Frozen In Time - Rescue

Part XXIII - Manny

Well over a week later Frank finally managed to get himself released from the medical car. Melanie swore at times it was due to nothing less than Dr. Pelton getting tired of arguing with him every day on why he had to stay.

Eliah had been visiting with Frank the day he was released, and decisively took over getting him back to his own cabin and comfortably situated.

Melanie quickly noted, however, that while her very able bodied assistant did indeed seem well on his way to full recovery from his injury, Eliah never left his side, and quickly dismissed any offers of help at his cabin door as she politely closed it in Melanie's face.

Turning and heading back to her own work, a slight frown formed on the First Engineer's lips as Layton's suspicions easily started to take over her own thoughts again. She tried all day to shake them off, but they stubbornly refused to stay gone for long.

But now that her enigmatic assistant was back at work with her, his time with Eliah was cut significantly. And while she would have willingly given him additional time off if he had asked, Frank had maintained his own need to get back to work.

"You seem to be well recovered from your injury." Melanie mentioned on Frank's first day back at work with her since being released from the medical car.

She purposefully kept her pace slow, noting he still seemed to wince a few times when he moved.

"I am doing well, according to that annoying little woman in the medical car, ma'am." Came the tempered response.

"Dr. Pelton is a fine doctor, Frank. And you should listen to her."

"Were I sick or injured, she would have my undivided attention. I fail to see why she insists on continuing the relationship now that I am obviously fully recovered."

"It's called being cautious, Frank. And it's probably in relation to your ag..." But Melanie slowly let the last syllable drag out as she caught her assistant's stare. "...aggravated wound." She quickly amended. "She's just being cautious."

Frank gave the response a slight frown. "Of course, ma'am."

As they continued down the hallway, Melanie found Layton's words working their way back into her thought pattern, and she decided that perhaps there wasn't any harm in trying to sneak a little information out of her assistant on the subject.

"I do have a question though." She said, trying to make the conversation sound a casual as possible.

Frank turned to her with a questioning look.

"You said you'd had only been talking to your contact for the seven years since the freeze."

"I had indeed been in communication with her since the freeze, Ms. Cavill. But I also mentioned I knew Eliah before."

"True. Yet once the freeze happened, the contact between you had to be rare."

Frank gave the matter a slight shrug. "Not overly often. Before the trains connected, we were restricted by when the trains came close to each other. After the trains connected, it was a matter of caution. I couldn't risk Wilford finding out about Eliah for a number of reasons."

"Did you ever communicate with anyone else on Big Alice? Any of Eliah's group?"

Frank gave her another questioning look. "Why would you ever think I would do such a thing?"

"It just seemed to me that the other people on Big Alice who were part of Eliah's group...they seemed...very well versed in working together. Like they had done it before."

Frank stopped abruptly and turned to her, his face set in a somewhat stern expression. "It has been seven years, Ms. Cavill. Now, past what my contact told me, I have no idea what went on on Big Alice. For all I know they had all been part of a resistance that formed soon after the train left it's station. Like Snowpiercer, Big Alice seems to have it's share of counterban operations. Perhaps some..., or all of them, run part of that operation together."

"I suppose that's possible. It just didn't seem to me that those people were answering solely to Eliah. It seemed they also, at times, were answering to you."

Frank paused for a moment as he carefully studied the woman in front of him. "While Eliah is...a very good strategist, Ms. Cavill, I felt...she might need a small bit of help with this particular plan. And so, just as I did with Mr. Layton, I did ...offer a few ideas on how to get you and the other two back to Snowpiercer safely. Your small excursion back towards Big Alice's engine room, for instance, in order to throw Mr. Wilford off your trial, was a suggestion I had made earlier on. So you see, the plan they were executing, ma'am, was, at times, of my creation. Therefore, I would suggest that it would only be natural that if there were problems that they would check with me through my contact."

"I suppose that's a reasonable assumption." Melanie offered by way of an answer.

The pair walked on for a bit in silence. Her assistant's ability to deflect questions without ever giving away any real information on himself was one of the things that puzzled her about the man. But she also took it as a personal challenge to see sometimes if she could circumvent that wall he had placed in front of himself to learn even the smallest thing about him before the freeze.

"You and Eliah seem to work awfully well together." She commented as she tried another route.

"One could consider that a possibility, Ms. Cavill." Came the standard reply that, while answering the question, really didn't.

"I watched the both you in the fight at the border through the door. The two of you fought together like you had been doing it for years."

"I suppose that is one way someone could see it, Ma'am." Came the quick and easy reply as Frank again came to a stop in the hallway, turning to face his employer. "But while there is no question she is an excellent fighter in her own right, Ms. Elson's style of fighting is somewhat basic. It was an easy method for me to tap into it and fight alongside her. And when one is fighting with someone who fights in a similar manner, it can appear to the untrained observer that they are more in tune with each other than actually warrants."

Melanie fell back into silence as she stood facing her now almost expressionless assistant. No matter her question, the man had an answer that covered all the bases, but didn't give her any insight into him.

Maybe Layton was wrong in his assumption. Maybe he was seeing something that was nothing more than a close friendship. How many people, after all, had misjudged their relationship on outward signs?

But deep down she found another reason to clear the matter up if only in her own mind.

While she and Ruth were tentatively cordial to each other, the relationship was on the mend, and she felt the woman did deserve to know if something else was going on in the life of the man she was daily getting more and more involved with.

Standing still in front of her, Frank leaned down slightly towards her. "Was there anything else, Ms. Cavill?"

Melanie paused as she turned back to him. "Yes, Frank. There was one other thing."

"Yes, ma'am?"

"I know when you became my assistant I have always said what you do in your spare time is your business."

Frank gave her a gentlemanly nod. "That has always been the understanding, Ma'am."

"And I try to adhere to that rule."

"Indeed, ma'am, you have."

Melanie paused again. Best to just get it out and over with.

"Frank, Ruth, despite our past differences, is still a friend. And I don't want to see her get hurt."

The man paused for longer than usual this time as he seemed to think over the statement. "Is there a reason I am not aware of that Ms. Wardell should be hurt?"

"It's just that, you have been spending an inordinate amount of time with Ms. Elson. And it is clear the two of you have a...close...relationship."

Frank suddenly seemed to catch on to what his employer was eluding to.

"I see." He stated. "But in accordance with your last statement, I had assumed we were each entitled to...our share of secrets, Ms. Cavill."

"Some of us more than others." Melanie replied. "And with you, Frank, it seems at times it's hard to tell what's real about you and what's not."

"Well, regardless of what you may feel about what may and may not be 'real' regarding me, Ms. Cavill, I can utterly assure you without question that my relationship with Ms. Elson is in no way whatsoever a danger to my relationship with Ms. Wardell."

Jackson paused for a moment, catching the look of wariness still in his employer's eyes. Giving a slight sigh, he placed his arms behind his back, a sign Melanie knew well meant she was in line for a lecture from her assistant.

"You have heard Ms. Elson call me by a certain name." He stated.

Melanie nodded slightly. "She always calls you 'Manny'. I assumed it was...a code name. Like the people on Big Alice always called her simply 'E'."

Frank shook his head. "Eliah told you she had attended Oxford."

Melanie gave him a slight nod.

"While she was there, she had a most bothersome habit of going to a pub in Newham. She claimed it was where all the students went on the weekends. But it was also the place where she picked up that annoying Cockney accent of her's. It would seem whenever I would see her, she would use that particular accent. Sometimes I think it was solely based on how much she knew it irritated me.

But despite how much I disliked that accent, there was one word in it she never failed to use with me. And after a bit, I found myself actually coming to like it."

"Manny." Melanie quickly ventured.

Frank gave her a slight nod. "The problem, Ms. Cavill, is you think 'Manny' is just a word...or a name."

"Or a code name." Melanie added.

Frank shook his head again. "'Manny' isn't a word, Ms. Cavill. It's a title."

Melanie returned a puzzled look. "A title?"

"Indeed." The man paused for a moment. "You see, in the Cockney dialect Eliah uses, the word 'Manny' refers to a male family member. It could refer to an uncle, a male cousin, or, in my case," he added as he carefully reached into his jacket and pulled out a small, thin leather wallet that looked like it had seen more than it's fair share of days, "it could mean 'father'."

For several seconds, Melanie stood in front of the man, her mouth open, but no words coming out.

"So you see, while I have my share of secrets, Ms. Cavill, I will say you can trust with a fair amount of accuracy when I tell you among those secrets..." he added, opening the wallet to the sole picture it contained and turning it for Melanie to see. "...there is a very good reason I keep this one."

Melanie stared at the picture as she looked between her assistant and the girl in the picture.

The resemblance was suddenly so blatant she couldn't understand why she hadn't seen it before now. "...Th...that would mean Eliah is..."

"My daughter, Ms. Cavill."