AN: Well, the response to the last chapter was...interesting. Just kidding, I love you guys! Thank you for reading and reviewing, and I hope you enjoy this chapter too! On another unrelated note, my exam timetable was released today...and I am not looking forward to two three-hour exams on the same day, one at 8:30 in the morning, and one at 5:15, ending at 8:30...

Hazel laughed as she and Frank walked on the sidewalk, along the edge of the park, on their way to her house.

'So Dakota got drunk on red Kool-Aid? Isn't that impossible?'

Frank nodded, grinning.

'Well, I don't think drunk is the right word for it, but with the amount of sugar that was in that...I'm surprised he only declared his undying love for Gwen in the form of song.'

Hazel shook her head, still giggling.

'I wish I'd seen that.'

It was incredible, he thought, how she could keep going even though her life was under threat. He was nearly having kittens. Somehow, though, instead of making him feel even more inadequate for her, it almost seemed to lend him strength.

'Oh, the aftermath was even better.'

Hazel's eyes lit up.

'Oh, what did she do?'

'She pushed him into the swimming pool. Then jumped in and kissed him.'

Hazel laughed louder.

'Oh, my. Why is it that we don't know any normal pairs of soulmates?'

Frank smiled, but cocked his head to the left in mock-thought.

'I don't know, Jason and Piper are pretty normal...'

She raised an eyebrow.

'Remember last Friday?'

They both laughed at the memory.

Lost in their memories and amusement, Hazel ended up about five metres further along the path than Frank.

And moments later, a figure in dark clothing stepped out of the shadows, clapped a hand over her mouth, and dragged her off the path.

Frank heard a horrible, guttural sound.

Was that him?

Somehow, he found himself at the spot where Hazel disappeared seemingly instantly, and what felt like a second later, watching a man (Alcyoneus for sure) injecting the struggling girl with the contents of a syringe.

He saw red.

And for the first time, he didn't try to fight it.

Barely aware of what he was doing, he seized the man by the throat, pulling him away from Hazel, who fell with a thump to the thankfully-soft ground.

He thrust him into a tree, hands still around his throat.

Alcyoneus struggled, but he was weak from years spent in a coma and in hospital, and Frank was young and at least as strong as he looked, if not more.

He must have seen Hazel with Frank, he must have seen him, but he was a fool. And certainly not right in the head.

A very quiet, very small voice in Frank's head tried to tell him to stop, because he was choking him and if he didn't stop, he would die...but couldn't penetrate the red haze.

Alcyoneus grew still. Frank's grip on his neck loosened ever so slightly.

Moments later, he felt a stabbing pain in his leg.

Alcyoneus was perhaps righter in the head than he gave him credit for.

The knife in his leg, however, didn't dispel or even reduce the red that surrounded Frank.

Instead, he kneed the man in the stomach, producing a satisfying groan of pain, and delivered a right hook to his jaw with a loud crack.

He allowed the man to collapse onto the ground in a heap, and still under the influence of all that red, prepared to dish out some punishment on the man who dared to hurt his Hazel.

'Frank?'

Hazel, frighteningly pale, voice frail and weak, reached a hand out towards him, before she collapsed into a dead faint.

He came crashing down to Earth. The red mist that surrounded him faded instantly.

Oh, gods, Hazel!

He reached into his pocket, drew out his phone, and dialled 911, kneeling down frantically beside her, trying to recall what little he knew of first aid as he did so.

Alcyoneus lay forgotten on the ground, completely unconscious.

Frank sat by Hazel's bed, watching her breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out.

He ran a hand over the stitched-up, bandaged knife wound in his leg. He'd refused to allow himself to be consigned to a hospital bed, insisting that he stayed with Hazel.

She was okay. She was going to be okay. She'd been given an antidote. She was going to be okay.

On Hazel's other side sat Nico, still, silent, eyes on Hazel.

Their other friends had not been allowed to stay with Hazel; they'd stayed in the waiting room until the doctors and nurses had kicked them out. Now, they were all at Percy's, just like every other Friday night.

Frank scoffed. This was not a usual Friday night.

Hazel was in hospital, for gods' sake.

He kept watching her, as if scared she would stop breathing if he did.

Until she woke up, heck, until she got out of the darn hospital, he wouldn't stop worrying.

Watching Nico, he knew the other boy shared his feelings, but neither of them felt like speaking. They just sat and watched Hazel.

Until Frank spoke.

'I'm sorry, Nico.'

The other young man looked up.

'You saved my sister. I should be thanking you.'

Frank scoffed, and ran a hand through his short hair.

'I shouldn't have let her get ahead of me... I should have been closer...I shouldn't have let him...you know...'

Nico affixed him with a steady, dark stare. The same resoluteness that Hazel had whenever she was trying to get him to have more confidence in himself was there.

'You're human, Frank. You can't do everything.' He smiled a faint ghost of a smile. 'Besides, can you imagine Hazel's reaction if we didn't let her out of our reach?'

Frank smiled wanly.

Nico continued.

'You saved my sister, Frank. That's what matters.' Nico's smile widened. 'I'm going to be flower boy at your wedding, right?'

Frank blushed bright red, and completely flustered, rubbed the back of his head and muttered something that Nico didn't hear and he wouldn't remember afterwards.

A horrible doubting voice, however, spoke up in the back of his mind.

If there is ever going to be a wedding...she saw, you know. She saw what you did. She knows what you can do. You broke his jaw. You bruised his ribs. You left those horrible welts on his neck. You're why he's in a ward under police guard right now, and not in a jail cell. You enjoyed it. You felt satisfied that you hurt him. You are a terrible person.

Another voice spoke up.

And that feeling of satisfaction scared you. You hated the fact that you felt that way. You still do. You're still beating yourself up for it. The police said it was clearly self-defence anyway, and you almost begged to be arrested, the policeman said so himself.

But you don't regret doing it. You don't regret nearly killing that man, hurting him, choking him. You don't regret nearly beating him even though he was unconscious. You know you would have, if she didn't stop you...

Of course you don't regret it! You acted to save her, to protect her! She means so, so much to you, of course you'd act that way! And you stopped. You stopped. That's what's important.

She won't care about that. All she'll care about is that you almost killed a man before her eyes. And she'll never look at you that way again, never look at you with affection or kindness or love, as if you're her hero or knight in shining armour. She'll look at you with fear or disgust.

No, she won't! You talked about it, you really, really did. She knows. She understands. She accepts. She does love you, and she won't stop because of this.

Didn't you see the look in her eyes, you fool? When she said your name, back in that park? There was fear in her eyes. Fear.

The other voice was silent for a moment.

She loves you.

The words seemed hollow, a weak defence.

A knot of dread building in his stomach, mixing with the weight of guilt he'd felt since the fateful moment earlier that day (had it really only been a few hours?), Frank kept watching Hazel, turning his thoughts back to her. He reached out and held her hand.

Hopefully not for the last time.

It was in the middle of the night that Hazel's eyes fluttered open.

Nico and Frank, by privilege of being her brother and her soulmate respectively, had been allowed to spend the night in Hazel's room. (Since she was fourteen and her father was not there and she'd just been poisoned by the man who' killed her mother- the doctors decided they should be there when she woke up.)

Nico had curled up into a hard hospital chair in the corner, fast asleep. He looked younger asleep, Frank thought.

Frank himself was exhausted and sleepy, but he could not sleep. He just sat there by Hazel's bedside, holding her hand, wracked with guilt and fear.

When her eyes opened, for a moment, those feelings were replaced with joy and concern.

'Hazel? You're awake! Are you okay? Do you want me to call the doctor, or a nurse? Are you in any pain? Oh gods, I was so worried, and so was Nico, he's there in the corner, would you like me to wake him?'

Hazel smiled softly.

'When he sleeps, he sleeps like the dead. You would have a lot of trouble waking him. I'm okay, Frank, really.' She turned to him, eyes serious, and...worried. Scared.

Fear and guilt returned with a vengeance.

'I'm...I'm so sorry, Hazel. I'm...I'm so sorry for...for...for...' He forced himself to say it. 'For choking him. For breaking his jaw. For nearly beating him while he was unconscious. For...for trying to kill him. I...I went too far...and...and I'm sorry for scaring you. I...I understand if you never want to see me again, just, please...get Nico to text me or something when you get out of hospital, just so that I know you're okay-'

'Frank! Frank, stop that!'

Hazel was admonishing him.

Frank stopped, mostly in shock.

That was not the reaction he expected.

'We talked about this, Frank. You're kind and gentle and noble and good. You're a good person.'

'I thought...when...when you...I thought you were scared of me.'

She shook her head, smiling sadly.

'No, Frank, I was scared for you. If you had...if you had continued...I was so scared of how you might feel, the guilt you would feel...'

He relaxed significantly, that knot of dread unwinding and disappearing.

She wasn't scared of him; she was scared for him, because he mattered to her. She still wanted to be with him. Dare he think it, she still loved him.

Almost all of the tension disappeared from his body. Almost all of it.

She probably shouldn't have tried to sit up, but she did, and reached over to embrace him. There was sadness in her eyes, as if she'd realized that something had changed in him.

Frank knew it too. He would never be the same. Not after this. Not completely.

Some of his innocence had died.

He'd carry the guilt around for the rest of his life. It would be his burden.

Hazel seemed to sense that thought. She held him tighter, and whispered in his ear.

'You stopped. That means a lot.'

The burden of guilt felt lighter.

He nodded slowly, taking a deep breath, then another, embracing her back as gently as he could.

'And regardless, you're still my knight-in-shining-armour. My Frank.'

He wanted to hold her tighter, to show her what those words meant, but he was far too fearful of hurting her. He settled for pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

She seemed to get the message.

He had changed.

But he was still him.

Still Frank.

AN: I don't know if Frank would get in legal trouble, just like I don't know if Hazel would over her actions to defend her mother. I'm not a lawyer, nor a law student. Please just roll with it?