He didn’t want to pace around the ALDA any longer, so he left via the enormous sliding doors and started crossing the car park.

He had two options:

Go and see Penny.

Go straight home.

Going to see Penny would require some degree of explanation. Visiting his Grandad would be the foil, but it felt… disingenuous… not to mention risky.

Going home would be relatively straightforward, but then what? Wait for School on Friday, fresh in the knowledge that Penny would not be there, and that she was sick, and in pain…? Truthfully, that felt worse.

Picking up his phone, he scrolled down to his mother’s number, and stared at it. Knowing full well the consequences of his actions, he pressed the call icon, and held the phone to his head.

“Jack? I’m almost back, are you ok?”

“Yeah Mum, I’m good, I’ve just gone for a walk too.”

“Oh right, well… good, it’s good to get out. Are you nearby?”

He paused.

“Not really, I went for a bit of a walk.”

“Ok…” she said. He knew that tone. She was worried. Jack had a tendency to disappear, either to his room, or just ‘out’, usually to Delon’s.

“I might go and see Grandad again,” he ventured, gritting his teeth slightly in anticipation of the response.

“Oh,” she said, taken aback, but not in a particularly negative way. “Well, ok… I mean, if that’s what you want to do, Jackie. It’s a long way to walk, are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah, I needed the exercise…” he explained.

“Ok, well,  your Dad and I will probably stop by the hospital when he’s finished work to see Grandad anyway… but are you sure you’re ok?”

“I’m fine, Mum,” he replied pointedly, drawing deeply upon his natural teenage urge to shrug off the nagging of a loved one.

 “Alright then, well, I’ll ring you in a bit, just to check on you,” she said, still a little unconvinced. “And you ring me if there’s any issue, ok?”

“Uhuh,” he mumbled.

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

And with that, he had engineered himself a window.

The Hospital was still a good couple of miles further, out towards where the ring road met the main commuter routes in and out of the city. It was probably a similar distance to the walk home, but he wasn’t as familiar with it, so he switched on the location tracking on his phone to get the fastest route.

He knew it would drain pretty quickly, so once he was on the right track he turned it off until he needed it again. There would definitely be signs when he got within a mile or so, particularly as the route looked like it was taking him alongside the main trunk road across town.

His legs were definitely heavier than they had been on the walk to ALDA, but he was determined. Having a goal in place made it easier for him to convince himself that the extra effort was justified. Each step brought him closer, and closer… and closer.

Whilst Penny had told him not to, what she didn’t know was that he hadn’t even been into school today. There was no sneaking out of the premises, no tricking his parents… well, no more than needed anyway, and if he timed it right, he could see her and his Grandad, and nobody would be any the wiser.

The troubles with Caitlin felt, at least for today, far behind him. She was stuck at school, probably running laps with the other sporto jocks, and he was literally miles away, far beyond her reach, and with a little luck, fading from her bull’s-eye.

He hit the first blue sign right on cue. The traffic was getting busier, so he knew he must be getting closer. Crossing the roads was now a case of waiting for the lights and jogging across, as a lot of the newer intersections barely acknowledged the time it would take for a Beta to get across. That was why so many elderly Betas were given mobility scooters, or at least that’s what he’d been told. His Grandad always refused to have one, one of the reasons why he’d kept himself fit for so long.

After about half a mile, he could see the Hospital buildings quite clearly. They dwarfed the few trees that grew either side of the road, and Jack was genuinely surprised to see how much bigger it all looked during the day than in the small hours… or maybe that was just because of the glasses?

Following the signposts, he made his way to one of the receptions, whereupon he was able to consult a full map of the complex. Ward F was one of the ones closest to the A&E department, which tallied with what Penny had said over the phone. He wasn’t 100% sure which ward his Grandad was in, but after a bit of examination he recognised and retraced some of the route he and his parents had taken that morning, from Beta Car Park B into Reception Area B, and then on until… tracing a path with his finger… Ward R.

It was connected to the building that housed Ward F, but via a very circuitous and meandering route. In some ways that was good, because he could make his way between the Wards without arousing too much suspicion, but equally, there was a small chance that he could bump into Penny when he was with his parents. Would they even recognise her? It probably wouldn’t happen. Right?

Regardless, all that was in his mind now was to make his way straight to Ward F, and hope that Penny would be pleased to see him, not angry at him for taking ‘unnecessary risks’.

A quick trip back outside the building and on to the next entrance led him to the correct corridor, and then on towards Ward F. He followed the signage, making sure he wasn’t in anyone’s way as staff and patients moved around, some in wheelchairs, some simply shuffling slowly whilst wheeling drip-bag stands. The Alpha medical staff were fairly attentive of him, often spotting him early on and keeping their distance, an entirely novel and refreshing change from the packed school corridors he was used to. There were even a handful of Betas, a couple of older men who looked like surgeons, and a middle-aged woman holding a fairly large x-ray sheet scrolled up under her arm as she marched purposefully down the hallway.

It was as he passed the entrance to Ward E that the nerves began to kick in. He was really going to see her. He went through the double doors, and began to scan the giant beds, unsure as to where exactly she would be.

A portly black Beta nurse, probably in her 50s, spied him looking around.

“Can I help you?” she asked, walking over with a clipboard tucked under one arm.

“Er yes, I’m looking for Penny Lévesque…” he asked, trying his best to appear unflustered, and succeeding, somewhat.

“Oh, the Alpha girl?” she asked, looking him up and down.

“Yes,” he replied flatly.

“Friend or family?” she enquired, again, eyeing him up with undisguised curiosity.

“Just a friend,” he said, a bit unnerved.

“Ok,” she said, her expression softening, “Just follow me.”

The lady led him off to another side of the Ward he probably would never have found on his own. As they passed row after row of oversized beds, some with patients in, some empty, she turned to look at him once more.

“Sorry, I just assumed you were lost,” she explained, “Don’t get many Beta visitors over this side of the hospital.”

“Oh right,” he said thoughtfully.

“Miss Lévesque’s not been very well, bless her,” she continued, “Her parents were here this morning, I think they said they’d be back again later.”

Jack nodded, trying to convey that he was in the loop, that he was definitely, totally, one hundred percent not just turning up out of the blue to visit someone he still didn’t really know all too well, and whose parents he hadn’t laid eyes on for the best part of a decade…

“We’ve put her on medication to dull the pain, so she might be quite drowsy or, well, not quite herself,” the nurse added, scrunching up her face expressively to suggest that it might be best not to expect too much from the patient.

“No, I understand,” said Jack, trying to take it all in, whilst at the same time, bursting with anticipation to see her again.

Finally, the nurse stopped outside a room, and slowly opened the oversized door. It had a kind of piston mechanism so that even a Beta-strength push would cause it to glide open seamlessly. Inside, there were two beds adjacent from one another with large windows in the wall behind them. The one on the right appeared be empty but unkempt, the covers all dragged to the end of the bed, whilst the one on the left was occupied by a reclined girl… with very long sandy-brown hair.

“I think she’s asleep again,” the nurse said quietly, “Poor thing’s not reacting well to the painkillers. Just wait here a second.”

Jack looked on as the lady walked quietly over to the side of the large bed and climbed up a small stepladder to be level with the sleeping patient. She reached out gently, and tapped Penny on the arm, to which she seemed to stir.

“Penny, you have a visitor,” the nurse said in a sing-song voice, smiling back at Jack as she did so.

“Mmmm-mmm,” groaned the Alpha sleepily, stretching out an arm and nearly knocking the tiny assistant off her perch.

“Ooh, careful darling,” the lady soothed, surprisingly unperturbed by the larger person’s near-miss, perhaps out of experience.

“I’ll just give you a minute to wake up, he’s right there when you feel ready.”

The woman clambered down again and walked past Jack, smiling at him as she did so.

“Give me a shout if there’s a problem, there’s a big button next to the bed,” she advised.

“Thank you,” he said, giving her his own half-smile back.

The door slowly closed behind the nurse as she walked down the corridor, and then it was just the two of them.

Penny’s head raised up slightly and she rubbed her eyes. She yawned, emitting a strained kind of whine as she did so, before stopping suddenly, and sweeping the long strands of hair from her face.

“Jack?” she murmured incredulously.

“Hey,” he said bashfully, putting his bag down and beginning to walk over.

As he approached the bed, he began to get that familiar sense of being fully out of scale, almost like minor vertigo.

He was barely tall enough to see over the top of the mattress; the top of his head well below the height of the safety rails.

Penny slid her legs to one side, sitting up and sweeping the covers over herself. She was wearing pale blue pyjamas, and he couldn’t fully tell if they were hospital ones or her own.

“Jack… why are you here? I told you not to come…” she said, struggling to come to terms with his sudden appearance. She was torn between being angry, and relieved, and upset… just totally overwhelmed and not fully awake yet.

“I know, I can explain…” he said apologetically, looking up at her torso as she loomed over him, even when in bed.

“Oh god…” she sniffed, wiping her eyes, “…it’s so good to see you.”

Jack reached out and put his hand on top of hers.

“As long as you’re safe,” she reiterated, beginning to calm down.

He smiled at her, to signal that he was, of course, safe, and started to climb the stepladder as the nurse had done before.

When he reached the top, it was a slight hop and a jump to sit on the side of the bed, which he proceeded to do, as Penny had generously allowed room for him.

Absolutely as soon as he had parked himself, two long arms enveloped him from behind, swaddling him in crisp, white sheets, and her chin came to rest on the crown of his head.

He could hear her breathing, shallow and fast, but so loud, like turning the volume up on surround sound.

“I’ll admit it,” she sniffled, “I wanted you to come. Badly.”

“I know,” he said, almost coming across as smug, but succeeding in amusing her, as he could feel her shake a little with joy.

It was then that he noticed the long catheter snaking out of her right arm, which sent a metallic sensation down his spine.

“Oh…” he paused, looking at it. He followed the length of plastic tubing as it led behind Penny’s body, but he couldn’t see what it was hooked up to.

“Are you in pain?” he asked as she unfurled her arms from him. She was still so much taller, even stooped, her eyes were a good three feet above his.

“Not so much,” she admitted, “Occasionally it aches, but the morphine helps.”

“Do you know what’s wrong?” he probed, drawing a soft sigh from his giantess friend.

“Well, I overheard one of the doctors about an hour ago,” she whispered conspiratorially, “And they think it’s another big flare-up.”

“A-what now?” Jack queried.

She looked nervously at him, as if this was something she really didn’t want him to react badly to.

“Do you remember me explaining about my health?”

“Yes… of course,” he said.

“Well, it’s that. A GH surge. Again.”

“Growth Hormone?”

“Yep,” she said, pressing her lips together to emphasise the ‘p’ sound. Her face looked crestfallen.

“So you’re growing taller?”

He could see her eyes start to water.

“Yep.”

“Please… don’t cry…” he said gently, shifting up to his knees and reaching up to wipe the tears from her face as it threatened to crumple up entirely.

She bowed her head, smooshing his little hand into her cheek as she attempted to control her outburst.

“I should be used to it by now,” she sniffed. “I just thought it would stop, I’m already so tall.”

Lifting her head back up slightly, she looked down at him, his face a picture of concern.

“I don’t want to be a freak,” she spat.

“But you aren’t, and won’t ever be,” he told her firmly, looking her straight in the eye.

She nodded a little, the corners of her mouth lifting up as she tried to feign a half-smile.

“You don’t think so?” she asked plaintively, wiping her cheeks.

“Never in a million years.”

It took a minute or two for Penny to calm down.

The drugs weren’t helping her get a handle on her emotions, and it was stressful enough to be stuck in the hospital without truly knowing how long she would have to stay.

Jack tried to stay strong for the giant girl, she kept apologising, and he kept telling her it was ok, and it became a bit of a running joke.

She was clearly feeling vulnerable, about as vulnerable as he’d ever seen another person, and that in itself was so strange, and wonderful, and emotional. To be so close to her during these moments, to be… allowed in, with no judgement, and to have a positive impact… that was something he had not really expected to experience.

After she’d gathered herself a bit more, Penny reached out off to one side of the bed by the wall, and swung out a small, by Alpha-standards anyway, yet impressively boxy TV monitor on a swivelling metal arm.

She pushed one of the four buttons, which turned it on, and then pressed the right arrow, which changed the station. Arriving on some movie channel or other, it was muted, but Jack could see the headphone socket right on the side.

It took him a few seconds to notice, but it was an iconic fantasy film from a few years back, one where all the Elves and Goblins and Humans fight a great war to free the kingdom from the tyranny of blah, blah, blah…

Interjecting the silence, Penny spoke to him directly.

“I think you should know that it’s why I’ve not been eating,” she admitted.

“Because of the growth?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said morosely, “I’ve been worried about it, trying to eat less made me think that perhaps I wouldn’t grow as much.”

“But you need to eat, Penny,” Jack replied, quietly shocked that it was her fear of becoming too big that was the underlying cause.

She shrugged, looking down bashfully at her arms folded across her chest.

“That’s unhealthy, and at worst anorexia,” he blurted out, before realising how he was unlikely to be providing much comfort.

“You’re right,” she conceded bitterly before he could backtrack, “And it needs to stop. This relapse proves that it didn’t work anyway.”

But what are you so afraid of growing for?” he asked gingerly, eyes full of genuine curiosity. “Being tall isn’t something to be afraid of, it’s something to embrace, take pride in, surely?”

“Maybe,” she said dejectedly, “But it hasn’t felt much like that so far. I finally felt like I was going to be a reasonable height, that there were a few girls taller than me out there, but now that’s going to change.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Jack said, confused but, in truth, more worried for Penny’s wellbeing than anything. “I don’t think it matters as much as you fear, as long as you’re still the same person.”

She wrapped her arms around him once more, constricting him in an especially tight hug that was startlingly claustrophobic, but fierce with emotion.

“Please don’t leave me, Jack,” she whispered down to him, “I need you so much right now…”

If he had been able to say anything at all, he would have said something soothing and perfectly-judged, and then asked her politely if he was allowed to breathe now. Instead, he just waited, hoping that she would let him go before he passed out.

It would have been scary in literally any other scenario, but he knew this girl’s motives, and he trusted her judgement. With a slight creaking of what sounded like his ribcage, she released his diminutive frame, and sank back down next to him, curling her knees around him and laying her head down on the pillow so they were at the same sort of level.

Jack regained his breath without making too much of a show of things, and reached out to stroke the girl’s hair as her eyes peeked out at him. She was clearly still so tired and discombobulated, she might not even remember his visit at all, though he definitely would.

“That’s nice…” she said, referring to his hands running across her sandy-brown locks, and closed her eyes. Before he knew it, her chest started to rise and fall; she had drifted off entirely.

Jack watched the muted movie screen for a while, checking on Penny as she snored lightly, occasionally reaching out to brush the hair around her cheek, and he felt strangely serene.

The clock in the corner of the room showed that time was ticking on, but he still had a few hours until his parents would come to visit his Grandad.

He had wanted to explain the situation to Penny, but there hadn’t been a convenient moment, and she was clearly a little out of it. It made sense not to give her too much to worry about, as long as she knew he was there for her, that seemed to be all that she needed right now.

He also didn’t really want the nurse to come back in and find him so intimately acquainted with her patient. Questions might well arise anyway when Penny’s parents returned, as the lady would surely make mention of a Beta visitor. He silently cursed himself for not thinking it through, but figured that, at worst, he would be described as a fellow kid from school… pretty nondescript, some Beta boy, totally harmless…

Sliding himself to the edge of the bed, he clambered down the ladder and went to pick up his bag. He noticed the other bed had quite a lot of detritus spread around it; on the cabinet next to it and on the windowsill. Cards, a box of chocolates, some flowers. He figured this was the ‘Amanda’ that Penny had mentioned before; the lady with the tablet. He was lucky that she hadn’t been in bed, or returned whilst he had been sat with Penny, because he wouldn’t have been able to say or do any of the things he just did.

Swinging his bag over his shoulder, he returned over to the bed, and gave Penny one last gentle stroke. Kissing his fingertips, he brushed the hair above her eyes, and proceeded to exit the room.

Finding his way to Ward R was as convoluted as he had predicted, but astute sign-reading and a half-decent sense of direction meant that he ended up in a semi-familiar hallway, and after following a couple of other visitors, he arrived at his destination.

His grandfather was still hooked up to the machines, much the same as that morning, and he appeared to be in a medicated sleep still.

Putting his bag down next to the bed, Jack stood next to his Grandad and held and squeezed his hand. He felt a bit self-conscious, but he knew there was a chance, no matter how small, that the fragile old man might feel it somehow.

Under his breath, he whispered:

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

                 Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!

Jack’s parents swung by to visit the hospital at about 6 ‘o’ clock that evening. By that time, Jack had almost run his phone battery flat, had had at least two power naps, and had spoken briefly with a male nurse who had come to do a routine check-up.

His mother was pleased to see him, especially so because he had made such a ‘grown up’ decision to come and visit his Grandad, and she was still very emotional about the whole ordeal.

A different nurse stopped by, a Beta one accompanied by a Beta doctor who gave a cautiously optimistic prognosis for the recovery, and explained that what they all needed now was rest, and to wait and see how things would unfold. He was very particular in his word choices, which led Jack to suspect that things were not as rosy as they were being led to believe, but not truly life-threatening, at least not yet.

The car journey back home was sombre, as it began to sink in that his grandfather might well be bedridden for a long time. His mother was no longer visibly upset, but her jaw was set in such a way that it was clear she was not coping with this at all. Jack knew better than to poke or prod, just to stay quiet and be supportive if at all possible. His Dad, by way of comparison, just looked straight-up shattered. Exhausted after working a long shift with Friday still to come, he was trying to support his wife as best he could, but the energy levels were fading.

They got home and she fixed them all a simple hot supper, sausages and chips, whatever they wanted for dessert, and then his parents fell asleep in front of the TV in each other’s’ arms.

Jack crept over and made sure his Dad’s alarm was set to the requisite time on his phone, and draped a throw over them, before taking himself to bed.

He considered sending Penny a message on his tablet, and lord knows he wanted to, but other than sending a kiss emoji, he couldn’t think of a single constructive thing to say. He didn’t want to add to her already addled state, so he decided to let it slide until there was something more meaningful to share.

He knew he would have to go into school in the morning, but today had encouraged him to think a little bigger. Being decisive, adhering to a plan, and putting in the effort had given him his some small measure of reward today, and he had the strangest feeling that, if put into practice, a similar outlook could pay dividends in the morning.

He was going to stick to Delon like glue, avoid the front entrance like the plague, and keep his head down, but above all, he was going to have a little chat with Alex Eberhardt.