A/N: Just a heads up, guys. If anyone reading is especially frightened of COVID-19, you might want to approach this chapter with caution, because it contains descriptions of someone suffering from a respiratory illness. Right now might not be the optimal time to publish it, but this is just how the story goes. (So stay safe, and my love to all of you.) 

The first thing Kit used to do when he came home from school was to hold his breath and listen.

He turned the key as carefully as possible and paused inside the door, scanning the floor for shoes, dirt, plastic wrappers, anything. Staying completely still, he strained his ears for sounds.

Then he sniffed, turning his head, checking for any change in the air. An open window maybe, or smoke, food, sweat, sick... 

Today, there was a stuffy dust smell, sour sickbed smell masked by antiseptic, everything quiet except for faint, shallow breathing. No sign that anything had changed since he left for school - late again - that morning. 

Nothing was out of the ordinary.

There had been a time when noticing those small signs had been extremely important. They could tell him, at a glance, things like:

How many people were in the house? Were they drunk, were they high, were they hungry? Which room were they in? 

Back then, he'd only had a few seconds to slip away unnoticed if his mother had company or if she was having a bad day. Bad days had been more common than good days by the time Kit started middle school. 

He walked in with his shoes on, shrugging off his hoodie but keeping his shoulder bag on in case he needed something from it.

They rented a one room apartment with a shower room and separate kitchen where Kit usually slept. He headed straight into the living room slash bedroom and took note of the old TV on mute, the open blinds, rumpled blankets and throws.

His mother watched him from her sickbed, it's metal frame propped up against the wall and still managing to take up most of the small room. 

She looked the same as she had that morning. Something inside Kit tensed and relaxed simultaneously at the sight.

Still alive.

"Still alive, I see?" he greeted her casually.

She raised one slim, golden eyebrow. "Barely," she acknowledged. 

He smiled and set to his tasks, shifting into a sort of brisk professionalism. Taking her pulse, temperature, blood pressure. Listening to her lungs and feeling her feet to see if they were cold. 

"How's the pain?"

"Getting worse. Seven."

"Hm." 

Kit gave her another round of pain meds (she could still swallow, even if it made her grimace) and promised her a few skin patches after her shower.

Then he coaxed her to drink some more water, hoping he wouldn't have to give her an IV drip. There was good reason trained nurses were supposed to set them. But if she got dehydrated or couldn't swallow any more...

After doing a few quick calculations on his phone, he wrote down the amounts in a notebook he kept by her bed. He had done it so many times before, the motions were almost automatic. 

Still, it never hurts to double-check everything. 

He had to take into consideration her current weight, dosages, time passed and the different times the various active substances she was on took to metabolise, her tolerance, temperature, and so many other factors...

She was on opioids for the pain and withdrawal, steroid drugs to reduce swelling, antibiotics to combat infections due to her cancer and shitty immune system, bronchodialators to help her breathe, and some calming medicine when she needed it to sleep. 

Kitty looked bad - worn, thin, and fragile, her skin grey and translucent - and his heart ached. She sat still and let him care for her.

It was so different from the memories he had of her from elementary school, happy and smiling. Cooking, dancing, caring, singing to him. Crying alone at night when she thought he was asleep. 

And the way she had been when he was in middle school - scary and unpredictable but intense, vivacious, alive.  

She had been so changeable back then - one day loving and laughing, touching his hair, singing occasionally still - and the next day she cold and scathing, restless, sarcastic, immature.

Berating him for every little thing, nagging him until he did what she wanted, until Kit either got her the drugs or stormed out of the apartment, shaking with rage and with nowhere to go that wasn't even worse.

"You know what your problem is, baby?" Kitty asked him now from her bed, observing his efforts.

"What?"

"You care too much. Always caring. Trying to help others - they'll chew you up and spit you out, you know. Trick is, mind yourself and get out before they can screw you over. Remember that."

She was the only one who ever accused him of caring. 

"Thanks, but if I want life advice from a dying junkie stripper, I'll ask for it. Here - sit up so I can get you into the chair."

Hoisting her weight up into the wheelchair (a plastic and stainless steel shower chair that he'd found cheap online) was difficult, even thought she had gotten so light.

Since they didn't have a lift he had to place her arm around his shoulders, bend his knees and hoist her up. 

"I should probably be in a hospice or something..." she mumbled.

"Last I checked, you've no insurance, and we're broke. Besides - they would never let me stay with you."

She nodded, knowing that he didn't mean stay by your side. Kit meant that they would put him back in a group home and then he might never see her again. 

Kitty was short and emaciated - her thighs looked more like forearms now, it was creepy - but still a grown woman, so he had to be very careful when he lifted her. 

If he stumbled and dropped her...

Kit had regularly called clinics, nurses, and call centres around the country to ask specific questions about oncology, treatment, palliative care, medications, and countless other things.

Sometimes they got suspicious right away, but often he could ask several before he had to hang up and try the next number.

He'd read every library book on nursing he could find and understand. But most of it just didn't apply - it was too theoretical, concerned other conditions, or assumed there would be doctors and medical equipment around.

Old field manuals for army medics had proved the most useful. 

'Advanced cancer treatment at home' was not exactly nursing 101, and there was only so much you could glean from books, conversations, and documentaries. 

Try as he might - check and double check as he did - Kit still made mistakes.

He couldn't bring her to free clinics anymore. And she had no insurance or money for a hospital stay.

Wheeling her into the bathroom, he got her onto the toilet and then waited outside before assisting her into the shower.

She was too tired to wash her own hair, so he helped her. 

"Am I a good person?" she asked him quietly as he ran wet, soapy hands though her brittle, thin hair.

"Well...I like you, sometimes."

She asked more philosophical questions lately, which was new. He couldn't remember her ever caring about non-practical matters before.

"...Am I a good mother?"

Kit snickered.

"Don't laugh!" She coughed, sneezing water. 

"You can't ask such a stupid question and expect me not to. You're not an idiot - despite all the evidence to the contrary - so you figure it out."

"I'm dying, you should be nice to me..."

"Even if you're dying, you can't expect me to lie to your face."

"Ungrateful little shit. I should have had an abortion."

"Not helping you sound like a better mother, just sayin'."

"Well, if it's a lost cause, it's a lost cause," she shot back.

"...Why didn't you, though?" He paused to work some conditioner into the tips of her hair before running the shower head over them. 

"Why didn't I what?"

"You know...get an abortion?"

"I didn't have the money or my guardian's permission, plus I was already too far along. And I... I was afraid to go to Hell. Hah. Funny, isn't it?"

"Hilarious."

"Thought I might give you up for adoption."

"Why didn't you, then?"

"Once I had you in my arms, I never wanted to let go. And I was sixteen, all alone. I thought, 'This kid has to love me. This kid can't leave me. I'll never be alone and unloved again, if I keep him..."

She laughed again, raspy, mirthless.

"But that was a bit fucked up."

"Yeah, big time." Kit turned off the shower and swept a towel around her. 

She was silent for a moment. "Tell me the truth. Do you love me?"

"Of course."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really. Don't worry about that." 

He patted her limbs with another towel - it was important to keep her skin dry, so she didn't get cold or develop an opportunistic fungal infection.

"You're my son. Remember that."

"How could I ever forget?"

"You won't leave me."

"I'm here. I won't leave."

"Everybody leaves me..."

"Shsh, not me. Hey, let's get you back to bed, okay? I'm here. Don't die on me."

"Not tonight, baby. I'll try."

He kissed the top of her head. "Okay." Kit started helping her into a clean nightdress. 

"But you do love me, don't you? And you won't leave?"

He gripped her skeletal hand, voice becoming gentle as she twisted around to look at him, her hollow eyes searching his.

"'Course I love you, mom. I'll be with you - until the end. I'm not leaving."

Helping her back into bed carefully, he propped her up in a way that made put less strain on her airways. 

Before she fell asleep again, he tried to get her to eat and drink something. Offering her some water and then a coffee cup full of lavender-coloured sludge, he tried to smile.

"Can you manage a bit more? Just a few sips, go on, try."

It was a nutritional shake, milk and powder. Usually it was on prescription but Kit knew a guy. It tasted disgusting in his opinion, but she was skin and bone. 

She could only get down tiny amounts and he tried to coax a teaspoon here, another there, throughout the day. It was tough going.

Goddammit... 

Nothing was was working anymore. Kitty woke up most nights to vomit and plead for more pain relief, or to berate him before descending back into a slumber so deep he had to swab her lips and mouth with mineral water so they didn't dry out and crack without her waking up.

It was as if she was too tired to stay awake yet too uncomfortable to rest, constantly shifting.

Kit rubbed his temples. His cheap plastic burner phone buzzed with messages - probing questions and thinly veiled threats - from debt collectors. He needed to get a new one.

What's the way forward? 

Was there even one?

He decided to calculate her numbers again. Could she take a bit more calming and pain relief medication, or would that be too dangerous?

Would he have to find them a new place too live again if their debts caught up with them and the collectors came knocking, and if so, how would he get her there?

She managed to swallow a few teaspoons of the shake. 

"Good job," he told her, an bent to write down how much she had eaten. 

"Baby, you deserve better," Kitty croaked. "Better than this."

"Shut up. I want this," he told her. "I only want...you to hang in there."

He didn't say get better any more. They both knew she wouldn't.

"And to stop badgering me."

She snorted, but it was a weak sound. These days the smallest effort exhausted her, and Kit could see that her eyelids were falling shut. 

"My baby," she whispered to him, eyes closed, head leaned back among the pillows. 

"You deserve all the best things... You know that, don't you?"

"Sure, mom. Don't worry, I know."

"I'm sorry..."

He kissed the top of her head, a quick peck, and swallowed. "Quit being so sappy. You're not dying, are you?"

"I'm always dying these days."

"Well wait a few more weeks, I have exams coming up."

She chuckled and coughed again, falling silent, fatigued.

After she finally settled into something like sleep, with a few more patches on he skin to relieve the aching, he peeled himself away from her side and dragged his feet into the kitchen to find something to eat.

After chewing down some canned peaches - he badly needed more pot noodles -  Kit fell asleep, still dressed, on top of the sofa-bed there.

Before dawn the sound of her gasping coughs woke him.

Kit swore he was like a parent conditioned to the cries of their baby. He rushed out to help Kitty sit up and give her some calming medication. Then he sat by her side, murmuring encouragements until she could breathe again.

"I'm cold," she told him, weakly, after she caught her breath.  "Come in here with me?"

He nodded and she leaned forward so that he could climb in behind her, propping up pillows against the wall and sitting against them. 

Kitty sank back against his chest and he pulled up the blankets around her, holding her steady so that she could rest in this fairly upright position. He let his head fall back against the plaster wall next to the window.

"My little boy..." she placed her cold hand on top of one of her son's, where they were supporting her.

"When did you get so grown up?"

"I've always been like this."

"You were a terrible baby - "

"I bet."

" - Always crying. But you've stopped crying now."

"Well, it never did any good."

"My baby brother - Charlie, remember I told you about him? - used to cry, oh, all the time. He never grew out of it..."

"Lucky him."

"He was cute though. You were cute too. Too bad that..."

"I grew up?"

"Yeah. I miss the way it used to be."

He supposed she was remembering the good days when he was in pre- and primary school, when she still had money and her addiction was just a part of her life, not the main focus of it.

Kit hummed, looking out the window. Dawn was starting to tinge the deep blue sky, tinting the horizon purple. In an hour or so he'd have to leave for school again.

"In this world you get nothing without giving something in return," his mother told him.

She leaned back against his chest as he ran his fingers over her dry, straw-like hair. It used to be shiny, slippery and silky-soft, Kit remembered.

"More pearls of wisdom? How wonderful."

"Help me smoke, wiseass," she grumbled, shifting in his arms.

He pulled out a cigarette and lighter from his pocket, twisted to shove the window open, and lit up, taking a puff before holding the filter up to her cracked, blue-tinged lips.

Kit had needed to choose his battles and this was not a fight that mattered anymore. 

Doesn't it hurt worse when you smoke? he had asked. His mother had just replied,

I'm already dying of lung cancer, what more can it do to me? I won't let the cancer take this away from me too, even if it irritates my goddamn lungs. 

"Thanks baby," she whispered, exhaling a soft puff of smoke.

"No problem."

They smoked in silence, watching the light creep into the room, bleeding into the sky. Watching the grey wisps dance up and filter out into the night air. 

She coughed and it was too weak to even rattle, but it still make her face seize up with pain. Her usual coughing was frail and quiet, but so persistent she was left gasping for air. He wondered how he could go about getting her some oxygen...

Kit didn't know what it felt like - was it burning? An eternal, unreachable itching? Sharp like a cut? Aching like a hundred bruises that never healed?

She had never put it into words and he couldn't bring himself to ask, couldn't make his mouth form the question.

"It hurts," was all she'd told him, and she had whimpered and cried with wordless pain until she ran out of energy for that too.

So instead of asking how she felt he settled back against the wall and held her tighter in his arms.

She relaxed against his chest, her upper body bracketed between his knees and arms as he held her up, supporting her weight so that she wouldn't slide down and could breathe more easily.

He stroked her hair, felt the cool breeze from the window over his face.

When they were finally settled together - that's when she asked him.

"...Can you get me some?"

She didn't have to say what. He voice was quiet.

"No."

"Please, baby."

"I said no. Stop asking me."

"Please," she said. "I'm in so much pain, and it would help me. You could help me."

"We barely have money for your meds - we don't, actually - and it wouldn't help at all. It might interact with them, there are no studies on how - "

"This would be cheaper! I'm too sick to get it for myself, I'm in so much pain but you could do it - you could help me, please Kit, my baby, help me, I need it, help me - "

"NO. Stop it - you're already on a ton of meds. The interactions between those and the kind of shit you used to take could kill you - not to mention with the state of your body, almost anything could kill you."

"It would help you too! You wouldn't have to deal with me, I'd be so calm and happy - "

"If that's what it takes, I'd rather have you mad at me."

Her face changed from pleading to twisted with rage in an instant.

"You don't want me to get better. You just want me to suffer! You like this, you - you want to see me in pain! You want to punish me... Why are you so cruel?"

A cough rattled her frail shoulders, weak and wet.

Kit held her, steadied her, as she hissed curses at him and turned her face away.

"You want to see me suffer..." she whispered, finally relaxing back against his chest, too faint to struggle, all the fight drained out of her. 

"You know that's not true."

Her expression softened again, as quickly as it had hardened.

"Yes, I know. I'm sorry, Kit..."

He was so tired. God, the last two years... How had he even held it together, managed this long?

"It's okay, mom. Just...it's okay."

Running a hand through his hair, messing it up, Kit felt like one of those big dams in an action movie that always burst at the end, cracks spreading across his surface. He tried to explain one more time.

"I just don't want you to die. The more morphine I give you, the faster you'll go. But I never want you to be in pain - I've calculated it as best I can - this is the most you can be on, I think. No other drugs, okay?"

"Hah, no drugs...you call this being clean?" 

She gestured down at herself and scoffed.

Kit smiled - she must be feeling better if she was making jokes. Maybe she would drop it.

"I'm just saying, I'm not going to be getting better anyway, so - "

"No. Stop asking."

" - Fine. I'm still cold."

He pulled the blankets up some more, wrapping them around her and hugging her thin frame closer, their slim arms aligning, ashen, freckled pale next to smooth, creamy tan. 

"Want me to pull up a video on my phone? I think I can mooch wifi off the guys upstairs, I know their password."

"No, my eyes are too tired..." She closed them, sighing, head falling back against his shoulder.

"Sing me something instead. You must've gotten that voice off you dad, 'cause you know I can't carry a tune."

"I don't have a dad."

"Mine, then. He might've been able to sing, if he'd ever been sober. Go on - something sad."

He hummed, thinking, and started singing an old song softly, letting it pour out of him as he lifted his chin from her hair to look out the window, where the light was beginning to creep in.

"Do do do, do do do...

Do do do, do do dooo...."

It was one he remembered her playing for him long ago, during the good times. 

Let me sing you something, baby.

He froze for a moment, blinking, hearing the ghost of a voice that was clear and sweet instead of broken. Then he squeezed her middle a little - lightly - and cleared his throat, looking out of the dirty window pane, where the sun was just rising.

It's just you and me, mom, he thought to her. And I'm not going to leave you. You were right about that. I'm not going anywhere.

Kit closed his eyes and sang, his voice low, melodious, and raspy around the edges, flowing out around the two of them to fill the bleak room.

Sweet and high at the break of dawn...

Simple tune that you could hum along to - 

I remember, there was a time

When I used to sing for you...

(Tracy Chapman - Sing for you)