Chapter 4: Scars Across Time
The diner he chose was a twenty-minute drive from her apartment, a wedge of chrome and cracked neon wedged between a laundromat and a closed-down hardware store. It hummed with the warmth of old grease and percolating coffee. Lex parked her jeep with more care than necessary, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. The aftermath of the morning’s raw exposure was setting in, a deep, rattling shyness that felt ridiculous after everything.
He opened the diner’s door for her, a small bell jingling overhead. The air was thick with the scent of bacon and toasted bread. A waitress with a tired smile and a name tag that read “Flo” gestured to a booth by the window, its red vinyl patched with silver duct tape.
They slid in opposite each other. Lex buried herself in the laminated menu, though the words blurred. She could feel him watching her, not with pressure, but with that same anchored presence.
Flo came over, coffee pot already tilted. “What’ll it be, hon?”
“Coffee. Black. And the short stack, side of bacon, extra crispy.” Lex’s voice sounded too loud.
“Just coffee for me, thank you,” Frankenstein said, his tone politely final. Flo gave a shrug and shuffled away.
Lex looked up then. “Not hungry?”
“I ate before I came to your balcony,” he said simply. Which was probably a lie, she thought, but not one she had the energy to dissect.
The coffee arrived, hot and bitter. She wrapped her hands around the thick ceramic mug, letting the heat seep into her bones. The silence between them wasn’t the easy quiet from her balcony before dawn. This was charged, full of everything she’d shown him.
“So,” she said, staring into the black pool of her coffee. “Now you know what the package looks like, all taped up and dented.”
“Alexandra.”
“Don’t.” She cut him off, finally meeting his eyes. “Don’t give me the ‘it doesn’t matter’ speech. It does matter. It matters when you look in a mirror. It matters when someone touches you and you have to explain that you’re not just shy, you’re a goddamn museum of bad decisions. It matters when someone like you looks at someone like me.” She took a shaky gulp of coffee, scalding her tongue. “You’re… polished. Centuries of whatever. And I’m just this broken, recycled human with a shitty past and a shorter lifespan. The math doesn’t work, Frank. You can’t build a bridge between those two points.”
He didn’t reply immediately. He placed his hands flat on the Formica table, studying his own long, elegant fingers. Flo arrived with her pancakes, a mountain of golden-brown dough gleaming with butter. The smell was nauseatingly perfect. Lex didn’t touch it.
“You speak of worth,” he said, his voice so low it was almost lost under the clatter of plates from the kitchen. “As if it is a currency. As if your history spent it.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.” He looked up, and his blue eyes were not calm now. They were fierce, ancient. “It is not. But I see you require evidence, not philosophy.”
Slowly, deliberately, he began to unbutton the cuffs of his sweater. He rolled the fine charcoal wool up his forearm, past his wrist. The skin there was flawless, pale and smooth. He kept rolling, past the midpoint of his forearm. Then, as the fabric cleared his elbow, she saw them.
Not scars like hers. These were different. A latticework of faint, silvery lines, so fine they might have been etched with a razor. Beneath them, along the thicker part of his forearm, was a patch of skin that looked oddly mottled, textured like old leather. Further up, near the inside of his bicep, was a stark, penny-sized pucker of shiny, waxy tissue.
Lex’s breath hitched. She forgot about the pancakes, the diner, everything.
Frankenstein switched arms, rolling up the other sleeve. This one had fewer lines, but a long, vicious-looking seam that ran from the inside of his elbow nearly to his armpit, thick and ropey. It was old, incredibly old, but undeniable.
“You think time polishes?” he asked, his voice still quiet. He turned his arms over, exposing the inner flesh. More lines, a weird, starburst pattern of thin scars near his left wrist. “Time merely allows for more collection. These,” he said, tracing a group of the silver filaments with a detached finger, “are from monofilament wire, wielded by a clan assassín in Prague who thought beheading my Master was a worthy ambition. It cut through bone. The healing was… intricate.”
He moved his finger to the mottled patch. “Alchemical fire. Naples, 1602. It does not ever truly fade.” Finally, he touched the pucker near his bicep. “A musket ball. Poorly extracted in a field camp. That one festered for months. I considered amputation.”
He let the words hang in the air between them, over the untouched breakfast. The everyday diner sounds—the sizzle of the grill, the murmur of conversation—faded into a distant buzz. Lex could only stare, her mind reeling. Her scars were a map of private, petty hatred. His were a ledger of centuries of violence, of defending something greater than himself.
“You see?” he said, finally lowering his arms, though he didn’t roll down his sleeves. He left his history exposed on the table between them. “We are neither of us polished. We are both repaired. Repeatedly. The origin of the damage…” He paused, choosing his words with immense care. “Yours came from a place of betrayal by one who should have offered sanctuary. That is a darker poison than any blade or fire I have faced. The healing of that requires a different kind of strength.”
Tears welled in her eyes again, but they were of a different kind. Not of shame, but of a staggering, disorienting relief. He wasn’t untouched. He was a tapestry of survival, just like her. The scale was different, but the fact was the same.
“Does it… hurt?” she asked, nodding at his arms.
“Not anymore. But I remember the precise quality of each pain. I choose to remember.” He reached across the table then, not to touch her hand, but to gently slide the plate of pancakes toward her. “You must eat. Your energy is depleted.”
She picked up her fork, her movements robotic. She cut a piece, syrup dripping, and put it in her mouth. It tasted like nothing, then like everything—sweet, soft, comforting. She took another bite.
“Why show me that?” she asked around the food.
“Because you showed me. It was only fair.” A flicker of something like dry amusement touched his lips. “And because you needed to understand that the bridge you mentioned is not built from unblemished stone. It is built from the rubble of what we have each survived. It is, I have found, stronger that way.”
She ate in silence for a few minutes, the meal now a necessary anchor. He sipped his black coffee, watching the morning traffic pass outside the window, his scarred forearms resting on the chipped Formica. It was the most surreal, ordinary moment of her life.
“So what’s the plan, Frankenstein?” she finally said, pushing the empty plate away.
“The plan?”
“Yeah. This. I don’t do… vague. I need objectives.”
He considered this, his head tilting. “The objective is breakfast. That has been achieved. The next objective is to ensure you sleep tonight. I will assist.”
“How?”
“By being present. If you wish it.” He leaned forward slightly. “My duties to my Master are paramount and will occasionally call me away without warning. You should know this. But when I am not thus called, my time is my own. And I find the silence of your balcony… agreeable.”
Lex felt a smile tug at her mouth, the first real one since before the party. It felt strange on her face. “Agreeable. Yeah. Okay.”
He nodded, satisfied, and signaled Flo for the check. As he placed a few large bills on the table, Lex’s eyes caught on the starburst scar on his wrist.
“That one,” she said. “You didn’t say what that one was.”
He glanced down, rotating his wrist. A shadow passed behind his eyes, deeper and colder than any she’d seen there before. It was the look of a man remembering a different kind of war.
“That,” he said, his voice dropping another degree, “is from a binding shackle. From a time before I entered my Master’s service. A time when I was considered less than a weapon. A thing to be contained.” He stood up, the movement fluid and final, rolling down his sleeves with swift, precise motions, covering the centuries again. “Some histories are for another day, Alexandra. Some bridges take longer to build.”
He offered his hand to help her out of the booth. This time, she took it without flinching, her rough palm meeting his, their shared scars connecting, unseen, beneath the fabric.