See a reborn ghost in every passing glance; some things can’t be held no matter how firm your grasp
The practice is more folktale than fact, but when Sarif digs a scalpel into the bruised flesh of Adam’s ribcage, Pritchard knows exactly what his boss hopes to accomplish.
Frank could have told him it doesn’t work that way, but Sarif never asked.
Painting courtesy of @scootmoondog, the best moondog.
If there was anyone in the world who needed to be told less just how ruthless David Sarif was when it came to his company, Frank Pritchard had yet to meet them. That doesn’t mean he wants extra proof, but damn if he isn’t staring right at it.
With Jensen still in post-op and most of his security team either dead in the labs or wrangling the masses crowding their front doors looking for a chance to spit or gloat, it falls to Pritchard to review what footage they have of the attack and its aftermath. He grits his teeth through the whole of Jensen’s surgery videos also, but still he forces himself to watch. It’s… a form of penance, really. He and Jensen may not have always gotten along, but that sort of torture isn’t something Frank would wish on anyone. He’s not talking about the attack, either. The end of the tape is almost a relief, with all the blood and viscera washed down the drain and Jensen falling still and silent after hours of unconscious thrashing he’d ineffectually been sedated against. The last doctor leaves, and everything calms. Then Sarif enters the room, alone.
The practice is more folktale than fact, but when Sarif digs a scalpel into the bruised flesh of Adam’s ribcage, Pritchard knows exactly what his boss hopes to accomplish.
Frank could have told him it doesn’t work that way, but Sarif never asked.
The tape was hours old by the time Pritchard got it; there’s nothing he can do to stop Sarif from taking Jensen’s heart. There’s nothing he can do to keep from gagging at the casual, callous handling of such an intimate object by someone who wants it only for control. Nothing he can do but swallow the bile that rises as he watches the softly beating organ lowered into a sterile white box, cold and comfortless. And absolutely nothing he can do to stop himself from turning away, dry heaving into his trash can when he sees the disgusting polymer thing Sarif slides in to replace it, holding the edges of the wound together until it seals beneath his hand with only a faint scar to show anything is amiss.
What Frank can do - what he does do - is destroy every copy of the surveillance video save one, stashed on his own private server in case Jensen ever asks for proof. Then, he follows Sarif’s path through the building, erasing all evidence of the crime - because that’s what this is, if only the courts knew enough to prosecute it - and tracking Jensen’s heart to whatever gilded cage their boss has constructed for it.
Sarif sets it in plain sight, on the mantle of his ridiculous fireplace under his copy of The Anatomy Lesson, like the sick trophy it is.
Frank tries not to grind his teeth to dust.
Nothing much changes in the six months Jensen spends recovering. Pritchard claims jurisdiction over the security feeds for the penthouse offices from Adam’s minions, leaving them to comb through everything else while he keeps a constant eye on the box. He’s come up with four hundred and fifty one increasingly implausible plans to retrieve it by the time Sarif decides to cut Jensen’s recovery short. Thankfully, it seems like their boss isn’t interested in immediate control, because the heart stays behind when he accompanies Jensen to Milwaukee Junction.
In fact, it doesn’t move at all over the next month as Adam untangles the threads of a global conspiracy whose nexus appears to be far closer to home than any of them could have ever thought. Sarif doesn’t even take it with him when he leaves for Panchaea, and Frank seizes the opportunity. Jensen went off the grid twenty-four hours ago and the only thing Pritchard can focus on is opening that damn box and making sure the heart inside still beats.
He never returns it to the mantle - never even finds out what their boss wanted with Adam’s heart in the first place - because two days later Panchaea crumbles into the ocean and there’s no Sarif around to demand it back. Six months after that, there’s no mantle, either.
Pritchard liberates a lot of Sarif property from Tai Yong’s greedy claws before they even know it’s slipped through their grasp, but there is none more precious than that sterile white box. The last thing he does, besides destroy the box and all security tapes that ever show it existed, is to empty it. There is only one place Frank can bear to put its contents now; one place where he will always know it still beats even when the man himself is missing, presumed dead.
It’s surprisingly painless to cut himself open and slip Adam’s heart between his ribs to nestle against his own.
Adam’s heart beats so slow he almost forgets it’s there, some days. The day it speeds up Frank has to force himself not to react, to remain calm. He finishes the job he’s doing for Magnet, takes his payment, and retreats to the Rialto as fast as he can while still being discreet. The next few days are a mess of caffeine pills and frequency scans as he searches the globe for any signs of Jensen or his old GPL tracker.
The shiver of his infolink as it auto-connects to a contact that’s lain dormant for a year pulls Pritchard out of where he’s slumped in an exhausted doze with a shot of adrenaline. His heart rabbits against his ribs, frantic next to the steady beat of Jensen’s. Still, his paranoia is legendary and it’s only grown since his return to black hat work.
“Who is this?” He snaps, fingers digging into his chest hard enough to bruise.
The next week is a terrifying reminder of just how dangerous life with Adam Jensen can be. The man seems to thrive on impossibilities; the gravity of his indomitable will tugging everything around him in to burn like falling stars in his wake as he spins on unceasingly through the dark. Frank could never admit it out loud but, no matter how hard he tries to escape, he’s caught in that orbit just the same.
They’re outside the Rialto, adventure over for the time being. Everything Pritchard owns now can fit in the back of a beat-up van. Everything of Jensen’s that Frank could save from Sarif Industries fits in two boxes at their feet except the one thing beating a solid reminder between his ribs. He’s not sure how to say it, that he took Adam’s heart - saved it, really - and has been keeping it next to his own. He’s not certain how he wants Jensen to react to the knowledge, even. It’s like he’s a teenager again, hesitant and unsure and feeling too large for his own skin.
“I… have something else of yours. Do you want it back?”
Adam’s gaze drops, just for a second, to where two hearts brush against each other in the cavity of Frank’s chest. There’s a novel written in that silence, but all Jensen says when he breaks it is a quiet, “No.”
He waits until Adam’s long gone to curl up in the front seat of the van, hand pressed to his aching scar. He’s not sure if it’s relief or disappointment that sends a few lonely tears down his face, but he scrubs them away and tells himself it doesn’t matter in the end.
Seven months later he only agrees to Sarif’s job offer because it leads him to Prague, closer to Adam. David never asks about the heart, which is good because Frank doesn’t have an answer that doesn’t reveal far more than he’s comfortable with, especially to the man who removed it in the first place.
It’s good - too good, almost - to see Adam again, even if it’s only through a screen. Every conversation they have is a test of Frank’s self-control. His ribs ache with the strain of nearly two years of supporting more than just himself and he’s not sure how much longer he can take the extra weight.
The finality of Jensen’s goodbye, abrupt and cut off, drives Frank to his knees. Alone - but never truly, not anymore - he allows the collapse, clutching his chest as both hearts break in tandem, echoing against each other until he’s sure he’ll die from the pain. At least, he thinks ruefully, if it’s his own that gives out first, his coffin is the last place anyone would look for Adam’s.
If that’s all he can offer anymore, it’ll have to be enough.
He books passage to Prague as soon as Sarif leaves for England. One more time, he tells himself, he’ll offer just one more time and whatever answer Adam gives, he’ll figure out what to do then.
He watches Jensen’s apartment remotely for the two days it takes Interpol to return from London. He watches Vega sneak in and out and in again, not nearly as stealthy as she thinks she is. He watches Adam come home and not even be surprised to find her there. He nearly convinces himself to go - abandon the plan and flee back to Detroit and the places he’s known most of his life but that aren’t home anymore - three times in the twenty minutes they talk. Then Vega leaves and it takes another three tries to will his body to move.
Adam looks exhausted when he opens the door, but Frank is almost positive he looks worse. Jensen’s shed his body armour and pulled back his eyeshields, at least for the moment, finally allowed some down time. His mission load over the last few weeks had increased dramatically and there had been at least once instance in which Pritchard had lain awake for hours, mind a thousand miles away from his body, fingers bloody where he dug them into his chest, willing Adam’s heart to keep going keep going keep going don’t you dare stop now. Neither says a word as they move into the kitchen. If Jensen’s surprised that Frank is there, knows his way around the flat, he doesn’t show it. In the end, all Pritchard can do is offer him a choice.
Silently, he pushes two things across the center island: a box and a knife.
Adam eyes them both, expression unreadable despite not wearing his ridiculous shades. When he reaches for the knife Frank sighs, shrugging out of his jacket and pulling his turtleneck off so Jensen can cut him open unimpeded. Adam freezes, staring, and Frank looks down.
His own scar is no longer the neat, pale line that Adam’s is. It’s ragged, scabbed over where he’s rubbed it raw more than a few times, and surrounded by dozens of smaller cuts where he’s dug his fingernails into the skin again and again. The whole left side of his chest is bruised in one way or another; a vivid green and purple watercolour testament to his worry these last two years. It’s been so long since Frank has really looked at himself that he forgot there would be physical evidence. The ache is as much a part of him as the ribs beneath it. It’s not something he’d ever planned on telling Adam though, that’s for sure.
“What,” Jensen rasps, barely a whisper, loud in the quiet of the apartment.
It’s not really a question, but Pritchard answers anyway. “I can’t carry them both. I tried.”
Adam drops the knife and it clatters noisily across the counter. Frank flinches, not from that, but because there’s suddenly a sleek black hand pressed to his scar. When he looks up again, Adam’s opened the box - real wood, worn and treasured and much nicer than sterile white plastic, thank you very much Sarif - with his other hand and is staring wide-eyed at the steadily beating heart cradled inside.
“Why?” Jensen’s voice cracks, and Pritchard looks away from the hurt on his face.
“I can’t carry them both,” he repeats, trying to step back from the cold polymer on his chest. It feels too good, he can’t bear it. The heart on the table beats faster.
Adam follows, expression suddenly fierce as he snatches the knife back up and pushes the grip into Frank’s palm. “Put it back.”
He grabs the box next, taking another step forward for every one Pritchard takes backward until there’s nowhere left to retreat to. Frank swallows heavily, a carving of soaring Icarus pushed uncomfortably against his spine, as Adam draws their hands up, the blade scraping against his own chest. “Put it back where it belongs.”
When Frank hesitates, Adam leans forward. Black blooms on his undershirt, the grey fabric eagerly soaking up the blood they spill. Pritchard takes a shuddering gasp as Jensen drags the knife down and deep, neither paying any mind where it falls when it’s then tossed haphazardly to the floor. Pale fingers press in, shaking as they pull an artificial heart from between reinforced ribs. This too is tossed carelessly away, clattering against the floor. They breathe in tandem, ragged and shivering, as Frank tenderly lifts his own heart from it’s wooden bed. He stares helplessly at it held between them until Adam shifts closer still, a broken Francis, please muffled into his bare shoulder. He slides it gently beneath Adam’s skin, feeling it slot perfectly into place.
The wound seals under his hand and it feels like coming home.
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