Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Numb3rs or any of the characters.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I can start writing. I hope. This one has been tucked away in a corner of my mind for a little while. I'm going to get rid of it now. I need the room.

The Birthday Present

Colby Granger sat at his desk in the bull-pen late on a Sunday night. (Well, Monday morning actually). This was the culmination of an intense month. Bank robbers, gun-runners and carjackers, oh my. But, finally, the bad guys were jailed, the paperwork filed, complete with dotted "i's" and crossed "t's". Everyone else had long since headed for home. Granger, too keyed up to sleep, remained. Alone but for one or two others in the office, in the hushed, peculiar silence that accompanies the pre-dawn hours, his mind was remembering things, and people from the past.

"Ever seen this much cash in one place before?" Che Lobo Santiago had asked Colby as they looked down at the large duffel bag of money that lay in between the seats of the SUV.

"Once" Colby remembered responding. "An Al Qaeda safe house in Kandahar."

"You take any of it for yourself?" the cynical follow-up question was accompanied by an equally cynical raised eyebrow.

Almost two years later, Granger was still struck by the feeling that the fact he hadn't helped himself to any of the money discovered that day in the terrorist bolt hole ended up making a difference for Joey Santiago somehow. The boy's father was already on edge. Consumed with worry for his only child, and rage towards the one's responsible for Joey's kidnapping.

His trust of the FBI's ability to bring his son home was tenuous at best. Lobo needed to believe the feds desire to see the boy safe was stronger than their adversarial relationship with him. Colby's answer in the negative about the Kandahar dough bolstered that belief. Perhaps just enough.

Whatever the case, the truth was, taking the Al Qaeda money, even so much as a dollar, had never been an option for Colby. People like Che Lobo Santiago might ridicule on the surface, while being secretly impressed, but for Granger, the only opinion that mattered in this case was his own.

"The true measure of a man is how he responds to life when nobody's looking" Colby's dad said frequently as he was growing up. That day in Kandahar was the first time Granger realized how deeply those words had taken root. How much he understood that he was indeed his father's son. And the depth of the debt he owed to a man gone too soon.

…They'd hit the house before sunrise, swarming under the unsuspecting inhabitants in a classic surprise attack. The all-too-brief, bloody fight that followed left four dead terrorists and three more wounded but in custody. It yielded weapons and valuable intelligence regarding the terror group's future plans and goals. What none of the U.S soldiers, not even the commanders of the raid, knew at the time, was that the safe house was keeping yet another secret. One that only came to light later, after an exhaustive search of the premises. The unassuming little dwelling was not only a rest stop for Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters and a weapons cache, not only a planning center, it was more. It was also a bank.

"One stop shopping" Dwayne Carter quipped to Colby. "Food, shelter, guns and financing. A terrorist convenience store"

Granger and Carter were the ones to find and report the money and subsequently, were the lucky Pierre's who got to sit on it until proper arrangements could be made to move so large an amount of cash. It hadn't been counted yet, so no one could really be sure how much there was.

Without a doubt, Colby for sure had never seen that much money before in his life, and probably never would again. He couldn't begin to speculate on how much lay in the metal locker found buried under the floorboards of the small cluttered back room. As he perused the stacks and bundles of Ben Franklin's, Andrew Jackson's and Ulysses Grant's he could only say it seemed an immense amount of cash. Enough to stagger the mind of a small town Idaho country boy for sure. The temptation could have been, should have been overwhelming, but it was not. Not for Colby anyway. Carter was another matter.

As the two of them waited for the return of their comrades, babysitting more green than either could have possibly imagined being this close to, the proximity obviously began to tell on Dwayne Carter. Speculatively eyeing the container full of cash, Carter turned Granger, giving his C.I.D. partner a look Colby had come to recognize called for a reaction of "uh-oh, what now?"

"That is a LOT of money bro'?" Carter began, "Enough to make a man break out in a cold sweat. Enough to make your brain cells go all wonky with the possibilities, huh?"

Colby shrugged. He'd been keeping an eye out for reinforcements, trying to ignore the money's presence. There wasn't anything he could do about it or with it, so he was trying to act as if it wasn't there. Only way he could think of to keep it in its place.

Carter, however, wasn't finished. "You know, Granger, nobody even knows how much cash is there. It hasn't been counted yet. You and me, we're the only ones who've even gotten a good look at it. Been this close to it. Just us two."

Colby waited for him to go on, not speaking.

Although they were alone in the small house, Carter still looked over his shoulder as if expecting to find another person present. He bit his lower lip and gave Granger a questioning look, which Colby returned.

"You're gonna make me say it, aren't you?" Dwayne spat out, once again glancing behind himself. "Okay, then, I will. There's so much there, no one, and I mean nobody, bro', is gonna miss a couple hundred thou or so. Apiece, you know? This is our chance. And it's never gonna come around again. So, I say, why not? I mean think about it. We're over here on this godforsaken patch of rock and sand, in the middle of a population that hates our guts. Everyday gettin' blown up or shot at, cursed and spit on. Walkin' around with one eye trained behind you for a knife in the back. And for what, huh? You think our 'country' appreciates it? Nah, they already forgot about us. You know they have. They got other fish to fry. We're just over here fighting in the dark. So come on man" Carter coaxed his fellow soldier, " If we're gonna get paid, now's the time"

During Dwayne's entire monologue, Granger had said nothing, letting the other ramble on until his piece was said. He turned his head to give Carter a level gaze. Then, a corner of his mouth quirked up in a miniscule, ironic smile. Suddenly, Colby could see his father's face in front of him as if the last time he'd beheld it was only yesterday. And he could hear his father's words regarding the true measure of a man's character. He knew what to say.

"Dwayne, I can't tell you what to do here. You're gonna have to be on your own with that. You're gonna have to decide what you can sleep with, if you're gonna be able to deal with what you see in the mirror. You're on your own there. But I DO know, I'm not touching that money. Number one, it might not belong to Al Qaeda anymore, but it's not mine either. I'm a lot of things, but, I'm no thief. And then, too, the way I figure it, that cash right there, it's blood money. How many deaths, a lot of 'em American, do you think that much money would buy? How much misery and grief? How many families would've ended up burying somebody they loved because of it? You do what you want. I'm not going to stop you. But I don't want anything to do with that money."

He turned back to the window, back to keeping watch. Behind him, he could hear Carter return to stand over the locker, weighing Colby's words against the siren call of an enormous illicit payday. After several long moments, Granger heard the sound of the chest being slammed shut, padlock snapped. With a muffled curse Dwayne Carter walked across the room, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the source of his mental torment.

"Well, now look what you did. Here I could've been a rich man come sunup. Now I'm still just another broke, stupid grunt sucking dust in the 'Stan. If you're not gonna grab any of that" he gestured at the deposit of cash, " then neither am I. But years from now, buddy, when we're both civilians struggling to pay for the car and the kids and make the house payment, you better not blame me!" His grin held a bitter tint.

The remainder of the night passed in silence, neither man having anything else to say. With morning, a relief detail arrived, along with the means to transfer the cash into the proper hands. Granger watched it go with relief, Carter with chagrin. When it was counted later, the amount turned out to be a whopping 4.5 million dollars. A staggering sum. And well rid of it, Colby decided. Money with those kinds of strings was poisonous. There was already enough of that to go around. He washed his hands of it.

Thoughts back in the present, he reached behind, removing his wallet from his zippered back pocket. He fingered the pictures it contained until he came to a particular one. Taking it from its plastic protective sleeve, he ran his fingers over the smooth, aged images upon it.

It was one of the few pictures taken of Colby and his dad together. Because his father's job had kept him on the road a lot, there weren't a great many opportunities for pictures. Especially of the two of them. Colby's grandmother had taken this one, just before one of their cherished fishing trips. Grinning ear to ear, goofy fishing hats donned and poles in hand, the photo radiated the happiness of the moment.

A great deal had happened and changed in Granger's life since this picture was snapped. Many things gained, and lost. Lessons learned. Changes the eleven year old boy in the picture would have never conceived. He was different in so many ways. Much of what made his life what it was now he would not trade for anything. Some of it he would always regret experiencing. But looking at the man standing next to the boy in this picture, he felt a renewed gratitude for the privilege of having known him. Even if only for the first fifteen years of his life.

He's been a lot a things. Athlete, student, soldier, spy, agent. Done things he could point to with pride, and some, a few, that like everyone else, he could only hope no one else ever found out about. But, he considered as he decided to call it a night (morning?), he could honestly say one thing with absolute surety. He had become the kind of man his father would have been proud of. He gave his best effort to respond to life when no one was looking in a way his dad would have respected. It was enough.

Standing up to at last make his way home, Colby took a last look, placed the picture and his wallet away in their proper places, grabbed his jacket and headed for the elevator. Punching the button for the lobby, he allowed his head to rest against the back wall, exhausted. While waiting for the car to arrive, he'd checked his watch, with the built in feature which let him know not only the time but the date, and had a realization.

Softly, barely audible, he whispered, "Happy birthday dad. Happy birthday."

THE END