Special thanks to ancientmaverick for beta reading! Thank you very much! All remaining mistakes are my own.

Dear other guest: thank you for your profound and kind words!

NO FAILURE ALLOWED

Fri, Sept 25 - 01:18 - Beach House, Los Angeles

Charlie slept well.

He had made good progress with Don. At first, he had refused to look at the photos, but Charlie had a lifetime of experience in convincing Don and had won the fight.

It went better with every new batch of photos. Don still didn't really believe this FBI business thing, and Charlie didn't have enough photos to prove it to him. He had made a note to himself to contact Terry Lake to ask for photos from his graduation and everything else that she could think of.

But at least he now did believe that they were brothers and that his name was Don Eppes. He just couldn't image himself as an FBI agent. Not having a better explanation, Don was holding onto his belief that the FBI and police were his enemies.

After a text message to Amita to thank her and Larry, he had shut down his cell to prevent anybody from calling and startling Don. Again.

They could continue where they had left off in the morning. Maybe the sleep would heal something in Don.

With this calming thought, he had fallen asleep on the sofa on the second floor right next to Don's bed. Neither the agents nor Don had kicked him out.

But now something tingled at the edge of his consciousness. He became more and more awake. Re-orienting himself, Charlie tried to find out what could have woken him.

There! He saw a silhouette sneaking to the balcony door.

Suddenly he was wide awake. Don was running.

He scrambled up. "Don!" he whispered. If the agents caught him, not even David would be able to prevent Agent Paul's plan to throw him into a cell. He had to stop him.

Don stopped. In the dark, he couldn't see his expression.

He stumbled to Don. "Don, you can't-"

Don pressed his hand over Charlie's mouth. "Sshhh." He pointed to the stairs leading downstairs. "They're here."

Charlie's eyes widened. "Who?" He whispered back. In the unexpected quiet, it sounded unnaturally loud.

"Whoever is after me."

Charlie calmed down a bit. This couldn't be. His voice returned to normal. "I don't-"

Don clamped his mouth shut again. With his free hand, he put his finger on his own lips. Impatiently, Charlie nodded.

"See," his brother whispered and opened the balcony door. "It's supposed to give an alarm." He indicated with his chin to the telephone next to his bed. "The phone is dead, there's no electricity."

Charlie's heartbeat sped up. Sweat collected to run down his spine. He suddenly shivered in the open balcony door.

"Do you smell that?"

Charlie didn't smell anything. But then he never had been good at detecting things around him.

"It's knockout gas."

The professor had a thousand questions and numbers in his head. What chemical substance, how it was distributed, and just how had it entered a safe house. But the emotional side of him just trusted his brother and his conclusion. Because a lot of his reflexes and thought processes were still the same despite Don not remembering.

"I'm going. You stay here." Don had already crossed the threshold as the words registered in Charlie's brain. "No!" he whisper-screamed and ran after Don.

"They are after me. You are safe here as long as they are hunting me!"

"I just found you, I am not going to let you disappear again."

The sound of breaking glass interrupted their argument.

"We don't have time for this." Don's gaze was worriedly fixed on the stairway. "I need to go."

"If we don't have time for this, then you have to let me come with you."

A shaky shadow on the wall started to climb up the stairs.

"Fine," Don whispered and pulled Charlie with him to the guard rail.

With a practiced movement, he swung over the rail and lowered himself until he had to jump the last meters. He landed with a soft thump.

The shadow had almost reached the point that Charlie could see the top of the person's head. He ignored his trembling hands and mimicked his brother's movements until he hit the ground. His feet and knee hurt from the hard ground. His landing had produced more noise than Don's.

But Charlie didn't have time to calculate the difference in height, upper body strength, and shoe material, as Don was already running to the fence.

He followed him blindly. He couldn't let him run alone or he risked losing him again. If they had really managed to attack the house, Don was his safest option either way.

Behind them, the patio and house suddenly lit in bright light from a powerful flashlight.

Don froze, forcing Charlie to run into him. But his brother used the forward motion to push him down on the ground. "Stay down," he whispered to his head. They both crouched low near the fence and back entrance.

His gaze tracked the movement in the house. Charlie dared to look up and follow his gaze. Dark clad figures crept through the house. The flashlight was so bright that Charlie could see the gun in their hands.

Suddenly, his brother cursed.

Charlie's gaze flew to where his brother looked. One of the light beams focused on one sleeping person. The distance was too far to see if it was Colby or somebody else. But the distance wasn't far enough to mistake the gun and firing position.

They were going to shoot one of the agents.

Charlie hadn't finished his thought as his brother jumped up and called out: "Hey!" In the same breath, he threw Charlie to the right into the bushes.

The light beam left the agent, focusing easily on Don who stood tall in the garden.

Before Charlie could say anything, he heard the rattle of gunfire but he couldn't feel the heat. He looked up at the shocked face of his brother.

"It's bulletproof glass," Don said astonished. As if the words ruptured a dam, the energy returned in Don's movement. He grabbed Charlie at the neck of his shirt and pulled him up. "Run!"

Together, they stormed through the gate that opened easily, thankfully, for them just as they heard glass shattering.

Charlie ran as hard as he could to follow his brother. It was one part despair and fear of the gunmen and one part desire to never lose his brother again. If he now lost him, he probably wouldn't surface again.

Don was faster. He had already reached the outer parts of the harbor.

Behind him, he heard shouts and out of the corner of his eye, he could see the first beams of the flashlight.

Don had slowed down on reaching the docks. It allowed Charlie to catch up to him.

"Don," he wheezed. But his brother just grabbed him by his shoulder and pulled him into a boat house.

"Hide." He shoved him behind a rack of parts.

In the sudden darkness, without the moonlight, Don's eyes seemed unnaturally bright.

He crept back to the door. Moving it slightly, his efforts were rewarded by a hail of bullets. Don ducked back inside. He grabbed the nearest object and moved it across the door to lock it.

His sneakers moved almost silent across the boat house. He searched carefully for the second door by moving his fingers across shelves.

After Charlie had regained control over his breathing, he stumbled over to Don. It was so dark that he literally couldn't see Don until he bumped into him.

"I told you to hide," his brother hissed. Charlie was so near he could feel the heat and fast breath from his brother.

"I am not going to abandon you." Charlie shook his head. "No way."

"They are after me!"

"Then why did you signal them where you were?" Charlie shot back.

Don took a calming breath and leaned back against the wooden wall. His fingers rattled at the doorknob opening it.

Heavy boots trumped on the wooden planks just outside of the boat house.

"I couldn't just let them kill an innocent agent. It isn't their fault. If they are after me, I will not risk anybody else's life."

A huge weighted was lifted from Charlie's shoulders. He grinned. The heavy boots came nearer, and the door opened with a little squeak before hitting the barrier Don had put up. But Charlie could only grin. This man not only wore his brother's face and possessed his mistrust and thought processes, he also had his brother's moral compass. He may not remember it, but this man truly was Don Eppes.

"Go hide, I will distract them."

"No, I am coming with you."

Don had already opened the door. The moonlight highlighted Don's hard expression and the sweat pearled on his face. Charlie had run hard, but he was sure that he didn't sweat like Don.

"What do I have to-"

Burst of automatic firing splintered the wood of the opposite door, and the brothers intuitively ducked out of the other door. The argument was postponed by an unspoken agreement.

Their possible routes of escape were limited. As they reached the gate in the strong fence, they found it locked. Don kicked at it without success.

They looked around and at each other, searching for a way out.

"The water."

Charlie grabbed his brother's wrist and pulled. "We need to get in the water."

Don hesitated. "I don't know if I can -"

"You know how to swim. Trust me. Even if you don't remember, your muscles will." Charlie tugged again, and this time Don followed.

They jumped into the water with a loud splash.

The cold water stole his breath. Charlie looked over to Don. As predicted, he swam with strong strokes around the fence to the other side.

Wet and cold, they needed precious moments to climb on land.

Charlie just followed Don, trying to lighten his steps to match Dons. He trusted him.

The moonlight illuminated the container rows.

Shots rang out as their attacker tried to open the lock with sheer force. They were neither subtle nor patient. The shout of pain underlined the risk they had been taking.

Charlie hoped that it would slow them down. They entered the first hallway, hoping that the attacker hadn't already seen them.

Running zig-zag, they went several rows until they stopped next to a mint green container.

Don leaned against it to catch his breath. For a moment, he stayed upright but then he lowered himself down until he sat.

"Seriously," he whispered. "You need to hide and call for help. We are not going to be able to evade them for long."

Charlie plopped down beside his brother. He wasn't as tired, but he also had a feeling that Dr. Ramirez didn't stress the part about rest and good nutrition just to fulfill his monthly quota.

"I am not going to leave you!" Charlie insisted.

Both breathed hard. In the not so far distance, they could hear voices and footsteps. They were searching. If they had hurt themselves with their shooting, it hadn't stopped them.

Suddenly Charlie bolted upright. "My cell!" He searched his pants and pulled out his cell in triumph.

He shared a smile with his brother before he climbed up.

But Charlie's face fell as he tried to turn it on. The water had destroyed his phone. It didn't even turn on.

Don put his hand on his shoulder and didn't say anything.

"We need you to get to a phone."

"I am not going to leave you."

"But first I need to distract them," Don continued as if he hadn't heard Charlie.

"I can help."

His brother just gave him a disbelieving look with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes. I can calculate the search pattern they'll use and how to slip through it." He nodded. Searching his pockets, he found the necessary pen and paper. Pencil would also work on wet paper.

"Calculating?"

"Yes. I am the math guy, remember? I use math for everything."

Don grabbed Charlie's dead cell phone. Then he crept forward to the next intersection and carefully inched his way to the edge. He took the phone with his black sweatshirt and held it out in the open.

"I see guy number two checking the planks," he reported. "He is walking every footbridge down."

For a moment, Charlie just stared at him. Don gave him a scorching look. "Don't you need some information to calculate a pattern?"

"Of course." For the second time this evening, the joy of having his brother back overtook the part of his brain that told him he should be worried.

Together, they not only managed to get a good layout of the harbor but also a good pattern of movement.

Even better, Charlie recognized the pattern. It was pretty standard, but suffered from lack of numbers.

Charlie could easily spot the dark spots that were virtually unseen to their attackers.

Carefully matching their steps to the search pattern, Don and Charlie reached the harbor entry wet but alive.

Keeping to the shadows and trying to be as quiet as possible, they made their way back to the main street.

"No police? I am sure that somebody has already called-"

"Not if they pulled down more than just our electricity." Don again gave him look that was supposed to mean thousands of things. Not a single one Charlie understood.

His brother sighed and pointed with his hand to the houses around. "Doesn't it strike you as odd that nobody has any lights on? That no street lamp is running or that everything else is dark?"

No, he hadn't seen this. His eyes had accepted the moonlight as sole light source and adapted.

But this really was odd and probably meant: "They cut the electricity for the whole neighborhood."

Don rolled his eyes. "You're a genius."

"I even have it in writing," Charlie answered in reflex.

His brother didn't bother to respond and instead stroked through his wet hair to remove excessive water.

Suddenly he stopped. Glancing back to the harbor, he ducked behind a high wall.

Charlie followed. "What?"

"Do you see that pizza delivery van?"

Charlie scanned his environment. There, at the opposite side of the street a dark van, parked with a pizza on the side. "Yes. What about it?"

"In a gated community where they probably eat caviar for breakfast, they need a pizza delivery? I am pretty sure that there is a pizza delivery nearby driving a Rolls Royce."

Charlie had to smile at the image of a single pizza per seat in a Rolls Royce. Sadly, he could actually imagine it. "And?"

"It means that this is their ride."

Don looked again back to the street of the harbor and to the formerly safe house. Before Charlie could stop him, he sprinted across the street.

Charlie followed again and crouched next to him against the rear wheel.

"Do you always follow me around?" The annoyance in his voice was real this time.

"If you don't tell me what you are planning to do, what else am I supposed to do?"

Instead of answering, Don carefully tried to open the door. It worked.

"Don, don't!"

But Don was already climbing in. Charlie hung back. Through the open door, he could see a lot of pizza boxes ripped open. Don opened another one. Beneath the cold and smeary pizza Charlie could easily make out the pattern in the paper of a gun. This was how they had smuggled their guns into a gated community.

His brother stared at the imprint of a weapon, mesmerized.

"Don!"

Suddenly there was a loud bang from the direction of the harbor.

Don's head snapped up pulling him out of his trance faster than Charlie's command. He listened for a moment before he grabbed a multitool and jumped out of the van.

"They're coming," Charlie whispered furiously. There were no streetlamps and yet he felt exposed. "We need to go."

Why had nobody called the police with their mobile phone? Somebody had to have heard something.

He looked around trying to find the perfect route to leave as fast as possible. Why hadn't he studied a map before coming here?

"Don," he whispered again.

His brother worked furiously at the ankle bracelet trying to cut through it. For a moment, Charlie was perplexed. "What are you doing?"

"Your guys warned me that this was a connection that would survive a power blackout and still work after a power restore. Let's put this to a test." He cut through the last frays. Then he put the ankle bracelet beneath the driver's seat and closed the door.

"What are you doing?"

"Giving the FBI something to chase," he said with a dark smile. "Let's get out of here."

From the harbor, they could hear more noises.

"I think this way" Charlie pointed north, "is the best possible route."

Don just kept his smile firmly fixed on his face. "And I know where the hiking trail starts. Just ask Agent Granger about the 300 meter rule."

Charlie was tempted to ask but before he could actually come up with something, his brother had already taken off.

He had to sprint after him. The fact that he was in better physical condition was only a small consolation. He needed help, and he needed to get the help to his brother. But mostly he couldn't lose his brother again.

He followed his silhouette into the darkness.

TBC