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It happens the night she tells him she loves him for the first time.
They’ve just gotten home from work, and he’s pressing her up against the wall inside his door, lips on her neck and hands on her waist. She sighs, a soft, fluttering little sound, and opens her eyes, looking down at him.
“I think I’m in love with you,” Laurel breathes. His head snaps up to look at her, and she swallows heavily. “And I’m… I’m terrified.”
Immediately, Frank freezes. He’d known this was coming, of course. They’ve been dating for months now, and growing closer day by day.
He’d known this was coming, the inevitable I’m in love with you. And he’d been dreading it, because he knows what it means. What he has to do.
She doesn’t know, not about Lila, not about any of the others. She doesn’t know him, the man she thinks she loves, and as much as he wants to take the easy road, say a simple I love you back – because he does, God he does – he can’t. She’s the only person in his life who truly matters to him, and he can’t let her go on believing he’s worthy of her love.
He has to tell her, and she won’t love him once he has. No one could. He’s a monster. A killer. A hitman. The words are ingrained in his skin, part of his identity just as much as his name is. He’d long ago accepted that, but Laurel… Idealistic, bright-eyed Laurel…
She won’t. She can’t.
It’s the only way, he reminds himself as he moves away, clenches his jaw, and looks at her. Her eyes are wide, unsure. Clearly she’s starting to sense that she made some kind of mistake saying that to him, and he doesn’t have the heart to tell her that she hasn’t, because she has. She has no damn clue what she’s done.
I love you. I love you, Laurel. Say it. Fucking say it. Say it-
“Sit down,” is what comes out instead. “I need to tell you something.”
He shrugs off his coat, turning his back to her briefly. Laurel frowns.
“What do you need to tell me?”
“The truth,” Frank says, meeting her eyes. “And if you wanna leave, run straight to the cops, I’m not gonna stop you. But you won’t love me after this.”
She hesitates, probably deciding whether or not she should run. Then, finally, she walks over to his couch and takes a seat, watching him cautiously.
“What is it?” she asks again. “W-what could you possibly tell me that would make me-”
“I’m not the guy you think you love. Just trust me on that.”
And then Frank sinks down onto his knees before her as if kneeling in a confessional, clasps her hands in his, and tells her everything.
He tells her about Lila. About the ones before he’d met Annalise. The ones after. He doesn’t leave anything out. He tells her every gruesome detail, every dead body to his name, in the hopes that she’ll do what she should do and run screaming.
But she doesn’t. She doesn’t even speak. By the time he’s done, and the truth has been lifted like a thousand-pound weight off his chest, she’s trembling. Her eyes are glassy with tears that aren’t falling, appraising Frank with a mixture of such shock and horror and confusion that it kills him.
“You…” she finally chokes out. “You killed Lila. A-a-all those others. You’re a… monster.”
Frank doesn’t flinch. It’s the truth, after all, though the words feel like a kick in the gut coming from her.
He lowers his eyes, feeling strangely enough like crying himself, and releases her hands.
“So,” he jokes dryly. “Still love me now?”
A sob escapes her. He’s never seen Laurel look so shaken, so terrified. Good. She should be. He’s a monster, this monster of a man she’d thought she loved, and now all the layers have been peeled back and the blood and bones and maggots have been revealed underneath. She should be screaming. Running, at the very least. Why isn’t she?
A moment passes in silence. Then:
“Are you going to kill me?” she asks, a disturbing air of composure about her, like someone approaching the executioner’s block. “Now that I know?”
He’d told himself that, no matter what she said, what she did, he’d stay calm. Remain stoic. But that… Are you going to kill me now? The look on her face. The terror. It hurts him worse than any kind of physical pain ever could.
“No,” he growls, and takes her small hands again, squeezing them tightly. “I would never lay a hand on you, Laurel. I swear to God, I’d never hurt you. I would die for you. I love you. I love you so fucking much, I…”
The words come out in a rush, and it’s only after he drifts off that Frank feels the lump in his throat, and the tears in his eyes. He hasn’t cried in years. He can’t remember the last time he did.
“You’re a murderer,” she breathes. “A-and you killed… all those people. Lila. Her baby – God, Frank, her baby. Did you know she was-”
“Yeah,” he cuts her off. “Sam told me. I knew.”
Laurel sucks in a shaky breath, but doesn’t budge. He can feel her clammy fingers shaking in his, quaking violently in silent horror. Still, she won’t budge.
Go to the police, he should tell her. Turn me in, and let me rot on death row for the rest of my life. Get the hell out. Do it. Go.
But instead-
“Don’t leave me,” he begs, pressing a kiss to her hand, voice thick with the threat of tears. “Please, Laurel.”
He hadn’t meant to do this, break down and grovel at her feet like a dog. He’d meant to do everything in his power to scare her away, but the thought of her leaving… Fuck, it kills him. All he can do is beg her to stay, beg her to understand what she can never understand.
And she’d help chop up and burn Sam’s body, and sure, that’d fucked her up a whole hell of a lot, but she’s nothing like him. She doesn’t have corruption embedded in the marrow of her bones and blood on her hands that she can never wash off. No – that’s him.
Laurel shakes her head and sniffles. “How… how can you ask me to stay after this, Frank?”
How can you ask me to stay? Another blow square in his chest. She’s going to leave him. She’s going to leave, and he’d known that all along, and he should’ve been ready for it. He isn’t.
“I can’t,” he rasps. “But I am. Please.”
Another moment of silence passes, the heaviest in the world. By now he’s sure she’s about to leave – but then all of a sudden Laurel reaches out, draws his head into her chest, and cradles it there without a word. The moment she does, all the breath leaves his body.
She’s still crying; quiet, rough sobs that make her shoulders quiver. Now so is he, because she isn’t leaving. He’s told her everything, bared every inch of his rotten, tar-black soul to her, and she hasn’t left. She hasn’t left.
Frank doesn’t know how long they stay like that: him at her feet, head nestled in her chest; her sitting on the couch, clutching him to her. Time passes by in a blur, and all he can think is that she’s stayed, and she knows everything, and she’s stayed.
He doesn’t know why. Probably he never will, but right then he’s so grateful that he can do nothing but thank a God that he’d long ago forsaken, because if there are angels on earth, he’s sure that one has been sent to sit before him now.
They break apart just as the first few rays of sunlight start to filter through his blinds. Frank looks up at her, and her eyes are puffy and pink, and her makeup has run all over her cheeks. He can still feel the tears drying on his own, leaving faint tracks behind in the early morning sun.
Silently, she reaches out and places a hand on his cheek. There’s a look of calm on her face, of acceptance; no revulsion or disgust. It makes him want to weep like a child all over again.
“I still do,” she says, her voice nothing more than a whisper. “Love you.”
Frank doesn’t answer. He doesn’t think he can. Instead he just bows his head and presses desperate kisses to her hands, thanking her silently over and over again with each one, worshipping her.
He isn’t worthy of her. He’s more aware of that now than ever. He’s beyond salvation, and he knows that perfectly well.
Laurel can’t save him. No one can, but to hell with it all, he decides as she leans in and presses a gentle kiss to his forehead, her lips anointing him like holy oil.
He doesn’t need salvation. He just needs her.