Numb3rs Fic: Stages of Grief 2/2
Title: Stages of Grief
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and storylines are the property of their writers and producers. No money is being made from this work of amateur fiction and no copyright infringement is intended.
Lenth: 2,841 words of 5,119
A/N: I wrote this story as a one-shot, but Livejournal's being a dick and making me post it in two parts. WTF, LJ?
Summary: Alan dies. Charlie copes, in his own way.
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There was a long high-strung pause and then Don murmured in a voice like broken glass, “Charlie…”
Part Two
Miles later, Charlie absently merged onto the five heading north up over the Grapevine. He didn’t know where he was going and didn’t even really give it any thought, but north was as good a direction as any, and it would be a while yet before he had to make any decisions about anything.
On the other side of the Grapevine, he drifted dreamily down into deep brown smog. Arvin, the armpit of the United States, that funny little pocket where the winds deposit everyone else’s airborne junk. Today it was particularly bad, and Charlie remembered dimly that there was a nearby grass fire, adding its gray ash to the dirt brown smog. Within minutes, Charlie couldn’t see the sloping Grapevine anymore.
Ahead of him, the five freeway stretched out endlessly, multiple-laned and straight as an arrow, and the compass in Charlie’s car said he was headed dead north.
Charlie changed lanes to avoid a massive semi, moving slower this time and remembering to use his blinker. A word on the truck’s side flashed by, and he took absent note of it. Peterbilt, it said, and then it was gone as Charlie’s Prius glided past and left it behind, and he never noticed the missing u.
Eventually he left Arvin and all the smog and smoke behind, the air and horizons slowly clearing as he made his way through the expansive golden-grassed fields, past white metallic windmills, half of which were no longer operational. When the intersection came up, Charlie took the ninety-nine before he even realized there was an option. When he realized it, he couldn’t bring himself to care either way, because the ninety-nine still headed basically north.
Charlie found himself grateful for his hybrid, because he was terrified of stopping for gas and having that horrible choking feeling return. Just the thought of it made his insides shake, and his mind shied away and fixated firmly on the fact that it would be hours yet before he needed to stop. And for those hours, Charlie relaxed back against his seat and watched the scenery flash by.
-----
As he drove, he calmed. It didn’t seem to urgent that he get to where he was going as fast as possible, and so on a whim, somewhere just south of Sacramento, Charlie took a country exit and drove east for a little while, following the curve of the road as it turned south and then east again. The sun was setting by then, bathing the dry grass in liquid light, and when Charlie found a road that turned dead north again, he took it. It went past a field packed with goats, and Charlie wondered curiously what anyone would want with so many goats. Then the pasture ended and a new one began, this one spotted with cattle, and on his right he passed a sign advertising a horse ranch, and then after that, a field full of ostriches.
Charlie blinked at that and craned his head over his shoulder for a moment to get a longer look, but then the field was too far behind him and he turned back to stare at the road.
It ended a moment later, intersecting with a road that stretched east and west, and he turned left, then north again, staying on country roads. He eventually meandered into town and idled at a red light by a gas station, and felt steady enough now to possibly get some gas. He took a left and then another left into the gas station lot and pulled up at a pump.
It was noticeably hotter here, and intensely drier. The heat seared his throat and dried out his mouth and lungs, and he cleared his throat a little as he swiped his credit card and started the gas pumping.
Walking on slightly unsteady legs, Charlie wandered into the store and used the bathroom and purchased a bottle of water. He thought somewhat vaguely about buying a bag of chips or something, but the world went snapshot again and the next thing he knew, he was back in the car and headed west again, his bottle of water in his lap but no chips to be found.
He found the freeway and headed north again, more comfortable now that he’d used the restroom and gotten gas without having a panic attack, but what he was leaving behind loomed ominously behind his fragile veneer of calmness and threatened to overwhelm him if he tried to turn around.
So he continued north, past Sacramento, and he passed a sign that said 50 to 80 West, San Francisco, and before he even thought about it he’d merged onto the fifty and then the eighty and was headed west to San Francisco as full dark fell, and as he left the city lights behind he noticed vaguely, that the stars were noticeably brighter here than in the light-polluted city of L.A.
He thought of Larry, and thought that he’d like the stars here.
Weariness started to creep up on him then, heavier than it ought to be. His leg started to tremble a little against the gas pedal and he remembered - finally - about cruise control. It made driving easier but not any safer, and as exhaustion weighed down his eyelids, he noticed that he was no longer driving in a straight line. When an off ramp appeared advertising food and lodging, he gratefully took it.
He pulled into a lot at a Traveler’s Lodge and stared through the glass doors into the cheerful, brightly lit lobby and that achy, shivery feeling started up in his belly, threatening to pull him under the water again. Charlie opened his mouth and drew in a sharp, violent breath, shoved his car back into drive and pulled around to the back side of the lot. There he parked and turned off the car, wedged himself against the car door with his arms crossed tight against his chest, and let himself drift off.
That heavy exhaustion was enough to pull him into the sleep of dying things, without dreams.
He woke stiff and cramped several hours before dawn, too uncomfortable to go back to sleep. He sat there for a moment, thinking about getting out an stretching his legs, but the thought made that shivery feeling come back as though the several hours’ rest had put him behind schedule.
Instead, Charlie turned on the car and pulled out of the dark parking lot and back onto the freeway, his pounding heart demanding he make up lost time.
But by now, his head was aching. Caffeine withdrawal, he noted absently, and the thought brought the craving to the forefront of his mind, bringing with it the thought of breakfast, or perhaps lunch, or dinner, since he’d missed both of those.
There was a sign welcoming him to Valejo, and beneath that, a little box with Denny’s inside it, and it was coming up on six-thirty so he took that exit and made his way inside the restaurant as the sun halfway cleared the horizon. He sat in a booth and ordered coffee and a side of toast and a side of scrambled eggs.
When they came, he sat there with that shivery feeling growing in his belly because his Dad had made him scrambled eggs just yesterday morning, and Charlie felt his eyes start to sting as his chest tightened, and he downed the scalding coffee in several gulps, burning his mouth and throat and stomach as he swallowed past a throat tightened with the beginnings of tears.
The pain made his eyes water, but that was okay. That wasn’t crying, so if he sniffled and cleared his throat hoarsely as he stuffed a mouthful of eggs in his mouth, he could blame the coffee.
But there was something else bothering him too, a thought that had niggled irritatingly for hours now, popping up at inopportune times and bringing that awful feeling with it…but it refused to give up and go away so when the waitress came by with his bill, he asked her to direct him to the payphone.
He had to do at least this, even if he didn’t want to. Even if the water was threatening to wash over his head and steal his breath. Even if he had no idea what he was going to say.
He dialed, the numbers coming without hesitation even though he’d memorized them once, years ago. Charlie tended to remember numbers.
He held the handset to his ear, ignoring the minute trembling of the set.
Don answered on the second ring, “Eppes,” spoken through a mouthful of gravel.
“Don,” Charlie said, and he wasn’t surprised at his own voice. High and cracking and shivering with strain. “Hey,” he continued, and he heard Don take a deep breath and expel it in what sounded like a mostly-voiceless cry. “Charlie…!” Don said, whisper thin and reedy, but Charlie talked over him, wildly and out of control, describing the ostriches and the goats and asking his brother if he knew why anyone would want so many goats, but he didn’t wait for the answer, barreling on before his brother could get out even a syllable. Words poured from his mouth, facts about the U.S. Armed Forces and their mottos, about Arvin and the funny winds and all the smog, and Dodge trucks with their taillight guards shaped like rams.
He talked until the phone beeped at him and kept talking as he searched his pockets for more change, talked while he deposited it, rambled on about San Francisco until finally, he petered out because Don hadn’t tried to talk in several minutes.
There was a long high-strung pause and then Don murmured in a voice like broken glass, “Charlie…”
And his voice was so agonized, so broken, that Charlie’s trembling hand lost its grip on the phone and dropped it. He swooped down and snatched it up but it took three tries before his shaking hands deposited the phone back in its cradle.
Then the water rushed over his head, and Charlie turned and staggered out of the restaurant, distantly grateful that he’d already thought to pay.
And he’d intended to stop in San Francisco, but by the time the snapshots smoothed out into realtime again, he’d already passed it.
-----
That night he stopped in a parking lot somewhere before the northernmost California border, behind a Super 8, and fell asleep at the wheel again. He dreamed vaguely and awoke with the word funeral on his lips, and had the awful thought that he was probably missing his own father’s funeral, but that thought brought the water rushing in and he fled north again, snapshots breaking the world into snatches.
When he came back to himself he was in Oregon, and he turned the radio on for the first time since he’d started out, found a familiar song and sang along, forcing the words out through a tight throat and ignoring the cracks his voice gave, and sang because the alternative was screaming.
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, he pulled off the road and sat idling. Along the way, the dry brown grass of California had evolved into green, and the air had developed enough moisture that it didn’t dry your throat out within seconds. Trees lined the road, bright and green and full, and the sky was a deep and blinding blue, the white blue that’s too bright to look at directly.
It was beautiful here, and Charlie numbly turned off the car and got out. He stood there for a long time, just looking around.
It really was beautiful.
Then, all at once, the water was back. This time it was different - the water felt hot. Scalding. A flush ran through Charlie’s entire body, and sweat broke out on his forehead and upper lip. He suddenly hated Oregon, hated the green grass and the pretty trees and the bright sky. Furious, he stooped and grabbed a fistful of the gravel shoulder and flung it away, using all the strength in his arm. He felt the strain and relished it, scooping up more and more and hurling it as hard as he could, trying to stave off the scream he could feel building up in his chest.
But he’d been holding it in too long and it couldn’t be held any longer. It tore out of his throat with searing pain, full-strength but hoarse still, dragged from the depths of his chest raw and bloody and painful.
Enraged, Charlie grabbed more rocks and flung them, screaming hysterically, his lungs heaving for each breath and expelling it at the top of his lungs and as hard as he could.
Until, finally, the energy fled. The anger left him, and Charlie slumped to his knees with his hands over his face, air escaping him in breathless moans through a throat that felt ragged. He swallowed dryly against it.
There was silence then. No birds chirping, having all been startled away by his fit. The wind barely rustled the leaves. The only clear sound was the shifting of Charlie’s knees on the gravel, discomfort fighting its way into his mind.
He dropped his hands and took a deep breath, his chest hitching painfully, then staggered wearily to his feet and back to the car.
He drove until he reached a town, then pulled off into the parking lot of a motel even though it was only early afternoon. This time he paid for a room. He immediately took a shower when he got inside.
Then he collapsed into bed and slept.
-----
His fit seemed to have torn something away from him. Everything seemed closer somehow. More real. He felt like he’d lost whatever was guarding him from the world. He felt rubbed raw, and as though the world were pressing too close.
He got in the car again and turned north, but only drove for a few minutes. He pulled off the road again and just sat there, with the engine off and the windows down, not thinking about anything. He looked at his digital watch and noted the day.
It had been four days.
He started up the car and turned around.
-----
He left the music off from then on, listening instead to the gentle hum of the car around him and the soft hiss of the tires on the road. He still felt tenderized, beaten down and rubbed until all his skin was worn away. He felt like he was bleeding.
He kept driving south, stopping when he was tired or hungry or needed to go to the bathroom - but there was something drawing him along. An invisible tether that he’d stretched to the maximum, and like a rubber band it had rebounded, drawing him home faster and harder than ever.
With every mile, his veneer wore away more and more, until that shivery, drowning feeling was a constant sensation in his stomach, growing as he passed San Francisco without stopping, ballooning as he passed Sacramento and the ostriches without getting off the freeway. It enveloped him by the time he reached Arvin and started up the Grapevine.
He drove down into the L.A. basin seven days after he’d left, feeling like he was going to pass out or throw up but physically unable to stop as he navigated the familiar freeways towards Pasadena.
It was early morning. He’d driven all night. Don wouldn’t have started work yet, but Charlie didn’t bother going to his brother’s apartment. He wouldn’t be there.
It was almost eight o’clock when he pulled up in front of his father’s - his own - Craftsman.
He saw the blinds shift in the kitchen window as he shut off the engine and opened the door, and then Don was flying out of the house as Charlie stumbled from the car on feet he suddenly couldn’t feel.
Don was barefoot and in sweatpants, wearing a plaid button down that wasn’t buttoned and instead flew out behind him like a cape. His face was gray and stubbly and lined with exhaustion and grief in the early morning light, his hair tangled and mussed, flattened on one side. That didn’t matter to Charlie, who could feel the swell of anguish welling up in his throat, even before Don got close enough for Charlie to see the sheen of tears in his dark eyes.
Don never hesitated, grabbing him up as he stumbled. His arm crooked around Charlie’s neck and pulled his head roughly into Don’s shoulder, warm and slightly sweaty, his other arm wrapping tightly around Charlie’s ribcage. Charlie could feel Don’s rough stubble against his temple as his brother laid his cheek on Charlie’s hair.
Don shuddered then, sighing, and Charlie could hear tears in that sigh. And finally, finally…Charlie buried his face in his brother’s chest and felt his own anguish escape in a shuddering sob, and let the tears come hot and fast against Don’s shoulder, and Don held on to him like he was never, ever letting go.
Fin