FicWad

The next few weeks were horrible. The doctors pumped her with chemicals and drugs to kill off the cancer. They said the chemicals were killing the cancer cells, but it was also making Danny more and more sick. She threw up almost every hour when they took her in for treatment and she was loosing weight that her petite body couldn’t afford. But the cruelest surprise was yet to come.

Danny woke up from a bad night sleep, and groaned at how rotten she felt. She ran her hand through her hair… and found several strands of hair in her hand. She looked down at her pillow and saw it was covered with big clumps of hair.

"Oh god" Danny yelled in dismay.

"What?" Her mother asked, running into her room. She saw her daughter gathering hair from her pillow. "Oh honey."

"My hair!" Danny cried, holding the hair in trembling hands. Her mother enveloped her oldest daughter in a hug and tried to console her.

"It'll be all right, sweetheart." May said, but Danny wouldn’t hear it.

"No, no it won't." Danny said, staring at the black curls in her hand.

"I’m here for you." May said. "And so is Lisy, and your friends, and Gerard..."

"Not for long." Danny said, closing her eyes in despair. "He's going to leave me."

"What?" Her mother asked. "Why would he do that? He loves you!"

"I'm losing my hair and I look like an extra from /Night of the Living Dead/, Mom." Danny said miserably. "Why would he want to be with a damaged girl? It would be a mistake for him to be with me."

The next week, she didn't leave her room except for trips to treatment or the bathroom. She didn't leave her bed for days; she slept for 12 or 15 hours a day. She wouldn't talk to anyone, and when someone tried to talk to her she'd snap at them or just ignore them. She had given up. Until one day, she lay in her bed listening to the rain hit the roof when she heard a familiar voice.

"Danny, it's Gerard!" he called, knocking on her bedroom door. "I'm coming in."

He came into her room and found she had pulled the covers over her head and wrapped them around her body. He heard Danny say in a dead voice, "Go away."

"Can't do that." Gerard said, shutting her bedroom door. "I’m here to see my girl and ask her to the prom."

"I’m not your girl anymore." Danny said back, shifting under the blankets.

"Why not?" Gerard asked. "Finally had enough of listening to my Misfits albums?"

"No, you idiot!" Danny snapped. "Because the Danny you knew is gone!"

"That sounds like the temper of the Danny I know." Gerard replied, a little annoyed.

"That girl is gone, Gee." She replied, her voice sounding small and far away. "I'm not your 'Baby' anymore. I've lost all my hair. I'm all skin and bones. You'd think I was dead already.

You really think I care about that?" Gerard asked.
"I think that if you saw me," She said, wrapping the covers tighter around herself. "You wouldn't love me anymore. Because I don't even like myself anymore."

"Let me tell you something." Gerard said, sitting on her bed. "I love you. What's happened over the last few months doesn't change that. Yeah, I loved your hair, but I don't love you any less because it's gone. I love you. Not your hair, not your face, or any other part of your body. You. I don't give a rat's ass what you look like because in my eyes you could never be anything but beautiful. You're still Danny. You're still the girl I fell in love with. And you're still the girl I want to take to the prom."

Danny lay there for a few minutes, thinking about what he’d said. Slowly, she sat up, the blanket still totally covering her. She pulled and it fell away to reveal her to Gerard. She was pale and much thinner than usual. Her hair was almost totally gone, except for a few stray strands here and there. There were bags under her eyes from many sleepless nights due to constant vomiting and fear. Tears ran unheeded down her face as she asked, "Do you mean that?"

"You're damn right." Gerard said seriously, putting his hand on her shoulder. "I love you, and I want to go dancing with you."

That little sentence made her lose it. All the feelings she'd held inside came to the surface at once. She started crying, and not just regular crying, uncontrollable, near hysterical sobbing. This was a release of all the pain she'd been through since this started, and she was letting it all out. She hugged Gerard tightly, and he held her as she cried out her fear and anger over her sickness. After almost a half hour, she began to calm down. She pulled away and looked into his eyes, and said "Yes, I'll go to the prom with you."