#frankit

“I was,” she makes a face. “But the road to the small inn I was originally planning to stay at is completely flooded, so I thought I’d drive back to The City. It’s just a couple more hours anyway - far fewer traffic than usual as well, because most people aren’t going out in this rain.”

“Rational people,” he remarks.

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

A hint of a smile appears on his lips ever so briefly before disappearing again, and he hands her the key to her usual room. “Go take a shower, Snicket. You’re ruining my just cleaned lobby floor.”

“How unfortunate,” she drawls, taking the key. “See you after your shift.”

****

2 hours later, after she’s properly showered and dried up and made herself a nice cup of tea while reviewing the notes in her commonplace book, she knocked on the door of Frank’s office - he’d just about gotten off shift.

“K,” he nods when he opens the door, letting her in.

“F,” she replies.

The door clicks shut behind her.

“Things aren’t looking good,” she says, cutting directly to the subject of her latest assignment. “As we suspected, some of G’s notes on the fungus were stolen before the fire, and it’s fallen into the hands of some firestarters who didn’t actually recognize the value or the danger of them. However, after they were all killed during the firestarters’ infighting two months ago, the notes have been lost and there are barely any leads on how to track them down.” She pauses. “I mean, best case scenario, they’re all destroyed. But since they’re just completely gone - I rather suspect that we’re not so lucky.”

He frowns. “Because if indeed no one recognizes the value or danger of it, they wouldn’t have paid much attention to it and we’d probably still find scraps somewhere.”

“Exactly,” she replies. “Which means, obviously, that someone collected them and hid them somewhere. It could be a volunteer - but I haven’t heard anything from anyone - and it could also be someone on the other side of the schism. That would be very dangerous indeed. Granted, they probably couldn’t continue the research too far without proper equipment and all that like G did, but the longer that information is out there in the open, the more risks it poses.”

He closes his eyes, silent for a moment. When he opens his eyes again, he says, “and we cannot be sure if a VFD volunteer having that information stored secretly is a safe thing, either. I mean, look at G …” he trails off meaningfully.

“We wouldn’t want another repeat of that,” she agrees. “Still, they might not be as volatile as G. But G didn’t use to be volatile either, and look how he turned out.” Her face is grim. “It’s almost like getting too deep in this specific research makes one volatile.”

He leans back against his office chair, his gaze holding hers. “Getting too deep in anything increases one’s chances of getting volatile, perhaps.”

She looks back at him, and for a moment, the silence in the room is tense. And then she says, abruptly, “I’ll make some tea.”

Not waiting for an answer, she stands up, and walks over to a counter and starts making tea. He doesn’t say anything.

“So,” she says, a little forcefully perhaps, as she sits down again once tea is ready, pouring herself and him a cup of tea respectively. “How are things on the recruitment front in The City?”

He tilts his head, his eyes narrowing, “You didn’t hear from J?”

“Haven’t got the chance to talk to him,” she says briskly. “We’ve both been busy.”

His lips are pressed into a thin line, in his usual disapproving manner that he rarely bothers hiding when they’re in private. But he doesn’t comment on her tumultuous sibling relationship with Jacques, and instead just says, “It’s getting harder and harder these days, especially with the new restrictions around The City. The High Court passed a new ruling the other day - you’ve probably heard - it was all over the radio.”

She scowls. “I’ve been long saying that I think our enemies have people on the inside - someone in certain positions that can influence the judges of the High Court. It’s their way of cutting VFD recruitment.”

“I’m fairly certain so as well - but we don’t know how high up they are. I mean, the fact that it’s been hard for us to get anyone in there suggests someone is blocking us out. Honestly, I told them to abandon these attempts - it’s quite futile by this point. We’d be much more effective trying to collect blackmail material on people if we want to influence the decision making.”

“Speaking of which, did the concierges collect any interesting gossip recently?”

“None too useful,” he replies. “As you know, most of the time spying is just collecting piles and piles of irrelevant information that may never be of use. Dewey’s been pulling late nights as well just filtering those information and categorizing them so we can easily look them up later. But so far, not much has come up.”

“How is he doing, by the way?” She asks.

Frank doesn’t answer immediately.

“As usual,” he says, finally, then adds. “He misses B. Both of them, really.”

Kit gazes out the window at the falling rain. “I know how that feels.”

We all do, he thinks. “It’s been … quiet. Without her around, especially.”

Her lips twist slightly, “As my brother often says …”

“... the world is too quiet without her nearby,” he finishes for her, then exhales. He thinks about Beatrice - ever so loud and full of life and overly dramatic and a constant annoyance in his life, until she no longer is. Beatrice. Energetic and full of emotions and feelings and never shy from displaying them.

How is someone so full of emotions and feelings so capable of - simply just cutting her old life loose and never looking back, he wonders.

For a moment, there’s only the sound of the rain splashing against the window in the quiet office. Frank meets Kit’s eyes, and knows that she’s thinking of the same thing. They’ve known each other too long at this point - just like they’d both known Beatrice and Bertrand for so many years.

Or at least, they thought they knew them.

Beatrice. Loud, energetic Beatrice. And Bertrand - calm and steady and dependable to many, with a hidden witty and sarcastic nature reserved just for close friends.

“It’s not the same, without them,” he admits, a rare moment of raw honesty. He doesn’t admit this in front of Dewey, insisting on saying things are in fact fine, just the same, partly to reassure Dewey, partly because he doesn’t like being vulnerable in front of Dewey, who he always felt like he should protect. And with Ernest - they don’t talk about Bertrand, who Ernest likes to pretend nothing ever happened between them to deal with the fact Bertrand was willing to leave VFD for Beatrice but not for him, and they don’t talk about Beatrice either, because that subject is never going to lead to anything good. They argue enough, as it is. No need to dive into a controversial topic that’ll surely end unpleasantly.

Kit, though - oddly enough, it seems easier, with her. Perhaps because they miss Beatrice and Bertrand similarly - not exactly the same way, but the closeness to them had been similar. And he doesn’t have the sense of duty or obligation to shelter her away from things as he does with Dewey, doesn’t have the strong urge to pretend things are fine to reassure her.

They always seem to share the same views on many things, and perhaps that’s also what makes it easier. They have the same kind of ruthless efficiency when it comes to VFD missions. They’re the ones making the tough calls, the necessary decisions, regardless how morally ambiguous those decisions may seem.

Jacques, he thinks, lacks the same edge. Bless him. He might actually be more loyal and believing in VFD’s ideals than either of them, but there have always been certain lines he wouldn’t cross. Frank admires that in him. He hopes he stays that way.

As for himself and Kit - they’ll make the necessary decisions so the others don’t have to. Decisions such as hiring children as concierge so they can gather information while hiding at places adults cannot fit in, probably.

When he looks at his brothers, it’s like literally looking into a mirror. But when he looks at Kit - sometimes it’s like metaphorically looking into one, he thinks.

“I still - almost hear Bertrand’s voice telling me to slow down, when I’m driving,” she confesses.

“Ah, your impulse control,” he remarks loftily.

She scoffs. “I don’t drive impulsively - every turn and acceleration is calculated.”

He rolls his eyes. “If you say so,” he permits, airily.

They’re silent for a few moments, before she asks, “You done with all your work tonight?”

“Work’s never done,” he shrugs. “But there’s always tomorrow.”

Her mouth curves up, a hint of faint amusement. “True,” she murmurs. She takes a deep breath, and looks at him. For the briefest second, her eyes are unusually hesitant, but then it’s gone. “I don’t quite want to be alone tonight,” she says. There isn’t much emotion in her eyes as she says this.

Is that the real reason you drove all the way back to The City? He wonders silently.

“We could watch a movie,” he offers. He knows that she and Bertrand used to do so, on rainy nights when they were forced to stay at the hotel after something was cancelled.

She looks at him. “Yeah, we could,” she agrees.

****

They go to her room and watch an artsy indie film he randomly selects from his shelf. It’s terribly boring and they’ve both had a long day, so they end up both falling asleep. When he opens his eyes again, the end credits are rolling.

Beside him, her head rests against his shoulder.

It’s only in these moments does he really notice her alikeness with Jacques, he thinks. Perhaps it’s because he’s too used to and knows too much about the difference of their personalities, that he often doesn’t see their similarities. But her eyes are closed and she’s not talking now, just lying there, having fallen asleep, and he immediately gets reminded of how they actually look quite alike.

He tries to carefully shift himself so her head can be on the pillow instead of his shoulder, but she wakes up at the movement, blinking wearily. “You suck at selecting movies,” she says.

He rolls his eyes. “You try next time, then.”

She scoffs, sitting up and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“I hate him,” she says, suddenly. No context or whatsoever, no prefacing, no specific names or initials. But he immediately knows what she’s talking about.

He also knows that she doesn’t really hate Bertrand. She just misses him. She probably feels similarly about Beatrice as well, but she’d never declare out loud anything close to hating Beatrice.

“Yeah, me too,” he says, softly.

He isn’t exactly sure who started it, or how exactly did things suddenly shift, but the next moment, their eyes meet - she has Jacques’s eyes, he thinks, he always knows, of course, but still - and she’s pretty. Not in the Beatrice type of way, flashy and glamorous and takes everyone’s breath away, but she’s pretty. Her features and expression always a little too sharp type of pretty.

They kiss.

It’s - okay. Not lackluster, but also not thrilling or electric. It’s fine. Normal. Sort of nice to be able to have another pair of lips on his again after so long, actually. Doesn’t completely fill all the silence and void left behind and the Beatrice and Bertrand shaped hole, but - it’s something.

“You know, we’d make a terrible pair of lovers,” she says.

“Oh, absolutely,” he agrees. “We’re too similar.”

A ghost of a smile dances across her lips. “Exactly.” She pauses, and then adds. “If you tell anyone about tonight, I’ll murder you.”

He rolls his eyes. “Same goes for you,” he says.

Her lips pull up, a sharp, mean, teasing glint in her eyes. “Kiss on it?”

“Oh, very funny,” he scoffs.

They look at each other.

“Well, one last time,” he says. “One for the road, as they say.”

“One for the road,” she murmurs.

They kiss. Slow, steady, calm. Two lonely volunteers on a rainy night. It’s - nice, to just have another body this close that he can almost feel the warmth radiating from it. In the morning they’ll go back to being volunteers. Hardworking volunteers who don’t mind loneliness. There’s no sparkling chemistry in the kiss, but he doesn’t want any of that tonight anyway. He just wants - some physical intimacy with someone he can absolutely trust.

“I’ve always wondered,” he says. “Have you and Bertrand ever …”

“Oh, never,” she says.

“Huh,” he says. “Your loss, then, I suppose.”

She leans backwards onto the pillow, and starts to laugh.

****

He picks up his suit jacket on the chair, putting it on, and takes the videotape out. “Well, I should go.”

“Turn off the lights for me, will you?” she calls, from the bed.

“Sure,” he agrees. “I’ll see you in the morning, K.”

“Bye, F.”