This was long overdue. Maybe a week or something . . . but this is overdue in all honesty. This is also my longest chapter ( I thing so), maybe that evens things out? No? Alright I'll get to it! Huge thanks to Macca40, PurlyandGirly, DoctorLennon007 (both here and on AO3), ThisBirdHasFlown and anakinbridger541. You guys take news surprisingly well . . .

This was probably the quietest drive that has ever come up in my life. And once Mimi found out that I actually got something higher than a C in school. So this was very, very important. Or nerve-wracking.

Well, you can see I didn't get higher than a C in English . . .

I kept looking over at Ringo, whose face was practically shining with sweat. A faint cough came from his lips and he lolled his head to the side. He then shivered, curling in on himself like a roly-poly.

Bad connection to a very sick friend but it works, right?

Paul leaned over my shoulder-since he was sitting right behind me-and looked over at Ringo. Not too soon after, George's head was next to his.

"He doesn't look too hot," George murmured. Paul nodded his head with worry written all over his face.

"Yeah, he looks like he was just in Alaska. But he's sweating," Paul whispered. I waved them back so that they sat in their seats again. They were still in their hushes little conversation that was bothering me but I let it go. Who knows what they'd do if they weren't distracted by talking right now.

Right now the road is my distraction. Paul and George's apartment couldn't feel more far away from the hospital, being about a good 9 or more miles away. And because I didn't want any other people needing to get medical attention, I wore the glasses that I hate so much.

A stop at the red light ended all noise in the car. Ringo's cough came back in the middle of it, being much more raspy than the last time. I could see Paul's face in the mirror as he gave Ringo a worried look and then looked out the window. The overall mood was tense and I hated it. Good thing the hospital wasn't too far away from where we were.

The light turned green and I drove quickly, trying to close the gap between us and the hospital. It felt like we couldn't get there fast enough, with Ringo's coughs getting more dry and consistent.

"We're here," George commented into the short silence between Ringo's coughs.

It didn't need to be said, if this was a normal hospital. And it wasn't. It looked like a really big castle but with no towers or drawbridge. Just a really big building that looked like a really old castle.

I stopped the car in one of the parking spaces closest to the entrance, instantly carrying Ringo bridal style because he clearly couldn't walk, even with help.

Paul stopped when we were right in front of the door, fear and flushed skin very present. If he was sick too, I think I'd lose it. First, I only have two hands and second, I don't want anyone else to be as sick as Ringo is now.

"Paul, are you okay? We still need to go inside to help Ringo," I asked and stopped for a moment. George stopped too but he seemed like he'd much rather run in and start screaming about his friend.

"No . . . nothing's wrong. I was just looking for Martha," Paul said in a shaky voice. Martha came up behind him right after he said that, barking ever so lightly.

I didn't believe that excuse for a second but I went along with it anyways so we could go.

"Do you think they'll let Martha in? They'll see her as a walking germ and saliva ball all wrapped up in fur," I murmured as I matched his pace, George already at the desk.

"I think they'll be more worried about the person that's limp and barely breathing in your arms compared to Martha," Paul replied quietly.

He was right. The second we got George to stop yelling at the poor lady at the desk-which took a lot of effort and she might have deserved it-they took Ringo from my arms and we were forced to sit in the waiting room.

I hated this room. This was the room that life and death could be pronounced not to far apart from each other. Something that could cause cheer could be happening right here, waiting to spark. Another thing that could cause wailing was also waiting, lurking in the shadows. I didn't want the latter to be told to me. Ever.

We probably were the oddest sight in the waiting room, with mud covering George and I everywhere and a dog trying to lick Paul. Every so often, a woman kept turning around to look at us, black hair swishing every so often. I gave her a cold glare and she stopped turning immediately. Paul frowned lightly at it but didn't say a word.

A doctor came in and for a moment, I thought it was for us. Instead she went to the woman that I glared at before. I didn't need George's ears to hear what was said.

"Ma'am, I'm so sorry but the treatment didn't work. Your son has only about an hour left to live," the white-clad lady said. Her own voice shook even though this wasn't her kid.

The woman sat there in shock, shaking her head with tears slowly forming in her eyes. After a few more moments of having this information sink in, she nodded and her face was wet and red. But not a single tear was left in her eyes.

"Would you like to see Mason now?" the doctor asked in a small voice.

"Later, I just need to take in this information first. I'll be in 108 soon," the woman said in a soft voice. The doctor left, leaving her to take in the information.

I got up, wanting to say sorry because the guilty was eating me alive.

"Hey, I . . . didn't mean anything with that glare. It's just that my friend's really sick and I'm not sure-" I started to ramble out my apology but she hushed me quickly.

"It's okay. I understand what you're going through. Just don't doubt the situation, okay?"

I nodded, taking her advice to heart and quietly whispered that I hope she'd feel better soon. She smiled a bit, thanking me for everything and stood up to go to her son's room.

I didn't get how she could be so nice, still thinking about it even as I sat down in the uncomfortable chair again. George looked over at me for a second with a questioning look, only to turn away and start jiggling his thigh. Paul on the other hand was struck in a trance.

"Paul, are you okay? You've been pretty quiet," I whispered to him. He didn't say a word, instead looking at the doctor that was coming in.

The man gave us a funny look-most likely about the mud all over me and George-but flipped through the file in his hand anyways.

"Family and/or friends of Richard Starkey?" the old doctor asked. George and Paul sat there for a moment, utterly confused on who Richard was but I stood up immediately.

"What happened?" I questioned, stepping toward the man. He didn't even bother to look up at me, still just flipping through the pages.

"There's nothing to worry about, though your friend does have a high fever and has been walking around with pharyngitis and tonsillitis. Follow me."

Paul was the first to go, stony faced and all with Martha slowly following behind. There was an air of coldness and something else I couldn't describe around him. It was worse than the whole Dot problem, that's all I knew.

"Do you think there's something wrong with Paul?" George asked when he came to my side.

"Thank you! I was starting to think I was just thinking stuff up. Do you know what's up?" I asked in return.

He shook his head, looking at the pristine walls instead of me.

"I don't know. I guess Dot came back to his head or something."

"Then Plan Z shall be in order," I mused quietly.

George looked at me for a moment then burst out in laughter, hunched over and gasping for breath.

"We are not letting Paul play zombie slaying video games. I already feel sorry for those poor zombies. I think making him do Plan W would be better."

I took my turn at laughing, the thought of Paul writing in a diary coming to my head.

"He'd probably destroy the diary with a single glance. I doubt he'd actually write a word in it."

The doctor opened the door of room 117, walking in with the file practically glued to his face. We followed him in, preparing ourselves for the worst and instead getting the total opposite.

Ringo was full out pouting. The jutted out lip, crossed arms, childish expression and everything. The nurse that was next to him kept trying to coax him into eating some hospital food but he continued to inch away until he was nearly off the bed.

"I see you're doing just fine here, Ritchie," I joked as I moved to Ringo's side. He glared at me and turned to the nurse with the same look.

"I told you Freda, I'm not hungry," Ringo murmured hoarsely, wincing as he held his head and throat.

"You need to eat if you want to feel better," Freda, the nurse, said softly.

Ringo didn't budge. She sighed, giving up and taking the tray out of the room with her.

"Has your friend been having trouble eating lately? Or sudden weight loss of any kind?" the doctor asked us as we continued to smile at Ringo. He looked dazed and weak but he was much better than the limp form we came in with.

"Well . . . he does look a bit slimmer than usual but we haven't put him on a scale. Ringo hasn't been eating that much too. He keeps blaming it on the headache," I told the doctor.

"Who is Ringo?" the doctor asked. I waved him off and pulled out my phone.

"I'm going out for a minute to call a friend, okay?" I directed to George. Paul gravitated over to Ringo's side, giving the doctor an unhappy glance.

George nodded and I walked out of the room, phone already in hand. Aunt Mimi called me once, but I'm sure it didn't mean anything so I continued to scroll through my contacts list.

There he is.

"Hey, Moony. Have you noticed anything up with Ringo?" I asked into the phone. I thought I heard a muffled boom, but my ears could be playing games.

"Yeah! In class he'd go into these huge coughing fit and he wouldn't go off to eat anything because he says he's sick or something. What's the problem?" Keith said in a breath.

"Ringo's got a high fever and all. Do you think you can come over?"

The thud and immediate drop of the call told me he was on his way. Good. Ringo needed to be upbeat so he could get better sooner.

I put the phone back in my pocket, looking around at where I was. Apparently walking a long distance while talking is what I do best because I had no idea where I was.

After a look at all the room numbers around me, I noticed that room 108 was to my immediate right. Hopefully she wouldn't mind . . .

Slowly opening the door, I looked inside, hoping for a scene pretty close to what happened with Ringo.

"Mommy! Where are my crayons?" a small voice asked.

"They're in my bag, at least I think so," a familiar voice replied. Clearing my throat a little, they jumped and looked over in my direction.

"Hi! I'm Mason, who are you?" the kid with dark hair asked with a smile. Apparently he was missing one of his front teeth.

"I'm John, nice to meet you, bud. How are you feeling?"

"Awesome and tired! But I need my green crayon . . . can you help me?" I nodded, helping off his bed as carefully as I could with the IV in his arm.

As he was moving around-with his IV bag thing of course-I went over to his mom, who had a big smile on her face.

"They were wrong," she said. "The doctors said he had an hour left to live and it's been over an hour." She wouldn't stop smiling at Mason, her face practically glowing from her happiness.

"What did he have to make them say that?"

"Well," she murmured, almost to herself. "Mason has leukemia and it's been bad for a while. This episode was a lot worse than the last because he was so sick and weak. But he's getting better now."

Again, she started smiling from her extremely good fortune. Mason walked over, tapping my knee rapidly with a childish frown.

"You didn't help me find my green crayon! I had to find it all by myself. Not cool," Mason complained, pointing the crayon tip at me with as much sass as Paul.

"Well, you found the crayon on your own. That, my friend, is a true life lesson," I pointed out. He looked at me, confusion written all over his face, when my phone rang.

"I'll be back," I told Mason in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation. As I ruffled his hair, I answered the phone and excused myself from the room.

"Hey Moony!"

"Who on Earth is Moony?" a familiar voice asked. Dang it . . .

"Sorry Mimi, I thought you were someone else. What did you want to say?" I probed as I walked in what I thought right way back to Ringo's room.

"Where are you, John?" Mimi asked, probably avoiding my question.

"In the hospital. Don't worry, we're all fine."

She sighed, leaving us with a somewhat peaceful silence. A doctor ran past me, yelling something about some lady being in a dangerous condition. I couldn't catch the name though.

"John, this is about your mother. I think-"

"Oh, how is she! You think I can come over some time to see how she's doing?"

A cough-that sounded a bit like a small sob-came through to my side.

"That's just it. Your mom, my Julia, she's gone."

Immediate blankness came to me. Like they always say you get when you have bad news given to you, only this time, I felt like I had it worse.

"No, you can't be right. How do you know anyways?" I asked scathingly.

"I was in your apartment, trying to clean everything. That's when your friend Keith got a call to go somewhere, I don't know where. But I came down a while after he did only to hear a . . . crash," Mimi said but abruptly ended at the scarier part.

"You can't be right! You just can't be! My mom couldn't have died in a car crash!" I screamed into the phone.

"John, calm down. Please-"

"I will not calm down! You can't make me!" I threw my phone at the wall, heaving angry breaths. I was glaring daggers at the accursed electronic when a hand came to pick it up, looking it over.

Said hand tapped the phone and the body connected to the hand walked over.

"Are you okay?" Paul asked in a small voice. He seemed much more . . . human now than before. It infuriated me. I wanted to punch a wall because of that.

"No, I'm not okay. If you want to know, Paul McCharmly, my mom just died in a car crash. I don't know how anyone is supposed to feel okay after that happens," I growled with sarcasm and anger dripping from my mouth.

"I'm so sorry, John. I understand-"

"You don't! You can't compare a dying pet to a mother! Just leave me alone, alright?"

Paul's stony face returned but his face was red, with a rigid posture to fit it.

"So I don't know?" Paul asked in a quiet voice. "So you're saying having your mom die in a hospital and not knowing why doesn't compare to this? Why do you think I live as far as possible from a hospital? I don't want anyone that I love to die in one of these places. That's why I hated and still hate being here."

I sucked in a breath, looking at Paul again. He was shaking, my phone threatening to slip out of his grasp.

"I guess it's a good thing I have an indestructible Nokia," I murmured, trying to defuse the tension.

Paul let out a small laugh as tears streamed down his face. I went over to hug him and he embraced me as tight as he could.

We ended up on the floor, just sitting there and comforting each other. A tear never left my eye but it felt like Paul was crying for the both of us. It's not because I'm heartless or anything.

It's only because I don't really want her to leave me.

Is it me or was Wattpad keen to change while I was swamped with work? Oh well! Anyways, if you didn't get the one character that I brought in, well, you live in a better world than I do. Just saying . . . Anyways, the next chapter will be much more happy. I'll make sure of it. 8)