Twenty two

Oscar and Rick were sat in their room, three days after Oscar had come out of hospital, when there was a knock on the door. Oscar opened it. It was Jamie. "urm, Oscar, I may have upset Alana slightly by accident," Jamie said when the door opened. Oscar rolled his eyes.

"What did you do?" he asked.

"Well she sort of was worried about you so I said that if you were like your dad, you'd be a fighter and wouldn't go out without a fight. I sort of forgot what your dad was like to you two. She's crying. In her room. I'm sorry," Jamie explained. Oscar sighed.

"Don't worry, she'll get over it. I think she knew what you meant she just also had slightly worse thoughts when you said that. Come on, let's go see her," Oscar said as the doorbell rang and Rick ran out the room to answer it, to let Summer in.

Oscar and Jamie stood outside Alana's room. Oscar knocked. Alana opened the door. When she saw who it was she smiled. "I'm glad it's you Jamie. It's not your fault, honest. People always forget what dad was like, me included. I suppose you are right though. We are related to him and so we won't go down without a fight will we Oscar?" Oscar shook his head. "Anyway come in." The pair came in and sat on Cassie and Tee's beds. Oscar spotted the letters on Alana's table.

"the letters," he said. Alana looked where he was looking before nodding. "have you opened them?" Alana shook her head.

"I was waiting for you, but the time never seemed to be right," Alana said. She walked over to them and picked them up before carrying them back to Tee's bed. Oscar looked at the sharp, jagged writing of his and Alana's names.

"let's do it now," Oscar said. Jamie stood up to leave and let them have some privacy. "sit down you. We may need a friendly face in a minute if the letters are anything like our dad was. So just wait." Jamie sat back down.

Alana pulled the elastic band off and held the first letter in her hand, it was the latest out of them all.

Ali and Oscar,

I'm dying. I'm paying the price for being mean to you. You're my family I shouldn't have beat you. It's just the army turns you bitter. I got shot by a gun. I'm bleeding as you can probably tell from the blood stains. I never told you this once but I love you and you should know some things about my history, in case you get injured or have to go to hospital as I bet your mum won't remember. My mum had down's syndrome. I never got it but I have the gene which I could have passed to either of you and if I have you could develop leukaemia like my mum did. If you get leukaemia it doesn't mean you have down's syndrome it's just you have the gene for it which hasn't developed but has caused your bone marrow to produce other cells. I'm sorry, you should have known earlier. My last request to you is to look after your mum. She can't cope on her own, she'll need you two to look after each other,

I love you,

Dad

Alana looked at the words before looking at Oscar. "Explains the leukaemia then," she said. He nodded.

"yeah, you're lucky then. You didn't get the gene or it would have shown in your blood," Oscar said.

This time it was Alana's turn to nod. "Yeah and I wouldn't have been able to save you."

Jamie was watching the pair intently. Oscar turned to him. "I think that's enough for today, we'll open another tomorrow Alana." Oscar stood up. "come on Jamie, we've got to find Gus to tell him why I've got leukaemia."

Alana held the letter in her hand as the boys left. Oscar was ill and it was their dad's fault. She screwed the letter up and threw it as hard as she could at the wall before diving onto her bed and crying.

Tyler was coming up the stairs and could hear crying coming from Alana's room. He knocked on the door and went in. Alana was laying on her bed and crying. He walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her. She sat up and pointed at the letter. Tyler smoothed it out and read it. He sighed before placing it with the other letters back on her table.

"listen, he couldn't have known. It was a possibility that was all. Maybe he didn't expect either of you to get it," Tyler suggested. Alana shrugged.

"if there is any chance you're going to pass on down's syndrome or leukaemia you just wouldn't have kids, but no clearly not in my dad's case, he passed it on and my brother gets leukaemia," Alana said sullen.

"So are you saying your brother shouldn't have kids with Elektra then?" Tyler asked.

Alana thought about it a minute. "Depends on if the marrow transplant works. If it does he should be free from having leukaemia and so shouldn't pass it on but I don't know. Maybe he shouldn't. Although that wouldn't help me in Elektra's book if I suggested that." Tyler wrapped his arms around her as she cried some more.