CHAPTER ONE
Gia hums softly to the radio that's barely loud enough to hear as she downs her next dose of Oxycodone before the last one has time to wear off.
She's not spending another night wide awake and nearly writhing in pain due to the demon eating through her body.
Glancing at the clock, feeling a small sense of worry.
He should be back by now.
She shouldn't even be up, but also can't make herself try to go to bed without knowing he's gotten in safe.
Her fingers come up to run through her hair, but she's stopping herself, remembering how easily the black strands will come out with just the slightest pull...she hasn't washed her hair in three weeks because of it.
She hears the window in the bedroom slide open and slowly before the booming bark of a Doberman on the defense.
"It's me dude, damn!" She chuckles at the sound of her boyfriend talking to their dog, and tip toes to peek her head in.
The two men have made peace by now, Jason rough-housing with him while Rambo playfully nips at his fingers.
"Where's mom, huh?" Jason asks him quietly. "She's supposed to be in bed by now, she's got a doctor's appointment in three hours." He adds, knowing she can hear him.
She clears her throat and he looks up to the door.
"Maybe I'd be in bed if somebody were home." She suggests softly but smartly, crossing her arms.
"You know I have late nights, Gia." He stands up and takes his jacket off.
"Especially the nights you get arrested and I have to bail you out. Those are really fun." She scoffs, stepping to the bed and pulling the covers back.
"That's only happened once." He says from the bathroom, and she rolls her eyes.
"Yeah, and if I wasn't the commissioner's half-sister-and I wasn't dying-you'd be locked up by now."
He shakes his head to himself and squeezes his eyes closed, taking a breath.
"And I appreciate you pulling the 'sibling with cancer' card at all cost to get me outta trouble," he says next as he comes back in, wearing nothing but boxer briefs and Gia snuggles up in the covers and gets comfortable, facing his side of the bed.
He gets in next to her and reaches his hand out to tuck stands of her hair behind her ear, his fingertips brushing across her skin in the process.
She looks tired, but he knows it's not because she hasn't been getting much sleep lately.
"Do you think they're gonna tell me it's gotten worse?" She asks him in a whisper and he raises his brows.
"Do you?" He asks her back and she blinks for a few moments, trying to avoid the tears that threaten to spill over her cheeks.
"I feel like it has." She admits.
"Gia, you're gonna beat this, alright? It doesn't matter if it's gotten worse or not. You're gonna beat this." He assures her and she sniffles, his hopeful, bright blue eyes piercing into her brown ones in the room only lit by the city lights outside. "And we've got that thing for Wayne Enterprises tomorrow night, a good time for you to pitch that idea to Bruce…"
"I highly doubt he'd be interested in my wacky, disease-induced, illogical ideas." She tells him.
"He also knows very little about biotechnology so if you explain it to him in a first grade level translation, he'd be willing to at least think on it."
"Okay," she nods, trying not to be scared, but they both know she is.
"...It appears that the cancer has spread from the cervix and vagina, to your lymph nodes around the pelvic bone, and that has essentially carried to your lowest left rib." Dr. Ambros regretfully informs Gia, running her fingers over the x-ray, pointing to multiple clusters of spots in the picture…
It's not a punch in the face to Gia, she had a feeling it had gotten worse-she'd started coughing up blood a couple days ago but didn't tell anybody to avoid being in the hospital yet again with an episode.
Jason on the other hand...a lump the size of a softball hugs the inside of his throat, and he tries to keep it together for Gia, trying to be the strong, stoic one that he'd always been to give her room to be the one to react appropriately. But this?
"I assume my prognosis is changing like last time?" Gia asks calmly.
"Being that chemo and radiation treatments are clearly no longer working, I'd say it's merely a matter of time. Possibly even less than three months-six at the most."
Jason feels nausea rise in his throat.
Gia just nods and says, "okay," because it's better than she thought it would be.
"No, it's not okay," Jason chuckles humorlessly.
"Jason,"
"People come in here for some hope and all you do is place a shitty estimated number on their time."
"Jason, please, don't do this." Gia rubs her forehead.
"Mr. Wayne, with all do respect-"
"-It's 'Todd'." He snaps, standing up.
"Jaso-"
"-Mr. Todd, we have done everything we can do for her. She knows that we have ever since she was diagnosed."
"You told her she'd have five years and possibly longer since it was caught early-five years for new technologies to be discovered and utilized, five years worth of time to get a cure for this shit-and now only six months later you're sitting with your thumbs up your ass and telling her she's lucky if she gets another six months?!"
"Cervical cancer is tedious-cancer is tedious." She states.
"Why the hell has Wayne Enterprises donated to you motherfuckers in the first-"
"-Okay, we're leaving," Gia can't take it anymore, already stressed out but her boyfriend's tantrum isn't helping.
"Get plenty of rest, Gia, I'll get you your prescription refill by tomorrow." Ambros assures Gia over Jason's galvanizing as she tries to herd him out of the door.
"Yeah, just keep writing those goddamn pills up for her so she can stay stoned and not know shit about what you twisted fucks are up to," He hisses and Gia's face burns red with embarrassment as she blatantly shoves him out of the door and slams it shut, keeping her head down as she scurries past the receptionist and out the door.
Jason follows her, his own mind swimming as he gets in the car and takes a breath, an awkward silence between the two of them.
"There wasn't any reason for you to act like that," she starts quietly and he huffs out a breath and cranks the car, not responding. "That was humiliating." She adds.
"Next time I'll sit there and be quiet and let them hand a death certificate to you for you to sign while they repeatedly hammer to us that they've done all they can when in reality they've done the bare minimum yet want gold stars and accolades and big donations. Paying them to pass out pain pills is all Bruce is doing, clearly. We can go to any corner in Gotham and have you treated if that's all it fucking takes." He spits it out venomously.
"Can you please watch your language?"
"Fuck this." Jason doesn't even hear her question, too angry to hear anything but his blood simmering.
"What they were doing-the 'bare minimum,' you so eloquently put it-was working. But I wanted to get off of it and when I decided to try to get back on it, it was too late and wasn't helping anything." She reminds him and he honks his horn at a car that pulls out in front of them suddenly, making Gia close her eyes and try to go to a happy place as he shouts at the car to avoid acknowledging what she'd just said.
He didn't want to remember she wanted off the radiation and chemo in the first place.
He didn't want to place the blame on her.
He refused to.
He'd always refuse to blame her.
Even when she put him in a position he felt absolutely powerless in.
Glancing at her, seeing her eyes closed, he swallows thickly and keeps his eyes on the road.
Gia was tucked away, the memory of her mother humming to her, holding her tightly, keeping her at ease.
She can see her mother's face looking down at her, a memory she remembers from the age of five, "chasing" her mother up the stairs of their house, grabbing her leg and pulling her to the floor.
Her mother's laughter reverberates off the walls of the home as she gets in the hallway floor, Gia giggling and scooting up to be face to face with her, pushing her forehead to her's.
She just smiles and kisses Gia's forehead, wrapping her arms around her, tightly.
"My baby Gia," she says warmly, her voice cracking as tears come to her eyes.
But Gia can tell they're happy tears.
She then begins to sing "Jesus Loves Me," quietly, Gia singing along as best as she can.
"Gia," Jason pulls her out of her mind and she looks at him to see they're home.
"Sorry," she mumbles, getting out of the car.
Again, they're silent.
When they get inside and greet Rambo, Gia's immediately going back to bed while Jason can't bring himself to sleep right now. Not after what was just disclosed to the two of them.
He hasn't been this upset, this defenseless since the Joker did him in and tried to kill her, too, but Bruce managed to get her to safety. But even then, Jason felt he had failed her. Even when his hands were tied-literally-and he couldn't have done much of anything to save her, he was angry that she was hurt on his watch.
That same feeling is very apparent as of right now as well. The feeling of utter abandonment. He hopes she doesn't think he abandoned her, back then or right now.
-
Gia carefully puts hair-smoothing product in her wet hair, trying not to pull too hard to coax anymore strands out of her scalp than what she's already lost in the shower, glancing down at the glass of vodka she poured for herself while Jason was distracted with feeding the dog.
She rubs her lips together, eyes trailing from the drink to the mirror to look at her face, dark circles under her eyes, lips cracked and dried...her skin sallow and pale despite it's brown color.
"Shit, Gia," She mumbles to herself, taking a sip of alcohol and wincing, her face scrunching up momentarily.
She hasn't drank straight vodka since Jason died.
Getting makeup on to cover up how sickly she looks, she blow drys her hair and curls it, clumps of it ending up on the floor by the time she's finished.
She holds her nose and downs the rest of her drink, brushing her teeth afterwards to hopefully cover up the taste from Jason.
He's too busy trying to decide which tie to wear, letting out a frustrated breath as Gia comes out of the bathroom to get her dress on.
"You're dressing up?" She asks, noting his dilemma. "You never dress up for these things." She says next, smiling a little.
"Figured I'd look the part of the house-husband who's about to bathe in all the money his super hot, super smart, groundbreaking scientist wife rakes in from discovering a new way to kick cancer's ass." He tells her and she laughs as he holds up the two ties.
"Red or green?"
"It's not green, it's emerald, and it makes your eyes stand out-not that they already don't, but still." She tosses the red tie onto the bed as he lifts his collar and she loops the emerald colored fabric around his neck before staring at it in her hands…
"I don't know how to tie one of these," she says out loud.
"Yeah, I was about to ask when the hell you learned to tie a tie." He chuckles and she smiles, pressing a kiss to his cheek, then his jaw, her lips tickled with the prickling of his stubble he has yet to shave off, trailing to his neck, her fingers beginning to unbutton the tops buttons of his white shirt.
"We don't have time for this, Gia." He says to her lightly, knowing something's up because she hasn't made a move on him for over two months being that they can't be fully intimate without her being in pain due to the cancer that's spread-that and her sex drive has been shot down, understandably.
"We can make time," she hums, catching his lips with her's, their tongues lacing together.
He can taste that familiar finger nail polish remover taste, mixed with tooth paste.
"You been drinking?" He asks, knowingly, maintaining his soft grin, cupping the sides of her face to look at her.
"Just one drink." She tells him.
"Just one." He nods. "Which is gonna turn into two, which is gonna turn into-"
"-I really don't need your judgement right now, Jason." She pulls away.
"I'm not judging you, Gia, you just don't need to be drinking while you're on prescription pills." He tells her.
"Yeah," she agrees to shut him up, and he knows it, he just doesn't call her out on it.
"I gotta get dressed." She tells him next, and he doesn't reply, stepping to the living room to grab his suit jacket, deciding he'll just get Barbara to fix his tie when they get there.
"Don't forget your research." He calls, looking down at Rambo. "She's a little bit nuts, you know that?" He asks him quietly. "But she's good. You know she's good." He adds, patting the dog's head.
She steps out of their room, heels clicking on the floor, emerald colored satin stopping at the bottom of her thighs, her curled hair pulled over to one shoulder, file of research and paperwork an inch and a half thick and in hand.
Jason just smiles down at her and grabs her hand, kissing her knuckles.
"No fighting over the vodka?" She asks, raising a brow.
"Not tonight." He shakes his head, leaning down and kissing her chastely before the two bid goodbye to the Doberman and head off.