Hello everybody! First of all I want to thank you for the wonderful response the first chapter had.
Thank you for your amazing reviews, suggestions, favs and follows, I wrote this shorter chapter to post it quicker, the next part of chapter 2 should be up in a couple of days, thank you for your patience. Please keep the reviews and suggestions coming. (:
Alex didn't sleep. The first two hours, it was because she didn't want to move an inch and make Piper shift her position. She felt the need to turn around or stretch her back, but she didn't move in order to ensure Piper's rest. Then, when Piper turned around and curled, Alex finally stretched and yawned, she was tired but didn't feel like sleeping.
"I've got cancer," was on a loop in her mind. Whenever she closed her eyes, she focused on Piper's breathing and it made her feel better, but she imagined all sorts of terrible scenarios where Piper was really ill and died on her.
She got up as quietly as she could and momentarily blinded herself with her cellphone. It read 4:12 am, so she closed her eyes for a moment before heading out of Piper's room, walking tentatively slowly towards the kitchen on the floor below and ran into Cal, Piper's younger brother.
"Hey, Cal." Alex whispered tiredly as both walked down the stairs, apparently to the same room.
"Alex." He replied without any emotion.
When they reached the kitchen, Cal turned on the lights and went to open the refrigerator to retrieve a gallon of orange juice. "Want some?" he asked, turning to look at Alex with his small, shiny eyes.
"Yes, please, Cal, I'd love a glass of that." Alex replied, walking to the cupboard to get two glasses and put them on the counter.
Cal poured the juice carefully and emptied his glass in two seconds, as Alex took slow sips, enjoying the fresh taste of the cold juice.
"I was looking up that chemo thing," Cal suddenly burst out.
"I was about to do the same, kid." Alex took out her cellphone and began typing in her browser.
"Hold on, I'll bring my laptop," Cal smiled and turned around to leave the kitchen. Alex meekly returned the smile and went to sit at the table.
All the pages said the same things, explained what is chemotherapy and the side effects, and they all said that the treatment could or could not work.
Alex breathing began to rise and she felt nauseous just to read those things, luckily, Cal returned with his laptop and sat beside her, placing his computer on the table and then both began researching what to expect and how to help Piper.
They both felt a little bit better now about the whole thing but at the same time, the feeling of dread snaked dangerously inside of them.
"I'll go with Pipes tomorrow, I hope it's okay with your folks." Alex finally said when she glanced at the bottom right corner of Cal's laptop and noticed it was 6:15 am.
"You know they hate you, Alex," he replied as he stretched his back. "But I know Piper would want you there, so they're pretty much fucked." He stood up and closed his computer.
"I bet they are," Alex stood up and walked to the door.
"See you laaater, try to… try to sleep a bit," he said yawning.
"Mornin', try to sleep, too." Alex exited the kitchen and reached the second floor before Carol poked her head out of her room.
"Sorry, Mrs. Chapman, I went to get a glass of juice. Good morning." Alex said quickly and grabbed the doorknob of Piper's door room.
"It's okay, Alex." she sounded tired, but not mad as always. "Thank you." she mustered.
Alex eyes widened and she turned her head to look at Piper's mother with an astonished expression.
"What for?" she asked a little bit harsher than she intended before turning the doorknob silently.
"Just… thank you." she said hastily and disappeared behind her door.
"Would I be sick? What if I have a reaction to the medication? I don't want to be there alone, Alex!" Piper whispered quickly all of her doubts as she and Alex waited for the nurse to come.
Carol had an appointment with a psychologist so she couldn't make it to Piper's first chemotherapy, but Bill took the day off work to take Piper to the hospital, reluctantly taking Alex too.
When the doctor explained that Piper needed a caregiver next to her during the chemotherapy, Piper immediately asked her father if Alex could enter with her, instead of him and he didn't want to make a scene in front of the doctor so he agreed.
"Easy, kid," Alex winked, "I'll be here the whole time, don't worry," she lightly squeezed Piper's shoulder and took out her phone.
For some reason, those words really made Piper calm down until the nurse entered the waiting room. She signaled them to follow her to the test room, where Piper was visibly shaking at the thought of a needle poking her skin.
The nurse was slim and had short, blonde hair and warm eyes, she looked happy to be helping people and she was nice and kind.
When they entered the test room, she motioned for Piper to sit down on a chair with a long arm on the left side and introduced herself, "Good morning, my name is Erica Jones and I'll be your nurse. If there's anything you want or need, just let me know and I'll see what I can do, alright?"
"Yeah, thank you," Piper nodded politely, still visibly scared.
Erica was really careful and asked Piper to look somewhere else as she took the sample she needed with almost no pain.
The whole time, Piper fixed her gaze on Alex who was smiling reassuringly with her tired expression, making sure Piper didn't see what was going on in her left arm. When the nurse was done, Piper smiled too.
"We're done for now, Piper, I'll take this to the lab and then I'll take you to the infusion floor," Erica said as she pressed a cotton swab to Piper's arm and headed out of the room.
"See, kid? The first part wasn't that bad, was it?" Alex asked with raised eyebrows.
"Not too shabby, I guess," she pressed the cotton swab slightly to her arm and flinched. "Ouch, and have you changed your mind about the trip? I mean, come on, you have to go, don't worry about me. It's just a couple of weeks and then we can see each other ag-"
"Hey," Alex poked her hard in the arm "Shut up, now, kid. If I change my mind, which I won't, I'll let you know," she said seriously.
Nurse Erica returned and took them to the infusion floor, where they sat on the metal chairs in the hallway as another nurse took her vitals.
Once cleared, this nurse took them to the chemotherapy room where there was a recliner and a chair next to each other, a large flat-screen TV and Wi-Fi available, not to mention a comfy warm blanket ready to use on top of the recliner.
Alex was really nervous and felt pure fear at the sight, because everything was a hundred times more real. She feared she would break there, but she was fighting to keep the good mood, just to make Piper feel good because, Alex thought, that if she was feeling scared, Piper surely was terrified and it broke her heart.
Of course Piper was beyond terrified, she didn't even try to hide it but she didn't have the energy to cry either, so she just took a really deep breath and sat down on the recliner, swallowing the lump in her throat.
Alex sat down beside her, trying to figure out what to say. What could she possibly say to help her scared friend?
"I'm back, Piper," Nurse Erica announced as she entered the room, carrying a solution, a Microdrip I.V. set with drip chamber, cotton swabs, and different catheters.
Piper closed her eyes and took another deep breath as Erica explained all the procedure. Alex paid all of her attention to what she was saying because she wanted to know as much as she could, so she visualized what Erica said to try to remember every detail.
Piper, on the other hand, stopped listening. Her heart pounding loudly in her ears made it impossible and the rush of adrenaline freshly released to her bloodstream made her unable to focus on the words that came out of Erica's lips.
The skinny nurse placed the IV in place and began with saline solution through it as she fetched Piper's chemotherapy cocktail, pre-medications and test results.
Piper kept looking at the Microdrip, she watched carefully as each and every drop fell of the tip and into the IV, fully scared and trying to keep her emotions at bay.
Alex stood up and went to stand up next to Piper and played nervously with her blonde locks, trying to come up with something to say, to find a way of breaking this uncomfortable silence that had dropped between them.
"Thank you, Alex," Piper suddenly said, beating Alex to speak.
"Never mind, Chapman," Alex shrugged and sat on the arm of Piper's recliner "You owe me," she joked.
Nurse Erica entered with Piper's medications.
The time had come and Piper wasn't prepared for it, but acted really brave as Erica hanged her Chemo medication and started different IV's, waiting a few minutes beside Piper to check her vitals and make sure she didn't had a bad reaction to the medications.
When she made sure everything was okay, she smiled politely and told the girls again that she'll be there if they needed anything; both nodded and kept watching the new bags.
One of them had a bright pink liquid that mixed with the saline solution and created different hues of pink.
Suddenly, the trance was broken by Alex's phone. She looked at her screen and grumbled.
"Everything okay, Al?" Piper questioned quietly.
"Not quite, but fuck it, I'll call back later, don't you worry," she replied curtly, worry evident in her features.
After about an hour and a half later, Piper fell asleep.
Alex admired her for several minutes, unashamed; without interruption. She paid attention to Piper's rising chest as she took each breath and her heart hurt in that moment, because the most beautiful and amazing person she knew laid there, seemingly peacefully sleeping as the world around her changed forever.
And that thought alone put a heavy burden on Alex's chest.
She felt empty inside, knowing… feeling Piper's despair and not being able to do a single thing to help her overcome her own feelings. Her own monsters.
This awful thing… cancer... shouldn't happen to anyone. Especially Piper Chapman.
Alex's cellphone vibrated in her pocket and she rolled her eyes, knowing who it was again and the problems she'd face as soon as she arrived home.