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Author's Note: Sorry for the wait. Next couple of chapters will be up in a couple of days. And thank for the added reviews. Now that I know someone is actually reading and enjoying, I'll happily continue.

Disclaimer: The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and all related characters owned by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. No copyright infringement intended.

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Gripping his brother's cell phone in one hand, Joe Hardy lightly touched the door to his old room with the other, hesitating before turning the knob. His parents' room hadn't looked a bit different than he remembered, and Aunt Gertrude's was the one Frank and Bess claimed now, so he hadn't even looked. But this was a childhood haunt, and more a nerve wracking target.

"Are you going to stare at the notches in the wood all day or go in?" Frank asked gruffly from behind, slipping the cell phone out of his brother's hand. Grabbing the knob as Joe released it, he stepped in. "It's pretty much the same. I'll move the rest of my stuff up to the attic in a couple of days so you can make the space your own."

"You don't have to. I kinda got used to having your stuff in my way." Swinging open a closet door, the younger Hardy offered an embarrassed smile. "Okay, maybe the clothes. I think Bess will get a shopping trip in before Christmas. I've probably dropped a couple of sizes."

"I think you're more my old size." His brother agreed easily. "So wear some of my old stuff. It isn't that out-dated, and it's not like you'll be going anywhere beyond the hospital. You can't exactly play hooky forever. There is the matter of having the feeding tube removed."

"I know you didn't have to bring me home so soon, and believe me I appreciate it." Joe shuddered briefly in remembrance of the nursing home. He was sure it was a great place, but just not his kind of place. "But if I'm in the way…"

"I've gotten used to it." Tones dipping abruptly from banter to terseness, Frank sat on the edge of one of the beds, hands twisting the braided throw over it absently. "Before Bess finishes dinner…before everyone else steals your time…I think we need to talk."

"Probably so." Settling on the other bed, Joe Hardy studied his older brother. "How did you manage it?"

"How did I manage what?"

"How did you manage landing a girl like Bess? I mean, she was just never into you, Frank. She had the attention span of a gnat back then, and you were Mr. Scientific American. She liked you as a friend, but extended conversation with you made her eyes glaze. How did you convince her to do the 'until death do us part' thing?"

Maybe it wasn't exactly a fair summary, he realized almost immediately. Bess had been in an accident with her boyfriend during her freshman year at Wilder and the man had died. She'd been devastated, and the Bess Marvin they'd known hadn't been evident at all when he and Frank had made a condolence visit to River Heights. But still, she had seemed to change back to her old self as the wounds faded. But it would be foolish to assume all the scars were superficial, he thought grimly, remembering Iola Morton with a brief, aching pain. He'd lost his heart before as well. And nothing had ever really been the same since. It hadn't even been right with Vanessa on so many of the important levels. Maybe she and Phil were better suited after all…she had sounded happy on the phone. He missed the feeling.

Frank chuckled, drawing his brother's attention again. The elder Hardy ran a hand through still damp hair. "That may have had something to do with it. You see, I took on just a couple of cases after…well, after. One of them involved the Addison brothers. You know, Cole and Cooper…"

"Yeah." A smile rose despite. On one of the numerous cases they'd solved together, the Hardy's had teamed up with Nancy and Bess to play two married couples. Bess and he had been stuck together, maybe not so wisely, and Frank and Nancy…he frowned. "The mystery only involved Cole Addison and his sister-and-law?"

"Nikki and Rebecca never existed, remember. The entire case was a joke on us." Frank pointed out. "But as it turned out, the very real Cole Addison remembered the call I made to him while we were in Egypt. A few years later when he did decide to get married, she was a blonde. And they both needed decoys. By then Callie and I had already broken up and weren't exactly on speaking terms, much less in the same town. I didn't want to work with a stranger, and I…well, I owed Bess for some previous misconceptions. She was an obvious choice. She knew the case."

"I guess so." Standing, Joe smiled slightly.

"It was the longest case I'd ever done…" Frank frowned. "And it was very nearly the last one. Bess and I were undercover and connected at the hip for over two months. You'd think we'd have forgotten how not to be together by the time it was over." He skipped a beat, and then sighed wistfully. "I suppose we just made a mistake thinking time put in playing a married couple could equate to happiness once we were back to being ourselves. We bought into the game, and it ended."

"You make it sound as if it's already over. That's not you, Frank, not after nearly four years. You're not the type of person who gives up on something that means so much to you."

"Not everything can be like the old days again." His brother repeated, standing as well and moving towards the door. "We'll talk about what I came for later."

Joe swallowed his own sigh. Whatever brief connection he'd finally felt with is older brother again was fading fast. Maybe he just wasn't the same guy.

"Dinner should be ready soon." The target of his ruminations said from the doorway. "But you've got time for a shower. Just take whatever you want to wear."

"Okay." Forcing a smile, Joe headed for the closets, tugging out an old team shirt and pair of running shorts from Frank's area. Throwing them on the bed, he hesitated once more before lifting the telephone off the nightstand and digging in his robe pocket. He'd jotted down the link to Hawaii downstairs.

Waiting for the connection was hell.

"Hardy residence." A slow, careful voice finally responded from the other end of the connection, a distance that might as well have been the other end of the world.

Dad…Joe gripped the phone receiver more tightly. "This is the Hardy residence too."

A long moment of silence stood between them, and the younger man shifted restlessly, worry gnawing at his gut. Maybe he shouldn't have surprised the old man. "Dad…" he prompted.

"Joseph, is that you?" Fenton Hardy's voice held momentary steel, all signs of grogginess gone.

"Yeah, Dad, it's me." Relief flooding his entire body, Joe sat on the edge of the bed. "I bet you never expected to hear from your favorite son again…"

With an abrupt click, the call was terminated.

Joe threw the phone off the table and halfway across the room.

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Head cocking to take in the second muffled thud in as many minutes from upstairs, Bess dropped her spatula. "Frank, do you think we should check on Joe…"

"Joe's fine." Forcefully cheerful tones descended the staircase. Joe slipped into a chair at the dining table beside his brother, tugging his fresh shirt down. "Just clumsy…so what's for dinner?"

"Spaghetti…it's my own special blend." Bess informed him, sliding a platter of garlic bread and sauce onto the table beside the rest of the meal before taking her seat.

"So…" The younger Hardy fought to find a topic of conversation to break the hovering silence.  Frank rustled his newspaper, head ducking further behind its print.

"Frank." Bess' tones escaped behind his self-imposed wall with a trace of annoyance. "The food is served."

"Okay, okay." Making a show of carefully folding and tucking the reading material, Frank stared at them.

"So…" Joe inserted again, even more loudly. His glare reflected shared annoyance with his old friend. "Frank, you lost that newspaper job you were so proud of?"

"Actually, that was the second case I mentioned." Frank measured his tones and took a bite from his bread, brows furrowing in remembered pride and amusement. "I was assigned to write up on a financial scam at one of the New York brokerage firms. It ended up that our chief reporter's daddy was dipping into the game, and she knew but didn't tell. It wasn't considered cultured for a first year intern to go and ruin a star writer's reputation like that. I was welcomed to leave."

"But you had to have a zillion other papers asking." His brother said skeptically.

"There were a few. Our sleuthing didn't hurt my credentials as an investigative journalist. But I was already tired of it by then. I couldn't see myself thirty years old globe trotting to unmask wrongs…it had already taken too much of me, too much from me. And it wasn't fun going the way alone. I couldn't expect Bess to replace you. It wouldn't have been fair to either of us."

"Actually, there was more. My agent threatened disembowelment if Frank dragged me to the ends of the earth and risked marring my lovely profile again." Bess teased, clearly attempting to lighten the move. "That Addison case he said he told you about earned me a free nose job. Of course, the reconstructive one was the hefty bill we had to foot. Frank had to take a tech job just to save a poor actress from being ruined."

"Wow." Sounding impressed, Joe focused his gaze on the pert nose lifted before him. "Never would have noticed."

"That's the idea." Frank pointed out humorously. "You shouldn't be able to, considering the cost..." The sharp trill of the cell phone interrupted and he stood hastily, grabbing it from the table and moving towards the living area with a mumbled apology.

"It's strange how he only answers that thing when it isn't me." Bess observed ruefully, elbow propping on the table as she stared after her husband.

"I'm sure that's not true." Stirring his pasta around, Joe offered a weak grin.

"So, did you call your parents?" She inquired, brushing the melancholy off and returning her gaze to him.

"I got static. I'll try again later." Shrugging lightly, he swallowed a mouthful. "But speaking of which, I've been meaning to ask how George is these days."

"Oh, George is fine." Bess perked up immediately at the mention of her favorite cousin. "She works as a nutritionist and physical therapist in Hawaii. You know those surfers. And she's been helping your father, that's one of the reasons they moved there…but this winter she took a job at one of the Rocky Mountain ski lodges. I talked to her earlier. She's going to try to be here for Christmas and start you in on a therapy regime."

"Great. Wish I hadn't asked." Grimacing dramatically, he pushed his plate away as Frank reentered the room.

Bess laughed briefly, expression sobering at the elder brother's grim look. "Who was it?"

"Riley." Frank said tersely, declining to sit again. "Someone tipped off the press. The news that Joe is awake will be all over by tomorrow. Christmas won't be quiet. Bess, see if you can contact his doctor and schedule the tube removal for the next couple of days, he'll be out of their range while recuperating..."

"Hey…" Joe stood as well in protest. "I'm not going back to a hospital or wherever right now. I just got home. So a few reporters will show up…I'm not afraid of a little press. I don't see why I should be. Surely guys wake up from comas almost every day…"

"Not guys like you, Joe." His brother lashed out. Visibly forcing calm, he pulled a hastily jotted note out of his pocket. "It isn't just the press you have to worry about. Riley received a fax of this note a few minutes ago. It came in about the same time the press leak left the department…its tomorrow's headline for the River Heights area. And it's going to blow the publicity for and investigation into Nancy's disappearance wide open again. The authorities won't have a choice but to pursue."

Taking the scrap of paper and reading carefully, Joe winced. Glancing over his shoulder, Bess gasped. The meaning was blunt.

Drew murderer awakens; faces arrest.

Slowly crumbling the paper, Joe Hardy drew up to his full height and stared at his older brother. "Forget it." He said quietly, coolly. "If anyone…press or police…thinks they can prove I did that to Nancy, they're welcome to try." Anger draining from his voice, he smiled wryly. "For all I know, they might even succeed."