Title: GTB, Part II: Ramifications

Author: FraidyCat

Disclaimer: FraidyCat is a not-for-profit corporation. Those who enjoy this work enough to pay for it must send their cash to CBS, who will redirect it in the proper directions, I am sure.

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Chapter 2: The Long Road Home

He found the hidden, Velcroed® compartment in the waistband of his shorts almost two miles later, when he reached down to scratch an irritated belly. The rough Velcro®, sloppily fastened, was rubbing at his skin. By this time, Charlie was in a more populated area – if bars and rooms-by-the-hour dives were places that he frequented, places where he felt comfortable, Charlie might have asked one of the people spilling out of the various doors to help him. Instead, he just began walking faster, determined to wade through the teeming pre- and post-coital miasma. Then he reached down to rub at his stomach, and found the hidden compartment; not long after, he gripped the hard plastic debit card. He stopped dead in his tracks, relieved almost beyond comprehension. Someone rammed into his back and careened off him, slurring in vitriolic swears, and Charlie almost dropped the card. He scooted to the inner edge of the sidewalk, into an alcove of some closed business; heat still radiated off the brick building, leading to the surrealistic feeling that Charlie was voluntarily lounging in an oven. He clutched the card to his chest and looked around owlishly. No cabs had passed during his walk – this must be a bad part of town – but he glanced at the street anyway. On the other side, about half a block down, light streamed from a 24-hour market; the kind of place that sold alcohol and tobacco of every description – and milk. Charlie swallowed thirstily, thinking about the milk, and focused on the blinking "ATM" sign that hung over the sidewalk in front of the store. He waited for a couple out for a stagger to pass him before he darted away from the building and hurried toward the market.

In the short span of time it took for him to reach the pool of light, Charlie had convinced himself that the market represented all things good and decent in life. It was a little disconcerting, then, to step gingerly over the aged black man slumped just to the left of the doorway, gripping an empty bottle and snoring. Charlie looked down at him apprehensively, but the snore assured him that the man was alive, so he tracked the ATM to a front corner and scurried toward it.

His relief was coming in almost-debilitating waves as he inserted the card and punched in his access code, agreeing to pay a 2.50 service charge to use the machine. Cash. He would get some cash, buy some milk, pay the bored cashier to call him a cab, and go home. Cash. It was a lovely, lovely thing. He almost smiled when the card spit back out toward him, followed by a receipt, and he looked around for the place where the money would appear. After several seconds, he found it – why did they make all these machines different? – and sensed an impatient presence behind him. He hoped whoever it was wanted a turn at the machine, and wasn't waiting to relieve him of his money…which was not appearing, for some reason.

"Move on," ordered a deep, gravelly voice frighteningly close to his ear. "It ain't coughin' up no jackpot, buddy, it ain't a poker machine." The inadvertent use of Don's favorite nickname for him nearly brought tears to Charlie's eyes as he longed for the safety of his brother; even while the vision of Don inspired him to achieve greatness.

He spun around and confronted the sour face of the slightly disheveled man behind him, holding up his receipt in a shaking hand. "I have a receipt," he insisted in a wavering voice. "I'm waiting for the money." The taller, older man was disturbingly close, and Charlie backed into the ATM machine. "Could you give me a little room, please?"

The man laughed, showing off a mouth missing several teeth. He looked at the receipt in Charlie's hand and then let his eyes roam up and down the professor's body. "Hell, yeah, I'll give you a room, boy. We can get one right next door. Since that box ain't giving you nothin', I'll even pick up the bill. Maybe give you a little something for your time, if you leave me in a good mood."

A wave of revulsion rose in Charlie's throat and it was all he could do to press it down and not throw up all over the disgusting stranger. He tried to back up farther, but was stopped by the solid machine. "I have a receipt," he repeated, and his knees nearly buckled when he recognized the store's cashier looming behind his assailant. He shoved the slip of paper in her direction. "I have a receipt," he repeated a third time, unable to say anything else.

The fiftyish, graying, 200-lb. woman reached out a bulky hand to grab the paper. "Back off, Billy," she ordered the stranger. "I done told you, no pick-ups in this here establishment. You want I should call the cops?"

Yes, please, answered Charlie silently. Billy growled something unintelligible and wandered toward the back of the store, shooting Charlie one last dirty look.

The woman puckered her brow as she read the receipt, then offered it back to Charlie. "This here says you've reached your daily limit," she explained as he hesitantly moved to reclaim the receipt. "Cain't you read, shugah?"

"What?" Charlie glanced at the paper and saw that she was correct. He'd already withdrawn all the cash he was allowed that day. He knew his bank had a 300-dollar ATM withdrawal limit – the theory had something to do with discouraging robbery – but where was it, if he had withdrawn it already? Was there another hidden pocket in these infernal shorts?

The clerk shrugged. "It's almost midnight," she pointed out. "You can try again in about 20 minutes."

She might as well have told him to go to the hotel with Billy, and Charlie's eyes welled up with tears. "I want to go home," he choked. "I need to go home."

She took pity on him – he was pretty pathetic – and sighed. "Look, I'll call you a cab – the driver will just use your card, so you don't need no cash." Charlie sniffed and looked at her so gratefully, she weakened further and offered some more details. "Cabs don't like it down in these parts, much," she shared. "Why don't you just keep walking South, and I'll have one meet you? I'll give 'em the address of St. John's Episcopal; 'bout half-a-mile more -- you think you can do that?" Charlie nodded silently, and she continued. "St. John's runs a shelter," she confided quietly. "You know… 'case you decide you're…too tired…to go home?"

Charlie drew himself up to his full 5 ft. 9 inch height, and brushed a trembling hand at his face. "I have a home," he said, trying for his most authoritative voice. Unfortunately, to his own ears it was less than impressive. He started to twist past the woman's bulk, headed for the door. "Thank-you for your assistance. Please have a cab meet me at St. John's."

She held up her hands in mock surrender, turning back toward the counter. "Sure," she promised, smacking her gum and reminding him again of Don. "Whatever."

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Charlie didn't think the night could get much worse – but then he gave his address to the taxi driver, who fed it into his GPS and frowned. "I ain't sure where that is," he admitted as they idled at the curb in front of St. John's.

Charlie shivered in the back seat, considering asking the driver to turn on the heat – or at least turn off the air. "What kind of cab driver are you?" he asked irritably. "It's in one of the most prestigious historical sections of Pasadena; it's a well-known area!"

The driver grunted and started jabbing at the GPS again. "That explains it," he muttered. "You do understand that you're in Riverside?" He glanced at Charlie's plastic, safe in the dash receptacle. "You sure you got enough for this? I mean, I'll be glad to take you, but it's almost 60 miles. Two dollars for the pick-up plus 1.75 a mile; by all rights I should double that, so's I can get back to Riverside -- that's…"

"212.00 dollars, I know," Charlie interjected wearily. It was a ridiculous amount of money and he should get out and walk to the nearest bus station, but he just wanted to go home. "Look," he suggested, "just run the card now; make it an even 300.00, and keep the change. Please."

The driver cheered up considerably, and did as Charlie suggested. He didn't even mind that his passenger made the entire trip in silence, and he gave up the attempts at small talk about 15 miles in, and concentrated instead on planning how he was going to spend his windfall.

In the end, Charlie had him pull over a block before the Craftsman. It was now a little past one in the morning, and the last thing he wanted to do was wake up his father and face a myriad of questions to which he did not even know the answers. He recovered his debit card from the driver and stepped out into the still-hot air. Charlie had been on the verge of cold in the air-conditioned cab, not used to wearing such revealing clothing, no matter what the weather; but he broke into a sweat the instant he stepped outside.

In the few minutes it took to walk home, rivulets of the stuff was running down his body, and he was desperate for a shower.

When he stopped at the garage for the spare key to the house, it occurred to him that the noise of a shower also held potential to awaken his father, and once again he felt tears gather at the back of his eyes. He could not survive without a shower for another five minutes, let alone the rest of the night; neither could he face his father. He thought for a moment, then removed all of his offending clothing in the shadow of the garage. He flip-flopped to the trash a few feet away and placed it inside – he never wanted to see those shorts or that t-shirt again, anyway. Then he continued on to his mother's roses in the back of the house. After all these years, it had come to this.

Charlie was virtually naked in the middle of the night in his own back yard…about to take a shower with a garden hose.

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Alan, seated at the kitchen table, looked up from the morning newspaper as his oldest son dragged in through the back door. "Mornin' Donny," he greeted. "Hot enough for you?"

Don fell listlessly into the chair at the opposite end of the table, facing his father. "God, this heat is awful. I don't even want to tell you what it does to a perfectly ordinary crime scene."

Alan made a face, folding the paper and setting in on the table. "Kindly leave the details to my imagination," he requested dryly. He scooted back his chair a little and prepared to stand. "It's a little early for beer, but we have some nice bottled water in the fridge."

Don groaned. "Please. I'd pay you for it, but it's too much trouble to go for my wallet."

Alan laughed and crossed to the refrigerator, opening the door to retrieve the water and standing for a moment in the cool air that escaped. "Ah…" he breathed. He tried to find an excuse to stand in the open door longer. "Do you want some breakfast?"

"No, thanks," Don answered immediately. "I really was just at a pretty disgusting crime scene; couldn't quite handle it yet."

Alan frowned slightly. Don wasn't usually put off by things like that – it must have been very bad. He grabbed the water and closed the refrigerator door, turning to walk back to the table. "So what brings you over on a Sunday morning? Did you bring laundry?"

Don accepted the water, twisting the cap, and smiled. "When we were finished at the scene, I figured out this place was closer than my apartment. I'm not on call the rest of the day – you want to drive out to the lake? Maybe it'll be cooler by the water."

Alan grinned mischieviously. "That sounds good," he began, "but I think I have some interesting news first." Don drank half the bottle in one gulp and raised his eyebrows. Alan sat down again, this time in the chair closest to Don. "I think Charlie and Amita may have moved to the next step," he whispered.

Don lowered the bottle. "Wow." He wasn't sure what he thought about that, on a couple of different levels. For one thing, it just seemed wrong for his father to be so interested in his brother's sex life. For another, the road back from Mark Danielson had been long and difficult for Charlie. He had taught half-time the last three months of the semester, but he was still silent and solitary most of the time he wasn't actually in a class. Oh, Don had known that he and Amita were seeing each other again, starting at square one; he just wasn't convinced Charlie should be moving this fast, this soon. "Why do you say that?"

His father winked. "Yesterday was her birthday, and Charlie left bright and early to take her some flowers. I didn't even hear him come home, last night." At Don's look of alarm, he hurried on. "Oh, he's up there, sleeping on top of his bed, so he came home at some point. Still, it was almost midnight when I turned in, and he wasn't home yet." He smiled broadly. "I'm guessing the flowers were a hit."

Don shrugged, not wanting to rain on the old man's parade – although a little rain right now would certainly be welcome – and was glad when the house phone rang, interrupting Alan's gloat. The man shot out of his chair and across the kitchen to grab the phone from the wall before the shrill ringing woke up Charlie. "Good morning," he greeted. Don emptied his bottle of water, and listened to his father get even happier. "Amita, sweetheart! How are you, dear? How was your birthday?" Don rolled his eyes. Good grief, was Alan going to ask if Charlie tied her orgasms in a bow, next? "Yes, dear, he's here, but he's still sleeping." Don could practically hear the wink in Alan's voice. "He was out late last night." Then the tone changed, and Don found himself swiveling in his chair to watch his father carry on his end of the conversation. "Oh. I…oh. Well, that's a shame, a shame. I'm sure something came up – maybe something at school?" Alan winced. "Ah, that's true; finals are pretty much 'final'." He listened for a few more moments and then promised Amita he would have Charlie call as soon as he made an appearance. His demeanor when he returned the phone to its cradle was decidedly less chipper. Alan dragged a little as he returned to the table. "Hmphf," he grunted, sitting back at the end by his newspaper.

Don rolled the empty bottle aimlessly on the table. "What?"

Alan sighed. "She's not angry, just a little disappointed. Charlie brought her the flowers, and they made plans for a birthday dinner last night. She said he didn't stay long, and he never came back to pick her up; she's actually wondering is she misunderstood and she was supposed to meet him somewhere. His cell has been going straight to voice mail." He looked at Don, confused. "Have you got him working on something?"

Don shook his head. "Nah, he's not doing anything for us." Charlie's apparent forgetfulness rang an alarm bell, but he repressed it, knowing his brother was safely sleeping upstairs. He attempted a half-hearted smile. "You know how he gets. Maybe he was holed up in his office all day working on cognitive emergence."

Alan sighed, picking up the paper again. "Those two will never get back together if he keeps doing things like forgetting her birthday dinner," he fretted.

Charlie stood frozen outside the swinging kitchen door, his hand holding it open just a few inches. He had forgotten Amita's birthday? How was that possible? He still remembered nothing between the drive home Friday evening and the park bench last night. He had no memory of taking her flowers, or of making a promise to her about dinner.

He backed away from the door, silently removing his hand and raising it to rub at his forehead. What the hell was happening to him?

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End, Chapter 2