Disclaimer: I do not own Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, any of the characters related to them, or any pop culture references that I may chose to include.

Author's notes: Thank you for all your reviews. I'm glad that for the most part you are all pleased with what has happened so far and I hope that you will be equally as happy with this chapter.

In a response to Amy, an anonymous reviewer, I'm sorry that you felt the Nancy/Ned breakup wasn't quite up to snuff. The way I saw it with this story, the characters were at a point where they were exhausted; Nancy just lost her father, and was emotionally drained and lost. I also didn't want to make Ned the bad guy in all of this, so he was relatively accepting of everything. Thank you for sharing your opinion with me, I just thought that I would explain my reasoning to you.

On with the story.

Italics are thoughts.

Chapter Two

"In order to escape Prince Humperdinck and his men, Buttercup and Wesley went into the fire swamp, a dangerous swamp where lots of scary animals and other things were. They were going to …" Joe trailed off of his storytelling when he noticed that Camilla had fallen asleep. He bent down and kissed her forehead, gently brushing away some of her soft blond hair. As he stood, he adjusted the plain, muted blue hospital blanket so it covered his daughter more completely. Turning around he saw Frank and Nancy, the latter attaching a beeper to the belt of her jeans that he concluded she must have changed into.

"She all set?" Frank asked, pointing at his sleeping niece.

Joe nodded, walking over and then flicking the light switch, effectively dimming them. "She's exhausted."

"No surprise there. Surgery's hard on the body, even with routine procedures like this." Nancy informed as the three started down the hallway towards an elevator bank. "By the way, I have to say, I love the bedtime story. Most parents go for the variations of Cinderella, or Snow White. I don't think I've ever seen the Princess Bride."

"Oh yeah." Joe sighed, feeling a lot of the day's stress fade away; his daughter was safe, and now he could enjoy a reunion with an old friend. He smiled as they reached the bank of elevators and Nancy pressed the down button. "The first time she asked me for a story it was the first thing that came to mind, and now it's her favorite."

The doors opened and the here stepped into the elevator. "She sounds like your daughter." Nancy remarked.

Joe's smile turned wistful as he leaned against the elevator wall. "She has a lot of her mom in her." He admitted easily.

Nancy sympathized with the family; she knew it was hard for a girl to grow up without a mother, and once her father had admitted to her that it was just as hard to watch her grow up with so much of her mother's personality in her. "Who was she?" She asked quietly, hoping it wasn't too forward of her to approach the subject when they had been apart for so long.

"A girl named Lauren…I met her on a case about two years after you left."

A silence engulfed the group as the elevator reached the destination of the entrance to the parking garage. Joe was temporarily lost in memories, and Frank had just been silent. Nancy sighed, leading them out into the garage, and choosing a new topic that she hoped would bring Frank talking. "So you guys got an agency going?"

"Yep." Joe snapped back from his reminiscent state, the broad smile returning. "Hardy and Hardy Detective Agency; two brothers putting Bayport's finest to shame."

"It's going well then?"

"Well it's not exactly how we originally planned it." Frank began in a tone that was slightly less than warm towards Nancy. "And sometimes it can get overwhelming with only two detectives, but it can be said that it's going well."

Joe shot his brother a look, a little confused as to what was going through Frank's mind.

Nancy pulled her keys out of her pocketbook, ignoring the insinuations she found in Frank's statements. "That's real good for you guys. It must be great."

"It is." Joe watched as she pressed a button the remote attached to her key ring and the lights on a dark blue jeep flashed. "Oh Nan." He groaned a little. "Don't tell me you got rid of the Mustang."

Nancy grinned at his dismay, opening the driver's side door. "Don't worry. She's in River Heights, safe in the hand's of George. Do you guys need to get anything from your hotel before we eat?"

As they made their way to the small Italian restaurant their dialogue remained away from any topics of real importance such as the case the brothers were there for, and remained lighthearted between Joe and Nancy, with a slightly darker, and stiffer comment thrown in by Frank once in a while. Nancy wouldn't admit it to anyone but herself, but she had avoided the topic of the case; both brothers had been dropping little tidbits about it for most of the evening. She had been resisting the urge to question them on the subject. However, now as they sat in the restaurant waiting for their food to arrive her resolve was cracking as the discussion topics ran thin. "So what case brings you two here?"

Frank was taking a drink, so once more Joe was fielding the question. "Apparently someone is threatening Dr. Millet, from your hospital. He's gotten a few messages. I didn't get to talk to him myself since I had to go see about Cami, but according to Frank we already have a few problems."

"Such as?"

"Millet doesn't really want us here, he doesn't think that anyone could possibly want to hurt him, and we haven't been able to hear the threats for ourselves yet." Joe reiterated for the doctor.

Nancy smiled, and grabbed a piece of bread from the basket in the center of the table. "I take it Mrs. Millet is the one who called you."

"Well she made him call us." Joe corrected. "How'd you guess?"

"I've met her a couple times at holiday parties and such." Nancy started to butter the bread. "She's a nice woman, but she blows every little thing out of proportion."

"So it's probably just a prank and she's overreacting." Joe inferred.

Nancy shrugged, not really believing that option. "It's one possibility, but it sounds like a copout."

"Oh?" Frank finally spoke up, raising an eyebrow as he looked over. The feelings of awkwardness from earlier were still there, but they were mutating into something a little bit different. It was clear to him that he was not dealing with the same Nancy; as he remembered it the old Nancy had more tact when it came to shooting down theories. He couldn't believe that she had changed so much. "And what is your professional opinion?" The word professional was emphasized, and it was clearly the focus of his comment.

Nancy brushed some of her hair away from her face uneasily. Don't get involved Drew. "Well I don't really know much about the case…" She trailed off, hoping that the answer would be enough. Getting involved in this case would not be to her advantage.

"I'd still be quite interested in hearing what you have to say on the matter." Frank shook his head, looking her in the eye. "Since we haven't worked together for so long and all."

"Well I think that you need to at least think about taking this thing seriously." This is such a bad idea. "And you should start by looking at the families of patients he's lost recently. Sometimes they get pretty aggressive."

Joe's eyes darted back and forth between the two, from the hard gaze of Frank, to Nancy's own strong one, and found that neither looked ready to back away from what appeared to be an event that Joe was sure was going to cause bad things. "Thanks Nan. That's a big help."

Before Nancy could respond, Frank continued with his behavior. "Anything else?"

"Well you can't do much else until you have suspects. Just keep him accompanied. That's probably the best you can do until you get further into the case."

"Probably?" Frank probed.

"If you find out that it is serious, remove Dr. Millet from the hospital. Our security is horrible."

"I don't suppose you want to join us?" Joe flashed her a little grin while offering what he hoped would end in an intervention. "It won't look very out of place if you follow Millet around the hospital all day."

"Tell you what." Nancy inwardly sighed. "I'll keep an extra eye on Cami for you while you investigate."

"Oh come on." Joe goaded. "I've never known Nancy Drew to turn down a mystery."

"Forget it Joe. She's probably very busy working at the hospital. Aren't you?"

"Yeah, I am." She conceded quietly.

"But rest assured," Frank continued quickly, "because I'm sure that she'll still be able to give us helpful tips to right our wrongs if we take the time to go and see her."

Joe shot Frank a look. He couldn't believe that his brother had said that. "Frank..." He warned.

"That's not what I meant by what I said." Nancy defended just as soon as the name was Joe's mouth. "I was just offering you my opinion."

"Your professional opinion." Frank reiterated, again putting the stress on professional.

Joe tried again as Frank's tone got more sarcastic. "Frank…"

Nancy wasn't about to back away though, despite Joe's weak attempt at interference. "My opinion that you asked for." She was quick to point this out.

"I only asked for it because you were dropping hints that we were completely wrong."

"I didn't say that at all." Blue eyes, that appeared slightly darker when put with her darker hair flashed. "I was saying that there were other possibilities and as a detective you should know better than to rule those out without at least looking at them."

"And you obviously know this because you've been doing so much detective work lately."

"Look, you don't know about what I've been doing these past ten years and you have no right to assume that--."

"You've been playing around with some fantasy spawned from watching too much ER." Frank cut her off quickly.

Joe was shocked that Frank would say something like that. "Frank!"

Frank pushed himself away from the table and stood. "I'll be back in a couple minutes." He left towards the bathrooms quickly.

Nancy put her head in one hand, and sighed, a little pink rising to her cheeks as the other customers at the restaurant glanced at and then turned away from the scene. "I am so sorry, Joe."

"No, I'm sorry." Joe shook his head. "I don't know why he's acting like that."

"I think it has something to do with the fact that I went to medical school." Nancy took a sip of her wine as Joe gave her a questioning look. "Come on. You heard what he said…about the agency being busy with only two detectives…the way he kept emphasizing professional. Something about me being a doctor bothers him."

"It's not so much about you being a doctor as it is about you not being a detective."

Which you don't exactly know about… "I had to make some decisions. I didn't just wake up and say, OK no more detective work ever."

"I know." Joe's expression softened a bit more. "You have your reasons, that I'm sure you'll share with us when you're ready. And once Frank sits down and listens I'm sure he'll come around."

"Joe I'm impressed." Nancy's happy demeanor started to return with a small smile. "I thought you were the…" She searched for the proper wording of the term, "quick-reacting, thinking a little less, brother."

"Camilla tended to reverse a lot of that stuff for us." Joe responded quickly. "Now I am the calm and reserved, yet just as handsome brother."

"And still the one with all of the wit."

"Well, nothing's gonna get rid of my wit."

Nancy opened her mouth to say more but was cut off before she could start by a short beep. She glanced down to her beeper and read the small screen. You seriously had to call me now? Inwardly she groaned. "I'm so sorry, I really have to take this."

"No, go." Joe waved her off as she stood.

"I'll be right back."

Joe found himself sitting alone at the table as Nancy made her way towards the section of the small restaurant where the courtesy phones were located. Shortly after the point where she left a waiter delivered three plates of food, which was followed quickly after by Frank returning from the table, looking slightly more calm then before. "Feeling better now?" He inquired in a teasing manner.

Frank took his seat, refusing to answer Joe with a response. He glanced towards the empty seat that was Nancy's. "She didn't…leave, did she?" He asked the question in a softer tone, implying that he did care.

"No, your ex-almost girlfriend didn't leave." Joe shook his head, smiling a bit more at his brother's concern. "She went to return a phone call." He barely paused. "Although I wouldn't be surprised if she did leave after what you said to her."

"That was not my fault." Frank was quick to defend himself.

Joe scoffed a little. "You attacked her. How is that not your fault?"

"Well…well…" Frank struggled to come up with a reason. He didn't really know. In all honesty, he did know that it was his fault, but he wasn't about to go admitting that now. "Well…she dyed her hair."

Joe laughed. "Come on Frank. If you're going to try and pass the blame off at least come up with something better than she dyed her hair."

"But that's what she did." Joe simply had to raise an eyebrow to get a response of explanation from his brother. "She turned her back on her past and she dyed her hair."

"Do the soap opera writers know about you?"

"Look, if you're not gonna take me seriously then we can just not talk about it--,"

"Frank you know I'm just teasing you. We can talk about it, we just probably shouldn't now."

"Well, what makes now such a bad time?"

"She's coming back."

Joe pointed to her as she returned and took her seat with a slightly rattled, but apologetic look on her face. "Sorry about that." She spoke as she unfolded her napkin, looking at the food down in front of her.

"Is everything all right?" Joe inquired.

"Yeah. The hospital just wanted to check on something about a patient I worked today."

The brother's nodded in a quiet acceptance. "Well then," Joe sighed, noticing that neither of his companions were about to talk. "Now that the tense part of the evening is out of the way, let's eat."

Frank gave a tight half smile. "Sounds like a plan." Eating was good. When he was eating, he couldn't make things worse.

The three all lifted their silverware and they were about to start eating when a quiet ringing erupted from Joe's pocket, prompting the silverware to return to the table as Joe pulled out a cell phone and held up a finger, pushing himself and leaving from the table to answer the call in a less crowded area of the restaurant.

Frank and Nancy were left alone.

"So…how's your head?" Nancy lifted her fork again, creating small talk as she started to twirl her pasta with it.

Frank only graced her with a short, terse answer. "Fine."

"Good." She responded softly, slightly downcast that he wasn't coming around at all. "It looks like it should hurt."

"It doesn't." Frank started to roughly cut his veal.

There was a small silence. Nancy couldn't understand what was so wrong that he couldn't even attempt at pathetic small talk until his brother returned. She ate a few bites of her food, but then placed her fork down; she could not take the silence from a friend she hadn't seen in ten years. She had to say something. "Have you solved any good cases lately?" His gaze hardened more and Nancy instantly regretted the question. You had to pick that, didn't you Drew?

"I doubt that you would find any of them particularly interesting or stimulating."

It was a thinly veiled jab that Nancy couldn't have missed. She lightly slapped her hand on the table in anger. "Damn it Hardy!" She spoke to him in a quiet but harsh voice. "I have not changed as you want me to have."

Frank had his mouth open to reply, but Joe chose that moment to return to the table. "That was Dr. Millet. He got a note in his mailbox at the hospital." He informed quickly. "I told him to save it and we'd be there as soon as we could."

Nancy started to stand. "I'll go take care of this and give you guys a ride back to the hospital." She quickly volunteered.

Frank also stood, quick to rebut with an idea of his own. "There's no need to ruin everyone's dinner. You and Joe have both had long days. I'll go take care of Dr. Millet, and you two can finish your dinner."

In a way Nancy was grateful. If he wasn't going to let her near the case it was a lot easier to stay away from it, and Millet or anyone else wouldn't know that she was involved with detective work. "Here, you should still take my car." She started to rifle through her bag for her keys.

"That's OK." Frank waved her off. "I'll just catch a cab. I'll call you if anything comes up Joe."

Before Joe could even say anything to agree with or protest Frank's decision his brother was gone. "He wasn't too eager to get of here was he?" He commented slightly sarcastically as the two sat back down. "I don't suppose you two had a little talk while I was gone?"

"Very little."

"He'll come around."

Nancy and Joe exited the restaurant after finishing their dinners in a quiet but conversational manner. There had been no word from Frank, and they had avoided the topic of him in order to keep things a bit lighter.

They started to walk down the street to where Nancy parked her car, and Joe decided that maybe it would be OK for him to bring up one of the topics that had been mentioned that night, as it wasn't one of the large issues, and it did have him curious. "So…why exactly did you dye your hair?"

Nancy just laughed as they passed under a streetlight. "I can't believe that out of everything…" She trailed off as she noticed a trio of stone-faced men in black coming from one direction. Not now… She turned her head to see a trio of similarly faced women coming towards them in the opposite direction. You couldn't have waited twenty minutes? "Joe, you don't by any chance want to just take my car and go on your own do you?" She started to hand him the keys that she had drawn upon their exit of the restaurant. "I just realized I have something to take care of around here."

Joe watched as her eyes darted around and she tensed. There was no missing what she was looking at. "Guess again."

Nancy sighed; the response she was expecting, but definitely not the one that she wanted. "Well then, I guess this won't take long." She slipped into a fight stance and turned as the six she had spotted started to charge. She took the women, while Joe started with the boys, and she managed to get a kick to one of the attackers before they could think, taking an offensive standing on the entire thing.

Joe on the other hand took a defensive standpoint, waiting until the men through a punch at him to start fighting back and deflecting, a little curious as to what was going on, and why Nancy knew it was going on. They fought for a minute or so before he said anything. "So Nance, care to explain what this is all about?"

The only answer he got was a slight grunt of pain as one of the men that he thought he had down managed to get up and kick her in the cheek. He turned to help the stunned detective but that only managed to get his arms grabbed in a stronghold by one of the other men and then he felt the cold metal of a knife against his throat.

The fight instantly stopped as Nancy stood and turned around her eyes flashing dangerously. "Relax Shaw, he's with me."

The knife dropped and the hold relaxed causing Joe to quickly pull away. "You mean to tell me that you know these guys?"

A dark van pulled up and the group of attackers grabbed an arm off of Joe and Nancy and started to bring towards it. Nancy didn't answer until they were shoved in the back and the doors were closed leaving them in the dark rear of a windowless van. "I am getting in so much trouble for telling you this." She sighed, shaking her head. "Those guys are the reason that I dyed my hair."

Yes, I know Frank's a little out of character, but this is really how I see him reacting to someone so close to him being gone for so long and being drastically different. So keeping that in mind what are your thoughts?

Oh, and I know the spelling of Humperdinck looks weird, but this is how they spelled it on the IMDB site so I just went with it.