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In the end, she cries as she leaves, whispering apologies through the tears, and honestly, FDR understands. He really does; Lauren's sweet and beautiful and so completely brilliant, but there are some things that a person just can't handle—he still struggles with Christmas displays and it's been twenty fucking years since his parents died—and he tells her, "It's all right," as they pack up her car.
"I'm so sorry," she repeats.
"Lauren, I get it." FDR smiles brightly. "It's really okay."
"I should... I..."
He kisses her forehead, cutting her off, and tells her, "You're still one of my best friends," and, "Go to Trish's. Drink some crap warehouse store wine and talk about Bradley Cooper's ass."
A last lingering, sad look, and she goes.
It'd started with bruises on his fingertips, with a lethargy he couldn't shake no matter what he did, and culminated in an almost comically perfect fainting spell that'd saved their covers from being blown in Tokyo.
(He'll never forget how terrified Tuck had looked when he had come around, blinking rapidly until FDR could recognize that yes, he was on the floor. Yes, he'd blacked out. And, eventually—after Tuck had begrudgingly admitted to it—that he'd pissed himself when he'd started to seize.)
He thinks about that, the slow progression, as he stares at the IV drip.
Today, it's quiet in Oncology; only a few patients are there and FDR pointedly doesn't ask about the ones he was expecting to see but are conspicuously absent. That number, by the way, of missing chemo protocol patients, gets larger every week.
"Hey. Doc says you're banned from caffeine, but I thought hot chocolate?"
FDR looks up at Tuck, then at the styrofoam cup. He's too nauseous to drink anything up to and including water, but he takes it anyway and sets it down on the tray table beside his recliner; he knows, as Tuck does, that it's going to go to waste and that knowledge weighs heavily on Tuck's shoulders.
"Have you any appetite? At all?" he asks.
"Not today," FDR answers. He wishes he did, too, because it's Tuesday, which means after Chemo is Nana's and Nana is going to be on his ass about food from the minute they walk in the door: she's worse than Tuck, really. At least if he arrives having had a few bites of something, she leaves him be, but the mere idea of anything passing into his stomach makes him want to dry-heave.
A few shuddering clenches of his belly drive that point home.
Tuck doesn't press the issue after that. Instead, he lays his hand on FDR's and tangles their fingers together; it's so new and so novel that FDR smiles as he tightens his grip. It makes him think of how Lauren used to touch him when they were in public, with family, that one tiny point of contact that'd grounded them both.
God, there are times he misses her company, but, if he's truthful, they fell out of love a long time ago and it'd nearly cost them their friendship just trying to keep the relationship going simply because of his illness. (And he has Tuck, has always had Tuck, and FDR keeps asking and asking when they can consummate this burgeoning thing between them.)
"Franklin," Tuck murmurs, amused, "there are other people in this room."
FDR smirks. "Oh, they deserve a little show, don't you think?"
The way Tuck grits his teeth is telling and FDR laughs as Tuck blushes, admits, "I don't like sharing and you know it."
"Sometimes sharing leads to..." FDR trails off and lurches forward, trying to keep from vomiting onto the blanket across his lap.
He fails.
"Easy, love," Tuck whispers, rubbing his partner's back with one hand as he takes the basin a nurse hands him and grips it under FDR's mouth. "Don't try to stop, Franklin. It'll only get worse."
"Fucking hate puking," he grouses after spitting a string of bile off his lower lip. He lifts an arm to check his watch, then remembers that he doesn't wear his watch anymore—his wrist got too thin and he refuses to buy a cheapo from Target—and asks, "Drugs?"
Tuck glances at the clock. "Not for another hour."
Both wince.
The day of the diagnosis, Lauren had worked late and then gone straight to Trish's for dinner since FDR wasn't supposed to be home until well into the night. They'd been half-way through their first servings of Chicken Parm and their third Raspberry Cosmos when Tuck had called.
"You need to go home," he'd said.
"Is everything all right?"
"No," Tuck's voice had broken there and her heart had caught in her throat. "Go home, Lauren."
Sometimes, she hates Tuck a little bit for not telling her; sometimes, she loves Tuck all the more for letting her know something was wrong. Most times, she wishes she had Tuck's strength to stare into the face of disease so bitterly hard to fight, a disease that had stolen her father and Tuck's, without flinching.
They got through three months of radiation and chemo, compazine injections and reglan suppositories, the loss of hair and weight and pride, before she just couldn't handle it. (It'd been the chemo burn that'd pushed her over the edge and she'd called Tuck up, sobbing while FDR slept in the bedroom upstairs.
"I can't, Tuck. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Please."
He'd listened to her as she'd cried, waiting for her to stop to say, "You stuck around, Lauren. You stayed longer than other people would've and you've taken good care of him. You're a good friend, and I'll take over from here. Just promise me you're not going to wipe him completely out of your life because that will destroy him."
"No, no, of course not."
"Good. Now, go on upstairs and talk to Franklin and I'll come 'round in a few hours."
"Thank you, Tuck.")
She comes by on Fridays now, so Tuck can go out for a little while without having to hire the visiting nurse for an extra day. She cleans up and she makes FDR lunch: he's particularly fond of her risotto (it's too bland for her, but he keeps it down and that's all that matters) and when he finishes it, she helps him into the shower and washes his hair.
It's probably something other people would think odd, ex-girlfriend kneeling over the side of the tub to scrub fingers through the ex-boyfriends hair. It works for them, though, and she enjoys watching FDR relax under her touch, knowing that he's getting some relief from the pain. Even if it's only for a bit.
Thankfully, it's week four of the cycle. He'll get time off from the Chemo if his test results come back good; even a few days will do him a world of good. She prays for that, knowing that, in the office downstairs, Tuck has a calendar with the days of FDR's chemo doses in red ink and that they're closing in on close to a year of on-off cycles.
She prays that, after so many months, FDR gets a reprieve—or better yet, is in remission. Because, really, she and Tuck have discussed that neither are sure how much more FDR can take. He's already had to give up his job, his apartment, any chance of solitude, and about a thousand little things: how much more can he take before he says he's done?
"Hey, you gonna rinse this out any time soon? I'm starting to feel a little too squeaky clean," FDR teases, drawing her attention back to the man sitting in the tub.
There's still a glint in his eye, mischievous and perfectly FDR, and she grins as she guides him back into the spray.
(For all he's lost though, they're both still here, simply in different roles than FDR had thought, and he's got that. He never speaks of it because he doesn't think he has to—that he's willing to fight as long as they are.)
FDR does his best to get through dinner, but excitement is burning in his veins and he can't stop fidgeting.
"Really, Franklin," Tuck laughs.
"Yes, really—come on, Tuck, we've known each other forever. Do we really need to have dinner first?" he turns up the charm and Tuck could easily laugh at how ridiculous FDR looks with the goofy look on his face, his head still quite bare.
And no, they don't really need to have dinner first—they've known each other too long to need to date—but Tuck needs that time to remind himself that this is actually happening, that he won't inadvertently hurt FDR, that the doc had said they could have sex as long as they used protection. That FDR has calories to burn.
"Eat your risotto."
FDR takes a bite, one knee bouncing under the table, and tries to remind himself that, after thirty years, fifteen more minutes wouldn't kill him.
It still feels like forever though.
Tuck drops him off at the Oncologist's this time, because Collins called and she needs him in the office to fill out some paperwork on FDR's behalf. He promises to be back in an hour, that they'll celebrate his good bloodwork at the Blarney Stone.
When he gets back, there's a Chaplin in the waiting room with FDR.
(There will be days, in the future, when someone will ask him about that day and he'll answer that all he remembers is looking at FDR and thinking that this is incredibly anti-climatic for two men who work for the damned CIA. Taken out by your own blood cells...)
The weird thing is that FDR gets better. The chemo, so aggressively used, had done a lot of damage, killing the good cells as well as the bad, and Tuck thinks it's so odd to know that FDR is dying, a day at a time (aren't they all?), when FDR finally starts being able to walk around without pain again, finally has an appetite again, can sleep through the night without vomiting.
He's still sickly-looking and thin, but he's not in pain anymore.
It breaks Tuck's heart and one night, when Lauren and Nana have FDR safely in their clutches, Tuck goes to his old apartment, sits down on the bed, and sobs: they've always had each other, always been there for one another, and the reality is, now, Tuck has to learn how to live without FDR. He doesn't know if he can.
Tuck doesn't know if he wants to.
When he gets home, FDR grins at him. Before he can stop himself, Tuck's got FDR wrapped up in his arms and he's begging, "Please, please," over and over while FDR murmurs, "I got you. It's all right, I'm here." Tuck barely notices when FDR pulls him to the couch and they huddle in close and there's tears all over again because, fuck, this isn't what's supposed to happen.
Eventually he stops; the girls left a while ago and as he wipes at his eyes and won't meet FDR's gaze, Tuck tells him, "I'm sorry. I don't know..."
"Shut up." FDR gives him a half-smirk. "Lauren, Nana, Katie, Joe, Pop—they've all been crying on my shoulder this week. Is what it is, Tuck. Besides," he pauses and pats Tuck on the shoulder, "you know what Rebecca said."
Rebecca. The grief counselor.
"Fuck her."
"You could."
"Franklin!"
"What?"
Tuck growls and leans in, kissing FDR like it's the last time and the thought makes him desperate. He holds FDR's face in one hand and when he draws back, he says, "You don't make jokes, Franklin. Don't."
FDR sighs. Yeah, he knows the jokes aren't helping but he needs to make them or he'll lose his mind facing his mortality. He also knows they need to have this conversation, before time runs out: "I'm going to die, Tuck. It's going to happen and it's okay, you got me?"
"I don't want..."
"Tough. You're going to listen to me: I'm going to die. It's not going to be the end of the world. You are going to have to live for the both of us, understood?" FDR pins him with a hard look, vulnerable under the mask, and waits.
"You're giving up."
"No, Tuck. I just... I tried fighting it, treating it, accepting it, and every other thing that the other patients told me to try. I did everything—Chemo, radiation, the experimental therapies—so I could get whatever time I could. And it got me time. A lot more time than other people get."
"Not enough."
"No. Not enough, but I'm tired of it. I could do another round. The docs could be more aggressive, but it's not going to change the inevitable. So you're going to stop this fucking maudlin crap and we're going to spend the next however-long living."
Tuck blinks. Yeah. "Okay."
"Now go eat something, come to bed, fuck me into the damn mattress, and in the morning, we're going to trash the kitchen making pancakes. Then go to the park and torment the teenagers."
epilogue
Tuck snaps awake suddenly, vision sharpening as he turns to the alarm clock and then sleepily wonders what, precisely, has prodded him out of sleep at two-thirty.
It doesn't take long to figure out what did it.
"Franklin," he murmurs, and quickly shifts, pulling FDR up against the headboard and reaching for the oxygen cannula that hangs from the bedpost these days. He listens to FDR wheeze and his heart twists, knowing their time is almost run out, and he pulls FDR into his side.
FDR leans into him, head falling onto Tuck's shoulder and he whispers, "Tuck," like his name is the answer to the universe. It feels odd, final, and Tuck presses a kiss to FDR's forehead. "Go to sleep, love."
"Love," FDR mutters, as he closes his eyes and slowly shifts until he's got an arm over Tuck's middle. He takes another wheezing breath. Then too long after, he takes another.
Tuck knows what's happening, suddenly and with complete clarity.
"It's okay, Franklin," he whispers and looks up at the ceiling. "I love you." There's a tap on his chest, FDR's fingers over Tuck's heart, and then a breath. Tuck blinks rapidly in the dark, wanting to turn a light on and see this, remember this, and not wanting to move, and he forces himself to say again, "I love you," even as his voice grows strained around the lump in his throat.
A breath, weak, small.
"It's okay, my love. Thank you," he says and waits.
There's a rattling noise from FDR, not a breath and Tuck waits a little longer. But he knows already that FDR is gone and when he finally unfreezes, he presses another kiss to FDR's forehead, to his lips, and settles him back against the pillows.
"Thank you," Tuck repeats, and lingers, for a second, there, knowing this is the last time he'll be alone with FDR. The last time they'll be in this bed together.
When he moves, it's to the phone, to call Nana, who knows from the time and the caller, what's happened, and even as she cries, she tells him, "It's a better place, Tucker. He's in a better place."
It only makes him sob harder.