Poppy's PoV

"Excuse us, we have some things to talk about. Luke, Mike, grab Ashton and fill him in. We need a plan." Without even saying goodbye, Calum had hung up the phone. He looked over to me with that look I hated; one of sadness and sympathy and all the things I despised seeing in someone's eyes. Yes I was sick, but I was being treated. There was a chance I could get better. Some people in the world die without the chance of anything to help them, regular medication and appointments to keep a check on them, without people surrounding them who love them and want to help them. As much as I hated this with a passion, I had it a lot better than some others.

"I should log in and let them know." I said, my tone sounding defeated. I continued to rock Kai is a side to side motion to keep him calm knowing it'd soon be time for milk again. Luckily for him, he was too young and naive to have any idea what we were talking about. In that moment, I prayed our fame would not cause any issues like this in Kai's life. I wanted him to have as normal of a life as he could, and with his dad and uncles being in the limelight constantly, I knew it'd be tough. Calum's eyes snapped up to me in an instant.

"What?" He spat, "No." He paced around a little, running his fingers through his hair. I looked over at his thick locks, now beginning to grow out and reveal little curls. Oh how I envied the fact he had hair right about now. I knew how this was going to pan out and I just wanted to end it now. Calum would pace around and work himself into a state, he'd snap at everyone, blame everyone and in the end tire himself out. We had enough to be thinking about without me trying to deal with him having a meltdown too.

"Cal, the news is already out there. You can't take it back. They may as well just know I wanted to keep it quiet." Calum shook his head again.

"No." He could barely respond with anything other than the one argumentative word that cut the conversation dead.

"Then what do you suggest?" I'd probably have got a better conversation going if I'd spoken to the wall. I had to keep pushing him to speak yet he didn't want to answer. He was all caught up in his thoughts, pacing around as if he were trying to get a certain number of steps in. I could feel the anger radiating from him.

"Not that." Once again I got nothing back.

"I'm not stressing out over this. We have enough to deal with." I suddenly snapped. I pulled Kai up to rest his head on my chest and soothed his back as I bounced on the spot. "We have a newborn baby, we have my tests coming up soon, I'm sick half the time..." I sighed, defeated. "Literally the one thing we don't need is you getting stressed out about this." Calum suddenly stopped, his eye-line to the floor as he took in what I said.

"But..." he trailed off before sighing. "They ruined our well kept secret, I'm so mad at them. Everything we fought to keep quiet, just out there now for all our fans, hell everyone in the world, to see. Paps are gonna be all over this." He listed everything off, one by one but I remained calm, soothing Kai as he opened his eyes and watched the world from his comforting stance.

"I get it Cal, I'm mad too. But we have too much eating up our energy already. I can just come out with a statement and let it be done. There's no point in us getting wound up by this. Not now." His eyes met mine for the first time and he seemed to really take me in; my stance, how I held Kai to my chest, my swaying motion and then my face. I didn't particularly like looking in the mirror anymore; the dark circles, the sunken eyes, the slimmer cheeks and short hair. I didn't feel beautiful, not now. Sure, in time I'd get used to it but it was weird how one drug could change my appearance so much and make me feel like a different person.

"You're right. I'm sorry. I just wanted to protect you, for once..." he broke his eye contact with me. "Every fucking thing that has happened to you, I should have protected you from. I couldn't protect you from Kyle, or his minion, from Naomi, from your sickness getting outed to the world... I just wanted to be able to help you once." His posture sunk into a depressive formula , head down and shoulders forward as he breathed out heavily.

"But you do protect me, every day. Some things are out of our control and we just have to deal with that. None of us knew Kyle was coming back or that Naomi was out to ruin my life in the way she did. At some point I would have had to go out and people would have seen me looking like this. It's just how it is." I walked over to Calum and pulled him into a one armed hug, one that Kai was in the middle of. Calum seemed to relax slightly.

"You're right. The two most important things to focus on are right here in my arms." He said softly, offering me a kiss on the head and then one on Kai's.

"And I'll have my tests soon. Only one more treatment to go until then." I smiled, thanking everything that I was nearly done with this chemotherapy drug. This had given me enough side effects for the doctors to change my treatment plan slightly. The amount of tablets I needed to help with the symptoms felt like more than what I was actually having in my treatment. It was exhausting, emotionally draining and painful, and all of these things were done with a little baby in our hands.

"It's going to be good news, I can feel it." Calum said into my hair, the small amount that was left now. My stomach tightened as I felt his optimism, but wasn't so sure that the outcome was going to be as cheery. My throat still hurt, my voice was still hoarse and it didn't seem like there was any change in how the whole thing felt. But I wasn't going to tell Calum that, I could be wrong.

I really hoped I was.