A/N: This is a little unconventional in format. Unfortunately, it would not allow me to write it any other way.
Disclaimer: The Numb3rs characters belong to someone else. These are merely the crude representations I've been able to create on my own. My Charlie likes to drink coffee.
Thirty-Seven Seconds
"Get outta my way!"
"Sir, you can't go in there."
"I'm FBI, you dumbass!"
"This isn't an FBI matter, Agent…"
"My brother's in there! Either you let me in there right now, or I'm gonna haul you up on charges!"
"Sir…"
"Get… out… of… my… way!"
"Charlie? Charlie, it's me buddy. Are you alright? Charlie… look at me."
Charlie blinks once, twice. His eyes refocus. He turns his head and looks at his brother.
"Thirty-seven seconds," he says.
"What?"
Licking dry lips he repeats, "Thirty-seven seconds."
Don's brow furrows in confusion. "What's thirty-seven seconds?" he asks. "Charlie? Charlie?"
"It takes thirty-seven seconds to accept the fact that you're going to die."
-x-x-x-x-x-
Don steps through the doorway of his brother's home and calls out, "Hello?"
"Hey, Don!" his father greets him cheerfully as he emerges from the kitchen, drying his hands on a dishtowel. "What brings you here?"
The agent shakes his head once and looks around. "Is Charlie here?" he asks instead.
The eldest Eppes seems to deflate a little. "Of course," he replies quietly. "Where else would he be?"
Don's wandering gaze lands on his father's face. "No change, then?"
Alan shakes his head and turns toward the kitchen. "No," he answers, his tone defeated. "No change."
-x-x-x-x-x-
Standing by the window, arms folded across his chest and legs crossed at the ankle, Don leans against the rough wooden wall of the garage and studies his brother. At first glance Charlie doesn't seem and different, but to Don the younger man seems… detached. Not distracted, as he is when he's in the middle of a mathematical breakthrough on his work. Just…
Disconnected.
"Charlie?" he says at last. He watches the dark brown eyes as they lose the faraway look and fasten on his brother. "Have you been out here all day?" Don's tone is quiet – soothing. He doesn't want to sound reproachful.
"That would depend," the young genius replies softly.
"On what?"
Clasping his hands in his lap – probably the first movement in hours – Charlie says, "On what day it is."
Don thinks for a moment and then responds, "It's Thursday."
"Oh." The professor lapses into silence.
"Charlie?"
Shaking his head slightly as though to ground himself, Charlie looks up again. "Yes, Don?"
Don sighs inwardly. "Have you been out here all day?" he repeats.
"Thursday?"
"Yes, Charlie," the agent answers tiredly. This conversation, like so many others, could go around in infinite circles. "It's Thursday. When did you come out here?"
Charlie nods. "This morning," he replies at last. Catching a glimpse of his brother's expression, the mathematician adds, "Spare me any spherical analogies, alright Don? I'm really not up to it right now."
Don thinks hard for a moment. Spherical analogies? Oh. The bubble. "No, Charlie," he says finally. "I wasn't going to say anything like that." He pauses, pushes himself away from the wall and steps toward the chair his brother lounges in. "Have you eaten yet?" The pale, translucent skin provides the answer he seeks, but he wants to hear what his brother has to say.
"No." Charlie sighs softly. "I suppose I should, though." He looks up. "Dad's worried?"
Nodding, Don replies, "You know Dad."
"Yes." A few long seconds pass and then the young man gets slowly to his feet. "I should go in," he murmurs.
"It's getting late," his brother concurs. "Gonna be dark soon."
Charlie inclines his head in agreement and heads out the door.
-x-x-x-x-x-
Alan looks to his youngest son. "Come on Charlie," he says. "Come watch the game with us."
"No, thank you," the mathematician replies quietly. "I think I'll go up to bed, if you don't mind."
Exchanging a glance with Don, the older man says, "That's fine, Charlie. Get some rest and I'll see you tomorrow, alright?"
Charlie nods silently and makes his way up the stairs, each footfall soundless yet requiring immense effort to accomplish.
Turning to his oldest son, Alan asks, "See what I mean?" Don purses his lips thoughtfully but doesn't reply, still staring at the empty staircase. "He's been like this ever since you brought him home."
"I know, Dad," Don replies finally. "What do you want me to do?"
"Whatever it takes to bring your brother back," his father snaps bitterly. "I don't know what that is," he continues. "But whatever it is – do it."
Drinking deeply from the dark bottle in his hand, Don casts a sidelong glance at his father. He sets the bottle down on his knee before replying, "I'll talk to Megan. Maybe she knows what to do."
-x-x-x-x-x-
"It's a traumatic experience, Don," Megan explains patiently. "Different people react… well… differently."
Don shakes his head in exasperation. "You don't understand," he replies, fighting to keep the pleading tone from his voice. "This isn't Charlie, Megan. It's not even close." He sighs heavily. "Do you realize," he continues, staring out the conference room window. "That he hasn't worked on any of his projects? He took a leave of absence from work – Dad and I thought we'd have to pry him away from those damn chalkboards – but he hasn't so much as picked up a piece of chalk or a pencil since he got home." The handsome agent turns to her, an indecipherable expression on his face. "This isn't Charlie," he repeats in a near-whisper.
Megan thinks for a moment. "He hasn't said anything about it?" she asks at last.
"Nothing since I found him sitting on the floor next to the frozen hors d'oeuvres," Don replies sardonically. "Except that one thing."
"What?"
Don's shoulders slump as though defeated. "It takes thirty-seven seconds to accept the fact that you're going to die."
-x-x-x-x-x-
"Charlie?"
Megan enters the garage tentatively, afraid of spooking the young man in the chair. She needn't have worried – he hasn't moved. "Charlie?" she says again. The dark head turns slightly in the waning afternoon light. "It's me, Megan."
"Hello Megan." The voice is calm, the tone hollow. The fire within… gone.
"How are you?"
He cocks his head to one side and thinks for a moment. "I'm alright," Charlie says finally. "I should eat, though."
Studying the slight form Megan ventures, "You keep forgetting to do that, huh?"
Charlie nods once, then goes still, his gaze fastened on something only he can see.
Megan pulls over an old crate and perches on its edge. "Charlie," she begins. "Everyone's worried about you…"
"I'm sorry." The response is automatic, mechanical.
Taking a deep breath Megan goes on, "Don, Larry, Amita, your father, the guys at work… we've all been worried." She leans closer and places a hand on his thin knee. "What's going on with you?" she asks.
He looks down at her hand and then away. "I've been thinking," he answers finally.
"I can see that," Megan replies, drawing the hand back. "Want to tell me what you've been thinking about?"
"Thirty-seven seconds."
Megan pulls back as though physically struck. "To accept the fact that you're going to die," she completes the phrase.
Charlie looks up at her from underneath a curtain of silky curls. "Don told you," he says. His tone holds no anger.
"Yes." She nods. "Don told me." Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, Megan leans her elbows on her knees and asks, "When did you find that out, Charlie?"
He shivers slightly, not from cold. "Two minutes and twenty-three seconds before I saw Don."
Megan nods again. "How did you know?" she asks. "That it was thirty-seven seconds, I mean?"
Charlie stares through her to the window. "I could see it," he says.
"The clock?" Details of the incident were sketchy at best, since it wasn't an FBI case. She wonders if there had been a clock in the store.
"No." He falls silent again and Megan feels her heart go out to the young genius.
"Charlie?" Her hand is back on his knee, squeezing gently. "What could you see?"
After an eternity he whispers, "Light emitting diodes."
"Light emit…" Megan blinks in realization. "LED?" she asks. At his nod, she continues, "The clock was LED?"
"Not a clock." His voice is the barest stirring of air in the darkening room.
Truly puzzled, Megan slips off the crate and kneels at his feet. "If it wasn't a clock, Charlie," she says. "Then what was it?"
The mathematician rests a hand on her head like a benediction. "A timer, Megan," he replies at last. "There was a bomb… it had an LED timer… and I could see it."
"They made you sit next to it?" She remembers Don saying something about frozen food.
"No." The curls shift slightly, the light of the setting sun glinting on each wave. "They made me wear it."
-x-x-x-x-x-
Megan stumbles into the house, casting an awed glance over her shoulder. Her face is pale and drawn and Alan hurries over, brimming with fatherly concern. "Megan!" he exclaims. "Are you alright? Here…" He steers her to an armchair and makes her sit. "What happened?" he asks.
She draws a steadying breath and swallows her shock. "Mr. Eppes," Megan says finally. "I'm only a profiler."
"I know that," the older man interrupts. "What…?"
Megan shakes her head. "I can't… I don't know how…" She swallows again. "I'll give you the name of a really good psychologist, alright? You need to take Charlie to see him." Covering her face with her hands Megan murmurs, "I had no idea."
Alan places a hand on her trembling shoulder. "No idea about what?" he asks. "Megan?"
Drawing a calming breath Megan sits upright in the chair and fights for composure. "Charlie is severely traumatized," she says at last. "But not nearly as traumatized as I would be if I'd gone through what he did." Her gaze locks with that of the older man. "He's a lot stronger than any of us ever realized."
"So – he'll be alright, though." Alan waits but Megan doesn't respond. "Right?" he pleads.
"I wish I knew."
-x-x-x-x-x-
It's been four months since Don picked his brother up from the supermarket floor and cradled him in his arms. Now the three Eppes men sit facing one another across the burled walnut expanse of the dining room table, waiting for the youngest to speak.
These past few weeks they've seen the ghost of what once was Charlie slowly take its rightful place. The mathematician has become more animated – more accessible – than before. Don and Alan had had to exercise tremendous restraint when they saw the young man working laboriously at an equation on the old chalkboards in the garage. The urge to whoop for joy had been almost overpowering to them both.
"I went to the store," Charlie begins finally. Quietly. "I wanted to try this recipe I'd gotten from Eva – the librarian at work."
Don smiles. "The one who doesn't like Feds."
Charlie nods. "I was looking for frozen strawberries…"
Closing his eyes briefly, Don brings back the painful scene. There, just above the canapés and phyllo pastry, was a shelf with blocks of frozen fruit. "Right," he whispers soundlessly.
Charlie hasn't heard. He continues, "A man put a gun against my head. He told me not to move." Swallowing hard, the mathematician says, "I didn't know what to do."
Alan reaches across and covers the trembling hand with his own. "Go on, son," he urges softly.
"He made me sit on the floor," the young man says. "He… put some kind of harness on me."
Don opens his eyes and watches his brother. Charlie doesn't look like he's about to break down in tears. Megan was right. The professor is stronger than he seems.
Charlie turns his hand over and grips his father's fingers. "It had explosives strapped on it," he says. "According to my calculations it was enough C4 to take out the entire block."
The sharp intake of Alan's breath is the only sound in the room for a moment.
Flipping a curl out of his eyes, Charlie goes on. "I didn't know – and I still don't – what it was they wanted."
"They?"
The young man looks up at his brother's question. "There were four of them," he explains. "Two by the front door and two…" He hesitates. "…With me," he finishes quietly.
Alan squeezes his fingers reassuringly. "It's over now, Charlie," he whispers. "You're safe."
"I know." He clears his throat before continuing. "One of them strapped the harness on me while the other one set the timer."
Paling slightly, Don reaches deep for his professional detachment. It's eluding him at the moment and he swallows at the bitter taste that rises in his throat. "How long?" he asks finally.
"Half an hour." Charlie shakes his head as though clearing it. "I didn't dare move."
"Did they say anything?" Don isn't sure he wants to know more, just that he has to say something.
Charlie huffs in mirthless laughter. "Yeah," he replies. "The one with the timer winked at me and said 'Don't sneeze'."
"Oh my God," Alan breathes. "How sick would someone have to be…?" Don rests a hand on his father's shoulder and they sit like that for a moment – Don joined to his father, Alan to Charlie.
If only Charlie would complete the circle…
Lifting one shoulder in a minute shrug, the mathematician continues, "Twenty two minutes later a woman walked into the store. I guess the clerk was dead, because she screamed and then pulled a cell phone out of her purse." He pauses. "I didn't have my cell with me."
"It's okay, Charlie," Alan repeats. "You don't have to…"
"I do," the young man interrupts. "Doctor Shea said I should tell you – that it would help me recover." Don squeezes the old man's shoulder gently and the protestations subside. "Two minutes and forty-seven seconds later the police arrived," Charlie says. "Two minutes later the bomb squad came. Almost exactly."
Knowing the numbers were giving his brother comfort Don asks, "How long did it take them to disarm it?"
"Fifty-three seconds."
The eldest of them leans closer to Charlie. "Where did the thirty-seven seconds come in, son?"
Charlie smiles briefly, the expression gone as soon as it appears. "Twenty seconds after the bomb squad arrived. When the man they sent to disarm it swore."
Don vows silently to find him and put a large-caliber hole in his head. He reaches out tentatively for his brother's hand. "You sat through another thirty-seven seconds before he said it was disarmed?" he asks.
"And another two minutes and twenty-seven seconds before you showed up." Charlie looks at Don's hand for a moment, then closes his fingers over it. Lifting his gaze to the agent's face, he adds, "Or so."
Don smiles. "Or so?" he repeats, closing the circle with a firm grip.
"Thereabouts," Charlie replies. "What's for dinner?"
EINDIG