Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Numb3rs characters because they were created by Nick Falacci and Cheryl Heuton. This story is strictly for fun not profit.

Rating: M or R

Pairing: Charlie/Amita

Spoilers: Sabotage and Vector

Acknowledgement: For Laura, who a long time ago said that I could.

Summary: This is a post episode follow up to Sabotage where Charlie uses the golden ratio to try and determine if Amita loves him.

Daisy Irrationality

Does she love me?

The card shifts through my fingers and slips just slightly before I catch it. I've never been very good at the language of the heart because its passion approves of the lies people tell. The dimensions of this card relate to each other in such a basic, but unquantifiable way. It's an infuriating contradiction, much like my understanding of Amita's feelings for me. Since I've discovered a contradiction, I'll treat it as a proof that doesn't hold up and look at the problem to solve it.

I glance up at Dad as he sets more food on the table, but my one-track mind focuses on Amita and refuses to let her go. To ease the tension I flick the card to and fro, and back and forth. She's beautiful. However if she hasn't fallen for me, then what's the point?

Amita flips her hair behind her shoulder and I wonder what it would look like fanned out beneath me. Her hair would be silken smooth and slip through my grip. The card I have in my hand is far less exciting than her hair, but it is all I have at the moment so I twirl it again and squirm in my seat, suddenly warmer on the inside than I should be.

Six, hopefully silent, gulps later I determine this card is a poor substitute for a daisy. I presented Terry with the flower earlier, or otherwise I would probably be plucking its petals like a breathless medieval maiden. I transfer the card side to side between my hands. She loves me.

Don is talking with Amita and their conversation has moved beyond simple niceties, but because of all the conversations going on around me I can't completely hear them. I squint and pick out speed, physics, and deceleration. I assume that their subject is the physics of baseball because I know it's the only aspect of physics Don feels comfortable discussing with the math elite.

I've always admired the parabola a baseball's curve traces as it flies through the air. It is sport and mathematics in perfect harmony. The sheer number of things that need to happen in order to make the ball sail over the fence is statistically boggling. In less than one second the batter has to look, think, decide, act, and hopefully connect the bat with the baseball.

Amita laughs and the sound is merry; moreover it echoes and shivers straight through me. Another wheel of the card keeps my hands, if not my overactive imagination, busy. She loves me not. What would her laugh sound like with her cheeks flushed and me pressed down on top of her?

This dumb card obviously isn't helping.

Amita sips a bit more of her Chardonnay as I start an additional rotation. Me. She glances my way, beams me a radiant smile, and slants her head in appreciation. I'm ensnared in her spell, but I can neither stop my overpowering gaze nor close my gaping mouth. I must look ridiculous. Even if I'm practically drooling, I don't want to tear my gaze away. She slyly appraises me, until Don distracts her and steals her attention away. Not. She wouldn't lie to me, would she?

"…want some Charlie?"

My name catches my attention. "Huh?" The next circle equals she loves me.

"Terry is jealous that I'm eating all the appetizers. Before I eat them all would you like a few?" David asks.

"Humm," and a final twist for she loves me not. How disgusting, that's eight turns now. How many times do I have to flip it before the answer strikes me? "Sure," I half bob my head, thrust the card away, and watch it scoot across the tabletop.

Searching for an extra smile from Amita, I reach for where Dad set the tray, but come up with empty table instead. David's really been hording the appetizers. I snatch a few cracker rounds and absently sandwich a chunk of cheese in between.

As hard as it is for me to admit my older brother evidently understands my present dilemma with more precision than I do, Don's right. Nobody is gong to politely ask me if I'd like Amita before they whisk her away. The crackers leave crumbles on my lips as I crunch them. Yuck! The cheese is Brie, tart and bitter and sour. Hopefully its taste isn't foreshadowing my future.

Licking my lips, I reach for my beer and take a swig to wash out the pungent aftertaste lingering in my mouth. I put the bottle down next to that very pesky card, which slaps the words "Savings Certificate" in my face. "Act now and receive great savings," it exclaims. "Buy a subscription to Scientific America before it is too late," it taunts.

It is clearly mocking me. My patience has reached zero and I turn its offensive wording upside down. Now it demands my name and address; it wants me to stake a claim.

Before the card can harass me further, Larry saunters over, joins the three of us sitting at the dining table, and taps me on the shoulder to make sure he has my attention. "You're staring off into space again, Charles. If you were in a class of mine, I'd prepare a pop quiz for your next lecture."

"Larry, you tried that three years ago, remember? After days of gloating to any faculty member who would listen, you forgot it in your office."

"Well that's.…" Larry brings his hand to his chin and taps it in thought. "That's probably true," he sighs and concedes. Terry's mouth twitches suspiciously.

"Have I told you that I decided to pursue a relationship with Laurel Wilson?" he continues.

"No, but Amita said she convinced you."

"I never would have guessed that someone with roots so deep in mathematics would be so perceptive about dating."

"You mean from someone who spends so much time in the least erotic place at CalSci," I snap and my eyes narrow.

"You just missed his 'math is the universe's way of communicating with us' speech. I'll bet that given time he could intertwine romance with mathematics," David says.

"How about Game Theory?" I sarcastically mutter to myself.

"What?"

I wave my hand in dismissal and Larry goes on, "I mean," he pauses and picks up my card, "that math is logical and relationships between men and women are most definitely not rational. Even you must admit that mathematicians have a tendency to spend vast amounts of time working in a straightforward, linear fashion." Larry fans the card in the air and most of the draft puffs into my face.

Ok, so I admit I don't touch my emotions easily and I grudgingly agree that I use math as emotional avoidance, but should I be defending myself, or Amita? As I contemplate the best mode of attack, Terry—who is probably far too perceptive for her own good—changes the subject.

"Where did you and Laurel meet?" she asks and sets the daisy on the table.

"We've been hiking together for years and last weekend we took at trip out to Big Santa Anita Canyon and saw Sturtevant Falls. It was beau…." I let Larry's explanation fade into background chatter. He's undeniably on cloud nine describing his adventures with his lady love.

Don mimics swinging a bat as if he just hit a homerun and Amita laughs again. I pull the final swig from my beer and drain it empty and suddenly my gut feels just as cold and hollow. I know he's not trying to charm her, but it is horribly annoying to watch her wrapped up in my brother's demonstration.

Both Dad and Don already seem to believe a relationship between us is a done deal. In all the time I've know her Amita has never straight out said she likes me.

And once again, like an eight endlessly looping back upon itself, I'm retrying to evaluate her feelings. There's symmetry to the number as it races in infinity's shape and it is no different than the circles I'm thinking in. Ha! I'm not analyzing linearly, but I don't think Larry would be impressed. Disturbingly no matter what type of line I brood in, I'm still just as stuck.

Maybe I could get a fortune-teller to divine her answer with a crystal ball instead? Our childhood magic eight ball must still be up in the attic somewhere. Although with my luck right now, no matter how many times I tried, it would only jeer "ask again later." Or I could try tea leaves….

Larry's still rambling on about his trip last weekend and I hear snippets like hot and sweaty, on forever, spectacular waterfall, exhausting, and delightful view. Dad may constantly accuse me of selective listening, but this is ridiculous. Larry's description is a perfectly innocent depiction of a gorgeous hike. Am I so firmly fixated on Amita, that I see her everywhere? I'm somewhat concerned until she peeks at me out of the corner of her eye. Of the supposedly seven deadly sins lust and I are the most compatible. Well, unless it kills me first. I guess this is why they call it a deadly sin.

Don keeps jabbering away and Amita smoothes out her far too tight jacket. How luxurious it would be to run my hands all down her nak—Damn!

If I keep lusting after her like this I'll never be able to get up from the table. Regrettably, no four-letter word is ever going to help my situation. Well, I guess fuck would begin to relieve the situation nicely, but until I know how she feels it would be sex without the accompanying emotion, and it's her emotion I crave.

Amita tilts her head slightly and drains the last of her wine. The stereo finishes the current CD's last track and switches to Dad's old Searchers compellation album. I dig the base of my palms into my eyes as Love Potion Number Nine starts blaring in my ears. Somehow I doubt a love potion would help me any more than the fortune-teller.

I'm drowning in my pathetic attempt to assess her feelings. It's as if an eight legged octopus has wrapped its sucking tentacles completely around me and now I'm suffocating. The last time I felt like this was after Don's first starting Varsity game.

Due to Mom's gentle, surreptitious urging Don took me out onto the field, thrust a bat in my hands, and proceeded to whiz pitches past me. I much preferred keeping score, calculating arcane statistics, catching patterns in players, and cheering in the stands to risking life, limb, and the left over pieces of my pride in a pitiful attempt to impress my big brother. Standing in a batter's box now makes me incredibly nervous.

Every time I swung and missed I trusted Don not to nail me to the backstop with the next pitch. I'll never understand how Don can embrace danger and thrive off it. Could that be the main reason why he is so much better with women than me?

If women are annoyed that men don't always make it clear when we are interested in them, then they can't imagine the nine kinds of hell men go through just to say they are interested. I don't want to play the fool, blunder the question to bits, and end up wishing I'd never spoken out. Can I trust Amita not to hurt me like a wild fastball?

When I was four, and everyone realized I was special, the world felt like it was completely open to me and I could accomplish anything. The first time I saw something written in octal notation instead of decimal, I could manipulate numbers in ways I hadn't before dreamed possible because I no longer had to rely on the standard set of numbers. Base eight revealed a whole new wondrous world for me. Has Amita become the same thing to me all these years later?

But that night on the baseball diamond, with Don's senior teammates only partially smothering their laughter, I learned that there were things I should never do.

Could I have picked a worse place to try and ask her out this afternoon? The halls of the Los Angeles FBI office are hardly private and several of Don's colleagues were probably listening in. I'd set myself up for rejection and until Don interrupted she looked hopeful, but still clueless as to where I was headed. I need to be absolutely positive that she'll not snigger at me.

What are the odds that she'll say no? If I take into account Dad's rather obvious opinions on the matter, Amita's possible hint about the docent, her reaction to Larry's libidinous comment the other day, Don's advice by the elevator this afternoon, and the way her expression lit up when she looked at me earlier, then I calculate that there is a four percent chance that she'll refuse.

That is a good result. Perhaps it's too good.

That missing little fraction keeps niggling in the back of my mind and reminds me of Murphy's Laws. Number eight seems to be quite appropriate: "If everything seems to be going well, you have obliviously overlooked something." What else have I overlooked? There may be unseen variables that I'm missing, or unknown factors to apply. What more, given time, could I come up with to model or approximate my situation?

Then again, 1.618033988749894848 is only an asymptotic approximation of the golden ratio. What if what I decided she feels for me is only a mask for another emotion? Is what I want see as love just her affection or admiration? Respect would be horrible, but plain reverence would be devastating.

In a break of what has become Larry's monologue, I hear Don tell Amita that, "You and Terry finished off the rest of the bottle, but there should be another in the refrigerator," he gestures towards the kitchen. "It's the Chateau Ste. Michelle."

She turns and walks away when it suddenly hits me. I'm over analyzing, which shouldn't be possible. Am I really being just as skittish as Larry over love? This problem is emotional and not logically solvable with my equations. Until I hear her answer all my postulating is worthless. Am I going to endlessly follow her, just like phi chases its end? How long can I stay irrational?

Decision made, I practically fall out of my chair in my haste to get to her. I want Amita and whether it is baseball or love I'm willing to play the game.

When I finally make into the kitchen she's nudging the refrigerator closed with her hips because she has a wine goblet in her hand and a new bottle of Chardonnay in the other. It has come down to just the two of us, which is a number I haven't had to relate to all night. And yes, it is next in the series. If a pair requires that couple to come together in order to make a whole, then if I am ever going to get my untwinnable moment I must act.

"Amita?"

"Yes?"

For a brief moment, an all too fleeting moment, that is all I need to hear. Unfortunately I have the correct answer, but she has yet to hear the question. She places her glass down on the counter, grabs the bottle opener from the counter, and begins to yank at the cork. Either I'm more than half drunk, or Amita is glowing as she worries at the stopper. She is golden, my golden ratio – a ratio that I am going to fully define.

"Charlie? Did you have a question?"

"I do," I look over my shoulder to make sure Don, or God forbid Larry, aren't about to barge in and intrude. "Since you were planning on eating again, I was curious if you would, by some chance, like to have dinner sometime with me." Could that have come out any worse?

"We share a meal together twice a week." She's paying more attention to prying open the bottle than to me. "Why do you need to arrange it with me?"

"Well, this time I mean it…I mean it as a date." Just as I finish, the bottle pops as it uncorks. She blinks up at me.

"You're really finally asking?"

"I…um. Yes." I focus on my shoes because she is still goggling at me like I've grown a second head and it's making my stomach even more jumpy. Why hasn't she answered? When she turns away and places the now open bottle on the counter next to her glass my hopes collapse. What have I done wrong?

Now she's coming closer. Too close. "Of course the answer is yes."

I let go of the breath I didn't realize I was holding. Did I hear her correctly? "You said yes?"

"I just did," she replies. Now she is watching, waiting for me to make a move.

I shyly lean in and find that her hair, as I run my hands through it, is far silkier than I'd had reason to expect. Her breath catches and is just as shallow as mine when I softy, ever so softly, kiss her.

The connection between us is electric. I stagger us forward until I'm pushing her into something solid. My hands are still in her hair and she has a hand clutched to my waist while the other roams up and down my side. When I come up for air I realize that without the refrigerator bracing us up we'd be on the floor.

We stare at each other for a spell and concentrate on simply breathing in and out. There's a warm, silly smile gracing her face, which is only for me. I'm sure there's a duplicate expression on my own.

"Mine," I bend down and whisper quietly in her ear.

She cups my chin, and moves my face up to look at her directly. "Yes, but by the same logic, you are also mine." So sue me, her logic turns me on, but then I love anything remotely mathematical, and it hardly hurts that she is intoxicating.

I kiss her again and drive her more firmly against the refrigerator. I've never been aroused like this in my entire life. This is–

Amita pulls away, hard. What the hell?

"Charlie," Dad interrupts from behind, "you said you would leave a note on the refrigerator when you found a girlfriend, not that you'd pin her to the fridge yourself." My head jerks from Amita's wide eyes to Dad's, which twinkle with uncontained glee.

Before we can pull all the way apart, or I can use my tongue for mere words, he walks through the doorway, sets the empty cracker tray in the sink, and strolls into the other room, most likely wearing a huge splitting grin. After he's gone, I burry my face in the side of Amita's neck and groan while she inclines her head back against the refrigerator and swallows. "That was embarrassing," she murmurs.

I nod as best as I can in agreement. That was more embarrassing than a quick blast of cold water. An actual bucket of freezing water couldn't have been more effective than Dad at that moment.

My heart rate settles somewhat and I stand up straight. Trying to divert her humiliation, I run my thumb gently over her now rather full lips. She's still hypnotic, but if I don't stop now we'll go farther than we ought to. "We should probably go join the others, before we…." I trail off.

"Yeah."

"Yeah," I repeat and drop my hands to my sides. Once I've withdrawn several feet, I straighten out my button-down shirt and wipe my mouth in resignation. For the moment, I'll have to be content with second base instead of the homerun.

When we sneak into the other room I see that all the others have gathered around the table. Naturally, the only open seats are on opposite sides. I wish she wouldn't be that far away.

"Weren't you getting more wine?" Don asks Amita. He's genuinely confused and curious, rather than smirking, so I deduce that Dad hasn't said anything. Yet. By this time tomorrow the story will be quite different.

"Uh, I forgot it," a blush blooms on her face.

"You must have gotten distracted," Dad chortles. Is it remotely possible to ignore him for the rest of the evening? He's going to be unbearable.

Trying not to be obvious, Amita ducks her head and returns to the kitchen to fetch her still unpoured wine. When she rounds the table she rubs a pair of fingers over her lips, as if lost in memory. I reach out for Terry's forlorn daisy and lounge back in my chair satisfied. I know, without question, that if I tugged out all its petals, I'd end on "She loves me."

Author's Notes:

This is what happens when you combine the end of Sabotage, baseball, the golden ratio, and Charlie's thoughts. I had such a high after seeing the end of this episode because I just couldn't get over the connection between the card Charlie absently twirls in his hands and the daisy he handed to Terry. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but the image of Charlie twisting the card (when he couldn't pluck the petals out of the daisy) as he stared at Amita really stuck with me.

I know that I ran across Numb3rs fic that had numbers bolded in it. For the life of me I can't refind it. If the author wishes it I'll gladly give credit for the idea.

The golden ratio, phi, is approximately equal to 1.6180339887498948482.