Chapter 12

One

- drip –

Two

- drip -

Three

- drip -

C.C. closed her eyes just as another droplet of chemo drugs plopped down from the IV bag and into the drip chamber. She'd been watching the meds go in for some time now. Being too weak and nauseous to even sit up in bed, there wasn't much left for her to do apart from that…

Four

- drip -

Five

- drip -

Six

- drip -

C.C. screwed up her face – she was sick of hearing that infernal, never-ending dripping sound. It went on and on, and while any other person would have barely noticed it, to C.C. it might have been a roaring thunderstorm, slashing through the quiet stillness of the room. In a way, it had become the morbid soundtrack to her hospital stay; this being her fifth infusion (or the first half of her third chemo cycle, depending on how one viewed it) and all…

She'd honestly believed it would get easier with time – she'd honestly thought she'd have gotten used to it by now, but as hard as it was to admit, she absolutely hadn't. If anything, it had gotten harder: the pain, the nausea, the weakness, the hopelessness…

Everything was worse, and there was a part of her ever-cynical self that was starting to believe it would only continue to get worse. She'd heard recovery could be like climbing a mountain – the climb upwards was always exhausting, but there was the summit at the end. There was a goal. Only in her case the goddam thing was nowhere in sight. There was only miles and miles of steep, sharp mountainside ahead, complete with zigzagging slopes and dizzying cliffsides she could slip off at any moment.

And she was tired. So tired it was more like she was exhausted. And in being exhausted she'd started to question if this pain was really worth it. If living was worth the pain she was having to go through. If living was worth giving up a life she'd…well…maybe not loved but that had been her own and that she'd been in control of. She'd had a home, a good career and…

…and…?

C.C. frowned – she hated thinking about all of this crap. She hated how her brain circled around the same idea over and over again, almost as if it wanted to drive home just how much of a fucking mess her life was. Or maybe it was its way of nudging her to the depressing but somehow inescapable conclusion that maybe this shit really wasn't worth it. That maybe it was best to call it quits and just make the best of whatever little time she had left.

It wasn't like anyone would care – Wilson might scream at her a little but would move on to the next patient and Niles and her brother wouldn't be burdened with having to come visit anymore.

To give credit where credit was due, though, both Noel and Niles had been true to their word and had come every two weeks, alternating between the two so she had company every single weekend. She did enjoy their visits, and seeing them made the otherwise stifling monotony of her daily life slightly more bearable, but again, it wasn't enough. Even if they were trying their best.

They'd aways insist about her reaching out every time they visited, but her stance hadn't changed – she was not going to. She couldn't bear to.

It wasn't like anybody would want to see her as she was, anyway. Heck, she didn't even like looking at herself like this! She'd definitely gotten even thinner while she'd been in there, she was pale as a sheet most days, and her bald head stuck out like a sore thumb that had just been made sorer after an accidental introduction to a hammer.

Nobody wanted to come to a hospital to see death, so why would anybody want to come look at someone who looked like Death? Other than maybe to gawk, if the circus wasn't in town at home.

And even if she hadn't looked like she did, she wasn't sure she could take all of their visits and their pity. It was hard enough getting up to go to the fucking bathroom some mornings – could she really deal with so many people coming at once, into her personal space and staying for hours, if she told anybody? Could she grin and bear it as they no doubt fawned and consoled all over her, and spoke in those annoying little hushed tones all around her bedside, in their effort to show her how sorry they felt and that they knew just how Serious this was? Could she stand to look into the eyes of her parents, or to any one of the Sheffields or Nanny Fine, and know that they saw her as weak and vulnerable, and probably a burden that they were just getting over and done with by coming to see her?

It cut her deep even thinking about it, even if…well, if part of her knew that she was probably being a little bit overdramatic about the whole thing. Even if she did see the pity in their eyes and know they thought she was weak, she couldn't automatically assume that everyone who came to see her would start treating her like an old lady in a home who couldn't think or act for herself anymore.

And besides all that, the absolute last thing she would ever do, even if she bitched about it a lot, would be to go off chemo. She might've hated it with every fibre of her being, but seeing as she was having to pick between hating something and dying, she'd far sooner sign herself up to absolutely loathe it while still remaining on this Earth. That was one thing she knew for definite wasn't a sign of weakness; not wanting to die. Being afraid of wanting to die. It wasn't the same kind of scared as the kind that made her vulnerable, which made her feel a little better about the whole thing.

Really, she supposed she just wished it was all over. Who wouldn't, in her position? After all this time and with so much time still to go, putting herself through pain and suffering to make sure she lived long enough to not feel any more pain or suffering was dragging her both down and backwards. At the end of it, she hoped it just had the decency to let go so that she could move forward again, and maybe go one with a normal life.

It probably wouldn't ever be like the life she'd had before again. But she'd deal with that when she'd finished up and gotten out of there; she needed to know everything there was to know about her latest test results first. Wilson should've been on his way in with them at any minute.

Whatever he said would make all the difference to her plans of getting her life back on track. He'd tell her if the chemo had been working like they wanted it to, and could help her plan all the next steps.

It might not have been much, but it was definitely something to brighten her day. Or even to brighten up her life; it was about the only thing around her that had a chance at changing, after all!

Knowing the results was gonna change everything. She pushed aside the thought of her having to find another reason to distract herself from wanting to die, and thought that maybe…maybe, if the results turned up good, she didn't need a reason?

If the test results were good, all of what she'd been through so far would've been worth it. She wouldn't have to distract herself from thinking about dying, because her body would be on her side and fighting it all, in her mind and everywhere else. The results had to be good though, didn't they? She'd been through enough hell over the last two months – what could've possibly survived the biochemical equivalent of a nuclear attack that had been going on inside her body every two weeks? The cancer had to have been getting pulverised in there!

It had to be going away. She deserved at least a single piece of good news at this stage! She was practically owed it, after losing all her hair, and the constant sickness and the tiredness and everything she'd had to give up on in her life…

It was bad enough that she was gonna have to go all the way up to eight cycles, making sure whatever was left over in there was completely gone before she went back to claim what was left of her life. Wilson had actually told her it was likely she'd need some kind of surgery to remove the tumor before anything like that could happen, and the possibility of a transplant was apparently on the table, but how could she need either of those after what she'd been through already? There was no way on Earth she was going to need more treatments of any kind after all of this shit was over!

Wilson was probably being the typical overly-cautious doctor about the whole thing. That was all. Truth be told, it didn't suit the rest of his personality, either. He was definitely more of a "caution to the wind" kind of guy in everything else about him.

Not to get her wrong, she did appreciate on some level that he was so committed to her care that he was throwing every possible option at her. But when she'd clearly already been through enough, how could it make sense to start talking about surgeries and transplants and other stuff like that? The chemo had to be doing the job on its own, didn't it? How could it possibly make her feel so bad without actually doing anything in the long run?

All that sounded like was a waste of hers and everyone else's time, in her opinion. If she was getting a treatment from a high end clinic and spending a lot of money to do it, then she at least wanted to be sure that it wasn't a waste of time!

Especially when said time could've been spent doing things other than making her sit there and feel like—

A knock at the door planted her firmly back in the real world with a loud "hm?". The noise was closely followed by the door opening and Wilson poking his head round – he must've mistaken it for a sign that he was welcome to come in right away.

Not that he wasn't welcome there, if he had the results she wanted to hear.

"Hey, C.C.. You ready to talk about your tests?" he asked, stepping fully into the room.

"Now that's what I call a dumb question!" C.C. quipped, smirking as much as she felt her aching body could tolerate. "Does the cancer patient want to know if she is on her way out of life or the hospital? Take a wild guess, doc…"

"That was a rhetorical question, Babcock – in case you aren't familiar with the concept," replied the doctor, coming to her bedside. "But since you like being a smartass maybe we should do this some other tim—"

"Oh, would you just get on with it, you gigantic pain in the ass?" C.C. cut him off, rolling her eyes. "I don't have all day, you know?"

"Oh, sure, your schedule is jam-packed…" Wilson said with no small amount of irony as he inspected her vitals and the chemo drip – he always did when he came to check on her.

C.C. merely frowned. She knew Wilson hadn't meant it in that way, but she honestly resented that she was as good as a dead slug, activity-wise. There had been a time when her schedule really had been jam-packed – between paperwork, meetings with backers, and rehearsals at the theatre she'd sometimes have to go without a coffee or bathroom break the whole fucking day. And yet now here she was, spending days on end in bed and with nothing to look forward to apart from the stupid rest week in between her infusions. The only damn time she felt somewhat okay…

"Just sit down and get on with it, Wilson," C.C. eventually snapped, gesturing at the armchair next to her bed.

To his credit, Wilson actually took a seat without trading another zinger with his patient. It was time to get serious, and while Wilson was the perennial jokester, he knew when to stop (most of the time anyway).

"So, Babcock – you'll be happy to know that the chemo is clearing out the disease in your nodes," started the doctor with a small, satisfied smile. "The last PET scan has shown considerable progress there."

"So that means the treatment is working? I won't need the surgery or the transplant?!" C.C. asked, feeling hopeful for the first time in months.

It was working! The disease was going away! She just had to bunker down and bite the bullet for a few more months and she'd be free—

"It's…not exactly like that, unfortunately," Wilson replied delicately.

Those six little words immediately shut down the celebrations going on in C.C.'s head. Her smile slipped from her face and her gut twisted into a knot that left her sick.

What the hell did he mean, "not exactly"? And why the hell did he say it like that?! Was it actually bad news? If it was bad news, she didn't want him talking down to her about it like this – talking to her like he was about to hand her a puppy and a lollipop and tell her everything was gonna be okay, if it just wasn't!

"And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?" she shot back, chest starting to hurt deep inside. "Not exactly like that? When you say that something's shown progress, that usually means it's working, doesn't it?"

Wilson was obviously considering his reply carefully, "It's a little bit more complicated than simply saying it's—"

"You said it was clearing them, like it's supposed to be!" C.C. cut over him again, louder than before. "If it's working then why the fuck would—"

"Hey, hey…!" the doctor leapt up out of his seat, kneeling by her bed and putting his hand – gingerly, and he probably thought reassuringly – on her forearm. "Just relax and listen to me. Don't forget why you're here, and what you're in the middle of going through."

He nodded towards the chemo drip. C.C., not knowing if she was catching her breath back after shouting or if she was hyperventilating, briefly followed his line of sight. It was still burning her up inside, not knowing what he was going to say, but something in her conceded that he was the doctor there and he might have had a point. She was already going through enough shit; she didn't want to make it worse than it already was.

Even if it did already have to be bad enough, if Dr Gregory Wilson was kneeling by her bed!

Apparently satisfied that she wasn't going to start yelling again, Wilson continued.

"I get it. I get what you're feeling. But I'm telling you it's going to be okay. What I told you is right – the chemo is clearing out the disease in your nodes, but it's just…it's not happening as fast as we'd like it to be," he told her.

He then took a breath, as though he was readying himself for something big.

"The tumor isn't shrinking as much as it should be, either. So, we'll most likely have to go with the plan I told you about before and send you in for surgery."

The world could've exploded or gone up in flames in that moment, and C.C. wouldn't have noticed. If anything, she would've preferred it to the feeling of her entire life crashing down around her ears while the rest of creation went on with its existence, not knowing or caring that this had to be it.

This had to be the end for her.

How could it not be the end if they were having to resort to surgery?! She'd felt like shit this entire time, only to have to have it cut out of her anyway…?!

Oh God, she thought she was gonna be sick even at the idea of them having to cut it out of her! How could this have been happening?! Only seconds ago, it'd felt like she'd be free of it all in a few more months, and now…

It made her want to weep just thinking it, but would she even be alive in a few more months? Was all of this pain she was going through really worth it? She'd banked on a silver lining at the end of it all, but that was being snatched away from her…

"So that's it then," C.C. said, voice shaking. "I'm screwed…"

"I did not say that, C.C.," Wilson said sternly. "You have to understand that cancer treatment is not always straightforward – not being completely cured by one particular treatment regime does not mean you won't get better in the long run."

"Gee, that makes me feel so much better! Pump me full of chemo drugs, cut me open and live on a fucking prayer!" C.C. snapped back, glaring at her doctor – a doctor she knew deep down wasn't to blame for any of this, but who was unlucky enough to be in the vicinity. An unwitting scapegoat to her hurt and rage.

Wilson was aware of this too – this wasn't the first patient who'd screamed at him in the face of bad news, and she certainly would not be the last. People often got violent when reminded of how fragile life was. But this was the closest to home a patient's outburst had hit. He cared about the people under his care, but C.C. wasn't just a patient – she was one of those special patients that had grown on him. He didn't know what it was about her that made her special; maybe it was their shared stubborn determination to live life on their own terms. Maybe it was her sharp mind and even sharper wit. He didn't know, but he really and truly cared about her.

So seeing her crumble down under the pressure that came with suffering from advanced cancer was tugging at his heart more than he would have liked to admit.

Taking a deep breath to steel his resolve, he tried again.

"Look; I know it sounds hard, and it is hard. I've seen it enough times to know that for a fact," he told her. "And if it came right down to it, I wouldn't wish it on any—"

"Oh, cut the crap, Wilson!" C.C. yelled, wrenching her arm away from under his hand.

"Wrench" was a very loose term – in her current state, the best she could manage was a slow drag. She pulled her hand up to her face, wiping it heavily over her eyes and shuddering as she tried to focus and breathe. It looked like she thought she could wipe the whole world in front of her away if she kept on trying hard enough.

"I don't want to hear it anymore," she weakly shook her head underneath her hand, the trembling getting worse as she spoke. "It's…it's all too much…!"

If there was one noise in the whole of the world that Wilson truly detested, it was the sound of a person breaking down crying. But he had to sit there, gut twisting and turning over like a restless snake, as C.C. Babcock choked out a sob and let the first few tears start to roll down her cheeks. She naturally, and angrily, wiped them away, as she tried to gasp in another breath.

"I can't…I can't bear the thought of this any longer! I'm tired…so tired… all of the time – it's exhausting! I just want it to be over, and…and I…"

Clearly overwhelmed by her own thoughts, C.C. trailed off into a painful, voiceless sob. An alarm bell went off in Wilson's head as she did. He'd know that kind of devastated, absolutely destroyed look in anybody! He'd heard it too many times before, just before people admitted to him – or didn't, in the nightmares – that they were thinking of doing something drastic.

He definitely knew better than to let the subject drop now. If he knew what she was thinking, he could talk her out of it – he knew he could! He had to at least try. What kind of a doctor to the patient, or what kind of a friend to the person, would he be if he didn't do everything he goddamn could to help them keep on living?

He leaned forward a little on the bed, "You what, C.C.? What do you want?"

He almost wanted to tell her not to give up now, but a horrible feeling in his belly made him think she'd have something to say right back to that. He hoped it was wrong, and that he'd simply been burned one too many times before, but he never liked his chances when it came to other people's feelings.

Sobbing still and heaving out ragged breaths, she eventually worked herself up to be able to talk again.

"I don't know…if I want to be here anymore!" she cried, fresh hot tears streaming down her face. "It's not worth it! It can't be worth going through this!"

Wilson's face fell.

Shit. The gut feeling hadn't been just a feeling; it'd been instinct!

Fuck. He hated it when he was right and he hated it even more now. This was exactly what he'd been afraid of the whole way through C.C.'s treatment! He'd tried everything so far to make her see that everything they were doing was going towards making her better, but he knew her. How could she possibly believe him if she didn't see the difference? He knew she didn't feel any better than when she'd started, and probably in actual fact felt worse!

How could she possibly look him in the eye and listen to him tell her everything was going to be okay, when every sign in the vicinity to her seemed to point in the opposite direction?! What could he do to prove to her that he wasn't just telling her all of this while she lay there and wasted away?!

The worst part of it all was, if someone else had been there, Wilson knew this never would've happened. If someone had been there to comfort her, to reassure her that it was all gonna be okay, hell, even just to hold her hand through the worst days, then she wouldn't be falling apart! She'd have an actual shoulder to cry on, rather than sobbing into the air while he sat there trying to get her to see reason!

He'd known this would happen, and he wished he'd kicked himself harder to make it not happen! He'd seen it coming to this; he'd seen it every time she'd refused to let other people get so much as a foot in the door to come visit. He'd seen it before. This is what happened when people tried to stick it out alone, when that was the absolute worst thing they could try to do for themselves, or for the people around them!

Now…now it didn't matter whether she wanted it or not – she needed someone there to help her all the time. Someone was coming in to be with her when no one else could be. And she could scream at him all she wanted for setting up a guest in her room, but she was getting an emotional support person, even if she said no! She wasn't going to make it past the next round of chemo if they didn't do something fast, and Wilson wasn't going to let her slip away that easily!

He had to talk to Noel and Niles – those two were both the only lifeline Babcock currently had and would be just as interested in getting the bullheaded socialite some much needed emotional support.

But first things first – he had to soothe C.C.. For better or for worse, she was in the middle of an infusion, and until he could take decisive action in getting her a proper safety net, he needed to make sure she was getting her treatment properly. That obviously meant not touching on her refusal to accept help; it obviously wouldn't help and she wasn't in the right emotional and mental state to have any sort of serious discussion.

"C.C., you are not being rational at the moment," Wilson said, gently placing an arm around her upper back. "I know you are upset – God knows I would be, if I was in your position. But this is not the moment or place to make any important decisions about your treatment."

C.C. didn't reply, but she did look up at him, eyes tired and face tear-stricken. He could tell there was a part of her – huge part of her, knowing Babcock – that wanted to argue. But, at the same time, there was another part of the producer that both knew Wilson was right and that was too drained to articulate any sort of coherent point. And, luckily for the doctor, it looked like the latter part was winning.

"So, hear me out," Wilson continued. "Let's put this conversation on the backburner for just a few days – until you are done with the infusion and the worst of the side effects have passed. I obviously don't agree with you and I do think there is hope, but I also think that you are currently in no state to make any sort of important decision. And I think you know that, too."

A long, uncomfortable silence swelled in the room. It didn't take much detective work to guess that C.C. was fighting with herself over what she wanted to say.

That part that wanted to argue had clearly gotten up off the ropes and was back swinging, but the tired part – the part that had a chance of being rational about it all – knew he was right. And it was probably too exhausted to do anything other than want to get the conversation over with, no matter what that meant.

"Alright," she eventually relented, voice still thick with tears. "Fine. We'll talk later. Maybe I won't feel quite so much like crap when we do…"

The wording wasn't great, he had to admit, but Wilson couldn't help being a little pleased with the…the overall sentiment, as it were. She'd done the right thing, even if it'd been hard. And they both knew she was going to feel like crap for a while but she'd recognised that there would be a point in time when she didn't.

He'd count that as a victory. A small one, but they all mattered.

Nodding, he went to get up off the floor, "Good. We can—"

"But I…uh…I think I want to rest. Just between then and now," she interrupted, hesitating as she thought about how to put it. "I might need some…advanced specialist help getting there, though…"

Whatever expression Wilson had been wearing disappeared under a frown. He sank back onto his knees, blinking at her.

"Specialist help…?"

C.C. nodded a little, wiping away some tears with her wrist.

"I feel like…I feel like I need the kind of sleep you can't accidentally wake up from. The kind you or Cameron might…y'know…have access to…?"

It suddenly clicked for Wilson just what she was getting at. Sedatives. She was looking to get knocked out so she could avoid the pain of it all!

The doctor shifted about on his knees. The request was…upsettingly and disconcertingly close to their earlier "talk". Her not feeling like she wanted to be alive anymore because the pain was too much was echoed horribly in not wanting to be awake because the treatment was too much…

The only consolation, if it could be called that, was that sedatives were at least reversible. And yeah, they would help her to rest for a while without feeling anything. That wasn't a bad thing in short, emergency bursts, either.

The fact that she was even at this stage, asking him to do it, was just heavy on his mind and in his heart. It really could've all been avoided before now, if she'd had someone else there…

But he couldn't focus on that for now. Right there, in that moment, he had to think about what would get C.C. into the next day. Then the next, and so on and so forth until he could get to Niles and Noel and force some social interaction on her.

And right now, that meant looking for some "specialist" help.

"Okay," he said quietly, starting to nod again. It wasn't as strong or as enthusiastic this time. "I think I can get you something to help you settle in for a while."

C.C. sighed softly, "Hopefully a good long while…"

Wilson chose to ignore the comment as he made it to his feet. The last thing he wanted to do was start off another argument when they'd only just about reached an impasse of a conclusion on their first.

"When I bring them back, would you like me to stay until they work?" he asked.

C.C. considered this for a moment, "I'd like that…thank you."

"It's okay. And it's going to be okay," he moved back around the bed and towards the door. "I'll be back in a little while, with something that'll help."

He hoped to God it would help as he left and closed the door behind him. He didn't think he'd ever felt as at a loss, or as unhappy over a patient and their progress, as this was making him feel. He knew C.C. Babcock could get better – deserved to get better. But she just wasn't helping herself, even as the days and the opportunities to do it rolled by.

It scared him, actually scared him to think that she might have been missing those opportunities on purpose.

And as he turned to head out of her room, he didn't think any meeting he had with her brother or the butler could come soon enough. They'd know how to make her take those opportunities. They'd be able to talk some sense into her about not slipping into a sedative sleep any time things got hard.

They'd help her to see that she could live.