Fic: Numb3rs: Letting go (gen)
Title: Letting go
Author : Nilitara
Fandom : Numb3rs
Characters/Pairing : Don, Billy (friendship only)
Spoiler : No real spoiler.
Rating : FRT
Summary : After a bad case, Don calls Billy for help (sequel to Coping Mechanism)
Warning : Mention of cutting
Disclaimer : The characters and settings are not mine but the property of their creators.
Letting go
After closing their last case, Don went directly to his apartment. He didn’t stay behind to have a drink with his team, nor did he go to his brother’s house to share a meal with Charlie and his dad, like he would normally do whenever he finished a difficult case.
No, that day, he just couldn’t do that. Not that time, not when he couldn’t stop seeing those kids’ face, angelic even in death, couldn’t stop seeing their lifeless little bodies on the damp floor of the wine cellar, where they had found them after endless hours of searching, once the kidnapper had been identified.
It had been too late already, way too late for those little angels to be saved and it wasn’t fair. Those children never had time to enjoy all the good things of life, to grow up and become adults, to reach their dreams. They had been robbed of everything they could have had and there wasn’t a damn thing that Don and his team could have done, except figuring it out quicker because putting the felon in the death row wasn’t going to bring those kids back to life.
He took off his coat, his shoes, his gun and his badge without really thinking about it, because it was an automatism at that point, it was something he did each and every day without having to spare a thought.
Once that was done, his feet took him immediately to the kitchen because what he needed right now was alcohol and a lot of it, to forget those pretty little kids with their angelic faces and broken bodies. Despite what he wanted, it wasn’t the fridge that attracted his eyes once he entered the room but he caught a glimpse of metal shining in the artificial light he had turned on and he approached.
He was like hypnotized. His mind wasn’t processing what he was doing; it was like he was sleep-walking through a mist, even when his hands picked up the knife and his fingers caressed the blade. He was brought back to reality when he felt a sting on the extremity of his index and, as a drop blood pearled, he let the knife clatter on the floor.
He all but run to his bedroom, closing the door behind him and sitting on his bed, knees drawn to his chest, trying to get his heart back to normal.
With shaking hands, he reached for his phone and, almost on autopilot, he pressed the touches, composing the familiar number. He was almost blind in the darkness surrounding him but he didn’t need the light, not right now. If anything, the light would make it worse, because in the night, he didn’t have to see and, if he didn’t see, then he couldn’t see their eyes.
The beeping sound resonated a few times in his ear before he heard someone pick up and the familiar voice reached his ears, almost like a safety blanket.
“Cooper.”
Don would have smiled, in any other occasion, but he couldn’t today because, at the moment, he just couldn’t imagine smiling ever again.
“Billy,” he whispered and it was all he had to say for Coop to understand that something was wrong, very wrong with his former partner.
Coop had known Don long enough, had seen him often enough when they weren’t quick enough to prevent another meaningless death from happening and he had seen what his method of coping had been back in the days, back before Billy had stepped him and gotten him to admit he had a problem and he had to stop doing it because he was just killing himself slowly and, one day, he would go too far and, that, Don didn’t seem able to see it on his own. But, with Billy, he had been able to stop, he had been able to find another way of calming his mind enough to go on.
“Don, where are you?”
Billy’s voice was calm because he couldn’t afford to be anything but calm, not if he wanted to help Don the way he had done more times that he could count when they had been on the road together and even after. The music Don had been able to hear in the background before was diminishing and don thought that maybe he shouldn’t have called because Billy was having fun and he was leaving the bar where he was just to help Don and it wasn’t fair to Billy because he probably had had some bad days and wanted to have fun.
“My place,” he still answered and the words were barely out of his mouth that he knew it wasn’t what Billy was asking, not at all.
“Where at your place?”
“Bedroom.”
And Don’s voice was beginning to shake because he wanted to do something else than talk, wanted to get up and go to the kitchen and jut take the knife again because it would help, he knew it would help, but he promised…
“Okay, Don,” Billy said and Don heard the sound of a door closing and he knew that Cooper was back in a motel room, somewhere on the road, where his last hunt had taken him. “I don’t want you to leave that room, alright? I don’t want you to go to the kitchen or the bathroom. Can you do that for me, Don? Can you stay in your bedroom?”
“Yeah, Billy, I… I can do that,” he said and his voice was uncertain but he had to try because he knew that Billy only wanted what was best for him, always wanted what was best for him and that was the only time where the other man would order him around and tell him what to do so the least he could do was try.
“Alright. You know what? Why don’t you put on some pajamas and go to bed and then we can talk, okay, tell me what’s going on and all that.”
“Okay,” Don agreed and he was able to do everything Coop had asked him to without even hanging up. That was the advantage of being a federal agent; always being able to communicate with your team, even when you’re doing something else.
Coop was still talking on the other hand, telling him about the end of his hunt, about another escaped behind the bars again and Don wasn’t exactly paying attention but the sound of his former partner’s voice was enough to calm him down; the irresistible want to go and fetch that knife was receding, slowly, and it was all because of Billy.
“Okay, Donny, you’re in bed now?” Billy asked after a while, when he heard the sound of sheets being rumpled.
“Yeah,” Don acquiesced, laying down on his bed, in the dark, phone still in hand and it wasn’t the first time he had done that, probably wouldn’t be the last either but, that, no one could know yet.
“Why don’t you tell me about your case, alright?”
That was another facet of Billy that not a lot of people were privy of; gentle, kind, patient… The contrary of the brash persona he showed the world whenever he was on the field or with his co-workers.
And Don told him; told him about the kidnapping alert that had been given to him and his team, told him about how they had then dug up through the missing person database and realize that other children had been kidnapped too, but a while ago already, with the same pattern, told him how they had done everything they could to find these children, to find a clue on who they kidnapper may be and where he had taken them, told him how he had asked for Charlie’s help but without giving him all the details: they had given him the pattern but had never told him there were children who had been kidnapped because Don had known that the chances to find the children alive were very slim and that was a part of his job that he wanted the shield Charlie from, told him they had found out who had done the crime and where he had taken the children but too late, way too late for the poor little angels who hadn’t done anything wrong except being at the wrong place at the wrong time and cross path with a maniac that had taken everything away from them, even their life and told him how he had been the first one of the scene and how he had been the one to tell all of these parents that they would never again be able to see their children smile and play and grow up.
In the end, Don was crying quietly and it was good because he hadn’t been able to cry before and the tears meant that he was letting go, letting go without having to bleed because whether it was salted water or blood, it was purifying to let everything out and he knew that once the tears dried up, the urge wouldn’t be there anymore, not if he was able to let go and sleep.
On the other end of the line, Coop was talking, telling Don that it would be alright, that he wasn’t responsible, that no one was responsible except for the bastard who decided that killing kids was an okay past-time. But Don had done nothing wrong, had done all he could to try to give those children back to their parents and that it may not have seemed to matter at the moment, but in the end it was that which would give him absolution.
The sobs that shook Don’s body were slowly ebbing, the soothing voice of his former partner penetrating through his mind, the words registering and maybe, just maybe, he could believe it because Billy didn’t lie, not to Don, never to Don so if he was saying that it wasn’t his fault, then he wasn’t responsible.
As the tears finally dried on Don’s cheek, Billy’s voice began to blur. He couldn’t hear anything the man was saying, it was like everything was in a haze and his vision also began to fade until he finally fell in a peaceful sleep, Billy’s voice still murmuring in his ear from the discarded phone and Billy continued until he was able to hear Don’s breathing and was convinced he was asleep.
Then only did he hang up, hoping that it had been enough to pull Don off the edge. He just had to wait; after all, Don would call him in the morning to thank him, like he always did.