Chapter Text
This wasn't supposed to happen.
The uncomfortable plastic chair creaks under Frank's weight, its sound disrupting the steady beat of the heart monitor machine filling the room. The stench of disinfectant, common in hospitals, burns his nose as he inhales, only half-listening to the people passing by outside the room, blissfully unaware of his presence; their steps are nothing more than background noise that he no longer pays attention to. He doesn't pay attention to anything.
Except for the girl lying in bed in front of him.
If he ignores certain details, he could say that Amy is simply sleeping. Her long, blond hair falls in gentle waves across the white pillow. Her chest rises and falls in rhythm with her slow, even breaths. Doll-like eyelashes rest against her cheeks, light as feathers. The sharp edges of anxiety and hyper-vigilance fade from her face when she sleeps; it makes her look much younger, the innocence that has been stolen from her returns, even if only for a few fleeting hours.
He got used to seeing her like this — burrowed deep under the covers and snoring away into her pillow in the early hours of the morning when he's already up. He started doing it after they moved into Curtis's trailer: taking some time every day, just a few short minutes when the world is standing still, to watch the kid sleep, her every exhale soothing his fried nerves and rigid, nightmare-ridden mind. It's like some sort of ritual; the very first thing he does after dragging himself off of that detestable, godforsaken couch — he passes through the bead curtain, leans against the doorframe, and breathes her in, taking careful note of each breath as he watches the sun kiss her cheeks and dye her hair a golden hue.
And oh, how easy it would be to pretend it's simply one of those mornings. In an hour or so, the kid will wake up, the smell of coffee pulling her from the bed and into the kitchen, where the steaming mug is already waiting for her on the table. She'll drop into her chair with a big-ass yawn, her hair a damn bird's nest that will take an hour to tame, and give him that stupid grin that makes him feel like he could do the impossible. She'll crack jokes and he'll make breakfast, and for a few blissful moments they'll try to make each other forget how fucked up their lives actually are.
But certain details can't be ignored. Like the unnerving, yet somehow comforting beep, beep, beep of the machinery surrounding the bed. The thin, semi-transparent tube hooked up to Amy's nose, providing oxygen. Her skin, paper-thin and ghostly gray, cheeks sunken and eyes closed, rimmed with dark shadows. Or her hand, warm yet deadweight, held gently against his lips as he waits for as much as a twitch of her fingers.
“...unfortunately, Billy's in the wind. Likely went underground,” Madani’s voice comes to him dull and distant, as if from underwater. “I've talked to Mahoney. Took some heavy convincing, but we'll have as many people as we can searching for him. We can try to close the city if we have to—”
“I'll find him,” Frank vows without even looking up at the woman, his voice gruff and deadly. “I'll find him, Madani. And then I'll kill him.”
Like he should have done in the beginning. He had the shot so many times and he let him get away. He let Billy live, time and time again, and now the kid is—
Madani's heels click against the floor as she approaches. Out of the corner of his eye, Frank sees her shadow falling over him as she reaches out and hesitantly lays a hand on his shoulder.
“And I promise you, you'll get your chance.” Her voice softens. “But right now, your place is here, Frank. With her.”
As if he needs a reminder. True, there's a part of him that wants to get the hell outta here, grab his guns, and roam the city top to bottom until he finds that son of a bitch. His entire body is calling for Billy's blood, hands yearn to close around his throat and choke the life out of him — slowly, painfully, dragging every single minute across infinity. But he can't leave this room. He can't even move from this chair; he's rooted to it like a tree in the soil it sprouted from, his gaze fixed on the sleeping girl’s face — waiting, hoping, praying, begging for her eyes to open.
It's either that or staring at the blood-stained bandages wrapped around her stomach, hiding two bullet holes and several damaged organs.
Tears well up in Frank's eyes without warning. He still has her blood on his hands…
Stay with me, kid! Come on, goddamnit! Amy, stay with me!
Blood hasn't made him gag in years.
No, no, no, no, no, come on, baby girl. Come on. You gotta stay with me. Help is on the way. Just stay with me, baby…
Dinah squeezes his shoulder once, then withdraws her hand and straightens up. “I’ve made sure no one will bother you. Officially, nobody knows you're here. You can stay as long as you want, not even Mahoney can make you leave. I also placed two guards at the door, you know, just in case.”
Just in case Billy, or some other asshole on the Schultzes’ payroll, comes in to finish the job.
Frank can't help but smirk. “So it turns out you can wave your stupid badge around here after all.”
“You would have snuck in here anyway, wouldn't you?”
“Damn right I would.”
And he would have killed anyone who'd stand in his way. He nearly did when they were taking Amy to surgery; he was a hurricane, an unstoppable force, pushing past people and clearing his way in a lunatic frenzy, trying to follow her. He's pretty sure he sent a doctor or two flying, but everything was a blur, nothing but blood pumping in his ears and the kid’s name ripping his vocal cords to shreds, and it was only after Curtis forced him to sit down and take five that the excruciating weight of panic in his chest loosened its deadly grip on him.
It's been a good few hours since then; the sky is now pitch black outside the windows, the night in full bloom. The surgery had been successful, but Amy wasn’t out of the woods just yet; getting through the night was crucial. “The only thing left to do is wait,” the doctors had told him. “It will take a while,” they told him. “It’s best to get some sleep yourself.”
Frank hadn’t gotten a second of sleep, and judging by Madani’s face, neither had she.
“I figured I'd just get this out of the way and make it easier for you.”
Her tone doesn't sound like it, but when Frank finally looks up at her, he sees compassion. Understanding, even. She must have noticed something in his eyes too, because her stern expression softens completely, and her brown eyes flicker to Amy's sleeping form for a moment.
“She's going to be okay,” she tells him. Like she's sure of it. Like she knows it.
“She has to be.”
Because he doesn't know what he will do if she isn't. Which will he destroy first, the world or himself? It's a terrifying thought, one he's been avoiding for as long as he possibly could but ultimately came face to face with it back at that hotel when the preacher guy pressed the barrel of his gun against the back of Amy’s head. He'd do anything for this kid. Let the world burn, bleed himself dry, you name it. Told her as much too; managed to get the words out over the vice wrapped around his throat, looking her right in the eyes — and he's glad he did, otherwise it would have been another thing on his never-ending list of regrets.
There's so much more he wants to tell her… Will he ever get a chance?
He clears his throat. “Look, Madani. I appreciate everything you did here, okay? I do. Without your quick response, the kid probably wouldn't be alive right now.”
To his surprise, Dinah smiles. “You made sure she survived, Frank. You didn't lose your shit when it mattered the most.”
Oh, I was losing it alright, he wants to say but promptly keeps his mouth shut, partly because of that shadow of guilt that passes Madani’s face, like a ghost with a particular name to it.
He thinks back to it, the moment it all fell apart. The sound of a weapon firing once, then twice. Soft gasp escaping Amy's lips, resonating like a scream in his ears. And her eyes — so wide, so scared — begging him to save her while she choked on her own blood, trying and failing to say his name.
He held her so fucking tight. Put pressure on the wound and watched the hot crimson liquid pour over his fingers despite his best efforts. His hands were shaking so bad.
Shh, shh, you're gonna be okay, kiddo. You're gonna be okay.
He hasn't felt this kind of fear since…
With nothing more to say, he rests his chin against Amy's hand again and absentmindedly presses a kiss to her knuckles, a faraway look on his face as the memory takes over. Madani takes this as her cue to leave; she taps his shoulder once more and walks away.
“Let me know if her condition changes,” she says with her hand already on the handle. “And in the meantime, get some rest, Frank. You're gonna need it.”
“Yeah.”
The door closes and the room returns to the state of heavy, suffocating silence. Only the beep beep beep remains. On one hand, Frank is grateful for the sound — it means Amy is alive, her heart is beating, she's still with him — and on the other, he's sick of it; he'd rather rip his eardrums out than have to listen to one more second of it. It's the one sound he never wanted to associate with the kid, her body surrounded by the stark white of hospital sheets the one sight he never wanted to see and yet here they are, because, like always, the second he allowed himself to open his heart for someone, his demons came crashing down and snatched it all away, leaving him with the bloody aftermath.
He should have known. Should have planned for it. He never should have assumed that the two separate problems he was working on wouldn't cross paths, wouldn't intertwine, wouldn't merge. He's never this damn lucky.
Ah-ah. Not so fast.
Let her go, Bill.
Now why would I do that?
A stray strand of blond hair got stuck to Amy's clammy forehead so, without thinking much, Frank reaches out to tuck it away. He runs his split knuckles over her cheek, the touch of his shaking hand featherlight and tender, afraid of causing more damage to what's already so shattered. He knows the kid would have knocked all this self-loathing crap out of his head if she knew, but he can't help it; there's no one else to blame for this but him.
There's nothing he can do, though. He can just sit and wait, watch the line on the heart monitor jump steadily, and pray he'll never see it flatline. It's all in the girl's hands now.
It's almost funny how small her hand feels in his. How delicate, despite the level of strength inside this feisty little human, strength she doesn't even know she possesses. He saw it right away; it caught his eye the second she opened her mouth, back at that bar. Since the beginning, this kid had a fire burning bright inside of her, a will to survive stronger than he had ever seen, even in himself.
Especially in himself.
That is why he now grips this tiny hand tight. Cradles it between his palms — rough, scarred, bloody — and brings it to his chest, pressing it against his own heart. So she can feel how it’s racing. How scared it is, how wild. How desperately it's trying to pump a mere fraction of what she has through his veins.
“Back at Madani's apartment, I told you to fight,” Frank starts to say, his shredded voice catching in his throat. “And I meant it. I knew you wanted to, you just didn't know how, you needed direction. But then I did the opposite, you know, I kept you out of it. For as long as I could, I kept you out of it because I wanted to protect you. I fought these fights for you because that's my job, right? To keep you safe, to keep you away from all of this. And yet, here we are.” He drops his head in shame even though Amy can't see him, the weight of his guilt pressing heavily down on his shoulders. “I thought I could keep this shit separate. It never even crossed my mind that Billy would go after you. But he did, and now we're here, and I am so fucking sorry.”
Tears burn his eyes and this time he doesn't fight them. When one rolls down his scruffy cheek, he turns his head, looks away, and out the window at the city that's so dear to him yet so quick to hate him. And usually he's fine with that. But now he can't help but think, would they still hate him if they could see him now? If they knew what happened, how it happened? Would they still fear him? Pity him? Would they see a monster, the sole reason for this disaster, or would they see a soul behind the skull? A man who tried his best and still failed, a protector who couldn't protect the one person he wanted — needed — to protect the most. A misplaced guardian, a grieving, worrying…
Father?
No. He can't be. But that's what he was starting to be, wasn't it? Because somehow, along the way, Amy unburied parts of him he thought were long gone. Parts of him that died that day in Central Park, parts he had laid to rest along with Lisa and Frank Junior. And he tried to ignore it; he tried. Pushed it away, fought it tooth and nail, but ultimately lost. Lost with this kid who has more spunk in her than hair on her head and a personality of a ray of goddamn sunshine.
What are you looking at, Rough Road?
Thanks. My hero.
Loss of curiosity is a loss of humanity, Frank.
He was powerless against her.
“I can't do anything about it now,” he continues after clearing his throat. He needs to get it out, even if talking brings him dangerously close to breaking down. “But you can. It's all up to you now, kid. Now, more than ever, I need you to fight.”
He brings her hand to his lips and kisses it again — sweetly, lovingly, the way he used to do for Lisa. “You gotta fight, Amy,” he whispers. “You gotta come back to me.”
Amy doesn't respond, not that he expects it. With each measured breath, her chest moves, up and down, and the line on the monitor mirrors it. The room stays the same, white and dull, and reeking of disinfectant. Nothing around them changes, and yet inside Frank's chest, another crack appears, another piece of his fractured heart breaks away and falls into the abyss.
In perfect tandem with the constant beep, beep, beep of hers.