So, new idea taken from Qzie: I am going to do a series of one-shots about stuff that happened, either in the characters’ pasts, or in the ten-year interim between Alex and Sasha meeting again. It could be about any character: Sasha, Alex, Noah, Sarah, Nora, Vi, anybody. Keep an eye out, and remember that they are not, I repeat, NOT, in chronological order. I will, however, try to put dates in so that you can root yourself slightly. Sound good?

Life’s Little Chances: Memory Lane

Promise Me

Toronto General Hospital. October 19, 2000.

Sasha paced anxiously while the nurse went into her father’s room to do a quick check on him, as she’d put it. A glance at her watch told her it was mid-afternoon, and made her think that she should be studying, doing her homework assignments so that she could achieve her journalism degree.

But how could she focus on such a mundane task as school when her world was falling apart.

She dragged in a rough breath, and though she’d never smoked a day in her nineteen years, prayed for a cigarette. Searching for distraction, her eyes lifted, circled around the nurses’ station and landed on the unobtrusive plaque on the wall.

Palliative Care

Her lip curled. Palliative Care, where they installed patients who weren’t expected to recover, who wouldn’t be going home.

The tumour was taking over her father’s life, and ruining his family’s life in the process.

The nurse left, and Sasha immediately went into the room once more to resume her post at her father’s side. Her mother was downstairs after Sasha had insisted that she eat — though she herself couldn’t stomach even the thought of food — and Elissa was battling rush-hour traffic in a taxi after having flown in from their cousins’ ranch out West earlier that day, when the hospital had alerted the Miller family that Jackson’s condition was deteriorating.

“He’s sleeping,” the nurse informed her in a hushed tone, and after a brief hesitation, added, “He may not wake up. You have to be ready for that.”

Sasha shook her head fiercely and gripped her father’s hand. It was so frail, so bony, so unlike the strong, firm hand he had used to steady her when she first learned how to ride a bike, or the hand he had set on her shoulder at her high school graduation two years earlier.

How had he gone in such a short time from the strong, trustworthy man she’d known to this weak stranger in a hospital bed?

It had been a sunny, clear day in May when she’d heard of the diagnosis. She’d been helping her cousins on the ranch, having had no classes that day. When they’d gone in for supper and checked the messages, they’d found one from Violet Miller, shakily informing them that they’d gone to the doctor’s that day to discover the root of Jackson’s headaches and fatigue.

The diagnosis had been brain cancer.

They’d been so sure he could beat it, could come back to himself. And yet the months had gone on, and Sasha and Elissa had taken turns flying in to go with him and their mother to the chemotherapy, to the radiation, and, recently, to the surgery.

When they’d heard that the doctors had given up hope on him and moved him from a private room to Palliative Care, Sasha and Elissa had taken the first plane home, and while the once-bustling house stood as a silent witness, the two young women had walked into their mother’s arms and they had cried — in desperation, in fear, and in worry.

And now it had come to this.

“How is he?”

Her mother’s quiet voice made Sasha lift her head. Tears stung her eyes at the sight of her mother, standing in the doorway of the hospital room looking so shrunken, so lost. Vi’s normally dancing pale blue eyes were somber and red-ringed, her flyaway red-blond hair twisted back into a messy knot. The shirt she wore — one of her father’s, Sasha recognized with a quick twinge of pain — was rumpled and loose on her thin frame, and the jeans were baggy, her shoes scuffed.

It was an outfit she might have worn any day, but on this day it made her seem so slight and so fragile that Sasha could hardly bear it.

The phone on Sasha’s hip buzzed. She glanced at it, saw her sister’s cell phone number, and drew slightly away from her father’s bedside to answer. “Yeah?”

“I’m here.” Elissa’s normally bright voice was lower than usual, and quivered with fear and exhaustion.

Vi, hearing this, murmured, “I’ll go down and meet her, show her where the room is.”

Sasha nodded and relayed the message to Elissa before going back to her father and taking his hand in both of hers once again. Her eyes clung to him, stayed affixed on his face in the desperate hope that he would wake, that she would see the familiar twinkle in his eyes, his eyes that were so like her own.

He was breathing too slowly. Surely he should take a breath more often? she wondered worriedly, observing him. Shaking her head and telling herself that she wasn’t a doctor, she turned her head to look out the window at bustling University Avenue. There were pedestrians, cars, all moving so fast.

On her first visit to the city, when she’d still believed her father could overcome the disease, the high speed everything moved at had fascinated her, proving that deep down, she would always be the girl from Pine Hill, Ontario, population thirty-five hundred souls.

Now she wished everything would slow down, wished that time would wind itself backwards for her father’s sake.

“My baby girl.”

Her head whipped around. Her father’s eyes were open for the first time that day, and though they didn’t glimmer as they once had, they were still the customary green and gold shade they had always been.

Her breath whooshed out, and she made to reach for the buzzer that would alert the nurses.

“No.”

Her father’s voice was hoarse, the words coming slowly as though he had to force them out.

His daughter’s eyes were wide, fearful. Jackson looked at her, just becoming a young woman, the same age as Violet had been when he’d met her. He saw a quick flash in his mind’s eye of his Violet, pregnant with their first daughter, the baby that would later grow into the beautiful, intelligent young woman who stood at his side now.

He didn’t have much time, and he knew it. Jackson could feel it pulling at him, the pull to just close his eyes and let go of all the pain. Oh, he would miss Vi, and his two baby girls — but he was too tired for this. He couldn’t live with this pain, and couldn’t put his family through it any longer. He was so tired — he only wanted a rest.

“Listen to me now, honey,” he rasped. “I haven’t got much longer.”

“Daddy, don’t talk like that—”

“Listen,” he repeated gruffly, with enough weak force that she fell silent. His hand found hers over the blanket, gripped it as hard as he could with his strength draining. “You’re my baby girl. You know that. I’ll always love you, and I’ll miss you all. But I want you to promise me something.”

Sasha nodded, tears glimmering wetly in her eyes. “Anything,” she whispered.

“Be happy, Sasha, honey. I want you... to promise me that... you’ll be happy, that you’ll... marry a great man who’ll treat you the way... the way he should. That you’ll have kids... give your mom grandkids. I want you to live a good life... and not to miss me too much. Promise me that.”

She blinked, stared at him.

“Promise me,” her father repeated. “Help your mother and your sister, tell them... not to be sad... and stay a family. Stay together.” His hand flexed in hers while he slowly blinked, then carefully pried his eyes open again. “Promise me, Alexandra.”

Her breath quivered as she drew it in, but Sasha nodded. “I promise.”

“Good,” Jackson wheezed, pleased. “Tell your mama and your sister... not to be afraid. I’m not, not... anymore. I love you, honey.”

The first choked sob rose in Sasha’s throat as her father’s eyes closed, as the last wisp of breath left his lungs.

He was gone, and he’d taken a part of her with him.

But she’d made a promise.

- . - . - . -

End of Promise Me

- . - . - . -

So as you can see, that was the episode where Sasha’s dad died. Anyways, keep looking for new stuff, don’t know what’ll be next. Sayonara!

Have some cookies and milk.

- ML