~Carmen's POV~
My heart starts to race and my breath quickens. "B-brain... Tumor?" I choke out between breaths. "How do you know? Don't you have to run a bunch of tests and wait for forever for them to come back?" I ask frantically, desperately trying to make it not true.
"We ran an MRI and took a Biopsy of the tumor. I'm sorry Carmen, I know this is a lot to take in. The good news is that we caught the cancer in time. If we-"
"Cancer?" I ask, terrified and confused. "What do you mean cancer? I thought I had a tumor."
"Calm down." Spencer directs me, rubbing more circles on the back of my hand."
"Carmen, honey, your tumor contains cancer cells that could potentially harm aspects of your brain. We're going to try two-three rounds of chemotherapy to try to shrink the cancer and if it doesn't help then we're going to preform surgery to remove the tumor, does that sound good?" My throat goes dry and it's hard to swallow. Is she kidding me?
"We can't afford this..." Is all I can say.
"Carmen." Spencer says softly. "We're using the honeymoon money to pay for most of it and your parents are helping as well. It's okay to be scared, but we're going to work through this together, okay?"
"Okay." I whisper. "Where's everyone else? The team?" I ask, wanting as much comfort as I can get right now.
"They've been waiting outside your room all night, but Carmen?"
"Yeah?"
"Emma's flight leaves tomorrow, you might want to see her first."
Oh my gosh. Emma! I think, kicking myself for not thinking about her.
~•~•~•~•~
"Hey." Emma says quietly, sitting on the hospital bed. "How are you feeling?"
"Scared. Shocked. In denial." I say, trying to sum up all of my many emotions and fit them into one sentence.
"Yeah... I was worried about you." She says, a tear trickling down her face.
"I know. I guess they caught the cancer in time though." I say, trying to cheer her up. "I'm going to be fine." I hope.
"I know, but I don't want to fly home tomorrow." She admits and I sigh.
"Me neither. But it's okay, we'll FaceTime, Skype, text, call, write letters, and visit each other soon. We'll get through this as friends, okay?"
"Yeah. Like always." She says and hugs me. My door opens and we pull apart after a second.
"Hey, sorry to interrupt." JJ says. "Everyone wants to see you." She laughs and I smile.
"That popular, huh?" I joke and she comes to hug me. Emma leaves to go talk to my parents about driving to the airport but promises to come back in about an hour.
~•~•~•~•~
After everyone makes the rounds of talking to me and trying to give me encouragement I settle in for a nap but keep tossing and turning. I can't get the thought of cancer out of my head, which I guess is ironic because cancer is in my head.
Just as I'm drifting off to sleep I hear Morgan's words in my head.
"Carmen, you are my little sister. And I'm proud of you." He seems to whisper in my ear. I smile and see his sincere face in my mind, but then it fades away and I'm left all alone at the crime scene, still wet from crying.
"Morgan?" I call, standing up and looking around. "Spencer? Hotch, JJ, Garcia? Guys... Anybody?" I ask as I continue to look around the crime scene. Nobody is there. Not even the chief that showed us the scene. I hold my head and try to think my way through this. Then something catches my eye. The spray paint on the wall isn't blue. It's blood red... And it's not paint.
Instead of the song lyrics there is my name. Carmen Reid. Then on the line below is a date, and below that: cause of death - cancer. I look at the date one more time and see it would be Spencer and my first year anniversary of being married. I start to hyperventilate.
Then I look down at the dead body and instead of it being the man from the crime scene... It's me. My skin is pale and lifeless, my hair matted and filthy, like I've been here for a while and nobody has tried to fix me up or make me look decent enough for a funeral.
That's when I notice the dust on the mall floor. No footprints, no clean tile on the ground that indicates any human was here. Ever. That's when it all makes sense. I'm abandoned. Left behind. Forgotten.
~•~•~•~•~
I wake up screaming and immediately clamp my hand over my mouth. A tear trickles down my face as I sit up in the hospital bed.
There's a quiet knock at the door and I wipe my face, trying to steady my breathing. A nurse walks in and smiles at me.
"Hi." I croak and then I see Morgan appear from behind her. "What are you doing here?" I whisper and the nurse disappears out the door.
"How are you feeling?" He asks and I feel awkward talking to him suddenly.
"Fine. Where's Spencer?" I ask quietly.
"We decided that I would take the night shift and he would go home and get some sleep." He replies, coming to sit on the chair next to my bed. "So what happened?"
"What do you mean? I'm fine." I say, trying to be as still as possible and breath evenly, knowing that one false move will make him question, make him know.
"Carmen." He says quietly. "I heard you screaming, I thought you might be having a nightmare... About the PTSD thing we talked about?" He says and looks into my eyes.
"No. I'm fine."
"Are you sure, Carmen?"
"Yeah. It was just a dream, not a memory." I say evenly enough to convince a regular person. But Derek Morgan isn't a regular person.
"Okay." He says with a slight smirk. He knows. "Can you tell me what it was about?" His expression turns serious again as he questions me and I really wish that Spencer was here. He wouldn't interrogate me, he would cuddle with me and tell me everything is going to be okay.
"It was nothing, really. Just a bad dream." I say and he doesn't move. He's not convinced one bit. "Fine." I sigh. "It was a nightmare about me dying, okay? It was one year after the wedding, and I was in the crime scene from out latest case, the one at the mall. I was the dead body. Cancer had killed me, and everyone had forgotten." I say, wincing at how childish and scared it makes me sound.
"You're going to beat this, Carmen." He says, and it's all I can do not to slap him.
"Well it's fine now, go to sleep." I respond and pull the covers closer.
"Carmen, I'm only here to help, you know that right?" I sigh again, feeling guilty.
"I know... I'm just not used to this whole..." I pause, trying to think of the right phrase. "I don't know. I guess I'm just not used to all of this support and it's weird." I finish and he gets up to hug me.
"We just love you, that's all." He says and I smile.
"Thanks Morgan." I say as he walks out the door, and for the first time all day I am calm and relaxed. I don't have the pre-wedding jitters. Not the anxiety of waking up in a hospital. Not even the stress that a brain tumor with cancer cells can bring. I just feel serenity and drift off to sleep again.
~•~•~•~•~
I wake up to my many monitors going off. Doctors and nurses bustle about my tiny hospital room as they try to get everything back to normal. One puts a mask over my nose and mouth that blows strange smelling air into my lungs. After a second some of the doctors leave and it's just a couple nurses checking my vitals and watching the monitors.
I try to crane my neck to look past them, and I see Morgan standing up to greet Spencer who has just come barreling into the room.
"Spencer." I breathe, not knowing if he can hear me through the mask. He comes over to me and hugs me tightly.
"I missed you." He whispers into my ear. I hug him tighter.
"So the doctor says I can leave tonight." I tell him. He gets the biggest smile I've ever seen and sits next to me on the bed.
"Carmen, that's great!" He says and I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"But they're also starting the first round of chemo..." I whisper and he hugs me again.
"It's okay. I'll stay here with you the entire time."
"I love you so much." I say and he takes off the mask, quickly kissing me before the nurses can catch us. Just sitting next to Spencer makes everything that much better.
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Hey guys!!! Thanks so much for all of your support throughout my book so far!!! I love all of you!
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IMPORTANT: I don't know a lot about cancer. I'm NOT trying to do this to get more reads or votes or anything like that. I legitimately thought about this for a long time and asked my friends if they thought Carmen was a strong enough character to handle this or not. I really care about what you guys think about my story so leave me a comment to tell me what you think!!!
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