FicWad

Though the journey to the hospital was a relatively short one, to Frank each minute seemed like an hour. He was still trying to think rationally and maintain control of the situation but seeing his friend unconscious in the back of an ambulance and knowing that his other friend was missing wasn't a very comforting thought. The paramedics had told him that he had to sit at the back of the ambulance as they didn't want him to get in the way. However they didn't seem too worried about Worm's condition as they couldn't seem to find any other injuries other than the dart in his neck. They didn't yet know what the dart was filled with and they couldn't find that out until they reached the hospital, and though Frank feared the worst, they assured him that if it had been filled with anything lethal, he would already be dead.

Frank sighed as he tried to get his head around the events of this evening. It had started so normally; a concert, this time in the city of Camden in New Jersey, not too far from where they all lived, meeting the fans afterwards and then having one last smoke by the bus before they left for another city to do the same thing again. It had almost become a ritual to Frank and he was having a hard time adjusting to the reality of the situation. He was still clinging to the faint hope that this was all an accident and Mikey just hadn't found Gerard because of the panicked state that he was in, but that still wouldn't explain how their friend and bodyguard had been unconscious in an alley with a dart sticking out of his neck. He sighed again as he started biting his nails, a habit he had picked up long ago, willing the time to past faster.

By ten minutes they had arrived at the hospital and were pushing Worm down a corridor, leaving Frank in the waiting room. He sat down and tried to pass the time by looking at some of the old magazines left in a messy bundle on the table, though oddly enough he found it hard to concentrate on what hairstyles were in fashion this month when two of his friends could be dead. He kept checking his phone every few minutes, willing Mikey to call and tell him that they'd found Gerard and everything was fine. He could swear that the second hand of the clock hanging in the corner of the waiting room was getting slower and slower. The doctors had said that they would come and tell him what was wrong with Worm when they had fully examined him to make sure that there weren't any other injuries and had tested the small amount of liquid left in the dart to decipher what it was. They told him that he could be waiting there up to an hour and so after fifteen excruciating minutes he decided to call Mikey to find out if they had found Gerard yet.

Mikey picked up on the first ring and though he still sounded terrified, he did seem to have regained some control while Frank had left and for that Frank was glad.

"Frank? Have you found out anything? Do you know what's wrong with Worm yet?" Asked Mikey without pausing for breath.

"We just arrived at the hospital fifteen minutes ago; they said I could be waiting here up to an hour. Have you found Gee yet?" Frank asked with a slight sense of urgency.

He could hear Mikey sigh on the other end. "No...we still can't find anything Frank, we've looked for like half an hour and we have flashlights and everything." He heard Mikey choke back a small sob. "I don't know what to do Frank, I have no idea where he is! People don't usually just disappear off the face of the Earth!"

"Okay, okay, um look just wait there with Ray and Bob and keep searching. Look down some of the other streets as well, just to be sure. I'll wait here for news and as soon as I find out what's wrong with Worm, I'll call you and we can decide what to do then," said Frank.

"Ok, bye Frankie," said Mikey as he hung up the phone.

Frank sighed yet again and went back to staring at the clock. After a good ten minutes he saw a doctor come into the waiting room and he almost jumped up in anticipation, knowing the doctor was for him as there was no one else in the room.

"Frank Iero?" The doctor asked, looking at his clipboard. Frank nodded in reply and waited for the doctor to tell him Worm's condition.

"We've done some tests on your friend and he's going to be fine." Frank breathed a sigh of relief. "He doesn't have any broken bones of any other internal injuries. Now the dart that he was pierced with was a tranquilizer dart, usually used to sedate animals. The tranquilizer in the dart wasn't a normal animal sedative though as that would never be powerful enough to knock out a human. Whoever made this dart knew what they were doing; this is strong enough to knock out a human for a good few hours but not strong enough to kill him. Do you know how your friend got into this condition?"

Frank paused momentarily, as he didn't want to drag more people into this if he could help it. The last thing he needed was the press to get hold of the fact that the front man of My Chemical Romance was missing. He was still hoping that the problem would sort itself out and he wouldn't need to get anyone else's help; he was still clinging to the belief that maybe Mikey, Ray and Bob would find Gerard. They weren't in a particularly nice part of the town, he could tell that, so maybe they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time? He couldn't bring himself to get the police involved just yet; it would make the situation more real. He decided that he was going to wait until he called the others and then decide what they should do together. So he shook his head, while biting his lip, and told the doctor that he didn't know what had happened yet but there were people trying to find out. The doctor looked a bit concerned before regaining his professional manner. He told Frank that his friend should be awake within a few hours and that he could either wait in the hospital for him to wake up or go back and wait for the hospital to call. Frank decided on the later; the need to get back to the others and decide what to do now was too great to ignore and so he gave the doctor his mobile number and quickly left the hospital, bringing his phone to his ear and dialling Mikey's familiar number once again.

This time he didn't even wait for Mikey to speak, he just spoke as soon as he heard Mikey pick up.

"Hey Mikey, I'm gonna come back to where you guys are. We need to talk." He then hung up after receiving a simple "ok" from Mikey and hailed a taxi. He told the taxi driver the venue where they had played at that night and then sat restlessly at the back of the taxi, a million thoughts running through his head.

When he arrived he paid the taxi driver, telling him to keep the change, and ran towards where he knew the others were. He skidded around the corner and was met with three worried faces, illuminated by the flashlights they were holding.

"Frank! Do you know what happened to Worm? Is he going to be ok?" asked Ray.

"Look guys, he's going to be just fine. The doctors said that he's gonna wake up in a few hours and the hospital is going to call me when he does." The others breathed a collective sigh of relief at the news. "But they said that he was shot with some kind of tranquilizer dart. The doctor said that whoever made the tranquilizer was a pro 'cause it was just the right strength for a man or something. Basically whoever did this knew what they were doing."

"Shit, what the fuck do we do now then?" asked Bob, burying his head in his hands.

"I have no idea," sighed Frank. "I'm guessing you guys still haven't found Gerard?"

"No. He's not in any of the other alleys either," replied Mikey.

"Ok I really didn't want it to come to this but I think we're gonna need to tell the police about this. There's nothing more we can do ourselves, we should at least hand it over to professionals," said Frank.

"Yeah, I think that's a good idea," Ray said quietly, "They'll know what to do."

Frank was just about to reach into his pocket again and get his phone when his pocket started vibrating. At almost exactly the same time Mikey's phone emitted two beeps, signalling he had received a text message. A split second later and Ray's phone started playing the intro to The Trooper by Iron Maiden and Bob's phone vibrated. They all looked at each other confused by this sudden array of text messages and they simultaneously looked at the messages, their faces paling as they looked at each other to confirm what each other's message said.

We have Gerard. If you call the police he will die. We will contact you later to tell you what we want./ /