Before the Chalkboard
Disclaimer: I own plot. CBS owns characters.
Summary: ChibiFic: This is my take on where Charlie's intuitive flow of equations may have ended up before blackboards became a regular feature of his life.
Note: fic has been edited for more accurate dating. Initial set 1990, which I realised is too late so I pushed it back five years.
The year is 1985. Don and Charlie are in grade 9. Margaret is helping to settle a divorce case involving one of the local celebrity families. She had vowed to stay away from the legal pursuits of Hollywood but found the money too enticing as the cost of textbooks and bus fairs for her two sons took their toll. Not to mention the ridiculous amounts of food that was being consumed. But they were growing boys after all; one hitting his growth sprout, the other prepubescent but consuming just as much for brain power. Alan is helping to renovate City Hall for its centenary anniversary.
"Hey Don have you seen my design papers?" Alan asked as he came through the door.
"Nope." Don replied, not even looking up from his homework load.
"Where's your brother?"
"Out the back, but er… don't go in there because if he's doing one of his experiments, he'll chuck a mental as soon as you walk in just in case you wreck something."
"Well I need to find my papers." Alan headed out the back anyway, after having searched most of the house.
The garage was just as messy as it would be in Charlie's CalSci days minus the presence of chalkboards. Charts and diagrams of all sorts filled the walls; the periodic table, logarithm charts, Key dates of Nazi Occupation during World War II, and the lyrics to the American Anthem. God only knows what Charlie was doing with all those items. And, as with Charlie's CalSci days, there were mountains of boxes stashed in the corner. The little wooden table had been moved from the centre of the room to a spot next to the door and in its place several dozens of empty cans filled the floor space in two neat rows. A small notebook lay beside the cans and many old books and papers were shoved under the table. Alan gave up trying to figure out what Charlie was doing with the cans.
He picked up the little notebook and took a peek inside. There were innumerable equations and formulae of all sorts scribbled in no particular order with a brief title indicating their application, which ranged from the natural sciences to electronics to a brief mathematical working of how to sort out your underwear drawer.
Before long, Charlie came rushing into the garage holding an assortment of geometrical instruments that he had forgotten.
"Dad!" He rushed toward his father in a panic and literally wrestled the notebook out of his father's hands.
Alan was taken aback. "Charlie! You scared the hell out of me."
"Don't touch that!" Charlie yelled, pointing animatedly at the cans on the ground.
"I wasn't even standing anywhere near those shells of caffeinated beverages." Alan leaped aside avoiding what would have been a crash tackle by Charlie. "Have you seen my design papers?"
"Oh…" Charlie blushed, embarrassed.
He had been so eager to clear the floor space that he had dumped everything and anything under the table. He suspected that he may have seen and overlooked Alan's plans for City Hall. He bent down and disappeared under the table. Books and papers flew out dangerously close to his precious configuration of coke cans. Alan decided to move them out of the way just in case Charlie gave another piercing screech upon seeing this. A few moments later, Charlie found the plans, though a bit squashed but still reasonably intact. He scrolled them up and handed them to his father.
"Thanks son." Alan grabbed the scrolls and took off back to the house to finish his project, leaving Charlie to stare at his cans in contemplation.
That night, Margaret came home slightly late for dinner, which included lasagna by Alan, and burnt chips by Don.
"Charlie! Dinner's getting cold!" Margaret yelled out the back door.
"Coming."
A few moments later, All four members of the Eppes Family were seated around the dining table.
"How was school today boys?" Margaret asked as she sprinkled some salt on the potato chips.
"I was thinking of trying out for the baseball team." Said Don, helping himself to some of the lasagna.
"That's great." Said Alan, encouragingly. "Do you need help with practice? I'm telling ya, I make a pretty good bowler."
"How about you Charlie?" Margaret turned to her youngest son.
"Lousy." He replied, truthfully.
"It'll get better darling." Said his mother soothingly.
Charlie doubted it. She had been saying that to him for most of his high school years. He just had to face the fact that high school just wasn't the best place for a ten year old to be.
"How was work dear?" Alan looked up at his wife.
"Don't even get me started. The way the Whitneys talk about their children, it's like they were just another commodity, like their beach house and shares." Margaret shook her head. "How did you go with the reconstruction designs?"
"Well, not as far as I would have liked, owing to the fact that someone has drawn some crazy geometric designs over my layout along with some incomprehensible scribbles that look vaguely like trigonometric equations." Alan replied, eyeing Charlie.
Don coughed into his lasagna and then hiccupped.
"Sorry dad." Little Charlie replied, barely above a whisper. "It's just that… it's just that your calculations were a little off."
"I appreciate you trying to help Charlie, but there's no need to redesign my plan for me." Alan sighed. "And what in the world does Pascal's triangle have to do with my measurements for the ceiling?"
"Um, quite a lot actually." Charlie, looked just about geared up to try to explain his actions… the mathematical way.
"Hey dad, just let him pass this time. I really don't want to hear about Pascal's Triangle." Don looked about ready to bolt from the table.
"Besides, you haven't seen what he did to my recipe books yet." Margaret smiled.
"He what?" Alan cried out in a panic.
"I was just… I noticed some things that could be improved." Said Charlie, weakly.
"But those are library books!" Said Alan outraged.
"That's probably why he used pencil instead of biro." Said Don, who had had some science books that he'd borrowed for a school project defaced as well.
"Alright, from now on, your maths stays with you OK?" Alan stood up. "No more making improvements on everybody else's stuff."
"I said I was sorry." Charlie replied, not really sorry at all. He swallowed hard to stop himself from crying. It just wasn't fair. Nobody understood him.
"Sit down." Margaret grabbed her husband by the arm and yanked him down. "What are you, ten?"
Alan had never gotten this close to rage with his youngest son before, and admittedly, after this incident, he never held the desire to yell in hot anger at Charlie ever again.
"If it had been me, I'd have been grounded by now." Don whispered to Charlie.
"I heard that." Said his mother.
"No it's cool, I'm OK." Charlie made his best attempt at an apology. "I've realized now that I will have to contain my curiosity somehow in the future."
"Well you don't have to contain it dear, you just have to work out how to channel it… in a more appropriate manner."
"Speaking of curiosity, what on earth were you doing with those empty coke cans?" Alan enquired.
"Oh, that reminds me, I should get back to work." Charlie shot up out of his seat, muttered something about bus seating configurations and bolted out the back door.
"Well he definitely didn't get that from me." Came Alan's reply to Margaret's gaze.
"So you're saying that I'm like that huh?" His wife shot back.
"No I didn't mean…"
Don didn't hear the rest of his parents' mock-argument. He was seeing their smiles and their playful jabs by the elbows but what they were saying were drowned out by his own thoughts. Thoughts that he knew that he shouldn't have and he tried to dismiss them as a sin but they kept coming back.
He was thinking back to the time when he was charlie's age. Charlie was five and his mathematical prowess had just come into fruition. Every day, his parents were excited to see what new discoveries the self-taught Charlie was making. Nothing that he, Donald, did mattered much anymore. How could he compare with a child who had the potential to become the next Einstein. Despite these tendencies for jealousy, Don also knew that despite being miles ahead academically; emotionally, Charlie was just another ten year old. He knew that he should be there for his brother; yet at the same time he couldn't get over how incredibly annoying little brothers can get. He smiled to himself. Although Charlie didn't say it, Don knew what he was really working on. Charlie was trying to avoid the school bully; starting with likely seating patterns for the school bus and how best to not sit within prank range. During his FBI years, Don would do everything in his power to protect his little brother.