Author's note: This chapter was written before the season 4 premiere of Numb3rs. (I write this for those of you who read this after seeing that episode.
"We gotta talk!" Stan's voice had an underlying urgency, even with the weak cell phone signal.
"What's going on?" Alan asked, munching on a sandwich. He and Don ate together in an empty conference room near the latter's desk.
"I need to meet with you! Some things can't be told over the phone!"
"Are we getting sued again???" Alan groaned and became worried. The agent stopped eating and looked at his father.
"No...It's beyond that ...trust me! Meet me at..."
"I'm eating with Donnie..." Alan didn't want to squander the rare opportunity to have lunch with his older son.
"Alan, please...what I need to tell you is very impo..." the line got cut off. With sigh, Alan closed and put away his cell phone.
"What's wrong?"
"I dunno..."Alan shrugged and bit into his sandwich."He refused to tell me over the phone, but Stan's a bit of a drama queen"
"so you don't think it's anything serious?"
"nah..."
Meanwhile, Stan frantically and with curses, looked for the special cell phone charger that could be used in a car.
he muttered after a few minutes. "Screw this! I'm calling him on a public phone"
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Before Alan could eat much more of his sandwich, his cell phone rang again. If Stan hadn't been such a good friend, Alan would have ignored the call.
"hello?" Alan rolled his eyes.
"Alan...please... let me talk...I'm not being a drama queen, okay? I really do have something very important to tell you! I swear it on my children! Let's meet at McGillicuddy's !"
Alan's gut told him that Stan did have something very important to say, but not urgent enough to skip out on Don. "I'll meet you in ninety minutes?"
"Make it an hour" Stan insisted.
"Eighty minutes" Alan countered firmly. His sons always came first.
"Fine..."
"Got any idea why Stan's gotta talk to ya?" Don asked when Alan closed his cell phone.
"Not a clue" Alan replied, "but I'll find out soon enough."
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McGillicuddy's, a small bar in old town Pasadena, stood on a corner, empty but for a couple of servers, and Stan, at a booth anxiously waiting for Alan, while drinking Dos XX, a Mexican beer. Again, he looked at the picture. The one he had taken a few hours back. ; The one that would force his best friend to relive mistakes of the past, and change several lives.
"Now I know what Don goes through..." Stan thought.
Finally, to his relief, Alan arrived. Upon joining his friend, Alan asked, "What's so important that you wanted me to leave Donnie in the middle of lunch?"
"Let me start at the beginning" Stan took a deep breath. "Today, I went with my new digital camera to take some 'after' photos of that hotel reconstruction for the portfolio, but something came up and I took a photo of another kind."
"What? Did you photograph a crime?" Alan guessed. "Involving someone you know?"
"No...Let me finish..." Stan interrupted. "I saw something shocking, but not in the way you think..."
"Just show me the damn photo!" Alan grew impatient with Stan's fumbling, thinking that his friend was over dramatizing something minor. "Or I will leave!!"
"Alan, this photo is a Pandora's box! As your friend I need to warn you."
"This isn't one of your Photoshop deals is it?" Alan became more aggravated. Stan always had loved computers, and lately, had gotten into doing photoshopping.
"I wouldn't ever think to Photoshop something like this for a friend!!!!"
"Stan, show me the damned picture!!" Alan demanded, "Or I will leave!!"
Reluctantly, Stan took out his digital camera, which he had put away temporarily before Alan came. Stan made sure that it was on the preview screen and somberly gave it to his friend.
Alan got the camera from him. At first he just saw her, that woman. He was about to yell at Stan, but then saw something else. Next to her stood a young man, much younger than Charlie, but who looked exactly like Alan's father.
With that, the memories came flooding back. During Charlie's sophomore year at Princeton, Alan ran into an old girlfriend from his college days. She had made him feel young, and reminded him of the hardcore, fighting idealist he used to be. The one who died the day Margaret told him she was pregnant with Don. Lunches turned to dinners, which in turn became weekend trips, and overnight stays at a small apartment in West Hollywood.
Alan, not wanting to delve into his emotions, and needing to get to the bottom of things, told his friend, "Call your brother, and ask him for the number of a good PI" Stan's older brother worked in insurance. "But don't say it's for me!"
"I'm on it" Stan opened his cell phone.
Alan needed someone with investigative experience; since asking Don couldn't even be considered, a PI would have to do.
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At dinner that night, the boys noticed how quiet Alan seemed. He made a comment or two, but to Don, something didn't seem right.
Alan's mind wasn't on the meal of steak and mashed potatoes, but how he should, if ever approach this mystery son. The older man felt that one couldn't just go up to someone and say 'hi. I think I am your biological father. Would you be willing to do a DNA test?
"You okay Dad?" Don asked.
"I'm ...thinking about a project" Alan lied reluctantly. He already told them that Stan's insistent summons resulted from a bad EBAY purchase. Don began to think that maybe there was something more to that call from Stan.
"Is it giving you trouble?" Don continued his questions.
"If it's math related, I can help" Charlie piped up.
"its client related" Alan lied again.
"Anything I can do?" Don persisted with concern. He knew his father too well.
"I'm fine!" Alan got up to put his plate away.
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A few days later, Alan found himself at the office of Henry Gonzalez, a former detective of the San Francisco Police department, talking about the situation with reluctance. THe retiree gave Gonzalez, Stan's picture, and phone number. The PI asked about the girlfriend, and to Alan's discomfort, the affair.
He asked for a partial advance, which Alan gave him in cash, and they arranged to meet in two weeks.
"I'll expect you to call between now and our next meeting" Alan warned. They said their goodbyes and he departed.
Alan, in his car, did some thinking. What would he do, if there were enough clues to suggest that the young man could be his son? How could he make up for not being there? Sure it was her fault that Alan missed out on the kid's childhood, but none the less, the retiree had not been there during those early years: the night feedings, illnesses, back to school nights, homework help, and the other little things that made up parenthood. What's more, what would he tell the boys? He knew they'd be angry and hurt, that their mother had been cheated on. Would they resent the new little brother, for being the living incarnation of their father's betrayal? And what of the young man? would he feel left out?
"At least he had a sister..." Alan mused, remembering that she had mentioned having a ten year old, during that first fateful lunch
What about Millie? Would she stop trusting Alan upon finding out that he cheated on Margaret? He could hear her, in his mind, ask sharply "How can I trust someone who cheated the moment his wife went across the country?"
Sighing, Alan knew that all he could do for now, was wait
TBC