Forget Me Not

Gerard was late.

It’d been half an hour since he last called and Frank knew for a fact that the pizzas from the place round the corner – where he was certain Gerard was – didn’t ever take that long.

He heard an ambulance shriek past the window and it made the silence from before seem even more intense. He sighed, and tapped the DVD box in his hand, reaching over to the coffee table and picking up the remote control, pressing play just to fill the silence. Abandoning the DVD box and the remote control on the table, he picked up a few sheets of paper; a seating plan for the reception part of their wedding, and both invitation lists, one for the reception and one for the actual ceremony.

The corners of his mouth twitched as he looked expectantly behind him at the front door, waiting for Gerard to walk through with the pizzas, some hilarious and slightly unbelievable story about his journey and why he’s late, and that grin. The grin that had such an effect on Frank that it’s probably one of the main reasons they’re even where they are today.

This time next week, he’d be on the way to Japan for his honeymoon. He’d be a married man.

The phone rang, and he jumped up to get it, sometimes wishing that Gerard would call his mobile, because at least that way there was caller ID.

“Hello?” he said into the receiver.

“Hello,” a female voice he didn’t recognise said. “Do you know a man by the name of Way? Gerard?”

Franks heart was in his throat. “Y-Yes...he’s my fiancé. Who is this? How do you know Gerard?”

“Okay sir, can I have your name please?”

“Why? Who is this?”

“All will be explained later,”

“Frank. My name is Frank. Frank Iero,”

“Okay Mr Iero, Mr Way has been in an accident, he’s being taken to A&E as we speak,”

Franks breath hitched. He couldn’t see straight. He didn’t even wait for the woman to speak again, within seconds he’d hung up, and thrown on the first hoodie he could find, which just so happened to be Gerards. He didn’t take much notice of which shoes he was wearing, and he’d later realise that they were odd, but it didn’t matter.

He cursed as he realised he’d have to run all the way down to the hospital because Gerard had the car. Gerard had the car, and Frank wouldn’t need to be running to the hospital if Gerard had just walked; just walked like Frank always told him to.

His lungs were burning, and he was pretty sure he was breathing deep enough for everyone around him to hear. He probably sounded like he was having an asthma attack.

It was for that split second that he wondered if Mikey had been contacted, and how they knew to contact him when they hadn’t even known his name.

His legs ached, and his eyes were burning with tears that were trying to escape, but Frank was going to keep a hold of until he knew the situation.

It seemed like a lifetime had passed before he was running through the automatic doors of A&E, slipping a little on the linoleum floors, cursing and straightening himself out, before practically crashing into the front desk.

“Calm down, sir,” the woman said, looking up at him in confusion. “What can I do for you?”

“Way. Gerard Way,” Frank panted out. “He was brought in...I don’t know when I-I’ve been running, don’t know how long,” He rambled, breathing deep and bending into the stitch that was forming in his side.

“A Gerard Way was brought in here about five minutes ago,”

“Is...How is he?”

“No details have been given yet, sir,” Frank hated being called ‘sir’.

“Can I see him?”

“Are you family?”

“I’m his fiancé,”

“Your name please?”

“Frank Iero,”

The woman typed something into her computer, and then looked up at him again. “Okay sir, you can’t see him yet,” Frank almost cried out. “But, if you go and wait in the family waiting room, someone will give you details as soon as possible. Tina will show you where to go,” the woman behind the counter gestured to a short, round woman with a sympathetic smile on her round face.

“Come on honey,” She said, putting a hand on his back, between his shoulder blades. “We’ll go get you something to eat,”

Frank knew he was hungry, his stomach was growling in anticipation of food. But he didn’t want to eat. He couldn’t eat knowing that he should have been eating pizza at home with Gerard, watching Friday the 13th and talking about their wedding.

Frank sighed and sat in one of the red plastic chairs. Red. He couldn’t help but wince at the inappropriate use of colour.

He hunched his shoulders into the hoodie and inhaled the familiar scene of strawberry shampoo and cigarette smoke.

“Here you go, sweetheart,” Tina smiled handing Frank a cup-a-soup. “You look like you need it,” Frank smiled his thanks and took a sip, trying desperately to discourage the feeling of nausea that overwhelmed him as he swallowed. “I know you’re small, honey, but they must do clothes in your size,” she said randomly, obviously trying to lighten the mood, tugging a little on the sleeve of his hoodie. “That looks like its drowning you,”

Frank laughed nervously, which actually came out as more of a humming noise. “It’s not mine. It’s...” He hesitated, and winced gesturing randomly with his hands, and finished lamely with “His.”

Tina smiled sympathetically and patted his shoulder while he sniffed back some tears and regained some composure, muttering in a watery voice “He has a brother. Mikey. He needs to know,”

“I can get someone at reception to contact him if you want?”

“No...No, I think I should do it,” Frank decided, in some ways wishing he’d had the news broken to him a little gentler.

“Okay baby, well, there’s a phone in the corner over there,” she pointed it out. “Free,”

Frank nodded, and gave a weak thanks, standing up and walking across the room on wobbly legs, his hand was shaking as he reached out for the phone, and just as he touched it, he pulled it away sharply as if he’d been burnt.

What was he supposed to say?

He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and his forefinger and sighed deeply, just trying to remember how to breath amongst all of this chaos.

Slower this time, he reached out for the phone again. As he listened to the monotonous ringing tone, he couldn’t help but mutter under his breath “Don’t pick up, please, don’t pick up.”

“Hello?”

And Frank could have cried. “Oh, uh, hey Mikey,” He muttered lamely instead.

“Whats up, Frankie? You sound exhausted,” and then he paused for a second. “Oh god! You’ve not just been doing the dirty with my brother, have you?”

And that’s when Frank lost his composure. “Oh god! Mikey,” he whimpered pathetically, “its Gerard. I-It’s...there was an accident. He—They won’t tell me anything,” he chocked out, feeling back because this was Mikeys big brother he was talking about, he could have been a little more gentle with breaking the news instead of crying down the phone like a pansy.

“I...listen, Frank, I’m on my way, okay? You’re at A&E, right?”

“Y-Yeah,” Mikey could always be so composed.

“Okay, let them know at the front desk that I’m coming, I’m on my way now.” And with that he hung up.

Frank nodded, keeping the handset to his ear and listened to the plain sound that signalled Mikeys departure. He put the phone back on the hanger on the wall, and pushed his face into the inside of his elbow and took some deep breaths to regain some composure so he didn’t cause a scene.

He stumbled to the front desk and informed them that a Mikey Way was on his way, and that he was Gerards brother, before moving back into the waiting room and collapsing into the same plastic red chair.

Tina had left, and Frank couldn’t help but miss her comforting face and polite as possible comments about his size.

He bent over in his chair, his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees. He didn’t know how long he’d been staring at the tiled linoleum for before he felt a hand on his back. Looking back over his right shoulder, he saw Mikey leaning back in his seat, his hand on Franks back and his gaze straight ahead at the colourful and way too optimistic health posters on the opposite wall.

“What happened?” He croaked, his eyes darting to Franks before appearing to fill up with tears a little and he looked away again.

Frank could tell that he was trying to stay composed and keep it together. He lent back in his chair and put his hand on Mikeys knee, the only form of comfort he had the energy for. “I...I don’t know. They haven’t told me anything,”

“That means it’s bad,”

“W-What?” It wasn’t like Mikey to be so pessimistic.

“If he was okay, they’d have told us.

Frank hadn’t thought of it like that, and in some ways wished that Mikey hadn’t mentioned his little theory, because now he was even more paranoid.

They didn’t talk after that. They just sat in the cold chairs and stared at the floor or the wall, or read one of those three seasons out of date fashion magazines just because it was there and it provided a distraction from talking to one another about Gerard or even thinking about Gerard.

People came and went, some of them lucky enough to be collecting their loved ones, or at least able to visit them, while other people were finding out the worst. Frank felt sick every time he saw a woman fall to the floor sobbing or the strongest looking of men crumbling at the words leaving the doctors mouth.

The clock on the wall ticked over to half past two in the morning, and Frank tried to figure out if he’d actually slept that entire time because the last time he looked at the clock it was a quarter to ten.

Tina came back into the waiting room, only now she was out of her uniform and carrying a handbag. She frowned when she saw Frank. “Oh honey,” she sighed. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t still be here. Can I get you anything?”

“No, it’s fine, thank you,”

In reality, he was gagging for a coffee, but Tina’s shift had obviously just finished and he couldn’t bear to send her off to get him one when she was clearly going home.

She left not long after that, after Frank had said for about the fifth time that ‘really, it’s fine, thank you for the offer’ leaving both Frank and Mikey with a hug and her condolences.

It was another hour until a doctor walking into the waiting room and finally said Franks name.

Frank was out of his seat in seconds, running at the doctor with a flurry of questions that even he couldn’t understand. Mikey followed, much more composed but just as demanding.

“Mr Way is still in quite an unstable condition, but we’re working on it, and we’re certain that he’ll pull through. He’s broken three ribs and his left arm, and he also received a puncture wound to his lung. We can’t know the full extent of his injury until he wakes up because we have gained confirmation from witnesses that he did receive at least two particularly hard blows to the head,”

Frank let out a distressed cry that he just couldn’t keep in, no matter how hard he tried. The thought of Gerard going through all of that, when he was a mere minute away from home, was too much for him to handle.

“We’re doing everything we can to get Gerard into a stable condition, but we will be sure to keep you updated. We also have an investigation under way of what actually caused to collision,” the doctor assured them before turning on his heel and walking back in the direction he’d come from. Back in the direction of Gerard.

Frank took another shaky breath before turning to Mikey and wrapping his arms around his middle and pushing his face into his neck trying to convince himself not to cry.

“Hey,” Mikey soothed, but Frank could hear his voice crack. “Hey, it’ll—it’ll be okay. He’ll be fine, he’s a fighter Frank, he’s such a fighter.”