Coraline
18+ MDNI
Pairing: Protective Frankie Morales x wife!reader
A/N: This is my entry for @itwasntimethatdidit40 Italian Music Challenge. I was given the song Coraline by Måneskin, I'll add the translated lyrics and a link to the song at the bottom. Its a great song.
I really loved this challenge so thank you to V for for organising but I'm not going to lie, this was hard to write. I'm usually soft and fluffy or filthy and depraved (and sometimes both) so this is my first real foray into anything angsty.
There are some very heavy themes in this so please heed the warnings before you continue and please forgive me for the timing. I know it's been a hard week and the last thing anyone needs is more sadness but I promise there is a happy ending. And I already promised @baronessvonglitter a lovely, happy, fluffy fic to follow by way of an apology!
Story is written as a reader insert but in my head her name is Coraline. Moodboard is for aesthetics only, reader is not described.
Warnings: pregnancy, miscarriage, mentions of medical procedures following miscarriage (nothing in detail), violence, injury, child abuse, grief, ptsd, implied smut but it's very brief, Frankie being the best.
Word count: 4.1K
14 weeks. That’s how far along you were. Had been. Fuck!
The beeps and whirrs of the heartrate monitor strapped to you were the only noise. Your tears silently dripping down your battered and swollen face, your body aching and broken. And empty. Your perfect little bean taken from you. Scraped from your body as though it was nothing, inconsequential.
You’d barely had time to process the words, “I’m so sorry Mrs Morales, there’s no heartbeat,” before they were wheeling you to surgery. And you had to do it all alone, your husband locked away in a cell at the local police station. Not that you blamed Frankie at all. If you had been able, you would have beaten the shit out of your father too. If your leg and ribs weren’t broken, if your shoulder hadn’t been recently dislocated. If you didn’t have this awful aching sadness gnawing away at you like a black hole devouring any hint of light from your life.
Your father was lucky that someone was there to pull Frankie off him. If only there had been someone to pull your father off you. If they’d poked their heads out of their apartments when he started yelling at you in the hallway about how you were an ungrateful little bitch for running off and marrying a man he didn’t approve of. For getting knocked up like a stupid slut. If only they had intervened then instead of waiting until you were lying battered and bleeding at the bottom of a flight of stairs just in time for Frankie returning from the grocery store. Yes he was lucky indeed. Lucky that he was currently inhabiting a cell next to Frankie instead of the casket your husband had intended to put him in.
When you’d awoken from your anaesthesia the nurse had told you that someone had informed Frankie of what had happened and the guilt nearly ripped you in two. The thought of him finding out in a cold, unforgiving cell, all alone. How his grief would be battling with his guilt that he wasn’t there for you just as yours was now, mirror images reflecting and magnifying the horror of the day. You wished he was here. You needed his deep, baritone voice to wrap you in its soothing embrace as he told you you’d be ok, that you’d get through it together.
A gentle tap on the door to your room pulls you from your thoughts. You look up to see Pope, Will and Benny gathered at the door. You see their masks slip on, just a second too late as they enter the room, training kicking in, stay calm, don’t give anything away. You know just from that how bad you must look. You’ve never seen them turn those masks on for you and it almost breaks you, the sob that claws it’s way out of your chest is violent and raw. It rips at your throat as it escapes, intent on causing as much damage to your broken body as it does to the ears of all who hear it.
They rush for you, desperate to console you. Pope reaches you first. He wraps you in his arms, gently so as not to hurt you further. You vaguely wonder why he bothers. You feel nothing but the aching pit of blackness within you that seems to grow and consume every other thought and feeling.
“It’s ok honey, let it out, we got you,” he whispers to you, holding you closer. Will is at your other side now, holding your hand, Benny beside Pope takes your other one. You feel their tears spilling onto your skin, masks dropped. They never really stood a chance against the raw, unfettered pain in the room. You surrender to your grief. You sink into Pope’s embrace and squeeze the hands that hold yours, so grateful to no longer be alone.
You think back to all the times you’d had to swallow and hide your sadness growing up, careful not to trigger your father or overburden your mother. How Frankie had to coax that side out of you, had to teach you that it was ok to be sad and vulnerable with him. That it was safe. That he was safe. That they were safe. You’d gone from having no one to having a whole family, bound not by blood but by love. And you’d never been more thankful for them.
You don’t know how long you stay like that but eventually your tears run dry. You pull out of Pope’s embrace to lean back on your pillows.
“How did you know?” you ask.
“Frankie called,” Pope tells you as Will passes him a bottle of water, “he didn’t want you to be alone.”
Of course Frankie would use his one phone call to make sure you’re ok rather than calling a lawyer. That stupid, big hearted lug. Not that there was much a lawyer would be able to do you knew. There had been plenty of witnesses. But still, your heart swells and it’s enough to momentarily break through the numbness, your love for Frankie pulling you back from the abyss.
“Here honey, drink some of this, you must be dehydrated,” Pope instructs as he brings the bottle of water to your lips. He’s put a straw in it to help you, so you don’t have to navigate the hard bottle against your swollen lips.
“I called my friend, she’s a lawyer, she’s gona head to the station and see what can be done,” Will tells you. You know it won’t be much. That bail will be expensive, more than you can afford, and a criminal record will put his military career at risk. The guilt rears its ugly head again, threatening to drown you with its voracity. Frankie is going to lose everything he’s worked so hard for on top of the already agonising loss of your baby and it’s all your fault. If only he’d fallen in love with someone else. Someone better, someone without so much baggage and a violent father.
“Thanks Will, but there’s only one way out of this that doesn’t end with him losing his job.”
They all stop and look at you. “I need to speak to my mom.”
“Honey are you sure that’s a good idea?” Pope asks you. He’s worried, you can see. He knows Frankie won’t like it.
“I’m sure Pope. Right now all I need is Frankie and she is how I get him. I don’t care about anything else, I just need him,” you tell him, once more breaking down in tears.
“Ok, ok honey, I’ll get her for you. It’s ok,” he soothes you, “you remember her phone number?”
You give him a shaky nod and dictate your parent’s phone number and address. He gives you a kiss on the crown of your head and disappears out the door.
He returns a little later with your mom. He walks behind her, shepherding her into the room like he expects her to turn tail and run. You wouldn’t be surprised if she tried, so used to existing in the safety of your fathers shadow, spewing her hatred from behind the safety of his imposing body. But now there’s no one here to hide behind. Here the tables are turned in your favour for once.
“You want us to stay with you?” Will asks, not taking his eyes off her, all 3 of them eyeballing her like she’s a piece of trash.
“No it’s ok. Just. Don’t go far?” you ask, looking at them each in turn for reassurance.
“We’ll be right outside honey,” Pope promises, “you holler if you need anything and we’ll be in in a heartbeat.”
They file out, glaring at your mother the entire time. They don’t close the door, not taking any chances of you being hurt further tonight.
She turns back to you. You don’t say anything for a minute. Give her a chance to truly see you and absorb all the visible damage to your body.
“How are you?” she eventually asks and you huff a laugh.
“Don’t pretend you care about me now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You’re my daughter of course I care.”
“Oh yeah, that why you stood by my whole life watching as he beat me? That why you used to tell me I deserved it?”
“You were an unruly child,” she spits at you, getting agitated now, “you needed to be disciplined, your father was just trying to get you to behave.”
“Discipline, right. Like the time he hit me so hard he knocked 3 of my teeth out because I didn’t come over the first time he called?”
She rolls her eyes at you, “they were baby teeth, don’t be so dramatic.”
“I was 7 years old and he was a full grown adult!”
“You disrespected him in front of our friends.”
You want to scream at her. You want to climb out of your bed and beat her bloody, reciting every injury inflicted against every perceived failing, the rage momentarily filling the void within you. You desperately cling to it, feed off it, praying it gives you the energy to see you through this.
“Your father and I did the best we could, there’s no manual that comes with being a parent.”
“Well I won’t be finding that out anytime soon, seeing as your husband murdered your grandchild tonight!” you bellow back at her. It hits her like a punch. Not the fact that you’ve lost your baby. The wrath behind your words. You’ve never raised your voice to her, never displayed your emotions so shamelessly in front of her.
You see Pope in the doorway and you shake your head. He steps away again but you know he is stood right outside, waiting for your instruction. It bolsters you. She will hear what you have to say, no matter how little she likes it.
“You were terrible parents. And even now that I’m an adult you can’t let me be happy. Why are you so determined to ruin my life?”
“Ruin your life? We were trying to save you from that degenerate you married. He put your father in the hospital you know, he had to have stitches.”
“Boo, fucking, hoo,” you tell her, sweeping your arm across your body, not an inch of which is not marked in some way by that assault of your father. She flinches. You know it’s at the curse coming out of your mouth rather than the repulsion of seeing what her husband did to you.
“I’m sure your father never meant for you to fall down those stairs, he was just trying to get you to see sense. Yes, that’s it. Your father is an upstanding member of the community, I’m sure the police will see that this was an accident. What that Morales man did to him was deliberate. He’s violent, I could always sense it in him. He will go to jail where he belongs and you will come home. One day you will be thankful for what your father did for you tonight.”
You laugh. Actually laugh at her, pain shoots through your ribs but you embrace it. You’re not surprised that she’s still defending that man. You are a little surprised by how delusional she is.
“What’s so funny?”
The last few chuckles trickle out of you before you sigh and tell her. “there are cameras.”
“What?”
“There are cameras in the hallway,” you see her sag as the realisation hits her. “The police will already have seen them. They’ll know what he did wasn’t an accident. If my husband deserves jail for violence, then so does yours.”
“No, no. That’s not right. Your father doesn’t belong in jail.”
“Yes he does.”
She starts rambling and pacing, “no, no, no, not right, not right.”
“Everyone is going to know. Imagine what the neighbours will say. Especially when it comes time for the trial and I have to get on the stand and recount all the abuse I lived though in that house. My medical records will back it up. Everyone is going to know exactly what kind of people you are.”
“Stop it!” she screams at you.
“There is another way,” you offer. She looks at you with hope in her eyes. “You drop the charges against Frankie and I will drop the charges against your husband.” You refuse to acknowledge him as your father any more. You’re done with them both.
She glares at you for a moment. But you have her backed into a corner and you both know it.
“Fine,” she finally relents.
“Good. One of the boys will take you to the station to get everything settled. And then that’s it. We’re done. I don’t ever want to see either of you again.”
She opens her mouth to protest but you cut her off. “I mean it. I’ll get a restraining order if I have to, and I'll make sure all your friends know about it.”
She nods, clearly seething that after all this, they’re still losing the control over you they were so desperate to keep.
Before she can say anything else the boys are filing back into the room. Pope motions for her to leave with a sweep of his arm, “after you.” She marches out of the room without so much as glancing at you. Pope turns back and winks at you, “did so good honey, I’ll be back with Frankie as soon as I can,” and follows her out.
As soon as they’re out of earshot you collapse in on yourself, descending once more into tears as Will holds you this time. The rage is gone, used up and burnt out and all that is left in the ashes is grief and pain.
At some point one of the nurses comes in and gives you more pain relief and the exhaustion finally takes over as you fall into a restless sleep.
///
It’s the beeping and whirring that you register first as you start to come back round. And then it hits you all over again, a tidal wave of despair that threatens to wash you away. But there’s a heavy pressure on your hand keeping you tethered. Your eyes flutter open and you gaze down. Frankie is sleeping, sat in a chair pulled close to your bedside, his head resting on one of his arms on the bed, his other hand gripping yours tightly. Not enough to hurt. Just firm, reassuring.
You heave a sigh of relief that he’s here. His mere presence, even unconscious as he is, is enough to settle you. Your heart swells again, that feeling pushing at the edges of your sorrow. You don’t want to wake him. You’ve put him through hell tonight the least you can do is let him sleep. But you know that the position he’s in is not good for his neck and he’ll be sore in the morning if he stays as he is.
You take a moment to really look at him. You see the evidence of the night on him. His eyes and face are puffy from the tears he’s shed and there are bruises forming in the few places your dad managed to get a retaliatory hit in. You hate seeing him like this. You’re so ashamed that you’ve put him through this. Part of you wonders if he’ll still want you once it’s all calmed down. When he realises his life would have been easier had he picked someone else. You force that feeling down. You know Frankie wouldn’t do that to you. That voice in your head is the latent remnants of your parents teachings that love had to be earned and you always fell wide of the mark, never quite good enough. Frankie had always given his love and affection freely. He’d never treated you like they had, and you knew he wouldn’t start now.
Before you can decide whether you should wake him up, a nurse comes in to check your vitals.
“Is there anything you need?” she asks in a whisper once she’s done.
“Just some water please,” you ask.
“M’I got it,” Frankie mumbles beside you, pushing up off the bed and reaching over to your nightstand to grab a bottle of water and a straw as the nurse retreats once more.
You whimper when he lets go of your hand to get the lid off the bottle.
“I know baby, I know, just be a second,” he placates you, but instead of waiting for his hand to take yours again you reach it up to cup his face as he holds the bottle steady for you to drink from. He turns his head to kiss your palm and you stoke his cheek with your thumb.
He looks at you while you sip your water, eyes roving over your face before finding yours once more. The tears start to drip from his eyes and you break once more, like a piece of pottery, smashed and patched back together, over and over again, getting more fragile with each attempt at repair.
“I’m so, so sorry Frankie, please forgive me!” you sob, clinging to him as though he may disappear at any moment. He’s your life raft in the storm, you know that if you let go you’ll be dragged to the depths, never to be recovered.
“No, no, no baby, what are you talking about, there’s nothing to forgive,” he tells you, pulling you close and kissing your head. “It’s me who should be apologising. I should have done a better job at protecting you from him. And you shouldn’t have had to go through this alone. I hate myself for that. Please say you forgive me, please!”
You shake your head at his words and pull away enough that you can see his face. You gently cup it with both your hands and make him look at you. He wears his grief all over his face, his emotions out in the open for all to see. You love him for that. For not making you feel like you need to swallow it, for standing with you and validating your heartache.
“There’s nothing to forgive for you either. There was no way you could have known this would happen. The only one to blame is him and I’m glad he got a taste of his own medicine tonight.” You lean in and give him a gentle kiss before wrapping your arms around him and burying your head in his neck.
“I love you so much Frankie.”
“I love you too.”
You stay like that for a while. Wrapped in each other’s arms and each other’s sadness, weeping on to each other’s shoulders until he feels you start to shift to find relief from your aching body. He lies you back onto your pillows and sits back in his chair. He holds your hand in one of his and brings it to his lips to kiss your knuckles. His other big hand comes to rest gently just below your belly, the place that had until just a few hours ago housed your greatest joy.
The pain feels sharper with him here, more acute. The overall aching brought into focus of a singular agony now that the other distractions of the night had resolved themselves. Your baby is gone. The last time you were in this hospital was only 2 weeks ago, getting your scan. You had left excited and hopeful with a blurry picture of your perfect little miracle. That’s the only picture you would ever get. But you feel stronger with him here too. Better able to carry the burden with him to help you share the load. You feel less despondent, you feel safe. He’s brought with him the memory of light. A flicker, a momentary spark. You feel hopeful that although you are suspended in darkness now, it might not last forever. You will find your way together.
///
“You’re staring Morales,” you playfully scold your husband as he stands leaning against the kitchen doorframe.
“Can’t help it, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You say that every time,” you laugh.
He walks over and cups your face in his big hand, titling your face so he can press his lips against yours, “and I mean it, every time,” he tells you as he kisses you once more and then crouches down to press another kiss against your daughters forehead as she huffs and coos round the teat of her bottle.
He looks up at you again, drinking in your smile. He’s catalogued every one since that night. He hadn’t realised how much he loved your smile until it had disappeared. For months after that night the pair of you soldiered on, one foot in front of the other, just trying to make it through each day. Through breakdowns and nightmares and therapy sessions. Battling through the pain and the financial fallout of your hefty medical bills.
And then one day in the fall you’d been out for a little walk when a gust of wind had blown his cap clean off his head. He’d dropped your hand to chase after it only for it to blow in the opposite direction whenever he got close. When he’d turned back after a kindly stranger had taken pity on him and rescued his hat from the ground as it blew past him, there was a little smile on your face, like you had very recently just stopped laughing. And it made his heart sing. He’d rushed back to you, taken your face in both his hands (one of which was still keeping tight hold of his cap) and kissed you deep and sweet.
That smile had saved him. Nourished him and gave him the strength to go on. They came infrequently to start with, the slow return of joy and light to your lives. But any time he saw you smile he took note of what had caused it. It wasn’t always the same thing. Something that made you smile one day wouldn’t draw the same reaction the next. Over time he realised the thing that made you smile the most was him. And if that didn’t just make him drown with pride. When he said something goofy, when he sang to you, when he brought you flowers from the gas station, or picked you up a certain candy bar, just because he knew you loved them, when he told you that he loved you. He cherished every single one. He was quite content to spend the rest of his life making you smile.
And when after almost 6 years, after many conversations and baring of doubts and fears you smiled at him and told him you wanted to try for another baby, his heart was fit to burst. That was his favourite smile of all the ones you’d gifted him.
There’d been a lot of smiling over the next few months. A lot of you moaning his name too. He liked that almost as much as the smiles.
But the pregnancy had been hard. You had both been prepared for it to be. But on the more difficult days he would hold you while you wept or when you woke from nightmares, or when you just couldn’t face the day. He would squeeze you tight, tell you how well you were doing, that he would always be there for you. He’d talk directly to your belly, telling your baby how lucky they were to have a momma as strong and beautiful and kind as you. Most days he could coax at least a small smile from you. And on the days he couldn’t, he’d think back to all the ones he’d filed away in his head and remind himself that the darkness doesn’t last forever.
And then she was here. A perfect kicking, screaming bundle who brought chaos in her wake and he knew the second she was placed in his arms that he’d fight tigers with his bare hands to keep you both safe. It made him hate your father even more for what he’d done. He could never imagine hurting his baby girl the way that man hurt you. He’d kill anyone who tried. He wanted to kill him even more than he had that night. For everything he’d done to you. For everything he’d stolen from you both.
But here you are now, the three of you together. Thriving. In spite of all that man had done. In spite of all the horrors you’d survived to get here. He’ll make sure you never have to again. And your smile is all the reward he’ll ever need.
///
Translated Lyrics:
Tell me your truths, Coraline, Coraline
Tell me your truths, Coraline, Coraline
Tell me your truths, Coraline, Coraline
Tell me your truths, Coraline, Coraline
Coraline beautiful as the sun
Warrior with a zealous heart
Hair like red roses
Those precious copper wires, love, bring them to me
If you hear bells singing
You'll see Coraline crying
Who takes the pain of others
And then carries it inside her
Coraline, Coraline
Tell me your truths, Coraline, Coraline
Tell me your truths, Coraline, Coraline
Tell me your truths, Coraline, Coraline
But she knows the truth
It's not for everyone to go on
With a heart that's split in two halves
It's cold already
She's a child but she feels like a weight
And sooner or later it will break
And people will say, ah, "It's worth nothing"
She can't even get out of a miserable door
But one day, one time, she will succeed
And I told Coraline that she can grow
Take her things and then leave
But she feels a monster that keeps her in a cage, that
That covers her road with mines
And I told Coraline that she can grow
Take her things and then leave
But Coraline doesn't want to eat, no
Yes, Coraline would like to disappear
And Coraline cries
Coraline is anxious
Coraline wants the sea but she's afraid of the water
And maybe the sea is inside her
And every word is an axe
A cut on the back
Like a raft that sails in a river in flood
And maybe the river is inside her, of her
I'll be the fire and the cold
Shelter in the winter
I'll be what you breathe
I'll understand what's inside you
And I'll be the water to drink
The meaning of good
I'll also be a soldier
Or the light in the evening
And in return I ask for nothing
Just a smile
Every little tear of yours is an ocean on my face
And in return I ask for nothing nothing
Just a little time
I'll be a banner, a shield
Or your silver sword and
And Coraline cries
Coraline is anxious
Coraline wants the sea but she's afraid of the water
And maybe the sea is inside her
And every word is an axe
A cut on her back
Like a raft sailing in a river in flood
And maybe the river is inside her, inside her
And tell me your truths, Coraline, Coraline
Tell me your truths, Coraline, Coraline
Tell me your truths, Coraline, Coraline
Coraline, beautiful as the sun
She lost the fruit of her womb
She hasn't known love
But a father who is nothing like a father
They told her there's a castle in the city
With walls so powerful
That if you go and live inside
Nothing can hit you anymore
Nothing can hit you anymore
///
Tagging some people who showed interest in the WIP and who might be interested, but absolutely no pressure to read, let me know if you want to be removed.
@baronessvonglitter @milla-frenchy @aurorawritestoescape @lamartell @mrs-hardy-hunnam-butler-pascal @thedilfdiaries @evolnoomym
