AN: For Paula/Exceeds Expectations, and partially inspired by/intertwined with her story, dream a little dream of me. Hazel finds what should have been.
It took a while after the funeral for Hazel to go back to Support Group. When she did, she took the stairs, because Augustus would have teased her for using the elevator. She sat next to Isaac and nudged him every time someone said something funny, because Augustus would have been laughing, too. And she patiently listened to everyone talk about their lives and their hope for strength and how they just wanted to have a normal, cancer-free life.
Like the one Augustus would never have.
The night they took sips of the stars, and he lit up like a Christmas tree, Hazel had a taste of the life that she could have had, cancer-free, and normal, and strong, and all of the things she would never have. She thought she would die before Gus. And then he died.
Like she couldn't seem to do.
She still played video games with Isaac. His brother still came into the room, and he'd gotten pretty good at imitating Hazel's voice, too. Every once in a while, Isaac would say something about Gus during the game, and her fists would ball and tighten, and she would think Don't talk about him don't say it whenever she thought he was going to. Isaac please don't say it I can't take it don't say his name. She thought about him plenty, of course. But whenever Isaac talked about him, he tended to start crying. She wasn't very good with him when he cried, like Gus was. But she tried.
She was never as good as Augustus.
Sometimes, she thought about her cancer. And sometimes, she wished she would die, just so she could see Augustus. But he would say "Hazel Grace, don't be so completely ridiculous. Who else will grace the world with charm and Natalie Portman good looks?" He was good at saying things like that.
She never was.
One week, when Hazel came over to Isaac's house at the usual time, the door was answered by a pretty girl who she hadn't seen before.
"Hi, who are you?" she asked.
"Hazel." She answered, suddenly feeling self-conscious.
"Oh, Isaac told me you might be coming." She turned around. "Isaac! Hazel is here!" she yelled. "I'm Laruen. It's nice to meet you."
"It's nice to meet you too." Hazel pulled her cart up over the doorway and into the hall.
Isaac walked into the hallway. "Hazel, hi. How are you?"
"Good. You?"
"Good. Lauren and I have a date tonight." He smiled. "Is she pretty?"
Lauren laughed and went to give him a hug. "I'm going to hug you," she said, and then she did. "I told you before, I'm ugly, but it doesn't matter."
"No, she's pretty." Hazel said, smiling. "You're so lucky, Isaac, you really have to see it to believe it."
He made a face in Hazel's general direction.
"Isaac!" His mother yelled from the kitchen. "Are you almost ready to leave?"
"Oh, are you leaving now?" Hazel asked.
"No, we can wait a little while. Our reservations aren't for an hour."
"I thought we were stopping at the park?" Lauren asked, looking confused.
"I can't cancel on Hazel, here. We've had a standing date for over a year now. We've only had ours for a week." He smiled and moved his head to kiss her.
"No, it's fine," Hazel said, smiling, though it hurt. "I drove myself. You two lovebirds have a good time!"
It seemed like everyone was moving on these days.
The night Hazel attended Support Group for the last time, it had been two years since Augustus had…well, since he'd left. Week after week, she listened to Patrick read the names of those who had…left. Two years ago, she promised herself she wouldn't cry. "…Augustus Waters, and Hannah McLaden." There was a new 'and' on the list. Augustus wasn't last anymore. Hannah had joined just a few weeks ago, and they'd all known she didn't have much time. But the reality of the situation struck her.
Augustus was dead. Augustus was on a list of dead people that would just keep growing and growing, until he was just another name in the middle of a litany of dead names, and there would be new ticking time bombs to listen to it, or not listen to it, because no one listened to the names in the middle, because they were forgotten. Augustus would be forgotten. And he didn't deserve to be forgotten.
She got up in the middle of a girl named Tara's speech. "I have to go." she said.
"Hazel?" Isaac asked, but she was already halfway down the stairs. She'd never gone down stairs that fast before. She never came back.
When she got home early, her mother was on the couch, watching America's Next Top Model. "Hello, Hazel! It's a little early, isn't it? You're usually not home until the new episode, they're only playing reruns."
She didn't say anything, she just went to the couch, sat down next to her mom, and cried. Her mother stroked her hair until she fell asleep and dreamed of Augustus. It seemed she wasn't sleeping much lately, so her mother let her sleep and taped the new episode instead.
Halfway through the elimination, Hazel opened her eyes. "Mom," she whispered.
Her mother didn't answer.
"Mom," she said louder.
"Oh, sorry honey, I taped it. I'll turn it off." She switched the television off.
"Mom, it hurts." Hazel started to gasp for air.
"Oh god, oh god, oh god, okay sweetie, we're going to the hospital now. Stay with me."
She didn't hear anything. She went to the dark place, and tried to escape the pain.
A few hours later, she woke up in the ER to find her mother standing over her, crying on her dad's shoulder.
"Mom?"
"Hazel? Hazel." She leant over her daughter and gave her a gentle hug, then kissed her on the cheek. "Honey."
"How bad is it?"
Her parents looked at each other, and her mother took the lead. "They weren't sure you were going to wake up. We have you…we have you on life support. If they stop pumping air to your lungs…"
Hazel nodded, feeling the pressure. "Mom. Let me go."
Her mother barely registered the words. "What?" Her father was standing in pale shock.
"Just let me go, Dad. I've had my time. I'm not supposed to be alive."
"I love you."
"I love you more."
"I love you most," her father managed to choke out, before he started to cry.
At Hazel's funeral, Isaac asked if he could give a small speech. "Hazel Grace Lancaster was one of the most remarkable people I have had the pleasure of knowing. She was not her cancer. Cancer had the privilege of knowing Hazel Grace, and she did not only let it define her, she completely defied it. She was a living, breathing, miracle, who touched the lives of many of us." He said many other things. He talked about her humor, her support, her love.
Hazel watched him from above, or from the side, from heaven, or from wherever people go when they move on. She smiled. Isaac was always one to get emotional. She was never particularly religious,so she was never really sure where she was, but she did believe in Augustus. So when she left one life, she was surprised to find him waiting for her in the other. He is a dream for her, a dream of a life she could have had. Should have had. Never would have.
Instead of saying hello, he stands there (with two legs). She walks over to him (free of her oxygen cart). He kisses her. She kisses him back.
When they pull away, not out of breath for once, he says "Miss me?"
"Of course." She smiles and holds his hand. As they walk to a house in the distance, with a porch swing and a fireplace and two bedrooms for their children, he never lets go, not once.
"Okay."
"Okay."
She is eighteen, and he is nineteen. They will grow old, and then they will start all over again. They will never leave each other. They are in love, and here, they can have love. It is the life they could have had, should have had, and now they have. Because they are not cancer. They do not let their cancer define them. Here, they are Hazel Grace and Augustus. Names, added on to the litany, but it doesn't matter, because they will never forget each other.
And that is all that matters.
(And if Hazel and Augustus happen to badger Van Houten until he gives them the answers, well, they get them. It takes them a long time, but they get them. After all, they have all the time in the world.)