On the Difficulty of Becoming a Hero *Billy Cooper- pov, Don, Robin, Alan, Margaret, Charlie, D/R: P
Title: On the Difficulty of Becoming a Hero
Series: Ulysses *5/10*
Author: loozy
Characters: Billy Cooper- pov, Don, Robin, Alan, Margaret, Charlie, Don/Robin, minor Alan/Margaret
Rating: PG- 13/ K
Summary:You live with your partner twenty- four- seven, you breathe the same air as he does, you eat the same grub, you piss at the same tree when there’s no toilet close by, and you smell each other’s sweat when the last shower has been too long.
Until you part ways, your partner and you are more or less the same person. Someone you share everything with, full disclosure.
Word Count: 4244
Spoilers: after 5x23, Angels & Devils
Notes: There is an awesome beta in this world, and her name is valeriev84...
Prompt: # 101 Interrogation
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.
Feedback: Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.
“So, this is your backyard?”
“No, Coop. We actually have a bigger one at the back of this one.”
Coop sticks his tongue out at Don who has come over with a cold one from the fridge, hands it to him. He takes a long sip.
“Ohhhh... Just what I need.”
“You always need that.”
More tongue- showing, accompanied by a snicker from Robin this time, who is sitting at the table, drinking a glass of red wine.
“How old are you guys again?”
They turn in her direction, twin expressions of incomprehension imprinted on their faces. Don decides to deign her with an answer.
“What do you mean?”
She points to both of them with her glass.
“You. Both of you. I mean, one of you is enough, but how will I survive a weekend of this?”
“Just be glad it’s just a weekend; you weren’t the poor bastards who had to stake out a place with us during our first year together. Man, those boys never wanted to work with us again after that.”
At his comment, Don clinks their bottles and the two men smirk.
“So, this is what this weekend will be like?”
“Yes.”
“Very likely.”
She groans and moves to refill her glass.
“Oh God. I think I’m gonna need more than this.”
Don grins and moves over to her chair, bending down and in an uncharacteristic movement of affection gives her a lingering kiss.
“Marking your territory, Eppes?”
They both grin at Billy.
“You know it, Coop.”
“Okay, I think I got the message a couple of years ago.”
He playfully leers at them.
“But, you know, if you want to... We could have a good time.”
Don and Robin exchange a glance. Don opens his mouth first.
“Sure, why not?”
“I’d be up for it.”
“Always open for new things.”
“Yeah, actually, I might have had a dream about this.”
“Woah, you guys know I was just messing?”
“Damn.”
“Too bad.”
Billy sits down at the table.
“Seriously, though, you guys. I’m glad for you.”
“Thanks, Coop.”
“But hey, Brooks, you know if you ever need a change of gear, you have my number.”
He waggles her eyebrows to which she responds by licking her lips.
“Sure thing, darling.”
“Good. Now, on to business. The meat is grilling, your dad is getting salad and such. I’m starving!”
Don gets up.
“I’ll see what’s holding him."
He heads into the kitchen. Billy and Robin stare at each other.
“So, how is he, really?”
He stares at her, intently, trying to gauge her reaction to the question. It has turned the mood from playful to somber, and she slowly twirls the wine in her glass.
“He’s okay. He’s coping. We all are. It’s been a rough couple of weeks. During our first try, we probably would have broken up over that. Now, we’re better. We support each other.”
“That’s nice. It’s good, that you both have this.”
“Thanks, Billy.”
Comfortable silence. Billy likes that in Robin, that she has this aura about her, that calm silence. People who do not know her or do not make the effort to get to know her, often mistake that silence for coldness, for a flaw of hers, when in truth, it is very much a part of her. She knows how to make someone who is troubled feel relaxed, how to give them peace of mind; it is a gift, and he is sure that not too many men have benefitted from it.
He knows that Don and he are among those.
Billy really wants to ask her, wants to know how many men she has affected, or how many men have affected her, in a way that has inevitably changed her. But that is not a question to be asked on the first night. No, this is something that he will delve into at a later point during the weekend. They might know each other, and have an understanding, but Robin Brooks and he are not that tight, yet.
He likes to make assumptions about her, it keeps him and her both on their toes. It is a game that they have played ever since meeting. She does it to him, too.
Their contact has been sporadic at best, but just like with Don, he simply clicks with her.
The number of people he trusts implicitly is slightly lower than the amount of digits on one of his hands.
Catherine, Theresa, Don, Robin.
Don comes back, holding more beer and wine, looking distraught, to them, at least. To everybody else, he would look normal, maybe a bit tense, but nothing that would seem too much out of the ordinary.
They know better.
Something just happened in the kitchen and judging from the scowl now making its way onto his face, the issue is better left alone for now, as much as it nags at Billy, as much as he wants to pester the other man; he can feel the same vibe coming from Robin.
It is their protective streak towards Don coming out full throttle.
“Everything okay?”
Don puts the bottles down with a bit too much force.
“Yup.”
“’cuz, hate to tell you this, you’re not lookin’ so hot there, Eppes.”
“It’s nothing.”
They are ganging up on Don now. Robin’s expression softens a bit and she reaches a hand out to her boyfriend.
“This is not your blasé expression, Don.”
He plops down in the chair between Robin and Billy and, in an unusual display of affection, grabs Robin’s hand, squeezes it.
“Something’s off with my Dad. He stood in the kitchen, all broody and just staring off into space.”
He tugs at his earlobe with his free hand.
“I mean, I know he’s been bothered with what has happened in the last couple of weeks, but if he keeps it in, he will implode at some point, for sure.”
“Says you, who is so open and loves to share his innermost thoughts.”
He knows that the sarcasm is biting and maybe a bit uncalled for, but experience has taught Billy that the best way to get a rise out of Eppes is to taunt him till the cows come home.
“I... Uhm...”
A telling look at his watch. Hand rakes through his hair.
“Well...”
They just sit and watch him dig his grave.
“Yes? You were saying?”
“Oh, lay off me, Coop. I do share stuff. Don’t I?”
At this, Don glances over at Robin, who nods but with a smirking twinkle in her eyes (and Billy will never figure out how a woman, or anyone at that, can smirk with their eyes).
“Yes, he does share, Billy. But only when you sit on him.”
“You or me?”
“Well, I think you could sit on him, too. It is a method that has been proven to work.”
Don makes a strangled sound at the back of his throat, while Robin just beams at Billy. Who beams right back.
Ganging up on Don Eppes with someone who is witty and intelligent enough to not let go or give up is a wonderful thing to do. There have not been enough people who can hold their own when caught in a verbal spar between Don and Billy.
Aside from Theresa and Margaret Eppes, Robin is the only one that Billy can think of right now.
He will not even start to analyze the fact that they are all women. Maybe he should ask Robin later how Charlie would fare in a duel like this.
Is he jealous of the younger Eppes?
No, not really. Right? He has no reason to, after all. The bond that he and Don share cannot be compared to that of the brothers, estranged as they might have been during Don’s time in Fugitive Recovery. They are brothers, brothers in arms, and that is not what you share when you grow up with each other.
It is both more estranging and more intimate.
You live with your partner twenty- four- seven, you breathe the same air as he does, you eat the same grub, you piss at the same tree when there’s no toilet close by, and you smell each other’s sweat when the last shower has been too long.
Until you part ways, your partner and you are more or less the same person. Someone you share everything with, full disclosure.
It is a brotherhood bred from need, necessity and love.
You are brothers in all but blood.
With a brother you wrestle and you fight, and you bitch to your parents about him. You give him noogies and ignore him at school because he is a pest but in the end you are brothers, and that will never ever change.
You will be brothers even if you never talk to each other, and this is something that cannot be severed.
There were times when he wished that Don was his brother, most recently when he was up in LA helping out, and he saw how Charlie had wormed his way into his older brother’s work. He was jealous, could not help but take a little jab at Charlie when he witnessed what Don had wished for ever since Charlie and he had started attending the same high school.
They were communicating.
If Margaret Eppes had been witness to this, Billy knows that she would have been so full of pride. Those two boys of hers were her heartbreak and greatest loves, all in one. With Alan, it was a love that was unconditional and eternal.
With Don and Charlie, she was torn-
The clatter of cutlery rips him from his musings.
Don and Robin, in their own world, have pushed one of the napkins to the grass and knife and fork followed the same path. They do not pay much heed to them, simply pick them back up and then return to conversing quietly, leaving Billy alone for the moment for which he is grateful for.
He only met Margaret Eppes twice. Once in LA when Don and he stayed over at the Craftsman when they had a case in the city, and once in Boston when she flew down to visit her son in the hospital after he had gotten beaten up and shot.
During the short time in Los Angeles, Billy met her as the mother, as Mom, bustling about the house, making food for them to take with them when they were on their way later in the evening, doing their laundry and clucking away at their weight. She told them that they needed to be fed and continued to stuff them until Billy thought he was about to explode.
He jokingly told her that he was now a turkey ripe for Thanksgiving, to which she only looked at them sadly and mentioned that the chances of either of them making it home for Thanksgiving were rather slim, weren’t they?
She was compassionate and loving, unlike her husband she had taken to Billy. Alan was always short with him, never hiding the fact how much he disliked him, whereas Margaret just let her instincts take over. It had made her a great lawyer, a great prosecutor, as Don had told him full of pride. He probably would have followed in her footsteps had he not wanted to do something completely different from what his family expected him to do.
Don Eppes, the flower child who had been on sit- ins when he was a babe, was a G- man.
Margaret had taken silent pride in that, Alan had fumed.
Billy hoped that Don knew that his mother had always been proud of him, would have been proud of him no matter what career choice he made; that he had chosen law enforcement just showed how alike they had been. Margaret had been aware of it, Don probably not so much.
He had very little self- esteem when it came to his position in the family, and had only come into his place during his mother’s illness from what Billy could discern.
Margaret had bustled about the house, fussed over them, and both Don and he had rejoiced in it. She told Don all about the latest scandals in the neighbourhood while making him fold laundry and set the table. Billy had done his part by assisting her with her cooking; early on in their partnership Don had told him that he was hopeless at cooking but good at housework, so they always split the chores when they actually had enough time to sit down and be domestic. She had sent them off with the backseat filled with cakes and coolers with food, telling them to discard the coolers, or to pawn them off. They would not need them anymore at the Craftsman after all. To have the two men fed was more important than some boxes, she told them when they had protested.
In the end, they had just mailed them back to the house.
In Boston, she had been a different person.
Partly it had been because Don had been injured, severely so, and to see her son in such distress must have been devastating for her. Billy had gotten to know her a good deal better during those two weeks that she had spent there. Don and him had shared an apartment back then. They had chosen Boston as their home base simply because they had been told that most of their cases would be in the East coast- area with a focus on New England and the surrounding states; that was all fine and dandy until they turned out to be kick ass at tracking down criminals and were soon sent out on wild goose chases all over the country by their boss. Sure, they got medals and commendations and such, but they did not really see their apartment often.
Alan had not been able to come with her, he had to do a job and then attend a ceremony or conference or something with Charlie, and Billy had been secretly glad about that.
Don had been in a state, to be honest. It had been during the last quarter of their first year as partners together, and they had already built up a reputation in the Bureau and as it seemed among fugitive criminals. While on the track of their latest assignment, they had been cornered in the outskirts of Boston when they were on their way out of town.
It had been an organized assault and only an early club to the head saved Billy from the same beating that his partner received. The kick in the end was the shot to the back, luckily missing any vital organs, but leaving Don with near liver failure and a collapsed lung due to broken ribs and a tube down his throat for the first five days.
Billy had had the pleasure of calling the Craftsman and telling Margaret that her son was on the operating table as they were speaking and that maybe she could come over to see him?
She had not hesitated, simply told him that she would call him back with her arrival time and had done so ten minutes later. Only then had she wanted to know more details, taking the cordless up to the bedroom with her while she started packing.
No tears.
His strength had always been something that Don had credited his mother with, and then Billy could see, why.
At the airport she had hugged him, hard, asking him if he was okay. Theresa was already in the hospital, having arrived two hours prior. Billy was usually not the kind of guy who wanted to draw attention to himself, but this had rattled him, more deeply than he wanted to admit.
So, while Don had been in the ICU, he had been taken care of by two strong women who sent him home when he had to and took care of him. His parents had already been in decline back then, so Theresa’s and Margaret’s nurturing was exactly what he needed.
Well, that and for his partner to wake up.
And then, on a rainy day in September, they waned Don off the sedative and removed the breathing tube, leaving just a mask in its place. Margaret had spent the whole day sitting by his bedside, with Billy; Theresa had had to leave the day before, telling Billy to give Don her and the kids’ love. They had met Don once before, and had loved him.
Margaret had sung to Don, softly, telling Billy that the Beatles and John Lennon had always worked best for her and Alan when it come to singing to Don. Charlie had not been much for music, which had then been reflected later when Don had taken to the piano, and Charlie had not.
“You know, I always wondered, later, after we discovered Charlie’s talent, if maybe there was something within Don, too.”
“Did you ever have him tested?”
“Oh yes; all the doctors discovered was that his IQ was well above average and that he was a bright boy, but they never dug further.”
“Did you ever think to maybe try and get him to show his talents?”
“Oh, he never hid his talents. He just downplayed them. He was great at playing the piano, you know? I could sit with him for hours and he would just play. He was very good at reading notes, memorizing them.”
She strokes his cheekbone.
“During one of his recitals, the teacher announced a challenge; she wanted them to play something for the first time, off the sheet, no rehearsal, nothing.”
“What was it?”
“Oh, I think it was Beethoven. I don’t actually remember it. Don does, probably. He remembers everything.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed. It’s a bit freaky at times.”
She laughs.
“Oh yes. Just imagine having him as a child. He was so curious, it was a danger to leave him by himself. Before you knew it, he’d have climbed on the highest chair to get to the books at the top shelf.”
Margaret smiles indulgently at her unconscious son.
“He was always reading, you know? At first I thought he was going to become a literature professor or something.”
“He still reads, well, whenever we have the time. But you can bet that he always has a book with him.”“Yes, I didn’t think he had changed that much.”
Silence reigned for a moment.
“He played Imagine for me once, on my birthday. That was in... I think it was... Oh yes, it was in 1979. I remember because that was when Don got serious about playing the piano. He would spent his summer holidays that year either playing baseball or playing the piano. Imagine is my favourite song from John Lennon, and he must’ve listened to it so many times on the record player until he was able to play it by ear.”
“Wow.”
“Best birthday present, I can assure you. From that year on, he would always play me a song on my birthday. Still does, whenever he’s home. How he practiced the pieces when he was in high school I don’t know. He was almost never at home.”
“Maybe that is his talent.”
“Yeah. Maybe I should have been a bit more firm with him about giving up the piano. But he wanted to, told me that he had no real interest in pursuing it, that baseball was where he saw his future. So I let him.”
“But he still played for your birthday?”
“And Mother’s Day. And always when Charlie and Alan were not in the house. It was something just for the two of us.”
“Why, if I may ask?”
“You may... Alan is as good as tone deaf, and while Charlie might know all about rhythm and tact, he has no clue about music. He’s a terrible player, and he knows it. We tried to get him to play, but he just didn’t take to it. He has always been about mathematics, and who were we to disagree with his teachers?”
There is a question that lies heavily on his tongue, that wants to burst out. Something that he knows that Don has wondered about.
“If Charlie had been your first child, would you have had another?”
She stares at him, her eyes wide with shock, aghast. Tears form in her eyes, and he feels terrible.
“I’m sorry. I... I should not... This is... Oh God, I am so sorry.”
The silence is deafening, it is as if neither of them dare to breathe.
“I had no right, really. Forgive me, Margaret... I’ll just leave... You know...”
He makes to get out of the uncomfortable chair that is killing his back, lost in his own recriminations and self- flagellation.
What was he thinking? Don told him that question in confidence, and never ever should he have even thought about asking it. What in heaven’s name possessed him to voice this deepest concern of his partner aloud?
“Please, don’t leave.”
Her face is turned away from him, but he can hear the hidden tears still. She is fighting hard to regain her composure and Billy is at a loss as to why she even asked him to stay.
“I have wondered about this myself so often... We discovered Charlie’s abilities when he was three, but in turn we hadn’t tried for another child until Don was five because we wanted to give him time to grow in our love and affection. We wanted him to be at an age where he would understand why he was not the sole centre of attention anymore....”
She rakes her hand through her hair in a gesture so reminiscent of her son that it hurts Billy.
“It nearly tore our family apart, Charlie’s talent.”
Margaret dabs at her eyes with a tissue, a gesture so elegant and strong despite the pain that Billy for a moment thinks that only mothers can pull it off; his mother was the same.
“I never talked about it with Alan, but I know that Don has thought about it.”
“Did he ever ask you?”
“No. But a mother can tell these kind of thoughts. Or at least I could.”
Billy allows a grin to touch his face.
“Oh no, ma’am. My mother was the same.”
“I heard about the Alzheimer’s getting worse. I’m sorry.”
She touches his hand in a comforting gesture. It breaks his heart just that little bit more that even though he caused her pain, she is now consoling him.
“I don’t know why I am even telling you this, to be honest.”
“Please, don’t answer me. You don’t have to. I was way out of line.”
“No, you deserve an answer. You asked. You will get an answer; if Don ever asks me, I will answer him, too. You’re very close to my son, and you have had a strong hand in making him who he is now. For that I will always be thankful to you. And you care about him, a lot.”
“I love him like my brother.”
“So does he. His father, my husband and I made mistakes with him, mistakes that cost us his affection, I’m afraid. At the very least he was very resentful at times.”
To this, Billy does not know what to say.
“So back to your question. Honestly? I don’t think I would have been up for it. The pressure was so hard, on all of us, from the get- go, from the moment that we were told that Charlie was not a normal child.”
In a movie, this would have been the moment that Don would have revealed himself to have been awake for the last ten minutes, for having heard the gist of what they were discussing, starting a trail of angst that would be resolved at the end of the film with a disgustingly sweet ending.
But this is real life, and Don does not wake up until four hours later.
“Yo, Coop. You with us?”
He startles, back into the present from one second to the next, and the change is weird, shocking. There is Don, who was lying nearly comatose in a hospital bed just a split second earlier, his arm around his girlfriend, looking at him with a toothy grin that tells Billy the whole extent of cheekiness the other man can get up to.
“Sorry, while you two were canoodling, I was gathering wool.”
“To make me a sweater?”
“You wish. It’s gonna be sexy lingerie for your girl.”
Robin snorts.
“Billy, I doubt that wool lingerie could be sexy.”
He leers at her.
“Oh, I think everything would look sexy on you.”
She laughs into her glass while Don is killing him with glares.
“Lay off her, man.”
“Getting a bit touchy there, Eppes? Afraid I’ll steal your woman?”
Clank.
The glass is put down with emphasis and all of a sudden Billy regrets his choice of words.
Luckily, any tirade that is ready to spilled from Robin’s mouth, with generous amounts of humour, mind you, is thwarted when Alan finally arrives, cheery enough. The tightness around his mouth, though, tells Billy that not all is well. Don was right with his assumption that something was off.
Well, they still have the weekend to get down to the dirty.
But for now, he needs some grub.
Series: Ulysses *5/10*
Author: loozy
Characters: Billy Cooper- pov, Don, Robin, Alan, Margaret, Charlie, Don/Robin, minor Alan/Margaret
Rating: PG- 13/ K
Summary:You live with your partner twenty- four- seven, you breathe the same air as he does, you eat the same grub, you piss at the same tree when there’s no toilet close by, and you smell each other’s sweat when the last shower has been too long.
Until you part ways, your partner and you are more or less the same person. Someone you share everything with, full disclosure.
Word Count: 4244
Spoilers: after 5x23, Angels & Devils
Notes: There is an awesome beta in this world, and her name is valeriev84...
Prompt: # 101 Interrogation
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.
Feedback: Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.
“So, this is your backyard?”
“No, Coop. We actually have a bigger one at the back of this one.”
Coop sticks his tongue out at Don who has come over with a cold one from the fridge, hands it to him. He takes a long sip.
“Ohhhh... Just what I need.”
“You always need that.”
More tongue- showing, accompanied by a snicker from Robin this time, who is sitting at the table, drinking a glass of red wine.
“How old are you guys again?”
They turn in her direction, twin expressions of incomprehension imprinted on their faces. Don decides to deign her with an answer.
“What do you mean?”
She points to both of them with her glass.
“You. Both of you. I mean, one of you is enough, but how will I survive a weekend of this?”
“Just be glad it’s just a weekend; you weren’t the poor bastards who had to stake out a place with us during our first year together. Man, those boys never wanted to work with us again after that.”
At his comment, Don clinks their bottles and the two men smirk.
“So, this is what this weekend will be like?”
“Yes.”
“Very likely.”
She groans and moves to refill her glass.
“Oh God. I think I’m gonna need more than this.”
Don grins and moves over to her chair, bending down and in an uncharacteristic movement of affection gives her a lingering kiss.
“Marking your territory, Eppes?”
They both grin at Billy.
“You know it, Coop.”
“Okay, I think I got the message a couple of years ago.”
He playfully leers at them.
“But, you know, if you want to... We could have a good time.”
Don and Robin exchange a glance. Don opens his mouth first.
“Sure, why not?”
“I’d be up for it.”
“Always open for new things.”
“Yeah, actually, I might have had a dream about this.”
“Woah, you guys know I was just messing?”
“Damn.”
“Too bad.”
Billy sits down at the table.
“Seriously, though, you guys. I’m glad for you.”
“Thanks, Coop.”
“But hey, Brooks, you know if you ever need a change of gear, you have my number.”
He waggles her eyebrows to which she responds by licking her lips.
“Sure thing, darling.”
“Good. Now, on to business. The meat is grilling, your dad is getting salad and such. I’m starving!”
Don gets up.
“I’ll see what’s holding him."
He heads into the kitchen. Billy and Robin stare at each other.
“So, how is he, really?”
He stares at her, intently, trying to gauge her reaction to the question. It has turned the mood from playful to somber, and she slowly twirls the wine in her glass.
“He’s okay. He’s coping. We all are. It’s been a rough couple of weeks. During our first try, we probably would have broken up over that. Now, we’re better. We support each other.”
“That’s nice. It’s good, that you both have this.”
“Thanks, Billy.”
Comfortable silence. Billy likes that in Robin, that she has this aura about her, that calm silence. People who do not know her or do not make the effort to get to know her, often mistake that silence for coldness, for a flaw of hers, when in truth, it is very much a part of her. She knows how to make someone who is troubled feel relaxed, how to give them peace of mind; it is a gift, and he is sure that not too many men have benefitted from it.
He knows that Don and he are among those.
Billy really wants to ask her, wants to know how many men she has affected, or how many men have affected her, in a way that has inevitably changed her. But that is not a question to be asked on the first night. No, this is something that he will delve into at a later point during the weekend. They might know each other, and have an understanding, but Robin Brooks and he are not that tight, yet.
He likes to make assumptions about her, it keeps him and her both on their toes. It is a game that they have played ever since meeting. She does it to him, too.
Their contact has been sporadic at best, but just like with Don, he simply clicks with her.
The number of people he trusts implicitly is slightly lower than the amount of digits on one of his hands.
Catherine, Theresa, Don, Robin.
Don comes back, holding more beer and wine, looking distraught, to them, at least. To everybody else, he would look normal, maybe a bit tense, but nothing that would seem too much out of the ordinary.
They know better.
Something just happened in the kitchen and judging from the scowl now making its way onto his face, the issue is better left alone for now, as much as it nags at Billy, as much as he wants to pester the other man; he can feel the same vibe coming from Robin.
It is their protective streak towards Don coming out full throttle.
“Everything okay?”
Don puts the bottles down with a bit too much force.
“Yup.”
“’cuz, hate to tell you this, you’re not lookin’ so hot there, Eppes.”
“It’s nothing.”
They are ganging up on Don now. Robin’s expression softens a bit and she reaches a hand out to her boyfriend.
“This is not your blasé expression, Don.”
He plops down in the chair between Robin and Billy and, in an unusual display of affection, grabs Robin’s hand, squeezes it.
“Something’s off with my Dad. He stood in the kitchen, all broody and just staring off into space.”
He tugs at his earlobe with his free hand.
“I mean, I know he’s been bothered with what has happened in the last couple of weeks, but if he keeps it in, he will implode at some point, for sure.”
“Says you, who is so open and loves to share his innermost thoughts.”
He knows that the sarcasm is biting and maybe a bit uncalled for, but experience has taught Billy that the best way to get a rise out of Eppes is to taunt him till the cows come home.
“I... Uhm...”
A telling look at his watch. Hand rakes through his hair.
“Well...”
They just sit and watch him dig his grave.
“Yes? You were saying?”
“Oh, lay off me, Coop. I do share stuff. Don’t I?”
At this, Don glances over at Robin, who nods but with a smirking twinkle in her eyes (and Billy will never figure out how a woman, or anyone at that, can smirk with their eyes).
“Yes, he does share, Billy. But only when you sit on him.”
“You or me?”
“Well, I think you could sit on him, too. It is a method that has been proven to work.”
Don makes a strangled sound at the back of his throat, while Robin just beams at Billy. Who beams right back.
Ganging up on Don Eppes with someone who is witty and intelligent enough to not let go or give up is a wonderful thing to do. There have not been enough people who can hold their own when caught in a verbal spar between Don and Billy.
Aside from Theresa and Margaret Eppes, Robin is the only one that Billy can think of right now.
He will not even start to analyze the fact that they are all women. Maybe he should ask Robin later how Charlie would fare in a duel like this.
Is he jealous of the younger Eppes?
No, not really. Right? He has no reason to, after all. The bond that he and Don share cannot be compared to that of the brothers, estranged as they might have been during Don’s time in Fugitive Recovery. They are brothers, brothers in arms, and that is not what you share when you grow up with each other.
It is both more estranging and more intimate.
You live with your partner twenty- four- seven, you breathe the same air as he does, you eat the same grub, you piss at the same tree when there’s no toilet close by, and you smell each other’s sweat when the last shower has been too long.
Until you part ways, your partner and you are more or less the same person. Someone you share everything with, full disclosure.
It is a brotherhood bred from need, necessity and love.
You are brothers in all but blood.
With a brother you wrestle and you fight, and you bitch to your parents about him. You give him noogies and ignore him at school because he is a pest but in the end you are brothers, and that will never ever change.
You will be brothers even if you never talk to each other, and this is something that cannot be severed.
There were times when he wished that Don was his brother, most recently when he was up in LA helping out, and he saw how Charlie had wormed his way into his older brother’s work. He was jealous, could not help but take a little jab at Charlie when he witnessed what Don had wished for ever since Charlie and he had started attending the same high school.
They were communicating.
If Margaret Eppes had been witness to this, Billy knows that she would have been so full of pride. Those two boys of hers were her heartbreak and greatest loves, all in one. With Alan, it was a love that was unconditional and eternal.
With Don and Charlie, she was torn-
The clatter of cutlery rips him from his musings.
Don and Robin, in their own world, have pushed one of the napkins to the grass and knife and fork followed the same path. They do not pay much heed to them, simply pick them back up and then return to conversing quietly, leaving Billy alone for the moment for which he is grateful for.
He only met Margaret Eppes twice. Once in LA when Don and he stayed over at the Craftsman when they had a case in the city, and once in Boston when she flew down to visit her son in the hospital after he had gotten beaten up and shot.
During the short time in Los Angeles, Billy met her as the mother, as Mom, bustling about the house, making food for them to take with them when they were on their way later in the evening, doing their laundry and clucking away at their weight. She told them that they needed to be fed and continued to stuff them until Billy thought he was about to explode.
He jokingly told her that he was now a turkey ripe for Thanksgiving, to which she only looked at them sadly and mentioned that the chances of either of them making it home for Thanksgiving were rather slim, weren’t they?
She was compassionate and loving, unlike her husband she had taken to Billy. Alan was always short with him, never hiding the fact how much he disliked him, whereas Margaret just let her instincts take over. It had made her a great lawyer, a great prosecutor, as Don had told him full of pride. He probably would have followed in her footsteps had he not wanted to do something completely different from what his family expected him to do.
Don Eppes, the flower child who had been on sit- ins when he was a babe, was a G- man.
Margaret had taken silent pride in that, Alan had fumed.
Billy hoped that Don knew that his mother had always been proud of him, would have been proud of him no matter what career choice he made; that he had chosen law enforcement just showed how alike they had been. Margaret had been aware of it, Don probably not so much.
He had very little self- esteem when it came to his position in the family, and had only come into his place during his mother’s illness from what Billy could discern.
Margaret had bustled about the house, fussed over them, and both Don and he had rejoiced in it. She told Don all about the latest scandals in the neighbourhood while making him fold laundry and set the table. Billy had done his part by assisting her with her cooking; early on in their partnership Don had told him that he was hopeless at cooking but good at housework, so they always split the chores when they actually had enough time to sit down and be domestic. She had sent them off with the backseat filled with cakes and coolers with food, telling them to discard the coolers, or to pawn them off. They would not need them anymore at the Craftsman after all. To have the two men fed was more important than some boxes, she told them when they had protested.
In the end, they had just mailed them back to the house.
In Boston, she had been a different person.
Partly it had been because Don had been injured, severely so, and to see her son in such distress must have been devastating for her. Billy had gotten to know her a good deal better during those two weeks that she had spent there. Don and him had shared an apartment back then. They had chosen Boston as their home base simply because they had been told that most of their cases would be in the East coast- area with a focus on New England and the surrounding states; that was all fine and dandy until they turned out to be kick ass at tracking down criminals and were soon sent out on wild goose chases all over the country by their boss. Sure, they got medals and commendations and such, but they did not really see their apartment often.
Alan had not been able to come with her, he had to do a job and then attend a ceremony or conference or something with Charlie, and Billy had been secretly glad about that.
Don had been in a state, to be honest. It had been during the last quarter of their first year as partners together, and they had already built up a reputation in the Bureau and as it seemed among fugitive criminals. While on the track of their latest assignment, they had been cornered in the outskirts of Boston when they were on their way out of town.
It had been an organized assault and only an early club to the head saved Billy from the same beating that his partner received. The kick in the end was the shot to the back, luckily missing any vital organs, but leaving Don with near liver failure and a collapsed lung due to broken ribs and a tube down his throat for the first five days.
Billy had had the pleasure of calling the Craftsman and telling Margaret that her son was on the operating table as they were speaking and that maybe she could come over to see him?
She had not hesitated, simply told him that she would call him back with her arrival time and had done so ten minutes later. Only then had she wanted to know more details, taking the cordless up to the bedroom with her while she started packing.
No tears.
His strength had always been something that Don had credited his mother with, and then Billy could see, why.
At the airport she had hugged him, hard, asking him if he was okay. Theresa was already in the hospital, having arrived two hours prior. Billy was usually not the kind of guy who wanted to draw attention to himself, but this had rattled him, more deeply than he wanted to admit.
So, while Don had been in the ICU, he had been taken care of by two strong women who sent him home when he had to and took care of him. His parents had already been in decline back then, so Theresa’s and Margaret’s nurturing was exactly what he needed.
Well, that and for his partner to wake up.
And then, on a rainy day in September, they waned Don off the sedative and removed the breathing tube, leaving just a mask in its place. Margaret had spent the whole day sitting by his bedside, with Billy; Theresa had had to leave the day before, telling Billy to give Don her and the kids’ love. They had met Don once before, and had loved him.
Margaret had sung to Don, softly, telling Billy that the Beatles and John Lennon had always worked best for her and Alan when it come to singing to Don. Charlie had not been much for music, which had then been reflected later when Don had taken to the piano, and Charlie had not.
“You know, I always wondered, later, after we discovered Charlie’s talent, if maybe there was something within Don, too.”
“Did you ever have him tested?”
“Oh yes; all the doctors discovered was that his IQ was well above average and that he was a bright boy, but they never dug further.”
“Did you ever think to maybe try and get him to show his talents?”
“Oh, he never hid his talents. He just downplayed them. He was great at playing the piano, you know? I could sit with him for hours and he would just play. He was very good at reading notes, memorizing them.”
She strokes his cheekbone.
“During one of his recitals, the teacher announced a challenge; she wanted them to play something for the first time, off the sheet, no rehearsal, nothing.”
“What was it?”
“Oh, I think it was Beethoven. I don’t actually remember it. Don does, probably. He remembers everything.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed. It’s a bit freaky at times.”
She laughs.
“Oh yes. Just imagine having him as a child. He was so curious, it was a danger to leave him by himself. Before you knew it, he’d have climbed on the highest chair to get to the books at the top shelf.”
Margaret smiles indulgently at her unconscious son.
“He was always reading, you know? At first I thought he was going to become a literature professor or something.”
“He still reads, well, whenever we have the time. But you can bet that he always has a book with him.”“Yes, I didn’t think he had changed that much.”
Silence reigned for a moment.
“He played Imagine for me once, on my birthday. That was in... I think it was... Oh yes, it was in 1979. I remember because that was when Don got serious about playing the piano. He would spent his summer holidays that year either playing baseball or playing the piano. Imagine is my favourite song from John Lennon, and he must’ve listened to it so many times on the record player until he was able to play it by ear.”
“Wow.”
“Best birthday present, I can assure you. From that year on, he would always play me a song on my birthday. Still does, whenever he’s home. How he practiced the pieces when he was in high school I don’t know. He was almost never at home.”
“Maybe that is his talent.”
“Yeah. Maybe I should have been a bit more firm with him about giving up the piano. But he wanted to, told me that he had no real interest in pursuing it, that baseball was where he saw his future. So I let him.”
“But he still played for your birthday?”
“And Mother’s Day. And always when Charlie and Alan were not in the house. It was something just for the two of us.”
“Why, if I may ask?”
“You may... Alan is as good as tone deaf, and while Charlie might know all about rhythm and tact, he has no clue about music. He’s a terrible player, and he knows it. We tried to get him to play, but he just didn’t take to it. He has always been about mathematics, and who were we to disagree with his teachers?”
There is a question that lies heavily on his tongue, that wants to burst out. Something that he knows that Don has wondered about.
“If Charlie had been your first child, would you have had another?”
She stares at him, her eyes wide with shock, aghast. Tears form in her eyes, and he feels terrible.
“I’m sorry. I... I should not... This is... Oh God, I am so sorry.”
The silence is deafening, it is as if neither of them dare to breathe.
“I had no right, really. Forgive me, Margaret... I’ll just leave... You know...”
He makes to get out of the uncomfortable chair that is killing his back, lost in his own recriminations and self- flagellation.
What was he thinking? Don told him that question in confidence, and never ever should he have even thought about asking it. What in heaven’s name possessed him to voice this deepest concern of his partner aloud?
“Please, don’t leave.”
Her face is turned away from him, but he can hear the hidden tears still. She is fighting hard to regain her composure and Billy is at a loss as to why she even asked him to stay.
“I have wondered about this myself so often... We discovered Charlie’s abilities when he was three, but in turn we hadn’t tried for another child until Don was five because we wanted to give him time to grow in our love and affection. We wanted him to be at an age where he would understand why he was not the sole centre of attention anymore....”
She rakes her hand through her hair in a gesture so reminiscent of her son that it hurts Billy.
“It nearly tore our family apart, Charlie’s talent.”
Margaret dabs at her eyes with a tissue, a gesture so elegant and strong despite the pain that Billy for a moment thinks that only mothers can pull it off; his mother was the same.
“I never talked about it with Alan, but I know that Don has thought about it.”
“Did he ever ask you?”
“No. But a mother can tell these kind of thoughts. Or at least I could.”
Billy allows a grin to touch his face.
“Oh no, ma’am. My mother was the same.”
“I heard about the Alzheimer’s getting worse. I’m sorry.”
She touches his hand in a comforting gesture. It breaks his heart just that little bit more that even though he caused her pain, she is now consoling him.
“I don’t know why I am even telling you this, to be honest.”
“Please, don’t answer me. You don’t have to. I was way out of line.”
“No, you deserve an answer. You asked. You will get an answer; if Don ever asks me, I will answer him, too. You’re very close to my son, and you have had a strong hand in making him who he is now. For that I will always be thankful to you. And you care about him, a lot.”
“I love him like my brother.”
“So does he. His father, my husband and I made mistakes with him, mistakes that cost us his affection, I’m afraid. At the very least he was very resentful at times.”
To this, Billy does not know what to say.
“So back to your question. Honestly? I don’t think I would have been up for it. The pressure was so hard, on all of us, from the get- go, from the moment that we were told that Charlie was not a normal child.”
In a movie, this would have been the moment that Don would have revealed himself to have been awake for the last ten minutes, for having heard the gist of what they were discussing, starting a trail of angst that would be resolved at the end of the film with a disgustingly sweet ending.
But this is real life, and Don does not wake up until four hours later.
“Yo, Coop. You with us?”
He startles, back into the present from one second to the next, and the change is weird, shocking. There is Don, who was lying nearly comatose in a hospital bed just a split second earlier, his arm around his girlfriend, looking at him with a toothy grin that tells Billy the whole extent of cheekiness the other man can get up to.
“Sorry, while you two were canoodling, I was gathering wool.”
“To make me a sweater?”
“You wish. It’s gonna be sexy lingerie for your girl.”
Robin snorts.
“Billy, I doubt that wool lingerie could be sexy.”
He leers at her.
“Oh, I think everything would look sexy on you.”
She laughs into her glass while Don is killing him with glares.
“Lay off her, man.”
“Getting a bit touchy there, Eppes? Afraid I’ll steal your woman?”
Clank.
The glass is put down with emphasis and all of a sudden Billy regrets his choice of words.
Luckily, any tirade that is ready to spilled from Robin’s mouth, with generous amounts of humour, mind you, is thwarted when Alan finally arrives, cheery enough. The tightness around his mouth, though, tells Billy that not all is well. Don was right with his assumption that something was off.
Well, they still have the weekend to get down to the dirty.
But for now, he needs some grub.