Disclaimer: Nothing you'll recognize belongs to me. It belong to great guys who created Numb3rs. I don't make any profit from this little writing.


BROKEN INNOCENCE

Chapter one

In the darkness there was only one sound - a child was quietly crying. The black silhouette was coming closer and closer. The other two, Mom and Papa were lying on the ground after the stranger made some kind of horryfing noise, like he was opening a bottle of this champagne thing, Mom and Papa were drinking just a few days ago. They were happy then and they were smiling, but this was just scary...

The black man was really close now and the girl was petrified with fear. What will happen now? The same thing that happened to her parents? Will she lay there, not moving, not speaking, not nothing? Like her parents were now… Did that mean they were dead?

Girl knew what "dead" meant. Her parents told her some time ago, that her grandpapa died, but it was good death, natural. But they told her that there were people, bad guys, who might make her dead too, and that was wrong. And if she met someone who she thought might do it to her, she should do one thing.

Run.

So she ran


"… they found her running in the middle of night in downtown LA. Asked her a few questions but she seemed really traumatized so they had a psychologist talk with her, but the only thing she gave was her address. LAPD checked out the house. Found two people, man and women, murdered, gunshot to the head," Colby was filling Don in as soon as his boss showed up at the work. He met him right at the lifts and they were walking together through the office.

"What makes you think that that was connected to our case? It may have been just a robbery."

"I asked around. There were no money or jewellery missing. That family had just moved in there, they knew no one, it's hard to imagine they could already made such enemies in two weeks notice," Colby observed as his boss was nodding his head while they entered the kitchen. It was clear Don expected him to do all that if he wanted to draw his attention to that case. And Colby wasn't even finished. "And I checked with our resident brainiac as the last resort."

"And what is Charlie saying?" Don smiled, taking his coffee and sipping it. "Anything relevant?"

"You could say that. This attack fitted into the pattern Charlie had figured out for this case we're workin' on. It fits really nicely, young pair with little daughter, just moved in and no criminal connections whatsoever…"

"But this girl survived hasn't she?" Asked Don as they got into the conference room, where David and Nikki were already "Hi guys."

"Hey, Don. Yeah, the girl survived. I have even more," David said, shaking his hand and giving him a file with a picture of a little girl on top of it.

"Her name is Lilianne Waterman… OK, Dave, what do you got?"

"I just had a call from a medic who checked out this girl," David nodded in the direction of file, "Said she was quite okay, just tired from all the running. No wonder, she was found really far from her home, almost a mile."

"A four year old girl? Something must have scared her pretty badly," Don was reading the file, while listening to Dave. It took him about five second to realize something "David, you said she was pretty okay? Does that mean…"

"No signs of sexual assaults were visible on her. She was scared, but the medics think she weren't raped," The disgust was clearly seen on David's face, as well as on his co-workers'. They all hated the pedophile cases and this one was even worse, because the guy was killing all families, sometimes before, sometimes after raping the child. In the end they were all found dead.

"Thank God," Don sighed, "So she may in some time recover from all this."

"I don't know how she may ever recover from losing both of her parents and that thing…" Nikki was visibly shaken and strangely quiet. Don turned to her.

"Are you all right? If that's too much you may have a few days off," He offered her with a sad smile. It was the first case he saw her so emotionally attached. Nikki was usually very strong, but he always suspected there might be a moment when she'll move closer to her breaking point. It looked like he found out what it was.

"No, Don," She looked into his eyes with determination. "I want to see that bastard behind bars as soon as possible and you may need me to do that. So I am staying."

"Good," Don smiled a little, approving and even admiring her attitude, "We need as many hands as we can. Let's get to work."


"… Next week I'll tell you about Cardano's solutions to the cubic and quartic equations, although they're believed to be an idea of Niccolo Tartaglia. So I would like you to get ready for next week and find out some information about that fight. You may very well find out some of mathematicians were more hot-headed than you peers," The class bursted into laughter. "See you next week."

Charlie smiled proudly watching his class as they were leaving. Most of them were truly interested in math and attended his lectures on a regular basis. Nothing made him more happy than seeing his students learn to love and understand the complicated, yet so very logic paths of math.

"Professor Charlie Eppes?" Someone asked, entering his class. It was a women, about his age, maybe younger, with a little girl in a tow. She seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn't put any name to this face. "I hope I'm not interrupting, I was told that you are now finished with your classes…"

"Yes…" Charlie still tried to figure out who that women was. "Yes, I am finished. Please, come on in," As she came closer, the little girl almost hidden behind her back, he noticed her brightly green eyes. Only one person he knew had eyes like that. "Monica…?" He managed to whisper.

"Took you long enough, Little Wizard," She smiled and crushed him in a hug. He laughed a little and returned the hug. As they broke off he shook his head, looking at her smiling eyes.

"I can't believe you remembered this nickname."

"I was the one who invented it, remember? And the things you were doing with numbers while we were at Princeton… That was pure magic," She laughed, the same tinkling laughter Charlie remembered that good.

"So, what are you doing here? Last I heard you were getting married somewhere back east."

"Yeah, well, we've moved a few weeks ago to LA, and I wanted to find out if my old friend will remember me after all those years… Looks like you remembered, after all," She smiled at him. "And I wanted you to meet my daughter, she's quite shy, but once she gets to know people, she can be a hell on a heels"

Charlie laughed a little at this. It was so like Mon, to come after all that years of silence, just to come and present her daughter. Monica's been always open and friendly but in her own, quiet way that compelled to Charlie and made them friends even though she was four years older than Charlie. She got to Princeton a year earlier than she should have, thanks to her intellect, but her fellow students didn't really accepted her, because she was at least one year younger than everyone else in exception, of course, of Charlie Eppes. Somehow she and Charlie ended up sitting together at one table in library and their friendship soon was a standing joke between students. But it didn't matter to them, because her openness and jokes helped Charlie open up a little to the world, and she often benefited from his "magic tricks" he had done with math.

Charlie smiled as he looked at the little one. She wasn't now hiding, she was looking curiously at the blackboard filled with algebraic equations left from the lecture. He crouched down next to her.

"What are you looking at?" He asked, curious, what the girl will answer him.

"Numbers. Like mom's. Are you a math guy too?" She asked, looking at him.

"Yes, I'm a math guy. My name's Charlie. What's yours?" He extended his hand and watched her little face beam with joy.

"I'm Molly, and I'm gonna be a math guy when I'll be big!" She exclaimed proudly, shaking his hand.

"That's great! I'm sure your mom is proud of you." Charlie smiled up at Monica, who was smiling happily at him. He got up "Maybe we'll move to my office, it'll be much more comfortable."

"Really? Mom, are you proud of me?" Molly demanded to know.

"All right." Monica took Molly's hand, who looked at her mother expectantly. "I'm really proud of you, my little angel" She kissed girl's head, who beamed at her happily. "Where is your office?"

"Just around the corner. And I think you should get ready to meet another old friend" Charlie smiled slyly.

"Another friend? Who else is teaching here?" She looked slightly nervous.

"Wait until you see. I doubt you could have forgotten him even if you tried to." Charlie opened the door to his office, where his friend and colleague was waiting. Man stood up and, though shocked, extended his hind in greeting.

"Of course" Monica said "Who could forget Professor Larry Fleinhardt?"

End of chapter one.


A/N: Hope you liked this little story. It'll have several more chapters, but I don't think it'll grow to big story - I'm not very good at writing yet. So, if you have some reflections, or you simply want to say you liked it or not - here's little button that says: "review". You know how to use it :D

Oh, and I'm sorry for some of my grammar mistakes, English isn't my native language but I'm trying my best to write correctly.