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She never really thought about the word “terminal” until she got sick. She never thought about diseases, or viruses, or infections, she was always so healthy. She was healthy, until one day, she just wasn’t anymore.
She couldn’t tell you the day or the time she found out that she was dying. She couldn’t tell you how she got home, or how she had to tell her husband.
She could tell you how she held her child, her baby boy, for hours until she stopped crying. Until her husband had to take him from her hands and lay him down to sleep.
She wishes she could tell you that she was strong from the very beginning, but she wasn’t, not even the closest.
She didn’t get out of bed for at least a week. She screamed a lot, while she laid down, kicked at her pillows, wailed to a God that wouldn’t answer her. She found herself constantly asking why this had to happen to her. She just got her family, her life, her love, and she had to leave it all behind.
Her husband tried to comfort her, tried to do something, but she wouldn’t budge. She didn’t see the point. Why fight the inevitable? Why should she try to stay in this world when it was no longer a possible option?
And then she saw her son.
He was just shy of seven years old, pale skin, scattered with a dashing of moles that matched the ones that covered her own body. He was loud, frighteningly smart, and everything she had wished for in a child.
She hated herself because she knew she was going to leave him.
She knew she couldn’t fight death, she wasn’t stupid, her doctor told her the facts, she’d done her own research. It’s been a month since diagnosis which means she’s only got about five left. She was going to die, but she decided she was still going to keep living.
She didn’t hide in her room anymore, she stopped crying in front of her family. Her husband, her child, they gave her strength.
For four months she became the person she always saw herself being. She became a loving wife, she became the mother she wanted to be, she loved what she had and stopped asking for more. She danced with her husband in the living room, she dressed up like a princess and let her son save her from the dragon, she cooked dinner for the family, brought everyone out to the park when her husband wasn’t working. She started to feel better.
She stopped seeing her disease as a death sentence and started seeing it as something that gave her life. It was stupid, and wrong, and she should’ve been preparing for her departure, but she couldn’t, she didn’t have it in her.
She nearly forgot about the disease inside her until she couldn’t dance anymore, until it hurt to put on the princess crown. She went back to her doctor one day and just never left.
Her doctor was mad at her, furious, that she didn’t take treatment sooner. She didn’t care though, she’s glad she spent four months with her family at home instead of spending them sick in a hospital bed. She’d have to do that now anyway.
Every day became harder, harder to see her son, harder to smile and laugh even if she really wanted to. She started treating each passing day as if it would be her final and that scared her. It scared her more than anything in the world.
She tried to tell her son everything she could think of, everything her mother told her before she had died as well. She wanted him to remember her not as sick, but as his mom, bubbly and filled with life. She didn’t want to leave him, but she knew she was going, soon, too soon.
“Genim,” she had said.
“Mom, Stiles, it’s Stiles, Scott calls me Stiles ‘member?”
She smiled, she thinks she did at least, but she kisses his soft hair anyway.
“Right, right, Stiles, of course.” She breathed. “Honey, you know why I’m in the hospital, right?”
Genim, Stiles, looked up at her, golden-eyes wide and bright as he swallowed, thinking, and nodding his little head.
“So you can get all better.” He answered.
She sighed, something that still felt funny with the tube giving her air in her nose. “Sweetie, mommy might not get better.”
Her son pouted, his face scrunched up. “But Scott said people go to hospitals to get not sick anymore.”
She scratched at the back of his hair. “They do, but sometimes, the doctors can’t help them anymore. Sometimes they get too sick.”
Stiles put his head down, his voice shaking. “But mommy’s are supposed to live forever.” He looked up at her, tears welling in his eyes. His lip starting trembling as she pulled him in tight against her, soothing him as he started to cry, the grips on her shirt from his little hands becoming tighter and tighter.
“I will always love you, okay?” She whispers.
“Even if you aren’t here?” Her son mumbled shakily.
“Even when I’m not here. I will love you for the rest of your life.” She promised.
He sniffled, wiping his nose as he pulled away slightly, letting his mother see his puffy red eyes.
“Does that mean you’re gonna be an angel? Lydia said her grandma is an angel but Jackson said angel’s aren’t real. Are they real mom?”
She brushed at his hair again, nodding. “Yes, they’re real. They’re always watching. My mom is watching us right now, and soon we’re both going to be watching you.”
Stiles frowned. “But I want you to stay here.”
She grabbed him and hugged him again, running her hand down his back to hold him, trying to memorize the feel of her baby boy in her arms. “So do I honey, so do I.”
She kissed his head, rubbing his back, whispering all sorts of promises to him until he eventually fell asleep. She was starting to get tired as well, closing her eyes, but felt a strong hand on her shoulder.
“Hey.” She heard when she reopened her eyes. Her husband was there, sitting in the seat next to her bed, still in uniform from work.
“Hey, catch any bad guys?” she asked, with a soft smirk.
He rolled his eyes, brushing his fingers along her pale cheek. “Course not, there isn’t any bad guys around here to catch.”
She sighed through her mouth with a smile, her version of a laugh, squeezing her son again as he slept against her.
“Are you tired?” Her husband asked.
“I wish I wasn’t.” She said back. He frowned, reaching over to press a kiss to her forehead and then her lips.
“Go to sleep, I’ll be here when you wake up.” He said.
She smiled at him, closing her eyes again to the feel of her child’s easy breathing, and the feeling of a warm hand in hers. She couldn’t possibly think of a better way to go.