CHAPTER SIX —
( happiness never lasts for a person who is cursed. )

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JOHN AND DIANA
New York City

        Retirement felt weird. Diana found herself constantly waiting for her phone to go off where she'd receive her next target and she'd be sent off to take out someone she knew hardly anything about. However, being pregnant felt weirder to Diana. Bringing a life into the world was so much scarier than taking a life. All Diana felt for nearly nine months was fear, but John stayed by her side through it all. He didn't voice his own scary thoughts about being retired, and he didn't mention to Diana all of the nightmares he had about people coming to take his family away just to get back at the Baba Yaga.

Nine months rolled around and Diana and John welcomed Daisy Love Wick into the world. She was the little blessing the two former assassins needed, the little piece of light in their otherwise dark life. Little Daisy stopped the nightmares the two shared, all of the scary thoughts and every dark thing they had ever had to do seemed to disappear the moment she took her first breath and let out her first cry. And to say Daisy Love was spoilt was an understatement. She was well loved, well looked after, and given so much affection that any other parent may think that they were smothering the child.

However, things took a turn when Daisy Love was four. John was out doing grocery shopping and Diana and Daisy were in their front yard, Diana sitting on the grass and blowing bubbles while Daisy giggled and tried to catch them, popping as many as she could.

"Mommy look! I can do it!" Daisy giggled, jumping up and down to pop as many bubbles as she could.

Diana had a large grin on her face as she watched her daughter, her happiness radiating and swelling Diana's heart and making her feel warm with love. "Keep going, sweetheart! You'll get them all," she encouraged.

Daisy suddenly stopped running and frowned, and Diana watched as the little girl looked around everywhere as she began to struggle to breathe. "Daise, baby, are you okay?" Diana hurriedly asked as she crawled the short difference to be in front of her. Daisy was too busy struggling to breathe as Diana held her arms and tried to assess the situation, but something about this didn't seem right. She wasn't having a panic attack, Diana had seen enough of them to know what they were like. This was something else. She quickly reached into her pocket and called 911 and the two were taken in an ambulance to a children's hospital where John met them.

Diana and John stayed by Daisy's side as she was assessed and multiple tests were taken on the child. The nurses and doctors were extremely careful and kind to the scared child and her stressed-out parents, and it wasn't until Daisy finally had a break from the tests and John was reading a story to her with Diana holding Daisy's hand that a social worker stepped into the room. She looked extremely solemn, and John and Diana shared looks before letting a nurse take over to be with Daisy so that Diana and John could follow the social worker to a private room where four doctors sat waiting for them.

"Mr and Mrs Wick?" One of them asked.

Diana looked between the doctors as the door was closed behind them. They all held very straight faces, but not the stoic look that John was so good at giving that wouldn't let anybody know what he was feeling. These doctors had straight faces but their eyes were swimming with emotions, sadness and regret being the main two. A box of tissues was passed to Diana as one of the doctors who was holding a clipboard full of notes cleared their throats.

"I regret to inform you that Daisy has a large mass on her brain, and it's already gotten to the size where we cannot perform surgery on it."

Dead silence followed that. Diana didn't say anything and neither did John. All Diana could hear was the hammer of her heart against her ribcage. No tears even pooled up in their eyes. Diana was so used to not showing any emotion during troubling times that it came so naturally to her, and all four of the doctors and the social worker seemed to take their silence and lack of emotion as them taking in what was being told to them.

John took control. "Is there anything we can do? Treatments available?"

Diana could see it on all of the doctor's faces that nothing could be done. None of them were any good at hiding their thoughts and feelings. "Well, at this stage, the mass has grown to a considerable size where surgery would no longer be an option, but we could always try..." Their voices seemed to blur together as Diana felt nothing. All she found herself capable of doing was stare at the painting opposite her. It was covered in children's hand prints covered in paint with their names scribbled in the middle of it. Diana read every single name from right to left. Jeffery, Cassie, Valerie, Izabela, Issac, Finneas... She wondered if these were the names of kids that made it or if they had all passed away. Was this happening because of the life she lead a few years back? Was she cursed? Probably, but why bring down an innocent little girl instead of the woman who brought her into this world?

The doctors and John talked for a few minutes before being led back into Daisy's room, the smile on the young girl's face instantly making Diana forget what was happening. Diana smiled at her baby as she outstretched her arms and pulled her daughter into a hug, Daisy letting out a series of giggles as Diana tightened her arms and kissed all over her head as if it would somehow get rid of the mass growing inside.

"Mommy, stop!" Daisy giggled, squirming in Diana's grasp.

"Sorry, sweetheart," Diana softly spoke, a small smile on her face as she pulled away from her child.

John stopped behind Diana and looked down at Daisy who only stared at her parents with a large grin. "When can we go home?"

John placed a hand on Diana's shoulder as her smile faltered. "We'll just be here for a few days, okay?"

Daisy pouted. "Okayyyy. Can you get Bella so I can sleep with her?"

John nodded and stepped around Diana to place a kiss on Daisy's forehead. "Of course, sweetheart. Daddy'll be back soon, okay?"

"Bye bye daddy!"

John looked back at Diana whose gaze never once left her daughter. "Can I borrow mommy for a couple of seconds?"

Diana looked up and met John's gaze before looking back down at Daisy. "Mommy'll be right back, sweetie." She reached over to squeeze Daisy's hands before following John out of the room.

John crossed his arms as he turned to face Diana, waiting for her to give some sort of reaction to the situation, but Diana didn't know how to react. Is there a normal reaction you're meant to have after receiving news that your three-year-old child who's supposed to have her whole life ahead of her will most likely not even last another month? If anything, Diana felt sick. And yet, she didn't find herself physically being able to get anything out. John could see the conflict in her eyes, however. He was good at detecting Diana's emotions now, and he knew that if she held in whatever she was holding in now, she would probably burst at just the smallest thing.

"Diana, you need to talk about it now," John told her.

"I can't," Diana replied.

"Diana..."

"I don't know what to say," Diana told him, truthfully. "What am I meant to say, that I'm upset that our daughter is going to die? Because I am, John. I'm upset. But I can't show her that, and I'd rather go to hell than break down in front of her or any of these doctors." John reached across and placed his hands on Diana's arms as she rubbed her forehead with a sigh passing her lips. "Okay, just go and grab her teddy, some clothes for her, a blanket for each of us and get back here. I know I'm not leaving her side and I doubt you will, too."

"I'd never," John said. He pressed a kiss on her forehead and then turned around and walked the other way. Diana took a moment to breathe, making sure that she was holding in everything she was feeling before walking back into the room with a bright smile on her face, Daisy's eyes lighting up in an instant.

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        Diana and John stayed with Daisy in the hospital, sleeping with a blanket thrown over them on chairs beside her bed. They took shifts on going home to shower, always making sure that at least one of them was with Daisy at all times. Days had passed since Daisy's admission into the hospital, and with her rapidly declining health, the little girl began to look sicker and sicker as days passed. Her once joyous spark had begun to diminish, and Diana and John did everything they could to bring it back. They even talked to staff members in the hospital and asked for their advice on what to do to bring back her spark.

At one point, Diana had sat herself on Daisy's bed and the two painted each other's nails; Daisy wanted yellow nails and Diana wanted red. Diana was in the midst of painting Daisy's right hand with her left hand already completed when John walked through the door, a smile on his face.

"How are my favourite girls going?" he asked.

Diana smiled as she replied with, "Good," while Daisy seemed to perk up as she held her other hand out. "Daddy, look at my nails."

John walked over to the bed and looked down at Daisy's hand, a gasp passing his lips. "What happened to your nails? They're yellow!"

"Mommy painted them for me," Daisy smiled.

"Mommy painted your nails yellow?"

"And I painted hers red, Show him, mommy," Daisy grabbed onto her mother's hand and pulled it over to John's eyesight where he got a good look at the poor artwork on Diana's nails, although the pair very clearly didn't mind.

"Mommy's favourite colour is red," John noted.

"I know! She told me," Daisy smiled, going back to watching her mother finish up her hand.

"Now, sweetheart, mommy and I have been talking..." John began, sharing a knowing smile with Diana.

"What's the one thing you want most in this world?" Diana asked.

Daisy's face lit up with a glow that neither Diana nor John had seen in weeks. "A puppy!"

"Named...?"

"Sunny! A puppy named Sunny!" Daisy exclaimed.

Diana grinned. "We've decided to get you a puppy named Sunny."

"Really?" When both of her parents nodded, Daisy almost leapt out of her bed entirely to wrap her arms around Diana's neck. "Thank you!"

Diana hugged Daisy back while Diana made eye contact with John, both of them equally sharing grins at their daughters' sudden happiness. A happiness she hadn't shown since moving into the hospital.

"Now, the puppy won't be arriving for a couple of days," John told her.

Daisy let go of Diana and wrapped her small arms around John. "I don't mind. I'll wait," she told him. Diana didn't notice that her eyes had welled up with tears until they had spilt over, and as soon as she wiped them away she found that more just continued to spill over and then she couldn't stop crying.

Diana quickly stood up and hurried out of the room before Daisy could see her, and she blindly made her way down the hall to a quiet room where she shut the door behind her and sat down on one of the couches. She buried her face in her hands as sobs began to rake her body, her cheeks turning a bright red as the wetness of her tears covered both of her hands. She felt her heart shatter and a lump form in her throat as she continuously sobbed, a noise that Diana guessed was utter heartbreak being the only thing sounding in the room. She didn't make a move when arms wrapped themselves around her shaking body, only curled herself into John's warm embrace. Diana was finally letting out the pain and hurt of their daughter's devastation and John was making sure that he was going to be there for his wife. John just let Diana cling onto him and cry while also crying himself, knowing that they didn't have long with their little Daisy Love.

AUTHORS NOTE
Part one is finished yayyy!! So the puppy has been mentioned and we all know what happens to the puppy, and this chapter just includes a little on the backstory on what the puppy means to both Diana and John. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and I can't wait to jump into the John Wick movie! Don't forget to like and comment!!
-rosepetal