After the contentious custody battle, Frank & Mary go on with their lives as usual. But it isn't until an eventful night at Ferg's that Frank starts to wonder if maybe his life might be missing something. Now that his niece has a normal life, maybe...
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After Evelyn left, Joey tried to pull herself together before she went back into the house. She really didn't want to freak out the kids with her tears, but when Frank noticed that, despite her best efforts, Joey just couldn't stop shaking he ushered her to the porch swing and sat down beside her and held her hand until she calmed down.
"She can't take her, Frank. She just can't." Joey whispered through her sobs but managed to fake a smile and nod to Mrs. Barber when their neighbour peeked her head out from her house to make sure she was okay now that the coast was clear.
Joey loved her nosey eavesdropping neighbours, they really did try and look out for her in their own way. She noticed that Frank was even starting to warm up to them as he gave the nice worried lady a charming smile and 'it's okay now' kind of wave.
"I can't believe that Evelyn went there." Joey continued to whisper to him with an edge in her voice. "Threatening another custody case? It's such a savage move. I've never been more wrong about a person in my whole life. I can't believe that I actually liked her and I was dumb enough to believe that she was sincere when she told me that she regretted the way that she had acted before. I mean how stupid can one person be."
"You're not stupid. You gave her a chance, I love that about you." Frank admired as he leaned over and placed a kiss on her temple.
"She's a real piece of work." Joey whimpered with her bottom lip quivering. "How could she look me in the eye and tell me that I love Mary as any mother would, and then threaten to take her away from me less than 24 hours later. Vicious. Fucking vicious."
"She won't take her, Joe. I'm not even totally convinced that she actually really wants her." Frank tired to convince himself as well as convince Joey. "She's just not used to people saying no to her, and that includes her husband all a sudden growing a backbone and threatening to freeze her assets if she doesn't do what he says. We kept saying no and her back was against the wall and she's not used to being in that position. My mother has always been the one running the show. Walter taking control has got to be messing with her after over 25 years of her pushing him around. I think we can make this all go away by giving her what she wants. We'll visit Walter in Montana and fake smile for a couple of days, how bad can that be?"
"Can I tell you a secret?"
"Always." Frank flirted with a shy lopsided smile. He loved how cute Joey looked as she gazed up at him with her big blue eyes full of warmth and kindness. How could one person alway be so perfectly precious, even when they were going through their own personal hell.
"I wanted you to go to Montana. I really did. But not like this." Joey confessed as she wiped away her tears. "I wanted you and Evelyn to try and work things out and get to know each other again. I thought it would help you. Now I just want to protect you from her. I realize now that I was being so naive. All of that was just a stupid fairy tale. I had no idea what I was dealing with and it all blew up in my face."
