Just a Touch of Fanfiction
Back before I realized I wanted to write books, I wrote for fun. I wrote for fun a lot. And most of what I wrote… was fanfiction.
I will admit it, some of that fanfiction is floating around somewhere online, but no, I will never tell you where to find it. If you think you’ve found it, I will deny it. Even if you actually do find it, I will never admit that it’s mine.
That being said, I haven’t dabbled in serious fanfiction for a while. Ever since I started writing my own stories, I’ve focused more on them than anything else. However, every once in a while, I need more of a story. I need to know what happens to a certain character. After I finished reading the seventh Harry Potter, I had to rewrite the Battle of Hogwarts to make sure Fred survived. After all, there was no funeral, there was no burial. There’s no one to tell me that George Weasley didn’t figure out a way to save his twin.
In this instance, I needed a reunion. I’ve been reading and rereading The Fault in Our Stars in preparation for the upcoming movie.
*WARNING* This next section includes SPOILERS. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.
Ever since the first time I read it, I wanted to see Hazel back with Gus, even though that meant she had to die also. But in this case, I don’t think death would be so much of a tragedy as a relief. We knew going in that the character Hazel is destined to die prematurely. For me, characters have always existed beyond their pages. Even though she survives the novel, we all know that her time is coming. It’s a bittersweet idea. Sad, because no one wants to say goodbye to such a wonderful and extraordinary character. Uplifting, though, because she’ll be with Gus again.
I’m sure fanfictions like this already exist, but I sort of wanted to pay homage and honor not only these characters, but John Green as well, by writing out my own reunion scene. I tried my best to replicate Green’s exquisite style and unique voice, but I’m afraid I fall short. This was written very quickly, on a complete whim, and is by no means a masterpiece. Most of all, it was written for me, because, as a fan and a reader, I needed more of these characters, and I wanted them to be together again.
All characters and circumstances in this short fiction are based off of the characters of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. I am not making any money off of this blog and I claim no authority. It’s just something I wrote for fun.
An Untitled TFIOS Fanfiction
I was adrift on a soft silver haze.
This was it.
I wasn’t afraid. Or perhaps it was the effects of the drugs and chemicals swirling and circling through my fragile system that made me not afraid. Either way, it was sort of nice. I’d known death was coming for me for years. Ever since the doctors basically told me it wasn’t a matter of “if” but “when,” I’d spent a decent portion of my time thinking about death. When you know it’s coming, it’s kind of hard to not think about it.
“Hazel? Can you hear me, Sweetie?” My mom’s voice sounded far away. I wanted to answer her, but my body couldn’t remember how to talk. My body couldn’t even remember how to take a breath. That’s what happened when your lungs sucked at being lungs.
But now, it wasn’t just my lungs. It was everything. My body had survived (and I use that word very loosely) on too little oxygen for too long. My miracle had finally run its course.
Some might not consider it much of a miracle. Dying at 18, right at the age when life is really supposed to start, is hardly miraculous. But the wonder drug Philanxifor had bought me years, five extra years that I most definitely would not have had otherwise. For me, for my family, that was a miracle.
I won’t lie to you and say it had been enough, because it hadn’t. But do any of us ever really have enough time? I mean really enough time to do all the things we want to do. No matter how long we live, it will never be long enough. Men who have lived 90 years look back on their time here on Earth and lament, “Life is too short.”
I happen to agree with them. But there’s nothing I, or anybody else, can do about that.
“Hazel, Sweetie, it’s okay. Daddy and I are here with you. We love you. We love you so much. It’s okay to let go.”
Let go.
If only I could. My body has been trying to die for years and yet, one thing or another always pulls it back from that deep, dark chasm of infinite darkness, of oblivion. What waits for me. For all of us. I can’t say for certain I know what’s coming. I wish I could. I’m supposed to believe in Heaven, in an afterlife, in becoming a ghost, but I don’t know if I do.
Of all the answers mankind has come up with over the years, why is the one great mystery of life, as old as time itself, the one that remains unsolved? What happens after death? Where do we go? What becomes of our conscious minds, if anything at all?
Oblivion. There it is again. That deep, dark nothingness that the one true love of my life so greatly feared.
Augustus.
It’s my turn now, Gus.
My turn to say goodbye. My turn to lie in a box lined in white satin. My turn to have loved ones standing over me, whispering their final words of goodbye to ears that can no longer hear. My turn for oblivion.
In my mind’s eye, I see him. Those blue eyes, that crooked smile, all the delightful details that made him so wonderfully Augustus. He’s so close, so clear, I feel I could reach out and touch him, but I can’t bring my arms to move. They’re pinned down to my side, still stuck inside the dying shell that should be my 18-year-old body, but what instead serves as a cage, a cell, a tomb.
“Come on up, Hazel Grace. I promise you, the clouds are fine.”
I know the voice in my head isn’t really Augustus. I mean, I don’t think it is. My thoughts are so foggy that it’s difficult to tell what’s real and what isn’t. But the Augustus I know and love would never abide a Heaven so cliche. Clouds? What next? Golden halos and white feathered wings?
“Hazel?”
Something is wrong with my mother’s voice. She sounds like she’s trying not to panic. I want to ask what’s wrong, but I can feel myself slowly detaching, drawing farther and farther away from her. Is this what death is? It doesn’t feel like an ending. More like a transition.
“Hazel, Sweetie, it’s okay. Just go. Just let go, Baby.”
And so I do.
At first, there’s nothing, an impossible and vast nothingness. I don’t know where I am, or if there is an up or a down, or I even still exist. And yet, if I am experiencing this grand sense of nothingness, then I must exist. I couldn’t experience if I was simply part of that nothing, that great void at the end of all things and places and time.
Then, just like that, there’s not nothing. There’s a light. A painfully cliche light, but it’s there nonetheless. I don’t know where it’s leading me. I only know I’m supposed to follow it.
As the light grows closer and brighter, the nothingness around me begins to fade away. Soon, all that I know is the bright, blinding brilliance of the Light of all light. For the first time in years, nothing hurts. I smile and close my eyes, savoring the feeling.
When I open them again, I’m standing by a stream, in a garden of bright vibrant flowers. Tulips. Orange and maroon and yellow and purple and white.
It the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. And yet, it’s not one that I recognize. But that’s alright. I’m not alone.
“Hazel Grace.”
He strolls toward me, gracefully, no limp. He’s wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt. His eyes are extra blue here. He’s smiling, not that charming, crooked smile that I fell in love with so easily, but a big, bright, genuine smile.
“Augustus,” I whisper, blinking back tears. What happened to that no tears past the gate nonsense?
He doesn’t seem to mind though. I suspect he’s been waiting for me. He holds out his hands. I take them, and he pulls me into his arms, into his strong, familiar embrace. Then, he brushes my short hair away from my face and looks me in the eye.
“Welcome home, Hazel Grace.”
