Title: To Protect You
Word count: 3051 words
Author: chymom
Characters/parings: Colby/Charlie, Don/?, Liz/David, Mega/Larry, Alan, Ian, and a guest star.
Rating: NC-13
Warring: There is talk about abuse here but not in detail.
Disclaimer: I don't own any one in this story. I only clam the idea for the story.
Spoilers: Any of the epodes of Numb3rs may be talked about in this story.
Summary: Don will do anything to protect the ones he loves. How far will they go to protect him?
Beta: Devo79
Author's notes: This is NOT part of my Logic and Reason series. There are some things that are talked about from the series. Any and all honest feedback is welcome.
Challenge Lines: Form Backscatter
Charlie: You lied to me.
Don: To protect you.
To Protect You
Don had spent the last week in Washington DC telling other agents how Charlie and his math had been able to help him and his team out of many tough spots. With being gone for a longer period of time than normal he felt the need to check in on Charlie before heading on into work.
Parking his SUV in the lot nearest the Math buildings Don leisurely made his way towards his brother's office. Upon entering he found Larry moving things around, how his brother ever found anything in this train wreck of an office always amazed Don.
"Don, You're home early! We weren't expecting you until tomorrow." Larry spoke, seeing Don standing in the doorway. Don noticed Larry was putting the files and papers spread over Charlie's desk into a bag.
"I got home early. Is Charlie in class?" Don asked approaching the dart board hanging to the left of Charlie's desk. Picking up the darts and aiming for the board Don's body took over as he waited for Larry to answer.
"When I left, Charles was resting on the couch. Colby wanted him to get some rest and still be able to keep an eye on him. " Larry paused at seeing the uneasiness cross Don's face. The dart that Don was throwing hit one of the math covered boards in the office instead of the dart board.
"Why does Charlie need to rest where Colby can keep an eye on him?" The uneasiness in Don's voice was becoming more apparent.
"Colby's not let Charles out of his sight since he came home from the hospital." Suddenly Don felt as if a lead ball had hit him in the stomach. Larry finished placing things in the bag and walked out the office door. He was in the hallway heading towards the parking lot when Don's voice stopped him.
"Larry?" Don asked dropping the darts down on the corner of the desk and following him out into the hall.
"Why was Charlie in the hospital?" Larry quickly understood that Don didn't know what he was talking about.
"Colby, David, and Agent Edgerton made the arrest after Charles was taken to the hospital." Larry was still saying something but Don didn't hear it over the pounding of his heart. No longer able to stand there and listen to Larry, Don hurriedly made his way outside and into his SUV.
The drive home was too long for him. Don wanted to see Charlie and he wanted to see him yesterday. Hitting the steering wheel in frustration he drove as fast as he could. Finally arriving at Charlie's, Don was met with not only Colby and Charlie's cars in the driveway but David and Megan's as well. Quickly parking, Don made his way inside.
"Charlie, where are you?" Don demand walking in the front door. He was a little surprised however when he found Liz and David standing at the coffee table in the living room each holding a plate with a sandwich on it.
"Donnie, you're home. What's with the yelling?" Alan asked his oldest son as he walked into the living room with a plate as well.
"What's wrong?" Don sarcastically asked, "Apparently my brother was hurt and NO ONE called me to let me know."
The moment Don had come in with his voice raised Charlie sank as far as he could into Colby's arms. Looking down, Colby noticed Charlie shaking and he didn't like it.
"Don, shut up and sit down!" Colby's voice was rarely raised this loud at home or the office. It had never been raised in this manner to his boss.
"Charlie, honey, it's okay. No one is going to hurt you. Can you look at me? Please, honey?" Colby kept his eyes on the man in his arms. Slowly, almost cautiously, Charlie raised his eyes.
"That's it, do you want to talk with Don?" A flash of fear crossed Charlie's face. He was scared of what Don might do, but he didn't have the energy to worry about that right now.
"Charlie, buddy?" Don said walking to stand in front of the coffee table. His hand reaching out to touch Charlie but stopped mid air when he saw the flash of fear and hurt in his brother's eyes. Don watched as Charlie moved further into Colby trying to get away from his almost touch. It hit Don harder than the lead ball in his stomach had.
"Buddy, it's okay. I'm not going to hurt you." Don said backing up a little towards the dinning room.
Larry came in and closed the front door behind him. Liz and David where sitting across from Colby and Charlie in one of the two oversized chairs in the small living room. Larry walked over and sat next to Megan in the other one. Each couple had a plate of food and a drink. Alan was now sitting beside David and Liz in one of the dinning room chairs.
"Don, have a seat." Ian said as he placed a chair behind Don. Don did as he was told and looked over at his brother. There wasn't a lot of Charlie that could be seen at the moment. However there was enough to see some of the damage that had been done to him. Don did a quick inventory of the marks on Charlie's body.
Both of Charlie's eyes were black. His lips were swollen. There were several purple and blue marks that ran up and down his arms and neck. Several cuts and bruises were on his arms and it looked as if there were more under the loose clothing he was wearing.
Don could feel his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. The anger he felt towards the person who dared to hurt his brother was now through the roof. Don was glad he was sitting down. He wasn't sure how well he'd be able to stand after seeing the way Charlie looked.
"Charlie, do you think you can tell me what happened?" Don didn't know what scared him more. The sight of his little brother or the thoughts of what he was going to do to the person who'd done this to Charlie.
"How did you know to come home and not to CalSci?" Alan asked as he leaned back heavily in his seat.
"I went to CalSci. I found Larry instead of Charlie." Don replied as he ran his hand though his hair. He took several deep breaths as he tried to get his anger under control.
"I asked dad not to bother you." Charlie's voice shattered the silence that had settled in the room.
"Buddy?" Don quietly asked. The last thing he wanted to do was to upset Charlie more.
"I didn't want to bother you. He's already admitted what he did and he's locked up." Charlie said looking anywhere he could but Don.
"Buddy, you know you don't bother me. When someone hurts you, that bothers me!" Don said the bitterness slowly leaving his voice.
"This has been a rough week. I bet you didn't eat on the plane. Why don't you grab a plate?" Alan asked standing up and placing his hand on Don's shoulder as he passed by him to the kitchen.
"I'm not hungry, Dad." Don didn't want to eat. Turning to look at his agent and his brother.
"Buddy," Don calmly asked getting Charlie to look at him once again.
"Do you think you could tell me what happened?" Don asked. Colby and the team easily picked up on the voice Don was using. It was the same one he'd use talking to crime victims. Charlie was still tucked tightly inside Colby's arms which were now loosely around Charlie.
"A few months ago." Charlie's broken voice began.
"I received a letter in the mail. It was from back east somewhere. When I read it, {Hello} was the only thing it said. A week later the next one came from a different location, with the same message. A few days later another one. The letters got longer." Charlie took a moment to move into a more comfortable position.
Don had noticed that the whole time Charlie was talking Colby hadn't looked anywhere but Charlie. Some of the emotion that he was seeing in Colby's eyes were easy for Don to pick up on since he had some of the same fears himself about Charlie.
"I threw the first few letters away." Charlie's soft voice pulled Don out of his thoughts.
"I thought they where sent as a joke from one of my students. When they had gotten to be more than {Hello}. I started putting them into a folder. I kept the folder in the locked drawer in my desk." Charlie said looking over at Larry.
Charlie didn't have to ask Larry to get the folder for him. One silent exchange between the old friends and the folder was placed in Don's hands.
It didn't take Don long to find out two things about the letters. One, the person's handwriting was easily recognizable because all the letters were typed. The second thing was that the man clearly had to have followed his brother at some point to know some of the information to put in the letters. Neither of these facts sat well with him.
"A month ago the person got bolder. They started to call me. It started as calling and hanging up. Then after a few days the caller would say my name. The calls were coming twice a week. Then over the last two weeks they started to come once a day. For the two days before he.." Charlie's unshed tears were now falling and Colby was hugging him tightly.
"Charlie?" Colby asked looking down at him.
"I'm okay. Before I meet him again he was calling me every two hours." The look of surprise was on the agents' faces.
"Charlie, You lied to me." Ian's tight control on his emotions was beginning to waver and it could clearly be heard in his voice.
"I didn't lie." Charlie said looking at Ian.
"Charlie you didn't tell us that he'd also been prank calling you." Colby gently said rubbing his hands up and down Charlie's arms.
"What did the guy want?" Charlie was thankful to Don for getting everyone's attention off him for a moment.
"He wanted to let me know where to meet him. So that he wouldn't…" Charlie didn't finish. The lump in his throat was becoming harder to swallow down.
"Charlie, did you meet him before the other day?" Don needed to know.
"No, and yes. I met him several times before but that had to do with work." The idea that Charlie knew the man who did this, even had worked with him before, was unnerving to Don.
"There were clear sings that he had been in my office. One time I walked in to find that everything on my desk had been thrown on the floor. Another time I found my locked drawer open and I had the only key with me. Then a few days ago I found a picture taped to my desk with a note." Charlie was reaching into the pocket of the sweats that he was wearing. Pulling out a piece of paper and a picture. He handed them to Colby.
"What did you find?" Don asked. Colby looked at the picture before handing it over to Don. The other agents in the room were standing behind Don's chair to see the picture.
The picture was of Don kissing someone. It was apparent that the other person in the picture was a man. Only Don's face could be seen clearly, the other man's face was hidden. Ian laid his hand on Don's back in a comforting touch.
The letter was not long but gave Charlie an ultimatum. He would come and meet the blackmailer or the picture, along with others the man had, would be sent to the higher ups in the FBI.
Don was mad at Charlie for not telling him or anyone else about getting the letters. Standing up from his chair Don slowly moved over to kneel in front of Colby and Charlie.
"I understand that I wasn't here but Colby was. For that matter so was David, Ian, Liz, and Megan. You could have told any one of them what was going on. Did you?" Don asked almost pleading with Charlie for an answer.
"Don, he's a real piece of work. I wouldn't have thought he would do this to anyone least of all Charlie. He was an agent for Christ sake." Liz said. Don almost fell over as he quickly turned and looked at her.
"An agent?" Don asked as he watched Charlie press against Colby's body.
"He can't hurt you. You're safe." Colby softly whispered in his lover's ear.
"He was an agent working in Fugitive Recovery." Colby's tight grip on his anger was quickly slipping.
"Okay, I can call Coop in to help me." Don said. Once his ex-partners name was out of his mouth he noticed the return of fear in his brother's eyes. Not to mention the violent shake that went thought Colby's body.
"Don," Ian said getting Don's attention. "It was Agent Cooper." Don thought his ears were playing tricks on him.
"Coop wouldn't hurt Charlie." Don uncertainly wisped to himself.
"Don, it was him. The doctor said that Cooper's DNA matched the sample he took from Charlie." Ian told him.
"We didn't need the sample. When we picked him up, he admitted he was the one who abused Charlie. In fact, he gloated to Colby about it." David spoke up from his and Liz's seat. No one wanted to be the one to tell him. But Don needed to know.
Coop had hurt Charlie? No, not hurt …raped his little brother. And he had even gloated about it to Charlie's boyfriend. That didn't sound like Coop. Don didn't know what to think.
"Why would he do this?" Don wasn't sure he wanted to know. Don wasn't defending Coop he wanted to know why this had happened.
"As I said, he was going to let the leaders of the FBI know about you and your guy." Charlie said trying not to look at Ian.
"Charlie, I don't need you to protect me. It's my job to protect you." Don calmly said. The silence that settled in the room was deafening.
"Buddy, what were you trying to protect me from. The FBI won't fire me when they find out about Ian."
"No, but if I didn't go with him he was going to…" Charlie was finding it hard to speak.
"He was going to what?" Colby asked, once again wrapping his arms tightly around Charlie.
"He was going to try to destroy what Don and Ian have. Since he wasn't happy with Don no one was going to be. He told me he had wanted Don for some time. But since he couldn't get Don he would settle for me." Charlie's words stung. His little brother had let another person hurt him in order to keep his big brother safe.
"Buddy, promise me that you'll never keep something like this from us. We love you and want what's best for you." Don turned to look at Ian. "I think we need to talk."
Ian didn't know what to say. He knew Don hadn't told anyone but Charlie that he was bi. Now his family and team knew it, as well as who his lover was. The next hour was filled with small talk. Don watched his brother and his brother's lover most of the time. Colby was good for Charlie. He didn't want to think about what Coop had done. He also didn't want to think how things would be different if Colby wasn't around.
A few hours later Ian and Don both stood to make their way to the door with the rest of the team. Suddenly Don pulled Ian close for a quick kiss. It felt good not to hide his feelings for Ian any longer.
The next week was filled with ups and downs for the Eppes family. Don made sure Charlie promised him and the rest of the family that if someone ever tried to hurt him or threaten him again he would tell one of them.
Don had come by every day and most of the nights he had stayed on the couch. As if he was somehow going to keep the rest of the world away from his brother.
"Donnie, your brother got a call today from the hospital where Cooper is." Alan told him as he watched his son enter the house.
"I know, Dad," Don's voice cut thought the fog in Alan's mind.
"You do?" Alan cautiously asked.
"Yes, I asked them to call him." Don was slowly putting his gun away and placing his jacket on the hook behind the door. Alan had waited most of the afternoon for Charlie or Colby to tell him what was going on.
"Dad, the doctor's think that Coop is too insane to go through a trail."
In a way Alan was relived that Charlie wouldn't have to testify on the stand. However without a trial he was unsure if that meant Cooper could be released in a few months if he was found to be sane. Then Cooper might be able to hurt Charlie.
"Dad, I talked with some people today. Coop is going to be there for the rest of his life. He's not going to get anywhere near Charlie. If by some chance he gets out. They have a memo in his folder to call me directly. If for some reason something happens to me they are to call Colby." Don walked over to the garage door.
"I'm guessing that Charlie and Colby are out there?" Don was pointing to the garage.
"Yes, they went out there right after the call and I haven't seen or heard from them since. What do you think the doctor told him?" Alan was busying himself with getting dinner ready.
"Only that Coop is there for life. I asked them not to tell him anything else." Don said walking out the back door.