Laura Hardy was dizzy. The lights felt too bright, the smells of sterility made breathing difficult. How did they get here? They'd been trying, they had been, they'd been making their younger son eat and stopped him from exercising. How could he have been doing this, throwing up, disintegrating behind their backs? Why didn't they think to check, when he disappeared so quickly from meals, when he was still losing weight?

"I'm sorry."

Frank's voice jolted her out of her shock, and she turned to her elder son, slumped and weary with his head in his hands, his voice muffled but still escaping from between them.

"It's my fault. I should have checked on him. I should have talked to him more."

"Frank, this is not your fault," Fenton jumped in, making his way over to his son from the wall he'd been leaning against. He was clutching a psychology book in his hand, The Anatomy of Anorexia, marked up with post-it notes. They'd bought it only hours before, sitting together, pouring over notes, discussing their son's symptoms realizing that they'd been avoiding the word "anorexia" because it just hadn't seemed possible that this illness could be inflicting their son. But reading more and more they knew that this is what Joe was facing—and that there was much going on beneath Joe's bright, handsome surface that none of them had been aware of.

"We are just as responsible," Laura said firmly.

"That's right," Fenton affirmed. "Your mother and I could have done more, been more observant…who knows. No one's to blame."

"I wouldn't even have gone upstairs," Frank whispered. "He would have been lying up there and I wouldn't even have gone to check—" the boy's voice broke and Laura saw his hands start to tremble.

"Oh, honey," she murmured, putting an arm around him and stroking his hair back. She knew how difficult this was, for her older son to sit back and watch his brother hurting himself and be helpless to stop it, he who had always looked out for his younger brother, defending and protecting him from the dark, the monsters in the closet, bullies at school, their enemies on cases—but Joe's own mind? Frank could try, was trying, had always been trying, but when it came down to it he was powerless. No one but his elder brother had ever been able to force the youngest Hardy into doing anything he didn't want to, and even Frank had confided in his mother on more than one occasion when he'd been unable to sway his brother's decisions.

"Mr. and Mrs. Hardy?"

The three looked up as a woman in a business suit approached them.

"That's us," Laura said, sitting straighter, bracing herself for news.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Barbara Ziv, I'm a counselor here. May I have a seat?"

"Of course. Do you have any information on our son?"

The doctor took a seat and crossed her legs, then opened a file she'd been carrying with her. Laura liked the look of her; she was confident and held herself well, but there was sympathy in her expression and youthful look about her, not at all the old stereotypical men she'd imagined.

"Your son is in a room at the moment. As far as I understand he's doing just fine. Dr. Roth should be along in a bit to explain farther, but in the meantime he's asked if you would allow me to evaluate your son's mental health."

Laura felt her heart leap at the world 'mental health,' picturing psyche wards, leather couches, emaciated women with cigarettes, straight jackets…not her smiling, bright, handsome younger son.

Please not her son.

"Are you all familiar with anorexia and bulimia?" Dr. Ziv asked.

The words jolted all three; too official. It couldn't be official.

"Yes," Fenton spoke finally. "And we're aware that Joe is suffering from them."

Frank drew a deep breath and sat back, clenching his hands in to fists. But looking at him, Laura would swear he was calm. He was certainly trying to be; as always. Frank, the strong one, the organized one, the model older child, never allowing his emotions to get the better of him, always patient and relaxed and ready for anything.

No one, Laura thought sadly, ever really knew what went on beneath that solid exterior but Joe. Whether this was because Frank chose to confide in his brother or Joe simply knew how to push secret buttons no one else could find Laura had never known; but it had been clear, since they were toddlers, that her elder son adored his younger brother. It had been Joe who had drawn the shyer, quieter Frank into groups of other children, Joe who had been quick to stand up to bullies, Joe who knew when Frank needed to be touched or hugged or comforted, Joe who was never denied entrance into his brother's room, into the darker and more turbulent parts of himself.

And Frank had returned all this by being the steady, calming presence the more emotional Joe so often needed, the older brother who had defended him from the unfairness of the bigger world he walked in to first, the older brother who never went too far ahead but lulled behind to wait for his younger sibling, the pair so intertwined that she knew would not, could not, ever be the same without the other.

Why am I thinking that? How could I think that? Joe's here, he's getting help, we all know what we're facing now, we'll help him, we'll get him through this.

"I'll be frank," Dr. Ziv said, bringing Laura back from her musings. "From what I understand, your son is about twenty pounds below a normal, healthy body weight for someone of his age and height. That, combined with the use of Ipecac, his admission of throwing up his food, and his firm denial about there being a problem pretty much requires the hospital to give him a psychiatric evaluation."

"What will you do?" Frank asked.

"Just talk to him. Ask him questions about his body, how he feels about it. Watch his responses. See if his behavior points toward an eating disorder and depression. The two go hand in hand."

"And…" Laura asked, amazed at the calmness of her voice, "if he does?"

"Then we'll see about admitting him for a few weeks, to do intensive therapy and have his meals monitored. With your permission, of course. All this needs to be done through you."

Laura looked at Fenton over her older son's head. The two held each other's gaze for a moment; Fenton slowly nodded, and Laura turned back to the doctor.

"Do what you have to," she finally said.

Frank rose suddenly and disappeared out from the waiting room door and down the hall; Fenton handed her the book he'd been clutching harder than he'd realized and quickly followed his elder son.

Oh Joe, Laura thought, shaking the doctor's hand and thanking her, don't you realize by killing yourself, you're starving Frank of you?

Frank's Guilt

Frank walked into the men's room, bent over the sink, filled his hands with water, and splashed his face, then rested his palms flat on the porcelain and tried to catch his breath. He was furious with himself, first of all for letting it get this far, and second for not being able to control himself enough to hear out everything the doctor might say.

It's words, that's all Hardy, just names for the behavior your brother's been exhibiting what you can't handle that? You can't handle the fact that you've been in just as much denial as Joe, that you've been weak in trying to help him, that you should have had the sense to check on him after meals? That if Callie hadn't been there you wouldn't even have thought to check on him? That the person you love the most is killing himself and it's all your—

"Easy son," his father's voice came from behind him, and Frank came back to awareness realizing he was on his knees before the sink fighting for breath, terror suddenly seizing his lungs and threatening to send bile into his throat. "Relax. Frank, relax. It's all right." Fenton's hands were on his shoulders, rubbing slowly, and Frank sucked in a deep breath and stood up, composing himself.

"I'm all right," he murmured, "I'm all right now. Sorry. I'm a little…I don't know…shaky. Freaked out."

Fenton nodded and patted his son's back. "Delayed reaction."

"Do you have to put a label on everything?" Frank shot, shaking off his father's hand. "Why do we have to classify it all, huh? To make it neater, prettier, able to fit the psychology charts? Is that why we have to give Joe these names? So they have something to circle on the admittance chart? Does anyone even care that he's a person, who needs to be with people who care about him, not some hospital where they'll force feed him fat and pills and say it's all fine?"

Fenton set his jaw and ran a hand through his hair. "Frank," he said calmly, "I know you're upset. And if I know you at all you're angry at yourself for not doing more—" he glanced over, saw his son flinch, "and if you want to yell and scream at me that's fine, if it'll help you. But don't act like your mother and I don't care about him just as much as you do, or that we don't want the best for him. We want both, you know that."

Frank's shoulders slumped; he sighed and crossed his arms.

"I'm sorry," he muttered. "I'm…you're right. Blaming myself. Which I should! Dad, I've known there was a problem longer than anyone, and somehow I just let it go!"

"So you've done nothing?" Fenton almost snapped. "You've said nothing, you've never confronted him, you've never asked him about nutrition, you've never gotten angry or tried to show him how he was wrong, you've never gone to talk to the Coach, you've never told us anything about his pills or walking or wrestling? Is that right?"

Frank sighed, recognizing the all-to-familiar logic he'd seemed to have inherited from his father. "No. But—"

"But what? What could you have done that your mother and I didn't? Forced him to eat? We did that. Stopped him from wrestling and exercising? We did that too. Gone and picked up psychology books? That's what your mother and I were doing when we went out tonight. Yes, we should have checked on him after meals. Maybe we should have forced him into therapy already. But Frank, you and I both know that Joe was born stubborn, and this disease makes him all the more so. He's seventeen, son. We can't baby him. He's made his own choices, and he'll have to face their consequences."

The elder Hardy boy looked away, wondering how it was possible that only a few hours ago he was going to watch a movie with his girlfriend and try to put all this out of his head. How could he, when his brother never did, when his brother never could, when he was so sick and obviously caught up in such self-hatred that he'd force his body to go hungry, to push itself to the end of its endurance, to give up the food it needed to stay healthy?

I should call Callie, he thought, sighing. She'd wanted to come with him, but he'd asked her not simply because he wanted to be alone, needed that time to himself before his parents arrived at the Emergency Room. In truth he'd also believed that he needed to be punished with solitude for trying to use her to forget about his brother for awhile, while Joe was upstairs vomiting blood and blacking out on the bathroom tile.

"Dad…" Frank trailed off, not knowing how to tell his father, or anyone for that matter, the swirl of emotions going on inside him. Only Joe would know, would understand, would know what to say, would be able to help him sort through them.

But Joe…

Fenton put an arm around his son's shoulders and squeezed, hard. "I know son," he murmured. "Come on, let's get back and see what your mother has to say."

Frank nodded, new determination seeping in to him with the warmth from his father's arm.

I've never let anything separate us before, brother, he thought to himself, and I won't let this either. I won't lose you.

And if you do? Frank asked himself, if this is the one fight you're sure to lose?

The elder Hardy boy walked straighter as he approached his mother, feeling the grip on his emotions tightening.

Then I'll do whatever it takes to follow him, he answered himself.