Title: Feeling So Small

Rating: PG/K+

Summary:

Author's Note: I'm sure this has been done before, but when I was done with "Hello from the Other Side," I was posting it and heard this song again, making me think of Frank/Nancy again.

So I took these lyrics:
Say something, I'm giving up on you
I'll be the one if you want me to
Anywhere I would've followed you

and
And I... will stumble and fall
I'm still learning to love

and
And I... will swallow my pride
You're the one that I love
And I'm saying goodbye

And this is the result of those lyrics and me wanting to write Frank/Nancy and then it all coming out angst.

Feeling So Small

Say it.

They both seemed to be waiting for the other to move, to say words they shouldn't say—and yet neither of them did. Loyalty, maybe, or love for someone else, but if that love was strong enough, why would they stand here, now, feeling this pull that they shouldn't feel?

Frank knew neither of them wanted to be that person. They had lives back home, people that loved them, people that deserved better than this. They shouldn't betray the love of those waiting for them by what they'd already done, and they couldn't take it further.

Except...

If the love was strong enough, if Callie was who he really wanted and who he should be with for the rest of his life, if he cared about her and loved her enough, why had he already stumbled more than once with Nancy?

He'd always figured himself a man of morals, of integrity. That was what he had to be, fighting against the things he and Joe faced. Sure, they didn't always have the same rules as law enforcement, but that didn't make them above the law. They had standards. He'd always thought he'd keep to them.

Then there was Nancy. This attraction. Breaking the rules.

He looked at her. If she said it, he'd do it. End things with Callie—much as that felt wrong, hurting her that way, though the lie would be worse—and follow her. He was a private investigator. He could work anywhere for his father's agency—and a Chicago branch wasn't that bad an idea.

"Nancy, I wasn't pretending."

She didn't want to hear it, and when he saw that in her face, he knew. She wasn't going to say it. She wouldn't ask him to follow. She didn't want him to be the one—she wanted Ned.

"But you have Ned," Frank said, and she nodded. He pushed on, knowing he wouldn't be able to say it later. They'd never be the same again, and that was his fault, but he couldn't go back. He didn't think he'd stay with Callie—it wasn't fair to lie to her and be someone he wasn't, to pretend the love he gave her was close to what he'd give Nancy.

He looked at her, held those blue eyes for a moment and swallowed. "Goodbye, then."

"Frank—"

"Don't." He needed the clean break, and since she didn't want him, she'd have to give him that much.