Cheryl, TraSan, Pandora and whashaza: Yup, Joe and Vanessa have a very long road ahead. As do all the Hardys since this kind of violence affects not just the victim but those who love them, too. Thanks for reading and reviewing. :)

I did do quite a bit of research into the subject matter for this story so while this chapter isn't graphic, it's pretty accurate in what the aftermath would be as far as treatment goes.

Guilty

Chapter 12

The drive to the hospital was made in silence. Using the rear view mirror, Fenton Hardy frequently glanced at his son in the backseat. Joe's face was a mask of stone; it was the look in his eyes that concerned Fenton. Alternating between unbearable pain, seething anger, pure hatred and blind rage, he began to worry whether Joe would try to extract his own personal revenge once the rapist was caught.

As they neared the entrance to the hospital, Frank leaned over towards his father.

"Pull up to the ER and go in with Joe. I'll park the car."

"Are you sure?" Fenton asked, bewildered. Frank had always been fiercely over protective of Joe. At times he found himself having to remind Frank that he, in fact, was Joe's father.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Okay." He didn't understand Frank's behavior, but knew now was not the time to question it.

As he pulled up to the Emergency Room, Joe practically flew out of the car before it had even come to a stop. Fenton quickly stopped the car, unbuckled his seat belt and followed the path Joe had just taken. Entering the emergency room he could hear Joe's angry voice reverberating down the hall.

"I want to see her NOW!!"

"Sir, she is still being examined and treated by the doctor. Please go to the waiting area and the doctor will be out to speak with you as soon as he's finished," replied the receptionist Joe was hovering over.

By this time Laura and Callie, having heard Joe's angry outburst, had emerged from the waiting area down the hall.

"Honey, there's no news yet. Come and sit with us," Laura said gently, putting a comforting hand on his arm. She was momentarily shocked at how hard and tense the muscles in his arm were – as if he were on the verge of hitting something. "Come on, sweetie. Come with me."

As she turned to steer Joe down the hall towards the waiting area, she exchanged a worried glance with her husband who had just arrived. She knew Joe would be devastated when he learned what had happened to Vanessa, but one look at her husband told her his reaction to the news had been much, much worse than she had feared.

Suddenly a young man, holding a crying little boy, came rushing through the Emergency Room doors, cutting them off.

"Please!" he said frantically to the receptionist. "My son needs a doctor! He pulled a pot of boiling water off the stove! His arm is badly burned!"

Seeing how serious the burns were, a nurse who had been chatting with the receptionist when Joe came in took the little boy from his father.

"No! No!" the little boy screamed. "I want my Daddy!" He struggled, trying to escape the grasp of the nurse as she walked quickly towards an examination room.

"Daddy!" The little boys cries echoed out into the hall. "Where's my Daddy?"

Joe stared down the hall after the nurse, seeing something apparent only to him.

"Daddy," he whispered.

Fenton's eyes widened in shock as he realized what Joe was seeing. 'Please, God, not now!' he thought. The look on Joe's face brought back a torrent of painful memories for him. It was the same look of horror and confusion Joe had seventeen years ago when the emergency room doctors practically had to pry him away from Fenton. He remembered how hard Joe had fought not to be taken from him and how it broke his heart to let him go. It was obvious that Joe, on some level, was remembering the same thing.

Laura, also realizing what was happening, looked at her husband.

"He can't be remembering!" she said, panic creeping into her voice. "This can't be happening now!" There was no way Joe could handle remembering that weekend right now; not after just finding out about Vanessa.

Fenton grabbed Joe's arm and shook it hard, hoping he was doing the right thing.

"Joe!" he said, harshly.

Joe continued staring down the hall, haunted by images only he could see.

"Joe!" Fenton said again, shaking him a little harder. "Look at me!"

Joe blinked a few times and shook his head. The look in his eyes quickly went from horror to confusion to grief as he remembered where he was and why.

"Where's the waiting room?" he asked, tiredly.

Worry quickly turned to relief for Laura and Fenton, at least temporarily. Silently they walked with Joe down the hall to the waiting area. Seated there with Callie were Ezra Collig and Con Riley. Joe sat in a chair next to his mother, not acknowledging either of them. Con motioned Fenton to the far corner of the room.

"How's he taking it?" Con asked, looking over at Joe.

"A lot worse than I thought," Fenton replied, running a hand through his hair in the exact same manner Frank used when he was upset. "Anything new?"

"Nothing. Vanessa hasn't regained consciousness, so we haven't been able to question her yet, but it's the same M.O. It's gotta be our guy."

"The question is," Ezra Collig interjected, "if it is the guy we're after, did he attack Vanessa because she's engaged to Joe? As a warning to drop the case? Or is it just a horrible coincidence that his latest victim just happened to be Joe's fiancée?"

The three men glanced at Joe once again. He was now sitting in the chair, staring into space, clenching and unclenching his fists over and over again. Laura was speaking to him in a low voice but whatever she was saying was obviously not getting through to her youngest son.

Frank finally appeared at the entrance to the waiting area but stopped short of coming in. Callie jumped up and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder. Frank pulled her close to him and held her tightly, not wanting to let go. Callie tried to pull back slightly, to look him in the eye, but that only caused Frank to hold her even tighter. He started to tremble. She felt dampness on her shoulder and realized he had begun to cry. She let him hold her in the tight embrace, gently stroking his hair, until she felt his arms loosen. She could now lean back and look him in the eyes. The confusion and guilt she saw there broke her heart.

"Frank, what's wrong? Don't you want to be with Joe?"

"Yes," he replied, which was quickly followed by "No."

Callie was confused. Many times over the years, she and Frank had argued about his unwavering devotion to his younger brother. Now, when she completely understood the amount of support Joe was going to need from him, Frank seemed to be turning away.

"I'm sorry, Frank. I don't understand."

Frank opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He dropped his head, looking at the floor as if searching for an answer in the tiles.

"Frank, please tell me what's wrong. I can't help you if I don't know what's going on."

"I…I don't think I can face him," Frank responded.

"Why not?"

"I'm too… too ashamed."

Now Callie was completely confused. What could Frank possibly have to be ashamed of? If ever there were an award for the Perfect Older Brother, Frank Hardy would win, hands down.

"When Dad called to tell us about Vanessa," he continued, "I immediately thought…" He stopped, choking back tears.

"It's okay, honey," Callie said, soothingly. "Go on. You thought what?"

He took a deep breath and blurted out, "I thought 'Thank God it wasn't Callie!'" Callie reached up and wiped a tear from his face, wishing she could also wipe away the guilt that was eating at him. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for thinking that."

Callie put her arms around him and stroked his hair again, as a mother would when comforting a small child. Frank clung to her for emotional support. "I don't know what to say to him. I don't know how to help him. I can't let him see how relieved I am that it wasn't you."

Fenton Hardy, who had emerged from the waiting area a moment earlier, cleared his throat.

Frank looked up, startled.

"Joe isn't with you, is he?" he asked, panicking. He frantically looked past his father. If Joe had heard what he'd just admitted he feared their relationship would be destroyed forever.

"No," Fenton replied. "But the doctor will be out in a minute. They've finished treating Vanessa and are transferring her to a room." He hesitated a moment before asking, "Do you want to come back to the waiting area?"

'No!' Frank wanted to scream. 'No, I don't want to go back. I don't want to see my brother in agony. I don't want to feel guilty because I'm relieved that my wife wasn't raped. I want to go home and lock the doors and hold Callie in my arms and never let her go. I want to pretend this night never happened!'

"Sure, Dad," he replied. Taking Callie's hand he followed his father back to the waiting area.

As they made their way back towards the waiting area, a familiar figure approached from the opposite direction.

"Hello, Fenton," the man said, shaking Fenton's hand and clasping his shoulder. It was Dr. Gary Jackson, who as head of the E.R. had become familiar with the Hardys on their various trips to the emergency room. "I wish I could say it's good to see you again…" his voice trailed off. Fenton nodded in sad agreement and followed Dr. Jackson into the waiting area, Frank and Callie trailing behind.

Upon seeing Dr. Jackson, Joe jumped up. "How is she? Can I see her now?" he asked anxiously.

Dr. Jackson pulled up a chair opposite Joe and motioned for him to sit down again. "They're getting her settled in a room so it'll be a few minutes. Let's talk first, ok?"

Reluctantly, Joe agreed. He knew he had to find out how badly Vanessa had been hurt, but he dreaded having to hear the details of what that animal had done to her.

"First, she's suffered a Grade 3 concussion. More than just a bump on the head, but not life threatening. She'll probably regain consciousness within the next several hours, but will only be awake for a short while before falling asleep again. This pattern will continue for the next twenty-four hours or so. Forcing sleep is the brain's way of trying to heal. She may also feel a little disoriented for the next week or so, get headaches off and on and want to sleep more than usual. These are all normal side effects of a concussion. I expect her to make a full recovery from that."

'Okay, a concussion,' Joe thought. 'I can deal with that.'

"She has some bruising on her wrists from the handcuffs," the doctor continued.

"HANDCUFFS?!" Joe exploded.

Dr. Jackson quickly looked from Fenton to Con to Ezra. "I thought he knew," he said bewildered.

"He apparently used handcuffs to restrain her at some point," Con explained to Joe, hoping that wouldn't prompt another outburst from him.

"We took x-rays as a precaution," Dr. Jackson continued quickly. "They came back negative."

Joe nodded silently, once again starting to clench and unclench his fists.

Dr. Jackson paused, seeming to be searching for the right words before continuing.

"We're running tests for all sexually transmitted diseases. Obviously we don't have the results back yet, but we've started her on antibiotic therapy to lessen the likelihood of any diseases." He hesitated just a moment. "The HIV test needs to be run again in three weeks. Fifty percent of people who are infected with HIV will test positive within twenty-one days of exposure. Presuming that test is negative, she will need to be tested again in three months. Almost everyone who has been infected with HIV will test positive by three months after exposure."

Joe couldn't believe what he was hearing. He was now gripping the armrests of the chair so hard his hands were white. Fenton, who was seated beside Joe, looked over his head trying to catch Frank's eye. Frank and Callie were holding onto each other, both of their faces showing the same look of horror and disbelief. Judging by that look Fenton was afraid if Joe's anger reached the breaking point, Frank would be no help in trying to restrain him. He was relieved that Con and Ezra had not yet left the hospital. Dr. Jackson's voice brought him back to reality.

"Even if that test is negative, she should be tested at six months after exposure. An extremely small number of people take six months to test positive. A final test should be done one year from now, to be absolutely certain she wasn't infected."

'A year?!' Joe thought, horrified. 'She has to keep reliving this horror every three months for a year? How the hell can she even start to recover?'

The doctor continued, "Of course using condoms will be mandatory until that happens."

'This has gone beyond weird! I'm being lectured on methods of birth control in front of my parents.' Joe heard his mother trying her best not to cry. He realized she was reacting to the news that not only Vanessa, but he too could potentially be exposed to the HIV virus, if they were not extremely careful. He wanted desperately to comfort his mother, tell her not to worry, everything would be fine but at this point he wasn't even sure of that himself. He became vaguely aware that Dr. Jackson was asking him a question.

"I'm sorry. What did you say?"

"I asked if Vanessa was taking any form of birth control."

Joe realized Dr. Jackson was implying Vanessa could become pregnant as a result of the rape. That turned out to be more than Joe could take. All the color drained from his face and his vision started to fade. He felt his stomach start to churn. He broke out in a cold sweat and felt as if he were gasping for air.

He felt hands pushing him forward, forcing his head between his knees. He heard voices although they sounded far away.

"Slow, deep breaths, Joe. That's it. Slow and easy." He focused on doing what the voices told him. 'Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. I can do that.'

After several minutes, he finally felt steady enough to lift his head. He leaned back in the chair, keeping his eyes closed. 'Maybe if I don't open my eyes, this will all go away. I'll wake up at home, next to Vanessa. It'll just be a really bad dream.'

He slowly opened his eyes to the concerned faces of his family. "I'm okay now. I'm okay," he said quietly. Looking at Dr. Jackson he replied, "Yeah, she takes some kind of pills but I don't know what they're called."

"That's okay, Joe." Dr. Jackson patted his knee. "At least we can be fairly certain the pregnancy test will come back negative."

"Can I see her now?" Joe asked, pleadingly.

"Of course." A nurse seemed to appear out of nowhere and escorted Joe to Vanessa's hospital room.

Dr. Jackson turned to Chief Collig. "You'll have to wait until tomorrow, at the earliest, to talk to Vanessa. Even if she regains consciousness tonight, she won't be awake long enough to give you much of a statement. You can check with the receptionist on the way out to pick up the evidence collection kit."

He then turned to face the Hardys. "I'll check on Vanessa in the morning. Please let the nurses know if you need anything at all." With that, he returned to the emergency room.

Both Ezra Collig and Con Riley were secretly relieved they wouldn't be questioning Vanessa that evening. Both of them knew initial questioning by the police could be just as traumatic as the rape itself. They left shortly after Dr. Jackson, asking Fenton to let them know if there was anything they could do.

With Vanessa now treated and in a room, Joe by her side and the police gone, the waiting area was eerily quiet. The cumulative effects of the evening's events finally began to show on the Hardy family. Feeling she no longer had to contain her emotions for Joe's sake, Laura broke down in her husband's arms.

Callie turned to Frank and buried her face in his shoulder, closing her eyes. When Frank had confessed earlier that evening that he had been relieved it wasn't Callie who had been attacked, she realized it very easily could have been and the thought terrified her. Vanessa had just been going about her normal day. A simple case of crossed signals and missed messages between her and Joe – something that had happened to Callie and Frank on occasion – resulted in this night of horror. Suddenly she felt very vulnerable and not at all safe. She held tighter to Frank, who returned the embrace. She heard Laura crying openly and realized she hadn't shed a tear all night. Was she in shock at what had happened to her best friend? Was it a self defense mechanism? 'I can't cry,' Callie thought. 'If I start, I'll never stop.' She wanted to be strong for Frank. He'd always been there for her, without fail, and now with Frank at a loss as to how to help Joe, she knew he would need her more than ever.

Fenton Hardy surveyed his family and felt himself holding back tears. He knew the sooner the police could interview a victim, the better; but in this case he almost hoped it could be put off indefinitely. If it was the serial rapist, and so far all indications said that it was, Vanessa wouldn't be able to tell them much anyway.

He had grabbed all his victims from behind when they were alone and isolated – no witnesses to the initial abduction. He would then hit them with some type of blunt object – which was never recovered – rendering them almost unconscious. They were then transported to a second location where the actual rape would occur. The sadistic bastard always made sure they were not completely unconscious; he obviously wanted them to be aware of what was happening but unable to defend themselves or be cognizant enough to notice or remember anything that could help the police catch him. He never spoke and left no evidence behind, other than his own DNA. It had been run through every database available to law enforcement with no match. Whoever it was had no prior record of sexual assault.

He closed his eyes and held his wife closer. Why Vanessa? Joe had asked him that earlier and now he asked the same thing. He looked towards the ceiling as if asking God for the answer. Why? Why Vanessa? What did she do to deserve this? And what about Joe? Everyone knew he'd be devastated but his reaction was much worse than anyone had imagined. How much was he supposed to take in one lifetime? Taking Iola Morton wasn't enough? And now, on top of everything else, he was starting to remember that awful, terrifying weekend from his childhood. He began to fear for his youngest son's sanity and found himself becoming angry with the God he so often turned to for comfort. He wanted answers, needed answers, and they weren't coming.

'Get a hold of yourself, Hardy. You have to stay in control and get your family through this.'

His mind wandered back to the night three months ago, when Joe and Vanessa had shown up at the Hardys to announce they were engaged. Fenton could not have been more thrilled and Laura was beside herself with excitement. Like Frank, they too felt Vanessa had given them back their son. Over the years since he and Vanessa had been together, Joe had slowly returned to the happy, care free person he had been prior to Iola's death. Fenton couldn't remember when it started, but he realized he had already thought of Vanessa as a daughter. Her bubbly, outgoing personality was a perfect match for Joe. He knew the rape would have a permanent effect on her and prayed that with a lot of love and support from Joe and her family and friends, she would eventually be close to the same vivacious person they all loved. He couldn't bear to think of her going through the fear, anxiety and depression that followed some rape victims throughout their entire lives.

"Fenton?" His wife's voice broke into his thoughts. "I want to stay here tonight. They're both going to need us." Then she gasped. "Oh my God! I never got a hold of Andrea!"

Vanessa's mother was out of town at a conference and Laura hadn't had any luck tracking her down.

"Don't worry about it, honey. I'll take care of it." He paused a moment wondering how he was going to break the news to Andrea. "I asked Dr. Jackson to make arrangements for us to stay here tonight. She's in room 332. Why don't you go on up and I'll call Andrea."

Laura turned to Frank and Callie, expecting them to follow her. Frank immediately looked to his father for help.

"Why don't the two of you go on home," he said quickly. "There's nothing you can do tonight. Try and get some sleep." He looked meaningfully at Frank. "They're both going to need a lot of support, especially in the next few weeks."

Frank nodded his understanding. He and Callie both hugged Fenton and Laura, making them promise to call if anything happened during the night and left the hospital holding tightly to each other. Laura headed for the elevator and Fenton stepped outside to call Andrea on his cell phone.