Thursday, October 19, 2000 (11:30 a.m.)

"JOE!"

Frank called out his brother's name when he woke up from a sound sleep and he sat straight up in bed, his eyes wide. He sat and shook for a minute as he tried to remember what happened. Joe was missing, kidnapped by his Uncle Derak, or so, everyone thought. He remembered when he woke up the night before, just after the girls had been discharged from the hospital, that his dad told him about what they found. Frank never heard his father sound so on edge before.

It was all disturbing. His father told him about the attack on the patio and about his chase after whom he assumed to be Derak but the fact that the attacker was confirmed to be left-handed was even more disturbing in light of what his mother said. Derak was right-handed, not left-handed.

Frank was too tired the night before to try to figure out what it meant. While the girls were getting discharged Frank had been seen by his orthopedist, Doctor Casey. The doctor had probed and prodded his knee until it hurt worse than it had the day he injured it but after the Doctor was done he had agreed that any surgery on the knee could possibly wait for a few weeks, so long as Frank promised to keep off it as much as possible and wear a knee brace. Since Frank used a cane to get around anyway, he would have to use the cane for possible support and if the knee showed signs of giving out, he was to get off it immediately.

Frank hoped to be discharged today, though when Doctor Carlisle, his normal doctor, saw him that morning he had told Frank to sleep again and they would talk about it this evening. Frank wanted out and he wanted out now. His brother was missing, a possible sick psycho had him and Frank wasn't going to leave him to Derak's mercies for much longer.

What did I just dream? He asked himself. Let's see. Joe and I were at the beach. We were playing a weird game of water volleyball. I don't remember anyone else in the game, but that's probably normal. I volleyed the ball over him and he dove into the waves to get it. Then, it was like a piece of glass appeared in front of us. I couldn't get to him, no matter how hard I tried to do it. I kept beating my head against the piece of glass and he was behind it, caught up in water. He was screaming at me. Help me, Frank! Help me, Frank! Oh, God...

Frank started sweating and he laid his head on his good knee. His bad one didn't hurt right now, thank goodness. He wanted out of this hospital about as badly as he ever wanted anything in his life. While Joe was gone, perhaps helpless, he wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything but getting him back. Mandy must be completely beside herself with worry by now. Nobody cared about the house being blown up. They wanted Joe back. All of them wanted Joe back.

"Why, hello there, Frank," Frank blinked in surprise. He hadn't heard anyone come into his room.

"Hello, Doctor Carlisle," Frank said to the doctor. Doctor Carlisle's very distinctive voice was easy to recognize. Frank learned that almost all voices were distinctive, if you listened hard and close enough. Sometimes the differences were just variations of timbre and tone and sometimes there were other things that made them different, like a nasally tone, a gravel voice, a big bass voice or even a tinny voice.

"Good to see you awake, let me do a quick once over," Doctor Carlisle took Frank's wrist in his own and held it for several seconds. "Good pulse today, your color is a lot better. How's the wrist?"

Doctor Carlisle picked up Frank's other wrist, the one hurt in the explosion shockwave. Frank felt him turn it over and over and flex and bend Frank's wrist but except for a mild twinge of pain when the doctor bent it, it felt fine.

"Wrist is looking good, there's no swelling," Doctor Carlisle said. "You may need to favor that tendon a little. Do you want to try a brace on it?"

Frank shook his head. "The brace on the knee is going to be bad enough."

"All right, then," Doctor Carlisle sounded quite pleased. "I'll have a nurse come in and finish off your vitals and help you get changed and we'll get you processed out of here. Your mother should be back in about a half-hour to pick you up."

"Great," Frank said, pleased. He never wanted out of the hospital so much as he wanted out now.

"I want you to take it easy, Frank," Doctor Carlisle warned him. "Your body is still getting over the shock and the rest of you is dealing with what's happened to Joe. You need to rest. I want you to continue to sleep for several hours every day. Your body will probably force you into it and I want you to listen. I'd keep you here several more days but your father is understandably concerned for your safety and even I have to agree to that. Your roommate, Connor, was released this morning, he should be wherever your father is stashing the lot of you for the next few days."

Frank knew he had no intention of taking it easy. As soon as he was out, he was going to be out finding his brother. Hurt knee, blindness, nothing was going to stop him from his quest.

"I'll try," Frank didn't bother to look up.

"Hmm," Doctor Carlisle commented. "See you in a few minutes."

During that few minutes a nurse came into the room and took Frank's blood pressure, temperature and respiratory rate and finally, very carefully helped Frank into the clean clothes his mother had brought for him the day before. Frank finally felt mostly whole at last, wearing a pair of jeans of some kind and one of his polo shirts. He sat on the edge of his bed, the leg with the brace on it jutted out at a sort of awkward position but he dangled the other one back and forth as he waited.

"Hi, sweetheart," Frank looked toward the door when it opened and smiled when he heard his mother's voice. "You are looking much better."

"I feel a lot better too," Frank admitted. "Better than I did a few days ago at any rate."

A warm kiss pressed against his cheek and Frank smelled his mother's familiar scent, the sort of rosy perfume she preferred evident as she sat on the bed next to her. Frank smiled at her and leaned over to return her kiss on the cheek. He found her cheek mostly by luck and brushed against her soft hair.

"Did you come alone?" he asked her in a soft voice.

"No," Laura explained. "Your father wouldn't allow it, not with what happened yesterday. He left Sam with the other kids and came with me to get you. He's waiting in the waiting room for us."

"Ah, good," Frank smiled, aware that she had been talking about Sam Radley and not his girlfriend. "I, uh, didn't want you out by yourself either, mom. I don't want anything happening to you!"

"I'm rather fond of you too," Laura laughed and brushed back Frank's hair. He felt something slide through his dark hair a moment later - a comb. He blushed, unable to help himself and he scuffed his foot on the floor with his good foot.

"Aw, mom," he said, embarrassed.

"A mother's good intentions are never appreciated," Laura laughed. "Your hair was sticking up on end, I thought you might prefer that I combed it down before you appeared in public."

"Oh, ha, ha," Frank laughed, meaning it. "But thank you. Mom? Did Sam... I mean Samantha come with you?"

"She wanted to but your father said no. He's dead serious about keeping us all safe and he said the less targets in one car the better. I don't think she was very pleased about that but when I left she was beating Mandy and Connor at three-way spades so I don't think she was too unhappy."

Frank smiled at that, pleased that she had wanted to come but more pleased that his father had her stay behind in whatever safety he designed for them. It would be strange to go somewhere that wasn't their familiar, warm, home on Elm Street. Frank's memories of that house would always be happy ones, safe ones. Going somewhere else would not be the same, no matter what they tried to do to make it home. In his current state, without a visual memory of how the new house was laid out, it would probably take him months to learn his way around.

"Where are we going?" Frank asked, curious.

"Not here," his mother said. "Your father doesn't want us to talk about it in here. I'll tell you out in the car."

Frank raised an eyebrow - something he inherited from his mom and he reached out with his hand. She took it in one of hers and kissed his temple again. Touching. In Frank's world of darkness it made people more real, more alive. He remembered how they looked, forced himself to retain that memory but always, always, if a person didn't touch him things seemed more abstracted, more dream-like.

Thoughts of dreams sobered him and he sighed and bent his head. Joe. Joe was calling for help and he hadn't yet.

"What is it?" Laura asked in her quiet voice.

"Just a dream I had just before I woke up," Frank said. "I think... I think Joe was asking me to help him."

His mother said nothing and Frank sat in the silent darkness and waited.

"Mom?" he said.

"Mandy said the same thing this morning," Laura said. "Just after she woke up she said she had a dream that Joe was begging for help. I sort of expect that from her, because of how connected she and Joe are but, well, I always get surprised when you do it too."

Frank smiled a little at that.

"What are we going to do first?" he asked, then said. "I know, we'll talk about it in the car. I may die of curiosity before we get to the car, mom."

"I thought you were the patient one, Frank," his mom chided him, teasingly.

"My patience is reserved for things like schoolwork, detective work and putting up with Joe and Mandy's shenanigans. I don't have any when my brother has been kidnapped by a madman."

"None of us do," Laura admitted in a remorseful voice.

"All right," another voice, Doctor Carlisle's, interrupted them. "I just have a few forms for you to sign, Laura, then you can take him home."

"I don't get to sign my own forms? I'm twenty..." Frank protested, playfully, rather than seriously.

"If you're on your parents insurances, they sign the insurance forms," the doctor laughed. "Patience, young grasshopper."

"Oh, Lord, a closet Kung-Fu fan," Frank moaned. "Spare me."

Frank felt his mother's weight leave the bed as she pulled her hand free from his. Frank went back to waving his foot back and forth as he waited for her to return.

"I'm giving your mom three prescriptions, Frank," Doctor Carlisle said. "One is a pain-killer - only take those if you have to. If you can get by on Ibuprofen or Aleve, that would be better. I'm giving you an antibiotic to continue to fight off any infection from the various scrapes that you have and a cream to put on your knee. You'll take the antibiotic twice a day. Apply the cream three times a day. Any questions?"

"No, sir," Frank said.

"All right, then," Doctor Carlisle said and Frank heard a hint of a smile in his voice. "Besides getting that knee fixed, Frank, I would really appreciate only seeing you here when you are attending the classes and not when you are getting yourself half-killed?"

"I'll try, sir," Frank smiled and laughed. "I really will try."

"And," Frank heard the door open. "Bring your brother back home safe."

Frank heard the door close immediately after that and he sat with his mouth open. He closed it a moment later and shook his head. He scratched it once and stood gingerly to his feet. The knee didn't hurt too bad with the brace on it, though he suspected that wouldn't last too long.

The door opened a gain a moment later.

"Wheelchair," a nurse's voice said. "Just stay there."

He heard the chair being pushed toward him and behind him. The nurse took one of his arms and helped him to sit down without killing himself, then positioned the feet rests so that he could rest his bad leg more easily on them. The chair moved smoothly forward.

"We're here, Frank," he heard his mother's voice. "Your father is going ahead to get the car."

Frank nodded and sat quietly as the nurse pushed the chair down the corridor. He managed not to fidget, though he was excited about getting out of the hospital and getting onto more constructive things, such as calming down his probably hysterical sister, kissing his girlfriend, finding his brother. If a chance to badly hurt his Uncle showed up, well, he wouldn't turn it down but those three things at the top of his list would most likely take up quite a bit of his time.

The chair bumped out of the elevator and forward again, made a couple of turns and then they were being pushed out into the fresh air outside of the hospital. Frank took several deep, appreciative breaths and smiled happily. Fresh air. No more recycled air. No more medicinal smells that made him slightly nauseous, no more little beeps and blips to disturb his sleeping.

"See you later, Mr. Hardy," the nurse said in a sort of knowing voice that sounded like she expected it for a certainty, rather than a guess. "Take care."

Frank stood cautiously and his mother took one of his arms. His father told him to watch his head and he ducked into the front seat of his father's car, probably the Cadillac, though he wasn't sure of that until he felt the seats. Definitely the Cadillac.

"You're looking good, son," his father said after he started the car and Frank felt it move. "Much better than you looked just a few days ago. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, dad," Frank said. "And more than ready to be out of there and looking for Joe. Have you found out anything else?"

"Con didn't find any fingerprints on the quiver, nor on the arrows," his father told him. "They did look over the glove fairly carefully but even that didn't have prints and you'd think they would. Someone was covering his tracks very carefully. Iola's keys weren't missing from Joe's drawers - I had Eric get them for me and I have them now. They are still doing the investigation on the house. They haven't found any hint or clue that anyone was in the house when it blew up - I don't think that's a surprise."

"What about going to Derak's house in Connecticut?" Frank asked. "Has anyone gone there yet?"

"That's on the list for tomorrow," Fenton said. "I would have gone already but I wanted to make sure that the rest of you were safe first. I'd rather not go off looking for Joe only to find out that one or more of you got killed while I was gone. It took most of the day to make arrangements for that. Mandy wants to go around the neighborhood to see if anyone saw Derak."

"What about that Audi?" Frank asked.

"Con got me a list of five names in the area," Fenton said. "It's a specialty color for Audi and costs quite a bit extra to get. I asked him to check in Connecticut too; that report should be ready when we get there."

"Do we still think it's really Derak? I mean if the shooter was left-handed... and he's right-handed. You don't think he's sick enough to get an accomplice, do you?" Frank asked.

"Actually, I was thinking about that," Fenton admitted. "He could have just hired someone to make the arrow attacks, another psychological attack as much as a physical one. The only problem with that, though..."

"...Is the glove you found in the quiver with his initials in it. It would be way too coincidental for the archer to have the same initials," Frank finished for him. He drummed his fingers on the armrest on the door. "Derak wouldn't give the person his own quiver and arrows, would he?"

"Those were specialty arrows," Fenton said. "I still don't know how they flew, Mandy said the build of them was all wrong, against the laws of convention. She wishes she could have seen the bow it might have had something to do with it. If they were specialty arrows, there's no reason why the archer, if he was hired, would have used them and if they were his own he wouldn't have had that glove in them."

"For the wrong hand," Frank frowned and leaned back against the neck rest. "I don't like this, dad. Is he trying to throw us off with that glove? Maybe he just planted it, to see if it would throw us off him."

"Could be," Fenton admitted. "It could be. I'll know more when I go up to check his house."

"You know, Dad," Frank said. "I'm going with you."

"Oh no you're not," his mother said from the back seat. "Frank, use a little common sense. I know how badly you want to find him but you aren't in any shape to go on a hunt like that."

"I'm going," he said. "If I have to crawl there."

"That's not very wise," Fenton said. "I'm not going to have time to lead you around once we get to the house."

Frank forced himself not to say something curt at that. He would be a liability, his father meant without saying it. He would get in the way. He wouldn't be able to help at all. Why bother to try?

"I'll sit in the car," Frank said. "But I'm going. I want to be there when you find Joe and pull him out. One of us should be with him."

His father sighed and Frank turned his attention back to his hand that still drummed on the armrest. What was his Uncle doing? Why? It just made no sense and it made Frank half-crazy trying to figure it all out. He drummed his fingers harder without realizing it, more agitated than he assumed. His father, he knew without seeing or saying anything, was just as agitated and just as displeased about Frank's announcement as he was about Joe. Frank said nothing more on the matter, either to ease his father's troubled thoughts or to ease his own. He was going. It was as simple as that.

"You'll stay in the car," his father said again in a brusque voice.

"Yes, sir," Frank agreed.

Frank heard his mother make a noise in the backseat but, again, he said nothing. He fought for what he thought was right and this, Frank felt, was right. He would not unnecessarily cause problems for anyone but he would do what he felt to be the right thing. Something told him that he had to be there, he had to go. If he never made it into that mausoleum of a house he still feel as if he accomplished something by going.

"Where are we staying?" Frank asked and he turned his head in his father's direction.

"With Sam and Edith," his father answered. "Sam's got the place built almost like a fortress, it will be the safest place for all of you to stay while we're gone. Or, that is, for the others to stay while we're gone. I've arranged for Con to stay with you... them. It's his day off tomorrow and the next day. He asked to be able to stay and I agreed that it made sense to have him here."

"That's nice of him," Frank agreed as he scratched his head. He really wanted a shower in the worst way. "He'll be able to keep everyone safe."

"The hard part will be Mandy," Fenton said. "She's determined to go out and talk to our neighbors. You know Sunday's the big day that a lot of them are out doing lawn work and the like. She wants to see if anyone saw the car or Joe or Derak or all of the above. I don't want her out roaming about by herself. Connor's not really in good enough shape to supervise her on his own."

"I can help with that," Frank said. "I'll make a few phone calls when we get to Sam's. I should be able to track down some of our friends at school to come and keep guard. Her idea's a good one, dad. If nothing comes of our trip to Connecticut it will help to keep things going on this end."

It was quiet then Frank's father apologized to him. "Sorry, son, I sometimes forget you can't see me nodding. I'm not very fond of that idea either but it's better than Mandy going on her own. Are you sure you can get enough of your friends to come and help?"

Frank nodded. "I'm pretty sure. If all else fails, I'll get the whole defensive line to come and watch them. Those guys are like bulldogs and they'll guard Connor's back if he were in a war. That's the best thing I can think of."

"You have a few friends from high school left in town too, don't you, Frank?" his mother asked from behind him. He felt her hand on his shoulder and he squeezed it. "Not many I'll grant, since you all scattered to the four winds when you graduated."

"There are a few," Frank agreed. "Jerry's still around. Chet's at school here. Biff and Tony are back in Illinois, though. Phil's at MIT. But there are other friends I can get. Conrad, Patrick, Jason... I'm pretty sure they're around."

"Make the calls when we get back then," Fenton suggested in a tone of partial agreement. "I don't want any of you making targets of yourselves. Neither your mother or I are overjoyed about the idea of more hospital stays for any of you. Mandy's stubborn enough to not listen, even if she was young enough for me to threaten with grounding or something of the like. I can only beg you all to be cautious."

"We will be, dad," Frank agreed.

Fenton was silent again and Frank turned his face to the window. He felt the sun warm on the window and he leaned his face against it to warm the chill he felt. His knee chose that moment to throb and he frowned down at it in exasperation. It could have waited until he got settled again to start that up again. He dared the knee to keep up its shenanigans. He had no time to baby it, whether the doctor wished it or no.

He jerked out of his mental warnings when a cell phone rang. It took him a moment to realize that it was his mother's phone and knew it for sure when he heard her voice from the back seat.

Frank sat forward and that and turned as much as the seatbelt and his bad leg allowed. A helicopter? What did that have to do with anything?

"No," Laura said a moment later. "Not yet. Tomorrow. Yes. No. We haven't found anything really. A few things. I can't talk about it on the phone, Cathy, I'm sorry. Yes, thank you for telling us that. I really do appreciate it. Yes. Is Andrew all right? Oh good, I was hoping. I know... oh yes... I know the boys would love a visit if he gets a chance. Yes, all right. Thank you again, Cathy. Bye."

Frank heard her put the phone away and he waited impatiently.

"Cathy said that she had a couple of their neighbors in Connecticut go and check out the mansion," Laura explained, filling in the bits that neither Frank or his father heard. "She said that the one neighbor who went and looked the estate over said he found a helicopter in the back of the mansion, just sitting there. It hasn't been there long. She wanted to know if we'd gone out there yet and if we had found out anything about Joe."

"How is Andrew?" Fenton asked. "He was... well..."

"Cathy said he's fine and enjoying school. He hasn't had to see Derak at all and she said she would have him call later to see if he can help in anyway."

"A helicopter," Fenton frowned. "What in the world is he doing with a helicopter?"

"Dad," Frank interrupted. "You remember what else Aunt Cathy told us? What if he's using the helicopter to take Joe away tonight? If he is... we'd better get up there tonight instead. Joe may not be there tomorrow!"

The Loss PG