A Spine-Tingling Story - TDG Fanfic

Expiation

The boy flicked his eyebrows up briefly, seemingly surprised by the new arrival. His dark eyes bored into Ryan as if trying to figure him out, like Ryan himself had done countless times before. More likely, he was trying to figure out what type of cancer he had. The cane probably gave him a clue.

The door opened and Dr Gareth's face appeared. "Finley Albaston?"

The healthy-looking woman next to the boy stood up instantly, but the boy himself - Finley - cast his gaze downward, as if trying to avoid being noticed. Naturally, it didn't work, as the woman huffed sternly at him. With a sigh of resignation, Finley stood up and trudged into the office, closing the door behind him.

"New friend?" Mike asked, having noticed their silent interactions.

Ryan just rolled his eyes in response, deciding to follow Finley's example and try and figured out everyone's cancers. Well, for starters, those with prosthetic limbs probably had osteosarcoma, like Joseph had mentioned. Oxygen tanks probably translated to lung cancer. Mobility devices, those were harder to deduct from. Some probably did have cancers of the central nervous system like him, but those clearly in the later stages were probably just too weak to walk.

In fact, when compared to every other patient - Finley included - Ryan felt as healthy as a spry young athlete. He wasn't looking forward to him looking like he was at death's door.

That, he reminded himself, was why he wanted this surgery - to stop the vicious cycle of treatments, remission and relapse before it started. He wasn't stupid, he knew that paralysis came with its own set of problems, but he would rather live at least sixty more years with those problems than one more year of rapidly deteriorating health that ended in a flatlining heart monitor.

"Did I ever tell you about my uncle Declan?" Mike asked again, suddenly.

Ryan frowned at him, before shaking his head.

"Well, my uncle Declan, my cousin Brian, my grandfather and his brother," Mike listed, "they all died of the same thing."

"What was it?" Ryan asked, intrigued and slightly suspicious.

"Kidney cancer," Mike admitted, rather sheepishly.

"Oh," Ryan said shortly. "Sorry."

"A few years ago, I started getting these pains in my side and abdomen, and I thought that I had gotten it too, but I was too scared to do anything about it," Mike went on. "It was a bit cowardly, really. I just wanted to make the most out of what little time I thought I had left, rather than go through everything my relatives had. In the end, it was Gina who knocked some sense into me - you won't have met her, she worked here before May-Li - and I went to the hospital to get it checked."

"And was it kidney cancer?" Ryan asked.

"No," Mike said. "It was only a kidney stone. It's not dangerous, but very painful, and I recovered not long after. Look Ryan, I'm telling you this because when I thought I had the same thing as what my relatives had, I more or less just resigned myself to my fate, because I was too scared to do anything about it, so I just want to say that it's good that you want to do something to stop yourself going through what your father did, even if I'm not totally in love with the way you want to go about it."

Ryan gave the man a small smile in response, the doubt still bubbling in his stomach settled a little with Mike's blessing.

After fifteen minutes, the door opened and Finley walked out, along with the woman who Ryan assumed was his mother. "Ryan Reeves?" Dr Gareth's voice called from the office.

As Ryan and Mike made their way towards the door, Finley and his mother passed rather close to them. At that moment, Finley took the opportunity to turn his head and whisper: