Title: Always
Fandom: Frequency (tv)
Rating: Gen
Length: ~1,220
Contents: spoilers for the pilot episode, references to canonical character death, concerns about being thought to be delusional, late night conversations, misunderstandings, friendship
Author's note: Of the new shows this fall, this is my favorite. I hope it sticks around! Also written for the prompt "Colors" -- in this case, golden. (more notes at the end of the post)

Summary: Gordo finds out.

The garage is dim and dark, except for the golden light from the old ham radio. Raimy's eyes have long since adjusted. She'd left the house dark, too. No one lived there now but her, so there was no one to care if she spent the night in the garage. She and Frank had stayed up way too late, talking past midnight about the case. Raimy'd grabbed several of the older police reports on Nightingale and had been reading them out over the airwaves, with Frank taking notes in 1996.

She has no idea if it will help, or just make things worse, but she has to do something.

Raimy yawns loudly, and Frank chuckles at her through the scratchy speakers. "Get some sleep, kiddo. We've both gotta be sharp tomorrow."

Raimy rubs her eyes, the stack of unread files staring back at her accusingly. But she knows he's right. If she keeps showing up at the station looking like a zombie, sooner or later they'll put her on leave. She can't let them do that, not before her mom is safe.

"Yeah.Good night, Dad."

Raimy turns away from the radio, blinking into the shadows of the garage and the faint light of the city coming in the open door. The open door? She'd shut that door on her way in.

There's a six-pack of beer on the workbench by the door. Raimy remembers how Gordo had stood there uncertainly last night, beer in hand, trying to get her to talk about her mom. She hadn't been talking to her dad at the time, but tonight...maybe he'd heard something.

The thought sends a thread of panic through her. There's no way she can explain any of this; what if he tells Satch? If Satch thinks she's unstable, he'll take her off the case for sure.

Now that she's looking, Raimy can see Gordo sitting on the porch, hunched over himself in the cold. He doesn't look up when she steps uncertainly into the doorway.

He keeps not looking up. Raimy thinks he's shivering.

"You shouldn't be sitting out here like this." The words pop out of her mouth without thought.

"Where else would I be?" His voice is plaintive and confused, and it's not like Raimy can't sympathize. Confused is pretty much her life now.

She grabs the beer from the bench and takes it over to the porch. She sits down next to Gordo, shoulder to shoulder, and offers him a bottle.

He takes it without looking at her. His fingers are cold.

Raimy takes a bottle herself. "How much did you hear?"

"Enough to know that you're talking to some guy about your mom's case. That you're calling him 'Dad'." Gordo hunches a little further in on himself. "That's fucked up, by the way. Not the kid play -- you wanna do that, that's fine -- but obsessing about your mom's case with him at the same time, that's fucked up."

He stops when he has to take a breath, but he doesn't start up again. It's hard to remember a time when Gordo could hold the words in -- two time lines of being his friend, and he never was any good at it. Unless he was hurting.

Raimy downs half her beer before answering. "He is my dad."

Gordo snorts. "I said that's not the fucked up part."

"He's in 1996."

That finally gets him to look at her. "Oh-kay, but your roleplay is really not any of my business."

Raimy sets the rest of her beer down on the step. She's scared of what happens next, of how Gordo takes this -- but she doesn't want to keep the secret anymore. Not from him. "The radio lets me talk through time. That's my dad, in 1996, and we're going to keep my mom from being murdered."

Gordo looks like he's going to cry. "Raimy --"

"I'm not crazy. I know I sound crazy, but I'm not." She stops, but he doesn't break in. He's just waiting for her, and that's not like him. But it lets her keep going. "We've already changed time once. We kept my dad from dying that night when he got shot. He was supposed to die that night, but we stopped it."

He still looks like he wants to cry. "You and the guy on the radio."

"You don't believe me." Raimy chokes on a laugh, because why would he? "I don't know why I expected you to believe me. I barely believe me."

Gordo's face twists into an expression she can't read. "Is this something that guy told you? That he's in 1996, that he can save your mom?"

"No. It's true, Gordo."

He turns to stare off into the distance, and Raimy lets him think about it. If he decides to go to Satch, she's gonna have to play this off as an elaborate joke, and she doesn't know if she can hurt him like that. Even to save her mom -- and she knows she will, she'll do anything she has to, but it'll hurt her more than she could possibly explain.

Gordo takes a shuddering breath. "I need you to stop shutting me out, Raimy. I need you to talk to me --"

"Then you need to believe me." Raimy grips his arm, and his other hand comes up to cover hers. It's only when his fingers close around hers that she notices that she's shaking. "Because I'm going to save my mom. And if you try to stop me, so help me God, I will never speak to you again."

Gordo takes another breath and lets it out in a long sigh. "Okay."

"Okay what?"

"Okay, I believe you."

"No, you don't."

"Not yet," he agrees. "But you believe it, and you've never been the kind of person who makes shit up. So either you're right, or this guy's an asshole who's stringing you along."

Raimy feels suddenly giddy with relief. "He's my dad."

Gordo glances at her. "Okay, so maybe he's just an asshole."

Raimy slaps his shoulder reflexively, laughing. "Gordo!"

He takes a drink finally, and looks away again. "I want you to be right, Raimy. I want to save her, if we can. And if we can't --"

"We can --"

"-- If we can't, I still want to be here for you. Wherever you are."

It's Raimy's turn to take a shuddering breath. "Maybe not the porch all night."

Gordo chuckles tiredly. "Yeah, I wouldn't say it's your best idea."

"My idea?" She stands up and pushes him to his feet. "Go home, Gordo. Get some sleep. I can tell you everything tomorrow."

He glances up at her again. "I'll hold you to that."

He starts to move toward her, arms raising slightly, then stops before he actually hugs her. It's awkward and uncertain, and Raimy suddenly desperately wants the hug. So she steps in and hugs him tightly. He sighs and relaxes into the hug.

"You're my best friend," he says, face buried in the curve of her shoulder. "Always."

It's something they've said for years, a promise made over whispered conversations and teenage fights and late night confessions. It's still true.

"Always." It's late and it's cold, but Raimy can't bring herself to let him go for a long time.

Second author's note: One of the problems I have with the whole "everyone thinks you're crazy when you're right" trope is how dehumanizing it is. If one of my friends came to me with something like this, I'd be worried that they might need help, sure. But if they were the kind of person who usually checked their facts, I'd give them a chance to show me whatever it was that convinced them -- because I'm not going to automatically assume that their understanding of the world is invalid.