From the other side of the quad, near the sidewalk that went back to her dorm, Mandy Hardy stood, a look of horror and shock on her face. For a moment she, Vanessa and Samantha stood frozen. A moment later, Mandy saw Joe sit up slowly, and shake his head, rubbing at his ears as if he heard something in them. She saw beyond her brother one corner of the quad. The blast had done more damage; the lawn was torn to smithereens, with chunks of earth thrown as far as the top of the SU. More bits and pieces of the ground had turned over on top of itself. Several people near Joe were already picking themselves back up from the ground. There were two people in the blast zone, however, who lay like broken rag dolls. A section of the Student Union building was open to the air as well.

Mandy saw Joe blink his eyes a few time and in that way she had with him, she knew he wanted to clear his vision. She saw as he looked at something, probably Connor, who lay stunned beside him. Joe slowly pulled himself to his feet by using the bench as a prop. He shook his head several times and Mandy started toward him. Vanessa looked as shell-shocked as Joe. Joe fell back on the bench beside him and rested his head in his hands. He seemed to lean toward Connor for a few minutes then he coughed.

"JOE! CONNOR!" Mandy's called out to them, trying to get their attention.

Joe blinked his eyes several times, but Mandy had no way of knowing if she really saw her or not. Samantha and Mandy knelt quickly beside Connor, who lay on his back, a large gash on the side of his head from landing. Vanessa sat down on the bench beside Joe and reached out to put an arm around him. He watched her grimace in surprise and pull her arm back. It had blood on it.

"Oh, God, you're hurt!" Vanessa told Joe. "Joe? Joe, can you hear me?"

"Y-yea," Joe said, and Mandy saw him shiver.

"Don't move anyone!" A voice called from near the Student Union. "If you're with someone who is injured, stay with them, keep them quiet but do not move them until medical professionals arrive. Again, do not try to move anyone!"

They heard them moving across the quad, saying the same things to other people. Samantha took off the light jacket she wore and laid it carefully over Connor, while Mandy did the same and handed it to her brother. Vanessa wrapped it carefully around him as Joe leaned his head onto her shoulder. Vanessa took off her own jacket and wrapped that around him as well. Mandy tried talking to Connor but he only nodded or shook his head in response to her.

"I think he's going into shock," Vanessa said, suddenly. "He's shaking so hard I can barely keep hold of him."

"How many of you are injured?" one of the professors asked as he came by. "We're trying to take count for the emergency crews."

"Two," Mandy told them. "And both of them are not very responsive."

"Did any of you see what happened? Besides the obvious I mean?" the professor asked.

Mandy, Vanessa and Samantha all looked at each other and shook their heads.

"No, we were across the quad when it happened," Mandy explained. "We turned around and saw that part of the quad, well, like that!"

She pointed to the blown-up section of the quad and placed a hand on her boyfriend's head. He was not exactly shivering, but he hadn't been too responsive to her either, beyond brief nods of his head.

The professor left them to go on down the line. In all, Mandy thought she counted about fourteen other people on the quad, about half of which looked injured. She did not look in the direction of the two who lay nearest the blast; they were probably dead.

A few minutes later they heard the sounds of sirens coming toward them and a few minutes after that they saw EMTs running into the quad, some of them pulling or pushing several gurneys. The EMTs divided up on the quad and one, a woman with the name 'Mitchell' on her tag, knelt beside Connor and Joe.

"Have either of them spoken since the explosion?" the woman asked them as she pulled out her stethoscope and began taking vital signs.

"I don't know if they did before we got here," Mandy answered for them. "Joe, that's my brother up there, he got up and onto the bench at one point, just before we got to him."

"He's shaking really bad," Vanessa said to the EMT. "He's hurt his back."

She showed her hand to the EMT. The woman called over one of her partners to look at Joe while she checked out Connor. Connor became more lucid as time passed and he was able to answer the EMT's questions when she asked them of him. He finally rolled up shakily to a sitting position and onto the gurney brought over for his use.

"They'll both be all right," the woman said to the girls. "We're going to take them by the hospital, the doctor will probably want them both to spend the night. But they'll be fine."

Mandy breathed a sigh of relief and looked back up at her two friends, while running a hand through Connor's hair. Vanessa agreed to ride in the ambulance with Joe, Mandy would ride with Frank and Samantha would follow in her own car, after calling Joe's parents and Connor's dad.

Joe came out of it again at the hospital in the emergency center, as a doctor was looking into his eyes with a light scope. He batted the light away and protested, then winced when he felt a sharp, burning ache in his lower back. He was lying on his side on a hard hospital bed with only one pillow underneath his head. It took several more minutes to remember what, exactly, had just happened. An explosion of some kind. He didn't remember anything after the explosion.

"Connor!" he said, suddenly, trying to sit up. He kept looking around, flailing against the doctor who was trying to examine him. "Connor!"

"Your friend is just fine," the doctor told him. "In fact, he's in better shape than you. He's got a few bumps, bruises and abrasions, he'll need about four stitches in one shoulder but other than that, he's fine. You, on the other hand, have a rather large hole in your back. We put twenty-two stitches in it and if you don't stop that, you're going to rip them out."

Joe relaxed back almost instantly and closed his eyes again. Connor was all right. The doctor continued his check-up, looking again into Joe's eyes, his ears, his mouth, running his hand up and down Joe's torso to check for breaks. Finally, the doctor spoke to him again.

"You don't seem to have any breaks, Joe," he said. "But you're going to be very sore for the next few days. I'm going to release you, but I want you to go home with your parents, not back to the dorm. You need to be watched tonight. I don't see any signs of head trauma or concussion but I'd like to lean toward the cautious side."

Joe frowned. That was going to put a damper on his investigation. Then again, there was no way he was going to investigate anything tonight. Everything hurt too badly.

"You have a visitor," the doctor definitely sounded like he was smiling now and Joe opened his eyes again to peer cautiously up and over. His eyes opened wide when he saw, not his mother or father or Mandy but his older brother.

"Frank!" he exclaimed. "How... what?"

"Mom and dad came up to tell me what happened," Frank whispered, his voice raspy and harsh from having the tube down his throat. He was seated in a wheelchair. That was when Joe noticed that it was Samantha pushing the chair and not a nurse. He waved to her and smiled. "They had to take the tube out today, I nearly strangled to death trying to throw-up."

Joe swallowed and sat up, very slowly. His back still stung, probably from the stitches more than anything. He pulled the sheet over his torso up over his legs as he dangled them off the bed. The position was more comfortable than lying on his side had been.

"I'm glad you could come down," Joe said, softly as he laid a hand on Frank's shoulder. "Have you seen Connor yet?"

"He came up to see me," Frank said. "With mom and dad. He's fine. Shook up and bruised, but he's fine."

"How are you feeling?" Joe asked. "I've wanted to ask but..."

"I'm fine," Frank said, his voice still raspy and harsh. He paused, as if about to say something else, but didn't. He shrugged and reached up a hand to grope for Samantha's. She laid her hand on top of his for a moment. "I guess, well, there's a long way for me to go. A long way, but I'll be fine."

"We'll all help you, Frank," Samantha said as she knelt beside the chair and continued to hold Frank's hand. "You don't have to do it by yourself."

Frank smiled, his eyes lighting up, transforming his face from a mildly good-looking young man to a very handsome one. His brown eyes seemed, just a moment, to look right into Joe's. Still, Joe knew that it was not true. A moment later, the gaze faltered and looked right past Joe again. Samantha wrapped her arms around him, holding him for just a moment, when Laura and Fenton Hardy came into the room.

"Hi Mom. Hello, Dad," Joe said to his parents.

Laura Hardy gave her youngest son a tender hug, being careful of the cuts on his back as Fenton shook his hand and leaned against Joe's bed.

"Did the doctor tell you when I could go home?" Frank asked his parents.

"He wants to keep you for a few more days, Frank," Fenton told his son. "Just until they finish running their tests. After that you're going to have to be... trained... to get around."

"Won't his eyes get better too?" Joe asked. "I mean, if he can breathe now..."

Laura and Fenton were both silent for a moment as they looked at each other. By the sharp intake of Laura's breath, Joe already knew that the prognosis wasn't good for his brother's recovery. They didn't have to say anything at all. In fact, their silence spoke quite eloquently of Frank's chances.

"Well, that's that, then," Frank said, finally, breaking the silence. "What was that you called it, Sam? An adjustment period? That's what this is, Joe, for both of us."

"It's not fair to you!" Joe retorted, his temper flaring. "It's not fair to you. Uncle Derak... it's me he should have done this to, not you! It's me!"

"Why?" Frank asked, softly. "Because he abused you when you were a child? Because you saw he got put away to a place he should have gone to long ago? Joe, we both know that's not the truth. And we still don't know that he's the one behind... everything."

"He was there tonight," Joe said, his temper fading again. "Connor and I both saw him outside of MacRedy. I saw him there just like I see you now. I spoke to him. He's the one that's behind it all right."

Frank sighed, exasperated. "Then get proof, Joe. Don't go tossing accusations around the campus. Get proof. Take it through the basics but don't go off making assumptions based on how you feel about someone."

Frank's voice was already going and Joe felt guilty for that. His brother's words made him angry but he had to agree with them. He had to get proof and not just put together a few facts into an assumption. Joe forced himself to calm, though he still felt the incredible urge to reach out and hit something. A hospital room filled with people wasn't the place for it.

"All right," Joe said, finally. "You're right, Frank. I'll... I'll look for facts and I'll look for proof. I will find whoever did this to you. I promise you I will."

Frank smiled again and reached out for Joe. Joe took his hand and held it in his own for a moment, contact established and communication proceeding on another level. It wasn't what Joe had with Mandy. Joe recognized that simple fact. But it was simpler, more base and filled only with the facts. Joe was his brother. Joe could see. Joe would have to see this through until Frank could get around. Joe had to be them both for a little while.

The communication was broken a moment later when Vanessa came back into the room and she sat on the bed beside Joe and put an arm around his shoulders.

"Well, I hate to break this up," the doctor that was treating Joe came in. "Doctor Carlisle needs to see Frank and I have your marching orders, Joe. You're going to have to sit out any heavy sports for the next week, until your stitches come out. I have an excuse for you here. I want you back here in a week to get those removed. Stay with your parents tonight; make sure he gets woken up every two hours. He doesn't show signs of head injury or concussion but I'd like to be safe than sorry since he did go into shock earlier. All right?"

Joe nodded to him. He'd stay with his parents tonight but tomorrow... tomorrow he was going out in search of facts. Not just assumptions, but proof.

He slid carefully off the bed and Laura and Vanessa helped him on with a clean shirt. Laura slid his jacket around his shoulders and he grimaced when he pulled the stitches too hard.

Connor and Mandy rushed into the small, very crowded, room then and stopped just short of running into Frank's chair. Both of them looked startled and Mandy's eyes were as large as saucers.

"What's wrong?" Joe demanded.

"We just went to see Doctor Rich!" Connor exclaimed. "He's gone!"