Jaded footsteps walked down the pavement just outside the circumference of Bayport's Park. Dark eyes- brown in the daytime and enigmatic black under the moonlight- cast their sight downwards as clueless hands, shoved into jeans' pockets, jingled the loose change found inside the denim compartments, looking for something to do.

"Fenton! Do something!!! Save my boy! Save my boy!" His mother pounded his father's chest as they helplessly watched the doctor doing his best to revive his brother with the defibrillator. Frank could feel each jolt of electricity through his body, wondering if Joe was actually conscious but only unable to open his eyes. It was so painful to see his brother's suddenly fragile body jerking up only to slam down hard against the bed.

Something to do. His parents had chased him home after he almost fainted with exhaustion right before their eyes. Joe was in the hospital for two days. Two days and Joe hadn't woken up from his operation. He should have. In two days, his brother went into ventricular fibrillation three times. However, his condition was proclaimed to be stabilized and the doctors were actually more hopeful that he should be out of the ICU ward soon.

"Callie… why are you in a wheelchair? Are you all right?" On my God. Was the ambulance too late for you? I… I don't know what I could have done… Callie… I'm so sorry…"

"Frank… Frank, get a grip on yourself. I'm fine… I am… I'm only in a wheelchair because I shouldn't be walking too much. I'm all right." She stood up unsteadily before smiling at him reassuringly. He let out a huge sigh of relief and pulled her close. Even if she should really be paralyzed, he would take care of her forever, out of love. She was the heroine in this sordid tale of parenting gone really wrong for a certain orphan named Richard Thompson.

A loose sheet of newspaper flew with the currents of the sticky, summer night's breeze and plastered itself around his shins. He bent down and peeled it away, setting it free again to flitter in the night. He wanted to walk all the way home from the hospital, not trusting himself to drive but, seeing that he had still a few more streets to go, he grew disheartened and crumbled down to the ground.

"Let the kid go or I'll shoot."

"Frank, look out!!!!"

"Ah…" He let out a soft gasp as his right hand flew to grab his left arm, feeling the phantom pain which symbolized more than the gunshot wound he suffered from his most prolific case. His dark eyes squeezed shut as he confronted a memory that exploited his terrible fear to surface and torment.

The killer, holding a boy hostage as he sprayed bullets at Frank, the policemen and passersby, was a face that Frank could never forget. Three policemen died that night. A young girl was crippled for life and Frank, the 'hero' in the case, escaped with only a bullet in his left arm. It didn't even hit an artery or major nerve. Like that night of carnage, Frank had escaped death, had escaped grievous sufferings. How Fate picked and chose, he would never know. He just thought if he had been standing in the place of one of those fallen policemen, then he would have died. If he had opted to go to Maine instead, then he would be the one in hospital, fighting for dear life.

Not Joe- not his brother.

Joe…

"Pss…Joe! Joe… open the door. Quick! Before daddy see!" Ten-year-old Frank Hardy knocked softly on his brother's door. The door opened shortly and a scruffy, skinny blond little boy peered out with impish, wary eyes, checking if the coast was cleared.

"Frank… you got my Super Mario Bros cartridge?"

"No… but I got you chicken wings left over from dinner. I know you can only eat the plain tomato sauce pasta and soup. The cartridge's in dad's office…"

"I know I can always count on you!!! Quick! Come in before dad sees us!"

The lone man, kneeling in the middle of the pavement at two in the morning, buried his face in his hands as his body shook with the forcefulness of his tears.

***

Special Agent Simon Lee watched the brown-haired young man sipping his cup of coffee like it was an annoyingly necessary but tolerated ritual. He heard from his new found friends that Frank Hardy was living on a sole diet of caffeine, sleeping at most four hours a day. His unshaven face was haggard but his eyes shone with a fierce intensity that was almost frightening. Simon pushed the case file aside and sighed.

Frank Hardy looked at him, scowling lethally.

"What's the bloody sigh for? No one's dead yet."

"I see you're taking lessons from Elle."

His companion snorted before cocking his head at the case file. "You're all trying your darn hardest to tie up the loose ends. There's someone else involved, someone who knew our intentions! That was how Callie and Elle got ambushed. And that's how the Richard Thompson knew how to kidnap Joe! We need to flush out the damn psycho who have access to all these information and now, you're here telling me the case is close!"

"Richard Thompson is a smart man who goes to extremes to keep himself from being caught. Maybe he just had a way to find out what we are doing. This is a man who corroded his fingerprints away, exfoliated and shaved himself all over on a twice daily basis and went to great lengths to impersonate as someone else who didn't have a driving license. He operated from a hermit's house after killing the old man and buried him in the back garden of the farmhouse and all evidence we gathered so far pointed to the work of one man…"

"Good. So Richard Thompson was a seer. I'll buy that completely. Since even you will not listen to me, I think we have nothing to talk about."

"Frank… that's your anger talking."

"And you're my therapist now, Agent Lee. I think I have every right to be angry. I go to the hospital everyday to see my brother lying there as still as a corpse while I try to explain to his daughter why her daddy's sleeping all the time with all those 'scary tubes' in and out of him. Sometimes, he goes into a cardiac arrest which threatens his life. And you know why? It's all because there was someone out there who had been feeding Richard Thompson with all those information so he could kidnap my brother and shoot him in the gut! I'm watching my brother die on some days only to be revived back by those freaking paddles and it's a process that I'm becoming sick of. So tell me it's my anger talking." Frank's perforating gaze pierced painfully into Simon's eyes and he cringed, not knowing how to answer him.

"Forget it. Let's say I believe you. How are you going to sniff out who's the guy or girl?"

Frank slumped back in his chair- his exhaustion suddenly achingly blatant. He smiled grimly, nodding at the case file.

"I might go check the farm. But not today. Joe is determined to be stable enough to get out of the ICU today. I just want to be there."

"All right. Let me re-look at the case file and think over what you said. I'll get back to you this evening."

Frank's smile grew wider, friendlier now that his views were being taken seriously. He nodded silently before asking for the bill. At nine on a Monday morning, a week plus after Hallie was rescued, the two men parted ways outside the small bistro on the edge of downtown Bayport.

***

"Uncle Frank, why is daddy still sleeping?" Little Hallie, having grown tired of pinching Joe's cheeks and stabbing his soles with a blunt pencil, jumped down from the armchair she was sitting on and trotted over to the couch against the wall of the private room. On this couch, Frank spent the night, waiting and hoping, most of the time with his parents, sometimes with Callie, sometimes alone.

And today, the second day Joe was in his new room, he was with Hallie whom Vanessa had asked him to fetch from the therapist as she had some administrative work to do for her office. Frank knew from Callie that Vanessa was having trouble applying for a long leave to look after Hallie until she was all right and was contemplating resignation.

Frank scooped Hallie up and sat her on his lap. "Well, I told you before Hallie. Your daddy is sleeping because he's very sick and needed his rest."

"Then the tubes?"

"They are to bring to him nutrients, medicine and fluids and also, to take away what his body cannot expel…"

"I think daddy's just lazy. Sometimes, daddy sleeps the afternoon away just like that, only to wake up, eat and then sleep again." Hallie wrinkled her nose in annoyance before her face crumbled with a sudden, dark thought.

Dark thoughts- they were not supposed to attack a child so soon. But Hallie was taught fear in one of the worst way possible and her dark thoughts became more frequent- more intense.

"Is daddy not waking up because he doesn't love Hallie anymore? I love daddy very much. I wanna him wake up!"

"Have you told your daddy that you love him very much?" Frank drew her closer and she rested her blonde head on his chest. She pouted a little before shaking her head.

"Why not tell him now?" And let your voice guide him home.

Her eyes sparkled as if he had just hit upon an ingenious idea. Nodding vigorously, she wrapped her arms tightly around Frank as he stood up, with some effort, and carried her over to the bed. She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over, cupping her palms over Joe's left ear as she spoke in hushed whispers of precious words.

Frank stared intently at his brother, waiting for that miracle.

Hallie sat up and frowned, angry at her "lazy" father. "Don't like!"

"Don't worry, Hallie. He will wake up soon, now that he knows you miss him." Frank carried her away from the bed, a lump of bitterness in his throat. They had tried everything- Laura even brought in a plate of her famous waffles, something that could always get Joe out of bed in his teens when everything else failed.

"Hallie! Frank…" The door opened and Vanessa popped her pretty head in, smiling blissfully when she saw her daughter. Hallie struggled in Frank's arms, a gestured signaling that she wanted to be let down. Scampering to her mother who had just stepped into the room, she hugged Vanessa's legs and squealed.

"Mommy! Daddy's still sleeping! Aren't you going to scold him?"

Vanessa cast a wary glance at Frank briefly before bending down to caress her daughter's rosy cheeks, "I think you have scolded him long enough…" Looking up again, she smiled at Frank with a hand on each of Hallie's shoulders.

"Thanks, Frank. For babysitting her. Greg had to rush back to the convention…"

"Shouldn't he be here for you? You're his family." Frank wasn't happy to hear that Greg split so soon the minute Hallie was back. There was still the aftermath to deal with and Vanessa was doing it mostly alone even though Andrea, Fenton and Laura were helping her.

"Hallie's back and it wasn't like he's please to go… I made him. I'm all right. Hallie's all right. Once Joe's better, I'm flying back to L.A."

"And Hallie?"

"Mommy... I wanna stay here with daddy…don't wanna go back yet…" Hallie gazed up at Vanessa imploringly. "You stay too?"

"Daddy Greg's waiting for us…"

"But I wanna daddy now!"

"Hallie!" Vanessa chided her sternly and she bit her lower lips before running away to sulk on the couch. Frank shrugged before gesturing vaguely at Joe.

"When he wakes, I hope you will let him spend more time with Hallie…he's her father."

"Please don't make me out to be some heartless ex-wife, Frank. We were friends and I hope we still are. Have more faith in me… I need to fly back to L.A. to settle some stuff… as for Hallie…" She gazed at her huffy daughter and sighed resignedly, "Hallie deserves to have her opinions heard."

Frank saw the confused shimmer behind her smoldering grey eyes and relented. Divorce was always messy, especially when a child and present spouse were involved. Probably, Vanessa was stretched thin by her responsibilities as a wife and a mother, pulling her in opposite directions. But he knew she would make the decision that was best for Hallie.

Walking over to her, he hugged her briefly and decided to start the conversation, which had turned unintentionally, hostile all over again, "Hello, Ness. Thanks for coming to see Joe."

"Hello to you too, Frank." Vanessa smiled at him before pulling away to pacify her daughter and talk a little to her unconscious ex-husband.

***

"Wake up, you brat! I'm going to be late because of you! C'mon or I'll drive to school without you!"

Too-heavy eyelids tried to lift open but it seemed like a ton of lead was pressing upon each of them. Numbed fingers were impossible to even twitch a little.

Plus the mind was too drowsy. Maybe it was better to continue sleeping. Who needed school on a lazy, Monday morning?

"Joe… please… wake up. I thought you love the waffles? You're going to miss them coz Chet's outside, eying them…"

Chet? In his kitchen? And his mother sounded like she was crying…

"Joe, behind you! JOE!!!!"

"Daddy! Daddy!!!! Where are you???"

A sharp, splintering pain dispersed all over his body. His stomach hurts terribly as droplets of blood splattered out…

Dying… light dimming… giving up… falling…

"I can't let someone like you die with hope… you see, it's not to punish Hallie. It's to punish you. It's a lesson… to be learned."

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Daddy, wake up. I miss you…"

HALLIE!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Daddy, wake up! I'm angry now!!!!!"

TELL ME WHERE'S HALLIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Joe… follow my voice… C'mon… open your eyes… I feel your fingers moving… you can't just tease us like that! Joe! Wake up now!"

Monday Morning. School. Birds chirping… bed warm and comfy

Blood, bald man… dying… falling… falling…

Chest constricting. Fear… Hallie…

"Wake up, you little brat! You have us waiting long enough! I'm sick of this! Get me? There's someone else out there and I need you to get back to work! C'mon!!!!"

Frank… his brother… not letting him die…

He didn't want to die.

"Fwwaank…"

"Joe!"

The blurry features of his brother became focused and then, hazy again. His lips felt like shriveled flakes and his tongue heavy and parched. Someone was holding his hand and he tried desperately to clutch it, hold on to it lest he fall again. The ground was so slippery and he felt so weak…

"Don… let go…"

A dozen of his brother's face sprouted on the broad shoulders. Many identical pairs of dark brown eyes shimmered with tears like stars twinkling away on a dark, clear night. A cool hand pushed his hair behind his forehead.

"It's ok… you're fine now. I know you won't let me down…"

The voice grew distant but he smiled, happy. Someone wasn't going to let him fall again.