Title: Still Shattered

Rating: T/PG-13 (for certain themes)

Word Count: 2,504

Disclaimer: If I wrote it, it wouldn't be published because it would be locked in endless revision.

Summary: Even after finding freedom and ending one nightmare, the hold Zollner had over the Hardy family and their friends lingers. Frank continues to fight a battle against his own mind. His family and friends worry over him and the others affected by Zollner's brainwashing and torture as more signs of Zollner's interference in their lives show up by the day. Sequel to All the Broken Pieces.

Author's Note: I shouldn't do this because I have so many unfinished projects and have been having trouble keeping them updated, but I did a couple short fics for Love in Subtle Clues using this universe and kept thinking I wanted to do more with the idea. That, and the trial in In Darknes and Hope is hard to write and I'm effectively stymied on my crossover and I actually had original characters nagging at me to do stuff with them.

In the end, I wrote this. It includes something I meant to do in All the Broken Pieces, but Joe ended up getting hurt in a different way. And part of this is the short piece from Love in Subtle Clues extended into a longer scene.

Unexpected Things

Well, that was a disaster, Nancy thought to herself, not sure she could think of it any other way. She didn't know what to do now, not after that. All of her plans and work were out the window, and she had to find some way of recovering and stabilizing this mess she'd created. She knew it was, for the most part, of her own making, but that didn't make it hurt any less. It might even hurt more.

She shook her head, trying not to dwell too much on that. She wasn't sure how she would fix it—most of it couldn't be fixed—but agonizing over it while driving was far from the best thing she could do. She didn't even know where she was. She'd gotten in the car and started driving, and she could be anywhere by now, more the fool her.

She caught sight of a road sign and almost laughed at herself. Thank goodness for auto pilot. She might not know what else to do, but at least that part of her brain knew what it was doing. She had headed in what just might be the right direction—or maybe just the only direction.

She drove the rest of the way without incident, stopping the car in front of a familiar house. She didn't see any other vehicles around, so she might as well be lost. She shook her head, forcing herself out of the car and forward, up the path and to the door. She rang the bell and waited, trying not to fidget as she did.

The door opened, and Nancy blinked, surprised to see Frank standing there. He gave her a slight frown as he stepped back, letting her in. She hadn't realized they'd cleared him to move around without crutches, and she also thought he still needed lots of prodding to leave his room, so him answering the door was almost a shock. It was good he was here; it really was, but she was afraid he shouldn't be. Maybe he was pushing too hard. Or he was putting a good face on it.

He did seem to be in a strangely good mood for Frank post Zollner, that was for sure.

"I had this whole speech prepared for the salesperson at my door—one that would scare them off and possibly scar them for life—but you threw me off and now I can't remember a word of it," Frank told her, and she giggled, sounding a bit off to her own ears. He shut the door behind her, and she ran her hands over her arms despite the fact that the day wasn't at all chilly. "The things I get up to when I'm bored, I swear..."

"That sounds more like Joe." Nancy managed to say. "He's the one that gets in trouble when he's bored. You internalize and brood like crazy."

Frank shrugged. "I kind of took over Mom's role with the accounting, and it is... mind-numblingly boring. Keeps me from brooding, they claim, but I think that's just an excuse to keep me busy so I can't think about... things."

She smiled, though she didn't know that busy work was what Frank needed, not after all he'd been through. "Accounting as therapy?"

"Numbers don't lie," Frank told her as he led her into the other room. She almost laughed at that, but it wasn't all that funny. She didn't know that he trusted any of this was real, not yet. It might take a long, long time for that.

"So, not that I'm not glad to see you and all, but what brings you by?" Frank asked as he gestured for Nancy to sit down on the couch. She smiled at him as she took her seat, knowing that would be the first thing he asked of her. She knew it was awkward, and he must be thinking she was here just to check up on him again, since he was still recovering from that last case, but it wasn't like that.

Okay, it wasn't just like that. Of course she wanted to see him and make sure he was all right. She also had a mess of things on her mind and needed a place to sort them out. The Hardys always welcomed her, and she needed that right now.

"I was in the neighborhood."

"Nice try," he said, a slight smile on his face. "I can tell this is going to take a bit. You want something to drink?"

"Yes," Nancy answered, now aware of how dry her throat was. She started to get up again, but he waived her off.

"Let me. You stay where you are. I'll get it," he told her, and she thought about arguing with him, but he shook his head. "Not only am I fine, but you've been traveling and need a break. Just let me do it. I'll throw in a please if I have to, but if you make me do that—"

"No, you don't have to beg," she assured him, not sure what kind of threat he might have made if she'd insisted on it. "Thank you."

He smiled back at her before going to the kitchen.

Frank stopped against the counter, taking a deep breath and letting it out. That had been more taxing than anticipated. He would blame his physical limits, but they weren't even what held him back these days. He could walk without his crutches—it still hurt on occasion, but he was more or less healed now—and he knew any other pains were just phantom ones, things his mind twisted into something they weren't.

His hip was one of the worst, the scar that Zollner and Vallin had made tending to throb at all hours, random throughout the day, making him feel like it was infected when it wasn't.

He closed his eyes, shoved a bunch of thoughts out of his head. He needed to seem like he was fine when he went back out to Nancy. Not only did he not want to start her worrying or fussing—it had taken hours to get everyone out of the house today, with someone always trying to find an excuse to stay and watch over him—but she was already upset. That much he'd seen.

He looked up, opening the cupboard and taking out two glasses. He went for cutesy plastic ones, not trusting himself with the glass ones. He rummaged in the fridge until he found Joe's two liter of soda, taking it out and pouring some into each glass. His brother needed to lay off the stuff, and the attempts to belch the ABCs had gotten old months ago.

Joe still seemed to think annoying Frank was a good way of proving all of this was real—not only was he hovering worse than a mother hen, but he was also being everything that a younger brother was supposed to be—obnoxious, nosy, and overly playful.

Frank was just tired of all of it, but admitting that was like asking them to lock him up on a suicide watch again, so he wouldn't say anything. He'd just go see what had brought Nancy to their door and pretend he was capable of helping with that.

He took the glasses into the front room, handing one to Nancy. She took it and sipped from it, not reacting to his choice of beverage. He sat down in the other chair, giving her a look over before throwing out a theory that had just surfaced from the back of his mind.

"So... you and Ned are done."

Nancy's head jerked up, and she spilled some of her drink on her lap, not noticing it. "How did you know?"

"That whole detective thing that doesn't shut off even if we want it to or think it should or must have by now," Frank said, and she grimaced. He had to admit he didn't see why his brain still went toward puzzles and cases—he'd read over his father's cases and Joe's—since he knew that was what got them all into this mess in the first place. He knew he shouldn't work on any of them.

"Yeah," she agreed, looking down at her cup. She shook her head. "I tried. I thought... I thought that by making this effort to be there through his treatment that I was doing the right thing. That I was making up for all the times I wasn't there for him. All I did was make him angry, and it wasn't even his programming—it was the past. It was all those failures from before—as much as he might have wanted to or tried to tell himself he could—he couldn't forgive me for them, for being there after someone messed with his head but not before. It was all... too little too late."

Frank nodded, though he didn't know what he was supposed to say to that. He didn't think he had a right to say much of anything when his stalker was the one behind the brainwashing. Zollner had done that to Ned just because Nancy was Frank's friend. Nothing made that right. He didn't have any good response, no way to fix all the damage that had been done when Zollner came after him.

"I wanted to help him," Nancy said, her voice low. "For once, I wasn't taking him for granted or pushing him aside for a case... and yet that still came between us."

Frank adjusted his position. "I suppose it would seem like poor taste to say it was always going to eventually, but that's the thought that comes to mind—the one Joe actually says should comfort me. That Callie and I wouldn't have worked even if I hadn't gotten her kidnapped and brainwashed. I don't know. I suppose we had our differences and problems, every couple does, but some of them make it work. I'm not sure we were. That I was, I guess. There was always a case or Joe and dating wasn't half as important as those things or trying to figure out what I was actually trying to do with college. Callie came second to a lot of things, and that wasn't right. It's not why she left—she found doctors in Europe she really likes—but it's part of why even if we got past the brainwashing it wouldn't work out, and that assumes a lot that we could get past all of that guilt. I know I can't."

Nancy nodded. "I don't... Ned doesn't want anything to do with me right now. Maybe forever. Do you still talk to Callie?"

"She sends me postcards."

"And you think they're really from her?"

"Oh, hell, Nancy, don't even start that," Frank said, putting a hand to his head. He didn't know if he did or didn't believe that the cards were from Callie. He was fortunate that she spoke to him at all, and he took it for what it was. He had to, or he'd go crazy.

She winced. "I'm sorry."

He focused on his cup for a while, pretending he actually wanted to drink it. "I admit... it's crossed my mind. I don't... I try not to think about it. If it was somehow not her or it was the programming... I don't think I want to know."

"Yeah." Nancy agreed. She turned her cup over in her hands. "Has there been anything from... Zollner or Vallin?"

Frank shook his head. "Mercifully, no. No cards. No phone calls. If there were... Then I suppose I really would have lost my mind."

"I think I should call Frank."

Laura sighed as soon as the words were out of his mouth, and Joe almost grimaced, not sure how he'd ended up here with his mom and aunt running errands while his brother was home alone with nothing but accounting to keep him from the dark place that was his mind. Frank hadn't been the same since the first time Zollner took him, and while he was getting a lot better at faking it—disturbingly so—Frank wasn't better.

"Joseph Hardy, you are becoming a fussy old man," Aunt Gertrude said, and Joe made a face at her. "You'd think you were incapable of functioning without your brother the way you go on."

Joe folded his arms over his chest. "I am not incapable of functioning without Frank. I'm just a little more concerned about the guy who got tortured a few months ago, that's all. If you all think it's fine to leave him alone, then you do that. I think I'd feel better if I checked in with him."

Gertrude huffed, and Joe rolled his eyes as he turned away from her, digging out his phone. He could use a distraction from all this agonizing over stupid crap, too, since neither his mom or his aunt seemed capable of making a decision about what they'd come to the store specifically to buy.

He hit the button, making the call, and then he waited for it to connect. It rang, rang, and eventually went to voicemail.

"Frank, it's Joe. You know, the brother you promised you would answer the phone for if I went along with all this shopping nonsense?" Joe asked, shaking his head as he left the message. "Call me back. Or text me. Right away. Just so I know you're not dead or something and I don't have to rush back. Come on. You know that was the only reason I agreed to go when you stayed behind. This is like torture. They can't make a decision. They'll keep me shopping for hours unless I say that you're not okay and I'm going home to you, so if you don't want that, call me back."

He hung up and grimaced. Maybe Frank was just ignoring his cellphone or had left it somewhere he wasn't. It couldn't hurt to call the house phone, maybe even the one for Fenton's office. Joe dialed the other number and let it ring. Damn it, Frank. Pick up the phone already.

"Frank, it's Joe. You're supposed to be picking up the phone. That was the deal. You're not supposed to abandon me to shopping torture with indecisive old biddies—I mean Gertrude, not Mom. I think Mom knows what she wants but if she buys it in front of Gertrude, the world will end because you know our aunt—she's a pill—"

Something sharp poked Joe in the side, and he grimaced, touching a hand to his back, trying to remember what he'd done to pull a muscle. He sighed. "And I don't actually mean any of that. Would you just pick up the phone already? Please, Frank?"

He didn't get an answer so he hung up. He lifted his hand up with a frown, not understanding why there was blood on his palm.

"Stupid snot faced brat."

"Aunt Gertrude?"