I Will Try To Fix You.
I own absolutely nuttin'. I wish I did... I don't own leukemia because nature took it first, if I owned it I'd make it so nobody got it, I don't own Coldplay, I don't even own Bradgenta because it's real. That's my nutty-ass belief for the day.
This is a Coldplay songfic. It's a oneshot Forbidden Fruit type thing. But not related in any way to the Forbidden Fruit storyline.
The word 'terminal' is a polysemy. Or a word with more than one meaning,
Of, at, relating to, or forming a limit, boundary, extremity, or end.
Either end of a railroad or other transportation line;
A station at the end of a transportation line or at a major junction on a transportation line.
A town at the end of a transportation line.
Causing, ending in, or approaching death; fatal: terminal cancer; a terminal patient.
When Brad was 10 years old, he had been diagnosed with depression. It was the year his grandparents both died, his best friend moved to Paraguay and his mother lost her job.
When Magenta was 22 years old, she had been diagnosed with leukemia. It persisted for 1 year until it became terminal. The doctors had given her three months at the most.
when you try your best, but you don't succeed.
When you get what you want and not what you need.
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep.
Stuck in reverse.
And the tears come streaming down your face.
When you leave something you can't replace.
When you love someone but it goes to waste.
Could it be worse?
Brad's depression relapsed that year. He was 24 and she was 23. It was the year they had reunited after the almost unreal experience at a castle on the outskirts of Denton, A small town that seemed the perfect place to die. The hospital eventually discharged her to die at home after the chemotherapy almost killed her itself. She quit her job as a domestic and Brad brought her back to their apartment and waited. Every day and night turned out the same, Brad would wake up at 6:30 am, watch Magenta sleep for about ten minutes, and go into the kitchen and make her breakfast. It usually left enough time for Brad to go back to their room and lie next to her until she opened her eyes. Her delicate lips would bend into a modest smile and she would move closer to him. Brad would feel her weak shallow breathing against his chest and finally pull away, her face was always pale, even more than usual, her eyes were rimmed with dark blue and her lips sometimes caked with dried blood from the night before.
Hemoptysis; noun; the coughing up of blood.
The afternoons were usually varied, Magenta was either debilitated and tired or in pain or both. And at night she would fall asleep next to him, and Brad watched her, knowing that, had she been awake, she would have been in pain, bleeding, suppressing tears, throwing up or just semi-conscious, either in bed or on the living room couch. Brad was waiting for her to die before he got a job and his parents had agreed to pay the rent for the time being. Not that Magenta ever really used up much money, she didn't need pills, only painkillers, but her family provided those, and she was too sick to ever shop, not that she needed to.
For the moment, Brad and Magenta were laying together on the living room couch, he was dabbing blood off the corner of her mouth. She'd never bled that hard in her life, not even in the time she'd become terminal.
"I think you should go back to sleep." he suggested quietly, she sat up weakly and rubbed her eyes,
"Brad, please, I can't sleep my life away. I- oh..." Brad caught her as she collapsed into his arms again, he'd contemplated checking her into a hospice but he couldn't. He couldn't stand the thought of a stranger being there when she died instead of him. He wanted to make her comfortable, he wanted to be the last one to kiss her goodnight if she died in her sleep. He wanted to be the one holding her body long after the last breath had passed. She wanted him to be there.
Brad didn't have access to morphine, he tried not to cause her family too much trouble by using up all the pills that had been prescribed, he didn't want to use any drugs on her, but when the pain spiraled out of control, Brad couldn't resist injecting the syringe into her pale wrist.
Brad knew subconsciously that it was making her worse, that if she ever went into withdrawal it would undoubtedly kill her, that he needed to stop telling her it was okay. He couldn't keep it up for another two months. Or less.
He carried her back to their bedroom and held the oxygen mask over her mouth, her tired green eyes sparkled with tears as they began to close, Brad gently kissed her forehead and his hand traveled down her delicate body to her left hand, he felt it trembling.
Magenta died the next morning. Her death wasn't bloody, or violent or horrible.
She fell asleep and just didn't wake up.
Brad called her parents, they volunteered to take her body away.
Two years later, Brad committed suicide. The day after visiting her body in the above-ground cemetery.
After he had failed. He had failed to fix the woman he loved, he'd made promises to her. Promises he couldn't keep. There was no time to learn from his mistakes, she was gone, and so was he. Two little pieces of blue sky. Away from everything that could hurt them, away from illness, depression and the pain of failure. Safe in a utopian afterlife.
And I will try
To fix you.