kicks her underneath the table even as Katie chokes on her coffee, and Naomi regards the redhead's appalled expression a little sheepishly before asking, "What? Too soon?"

"Naomi, dear," Jenna intervenes, before things get too sombre, "have some breakfast, won't you? There's plenty to go around, and you need to keep your strength up." What little colour there was blushing Naomi's cheeks fades abruptly as if her skin has been diluted at the mere mention of food, and Jenna frowns deeply. "You're still feeling nauseous?"

Naomi nods, swallowing the sickly feeling chasing through her stomach, and qualifies, "Yeah, the nausea is pretty much constant. I can keep food down okay, but the pain is worse when I eat."

Emily links their hands across the table, strokes her thumb across skin which is beginning to roughen and raw from the potency of chemicals. Naomi catches her eye and smiles reassuringly, relaxing slightly when Emily returns it warmly; she has been beyond brilliant throughout this shitstorm that's torn up their lives and shredded normality to pieces in the space of a week. Naomi has simply been treading water, fighting to keep her head above the surface, and Emily has kept her afloat when exhaustion threatened to drag her down and drown her; she makes sure Naomi has her medication, and remembers to go to appointments, and she tutors her in whatever she's missed at college. She doesn't mind that Naomi rarely has the energy to do anything besides sleep, and that she looks ghost white and corpse like, and has unpredictable mood swings and no sex drive to speak of. Emily's been pretty fucking wonderful, and Naomi is positive that it is impossible to be more in love with her than she is right now.

Apparently, Emily's penchant for taking care of people is hereditary, because by the time their little moment passes, Jenna has set a steaming mug before Naomi that is brimming with a curiously burnt orange coloured and spicily scented liquid.

"I wouldn't touch that if I was you, Campbell," Katie warns, lip curling at the sight of it. "'S'probably like, artichoke and beetroot infused PG Tips or something."

"It is not!" retorts Jenna hotly, oddly defensive. Turning to Naomi, she explains, "It's my special recipe for ginger tea, love. Does wonders for nausea. I practically lived off it when I was pregnant with the twins."

Rob chuckles around his toast, adding, "That stuff's got a kick to it, you know. It's like Popeye's spinach. You'll be bench pressing one eighty in my gym in no time."

"Looking forward to it," Naomi replies placatingly as everyone else rolls their eyes, before bringing the mug to her lips and taking a cautious sip. The bitter flavour explodes on her tongue so harshly she coughs and splutters, and her mouth is nearly on fire with how spicy it is. But then she manages to swallow, and the relief is almost instant; the relentless churning in her stomach stills as if frozen, and bile stops creeping up her throat.

"Better?"

"Enormously so. Is this marijuana based, too?"

"Of course not. That would be spoiling you," Jenna mock-admonishes, and she smiles when Naomi laughs. "You should be able to make it through college with little trouble now."

"Thanks," Naomi offers, sighing with relief. "Though I'm still not particularly looking forward to it."

"Ah, that reminds me," Emily begins, warily, setting down her knife and fork and glancing nervously at Katie, who looks similarly uneasy. "Everyone kind of…knows. That you're sick, I mean."

"What?" exclaims Naomi, swallowing more tea when her stomach starts stirring again. Fucking great, she thinks, angrily. An entire day of people pointing and staring and whispering and pitying. Just what she fucking wanted. With a hard voice, she adds, "How?"

"We didn't say anything," Katie snaps, simultaneously defensive and apologetic. "We were talking about Hamlet in English and death came up, and before Cook or Freddie could calm him down, JJ got locked on and spilled the beans."

In the somewhat horrified silence that follows, Naomi deliberately doesn't look at Emily for fear of what she'd see on her face, but the paralysing fear translates anyway in the tightening of the redhead's fingers against her own, and the terror shocks her through the same way it does Emily.

Katie grimaces. "Sorry. That was a bit tactless, wasn't it?"

"You think?" Emily snarks, and just those two words are cracked and frayed and broken, and Naomi has never wanted to kiss her more and steal her pain away.

"It's alright, Em," she intervenes, even though it's not, but it's a reality they have to get used to. Then, trying to diffuse the tension, "Bloody JJ."

"Effy already offered to hit him with a brick for you."

"Excellent," Naomi laughs, drinking some more of her tea. "I'll be sure to collect."

Jenna looks horrified. "You girls have atrociously black humour."

"Sorry, mum. Too soon to joke about that as well?"

"You should probably get going, kids, before you're late," warns Rob. Then, thoughtfully, "or before you give your mother a coronary."

Half an hour later, Naomi can't help but think that staying at the Fitch household and giving Jenna a heart attack would have been a much less painful way to spend her day.

She feels eyes on her the second the grey stone steps come into view, and the whispering starts soon after, a snake's hiss of sound that swells and recedes as she moves through the crowds, flanked by Emily and Katie; she's gripping the redhead's hand so tightly that Emily keeps looking at her in alarm, but the pointing and the staring and the pitying makes her feel sick. She hates being the girl with cancer, hates that it is her disease that defines her – and this is on top of being identified largely as nothinng more than a lesbian – instead of her strengths, weaknesses, ideals, what makes her Naomi.

It makes her feel like she's not even human anymore.

"This is fucking ridiculous," Katie rants, glaring spectacularly at anyone who so much as glances at Naomi as they walk through the halls, "you'd think you were Katie Price or something."

"Jealous?"

Katie snorts. "Not fucking likely. I know how awful it is having everyone look at you like you're a victim, pretending to be all concerned but really just waiting for you to keel over and – "

When Katie breaks off uncomfortably just as they're rounding the corner to the school gym for the Monday morning assembly, Naomi shoots her a look, raises an eyebrow. "Still working on that tactlessness, Kay?"

"Sorry," she grimaces, rolling her eyes at Emily's thunderous glare as they seat themselves on the bleachers at the back of the room next to Effy and Panda; Cook, Freddie, JJ and Thomas occupy the bench directly below them.

Grinning, Freddie twists round in his seat to face them. "Alright kiddies, place your bets. How long into Harriet's tirade about what evil little shits we are will Doug blow the arse out of his briefs 'cause of his fucking rhubarb fetish?"

"Three minutes, tops," declares Naomi, fishing a tenner from her bag and pressing it into Freddie's upturned palm, which clutches a number of other rumpled bills. Emily guesses four, Katie rolls her eyes and opens the latest copy of Heat magazine, and JJ rounds it off by estimating six minutes based on the calculation of the mean time that elapses every Monday before Doug can no longer hold in his flatulence.

Students are still traipsing into the gym in long lines like asylum seekers, and to pass the time before the assembly kicks off – and partly to distract her from the hissing whispers dripping vitriol that hang around her like clouds – Effy asks Naomi how she's doing.

This catches the attention of the others, and they turn to face her with identical looks of anxiety widening their eyes; Naomi contemplates lying, but Cook or Emily or Katie would rat her out anyway, so she offers a version of the truth. "I'm doing okay right now. The treatments are pretty rough, but they give me good drugs, and Mama Fitch gave me something to help with the day to day sickness."

"So the treatments are working, right? They're getting rid of the cancer?" asks Freddie, drumming long fingers nervously against his leg.

Naomi shrugs and bites her lip, suddenly itching for a cigarette – she hasn't smoked in nearly a week. "There's no way to tell until they take a look at my bone marrow at the end of the six weeks," she replies, dreading that day already with every fibre of her being. "We'll just have to wait and see."

"You'll be fine, babe. Cookie knows these things."

"One, I'm not a babe, and two, you don't know your ear from your arsehole."

"She's got you by the balls on that one, mate."

Panda looks confused. "Naomi wouldn't touch Cook's balls, stupid. She only touches Emily's mu – "

Effy's elbow in her ribs manages to shut Panda up, but laughter echoes around Naomi as she flushes hotly, suddenly very aware that she and Emily haven't had sex for days; it occurs to her that her girlfriend, who is something of a nympho, is probably feeling the effects of withdrawal by now, but – and she feels horribly guilty and embarrassed about this – Naomi simply does not have the energy or the inclination to do anything about it. She's just so sick, and tired, but she loves Emily and doesn't want to hurt her feelings, or – worst of all – for her to get so frustrated from what Naomi's not giving her that she goes to get it from soemone else instead, and she can tell Emily, too, has realised they haven't made love in a while by the way she stiffens beside her; before Naomi can work herself up too much over it, Emily leans close to her, rose petal lips tickling her ear. "It's okay, Naoms. We don't need to. Whenever you're ready, okay?"

Her voice is sweet, and understanding, and when Naomi looks in her autumn eyes they are earnest and clear. Naomi presses her lips to Emily's for one long moment, tastes honesty and patience; hopes that Emily can translate her own feelings in the skin on skin contact, and marvels at how many different ways she can tell Emily she loves her.

They break apart just as a hush descends on the gym, and turning to face the front – Emily's hand wrapped firmly in her own – Naomi realises that Harriet has begun speaking (she sees Freddie starting a timer out of the corner of her eye, and doesn't quite manage to stifle her grin.)

But there's something not quite right with Frau Fuhrer's speech. Her tone doesn't ring with pointed condescension, or barely concealed contempt, and she appears to be having trouble not tripping over her warnings about expulsion being the consequence of on site substance abuse (Naomi rolls her eyes, because even now, Cook is rolling a spliff with practiced ease, cursing when Freddie's timer reaches the two minute mark he'd staked his bet on) and her disposition is nervous and awkward. Doug, forever light hearted and without shame, looks comically grave, and shows zero signs of splitting the seams of his trousers this morning. It's only when Harriet's tirade comes to an end seven minutes later, with every student utterly poleaxed about Doug's never before seen restraint, that everything becomes clear.

"Before you all go," Harriet starts again, wringing her hands, and the gym vibrates with groans of impatience, "I just wanted to offer our condolences, to Naomi, for the, uh, terrible news she's received, and to, um, let her know, that we are behind her one hundred percent, and that she's been a real asset to this establishment, and she will be missed." Harriet freezes, realising what she's just implied, and hastily adds, "That is, whilst she is busy getting better, of course."

Absolute silence blankets the gym so swiftly it's like sound has been shut off. Everybody has their eyes fixed on Naomi, who is pretty sure she has stopped breathing. Emily is shaking beside her, and Kieran looks livid, and Freddie's hands are curled so tightly into fists his notes are tearing, and there are tears in Thomas' eyes. Because that was a goodbye, a so long, an auf-fucking-Wiedersehen if ever she'd heard one, and Naomi feels sick with the certainty these people have in the fast approaching eventuality of her death. Hundreds of strangers' faces are painted with pity, tracked with tears, and scrutinise her so intently she feels like something less than human.

Fitting, really.

There's nothing human about a corpse.

Nine days into the treatment, Naomi suffers another haemorrhage.

She's routinely puking up the the colourful and delicious doughnuts that Thomas had brought for them to eat when pain tears across her abdomen and she starts coughing up blood in place of vomit. It rushes out of her with every staccato beat of her racing heart, floods of crimson staining the sickly pallor of her skin a wickedly dark shade until she's so slippery the doctors' gloves can't get traction to hold her thrashing body down.

Arizona is yelling orders about blood transfusions as Thomas prays in the corner, tears streaming down his ebony face, and all Naomi can see and hear and feel and smell and taste is her own coppery blood forcing its way out of her and leaving her hollow, empty and emptying, and there's a blackness tunneling her vision that looks so fucking inviting but she veers away from it, breathes through the pain and the blood swallowing her lungs even as the world blurs to black and white and rushes past her as a mask is forced over her mouth and her next breath draws anaesthesia deep inside and she's asleep when Arizona cuts her open and stitches her back to life.

(Lost in the ether, she dreams of two paths.

One is paved with bright white light, its beauty resplendant and shimmering, a fire blazing redder than she's ever seen at its culmination; but the ground is broken up into shards of glass beneath her feet, and the very thought of traversing it sends pain rocketing through her being.

The other is a patchwork quilt of darkness and shadows, smoke and ash, and it bottoms out into a dead end that is inky black with finality; but the darkness is cool, and soothing, a balm to her open wounds. It promises peace.)

When Naomi wakes hours later in the PICU, dizzy and sick with searing pain every time she inhales, near to empty of blood and energy and life, Emily's eyes are as red as her hair, and burgundy flames still burn behind Naomi's eyelids.

So does the shimmering chasm of quiet blackness, and Naomi's throat closes up when it casts shadows across the fire and glows brighter still.

Weeks pass.

Naomi's been getting steadily sicker with each flicker of movement of the clock's big hand, each box crossed out on the calendar, each swelling of the moon's silver sphere across the sky. She has managed to avoid contracting APL differentiation syndrome, the most deadly side effect of the Trisenox treatment, but she has certainly not escaped unscathed.

Her skin is red and raw almost everywhere, an ugly rash that creeps out from underneath her clothes, which irritate the broken skin so painfully her eyes are relentlessly wet with tears, and the thick surgical scar that cuts across her abdomen is an angry slash of scarlet; she cannot be touched anywhere besides her face and hands, and the only people who aren't scared to do so are her mother and Emily. The nausea is often so bad she cannot bear to eat, and it's slowly slicing inches from her waist, stripping away her substance and stretching her skin taut across her skeleton. Any drugs she's been taking to combat the sickness – droperidol, aspirin, ibuprofen – have been removed from her prescriptions as she gets weaker, due to their tendency to cause heart problems and interfere with blood clotting, especially seeing as the Trisenox drugs itself was a blood thinner. Arizona doesn't want to risk another haemorrhage, for Naomi's grip on life is so tenuous she issn't sure she'd survive the trauma.

(The worst thing about Naomi's deterioration, she thinks, is the way Emily worsens as she does. The redhead's skin is raw, too, beneath her eyes, from crying so much at seeing Naomi in pain, and her doll-like face is constantly crumpled with queasiness from the mere thought that Naomi could die at any second.

Naomi can't bear to think what her death would make of Emily.)

Still, the treatment goes on – the headaches, dizziness, chest pain, confusion, diarrhoea, tremors, trouble breathing, fever, chills, exhaustion, vomiting and all the other hellish afflictions that ravage her body continue with it – and it is Effy watching her suffer on the day that her hair starts falling out.

They are playing Scrabble, and Effy is winning by a clear one hundred points because the ice pick behind Naomi's eyes won't let her concentrate long enough to form any words longer than three letters, but it's a distraction from the sweat soaking her skin at least, and it beats sitting in depressed silence for two hours.

Naomi is keeping score – Effy is a useless mathematician, and Naomi isn't entirely sure she wouldn't cheat outrageously – and when Effy's tiles clatter against the board and she uses the 'U' from Naomi's 'RUG' to spell 'MUNCHER,' Naomi has to bite her lip hard to keep her laughter in to avoid upsetting her stomach and puking all over her friend. Effy just raises an eyebrow off of Naomi's attempted unimpressed look, and says, "Don't forget the triple word score."

She can't help but snort, then, and admonishes, "You're not supposed to make me laugh, you tit."

"Laughter is the best medicine."

"Tell that to my vehemently protesting innards."

Effy frowns, uncrosses her legs and stands, moves to beside Naomi's head. "Do you want me to call for Arizona?"

"No," Naomi replies, shaking her head, "there's nothing she can do. I just have to ride it out."

"You can't have anything for the fever? It looks like your skin is melting."

Effy's not lying. Naomi feels like she's burning right through her tank top and shorts, which are sticking to her slick skin and making her itch in a horribly uncomfortable way, and she cannot scratch because her flesh is so tender. It's agony, and her nerves are exposed and screaming, but there's nothing Arizona can do besides keep her hydrated; the risk of fever reducing medication causing bleeding is too great. "No. The damp cloth helps, though," she says, nodding to the water basin and flannel on her nightstand. "Could you – "

Effy is complying before Naomi even completes the request, and the slow slide of cool moisture over the furnace of her body is so soothing she almost cries with relief. The brunette runs the cloth over Naomi's chest and arms, across the downward slope of her concave stomach and along both legs, her touch feather light on the raw skin. When Effy draws the cloth across her forehead, her hand stills, and water drips into Naomi's eyes.

"Eff?" Naomi prompts, nudging her friend's wrist away from her face; it lands with a gentle thud on the pillow beside her head, and Effy's smoky eyes regard her sadly for one long, suspended moment before they drop to the cloth in her hand and Naomi's follow their trajectory with dread prickling the back of her neck.

Platinum strands are twisted and twined with the cloth fibres like lengths of rope, wet and wilted and stripped away; Naomi touches a hand to her scalp and it comes away tangled in a mess of sweaty blonde curls, again and again and again until Effy tugs her hand away and grips it, hard.

It shouldn't hurt this much. It's just hair. And Naomi is not one of those superficial bints that study beauty at college who think that looks are the most important thing in the entire fucking universe, but she already looks awful. Scarlet skin stretched over a skeleton, watery blue eyes washed out and glassy, back hunched where exhaustion clings to her shoulder blades. She looks sick, but she doesn't look like she's dying, but now, everybody will know that she has cancer, will look at her with pity creasing their faces because death is hiding in her shadow, ready to drag her down into the darkness. It's a physical manifestation of the malignant cancer eating through her body, maybe merely weeks from killing her, and it's a thousand times more difficult to repress this when she looks into the face of death every time she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror.

It's ridiculous on so many levels, but here, now, with clumps of her hair wound round her fingers and a balding scalp, Naomi has never been so sure that she is going to die.

"Hey, don't cry," says Effy, tracing the curve of Naomi's eye with one finger, brushing the tears away. "It'll grow back. And you're beautiful without it."

"Liar," Naomi accuses, turning her face away from Effy's stricken gaze.

There is a silence that stretches, endless, across the curtained room, coating their skin and locking Naomi's jaw up so tight that her heartache cannot translate into the dissonant screeching song it surely would do if she opened her mouth. She hears Effy rummaging around in her bag, but only casts a glance at her when she feels the butterfly kiss of bristles against her scalp.

Effy stills the hairbrush when her eyes fix on Naomi's, determined and brooking no arguments. "It's going to fall out anyway, and it'll make the fever a little more bearable. Just let me do this, okay?"

Swallowing, yet still unable to speak, Naomi nods slowly. Effy helps her sit up in the chair, careful not to irritate her sore skin, and rotates her until her legs dangle off the side, inches above the floor. Steadying one hand against Naomi's shoulder, she combs the brush through her hair with the other, heart catching as the beautiful cornsilk curls fall away to reveal the porcelain skin of Naomi's scalp. This feels too intimate to Effy, like she's peeling away layers of her friend and exposing the mess of raw nerve endings and emotions Naomi has tried to keep hidden all this while, and the depth of her pain and fear and suffering is a secret she was never meant to know. Effy closes her eyes, but the image is burnt into her brain; Naomi, stripped of life for all to see.

Later, Naomi is curled into a naked ball in the middle of her bed, mourning the loss of the last shred of pretense of normality, sobbing at the burning and stinging in her skin that's preventing her beyond exhausted body from submitting to sleep, when Emily returns from her family dinner and nearly stops breathing at the sight of her.

"Jesus," she breathes, hovering in the doorway.

"What?" Naomi snaps, lifting her bald head from her pillow to shoot daggers at Emily. "What's your fucking problem? Am I that awful to look at?"

"No, Naomi," Emily assures, exuding sadness like an aura, but not moving any closer for fear of invoking more hostility, "of course not. You're beautiful, same as always."

"Don't! Don't fucking lie! I look hideous, Em, like some fucking monster from a horror film. I'm sick, and I'm ugly, and I look and feel like shit so don't fucking lie to me and tell me it's not true!"

Naomi buries her face back in her pillow, exposing the back of her bald head to Emily's eyes, which are wet and sore with salt. Her heart clenches at the sobs shaking her girlfriend's shoulders like Naomi has curled her fist around it and started crushing. She hates seeing Naomi like this – not bald or sick like Naomi thinks – but wracked with agony, and self hatred, and still concretely refusing to believe that Emily doesn't care what this treatment makes her look like as long as it saves her life.

Emily seats herself on the edge of the bed, reaches out a hand to skin that is not discoloured and flinches when Naomi shrugs her off, crying all the while. She sighs, but perseveres, and is eventually allowed to trace the line where Naomi's platinum curls used to hit on the feverish skin of the nape of her neck. Gently, she pleads, "Look at me, Naomi." Nothing. Then, harsher, "Naomi! Fucking look at me!"

Naomi's head whips round, and she's a live wire of fury. "What?"

Emily's hand hangs in the air for a second before she drops it to the sharp curve of Naomi's face, and her skin is so flushed Emily's not sure she can even feel it. Lashless almond shaped eyes glare back at her, as wet and as blue as a rainstorm in spring, casting tears down the slope of a long, elegant nose, and set with the same hardness as the coral pink line of her mouth. "I'm not lying. You are beautiful. You are always beautiful to me. I don't care about your hair, or your body. I care about you, and your health. You might not look so great now, Naomi, but you are still beautiful. Your strength is beautiful. Your persistance and courage. You're so brave, Naomi. And you've survived this, you're still here, you're not dead, so who cares what you look like? It's proof, Naoms, of how strong you are, and it's proof that this is working. I just want you to live, and that's all you should care about, too."

Naomi's lip quivers, and her voice is wavery and fragile. "I don't feel beautiful, Em. I don't feel any of those things. I don't even feel human."

"You are though. You're everything, Naoms. To me, you are everything, and I love you no matter how sick you are, or what you look like."

Naomi turns fully on her side to face Emily, sandwiching her hand between her face and the pillow. Her eyes drop to the mattress and Emily's heart starts sinking low in her ribcage, close to the acid bubbling her stomach. "I just wish this was over. I'm so tired, Em, and everything hurts all the time. I can't stand it."

Emily says nothing, because what Naomi wants to hear isn't true – she can't say it'll all be over soon, because it won't. There's years of this, yet, with the follow up chemotherapy, and if the mere thought of it slays Emily's heart she can't imagine the damage it inflicts to Naomi's.

Suddenly, with a sickness that curdles her stomach and threatens to split her chest in two, Emily understands what Naomi is trying to say when her pleading eyes fix on hers and she sobs, "I need this to be over."

"No," Emily croaks, voice and heart breaking all over the place, "no, Naomi, you can't."

"You don't understand, Em. You – there isn't cancer eating at your body, or poison pumping through it. You're not in so much pain you can't sleep at night, even though tired doesn't begin to cover it, and you don't have to suffer through it for another two years. This isn't living, Em, and fucking hell, I love you, but I don't want to do this anymore."

Emily is shaking her head, and Naomi looks so fucking sorry she nearly chokes on the oxygen that feels like lead in her lungs. "Please don't give up, Naoms, not yet, there's only a few more weeks of this, and then the chemo won't be so bad – "

"It won't be good, either." Naomi's face is creased all over from crying and guilt and pain, and she stretches a hand out to where the look is mirrored on Emily's face. "I don't want to leave you – "

"Then don't! Please don't, Naomi, please, I can't, I can't live without you. I need you here with me."

"Emily," Naomi whispers, and her voice is as frail as her broken body, her eyes as sad as Emily's when she meets her gaze. "I love you. I do. You changed my life, in the best possible fucking way, and you're the best thing that has ever happened to me. And I know you love me, too."

"Of course I love you."

Naomi's crying again, and unravelling completely. "Then let me go," she sobs, pain spearing every syllable. "Please just let me go. I can stop the treatment, and feel better, and actually live a little before I die. No more suffering, no more hospitals. Just me and you, and the others, and mum and Kieran, being together while we can."

"Your mum," Emily cries, grasping at straws, "you can't – she wouldn't – "

"She already did. I talked to her, and she – she's letting me stop. She'll forgive me for it. She knows it's what I want." Naomi's eyes flutter closed, unable to witness the damage she's done. "Please, Emily."

Emily looks at Naomi through an ocean of tears, her heart aching so badly she can feel it splintering in her chest. She looks at the black circles under her eyes, her ruined skin, her hairless body, emaciated and strung out on a drug that's killing her almost as fast as the cancer is. Everything about Naomi screams suffering and agony, and forcing her to live like this when she is begging not to – it's almost as unthinkable as living without her entirely.

But Emily can't give Naomi up just yet.

"Finish the treatment," Emily whispers, and Naomi's eyes flicker open, full of protestations. "Just listen, okay? You have fourteen days left until the BMA, until we get to see if it worked. Give me fourteen more days of believing you might live. If you're not in remission, if this didn't work…then we stop. No more suffering, no more hospitals. And if it did work, even if you're better…no chemotherapy. We just take the time this treatment gave you, and we make the most of it. Maybe it'll stick forever, and we can live the life you see for us. Just fourteen more days, Naoms. Give me that?"

When Naomi nods shakily, face crumpling with relief, Emily kisses her so hard neither of them can breathe. They're crying while at it, but they don't stop, and they hold each other as the day fades into darkness and casts shadows across their grief.

Fourteen days later in Arizona's office, flanked by Emily and Gina, Naomi receives the verdict, and smiles.