Author's Note: It is hard, I think, to find the balance between showing how things got to where they are and where they need to be and moving ahead. I feel a little like the time before Frank found his family was too short, that I didn't give enough detail there, and the same now with Joe a bit, but I am not sure how I would do that without dragging the whole thing down and making it a day to day epic that I know I couldn't finish if I tried.

To answer a guest question... I usually start a story with an idea of what I want to do and and few key points along its path, and then I let it develop itself as I go along because I can't follow timelines and characters make their own decisions on where to go, not me, and all timelines do is frustrate me when I can't follow them. So that does leave me open to "oh, crap, how do I get this done because I have no idea now" moments. A lot.

Also, I will take this opportunity to thank all guests and readers for their reviews and support and time, even those I can't respond or who are more lurker types like me.

Oh, and yes... I am not a lawyer and am probably wrong about Carson's assessment. I just... liked the dramatic effect?


Progress

"Something wrong?"

Joe wasn't sure what had given him away so fast, but then he was dealing with his mother, and somehow moms just knew these things. He must have given some small sign of something back when he walked into the room, and that was enough. Laura knew something was up, and he didn't see a point in denying it. He sat down in the nearest chair, sprawling out as he did.

His mother set down her papers—must have been time to do Dad's reports again, and he always left them a mess—and looked at him. "Well?"

"Just got off the phone with Nancy."

"And?"

He snorted. "And Frank is being... well, it sounds like he's just being himself, but since being a jerk is what passes for him being him these days, Nancy's upset by it and worried about him."

Laura sighed, taking off her reading glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose. "It's a defense mechanism, and we all know it. If it wasn't, we'd be a lot angrier with him, but we're not. I wish he'd drop the walls and let us in, but he hasn't done that since he was twelve, so that hope is in vain."

Joe shook his head. "Not true. It's not like... I'm pretty sure this is just because of whatever happened with that last case. Frank might have been a little distant before, but not like this. I understood him needing to do his own thing for a while, but it's not even about that anymore. That damn shrink I decked was right—Frank is running."

Laura sighed. "He might be, but that just means that he will need us more when he stops."

"If he stops," Joe muttered, and his mother gave him a look. He shook his head. Frank's need to distance himself seemed to be getting worse, not better, and it should have been better by now, since he'd had his chance to prove he was independence—if that was what he was doing. Joe didn't even know. Sometimes he thought the two of them were closer than most brothers, especially since they'd been separated for the first part of their lives, but the rest of the time, he thought they were almost strangers.

He hated that, too.

"Why wouldn't he stop?" Laura said. "In the end, he will see he's safer at home, and that is what he actually wants."

"In a word? Nancy."

Laura blinked. "What does this have to do with Nancy?"

"Sometimes I don't see how someone who is supposed to be one of the best detectives in the world can still miss the obvious right in front of her face," Joe grumbled. His mother's expression darkened, and he shook his head. "I meant her, Mom. How is it that she is the only one who doesn't know that Frank has been in love with her since we were kids? I know. You know. Her friends Bess and George know. Even that Ned guy knows. I don't see how it's possible that she doesn't actually know."

Laura took a breath and let it out before speaking. "Your brother's feelings for Nancy have always confused and conflicted him. Even he won't say he's actually in love with her. I think she thinks it's just a residual part of his early dependence on her and won't risk damaging their friendship for the idea of more, especially since Frank doesn't... date. He hasn't really shown anyone that he wants that."

"Because he's hung up on Nancy and knows he wouldn't care about anyone else like he does her. He told me as much when Callie was really pursuing him. That... and he was a little terrified of the idea of being with anyone after what those sickos did to him."

"That doesn't change that he never told Nancy any of that. She holds to what they were instead of risking more and pushing him away, which is all too easy to do."

Joe grunted. "Like she didn't push him far enough away when she accepted Ned's proposal. That pretty much sealed the deal there, and Frank will never let her close again, not now."


Between Thirteen and Fourteen Years Earlier

"I told you—I don't want to see you," Frank said, arms folded over his chest. Nancy was off getting a lecture from her father about getting both of them into trouble again, and he knew the Hardys were downstairs, having come here in a panic—though whether that was because Joe had snuck out or because they'd been told about what Nancy and Frank got into was debatable. Frank didn't know that he cared. He just knew he didn't want to be around anyone right now.

"And I told you that I don't accept that as an answer," Joe said, not leaving the room. Frank had tried pushing him out, but the other boy was a lot more muscular than he was, and he hadn't won that fight, not that he ever won fights. He should look into self-defense classes. He never wanted to be hurt again, so he needed them and maybe a lot more than just them. "You're my brother. I'm staying."

"I'm not anything to you or anyone else," Frank said. "Just leave me alone."

Joe shook his head. "Nope. See, I thought maybe you were some kind of scam artist, preying on Mom and Dad because you wouldn't believe what they went through thinking you were dead, but you're not. And I just have to look at you to know that you're Dad's son. It's so obvious. You even have the same frown."

Frank realized he was frowning and stopped, even as he had to struggle to keep himself from shuddering. He did not want to be like his father. Not ever. That man was sick, and it was so hard, even if Fenton Hardy was his biological father, to think of anyone as that person besides the monster who had used him and encouraged others to do the same.

"You look like you're going to puke."

"I might. So go away."

"No."

"What is wrong with you? Why would you even want to be here?" Frank demanded. "It's not fun. I'm not—I'm not interesting and if you knew the kinds of things I did—"

Joe frowned. "Tell me you don't actually blame yourself for some guy hurting you. That's messed up. That was what he did wrong, not you."

Frank snorted. "Did they really tell you what he did? Because I don't think you'd say that if you knew, really knew, what it was. I'll give you a hint, though. He used whore instead of my name."

Joe stared at him. "That is—"

"Go away."

"No," Joe said. "That's still his malfunction, not yours. Dude, guys that like kids are really sick, and that's not something you did wrong. That's all in his warped sickness. He's the freak. You're just... Well, you're the victim, but that still makes him the one who was wrong."

Frank lowered his head. "I'm the one who feels sick about it, though. He... He didn't. He enjoyed what he did to me. He got others to do it, too. I lost track of how many there were, but he filmed it and them and..."

He stopped when Joe hugged him, tense and unsure how to react to this. None of the kids he'd known before Nancy ever hugged him, not even in the worst of it. He wouldn't have tried to touch them after what had happened to him and them, and it wasn't any kind of comfort if the kids were ones his father made do things to him or him to them. No, he didn't hug other kids, and they didn't hug him. Nancy's friends didn't, either.

"Let go."

"Fat chance. That's not what brothers do."


"They are adorable," Nancy told Bess and George, who snorted, but Bess sighed in agreement. Joe had managed to get closer to Frank than most people had faster than everyone else had. He'd just refused to let Frank push him away or avoid him, to the point where Frank just ended up rolling his eyes or sighing and letting his brother stay because he couldn't fight it.

"You'd almost think they had known each other their entire lives," Bess agreed as the boys bickered over how to put together the puzzle Hannah had given Frank. At first, the younger Hardy hadn't been that interested in it, but as Frank worked on it and ignored his brother, the other boy had joined in and started trying to take it over. "Even though they argue, they're even... teasing. I didn't think Frank was capable of that with anyone but you, Nancy, and only barely that."

"Joe does make Frank act a little more... normal," George said, and Nancy frowned at her. She didn't think there was anything wrong with Frank. Wrong would have been if he'd come out of the abuse without any sign of it, but he hadn't. He still suffered, though his panic attacks were rarer now and he was opening up to others after knowing them for long enough.

"Frank isn't a freak."

George grimaced. "You know that's not what I meant. It's just hard to relate to Frank because we haven't gone through what he has—"

"Thank goodness," Bess said with a shudder.

"And so we can't know what will upset him or not, which is a little difficult for all of us. Joe doesn't seem bothered by it the same way we are, so he just blazes ahead, and it's working so far—he's gotten closer to Frank than I would have thought," George finished. "It's not bad. It just makes me feel a little less like I have to be super careful about what I say or do. Joe's already hit the triggers and paved a path in some respects. Or he seems to be capable of smoothing things over after he does in a way we never managed."

"Must be a guy thing," Bess said. She gave Joe another look. "He is kind of cute, isn't he?"

Her cousin shook her head. "Don't start."

Nancy almost missed the last part of the conversation, distracted as she was. She had thought Joe's impact on Frank was positive—Joe insisted on being a part of his brother's life in a way that Frank's parents couldn't, and it did seem to help Frank over a lot of the hurdles he had with his family and people in general—but now she realized that positive could be a bad thing as well. Not that she didn't want Frank to be happy and to recover from all that happened to him, but if he did accept his family and did get close to them... He'd leave with them. They weren't going to stay here.

She'd lose him.

"Nancy, you okay over there?"

She nodded, feeling numb. "Yeah. Fine."

"I know what it is," Bess said, her voice taking on a teasing tone. "Nancy was daydreaming about Frank. She thinks he's cute."

Nancy's face flamed red as her hair. "I do not. It's not like that with me and Frank. He's—He's just a friend, that's all. Don't go teasing him about this, either. That could set him back so much—he was—that guy was going to try and force him to do things to me, so just don't even mention it, okay?"

Bess looked at George. George just shrugged.


"I think he's come a long way," Carson admitted, standing with Fenton and Laura as the kids debated what to do with the day. The weather was good, and Joe was pushing for football, but only George seemed willing to take him up on that so far. Frank seemed unsettled by the idea, and Fenton seemed unable to understand a kid of his not wanting to be involved in sports. Carson had heard that Joe was interested in all of them and on several teams, but if Frank had any kind of experience with sports, it wasn't good. "Joe seems to be helping that along a lot faster than what we've managed."

Fenton nodded. "I'd hoped it would help, but this is more than I expected."

Laura shook her head. "I don't know that it would have been possible without the groundwork you and your daughter started. It may have been slower before, but that doesn't mean it wasn't necessary. If Frank hadn't had this time to trust you and her, we'd still be at square one."

"We owe you more than we can ever repay," Fenton agreed. "And Nancy as well."

Carson shook his head. He wasn't interested in repayment. Frank wasn't a burden, and Carson himself was fond of the kid. He wasn't sure he could quite call him son, but he was the closest Carson had to one, and he would miss Frank if the boy chose to go with his parents back to New York. "Your son deserved much better than he grew up with, and if I had any part in fixing that, I'm glad. Nancy always wants to help, especially with mysteries, and she cares about Frank. It's not a hardship. It's something we're glad to do."

Fenton nodded, though when he looked back at Frank, he seemed tense. "Did you hear anything new about the trial?"

Carson grimaced. "Several of the trials are coming up fast. He's got about a week before he needs to testify in some of the smaller ones, but the hardest one will be that bastard who called himself Frank's father. He's not up for another month or so, but that will be difficult for him."

"And the custody issue?"

"No word," Carson said. "The extension should have been given or a new trial date set by the end of this week. Without that..."

Laura winced. "Please tell me we have legal rights and can do something about this before social services puts him in a group home. He's... He is not ready for that."

Carson had been hoping to avoid this, but now that the question was raised, it had to be answered. "I want to say it will be fine and of course you do, but the situation is more complicated than that, and it is possible that because of what happened, you might not be able to get custody of Frank before the state takes control of his care."

Fenton swore.