Who: Drake and Frankie What: The Impala needs fixin'. Where: Frankie's shop. When: Recently? Post-Reavers, at least. Warnings: Absolutely none.
Anyone who knew Drake, even in passing, also knew that his car meant a great deal to him. Most people dismissed it as a character quirk or some kind of ‘guy thing’ that no one could ever really understand, while others thought it was childish and stupid to care so much about an inanimate object. He’d long since stopped caring about what other people thought, since he had no intention of trying to explain what the car really meant to him in terms of sentimental value. The Reavers and the Guard had admittedly done a number on the poor thing. The windows had been shattered along with the windshield, which were easy enough to replace on his own, but the dents and the bullet holes needed a little more work; especially the passenger side door that wouldn’t open anymore.
On the bright side it was all repairable. On the not-so-bright side, he didn’t have the resources or tools to do it himself. Most of the time Drake could do any repairs himself but a job like this was better left to a professional. The only problem was his extremely high standards which ruled out every single garage and repair shop he’d visited in the past couple of days. He was reaching the end of his list and was frustrated to say the least, but he was hoping for a little more luck today. Driving around a car that looked like it had gotten caught in the middle of a war zone (which it had) lost any appeal it might have had pretty quickly.
He’d heard about a supposedly decent garage owned by some woman, and that shop was the first one he set out for that morning. It reminded him of the place his dad had worked at while his mom was still alive when he pulled up, which was an immediate point in this garage’s favor, but he couldn’t be too hasty. He wandered inside the workspace with his hands shoved into his pockets. “Hello?”
Frankie had been hidden behind a minivan, one of the many wounded cars that had been brought in since the zombies attacked. This one hadn’t been excessively damaged, but the blonde soccer-mom who had brought it in had insisted on a full check and tune up and who was she to argue with a paying customer? She was willing to do the work, whatever it may be, as long as you were willing to fork over the cash.
When she heard the voice from the front of the shop, she shut the hood and walked out from behind the vehicle. The man definitely didn’t fit into the usual stream of grumpy business men and pissy soccer-moms. It was a nice surprise, to say the least. “Hi there!” She rubbed a hand over her left cheek, leaving a nice dark grease mark across her face, “Can I help you?”
Drake eyed the minivan with raised eyebrows but refrained from making one of his oh-so-scathing remarks, partly because he realized that some people actually had families but mostly because he needed someone to fix up his car and insulting customer’s vehicles was not a good way to start off. His baby was a classic but not everyone was that lucky, unfortunately for them.
If he was aware that he deviated from the normal clientele in his jeans and worn leather jacket, it wasn’t visible in his expression. Instead he was a mixture of curiosity and skepticism with a fair amount of politeness thrown in. “Hi.” He offered a smile and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “My car went through the ringer during the past week and I’m looking to get it fixed. Problem is it’s an older model and a lot of places aren’t equipped for that.” Drake paused and allowed a brief frown. “In more than one way.”
Frankie raised an eyebrow at the added commentary as she crossed her arms in a stubborn stance. Her expression hardened and she had to force herself not roll her eyes, she would fight for herself if she had to. Though the smile on her face was more forced than pleasant now, her voice retained the cheery tone she used earlier, “Let’s have a look and I’ll see what I can do.” She was being modest. Frankie was 98% sure she could fix anything that rolled into her shop. She had been the top mechanic in the top street racing gang in Booshka, back in Musings, there wasn’t much she hadn’t seen and fixed.
Still, when they walked outside and caught glimpse of the state of the car, she hissed at the damage. Her shock wasn’t so much at the damage (she’d seen worse, since the reavers), as it was at the combination of the classic Impala and the zombie-damage. “Damn,” she hissed again as she circled the car slowly, surveying the surface damage, “What did you do, drive into the zombie-heavy zone, in your baby, during the attack?”
He caught the way the woman’s expression hardened and how forced her smile became once he spoke, but it didn’t bother him much. Drake was well aware that his people skills weren’t the best and all that aside he was here to get his car fixed, not to make friends. He nodded when she agreed to have a look and led the way back outside, frowning at his Impala even though he’d looked at the damage countless times since it happened. His father would have killed him on the spot if he’d been alive to see this. Spencer... well, he wasn’t letting his thoughts go in that direction. Not today.
Inanimate object or not, Drake still felt guilty about what he’d put the car through. In the initial stages of the Reaver attack he had tried to use other cars, but the truth was that nothing held up as well as his baby, and once things started to get worse he didn’t trust any parking garages to keep it safe. At least if he drove it then he knew it wasn’t being smashed to bits. “The safest place she could’ve been was with me,” he said defensively, but the expression he wore was sheepish. “I’m not a sidelines kind of guy. Besides, the damn National Guard was full of assholes who couldn’t shoot properly.” He exhaled heavily and made a mental note to refrain from blaming everyone but himself like some kind of kid. “Think you can fix her up?”
Frankie nodded with understanding, if her car hadn’t been locked up in the garage with her and Mere during that whole experience, she probably would have fought her way to it and brought back to the garage with her. “Oh,” She frowned, brows furrowing with distrust as he mentioned the National Guard, “I heard about that. Shooting at anything that moved without a second glance. I guess I’m lucky I didn’t have to drive my baby through that mess.”
“Yes, definitely,” Her face softened into a small smile. Any man who had a car as nice as this and trusted her to fix her up, good as new, couldn’t be that bad. “I’ll probably have to go get a part or two, but you’ll have her back in three days tops. Do you think you can handle that, big boy?” Frankie was mostly teasing, but if she had to go three days without her car with the knowledge that someone else was messing with her organs? She would be on edge, to say the least.
Some of his initial apprehension faded when he listened to her talk about her own car, since he wasn’t inclined to trust anyone who spoke about cars like they were replaceable items or mere sources of income. What really earned his loyalty was a garage that understood the importance cars held to their owners and even felt it themselves. “I think we clashed over the fact that they didn’t seem too bothered about who they were shooting so long as it was something.”
Three days. Drake’s expression shifted into evident displeasure, but he realized it was pretty reasonable in comparison to the damage sustained. If Reavers and the Guard ever took over the city again he was finding himself a tank and ending it right then and there. “I’ll miss her,” he said, staring longingly at his car, “but I’ll just have to manage. Having her back in proper condition will be worth it anyway.” He didn’t even mention cost because it didn’t matter, not when it came to the Impala, and he’d decided that this garage met his standards. “I’m Drake, by the way,” he added, remembering to act polite and extending a hand.
“You can always come visit her, It’s not like she’s going out of the country,” Frankie offered, at the man’s change in expression. Anyone overhearing their conversation might wonder if they were talking about a young child or a relative of some degree. Actually, now that she thought about it, those would be somewhat accurate responses. There was no doubt in her mind that he was close to being as attached to his car as someone else might be to their daughter. To her, that was true loyalty.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Frankie,” She shook his hand with a friendly grin, before gesturing to the modest sign on the front of her garage, “Of Frankie’s garage.” Her shop was her single proudest achievement and she happy to share this fact with anyone who would listen. Heading back inside, she pulled a few forms from the drawers of the reception desk and filled out the boxes. Putting X’s beside the lines where Drake needed to sign, she passed the price estimate over to him and explained where to put his name.
Since his Impala was the closest thing to family he had these days it was little wonder that it sounded like they were talking about an actual living person. “Yeah, good point.” It wouldn’t hurt to come and check up on her during the next couple of days just to see how things were going. He liked having an active role in his car’s well-being.
“Good to meet you, Frankie.” Her pride reminded him a lot of his father back when he’d owned his own shop, but fortunately those memories were good and therefore welcome. “So this is your place,” he commented with evident approval as he looked around, distracted by the paperwork - which he’d almost forgotten about. As always he read over the forms before signing and looked over the price estimate, which was reasonable in comparison to how much he’d paid in the past. Suddenly his mood had improved significantly. “I should have come here first,” he joked once he’d taken care of all the paperwork, although there was some seriousness to it. “I’ll probably end up coming by before she’s done, but don’t worry; I’ll keep out of the way.”
Frankie laughed lightly, but she knew what Drake was talking about. She fixed her own car, but she liked to check out the other garages around Seattle, too. Size up the competition, in a sense. “Yeah, I’ve poured my heart and soul into this place,” She spoke so fondly of her garage, “How many other places did you go to before here?” She was just wondering, but glad that he had ended up at her shop.
“Oh, it’s really no problem at all,” She grinned, “Most of the time, it’s just me and my one lonely employee. It’s nice to have company who knows something about cars.” It was true, between all the random uninvited visits from Johnny and the endless stream of grumpy business men, she could use a good solid normal human being around here. (She was sure that Mere wouldn’t be too opposed to it either) “Do you usually fix her up on your own?” She asked, curious as to why she’d never seen his car around Seattle, not many people owned a classic like that.
“Uh...” Drake tilted his head to the side and frowned. “Four or five. Maybe more. Once my luck started running out I was too pissed off to keep count.” It was said good-naturedly now, since he no longer had to continue his search, and he’d never admit to having gone overboard. In his opinion there was no such thing as ‘going overboard’ when it came to the Impala. “A lot of places didn’t give a damn, and it wasn’t hard to tell.” It was blunt, sure, but honest. “Your shop is different.”
He cracked a rare smile when she mentioned that she only had one other employee even though it was something that might deter some people. “I grew up around cars.” And other things, but those didn’t need to be mentioned now or ever. “Usually I do what I can,” he said in response to her question. “But in cases like these I don’t like to take chances.”
Frankie smirked, of course they didn’t give a damn, those places were in it for the money. She did it because she loved it, engines weren’t complicated like people. Cars didn’t play mind games, they were fixable and Frankie knew just about every way to fix them. From the way Drake talked, she knew that he knew that cars were more than just machines, too. That simple little fact made her quite happy, and she only felt happier as he explained that her shop felt different. She prided her shop on being different, and it felt unbelievably fulfilling to have someone else notice as well.
Growing up around cars? Now why did that sound familiar, granted there were quite a number of other things in her past too, but that was neither here nor there. “Hey, growing up around cars is a great way to grow up,” She grinned knowingly, it had been fun learning about parts and machines from her father, “Well, I’ll take good care of her, I promise.” She reassured the man. She was careful with every car that passed through her garage, but she would be especially careful with a beauty like Drakes.
Drake couldn’t argue with that. Despite what came afterward, he wouldn’t have traded his childhood for anyone else’s. He never asked too many questions about people’s pasts since he understood what it was like to want to avoid all that, but it wasn’t too hard to figure out that Frankie had grown up around cars too. Maybe she’d even learned the trade from her father, just like he had. “Thanks.” He paused, shooting one last look at his Impala and the damage he hoped he’d never have to see again. “I might swing by to see how it’s going, but she’s in your hands now. Do your thing.” He flashed a cocky grin before turning and heading down the road, deciding to walk for a bit before dialing a cab.