History Main / SecretlyDying

* The pilot of ''Series/{{Castle}}'' had a business executive whose daughter's murder Beckett was investigating. Castle deduced that he was dying due to no recent pictures and an IncurableCoughOfDeath. This turns out to be a plot point that helps them identify his daughter's real killer: [[spoiler:her brother]].

* Grace on ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'' was revealed to have cystic fibrosis which she had been hiding from all of her friends. Her life expectancy was very short and she had come to terms with it. After she had a medical emergency related to her diagnosis she was forced to tell her friends. She eventually got a lung transplant which lengthened her life expectancy considerably.

* In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'', Rau le Creuset is very slowly dying [[CloningBlues because his cells are a good 30 years older than they should be]]. There are a number of scenes that show him self-medicating to deal with the pain, but the cause is not explained until [[TheReveal The Big Damn Reveal]], as his condition is the root of his misanthropy and thus his desire to [[TakingYouWithMe wipe out humanity with him in retaliation]].

* UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt had his health rapidly decline starting around late 1943 (due to a combination of the effort taken to [[HidingTheHandicap hiding his paralysis from polio]], his smoking habit, and the stresses of being a wartime President during the height of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII); but he nevertheless ran for a fourth term and attempted to hide his health problems. He managed to get re-elected but died just under three months into that term.

** Kimimaro attempted this trope, refusing to reveal his growing illness for fear that he would lose value in Orochimaru's eyes. Kabuto and Orochimaru saw through this and he ended up bedridden before the invasion of Konoha.

* In ''Manga/{{Bokurano}}'', all the kids piloting Zearth would qualify. They don't suffer from any kind of medical condition, but once they pilot Zearth, they die. They just keep this a secret from everyone they know, to avoid hurting their feelings, but they secretly know that once it's their turn to pilot Zearth, they only have very little time left to live. In the manga, [[spoiler:Kana Ushiro]] manages to keep [[spoiler:her]] status as a pilot secret until [[spoiler:her]] turn comes up late in the story.

Why? Perhaps they don't want their friends handling them with [[DontYouDarePityMe kid gloves]] or passing the DespairEventHorizon, or they wants to spend their last days seeing their sweetheart [[WhenSheSmiles smiling]] rather than grief-stricken. They may simply want to FaceDeathWithDignity. Alternately, they might want to keep their enemies from getting a morale boost out of it. This can also be a selfish act if their condition represents a danger to others, such as with ThePlague or a ZombieInfectee.

** [[spoiler:Itachi]] had a fatal illness which he barely controlled via medication, and likely would have won his final battle if he hadn't succumbed to it mid-fight. Later, we find out [[spoiler:Itachi wasn't aiming to kill Sasuke anyway]].
** Kimimaro attempted this trope, refusing to reveal his growing illness for fear that he would lose value in Orochimaru's eyes. Kabuto and Orochimaru saw through this and he ended up bed-ridden before the invasion of Konoha.

** In a more meta sense, all the priestesses of the Four Gods can count as this, since part of their duty of being the Priestess is to summon the God, become one with them and get [[EatenAlive consumed]] by them for every wish they get fulfilled. [[spoiler: Genbu Priestess Takiko gets killed via murder-suicide by her father in the real world after only two wishes due to the excess pain the consumption causes her, Seiryu Priestess Yui's whole body began to turn scaley and was absorbed into Seiryu and Suzaku and Byakko Priestesses Miaka and Suzuno, respectively, managed to have strong enough wills to not be consumed.]]

* Gauma of ''Anime/SSSSDynazenon'' came BackFromTheDead along with the other Kaiju Eugenecists, [[spoiler:but as he no longer had a connection to the Kaiju, he was slowly dying. This wasn't revealed until the penultimate episode, but it was foreshadowed by the purple splotch on his stomach slowly growing larger over the course of the anime.]]

* ''ComicBook/TheUltimates'': Tony Stark has an inoperable brain tumor, the size of a golfball. That's why he's being Iron Man.

** This is implied to have been the case with Ryuuko when she went to live with her sister, as told by Satsuki in flashbacks. Satsuki also noted that Ryuuko never told if anything was wrong and neither would she, however, at the same time, it's never made too clear if Ryuuko really did grasp the severity of her illness, thus that is why she went to live with her sister or if she didn't want to disclose the fact due to denial and her stubborn nature but her sister did note that she had a feeling something wasn't right and couldn't seem to figure out what.

* ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'': Alfred is secretly dying from [=MacGregor=]'s Syndrome, the same disease that Nora Fries has. Despite his attempts to hide it, Bruce and Barbara are able to figure out, though Robin has to be told.

* Satine in ''Film/MoulinRouge'' is dying of tuberculosis. For the maximum amount of gut-wrenching DramaticIrony, almost everyone knows it before she does (including the audience, since the story is a flashback told a year after her death). When she does find out, she keeps it a secret in an effort to spare her beloved's life.

* At the end of ''Film/OnceUponATimeInTheWest'', Cheyenne reveals that he's bleeding out from a gut-shot. He asks Harmonica to get him out of sight from the new town before he keels over.

* In ''Literature/TheNightInLisbon'' by Creator/ErichMariaRemarque, the protagonist's wife hides from him that she has terminal cancer and joins him on his run from the Nazis, since she wants to live out her last days with him in happiness and not alone in a hospital.

* ''Literature/TheHeartsWeSold'': [[spoiler:James has a brain tumor. His deal with the Daemon means that as long as his heart's out, it won't progress to the point where it can kill him. With his heart, he'd have three months to live at the outside.]]

* Subverted in ''Series/{{Elementary}}''. The last ten minutes of the show reveals that Joan has cancer and didn't plan on telling Sherlock, but she is confident that she'll survive. Sherlock stays in New York after learning the diagnosis. After a one-year timeskip, Joan is in remission.

* ''Series/TheSummerITurnedPretty'': Susannah turns out to have cancer, and her treatments aren't working. We learn she'd had cancer before, and keeps it from her loved ones for a long time. All of them are very upset to learn of it later. She wanted to enjoy one more summer before her death with them without having it hang over their heads, as she's chosen not to try experimental treatments as doing that was too hard the first time on her, so Susannah just wanted to be herself in her last days. Her sons begging gets her to change her mind however and try the expiremental ones.

* ''[[VideoGame/ExtrapowerAttackOfDarkforce EXTRAPOWER Attack of Darkforce]]'': Ryo is revealed to be a defector from the Tarantula organization, and one of the earlier users of the power stones that give him his HenshinHero status. Unfortunately, his Gecko Stone works by sapping the life of its user, and he's been using it long enough for his death to be soon approaching. He hides all this behind his [[SmugSmiler smug smile]] and is sworn to help Torajiro take down Tarantula while there is still life in him.

** Shinjiro Aragaki is slowly killing himself with power-inhibiting drugs. He refrains from mentioning his poor health to anyone, mostly because he's expecting one of two ''other'' things to kill him before the side effects of the drugs manage to do it, and because he thinks he deserves it. Even when it comes out that he was taking the suppressants, he waves off any concerns about the side effects, and only comes close to hinting how little time he has to the female protagonist in the last few stages of his Social Link.

* Similarly, UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy was much sicker than he ever let on as President. He had been chronically ill since childhood, but his health problems really snowballed as an adult. His bad back that he got from an injury playing football in college, then exacerbated in the Navy was common knowledge, but everything else was largely a secret. An opposition research operation found out about his hormonal disorder Addison's disease but his campaign put out an accurate albeit misleading statement that [[ExactWords he didn't have Addison's stemming from tuberculosis]]. He suffered from (in no particular order): terrible allergies, digestive issues, persistent urinary tract infections, recurring bacterial abscesses, and high cholesterol on top of his hormonal and back problems. As President, he was on antidepressants, steroids, antihistamines, pain killers, stimulants, various antibiotics, and hormone replacement together at any given time. Of course, we will never know what would have happened to him had he not been assassinated, but it’s not hard to imagine him not being long for the world.

* The reason why Creator/ChadwickBoseman's death in August 2020 from Stage IV colon cancer came as a great shock to the public is because nobody outside of his family knew he was even sick in the first place. He had battled the disease for ''four years'', all while making some of his best-known films. He did look very emaciated in the months prior to his passing, leading to much speculation, including cancer.

* Creator/KevinConroy, best-known as the iconic voice of [[ComicBook/{{Batman}} the Caped Crusader]] beginning with the [[WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries 90s animated series]], died in November 2022 after a short battle with intestinal cancer. He never made his cancer public to anyone other than his own family members, and this was naturally shocking to Batman fans all around the world.

* ''Literature/ChainLetter'': Neil, a participant in the hit-and-run and subsequent cover-up at the beginning of the book, is revealed to be dying from cancer that started in his legs and moved to his brain. [[spoiler:It's part of the reason he became The Caretaker.]]

* Creator/KevinConroy, best-known as the iconic voice of [[ComicBook/{{Batman}} the Caped Crusader]] beginning with the [[WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries 90s animated series]], died in November 2022 after a short battle with intestinal cancer. Naturally, this was shocking to fans everywhere since he never made his cancer public to anyone outside of his family.

* ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'': Daniel Molloy has a sub-variant of Parkinson's disease. Only his family and doctor know about it, so he's irked that Louis de Pointe du Lac has somehow learned of it.

* The killer in ''Literature/AndThenThereWereNone'' has a cancer diagnosis that isn't revealed until the epilogue, which explains why there is no one left alive on the island when authorities from the mainland arrive -- the killer didn't want to suffer through a slow painful death on top of having a sadistic streak and a strong sense of justice meaning all of the victims were held responsible for murders themselves but were never convicted for it.

* ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'': Alfred is secretly dying from MacGregor's Syndrome, the same disease that Nora Fries has. Despite his attempts to hide it, Bruce and Barbara are able to figure out, though Robin has to be told.

* Tony Stark in ''Film/IronMan2'' realizes that the Arc Reactor in his chest, which was supposed to keep him alive, is slowly poisoning him. He prepares for his death by handing control of his company to [[GirlFriday Pepper]] and undergoes a public, [[DrowningMySorrows alcohol]]-fueled [[HeroicBSOD breakdown]]. It even turns out the suit James Rhodes managed to "steal" from him had been pre-programmed by Stark to allow Rhodes to pilot it.

* On ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' episode "Lie to Me," an old friend of Buffy's is planning to let [[BreakoutVillain Spike]] eat a bunch of {{Vampire Vannabe}}s in exchange for becoming a vampire himself. When Buffy confronts him, this comes out.
-->'''Ford:''' I look good, don't I? Let me tell you something. I got maybe six months left and by then what they bury won't even look like me. It'll be bald and shriveled and it'll smell bad. Not human. I'm not going out that way. ({{Beat}}) I'm sorry, [[LastNameBasis Summers]], did I screw up your righteous anger riff? Does the nest of tumors liquefying my brain kind of spoil the fun?\\

* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," Dr. [=McCoy=] learns that he's suffering from a disease called xenopolycythemia which will kill him in one year. When he tells Kirk about it, he asks him to keep it to himself so he'll be most effective in his job in the time left.

* President Laura Roslin spends most of the first season of ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'' hiding the fact that she has terminal breast cancer from the fleet at large. [[spoiler:Then, after the news broke, and a miracle cured her, it came out at Baltar's trial that she was hiding a relapse.]]

* Painter [[Series/TheJoyOfPainting Bob Ross]] died on July 4th, 1995, of complications from lymphoma. Until his death, his diagnosis was not known to anyone outside of his family and the staff of his TV show.

* Arran takes over for [[CrutchCharacter Jagen]] as the CrutchCharacter in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem'' and its remake, ''New Mystery of the Emblem''. His stats and poor growths are explained as [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration that he is really sick]], and he reveals in the ending that his illness is fatal, but he wants to go down fighting with Marth [[spoiler: to atone for his past, where he helped slay rebellious peasants under orders of his cruel former lord]]. The epilogue even [[ShaggyDogStory says he died shortly after the war]].

* Music/FreddieMercury kept his AIDS diagnosis secret from everyone except his fellow members of Music/{{Queen}} and a few close friends, not publicly revealing he had AIDS until the day before he died. Media outlets successfully guessed that he had AIDS since the late '80s, but he and the rest of Queen still fought off the topic (with Mercury claiming he was simply exhausted from years of performing) until it became impossible to avoid.

Why? Perhaps they don't want their friends handling them with [[DontYouDarePityMe kid gloves]] or passing the DespairEventHorizon, or they wants to spend their last days seeing their sweetheart [[WhenSheSmiles smiling]] rather than grief-stricken. Alternately, they might want to keep their enemies from getting a morale boost out of it. This can also be a selfish act if their condition represents a danger to others, such as with ThePlague or a ZombieInfectee.

For the LighterAndSofter temporary variant, see FeigningHealthiness.

* In the 55th ''[[Literature/MadgieWhatDidYouDo Madgie]]'' story, ''Broken Wings'', we have a variation with Doki in that, while she was terminally ill and suffering renal failure, she wasn't entirely honest with exactly how much time she had left, as she said she had a few months to a year, whereas, in reality, she actually had a couple of weeks.