A/N: I have no explanation for this. It's a completely, utterly, undeniably sappy Eppes-fluff piece that suddenly struck me while writing the second part of Disillusioned. ;;

Buddy - by Tessenchan

Don looked at it with dark eyes. Dark, foreboding eyes, intense and angry, the gaze that usually precluded an ardent refusal to do whatever it was he'd been asked to do by his parents. Don, please pick up your toys. Evil Eyes. Don, please bring your dishes to the sink. Evil Eyes. Don, go take your bath, you have school tomorrow! Double Evil Eyes; Don hated bathing. You would have thought Margaret was trying to feed him alive to sharks the way that toddler would scream about being put in the tub.

That was the stare he had turned on it, the little bundle of baby fat and curly hair Margaret and Alan had brought home from the hospital. It was wrapped in a little blue blanket with sheep on it; they didn't look like sheep, Don thought. More like little balls of cotton with eyes. Sort of like It did. All brown curls and giant black eyes.

It looked at him with an outright curiosity, a wonder not typical for something as young as It was. It seemed to study him: wide, clear eyes examining his face, learning his features and committing them to memory. If he hadn't been so adamant on hating It, Don might've stared back with the same wonder.

"It's drooling," Don observed dully.

"Donnie, his name is Charlie, not 'it,'" his father supplied, the tone of his voice completely contradicting any reprehension that might've been intended in his admonishment of Don. It was further accented by the smile he wore, and he suspected he was completely and utterly incapable of discipline at this point; he was just way too happy to be taken seriously as an authority figure.

At his comment, Margaret looked up at her husband. "No. Alan, I thought we agreed on Charles."

Alan narrowed his eyes at her. "Charlie," he stressed, and Margaret sighed.

"You've already mangled my and Don's name with that "-ie" suffix, can't you leave Charles' alone?"

"Maggie," Alan emphasized the "ie" in her nickname, earning him a glare from his wife, "He's going to get called Charlie when he gets to school anyway. Might as well start now."

"He's four days old, Alan. He's not going to school for five years. Besides, that's a lame excuse."

"Can't we take it back?"

His parents paused in their discussion of names to look at Don's befuddled expression. The five-year-old was quite confused, eyebrows knitting over his dark glare. "It's broken. Don't that mean we can take it back?" He was sure he remembered his daddy taking a brand-new toy he'd bought back to the store because it was broken, and Don had gotten another, better one.

"Don, you say 'doesn't that mean,' not 'don't.' And what do you mean he's broken?" Margaret asked, and Don pointed at the damp spot of blanket by the baby's mouth. "I told it stop drooling and it won't. It's broken," he repeated tiredly, as though having to repeat himself literally took energy out of him. He thought he'd made himself perfectly clear the first time.

"Don, babies drool," Margaret insisted, somewhat plainly. "You used to drool."

"Nuh-uh!" Don exclaimed, though he reached up to wipe his mouth just the same. He had to be sure, after all. Once he was certain he wasn't drooling, he resumed his petition, and gave his mother a gravely serious countenance. "You gotta take it back," he told his parents. "Bring back one that ain't a baby."

"What would you rather have in a baby brother, Donnie?" Alan asked, far too amused to be taking his son seriously.

"One that ain't..." Don grimaced, "... a baby."

"Well son, he will grow up," Alan assured him, and Don's little face scrunched up. "Yeah, and I'm gonna be an old man then!" he yelled, immediately going into pout mode. The more time he watched his mother hold it, and the way his father leaned over it with that proud look in his eyes, the more and more confused Don got. Why would they bring home something that couldn't even feed itself or dress itself? Don could do both of those things, not to mention write and do addition too. Subtraction... well, he'd get a handle on that sooner or later. On top of all that, he was the fastest runner on his Little League team. Why would his parents choose an infant over all of that?

Never being one to be left in the dark, Don decided to ask. "Why'd you get a baby anyway! You guys like it moreth'n me!"

"Of course not, Don," Margaret replied automatically. "We love you."

"But you're going to keep it."

"Of course we're keeping Charles."

"Then you like it!" Don, impatient toddler that he was, stamped one little foot. "Well, I don't care if you guys like it moreth'n me and don't wanna take it back! It's just gonna drool some more."

All this hollering was simply too much for the baby, and he protested the assault on his ears with a loud wail. Don looked at it as though it had grown a second head and, justifiably, yelled at it again. "Be quiet!"

"Don!" Margaret glared pointedly at her first child. "Do not yell at the baby. Go to your room. Now. When you think you can behave, you can come down."

His bottom lip jut out momentarily, quivering, but then he turned on his heel and stomped upstairs. The two adults watched him disappear upstairs, and once he was upstairs, Alan sighed, plopping down in his favorite seat. "That went so much better than I expected," he snorted.

"What happened?" Margaret wondered dubiously from across the room, "He was so excited about being a big brother when he talked about Charles before he was born. Now it's as though he had no idea we were coming home with a baby."

At this statement, Alan made a little grunting noise in the back of his throat. Surely they had mentioned that? He got up to pace as he thought. As he considered the past four months, going over every instance of prepping Don for the birth of his new brother, he slowly realized the cause of the current predicament. He turned to his wife, who was gently rocking their newest addition, trying desperately to get him to stop crying. "You know, Mags... We never actually did mention Charlie was a baby..."

"What does it matter if we did or didn't? Don's not an idiot, Alan."

"But he hasn't had the talk, Maggie. He doesn't know where babies come from. Wouldn't it sort of make sense that he didn't know we were bringing home a baby, but just a little brother?" Margaret stopped rocking the baby, who had settled down anyway, and her face blanked. Sheepishly she looked up at her husband, and Alan continued. "I mean, all we talked about was how he was going to have someone to play with. Obviously he got it into his head that he was getting someone closer to his age."

"I suppose." She looked up at her husband. "Well then, you should talk to him."

"My thoughts exactly." He leaned over Margaret's arms once more, giving the end of Charlie's little nose a gentle poke. "Well, it wasn't exactly what we'd expected, little one, but... Welcome home, Charlie."

Margaret waited a beat and then corrected, "Charles."

"Charlie," argued Alan.

.n.

Don still wore his pout when Alan peered into his bedroom, keeping himself hidden from behind a half-cracked door lest the little boy realize he was being watched. Don's room was a mess, and how the child could find anything in the disaster zone was beyond Alan's comprehension. Yet he did, slowly packing the suitcase laid open on his bed. Of the things Don had already shoved into it, Alan recognized Don's collection of Incredible Hulk comic books, his favorite jacket, and what appeared to be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, smushed and with jelly squeezed out from the sides, visible on the top as Don hunkered over it, zipping it closed. He hooked a hand around the handle and dragged it off the bed, heading his father's way.

Alan chose this moment to open the door and let his presence be known. Don paused briefly to look up at his father, and then looked back down and kept walking towards him. Alan just watched him. "And where are you going?" he asked casually.

"To Timmy's," Don replied matter-of-factly, as though his father should have known this. "I'm running away."

"Running away, huh?"

"You don't want me, right? You want it. It's younger than me."

And here I was, expecting to hear that line from Maggie in another thirty years or so, Alan thought to himself. He caught Don as the boy tried to slip past him, hauling him up and holding him on his hip. Don turned the Evil Eyes on him, and Alan had to hold back a laugh at the thought of how many times he might get that glare in his lifetime. He gave his child his most sincere face. "Before you go, would you let me plead my case, at least?"

"Huh?"

"...Lemme explain something to you, Donnie."

In a few short strides Alan went to the bed and set Don down on it, then sat next to him. Don looked at him, ever-so-serious, as Alan thought for a moment, to put into words what he wanted to say. Analogies seemed to work best on children; he'd seen Margaret pull off a dozen on Don to help the little boy understand something he normally wouldn't. But for the life of him Alan couldn't seem to come up with one on Don's age level to explain why two adults would want a second child when the first was so obviously perfect. He looked up, sighing irritatedly through his nose, and created an analogy out of the first thing he saw: Don's crayon drawings hanging on the wall.

"Donnie, why do you draw?"

"'Cause I like to."

"Well, why did you draw another one?" Alan wondered, "Why not just draw the first one and stop? Did you not like the first one?"

"No, I liked it," Don replied, "I was just bored."

Great analogy, Eppes, Alan told himself sarcastically, You and Maggie had another baby because you were bored. He cleared his throat, then tried again. "Well, it wasn't just because you were bored, right? You like to draw."

"I guess."

"Well, that's why your mommy and I had another baby. We like kids. We wanted another one."

"... even though you like the first one?" Don guessed. Alan grinned. Bright kid.

"Yes son, that's right."

Don said nothing more for a minute, looking down at his bedspread thoughtfully, considering what his father had said. Then, he lifted his eyes to look at his father. "So... if I stay, you wouldn't be mad?"

Alan shook his head. "Actually, it would make me pretty sad if you left."

"Oh," he replied simply, as though he'd been told they were having roast beef for dinner that evening. Then he smiled. "I'm glad. It would make me sad too if I had to find a new daddy and a new mommy. I love you."

Alan's heart melted. He scooped up his son and hugged him, relishing the feel of Don's tiny arms around his neck. "I love you too, kiddo."

Don leaned back briefly to look his father in the eye, and frowned. "But did you have to get a baby? It don't do nothing but drool and make noise."

Alan cleared his throat. "Uhm... well, Donnie..." He pursed his lips, thinking of how to proceed. "Do you have any idea where a baby comes from?"

Don shook his head. Alan nodded. Dammit. I'm going to have to do this on the fly. "Okay," he began, "Look. You know mommies and daddies are different, right?"

"Yeah. Mommy's a girl and you're a boy like me."

"Right." Alan sat him back on the bed. "Well, because they're different, and they have parts we don't have, girls can do something boys can't. They can have babies."

"Okay." Don looked up at his father eagerly. "How?"

"Well... see, a woman needs a man's help to have a baby. Guys have parts that girls don't."

"And they have the part that we don't?"

"Right. And when two people like each other, they put them together. The baby grows inside of the woman for nine months and then after that, there it is."

"So you and Mom turned your parts into a baby?" Don asked.

Alan stared at the boy, eyes narrowing in consternation. His attempt to keep it basic and G-rated was failing miserably, and he guessed if Don was getting anything out of this, it was some weird, warped message. He watched as Don raised one eyebrow right back at him, absolutely baffled-- whether it was because of the information Alan had just given him or by the expression on his father's face and how rapidly it was growing ever weirder the more uncomfortable Alan got, he didn't know. Finally he just shook his head. "Never mind, kid. I'll get you a book or something."

"No, I think I get it. You and Mom made a baby." Don gave a curt little nod, as if confirming it to himself. Then he looked up, a puzzled expression on his face. "But I can't do anything with It."

"Of course you can," Alan protested. He turned, pulling Don to his feet so that they were eye level. Taking his shoulders in both hands, Alan watched him sternly.

"Look at me," he began. "Charlie is just a baby. He can't do anything for himself yet, and he's gonna need a lot of taking care of. You're a big boy now, and you have to help your mother and me take care of him, because he's going to be a handful." His gaze turned gentler. "From now on he's going to be your little buddy, Don. I'm putting you in charge of making sure he's taken care of, okay? Can you do that?"

For all of four seconds, the child looked overwhelmed at the immense responsibility. This was a big job, the biggest he'd ever been trusted with. But following just after the wide-eyed terror was the pride that came with being handed such a task. Don's jaw tightened, his shoulders straightened and he nodded. "Okay."

Well, that was easy. "But you have to promise me something."

"What?"

"Please stop calling your brother 'it.' His name is Charlie," pleaded Alan.

"Okay," agreed Don.

.n.

"Okay. Now be careful with his head," Margaret instructed, still cradling the baby's head in her hand, though most of his weight was centered on Don's lap. Slowly and cautiously she lowered Charlie into Don's waiting arms. "Charlie's very delicate, Don."

"He's heavy for something so li'l," the boy grumbled. But he didn't appear to be acting haphazardly with his new charge; instead, he was doing exactly as his mother said, for once. His tiny hand clasped the baby's shoulder, arm held out as a support for his head, the full weight of the baby now spread evenly over his arms and lap. Don shifted carefully, moving deliberately and slowly so as not to jostle his cargo, and was rewarded with a bored glance from the baby, who appeared to be watching his brother struggle with him with an expression that might become "Hurry it up already" someday in the future.

Finally settled, Margaret sat back and watched. Don stared down at the infant with some of that wonder the baby had watched him with previously, and looking at him now, Don suddenly realized his father was right. Charlie was tiny and precious, and needed someone to protect him. His father had picked him for the job. Seeing him this time as his brother and not as something barging into his territory to steal away his parents, Don couldn't help himself.

"I'll take care of you, buddy," he whispered, letting the baby take hold of one finger and claim it as his own. "I'll always be here."

Margaret's eyes welled up suddenly, in awe at the abrupt change in her firstborn's attitude, and moved by his heartfelt oath to protect him. She turned away to dab at her eyes, blushing slightly when Alan grinned at her. It faded after a moment, simmering back down into a warm, touched smile of his own, and she smiled back at him. Taking Charlie's baby bottle off of the coffee table, Margaret handed it to Don when she turned back. "Put the tip against his mouth Don, and watch what he does."

Curious, Don did so, and let out a surprised yelp when Charlie latched his mouth around it instantaneously and began sucking madly. "Glad that wasn't my finger," Don laughed, "He'd bite it off."

Margaret stood, watching her two boys with a wide smile. Her worries assuaged, she let out the breath she'd been holding since she first stepped into the house with Charlie in her arms. Against her ear she felt Alan's breath, and she leaned back into her husband's touch, taking the hand that came around her waist to hold her. She waited, knowing it was coming...

"A minute ago, did I just hear you call him Charlie...?" There it is.

"Shut up, Alan."

All she heard in reply was his victorious snicker in her ear.

END