Frank waited as long as he dared, and then nudged Ned awake. "Wake up, partner," he said, hating how that sounded. "We've got to use these couple of hours before the plane lands to prepare."

Ned groaned and rubbed the insides of his eyes. "How so? I already told you everything I know."

"Yeah, including a description of you sneaking into Nancy's house to find a clue she wanted and getting caught by her father." Despite himself, Frank grinned and shook his head in admiration.

"Don't remind me." Ned cringed at the memory.

"Joe and I always memorize a few basic phrases in the language we're about to be immersed in, as well as the main streets and agencies." Frank passed him a map and a couple of pamphlets. "That way, we're not shuffling around like tourists when we get there."

"Makes sense." Ned studied the maps for a few minutes, and muttered, "Yeah…yeah, it's coming back to me now." Louder, he said, "It's going to be pretty hopeless for the language part, though."

"I should be able to get us through decently. It's mostly English, but I hope I can understand these dialects." Frank closed his eyes and racked his brain for anything else they should be doing to get ready. Moira was their only starting point, and if she had nothing…

"Why did she do it, Ned?" he asked with his eyes still closed. He despised that he had to ask another man a question about his wife, but now he was afraid that Ned might know her better than he did in some ways. "She knows that I couldn't stop her anyway, so why wouldn't she at least talk to me face to face about her decision?"

"Oh, that's easy," Ned said. "Nancy remembers clearly the night when she sat at the stop of the stairs and watched her parents scream at each other. That was her last memory of her mother. If she doesn't come back, then she wanted you to have only happy memories of your last times together."

Frank groaned in realization. "It's all coming together now," he said more to himself. "And she probably did it even more so for Annie."

"Who's Annie?" Ned figured it out as soon as he asked. "Congratulations," he said dully. "Can I see a picture of her?"

Frank instantly felt protective, but he knew that Ned deserved at least this much. He pulled out his wallet and handed over her new kindergarten photo.

Ned kept a poker face as he studied her features. "Thank God, she looks just like Nancy."

"Thank you very much."

Ned said out loud what they were both thinking. "She could have been mine," he said with his characteristic openness. He handed the picture back to Frank. "Oh, well. There's been a lot of water under the bridge since then."

Frank had felt nothing but jealousy around Ned in the early years, and now he had to face another dreaded emotion: guilt. At least Nancy had left Frank in order to save thousands of innocent lives, not just because she had found another dude. "Best wishes with your engagement, Ned."

"Thank you." Ned's eyes clouded dreamily, and he looked into the distance. "Obviously we're bringing up some major emotions from the past, but at this point, I should be grateful to you. I can't imagine what my life would be like without Cara." He tried unsuccessfully to find a comfortable position for his considerable muscles in the tiny airplane seat. "I'd marry her right now if my personal training job were steadier. You have to be pretty well established in the business to have enough clients to get benefits at the gym, and it will still be another year or two before my reputation is that solid."

Frank looked at him and for the first time felt something like respect. Obviously Ned had had more than just a passing jock crush on Nancy, but even now after he'd moved on, he was willing to sacrifice everything for an old friend. "I can't say thank you enough for doing this, Ned."

"Don't thank me yet." Ned pulled out a pile of pink loose-leaf pages that had been torn out of a binder. Frank leaned closer and saw animal stickers, little hearts to replace the dots over the i's, and a scraggly, hasty cursive that almost seemed like an immature version of—

"Oh, God," Frank groaned, and slumped low in his chair for the second time that day.

"I thought you wanted every clue that I could give you," Ned said innocently. "Well, Nancy didn't put dates on these letters, so put on your reading glasses, Loverboy. Maybe there's something about Revenant in one of these." He settled back in his cocoon, and pretty soon a slow smile spread across his face.

Frank looked down at the letter in his lap and instantly wished he hadn't. He put the stack gingerly back on Ned's lap tray.

Ned glanced at the letter on top. "Oh—you're right!" he said loudly, to the irritation of sleeping airline passengers around him. He covered the pages with his free hand. "Yes, I should definitely read these to myself and then brief you at the end."