‘OhmyGod…OHMYGOD! What did I do?!’ A sickening silence filled the reception area as Joe stared at his father. Fenton Hardy was deathly pale, his eyes wide in disbelief.

Seeing his father looking at him – looking through him – Joe stumbled backwards as if he were trying to get away, and then immediately took a step forward, towards his father. He reached out a shaking hand, suddenly needing his father’s touch, to hear his father’s voice. Mere seconds ago he was throwing his father’s assurance of love back in his face but now…now Joe needed to hear he was still loved, more than he ever had in his life. “D-dad? Say something…please…” Joe begged, sounding for all the world like a terrified child.

Fenton continued to stare as if he were in a trance, his eyes glazed and blank. Just as Joe was about to flee, his father spoke, haltingly and hoarsely. “You – you have a…s-s-s…a son?!”

Joe felt his eyes burning, and started to shake uncontrollably. He could barely get the words out, his voice was shaking so badly. “I – I don’t know…yet…”

Vision blurred and tears spilled as Joe finally let out every fear and emotion he’d kept bottled up for the past three days. Just as he thought his legs would give out he felt his father’s arms encircle him, pulling him close and holding him tightly, not letting him fall...never letting him fall. Joe grabbed blindly at his father’s jacket, getting a fistful of fabric and clinging to it as if his life depended on it.

“Dad…I’m scared” Joe whispered, feeling his father’s strong hand gently stroking his hair. “I’m scared…”

Standing in the hall holding his distraught child, Fenton Hardy was still in shock. When Joe broke down right in front of him, he’d reacted solely on a father’s instinct, grabbing his son and holding on tightly. Still reeling from Joe’s words, he was literally unable to speak, and hoped the physical connection would be enough for Joe until he could process the shocking confession. A confession he still wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly…

‘Joe has a son? A five-year-old son?! How? How could this happen and I didn’t know?!’

He’d felt Joe grabbing for him blindly, his hands closing around Fenton’s jacket, and held his son tighter. When he heard the choked sobs he reached up with one hand, stroking Joe’s hair, still trying to make some kind of sense of what had just happened. Five days earlier, when Joe and Vanessa had come over for dinner, they’d been happy – teasing, joking, talking about the wedding and looking deliriously in love with each other…

‘What the hell happened?!’

While he thought he’d been prepared to counsel his children on just about anything, Fenton had never expected something like this. Feeling too much out of his element and not knowing what else to do at the moment, he forced himself into ‘investigator mode’. Replaying Joe’s angry outburst in his mind, he paid careful attention to each and every word, painful as they were…

“…when I was seventeen…slept with someone…forget my own pain…we might have a son together!”

‘He was seventeen?’ With horror Fenton realized this must have happened right after Iola died, before Joe had met Vanessa. Despite his best efforts to connect with Joe back then, to try and understand what he was going through, they had grown further and further apart with each passing day. With painful clarity he vividly recalled the night everything came to a head and exploded. Joe had stormed out of the house in a rage and gone… ‘Where?’

Joe had turned away from everyone then, closed himself off to all those who knew him and loved him, preferring the company of a classmate no one really seemed to know at all. Concerned, Fenton had quietly done a background check of the girl’s family and found that while they weren’t exactly mainstream, and in fact rather odd, he saw no overt cause for concern.

‘God, why didn’t I dig deeper…pay closer attention….What was her name? Joanie? Josie?’

“Jodi…” he whispered the name and felt Joe stiffen. Slowly he pulled away, still keeping his hands on Joe’s shoulders and looked into his eyes. “Jodi Renault,” he repeated, louder this time and using her full name. The guilty and tortured expression on his son’s face was all the confirmation he needed. “You and Jodi…you have a—” he swallowed hard, still having trouble wrapping his mind around the thought. “You have a son together?”

“I don’t know,” Joe replied, his voice laced with fear, uncertainty and sadness. “Maybe…”

“Maybe?” Fenton exclaimed. “She doesn’t know who the father is?! For God’s sake, how many people was she sleeping with?!” he demanded, angry at the thought that, to this girl, Joe had just been one of who knew how many.

“It wasn’t like that, Dad,” Joe’s voice trembled slightly and Fenton’s heart broke.

‘Okay, calm down,’ Fenton admonished himself. ‘The last thing he needs now is for you to lose it.’

Before either of them could speak again, the door suddenly opened and Mrs. Gresham walked in, returning from lunch. She took one look at Joe and Fenton and stopped. Awkwardly standing half in and half out of the doorway, it was obvious she knew she had walked in on something. She looked at Fenton questioningly, who put an arm around Joe’s shoulders and shepherded him away from the door. “We’ll be in my office…and hold all calls.”

Mrs. Gresham looked Fenton directly in the eyes and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Guiding Joe down the hall and into his office, he closed and locked the door, secure in the knowledge she had gotten the message loud and clear: ‘We’re not to be disturbed under any circumstances.’

Fenton watched as Joe crossed the room and sank into the plush leather couch, his heart breaking when Joe leaned forward and put his head in his hands. Taking a deep breath in a weak attempt to calm himself, Fenton sat down next to his son and rubbed Joe’s back gently.

“Joe…son…what are the chances that you’re the father?” he asked as gently as possible.

Slowly Joe raised his head and looked at Fenton; tortured blue eyes ripped at his soul. “I’m not sure. We only…we were only together one time. I knew it wasn’t right and I broke it off with her the next day,” his voice trailed off helplessly and he gazed around the room, eyes blank, as if he were looking at everything yet seeing nothing.

Again the anger welled in Fenton’s soul and he tried to smother it, for Joe’s sake. “How many…how many other boys was she sleeping with?”

Joe smiled but it was bitter and filled with self-loathing. “It wasn’t like that, Dad. She wasn’t the bad guy…I was.”

Fenton opened his mouth, automatically ready to jump to Joe’s defense, snapping it shut when he remembered that’s what had started this surreal chain of events. Instead, he posed a one word question, “How?”

Joe was silent for several minutes, staring at the floor, one leg bouncing nervously and Fenton knew he was trying to gear himself up for what was going to be a very painful story. Fenton didn’t push or prod or try to cajole Joe into talking; he simply waited, gently rubbing his son’s back, not say a word, knowing Joe would begin when he was ready. He was certain that while the wait seemed like an eternity to him, an eternity wouldn’t be nearly long enough for Joe to put off relating the heart-wrenching details. Finally, Joe began to speak, in a voice so soft Fenton had to strain to hear him.

As he listened, Fenton Hardy came to the realization he’d never experienced anything as heartbreaking as this – listening to his child recount the darkest, most painful time in his life. One he went through alone, too scared and ashamed to turn to the people who could help him the most, instead seeking comfort from an acquaintance who was ill-equipped to handle her own demons in life, let alone someone else’s. And in doing so, two terrified, confused children may have ended up creating a life – a life born out of pain and denial. His eyes burned with tears as Fenton faced the fact that his own son, when faced with the suffocating blame of his girlfriend’s death, felt more comfortable turning to a stranger than him. With a sick feeling in his stomach, Fenton didn’t have to question why or wonder where he went wrong as a father; in hindsight, he knew exactly where he had failed.

In fits and starts, tripping over words he could barely get out, Joe related why he did what he did so many years ago, that he was the one who had isolated himself from everyone who loved him. He placed no blame on Jodi, recalling instead how much she had wanted to be included in his clique of friends at school, how she desperately wanted to meet Laura and Fenton, get to know them, secretly hoping for some loving, stable authority figures in her life. Instead, Joe’s guilt overrode Jodi’s wishes and what should have been better judgment on his part – and resulted in a night that never should have happened.

Almost thirty minutes later when Joe finished speaking, he couldn’t even meet his father’s eyes. And Fenton knew he had to make his own confession – one he should have made six years earlier…

“Joe, I’m sorry…I should have told you this six years ago. Maybe then you wouldn’t have pushed me away. You wouldn’t have shut me out and had to go through that alone….Maybe we could have learned to heal together.”

Joe looked up, utterly confused. Fenton clasped his hands together tightly and took a deep breath. He’d discussed some of these fears and feelings with Sam Radley over the years, when they got to be too heavy to carry any longer, but he’d never shared all of them – keeping the darkest ones locked away, never intending to tell anyone…until now.

“I know how you feel, Joe, about Iola’s death. When it happened I had such an enormous sense of guilt….I still feel some measure of responsibility for it to this day.” He glanced at Joe and was met with a puzzled stare. “My job was the reason she was killed. The guilt…” he shook his head, feeling it well up in his soul. “Some days it was overwhelming. It was my first thought when I woke up in the morning and the last thing I thought of before falling asleep. For months afterwards, every time I looked at you I was so…relieved. All I could think of was it could have been you – it should have been you – and I was so, so grateful you weren’t killed that day…and then the shame would just overpower me. Here I was thanking God, all the while trying so hard to forget that someone else’s child died in place of mine.”

Fenton had to stop, choking on the guilt and shame that Joe was here, alive, able to listen at the expense of another parent’s horrible nightmare. He drew in a shaky breath and continued.

“To this day, seeing the Mortons can still be difficult. They were so forgiving, never once holding me responsible, even though if I hadn’t accepted the job as Philip Walker’s head of security, more than likely their daughter would still be alive today. Yet, they never blamed me,” he stopped and looked Joe directly in the eyes. “Or you. I learned what true forgiveness is from those people. But even now, sometimes when I see them, it still hits all too close to home. Their child is dead, mine is alive – all because I chose to accept a job.”

Obviously stunned, Joe simply stared at him, so lost for words he couldn’t speak.

“I’m sorry, Joe. You have no idea how much I regret not telling you any of this before now. Maybe if I had, maybe if you knew about the guilt, the shame, the sense of responsibility…the gratefulness that you were still alive…maybe we could have helped each other. Instead we grew so far apart you felt that you needed to seek shelter as far away from us – from me – as possible. That’s something I’ll regret for the rest of my life….”

Joe stared at Fenton, his eyes a myriad of rapidly changing emotions, until Fenton recognized one that threatened to suck the very breath out of him – compassion. The piercing blue eyes that could speak volumes on their own spoke two words to him – ‘I understand.’ And Fenton understood that as painful as the past hour had been for both of them, it was well worth it. He felt closer to his son now than he ever had before. A feeling that was cemented when Joe repeated two heart-wrenching words…

“Dad…I’m scared….”

Fenton sighed inwardly, the pain in his son’s eyes transforming the cocky, macho young man into a terrified child who wanted nothing more than for his daddy to make everything right in his world.

“What am I gonna do? What if Luke is my son?” he asked, despairingly.

Fenton reached out and squeezed Joe’s shoulder, letting his hand rest there comfortingly. “I know you’re scared, son, but unfortunately you’re not the first person to find themselves in this position and you won’t be the last. If that little boy is yours, it’ll be challenging – most definitely – but it’s not the end of the world. It’s manageable—” Fenton stopped mid-sentence and sucked in a breath as a thought hit him head on, one that had the potential to shatter what was left of Joe’s safe world. “Joe…does Vanessa know about this? About Jodi and Luke?”

Relief washed over him as Joe didn’t miss a beat. “Mm-hmm. I told her that night, right after I met with Jodi. Obviously she didn’t take it real well at first. I mean I didn’t know her then but still…no one suddenly wants to find out the person they’re going to marry has a child with someone else.” Joe quickly looked away. “I’m not gonna say she’s okay with it but, she’s accepted it….If Luke is mine we’ll make it work…somehow….” He swung his gaze back to Fenton, adding. “Frank didn’t like it, my telling her and no one else, but she’s gonna be my wife. She has a right to know.”

Fenton was about to assure Joe he agreed with him when the words hit him in a delayed reaction… “Frank didn’t like it, my telling her and no one else.”

“You told Frank?” he blurted out.

“Well no…not exactly,” Joe admitted. “He figured out where I was and came after me. When he saw the files, the police reports…” Joe shrugged. “It didn’t take long for him to put it all together…” He stared blankly across the room, his voice became a disconsolate whisper. “God, this is the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life. And if Luke is my son…it’s permanent….It can’t be ‘fixed’.” Joe drew in a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry, Dad. All I ever wanted was for you to be proud of me, to not be a disappointment to you and now…” He looked away, shame not allowing him to look Fenton in the eye. His voice shook as the softly repeated words broke Fenton’s heart. “I’m sorry, Dad…”

Fenton blinked rapidly, his eyes burning as he tried to find the right words to console his son. He couldn’t say it was okay, that everything would work itself out, because that might not be the case. And even if Joe wasn’t Luke’s father, it wouldn’t absolve Joe of what he’d done that night and make everything all right. But there was one thing Fenton could focus on that might help Joe get through this with at least some of his self-respect still intact.

“You’re right, you did make a mistake,” Fenton began gently. He almost hated acknowledging that right now, but Joe had always taken responsibility for his actions and Fenton knew Joe wouldn’t let him get away with glossing over this just to make Joe feel better. “You slept with someone you didn’t love when you were both much too young, and you didn’t use protection…. Both very big mistakes and a bad error in judgment.”

Fenton stopped then and touched Joe’s arm. Joe had continued avoiding eye contact, but Fenton wanted Joe to look at him now and make sure his son understood what he was about to say came from the depths of his heart. “But the way you’re handling yourself, and the repercussions now…you found the boy, you’ve gone for a paternity test, you’re ready to take responsibility for him if he’s yours,” he listed the methodical and mature way Joe had dealt with everything once he’d gotten over the initial shock.

“But most importantly, you told Vanessa the whole story the second you found out, when honestly, you didn’t have to. You couldn’t be sure how she’d react, if she’d accept Luke if he is your son. You could have waited until you knew for sure and not taken the chance that she wouldn’t understand. And if it turned out you weren’t Luke’s father she’d never have to know. But you didn’t do that. You didn’t take the easy way out, even though you could have and no one would have known…” Fenton stopped for a moment and swallowed hard, his voice hoarse with emotion. “And you have no idea how proud that makes me. Don’t you ever doubt it, not for one second.”

Joe didn’t say anything for a moment, he just stared at his father, his normally expressive blue eyes giving no hint as to what he was thinking. Then his chin quivered slightly and he leaned forward, slid his arms around Fenton’s shoulders and hugged him tightly. Precariously balancing his overloaded emotions, it took a minute for Fenton to gain the upper hand. Relieved that he was finally back in control, he wasn’t prepared for power of the barely whispered words that filled his heart and broke his resolve…

“I love you, Dad.”

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Disclaimer

The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The Hardy Boys Fan Fiction authors of the Hardy Detective Agency have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.