How can they just be gone? And brother, if that doesn't echo every thought he's woken up with since it happened, every goddamn day for years. How can they just be gone? How can something so integral to him, his life, his heart, his beating fucking heart, his reason for breathing his time on earth — how can it just be gone, and how in the hell can he keep on standing here like he isn't gone, too? Wishes he had the answer, but he couldn't tell you how he survived this any more than he could tell you how he survived the bullet to his head.
And yeah, here it is. Here it comes. They're different, him and Clint, but in so many ways they're the same — these thoughts, these things coming outta his mouth, Frank could be sitting in the same chair, could be under his skin saying the same goddamn things. He remembers saying the same goddamn things, raging about it to nobody and then raging about it again to Clint and then raging about it to Curt and then raging about it to Karen, and on, and on, and on, it never stops, he never really stopped raging. It's just further between now, and a little quieter when he breaks all over again.
He paces across the kitchen, drags a chair up toward Clint's side of the table, posted up by the corner, close enough to touch. Close enough that his elbow nudges Clint's when he plants them on the table's surface.
"Listen to me, look- listen to me. This is gonna make it feel worse right now, but it's the truth, and you need to hear it: there's nothing you could've done. This is not your fault. You couldn't protect them from this," and that's not comforting. He knows that's not comforting, not right now, maybe it will be in a year or two, but it's fact. The cold, hard truth of it is gonna rip away any sense of control Clint might be deluding himself into thinking he had here, but it's also gonna kneecap some of the guilt before it can eat away at his soul the way it did Frank's — at least a little, maybe, if he's lucky. "You were exactly where you were supposed to be. Only thing that would've changed is you wouldn't have been here with 'em when it happened. You'd wonder, you'd spend every minute of every damn day wondering, what were they doing when it happened? Were they in the kitchen, were they in the yard, were they cooking dinner or fighting or sleeping, you wouldn't know. You wouldn't know."
And wouldn't that be worse? Somehow, impossibly, wouldn't that be worse? It would be for him.
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And yeah, here it is. Here it comes. They're different, him and Clint, but in so many ways they're the same — these thoughts, these things coming outta his mouth, Frank could be sitting in the same chair, could be under his skin saying the same goddamn things. He remembers saying the same goddamn things, raging about it to nobody and then raging about it again to Clint and then raging about it to Curt and then raging about it to Karen, and on, and on, and on, it never stops, he never really stopped raging. It's just further between now, and a little quieter when he breaks all over again.
He paces across the kitchen, drags a chair up toward Clint's side of the table, posted up by the corner, close enough to touch. Close enough that his elbow nudges Clint's when he plants them on the table's surface.
"Listen to me, look- listen to me. This is gonna make it feel worse right now, but it's the truth, and you need to hear it: there's nothing you could've done. This is not your fault. You couldn't protect them from this," and that's not comforting. He knows that's not comforting, not right now, maybe it will be in a year or two, but it's fact. The cold, hard truth of it is gonna rip away any sense of control Clint might be deluding himself into thinking he had here, but it's also gonna kneecap some of the guilt before it can eat away at his soul the way it did Frank's — at least a little, maybe, if he's lucky. "You were exactly where you were supposed to be. Only thing that would've changed is you wouldn't have been here with 'em when it happened. You'd wonder, you'd spend every minute of every damn day wondering, what were they doing when it happened? Were they in the kitchen, were they in the yard, were they cooking dinner or fighting or sleeping, you wouldn't know. You wouldn't know."
And wouldn't that be worse? Somehow, impossibly, wouldn't that be worse? It would be for him.
Why did Karen have her gun out?