Upon having the diagnosis nailed into his heart, Garte Ro'Meave left the hospital, leaving his distraught wife with their still sedated son.

He told Zianna he really needed a moment to himself to process. He claimed he was also going to go home to check in on their other two children and his brother, who was watching the boys. This was true, but he had a stop to make first.

Garte gently pressed the break and parked the car next to the building that pierced the sky with its height. He stepped out of the car door, only grabbing his keys by mere instinct. He began to walk inside, though to him it just felt like he was floating.

His ears rung as he walked up and down the halls of the business place. The weight chained to his ankle was so imaginary to everyone but Garte. Nobody in the building even cared to glance at him. With the amount of employees that were putting their efforts in, he knew they just assumed that he was, at most, a new colleague to them.

Garte reached the door to the room he had gone in so many times before. He had originally planned to tell Derek about Garroth in a typical business fashion, stone cold and collected. All of that planning was thrown out the window when he opened the door and walked in without knocking.

Derek, rightfully startled, jerked his head up from his computer. His deep, dark eyes eased as his mind registered who was standing before him. He gave a slight smile and took only a moment to give Garte his full, undivided attention. He shoved his laptop aside to the right, then pulled his chair forward to his desk.

"Hey, did you just get back from the hospital? How'd it go?" Derek asked as his eyes trailed Garte while he sat down.

Garte opened his mouth as though he was going to say something, and then closed it again. The quick witted businessman had only rehearsed how he was going to act, not what he was going to say.

It didn't take more than a moment, however, for Derek to see that none of the answers his friends had received were what they wanted to hear. He felt his throat close. Now it was not only one man at a loss for words.

"So it is cancer?" Derek questioned, not even masking his disbelief.

"Acute Myleoid Leukemia," Garte responded with his thousand yard stare.

Garte's words were left lingering. The only thing stone cold about him now was the bitter hopelessness that was clear to anyone that looked in his eyes.

"How bad?" Derek inquired.

"Stage four," Garte responded. It was clear that he had been going over and over this conversation in his mind.

"What're your treatment options?"

Garte pressed his lips in a line. His eyes shot down to the floor and stuck there. He shook his head gently, lifting his eyes back up to Derek.

Derek, with the appearance of a deer lost in headlights, could just see the world as they knew it crashing down around them. He wanted to lean into the back of his chair, his back was aching. But Garte's ice cold eyes and lost tone froze him.

The two sat in agonizing silence for several minutes. Garte had no words left, he was trying to make sense of why this had happened to him and his family. He was going through the past four years he had with his precious son to see maybe where he went wrong. So wrong, that the little baby that once fit in his hand would be better off ripped away from his parents.

Derek rose from his own chair and walked to the front of his desk. He pulled up a chair in front of Garte, facing him. Garte didn't bother to pick up the chair and move it. He was too tired. The most he did was turn his head.

Derek offered no words of comfort; no words would suffice. He just sat there, waiting to find the right thing to say, or for Garte to speak up himself. His hands were clasped as his chin rested on them. His eyes landed on the floor as well.

"I have to plan a funeral for my four year old," Garte said quietly, seemingly thinking out loud.

"Hey, no," Derek began, sitting up and squeezing Garte's shoulder to get his attention. "We're not there yet."

Garte looked at Derek, wanting to say more, but stood silent. He looked back down at the floor as another thought crossed his scattered mind. His head snapped towards Derek.

"The forever potions...! Michael, Zack, and Elizabeth are going to be pissed," He rushed, only to be cut off by Derek.

"G, stop. Don't you give that another thought."

"They're going to need sales! If I don't sell we lose income," Garte said, panicking about both the state of his own business and the financial status of his family.

"Garte, no. Take a breath. Let me worry about that right now," Derek responded, though he was hardly worried about Michael and his magic game. "Did you take your meds this morning?"

Garte, caught off guard by the sudden change in topic, paused. He tried to recall whether he had or hadn't. His brain flashed to that morning. Unable to take medication on an empty stomach, yet unable to eat from anxiousness, he went without. He shook his head in response to Derek.

"Okay, you go home and do that. Go be with your family, I'll worry about the rest. Sound good?" Derek suggested.

Garte nodded, "Tell the three of them, will you?"

Derek nodded as they stood up. Not wanting Garte to be confronted with thousands of questions by the employees, Derek walked with Garte to the front doors. He held the door open for his friend as the shrill fall wind hit their cheeks.

"You take care of yourself, alright?" Derek said, gently slapping his hand on Garte's back. "I'll check in on you all as soon as I can. Call if you need anything."

"Thank you," Garte responded with a gentle nod.

The two men exchanged goodbyes and parted ways for the time being. Garte fought against the wind and got to his car. He drove away, not even realizing the radio wasn't on from his thoughts screaming at him. Derek strode through the business place, greeting everyone with gentle smiles and nods.

He reached his office and sat back down in the chair behind his desk. Unable to shake the news of a child's death sentence, Derek picked up his phone and texted Michael. He gave the news as gently and as detailed as he felt he could, to then be interrupted with completely unrelated business.

Michael, standing next to Elizabeth and Zack, was too distracted to look at the notification at the time he received the text. The three were standing in awe, staring at a test mouse.

This was the first mouse the potion had been successful on. All their hard work, the long hours, the sleep lost, was finally getting them somewhere. The three had shocked smiles on their faces, Zack looking the most exhausted out of all of them.

Elizabeth picked up the mouse to study its now bright, shining green eyes. She looked at it closely while Zack stood by her. Michael stepped back from the doctors, pulling out his phone to see he had received a message. He unlocked his phone and read the message over and over.

"Well, if this isn't perfect timing," Michael said with a laugh.

"What is it?" Elizabeth asked.

Michael held up his phone, facing the two so they could read the message announcing Garroth's terminal diagnosis. The doctors were stone faced as they were trained to always be when reading anything to do with medicine. Michael, however, held a smirk on his face and spoke.

"Sounds like our plan is a go."