Chapter 16, enjo-I don't know, you might not enjoy this one, the music I was listening to influenced this chapter. A Long chapter but it was worth it!

Warnings: Sensitive topics, lots of them and angst, downright angst

Disclaimer in chapter 1

From Heidi's POV because her POV is very important for this chapter. Extremely so.

Two And A Half Women, Oh...and Carlos

Chapter 16

Teenage Dream Pt. 4 (Dreams Do End)

It was supposed to be a happy moment. I thought…I thought the choice I made, it was supposed to have a happy ending. I choose the most logical path, didn't I?

Then why does it feel like the path I chose was the worst path to choose?

I decided to continue the pregnancy to full term and let Aunt Brittany adopt the baby. Papi and Mom were relieved with my choice. Just like me, they knew that Diesel and I were not equipped to take care of a child, even with their support.

Diesel told me that no matter choice I made, he would be there for me and support me. He's been at my side throughout this and is still here now. I think I'm going to marry him one day.

Julie was happy with the choice I made. She was excited to be an aunt but she knew, just like everyone else, that I wasn't ready for this, I'm not ready to be a mother.

But Aunt Brittany was.

I made sure that she and Uncle Lester went to check ups with me, to make sure that they knew I was taking care of myself. They wanted to go, they wanted to make sure that I was fine. It was a win-win situation. They would get a child, and I would be at peace with my choices.

"I'm concerned about some of the results from your recent pap smear tests, I'm sending you to a specialist.."

That sentence from my doctor started a domino effect that would change all our lives.

Papi and Diesel went with me to specialist, who took a look at the results of my tests and said in a low voice that some of the cells in were cancerous, they were going to have to do a biopsy. Papi and I knew that cancer ran in my birth mother's family. Julie started getting screened at 16 and the doctor said that once I was 16, I would start getting screened too.

Papi and I weren't that shocked about the was straight up devastated. I tried to assure him that I had had a high chance of getting cancer because of my family history. He held me and cried, blaming himself that I was now having to fight cancer whilst being pregnant. He didn't know that I was at risk for cancer, it wasn't his fault, but how could I convince him otherwise?

Papi and Stephanie stuck close to me even more now, making sure I didn't go without. Stephanie was scared but Papi was terrified. He lost his wife to cancer and now he was scared to lose me. I couldn't die, I wasn't going to die.

Things got even more complicated for me and my baby.

I was now in a high risk pregnancy, which was now even more high risk because of the news the doctor gave me, a week after my biopsy. We had just started to discuss cancer treatment when I got another whammy tossed at my face.

"We have another serious problem," The Doctor was looking hard at me, "This problem is out of my area, I called the National Institute of Health on the matter."

"W-what's wrong?" I looked at the specialist, and then to Aunt Brittany, who looked just as grim as me. You only go to the National Institute of Health for oddities.

"The cancer has spread," She looked at us, "And not where you think it would, we took a sample from the fetus, and found cancerous cells as well."

I was horrified and yet, curious with this declaration. How was it that the cancer I had spread to the baby I was carrying?

Not only was I going to Baltimore to be a patient, I was going as a student as well. I wanted to know how, I want to fix this.

(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)

In the end, it was Aunt Brittany, Diesel and I who went to live in Baltimore, in a house provided to us by the NIH. They were just as curious as I was and assured Papi and Maxim that Diesel and I would be treated fabulously and that Diesel would be educated and fast tracked to graduate from High School. I spent most of my time in the research hospital, studying what I could on cancers, pregnancies and the methods that cancer spread.

I started treatment for my cancer there as well, chemotherapy and low level radiation. I was in pain most of the time, side effects to the treatment, but I couldn't let Diesel see that, he was stressed as it was and kept close to me whenever he could. He even started to join me in researching this medical issue as well.

Aunt Brittany, though a famous fashion designer, was a scholar herself and helped me when she could. She was scared for me and when I voiced to her that she might lose her future child to cancer, she looked me straight in the eyes and said.

"If that's the case then I'll accept it, if that means you live."

The three of us would work ourselves to the bone, between treatments, studying and regular life. I had to put in medical leave at the school and Aunt Brittany stopped her life to help me and Diesel. She was finally putting that education she had to use, she told me.

Together, the three of us were writing a thesis, it seemed. By the time I was 6 month pregnant, we had over 1,500 pages of notes, essays and pictures.

By the time I was 6 months pregnant, I got news that my cancer wasn't going away and that it was getting worse and that my baby's cancer was getting worse as well. With that being said, it was decided that when I hit the seven months mark, I would give birth. I was put on bed rest in the hospital and monitored closely.

At least we got a good game of Dungeon Crawler going.

(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)

The birthing process was rough. I wanted to stay awake, I wanted to know what was going on but then I had complications and had to go to be put under. When I woke up, I wasn't pregnant and they had taken out the cancerous tumors and parts of my uterus. I was too weak to go see the baby I gave birth to but I asked Diesel how they were.

"We have a little girl," Diesel told me, kissing my forehead, "She's-she's so pretty."

When I pressed for more information, Diesel wouldn't tell me, he would clam up and shake his head, with tears in his eyes. Papi and Stephanie were like that too, everyone was. Why couldn't they tell me?

"She didn't develop properly," Uncle Lester finally told me, sitting beside Aunt Brittany, who held my hand, "She's on life support."

"She's not going to make it, baby," Aunt Brittany looked at me, with tears in her eyes, "Her lungs can't give her the needed oxygen, her brain is under developed, she's-" Aunt Brittany turned away, letting out a small sob, "We're-we're just waiting for you to get better so that you can see her before we do what needs to be done."

It took a week or two after the delivery before I could get up and be wheeled to where my daughter was. Oh…such a bittersweet thing to say. I couldn't hold her, I couldn't speak to her. She just laid there, in the incubator, surrounded by tubing and wires, the only thing keeping her alive. I couldn't touch her. I recalled the picture of me as a premature baby but she-our child, didn't look like that. She looked…alien, though it's cruel of me to say that, my baby didn't look human. Why couldn't I-why couldn't we have found out what happened, why?

"Is she in pain?" I asked softly, resting my hand on the incubator she was in.

"I-I suppose she's not," Diesel looked at the baby, "She didn't cry when she born, she didn't move, they took her away before we could really see her."

If she's on life support, she's not feeling much, she's pretty much nothing and that's what scared me. We couldn't keep her like this, better she go now, without her truly knowing that she was…well-

I leaned against Diesel, looked at our little girl one last time before I nodded my head, "Okay...it's okay, Diesel, we can-we can let her go now."

"Okay," Diesel whispered back and then turned to Aunt Brittany and Lester, "They can-they can turn off the life support now."

No father should say that, no one should say that.

(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)

"is this how you felt, when you lost our mom?" I asked Papi, sitting beside him on a bench, "Like…something hollowed out your soul and you can't replace it?"

Papi pulled me close to him and said, "Yes, but I can't imagine your pain, you lost a child, you were faced with things that no child should go through."

"I thought…I thought I was making the right choice," I whispered, "Now, I lost a child, Diesel lost a child, and Aunt Brittany and Uncle Lester lost one too."

"Sometimes, there are things in life we have no control of," Papi told me, "You didn't know you had cancer, you didn't know how bad it was."

Papi looked at the sky and sighed, "Life is a bitch, sometimes."

"That it is," I whispered back, tears in my eyes, "At least she doesn't have to live it."

(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)

"I want to become a researcher," Diesel looked over to me as I edited the last pages of the research we did in Baltimore, "I want to know why she had to go through what she did, I want to know how we can stop that from happening to other people. So they don't have to suffer like we did."

I looked over to Diesel and grabbed his hand, "This is a start," I motioned to our research paper, "What we've done together, Me, you and Aunt Brittany, we can start to look deeper. We're going to do some gene sequencing too, your genes can be sequenced too, that way, maybe if there's blips in your DNA, we can find it."

"You're not like any other girl, Heidi," He looked at me and then to the paper, "When a pregnant teen gets told that she not only cancer but her baby does as well, usually, they would be crying, but you…you were a part of the process the entire way. Even when you started chem and radiation and were dying. When they did that biopsy, you demanded to stay away during the entire 10-hour operation. And also demanded a mirror to see what they were doing."

"I have to know," I looked down at our notes, our scribbles, our life, "I want to know how I can stop this from happening again."

It's so rare, there's not enough information out there," Diesel sighed, and I nodded my head, "We have loads of info here, though, so it's a start."

I nodded my head, "Yes, it is a start."

"And soon, I'll marry ya."

"You know, you're not like other teenage boys. Most times, they get told they're going to be a father and bolt. You didn't, you stayed with me, through all the pain and tears, you didn't have to."

"You're fucking right I didn't have to, I needed to, she was ours, we wanted a good life for her, no matter how short it was." Diesel turned my face to his, "I'd do it again in a heart beat, if I have to."

I smiled at him and said, "When we're 18, we're getting married."

He laughed at that statement and kissed me.

(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)

"Now we both can't have kids, and we also have matching scars," I looked over to Aunt Brittany, who sighed and drank her wine in silence, "You know…I-I thought that this would be like a good dream. I got pregnant, my family was supportive, everything was going right, I thought I made all the right choices, did I choose wrong?"

"No, you didn't choose wrong, sometimes," Aunt Brittany looked up at me and smiled, "Reality can be disappointing. You have all these goals and dreams but then, things happen that are out of your hand and you just have to roll with the punches."

"Will I ever feel normal again?" I asked, looking at the woman before me, who seemed to have aged 20 years in the span of 10 months.

"Define normalcy for me, please."

Oh…she had a point.

What is normal?

End.

I choose to title this little saga Teenage Dream because unlike Katy Perry's song, Teenage Dreams are only that, dreams. Real life can be a bitch.