Title: Sorry for that Night

Rating: PG/K

Pairings: Frank/Nancy

Disclaimer: If I wrote it, it wouldn't be published because it would be locked in endless revision.

Summary: Nancy confronts Frank after her conversation with Joe. Ties in with "Hello from the Other Side" and "Running out of Time."

Author's Note: So Nancy's crazy idea inspired this piece. It was almost what I wrote, but that was too cracky.

It's Not Over

"I take it you'd slam the door on my face if you were able to," Nancy said, managing to break the silence. Frank just looked at her, not moving, and she grimaced, knowing it was as bad as she feared. She crossed the room and sat down next to him. She'd almost expected a hospital bed and tons of machines, and that fear hadn't been realized—he was alone, at home, on his couch—but this was still hard to accept, hard to understand.

"What do you want? It must be very important for you to break in to my apartment."

She gave him a long, hard stare. "Don't you think that you are? That it's worth breaking in just to see you when you won't take my calls and I find out from Joe that you're—"

"Sounds more like someone needs a restraining order, which you should know, since you're still closely tied to law enforcement," he said. Then he pushed himself up off the couch and started back toward his kitchen. "You can go. I don't care what Joe told you. He's wrong."

"Is he?" Nancy asked, following Frank into the kitchen. "Looking back, it all makes a twisted sort of sense, though I'd rather hear it from you than from Joe in a blind panic. You scared him. More than that, though, you hurt him. Badly."

Frank took out a bottle and a glass, pouring himself a drink. "I know."

"That's it? Just an... I know? Who are you and what did you do with the Frank Hardy I remember? You have—had—the biggest, kindest, most generous heart. Only one person could compete with that title, and that is Joe. You're both sweethearts under all that tough guy stuff you had going on."

Frank sipped from his glass. He studied it for a moment, then lifted it to his lips and finished it off quickly before turning to pour himself another. "When they... the doctors didn't know how long it would take for this to run its course. They couldn't give me any kind of time frame, but I'd seen the experiment footage and what it did to one of our best agents. I knew what was coming for me. I... I didn't want my family seeing that."

"Frank..."

"So I switched majors and careers, taking myself out of the field because soon enough I wouldn't be capable of it. I moved away from my family, knowing that the less they saw me the less they'd pick up on the symptoms. And Joe... I managed to make him so angry with me for turning my back on our dreams and partnership that he pretty much didn't speak to me for years." Frank managed a small, rueful smile. "It worked too well."

Nancy grimaced. "I wish you would have told us."

"For what? For everyone to sit around waiting and watching me for a sign of when I was going to keel over? No thank you. I've only had that for the past week since Joe learned of it, but it's been bad enough. I don't..."

Frank's glass shattered on the floor, and he cursed, gripping the counter as he tried to stay on his feet. Nancy went to his side, helping support him. This, she suspected, was what Joe had seen that made it impossible for Frank to deny his illness any longer.

She helped him back to the couch, and he laid back, closing his eyes. "I hate this."

She took her hand and wrapped it around his. "I'll clean the floor for you later."

"Don't. I'm not... the muscle weakness is still intermittent. I can do plenty for myself, just... not necessarily when I want to."

Nancy shook her head. "This isn't right. You should have let us help you. Care for you—and don't look at me like that. Don't say I wouldn't or that you didn't deserve it. In the first place, I have only been trying to fix things between us for what, ten years now? And as for you deserving it—Frank, you weren't the only one who made mistakes."

Frank shuddered, though whether that was from his illness or not, she wasn't sure.

"I won't let you push me away again," she told him. "You already know Joe won't, but I had to come. I had to say it. I had to..."

Frank's eyes met hers, more vulnerable than the act he'd tried to keep up for her so far. "Had to what, Nancy?"

"I want as much time as you have left. I wanted forever, but I know... I know what's coming and I still want it. All that's left. All I can have."

"You're kidding. All you're signing on for is watching me decline slowly and die."

"Technically, that is what every couple signs on for," Nancy told him, and he snorted. "We're all dying. Remember your Dylan?"

"'Those not busy being born are busy dying,'" Frank answered. "Still, that's crazy. You'd hate me for this, and I don't want to do it, and we no longer know each other anymore, and I am not—"

She pressed her lips against his, cutting off his protest. Whatever muscle weakness he'd had in the kitchen seemed to have passed, since he took control of the kiss quickly enough and pressed her back into the couch, igniting fires they'd tried to deny when they were teenagers.

Frank pulled back with a curse. "We are not doing this. You're leaving. I'm not—"

"Joe said my biological clock was ticking."

That made Frank stop with a frown. "What?"

"I actually had this crazy thought of coming over here and trying to convince you that your mind was too great, your detective DNA too good, not to pass on, and then I'd convince you that we could have a sort of... convenience arrangement so that I could beat that clock and you could leave behind all those wonderful Hardy genes."

"Okay, that is the craziest thing I've ever heard you say."

She shrugged. "It was my backup plan in case you weren't willing to let me back in your life, in case you... In case you really got over what I never did. Stupid, but it might have worked on a dying man in a questionable state of mind."

He rolled his eyes. "It's still certifiable."

"There's that Frank Hardy logic I love so much."

"Nancy—"

"Please, Frank. We've wasted way too long already. I know I'm going to lose you, but I meant what I said—I want as long as I can have with you. I want everything we denied ourselves before. Please."

Frank's lips covered hers again, and she hoped that was a yes.