Death is a hard thing to accept, Frank realized. He was emotionally numb. Completely numb. His insides felt frozen, and it seemed as if he had no feelings at all. And then there were days when it hurt so much that it felt like he couldn't move and wished for the numbness to come back again.

At first he hadn't accepted it. Joe was too much of a survivor to be dead. It was impossible, utterly absurd. And then Fenton had called all of the other families on the Wraith and knew discovered that they had gotten exact same phone call. Still not completely convinced, Frank had dug even deeper. He had pulled passenger lists up from some of the other missing ships, and for several of them, those passengers had also received the dreaded phone call.

Besides, Joe Harley had been a nobody and obviously, with the number of people with dead friends and relatives on the ship with the same story, it had to be true. Truth rang from ever corner of it and finally, perhaps two weeks after the call and no updates at all, Frank accepted it.

He had shut himself away from the world. Everything reminded him of Joe and whenever he thought of Joe he completely broke down. So he stopped returning phone calls of his friends, even Callie, and since it was summer and he didn't have school, he barely left the house.

Laura threw herself into her work, trying to bury her pain. She volunteered at the Red Cross, and nursing homes, everywhere. She even worked part time at an animal shelter. The meals at the Hardy home became TV dinners and no one even cared. Fenton, like his son, was slowly drowning and, after an initial attempt to get back to routine, shut down. Everyday Laura would come home to find her husband scanning the files of Joe's case absently and her son simply lying on his bed, not thinking.

It was to be Laura who broke the melancholy that was slowly turning the Hardy house into a morgue. One Friday night she had taken some time off and cooked dinner, something nice and something none of them had tasted in a long time. Frank stumbled downstairs when she called and simply sat at the table, staring at nothing. Fenton put on a jovial front, speaking of small matters such as the stain he had finally gotten off the top of his desk.

After about five minutes of this, Laura exploded. "I've had enough!" she said sternly, not yelling, but in a tone that commanded her family to pay attention to her. Even Frank focused his eyes in wonder as if seeing her for the first time.

"Look at yourselves, the both of you, and yes, me too. We have turned into zombies, shadows of the vivacious living creatures that we were. Yes, we have experienced at great tragedy, and yes, we are grieving. Some many times I am in so much pain that I simply cannot breathe for the hurt. But we cannot stop living. We must find a way to work with our pain, accept it as part of who we are. We need to live as...as Joe would have wanted us to."

Laura struggled to contain her emotions but she had to. Now, more than any moment thus far she needed to be strong. She stayed quiet, letting her family consider her words. Finally, Fenton sighed deeply. "Laura, you're right. Frank, look at us. This cannot go on. Tomorrow I am going to talk to Sam Radley and see if I can't get myself some work." He looked expectantly at Frank.

Putting the grief aside wasn't going to be as easy for Frank. He understood the wisdom of his parents and what they were saying. It was just so hard. "Your right," he said heavily, at last. "This cannot go on, for Joe's sake. Tomorrow I will call Callie and some of the gang and see if I can't continue to live a bit." He frowned slightly. "I guess I have been neglecting them a bit."

Fenton's sudden urge to laugh at Frank's understatement was overshadowed by his wife breaking down crying. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and soon, he began to tear up too, for this crying was not a weakness. They were crying from the grief, the pent up anger at whoever had turned their life to hell, the stress of their long days, and sure happiness that the family was on the way to recovery.