A/N: I feel so sad we're near the end of this adventure. Here comes the hard part: I wish I could, but I can't please everyone.
To Lisa: thanks for your wish list (and your enthusiasm!) I'd already decided long in advance how I was going to end things. So, to take a page from msnancydrew's book: "I won't promise anything, though, because I'm sure to disappoint someone..."
I just sincerely hope that I've been true to the characters, and that my dear readers won't hold it against me if Nancy doesn't 'end up' with the individual they wanted her to. (Don't forget – there's always the 'dead Nancy' alternative!) Remember, too, that this is an AU. Perhaps in another universe, things might have turned out differently. THANK YOU all for all the support once again. You've been a fanfic author's dream, and it's been a pleasure to have been able to entertain you all for the past few months.
There is but one, final chapter to come after this, and maybe even some scenes that did not make the final cut of the story.
Chapter 19.
She promised herself she absolutely would not cry when the taxi pulled into the curved driveway and would remain composed when the familiar brick house came into view, when she was reunited with everyone.
"Hello, Dad," Nancy said, trying to keep her voice steady as the front door flew open, revealing a tall man whose face showed he had perhaps known a little too much pain and loss in life. His eyes, on the other hand, were shining brightly.
"Daughter," Carson's voice was full of warmth and love that no words could ever express.
Parent and child embraced, weeping tears of joy and relief.
"Let me look at you," Carson finally said, gazing at Nancy. "My girl is home at last. My girl is safe. Oh, sweetheart, I've missed you so much."
Nancy looked back at her father, and was cut to the heart to see how much older he seemed, knowing that the extra grey in his hair and the deeper creases that lined his forehead were the result of his agonizing over her placement in witness protection. She could see his unspoken thought behind the gaze in his eyes: You're all I have left.
"I've missed you, too, Dad. I love you so much. I'm so sorry for everything. This whole year of hell; for worrying you to death…"
"Shhh," Carson whispered soothingly, "don't ever be sorry for the actions of others. Tom Morrison was a crooked cop. Your sense of justice helped bring a crime lord down. But you're alive, and you're back. You're the most precious thing to me, Nancy, but I learned a long time ago that I'd have to let you go. I learned I could never protect you from everything."
The rattling of a key in the lock and the opening of the door made them turn in surprise.
"Hannah!" Nancy cried joyously, recognizing the figure standing in the doorway. She eagerly rushed to her. The older woman instantly dropped her bags and suitcases and gathered her former charge in her arms.
"I couldn't believe it when I heard you were alive," Hannah wept happy tears. "I'm still finding the whole thing so fantastic! Oh, thank God you're back with us! You can't know how I prayed there would be even the smallest chance you were okay, and now here you are. Nancy, how I've missed you!"
"You've been like a mother to me, Hannah," Nancy said affectionately, now freely disregarding the tears that were falling, forgetting her earlier resolve to remain composed.
"Oh, child, you've been like a daughter to me. Even though I didn't give birth to you, I've loved you like a daughter. And I mourned you like you were a daughter…but that pain is over now."
Nancy nodded. "I'm sorry we couldn't let you know the truth, Hannah. I will always feel horrible about that."
"Don't, Nancy," Hannah pleaded, looking directly at her. "I'm only concerned about your safety. If keeping me in the dark was one way the FBI had of ensuring your survival, I'd willingly endure it all over again."
"Thank you," Nancy said, smiling through her tears, and they hugged again.
"Nancy," Hannah said distractedly when they let go of each other, "what on earth have you done to your hair?"
"Don't ask," Nancy said with a grimace. "I can't wait to get back to being me again!"
Early the next afternoon, a taxi turned onto the street that the Drew's home was situated. Frank Hardy sat nervously in the front. In a few minutes, he knew he'd be face-to-face with Nancy. What would happen when they met again?
We have chemistry, Frank thought with conviction, remembering the times they had indeed shared more than a platonic hug and perfunctory peck on the cheek. There was no way Nancy could deny that.
"Here we are," the taxi driver announced, pulling to an empty space on the street behind a parked car that belonged to a neighbour.
"Great," Joe said enthusiastically. He was about to open his door when Frank said stopped him.
"Wait," he said stiffly.
"What's wrong?" Joe asked, puzzled. Then he looked out of his window and saw what Frank saw.
A young man, probably in his mid-twenties, had just pulled up to the curb and exited his car. Hands shoved in his jacket pockets and his head bent low, he slowly made his way up the walk to the front door of the Drew home.
Then Joe understood. It was Ned Nickerson.
"Take us back," Frank said quietly to the driver.
"What?" Joe and the driver asked in unison.
"I said: take us back!" Frank repeated more forcefully.
"Have you lost your mind?" Joe asked angrily. "We were invited to this party. We have a legitimate reason to be here. Did you think Ned wouldn't be invited as well? What's the matter with you, anyway?"
Frank was silent.
"You know what?" Joe continued his tirade. "Don't even bother to answer. It's not like I'm the one in love with Nancy. Why should I want to see her? I'm sure there will be other times we'll see her, since we seem to have a talent for bumping into each other! If you want to leave, leave! I happen to think it's rude to accept an invitation from an old friend and then refuse to show up."
Joe opened his door and stormed out. "A word of advice, bro: unless you let Nancy know how you feel, you'll never know for sure how she feels."
Frank stared ahead, unresponsive, with a stony expression on his face.
"I'll find my own way back to the motel," Joe muttered, and slammed the car door.
Nancy knew each time the doorbell rang that she would be looking expectantly at the door, hoping it would be Ned Nickerson. How good it would feel to be in his arms once again; to gaze into his deep brown eyes. She hoped he'd be as overjoyed to see her as she would be to see him. Their lives had been torn apart by tragic circumstances, but Nancy hoped this reunion would be the time and place where they could start putting their lives back together again.
She was also looking forward to seeing Bess and George. After her father, Hannah, and Ned, she missed that pair of cousins the most. The last time she had seen them was the night everything had started. All those months of having Carson relaying information about everyone over the secure telephone lines had finally ended. At long last, she would be able to 'catch up' with her dear friends in person.
Nancy gazed around the living room for what must have been the hundredth time since arriving. While she had not actually lived in this house since her days in the police academy, and had had her own apartment in Chicago, it definitely felt good to be here, and so many happy memories came bubbling up to the surface.
Over there was the piano; there, in front of her, was the large fireplace. The old clock from her very first case so many years ago, customarily on the mantel, was not there. Nancy had taken that with her to Chicago. She realised it must still be with all her belongings that had been put into storage when she went into hiding.
Last night, of course, she had slept in her old room. The large, four-poster bed was just as comfortable as she remembered it; nothing like the utilitarian beds she'd had in various safe houses, or lumpy ones in the dumpy rented apartments. Her old desk and dressing table were still there, as well as many of the knick-knacks and items from old cases she hadn't the space for when she moved to Chicago.
The ringing of the door chimes made her jump. It was early still: they weren't expecting guests for at least another fifteen minutes.
She dashed to the door and opened it hurriedly; nervously. For a brief moment, she thought the man standing there was Frank Hardy, and was surprised at herself for being quite pleased with the thought he had arrived.
But it wasn't Frank; it was Ned.
"Ned!" Every other thought vanished from her mind. She locked her arms around him and pulled him into the house. "Ned, you're here!"
"Hello, Nan," he said lightly, then gently pulled away from her.
Something was not right. There was something in his voice and in his body language that was vaguely upsetting.
"What is it, Ned? What's wrong?"
"Perhaps we'd better go outside," Ned suggested. "I'd like some privacy. Your father and Hannah don't need to hear what I need to tell you."
"Okay, fine," Nancy said uneasily. The two stepped out, and Nancy closed the door quietly behind her.
Joe saw Ned and Nancy leaving the house and hung back, waiting to see where they would go. He didn't want to interrupt anything, and simply stood next to the car belonging to the neighbour. From his vantage point, he was almost positive that it was not a happy reunion between the couple.
How sad, Joe thought to himself. And to think Frank thinks Nickerson is back in the picture.
"I'm so awfully glad to see you, Ned," Nancy said, smiling happily, "I can't tell you how much I missed you while I was in hiding. It killed me inside that you had to believe I was dead."
Ned would not meet her gaze.
"What's the matter?" Nancy said, beginning to despair something was indeed horribly wrong. Ned was simply not reflecting the same emotions of joy and happiness she was experiencing.
"Nan, I am glad to see you; don't think I'm not. I'm – I'm relieved beyond all telling that you're alive. But things – things have changed significantly since we were together."
"'Changed'?" Nancy asked, shaking her head, "what do you mean 'changed'?" Inside, her thoughts screamed: We still care for each other, don't we? That can't have changed!
Ned sighed. "I was a real wreck, Nan. I couldn't function. The only way I could was to stop with the fantasies and the wishful thinking, and move ahead."
Nancy couldn't believe what she was hearing. This wasn't what she had imagined their meeting would be like at all. This wasn't the Ned she had left.
"Ned," Nancy said, her voice shaking, an awful realisation dawning on her: "are you breaking up with me? After everything we've been through? I spent the last year of my life running from assassins. You were always in my thoughts, Ned. Thinking of you somehow made everything bearable. Knowing you were still here kept me sane."
"Stop, Nan," Ned pleaded, holding up a hand.
"How could you just give up on me?" Nancy demanded, not caring that she was raising her voice.
"What was I supposed to do, Nan? Spend the rest of my life pining away for a ghost? Live like a monk? You were dead, Nancy. I mourned you. I came to terms with losing you. I moved on. You need to do that, too."
"And what did you expect me to do? Ask you to be on the run with me? Put your life at risk, too? Don't think it was an easy decision to make, Ned, because it wasn't," Nancy countered.
"That's not the point, Nan. You didn't even ask me what I wanted. You made that decision for me."
"Oh, please! Ned, you and I both know you would never have agreed to living like that."
"How do you know what I would or would not have wanted?" Ned shot back. "You didn't ask! You just ran off, without even telling me why."
"That's not fair. You know I couldn't tell you. It was too dangerous for you to even know I was still alive."
"Yeah. Right. It was so much better having me agonizing over where you'd vanished to for two months, and then having my heart ripped from my chest at the sight of them pulling your car up out of Lake Michigan!" Ned held an enclosed fist above his left breast, as if holding his heart, an anguished expression on his face. "I'd always…I was always so terrified you'd get hurt or killed while you were out all over the world solving all your stupid mysteries-"
"Exactly. That's one of the main reasons I joined the CPD: so I would be here instead of somewhere else, so there'd be less risk, so we'd be together-"
"I know. I felt great about that decision - and what it meant for us when you made detective on the force, because it meant you wouldn't have to be on the streets as much as a beat cop. But then my worst fear came true anyway, and-"
"But Ned, it didn't-"
"Let me finish. Fine. I was convinced my worst fear came true. Nan, I let you go. I'm with someone else now."
"Who?" came Nancy's shocked voice, this sudden revelation hitting like a lightning bolt.
"Denise Mason," Ned said uncomfortably.
"Denise Mason," Nancy echoed absently. "The cheerleader from Emerson…" She remembered when she first met the girl. While once visiting Ned during a basketball tournament years ago, international art thieves had schemed to kidnap Denise, but grabbed Nancy by mistake. The two bore an uncanny resemblance, which was the reason for the kidnappers' gaffe.
"I'm rebuilding my life," Ned continued. "And now you waltz right back in, expecting things to be the way they were. I can't do that, Nan. I'm sorry. It wouldn't be fair to you, or to Denise. I wish you had trusted me enough to let me know what was going on. But I can't help but think it just wouldn't have worked out anyway. Maybe it is a good thing – in a perverse way – that all this happened. We really are too different."
"I'm still in love with you, Ned. That never changed. Please, we have to at least try…"
"And risk having it happen again? I'm sorry, Nan. A person can only take so much. I'm with someone now who doesn't have to keep secrets as a matter of course to stay alive."
"You know I never meant to hurt you…" Nancy whispered.
"I know, Nan, and you know I never meant to hurt you, either. Please don't make this harder than it already is."
"Ned…"
"Good-bye, Nan," he said firmly. "Take care of yourself."
The kiss on her cheek was fleeting, sterile. Then he was gone.
She watched him get into his car and drive away. Her feelings of loneliness and desolation were greater now than they had ever been even while under protection. Silent tears spilled down her cheeks, her heart breaking.