A/N: Thanks to Caranath, Ealasaid Una, Me, Really Cinderella, Shenice, Guest, LazyPanther, moustachelover14, supernaturalsam, bhar, and Tigress2929 for your reviews! I'm so happy that you're intrigued/confused.

The HB Casefiles actually ARE as weird as this. I mean, a lot of them are fun mystery/adventure stories, but periodically you come across the ones that are just gloriously bizarre. Those are the gems.


"We have to do something." Nancy said, watching the fights ongoing in the main aisle of the church. Her voice said she was confident but her expression said she was lost.

Vanessa nodded. She picked up her long, flowing skirts and waded to the edge of the dais. "STOP!" she yelled.

The Franks continued fighting, but both Joes paused at the sound of her voice. "Just a minute, Van." Tuxedo Joe hissed, his neck caught in his opponent's choking half-nelson. A second later he was free, sweeping Sweatpants Joe's feet from under him and flinging him to the ground. But Sweatpants Joe immediately rolled out of the blow, springing back to his feet, and the fighting continued.

"Frank?" Nancy said, edging closer to where her fiance and his double—whichever may be which—were still locked in combat. Tuxedo Frank looked back at her, giving Sweatpants Frank the opportunity to hammer a blow into his solar plexus. "What the hell is going on?"

Tuxedo Frank was up again the second he went down, firing another high kick at his opponent's ribs. "At the risk of being patronizing, Nan—" Sweatpants Frank grunted as the kick connected. "—Evil doubles." The two Franks continued circling one another.

"Evil doubles! Of course!" Nancy repeated, for all the world as though having malevolent doppelgangers crash your wedding was a normal, everyday occurrence. But there was a shrill note of hysteria in her voice, which manifested itself in a frustrated stamp of one high-heeled foot. "You don't say!" She took a few deep breaths through her nose to keep herself together.

Tuxedo Joe landed a particularly rough punch that laid his opponent flat on the ground. However, just as he went in for the knockout blow, Sweatpants Frank broke away from his fight. He grabbed Tuxedo Joe's collar, and there was a ripping sound as he fell backward, missing his target. In seconds, the fighting went from two separate battles to a doubles match.

Bess buried her face in her hands. "That was a rental tux."

"Guys!" Vanessa appealed to the groomsmen. "You've gotta break it up!"

Chet, Biff, and Phil jumped off the dais and approached the melee carefully. It took both Chet and Phil to restrain Sweatpants Frank, while Biff handled Tuxedo Joe with some help from Carson. Officer Con Riley, of the Bayport P.D., and Chief McGinnis, of Nancy's hometown police department, fought their way through the frightened guests and attempted to separate the remaining two, which proved to be a bit more difficult. Chief McGinnis took an accidental swipe from Tuxedo Frank, sending him reeling backwards. Nancy gasped, leaping nimbly off the stage to steady him, only to be caught in the face by a flying elbow from Sweatpants Joe.

There was instant silence in the church as Nancy fell to the ground, blood dripping from her mouth. Frank and Joe stopped fighting, looking stricken. "Oh my god, Nance." said Sweatpants Joe. "I'm so sor-"

"Save it." Tuxedo Frank snapped, stooping next to Nancy. "Are you okay, Nan?" he asked gently, offering her his hand.

"Don't you touch her." Sweatpants Frank growled. He struggled against Chet and Phil, but they managed to keep hold of him.

Nancy looked at the man in front of her as she wiped the blood away from her mouth with the back of her hand. She wished, more than anything, that she could be sure that this man was Frank. Her Frank. It was her wedding day, and it had been crashed by her fiance's evil twin, and she had gotten punched in the mouth right there in the church, and she didn't know who she was supposed to be marrying anymore. She was not okay.

No one could possibly blame her for dissolving into tears at that point, but Nancy Drew was not that kind of woman.

She let Tuxedo Frank help her up and wrap his arm around her waist, and she studied him, hoping she would find some clue, that he would give her some hint, as to which was the real Frank. She could feel Sweatpants Frank's eyes on her, concern and venom warring in his gaze.

Bess rushed forward with a wad of tissues to prevent blood from dripping onto Nancy's dress. "You're a good maid of honor, Bess." Nancy said gratefully. As she dabbed the blood from her throbbing lip, she gradually became aware that everybody in the church was staring at her. "I think, maybe, we should work this out somewhere we can get a little more privacy?" she suggested. Stepping out of Frank's arms, she looked hard at the two Franks and two Joes. "Brides' room, please. And no more fighting."

"Right." Vanessa agreed. "If any of you makes a move we'll be forced to assume you're the evil ones."

Sweatpants Joe tried to protest. "Van, please-"

Vanessa leveled him with a hard look. "I'll choose right now. And I don't think any of these people would blame me if I picked the one who didn't show up for our wedding wearing a track suit."

There were no further complaints as the grooms reluctantly allowed their friends and families to herd them out of the main hall of the church.

Vanessa and Nancy followed behind at the back of the group, their arms looped together in a show of solidarity. "I feel like I should be able to look at them both and just know which one is mine." Nancy murmured. "This feels like a test, and I'm failing. How can I not know?"

Vanessa took a deep breath and patted Nancy's arm. "You know... I'm sure all married couples go through this sort of thing." she said. After a beat, they both dissolved into slightly-hysterical giggles.

Unfortunately, privacy wasn't particularly private, Nancy reflected, once you had crammed two brides, four grooms, four parents, two bridesmaids, two groomsmen, and a cop all into the brides' dressing room. Luckily, Chief McGinnis had volunteered to stay and try to calm down the guests, along with Phil Cohen and George, whom they had left trying to comfort the distraught priest. Nancy's housekeeper and surrogate mother Hannah Gruen had taken charge of caring for Gertrude, whom they had moved into the coat check room to give her some space.

Both Franks and both Joes were unrestrained now, none of them making any violent moves at the moment, although Biff and Chet were keeping careful eyes on them. All four were seated on folding chairs, arranged in a line. Nancy noticed that the Frank and Joe she'd originally seen on the altar were sticking close together, and that the two wedding crashers were doing the same.

"Ideas? Anyone?" she asked the room at large. As she'd expected, everybody looked as utterly baffled as she felt.

Bess returned to the room with handkerchief wrapped around a bag of ice, which she handed to Nancy to press against her swelling lip. "Are we going to propose to cut Nancy in half and see which Frank objects?" she asked with a smile. One of the Joes smirked, but the rest of the room stared at her like she had three heads. Meekly, she continued, "You know, like the story with the baby... and Solomon... never mind."

Nancy bit back a chuckle. Poor Bess. The situation was so ludicrous, and she was doing the best she could to lighten things up. Unfortunately for her, the tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. Whether it was because she was a detective, or because she was one of the brides, it seemed that everyone was expecting her to figure out what was going on here.

She briefly entertained the notion of trying to pass the duty on to the maids of honor—they were failing horribly at their job of making the wedding run smoothly.

Nancy walked forward slowly, looking first into one Frank's face, then the other's. Discounting the various forming bruises from their encounter in the church, the two were perfectly identical, down to the last freckle. Even looking into their eyes didn't help—both men had the same deep brown eyes, both full of frustration at the situation, both begging her to pick him.

"I..." she swallowed hard, her cheeks burning with shame. "I don't know."

She stepped back, and Laura Hardy stepped forward, studying all four men intently. Everyone in the room went still; it went without saying that if there was one person who should be able to spot the imposters, it would be Frank and Joe's mother. Laura moved from one to the next slowly, a troubled look on her face. She stopped at the end of the line, reaching out a trembling hand to touch the face of Sweatpants Joe. Tuxedo Joe looked hurt and angry. "Mom-" he began.

Laura snatched her hand away quickly. "I'm not sure." she whispered, sounding positively horrified at herself. She looked at Fenton, who wrapped a comforting arm around her.

"It's okay, Mom." Tuxedo Frank spoke up. "The guys who did this, they're real professionals. It's their job to make good copies."

"'The guys who did this.'" Nancy repeated, and Frank looked upset at himself for saying so much. "Let's start there, shall we? Who did this?"

Both pairs of men exchanged glances with their partners, but none of them spoke.

"All right, boys. One of you is going to have to explain what's going on." Vanessa said, addressing the potential grooms.

All four men began talking at once, and Nancy held up her hands to stop them. "One at a time." she said. "You first, Tuxedo Frank."

"Tuxedo Frank?" Sweatpants Frank repeated, a sparkle in his eye.

Nancy glared at him, but she was blushing. "That's how I've been distinguishing you guys in my head. And you're Sweatpants Frank, so be quiet."

"That's good." Vanessa muttered approvingly. "I've been using Joe I and Joe II."

Nancy nodded, "That was my first thought, but I was worried I might accidentally bias myself towards Frank I by doing that, since Frank I should obviously be the title reserved for the original, and we don't know which one that is."

"Your way is better." Vanessa agreed. She turned to Tuxedo Frank. "You were about to explain what this is all about?"

"I can't." he answered, his eyes pleading with Nancy. "Not in front of all these people."

Nancy immediately understood what he meant. Whenever Frank was reluctant to talk about a case in front of other people, it usually had something to do with the Network, the top-secret government organization he and Joe sometimes worked for. In fact, she wondered why she hadn't suspected Network involvement from the beginning, especially when she considered their honeymoon plans.

She gathered the friends and family around in a circle. "All right," she said. "Everybody out. Vanessa and I want to talk to the guys alone."

A collective protest went up from the room. Everybody was worried for the brides' safety. More importantly, nobody wanted to miss the story of how Frank and Joe had somehow acquired evil identical twins.

Fenton cleared his throat. "Nancy... I'm not sure this is the best idea."

"Yeah," Biff spoke up. "Someone should stay with you girls, in case they try to attack you or something."

"They won't." Vanessa said, sounding surer than she felt as she glanced back at the two Joes.

"And if they do, we'll have figured out who the imposters are." Nancy pointed out with a smile.

"Yes, but they'll be attacking you." Biff reminded her.

Nancy shrugged. "I'm sure we can take them, with help from the real Frank and Joe."

Bess groaned. "But your dress, Nan..."

"I know..." Nancy sighed. "But some things just have to be sacrificed."

After a few more mumbled protests, and several assurances that help would be waiting just outside, Nancy shut the door to the brides' room and took her place next to Vanessa.

Two brides. Four grooms.

"Finally." she quipped. "We're alone."


A/N: It's so incredibly awkward trying to distinguish between the doubles while writing that I just had to hang a lampshade on it and move on haha. Review, please!