Counting To Fifteen [Grey's Anatomy]

P A R T II | chapter fifty five - ultrasounds

THE BEGINNING OF THE END
detailing grief, loneliness, & discovery of self

Daisy Sloan let her feet dangle off the examination table as she awaited Arizona's presence, drinking in the anxious expression on the face of one of the new interns standing in the room.

As nervous as Daisy felt about what was happening with her body, the intern looked stressed out in a way Daisy almost had to smile at.

"I just don't want to get in trouble." The intern spoke out quietly, a nervous blonde who began biting the inside of her lip.

"You won't get in trouble," Daisy assured, resting her head against the cold plaster of the wall behind her. "I made you page her, and I'm really not supposed to do that. I promise I'll get yelled at, not you."

"I already look stupid," The intern shook her head profusely. "Because...because I don't know my way around, and I've gotten lost every day, and...all these hallways look the same."

Daisy couldn't help but smile. The fourteen-year-old felt similarly, having started high school that morning.

It was a new school, a big school with winding hallways and twists and turns. It was going to take some time to get used to.

Daisy didn't like high school, though. She had this big picture in her head for how she would completely reinvent herself. High school was all new people. None of them knew Daisy. None of them thought she was crazy, and it was a nice, new, completely blank slate.

She just hadn't immediately made a slew of friends like she thought maybe she would.

Though Daisy had bigger issues than merely not making friends on her first day of school, the girl's thoughts turning dark as she pressed down to feel the bulging of her abdomen.

It had to be a tumor.

The girl was naturally an intense hypochondriac, but this felt different.

Daisy was genetically predisposed to it, anyway. She had watched cancer rip her mother apart from the inside out, and Daisy was terrified that would happen to her too.

"My fifteenth birthday is next month," Daisy sighed out, not moving her hand from her abdomen. "And it's supposed to be the best year of my life because it's fifteen, and...God, cancer would just...chemotherapy would sort of make it the worst year of my life."

The new intern was silent for a moment, rocking back on the heels of her feet as she thought. "You shouldn't jump to worst case scenario. Maybe it's a benign cyst or something."

Except Daisy couldn't just not jump to worst case scenario. Her brain physically wasn't wired like that. Daisy was always freaking herself out with what ifs.

Before anymore cancer talk could commence, the wooden door to the small room was opened wide. Two fatigued figures stood in the doorway looking panicked, and Daisy immediately groaned as she took in the sight of her father beside Arizona.

"You weren't supposed to bring him."

The pair struggled to catch their breath, having taken off sprinting at a page Arizona received reading 911 DAISY.