Everything's Changed

FIVE

Chapter Five:

Over the next week, Mark gradually began to feel stronger. He still felt very ill at times, but on the whole he was slightly better than before. He was sleeping less during the day and his appetite had started to go back to normal.

Of course, things weren't perfect – they were nowhere near perfect – but Emma had noticed a change in Mark. Since Robbie and Ayda had come round to stay with them, Mark seemed almost... happier. He was still nowhere near as smiley or bubbly as he used to be, but Robbie's presence, especially, had had a positive impact on Mark and Emma just hoped that that would continue.

Yesterday, the rest of the lads had popped round to see how Mark was doing. They had talked to him, trying to cheer him up, but nothing seemed to work. When Emma had popped in, she had heard them talking about something that happened back in the 90s. She could see the five of them smiling, but she knew that Mark's smile was pretty much forced and she knew that the others knew too. It was obvious, his smile didn't reach his eyes at all and they said what he was truly feeling. She had also noticed that there was something false in the atmosphere, like the laughs they shared were just there to break the silence that would inevitably fall on them if they didn't. Everything just felt darker. It made Emma realise just how much effect Mark had on the others. Without his larger than life character shinning through, the entire atmosphere felt darker.

The kids had gone back to school the day before and Emma had gone in to explain what was going on when she took them to their different parts of the school. The teachers there promised that they would keep an eye on them and would contact Emma if anything happened. Emma thanked them before turning around to leave. Before she did leave though, everyone she told told her that they wished Mark the best and hoped that he would get better soon. Emma said that she would tell Mark that they wished him well and walked back to the house.

Emma sat with Ayda outside in the garden. The two of them were watching Robbie and Mark kick a football between each other. Robbie had eventually managed to get Mark to come down after about three hours of telling him he needed to do something before he went mad with boredom. Initially, both Emma and Ayda had both thought that they might as well tell Robbie to give up, but they both knew that Robbie would keep trying no matter what and eventually he managed to get Mark to play a little bit of football with him.

As the two of them watched the two men play they couldn't help but smile. If anyone were to come in right now and see them, despite Mark wearing one of his woolly hats to cover his head where his hair had started to fall out and the fact that his smile wasn't as bright, you wouldn't think that there was anything wrong. It was like Mark had forgotten that he was ill and was just happy to be playing his favourite sport with his best mate.

"Hey Marky, look over there." Robbie said pointing at the sky. Mark looked at him confused, before turning his head to where Robbie was pointing. Robbie grinned and while Mark was looking away, Robbie took the ball off Mark and ran down the garden with it. Mark then heard both Emma and Ayda laugh and he turned to look at them.

"What?" He asked. Emma laughed and nodded her head towards where Robbie stood jumping up and down with his arms in the air. Mark turned to look and then realised what Robbie had done. "Oh, my God, Rob! That's so childish." Mark said jogging down to where Robbie was. But as soon as Mark began to make his way towards him, Robbie set off dribbling the ball all around the garden, trying to keep the ball away from Mark for as long as he possibly could.

"Mark, I cannot believe you fell for that." Emma said as he followed Robbie.

"It wouldn't be the first time." Robbie grinned as he continued to dribble the ball around the garden with Mark doing his upmost to use all the energy he had left to catch him up.