When Gerry Moore saw his partner the next morning, he could tell right away that something was bothering the usually unflappable Fenton Hardy.

“What’s up?” he asked casually as Fenton slid into the undercover car with him. It was Gerry’s turn to drive today.

“Nothing,” Fenton lied. Laura hadn’t called, and his anxiousness to talk to her had now turned into misery that she hadn’t called.  Even after Paul had promised.

“Oh come on, Hardy, I don’t have a detective badge because I’m lucky…now what’s eating you?” Moore pressed.  Not that he cared, he was just curious.

Fenton sighed.  “Laura. She was supposed to call me last night and she didn’t.”

“Oh, is that all?” Moore grinned, pleased about this as he was interested in the petite blond himself – even if she didn’t seem too thrilled with him, yet.  “Chicks are like that. Anyway, don’t sweat it, at least now you know before you’d gone and invested too much time in her.”

Fenton looked at him strangely – was this guy for real?

But then the police radio crackled to life and the detectives were responding to a request for backup. For a shift to start this way, the dark-haired cop got a bad feeling it was going to be a busy day.

* * *

“He’s going to think I didn’t call him on purpose!” Laura moaned over breakfast. Their father had already left for work, without a word to either of them – not that Paul or Laura were complaining.  Neither of them really wanted to talk to him right now either.

“He’ll understand,” Paul said patiently as he buttered a piece of toast.  “You’ll see.”

“Paulie, I just wish I could be as confident as you are,” Laura said as she traded him a piece of crispy bacon, which Paul loved, for a piece of not so crispy – her favorite.

“Well, that’s easy. Just believe it. Now, are you going to sit here feeling sorry for yourself all morning, or can you give me a hand mucking out the stalls today? Josh is sick this morning and I could really use your help,” Paul admitted as he finished the piece of toast and the last piece of bacon that Laura had given him.

“Of course I will,” Laura said, picking up her plate and putting it in the sink, “But I still think he’s going to think I did it on purpose.”

Paul stopped and stared at his sister for a moment before shrugging and moving towards the back door.  “So what if he does, Larry? It would be his loss…although personally I don’t get the feeling that Fenton Hardy is a man who takes losses lightly.”

Laura thought about that as she followed her brother, and decided he might just be right about that one. 

* * *

Dr. Scott was surprised to see the man who was waiting outside his office for him.  In all honesty he didn’t really want to talk to him today but now he had no choice.

“Mr. Walters,” the doctor said as he ushered the man into his office, “how are you and your wife doing?”  Their son, Ryan, had been the patient that the doctor had lost the prior day.

It was an unforeseen complication, as the surgeon was not aware that the teen suffered from Marfan Syndrome and so was unprepared for an aortic dissection. He and his team had responded quickly, but it was futile. And the 17-year-old had died on the table.

“Not very good,” the grieving father admitted, “We still don’t understand what went wrong….You’re the best, Dr. Scott.”

The brown-haired surgeon took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He had gone over and over with the family what exactly had gone wrong. And he blamed some of it on them, anyway, as they had not completely disclosed their own medical histories, or else he would have suspected that tall teen of having Marfan’s.

“I’m not God, though, Mr. Walters.  And there is only so much I can do, no matter how hard I try,” the doctor admitted.

Mr. Walters stared at him for a few moments and Dr. Scott could see his grief so plainly on his face. He continued, “I am so sorry, Jim. If there is anything I can do—”

The man cut him off as he stood up abruptly.  “Give me back my son.” And then he left the office before the surgeon could respond.

Crap, Dr. Scott thought, after he recovered from the man’s bluntness, this is not going to be a good day….

Bad enough that he felt miserable for his overreaction when he got home last night. But he had been in a dreadful enough mood and then seeing his daughter like that…his baby girl…

Yeah, he overreacted, but he didn’t think it was anything more than any father would have done in his place.  But he would still need to apologize to Laura…and Paul. He sighed and screwed up his nose….And to the cop.

There was something about Fenton Hardy that got on the bad side of the surgeon. He couldn’t place his finger on it, but knew deep down it was probably just jealousy.

Too soon another man would replace him in his daughter’s heart, and the doctor was just not ready to lose her yet. As silly as that was.

And then as he thought about his behavior last night and the look on her face…he decided he had better do something about fixing this before he lost her to himself.

Muttering under his breath, Dr. Scott picked up his phone and said to his receptionist, “Get me Detective Fenton Hardy with the NYPD….No, I don’t know which precinct he’s at, Joy – just get him for me!” He then slammed down the phone and waited.

Great, he muttered a moment later, someone else to add to my apology list!

* * *

It wasn’t a good scene when Fenton and Gerry showed up.

Two units were already pinned down from gunfire, and Fenton and Gerry were forced to seek cover using their open car doors.

“This is only supposed to happen to TV cops,” Gerry muttered as he drew his weapon and tried to find something to shoot at.

“Well, welcome to Hollywood,” Fenton replied grimly as his keen eyes sized up the problem.

A drug bust had gone terribly wrong, with the perpetrators now outgunning the police.

“Why do they always have the better guns?” Gerry groused, as an armor piercing bullet slammed into the car door he was hiding behind, narrowing missing him.

“’Cause their job pays better?” Fenton offered as he dived for cover behind a garbage dumpster, after his car door was slammed with semi-automatic gunfire.

“Cover me!” Gerry suddenly shouted as he saw an opening to get into a doorway. Hopefully from there he could come up behind the bad guys.  Fenton barely had time to do anything before his partner was moving.

Damn him, the dark-haired cop thought, as he reloaded as quickly as he could. Gerry could have at least given him enough time to do that.

And then he heard a cry of pain and saw his partner go down.

“NO!!” he yelled, and blindly opened fire in the direction of the gunfire and dived for his partner’s still body.

Grabbing him by the arm, Fenton pulled Gerry into the very doorway he had been aiming for. And then he quickly checked for a pulse and breathed a sigh of relief when he felt a strong, steady one.

The other cops responded accordingly, and kept the perps busy while Fenton checked Gerry over and saw that, except for a graze along his temple, his partner seemed okay.

Breathing out another sigh of relief, Fenton pulled him further into the doorway and then opened it.

Just as Gerry suspected, it was another way into the building.  Not wanting to, but knowing he had no choice, Fenton left his unconscious partner, and with his gun drawn, he started up the stairs that were just inside the door.

He could hear the sounds of the men who were firing at the cops, and figured this was going to go either very well or very badly. But one way or another, someone needed to break this stalemate before a cop got killed.

At the top of the stairs there was a room, and the cop carefully pushed it open enough to see inside. He saw three guys firing at will down at the officers below.

Okay, he thought, not bad odds.

Pushing the door open, he held his gun firmly in his hands.  “FREEZE,” he screamed, “POLICE! PUT YOUR GUNS ON THE GROUND, NOW!”

The three guys turned quickly, and Fenton was forced to shoot. They had no intention of doing what he said.  A marksman, Fenton made each shot count – disabling but not deadly, and within moments, he was radioing the all clear to the officers below. And the requests for ambulances.

Fenton felt proud of himself.

There was only one problem. He didn’t know about the fourth guy.

And as he felt the bullet rip into his skin, he had one thought: Tell Laura I love her….