Perrie finishes her letter to Jade the next morning while Jade is making her eggs, even though her stomach is in knots and she doubts she'll be able to eat much. She finishes off the letter with a flourish before capping her pen. There's an air of finality to it as she neatly folds the letter and sticks it into the empty envelope she's got sitting in front of her, the one she made Jade scour the entire flat for.
She makes sure to make devious eye contact with Jade the entire time she's licking the envelope — she knows she's over-licked it when it won't even seal properly, so she makes Jade find her another, which she seals with not nearly as much tongue swiping. She scribbles something quickly on the front of it, too quick for Jade to get a chance to look, and shoves it deep in the pocket of her sweatshirt.
"Do I get to read it now?" Jade asks from where she's standing by the stove, bare-chested with her pajama bottoms riding low on her hips as she concentrates on frying the sizzling bacon in the pan in front of her.
"No," Perrie says simply, suddenly feeling very tired, mostly because of the cancer and all, but also because she doesn't want to have this conversation.
Jade frowns, turning to narrow his eyes at her, one hand still holding the spatula. "You said it was for me."
"It is for you. But you don't get to read it now."
"When do I get to read it, then?"
"Like, um. After," Perrie mumbles, fidgeting in her chair as she feels Jade's gaze on her harden. She hears the sound of the burner being turned off, spatula being put back on the counter, Jade's footsteps approaching and she squeezes his eyes shut tight because she really, really doesn't want to have this conversation right now, or maybe ever.
"After what, Pez?" Jade asks, voice dangerously low.
"You know what." It comes out harsher than she intended. She can't help it. Her head is starting to throb and she fights the urge to close her eyes again.
"Pez." Jade's voice is gentle now, watery, like she's going to cry. Or maybe she's already crying; Perrie can't bring herself to look at her face. They've both been doing a lot of crying lately. Perrie doesn't like it.
"I, just," Perrie sputters, wracking her brain for the words she's looking for. "Wanted to, like, give you something. Of me. That's...me, in a way, if that makes sense. So you can have it...when I'm, um. When I'm not me anymore, I guess." She brings a hand up to rub at her eye and it comes away wet. She doesn't know when she started crying but all she knows now is that she is crying and she's pretty sure Jade is, too, and she can't stop.
"Oh, Pez," she whispers, and she's aiming for her mouth but ends up kissing her cheekbone instead. Close enough. "Okay," she says finally, looking resigned. "I'll wait to read it, then. Until...after." The look on her face makes Perrie's heart ache. The look of understand and resignation and sadness because she understands now and that's all Perrie has ever wanted from her but seeing it now just makes her want to disappear.
Soon, he thinks. Soon.
(war flashbacks for the LM fandom omg omg omg lmao)
Turns out that her soon is coming sooner than expected when she's in the shower one morning, washing her hair with Jade's apple-scented shampoo and the world in front of her blurs, a jolt of pain hitting her so badly she doubles over, clutching at her stomach and she barely has time to yell for Jade before her entire lower half goes numb and the world in front of her spins into blackness.
Jade finds her on her side in the shower in a pool of blood from the gash on her head, eyes slightly open, skin flushed and she's shaking violently, lips parted like she's going to say something but she's not, just releasing this little breathy gasps and Jade is at his side at once, begging, "Pez, Pez, c'mon, stay with me. Come back to me, sweetheart." She continues chanting even as she's frantically trying to explain to the 911 operator what's happened.
"My girlfriend passed out in the shower and she's bleeding and shaking and fuck, there's blood everywhere, please send somebody now!" She runs his shaking fingers through Perrie's damp hair. When she pulls his hand away it's covered in Perrie's blood and she nearly loses it right there but she can't, not now. Not yet.
"Perrie," she repeats desperately, pressing her fingers to Perrie's pulse point on her neck and her mouth to Perrie's, breathing, trying to give her air, trying to help her breathe, for Christ's sake.
By the time the paramedics show up, though, Perrie's shaking has ceased and she's stopped responding altogether.
Jade has to pull over on her way to the hospital, trailing after the ambulance - she stumbles out onto the damp grass on the side of the road and empties a mouthful of stomach bile onto the soil.
A seizure, the doctors tells her. Bad, but common with glioblastoma patients. Jade wants to be sick again.
When Perrie wakes up, she is screaming in pain, clutching at her head with shaking fingers and grabbing the nurse's hand and begging, "Please make it stop, please make it stop, just make it stop."
So they cut into her scalp, taking Perrie's desperate cries as permission. They're able to remove some of the tumor, but not enough. Not nearly enough. It's bad, they say, shaking their heads and gazing sadly at Jade when she breaks down in the waiting room, head in her hands. Really fucking bad.
She only cries harder when she gets to see Perrie, looking so small and tired in her hospital bed, patch of hair missing and angry stitches where they sliced into her head, poked around in her brain. She has to be escorted out until she can compose himself. When she finally does, Perrie won't talk, but Jade doesn't need her to. She just sits in the chair by her bed, tracing her skin with her fingers.
Debbie and the whole crew are there by the next morning, crowding around Perrie and her siblings are crying, crying, crying. "It's okay. I'm okay. Don't worry about me. I'm okay." Debbie has to leave the room and Jade follows her, enveloping her in a tight hug because she gets it.
"I know," she whispers, Debbie's face pressed into her shoulder, staining her coat with mascara tears, "I'm scared, too."
The girls come visit, too, piling into a couple of chairs near Perrie's bed and talking to her excitedly, quickly, and it breaks Jade's heart when Perrie merely looks up at them, blinking and lost and so, so confused. Jade tries to repeat what the doctors told him to them, that they need to slow it down, that Perrie's brain isn't working at fully capacity right now and it's going to start taking her a little while to understand people so they need to just slow it down so as to not overwhelm her.
They nod grimly, and the way they talk to him after that is so heartbreakingly gentle that Jade has to leave the room.
Perrie gets to come home five days later. A few pictures of her leaving the hospital, Jade's beanie on her head covering the worst of her scars, make it into the tabloids, but it's passed off as a minor incident, a stomach bug. It's clear from the glazed look in Perrie's eyes and her hollowed cheeks that this isn't the case, but most people don't question it. An influx of Get well soon! :) tweets are posted, all tagging @LittleMix, and it makes Jade's skin crawl.
Somehow, when Perrie walks through the door, guided by Jade's warm hand on the small of her back, and whimpers Just wanna go back to bed, Pez. Jade knows things will never be quite the same again.
The clock ticks on the wall. She shivers.
Jade spends a lot of time doing research, and each search turns up more horrors about Perrie's worsening condition - more seizures, sleeping 18 hours a day, hallucinating, unable to eat or drink or even swallow, forgetting things that happened just hours ago. She can't believe this is happening, and it's happening to Perrie, of all people - the sun of her existence, light of her life, the love of her life, her favorite boy in the world.
When one night Perrie can't stop throwing up and she's shaking so bad Jade worries she's going to have another seizure, Perrie buries her tear-stained face in Jade's chest and cries, "Just want it to stop, just want it to be over now."
"I know, boo, I know you do, I'm sorry," Jade babbles, hands stroking Perrie's hair as she mentally prepares for the next vomiting episode.
It only occurs to Jade later, after she's cleaned and sanitized the entire bathroom, when they're curled up in bed as the sun begins to rise, turning the whole world purple, that maybe Perrie just want it to be over now means something different than what she'd originally interpreted it as, and she clutches the girl closer.
She won't let him go. Not without a fight.
"Stay," Jade whispers desperately, pressing her lips to Perrie's temple like she can somehow ease the pain that's blooming there, but she can't make the pain stop and no matter how hard she tries she can't make Perrie stay.
"Wish I could," Perrie whispers back, pressing herself closer to Jade, leaning into her touch.
Jade wonders if she holds Perrie close enough, she can keep her forever. She promised Perrie a long time ago that she'd always protect her. Always, except she always thought that would be protection from something physically, tangible, except now this thing killing Perrie is a part of her and all Jade can fucking do is sit back and watch as her girl gets worse and worse.
She's so scared, because it's the first time she's made a promise to Perrie that she's realized she can't keep.
***********************
I have something to say/ask;
As you might know, this book is a Jerrie version of the original Larry story. And i'm planning to 'translate' some more books, fics after finishing this one.
And my question to you, as a reader, which fics would you like to see in Jerrie?