Numb3rs Fic: Lucky, 1/3
Title: Lucky
Author: Leah Harper (prairie_city)
Author's Note: Written for the 2010 numb3rs_bigbang fest. Last edited on May 31st, 2012.
Word Count: 24,500
Summary: AU. Don and Charlie never got on better terms with each other. Charlie occasionally helps out with cases, but both brothers essentially remain on their own ends of the spectrum - Charlie at his chalkboards, and Don in the field.
Until Charlie steps into the FBI office for the first time on the day that Alec Shane went on his shooting spree, with an AU look at what could have happened.
Critically injured, Charlie’s recovery is slow and painful, and Don, who is also suffering from the trauma of that day, finds himself becoming closer to his brother than ever before.
Acknowledgements: I'd like to thank the mods of the numb3rs_bigbang...maerhys47, mercilynn, and spikedluv, for their fabulous work on making a fest worth remembering...
And cpwatcher, whose absolutely fabulous video is located here for download, and who also created some lovely images from said video, located here: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05.
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Part One
April 6th, 2003
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This was a breakthrough, Charlie could feel it. It was slowly forming…tentative, fragile, barely there. Charlie could feel his mind working, straining. Stretching out to touch it, hovering barely at his fingertips and just out of reach.
It was beautiful, and Charlie was breathless with it. He could see it forming. An answer existed among the numbers, and his heart pounded. He compulsively scribbled, unable to stop. He was so close that he couldn’t make his mind shut down, couldn’t stop the numbers that were coming on their own. His muscles were exhausted and his eyelids were dragging, and he was so tired…but he couldn’t stop. Stopping meant…
He just couldn’t stop.
Not even when footsteps sounded on the pea gravel that lined the drive, breaking through the numbers with a bold and even stride. Swift and inexorable and angry.
His brother’s stride.
Charlie felt his shoulders tense, felt dread gather in his belly…but he was close, so close…
The garage door flew open and banged against the wall behind it, and Don took two hurried steps and grabbed Charlie by the back of his shirt and wrenched him away from the boards.
The numbers scattered. Charlie tripped and staggered and fell against the board, dropping the piece of chalk he was holding. Startled, Charlie looked up at his brother’s dark silhouette.
It was soft and indistinct, the first indication to Charlie that he’d been working in near darkness.
Or perhaps that wasn’t it at all, because when Don spoke, his voice sounded like his shadow looked. Out of focus. Blurred. Fuzzy.
“Are you happy now?!?” he shouted. “Are you pleased with yourself? Feeling good about whatever goddamn math problem that was so important? I hope so, Charlie. I really do. I hope it was worth it, every fucking minute.”
Charlie found himself shrinking away from his brother’s fury, shocked at the intensity. Don had shouted before, of course, but he’d never…
“…because Mom’s dead now!” Don screamed, and heaved out a single gasping breath.
The words were…
Charlie didn’t know. He sat there, on the cement floor of the garage. He would later remember being cold. It was April, and the nights weren’t warm yet, and the cold of the cement seeped through his jeans and into his skin.
He wouldn’t ever quite remember everything that happened after that. It was as if his mind shut down, even more than it had before.
He did remember trying to get up. He remembered Don knocking him back down. And yelling. So much yelling.
Charlie remembered Don yelling, and remembered exactly what Don said to him, because it made Charlie cry.
Some of it was blurry, though. He wouldn’t remember Don erasing half of what he’d managed on P vs. NP, nor would he remember him knocking down Charlie’s chalkboards.
He knew when Don left, though. Running from the garage and nearly wrenching the door out of its frame.
Charlie sat on the floor of the garage for a long time, amongst the fallen and broken chalkboards, and the old pieces of his family’s past. He sat there for hours, probably, because he would remember how stiff he was when he got back up.
He remembered how cold he was, and how badly his heart ached; a stabbing pain in his chest.
He remembered that the most, because it brought back even older memories of a slightly socially inept child wondering about the illogical statement about broken hearts.
To him, unless it was physical, a heart couldn’t possibly break. He would go on about the anatomy of the human body and the technical aspect of emotions, explaining what happened when a person experienced grief, or anger, or…
But sitting there on the ground, Charlie knew his heart was breaking. Because his mother was dead, and his brother was right.
He got up when the sun started rising, and somehow found his bicycle in the detritus of a destroyed room. Found himself pushing it out into the watery morning light and making for the CalSci campus. He didn’t know what he was planning to do there; he only knew he had to get away. For just a little while.
When he got there, the crystal prism in his office window was just starting to bounce tiny rainbows around the room. Bright, and cheerful, and utterly out of place.
His mother had bought that for him, when he’d first gotten his office. Said it was to brighten up his day when he was feeling down.
It was suddenly hard to breath, and Charlie found himself leaning against his desk, staring blankly at the tiny, spinning rainbows.
After a moment, he found himself lunging forward and reaching out. At the very last second he checked his violent headlong rush, stopped short before ripping the light prism away. Instead, he reached out with badly trembling fingers and cupped his hands around it.
The thousands of tiny, beautiful rainbows vanished.
-----
April 31st, 2006
Three years later
-----
Charlie’s ear buds blasted music at full volume in order to reach his ears from where they dangled around his neck. It made the music tinny and indistinct, but the early heat wave they’d been struggling through for the past week made even the tiny ear buds too hot to have against the skin, much less in the ears.
It was hot even for Los Angeles, the city that never truly cooled down. It was the kind of heat that seemed to gather indoors, thick and heavy. It gathered now in Charlie’s garage, making his t-shirt stick damply to his back and sweat form on his face. Uncomfortable in the heat, Charlie stared up at his chalkboards, at the numbers scattered across their surfaces, feeling the urge to pick up a piece of chalk warring with the equally strong urge to abandon his pursuits and go bury his head in the freezer.
The numbers fluttered in his thoughts. The calculations on the boards were in their last revisions, and hovering just out of reach was the sense of satisfaction that accompanied completing a difficult and rewarding problem. Frowning, Charlie glanced towards the house, big and airy and air-conditioned, then back to the boards. The music audible from his ear buds thumped quietly from down by his ribs.
Without the music playing directly in his ears, he wasn’t deaf to other sounds. He caught a rumble, the sound almost but not quite below the threshold of Charlie’s hearing. It was the sound of a well-tuned engine, of tires rolling over tarmac. Then the distinctive clunk of the gear shifting into park, almost inaudible, and then the sound of the engine died away. Charlie wrapped his fingers around his earphones to listen better, and heard the sound of a door opening then closing again, and slightly scuffing footsteps on the asphalt.
Charlie stuck the ‘phones in his ears, blocking out the sound. At full volume, the music blasted painfully into his head until he managed to grab his iPod and turn it down.
He’d forgotten that it was game day, and his older brother would be coming by for his mandatory weekly visit to catch the score and grab a bite to eat. That meant his father was home, or would be very soon.
Frowning, Charlie turned his attention back to the boards, focusing his entire mind on the problems in front of him. He forcibly ignored the heat and his own growing thirst, pushing through the discomfort until it was nothing but a minor sensation in the very back of his mind.
It seemed like only moments, but it was probably closer to several hours by the time he surfaced from the numbers. The afternoon shadows had lengthened and deepened to twilight, but the heat was still oppressive. Charlie stepped back from the boards and stared at them, feeling that coveted sense of satisfaction. The boards were a mass of unintelligible writing and mathematical shorthand, but the expression itself was complete.
He’d transfer it all onto paper tomorrow, write it out clearly and in common terms, but for now Charlie simply stared at it and smiled to himself. It was good work, beautifully elegant, and there was reason for him to be proud.
The niggling thirst woke up, then. Charlie swallowed dryly and took one last look at his work before setting down the tiny nub of chalk and making for the house, massaging his cramped fingers. The lights were on now, glowing cheerfully in the dying light, and Charlie opened the door.
The rush of cool air was a welcome relief, and Charlie sighed and wiped at his sweaty face with his sleeve.
The game was over by then, and as Charlie walked into the kitchen, his brother Don was just picking up his keys. He glanced up as Charlie entered and nodded to him.
“Hey,” he said, draping his suit jacket over his arm. “How’s it goin’?”
“Good,” Charlie replied. “You?”
“Busy as hell,” Don replied, swinging his keys back and forth in his hand. “Nice to be able to unwind every once in a while.”
“Uh huh,” Charlie mumbled, and opened the fridge to get a bottle of water. He’d expected Don to make his escape after the pleasantries, and was surprised that he was still standing there when Charlie straightened up with his water.
Don was looking around, frowning. Charlie knew that look, like something wasn’t right. It sent a stab of discomfort through him, and he withdrew a step, trying to stay out of Don’s line of sight.
“Seen my sunglasses?” Don asked finally, and Charlie tried to relax. It was just sunglasses. Don wasn’t directing that look at Charlie, not right then.
He released a silent breath and looked around.
“Maybe you left them in your truck?” he asked, and Don shrugged.
“I’ll go check,” he said, and wandered out the door. A tantalizing smell reached Charlie’s nose then, and he turned to look for it. There were three white Chinese takeout boxes on the counter. Charlie reached for one that had the tell-tale brown sauce leaking out and opened it up to reveal his favorite, mushroom chicken.
Outside, Don started the engine of his SUV and backed out, having obviously found his sunglasses. Charlie got a fork and poked it into the cooled chicken, and stood there listening for a moment, picking up the familiar sounds of soft snoring coming from the chair in front of the television.
Charlie forked a bite of chicken into his mouth and wandered into the living room, searching for the remote and flipping through the channels. His father woke up when he plopped down on the couch, snorting and opening his eyes.
“Well, there you are,” he said, sitting up. “I expected to see you a long time ago. Weren’t you melting out there?”
“Yes,” Charlie said, then smiled at his father. “But I finished my calculations. On the paper I’m co-writing with Larry.”
“Really?” Smiling, his father reached out and patted Charlie’s knee. “Congratulations.”
“We’re not totally finished yet,” Charlie shook his head. “I’ve got to put it all down onto paper tomorrow and then we have to actually write the thing. But…it’s good work. I think it’ll get recognition.”
“As usual,” Alan said, voice dry, but he was still smiling.
“Thanks for the food,” Charlie said, digging around in the box in search of the last mushroom.
“You’re welcome,” was the reply. For a moment, the two of them sat in silence, watching the flickering screen flashing highlights of the game. Then Alan said casually, “Did you see Don before he left?”
Charlie looked at the T.V. intently, even though it had gone to a commercial. “Yes,” he said, and didn’t look at his father.
“He’s doing well, I hear,” Alan said conversationally. “Busy.”
“Yes,” Charlie said again, and felt himself locking up. The muscles of his neck went rigid and he stared blankly at the screen.
Alan sighed, a sound filled with weariness. Charlie pried himself loose and turned his head, his neck feeling like it was encased in steel.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” he said, and made sure his voice was very, very calm. Then he stood up and went into the kitchen, where he carefully sat the Chinese container down on the counter, and turned and went silently up the stairs.
He took his time showering and getting dressed, but by the time he shut himself into his room for the night, he still hadn’t heard his father come up the stairs to bed.
He woke when he always did, at three-thirty in the morning. Like clockwork and unaffected by sleeping pills and exhaustion alike, Charlie’s eyes opened every morning as though affixed with an internal alarm clock, when the night was blackest and the quiet deepest.
It was during this time that Charlie let himself remember, let himself feel the weight of a dying woman’s last days hanging over him, and the weight of a sibling’s condemnation.
-----
“A presentation, eh?” Alan asked. He pulled four slices of bread from the bag and put them on the cutting board.
“I told you it would get recognition,” Charlie replied, rubbing wearily at his eyes. The words on the page before him wavered, not quite in focus.
Alan spread mustard onto the bread, following up with roast beef, cheese, lettuce and tomato.
“Still,” he said, “it’s always cause for celebration. You should invite some friends.”
“Larry will already be there,” Charlie said in surprise. “It’s his paper. I’m just co-author.”
“Don’t you want to invite anyone else?” Alan asked, turning towards the table with a plate in each hand.
“Ah…I suppose I could invite some people,” Charlie said dubiously. “Maybe Ray would like to come.”
“You should invite your brother,” Alan said casually, and Charlie felt his stomach dip.
“You don’t think he’ll be busy?” he asked cautiously. He should have seen this coming.
“You should ask,” his father said, looking at him calmly.
“Yeah, all right,” Charlie said, dropping his gaze back to the paper. “I’ll ask him the next time I see him.”
“Good. Now, eat,” Alan ordered, and Charlie obediently picked up the sandwich with one hand and took a bite. He wrote a few more words on the assignment in front of him then slapped it on the graded pile. His stomach still squirmed uncomfortably, a sensation not unfamiliar to Charlie. Frowning, he bent his head lower over his work and focused harder, blocking out all other thoughts as he scribbled through one paper after another until the graded pile was the only pile.
“Done,” he announced, but the kitchen was empty. Shaking his head, Charlie stood up and gathered his papers together, shoving them roughly into his backpack and swinging it over his shoulder on his way out the door. He had twenty-five minutes to get to campus for his afternoon office hours.
-----
“Charlie?” the voice came from Charlie’s open office door, the one he least expected to hear at CalSci at any time. He jumped and his eyes flew towards the door where his older brother stood, a deli bag in one hand and a frown on his face. Charlie whipped his head back towards the whiteboard and hunched his shoulders, scribbling faster.
“Hi, Don,” he mumbled, and he watched distantly as his own handwriting got rapidly illegible. He felt his brother’s hard gaze on his back, burning on his shoulder, and found himself writing faster.
“Dad asked me to bring you something to eat,” Don said, and Charlie nodded without looking up. “He said you forgot your sandwich at home.”
“I’m fine,” Charlie said woodenly, and felt sweat start to bead at his hairline and across his upper lip. He stared harder at the board, trying to focus on the numbers, but Don’s presence was like a brand on his back. He hunched his shoulders against the sensation and wished that Don would leave, already; couldn’t he see that Charlie had a lot of work to do?
“I’ll just leave it here, then,” Don said finally, and put the bag on Charlie’s desk with a papery rustle. Charlie nodded.
“Yes, thanks,” he managed, and felt his stomach twisting. His brother stood there for another long moment, watching him, and Charlie suddenly had a thought.
“Oh,” he said, relieved and suddenly knowing what Don wanted. His hand stopped its frantic scribbling and he put down the piece of chalk, digging his hand into his pocket. He pulled out a handful of ones and fives and several different coins. “How much…?”
“No, Charlie...” Don started to say, but Charlie shoved the entire handful of money at his brother, realizing that he looked a little frantic but unable to help it. The coins fell and rattled against the floor and Don automatically grabbed at the bills to spare them the same fate, and Charlie pulled his hand away and turned back to the board. “Charlie...” Don said warningly, and Charlie twitched and knocked his elbow against the whiteboard. It made a dull thunking noise and the board wobbled. Charlie took a step away, towards the door.
“I’ve got to...sorry...a little busy,” he mumbled, avoiding his brother’s gaze. He slipped outside without pausing and hightailed it down the hallway towards his classroom.
In his classroom he sat down in one of the chairs, feeling overwhelmed and desperately unhappy. It too, was not an unfamiliar sensation to Charlie. He looked down at the wood of the desk, dully noting patterns even in the grain. So many numbers, so much math. Everywhere, no matter where he looked, it was always numbers numbers numbers.
He suddenly found himself on his feet, a marker in his hand. He didn’t usually do work in his classroom because he invariably had to erase it before his next class and rarely had time to rewrite it to paper, but at this point he didn’t want to risk running into Don again.
Instead of working on the fluid dynamics calculations he’d been working on in his office, he found himself writing out an equation based on the growth patterns of trees, with variables of wood and temperature and elevation and anything else he could think of.
It was better than the alternative, and he dove into the numbers and the solace they provided. As he usually did, he blocked out everything, driving his mind into the work, so that it was several minutes before the sensation of being watched yet again pierced his focus.
And again, he felt his heart speed up in response to the presence. He automatically hunched his shoulders, feeling his scribbling speed up, the marker squeaking against the whiteboard. His eyes darted rapidly to the side, trying to get a glimpse of the person without losing his rhythm. A shadow moved against the wall, and Charlie hunched his shoulders harder, eyes flitting from the board to the shadow and back again. Then a dark-haired young woman came into his field of vision, and Charlie felt himself abruptly relax.
“Hi, Amita,” he mumbled, and let the marker slow against the board, his handwriting smoothing out.
“Hi Charlie,” Amita replied. Frowning, Charlie paused for a moment, thinking, then scribbled for a moment more before stepping back and capping the marker. He turned to Amita, looking at her questioningly.
“What’s up?” he asked, eyeing her curiously. She was still staring at him, a strange expression on her face. Charlie frowned at her in confusion, and she shook her head slightly, as though shaking off unpleasant thoughts. She smiled at him and he was reminded vaguely of when she’d first been assigned to him for thesis work. That was years ago now, though, and Charlie didn’t usually have much to do with Amita anymore. He knew she had taken on a junior professor position and had started working on a second Ph.D in physics, but her work took her mostly out of Charlie’s path nowadays.
He blinked at her and waited for her to speak up. She was looking at the ground now, a strange expression on her face.
“Amita?” Charlie prompted, furrowing his brow. She looked up at him, smiled, and dropped her gaze again, looking uncomfortable. Charlie looked at the board longingly, then back to Amita. She was staring at him again, studying him. Charlie shifted uneasily, confused.
“You know,” she said softly, “I think I’ve got it, actually. I just realized...”
“Oh, okay,” Charlie said, relieved, and stood up. “If you need help, though,” he said distractedly, picking up his marker. “You can always ask.”
“Of course,” Amita said, and something about her tone was quiet and sad. Charlie glanced at her in surprise, but Amita smiled at him then and Charlie, furrowing his brow, smiled bemusedly back, one hand still holding the marker to the board. “I’ll see you later, Charlie,” Amita said, pulling her backpack over her shoulder. Charlie blinked.
“All right,” he said slowly, and watched as Amita left. He listened to her receding footsteps for a moment before shaking his head clear and turning his attention back to the equations.
He didn’t return to his office until the end of the day to fetch his books and laptop. He stopped in the doorway and stared at his desk, frowning a little and feeling his stomach roll uncomfortably. The deli bag sat where Don had put it, untouched, and beside it was a wad of crumpled bills tossed carelessly on the desk. Charlie sidled uncomfortably past his desk and grabbed his laptop without looking at the desk again, packing up hurriedly and walking out the door, locking up behind him.
-----
“Charlie.”
Charlie ignored the voice with the ease of long practice, mouthing silently to himself. He held one hand up to the chalkboard, the other held a notebook folded open, filled to the brim with notes. Without looking at the board, he scribbled down a series of numbers on it from the book, then flipped the page.
“Charlie.” This time, a hand accompanied the voice. It took hold of Charlie’s wrist and stilled it where it rested against the board. Irritated, Charlie looked up at his father.
“Dad, I’m a little busy right now,” he said, frowning. “I’ve got a lot of reworking to do on this line of thought, and - ”
“It’ll wait ‘till tomorrow,” Alan interrupted, and gently pulled the notebook out of Charlie’s hand.
“Dad,” Charlie protested, reaching for it, but his father held it out of reach. Charlie glared at him, fuming. He wasn’t six anymore, he didn’t need his father to tell him when to stop doing something - but he knew from experience that there was nothing he could do. When his father wanted him to stop, Charlie ended up stopping whether he liked it or not.
Spinning around, Charlie stalked towards the house, scowling. He slammed through the kitchen door and slumped in a chair at the table, still frowning.
“I thought we’d have steak tonight,” Alan said casually, coming in after him. “Thought we’d use the grill.”
“Isn’t it a little hot to barbeque?” Charlie snipped, knowing he was being childish. He tilted his head up to look at his father.
“It’ll cool down,” Alan said implacably. “In the meantime, go take a shower. The wet chalk look doesn’t do it for you.”
Charlie blinked and looked at his clothes, lined with white dust and damp with sweat. He grinned down at himself without meaning to and got to his feet, wandering away up the stairs.
His father handed him a beer when he returned, and Charlie paused, blinking at the bottle in his hand. He looked up at his father, who looked back at him with a challenging expression. Charlie held back his automatic lecture on how many brain cells were killed with every consumed beer and twisted off the cap instead, wondering what his father meant by the gesture.
“Get the steak seasonings, will you?” Alan asked, balancing a plate and handful of utensils in his hands. Charlie got up obediently and pulled the seasonings from the cupboard, following his father out into the darkening yard, where the grill was on and warming up. Charlie handed off the seasonings and flopped down into one of the lawn chairs, nursing his beer and letting his eyes rove aimlessly.
“Your brother’s going to come for dinner,” his father said suddenly, and Charlie turned to look at him.
“Okay,” he said, frowning at his father’s behavior. Alan looked…strange. He was avoiding Charlie’s gaze, staring down at the steaks on the grill, fiddling with the tongs and seasonings even though the steaks had already been seasoned and didn’t yet need to be turned.
He looked…guilty.
Charlie frowned harder and sat up slightly, feeling his shoulder muscles tense without really knowing why. He darted a look to the side, towards the koi pond, where numbers moved in the patterns that the fish swam, and felt the urge to go watch, and take solace in that which rarely changed.
“I’d like you to stay, Charlie,” Alan said suddenly, and he still didn’t look over at Charlie.
“Stay?” Charlie asked, confused.
“Yes, I’d like you to stay. You know…eat with us. Stick around afterwards. Play a game of chess with your brother.”
“Don doesn’t like playing chess,” Charlie said blankly.
“What are you talking about?” Alan asked, finally turning to look in Charlie’s direction. “He loves chess.”
“No he doesn’t,” Charlie insisted. “He doesn’t like chess. He never plays chess.”
Alan stared at him for a long moment, then turned back to the grill, and Charlie sat there and longed to go visit the koi.
The sound of a vehicle turning into the driveway broke the strange standoff that Charlie had found himself in. They couldn’t see Don’s SUV from where they were out in the backyard, but Charlie could hear the sound of the car door closing, and a few seconds later the front door opened, and his brother’s voice called a greeting.
“Out back, Donnie!” Alan called, and a moment later Don stuck his head out, a beer in one hand.
“Hey there, Charlie,” he said right away, and Charlie’s muscles twitched.
“Hi,” he said, and tensely settled back into his seat. Don came over and kicked out another lawn chair.
“Smells good,” he said, sitting down and leaning back with a sigh. Charlie bent his head and fiddled with the label on his beer. “How’ve you been?”
Charlie scratched idly at the glue residue left behind by his peeling.
“Charlie?” Don asked, and Charlie twitched again, and looked up.
“Yeah?” he replied, lifting his head.
“How’ve you been?” Don said again, and Charlie fumbled for a moment in his surprise.
“I’m good,” he managed. “Sorry…I - ” Charlie stopped talking and felt himself flush. “Anyway, I’m good,” he finished lamely. “You?”
“Yeah,” Don replied, nodding, and he stretched his legs out in front of him with a groan of relief. “Just wrapped up a big one.” Don looked down at his lap and fell silent. Charlie looked at him, felt the air of melancholy that his brother wore. Lines etched into his brother’s face were deeper than he’d ever seen them before…or maybe just deeper than he’d ever noticed. Charlie felt a rush of concern, but knew better than to express it. Don wouldn’t appreciate it.
From where he stood in front of the grill, Alan cleared his throat, the sound clear and deliberate. Charlie looked up in time to see his father give Don a strange look.
Charlie saw his brother shift slightly out of the corner of his eye, and glanced over. Don was looking a little awkward.
“Hey, Chuck,” Don said, and Charlie thought that his brother had said more to him in the last five minutes then he had during the last three months.
“Yeah?” Charlie asked warily.
“One of the other teams in the office, Agent Wilson’s - they’re working on a money laundering case. Lots of numbers and math. They were wondering if you could give them a little bit of…assistance. Like you did with that IRS extortion case, remember?”
“They want my help on another case?” Charlie asked doubtfully.
“Yeah. The money’s being ferried all over creation and we thought…some sort of predictive…thing…”
Charlie stared at him, frowning. Three workable applications jumped into his mind immediately, but Charlie didn’t try to explain them to Don. He’d learned that lesson many, many years ago.
“Yeah, all right,” Charlie said slowly, frowning. “I’ll - I could help.”
“Great,” Don said, and he exchanged another look with their Dad. “Thanks, buddy.”
“Sure,” Charlie mumbled, and tried to figure out why his father was looking guilty again.
-----
“This way,” Don said, turning left inside the doors. He moved towards the security gates on the first floor. Charlie followed him, frowning and looking around. With the extortion case, Don had brought data home with him, so Charlie had expected the same to happen now - but this wasn’t Don’s case. It wasn’t Don’s case, so Charlie was consulting in an official capacity and thus, required to come into the office in person.
He’d never been to Don’s office before.
His backpack dragged uncomfortably on his shoulders, weighted with his laptop and various books. He slipped one arm out of it and swung it around to hold in front of him, and found himself clutching it as they reached the security gates and waited in the short line.
Don looked back at him, frowning.
“You okay?” he asked quietly, and Charlie pulled his gaze away from the gun at the security guard’s hip.
“Huh? Oh…yes. I’m fine.” Charlie frowned for a moment, then asked, “Do I not look okay?”
Don didn’t answer, just nodded his head at the guard and showed his and Charlie’s I.D.’s. Charlie followed his brother into the building. They rode the elevator to the floor of the Violent Crimes Unit, with two main squads and all of their attending personnel.
The floor was filled with the sounds of rustling paper, low-toned murmurs, printers, fax machines, staplers, and ringing phones. Charlie followed Don through the crowded room towards his team, feeling like he was swimming through the noise. He wished desperately for his iPod, buried in his backpack and momentarily out of reach.
They made their way toward a desk on which a familiar woman leaned, tall and honey-haired and sipping from a coffee cup. Her eyes were focused across the room. Charlie followed her gaze, fastened his own onto some sort of interview room, enclosed in glass. There were blinds to block one’s visual into the room, but they were hanging wide open, and Charlie could easily see inside.
There was another familiar face inside, a muscular African-American man with a neatly trimmed goatee.
Like the woman, Charlie had seen this man before, for dinner at the house. They’d both introduced themselves to him before he’d made his escape to the garage; Megan Reeves and David Sinclair.
Reeves looked up at them as they approached. Her eyes landed on Charlie and she smiled widely at him, pushing herself upright from where she leaned against the desk. Behind her, another man looked up, green eyes meeting Charlie’s own. Was this another one of Don’s team? He didn’t know this one.
“Hey, Charlie,” Reeves greeted, still smiling.
“You know Agent Reeves, right Charlie?” Don asked behind him, and Charlie halfway turned to bring Don into his peripheral vision.
“Yes,” Charlie nodded. “Nice to see you again,” he said to Agent Reeves.
“You too.”
“Right,” Don said, and indicated the man behind him. “That’s Agent Granger, I don’t think you’ve ever been introduced.”
“Hi, Charlie,” Granger said, coming over and offering his hand. Charlie automatically reached out and shook it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Don’s left fingers twitch, and Charlie jumped and released Agent Granger’s hand, eyes going immediately to his brother, who was watching him closely. Don was frowning.
“Charlie’s here to help out with the case Wilson’s team is working on,” he said after a moment.
“The money laundering?” Megan asked curiously, and Don nodded.
“Wilson’s over here, Charlie,” he said, beckoning Charlie after him.
“Nice to meet you, Charlie,” Colby Granger said, and Charlie nodded before following his brother through the bull pen, towards another man in a suit talking on his cell phone. The agent spotted them coming, said a rapid goodbye, and snapped the phone shut.
“Agent Eppes,” the man said, stepping towards them.
“Agent Wilson,” Don greeted. “This is my brother, Dr. Charles Eppes.”
“Nice to meet you, Dr. Eppes.” Agent Wilson said, nodding at Charlie politely. “We’re glad to have your help. Thanks for coming.”
“Sure,” Charlie replied.
“These are the case files,” Wilson began, turning towards his desk and picking up a stack of manila folders and offering them to Charlie.
He let his backpack slide from his hand in order to accept and flipped open the top folder, rifling rapidly through the files. Numbers glared off the page at him, catching his attention, and his mind automatically started analyzing patterns.
“Will you be all right here, Charlie?” Don asked, and Charlie nodded his head, already deep in thought. “I’ll be right over there, all right? At my desk.”
“Right,” Charlie said, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. Don hovered beside him for a moment and even lifted a hand as though he were going to pat Charlie on the back. Charlie froze in disbelief, saw Don hesitate and withdraw, and finally turn away.
Letting out a relieved breath, Charlie looked up and met Wilson’s gaze. “Do you have a whiteboard?” he asked, feeling more centered now that Don had gone away. Wilson nodded and Charlie followed him to another glass-enclosed room, empty of people but filled with chairs and a table. One glass wall was dominated by a rolling whiteboard. Calmer now, Charlie put his backpack down on the table and pulled out his laptop. While it was booting up, he started paging through the folders in earnest. After a moment, he picked up a marker and started transferring data onto the board, where it would be easier to start the preliminary calculations.
“Are you all right on your own, then?”
“Hmm?” Charlie glanced up. “Oh - yes, I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
“Come get me if you have any questions,” Wilson said, and he looked slightly uncomfortable, as though not sure what to think of Charlie, or how to deal with him.
Charlie noticed the other man’s discomfort only peripherally. He was used to that reaction, had gotten it all his life, and couldn’t bring himself to care anymore. He nodded his head politely at Wilson and concentrated on the data in front of him, flipping rapidly through the files.
His eyes automatically picked out and caught on the numbers. One after the other, he began plugging them into a basic equation he’d written on the board and felt himself sink into his natural focus.
He was finding out that he didn’t like the FBI offices. He didn’t like the feeling of discomfort it gave him to be in what he’d always thought of as his brother’s space…but at least he could think about the numbers. The numbers made everything else go away, and he made himself think of nothing else until everything around him grew distant and unimportant.
Far away, Charlie could pick out Don’s voice from the other voices in the room, raised slightly in frustration. He couldn’t make out the words.
Somewhere, someone dropped a stack of papers, the sound dimly registering with Charlie, a sudden papery smack and the subsequent cursing.
Then there was the sound of shattering glass and Charlie was suddenly deafened by noise, so loud and startling that his entire body jolted with the strength of them. Almost instantly, a hole appeared in the white board beside Charlie’s head.
Even as Charlie spun around, his mind was automatically calculating the speed and strength of the projectile, landing just eight point two inches from his head. When his eyes took in the tableau outside the glass-cased room, he found he wasn’t surprised. Or maybe it happened too fast for surprise.
There was a man, hand held out before him, gun gripped in his fist. His left arm was wrapped around another man’s throat, cutting off his air, using him as a shield.
Charlie’s breath caught in his lungs, because somehow he hadn’t connected the explosive energy of gunfire with the fact that someone was holding and operating that same gun.
There were people shouting. Cries of pain. More glass shattering somewhere, raining down onto the floor. In the distance, someone yelled “Stay down, stay down!”
With a great surge of will, Charlie broke his mental standoff and turned, instinctively reaching for his laptop, his breath catching in his lungs, blood pounding in his ears. “Down, down!” someone shouted again, and Charlie took the advice, ducking under the table on his belly. More gunshots, in clusters, deafening in the enclosed space. Bang bang. Bangbangbang. Like the cannon fire in movies. Charlie felt the reports deep in his bones.
Still more glass shattered. A computer sparked angrily, sizzling. One more gunshot, and Charlie felt something hit him in the side of the head, like the sting of a wasp.
It was like falling. Like hitting the ground with all your weight and nothing to catch you. Abrupt. Stunning.
Charlie felt himself sag, his senses disconnecting. He didn’t lose consciousness - instead, everything jumbled together. Sight, sound, and sensation all bled into each other. He fell back, away from the sensation overload.
And he found himself counting.
One, two, three, four, five.
Sixseveneight, nearly simultaneous.
Don’s voice, distant, shouting something inaudible. Charlie’s left fingers twitched, close to his face. There was the sensation of…slickness.
Wet. Something wet beneath his fingers.
A thready, tremulous realization slowly trickled into his mind. Movement. His eyes were open, had been open the whole time, and someone was kneeling in front of him.
That same someone yelled, the sounds wavering and swimming, indistinct. Charlie could feel his own lungs laboring, air rushing in and out of his body. Still, his heart pounded, thundering in his chest, blood rushing in his ears and threatening to drown out all else.
And still, Charlie counted. Footsteps, rapid and uneven.
A shadow appeared - a second figure, collapsing to their knees in front of him.
Don. It was Don. Don’s footsteps. Don’s shadow. Don’s voice.
“Charlie, oh my god, Charlie.”
Hands. On his face, on his neck. Someone farther away - across the room? - shouting in panic. Charlie blinked once, slowly. The occasional clear sentence pierced the cacophony of unintelligible sounds, the shouting, the thunder of his own deafening heartbeat.
“Charlie, stay with me. Stay with me. Charlie?”
Charlie’s lungs pumped air in and out. His heart hammered too hard, too fast, fluttering in his chest.
A minute tremble passed through his body, from shoulders and arms down to his legs. Something like exhaustion that didn’t quite qualify.
He closed his eyes.
-----
Noise. Voices. Shouting.
His muscles trembled. He couldn’t stop them, couldn’t open his eyes. He twitched and tried to struggle against whatever was holding him down. Everything wavered, indistinct.
It was hard to breathe.
He dragged in a desperate breath of air, and someone moaned.
Him?
Hands. On his arms, on his legs, on his cheeks.
He dragged in another breath.
-----
“…semi-conscious…”
Charlie tried to open his mouth to talk. He choked and coughed, and another wave of weakness rolled over him, causing his arms and legs to tremble.
“…get him…surgery…”
He started to struggle, confusion swirling in his mind. Nothing made sense.
“He’s combative…!”
“No sedation…”
“Charlie…Charlie? Can you hear me? My name is Dr. Stevens, you’re in the hospital. It’s all right, you’re safe. Calm down, Charlie.”
Charlie lashed out with all his strength, and the movement sent the world spinning violently. He felt his stomach roil and heave, tried to turn onto his side as he gagged. Hands grabbed at his arms and back and rolled him onto his side as he threw up.
Then things wavered and went away again.
-----
Perfume.
A dream?
He forgot, just for a moment.
Mom?
-----
He let out a breath of air through moving lips, a movement intended as a cry that emerged as a moan, almost too low to hear.
It didn’t matter. Everything was wrong. She was gone, she hadn’t ever been here. It had been a dream, and the hand on his forearm smelled of mustard and seasonings, not perfume.
Charlie tried again, tried to make his voice audible, moved his mouth in the word that came easier and more naturally than his own name.
“Mom.”
The hand on his arm stroked down, gently. But it was wrong, too, because it smelled of seasonings and mustard, not perfume.
-----
The sensation bled into his mind slowly, like water seeping through cracks in stone.
Something about his fingers. They were…tied together?
No.
Cologne.
A hand.
Don.
There was…white? Above him. It swam with the rainbow colors of sunspots on his eyes, but he thought it was white.
Slowly, Charlie became aware that his eyes were open. He was staring at the ceiling, and his brother Don was holding his hand.
-----
Charlie remembered. He’d been ten. Don was fifteen.
Charlie hadn’t started high school yet. Wouldn’t for another year.
His brother had taught him how to play basketball.
He breathed deep, and for a moment he forgot. He forgot that seventeen years had passed.
“Donnie?” he asked, and opened his eyes, turned his head. Not Donnie, but Don. Don’s face swam before him, just out of focus. Charlie let his eyes rove slowly over his brother’s face.
“Hey, buddy,” Don whispered. “How're you feeling?”
Charlie didn’t know, and didn’t understand. Confusion was predominant, and he was tired.
He didn’t answer.
-----
Next
Author: Leah Harper (prairie_city)
Author's Note: Written for the 2010 numb3rs_bigbang fest. Last edited on May 31st, 2012.
Word Count: 24,500
Summary: AU. Don and Charlie never got on better terms with each other. Charlie occasionally helps out with cases, but both brothers essentially remain on their own ends of the spectrum - Charlie at his chalkboards, and Don in the field.
Until Charlie steps into the FBI office for the first time on the day that Alec Shane went on his shooting spree, with an AU look at what could have happened.
Critically injured, Charlie’s recovery is slow and painful, and Don, who is also suffering from the trauma of that day, finds himself becoming closer to his brother than ever before.
Acknowledgements: I'd like to thank the mods of the numb3rs_bigbang...maerhys47, mercilynn, and spikedluv, for their fabulous work on making a fest worth remembering...
And cpwatcher, whose absolutely fabulous video is located here for download, and who also created some lovely images from said video, located here: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05.
-----
Part One
April 6th, 2003
-----
This was a breakthrough, Charlie could feel it. It was slowly forming…tentative, fragile, barely there. Charlie could feel his mind working, straining. Stretching out to touch it, hovering barely at his fingertips and just out of reach.
It was beautiful, and Charlie was breathless with it. He could see it forming. An answer existed among the numbers, and his heart pounded. He compulsively scribbled, unable to stop. He was so close that he couldn’t make his mind shut down, couldn’t stop the numbers that were coming on their own. His muscles were exhausted and his eyelids were dragging, and he was so tired…but he couldn’t stop. Stopping meant…
He just couldn’t stop.
Not even when footsteps sounded on the pea gravel that lined the drive, breaking through the numbers with a bold and even stride. Swift and inexorable and angry.
His brother’s stride.
Charlie felt his shoulders tense, felt dread gather in his belly…but he was close, so close…
The garage door flew open and banged against the wall behind it, and Don took two hurried steps and grabbed Charlie by the back of his shirt and wrenched him away from the boards.
The numbers scattered. Charlie tripped and staggered and fell against the board, dropping the piece of chalk he was holding. Startled, Charlie looked up at his brother’s dark silhouette.
It was soft and indistinct, the first indication to Charlie that he’d been working in near darkness.
Or perhaps that wasn’t it at all, because when Don spoke, his voice sounded like his shadow looked. Out of focus. Blurred. Fuzzy.
“Are you happy now?!?” he shouted. “Are you pleased with yourself? Feeling good about whatever goddamn math problem that was so important? I hope so, Charlie. I really do. I hope it was worth it, every fucking minute.”
Charlie found himself shrinking away from his brother’s fury, shocked at the intensity. Don had shouted before, of course, but he’d never…
“…because Mom’s dead now!” Don screamed, and heaved out a single gasping breath.
The words were…
Charlie didn’t know. He sat there, on the cement floor of the garage. He would later remember being cold. It was April, and the nights weren’t warm yet, and the cold of the cement seeped through his jeans and into his skin.
He wouldn’t ever quite remember everything that happened after that. It was as if his mind shut down, even more than it had before.
He did remember trying to get up. He remembered Don knocking him back down. And yelling. So much yelling.
Charlie remembered Don yelling, and remembered exactly what Don said to him, because it made Charlie cry.
Some of it was blurry, though. He wouldn’t remember Don erasing half of what he’d managed on P vs. NP, nor would he remember him knocking down Charlie’s chalkboards.
He knew when Don left, though. Running from the garage and nearly wrenching the door out of its frame.
Charlie sat on the floor of the garage for a long time, amongst the fallen and broken chalkboards, and the old pieces of his family’s past. He sat there for hours, probably, because he would remember how stiff he was when he got back up.
He remembered how cold he was, and how badly his heart ached; a stabbing pain in his chest.
He remembered that the most, because it brought back even older memories of a slightly socially inept child wondering about the illogical statement about broken hearts.
To him, unless it was physical, a heart couldn’t possibly break. He would go on about the anatomy of the human body and the technical aspect of emotions, explaining what happened when a person experienced grief, or anger, or…
But sitting there on the ground, Charlie knew his heart was breaking. Because his mother was dead, and his brother was right.
He got up when the sun started rising, and somehow found his bicycle in the detritus of a destroyed room. Found himself pushing it out into the watery morning light and making for the CalSci campus. He didn’t know what he was planning to do there; he only knew he had to get away. For just a little while.
When he got there, the crystal prism in his office window was just starting to bounce tiny rainbows around the room. Bright, and cheerful, and utterly out of place.
His mother had bought that for him, when he’d first gotten his office. Said it was to brighten up his day when he was feeling down.
It was suddenly hard to breath, and Charlie found himself leaning against his desk, staring blankly at the tiny, spinning rainbows.
After a moment, he found himself lunging forward and reaching out. At the very last second he checked his violent headlong rush, stopped short before ripping the light prism away. Instead, he reached out with badly trembling fingers and cupped his hands around it.
The thousands of tiny, beautiful rainbows vanished.
-----
April 31st, 2006
Three years later
-----
Charlie’s ear buds blasted music at full volume in order to reach his ears from where they dangled around his neck. It made the music tinny and indistinct, but the early heat wave they’d been struggling through for the past week made even the tiny ear buds too hot to have against the skin, much less in the ears.
It was hot even for Los Angeles, the city that never truly cooled down. It was the kind of heat that seemed to gather indoors, thick and heavy. It gathered now in Charlie’s garage, making his t-shirt stick damply to his back and sweat form on his face. Uncomfortable in the heat, Charlie stared up at his chalkboards, at the numbers scattered across their surfaces, feeling the urge to pick up a piece of chalk warring with the equally strong urge to abandon his pursuits and go bury his head in the freezer.
The numbers fluttered in his thoughts. The calculations on the boards were in their last revisions, and hovering just out of reach was the sense of satisfaction that accompanied completing a difficult and rewarding problem. Frowning, Charlie glanced towards the house, big and airy and air-conditioned, then back to the boards. The music audible from his ear buds thumped quietly from down by his ribs.
Without the music playing directly in his ears, he wasn’t deaf to other sounds. He caught a rumble, the sound almost but not quite below the threshold of Charlie’s hearing. It was the sound of a well-tuned engine, of tires rolling over tarmac. Then the distinctive clunk of the gear shifting into park, almost inaudible, and then the sound of the engine died away. Charlie wrapped his fingers around his earphones to listen better, and heard the sound of a door opening then closing again, and slightly scuffing footsteps on the asphalt.
Charlie stuck the ‘phones in his ears, blocking out the sound. At full volume, the music blasted painfully into his head until he managed to grab his iPod and turn it down.
He’d forgotten that it was game day, and his older brother would be coming by for his mandatory weekly visit to catch the score and grab a bite to eat. That meant his father was home, or would be very soon.
Frowning, Charlie turned his attention back to the boards, focusing his entire mind on the problems in front of him. He forcibly ignored the heat and his own growing thirst, pushing through the discomfort until it was nothing but a minor sensation in the very back of his mind.
It seemed like only moments, but it was probably closer to several hours by the time he surfaced from the numbers. The afternoon shadows had lengthened and deepened to twilight, but the heat was still oppressive. Charlie stepped back from the boards and stared at them, feeling that coveted sense of satisfaction. The boards were a mass of unintelligible writing and mathematical shorthand, but the expression itself was complete.
He’d transfer it all onto paper tomorrow, write it out clearly and in common terms, but for now Charlie simply stared at it and smiled to himself. It was good work, beautifully elegant, and there was reason for him to be proud.
The niggling thirst woke up, then. Charlie swallowed dryly and took one last look at his work before setting down the tiny nub of chalk and making for the house, massaging his cramped fingers. The lights were on now, glowing cheerfully in the dying light, and Charlie opened the door.
The rush of cool air was a welcome relief, and Charlie sighed and wiped at his sweaty face with his sleeve.
The game was over by then, and as Charlie walked into the kitchen, his brother Don was just picking up his keys. He glanced up as Charlie entered and nodded to him.
“Hey,” he said, draping his suit jacket over his arm. “How’s it goin’?”
“Good,” Charlie replied. “You?”
“Busy as hell,” Don replied, swinging his keys back and forth in his hand. “Nice to be able to unwind every once in a while.”
“Uh huh,” Charlie mumbled, and opened the fridge to get a bottle of water. He’d expected Don to make his escape after the pleasantries, and was surprised that he was still standing there when Charlie straightened up with his water.
Don was looking around, frowning. Charlie knew that look, like something wasn’t right. It sent a stab of discomfort through him, and he withdrew a step, trying to stay out of Don’s line of sight.
“Seen my sunglasses?” Don asked finally, and Charlie tried to relax. It was just sunglasses. Don wasn’t directing that look at Charlie, not right then.
He released a silent breath and looked around.
“Maybe you left them in your truck?” he asked, and Don shrugged.
“I’ll go check,” he said, and wandered out the door. A tantalizing smell reached Charlie’s nose then, and he turned to look for it. There were three white Chinese takeout boxes on the counter. Charlie reached for one that had the tell-tale brown sauce leaking out and opened it up to reveal his favorite, mushroom chicken.
Outside, Don started the engine of his SUV and backed out, having obviously found his sunglasses. Charlie got a fork and poked it into the cooled chicken, and stood there listening for a moment, picking up the familiar sounds of soft snoring coming from the chair in front of the television.
Charlie forked a bite of chicken into his mouth and wandered into the living room, searching for the remote and flipping through the channels. His father woke up when he plopped down on the couch, snorting and opening his eyes.
“Well, there you are,” he said, sitting up. “I expected to see you a long time ago. Weren’t you melting out there?”
“Yes,” Charlie said, then smiled at his father. “But I finished my calculations. On the paper I’m co-writing with Larry.”
“Really?” Smiling, his father reached out and patted Charlie’s knee. “Congratulations.”
“We’re not totally finished yet,” Charlie shook his head. “I’ve got to put it all down onto paper tomorrow and then we have to actually write the thing. But…it’s good work. I think it’ll get recognition.”
“As usual,” Alan said, voice dry, but he was still smiling.
“Thanks for the food,” Charlie said, digging around in the box in search of the last mushroom.
“You’re welcome,” was the reply. For a moment, the two of them sat in silence, watching the flickering screen flashing highlights of the game. Then Alan said casually, “Did you see Don before he left?”
Charlie looked at the T.V. intently, even though it had gone to a commercial. “Yes,” he said, and didn’t look at his father.
“He’s doing well, I hear,” Alan said conversationally. “Busy.”
“Yes,” Charlie said again, and felt himself locking up. The muscles of his neck went rigid and he stared blankly at the screen.
Alan sighed, a sound filled with weariness. Charlie pried himself loose and turned his head, his neck feeling like it was encased in steel.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” he said, and made sure his voice was very, very calm. Then he stood up and went into the kitchen, where he carefully sat the Chinese container down on the counter, and turned and went silently up the stairs.
He took his time showering and getting dressed, but by the time he shut himself into his room for the night, he still hadn’t heard his father come up the stairs to bed.
He woke when he always did, at three-thirty in the morning. Like clockwork and unaffected by sleeping pills and exhaustion alike, Charlie’s eyes opened every morning as though affixed with an internal alarm clock, when the night was blackest and the quiet deepest.
It was during this time that Charlie let himself remember, let himself feel the weight of a dying woman’s last days hanging over him, and the weight of a sibling’s condemnation.
-----
“A presentation, eh?” Alan asked. He pulled four slices of bread from the bag and put them on the cutting board.
“I told you it would get recognition,” Charlie replied, rubbing wearily at his eyes. The words on the page before him wavered, not quite in focus.
Alan spread mustard onto the bread, following up with roast beef, cheese, lettuce and tomato.
“Still,” he said, “it’s always cause for celebration. You should invite some friends.”
“Larry will already be there,” Charlie said in surprise. “It’s his paper. I’m just co-author.”
“Don’t you want to invite anyone else?” Alan asked, turning towards the table with a plate in each hand.
“Ah…I suppose I could invite some people,” Charlie said dubiously. “Maybe Ray would like to come.”
“You should invite your brother,” Alan said casually, and Charlie felt his stomach dip.
“You don’t think he’ll be busy?” he asked cautiously. He should have seen this coming.
“You should ask,” his father said, looking at him calmly.
“Yeah, all right,” Charlie said, dropping his gaze back to the paper. “I’ll ask him the next time I see him.”
“Good. Now, eat,” Alan ordered, and Charlie obediently picked up the sandwich with one hand and took a bite. He wrote a few more words on the assignment in front of him then slapped it on the graded pile. His stomach still squirmed uncomfortably, a sensation not unfamiliar to Charlie. Frowning, he bent his head lower over his work and focused harder, blocking out all other thoughts as he scribbled through one paper after another until the graded pile was the only pile.
“Done,” he announced, but the kitchen was empty. Shaking his head, Charlie stood up and gathered his papers together, shoving them roughly into his backpack and swinging it over his shoulder on his way out the door. He had twenty-five minutes to get to campus for his afternoon office hours.
-----
“Charlie?” the voice came from Charlie’s open office door, the one he least expected to hear at CalSci at any time. He jumped and his eyes flew towards the door where his older brother stood, a deli bag in one hand and a frown on his face. Charlie whipped his head back towards the whiteboard and hunched his shoulders, scribbling faster.
“Hi, Don,” he mumbled, and he watched distantly as his own handwriting got rapidly illegible. He felt his brother’s hard gaze on his back, burning on his shoulder, and found himself writing faster.
“Dad asked me to bring you something to eat,” Don said, and Charlie nodded without looking up. “He said you forgot your sandwich at home.”
“I’m fine,” Charlie said woodenly, and felt sweat start to bead at his hairline and across his upper lip. He stared harder at the board, trying to focus on the numbers, but Don’s presence was like a brand on his back. He hunched his shoulders against the sensation and wished that Don would leave, already; couldn’t he see that Charlie had a lot of work to do?
“I’ll just leave it here, then,” Don said finally, and put the bag on Charlie’s desk with a papery rustle. Charlie nodded.
“Yes, thanks,” he managed, and felt his stomach twisting. His brother stood there for another long moment, watching him, and Charlie suddenly had a thought.
“Oh,” he said, relieved and suddenly knowing what Don wanted. His hand stopped its frantic scribbling and he put down the piece of chalk, digging his hand into his pocket. He pulled out a handful of ones and fives and several different coins. “How much…?”
“No, Charlie...” Don started to say, but Charlie shoved the entire handful of money at his brother, realizing that he looked a little frantic but unable to help it. The coins fell and rattled against the floor and Don automatically grabbed at the bills to spare them the same fate, and Charlie pulled his hand away and turned back to the board. “Charlie...” Don said warningly, and Charlie twitched and knocked his elbow against the whiteboard. It made a dull thunking noise and the board wobbled. Charlie took a step away, towards the door.
“I’ve got to...sorry...a little busy,” he mumbled, avoiding his brother’s gaze. He slipped outside without pausing and hightailed it down the hallway towards his classroom.
In his classroom he sat down in one of the chairs, feeling overwhelmed and desperately unhappy. It too, was not an unfamiliar sensation to Charlie. He looked down at the wood of the desk, dully noting patterns even in the grain. So many numbers, so much math. Everywhere, no matter where he looked, it was always numbers numbers numbers.
He suddenly found himself on his feet, a marker in his hand. He didn’t usually do work in his classroom because he invariably had to erase it before his next class and rarely had time to rewrite it to paper, but at this point he didn’t want to risk running into Don again.
Instead of working on the fluid dynamics calculations he’d been working on in his office, he found himself writing out an equation based on the growth patterns of trees, with variables of wood and temperature and elevation and anything else he could think of.
It was better than the alternative, and he dove into the numbers and the solace they provided. As he usually did, he blocked out everything, driving his mind into the work, so that it was several minutes before the sensation of being watched yet again pierced his focus.
And again, he felt his heart speed up in response to the presence. He automatically hunched his shoulders, feeling his scribbling speed up, the marker squeaking against the whiteboard. His eyes darted rapidly to the side, trying to get a glimpse of the person without losing his rhythm. A shadow moved against the wall, and Charlie hunched his shoulders harder, eyes flitting from the board to the shadow and back again. Then a dark-haired young woman came into his field of vision, and Charlie felt himself abruptly relax.
“Hi, Amita,” he mumbled, and let the marker slow against the board, his handwriting smoothing out.
“Hi Charlie,” Amita replied. Frowning, Charlie paused for a moment, thinking, then scribbled for a moment more before stepping back and capping the marker. He turned to Amita, looking at her questioningly.
“What’s up?” he asked, eyeing her curiously. She was still staring at him, a strange expression on her face. Charlie frowned at her in confusion, and she shook her head slightly, as though shaking off unpleasant thoughts. She smiled at him and he was reminded vaguely of when she’d first been assigned to him for thesis work. That was years ago now, though, and Charlie didn’t usually have much to do with Amita anymore. He knew she had taken on a junior professor position and had started working on a second Ph.D in physics, but her work took her mostly out of Charlie’s path nowadays.
He blinked at her and waited for her to speak up. She was looking at the ground now, a strange expression on her face.
“Amita?” Charlie prompted, furrowing his brow. She looked up at him, smiled, and dropped her gaze again, looking uncomfortable. Charlie looked at the board longingly, then back to Amita. She was staring at him again, studying him. Charlie shifted uneasily, confused.
“You know,” she said softly, “I think I’ve got it, actually. I just realized...”
“Oh, okay,” Charlie said, relieved, and stood up. “If you need help, though,” he said distractedly, picking up his marker. “You can always ask.”
“Of course,” Amita said, and something about her tone was quiet and sad. Charlie glanced at her in surprise, but Amita smiled at him then and Charlie, furrowing his brow, smiled bemusedly back, one hand still holding the marker to the board. “I’ll see you later, Charlie,” Amita said, pulling her backpack over her shoulder. Charlie blinked.
“All right,” he said slowly, and watched as Amita left. He listened to her receding footsteps for a moment before shaking his head clear and turning his attention back to the equations.
He didn’t return to his office until the end of the day to fetch his books and laptop. He stopped in the doorway and stared at his desk, frowning a little and feeling his stomach roll uncomfortably. The deli bag sat where Don had put it, untouched, and beside it was a wad of crumpled bills tossed carelessly on the desk. Charlie sidled uncomfortably past his desk and grabbed his laptop without looking at the desk again, packing up hurriedly and walking out the door, locking up behind him.
-----
“Charlie.”
Charlie ignored the voice with the ease of long practice, mouthing silently to himself. He held one hand up to the chalkboard, the other held a notebook folded open, filled to the brim with notes. Without looking at the board, he scribbled down a series of numbers on it from the book, then flipped the page.
“Charlie.” This time, a hand accompanied the voice. It took hold of Charlie’s wrist and stilled it where it rested against the board. Irritated, Charlie looked up at his father.
“Dad, I’m a little busy right now,” he said, frowning. “I’ve got a lot of reworking to do on this line of thought, and - ”
“It’ll wait ‘till tomorrow,” Alan interrupted, and gently pulled the notebook out of Charlie’s hand.
“Dad,” Charlie protested, reaching for it, but his father held it out of reach. Charlie glared at him, fuming. He wasn’t six anymore, he didn’t need his father to tell him when to stop doing something - but he knew from experience that there was nothing he could do. When his father wanted him to stop, Charlie ended up stopping whether he liked it or not.
Spinning around, Charlie stalked towards the house, scowling. He slammed through the kitchen door and slumped in a chair at the table, still frowning.
“I thought we’d have steak tonight,” Alan said casually, coming in after him. “Thought we’d use the grill.”
“Isn’t it a little hot to barbeque?” Charlie snipped, knowing he was being childish. He tilted his head up to look at his father.
“It’ll cool down,” Alan said implacably. “In the meantime, go take a shower. The wet chalk look doesn’t do it for you.”
Charlie blinked and looked at his clothes, lined with white dust and damp with sweat. He grinned down at himself without meaning to and got to his feet, wandering away up the stairs.
His father handed him a beer when he returned, and Charlie paused, blinking at the bottle in his hand. He looked up at his father, who looked back at him with a challenging expression. Charlie held back his automatic lecture on how many brain cells were killed with every consumed beer and twisted off the cap instead, wondering what his father meant by the gesture.
“Get the steak seasonings, will you?” Alan asked, balancing a plate and handful of utensils in his hands. Charlie got up obediently and pulled the seasonings from the cupboard, following his father out into the darkening yard, where the grill was on and warming up. Charlie handed off the seasonings and flopped down into one of the lawn chairs, nursing his beer and letting his eyes rove aimlessly.
“Your brother’s going to come for dinner,” his father said suddenly, and Charlie turned to look at him.
“Okay,” he said, frowning at his father’s behavior. Alan looked…strange. He was avoiding Charlie’s gaze, staring down at the steaks on the grill, fiddling with the tongs and seasonings even though the steaks had already been seasoned and didn’t yet need to be turned.
He looked…guilty.
Charlie frowned harder and sat up slightly, feeling his shoulder muscles tense without really knowing why. He darted a look to the side, towards the koi pond, where numbers moved in the patterns that the fish swam, and felt the urge to go watch, and take solace in that which rarely changed.
“I’d like you to stay, Charlie,” Alan said suddenly, and he still didn’t look over at Charlie.
“Stay?” Charlie asked, confused.
“Yes, I’d like you to stay. You know…eat with us. Stick around afterwards. Play a game of chess with your brother.”
“Don doesn’t like playing chess,” Charlie said blankly.
“What are you talking about?” Alan asked, finally turning to look in Charlie’s direction. “He loves chess.”
“No he doesn’t,” Charlie insisted. “He doesn’t like chess. He never plays chess.”
Alan stared at him for a long moment, then turned back to the grill, and Charlie sat there and longed to go visit the koi.
The sound of a vehicle turning into the driveway broke the strange standoff that Charlie had found himself in. They couldn’t see Don’s SUV from where they were out in the backyard, but Charlie could hear the sound of the car door closing, and a few seconds later the front door opened, and his brother’s voice called a greeting.
“Out back, Donnie!” Alan called, and a moment later Don stuck his head out, a beer in one hand.
“Hey there, Charlie,” he said right away, and Charlie’s muscles twitched.
“Hi,” he said, and tensely settled back into his seat. Don came over and kicked out another lawn chair.
“Smells good,” he said, sitting down and leaning back with a sigh. Charlie bent his head and fiddled with the label on his beer. “How’ve you been?”
Charlie scratched idly at the glue residue left behind by his peeling.
“Charlie?” Don asked, and Charlie twitched again, and looked up.
“Yeah?” he replied, lifting his head.
“How’ve you been?” Don said again, and Charlie fumbled for a moment in his surprise.
“I’m good,” he managed. “Sorry…I - ” Charlie stopped talking and felt himself flush. “Anyway, I’m good,” he finished lamely. “You?”
“Yeah,” Don replied, nodding, and he stretched his legs out in front of him with a groan of relief. “Just wrapped up a big one.” Don looked down at his lap and fell silent. Charlie looked at him, felt the air of melancholy that his brother wore. Lines etched into his brother’s face were deeper than he’d ever seen them before…or maybe just deeper than he’d ever noticed. Charlie felt a rush of concern, but knew better than to express it. Don wouldn’t appreciate it.
From where he stood in front of the grill, Alan cleared his throat, the sound clear and deliberate. Charlie looked up in time to see his father give Don a strange look.
Charlie saw his brother shift slightly out of the corner of his eye, and glanced over. Don was looking a little awkward.
“Hey, Chuck,” Don said, and Charlie thought that his brother had said more to him in the last five minutes then he had during the last three months.
“Yeah?” Charlie asked warily.
“One of the other teams in the office, Agent Wilson’s - they’re working on a money laundering case. Lots of numbers and math. They were wondering if you could give them a little bit of…assistance. Like you did with that IRS extortion case, remember?”
“They want my help on another case?” Charlie asked doubtfully.
“Yeah. The money’s being ferried all over creation and we thought…some sort of predictive…thing…”
Charlie stared at him, frowning. Three workable applications jumped into his mind immediately, but Charlie didn’t try to explain them to Don. He’d learned that lesson many, many years ago.
“Yeah, all right,” Charlie said slowly, frowning. “I’ll - I could help.”
“Great,” Don said, and he exchanged another look with their Dad. “Thanks, buddy.”
“Sure,” Charlie mumbled, and tried to figure out why his father was looking guilty again.
-----
“This way,” Don said, turning left inside the doors. He moved towards the security gates on the first floor. Charlie followed him, frowning and looking around. With the extortion case, Don had brought data home with him, so Charlie had expected the same to happen now - but this wasn’t Don’s case. It wasn’t Don’s case, so Charlie was consulting in an official capacity and thus, required to come into the office in person.
He’d never been to Don’s office before.
His backpack dragged uncomfortably on his shoulders, weighted with his laptop and various books. He slipped one arm out of it and swung it around to hold in front of him, and found himself clutching it as they reached the security gates and waited in the short line.
Don looked back at him, frowning.
“You okay?” he asked quietly, and Charlie pulled his gaze away from the gun at the security guard’s hip.
“Huh? Oh…yes. I’m fine.” Charlie frowned for a moment, then asked, “Do I not look okay?”
Don didn’t answer, just nodded his head at the guard and showed his and Charlie’s I.D.’s. Charlie followed his brother into the building. They rode the elevator to the floor of the Violent Crimes Unit, with two main squads and all of their attending personnel.
The floor was filled with the sounds of rustling paper, low-toned murmurs, printers, fax machines, staplers, and ringing phones. Charlie followed Don through the crowded room towards his team, feeling like he was swimming through the noise. He wished desperately for his iPod, buried in his backpack and momentarily out of reach.
They made their way toward a desk on which a familiar woman leaned, tall and honey-haired and sipping from a coffee cup. Her eyes were focused across the room. Charlie followed her gaze, fastened his own onto some sort of interview room, enclosed in glass. There were blinds to block one’s visual into the room, but they were hanging wide open, and Charlie could easily see inside.
There was another familiar face inside, a muscular African-American man with a neatly trimmed goatee.
Like the woman, Charlie had seen this man before, for dinner at the house. They’d both introduced themselves to him before he’d made his escape to the garage; Megan Reeves and David Sinclair.
Reeves looked up at them as they approached. Her eyes landed on Charlie and she smiled widely at him, pushing herself upright from where she leaned against the desk. Behind her, another man looked up, green eyes meeting Charlie’s own. Was this another one of Don’s team? He didn’t know this one.
“Hey, Charlie,” Reeves greeted, still smiling.
“You know Agent Reeves, right Charlie?” Don asked behind him, and Charlie halfway turned to bring Don into his peripheral vision.
“Yes,” Charlie nodded. “Nice to see you again,” he said to Agent Reeves.
“You too.”
“Right,” Don said, and indicated the man behind him. “That’s Agent Granger, I don’t think you’ve ever been introduced.”
“Hi, Charlie,” Granger said, coming over and offering his hand. Charlie automatically reached out and shook it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Don’s left fingers twitch, and Charlie jumped and released Agent Granger’s hand, eyes going immediately to his brother, who was watching him closely. Don was frowning.
“Charlie’s here to help out with the case Wilson’s team is working on,” he said after a moment.
“The money laundering?” Megan asked curiously, and Don nodded.
“Wilson’s over here, Charlie,” he said, beckoning Charlie after him.
“Nice to meet you, Charlie,” Colby Granger said, and Charlie nodded before following his brother through the bull pen, towards another man in a suit talking on his cell phone. The agent spotted them coming, said a rapid goodbye, and snapped the phone shut.
“Agent Eppes,” the man said, stepping towards them.
“Agent Wilson,” Don greeted. “This is my brother, Dr. Charles Eppes.”
“Nice to meet you, Dr. Eppes.” Agent Wilson said, nodding at Charlie politely. “We’re glad to have your help. Thanks for coming.”
“Sure,” Charlie replied.
“These are the case files,” Wilson began, turning towards his desk and picking up a stack of manila folders and offering them to Charlie.
He let his backpack slide from his hand in order to accept and flipped open the top folder, rifling rapidly through the files. Numbers glared off the page at him, catching his attention, and his mind automatically started analyzing patterns.
“Will you be all right here, Charlie?” Don asked, and Charlie nodded his head, already deep in thought. “I’ll be right over there, all right? At my desk.”
“Right,” Charlie said, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. Don hovered beside him for a moment and even lifted a hand as though he were going to pat Charlie on the back. Charlie froze in disbelief, saw Don hesitate and withdraw, and finally turn away.
Letting out a relieved breath, Charlie looked up and met Wilson’s gaze. “Do you have a whiteboard?” he asked, feeling more centered now that Don had gone away. Wilson nodded and Charlie followed him to another glass-enclosed room, empty of people but filled with chairs and a table. One glass wall was dominated by a rolling whiteboard. Calmer now, Charlie put his backpack down on the table and pulled out his laptop. While it was booting up, he started paging through the folders in earnest. After a moment, he picked up a marker and started transferring data onto the board, where it would be easier to start the preliminary calculations.
“Are you all right on your own, then?”
“Hmm?” Charlie glanced up. “Oh - yes, I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
“Come get me if you have any questions,” Wilson said, and he looked slightly uncomfortable, as though not sure what to think of Charlie, or how to deal with him.
Charlie noticed the other man’s discomfort only peripherally. He was used to that reaction, had gotten it all his life, and couldn’t bring himself to care anymore. He nodded his head politely at Wilson and concentrated on the data in front of him, flipping rapidly through the files.
His eyes automatically picked out and caught on the numbers. One after the other, he began plugging them into a basic equation he’d written on the board and felt himself sink into his natural focus.
He was finding out that he didn’t like the FBI offices. He didn’t like the feeling of discomfort it gave him to be in what he’d always thought of as his brother’s space…but at least he could think about the numbers. The numbers made everything else go away, and he made himself think of nothing else until everything around him grew distant and unimportant.
Far away, Charlie could pick out Don’s voice from the other voices in the room, raised slightly in frustration. He couldn’t make out the words.
Somewhere, someone dropped a stack of papers, the sound dimly registering with Charlie, a sudden papery smack and the subsequent cursing.
Then there was the sound of shattering glass and Charlie was suddenly deafened by noise, so loud and startling that his entire body jolted with the strength of them. Almost instantly, a hole appeared in the white board beside Charlie’s head.
Even as Charlie spun around, his mind was automatically calculating the speed and strength of the projectile, landing just eight point two inches from his head. When his eyes took in the tableau outside the glass-cased room, he found he wasn’t surprised. Or maybe it happened too fast for surprise.
There was a man, hand held out before him, gun gripped in his fist. His left arm was wrapped around another man’s throat, cutting off his air, using him as a shield.
Charlie’s breath caught in his lungs, because somehow he hadn’t connected the explosive energy of gunfire with the fact that someone was holding and operating that same gun.
There were people shouting. Cries of pain. More glass shattering somewhere, raining down onto the floor. In the distance, someone yelled “Stay down, stay down!”
With a great surge of will, Charlie broke his mental standoff and turned, instinctively reaching for his laptop, his breath catching in his lungs, blood pounding in his ears. “Down, down!” someone shouted again, and Charlie took the advice, ducking under the table on his belly. More gunshots, in clusters, deafening in the enclosed space. Bang bang. Bangbangbang. Like the cannon fire in movies. Charlie felt the reports deep in his bones.
Still more glass shattered. A computer sparked angrily, sizzling. One more gunshot, and Charlie felt something hit him in the side of the head, like the sting of a wasp.
It was like falling. Like hitting the ground with all your weight and nothing to catch you. Abrupt. Stunning.
Charlie felt himself sag, his senses disconnecting. He didn’t lose consciousness - instead, everything jumbled together. Sight, sound, and sensation all bled into each other. He fell back, away from the sensation overload.
And he found himself counting.
One, two, three, four, five.
Sixseveneight, nearly simultaneous.
Don’s voice, distant, shouting something inaudible. Charlie’s left fingers twitched, close to his face. There was the sensation of…slickness.
Wet. Something wet beneath his fingers.
A thready, tremulous realization slowly trickled into his mind. Movement. His eyes were open, had been open the whole time, and someone was kneeling in front of him.
That same someone yelled, the sounds wavering and swimming, indistinct. Charlie could feel his own lungs laboring, air rushing in and out of his body. Still, his heart pounded, thundering in his chest, blood rushing in his ears and threatening to drown out all else.
And still, Charlie counted. Footsteps, rapid and uneven.
A shadow appeared - a second figure, collapsing to their knees in front of him.
Don. It was Don. Don’s footsteps. Don’s shadow. Don’s voice.
“Charlie, oh my god, Charlie.”
Hands. On his face, on his neck. Someone farther away - across the room? - shouting in panic. Charlie blinked once, slowly. The occasional clear sentence pierced the cacophony of unintelligible sounds, the shouting, the thunder of his own deafening heartbeat.
“Charlie, stay with me. Stay with me. Charlie?”
Charlie’s lungs pumped air in and out. His heart hammered too hard, too fast, fluttering in his chest.
A minute tremble passed through his body, from shoulders and arms down to his legs. Something like exhaustion that didn’t quite qualify.
He closed his eyes.
-----
Noise. Voices. Shouting.
His muscles trembled. He couldn’t stop them, couldn’t open his eyes. He twitched and tried to struggle against whatever was holding him down. Everything wavered, indistinct.
It was hard to breathe.
He dragged in a desperate breath of air, and someone moaned.
Him?
Hands. On his arms, on his legs, on his cheeks.
He dragged in another breath.
-----
“…semi-conscious…”
Charlie tried to open his mouth to talk. He choked and coughed, and another wave of weakness rolled over him, causing his arms and legs to tremble.
“…get him…surgery…”
He started to struggle, confusion swirling in his mind. Nothing made sense.
“He’s combative…!”
“No sedation…”
“Charlie…Charlie? Can you hear me? My name is Dr. Stevens, you’re in the hospital. It’s all right, you’re safe. Calm down, Charlie.”
Charlie lashed out with all his strength, and the movement sent the world spinning violently. He felt his stomach roil and heave, tried to turn onto his side as he gagged. Hands grabbed at his arms and back and rolled him onto his side as he threw up.
Then things wavered and went away again.
-----
Perfume.
A dream?
He forgot, just for a moment.
Mom?
-----
He let out a breath of air through moving lips, a movement intended as a cry that emerged as a moan, almost too low to hear.
It didn’t matter. Everything was wrong. She was gone, she hadn’t ever been here. It had been a dream, and the hand on his forearm smelled of mustard and seasonings, not perfume.
Charlie tried again, tried to make his voice audible, moved his mouth in the word that came easier and more naturally than his own name.
“Mom.”
The hand on his arm stroked down, gently. But it was wrong, too, because it smelled of seasonings and mustard, not perfume.
-----
The sensation bled into his mind slowly, like water seeping through cracks in stone.
Something about his fingers. They were…tied together?
No.
Cologne.
A hand.
Don.
There was…white? Above him. It swam with the rainbow colors of sunspots on his eyes, but he thought it was white.
Slowly, Charlie became aware that his eyes were open. He was staring at the ceiling, and his brother Don was holding his hand.
-----
Charlie remembered. He’d been ten. Don was fifteen.
Charlie hadn’t started high school yet. Wouldn’t for another year.
His brother had taught him how to play basketball.
He breathed deep, and for a moment he forgot. He forgot that seventeen years had passed.
“Donnie?” he asked, and opened his eyes, turned his head. Not Donnie, but Don. Don’s face swam before him, just out of focus. Charlie let his eyes rove slowly over his brother’s face.
“Hey, buddy,” Don whispered. “How're you feeling?”
Charlie didn’t know, and didn’t understand. Confusion was predominant, and he was tired.
He didn’t answer.
-----
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