Frank - Hope
It's been a while, but just stepping back into the City it all comes back. The city; New York. I grew up here, trained as a cop here, learnt to be Scarecrow here. I feel sometimes like cities in general are in my blood, but this one is special. Nature's okay for some, but there's just something about a city that gets me going.
I feel strangely. In the past when I walked about I would keep an eye out for signs of oddness, hints of the things that prey on humans. And now I am one of those things. People tell me I am a monster, which is nothing new, but now I think they might just be right. It burns, but until I know, and I mean really know, I have to be careful. I have to be cautious.
That's why I'm here though. It's a little after noon, and summer school'll be getting out soon. So I wait, across the street, sitting on a bench in the shade of a tree that's leaning away from the nearby park, like there was something within that forced it to escape. I wait, and try to control the wanting.
And I do want. I want so badly that I'm surprised the Spring folk can't feel it screaming out, the Autumn can't feel the despair or the Winter the sorrow over it all. A good fifteen, shit, more years ago I made the concious decision to end that part of myself, to kill that want or need. But now it's back, and worse than ever.
Mack started it. Mackenzie, who found me, brought me up when I didn't even realize that I was down low. She made me want again, made me think that I could have it, that it was possible. A life, family, maybe even kids. I need to find her, more and more. Waiting for Jason to find out what's up is intolerable, but I never made myself easy to find and she always loved nature. It could take a while, and I have to steel myself.
So why am I here? Why am I sitting outside the school on a hot summer day, waiting? For whatever reason I'm doing something I know is going to hurt, may even make everything worse. But i haven't seen her, and I need to...and I don't want to face Maya like this. It's been years, but she still knows me too well for comfort. But I need to find my Hope again, even just to catch a glimpse.
There. Kids are already trickling out, and I know the bell'll come soon. I watch them, holding an unlit cigar just so I can blend in; another area resident, out for a smoke. People are always surprised when I blend, but that's the thing. If you're too big, too loud to be missed, they expect certain things. And then you change it.
No. Focus...This way. She's going to come out by the front doors, I'm sure of it. And then I catch a glimpse.
She has her mother's hair. Lovely, dark, and falling in waves against her burnished copper skin. I'm relieved to see that she hasn't dyed herself or done any major piercings, or anything like that. Beautiful like her mother, but she's got some height, she walks with a strength that her mother never did. And she has my eyes.
My Hope. Maya came to me a little after I left the force and was really getting into the Hood work, the detective work. She told me she was pregnant, and it was mine, and she'd understand if I didn't want to get involved but...How could I not? Even if I were cutting myself off, I couldn't leave a kid of mine in the lurch. I set up so a good portion of the checks went to an account in Maya's name, plus a little for when Hope would go to college. I thought that would be enough.
And then I saw her for the first time. Held her, there as a friend of the mother. It changed everything. She was the first one to call me "Uncle Frank," and the occasions I'd drop in for a holiday visit or because they needed something fixed were the high points. I watched her grow, cheered her victories and report cards, and I knew that whatever happened to me I had done a least one good thing.
And then they took that from me too. They took two years away. She's not a little girl anymore; she's practically a woman now. I imagine she has boyfriends (a thought that just stokes my growing anger over the loss), that she's started thinking about colleges; all kinds of things like that. I watch her, chatting with her friends about something or other, looking radient in the Summer sunlight, and the anger builds up so suddenly that I double over for a moment, feeling sick.
I hadn't realized how much I missed her. Missed seeing her, missed occasional visits, missed smiling at her mother and her smiling back. I only ever told Mack about her, in all my years, just to keep her safe. I cut myself off as much as I could, but they took even that away.
As she walked out of sight, off to the train to take her wherever, I stand. I have to head back to Two Crowns. Help out there, try to build something, at least until I find Mackenzie. I want so badly to believe that we'll be together again, that I'll be able to call her wife, maybe we can even have kids sometime. Part of me recognizes this may not be likely, but I try to shout it down as much as I can.
At the very least, until then, I have Hope. God help anyone who tries to change that.