Navy Blue Eyes.

Finding Her. | .02

After about another two hours, Kellin felt a tug on his sleeve.

"Huh, whuh?" Kellin raised his head from the hard chair he'd somehow managed to fall asleep on and spoke, his voice thick with sleep. "What's wrong? Is she okay?"

A giggle met his ears. His brain, foggy and slow, tried to process this. He ran his hands over his face, then he looked over and saw Katelynne sitting next to him, laughing at his obviously confused expression. "I'm fine, Kell, just a little sleepy myself. Can we head home?"

Kellin nodded, plastering on his now classic plastic smile, "Yeah, lets go, babe."

Kellin followed Katelynne after a quick glance around the room... no sign of the girl. Sigh. He put his arm protectively around Kate's waist as they got into the elevator, headed home, and dropped a kiss to her forehead gently whilst the doors closed behind them.

||| THREE WEEKS LATER |||

"Babes, I really think this could be good for you. C'mon, please?" Katelynne begged and clasped her hands together, widening her eyes just so, giving Kellin the full effect of the puppy-dog-pout she'd mastered. "Just go once! Then you can say you've done it and not ever go again if you really hate it! I'll be in chemo the whole time, there's no point in you sitting around doing nothing in those God-awful waiting room chairs anyway. Puh-lease?"

Kellin chuckled a bit and shook his head in resignation, he knew there wasn't any good in denying it much longer... Katelynne always won. "Yeah, yeah... FINE! I'll go!"

Kate wrapped her skinny arms around his neck, leaning in close and looking to him through her thick lashes, "Thanks, Kell, I love you."

"Only for you, Kate. Only for you."

∞

"Hi, I'm Kellin, and I'm here for my wife," the others in the room nodded his way, making him feel even more like shrinking into the fold-up chair so as to disappear completely. "She, um, she really wanted me to come. Seems to think it'll help."

"We're here for you, Kellin. We are all gathered here because we know what it is to have a loved one diagnosed with cancer," Kellin cringed, he still wasn't comfortable with the harsh word. "We are here because we understand. Welcome, Kellin."

A chorus of, 'Welcome, Kellin' could be heard throughout. He nodded in thanks before dropping his eyes to study his beat up vans. He really wished he could be anywhere else but in that steel chair in that circle in that claustrophobic room. He hated listening to the people who'd lost their family and friends to a battle with cancer. He'd heard many promises from Katelynne's doctors that she would be fine, that hardly anyone dies from breast cancer anymore, so listening to the stories of fights lost and hearts broken only tore down the fragile confidence he'd built up. It was about halfway through the hour when Kellin finally began to care about what was being said around him.

There was a screech of the metal chair legs against the tiled floor, then the squeak of Chuck Taylors against the ground, and next the clink of a hoodie's zipper against the steel seat, all followed by the sound of a voice that seemed eerily familiar to Kellin, "Sorry. Infusion was pretty packed, took a while to drop her off."

Kellin's head snapped up. He saw her, sitting directly across from him in the 'special circle'. The girl, the one with the eyes that he couldn't seem to get out of his head in the past three weeks since he'd first seen her.

"That's just fine, Rowan." So that was her name... Kellin didn't pay much attention to the group leader as he continued, his focus was solely on the tiny girl across from him, "You're in time to share your one Goal and one Grateful."