Disclaimer: Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and all of the characters associated with them do not belong to me.
Author's Notes: I got back into the swing of my childhood memories of writing Nancy Drew stuff again, and this is what came out of it.
Dr. Joe-Tell Him Your Problems, He'll Read You a Fortune Cookie
Joe Hardy lazily flipped through the channels. It was a rainy Saturday night, and here he was, alone. He finally settled on some channel's showing of Grease. Yes, Joe Hardy was feeling ultimately pathetic. Saturday night, and Vanessa was out of town. It seemed that everyone else in the town of Bayport had a date…including his parents. Rather than go along as a third wheel as many of his friends suggested, he had chosen to stay home.
This led him to be splayed across the couch, in the same position for three hours. Well, not exactly the same position; he moved his arm once about half an hour ago to answer the phone, which had turned out to be a hang-up. And this had been the highlight of Joe's evening.
A flash of lightning outside of the window announced the coming of a thunderstorm. A loud clap of thunder confirmed this, but did nothing to disturb Joe. Until there was a knock at the door he was content to ignore the world. At this knock, he slowly picked himself off the couch, his stiff joints protesting as he walked through the kitchen, past the mess he had left from takeout Chinese, and to the door, which he opened just as the knocker was raising her fist to knock again.
Joe watched as the girl lowered her hand. She was soaked to the bone, hair stringy and wet, hanging down around her face. Her eyes were lost, and her face had an upset look on it. "Nancy? What are you doing here?"
"I-I don't know." Nancy Drew, the world class detective, wasn't the world class detective as she stood in front of him. She was upset, not angry, he had seen her angry, but she seemed to radiate sadness. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come." She turned to leave.
Joe quickly grabbed her arm. "Wait. I didn't mean it like that. Come inside. You're soaked. You've got to be freezing." Joe wasn't quite processing the girl in front of him. He almost didn't think it could be Nancy. At the very least it wasn't the Nancy he knew. Every time he had seen her she was strong. She wasn't like other girls; she didn't let her emotions take over.
He led her inside without waiting for a response, closing the door behind her. Glancing outside, he couldn't see her car, but he put that to the back of his mind. Currently there was a more important issue. "So you thought you'd try the wet look?" He spoke in a joking manner, hoping to break the ice.
Nancy's face transformed to a sad smile and a short smile escaped her lips. "I knew you'd make me laugh." She paused, but never started again.
"Nancy," Joe frowned. "What's going on?"
"I've ruined everything." Nancy crossed her arms over her chest. "For a case. I…ruined everything to solve a case and now the case is over and everything is gone."
Joe listened carefully to the detective's words as she relayed the story in a near robotic voice. "What do you mean everything's gone?" He led her into the kitchen and sat her down on a stool by the breakfast bar, sitting across from her.
"I dropped everything to find her…I missed my dad's birthday. I missed my own birthday. Ned broke up with me because I wasn't there. I didn't go to an interview with the Dean of Admissions of Harvard. They all hate me, because I wanted to find her." Her voice cracked with emotion. "I wanted so badly to find her."
"You wanted to find who?" He pushed gently.
"April. This little girl I was mentoring. We were in the park and these guys grabbed her. I tried to help her, but they knocked me out. I wanted to find her. I tried for weeks but the kidnappers didn't send any demands."
"And that's why you missed everything." Joe inferred. It was almost like he was talking to a young child. He hated seeing her like this. It had only just started, but he was wishing it was over, and Nancy would return to the girl that he knew. "What happened?"
"Last night I got this package. It was these pictures of April. She was alive, and she looked so scared. It wasn't very hard to trace the package and this morning I found them."
"But that's a good thing." Joe was confused now. If they found the girl then he couldn't see the problem.
Nancy shook her head. "It was until…We didn't find her alive Joe. We only found her body. I couldn't save her."
Suddenly Joe understood everything. Why Nancy was upset, why she had just shown up on his doorstep. She needed to talk to someone who knew what it was to try and save someone, someone who dedicated their life to it. "Nancy, you can't be expected to save everyone. You're not able to save everyone."
"I was supposed to be able to save her Joe! I was there."
"I was there when Iola died, and I wanted so badly to save her. It took Frank and two other guys to hold me back." Joe took a new approach and could feel the emotion creeping into his own face.
"I had people trying to stop me." Nancy informed. "They kept telling me that I was going to get hurt. And I ignored them all."
Joe shook his head. "They weren't trying to hold me back because I could get hurt. They were holding me back because they knew there was nothing that I could do."
Nancy wiped at her eyes. "So what you're telling me is that everyone hates me now because I didn't listen to them. Thanks, but I kind of already figured that one out."
"Trust me. You couldn't make any of your real friends hate you if you tried." Joe assured putting a hand on her shoulder. "And the only reason you ignored them was to follow your heart. Now I've known you for a long time and your heart has never been wrong."
"It was wrong about April." She wiped her eyes once again, seemingly determined not to let Joe see her cry. "Look, I should just go. Thanks for listening."
She started to stand but Joe grabbed her arm once again. "Nance, it's late. And if you think that you can just tell Dr. Joe your problems and not let him solve them…"
Nancy sat back down another sad smile gracing her face. "And what words of wisdom do you have for me, 'Dr. Joe'?"
"I was thinking that you could eat a fortune cookie." He pulled the takeout bag over and reached in pulling out two fortune cookies, giving one to Nancy.
"Why? She fooled around with the plastic wrapper.
Joe opened his own cookie. "See, I sweet-talked the order taker into giving me a ton of extra cookies, and there isn't any way that I could possibly finish them by myself so…"
"So the great doctor's prescription is to eat a cookie?"
"Actually I was going to make you read the fortune."
"And add 'in bed' to the end right?"
Joe was glad to see her becoming the old Nancy again, and this was before his great advice had been handed out. "You are underestimating my maturity. Fortune cookies hold a lot of wisdom."
"The good doctor has spoken." Without another word Nancy opened its plastic wrapper, and broke the cookie in half, reading the fortune to her self.
"Well what does it say?" Joe asked.
Nancy recited the words dutifully. "The lesson is in the struggle, not in the victory. Life may be difficult now, but you will gain much in a short period of time."
"In bed." Joe added wickedly. "See, things are gonna be fine." He popped the cookie in his mouth. "The cookie has spoken." He paused, chewing over the cookie. "The way I see it, here is what's going to happen. I am going to go get you some dry clothes to sleep in while you call your dad and let him know where you are. I'm assuming that you didn't give him any notice that you were leaving and he's probably worried." Joe briefly paused. "Then you're going to get some rest, and in the morning we'll figure out what you're going to do."
"Exactly where am I sleeping?"
"My room. Where I won't be."
Nancy thought for a moment. "That sounds fine."
"The phone's right there." Joe pointed to the wall. "I'll go get you something to wear."
Nancy and he stood at the same time. "Thanks for listening Joe."
"Anytime Nance. Dr. Joe is here to help."
Two hours later, Joe was back on the couch, now watching Dirty Dancing. Nancy was sound asleep on his bed, having fallen asleep almost the second that her head hit the pillow. She was clearly exhausted, and from what he could tell, emotionally drained. A vacation was clearly in order.
He had been disturbed by the phone once; this time it had been his parents, informing him that they wouldn't be returning home for the evening.
It was only when footsteps entered the room that he looked away from Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze. "Hey." It was his brother, Frank, that greeted him with a despondent, somewhat depressed tone.
"Hey." Joe echoed, looking to his older brother, who, in all ways of saying it, had a black eye that was about halfway swollen shut. "What the hell happened to you?" It wasn't the same soft and forgiving tone that he had used with Nancy. This was their brother and there was no need to be gentle.
"It's nothing." Frank shook his head. "It will be fine."
"Frank, Frank, Frank, Frank, Frank. I didn't ask if you were OK. I asked you what happened."
"Callie…broke up with me." Frank informed with a sigh.
"What!" Joe did a double take. Frank and Callie had been together for a long time. They were constant. "And she hit you?"
"Callie didn't hit me. She just broke up with me after this guy hit me."
"So she broke up with you after you defended her honor." Joe nodded.
"Will you just let me tell the story?" Frank asked as he sat down.
"Right." Joe nodded "Go ahead."
Frank sighed quickly. "About five minutes into the date I noticed this guy. He was acting weird so I thought something was up and instead of going into the movies with Callie I stayed outside and watched the guy for a minute. He went to mug this woman so I went after him. There was a fight, and that's how I got this."
Joe took this in. "Why'd Callie break up with you? All you did was help someone."
"Apparently that was the problem." Frank informed. "She said that I spent too much time solving crimes and that I go looking for them. I couldn't even go on one date without interrupting it." Joe didn't say anything for a moment, processing everything. "Joe, this is the part where you say something supportive that's supposed to make me feel better." Frank informed his younger brother.
"Right. Sorry." Joe responded quickly, shaking out of his daze. "Good riddance."
"Um, what?" Now Frank did a double take. "Joe, my girlfriend of three years just broke up with me and you say 'good riddance'. I'm afraid I don't get how that's supposed to make me feel better."
"That wasn't meant to make you feel better. That was just me expressing my thoughts." Joe explained quickly.
This only made Frank more confused as he had always thought that Joe had liked Callie. "You felt that way about Callie?"
Joe ran a hand through his hair. He had a feeling that he had run himself into a corner. "Well, let's face it Frank. When it came to us being the Clues Brothers…Callie was never the most supportive. It's not that she wasn't a nice girl, it's just that she wasn't nice about what was important to you." He briefly paused. "Mysteries are you, Frank. They're what you do, and she couldn't accept that."
"So what you're saying is that it's not the end of the world that she's gone."
"That's exactly what I'm saying." Joe nodded somewhat triumphantly.
"Really, because it feels like it."
Joe looked at his brother's face, and realized his mistake. "I mean think about it. You've met a lot of girls that would be great for you while we were on cases. And you've never really gotten a chance to try them."
"Like who?"
"That girl, Taryn." Joe answered after a moment of thought. "She was nice."
"She ended up trying to kill us. We had her arrested."
"OK. So that wasn't the best example." He paused. "What about Faye? From New Orleans? You liked her didn't you?"
"Not to date. No way. I thought you were supposed to know me better than that."
"I do know you better than that. But you're not going to like the other name that comes to mind."
"Try me."
"Nancy."
"We've been over this Joe. Nancy and I are-."
"Just friends." Joe rolled his eyes as he finished the statement with his brother. "I know. You've told me before. I just don't believe you."
"Are you going to go on about this for very long?"
"No. What I will do is have you eat a fortune cookie." Joe reached down to the bag that he had brought into the living room earlier.
"A fortune cookie." Frank repeated dubiously.
"But of course. The answers to all of life's questions are in fortune cookies. And clearly you have a question."
"I thought that the answers to all of life's questions were in the movies."
"They are. But it's late and we don't have time to watch a movie." Joe tossed his brother a cookie. "Besides, this way your problem gets solved and you get a tasty treat. And…I am Dr. Joe and I order you to do it."
Frank cracked the cookie in half popping part of it in his mouth and unfolding the paper. "Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without one. Appreciate the good qualities of a person near you and you may see them in a new light." Frank glared at his brother. "You rigged this."
"How do I rig a fortune cookie?" Joe asked innocently.
"You so had something to do with it."
"Yeah, you're crazy. I must suggest you get some rest. You'll be a lot better in the morning. Trust me."
"Fine. Thanks for the talk. I'll see you in the morning."
"No prob."
The next morning Joe was proud of himself. He was the first one awake, a rare occurrence. This was purely because he had slept on the couch, which, though comfortable for watching television, was not the best place to sleep. He was pouring milk in his cereal when his brother came downstairs in his usual sleeping attire, pajama bottoms. "Morning Frank."
"Morning Joe." He ran a hand through his hair at Joe's somewhat cheery tone.
"You feeling better about the whole Callie thing?" Joe inquired through a mouthful of cereal.
Frank gave his younger brother a pointed look. "Just give it a couple days Joe." He pulled a bowl down from the cupboard. "It'll be better in a couple days." Joe shrugged, continuing his eating, while Frank opened a box of cereal. "So mom and dad didn't come home last night?"
"Yeah, something about getting plastered." Joe stopped at his brother's 'you're immature' look. "Lighten up. They called last night and said they were having too much fun and not to expect them home. But I was thinking that we should call them and see if we can take them up on their offer of that vacation."
"Why now?"
"We could use some time out of Bayport." Joe explained. It looked to Frank like he had something else on his mind, but he said nothing. "I say we go someplace warm."
"I guess that's good. We can talk about it with mom and dad." Frank nodded.
"Good." Joe also nodded, before dropping his spoon in sudden realization. "Oh. I should warn you that last night--."
Joe was cut off by a feminine voice, in front of him, but behind Frank. "Hey Joe, thanks again for last night."
Frank turned around in his chair to see the familiar girl standing in the entrance of the kitchen, with messy strawberry blond hair, clad in only an oversized t-shirt. "Nancy." He spoke the obvious.
Her cheeks were tinged lightly with pink.
Joe tried speaking again. "I should warn you that last night Nancy slept over."
Thoughts?