The television was on – Robert Redford was threatening to throw Zero Mostel down an elevator shaft – but Don wasn't watching. The sound was down and so were the lights, and he was doing something he almost never did, which was: nothing. He was still, his only motions the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

It had been just shy of six weeks since the shooting (Don's careful FBI mind never went to "Charlie's death", oh no, it was always "the shooting"). He and his father had begun, slowly, to move past that horrible day and its consequences in their separate ways; Alan had begun spending more and more time in the garden, while Don had taken to spending more and more of his time alone.

Outside, the clouds were sullen and grey, every so often sending angry rain lashing against the windows. When the storms broke there was only the wind. Don sat up and turned the television off – he'd seen the movie already, and knew how it ended.

There was a knock at the door. He stood, wondering for a moment who could be coming to visit him. It wouldn't be his father; Alan didn't like Don's apartment, having opined once that it was "too stark, with bad lighting." With a strange pang Don realized that there was not a single person he could think of who would come by just to be there. Charlie had been a rare visitor, but he had been… well, a visitor.

He thumbed the lock back and opened the door to see the shyly smiling face of Amita. She adjusted the messenger bag slung over her shoulder and gave a small, hesitant wave. "Hi," she said.

"Hey," replied Don in surprise. "What are you doing here?" It came out mildly, but Amita blushed anyway.

"May I…" she started, gesturing at the door, and Don stood back to allow her entry. Once inside, she set her bag on the floor, then seemed to think better of it and picked it up again. "Sorry," she muttered. "I feel a little awkward."

"No, come on in. The place is kinda messy, but I figure you've seen enough of… Larry's office to be used to some clutter."

He hadn't fooled her. "You were going to say Charlie's."

"Guess I was." He sat down on the couch and she took the chair, her elbows perched on her knees. Her hair, Don saw, was wet in places and was sticking to the sides of her head. "You get caught in the rain?"

"A little. It's been one of those changeable days."

"Goes from nasty to nastier." She was looking at the floor, and Don craned his head a little to try to meet her eyes. "So… what's going on?"

Outside, the rain had come back, pelting the panes in sheets. Visibility was impossible; to Don, it looked a little like the rest of the world had taken a day off. Only this building, this room, remained.

Amita managed to meet his eyes. "How are you?" she asked.

"Well, I'm back at work," Don said. "Taking care of some of the backlog now, trying to get myself back up to speed."

"That's good," Amita replied evenly, "but it doesn't answer my question. How are you?"

"I'm… you know, fine." He grinned. "You checking up on me?"

She shook her head and smoothed a couple of damp curls behind her ear. "No. Well, sort of. It's just that… Larry and I don't see you anymore. On campus. And we've been wondering how you've been." She trailed off, but regained her footing. "He was going to come with me, but said he thought it might feel too much like an intervention." She cocked her head to the side, sending the wet hair tumbling back from behind her ear; she ignored it, focusing all her attention on Don. "But you're fine."

He stood and walked to the window. What was it that Larry had said? I find sometimes that spontaneous ambulation allows my thoughts to flow more freely. There've been rather too many of them, I have to say. "Yeah, fine, whatever that means. I mean, my brother died, I think I'm handling it okay."

"No one's saying you aren't," said Amita gently. "Larry and I just wanted to make sure that you knew that you aren't alone." She was hugely flushed now, and when Don looked at her he could see the anxiety this was causing her. It occurred to him that he wasn't sure how he thought of Amita, or of Larry. As a categorization, People I Know Because My Brother Worked With Them When He Was Alive was pretty lousy.

They were more, Don realized. The two of them had sat on either side of him, more than once, and helped dispel some of the horror of that first week. They had been there every day, all seven days of shiva, and at the end of each day they had both held his hands and recited that somehow beautiful phrase: Ha'makom yenachem etkhem betokh she'ar avelei Tziyon vi'Yerushalayim. May God comfort you among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. It had been a comfort.

Why hadn't he gone to see them? It might be too much for him to go to Cal Sci just yet, but hell, Los Angeles was a big place, and there were other locations than Cal Sci. Why hadn't he picked up a telephone, just to say hello, just to bridge the silence? Most importantly, why hadn't he been checking up on them? They too had suffered a huge loss; why hadn't he at least asked how they were doing once in awhile? For God's sake, these people were his… friends.

He smiled at her, and some of the nervousness left her eyes. "Thanks," he said. "It's been hard, yeah, but it's getting better." He held out a hand to her, and she rose uncertainly. "C'mon," he said, "I want to show you something."

She followed him to the doorway of his bedroom, stopping just short of the threshold. He went to his closet (noting with only distant guilt his unmade bed) and delved into it, to the furthest hanger. He didn't let himself think about what he was doing, just yanked the hanger down and out. Amita drew breath.

He was holding a shirt that had once been solid white but was now stained to a deep brown on the front and on part of one sleeve. Both cuffs were unbuttoned. Next to the right shoulder, there was a tear in the fabric, about three or four inches long. Amita took the hanger from him in a dazed sort of way, one long finger tracing the gash. "Is this…"

"It's the shirt I was wearing that day," said Don, surprised at the calmness of his voice. "I was planning to throw it away, or burn it or something, but I stopped when I saw the tear." He ran a hand through his hair. "I don't remember doing it, to tell you the truth. There's a name for it, but I can't –"

"Keriah," said Amita, still tracing the jagged threads. "The ritual rending, it's called keriah."

"That's right. You should give me lessons; you know way more about this than I do." He'd hoped it would make her smile, but he got only a ghost. And no wonder; even he had trouble looking at the bloodstained shirt.

"Are you going to mend it?" she asked. She thrust the shirt at him and shook her hands, as though to rid them of dirt.

"No," said Don. "I'd never wear it again anyway. I'm just hanging onto it, is all." He put the hanger back in the closet, as far away as he could manage.

"I couldn't keep something like that," said Amita slowly. She was shaking her head, her face blankly staring. Her feet moved her backward through the door; she looked as though she didn't know she was moving at all. Don followed her as a slight feeling of alarm began to tug at his mind. What had he been thinking?

"Amita," he heard himself say, "I'm… God, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have shown you."

"No," she said, and her eyes cleared. She even managed a smile. "No, it's okay. I guess I was just a little unprepared." She still looked a bit dazed, and she shivered minutely.

"I'm sorry," Don repeated helplessly. Her shoulder, when he touched it, was cold. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," she said.

"Really? I mean, yeah, that's the standard answer for when someone asks you how you are or if you're okay. I know I've said it enough times over these past few weeks."

"And it's been a lie every time."

She had said it so quietly that Don was at first unsure that she'd said it at all. The words fluttered across his brain and did not register until her guilty eyes snapped to his. When they did not back down, he knew that she had actually said it. To his absolute astonishment, the prevailing feeling welling in his chest was not anger or indignance; it was a deep and terrible species of relief. She was right. He was not fine. He had not been fine for six weeks.

All of this went through his mind in the time it took to draw a breath. "Yeah," he said. "My mom died a year and a half ago, and it was… awful, but there was a way to prepare. Didn't make it any easier, not really, but it wasn't, y'know, sudden. But with Charlie, it was like… no chance to register it. He was just standing there." He shrugged, very aware of her eyes on his face. "And then he wasn't. I saw him fall. I see him fall every day. So yeah, it's been a lie. I'm not fine."

"Neither am I," she admitted. "Neither is Larry. We're moving on, and it's taking time, and every day it's a little easier. Not much," she added, smiling faintly, "but a little. We talk, Larry and me. We talk about him, and sometimes about you." She took one of his hands and held it in both of her own. "You should know… we're both around. And easy to find. You know Larry, he practically lives in his office. So if you ever decide that you'd like a break from the FBI or your apartment, we'd like to see you. If you want to talk about anything, well," and here she smiled again, more broadly, "you have friends."

He put his free hand over hers and squeezed. "Thanks," he said, rather more hoarsely than he'd intended. "I'll think about that."

She squeezed back and dropped his hand. "Good," she said. Her face became solemn again. "How's your dad?"

"He's spending a lot of time gardening," Don answered. "Probably out there now."

"In this?" asked Amita, aghast. "He'll get pneumonia!"

"Let's go see him," said Don suddenly. "I haven't been to visit him in awhile, and hey, he'd love to see you."

"Really?"

"Yeah, he's crazy about you. Always talks about how pretty you are. What do you say?" He smiled at her, feeling almost normal for the first time in what felt like an eternity. In response, she shrugged her bag higher onto her shoulder and gestured toward the door.

"Okay," Don said. "Let's go."