Don arrived at his brother's classroom with his sunglasses, his badge, and his best FBI manner. It had been less than two hours since Charlie'd been shot here. Students were still milling around the area at a respectful distance, talking animatedly and pointing.

He took a deep breath. Megan had been right. He needed to focus, to get his head in the game. If he was going to help Charlie, he needed to treat this like any other case. Shaking his head, he marched up to the police tape, and caught the eye of the first officer he saw. "Agent Eppes, FBI," he said, holding the badge out. "Who's in charge here?"

"That'd be me," he heard a man drawl from behind him. "We've been expecting you, Agent. I thought you'd've gotten here before now."

"Yeah?" Don answered, turning. He stood for a moment, hands on his hips, looking over the man in front of him. The officer was wearing khakis, a collared shirt, and a leather jacket. Medium build, blond hair. As Don looked at him, he rummaged in his jacket and brought out an LAPD badge.

"Detective Greene," he said, by way of introduction. "Yup. I was warned that the Bureau was going to show its face over this one, and told to give all due assistance. Vic was one of your consultants, right?" He sounded almost cheerful. He put his badge away again.

Don gave him a wary look. "Something like that," he said. "You're ready to turn the case over to us, then?"

"That would be the idea, yeah." He pointed with his thumb towards the door, covered with yellow tape. "You want to take a look?"

Don ducked under the tape and looked around. He'd had occasion to see his brother teach before, but not in this particular room. It was one of those stadium-style classrooms, with the instructor at the bottom of ascending rows of seats. There were a few police officers in the room, and a couple of civilians sitting towards the top. At the bottom, there was tape, flag markers, and an awful lot of blood.

"Has forensics been here?" he asked.

"Been and gone," Greene answered. "Not much to say on that front. We think the shooter fired five times, and hit twice. Stopped on the second hit, and ran. No one inside the classroom saw where the shooter went to, and we haven't been able to find a witness who says they saw the shooter leaving. The halls may well have been empty, since it was during class hours."

Don didn't respond. He walked slowly down the steps, stopping just outside the marked area. He crouched down, looking at the pool of blood. It had the familiar coppery scent that all human blood has. It seemed somehow wrong to Don that Charlie's blood should smell like the blood of every victim and perpetrator Don had ever seen wounded or dead. Charlie's blood should be different.

He had been shot twice in the chest. Don had lost count of the number of bodies he'd seen in this job, and it was all too easy to superimpose his brother's face onto one of them. Charlie, lying on the ground as all this blood, far too much blood, seeped out of him. Charlie, whose first instinct had been to call to his big brother for help.

"Hey, are you okay, Agent?" Greene tapped him on the shoulder. "Do you not usually see a lot of blood in your cases?" He sounded almost sympathetic now.

"My team works mostly with violent crimes. I see plenty of blood," he snapped. But not Charlie's, his mind added, unbidden. Don stood up. "You've got witness statements?" he asked, shortly.

"Witness statements, and a couple of live witnesses, if you want to talk with them," Greene answered, giving him an odd look. He indicated the civilians at the top of the room. "That guy probably saved your consultant's life. Did CPR on him before the EMT's arrived."

Don nodded. "Yeah, let me talk to them."

Greene gestured up the steps. "It's your crime scene, Agent."

Don ascended the stairs, going over to where a teenaged girl and a slightly older man were sitting, waiting nervously. Don could see blood on their clothes and hands. He did not offer a handshake. "Hi," he said. "Don Eppes, FBI."

"Oh, my god!" the girl said. "You're Dr. Eppes' brother, aren't you? The one he consults with?"

Greene, standing off to the side, looked startled. Don guessed he hadn't made the connection between his name and Charlie's. Probably hadn't been paying attention.

"Yeah," he said. "Charlie's helped us alot over the years. Now I need you guys to help me too, okay?"

The guy nodded. "I'm Jim Parkman," he said. "This is my girlfriend, Rayna. I- I'm so sorry, about Dr. Eppes. Do you know if he's going to be okay?"

Don tried not to think too hard about that question. "We don't know yet. Detective Greene said you did CPR on him, after the incident?"

"Yeah," Parkman answered. "I was actually an EMT, before. I quit to come back to school. God, I never thought I'd have to do that again."

Don nodded stiffly to him. "Thank you, for that. Did you see anything of the shooter?"

"I got a decent look," said Rayna. "Jim was busy taking notes at the time." She paused, looking uncertain. "I don't know how much help it's actually going to be, though."

"That's okay," Don said, gently. "Just tell me what you remember."

"We sit close to the back, usually," she said. "And someone came into the class. People do come in late, sometimes, but not usually twenty-five minutes before the class ends. It was this chick in a grey hoodie, but I couldn't see her face. She was kind of looking down, with the hood up."

"It was a woman? You're sure?" Don was surprised.

"Yeah, I think so," Rayna said. "I was looking at her sort of sideways, and she looked like she had boobs." She blushed a little. "I didn't think too hard about it, but I guess it could have been a guy- the hoodie was pretty baggy. I really think it was a woman, though."

"Okay, well, that helps." Don pulled a notebook out of his pocket and began writing things down- people's names, what Rayna'd just said. Useful things about the case. "So, what happened then?"

"Well, Dr. Eppes was lecturing. He was saying something about bumper cars, and I was having a hard time figuring out how that related to anything."

Don smiled a little. "Some of his analogies are better than others," he said.

"Yeah." Rayna smiled back for a moment. Then the smile disappeared. "Anyway, he was in the middle of this bumper cars talk, and there was this loud noise. The gunshots, I guess, but I didn't realize that at first. And then Dr. Eppes was bleeding, and I turned to see where the noise was coming from, and there was that woman in the hoodie, pointing a gun. She fired a couple more times and ran out of the room. Some of the other students ran after her. That's when Jim grabbed me and we ran down to help Dr. Eppes. He'd fallen down on the ground, and there was just blood everywhere, and I was so freaked out-"

Parkman put an arm around her shoulder, kissing the top of her head. "It's okay, babe. You did great, when it counted."

Don nodded weakly. He wanted to say something, but no words were coming out- his head was filled with the vision of Charlie, falling to the ground in a hail of bullets. He coughed, and cleared his throat. "Thank you. That'll be very helpful. Have you given LAPD your contact information, in case we need to speak to you again?"

"Yeah," Parkman nodded. "Um... would it be okay if we visited Dr. Eppes, later?"

"I think he'd like that," Don answered, and then turned. There was some kind of commotion at the door.

"Don!" It was Amita, leaning past the uniformed officers. One of them was saying something to her. He gestured to them to let her pass. "Don," she said, ducking under the tape and coming towards him. "Oh, god, I'm such an idiot." She held out his phone for him to take.

"What is it?" Don frowned, taking the phone back.

"Thattook me way longer than it should have," she said, running her hands through her hair nervously. "I was expecting it to be harder than it was. The caller did almost nothing to cover their tracks. I know exactly where the call was coming from."

"Where?" Don asked.

"A payphone inside the hospital." Amita looked up at him, her eyes full of fear. "Don, the person who shot Charlie was only a few hallways over from us. He could still be there-"

Don flipped open his phone, and dialed Megan's number.