Nancy and Ned are married in this story; rating is for a bit of language. Written for glasheen25 in the oldschoolfic challenge on LiveJournal.

The answering machine light was flashing. Nancy kept glancing at it as she helped her daughter wrestle her winter coat off, and then Sara was excitedly showing her the pictures she had colored that day, and before she knew it Nancy was in the kitchen, assembling frozen chicken nuggets on a baking sheet, setting a pan on to simmer for the green beans. Only when her husband came in, keys jingling in his hand, and gave her a kiss on the cheek, did she remember.

"How was your day?"

Ned slumped at the kitchen table, rubbing his eyes. He unzipped his coat as he replied, "Well, it could've been worse, but not much," and she brought over a stack of plates. Sara was feverishly coloring something else, her mouth pursed, and Ned put a plate carefully beside her coloring book, leaning to gaze over her shoulder, and Nancy smiled.

"This one's for you, Daddy."

"I'm glad," he replied soberly.

Nancy set the timer on five minutes and briskly scrubbed her hands, then went back to the answering machine. The first message was a taped voice eager to sell her satellite television service, the second an offer for yet another credit card. She deleted them both quickly.

"Nancy," began the third, and her brow furrowed when she heard it. The sensation wasn't entirely unpleasant; she just suddenly felt that if she looked over her shoulder, someone would be standing behind her. She checked anyway, feeling foolish, and of course no one stood there.

The voice sighed. Female and casual, but some of the telemarketers were trying for that informal approach. Nancy's finger lingered over the delete button.

Then she heard a very faint chuckle. "I don't know what to say," the woman said, wonderingly, and then the receiver clattered back into the base, and Nancy shrugged, once. She checked the caller ID, and the number was local, but not one she recognized.

"Did we win the lottery?" Ned called, and Nancy chuckled, the whole thing right out of her head.

The two of them spent Saturday morning cleaning, Ned in the yard and Nancy tidying the kitchen, airing out the guest room, reorganizing Sara's bottomless toy chest and assorted riot of Barbie and all her friends. When Mike called and asked if Ned wanted to see a movie, and he turned to her, that exaggerated pleading look on his face, Nancy just laughed and shooed at him, telling him to go and have fun.

The sun was just setting, casting the neighborhood in a deep orange light that burned through the curtains, when Nancy heard a knock at the door. She left Sara sprawled on her belly, idly kicking bare toes in the air as she watched her newly-christened-third favorite movie in the world.

"Can I help you?" Nancy asked, through the storm door, taking the woman standing there in. No religious tracts or sales contracts in her hands, no box of display items. A maroon late-model compact was parked on the street, not in her driveway, but it was nondescript, no magnetic logos or paraphernalia to mark it different from any other. Nancy glanced up at the woman's eyes and thought suddenly of that strange message, the one she had entirely forgotten the moment she erased it.

"Nancy Drew?"

Nancy nodded once. "Nancy Nickerson, but yes. What's this about?"

"Do you mind if I come inside?"

Nancy crossed her arms, studying the woman. She was well-dressed, but appeared nervous, and Nancy's instincts were telling her that it wasn't a trick or a trap. But she was home alone, and she had been fooled before, and where Sara was concerned, she didn't take any risks.

"I don't—"

"It's just so cold out here."

Nancy's brow furrowed. "Are you looking for somewhere to stay? There are places—"

She trailed off as the woman raised her hands in silent incoherence. "I... I'm sorry. I know, you don't know me." She smiled a little at that, a smile Nancy couldn't understand.

"No, I don't," Nancy said slowly. "Are you in some kind of trouble, ma'am? Maybe you knew my father?"

When she didn't respond, Nancy, acting impulsively, grabbed her coat, checking over her shoulder to make sure Sara's attention was still on the movie. She stepped out on the porch, and when the glass was no longer between them, the woman's gaze on her was unnervingly penetrating.

God, Nancy thought. Her eyes. They're the same...

The woman smiled, then, as though she knew. "I'm your mother," she said, gently.

Nancy shook her head, forcing a smile. "My mother died when I was young," she replied. "I'm sorry."

"I... called, but how are you supposed to leave that kind of thing on an answering machine?" The woman pulled her coat tighter, moving restlessly. "I know Carson thought I was dead, so that's what he would have told you..."

Nancy swallowed hard, fighting the impulse to dash back inside and lock the door, lock it safe and secure against the world, with her and Sara inside. The woman was obviously out of her mind. Ned would be gone for another hour, at least, more if he and Mike stopped at a bar on the way home. She was alone.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"I haven't seen you since you were three," the woman replied, as though she hadn't heard her, as though the cold expression on her face wasn't obvious. "You don't remember me at all, do you. And Carson..."

"My father died last year, but I'm sure you know that," Nancy said, her hand on the knob. "I'm sorry. I have to go back inside now."

The woman nodded. "I know. This is a lot. I was hoping... I don't know, that you'd see me and that would be it..." she sighed.

When Nancy shut the glass door, her hand was shaking. "My husband will be home soon."

She looked sad, at that. "God," she murmured. "Feels like you shouldn't be old enough to be married."

She's not a bad person, she's just confused, Nancy reminded herself, fighting to keep her voice steady. "Yes, well," she said. "Five years now. Have a good night."

"It's a lot to take in, I know," the woman said, and Nancy desperately wanted to close the door, but she couldn't make herself. She just kept gazing at the woman through the glass, unpleasantly spellbound. "I'm going to leave my card in your box, and I just want you to know that you can contact me when you're ready. I'll do whatever you want, to prove it."

Nancy's response came immediately. "DNA testing?" she asked, fully expecting the woman to make excuses, to say she'd do anything but that.

The woman shrugged. "Whatever you want," she said. "If that's what it'll take. I've been out of your life for so long, and maybe you'll never forgive me for that, and maybe that's what I deserve. But I can't not try," she said, and smiled sadly.

"Leave your card," Nancy nodded, and closed the door, deadbolting it between them. She stood with her back to the door, eyes closed, head tipped back, listening as the woman paused, went down the steps, out to her car. The engine roared to life and then the street was silent again.

I don't even know her name.

Nancy slid down the door until she was sitting with her back against it, legs stretched out in front of her, and she didn't stop crying until Sara came over and patted her face, asking what was wrong, asking why she was sad.

Nancy wiped at her eyes. "I don't know," she replied, honestly. "I'm sorry. Let's get some dinner, Sara-bear."

Ned came home well after dark. The house was quiet; Sara hadn't gone to bed easily, but she never did. He had almost made it to the stairs when he noticed that the kitchen light was on.

Nancy glanced up when he came into the kitchen, and the expression on her face was enough to freeze his smile on his own. In front of her were a photo album and a mostly empty glass of red wine.

"Nan?"

"Can you do me a favor?"

"I'm really tired..."

She pinned him with a look. "Can you check the mailbox," she said, her voice almost inaudible.

The name on the business card didn't mean anything to him, and when he flipped it over he saw two numbers scrawled in an unfamiliar hand. He locked the door behind him, still studying it absently. "Door-to-door salesman?"

Nancy poured herself another glass of wine, her movements jerky, and raised her eyebrows to ask if he wanted one. He shrugged and went to the fridge, then sat down across from her, popping the tab on a beer.

She waited for him to finish his first swallow before she replied, "That woman says she's my mother."

Ned was speechless with shock, his eyes wide, for almost a full minute. "Is she crazy?"

Nancy shrugged. "She didn't act crazy, but she might have been. Obviously she's not my mother, and that makes me think this is some kind of con, but when I said she'd have to get DNA testing to prove it, she didn't object."

Ned sat back, crossing his arms. "So she's bluffing."

Nancy nodded, finishing her glass of wine in one long gulp. "I know it's a lie, but it just makes me feel sick... I used to dream that she wasn't really dead."

Ned nodded at the photo album. "Your dad left you pictures of her."

"And the woman who knocked at the door, she looks like my mother, but most of these pictures are pretty old, and I keep thinking that anyone, given enough time and determination, can find someone with a passing resemblance. This could be anything, a forgotten inheritance, some sort of claim, a bid to win my trust and get me involved in something underhanded. I have no idea."

Ned shrugged. "So get the testing done, and keep her at arm's-length until the results come back. If it's a short con, she'll keep pressing to get close to you, to win your trust..."

Nancy raked her hair back from her face. "I know," she murmured, half-smiling at him. "I taught you all this, remember."

"Not all you," he said, mock-hurt. "You and a few Humphrey Bogart movies, and that one time we broke into the country club."

"Which still counts as me," she said, before her smile faded. "I know what to do. That's not what's bothering me."

"So what is?"

Nancy sighed. "What if she's right?"

"What if she is?" Ned asked. "What would that change?"

"Everything," Nancy said.

--

"So you have a little girl."

A two-month-old copy of Better Homes and Gardens was open on Nancy's lap. She had needed a week to find the courage to call the woman back and schedule for a test. The collection site was a drug-testing facility; half the other chairs were occupied by men and women, all of whom looked at least mildly uncomfortable. Two toddlers were chasing each other around their mother's knees, bumping into the low furniture, chattering at the tops of their voices. The receptionist was the single most depressed human being Nancy thought she'd ever met.

"I have a little girl," Nancy agreed, glancing back down at the magazine. "If you're my mother, why did my father think you were dead?"

The woman picked up her own magazine, a waterstained copy of Newsweek. "Because I was supposed to be on that bus," she answered, softly. "I was five minutes late, having lunch with an old friend. I saw the report on the news and it... was like a sign."

"A sign of what?" Nancy said skeptically.

The woman sighed. "Your father and I, we were arguing all the time. He was working incredibly long hours, leaving me at home to take care of you, putting my career in jeopardy. And I loved you, so much, but I hadn't wanted to have a child so young, and that, on top of everything..."

"So you just decided to let him believe that you had died," Nancy finished slowly.

"The friend I went to lunch with, had been my college sweetheart," she said. "Before I met Carson. He kept saying how unhappy he was, how much he wished we could be together. And, for a little while, we were."

Nancy listened, keeping a tight lid on her rage. She listened as the woman, the woman she kept telling herself most definitely was not her mother, described how the relationship had fallen apart pretty quickly, but by then she found it impossible to imagine going back, explaining what had happened to Carson. And, she hastened to add, she really had wanted to go back. But every minute that passed made it harder.

Sure, Nancy thought, flushing. Sure it had.

Every now and then, she had come back, making sure to keep herself well disguised, and had checked on them. She had fully expected Carson to marry again; he never had. For a long time she had mistaken Hannah for Nancy's stepmother.

When the story finally trailed off, Nancy said, keeping her gaze down still, "So why now?"

"Why come back to you now?"

She nodded. "It sounds like you didn't ever plan on coming back, so what made you change your mind?"

"Knowing," she sighed, "that I wouldn't have to explain myself to Carson. I couldn't bear the thought of it. I know he loved me, and I loved him, but it wasn't working, and I thought it would be easier for him to accept if I was just dead."

"And your life was so much better without him."

The woman nodded once, slowly. "I met someone else," she said. "I have a daughter about to graduate college and a son just starting."

A prickly, unpleasant blush started at Nancy's neck and began to work its way up. "You started another family."

"Nancy—"

"Mrs. Nickerson? Mrs. Cauley?"

They stood, Nancy rigid with anger, the woman gazing at her as she followed. They were shown into the room and left to wait, alone.

"I—"

Nancy whirled, her blue eyes flashing. "My mother," she said, "would not have done that to me. I don't know what kind of game you're playing, what you're trying to pull, but honestly, I feel sorry for you. The sooner we get this over with, the better. When I walk out that door, I don't want to hear from you again, I don't want to see you, I don't want you anywhere near me. And I will get a restraining order. Ma'am."

"Nancy," she said, and Nancy turned, facing the wall, away from her, her face flushed with anger. "I know. And I can't say I'm sorry enough times, I know that too. I am sorry. Because I was such a coward, I had to miss everything, your entire life, your proms, your graduations, your wedding. I've caught glimpses of you through telephoto lenses. And you had to grow up without me. At least, if I'd told the truth, I could have seen you. Could have hugged you and told you how much I loved you. And then maybe Carson could have moved on."

"Don't talk about my father."

The woman sighed. "Isabel and Steven want to meet you."

Nancy had almost managed to work through her sudden incoherence when the lab tech came into the room. She had been prepared to have her blood drawn, but the tech gave them both buccal swabs and the entire thing was over in a few minutes.

"You'll get the results in five to seven business days."

"Good," Nancy said, hopping down from the table. "The sooner the better."

--

"Do you ever think about walking away?"

Ned was quiet. She almost thought he was asleep until she heard the dull scratch of his nails against his side, his restless shift against the mattress. "Not really."

Nancy turned onto her side, facing him, her head propped up on her hand. "Define 'not really.'"

"Three hundred and sixty days of the year," he said, watching her face. "When we're arguing about the American Express bill or about hanging out with Jan and Mike or whether we can actually afford the car in the driveway, or when you go off and nearly get yourself killed and I think I'm going to lose my mind, yeah, sometimes."

"Or when you see some hot blonde checking you out."

He chuckled. "I believe what you told me."

"That I'd track you down and rip your balls off if you left me for another woman?"

"Yep," he responded quickly. "I believe that. Because you definitely had a very serious look on your face when you said it. Nan, you have to stop thinking about it."

Nancy sighed, rolling onto her back. "Sometimes I think life would be easier if we hadn't gotten married so early, if we hadn't had Sara so early, but honestly, when I think about it, I can't imagine it any other way. I can't imagine what my life would've been like if I hadn't said yes—"

"The twelfth time I asked you," Ned interjected.

"You have to admit, you really outdid yourself that time."

He smiled. "Every student in the Emerson drama department put it on their resumes."

"All right, yes, for the thousandth time, it was the sweetest, most amazing, most wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me," Nancy sighed dramatically, sliding over and bringing Ned's face down to hers for a kiss. His skin was warm, and their sweat was drying on her bare skin, so she pulled the quilts tight around them, wrapping her body around his.

"I could never walk away from you," he told her, brushing her hair away from her face. "I could never leave you and Sara."

Nancy shook her head, cupping her hand over his palm as it rested on her cheek. "But what if she did?"

He kissed the tip of her nose, the corner of her mouth. "Then she cheated herself," he murmured into her skin. "You are amazing, Miss Drew. My life is the envy of every man on Earth."

"And you can still charm the stars out of the sky."

He smiled. "Just go to sleep," he said gently. "Stop worrying about it. You'll get the test back, end of story, no more wondering."

"Yeah," she agreed, tipping her face back to kiss him again.

--

She didn't open the envelope for three days, but the entire time, she was divided, abstracted. She knew there was no risk in it, no question, nothing to worry about. Whenever she thought about it, though, her hands shook.

She looked at it when Sara was picking out her pajamas after her bath and Ned wasn't home yet, but the first sheet was all numbers and she couldn't understand it, couldn't make herself focus on any part of it. Just numbers. Mathematical probability.

The summary was easier. She took it in small pieces, the words "high probability" and "relationship" and "maternal."

She touched the words with her fingers, one by one.

She is my mother and she left me.

The words echoed distant, smothered, as though from behind ice, vibrating through yards of scar tissue, and yet, and yet, they were clear. They rose through and seemed to leave her bleeding.

When Ned came in and saw her, whatever he was about to say died on his lips. He dropped his coat and came over to her, dropping down on his knees, glancing around, and she realized vaguely that he was looking for their daughter, that the utter devastation on her face made him that afraid.

"Nan, what happened."

Suddenly she couldn't breathe. She gestured jerkily at the letter, and he pulled a chair in close to her, the sound of it grating on her ears. He kept one hand on her thigh and kept glancing from the letter, back to her, back to the words, and she knew the exact instant that it crystallized for him.

"God. Did..." He flipped it over, held it up to the light. "Did you call and confirm, did you..."

Nancy put her head down on the table, and then she heard Sara's bare feet on the kitchen floor. "Mommy?"

"It's okay," Ned said. "Why don't we go upstairs..."

Nancy wiped hurriedly at her eyes and looked up. "No, I'm sorry. It's okay, Sara. I'm sorry. Ned, I left... a plate for you in the microwave." She managed to pull herself out of her seat and sweep Sara into her arms, with Ned's fingers trailing over her back.

"Mommy?"

"It's okay, honey. What book did you want to read tonight?"

Sara shot her a mildly troubled look, but when Nancy put her down in her bedroom, she went obediently to her bookshelf and pulled down a cartoon retelling of Sleeping Beauty.

"That's a good one. Remind me to tell you the longer version later."

"What?"

Nancy shook her head. "It's okay. Not until you're older. Can you help me read tonight?"

Ned was just putting his plate and silverware in the dishwasher when Nancy came back downstairs, her face blank, exhausted from keeping a smile on her face for Sara. She had changed into an oversized sweatshirt and faded jeans, and with her face scrubbed free of makeup and tearstains she looked vulnerable and sad.

"Nancy, it's okay. As soon as the place opens tomorrow I'll call and find out what they did. Maybe the samples were switched, maybe they planted someone in there..."

Nancy gave him a humorless smile. "You know, you're probably right," she said softly. "But you haven't met her. She looks like me, Ned."

"And you already said, with enough time and effort..."

Nancy sat down on the couch, pulling a throw pillow against her chest, and Ned sat down beside her. "I don't know her," Nancy said. "I only remember her in pictures. She looked happy. I can't ask Dad if she's right, if all this is true. What would it take, fingerprints? I don't think Dad kept her fingerprints on file."

"So ask her things only your mom would know."

Nancy sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Anything I know is public record, and everything else..."

"Yeah," Ned agreed, after a moment. "So what do we do."

"I guess..." She leaned her head on his shoulder. "I don't know what to do."

--

She did it, idly, two weeks later, just to prove she could.

She took the name and address on the business card and traced the woman who had abandoned her at the age of three, back into public records, and found Isabel and Steven on a social networking site. She contacted them under a false identity, and at first, seeing her half-sister at the age of five, blowing candles out on a cake with a woman who could only be her mother standing at her side, made Nancy feel sick, sucker-punched to the gut again. Isabel's hair was the color of dark honey, but Nancy could see the resemblance around the eyes, in her cheeks.

Isabel had a few old family snapshots on her site, but with Steven it was all recent pictures, of him at frat parties, with his arm around girls' shoulders, mugging for the camera. He took after his father, but his eyes, his smile were the same.

It's not their fault. They didn't know any more than I did.

When Nancy tucked Sara in that night, she watched her hug her doll, a floppy cloth doll with pink yarn hair, and smiled down at her. "I love you, Sara," she said, and watched her little girl's face light up with a wide grin.

"I love you too, Mommy."

Nancy felt like her heart was going to burst. She leaned down and kissed Sara's forehead. "Go to sleep, honey."

Looking back at her daughter from the doorway after she had snapped off the light, Nancy was confronted with it again. She couldn't imagine it. She couldn't see it, even if she had somehow ended up married to a man who spent his days drunk and his nights abusive, couldn't imagine walking away without Sara. Nancy had known Carson well, or so she had thought, and he had worked too much, but he had loved her, and he had loved her mother. Nancy was sure of it.

Knowing that, barring some vast conspiracy or forgery, she was the daughter of a woman who could do that, who could leave her child thinking she was dead for more than twenty years, made Nancy angry. Livid, even. When she had been young and imagined it, everything had been hugs and smiles, her mother back in the house, her mother giving her advice and comfort.

"You know, you wouldn't have gotten into half the trouble you did get into if she'd been around."

Ned was stepping out of his pants, going through his bedtime routine, and he vanished into the bathroom while Nancy, sitting up against the headboard, hands folded over the comforter, thought about it. Her father had definitely been very concerned about her, but he had trusted her judgement and everything he had taught her to keep her from serious risk. Hannah, as much as Nancy had loved her, wasn't her mother, and they both knew it.

But her own mother? Nancy thought of all the times her father had been working long hours on cases, out of town at conferences, on vacation, seeing friends. Maybe her mother would have forbidden it. Maybe her life would be entirely different.

I don't even know what she did, Nancy realized. If I'm like her.

She shivered at the thought.

Ned came back in with his teeth freshly brushed and turned off the light, slid into bed beside her. "How was your day?"

Nancy rolled onto her side, hands folded under her head. "What would you do if you found out your dad had been married to someone else and had kids with them?"

Ned gazed up at the ceiling. "I don't know," he admitted. "I'd be curious. Are you curious about them?"

"I'm... ugh." She tucked her knees up, pulling the covers over her bare shoulder. "I hate them because she loved them enough to stay, and she didn't love me enough," Nancy said softly. "I hate feeling like she never really loved Dad. What does that make me? She just left me behind because I was part of her mistake?"

"You know you aren't a mistake."

"Yeah," she agreed, halfheartedly, looking away from him. "I don't want to be around her, I don't want to see any part of her in me. I spent my entire childhood wishing for her back, but now... I can't believe I wish she'd stayed gone. That I'd never known."

"But you do, and you can't undo it."

She nodded. "And it's not Isabel and Steven's fault, and I shouldn't put the issues I have with her on them."

"It's your choice." He smoothed her hair back. "So now Sara has an aunt and an uncle, and a grandmother, if you want her to."

Nancy shivered again. "The thought of letting her be around Sara... but is it any better of me to say she can't be around her? I can't... I don't want her in my life, not right now, but, God, Sara's already older than I was when she was gone. All I remember is loving her, and all this time that was all I could do, but now she's back and I'm just so damn angry that I can't imagine forgiving her for this."

"Has she asked you to?"

Nancy shrugged. "Why else would she come back? She just doesn't want to feel guilty anymore."

Ned snuggled in close to her, his thumb caressing her cheek. "You know she didn't leave because of you."

"She said—"

Ned put his thumb over her lips. "She left because of her," he said, firmly. "She didn't leave because you were unworthy of love, she left because she was selfish and too young to know any better. Maybe that is unforgivable and she can never make it right. But I think you're angry because this has hurt you, and in all the years I've known you I have never seen you like this, I have never seen you get this incensed about anyone. Other than me." She smiled, at that. "And never this long. It's okay that you're angry. I would be too. But you need to know that it wasn't your fault."

Nancy's eyes glazed with tears as they searched her husband's. "I don't know," she murmured.

"I do." He kissed her gently. "The decisions she made changed you, changed her life, and who knows where you'd be if not for that. So maybe you need some time to deal with that. But I, for one, am curious about your brother and sister. I want to meet them. I know you're afraid to see yourself in your mom, but maybe you'll see yourself in them, too. And it won't be so bad."

"Yeah," Nancy agreed, pulling him close. "Okay."

"Besides, regardless of anything else, I owe her."

"For what?"

He kissed her earlobe. "She gave me you," he whispered into her ear. "No matter what else she did, she gave me you. And you're the one I can't imagine my life without."

Nancy smiled. "Thanks," she murmured, pulling him down for a kiss.