Call Me Zero (Frerard)

27: Late dawns and early sunsets.

A/N: addressing some comments on the previous chapter:

zero cannot be taken to the hospital because they are an /alien/. the doctors would not be able to treat them right, maybe even discover what they are, not to mention there are people out to get them. frank knows this.

frank is a normal person he has a little gauze in his house and maybe some peroxide he doesn't have medical quality disinfectant and prescription painkillers ok. there's nothing he can do.

he can't go to the store to get anything because zero cannot be left home alone.

the best he could do was wash the wound a little. keep in mind its not fresh. zero was cut open nearly two weeks ago, maybe more. it's healing.

if you have any further questions, feel free to ask me, but hopefully this clears things up a bit :)

sorry for such a long wait for the update! i had to catch up on a lot of work since i was absent all last week. im gonna try to get the next one up sooner.

sidenote: fic is being extended by another chapter since this one turned out to be longer than expected. :) total chapter number is still subject to change give or take one or two chapters maybe.

enjoy!

~

Zero dozed off fairly early in the evening, still understandably exhausted from everything that had happened, and even more so from the panic attack.

Frank took the opportunity to call Ray and tell him the news, recounting the entirety of what had happened from the moment he had heard the knock on the door, up until now.

Ray had been in disbelief - speechless at first and then firing questions at Frank so fast he hadn't even been able to answer. The one that he had kept asking though, was how the hell did Zero even get out of there in the first place? Obviously, Frank had no idea, and in all honesty he couldn't have cared less. It was foolish and naive, but Zero was home, and that was all that mattered to him.

But Ray being his usual self, lectured Frank on all the possible scenarios that could happen - pretty much all of them involving the FBI - and how there was no way they could just let this be and act as if nothing had happened, as much as Frank wanted to. Frank knew all this already, of course, but there's a pretty big difference between knowing you have to do something, and actually doing it.

What had happened in the time span between the day he and Zero had first left home up until the day he had found them on his doorstep - and even the short amount of time after that - had changed them both drastically, and there was no going back. Frank was well aware of that, but it felt so nice to be able to pretend. However, he was also aware that Ray wouldn't let him get away with that for very long at all.

Ray was a realist. He thought things out from every angle and determined the best decision from there; and as much as Frank hated to admit it, Ray was almost always right too.

Since Zero's episode in the bedroom, Frank knew exactly what they had to do. What they had to try to do at least. The thought would creep up on him constantly, no matter how many times he had tried to push it away. And what was worse - it had only been just a few hours. If it was nagging him this much already, how long could he possibly last before giving in? Having Ray pressuring him on top of it all didn't help either.

After several hours of back and forth bickering, Frank had finally explained his "plan" to Ray.

"We have to fix the spaceship," he told him bluntly.

Ray was silent.

"That's the only way to fix this Ray. They have to get out of here. You said it yourself there's nowhere they can hide from these people. They'll be hunted for the rest of their life if we don't-"