Chapter Text
Francis Scott Fitzgerald was correct.
He had to be. He always was, and always had been.
That is what he wanted to say. So dearly, he wished those words were true. He was delirious from wealth, the money going straight to his head and causing a few too many miscalculations. He was the head of the Guild. He had a wife and child. He was, by most standards, doing wonderfully.
Years were spent traveling from America to France, to Italy, to wherever he could, to please his wife and indulge in the exotic foreign life. His Zelda asked for more and more, and he gave as much as he could.
Truth be told, without the Guild, that illusion of paradise would be shattered. The ice was thin, but he didn't care. He was at the pinnacle of his life, and he knew it; therefore, so as to avoid dipping, he had to climb.
The next step was Japan.
Extending his influence to Japan would be not only a solid investment politically and financially, but also because it was rumored to be the location of the Book.
That elusive, mythical volume would solve everything. Everything.
His darling daughter was dead. When Frances, affectionately nicknamed “Scottie”, was born, tensions had already been deeply ingrained in his relationship with his wife.
Things got worse. And worse. And even worse. Zelda’s initial quirks began to spiral into madness as the years went by, and when Scottie was the mere age of nine, the latter’s life was stolen.
Stolen by the hands of her own mother.
They were driving, Francis at the wheel. They had been fighting, he believed. It was difficult to recall now, because all petty quarreling was smeared in the crimson of his only child.
In a fit of rage, Zelda had seized the wheel from him. He couldn't be certain if her intent was to irritate him… or to end them all. All he knew was the veering of the wheels, the fall off the cliff, and the screams.
Pushing past his own injuries, Francis cradled the broken form of little Scottie in his arms, weakly soothing her pained cries. Behind him, Zelda was shrieking as if the devil had visited her personally.
The funeral was quiet. Zelda didn't attend. She was thoroughly occupied shopping as if nothing had happened.
And to her, nothing had happened at all. The diagnosis wouldn't come until considerably later, however, it quicklybecame apparent that Zelda wasn't merely “insane”, as several murmured about her. The doctors told him it was schizophrenia. The bills rose higher, almost synonymous with her extravagant purchases.
“Scottie is at boarding school, isn't she?”
“Yes… yes, she is.”
How many years could he parrot this charade back to the fragile face of his spouse? He was not inclined to test it.
He needed the Book. It could bring back his daughter. It could cure his wife’s mental troubles. It could fix everything.
He could be correct, for once.
Strategist of the Guild, Louisa May Alcott, had always been at his side. To begin with, she was a tool. Her ability was excellent and precisely what he needed to succeed.
All too quickly, the way she brought tea to his office brought a smile to his face. If Scottie was alive, she would have been only a little bit older than Louisa—this thought idly mingled in his mind more than once. He couldn't shake it away.
Soon, he bought her the finest stationery. Then, the nicest ink money could buy.
Perhaps Scottie would like these sorts of things.
Louisa always thanked him, face positively glowing as if he had handed her a star from the night sky rather than a gift, a gift that was a fraction of what it took to sate Zelda. Francis tried to excuse it to himself. Naturally, he was just providing his tactician with the materials required for her maximum efficiency.
Before he knew it, the line between Scottie and Louisa was entirely and irrevocably blurred.
That mafioso with the scowl and cough, and the boy who was half tiger—he knew they were bad news. As the confrontation aboard the Moby Dick escalated, he knew he was going to die.
Finally.
He wanted it to be over. The responsibility, the drained bank accounts, his ill wife, the future he couldn't face without a glass of Gin Rickey. Death wasn't a fear as he plunged into whatever name they called the body of water that surrounded Yokohama.
Oh, he could never master that blasted language. English, undoubtedly. French… well, he hadn’t exactly been praised for his pronunciation. Never mind Japanese. Louisa was far more adaptable.
Louisa... Where was she now? Watching him fall? Perhaps he shouldn't have spent everything so recklessly—
His body slapped against the surface of the sea. The world went black.
Francis should've died on impact.
He didn't.
He lived.
In a cruel twist of irony, the wedding band on his ring finger was what saved him. He didn't find himself missing the loss of it.
He opened his eyes with a mouth of sand and his clothes in tatters. As to where he was or where he should go… he didn't want to think about it. He spent a futile day before giving up on trying to find a loophole to the hell of poverty he’d sunk to of his own blunders.
"I'm F. Scott Fitzgerald. You've heard of the Guild. You've heard of the Guild, haven't you? Remember?" His words were increasingly uncertain as each individual he approached shook their heads and left him for the streets.
Poor people were one of the things he despised. Now, he was among them.
Days ticked by. He absentmindedly mused to himself, entertaining the likelihood that Zelda would believe him to be taking a vacation in East Asia indefinitely. He wouldn't put it past her delusions. As for his employees, they could be dead, for all he knew. Killed by the Port Mafia, or locked away by the Armed Detective Agency and the police.
They wouldn't come for him. They had the remainder of their previously generous salaries to rely on if still evading the authorities. What reason would they have for seeking a dead man?
Francis learned of hunger, of dehydration, of withdrawal, of uncleanliness, of pain, of the scum of the bottom he was beginning to be convinced he belonged with.
Without a grasp on the unfamiliar tongue, without a single coin to his name, without even a name… Frances resorted to sitting in the day’s heat, begging for money. Pride was a privilege he could no longer afford.
“Just fifty cents, if you will… Just fifty cents will do…” Figures shuffled around him without so much as a glance most times.
This was not most times.
“Lord Francis?”
Scottie was… no.
That voice, clear and true as it had ever been, was not that of his daughter, but of his subordinate. Ah, not anymore. Louisa was a name of the past, just as Scottie was.
“If I give some money to you… will you listen to my request?”
The question barely registered to him. It didn't seem to be real. He couldn't find the words to respond, all replies turning towash before they reached his lips. When he finally raised his gaze to meet her eyes, Francis felt himself falter.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald used to be correct. But that wasn't the man sitting in an alley with nothing but growing stubble and rough hands.
Her next words contradicted everything.
“Please, Lord Francis… please give me orders again.”
For the young woman watching him with an anxiously hopeful expression, for the girl who died before he could raise her entirely, he desperately wanted to be correct like he once was.