He's a jerk, he's a cheater and he's a liar.
The first one, she knew about from the beginning, but the other two are news to her.
Of course, he is all of those things and yet she has no moral high ground over him whatsoever, because, as much as she'd like to say otherwise, she's a cheater and a liar, too. And hell, you might as well add jerk to that list because she's pretty sure one cannot be a cheater without also being a bit of a jerk.
She hates this. All of this. The Frank Thing and The Kan Thing, which only became an issue after The Frank Thing. This mess started with him, she thinks as she's trying to wrap her brain around all of it.
When she leaves his apartment, already late for the stupid study group meeting (everything is stupid right now), she starts crying. It's only a few blocks to Wes' place, and it's really cold, but Frank drove them here so her car is still at the Keating house and she thinks a little walk will be good to clear her head, and it wouldn't hurt to stop crying before she gets there. She can't deal with Connor's stupid digs on top of everything else tonight.
She manages to stop crying just before she rounds the corner to Wes' building. The others ask about her red eyes and she blames it on the cold. She wants to laugh at her own bad lie right there, because really, how will she ever be a good lawyer if she lies like that? There's a reason lawyer and liar sound so similar.
It's been a shitty enough day for her, and she hopes she can just sit here now, study with Wes and Connor while giving as little input as possible, and then go home and cry herself to sleep.
Unfortunately, things don't go her way.
At the end of the night she's a jerk, a cheater, a liar and a murderer. Or an accomplice to murder, the exact terminology doesn't matter to her because nothing will make Sam not dead, nothing will reassemble his limbs out of those trash bags and un-burn him and stop the trophy from cracking his skull open now.
She's still not quite sure how all of this happened.
What makes it worse for her is that all she can think about is how she'll have to face Frank, to get his help with getting rid of the trophy. Frank, who has been calling her non stop for hours. Frank, who has a girlfriend – a girlfriend who walked in on her and Frank earlier today; or did they walk in on her? She can't think straight.
Most of all she feels guilty that she's so nervous about seeing Frank after she just chopped a man to bits and put his remains into trash bags.
Connor is having a manic episode, it seems, and she's not sure why he's driving, except that it's his car so when he swerves to the side of the road in front of Frank's building and hits the brakes, hard, she's happy to be getting out of the car alive. She didn't tell him who lives here or what she'd do with the trophy, but then Connor shoots her a crazy (and all kinds of scary) grin and murmurs "Don't tell lover boy", which sends him into a hysterical fit of laughter. She's glad they're the only two people left in the car, but less glad to let him drive off by himself in his current state of insanity.
But ah well, life is tough, especially if you want to cover up a murder, so she gets out of the car with a shake of her head and approaches Frank's building.
Taking a deep breath, she rings the door bell, and when he finally answers – she assumes he was asleep, like most normal people are at this time of day – all she says is "It's me," before he buzzes her up.
Nothing between the two of them will be resolved tonight, she's sure of that, so she gets to the point right away when she enters his apartment.
"You said you would do anything for me? Did you mean it?" She makes eye contact. He seems confused, because she just woke him up to have this conversation and she's covered in dirt from the bonfire and the other fire they lit, so it takes him a second longer to respond. He loses a bit of his cool when he's half asleep and confused.
"Yeah," he replies, making eye contact. He clearly thinks this is about their romantic involvement, and why wouldn't he, how could he possibly know why she's actually here?
"I need to know for sure."
He seems to catch on.
"Yes, Laurel. Why? What's going on?"
She tells him she needs his help getting the trophy back to Asher, or Annalise, or somewhere where no one will know she took it. Considering all she's been through tonight, she thinks her lies about exams and being stressed are pretty decent.
Frank seems doubtful.
"That's the really bad thing you wanted to tell me?"
"It's stupid, I know," she mumbles, and then there's tears sliding down her cheeks.
The tears are real, and come in handy now to make Frank stop doubting her story.
"I'll take care of it."
He offers her coffee, and she appreciates that he can sense she doesn't want to be alone right now, so she accepts. He's being very careful with her and she's glad he's not pressing her on what's actually going on.
They're not even touching as they sit on his sofa. It feels strange, but he seems resolved to not get too close to her. Maybe it's noble of him, to stay away from her when she's clearly upset, or maybe she just smells like fire and he doesn't want to have to smell it up close. Whatever the reason, she's thankful that he's giving her space, that he doesn't assume her walking into his apartment in the middle of the night means she's forgiven him for not telling her he has a girlfriend.
They sit in silence, not exactly uncomfortable silence, but she'd rather be talking because she can't handle the places her mind goes when it isn't preoccupied with forming sentences.
"So..." She starts, but he beats her to it.
"So what's with the dirt on your face? War paint? Joined a cult I don't know about?" He cracks a small smile.
She'd love to return that smile, but she thinks her mouth is permanently gonna refuse to form any shape but the scared, panicked frown it is in now.
"Oh. The bonfire."
He raises a brow in question. "Didn't peg you for the girl who'd go to that sort of thing..."
She isn't the kind of girl to go to that sort of thing, which makes it a bit hard to explain why she did. 'It was a great alibi' comes to mind, but that explanation is clearly out of the question.
"It was Connor's idea. He's big on crowds and booze."
He glances at her dubiously.
"Since when are you friends with Connor?"
She's tired. She'd like to take a long shower to wash the disgusting stench of firewood and other burning things off of her and then fall into bed. Except she's sure there's no way she could ever fall asleep, not after what happened, not tonight, maybe not ever again.
Anyway, she's tired and she wants to feel a bit more like herself so when she accuses him of being jealous of Connor, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her lips, his eyes light up for a moment, recognizing her change in demeanor.
"Pretty sure I have nothing to worry about there," he chuckles briefly, before he realizes how odd it sounds in their current situation. The sound echoes in the silent room.
She thinks she's nearing an actual nervous breakdown, now that the rational part of her brain has fulfilled its task – get the trophy to Frank who will take care of it – so she uses her last bit of energy to consider what she should do now. She could stay over and sleep with Frank, should she ever need an alibi for where she went after the bonfire, that would be pretty believable, but all she wants to do in her current state is be alone and cry.
She's about to say something when her phone goes off.
It's a text from Bonnie, telling her to come to the office right away. It's urgent.
A shiver runs down her spine.
They know, Bonnie knows, Annalise knows, everyone must know already. The police is probably just waiting at the house to take them into custody. She's trying hard not to hyperventilate.
"Who's that?" Frank asks calmly and pulls her out of the vicious cycle that are her thoughts.
"It's Bonnie. She wants us to come to the office right away."
She looks down at herself, stains all over her clothes.
He notices, his eyes following her gaze. She knows it's risky to draw attention to her disheveled appearance, but there's no way she can show up at the house like this, so she'd rather have Frank notice than Bonnie or Annalise.
"I hate to ask, but can I..." She motions towards the bathroom, flinching when she remembers why she knows where his bathroom is. His shower gets great pressure.
He nods.
"I'll get you something to wear."
She moves off the couch and towards the bathroom door.
"I'll be quick."
He smiles, and it's not a dirty smile or a smirk, just a small smile. She didn't know he was even capable of those.
"Take your time. I'm sure whatever is happening at the office can wait."
She fights the urge to break down and scream that, no, it probably can't wait, but catches herself and instead walks into the bathroom and closes the door behind her.
She exhales loudly when she sees herself in the mirror over the sink. Frank deserves a lot of credit for not asking her why she looks like a coal miner.
There's a knock on the door as she's pulling her sweater over her head, and she'd bother covering up except this is Frank, who has seen her in much less, and she really can't be bothered.
He opens the door, a red and blue plaid button down and jeans stacked on top of a towel, and puts them down on the closed toilet seat.
He nods towards the shower and the shampoo bottles that are piled up on the shelf inside it. "You know where everything is," it's more of a statement than a question but she nods anyway. They make awkward eye contact, her in just a bra and jeans.
"Yeah, I know," and both of them know how she knows, and she's sure he's thinking about that morning a few days ago too, where he joined her in the shower to "save time".
He lingers inside the door for a second before he nods to himself and bows out of the room, closing it behind him. She must seem incredibly traumatized if he's not even going to try to take advantage of her in her state of undress, his demeanor is so un-Frank-like.
She sighs, strips off the rest of her clothes and steps under the hot stream of the shower.
After, everything is still horrible and she's still trying to keep her brain from going into total shock but she's clean, at least, and the shirt that's too big on her is comforting.
When she leaves the bathroom, Frank is sitting in the living room, now fully dressed, with two coffee travel mugs in front of him. She leans against the door frame and takes him in, taking advantage of the fact that he hasn't seen her yet. He looks tired, yes, but there's something else in his expression. He looks worried. Apparently Frank the Asshole, underneath all that cocky attitude, is capable of human emotions after all.
But she has other things to focus on right now. Things other than Frank Delfino and how badly she wants him, basically all the time. Things like how, just a few hours ago, she helped people she doesn't even really consider her friends chop up a body and burn it. That kind of takes priority over feeling a stupid, unreasonable attraction (purely physical, she reminds herself) to her stupidly handsome colleague. She doesn't need the added stress of him actually being human piled on top of everything else.
She looks down at herself, in a pair of jeans she doesn't remember leaving at his place – but she doesn't want to think about why he has women's jeans lying around – and his plaid shirt that's too big on her and sighs without meaning to.
This draws attention from Frank, who walks towards her with the two mugs of coffee, handing one to her.
"You ready to face the wrath of Annalise and Bonnie? It's a Saturday, so for them to call you kids in there must be some gruesome murder involved."
Her hand tightens around the hot mug and she has to use all of her willpower to keep from doing what guilty people do in movies – swallow hard. Instead, she gives a small nod and tries out a smile that feels so forced, she wonders if Frank can tell how much effort goes into it.
"Ready for a new day," she murmurs, breaking eye contact with him to instead focus on taking a sip of her coffee.
A new day. The first day in her new life as a murderer. She wonders how long the lifeless expression on Sam's face will haunt her dreams.
There's no way she can keep up this one-on-one conversation without him asking her what's actually going on, so she walks towards the front door, looking at him over her shoulder, trying hard to sound even the least bit nonchalant and flirty.
"I just hope no one questions why I'm clearly wearing a men's shirt when I get out of the car with you," he's reached her before she even finishes her sentence.
After setting his coffee down on a shelf, he grabs the ends of the shirt that hits her mid thigh. He lifts it up and she's about to push him away when opens his mouth.
"Maybe you should at least tuck it in, so it doesn't look like a dress on you." He gathers the fabric in his hands before slipping it under the hem of the jeans she's wearing, his cold hands brushing her stomach.
She shivers at his touch and looks up to find him staring at her lips. Just before he can lean in, she turns around, grabs her jacket from where she dropped it when she walked in, and opens the door.
"Are you coming?"
Murderers don't get to cheat on their boyfriends, she scolds herself. Being both a murderer and a cheater seems a little too much – she doesn't want to know what this means for her karma. Besides, he has (had?) a girlfriend, too, so she's putting a stop to this for the both of them.
Just last night she'd considered herself the more ethical person of the two for ignoring his calls after she found out he has a girlfriend, and for clearly telling him she has a boyfriend before she started sleeping with him. It's common decency, really. Frank is shady, and usually a bit of an ass, and yet she's the one who committed murder – suddenly cheating and lying doesn't sound so bad anymore.
The air is cold and clear when she walks outside, yet all she registers is the smell of burning human flesh. She remembers watching how the flames rose around Sam's body, how she didn't even mean to watch but couldn't look away when his face melted off.
Her empty stomach grumbles, and she feels like throwing up.
Frank catches up to her then, and hears her stomach.
"You hungry? We can grab something on the way," he murmurs, and once again she can distinctly tell that he's actually concerned.
She's pretty sure she won't be able to eat for at least a week, but she shoots him a weak smile anyway and nods.
Of course it would take her coming to him terrified and traumatized in the middle of the night to get Frank to show he is capable of human emotions.
"Thanks," she says and gets into the passenger seat of his car, feeling like a pig headed for the slaughter.
"Bagels?"
She thinks a bagel sounds about as good as any food to have for her last meal before facing the firing squad.
"Bagels."