A/N - Some of the details of protective custody have been fictionalized, along with Coronet, CO, for the sake of the story...

Thanks for your continued support!

Numb3rs...Numb3rs...Numb3rs...

The nurse had come by after Tom had left, probably just standing guard outside the door... She changed the bandage on his forehead, applied an antibiotic cream to the row of stitches below his hair line. The doctor said that he'd be fine. "You got a pretty good knock on your head Mr. Cohen. We'd like to keep you for one more night of observation." Well, almost fine. How many times had he almost told them his name was Don and not Joel?

He thought about a lesson from his childhood. Alan and Margaret had taken himself and his brother to the synagogue and heard stories from the rabbis there. They didn't have to go when they grew older, there was baseball for Don and math tutoring sessions for Charlie. Hebrew lessons didn't matter much after all that, there was just no time. But as he pondered the idea of a new identity, a word crawled out of a long forgotton closet and came to the forefront of his mind, golem.

Golem meant a lot of different things now: mindless servant or holy one. A rabbi made one once to defend the Jewish ghetto in Prague centuries ago. That golem became so big, he had to be put to death. Golem were prized servants, having one represented the individual was very wise and very holy. Didn't matter the modern interpretation, Don only remembered that golem were mute beings made out of nothing. He wondered that maybe now, he was a golem. They took his name, took his life and were going to shuffle him off the board to some place he'd never been to become someone he didn't know. He just hoped there was no Rabbi Loew who would ultimately destroy him in the end after he had done all he could to protect his city like that poor golem in Prague.

Don had spent most the time carefully studying the folder Tom had left him. It listed some of the information he already knew. His name was Joel Levi Cohen, birthday 04-12-72, originally from Fredricksburg, Virginia, along the Rappahannock River. Don smiled, he had spent a lot of time in Fredricksburg while he was studying, and later, teaching at Quantico. I know that place like the back of my hand... Canoeing with the guys... Good times...

Joel was a University of Virginia Cavalier with a bachelor's degree in law and a minor in history. That's mostly true, I do have the history minor. And well... criminal justice...law. Pretty much the same thing, lots of overlapping classes... Stop thinking so hard, Eppes... Cohen, I mean Cohen... Damn...

The great uncle whom Tom had been referring to was a Levi Cohen, the black sheep of the family who had left to strike it rich in the West. Levi was a real man and that was his story, except in reality, Levi Cohen had no family and the government laid claim to his store when he passed since he left no will. The marshals took the opportunity presented, creating Levi a fictional heir and giving Don and Emily a chance to get the hell out of Dodge.

While Emily, Nina... was still sleeping. Don had asked Tom what had happened after he blacked out. "Well, Joel, she called me... Couldn't understand half of what she said at first, voice was so slurred... Thought it was my sister calling for a designated driver. Nina dragged you back behind the gas station. That girl is freakishly strong... We found the both of you in the bushes, you were completely out of it. Nina was slightly coherant. Tried fighting me off, then checked my badge before she passed out..."

Raising the head of the hospital bed, Don watched Emily sleep. The navy blue scrubs were too big on her, making her look even smaller and more childlike. Even in sleep, she looked exhausted; the deep circles under her eyes only confirmed it. She had a concussion and there were three butterflies holding together a cut above her right eyebrow, her lower lip was split. A black splint kept her hyperextended right wrist in place. And she was bruised.

They had gone roller blading several times in the months they had been dating. Emily loved it. Too bad she's not actually any good at it... It wasn't that she couldn't. It was the whole stopping thing that messed her up. Literally. She had tried, a twig caught in her blades and she flipped on her back. Nothing was broken, but she was black and blue weeks later. That was nothing compared to now...

Emily had laughed off the roller blading incident, took great pleasure in recounting the tale, over-exaggerating every time. Her sense of humor one one of the things that so attracted him to her. There was no pride that withheld her from laughing at herself, an eagerness to try almost anything, at least once. She was quiet and desperately shy until he got to know her, after that a whole crazy, fun personality unleashed itself giving her an unexpected depth.

But the deepest thing, the biggest draw was that she understood him. A lot of terrible accidents passed through her ER: car accidents, fire victims and GSWs. Don had picked her up from work multiple times, and more often than not, there was blood left on her scrubs from a patient. They would drive back to her place and collapse on the couch, flip on a movie and hold each other. He couldn't ever remember just being with someone before and having it feel so right, so comfortable and familiar.

He remembered how his brother reacted after the shoot out in the FBI office. He had made a joke and Charlie didn't like that. Gallows humor didn't offend her like it did Charlie... Emily saw things, understood in a way that his father and brother never could. Never wanted them too... Heartache and detachment were part of his job, part of her daily duties. If he didn't want to talk about his day, she wouldn't press. If he just wanted to sit and do absolutely nothing, she was there, quietly supportive, not nagging for details or making him feel guilty that he had no words to vocalize his pain, depression... Whatever the hell it was...

Don felt literally sick about the whole thing. Bile in his throat was threatening to make an unwanted appearance. It was suppose to be a welcome home date, a chance to take things to the next level... The one nightmare that constantly plagued him wasn't his own demise. Sure that wasn't a pleasant thought, but not entirely unexpected in his line of work. His fear was that the people he loved would get caught in the fallout of his job. There had been a couple of close calls: the Russian mob case... He had been certain that if something actually had happened to Charlie, Alan would have killed him. There had been other situations, most that Alan had no idea that had happened. Not a snowball's chance in hell of keeping this one a secret...

And now the FBI had cast a shadow over his whole family, his team and nearly killed his girlfriend.

And yourself, you big dummy... He pushed back the blankets, swung his legs over the side. The throb in his head was slowly fading. He paused, took a few deep breaths and pushed himself out of bed. The walk to the bathroom wasn't pain free. His legs were sore and he could barely lift his arms above his head. Studying himself in the mirror, he saw why Emily was so freaked in the water. I look like Frankenstein's monster... The bandage hid the nasty cut but not the black eye or deep scratches on his face.

The door opened behind him, Emily tentatively stuck her head in, "Hey, how you doin'?"

He gripped the edges of the sink, dropped his head down, "I never wanted to be a risk for you... I am so sorry Em..." His voice cracked. He heard her footsteps and felt her hands softly touch his back, careful to not hurt him. Her gentleness broke him. Don turned around and hugged her tightly, "I almost lost you... Almost got you killed... I'm so sorry..."

He buried his head in her hair, could feel tears running down his face. "I'm sorry, so sorry, Emily..."

"I'm okay, honey. I'm okay," she whispered. He shivered as her fingers ran through his hair. Don heard her softly chuckle. "You know Don, if you really wanted to marry me... No need to go through all this trouble, you could have just asked..."