Nancy was as light as a feather. She weighed practically next to nothing. The Morning Killer, whose real name was Jaxon Price or Jax for short. However, to his wife, he had been known as Sam. He stooped, lifting her gently in his arms, her head lolled backwards and rested against his chest. He knew where to take her now. Todd had prepared his worktable in his shop for the Morning Killer to do with whatever he wanted, in the futile attempts it would allow him and his family to live. How wrong they were. They would all die, except for Miss Drew. Except she was no longer Nancy Drew. She was now Helen Price, or she would be, once he finished with her. He had a lot of work to do to make sure his wife came back to him.

"Starting with your hair, it's all wrong. But don't worry, Helen. I'm going to fix everything, you'll see. Everything's going to be all right now." he sighed, fingering a lock of it lovingly. The sounds of Alice and Todd's shouts broke him out of his reverie, his moment alone with Miss Drew interrupted as he gently laid her on the table.

"Sir!" piped up Todd's voice, sounding gruff and terrified. "We have a—a problem," he groaned.

"What?" he snapped. He turned around and wished he would not have. "What the hell happened to you?" he asked, almost sounding bored with his hosts as he stared at the gaping holes in their sides.

Todd and Alice had both been shot, no doubt the handiwork of that Chicago detective. Right as rain, another gunshot rang out and blood and brain matter splattered the door. As their limp frames fell to the floor with a loud thud, Tino stood in the doorway, with that purple and blue haired freak standing behind him, looking terrified.

"STEP AWAY FROM THE GIRL!" shouted Balducci, doing his best to put on a brave front, but it was a falsehood. The bravado didn't suit him. He'd shot on accident, Jax could tell by the way his hands shook.

"Put the gun down, Tino Balducci. Right now or I'll shoot you. Don't make me lose my temper," the Morning Killer stated calmly, not fazed by the Chicago detective's outburst, or the fact that he had just killed the house's hosts. He had done Jax a favor by doing it for him, for that, he was grateful.

If the man did not oblige by putting the gun down, he was going to have to do it himself, and his way would be much messier, plenty of blood involved. He would rather not things get violent. Yet. There would be time enough for that later. "I gave you an order." Tino's hands trembled as he struggled to hold the gun steady. Jax knew the look in the man's eyes all too well, having seen it several times in the mirror himself, shortly after Helen died. He was desperate.

Jax sighed, seeing Tino Balducci was well beyond the point of rational reasoning. With an exasperated sigh he pulled out his Cutlass from its holster, fanned the weapon once and shot Tino point black in the head. The bullet entered the hotshot detective as if he were nothing, just meat, blood, and bone, blasting a cavity in his back as it burst crimson into the coming dawn of the light of day. "Anything from you? No? I didn't think so. Get the hell out of here!" he shouted as he trained the weapon on Sonny Joon, the eccentric city boy with the wild hair and vibrant purple glasses. The other one, Joon, let out a startled scream and bolted. Jax scoffed and rolled his eyes, not bothering to go after him when he had work to do. The house would take care of that one.

"Good," he snapped, returning his attentions to the unconscious woman on the operating table in front of him. She was heavily sedated for now, but it would wear off in another hour or two, so he had to work fast. Miss Drew's hair would need to be fixed first.

It had taken him shockingly two hours to find the exact color and shade that Helen's hair had been. IT had required the use of his abilities as a bit of a charmer to wheedle the information out of a Sally's beauty store consultant, and with the cashier's help, he had finally decided on the box of L'Oréal Excellence Crème, a rich dark ash brown, almost the color of an espresso or dark chocolate, the store attendant had told him, promising him when he paid for the box of supplies that his wife would love it.

He set to work quickly, applying the dye mixture to her hair, taking careful meticulous care not to stain her skin or her clothes. When her hair was corrected and met Jax's needs, dried and lightly curled, then it came time for her makeup to be applied. She already wore a similar style to Helen, but Helen had worn a different shade of lipstick, and brown eye shadow on her lids. Next thing to go was her dress. Though it suited her, the dress was not something his Helen would have worn. By the time he finished, Nancy Drew no longer existed. She was Helen Price now, for better or worse.

"Time to go make your goodbyes, love," he said quietly, wondering if she could hear him somehow as she stirred gently in his arms, still groggy from the sedative he had administered. It would wear off relatively quickly. "It's all the time you have left."

And then you're mine. I'm so sorry, Helen. For everything. But I'm going to make it up to you. You'll see. I'm going to make everything all right.

Frank woke up groggily feeling like his head was pounding. "Where…what happened? Jenna!" he shouted, glancing wildly around for any signs of Jenna and Nancy. He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw Nancy sitting on a chair next to him, but he knew immediately just by looking at her something was wrong. Someone—presumably the killer—had drastically changed Nancy's appearance. She wasn't hogtied to a chair like he was, but he'd cuffed her hands, making it incredibly difficult for her to get out of them, given they were an old pair of old-fashioned manacles. "Shit. What did he do to you?" he swore darkly. "Nance? Can you hear me? It's Frank," he whispered.

Nancy stirred uneasily, her eyelids blinking rapidly as she woke up, bolting upright from her position. She had opened her mouth to shout, but all that came out was a dry hoarse croak. Whatever he had injected her with had affected her senses greatly. She was thirsty, and she just wanted to sleep.

"Frank," she whispered, as loud as she could. "What…?" Nancy froze as she caught sight of her reflection. "Oh, god, no," she whispered. Her red hair was gone. Sam—if that was his real name—had taken meticulous care to dye Nancy's hair and curl it gently once it was dyed. Though still quite pretty, Nancy had to admit the dark brown chocolate color was not suited for her. Her red hair was her trademark, the only reminder she had left of her mother, other than her mother's eyes, anytime she looked in a mirror at her red hair, she saw Kate. And her clothes were gone. In place of her dress, she now wore a gray t-shirt knotted at the waist and a simple maxi skirt, brown open-toed sandals. This must be what she was wearing the day they met, Nancy surmised silently.

The detective noticed her husband staring at her quizzically and she felt her cheeks flush. "I…I have no other choice, Frank. He gave me a choice...I'm sorry..."

"NANCY!" Frank bellowed, able to read that look on his wife's face all too well. "You cannot possibly sit here and tell me you're seriously thinking of going with him. Look what the hell he's done to you! He's—he's changed you, Nance, and if you stay with him, he'll kill you eventually. I—I'm sure of it, Nancy!"

"It's the only way to save you, Frank," she whispered, her voice wavering a little. She was actively avoiding staring at her reflection in the door's mirror. The woman in the mirror was a stranger to her. Not her.

Frank opened his mouth to speak, to tell her how foolish his wife was being, and doing this would not save his wife, because he would just kill Frank and take Nancy anyways, but he didn't get a chance as the sound of the bedroom door creaked open.

The Morning Killer entered, his green eyes blazing with a dangerous intensity. He was done with Frank Hardy interfering with his only chance left at salvation.

"Time's up, Helen," he snapped.

Nancy bit her lip, not wanting to do this, but she didn't see any other choice. "Tell me your name. Your real name. Say it," she urged, her voice above a whisper. "If I'm going to go with you, I need to know your name, don't I? I…" her voice trailed off, but she knew if she wanted to stay alive, she had to do this. "I'm your…wife…Sam. What's your real name?"

The Morning Killer halted, freezing in his tracks, not having anticipated such a question. He was looking at Nancy as though he could not quite believe what he was hearing. "Jax," he whispered. "Jax Price."

"And Helen was Helen Price?" A nod, confirming her suspicions. "If I go with you, Jax, will you let these two live? And—and Sonny!" she shouted, cursing herself for almost having forgotten Sonny Joon, wherever he was hiding in this hellhole. "That's my deal, Jax. Take it."

"You have my word, I swear it," he replied coldly, but it didn't reach his eyes. He fixed Nancy with a stare, but as he watched her, she could see it in his eyes, his expression softening. "My sweet, sweet, Helen, I—I'm so sorry. For—for everything I put you through," he apologized. He had eyes only for Nancy, staring at her as though he could not quite believe his eyes.

"She's not Helen, no matter how much she looks like her, she isn't your wife, Jax!" spoke up Jenna quietly, a new, fierce determination in your voice. "Helen—she doesn't want this for you. She—she told me so," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Her admission caused the Morning Killer to whirl around and stare at the teenager, his eyes wide and slightly horrified, angry.

"What?" he snarled through clenched teeth. "What did you just say to me?" he demanded, fuming.

"Take my hand," Jenna urged, ignoring the dark looks both Nancy and Frank were shooting her way.

Nancy could see the doubt creeping its way onto Sam's face, as though he was beginning to question his voices. Good, she thought, but dared not say it. The young detective worked quickly to undo Frank's bindings, relishing the feeling of being in his arms again, thinking she would never see Frank again.

She could only fall silent and watch as the Morning Killer obliged, cutting her binds with some level of apprehension, hesitating before reaching out a slightly trembling hand, his fingers curling over Jenna's. Jenna closed her eyes, seemingly lost in concentration. Jax drew in a breath and held it.

"I just want to talk to her. We talked all the time, what we did, what we hadn't done, what we were going to do," he whispered, still sounding desperate. "I just want to talk to her, tell her how much I miss her. What are you, kid, and some kind of — of psychic?"

"Yes. Be quiet. I need to focus. She—she likes the red cushions, and the—the fairy lights, you've hung—you've hung them on the patio porch like you did in Boston. She likes those the best, says to keep them up. But she doesn't like the photograph." Jenna's voice was quiet and calm, despite the heavy tension.

"Photograph?" Jax asked, feeling his body go stiff. There was no way she could know this, unless... Helen.

"The one by your bed."

"But I love that picture!" he protested, feeling his tears well in his eyes.

"She says you look good."

"I was wearing the suit she got me. She was wearing the dress her mother got her for Easter, and she...Well maybe…oh my God, it's really Helen, isn't it?"

"Mmm." Jenna nodded. "Now…what do you want to say?"

"I…" Jax's voice trailed off as he swallowed the lump in his throat. "I don't know. I just wanted to tell her…what? That I—I'm okay. I made it. And it's great. The phone bills, ten times cheaper now! And I always know where my shoes are. I kept the old afghan she was so fond of, even though I couldn't stand looking at it. It still smells like her. I can smell her perfume on it. And I miss her. I supposed I didn't really know how much. But I do. I just do."

The tears burst forth like water from a dam, spilling down his face. Jax felt the muscles of his chin tremble like a small child and he looked toward the window, as if the light of the coming dawn could soothe him. There is static in his head once more, the side effect of this constant fear, constant stress he had learned to live with ever since Helen's death. He heard his own sounds, like a distressed child, raw from the inside. It takes something out of him he didn't know he had left to give. That is the way it is when people are hard. It is like a theft of the spirit, an injury no other person can see.

Jenna's eyes still stayed closed despite Jax's tears and his distressed wailing. "She—she says she wants you to stop this madness. And to come home to her. Helen says—she—she says…it's not too late for you, but you have to stop. Right now. Don't kill us. Let us go. She said she won't let you destroy yourself anymore, like she—she told you a few days before she died. She wanted you to know how much she—"

But Jenna didn't get a chance to finish her sentence as the sound of something exploding rung in the air, startling all three of them. Jax rose, drawing his weapon with almost the preciseness of a gunslinger, like something you'd see in one of those old Western movies, and made to fire at the intruder, but his weapon was knocked out of his hands as a shot rang out, wounding his hand. With a startled cry of outrage, he dropped his weapon to the floor with a loud clang, and Nancy stifled a scream as he collapsed to the floor, bleeding to his death. The entry wound was dead center to his neck, perfection if you considered that sort of thing—professional hit, no doubt. Someone's trademark, perhaps. A clean shot...

Jax awoke in an empty room to the calling of his name. He lay on a white bed, the white walls around his punctuated with ancient looking doors. Above each was a label. He read them: perfect insight, oblivion, hell-fire and heaven. He tossed his head and cackled, so easy. He pulled at the door marked heaven but it wouldn't budge. He re-read the others and opened the door to "perfect insight." Instantly he understood all of the pain he had caused others, physical and emotional. He rattled the door to oblivion and found it also stuck. Jax nodded grimly, "Alright, God, you win." He pulled open the door to hell-fire and stepped in expecting heat and bubbling skin. Instead his insight was magnified to the point where he could actually feel the pain he had caused others, not all together, but one at a time. At the start he begged for it to end, but hours later he embraced it, welcoming the pain as his punishment. After what felt like an eternity the door to heaven opened, and his Helen stood there, no longer sick and gaunt, but vibrant and full of youth, just as he remembered her...

Helen smiled at him. "I knew you'd make it home," she whispered, holding out her hand for him to take. He took it. Redemption. Forgiveness. Was there a way he could make up for all of the horrible things Jax had done? Was there a way he could become someone better? Or would he always be Jax Price, the murderer? The angry man who refused to talk about his past and had no future? How could he be better? How could he help the people he loved so dearly?

Helen seemed to sense his hesitation and smiled. "By helping them one at a time. Come on," she whispered. "We have a lot of work to do."

To his amazement, he went with her. To him, this was his heaven, his true chance at redemption, with his wife at his side. He couldn't ask for anything more than that.

Nancy and Frank dared to glance up and saw to their relief, Sonny Joon standing behind that state trooper they'd met on the road earlier, Officer Jones, who was looking both relieved to see them all alive and terrified. Nancy's gaze drifted to the dying man on the floor. Some saw only the bullet hole that had killed a monster, but Nancy still saw the person living around it. She saw the pain in the one still living and the potential of those who lay cold in silent grayness.

She saw his perfect skin, the brilliant green eyes as they slowly lost their sheen as his life force ebbed out of him gradually, slowly, painfully. Nancy saw a human rather than a statistic, just another killer down for the count, and felt the grief of the only one who had probably ever loved this man and the fracturing echo of the universe. Jax Price, the Morning Killer, was dead.

Nancy turned her attention back to Frank and before she could say anything, her world went black. Nancy knew she would faint when her stomach would give out, it felt like her innards were being replaced by some kind of black hole. Then nausea crept from her abdomen to her head and the world went back, the sound of terrified screaming and ringing in her ears and something hot was engulfing her entire body, something wet trickling down from her forehead...

Nancy awoke with a jolt, at first terrified, a sheen of sweat on her brow, her hair splayed out behind her on either side of her face as her head rested against an unfamiliar pillow. She couldn't breathe, it felt as if someone was choking her. Something wedged up her nose revealed someone had inserted a nasal cannula into her passageways. Her heart was racing and all she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and wait for someone to save her. But no one would, no one was there. A choked cry for help forced itself up her throat, and she felt a drop run down her cheek. It seemed as if this was the end of the road for her. Nancy lay in the unfamiliar bed quietly, keeping her eyes closed, matching her breaths to the strange beeping sounds of foreign machines nearby, the only indications of her heartbeat, her existence. Her legs were numb, and her head felt bruised and battered. Curiosity slowly pried open her eyes to meet a dismal view of a magnolia colored hospital room, the door a deep navy blue, Frank in a chair at her bedside. She knew immediately the door was locked, this was to keep her in here, not them out. She slid her eyes sideways, IV's covered both the tops of her hands. Beyond her bed at the foot of the bed was her chart and vitals.

Nancy Drew

Status: Unstable

Admittance: 3:27 am

Cause of admittance: car crash, danger to self, others

Diagnosis: Post Traumatic Stress

Duration: Unknown. Recommend keeping patient overnight for observation until condition improves.

Nancy blearily sat up straighter, propped up against a couple of stiff hospital pillows, the woolen blanket draped over her had been heated and it felt nice, but this was an unfamiliar place. Glancing sideways at the night table next to the hospital's bed, she could see a few Get Well cards from Bess and George, a small stuffed bulldog plush that looked eerily like her dog Togo, and a vase of wild purple flowers that looked suspiciously like lilacs and lavenders. For a second, she thought she was back in the house, and was living through some sick elaborate fantasy of Jax's, reliving the day Helen Price had passed away. "Where am I? What…what happened? Frank? Is that really you?" she croaked, lifting a weak hand to study it and feeling her tears stinging and blurring her vision as they threatened to spill over. Her left hand was trembling, but thank Christ; her wedding band was still there. She was worried Jax Price had done something to it while she had been knocked out. Nancy caught sight of her reflection in a mirror and gaped. Her hair was still a rich dark chocolate brown, not its original color, but still beautiful just the same. "Where are we, Frank?" Nancy whispered. "Where am I?"

"Hey," he said quietly. "It's so good to see you, baby. How are you feeling? Does your head still hurt? You're in the hospital. We were in a car accident, but you're okay. You—you hit your head pretty hard, so they want to keep you overnight for a couple of days, make sure you don't have a concussion," he said, seeming genuinely concerned for his wife.

"We—we were in a house," she whispered.

"We got out. Sonny and the cop saved us both. So did Jenna. She—she saved us. If weren't for Jenna doing what she did for Jax, we'd all be dead. Jax Price is dead."

"How?" she demanded, wincing at the throbbing pain in her head and black spots in her vision.

"Shot by me after the prick crashed your car on purpose, that's how. The man was a type A violent creep, he'd been stalking you two for a long time. Particularly you, Miss Drew. The man's name was Jaxon Price, Jax for short. We'd been after him for a long time, but he was always one-step ahead of law enforcement, slippery little bastard. It became personal when he killed my partner. I vowed to hunt the bastard down and gut him like the pig that he is," spoke up a new voice from the doorway, none other than the lieutenant that had pulled them over, Officer Seth Jones himself. He was looking worse for wear, dirtied and his uniform covered in ashes and smelled of pine and smoke, like a bonfire. "You two are lucky to be alive. Guess it's a good thing I got to you when I did."

"Car crash?" whispered Nancy, not remembering much of their accident. "But—but the house, Frank! A—and Prudence Rutherford, a—and Tino! Where's Sonny?" she demanded, feeling the beginnings of hysteria and a panic attack begin to set it. She reached for Frank's hand, weak though she was; she was able to hold his hand, squeezing it as tight as she could.

"Here, Nancy," spoke up Sonny quietly from the doorway, looking shaken up and still terrified, but otherwise relatively unharmed. "We're lucky."

"Tino and Prudence?" she croaked, already knowing the answer and not wanting to believe it. She could see it in her husband's eyes, they didn't make it.

"Your car hit the beam and fishtailed into the other car. Tino and Prudence were in the Accord, they had left their lights on. We ID'd them both. Guy was a detective in Chicago, the woman the wife of a retired banker. Sad thing is, those two were still probably alive when the gas tank ignited. Damn shame if you ask me. What a nightmare, it's going to take us ages to clean up Price's mess," mumbled Officer Jones darkly under his breath.

"Can you guys give us a minute alone?" he called out, his gaze never leaving his wife. Sonny and the cop nodded, talking quietly amongst themselves as they exited, closing the hospital room's door behind them as they left. We crashed our car, Nance," explained Frank, doing his best to remain calm, but seeing his wife's distressed state was agitating him greatly. He did not like to see Nancy like this. "The moment the car hit the trees, I—I thought we were both dead. Then I kept waking and waking. I liked to be unconscious rather than awake. Because when I was awake, I could taste the blood pooling in my mouth. I could feel it grazing my teeth and soaking my tongue. I could feel the ache and cracks in my bones. My agony was the only thing keeping me alive. It was the only thing I could feel anymore. Apparently, that's when we both died, but the paramedics revived us."

The dread crept over Nancy like an icy chill, numbing her brain. In this frozen state, her mind offered her only one thought. "We…we died? But—but how? N—Ned, a—and Jax Price, that—that wasn't real? No, it can't be, Sonny's here, and—and the cop said it himself, Jax Price is dead! How do you explain this?" she shouted, gesturing to a lock of her dark hair.

"Darkness," said Frank, looking as though a light had ignited in his eyes. "Darkness in our hearts. The—the house, I—I think it showed us our worst fears. The—the darkness in our hearts. But Jenna, she…saved us. She—she got out too. Cops picked her up about a mile down the road, and they're sending her home to her parents in New York City. She's safe, Nance."

"Wait a second, wait a second, just…hold up. So you're telling me that house was just a—a purgatory?" Nancy shouted, not wanting to believe it.

"Maybe," said Frank soothingly, daring to sit on the edge of his wife's hospital bed and take her into his arms, stroking her hair. "You ask me, I think it was all real, though. The house, Jax, Alice and Todd, all of it. Whether it was some...out of body experience or not, I don't care anymore. We got out, Nance. We saved ourselves. We did it. That's all that matters. We're alive, and at the end of the day, that's all I care about, that you're with me, love."

Could all of that have just been a dream? An evening spent in Hell? The detective couldn't discern what was truth from fiction, and maybe they would never know if what they experienced was real or not. She would never know for sure. Nancy bit her tongue, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to leave her eyes. And that's when she couldn't hold them back. First, one small crystal bead escaped from her right eye. She could feel the warmth, sliding down her cheek, and rolling off her chin as Frank held her, whispering soothing remarks in her ear. Until her eyes flooded with tears, coming like a rainfall. Sniffing every ten seconds, they fell, and she let them. She knew better than to fight it. "Hey, Frank?" she whispered, when the worst of her mini panic attack had subsided.

"What is it, honey?" he asked quietly, reaching over to place a gentle kiss on her forehead, still stroking her hair, playing with a lock of dark hair absentmindedly. "You know, hate this color all you want, Nance, but I love it on you. It looks great."

She smiled, her tears coming again, but this time, they were tears of relief and happiness that they'd made it out alive. "Let's go to Mohonk after they release me and not come back. Let's take an extended vacation. After this, we could really use a break."

Frank's laughter was light at hearing his wife make a joke. He lowered his face to hers, being careful to be mindful of the IV's in her hand and the nasal cannula and their lips met. His kiss was gentle but passionate. As they parted, Nancy saw his eyes sparkle and lips curve up into a little half-smile and she could not help but smile back. Frank and Joe's mom had always called Frank Hardy a "diamond in the rough," and Nancy knew what she meant. To her, though, Frank was simply a diamond. The rest of the world could be as rough as it desired, but it never affected her husband. He shone with inner beauty all the same.

Nancy let out a tiny sigh of contentment. Though she was physically and emotionally exhausted, and she quickly fell asleep in Frank's arms, she knew that as long as she was with Frank, safe in his arms where she belonged, she was home. She guessed that was part of why she fell in love with him, that sparkle in his eyes that made her feel vibrant and alive. Nothing and nobody could ever take that away from him. He was hers, and she his.

Forever, she thought happily as she lost herself to a peaceful, dreamless sleep, nestled in her husband's arms. Home with him. Where she belonged.