***

"I knew I shouldn't have left him!" Nicole said as she burst through the door and rushed up to Joey, her newly fiancé Ben trailing behind with a worried expression.

She cradled his pale face and let out a shaky breath, tears coming to her eyes as she glanced at the ring on her finger.

"We need to plan. Right now." Nicole ordered. Ben nodded in agreement.

She sniffed loudly before kissing his forehead.

"I'm not gonna let him die without coming to my wedding first."

***

Joey laid numbly on the hospital bed, the entire room was dark when Joey woke up but he got that it was night and the nurses turned the lights off.

He understood what happened, he definitely didn't want/need anyone explaining it to him. He cried.

He didn't make any noise, though. Tears just left his eyes with every blinks he made, or spilt over, rolling down his cheeks and then onto the floor.

Why me? You never think it's gonna be you until it actually happens...but why me?

His mind wasn't going a mile a minutes. He wasn't sobbing over the thought of dying or leaving his sister. He was sobbing over the fact that he wasn't ever fall in love or be a father or grandfather.

He was just sad.

***

Joeys eyes opens slowly at the sound of a knock. He didn't want to talk to a nurse or his sister.

Too many emotions happened when he talked to his sister. He needed a break.

In a very weak and husky voice he replied to the knock.
"Come in..." The door opened with a creek and he heard footsteps then the door close.

"Hey..." He heard Daniel say. Joey felt even more emotions and even more tears fell from his eyes and the lump in his throat grew. The ends of his fingers tingled slightly

"Hey." Joey said quietly, still facing the wall and not Daniel; not that he'd be able to see him in the dark room anyway.

"Do you want to be alone?" Daniel asked.

Joey let out a shaky sigh, hoping that his silent cried wouldn't turn into violent sobs as they had been for the last week.

"no." He said. He heard Daniel sit down in one of the chairs. Neither boy said anything for a few minutes, the only noises loud enough for them to heard were nurses and some people walking past the door, random beeping and clicking for the giant machine Joey was hooked up to, and random soft breaths from Joey.

"You know..." Daniel stayed in a quiet voice to keep the peaceful setting.

"I always wanted to be a super hero when I grew up..." Joey listened, not sure were this conversation was going.

"I wanted to save people and heal them..." Joey closed his eyes and let tears fall down.

"But now I'm all grown up, watching somebody die...and I can't do anything about it."
Joey sat up and leaned against the pillows, this bed was actually pretty darn comfy.

"You can give me a hug, though." Daniel laughed but stood up and carefully made his way to the bed, it wasn't pitch black so he could see outlines of objects due to the light shining through the crack of the door.

"You know," Joey started as Daniel sat down on Joeys bed.

"I always wanted to be librarian. Don't know why." Daniel hummed in thought.

"That's different. Usually kids want the biggest careers they can find. Nobody ever really says "I wanna be a receptionist" or "I wanna sell shoe laces on the streets of New York."

Joey giggled and nodded. "Although it's good to have big dreams, yeah? So they can work hard because they know that it's a big job. Superheroes aren't real, well, the magical ones I mean. You could always join the military"

Daniel scoffed. "Yeah, I'm not that brave. I think I'll stick with the flying powers and tights." Joey laughed loudly at the thought of Daniel in a skin tight superhero suit.

"Yeah, I agree. You'd for sure look great in tights." Daniel rolled his eyes playfully although Joey couldn't see it.

Joey then leaned forward and hugged Daniel tightly.
A few moments later, still hugging, Joey whispered.

"I know you're not healing me physically...but in a way, I think you're healing me mentally. You're kinda like a superhero...we just need to get you some villains to beat...and in this case, that villain is cancer. I think he's the boss level, though."

***