Stop and Smell the Roses: A Clexa AU (ON HOLD)

"You Must Survive! Fight!"

Each year, the parents of more than 15,000 children aged 0-19 in the U.S. will hear the words "Your child has cancer." (CureSearch.org, 2022)

TW: This entire chapter will dive into Lexa's past and present. There will be mentions of childhood cancers and death.

**Anything in Italics is a flashback. Non-Italics is present time.
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Present Time: Saturday, September 7, 2024
Lexa was back at home until Tuesday. She had an important doctor's appointment coming up that she has been going to every three years since she turned 13. Before that, it was every couple of months. Lexa looked back at the pictures in her photo album from when she was a baby until now. She skipped over the years from 8-10 years old she didn't want to look at those pictures she didn't want to think about those times. But somehow she made her way to the pictures from the worst time in her staring at her was a little eight-year-old Lexa who didn't even know at the time that a deadly disease was invading her body.

Lexa remembers being a healthy eight-year-old little girl and then at some point like a thief, it was all taken away from her.

Flashback: Saturday, September 6, 2014

Eight-year-old Lexa was at dance practice and was changing into her practice clothes when she noticed a large bruise on the right side of her stomach.

"That's weird," Lexa mumbled to herself but proceeded to put the rest of her practice clothes on ignoring it.

During practice, Lexa noticed she wasn't feeling well and began to get dizzy. Her instructor noticed and told her to take a moment. Lexa sat down and barely watched as the other people practiced because her head was hurting so bad. Lexa saw her instructor looking over at her every once in a while to check on her. Lexa then threw up feeling horrible. She saw her instructor grab her phone and make a call. 10 minutes later Becca came rushing in worried because her daughter looked pale and ready to fall over at any minute. She quickly put Lexa up and took her to the car.

"It's okay baby," Becca said, "I am taking you to your pediatrician tomorrow morning."

The following morning they did a walk-in to see her doctor and left with diagnoses of a virus that was going around.

Flashback: Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Lexa was at school and taking a spelling test that she studied really hard for the past couple of days. As her teacher was calling out the next word Lexa noticed a red drop on her paper, then another, and another. Lexa touched her nose and realized that she was having a nosebleed. She covered up her nose and raised her hand to get her teacher's attention but she didn't have to say anything because the blood was seeping through her tiny hand at that point making the teacher alarmed.

The school nurse was called to come to the classroom and she was alarmed at how much was coming out and how fast. Lexa's parents were called and they rushed her to the emergency room.

They were told that this was just a spontaneous nosebleed.

Flashback: Saturday, October 11, 2014

It was a cool afternoon as fall was setting in. Lexa was outside playing with her next-door neighbor, Clementine. They were playing tag and  Lexa was chasing Clementine when a sharp pain went through her thigh to her leg. It caused her to stop running and fall to the ground crying. Clementine ran to get Lexa's parents. Titus came running outside worried at how Lexa was crying saying her leg over and over again. He thought it was a possibility she could have broken it. Titus took her to the emergency room they left a couple of hours later being told it was a pulled muscle.