A/N: We know we have readers thanks to the traffic stats, and we'd love to hear from you. This story and three others are completed. I'll post again after 5 reviews or next week, whichever is first. Signed reviews will earn a sneak peak at Chapter 5.
Over the next week, Frank and Denise took drives and walks around the post a few hours a day each day. Each day they went a little farther, each day she cried a little less. Things were good, until…Frank was trying to nap. He'd only slept 10 hours or so in the last week, he'd kept watch at night. There was a knock at the door, he tried to ignore it, but it kept coming. Finally he got up and opened the door just to make the noise stop.
He opened the door and saw Roxy on the other side. "Hey Frank, is Denise home? I'm dying to see her," she said smiling brightly.
"She's home, she's resting," Frank said. Roxy could see he was exhausted.
"Oh okay, is she sick?" the young woman asked.
"God, you are one nosy woman!" Frank snapped. "It's all over the damned post! What's the point of coming over here and making her showcase herself?" Frank was tired and Roxy never rubbed him the right way.
"I've been gone Frank, I didn't see it. Is she okay?" she said losing patience.
"Far from it," Frank said. "You want to see her, come on in, just don't upset her." Frank moved out of the way, he wasn't in the mood to do battle.
Roxy entered the house, she was now scared of what she was going to see.
Roxy went towards the back of the house to find Frank and Denise's bed empty. She went in and looked around the turned back and went to the living room. Frank had lain back down, "Thought you said she was resting. She's not in there."
"What do you mean she isn't in there?" he asked panicked, he got up and raced toward the bedroom, he had been easily worried since the prank call.
The room was empty, but that didn't seem to bother Frank yet, as if it was habit he walked over to the closet, "Dee, you in there, Baby?"
She didn't respond just got up and opened the door. "Yeah," she said in a sleepy voice, it was clear she had fallen asleep in there.
"You okay?" Frank asked gently. "Mrs. LeBlanc is here, she wants to see you. You want to come out of there?"
"No!" she said quickly. "She can't see me like this," she said panicked.
"Okay," Frank said gently. "Okay, if you don't want to see her, you don't have to see her." No sooner had the words left Frank's mouth then Roxy spoke up from behind them moving towards the closet, "What are you doing in there?"
Denise froze and stayed silent, she began to shake.
Roxy moved closer, "What's the matter?" She reached for her friend to offer comfort.
Denise gasped and jerked back quickly, she was starting to panic.
Frank was trying to keep Roxy off of Denise, but he was tired and his mind was divided. Somehow the small woman passed him and managed to wrap her arms around Denise, "What do you think you're doing?" she asked concerned, but those had been one of the things her attackers has said one night.
Denise went ballistic and started sobbing and began to try to get away from Roxy's touch, she was hysterical.
Frank didn't know what to do, he went on instincts. "Let go of her!" he ordered and Roxy startled did as he commanded. He moved next to Denise and took her into his arms. "Ssh," Frank whispered. "You're okay, it's okay." As he rocked his hysterical wife in his arms he barked at Roxy, "Get out of this house! You aren't welcome!"
Roxy was shocked; she had heard Frank be harsh but never downright mean. "Frank, whets wrong with her? Why does she have all the bruises?" she asked as she noticed them on Denise's arms and ankles.
Denise was working herself into a full blown panic attack. She was starting to choke on her sobs, "Don't make me tell you twice."
She didn't say anything but turned and left the house silently, she needed to know what had happened, she would just have to find out from the others.
Roxy went to Pamela's. If Frank was hurting his wife Pamela would know or know what to do. She knocked on the door. Pamela answered it with her keys in her hand, "Hey Roxy. I'm can't talk too long right now, I'm on my way to Denise's."
"That what imp here about, have you seen her? She is a mess. She had bruising and she is sacred to death. Do you know if it was Frank who did it or not?" Roxy said walking with Pamela to her car.
"Tell me you didn't try to go near her," Pamela said as if it were a prayer. Denise only let her visit yesterday and she'd sat in Frank's lap the entire time.
"Yeah she was in the closet and so I thought she might have been scared and so I went and hugged her and she went ballistic," Roxy answered. "Why?"She asked.
"Oh my God," Pamela sighed. "What did Frank do?"
"He yelled at me and told me to leave! Big jerk!" she said quite offended.
"He's been through the wringer on this, Roxy," Pamela sighed. She was getting a lot of respect for Frank Sherwood. "He can't move without Denise. He can't go to work or go to the PX, that's why I'm going now. He didn't mean it, he's just tired. Denise won't let anyone near her except for him and sometimes Claudia Joy, but that's it and even then it's for minutes only."
"What happened to her?" she asked she was not only confused now she was scared.
"She was raped, Roxy," Pamela finally said. "By two, three, five different men depending who you listen to around Post. Somehow she got to her phone and called Frank, he found her outside the O Club. She's scared to death of everyone but him."
"Oh my god!" she said shocked. "What can we do to help her?" she asked.
"All we can is help Frank," Pamela sighed. "Roland says she's always equated Frank with safety so she's now seeing his presence as the only way to be safe. So Claudia Joy put together a shopping and errand schedule for them. He's okay with that but if you upset Denise he'll call Michael so Trevor is probably going to be hearing about it."
"Crap! That all we need right now," she sighed.
"Why you guys fighting?" Pamela asked.
"Yeah he is deploying and waits until last night to tell me, I got pissed off about it and we argued, aren't speaking right now," she said.
"Roxy, it's his job, sweetheart," Pamela said with a sigh. "Come on to the PX with me, we'll talk about it."
Frank was beyond livid at Roxy right now, Denise was still terrified from the earlier incident and it infuriated him, he picked up the phone and called Trevor. He was packing up his things getting ready for deployment when his phone rang "LeBlanc," he answered.
"Sgt. LeBlanc, Lt. Colonel Sherwood," Frank said introducing himself. "I'd like to speak with you about your wife."
"What about her, Sir?" Trevor asked, this could not be good.
"Her actions today were immature and detrimental to my wife's recovery. I don't appreciate it in the least and I expect you to control her. She's not welcome in this house anymore."
"Okay sir," Trevor said confused. "Recovery?" He then decided to ask "Is she alright sir?"
"No," Frank snapped. "We were making progress but after your wife barged into our closet and put her hands all over Denise, she has been in the bathroom getting sick to her stomach and possibly reinjuring her ribs. This put us back at square one! Unacceptable. If an NCO or any leader can't control his wife, he can't control his men. Are we clear?"
"Yes sir," he replied quickly. "I will handle it immediately," he added.
Frank was satisfied with Trevor's response. He liked the young man a lot, he had promise. He went to check on Denise, "How you feeling, Baby?" he asked in a tone he usually reserved for the bedroom, soft, gentle, filled with love. He stroked her hair; right now she wasn't letting him hold her.
"Horrible," she sighed and tried to breathe slowly to keep from being sick again, she had her arm wrapped around her stomach and when she breathed in she winced in pain.
"Can you breathe okay, Angel?" he asked she seemed to be working too hard even with broken ribs.
"Not good, no," she said shaking her head slightly
"Okay, Dee, let's go," he said reaching for her. "We gotta get you looked at okay?"
No! I don't want to go back to the hospital" she said with a look of terror in her eyes the same look she had when he found her the night of the attack.
"I know you don't, but you can't breathe, honey," Frank said gently. "Think now, you hurt your ribs, and now you can't breathe well, if I told you I felt like that, what would you want me to do?
"Go to the hospital," she sighed, biting het lip to fight back nausea.
"Right, why would you want me to do that?" Frank asked sending a text on his phone to Roland in case they needed sedation to get her looked at. She might have hurt one of her lungs.
"Because it could be serious and because I love you and couldn't stand to see you in pain," she said, she knew exactly where he was going with this.
"You're in so much pain already, Dee. It's getting harder each time you talk to me, isn't it?" Frank asked.
She nodded her head gently "yeah," she whispered then tied to take a deep breath only to whimper in pain.
"Okay," Frank said moving closer. "Let's do this, let's ask Roland to come over and give you some medicine to make you feel sleepy, then I'll hold you while he drives us to the hospital to get you fixed. You remember Roland, right. He visit yesterday and you laughed a little at the baby pictures?"
"I don't want a sedative, I'll go but please don't let him give me a sedative," she begged.
"Okay, can he drive us though so I can hold you close to me and keep you safe?" Frank asked trying to get closer enough to hold her now.
"Yeah," she whispered breathlessly it was getting harder and harder to take even simple small breaths.
Roland had received Frank's text and went directly to their house. He called softly, "Denise! It's Roland. Frank says you need some help. I'm going to come back and help him help you, okay?"
Okay" she replied weakly, she was trying to breath but finding it difficult
"Come on back," Frank responded. He knew Roland didn't hear Denise's weak response. When Roland got there he stayed back and smiled, "Hey Denise, you're not feeling so well, are you?"
She didn't have the energy to talk, so instead she shook her head
"Would you like some medicine to make it easier or do you want to try without it?" Roland asked. "This is your decision Denise. You tell me what to do and that's what we'll do."
"No…medicine," she said so softly they couldn't easily hear her.
Frank nodded to affirm what she'd said, "I'm going to pick you up, Baby. I know it hurts. Just be still and don't try to talk anymore."
She nodded, he picked her up and she cried out in pain, everything hurt and it was getting difficult to stay awake.
Frank carried her to the car and laid her across the back seat. He got in the other side and held her against him. "I've got you, Dee. Look at me," he told her. "Look at my eyes, just keep looking in my eyes. Don't go to sleep."
She looked at Frank, she was trying so hard not to go to sleep, her chest hurt and she began to try to take deep breath but started coughing instead and that made her hurt worse.
Frank tried to shift her so she was sitting up more; her fingertips and lips were turning an unsettling shade of blue. "Faster, Roland," Frank told the other husband. "Faster."
Roland did as he was told and drove as fast as possible without wrecking to get her to the hospital.
Frank carried her into the ER. She was still and limp in his arms, "We're here, Dee. You're going to be okay, Angel," he said bringing her to the nurse's station and demanding help.
The nurse saw the woman in his arms and immediately got a stretcher to put her on, Frank placed her on the stretcher and a doctor came over and began to take her blood pressure another came and placed a mask on her face, she saw all these doctors, all males and began to panic because somehow they had separated her and Frank and she was scared
Frank was fighting to get to her and was being held back at every turn. "Dee, I'm here, Baby!" he was trying to tell her and hoping she heard him.
"Frank!"She she said through the mask, her chest was moving up and down rapidly with each breath.
"She's hyperventilated," one doctor called out. "Oxygen saturation less then % on a full mask. Where's the husband?"
"Here!" Frank spoke up from his space in the corner.
"Any recent injuries? Illnesses?" the doctor asked injecting Denise with drugs as he spoke. "Grab and intubation tray!" he barked at a nurse while waiting for Frank's answer.
"Yeah she was attacked a few days ago, beaten pretty bad, she has three broken ribs "he told the doctor while the nurse raced to get an incubation tray.
"Book an OR," the doctor replied and left Denise in the capable hands of the ER team. He came over to Frank, "We're going to get her up to surgery; she's got a collapsed lung. Was she coughing or vomiting before she got short of breath?"
"Vomiting," he replied "How long will the surgery take?" he asked.
"Not too long," the doctor replied. "We'll go in, inflate her lung, and patch the hole. Hopefully the vomiting caused the hole in the lung. If it did she'll probably be able to go home tomorrow, if the hole was there and the vomiting made it larger she might have to fight off infection. Are you her only family?"
"Yeah," he replied. "Except our son who is in Iraq," he said.
"Do you have friends on Post?" The doctor was looking at a man he could see was on the edge, he needed support more than his wife did.
"Yes," he said.
"Call someone to be here for you," the doctor advised. "We'll do all we can for your wife." With a look of sympathy the doctor left to accompany Denise to surgery.