Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

A/N: Just my take on what might have happened after Margaret died and all the brotherly angst that just HAD to come with it. Pre-series. Some mild language.

Time had stopped.

The entire world, every car on the highway, every child playing, and every moving thing on Earth had come to a complete halt.

Or at least, that's what should have happened. By all rights, the world should have had a quick moment of silence. Everyone should have stopped what they were doing, hung their heads and whispered silent prayers.

But when Margaret Eppes died, the only thing her oldest son could think of was the noise. A gurney screeched across the polished floors in the hallway outside her room. A doctor called out to an orderly for assistance. There was a loud tap followed by the shuffling of feet, probably someone limping down the hall with a crutch or cane. And the loudest, sharpest noise was his mother's ECG flat lining and the sound of Don's world crashing down on him as his mother's heart stopped beating.

Margaret's oncologist turned it off quickly. Dr. Sutton looked nothing like the doctor's on television. He was short and had a crooked nose and a receding hairline. He looked decidedly average, but was also one of the kindest people Don had ever met. Dr. Sutton had gotten them through a lot in the past year.

But even the best doctors couldn't save everybody.

Dr. Sutton turned to Don and his father, both sitting in adjacent hospital chairs next to Margaret's bed. The chairs made Don's back ache, and they were easily the most uncomfortable things in the world, next to the chairs in interrogation rooms, but he and his father had worn them in by now. They had spent almost as much time, if not longer, in these chairs in the past year as they had their respective beds.

"I'm sorry," Dr. Sutton said softly, sincerely. Don didn't hear much after that. He had been hoping for some sort of reassurance that the machine had made a mistake, that his mother was just asleep, and then he'd stumble out apologies for the mix up and tell them about the newest chemo treatment they could try and….

But Don had just blanked out after the words, the ones he'd been dreading for months, finally slipped out of the doctor's mouth. He wasn't thinking or even grieving. He just stared at the opposite wall trying not to think of anything at all.

It took him a moment to realize his father was speaking to him. "…should go and tell Charlie. He…he should know."

Don's fist clenched slightly. His mother's youngest son hadn't even been with her before she died. Charlie hadn't been to the hospital in at least a week. He was too busy with that damn unsolvable problem.

"Don," Alan said, louder and clearer this time. "He had no idea that she would….that it would happen today. Do you think Charlie would have hesitated if he had known?"

He wanted to argue, wanted to point out the hundreds of things Charlie should've done, didn't do and would never do, but he also heard the hint of warning in his father's voice, as well as the grief that was pulling at him under the surface.

Whether Charlie deserved to be informed immediately or not, Don could at least give his father a moment alone.

He stood up and stretched, walking towards the door. Don stopped a foot away from the hallway and turned back around. His mother lay there, lifeless. He'd never known how different it was, watching someone you love, someone you've known your whole life, die.

"Don?"

Don blinked and realized he'd been staring. He cleared his throat awkwardly and pushed himself out the door before the room swallowed him up entirely.

xxxxxxxx

Driving back to his parents' house, Don felt an odd mix of emotions. Grief, of course, was the strongest. As soon as things cleared up a bit, after they finished the funeral and everything calmed down, he was planning on locking himself in his apartment with a beer, not going to work and not looking at a sympathetic, pitying face for days. Make that a few beers. Hell, might as well make it a pack.

There was also a strange sense of relief that his mother wasn't suffering anymore, that her death had been quick. There was also anger, frustration and disappointment that he hoped he would be able to let out as soon as he arrived at his destination.

The drive was shorter than he thought it would be, and Don was surprised he'd even made it without crashing. He'd barely even been paying attention to the road. In a different circumstance, if he had been acting clear-headed, Don probably would have considered the fact that he shouldn't have been driving. At that point, though, he barely even cared.

The door was unlocked and Don didn't bother knocking or announcing himself. His mother hadn't been here in weeks, and the house felt strangely empty. There were happy photos along the walls displaying memories of the boys' childhood, family and cheerful moments. He refused to look at them as he stomped into the garage.

While the rest of the house had been unnervingly quiet, there was a very soft amount of noise in Charlie's domain. There was a scratch of chalk against the board, a shuffle of footsteps as he moved from equation to equation, checking and rechecking everything before continuing. Charlie muttered to himself slightly, a habit he'd picked up over the last few months.

Don thought his brother almost looked peaceful, surrounded by more than half a dozen chalkboards, oblivious to his surroundings if they didn't involve variables and square roots. There was nothing intruding in Charlie's world at all.

"Charlie," Don said. The chalk kept moving, a new series of numbers stretching itself out, more important or significant than the last. But they all looked the same to him.

Don walked across the room and tugged at Charlie's shoulder. "Charlie!"

His brother jumped slightly and turned, relaxing when he recognized his brother. "Oh, hi Don. I didn't hear you come in. What's up?" Charlie didn't wait for an answer. He had already turned back to the chalkboard, scribbling away obliviously.

Don's heart pounded. Words danced on the edge of his lips but he couldn't get to any of them. "Charlie-" he started, but Charlie interrupted.

"Hey, Don, I've got this new set of algorithms that I really need to work on, and I'm worried I'll forget about them if I don't get them down. Can this wait?" He continued scribbling madly.

Don's jaw clenched and suddenly the words came all too easy. "Charlie. Mom's dead."

The hand stopped halfway across the board, leaving an equation unfinished, half of a number dangling uselessly at the end. Don watched his brother's whole body tense, watched as the chalk dropped out of his fingers to the floor. It broke when it hit the ground and Don stared at it for a moment before his eyes moved back up to his brother. Charlie's head was turned towards his hand, his fingers curling in and out as if questioning the sudden emptiness. Slowly, his hand worked its way down to the edge of the board where it tightened.

Charlie took in a deep breath, a shuddering broken breath, but he still didn't turn around. "Did she…w-was she in…" Charlie's voice may have been steady but the pauses and stutters betrayed him.

"In pain? No. Not…not at the end, the doctor said," Don mumbled. He fidgeted with his watch, with his belt, and wished Charlie would turn around.

"Oh." It came out with a breath. There was silence for a moment and Don could feel the tension creeping up the walls, spreading from the corners like spider webs.

Charlie leaned down and picked up the broken chalk, placing it at the base of the blackboard. He picked up a new piece and his head rose back up to see the board. Charlie finished writing the last few numbers he'd missed.

"What are you doing?" Don asked incredulously. Charlie winced, but Don ignored it.

"I told you," he murmured. "I need to finish this set of algorithms before-"

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Don shouted. "Did you even hear me? Or did it just go in one ear and out the other like everything else that doesn't involve your precious numbers?"

Charlie's shoulders shook slightly, but Don didn't notice. Or didn't care. All of his emotions were coming out and he wasn't about to stop.

"Do you have any idea what she went through these past few months? What Dad and I went through, while you locked yourself in here with your blackboards and chalk? It was hell, Charlie, having to watch our mother die and knowing that she wanted to see you but you wouldn't even leave the goddamn house."

Don didn't see how Charlie's hand quivered, or how he was writing slower and slower. He did hear Charlie's quiet, murmured, "What do you want me to do?"

"Grow up!" Don shouted. "God, why is it so impossible to get this through to you? Get out of that bubble of yours and pay attention to something other than yourself!" He stomped up until he was behind Charlie, grabbed the chalk from his hand and snapped it in half. He let the pieces fall to the floor before grabbing Charlie's shoulders and spinning him around.

His brother's face was covered with tears. He was inhaling in short bursts, trying to stop the hitch in his breathing. Charlie pushed Don away and walked to the edge of the garage until he was up against the wall. He rubbed his face with his hands, trying to wipe everything away, but there was no point. Don had already seen.

"Charlie, I-" Don stopped. Part of him, the big brother part probably, wanted to apologize. But, somehow, Don didn't feel like he should have to. Not right now at least. "Buddy, I just don't understand why you've been acting like this."

There were a few awkward moments interrupted by Charlie's sniffing and uneven breathing. Don sat in the nearest plastic folding chair he could find, feeling exhausted all of a sudden.

"I didn't know what to do, Don," Charlie eventually whispered. "I didn't want to lose her. But I knew that-that I would. The odds-" Charlie swallowed. "It all just seemed impossible."

"That doesn't mean you had to just give up," Don said. That couldn't be his own voice cracking could it?

"No, it meant I had to focus on something else." Charlie finally turned around, and though his eyes were red, they were dry now. He crossed over and sat in the chair next to Don. Sighing, Charlie ran his hands through his hair. "And suddenly it was like I could just…forget about everything else and focus on the numbers."

Charlie laughed suddenly, but it was harsh and dark, so unlike his innocent, child-like brother that Don looked up in surprise. "It can't even be solved." Charlie shook his head and looked coldly at the filled chalkboards, as if they mocked him.

"Then why bother?"

Charlie shrugged. "I don't even know. Can you believe that? Three months, and I don't even know why." Charlie's voice cracked again and Don knew he was on the verge of tears. They sat in silence for a while, leaving Don to his thoughts.

His mother had asked about Charlie of course. Almost everyday there were questions about how we was doing, whether or not he was getting enough sleep or enough to eat. She even asked if he was making progress on his problem. P vs. NP, she had said proudly. Charlie's going to solve the impossible.

She hadn't once asked why her youngest son wasn't coming to visit her. Margaret just smiled when Don brought it up before she changed the subject. It had been a knowing smile, the kind all mothers seemed to have.

Out of all of them, their mother had always understood Charlie best. She had a way of smoothing over Charlie's problems with the rest of the world that Alan and Don just couldn't handle. While Don had been (and still was, partly) outraged at Charlie locking himself in the garage all these weeks, Margaret had seemed perfectly fine with it, as if she'd told him to do it in the first place.

And now, there was nobody to understand Charlie for them.

Don swam in his own feelings of grief for a few moments before he finally looked at Charlie. His eyes were still red, with dark circles underneath. With his shoulders slumped and the sorrow evident on his face, Charlie looked like the paradigm of loss. His brother might have been managing to pull himself together, but only just.

"Come on, buddy." Don put a hand on Charlie's shoulder. He was proud of how he kept his voice steady when he said, "We should get back to the hospital. I'm sure Dad wants to see us." Especially you, he thought, but kept to himself.

Charlie nodded solemnly. He stood up slowly before starting towards the door.

Don started to follow before he looked back at the chalkboards. "Didn't you need to add something? A new algorithm?"

Charlie paused and turned back also. He gave only a forlorn look at the boards before shaking his head. "No. I'm…" He took a deep breath, before nodding, and Don got the feeling that Charlie was trying to convince himself of something as well. "I'm done. It's impossible anyway." He walked through the garage door, leaving Don there by himself, surrounded by a mixture of grief, guilt and chalk dust.

He wasn't sure why, but Don turned around and picked up the two broken pieces of chalk. He put them next to the board Charlie had been working on and stared at it for a moment, his eyes lingering on the only half-written four that Charlie had ended on. None of it made much sense, but maybe, if he started to really pay attention-

"Don?" Charlie peeked around the doorway. "Are you coming?"

Don made one more cursory glance around the garage before nodding.

"Yeah. Yeah, buddy, I'm coming."