A/n: tonight the role of overprotective (pseudo)brother will be played by Joe Hardy. Guess he was paying attention to Frank all those years after all.

Chapter 3

Joe lay frozen, afraid to move but had no choice other than to do so when Danny started squirming underneath him. "Oops. Sorry, kid." He rolled to the side shaking the dust and debris out of his hair and doing a quick self check for injury. Huh. Nothing. In fact he was pretty sure nothing hit him at all. (memo to self. Play lottery when we get outta here. Obviously Lady Luck is smiling upon me this day) He turned to Danny, still laying panting on the ground. "Danny? Buddy? You okay?" he asked anxiously.

Danny sat up and allowed Joe to examine him. "Danny I need you to tell me if anything hurts at all, okay?" Joe was starting to panic as the boy had not so much as spoken a word since he had been found.

"'m okay" he mumbled quietly, much to Joe's relief. Danny stood up and tried to dust off his clothes, but was having little success. He did, however, begin coughing violently. Joe assumed he had breathed in some of the rock dust, just as he had. In fact Joe was hard pressed to keep from hacking up a lung himself. "Crap. Never thought to to bring a canteen. We could both use a drink right now I think." Still coughing, Danny pointed to the rear of the cavern, slightly to the right of where he had been chained. Puzzled, Joe followed the path of the boy's arm and stopped short in amazement when he got to the wall. There, neatly stacked, were 3 cases of bottled water. About half were gone, the empties neatly lined up against a crate which proved to contain a vast assortment of ready to eat foods like tuna salad kits and Twinkies and oh dear gawd was that a chicken tetrazzini MRE? Joe shook his head in amazement as he grabbed 2 bottles and brought them back to the boy who greedily grabbed his and took a long pull of the water. 'Woah there Buddy, slow down. You'll trade choking on dust for choking on water." Sure enough, Danny was soon sputtering up the water. Joe knelt down and held the boy as he gave a sharp slap on his back, hoping to dislodge the contents of the boy's windpipe.

Eventually, Danny stopped coughing long enough to take a deep shuddering breath. He looked at Joe, who was staring back at him in concern. "What happened?" he asked tremulously. "I think the roof collapsed. Looks like we are stuck here a little longer. So much for my burger..."

Danny's eyes welled with tears and a sob escaped his throat. Joe held onto the boy as he finally succumbed to all the worry and stress. Eventually he stopped crying but now had the hiccups, and his body still shuddered every few minutes so Joe just continued holding Danny in his lap. He never said anything as he was at a loss as to how to handle an hysterical 9 year old. Especially since he was damn close to hysterical himself...

It had been a very long night for Fenton, Frank and Frisk. All three were beside themselves with worry and feeling quite useless as they could not safely assist in the rescue attempt. Frank especially was nearly overcome with anxiety and no amount of urging by his father would persuade him to go to a hospital. Not even a blatant attempt by Fenton to call his wife and have her lay the guilt on thick worked. Some things never change, and Frank's devotion to his brother would always be one of them. Eventually Fenton gave it up as a lost cause but made Frank promise he would take it easy and rest. Philips and his crew had begun shoring up the entrance to the shaft in anticipation of being able to start digging in a few hours. Frisk, meanwhile alternated between pacing like a caged tiger and growling like an angry bear woken too early from hibernation at anyone who got too close. Fenton had the unenviable task of informing the FBI of the delay as well as insisting they stay far far far way from Frisk, who was in no mood to listen to Bureaucratic pontificating.

Finally, Philips came over to where the three men were hovering and stated that his team was ready to begin the slow tedious work of clearing the blocked passageway. He also made it perfectly clear that none of the three would be allowed anywhere near the dig site and they best just get used to that right now. And once again it was the elder Hardy that had to placate both brother and father and impress upon them then necessity of things being done Philips' way.

A sympathetic miner came by with a thermos of hot coffee and some wrapped sandwiches, which were gratefully accepted if not actually consumed. The three men steeled themselves for a long day.

Somewhere along the line, Joe had fallen asleep. He woke, disoriented and at first had no idea what was going on. When he realized he was still clinging to Danny, it all came back in a rush, and he had to force himself not to freak out. He would never tease Frank about being claustrophobic again. Gently disentangling his limbs from the boy's, he slipped out from underneath and stood up. He took his heavy leather jacket off and draped it over the sleeping child before doing a little investigating. He was smart enough to not risk digging out, he still had vivid memories of the devastation in Japan several years earlier and knew all too well if you dislodged the wrong piece of the puzzle it would come crashing down around you. Instead, he took a closer look at the cache of supplies Danny had pointed out earlier.

In addition to the cases of water, there was also a heavy wool blanket, a small pillow, and a battery operated camping lamp. He even found 2 spare sets of batteries. Continuing his circuit, he noted that everything was well within what Danny's reach would have been tethered to the wall by the chain. He nearly burst out laughing when he came across the roll of toilet paper and the portapotty. "Wait'll Frank sees this." he said quietly to himself. "He is never gonna believe this. Screwiest kidnapping I have ever seen. And whyinhell can't I ever get kidnapped by such a considerate bad guy? I mean sheesh.. Twinkies?" Now he turned his attention to the crate of food. He grabbed a Twinkie, noting idly that the box was nearly empty, so he figured Danny had at least been getting some nutrition..well maybe not from Twinkies...but he did find several empty tuna salad kits, a few empty granola bar boxes and about 6 or 8 mini Tobasco sauce bottles that could only have come from MREs.

Joe contemplated the significance of all this. One, the kidnapper was certainly not interested in killing the boy, otherwise he would never have made him as comfortable as he had. Two, he was not interested in psychological terror either.. hence the comfort items and the presence of the lamp. His confusion only grew when he found the complete works of JK Rowling tucked under the pillow. Food, water, hygiene and reading material? Curiouser and curiouser. He took a closer look at the MREs. He was not surprised to find them to be the more loathed options, such as the much maligned chicken tetrazzini and his own personal unfavorite the cheese and vegetable omelet. In fact, as he rifled through them he realized that universally these were the ones left over from any distribution in the field. And then he took a closer look at the packaging. He knew that MREs were available to purchase at most Army Navy supply stores, but these were actual government issue.. and they were not generally available to the public. They even said so on the package.. not for individual resale. Another piece of the puzzle. Sighing as his stomach gurgled a protest, he selected the least offensive one, Chili and macaroni. Which was not much of an improvement over chicken tetrazzini, The sound of him activating the heating unit woke Danny.

"Hey, Pal. You hungry? I realize it isn't that burger and fries I promised you but we can have Ding Dongs for dessert!" Danny rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and shuffled over to Joe, handing him the leather jacket. "Not hungry" he mumbled. Joe frowned. "Kiddo, I think you should eat. Need to keep your strength up so we can get out of here." "Not getting' outta here. We're gonna die."

This, Joe could handle, and he did so. "C'mere." he patted the ground beside him. "What makes you think that?"

"Dad closed this mine cuz people died. The roof fell down then too. They couldn't get out and neither can we!" his voice had risen a few octaves and he was rapidly approaching hysterical again.

"Danny, listen to me" Joe said firmly, grabbing hold of the boys ams and giving him a small shake. "We will get out of here. My brother is on the other side of that pile of rubble and you know what? He may be a pain but he will never give up trying to save us. Frank has saved my life so many times I have lost count. It may take some time but we are going to be rescued. I promise."

Danny sniffled and said in a woebegone voice "You mean it?"

"Absolutely. Why I bet he called the Cavalry the minute he saw the cave in." Joe did not voice his concern that maybe Frank had been caught in the collapse and was hurt, or worse. In fact he firmly shoved the thought into the back of his brain. Last thing Danny needed was ammunition to bolster his fears. Last thing he needed too.

"Let's eat, okay? Frank is very bossy and if we are too skinny when he gets here he's gonna yell. When your sister yells, it's pretty loud and screechy, right?" Danny nodded. "Well Frank? Is way worse than any girl." Danny actually smiled a little then and allowed Joe to heat up a veggie burger MRE. "I like the Bbq sauce it comes with."

"Me too. Although my favorite of all time is the Beef ravioli. Taste just like Chef Boy R Dee!"

"Do you eat these a lot?" Danny asked as he squirted the peanut butter that was in the package directly into his mouth.

"Well, not so much any more, but a couple of years ago I had to eat them for a few weeks when I was helping out some people who were caught in a Tsunami."

"What's a soo nommy?" he asked, fear and uncertainty giving way to curiosity.

"A really really big wave. Hundreds of feet high. It washed away everything in its path. The ship I was stationed on got sent to help the survivors." That really piqued Danny's interest. " My dad was on a ship too! Were you on the same one?" Nope, sorry, your dad was in the Navy long before I was. But I bet it was almost the same when he was in."

Joe kept up the light hearted banter throughout dinner and then insisted that Danny tell him all about Harry Potter. Danny was only about half way through Book Three but proved to be an animated storyteller and Joe found himself caught up in spite of himself. Before too long, though, Danny's eyes started to droop so Joe had him lie down and covered him up with the blanket. Within minutes Danny was sound asleep, which gave Joe the opportunity to do some more snooping around their prison. It took him only about ten minutes or discover the ventilation shafts. Once he did a huge burden lifted. At least they weren't in any danger of suffocation. And there was plenty of food and water, enough to last another 2 weeks if they were careful. Joe fervently hoped that Frank would not take two weeks however. He had a date on Friday night...

A/n: Just so y'all know I am taking the weekend 'off'. Tomorrow is my birthday and since my husband is 7000 miles away keeping the world safe for democracy I shall be indulging in an all day pity party consisting of a Twilight marathon( yes I like Twilight. so sue me) and gourmet popcorn for dinner. Sunday I will be indulging in my other hobby: card making . so don't expect any updates on either story until Monday or Tuesday earliest. So nobody complain they didn't have time to do laundry...