Welcome to my new story! This idea came to me as I was watching the season finale on Friday. Did anyone else get fairly emotional at the end when Charlie talked to his mother for the last time? I certainly did. I think it was one of the best made to date, and I really want to see JoBeth Williams back sometime soon again to play Margaret, even if just in a memory or something. I could really see Charlie in her.

All right, I'm going to continue with the story now, or I'll just keep babbling.

Summary: Don and Charlie's cousin comes to stay, in hopes that Don will be able to straighten her out, as her own mother couldn't. Will she bring people closer together, or will she force them further apart?

Timeline: S1 or so. Terry is still there, but Amita is no longer Charlie's student. She merely helps consult on FBI cases now, and is a close friend.

Pairing: D/T, with some C/A possibly creeping up in here.

Rating: PG-13 or so

Disclaimer: I own nothing but some videotapes full of Numb3rs episodes...and soon I will also own Season One (May 30th, people! Woohoo!)

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Bang!

The sudden loud noise roused Dr. Charles Eppes from his deep sleep. His head shot up, tired eyes looking wildly around the room. When he found nothing out of place, the mathematician lay his head back down on his incredibly comfortable pillow and closed his eyes.

Bang!

This time, Charlie shot out of bed. He clutched at his racing heart as he groped his way through the dark room towards his bedroom door. Once it was open, he followed the sparse light down the stairs and to the kitchen, where his father, Alan, was banging around pots and pans.

"Dad?" Charlie yawned, scratching his chest as he leaned up against the inside of the doorframe.

"Charlie?" Alan started, looking over at the exhausted figure of his youngest son. "What are you doing awake? I thought Don said you were out like a light."

"Hard to sleep when you keep hearing loud noises coming from your kitchen at two in the morning," Charlie said. He shuffled over to a stool at the island and sat down heavily. "Want to talk about anything?"

Alan turned to the stove and stirred something in a pan. "I made scrambled eggs. Do you want some?"

"Sure Dad," Charlie decided to simply humour his father. "Hey, where'd Don go?"

"Back to his apartment," Alan took two plates from beside the sink and filled them both with scrambled eggs. He took two forks from a drawer and handed one of each to his son. "He, unlike you and I, has to work on Saturday this week. It was something about closing a case and all the stupid paperwork that goes with it."

Charlie chuckled into his eggs. "Typical Don. Leaves the paperwork for last and does the action stuff first."

"Well, your brother always was driven by adrenaline," Alan pointed out, watching in amusement as Charlie shoveled down a huge forkful of eggs.

"Dad," Charlie swallowed the food and lay his fork down on the plate before looking directly at his father. "Why are you up making eggs at two in the morning?

"Charlie, do you remember your mother's younger sister Sarah?" Alan asked, using his fork to move the eggs around his plate aimlessly.

"Oh, the one who lives in Ohio and who we never get to see, right?"

"Same one," Alan nodded. "Well, I got a phone call from her at eleven tonight. Apparently, she has a fourteen year old daughter who is driving her up the wall, and she can't take it anymore. The girl's father is gone, vanished off the face of the earth, so she can't stick the girl on him. So, Margaret's dear, sweet sister Sarah has decided to send her daughter here to stay with us for a while. She thinks that Don, being an FBI agent, will help me straighten her out."

"Aunt Sarah's just sending her kid here with no forewarning?" Charlie gaped at his father.

"That phone call apparently was our warning, Charlie," Alan sighed. "So, tomorrow afternoon, while I'm cleaning the house, you're going to go to the airport and pick up your cousin."

"Uh, Dad? Exactly how am I going to manage that?" Charlie asked.

"No driving, right," Alan rubbed his temples. "Well, I'm sure that Don could break himself away from his paperwork to drive you..."

"I'll just ask Amita when it's a more human hour," Charlie said, picking up his fork and tucking away the rest of the eggs. "Now, if you're finished with your midnight cooking sprees, I'm going to head off to bed. Good night, Father."

Charlie headed back upstairs, his father's muttered farewell echoing in his ears. He climbed up the stairs, more away every step that his chances of getting to sleep in the next few hours were slim to none. His thoughts were going haywire, and he could do nothing to stop them.

Once perched on his bed, Charlie flopped backwards and stared up at the ceiling. Starting that afternoon, there would be a teenager staying at their home for an indefinite amount of time. A teenage girl, at that. It had been quite a long time, three years in fact, since a girl had lived in his house, and he wasn't quite sure how things were going to pan out. He now had someone that he had to help care for, and he could no longer hide in the garage for large amounts of times.

Fourteen year olds should technically be able to take care of themselves, but one could never tell how an individual was going to act. Charlie, for example, was living in an apartment with his mother at Princeton when he was fourteen. Don had been taking care of himself for a number of years previously, so he was completely ready to be alone. Depending on the amount of family support, as well as support from friends and neighbours, his cousin could be anywhere from completely independent to dependent fully on Charlie, Alan, and Don.

Charlie rolled over onto his side, facing the blank wall in front of him. He reached out a finger and traced the symbols he'd carved into the wood years before in a rare act of rebellion. His parents had never known, to any extent of his knowledge. Charlie had stolen a knife from downstairs and carved every formula to calculate measurements on a circle on this particular wall. Even now, almost twenty years later, he still remembered the rage that seared through his veins as he carved the formulas into the wall. He could only hope that his cousin was nowhere near that rebellious all the time. He couldn't afford to redo all the walls in the house.

- - - - - -

Special Agent Don Eppes shut his cell phone and tossed it onto his desk, rubbing his face with a hand in frustration. His father had just phone to inform him that his fourteen year old cousin was coming to live with them so he, Don, could straighten her out. Aunt Sarah had never really been one to hang onto any tiny bit of reality, and that obviously included her own daughter's sanity. He pitied the little girl, remembering tales his mother used to tell him about her idiotic baby sister who always seemed to know just how to get into the correct degree of trouble to make Grandma go crazy, but never enough trouble to do any serious damage. It seemed that her own daughter had now taken over that task, but did not care about the degree of trouble she got into.

"Don?" a female voice startled him out of his thoughts. Special Agent Terry Lake, Don's partner and friend for a decade, stood over him with a concerned look on her face. "That call didn't look to enjoyable. Is everything okay?"

"My cousin's coming to live with Dad and Charlie because my aunt thinks I can straighten her out," Don explained, pinching the bridge of his nose in order to relieve stress.

"When's she coming?" Terry asked, moving her chair over so she could sit beside him.

"This afternoon," Don said. "Charlie and Amita are going to pick her and her stuff up and bring it all back to the house. I have to go over tonight and introduce myself and everything. Dad told me to invite you to dinner too."

"Don't you want some time alone with your cousin to get to know her?" Terry inquired.

Don shook his head. "If this girl's anything like Dad described, I think I might need someone to keep me in check. I don't want to blow up at her on her first night here. Besides, Charlie's making Amita stay, possibly for the exact same reason."

"Sure, I'll come," Terry consented. She reached behind her and plucked a file off of her desk, handing it to Don. "You might want to take a look at this in the meantime. I think we've got our guy."

"You're serious?" Don flipped open the file, and a huge smile immediately graced his handsome features. "Terry, get David to meet us at this address and let's go. You've just made my day, girl."

"You owe me," Terry said, grabbing her jacket and leading the way to the elevators. "I made your day and I'm doing this dinner thing for you tonight."

"I drove you in today," Don argued, holding the door so Terry could slip into the elevator before him. "That should be enough payment."

"Throw in breakfast tomorrow morning and you've got yourself a deal," Terry kidded as the doors slid shut.