by Eurydice
Rating: M
Timeline: An angst-riddled alternate ending to "Sniper Zero" (Season 1).
Disclaimer: The only things that belong to me about this story are the words I used, in the order in which I used them. (This does not include the small paragraph I lifted directly from "Uncertainty Principle.")
- - - -
Chapter 1: HereEvery time he thought about it (which was every day until his death), it struck Don as ridiculous, teetering on the edge of ironic, that his brother's last word was, "What?" His genius brother, a phenomenon, who'd always had all the answers down to the tiniest minutiae, had gone down with a bang and the word "what". Just like that.
That day was preserved with shocking clarity, a neat little capsule of pain that needled him afresh when he allowed himself to think about it. He remembered it all: Terry finding the blue van, the two of them clearing people out of the square. The adrenaline was there, held back but ready to charge into action. Thoughts ricocheted off each other like pinballs – how long the sniper would wait, which building was he likely in, whether Edgerton was in place yet – and all of them came to a screeching halt when the first shot rang out.
By then, of course, all thought was gone.
- - -
When it happened, it happened fast. He saw Charlie across the square, writing something on a clipboard. He was opening his mouth to speak – What are you doing here, or maybe that old favorite Get down! – when the report of a rifle echoed off the buildings. Now the adrenaline poured into his veins, and his legs began to carry him across the square to where his brother was standing, apparently having been too deep in thought to hear the gunshot.
This time he could speak, and did, yelling for Charlie to get down. David echoed it, charging forward, and as the second shot sounded he hit Charlie with his shoulder and sent them both crashing to the ground. There was a third shot, and then nothing except for shouts and the whuppa-whuppa of the circling helicopter.
He missed, thought Don in a bizarre mixture of panic and exultation. The sniper missed, he's never full-on missed before, and now –
He skidded to a halt and grabbed Charlie's shoulders. His ears didn't even register Terry and David calling his name. "Charlie," he said, "are you crazy?" He pulled him to sitting, not knowing whether to hug him or hit him, and only when he felt the spreading warmth on his chest and the arm around his brother did he register that something was wrong.
Charlie hadn't looked up. Hadn't said anything. His hands, instead of coming up to Don's arm in the reassuring gesture of I'm-all-right, were lying limply on the sidewalk. And instead of a heart pounding with fear-drenched relief, there was only that spreading warmth. "Charlie."
"Don." It was Terry's voice, shaky. "Don, put him down."
Put him down. Yes. He moved backward, and Charlie's head trailed off his arm to slump gently onto the ground. His eyes were open. He looked confused. Get down? Why?
Don stood. He knew vaguely that the front of his shirt and the sleeve of his jacket were drenched with blood, but his first concern was for Charlie. "Get someone over here," he said loudly. His voice was too sharp to his own ears. "A paramedic. Something."
Edgerton had arrived. He seemed unruffled, but his face was pale. "He shouldn't have had time for two shots," he said. "Don, I –"
"Did you get him?"
The sniper – the other sniper – nodded. "Yeah."
"Good." Don stooped to pick up the clipboard that had clattered to the pavement. It was a diagram of the square, full of lines and numbers and letters and angles. A small rectangle of windows on one of the buildings was circled, and the word "Here?" had been added in Charlie's thoughtful, legible printing.
"He was close," muttered Edgerton. "Why the hell…"
Don turned back to where Charlie lay. David was kneeling beside him, trying to keep people away. He had closed Charlie's eyes. "Why is he still here?" Don demanded. "I told you, get someone over here."
Terry put a hand on his arm. "Don, there's nothing they can do."
"He's not even supposed to be here," he said. His throat felt approximately the size of a reed. The breeze was suddenly too hot on his face, and he pulled off his jacket and let it drop to the ground. The blood had soaked through and stained the sleeve and front of his shirt beneath it, but he barely noticed.
Terry tried again. "Don."
"No," he said. "He's not supposed to be here." And with that, he walked away. His legs no longer felt like his own, none of his body felt like his own. There was a high-pitched buzzing in his ears and his eyes swam out of focus.
Charlie looked up, his pencil poised above the clipboard as he heard the alarm in Don's voice. He had not heard the shot; he did not know enough to be afraid of where he was. All he knew was that, given one or two more variables, he could figure out exactly where his brother should go, and all of this would end, not in gunfire, but in a simple arrest. And so he paused in his writing. He looked up. And he said, "What?"
Feeling jolted back into Don's legs as he crashed to his knees. His head swam as though he would faint, but instead he pitched forward and caught himself with both hands, skinning them - tomorrow there would be faint red lines on his palms and fingertips. Terry spoke his name in alarm, but he couldn't respond. Her arms encircled his waist, and he felt her face and chest press into his back. With a sour taste in his mouth, he turned to her and took hold of her shoulders. She looked at him unflinchingly, her eyes shining but not yet overspilling.
"I need you to do something for me," he said.
- - -
He had the presence of mind to change out of his bloodsoaked shirt before leaving his father's house. As he made his way down the street, he turned on the radio as loud as his ears would let him. He just had to get through the day, that was all. Just get through the day and then…
What?
He knew that the shock hadn't worn off yet. The grief and anger were there, but muted, buried under layers of duty and obligation. The first step was to tell his father, which he'd done, calmly and softly and slowly. He'd broken bad news to people before, people he was close to, people he loved. He'd dealt with death over and over, and the muted buried part of him was screaming (but distantly, oh, so distantly) that it wasn't fair, first his mother, then his brother.
He pushed it away.
The Cal Sci campus was lovely in the burgeoning twilight, all golds and reds, with a soft breeze gently stirring over his skin. Don could hear laughter, and it hurt, but he pushed that away, too.
Down a musty corridor that smelled largely of chalk dust, a smell Don would forever associate with Charlie and the garage and that horrible time before his mother's death, a door stood partly open. As he approached it, it swung open completely, revealing the curious and slightly worried face of Charlie's mentor.
"Don," he said, and stepped back to allow him entrance. "We got Terry's call. What's wrong?"
Amita was at the back of the otherwise empty classroom, leaning on a window. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, her black curls stirring in the faint breeze from the paddling ceiling fan. Looking at her almost broke Don's resolve, and he forced himself to look elsewhere.
"Larry, Amita, please sit down." He sounded professional, detached. Just doing my job, just telling you how it is, not getting involved, just laying it down and smoothing it out. It's what I'm good at; it's what I do.
Larry sat on a desk, but Amita did not move. "What's going on?" she asked. There was a sharpness there, a slight acid not usually present in her low, pleasant voice. It was as if she already knew. Probably, Don would reflect later, she did.
He'd had the story planned out, had even rehearsed it. He'd told his father the details first, and broken it to him as gently as possible… which hadn't done a damn thing. Crime scene. Followed me. First shot missed. Second didn't. Clipboard.
It was a good, logical progression, one that would answer more of the questions before they had a chance to be asked. It was a technique he'd learned long ago – the more you give up front, the more easily your audience will accept what you say, be it truth or lies. He'd used it countless times in his job, and that's what this was, right? Just another part of his job. Except what came out wasn't, "Something happened today," or even, "Charlie and I, we've been working on a case."
What came out was, "Charlie's dead."
There had been an ambulance. There had been everything, the holy trinity of crime scenes – cop cars, of course, dozens of them; an ambulance; even a fire truck. People in blue uniforms and hats, wearing gloves on their hands and carrying bright red boxes that looked like makeup cases. The dance was tightly rehearsed, their moves quick and delicate and studied, but his brother had a hole in his back the size of a grapefruit, Don had seen it, had felt it, and he… and he…
He watched them with hollow eyes. Hope, that most unwelcome and unwanted visitor, was nudging its way into his mind. Not all gunshots are fatal, it said. This case is proof of that; one of your sniper victims got off with a sore shoulder. Don knew, of course he knew, that this was different – no one with a wound that big could live for long. But Hope, detested Hope, was there, only to slouch off petulantly as its blue-uniformed bearers slowed and finally stopped their dance.
Larry was sitting motionlessly on the desk, one hand pressed against his cheek, and in that moment he looked like nothing so much as a maiden aunt much offended by the swearing of some young ruffian. "Dead?" he said, as if it were an unfamiliar word. "How… what?"
And now Don got to tell his story, the story he'd told once already today and would likely repeat until it became a full-on monologue. Through it all, Larry's hand remained on his face. He shook his head from time to time, and asked only one question in a clogged, inscrutable voice: "He knew where the sniper was. Why would he put himself in the path of danger?" He was crying now, his face red.
"He wanted to help."
Don and Larry turned to Amita. She was still by the window, her arms still crossed, crying freely. Her voice, however, was clear. "He wanted to prove that he was right, that he could outthink that Agent Edgerton. And he wanted to show off his diagram, his equation." She smiled a little. "Charlie likes to be right."
It seemed as though she would say more, that words were hovering at the tip of her tongue, but as she began to say them, she broke down completely. She let out an anguished cry and sagged against the window, her face in her long hands ("pianist's hands," Don's mother would have called them). Don watched her helplessly. He wanted to comfort her, but if he did that…
His father had broken down, too. And Don had comforted him, had been there to Take Care Of Things, but had had to leave. He could feel his own grief building at the edges of his eyes, the way his arms and chest recalled the memory of Charlie's blood, the way his knees hinged and threatened to give way. He could feel it in the muted part of him. He could feel it clawing its way to the top, and he struggled mightily as he saw Amita sob into her hands.
Larry rose from the desk, stumbled a bit, and went to her. He had always impressed Don as brilliant but awkward, the kind of man who could figure out the tiniest details of existence but would sometimes forget to put his shoes on in the morning. (A lot like Charlie, in other words, but oh, that thought was poison, a scorpion's sting.) The awkwardness was gone now as he pulled Amita to him and held her, murmuring words that Don couldn't hear but could guess. It's all right was popular in situations like this, as was It'll be okay.
He felt intrusive standing here, as though he were spying on a private moment. But he stayed. He stayed until he could overhear Larry's soft litany of comforts. "I know," he was whispering. "Amita, I know. It's okay, he loved you. He loved you."
That did it. Don turned, threw the door open and launched himself into the hallway. It was mostly empty, but the few students present gawked at him as he hurried for the exit. His throat seemed to be closing in on itself, and he became suddenly aware that he couldn't breathe. It was as though someone had pushed a hot chunk of slate down his throat, and he gasped for air. Some came – not enough – and he tried again, another huge, rasping pull.
"Hey," said a voice. "You need some help?"
"No," he managed to say. "No." He continued down the hallway. He made it to a corner and gave up, sagging to the ground with his forehead to his knees. He could still smell chalk dust, and could almost hear – no, he could hear it, there was no almost about it, he could hear the frantic tick-scratch of chalk on blackboard and his brother's strangled tone.
Statistically, you're dead now. You understand what that means? A man aimed a gun at your head and fired. The fact that you survived is an anomaly, and it's unlikely to be the outcome of a second such encounter.
He had been right. And today, a man had aimed a gun at Charlie's chest, fired, and missed. In the second such encounter, he had not missed. And now his brother was dead.
Don covered his head with his arms like a child hiding in a closet. He was unaware, uncaring of the stares he was drawing. Presently, he heard voices. Two of them. Larry and Amita – they were saying his name. He couldn't answer. He didn't want to answer, or to look up, or to move. After some time, he felt Amita's cool pianist's hand on the back of his neck, and she whispered, "It's okay, Don. It's okay. He loved you."
To the students in the hallway, they made a strange tableau: the absentminded professor and a comely graduate student, sitting on either side of a sobbing, dark-haired stranger, their arms around him and each other. They would hear the news tomorrow, perhaps even tonight, and understand.
