(Previously 'I Hate Tuesdays' and 'A Birthday Party')
Beep beep beep beep
Frankie rolled over, her face effectively squashed against the pillow.
"Mmph, five more minutes," she grunted to no one as she reached out and turned off her alarm. She rolled back over without even opening her eyes and tried to go back to sleep.
As she lay in bed, she couldn't help wondering how people could wake up earlier than ten. She was barely able to scrape seven on a weekday. Most days, she was barely on time for work. Crawford had even told her that if she was late one more time, there would be 'consequences more severe than your eighth-grade English teacher', whatever that meant.
With all of the drama the night before, what with Alex nearly dying and all, Frankie was counting her lucky stars it was Saturday.
Saturday was the best day in her opinion because it came after Friday. You could do nothing and not feel guilty about it. She was seriously considering just staying in bed for the rest of the day, nothing to worry about. She could-
Beep beep beep beep
Frankie found it odd that her alarm was being so persistent. It wasn't like she had anywhere to be. She then realized it wasn't her alarm at all, but her ringtone. Someone was calling her. She reached over and grabbed her phone off her nightstand, checking the caller id.
The Boss Guy
Why was Crawford calling her on a Saturday at, she checked the time, 10:37 in the morning?
Wait.
Shit!
It was Tuesday.
She sprinted into the building, bypassing the wait for the elevator and taking the stairs three at a time. She forced open the main door to the reception and skidded to a halt at the front desk.
"Ms Danvers. So nice to see that you've finally arrived, what, two and a half hours late. I must say, that's a new record." A young, dark-haired receptionist looked up, smirking good-naturedly.
"Shut up Lou, I'm here now."
Louise and Frankie had always gotten along well ever since they met on the first day of training. They had bonded over their common feeling of being constantly overshadowed by older siblings, and a shared love of Mexican food.
"At least you're a lawyer. Crawford still insists that I'm 'not qualified enough for the job'. But hey, this is fun too I guess." Frankie smiled at her friend and passed by, moving into the main office area.
She paused, turning to call back to Louise.
"Hey, sign me in will you, I need to get started if I want to make it for Kara's birthday tonight. And Alex wouldn't be very happy if I turned up headless."
"Oh yeah. That's today isn't it?"
Frankie nodded.
"Well, give Kara and Alex my love."
"Will do," Frankie said as she shuffled over to her desk. She eyed the paperwork that still sat on her desk from the day before.
This is it. This is how I die, she thought, pulling the stack toward her with a grimace.
She spotted a tall figure storming between the desks and quickly tried to make herself look as busy as possible before the man reached her.
"Danvers, finally decided to show up, huh?" Crawford loomed over her, sneering.
"Sir, I didn't mean-"
"I don't want to hear a lame excuse, I want you to go home because apparently, it doesn't matter to you if you actually do any work."
She dared a chance of looking up- and wished she hadn't. He was glaring at her like she'd questioned his personal integrity and silently willed her to challenge him.
"Danvers, just because you're one of the best lawyers we have," he continued, "doesn't mean that you can just decide to show up whenever you want. Despite what you may think, we're not going to drop everything for you the instant you can't be bothered to do something. Just get out of my office."
Frankie knew well not to push it. She stood back up, grabbed the paper and walked out in a hurry, her head determinedly down. She passed Lou on her way out but didn't look at her. She just quickly hurried down the stairs and into the parking lot, trying hard not to get too upset.
She wasn't entirely sure what had just happened. Had she been fired? She soon found the answer to that question when she got a text from Crawford that simply said, I want you here on time tomorrow or your career's future will be dark.
At the same time, she also got a text from Lou.
what happened? areyou OK? You lookked like someone just killed ur puppy.
Deciding not to answer Crawford, she turned her attention to her best friend, quickly typing out a response.
Nah, just preeeety sure I'm gonna lose my job tomorrow :(
She didn't wait for a reply, but jogged out onto the street and hailed a passing taxi, hoping to all that was good that she would still have a job next week.
She tried her best to swallow down the feeling of shame and anger that had been steadily rising in her throat since the tender age of eleven and held her head up high, distracting herself with the thought of planning Kara's birthday party.
Alone in her apartment, Alex watched the liquid courage swirl around the bottom of her glass.
The living room, silent as a graveyard, was cool and sparsely lit, just how Alex liked it.
Taking one more look at the glass, she downed the rest of the whiskey without even blinking and sighed in relief as it ran down her throat.
She'd been stressed recently.
Kara had made an arguably admirable decision with the whole plane saving thing, but the fact remained that she'd made that decision without considering the consequences and now Alex had to clean up the aftermath.
Her boss at the DEO wanted her all over the famed 'flying person', and the worst part of it was that she was still going around and doing it in secret. She couldn't tell Kara, not yet. Kara was already going too far with the one rescue she'd done, letting the world know she existed like that, she didn't need to know that Alex could open the door to doing it on a more permanent basis.
And that Alex had been lying.
And Frankie, sweet innocent Frankie was completely clueless to everything that had gone on to Alex since they were kids. To a certain extent. Alex knew that when she told Kara about her real job, Frankie would still have to be left under the cut, only because getting Kara on board with what her boss had planned was going to be difficult enough as it was.
She wished that it wasn't like that, wanted more than anything to live in honesty and truth rather than lies and deceit, but something in her gut was telling her that she would soon be out of that particular rabbit hole, so she endured.
Speaking of, Alex's phone rang from on the counter next to her and she picked it up. Before she could even say hello, Frankie's voice came frantically through the speaker.
"Alex, I don't know what I'm doing. I tried to call the Chinese place, but they were all out of potstickers somehow so I called the pizza place down the street and then-"
Alex cut her off quickly, smiling through the phone.
"Frankie, I'm sure it'll be fine. Can you cook anything?"
"I could make calzones, but I don't really have the stuff for anything else."
"Ok, what about PJ's?"
Frankie paused. "Downtown's kinda far away, isn't it?"
"You've got time."
She could almost feel Frankie nod through the phone. "Sounds good. I'll get some stuff from there. You're in charge of telling Kara that there aren't any potstickers though."
"Will do. I'll see you at six."
"Yeah see you then. Love you"
"Love you too, Frank."
By the time Alex and Kara arrived at Frankie's, everything was set up and in its place. The food, an assortment of Thai, calzones and sadly, no potstickers, sat on the table, wine stood on the counter and Netflix was open on the tv.
Frankie answered the knock at the door with a wide grin on her face, which only faltered for a split second when she opened the door to not two people, but three. She quickly replaced the smile as Alex, Kara and somebody Frankie vaguely remembered as Kara's friend stepped into her apartment.
"Hey guys, welcome. Happy birthday Kara! Yeah everyone come in. Lou says hi."
As everyone passed over the threshold, exchanging hugs and gifts, Frankie couldn't help but wonder who this person was. She didn't completely mind, but Kara seemed to sense her hesitation and said, "Frankie, I hope you don't mind I invited my friend Winn. He had nothing else to do and I wanted him here, sorry I should have given you more notice."
Frankie didn't know Winn, although when she thought about it, she had heard his name in conversation before. But she could tell from her sister's tone that there was something more to his invitation.
"Of course not. The more the merrier, Winn. Make yourself at home." She glanced around at the room, suddenly noticing the mess. "Sorry about the clutter, I would've cleaned up if I knew I would be having a guest."
Winn simply smiled, brushing it off and Frankie managed to get a good look at him. Decked out in a cardigan, tie and khakis, she could barely see any skin apart from his wrists and head. From the way that Kara had described him, Frankie wasn't surprised that this was his dress sense, but it was charming in an odd sense. He looked down at the floor suddenly, seeming embarrassed about something or other.
Alex jumped in moving straight for the kitchen and shouted, "Enough with the formalities, let's have some fun!"
Everyone else followed with cheers of their own and cracked open the wine and some of the beer Alex had brought with her.
Straight away, mainly as a condolence for the lack of Kara's favourite cuisine, Frankie pulled down a rather spectacular chocolate cake.
They sang Happy Birthday quickly, mainly because Kara was about to start drooling at the sight of it.
Once they finished and everyone had a slice of cake, Alex grabbed the booze, turned up the music, and declared it a real party.
As the night pressed on, several things began to happen. Alex, always the responsible one, had gotten fairly tipsy for a Tuesday night and was trying to convince Kara to let her ride her Ducati home. Kara - who had the Blood-Alcohol Concentration of a literal god, and was not even close to drunk - was gently trying to guide Alex away from the front door and general direction of the bike. What's more, Frankie and Winn had gotten to talking.
They had discussed many things including computers, Star Wars, Winn's hobbies in general, whether or not she would have a job tomorrow, CatCo's ludicrous policies and more recently, Superman.
Frankie could see that Winn was quite fond of the hero from the way he was engaged in a deep, detailed description of Superman's latest Metropolis adventure. Frankie had known for a long time that Clark was Kara's cousin but had never actually met or spoken to him. There was something about the way Winn was talking about him though, deep in admiration, that gave her a strange feeling.
She couldn't imagine what it would be like when he found out about Kara's powers.
"...and I've always thought, how cool it would be if we had our own superhero. Someone to fly around and stop crime before it even starts, with a secret identity and some lame disguise that somehow manages to fool everyone except the people that matter most, you know?"
Frankie looked back up at his face, his eyes glittering slightly in the low light. She could only feel slightly worried that he was onto something though. She opened her mouth to say something, but he beat her to it.
"So when I found out about Kara and everything, I was kind of excited. Like a real-life superhero here in National City! But I realised that she probably wants to keep it a secret. Wait until the right moment. Other than the plane last night I mean. No, wait. I- I didn't mean-"
But Frankie simply looked at him. He knew? How did he know? She must have had a very blank look on her face because he quickly shut his mouth before explaining, "Kara told me this morning. I guess you didn't know that. Well, I mean, she said not many people know so I feel really privileged. But, wait you knew right?" He was suddenly looking at her with such horror that she was surprised.
"Uhm- yeah. Yeah, I knew." She managed to stutter out.
"Oh, ok good because that could've ended really badly."
At that moment, a crash was heard from the other side of the room, followed by a bottle smashing.
"Shit!" Alex yelled, jumping back from the broken glass.
"Woah, alright." Frankie leapt up, carefully stepped around the glass and reached the others. Kara shot her an apologetic look mouthing I think I'm going to take this one home. Frankie just smiled and nodded, moving out of the way for her.
Kara promptly left, dragging Alex behind her, leaving Frankie and Winn alone. He cleared his throat.
"Well, I'd better be off too. I've got work tomorrow and I don't know about Alex but I'm not in the mood to be late to that." He stood up, grabbing his coat from where it was draped over a chair and he shrugged it on.
"Thanks," Frankie said, moving to face him. "It was really great to actually meet you."
"Yeah, I had a lot of fun."
"I'm glad."
A silence stretched out for a little too long before he broke the gaze and strolled to the door, nearly tripping on the way.
"Watch your step!" Frankie called quickly.
"Smooth." He muttered, before closing the door behind him and Frankie was left alone to wonder what had just happened.
A/N
Sorry for the really long delay, I've just been swamped with school work, but now that it's holidays, I should be able to post another chapter soon. Also sorry that literally nothing happened in this chapter, I went off script for a little bit, and that was probably not a good idea. Things should start moving a bit faster from now on. Hopefully.
K bye.
