The Carter and Frankie series is a prompt from Godzilla183.
WARNINGS: INCEST, MENTIONS OF KIDNAPPING, PTSD (POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER)
Disclaimer: I do not own Benji, 2018 or the characters or anything that you recognize.
Chapter 2: Hold On (You Know We'll Find A Way)
New Orleans, Louisiana
Riley Children's Hospital, Room 19
May 21st, 2018
4:03 PM
"X-rays came back negative for broken bones… CT scans came back negative for Carter, but showed Francine-"
"Frankie."
"Pardon?"
"She prefers to be called Frankie," Whitney Hughes clarified, glancing through the doorway and into the hospital room at her children.
After her children and their new dog were safe and sound, she finally got a good look at them. Compared to what she had feared, neither looked too bad in terms of physical appearance, but it was still jarring to see her children in such a state.
A dark purple mark marred the side of Carter's face, likely from being slapped, and Frankie's eyes continuously wandered around the room in confusion, spacing out (sometimes in the middle of sentences), and she squinted her eyes against the bright lights of the hospital, making sounds of discomfort in her throat every so often. Disorientation, sensitivity to light… Even if Whitney wasn't a paramedic, she would still be able to tell that her daughter had some kind of head injury. Rope burns encircled their wrists, angry red and violet lines standing out against their pale white skin.
They laid in two beds, Frankie on the left (the far) side of the room and Carter on the right, the bed closest to the door. They would have probably been laying in the same bed if the hospital allowed it, but they couldn't be in the same bed until the doctors cleared them and said it wouldn't aggravate any injuries or spread any diseases between the two in case either had contracted a virus. They wore hospital gowns, and the clothes they had been wearing had been turned over to the police as evidence (the kidnappers were literally caught red handed. How much more evidence did they need?). Frankie's dark blonde hair hung in drooping pigtails, the dusty ribbons trailing in her even dirtier curls. She lay on her back, eyes on the ceiling, not saying a word, and Carter laid on his side, staring at Frankie and never taking his eyes off of her, as though trying to reassure himself that she was still there.
"Of course," Dr. Harmild (pronounced Her-mild) replied, smiling kindly and not with the blatantly fake kindness most doctors used. Genuine kindness, and it soothed her, if only by a little as she kept her eyes focused on her children, afraid they would disappear again if she took her eyes off of them for one second, not even caring how irrational her fear was. After losing her children, that fear seemed perfectly rational, thank you very much.
"Anyway," Dr. Harmild continued, reading from the report on his clipboard and twirling a pen in the fingers of his right hand, "The CT scan showed Frankie having a mild concussion, but as long as she takes it easy, it's nothing to worry about. They both have mild to moderate contusions and a couple of lesions, none of which required stitches. No internal injuries… ability to move, walk, speak, breathe, and answer questions properly. No signs of memory loss. No signs of viral or bacterial infections or any other disease for that matter. Frankie's temperature is a little high, but it should go down in a few hours, and if it doesn't, we'll give her some fever medication. Overall, they should be physically fine. However, given the… traumatic events that led to this hospital visit, I would like to keep them overnight for observation, and I will have our on call psychiatrist do an evaluation of their mental state."
Whitney nodded, barely listening anymore as she stared at her poor, sweet, innocent children in those hospital beds. "Thank you, Dr. Harmild."
The doctor nodded. "I suggest… giving them a little space," he said, tentatively, choosing his words carefully. "They need time to… let everything sink in. They're still in shock, and they just need a little time. Why don't you head downstairs and get some fresh air? They both have a call button if they need anything, and we've hooked up a few things to monitor their physical health, so if anything changes, I'll let you know."
Whitney nodded, swallowing hard. She didn't want to leave her kids, but she knew that they didn't need her right now. They needed each other, and after everything… she owed them that much.
"Thank you, Dr. Harmild," she murmured, voice hoarse with emotion and the tears she had shed when her kids weren't looking (or at least when she thought they weren't looking), before she headed down the hallway, her shoes clicking against the pristine white floors, pulling out her phone to call Detective Lyle, who was at the vet with Benji and his new dog Mongrel while she was at the hospital with Carter and Frankie.
She closed her eyes, not allowing one more tear to fall. Crying wouldn't solve anything. She had to be strong. For her kids… and for herself because if she started crying again, she didn't think she'd ever stop.
Carter knew he shouldn't have been listening to his mom and Dr. Harmild, but he couldn't help it. You try not eavesdropping on someone when you know they're talking about you!
All right, no broken bones, no internal injuries, no diseases, all sounded good. Dr. Harmild said they had a few contusions, which Carter knew meant bruises, and some lesions, which (judging by the detail about not requiring stitches) meant scrapes and cuts, but Carter already knew all of that. Frankie had a concussion and a minor fever, all things the doctor said would go away with a little time and rest, but the doctor's assurances of a full recovery didn't make Carter worry any less for his sister, the love of his life.
He couldn't lose her. He would fall apart if he did, and yet, he had almost lost her so many times in just a few days.
"Then we don't need them no more."
Carter couldn't prevent the small gasp from leaving his throat, and he twisted in the hospital bed, nearly falling out of it, but the owner of that horrible voice that spoke even more horrible words was no where in sight.
"Then we don't need them no more."
Carter sat up fully on the bed, heart pounding in his chest, and his head swiveled from side to side. Where was he? He couldn't let that monster hurt Frankie more than he already had!
"Then we don't need them no more."
No. Syd was in jail. He was gone, locked away. He couldn't get them. He couldn't hurt them.
"Then we don't need them no more."
But what if he gets out? What if he comes after you? What if he comes after Frankie?
"Then we don't need them no more."
The voices were overlapping, invading his ears from everywhere and nowhere, and Carter was practically hyperventilating as he hugged his knees to his chest, pressing his hands over his ears, not wanting to hear that awful voice ever again for as long as he lived-
The cycle of panicked thoughts was interrupted by a sudden tearing sound, and he slowly looked up to see his sister, standing beside the trashcan with an awkward stance, almost like she was fighting gravity and losing. She had taken the ribbons out of her hair, allowing the blonde waves to fall loose, and she was tearing those ribbons to shreds, the colorful pieces fluttering into the abyss of the trashcan.
She teetered a little, and for a moment, Carter didn't remember why, but then, he recalled what the doctor said.
A concussion. From Carter's limited knowledge of concussions, he knew concussions (heck, almost any head injury) caused dizziness and sometimes even unconsciousness.
Panic attack almost (almost) forgotten, Carter jumped off of the bed and ran to his sister's side, grabbing her right as she fell, taking her weight and slowly lowering her to the ground.
She was still conscious but weak and didn't look ready to stand, so Carter simply sat on the floor with her, hugging his sister against his side and rubbing his hand gently over her arm.
That was when the dam broke.
Tears flowed freely from Frankie's blue eyes, and sobs were torn from her throat, ugly gasping sounds that grated on Carter's ears because they were sounds of pain, of sadness, broken cries of emotional agony, and they were coming from his girlfriend, his everything. Despite the fact that the sounds were shattering his heart over and over again with each second they went on, he sat there and allowed her to let it out. She needed this.
After several moments, Frankie scrubbed her eyes, and she swallowed audibly.
"Sorry," she mumbled.
Carter pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Don't apologize. You needed to let it out."
Frankie looked at him, vibrant blue eyes now dull with grief. They hadn't really lost anyone, or… maybe they had. They had lost the people they used to be. They would never be the same as they were before this, but the children they were only two days ago were still there. Just buried beneath the pain and the trauma, and Carter was afraid they would never be able to dig those children, the people they used to be, back out of the graves Syd and Titus had put them in.
"You need to let it out, too," she whispered, almost incapable of speaking in a louder voice, but they were so close together, Carter would have still heard her even if she barely breathed the words. "I heard you over there. Was it S.. Sy… him?"
Carter didn't want to answer, but this was Frankie. She knew him inside and out. He could never lie to her.
He nodded.
Frankie nodded in return. "You don't have to be strong for me, Carter. We're strong together. That's why we work. One of us doesn't always shoulder the burden. We share it. That's why we're us, why we're CarterandFrankie instead of Carter and Frankie," she said, enunciating the and between the second Carter and Frankie to make the separation painfully obvious.
Carter thought about continuing to hold his pain inside, but in the end, the love and trust in Frankie's eyes mirrored his own, and he decided that if she trusts him with her heart and her emotions and her brokenness, he can trust her with his.
So he broke down.
Hot drops of water cascaded down his face, dripping onto the white floors of the hospital ('why is everything in hospitals so white anyway?' he absentmindedly wondered) and his hospital gown. He dropped his arms from where they were wrapped around Frankie, resting his palms against the floor to support his trembling frame, only for his girlfriend to wrap her own arms around him, allowing him to cry into her shoulder. Her blonde hair brushed his cheek, but he found it soothing rather than bothersome. It felt like his chest was tearing itself apart, but Frankie was holding him together, keeping him from going from cracked and bent to unfixable. She was the only thing keeping him from losing himself entirely in the wake of the worst days of their lives.
After what felt like an eternity, he stopped crying, but he didn't pull away. Instead, he wrapped his hands around his sister's arm, which crossed over his chest, keeping them in an unbreakable embrace.
Minutes passed in silence before Frankie spoke again.
"Are we broken, Carter?"
Even Carter didn't know the answer to that question.
"I don't think so," he finally settled on. "We're alive. We're together, and if we got through Dad's death and Mom's original rejection, we can get through this. Just like we got through everything else."
"Together," Frankie finished.
But Carter couldn't help the small thought that crept into his mind: But what if that's not enough this time?
He immediately shook the thought from his brain. No. Frankie would always be enough to get him through the darkest nights, and he would do the same for her.
"We'll find a way," Frankie said, but it was hard to tell who she was trying to reassure: him or herself. "We just have to hold on until then."
Carter pressed a kiss to her lips, and she kissed back as the memories melted away, replaced by even a moment of bliss when they could forget and pretend that everything was okay.
But pretending was a strong word. They would be okay. Someday.
They would hold on, if only for each other. When life tries to drown them again and again, the other was the lifeline.
Notes:
1. I do not have PTSD. I did some research, but since I do not have experience with PTSD personally, I hope I wrote it in a realistic way.
2. Frankie was ripping up her ribbons because she wanted to destroy any reminders of their kidnapping, even something as small as the ribbons she wore during the traumatic event.
Thanks for reading, and I hope everyone has a fantastic day!
