I have no idea how long I stayed in the dark. For a while it was impossible to fight and I stayed lost. There was no light, or sound. No sense of anything, really. But then I heard a voice, barely audible. It told me to fight, that I was needed. It wasn't so much what was said, but the honest plea coming from whoever it belonged to. It gave me hope, and strength. So I began to fight.

Little by little, light and sound began to return. I could hear Grams' voice clearly, and a few others I didn't know. Eventually I got strong enough to feel and sense touch again. At times I would feel someone take my hand and while I still couldn't move yet, I would scream out in my head that I knew someone was there, and that I was still there with them.

Finally, the day came. I made the dark disappear for good.

Mustering every ounce of strength I had, I opened my eyes. My vision was blurry at first, and everything was white. But after a moment or two, things cleared. I recognized instantly where I was; a hospital. Something had happened, but I couldn't remember what. No matter how hard I tried, nothing before the dark came back to me.

"Danni?"

When I turned to the door, tears instantly sprang to my eyes.

Grams...

She dropped whatever had been in her hands and moved to the bed, throwing her arms gently around my shoulders. "My god sweetheart! I thought you had left us!"

I tried to speak but something blocked my airway, causing me to cough and choke. "No no, don't panic," she whispered, wiping her eyes as she stood fully. "It's just a feeding tube, love. Let me get a doctor." She rushed out, and not a moment later unfamiliar faces entered the room. One removed the tube while others checked monitors and my vital signs.

"Your throat will be sore for a while, Ms. Colvin," the man who removed the tube said as he handed me a glass of water. "You've been out for quite a while."

"How l-long?" I managed to croak out before I had to stop speaking. It hurt too badly at the moment.

"Since the seventeenth of January," Grams said from the doorway as she waited to come back inside the room. When the doctors left, she came back to my side with a notepad and pen. "It might be easier to write until your throat feels better. I know you're bound to have a lot of questions."

So I did as she said, and I wrote down everything that came to mind.

What happened to me?

Grams hesitated for a moment before speaking, taking my hand in hers. "You were out with Anneliese and Adam, at The Dot. You collapsed, and took a hard fall. The ambulance got you here, and the doctors ran tests. The cancer...it's spread. They had to do immediate surgery to try and remove the masses as best they could. And while they were searching for a medical treatment, they induced you into a coma. If they hadn't, you would have been much worse off..." she had to take a moment and get herself recomposed, and continued on after she wiped her eyes.

"You nearly didn't make it, Danni. Several times I was told to prepare myself for the worst. All I could do was hope and pray that you would get the strength to fight. And now...darling, the fact that you're awake is a miracle in itself!"

I swallowed and nodded, before writing the next question. I needed to know, how long it had been.

What's the date?

"It's March twelfth," Grams said quietly, looking towards the window. I was in shock. Almost two months...I had been in a coma for almost two months. But in a way, I told myself, it was a good thing. I could feel a slight pain along my chest and knew that was where the doctors had to have performed my surgery. Had I been awake, the recovery would have been much more painful. I didn't know if I could have handled that. Taking a deep breath I wrote the next question.

How much longer do I have?

It was the one question we both wanted to avoid. But I needed to know.

Grams hesitated, biting her lip before speaking. Her voice broke when she spoke.

"I don't know, my love."

I knew then, without a doubt, that I wasn't going to make it this time. The wires sticking out of my chest and the monitors were the only things holding me down now. Were it not for them, I felt like I would just disappear into nothing. I was destined to have a second date with death. The question remained though; was I going to survive this time around?

_

Dr. Devon came in a bit later, after Grams told me of what all had happened since I was in the hospital. Anneliese had hardly left my side, she told me. No one else had come by though, and the only ones who knew why I was in the hospital were Mr. Simpson and my teachers from Degrassi. The students had no idea what was going on.

"I can honestly say, you're quite the fighter," Dr. Devon smiled as she came in. Grams sat by my side and held my hand, keeping me calm. "We didn't expect you to wake so soon, but I'm very glad to see you like this."

"Doc," I said quietly, my throat still raw from the feeding tube. "Can you please be honest with me? I can take the news. I just want to know how long you're giving me."

She didn't say anything for a minute, and looked from my chart and back to me. "In all honesty? It's a miracle for you to be alive right now, Daniella. Now that doesn't mean you're living on borrowed time, nor does it mean that you're out of the woods yet. Your cancer has advanced greatly, and while we were successful in removing a good bit of it, this type of Leukemia is aggressive. It could come back at anytime, and with a vengeance."

I felt my heart drop into my stomach. Every word out of her mouth right now seemed to say 'Sorry kid, you're doomed.'

"However," she continued, looking at me with kind eyes. "Over these last few months, I have personally looked into every treatment option available to us. I have something I would like to try. It's a mixture of medications you take from home, and two treatments of advanced chemo a month. It's been shown to dissipate your same cancer in simians in medical testing. And I have high hopes that it will help you to beat this."

I looked from Grams back to Dr. Devon, assessing the news I just got. Grams seemed hopeful, and so did the doctor. "What are the odds for her?" Grams asked.

"Without the treatment, slim to absolutely none. But with it," she looked at me with a smile in her eyes. "Danni's odds of complete remission are eighty to ninety percent."

I knew without question then, what I would do. "I'm in."

_

Later that night, after Grams went home upon my insisting she get some real rest, I laid in my hospital bed and thought to myself. I was going to beat this cancer. I was determined to.

Reaching over to the table by my bed, I picked up my hospital phone and punched in a familiar number. The ring barely began when a voice spoke from the other end.

"Hey Lise," I said into the receiver, a smile on my face. It was good to hear her voice again.

"D-Danni?" she sounded shocked, and I couldn't blame her.

"Yeah, it's me," I replied, and I could almost sense her happiness from the other end. "Can you come down to the hospital? I got moved out of ICU today."

"I'll be there as soon as I can!"

The line went dead, and I had to laugh softly. I couldn't wait to see her, it felt like it had been forever. And the same could be said for the wait for her to arrive. But the second she came into the room, it was like time never passed at all. She threw her arms around my shoulders and I hugged her tightly. No words were needed. We knew what each other were thinking without saying anything at all.

_

Eventually we began to talk about things. I eyed her growing belly and laid my palm against it. "Wow..I can't believe it still," I said with a soft smile. There was no doubt all of Degrassi would know by now about her pregnancy. I just hated I hadn't been able to be there like I had promised I would.

"It's a girl," I grinned, leaning back against my pillow.

"Like you can tell that now," she laughed, shaking her head. But I shrugged and smirked. "My track record says otherwise. Call it a sixth sense."

It felt so great to be able to talk and laugh again. I had no idea how much I had missed it and I swore right then to never take these little moments for granted ever again.

We grew quiet then, and I knew where the conversation was going. "Danni...are you...did they tell you if you were..?"

So I told her everything that Dr. Devon had told me, and that I was taking the treatments. "I have to stay in the hospital for a couple more weeks, to get weaned off the IV's and things first. And I have to come in for group therapy for a while when the treatments start, but otherwise they're telling me to live my life as best I can."

Anneliese didn't say anything for a second, before smiling with a brilliant look in her eyes. "Alright. So we'll do this; You start your treatments at the beginning of April, right?" I nodded and raised my eyebrow. "Where are you going with this?" She continued then. "You're gonna beat this and be in remission before summer. Because come the first week of June, you have a very important date."

Oh no, I knew where this was going...

"Come June third, Miss Colvin, you will be walking into Degrassi Community School's senior prom. And you're dancing, having drinks and the time of your life." She pointed at me as I began to protest. "I don't care if I have to waddle my very pregnant butt onto the dance floor and do the Cupid Shuffle with you in flats, you're going. End of story."

I had to giggle at the image that statement produced, but I felt better with her encouragement. Could I be in remission by then? As far as I was concerned, anything was possible right now.

"Alright then," I smiled, shaking my head. "You've got yourself a date."

"Good," she smirked, and pulled out her phone. "Now sit back and relax. There's a few people I know who are dying to see you. You up for it?"

I nodded. The truth was gonna come out sooner or later. It was time to let everything go, and start living it up.