Warnings: Character Death. Cancer.
Summary: Sam has cancer and decides to forgo a way-too-expensive treatment. He'll make the most of his Senior year, then he'll die. And he'll try not to tell anyone along the way. Based on the novel 'Deadline' by Chris Crutcher.
.***.
"There is a time for everything...a time to be born and a time to die...a time to weep and a time to laugh...a time to mourn and a time to dance...a time to search and a time to give up." Ecclesiastes 3
If he would have pegged someone to pick up on it first, he would have bet all his money on Mercedes, not Rory Flanagan. Really, Rory? But it turns out the Irish kid who looked so innocent had a younger brother who'd gone a couple rounds with the Big C. And he saw the bruises, and noticed the fatigue, and put the pieces together.
For the record, this was three months after the horrible doctor's appointment. That had been in November, when he first noticed the bruises that would take up his whole thigh, wrap around his back. So he stopped by the doctor he went to for physicals before football and basketball seasons, and he'd taken blood and looked very serious and told him that, yes, it was cancer. Far along. Probably incurable, but with the right treatments he could have two, maybe three years. Without treatment? Eight months, on the outside.
And who could blame Sam for wanting to spend the end of his days not imprisoned in a hospital? He told the doc thanks but no thanks, he was through being a charity case and cancer was a major budget breaker. That wasn't it, though. Not even half the story. He was going to die, and he was somehow okay with that. He'd always thought he would die young ("hold onto sixteen as long as you can" right?) This was just a little younger than he expected.
So he hooked up with Mercedes, her huge boyfriend be damned. He got pumped about Regionals and was psyched they won. He took Rory under his wing and hung out with Kurt and Finn, grateful beyong belief that he wasn't with his parents.
It wasn't that he didn't like his family. He loved them, and that was the problem. He never would have been able to keep up the deception,a nd then they would have forced him into a hospital bed. No, it was better he was back at McKinley. He may only have eighteen years on this damn earth, but he would make sure they were good ones. And he deserved a hell of a last year, after all the shit he'd gone through.
And then February came, and he really started to feeling it. The doc, the only other person on earth who knew that Sam's body was rebelling against him, had given him some good pills that kept him on his feet, kept a smile on his face most days. But even those couldn't combat the mets spreading all over his body.
"What kind of cancer is it, Sam?" Rory's lilting voice, which made him soud so innocent even as it made him sound so mature, broke through Sam's delusions that he had everyone fooled. "And why aren't you doing anything to treat it?"
"I'd still die." Sam said, surprised into honesty. "Just slower. And while having less fun."
"There's still a chance!" Rory said, but his voice was pitched low and Sam found himself loving him for that. Rory was still giving him his privacy. "You don't want to fight this? You're one of the strongest people I know!"
"There's a 99% chance I'm going to die, Ror, and that's not an exageration. I'm not spending the end of my days chained to a hospital bed when I could be having fun." Sam clapped the Freshman on the shoulder. "Don't tell anyone okay kid?"
"I should!" Rory whispered, shaking with something like anger. "I shoudl tell Mr. Schuester and your parents and everyone! I watched my little brother die from cancer and I'm not going to sit around while you kill yourself!"
"The cancer is killing me! This isn't suicide, it's pro-choice. I'm choosing to live my life, and you have no right to interfere with that."
Rory looked so sad that Sam was afraid he'd start to cry in the middle of the hallway and give the whole game away. Instead, he just hoisted his backpack higher on his shoulder and walked away, leaving Sam very much alone.
.***.
When Sam collapsed on the stage during practice in April, it was only him and the guys, thank God. If the girls had been there screaming and crying he never would have been able to take it, and he might have broken his resolve and gotten the too-too-late treatment.
But it was only the guys, and Finn was there to make his fall to the ground a little easier. He and Puck moved Sam over to the side of the stage while Blaine ran to get water. Rory just stood therem looking on. Sam raised his eyes to him and smiled just a little, a thank-you for keeping such a huge secret all these months, because although Rory had talked to him a couple of times about the whole cancer thing, he never did go to Schue and never did tell anyone (were all Irish people so loyal?)
"What was that, Sam?" Mike had a hand on his shoulder, "You're one of the best dancers, and you've been almost face-planting all week."
"You got a bug? It's a little late for the flu." Kurt talked like someone who knew that it wasn't a bug and wasn't the flu.
"You can tell us." Artie said quietly. "What happens on the stage stays on the stage."
Suddenly, Sam's throat felt dry, and he couldn't get any words out, not even the smallest sounds. He opened his mouth, closed it again, realizing even as he did that now he really did resemble something with a trouty mouth. "Rory," he managed to croak, pleading with his eyes for the youngest boy present to do this for him.
And because Rory was nice, and kind, he explained to the others, who kept looking at Sam to dispute these horrible facts. Four months to live. Horrible cancer that had spread all over his body. Four months to live.
"You're dying?" Blaine whispered, his hand shaking so much that the water he'd gotten splashed onto a sleeve that was probably designer. "Why didn't you get chemo or something?"
"There's no guarentees." Sam raised his eyes to Kurt, who looked either very sad or very angry. "Right, Kurt? No guarentees, and chemo's a horrible way to go."
"It gave my mom another six months." Kurt spat. Definately angry, not sad. Not yet. "It doesn't sound like much, but I was little. Six months was probably the difference between me remembering my mom and remembering stories about her."
"I don't have kids, Kurt." Sam said, taking the water gratefully. He couldn't help but picture the body the water slipped down into - red and pulsing with cancer that had evil little faces, like you'd see in kids' drawings. "I'm just trying to finish high school. That's the whole goal here."
"And you're doing such a great job!" Blaine put his arm around Kurt's shoulders and made soft noises of comfort. Suddenly Sam wished for Mercedes, just so he could have someone to cry against.
"I'm sorry." Sam said miserably, and he was sorry. He was sorry he had to die and fuck up everyone's end to high school. He was sorry he had to die, period.
Puck, who wasn't touchy feely, not ever (no homo! no homo!) pulled Sam onto his lap and held him there, strong arms feeling much more real, anchoring him so much better than Mercedes's gentle embrace. Puck wasn't the best talker, he wasn't good with words, and usually he didn't hug guys. But he hugged Sam now.
And that was the first time Sam cried about having cancer.
As he was crying, and all the other boys were crying, they tried to get some questions out between their tears. "Is it a money thing?" Finn asked, "Because we can totally get one of those big fundraisers together."
"It's not a money thing." Maybe it had started off like that, but it wasn't about money, not anymore. "I just don't...I want to go out on my terms, you know? I want to graduate. I want to have a couple of months with Mercedes. I want to be with you guys..."
"We'll be here." Artie said, wheeling forward and taking Sam's hand. If they'd placed bets last year on which of them would die in high school, Artie would have said Puck, out of recklessness, or Kurt, out of hate. Never athletic, proud Sam Evans. Not in a million years.
But he held the hand anyway, and squeezed, and tried to smile around the tears that wanted to fall so badly. "We'll be here until the end."
.***.
The end came fast.
In that way that Midterms look closer on the other side of Christmas Break, death loomed after graduation. That was all that was left on his to-do list, actually. Graduate, and die.
Because of Sam begging them, the Glee club kept the secret to themselves, and the rest of the school thought Sam didn't go out for soccer because he was spending too much tiime with his girlfriend. But Sam didn't want a bunch of people who didn't know him whispering behind their hands when he got his diploma at graduation.
So even the gossips like Santana and Brittney, even the drama queens like Rachel, kept the whole thing under wraps, and they worried about Sam alone.
Mr. Schue found out three days before graduation, when Sam couldn't work up the strength to get out of his chair at the end of Glee. Finn lingered in the doorway but Mr. Schue waved him away. "Tired today, Sam?"
And then Sam looked up at him, and the one-on-one, the lights, the way he looked so sad and hopeless, made something clench in the pit of Will's stomach. This was not a pre-graduation hangover. It was something deeper than that, something worse.
Will didn't have any other classes for the rest of the day, and Sam only had graduation practice, which Schue assured him he could skip. It took five minutes for Will to figure out how to basically carry Sam to his car without looking like he was carrying him, but once he did they headed for the McDonald's take-out, so Sam wouldn't have to get out of the car again. Will drove to the highest point in Lima and parked the car while Sam munched on fries and looked sad and sick.
"What's wrong? You can tell me, Sam."
He was expecting another pregnancy. Or maybe rejection from college. Or a sudden decision to go to the military. He was not expecting cancer. He was not expecting death.
"I'm going to tell my parents, Mr. Schuester. I swear. Let me graduate first. They'll want to drag me back to Kentucky."
This was one of the dilemas that no one ever told Will he'd face being a teacher - choosing between doing what was right and what was necessary.
But in the end, Will just leaned across the car and enveloped Sam in a hug. "I'm so sorry." He said, as a boy fifteen years younger than himself cried into his shoulder because he'd never reach Will's age. He'd never get to do anything. "I'm so, so sorry, Sam."
He wished he could do more. It was another dilema of being a teacher - he usually wished he could do more, and he rarely could.
.***.
Sam spent his last days in his parents house, in the sunniest room. He was in and out of consciousness, and the pain was bad, worse than he'd expected. But he wasn't getting good painkillers because he wasn't going to a hospital, period. He'd take the pain if he got to end his life in the room full of sun.
He was aware of his father crying at one point. Of Stacy climbing on his stomach and screaming and screaming for him not to die. Of his mother sitting in the corner, not leaving, not eating, waiting in vigil already.
And then the Glee club came, and Sam knew it was okay to die when he saw them all standing there, being strong for him. Tina sniffled and Kurt looked like he wanted to bolt, but not a single tear actually fell. Mr. Schuester held his hand and Sam croaked his last words - that Glee had taught him more about being a man than anything else in his life.
He didn't mean for those to be his last words. He meant for them to be something important, or sentimental, or lasting. Something for his parents to hang onto - like "I love you." Something like Steve Jobs (didn't he say "oh wow"? As if he'd seen something spectacular in the distance? That was a comforting thought.)
But after those words he'd murmured to Schue he couldn't say anything more. He didn't have the energy, no matter how much he wanted it.
And suddenly he was afraid. Very afraid. Not of death, not exactly. He was afraid that he'd made the wrong choice, that Kurt was right - six months didn't sound like much, but to a dying man they sounded like a hell of a lot.
Somewhere in that twilight haze, with the Glee club crowded in the too-small room, everyone realized this was Sam's last night. Sam realized it too, and wished for six more months, if only to put off his mother's crying for that long.
Puck climbed into bed with him. Not Mercedes, his girlfriend, who hadn't stopped holding his hand the whole time, hadn't stopped kissing his chapped lips and pale cheeks. No, Puck slid in behind Sam and held him in strong arms.
No one sang. There was a time for song, and there was a time to weep. This was a time to weep.
But they were there until the end. And Puck knew the moment he died, even though he was looking at a point on the other side of the open window. He'd already been limp, but Puck would swear until the end that he felt Sam's soul leave his body, could almost see it flick out the window and up, up into the star-specked sky.
Teenagers shouldn't die. There wasn't a time for that, not really. Good people shouldn't die, and if they had to they should fight until their last breath for a chance to live. Right?
Sam Evans didn't do that. But with his last healthy months he won Nationals, he loved Mercedes, he graduated high school. He changed Rory Flanagan's life by being his first true American friend.
And everyone would remember him because of the way he died. On his own terms.
.***.
If you liked this, you should definately read Deadline by Christ Crutcher. It's a truly amazing book. Heartbreaking.
And if you want us to bash your favorite character, just drop a line.