Disclaimer: Since all my requests for acquiring Numb3rs and its characters have been rejected (the real owners must have somehow been under the impression I wouldn't treat them well), I still don't own them.
Rating: M, just to be on the safe side
Timeline: season 3
Thanks to everyone who tags along, a special thanks to all reviewers out there and a special special thanks to SneakySnake420 for the title idea!
A/N: I'm still deciding on the next two chapter titles and thought you might help me with that, so I created a poll. If you want to participate, please cast your vote on this site: www.strawpoll.me[SLASH]19399160


Rejection

Every now and then, it would happen that Charlie had a weird feeling before answering the door, a sensation of dread and worry. Tonight, however, rather ironically, there had been none of that. The only thought on his mind had been that now, despite his best intentions, he'd be late for his dinner with Amita. Therefore, it was only when he'd opened the door, only when he'd been faced with the grim expression in the eyes of Don's coworkers, that the sick feeling had settled in the pit of his stomach.

"What is it?" he'd asked. He'd tried to adopt a calm tone even though his alarm bells had gone crazy, but alarm hadn't been called for. There had been no need for him to storm out of the door, no need to rush to the hospital, no need for a vigil at his brother's hospital bed, for it had already been too late for all that.

"I'm sorry," David had said, his voice somber, and Charlie had started shaking his head. He could read the words in David's eyes, but he didn't want to hear them, he felt like screaming, like drowning David's words by all means possible, but he found that he couldn't, not past the lump in his throat, not with his strength leaving him.

And so, he heard those words when David sealed his brother's fate once and for all, "He's dead."


Almost a whole day with his brother gone from this world had passed and Charlie still couldn't grasp the reality of the tragedy that had disrupted his life. He only knew he had to do something. He couldn't sit around at the house any longer, not with his dad's mourning filling every room.

"Charlie! What the hell are you doing here?"

Charlie flinched and spun around. Not surprisingly, he hadn't really slept the past night, and with his mind still reeling with the latest news, spinning in circles, he was even more easily spooked than usually.

He swallowed, trying to give his voice a determined tone. "They need to pay for this," he said, feeling like someone else was putting the words in his mouth. Vindictiveness wasn't part of his nature. No, his nature was pretty much defined by looking up at his big brother.

So what remained there of himself when his big brother was gone?

Before he could go further down that road, Colby's voice kept him in the here and now. "They will, but making sure that they do is none of your business."

Charlie was staring at him, certain that he'd simply misheard. "None of my business?" he repeated, his voice high and thin. "They killed my brother. How much more 'my business' could this be?"

Colby grabbed his upper arms firmly, so firmly in fact that he was leaving behind bruises. "That's exactly the point. You're too close to this, you're personally involved, so you need to leave this to us."

"And you are not personally involved?" Charlie argued, wondering if logic had stopped working the moment his brother had left this world.

"We are professionals, you're just a consultant," Colby retorted with an acerbity that took Charlie's breath away. He waited, and even though Colby's tone became softer at his next words, the cold look in his eyes remained. "I'm serious, Charlie, stay out of this."

Charlie was shaking his head, feeling his eyes tear up and willing them to stop. "I can't."

"You'll have to." Colby's tone had become grim now, and the little pity that had been in his voice before had now left completely. He was looking over Charlie's shoulder, apparently conversing with David. "I'm coming," he told him before he briefly turned back to Charlie. "You need to go home. Stay with your dad and let us do our job."

With that, he left him and returned to the rest of the team, a team that now with his brother gone, Charlie was obviously no longer a part of.


His eyes were burning, and the fatigue was only partly to blame. It was hard to concentrate, and hard to keep his emotions under control, but he knew he had to do this, for Don. That was what was keeping him together, he knew he had an agenda, he needed to avenge his brother, and before he would have managed to do that, there would be no rest, no lenience and certainly no tears. There would be time for all that later.

There was a soft knock at the door, but Charlie forbade himself to lose his focus. He tried not to think about the fact that he'd lost his train of thoughts already, that he had lost it even before the knock, and fought to get back into the problem, to get one step closer to figuring out who was responsible for his brother's death.

"Hey," Amita said softly and stepped into his office, though stopped before entering his private sphere. "What are you doing?"

Charlie shook his head with impatience. He knew Amita was meaning well, but he didn't have time for her attempts of consolation. There was a reason why he'd come here to work, because CalSci meant work, not leisure. CalSci was a place of efficiency, not a home of morning. Not a home that was bleeding from the hole his brother's death had left behind.

"Is this a case for the FBI?" she asked, and he could hear the frown in her voice.

"I'm trying to find the people responsible for this," he finally told her, deciding it was the fastest way to get her off his back. Besides, talking to her was one of the few things that made him feel human these days.

"Oh," she said and after some hesitation dragged up a chair to sit down next to him. She took a look at his notes, then asked, "Anything I can do to help?"

He shook his head again, this time as an answer, but then thought better of it. "Maybe..." he started, but had to try again. This wasn't easy for him, true, but he needed to do what was best for the case. He owed this to Don.

"Maybe you could go over my notes so far, see if I made a mistake somewhere?"

The pause before she answered was telling him that she was just as uncomfortable with this as he was. What if she did indeed find an error? For Charlie had no illusions, losing his mathematical genius on top of everything else would have been a blow he didn't know how to bear.

And yet being wrong was human, and so was asking for a second opinion. At least that was what they tried telling themselves when Amita consented with a little too easygoing "Of course".

She took a minute to inspect his work. "And this is about the drug cartel you told me about?" she then asked.

Charlie nodded.

"How did you get all this data? I thought Don didn't w…. I mean, you didn't consult on this case."

Charlie shook his head, biting his lip. While he was still debating whether or not he should tell her about the legally gray area he'd entered by obtaining the information she was looking at, the memory of that night a week ago was overcoming him, drowning him and taking away his ability to breathe freely.

"So what's this case about?" he'd asked his brother. Both his dad and himself had realized that it had to be a big case, one that was not going well, for Don had been even more taciturn than usual when he'd come to dinner that night, and he'd remained that way for the entire evening.

Now, however, that their dad had gone to bed, Charlie had hoped to be able to get some further insight as to what was troubling his big brother.

"I told you, it's about drugs." Don had still been acting in an offhand manner, but Charlie had too much experience with his withdrawn older sibling as though he'd backed down that easily.

"Anything I could do to help? If we're looking at a drug cartel, I might help you by doing a network analysis of the cartel's structure."

"You'll be doing no such thing," Don had told him in an unusually blunt way.

Charlie had been confused and, to tell the truth, a little hurt. "Why not? It has worked before. Remember –"

"You'll stay out of this!" Don had interrupted him loudly.

"But –"

"No 'but's, Charlie! When is it going to get into that thick old head of yours that I don't need your help? I've been doing my job just fine before you came along, trust me, so for once, just let me handle my own business in peace and leave me alone, okay?"

It had taken Charlie a moment to gather his wits enough to reply an "Okay" and make an exit that despite not being dignified was at least not as humiliating as it could have been.

His brother's decision hadn't changed, and neither had his behavior towards him. Charlie bit his lip down harder and tried not to think about it, but he couldn't, for this was the worst thing about this tragedy, that in those precious days before his death, Don had been doing everything to push him away, and Charlie didn't even know why. All he knew was that now, history was repeating itself, and he wouldn't let that happen. His inactivity on this case had already cost his brother's life, he would make sure that this was where the body count stopped, whether the team wanted his help or not.


"What did I tell you?"

Despite his best intentions, Charlie flinched again. The aggression in Colby's voice simply caught him off-guard.

"You're supposed to stay at home!" the man that until recently he'd considered his friend continued hissing.

Charlie swallowed and straightened his back before he spoke. "I think I know who's behind this," he said.

"Don't you get it?" Colby went on. "We don't want your help, we're doing just fine without you."

He had to swallow again, to swallow down the rejection, but he wasn't backing down. "Why don't you let me help you?" he asked, fighting hard to remain standing tall.

Colby closed his eyes, and when he opened them again and Charlie looked at them, he shuddered. Never before had he seen such a cold expression in the eyes of someone he'd believed to be his friend.

"Look. It's over. Maybe Don let you hang around here, G-d knows why, but we no longer feel like babysitting you, okay?"

"But –"

"Just cut it out, Charlie! We all know we've only kept doing this for old times' sake for a while now, but even Don thought about cutting you lose, so let's just take this opportunity to put an end to this. Go home and grieve for your brother and let us do our job in peace."

Charlie just nodded, unable to speak past the lump that had risen to his throat. He'd tried, and nobody could accuse him for giving in easily. However, eight years of public school had taught him to realize when he'd overstayed his welcome, and they'd also taught him when he had to abort any further attempt to change people's minds when he wanted to take his leave with at least some humble rest of his dignity.


"Dad? Can I talk to you for a second?"

His father hardly gave him a glance before he turned his grief-stricken eyes back to the picture in his hands. It was a photo of Don, taken the day of his graduation from the Academy, a handsome young man smiling proudly into the camera, destined for great things to do, for an uncounted number of lives to save. A handsome young man that was now dead.

"What is it?" Alan asked, never taking his eyes off the picture.

Charlie hesitated, then took a seat next to him at the dining-room table, hoping against better judgment it would give him his father's attention. Needless to say that it didn't.

He swallowed, telling himself not to throw in the towel just yet. "I went by the FBI today," he said while watching his father look at the picture. He waited for a reaction, but there was none, so he went on, "The team's still investigating the case." He knew he didn't have to be more specific for his dad to understand he was talking about Don's death, so he chose not to mention it, nor Don's name. Chances were his dad wasn't even listening to him anyway, so the pain of saying his dead brother's name might have benefited in nothing.

"I could help them," Charlie now approached the matter that was on his mind. "I know I can. But they won't let me."

Alan sighed and put his head in his hand, massaging his temples with two of his fingers. "It's their job, Charlie. They'll know what they're doing. Just let them do what they think is best and stop bothering them. They're going through enough as it is."

"But I can help them," Charlie insisted, fighting hard not to let his voice break. "I can help bringing down who did this. I just need them to hear me out."

"Let's talk about this in the morning, okay? I'm really tired."

Charlie bit his lip, but the pain in his soul was too great to be mollified by merely that. "From sitting around all day and doing nothing but mourning?"

His dad was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was as calm as it had been this whole time, and maybe that was the worst part. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Good night, son."

Charlie pressed his lips together hard when he watched his father's retreating back, partly to prevent himself from saying anything else that might only rip open new wounds, for both of them. He knew he shouldn't have been surprised. Don had always been their father's favorite, of course his death was devastating for him. However, Charlie would have never thought just how little his dad realized how much he'd loved his brother too, how devastating this was for him as well.

He took up the picture that his dad had left on the table and impatiently wiped a tear away that had formed in the corner of his eye. Don hadn't deserved this. What had been done to him was wrong, it was an error in the logic of the universe, and Charlie had made up his mind. There wasn't anything or anybody that could stop him from doing everything there was in his power to restore order to the universe and fix what it had done to his brother.


He looked up alarmed when he heard the hustle in the front hall, the part of the auto shop where they actually fixed cars. Every clandestine location needed to have a believable front.

He and Russ sitting next to him exchanged a glance, but before they had even begun to discuss whether or not they should go and look what this was all about, the door connecting the two large halls flung open and Lennox appeared in it, filling almost the whole frame, shoving an intimidated figure into the room before him. Steve, the boss, was merely half a step behind, fuming, throwing the door shut with a loud bang just as Lennox pushed the newcomer hard on the floor, choosing a spot that was brightly lit so that now all half dozen people in the room could inspect him.

His jaw dropped when his eyes landed on their captive, but from the looks of it, Charlie was just as surprised to see him.

"Don."

Don felt the heat rise to his head. It had only been one short syllable, one that seemed to have asked a lot from his brother to utter, but it might have been enough to blow his cover.

"What the hell's going on here?" the boss asked, angrily looking back and forth between him and Charlie. "Why is he calling you 'Don'?"

"He always has," Don said while his mind was racing to come up with a believable cover story. The only one that came to mind though was too close to the truth to make him feel comfortable. On the other hand, it was the only one he had. "He couldn't pronounce my name when we were little. He's my brother."

"Your brother?" Steve echoed, letting his anger show by the wild, agitated gestures of his hands. "Are you out of your mind? Why did you tell your brother to come here?!"

"I didn't!" Don shouted back. His agitation was growing too while he was slowly realizing that this nightmare was actually real. "I have no idea what he's doing here!"

That was the moment when Charlie, who'd never been known for his good timing, chose to break his silence. "I thought you where dead," he all but whispered, his face still white, his eyes still holding that shell-shocked look.

"That was kind of the point, moron!" Steve snapped at him. Then he bent down, bringing his own face so close to Charlie's that their noses were almost touching. "How did you find us?" he hissed.

Don could see his brother swallow nervously and felt his own breath quicken. Charlie's eyes were wide open, the wings of his nose were trembling. He was scared for his life, and rightly so.

"I asked you a question!" Steve shouted, jerking roughly at the collar of Charlie's shirt, and Charlie flinched, closing his eyes tightly as though that could help him escape from this nightmare.

It couldn't, but maybe Don could.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he interrupted the rough interrogation and held Steve back at his arm to prevent him from becoming even more aggressive. "Back off of him!"

Steve turned around towards him then, leaving Charlie in the hands of his right hand Lennox.

"You don't tell me what to do!" he snarled at Don. "You're the one who got us into this mess! Did you tell him to come here?"

"What? No, I told you! I have no idea how he found us!"

Steve held his gaze, his cold eyes scrutinizing him. "Okay," he then said, and there was a menace in his voice that sent shivers down Don's spine. "Okay. Then find out."

Don's heart sank into his stomach, making him sick. "What?"

Steve was firm though, he knew very well that Don had understood perfectly what he was demanding of him. "You heard me. That's your specialty after all, isn't it? So go on, make him talk."

Don shook his head in incredulity, still unwilling to believe Steve was actually asking that of him. "You can't be serious," he said. "He's still my brother, don't forget that."

"Which is why this'll be a perfect opportunity for you to show us where your loyalties truly lie." Don's reluctance must have shown all too clearly on his face, for he went on, "You told us yourself that he treated you like shit ever since you got arrested. Why're you even trying to defend him?"

Don was breathing hard, staring into Steve's eyes. He knew he couldn't allow himself to blow his cover, but he also needed to protect Charlie. He just couldn't see how both should be possible.

"Look," he tried, "I know it's hard for you to understand, but it doesn't matter what he did to me, he's still my brother. I don't want him to get hurt."

"Well, it's either him or us," Steve told him bluntly. "Choose your side. And remember, we took you in when they kicked you out, so consider carefully what you owe to whom."

Don had a snarky remark on his tongue, but swallowed it down. His mind was racing, but no solution was coming up. What was there to be done? He couldn't blow his cover, for in that case, both his and Charlie's fate would be sealed, the cartel wouldn't run the risk of either of them blabbing about their plans to anyone. They'd shown countless times before that they were ruthless enough to just do away with anyone who knew too much. If, however, Don did what Steve was asking of him, if he managed to convince his brother to tell them what had made him sneak around this place at this time of night, there was no reason for the cartel to keep Charlie alive any longer, except if he was clever enough to show them he could be of some value to them. The real problem though was that there was a good chance that Charlie was here because he'd been working together with Don's team, despite his explicit orders. And if Charlie told them that, Don knew they could both start digging their graves.

Don watched his brother and was hit by those emotion-filled chocolate-brown eyes staring back at him. Charlie was obviously still in shock, as of course he would be after just having found out that Don was still alive. No, in his current state, Don couldn't trust his brother to come up with some story that would make the cartel want to use him as a resource of some sort, in fact, he couldn't even be sure that Charlie understood that Don was working for the cartel undercover. So what he needed to do was to buy time. The bad thing was that the only way he saw to achieve that was to give into Steve's demands, and be it only in pretense. Now that he thought about it, however, pretending to conduct the interrogation with his brother seemed like the perfect solution, since it was apparently the only way to give them some privacy – and thus a secure method to figure out a plan how to get them both out of this mess.

"Alright," Don therefore said and turned towards Lennox. "Take him to the office. I'll be there in a minute, I'll just go get my utensils."

The office was the small room in the back of this second hall, and while it had indeed been an office once, its recent usage could be described rather by the term interrogation room. Or torture chamber. The fact that the room didn't have any windows and was relatively sound-proof left all possibilities open.

Steve chuckled, and not in a good way. "Really, Daniel? You really think we'll just leave you two alone? I'm sure you'll understand we'll have to do it differently this time. Tommy, get the cable ties," he told another member of their group who'd been sitting quietly in a corner watching the scene from afar. "The metal stairs should be a perfect spot to fix him to."

The heat rose back to Don's head, an unmistakable sign of panic. He fought hard not to show his distress, though, nor the fact that he was thinking as fast as he could to find a way out of this predicament.

He couldn't find one.

He watched them fasten his brother to the stairs. His hands were bound together now, even though they'd been kind enough to apply the cable ties over his jacket and not underneath, so at least they wouldn't cut into his flesh. To Don, however, that was only a small consolation as he watched them fix his brother's hands to the solid metal above his head, for if he didn't find another solution to this problem soon, Charlie would still be in for a world of pain – and that by the hands of his own flesh and blood.

Don swallowed nervously. An idea was forming in his mind. It wasn't the solution he'd been hoping for, a solution to keep his brother safe, but at least he had found a way to keep them both alive for another couple of hours. That should be enough time for the team to step in and get them out of here, and once they had, Don could figure out the solution to the next problem, by finding a way to get everyone fired who'd agreed to letting Charlie play the decoy.

Pushing the thought of his team out of his mind and concentrating on the problem at hand, he slowly got closer to Charlie, walking round him thoughtfully, trying to find the right spot.

"I thought you needed your utensils," Steve reminded him with some impatience in his voice.

"I changed my mind," Don replied calmly, never taking his eyes off his brother as he completed his round. "I've kicked his ass ever since he could walk, I don't need any help with him."

Before anyone could stop him, Don let his fist fly towards Charlie's temple, concentrating hard on hitting the right spot with just the right amount of force.

The effect was scary. Charlie's head flew to the side and his knees gave way under him. The cable ties creaked, but they were solid enough to hold him, and after a moment, Charlie had regained the power over his limbs and was struggling to stand upright again, to relieve himself of the strain that had been put upon his hands and wrists and shoulders.

Don swallowed uneasily. His own fist was throbbing, his knuckles were sore, but he knew it still hadn't been enough. He'd hesitated , even though he had forbidden himself to show any form of indecision, knowing it wouldn't make things better, only worse. And that was what had happened here. While Charlie seemed to be a little groggy, he was still conscious, and still very much in a state of being submitted to their interrogation.

Hearing Steve's upset calling-out as though it belonged to a reality foreign to his own, Don quickly decided to strike again, and at last, his fist did the trick. Charlie's knees gave way again, and this time, the only thing keeping him upright were the cable ties while his head lolled on his chest.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Steve's shouts now reached Don's ear.

He was pushed away harshly and stumbled backwards, but he didn't care. He'd reached his goal, he'd bought them some valuable time. Surely enough time for the team to finally intervene.

"What good do you think that did, huh?" Steve continued shouting at him. "Is he telling us anything now?"

Don, realizing he needed to stay in his role, stopped stumbling backwards and started fighting back, giving Steve's shoulders a slight push in return. "It's still the fastest way to get something out of him!" he argued. "He would have never believed I would hurt him for real! This way, he's gonna sing like a bird once he wakes up."

"You better hope so," Steve hissed. "I don't think I need to explain to you how important it is to figure out how he found us. If there are other people out there who know what we're doing, we can pack up our things and go all into hiding."

"Trust me, I know," Don said and gave the cold stare back.

It was Steve who broke eye-contact. "Tell me at once when he's lucid again," he gloomily threw over his shoulder as he went away.


David felt his face fall when he spotted the newcomer stepping off the elevator. With a hint of panic, he looked around, but Colby had gone to the LAPD to confirm with them the last details for their joint raid tonight, and Megan had locked herself away into a quieter room than the bullpen was, like she had been doing ever since they'd started this charade. She had made it clear from the beginning that she was against the secrecy about Don, and while she wouldn't actively jeopardize their plans, she wasn't really prepared to constantly lie to everyone around them either.

Truth be told, David wasn't comfortable himself with his role in this operation, but he'd accepted it thinking that Don probably knew what was best, so he had played his part, even though lying to Alan and Charlie had been the most difficult thing he'd done in quite some time. That was also why until now, he'd avoided running into them again and had left dealing with Don's family in Colby's hands more than gladly. Now, however, it seemed as though he needed to step up after all.

"Alan," he greeted the older man, coming to the point quickly in order to hide his nervousness. "What can I do for you?"

"I was just wondering if Charlie was here," Alan said and David could see that, as unlikely as it was, the Eppes father seemed to be even more nervous than himself.

"I haven't seen him today," he replied, a little relieved that so far, this conversation didn't require lying. The relief was short-lived though, Alan's nervousness just couldn't be ignored any longer. "Is that why you came here? You could have just called."

Alan looked up at him then, and in his mind, David corrected his former assessment. Alan wasn't nervous, he was scared.

"I'm afraid he might have done something stupid," he said.

David frowned. He didn't like where this was going. "How so?"

"He tried to tell me something yesterday, something about how he could help you find… well, you know. I think he might have worked on a plan to take them down, but I'm not sure, I didn't really listen." He seemed so distressed about his behavior the previous night that David was about to try and find something soothing to say, but before he had succeeded, Alan went on. "He was gone this morning when I got up, and his bed didn't look like it had been slept in, and there wasn't anything to suggest he'd had breakfast –"

David could tell that Alan was about to lose his carefully adopted self-control and hastened to stop him from panicking. "Maybe he spent the night at Amita's place," he suggested the obvious, hoping fervently that despite appearances, Alan didn't have any reason to be upset. The nagging voice in the back of his mind reminding him of what Colby had told him about Charlie's behavior the previous day however couldn't simply be switched to silence.

Alan shook his head, giving David's hope that Charlie's absence might turn out to be completely harmless after all a significant blow. "I called her, she hasn't seen him since yesterday afternoon, and neither has Larry. I really didn't want to bother you, but I'm… I don't know what else to do."

David suppressed the urge to nervously bite his lip. "I assume you tried his cell?"

"It went straight to voice mail," Alan replied and it seemed as though admitting that this last bastion of hope had fallen as well was bringing the once strong man to the brink of tears.

David put a hand that he hoped would be soothing on the older man's arm. "We'll look into it right away," he promised. "We can geolocate his cell phone, or at least the last spot where it logged in." That should give them enough information to make sure whether or not Alan's suspicions were right and Charlie was indeed somewhere near the drug cartel. In any case, given their current situation, David had to admit he was rather concerned by the news.

"Thank you," Alan replied, going for a firm tone that, however, still couldn't hide its trembling quality. David thought he could see some moisture get into his eyes when he added, "I can't lose him too."

David had to swallow down the lump that had risen to his throat. It was taking all he could not to blurt out the truth to this troubled father. Instead, he said, "We're going to find him," thinking that they should be able to bring back to Alan at least one of his sons. On the other hand, telling him the truth now seemed to be even more cruel than continuing the lies, for if the cartel was indeed responsible for Charlie's disappearance, there were too many things that could go wrong to make it advisable to build up Alan's hope.


"So, tell us, Daniel, what's it going to be?"

Don stood with deliberately slow movements. "I'll do it," he said, feeling as though he was consenting to his own execution and trying not to let that show.

"Alright," Steve said with some menace in his voice, holding out a leather belt to him, whose used state showed that this wasn't the first time it had served this purpose. "I expect some answers before tonight."

"Don't worry," Don said with fake conviction, "I know how to handle him."

Steve gave him a scrutinizing stare. "Just make sure he won't pass out again. We don't have time for that."

Don just nodded briskly before he went over to the back of the hall where they had left Charlie for the remainder of the night. They hadn't changed his location, but had moved the wooden chair from the office out here and bound Charlie to that while they'd been waiting for him to recover from Don's blows.

Don's hand clenched around the belt in his hand, which he had to grip tightly to prevent it from slipping from his sweaty and trembling fingers. If his team didn't intervene before nightfall, he had no idea what to do. He just didn't understand what was taking them so long. If Charlie was here, they should be somewhere close, too, right? So why hadn't they come rushing in already? Don had bought about as much time as he was able to, he just didn't know what else to do. When Charlie had woken up a few minutes after having been punched out, he'd still been too out of it to be coherent. As uneasy as it had made Don feel to see his brother in such a state, especially knowing that he'd been the one to do this to him, he'd still been relieved to see that his plan had worked remarkably well. Given the late hour, Steve had decided to postpone Charlie's interrogation to the next day, and given that they'd had a lot of other things to do, it was now almost midday, so since Charlie's arrival, more than twelve hours had elapsed, ample time for the team to finally make an appearance.

So why on earth weren't they here yet? And what was Don supposed to do now? Should he continue playing his role until the bitter end? After all, he didn't really have a choice, did he? As long as he continued acting as though he was loyal to the cartel, he and Charlie still had some chance of getting out of this alive. The only question was: how much more time would he be able to buy? For technically, the team was supposed to take the cartel down sometime tonight, but that left open a far too wide window of time during which his cover might blow – or worse. But he couldn't be sure that they were still going to do the raid tonight. Frankly, he'd hoped for them to storm the place sometime during the past hours, for they had to know that Charlie was in trouble. They hadn't, though, and maybe they actually wouldn't deviate from their original plan, and that made Don filled with a most uncomfortable sense of loss of control. In the end, all he could do right now was trust his team and stall for more time, and the fact that Charlie was in their power after his team had carelessly or recklessly put him in this position didn't make trusting them an easy task.

He'd reached his brother by now and squatted down before him, looking him over. Those dark eyes were staring back at him with a look he couldn't quite interpret. There was fear in there and hope, but their most striking feature was the pain he could see in their depths. He was longing to calm him down, to apologize and tell him that everything was going to be okay, but he knew that he couldn't. While they weren't being watched as closely as the previous night, they still weren't alone. There were enough people in sight and in earshot to make Don keep up his facade. True, he had thought about secretly communicating with Charlie by his facial expressions or other signs that the other ones wouldn't be able to notice, but eventually he had decided against it. He couldn't be sure how his brother would react, so continuing this role-play, even if it meant keeping him in the dark about the truth, was still the most promising way to keep him safe.

Still, there was one question he just had to ask.

"How are you doing?"

Charlie merely continued staring at him, swallowing down a reply that might have been on the tip of his tongue.

Don told himself to give it up and just play his role. "What were you doing here last night?"

Charlie kept his silence.

"How did you find this place, Charlie?"

Nothing.

"You know I'll have to hurt you if you don't tell me."

Don thought that the muscles around Charlie's jaw were tensing up, but other than that, there was no reaction.

He sighed and bent down to cut off the cable tie that had been holding Charlie's right foot to the leg of the chair. When he saw the surprise in his brother's eyes, he told him, "Hold still, or this is going to hurt even more."

He pulled off Charlie's shoe and sock and now Charlie seemed to have some idea as to what was waiting for him, for when Don tried to straighten his leg, he jerked it out of his grip.

"Hold still," Don repeated, "or I might break something."

Indeed, Charlie's resistance abated and Don managed to retrieve another cable tie from the pocket of his jacket and bind Charlie's foot to the heavy, broken engine they'd taken from the office and put here during the previous night for exactly this purpose. It was padded out with old rags, rendering the machine a quite comfortable footstool per se, and Don made sure to fixate Charlie's foot to that as tightly as he could. After all, the purpose of this technique was to induce pain, not permanent physical damage.

Permanent psychological damage, on the other hand, was quite well possible.

The thought made Don freeze. He couldn't do this. On the other hand, if he didn't do this, he knew that someone else would, and they certainly would be a lot rougher than him. This was the best way to protect Charlie, he knew that, he'd gone through all options they had. It was a sick way, true, but that was something that couldn't be helped.

At least not as long as Charlie was keeping his silence.

"Last chance, Charlie," Don said. "This is going to hurt, believe me. So how did you find us?"

He was torn between hoping that Charlie was going to tell him, to stop him from hurting him, and praying he would hold his tongue and thereby keep Don's cover intact until help would arrive. In the end, he didn't know whether or not to feel relieved when Charlie remained silent.

"Your choice," he said, partly because it was the only way he could go through with this.

Then, he let the belt strike for the first time.

The blow had not been carried out with great force, Don could easily ramp that up. However, it had been enough to cause pain, so much pain in fact that Charlie hadn't been able to keep quiet.

Don knelt down before him, looking in the face that had now turned into a mask of pain. "Tell me how you found us," he said and had to fight hard to ban the tremble from his voice. It was killing him to see his brother like this.

Charlie was still breathing hard, but his eyes shot open then, hitting Don like a cascade of screaming emotion.

He swallowed, fighting hard to prevent his own emotions from overcoming him.

"Anything you want to tell me?" he asked instead, holding onto the task of playing his role as convincingly as he could, as though it was his lifeboat, while in reality, it felt like a leaden anchor pulling him down to rock bottom.

Charlie was still trying to control his breathing, to control the pain, but Don could read in his eyes that he was about to speak. He knew he had to stop him, and he'd almost resolved to take up the belt again and continue his task, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Before he could stop him, Charlie opened his mouth, but to Don's great relief, he didn't use his power of speech to bring about both their downfall. The question he did ask, though, seemed to be almost as devastating.

"If I tell you what you want to know," he said in a tone that made shivers run down Don's spine, "are you going to kill me?"

The shivers were still running and Don had to grip the belt tighter in order not to show his distress. He didn't know what to say, he just knew that he couldn't bring himself to tell his brother that his fears were actually very real.

"You shouldn't have come here," he just said in a low voice.

"I'm starting to get that now," Charlie replied in a choked whisper.

"Any results yet?"

Don flinched and turned around. Steve was standing there behind him.

"Nothing so far," he admitted.

"Then go on."

Don nodded and stood. When he was back in position to strike again, he halted. "Anything you want to tell me?" he asked his brother again, half against better judgment.

To both his grief and relief, Charlie continued his silence.

Another blow, another scream, this time fading out in a soft whimper. Don had his teeth clenched, hoping he was looking merely angry and not showing any of the agony that was tearing him apart on the inside. He tried telling himself that however painful the foot whipping was, its effects would be gone in a couple of days. However, that knowledge couldn't keep him from knowing that he was making his brother go through hell. He knew very well how effective this method was, not only because the bottom of the foot was an area that was acutely sensitive to pain, but also because the nerves would emanate the pain in the whole body.

"Again," Steve demanded.

Don held up the belt, telling himself he had no choice but to see this through, and let it go down again. The leather made contact with the red-turned skin on Charlie's foot with a solid snap that seemed louder than a weapon's discharge, a sound that made Don's hackles raise and his skin crawl.

The next sounds, as startling as they were, were so much more to his liking that he had to mightily restrain himself not to burst out laughing with relief.

"FBI! Don't move!"

For a second, there was indeed no movement at all, and when the members of the cartel had gathered their wits, it was too late. The agents were drawing in, weapons at the ready, continuing to shout orders.

"Get down on the floor, slowly! Nobody move!"

It took Don a moment to realize he was now on the other end of this conversation, but then he did his best to mimic the behavior of his co-criminals. He got down on his knees, grudging and swearing, his hands behind his head, then lay down on his belly and waited for the authorities to cuff him and take him away.

Just as he was lying there, he turned his head to take a look at his brother, and froze. Charlie was looking back at him, his ever-so-expressive eyes screaming at him with an amount of pain that made his throat constrict.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, not knowing what it was, but was interrupted by the arrival of the agents.

"Don't worry, you're safe now," Colby told Charlie as he and David carefully freed him from the chair. "We're going to get you out of here in no time. Can you tell us your name?"

It was only then that it hit Don, they still needed to keep up the facade, they needed to go through with the arrest like they'd planned, otherwise the risk that the cartel would figure out his role in this take-down and lash out at him later would just be too great.

He didn't hear his brother's reply and didn't get a chance to make sure he was alright, because an agent from SWAT that he didn't know cuffed him and pulled him to his feet. He didn't listen as the agent recited his rights to him, he just kept thinking that it was over now. And as much as he tried telling himself that being over was a good thing, that this stupid undercover gig was now done with forever, that his family was safe now, that they could all go back to their old lives, he realized that this might not be everything that was over. As he remembered that pained look in Charlie's eyes, as his strident cries echoed in his ears, he was overcome by fear that something else had just ended, something so right and natural that he could not even imagine what his life would be like when it was gone.


Megan rose from her seat when she saw Alan rush into the waiting area.

"Is he alright?" was his first question.

Megan just nodded, for it took her a moment to make her vocal chords comply with stating what she wasn't sure whether or not it was the truth. "They're still examining him to make sure they didn't overlook anything," she then told him. That at least she knew. "It looks like he's got a concussion, but other than that, he appears to be fine."

That, on the other hand, was a lie. She had seen Charlie when they'd put him on the ambulance, even though she hadn't been able to talk to him in the hustle with all the cartel members being taken away. She had, however, seen enough of him to realize he wasn't 'fine'. True, he hadn't looked hurt, apart from the swelling on his face, but the serious look on his face had spoken volumes.

"Can I see him?"

Megan gave him another nod to bridge the time until her voice was back to working order. G-d, this was so not going to be easy.

"They'll be done with him in a couple of minutes," she explained. "Until then..." She had to clear her throat. "Until then, there's something else we need to discuss."

She saw the fear creep back in Alan's eyes and the color drain from his face and quickly added, "It's not about Charlie, he's going to be fine. It's about Don."

The fear changed hue, grief entering the mix.

Alan shook his head. "I'm sorry, Megan, I'm not sure I want to hear this, not now, I mean."

She took his hand. "I'm afraid there's no way around it. Let's sit." The proposal bought her another couple of seconds, but that wasn't nearly enough time to prepare her for what was coming. "Alan, I'm really sorry and frankly, I don't know how to say this, but… well, we lied to you. About Don."

Alan's eye-brows were drawn together, and his words wouldn't have been necessary to convey the message, "I don't understand."

Megan took a deep breath and then started her narrative. "For a couple of weeks now, Don had been working undercover in a drug cartel. We hadn't really planned it, at least not this big, definitely not the way things turned out later. It was all happening very fast and it got very serious very quickly and before we knew it, Don was down deeper in that group than we had ever planned for him to be. And then… then they found out about his real identity, including you and Charlie. They had been suspecting he was spying for a rival gang, for a different drug cartel in town, and to protect himself and his cover, Don had actually started spying for that rival gang. It hadn't been enough though, they somehow found out that he was an agent. We needed to act quickly then, so we came up with a plan that was… not ideal, to put it mildly. When Don told his new group that the first group wanted to do away with him as a result of his espionage activities, they agreed on helping him stage his death. They staged the shooting and accepted Don as a new member of their group. And that is where Don has been ever since up until today, when we took the cartel down."

The deep frown on Alan's forehead suggested that she had done a poor job at explaining, but granted, this whole affair had become too complicated anyway.

"Are you saying… what are you saying?" Alan whispered.

"He's alive, Alan. He's at the FBI now, with David and Colby."

She swallowed down the lump in her throat when she saw Alan tear up. Now that she had started letting the truth out in the open, the words were just pouring out of her. "I'm so sorry, Alan, I know we should have never let you go through this, but Don thought it was the best way to keep everyone safe."

She was about to give him some further explanations, to apologize and justify her behavior in this mess, but he didn't leave her a chance.

"Thank you," he said as he put his arms around her with a strength that literally took her breath away.

She endured his embrace with the feeling that she didn't deserve it, and when he let go, she couldn't stop herself from continuing her apologies. "I know we were wrong to not tell you, Alan. I was against keeping this from you and Charlie from the start, but –"

"He's okay, isn't he?" Alan interrupted her, his voice still choked. It seemed as though he hadn't heard any of her apologies.

"He is," Megan stammered when she'd found her train of thoughts again. "He'll be here as soon as David and Colby are done with fake interrogating him." She studied Alan's face that had gotten two or three more wrinkles within the past few days. "Aren't you angry with us for not telling you?"

He gave her a lenient smile and put a hand on her knee. He took a moment to collect his thoughts and when he looked up at her and spoke, she shuddered, feeling something like awe. There was a serenity in his eyes that made her feel as though she was looking into another world, and to tell the truth, the thought was overwhelming her.

"Ever since you told me, I have been praying to wake up from this nightmare. I have been doing nothing but ask God for a miracle to bring me back my son. And now you're telling me that this miracle did indeed happen... how could I be angry with you? And how could I be angry with you when you bring me back not one, but both my sons?"


The door had hardly closed behind them and he didn't even take his time to take a seat before he said, "I need to see him."

Just because he knew it wasn't possible didn't make their refusal any easier to bear. "You know you can't, not now at least," David told him. "If we want to make sure they don't think you're the one who sold them out, we need to at least pretend we interrogated you properly."

Don looked heavenwards, but only saw the gray ceiling of the small interrogation room. He knew David was right. While they hadn't brought all members of the cartel to the FBI at once, there were enough of them out there to spot him if they were to go to the hospital right now. If he wanted to maintain his cover and not blow everything now, he just needed to be patient for another couple of minutes.

Patience, however, was a rare good these days.

"I need to apologize," he said, though more to himself than to them. He knew he needed to explain the situation to Charlie, to make him realize that he hadn't had a choice. He spun around to face his team members, suddenly scared. "He's okay though, right?"

David briefly raised his eye-brows as if he wasn't sure whether to say 'yes' or 'no'. In the end, he chose the more elaborate answer. "Megan said that apart from having a concussion, he seems to be fine. They're still running tests though."

"Concussion?" Don repeated. True, he'd known all along that the signs were pointing to that, ever since his brother had had trouble staying on top of things after the punch-out. Just because he'd known all along still didn't mean he liked to admit it though, not even to himself.

"Heavy blows to the head apparently," Colby said with a strange tone. "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

Don stared at him. The built-up took a second or two, but then he could no longer control his temper. "You're one to talk! I never would have had to hurt him if you had managed to do as I told you! He wasn't supposed to get anywhere near this investigation, remember?!"

It was all back now, the feeling of impatience and desperation as he'd been waiting for the team to show up, his helplessness at seeing his own brother in the hands of the cartel, the look in his eyes when Don had raised the leather belt…

"You know what," he continued, his voice still raised in heated anger, "you can go pack your things. I'll see to it personally that you won't stay in this office for another week, all three of you."

"Hold on a second." Colby wasn't backing down, but launching a counterattack. "We did everything in our power to keep him safe, it wasn't our fault he ran off on his own. You might actually thank us for finding him and acting as quickly as we did. You know –"

"Colby," David tried to stop him, but in vain.

"If you hadn't made us swear to keep up lying to him, probably none of this would have happened!"

"Colby, don't."

"What? It's true, you said it yourself! It was clear right from the start that nothing would stop Charlie from poking around in this mess, we just should have told him the truth! So sure, Don, maybe you're outranking us here, but you sure as hell don't have the moral high-ground on this one!"

Don could see the warning look David gave his partner and before he tried to voice his doubts again, he stopped him. "It's okay, David. You're right."

It was as though all his anger was leaving him, like air leaving a rubber raft that had hit the rocks, and as his anger was leaving, it was taking all his energy with him. He couldn't deny it any longer. Colby's observations were spot-on, Don was the one responsible for how terribly south things had gone, and he'd known all along. Ever since Lennox had shoved Charlie into the hall, Don had known that he'd made a horrible mistake by not telling him the truth. Living with that knowledge had been too difficult a task, however, especially when he hadn't known how things would turn out for both of them, so he'd sought the only refuge he had found: refusing the truth by blaming others.

"I'm sorry," he said and took a deep breath. He didn't like doing this, not at all, so he'd better make sure to get it out all at once, like ripping off a band-aid. "I really thought it was the right thing to do at the time, but I realize now that it wasn't fair to ask you to lie to my family. And of course you're not the ones to blame for Charlie snooping around the auto shop. I guess I should have seen that coming. Anyway… thank you guys. I don't know what would have happened if you'd arrived there any later."

He pressed his lips together tightly. Now that the words were finally out, it was only that much harder to hide from the truth. He'd really messed this up, and what was worse, he didn't even know how badly. Would Charlie ever talk to him again after everything he'd done?

"Well, I guess none of us is very proud of how this played out," David offered him an olive branch. "We should probably just concentrate on wrapping everything up without another mistake, so I guess we should wait here another couple of minutes and then pretend to take you to detention."

Don merely nodded, having no strength left to put up a fight anyway.

As he'd expected, the wait was wearing. Eventually, David and Colby handed him over to Agent Dixon, who, however, didn't take him to detention, but to the hospital.

Back to his family.

From their constant information exchange with Megan, Don knew that she had filled his father in and that apparently, he had taken the news rather well. That, however, still left a lot of variables undefined, as Charlie might say. He still didn't know what to expect, and consequently, he didn't think he said more than a dozen words on the ride to the hospital.

Megan had gone back to the office in the meanwhile, but she had told him that his dad was waiting for him in Charlie's room, so now he was standing here, outside an inconspicuous door in a busy hospital corridor, unaccountably nervous of making his presence known. In the end, he just couldn't wait any longer and knocked, but stepped in before either of them could tell him to stay outside.

The room was dimly lit, probably to help fight the symptoms of Charlie's concussion, and maybe it was those surroundings that made his father's face look as though it was beaming.

"Donnie," he said, using a term of endearment he hadn't used in years, if not decades.

Only then did Don dare to fully step in and now that he was finally back, he couldn't resist seeking comfort in his father's embrace.

"I'm so glad you're okay," his dad's raucous whisper reached his ear, and it was the first time in weeks that Don truly felt human again, that he felt like his real self. He tightened his grip and breathed in that familiar scent of home, making a vow to never risk losing that again.

"Would you mind celebrating your reunion someplace else?"

Don jerked out of his father's embrace, his eyes darting to his brother's hospital bed where the voice had originated from. Charlie had turned his head so that he wasn't looking at them, and his tone too had made it obvious that he didn't care for their company.

"Charlie –" his dad started to ask in surprise, but Don had gotten the message. He knew he had broken something between them, and if he wanted to have any chance of fixing it again, he needed to give his brother some space. If Charlie didn't want him here, he had to accept that. He had no right to impose on him, not after everything he'd done.

Besides, he was so ashamed of himself he might not have stood staying with Charlie even if he had asked him to.

"I'll explain everything outside," he promised his father before he fled, unable to watch that dismissive curly head any longer that had once used to look up at him.


"What I don't understand is why you wouldn't even talk to him. I thought you'd be just as glad as I am to have him back."

Charlie concentrated on packing up his few belongings and tried to think of something to reply to his father. He didn't find anything, trying to find the right explanation was giving him headaches, and he wasn't sure whether his waning concussion was the main cause for that. Up until now, his physical state had been a good enough pretense not to think about his brother, but now that he could leave the hospital and go home, he slowly had to accept the idea that he couldn't avoid dealing with this forever.

"I am glad," he claimed eventually, avoiding an actual explanation.

"Well, you sure have an odd way of showing that."

Charlie remained silent, not wanting to spare any energy on defending himself.

"Are you upset with him for what happened?"

Charlie's lips twitched, contorting his face to a lop-sided smile even though he didn't know why. There was nothing funny about this, even though he found it was somehow ironic that their dad would so readily take his brother's side. "Do you even know about everything that happened?"

"Well, not everything. Don merely told me you had good reason to be angry with him. But he also told me he wanted to do everything he could to make it up to you again."

Charlie scoffed and immediately regretted it when the gesture was accompanied by a stab of pain in his head. Their dad could forgive Don all he wanted, but Charlie knew he couldn't let this go so easily. Being sorry didn't really cut it, not this time.


Colby knocked at the open door and stepped in, slowly, waiting for Charlie to turn around and face him. He didn't. He kept writing on his chalkboard, steadily, remaining in his own world, not minding the actual world around him.

"Charlie," Colby felt obliged to make his presence known.

Charlie kept writing.

"Can we talk?"

The writing slowed down, then stopped. For a moment, Charlie just stood there at the blackboard, his head bent down, as though the answer to this question was the most difficult step of reasoning he'd faced today.

Eventually, he turned around and looked Colby directly in the eye.

"Sure," he said with an easiness that felt completely out of place, compared to his behavior so far.

Colby cleared his throat, trying to find a start for this conversation. He hadn't realized how hard this would be. Yes, he had actually prepared himself by laying out his apologies beforehand, but he hadn't gone further and figured out how to approach the subject. Well, it was too late now, he just had to roll with it and bear the consequences. "How are you doing?" he asked the first question that came to mind, but had to realize that now that he'd started, the words were tumbling out of his mouth on their own account – and rather randomly. "I must say, I wouldn't have thought to find you here. I mean, Don said they released you yesterday, but he also mentioned you still needed a lot of rest.

Charlie scoffed. "Just because I don't talk to Don doesn't mean I'm not feeling better. The doctors said I could go back to light work for a couple of hours a day, so if my dad sent you out here to tell me to stop working, just remind him that I've been here for less than two hours."

In a daring attempt to lighten the mood, Colby raised his eye-brows, giving the complicated formulas on Charlie's blackboard a doubting glance. "And you think this qualifies as light work?"

Charlie gave an irritated sigh and crossed his arms before his chest. "I don't suppose you came here to chat with me about my work, so can you just get to the point so we can get it over with?"

Colby actually gaped before he told himself that Charlie didn't have to tell him twice, getting to the point was one of his specialties – much in contrast to the mathematician himself. "Look," he started while he tried to reassemble the words in his mind to the little speech he'd prepared. Somehow, the carefully laid-out construct must have fallen apart some time during the past thirty seconds.

"I'm sorry," he said when he realized that his speech was gone for good. "Don told us to make absolutely sure you wouldn't get anywhere near this case, so I did what I could to make you stay out of it. I never meant anything of what I said. I just thought you should know that."

Charlie nodded slowly, then lifted his gaze again to look him directly in the eye. "That's it?"

Colby was speechless for a moment. Even though Charlie's voice was calm, his strategy seemed more than a little aggressive, and that was something that Colby would have never expected before coming here to apologize, especially not from Charlie.

"Well," he said and feverishly skimmed through his mind to find something else he needed to apologize for.

Before he succeeded, Charlie made it clear to him that his time had run out.

"You were probably right," he said as he laid down his chalk and brushed off his hands at his jeans. His tone was firm enough, but Colby noticed that contrary to before, he was avoiding eye-contact now, so whatever this was about, it obviously didn't come easily to him. "You're professionals, I'm just a consultant. I don't belong to your team, and I don't understand the way you're working."

Colby shook his head. "That's exactly what I meant –"

"I don't understand," Charlie interrupted him, still putting up the firm front and continuing the speech that he, just like Colby, seemed to have practiced beforehand, "because in my world, it's wrong to lie to someone about their brother's death."

Colby closed his eyes. So this was what was truly upsetting his friend. "Charlie," he tried to explain, "Don made us swear not to tell you. He just wanted to protect you, he was afraid for your safety if you had been involved in this case."

"But I was involved," Charlie argued, his voice level. "I told you before. He's my brother. There was no way I would not get involved in this."

"Look, I realize that now, and I bet that Don does too, but you need to understand this was a really difficult situation for all of us. And Don's still our boss, we had to obey his orders, that's the job."

The look Charlie gave him then made his throat constrict.

"You let me cry over my dead brother," he said in so low a voice that Colby had to strain his ears, even though he did not want to hear those words. "You did everything you could to manipulate us into believing your story, without any qualms. You pretended to grieve with us when you knew he was still alive. You let me think that you and Don had just been using me for some time now, you pushed me away when I would have needed you most, you told me he was shot in the head just to prevent us from going to see his body. Do you know I still have nightmares about that?"

Colby was silent for a moment. He felt like defending himself, but he already had, and he realized that it still didn't make what he'd done okay. True, he hadn't seen a different solution at the time and frankly, he still couldn't see one that would have been to everyone's satisfaction, but Charlie was right, they had indeed betrayed him and Alan, they had betrayed their friends.

"So I guess you're right," Charlie continued. Colby couldn't quite place his tone, it seemed firm and decisive on the surface, almost cold, but there was a forlornness underneath that was tugging at his heart. He tried to catch a glimpse of his Charlie's ever so expressive eyes, but in vain.

"You only did your job," Charlie went on, "I can't argue with that. And I'm grateful that you did your job well and got me out of there when you did. I guess it's my fault that I thought there was more between all of us than just a working relationship, I can't blame you for that. But I've simply decided that I don't want to adapt to the rules of your world any longer, so I'll have to stick to my own world from now on."

Colby hesitated. He didn't want to leave, not like this, but he didn't know what to say to change Charlie's mind either.

"You know I didn't mean any of that gibberish about us wanting to cut you lose," he tried again, even though he didn't think it would help things.

He was right. "Maybe you didn't, but I did," Charlie replied. "I'm used to saying what I mean."

Colby bit his lip and nodded, accepting defeat, at least for now. Maybe he just needed to give his friend some time. Sooner or later, Charlie just had to understand that they hadn't really had a choice, and then… he would come round, right? He'd be able to forgive them about lying to him, wouldn't he?


Charlie didn't even turn around when he heard footsteps behind himself. He'd known his friend long enough to recognize him even without the help of sight. Instead, he kept his eyes focused on Einstein, one of the more inconspicuous kois in his pond concerning appearance. Ever since Charlie had come out here, Einstein had set himself apart from the rest of the fish, like he'd always used to, and the irony that it was Einstein that captured his interest today did not elude Charlie.

Larry let himself sink in the grass beside him, but took his time to see what Charlie was seeing, to take in the patterns in their movements before destroying the quiet by speaking.

As it was, it was Charlie who started the conversation. "Did my dad send you out here to check on me?"

"No," Larry replied calmly. "He is, however, rather concerned about you, and frankly, so am I. We couldn't help but notice that you seem to have sought solitude ever since what happened."

"And that was wrong for me to do," Charlie completed the unspoken criticism.

"Well," Larry started and Charlie was already sorry for his offhand manner. He knew Larry only wanted to help, and so did his dad. "Let me tell you from experience that while it can be healthy and liberating to escape from society's tight bonds every once in a while, there are those moments when human contact becomes a valuable good that cannot be substituted by anything else. And when, in those moments, you find that you have no human soul to find that contact with… well, let's just say that it's an experience I would like to spare you."

Charlie quickly glanced up at him, and in that moment, it hit him how lucky he was to have a friend like Larry, someone who understood him and who cared for him no matter what life was throwing at them.

"Thank you," he said, knowing that such a friendship couldn't, nor shouldn't be taken for granted.

He turned his eyes back to the water, watching Einstein and feeling once again pity for him. "I know you're right," he said. "I know I shouldn't have sealed myself off like this. It's just been so hard…" He watched Einstein turn around as though he wanted to join the rest of the fish, then turn back and refocus his attention on the algae he'd been nibbling at. "I've been doing a lot of thinking," he continued to explain. "And I'm still not sure how to deal with… with what happened."

Larry tilted his head. "That is certainly understandable. You might only want to make sure, if I may give you some advice, that your problems don't find an own way of solving themselves while you're busy thinking of a solution."

"You know what happened?" Charlie asked, half hoping Larry might hold the answer he'd been looking for.

"I know Don had been working undercover. I assume that is somehow the reason why you have been avoiding him?"

Charlie shook his head. "It's not. Not really."

"If you don't mind me prying… what is? I mean, if this had happened during your time in Princeton, I might have understood. But the two of you have grown so close over the last few years. I just don't see what might have happened to change your feelings towards him, especially when I think of how devastated you were by hearing about his death."

Charlie sighed, staring into the pond, but seeing nothing. His eyes had become glassy and his voice unsteady, but that was okay. Larry would understand him.

"My feelings haven't changed," he said in a low voice.

"Then what has?"

His lips twitched to a smile, but the sadness was still there in his eyes. "Nothing, I think."


Don closed his eyes and hesitated, his fist still raised as though he was about to knock on the door. Did he want to knock though? He'd been rejected once already. True, that had been three days ago, but he wasn't at all sure whether he could take a repetition of that already.

On the other hand, they couldn't go on like this forever, and before he changed his mind again, he knocked and stepped in, though halted on the threshold. He'd better not take too many chances.

Charlie had turned around to face him. And while the garage wasn't lit well enough to allow Don to see every expression on his brother's face, he was relatively sure that it wasn't screaming hatred at him, so he dared taking this one step further.

"Hey," he started. "Can we talk?"

The second that Charlie took to answer felt like an hour. "Yeah, sure."

Don frowned and hesitated a moment before stepping in fully. After three days of silence, the easiness with which Charlie accepted his presence came so unprepared that he was almost tempted to suspect a trap. On the other hand, he knew that Larry had had a talk with his brother earlier, so maybe Charlie's oldest friend had managed to instill some forgiveness in him.

The floor remained solid and Charlie didn't retrieve a knife from behind his back, nor a hand grenade, but still, Don felt it safer to keep a two yards' distance to his sibling.

"Look, Charlie," he began when he'd come as close to his brother as he dared to, but had to clear his throat before he was able to go on. "You know, you have to know, that I would never do anything to hurt you."

Charlie's lip twitched upwards, a cynical smile that didn't suit him at all. "Right."

Don felt his desperation grow, but knew he had to maintain a clear head. "You have to believe me. I tried everything I could think of to keep you safe. If I had been able to see a way, any way, to get out of beating you –"

"Just let it go, would you."

Don stopped. When he'd rerun his brother's words in his mind and made sure he'd heard him correctly, he tried to make some sense of them. He failed.

"What?"

"You had no choice but to beat me up, I get it, I understood that while we were still at the auto shop," Charlie explained. "So can we just leave that alone? Don't make such a fuss about it."

Don shook his head as if that would help to clear his mind from the cobwebs that seemed to overgrow it. What was Charlie doing? First days of taciturnity and now this?

"I don't understand."

"No, you don't," Charlie agreed. He'd dropped his gaze and was intently watching a piece of chalk that his fingers were twisting round and round. It was several seconds before his head came up again, and when it did, there was a look in his eyes that was so intense, so sad that it almost made Don stumble backwards.

"I thought you were dead, Don," Charlie said. He was going for a firm tone, but his voice was choked nonetheless. "You and your team, you let me think that you were dead. But apparently, you don't think that's a big deal, not as much as a couple of punches to my face anyway."

Don opened his mouth to say something, but he didn't know what. After all, what was there to be said? Mere explanations weren't sufficient to fix this, no, he needed to do something, he needed to apologize, to make amends.

"Look, I'm sorry –"

"Forget it," Charlie cut him off. "It's okay."

Don tried hard to read the expression in his brother's eyes. Something still wasn't right. They were still sad, still filled with grief.

"Are you sure?"

Charlie's speech, on the other hand, was as easy-going as before. "Yeah, of course. I mean sure, I was upset at first and angry with you, but I get it now, you were just trying to keep us safe."

Don nodded. Yes, that would have been his defense, and now that Charlie had voiced it himself, there wasn't anything more to be said to fix this, was there? However, something still wasn't sitting right with him, there was something in the depths of Charlie's eyes that didn't fit his preparedness to forgive him.

But as long as Charlie claimed that everything was alright, how was Don supposed to fix what was wrong?

Suddenly, an idea came to his mind and he grasped it with new hope and energy. He just needed to do what he did on his job: to look over the evidence and find those pieces that didn't match up, and one thing that surely didn't match up was Charlie's preparedness to move past this when Don compared it to what Colby had told them about their conversation the day before, about Charlie's wish to separate himself from everything connected to Don's world.

"What about working together then?" Don tried to ease into the subject. "Colby told me you were thinking about stopping consulting with us."

"Yeah, I guess that was a little premature of me. And rather unfair to Colby. After all, he too only did what he did to keep us safe."

Don nodded slowly. That seemed to fix the inconsistency in the evidence, but somehow, it still didn't help Don to make sense of the larger picture.

"Okay, what is it?" he asked eventually, tired of playing this game. After all, it wasn't a game, it was his chance to safe his relationship with his brother, or to destroy it for good.

Charlie looked at him and went for a disarming smile, which, as Don had no trouble detecting, was completely fake. "Nothing. I told you, we're good. No hard feelings."

Don nodded again, still trying to read his brother's thoughts. "Right."

While he had no trouble spotting the lies, figuring out the truth was more difficult, so he had to adopt a more aggressive approach. "You know," he said and did his best to give his voice a stern tone, "even if I didn't make my living by figuring out when people lie, I've known you long enough to know when there's something you're not telling me."

Charlie cast down his eyes, but stayed silent.

"Please, buddy," Don said and tried to look him in the eye. He'd lowered his voice, for this was unfamiliar territory to him and frankly, he didn't know whether he would have the strength to see this through. He knew that he'd have to though, for he feared that otherwise, he'd be running the risk of losing his brother for good. "Please. I don't know what else to do. I can't change back what I did, and I know I can't expect you to just get over this, but… I don't know, I feel we just have to work through this somehow."

He felt his heart stretching painfully as he was watching the distress on his kid brother's face.

Finally, he was looking up at him, a determined expression in his brightly shining eyes. "There's nothing you can do. Nor is there anything I can do. But it's okay. We can go back to the way things were before. I'm okay with that."

Don was watching those eyes, thinking his heart might have torn open, slowly bleeding out. "You don't look like you are," he observed.

Charlie smiled, for real this time, but still it didn't make him look happy. "It's the optimal solution," he said with a shrug. "It's not ideal, but it's the best option given the parameters." The smile grew a little happier when a mischievous glint came into Charlie's eyes. "Trust me, I know, and I could prove it to you, too, if you cared for a little lecture about friendship dynamics and optimization theory."

Don was shaking his head, trying to make sense of his brother's words. He failed. "You've lost me," he admitted and at the same time knew he couldn't give in so easily. "Please, Charlie, I need to understand what's going on with you," he practically begged.

Charlie sighed, his eyes closed, and eventually looked up at him with searching eyes. "Just promise you won't laugh, okay?"

The question was so out of place that it almost would have made him laugh right then if it could have. "Trust me, buddy, I don't really feel like laughing."

Charlie took another deep breath and then finally let his guard down. "Look, all I'm saying is that I'm fine with going back to the way things were before. I mean, true, I was upset at first, but then I realized that neither of us can change how we feel about each other. And it's also clear that I care a lot more about you than you do about me. But that's not your fault, so I don't have any right to be angry at you because of that. Plus, I realized I was only hurting myself by pushing you away, so I decided to just content myself with what I have. So if you… you know, if you'll let me be around you and the team, that's about as much as I can ask for, so I'm happy with that."

Charlie's speech, while it had started out slow, had picked up speed on the way, so much that in the end, Don felt as though he must have tumbled off his train of thoughts at some point. His mind still reeling, he went back to that switch where they must have lost the right track.

"You're wrong," he declared. "I care about you just as much as you care about me."

Don had kept his promise, but now it was Charlie who reacted with a soft chuckle. "Trust me, Don, you don't. And it's not your fault. You probably can't even imagine how I feel about you. In fact, I'm sure you can't. I know you. You wouldn't have done this to me if you had realized what you were doing."

Don shook his head. He must have fallen down a rabbit hole, for now, right or wrong, all tracks were gone. "I don't understand," he all but whispered.

Charlie was looking at him smiling, but the expression in his eyes was so sad that the tearing pain in Don's heart almost made him cry out. "You told your team to tell me and Dad that you were dead, Don. And I know you only did it because you thought it was best, but that's exactly my point. You have no clue what that did to us. What it did to me."

The accusation hit Don so hard that for a moment, his breath was taken away.

He shook his head with vehemence. "That's not true."

"Really? Then why did you do it?"

"I told you, to protect you!"

"Protect me from what? From pain? I think we can both agree that that didn't work!"

The blow hit Don hard, but he still managed to utter the key piece of his defense. "But it did protect you from death."

It was the pivot in Don's pleading, but Charlie didn't seem to accept it as bearing any importance. "And you're trying to tell me that letting Dad and myself in on your plan wouldn't have done the trick? You really think we couldn't just have acted as though we thought you were dead?"

Don ran a hand through his hair, trying to buy time. Time, however, was not what he needed. What he needed was a time-machine, to go back and choose the other path.

"That's what I mean," Charlie then said, and while he was trying to keep his voice level, it was brimming with emotion. "If you had realized what learning about your death would do to us, you would have tried to find another way. But since you didn't –"

"That's not true!" Don interrupted him, unable to keep everything inside any longer. "I made a mistake, alright? I know that now, but it's so easy to figure out what I should have done now. But at the time when my cover had blown… it was all such a mess, all I could think about was that they'd found out who I was, and that I had to do everything I could to stop them from hurting you and Dad." The memory of those scary hours came back then, a dark, vivid scenery with a psycho-thriller playing in the foreground.

He ran his hands over his face, suddenly feeling feverish, just like he had at the time. "We had to act so quickly, there was no time to think things through. And I… I didn't know what I was thinking. All I kept seeing was… I kept seeing the photos of the people shot by the cartel, just that those bodies weren't strangers, they were… well, you." He swallowed, trying to get those images out of his mind. "All I knew was that I had to keep you safe, for if they had lashed out at you… All I could think about was that I had to do everything I could to prevent that, for I couldn't stand the idea of you or Dad getting hurt. And I kept wondering... I kept wondering what Dad would say if they retaliated against you, and I couldn't help but think that it was either a son's fake death for him or a real one, and when I put it that way, there was no contest."

When he dared looking up into his brother's eyes, he could see that the mask Charlie had put up was gone now, the emotions in his eyes were now real and undisguised.

He took a breath and realized it was a little shaky. He wouldn't have thought it would be this hard, but now that he'd come so close, he knew he needed to see this through. "What I'm trying to say here… I do understand. And I understand it's not okay. I shouldn't have put you and Dad through this. I was just so scared of what they might do to you that I couldn't really think it through. And I do realize that it's a pretty lousy excuse, but it's the best that I've got."

This time, the smile on Charlie's lips, even though it was faint and tentative, seemed more sincere. "Actually, you've had lousier excuses in the past."

Don gave a soft chuckle, feeling how it was healing the broken bond between him and his brother. As of yet, however, there was still a chasm between them, created by the yard's distance, but Don couldn't help but hope that maybe, this chasm was just appearances.

He took a leap, although on the outside, it was merely a step forward. "Come here," he said and brought his arms around his brother, and when he felt Charlie return the hug, it was as if they were molding love into the cracks of their relationship, making this joint entity stronger than it had ever been before.

"I'm so sorry, buddy," Don whispered, knowing they had to do this right, that they had to make sure that whatever this was between them, it was whole and sound and strong on the inside. "For everything. I never meant to cause you any pain, and if there was anything I could do to take it away, I would."

He could hear in Charlie's voice that the faint smile was still there when he whispered back, "I think you already did."

- finis -