Poppy's PoV

When I woke up, I was relieved to see Sam sitting beside me, nose deep in a book and completely unaware of my stirring. I took in the room, a private one with a tv on the wall and an en-suite bathroom. What had I done to deserve this?

"Hey." Sam said as he looked over at me, folding the top of his page down as he closed the book, looking over at me. "How are you feeling?" I swallowed fearfully, waiting for that awful pain I'd been having but it wasn't there. It felt fine.

"I feel... okay. Yeah." I smiled as much as I could, my throat feeling very sore and sensitive to any movement right now. "Did it go well?" Sam let out a large grin and instantly I relaxed, finally happy to know there could be some good news on the horizon.

"We believe the surgery was a success. The cancerous cells have been removed and sent away for testing. In a little while we will send you for some more diagnostic tests to see that we removed it all." Relief washed over me and I sank into the bed contently, finally knowing that things were going our way. I didn't want to get too excited though because there was always the chance it hadn't all been removed or that it had spread somewhere else. We had to keep ourselves grounded for the time being. Looking over to Sam with a grin, I noticed his reservation about something else. He seemed to look over with a half smile, his shoulders tensed as he deliberated with himself.

"Is something wrong?" I quizzed, the excitement buzzing through me cutting dead in an instant. He sighed, grabbing the remote and handing it to me.

"I'm really sorry Miss Knight, we don't know how it happened but it appears your diagnosis was leaked to the press." He nodded towards the remote. I carefully switched it off standby and waited for the channel to appear. The news was on, the anchor discussing something to do with the weather for the next few weeks. Then they announced that they were heading over to their entertainment anchor.

"Hi everyone, it's Hugh here! So the top stories in the celebrity world at the moment are huge. Actor Samuel L Jackson has started up his own charity which he posted about online last night. Already within a few hours the celeb has raised nearly one million dollars! Musician Halsey has squashed pregnancy rumours again, saying people need to mind their own business. Not saying we disagree, but we definitely know of a band who would agree wholeheartedly. Earlier, news of 5sos girlfriend Poppy's cancer spread like wildfire over social media. The men took to tweeting their dissatisfaction as you can see from the screen." Images of the four men's tweets were shown on screen, all expressing heir hatred to the fact my news was spread out of spite. Calum's tweet seemed to hit hardest, the wording of it seeming annoyed yet upset, like he had a part in this unravelling. That meant only one thing. This was Naomi's work.

"Wow." I breathed out, not quite sure what to say. This was why I was in his room with Sam remaining in it with me. They were preventing the press from getting pictures of me in this state. Once again, my life was on show.

"I'm so sorry. I have no idea how it-" Sam began but I waved my hand dismissively.

"I do. And she'd have got this information one way or another. She's desperate to get me on a bad light and try to take Calum from me." I shook my head. "There literally was nothing you could have done to stop her." Sam gave me a thankful smile, letting him know he appreciated my words and made him feel better. "Did you speak to Calum?" I asked quickly afterwards, wanting desperately to know how he was and how he'd handled all this going on. Sam nodded his head.

"Yeah, I spoke to him. He was furious about the leak but he was really glad that you were okay. He really wanted to come and see you." Sam said, quickly checking on the time. He stood abruptly. "Excuse me, I just remembered I need to get your medication ready." He rushed out of the room, leaving me in silence. I looked over the room once more, feeling like recently I'd spent much too long in these places. Once again I felt alone. Suddenly my phone burst to life, vibrating as a call came in. I checked the ID, it was a video call from Crystal. I gulped down a nervous feeling, regretting that I'd been so caught up I hadn't asked how she or the baby were nor told her about my diagnosis. Now she'd know because of the media. I answered it last minute and Crystal, Bex and Sierra's faces all appeared on screen.

"Poppy!!" Bex squealed.  This was the first time I'd seen her since we were all together for the tour. She looked great, tanned and immaculate as always.

"Hey guys!" I said quietly. "How are you all?"

"Forget about us, how are you?" Sierra asked, causing my chest to tighten. I felt so bad that I hadn't told them anything. Everything they may have known about me would have been because of Naomi.

"Good thank you... Look, I'm sorry. I really am. I should have told you about what was going on with me but honestly I was hoping to just keep it between Calum and I. The more people that knew, the more I thought people would be acting differently because they felt sorry for me." I sighed heavily, half anticipating the girls to end the call instantly after that rubbish excuse. Instead, they all looked at each other with a smile and beamed at me.

"You don't need to apologise hun!" Crystal said, making sure to cheer me up. "We completely understand. I've kept my secret away from fans, I'd be heartbroken if someone leaked it." The mood suddenly changed. I let out a shaky breath.

"Yeah, I was annoyed but I suppose there's not much I could do to change it. I've just tried to ignore it and carry on. But I know it's not going to stay that way. They've moved me into a single room and they said there's paps waiting outside the ward..." the group tutted and shook their head, disgusted with how the paparazzi were dealing with this.

We continued to chat late into the night, filling in each other on everything we had missed over the last few weeks. It was nice to finally feel back to normal, like the whole group was finally back together with no stresses or strains. For once, it felt like my life was slowly getting better, that everything was finally looking up. Let's hope it stays that way.