Chapter Text
A go-getter and people person at heart, Ned Nickerson hardly sits around on his hands waiting for his highschool sweetheart–Nancy Drew–to call. Not anymore, at least; not when the calls have grown less and less frequent over the months and years of their increasingly long distance relationship. Instead, he’s earned himself a stellar reputation, both back home in River Heights and in the neighboring city he works in.
Ned is known to be dependable and always there for his community: an ear to listen or a shoulder to cry on in trying times; the owner of a long bed truck and a pair of strong arms to help a neighbor move across town or out of state: a last minute smorgasbord of baked goods to fill out a charity bake sale, or a lovingly made meal for the sick or bereaved; a reliable babysitter or tutor for a kid down the block; a comforting, protective presence on to make sure one got home safe.
He is empathetic and kind; he’s humble; he’s understanding to a fault. And he knows that his life has dealt him an easier hand than most, so he always tries to think beyond himself, and beyond his own lived experience. To see the good in people, or at the very least, good intentions poorly executed.
But a man can really only be pushed so far, and when Nancy met the Hardys, he was already hurtling toward that limit..
Frank and Joe Hardy were detectives like her–more like her than he’s ever been allowed, or even invited, to be–so it made sense for her to talk often with them, and to form a working relationship with the brothers. And at first, he was excited for her to network a little; to put herself out there and make more friends.
And hey, by extension, Ned lucked out and got a friend out of the deal too. He and Joe would stomp the competition in online games, traded playlists back and forth, recommended horrible movies to each other, and hung out–online and in person–whenever their schedules allowed. Which was surprisingly often, at least in Ned’s opinion.
How were the Hardys’ work hours so different when compared to Nancy’s, when they did more or less the same thing? How did Joe always have time to take his calls when Nancy would go weeks without even thinking to contact him?
Hell, even Frank, the more standoffish of the two, always called or texted him back in a reasonable timeframe.
And it wasn’t just the fact that the Hardys were better at phone etiquette that bothered him.
Outside of her work, Nancy spent more time with them and talking to them than she had with Ned in years—since long before her sleuthing had garnered international appeal—but it’s not like that took much. It’s hard to remember, sometimes, when the last time he’d seen her in person was; when the last time they’d spoken over the phone about more than her work, or for more than a total of eighty-six seconds had been.
His call log is a cruel, mocking thing. It allows him to see the absence at worst, and the brevity at best, laying it all out in harsh white and red text over an unforgiving black background. But he holds on. Stubbornly, he digs his heels into the ground, and he clings to the scraps she throws him.
Their anniversary approaches, and–spurred on by her promise to be home to celebrate it with him–Ned spends hours arranging for reservations at an incredible restaurant in Chicago, booking a hotel nearby, ordering a sophisticated bouquet of Nancy’s favorite flowers to be delivered to their room, picking the perfect date night ensemble, and grooming his hair and the new beard he’s trying out.
However, an hour after the time he’d given her, she’s yet to arrive, and he gives her a call to ask her if she’s on her way, ready to laugh at her tardiness, if only she would sit down, flushed from the bustle, in front of him. But she won’t be joining him: she’s taken a case on another continent and forgotten their anniversary entirely.
He tells her he loves her as a member of the waitstaff refills his water glass for the third time, their impatience thinly veiled behind a mask of hospitality. She doesn’t return the sentiment. In fact, she sounds unsure in a way he’s never imagined a woman like Nancy Drew could ever be, and the howling winter wind blowing over on her side of the call laughs at him.
He feels the chill of it in his bones.
His voice growing dull on the other end of the phone, he feels very small, and a pang of hurt snakes through his chest as a rough thought flits unbidden through his mind: she’s never going to love him the way he needs to be loved.
The passion she has for her cases had been so… mesmerizing when it first sprung up. It had bloomed like wildflowers in the garden of who she was destined to become, and they’d nurtured it together, with him encouraging her and supporting every step she made, as is his nature. But that same blinding, single minded passion of herself feels more like an inescapable field of poppies now, and they’ve strayed too far off the golden path. It’s lulled some part of him into dormancy.
Something new has to fill the vacuum.
Irritation is one thing, but anger is not an emotion he’s used to. The desire to leave passive aggressive voicemails and texts is not something he’s ever had to fight off.
He waits, and he waits, and he waits for her to come home so that they can have the discussion they’d promised each other. And for a long, long time, he feels—knows—that communication will help heal the rift between them; he knows that they will talk things out and that he can make his needs more clearly known and that this will end up as a blip in the review. A miniscule misunderstanding that they will joke about one day as old age puts it all into perspective.
But Nancy finds herself another case, not even bothering to make a stopover back home on the way, or to tell Ned who’d come to the airport to pick her up. Avoidant or forgetful, Ned can’t quite decide. Nor can he decide which hurts more.
When she does come home, after nearly another two weeks, he doesn’t have the heart to fight for this. For them. It feels like Nancy has spelled their end out to them with her thoughtlessness, and expects him to speak the words for her.
So he does. He ends it, and Nancy goes along with it, acting sad as she kisses him on the cheek, but… Ned has to wonder if it’s a relief to finally be untethered from her last real connection to home. From the small and painfully familiar.
Ned hits a bar that night and Nancy adds to her ungodly horde of frequent-flier miles. One is far quicker than the other to forget anything remarkable had happened that morning, much less that a decade-long relationship had just ended.