Chapter Text
Late afternoon sun beams through the front window, golden light spilling over booths and stools, glinting merrily off the coffee pots, steaming fragrantly on the hot plates.
Louise sits alone at one of the booths, pencil in hand as she slowly works her way through her math problems, occasionally scowling to herself and scratching out an answer. The fourth-grader normally wouldn’t even be working on her homework before she absolutely had to, but her siblings got detention and left her alone in the restaurant after school. Jerks.
Linda is out, getting groceries for the week, leaving Bob and his youngest daughter to tend to their individual tasks, both working in dutiful silence. It goes unnoticed, but both of them wear the same expression of intense focus, their tounges poking out from between their teeth.
Bob scrapes the grill, his chest tight, a thin sheen of sweat left over from a hard day's work coating his skin. It's almost time to close up and start settling in for the night, but there's still a half hour before Gene and Tina need to be picked up from detention, so there's no need to close up before then.
He likes to work. He really, truly does. Nothing makes him happier…but today he is just looking forward to crawling into bed and pulling the blankets over his head. He feels as though what little energy he had was forcibly drained from him, leaving him shaky and sick-feeling. He must be coming down with the flu or something. He can't think of anything else that would bring him to this level of exhaustion. Unless it's just from getting old. Hopefully it's just him getting old. He can work with old.
The flattop is clean. He puts the spatula down and rolls his neck. There still aren't any customers so he can stand to rest for a moment. Louise is quiet, aside from her occasional frustrated grumbling, meaning she's still doing homework and not plotting anything. Bob would only be worried if she was completely silent. Or God forbid muttering .
He braces his hands on the edge of the counter, letting out a soft, weary sigh as he sags downward. His chest hurts. His neck, his shoulders, his jaw, even his elbows hurt. He's usually sore at the end of a workday but not like this . Is he really that old already?
Bob feels so aware of his breathing. Is that normal? Was breathing always so… manual? And so shallow?
Ok. Black spots in his vision is not the best sign. Blacking out from- from exhaustion- dammit. Bob knows that something is really wrong. He's blacked out from exhaustion before, it isn't like this. He might be really sick. Like can't work sick. Like might die sick.
"Dad?" Comes a voice from the kitchen door. Crap.
Louise walks into the kitchen, frowning down at her homework sheet. "I don't really have high hopes in asking this, but do you know how to do long division- woah. What's wrong with you?"
'Nothing.' Bob tries to say. His chest spasms when he tries to speak, and no sound comes out other than a strangled wheeze.
"Dad?" Louise asks hesitantly, concern slowly creeping over her face. "What's… Why are you- crap!"
Bob’s legs give out underneath him and he is left kneeling on the floor, still holding onto the edge of the counter with one hand. His free hand is twisted in his shirt, on his chest, where the pain has seemed to suddenly localize and is lancing through his chest like an electrified knife.
Suddenly, Bob knows what's happening.
Heart attack.
Son of a bitch.
Another spasm of pain rips through him, drawing out another raspy sound of pain.
"Daddy!" Louise screams, startling him back to reality. Crap. Crap. Crap. He doesn't want his nine-year-old kid to see him having a heart attack. Isn't that the kind of thing that people have to go to therapy for?
'I’m okay.' He wants to tell her. He barely gets his mouth open before he's bowled over by another stab of pain. He manages sound at that. A low, desperate keen of pain, which only sends more wide-eyed panic onto Louise's face.
Bob watches as his daughter's face snaps from an expression of panicked terror to sudden determination. She darts out of the room, and before Bob even has time to wonder where she went, he hears her speaking rapidly into the phone.
"My dad is having a heart attack, I- I think. We’re at Bob’s Burgers, the- yes. By the wharf. Okay." There is a pause. Bob shuts his eyes and slumps against the counter. He lays still, focusing on his breathing, until a warm body presses against him. Bob cracks an eye open to see Louise prying his arm from the counter and laying him on his side.
"The lady on the phone said to- to put you in the recovery position." Louise says, her mouth set and her eyes bloodshot. The pressure on his chest feels lessened slightly by the new position, and the relief has his eyes sliding shut.
"No!" Louise barks, accompanied by a sharp slap. The pain doesn't reach him, overtaken by the pain in his chest, but the shout and sudden movement startled him back to full consciousness. "There's an ambulance coming, you have to stay awake til then."
Bob manages a weak nod, which seems to placate Louise well enough. She sits against his stomach while they wait. Bob knows it's so she can feel him breathing, but he wouldn't call her on it even under normal circumstances.
The ambulance pulls up outside of the restaurant in only a few minutes, its sirens approaching with a steadily growing wail, cutting off suddenly as the vehicle stops. Louise perks up immediately. She shoots to her feet, sending Bob one last wary glance before running outside to direct the paramedics to where her father lies on the kitchen floor.
It's only a few seconds before a group of white-uniformed paramedics are bursting into the kitchen, each of them toting a white bag. One crouches beside him and starts to set up a gurney.
"Louise…" He croaks out, his throat like sandpaper.
"Your daughters outside." Says one of the other paramedics, taking up his other side and checking his vitals. "We've got her some blankets and hot cocoa for the shock. She was smart to call right away. She might have saved your life."
"That...sounds like Louise." Bob mutters. He's lifted onto the gurney, agitating his aching body. He can't help the pained groan that is drawn from him as he's moved.
"Sorry," Says the dark-haired paramedic by his side. "You're gonna be sore for a while, I'm afraid."
"Mm." Bob hums back.
Thankfully, the team of paramedics seems to pick up on the fact that Bob is in no mood to make small talk after having a heart attack, and strap him into the gurney in relative silence.
When he's wheeled out of the restaurant, he can see the blurry shape of a small crowd that had gathered around the ambulance. His eyes dart to the other side where he sees a flash of pink. He startles, having forgotten to check on Louise. He struggles as he's lifted into the ambulance, trying to sit up and call out for his daughter. They can't leave her alone at the restaurant.
"Don't leave her…" Bob wheezes, his chest aching at the effort of talking.
"What? Leave who?"
"His daughter- hey! Little girl!" Calls out one of the paramedics. "You want to ride with your dad?"
"Yeah." Comes Louise's voice as she climbs into the back of the ambulance. She doesn't sound nearly as excited at the prospect of riding in an ambulance as Bob has expected her to be. He thought for sure she would have wanted to poke around at all the intimidating medical equipment.
Maybe witnessing a heart attack took the wind out of her sails a bit. Bob can't blame her.
She sits beside him, her face set. Bob's vision is admittedly a little blurry, but she doesn't look happy. She's holding a styrofoam cup, still filled to the top with watery hot chocolate.
"Is he okay?" Louise asks, her voice far, far softer than Bob is used to.
"He'll be fine, kiddo. I've seen heart attacks much worse than this." Says one of the paramedics, a woman with wide, constantly-surprised-looking eyes.
"... What's the goriest thing you've ever seen?" Louise asks mischeviously.
There's his girl.
"Oh! Wow. That's a weird question for a little kid to- ah, whatever. Have you ever seen two tractors play chicken?"
"No."
"Neither have I, but I've seen the aftermath."
The paramedic, who is apparently named Becca, managed to distract Louise for most of the ambulance ride, diverting the fourth grader’s attention with tales of drama and intrigue that goes on in the paramedic business.
Bob is pretty confident that a large chunk of it is made up, but Louise is smiling again, so he isn't going to call Becca out on it.
The diversion ends when another paramedic interrupts, an older man.
"Excuse me sir, is there anyone else you'd like us to call to meet you at the hospital?"
Bob groans at the realization that he has to call Linda and get her to pick up Gene and Tina from detention. Oh. Also that he had a heart attack and probably traumatized their daughter. That’s not going to be a fun conversation.
He goes to reach for the phone the paramedic is handing to him, but can't really… manage to lift his arm. Crap. Louise is watching him, her eyes steely once again.
“I can do it.” She says firmly, getting to her feet and reaching for the phone. The paramedic gives her the cell phone and Louise punches Linda’s number and holds the phone to her ear. She picks up after only one ring. Linda loves it when new numbers call.
“Mom, it’s Louise.” A pause. “Dad- uh, dad’s- dad had a heart attack.”
Bob can hear Linda shrieking over the phone, and Louise flinches and holds the phone away from her ear.
“He’s okay!” Louise yells into the phone. “He’s- well. I don't know if he’s
okay
okay. He-” She laughs a little manically. “He looks like shit!”
‘Language Miss Missy.’
He can hear Linda scold through the phone. His mouth quirks up into a small smile.
“Okay, fine. You need to get Gene and Tina and come to… whatever hospital we’re going to. Okay? Okay. Bye, I- I love you.”
Louise hands off the phone to the paramedic who had given it to her and returns to her seat at Bob’s side. The paramedic lists off whatever information that a nine-year-old couldn't give to Linda on the other side of the ambulance, and the sirens shriek around them, fading in and out of Bob’s awareness.
He had a heart attack at forty-six. It seems too young, but now that he’s thinking about it he’s pretty sure you’re supposed to start getting your heart checked at forty-five. He hasn't been to a doctor in years.
His eyes fall on Louise. She’s watching his face, tugging on one of her ears, a nervous habit that Bob thought she had grown out of. She meets his eye when she sees that his eyes are focused.
“You’re not allowed to die.” She tells him sternly, jabbing a finger into his arm.
“I won't.” Bob murmurs. Speaking feels as though it takes as much energy as he has left, but it’s worth it. If it’s for Louise- for any of them, then it’s worth it.
“You’d better not.” Louise growls, though she seems pacified enough to lean forward and lay her head on his chest. She is quiet and still, but Bob doesn't believe that she is asleep.
He feels himself start to drift off, even with the violent speed of the ambulance, with the sirens shrieking overhead, and even with the pain, both physical and emotional wracking him.
His breathing evens out, and though he’s hardly aware of it, he brings an arm up to pull Louise a little closer in a one-armed hug. If her breath hitches on unshed tears at the motion, well. There’s no one that’s gonna hear it but Becca.