Matt had learned when he was in high school about Adrenaline. How it was produced by the adrenal gland in the middle of the body, in order to prepare the body for action. In Biology, they’d never quite learned what sort of adrenaline was produced when you wanted to tear your hair out with nerves because your daughter had been hospitalised whilst you were in an interview for a law firm that threw you out almost before you walked in because you had a criminal record, but Matt would have sure as hell liked to find out.

Having raced over from the law firm on the other side of town to the hospital where Kennedy had been transferred to, Matt had received a frantic call from Jimmy, who was already freaking out about what could be wrong with her. He ran into the hospital, grabbing the nearest member of staff and barely managing to keep his voice below a roar of fear and anger as they directed him to the room where Jimmy had been told to wait.

It was almost like moving in slow motion, he realised, as he walked along with the nurses towards the separate room. People seemed to move like blurred pictures, and every time someone said something to him, it went in through one ear and out the other, heavy and muffled to his ears. All he cared about was getting to his daughter and finding out why they’d been so concerned about her. She was six years old, six year olds couldn’t get really serious diseases, could they?

They weren’t meant to be dying or getting sick, they were meant to be running around, meeting people and exploring the world around them- being kids. None of them should’ve been stuck in a hospital bed getting blood tests like Kennedy was right now.

The nurse pushed open the door and Matt walked in to find a hysterical Jimmy sat in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs, taking deep breaths and trying to keep himself calm but failing miserably. When he looked up and spotted his friend, he jumped out of his seat and wrapped his arms around Matt, wishing that he didn’t feel so panicked and shaky. He knew that her getting sick wasn’t his fault, yet he felt like causing all this worry was.

“Jimmy, calm down. Take a deep breath, OK, I don’t need to be any more unnerved than I already am” Matt assured him as he embraced his friend and took a seat next to him, waiting until the other man had taken a few deep breaths and his hands had stopped shaking.
“What did they say at the doctors?” he asked Jimmy, who stared over at the nearest window, for the hospital room that was currently empty, and started to fiddle with his hands.

“They took her temperature, took a blood test and just checked everything. She seemed OK, and then they told me they were taking her here. The doctors at the surgery didn’t know what was wrong with her, and that’s why they were worried and sent her here” he explained, which only made Matt freak out just that little bit more. What was wrong with his little girl- where was she? If only to answer his question, a side door opened and one of the nurses stepped out with Kennedy in her arms.

Looking slightly less peaky than she had this morning, she looked up when she saw Matt and reached out her arms to be pulled into his, where she curled up happily and closed her eyes, breathing deeply against his chest.
“You must be Mr Sanders, Kennedy’s father. I will say now that we were worried when we received the doctor’s notes, and that we’re still a little unsure. You have to know now, that she’s in good hands” the nurse began softly, and Matt’s chest tightened a little further, his heart pounding like a kick drum against his rib cage.

“What’s wrong with her? Is everything alright?” he asked softly, running his hand over the head of curls on Kennedy’s head as he stared at the nurse, who seemed to be losing confidence by the minute.

“Mr Sanders, a lot of parents find this extremely hard to cope with, and I understand that you will need time to make decisions. We are only here to help Kennedy and to help you, and though I’ve been told there is a bad relationship between the two of you, I think you’re going to need to bring Kennedy’s mother back into the picture” the nurse said again, and shaking his head, Matt dismissed the comment and took a step towards the nurse, clutching his daughter so tightly, she was in danger of suffocating from his constant smothering.

“Is she sick? Is it serious?” he cried, feeling on the verge of rather desperate and unnerving tears.

The nurse only bowed her head.

***

“Brian, have you got the music?” Zacky yelled over his shoulder, wincing when he heard a clatter from the spare room and Brian walked into the nursery, the left side of his checked t-shirt covered in what looked like talcum powder. In his hand however, he held his iPod, which had been loaded with music for the babies to fall asleep to, something that had been recommended to them from the adoption agency, because apparently that was what the babies liked to fall asleep to. It helped with their development, and though they’d told him to use Mozart, Brian had quite politely told them to go to hell, and used lullaby versions of his own songs to send his children to sleep.

“What’s with the talcum powder explosion?” Zacky asked as Brian knelt down next to the docking station and selected the tracks, the soothing sound of ‘A Little Piece Of Heaven’ filling the room, the two babies gurgling happily in their cots.
“I had a fight with the bathroom cabinet. It was looking at me funny” Brian pouted, leaving Zacky to laugh at him and button up the last button on Teddy’s blue baby-gro.

“Who’s a handsome little rockstar baby, hm?” he said with a smirk as he kissed Teddy’s head and placed him in the cot next to his twin sister.
Downstairs, the phone began to ring, a high loud pitched noise that had Brian almost jumping out of the room to get it, so not to ruin the atmosphere. This was the night that the two of them were hoping the twins slept all the way through the night, both of them praying that they’d actually sleep for more than four hours at a time.

Flicking off the main light and gently spinning the mobile above the bed, Zacky blew kisses to Winter and Teddy before disappearing into the bathroom and seeing the damage of Brian’s ‘fight’ with the cabinet. He hastily swept the talcum powder into the bottle and put it on the highest shelf, before checking on the babies once more and walking downstairs. Brian had called him compulsive for always wanting to check on them, Zacky had hit him with a cushion and told him to shut up.

Brian was sat in the kitchen, the phone on the counter beside him. His face was ghostly white and he was holding onto the counter and the chair for support as he stared into blank space, barely looking up when Zacky walked in.
“Baby? Is everything OK?” he asked, and when Brian finally looked up, Zacky saw that his eyes were filled with tears. Unsure of what was making his husband so upset, Zacky ran forward and pulled Brian into a tight embrace, feeling the other man’s shoulders begin to shake as he started to cry uncontrollably.

For a moment, Zacky just held him, not even caring that there was going to be white powder all over his clothes, or that his shirt was going to be all sticky. Brian looked up, trying to wipe away his tears with the back of his hand.
“That was Matt. He’s hysterical and Jimmy’s barely been able to calm him down” Brian whispered, something that only made Zacky even more worried. What was wrong with Matt- he hadn’t been ordered to go back to the prison had he? Or had Lexi butted her head in again and screwed everything up for the second time?

“What’s going on Brian? Please, tell me” Zacky murmured, brushing away an escaping tear from Brian’s cheek as the man looked down at his lap, taking a deep breath.
“It’s Kennedy. She…she went to the hospital today. She has ALL”
“What’s ALL? Is it serious?”

Brian nodded, his dark eyes filling with more fresh tears, making his eyes shine with sadness.

“Oh Zacky. It stands for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. Kenney’s got cancer”