07/20/15
07/21/15
07/22/15

I will die alone.

The nightmare is unlike any she's ever had and it's simply because it feels so real. She sits on the front pew in the empty church and she checks her reflection in her small compact mirror and the tiny click of the mechanism as it shuts isn't so tiny, it rings in her ears and it's only then that she's aware that she is alone. The dim light of a rainy afternoon casts shadows across her hollow features, gaunt and frail, cheeks sunken, eyes heavy with exhaustion and illness. The casket is closed but she knows who's inside, knows as it as much as she knows this is just a dream that doesn't feel like a dream but more like a memory, a past life re-lived. It's her, she's in that casket and she's alone in a church and the stench of decay and death fills her nostrils and she lurches forward and the bile stains her shoes and she'd apologize with a lopsided smile and simply explain "Chemo, y'know?" if only there was someone there.
But she's alone.
At her own funeral, she's alone.
When she wakes, she's choking on a sob. Her hands tremble as she pushes her hair back from her forehead, damp with sweat but she doesn't pay that any mind. She just grabs at handfuls of hair as her body is racked with silent sobs and she's just grateful, she's just so thankful that hair is there at all and she feels silly but she feels alive and she feels so horrified because she's Jane Foster again and oh, here we go again.
The headache comes over the first cup of coffee. That's always to be expected. Even the occassional nosebleed is par for the course at this point. But the slow, ebbing sense paralyzing fear is what's new. She checks her heart rate. She makes a note of it along with her other symptoms (anxiety, depression, loss of appetite and fatigue) and she finds herself keeping track, keeping score even. Each note ends with "No correspondence."
She has the same dream the next night, and for the next three nights after that.

And when I arrive, I won't know anyone.

She's good at feigning 'strong'. Nevermind that it's a lie. Nevermind that she hasn't the slightest clue of what anyone is talking about when they say things like 'power battery' and 'construct' and 'Parallax'. She nods and she creases her brow as a show of deep contemplation, as some indication that she's processing and theorizing because that's what she does, right? A thankless role assigned to her long ago that she's been all too happy to perform; to relegate herself to because it's safe, it's supportive, it's out of the way and beneficial to those who require it of her. Brilliant, plain Jane; a lovable liability.
She doesn't tell them that she's terrified. They're too busy for that. Too fettered to their mission, too absorbed with solution and resolve to notice that she's floundering, that she's literally hanging on by a thread. She offers her help and she's sincere in the sentiment as she's silently praying they'll never call her, or that they'll call her all the time.
She's never hated the people she's loved so much as she does now. She listens without hearing, watches with disinterest as they quip and plan and make light of this. She never once points out that there are bigger things at stake here. The gems destroy worlds, rain devastation upon every concievable race, promise absolute desolation. She never says a word, never bats an eye, never so much as flinches when their replies are clipped, their words cold and removed, the care and concern they'd once so readily expressed suddenly vanished, utterly devoid as though it had never existed at all.
At your own funeral, you are alone.
"No correspondence," she scribbles on a post-it note and secures it to her bathroom mirror.
And for a moment, the reflection that stares back at her is one she does not recognize. The silk scarf fastened around her head conceals the bald scalp beneath. Her eyes are hollow, her cheeks deep crevices where shadows collect. Her skin is sickly, nearly transparent and stretched too tight over brittle, aching bones. She knows enough of this foe to know that this vision isn't real but it doesn't mean it terrifies her any less, doesn't mean it doesn't hurt her all the same.

At the gates, will Thomas ask to see my hands?

The family dog passed away when Jane was 12. Her name was Sadie and she was a beautiful retriever with a coat as bright as sunflower. Jane doesn't remember picking her out at the pet store when she's 4. She doesn't even remember the time she and little Sadie got lost on a neighboring estate after exploring, or that they'd gone right back out and done it again the next day. She can remember crying into Sadie's big, fluffy neck over life's little inconveniences; as inconvenient as life can be at 8, 9, 10 years old.
Her most vivid memory of Sadie is of the day she died.
Jane's father had begun to notice that Sadie was venturing off on her own more frequently. Resting beneath the bed in an empty room, hiding below the gazebo in the backyard, tucking herself beneath the family car. Jane couldn't understand why her friend would no longer come when she called, when she dropped to her knees and pleaded into the darkness below the gazebo, Sadie's yellow coat muddied, her eyes heavy, her panting labored but her tail wagging weakly nevetheless. She couldn't understand when her father explained that sometimes dogs went away to die alone, in private. Jane couldn't comprehend that any creature would willingly die alone. She couldn't understand what her parents had told her the day they'd taken Sadie to the vet while she was at school.
"Sweetie, they found tumors," her mother explained quietly while her father stood nearby and Jane cradled Sadie's head in her lap. They explained what cancer was and what it meant for Sadie. At just 12 years old, Jane's parents left the decision to her. Sadie was her dog, after all. Her best friend. Her ears rang as they rambled on about limited options and suffering. Tears filled her eyes as she looked down at her dog, the one creature who had always seemed to understand and to care for her. She told her parents she needed more time.
Sadie died after Jane left for school the next morning. Her father found her underneath her bed.
Go. Leave. Find someplace to die alone.
"Did I put my good suit on?"
She can all but hear the smile in Clint's voice and she catches her lip twitching despite herself. They've never been particularly close. The necessity for interaction has always been along the peripheral of a situation. But that he and Banner have opened their home and hearth to her, that they've welcomed her with open arms despite that fact, speaks to something in Jane that still wishes to fight. It's a faint glimmer of some stubborn trace of the other woman within her and she has to give her credit for that at least. Despite heartbreak, isolation and anger, a glimmer of some stubborn instinct to self-preserve is strong. She reminds herself that there is no lump, there is no shadow, there is no cancer. It does not conquer the fear but it loosens its grip, wrenches her just that much more from its clutches.
"No correspondence." She writes it on a post-it note, rips it in half and lets it fall to her feet.