A/N: This one's... a little silly, a little melodramatic, and almost entirely written, so naturally it was burning a hole in my pocket and I had to start posting. It's an alternate second half of the Supermystery Secrets of the Nile, starting from where Nancy gets beaned on the head on the steamer ship.

Please let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: As always, none of this is mine.

Frank Hardy and the River in Egypt

The ship's infirmary was almost like a hospital, Frank Hardy thought as he sat slumped in a chair in the waiting area, only warmer and quieter. It was smaller than a normal hospital, needing to serve only the few hundred passengers on board the Luxor-bound steamer The Queen of the Nile, and the handful of patients who filtered in and out left mostly satisfied with dramamine and aspirin.

Of course, when Nancy Drew was involved, it could never be quite that simple.

Frank dragged an anxious hand through his hair and sighed. This case had been a mess since the beginning. What had at first appeared to be a simple task—going undercover as honeymooning couples in order to assist the State Department in drawing out an underground organization of criminals—had turned both deadly and intensely personal when he, Joe, Nancy, and Bess had realized that they'd been used to smuggle bomb components into Egypt. Naturally, they'd felt it was their duty to find the people who'd set them up and stop them from carrying out the bomb plot, and, as unwitting accomplices traveling on faked passports, they'd had to do it without help from the local authorities. Along the way they'd managed to get involved with a second case—tracking down four-year-old Leila, the missing daughter of their friend Susannah Porter-Rashad, who'd been kidnapped by her ex-husband and Leila's father Darius.

Their last lead had indicated that Darius was heading for Luxor, and that the man they were looking for—a phony State Department agent they knew only as Jonathan Kimball—was somewhere on this very ship, though they had been thus far unable to locate him. Unfortunately, he had managed to locate them first.

Or, at least, he'd located Nancy.

Frank still hadn't quite gotten over the shock of picking up the phone to hear that his 'wife' had been in a bad accident and had yet to regain consciousness.

According to the ship's doctor, 'Rebecca Addison' been found near the stairs on the lower deck, completely unresponsive and bleeding from a fairly severe head wound. A large metal urn that had been found nearby seemed to be the cause of the wound, but none of the bystanders had seen what had happened, nor could they offer any explanation for how the heavy urn could have gone over the railing by itself. Knowing as he did that Kimball was somewhere on board, Frank would have bet his last dime that it had been no accident.

"Cole!" Joe burst through the infirmary doors, Bess and Susannah in tow. Bess and Joe had been knocking on cabin doors looking for Kimball when Frank had received the call about Nancy, and he'd sent Susannah to find them. "What the hell happened?"

"Is Na—Rebecca—alright?" Bess added fearfully.

"Cooper, Nikki." Frank stood to greet them, making sure to use their undercover names as well. Bess was looking especially pale, and he put a comforting arm around her and gave her shoulders a squeeze. "They think she'll be okay. I haven't seen her yet; she's still unconscious."

Bess gave a little moan and sank down in one of the chairs, covering her face. "I should have been with her. Why did we let her go off alone like that?" Frank had spent the past hour asking himself the same question.

"Hey." Joe sat next to her, ruffling her hair gently and earning a glare in return. "The woman is a force of nature. When's the last time any of us was able to stop her from doing exactly what she wanted to do?" His tone was light, but Frank could tell he was just as worried as the rest of them.

One of the nurses approached the group, seeking out Frank. "Cole Addison?" she said in heavily-accented English, "Your wife is awake. She is asking for you." Her eyes widened when Bess and Joe made to follow her as well. "Immediate family only, please?"

Bess stepped forward, gesturing to Joe and herself. "We're her brother and sister-in-law. We are immediate family."

The nurse frowned, but obviously realized that Bess wouldn't be taking no for an answer. "Very well, but please try to be quiet. Mrs. Addison has had a bad injury and is still very disoriented. You must try not to excite her."

"Of course." Joe placated the nurse with a charming smile. He put an arm around Bess, gently holding her back to remind her to let Frank go first.

Susannah gave them all a wave. "I'll just wait out here." she said. "Tell Rebecca I hope she feels better."

They followed the nurse down the hall to a small private room where Nancy lay in a narrow bed, propped up on a pile of pillows. Her head was wrapped in white gauze, and Frank could see dried flecks of rust-colored blood in her red-gold hair. A bruise extended out from below the bandage, darkening most of her forehead and one of her closed eyelids. Without warning, his heart gave a little tug of pain. Nancy Drew might not be his wife, or even his girlfriend, but there was no denying that she was someone he cared about deeply, and seeing her like this—wounded, pale, still—was something he'd never get used to.

Her eyes opened, glittering blue, the wide pupils speaking of a concussion, and she reached out a hand to him. "Cole?"

"Rebecca." he said with a smile. He had to admit he'd been worried about what she might say in front of the doctors upon waking up. If she was alert enough to remember to call him by his alias, she couldn't be too badly hurt, could she? He placed his hand in hers and allowed her to tug him down to sit next to her on the bed. "How does your head feel?"

"Like it's being crushed by a thousand pound weight." she admitted with a little forced smile. "I'm a little dizzy; I feel... fuzzy?" She looked over his shoulder at Bess and Joe, who crowded in after Frank and situated themselves in the chairs on the far side of the bed. "Hey guys. You didn't have to come down here. I hope I didn't get you out of bed."

Bess tilted her head at the strange remark. "Get us out of bed? It's the middle of the afternoon."

Nancy laughed a little. "So?"

Frank shrugged at the other two, reminding himself that a concussion like Nancy's would make anyone a little spacey. "Do you remember what happened to you?" he asked gently.

She lifted her free hand to the bandage, probing it tenderly. "I don't remember anything about the accident. The doctor said something fell off the upper deck and onto my head. A flowerpot or something."

Joe leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "But of course there's no way it was really an accident."

She blinked at him. "I don't catch your meaning. What makes you say that?"

"Didn't you see anyone on deck before it happened?" Joe asked, surprised. "Even if it didn't look like Kimball, it could've been that other guy, Mahfouz, or someone else he's got helping him. If you could remember what he or she looked like—"

"I said I don't remember!" she cut him off sharply, then sighed, pressing her hand to her forehead again before looking back at Joe. "I'm sorry," she said, "It's just... frustrating that I can't remember. Everything's so fuzzy, I don't... I don't know what's going on." To everyone's horror, her eyes were suddenly brimming with tears.

"Hey..." Frank murmured softly, letting his fingers trace over her knuckles in a soothing caress. "It's okay. It's just the concussion making everything fuzzy. You'll feel better in a few days and your memory will go back to normal."

"You really think so?" she asked with pleading eyes.

"I know so." Frank said. She pulled her hands away, instead winding her arms around his neck and leaning into his chest for a hug. He wrapped his arms around her and rubbed her back, determinedly ignoring the twin pangs of desire and guilt he felt, being so close to her. He felt her trembling ever-so-slightly beneath his hands and took a moment to absorb the unsettling idea that Nancy was actually afraid. "Everything's going to be fine. Don't worry, okay?"

She nodded, pressing her face into his shoulder. "I'm so glad I have you." she said, pulling back slightly... just enough to take his face in her hands and kiss him.

He'd kissed her once before, in the rush of adrenaline brought on by a life-threatening situation, but this kiss was something completely different. Instead of the tense, desperate heat of forbidden passion, there was softness, trust, an intimacy that was almost heartbreaking in its tenderness. The kiss wasn't long or overtly sexual, but Frank continued to feel it in every inch of his skin even after she pulled away.

He cleared his throat painfully and managed to find his voice. "Nancy..."

She jerked back suddenly, blue eyes ablaze. "Nancy?"

The kiss had left Frank feeling a little fuzzy in the head himself, but a theory about Nancy's odd behavior was starting to emerge... a theory he hoped and prayed was wrong. "Rebecca?" he said hesitantly, on the off-chance that Nancy's offended reaction was actually just a warning that he'd forgotten to use her undercover name.

But she only folded her arms across her chest. "Cole, who's Nancy?" Her tone was a mixture of hurt and raw anger now, and something else: jealousy.

Some kind of soundless sound came from Bess, and he glanced over to see her jaw hanging open in shock. Joe's eyebrows had shot practically into his hairline, but he said nothing either.

Frank didn't know what to say. "She—she's... I mean... you..." He knew that amnesia could be one of the symptoms of a concussion, but was it even possible that she'd forgotten her true identity and retained only Rebecca Addison's?

"Cole!"

Before he could say another word, try to make things better, the nurse bustled in, fixing Bess and Joe with a stern glare. "I told you not to get her excited!" she admonished, receiving only dumbfounded looks from the two blonds. She shooed them out of the chairs. "The doctor will examine Mrs. Addison now. You can come back during visiting hours."

"I really think I should stay with her." Frank said anxiously. Clearly Nancy's head injury was more serious than they'd thought, and he hated to leave her confused and frightened and without a friend... Not to mention that one mistaken divulgence to the doctor could compromise their identities and send them all to rot in an Egyptian prison.

"I understand, Mr. Addison, but the doctor needs some room to do his work. You may return as soon as he is finished." the nurse said, nodding sympathetically.

"Don't bother." Nancy said darkly, lying back down on the pillows and turning her face away from him.

Frank shot a helpless look at Joe, who waved a hand at Nancy with an expression that said go ahead, apologize to her. He cleared his throat again with an embarrassed glance at his audience. "Rebecca, I'm sorry. I'll be right back, okay? Rebecca? I... I can explain everything, I promise. I'll be right outside." He touched her shoulder gently, ignoring her ignoring him. "...Sweetheart." he tacked on awkwardly before Joe grabbed him by the elbow and towed him from the room.

They retreated to the waiting room wordlessly. Susannah took one look at their faces and gasped. "Is she going to be all right? What happened in there?"

"That's a good question." Bess said. Her voice had a shrill edge to it. "What the hell was that?"

"Nancy's forgotten her real identity and now thinks not only that Frank is her husband, but that he's cheating on her, with herself." Joe summed up musingly, only to be met with reproving stares. He shrugged. "I thought it was all pretty self-explanatory."