Terribly sorry about the delayed update, but I'll try to post another chapter within a couple of days to make it up to you.
Merry Christmas everyone.
He heard soft voices, but couldn't make out what they were saying. There were blurred images of some familiar-looking faces, looking down at him and disappearing as blackness came again. Consciousness came and went and he couldn't cling to it to make it last longer than a few moments. Sometimes, he felt being moved. There were times he came to to the feeling of someone holding his hand or touching his face.
There was a moment when he felt someone kiss his forehead, leaving a warm tear on his skin. He was surprised to sense his father's aftershave then.
All the sensations would come for mere seconds – short moments between him slipping back into nothingness. Those voices, they sounded so happy, urging him to do something, something he couldn't understand. And those faces – why did they look so happy in their blurriness?
Gradually things were becoming clearer and he was more aware of those moments of consciousness. He was in a hospital bed, with something sticking into and out of him. It itched like hell, but he couldn't move a finger let alone reach out his hands to scratch the sticking things away.
His parched throat hurt when he tried to talk to a nurse that had come to check on him and asked those familiar faces to leave for a few minutes. She let out a surprised "you're talking!" and called someone. Soon there was a commotion as more people in white came running in.
A familiar looking man in a white hospital gown asked if he knew his name. The reply came out in a childish-like high-pitched voice and the face above him beamed. He though he was just laughing at his funny tone of voice. Feeling weaker with each passing second, he promised himself to tell the nasty man in white it was not polite to laugh at people in hospital beds and fell back into unconsciousness.
When he woke up again, the nasty man was gone and there was a panda in a chair by his bed and it was holding his left hand. Since when are pandas allowed to hospitals? his sluggish mind wondered, studying the pale face with big dark eyes and black circles around them. And why did the animal's paws felt so strange?
"Why isn't your hand fluffy?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.
The panda looked confused. "Erm…. I don't know," it admitted.
He continued to look at it through half-opened eyes. He was sure he had only seen a panda once in his life, in NY Zoo when he was seven, it was chewing lazily on a bamboo stick. Was it the same panda? Because it looked familiar.
The panda patted his hand with both of its warm hands. "Do you… do you recognize me?" it asked. Its voice sounded afraid.
The voice. Pandas didn't talk. Not in that voice. That voice could belong to just one being on the whole planet and it was not a panda. He blinked his eyes, straining his blurred vision, until panda's features cleared to reveal an anxious human face. Those dark brown eyes, on a tired-looking pale face, that afraid voice-
"Frankie?" he breathed.
The face before him cringed and began to cry into his hand.
Joe ran his weak hand through his brother's tousled hair, until Frank calmed down enough to look back at him. He looked like a crazy panda now.
"You…. I'm…. I thought I'd lost you… forever," Frank whispered hoarsely and sniffed.
What was he talking about? And how did he end up in hospital, by the way? But more importantly-
"Why are you in a sweater?" Joe asked barely audibly. "You're a hot guy, I know, but it's mid-summer."
"It's mid-February, Joe," Frank replied, not surprised to see confusion in those sleepy blue eyes. "You were in a coma."
"Wh-" Joe frowned. "How long?" his head hurt too much to calculate the number of months between June and February. Six? Seven?
"Over half a year," Frank's answer confirmed his bad suspicions.
Joe blinked at him. How could it be? It was just days ago when he was going to New York, wasn't it? On the way, he made a single stop at a small shop and... Or was it not just days ago? His heartbeat accelerated as memories started to rush through his mind. There was a car by the shop, where a woman pressed a gun into his ribs and told him to drive and not to attract attention. They took another road, heading to the west. The beepings of the heart monitor became more rapid.
"Easy, it's okay, you're okay now," Frank patted his hand and swallowed nervously. "You're going to be alright."
You're going to be alright… just hold on, fella. The voice belonged to some old man who wrapped a jacket around his bleeding body. The pain. So much agony…. Joe's breath cut in his throat, he moaned at the memories and shut his eyes. The woman, the blade of the knife slicing through his skin, her walking away….
The grip on his hand became stronger. "Joe, please, relax, please," Frank begged, afraid to see the rate of his brother's heartbeat. "Joey…"
Dr. Bates rushed into the room, "What's wrong?"
"I think he's remembering what happened to him," Frank said quietly, his heart throbbing at the sight of his brother's anguished face.
Without a word, the doctor filled a syringe with a medicine and injected it into an IV. Within moments, Joe's heartbeat slowed down to a normal rate.
Joe's eyes opened slowly. "Is she- is she in jail?" he asked his brother.
Frank's heart sank into his boots and he lowered his head, unable to look his brother in the eyes. He shook his head and placed his hands over his face. Dr. Bates sensed the uneasy conversation and excused himself to leave the room.
"Why?" Joe asked.
Because I'm a dumb jerk! "We- didn't know you were alive," Frank said quietly instead over a lump in his throat, rising his eyes to his brother's confused face.
"Why?"
"This is a very long story, really long," Frank sat back onto the chair and patted Joe's weak hand. "You're not strong enough for it yet, but I promise to tell you all when you're better, okay?"
"You thought I'd died?" Joe's tired eyes were full of anxiety. Frank didn't reply and it if weren't for the medication, his heart would race again. "She left me to die- and told you I'd died?"
This was not the best time to ask, but Frank hoped the question would take his brother's mind off the burning anxiety. "Do you remember her name?" he asked.
"You believed I'd died?"
Frank sighed. "I nearly forgot how persistent and pushy you are," he said with a smile.
"You did," this was not a question, but a statement from Joe whose face was a mixture of exhaustion and concern. "Frankie…." he tried to grip his brother's hand, but weakness was taking the best of him. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry-"
"You're not the one to blame, kiddo, so don't you think of apologising. You're alive and getting better and that's what matters."
"Amanda Jeff," Joe whispered, blinking his eyes tiredly. "Her name is Amanda Jeff."
Frank nodded his understanding, "We'll find her, I promise."
"Did you really think I died?"
"I really think you need to sleep to get better sooner," Frank replied with a smile. "We'll talk when you wake up, alright, kiddo?"
"You sound too English," Joe whispered and closed his eyes. Within seconds, blackness took over him.
Frank stared at his sleeping brother. He hadn't mentioned a thing about England since Joe woke up.
Fenton walked through the doors of the Bayport Hospital cafeteria and found his elder son with a plastic cup of latte. "Old coffee habits die hard, even after half a year in England on tea with milk?" he asked, taking the opposite seat.
"Hate tea, especially with milk," Frank admitted with a soft smile. "So- what's the news?"
"The news is that there're several Amanda Jeffs in Chicago, they've checked the most of them, one look particularly suspicious, so I hope we're close to finding her. Speaking of particularly suspicious," Fenton said, scratching his chin, "you didn't tell and I didn't want to push you, but- how did you end up in Ohio?"
Frank took a sip from his cup. "Promise not to put me into a psychiatric ward here?" he asked.
By the end of the story, Fenton, as Frank anticipated, was rather amused with how he'd come up with the idea to check the area by Lake Erie. "That's…an interesting way to investigate things," he said.
"Gosh, it felt so stupid."
"Well, maybe it was stupid, too, but it worked, didn't it?" when Frank said nothing in reply, Fenton ran a hand through his hair. "To think I've spent years scrutinizing files and details when I should have just bought myself a pack of cards…"
"Dad!" Frank hissed, his cheeks turning crimson.
Fenton laughed, "Just kidding. Seriously, Frank, I don't really care what you did to find him- because I don't know what else you or I could have done. He's alive, he woke up and he's improving- I swear, I couldn't care less about you going to a psychic salon as long as Joe's going home and you going back to being your relaxed and happy self. Really, nothing is more important to me."
"There's one more thing I wanted to say," Frank said.
"Shoot."
"I don't want to do detective stuff anymore," he lowered his eyes not to see his father's disappointment in him.
Surprisingly, Fenton let out a relieved "Thank. God."
"Thank God?" Frank looked at him with a frown. "I thought you'd be disappointed."
"About what? You going your way? That's hardly a disappointment, Frank," Fenton said. "Doing detective stuff is my life, it doesn't have to be yours or Joe's. As much as it flattered me, I never wanted you two to put yourself in danger."
True. Frank and Joe used to keep some of their cases unknown to their father, especially those he asked not to take because they were too dangerous. "It seemed fun," Frank sighed. "Until last summer. I-I never want to go through anything like this again."
"Neither do I. I want you boys to be happy, but most of all – I want you to be safe and sound. And if you two choose something less dangerous to make a living, you'd make my life much happier, too," Fenton patted his son's head affectionately.
"Dad! You have Joe back for doing that!" Frank scowled at the gesture of affection. "Let's change the topic. Your birthday's coming, any hint for the desired present?"
"A pack of cards, maybe?" at his son's sniff, Fenton laughed softly.