Chapter 10
A/N: Sorry about the long wait…writer's block. Btw, I am on vacation from school until January 18th, which means that I probably won't update anything until sometime in February. Reason: non-existent internet capabilities on home computer.
Prisoner Trivia: the mentioned incident involving Number 6 occured in the last episode of the show.
Joe couldn't sleep. Finally, after tossing and turning for several hours, he got up and went downstairs for something to drink. Maybe that would help.
A light was still on in the living room, and he could hear the TV faintly. "Ellie?" he said, seeing her sitting on the couch, wrapped in a flannel afghan. "It's after three. What are you doing up?"
She looked at him, then back at the TV. "I couldn't sleep."
"Join the club," Joe commented, sitting down next to her. "Worried about Frank?"
Elen nodded. "Yeah. Dad, we're not going to come back alive if we go after him. At least one of us will be killed."
His sharp intake of breath made her huddle deeper into the blanket.
"Now I know why Mom didn't want to be around me," she said. "I don't like being able to see the future. I don't like that feeling of complete and utter helplessness that comes with the ability."
Joe didn't know what to do. This was so different from the times when he'd had to stay home and comfort his mother and father when Frank was missing. Or when they got death threats practically every single case. Or…he didn't want to think about Frank, because that just made Elen's feelings about her gift drill into him.
"It's not your fault," he said gently. "Do you want to stay home while we go rescue him?"
Elen's look of horror was one that he himself had worn countless occasions. "No," she said indignantly. "I'm not staying home while I can still be able to see what might go wrong. You might need it."
Joe smiled wryly. "Forget I even asked you that," he said.
"Dad?" Elen asked when he finally got up to go back upstairs.
"Yeah?"
"I hope we find him."
"So do I, kiddo. So do I."
Joe and Elen were not the only Hardys who couldn't sleep that night. Brett Hardy, Nancy and Frank's ten-year-old son, couldn't either.
He could remember back in kindergarten when his teacher asked them what their parents did for a living, and he had told her that they were agents.
"What kind of agents?" she'd asked. He'd answered that he didn't know. That weekend, Frank and Nancy had been attacked meeting with the Grey Man.
He could remember a tense situation in fourth grade when Frank was working on a case for the Network that involved electronic thefts from various local and national businesses in Bayport. Brett had been kidnapped during that one for bargaining chip purposes.
It seemed that not even his friends at school were immune to his parents' work. His best friend, Sarah Benson, had played the part of a buyer in an illegal drug case in which students were being sold the drugs last year. That one had left Brett with a bullet scar on his shoulder. Maybe in the morning at school he'dask Sarahto help them in Lithuania.
The Grey Man sat at his desk, watching the second hand on his office clock make round after round. He'd been at the Fox Haus, the Bayport Network headquarters, since nine that night, waiting for a call from his superior.
He yawned, wondering if the Village was really secure enough to hold Frank and the other Villagers. Maybe. Maybe not. It had been rebuilt after Number 6 had escaped with the Number 2 at the time to London and had accidentally set off the rocket that was being kept there. Now it was good as new. But always the question was safety.
He knew Joe and Nancy were currently attempting to plan a way to find Frank. Elen probably had already told them where her uncle was.
He let his gaze turn back to the clock. It didn't look as if he would get that phone call tonight, but just as he was getting up to leave, the phone rang.