Nancy grunted as she shoved her bag into the overly full overhead compartment. With a satisfied nod of her head, she shut the compartment door with a loud click. Nancy maneuvered her slim body in front of the small airplane seats and sat with a quick sigh of relief. She watched the thick window become slightly damp as rain started to drip from the heavy New York sky and onto the massive planes that lay before her. With a sudden figure plopping down next to her, Nancy turned her head and flashed a small smile to the girl. About Nancy's age, her murky brown yet stunningly gorgeous hair flung around her in a tight ponytail and her black eyes sparkled at Nancy. Her clear and pleasant face smiled to show a set of God made white teeth and sighed exactly what Nancy was feeling as she looked out the window.
"Well, turbulence will be fun," she half mumbled to herself and rolled her eyes playfully at Nancy.
"Ladies and gentleman we will be taking off in about ten minutes from John F. Kennedy International Airport flying to Chicago O'Hare International Airport. Please find your seats and we thank you for your patience."
"Ugh," the woman tipped her head back in disgust.
Nancy watched out of the corner of her eye in amusement of how worked up this woman was getting about going to Chicago.
"I just wanna go home," she drawled out. Her eyes then darted to Nancy as she shifted her whole body to talk with her.
"You going to Chicago?"
"Yep," Nancy gave her a faint smirk. "You?"
"Yeah, my fiancé and I live there."
Nancy took a sharp, quiet breath.
"Are you from Chicago?" The woman didn't seem to notice.
Nancy opened her mouth to speak but closed it. Two years and she still had to think about this.
"No, Albany."
"Really? I just visited my parents there! Did you get any damage from the hail storm on Tuesday?" She asked with a twinge of concern in her voice.
"No, I was one of the lucky ones. My neighbors windows were smashed to smithereens, I just lost a bit of my siding."
"My parent's windows are all broken and they have holes in their roof. To top it off, they were robbed yesterday! Took- hell, they don't even know what the stuff they took adds up to yet," she shook her head in disgust.
"That's too bad. Did they catch him?"
"No," the woman rolled her eyes.
"Do they have any leads?" Nancy tried to hide her overwhelming curiosity.
"Again, no. When one of the police officers talked with my mom he just brushed her off and told her to get better locks. Sick bastard," she mumbled and started to dig through her purse. She pulled out a small pack of pink gum and fished out two silver pieces.
"Want one?" She offered one to Nancy as she shoved the little piece into her mouth.
Nancy stared at it for a second then back up at the woman. Her fingers jittered up, but back down.
Despite the knife in her gut she developed from her years of dealing with crazy bastards that told her no, she thought, Hell, why not?
"Sure," she smiled.
"Sam Murphy, by the way," the woman offered her hand.
"Elena Dency," Nancy shook it.
Nancy let out a sigh and thankfully tipped back onto the large hotel bed. She absently twisted her fingers though her long, sweet brown hair as she watched her chest rise and fall, rise and fall. She felt her fingers dance up to feel the tender thin material that covered her nose, the powder that dusted her face to a white. Nancy saw her overly thick eyelashes drenched in black mascara flutter back the soft tears about to fall from her eyes.
Here she was, home in Chicago. Her friends were here, her family was here, but the closest she could get was the place she lay in a hotel room. Nancy let loose a whimper as reality came back to her.
Nancy Drew was dead. She disappeared tragically in a car accident years ago along with her longtime boyfriend. Nancy left the house that night to investigate a robbery of a friend's home outside of Chicago when a supposedly drunk driver hit the young couple and sent them rolling off the road. Their bodies were never found, but in the forest which they plunged into it wouldn't take long for bodies to get lost.
Nancy sat up with a sudden urgency. She stared at her reflection in the long mirror that conveniently sat before her. She had been lived as Elena Dency for two years but still every time she looked in the mirror a jolt of panic darted through her spine at the stranger that sat before her. The hopelessly romantic department store manager scared Nancy every time reality sat in again. Traces of her Boston-born accent that highlighted a classic New York accent uttered out her flirty lips masked Nancy's normal Illinois accent. Elena's abnormally skinny figure was different from healthy weight Nancy was always at and added to Nancy's shock of her change. Trailing her eyes around the foreign body, Nancy's eyes met in the mirror. It was the only thing that remained Nancy's on Elena's face. The wide turquoise eyes stared back at her in beautiful amazement, the sliver streaks reflecting the warm light of the hotel room. Glazed over with tears, Nancy watched her eyes lower in sympathy and frolic in endurance. She took a painful breath in resolve as her fingers trembled and reached up to pull out a set of white teeth that she set on the bed. Nancy stood and watched her head disappear and the tall, slim heels she wore replace it on the bottom of the mirror. She walked to a small mirror in the bathroom and she leaned onto the sink. While gently pulling the material that changed her nose off she undid the small latches that held her hot pink heels to her feet. She leaned down and splashed bone-chilling water on her face as she undid the latches that held the long hair extensions to her head. With a clear sigh, she pulled off the wig which was the last trace of Elena to reveal Nancy, a tired and depressed one, but it was still Nancy.
Hearing her cell phone jitter in the other room, Nancy jogged out of the bathroom to pick up the unknown number.
"Hello?" Elena answered.
"Hi, Elena? This is Sam Murphy from the flight from New York to Chicago!" A chipper voice smiled into the phone.
"Oh, yes. Um, may I help you?"
"Well, I was calling to tell you you left your iPod on the plane! I tried to catch up to you but, well, you know O'Hare..."
Nancy glanced at her purse and saw the absence of the white ear buds cord.
"Oh my God, thank you!"
"I saw you had a business card in the iPod case, and, well, here we are."
"Thank you! I would be lost without it." Nancy said with a sigh of relief. "Well, I'll tell you what. I'm really hungry and I know of this bar downtown that has fantastic food. Would you maybe like to meet me there? You could stay for dinner if you want."
"I would love you! I'll bring Drew if that's okay," Sam exclaimed.
"Drew?"
"Oh, my fiancé."
"I'd love to meet him," Nancy smiled as if Sam was talking with her in person. She couldn't help glancing down at the thin gold band that wrapped around her middle finger.
Nancy pushed her hand down from twirling her hair again and darted her eyes towards the door. With only frigid air in response, she downed the last of her martini and resolved to ordering food. A smiling waiter approached her in full on drool and nodded his sheepish head as Nancy played Elena to her full extent. She flashed him a smile and set down the menu, dropping her face when he turned the corner of the bar. She looked over towards the door again, but no one. She frowned as her next martini came and she let her body slouch a bit. Biting off an olive, she watched a group of girls at the other end of the bar gather in a circle, sending crazy gossiping statements about every single person on Earth to each other in fascinated entertainment. Nancy smiled, oddly finding it funny at how clueless they were to the shit others had to go through in life. Here she was again, feeling sorry for herself. She softly pinched her skin as a small bell struck her inner ear and she whipped around to see Sam step into the bar in full color with a tall man behind her. Nancy watched Sam send a smile to everyone in the bar and loop her arm into her fiancé's, advertising herself and then showing the men that they couldn't have her. Nancy let her eyes trail upward to look at the man she clung to.
Her heart stopped as she took a shaky inhale of the bar's cold air in concentrated shock. She had to stop herself from crossing the ever-present line of insanity she forever sat by and darted her eyes everywhere- anywhere else in the small room. She turned back to the bar and watched with paralyzed wide eyes in the reflection of the mirrors the couple approach her.
The man was tall, two or three heads taller than the rest of the crowd. His muscular build drew the eyes of all women in the room and the long, dirty ash brown color of his hair breezed around his face in the oddly windy room. His face was long and sharp, the shadows of the bar creating ghostly shadows across his devastatingly cracked and serious face. He let loose a reluctant smile down at his fiancé clinging to him. He looked around the room in mild paranoia as he took deep breaths in his wide chest. He followed Sam to the bar where he sat and looked at Elena without having a clue of the person that hid beneath her.
"Elena!"
Nancy turned her head and plastered on the most fake smile she was capable of at the couple.
"Hi, good to see you again!" Nancy smiled at Sam, not caring at how incredibly fake she seemed, even to an unsuspecting and oblivious Sam.
"Yes," Sam said a little reluctantly. "This is my fiancé, Drew. Drew, this is my new friend Elena," Sam slanted her shoulder and smiled at Nancy.
Drew held out his hand and flashed her a beautiful grin. She paused, then placed her hand in his. His warm flesh sent an electric set of stabs down her spine, harsh air not being able enter her lungs. Suddenly, they weren't shaking hands anymore. His thumb was lightly resting on her middle finger, hovering over the thin gold band comfortably sitting there. He pulled away with such quickness that Nancy had to stop herself from jumping. Nancy looked up from their hands and up at the bar. She saw Sam behind him, unsuspecting, ordering some drinks for them. The same gossiping girls Nancy saw earlier were now flirting with some guys who probably didn't know what two plus two was. Her eyes finally drifted fearfully to Ned. He was staring down at the floor in a panic, terrified that his worst fears would be confirmed. Finally glancing up, his eyes met hers. Nancy's muscles froze and her eyes widened as she locked her unchanged eyes with the same thing he didn't change. His chocolate eyes that had always comforted her, loved her, saw the things she would only share with those who dared to occupy her heart were broken. The soft, golden flecks that reflected the rooms light and brought the best out of it and everyone in it were now muddled and gray, set in depths of his eyes. She found herself frantically trying to take in a breath, terrified at what had changed in the one thing he didn't change. She didn't need to speak a word to him to know how he was. Their years of unspoken language they always shared didn't have the smallest crack in it from the endless time they spent apart.
Ned was broken. His sleepless nights were haunted with her. Her face. Her touch. Her laugh. Her smile. Her eyes. The second his own eyes closed, they stung. He pulled the blankets over him body, he was too hot. He pulled them off, he was too cold. The minutes seemed to be as long as days; days even longer. The only thing that held him together was his imagination. He would spend his endless hours reliving the night they said goodbye; hopelessly memorizing a script if they were to ever meet again. But not like this. He never in his wildest and imaginary dreams thought she would be sitting in front of her, unable to do anything. Unable to tell her anything.
Nancy opened her mouth to say something but her voice evaporated into thin air. She saw Sam out of the corner of her eyes and gave a large physical effort to pry her eyes away from Ned's.
"I almost forgot, Elena. Here's your iPod," she handed over a small black device.
"Thank you," Nancy whispered.
"Sam, we should," Ned stumbled on his words. "We should go. Our reservations are soon."
"We have-"
"We should get there early. Let's go. Nice to meet you, El-Elena."
He pulled the startled Sam away from where they were standing, never glancing back. Nancy let go the long breath she didn't know she was holding.
Nancy hissed something she couldn't even make out and took in another choppy breath. She grabbed the scribbled on napkin quickly at the bar and fled.
The hallway was quiet. It stretched on forever in both directions, white doors watching her every move. If she had been a little bit more delusional, she would be convinced they were laughing at her.
Maybe she should have another drink.
She looked forward again. Room 217. She didn't need to look at the napkin that long to see where, when, and why. In the hotel- room even- they said goodbye in; the same night of their encounter; they were both loosing their insanity each second they didn't see each other. She held up her hand to knock, but it fell again.
Bullshit. Third time is not the charm.
Her knees shook. The kind of shaking that invaded your stomach and caused it to feel like lime Jello at Christmas. The kind of shaking that caused her hands to sweat and didn't let her grip a thing. The kind of shaking she didn't want to have right now.
He had a fiancé. He had a life. He moved on. She had none of that.
Her hand rose again but she didn't need to knock. The door swung open.
"I've standing here watching you stand there for the past 20 minutes."
She fell into his arms. The shaking in her knees turned into nothing at all and she fell. She had no idea how long she had been waiting for this moment. In fact she did, she counted. But all the thoughts were erased in that one moment. The scent of his cologne; the feel of his soft, chocolate hair between her fingers. She inhaled his chest, happy that he was back to a non-super-human height compared to the height Drew stood at. His muscles were stronger than they were before, but he lost weight. A lot of weight. But it didn't matter to her. She felt tears flooding out of her eyes as he dragged her in the hotel room. They stood in an embrace for so long she was beginning to think it was a dream. There was no way she could stand that long in his arms.
When she pulled away from him (more he pried her off of him) he was there. His dark hair dashed around his face; sharp angles back to the soft and laughing ones she always knew. But his face was different now. Shattered. It matched his eyes.
She reached up and gently touched his nose.
"You're different."
"Two years will do that to a person."
She took a sharp breath.
"Am I different?"
Ned reached out and touched the ends of her short, strawberry hair. His fingers landed on her shoulders and gently traced her collarbone.
"Are you?"
"You're supposed to tell me," Nancy's voice was barely a whisper.
"I don't know you anymore."
That stung.
"Yes you do."
"I know Nancy. I don't know Elena."
"Elena isn't real."
His eyes didn't move from his fingers tracing her shirt collar.
"You sure?"
"If I wasn't, would I be here?"
His fingers stopped moving. He didn't look up.
"Why did you come?"
"I think you can answer that one."
Ned looked up in her eyes. Their foreheads touched. Their noses slid past each other.
His lips were soft. Just as she remembered them.
The fuzz that pounded in her head didn't allow her to think about what was happening. She could feel the sheets touch her skin. She could feel herself being guided to her knees on the bed. She could feel her shirt being gently pulled off and tossed across the room, followed by Ned's. She could feel Ned's warm skin against hers. She could feel his fingers pressed into the small of her back and the feeling of softly moaning through her lips. But then she couldn't feel any of it anymore. Her eyes fluttered open and she saw Ned looking down, his hands frozen on her shoulders.
"We can't do this," Nancy could feel Ned's forehead vibrate against hers as he spoke.
"Hey, I'm supposed to be the one to push you away," she halfheartedly joked.
Ned opened his mouth to speak.
"I know," Nancy beat him to it. She swallowed.
"You've lost a lot of weight."
"So have you."
"Yeah, but I'm a guy."
"And that's relevent because?" Nancy questioned.
"Because it is."
Ned smiled and despite her efforts, so did Nancy.
Ned pulled up her hand between them and traced it with his fingers.
Thumb. Pointer finger. Middle finger.
She forgot she moved her ring after their meeting.
"You still have it," he said breathlessly.
"Of course I do."
He looked up into her eyes.
"Do you..."
"I don't know," Nancy dropped her whisper into something they both had to strain to hear.
They let silence invade the room. She wasn't sure what to say. No, we can never get married because we're not Ned and Nancy anymore? No, we can never get married because we're not in love anymore? When we agreed that it would be best for us both to move on that promise kinda went down the toilet?
Ned opened his mouth to speak again.
"For God's sake, Ned! You're engaged!" Nancy pushed back from him.
"I don't..." Ned tried and failed.
Silence.
Nancy crawled on her knees forward to Ned and pulled him in a hug.
"I'm sorry," Nancy whispered into his bare shoulder.
"So am I. You have no idea how sorry I am."
Ned leaned back and Nancy fell with him into the pillows. Ned lifted himself up and pulled her down in hungry kisses. She combed his hair back with her fingers and she could feel the nervous pit she felt before form again. Nancy pulled away from Ned and watched him. They stared at each other with expressions unreadable by both parties. Nancy leaned back down and pressed her lips to Ned's, then flipped over and snuck her head underneath his shoulder and wrapped her arm around his stomach.
"Are you living in Chicago?" Nancy traced his stomach muscles.
"I moved to Seattle and met Sam there," Ned coughed. "We moved back to Chicago a year ago. Sam is from here."
"Did you know her before-"
"No."
"Oh."
He coughed again.
"Where is Elena from?"
"Born in Boston, moved to Albany when she was eleven and lived there ever since," Nancy said into his chest.
"That's well thought out," Ned said thoughtfully.
"What's your name?"
"Drew Emerson."
Nancy chuckled. "Clever."
"You?"
"Elena Dency."
This time it was Ned's turn to chuckle.
"I like it. My name backwards and end it with -cy in your name. I should have thought of something like that."
"I like yours better."
Ned's fingers had moved from her arms down to her wrists. Then her fingers.
"You know I meant it."
"I know."
"Someday."
Nancy moved back up and trailed kisses up his jaw and pressed her lips softly on his mouth.
"I know."
Title based off of, well, I'm sure you can guess.
Story created from another story I read on here, where Ned and Nancy meet after they get new identities after a accident. I began thinking if Ned and Nancy hadn't seen each other in a long time, would they recognize each other even if they look different? I spent a long time writing and editing and writing and editing and over again this story. I just wasn't sure how it would all end up and how it would effect each other. Hopefully I conveyed what I thought would happen, but it was hard. Trust me on that. I admit that if you're not in my head, this is hard to follow. If you have any questions, just ask or use your imagination.
On the last third of the story, I wasn't sure how to end it. This was my original idea, but then I was beginning to give Ned and Nancy less time to talk after their encounter. Then I began thinking about making this a series, the emotional impact of seeing their families and the city they once lived in happily. I finally settled on this, but I still have thoughts on making alternative endings. If anyone would want me to write the alternative endings or give it a shot and write them themselves, just let me know.
Thanks for reading!