"Frank is ready to see you now, Mr …" the nurse consulted her clipboard, "Way?"
"Thank you," he replied, slowly rising from the uncomfortable plastic chair, hoping for the best, yet fearing the worst. Frank's condition had been critical for three months and at first the doctors had little hope. To everyone's surprise, Frank was an incredibly persistent comatose patient, slowly regaining his health and becoming more responsive every day. About a fortnight ago, Gerard had received message from Dr. Schaffer that Frank had been awake for five minutes and that he would receive further message if Frank improved more. Gerard was in Chicago staying with Bob at the time and there had been heavy snowfall so catching a plane was a no go. Two days ago Dr. Schaffer called Bob's home phone – Gerard had given him the number, desperate for more news on Frank – to report Frank's condition; he was conscious most of the day. Immediately Gerard packed his bags and drove Bob's Jaguar all the way to Jersey.
Walking down the corridor, Gerard was reminded of how much he hated hospitals; the antiseptic smell, the dreary atmosphere on almost each ward, the fact that each cupboard probably contained a few million needles that couldn't wait to jab away at Gerard. He shuddered at the thought, but made himself carry on down the corridor towards Frank's ward. He couldn't wait to see him again, but he was afraid what he was going to see, wasn't good. He was horrified at the thought of Frank in hospital anyway, scared that he would never get out, that he would be stuck in a coma for years and years. It wasn't unheard of and Gerard scared himself shitless every night worrying. He had nightmares about standing near Frank's bedside table, watching him breathing peacefully, not asleep but not awake. Nothing else happened in those dreams and that's what scared him most.
Finding Frank's door, he gripped the door handle, his hands sweaty. He didn't know why he was so nervous, for he knew that Frank would probably still have to stay in hospital another few months to recover completely. Yet, seeing the frail, white body of his best friend lying half underneath the hospital covers – the colour of the sheets and the colour of Frank was nearly indistinguishable – he was reminded again of the agony of being parted from Frank so long. He looked almost like a corpse and Gerard had to swallow to stop himself from vomiting. He hadn't expected him to look so … gone. It was as if Frank wasn't even there. But it was Frank and he was breathing and he was alive and his eyes were open again.
"Frank?" he whispered, his voice breaking, a tear sliding down his cheek. Frank stared back at him, watching his every move and not uttering a single syllable.
"Frank, it's me, Gerard," he tried again, desiring at least some sort of response and receiving none. He walked slowly over to the bed, as if he was scared of intimidating Frank. He would have laughed at the notion, since Frank was the toughest guy in the world. At least, he used to be. Right now he looked like you could snap him in two with minimal force.
A knock on the door startled Gerard out of his reverie. He swerved round to be greeted with a name tag that sported the name 'ANDY!' in bright red sharpie'd letters. He'd heard from Dr. Schaffer that Andy was an extremely qualified nurse and that he was taking care of Frank and knew his patient records off by heart. By the look on Andy's face, Gerard could tell he was abnormally enthusiastic about his job, even though the patient in question had been unresponsive for the majority of time of Andy's supervision.
"Hi, Mr …" Andy consulted his clipboard, "Way! Hi! I see you let yourself in. The first thing you need to know about Frank, is that," he hesitated for a moment, "well, he has amnesia."
Those words hit Gerard like a brick in the face, like a racecar going at 70 miles an hour, like a drop from the highest diving platform into ice cold water. Frank didn't recognise him. Frank didn't know him anymore. Frank was gone.
Looking over at Frank's small body on the bed, he made eye contact and Frank's eyes stared without any sign of familiarity, as if Gerard was simply another doctor coming to look at him. He felt a bolt of pure defeat go straight through him; Frank wasn't Frank anymore. It was a lost, confused soul inside Frank's body and Frank was gone.
"W-will you make him better?" Gerard's voice was hoarse and his question sounded silly even to himself. He knew some people sometimes regained their memories, but it was exceedingly rare and the chances of it happening to Frank were minimal.
"We're doing everything we can, sir. Dr. Schaffer recently got news from his boss that a new drug will be available soon, but we're not entirely sure if it will work on everyone," said Andy.
Gerard started to notice little things about Andy: he spoke as if he were standing on a stage, doing a special act, pausing between sentences as if an audience were laughing, except the subject wasn't funny at all. He also had a very prominent nose. Gerard decided he liked Andy.
"You're going to have to leave now, sir," Andy told him after fifteen minutes of Gerard just sitting next to Frank and watching him. He had gone to sleep again, or not. "Visiting hour is over. I'm sorry."
Guiding Gerard out of the hospital room, away from the huddled form under the blankets, Andy smiled sympathetically at his visitor.
"We're doing everything we can," he said, and returned to his clipboard.
Taking one more look at Frank, Gerard sighed and left the room, hoping Frank would be back in time to celebrate Christmas. It wouldn't be the same without him.
Spirits were low back at home. It was just him and his mother and the snow was coming down harder and it didn't look like it was going to stop. It was pitch black outside except for the orange street light illuminating the snowflakes that were persistently covering every surface in the whole state of Jersey. The drive home had been awful; the cab driver had only noticed after what seemed like hours that Gerard wasn't going to answer any of his questions, like whether he was going to see his family this Christmas? or whether any of his children still believed in Santa Clause? Gerard had only stared out the cab window. He had no children, he had no other family but his mother, brother and his band. That was all he needed all his life. Ever since he had started My Chemical Romance, his fellow band members were like his brothers. From day one they had shared everything and by now they knew everything about each other, down to what toothpaste they preferred or exactly how many seconds they took on the toilet before it was obvious it was more than just number one. That was how close they were and now it looked like he might lose one of his brothers forever. What if Frank's memory didn't ever come back? Gerard didn't think he could deal with not cuddling with Frank on the tour bus with a cup of instant coffee in his hand, receiving envious glances from Bob ever again.
The doctors were doing everything they could but when did that ever mean that Frank was going to get better? The unfamiliar look in Frank's eyes ripped Gerard to pieces, pieces he couldn't put together again. The band wouldn't be the same without Frank. He brought to the band something no one else could; he brought a reckless kind of energy and he gave his all in every performance and he did it beautifully and he was irreplaceable. A tear escaped from Gerard's eye and he quickly wiped it away before the cab driver could make another unnecessary comment about the emotional value of the Christmas season.
He shifted his weight on the uncomfortable worn leather seat resting his head on his arm, leaning against the door. His shaky breath steamed up the glass and he found he was incredibly tired. It had been a trying day and he would have loved to fall asleep there and then, but then Hank, as the driver had introduced himself as, announced they were pulling into the street Gerard had told him to bring him to. Glad to be rid of the smell of cheap cigarettes with a faint undertone of even cheaper brandy, Gerard staggered out the cab after paying slightly too much for the ride. Hank grinned at him and made a swift U-turn, somehow managing not to slip in the metre-deep snow, and disappeared into the night.
"Honey, if it makes things better, you know Joyce recovered from her amnesia when she got into that car crash? Yeah, it took a while, but she got better. Same could go for Frankie. Hey, shall I make you some more coffee? You've taken hours to drink this one and I'm positive it's cold by now. Gerard?"
Gerard could hear his mother's quasi-cheerful voice, but none of what she was saying to cheer him up was registering and Gerard just stared out the window, avoiding his mother's eyes. He didn't want her to see him crying, because she always went into hysterics and smothered him and made ten times the amount of comfort coffee than Gerard could ever drink in one lifetime, but it was kind of nice at the same time, but he didn't think this time it would be nice at all. He thought about Joyce and how lucky the doctors said she had been. Gerard had been only eleven at the time, but he understood that when the doctors said that someone was lucky, it meant it was a rare occurrence that someone recovered from something like amnesia.
"Come on, sweetheart," his mother always insisted on calling him sweetheart even though he was almost thirty years old and she would never let go of him ever. "Frankie'll be all right, I promise."
The promise meant nothing, and Gerard knew even his mother knew it, but there was no other way to console him. Deciding he should probably call Bob to let him know he had arrived safely and that his Jag was parked safely at the hospital still, completely and utterly snowed in and irretrievable until April probably. Bob was the type of guy who always looked a bit cross, but he had a heart of gold and he was a real softie and he got terribly worried about any of them. The only reason he hadn't come with Gerard to see Frank was because he had all his family from all over the freaking world over to see him for Christmas and that happened like once in ten years so he had to be there. In any other case, he would have been over here in a heartbeat. He had been to see him at least twenty times over the past three months when Frank wasn't even awake yet. Gerard was incredibly close with Frank, but it didn't even come near to what Frank and Bob had. They were like soul mates; they completed each other in each way possible. Sometime they even bickered like an old married couple, but Gerard knew they weren't having sex. Bob was way too hetero for that and Frank, well, he certainly would seem up to it, but somehow he was of the opinion that it would just ruin their friendship. Snuggling with each other was enough for both of them, always.
Gerard could only imagine how Bob felt right now. Toying with the worn out toggles of his prehistoric sweatshirt – he'd had it since he was sixteen, when he was still slightly chubby so it still fit well – he looked down at his feet. His socks also had holes in them but he couldn't buy new ones, he was way too attached to these socks. No one understood his fixation with his old socks, but it was something that was just Gerard, people seemed to accept.
Handing him his coffee, Donna put her arm around his shoulders and squeezed without saying a word. She realised it was better to not say anything. For a few moments they just stood there, both staring at the carpet as if it held the answer to all life's questions. If his life were a soap opera, Gerard knew that some kind of acoustic song would be playing in the background and the camera would zoom out and fade into black, but real life wasn't like that and it was quiet. After what could have been five minutes or half an hour, Gerard left his unfinished coffee on the kitchen counter and headed to his bedroom to find his cell phone to call Bob. It was like 2 AM but he was sure Bob would appreciate a call no matter what the time.
"Dude," he heard a muffled voice on the other line, which was unmistakably Bob Bryar. "Why didn't you call when it was, like, daytime, huh? 'm kinda asleep."
"Yeah, okay, sorry. I forgot. It's just been a bit much and –"
"How is he? I heard he was awake. Is he better?"
"Well, I – I don't know, man." Gerard paused, before trying to reassure Bob who had gone quiet, "the doctors are doing everything they can." It sounded terrible now he repeated it to someone else, who quite obviously wasn't the type to be reassured by something like that. He heard Bob gruff voice again down the line, saying,
"He better get his memory back before I come down there and beat it back into him," his voice breaking at the end. "I just – man, I can't – " and he broke down. Gerard had never seen – or heard – Bob break down, ever. Bob wasn't the type of person who would break down. He kept everyone together either by force or just brutal logic and a no nonsense point of view on every argument they had ever had. Gerard was never convinced Bob actually ever got emotional over anything but Frank using the last of the cocoa powder or something equally mundane that had to do with Frank annoying Bob on purpose. Hearing Bob crying over the phone made Gerard feel awkward and he didn't know how to comfort Bob. Instead he just tried to soothe him by saying it was going to be okay and that Bob should come over to Jersey or something. Bob sniffled some more for about an hour and then promised he'd come over as soon as possible.
Gerard had a stroke of genius the next morning, and called Dr Schaffer to see if Frank could be transferred to the hospital in Chicago, so Bob could still remain at home in Illinois with his family and still visit Frank as much as he liked. Bob had deliberately bought a house near the hospital, because when Frank dropped out of school, it became his life ambition to pester Bob in any way possible so moving in with him was the best idea ever and it was the best thing to ever happen to the two of them. The hospital being nearby was perfect because Frank was always coming down with a flu or his fucking bronchitis showed up again and made his life terrible. It still surprised Gerard that they had never married or something; Bob loved looking after Frank and Frank loved Bob looking after him.
It was all set: Frank would be moved to the Northwestern Memorial Hospital on the 23rd. The weather forecast predicted the snowfall would be over then, and the streets would probably be cleared as well. The building was right around the corner from where Bob lived and it also meant that Gerard could drive back to Chicago tomorrow, the day before Frank was set to be transferred. This was a good thing, because then Gerard could meet Frank again with Bob this time. Bob didn't much like hospitals, much less entering one on his own.
Gerard called Bob again, receiving multiple complaints about how ten in the morning wasn't a decent time to call him, especially since he hadn't been sufficiently caffeinated yet to act like a pleasant human being, and told him the news. Bob was ecstatic – as ecstatic as Bob could be at ten in the morning with not one coffee molecule in his blood – and quickly hung up to tell Mikey and Ray the good news. Gerard was glad to hear Bob wasn't wallowing around like himself, but Bob probably still did feel awful. He was just good at not letting anyone know.
Gerard had never quite mastered the whole keeping-emotions-to-yourself mojo Bob had going on. He had been told throughout his whole childhood that he was a huge drama queen by his father, mother, his little brother and later even by his own fellow band members. It was all in good humour, of course, but sometimes he felt uncomfortable knowing that his emotions were so easy to read off his face. He felt naked and exposed whenever someone brought it up and he knew he shouldn't let it get to him so much, but he still wished he was more like Mikey or Bob at times. Mikey had little to no facial expression most of the time and Bob just sat in the corner all moody but still snuggly. According to the entire world population, Gerard made a big deal about just about everything.
Working on looking more stoic, he made a cup of coffee and looked out the window. After like two seconds he threw his mug into the sink and dropped his head into his hands and let the tears stream down his face like freaking Niagara Falls. Letting out a cry of desperation, he slumped sideways onto the floor and thanked any superhuman being out there that no one could see him. He was scared, scared of Frank never recognizing him again, scared of what would happen to Bob if he realised that, but most of all scared of the empty shell Frank would become, with no memories, no people he knew, no familiarity with anything or anyone. Sobbing and not bothering to wipe away any tears, Gerard leaned against the kitchen counter with his back. Pulling his legs up to his chest and holding them with his arms, he held his head down, the tears dripping into an increasingly large wet stain on the front of his jeans. What good would transferring Frank do, in the end? Too tired and confused and helplessly infuriated with the whole situation to even think straight, Gerard hugged his legs closer and closed his eyes, praying with every fibre of his being to a God he didn't even believe in for Frank to get better, please.