She came down the steps, noticing the way the late afternoon sunlight was angling through the windows, creating a warm glow throughout the living room. Her daughter sat at the dining room table, working on her homework, probably either chemistry or math so that Alan or Charlie could help her if ran into difficulty. She came up behind her daughter and put her hand on her shoulder, hoping not to startle her too much. "How is it going?" she asked.

Julie looked up from her work. "Okay. I'm almost done with my chem."

She gently rubbed the shoulder on which her hand rested. "Good girl." She looked around. "Where are your father and brothers?"

"Dad's in the kitchen, Charlie's in the solarium working on something no one else understands and Don was in here, but I think he went back outside." She thought for a moment. "Oh, and I think Dad said to tell you if you came down that everything was set for a fire to be lit. He had Don bring in the wood and they got it all ready."

"Oh, good. It'll feel good to have a nice fire going," she responded.

"I love the smell," Julie said, closing her eyes and inhaling like she could already smell the burning wood.

She smiled. "I don't suppose you could write a chemical equation that describes the fire burning?"

Julie rolled her eyes. "No. What I can tell you is that it generates heat and light. That's it."

"Well, that's a good start," she replied, looking over the work spread out on the table. "Did you say you were almost done? It looks like you have a lot of stuff still spread out here."

"I am almost done. Some of this is my notes and some is Catherine's notes. But her stuff doesn't make much sense. I don't think she wrote the formulas down right or she made up some of her own symbols or something." She shook her head.

"Well, you could have Charlie look over everything and see if it's right," she suggested.

"I don't need him to do that. I can do it myself." She crossed her arms. "And anyway, when he looks over my stuff it gets worse and I don't understand what he does to it and my teacher marks it wrong because it's not the way she taught us." She shook her head. "And then when I complain about it, he just tells me that my teacher doesn't know what she's talking about. It's just easier to do it the way she taught it in class and move on."

"But if it's incorrect…" she started.

"It's correct for high school chemistry. Who cares if it's the way that scientific journals or whatever want it? They don't give me a grade."

She pushed one of the little tendrils of hair that had escaped the pile on top of her head back behind her daughter's ear. "Well, I suppose you do need to understand the audience for your work. Oh, and by the way, I'm glad that you're getting this done now. I appreciate not having to nag you about it."

"Don made me do it," she replied honestly. He didn't want their mom to have to nag her either.

She smiled again. Julie would do almost anything her big brother told her to. Of course, if Charlie had told her to do it…Well, that would have been its own fight. She rarely wanted to do what he suggested that she do. She was considering that fact when the kitchen door swung open and Don and Alan came in.

"…because it's impossible to hit that pitch, when it's in on your hands like that. The best that you can hope to do usually is maybe foul it off. More likely, you're going to miss or saw off your bat. That's what makes him so effective," Don said.

She shook her head. The two of them discussing baseball. No matter what, she supposed, they would always have that.

Alan looked over at her. "You're up," he said softly.

"I think I've slept enough for one afternoon," she answered.

"Are you sure?" He couldn't get the image of her looking so young and vulnerable curled up in her chair asleep out of his head.

"I'm okay," she said quietly, looking in to his eyes and smiling. She wanted to reassure him, keep him from worrying quite so much.

He returned the smile and the look. He knew that she was trying to reassure him but all he wanted to do was protect her, keep her safe, keep all the stress and struggle of what was happening, going to happen, away from her. At least as much as he could…

Don watched them both, the memory of all that had happened in the past day fresh in his mind. He needed to do something… "Charlie," he called out, knowing that his brother was somewhere around, probably in the solarium.

He waited a moment and not getting any response, he tried again. "Charlie!"

Another moment. "Hey, Chuck," he tried. "Get in here!"

He saw that his parents were about to say something, but before they could, an answer came from another part of the house. "What? What do you want?"

"Get in here!" he yelled.

They heard sounds coming from the solarium that seemed to indicate movement.

Charlie popped into the dining room. "Stop calling me Chuck, Donald," he said. "What do you want?"

"First, Chuck gets your attention. Second, get ready to go. We're going out, the three of us," he said, looking over at Julie.

"What? Why? Where are we going?" Charlie asked, wondering what he'd missed while he was in the solarium.

"I don't know. Dinner and movie I guess," he answered.

"Don," his father started. "You don't have to do that."

"Nah. It's fine. We'll go out and you two can have the house to yourselves. Or go out. Whatever you want. We're taken care of."

Julie sat up straighter in her chair. She didn't often get the chance to go out just with her brothers. The few times she could remember them going out together, they went places where she wasn't allowed. She kept quiet, though, not wanting to give her parents a reason to say no.

"Don, your sister has homework to finish and we've got groceries in the refrigerator for dinner," his mother said.

He looked at his sister and the work spread out on the table. "Can you be done and ready to go in half an hour?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Then we're going. We'll leave in thirty." He looked at his sister. "Finish up. Charlie and I will go get ready."

"Don," his father tried again.

"We're going," he said. He motioned to Charlie. "Let's go."

"If we're leaving in half an hour, I can still get a few things done on the problem I'm working on," Charlie said.

He shook his head. "No way, Chuck. If you go back there and get started again, you'll never stop. Let's go."

"Fine," Charlie replied, rolling his eyes at the use of the hated nickname again.

Don pointed at his sister, who was still watching them. "You, thirty minutes."

He headed for the stairs, Charlie right behind him, wondering what this was really about.

They reached the top of the steps. "Don," Charlie whispered, wanting to make sure no one else heard him. "Why are we going out, the three of us?"

Don turned to face his brother. "To give Mom and Dad some time alone, without us around. They deserve it and they've probably got things they need to talk about."

Charlie looked at him quizzically. Don couldn't believe the cluelessness in the look. Had his brother ever had a serious relationship? Or even a not serious one?

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. He didn't even know how to explain this to his brother if he were really that clueless…"Just get ready, okay?'

"You know, I've got work to do. That would be a much better use of my time than…"

"Charlie," Don interrupted, exasperated. "It's not about you. Get ready so we can go as soon as Julie's done with her homework." He turned away from his brother and headed towards his room. "You can have the bathroom first," he said over his shoulder.

Charlie watched his brother head down the hallway. Even after he'd entered his room and shut his door, he stared down the now empty hall, wondering. He shook his head and turned to the bathroom. It wasn't often that Don gave up first shot at the bathroom and he might as well take advantage.

Twenty-nine minutes later, Don and Charlie were standing the foyer as Julie came flying down the stairs. "I'm not late," she said breathlessly.

Don checked his watch. "No, you aren't." He looked over at his mother. "Can I have the keys to your car?" he asked, feeling like he was sixteen again.

She smiled He hadn't had to ask for her keys since not long after he'd learned how to drive. She went to table in the foyer, grabbed her purse and pulled out her car keys. "Do I have to remind you how to treat my car?" she asked, using the same line she used to use with him.

"No, Mom," he said, holding out his hand. "I'm supposed to leave it in at least as good condition as when I took it," repeating the response he'd given so many times before.

She dropped the keys into his palm. "Can you do the same with your brother and sister?"

He looked at brother and then his sister. "I guess I can."

She touched his cheek. "I would appreciate it," she said. "Oh, and please, pick a movie without too much gratuitous sex and violence, I'd rather you didn't corrupt…"

"Charlie?" he interrupted, smirking.

"Very funny," Charlie said.

"I try," he said. "We'll see something with just enough sex and violence. Nothing over the top."

She shook her head.

"Wiseass," his father said quietly.

Don got serious for a moment. "Really, we won't see anything too rough. I'll make sure it is something appropriate."

"Thank you," she said.

The three younger Eppes headed for the front door, their parents behind them. They went down the front steps and headed for Margaret's car. Margaret and Alan stood on the front porch watching their children. He wrapped his arm around her, holding her close to help her stay warm. She rested her head against him. She watched as Don went to the driver's side door, opened it and unlocked the other doors. Julie had headed for the other front door but was intercepted by Charlie, who wasn't going to let her pull rank and take the other front seat.

"You know," she started. "This seems awfully familiar." How many times had they stood here and watched one of the kids head off somewhere?

"It is familiar," he replied, rubbing her arm.

She nestled in closer. "And how many times did you stand here and wait for one of them to come back?" she asked. It had always been his responsibility to wait up for them.

He smiled. "Let's face it. The only one I ever really needed to wait for was Don. Charlie didn't go that many places on his own when he was younger and for the most part, we or one of the other parents still drive Julie." He thought about the number of times he stood here waiting for his eldest. Don had gone through a period where his understanding of his curfew had been, well, flexible. And that had meant more than a few nights of hanging out on the porch waiting for Don to make his appearance. It hadn't seemed to matter what consequence they came up with for him, he just kept doing it. That is until he just decided one day that it wasn't worth the hassle any longer.

"You remember that phase he went through about his curfew?" she asked.

He laughed. "I was just thinking about that." He shook his head. "He's always had a mind of his own." He sighed. "How often do you think I'll be standing out here waiting for him again?"

"I think you'd have an awfully hard time enforcing a curfew with him now," she said, watching her car pull out of the driveway.

"That's not what I mean." He thought for a moment, wondering how to phrase the thoughts running through his head. "With his job," he paused. "He'll probably be here, at the house, at least for a little while. With his work…It's not like he has a normal nine-to-five job…There are going to be times…Times when we wonder where he is, when he'll be back."

She continued to watch the last place she saw her car before it turned out of sight. "We've wondered before," she said softly. "When we didn't hear from him for long stretches of time, when we didn't know where he was. We learned to deal with it." His days in Fugitive Recovery ran through her head.

He felt her tense slightly. He rubbed her arm again, trying to get her to relax against him again. "But this is different. He'll be here, not somewhere far away. It'll be…" He searched for a word.

"In front of us," she said, filling in the words for him. "We'll learn," she said quietly. "We'll have to."

He looked up and out into the sky. "It's not the only thing we'll have to learn." He sighed. "There are other things." He shook his head. "You know he's carrying his gun with him, right?"

"I know he had it when he got here," she said.

"No, I mean tonight. He's going out to dinner and a movie with his brother and sister and he's carrying a gun."

She looked up at him, squinting slightly. "I didn't notice. Are you sure?"

He nodded. "Yes."

She bit her lip. "It's part of what he does. He's a federal agent and I imagine that there are regulations or protocols about him carrying it. We do need to get used to that," she said quietly.

"You think that I can get used to there being a gun in my house?"

"Our house," she said softly. "And you'll need to."

"How is it that you've never had a problem with this?" he asked. "From the first day he told us you've been…"

"You're not remembering correctly," she interrupted. "I told you both that I wasn't taking sides, that I wasn't going to be the referee." She took a breath. "I didn't want this for him. This wouldn't have been the choice I made for him, but he was almost 24. I figured that I didn't get to make that decision for him anymore. You've always said that at some point, you need to let your children be who they're going to become." She relaxed back in to him. "Maybe this is always who he was supposed to become."

He held her close, brushing her cheek with his lips. "What did you want for him?" he whispered.

She sighed. "I wanted him to become a lawyer, to open a practice with me."

He laughed. "So, Don would start a practice with you, Charlie was going to open a planning firm with me. What's Julie supposed to do?"

She gave her own small laugh. "A musician. Although I'm not sure where she'll find the time with ten children."

He thought for a moment. "Maybe she could be the business manager for both of us. That could leave her enough time to be with all those kids." He paused. "Was she really serious?"

She nodded. "She said the boys were hopeless."

He laughed again. "Hopeless, huh?"

"Yes." She snuggled closer. She was cold but the almost cool, fresh air smelled so good and felt so nice as it caressed her cheeks.

"You're cold," he said softly. "We should go inside."

She shook her head. "It's okay."

"Well, then why don't we go inside where the neighbors can't watch us standing on the porch and where we can enjoy the evening alone that we've been given."

"We don't get a lot of those, do we?" she asked.

"Not many. And the fireplace is all set up for the fire you wanted. So, come on. Let's go use it." He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "You think you're going to get lucky, Eppes?"

He kissed her then leaned his forehead against hers. "I already have," he whispered. "I already have."