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EPPES RESIDENCE

Alan finally jerked the covers back and stood, fuming while he jerked a shirt around his shoulders. Between the raucous laughter, the television, and the whooping shouts, it sounded like a team of drunken baboons had invaded his living room, and he knew exactly who those baboons were.

He emerged down the stairs just in time to see a bowl of popcorn thrown in Don's direction. He dodged, and it collided with the window in a splintering crash. Don stumbled, sending soda over him and the floor.

Billy Cooper laughed in glee. "That's what you get for not watching this with me."

"You broke that..." said Don, pointing at the window. His worried expression cracked and he started laughing hysterically.

"What's the matter, daddy gonna ground you?" Cooper was sopping drunk, and his affectionate humor had a mean edge to it that Don didn't miss. Alan didn't miss the holstered gun lying casually on the end table surrounded by popcorn. Don was still wearing his, a fact that both reassured him and made his skin crawl.

Alan picked up an object on the floor and looked at it lying in his hand, repulsed. It was an FBI badge, something that should indicate a position held with honor and responsibility. He flicked off the popcorn and addressed its owner, unable to keep the contempt from his voice. "So this is how you keep the public's trust, and you're surprised when the waters don't part for you?" He advanced towards Cooper and threw the badge in his lap.

Cooper rolled his eyes. "Easy, pops."

Alan grabbed the gun off the end table, careful to keep it pointed at the ground. "You leave a deadly weapon lying around my house -" He was interrupted by a burly FBI agent moving at close to the speed of light. Cooper threw himself at Alan and jerked the gun out of his grasp with a brutal shove that sent Alan staggering backwards, almost losing his feet.

Don was the one who caught him, moving even faster than his drunken partner. Alan fell into the protective grip of his son, and for an instant the fury cooled. The irritated scowl on Billy Cooper's face as he holstered the weapon re-ignited it. He wrenched himself out of Don's arms and grabbed his shirt. "Listen to me, you overgrown thug -"

Billy drew back his fist and aimed it at Alan's face, and Alan stopped mid-sentence, frozen in place. In slow motion, Don appeared from the side.

"Don't!" yelled Don, his voice almost a scream. "Just don't! Back off!" He seemed to be struggling to breathe, and the frantic undercurrent in his eyes hurt Alan physically.

"Yeah," said Billy Cooper, his voice low with menace. "Back off."

Alan turned towards the agent, filled with fury. "Don't you ever tell me what to do. You pack your bags and you get out of my house." Billy took a half-step back, intimidated by the unexpected, absolute force behind Alan's words.

"Dad?" Don blinked, and blinked again as though to clear his head. He looked around, and Alan wondered for a split second if he even knew where he was.

"Outside. Come on." Alan didn't know if Don would actually follow, but he did, walking behind him without a word. When they were well out of earshot of his son's drunken partner, they stopped. "This isn't you, Donnie. And if it is you now, I want nothing to do with it."

Don spun around to face Alan so hard and fast that for a split second, he backed away from his own son for the first time in his life. Don was like a coiled spring, barely contained. "Are you going to throw me out? Go ahead. Play the hardass 'not in my house' card, it's not like I need to be here."

The angry reply was on the tip of Alan's tongue when he caught the underlying tension of that spring. Don was braced for assault, and there was something - frightened - there. Something hurt hidden under the anger. "No." Alan's voice came out rough, but he saw that desperate tension ease in his son's face. "No. You are always welcome in this home, no matter the circumstances. Always, do you hear me?"

Don turned away, hiding his face, but Alan could see his shoulders slump slightly and knew it was relief. "Donnie. We love you. I'll see you in the morning."

EPPES RESIDENCE, MASTER BEDROOM

Margaret was awake, and anxious. Alan joined her, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Something's wrong," said Margaret.

Alan nodded. "When I took him outside, he was belligerent, but he seemed - as though underneath, he was very frightened. Maybe even hurt. He was challenging me to throw him out."

"You didn't -"

"Of course not." He looked at Margaret, troubled. "What do you think of this Billy Cooper character?"

"I don't like him. But Donnie's always been good at resisting peer pressure, I don't think he'd let a testosterone-charged frat boy change who he is," said Margaret.

Alan sighed. "If they were still kids, I'd swear Donnie was being bullied, as unlikely as that is. And I'd have Billy and his parents answering some hard questions. He was never like this, not once, before they got assigned to each other."

Margaret closed her eyes. "I've been going around and around with myself, wondering if I should tell you this, or if I should ask him about it, or if I should just realize I'm not mom any more and he's not my little boy, - but..."

Alan squeezed her hand. "They'll always be our little boys. And you're still mom, I'm still dad. I don't think we can ever make that change."

"No." She leaned against him for reassurance. "The other day, he had a bunch of dirty laundry sticking out of his case, and I thought I would wash it for him. When I pulled it out, I found drugs in his bag." She felt Alan stiffen in shock, and added, "- legal ones. Prescriptions. They were his, and nothing narcotic."

Alan started breathing again, just barely. "What for?"

"I didn't recognize them all. Some of them were from a medical doctor, and one said it was for pain. The ones I know were prescribed by a psychiatrist. An antidepressant, anxiety medication, and sleeping pills."

It was Alan's turn to close his eyes. "Anxiety?"

"The same drug that doctor tried to put Charlie on when he was in high school."

Alan stood abruptly, paced across the bedroom, and came to rest staring at a photo of the four of them after a baseball game. Don was in his Rangers uniform, grinning, filled with exuberant delight. His whole bearing exuded playful triumph, all qualities which were utterly lacking in the hard-edged, reserved young man downstairs. "I knew we never should have let him join the FBI. You've seen cops, how they turn cynical and hard. They stop caring and they stop trusting, and it's happened to him."

"He's not a cop, sweetie. He's an FBI agent, it's different."

"Yeah." The sarcasm wasn't even contained in that bitter word. "Same attitude, more resources and larger egos."

"He's a good person, Alan. Isn't that what we need, more good people in positions of power and authority?"

"If it destroys them?"

"He hasn't been destroyed!" She stood up herself, a mother rallying to her cub. "He's here. You said it yourself, he's scared. This is as close as that boy will ever get to begging us to be there for him. If someone or something has betrayed him or hurt him, we need to be the ones he can turn to."

FBI OFFICE, WAR ROOM

"Adim Davis seems to be as clean as they come," said Nikki. "Hell, I'd marry the guy. His wife's out of town, but according to neighbors, co-workers, police records - there's nothing that says abuse. She's an anesthesiologist who used to work with him when they were with the MSF."

"MSF?" asked Liz.

"Medicins Sans Frontiers - it's the real name of Doctors Without Borders. Unless you think the do-gooder squad has anything to do with a fugitive serial killer, I vote random psycho attack," said Nikki.

Colby passed over a medical examiner's report to Don. "Check this out. Graham took Davis to a lumber mill. Not an obvious choice of evil torturing lair, but a smart one. Got me thinking where he might have held his previous victims before he killed them. I haven't had a chance to go over all the records yet, but there were traces of industrial chemicals on the last victim's body, and he had traces of aerosolized paint in his lungs."

Don flipped through it. "Mills paint things?"

"No, but it points to a possible pattern of industrial hideouts. If I look at some more of the past victims..."

"Run it down," said Don, handing the report back. "We any closer to getting Davis or Lisa Trask in to talk to us?"

"Davis still won't talk to anyone, certainly not us. Lisa Trask got back to LA this morning and she's coming in first thing tomorrow," said David.

"Okay," said Don. "What about the employees at the law firm, any luck with the background checks?"

Liz nodded. "Sort of. Trask had an abusive boyfriend in high school. No trial, but he put her in the hospital and the police tried to made a case. She wouldn't cooperate."

Don frowned. "She was Graham's lawyer, she might have confided in him. Let's not take chances. Put her under tight surveillance, but have them lay low. If Graham tries to grab her, we want to catch him in the act. Don't want him spotting an LAPD unit and taking off."

EPPES RESIDENCE, KOI POND

"Charlie, what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you?" asked Don, dangling a finger in the water. One of the pond's residents rose to the surface and pecked at it, prying an amused twinkle from his eyes.

Charlie answered without hesitation, but there was a crack in his voice. "Mom dying."

Don inclined his head in an almost imperceptible nod, his eyes serious. "Besides that."

"Amita's kidnapping." Charlie looked away and stuck his own hand in the pool, holding a fish pellet between his fingers.

Don shook his head, and spoke gently. "No, Charlie. I mean what's the worst thing that's ever been done to you, personally. Not someone else."

Charlie looked down, his posture taking on an air of misery. "Do you really want to know?" His voice was sizes smaller than usual. "I don't think you want to know about that."

"Yes, I do," said Don, worried.

"It was when we were in school. When - we were kids. Five students on your baseball team beat me up, threw me into a dumpster, and locked me inside. I - screamed so loudly. I remember this sense of complete and utter terror, because I was afraid nobody was going to find me, that I was going to die in there or get dropped in some landfill." Charlie wouldn't look at him.

"How did you get out?" asked Don.

"You saved me." Charlie's eyes were filled with pain. "You came looking for me, and you got me out. Then you told me I smelled like rotten eggs, and that it was my fault. You said that people were going to keep ganging up on me until I learned to fight back."

"Charlie..." Don felt his stomach tighten in remorse. Those had been bad times for his younger brother, but he had no idea they'd made it to Charlie's worst experiences of all time list. "God, I don't even remember that."

Charlie's voice sounded like someone was strangling him, but he forged ahead. "I - never told you or dad how badly I was hurt. We were just kids, but I did fight back. I fought, and when they got me down they kicked me until they got bored. I never knew how you expected me to be able to fight six or seven people at once, it's impossible. When you were walking me home from school I was in so much pain I could hardly move. I went up to my room and - I was seriously afraid I was going to die."

"I'm sorry. I am so sorry," said Don. He drew a deep breath. "My point was going to be that - we can live through things that hurt us so badly we don't even want to survive, and go on to be normal people with good lives." He gave Charlie a remorseful glance. "I think the one I ended up making was that your big brother's an ass."

Charlie's laugh was a brave but hollow effort. Don walked up beside Charlie, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him against his side in a firm hug. "This is what I should have done. And I should have told you that no matter what, even when we were kids, I was always going to do everything in my power to protect you."

Charlie didn't fight it, a sure sign to Don of just how stressed he was. None the less, he protested. "I'm fine! In the grand scheme of things, that was nothing. Kids get bullied, families fight... I know that now."

Don nodded. "That's pretty much how I feel about what happened to me." Don rubbed Charlie's arm, and felt him relax timidly against his side. "If you read anything about history, or deal with modern day crime, or terrorism..." his voice drifted off for a minute. "These things happen, you know? And maybe I had a really awful few days, but what other people have been through...mine doesn't compare. Not even close."

Charlie nodded his head in a tiny motion. "We have truly gifted lives."

"Yeah." Don heard the silent "but" in Charlie's statement a moment too late.

"It took me more than three years to stop having nightmares about being trapped in dumpsters, and dump trucks. In my sleep I would wake up buried alive in a landfill and try to climb out while the New York Mets attacked me with baseball bats. Whenever it was my turn to take out the trash, I would end up retching into the bushes if it smelled a certain way." He gave Don a knowing look. "How long did it take you -"

Don's phone rang and he snatched at it, thankful for the diversion. He supposed it was too much to expect, that Charlie and that meticulous brain of his would be pawned off with a simple rationalization or twenty. But what did he want to hear? That I suffered more than I could have imagined it was possible for a human being to live through? That it almost destroyed me? That it nearly ruined my career? That it made me someone worse, that I feel compassion too deeply or not at all -

"Eppes."

"Hey, Don." Don recognized David's voice.

"What's up?" He watched the brightly colored fish swimming at his feet, trying to concentrate on David's words.

"Ahh, you're not going to believe this, but...it looks like Lisa Trask has been kidnapped."

"Wha - what happened to the surveillance?" Don's first instinct was fury, and it jolted him out of his self-absorbed trance. If LAPD had followed letting Graham escape the mill with allowing him to kidnap someone from under their noses-

"They couldn't find anyone to surveil. That's how we found out."

Don bit his lower lip and clenched the phone tightly. "Be right there."