A/N: It seems that all I've been doing for the last few chapters is apologize for the long periods of time between updates. I really, truly am sorry about that. You all have been such wonderful readers, such wonderful reviewers, and I feel terrible that I make you wait so long for new chapters. But at the same time, I don't want to rush putting out a chapter that I'm not happy with, because I feel that I owe it to you all to do the best work that I possibly can. So I hope that you all can understand, and forgive me, and continue to stay with me and this story!
Thank you so much to my wonderful betas for their advice and suggestions, both in life and in writing -- you're all invaluable to me. And thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter for all of your comments -- I know I left quite a cliffhanger last time! Hopefully the length of this chapter helps make up for it -- it's the longest chapter yet in this story!
Disclaimer: Trust me, I don't own any of these characters. If I did, "Terror on Tour" would never have happened.
----------------------------
Joe was certain that time had frozen, that it stood still for him and those around him. The explosion of the train, the implications of what it meant for the fate of their fathers had barely begun to sink in when Joe heard Nancy's scream. When she had lunged for Lerner, every muscle in his body had tensed. When the bullet had gone off, Joe had instinctively reached for the weapon that was no longer at his side. And when he saw Frank's blood covering Nancy's hand, every thought in Joe's mind had emptied.
But time had not frozen, and neither, somehow, had he.
Joe ducked low to the ground, and in a move so swift it was nearly indiscernible, he pulled a second handgun from the concealed holster that he always wore around his ankle. Before Krieger could even fully swing his gun away from Nancy and redirect it at him, Joe had already pulled the trigger three times in rapid succession.
Even as dark red blood bloomed bright on Krieger's chest, Joe braced himself for the impact of a bullet. He had known that he could not take out Krieger and Lerner at the same time, that by choosing to shoot the man who had shot his brother he was leaving himself open to a shot from Lerner. But the bullet never came. Joe looked over at Lerner, just in time to see him crumple to his knees, his eyes rolling backwards in his head. And there, behind him, stood Carson Drew and Fenton Hardy, the latter gripping a rusty crowbar tightly in his hands.
Everything seemed to happen all at once then. Joe and Fenton ran over to Frank, while Carson knelt to check for a pulse on both fallen men. Sparing no other thought for the two criminals, Joe turned his full attention towards his brother. Nancy had managed to roll Frank over onto his back, and one glance at his brother's pallid color told Joe that it was very, very bad. A second glance at Nancy's face confirmed this -- she was deathly pale herself, her attention completely focused on Frank, and Joe knew that she had barely registered everything that had just happened around her. Joe wanted to do something, anything, to help his brother, but he knew that there was nothing he could do that Nancy wasn't already doing. So instead, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911, staring silently down at his brother as the phone began ringing.
"How bad?" Fenton asked Nancy, his voice shaking.
"He's alive," Nancy responded, and that was all she could manage to say. She couldn't add the "just barely" that should have followed that statement. When she had checked Frank's pulse moments before, it was thready at best, and he was continuing to lose blood rapidly. Now she was doing her best to keep her hands pressed hard against the wound, trying to stem the pulsing flow. But her hands were slick with his blood, and she could barely maintain enough pressure. Thinking quickly, she unzipped her fleece sweatshirt and stripped it off, rolling it into a ball to press against Frank's wound. His blood quickly soaked through the thick cloth, the red color a bleak contrast to the bright blue of her sweatshirt. Nancy pressed down harder, her lips drawn tight in a grim, thin line. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered Joe's voice barking at the emergency operator that they needed medical assistance now. She knew Fenton was beside her, his anxiety and helplessness nearly tangible. And some part of her knew that her father was alive, that despite all odds, he had survived the explosion. But all of that was just background noise in her head, because Frank was on the ground before her, his blood drenching her hands, his eyes closed as if they would never open again.
Joe disconnected his call with an audible snap as he flipped his cell phone shut. He glanced down at Nancy, who was still applying firm pressure to his brother's wound. She was murmuring softly to Frank, words that Joe could not hear and was sure his brother could not either. Still, Joe hesitated in kneeling down next to Frank, not wanting to interrupt her. Instead, he took a deep breath and approached his father, wordlessly laying a hand on his shoulder. Fenton shuddered slightly, and turned to grab his younger son in a hard, fierce embrace.
"Dad…" Joe said, his voice choked.
Fenton squeezed him tightly. "He'll be okay, Joe."
Joe just nodded against his shoulder, unable to respond. It wasn't fair that he had his father safe with him, something that he and Frank had desperately wanted for what seemed like so long now, and Frank wasn't able to see it and know that their father was okay. The gnawing fear that Joe felt for his brother completely overshadowed the relief that he felt at seeing his father alive. This was supposed to be a happy reunion with their father, and yet it was anything but.
Fenton pulled away from Joe and looked back at the kidnappers, the men who had tormented him and Carson for uncountable hours. Carson was in the process of using the rope that they had been tied up with to secure the wrists of one of the men.
"They told us they knew the three of you. Said they had old debts to settle. What were they talking about?" Fenton asked, his voice gruff as he overcompensated to keep it from cracking.
"We've had run-ins with them in the past, on really old cases back when we were teenagers. They both went to jail." Joe glared at the immobile bodies of Krieger and Lerner, emotions burning fiercely in his eyes. "Apparently they held a grudge."
Fenton looked back at his son, hearing the slight hint of guilt behind the anger. "None of this was your fault, Joe. They were crazy, pure and simple. To hold onto something for that long -- it wasn't a grudge, it was madness."
The strength in Fenton's voice and the conviction in his eyes were reassuring, but Joe looked down at his brother and the words just felt hollow.
----------------------------
"Nancy?"
Carson had come up behind his daughter, and there was a tremulous awe in his voice. He had seen her, known that she was alive, contrary to what the kidnappers had tried to lead him to believe. But now those hated men were out of the way, and his daughter was alive and breathing before him.
Joe stepped away from his father and knelt next to Nancy, placing his hands next to hers on the sweatshirt and pressing down on Frank's inert body.
"Go ahead, Nan," he said quietly. "I've got it."
She nodded and stood up, whirling into her father's open arms. She held onto him tightly, breathlessly. She still couldn't believe that he was alive, that he had somehow survived the explosion. But here he was, solid and steady, right in front of her. Relief turned quickly to sorrow, though, and she burrowed further into Carson's chest, seeking comfort, wishing that he could make everything okay the way that he used to when she was younger. But he couldn't take away the events of the last few days, he couldn't make Frank not be shot and dying.
"Nancy." Carson stroked his daughter's soft hair, wishing that he had some way to comfort her, to reassure her. He knew his daughter was anything but fragile, that she had more strength of mind and character than anyone he knew. But as he held her slender, shaking frame in his arms, he wanted nothing more than to just pick her up and take her away from all of this. He didn't want to see the grief and despair that were in her eyes when she looked at her fallen friend.
"It's going to be okay, honey," he whispered softly, even though they both knew that he had absolutely no way of knowing that.
Nancy just shook her head and pulled away from the embrace. She turned around to look at Frank again. Some desperate part of her still hoped that he would open his eyes, that he would at least regain consciousness, give them a sign, anything. But the rational part of her knew that it was a futile hope, that nothing but immediate medical attention would revive him. Fenton was now kneeling next to Joe, squeezing Frank's hand, murmuring softly to him. Nancy didn't know if Frank could hear him, but she hoped that he could. She wanted him to know that his father was still alive, despite what he last saw before he took the bullet for her. She wanted him to have that anchor to hold onto, to bring him back.
Moving away from her father, she knelt on the ground beside Frank, taking hold of his other hand. If it was an anchor that he needed, she wouldn't let go.
----------------------------
It was the whir of helicopter blades that drew their unwavering attention away from Frank and towards the dimming light of the late afternoon sky. The desperate tension overwhelming all of them and the steadily decreasing flow of Frank's blood had made it seem as if hours had passed in the never-ending wait, but really, Joe knew it had been no more than ten minutes. He frowned slightly as he viewed the side of the helicopter -- it was black, not the standard white and red of a MEDEVAC chopper. As it touched down a safe distance away, everyone waited with bated breath.
SAC Pennington was the first to step off of the helicopter, the spinning blades throwing his short brown hair into a windblown frenzy. He ran towards them, four other agents quickly exiting and following behind. Pennington paused beside the prone bodies of Krieger and Lerner, examining them himself, before turning around to bark orders at his team. Then he continued forward, Joe rising to his feet to meet him while Fenton maintained pressure on his older son's wound.
"Agent Hardy." Pennington looked down at Frank's unmoving, bleeding figure, then fixed his pointed stare on Joe. Joe braced himself for the questions, refraining, just barely, from ignoring the senior agent altogether and finding some way to get his brother on that helicopter. But for once, Pennington surprised him.
"Two of the agents and myself will stay behind with your fathers and the suspect. You and Ms. Drew get your brother on that helicopter and head back to Helena ASAP." Pennington gestured towards the two agents that had just approached behind him, one holding a long, flat red plastic board. From his brief stint as an EMT in River Heights, Joe recognized it immediately as a board that paramedics used to keep patients stable when transporting them. "Agent Lewis here has some training as a paramedic. He and Agent Roberts are going to assist you. There's no point in waiting for the MEDEVAC chopper -- I'll alert the response team to your status."
When Joe didn't respond, Pennington took a guess at the cause of his silence. "You appear to be wondering why we have emergency supplies on hand. Despite our limited acquaintance, Agent Hardy, I can already tell that trouble seems to follow you and your brother around. Even though carrying emergency medical equipment on an FBI chopper is not standard procedure, I thought it best to be prepared."
Joe shook his head, indicating that Pennington had missed his mark. "You said 'suspect'," Joe said quietly, keeping his tone carefully flat. "Does that mean that one of the men is dead?"
Pennington's eyes were sharp, seeing more than Joe would have liked. "Three gunshot wounds to the chest. I'd hazard a guess that he died instantly."
Joe met the older agent's eyes. Pennington had not been there when Krieger had been shot, but somehow, Joe knew that he was aware of who had fired the bullets. But there was no censure in his gaze, as Joe would have expected. Instead, if Joe wasn't mistaken, it was a look of empathy.
Then that fleeting moment was gone. "Time's wasting, Agent Hardy!" Pennington barked, in a glimpse of his usual self. "Go!" Joe nodded without further ado and knelt next to his brother again, assisting Roberts and Lewis, but not before shooting Pennington a grateful look. The older man just nodded, before returning to his other two agents and the fallen criminals. Within mere moments, they had Frank secure on the makeshift stretcher, and Agents Roberts and Lewis lifted him between them. For the first time, Joe felt grateful that his brother was unconscious, because it spared him the pain of being moved. Joe and Nancy rose to their feet, pausing to look at their fathers. Carson and Fenton both nodded at their children reassuringly.
"Go on," Fenton told them. Then, to Joe, "Take…take care of your brother," he said, his voice cracking slightly.
Joe nodded and gave his father one last look before turning to follow his brother and the agents. Nancy, however, stayed rooted to the spot, indecision ripping her apart. She looked at her father, at his bruised, battered face, blood matting his hair and crusted on his skin. She had thought him dead, had felt the unbearable grief for the endless moments when she had watched the train go up in flames. And now he was here before her again, solid, real, and alive. She didn't want to leave him, because there was a part of her that was very afraid that he would disappear again if she turned away. But Frank…Frank was fighting for his life, because of her, because of her rash attack on Lerner. And the thought that he might die, that he might take his final breaths on that helicopter and she wouldn't be there with him…that thought nearly broke her.
"Nancy." The war raging on his daughter's wan face was almost too painful for Carson to watch. "Go. I'm fine, I promise." Still, the indecision remained. "I'm going to stay with Fenton, answer these agents' questions." And something about the way Carson laid a supportive hand on Fenton's shoulder finally registered with Nancy. She took in the hollow look in Fenton's eyes, and the grief and worry etched onto his pale face. He wasn't nearly as steady as he seemed, and Carson appeared to realize that. Instinctively, Nancy knew that her father wanted to help his friend, and with Nancy there, she would only be in the way. It was that thought that made up her mind for her, and after giving her father one last quick, tight hug, she took off after Joe.
----------------------------
The flight to the hospital was probably the most agonizing thirty minutes that Joe had ever endured in his life. He spent them hovering over his brother's prone form, grasping Frank's hand tightly, conveying every fear, every emotion he had through that grip rather than try to put them into words. He wanted to shake his brother, yell at him for letting himself get shot, go back and shoot Krieger all over again for hurting his brother, rewind time and find some way, some moment where he could have kept his brother from taking that bullet. But he could do none of that, he couldn't help his older brother, his partner, his friend, and the feeling of being able to do absolutely nothing nearly killed him. He tried to focus on Nancy instead, who was on the other side of his brother, holding his other hand, but he found no solace there. Her fear and desperation were written plainly across her face, and he knew that it was merely a distorted reflection of his own, too painful to look at. Vaguely, from somewhere far away, he could hear the pilot ask for special permission to land on the hospital's helipad, and all he could think was Thank God, we're here, and Frank's still breathing.
The rush from the helicopter to the emergency room was a blur, with doctors and nurses rapidly firing questions, commands, and directions at him, the other agents, and each other. Frank was transferred to a stretcher and wheeled away, the chaos trailing in his wake and leaving Joe and Nancy behind in a silent waiting room. Agents Roberts and Lewis politely excused themselves, but Joe barely heard their murmured words. All he could do was stare at the swinging double doors that Frank had been taken through, with the stark realization in the pit of his stomach that that may very well have been his last glimpse of his older brother alive. His throat burned, tears and grief clawing at it, but before he could release any of that, he felt a slender hand slip into his own and squeeze. Nancy stood beside him, her own gaze fixed on those same doors.
"Now we wait," she said softly.
Joe could only nod.
----------------------------
Two hours of waiting, and they still had no word on Frank. The only information they had been given was that he had been taken into surgery, and they were given directions by a harried nurse to the surgery wing to wait there. This waiting room was considerably more comfortable than the ER waiting area, presumably because concerned families and friends usually had much longer to wait for word on their loved ones. There was a large, overstuffed sofa covered with a floral slip cover, faded pink and green flowers against a light blue background. Matching sofa chairs sat across from the couch, with a mahogany coffee table littered with magazines between them. Other smaller, wooden chairs were interspersed along the walls of the room, separated by end tables alternately holding more magazines and small lamps that attempted to soften the harsh illumination of the fluorescent lights overhead. The light pastels and floral décor of the room were obviously meant to be soothing to those waiting, but it was completely lost on Nancy and Joe, who were both deeply immersed in their own thoughts, handling their anxiety and fear in their own ways. Joe alternated between pacing back and forth repeatedly, sitting on the edge of one of the big chairs and muttering to himself, or badgering any of the nurses who happened to be passing by for more information on his brother. Nancy had merely sat silently, unnaturally still, immune to Joe's movements. She had only left the waiting room once, to go to the restroom, where she had washed the blood, Frank's blood, off of her hands. Even now, she could still see the diluted red liquid circling the drain, being washed away, and the memory left a hollow feeling deep inside her.
Shortly after nine, they heard the sound of raised voices at the nurses' station down the hall. Both Nancy and Joe rose, recognizing the voices of their fathers. From the sound of it, a stern nurse was trying to get the men to seek medical attention for their injuries, while their only concern was trying to get information on Frank's condition. A moment later, their fathers appeared in the waiting room, the frustration on their faces indicating that they had gotten no more information out of the nurse than Joe and Nancy had managed.
"Dad!" Nancy launched herself into her father's open arms, still getting used to the fact that he really was okay and alive in front of her. Carson winced slightly as her momentum jarred his bruises, but he returned her tight embrace, equally reassured by the feel of her safely in his arms. Joe approached his father more sedately, but he gripped his father in an equally tight hug, and through the embrace, he could feel the slight tremors shaking Fenton's body. His father had been through so much -- his battered face was a testament to that -- and now he had to endure the horror of a son who had been shot and possibly fatally wounded.
Joe didn't know if his father was trying to reassure him or draw strength from him, but Fenton held on tightly for a few moments before finally releasing him. The older man surreptitiously wiped at his eyes before fully looking at his son. "Did you call your mother already?"
Joe nodded, not saying anything else, because he had absolutely no way to describe the range of emotions that Laura had gone through, from first hearing that her husband was alive and safe, to hearing that one of her sons was shot and might not live through the night. Finally, all he said to his father was, "You should call her yourself."
Fenton dropped his gaze away from Joe's, uncharacteristically uncertain. There was nothing that he needed more right then than to hear the sound of his wife's voice, to share his fears and worries about Frank with her. But how could he face her, tell her that she may very well have traded a son for her husband, that Frank was injured because he had been trying to save him?
A hand on his shoulder jarred Fenton from his thoughts, and he turned to look at Carson, who had approached him with one arm still tight around his daughter's shoulders. "Fenton, Joe's right. Laura will want to hear from you." Fenton still wasn't sure of that himself, but he nodded. Joe handed him his cell phone, and Fenton stepped outside of the waiting room to make the call.
Nancy looked up at her father. "Dad, do you feel up to telling us what happened?" Carson nodded and walked over to the sofa chair that Joe had recently occupied. Nancy perched on the arm of the chair, while Joe scooted some magazines aside and sat on the edge of the coffee table across from Carson. The older man gave them a small, beleaguered smile. "Sorry, kids, I'm just feeling a little drained." Nancy instantly put an arm around his bowed shoulders and squeezed. "It's okay, Dad. You've had a rough past few days." Joe nodded in agreement, and Carson pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed, and then began.
"It all started with a phone call that I received in my office, fairly early on Monday morning. Margaret transferred the call to me, saying that it was someone from the Chicago Medical Center, and it sounded urgent. The man on the phone introduced himself as Dr. Kimball and said that my daughter had been brought into the hospital with a gunshot wound to the chest. I didn't think, I just dropped everything and ran." Carson shook his head in disgust. "I didn't even make it to my car. I had only made it two steps into the parking lot before I was attacked from behind. I tried to fight back, but I was overpowered and knocked out. When I came to, I was bound and gagged on a cold concrete floor, and I could tell that I had been drugged. My mind was still hazy, but I could make out your voice, Nancy. That's when I knew that I had been had, that this had all been an elaborate set-up to get to you." Carson gave his daughter and Joe an apologetic look. "I can't begin to tell you both how foolish I felt. And to know that my error in judgment dragged you into this mess…"
Nancy interrupted him with a gentle squeeze of his shoulders.
"There was no way you could have known, Dad."
"Maybe." But Carson still sounded doubtful. "I remember an explosion, and then being dropped down somewhere, maybe underground. I could barely walk, so one of the kidnappers was half-dragging, half-carrying me. I remember making it to a car, being shoved into a backseat with someone else, and then I passed out. When I came to again, I was in a motel room, and the kidnappers were gone. That's when I discovered that Fenton was there with me. They had removed our gags, so we were able to talk, not that it did us much good. Fenton had experienced the same thing that I had -- he had gotten a call that his sons had been critically injured in a car accident in D.C. Apparently, he left his office immediately just as I had -- I suppose he figured on making his flight arrangements from the car. Of course, he never did make it to his car; he was attacked just as I was."
Carson took a deep breath. "Not that figuring this out did us any good. We still didn't know where we were, or what was going on. We were still tied up, so we couldn't even look around to try to figure out where we were. All we could hear from our room was the sound of traffic and trains constantly going by."
Joe caught Nancy's eye. "That must have been when they were in Chicago, setting up the bomb at Bess and George's place. The trains they heard were probably the L."
Carson leaned back to look up at his daughter, shocked. "Are Bess and George alright?"
Nancy nodded. "Thankfully, we got there in time to defuse the bomb." She didn't mention how they knew to go there in the first place, the clue that had been left on her mother's grave. She didn't want to distress her father further.
But Carson's shoulders still remained tense under her arm. "I can't believe they tried to drag Bess and George into this," he muttered. "Those men…" But then he shook his head. "Sorry, I'm digressing. Anyway, the kidnappers came back, and then one of the men left, and he was gone for a long time. But the other kidnapper was still there. He only left once, to bring us some food. I could tell that Fenton was as shocked as I was, because it was actually a decent meal for a change." Carson let out a low, bitter laugh. "Little did we know that the food was drugged. Next time we regained consciousness, we were in another dingy motel room. And the other man was back."
Carson stopped, and Nancy assumed that he was just catching his breath. But when a few seconds went by and he didn't continue, she shot Joe a concerned look.
"Dad?" she prompted gently.
"He told me you were dead." Carson's voice shook as he said those words, as he relived the mind-numbing horror of that moment. "He said that you were in an explosion, and that…that…that they'd still be picking up pieces of you."
Carson felt nauseated, the mere memory of that moment twisting in his stomach. He looked up at Nancy then, seeing the sympathy and concern on her beautiful face. The sight of that face, whole and uninjured, helped ease the knots in his stomach a little.
Nancy shifted her weight on the armrest so that she could lean over and rest her cheek against the top of her father's head briefly, seeking and giving comfort at the same time.
"I'm fine, Dad," she said softly. "I promise."
Then she straightened, continuing. "There was an explosion that morning, at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. I was supposed to be there -- the clue that the kidnappers left us at Bess and George's told me to go there alone. But Frank and Joe stopped me, saying that we shouldn't split up." Nancy shot Joe a quick, grateful look, which he returned with a smile. Then he caught the look of confusion on Carson's face.
"The kidnappers were leaving us a trail of clues," Joe filled in, picking up on the cause of the confusion. "We were supposed to follow the clues in order to find you and Dad. The Memphis clue was the first one that we disobeyed, because there was something that just didn't feel right about it. It's good that we did, obviously. But somehow, the kidnappers found out that Nancy had survived the explosion. That's when they stopped giving us clues, and we had to figure out on our own where you were."
"So that's what made them so angry," Carson said in a low voice, almost too low to hear. Nancy gave him a questioning look. "What do you mean, Dad?"
Carson glanced up at her. "After they told me about your death, the two men left for a while. When they came back, they were very angry and upset about something. That's when they…" Carson's gaze dropped away from Nancy's. "Well, let's just say that they decided to take that anger out on us, without ever telling us why." He was deliberately vague, because he wanted to spare his daughter the details. But he couldn't hide the bruises on his face, and the tightening of Nancy's arm around his shoulders and Joe's clenched fists told him that they knew what he had not said.
Carson continued, trying to take their minds off of his and Fenton's injuries. "They blindfolded us after that, maybe to punish us further by taking away even our sense of sight. Eventually, after I don't know how long, they took us out of the motel room and put us in a car. When we got out, they shoved us into a dark compartment and took off the blindfolds, and we realized we were on a freight train. The train started moving, and we went for a while before it came to a sudden stop. We had no idea what was going on, until one of the kidnappers showed up again and told us that our time was up. Then he left a bomb on the floor of the train car, right in front of us."
"But how did you guys escape?" asked Joe.
He was answered by a low chuckle behind him, and he looked up to see his father smiling at him. "Surely you haven't forgotten that your old man still has a few tricks up his sleeve?" Fenton queried.
Carson laughed. "That he does. One of the crates in the freight car with us had the sharp end of a nail poking out of it. Fenton happened to find it while we were trying to work our way out of our bonds, and he used it to saw through the ropes on his hands. Then it was simply a matter of untying ourselves and getting out of that car.
"And for the record," Carson continued with a slight smile, "I was the one to find the crowbar on the floor of the car and brought it along in case we needed it."
"And useful it was," Fenton agreed, but the smile rapidly left his face as the memory of what had preceded the use of that crowbar came flooding back. Carson seemed to realize what his words had triggered at that same instant.
"Fenton-"
But the other man merely shook his head, and Joe rose to his feet to clap a hand on his father's shoulder.
"He's going to pull through, Dad."
Joe wasn't sure when he became the one doing the reassuring instead of being reassured himself, but his father seemed to need it at that moment. Fenton gave him a tight smile, and Joe attempted to change the subject.
"What did Mom say?"
"She's going to be coming here on the first flight out tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, there weren't any flights out tonight, but I told her that we still didn't have any word on Frank's condition and that we would let her know as soon as we heard anything." Fenton clenched a fist in frustration. "I don't understand why they haven't told us anything yet!"
As if the higher powers had just been waiting for him to utter those words, two large, mechanical double-doors across from the waiting room whirred open, revealing a pristine white hallway beyond. A petite figure dressed in standard teal hospital scrubs walked through, the doors swinging shut behind her. She pulled down the paper surgical mask covering her mouth and nose as she walked, revealing a young, pretty face. There were lines of weariness around the woman's mouth, and her eyes were hesitant, searching. She seemed to find what she was looking for, however, when her gaze alighted upon the group in the waiting room, and she rapidly walked towards them. Everyone rose to their feet anxiously as she approached.
"Are you the family of Mr. Frank Hardy?"
"We are," Fenton assured her quickly. "How is he?"
"He's still in surgery. I'm Dr. Amy Masters, the resident on the case. The surgeon asked me to come out and give the family an update. Right now, our best estimate is that he'll be in surgery for another three to four hours. We're doing our best to repair the damage that he sustained."
There was a pause, where everyone clearly expected her to continue, but she didn't seem to have anything more to say. Joe was the first to burst out with, "That's it? That's all you have to tell us?"
The resident looked taken aback. "Well, yes. I'm sorry, sir, but I'm not at liberty to say more without the surgeon's consent."
"That's crap," Joe retorted, and the low growl in his voice had Dr. Masters taking a small step back, her face paling slightly. Fenton laid a restraining hand on Joe's arm, but his expression clearly stated that he was as unhappy with this sparse explanation as his son was.
"Dr. Masters," Fenton said, in a slightly more controlled voice than Joe's. "You have to understand, that's my son in there. It's his brother. We're all in law enforcement, we know the risks. We've heard bad news before, and we've delivered our fair share as well. We just need to know. How is he, really?"
The resident still looked uncertain; it was obvious that she had not expected this much resistance and was not used to dealing with it from family members.
"Please." This time it was Nancy that spoke, and her voice shook slightly on the word. Whether it was the barely suppressed fear in her voice, Fenton's sensible approach, or merely the resident's desire to return to the operating room, Dr. Masters finally gave in.
"Look, I can't tell you much. There was an entry wound but no exit wound, and we've located the bullet inside his chest cavity with the X-rays but haven't been able to remove it yet." She took a deep breath, clearly reluctant to continue but forging on anyways. "There's a lot of internal bleeding from damage caused by the bullet. We're doing our best to repair it…" Dr. Masters paused, and it was obvious that she was now re-thinking her entire decision to say anything at all.
"But?" Joe prompted, dreading what she might say next but needing to hear it anyways.
Dr. Masters squared her small shoulders, her brown eyes becoming more resolute. "The bullet grazed his heart." She ignored the gasps and continued. "It's relatively minor damage, but heart injuries are always tricky." Her gaze had turned inward, as if picturing the body on the operating table that she had just left behind, mentally assessing the damage. But as she refocused on the four people in front of her and the stricken looks on their faces, she hastily tried to reassure them. "Dr. Andrew Warner is his surgeon; he's the best cardiothoracic surgeon in the state. Mr. Hardy's in good hands, I assure you. We're going to do everything we can to save him."
She didn't know whether her reassurances had any impact -- everyone's faces were still incredibly pale, and the older man who had identified himself as the patient's father looked as if the hand he had on his son's arm was the only thing that was holding him up. She gave them a sympathetic look but made her voice firm when she told them, "I'm sorry, but I really have to get back to the operating room now."
Fenton merely nodded wanly, and Dr. Masters turned to leave, breathing a small sigh of relief as she walked away and feeling guilty for it at the same time. She hated dealing with people that weren't anesthetized and lying on an operating table. It was irritating, really, that as a resident, she was put in the situation of giving updates to family members, yet she was not really allowed to tell them much of anything at all. She shook off her irritation, though, as the mechanical doors whirred open once more and she stepped back into the sterile environment of the surgery wing, where she was most comfortable. All that mattered now was saving the patient; that was all that ever mattered in the end.
----------------------------
Joe led his father to the chair next to the one that Carson had previously occupied, and Fenton sat down heavily. Despite his insistence on wanting to know the reality of Frank's condition, a part of him had remained cautiously optimistic that his son's injuries would not be grave, that the doctor would come out and tell them that Frank would live and make a full recovery. But Dr. Masters' report had quickly dispelled that illusion, and now there was nothing to do but wait, and pray.
Joe took in his father's pale face, the deep circles under his brown eyes, the lines of worry creasing his brow. He had never seen his father look more worn down before, and it scared the hell out of him.
"Dad, you need to get yourself checked out." Joe looked over at Carson next. "You too, Mr. Drew."
Both men began to protest simultaneously, but Joe cut them off. "Look, there's nothing we can do for Frank right now. You've both been through a huge ordeal, and you haven't received any medical treatment yet. The emergency room's right downstairs -- it won't hurt to go and get yourselves checked out by a doctor. If we hear anything about Frank, anything at all, we'll let you know right away."
"Joe, we're fine," Fenton stated firmly. Carson nodded his head in agreement. But Nancy didn't look convinced either.
"You're both injured," she argued. "Joe's right -- you need to at least let a doctor see you." Both men began to interrupt again, but she was just as quick in cutting them off as Joe. "We're already worried enough about Frank as it is…please don't make us worry about you too."
That seemed to take the wind right out of the older men's sails, and Fenton rose wearily to his feet as Carson gave a rueful sigh.
"You always were good at the guilt trips, Nancy." But there was no reproach in his words; if anything, it was fatherly pride.
Fenton looked at Joe. "You promise to come find us the minute you hear anything?"
Joe nodded solemnly. "I promise."
----------------------------
Eleven o'clock came and went, and there was still no word on Frank. Joe and Nancy had leapt up anxiously when a nurse had come by to tell them that they had a phone call at the nurses' station. But it had been Fenton, calling to tell them that the ER doctor had wanted to keep him and Carson overnight for observation, and that they were now checked into their own hospital rooms. Fenton had left the extension to the phone in his room with Joe, reiterating his request that Joe call him the second he heard anything about Frank. Both Joe and Nancy had returned to the waiting room dejected, and they now sat in silence, both lost in their own deep thoughts once again. Nancy finally broke that silence tentatively.
"Joe, I'm sorry about Frank."
"I know, Nan." His voice was thick. "I am too."
"No, that's not what I meant." She waited until he turned to look at her, until his confused eyes met hers.
"I meant that it's my fault that he got shot. And I can't tell you how sorry I am for that."
Joe just shook his head, stunned. "How do you figure that it's your fault, Nancy?"
Nancy rose to her feet, agitated, reddish-blonde strands of hair slipping loose from her ponytail with her jerky motion. Joe didn't think he had ever seen his friend look more distraught.
"Of course it's my fault!"
Before Joe could even open his mouth to argue, Nancy continued, getting progressively more upset.
"If I hadn't tried to rush Lerner after the explosion, then Krieger wouldn't have tried to shoot me. And Frank wouldn't have gotten in the way, and he wouldn't be shot. He wouldn't be here, fighting for his life right now!"
Joe just stared at Nancy, confounded by the path her twisted logic had taken her down. She had summed up the sequence of events, yes, but it hadn't even occurred to him until now that she might see herself as the root cause of all of this. In his mind, it was simple: they had been in a dangerous situation, and it had ended badly. End of story.
Nancy began pacing in the small space between the overstuffed chairs and the coffee table, her fears and frustration and guilt finding some form of outlet in the movement. Joe stood up abruptly and caught her mid-pace, his firm hands on her shoulders stilling her motion. Her chin immediately dropped downward, lowering her eyes away from his. She didn't want to face him, didn't want to look him in the eye, not with all of this guilt clawing away at her, telling her that she was the one responsible for the condition that his brother was in.
"Nancy." When she still didn't look up, he caught her chin in one hand and forced her gaze up to his. When he released it, he half-expected her to look away from him again. But no matter how beaten down she may have been feeling, Nancy still had more backbone than that. Joe was glad to see it.
"If you hadn't rushed at Lerner, I would have."
She had been expecting platitudes, the standard reassurance of how it wasn't her fault, how she couldn't have known for sure that Krieger would have pulled the trigger. But she hadn't expected this blunt declaration from Joe. She gave him a searching look, trying to decide if he had made that assertion just to keep her from feeling that she had been the only one acting rashly. Apparently he had already anticipated that assumption, though.
"I'm not kidding, Nancy. After that explosion went off, it was like something burst inside me too. I wanted to hurt something, someone. I wanted to take down Lerner, for taunting us, for killing our fathers. You just beat me to the punch."
Nancy's blue eyes were still haunted. "That doesn't change the fact that Frank got shot because of the way I reacted. That bullet was meant for me, Joe." She took a deep breath, and felt tears threaten. "I should be the one lying on that operating table, not him."
Joe's grip tightened on her shoulders, almost painfully.
"Don't say that, Nancy. Frank took that bullet because he was trying to protect you. If I had been any closer or any quicker, I would have done the same." Joe ignored Nancy's sharply indrawn breath and continued. "And you know you would have done the exact same for either one of us, if the situations had been reversed. That's just how the three of us are. It doesn't matter how much time has gone by since we all worked together; we watch each other's backs and look out for each other. Don't lessen what Frank did by feeling guilty about it."
It took several tries for Nancy to find a way to respond. When she finally did, all that she managed was, "When did you get so smart?"
Joe flashed her his trademark Hardy grin, and just that easily, he dispelled some of the tension that had risen between them.
"I've always been smart, Drew. You've just always been too blinded by my brother to notice."
When Nancy gaped at him, searching for an adequate retort, Joe just chuckled and pulled her in for a tight hug.
"It's going to be okay, Nan," he murmured into her hair, serious once again.
She nodded against his chest, but her throat had tightened and she didn't respond. He gave her a quick squeeze before releasing her.
"Come on," he said, dragging a hand through his curly blonde hair, suddenly weary. "We should at least try to get some shut-eye tonight."
"I don't think I can sleep, not knowing what's going on with Frank."
"Me neither," Joe conceded. "But we're not going to be any good to him if we don't take care of ourselves."
He had a point that Nancy couldn't argue. "I'll go check at the nurses' station to see if they have any blankets and pillows to spare. Be right back," Joe continued, walking away. Nancy took that moment to take another look around the waiting room. There was just that one couch, and those two large sofa chairs. She took one of the chairs, leaving the couch to Joe, who was taller and broader than her and could use the extra space.
Joe returned minutes later, carrying two beige blankets, made of thin, scratchy-looking wool, and very much fitting the stereotypical image of standard-issue hospital blankets. Seeing her in the chair, he nudged her leg with his foot.
"Up you go, Drew. You're taking the couch."
"You're taller than me, Joe," Nancy protested. "You should take the couch."
"Nuh-uh." Joe shook his head stubbornly. "My mother would have my hide if she found out that I forced you to sleep in an uncomfortable chair. Despite appearances, she did raise me to be a gentleman." He grinned. "Besides, do you have any idea how many stake-outs you have to do when you're the low man on the totem pole at the Bureau? I sleep more sitting up these days than I do lying down."
Nancy laughed, and the sound surprised her. She didn't think that she could laugh, not with the way things were and Frank being in the condition that he was in. Trust Joe to prove her wrong. She rose from the chair, returning his grin.
"Fine, you win. But don't complain to me tomorrow if you wake up all stiff and sore."
"Deal." Joe handed her one of the blankets, and she walked over to the couch, lying down and spreading the blanket over herself. As much as she hated to admit it, it did feel good to be able to stretch out a little, and she closed her eyes as she felt some of the tension begin to seep from her body of its own accord. Second later, she felt something prodding at her head, and her eyes shot open again.
"Relax, Drew," Joe said, standing over her and pointing to a black misshapen ball next to her head that Nancy recognized as his rolled up leather jacket. "They didn't have any spare pillows, so I figured you could make do with this."
She shouldn't have been surprised at his kind gesture, but she was. Wordlessly, Nancy raised her head slightly, and Joe slipped the jacket under it. When he started to turn to go back to his makeshift bed for the night, she caught his wrist in her hand.
"Thank you, Joe," she murmured softly. She wasn't only referring to the jacket.
"Don't sweat it, Nan." Neither was he.
----------------------------
Nancy slept fitfully, catching snatches of sleep between long periods of lying on her back, staring at the fluorescent-lit ceiling. When she did sleep, she dreamt…flashing, fleeting images of explosions, gunshots, blood, and screams. Compared to that, the artificially lit ceiling above her seemed like blissful relief. But it couldn't prevent her awakened mind from wandering, seeing the same images in her mind's eye that her dreams had shown her, her fear for Frank nearly crushing her with its weight. She did not look over at Joe, afraid that he would be watching her toss and turn restlessly, afraid that she would see the same disquieting thoughts in his eyes. It was after four o'clock in the morning when he finally fell into a quiet, deep sleep. Nancy knew, because she had been checking the glowing dial on her watch frequently under the blanket, waiting to hear the sound of Joe's even breathing.
She sat up silently, the blanket making a whisper of sound as she pushed it off of her onto the sofa. Just as quietly, she reached into the pocket of Joe's jacket and withdrew the flat, hard object that had been pressing against her cheek for the past two hours, its corner leaving a slight reddened indent in her skin that she absentmindedly tried to rub away. She rose to her feet, her head spinning slightly as her exhaustion caught up with her. But she steadied herself, and with her innate stealth, slipped past Joe quietly to exit the waiting room. She stopped and looked back at him for a moment, already regretting the anxiety that she would cause him if he were to awake and find her gone. But this was something that she wanted, that she needed, to do alone. She could only hope that he would understand.
----------------------------