A/N: Hey you lovely people! I'm SUPER excited about this fic, and I hope you will be too. This is a multi-chappie iCarly that focuses on one of my favorite characters of ALL time...drumroll please...the infamous Samantha Puckett! It's going to have tons of Sam/Freddie/Carly friendship and Seddie undertones (because Seddie is the only pairing allowed to exist in my mind).
Rating: T for language (Let's face it, in real life, no chiz would be replaced by no sh-)
Head Canon: Gibby is a year younger than Sam, and he is not as important to iCarly (I really wanted to just focus on the friendship of Sam/Freddie/Carly so that's the reasoning behind it). The story begins around April/May of Sam's senior year. Melanie rarely comes home and keeps minimal contact with Sam. Sam's father is not a part of her life. Her mother is neglectful and has had problems with alcoholism.
Okay...after writing, editing, and banging heads with keyboards...let's get this show on the road. I really, really hope you'll enjoy the ride!
The Five Stages of Grief
The Kübler-Ross model, commonly known as The Five Stages of Grief, is an hypothesis first introduced by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying. She created this theoretical model to apply to any form of catastrophic personal loss. Such losses may include significant life events such as the death of a loved one, major rejection, drug addiction, or the onset of a terminal disease.
I. DENIAL
Denial is usually only a temporary defense for the individual. Denial can be a conscious or unconscious refusal to accept facts, information, or the reality of the situation and serves as a defense mechanism. This feeling is generally replaced with heightened awareness of possessions and individuals that will be left behind after death.
"Even as your body betrays you, your mind denies it."
- Sara Gruen.
It starts on a Monday.
She's walking into Carly's house, laughing with Carly and Freddie about something stupid, when she feels a wave of nausea roll through and slam into her like a tsunami.
Immediately, she clamps a hand over her mouth and sprints to the bathroom, barely making it before she heaves into the toilet. She chokes at the taste of acid, and the feeling makes her throw up more, because she swears she's never felt this sick in her life. (Pucketts never get sick. It's a point of pride for her).
Carly and Freddie are there almost immediately, holding back her hair, murmuring soothing words. When she's finally done she smiles weakly and accepts the glass of water that Freddie presses into her hand.
She gurgles and spits into the sink, and when Freddie and Carly ask her if she's sick, she tells them that she must've eaten some bad bacon or something, so that they won't worry.
But she's a little afraid, because see, the thing is, she had ham for breakfast.
ignore: / ig'nor/ (verb) to fail to consider (usually something of significance), to put out of one's mind
ORIGIN from Latin ignorare, 'to not know'
The headaches come soon after, and they're crippling, almost devastating.
The first blindsides her in math class, and she nearly rocks out of her chair from the sheer force of it. It's like there's something in her head raging to get out, and the world blurs and roars around her from its assault.
As soon as class is over she stumbles out of the room, limply giving in to the movement of people around her, and slips out the side entrance. She walks the three miles home in a sort of daze, walking stiffly and trying to keep the vibrations of her feet hitting the pavement from rolling through her body.
She trips coming in through the door and crashes straight into her bed. For the first time, Sam's glad that her mother's never home, because she doesn't think she could bear speaking right now. Her mouth is slightly open and she's drooling on her pillow, but she doesn't dare move because the pain is eating through her like the ocean swallows a grain of salt, and to move would be to dissolve that much quicker.
She closes her eyes gingerly and feels a tear slip out because, fuck, there's no way that the human body is capable of holding this much pain inside, and she thinks that she's going to shatter if -
And then, the pain is gone. She opens her eyes in shock and there's not a throb, not a single trace of pain left behind. Just the sun shining in a blue sky and traffic humming outside her window.
But she's afraid, because this isn't normal and something with her has to be wr-
bury one's head in the sand; have one's head in the sand: /figurative/ to ignore or hide from obvious signs of danger. Alludes to an ostrich, which is mistakenly believed to hide its head in a hole in the ground when it sees danger
115.
She stares at the scale and wills the number to change.
115.
She's lost five pounds in the past two weeks, and even though most girls would be jumping for joy, she's shaking her head, because this doesn't make any sense at all. She's been eating more and more to compensate for throwing up after meals, and even though she's bad at math, she's not stupid, and she knows that throwing up one meal and eating two in return does not equal losing weight.
For the first time in her life, she wants to be fat.
She gets out of bed one morning, blinks, and finds herself on the floor. She doesn't even remember falling.
It happens again the next day. Then two days after that day. Then three, then one, then four days after that.
The voice inside her frets loudly, telling her that she can't ignore this any longer, that she can't pretend that everything's fine.
She slaps it away. Instead, she goes out and gets herself a smoothie.
It's only after she blacks out in the stairwell and finds herself sprawled at the bottom of two flights of stairs that she finally calls the doctor.
So, let's get this over with. What pills do you want me to choke down? What disgusting liquid do I have to drink?
...Take a seat Sam.
Just hand me the prescription and I'll be gone, I promise.
Take a seat, Sam, please.
Melanoma /ˌmɛləˈnoʊmə/ (from Greek μέλας — melas, "dark") is a malignant tumor of melanocytes. Melanocytes are cells that produce the dark pigment, melanin, which is responsible for the color of skin. Melanoma is less common than other skin cancers. However, it is much more dangerous if it is not found early.
Metastasis, or metastatic disease, is the spread of a disease from one organ or part to another non-adjacent organ or part, primarily used to refer to tumors in cancerous cases. In origin metastasis is a Greek word meaning "displacement", from μετά, meta, "next", and στάσις, stasis, "placement".
When there is distant metastasis, the cancer is generally considered incurable. The five year survival rate is less than 10%. The median survival is 6 to 12 months.
I - what the hell did you say?
You've been diagnosed with stage four metastatic melanoma that has spread to your stomach, liver, and brain.
Metastic? What the fuck does that mean?
The cancer has -
Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up. Cancer?
I'm so sorry.
...
Is there anybody we can call?
Fuck you. Fuck you and fuck your cancer.
She walks out into blinding sunlight. The sun is blazing into her retinas and burning a path across her skin, and she feels like she's caught on fire. But when she goes into the shade beneath a tree, it's like plunging herself into an ice bath, so cold that her teeth begin to rattle.
Everything is too much. The flowers outside the building are a violent shade of pink and the leaves on the trees are a fluorescent green that hurt her eyes and the sky is a sickening shade of baby blue that makes her want to hurl, and true to her thoughts, bile start to rise in her throat.
She closes her eyes, but that does nothing to dilute the noise that roars in her ears. People are talking and screaming and children are crying and cars are roaring their way down the streets, and tears are starting to prick in her eyes because it's just so damn loud.
Sinking onto a bench outside a little coffee shop, she buries her head in her arms, immersing herself in blessed darkness. She squeezes her eyes shut for good measure and covers her ears with her fists so that everything fades to a dull hum, because the world's stopped making sense, because there's no way that eighteen year old girls can get cancer.
There's no way that she can have cancer.
She doesn't know how she does it, but she somehow ends up at Carly's for iCarly rehearsal. On time. For once.
She tries hard to seem normal, she does, but half the time she's laughing too late at Gibby's jokes and the other she's laughing a little too early, and damn, why doesthat hysterical note keep creeping into her voice? Carly and Freddie keep shooting her worried looks and giving each other meaningful talk-to-Sam eyebrow raises, and just as she predicted, Carly corners her after Gibby goes home.
"Sam, what's the matter with you? You've been acting weird today," she says, her voice all soft and gentle and concerned, but Sam can't bear to meet the look in her eyes. Instead she slides her gaze over to where Freddie's blatantly listening in while pretending to fiddle with his techo stuff and watches him for a long second. The boy's a terrible actor.
Carly's still waiting for an answer though, so Sam refocuses herself. "I'm fine Carls, really." Carly gives her a skeptical look, and damnit, her perceptiveness is anything but a blessing right now. She tries to think of something normal Sam, happy Sam, would say in this situation. Finally, she forces the corners of her mouth up and laughs.
"I'm just hungry. Mama couldn't stop thinking about the fried chicken shop she found today." She smacks her lips. "Man, that place is so good, it's illegal."
Carly laughs, instantly at ease. "What, is that what all the cool kids call it?"
Sam gives her one of her infamous blank looks. "No, Carls, it's literally illegal." She grabs her backpack and her jacket and pulls the door open. "Gotta go get a bucket before the cops bust the place."
She flies out the door to the sound of Carly's resigned but amused sigh, and undoubtedly she and Freddie are giving each other exasperated what-are-we-gonna-do-with-her glances.
She has to stop as soon as she gets outside the apartment though, because ohmigod ohmigod she can't breathe.
The United States currently holds a population of 313,938,354 people.
Sam's always been more than a bit of a masochist.
In 2012, 1,638,910 people will be diagnosed with cancer.
Maybe that's why she's sitting in the sketchy Starbucks where no one from school ever goes because they think it's terrifying. She's not a wimp though, so she ignores the guy with the full body tattoo and the weedy cashier kid with a bad haircut exchanging a plastic bag filled with something that's so not sugar, and focuses on her laptop screen, googling like her life depends on it.
Approximately 134,460 people will be diagnosed with melanoma.
No pun intended.
81,240 of these cases will be invasive.
She can't stop though, because these facts are fascinating her.
34,351 of these cases will be female.
898 of these cases will be from females living in the state of Washington.
She's doesn't know shiz about cancer, but she does know that she can't have it, because skin cancer comes from sunlight, right? And everybody knows that Seattle is cloudy like, 500 days in a year.
25% of these females will be under the age of 40.
She doesn't know why she's doing this to herself, when this isn't going to do anything, this isn't going to make everything go away and turn into a happy fairytale ending, but she just needs an answer, she just needs to know, she just needs a reason as to why she's dy-
3% of all melanoma cases reach stage IV.
She does some math, plugs some numbers into her PearPod, and watches the answer stutter to life in front of her.
Odds of being born a twin in North America: 90
Odds of dating a millionaire: 1 out of 215
Odds of winning an Academy Award: 1 out of 11,500
Odds of winning an Olympic medal: 1 out of 662,000
Odds of dying from being struck by lightening: 1 out of 2,320,0000
Odds of becoming president: 1 out of 10,000,000
Odds of holding a winning mega millions lottery ticket: 1 out of 176,000,000
Odds of being an eighteen year old girl living in the state of Washington who has been diagnosed with stage IV metastatic melanoma: 1 out of 214,532,600
She's always loved wandering Seattles streets at night. It's been a time for reflection, for kicking cans and flicking her lighter, for wandering freely through closed gate and fences, for hopping over signs that are staked in the ground. But tonight, it's different. She's running.
The night is wild and dark with sound, a frenzied symphony of police sirens and honking horns and screeching brakes and all the typical other sounds that make up the city of Seattle. Everything is in its place – the leering men, the suspicious shopkeepers, the weary-faced mothers coming home from some late shift – but Sam doesn't stay and stop to chat. She keeps her feet moving and sets her face in stone.
The local convenient store on Elliott Street has signs pasted all over its windows that scream to take your chances! and to enter the lottery today! She chokes back the slightly hysterical laugh that bubbles up in her throat. Maybe she should go and buy herself a thousand tickets. With her odds, she would win a billion - no, a trillion - dollars.
Because, you know, she's such a lucky fucking girl.
Finally, after hours of wandering, she stops under a streetlight and smoothes out the piece of paper in her hand, watching as harsh yellow light picks out the creases and shades them in.
Metastatic melanoma that has spread to the stomach, liver, and brain.
She traces the letters with a finger, lips silently moving around each word. Metastatic. Three t's, yet all of them are silent. She says it aloud to herself and listens to it echo in the empty streets. Such a strange sounding word. And melanoma. Even odder. She whispers the word, and all of its syllables feel like liquid in her mouth. It's such a soft, gentle word.
She looks at the piece of paper again. Metastatic melanoma. Wasn't it only people from Denmark or Finland with white blond hair and ice blue eyes and stupid pink-tinted skin that could get skin cancer? Because she has Italian blood in her, and everybody knows that Italians have olive skin that never even burns. She'd let the doctors drain her body of blood if it meant proving her genetic past. Her nails involuntarily press into her fisted palms. God, she'd draw the blood herself.
She holds her arms up to the light, watching as the light turns them golden, beautiful. Her skin is smooth, slightly tanned, but she's never gone to a single tanning bed, never even tanned at the beach. Whenever Washington's weather actually permitted trips to the shore, she would always be the one beating all the boys at volleyball while Carly would be rotating herself every twenty minutes like a chicken on a rotisserie, like a -
Fuck.
The world spins.
And shatters.
She thinks of Carly. Spencer. Melanie. Her mother. Gibby. Her heart spasms. Freddie.
She crushes the piece of paper in her hand and begins to run, in her skin tight jeans and her studded black boots, stumbling away from the ghosts clamoring for her attention, roaring in her ears, clinging to her skin.
Because she's eighteen and she has cancer.
And in five months, she's going to die.
"The real world is where the monsters are."
― R. Riordan
A/N: ...So...whaddya guys think? You should click that button there and let me know! Y'know, that pretty one RIGHT BENEATH THESE WORDS. :)
Before I end this, I'd first like to say that I'm not an oncologist (I am 16 years old). Therefore, whatever symptoms and medical topics that are in my writing are products of google. Carefuly researched products of google, yes, but google all the same. I try to stay as realistic as possible in my writing (the statistics and cancer rates in this chapter are all true), but I'm not writing as a doctor presenting a case to her peers. I'm writing this as a sixteen year old girl trying to understand what it's like when you are the person behind the diagnosis - an eighteen year old girl who's been told she has six months to live.
Second of all, Sam will, and I hate to write this, but she will die in the end. The facts presented in this fic are all true - the survival rate for this specific type of cancer is terribly, terribly, low, and although in movies and tv shows miracles can happen, in reality, people die. Friends die. Eighteen year old girls with their whole life in front of them die. I hope this won't deter any readers, and if it does, I understand, but I don't want a sugary happy ending. Because the truth is, whether we live to be be 30 or 90 - and in this case, 18 - we all have a death sentence hanging over us.
~Cat