"Did you ever show yourself to Callie?"

Frank glanced up at his brother from the ground. Joe was seated in one of the branches of the oak above him. He'd been there when Joe woke up, meandered around the campus in silence, and finally stopped to look out over the river running alongside the campus to watch the crew team practice.

"No."

"Why not?"

Frank looked away, for once his firm, confident exterior disintegrating. "It's best that we ended. It would have sooner or later anyway."

"I thought you were in love with her."

"I am in love with her. And I'd planned on breaking up with her right after our last case ended. Only I didn't get the chance."

"What? Why? You would have thrown all that away?"

"I had to, Joe."

"You're not making sense."

Frank sighed and turned to look his brother in the eyes. "I never told you why I wanted to pull off that case, did I?"

Joe shook his head wordlessly.

"All right. I'll tell you now." Frank sat up straighter, as if bracing himself for something. "I went and saw Elise Davids, that woman the Reaper had originally been after."

"What? You told me--"

"...never to see her. That's right. But I went on a hunch one day. And you know what she told me?"

"Obviously not."

"She told me that she herself was never in danger. It had been her family all along. He killed her husband, Joe. And her children. And he'd been going after her parents when Dad finally caught up with him."

"I don't understand what that has to do with you and Callie."

"Hold on. I'm explaining." He turned away again. "It just...got me thinking. About my life...our lives. Being a detective and how many times she'd been put in danger because of me. I thought about you and Iola--" he glanced at his brother, who winced at the name, "--and how many times we've scared Mom by disappearing or getting knocked unconscious or getting ourselves in over our heads. Dad too. And...I didn't want that life for her."

"I understand, but..."

"There's more, Joe. I realized what a target everyone in my life was. This man understood that. He never hurt his victims, so to speak. He killed everyone around them and left them in more pain than he could ever have given them physically. And I was afraid for my family."

"Why?"

Frank turned and looked Joe in the eye again. "Because he saw me coming out of Elise Davids house."

Joe went white. "Those marks on the van..."

"He knew I knew, Joe. And I knew that he wouldn't come after me. You were in danger. That's why I wanted you to pull off the case. That's why I made you pull off the case. And that's why--"

"...that night he caught us, you played dumb. You acted like it was my investigation and you didn't know anything--"

"So he'd kill me."

Joe began to tremble as wave upon wave of guilt crashed down on him. "Frank, what made you think I'd want to live with that?"

Frank laid his ghost hands over his brother's trembling ones. "How could I have lived knowing I knew how to get him away from you and didn't use it? I wasn't afraid to die. I was afraid of the people I loved dying. "

"God Frank, so was I! And my worst fears came true!"

"I know. And I'm sorry for that. But it had to be one of us, and it couldn't have been you because you had the innocence I didn't. If you had known what I did you would have stopped him. But I never told you."

"You should have! God Frank, I could have saved you!"

"But then I would have lost you."

"So? You could survive without me, Frank. I'm the one who can't handle living without you."

"What makes you think I would be any better?"

"You would have looked at it logically. You would have understood; okay, Joe's dead. I'm not. Time to move on."

Frank frowned. "You wanna know what would have happened? I would have sucked myself away from everyone and everything. I'd go on studying and chasing bad guys, but I'd cut myself off from everyone I cared about because I wouldn't want them hurt. I'd go on living all right, but I'd be like a droid, with no purpose, all mechanical. I wouldn't have let myself feel. Is that life?" 

"It's better than feeling pain in everything," Joe snapped. "God, Frank. Why couldn't he have killed us both?"

"Sometimes, when I miss you, I wish he had," Frank murmured. "But think of it this way; would you rather have me dead, or alive but never able to see, hear, talk, or write me ever again?"

"Alive."

"I feel the same about you."

Joe digested that, then realized something. "Frank? You miss me?"

"Of course I do."

"But you can still see and hear me."

"I can't talk to you like I used to. I can't hang out or work on cases or help you with your homework. I couldn't do a damn thing the whole time you were breaking down, although I was right beside you through all of it. But you're alive, Joe. And you're gonna go on and be happy and make other people happy, and I'm never going to regret that."

Joe felt tears burning his eyes. "I'm sorry you died, Frank."

"So am I," the older boy murmured, squeezing his brother's hands. "But I'm not sorry you lived."