Joe had arrived home to Bayport alone that week after he left the hospital, and refused to be drawn as to why he had left Frank behind. Laura Hardy, the boys mother had rang Frank, to ask him what had happened between her two sons.

She pleaded with Frank to come home too, believing that if the two boys were forced to share the same roof they would somehow see past their differences and everything would return to normal..

Frank had known it wasn’t that easy though. Joe was in turmoil.

He was trying to help Vanessa, dealing with his own feelings of guilt at what had happened to her, and at the same time trying unsuccessfully to overcome the growing anger inside him.

At first Joe had been in hospital recovering, and there had been other people around so the initial rift hadn’t been apparent, even to each other.

It began the night Joe came back from the hospital to the boy’s beach front apartment. Frank had collected him, and noticed that Joe was unusually quiet on the journey home but figured that it was just as a result of his injuries.

When they had arrived back, Joe had announced that he was going straight to bed, although it was only half past eight in the evening. Frank had murmured his agreement, deciding that once Joe was in bed he would look in on him to see if he was alright and hopefully to have a bit of talk with him.

When Frank had opened Joe’s bedroom door he found his brother in apparent difficulty, trying to but the antiseptic cream the doctor had given him on the cuts and nicks on his back. His arms were contorted into fantastic shapes and he was clearly ending up with more cream on the bed than anywhere else.

"Here, I’ll do that for you" Frank had said, taking the cream out of Joe’s hands as he spoke.

"I’d rather do it myself" That had been Joe’s reply. Nonetheless Frank had persisted, knowing that the cream brought great relief to Joe from the stinging cuts and bruises.

All of a sudden Joe jumped up abruptly from the bed and pulled the jar of cream out of Franks hands,

"I told you Frank, I don’t want your help, please, can’t you just leave"

Frank looked at his brother, Joe was shaking all over.

"Frank, please, I cant, I cant be around you, I can’t, I keep thinking about Vanessa, the baby, everything that happened…."

A few days later Joe had announced that he was moving home for a while.

Frank had decided that Joe needed space so had stayed in their West Coast apartment.

It hadn’t been easy though. Sure, Callie and the guys, especially Phil had called in every night, and they even offered to move in so as Frank would have company. It wasn’t the same as having his brother around.

Joe could read Frank like a book, he knew his moods so well.

If Frank was feeling down about something Joe would say nothing, just grab his and Franks surfboards and give him a look. Then the two brothers would surf side by side for hours, until eventually exhaustion led them back to the apartment where they would sit out on the deck and Frank would tell Joe what was wrong.

Joe would listen, but never offer advice, he just listened which was all Frank needed. He would then usually start up a story about some hair brained adventure that Joe had gotten him and Frank into as kids until Frank would laugh until the tears rolled down his face.