When We Were Young

"You okay?"

What did the investigator say, boss lady?" Franklin asked as he crossed the apartment to hand her a glass of water.

"He said that he was going to try to review any security footage that might have been recorded. It sucks that I didn't actually see the person that did this--"

"Come on, it has to be Brock...doesn't it?"
"I'm almost certain it was, it's hard to be sure though...he said a few things before he...you know."

She waded into the memory of the night she was attacked, "The way he was talking, I have to wonder if he thought I was Ben."

"I never thought of it like that! Could this be a jealousy thing?" Franklin's eyes went wide at the possibility.

"Wouldn't surprise me." She winced after trying to straighten herself up. "Could you prop me up a little more?" Sabrina gestured to the stack of throw pillows on the floor.

She'd asked to be released from the hospital early on the promise that she'd have someone looking after her around the clock until her follow up appointment. Franklin was eager to do anything she asked, having been charged by Sabrina's parents to take care of her when they weren't around.

"Did you tell him all of what you just told me?"

"Yeah," she answered through clenched teeth as Franklin helped her sit forward, stuffing a down-filled pillow behind her for support. "Like I said, he's going to check around, see what comes up."

"I'm just glad you're okay...well, you're going to be okay...you know what I mean. What about Ben? Any word--"

"No," she replied sheepishly. "I was thinking I should apologize to him--"

Before she could finish her sentence, Franklin thrust her cell phone into her hand and demanded she call him immediately.

"What do I say?" Suddenly she was hot with nerves, unsure of how she could possibly correct the way she'd dismissed him a number of days before that. Impulsively, she tapped on his contact information and held the phone to her ear.

"Hey. It's Ben. Leave a message."

"Dammit," she cursed and tossed the phone into her lap. Franklin didn't bother to ask, he'd overheard the sound of his voicemail greeting picking up instead of him.

"Here," he said quietly, dropping her scheduled dose of pain medication into her hand. "That'll take the edge off."

"Maybe you could just knock me out again and I'll forget about this whole mess. Would you do that for me?"

"Sabrina, I'd do a lot of things for you, but I won't--"
A sharp rapping on the door cut him off mid-sentence. Startled, he leapt across the small apartment to the door.

"Who is it?" she asked, craning her neck in an attempt to see around the corner to the entry.

"You've got a visitor," Franklin replied smugly as he opened the door.

"Who? Grace, the patron saint of motherly worry?" she responded incredulously.

"Nope," he replied, then spoke again, this time to the visitor.  "Come on in."

"Thank you," he replied and immediately Sabrina started to cry. She'd know his voice anywhere.

He paused once he entered, catching sight of Sabrina, tears springing to his eyes. When he got word that something had happened, he imagined the worst and the state she was in didn't do much to ease the upset in his heart. Her face was battered and swollen and it was clearly a struggle for her to move at all. He closed the space between them, dropping his things as he went. Once he reached her bedside, he fell to his knees and buried his head in her blankets and began to sob.