Disclaimer: Well, technically, since no names, places, or other trademarks are mentioned, I do own all of this. But just in case… I don't own DWP or any such affiliates. Also, my subconscious may have been inspired to write this by a story I ran across in another fandom, but I'm not entirely sure, and I don't know what it is, or I could give them a touch of credit.

AN: This one needs a moment of explanation: It is not your… typical Mirandy fare. Don't worry, The Fix will be updated again soon enough, this was just a one-shot I wrote a while ago. Technically, it could apply to any FF fandom, but I wrote it with Mirandy in mind. I will leave it to you to decide whose voice is whose. Rated T because, well, I really don't care to understand the rating system below M.

Ever yours,

~Menzosarres

It is your fingers that balance me when I am given the news. Your steady hand in mine as I sit on the table, feeling my body clench against the intrusion of words I don't want to hear but have to accept. Later you will coax a laugh from me; telling me how it was such a white, impersonal room, as though somehow I am expected to forget my condition just because I can forget the place where I heard it. Yes, I'll forget that examining room, but in a week, it won't help. I'll still remember the words even if I cannot picture this room or the face of the doctor. The doctor who addresses me in many words, the only ones I truly hear being, "Breast cancer."

I won't remember his face, because he will be only the first of many doctors. Only the first to look at me with generic, prescribed pity in his eyes. Next will be the woman in charge of chemo. She will have kind hands, a hopeful smile, and I will let her smile because it makes you smile, and I so desperately need you to smile, so I know you don't hate me for dragging you into this. I will also let her smile because I will still have the same hope she does; to come out of this whole. Perhaps with fewer curls; a frailer physique, but still fully me.

And it will always be you. I know it. Because no matter how many times I don't ask for commitment, you stay anyway. You stay, and it is more than enough. I will come out of the first treatments shaky but smiling. You will take me home. You will return my smile, running your fingers through my newly shortened hair, cut in preparation for the day it's gone, and you will tell me that I'll look just as lovely in only my skin.

But when the hair is gone I'll still feel unmade without those wisps, so I will wear the wig, even when we are alone together. I'll know I'm being silly, but I also know that you will indulge me, because you were always more ready for this than I am ever going to be. You will let me twirl your hair – long, so like mine used to be – even in public, because you don't understand, but you don't have to.

Then one day the shelter of chemo will no longer be enough. I'll know that if I wait any longer, I won't even have the choice, so I will make it while I am still strong enough. As I get ready you will sit beside me, wearing the same hospital gown because you will want everyone to see that we are always equals. I will wake up with you just where you were, and despite your efforts to have cleaned up, I will see the dark lines where your mascara smudged, but I won't mind that you were crying, because it gives me something to focus on. Something other than my chest. I'll reach up and wipe one of the lines away, and never look down.

But I will have to see it after that; have to look in a mirror. See the odd way my shirt falls against the concave side of my chest, making the one I have left seem strange and out of place. For a long time I will hate the silvery, puckered scar, not because of the pain, but for making that part of me I fought so hard for seem foreign and unnatural in my own eyes. But you will help me to relearn my body and to understand that it is my choice to let the scar affect me in that way. You will help me to heal.

Then too soon I will be able to walk through work again, have to be able to take the side-eyed stares as they try to see what is and isn't there. I will never blame them for wondering, and I'll keep my eyes dry, though I cannot promise my chin will always be up. I'll be able to do just that much—no more—because I know I'll come home, and you'll give me my welcome home kiss, though I still flinch away from hugs, my chest no longer lining up with yours. I will let you slide off my wig, telling me that I'm still your half-breasted, bald, and beautiful woman, and you will never let me forget how to smile.

So as you take my hand in that blank, sterile examination room, looking at the doctor who just handed me my life, I know I couldn't blame you if you wanted out, but you don't. You just squeeze my knuckles and say, "We can do this, okay honey?" And I know you mean everything.