Title: "Love can" (1/1)
Characters: Charlie/Colby, Margaret, Alan, Don.
Word count: 1,423.
Rating: T.
Spoilers: Season 1.
Warnings: None.
Summary: Math can't make Margaret come back.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Numb3rs.
Beta: The wonderful fredbassett and the great Lily G.
Written for: My talented LJ friend devon99. I've known her for a while now and I can tell she's amazing. She's a great friend of mine and I'm happy to write this for her. I hope you like it, hon!
XxX
Love can
There are things that numbers can't fix.
Nothing can heal grief. Somehow it stays in the heart forever. Years can pass by, people can come and go, bringing joy and agony and then taking them away.
But there are those who were always there in the beginning, and then all of a sudden they leave because it's supposed to be that way. They become out of reach, and they never come back.
Algorithms. Complex equations. Apparently perfect theories. None of them apply. None of them can defeat death.
In moments like these, Charlie disbelieves math. It doesn't have all the answers. He can't trust in it.
He misses his mother. He misses her all the time. But sometimes, he forgets about her. Sometimes, there are too many things in his head – solving the latest case, catching the bad guy, taking care of dad, making Donnie proud.
Charlie wonders if his obsessions have become a way for him to escape from his mother's memory. Because it's possible, if not probable – he knows that math can take over his math and keep him going, keep him breathing when he can't handle the rest of his life.
It's silly. The phrases hang in the air, leaving an echo that drives him crazy. Sometimes, numbers are just that – figures that respond to facts and that gives him a glimpse to the past or the future. They can't do anything to change what already happened, though; they never could. All they do is explained the possible whys.
Now, as he stares at his mother's picture on the wall, Charlie wonders when the first time he stopped thinking about her was. The problem is that he can't remember. It's all foggy in there and maybe, just maybe, he wants it to stay that way. It could make the pain fade away.
"Hey," Colby whispers, covering Charlie's shoulders with warm hands.
Charlie feels affection all around him, protecting him, and blames himself for forgetting that his lover was in the same room. "Hey," he whispers back, trying to think about the good things he has now, and not what he's lost on the way to this minute.
"I've got something for you."
It's hard for Charlie to get in the right mood to open a present. Melancholy is a state of mind that manages to sneak into his days. He doesn't respond, wishing Colby would comprehend that he's someplace else, away from the here and now, away from the love anybody but his mom can represent.
And yet, Colby reacts. In silence, he barely retreats; he caresses Charlie's arms as he traces a line from his shoulders to his hands, so he can guide him in a solid gesture of understanding.
Charlie thinks that Colby doesn't really know what's in his heart anyway. For a moment, he wants to push him away, to tell him to stop. And he's about to do that, when he sees something on the table.
"Alan and I were cleaning the garage, and we found these…" Colby gestures Charlie to get closer to the table, to take a better look at what lays there.
"I don't remember them," Charlie mutters, as his eyes take in the pictures of him and his family.
"Yeah, well… Apparently, your father didn't get rid of all your family pictures. These ones fell to the floor behind a bunch of boxes a long time ago. He said he hadn't seen them in years."
It's amazing how one image can trigger others in Charlie's head. He tries to figure out whether they're real or not, but he lets them go on. Is his brain creating a fake happiness? Is it blocking the agony for a tiny, short second, giving him enough energy to go through the day?
He and Donnie are playing in the backyard. His brother has a toy gun and claims to be the cop, while Charlie hides his father's glasses and calculates how fast Donnie will be able to find them. Dad walks around the house, calling the family, asking where his glasses are; he needs them to work on new plans, and he pretends he doesn't know what's going on, but the truth is he's also playing his sons' game just to make them laugh. When Mom calls from the kitchen, telling that dinner's ready, playing stops for a while, and when everyone sits at the table, the world makes sense.
Numbers are not even necessary to explain it. There wouldn't be any difference if they didn't exist.
Charlie takes a deep breath as his fingertips brush the old pictures found by Colby and his father. The memory, true or not, has faded and it's left his heart in the middle of a struggle. He had his mother, and he lost her. He spent the last days of her life working on an equation that he already knew had no solution. He wasted that precious time, and it doesn't matter how many times people tell him that she knew it already – he should have told her how much she meant to him. How much she still means today.
It's too late now for regrets.
"I bet you had so much together. You look like you loved each other very much," are the words Colby's lips pronounce. They confused Charlie even more.
"Can you love anyone if you forget they ever existed? If for some reason, you don't remember them most of the time?" The question rolls out of Charlie's tongue, and when he notices, he doesn't know if he wants an honest response or not.
Colby gives him his answer. "Yeah. You can."
"How?" Suddenly, Charlie finds himself longing for that explanation more than any other in his life.
"When someone goes away, everyone tells us that they'd like us to move with our lives, but the truth is that's what's best for ourselves. We try to forget those who have left us because it takes the pain away. We eventually find a way to make them less important than they are… but we never really let them go."
In a way, Charlie's heart gets warm. At least this happens to everyone. It's natural, it's what he has to go through to find a better way to live his life.
Colby concludes, "When we remember those who are gone, even if is for a brief moment; when we wish for them to be alive, near us, that's when we know we love them. We hold on to the pain because it brings us closer to them, and Charlie, I truly believe that the ones watching us from above are happy that we miss them a bit."
Looking into those green eyes and hearing that honest voice, Charlie's heart gets burned and melts. The corners of his mouth curve in a pleasant smile – full of relief, full of love. His eyelashes tremble and the tears that have been fighting to come out finally start rolling down his blushed cheeks.
He leaves the pictures on the table. Colby's behind him, embracing him now, supporting him as he cries. Charlie turns around, runs a hand over his lover's neck, and looks for his voice. He barely finds it, and right now all he can say is, "You… You…"
"I just want you to be happy," Colby mutters close to his lips. His words are closer to Charlie than his body; they reach for him and bring peace to his wounded heart.
Something connects them. Charlie doesn't know what it is, but he's grateful for it. So he embraces Colby, trying to pull him as close as words are. "I am," he whispers against his lover's shoulder. "Because I've got you."
This is when Charlie finds out that if he only remembers his mother from time to time it really is okay. He can live the present as if it wasn't linked to the past. But he can also look at the old days for only a minute and find love in it, because it is a feeling that remains in his heart, and it's stronger than melancholy and sadness. He's allowed to forget her, he's allowed to remember her and miss her, and he's allowed to feel guilty. He's allowed to feel everything.
Colby is the one who shows him this truth, the one who teaches him something new. He couldn't have known this by sitting at the table and working on his math.
Because, he already knows it - there are things that numbers can't fix.
But love can.
The End.