Chapter 303: Total Wipeout
"Actually… there is a way to treat it."
Seeing how devastated Sheila and Karen looked, Fiona almost brought up the liver transplant.
But Frank suddenly tightened his grip on Fiona's hand, stopping her. He shot her a warning look—don't say it. Don't mention the transplant.
Karen cried until her eyes were swollen before she finally managed to calm down.
She insisted on staying to keep watch, but Frank firmly ordered Sheila to take her home. In her current mental state, Karen needed rest more than anything.
Over the next few days, Frank remained hospitalized, undergoing all kinds of examinations. Sami, Fiona, Sheila, and Karen took turns staying with him, handling meals and care.
What Frank didn't know was that Fiona had still told Sheila and Karen about the liver transplant—quietly, behind his back.
During Frank's hospital stay, the kids also arranged for cross-matching tests, checking whether their livers were compatible with his.
Debbie, Carl, Liam, and little Chucky were too young to be tested, but everyone else went through the exams. Sami did. Fiona did. Sheila and Karen did too. Even Pinkman volunteered for testing.
Because Frank reacted so violently to the idea of organ transplants—like a volcano ready to erupt—no one dared tell him. Everything was done in secret.
If this had been the old Frank, the kids wouldn't have cared in the slightest. If they'd heard that he was dying and needed a liver transplant to survive, they probably would've ignored it—or even set off fireworks in celebration.
Back then, Frank had been useless at best and a burden at worst. He never helped, only caused trouble. The kids had been disappointed in him for years—some had even wished he'd just disappear.
But this Frank was different.
He was a real father now.
He had earned their trust. Their love.
So when they learned that he didn't have much time left, they were heartbroken. Every one of them was willing to give up a part of themselves to save him.
If Frank had known, he would've felt two things at once—happiness and rage.
Happiness that he'd finally been accepted, that he'd escaped the shadow of the old "Frank" in their hearts.
Rage that the kids dared to disobey him like this.
"How can this be… none of us work?"
When the test results came back, everyone stared at them in disbelief.
"Doctor, are you sure the results aren't wrong?" Sami blurted out. "We're his kids—how can none of us be compatible?"
After all the testing, not a single person matched Frank.
Sheila and Karen not matching was understandable.
Pinkman not matching made sense too.
But the fact that none of his children were compatible…
It was like the cruelest possible joke.
But Fiona and the others weren't a match either.
After the tests, the kids finally confirmed something they'd always half-wondered about:
aside from Ian, the rest of them really were Frank's biological children. They weren't the result of Monica fooling around and getting accidentally pregnant by someone else.
And yet—despite all being his blood—none of them matched.
That was the most absurd part.
All the kids were born to "Frank" and Monica.
Frank had type O blood. Monica was AB. Most of the kids clearly inherited more of Monica's genetics—their blood types didn't match Frank's at all. Only Fiona was type O, O-positive at that. But even after more detailed testing, she still wasn't compatible.
Sami—who wasn't Monica's child but was Frank's—didn't match either.
No one had expected this outcome.
If you excluded Sheila and Karen, the remaining kids—Sami, Fiona, and Lip—were all Frank's biological children. Ian, while technically Frank's brother's son, was still blood-related, a nephew by definition.
So many people.
And yet—total wipeout. Not a single match.
It was hard to say whether that was lucky… or tragically unlucky.
Lucky, because if even one of them had matched, they might've gone behind Frank's back, knocked him out, and forced a transplant against his will.
Unlucky, because if even his own children couldn't match, then finding a compatible donor in the vast sea of humanity—someone both suitable and willing—was exponentially harder.
"Doctor… how much time does our father have left?"
After seeing the results, the kids asked quietly.
"The liver damage is extremely severe," the doctor said with a sigh. "If he's lucky, he may have a few months. If not… only a few weeks."
If an ordinary person suddenly learned they had only weeks left to live, most would break down completely—panic, despair, reckless decisions.
That was why the kids didn't tell Frank.
They didn't want to burden him further. They were afraid he wouldn't be able to bear it.
But in truth, they underestimated him.
Frank, much like Walter, had already made peace with death a long time ago.
Cancer or cirrhosis—it didn't change much. To him, it was just the name on the cause-of-death line that had been swapped.
That didn't mean he wanted to die.
No one chooses death when living—even miserably—is still an option.
Back then, Frank had refused treatment for very practical reasons: no money, no desire to drag the family down, and no wish to suffer endlessly. Being hooked up to tubes, half-dead in a hospital bed—that kind of living was worse than dying.
On top of that, he'd always believed it was cancer. And cancer was notorious—low survival rates, a gamble barely better than buying a lottery ticket.
Walter's treatment working had been a miracle. The doctors themselves hadn't been hopeful at first; they'd carefully warned him not to expect much.
If Frank had been present during Walter's diagnosis, he would've noticed the doctors' astonishment when the results came back.
The irony was cruel:
Frank did have cancer—but it was benign. Harmless.
What was truly killing him was cirrhosis.
And yet, Frank felt no regret.
No if only I'd gone earlier.
No maybe I could've survived.
His illness was alcoholic cirrhosis—more precisely, alcohol-induced liver disease.
The liver can metabolize alcohol, but drown it long enough and it collapses under the load.
Frank had only been in this body for half a year.
The original Frank, however, had been a walking liquor barrel—either drinking, drunk, or on his way to get drunk. Years of blackouts. Years of alcohol poisoning.
The liver had already been ruined long before Frank arrived.
Even if he'd gone to the hospital earlier, it wouldn't have changed anything. As the doctor said: someone who'd been drinking for over forty years and still lived this long was already a miracle.
A normal person would've died ages ago.