Author's Note: Well, I hope you guys like this! I put so much research into it, I wanted to keep it as realistic as possible and so between that, general chaos and a surprise vacation, this took longer then a planned. 'Perfect Mess' will be posted either in a month, or once I get three chapters finished. If you have not read 'Perfect' and still want to read this, all you really need to know is that it went AU after 2x10 and as such, Santana has a boyfriend named Miles and Sam is a foster child. Thank you very much to my beta Joleigh13!
Leukemia.
She was sure that the whole world froze when the doctor said that word. It wasn't possible. Leukemia was cancer and there was no way she had cancer. There had to be some horrible mistake. She was only seventeen; she wasn't even technically a senior yet. She had a great boyfriend and decent grades; she was in Glee Club and on the Cheerios. This couldn't happen to her. Santana Lopez could not get cancer.
She blanked out for the rest of the visit, only vaguely understanding that she was being sent home mostly to get the chance to pack and that she would be admitted to the hospital the next morning. She caught bits of sentences saying that they caught it early and she had a good chance, but it just didn't seem real. Only a couple of weeks ago she had been laughing with her friends at Sam's birthday party. Her parents were just supposed to be overreacting. She was supposed to walk out of the doctor's office and roll her eyes at them. She wasn't supposed to walk out so she could pack for the hospital.
She didn't know how long she had been sitting there when her mom put her hand on her arm, "Santana? Did you hear the doctor?" her mother asked.
The moment that she looked up and saw the tears in her mother's eyes, it finally hit her. This was real, it was happening and she was terrified. She found herself bursting into sobs as her mother pulled her into a hug. For a moment all she wanted to do was pull away and yell. Who was her mother to act like she cared now when she had never shown it before? But the moment passed quickly and all she wanted was someone to make it better.
Santana had locked herself in her room the moment she had gotten home. She couldn't deal with anyone else and she had one night to figure out what she would need and want while she was in the hospital. Still half in a daze, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and sent out a mass text that was probably much too blunt, but she didn't know how else to put it. 'I have Leukemia. My treatments start tomorrow.' It was all she could really think of to say.
She listened to the frantic beeping of her phone as she pulled out her suitcase and looked around her room. What did you take with you to spend who knows how long in the hospital being sick? Jeans didn't sound like the best plan and she wouldn't need her Cheerios uniform. After throwing most of her clothes onto her bed, she robotically folded and packed everything that looked comfortable, with her phone still beeping in the background.
With that done, she zipped up the suitcase, moved it out of the way and grabbed another bag. She carefully packed her favorite DVDs and books along with a few she hadn't read yet. She would pack away her laptop later. She went through her closet again and added a deck of cards and a couple of old board games. She picked a couple of computer games out of a drawer on her desk and added them along with her iPod charger. After one last look around the room, she grabbed the scrapbook that she would usually deny ever owning and placed it in the bag before zipping it up and placing it with the other.
She threw herself down on the bed before picking up her phone and scrolling through a few of the frantic replies. Sighing, she sent out another mass text before turning off her phone. 'Yes, I'm serious. Even I'm not mean enough to joke like that. No, I'm not okay. I have to be there at nine.' She couldn't deal with them anymore. She couldn't deal with anything anymore. Santana took a deep breath, buried her face in her pillow, and cried.
"Santana!" her father called from outside her door, waking her up.
She sat up and glanced at the clock, before realizing that she had no idea what time she had fallen asleep. All she knew was that it was nearly dinner time. Suddenly it all came rushing back and she had never felt less hungry in her life.
"I don't feel like eating." she said.
"You need to try and eat something when dinner is ready, but that's not why I'm calling you. Miles is here." he replied.
"I'll - I'll be right there." Santana managed to say, looking in the mirror reflexively, before realizing that for once, she couldn't care less what she looked like.
She opened her door only to find her father still standing there. As soon as he saw her, he pulled her into a hug.
"You're going to be alright, mija. Dr. Gellar is a good doctor. I've known him for years." he told her.
Santana simply nodded, "Is Miles downstairs?" she asked.
Once her father confirmed that he was she made her way into the living room, only to find herself immediately pulled into another hug, this time from her boyfriend. There was a long moment where he simply held her. No words were said as neither had any idea what to say.
"What do you need?" he asked as he finally pulled away from her, "Anything, San. I'll do anything."
"Can you just ... stay with me for a while?" she asked, letting her mask slip like she had only recently begun to do, "I'm scared."
Santana let herself be led into the hospital room she would be staying in. She felt numb. This shouldn't be happening to her, but she didn't have a choice but to deal with it. It had sunk in enough that she knew it was happening, no matter how much she wished otherwise. She went over to the bags her father had brought in and pulled out the three picture frames she had grabbed at the last minute.
"Might as well unpack." she muttered to her parents as she set the pictures out.
There was a dresser in the room and she placed them on it, one family picture, the most recent group picture of the Cheerios and a picture that had been taken just after New Directions won at Nationals. With that done, she moved her clothes into the drawers before putting the rest of her things in the drawers of the bedside table. She had only just finished when Dr. Gellar walked in. She sat down on the bed and tried to pay attention as he once again explained what would be happening.
Santana did her best to take in what she was being told. The goal of the first round of treatment was to get her into remission and the hope was that it would happen in about four weeks. Before long she found herself in the hospital bed being given the first of what would be many, many doses of chemotherapy.
Santana had come to one conclusion: chemo sucked. Cancer sucked, life sucked and everything sucked. Except Miles. And maybe her friends. It was kind of hard to think badly about them when her room was nearly overflowing with flowers, stuffed animals and half the contents of the hospital gift shop. They hadn't left her alone yet. Miles was there every day and there wasn't a single minute of visiting hours where one of her friends wasn't there as well.
She hadn't really expected them to be so amazing. With how she had treated them in the past, she had expected a token visit from most of them at best. She certainly hadn't expected them to stay with her and try to comfort her even while she was throwing up. They were nicer to her then she deserved and she knew it. She might have been trying to treat them a little better before this all happened, but she knew that this changed everything. Santana Lopez might just have to learn how to do 'nice'. At least with the Glee Club members.
She was miserable. The chemo had really hit her hard that day and she had been throwing up off and on for what felt like forever, but Miles had been by her side the whole time. She wasn't sure she had ever dated someone before who would sit by her side and hold her hair back while she threw up repeatedly. Miles was definitely different than any boyfriend she'd ever had and she loved that.
He had been there, every day, always with flowers or a cheesy card or whatever he found in the gift shop on the way in. He would stay with her through the side effects of her chemo, never leaving her side until she either felt better or he was forced to. Miles had been amazing, she couldn't have asked for anything more from him.
"Better now?" her boyfriend asked as she finally leaned back against the bed.
"I guess." she mumbled as he began to gently clean her face off.
She really couldn't figure out how she had managed to find him.
She had just woken up from yet another nap, relieved to be free of the nausea for the moment. She sat up and made her way to the second chair in the room, just to get a slightly different point of view for a few minutes. It wasn't until she sat down that she looked back over to the hospital bed and felt tears spring to her eyes. She had known that it would happen. There had been a little more hair in her brush then usual already, but something about seeing the hair on her pillow made everything hit her at once.
Her mom was suddenly by her side and pulling her into a hug and all she could do was cry. It wasn't fair. She was only seventeen. This wasn't supposed to happen to her. She shouldn't be sick; she shouldn't be losing her hair. It wasn't fair.
"Mamá, I want to cut it off. I don't want to keep seeing it like that. I just - I want...to shave it off." she managed to say, pulling away from the hug and wiping the tears from her eyes.
"Okay, baby." was all her mother said.
Almost before she realized what she was doing she found herself grabbing her cell phone off of her bedside table and texting Kurt. 'Will you come shave my head?'
She wasn't sure why she was smiling. Kurt had only just left after showing up a couple of hours before with a razor, a seemingly endless assortment of headscarves and a promise of helping her find a good wig. All of her hair was gone and while she was sure she would cry about that later, right now she felt an odd sense of relief. She didn't want her hair gone, but for once, it was something she had chosen to do. She chose to go ahead and shave her head because she wanted to. And that felt good.
She was alone for once, having finally convinced her parents to spend the night at home. Their hovering was beginning to drive her insane. After spending most of her life paying attention to anything and everything but her, now they wouldn't leave her alone. Now that she might die, they finally cared. As much as she wanted them around, she couldn't help how angry that was starting to make her feel.
She pushed the thoughts of her parents away and looked around her room. Flowers and stuffed animals were still everywhere but now there were 'Get Well Soon' cards mixed in, several of them handmade ones from Sam's foster siblings and Brittany and her little sister. She couldn't look anywhere without seeing the reasons she had to keep fighting. Three years ago she never would have believed it if she was told that the gleeks would be one of her main reasons for living in a few years, but they were.
She was going to get better and go to Nationals with them again and sing at graduation. Then she'd go off to college with Brittany like they'd always said they would and Miles would come with them. After that, they would all meet up every chance they got, because nothing could split them up anymore. Glee Club was family.
"I really wish I knew what she thought was going to happen to me in a hospital," Miles said as he walked back into Santana's hospital room after stepping out to call his mother who had threatened not to let him come anymore if he didn't keep calling home every hour.
"Maybe she's just afraid that you'll see how awesome it is here and run away to move in with me." Santana replied sarcastically.
"I don't know. It's not that bad, nice and clean, there's a store and food ... and you." Miles responded with a grin.
"And white walls everywhere and sanitary everything and me always puking." she said.
"I know you hate it, baby. But if it makes you better, it's worth it." her boyfriend replied, squeezing her hand.
"I guess." Santana replied.
Santana still wasn't a hundred percent sure that Brittany understood what was going on. She knew that her best friend was sick, but Santana wasn't sure anyone had the heart to tell her just how sick. If Brittany realized that it was possible Santana would die, she certainly didn't show it. Visits from Brittany were usually full of happy chatter, mangled gossip and at least one stuffed animal.
"There's a guy moving in with Artie." Brittany commented absent-mindedly.
"What?" Santana asked, baffled.
"Yeah. This guy named ... Jacob ... Jeremy ... J-something, I don't remember. His house is mean, so he's going to Artie's." Brittany continued as she hugged each stuffed animal in Santana's room in turn.
'J-something' Santana mouthed as she tried to figure out what Brittany was talking about, after nearly a full minute it finally hit her, "You mean his cousin?" she asked.
"Oh, yeah. His cousin." Brittany said as she began carrying several stuffed animals back to Santana's hospital bed.
They had been told that Dr. Gellar had news for them that morning. Every second of waiting felt like torture as the Lopez family sat, silent and tense in the hospital room. It didn't seem real to Santana. It shouldn't be possible that she was sitting in a hospital bed waiting for life or death news. It wasn't fair and she was terrified.
She didn't have a clue how long they had waited before the doctor finally walked into the room. She held her breath as he began to speak.
"It's too early to say anything for sure ... but the test results look good. The treatment seems to be working." he said.
Santana didn't hear anything else that came out of his mouth. All she could focus on was the fact that she might not die after all.
Her friends had been amazing through the whole horrible experience she had been going through. There had yet to be a day without at least two of them visiting her unless she was too sick to accept them. They always kept her up on what was going on with the rest of the group and did their best to make her feel like she wasn't missing much.
That particular day, Sam and Quinn were the first to show up during visiting hours. The happy couple had walked in with smiles on their faces and another stack of handmade cards and pictures from Sam's foster siblings. It always amazed her how Sam never failed to bring her something else from them even with how little time she had spent with the children.
"How've you been today?" Sam asked with a touch of worry as he handed her what he was holding.
"It's been a better day." she replied with a shrug as she started to look through the pictures and cards.
"Finn and Kurt's parents are taking in an exchange student." Quinn said, smiling at her friend as she began to fill her in on the gossip.
"I taught my mom to text last night." Miles said with a grin as he sat in the chair next to his girlfriend's hospital bed.
"How did that go?" Santana replied with a weak smile.
"Well ... it took a few hours, but I think she understands it enough where I can at least text every hour instead of calling." he explained.
"It's an improvement." she said
"Yeah. So, what's on TV?" Miles said, picking up the remote.
She loved how normal he tried to keep things. He did his best to never mention her cancer. All of his visits were spent with him trying to keep things as normal as possible. He would ask how she was doing and help her if she needed it, but beyond that, their time together always felt as normal as possible and some days, she really needed that.
"... and so Finn ended up helping paint..." Mercedes said before trailing off into laughter.
"Please tell me you have pictures." Santana asked her friend.
"As if any of us would have let that happen without pictures." Mercedes replied with a smirk, "We did get the room finished, but I've never seen someone covered in that much paint."
Out of all of her friends, Mercedes had been one of the best at making her laugh. She always made sure to remember all the amusing little things that happened and she made sure to fill Santana in on every one. Whether it was something funny Aiden did or Finn's attempts to help fix up a room for the exchange student the Hudson-Hummel family was taking in, Santana always at least had a mental picture of it.
They were supposed to have news from the doctor again soon and Santana was so nervous that she had to keep reminding herself to just breathe. She knew what the news would likely be about and if she wasn't in remission yet, she knew that it meant that her chance of survival would drop. This was so important and it seemed to be taking forever for the doctor to show up. She was scared to death.
She knew that even remission wouldn't mean that her ordeal was over, not by a long shot. She would still have two years worth of treatments to go through - and that was if she stayed in remission. Good news now though would mean she had a better shot at making it and that was all she wanted. She didn't want to die, not when she had found so much to live for.
Her parents both paced the room, glancing her way every few seconds and part of her just want to yell at them to stop. Their hovering was still driving her crazy and she knew that she was going to blow up at them at some point. However, before things reached that point, Dr. Gellar finally walked in.
"I have some good news for you." he said with a smile, "Santana, you're in remission."
With that single word, she burst into tears. Remission. It was the best word she had heard in her life.