Calum's PoV

I paced the room, anger feeling like it was seeping through my pores like lava from a volcano. My phone was stuck to my ear, hot in my hand as I shouted back at Luke.

"Her fucking brother told me!" I snapped. "Who else could have told him? He's in performing arts, he must know people who have connections to ours." I ran my fingers through my hair, remembering when Poppy did it and a clump of hair came out in her hand. Seeing mine empty made me appreciate it more than ever before.

"Look, I'm not denying or agreeing, but we know he's a shit stirrer. He could have paid a nurse in the chemo unit. We don't know?" Luke tried to reason with me, hoping I'd stop seeing red and look at things from every angle first but I couldn't. I was so mad.

"Luke, some bastard is telling people Poppy is sick. We're trying to keep it quiet. Do you not see the issue here?" I could feel the veins in my neck protruding as I kept raising my voice, not thinking about Poppy or Kai.

"I do see it cal, but I don't know what to tell you. The best I can do is ask management and they're obviously going to say no." Luke sighed. "Jesus this is a mess." I could imagine him pacing too, the stress and pressure now on him as much as it was on me. I felt sorry for him, as the youngest of the band but he was the one who founded us and got the head start with management. If there was someone they loved, it was Luke.

"Poppy's gonna freak when she hears." I finally lowered my tone and let out a breath, trying to calm myself down.

"Look, we've got through it once, we can do it again. You guys can do it again." Luke tried desperately to offer some good in the hope it'd help. "Oh hold on, Mike's trying to call me. Mind if I add him?"

"Go for it." I rolled my eyes as it cut for a second before Michael's voice could be heard too.

"Hey, Cal's here right?" Michael got straight to the point. Nerves clutched at my lungs, squeezing the air out of them.

"Yeah, why? What's up?" Luke pressed and Michael huffed. I headed to the sofa and fell onto it, my legs collapsing as my body prepared for more bad news.

"You've not seen the tweet?" Mike said as if we were stupid, like we'd missed the most talked about thing in the world ever. Ironically, it soon became the most talked about thing in the world.

"Tweet?" Luke asked, clearly making it known neither of us had a clue what he was talking about.

"Fucking hell. Of course I'd have to be the one to break the news." Michael huffed as he clicked about on his PC in the background. "My phone is blowing up, my socials are... it's crazy."

"Care to enlighten us about the tweet then?" I snapped, feeling like we were wasting time. I tapped my foot nervously as Michael sighed once again.

"Management posted on the 5SOS accounts. It has a picture of the tour with postponed across it. The text says 'dear our beautiful 5sosfamily. It's with very heavy hearts that we write this, to inform you all that our upcoming tour dates are to be postponed. This decision hasn't come easily and we are as gutted as you, if not more. Unfortunately Poppy has fallen seriously ill and we need to be with her and Calum whilst she's on the road to recovery. We'd really appreciate if you could respect our privacy whilst we get through this time and we will be letting you all know about your soon. 5sos x'" my jaw dropped open.

"What the fuck? Delete it!" I shouted, panicking about the millions of people that would now know Poppy was ill again.

"They've changed the password!" Michael shouted back, panic clearly taking us all over.

"What the hell do we do now?" Luke said, barely believing what he just heard. I couldn't either, my brain whirring as the words spun round. Poppy's fallen seriously ill? Who wouldn't be able to relate that to her short hair and know her cancer is back? What moron thought that was the right thing to post?

"They posted that on everything?" I felt numb as I asked, knowing I already knew the answer. Michael sighed once more.

"Yup." He said sadly. "I'm sorry man. If that was Crystal I'd be fuming. I'm trying to speak to some people I know, I feel like we could sue them for it." My nostrils flared as i clenched my jaw, unable to control the fury anymore.

"They're going to get more than a fucking lawsuit. I'm going round there to punch him in the face and I'm tearing up our contract, the stupid-" suddenly my sentence was stopped as a meek voice called out from across the room.

"Cal?" Poppy stood at the end of the room with Kai, cradling him as she swayed to keep him calm. "What's happened? Your shouting woke Kai up." She wasn't even mad, that's what hurt the most. I was acting like a moron and she came in calmly to see what happened. I took a deep breath in and out.

"I'm sorry Poppy. Shit has hit the fan." I put the phone on loudspeaker. "Luke, Mike, Poppy's here." I could hear them mumble swear words before becoming polite again.

"Hey Pops, how are you feeling?" Luke tried to steer the conversation away from where it was heading. She smiled as she took a few steps towards the phone, shaking her head at his attempt.

"Nice try Luke but straight to the point, who is Calum threatening to punch and why?" The question was met with silence for a few moments until one of them bit the bullet to tell her.

"Management released a post to our socials saying they were postponing tour." Michael began. Poppy's face lit up as she looked over at me but seeing how I was still mad, her smile dropped and she readied herself for the worst. "The team decided to tell our fans that we were postponing because you were seriously ill. I'm- I'm so sorry." She suddenly spaced out, her eyeline down to the floor as the swaying stopped. Kai began to fidget and whinge.

"Oh." Was all she could muster, but like a switch had been flicked, she internalised that feeling and smiled back at me, swaying again with Kai. "That's fine. I suppose my secret couldn't stay secret forever." She lied, which the guys couldn't tell but I could because her eyes looked like they were screaming out for help. I knew she'd get affected by this and once again, we had yet another hurdle to try to jump over in our never ending circuit. How were we going to sort this out?