Chapter Four - Moving on with my life.

Months went by, I had already completed a year. The truth was that I had been very bored during this time. Clearly and by some strange curse, when I arrived no one had "introduced" themselves as my relative.

Typical protagonist's story, right? I think it was on the 28th of April 2000, someone asked for me. Apparently my "grandmother", it was strange that they found me after such a long time... Clearly either they hadn't searched properly and did a horrible job of looking for "a living relative" or the person who came for me wasn't my "grandmother" as she claimed to be.

Anyway, I couldn't protest, the lady had a nice enough face. Her name was Lucy and she was like an older Emma. An Emma combined with a Peggy Granny. Could I meet Peggy if I insisted? I hope so, I loved her, she was 100 times better than Sharon.

I was a year old and my now grandmother started looking after me she lived in New York, coincidence? Of course not. We went to her house as soon as I was able to leave my "foster home". Lucy seemed like a normal grandma, she took me for walks every day in a cute little cart, went to the park, played with me, and the best part was that she knew my cute feeding schedule. Nothing better than that.

Months went by, I could walk well, and I could speak much more fluently than babies my age. I remember when I tried to say my first words, a feeling in me made me want to say "Emma" or "Chris" while someone else said "Lucy" she's looking after you, give her the honor.

I was ready to try to speak fully when the twins popped into my head, "Wanda" would be an excellent first word, wouldn't it? I mentally said to myself "Say Lucy, you've been practicing it while she wasn't seeing you". So, I was completely determined to say my first word. I sat up as straight as I could and began.

- "L" - Come on, you can do it, you're three letters short - "Lu...." - My grandmother was coming to see me - "Loki" - My mouth let me down at the last minute.

What? Why did I say that? Loki, I love you... but that wasn't supposed to be my first word. I looked at Lucy, she looked quite confused, a "who is Loki" face, "why does he know the name of a God".

I looked at her, an excellent question... I started laughing, looked at her again, and this time I did say "Lucy". She was very happy with that, but no one would change the fact that my first word was Loki.

After saying my first words, I began to speak more normally and fluently. The words that followed were my parents' names, and then my name. When Lucy heard my parents' names, she started to bring me some pictures she had of Chris, Emma, and me together, some where were just me, and some they were together. Lucy showed me a picture of Chris smiling at the camera.

- "Chris" - I said to Lucy - "Dad" - My grandma looked completely happy with my words and looked for another picture with Emma in it.

- "Emma" - I said, they looked so beautiful in that picture - "Mum" - Lucy looked like she was about to cry.

I look for a picture of the three of us.

- "Who are they?" - I was about to say "Ohana," until I remembered that the movie came out in 2002. Maybe I could ask Lucy to take me to the premiere.

- "Family" - I said swallowing all the desire to say Ohana - "My family" - I smiled at her as cutely as I could.

- "Exactly" - She told me with a tear.

The days went by, the months went by. And my birthday number 3 arrived, the truth was that being with Lucy was great, I asked myself many times if she knew what my parents worked in... but I couldn't ask her.

After my birthday, I went for a walk around the house while my grandmother was cooking, I went into a room that had some boxes and what did I do? I sat down to look through them, some papers said in whose care it was, there were also the papers about my parent's death with the word "accident" on them, yeah right, what a big lie.

I got bored of that box and I got up to another one, in it there were some stuffed animals that I hadn't seen before, maybe they were from a newborn and they had left them when they went on the "mission", I also found the bag that was with me when I fell in front of the twins.

I kept looking at it thinking about my parents' last moments, but a feeling of sorrow took me away from the bag and I kept looking at all the stuffed animals in the box until one caught my attention.

My tears started to flow, it was Benjamin, my stuffed rabbit that I had told my sister to bury me with. I took him out of the box and looked at him closely, he had a backpack which I didn't remember him owning. And as a good curious baby, I opened the mini backpack that had my stuffed animal on its back, inside was my mobile phone and also my external memory, it came with all the necessary cables and chargers.

Kelsey I love you, I have no idea how this got here, but with this, I sure won't be bored for a while. Plus I'll be able to check the UCM chronology, it did me some good to have it all downloaded and stored in my memory. I closed my rabbit's backpack and hugged him, I wouldn't let him go for anything in the world.

I went out to look for my grandmother again, she saw me and started laughing at the way I was hugging the stuffed animal. But I didn't care how she saw me, I just walked with it until I got in front of her.

- "Eli, you're a curious one" - She smiled at me - "I guess you went to check the boxes."

"You're guessing right." - I was about to answer her when she started coughing, and my face changed completely. A strange feeling started to wash over me, this didn't look good at all.

Lucy moved away a bit as she was still coughing. I walked her to the bathroom when I noticed she was covering her mouth, a little blood was coming out.

"Do you have something against me destiny?"

The next day, we went for a check-up with the doctor. I went in with my grandmother while hugging my rabbit. The symptoms seemed pretty clear in my opinion, but they did tests on Lucy, to "rule out" diseases. We waited a few days, Lucy still had the same symptoms, in fact, she was slowly getting worse. We went to collect the tests, when we had them we sat down to wait for the doctor to see us.

I didn't want to wait, so while my companion looked away I decided to open the envelopes with the results of the tests, I read them quickly. The diagnosis popped into my head "Cancer, and not at the best stage".

Lucy looked at me with wide eyes when she noticed I had the papers in my hand, she took them from me and put them back in the envelope. We waited a few minutes, I wasn't going to cry, I didn't want to, so I just hugged Benjamin until the doctor called us in.

- "Good morning, Lucy"

- "Good morning doctor" - Dr. Mike asked Lucy for the sheets and began to review them, his countenance changed a little, but he finished reading all the results.

- "How are they? The results were good, right?" - Mike told Lucy about the diagnosis, but I stopped listening until I heard something important - "How long do I have?"

- "A few months, if you follow the treatment" - Great, a tear came out of my eye, I tried to wipe it away as fast as I could, but Lucy caught sight of me.

- "Don't worry sweetheart, it's going to be ok" - 'What a bad liar.'

I decided to speak, I wasn't going to keep quiet.

- "Stage 4 cancer cannot be cured" - I looked her in the eye and then looked at Mike - "The cancer disease is too advanced, at this stage everything has progressively advanced and is irreversible. Technically you are in the terminal stage. Nothing will be right from now on" - The doctor looked at me with a shocked face and Lucy looked at me with pity. - "What treatment will they give you? At this stage, the treatments are not usually very effective, when are they going to admit her? Palliative care should start soon. I suppose that when she is hospitalized they will only be able to give her medication so that the pain is not so intense." - I just held my grandmother's hand when I finished and kept looking at the doctor in front of us.

- "You have a pretty smart granddaughter, I don't know how she knows this information, but she seems completely prepared for what's coming next."

- "She is very intelligent" - Lucy started to cry a little and hugged me - "I suppose we should come as soon as possible, shouldn't we?"

- "It would be ideal if you could come tomorrow" - She looked at me - "Your granddaughter is right, there is not much we can do... but we can ease the pain."

We left the hospital slowly, they referred the case to a professional oncologist, I remembered Wilson from Doctor House, he had a pretty bad end, he ended up with cancer after dedicating his professional life to oncology.

Lucy packed a suitcase with quite a lot of things, I thought it wouldn't do her much good to pack such a big suitcase when tomorrow's stop was going to be the hospital. I left where she was preparing things to go, I went into the kitchen and started to look for different ingredients, I took a flat with me as I didn't have enough and I left Benjamin sitting on a chair looking in my direction.

Lucy was going to take a while to tidy up, so I went on with my plan. New mission "Elizabeth Charlotte, do you accept the mission to make a first and last cake for Lucy" I sighed and said softly. - "I accept."

It took me a long time to finish the cake, after all, to reach many things I had to climb on a bench or a chair, but I did it.

I put my attempt at a sponge cake in the oven, I don't know how I turned it on.... but it didn't matter, the job was done. I tidied everything up and put the next things I would need on top, a knife, some delicatessen, and the two creams I already had ready. I took colored beads and put them in a bowl. I didn't know if we had a piping bag so I just grabbed a bag and put a mixture I had made of chocolate in it, with this I would write something on top.

I managed to finish my work, the cake had already come out and I had already put the final details on it, on top of the cake it said: "I love you very much, Grandma Lucy".

Just when I finished I wondered what had taken my grandmother so long. I got scared thinking that she had hurt herself, so without caring about anything else I ran to the room I shared with her and saw her. She was holding a picture in her hand, she whispered something I didn't understand so I approached her carefully. I could see the picture she was holding, a nice picture of where my father and I were. I remembered it, it was the photo with which I had told her that this was my family.

I spoke to her softly. - "Hello" - She looked me in the eyes - "How are you feeling?"

- "I'm fine, my darling, I'm fine" - She came closer to me and took me in her arms - "How are you feeling?" - Her look contained a horrible sadness.

- "Good" - I just whispered to her, I looked at the picture she had and I noticed that on the bed there were many more - "We are a nice family, aren't we?" - I said pointing to the photos that were there, there were the old ones of Chris with Emma, the ones that my parents had with me and the new ones that I had taken with Lucy throughout these years, in some of them I was alone and in others, I was with my grandmother.

I stopped looking at the photos remembering many moments, I looked straight into Lucy's eyes and I said to her - "I have a surprise for you" - I tried to smile, and I let go of her arms.

- "Really cute" - She looked at me with curiosity and followed me after I gave her my hand to follow me.

I took her to the kitchen, we were going straight to the cake when she started coughing. I let go of her hand and went quickly to get a glass of water, I had to move the chair to reach everything. She had already stopped coughing, she looked at everything I was doing but didn't stop me at any point. She just waited for me to arrive with a nice smile on her face.

I passed her the glass and she accepted it. I didn't say anything else, I waited for her to finish, I stayed by her side all the time, looking at her and appreciating the moments I had left with her.

She looked at me tenderly and spoke. - "What's the surprise?"

I looked at her thinking, I forgot. I ran to the cake determined to take it to her, but I thought better of it... it could fall out of my hands. I left it there waiting, of course, I had taken it before, but I hadn't moved it so far from the kitchen, besides, with what I had put on it, it would be heavier.

I thought a little. - "Can you come closer" - I looked at Lucy with a pleading face - "Please?" - I got up from where I was and went to her, took her by the hand, and took her in front of the cake.

- "Is it for me?" - She asked, in my head I said: "Of course, it says your name, doesn't it, but I don't answer that".

- "Yes" - A whisper came out of my mouth - "I don't know how it tastes, but I tried" - I gave her a little smile.

- "Well, it's the best present I've ever received in my life," - She looked at the cake carefully and suddenly said, - "How did you do this all by yourself?" - 'Great question...'

- "Magic?" - I answered - "and love"

She looked at me doubtfully but didn't say anything else. I guess I couldn't say much... if she knew about cancer, why wouldn't she know how to make a cake? She put her present in the freezer, of course, I couldn't eat it when it was freshly baked.

We were together for a while, without saying anything. Everything went on as normal until it occurred to me to go and get the camera that was in the room. I took a picture of my grandmother without her noticing. But when I was about to take another one, the flash gave me away. She saw me and started to laugh, and I laughed too.

After a while we took the cake out, I took a picture of it so that it would be remembered as "the first cake Eli ever made" I told my grandmother to stand next to the cake and took a picture. She took me and put me on top of a chair, I was standing and she started to cut the cake, she served a piece for her and one for me.

Lucy looked at me and started to laugh. She took out a piece of cake and tasted it and gave me a thumbs-up. That was an approval, but did it really taste good? Maybe it was just to make me happy. I looked at her with a frown, took a spoon, and tasted it. It didn't taste bad, but it wasn't great. I was grateful to my friend who was studying gastronomy for teaching me when I told her I liked cakes, and I was inwardly grateful that I hadn't forgotten how to make them.

We ate the cake and went to bed, it was a pretty exhausting day. With my pajamas on I went over to her bed and slept with her, I didn't leave her side all night. I wasn't going to leave her side.