Chapter Text
Chapter 61: Infamous
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He never really imagined he would end up in this situation. When Frank had first asked Rachel to move in with him, he had envisioned a quiet, off-grid lifestyle in the country where no one bothered them and everyone conveniently forgot Rachel Marron existed. They would have both retired and lived off the wealth of Rachel's royalties for the rest of their wistfully peaceful lives, watching their daughter grow up in a world where no one knew her name.
Unfortunately for him, fame never died.
It took Frank about five hours to explain everything to Rachel. Scott became a part of their conversation. And soon after, Crystal and Fletcher did too. There was no way he could keep the information from them, after all they were all family. They tried to offer theories, ways to explain all of the incidents and how they could have been tied to either Devon or Marcus. Eventually they had come up with somewhat of a feasible storyline, but the real confirmation wouldn't come until the FBI called Frank back. It seemed obvious that Marcus had been on parole for some time, maybe playing by the rules while scheming in the background. He had no idea how Marcus would have found out that Fletcher was his son - unless Devon somehow knew the truth… Maybe from Tina.
Rachel never stayed broken for long. Frank found that quality almost bothersome in a way. Would it have killed her to wallow for at least twenty-four hours before trying to take on the world again? As much as it exhausted him, he found that he adored her all the more for it.
"I'm singing in Miami. And we're going to that wedding," she insisted.
Frank didn't have the energy left to even glare at her. "No. No to both."
She only shook her head at him, and that was when he got the call back from the FBI. He took the call on speaker so that all of them could listen in. What they had discovered was more shocking than any of their theories.
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"Did you know Marcus had another son?" Frank asked Rachel, some time after their revealing call with the FBI.
"One of my friends told me he did. It was ten years before he met me."
Before he could be tactful about it, Frank reprimanded her, "You know how hard that must have been for Fletcher to hear it from the FBI?"
Rachel stared at him with a challenging sternness to her face. "You know how hard it was for me to keep him safe all these years?"
Frank conceded with little more than a knowing look. "Now he knows," he said darkly. "Devon is his half-brother."
Rachel looked down at the floor. "And Marcus and Devon are both going to end up in prison this time."
"What do you want to do about Fletcher?" Frank asked her.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, should he really be there for this? If we go down to Florida and out Devon at the wedding, how do you think Fletcher will feel?"
"Fletcher is on our side, Frank," Rachel said in a fiery voice. "His loyalty is to us. I don't care how curious he is about those two – they share blood with him, but nothing else."
Frank took a deep breath. "You need to talk to him about this first. It's very complicated, and I don't want him to get lost in it."
"We'll both talk to him about it," she insisted. Frank agreed.
Fletcher still seemed to be in a perpetual state of bemusement when they found him, alone at the dining room table, in the very same spot where he'd been when they took the call.
"Baby?" Rachel curled her fingers imploringly around her son's arms as she walked up behind him. "Tell us how you feel."
"I'm so confused," Fletcher said, shaking his head. "I just don't understand why they're trying to kill you."
"Money makes monsters out of men, Fletcher," Frank said as he sat down across from the boy.
"I can't believe I'm related to him."
Though Fletcher didn't explicitly say which of the two men he was referring to, either one was fair to elicit sympathy. Rachel brushed her hand across Fletcher's shoulder.
"We are your family, Fletcher. It doesn't matter what your father did, or what Devon has done. Neither of them care about you. We do."
"I guess I'm gonna have to go to therapy now," Fletcher lamented, head in his hands.
Frank and Rachel exchanged a pitying glance.
"We can go together, honey," Rachel told Fletcher comfortingly as she sat beside him.
"Are you sure you're safe to go and perform, Mom?"
Rachel looked over at Frank. "The FBI is staging things as we speak, Fletcher. It's all planned. We'll be safe." She took a deep breath. "But Frank and I think it's best if you don't come."
Fletcher looked torn.
"We know how painful this is for you, Fletcher," Frank added. "We don't want you to have to suffer any more than necessary at our expense."
"I get that, but . . . maybe I could help if I came with you."
Frank gave the boy a tight smile of appreciation. "Fletcher, you've already helped us a great deal. But remember, you were never tied up in that burning house – your mom was. You're not their target, and we don't want to put you in the line of fire unnecessarily."
"You told me I could make my own decisions, right?" Fletcher challenged, looking squarely into Frank's eyes.
Frank nodded solemnly. "You can. We're letting you know what we'd prefer. But you're still free to make that choice."
Rachel gently touched Fletcher's hand, a pleading look on her face as he looked down at her.
"I trust you, Mom," he whispered to her. "If you think it's better for me to stay here, then I will."
She embraced him fiercely, knowing nothing more needed to be said.
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This time they were in a private jet. Only Scott and Tony accompanied them. It was nothing like the last time they'd flown to Florida together. Rachel wasn't vicious to Frank in the slightest. In fact, she found every excuse to show him affection. Frank could tell that Rachel showed more affection when she was secretly scared. If that was her way of dealing with fear, he wouldn't judge. There were far worse ways she could have dealt with it. She did sleep for most of the trip, which he was glad for. She needed the rest. As it happened, he slept just as much as she did this time. And his sleep was deep, knowing that they were protected by greater forces now.
Kissing her in front of the Fontainebleau was indescribably satisfying.
The hotel was mostly unchanged from their last stay, save for a few updates here and there. Frank felt a surge of nostalgia upon entering the massive lobby. From the gaudy avant-garde column trimmings, to the overly detailed fresco paintings on the walls, everything felt like yesterday's fantasy. Only this time, her sole purpose during the trip wasn't to taunt and torture him.
Finally, Frank felt like he was in his element again. He attended a meeting with the FBI agents who had come to spearhead the investigation against Devon and Marcus. At the same conference table were members from hotel security and Olympia theater security. It wasn't quite clear to him just how much control he'd actually lost until he was sitting there in a safe, clinical conference room, in a suit, being given clear-cut and confined information from which to draw interpretation. He supposed a part of him had missed the organized, prescription-like approach from a federal seat. Guarding Senator Knox had been this way. Guarding Rachel Marron had never been this way. Until now.
He breathed deeply, full of relief and fragrant Miami air, as he stepped onto the border balcony outside their hotel room. Rachel was there, clutching the railing with her lovely hands, her face aglow with the fine filter of evening sun beyond the ocean.
"I never thought I'd be back here with you," she murmured as he held her.
"Did you not explicitly tell Crystal to make reservations here?" he chuckled teasingly.
She grinned at the ocean. "You know what I mean, Farmer."
He bowed his head so that his cheek was resting on her shoulder, savoring the sound of her voice so close that it echoed in his heart. "I think this is the first time in almost a year that I've finally felt safe," he admitted.
She glanced back at him in surprise. "Strange words coming from a bodyguard."
"I'm not a bodyguard anymore," he said quietly. "You fired me, remember?"
She dodged his gaze, but he could tell she was smiling from the indent of her cheek. "I always kind of wanted to do that."
He groaned lightly as he kissed the nape of her neck. "You spend a lot of energy acting out your fantasies on me."
"Not enough," she sighed, leaning into his touch. "Stop it…" she whispered as his hand drifted over her breast. "I have rehearsal in thirty minutes."
He smiled against her skin. "I can be quick."
She let out a harsh little laugh as she nudged him back with her elbow. "Doubtful."
}0{
"I heard Rachel is gonna be singing tonight in NYC." The excitable voice of Herb Farmer came through fuzzy on the other line.
"Yeah, Dad."
"Maybe I'll actually stop over the Broadbanks' house and watch it this year."
Frank scoffed. "Who are you kidding? You can never make it past 9:30 P.M."
"I'll stay up to watch Rachel."
Frank held his tongue. It almost felt like his father was trying to test him. Herb hadn't known about their relationship, but somehow he always got that disturbing twinkle in his eye whenever someone mentioned Rachel Marron nowadays. Of course it all started after Frank got engaged to Leah Christensen.
"You do that," Frank muttered before hanging up the phone.
Ten hours later he found himself in the obnoxiously contemporary mansion which belonged to Leah's friends, a thirty-something couple who seemed to flaunt their wealth without even trying. Everything was white. The carpet, the walls, the couches, the furniture, even the light fixtures. It made Frank very uncomfortable as he carried a flute of champagne around, which never made it past his chin because he hated the drink with a passion. He now realized why Leah had tried to get him to wear a white sweater that night, but he'd been a rebel and worn all black. She had rolled her eyes at him and told him he looked like a fucking priest, but he didn't give a damn.
That night was when his feelings had resurfaced harder than they'd ever resurfaced before.
He passed by the TV where a few other party guests were gathered, casually conversing and half-watching the New Year's Eve show. He stopped when he saw her. The screen seemed to glow brighter when she took the stage.
Her slender body was wrapped in a figure-clinging gold and black dress, which turned sheer across her collarbone and shoulders, with complex filigree that sparkled down her arms. Everyone else on stage was wearing a winter coat, but Rachel Marron stood there in her stunning gown, her expression radiant, seemingly unaffected by the twenty degree wind-chill. Her smile was so beautiful that it crushed his heart and made his knees weak. Then she began to sing.
"I used to cry myself to sleep at night…"
The first line of lyrics made him cold all over. He'd never heard the song before that night. It had paralyzed him.
Though he didn't know it at the time, "All the Man that I Need," had not been written about her Lord and Savior.
All around him, the other party guests continued in their mindless rich-people chatter, gossiping and laughing and exchanging drunken exclamations from across the disgustingly modern white living room. All he could do was stare at her, in a state of catatonic hypnosis, fingers trembling around his forgotten glass of champagne. He was baffled by everything she did. The way she moved across the stage, with those long, commanding, confident steps. The subtle twitch of her eyebrows into that lovely little furrow as she sang in a more delicate register. The way she closed her eyes when furiously climbing the steps of her vocal range. The striking feminine energy she seemed to exude even through the television screen. Everything was too much. The accompaniment, the glitzy backdrop of NYC, the fact that it was a worldwide holiday, and the fact that Rachel Marron was the center of everyone's world in that moment, not only his.
At some point the song ended, and he returned to reality. His ears were assaulted by the irritating blend of unfamiliar voices in the room around him, the clinking of champagne glasses, and soon after, the drunken dirge of people counting backwards from ten. He was vaguely aware that his fiancée was somewhere on the other side of the room, clutching the arm of her friend because her date was nowhere to be found.
When it turned midnight, Frank's attention turned back to the TV where Rachel had started to sing "Auld Lang Syne." There was such an air of understated mourning about the song. It made no sense, as it was always sung in celebratory fashion. But he could not help the crippling wave of depression that swept over him as her larger-than-life voice drowned out every conscious thought in his head. Somewhere in his ocean of private despair, Leah took his hand and pulled him close to kiss him like every other couple in the room. His body became more numb with every impossible note Rachel hit, and his gunshot scar stung beneath his sleeve.
It didn't hurt anymore.
It used to hurt him every day.
Somehow he thought the scar had more to do with the absence of Rachel in his life than anything physical.
Frank purposefully didn't go to Rachel's rehearsal that night so that he could keep an eye on things at the hotel. It was unlike him to let her be on her own – well, of course Scott was with her – but ironically on this trip he'd been more open to give her the freedom she'd been craving for months.
After countless conversations with the FBI, Frank knew there was a very good chance that Marcus Hatch was en route to Florida. They had barely enough evidence to intercept him if contact could be made. Knowing it was likely to happen in the near future heightened his anxiety, but only slightly. It was different when the world wasn't against him. Finally, he felt like there were people on his side.
While striding through the Fontainebleau lobby, Frank was startled by the ear-piercing cries of two women off to his left. His hand jerked in the direction of his empty holster, only to quickly realize the women were fans. He had been recognized, even without Rachel at his side.
Before he could reply with obscenities, Ricky was there to intervene, arm outstretched to withhold the young women, who were scantily dressed in beachwear.
"Ladies, I need you to step back please."
They pouted in confusion as Frank quickly escaped with Ricky in the elevator.
"Fuck," Frank muttered. "That's a first."
"Sorry to say it, but you're probably gonna have to get used to that," Ricky replied, proffering a cigarette for Frank, despite the 'No Smoking' sign posted in the elevator.
Frank shook his head. "No, uh, thanks…"
"That's one part Rachel won't ever understand," Ricky mused as he lit his cigarette.
"What?"
Ricky smirked. "Chicks are way crazier than dudes when it comes to parasocial obsession."
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Over dinner that evening, Rachel was relentless.
"I heard you had a run-in with some fans in the lobby."
Frank tossed down his napkin irritably. "Ricky told you about that?"
She snickered to herself behind her glass. "I heard you broke their hearts."
"Yeah."
The deadened look in his eyes made her laugh harder. She attempted to calm herself with another swig of her drink, but started spluttering instead.
"Ugh! These virgin cocktails suck."
"It seems your rabid fans have all flown south for the winter," Frank muttered.
"My fans?" She snorted. "I think you have fans of your own now, Farmer."
"You were the one who wanted us to go on Sulley's show."
"It was a sympathy ploy."
"Oh, is that what you call it?"
"Are you mad at me?" She pouted in a way that came off far sexier than she probably had intended.
He smiled down at the table. "You ask me that all the time. When has my answer ever changed?"
"Well, you were mad at me the last time we were at this hotel."
"I was frustrated with you."
She bit her lip to contain her grin. "I know."
Though he didn't look up from the table, he murmured softly. "People are staring at us."
"Yeah," she sighed in a musical sort of way. It was oddly comforting.
He finally looked up at her. "I don't think I'll ever get used to this."
She smirked. "Good. Because we'll be living in the middle of nowhere as soon as this baby comes."
"I thought you were just saying that to placate me the last time," he admitted.
"No, I mean it, honey."
His heart jumped. Honey. God, it sounded so amazing in her throaty voice.
"So am I paying?" he teased from across the table.
She smiled and casually lifted her fingers to her chin to show off her ring. "I think you've spent enough money on this."
"I haven't entirely depleted my funds," he defended.
"What's mine is yours now, sweetheart," she cooed. Her voice was like silk as she reached for the check.
That night back in their hotel room, her belly got in the way of any lovemaking that would have naturally ensued. They laughed about it, and she ended up falling asleep while murmuring wistfully about the future against his bare chest.
The next morning, they slept in until noon, and then stayed in bed all day until Rachel's call time. It was like they were back in college on spring break, finally free of any obligations. They didn't really have all the time in the world, but during those precious four hours, they treated themselves as if they did.
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No woman should have ever been performing at this stage of pregnancy. Frank realized exactly why the second Rachel took the stage. She was so pregnant that it was almost all he could focus on. He wondered if the rest of the audience was just as distracted by it.
But then she began to sing.
And just like every other time, his senses were dulled to everything but her. Her face, her expressions, her voice. God, that voice. Finally, she wasn't being reduced to the cheap, shallow songs of a newer generation. She was singing for Christ.
For the first time since she'd taken the stage for a holiday performance, Rachel wasn't dressed in silver or gold. She was dressed in red. The color was becoming on her – he was biased, because he thought every color was becoming on her. But there was something so magnificent about her during this particular show. He was sure everyone else in the venue was able to see it just as clearly as he did.
She sang the Christmas song she was most well-known for: "Gloria in excelsis Deo." Though she hadn't needed any accompaniment, the orchestral grandeur did nothing to keep Frank from tearing up. She was the shining star amongst the gospel choir that echoed her beaming voice, and everything else fell to dust in her wake.
When the show was over, they went to the afterparty together. He didn't bring his gun. There were more people there to protect him than there might have been if the President himself were to show up. Rachel was a vision, so much so that Frank had trouble walking while she clutched his hand. The courtyard was glistening with palm trees wrapped in Christmas lights, and the sounds of the ocean soothed his soul. He could not explain the feeling of peace that had suddenly overtaken him, but he was infinitely thankful for it.
For the first time since they'd started dating, Frank smiled for a photographer.
"You look like you just won the lottery," Rachel whispered to him as they were leaving.
He stared at her, in lovestruck awe. "Maybe I did."
She smiled her sparkling, hypnotic smile at him, and he kissed her for a minute straight.
He didn't really give a damn that people were there, taking pictures of them with their cell phones.
Later that night when they retired to their hotel, Rachel left the doors to the balcony open so that the roar of the ocean could be heard from their room. Frank did not fight her on it. It barely crossed his mind that it could be a hazard to their safety. At this point, the risks seemed to melt away from his consciousness with every footstep she took towards him. As much as he wanted to worship her, he knew that making love was still barely feasible at this point in her pregnancy. She instead laid in his arms all night, occasionally blessing his ears with quiet sighs of appreciation. He didn't complain.
}0{
When Rachel woke up to the sound of crashing waves, the sun was just beginning to rise. She reached blindly over to the other side of the bed in search of her fiance, only to see that he was already seated outside on the balcony. She stretched, ignoring the aches in her body as she lifted herself from bed and walked out to join him. He glanced up at her, a lovingly inebriated look in his blue eyes. His white shirt was unbuttoned all the way to reveal his chest, and his feet were bare. He looked like a Sandals Resort advertisement.
"Well, I know Oxana didn't do that," Rachel teased, gesturing to his partially bare chest.
"It's warm out," he stated simply, a smile in his eyes.
"No gun?" Rachel cocked her head to see a single glass of orange juice on the tray table beside him.
His hair was ruffled by the warm Miami wind as he shook his head. "This time the guard actually stayed at the door."
Rachel suppressed a guilty grin as she sat next to him. "He would've stayed last time, too… if I hadn't paid him off."
It didn't take long for Frank to realize her reference. His brief look of genuine anger amused her. "Oh, for fuck's sake, Rachel, I swear–"
Rachel leaned over and planted an apologetic kiss on his cheek. "You know why I did it now."
He side-eyed her, but there was a flicker of humor in his gaze.
"If it's any consolation, I still have all of the dresses I bought at Bal Harbour," she said cheekily.
He slowly nodded at the ocean, half-smirking to himself as he drank from the glass.
"So… are we doing this wedding?"
Frank took a deep breath. "The FBI will be there to take care of Devon. If Marcus is there, they'll get him too. We'll just attend like normal. You support Tina, and I'll be–"
Rachel swiftly interrupted him. "I didn't mean Tina's wedding. I meant for us."
Frank's expression changed entirely. "A wedding?"
She nodded.
A delicate sort of smile crossed his lips as he looked at her, and if the breeze dared to ruffle his hair one more time like that, she was probably going to pounce on him.
He started to shake his head in that aggravating way, and he looked away from her again, still shaking his head, smiling like an idiot. That smile made her warmer than Miami ever could.
"What?" she asked.
"No."
"No, what?"
"You probably want a $400k wedding in the Bahamas, with half of Hollywood there, and one of those fifteen tier cakes, and–"
"I think we should elope."
He turned to stare at her. The look of shock on his face would have been comical if she'd been in any other state of mind. The longer he stared at her, the more in danger her heart was of overflowing with adoration.
"You want to elope?"
"Yes," she said confidently. "We can get married at my childhood church. Just you, me, Fletcher, Crystal, the baby…" She smiled deliriously at him when she saw him tearing up. "And the security team… if that makes you feel safer," she laughed.
He kept shaking his head like it was an uncontrollable impulse. "I just… I can't believe we're talking about this."
"Well, we need to talk about it sooner or later, don't we?" She giggled. "You're gonna have a daughter, likely in less than two weeks."
He took a deep breath and looked to the horizon, overwhelmed.
"And if you're thinking you're not ready for this yet, stop thinking it," she chided gently, "No one's ever really ready for anything."
"Okay," he breathed, staring intently at her. "Let's elope."
"Springtime," she added softly. "After we have some time with the baby."
The tears fell freely from his eyes now. She knew he was trying to hide it, which was why he kept looking other places, drawing his hand up to his face, shaking his head. She moved over to sit on his lap and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
"I love you," she whispered.
He murmured the words back to her just before she kissed him.