i'Cause I'm broken when I'm open
And I don't feel like I am strong enough
'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome
And I don't feel right when you're gone away/i

There were only a handful of people at Frank's funeral. Some of the people from NA showed up, but it was pretty much just Bobby, Donnie's mother, the captain, and herself. Bobby skulked off, and how a man of his size could skulk had always been beyond her, immediately after the mass ended. She knew where he was going, but she wasn't sure that she should go and find him.

Things still aren't right between them. It's uncomfortable and she's uncertain if they'll ever find their balance again.

She considers leaving him alone with his grief, but she remembers the look on his face as Declan described how he'd destroyed everything close to him and she can't. She finds him at his mother's grave, just as she thought she would.

"Did you think I did it?" he asks, never turning to look at her.

"What?"

"Killed my brother? Killed Nicole? Did you think I did it?" he says the words very slowly, with more than a bit of acid in them.

"I told you I was trying to clear you."

He laughs a little, though nothing is funny, and stands to face her, "That's not what I asked, although…maybe it's an answer."

"Bobby, don't do this…"

"Don't do what?" he asked, "Don't go crazy Bobby, don't throw things and yell, don't become your father. Why the fuck not? Everyone expects it."

"I don't."

He shrugs a little and turns away, "I don't know why. You know Declan, he said…he said that no one ever came through for me, and he's right, no one but him. Turns out the first time someone comes through for me it means killing people, but then, I've always been good at getting people killed."

"Damn it, Bobby," she yells it at him, because she can't stand to see him like this and she wants to yell at the world, "You are not responsible for this." He shrugs again and now she really yells, "Hey," and grabs him by the lapels of his wrinkled and mud covered Armani suit, "Hey, I said you aren't responsible. You didn't make your step-father a bastard; you didn't make your mother sick."

"It was because of me that he…"

"Because what? Because your mother had an affair? That had nothing to do with you. You couldn't save Frank from his addiction, and you did your damn best to save Donnie. Declan is a lunatic and he used you as an excuse to wreak havoc. None of this is your fault."

"Brady is…he's my father. What if…" he trails off, can't say it. He could say it to the captain could scream and yell it, but now, to her, when it might be true he holds back, "Alex."

"You're not a killer, Bobby. It's not possible."

"How can you know that? How can…"

"I know you, Bobby. I don't care what was wrong with your fucked up family, or who your biological father is, or any of that, because I know you Bobby and you could never kill anyone."

There's a moment when she thinks he's going to argue with her, when she waits for him to scream and yell, but he only lays his head down against hers and, in a voice so soft she can barely hear him asks, "Promise?"

She kisses the side of his face softly and nods so he can feel it, "Promise."

He sags against her, and its more weight than she can take, but she takes it because he needs her too.

She's not sure the broken pieces of Bobby can ever really be fixed, but she knows whatever he is, she's never going to leave him.