Frank Hardy jolted awake, his dark hair standing up in odd angles, an uncharacteristic mess of sweat-matted tangles atop his head. His breathing was the first thing he registered in all of the darkness, it was loud and heavy despite the fact he'd spent the past day in bed- mostly on the insistence of his mom, Laura Hardy after she'd kissed his forehead at the breakfast table only to discover a fever.

It wasn't a big thing, he'd been so careful about his health that whenever he got sick it never was, that is if you excluded the appendicitis he'd come down with when he was eight, which, he might add, was nearly a decade ago. Even so, being the intelligent woman she was, although motherly instinct might have something more to do with it, Laura was willing to wrestle her eldest back into his bedroom so he would take the day off, knowing that one day of rest would be better for his G.P.A than a few weeks off with the flu or pneumonia.

Okay, so maybe she was a bit of a worrier, but with all the books she read at work (contrary to popular belief there were several perks to being a librarian) and her family's more eccentric choices in hobbies it was more than reasonable and most definitely justified.

"Frank… You okay?" Joe voice, groggy with sleep and heavy with his reluctance to do anything but during the latest hours of the night broke through the fog that had crowded around Frank's brain.

"Yeah… I'm fine," Frank breathed, his voice both unsteady and unsure. "It was just a nightmare." He added much more quietly, talking more so to himself than to his brother who laid, half-asleep in his bed at the other side of their shared bedroom.

"You sure?" Joe asked in return, his need for answers, for a whole truth, something both he and his brother had seemed to inherit from their father, ex-cop and private-eye-extraordinaire, Fenton Hardy, overriding his need for a good ten hours sleep. "You're not sounding too hot."

"I'm fine, Joe." Frank sighed, laying back down into his pillows, his own exhaustion drowning out his ever-so-slight annoyance at Joe's repeated question.

"Yeah, yeah," Joe mumbled, rolling over so he was facing the dark in the general direction of where Frank was. "Don't pretend I don't know how you get when you're sick."

"First of all, I'm not sick." Frank started, mimicking Joe's movements as he adjusted himself so he was facing the direction of Joe's sleepy voice. "Secondly, I don't get anyway when I'm sick."

"Yes, you do," Joe replied, unable to hide the slightly childish tone the response had brought on. "You always do."

"No, I don't." Frank retorted, not in the mood to argue.

"Yes, you do."

"No, I don't."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes!"

'Joe!"

"What?" Frank didn't any light to know that Joe had plastered an innocent look on his face, it in the constant company of the equally false and matching tone of voice that could be clearly heard from his side of the room.

"If I do get a certain way-"

"Do," Joe mumbled under his breath, causing Frank to roll his slightly stormy blue eyes, one of the few prominent physical features he and his brother shared.

"If I do get a certain way," Frank repeated, taking purpose to emphasize the if. "How do I get?"

"Oh you know," Joe started, his tone turning from mocking to offhand, as though he was counting a list off his fingers. "You get all… Sensitive, doubtful… You question everything, even the stupid stuff."

"Stupid stuff?" Frank asked, wondering what exactly his little brother meant.

"Yeah, sometimes it's almost like you don't think you're doing- or trying hard enough, especially when we're on a case and when you think like that..." Joe trailed off, tapping his forehead as though he forgot Frank couldn't see him. "Nightmares."

"No, I don't." Frank scoffed, a little alarmed at how easily Joe had read him on some of his bad days, being sick never put him in a good mood, but he never thought Joe had picked up on it.

"Don't worry about it, big brother," Joe's voice was full of sleepiness once again, and Frank could tell he was drifting off. "Just because you have that dumb need to be hard on yourself doesn't mean… That… You're… Not important." Joe mumbled, back to being half-asleep.

"You're important to me."