More TFIOS fic is in existance, so I'm super happy:D aha :L Anyway, let's move on to the next three parallels; Hazel, Hazel's mother and Peter Van Houten. Also, I'm not a best-selling author, so my AIA is obviously nothing like what the real AIA would ever be like, and I'd never want to write all of it in one fanfic, because I don't particularly want to turn into a pretentious drunken man like Van Houten...:)
My 'head-canons' for the bit in the story where Augustus goes AWOL in the airport are either he- like he claimed- didn't want people staring, OR he was away taking medicine/puking/arguing with his parents on the phone because they didn't want him to go, so I'll touch on that in this chapter.
Also, I tend to end up making science references in my fan-fics without realising, so if I end up doing that... well yeah.
Warning: This contains HUGE spoilers for the novel, so unless you've finished the book, don't read this yet.
Anna had always thought that dying wouldn't hurt. That when the time for dying was finally just moments away, where she was no longer a barnacle on the container ship of conciousness, she'd just slip away, painless and free. She would often dream of the time where pain wasn't constantly screaming at her, and ordering for her to feel. Her limp malignant body was slowly failing on her. Her blood, bones and nerve system dominated by the foriegn tumours, holding her back from being the normal little girl she really was.
...
Hazel took a glance around the airport, suddenly aware that people were watching her. The oxygen tank she'd christened as Phillip sat behind her foot, acting both as a name sticker and the thing that was keeping her alive had meant that the people around her didn't need to know her to know that she was ill- Phillip and the oxygen it pumped through the cannula wrapped around her cheeks made it obvious.
Augustus had run off, claiming to have went to McDonalds to pick up a burger, but for some reason, Hazel thought differently. Of course, being oblivious to the fact that Augustus' affliction was back with a vengeance, Hazel didn't know that Augustus was actually swallowing back the first of his brand new box of pills, having just emptied his breakfast into the toilet, but she could almost sense something was wrong.
People couldn't understand that Hazel wasn't the picture her illness painted up front. Sure, her lungs sucked and her life was limited, but that didn't mean she craved the sympathetic looks that the strangers in the airport were giving her. She wanted to be nothing more than the normal teenage girl she actually was. Up front, Hazel may have been a perfect portrayal of her affliction, but in heart, Hazel was the picture of health. Life may have given her a giant hemartia, but her normality in personality would never be flawed.
...
Her hands were almost constantly cold. In fact, her hold body seemed to run a constantly low temperature, due to the fact that the oxygen just wouldn't diffuse completely through her bloodstream. It wasn't like it ever bothered Anna, for it had been a long time where she hadn't felt ihumanly frozen, but for those around her- like her mother- it was just another thing that painted her affliction onto her exterior, like paint on a famous Van Gogh, revealing the obvious.
...
The concentrated glass of scotch slipped down his throat, burning away at his oesophagus, gnawing away at his liver. He shouldn't do this. He shouldn't throw his life away, downing glass after glass of alcohol while blasting Swedish hip-hop music he barely even liked. It just hurt so much. The pain was almost incomprehensible, as if he could never find the right words to describe how much it hurt.
His girl. His little tiny fragile girl. His precious Amelia. Pulled away from life like metal by a magnet, she'd never get to see the man her father, Peter Van Houten could've been. Had it not been for her death, he'd not have become the washed up, drunken recluse he'd become. He refuses to cope. He can't cope. He knows he's become an awful person. He knows he'll die soon, whether it's by his own choice, or through liver failure or some other drink related problem, but he couldn't care less. In fact, that's what he wanted. To be lifted from the hopeless repetitive life he was living. To erase the entire hamartia that was his fatally flawed life. To not be faced with the challenge of lifting himself out of bed every morning, needing the incentive of alcohol to get him through the day.
He grabbed the book from the bookshelf, his shivering fingers grasping onto it with a great desperation. He hated the book. It was flawed. He'd not done poor little Amelia justice. Her innocent affliction had induced his selfish affliction, and he despised himself for it.
...
She watched Anna waste away, becoming literally nothing more than skin and bones, becoming so weak that moving even an inch came with great difficulty. She had to stay strong for Anna's sake. She couldn't break. She wouldn't break.
...
If Augustus' recent death wasn't bad enough, Hazel's lungs were slowly beginning to deteriorate faster than they'd ever done before. The fortunate miracle of Phalanxifor was quicly becoming less of a miracle and more of a curse, filling her already weakened lungs with foreign fluid, making just the simple task of respiration seem like the most difficult thing in the world.
Respiration. Hazel's mother- along with the majority of the rest of the world- often took the simple task of converting glucose and oxygen into carbon dioxide, water and energy for granted. Breathing in and out, without even thinking properly about it.
She couldn't cry. She wouldn't cry. She needed to be strong for Hazel. For her husband. For Isaac. For the late Augustus. She couldn't let herself end up like Peter Van Houten once Hazel passes away- which at that moment, was likely to occur soon. She couldn't let those around her, or others in their situation, turn out like the poor drunken man. If anyone around her were to break, she'd be the glue that would hold the cracks together. She'd be the steady hand, holding together the shattered fragments to prevent them from further breaking. She'd prevent them from the possible hemartia. She'd be strong.
