Note: In no way do I own 7th Heaven or any of its characters. That all belongs to Brenda Hampton and Aaron Spelling, but man, I wish I did!
Chapter 1
After dinner in the Camden household, Annie pulled Eric aside. They decided to go for a walk. As they strolled down the sidewalk hand in hand, Annie began to speak.
"Eric, there's something you need to know," Annie stammered.
"What's that? Is it that you're the most beautiful woman in the world?" whispered Eric as he leaned in to kiss her.
They kissed passionately before Annie pulled away. Eric looked into her eyes and could tell something was wrong.
"Annie...what's going on?"
Annie began to sob showing her obvious pain.
"Eric, I...I don't know how to tell you this. I don't know how to tell the kids. But...there's something that's happened and I wanted to tell you first."
Eric responded with a look of fear. Annie continued.
"When I thought I had a cold the other day I decided to go to the doctor to get some medicine. When I was there, I found out that I was due for a check-up so I went to go see the doctor."
Tears continued to make way down Annie's cheek as she spoke to Eric.
"When the doctor returned for what I thought would be some medicine for my cold, he returned with something else. Eric..I..I..have leukemia."
When the words escaped Annie's mouth tears flooded both of their cheeks. Eric held Annie on the sidewalk, crying, wondering how is wife, his Annie, could be ill. How could this happen? In the dark night of Glenoak, as he held Annie in his arms, he prayed to God that Annie would be ok.
During the same night…
Eric Camden woke to the thunder outside-it was raining in Glenoak. He looked over at his wife of more than 25 years and smiled. He loved Annie more than anything in the world. He leaned in to hold her as she seemed to smile as if she was dreaming. Eric Camden closed his eyes and silently cried as a result from the news he learned earlier. Annie was sick. Annie, like her mother, had leukemia.
The next morning Eric awoke to the strong aroma of pancakes. Pancakes had been his favorite breakfast since he was little and Annie made them just the way he liked them. After getting dressed, he descended downstairs to greet his family. He turned the corner and saw a room full of people that he deeply cared about. Of course there was Annie. As he watched her, he wondered how she was remaining so strong and how she was even going to tell the kids about her illness. After she told him the news, they decided that Eric should tell the kids because Annie was still in denial. As he drifted back from his thoughts he smiled seeing that all 7 of their children were present. Matt had come in from New York with Sarah a few days back. He sat next to Mary who lived in New York as well but came into visit around the same time Matt did. She was about 6 months pregnant and married to Carlos. Next to them was Lucy. Like Eric, Lucy was studying to be a minister and had married Kevin about a year ago. They lived in the garage apartment. Then there was Simon. Earlier in the year, Simon had some issues with events that changed his life. Simon accidentally ran over a kid and for awhile blamed himself for it. This kid, Paul, was not wearing a helmet and indicated to be using drugs at the time. Anyhow Simon moved away to go to college early so he would not be threatened from Paul's brother. He was home for the weekend, which although rare, everyone always cherished the moments they saw Simon. Ruthie sat next to him, and WOW! Ruthie was quickly growing into a mature, young woman. Finally, there sat Sam and David, the twin boys born on Valentine's Day. They rounded out the Camden clan.
Eric sat down after greeting everyone and suggested that after breakfast, Annie should take the twins to get their haircut. Annie agreed, but to all the kids they knew something was wrong. Looking at Annie and Eric they could tell they were up late and had been crying. Anyhow, after breakfast she left with the boys. It was then that Eric called a family meeting.
