Let's get one thing straight! I'm not an expert on cancer or brain tumors. I do not intend to make fun of anyone suffering from these conditions. This fanfic is inspired by an episode of Saving Hope that featured an ill teenaged couple.

I've done a crap load of research on these conditions (mostly on Wikipedia) and I'll try to be as accurate as possible. If anything's incorrect then I apologize.

Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice.

As Rose Petals Fall

Prologue:

Diagnosis

Zatanna's P.O.V

I used to be thought of as invincible... Zatanna Zatara; Olympic level tennis player by the age of 15! No one thought I could be stopped on my climb to the top... but I was. I was a member of the Italian tennis team and was playing against America when it happened. I made a dive to stop the ball from going out of bounds when I started feeling excruciating pain in my knee. The match was called off when I was taken to hospital. My tennis couch/manager kept going on at the doctors about how I needed to be able to play for the rematch next week. I mentioned often feeling fatigued even before a work-out and my joints aching. They did an X-Ray of me and that's when they found it... or, rather, them!

Bone tumors... at least three around the knee I'd just broken and possibly more.

They did an operation to take a slice of bone to do a biopsy on and that's when we found out. The whole time we waited for the biopsy results, my father never left my side. I could tell he was trying his best to be brave for me but I knew he was just as scared as I was.

Then the results came back and we found out...

I had inherited Li–Fraumeni syndrome, most likely from my mother. And now I had the exact thing that killed Mom when I was only 5; Osteosarcoma, stage 2. In other words...

Bone cancer.

I went from an invincible tennis star to being frail... like glass. I felt like my life was over and I wasn't far off when the doctors told me people with Osteosarcoma usually died within two years if it isn't cured. My father broke down at the news and said he was thankful my mother wasn't alive today to learn she'd past down a deadly disease to the daughter she loved so much.

I considered just letting the cancer take me but I was a fighter. I'd fight to the very end! I didn't want to leave Dad all alone in the world and, when it came down to it, I wanted to live! I'd fight... until there was no more fight in me.

Dick's P.O.V

I'd always been a bit of a scatter brain. I'd often forget things I said only 5 seconds ago. Even so, I was one of the most intelligent teenagers in the country (possibly the world). I was getting awards and prizes in math and my acrobatic abilities were unmatched! In a way, I was unstoppable. Then I was stopped. I was in the final round of a mathematics contest and I was the youngest competitor. I'd been experiencing fits of nausa and short-term memory loss but it was chalked up to nerves.

Then it happened...

My hand suddenly couldn't hold my pen and I collapsed. I don't remember the exact events but my adoptive father later told me I had jerked around on the floor and they called an ambulance. They confirmed I had had a seizure. I apparently kicked my heels into the floor so hard I broke my ankle.

When I told them of my short-term memory loss and nausa, they asked about headaches. I'd been having major headaches but I had been taking aspirin for them. I was taken in for a brain scan and they found it...

A brain tumor.

I was taken into surgery to have it removed, which was successful and I returned to my life. But when I was 15, the symptoms returned and I was taken in for another scan...

This time there was two.

My adoptive father paid for the best treatment but I still wasn't given long to live. Even so, I'm determined to live my life to the fullest... while I still can.

This has a more serious tone to my usual fanfics but I hope you still like!