Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He doesn’t know why he starts doing it.

All Ryan knows is that after he helps Nancy and Carson bury Lucy’s bones in the woods, he can’t stay away from the grave. It was ironic, really. He couldn’t make himself visit her tombstone in the public cemetery but he can find an excuse to sneak into the woods to visit her secret grave.

Maybe because this time, he knows that there was something there to actually visit.

He brings flowers, Lucy’s favorite of course. Ryan feels tears beginning to blur his vision and tries to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat. He’s hidden the pain of Lucy’s death for nearly twenty years, and now, in the wake of the truth, he can’t hold back anymore. She was dead because of the town, because of the Hudson name, but it hurt so much more knowing her death was a suicide. One that he couldn’t prevent. And the bombshell of her pregnancy…

He thought his memories were all he had left of his and Lucy’s love, turns out they have a daughter.

None other than Nancy freaking Drew.

It was almost funny, the way the universe mocked him like this. Giving him a taste of true love in Lucy, only for his parents to destroy it. Giving him a daughter, but one with whom he has a complicated relationship because of his last name and the choices he’s made.

Ryan sighs, kneeling in front of the tree with Lucy’s symbols carved into it. He misses her so much it hurts. He wishes he could talk to her again, maybe ask her for advice. Working with Carson and spying on their daughter (how could he share a daughter with Carson Drew?) was strange enough, but the supernatural troubles surrounding the amateur detective worried him far more than he would ever admit.

Hence his tentative partnership with his former lawyer and Nancy's adoptive father. Could his life get any weirder?

“Hey Luce,” he says after deciding he’s stood there like an idiot for long enough. “Thought I’d drop by.”

Ryan has no idea what to do now, so he lays the flowers on the dirt mound that served as Lucy’s new grave. She deserved more than an empty hole with a tombstone that got vandalized every year or a hidden grave that only himself, Nancy, and Carson knew about, but Ryan knows he can’t give it to her. Not when it could end up bringing unwanted attention to Nancy and himself. He takes comfort in the fact that Lucy probably appreciated the sentiment of the new location.

“I, uh…I don’t really know why I’m here. With everything going on, I guess it made me realize how much I miss you. That no matter how much I pretended I had, I never moved on.”

The wind starts blowing—not hard, but enough to make him shiver and look up. He’s helped Nancy enough that his first thought is that Lucy’s spirit is there, and he scans the trees for a glimpse of a waterlogged dress or even just a silhouette—but there’s nothing. He shakes his head and turns back towards the grave.

“I’ve helped Nancy out a bit with some…stuff. Definitely supernatural. And not without a price, because I’m still a Hudson.” Ryan snorts as a thought occurs to him. “Maybe that’s why I’m here. Can’t really ask you for parenting advice, but anything supernatural is on the table, right?” He sighs heavily. “And maybe I want to see if I can still be the person you saw me as.”

Some leaves blow past him and Ryan feels the back of his neck tingle. He fights the urge to turn around, turning his jacket collar up against the cold. Sometimes a gust of wind is just a gust of wind, even in haunted Horseshoe Bay.

Or so he tells himself.

“Anyway…uh, I guess I can’t really ask you for advice, but…it’s nice, I suppose, talking to you. I’m really worried about Nancy. Not that I can really pull the dad card, but I figured you’d understand. I mean, you’ve kind of been watching over her.”

He stops, thinking about everything that’s transpired since he found out Nancy was his daughter. He thinks about his past, about the choices he’s made—and still making—and tells himself he truly wants to do better. Be better.

Be the person Lucy saw.

“I’m going to keep looking after Nancy, like you have. I told her I want to try being her father, and she seemed interested, but I don't want to mess this up. But…I need you to know, Luce, that I love you. And I hope that you find peace eventually, if you haven’t already. I will always regret that we never got to reconcile because I was a coward. I just hope I don't blow the chance I have with Nancy.”

He stands, running his fingers over Lucy’s symbols once more and whispering a slightly choked goodbye before starting the trek back to his car.

And almost collides with Nancy, who’s shown up out of nowhere.

“Wha—oh, Nancy. Uh, hi.” He says none too smoothly.

Nancy looks as surprised as he feels, clearly not expecting to run into anyone.

“Um, hi Ryan.”

Ryan notices right away that something isn’t right. Nancy looks pale, and she was trembling slightly. And not just from the cold. Her eyes were red and she wasn’t meeting his eyes. She doesn’t even have a jacket.

He quickly shrugs off his own jacket, draping it across her shoulders. She doesn’t even blink.

“You, uh…you don’t look so great. Do you…I mean, I was just leaving, but—”

“What are you doing here?” Nancy blurts out like she isn’t even aware he was talking.

Ryan opens and closes his mouth before mentally sighing. “Just visiting Lucy.”

An expression he can’t identify flashes across her face. “Any reason?”

He frowns but ignores the phrasing. “Felt the urge to.”

“Yeah,” Nancy murmurs, more to herself than to him. “Yeah, me too.”

Ryan glances back at the grave, then to Nancy. She still looks pale and he sees that she’s breathing faster than normal. Her eyes are darting around and she seems jumpy. Something bad clearly happened, and Ryan would be damned if he left her alone right now. Especially at a grave in the middle of the woods.

“I know things between us are new and still complicated,” he says after clearing his throat somewhat awkwardly, “but you’re clearly not okay, and frankly, I’ve been worried about you. So if you want to talk, I’ll listen. If not, I'll take you back to Carson or something."

Nancy slowly looks at him, eyes narrowed. He’s expecting her to refuse, but he’s surprised to see that she seems to be considering his words.

“It’s kind of a lot,” she says, and Ryan has to fight to keep his jaw from falling to the floor.

“I’ve got time.” He manages to say, and Nancy nods slowly, as if caught in a trance.

He reaches out before he can second guess what he’s doing, and nearly has a heart attack when Nancy takes his hand and squeezes it tightly, like she’s afraid he’ll disappear if she lets go.

With a jolt, Ryan realizes she’s afraid. Terrified, even. Whatever happened, it must have been really bad. Without thinking, he pulls her closer as he guides her to his car. He doesn’t see Lucy hovering over the mound of buried bones, watching the love of her life and her daughter walk away hand in hand.

Chapter Text

Nancy isn’t sure why she agrees to go with Ryan. She wants nothing to do with him. And yet she keeps coming back to him. She tells herself it was because she had no other choice, but deep down she knows it’s not totally true.

He’s her father. And it took dangling off precariously off a cliff for her to face it.

She remembers how terrified she was—is—and shivers as the memories wash over her. Feeling her fingers slipping on the crumbling rock, muscles straining as she held on for her life. Crying and screaming for someone, anyone to save her. Flashing back to Carson’s story about that fateful night on the bluffs, how she wished he would show up, or Lucy, or even Ryan.

And finally pulling herself up the cliff because she couldn’t die leaving things unresolved, that she just had to hold on.

Not to mention what happened later with George. That was going to haunt her more than any spirit could.

Her emotions are all over the place. After freeing Odette from the vicious cycle of pain and trauma that fed the Aglaeca and saving George from dying, she’d needed to get away.

She’s still lost in thought as she gets into Ryan’s car, vaguely registering the warmth as he turns up the heat. She’s too busy thinking about how, in her haste to escape, she walked to the woods in the damp, freezing cold.

Nancy has no idea how she’s going to tell Ryan about everything. He’s not like Carson, which should make it easier. Or not, depending on how she looks at it. Thinking about her two very different dads was giving her a headache. She sighs heavily, getting Ryan’s attention.

“Are you—?”

“Fine…” Nancy mumbles before he can finish. “Lot on my mind.”

Ryan blows out a breath with a hint of irony. “Isn’t that normal for you?”

“Doesn’t make it any easier.”

She suddenly feels tired, more tired than she’s ever felt in her life. Her bones feel like lead, weighed down by everything that’s happened like the ropes and seaweed and chains that dragged Odette down to the bottom of the sea; her brain feels like it got split in two by a harpoon—

Nancy jumps as her brain takes the dark turn that she doesn’t want to think about right now. She’s supposed to be figuring out how to tell her father the truth about what’s been going on.

She feels more than sees Ryan turning to look at her again as they slow down, and, blinking with surprise, Nancy sees that they’re in the parking lot of the ice cream place that Lucy Sable loved. She looks at Ryan with a raised eyebrow.

He shrugs and looks away, fiddling with his keys.

“We’ll be alone,” is all he says, and Nancy accepts it.

They sit as far away from the door as they can get so their voices don’t carry. Nancy is a little surprised the place is open, considering winter came early temperature wise, but it turns out they sell more than ice cream. Ryan gets them both hot chocolate (the last thing she needs right now is a coffee buzz), ordering the tallest size for Nancy. She knows Ryan is worried about her, and it doesn’t make what she has to say any easier.

But she powers through and tells him everything. Miraculously, he doesn’t interrupt her with a thousand questions like she expects. He lets her talk, saving his questions for the end.

“So let me get this straight,” Ryan says after she finishes speaking. “This evil spirit you chose to go up against marked you for death? And that’s why you were…distracted, when you caught Carson and I spying on you? Because you were dying?”

Nancy nods, studying him closely. He looks shocked and overwhelmed, the worry crease in his forehead standing out. His concern for her never ceased to surprise her. It’s different from Carson’s concern somehow, and Nancy finds that she doesn’t hate it.

Ryan shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And you did this because…because Lucy told you to?”

“Lucy didn’t tell me to break the deal, I chose to do that because Owen was going to die. Not that I was able to stop that. She just told me I needed the Aglaeca’s help to find her bones.”

Ryan frowns at the mention of the late Marvin but doesn’t say anything, for which Nancy is grateful.

“And she couldn’t tell you how stupidly dangerous that was?” he grumbles skeptically.

Nancy exhales, feeling a little frustrated. “I don’t think Lucy knew the extent of the dangers of making a deal with the Aglaeca. It took a lot of research to find out the true way to summon her. Everyone in Horseshoe Bay knows the legend—as false as it is—she was just passing it on. And the Aglaeca isn’t a threat anymore, we got her to remember Odette’s humanity. Plus, Lucy can’t exactly use words, remember?”

Ryan rubs his eyes, then absentmindedly traces the space on his finger where he was burned by his wedding ring. Nancy has to remind herself that for someone who wasn’t present for most of the climactic adventure and was just hearing about it, he was taking it remarkably well. She only hopes Carson will too, when she recounts the story for him.

“If you had had the time, would you have told me this before?” Ryan asks hesitantly, like he’s afraid of the answer. He suddenly looks like a lost puppy, a look Nancy wasn’t prepared to associate with him, and she looks away guiltily.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” she whispers as her own tears start to make their appearance. “I just…the past week hasn’t been easy. I—I’ve been overwhelmed…and honestly, I wasn’t ready to face you until…”

She trails off, tapping her fingers on the table anxiously.

“Until what? What happened, Nancy? Because I know you’re leaving something out.”

“Until I was hanging off the same cliff my mother fell from, realizing that I didn’t want to die without telling you the truth and fully acknowledging that you’re my father.”

She says it quickly to get it over with, looking into Ryan’s eyes as she does. It’s one of two things she was afraid to tell him, and knowing she has to tell Carson later isn’t helping.

Her tears fall more freely now, and she sniffles. Both her hands are spread out in front of her on the table, and Ryan reaches for one, albeit a bit awkwardly.

“Hanging off the—you said she pushed you and almost killed you, you actually went over the edge?”

He looks so distraught that she can’t bring herself to tell him about George, at least not yet.

“I’m s—sorry!” Nancy chokes out. “I’m so sorry, Dad!”

Ryan jumps up to hug her and Nancy falls into his embrace, full on sobbing as she can’t keep it all inside anymore. It’s dangerous to be doing this in public, but they’re still alone and she doesn’t care. She’s too caught up in her emotions to think about the possibility of this getting back to the Hudsons.

Ryan coughs uncomfortably, rubbing his neck as he pulls back. “You said you didn’t…you don’t have to—”

“I know,” Nancy says softly. “But I want to. You’re my father too. And if I’m being honest, it’ll be nice having two parents again, even if it’s only in private. Just remember that I’m not a kid anymore.”

“I’ll try,” Ryan says with a hint of a smile. Then he frowns. “But if you even think about going near the bluffs for whatever reason—”

Nancy rolls her eyes then wipes them dry. “Yeah yeah, I’ll be careful. Since we’re doing advice: next time you and Carson try to spy on me, at least try to be discreet.”

Ryan has the grace to look abashed, stuttering about not being the only one who was worried.

“Relax, Ryan.” Nancy chuckles. “I’m not mad. Well, not this time. Can’t promise I won’t be next time.”

“Next time?” Ryan echoes incredulously.

“Come on, it’s me. Trouble ends up finding me sooner or later.”

He groans, causing her to grin cheekily. “Must be my genes.”

“Now she makes a joke about it…” he mutters sarcastically.

Nancy snorts, but her smile quickly fades. “There’s, uh, one more thing you should know.”

She shuffles her feet as Ryan raises his eyebrows questioningly. “Before I tell you, you should know she’s okay now—”

“Oh that doesn’t make me want to freak out or anything…”

“Georgekindofgotstabbed.” Nancy says in a rush.

Ryan blinks as he tries to process what she just said. Somehow the wait is almost as scary as deciding to be bait for the Aglaeca. She grimaces when the penny drops.

“George got WHAT?!”

It’s a good thing they’re alone, Nancy thinks. That shout definitely would have made turn and stare.

“Ryan, calm down, she’s okay, she’s alive!”

“You can’t say something like that and expect me not to freak out!” he hisses agitatedly. Nancy grabs his wrists, partly to keep him from accidentally hitting her in the head, and partly to ground him.

“She’s okay, Ryan. Even told me off for invading her personal space when I hugged her after she woke up.”

Ryan relaxes and Nancy lets go of him. “Are you—?”

“I’m good,” he breathes, smoothing out his shirt. “You don’t have any more bombs to drop, do you?”

Nancy lets out a breath that isn’t quite a laugh. “No, not right now. Not unless something happened after I ran away from The Claw. Which probably wasn’t the best idea since my car is there.”

“Probably not,” Ryan agrees. “I’ll drop you off.”

“Thanks. For everything.”

He nods at her and Nancy smiles to herself as she fires off a text to the group chat telling her friends she’s okay and on her way back. She spends the ride to The Claw thinking that, when possible, more one-on-one time with Ryan for a more light-hearted reason didn’t seem quite as daunting as it used to.

Ryan finds himself back at Lucy’s forest grave with the USB drive Nick gave him. Another chance to do the right thing and bring his family to justice, right here in the palm of his hand, and he’s still conflicted. Even after learning the truth of what his parents did to Lucy and her family, what they could do to Nancy if they found out who she really was, he’s still scared to fully cut ties with them.

But then he imagines what life might have been like if he and Lucy had been able to raise Nancy. He thinks about having the freedom to be seen with Nancy without worrying about a target on her back. Lucy never wanted her to grow up in fear, that was why she trusted the Drews with her baby.

Their baby.

Ryan never got the chance to raise his daughter. He’ll be damned if the rest of her years are taken from him too.

“See this flash drive, Luce?” he whispers hoarsely. “I can right the wrongs of my family with this. Nancy and I can be a family, with no fear of retribution from my parents.”

He clenches his fist, putting the drive back in his pocket. He’s made his decision.

“I’m going to do what I should have done a long time ago. “I’m going to bring my family down.”