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Chapter 14

Monday, October 10, 2011
10:15 a.m.

He had slept the sleep of a thousand sleeps last night, and boy, did he really need it. They'd gotten home really late after some nurse had finally kicked them out, insisting Don needed to be alone in order to rest. Charlie didn't really understand that one, because Don had been asleep most of the evening with multiple people in the room with him.

But it was probably just as well. Charlie had fallen asleep in the car on the way home, and Amita practically had to shove him into the house and up the stairs to their bedroom. At some point, Charlie had realized that the last time he'd slept had been forty-eight hours before. The last time he'd slept, he had still been anticipating a wedding the next day. Felt like a million years ago.

Now, he found himself at Don's bedside, waiting with his older brother for David and Liz to show up and fill them in on the details of Ralph Shore's fate. Charlie wasn't entirely sure yet what had transpired, but he knew the bastard had ended up dead. Don didn't even know that much—he'd been asleep most of the time he'd been in the hospital, so no one had really gotten a chance to tell him.

It was so nice to just be sitting here with Don, watching him breathe in and out; Charlie felt very reassured just to know his brother was alive. And Charlie secretly held a modicum of satisfaction, knowing that his math had helped bring Don back to them. He smiled a little to himself. Actually, he realized, he wouldn't have been able to do it without Don. So what if Charlie had been drawing on advice Don had given him on a previous occasion? So what if it was only memories of Don comforting him during Amita's kidnapping that he'd listened to? It was a little ironic, or something. Don was the one who'd been missing, and he'd still been the one to keep Charlie's head on straight.

Their dad had been the only one allowed to stay with Don overnight. Now, Charlie and Amita had insisted he go home and sleep for awhile, so Amita had driven him home. Robin was with her parents, figuring she'd better spend at least some time with them before they went back. So that left Charlie and Don alone in the room. Don was currently dozing, and Charlie had been flipping unsuccessfully through the TV channels, half-heartedly attempting to find something halfway interesting.

Even Don was starting to notice.

"God, Charlie," he mumbled from the bed. "Can't you just put the TV on a damn channel and leave it there?"

Charlie glared at his brother. "Well, look who just woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

"There's only one side of the bed here to wake up on," Don said. "I miss my larger bed."

"You're already grouchy," Charlie said with a smirk. "You must be feeling better."

"What?" Don protested with a small, joking smile. "Of course I'm grouchy. I'm stuck here in a hospital bed with you instead of that nice room with a king-sized bed up the coast with Robin that I'm supposed to be in today."

Don kept his tone light, but Charlie could detect the disappointment and guilt there. Charlie knew his brother was still feeling like he'd let Robin down, despite assurances to the contrary. It was silly, really. It wasn't Don's fault he'd been kidnapped just before his own wedding. But Don, of course, always seemed to take responsibility for stuff that wasn't his responsibility. And Charlie knew that Don felt bad because what happened had caused everyone a lot of trouble and grief and unnecessary expenses—for all those out-of-town wedding guests who had come out there and then there'd been no wedding, anyways.

"Hey," Don said, snapping Charlie out of his thoughts. "I'm tired of sleeping. Help a guy sit up, will you?"

"Sure," Charlie responded. He found the button on the right side of Don's bed that would elevate it enough for him to sit up a little. Don reached around with his uninjured hand to try and settle his pillow better behind him. He was fumbling awkwardly, so Charlie grabbed the other side to help.

Don leaned back, wincing as the movement ever so slightly aggravated his injured shoulder.

"You good?" Charlie wanted to make sure.

"Yeah, Chuck, I'm fine," Don breathed. "Thanks."

"Hey, we're not interrupting, are we?" came David's voice from the doorway.

"Hey," Don greeted David and Liz with a smile. "Come on in."

"Hey, man," David smiled back. "You certainly look a lot better than you did last time I saw you."

"That's good," Don chuckled. "I'm glad I don't look worse."

David laughed in response before growing serious. "Well, anyway, we really just wanted to stop by and let you know what happened with Shore yesterday."

Don seemed to perk up at this announcement. "Did you find him?"

David looked at Charlie, clearly assuming the mathematician would have told his brother what he knew about yesterday's events. Charlie looked down towards the floor before cautioning a quick glance up to his older brother. Don was looking at him, eyes widened in confusion.

Charlie winced. "Sorry. I didn't tell him anything. He's just been asleep most of the time, and whenever he's been awake, it's just never come up."

"That's okay," David assured him.

"Yeah, we found him," Liz clarified at long last. "Sometime yesterday afternoon, he came back to the cabin, just like we figured. He got the drop on a rookie agent we had up there with us from Greg Posey's team. Long story short, after a bit of standoff with him just getting more and more agitated, Nikki shot him down before he could stick a bullet in the new guy."

"He's dead," said Don, searching for clarification.

David and Liz both nodded, and Don sighed. All of them looked forlorn, which Charlie understood. A loss of life was never something to be celebrated, no matter how much evil the person had brought about. And Charlie, as a consultant with his brother's team for many years, knew it was always difficult for any of them to take a life.

It was one thing Charlie had always admired about his brother and all the people he worked with. Despite all the horrors they'd dealt with in this world, they'd all managed to maintain enough of a sense of humanity to be bothered by killing even the most awful, terrible, scum-of-the-earth sons-of-bitches the world had to offer. Charlie, of course, had not exactly been gleeful and joyful to hear of Ralph Shore's death, but there had been a small sense of, well, slight satisfaction—just knowing that Don could no longer be in danger of Shore's desire for revenge made Charlie feel relieved.

"So Don," Liz continued on. "You remember that meth lab raid we had a few weeks ago? Where you ended up having to take Agent Winters to the ER to get a graze to his elbow stitched up?"

Don's eyes narrowed. He looked as confused as Charlie felt. What did this have to do with anything?

"Yeah," Don said slowly. "Why?"

"You took him to UCLA Medical Center," David filled in. "Ralph Shore works as a security guard there."

"No kidding," Don's eyes were wide. "So he must have seen me that day, and that must have been when he decided to do all this. Man . . . he must have spent nearly every waking moment since then planning this. He said he rented that cabin from a high school friend of his, and I mean, he knew where I lived and almost everything about me. Hell, he even knew I was supposed to be getting married that day."

Charlie's stomach flipped over, thinking about the implications brought about by Don's revelation. Shore had known about all of them, and could have gotten to any of them.

"He had to have been following you," Liz said softly. "Ralph Shore was clearly a pretty smart guy. He had this planned out in detail. But he'd basically never committed a crime in his life, and I guess because of the lack of experience, he made some pretty big mistakes."

"Yeah, he must have just snapped," David supplied. "Years of grieving for his brother must have just built up inside him, and when he saw Don, he just blew like a fuse and decided to aim his rage at the one he deemed responsible for his brother's death."

Charlie could understand that. In the early hours of the morning yesterday, when it had finally clicked in his head that his older brother was likely dead, he had felt a little like exacting revenge of his own. If he'd ever been let loose in front of Ralph Shore, he'd better watch out. But the point was moot now, with Shore dead anyway.

Shore was dead, and Don was very much alive. He looked exhausted, Charlie thought, but he was alive. And that was really all that mattered.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011
11:30 a.m.

At least Don had one good arm, Robin thought. At least she could curl up on the couch underneath his left arm, resting her head on his shoulder. She was amused to see that he was asleep, head leaned back against the couch, mouth slightly open. He wasn't exactly snoring, but his breath wasn't exactly silent, either. His left arm was around her; he was unconsciously holding her close, which she liked. She sat, legs extended to the coffee table in front of them, her head resting on his shoulder. His dark hair was all mussed up, sticking out in every direction.

Her eyes trailed over to Don's right side. There was a slight bulge in his T-shirt from the heavy bandaging around his shoulder. His lower arm rested in a sling, his fingers barely sticking out from the splint around his hand and wrist. Up on his face, Don's lip had been split but was healing and there was some very slight bruising around his mouth. He was a little worse for wear, but at least he was here.

He looked so peaceful right now, sleeping on the couch in his childhood home. He'd been released the morning before, and had hardly moved from the couch ever since. And Robin, after being repeatedly assured by both Alan and Charlie that she too was welcome around the house whenever she wanted to be there, had spent the majority of her time right here next to him. She didn't want to be anywhere else. She felt a little bad, because her family was still in town and she'd essentially abandoned them, but her need to be near Don had won out over her guilt of ditching her family.

The movie Don had fallen asleep to had ended, and Robin wanted to change the channel. The remote rested on the coffee table next to her foot. She figured she could probably reach it without disturbing Don if she managed to hold his left arm still.

She lifted her head off of his shoulder, immediately wincing and letting out a soft grunt as she felt a tug on the back of her head. She reached back, pulling her hair out of whatever trap it had fallen into. Don stirred next to her. She waited, watching as his eyes slowly pulled open and rested on her.

"Sorry," she whispered. "I think my hair got caught in your sling strap. It's okay. Go back to sleep."

His mouth slid into a sleepy grin—the type of heart-melting grin that she couldn't help but smile back at.

"It's all part of my evil plan," he mumbled. "I'm trying to trap you here and keep you from leaving."

"Well, that's nice," Robin shot back. "Except I wasn't leaving. I just wanted the TV remote." She then leaned forward to finish what she'd started. Remote in hand, she leaned back to settle into Don's shoulder once more.

"That's good," Don breathed into her ear as he leaned his head against hers. "I don't like to use force unless I have to."

They fell silent for a few moments. Robin absently flipped through the channels, relishing in the feeling of Don's breathing against her head.

"So," he eventually said. "When do you want to start re-planning our wedding?"

Robin laughed. "Don, you've barely been out of the hospital twenty-four hours. I think we've got time to think about this later, don't you?"

Don pulled his head away, waiting until she looked at him before shaking his head.

"No." There was something in his eyes, Robin noted. Sadness, or maybe guilt, with a little regret mixed in. She wasn't sure. "We don't know what could happen later. I know what's happening now, though. Right now, everything is good. So I think it's a perfect time to be thinking about this."

His expression was pleading with her to humor him. She grabbed his left hand and began playing absently with his fingers. She rubbed over each one, taking stock of every detail of his long, smooth fingers. When she reached his ring finger, she stopped. There should have been a ring there. Just like there should be another matching ring on her own finger, to accompany the diamond one that was already there.

"Yeah," Robin eventually said. "You're right. I just thought it might be easier later. You know, once it's clearer how long it'll take for your arm to recover."

Don smiled a little. "Ha. If we're waiting for my arm to heal to get married, we could be waiting awhile."

Anyone else might have missed the subtle tint of frustration in Don's tone, but Robin knew him well enough to detect it. She could understand. The doctor had sent him home yesterday with instructions to come back in a week to have his wrist casted because the swelling hadn't gone down all the way yet. Then he'd have to be in the cast for about six weeks after that. With his shoulder damaged the way it was, he had to keep it as immobile as possible by wearing the sling for a couple weeks. He'd be in therapy for awhile, trying to exercise his damaged muscles back up to fighting form. It definitely would be at least a couple of months before his arm was fully recovered.

But she was surprised. For some reason, it never occurred to her that Don would be in a big rush to reschedule the wedding.

"Oh," she responded simply. "I guess I just assumed you'd want to wait. I didn't think you'd want to have a wedding before your arm could function again."

Don shook his head slowly. "Nah. I don't really care about that. I just feel like I've been trying to marry you for so long, I just want it to happen already. I really didn't think you'd be this tough to nail down, Brooks."

He was frowning, but the twinkle in his eyes totally undermined any seriousness he was trying to muster. Robin laughed.

"Hey, Eppes, you just give it your best shot." She grinned, her heart flipping when he returned the smile. "Seriously, though. We don't have to rush this."

"Yeah, we do," Don insisted. "I mean, we've been engaged for over a year and a half. Why did we even have such a long engagement? I'll tell you. It's because even after all this time, the thought of actually getting married scares me a little."

"Me too," she admitted softly. "It scares us both, and I think I've known that all along. And it's why when you didn't show up to the wedding—I'm so ashamed to even admit this, but my first thought was that you had run. And I'm so sorry. I can't believe I ever even thought you would do that."

She had to admit, it felt good to get that off her chest. The guilt that had secretly plagued her ever since they'd found out what had really happened to Don that day was already starting to wane.

"Aw, hey," Don soothed quietly. She felt his nose brush over the top of her head. "Don't feel bad about that. I mean, what were you supposed to think?"

A lump rose in her throat. Damn him for being so understanding. She couldn't say anything, so she just nodded.

"Anyway," Don continued, "the point is, I just feel like we waited too long. And maybe that was my fault, I don't know. And then you know, then we almost didn't even get the chance. I can't exactly explain why I feel like we need to hurry, but I just really want to marry you, already."

She looked up at him to find his dark eyes watching her expectantly, waiting for her answer.

"Oh, Don," Robin sighed. "This really isn't your fault, okay? You didn't know this was going to happen. You've got nothing to feel bad about here. But yeah, we'll get married as soon as possible."

"How about Saturday?" The words came out of Don's mouth in a rush.

"Saturday?" Robin repeated in disbelief. "That might be a little too soon, Don. Are you sure you'd be up for that?"

Don raised his eyebrows, almost as if he couldn't believe what she was saying. "Yeah," he said slowly. "Of course I would. Unless you're not. Unless maybe you don't want this big ugly sling in all your wedding pictures." A hint of a smile was forming on his face; he was challenging her.

"I don't care." Robin smiled back. "I don't care what our wedding pictures look like, as long as you and I are both in them. Okay. We'll get married Saturday, but only on one condition."

"What's that?" Don looked hesitant.

"You, Eppes, have to leave everything to me. All the planning, everything. You have to spend the next three days doing nothing but resting. I don't want you passing out in exhaustion during the ceremony, okay?"

Don grinned. "I could see how that might be a little embarrassing. All right, Brooks. You drive a hard bargain, but you got yourself a deal."

"First thing I need to do is call my parents," Robin thought aloud. "My family's supposed to fly out tomorrow. I should probably tell them they need to stick around for a couple more days."

"That might be a good idea," Don agreed with a laugh. "You should call David next. He's still here, because apparently when you take command of an FBI investigation in the place where you're supposed to be vacationing, you end up with a lot of paperwork to complete. You should convince him to stick around too."

"Good idea," Robin agreed. "And, oh . . . hmm. Maybe you should just wear a suit and tie this time. I don't think the tuxedo people would be thrilled to rent you a new tux. Not after what you did to their last one."

"Hey, it wasn't completely destroyed," Don protested. "Yeah, okay, the pants were pretty muddy and the shirt had been completely obliterated by mud stains, blood stains, and holes before the nice people at the hospital took a pair of scissors to it to get it off me, but the jacket, tie, and all other parts were found clean in the backseat of the kidnapper's car. Maybe a little wrinkled, but they were fine."

Robin laughed. She wished she could make this moment last forever. She finally had Don on the couch, holding her, laughing and joking with her. And they were getting married Saturday, barring any more ridiculous unforeseen complications.

Her wedding dress may not have been the most comfortable article of clothing on the planet, but she couldn't wait to put it on again.

TBC