Getting off the elevator, he hurried to the waiting area where he found his parents, Vanessa and Callie looking grim. Upon seeing him, Vanessa jumped up and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck, crying. Looking around he caught his father's eye. His father simply shook his head no, appearing more dejected than Frank could ever recall. Fenton was seated next to Laura who was crying quietly. Callie was trying to comfort her but not appearing to have much success.

"Frank, you have to get through to him." He heard Vanessa’s muffled voice. "He’s refusing to see anyone now." She lifted her head to look at him. "Even me." she said quietly. A few more tears escaped and Frank reached down to wipe them away.

The tortured look in her eyes was exactly the same as the one he had seen in Joe’s eyes the night Vanessa had been raped. He knew she was feeling the same sense of helplessness Joe had felt that night. The person she loved more than anything in the world was going through hell and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

"He’s gotten worse, Frank. He won’t even let any of us in the room now. I know he wasn't talking much before, but at least I could be with him. Now...." She leaned her head on his chest, her eyes filling with tears again.

Frank put his arms around her and they held each other tightly. When Vanessa had first started dating Joe, Frank thought she was just one more in a string of many and Joe would get bored with her like he had all the others. But she turned out to be the one and when Frank realized how much she loved his brother, no one was more thrilled than he was.

"I’ll talk to him, Van. Everything will work out. Don’t worry." He kissed her on the cheek and released her. As he turned to walk away, she grabbed his hand.

"Please tell him how much I love him. Make sure he knows." Her voice quivered slightly.

"He already knows, but I’ll remind him."

Frank walked out into the hall turning towards his brother’s room and was stopped by his father.

"He doesn’t want to see anybody, Frank." His father said, sounding totally defeated. "He was adamant about that."

"He’ll see me." Frank replied evenly. "Whether he wants to or not. I’m not giving up my little brother without a fight."

Frank continued down the hall and stopped outside his brother's room. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open and walked in letting it shut behind him. Joe was curled up on the bed, his back to the door. He didn’t move or speak or acknowledge that anyone even entered the room even though Frank was sure he was awake.

"Hey, little brother." He said softly.

When Joe did not respond he walked around to the other side of the bed confirming what he knew. Joe was awake, his blue eyes wide open, staring at the wall.

"What, you’re not talking to me today?" He didn’t care how depressed Joe was, Frank was sure if he pushed the right buttons, his brother would get fed up with him and come back with some angry, sarcastic remark.

"Well, that’s pretty rude. I made a special trip here just to see you and you can’t even acknowledge that I’m here?"

"Shut up." Joe said in a flat, monotone voice.

Frank smiled to himself. "Not exactly the welcome I was hoping for but-"

"Shut up and get out." Joe’s voice was completely devoid of emotion.

"No." Frank challenged him.

Joe lifted his head slightly to glare at his brother. "I told them I didn’t want to see anybody. That includes you. Didn’t you get the message?"

"Yeah, I got it."

"So, what are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you." Frank looked him in the eye. "And no one is going to tell me I can’t see my baby brother. Not even you."

Joe let out a few choice words under his breath and dropped his head back down on the pillow.

‘Yes! Anger!’ Frank thought. ‘We’re making progress!’

He pulled a chair up next to the bed and sat down directly in Joe’s line of sight. Leaning forward, he put his elbow on his knee and rested his chin in his hand so Joe had no choice but to look him in the eye or move. ‘Ok, no more fooling around.’

"So I take it the first therapy session didn’t go quite the way you wanted it to." Frank said quietly.

Joe closed his eyes and Frank could see his lower lip start to quiver. He reached up and rubbed Joe’s back as he used to do when they were kids and Joe was upset.

"Why can’t they just give me some kind of drug and make it all disappear?" Joe whispered.

"I wish they could, little brother. I wish I could make it disappear for you, but I can’t."

"I don’t want to talk about it, Frank. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to remember it. I don’t want to tell some shrink how I feel about it." His voice broke and so did Frank’s heart. "I don’t want to feel anything. Why couldn’t it just stay buried where it was?"

"It couldn’t stay there forever, Joe. It would have eaten you up eventually. But now that it’s out you can learn how to deal with it and move past it."

"How?" Joe cried out. "How am I supposed to move past it when I can’t get it out of my head? It’s all I think about, twenty-four hours a day! It doesn’t matter if I’m awake or asleep, I can’t get those images out of my mind! They’re everywhere I look. Those kids…little children…being forced to…" He started to shake.

A look of pure terror flashed in Joe’s eyes. One hand flew to his mouth and he bolted from the bed into the bathroom where Frank could hear him throwing up.

A few moments later Joe came out of the bathroom. He crawled back onto the bed and lay down on his stomach, staring at his brother with a look that needed no explanation. Immediately, Frank got up and sat on the bed. He put a comforting hand on Joe’s back, just as he always did after those horrible childhood nightmares. Frank suddenly wondered about all those times Joe had come to him in the middle of the night, crying hysterically, unable to remember why. Had he been dreaming, even then, of the three days he had spent at the hands of Josh Tilghman?

"Frank?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks for not listening."

"Not listening to what?"

"Not listening when I said I didn’t want to see anybody."

"That’s what a big brother does best." Frank replied. "He doesn’t pay any attention to what his little brother wants."

"I just figured no one would even want to see me anyway, let alone talk to me."

"Whoa, back up." Frank said concerned. "Why would you think that?"

"After what I saw…everything I watched them do…if Dad hadn’t found me when he did I would have had to let them do the same things to me." Frank could feel his brother shaking at the memory.

"But he did find you in time, thank God. And you weren’t there because you wanted to be. They forced you to watch, Joe. It wasn’t like you had a choice." Frank tried to keep the anger out of his voice, not wanting Joe to think it was directed at him.

"Yes, I did." Joe whispered. "I wouldn’t watch at first. I refused. It made them so mad."

Frank shook his head in amazement. Even at six years old, Joe could be incredibly stubborn.

"Then they started hitting me." Once again, Joe unconsciously put a hand to his cheek, feeling that first slap as if it had just happened. "I took it for as long as I could. Even when they used the whip."

Frank was horrified. His father hadn’t told him Joe had been beaten that badly.

"It’s ok, Joe. It’s ok." Frank said, gently rubbing his back.

"See, I didn’t really have to watch. If I had just been a little stronger…" Joe insisted.

"Enough, Joe! You were only six years old! How could you possibly have stood up to them?!" Frank shifted position to look into his brother's eyes.

"I know I could have if I just tried a little harder. If I had been a little bit stronger."

Frank understood his brother like no one else and when Joe decided to take responsibility for something, justified or not, it was virtually impossible to change his mind. But unless Joe accepted that he was an innocent victim those three days would haunt him for the rest of his life.

"Joe, you were forced to do something against your will! Just like Vanessa was forced to do something against her will! So how come she was an innocent victim and you were a willing participant?" Frank said, frustrated. "You were a little boy, Joe. An innocent little boy. Why can’t you see that?" he finished quietly.

Frank watched as several conflicting emotions passed over Joe’s face.

"It wasn’t my fault?" Joe whispered.

"No, little brother, it wasn’t."

"But if I kept resisting…"

"They probably would have beaten you to death. And I would have lost my baby brother."

Frank swallowed hard, thankful Joe had to "grow into" the amount of stubbornness he had now; thankful he had the time to grow into it. Frank hadn’t realized until that very moment if Joe hadn’t cooperated with Tilghman all those years ago, he very well would have ended up dead. It took a few moments for Frank to compose himself.

"Vanessa asked me to give you a message." He said.

"She did? What is it?" Joe thought of his fiancée and how much he loved her.

"She said to tell you she loves you." He glanced down and saw his brother smile. "I told her you already knew that, but I would remind you."

"She loves me now." The smile started to falter. "But will she still feel that way when this is all over? If not for me she never would have been…"

"Don’t even go there, little brother." Frank cut him off. "As far as I know, she’s still planning a wedding for next year. And I’m pretty sure she expects you to be there."

Standing up, Frank pulled the envelope Con had given him from his pocket and gave it to Joe.

"What is it?" Joe asked suspiciously.

"Open it." Frank said, feeling the same enjoyment he was sure Con felt when he had given the envelope to Frank.

Joe opened it and pulled out the two slips of paper inside. He let the copy of the receipt flutter onto the bed while he unfolded the other paper. Frank watched as Joe’s eyes grew wide. Joe looked at Frank in shock.

"It’s a ballistics report on Chris Taylor." Joe said, as if Frank didn’t already know. Joe looked back down at the paper, fearing he had read it wrong the first time. "Taylor had gunpowder residue on his hands." Joe looked up at his brother again. "A lot of it!"

"Uh-huh." Frank smiled. "Which just confirms everything you said was true. He couldn’t have had that much gunpowder on his hands unless he had been holding a gun when it was fired. Look down at the bottom." Frank said pointing. "Con specifically asked if that much residue would have been left even if his hands were on top of yours when the gun was fired. And the answer is yes."

Frank breathed a sigh of relief when Joe smiled.

"They’ll have to believe I’m innocent now."

"And that’s not all." Frank picked up the copy of the receipt that was lying on the bed. "Look at this. I found it when I was looking through the evidence against Tilghman." Frank winced slightly as Joe’s smile disappeared and was replaced with something close to fear.

"Bayport Storage." Joe read. "So? I don’t get it."

"When I spoke with Angela Taylor she was convinced her son would have kept very detailed records of everything he had done and planned to do to get back at you. I have a hunch Taylor wanted to be so much like his father that he went so far as to keep his records and things in the same place his father did. Bayport Storage. Dad should be able to pull some strings and get a search warrant for his storage unit."

"If he has one." Joe said, guardedly.

"Oh, I’m sure he has one. I think fate is finally starting to smile on you again, little brother."

Just then there was a knock on the door and a nurse came in. She handed Joe a small cup containing a pill and poured him a cup of water.

"I’m sorry but visiting hours are over in five minutes." She said, watching to make sure Joe took the medication. "You’ll have to leave then." She said to Frank as she backed out the door.

Frank smiled at his brother. "I’ll be back tomorrow. Try and get some sleep, ok?"

Immediately he saw fear and apprehension in Joe’s eyes at the thought of what sleep might bring.

"Since I can’t stay the night," Frank said. "I brought my stand in."

He reached down into the bag on the floor and pulled out Bear. Joe’s face lit up just as Frank had hoped. He handed the pathetic, one-eyed bear to his brother.

"He really does have magical powers, you know. I think that little boy will leave you alone tonight." He tucked the blankets in around Joe as he settled back on to the bed.

"Will you stay until I fall asleep?" Joe asked. "It’ll only be a few minutes."

"Anything you want, little brother." Frank replied settling himself back into the chair.

The medication worked quickly and Joe was asleep within minutes. Standing up to leave, Frank looked down at his brother.

"Sweet dreams, Joe." He hesitated a second, then looked at Bear. Leaning down next to the beat up stuffed animal, he whispered, "Take care of my baby brother."

He walked to the door and after a final glance at his brother, left the room. As he walked to the waiting area, he hoped somehow Chris Taylor would know that his plan to destroy Joe and turn his family against him was a total failure. In fact, thanks to Chris Taylor and his single-minded need for revenge, the Hardy family was now closer and stronger than ever.