Chapter Text
“We need to talk about last night.”
His voice echoes in their kitchen as soon she enters the vast, brightly lit space. The sun is shining far too much for her liking this morning, radiant and glowing, her fingers rubbing at her temple to try to calm the headache that won’t seem to quit, a reminder of all the poor decisions she made last night haunting her every time the pressure in her head got just a little worse.
Fallon wanders herself to the fresh pot of coffee he’d already brewed, pouring herself a mug of the (still) steaming hot liquid. She mixes in the minuscule amount of sugar she takes and splashes a bit of cream in the ceramic cup, stirring it with one of the wooden stirrers set near the machine. She wanders back over to the kitchen island, sitting herself at one of the bar stools.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“I would argue that getting called in the middle of the night by your mother because you showed up at her place absolutely hammered after not answering my calls for hours is something to talk about.”
“I don’t want to do this right now,” she says, pushing the white mug up to her lips to take the first sip of her morning coffee, instant relief when the steaming liquid coats her throat. “I have a killer headache, so please, Liam, not now.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” he says, leaning forward against the opposite side of their kitchen island, watching her with rapt attention. “Cause this conversation is no longer up for debate anymore.”
She pushes herself up from her seat, ignoring his words, turning herself in the direction of the stairs with every intent of crawling back into their bed for the rest of the day. “I’m not talking about this right now.”
She hears him follow behind her, before his hand captures her wrist lightly, always lightly, before he spins her around so she’s facing him again; she doesn’t like the tears that are threatening to fall from her eyes already. She especially doesn’t like the look that he’s giving her when she catches his eyes; it’s full of disappointment and sadness and god, she can see just how terrified he was for her, how that fear is hiding behind his eyes even if he’s trying his dammed hardest not to show it.
“No one could find you, Fallon,” he squeezes the words between his teeth. “You weren’t answering calls or texts from anyone all night.”
“My phone was dead!”
She pushes his hand off her and she doesn’t really even comprehend why she does it, or why she’s getting so defensive with him over the whole thing. Especially when he was right, he had every right to be angry with her right now. She did mess up, she just wasn’t ready to admit that to him yet; or even to herself.
“Fallon, I don’t really care if your phone died. That isn’t the point.” His words come out in such frustration and she hates it. All she’s ever wanted was for him to be happy, for him to be proud of her. And right now, he’s anything but. “This reaching for the bottle coping mechanism you’ve gotten used to has got to stop.”
“Liam.” She hates how her words come out in a small whisper, almost a cry; unable to think of anything else to fight back with at his words.
“I wouldn’t have been as worried if I didn’t just know that the second you slammed our front door last night,” he says. “That you were going to find yourself at bar drinking away your feelings and trying to numb it all.”
“It’s not that serious, Liam.”
“I’m terrified that one day I’m going to pick up that phone and hear news that’s much worse than the news I got last night, Fallon,” he clenches his teeth when he says it, his eyes are watering and she swears she catches a tear escape out of the corner of his eye. “I’m afraid one day I’m going to find out you’re not coming home to me anymore.”
“That’t stupid, Liam,” she scoffs, but she turns her head away from him nonetheless so he can’t see the pain that she just knows is etching its way on to her face. “I was just out having a good time with Sam.”
“Having a good time with Sam because you were pissed off at me yesterday.” He reiterates that fact again, leaving no indication he was leaving this topic alone anytime soon. “That’s the only reason you reached for the bottle.”
“No, it’s not!”
“Well, then, by all means,” he opens his hands out to her, giving her the floor to make her case. “Tell me why you went out and got yourself drunk last night and ended up on your mother’s porch at 4am.”
“I’m not doing this right now,” she turns her body around and starts her trek up their staircase. “I’m done with this conversation!”
She storms in to La Mirage angrily, high heels clicking against the tiled floor with every heavy footstep she takes forward into the lobby. She spots Sam behind the bar and makes her way towards him, sitting down at one of the empty stools in front of him in a huff.
He eyes her up and down, his hands placed up against the bar top before finally asking, “What’s wrong with you?”
“Liam and I got into a fight,” she sighs loudly, the stress of her morning finally catching up to her, despite her best efforts to forget the whole last two days entirely.
“Oh, god. Again?” Sam’s eyes roll far back as soon as the words leave her lips. “What are you two fighting about now? What color to paint the kitchen?”
Her eyes widen a bit at his questions, taken aback slightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That you two fight over a lot of stupid things,” he says, picking up a bottle of clear liquor and pouring a shot out into the glass in front of him before he slides it off to the guest a few seats down from her. “And it’s not even really fights. It’s just that you’re too stubborn to talk things out before storming off in a huff when you don’t get your way.”
“Okay, first of all, I’m offended,” she says, holding up one finger on her left hand, her shiny peach colored diamond shining from the lights above her, tugging at her heart just slightly when she thinks of him. “And, two, no, it’s not over paint colors. It’s actually a lot worse this time.”
“Okay, so what happened then?”
She sighs, “Liam thinks I depend on alcohol too much.”
He waits for her to continue, but when she doesn’t she hears, “Okay, and…”
Her shoulders sink at his words. “Don’t tell me you agree with him.”
“He’s not exactly…wrong with his worries, Fallon.”
Her defensive side comes out straight away, as it so usually does: “Why are you taking his side?”
“I’m not taking his side, I’m just saying the only reason you asked to go out for drinks yesterday was because Liam was pissing you off and you wanted to forget about it.”
And that’s exactly when it clicks in her head that a certain someone had already talked to Sam about the events that transpired earlier that morning before she’d even arrived at the hotel.
“He called you,” she says.
“He may have given me a heads up that you’d show up asking for a drink.”
“Well?” She snaps her fingers twice in a row, waiting for him to pick up an empty glass for her. “Shot of whiskey would be great right about now.”
“I’m not condoning your behavior any longer,” he says handing her a tall glass of water. “You can have water.”
“You’re supposed to be my friend, Sam!” She looks at the class of clear liquid that was set in front of her, unamused with Sam’s actions and Liam’s actions, for that matter, for calling Sam in the first place. “I could just go to another bar, you know! Why won’t you just let me—”
She jumps back when she hears a gun shoot off in the short distance behind her six times in a row, forcing her to turn around and see several large men (she assumes) wearing all black clothing with black face masks covering everywhere against their faces but their eyes. She holds her hands over her ears to block out the loud gunshots ringing in her ears.
She hops off her stool and runs behind the bar to stand by Sam, stopping in her tracks when she hears, “Everybody stay where you are!”
She freezes when she leader of the pack walks forward shouting at everyone, gun pointing off so carelessly in all directions, he takes no discretion to who he points it at and she worries he’ll actually pull the trigger at anyone of them there.
“This is a robbery. Stay where you are and cooperate with us and it will all be over with in five minutes.”
All of the guys wander around the room, each of them appearing to scout out the area among the dozens of them they’ve currently trapped in the La Mirage lobby. She watches on eagerly when she notices Sams’ employee Hailee behind the check-in desk, leaning her hand underneath the table to push the panic button Sam had hidden under there for these exact circumstances. He’d told her when he installed it that he most likely wouldn’t need it, but on the off chance he would, he was putting it in regardless.
She silently thanks him when she sees the young blondes thumb slip under the desk, thinking the police were two seconds away from behind notified of the situation.
“Excuse me,” the lead mans’ gun points off in Hailee’s direction. “Are you aiming to be employee of the month or something?”
Her hands slip out, holding up both her hands so he could see them in front of her.
“Everyone on my staff, do as they say,” Sam says into the open space, filled with tension and terror. “Just….do what they tell you.”
Liam was finding it hard focusing on just about anything.
He tried to work on his latest book, tried to put some words to paper, but the only thing on his mind was Fallon and if she was off numbing the pain and memories of their morning argument, like she always seemed to do when something wasn’t exactly in line with how she wanted it to go.
He’d only managed to write a couple hundred words when he feels his phone vibrating in his pocket, everything inside him hoping it was Fallon, ready to talk things out rationally so they could both figure out this problem together, like the always did. He pulls it out slowly only to see Blake Carrington’s name across his screen, who was the last person he expected to be calling him now, or ever if he was being honest. They’d barely even spoken in the time he’d been with Fallon, and even then, Fallon was barely on speaking terms with her own father right now.
Which only led him to one conclusion - Blake Carrington needed something.
Or Fallon was drunk again and ended up stuck on Carrington Manor today for a change.
He slides the call icon to the right on his screen, but before he has the chance to say hello, he hears his voice on the receiving end, “Liam.”
“Blake,” he says, irritation already building in his tone. “Look, what do you want? I don’t really have time to help you with whatever trouble you’ve got yourself…”
“Would you shut up and listen to me for a minute? It’s Fallon.”
“Fallon?” That stops him in his tracks and sends his mind flying in a million different direction. Because he immediately can tell he’s on edge. Fallon’s not drunk and stuck at the manor - somethings wrong. “What about Fallon?”
“Look, Liam,” the older man starts slowly, which only puts him more on edge. “I need you to promise me you’re not going to to do anything stupid when I tell you.”
“You’re scaring me,” he says, shifting the phone from his left hand to his right. “Please just tell me what’s going on.”
“There’s a hostage situation going on at Sam’s hotel,” Blake says.
He swears he feels his heart drop out of his chest, because he just knows that’s exactly where Fallon darted off to. “What?”
“I don’t know all the details yet, but some guys in black masks with guns stormed the lobby and won’t let anyone in or out.”
He’s afraid for the answer he might get from the question he doesn’t know if he should ask, but he asks anyways, “Is she okay? She’s okay, right?”
He doesn’t like the way Blake pauses after his question, unsure, uncertainty floating in the silence between them. “I’m not sure yet. Just…just meet me at the hotel.”
He slams his laptop shut, reaching for his keys on the counter and their early morning starting to replay in his head over and over and over again. The way they exchanged words, they way things didn’t end well when she took off angrily this morning, leaving him behind to worry about what she’d do next to herself.
It all seemed so irrational now.
“You can’t die.” He slides his key into the ignition, revving the engine up before he starts to reverse the black SUV out of the driveway. “Please don’t die.”
She watches at Sam, as looks on in horror as the windows and doors to his hotel are spray painted with dark black paint, before the crew of guys move on to covering up the security cameras next, blocking out any vision to authorities who were trying to get in to see the security footage.
“Look, you can take anything you want to,” Sam speaks up on the right of her, his voice quiet and completely on edge, his tone laced with all kinds of anxieties that she’s feeling all the same.
“I intend to, starting with phones, tablets and laptops,” the lead man says as he pulls out a folded brown sack from pocket; small, but probably enough to get what he needed from everyone in this lobby, she figures.
She hates how when she walked in to La Mirage that morning, the only thing she was thinking about was forgetting her fight with Liam from their morning earlier today, and now the only thing she could think of was Liam and how she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if that was how they left things. Because if that really was their last conversation together and she didn’t make it out of this thing alive…
“So, what are we supposed to call you? We don’t even know your name.”
It’s Sam who speaks up besides her, putting on his best brave face as far as she can tell. He keeps his eyes zoned in on the man picking up cell phones around the room, each guest of Sam’s dropping their smart phones in the brown bag before sinking back in fear against themselves.
“A great question. You, young man, can call me One, this here,” he points to the two men in the black uniform besides him. “Is two and three. You seem like a smart man, surely you can figure the rest out.”
When he turns his back on her side of the room, she uses it as her chance to zip her purse open quietly and sneak her phone into her bra; out of site and out of mind from where they’d probably even think to look for a cellular device. But before she knows it, he’s in front of her and Sam, Sam dropping his iPhone and work tablet into the sack that’s held out in front of him.
But then One turns to her as he holds the bag out for her. “Well?”
“I don’t have one, it’s up in my room,” she says quietly.” “I left it up in my room.”
He doesn’t question it, thankfully, and when he slips by them and moves to the next group of people besides them, she sinks quietly to the floor and slips the phone out of her bra discreetly, dialing the number she’d become all too familiar with over the last few years.
He takes his last few struts up to the Carringtons’ who are already stood a far distance from the hotel, slightly out of breath from the distance he had to run. The surrounding streets were already blocked off, so he parked where he could before starting to run towards the hotel.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Liam,” Blake says when he notices his presence next to him. “No one knows, okay?”
“Well, can’t they figure it out faster?” Liam runs his hand through his hair, an anxious habit, frustrated and terrified all at the same time. “My fiancèe is in there!”
“They know that, Liam,” Blake spins in his direction; he can see the anger and panic in the older mans face, but he’s doing a decent job of keep it together so far, he’s not erupting in total rage at authority figures yet, which Liam counts as a success. “There’s probably a a few dozen people in there right now. It’s not just Fallon, okay?”
“Well, they should work faster."
It’s Cristal’s hand comes to settle up on his upper arm in a reassuring gesture while she says, “The authorities are doing what they can, okay?”
“Well,” he says breathing deeply, all of the worst outcomes scanning through his head on repeat. “Can’t they cut in to the CCTV he’s got in there?”
“They’ve tried, Liam,” Blake says through gritted teeth. “Whoever is in there spray-painted the cameras black. We can’t see anything.”
He paces back and forth a few moments, watching police meet in small bundles, trying to figure out what move to make next, when he sees her name on the screen of his iPhone, taking him by complete surprise. He panics slightly when he sees it, because it couldn’t be…could it? He figures he must be imagining it, there’s no way those guys were letting her make a phone call….
He slides to accept the call regardless.
“Fal?”
Her voice meets his immediately, panic and distress floating all throughout her tone. “Liam.”
“Hey, hey, hey,” he hums to her, hoping he could calm down some of the terror she’s feeling. “Talk to me, babe. What’s going on?”
“There’s a bunch of guys in black masks with guns,” her voice is so soft, he’s not even sure if he could classify it as a whisper. “I’m so scared, Liam.”
“Deep breaths, baby. Deep breaths,” his voice is so calm when he hears it echo back at him; he’s not sure how when he’s trying to talk his own self off a ledge. But for her, he remembers: be calm for her. “I’m right here, okay?”
“I’m sorry, Liam,” her words stutter out, still as soft as when she first spoke. “I…I overreacted this morning and I’m sorry. You’re right, I do have a problem and I promise I’m going to get better.”
“I’m sorry, too, babe,” he smiles with his words, because despite this all he’s just happy to hear her voice; he doesn’t even care about this morning anymore, that was long forgotten the minute he hung up his call with Blake. “I’m sorry I raise my voice. I’m sorry if I didn’t handle it correctly. I’m just so worried about you. I’ve seen my family go down that path and I don’t want that for you.”
“I know, Liam.” He doesn’t like the edge in her voice, the tension, the absolute terror he can just sense without even looking at her. “I know.”
“I love you, so much, Fallon,” he mutters quietly. “You know that right?”
“Yeah,” she replies, softer in tone than before, which he didn’t think was even possible.
“I’m right out in the front and I’m gonna get you out of there, okay?”
“Please hurry.”
“Hey!” Liam hears the grunted, muffled voice, a short distance behind her, but when it speaks up again, it’s closer and instantly put him right back on edge. “I thought you told me you didn’t have a phone!”
“I love you, Liam.”
And then there’s silence, their connection cut off, those three small beeps indicating she’d ended the call leaving him standing absolutely still on the sidewalk. He knows he’ll forever be haunted by the sound of her voice in her last four words, the way that it sounded so final, so eerily like a goodbye. He runs his hand through his hair, panic running deep inside him, a tightness clutching at his chest as her words echoed in his mind over and over and over again.
And that’s when he hears the gunshot go off, the vibration echoing in the streets and the loud bang ringing loudly in his ears.