Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story, but I do own the story. If it resembles anyone else's in any way it is unintentional.

Author's Note: Hey, I'm back! Sorry, guys, for the long wait. I've made the mistake of not really knowing where this story is going to end up, so I guess we'll just see what happens as we go along. Plus I had some writer's block...I get that too much. Unfortunately, this is what I do...procrastinate. I try my best not to do it when I'm dealing with my fanfiction, but hey...sometimes you just can't help it. I'll like to say just a couple things, too...I deleted two reviews that were submitted to this story. And I'll explain why. Japanesekitty, I deleted yours for the sole reason that it had flooded my review page. I appreciate your comment, but flooding the page makes the other reviews difficult to read and overall makes it look tacky. Also, Crush with eyeliner, I deleted yours because of the profanity you included in it. I appreciate your positive comment as well, and I know you were just stating your opinion, but to be honest I don't want all that profanity on my review page. Personally I don't like profanity too much and I only use it in my stories when I feel it's necessary. So anyway, I'm just saying I didn't do this for any personal reason, and I really do appreciate the fact that you two took the time to review, but there are just some things I don't want on my review page. You can most certainly review again, just keep in mind what I said ;) No hard feelings. Now, on with the story!

Looking For the Smile
Chapter 5: Succumb to the Depth

It's hard to explain to someone how much a single thing can hurt. It's hard for me to tell anyone just how this feels. I don't want to seem selfish, I know I'm not the only one who's feeling emptier as every day goes on around here, but still...somehow it's just hard.

After she left I couldn't think of anything else but her. Normally whenever I get upset, I try to think of something that makes me happy. ...Unfortunately, the first thing I always thought about was Frankie. And now, just to bring the image of her face into my mind brings me pain. It makes it all worse. I try to think of something else but already my mind is stuck. It seems as though once I think of her she won't leave my head. And everything just falls deeper into that overwhelming despair.

I heard something once. I heard that there is no pain that can equal death except loneliness. It's the truth. I've felt it before. It's one of those things you just never really learn to deal with. Denial doesn't work and neither does any form of self-delusion. When my creator first abandoned me here it was all I could do to just fake a smile every day. But then Frankie came, and...she seemed to make everything better. Not long after her came Eduardo and I felt as though I could never be sad again.

Now she's gone. And it's just me being abandoned all over again. I suppose with my creator it was different, because I knew that he wasn't going to come back, I knew that he had no more use for me. That way I didn't fool myself into thinking he would. But this situation...it seems worse, almost, because I don't know. I don't know if she'll come back. I'm glad to have that little bit of hope that she might, but it somehow works against me as well. It torments me, almost. When my creator left me here I never laid awake at night hoping and praying as hard as I could that he'd come back for me. Because I knew it was useless and it was pointless. But with her...with Frankie...I don't know what will happen.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's uncertainty that hurts the most in a situation like this. The whole "fear of not knowing" thing.

It's weird. Suddenly it's like my and Eduardo's roles have been reversed. Before it was always me comforting him, telling him that a shadow was just a shadow and that a thunderstorm wouldn't tear the house apart. Now it's him telling me these things. I almost feel bad...I know I'm worrying him, acting this way. I've tried to push all the feelings away, just for him, so he wouldn't be forced into a role he wasn't meant to play...but faking it is so hard. It's just so hard.

Maybe I shouldn't really feel all that bad about it. Knowing Eduardo as I do, I know that his natural instinct is to protect. He did it for his creator and I guess he wants to do it for me as well.

I'll be honest: the whole first day after she left I didn't come out from under the bed. How could I have? To everyone else in the house I was always the happy one, the one who could see the "okay" in every situation. Like I said before, faking it is incredibly difficult. And I was not in the mood to fake anything that day.

Eventually Eduardo coaxed me out. So I went downstairs to help with some things around the house...apparently Mr. Herriman had said that all us friends had to put forth more effort to keep the house running with Frankie gone. So I did my best not to think of her while I was, essentially, replacing her.
About two weeks after Frankie left, things didn't seem to get much better. I hadn't heard from her since she left; if anyone else in the house had, I didn't know of it. Mr. Herriman had been reduced to two moods: either he would sit in his office all day and rarely be seen, or he would all over the house, shouting at anyone and everyone for the slightest misdeed or error. Madame Foster was around as often as usual, except she seemed older now. Of course, we'd all known she was old before, but there'd always been a spark of life in her that seemed to be dead now. She smiled as often as usual but her eyes would always be sad.

Mac still visited; of course, he always immediately offered to help with whatever chore we were doing. It didn't seem like he and Bloo played much anymore. Mac just dropped by, helped us out, and then he'd leave once he had to go home. It was hard to imagine how Bloo must feel. It must have felt like not getting to play with Mac anymore...like if Mac didn't visit...like being abandoned again.

The other day I was cleaning a ceiling fan in the hallway while Eduardo swept near me. Neither of us were saying much. I was too busy making sure none of the dust I removed was really the imaginary dust bunny friends. Maybe Eduardo was concentrating on the same thing.

A silence was hanging between us, needless to say. It was one of those silences where the ticking of the hallway clock seems so loud, where you're afraid to make the smallest of motions for fear that it will make a terrible racket. The silence, like all silences, was eventually broken.

"Wilt?" Eduardo asked.

"Yeah, Ed?" I replied, almost mechanically.

"I, uhm...I had a nightmare last night."

"You did?" As soon as I said that I felt a pang of guilt. I'd sounded too indifferent. I didn't want him to think I didn't care. But as he went on, if he noticed or even cared I heard no trace of it in his voice.

"Si. Uhm...you were in it."

"I was? Was anyone else in it?"

"No," he replied, sounding sad. "Just you. ...You were drowning."

It almost shocked me how naturally he was able to say that. I stopped dusting for a minute to listen to him. He didn't even stop his sweeping. "...I, uh...I was?" I asked.

Eduardo nodded. "Si," he said, and this time he actually did stop for a moment to look at me. "You fell in the lake in the backyard...and it was too deep for you to stand in. You couldn't get out because you can't swim with your un brazo and everything...and I am afraid of the water so I couldn't help you."

For a while I said nothing. Sometimes Eduardo had nightmares of people dying. Sometimes randomly and without cause, sometimes they were triggered. They always upset him the most, though. I was frankly surprised that he was telling me he'd dreamt of me dying so calmly. To be honest, I'd expect him to be somewhat frantic about it.

"In your dream, Eduardo," I asked him slowly, carefully, "...do I die?"

Then between us we shared the longest, loudest, hugest silence I'd ever heard. I'm still not certain how long I stood waiting for an answer from him. It could have been half an hour, it could have been five minutes, it could have been the whole afternoon. But I could read his eyes, and in them I saw that he was simply thinking. Thinking about everything, so much.

Finally, when he finally looked up and looked at me again, he said, "You are my best friend, Wilt. Absolutamente mi mejor amigo." He was lapsing into Spanish. I only knew what little amount I'd picked up from him, and if he went on into something much more complicated than that small phrase I wouldn't understand him.

Then Eduardo turned and went back to his sweeping, and in a voice that suggested it settled the whole matter, he said, "No me lo gusta cuando eres triste, Altísimo. ...I do not like it when you are sad."

As he continued his chore without another word, I was left to think on that. After a minute or two, it seemed to me as though he wasn't saying that my sadness was in turn affecting his own sadness...and then I started to think about his nightmare. In the time Eduardo had known me, I was upset so rarely I barely knew how to deal with the emotion. Now suddenly, I'd had it flung upon me in one of its fiercest forms.

I guess he was afraid I would drown, so to speak. That I couldn't force my way out of it just to feign happiness for him. And he couldn't help me because he didn't know what to do. I was worrying Eduardo that I would become so sad, so depressed over Frankie's departure I would never be the way I once was. I would never be the same Wilt that protected him from storms and shadows.

Our roles hadn't really switched after all, once I thought about it. Eduardo was still scared, as usual. It's just that this time I was the one scaring him.

Without thinking, on impulse, I went up behind Eduardo and hugged him with my good arm. It was all I could do to reassure him, because I could think of nothing better to say

Candy the Duck: Almost cried? Darn, I guess I'll have to get some more angsty fluff in the coming chapters to get you to really do it ;)

Sherlock-fan19: He can? :D All right, then... Wilt: (gives Sherlock-fan19 a nice big one-armed hug) Was that okay?

PhantomGoDeo: Aw, thank you I'm glad you're enjoying the story.

Shannon Foster: The link didn't show up in the review ;; You can always try to send it to me in e-mail, which you can find in my profile. And I'm glad you liked it

Jessica: How can you not love Wilt? :D

FlyingToast: Glad you liked it :)

Hannah: Don't worry, I'll tell what's up with Frankie in a few chapters to come. Maybe even next chapter...who knows? ;)

Shazi M: Sequel? Oh, but this story isn't done yet! Yes, there was a bit of a hiatus, but that's just because I'm lazy and get writer's block more often than should be healthy. But I'm glad you're enjoying the story :)

And that's all the review responses from me. If there's one thing I have to say about this chapter, it's that there's just not enough Wilt and Eduardo fluff out there. I might write some oneshots in the future to promote the rise of Wilt/Eduardo slash XD But we'll see how that goes.