Disclaimer:Numb3rs isn't mine

Author's Note:This is a bit of a filler chapter. Just wait until I get Don home ;-)

Thanks to Shaolingrrl for being the beta, and all her comments and help.

Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been?

IV

Amita meandered her way through the many aisles in the huge campus store, making her way across the clothing section and bypassing the sports goods area to find the person she sought in the music section. Coming to a stop behind the person, she peeked over his shoulder and said:

"Never would have taken you to be a Johnny Cash kinda guy, Charlie."

Charlie whirled around in surprise, barely missing colliding into his girlfriend, who quickly took a step back.

"Amita! What are you doing here?" asked Charlie.

"Looking for you," replied Amita simply.

"How'd you know I was here?"

"You'd be surprised how many students notice if the professor of applied mathematics spends around an hour in the music section of the campus store. So, the Man in Black, huh? At least now I know what to bring on our next road trip," said Amita, taking the CD case from Charlie's hands and reading the song list on the back cover.

"Nah, it's not for me," Charlie paused a moment before continuing, "It's for Don."

"Speaking of-," Amita began when Charlie failed to elaborate, "How is Don? Have you talked to him? I expected you to be at the hospital, which is why I came here after one of your students mentioned seeing you here."

"Yeah, I just came from there. Even talked to him a little bit," replied Charlie.

"And?" prompted Amita.

"And… he has absolutely no idea who I am. Not even a little bit. Don's one of the two living people who knew me before my genius, and now I have to tell him everything; fill in all the gaps. Hell, I wasn't even there for my mother the last 3 months of her life, unlike Don, but I have to tell him that she's dead," said Charlie in a rush. He took a deep breath, before shaking his head. "It's just…ironic. Very, very ironic."

Amita didn't say anything, having a feeling that Charlie wasn't done yet. She was right.

"And this morning, I'm with him and… I can see the effort he's going through to appear a bit normal around me; to not freak me out. He didn't even want to appear tired around me, which is ridiculous since his doctor said fatigue would be one of the symptoms, so I took pity on him and asked if I could get him anything."

"And… Don asked for some music?" asked Amita a bit disbelievingly.

"No, no, he asked for some newspapers, to catch up with current events and all, as he put it. Dr. Bourne said music might help Don regain his memories faster, so here I am, trying to remember what kind of music Don listened to back then," explained Charlie, turning back to the scores of CDs in front of him and picking up Eric Clapton. "It will give him some time to get some rest before I go back."

Amita nodded in understanding. "Let me help with that. Any little facts you can tell me, to narrow down the search? For example, I'm pretty sure Don is not a Kanye West or 50 Cent kinda guy." Amita smiled sweetly at the two students who stood on the opposite side of the CD rack she and Charlie were browsing and held said rap stars' CDs in their hands. She achieved her intended aim when Charlie smiled a little at the thought of his brother listening to rap.

"Well, Don was born in 1970, and if we go by the assumption that he started to get into music when he became a teenager, that would mean looking at music of the '80s," deduced Charlie.

"Oh, I don't know about that, Charlie. You have kids these days listening to musicians who died before they were even born and on the other side of the spectrum, you have 80-year-old grandmothers going to Enrique Iglesias concerts," said Amita.

Charlie's eyebrows knit in confusion at this piece of news, "You're making up the last bit, aren't you?"

Amita smiled mischievously. "Wanna bet?"

Charlie considered this, thinking If Larry can go to a White Stripes concert… before replying, "Na, I'll take your word for it. But what you've just said doesn't make it any easier to find stuff for Don." Charlie waved his hands to show all the varied genres and artists and decades the store held.

"Don't worry about it, Charlie. Johnny Cash is actually a pretty good choice, so is Eric Clapton. And no self-respecting man born in the '70s can do without some Fleetwood Mac. Also, what would really help is if we grabbed some greatest hits of the decades CDs, specifically, for the '80s and the '90s. Even if Don might not have liked the popular songs very much, he couldn't have missed hearing them on the radio and the television and it might strike a familiar chord in him," reasoned Amita.

"That's not a bad idea," agreed Charlie, and soon he and Amita were in the checkout line, hands filled with compilation box sets. Charlie couldn't help going a bit overboard in his enthusiasm to get the old Don back, and had even thrown in a few soundtracks from some of Don's favourite baseball movies into the mix.

As they walked out of the store, into the brightness of the sun, Amita looped her arm around Charlie's waist and whispered in his ear, "Don will get back to normal in no time, you'll see. And even if he doesn't completely regain his memories, he'll still be your big brother." Pulling back a little, Amita said at normal volume, "Megan came to see you and Larry. They're meeting us by the coffee-shop. Wouldn't want to keep them waiting, would we?"

"No, I guess not," agreed Charlie, smiling at Amita in unspoken gratitude at her support.

Soon, all four were sitting around a table outside the campus coffee shop, each sipping the beverage of their choice. Megan had wrapped up the paperwork concerning the raid that could have gone a whole lot worse, and had come both to see her boyfriend and to check up on her boss's condition through his brother who wouldn't pick up his phone.

The profiler in Megan had noted the slight hints of stress in the young mathematician and it didn't take a genius to figure out what was causing it. Last night, Alan had informed her of Don's amnesia and had relayed the doctor's advice that the fewer the visitors in the beginning, the better. As she got ready to leave and get back to work, she smiled at Charlie cheerfully and said:

"No worries Charlie, annual performance reviews are coming up soon and no way is Don's subconscious going to allow him to forget what David, Colby and I did to him last month."

"I'm almost afraid to ask… what did you guys do?" asked Charlie warily, at the same time wondering what he was projecting to be comforted twice in less than an hour about his brother.

"Well, we were all very proud of Don for kicking Agent Danes' butt, he's this really huge guy in our office, on the practice mats so the three of us ganged up on him and… lifted him bodily and threw him into the gym pool," grinned Megan. "Just to show him how proud we were of him, of course, and to thank him for making us win over $50 in bets."

WALKTHELINEWALKTHELINEWALKTHELINE

Alan sat quietly by his son's bedside, reading a magazine as his son slept. He looked up when he felt someone's hand on his shoulder.

"Mr. Eppes, there's someone at the nurse's station asking for you," said the nurse softly.

Alan silently got up and followed the nurse outside, all the while wondering who would be asking about him. He smiled when he saw the tall form of the team-mate Don had worked with the longest, standing next to the door to Don's room.

"Alan, how are you?" asked David as he shook hands with his boss's father.

"Just fine, David. And you?" reciprocated Alan.

"I'm good, just here to check up on some of the SWAT guys who were injured, along with Don," informed David.

"Oh yes, I've been meaning to ask about them, how are they?" asked Alan in concern as he was reminded of the fact that Don was not alone in this.

"Well, they won't be banging down doors anytime soon but they'll be fighting fit in no time," said David, "Like I told Charlie, we were really lucky this time. How's Don doing?"

"He's… well, he's… I don't know how to put it, actually. He seems to be doing relatively well, physically, but he doesn't remember anything. He barely remembers me," smiled Alan, humourlessly. "It's kind of like he's there, but not entirely…"

Through the open hospital door, Don lay awake in bed as he listened to a father who was only familiar to him in the slightest, and this David character, talk about a Don Eppes who, at the moment, did not exist.

TBC

Just a quick note here: Chapter 5 is going to be a bit delayed: I'm caught up with trying to finish my alphabet track at the moment, along with college aps, so this story is being put on the back-burner a bit. All apologies, but I will get to it as soon as I can be bothered to type out the pages I've written. Until then, hope you like whatever one-shots I come up :-)

Let me know what you think of this chapter. Adios :)