A Love So Absolutely Clear {Crowen} ✔️

22: there's nothing left

there is a zero percent chance. i'm sorry.

both of them came into owen's office that day hoping her oncologist had found a match for novella. instead, it was the exact opposite.

she put it short and simple. novella would not be able to get a transplant. she had no chance.

they weren't told that it was slim to none. they weren't told that it would've been one in a million. they were told that there was no chance at all.

naturally, they broke down into tears, their knees felt as if they could cave in, their hearts raced against their chest. they should've known it could've been impossible. they should've known that it was.

novella's racial and ethnic background made it complicated to the max. she had an asian mother, and a white father. ninety percent of donors were white. because she wasn't, she couldn't stand a chance.

it was unfair—how little options there were for a little girl who hadn't lived her life, how those options were only restricted because she was of another race. many other children who struggled with the same thing would've gotten their chance...those other children who were white.

now, they were left mid-air with nothing more to look up to besides the weekly injections of chemotherapy that is poison to run through her veins. they had nothing else but a girl with cancer, and a ticking time bomb ready to explode.

there was no hope anymore. just months in, and they already had hit a dead end. bone marrow failure could kill her before the cancer itself does. now they knew this cancer would be difficult, but they didn't know it would be to this degree.

if chemo was still effective, soon it wouldn't be. soon, they would have to slow it down even more. her body, though pumped with medication and nutrients, would not be able to handle the aggression that chemotherapy accommodates. soon, they would be forced to slow it down until the cancer cells which conquer her blood, then divide and spread into another area of her body. until there was just one ounce of something to look up to, that would be the reality. right then, that was the only reality they saw.

God, they should have saw it coming.

day and night, the two of them would search endlessly for alternative options. not that there were many, but that's why they tried. different types of medication, new clinical trials, another chemotherapy or radiation plan, but none of those options guaranteed success. just months in, and novella could already die.

nosebleed after nosebleed, fever after fever, the obsession of searching for just one ounce of hope became the only other thing they could think of. but just like they couldn't find a donor for novella, one ounce was nowhere to be seen.

"there's nothing else there, mer." cristina sobbed, taking her scrubs and wiping it to dry her tears. "i should've known that she couldn't get a transplant. i didn't know and now there's nothing left."

she had been looking for almost a month now. how time went by so quickly, she wasn't sure. but every second she spent away from her daughter, every second she wasn't looking for other ways, she couldn't breathe.

meredith took her friend's hand, moving it away from her chest and gripped onto it tightly. if it was hard for her, it had to be harder for cristina.

for a second, she just watched the tears escape from her eyes. she had every right to be grieving now. though novella was still right there, though she was still alive, living and breathing, she was sick with a cancer that she could not stand a chance beating. not unless a miracle happened.

"usually i'd say...well, you already know what i'd say." meredith spoke while cristina looked down toward the ground, fighting her tears off or not fighting them at all.