GobSmacked82

Rachel saw the nurse’s mouth moving, knew that she was saying something important, but she couldn’t make sense of anything that she was saying. Only when the nurse pressed the cold disk of a stethoscope against Rachel’s chest could she begin to focus.

Nurse: Just take a deep breathe for me, sweetie.

Rachel complied, and looked down at the cross she was fingering in her hands, the one that Frank gave her hours before he plucked her from a rowdy mob at Club Mayan. She hadn’t let go of it since introducing the nominees along with Clive … what was his last name? And for the … what was the category again? She couldn’t even remember. She just knew that fear gripped her as she hallucinated Clive drawing a piece of hate mail out of the Oscar envelope, had chased her off a stage, had pursued her behind the curtains as she lashed out at Frank. How could she lash out at the man who was only trying to warn her about Portman? Who absorbed her horrible treatment and then shed his own blood to keep her safe?

Rachel: (Turns to the nurse.) I’m really … I’m perfectly OK.

The nurse smiles and makes a note on Rachel’s chart in a binder. Then she takes a cuff out of its holder and wraps it around Rachel’s arm to measure her blood pressure.

Rachel: Can someone please let me go see him? Frank Farmer? He’s my bodyguard and he’s here, and he took it for me … he jumped right in front of me and … (Rachel puts her head in her hands. The nurse holds Rachel with both hands and rubs her arm.) I have to see him before they put him under.

Nurse: I’m sorry, honey. But he’s already in surgery. They rushed him right in and took him up. (The nurse pauses. She wets, then bites her lower lip and leans a little closer to Rachel.) Someone at the nurse’s station had the Oscars on TV, while the patients were all quiet and we had just done our rounds. They saw the way he was hit.

Rachel: (Looks at the nurse and straightens up.) What does that mean, ‘the way he was hit?’

Nurse: (Holds Rachel’s hands.) It means the best thing you can do now is relax and keep a positive outlook on things. Do you know if he has anyone? Is someone coming?

Rachel: His father! A lovely man. His dad should be here. I had Bill call him right away and tell him what happened. And then we arranged for a jet to fly him down. It was hard to get him to take it, though.

Nurse: Well, not everybody gets around quite like that. It was probably a strange experience for him.

Rachel: The studio offered it. They called right after they heard. Everyone’s been so great.

Nurse: Well, when you have the biggest name in show business ask a favor for a member of her inner circle …

Rachel: It’s not like that! I’m nothing, OK? Frank is the real hero in all this. Everyone saw him jump in front of me. No one ever did anything like that for me. Well, except maybe Nikki. She took a spanking from Mommy once for me, you know. We were visiting our grandparents in Michigan one winter and there was this pond near their house. It gets cold as isht up there in the winder! I talked her into riding our sleds down a hill and across this shallow frozen pond early without anyone to watch us. When Mommy came looking for us and found us, she nearly tanned Nikki’s hide for it. And you! You heal people. What do I do? I just sing with a pretty face and pretty gowns, but people like you and Frank actually protect people and keep them safe. Why would anybody pay attention to a little singer anyway? What’s the big damned deal?!?!
By now the nurse is rubbing Rachel’s back and telling her to stay calm.

Rachel: I’ll be fine if you just let me see Frank. I’d be so grateful.

Nurse: I’ll see what I can manage. You’re his boss anyway, so maybe there is something I can arrange.

Hours later, Rachel is dressed in a coordinating night gown, robe and slipper set, and walks into a surgery waiting room, where Frank’s father is. He is nodding off in a chair, and Rachel sits next to him, then gently shakes him.

Mr. Farmer: Oh. Hey Rachel. Gosh, what time is it, anyway?

Rachel: Almost nine. I’m hoping that they’ll have some news soon. I mean, but only if you want to share it. You’re his family.

Mr. Farmer: Rachel, it was really kind of you to send for me to be here with Frank when he wakes up. I know you look up to him, and you’re grateful for what he did for you. Of course I’ll let you know what the doctors say after his surgery.
By this time, Rachel is biting her thumbnail and looking straight at Mr. Farmer.

Rachel: Thank you!

Hours after the surgery, Mr. Farmer is in Frank’s room watching his son sleep. He takes a look at Frank and walks to the nurse’s station. Someone hands him a phone and lets him dial a number. He talks briefly with the person on the other line and goes back to Frank’s room. Moments later, Rachel is knocking on Frank’s room door softly, and her nurse lets her in.
Rachel hugs Mr. Farmer and goes over to Frank. She starts a bit, seeing Frank hooked up to a respirator and tubes.

Mr. Farmer: Try not to worry too much about those, really. You have to expect that sort of thing after what he’s been through. He took a little longer than they liked to wake up from the anesthesia, and … But as Mr. Farmer speaks, Rachel struggles to focus on his explanations of the doctors’ assessments. She instantly feels remorse for having been so hostile toward Frank. Just several months before, he seemed totally in control, calm, and operated with the kind of focus and resolve that Rachel had only seen from the cream of the crop in her business. But he never paid her any mind, unlike most guys. How that burned her up! Now he was lying incapacitated and unaware of his surroundings because of her. Rachel shakes her head.

Mr. Farmer: Oh, listen. There’s every expectation that he’ll make a full recovery. He’ll be back to his old strict and no-nonsense self for sure.
Rachel looked up. She wondered if he had overheard her and Nikki laughing and talking at the lake house. Did he hear them wonder how such a warm father could have produced such a stern son? Maybe he got it from his mom, they speculated.

Mr. Farmer: He’s always had that reputation. Frank was one of the smaller guys in his class at school. We sent him to this fancy private sleep away camp one summer. Even though a lot of the other kids towered over him and were bigger than him. But when we picked him up, you should have heard the stories! He figured out how to be the head counselor’s right-hand man, and all those older kids ended up respecting him. Some were even scared of him! (He laughs.) By the time Katherine and me walked him to the car, everybody was saying ‘bye Sheriff. They nicknamed him ‘sheriff!’

Rachel: That sure sounds like him.

Mr. Farmer: I have to leave now. He’s stable, resting comfortably, but it’ll be a few days before the doctors relax. We’ve all done all we can for today. I’m going to head home and come back after breakfast. Good night, Rachel. Don’t stay up too long with him. You need your rest, too.

Rachel: Yes, of course. Do you have everything you need … at the hotel?

Mr. Farmer: I sure do.

Rachel: The other offer still stands to stay with the Marrons. We have plenty of room.

Mr. Farmer: Oh no! You’re really sweet and I’m grateful, but I wouldn’t know what to do in a superstar lady’s home like yourself. It’s bad enough you’re putting me up in a luxury suite. We’re simple people, the Farmers. (He winks at Rachel, who laughs lightly.)
They say good night, and Mr. Farmer admonishes Rachel once again to get her rest. As soon as he’s gone, Rachel goes to the side of Frank’s bed, finds a chair and sits down close to it. She holds his hand and scans Frank lying motionless on the bed. The sheets are folded neatly over his gown.

Rachel: Well Frank, here we are. You’ve fulfilled that promise to me. I have loads to tell you when you after you get well, Frank. You won’t believe the fight I got into with Sy when he and my assistant dropped off my pajamas. He actually wants to spin this into something with a ‘beauty and the beast’ sort of angle. Beast meaning that you dominate at what you do, Frank. I know you don’t keep up with slang, but we celebrities can’t avoid it. I have to know all the new names these little jealous eschbti be calling me. Anyway, we got into it for real, and at one point the nurse threatened to sedate me if I didn’t let go of Sy’s hair.

Of course, Frank did not respond. Rachel’s only conversational companions are the hiss of the respirator and the occasional beeps of the ivy fluid and medications monitor. She holds his hand up, first playing with his fingers and then lacing them with hers before clasping on tight.

Rachel: Well, Sy is good for one thing. Spreading information. He told me that it was … Portman behind the gun, Frank. Your old friend from the service. It seems so unbelievable, Frank. Especially … Rachel takes a deep breathe, feeling that what she has to say now is just as important as when she’ll do it again, after he wakes up.

Rachel: Nothing happened that night, Frank. I hate to wonder what you must have thought, seeing us walk into my room together. Portman turned out to be a real pig. Snooping around my room, fiddling with things, asking questions. I should have known. And he tried to get rough with me. I can’t believe I was so reckless and spiteful!
Rachel presses the back of Frank’s hand to her forehead and her shoulders slump with despair. She eventually sits up straighter and checks her watch.

Rachel: I’m so sorry I brought this on you, Frank. I don’t deserve someone like you, in any way. Your father does. He deserves a son like you to stay near him and watch out for him. Not some attitude-having diva who lures murderous freaks to your house. (Another pause, where Rachel strokes the back of Frank’s hand.) I have two more minutes. The nurse is breaking all kinds of rules to let me see you, Frank. I know how you hate that sort of thing, and I don’t want to get her into trouble. When you wake up, I’ll be around to help in any way I can while you recover. At long, long last I’ve learned to … I’ve learned not to treat certain people with disrespect. Good people, like you.

Rachel pauses to smooth the sheet across Frank's chest. Then she turns out the light over his bed, as the nurse asked.

Rachel: But I’m not making any guarantees about Sy. He's taken to calling you Crank Farmer, which is why I snapped and grabbed his hair a couple of hours ago. I'll try to keep my cool next time, because I know hotheads get on your nerves.

Rachel kisses Frank’s hand, gently rests it on the sheet to his side, and then she strokes his arm. She kisses his forehead, quietly walks to the door and turns around. Only the light from the hallway illuminates Frank’s room now, and Rachel takes another long look before stepping away. Then she pulls the heavy door and watches Frank sleep as the door sweeps the last bit of light from his room and clicks shut.


OK, shippers. This is the last Franchel fanfic/convo for these threads. I've decided to move them to fanfiction.net, to save space here. I'm a little reluctant to do it, since it meant creating another password to remember. But I notice that I've created enough of these fanfiction/convos to perhaps warrant an account. We'll see how it goes. In future stories, I'll post the link here to bring you to the full story there. I'll post the stories under the same pen name, GobSmacked82.

Also, I'll post "catch up" chapters on that site, essentially duplicates of what I've posted here. There might be minor tweaks and revisions, given their guidelines for proofreading, grammar, etc.