Jace POV
Football practice was torture. Every one of my muscles ached as we did out twelve suicides down the length of the field. My breath was coming shorter than usual and some of my team mates were being to notice.
"Come on, Herondale! You're supposed to be the star of the team!" One of the guys yelled to me as I was beginning to fall back from lack of oxygen. Panting, I made myself stop before I actually did pass out, and walk to the edge of the field where a stern look on my coach's face greeted me.
"Get your pansy ass back out there, Herondale, before I have to take you from the first game!" He yelled, the veins in his forehead throbbing. His name was Mr. Rob, but we tended to call him Throb because of the creepy things his veins were able to do in his forehead.
"Coach," I said breathlessly, "I can't."
"Now!" Yelling again, he gave me a shove back onto the practice field where I was already three behind the rest of the team.
"Dude," Alec, one of my best friends, came up to me after we had left the locker room, "what was up with you today? You're not one to slack off like that."
I sighed and shook my head, "I didn't slack off, I just couldn't breathe. I'm fine; it was just a bad day. Lay off."
He put his hands up in defense, "Whatever. So, ready for the big game?"
I rolled my eyes, "Alec, the big game is in three weeks. You're getting way ahead of yourself, school hasn't even started yet."
He shoved me and I ended up stumbling more than I should've and hit a wall. I pushed off, but had to keep a hand on it because my head was spinning. It took a few moments before things would come back into focus and now Alec was staring at me like I was some kind of wild animal. "I think I'm coming down with something," I muttered pathetically.
Alec snorted, "Just get your act together, Jace." He wandered off to find his sister, Isabelle, who needed a ride home from volleyball practice.
I stumbled a bit on the way to my car which made me think that I might actually be coming down with something. Starting the engine, I made my way back to my house.
Neither of my parents, Stephen and Celine, were home when I arrived. Realizing that I smelled like crap, I headed up to take a long, hot shower.
After I showered I slipped on a pair of shorts and went to go put a tee shirt on, but something stopped me before I could. Bruises. Dark purple, blue, and yellow bruises lined my back. I poked at one and felt a small jab of pain and wondered where in the hell I got these from. The events of the past week flew through my mind but nothing seemed to measure up to what was right in front of my face.
"Jace, we're home!" My mother, Celine, yelled from down the stairs and I quickly put a shirt on to mask the bruising. Then I headed down the stairs to help carry in the groceries.
"Can anyone tell me what NAACP stands for?" My history teacher, Mrs. Sonya, asked us. Me, I was mostly zoned out, not really paying any attention to what she'd been saying for the last five minutes. I saw her smiled though, and look directly at me, "How about you Mr. Herondale, can you tell me what ALL stands for since I've been explaining it for the last five minutes?" Great, now not only was I going to look like an idiot, the teacher was doing it on purpose. Bitch.
"Uh, National Attention Action of Crazy People?" I said and heard some snickers from my friends and saw some eye rolls from the smart kids who'd actually been paying attention.
"Very funny," she looked around the room and found some smart kid who always knew the answers; Simon. "Now, Simon, can you tell me what NAACP stands for?"
He nodded, "National Association for the Advancement of Colored People."
She beamed at him, and then proceeded to hand out a two page work sheet on the time period of whatever the NAACP was in.
The worksheet wasn't that hard, I mean, it wasn't like I was stupid I just acted like it for the guys. Splat. I heard the sound before I saw the blood. Splat splat splat. Dark, red blood was beginning to make a big circle on my worksheet. Stunned, I stood up and quickly got a hall pass and made my way to the nurse's office.
"Oh," was all the nurse said as I entered her office. She handed me a few tissue and soon we realized it wasn't just a normal nose bleed, the blood just kept coming. I was a bit lightheaded by the time the bleeding stopped and the nurse made me lie down on the little bed thing she hand in her office. The only word to describe was I felt was embarrassment. A few moments later a girl walked in and talked to the nurse for a moment before being handed two different pill bottles. She was pretty, petite, fair skin, and kind of short. Her head was covered with a dark green beanie that enabled me from seeing her hair, but I guessed that it would be red. She had dark circles and was quite thin, anorexic maybe? She also had a very tired look about her as she swallowed the pills.
She must've felt me staring because a moment later her eyes caught mine. I quickly looked away and closed my eyes, then waited for her to look away. As I opened my eyes again, I saw her roll her eyes and walk out of the nurse's office. I sat up after she left, feeling most of the lightheadedness leave, and looked to the nurse. She chuckled at me a little bit. "Honey, she's not for you." I groaned and left her office after getting an excuse note.
"Mom, we need to talk," I told her as I came down from upstairs after doing my homework. She turned away from the dishes she was doing and looked at me. I pulled up my shirt and turned around, unveiling the many bruises that lined my back. She gasped and took a step towards me.
"What happened?" She breathed.
"I don't know, I stepped out of the shower and noticed it. I've also been getting nosebleeds and yesterday, at practice, it felt like I couldn't breathe, Mom, there's something wrong with me," the last part came out a whisper.
Her fingers lightly traced the bruises before she stepped to the phone, "I'll call the hospital, and see if we can get an appointment."
They took some blood, did some scans, and found out our family medical history. We were going back a week later to find out the test results. Guess what, it's a week later.
"Please sit," the doctor, Dr. Monrose, motioned for the three chairs in front of her desk.
"What are the results?" My father asked cautiously, almost as if he was afraid to hear the answer. I was very scared to hear the answer. The nosebleeds became more frequent and I had to be taken out of practice twice this week because I was so short of breath.
"Mr. and Mrs. Herondale," she glanced at me a moment before continuing, "your son, Jace, as ALL. Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, it's most common in children from ages one to ten, but it's not unheard of. This is a type of leukemia where immature white blood cells continuously multiply and are overproduced in the bone marrow. These immature cells crowd the normal cells in the bone marrow and cause damage by spreading to other organs. The good news is that it hasn't majorly affected any of Jace's organs, and we caught it rather early. The only bad news is that we didn't catch it as early as we could hope, but it's not as late as it could have been."
My mind went blank. I'm dead, was all I could think. The only think I knew about leukemia was it was some kind of cancer and people with cancer die. I heard my mother weeping and saw my father holding her while he asked a few questions.
"Where do we go from here?" He asked while stroking my mother's hair.
She cleared her throat, "Well, ALL is not operable so the thing we do is a combination of chemotherapy and radiation. Also, we do medication and steroid to control the cancer. We need to begin a process that we call Induction Therapy, our goals are: 1. Kill as many leukemia cells as possible. 2. Return blood counts to normal. 3. Rid the body of signs of disease for a long time. We need to begin treatment as soon as possible if you want a better chance of survival; I normally would give families as much time as possible to make a decision, but with the rate at which the cancer is escalating I would like to ask you to make a decision now if possible." She clasped her hands together and rifled through some paper for a moment, giving us time to do what we needed to do.
Both of my parents looked at me, but I was unable to speak or move or think. My mother wiped her eyes and nodded to my father, "He'll fight it," he whispered.
Dr. Monrose nodded, "I'll speak with an oncologist today and, if you could, please come back tomorrow because I will have some more news. My parents shook her hand and I realized that I couldn't move. Everyone looked expectantly at me, but I just sat there. "He's probably in a bit of shock right now. Take him home and make him sleep plenty, he'll need it." My mother laid a hand on my arm and helped me stand and my father walked me to the car.
Clary POV
"Okay hun, you're all set," my favorite nurse, Carli, told me. I smiled to her and jumped off the table I was sitting on. She had just fixed my catheter; where I got my chemotherapy from. "Have a nice weekend, sweetie, you get it off. I haven't seen any treatment scheduled for you."
I smiled, "You know I'll be here anyways."
She nodded, "Ah, yes your little nine year old friend who has heart failure. I saw him the other day, he's still bouncing off the wall."
"Of course she is, it's not like he's gonna quit on me," I hugged her goodbye and met my mother outside and she took me home.
My mother was a nice person, a bit flighty, but one of the good ones. My father, Valentine, was in prison for murder, we didn't talk about him much. My brother, Jonathan, was a bit emo. He died his hair black, we were pretty sure he cut himself, and he doesn't come out of his room unless he feels like eating; which isn't very often.
"How are you feeling?" My mother asked me as I sat down on the couch and closed my eyes for a moment.
"I'm fine, mom," I whispered, a bit annoyed. She's great, like I said, she's one of the good ones, but I swear she is just a bit too pushy when it comes to my leukemia. I've had ALL for two years, it started when I was fourteen, I'm sixteen now. I go to school once in a while, but not very often. I was just in school last week for a day or two until I felt too weak to keep up the eight hour routine.
"Okay, I'm just checking up on you," she murmured, "before you go to Isabelle's can you go check on your brother and tell him that dinner will be in about an hour?"
I nodded and went down the hallway and knocked on Jonathan's door. "What!" He screamed without opening the door.
"It's Clary," I said quietly, knowing that he could hear me.
I heard him get up and open the door, and then he wrapped me in a hug. Jonathan was depressed because of my mother and father, but me he adored. "Hey sis," he said and kissed my forehead.
I squeezed him back and then pulled away. "I'm going to Isabelle's, but mom said that dinner's in about an hour."
He nodded, "Tell her I said hi."
I smiled, "Maybe," then I went to pack a bag.
"Okay, so my brother's in his room, but we can totally hang out in the upstairs living room," Isabelle said as I plopped down on her bed.
"Isabelle," I said, "we've been friends for eight years and I've never actually met your brother."
She shrugged, "I know, I'd introduce you to him, but I think he's sleeping.
I nodded, "Fine, now come on, I need to watch something." She laughed at me, I straightened my beanie on my bald head, and we ran up the stairs to the living room.
"Hey Max!" I said as I jumped on the hospital bed next to the best nine year old in the world.
"Clary!" The little boy smiled and wrapped his arms around my tiny waist.
"So, see anyone new come through?"
He shrugged, "A boy, I think he went down to the oncology unit. You might have a new friend soon." He waggled his eyebrows at me and I gently smacked him on the shoulder.
"Okay, so I'll read through one comic book with you and then I have to go get something small to eat," I explained and then pulled out a new comic book that he hadn't seen yet. His eyes widened in anticipation of a new story.
"I'll be back in about an hour if nothing exciting happens," I told Max before trying to find my way to the cafeteria. I had to pass through the oncology unit of course, though. On my way I saw a boy, I assumed this was who Max had saw. He had golden blond hair and was lying in a hospital bed with a woman, I assumed to be his mother, sitting in a chair by him. His eyes were closed but I could see the pain and sickness radiating from him. It looked to be his first time on chemo and he wasn't taking it well. His eyes shot open and he doubled over a trash can. When he finished his eyes met mine for the briefest second and I ducked my head and walked quickly away. I tried to forget the look of recognition in his eyes as I found a muffin the cafeteria.
So, I'm not insane, but this idea just popped into my head while I was writing another story. I thought it was okay, but to continue I need some support from you amazing people out there on fanfiction.
Review so I know if I should continue this:)
