Chapter two - wherein Mr Way is a dick but he makes damn good coffee

A/N: I feel shitty and I'm losing my mind. Excuse the crappy writing.

Love my skittle babies.

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"Happy?" was Frank's first angry word as Mr Way opened his door.

"Relatively," Mr Way said dryly. "Finish my accounts tonight and I'll be all smiles."

Frank scowled. He hated the sarcastic sod. Frank didn't understand why his company had put him on this guy's case if he was late with his accounts. The bastard had no excuse.

Frank shoved past him and sat down at the table, pulling his pad and pen out of his bag.

He had no idea why this particular client always insisted that Frank came to his house to do his work. Granted, sometimes he did need to ask Mr Way questions that would be hard to answer down the phone, or make the man bring him all of his receipts for the past month, but sometimes it was just unnecessary, and Frank suspected he was asking him over just to irritate him.

Mr Way sat down on the other side of the table to Frank, and Frank flipped back to the page he had last reached with him. He began working, occasionally having to ask Mr Way questions, but for the most part, just sitting in the seemingly perpetual quietness adding and subtracting while Mr Way sat opposite and read his book. Frank silently bet with himself that it was some stupid book of straight romance filled with awful sex scenes.

But when Mr Way shifted in his seat, Frank was mildly disappointed to see that the book was Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'. Frank stared at the book. He wasn't sure whether to respect Mr Way more or just to hate him even further. By the looks of it, Mr Way was nearly at the end of the book, and in the early night, he had only just started. It had been hours.

Apparently slightly unnerved by being stared at by Frank, the man put the book down, stood up and silently slipped out of the room. He didn't return for about a minute, but when he did, he carried two cups of coffee.

'Greedy shit,' Frank thought. He wanted coffee. Jesus, he wanted a cup of coffee so much.

"Made you a coffee," Mr Way said quietly, and pushed the second mug across the table to Frank.

Frank stared at the coffee. "What?"

"I'm sorry I kept you here for hours. I'm sorry about your daughter. I made you a coffee."

Okay. Okay, maybe Mr Way wasn't so bad. All Frank's assumptions about him so far had been wrong. But he was still keeping Frank at his house late into the night when it was rather obvious that all Frank wanted was to go home and go to sleep.

Mr Way was an odd case. He had been late on his accounts even before he called up Frank's company. Frank had been shoved on the job because they thought he could do it quickly. He was fucking annoyed about that. Mr Way was late, and he had no good reason. He deserved to go to jail, really. Frank had no clue why the company even agreed to take him in as a client if he was late. There were only so many reasons that would be counted as legitimate to have not done your accounts at this time of year.

Mr Way looked at Frank expectantly. Frank was still just staring at the coffee. He blinked, then curled his fingers around the handle of the mug, slowly lifted up the coffee and cautiously sniffed it. Not detecting any form of poison or drug, he took a sip.

It was nice.

Frank nodded and smiled slightly. "Thank you."

Mr Way smiled back. "You're welcome."

There was a pause, silence, but it was broken seconds later by the quiet sound of bare feet on hardwood floor. Frank snapped his head around.

A little girl of maybe six or seven stood in the doorway, dressed in a baby pink nightie, with a teddy bear clutched in her hand. "Daddy," she said so quietly it was barely audible.

Mr Way stood up. "What's the matter?" he asked softly.

"I can't sleep."

Mr Way lifted her up gently, and balanced her on his hip. Her small arms wrapped around his neck and her teddy dangled from one hand, rested on Mr Way's back. "Well, we can't have that, can we?" Mr Way asked, clearly not expecting a response.

And he didn't get one. The girl pressed her nose into his neck and stayed mute.

"Do you know why you can't sleep?"

The child was silent for a few seconds, then mumbled plaintively, "I miss mommy."

"Oh," Mr Way whispered. He sat down, almost stumbling back into his seat. "So do I, sweetheart... But you just have to focus on the happy things. Think about daddy. I'm here, and I'm never going away. I promise." He kissed the top of her head. "I love you."

"Who's that man?" she asked, lifting her free arm to point at Frank.

Mr Way laughed softly. "That's my accountant."

"Can he be my dad too?" she asked sleepily.

"I don't think so, honey. He's already incredibly busy with his own daughter, among other things."

Frank had to press his lips together to hold back a smile.

"Now, you just think about happy things, like in Peter Pan, except instead of flying, your magic will help you go to sleep."

"Thinking about you," she mumbled.

"That's good." Mr Way couldn't hold back a smile. "Are you sleepy yet?"

"Yeah..."

"Alright, then."

He stood up and carefully carried her out of the room.

Frank blinked. He felt like he had been intruding on quite a private moment, but Mr Way hadn't asked him to leave or left the room himself until his daughter was nearly asleep.

Frank returned to working and slowly sipping his coffee. When Mr Way came back, he looked even more tired than before, and slumped back down in his chair.

"You have a kid," Frank said, still not sure he could believe it. This must have been the reason that this guy wasn't in jail yet. This was why Frank's company took him in, even though he was late.

"I have kids," Mr Way corrected.

"You have-"

Mr Way nodded. "That was Beatrice. And the other one's Luke."

"Two. Okay. And- what she said... You're..."

"Single?"

"What? No-"

"Yes."

Frank chewed on his lip. He wasn't sure quite what was going on. Mr Way seemed to want to make it pretty clear that he was single. Maybe he wanted to be set up with someone? But that wasn't what Frank was asking about at all. The girl- Beatrice- had said she missed her mother. Did that mean that her parents had split up, or that her mom had run out on them or what?

"So. You're-"

"I'm not divorced," Mr Way said quickly.

"No, your partner... what happened?"

"Oh," Mr Way said quietly. "She- she died."

Oh. Oh. "I'm sorry," Frank said softly.

Mr Way smiled sadly at him. "It was two years ago. It's okay." He didn't look okay, though. He looked guilty and anxious, and Frank was puzzled.

"Mr Way... I-"

"Gerard."

"What?" Frank frowned.

"My name is Gerard."

"Gerard," Frank said gently, trying it out. "I'm Frank."

"Frank," Gerard echoed.

"Um, not to be disrespectful, but how did she...?"

He swallowed. "You won't believe me."

"Try me."

Gerard let out a sigh, then opened his mouth. The words he spoke were quiet, hushed, like a secret. Like a secret it scared him to utter. "She was murdered."

----

"They never found the killer," Gerard said, and swallowed down another gulp of coffee. "They just found her. With two bullet holes in the back of her head."

"Christ."

"But it's over now. Done. We'll never know why."

"Doesn't it ever bother you?" Frank asked curiously.

"What?"

"That you'll never know. Never find out who killed her."

Gerard shook his head. "I can't think about it. I don't even know how anyone could hurt someone like her."

Frank started chewing on his lip. "I'm so sorry," he said quietly.

"It's okay," Gerard mumbled.

Frank looked down and quickly busied himself with finishing off Gerard's accounts.

The rest of the night was spent in silence.

----

The next day, Frank had to work on Miss Cox's accounts, do more on Mr Banner's, and finish off the last details on Mr Way's.

He stared blankly at the piles and piles of crumpled papers and files. His mind was fuzzy and his eyes hurt. He really wished he hadn't stayed at Mr Way's so late, because now he kind of wanted to die. His eyes were red, even without eyeliner, and the purple shadows underneath them weren't doing much to make him look alive. He was out of coffee, but he couldn't fucking leave the house looking the way he did.

He scrubbed at his face, noticing that it was uncomfortably greasy, and groaned, letting his head fall and thud onto his desk.

He wished he'd picked another job. One less boring. One less painful. But he'd picked accounting, just because he was vaguely good at it.

Maybe he should just quit.

But then what would he do? He had nothing to fall back on. No other skills but accounting. Maybe he could take a break?

Frank called up Mr Schechter, and told him he was sick and was going to be off work for a few days. Then he called Skye.

"Aren't you working?"

"Taking a break," Frank said. "I want to see Rosie."

"When you say 'break'-"

"I've taken the fucking week off so I can spend time with Rosie. Can I come over?"

"Uh, of course. Is it alright that I'm here? I'm actually working."

"Oh, sure. I just want to see Rose."

"Alright then, I'll go tell her. See you in ten."

Skye hung up the phone and Frank stood up. He grabbed his jacket and keys and quickly left. If he wanted to be a better father, he would have to work on it, and he was starting now.

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