October 4 11:34 PM
"Frank, you should get some sleep."
"How can you tell I'm awake."
"You usually snore."
"I only snore when—"
"You have a cold or you're exhausted," she finished with a hushed chuckled. "I've been trapped in enough basements, closets, car trunks, and bunkers with you to know that, Frank."
Nancy felt like she was at girl scout camp. Separated by a top bunk, Nancy watched Frank toss and turn through the imprints he left in his mattress above her. She almost wondered when they would get their badge for making friendship bracelets.
They had spent all day plotting out their plan of attack, tracking down Sam's social media for updates, and checking the Network scanners. There was an eerie radio silence, a white noise hanging above their casual chatter throughout the rest of the night. She couldn't tell exactly when they stopped talking about the case and started talking about everything else.
It was more than catching up between two friends; it was more of a tentative reaching out and hanging desperately on.
The top bunk stopped creaking. "Sometimes I think we spend too much time together, Nan."
"I don't."
The top bunk creaked again, the weight concentrated to the side away from the wall when Frank leaned down to look like Nancy. She sat on the ceiling, her red hair resting stubbornly on her t shirt clad shoulders.
Frank sighed, leaning back up as the blood began to rush to his head. "Yeah, I wish we could go to Germany without a mystery but-"
"I wouldn't have it any other way, Frank. When we're done we can explore a bit; I know this great castle out near a forest that would give us a free room," she said, tapping his arm that hung downwards.
The arm retracted, pulling itself into his cot. "Maybe, if we don't get arrested first."
It was Nancy's turn to sigh.
He had been like this all day.
Push and pull, positive then negative, Frank couldn't fixate on just one emotion. She could handle a nervous or shy Frank, but a negative one was too grating on Nancy's already frazzled nerves.
She hopped out of bed, climbing the cold green ladder up to his cot. Nancy took a seat at his feet, resting her legs over the edge. Frank reluctantly sat up, criss crossing his legs beside her still wrapped up in his thick wool blanket.
"Who would arrest us? Network agents?" she asked, her eyes searching for his face in the muted light coming through the pulled blinds of their car's door.
He ran a hand through his dark, mussed hair. "I don't know; a lot of them are probably scrambling to hide right now since their identities are exposed."
"Do you know who leaked The Network to the press?"
"…"
"Frank?"
"I-I"
"What?" She put a hand on his arm, her grip as tight as her voice.
He swallowed as he tried again. "I had to keep my family safe."
Nancy's grip slackened, but she didn't let go of his arm. "You did this? How? Why?"
His brown eyes flashed with the passing lights of a parallel train, a sigh escaping his lips.
"The last assignment Joe and I were on, before all of this happened," he began, gesturing to the bags collecting beneath his eyes, "we were stopping these thugs who were stealing endangered animals from the San Diego Zoo. We cornered the ring leader near the bird exhibit when he pulled out a gun—"
"Frank, that's happened so many times before how was this different?" Nancy asked, her hand sliding down his arm to reach his hand.
"Because he fired it right into Joe's arm. Didn't even blink!" He whispered, his voice heated as he tried to pull away from her. "He didn't see us as a couple of meddling kids; he saw us as a threat and didn't hesitate to try to kill us. We can't have the Network equip us with fucking Spy Kids gadgets when we're going against hardened criminals. It was either I end the Network or the Network end me."
Their rising heart rates fell in tandem with train's steady rhythm.
She held on tighter, leaving nail marks. "Frank, your dad could go to jail for this."
"Good! Let him finally retire!" His whisper rose with his temper, turning fully to face her as he continued, "Call me selfish, or reckless, or stupid; call me all three. Just don't say I don't care about my family because I'm doing this for them! My mom and my aunt deserve to know everything I've kept from them, and I don't want to live like this anymore, Nancy. I don't want Joe to live like this anymore either."
The train rumbled through the mattress, their shoulders glued together.
"You wouldn't think I would understand, Frank?"
He looked back, the white strips of a passing train car flashing across his body.
"My mom was killed by a spy organization after she got out only because her friend lied to bring her back into it," Nancy began, swallowing the ever-present lump in her throat whenever she talked about her mom. "She loved me and my dad and her friends, not more than she loved to help other people, but more than what she was willing to risk. But sometimes other people don't respect that."
He brushed her strawberry blonde hair away from her face, turned silver in the blue darkness and emergency lights. Frank wished he could muster an even an ounce of shyness, but that all went out the window when he called her at 3:00 am.
"You were the only person I thought to bring with me, Nancy. I know Dad might hate me, and Joe may never talk to me again, but I knew if you were here everything would be okay. Not perfect, not happy, but okay."
"George said something similar when I went to Japan with her and Bess," she said with a laugh. "I feel like sometimes I attract more mysteries than vacations, but I don't know what else I would do; I can't knit and I can't see myself taking classes like 'Mr. Business Degree' right here."
"I want to make my own detective agency, Nan. Just you, me, and Joe. George could be our techie, and Bess would be a great PR person—"
"You've given quite a lot of thought to this already."
"I needed to see an end. In three years I will have a degree and enough experience to start something amazing that will help other people on my own terms. My dad said he would give me a loan, but after all this I may have to start rooting through my piggy bank," he said, trying to control the bitterness in his chuckle.
She dropped her hand from his arm, squeezing his knee. "You can root through mine too, Frank. I would love to be able to work with you and Joe all the time. I didn't realize until my case in Iceland how much I shut myself off from people I cared about-"
She glanced once at him before quickly looking away.
"I'm sorry, Frank, I should just get over it by now, huh? You're tired of hearing about it I'm sure."
His warm hand covered her own hand on his knee. "It's okay, I don't mind; you've heard enough of my relationship woes for the both of us."
"When I came back from Iceland, and he said it was over, I should have realized it was karma for all the times I forgot everything about him. As if sending him a sword and a sweater is a replacement for me being there and—I'm sorry, you have enough on your plate—" Nancy said, stopping herself by tucking her hair behind her ear.
"How many pairs of shoes does Bess own?"
"30, actually 29 now; she's gotten really into the art of discarding things so she's just beginning to cut back," she said, a small smile sneaking up to her face when she thought of Bess' enthusiasm. "She wants to have a capsule closet of under 100 total clothes."
He beamed back at her. "I don't think that'll happen anytime soon, but I love her drive. But what is the name of Mr. Drew's favorite golf course?"
"Timberline and Frank: please call him Carson, you've more than earned his respect."
He releases her hand to fold his own, bringing them up to his chin to think. "Hmm…When was the fourth time we kissed on a case?"
Nancy looks away for a moment, both trying to remember and trying to avoid the mirthful look in Frank's eyes.
"We've only kissed three times," she began slowly. She counted off on her fingers, "Once on a plane, once in a drive in, and once on a boat. Maybe you should get your memory checked, Hardy."
"Not on a train?" he said, his brown eyes turned amber in the light.
She swallowed. "Not…No."
The natural magnetism that always draws their faces together is here. He can count the flecks of grey in her blue eyes with each passing strip of light.
"See…you remember things you care about, no matter how small the detail," he said, pulling back.
"I guess so."
AN: Whoo, sorry about the long update y'all but this bitch is a college graduate now, hey-o! I had this finished for a while and wanted to add more but realized it's way better to separate this chapter from the next in order to clear up confusion for the time lines. This universe is heavily rooted in the HerInteractive games so if any of the references sound familiar that's where I'm pulling from because Frank's pining in the game is so delightful. Thank you for all the kind reviews and follows and I hope to update soon as I go on the scary job search!