Okay so this idea hit me like a bag of bricks and just had to be written. So it was. Completely...In 3 days!
Thank you to Oranfly, Asha710 and Noz4a2 for reading this story through before I started posting.
Olivia Dunham had never really believed in the whole saying of 'your life flashing before your eyes' until she found herself sitting in a plush chair looking up at her doctor who was leaning against his desk looking grave. The words that he had just told her didn't fully register in her brain but she knew just by the way that he had said it that it was bad, that she was sick and that she was dying.
"You have acute megakaryoblastic leukemia." He had uttered sadly and gave her a moment to adjust to the news. "Do you understand what I'm telling you Ms. Dunham?"
"You're telling me that I have cancer." Olivia said slowly.
"Yes, but Ms. Dunham, the cancer that you have is extremely rare." Her doctor explained. "It's hardly ever seen and when it is, it normally shows up in children not adults. It falls into the most severe category known as M7."
"How could I be sick and not know it?" Olivia asked looking at a fascinating part of the carpet.
"A lot of people with cancer don't realize that they have it until they start having symptoms like you did." The doctor said. "Most of them don't know until it's too late."
"And is it, too late?" Olivia asked looking at him.
"We can start you on chemotherapy and see where that brings you."
"Dr. Carter." Olivia shook her head. "Is it too late for me? Am I going to die?"
"There is a very small chance that you may go into remission but even at that, the chances of getting ill again are very high." Dr. Carter sighed. "Most people who go into remission with this type of cancer only stay in remission for a total of either or nine weeks and then the cancer is back full force."
"So this is going to kill me?" Olivia said in a small voice looking back at the floor.
"I'm very sorry Ms. Dunham." Dr. Carter said. "As I mentioned, we can start you on chemotherapy and see where that brings you if you wish."
"Yeah, let's try that." Olivia nodded.
"Okay, I'll schedule you for treatment." Dr. Carter said opening a planner and jotting down her name. "Now I highly suggest that you inform the people that you love."
"Thanks." Olivia said and got up leaving his office feeling numb and scared. She couldn't remember how she got there, but the next thing she knew she was standing outside of her boss, Phillip Broyles, office door, her hand in the air ready to knock but hesitating a moment before making contact with the hard wooden door.
"Come in." The authoritative voice of her boss said.
Olivia slowly walked in and closed the door behind her before taking a seat across from the tall African American man, her legs feeling weak and her eyes starting to droop a little. Broyles looked up at her from his paperwork and took one look at her weary form before his brow creased in concern.
"Dunham, are you okay?" He asked.
"I just got back from a doctor's appointment." She said and ran a hand down her face.
"Is everything okay?" He asked though he knew that it wasn't and when he saw her shake her head 'no' he knew that it was bad.
"I have acute megakaryoblastic leukemia." She said in a rush and saw when understanding dawned on him.
"You have cancer?" Broyles asked delicately.
"Yes." Olivia said swallowing thickly and trying to keep her emotional walls up so that he wouldn't see how scared she was.
"Treatment?" He asked seeing her walls crumbling.
"I'm going to start chemo but even at that, there is a very small chance of remission."Olivia said looking at the floor again.
"I see." Broyles said sadly. "Have you told the team yet?"
"No." Olivia shook her head quickly. "I don't want to tell them yet."
"Okay, that is your decision." Broyles nodded. "However I can't keep sending you out in the field if you are ill. I can't take the risk of anything happening due to you feeling tired or weak."
"I understand." Olivia said visibly cringing at the word weak. She wasn't weak, she was anything but weak.
"You will have to come up with a convincing reason why you are not in the field. That is if you wish to keep this from your team for a while longer." Broyles pointed out and saw her nod. "Dunham, I know that you are still more than likely in shock or denial, but you need to speak to someone about this."
"I just did." Olivia said looking up at him and seeing him sigh heavily.
"I mean someone that you care about. Whether it is you sister, Dr. Bishop, agent Farnsworth or dare I say it, Peter." Broyles said leaning forward with his fingers steepled in from of him. "I know that you still betrayed and hurt, but these people are the most important people in your life."
"If that's so then why was it that none of them knew that they had brought her back with them instead of me?" Olivia asked. Though Peter had hurt her by accidentally sparking up a romantic relationship with a woman that looks just like her, she was equally as mad at Walter and Astrid for not knowing that they had the wrong person with them.
"I know that you are angry at them and at me for not seeing what was right in front of us." Broyles pointed out. "But this is more important and you have to let the past be just that, the past. If you do not tell your team in a week then I will. They have the right to know what is happening to you. Do you understand me?"
"Yes sir." Olivia said and stood up on slightly wobbly legs. "I should get back to work."
"I'll talk with you later." Broyles said as she left his office closing the door behind her and heading out to her car. It wasn't until she got home and noticed that her sister and niece were not home that she let her emotions out. She sank to the floor in her kitchen and leaned against the counter, her face scrunching up as she tried to keep herself from crying but failed when the hot tears started trickling down her cheeks slowly but then in torrents of despair. She was just 32 years old; she was too young to die. And to be honest dying of cancer seemed like such a small thing to her compared to everything else that she had gone through in the other universe. How was it that she could live through being kidnapped, brainwashed and almost having her brain removed but come home only to find out that her own body was what was going to kill her? She knew that Broyles was right and that she had to push her hurt away and tell her team, her family, that she was sick. They needed to know, but she just wasn't ready to tell them yet. She was still wrapping her mind around everything and wanted to be on as level a ground with this illness as she could be before telling them. She gathered all the strength in her and stopped her tears from falling just a minute before the door opened and she knew that the time to tell her sister had arrived.
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