Chapter 15
A Death in the Story
Before you read further, I need you to know that there is a death in this story. I'll try to end it all happily (eventually when I get to the end), but really this is not a happy story. I know this is hard for you to understand. Perhaps when you get older, it'll all be easier and less confusing. I'm trying my hardest to show you that I don't want mine and Harry's story to end. That would be most heartbreaking of all, if it happened. I will strive to keep our story going. Because it's a good one! Two best friends fighting a war side-by-side, falling in love despite the risks, etc. etc. We have a wonderful story. I know this hurts, but I have to warn you that someone dies. Someone very close to you. Someone you'll never really get to know, save for this story of mine. I'm terribly sorry about it all. I think I was at first determined to beat my illness, but I eventually gave in, let the illness win, too weak to carry on. Please, don't judge me. I was sick. I had no energy left to fight.
Change in POV
There were people that visited Ron in his 'last 24 hours' (as the doctors and Healers had started to call it) that Ron had expected to come; his boss, Mike, for one. Amanda and Cam never left, coming in every so often to hug him or hold his hand, feel him for as long as they could. Hermione and his family hovered, trying not to disturb him too often. Dean came in at one point and Ron told him to "take care of Ginny," to which Dean had responded that Ginny would probably be the one to take care of him, making Ron chuckle at his sister's independence. Jeremy and the Healers paced his room a lot and he could hear them whispering and babbling on about medical terms in the hallway. Jeremy was in a constant state of anxiety, always looking as though he was physically wracking his brain for answers. Harry literally never left Ron's side again.
There were also those visitors that Ron would have never expected in a hundred years. Lavender Brown popped in for only a moment to shed a dramatic tear and squeeze his hand, leaving after being glared down by Harry and Hermione. There was the bartender from the local bar that Ron had all but moved into his first months in Everwood. And then there was a small, cute black-haired bird with what Ron had once considered a tight ass. Ron hadn't seen her since before Harry had moved in. He'd slept with her on multiple occasions while he'd been in Everwood alone. He probably hadn't seen nor had sex with her in nearly 6 weeks. She was the first person he'd met in Everwood and she'd reminded him enough of Harry that he'd kept her around.
When she walked in, she was crying lightly. She was wearing jeans and a large sweater, which made sense since Ron could hear the rain on the roof and windows. Harry had moved from the seat he'd conjured to the bed where he was rubbing Ron's back gently. She closed the door behind her and turned to face Ron, feet glued to the floor like she was ready to race out of the door again if necessary. Ron offered a small smile.
"Jennifer,"
That seemed to calm her down and her shoulders released their tension, dropping slightly, while her face turned less sad and more genuine. She took a deep breath and walked to the open seat, sitting down and setting her purse on the floor next to her. She leaned in and grabbed Ron's hand, putting her elbows on the bed and letting her face get close to Ron's. She kissed him lightly. Startled, Ron pulled away and looked back at Harry, whose face was screwed up.
"Bloody fantastic. He's with me, love," Harry told her matter-of-factly.
She gasped and pulled away, looking back and forth between the boys. "What?"
"I'm sorry Jennifer, but I'm sort of taken, now," Ron tried to explain with his raspy voice.
Jennifer closed her eyes tightly and let another tear fall. "That's awkward. You're his person, huh?"
Harry screwed up his face in silent question.
"I knew that Ron was in love with someone. Every time we were together. Fuck, you look like me, just a guy version. I'm not stupid, I knew. I'm Jennifer." She offered her hand to Harry, who shook it with a hesitant, "Harry."
"It's really nice to meet you," she told Harry with a genuine smile.
"I'm sorry, Jen," Ron offered.
"Ron, it's fine. Really. But I need to tell you something. And, if you and Harry, here, are serious, then I think maybe he should hear it, too."
Ron nodded.
"Ron, you can't die. You have to stay here. You have people to meet and things to do and lessons to learn and rules to break and lives to change. You have to hang on."
Ron chuckled. "I don't think that by telling the illness that I have people to meet will make it give me a longer life,"
"Well maybe if you tell it who you have to meet. Like your child. Ron, I'm five weeks pregnant,"
Harry dropped the glass of water he'd been holding and it shattered against the ground. Ron pulled his big orange bowl toward his mouth and retched into it. Hermione slammed open the door and ran in crying, screeching at the top of her lungs with a look of hope in her young eyes, Jeremy right on her heals, a look of victory in his own. One moment, Ron had accepted his fateā¦the very next he his whole world had been turned upside down. This illness might take him, but it wouldn't keep him from meeting that small child that lay beneath his hand, now pressed tight against Jennifer's stomach.
Ron was wracking his brain trying to figure out if he could remember her last name, trying to decide how to choose between accepting death or loathing it, looking around the room until he could meet a pair of green eyes that could set his world back to normal despite the loud ruckus going on around him, the words and sounds of which he had drowned out completely. When those perfect green eyes found his, Ron felt a wave of something he'd never felt before. Then, suddenly, he fell to the bed and everything went black.
A/N: This is not the last chapter, there is still a lot more to come! Hope you enjoy! Please review! Jessica682 and Kitty-kat-the-ninja thank you for your reviews for the last couple chapters :)
