A/N: Okay, so, I do realise with this fic that I am risking a lot. People tend to avoid religion/spirituality as a theme for fics, and I have decided not to.

This is a Christian fic. If you are offended by this, please leave. I'm not going to defend who I am and what I believe.

This is also based on the Pentecostal side of Christianity, instead of the Roman Catholic Church. I'm studying religion at the moment and learned that there is actually a difference. It doesn't matter to me, but some may find the material I add offensive. If you would like to know more about the difference between these two churches, you can PM me or leave a review.

I don't own TFIOS.

Rooftops

Chapter 1

Patrick, the youth leader at the church, started our meeting, his voice reverbrating around me. I swear I could tell his story as good as he could by now. I mean, I knew he had had cancer in his testicles and that he now had a few less balls to begin with, but the speech never changed. The message never changed either. I would've liked to hear a different message every once in a while, you know?

I was still coming here, to the Literal Heart of Jesus, a year after Augustus Waters died. It was a miracle that I was still alive, the Phalanxifor was still working, but I was still the only success case on this experimental drug, though I've made a few trips to the hospital to have liquid siphoned off my lungs. The tumours haven't grown yet, either. Maybe I would make it to eighteen, I thought, seeing as I had just passed my seventeenth birthday.

Isaac was next to me, his leg hopping out of habit, and I reached over to grab his hand. I saw him smile as his fingers linked through mine, his thin lips stretching over the lower part of his face, though his head remained entirely stationary. He was sort of used to the blindness now, and he allowed me to lead him around here.

Just as we were going to start the usual speech of Patrick's ball-lessness, the doors burst open – and a girl with long brown hair floundered in. I don't get to use the word 'floundered' often, but this was what I would describe it as. And all I saw was a mass of brown hair.

She was falling over her own feet, her hair covering her face, and she flipped her hair back, as if she was playing an electric guitar, and she smiled self-consciously.

"Hey, sorry I'm late…" She said, and I frowned. She looked healthy, her cheeks were round, her eyes shiny and she had all of her hair. Was she Patrick's new helper? But that would be odd, seeing as Patrick had never had a helper before.

Usually when someone arrives at the support group, you can tell if they are patients or not, usually they wear some morose expression that scream 'Feel sorry for me!', or they're super thin with a very pale complexion, or, like me with Phillip the oxygen tank and the thin pipes that lead to my nose, you have an appendage to carry or drag around with you wherever you go.

But the newcomer looked healthy. She even had a healthy tan.

"Ah, I was wondering if you'd show up, Lily," Patrick smiled a bit as he made eye-contact with her, he had never smiled to anyone like that before, she returned the smile, nodded and took a seat, "Introduce yourself."

Lily stood again, "I'm Lily Holzer, I'm nineteen years old, and I have brain cancer," She declared. I started a bit, how could she have brain cancer? "I was diagnosed about eight months ago and given two years to live, but I refused to go for surgery," She pulled her shoulders up slightly.

"And how do you feel today?" Patrick asked, and Lily laughed cynically.

"Awful." Was all she said, but she still managed to push a smile onto her face.

Her hair was frizzy and wild, and stood all over the place, and she had had a pair of dark green eyes that shone from under it. She had a curvy body, easy to see from the tights and T-shirt she was wearing.

Her wrists were wide open for us to see, but I think I was the only one, or one of the only ones, that saw that her one wrist had a dark shape on it, but she kept shaking her arms around and I couldn't make it out.

She sat down again and looked at her hands. Her nails were painted pink, in sharp contrast to her black clothing.

"Welcome to the support group, Lily," Patrick smiled warmly again, and he went on, starting his speech all over again.

This new girl fascinated me. Not in the way that Gus did, but she didn't look like she was paying attention at all, instead she was biting her pink thumbnail and looking at a corner. I glanced at the corner, maybe there was a spider, but no eight-legged creature crept forward sinisterly.

I looked back at her, and she was looking at me. She smiled at me before looking down at her thumb again.

Once it was over, Isaac's hand curled around my upper arm and we walked to the elevator. It was sort of a relief to take the elevator; I didn't think my lungs could handle the stairs today.

"Hold it, please!" A voice yelled, and Isaac's hand came up blindly, to stop the mechanical doors from closing and his hand was enough for the doors to retract.

Lily tossed a smile at me once she'd skidded to a halt in the lift, before putting her hands on her knees as she got her breath back.

She straightened up before she took Isaac's remaining hand and shook, "Hey, I'm Lily," She then extended her hand to me, and I took it, with my canister awkwardly leaning against my leg. I gave her my name as we shook.

"I'm Isaac," My companion said, "You're the one with brain cancer, right?"

"Yeah, that's me. And as to answer your next question: I have a Glioblastoma tumour. I have no idea how I got it, but I did." She said it all nonchalantly. As if having a Glioblatoma tumour wasn't all that bad.

Glioblastoma was the most malignant brain cancer one could have, and she was supposed to have weakened by now, if I remembered correctly, but, again, she seemed perfectly healthy. The tumour is one you could operate on, but it just started growing again, and faster than before.

"Ouch," Isaac said, "So you're terminal?" It came out as a question, but I knew it was more of a statement. We don't beat around the bush when it comes to cancer or look for euphemisms for death past the word 'terminal'.

"Yeah, I am," She said, but it was as though it didn't sadden her at all; as though she had accepted defeat.

"You also said you refused to get surgery?" I asked, and she nodded again.

"Yeah, didn't wanna spend my time in a hospital," She said, "And I also refused chemo. Didn't see the need of it. My parents think I'm insane, but I am anyways, and they want to get chemo badly."

"Aren't you scared?" Isaac asked as the doors slid open, revealing the bottom floor to us. She stepped out and waited for us to do the same.

"To die is to live; to live is to gain," She said, and I swear I knew that from somewhere. Isaac nodded, pursing his lips. I wished she would explain what it meant.

"You make a good point, but isn't it hard for you to retain your faith when your life is being plucked from you?" He asked, his voice somewhat annoyed. So what she said was probably a quote from the Bible…

"It's not easy," She said, and she looked at me again, "I didn't always believe in God. I didn't believe that Jesus was my saviour. But now? Now that I am so close to the end…"

"Because you have cancer, you believe in God?" I asked, hiding a cynical laugh, "So you're trying to fix yourself for the afterlife?"

She laughed at me, shaking her head, "No, I'm not trying to get into God's good books by prancing around like some sanctimonious cow, preaching the good news but murdering children's dreams when no one is looking…" She kept shaking her head, her hands in the air, "I believed in God before I got sick. Now it is this faith that keeps me strong."

"Explain to me exactly how you can believe in God when He is taking your life." I demanded. I didn't know why this was bothering me so much.

Lily Holzer's lime eyes flashed dangerously, "Hazel Grace Lancaster, I don't need to explain anything to you. If you want to know due to some pity you hold for me, save it. If you actually want to know, you can come to me again."

"Come on, Lily, I'll give you a ride home." Patrick came up behind us, and I nearly jumped a mile in the air. He didn't really approach us after support group much.

Lily smiled at him again, and bade us farewell. Her eyes lingered on me, and I saw the pity she felt for me, but this was a different pity than I was used to. This wasn't pity for cancer. It was unfamiliar.

And it scared me.

. . .