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And she's managed to pull her into her office, away from the harshness of the emergency lights that get triggered with the alarm, away from the extra officers patrolling and trying to look like they have some ability to maintain order amongst the chaos.
They are maintaining order, Erica reminds herself. All of them are doing what they can. But it always seems to be after the bloodshed, always after someone gets hurt. Or in this case, killed.
There's acid on her tongue at the reminder. At the scene they found. Just like Meg. Only worse. More bloody, more... frenzied. Someone wasn't taking any chances.
"Wasn't expecting a private audience," Franky breaks in, all smirk and sureness against Erica's unravelling nerves.
"Well, it wasn't exactly an ideal place you chose to start up a conversation," she replies, biting down on the snap that's creeping into her tone. Franky always knew how to pick her moments.
She's slouching in one of the armchairs, leg crossed against her knee, arms crossed against her chest, looking for all the world like she's there for their usual back-and-forth flirtation. Except that lately Erica hasn't been biting back. And now Franky has blood under her fingernails.
"It's about Jacs," she drawls, green eyes tinged with boredom, steadily staring Erica down.
She closes her eyes against the weight of that gaze, the alarm still ringing in her head. She should have known. All signs were pointing to Bea. Innocent, distraught Bea. Who'd been found with an unexplainable stain on her shirt and a blade stuffed up the seam of her mattress. But of course, where Jacs was involved, there would always be Franky.
Erica rubs at her temples, not bothering to hide the migraine or her current weariness, elbows planted shoulder width apart to better steady her hands. "What do you know about it?"
"I did it."
"You." There's a low humming in her chest that begins to descend. For nearly three seconds Erica blanks out of her reality. The whole mess of tonight with the officers and women and sniffer dogs. The potential sticky consequences of a board meeting and a press conference and next of kin and God knows what else.
"You did what?" she asks flatly.
"I did her in. It was me."
She's taken back to another conversation, in this same room, not two months ago. Franky was at the centre of that one too. A crime, an accused, a lie that couldn't be disproved.
She leans back and feels the chair taking the slack against her. "Why are you saying this?"
Franky just pulls her usual face, eyebrows raised, chin tilted in defiance.
"The old bag got what was coming to her."
Erica shakes her head, shakes against the ridiculousness of it all and takes one very deliberate breath.
"Franky. You did NOT murder Jacqueline Holt."
"Yeah, I did."
"No," Erica emphasises, not bothering to restrain the rise in her voice, "No, you didn't."
Franky just smirks. "Prove it."
And really, Erica's getting tired of people telling her to prove things that she already knows to be true. It was one thing to do it as a lawyer, but she's governor now and she's meant to be the one with the authority; not having to constantly go cap-in-hand to these women, these criminal women, asking them to spell out their version of events when she knows beyond reasonable doubt what actually transpired. These women, who she wanted to help, who she'd set up her education programmes and work groups for, who she'd gone on the record as defending, on whose behalf she'd appealed to the board for more funding, for a shift in focus on rehabilitation, who continued to thwart all her best possible efforts to help them help themselves, who refused to lay any degree of trust in her, these women... Franky. Franky no longer trusted her. The blow crushed her like a hammer to the chest.
Franky was sitting here, with a dead body and open murder case on her watch, lying to her face.
"Okay," Erica says, "Fine. How?"
"How?"
"How did you did it?"
Franky's eyes flash; her laugh is low as a tongue flicks out over her lips.
"Uh uh. I'm not saying another word until the cops get here. And my lawyer. You don't know like a really good freebie one, do you?"
"Franky-"
"Only I'd do it myself, could use the experience, if you know what I mean. But someone pulled me off my course before it'd even begun, so..."
"Franky," The mask is quickly slipping away from her panic. Erica rises out of her chair and walks around her desk. She needs to gain back control over this one before things start spiralling further.
She stops just level with Franky, leans back against the desk.
"Just take a moment and think about what you're saying. This is your life we're talking about here. This is - is twenty more years. Behind bars. Minimum. It's, it's-"
"Yeah, I know. Pretty well acquainted with the law these days." It's the way she cocks her mouth and actually winks at Erica that finally sends her over the edge.
"For God's sake, why are you doing this? You could be out of here in two years time? You could be free!"
She's shaking with the anger, the nerves bubbling under her skin. Somehow she's leaning over Franky now, arms on either side of the chair, muscles pulled taut, then slack, then taut again at each desperate word that escapes.
This is the sort of position Franky would usually love. Her governor begging her, recklessly beseeching with more than a hint of cleavage on show.
But Franky turns her head away and screws up her mouth. It's her way of blocking out the truth. Or Erica's truth, at any rate.
"What's so fucking great about being free, eh?" she fires back.
Erica's speechless for a moment. It's the anger and certainty that disarms her. It's the fact that Franky would honestly choose a life locked up away from the rest of the world, a world that Erica knows she could excel in, if only...
"There are... there are so many opportunities for-"
Franky practically barks a laugh at that. "Yeah, girl like me, world's my oyster, right?"
She clenches her jaw in a way that suggests she's plenty more to say, scratches at her shoulder. Erica takes in the five inch slash of red that draws a path between her elbow and her wrist.
"Anyway, what's it to you now? Thought I wasn't worth the effort? Thought I was a 'complete waste of time and resources'. Ha!" Her laugh is a mocking one and Erica can't help but wince.
"Franky, I didn't say any of that. You know that. You know none of that's true."
"Do I? I dunno, may I just have low self-esteem," Franky's grin feels more like a leer now, more like she's toying with her prey before the inevitable kill, "Maybe that's why I did it."
Erica bites down on her lip and absently claws back some errant strands of hair from her face. She realises in that very second that there are tears threatening to spill out. Tears of sheer frustration at the unfairness of it all. And in the instance it takes her to regain control over herself Franky has languidly risen from her chair.
"Where do you think you're going?" the tremble in her voice betrays the last remaining fragments of her authority over the situation. Over the whole fucking snowballing mess.
"If you're not gonna find me a cop, looks like I'm doing it myself."
"No you're not! Sit down!"
"Pffft!"
"They won't believe you," she adds desperately, hopelessly. "They've got forensics there right now. They're talking to Bea."
And she shouldn't be saying this, any of this. Giving away information to a prisoner who has no right to know such things. Giving away ground to Franky.
"Yeah? You think so?" and Franky's tone is at once insolent and charming. "They're cops Erica. They don't give a fuck about anything beyond getting a result. They get a confession off some crim, you think they're gonna carry on screwing Bea for answers? Waste of time, if you ask me."
She's heading to leave and Erica can only flail and grasp her arm as she does so. The look of surprise in her face, in both their faces, is enough to reignite that old familiar feeling that starts somewhere in her belly before slinking its way down between her legs.
"Please," she offers, voice cracking with an emotion she's too tired to hide anymore. "Don't."
Franky looks down at the fingers curled around her forearm and tries to smirk.
"Didn't know you care," but the defiant edge wavers against the thin slice of sincerity that underscores all of Franky's smart remarks.
"Yes" Erica nods, "You do."
She can feel the heat and muscle flexing beneath her slender fingers and it only serves to drive her recklessly forward.
This is not a good idea. This is a terrible idea. Erica knows it, has known it for over a year now, from every little glance and smile, every innuendo that Franky leaves hanging between them like some great unseen klaxon waiting to go off.
But she's also tired. Tired and weary with too little sleep and too much going on to have the energy to fight any longer.
So it's Erica that closes the gap between them and it's Erica who presses her lips against Franky's, parted in surprise, eyes widening and then moving her face too close for Erica to be able to distinguish anything at all.
She's falling, falling forward and down, into a warm mouth and sure hands, but backwards too, sharp edges digging into the backs of her thighs as they collide with her desk.
This is where they break apart. Only it doesn't happen. Franky's hands move down and behind and hoist her up so she's perched on the edge of the desk, cool mahogany sliding against naked legs as her skirt rises higher and higher.
Their kisses are messy and imperfect and she can hear gasps, her own gasps and feel her own breath reflected off the face that is looming like a blur in front of her.
Franky's hands are everywhere and her hair whips back and forth across her face, sticks to Erica's cheeks, her skin is dry and hot to the touch and her mouth is soft but insistent.
The release can't come soon enough. They've been dancing around each other for too long and she's been wrestling on too many fronts to win the war. Mark, the officers, the other prisoners, the media. If it's only this one time, only this one weakness, then she'll be able to regroup. Get her head together. And after all, if something has to give, out of the many compartments of her life, isn't this one the least of all evils? The safest? Isn't giving in just this once to a desire that was never going to go away the best of a bad situation?
No one needs to know. No one will ever find out. Except Franky's got her fingers curled inside her knickers, and the minutes are ticking down to a confrontation with Channing in his office and... God... she simply cannot let anyone find her like this, getting fucked by a prisoner up against her desk at a quarter to midnight.
The very image of it is enough to bring her to a violent shuddering climax as she groans out her orgasm against Franky's shoulder, digs her nails into sweaty shoulder blades, as the rhythm slows and she rides out mini spasms of release.
She tries to slide off the desk so she can rearrange her crumpled skirt, but Franky seems reluctant to let go.
"Franky, I-"
"What?" and her tone is soft and almost vulnerable, questioning in a way that makes Erica feel instantly ashamed.
She takes Franky's hands in her own, sliding them away from her body, clasping them between them.
It's an odd feeling, more strangely intimate than fucking, to be holding Franky's hands in her own like this, to be feeling her squeeze and squeezing back.
She sighs at the acknowledgment, brings her hand up against Franky's fringe to brush away the stray sticky hairs.
"I just... I can't... do this right now."
"Uh-huh. Well, you already did it, so..." the recrimination has left Franky's tone, left her eyes, which are looking at her so clear and almost shy that Erica has to fight back another wave of tears from forming.
Not now, not here, keep it together....
She straightens her blouse, tucking it back into her skirt, which she smoothes down with diligent care. Franky's taken one step back, maybe two, but she's watching and waiting like she can't make up her mind if she should run away or pounce again.
So she hovers and licks her lips nervously. Erica can see the confusion reflected back at her and impulsively reaches forward and envelops her. Another boundary crossed. Another intimacy that she'll surely pay for in the end. She can practically hear the walls crashing down around her by this point.
"I'm sorry," she whispers against her ear, placing a careful kiss against her cheek as she extracts herself from the embrace.
"I'll get someone to escort you back now,"
Franky just nods imperceptibly. And this silence from Franky makes Erica more nervous than the whole episode before.
"Okay?"
"Yeah."
"I've got Mr. Channing coming in. I have to go."
"Yeah. Yeah, of course you do." Franky gestures to the door with less certainty than her words suggest.
Erica takes a sweep of the room for any telltale traces she might have missed, straightening a file on her desk, rolling some errant pens back into formation. She glances back at Franky.
"You won't say anything?"
Franky flinches and crosses her arms. Her mouth quirks into something that's halfway between a smirk and a smile.
"Nah."
Erica doesn't add... about Jacs. She doesn't add... about us... this.
She's won back a tiny fragment of trust. For now. She'll have to assess the cost in the morning.