When most people receive bad news, they first go through a period of denial. At least, that's what the Kubler-Ross model says. Having spent a good portion of my twenty years on this planet wandering the halls of a hospital, I've generally found this to be true. But me? I skip straight to anger and I never really move on to bargaining, depression, or acceptance.
When I walked into the hospital that first day back, I had never been angrier. I don't subscribe to any religion, but that day, I believed in a god. I wanted to believe in a god so that I could hate him. Storming up the stairs to the familiar fourth floor, I channeled all of my anger into some higher power just so that I wouldn't punch every single person that passed me by.
The waiting area was full of smiling families and it took everything I had not to scream at them. How could anyone be smiling on the oncology floor? Ignoring the long line to the reception desk, I cut in front of everyone and impatiently drummed my fingers on the counter to get the nurse's attention. The red-head was on the phone and I wasn't in the mood to wait. I really just needed to watch some Sweet Valley High, pass out, and forget the world for the day.
The nurse, "Emma" as her name-tag said, hung up the phone and raised an eyebrow at me. "Miss, unless you need immediate medical attention, you need to wait at the back of the line." Her voice was sickeningly sweet and it did nothing to help my mood.
Seriously, did this bitch not know who I was? "Listen, I'm Santana Lopez-"
"I don't care who you are, Miss. We have policies here and you need to-"
I held up one hand to keep her from speaking. Her voice was just a little too high-picthed and it was about to push me over the edge. "Look, honey, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is your first day or something, especially since you look like you just graduated nursing school about five minutes ago. You know your boss's boss's boss, Dr. Lopez? Cheif of Staff? Yea, that asshole's my father. I have his pager on speed-dial and he'd be racing through these halls to get to me at the touch of a button. So unless you want an impromptu meet-and-greet in which I explain how you harassed his cancer-plagued daughter, I'm going to need you to check me in, tell me my room number and send some jello my way, stat. Anything but lime."
The look of pure terror on that woman's face was almost enough to make me smile. Almost. I thoroughly enjoyed watching her shaking hands fumble through files until she found mine, muttering something resembling "sorry" as she handed it over. Nothing made these people move faster like threatening to bring the chief of staff to the wing, especially when he's your father.
"Miss Lopez, you'll be in room 422, I'll have another nurse take you down there." She was nervously scrubbing her already impeccably clean keyboard. I guess she was a quirky one. If it wasn't the worst day of my existence, I would have actually felt a little bad for being so harsh.
"Don't bother. I know where it is." It's not like I hadn't practically been living in this hospital since I was a kid. I blew past reception before she could protest with more policies about patients wandering the halls alone. As if any of the rules actually applied to me. I got halfway down the hallway before I was nearly tackled to the floor in a hug.
"Santana! You're an hour late, hot stuff. You're throwing off my entire day."
"Holly, it's generally not advisable for nurses to assault their terminally ill patients. You could have sent me into cardiac arrest. Are you gonna let go of me?"
"Not a chance." She loosened her grip, and with an arm still slung around my shoulder, started walking me down the hall. "First of all, you're not terminally ill. This is just...another little blip. No biggie."
I looked up at her, rolling my eyes. "Can you just like, kill me now? I don't think that the pain is going to be worth it this time around. I've already had enough life experiences. Well, I've had sex, at least."
"Honey, I wouldn't spend the rest of my life in jail - even for you. Besides, you may have had sex, but I would bet you haven't had good sex. Trust me babe, you wanna stick around for that. Also, I totally pimped out your room. I can't let all that work go to waste."
As we rounded the corner to the very familiar room 422, I laughed for the first time all day. Right under the room numbers, written in impeccable script, read "Santana M.F. Lopez." Only Holly. "Did you do this?"
"That, and much, much more. Just wait until you get inside."
"You're going to confuse all of the interns. They might actually think those are my middle initials."
"They'll deal," she said, opening the door. It was the same room I had spent my other two bouts of Leukemia in, but the normally puke-worthy hospital walls were already filled with posters of half-naked versions of Olivia Wilde and Ryan Gosling. The standard roll-away hospital bed had been replaced with a full-sized bed, lined with real Egyptian cotton sheets and down blankets. There was a 48-inch TV hanging on the wall, Nintendo Wii already hooked up. On the bedside table lay a Macbook and every single episode of Sweet Valley High on DVD. It should have made me feel happy and loved, but it only served to remind me how long I was going to be there.
"Your father said to spare no expense on your room - so I didn't."
It took me a minute to notice that there was duck-shaped Pinata hanging in the middle of the room. "Holly, you know my birthday was last month, right?"
"That's not a birthday Pinata, hun. That's an aggression Pinata. I didn't think It would be safe to let you loose around the hospital before letting you take a few swings at something. Here." She handed me a bat. Not a whiffle bat - a real, heavy, wooden bat. At first, I was a little bit offended and reluctant to accept the fact that I'm just that predictable. But honestly, I had been itching to hit something, anything, all day long.
"You might want to stand back."
One swing for having to quit school mid-semester. God, I had actually been getting good grades that fall. One swing for the boyfriend who went running as soon as he found out. One swing for the lying doctors who told me it would never come back again. One swing for having to miss prom in high school. One swing for having to quit the Cheerios. Another one for never having a normal play-date as a kid. Another one for every miserable round of chemo. One for that stupid nurse who pissed me off. Ten at my father, for not being able to fix me. Even more hits at the world, for being so screwed up.
When I finally tired put and the bat down, Holly pulled me onto the bed and held me close. She brushed away the tears streaming down my face, tears I hadn't even realized were falling. I buried my face in her neck and let myself lose it, just for a minute. She held me, stroking my hair soothingly until I stilled in her arms. Pulling back the sheets, she helped me into bed. With a kiss on my forehead and a whisper of "it's going to be alright, baby. I know it," Holly left me to get the rest that I so desperately needed.
A few hours later, I woke up to the sound of high-pitched screaming coming from the hallway. I jumped out of bed and stepped into the hallway to see what was wrong, only to be nearly knocked over by two people in wheelchairs who were quite literally racing down the hallway. Things had certainly gotten a lot more interesting around there. That red-head, Emma, hustled by after them, mumbling something about establishing a speed-limit policy on wheelchairs. The two offenders came walking back around the corner giggling- clearly the wheelchairs were for amusement purposes only.
One of them, a girl who looked about my age, had the most infectious laughter. I couldn't help but smile watching her get so much amusement out of such a silly game. She was wearing the most ridiculous outfit - thigh-high socks, little spandex boy-shorts, and a tye-dye shirt. Somehow, she pulled it off. Even completely bald, this girl was gorgeous. She picked a red hat off the floor that had obviously blown off on her wheel-chair joyride and put it back on her head with a cute little smirk in Emma's direction. As she came closer, her strikingly blue eyes caught mine and she skipped over to me.
"Sorry about nearly killing you back there. Hi. I'm Brittany S. Pierce."
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This is more of an introduction - future chapters will likely be longer. This is going to be completely AU, obviously, and Brittana-centric, but any other characters involved will be Glee characters..