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Back again with another chapter.. Please leave us a review.. And thank you for those who do!

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Brian was waiting impatiently for his wife to answer the phone which had already rung four times, but still there was no answer. He checked his watch again. It was around 10 p.m. for her, so not that late, For him, it was way past midnight. Just when he started thinking something was seriously wrong, she answered.
“Hey honey...”
“Hi sweetheart, is everything alright?”
“Hmm..”
“Wait a sec, did I just wake you?”
“Hmm..”
“Aww.. I’m sorry.. I’ll let you go back to sleep then. I just gotta ask you this first. Did Baylee have one of his hyper days again?”
“Hmm.. just like his dad. But no way that you’re hanging up on me. Give me a minute to make some tea, then tell me what happened between Alex and you. How was Nick?”
“Upset. We finally talked about things we should’ve talked about much earlier.”
“The fear you have of losing him?”
“Hmm.. How do you know?” Brian raised an eyebrow at his wife’s comment.
“I’m your wife, I’m supposed to know these things.” She smiled.
“I know you know about my fears. I mean, how do you know what we talked about?”
“I just know. How did he react?”
“He finally opened up. Then he asked me to carry out his will if he doesn’t make it.. He then asked me to tell him how it is to be a father. He made sure I didn’t tell him about the delivery though..” Brian chuckled.
“And why was that?”
“He didn’t wanna know how you were about to bite my head off. He told me that in case he does get to be a father, he doesn’t wanna think back to my story, cause he probably needs to stay focused to prevent his wife from biting off his..” Brian laughed.
“I did NOT bite your head off.” Leighanne laughed.
“No, because I managed to get away before you could.” He gently teased her.
“Watch it you..” She chuckled as she sat down on the couch. “Alright, I’m set. What happened after you bumped into Alex?”
“Alright.. So I walked out of the room he and Kevin share when I bumped into him as he stormed out of Nick’s room...”



”Watch it Brian!!!”
”So you do remember my name..”
”Don’t get used to me using it asshole.”
Brian slowly shook his head and decided to ignore the comment. “Can we talk?”
“I don’t think I have much talking to do..” A.J. crossed his arms in front of his chest, as he kept staring at Brian.
“Let me do the talking then.”
“So talk.” A.J. growled.
“Can we at least go to my room instead of talking out here?”
”I don’t see why that’s necessary.” A.J. sarcastically said, knowing he was acting childisch.
Brian let out a sigh as he tried to control his emotions. “Please.. Just cooperate a little bit..”
”Why on earth should I? I haven’t seen you doing any of that for a long, LONG time.”
Brian then made a mistake. “If not for me, please do it for Nick.”
”You have a LOT of nerve saying that Brian!” A.J. exploded.
”Alex.. please.. Let me apologize or at least explain my behavior. Don’t make this harder than it already is..”
A.J. just couldn’t drop things so easily. “You think this is hard on YOU?!”
“DAMN Alex..It’s hard on ALL OF US!! Stop twisting my words. Come talk with me or just listen for all I care. Nick needs our support tomorrow. ALL of our support, not us bickering over something stupid. Can we at least try to fix this tonight for HIS sake?” Brian pleaded as tears filled his eyes.

He then turned around and started walking towards his room, in hopes that A.J. would follow. If not, at least he tried. Not only for Nick’s sake, but for his own as well. If they’d get bad news tomorrow, they needed to stick together. Again, for Nick’s sake, but for their own as well. Brian knew he’d lose it if they got the news that nothing could be done for his Frack. He’d need the others to get him through, and he knew it was the same for them. If only he’d get the chance to explain things and apologize to them before the appointment at the Erasmus Medical Center.

At first, the other man stood there, not planning on following Brian. But when he let his words sink in, A.J. knew the other man was right, so he slowly nodded his head after which he silently followed him to his room. As Brian turned around to see if he had followed, he sadly smiled at him, knowing that at least he now had the chance to fix things with another one of his friends. He could only hope he wouldn’t screw up this time.

As soon as they both sat down, A.J. turned to look at Brian. “So.. talk.”
Brian had his hands clasped tightly together as he looked at A.J. “I know I don’t have the right to ask you for any favors right now, but could you at least let me finish my explanation before you either run out that door or punch me in the face?” It wasn’t meant as a joke, Brian was extremely serious and nervous as he waited for the answer. “Alright.” A.J. replied, his thoughts still on what Brian said about Nick.. Brian closed his eyes for just a second, thinking of how to start translating his thoughts into sentences that actually could make sense to the other man.

“I’m sorry for what happened at your place. Those things I said, I was completely out of line. I- I completely lost it and could only think of how badly I wanted to prove my point, about being his best friend... but I guess I’m not..” Brian choked out.
It remained silent for a few minutes as the eldest of the two tried to control his emotions, while the other was waiting for him to continue, but eventually he was the one who spoke up. “You are, Brian. That’s why you care so much. Yes, I was about to kill you that evening and I was still angry as hell when I first saw you at the plane. Not seeing you for a few days has changed my perspective on things though. When I really, really looked at you on the plane, I saw how all of this has been affecting you, like it has been affecting the rest of us. We’ve never looked this shitty. God, we all lost weight, we hardly sleep anymore and have all aged ten years or so.”
“That bad, huh?” Brian sadly smiled.
“Yeah, but ofcourse I still look the best out of all of us.” A.J. smiled, but sadness replaced that smile when his mind wandered off to the days when Nick was the one who looked the best, according to the fans that is. Right now, he was no more than a shadow of how he looked back then.

“I- I just.. I don’t think I can handle another disappointment, Alex. I know y’all said it isn’t about me. But it is. It’s about all of us. To me, it feels like Nick isn’t the only one fighting this disease. We’re fighting just as hard. When I met him, he was just a kid. And now, over ten years later, he still is in some ways, but in other ways he’s grown so much. I watched and helped him grow. And now, I can’t help him fight this. There’s not a freaking thing I can do. And although I still think he CAN make it, the feeling he can’t is slowly starting to take over. I watched the kid grow up, I can’t watch him slip away from us. Seeing how he’s changed through all of this kills me. The sparkle in his eyes, it’s gone. The lighthearted kid, gone. The way he could always cheer us up, gone. The Nick we knew is already gone. And that hurts SO much. I’m gonna lose it if the day comes when we really, really lose him. I love that kid, he shouldn’t have to worry about chemo, pain, his funeral. For God’s sake.. he’s just a kid.. He’s my little brother.” Brian rubbed his face as he again felt how tears filled his eyes. Blinking them back, he turned to look at A.J. who was avoiding his stare.

But when he finally glanced at Brian, the eldest could see that he too was fighting to hold back the tears. Brian couldn’t recall the last time he had seen A.J. that close to crying. And that’s when he realized that he had never ever heard him talk about how he was feeling during all of that was going on. He knew better than to ask though, so he didn’t say anything for a few minutes, hoping that his friend might speak up. But he didn’t. So Brian continued to speak his mind, in need to get more things out in the open.

“Maybe it isn’t my place to ask, but.. Has Nick been talking to you about his feelings lately?”
”He has..” A.J. replied after he had tried to clear his throat a couple of times. “He has been talking about the four of us a lot. About how he feels guilty for what he’s putting us through. He’s been talking about you a LOT, Brian. About how you it’s been affecting you and how he’s been thinking of going somewhere so you wouldn’t have to see things get worse. He’s said he misses you quite a few times. Not that he feels you aren’t around as much as enough, he understands you have a family too. Sometimes he even pretended to be asleep, so you would go home to Leighanne. He just misses the way you two were before all of this bullshit. He just feels like.. He doesn’t wanna tell you, because he know you’ll feel guilty, but he.. He misses his best friend. You.. you are treating him so differently. He understands that you’ve changed, he know he’s changed himself too. He would just love to have that old thing between you and him, Frick and Frack against the world. And I’m not saying this to make you feel guilty, it’s just the truth. We’ve all changed..”

“We have..” Brian whispered. As he let the words sink in, A.J. continued. “Yes, we have. Damn, I’ve even been watching the kid sleep at night.”
“You what?” Brian asked in surprise. “You watched him sleep?”
“Yeah.. I know, cheesy huh.., but I had to make sure the kid was alright. For some strange reason, it was comforting to watch him sleep. Whenever he had a nightmare, I was there to help, sorta. I just found out he knows..”
“How? Not even a bomb can wake that kid up.” Brian smiled.
“Dunno. Howie said that Nick told him he knows. It’s so not me, you know..”
“Like you said, we’ve all changed..”
“Yeah, we have. You were right, Rok.. When you said that I never gave a damn about the kid when we were younger.”
“But how..” Brian asked as he felt his cheeks flush with red.
“I heard you. When you were in the studio with D., I ran over, ready to punch you in the stomach when Kev stopped me. He told me to go talk to Nick and that he would handle you. I wasn’t about to listen though and when he opened the door, I heard you say that. It hit home. Hard. You were right though. I thought he was annoying, always whining, tired or wanting some attention. You saw past that and you saw what was behind all of it.”

Brian nodded. He was still young himself when they met, but he instantly knew the kid wasn’t happy at home and had a lot of shit going on in his life. He knew Nick was lonely, and still a kid who was in desperate need of a friend. Brian became that friend, at first because he thought that it was sort of his responsability, being older and all. But later on, they became best friends because of the person Nick was, out of true friendship, not out of a feeling of obligation.
“I didn’t. So yeah, I didn’t give a damn about him back then. But things changed, Brian. Not only in these last few months, but these last few years. You know that. He’s my brother too, and every morning I’m scared that I’m gonna find that he’s gone, that the cancer has won. I found his will, Brian. His Goddamn WILL! He’s too fucking young to die.. He’s 25!!! He shouldn’t have to worry about that kinda shit. DAMN! He doesn’t know I found it.. but I did. And I couldn’t just put it down. He wants us to carry him to his grave, Brian. His GRAVE!” A.J. cried, followed by a whisper. “He’s been thinking about this stuff and he hasn’t been talking to me about it..”
Brian slowly shook his head. He pushed the thought of carrying Nick’s coffin to his grave aside. That was just too much to handle at this point. “Not to me either. I think he’s scared to. We’ve all been talking about holding on, not losing faith.. We just never-”
“Gave him the chance to talk about his fears..” A.J. finshed his sentence. “Damn.. we’ve all been screwing up a lot lately..”

~~~

He checked his watch again.
Two hours had passed since he decided to try and get some sleep, but all he could think about was the appointment with Dr. Schagen.
“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do for you, Mr. Carter.”
He could already hear her say that, even though she hadn’t even seen Nick yet. All he could do was pray she could do something for his little brother, but frankly, his hope was fading fast. They had come away empty handed so many times, that it was hard to keep up his positive attitude. All of a sudden, he got out of the bed, knowing sleep was something he wouldn’t get anytime soon. He walked over to the window and opened the curtains. Outside, it was still raining. “Hopefully it has stopped by the time we go to the EMC.” He said to himself, knowing that Nick’s immune system was so weak that even a cold could take him away from this earth. He shook his head, trying to shake off that thought. Then he opened the window just a crack so some fresh air could enter his room and maybe take away his thoughts, but offcourse that was nothing but a wish that wouldn’t be fullfilled.

As he leaned on the window sill, a light warm breeze blew across his face, which brought a sad smile onto his features. “Hey dad..” he whispered. “In a few hours, we’ll know. We’ll know if she can help Nicky.” Kevin’s gaze was on the few stars that could be seen between the clouds. Tears filled his eyes as fear filled his heart. “Dad, if she can’t.. If we’re gonna lose Nicky.. Please take care of him.. Watch over him for me.”