Family

9

Be prepared for lots of different points of view. You have been warned.

Charlie POV

"Can I speak to the parents alone, please?" The doctor asks.

"We are a family." Jay argues. "We all deserve to know how Silas is doing. You are wasting time trying to hide things from us. Our parents will us about Silas's condition." The chorus of 'yea's and 'exactly's show all of my children's agreement.

The doctor looks to Jackson who nods at him to continue.

"You have a very sick little boy." He tells us things we already know.

"What happened to him today?" I ask wanting him to get to the point.

"It seems stress caused his heart rate to spike. I'm guessing something happened to cause the boy to panic... what ever happened his heart was working too hard and it caused him to loose consciousness. We have him stabilized and in a room. He should wake up soon. I contacted a friend at children's hospital and suggest transferring him there soon... looking at his scans I can tell he should have been treated as a baby. At 8 years old his chance of survival is minimal... I'm sorry." He tells us.

"Can we see him?" Jackson asks and the doctor nods.

"I'll show you to his room." (We'll pretend this is pre-COVID and you can have multiple visitors in the hospital.)

I see Theo start to talk to Lee but Jackson stops him.

"Be careful what you tell her, Theodore." He tells our son.

"What?" The boy asks and Jack sighs.

"Silas was panicking because he was worried about her before he passed out... I don't want Lee to think this is her fault. Tell her that he is sick and it got worse. Don't tell her stress caused this. It isn't her fault and I don't want her to think it is." Jack tells Theo who nods before speaking to the little girl in his arms again.

Lee POV

"What's going on?" I ask my new brother. "Please Theo!? Tell me what happened!"

"It's okay the doctor said that..." Dad started talking to Theo stopping him from telling me about bub. I pull on his arm and he picks me up still talking to dad. After a minute he nods before looking back to me. "Silas got a bit sicker but he's going to be okay. We can see him now."

I feel like he was going to say more but is stopping himself. I glare at my brother waiting for him to continue Theo gives me a smile and kisses my head.

"Let's go see Silas, yea?" He asks and I nod. I guess that's good enough as long as I can see my bub.

When we get into the room I frown at how little bub looks in the hospital bed. His tanned skin looks pale and I can feel tears in my eyes. He's never looked this bad. He has to be okay. He has to!

"Shhhh, Lee. It will be okay. He will wake up soon." Theo says rocking me in his arms but I fight him until he puts me down.

I run over to the bed and try my hardest to climb on but it's too high.

"I tgo uoy ppu." I hear my new dad say picking me up and setting me on the foot of the bed. "Uoy nca ist pu eehr hwti Silas tbu uoy ncta htuoc mih." I go to hug bub and he pulls me back. "Theo."

"You can't touch him, Lee." Theo tells me. "The doctors have some machines hooked up to him so they can make sure he is okay and if you hug him the machines might not work right." I pout looking over to bub then back to Theo. He sighs then talks to dad before looking back to me. "Stay by his feet and you'll be okay. You still can't move him much but you can touch his legs. Just be careful, pup."