Miles to Go

CHAPTER ELEVEN - THE HANGING TREE

He started to tend to Alice's bruise in Fred Andrews's living room. After the fiasco at the Cooper household, they reunited with Chic, alive and well, and Fred invited them in. FP considered calling Keller or at least someone.....but considering Tom was pissed off at the both of them, it was obvious at this point that the pair were on their own.

"Usually I'm the one who has to get patched up." he admitted to her as he carefully dabbed the ointment onto the side of her stomach. Alice kept the one area of her shirt balled up in her fist. "Only rarely is it that I get to play nurse for someone."

"By someone, you mean one of your kid Serpents?" Alice raised a brow at him.

"Not all the time....Toni, more often than not, is the one that has to patch them up." he chuckled. Behind him, Fred's boy, Archie, approached the pair holding an ice pack.

"This should work." Archie handed the pack to FP.

"Thank you, Archie." he nodded and returned to Alice's bruise. The young red-haired boy looked over at Alice, his face getting soft.

"I'm sorry about what happened to you and Chic." he sounded remorse. "Just when I thought my dad and I had it bad when this Black Hood thing began."

"We won't let him near you or your father again, Archie." Alice responded. Fred Andrews emerged from the kitchen and stood next to his son.

"You two holding up okay?" he looked back and forth between the pair on the couch.

"We're better now. Thank you watching over my son, Fred."

"I figured I owed you, Alice....since you were able to help my own." he clapped Archie on the back. FP took the ice pack and handed it to Alice.

"You might want to lay down and keep this on. It should help reduce the swelling." He helped her get comfortable on the couch. She reached up and stroked his cheek.

"Thanks for the patch-up work, Nurse FP." she teased. He rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out at her. It was hard for her to laugh without feeling the pain in her stomach.

"You guys can stay here for the night." Fred addressed them. "It might be safer if we were all together....just in case the Black Hood came back. I think I have an air mattress somewhere in the garage, and maybe one or two sleeping bags."

"Fred...." FP stood up and tried to speak but Fred waved him off.

"Please....I don't mind having the company. Arch, can you bring FP with you go get the sleeping bags and air mattress?"

"On it, dad." Archie smiled at his father, then he gestured for FP to follow him. He kept up with the younger boy and passed by Fred, clapping him on the back. He felt bad for the boy.....he almost watched his father die in front of him, and now the Black Hood had returned from his hiatus.....and who knew if the Black Hood would try to go after any of his initial victims again.

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Alice watched FP go off with Archie into the Andrews's basement. Chic was somewhere upstairs trying to make sense of the book of poetry; she thought he said something about Joaquin coming over to stay with them. When it was her and Fred alone in the living room, she slowly sat up, compressing the ice pack into her body.

"I'm sorry you have to go through all this, Alice." Fred spoke, leaning against the doorway. "When this all started....I thought it was just a random robber wanting to stir up trouble in Pop's......but it's getting worse."

"I don't know how you've managed to move forward, Fred." she responded. "Is your wound still bad?"

"Not as much." he gestured down to his ribcage, where he was shot merely a month ago. "But the doctors still have me on medication....and I haven't even thought about how I'm gonna afford it. And poor Archie...." He stopped speaking, staring down at his feet. He looked back up at her and gave her a small smile.