"Some people some into our lives and quickly go. Others stay and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same."Proverb

Frank decided not to witness at the trial.

His reasons weren't great -- they weren't even reasons. Frank, always analytical and logical, knew enough about himself to know that they were excuses.

He didn't want to leave Joe. That was the obvious first one. Joe had taken a huge, brave step forward by coming to the trial in the first place. If Frank decided to play witness, he wouldn't be allowed in for the day, and that was inexcusable. Chet had told him that Joe was anxious and jittery when Frank wasn't around, even when he was with friends who cared about him.

Frank was hoping that Joe would calm down with time. He was praying that maybe, one day, they'd get back to detective work. Sometimes Frank caught Joe flipping through the newspaper for a case, a puzzle to take his mind off everything. He knew that his brother missed cases as much as he did, but Joe wasn't mentally well enough to be hunting bad guys when he had demons of his own to deal with.

The second reason had taken four months to figure out. In the time since the shooting, Frank had wondered why this time was so different. Joe had been shot before. Heck, Frank had been shot before. They'd both been stalked and beaten and left for dead a dozen times. So why was this situation so different?

The night before the prosecution opened made its case, Frank realized why this was different. Before, when they had been hurt, like when Joe was shot in Africa, they had been playing the hero, the white knights swooping in at the nick of time to save the day.

Now they were the victims. The people who needed saving, because they just couldn't seem to do it themselves.

Sometimes, after a case, Frank would find himself wondering about the people they had saved. He wondered why they ended up in a phsyc ward, why they couldn't seem to move on with their lives. He just didn't get why these people chose to live like that.

Watching Joe, Frank realized he'd been wrong on all counts. The victims (though he hated thinking of his brother that way -- survivor, maybe, or miracle) didn't choose anything. The killers and rapists and thieves choose their fate for them, then left the people they'd hurt to pick up the pieces.

Frank sat down between Joe and John. Biff and Chet sat on the other side of Joe, Tony beside John, taking Carrie's place. Carrie would be doing what Frank could not. She would be on the stand sometime in the next three days.

Putting his hand on Joe's leg, Frank was glad that his brother didn't pull away. Baby steps. He thought. Patience was one of his virtues, though, even if he had to be patient for months.

He was still thinking about what Joe had told him the night before. Frank cringed at the memory of Joe sitting, shaking and helpless, as he tried to put the memory of his death into words.

Frank tried to forget that at the time, he'd been wishing he was somewhere else. Anywhere. He didn't want to be the person Joe confided in. He didn't want to bear the burden of knowing exactly what was eating his brother from the inside out. In an instant, a fleeting thought that took less than a second, Frank had mused it would be easier if he'd just died.

Such a terrible thought shouldn't have even come to him -- he didn't want Joe dead at all. One of his hands rested on John's leg. He never, ever wanted to be in his position. He would not be holding up nearly as well. He probably would have died within a month. He definitely wouldn't be brave enough to sit in the same room as his brother's killer.

Frank realized that people were standing up around him. He jumped to his feet in time to hear the bailiff say, "the Honorable Judge Dawson presiding."

Sitting back down, Frank realized that he would be listening to accounts from other students who had been affected by the shootings. He knew that it had been hard to find lawyers for the case because so many had relatives involved That Day.

Frank watched, amazed, as a boy took the stand. He was dressed in a green turtleneck, even though the day was relatively warm. Glasses masked grey eyes and were surrounded by freckles. He pushed his red curls from his face as he leaned closer to the microphone to answer the question, "Kevin Moore. I'm a sophomore at Bayport High School."

It was only after he said his name that Frank managed to place the boy. Last year, he had done a stint with the debate team, before he ended up missing too many practices because of cases. Kevin had a quick mind, making the senior team as a freshman. He had trounced Frank in the topic of whether or not colleges should teach computer science students how to hack into various systems.

The lawyer for the prosecution was walking Kevin though various questions as part of the direct examination, and Kevin answered them smoothly. "Yes, I was in school that day." He answered.

"And where were you?"

"In the gym. I have first period PE class, and it was too cold to go outside that day." Kevin's face displayed no emotion. His hands were folded neatly in front of him, the thin fingers lacing together. Frank remembered another thing about Kevin Moore -- he was teased mercilessly by most of the jocks in school for being so thin-boned. At five foot five, Kevin weighed no more than a hundred pounds and his high cheekbones and careful features inspired the nickname "fairy."

"Were you sitting alone?"

Frank was not the only person who saw Kevin visibly straighten up, as if he was fortifying his defenses. "No. I always sat with my friend Thomas McAffe."

"Have you and Thomas been friends for a while?"

"Yeah. Since third grade. We both -- well, we got teased a lot. We were both kind of…bookish?" Kevin smiled thinly just as Frank managed to place the other name. McAffe was a defense attorney and a friend of the Hardy's father.

"What happened that day in the gym?"

Kevin's hands twisted in front of him, he bit his lip. "Me and Tom were in the back of one of the lines, talking about this video game we were designing together. The door must have opened but I didn't notice. The next thing I heard was a gunshot."

"Did you see the person holding the gun?"

"Yes."

"Are they in this room today?"

Kevin nodded, pointing straight at Jake Roffman. "That's him." Jake looked right though him.

"Let the record show that the witness pointed to the defendant." The lawyer said smoothly. "What happened after that?"

"I started to get up, but Tom pulled me down. He said we didn't want to draw attention to ourselves. I wanted to see who'd been shot, though. It was this football player, Brandon. The kid with the gun told us all to stay where we were." Kevin seemed reluctant to continue with the memory. He paused, swallowing. "I…I thought I could get out. There was this door right behind us. The kid was going up and down the lines, pulling the trigger right and left. I figured it was only a matter of time. I bolted --" he stopped here, looking scared and guilty, an expression Frank knew well.

"I looked back in time to see Tom coming after me. I saw his face when…when the bullet hit him." Kevin choked, completely losing his composure for the first time. "The kid was aiming for me. Tom -- he's an idiot. He just jumped in front of me." A short pause, then, so quiet Frank could barely hear it. "Tom died in my arms."

There was an object stuck in Frank's throat. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't swallow. He couldn't even try. All he could do was stare at this boy who knew what it felt like to be helpless.

The lawyer had one more question. "Were you or Tom ever bullied? Picked on by other students?"

Kevin looked straight at Roffman, tears glistening behind the glasses. "Every day."

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