AN: Shorter, but still important. Again, time matters.

NUMB3RS

Wednesday, 7:30 p.m.

"This is where you'll be staying until we're sure you're no longer in danger."

Alan Eppes barely glanced at his surroundings before sinking into the plush chair by the window. He stared out on the city far below and the people rushing about in the as the sun shone merrily, just beginning its descent. It seemed incongruous to Alan…dark and gloomy would have fit so much better.

Maybe we should have lived in Boston, Alan thought. The weather would have prepared me more.

It was a foolish notion, of course, but for the past few hours, rational thought had been thrown out the window.

"Alan, Charlie, I need you to promise that you won't open the door for anyone – let the agents handle it. Understand?"

Alan nodded absently. He watched his younger son pacing by the door leading to the bedroom and knew he should be comforting the only family he had left in the world, but his heart was breaking, and it wouldn't be fair to put that on Charlie's shoulders.

"Alan."

The force behind that single word made him look up into the eyes of David Sinclair. The man had been a great boon for Alan in the past few years, since the incident with the Russian mafia.

"Alan, don't give up. We don't know anything for sure."

The calm assurance of David's voice buoyed Alan slightly, but he didn't trust himself to speak. He pasted on a ghostly smile and went back to watching the people below. He was vaguely aware of an argument taking place between Charlie and Colby in the corner, and then of the door closing behind David and Colby. Charlie had settled himself in front of his laptop, and suddenly, all was silent.

Every father's worst fear.

The words echoed in Alan's head, and he almost laughed at the idiotic statement. This was not every father's fear. This was unique to Alan alone. Alan, who had fought against his son's choice of career. Alan, who had watched his son come out of situations similar to this barely alive. Alan, who had already lost someone he treasured.

Not fair.

Alan smiled faintly as he recalled a three-year-old Donnie complaining about God-knew-what. Life's not fair, Alan had replied, and as unsatisfactory an answer it might have been, it was the only one he had to give. Those three words could tell the story of Don's life. The older brother growing up in the shadow of the younger genius, the son who knew his father didn't approve of his job and whose mother had left too soon, the FBI agent who saw every day just how unfair life could really be.

He knew the others were right. Without a body, they couldn't be certain that Donnie was gone. But Alan had seen the cold fury in Colby's eyes, heard the calm despair of David's voice, and understood the quiet anguish of Megan when they had returned from the scene – without his son.

And so he sat, watching happy people do normal things, knowing that the 'normal' he had created after Margaret was gone forever.

xXxXx

"He's not dead, Colby. I refuse to believe that."

Charlie paced back and forth, arms crossed. He had to keep moving. If he stopped, he knew everything would catch up to him and he'd be completely useless for the foreseeable future.

"We're not giving up, Charlie, I just think you need to be realistic about this."

"Realistic? What does that mean? Accept that Don isn't coming back? I can't do that!"

Colby took a deep breath before unclenching his fists. "No, that's not what I mean. But you do need to accept the fact that math isn't going to get him out of this. You said it yourself, you don't have enough data."

"Maybe I didn't try hard enough. The equation could be wrong, I could be missing something! I need to be at the office where I can work."

"Charlie." One word, full of everything Charlie didn't want to hear. "Your equations are never wrong. You've been working on this non-stop, and you need to get some rest. It's what Don would have wanted."

"You talk about him like he's already gone."

"Well, right now, he is, and until he gets back, it's my job to take care of you." Colby grabbed Charlie's shoulders, keeping him from turning away. "And it's your job to take care of your dad."

Charlie's gaze slid involuntarily over to his father sitting by the window. He looked older now than he ever had before, like he'd aged ten years since the previous night. Had it only been last night? Charlie had been working frantically, keenly aware that time was running out, but he'd been confident that he could figure something out to save his older brother.

The problem was, Colby was right. Numbers weren't going to solve anything this time. He'd tracked down the location of the kidnapper twice, but each time, it had been too late. Now, there was nothing left to analyze, no patterns to find.

"Find him, please." He stared intensely at his brother's teammate, trying to trust him with the all-important task. Colby nodded and left, and suddenly Charlie was alone with his father.

His father. He wasn't ready for that.

He grabbed his laptop and sat down, pulling up his equations for the search patterns. Just because he couldn't do anything now didn't mean he couldn't go over what he'd done before. Besides, something had been bothering him from the moment he'd heard his brother's message on the answering machine at the house. A number divided by zero is always zero. It simply wasn't true. Mathematicians had been trying for years to define an answer to the question in any reasonable or consistent manner. Divide ten apples by five, and you get two apples per person. But if no one came to the orchard, you couldn't divide the apples between them.

Charlie wanted to put the cryptic message down to the fact that the kidnapper was just really bad at math, but for some reason, he couldn't. Someone had accessed the FBI mainframe using an incredibly sophisticated cipher to cover his tracks. A program like that, combined with the one that had slowed Charlie in locating where the e-mails had been sent from, meant whoever wrote them had to be pretty good at maths. Or at least know someone who was.

It didn't really matter. As much as Charlie wanted to believe Don was okay, he still felt an overwhelming sense of fear. He knew the statistics, had been trying to ignore them since the nightmare had begun. 2000 people a day were reported missing, most taken by people known to them. Ninety percent of all kidnappers were men, and eighty percent of those abducted were found alive. In Don's case, though, the statistics didn't apply.

At some point, he fell into a fitful sleep, his dreams visited by Don in varying physical states. The worst was Zombie Don, who kept reaching for Charlie with a bony hand.

Charlie's laptop pinged at him, and he sat up, startled. He glanced absently at the pop-up in the corner. He didn't have time to check his e-mail, couldn't believe he'd wasted time sleeping, but he froze as soon as he saw the sender. It was the same address that had sent the pictures of Don. He hesitated, knowing he should technically inform the FBI agent staying with them about the e-mail, but this was about his brother – he couldn't wait. He opened the e-mail.

If you're as smart as Don said you were, then you should have no trouble understanding this.

Mahavira.

xXxXx

This really wasn't how Megan had expected to be spending her evening. She'd had every hope that she and the team would be celebrating Don's return and filing the paperwork to put away the dirt bag who'd been so bold as to mess with her boss. Colby would make jokes about Don's ability to piss off every woman he met, David would pretend not to laugh, and Megan would roll her eyes at their juvenile antics. Alan would be fussing over his eldest while Charlie got completely pissed, and Don would be there in the middle, acting like it was no big deal while secretly enjoying the attention.

Instead, she was examining every piece of evidence they'd collected since the previous night, hoping something new would stand out so they could end this nightmare and find Don. She was exhausted, though, and her mind wouldn't stop playing probable scenarios in Technicolor for locating the man. Every time the phone rang, she had to wonder if it would be the Coast Guard telling her they'd located a body, or the LAPD detailing a gruesome scene.

She needed a distraction, and her wish was granted when David and Colby returned from getting Alan and Charlie settled.

"Well?"

"They weren't happy, but we finally convinced them to stay put. The agent-in-charge has strict orders to keep them there until the morning." David tried to hold back a yawn, but was unsuccessful, setting off a chain reaction.

"All right, that's it. Go home." Megan held up a hand, forestalling the protests she knew would be coming. "We've all been up for close to thirty-six hours now. We're tired, and right now, there's nothing else we can do."

Colby slumped in his chair. "We can't just stop looking."

Megan nodded. "I know, and we're not going to. The Director has put a fresh team on the case. They're going over everything as we speak. Hopefully, they'll spot something we missed, and once we get some sleep, we'll be ready to track down whatever leads they give us. Cooper's people are going over the e-mails and trying to figure out what was accessed from the database. As I understand it, that's going to take some time."

David frowned. "So we're pretty much useless right now."

"Yes. So go home, try to get some sleep, and be back here in the morning."

"Try to get some sleep. Right."

Megan knew Colby was only voicing what they were all thinking. It was depressing as hell to think that while you were comfortably ensconced in a warm bed, your boss was occupying a shallow grave.