Viper Daughters

[9]

(Trigger warning - sensitive subject - Illness)

Jex's POV:

Tonight is the last night of our family vacation, and it's the last time we'll be together as a family for a while, so I know I'm going to have to tell Bella and the kids what's been weighing heavily on my mind.

After swearing Colson and Grayson to secrecy, and them rightfully putting me in my place, I did a lot of thinking and came to the conclusion they're both right, it wouldn't be right of me to keep something like this from my family. It would kill me if the roles were reversed and Bella kept something like this from me.

Maybe I lied to Grayson and Colson, maybe a small part of me is holding out hope that it's nothing, but the part of me that tells me I'm most probably dying, is the part that usually wins out. And if I am in fact dying, Bella and the kids have the right to choose how they want us to spend our time together, it's not up to me, because after all, I'll be gone, and it's them that have to live on and keep our memories close. 

"Dad?" Jordan calls. 

"Sorry?" I ask, pulled from my thoughts. 

"I asked if you're okay? You haven't touched your food." 

I look down at my plate, that in fact is still full of food, while everyone else is almost finished, and I sit my fork down. 

"Jex?" Bella asks softly, placing her hand on mine. 

I look around the table, everyone I need is here, my sons, my daughters, my daughter in laws, my wife. It's now or never. 

"There is something I need to talk to you all about." I look up from my plate. "There isn't an easy way to say this, so I'm going to come right out and say it. I've had some blood tests come back from my specialist appointment, and the results aren't great, they've shown positive for tumour markers." 

"Tumour markers, you mean... like cancer?" Ace questions through furrowed brows. 

"That's the one." I let out a deep breath. "I've only have the one blood test done so far, but I have more results to go home to, and the Doctor has warned me not to get my hopes up." 

"Wait, I'm confused, you do or you don't have cancer?" Jordan asks sadly. 

"Right now I don't know, which is why I didn't want to say anything to anyone. All I know is I've had some results come back, they don't look good and the Doctor told me to keep an open mind to what's going on here."

"H-how long have you known?" Bella asks as she looks up at me from her side. "Your specialist appointment was weeks ago." 

"I've known for weeks, but as I said, I didn't say anything, I didn't want to ruin our holiday, and to be honest, I didn't want to tell you at all."

"But Dad, you're going to need us." Willow speaks. 

"I can't believe you weren't going to mention this Pops." Killen says. "Where you were going to go along like everything was fine, and then if it wasn't we just lose you one day and didn't see it coming?"

"In our world Killen that's always been a reality, one day I might go out and I might not make it home." 

"But this is different, you do know, so we need to know." Jordan says, tears rolling down her cheeks.