This past Wednesday, a girl in Concord, North Carolina left a bar with a guy she met. The Friday following, her body was found in a storage shed. Her father has appeared all over television, making many appeals to catch the man, a known sex offender. While these paid off, his life is forever changed. Her father's job is to catch people, to keep people safe, and protect the people he loves. He's the CHIEF OF POLICE. Please, all of you, it CAN happen, to ANYONE, please, please, be safe.
I love the way you lie. – Eminem ft. Rihanna
Frankie was falling, over and over, every time a gunshot reverberating through his head. The blackness was everywhere, it was overwhelming, and he couldn't escape. He kept hearing this annoying beep, but no matter where he looked, he couldn't find where it was coming from. It was like there was no gravity, no floor, no ground; he couldn't seem to find a way to right himself. It was like he was trapped in a huge hole, but he couldn't see the light at the end.
"Frankie?" The familiar voice of his dad broke through the constant beep. "Can you hear me?" Frankie tried to nod, but the darkness seemed to keep him from answering. Maybe his dad was trapped in here too. "You're going to be okay. Can you wake up for your old man?" Frankie Sr.'s voice cracked on the last word and let out a small choked sob. Frankie was confused; he was not used to hearing his dad get so emotional. His dad was probably the most stoic one of them in the family.
Frankie couldn't figure out what his dad meant by waking up. He was awake and he was lost in the field of blackness. Suddenly, as though he had been plucked from the nightmare world, he was blinking into the harsh fluorescent lights. He was lying flat on his back in a foreign bed. The ceiling of the room was not his room and he wondered for a minute if he had possibly died.
"Daddy?" Frankie didn't care that he sounding like the child he hadn't been for so long. He started to thrash frantically to escape the sheets that were binding him to the bed. He couldn't get a breath and he wondered where his dad was. Where was he? Alarms started to go off and everything was too bright.
"I'm here, Frankie. Right here, calm down, you're in the hospital." Frankie Sr. had been slow to react because when his son actually started to wake up, it had startled him. He clutched his son close to him and his son grabbed onto the familiar scent of the jacket and let it start to calm him down. A nurse rushed into the room and hit a button on the machine so the alarm stopped going off.
"Hi Mr. Rizzoli, welcome back!" The nurse smiled in a very reassuring way at Frankie. "My name is Sara. How do you feel?" Frankie was still panting like he had just ran a marathon, but he nodded. He wasn't positive where his voice was yet. His erratic heart rate was slowly starting to even back out. She hit another button and a cuff on his arm started to get tighter. He recognized that it was a blood pressure cuff and tried to not panic again.
Frankie Sr. had half climbed onto the small hospital bed with his son and was rocking him slowly, almost like he had done when Frankie was only a baby. He needed the closeness that the contact brought almost as much as Frankie did. The nurse smiled at the contact between the father and son. She knew the father had rarely left his son's side, only when the parents made the switch from their two children's rooms. She had two children of her own and couldn't imagine what this must feel like for them.
"Jane?" Frankie said her name like a question. He needed to know; he had to about the person he had modeled himself after his whole life. Maybe it had just been a really bad dream or maybe he had hallucinated when he got really sick like he did when he was a kid.
"She's, uh, she's here too." Frankie Sr. wanted to break the news very gently to his youngest son. He knew Frankie would take it hard and would blame himself when it wasn't his fault to begin with. "Why don't you just relax right now?" He ran his fingers through his son's crazy hair. He hadn't had the guts to shave him so stubble was beginning to form.
"Is, is, she okay?" Frankie couldn't just relax. Not until he knew if his one and only sister was dead. "Just tell me." There was only one reason why his dad wouldn't tell him and that would be because she was dead. Please, oh God, please don't let her be dead.
"Just relax." He really wanted to let his son get a chance to wake up and take in his surroundings before his told him the news. He was glad Frankie wasn't looking up; he didn't want Frankie to see the pain that was written all over his face. He hadn't almost lost just one of his children, but two. He still might loose one, one of his precious babies that he secretly just wanted to come back home.
"Tell me, please." Frankie looked towards his father with big, pleading eyes. He pleaded silently for his father to just tell him the truth. He couldn't stand this waiting. It was the suspense of not knowing the end of a movie, or the first seconds after kicking the door down.
"Don't do this to me." Tears were forming in his fathers eyes. How could he be the one to tell his son? How could he crush his own son's heart like that?
"Is Janie dead?" Frankie overcame a wave of dizziness and pushed himself away from his father and straight up. He squeezed his eyes shut momentarily, but he didn't give into the feeling of nausea.
"Your sister, she's, she's, in a coma. She lost so much blood. You've been unconscious for three days." Frankie felt his blood run cold. He looked to see his father's face pinched in the pain. His father was relieving the past days, remembering the pain and suffering from having his youngest two children suffering so much.
"Will, will she wake up?" He managed to get to his feet. He turned to face his father, wincing as he tugged the IV that he had just realized was there. Luckily the IV was taped securely to the inside of his elbow, or he would have ripped it out. He had seen criminals do it to extend their hospital visits, but he would rather have the nurse, Sara, come back and do it for him.
"The doctor said that everyday that she doesn't, the chances decrease of her waking up." Frankie Sr. turned away from his son, unable to see how his son's face fell. He hated being the person that told his youngest son that he might not have a sister anymore. He wished the could just walk away, wake up, something, anything to get away from this terrible nightmare that had become their life.
"You're lying." Frankie spit out. Tears were spilling from his eyes. This was all his fault. If he had just seen Lola more clearly, seen her dark side, they wouldn't be in the hospital.
All he could see was the crimson stain that was spreading across her stomach so fast it was like a cascading waterfall. Her eyes were squeezed shut in the tremendous pain and Frankie couldn't even tell if she was bleeding. He put his hands on the wound, but blood bubbled around them anyway.
"Son." Frankie Sr. wasn't really sure how to comfort his son. He laid a clumsy hand on his shoulder, hoping the simple gesture would bring maybe a little solace.
"I want to see her." It was the one and only way that Frankie would ever be able to believe what his father was saying. He knew his father wasn't a liar, but maybe he had just seen the wrong girl.
"You'll have to go in a wheelchair." Frankie Sr. saw his son's face screw up in distaste. He wasn't an invalid. "You have a concussion, remember?" He gently prodded his son. No one was really sure what Frankie remembered, or if he ever would fully remember everything. On second thought, Frankie Sr. wondered if not remembering was actually a good thing.
"Fine." Frankie took a deep breath; the room still had yet to completely stop moving. As much as he hated to admit it, if he tried to walk to Janie, he probably wouldn't make it that far. He leaned against the bed, which helped stabilize the room a little bit.
"I'll get the nurse." Frankie Sr. left. He knew it was fruitless to try to argue with his son. His son had grown up just as stubborn as him.
Ten minutes later, the two Rizzoli boys were making their way towards the ICU Bay. The annoying IV was still in his arm, but he wasn't hooked up to anything else, and for that, he was very grateful. Right now, though, all he could think about was finally getting to see Janie.
"Son, she's not going to look quite like the Jane we're used to. She's very pale. She is on a breathing tube and there are IVs and much more attached to her." Frankie Sr. took a deep breath himself. He never would be used to seeing his only little baby girl that way. "Just, just, be prepared." They arrived outside of the glass sliding doors that were standard in the ICU and were easier for doctors to get through in case of an emergency.
Frankie Sr. slowly pushed Frankie around the pulled curtain, dreading his son's reaction, and seeing his beautiful baby girl like that again. Frankie's heart dropped so low, he swore it ripped out the bottom of his feet. Tears sprang in his eyes as he caught his first glimpse of his sister since the shooting.
"Oh, my God."
A/N 2: Sorry to be slightly evil and stop there. Next chapter will be longer and updates for: Save Me and Forgotten are on the way! Thanks. Oh and sorry I really wasn't sure how to portray Frankie Sr… so I hope it wasn't too crazy.
A/N 3: Oh and just for a heads up, I have been really really sick, so this is probably not my best. Also, the doctor thinks I got mono from just sharing a drink with friends :( so
