HDA - Living in Darkness Trilogy - Pt 2 - The Search

"You what? You idiot!" Joe stared at his brother in dismay as Frank shifted off of his bed and reached for his wheelchair. "You are the utter limit, Frank, I swear. If you weren't already hurt I'd beat you into next week for being such a stupid lout."

Placidly, with an expression that made Joe even more furious, Frank shrugged and continued his shift from bed into wheelchair.

"It wasn't important at the time, you know," Frank shook his head. "You were missing, we had a job to do and I just wasn't about to take time out for something that could be dealt with later, if it gets dealt with at all. I had something more important to do at the time."

Joe glared at his sightless brother and contemplated more bodily damage. Glaring obviously didn't work on a blind man and Frank was ignoring the obvious fury in Joe's voice. Frank totally missed his ride on the clue-mobile – not for the first time, Joe noted mentally.

"What if I had been gone…forever?" A lump formed in Joe's throat as he took one of Frank's hands and held it tightly, forcing Frank to at least concentrate on him. "What if you never got me back? Would you have put this off forever? Just not cared about something so important as being able to see again?"

Frank said nothing for many moments; he sat in his wheelchair, blinking owlishly despite the vacancy in his dark brown eyes. Joe resisted the urge to shake him, hard, and merely squeezed the hand he held a little more tightly.

"I don't know," Frank shrugged as if it didn't matter, not in the grand scheme of things. "That’s all I can say, Joe – I don’t know. I don't know if I would have gone to visit the doctor in Connecticut or not. I wasn't thinking at the time, Joe, beyond finding you and getting you back. That was all that was important. You were missing, we didn't know who had you, and I was terrified you were going to be killed. I did think about having that doctor take a look at my eyes, but I just couldn't go through with it. There was something more important to do and that's what I did."

Joe pursed his lips to resist saying something he shouldn't and he closed his eyes, pulling his hand away from Frank's so he could rub at his temples. Joe either had to settle down or he was going to yell, scream and hit – all things his mother would ground him for, despite his age. He had no idea why he cared so much about this operation thing, except, maybe, it took his mind off of other things he wanted to forget.

"You are the most infuriating idiot," Joe growled finally. "Okay, fine. You didn't do it then, but you are going to do it now. I mean it, Frank. If I have to tie you up, throw you in the trunk and drive you there myself, you're going to go see that doctor at Harvard and you're going to get your sight back."

"I have knee surgery next week," Frank reminded his brother. "It's already scheduled."

"Doesn't mean we can't go see the other doctor, right?" Joe pushed Frank's chair forward so he could get behind it. "It's not like he will schedule the appointment for next week, right?"

Frank didn't answer and Joe froze, watching his older brother. Frank's face went through a variety of emotions, the chief among them fear.

"You're not afraid, are you?" Joe asked softly.

"A little," Frank admitted. "I don't want to get my hopes up, okay? What if I go there and he can't help me. What if Doctor Carlisle is right? I just…I'm getting used to this, getting used to not seeing. I'm adjusting and adapting and if I go there and go through all of this – the surgery or whatever he does – and it doesn't work…I just don't know if I can do it."

“You can do it!” Joe exclaimed. “Frank…you told me…you told me that I have more strength than anyone you know. I didn’t bother to disagree with you then but I’m going to now. If I have strength, then so do you – we’re strong because of each other. There’s nothing more I want in the world than for you to see again. Don’t you get that?”

Joe turned the wheelchair and sat down on Frank's bed, keeping a hand on one of Frank's so his brother would know where Joe was.

“You said you were comfortable with me because I can’t see,” Frank said softly. “Won’t this change things? Won’t you be uncomfortable if I can watch you too?”

Joe considered it for a moment then shook his head. “It’s not enough reason for you to turn down this opportunity. I…Frank, I may be comfortable around you because…because you can’t look at me, but like I said, there’s nothing I want more than for you to see again. You have to try!”

Frank sighed but finally nodded his agreement. “All right, if it means so much to you, I’ll call Dr. Beckett and make an appointment.”

“You don’t have to go alone,” Joe said. “I’m going with you.”

"You really want to go?" Frank put his good hand on top of Joe's. Joe saw the wheels turning in Frank's head, as if catching onto an idea that was eluding him. “You…you haven’t been comfortable leaving the house this week. We’ve all seen that, even those of us who can’t see…”

"I really want to go," Joe agreed. “And you really need me to go. I can do this…”

Frank finally nodded and reached out with his good hand. “All right little brother. WE will do this.”

** ** **

Thursday, November 9, 2000

Frank closed his eyes as he leaned his head back against the neck rest in his Lexus and let the wind rush past him, ruffling his longish hair and occasionally whipping it into his face even as he enjoyed the bright sunlight beating down on them. A little chilly for riding with the top down, Frank wore one of his heavier jackets, obtained from his dorm room earlier that week by his roommate when Frank asked for more of his clothing.

The last few days were busy ones for the Hardys. Their parents insisted that Mandy, Connor and Samantha get back to school, now that Joe was home and safe. They gave Joe the option of whether he was ready to go back or not, and Frank had to admit that Joe had tried.

Joe got ready for school the first morning, wearing what he normally wore to classes – jeans, a t-shirt and his letter jacket. He took time to check his reflection out in the mirror; bruises were long faded, and while his foot still hurt when he walked on it for too long, it remained the only physical sign of his abuse.

Joe made it out as far as Mandy's car when he caught sight of something down the street – a blonde-haired boy that looked a lot like himself and Mandy – and he went running back into the house, down to their bathroom where he lost his breakfast in the toilet. He sat down on his bed, shaking and apologized to Mandy for being a wuss.

"I'm not ready," he whispered as he rocked a little on his bed. "I'm just not ready."

Frank turned his head toward his brother, wishing he could see what was in Joe's face. Joe had stopped talking about his attack, not that he’d talked about it much in the first place. Anytime someone brought it up Joe shut down, usually running off to his room and slamming the door. The last time Mandy asked about it Joe blew up at her.

"Quit asking me about it, quit mentioning it to me, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT!" he yelled as he moved away. "Just go away and leave me alone!"

Frank didn't have to see his sister's face to know Joe's words hurt her. She said nothing as she moved down the hallway to her own room; he heard her door close and knew she would be crying on the bed. Frank wanted to tell her 'I told you so,' but didn't – she already knew that.

They all quit asking Joe about it, letting Joe determine the time and place.

"Traffic is pretty good so far," Joe commented to Frank a little while later as they listened to his Aerosmith CD on the car radio. They were jamming along together, enjoying the time alone that they hadn't had in quite a while. "I keep expecting to run into a huge pocket as we get closer to the city but so far so good."

"That's good," Frank grinned. "We'd be choking on exhaust if we were in a traffic jam."

"We'll be fine, Frank," Joe stated calmly. Frank heard the blinker and vaguely felt the car shift slightly to the right, changing lanes.

The trip to New Haven was mostly quiet, occasionally broken by short discussions, either about sports teams or school or Samantha and Vanessa. Neither of them talked about the two touchy subjects – Joe's rape or Frank's eye appointment.

But the rape was always there, always, at the very least, in the back of Joe's mind. I just wish he would open up about it. He can't keep it all bottled up; it's not good for him. I wish I knew how to help him, Frank thought. I'm the big brother. I'm supposed to be able to fix things and I can't fix this. I wish I could.

They reached the medical center about a half hour before the appointment. Joe helped Frank into his wheelchair and pushed the wheelchair up the ramp into the HNHMC welcoming room. Joe stopped at the desk to ask for directions to Doctor Beckett's office and then Frank felt the chair go again, down unfamiliar passageways until Joe pushed open a door and pushed Frank inside.

"Hi," Frank heard Joe say. "My name is Joe Hardy. This is my brother, Frank. He has an appointment at 3:30 with Doctor Beckett?"

"Just a minute," the receptionist said to him as she picked up a ringing phone. Frank sighed as he leaned back in his chair and waited until she spoke again.

"Sorry about that," the receptionist continued. "I've been expecting you. We have some paperwork we need you to fill out. Did you bring your insurance card?"

"Yeah," Frank said. "Hold on."

Frank dug into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, handing it over to Joe. Between the two of them they got Frank's paperwork filled out and Frank managed to sign the form where Joe indicated. They took the paperwork back to the receptionist.

** ** **

"Okay, then," Doctor Beckett had a medium timbre to his voice, which was filled with warmth and a little humor. "While I am going to have to take some time to go through my findings before I commit to this, I just want to tell you that I think I'll be able to help you. Your case is a little like a severe case of cataracts. The substance used to blind you has basically put a complete film over your eyes, but the removal of that is going to be tricky – and I want to make sure you understand there's some danger to it. I haven't done a procedure quite like this before, so we're both going into new ground here. Still, I'm about 90% certain I can recover about 80% of your eyesight. You may still have a few spots, as it were, but nothing that will overly impede your ability to live a normal life. The neural connections between your brain and your eyes are in good order – as far as your brain is concerned, your eyes are working just fine, so that makes it all even easier.

"I'll give you a call, say, by Monday, to let you know for sure about the procedure," Dr. Beckett said. "And if my findings still agree with what I saw today, we should be able to schedule to have it done within the next couple of months; I'll have my receptionist check the appointment book."

"Wow," Frank said softly. "You really think you can do it?"

Dr. Beckett laughed. "I really do, son. I wouldn't get your hopes up if I wasn't fairly positive about this."

Frank felt like jumping for joy, then sobered for a moment. "I have knee surgery in two days. Is that going to affect the eye surgery when that happens?" he asked.

"Mmm," Dr. Beckett shook his head. "No, not really. We'll make sure that there's at least two weeks between the two surgeries, however. I'll do another check before the eye surgery to make sure everything is still in good shape, though. Okay?"

Frank nodded. He felt Joe squeeze his shoulder.

"All right, go on back home and expect to hear from me on Monday."

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The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The authors 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.