Frank Hardy was despairing. It had been a week and neither himself, nor Dave, had uncovered anything wrong with Pacific Shipping. He was beginning to think that Fenton's lead was a dud. Then again, he was dealing with Assassins and they were probably covering their trail well. Perhaps we would find something when he met this Mr. Brenden today. He had discussed it with Dave and Fenton and both figured that this Mr. Brenden might be the perfect Assassin to gain money.

His phone rang and he picked it up, only to here Mr. Simmions's voice paging him down to the main office. Well, here goes nothing.

Ned rose from his desk to greet the potential spies, or, as the case should be, his new employees. He must be Mr. Brenden at this meeting and Ned later. A woman came first, Alisha Styles, followed by a man, Dave Sanders. Another man, Eric Troyer entered a few moments later followed by-

Ned choked. The man's name was Frank Hanes but the moment that he set eyes on him he knew him to be the older version of his brother. Frank looked the same; he hadn't really even bothered to disguise himself. The hardest part of turning coat so many years ago had been saying goodbye to Frank. But he had betrayed himself by breaking his word, and going back to Frank would have made it that much harder. Guilt that he had shoved down so long ago fired up, fresh. He shoved it down. The past was the past. He was indeed Ned Brenden now. Still, it was going to be mighty difficult to deal with Frank.

"Please, have a seat," he invited them after her shook Frank's hand. (Had his hand shook in the grip?) "I am, by all accounts, Mr. Ned Brenden, owner of Pacific Shipping. Seeing as this is my company, I rather enjoy knowing who runs the tedious, day to day business I no longer have time for. It's a pleasure to put names to faces."

Alisha murmured a quiet, "Thank you sir," and the rest remained silent.

"I trust that you enjoy working for me?" Ned asked, not really wanting to know. "I hope that you will continue to be as happy as the years go by."

He had had a longer speech planned, but it suddenly vanished from his head. Thinking desperately of an excuse to cut the interview short, he suddenly put his hand to his throat and winced. "Ah, my darn throat. If you'll please excuse me, I don't feel well at all. Flying, you know, does that for me."

Ned inclined his head to the assembled group and dashed out the door, hurrying for the bathroom. He was suddenly violently sick and he knew it had nothing to do with flying.

Frank was shocked. He had not expected the meeting to go like this at all. Yet that all seemed secondary to the emotions coursing through him. When he had shaken Ned Brenden's hand and looked up into those bright blue, but haunted eyes, he had been given a jolt. Those eyes were unique, and he would know them anywhere. Ned Brenden had Joe's eyes.

Suddenly, the case be darned, he had to know. He followed the steps of Ned to the bathroom on the pretense of needing to wash his hands. When he turned on the water, he heard a reaching sound coming from the stalls. Well, he wasn't lying about being sick.

A few moments later, the owner emerged looking pale. Once again, Frank met his eyes and this time, there was no doubt at all. Those were Joe's eyes, and despite all the other facts that didn't add up, he was sure of one thing, Ned Brenden was Joe.

Ned nodded to Frank, perhaps a little surprised to see him there by the slight widening of those amazing eyes. He quickly splashed water on his face and headed to the door.

Frank watched him heading out in some sort of a daze, but when Ned pushed the door open, he awoke. "Joe!"

Ned swore mentally. Frank knew. But he couldn't be sure. It had been to long. So, as Mr. Brenden would have done, he paused, turned slightly and stared strangely at Frank.

"Pardon?"

Frank frowned, unsure for a moment. And then he tried again. "Joe, don't ignore me. I'm your brother and I don't care what you've done, I want you back."

Yeah, that's what he says now, Joe thought sorrowfully. "I'm sorry, Mr. Hanes, but I believe you're barking up the wrong tree. Perhaps you need to take the afternoon off, no?"

Clearly frustrated, Frank tried one more time. "Please don't do this. I know you are Joe. Just come back to me. Remember what we had, Joe and come back!"

Maybe he was pretty sure. Darn! Ned inwardly sighed deeply. This was hard, perhaps the hardest thing he had ever done. "Again, I apologize, Mr. Hanes for not being able to help you. It's been a pleasure." Ned nodded again to his brother and walked out the door.

Once outside he hurried to facade of an office that was designed to fool questioners into thinking that he was the legitimate owner. Once inside he closed the door and put his head in his hands. A million questions ran through his mind, the first being what is Frank doing here? And the more important one, what does this mean for me? What am I going to do about it? One thing he knew, he couldn't go back. Frank and his dad and Vanessa and everyone else from his old life wouldn't understand. Unless you lived the life of one, an Assassin was evil. He could hear the conversation in his head.

Frank: You...You are an Assassin?

Joe: Yes, but you must understand something about them. They aren't what you think.

Frank: (angry and hurt) There is no but! The Assassin's killed Iola!

Joe: Because we, at the time, were a threat. We were working for an evil man!

Frank: (shocked) They've brainwashed you!

Joe: If you'd just listen-

Frank: There is no listening until you're back to yourself!

Joe: But there is nothing to return to. This is who I am.

Frank: So they all say.

There the conversation ended and try as Ned might, he couldn't envision another ending. He could imagine Frank accepting his decision, after much explaining, but Frank would never see the Assassin's as anything but evil.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! With the idea that people actually are reading this, I'd like to make this little note about the story. I wrote this story because I didn't really like how the Assassins, and lots of other Hardy antagonists, are always flat villains (Thanks, Daybreaq!) and I wanted to show an alternative. Whether you agree if they're evil or not in my story it doesn't really matter, what matters is it isn't always as it seems. Also, I haven't read many casefiles, so I might be missing a few big details about the Assassins, but hang in there with me. Again, thanks for the output!